So political pressure was applied to Immigration NZ to allow Kim Dotcom to STAY in New Zealand even though they knew at the time of the FBI investigation …
I think you will find that nice, honest Mr Key is just a victim of all these people who keep letting him down. The herald waiting til he was away on hols is a coincidence.
Or Key’s sudden decision to go off the NZ grid to Hawaii now explained? When Key’s holiday was suddenly in the news, I wondered what might be coming up.
You seriously think the Prime Minister has gone on vacation to Hawaii because of (yet another) media installment on KDC? Could you say it again so I can be gob smacked again?
Kiwiri
Its amazing jusr how many holidays this playboy PM has ,all in his mansions and classy flats.
When one realises that we in Aotearoa have thousands of homeless and people living in garages it’s an insult to have this PM hoping around the world and staying in houses big enough to accomodate at least four families. What ever happened to our decent fair society .
“The SIS tried to block Kim Dotcom’s residency application but dropped their objection 90 minutes after being told there was “political pressure” to let the tycoon into New Zealand, secret documents from the spy agency reveal.” http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11293403
And the Minister in Charge of the SIS is ……John Key
Labour’s associate NZSIS spokesman, Grant Robertson, said the claims of political pressure were “extraordinary”.
“I’ve never heard of a situation like this before. Political pressure means politicians.
“There are serious questions about what John Key knew and when.”
Hmm, indeed, ShonKey’s ‘misremembering’ of when he first knew of Kim Dotcom is going to be revisited. He is the minister of NZSIS. Well sort of, when it suits him.
Was it easier or harder for the FBI to launch its extradition of DotCom if he had PR in NZ? At least with PR he would stay in NZ, and they could target him with a helpful NZ Minister in charge of all things skullduggeryish?
A few weeks ago I posted something my brother had told me about the high roller categoiry and why he thought KDC was SO pissed off with NZ govt, including Banks, namely the Nats had used him as their highroller pin up boy for their new and hurried 2009 policy… but when he wanted a mattress they ran for the hills and colluded with the US.
The article,and papers released to Fisher, also appear to validate KDC’s claims that the lifting of NZSIS opposition to his application for permanent residency in Oct 2010 was tied to knowledge of the impending FBI/NZ Police operations etc – and that the NZSIS head, Warren Tucker, knew. (KDC made the latter claim in a brief tweet in later 2013).
And Key still claims he did not know about KDC until a day before the raid in Jan 2012? I feel a Tui Ad coming on.
I am confused by Laila Harre’s comments in the Herald article (and in her interview on Morning Report about half an hour ago) and cannot yet figure out where she is coming from. IIRC at the time she was appointed as Leader of the IP, she said something to the effect that she would not be getting involved in KEC’s legal issues, but here she is commenting … Could be some interesting discussions KDC/Harre when they start their Internet MANA road trip with Hone Harawira today in the far north.
PS – if anyone missed it, last week KDC’s extradition hearing was again delayed until 16 Feb 2015.
I DID miss it. It was going to be prior tot he election wasn’t it?
Laila Harre is commenting on allegations of a government not following its on constitutional process. She also says she would have denied Mr DotCom PR on the basis of the SIS block. For her to not say something on an important issue such as constitutional abuse would give more pause. IMO.
The extradition hearing was due to start in the North Shore District Court Monday last week, July 7, but all indications from the other legal proceedings currently underway were that a delay was likely. Also KDC took his children to Queenstown about July 4 for 10 days’ holiday so was not ‘in town’ for July 7 – another indicator. (Mona also went to Queenstown – and KDC tweeted a lot of pictures of them all, including Mona’s birthday celebrations there. Apparently, friends still but no reconciliation.)
Other ongoing legal proceedings cover the release of KDC’s computer contents etc, compensation sought by KDC et al, the release of KDC’s assets, and the newer civil claims by Hhollywood moguls to seize his assets. All very confusing and complicated, but there is a hearing on one or other of these due on July 30. Will see what I can dig out in terms of links if I have time later today.
Re Laila Harre’s comments, now I am a bit more awake, I think you are right – she is commenting on the lack of following due process etc and silence would have caused more speculation. This approach is also probably with KDC’s agreement etc.
I agree. Whether you believe it or not, she has today, by implication, stated she is not a DotCom puppet. Guyon struggled with the concept a bit.
Like many he can’t imagine how you can be paid to do something by someone and NOT do everything that person wants you to do, AND assumes that because DotCom bankrolled it he would want to tell Harre what she can and can’t talk about, and enforce it.
From memory, KDC brought this up himself at the CGSB meeting in Auckland town hall. His point was not about whether or not he should be allowed permanent residence, but that the speed with which the decision was made suggested, in hindsight, that he had been set up for all that followed. So I don’t think he would have a problem with Harre’s saying what she has said.
I think you are right about KDC saying that at the GCSB meeting; and I also seem to recall him tweeting about it and/or mentioning it in other interviews etc. Re Harre’s remarks, I was still half asleep when I first read the Herald article, and now agree with Karol etc re Harre’s comments.
Chris Keall has now posted an article on NBR which I have linked to and commented on at the dedicated post, which covers Harre’s comments and is worth reading.
Thanks for re-posting that link. It seems consistent to me that the leader of a party opposed to cronyism should stand up for the principles that constrain governments rather than KDC himself, and I think he would agree with that. Harre is depicted as being in a “tricky position” because she is not acting as the National Party would under equivalent circumstances. Instead of trying to put her finger on the scales in her mate’s favour, as they would, she is looking at how those scales are supposed to work.
xox
Police manipulate the crime data. Is this not a crime? I.e if an engineer, doctor or an accountant did that they would be …. probably promoted. Hey this is wild west noo zeeland! What other government stats can we trust? Health, education, poverty, housing, growth, river polution, foreign ownership ….. There is no corruption in NZ! We are top of the Transparency International non corruption stakes! Doesn’t say much about the standard around the west.
Phillip. I know your dual lifestyle interests are important to you, but with respect, I have to say, it’s a bit much hearing about it every single morning on Open Mike.
I’m not discrediting some of the valid points you raise, but asking if you have considered what it’s like for readers who get the vegan n’ drug news roundup of the day, every day? It’s bordering on the evangelical comrade.
OK phil. That is the response I was expecting, so no surprises there.
I would have thought your own site would be adequate for the promotion of your views and posting of news, so I’m not sure why you feel the need such frequent vegan n drug themed posts here. Nothing stopping you of course. I’ll just continue to scroll on by to the tune of walk on by when you are posting on those two topics.
As for Rodel, he/she has been around for some time, you just haven’t noticed.
Ta Rosie.
I’m sometimes hesitant and potentially embarrassed to recommend to friends that they should read ‘The Standard’ as a left leaning blog site when it’s dominated by people who are focussed on veganism, marihuanism and fuckenism in incoherent language, obsessions which have little to do with what I believe is the main intent of the site.
And yes I usually skip by but was impressed by your kind, considerately worded and respectful rebuke.
Lols Rodel. Go right ahead and proudly recommend TS to your friends! Your friends will quickly come to realise that phil is unique and once they see the almighty rows he has with people that don’t meet his expectations or agree with him, they’ll get the picture, understand that he’s a man going along on his own buzz and not be put off.
Phil and I have had these chats before, so it’s nothing new. I just got a bit annoyed by all the dominant discussion about GE vegan milk over the last few days so felt I had to air that annoyance. Usually I would just ignore it but the soapbox was taking up all the room.
My main issue is with people telling people how to live their lives, and not respecting the choices that others make. Education and gentle encouragement of those of wanting to make healthy changes in their lives is helpful but preaching isn’t – (hence the evangelical reference).
In saying all that I do believe phil has a fine sense of humour and a quick wit. I like the way he delivers his words, once you get past the formatting of them (and when they’re not angry spiteful words) – It’s just those swings into fanaticism that get in the way.
Some posts require zen like amounts of self restraint, but I do try to remember that ultimately we’re all on the same side, brothers and sisters, even when one of us chooses to be the problem child for the day 🙂
A gibbering weirdo Phillip, you are being eloquent today, tho i do fear that you were looking in the mirror when that thought was provoked by the crashing together of your remaining two working neurons,
The ‘proof’, apparently from a study in dear old England, has been published, the misuse of Marijuana over a long term gives you brain damage,(very much evident from the digital scribble you produce),
..which is unusual for a pot-bashing/prohibition-supporting rag like that..
“..Dr Peter McCormick, from the University of East Anglia’s (UEA) school of pharmacy, said THC’s anti-cancer properties have been known for some time – but the study had identified the receptors responsible for fighting tumours.
“Our findings help explain some of the well-known but still poorly understood effects of THC at low and high doses on tumour growth,” he said…”
Heartwarming to see the support for Palestinians at The Standard yesterday, and while some of the apologists happily squawk ‘points of order’ as people (ie Palestinians) die; the international tide does seem to be turning on the Israeli apartheid state.
Show public solidarity;
Rally for all victims of Israeli brutality
Auckland, Saturday July 19, 2pm Aotea Square
Key branded as “a rouge currency trader, applying his shyster traits running Government.” Don’t ya love the thought of Key in the dock, they should charge him with treason.
The actual laws that the charges were brought under were mentioned in the original charges. Essentially, IIRC, it amounts to aiding and abetting Banks in his crime.
A small number of us around the country chatted about conducting a people’s “mock trial” of John Key, broadcast around the country via the internet and Youtubed, that can be launched before the general election.
We are happy for anybody who has the network and contacts to run with this. (Need to check this will be ok with electoral laws.)
If you had read his biography, you would realise he was not a rouge currency trader. They usually end up in prison – although I don’t think you mean rouge ones.
Also, can you please explain which element of the treason provisions you see him being charfed with?
i would say all of these count if you include economic war under the war category
b) levies war against New Zealand; or
(c) assists an enemy at war with New Zealand, or any armed forces against which New Zealand forces are engaged in hostilities, whether or not a state of war exists between New Zealand and any other country; or
(d) incites or assists any person with force to invade New Zealand; or
(e) uses force for the purpose of overthrowing the Government of New Zealand; or
(f) conspires with any person to do anything mentioned in this section.
Srylands, yes it woud be ideal but even the most extreme optimists among us can’t hope for prison. He will probably just head back to his philosophical Homeland.
Climate Voter group to take Electoral Commission to court ( 3′ 9″ )
06:45 A group of environmental organisations are taking the Electoral Commission to court over a decision that would require their “Vote for the Climate” initiative to be subject to electoral rules.
and again – a longer version
Climate campaigners go to high court over classification ( 4′ 49″ )
07:40 A group of climate change campaigners are going to the High Court after their website was ruled an election advertisement.
Their natural lowbrow habitats, drumroll, Slater & Farrar might get SS and Gosman down after a while so The Standard is a refreshing change for them at least.
More than 40,000 people call on BBC to reflect reality of Gaza’s occupation
July 14, 2014
Noam Chomsky, John Pilger and Ken Loach are among more than 40,000 signatories who have signed an open letter to the BBC calling on its journalists to reflect the reality of Gaza’s occupation while reporting on Israel’s current assault.
MPs have also signed the letter which will be delivered to the BBC tomorrow (15th July) during a protest outside its Portland Place, London, headquarters.
The letter reminds the BBC that Israel is bombing a refugee population which is being held under occupation and siege. It is a population which has no army, navy or air force with which to defend itself against the fourth largest military power in the world.
Sarah Colborne, Director of Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which will be delivering the letter, said: “These are simple facts, none of which have been present in any of the BBC’s coverage so far of Israel’s assault on Gaza.
“However, they are vital facts and their absence results in BBC coverage which is unbalanced and lacking in context. Their omission allows the BBC to present Israel’s assault as a retaliation to Palestinian rockets rather than as an enforcement of its occupation and siege.
“Truly unbiased journalism would allow its consumers to consider both options instead of presenting them with just one viewpoint, as the BBC is doing.”
Protests took place outside BBC studios in Nottingham and Manchester on 10th July, and in Bristol on 11th July, demanding balanced reporting from BBC journalists.
Tuesday’s protest at Portland Place will call on the BBC to report the truth about Israel’s occupation and siege on Gaza, instead of concealing facts from its audiences. It will take place from 5.30pm to 7.30pm.
I agree with you, Phillip—the television presenters on both channels seem to be sympathetic to the aggressors and indifferent to the victims. I presume that is because they are ignorant rather than vicious. Even when they try to say something intelligent and/or humane, they betray their ignorance by calling the killings “disproportionate”, which implies there is a “proportionate” number of Palestinian civilians that they may kill.
However, on the positive side, I must say I was astonished to hear Susan Wood on the notoriously right wing, pro-Israel, pro-Communist China, pro-any-repressive-regime NewstalkZB last night; she was clearly shocked and disgusted by the Israeli actions.
Yeah. It was a problem over the weekend. However Lyn passed on a head cold that had been carefully nurtured by one of her nieces, so I didn’t fix it. Got it yesterday morning.
There still seemed to be the odd dup message later yesterday afternoon. But they were all from Gosman, and I suspect from a cached bad copy of some of the javascript (Shift+Refresh or Shift+F5 is your friend).
Basically, I’d expect any electorate MP to argue for their electorate first in public, the caucus, and parliament. That is their job.
I’d also expect that on the odd occasion that they will cross the floor for their electorate as Damien O’Conner and another Labour MP recently did.
But they’d better have a damn good argument for the caucus room if they do the latter.
In this case, Labour’s policy is to do what I think should happen. The worst points in the current road should be progressively fixed rather throwing a unneeded extension in. First priority amongst them should be getting rid of that bloody useless set of lights at Wellsford, preferably by bypassing the town. Same at Wellsford. That gets rid of half of the weekend congestion problem straight. Secondly fix the known bad corners and straighten the road. Thirdly provide a better way to get up the steep and windy bluff.
But Matt L at transport blog will have a better list.
Yes, provided link to Matt L at transport blog. They have been pretty good there at documenting inconsistencies in Nationals’s planning and previous cost/benefit calculations.
I understand Davis standing up for his electorate, but the assumption that any spending remains good just because it is in the electorate is dubious and naive at best.
Northland would benefit from targeting spending – yes – I agree. But from targeted spending on roads, not so much.
There are always going to be conflicts between electorate MPs and society wide party policies. I’d prefer that they are reasonably open about it, but making damn clear that they are their personal preference
The trouble with that is that it ends up looking like waffle, or even worse for the electorate candidates it looks to their voters like they’re lying about what they’ll actually do.
But it’s happening on enough random policies that a case can be made that Labour electorate candidates are electorate representatives before party apparatchiks. List MPs can push the official party line, but electorate candidates need their local support.
I agree. It really is a hell of an ask for a electorate MP/candidate to commit suicide for the party. Usually there are only a few issues like that in specific electorates.
In this case Davis could easily have said that the upgrades that Labour will do will achieve what Northland needs while costing less and being done quicker. That way he would have been onside with his potential constituents and fully backing Labour’s policy.
Thing is, the only reason he wouldn’t do that is because of ignorance which really doesn’t help show that he’d be a good electorate MP.
not when his constituents are telling him they want that road because the current one keeps getting washed out. It would look like he gets asked a question about a specific need for the region and responds with party waffle. Which is a problem that list-only candidates don’t really face, as they can pivot any specific complaint to a wider issue.
What he did manage to do was talk about Northland mayors being involved in an integrated regional transport plan, which spreads the responsibility and maybe provides an acceptable alternative if the highway isn’t built to the nactoid schedule.
It would look like he gets asked a question about a specific need for the region and responds with party waffle.
Or he could respond with facts. The most important being that National’s Holiday Highway isn’t going to help them anymore than the faster and cheaper upgrades will.
We’re not talking about “facts” here.
We’re talking about the perceptions and desires of voters in his electorate.
And his position [edit:typolol @ “potion”] won’t change a thing either way: if JK is PM in november, the highway gets fast-tracked. If Cunliffe is PM, it won’t.
So Davis can support something knowing that if he’s in a position to oppose it then it won’t go through anyway because his cabinet colleagues will nuke it, and then use that support as a pivot for another issue (in this case local government joining together to form a regional transport plan).
Or he can oppose something his electorate want (for better or worse), and then get bogged down in the hustings arguing about a fucking road that will be constructed or not regardless of electorate outcome.
Frankly, I think his comment was a good move for both his campaign and Labour. Rather than Little or O’Conner just being dicks, it’s become standard Labour practise for electorate MPs to (shock horror) represent their electorates.
These Labour candidates need to weigh up the effect that their comments have on the party vote aswell as their electorate- because they are not working solely for their electorate they are in a nationwide party. If they don’t want to think about such matters then I suggest they choose to be independents.
I, for one, am getting tired of the unclear/conflicting stance these electorate politicians are taking toward their own party policies – this gives me the ‘perception’ that Labour are going to have difficulty with internal harmony in government. I wonder how many others are responding like myself?
The type of discussion that Kelvin and co are raising with the media/public – needs to be had internally first and then a decision needs to be made so that a united message is given to the general public.
Conversely Kelvin &co have the option to stand as an independents – of course it is unlikely that they choose this option because politicians such as Kelvin get a lot of pay-offs for being involved in the 2nd biggest party in New Zealand. If, however, politicians from Labour continue to present a non-united and accordingly unclear message then they won’t belong to the 2nd biggest party in NZ after-all because less and less people will trust that Labour are capable of working in a competent and harmonious fashion.
If the electorate candidates were in conflict with the bulk of Labour policy, I agree: they shouldn’t be Labour candidates.
But when there’s conflict between party policy and one or two issues within an electorate, it’s not a problem. The impact on the party vote would be minimal within the electorate (the voter already dislikes the policy). Outside the electorate, people can understand the conflict the electorate MP faces.
It’s easy to have a consistent message if your policy is meaningless waffle. But people with different geographic perspectives have different priorities, and Davis and the West Coast MPs made it clear they were working in what they felt were the interests of their electorates.
Whereas Little playing to his “afraid to be alone with a woman” base did damage, in my opinion, because it was a local comment about a country-wide issue. He should have kept to a local comment about a local issue.
This issue for me is something that may well stop me voting for Labour.
You assume that ‘people understand’ the conflict. No sorry, I don’t and won’t be putting effort into understanding it – because I doubt people who spend less time and have less interest in politics than myself will; so why would I bother?
i.e. It is up to Labour to present themselves in a manner where less doubt creeps in; it is not for me, you or anyone else to take time to ‘understand’ the poor wee conflicted dears. This is a discussion that needs to be discussed amongst themselves and addressed internally so that they can present a united and clear message as a party.
I was forgiving of a few random comments but this is starting to be a pattern with Labour and as I have already relayed I can only assume that if I react with impatience to such a very clear show of lack of discipline others will.
Labour have to understand and work through the conflicts themselves internally and present a much clearer and united message to us all externally than they have been recently because there are plenty of other parties to vote for.
I think your comment re ‘thinking before they speak’ is becoming the most appropriate response to this increasing trend of Labour candidates/MPs coming out with statements that are inharmonious toward and/or fudging of their own policies. I had initially thought it was an issue over how their statements were being reported – but now, no – there is something wrong with Labour’s messaging skills.
I would have thought the one thing that is very important that Labour convey is that they are working together with a single-minded focus – both internally and externally i.e. that they are cooperative and harmonious amongst themselves and also toward potential coalition partners. This would convey that they will be an effective, stable and competent government.
The other important factor is clear communication.
Neither of these have been soundly achieved recently.
I am strongly supportive of Mr Cunliffe due to the strong support he gained from the Labour party members and the unions – and this is a strong factor that makes Labour an option for my vote – however I am getting fed up with the inconsistent and inharmonious manner the Labour party politicians are presenting the message of their party policies and in the manner they show support (or lack of it) for other like-minded parties.
Surely the most important goal for Labour politicians is to achieve a consistent and clear message of what they represent? The amount of reports coming out about Labour politicians contradicting and/or making unclear statements about their own policies is getting beyond the pail.
I am losing patience with this phenomena. Are Labour politicians completely unable to display some discipline in their messaging or do they simply not see the importance of conveying a clear and consistent message to the general public?
So Kelvin Davis wants the road projects in Northland but the Labour party wants to scrap them?
Kelvin Davis said today: “The Government needs to step up and help local councils fix infrastructure problems highlighted by the recent Northland storms. The bad weather has amplified how susceptible the North really is at times like this. Our roading infrastructure is a major source of concern. This weather event has shown that when the main road in and out of the north fails” Link is here http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1407/S00262/call-for-government-to-step-up-in-north.htm
It seems as the the roading projects are necessary and vital for jobs and economic development in the north but Labour doesn’t want them?
Hi stupid dickhead. The Labour position is in the NZ Herald article that someone else linked to.
Instead of the gold-plated RONS gift for holiday makers, Labour simply wants to fix the existing road. That is something that should have been started 5 years ago. Instead National dumped that for their Road Of Significance for National.
This upgrade is a hell of a lot cheaper, will happen a lot faster, and actually have a return on investment that doesn’t require dubious projections to justify.
So why do you think we should waste a billion plus dollars of taxpayers money for something that could be as easily be done by simply fixing the existing road for a few hundred million.
Wow so that was offensive. If I had made that insult then I would have been kicked off this site quick-smart. No need to get personal.
It is better in this case to do the whole job. Fixing bits and bobs along the road will not fix the underlying problems: travel speeds and wash outs. Both of these are vital for commerical certainty and business growth.
Rather than patching up the existing winding mess that is the current road (a second-world patch up job) as you propose, I believe it is better to do a real first-world job on it. If we want to be a first world country, we need the infrastructure to back it up.
Wow so that was offensive. If I had made that insult then I would have been kicked off this site quick-smart. No need to get personal.
Good. That was the intent. It helps to get fools curled up in a catatonic fetal balls sucking their fingers to pay attention to things outside their own head.
Tick 1 – trolling standard response when challenged. Whine about politeness.
If you act like a stupid arsehole making dumb fact free assertions, then I’ll treat you as one. I find that it helps lazy shitheads like yourself learn to be more cautious and to use google before wasting my time reading your rather obvious lack of attention. Since I read most of the comments on this site you can guarantee if you keep being lazy then I will notice and give you a kick to improve your standard of commenting.
Read the policy. With a few relatively rare exceptions I as a moderator couldn’t give a damn about personal insults, unless they were pointless, or you were off topic, or it was clear that someone was deliberately trying to kick off a flamewar.
Since I do most of the moderation around here, your statement has the ring of a idiot trying to dig himself in deeper in quicksand.
It is better in this case to do the whole job. Fixing bits and bobs along the road will not fix the underlying problems: travel speeds and wash outs. Both of these are vital for commerical certainty and business growth.
Why? We’re only talking between Puhio and Wellsford. Not between Wellsford and Whangarei where much of the washout areas are.
The washouts only happen in a couple of locations up to Wellsford.
The amount of commercial traffic is minimal compared to the number of cars clogging the roads and almost all of it happens in only a few places. What causes issues are congestion problems at a couple of locations with cars which don’t require a whole new road to be built.
Moreover if what you were saying was true, then it would show up immediately on the economic cost benefit analysis. Which it does not because the dickheads from NZTA haven’t published one (which suggests that it is far worse then slender 1.2 for the Wellington Basin reserve flyover).
Moreover they’re projecting a average annual 4.4% growth in traffic to north of Warkworth. However they chose a measurement site inside the Warkworth ‘urban’ area which does show a annual 4.1% growth – of people driving around town. When you measure north of Warkworth on the open road, there is no growth.
So over 9 years there has been a pipsqueak of traffic growth north of Warkworth. So why exactly are we spending a billion plus for this road? To cure a economic problem that doesn’t exist?
I don’t think that there is any economic benefit apart from a few congestion issues for cars going to baches. Most of which can be fixed with a few much easier and cheaper improvements. This road appears to have more to do with National wanting to help their favourite donating property developers than for any economic benefits for the north.
Basically you should probably read the posts about this topic this link over at transportblog. Then you might sound less like a ignorant doofus.
I don’t think Wreckingball has the whole picture. The holiday highway which the Nat Govt intends spending billions on is only going as far as Wellsford (and will take probably a decade or so to build).
It won’t solve the problems Kelvin Davis is talking about – which are : that the road – the State Highway One for gawds sake – north of Whangarei is a mess, its unreliable, it gets flooded too easily and breaks up (as can be seen just south of Kawakawa right now where it is impassable) – and the alternative routes are really non-existent – unless you take the very long old Russell Road out towards Paihia and Opua – adding another couple of hours onto your journey.
The current side roads which traffic is using – such as the Ruapekapeka Road – are now crumbling and disintegrating under the unaccustomed traffic because they are “side roads” – unsealed, narrow, winding, and not built for major traffic use.
So the proposed govt billion-dollar spend on the “holiday highway” is NOT going to do much good for the mid-to Far North. Th e govt needs to spend some serious money on making sure State Highway One from Whangarei to Cape Reinga is well built, well maintained, and has reliable alternative routes around it, if needed in extreme weather events as has just happened – and are likely to happen in the future.
Yeah, the Puhio to Wellsford road will largely only have regular heavier traffic for the foreseeable future to Warkworth. Most will be cars going there on weekends. Wellsford on holidays.
Truck traffic increasing will be bugger all. They have a pretty good port up north, so why would they move the heavy export stuff out of anywhere apart from the port. The population is static or declining so there isn’t a massive need to increase that.
Tourism really doesn’t have an issue apart from the usual Auckland holiday outpouring.
In the meantime the roads up north are getting torn to pieces through a lack of maintenance and upgrades.
Manipulating online polls. No wonder David Farrar is pushing online voting!
Glen Greenwald’s latest gem:
“The secretive British spy agency GCHQ has developed covert tools to seed the internet with false information, including the ability to manipulate the results of online polls, artificially inflate pageview counts on web sites, “amplif[y]” sanctioned messages on YouTube, and censor video content judged to be “extremist.” The capabilities, detailed in documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, even include an old standby for pre-adolescent prank callers everywhere: A way to connect two unsuspecting phone users together in a call.”
I’ve been fuming all morning while listening to RadioLive’s Sean Plunket’s talkshit (I know, I know…) where he shat all over Labour’s policies and tried to minimise the Dotcom scandal evolving. And then he decided to ‘break’ a Whaleoil story about Mike Rowley (who?) who alleges that David Cunliffe promised him a favour in exchange for some dirt on Steven Joyce and his involvement with the Exclusive Brethren. Anyway, he got hoisted by his own petard. The guy proved a total fraud and serves them all right when they take any crap from WhaleSoil as a Gospel.
that is no solution at all.
wailshte is a blot on the country.
a man with no conscience, principles, ethics or morals at all.
this man needs to be exposed for the complete rotten egg that he is.
its seems like he has had two black eyes already this week.
somebody should finish him off with a good kick in the balls.
Computerworld – What if half the men in science, engineering and technology roles dropped out at midcareer? That would surely be perceived as a national crisis. Yet more than half the women in those fields leave — most of them during their mid- to late 30s.
It’s an interesting article but I was most taken by this bit and it’s solution:
The third thing is that, for many women, the career path is all very mysterious because they don’t have mentors or sponsors or folks looking out for them. Some of them can’t begin to map what the career ladder looks like. This mystery adds to the sense of stalling, of being stuck and not knowing where to go or how to get there.
What practical steps should CIOs take to keep women from leaving? It’s the most standard solution in the world: You’ve just got to get mentors to pair with the young talent.
Which, IMO, is where our education system, especially tertiary, is failing. It’s not providing that support and people are left with a What next? It’s not that people choose to fail but that most people don’t have the information and support to choose any other option.
People coming out of tertiary education with IT or commerce degrees aren’t going to graduate prepared to answer questions on what next to do with their lives once they turn 40. Try something in philosophy, theology or the other humanities instead.
A bit testy there Philip, you got withdrawal symptoms my old chum? Benefit day tomorrow, so not long to wait now until the tinny house is open.
Five days at the end of a campaign, when most people have already decided who to vote for, will do nothing to change the political landscape, revelation or not.
You ever heard of rubbing salt into a wound? A clue, it’s like the possum question you won’t answer.
At happy-hour drinks, he and other teachers complained that the legislators who wrote No Child Left Behind must never have been near a school like Parks. He felt as if he and his colleagues were part of a nationwide “biological experiment” in which the variables—the fact that so many children were hungry and transient, and witnessing violence—hadn’t been controlled. David Berliner, the former dean of the school of education at Arizona State University, told me that, with the passage of the law, teachers were asked to compensate for factors outside their control. He said, “The people who say poverty is no excuse for low performance are now using teacher accountability as an excuse for doing nothing about poverty.”
Is see Duncan Garner and his soul mate Cameron Slater are continuing their campaign re: Labour MPs jumping ship.
They cite Trevor Mallard (although I can’t see any evidence he’s departing from the party line), Kelvin Davis, a raw newbie in the Shane Jones mould (we know what a team player Shane is), and Damien O’Conner who made a stand on trees, apparently with the blessing of the caucus.
Mallard and O’Conner have done nothing out of the ordinary which leaves the raw Davis to make some noise that will perversely only resonate with the idle Remuera/Omaha rich set.
That’s right, he wants to go ahead with the holiday highway.
I know that road well. Several hundred million dollars has just been thrown at the East Coast Bays to Puhoi section in the form of a toll road which all ordinary Northlanders are paying for the privilege of using whenever they need to come to Auckland using their own vehicles or by way of increased costs on the goods they have to buy locally, for instance we know petrol is more expensive in Northland. The Puhoi to Wellsford section (lets read Puhoi to Omaha, because that’s what the holiday highway really is about) is not busy at all in normal weekday usage when the bulk of goods travel, it’s just not.
If Kelvin did his homework he’d be able to see that the only bit that needs fixing in the short/medium term is the Warkworth, and perhaps Wellsford, bypasses (something planned by Labour and cancelled by National IIRC). The rest is just the Remuera elite having a bit more road to open up their Audis upon.
Looking further in New Zealand’s case I see Bill English’s brother in 2009, then head of Federated Farmers wanted the the Waterview Connection to be surface only instead of tunnel/surface, the savings of which he proposed be put into irrigation schemes to benefit farmers.
For the love of Christ, how much more do farmers want?
I agree Weepus Beard – Kel Davis needs a bit more info on the holiday highway – its not going to solve the problems of roading north of Whangarei. See my comment at 16.1.1. above.
Meanwhile the gummint grinds on grinding down the fine society we had into ashes which they will later spread surreptitiously somewhere inconsequential.
On the My Thinks blog boonman has announced there is shock at the agreement of the Education and Science Select Committee to allow a Bill to pass so that the government can control the teachers body, the Teachers Council.
Just to clarify what this means: Every single member of the board responsible for the registration and disciplining of teachers across New Zealand is going to be appointed by Hekia Parata….
At present the Teachers’ Council is a partly appointment, partly elected body. When the bill is passed this will be a totally appointed body – a body whose sole aim will be the destruction of the teaching profession (don’t believe me? Have a look at what is happening to professional teaching organisations and unions in the United States). Once you have a subservient profession, then you can mould and manipulate to your heart’s content.
Of course, if National don’t manage to cobble together their various has-beens into a coalition of the desperately willing, then we may not be forced to endure the ignominy of having our profession deconstructed in this way.
Campbell Live doing an expose on Stonewood Homes in Christchurch.
Cowboys in a cowboy country with few regulations.
There is a shortage of builders …due to a lack of planning by our government.
We live in a country where the buck seems to stop anywhere…..
KDC got a good solo run though on TV 3 news. Having JK away might be backfiring
as there was no competing narrative to challenge Dotcom’s. Still thoroughly gutless though. Hopefully John will be having another crisis similar to the one Roughan cited where Key’s fear of losing gives him existential cramps. That will teach him to believe in Neo Darwinist winner takes all bs.
It was always going to happen. Relying upon agriculture to be the driver of an economy has, and always will, result in a country being poor. It doesn’t cost that much to do and every other country can do it for themselves.
As BIS General Manager Jaime Caruana stated when presenting the Annual Report in Basel, “financial booms have led to severe resource misallocation in many economies”. According to Mr Caruana, these booms have also masked an erosion of growth potential while rising private and public debt has created a range of vulnerabilities. To use his words, “as debt increases, the ability of borrowers to repay becomes progressively more sensitive to drops in income and to interest rate rises. Thus, higher debt translates into greater financial fragility and financial cycles that may become increasingly disruptive”.
And yet no country in the world is doing anything to stop growth through the rise in debt despite the lessons of the GFC. Lessons obviously not learned.
Below is the list of gender-critical material which appeared on Redline from July 31, 2019 to September 30, 2019. Sports categories must be by sex, not gender identity Queer theory glossary Woke misogyny and homophobia: a gay critique of trans ideology Another unfortunate experiment? New Zealand’s transgender health policy and ...
Smart Energy Europe: A Plan to provide 100% of ALL ENERGY using Renewable Energy to EuropeIntroductionAll Energy renewable energy systems are often commented on here at Skeptical Science. Many comments suggest that it will be difficult, expensive or impossible to use renewable energy to power the world. To ...
The government released its Action for Healthy Waterways package today, ostensibly with the goal of cleaning up our rivers and making them swimmable within a generation. Doing that, of course, requires confronting the cow in the room: the dairy industry which causes most of the pollution. But while they've imposed ...
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nzI would like to know if New Zealand’s carbon emissions ...
Remember KiwiBuild? Previously the government's flagship policy, it was supposed to build thousands of new homes every year for kiwi families. But instead of flooding the market, we've got a pathetic dribble: The Government's former flagship housing policy is so far behind schedule it will take more than 400 years ...
Don Franks Now Covid-19 restrictions allow gatherings of a hundred, an urgent hui needs calling. A special conference of the Council of Trade Unions. Today, workers face the greatest attack on employment, pay and conditions since the depression, we need a strong united union voice. As it stands now, organised ...
George Henderson New Zealand schools have introduced a climate change resource that suggests children “eat less meat and dairy”, even though teachers will not know how much meat or dairy any child in their care has eaten. Opinion pieces in the papers have called for the reduction of meat and ...
Questioning the number of district health boards in New Zealand has got to the extent that “too many DHBs” has become a perceived truth requiring no further elaboration. It is rarely challenged by policy advisers, academics, and journalists. But when one drills down further it becomes clear that the number ...
The emergence of a new National party leader, seemingly out of nowhere, has – not surprisingly – raised a number of questions as to who Todd Mulller actually is and what makes him tick. He has been an MP for some time but seems to have hidden his light under ...
Costa Rica has become the first country in Central America to recognise same-sex marriage: The first same-sex weddings have taken place in Costa Rica, the first Central American country to equalise its marriage legislation. A lesbian couple became the first to tie the knot in a ceremony that took ...
There's a new twist in the Winston Peters secret donation story. It appears that a significant chunk of NZ First's secret laundered donations goes straight into the pockets of the people administering the scheme: Tens of thousands in donor's funds given to the New Zealand First Foundation were spent paying ...
Is Todd Muller the Ned Flanders of the National Party? This is how he’s been characterised by political commentator Gordon Campbell, who suggests the change in leadership is, in Simpsons terms, akin to swapping the scary and cruel Monty Burns for Homer Simpson’s compassionate but conservative neighbour. There’s almost a ...
We all know that many so-called journalists and political commentators in New Zealand work directly or indirectly for political parties or for certain political factions. This was obviously the case when pundit for hire Matthew Hooton launched a campaign against then National Party leader, Simon Bridges, over their numerous polling ...
Let's Roll! The easy victory over a Bridges-led National Party which the Left had every cause to anticipate just a few days ago is no longer in the offing. Our enemy’s position has changed. His numbers are swelling. A rapid thrust to the left, followed by an audacious outflanking manoeuvre ...
New National Party leader Todd Muller has been interviewed about his policies, and has promised to restart offshore fossil fuel exploration if elected: The Bay of Plenty MP rolled former leader Simon Bridges last week, but says the party has not changed its stance on previous promises. "That is ...
Anyone who keeps an eye on evidence around cannabis and public health will be familiar with the Christchurch Health and Development Study. It's one of two local longitudinal studies frequently cited with respect to cannabis and youth development. But in a new article in the New Zealand Medical Journal, it is ...
In the age of covid we are Jacinda’s team of five million, except for some. There has rarely been a more blatant case of discrimination against beneficiaries than Grant Robertson’s announcement yesterday that people who have lost their jobs because of the coronavirus will receive weekly payments of $490 per week for 12 weeks and $250 per week for part time ...
It was 75 years ago this month that Germany surrendered and the Allies celebrated VE (Victory in Europe) Day. Millions of people around the world had been killed and many more injured or captured. It was an end to war not just for Europeans, but their allies too, in countries across Africa. But its impact is ...
Well, we are out of lockdown, essentially. I did end up getting the wage subsidy while we were on levels 3 and 4 but I would have been fine if we didn’t. The first day of level 2, the Thursday, the office opened again for the people who weren’t able ...
Watching Todd Muller make his first speech as the newly minted Leader of the Opposition after Simon Bridges’ defenestration on Friday brought to mind a headmaster addressing a school assembly. He showed no particular desire to ingratiate himself with his audience although the occasional flash of self-deprecating humour indicated a ...
The government has announced another income support scheme for people affected by the economic aftershocks of the pandemic: a $490 a week tax-free payment for the newly unemployed, which you can get even if you have a working partner. Which is great, because its supporting people who need help, but ...
The Greens have released their party list, and it contains a few surprises. The one that's getting all the news is that the membership are clearly fans of Chlöe Swarbrick, and she has worked hard to earn that. But they've also favoured incumbent protection over new blood, and in the ...
age credit:Science and Politics – Skeptically.org It seems impossible to keep politics out of science. It’s a pity because politics can end up forcing science to produce the results desired by ...
Prof Nick Wilson, Dr Matthew Parry, Dr Ayesha Verrall, Prof Michael Baker, Prof Martin Eichner (author details*)This blog details a recent modelling study we conducted. In it we estimated that it would take between 27 and 33 days of no new detected cases of COVID-19 for there to be ...
The 2015 Schol Bio paper included a question about a group of birds known as honeycreepers, specifically, the 56 species endemic to the Hawaiian islands. (Or, were endemic: 18, or perhaps 19, are still living; the others are extinct.) Students who’ve already had a look at this paper as part of ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Climate Feedback Article Review... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Claim Review... SkS Week in Review... Poster of the Week... Story of the Week... What a Week’s Disasters Tell Us About Climate and the PandemicExtreme weather presents an even bigger threat ...
Todd Muller has made a good start to his leadership, though it would obviously be pretty stupid to extrapolate too much from the first couple of days. Nevertheless, as a matter of speculation, it is interesting to think what success on his part might say about the preferences of the ...
A guest post by Hamish Price.“A leader is a dealer in hope.”— Napoléon BonaparteCatholics have a name for potential successors to a dead pope. Papabile. The small coterie of distinguished cardinals who have what it takes to step up. Todd Muller has always been one.I first met Muller at a National ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, May 17 through Sat, May 23, 2020Editor's ChoiceMore than 80 killed in India and Bangladesh as Cyclone Amphan heaps misery on coronavirus-hit areasA man salvages items from ...
Two poor political polls within the same week had seen National for the first time in over a decade dropping major support in the face of a competent and assured COVID-19 health response from the Coalition government. Step forward the relatively unknown Todd Muller, who by Friday afternoon had secured ...
SUNDAY MAY 24The Luminaries (TVNZ 1, 8.30pm). There are an awful lot of indeterminate accents in The Luminaries; even lead Eve Hewson seems undecided about being Irish, and she is Irish. Fair play, accents can go badly wrong, so perhaps not over-egging was a consideration. Marton Csokas, always impeccable, and Himesh Patel ...
Let’s be honest; Simon Bridges was a disaster of a political leader. If he wasn’t attempting to criticise the Government’s perfectly good policy initiatives that the public generally supported, he was fudging his lines after getting caught out in yet another lie. When Jami-Lee Ross said Bridges “is a flawed individual ...
The media treat budgets as bit of a circus: lots of theatre and soon forgotten. For a serious economist they show how a team of economists is thinking about the wider economy. The 2020 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) was the most difficult forecasting exercise in the history of ...
Air NZ shed 1,300 workers, Fletchers about to sack 1000. Economists Strateg.Ease predict over 12,400 jobs gone by March next year in central Auckland alone. Here’s Don Franks during the 2008 election campaign when he stood for the Workers Party. He’s talking about fightback strategies, ideas that he believes are ...
One of these MPs is the new leader of the National party. Can you pick which? (Source: Office of the Clerk/Parliamentary Service) National has chosen its new leader, and as expected, it is an old bald white man. Totally representative of modern New Zealand, then. But its not ...
Five years ago, Know Your Stuff didn't have a name. They were just a group of people from the festival community who began testing party drugs onsite because they'd seen the consequences of people taking substances they couldn't identify or didn't understand. They didn't want to see people in their ...
Last week, an article on Newsroom made it clear how the funder / provider split - a core part of our public service - was used to enable underfunding. The government holds the purse strings, but dumps responsibility for its decisions on providers, so they get the blame for poor ...
Dr Jaijus Pallippadan-Johny1, Dr John McDermott2, Rodney Jones1 and Michael Duddin1 (1 Wigram Capital Advisors, Auckland; 2Motu Economic and Policy Research, Wellington)In this blog, we introduce our modelling approach to estimating the transmissibility of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the cause of the COVID-19 pandemic. We demonstrate the usefulness of ...
The Illusions Of Power: Does Jacinda Ardern, like Abraham Lincoln, wake in the dark watches of the night still enveloped in the terrors of life-and-death decision-making? Maybe – maybe not. She’s a twenty-first century prime minister, not so susceptible, perhaps, to the deep religious feeling and romanticism that was such ...
Well, that seals it. The supposedly more National sympathetic One News-Colmar Brunton poll has tonight delivered Simon Bridges’ National Party a worst result than the Newshub-Reid Research three days agoi.On tonight’s numbers Labour sits at an “unprecedented” 59 percent, while National has slumped 17 percent to 29 percent. Anything in ...
The National Party are quite simply a party out of time…Literally, insofar as the 2020 Election is concerned, and certainly in terms of their ideological positioning which has grown far more trenchantly extreme in the last few years in particular, under the leadership of both Simon Bridges, and Paula ...
If tonight’s 1News-Colmar Brunton poll result is anywhere near the 31% recorded in Monday’s Newshub-Reid Research poll, Simon Bridges will surely be dog tucker when his caucus colleagues meet tomorrow to vote on the National Party leadership. The momentum is with newcomer Todd Muller, who seems likely to be installed ...
At last year's Splore festival Listening Lounge sessions, one of the most popular discussions was the one on psychedelic therapy. So for this year's festival, I brought back two of the participants from that panel – Dr Will Evans and Amadeus Diamond – and was delighted to be able to ...
The government is reportedly looking at "helicopter money" - giving cash directly to people to spend - as a way of stimulating the economy in the wake of the pandemic. But its not just central government: Palmerston North City Council is looking at the same thing, though on a much ...
Mahmoud Elkhodr, CQUniversity AustraliaNew Zealanders finally have access to the government’s new tracing app to help people monitor their movements as lockdown continues to ease. As businesses can now open, the NZ COVID Tracer app allows people to keep a register of the places they visit. This “digital diary” ...
Eyes Left! On the face of it, the election of Todd Muller and Nikki Kaye is a no-brainer. New Zealanders are clearly in no mood for a “dirty little street-fighter” and, if the polls are any indication, resent strongly Bridges’ implication that they are. To be at all competitive with ...
Tahu Kukutai, University of Waikato; Helen Moewaka Barnes, Massey University; Tim McCreanor, Massey University, and Tracey McintoshAs schools and businesses reopen and attention shifts to the longer-term repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is critical that Māori be involved in decision making more equitably than has so far happened. ...
Dane Giraud from The Free Speech Coalition talks with Redline writer and editor Daphna Whitmore on cancel culture, gender ideology, postmodernism and irrationalism. They look at the free speech implications of issues like the Twitter mob, the Government’s proposed emergency police powers, and the Israel-Palestine conflict. The Free Speech interview ...
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nzAlmost every threat to modern humanity can be traced simply ...
The Finance and Expenditure Committee is holding an inquiry into the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act 2020 which was rushed through Parliament last week, and has called for submissions. Submissions are due by Sunday, 28 June 2020. You can either submit online through the form above, or by posting dead ...
While the world is currently struggling with the pandemic, we have another crisis to deal with as well: climate change. Fortunately, not everyone has forgotten about it, with Spain announcing ambitious plans to go net-zero by 2050: Under the law, which still needs to be approved by Parliament, the government ...
Children used in this study were from Lintingkou town (a normal-fluoride/control area) and Dakoutun town (a high-fluoride area) in Baodi district of Tianjin, China. The towns are 25 km apart. Anti-fluoridation activists on ...
When we see how the pandemic is being handled in the rest of the world, we can thank our lucky stars that we live here, in New Zealand, and under our current government, led by Jacinda Ardern. The latest polls suggest that this is exactly how Kiwis feel. But the ...
Prof Nick Wilson, Dr Sophie Febery, Dr Ling Chan, Dr Jennifer Summers, Prof Michael BakerThe concepts of an Alert Level system, household “bubbles”, and social event size limits are all valuable pandemic control measures. Nevertheless, better “source control” of COVID-19 at various Alert Levels by requiring masks in ...
This is a repost from the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund blog, by CSLDF Executive Director Lauren Kurtz The COVID-19 pandemic illuminates the crucial role scientists at university, state, and local laboratories in the United States and abroad play in protecting public health and safety—and shows that global research must be done ...
Arguments by religious folk that they are being discriminated against under the Level 2 pandemic restrictions in NZ, which limit church services to ten people or less when schools, restaurants, malls and other service outlets are allowed to host many more people under voluntary self-distancing protocols, got me to think ...
Now that the initial wave has passed, and we are (hopefully) safe in our national bubble, the government is thinking about how to keep the economy ticking over, and how to salvage the bits (like tourism) that are now useless. And for that particular industry, she has mentioned a great ...
There’s been a lot of conjecture concerning the reasons behind the National Party’s fall to 30% in the latest Newshub-Reid Research poll. Some commentators have correctly ascertained that the current leader, Simon Bridges, has been consistently getting his tone wrong! Others believe that the shift in support is all about ...
It probably was too good to last. The blessed peace on the roads that I wrote about here began eroding even before we left Level 4 of the Covid-19 restrictions – and on day one of Level 3, with the tradies rushing to catch upon their work, the double-cab utes ...
Missing From The Electoral Action: The radical Left's last forlorn hope, the "Missing Million", is generally despised by mainstream New Zealand and mistrusted by the respectable members of their own communities. They have moved well beyond the reach of conventional electoral politics.TO SAY the Left’s reaction to Grant Robertson’s “Recovery ...
by Don Franks As we face new unknowns against Covid 19, there’s something reassuring about level 2’s basic rules. “Physical distancing- keep your distance when out and about. Two metres in public and in retail stores, like supermarkets. One metre in most other environments like workplaces, cafes, restaurants, and gyms.” ...
Richard Shaw, Massey UniversityOnce upon a very different time, British cabinet minister Michael Gove sneered that “people have had enough of experts from organisations with acronyms saying that they know what is best and getting it consistently wrong.” But that was then and this is now. One or two ...
From its name, you would think the Environmental protection Authority was there to protect the environment. But we've had another reminder that nothing could be further from the truth, with its decision to allow a toxic, burned-out Korean fishing boat to be dumped at sea: The ship's owner, Dong Won ...
Story of the Week... El Niño/La Niña Update... Toon of the Week... Graphic of the Week... Climate Feedback Article Review... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Claim Review... SkS Week in Review... Poster of the Week... Story of the Week... The Largest Arctic Science Expedition in History Finds Itself on Increasingly ...
It was just a month ago that the chief executive of Rotorua Lakes Council, Geoff Williams, described suggestions his executive team should consider taking pay cuts as “immoral”. Williams told the NZ Herald: “I am very fortunate to have around me an extremely committed, dedicated and hardworking executive team who ...
“Every day, we see the powers that promulgate laws that oblige one to take certain routes and [those] that do not follow these indications or do not want them to be part of their legislation, are accused and politely persecuted” – Pope Francis What does the Government’s decision to limit ...
In a previous post I noted that futures thinking usually tries to identify what people think will change and what they think needs to change. As lockdown constraints ease, we are seeing a lot of opinions about both. There is no shortage of shovel ready points of view ...
The Green Party says major freshwater reforms announced today provide the strongest ever protections of our waterways, to help ensure the next generation can swim in the rivers of Aotearoa. ...
The Green Party has begun the process for a Select Committee inquiry into student accommodation, which has been exposed during COVID-19 as an under-regulated sector that straddles students with unfair debt. ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs Hon Megan Woods, Minister of Research, Science and Innovation Hon Dr David Clark, Minister of Health Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters, Research, Science and Innovation Minister Megan Woods, and Health Minister David Clark today announced a COVID-19 vaccine strategy, ...
Budget 2020 is about rebuilding together, supporting jobs, getting business moving and the books back into the black. It’s an integral part of our COVID-19 economic response, and our plan to grow our economy and get New Zealand moving again.Here’s a quick look at the five top things you ...
The Coalition Government has approved $206 million in essential upgrades at Ōhakea Air Base. Defence Minister Ron Mark said the money would be spent on improving old infrastructure. He said safety issues would be addressed, as well as upgrades to taxiways, accommodation and fresh, storm and waste water systems. "This ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Leader of New Zealand First “I am not persisting with this case just for myself, but for all people who have had their privacy breached. Privacy of information is a cornerstone of our country’s democracy. Without it our society truly faces a bleak future. We now ...
Forestry Minister Shane Jones has introduced a Bill to Parliament that he says will "force more transparency, integrity and respect" for the domestic wood-processing sector through the registration of log traders and practice standards. The Forests (Regulation of Log Traders and Forestry Advisers) Amendment Bill had its first reading in ...
Green MP Golriz Ghahraman is joining over 300 lawmakers from around the world in calling on the big banks and the IMF to forgive the debt of developing countries, in the wake of the COVID crisis. ...
Forestry Minister Shane Jones says concerns that carbon foresters are planting pine trees that will never be harvested are the result of "misinformation". "The billion tree strategy is an excellent idea, unfortunately from time to time it's tainted by misinformation spread by the National Party or their grandees, hiding in scattered ...
The Green Party welcomes funding in the budget to reunite more refugees with their families, ensuring they have the best chance at a new life in Aotearoa New Zealand. ...
This year’s Budget is about rebuilding New Zealand together in the face of COVID-19. Jobs are central to how we’re going to do that.There’s a lot of targeted investment for employment in this year’s Budget, with announcements on creating new jobs, training people for the jobs we have, and supporting ...
Speaking to Stuff's Coronavirus NZ podcast, Foreign Minister Winston Peters revealed China tried to dissuade New Zealand from going into lockdown.“Without speaking out of turn, they wanted a discussion as to why we were doing it, because they thought it was an overreaction,” Mr Peters told Stuff’s Coronavirus NZ podcast.He also ...
The Coalition Government is making changes to the Overseas Investment Act to ensure New Zealand assets don't fall into the hands of foreign ownership in the economic aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. Associate Minister of Finance David Parker announced the Act will be amended to bring forward a national interest ...
A quick start to a trans-Tasman bubble could see the tourism industry make a swift recovery, according to Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters. "I believe tourism will turn around dramatically faster than people think," Mr Peters told reporters after Thursday's Budget. "Why? Because I think the Tasman bubble is [going ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Leader of New Zealand First Please check against deliveryhttps://vimeo.com/418303651 Budget 2020: Jobs, Business and Balance Introduction Acknowledgements to all Cabinet colleagues, and party ministers Tracey Martin, Shane Jones and Ron Mark, Under-Secretary Fletcher Tabuteau and to caucus colleagues. Thank you for your support, your ...
The 2020 Budget includes significant support to stabilise New Zealand’s family violence services, whose work has been shown to be so essential throughout the COVID-19 lockdown. ...
The Green Party says huge new investment in public and transitional housing will get thousands more families into the warm, safe homes they deserve. ...
The Green Party says the $1.1 billion environmental investment in this year’s budget to create thousands of green jobs will help jump start a sustainable recovery from the COVID crisis. ...
Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters said today the Coalition Government told foreigners at the start of the Covid-19 crisis that if their circumstances had changed dramatically, they should go home. "And 50,000 did," Mr Peters said. Official advice to Cabinet revealed there is potentially 380,000 foreigners and migrant workers in ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Leader of New Zealand First New Zealand First welcomes the decision today to go to Alert Level 2 from midnight Wednesday, says Leader Rt Hon Winston Peters. Alert Level 2 will mean a return to work for the vast majority of New Zealand’s businesses. A return ...
Nurses now look set to get more protection from violence at work, under a proposed new law.This after NZ First MP Darroch Ball's "Protection for First Responders Bill", which introduces a six-month minimum sentence for assaults on first responders, will now also cover emergency department healthcare workers. The ...
Darroch Ball MP, New Zealand First Law and Order Spokesperson An amendment to the ‘Protection of First Responders Bill’ is being tabled which will see emergency department healthcare workers included in the legislation. “During this COVID-19 crisis we have seen reports of violence and specifically increased incidents of spitting towards ...
Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones is breathing new life into the proposal to move Auckland's port to Whangārei to help in the economic recovery post Covid-19 pandemic.If New ZealandFirst was returned in the September general election, Minister Jones said a priority would be development of an "economic haven" at Northport, ...
The law setting out New Zealanders’ basic civil and human rights is today one step towards being strengthened following the first reading of a Bill that requires Parliament to take action if a court says a statute undermines those rights. At present, a senior court can issue a ‘declaration of ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters today reiterated the deep concern of the New Zealand Government following confirmation by China’s National People’s Congress of national security legislation relating to Hong Kong. “New Zealand shares the international community’s significant and long-standing stake in Hong Kong’s prosperity and stability,” Mr Peters said. “New Zealand ...
Thousands of artists and creatives at hundreds of cultural and heritage organisations have been given much-needed support to recover from the impact of COVID-19, Prime Minister and Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Jacinda Ardern announced today. “The cultural sector was amongst the worst hit by the global pandemic,” Jacinda ...
Key New Zealand assets will be better protected from being sold to overseas owners in a way contrary to the national interest, with the passage of the Overseas Investment (Urgent Measures) Bill. The Bill, which passed its third reading in Parliament today, also cuts unnecessary red tape to help attract ...
Setting higher health standards at swimming spots Requiring urban waterways to be cleaned up and new protections for urban streams Putting controls on higher-risk farm practices such as winter grazing and feed lots Setting stricter controls on nitrogen pollution and new bottom lines on other measures of waterway health Ensuring ...
The Government is on the verge of reaching its target of state sector boards and committees made up of at least 50 percent women, says Minister for Women Julie Anne Genter and Minister for Ethnic Communities Jenny Salesa. For the first time, the Government stocktake measures the number of Māori, ...
The Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister and Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media Minister, Kris Faafoi, has today announced the appointment of Tristan Gilbertson as the new Telecommunications Commissioner and member of the Commerce Commission. “Mr Gilbertson has considerable experience in the telecommunications industry and a strong reputation amongst his peers,” ...
The Ministry of Education and NZEI Te Riu Roa have agreed to settle the pay equity claim for teacher aides, Education Minister Chris Hipkins announced today. This will see more than 22,000 teacher aides, mostly women, being valued and paid fairly for the work they do. “Teacher aides are frontline ...
Subcontractors will have greater certainty, more cashflow support and job security with new changes to retention payments under the Construction Contracts Act says Minister for Building and Construction, Jenny Salesa. A recent review of the retentions money regime showed that most of the building and construction sector is complying with ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong have marked the first anniversary of the New Zealand-Singapore Enhanced Partnership with a virtual Leaders’ Meeting today. The Enhanced Partnership, signed on 17 May 2019, provides the framework for cooperation across the four main areas of trade, defence and ...
On 17 May 2019, New Zealand and Singapore established an Enhanced Partnership to elevate our relations. The Enhanced Partnership – based on the four pillars of trade and economics, security and defence, science, technology and innovation, and people-to-people links – has seen the long-standing relationship between our countries strengthen over the ...
State-Owned Enterprises Minister Winston Peters has welcomed KiwiRail’s announcement that it is seeking a preferred shipyard to build two new rail-enabled ferries for the Cook Strait crossing. “This Government is committed to restoring rail to its rightful place in New Zealand. Bigger, better ships, with new technology are yet another ...
Better protection for seabirds is being put in place with a new National Plan of Action to reduce fishing-related captures, Fisheries Minister Stuart Nash and Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage announced today. The National Plan of Action for Seabirds 2020 outlines our commitment to reduce fishing-related captures and associated seabird ...
Almost $1 billion in interest-free loans for small businesses More than 55,000 businesses have applied; 95% approved Average loan approx. $17,300 90% of applications from firms with ten or fewer staff A wide cross-section of businesses have applied, the most common are the construction industry, accommodation providers, professional firms, and ...
Thousands of children will have healthier lungs after the Government’s ban on smoking in cars with kids becomes law, says Associate Minister of Health Jenny Salesa. This comes after the third reading of Smoke-free Environments (Prohibiting Smoking in Motor Vehicles Carrying Children) Amendment Bill earlier today. “This law makes it ...
The special Epidemic Response Committee (ERC) has successfully concluded its role, Leader of the House Chris Hipkins said today. The committee was set up on 25 March by the agreement of Parliament to scrutinise the Government and its actions while keeping people safe during levels 4 and 3 of lockdown. ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters today announced four diplomatic appointments: New Zealand’s Ambassador to Belgium, High Commissioners to Nauru and Niue, and Ambassador for Counter-Terrorism. “As the world seeks to manage and then recover from COVID-19, our diplomatic and trade networks are more important than ever,” Mr Peters said. “The ...
New Zealanders will be better protected from online harm through a Bill introduced to Parliament today, says Internal Affairs Minister Tracey Martin. “The internet brings many benefits to society but can also be used as a weapon to spread harmful and illegal content and that is what this legislation targets,” ...
New Zealand’s world-first plan to eradicate the cattle disease Mycoplasma bovis is on track the latest technical data shows, says Agriculture and Biosecurity Minister Damien O’Connor. “Two years ago the Government, DairyNZ and Beef + Lamb New Zealand and industry partners made a bold decision to go hard and commit ...
Further support for New Zealanders affected by 1-in-100 year global economic shock 12-week payment will support people searching for new work or retraining Work programme on employment insurance to support workers and businesses The Government today announced a new temporary payment to support New Zealanders who lose their jobs due ...
The Provincial Growth Fund will play a vital role in New Zealand’s post-COVID-19 recovery by creating jobs in shorter timeframes through at least $600 million being refocused on projects with more immediate economic benefits, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has announced. The funding is comprised of repurposed Provincial Growth ...
Government exempts some home improvements from costly consents Homeowners, builders and DIYers will soon have an easier time making basic home improvements as the Government scraps the need for consents for low-risk building work such as sleep-outs, sheds and carports – allowing the construction sector to fire back up quicker ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters says the New Zealand Government has reacted with concern at the introduction of legislation in China’s National People’s Congress relating to national security in Hong Kong. “We have a strong interest in seeing confidence maintained in the ‘one country, two systems’ principle under which Hong ...
The Minister for Pacific Peoples Aupito William Sio, says the theme for the 2020 Samoa Language Week is a perfect fit for helping our Pacific communities cope with the unfolding COVID-19 crisis, and to prepare now for the journey ahead as New Zealand focuses on recovery plans and rebuilding New ...
A nearly 40-year programme to protect one of New Zealand’s most critically endangered birds is paying off, with a record number of adult kakī/black stilt recently recorded living in the wild, the Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage announced today. “Thanks to the team effort involved in the Department of Conservation’s ...
The story of the Waikato-Tainui Treaty process and its enduring impact on the community is being told with a five-part web story launched today on the 25th anniversary of settlement, announced Associate Arts, Culture and Heritage Minister Carmel Sepuloni. “I am grateful to Waikato-Tainui for allowing us to help capture ...
Taita College in the Hutt Valley will be redeveloped to upgrade its ageing classrooms and leaky roofs, Education Minister Chris Hipkins announced today. “The work is long overdue and will make a lasting difference to the school for generations to come,” Chris Hipkins said. “Too many of our schools are ...
The Government is allocating $36.72 million to projects in regions hard hit economically by COVID-19 to keep people working, Economic Development Minister Phil Twyford and Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today. Projects in Hawke’s Bay, Northland, Rotorua and Queenstown will be funded from the Government’s $100 million worker ...
A $35m boost to financial capability service providers funded by MSD will help New Zealanders manage their money better both day to day and through periods of financial difficulty, announced Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni. “It’s always been our position to increase support to key groups experiencing or at risk ...
Dunedin barrister Melinda Broek has been appointed as a District Court Judge with Family Court jurisdiction to be based in Rotorua, Attorney-General David Parker announced today. Ms Broek has iwi affiliations to Ngai Tai. She commenced her employment in 1996 with Scholefield Cockroft Lloyd in Invercargill specialising in family and ...
The Coalition Government has approved a business case for $206 million in upgrades to critical infrastructure at Royal New Zealand Air Force Base Ohakea, with the first phase starting later this year, Defence Minister Ron Mark announced today. The investment will be made in three phases over five years, and ...
Transport Minister Phil Twyford today released the Ministry of Transport’s review of the organisational culture at the Civil Aviation Authority. Phil Twyford says all employees are entitled to a safe work environment. “I commissioned this independent review due to the concerns I had about the culture within the CAA, and ...
Ensuring that Stats NZ’s direction and strategy best supports government policy decisions will be a key focus for a new Governance Advisory Board announced today by the Minister for Statistics, James Shaw. The new Governance Advisory Board will provide strategic advice to Stats NZ to ensure it is meeting New ...
Environment Judge David Kirkpatrick of Auckland has been appointed as the Principal Environment Judge, Attorney-General David Parker announced today. Judge Kirkpatrick was appointed an Environment Judge in February 2014. From December 2013 to July 2016 he was Chair of the Auckland Unitary Plan Independent Hearings Panel. Prior to appointment he ...
A programme to connect marae around the country to the internet has received $1.4 million to expand to include urban marae in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media Minister Kris Faafoi and Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today. The funding for the Marae Connectivity Programme ...
The Government will provide $500,000 to the Hawke’s Bay Mayoral Drought Relief Fund to help farmers facing one of the worst droughts in living memory, says Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor. “Yesterday afternoon I received a letter from Hawke's Bay's five local Government leaders asking me to contribute to the Fund. ...
Budget 2020 provides a major investment in New Zealand’s documentary heritage sector, with a commitment to leasing a new Archives Wellington facility and an increase in funding for Archives and National Library work. “Last year I released plans for a new Archives Wellington building – a purpose-built facility physically connected ...
Government Ministers are asking significant private enterprises to adopt prompt payment practices in line with the state sector, as a way to improve cashflow for small businesses. The Ministers of Finance, Small Business, Commerce and Consumer Affairs have written to more than 40 significant enterprises and banking industry representatives to ...
Maori Arts and Crafts will continue to underpin the heart of the tourism sector says Minister for Maori Development Nanaia Mahuta. “That’s why we are making a core investment of $7.6 million to Te Puia New Zealand Māori Arts and Crafts Institute, over two years, as part of the Government’s ...
The Government is funding more pathways to jobs through training and education programmes in regional New Zealand to support the provinces’ recovery from the economic impacts of COVID-19, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones and Employment Minister Willie Jackson have announced. “New Zealand’s economic recovery will be largely driven by ...
This week's biggest-selling New Zealand books, as recorded by the Nielsen BookScan New Zealand bestseller list and described by Steve Braunias.FICTION 1 Auē by Becky Manawatu (Makaro Press, $35) Hard-out story of a tragic family, and winner of the best novel of the year at the 2020 Ockham New ...
A case over the treatment of pigs in New Zealand will be in court in less than two weeks. Pat Baskett takes a look at the potential impacts of the outcome. Phoebe was a pig I wrote about some years ago. Her life was a misery. She lived in a ...
Tāmati Kruger speaks to Rod Oram about Tūhoe's response to Covid-19 in the Te Urewera mountains, and how the iwi is looking to a much stronger NZ society that's aware of its obligations to be a far wiser caretaker of our natural resources. ...
Those working to stop family violence must keep consider both victims and the violent - but those at greatest risk of harm must be paramount, writes Julia TolmieIf we are to stop family violence, then offenders need to stop using violence. It follows that we need to engage more ...
How many languages do you think are spoken in New Zealand on a daily basis? Five, 10, 50? The answer is that more than 160 languages. That being the case, how do we make sure all our children are receiving the best possible education? Dr Corinne Seals from Te Herenga ...
After a pandemic-induced lockdown, a ministry pulls services from terror victims because of “minimal contact”. David Williams reports Imam Abdul Alabi Lateef opens the new, sturdy door at Christchurch’s Linwood Islamic Centre which, little more than a year ago, was the scene of a terrorist attack. The first thing he ...
The government is heralding its $700m Te Mana o te Wai package as a game-changer for the health of New Zealand waterways. But for freshwater scientist Russell Death, it’s a bitter disappointment.Two weeks into alert level two, it seems we have already forgotten all those resolutions about the pandemic being ...
The prime minister yesterday announced a package including $25m to ‘provide artists whose projects are funded by Creative NZ with jobs.’ An even more substantial investment in the creative arts will help drive our post-Covid recovery, argues Paul Millar.When Covid-19 forced the postponement of the popular international literary festival WORD ...
How can the country return to normal and still keep the good things about lockdown? That includes kinder politics, and working from home. New Zealand’s Covid-19 pandemic isn’t done and dusted quite yet. But considering daily new cases are now odds-on to be zero, what lessons have we learned from the past ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra It was Greg Combet, one-time ACTU secretary and former Labor minister, who got Christian Porter and Sally McManus together in the early days of the pandemic. Recalling what happened, Porter told the Australian Financial Review ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kristy Hess, Associate Professor (Communication), Deakin University With swift and savage force, the COVID-19 pandemic has inadvertently attacked Australia’s local news media ecology, which was already battling a weakened immune system. As a researcher working on Australia’s largest academic study into the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael (Mike) Joy, Senior Researcher; Institute for Governance and Policy Studies, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington New Zealand’s government has been praised for listening to health experts in its pandemic response, but when it comes to dealing with pollution ...
Rod Oram spoke to the leaders of 16 Kiwi businesses over seven weeks, during which they and their businesses rose to meet unprecedented demands. Here's what he learned. ...
Tenants in the commercial property market continue to wait for Covid-19 relief while government coalition partners Labour and New Zealand First hammer out a deal. ...
They call themselves the Genesis II Church of Health and Healing, but they’re not a church, and the treatment they sell is called Miracle Mineral Supplement – but it’s chlorine dioxide, commonly known as bleach. Susan Strongman reports for RNZ.A New Zealand website is advising people with symptoms of coronavirus ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Keith Rankin. On Project Syndicate – and in other places in recent months – orthodox US economist Kenneth Rogoff has presented the case for deeply negative interest rates. Another financial sacred cow falls; yes, interest rates can be negative, even substantially negative. It can take ...
The Government is cracking down on nitrogen fertiliser use and asking councils to speed up their planning processes in order to clean up the country's waterways, Marc Daalder reports One in five farmers will have to reduce the amount of nitrogen fertiliser they are using under a new rule announced ...
Business is Boring is a weekly podcast series presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Host Simon Pound speaks with innovators and commentators focused on the future of New Zealand. This week he talks to New Zealand investor and business advisor David Bell. As a university professor ...
The calls for public health specialists for more taxpayer funding could be taken more seriously if they stopped wasting money on pointless public relations campaigns under the guise of public health, says the New Zealand Taxpayers' Union . Union Executive ...
The New Zealand College of Midwives is calling on the Government to release details of the funding allocated to maternity services in this year’s budget, and is supporting their GP colleagues in asking the Minister of Health to immediately release Heather ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Esterman, Professor of Biostatistics, University of South Australia Australia’s chief medical officer Brendan Murphy told a senate inquiry earlier this week our COVID-19 public health response had avoided about 14,000 deaths. This is in contrast to his deputy Paul Kelly, who ...
By Sri Krishnamurthi, contributing editor Pacific Media Watch Homegrown Australian television shows to the tune of $17.1 million will be broadcast in the Pacific in a bid believed intended to stymie China’s diplomatic and media rise in the region. Shows such as The Voice, Border Security, Neighbours and are to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nik Thompson, Senior Lecturer, Curtin University Data is the new oil, and online platforms will siphon it off at any opportunity. Platforms increasingly demand our personal information in exchange for a service. Avoiding online services altogether can limit your participation in society, ...
By RNZ News New Zealand has reported no new cases of covid-19 coronavirus today, but the death toll has risen to 22 to include a woman who died after recovering from the disease. Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said there were only eight active cases in the country and ...
Fisheries New Zealand is seeking public feedback on a draft Pāua Fisheries Plan and a proposed subdivision of the pāua fishery along the Kaikōura and Canterbury coasts, known as the PAU3 quota management area. “Splitting the quota management ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jarrod Haar, Professor of Human Resource Management, Auckland University of Technology When New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said recently, “I’ve heard lots of people suggesting we should have a four-day week”, she inevitably ignited debate. Ardern was not, as some critics ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lisa Bricknell, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Health, CQUniversity Australia Now we have fewer cases of COVID-19, and restrictions are lifting, many of us are thinking of rejuvenating our social lives by heading to our local cafe or favourite restaurant. What can we ...
Former Race Relations Commissioner, Gregory Fortuin says he agrees with Judith Collins that no one should be superficially judge on skin colour and ethnicity . Fortuin was responding to Collins’ reported outburst about "sick of being demonised" ...
The government says it allowed the Avatar film crew back into New Zealand in spite of the current border closures because the making of the film offers “significant economic value” to our country. But this criterion is being applied unevenly. What ...
New Zealand Defence Force bases in Auckland are attacking their water use as the region battles one of the worst droughts in recent history. The taps are being turned off at Devonport Naval Base, RNZAF Base Auckland at Whenuapai, Papakura Military ...
The Kahui Wai Maori Advisory group welcomed the announcement made by the Hon David Parker, Minister for the Environment today of the new rules designed to clean up our waterways. At the heart of the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management ...
Water New Zealand says the Government’s Action for Healthy Waterways package provides a sensible and realistic way forward and will result in much-needed improvements in freshwater quality. Acting CEO John Mackie says it’s vital that there is no ...
When Claire Freeman became a wheelchair user at age 17, the questions she had about how she might enjoy sex were dismissed and she was made to feel like that part of her life was over. Here she flips the script with some advice on how to find pleasure on ...
As companies in New Zealand’s property development and building sectors digest opportunities presented by the Budget, what they need most urgently to move forwards is Resource Management Act and policy reform in order to rebuild together, says the ...
“We are pleased to see that the Government’s freshwater reforms announced today respond to some of the issues raised, and recommendations made, by the irrigation sector,” says Elizabeth Soal, Chief Executive of IrrigationNZ. “But there is ...
The government is imposing tough rules on water quality despite over 17,000 submissions, many of them complaining the move would impose a huge financial burden. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Helen Dickinson, Professor, Public Service Research, UNSW COVID-19 has had a significant impact on all Australians, but there are very good reasons why the impact might be more keenly felt by people with disability and their carers. Our new research on behalf ...
Freshwater campaigners are frustrated the Government has delayed a crucial decision on nitrogen pollution for a further 12 months until after the election. “We have urged the Government many times to put in place clear and unequivocal limits for ...
The government has just announced a whole lot of new rules and policies for freshwater with the aim of urgently stopping degradation and cleaning up rivers over the long term.What’s all this then? A massive package of work on freshwater quality has just been announced in an attempt to halt further ...
The Environmental Defence Society (EDS) has welcomed the announcement by Ministers David Parker, Damien O’Connor and James Shaw this morning of the much-awaited freshwater reforms. “This package of changes to the present regulatory settings largely delivers ...
Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) has welcomed the Government’s announcement of a set of targeted tools to improve the quality of freshwater. LGNZ is the peak body representing New Zealand’s 78 local councils, providing a unified voice for ...
Many families facing newfound financial hardship due to COVID-19 may not be seeking help – believing they should be able to manage on their own or unaware they qualify for support, according to Good Shepherd NZ. The charitable organisation provides ...
Changes to central government Essential Freshwater regulations reflect farmer feedback, Federated Farmers says. "While we’re still working through the detail, the high level policy decisions indicate the government has heeded some of the rural ...
The Council of Trade Unions is congratulating teacher aides in achieving an historic pay equity offer from the government to settle their long standing concerns. "What this offer from the government does is acknowledge the historic under valuation of ...
Freshwater reforms a significant step forward The Government's policy announced today is a significant step forward in reducing pollution in our rural and our urban waterways caused by intensive farming and through council's neglect. However, there ...
Thursday, 28th May: Greenpeace is today welcoming the Government’s move to place a cap on synthetic nitrogen fertiliser, but says more controls are needed to protect freshwater. The fertiliser cap was announced today as part of the Government’s ...
Following today’s announcements on the government’s response to the future of freshwater, it appears that despite the chorus of calls for a change in how the post-COVID future of Aotearoa is shaped - and following many months of engagement, consultation ...
Horticulture New Zealand says the Government’s decisions around freshwater recognise the importance of growing fresh fruit and vegetables in this country. ‘We applaud the Government for the pragmatic approach it is taking to meeting the long-term freshwater ...
NZ’s primary exports held up well in April, again proving the country’s farming industries are sustaining the economy despite many sectors being stricken by the Covid-19 pandemic. Almost coincidentally, a UMR probe of public opinion about farming revealed a sharp swing in perception. Instead of the negativity that had been ...
In a world where players have unfettered access to fans through Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, it raises the question of whether traditional media still has a role to play. But as Scotty Stevenson explains, a player-driven model powered by social media can only go so far. Among the many weird and ...
Two statements from the Beehive yesterday were enlightening for taxpayers trying to keep tabs on the burgeoning billions being spent on facilitating the economic recovery. One statement told us how much is being handed out to small businesses. Correction. One statement told us how much is being loaned to small ...
Emily Writes celebrates wholesome shows and the rise of cosy television.The world is frightening right now. From Covid-19 to climate change, just watching the news can be overwhelming let alone going outside. This horror is the perfect environment for what I call Soft TV to flourish. Wholesome reality TV isn’t ...
While many areas of the workforce have been shaken by the effects of Covid-19, a Ngāi Tahu futures lab has been working to give rangatahi Māori the opportunity to decide their own futures.Futurists have thought up myriad strategies for how the world should look post-Covid. For all its hurt, the ...
Pacific Media Centre The dramatic daily increase of covid-19 coronavirus cases in West Papua poses a “great threat” to Papua New Guinea, says the country’s deputy emergency chief. State of Emergency Deputy Controller and Acting Secretary for Health Dr Paison Dakulala said the Indonesian-ruled Papua region had seen an increase ...
Recent public opinion polls are revealing some very interesting, if somewhat contradictory, insights into New Zealanders’ current thinking about the Covid19 crisis and the national response. The most recent 1News Colmar Brunton poll reported that 92% of ...
Trucking companies have missed out on the Government’s Covid-19 money lolly scramble and this will mean increased costs across the already damaged economy, Road Transport Forum (RTF) chief executive Nick Leggett says. "Despite working through the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Bowman, Professor of Pyrogeography and Fire Science, University of Tasmania Since last summer’s bushfire crisis, there’s been a quantum shift in public awareness of Aboriginal fire management. It’s now more widely understood that Aboriginal people used landscape burning to sustain biodiversity ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Geoff Hanmer, Adjunct Professor of Architecture, University of Adelaide A return to face to face teaching at universities and technical colleges “where possible” is one of the goals of the Morrison government’s three step framework for a COVIDsafe Australia. A look at ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hazel Easthope, Scientia Associate Professor, City Futures Research Centre, UNSW We’re building a lot of apartments in Australia. High-density precincts are being developed across our major cities. But these buildings and neighbourhoods are often not designed and managed in ways that meet ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Kaine, Associate Professor UTS Centre for Business and Social Innovation, University of Technology Sydney Workers everywhere are feeling the impact of COVID-19 and the restrictions necessitated by COVID-19. In Australia, retail and hospitality workers have been particularly hard hit. In other ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anthony Forsyth, Professor of Workplace Law, RMIT University Prime Minister Scott Morrison this week proposed a new deal in industrial relations, bringing together the government, employers and unions to agree on reforms to create jobs and lift the economy in the post-CIVD-19 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ray Markey, Emeritus Professor, Macquarie University In a bid to repair the economy, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has announced an industrial relations overhaul. Business groups and unions will be brought together to try to change a system that Morrison says is “not ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathon Hutchinson, Senior Lecturer Online Communication and Media, University of Sydney The constraints of coronavirus isolation have closed down most recreational activities, but some creative industries are responding in innovative ways. I have been researching “digital first personalities” – content producers who ...
For all The Spinoff’s latest coverage of Covid-19 see here. Read Siouxsie Wiles’s work here. New Zealand is currently in alert level two – read The Spinoff’s giant explainer about what that means here. For official government advice, see here.The Spinoff’s coverage of the Covid-19 outbreak is funded by The Spinoff Members. To support this ...
Mainfreight's revenues have risen since April 1 despite Covid-19 as it reports higher annual profit and stable dividend, and repays $10.6m wage subsidy. NZX 50 back to March 9 level ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Simon Lamb, Associate Professor in Geophysics, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington Back in the 1970s, scientists came up with a revolutionary idea about how Earth’s deep interior works. They proposed it is slowly churning like a lava lamp, with ...
Open mike 15/07/2014 
Open mike is your post.
Below is the list of gender-critical material which appeared on Redline from July 31, 2019 to September 30, 2019. Sports categories must be by sex, not gender identity Queer theory glossary Woke misogyny and homophobia: a gay critique of trans ideology Another unfortunate experiment? New Zealand’s transgender health policy and ...6 hours ago
Smart Energy Europe: A Plan to provide 100% of ALL ENERGY using Renewable Energy to Europe Introduction All Energy renewable energy systems are often commented on here at Skeptical Science. Many comments suggest that it will be difficult, expensive or impossible to use renewable energy to power the world. To ...12 hours ago
The government released its Action for Healthy Waterways package today, ostensibly with the goal of cleaning up our rivers and making them swimmable within a generation. Doing that, of course, requires confronting the cow in the room: the dairy industry which causes most of the pollution. But while they've imposed ...16 hours ago
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nz I would like to know if New Zealand’s carbon emissions ...17 hours ago
Don Franks Now Covid-19 restrictions allow gatherings of a hundred, an urgent hui needs calling. A special conference of the Council of Trade Unions. Today, workers face the greatest attack on employment, pay and conditions since the depression, we need a strong united union voice. As it stands now, organised ...22 hours ago
Questioning the number of district health boards in New Zealand has got to the extent that “too many DHBs” has become a perceived truth requiring no further elaboration. It is rarely challenged by policy advisers, academics, and journalists. But when one drills down further it becomes clear that the number ...2 days ago
The emergence of a new National party leader, seemingly out of nowhere, has – not surprisingly – raised a number of questions as to who Todd Mulller actually is and what makes him tick. He has been an MP for some time but seems to have hidden his light under ...2 days ago
We all know that many so-called journalists and political commentators in New Zealand work directly or indirectly for political parties or for certain political factions. This was obviously the case when pundit for hire Matthew Hooton launched a campaign against then National Party leader, Simon Bridges, over their numerous polling ...3 days ago
3 days ago
Anyone who keeps an eye on evidence around cannabis and public health will be familiar with the Christchurch Health and Development Study. It's one of two local longitudinal studies frequently cited with respect to cannabis and youth development. But in a new article in the New Zealand Medical Journal, it is ...3 days ago
In the age of covid we are Jacinda’s team of five million, except for some. There has rarely been a more blatant case of discrimination against beneficiaries than Grant Robertson’s announcement yesterday that people who have lost their jobs because of the coronavirus will receive weekly payments of $490 per week for 12 weeks and $250 per week for part time ...3 days ago
Well, we are out of lockdown, essentially. I did end up getting the wage subsidy while we were on levels 3 and 4 but I would have been fine if we didn’t. The first day of level 2, the Thursday, the office opened again for the people who weren’t able ...3 days ago
age credit: Science and Politics – Skeptically.org It seems impossible to keep politics out of science. It’s a pity because politics can end up forcing science to produce the results desired by ... 4 days ago
The National Party are quite simply a party out of time… Literally, insofar as the 2020 Election is concerned, and certainly in terms of their ideological positioning which has grown far more trenchantly extreme in the last few years in particular, under the leadership of both Simon Bridges, and Paula ...1 week ago
Children used in this study were from Lintingkou town (a normal-fluoride/control area) and Dakoutun town (a high-fluoride area) in Baodi district of Tianjin, China. The towns are 25 km apart. Anti-fluoridation activists on ... 1 week ago
Arguments by religious folk that they are being discriminated against under the Level 2 pandemic restrictions in NZ, which limit church services to ten people or less when schools, restaurants, malls and other service outlets are allowed to host many more people under voluntary self-distancing protocols, got me to think ...1 week ago
The Green Party says major freshwater reforms announced today provide the strongest ever protections of our waterways, to help ensure the next generation can swim in the rivers of Aotearoa. ...17 hours ago
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs Hon Megan Woods, Minister of Research, Science and Innovation Hon Dr David Clark, Minister of Health Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters, Research, Science and Innovation Minister Megan Woods, and Health Minister David Clark today announced a COVID-19 vaccine strategy, ...3 days ago
Budget 2020 is about rebuilding together, supporting jobs, getting business moving and the books back into the black. It’s an integral part of our COVID-19 economic response, and our plan to grow our economy and get New Zealand moving again. Here’s a quick look at the five top things you ...4 days ago
The law setting out New Zealanders’ basic civil and human rights is today one step towards being strengthened following the first reading of a Bill that requires Parliament to take action if a court says a statute undermines those rights. At present, a senior court can issue a ‘declaration of ...8 hours ago
This week's biggest-selling New Zealand books, as recorded by the Nielsen BookScan New Zealand bestseller list and described by Steve Braunias. FICTION 1 Auē by Becky Manawatu (Makaro Press, $35) Hard-out story of a tragic family, and winner of the best novel of the year at the 2020 Ockham New ...28 mins ago
A case over the treatment of pigs in New Zealand will be in court in less than two weeks. Pat Baskett takes a look at the potential impacts of the outcome. Phoebe was a pig I wrote about some years ago. Her life was a misery. She lived in a ...59 mins ago
Tāmati Kruger speaks to Rod Oram about Tūhoe's response to Covid-19 in the Te Urewera mountains, and how the iwi is looking to a much stronger NZ society that's aware of its obligations to be a far wiser caretaker of our natural resources. ...59 mins ago
Those working to stop family violence must keep consider both victims and the violent - but those at greatest risk of harm must be paramount, writes Julia Tolmie If we are to stop family violence, then offenders need to stop using violence. It follows that we need to engage more ...59 mins ago
How many languages do you think are spoken in New Zealand on a daily basis? Five, 10, 50? The answer is that more than 160 languages. That being the case, how do we make sure all our children are receiving the best possible education? Dr Corinne Seals from Te Herenga ...59 mins ago
After a pandemic-induced lockdown, a ministry pulls services from terror victims because of “minimal contact”. David Williams reports Imam Abdul Alabi Lateef opens the new, sturdy door at Christchurch’s Linwood Islamic Centre which, little more than a year ago, was the scene of a terrorist attack. The first thing he ...59 mins ago
The government is heralding its $700m Te Mana o te Wai package as a game-changer for the health of New Zealand waterways. But for freshwater scientist Russell Death, it’s a bitter disappointment.Two weeks into alert level two, it seems we have already forgotten all those resolutions about the pandemic being ...1 hour ago
How can the country return to normal and still keep the good things about lockdown? That includes kinder politics, and working from home. New Zealand’s Covid-19 pandemic isn’t done and dusted quite yet. But considering daily new cases are now odds-on to be zero, what lessons have we learned from the past ...1 hour ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra It was Greg Combet, one-time ACTU secretary and former Labor minister, who got Christian Porter and Sally McManus together in the early days of the pandemic. Recalling what happened, Porter told the Australian Financial Review ...8 hours ago
September could be a "realistic" time frame for New Zealand's borders to open up to Australia, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says. ...11 hours ago
Rod Oram spoke to the leaders of 16 Kiwi businesses over seven weeks, during which they and their businesses rose to meet unprecedented demands. Here's what he learned. ...12 hours ago
...12 hours ago
The Government is cracking down on nitrogen fertiliser use and asking councils to speed up their planning processes in order to clean up the country's waterways, Marc Daalder reports One in five farmers will have to reduce the amount of nitrogen fertiliser they are using under a new rule announced ...13 hours ago
NZ’s primary exports held up well in April, again proving the country’s farming industries are sustaining the economy despite many sectors being stricken by the Covid-19 pandemic. Almost coincidentally, a UMR probe of public opinion about farming revealed a sharp swing in perception. Instead of the negativity that had been ...19 hours ago
Two statements from the Beehive yesterday were enlightening for taxpayers trying to keep tabs on the burgeoning billions being spent on facilitating the economic recovery. One statement told us how much is being handed out to small businesses. Correction. One statement told us how much is being loaned to small ...20 hours ago
Mainfreight's revenues have risen since April 1 despite Covid-19 as it reports higher annual profit and stable dividend, and repays $10.6m wage subsidy. NZX 50 back to March 9 level ...23 hours ago
So political pressure was applied to Immigration NZ to allow Kim Dotcom to STAY in New Zealand even though they knew at the time of the FBI investigation …
Wow, just wow …
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11293403
hmmm, and all the way from the top.
*jaws theme plays 😉
I think you will find that nice, honest Mr Key is just a victim of all these people who keep letting him down. The herald waiting til he was away on hols is a coincidence.
“I know you know” ?
😀 +1 Kiwiri
“I know you know”. That was a great line and now the chickens have come home to roost…
Or Key’s sudden decision to go off the NZ grid to Hawaii now explained? When Key’s holiday was suddenly in the news, I wondered what might be coming up.
You seriously think the Prime Minister has gone on vacation to Hawaii because of (yet another) media installment on KDC? Could you say it again so I can be gob smacked again?
You’re right, it’s probably just (yet another) coincidence of Key being home in Hawaii whenever bad news is expected.
You are familar with the OIA process are you not?
Come now karol, only the naive believe nothing is planned and bad news coming out when Key is out of the country is just coincidence.
snap!
spooky
And what now Mr Brainfade Key? Do you still not remember a larger than life millionaire in your own electorate?
Collins has her “oops”, and now this, and all while johnny is on holiday… coincidence?
Time and time again, this government conveniently goes on holiday.
Kiwiri
Its amazing jusr how many holidays this playboy PM has ,all in his mansions and classy flats.
When one realises that we in Aotearoa have thousands of homeless and people living in garages it’s an insult to have this PM hoping around the world and staying in houses big enough to accomodate at least four families. What ever happened to our decent fair society .
“The SIS tried to block Kim Dotcom’s residency application but dropped their objection 90 minutes after being told there was “political pressure” to let the tycoon into New Zealand, secret documents from the spy agency reveal.”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11293403
And the Minister in Charge of the SIS is ……John Key
http://www.dpmc.govt.nz/cabinet/portfolios/new-zealand-security-intelligence-service
Labour’s associate NZSIS spokesman, Grant Robertson, said the claims of political pressure were “extraordinary”.
“I’ve never heard of a situation like this before. Political pressure means politicians.
“There are serious questions about what John Key knew and when.”
Hmm, indeed, ShonKey’s ‘misremembering’ of when he first knew of Kim Dotcom is going to be revisited. He is the minister of NZSIS. Well sort of, when it suits him.
Was it easier or harder for the FBI to launch its extradition of DotCom if he had PR in NZ? At least with PR he would stay in NZ, and they could target him with a helpful NZ Minister in charge of all things skullduggeryish?
A few weeks ago I posted something my brother had told me about the high roller categoiry and why he thought KDC was SO pissed off with NZ govt, including Banks, namely the Nats had used him as their highroller pin up boy for their new and hurried 2009 policy… but when he wanted a mattress they ran for the hills and colluded with the US.
Wow indeed.
The article,and papers released to Fisher, also appear to validate KDC’s claims that the lifting of NZSIS opposition to his application for permanent residency in Oct 2010 was tied to knowledge of the impending FBI/NZ Police operations etc – and that the NZSIS head, Warren Tucker, knew. (KDC made the latter claim in a brief tweet in later 2013).
And Key still claims he did not know about KDC until a day before the raid in Jan 2012? I feel a Tui Ad coming on.
I am confused by Laila Harre’s comments in the Herald article (and in her interview on Morning Report about half an hour ago) and cannot yet figure out where she is coming from. IIRC at the time she was appointed as Leader of the IP, she said something to the effect that she would not be getting involved in KEC’s legal issues, but here she is commenting … Could be some interesting discussions KDC/Harre when they start their Internet MANA road trip with Hone Harawira today in the far north.
PS – if anyone missed it, last week KDC’s extradition hearing was again delayed until 16 Feb 2015.
I DID miss it. It was going to be prior tot he election wasn’t it?
Laila Harre is commenting on allegations of a government not following its on constitutional process. She also says she would have denied Mr DotCom PR on the basis of the SIS block. For her to not say something on an important issue such as constitutional abuse would give more pause. IMO.
The extradition hearing was due to start in the North Shore District Court Monday last week, July 7, but all indications from the other legal proceedings currently underway were that a delay was likely. Also KDC took his children to Queenstown about July 4 for 10 days’ holiday so was not ‘in town’ for July 7 – another indicator. (Mona also went to Queenstown – and KDC tweeted a lot of pictures of them all, including Mona’s birthday celebrations there. Apparently, friends still but no reconciliation.)
Other ongoing legal proceedings cover the release of KDC’s computer contents etc, compensation sought by KDC et al, the release of KDC’s assets, and the newer civil claims by Hhollywood moguls to seize his assets. All very confusing and complicated, but there is a hearing on one or other of these due on July 30. Will see what I can dig out in terms of links if I have time later today.
Re Laila Harre’s comments, now I am a bit more awake, I think you are right – she is commenting on the lack of following due process etc and silence would have caused more speculation. This approach is also probably with KDC’s agreement etc.
I think Harre is also taking a step to proactively present herself as being independent of Dotcom re- his legal and extradition cases.
I agree. Whether you believe it or not, she has today, by implication, stated she is not a DotCom puppet. Guyon struggled with the concept a bit.
Like many he can’t imagine how you can be paid to do something by someone and NOT do everything that person wants you to do, AND assumes that because DotCom bankrolled it he would want to tell Harre what she can and can’t talk about, and enforce it.
Actually, Harre’s statements don’t mean in practice she’s totally independent of KDC, just that she is intentionally presenting herself in that way.
She seems fully briefed on all the back evidence of the KDC case, and quick off the mark with a statement.
“Whether you believe it or not…”
That’s probably because he, seemingly, expects everyone to be a puppet of someone rich and powerful.
From memory, KDC brought this up himself at the CGSB meeting in Auckland town hall. His point was not about whether or not he should be allowed permanent residence, but that the speed with which the decision was made suggested, in hindsight, that he had been set up for all that followed. So I don’t think he would have a problem with Harre’s saying what she has said.
..@olwyn..
..+ 1..
I think you are right about KDC saying that at the GCSB meeting; and I also seem to recall him tweeting about it and/or mentioning it in other interviews etc. Re Harre’s remarks, I was still half asleep when I first read the Herald article, and now agree with Karol etc re Harre’s comments.
Chris Keall has now posted an article on NBR which I have linked to and commented on at the dedicated post, which covers Harre’s comments and is worth reading.
Thanks for re-posting that link. It seems consistent to me that the leader of a party opposed to cronyism should stand up for the principles that constrain governments rather than KDC himself, and I think he would agree with that. Harre is depicted as being in a “tricky position” because she is not acting as the National Party would under equivalent circumstances. Instead of trying to put her finger on the scales in her mate’s favour, as they would, she is looking at how those scales are supposed to work.
Thanks VV. I also missed that info about Dotcoms extradition hearing being delayed until Feb 2015
I think we have nailed the bastard now. This will roll on into the campaign and Key will be faced with continuous questions of why he is a liar.
After nearly 300 documented lies what makes you think that Key will suddenly face questions as to why he lied?
xox
Police manipulate the crime data. Is this not a crime? I.e if an engineer, doctor or an accountant did that they would be …. probably promoted. Hey this is wild west noo zeeland! What other government stats can we trust? Health, education, poverty, housing, growth, river polution, foreign ownership ….. There is no corruption in NZ! We are top of the Transparency International non corruption stakes! Doesn’t say much about the standard around the west.
“..Scientists reveal how THC – found in cannabis – ‘could slow cancer tumour growth’..
New study from University of East Anglia reveals important details of marijuana’s ‘poorly understood’ anti-cancer properties..”
(cont..)
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/scientists-reveal-how-thc–found-in-cannabis–could-slow-cancer-tumour-growth-9605219.html
Ah Phillip, playing the ‘other string’ on your two stringed violin today are we…
Phillip. I know your dual lifestyle interests are important to you, but with respect, I have to say, it’s a bit much hearing about it every single morning on Open Mike.
I’m not discrediting some of the valid points you raise, but asking if you have considered what it’s like for readers who get the vegan n’ drug news roundup of the day, every day? It’s bordering on the evangelical comrade.
Heh, ‘Open Phil’ (TRP) or ‘The Phil ’n’ Bad Show’?
Over exposure can lead to unexpected outcomes as the actor said to the Bishop.
Once Pete George was gone it was all on for the Phil n’ Bad show (or breakfast with Phil n’ Bad).
I admit the show is entertaining, but it is however just one aspect of the morning vegan n’ drug round up.
if on my morning rounds..i find a story proving the cancer-preventing causes of cannabis..i will post it..
..if i don’t nobody will..
..so..y’know..!..stick in in yr pipe..eh..?..rosie..and others..
Rosie
……………..Hear
…………………… hear!
gee rodel..!
..yr name is not at all familiar..
..have you ever said anything here of the slightest fucken interest..?..to anyone..?
..care to link it to us..
..or do you just whine on cue..?
..and that that weirdo bad..and his gibbering sidekick choose to follow me around..
..is not really down to me..
..so..you can just ‘pipe it’ too..eh..?
..and don’t take offence if i now studiously avoid you..
..as you of course can do with my comments..
OK phil. That is the response I was expecting, so no surprises there.
I would have thought your own site would be adequate for the promotion of your views and posting of news, so I’m not sure why you feel the need such frequent vegan n drug themed posts here. Nothing stopping you of course. I’ll just continue to scroll on by to the tune of walk on by when you are posting on those two topics.
As for Rodel, he/she has been around for some time, you just haven’t noticed.
Ta Rosie.
I’m sometimes hesitant and potentially embarrassed to recommend to friends that they should read ‘The Standard’ as a left leaning blog site when it’s dominated by people who are focussed on veganism, marihuanism and fuckenism in incoherent language, obsessions which have little to do with what I believe is the main intent of the site.
And yes I usually skip by but was impressed by your kind, considerately worded and respectful rebuke.
Lols Rodel. Go right ahead and proudly recommend TS to your friends! Your friends will quickly come to realise that phil is unique and once they see the almighty rows he has with people that don’t meet his expectations or agree with him, they’ll get the picture, understand that he’s a man going along on his own buzz and not be put off.
Phil and I have had these chats before, so it’s nothing new. I just got a bit annoyed by all the dominant discussion about GE vegan milk over the last few days so felt I had to air that annoyance. Usually I would just ignore it but the soapbox was taking up all the room.
My main issue is with people telling people how to live their lives, and not respecting the choices that others make. Education and gentle encouragement of those of wanting to make healthy changes in their lives is helpful but preaching isn’t – (hence the evangelical reference).
In saying all that I do believe phil has a fine sense of humour and a quick wit. I like the way he delivers his words, once you get past the formatting of them (and when they’re not angry spiteful words) – It’s just those swings into fanaticism that get in the way.
Rosie
Your self restraint is commendable.
I don’t think the word ‘wit’ is fully appropriate but I admire your therapeutic perspective and persistence.
Some posts require zen like amounts of self restraint, but I do try to remember that ultimately we’re all on the same side, brothers and sisters, even when one of us chooses to be the problem child for the day 🙂
A gibbering weirdo Phillip, you are being eloquent today, tho i do fear that you were looking in the mirror when that thought was provoked by the crashing together of your remaining two working neurons,
The ‘proof’, apparently from a study in dear old England, has been published, the misuse of Marijuana over a long term gives you brain damage,(very much evident from the digital scribble you produce),
i will try and hunt out a link later…
i see the herald is now carrying this story..
..which is unusual for a pot-bashing/prohibition-supporting rag like that..
“..Dr Peter McCormick, from the University of East Anglia’s (UEA) school of pharmacy, said THC’s anti-cancer properties have been known for some time – but the study had identified the receptors responsible for fighting tumours.
“Our findings help explain some of the well-known but still poorly understood effects of THC at low and high doses on tumour growth,” he said…”
Heartwarming to see the support for Palestinians at The Standard yesterday, and while some of the apologists happily squawk ‘points of order’ as people (ie Palestinians) die; the international tide does seem to be turning on the Israeli apartheid state.
Show public solidarity;
Rally for all victims of Israeli brutality
Auckland, Saturday July 19, 2pm Aotea Square
+1 Tiger Mountain.
Key branded as “a rouge currency trader, applying his shyster traits running Government.” Don’t ya love the thought of Key in the dock, they should charge him with treason.
http://m.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11293264
I cannot for the life of me see what law he is supposed to have broken here?
The actual laws that the charges were brought under were mentioned in the original charges. Essentially, IIRC, it amounts to aiding and abetting Banks in his crime.
how long has key been using heavy-make-up..?
..are you saying since his early days as a money-trader..?
..whoar..!
..who knew..?
@Phillip LOL
A small number of us around the country chatted about conducting a people’s “mock trial” of John Key, broadcast around the country via the internet and Youtubed, that can be launched before the general election.
We are happy for anybody who has the network and contacts to run with this. (Need to check this will be ok with electoral laws.)
If you had read his biography, you would realise he was not a rouge currency trader. They usually end up in prison – although I don’t think you mean rouge ones.
Also, can you please explain which element of the treason provisions you see him being charfed with?
http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1961/0043/latest/DLM328520.html
Or are you being absurd for entertainment?
“Or are you being absurd for entertainment?”
And take your job? God forbid.
“charfed”, is that olde english?
no its just moranspeak!
you know.
tories who think they are erudite but the more they open their mouths the more they mangle the language.
history will judge him as a disgrace to the human race.
no matter what he is charfed with!
you mean keys hagiography?
hardly likely to say hes anything but leigt is it
i dont know whats stupider – that you seem to believe such nonsense or that you thought it would carry any weight with… anyone but the love struck
i would say all of these count if you include economic war under the war category
b) levies war against New Zealand; or(c) assists an enemy at war with New Zealand, or any armed forces against which New Zealand forces are engaged in hostilities, whether or not a state of war exists between New Zealand and any other country; or
(d) incites or assists any person with force to invade New Zealand; or
(e) uses force for the purpose of overthrowing the Government of New Zealand; or
(f) conspires with any person to do anything mentioned in this section.
Obviously, we need to update treason to include:
Working with a foreign nation against the best interests of New Zealand
But as it stands we could probably find something under Part 6.
john oliver has done a piece on inequality…
..well worth the watch…
http://www.alternet.org/video/video-john-oliver-rants-brilliantly-about-income-inequality-and-deluded-american-dream
He is doing a great job making people aware of issues……….
I clicked on the dotcom topic and was redirected to the following link. Is it legit?
__http://freevouchers2014.com/prot/nz/WSD1RE3_index.php?lb=1&engsec=5&keyword=thestandard.org.nz
Shouldn’t have done that unless you accidentally clicked on an advert instead.
From my wireless, the World Health Organization has declared the Ebola Virus ‘out of control’ in Central Africa…
Srylands, yes it woud be ideal but even the most extreme optimists among us can’t hope for prison. He will probably just head back to his philosophical Homeland.
Tory child abuse whistleblower: ‘Margaret Thatcher knew all about underage sex ring among ministers’
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/tory-child-abuse-whistleblower-margaret-
this whole Fernbridge, Fairbank & Yewtree situation in the UK is getting pretty serious
John Lydon talks about Jimmy Saville and his ‘seediness’ during an interview recorded for BBC radio
looks like rotten knew what was going on !
Your Thatcher link doesn’t work.
http://www.irishmirror.ie/news/world-news/tory-child-abuse-whistleblower-margaret-3849172
There are allegations there but no substantiated evidence.
Jerry Sadowitz.
Call in Jimmy Savile. You can’t afford to fuck about – bring in an expert. He may have fooled you, not fucking me.’
Interesting radionz this am.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport
Climate Voter group to take Electoral Commission to court ( 3′ 9″ )
06:45 A group of environmental organisations are taking the Electoral Commission to court over a decision that would require their “Vote for the Climate” initiative to be subject to electoral rules.
and again – a longer version
Climate campaigners go to high court over classification ( 4′ 49″ )
07:40 A group of climate change campaigners are going to the High Court after their website was ruled an election advertisement.
srylands and gosman
The odd couple. Where would we be without them?
In a less frowny brow place?
Their natural lowbrow habitats, drumroll, Slater & Farrar might get SS and Gosman down after a while so The Standard is a refreshing change for them at least.
More than 40,000 people call on BBC to reflect reality of Gaza’s occupation
July 14, 2014
Noam Chomsky, John Pilger and Ken Loach are among more than 40,000 signatories who have signed an open letter to the BBC calling on its journalists to reflect the reality of Gaza’s occupation while reporting on Israel’s current assault.
MPs have also signed the letter which will be delivered to the BBC tomorrow (15th July) during a protest outside its Portland Place, London, headquarters.
The letter reminds the BBC that Israel is bombing a refugee population which is being held under occupation and siege. It is a population which has no army, navy or air force with which to defend itself against the fourth largest military power in the world.
Sarah Colborne, Director of Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which will be delivering the letter, said: “These are simple facts, none of which have been present in any of the BBC’s coverage so far of Israel’s assault on Gaza.
“However, they are vital facts and their absence results in BBC coverage which is unbalanced and lacking in context. Their omission allows the BBC to present Israel’s assault as a retaliation to Palestinian rockets rather than as an enforcement of its occupation and siege.
“Truly unbiased journalism would allow its consumers to consider both options instead of presenting them with just one viewpoint, as the BBC is doing.”
Protests took place outside BBC studios in Nottingham and Manchester on 10th July, and in Bristol on 11th July, demanding balanced reporting from BBC journalists.
Tuesday’s protest at Portland Place will call on the BBC to report the truth about Israel’s occupation and siege on Gaza, instead of concealing facts from its audiences. It will take place from 5.30pm to 7.30pm.
PSC’s letter to the BBC can be viewed here:
http://www.palestinecampaign.org/sign-open-letter-bbc/
It will be addressed to the BBC’s Director General, Lord Hall.
The letter will remain on the website after Tuesday, allowing more people to sign. New signatures will be delivered to the BBC next week.
here..tvones’ coverage is shocking..in its’ bias..
..on a day of innocent men/women/children being blown to smithereens by the israelis while trapped in their ghetto..
..peter williams repeatedly plays footage of/murmers sympathetic words about the ‘poor israelis’..being bothered by sirens etc..
..and that far-right/capital-punishment-supporting business-trout nadine whoever..
..uses the words ‘the israel government’ in the most respectful tones..
..and the words ‘palestinian-militants’ wih a lip-smacking disdain/contempt so strong u cd almost bottle it..
..so biased she should be carrying a placard…
I agree with you, Phillip—the television presenters on both channels seem to be sympathetic to the aggressors and indifferent to the victims. I presume that is because they are ignorant rather than vicious. Even when they try to say something intelligent and/or humane, they betray their ignorance by calling the killings “disproportionate”, which implies there is a “proportionate” number of Palestinian civilians that they may kill.
However, on the positive side, I must say I was astonished to hear Susan Wood on the notoriously right wing, pro-Israel, pro-Communist China, pro-any-repressive-regime NewstalkZB last night; she was clearly shocked and disgusted by the Israeli actions.
Fixed the Feeds tab
Thanks. TS is running much more smoothly for me today. None of the “no data received” and duplicate notices.
Yeah. It was a problem over the weekend. However Lyn passed on a head cold that had been carefully nurtured by one of her nieces, so I didn’t fix it. Got it yesterday morning.
There still seemed to be the odd dup message later yesterday afternoon. But they were all from Gosman, and I suspect from a cached bad copy of some of the javascript (Shift+Refresh or Shift+F5 is your friend).
Kelvin Davis is either an easy target for Herald reporters – or he doesn’t think before speaking – even on topics that have a wealth of information supporting Labour’s policy stances.
Herald article today: Labour MP backs ‘holiday highway’
I’m always waiting for the boot to drop when watching him on TV.
Basically, I’d expect any electorate MP to argue for their electorate first in public, the caucus, and parliament. That is their job.
I’d also expect that on the odd occasion that they will cross the floor for their electorate as Damien O’Conner and another Labour MP recently did.
But they’d better have a damn good argument for the caucus room if they do the latter.
In this case, Labour’s policy is to do what I think should happen. The worst points in the current road should be progressively fixed rather throwing a unneeded extension in. First priority amongst them should be getting rid of that bloody useless set of lights at Wellsford, preferably by bypassing the town. Same at Wellsford. That gets rid of half of the weekend congestion problem straight. Secondly fix the known bad corners and straighten the road. Thirdly provide a better way to get up the steep and windy bluff.
But Matt L at transport blog will have a better list.
Yes, provided link to Matt L at transport blog. They have been pretty good there at documenting inconsistencies in Nationals’s planning and previous cost/benefit calculations.
I understand Davis standing up for his electorate, but the assumption that any spending remains good just because it is in the electorate is dubious and naive at best.
Northland would benefit from targeting spending – yes – I agree. But from targeted spending on roads, not so much.
There are always going to be conflicts between electorate MPs and society wide party policies. I’d prefer that they are reasonably open about it, but making damn clear that they are their personal preference
The trouble with that is that it ends up looking like waffle, or even worse for the electorate candidates it looks to their voters like they’re lying about what they’ll actually do.
But it’s happening on enough random policies that a case can be made that Labour electorate candidates are electorate representatives before party apparatchiks. List MPs can push the official party line, but electorate candidates need their local support.
I agree. It really is a hell of an ask for a electorate MP/candidate to commit suicide for the party. Usually there are only a few issues like that in specific electorates.
In this case Davis could easily have said that the upgrades that Labour will do will achieve what Northland needs while costing less and being done quicker. That way he would have been onside with his potential constituents and fully backing Labour’s policy.
Thing is, the only reason he wouldn’t do that is because of ignorance which really doesn’t help show that he’d be a good electorate MP.
not when his constituents are telling him they want that road because the current one keeps getting washed out. It would look like he gets asked a question about a specific need for the region and responds with party waffle. Which is a problem that list-only candidates don’t really face, as they can pivot any specific complaint to a wider issue.
What he did manage to do was talk about Northland mayors being involved in an integrated regional transport plan, which spreads the responsibility and maybe provides an acceptable alternative if the highway isn’t built to the nactoid schedule.
But, as has been pointed out, that particular road won’t help with that.
Or he could respond with facts. The most important being that National’s Holiday Highway isn’t going to help them anymore than the faster and cheaper upgrades will.
We’re not talking about “facts” here.
We’re talking about the perceptions and desires of voters in his electorate.
And his position [edit:typolol @ “potion”] won’t change a thing either way: if JK is PM in november, the highway gets fast-tracked. If Cunliffe is PM, it won’t.
So Davis can support something knowing that if he’s in a position to oppose it then it won’t go through anyway because his cabinet colleagues will nuke it, and then use that support as a pivot for another issue (in this case local government joining together to form a regional transport plan).
Or he can oppose something his electorate want (for better or worse), and then get bogged down in the hustings arguing about a fucking road that will be constructed or not regardless of electorate outcome.
Frankly, I think his comment was a good move for both his campaign and Labour. Rather than Little or O’Conner just being dicks, it’s become standard Labour practise for electorate MPs to (shock horror) represent their electorates.
These Labour candidates need to weigh up the effect that their comments have on the party vote aswell as their electorate- because they are not working solely for their electorate they are in a nationwide party. If they don’t want to think about such matters then I suggest they choose to be independents.
I, for one, am getting tired of the unclear/conflicting stance these electorate politicians are taking toward their own party policies – this gives me the ‘perception’ that Labour are going to have difficulty with internal harmony in government. I wonder how many others are responding like myself?
The type of discussion that Kelvin and co are raising with the media/public – needs to be had internally first and then a decision needs to be made so that a united message is given to the general public.
Conversely Kelvin &co have the option to stand as an independents – of course it is unlikely that they choose this option because politicians such as Kelvin get a lot of pay-offs for being involved in the 2nd biggest party in New Zealand. If, however, politicians from Labour continue to present a non-united and accordingly unclear message then they won’t belong to the 2nd biggest party in NZ after-all because less and less people will trust that Labour are capable of working in a competent and harmonious fashion.
If the electorate candidates were in conflict with the bulk of Labour policy, I agree: they shouldn’t be Labour candidates.
But when there’s conflict between party policy and one or two issues within an electorate, it’s not a problem. The impact on the party vote would be minimal within the electorate (the voter already dislikes the policy). Outside the electorate, people can understand the conflict the electorate MP faces.
It’s easy to have a consistent message if your policy is meaningless waffle. But people with different geographic perspectives have different priorities, and Davis and the West Coast MPs made it clear they were working in what they felt were the interests of their electorates.
Whereas Little playing to his “afraid to be alone with a woman” base did damage, in my opinion, because it was a local comment about a country-wide issue. He should have kept to a local comment about a local issue.
This issue for me is something that may well stop me voting for Labour.
You assume that ‘people understand’ the conflict. No sorry, I don’t and won’t be putting effort into understanding it – because I doubt people who spend less time and have less interest in politics than myself will; so why would I bother?
i.e. It is up to Labour to present themselves in a manner where less doubt creeps in; it is not for me, you or anyone else to take time to ‘understand’ the poor wee conflicted dears. This is a discussion that needs to be discussed amongst themselves and addressed internally so that they can present a united and clear message as a party.
I was forgiving of a few random comments but this is starting to be a pattern with Labour and as I have already relayed I can only assume that if I react with impatience to such a very clear show of lack of discipline others will.
Labour have to understand and work through the conflicts themselves internally and present a much clearer and united message to us all externally than they have been recently because there are plenty of other parties to vote for.
Um, LOL?
As much as we like to think that we’re all powerful Mother Nature will surely do whatever She pleases to whatever we build.
@ Molly,
I think your comment re ‘thinking before they speak’ is becoming the most appropriate response to this increasing trend of Labour candidates/MPs coming out with statements that are inharmonious toward and/or fudging of their own policies. I had initially thought it was an issue over how their statements were being reported – but now, no – there is something wrong with Labour’s messaging skills.
I would have thought the one thing that is very important that Labour convey is that they are working together with a single-minded focus – both internally and externally i.e. that they are cooperative and harmonious amongst themselves and also toward potential coalition partners. This would convey that they will be an effective, stable and competent government.
The other important factor is clear communication.
Neither of these have been soundly achieved recently.
I am strongly supportive of Mr Cunliffe due to the strong support he gained from the Labour party members and the unions – and this is a strong factor that makes Labour an option for my vote – however I am getting fed up with the inconsistent and inharmonious manner the Labour party politicians are presenting the message of their party policies and in the manner they show support (or lack of it) for other like-minded parties.
Surely the most important goal for Labour politicians is to achieve a consistent and clear message of what they represent? The amount of reports coming out about Labour politicians contradicting and/or making unclear statements about their own policies is getting beyond the pail.
I am losing patience with this phenomena. Are Labour politicians completely unable to display some discipline in their messaging or do they simply not see the importance of conveying a clear and consistent message to the general public?
So Kelvin Davis wants the road projects in Northland but the Labour party wants to scrap them?
Kelvin Davis said today: “The Government needs to step up and help local councils fix infrastructure problems highlighted by the recent Northland storms. The bad weather has amplified how susceptible the North really is at times like this. Our roading infrastructure is a major source of concern. This weather event has shown that when the main road in and out of the north fails” Link is here http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1407/S00262/call-for-government-to-step-up-in-north.htm
It seems as the the roading projects are necessary and vital for jobs and economic development in the north but Labour doesn’t want them?
Hi stupid dickhead. The Labour position is in the NZ Herald article that someone else linked to.
Instead of the gold-plated RONS gift for holiday makers, Labour simply wants to fix the existing road. That is something that should have been started 5 years ago. Instead National dumped that for their Road Of Significance for National.
This upgrade is a hell of a lot cheaper, will happen a lot faster, and actually have a return on investment that doesn’t require dubious projections to justify.
So why do you think we should waste a billion plus dollars of taxpayers money for something that could be as easily be done by simply fixing the existing road for a few hundred million.
Perhaps the question should be – can you think?
Wow so that was offensive. If I had made that insult then I would have been kicked off this site quick-smart. No need to get personal.
It is better in this case to do the whole job. Fixing bits and bobs along the road will not fix the underlying problems: travel speeds and wash outs. Both of these are vital for commerical certainty and business growth.
Rather than patching up the existing winding mess that is the current road (a second-world patch up job) as you propose, I believe it is better to do a real first-world job on it. If we want to be a first world country, we need the infrastructure to back it up.
Good. That was the intent. It helps to get fools curled up in a catatonic fetal balls sucking their fingers to pay attention to things outside their own head.
Tick 1 – trolling standard response when challenged. Whine about politeness.
If you act like a stupid arsehole making dumb fact free assertions, then I’ll treat you as one. I find that it helps lazy shitheads like yourself learn to be more cautious and to use google before wasting my time reading your rather obvious lack of attention. Since I read most of the comments on this site you can guarantee if you keep being lazy then I will notice and give you a kick to improve your standard of commenting.
Read the policy. With a few relatively rare exceptions I as a moderator couldn’t give a damn about personal insults, unless they were pointless, or you were off topic, or it was clear that someone was deliberately trying to kick off a flamewar.
Since I do most of the moderation around here, your statement has the ring of a idiot trying to dig himself in deeper in quicksand.
Why? We’re only talking between Puhio and Wellsford. Not between Wellsford and Whangarei where much of the washout areas are.
The washouts only happen in a couple of locations up to Wellsford.
The amount of commercial traffic is minimal compared to the number of cars clogging the roads and almost all of it happens in only a few places. What causes issues are congestion problems at a couple of locations with cars which don’t require a whole new road to be built.
Moreover if what you were saying was true, then it would show up immediately on the economic cost benefit analysis. Which it does not because the dickheads from NZTA haven’t published one (which suggests that it is far worse then slender 1.2 for the Wellington Basin reserve flyover).
Moreover they’re projecting a average annual 4.4% growth in traffic to north of Warkworth. However they chose a measurement site inside the Warkworth ‘urban’ area which does show a annual 4.1% growth – of people driving around town. When you measure north of Warkworth on the open road, there is no growth.
So over 9 years there has been a pipsqueak of traffic growth north of Warkworth. So why exactly are we spending a billion plus for this road? To cure a economic problem that doesn’t exist?
I don’t think that there is any economic benefit apart from a few congestion issues for cars going to baches. Most of which can be fixed with a few much easier and cheaper improvements. This road appears to have more to do with National wanting to help their favourite donating property developers than for any economic benefits for the north.
Basically you should probably read the posts about this topic this link over at transportblog. Then you might sound less like a ignorant doofus.
You take yourself far too seriously. You think your bitter communist raving has the effect of causing people to be become fetal?
I see that you are avoiding the intent of the comment.
I guess that is because you are probably a bit too stupid to understand it. Right?
After all traffic patterns are hard data and a ineffectual theorist like yourself can’t handle actual facts.
I don’t think Wreckingball has the whole picture. The holiday highway which the Nat Govt intends spending billions on is only going as far as Wellsford (and will take probably a decade or so to build).
It won’t solve the problems Kelvin Davis is talking about – which are : that the road – the State Highway One for gawds sake – north of Whangarei is a mess, its unreliable, it gets flooded too easily and breaks up (as can be seen just south of Kawakawa right now where it is impassable) – and the alternative routes are really non-existent – unless you take the very long old Russell Road out towards Paihia and Opua – adding another couple of hours onto your journey.
The current side roads which traffic is using – such as the Ruapekapeka Road – are now crumbling and disintegrating under the unaccustomed traffic because they are “side roads” – unsealed, narrow, winding, and not built for major traffic use.
So the proposed govt billion-dollar spend on the “holiday highway” is NOT going to do much good for the mid-to Far North. Th e govt needs to spend some serious money on making sure State Highway One from Whangarei to Cape Reinga is well built, well maintained, and has reliable alternative routes around it, if needed in extreme weather events as has just happened – and are likely to happen in the future.
Yeah, the Puhio to Wellsford road will largely only have regular heavier traffic for the foreseeable future to Warkworth. Most will be cars going there on weekends. Wellsford on holidays.
Truck traffic increasing will be bugger all. They have a pretty good port up north, so why would they move the heavy export stuff out of anywhere apart from the port. The population is static or declining so there isn’t a massive need to increase that.
Tourism really doesn’t have an issue apart from the usual Auckland holiday outpouring.
In the meantime the roads up north are getting torn to pieces through a lack of maintenance and upgrades.
Manipulating online polls. No wonder David Farrar is pushing online voting!
Glen Greenwald’s latest gem:
“The secretive British spy agency GCHQ has developed covert tools to seed the internet with false information, including the ability to manipulate the results of online polls, artificially inflate pageview counts on web sites, “amplif[y]” sanctioned messages on YouTube, and censor video content judged to be “extremist.” The capabilities, detailed in documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, even include an old standby for pre-adolescent prank callers everywhere: A way to connect two unsuspecting phone users together in a call.”
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/07/14/manipulating-online-polls-ways-british-spies-seek-control-internet/
There’s a difference between online polls and online voting. Most notably the fact that the former is anonymous and the latter isn’t.
I’ve been fuming all morning while listening to RadioLive’s Sean Plunket’s talkshit (I know, I know…) where he shat all over Labour’s policies and tried to minimise the Dotcom scandal evolving. And then he decided to ‘break’ a Whaleoil story about Mike Rowley (who?) who alleges that David Cunliffe promised him a favour in exchange for some dirt on Steven Joyce and his involvement with the Exclusive Brethren. Anyway, he got hoisted by his own petard. The guy proved a total fraud and serves them all right when they take any crap from WhaleSoil as a Gospel.
I like Whale – But I would have to agree the current post on this seems (more than) a little thin.
Will be interesting to see if there is more to come (which is often the way of the Whale).
If there isnt – then this will (quite rightly) die. In fact it should not have been done at all.
However – if there is more – some form of evidence or a sworn statement, then it might have to be replied to.
What do you think about all the disgusting creepy innuendo Cameron (Jason) has been feeding and encouraging re: Tania Billingsley?
Some very, very ugly stuff going on there. Horrible to think this guy is so close to our PM.
Radio Live has a 7day audio library here
http://www.radiolive.co.nz/Audio.aspx
Tuesday 15/7/ 11:30 am for the item mentioned by amirite above
Solution
Don’t listen to talk hate radio.
that is no solution at all.
wailshte is a blot on the country.
a man with no conscience, principles, ethics or morals at all.
this man needs to be exposed for the complete rotten egg that he is.
its seems like he has had two black eyes already this week.
somebody should finish him off with a good kick in the balls.
Why women quit technology careers
It’s an interesting article but I was most taken by this bit and it’s solution:
Which, IMO, is where our education system, especially tertiary, is failing. It’s not providing that support and people are left with a What next? It’s not that people choose to fail but that most people don’t have the information and support to choose any other option.
+1 DTB
People coming out of tertiary education with IT or commerce degrees aren’t going to graduate prepared to answer questions on what next to do with their lives once they turn 40. Try something in philosophy, theology or the other humanities instead.
“We Have the Right to Defend Ourselves”
No. 1 ….
http://floridamemory.com/fpc/reference/rc11499.jpg
They can delete…
http://web.archive.org/web/20120825163554/http://www.fpif.org/articles/the_fruits_of_racism_in_israel-palestine
https://archive.today/SSdbv
a funny pisstake of that song ‘happy’…
http://www.salon.com/2014/07/14/weird_al_releases_first_of_8_new_videos_tacky_a_parody_of_pharrells_hit_happy/
the dotcom-harawira-harre roadshow kicks off in kaitaia 2nite..
..@ 6pm @ the community centre..
..and 2morrow nite in kaikohe..
dotcom has hired the ak town hall for 5 days before the election..
..where he is promising ‘yo drop the bomb’ on key..
..and will release ‘the hard evidence’ that key has lied to parliament..and the nz people…
..woo-hoo..!
Yawn, if he has anything he should release it now.
I’m guessing it’s a fizzer, rather than a banger, if he’s only going to play with it for five days.
your intrinsic dumbness…is as wide as it is long..isn’t it..?
..clearly proven by yr inability to appreciate that timing..
..dumb as a sack of fucken doorknobs…eh..?
A bit testy there Philip, you got withdrawal symptoms my old chum? Benefit day tomorrow, so not long to wait now until the tinny house is open.
Five days at the end of a campaign, when most people have already decided who to vote for, will do nothing to change the political landscape, revelation or not.
You ever heard of rubbing salt into a wound? A clue, it’s like the possum question you won’t answer.
The end of bacon jokes is nigh, but don’t count your chickens just yet 😉
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11293858
Teacher accountability – the magic bullet.
/
At happy-hour drinks, he and other teachers complained that the legislators who wrote No Child Left Behind must never have been near a school like Parks. He felt as if he and his colleagues were part of a nationwide “biological experiment” in which the variables—the fact that so many children were hungry and transient, and witnessing violence—hadn’t been controlled. David Berliner, the former dean of the school of education at Arizona State University, told me that, with the passage of the law, teachers were asked to compensate for factors outside their control. He said, “The people who say poverty is no excuse for low performance are now using teacher accountability as an excuse for doing nothing about poverty.”
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/07/21/140721fa_fact_aviv?currentPage=all&mobify=0
Is see Duncan Garner and his soul mate Cameron Slater are continuing their campaign re: Labour MPs jumping ship.
They cite Trevor Mallard (although I can’t see any evidence he’s departing from the party line), Kelvin Davis, a raw newbie in the Shane Jones mould (we know what a team player Shane is), and Damien O’Conner who made a stand on trees, apparently with the blessing of the caucus.
Mallard and O’Conner have done nothing out of the ordinary which leaves the raw Davis to make some noise that will perversely only resonate with the idle Remuera/Omaha rich set.
That’s right, he wants to go ahead with the holiday highway.
I know that road well. Several hundred million dollars has just been thrown at the East Coast Bays to Puhoi section in the form of a toll road which all ordinary Northlanders are paying for the privilege of using whenever they need to come to Auckland using their own vehicles or by way of increased costs on the goods they have to buy locally, for instance we know petrol is more expensive in Northland. The Puhoi to Wellsford section (lets read Puhoi to Omaha, because that’s what the holiday highway really is about) is not busy at all in normal weekday usage when the bulk of goods travel, it’s just not.
If Kelvin did his homework he’d be able to see that the only bit that needs fixing in the short/medium term is the Warkworth, and perhaps Wellsford, bypasses (something planned by Labour and cancelled by National IIRC). The rest is just the Remuera elite having a bit more road to open up their Audis upon.
re roads..this is from today..
..and relevant to the above..
..(as in just who are ‘the roads of national significance’ being built for..?..)
http://whoar.co.nz/2014/how-america-built-its-highways-to-serve-the-wealthy-and-white-ed-and-of-course-locally-this-case-is-made-with-the-holiday-highway-eh/
Fascinating. Thanks Phillip.
Looking further in New Zealand’s case I see Bill English’s brother in 2009, then head of Federated Farmers wanted the the Waterview Connection to be surface only instead of tunnel/surface, the savings of which he proposed be put into irrigation schemes to benefit farmers.
For the love of Christ, how much more do farmers want?
Link-whore bypass
lol that deserves a steak
I agree Weepus Beard – Kel Davis needs a bit more info on the holiday highway – its not going to solve the problems of roading north of Whangarei. See my comment at 16.1.1. above.
Meanwhile the gummint grinds on grinding down the fine society we had into ashes which they will later spread surreptitiously somewhere inconsequential.
On the My Thinks blog boonman has announced there is shock at the agreement of the Education and Science Select Committee to allow a Bill to pass so that the government can control the teachers body, the Teachers Council.
Just to clarify what this means: Every single member of the board responsible for the registration and disciplining of teachers across New Zealand is going to be appointed by Hekia Parata….
At present the Teachers’ Council is a partly appointment, partly elected body. When the bill is passed this will be a totally appointed body – a body whose sole aim will be the destruction of the teaching profession (don’t believe me? Have a look at what is happening to professional teaching organisations and unions in the United States). Once you have a subservient profession, then you can mould and manipulate to your heart’s content.
Of course, if National don’t manage to cobble together their various has-beens into a coalition of the desperately willing, then we may not be forced to endure the ignominy of having our profession deconstructed in this way.
Campbell Live doing an expose on Stonewood Homes in Christchurch.
Cowboys in a cowboy country with few regulations.
There is a shortage of builders …due to a lack of planning by our government.
We live in a country where the buck seems to stop anywhere…..
who saw the two government members on telly tonight looking tragic.
KDC got a good solo run though on TV 3 news. Having JK away might be backfiring
as there was no competing narrative to challenge Dotcom’s. Still thoroughly gutless though. Hopefully John will be having another crisis similar to the one Roughan cited where Key’s fear of losing gives him existential cramps. That will teach him to believe in Neo Darwinist winner takes all bs.
LPRENT called it.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-11/milk-output-expansion-poised-to-spur-5-year-world-surplus.html?_ga=1.106995911.432890989.1404940857
It was always going to happen. Relying upon agriculture to be the driver of an economy has, and always will, result in a country being poor. It doesn’t cost that much to do and every other country can do it for themselves.
Bank of International Settlements (BIS) calls for an end of debt-driven growth
And yet no country in the world is doing anything to stop growth through the rise in debt despite the lessons of the GFC. Lessons obviously not learned.
of course, “learning lessons” is not the point, growing profits and maintaining elite privilege is.