Through my professional life I know a few young people who are or have been on the IYB. Some but not all spend their benefits inappropriately.
Some but not all Ministers use their credit cards inappropriately. Should we also issue them with cards that can only be used for the purchase of certain items?
I think that Ministers should claim expenses and have them vetted post the event as I do with my employees expenses. They should be given the right to judge wisely, as should beneficiaries. Too much Big Brothering going on for my liking. Key’s mother should talk to him about living in a world where people called Adolf and Joe loved control a little too much.
A former youth beneficiary says she is horrified by the National Party’s welfare clampdown.
[…]
But Aucklander Felicity Perry said it was highly patronising to take away a young person’s financial independence.
“They aren’t going to be learning how to pay their bills or have the opportunity to gain budgeting experience.”.
Perry, now 27 and studying for a PhD, left an unsafe home environment at age 16 and was on the independent youth benefit for two years.
When Ms Perry was on the benefit, she had had to leave an unstable flat in a hurry. “If I had had to go through a bureaucratic process to get my rent changed over in that situation, it would have made things so much worse.
“John Key clearly has no idea what it is like out there.”
Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei said requiring teen parents to be in education or training despite the needs of the child – such as breastfeeding and maternal bonding – could damage the connection between parent and child.
And already the Title on Stuff’s main page has changed to: Get to work, teen mums told.
And earlier this morning the ‘John Key Has No Idea’ title was the top story on the site, with more top of the article focus on the criticisms.
No doubt we will be waiting for the usual economic libertarians on this blog to do a “no show” on this issue. Liberty for money and the money masters will always trump liberty for those with little. Principles of “freedom” only apply to them and their money.
Stuff is amazing, Usually it takes a hlaf hour if not a half day to see a comment posted
but not today, 8:36am – 9:14 am, 38minutes 54 comments, 90+% supporting the proposal with flag waving platitudes and very similar talking points. All pretty much running the anti drug/booze/ciggie line.
yet since 9:14 am it seems no-one has anything to say,
11:35am, I submitted my 2c, l look forward to seeing it up immediately . . . . . . . . . ???
when i wrote that the no. was 14 then about fifteen minutes later it was at 11, now at 18
but look at the question they asked,
“What do you think of National’s plan to deny booze and tobacco to young beneficiaries?”
it is so removed from the intent of the policy as to be meaningless, i would vote yes for it just on the health concerns alone,
that is if i wasn’t aware of what these guys have planned for the privatisation of NZ’s Education, Welfare and Prison systems
Don’t you get sick of the Herald polls were they have a one sided article. Like the one that forgot to mention that only 2500 odd kids are on the independent youth benefit.
Hardly earthshaking policy.
Then they invite a poll.
Must of had a shock with the asset sales one though.
Shows that people cannot be taken with the same BS twice.
Yep I have done that a couple of times this weekend and yesterdays still has not appeared. And aren’t the Radid righties out in force in the comments section..
Please preface Peter Jackson with “the Sainted”……he who forgot his class origins and the tax payers who funded his rise, then rorted everybody, and in particular the workers. One of our greatest successes and our greatest dissappointments. A scumbag.
Peter Jackson a successful industry leader who has had subsidies from government to assist in gaining large projects that are made in NZ employing NZs and bringing recognition and kudos to NZ. There should be more assistance to businesses doing work in NZ, employing NZs to help build our non-primary industry economy. Putting money into NZ Rail to assist in building rolling stock for the railways should be another project helped. Just the same as helping the film industry. One sector shouldn’t be favoured and not the other.
Return of the King had the ending dragged out at least 20 min too long, and King Kong had the middle go on for too long.
Have to admit though, Im going to see The Hobbit when it comes out. Even through SPJ refused to acsede to demand that I thought were quite moderate and reasonable.
be fair, The Lovely Bones is a top class A1 masterfully brilliant piece of work !!!
and never forget he gave us Meet the Feebles, oh on second thoughts maybe that was a precursor of things to come. If only we had satire and paordy protection in our copyright laws then we could do a sequel and call it the 2011 National Election Campaign
Lord Jackson’s work is generally ‘ripe’. How many liquid eyed ‘poor me’ shots of Frodo did viewers have to endure in LOTR? Lord Jacko may be an industry big shot but is certainly no top draw director artistically.
I went somewhat off the Hobbit when one volume became two films and totally off following the shameful Labour day Weta company town anti union rally.
Oh please Kubrik? Only if you like pretentiousness dressed up as “art” and Coppolas a spent force, I mean whats he done thats decent in the last 20 years?
speaking of forces of nature, You do what exactly Chris?
any one who can carve Apocolypse Now out of the quagmire of the 1970’s mass market movie machines and retain an assemblage of their sanity deserves a bit more respect.
According to experts, it is generally accepted a physicist’s best work is done before turning 30 years of age. Einsteins’ final forty years of work contributed little and actually began to question itself. Do you belittle his place in the annals of history? Lord Earnest Rutherford contributed almost nothing to the progression of hard science after splitting the Atom, he chose to focus on smaller problems and seemed happy to do so.
A man’s work is an army built of its own endeavours, creative work especially. Kubrick, well that is a whole other echelon peopled by the likes of Kieslowski, Vincent Ward and Wim Wenders,
Artworks are not targeting software,
they do not require updates to remain valid expressions of Society
though the strength required will always depend upon the weakness of their targets
how you feel that reflects on Tarantino, well that’s art for you,
a one on one with your own perception
Ok Felix you’re a sad little man but I’ll indulge you…
See when I said “spent force” I was suggesting hes well spent which is why I said whats he done in the last 20 years…because I’m saying hes spent
I’m not saying he hasn’t done incredible work (because he has) but he hasn’t done anything even remotely close to his best work in decades which is why I said hes a spent force
What I’m saying is (and I have to repeat myself so you’ll get the message) hes a spent force, I’m not trying to take anything away from the great work in the past but hes spent
Is that clear enough for you
(in case its not I’ll say it again, hes a spent force)
Oh dear, I suppose I shouldn’t have expected too much from someone who puts the word “art” in quotation marks when discussing, um, art.
But to clarify for you dearie, you were actually using the “spent force” line to say that Jackson is a superior artist to Coppola.
Maybe you forgot how your comment came about and what you were responding to (no big deal, it happens) but you still said it and the context makes it very clear that that’s what you meant.
KUBRIK is pure art just about every frame would make it into an art gallery by its self he understood the medium better than most.Dialogue was kept to a minimum less being more.
Whatever you think of Sir (and hes earned it) Peter Jacksons views the fact is he pushed the bar with special effects and he managed to film a supposedly unfilmable film
2001 I thought was long and boring but that means out of all of the directors that have ever done special effects and tried to make a movie out of a difficult book theres been two directors…I don’t know about you but thats pretty damn good in my book
Well I agree that the length of the directors cut was too long but the movie length was pretty spot on and as someone who used to play AD&D (a long time ago) I think it was pretty good because at times it felt like an adventure you’d play (didn’t much like Liv Tyler though)
New Zealanders desperate to move to Australia are being told not to bother.Rather than the good life they are expecting, they risk finding themselves broke and homeless and getting caught up in serious crime and prostitution, an Australian newspaper reported yesterday.
Statistics New Zealand figures show 29,900 permanent and long-term migrants left for Australia in the year to June in the biggest transtasman exodus for three years.
and
Last year, Ms Va’a wrote a report for the Maori Party outlining the challenges facing community workers.
She said young New Zealanders away from their parents were graduating from petty offences to drug-dealing and gang-related crime.
Her report also said that according to staff at the southside office of the Brisbane Children’s Court, New Zealanders accounted for 28 per cent of their case workload.
“These are kids who don’t have access to student loans or allowances over here, so for many, tertiary education is out of the question,” she said.
Arguably they’ll be struggling here too, but at least they will have their orange card!
also,
Her research shows Kiwi families also face problems with overcrowding in homes. Sometimes up to three families share one rental property.
There are also reports of New Zealand children going to school without uniforms and food because their unemployed parents are not eligible for welfare payments.
Australia is hitting its slow down now. Will be tough times away from the mining boom areas. The Oz govt has treated NZ workers like labour of convenience. When things get tough – as demonstrated by the flood relief that Kiwis could not access – you are a one. They have no loyalty to you even if you have been a tax payer.
Wait until unemployed NZers decide they need to come back here because at least here they will have the dole. With 700,000 NZers over in Oz only a fraction would need to come back for our unemployment numbers to spike.
The days of Australia being a sink for the west’s massive excess labour pool are closing.
Serious crime and prostitution eh? Exactly what kind of work does John Key anticipate teen mums being able to get in this depressed economic environment?
Colonial Viper – Good points. It is my belief that Aussies have treated us like Mexican wetbacks are treated by the USA. Doing useful work in the country’s workforce that isn’t acknowledged with a government and voters that cling to erroneous ideas around numerous welfare bludgers and xenophobic attitudes. What can be expected from a country that voted John Howard back in after his disgraceful lies about the sea-borne refugees.
Nouriel Roubini – Permabear Economist – Says Marx Was Right
Informative interview from one of Wall Streets “perma-bears”. Conducted by the Wall St Journal no less!
“Karl Marx had it right,” Roubini says. “At some point capitalism can self-destroy itself. We thought that markets work. They are not working. What’s individually rational… is a self-destructive process.”
Marx was highly critical of the classical economists and his theory is completely antithetical to neoclassical economists (note this please Thomas).
Roubini also says that our belief that markets work may be wrong and that it is clear that financial markets are failing. Another stab to the heart of the neo-classical economics dream of “efficient market theory”. More orthodox economics which we have seen doesn’t work in real life.
narrowly defined markets can also appear to act rationally. But the complex confluence of multiple markets integrated into an actual ‘economy’. No way.
Even in the case of individual specific markets, total irrationality can occur. Tulip bulbs for instance…
Just glancing at Arthur Schopenhauer on women. Looked at from his perspective they don’t ‘fare’ well. Only a male intellect clouded by the sexual drive could call the stunted, narrow-shouldered, broad-hipped and short-legged sex the fair sex…
He didn’t marry though was interested in having a relationship with a woman. Wikipedia says –
In 1821, he fell in love with nineteen-year old opera singer, Caroline Richter (called Medon), and had a relationship with her for several years. He discarded marriage plans, however, writing, “Marrying means to halve one’s rights and double one’s duties”, and “Marrying means, to grasp blindfolded into a sack hoping to find out an eel out of an assembly of snakes.”
I think it should be pretty clear that this special eftpos card to be issued to youth beneficiaries is simply the thin end of the wedge. Once it’s rolled out and implemented, it won’t be too long until it is rolled out to general DPB beneficiaries, probably the unemployment benefit and other benefit types like emergency assistance grants etc.
Jokey Hen very revealing about acceptance of NZ inequality of living standards and opportunities this morning on Radionz.
He says NACTs very concerned about children but they are just part of the concerns of the country. Now the advocates are breaking through this class-oriented approach to social justice to emphasising economic advantage. The smug and uncaring attitude that is a carry-over from our earliest colonial days may respond to this idea of more money and less problems to the country with positive assistance for the low income, low opportunity, low-skilled sector.
One town has had zero youth unemployment as they have youth training programs and helping gain employment.
it is getting downright surreal how direct the networks’ statements on media manipultion are becoming, yet the sheeple still go Baaaaachmann even though six months ago they hadn’t heard of her, just like that other luminary who was going to lead their future: ex 1/2 term Governor, Sarah ‘proud ally of north Korea’ Palin
and at $30 a ticket to have the right to vote at the debate, and Poll rules allowing Candidate’s to give away voting tickets to supporters, and the vast wealth of Bachman’s network compared to Paul’s it does lead the question:
How many honest votes did Ron Paul actually win the Straw Poll by?
Moderate alcoholic drinking is good for a person.
Drinking is a social lubricator, often how many people get jobs is over a pint.
Drinking is cultural, even part of religious and most certainly a social activity for families
who use wine at the diner table.
Alcohol is a cheap medicine, mouth wash for the elderly, even keeps bugs at bay.
If i eat something slightly off a swig of brew always helps.
Now add to this, the benefit cannot keep people in alcohol, enough to binge.
Kids on the benefit can’t by alcohol so why is Key justifying it.
And if kids are getting alcohol its from others.
Problem there Millsy; the foreigners are bringing in big bucks; I think there are about 2% overseas students at my kids high schools, and they bring learning opportunities for lots of students at the school, without the dollars the school budget would be hammered (although saying that they wouldn’t need to employ the couple of staff overseeing them).
“Fact: Schools are catering to international students at the expense of our own. They must be chucked out yesterday.”
I don’t think that’s the case at all.
A principal from CHCH was on the radio talking about a loss of 40 international students due to the earthquake, which was almost $500,000 worth of funding they missed out on.
Do you really think all that $500,000 would be spent on the 40 international students with none of it spent on locals? Because that’s what you’re asserting.
have to agree, the international kids aren’t the problem, they are bringing in revenue by the bucket load, more than they expend; also the students are not dummies. My daughter has a German friend, a year younger than her, fluent in three languages, her English is excellent, she is in the top maths and science classes – kids like that are an asset, because they have a fantastic work ethic.
The trouble is, if the international students bring in the money then the school starts putting them first, and the ones who are at risk of dropping out etc get left further and further behind, because all the attention is being lavished on the international students. (and because the schools want to push out the ‘dumb’ kids).
Our schools need to put New Zealand kids first, and start realising that their purpose to to educate new zealand kids, not make a profit on the international student market.
International students can be educated by the private sector.
Aside from ESOL courses, I didn’t see any special attention given to the international students in my high school.
I think you’re imagining a problem that doesn’t really exist.
“not make a profit on the international student market.”
How exactly would a school make a “profit”? There are no shareholders. They don’t get to pocket the extra money themselves. Any school board that appropriated funds from the school for its member’s benefit would be committing fraud.
International students can be educated by the private sector.
Where they will get ripped off… I work when I can, as an ESOL teacher for private schools, all of which are thoroughly unethical cess-pits, hell-bent on getting fees, and nowt else. That’s bad enough for teens and adults, you want that for kids? (Not all international students are wealthy – in fact most aren’t).
An additional problem is: why would you not want NZ children to associate with children from other countries? Are we going to also kick out foreign students from our universities, med and dental schools?
I don’t have the numbers on hand, but NZ gets a lot of money from the education sector.
“Youth welfare dependency” is also framing which doesn’t work. Like drug dependency. Blame the addict and blame the drug, right? So the answer is to victimise the young person and cut off the drug (the benefit). Some answer.
We have an economy which is low in value, misallocates capital and does not produce decent paying jobs, either in the public sector or the private sector.
IMO that’s the underlying disease, all this other running around is simply treating symptoms.
FROM THE HORROR VAULT
Proof that worshipping the Royal Family robs Britons of all taste and class
Before the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, a poll in Britain found that the favourite song that people would play at any street parties would be “Dancing in the Streets”.
Sounds great, you think? Martha and the Vandellas! [1] Fantastic!
But wait a minute! The poll means something else entirely. That’s right—what these Hello!– and News of the World-reading morons wanted was not Detroit’s finest femmes, but the most unhip cover [2] in the history of popular music (equal worst with Whitney Houston’s desecration [3] of “I Will Always Love You”[4])…
Dancing in the street for Royal Wedding
If you are planning a party to celebrate the Royal Wedding, then chances are you could be bopping along to ‘Dancing in the Street’. The Mick Jagger and David Bowie cover hit has topped a poll of songs that people would play at a street party to celebrate the Royal Wedding. …
Yep, that was the bookend that marked the completion of the ground breaking, literate and hip rock star phase of Bowie’s career and the start of the coke addled fool period. The only Mick he ever needed was Mick Ronson, possibly the greatest rock guitarist Britain ever produced.
Happily, I understand that Dave is spending his time working on art, rather than trying to relive the glory days. Just for everything he did between 1965 and 1981 he deserves every happiness in his retirement. And the Western Springs gig in ’78 is still the best arena show I’ve ever seen. Only the Cramps rank higher for me in the great gig stakes, but that’s a different kinda rock entirely.
Jagger, of course, remains a flannelled fool. Just ask Keith Richards.
Happily, they played Auckland a few times in the mid eighties, Ian. First time I saw them was on my birthday, and the next time they came to town I saw them both nights. One or more of those gigs was the basis of the Rockin n Reelin in Auckland New Zealand rekkid. You know Lux died? I always thought he was what Elvis’s dead twin would have grown up to be.
“Are we going to also kick out foreign students from our universities, med and dental schools?”
An education system focused on the needs of New Zealand students rather than attracting fee-paying international students will go a long way to ensuring that our young people arent left on the scrap heap.
Case in point: At my local polytech our big spending CEO decided to spend millions of dollars on attracting international students about 10 years ago.
He knocked down horticultural training gardens to build a student hostel to accomodate the Chinese students.
He spent millions of dollars changing the name from Taranaki Polytechnic to WITT because appearently international employers wouldnt know what the hell a ‘polytechnic’ was.
As a result, it almost went bankrupt and half the courses were shut down. A lot of our young people now have to leave town if they want a meaningful qualification
While NZ primary and high school education remain strong, there are serious problems with the role and structure of our tertiary education institutions. Basically there needs to be a top to bottom review of what NZ society needs from those institutions in the 21st century.
Within that context, the CEO you talk about sounds like he went on a money grab. The issue sounds like it was less about foreign students per se and more about their fees and ways he could shore up his bottom line (perhaps in the face of expected future funding pressures or budget cuts).
Globalisation is fraught with dangers and in many cases just plain damaging. However, I feel that giving NZ children the opportunity to meet and study alongside young people from other cultures is generally a good thing.
The other point I would make is that all the best tertiary training or education in the world is of no help at the moment. Our economy does not udecent jobs for young people, whether they are school leavers or marketing graduates. So young people come out of these courses still unemployed, but with the extra bonus of student debt.
Similar happened here – where an institution with similar letters are still actively recruiting in India and now Turkey! CEO is a clot, but fortunately departing to Brisbane, their loss, our gain!
tbh grumpy… was going to make a sarcasm post this morning when I woke up and saw snow for the first time at this property in the 30+ years of my life… but obviously you beat me to it
Climate change predicts these kinds of extreme weather events. Congratulations on being a moron.
No. It is still AGW to those who are grounded in reality. Because that is what it is. Global warming caused by human atmospheric pollution.
You can show that increasing carbon dioxide retains heat on a kitchen table experiment.
Do you really think if there was any credible scientific rebuttal to AGW some bright researcher wouldn’t have claimed the millions on offer from Exxon and other well funded self interested denialists.
Do you want to bet the future of humanity on the ignorant and unscientific BS from Moncton et-all. The same group who reckon tobacco is good for us.
Climate change predicts these kinds of extreme weather events. Congratulations on being a moron.
Ok, this is the only issue on which I agree with grumpy. How exactly does climate change formerly known as global warming ‘predict’ these events? Tell me how extra carbon dioxide in the air as some guy said on Facebook cause extreme cold? The last time I asked to be educated on this (non)-issue, I just got sarcasm and abuse, and was eventually told that I am in the pay of Big Oil (I wish!) and to “look it up” myself…
..lprent who got his 36th degree in “earth sciences”..
First degree.
I’m sure this has been answered (I’ve been down with a cold). But is pretty simple. Just think of the atmosphere and oceans as being a energy transfer of heat mechanism – pretty much what you see when cook with the heat only on one side. Weather is a way of moving heat from areas that have too much to areas that have too little and vice versa. Winds, air masses, and currents do this using various means as a result of the effects of their stored energy. Low and high pressure systems in the atmosphere, and salinity and density differences in the oceans.
It is an obvious consequence of a planet that receives relatively less energy per air molecule or land area in its polar regions than it does in the equatorial regions that it has inequalities in the stored atmospheric and ocean energy. So we have weather through heat transfers. The axial tilt just makes that more extreme.
So if on top of that, you make the atmosphere more efficient at holding heat, then the proportional differences between the cold areas and warm areas will get more extreme. That is because the polar regions while also getting more efficient at storage also receive less energy to start with. The higher the imbalance between the regions, the more energy is available to move air masses around. So they tend to happen faster and mover further and with greater differences (ie wind speeds).
Now the absolute differences are not that much. But climate and weather have a delicate balance normally anyway. You only have to look at the effects that the minor shift of the el nino/ la nina ocean current effects have on global weather. So you get more extreme local effects and changes in climate.
You’ll note that movement of air masses will involve cold and warm air masses moving around, just as it does now. It just tends to have more extreme events as far as we’re concerned.
And evolution is “just a theory”.
When a politician says “there is some evidence”, they’re making shit up. When a scientist says it, they’re pretty confident that it’s on the right track. learn the difference.
Please don’t be a prat, McFlock. Not all global warming sceptics are ‘anti-science’…
Rather uncomfortably I agree with Grumpy when he says “”there is some evidence”….and….”suggests”…. does not seem to me that “the science is settled”.”
Humans have to take action on incomplete knowledge. On global anthropogenic climate change the evidence is already 90%-95% in.
The nice thing about acting now instead of waiting later is that we get a lot of different benefits: new clean technologies, green industries, making more efficient use of our finite energy resources, transitioning to a de-industrialising civilisation etc.
It just so happens that we also get the best change of staving off a potential extinction level event by acting earlier rather than later.
btw it’s my opinion that energy depletion (hits hard in next 15 years causing massive geopolitical strife) will screw civilisation before climate change (hits hard in 80-120 years from now).
Standard Foreign Office response in a time of crisis.
In stage one we say nothing is going to happen.
Stage two, we say something may be about to happen, but we should do nothing about it.
In stage three, we say that maybe we should do something about it, but there’s nothing we *can* do. [PeteG asking whether countermeasures will be effective, in his eternally passive-aggressive way]
Stage four, we say maybe there was something we could have done, but it’s too late now.
Science! Is never settled. Nothing is 100% probability until after the fact.
When there is 95% probability that something is occurring though you can pretty much say it is a certainty within the limits of our knowledge. A scientific theory, rather than a hypothesis.
There is a high probability that the fluid dynamics that keep a plane in the air, work as scientists think they do.
We can say that evolution is by far the most likely explanation for variation and changes in species.
We can also say that AGW is the most likely explanation by far for changes observed in temperatures, glaciation, ice cover and species distribution.
It is OK to be sceptical, but to deny something when almost all the available evidence points towards it is just stupid. Like the US republicans voting that AGW does not exist.
When I fly in a plane I prefer to think that the scientists and engineers have got their calculations right. I rely on the same science that tells us AGW is most likely happening.
I would not rely on some politicians opinion.
No, the “theory” example is quite pertinent, because most established scientists would probably rather chop their own leg off than say “we have definitively proved XYZ”, especially on the macro level. The reason being that their career is down the toilet when the inevitable counterexample is published.
“Suggests” generally means “we reckon this is the cause, but there might be a decent counter-hypothesis against it lurking out there somewhere so we’ll hedge our bets”. “Inconclusive” means “oh okay, we know that there IS another explanation, and we can’t pick between the two”.
I don’t think it is so much “anti-science” as pop-science missing nuances of expression, simply because grumpy doesn’t have a $300k grant application depending on him not being publicly discredited in the next 2 months.
Awful, awful segment on Mora’s show this arvo. Some meatheaded CCD’er on the show for ‘balance’, who the two panellists agreed with every step of the way. To be fair to Mora, he didn’t join in with the dumbfest, just prodded the participants occasionally when their non-comprehension started getting dangerously close to parody.
Not to mention The Shock Doctrine which tells us in some detail the current and future plans for New Zealand by America’s man JKeyll and his masters.
Disaster capitalism is very useful for turning people’s misery to money’s benefit. Just ask Friedman – page 5 of the chapter called Blank is Beautiful where his philosophy of using disaster to benefit private business – privatising schools, firing teachers and installing the bulk funding regime to weaken the staff’s employment rights in this case.
Christchurch is now a blank slate; the people are weakened and suffering still – perfect for a Friedman takeover.
Key a friend of Friedman’s philosophy on using disaster to create a paradise for private interests over people’s future welfare?
Funnily enough, the snow didn’t bring me out in deep thoughts about the Friedmanite school of economics. Strange that.
If it had I would probably have thoughts about the frigid approach to humanity and the desolate wasteland it leaves behind.
Mind you, I still have my Samuelson text books so am a bit behind the times.
But, now you mention it, there is bugger all between “Global Warming”and Friedman theories. Both suffer from blind faith adherents, both believe the “science is settled” and both lead to economic ruin.
We’re heading into Global Cooling. Unfortunately, because of the wishy washy-ness that is/was AGW/Global Warming etc, “Climate Change/Challenge/Crap” has become the new buzzword.
It’s not a change. It’s not a challenge. The theory is crap.
Snow in Auckland in… 1931, 1976, 2011. Looks like a 35 year trend between each of those events.
Hmm, couldn’t be a cyclical event could it? No, that’s just a preposterous idea. These “unusual” weather events are solely caused by mankind managing to put out CO2 by burning natural fuels such as coal, oil and wood, which is carbon neutral as it’s already taken CO2 from the atmosphere when it was exceedingly higher than current.
Now that Co2 levels are starting to rise very slowly, expect far more winter storms until James Hansen’s excellent paper “Climate Process and Sensitivity” is reviewed yet again, and some smarter cookie realises that the feedback mechanisms prevalent in that paper actually relate to extreme cooling on a global scale rather than warming.
After all, I’ve said on this site before (and been lambasted for it) that Wellington would see snow this year.
Average temperatures worldwide going up = global cooling.
Less ice in the at the poles every year almost year on year (ice free access in the NW passage for the first time in recorded history) = Global cooling.
Yeah right!
Where has that “smart cookie” been. There is a fortune waiting for him.
Not to mention the record heat wave in the US, or the record high average May and June temperatures here in NZ this year.
This is just a weather event. A remarkably cold one for sure, but what everyone is forgetting is how pleasantly warm it was just a few days prior. I was wandering around the Tararua tops a few days ago in not much more than a t-shirt.
Let’s get this clear. Snow is the result of cold air at ground level lifting up masses of relatively warm moist air above it. Absolutely both conditions must be present.
What is interesting is that we are getting both conditions because the oceans around us at present are quite warm, so there is plenty of moisture about. At the same time we are getting these massive high pressure systems that are so large they plunge past the circum-polar wind patterns that normally keep polar air away from us, which are bringing these huge surges of cold air up into our latitudes.
Bear in mind too that when this cold polar air moves north, it MUST be being replaced by warmer sub-tropical air moving south to balance it out. So while little NZ is getting it colder for a few days, the southern Antarctic latitudes must be warmer than normal.
Climate change? Maybe. It is consistent with the idea that more energy trapped into the weather system will cause more dramatic events, with more energetic mixing of systems. But as with anything to do with climate, one event is neither conclusive, nor irrelevant. It is the pattern and the trend that matters.
Yup and Country Calendar on saturday had yet again more comments on changing unreliable rainfall patterns and water levels fluctuating in steams way beyond anything known previously. But hey with NACT it’s put head in sand and breath deeply… to generational farmers of the same land.
Not that this farmer was complaining with his truck come horse float/caravan they sold the bach to fund…..the gap just keeps growing.
Am very perturbed at the report this morning about the man who was nearly convicted for asking people to leash their dogs on Mount Kaukau.
They called the cops.What is going on here. Nobody in New Zealand can calla spade a spade or tolerate any restricitions on their behaviour. Having a choice means anything you choose to do is okay and if you have disposable income then you are a superior person if not an actual aristocrat.
worst of all any social problems are sent to the cost accountants first and any empathy or insight is trampled by the hordes running to get the government funded contract.
Hey New Zealand the way you want it.
Thanks Carol. I couldn’t connect to The Std or Red Alert, but I could to Stuff. Google would do international searches, but I couldn’t reach many international sites.
Damn peculiar.
I’m going to have to start recording the IP addresses of my fav sites so that I can still reach them even if the domain name system goes down.
Horowhenua:
I lost complete connection for 45 minutes around lunchtime. No access to anything anywhere. was all running fine then connection just dissapeared
Got the DNS error when running a diagnostic, saying could not find microsoft.com (don’t we wish!)
‘Celebration of freedom of expression’ and support of Ian Wishart’s highly controversial book ‘Breaking Silence’.
Tuesday, August 16 · 11:30am – 1:30pm
Location
Outside Whitcoulls 210 Queen St Auckland City
Full credit to Whitcoulls bookstores for NOT bowing to intimidatory threats and allowing customers to choose whether or not we want to read for ourselves ‘Breaking Silence’ – which will be available from Tuesday 16 August 2011. Those who wish to celebrate and support both the book ‘Breaking Silence’ and Whitcoull’s principled stand ( profits from the sale of ‘Breaking Silence’ will be donated to charity) are very welcome to attend. (The Police have been advised of this ‘gathering’). Macsyna King – MOTHER – key Police witness who has never been charged, let alone convicted of any offence regarding the deaths of HER baby sons – has the lawful right to TELL her story. Award-winning investigative journalist Ian Wishart has the lawful right to WRITE her story. We the public have the lawful right to buy and READ this story. End of story.
Look forward to seeing you there! 🙂
(For more background information :FACEBOOK: ‘Break the Kahui Code of Silence..’ )
Penny Bright
The interesting thing about Ian Wishart is his Investigate magazine. He now has a His on one side and a Hers on the other, with different pictures, which implies that men and women cannot handle the same sort of article. Oh dear – is he starting to force men and women into role play when all they actually require is OBJECTIVE articles from all media outlets – a failed enterprise in New Zealand.
Mind you the article he wrote about Helen Clark is an exercise in how he sees women as either evil because they aspire to be leaders or moneymakers which is what King is. I used to think he was a brilliant investigative reporter. Unfortunately, he is not an objective one and he only seeks to “tell the truth” when it suits him.
You lose my respect when you side with him at all.
You still have my respect over your fight against private water ownership/contracts.
It doesn’t matter WHAT you think of Ian Wishart. The principle here is one of support for FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION. End of story. Without freedom of expression – politically – you have nothing. WHO WILL BE NEXT if a stirred up lynch mob – who haven’t even READ the book – through unlawful threats against persons and property – help force some bookstores not to stock a book? This is a HUGE issue – which is why I have spent the last 6 weeks fulltime helping to fight the hatred and bigotry against MOTHER Macsyna King who is trying to help expose the Kahui Code of Silence and help get justice for HER murdered baby sons. If you want more information / informed debate on the issues – check out FACEBOOK: ‘Break the Kahui Code of Silence..
Actually, to me, it does matter what I think of Ian Wishart; his past political attacks on Helen Clark and his bad conclusion analysis proves a risky ask for me to listen to anything he says. You can. Go right ahead. I’ve been there; he wasn’t worth it.
The whole case gives this government just another excuse to shut down on treating any beneficiaries as human beings. If you follow Wishart’s past campaigning for the conservative right you will understand there is another agenda for him. Like I said, tho’, just my opinion. Freedom of expression I am willing to fight for. Agendas of the right and the religious extremists; that’s quite another fight I’m not willing to pay lip service to.
Sorry, not in the CBD yesterday. Whitcoulls isn’t that the place that rehired people on less wages? Then we had people criticizing those workers for complaining about it. Great divide and conquer politics going on in NZ. Worker against worker. Key and Joyce will be loving it.
Murdoch, private equity, goldman Sachs ….they all follow their masters wishes, or get sacked. That loan was effectively buying their support via joyces association.
How convenient that the Herald is sending 8 weeks worth of free Heralds out to people, when it coincides with NAct’s big conference and various other news items which the rightwing thieves and liars can latch on to to use their asset stripping and freedom stripping and dignity stripping laws on.
It’s all about framing the lie to NActMU’s advantage for the Herald isn’t it.
A startling figure of deaths in custody of British youth, I think non-white. It is up to a thousand with no convictions against police, no jail sentences. Just heard that on radionz.
Recently the National parties Website underwent an extensive and flashy make over giving more emphasis on appearance rather than substance. As well as unashamedly promoting John Key’s smile and wave policy, a request to donate to the blue team became a key feature of the redesign…
After a hiatus of over four months Selwyn Manning and I finally got it together to re-start the “A View from Afar” podcast series. We shall see how we go but aim to do 2 episodes per month if possible. … Continue reading → ...
In 2008, the UK Parliament passed the Climate Change Act 2008. The law established a system of targets, budgets, and plans, with inbuilt accountability mechanisms; the aim was to break the cycle of empty promises and replace it with actual progress towards emissions reduction. The law was passed with near-universal ...
Buzz from the Beehive Local Water Done Well – let’s be blunt – is a silly name, but the first big initiative to put it into practice has gone done well. This success is reflected in the headline on an RNZ report:District mayors welcome Auckland’s new water deal with ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate ConnectionsA farmworker cleans the solar panels of a solar water pump in the village of Jagadhri, Haryana Country, India. (Photo credit: Prashanth Vishwanathan/ IWMI) Decisions made in India over the next few years will play a key role in global ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – The Children’s Minister, Karen Chhour, intends to repeal Section 7AA from the Oranga Tamariki Act 1989 because it creates conflict between claimed Crown Treaty obligations and the child’s best interests. In her words, “Oranga Tamariki’s governing principles and its act should be colour ...
Geoffrey Miller writes – The gloves are off. That might seem to be the undertone of surprisingly tough talk from New Zealand’s foreign and trade ministers. Winston Peters, the foreign minister, may be facing legal action after making allegations about former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr on Radio New Zealand. ...
Brian Easton writes – This is about the time that the Treasury will be locking up its economic forecasts to be published in the 2024 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) on budget day, 30 May. I am not privy to what they will be (I will report on them ...
TL;DR:Winston Peters is reported to have won a budget increase for MFAT. David Seymour wanted his Ministry of Regulation to be three times bigger than the Productivity Commission. Simeon Brown is appointing a Crown Monitor to Watercare to protect the Claytons Crown Guarantee he had to give ratings agencies ...
The gloves are off. That might seem to be the undertone of surprisingly tough talk from New Zealand’s foreign and trade ministers. Winston Peters, the foreign minister, may be facing legal action after making allegations about former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr on Radio New Zealand. Carr had made highly ...
I could be a florist'Round the corner from Rye LaneI'll be giving daisies to craziesBut, baby, I'll wrap you up real safe Oh, I can give you flowers At the end of every dayFor the center of your table, a rainbowIn case you have people 'round to stay Depending on ...
TL;DR: The six key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to May 12 include:PM Christopher Luxon is scheduled to hold a post-Cabinet news conference at 4 pm today. Finance Minister Nicola Willis will give a pre-budget speech on Thursday.Parliament sits from Question Time at 2pm on ...
The price of the foreign affairs “reset” is now becoming apparent, with Defence set to get a funding boost in the Budget. Finance Minister Nicola Willis has confirmed that it will be one of the few votes, apart from Health and Education and possibly Police, which will get an increase ...
A listing of 26 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 28, 2024 thru Sat, May 4, 2024. Story of the week "It’s straight out of Big Tobacco’s playbook. In fact, research by John Cook and his colleagues ...
Yesterday I received come lovely feedback following my Star Wars themed newsletter. A few people mentioned they’d enjoyed reading the personal part at the beginning.I often begin newsletters with some memories, or general thoughts, before commencing the main topic. This hopefully sets the mood and provides some context in which ...
April 30 was going to be the day we’d be calling Mum from London to wish her a happy birthday. Then it became the day we would be going to St. Paul's at Evensong to remember her. The aim of the cathedral builders was to find a way to make their ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Can’t remember the last book by a Kiwi author you read? Think the NZ government should spend less on the arts in favor of helping the homeless? If so, as far as Newsroom is concerned, you probably deserve to be called a cultural ignoramus ...
Eric Crampton writes – Grudges are bad. Better to move on. But it can be fun to keep a couple of really trivial ones, so you’re not tempted to have other ones. For example, because of the rootkit fiasco of 2005, no Sony products in our household. ...
A new report warns an estimated third of the adult population have unmet need for health care.Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāHere’s the six key things I learned about Aotaroa’s political economy this week around housing, climate and poverty:Politics - Three opinion polls confirmed support for PM Christopher Luxon ...
Today is May the fourth. Which was just a regular day when my mother took me to see the newly released Star Wars at the Odeon in Rotorua. The queue was right around the corner. Some years later this day became known as Star Wars Day, the date being a ...
Buzz from the Beehive Much more media attention is being paid to something Winston Peters said about former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr than to a speech he delivered to the New Zealand China Council. One word is missing from the speech: AUKUS. But AUKUS loomed large in his considerations ...
Is the economy in another long stagnation? If so, why?This is about the time that the Treasury will be locking up its economic forecasts to be published in the 2024 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) on budget day, 30 May. I am not privy to what they will be ...
The annual list of who's been bribing our politicians is out, and journalists will no doubt be poring over it to find the juiciest and dirtiest bribes. The government's fast-track invite list is likely to be a particular focus, and we already know of one company on the list which ...
In the weeks after the October 7 Hamas attacks on Southern Israel I wrote about the possible 2nd, 3rd and even 4th order effects of the conflict. These included new fronts being opened in the West Bank (with Hamas), Golan … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – It is one of the oldest truisms that there is never a good time for MPs to get a pay rise. This week’s announcement of pay raises of around 2.8% backdated to last October could hardly have come at a worse time, with the ...
David Farrar writes – Newshub reports: Newshub can reveal a fresh allegation of intimidation against Green MP Julie-Anne Genter. Genter is subject to a disciplinary process for aggressively waving a book in the face of National Minister Matt Doocey in the House – but it’s not the first time ...
The Treasury has published a paper today on the global productivity slowdown and how it is playing out in New Zealand: The productivity slowdown: implications for the Treasury’s forecasts and projections. The Treasury Paper examines recent trends in productivity and the potential drivers of the slowdown. Productivity for the whole economy ...
Winston Peters’ comments about former Australian foreign minister look set to be an ongoing headache for both him and Luxon. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for subscribers features co-hosts and , along with regular guests on Gaza and ...
These puppet strings don't pull themselvesYou're thinking thoughts from someone elseHow much time do you think you have?Are you prepared for what comes next?The debating chamber can be a trying place for an opposition MP. What with the person in charge, the speaker, typically being an MP from the governing ...
The land around Lyme Regis, where Meryl Streep once stood, in a hood, on the Cobb, is falling into the sea.MerylThe land around Lyme Regis, around the Cobb that made it rich, has always been falling slowly but surely into the sea. Read more ...
Buzz from the Beehive Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters was bound to win headlines when he set out his thinking about AUKUS in his speech to the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. The headlines became bigger when – during an interview on RNZ’s Morning Report today – he criticised ...
The Post reports on how the government is refusing to release its advice on its corrupt Muldoonist fast-track law, instead using the "soon to be publicly available" refusal ground to hide it until after select committee submissions on the bill have closed. Fast-track Minister Chris Bishop's excuse? “It's not ...
As pressure on it grows, the livestock industry’s approach to the transition to Net Zero is increasingly being compared to that of fossil fuel interests. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty ImagesTL;DR: Here’s the top five news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above ...
The New Zealand Herald reports – Stats NZ has offered a voluntary redundancy scheme to all of its workers as a way to give staff some control over their “future” amidst widespread job losses in the public sector. In an update to staff this morning, seen by the Herald, Statistics New Zealand ...
On Werewolf/Scoop, I usually do two long form political columns a week. From now on, there will be an extra column each week about music and movies. But first, some late-breaking political events:The rise in unemployment numbers for the March quarter was bigger than expected – and especially sharp ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: TVNZ says it is dealing with about 50 formal complaints over its coverage of the latest 1News-Verian political poll, with some viewers – as well as the Prime Minister and a former senior Labour MP – critical of the tone of the 6pm report. ...
Muriel Newman writes – When Meridian Energy was seeking resource consents for a West Coast hydro dam proposal in 2010, local Maori “strenuously” objected, claiming their mana was inextricably linked to ‘their’ river and could be damaged. After receiving a financial payment from the company, however, the Ngai Tahu ...
Alwyn Poole writes – “An SEP,’ he said, ‘is something that we can’t see, or don’t see, or our brain doesn’t let us see, because we think that it’s somebody else’s problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it’s like a ...
Our trust in our political institutions is fast eroding, according to a Maxim Institute discussion paper, Shaky Foundations: Why our democracy needs trust. The paper – released today – raises concerns about declining trust in New Zealand’s political institutions and democratic processes, and the role that the overuse of Parliamentary urgency ...
This article was prepared for publication yesterday. More ministerial announcements have been posted on the government’s official website since it was written. We will report on these later today …. Buzz from the BeehiveThere we were, thinking the environment is in trouble, when along came Jones. Shane Jones. ...
New Zealand now has the fourth most depressed construction sector in the world behind China, Qatar and Hong Kong. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 8:46am on Thursday, May 2:The Lead: ...
Hi,I am just going to state something very obvious: American police are fucking crazy.That was a photo gracing the New York Times this morning, showing New York City police “entering Columbia University last night after receiving a request from the school.”Apparently in America, protesting the deaths of tens of thousands ...
Winston Peters’ much anticipated foreign policy speech last night was a work of two halves. Much of it was a standard “boilerplate” Foreign Ministry overview of the state of the world. There was some hardening up of rhetoric with talk of “benign” becoming “malign” and old truths giving way to ...
Graham Adams assesses the fallout of the Cass Review — The press release last Thursday from the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls didn’t make the mainstream news in New Zealand but it really should have. The startling title of Reem Alsalem’s statement — “Implementation of ‘Cass ...
This open-for-business, under-new-management cliché-pockmarked government of Christopher Luxon is not the thing of beauty he imagines it to be. It is not the powerful expression of the will of the people that he asserts it to be. It is not a soaring eagle, it is a malodorous vulture. This newest poll should make ...
The latest labour market statistics, showing a rise in unemployment. There are now 134,000 unemployed - 14,000 more than when the National government took office. Which is I guess what happens when the Reserve Bank causes a recession in an effort to Keep Wages Low. The previous government saw a ...
Three opinion polls have been released in the last two days, all showing that the new government is failing to hold their popular support. The usual honeymoon experienced during the first year of a first term government is entirely absent. The political mood is still gloomy and discontented, mainly due ...
National's Finance Minister once met a poor person.A scornful interview with National's finance guru who knows next to nothing about economics or people.There might have been something a bit familiar if that was the headline I’d gone with today. It would of course have been in tribute to the article ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Throughout the pandemic, the new Vice-Chancellor-of-Otago-University-on-$629,000 per annum-Can-you-believe-it-and-Former-Finance-Minister Grant Robertson repeated the mantra over and over that he saved “lives and livelihoods”.As we update how this claim is faring over the course of time, the facts are increasingly speaking differently. NZ ...
Chris Trotter writes – IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in acknowledgement of electoral victory: “We’ll govern for all New Zealanders.” On the face of it, the pledge is a strange one. Why would any political leader govern in ways that advantaged the huge ...
Bryce Edwards writes – The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 10:06am on Wednesday, May 1:The Lead: Business confidence fell across the board in April, falling in some areas to levels last seen during the lockdowns because of a collapse in ...
Over the past 36 hours, Christopher Luxon has been dong his best to portray the centre-right’s plummeting poll numbers as a mark of virtue. Allegedly, the negative verdicts are the result of hard economic times, and of a government bravely set out on a perilous rescue mission from which not ...
Auckland Transport have started rolling out new HOP card readers around the network and over the next three months, all of them on buses, at train stations and ferry wharves will be replaced. The change itself is not that remarkable, with the new readers looking similar to what is already ...
Completed reads for April: The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling Carnival of Saints, by George Herman The Snow Spider, by Jenny Nimmo Emlyn’s Moon, by Jenny Nimmo The Chestnut Soldier, by Jenny Nimmo Death Comes As the End, by Agatha Christie Lord of the Flies, by ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Have a story to share about St Paul’s, but today just picturesPopular novels written at this desk by a young man who managed to bootstrap himself out of father’s imprisonment and his own young life in a workhouse Read more ...
The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill English, Simon Bridges, Steven Joyce, Roger Sowry, ...
Newsroom has a story today about National's (fortunately failed) effort to disestablish the newly-created Inspector-General of Defence. The creation of this agency was the key recommendation of the Inquiry into Operation Burnham, and a vital means of restoring credibility and social licence to an agency which had been caught lying ...
Holding On To The Present:The moment a political movement arises that attacks the whole idea of social progress, and announces its intention to wind back the hands of History’s clock, then democracy, along with its unwritten rules, is in mortal danger.IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in ...
Stuck In The Middle With You:As Christopher Luxon feels the hot breath of Act’s and NZ First’s extremists on the back of his neck and, as he reckons with the damage their policies are already inflicting upon a country he’s described as “fragile”, is there not some merit in reaching out ...
The unpopular coalition government is currently rushing to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The clause is Oranga Tamariki's Treaty clause, and was inserted after its systematic stealing of Māori children became a public scandal and resulted in physical resistance to further abductions. The clause created clear obligations ...
Buzz from the Beehive The government’s official website – which Point of Order monitors daily – not for the first time has nothing much to say today about political happenings that are grabbing media headlines. It makes no mention of the latest 1News-Verian poll, for example. This shows National down ...
It Takes A Train To Cry:Surely, there is nothing lonelier in all this world than the long wail of a distant steam locomotive on a cold Winter’s night.AS A CHILD, I would lie awake in my grandfather’s house and listen to the traffic. The big wooden house was only a ...
Packing A Punch: The election of the present government, including in its ranks politicians dedicated to reasserting the rights of the legislature in shaping and determining the future of Māori and Pakeha in New Zealand, should have alerted the judiciary – including its anomalous appendage, the Waitangi Tribunal – that its ...
Dead Woman Walking: New Zealand’s media industry had been moving steadily towards disaster for all the years Melissa Lee had been National’s media and communications policy spokesperson, and yet, when the crisis finally broke, on her watch, she had nothing intelligent to offer. Christopher Luxon is a patient man - but he’s not ...
Chris Trotter writes – New Zealand politics is remarkably easy-going: dangerously so, one might even say. With the notable exception of John Key’s flat ruling-out of the NZ First Party in 2008, all parties capable of clearing MMP’s five-percent threshold, or winning one or more electorate seats, tend ...
Ministers must front up about which projects it will push through under its Fast Track Approvals legislation, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
New Zealand Sign Language Week is an excellent opportunity for all Kiwis to give the language a go, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. This week (May 6 to 12) is New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) Week. The theme is “an Aotearoa where anyone can sign anywhere” and aims to ...
Six tertiary students have been selected to work on NASA projects in the US through a New Zealand Space Scholarship, Space Minister Judith Collins announced today. “This is a fantastic opportunity for these talented students. They will undertake internships at NASA’s Ames Research Center or its Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), where ...
New Zealanders will be safer because of a $1.9 billion investment in more frontline Corrections officers, more support for offenders to turn away from crime, and more prison capacity, Corrections Minister Mark Mitchell says. “Our Government said we would crack down on crime. We promised to restore law and order, ...
The OECD’s latest report on New Zealand reinforces the importance of bringing Government spending under control, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The OECD conducts country surveys every two years to review its members’ economic policies. The 2024 New Zealand survey was presented in Wellington today by OECD Chief Economist Clare Lombardelli. ...
The Government has delivered on its election promise to provide a financially sustainable model for Auckland under its Local Water Done Well plan. The plan, which has been unanimously endorsed by Auckland Council’s Governing Body, will see Aucklanders avoid the previously projected 25.8 per cent water rates increases while retaining ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters discussed the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and enhanced cooperation in the Pacific with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock during her first official visit to New Zealand today. "New Zealand and Germany enjoy shared interests and values, including the rule of law, democracy, respect for the international system ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
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The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
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The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
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The Government and Rotorua Lakes Council are committed to working closely together to end the use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing) Tama Potaka says the Government remains committed to ending the long-term use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua by the ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
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Councils from Horowhenua, Kāpiti, Wairarapa, the Hutt Valley, Porirua and Wellington City will meet this Friday to work together on a plan for a Greater Wellington region water deal. ...
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Loading…(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A,DIV,A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k<ql.length;k++){ql[k].id='quiz-embed-'+k;ql[k].href="javascript:var i=document.getElementById('quiz-embed-"+k+"');try{qz.startQuiz(i)}catch(e){i.start=1;i.style.cursor='wait';i.style.opacity='0.5'};void(0);"}}};i['QP']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)})(window,document,'script','https://take.quiz-maker.com/3012/CDN/quiz-embed-v1.js','qp'); Got a good quiz question?Send Newsroom your questions. The post Newsroom daily quiz, Monday 6 May appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra A new Commonwealth Prac Payment will provide students with $319.50 a week when they are on clinical and professional placements. The payment will be means tested and start from July 1 next year, which ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Changes in the May 14 budget will cut the student debt of more than three million people, wiping more than $3 billion from what people owe. The government will cap the HELP indexation rate ...
Asia Pacific Report The prosecutor’s office at the International Criminal Court (ICC) has appealed for an end to what it calls intimidation of its staff, saying such threats could constitute an offence against the “administration of justice” by the world’s permanent war crimes court. The Hague-based office of ICC Prosecutor ...
By Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific desk A women’s union in New Caledonia has staged a sit-in protest this week to support senior Kanak indigenous journalist Thérèse Waia, who works for public broadcaster Nouvelle-Calédonie la Première, after a smear attack by critics. The peaceful demonstration was held on ...
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Through my professional life I know a few young people who are or have been on the IYB. Some but not all spend their benefits inappropriately.
Some but not all Ministers use their credit cards inappropriately. Should we also issue them with cards that can only be used for the purchase of certain items?
Yes
I think that Ministers should claim expenses and have them vetted post the event as I do with my employees expenses. They should be given the right to judge wisely, as should beneficiaries. Too much Big Brothering going on for my liking. Key’s mother should talk to him about living in a world where people called Adolf and Joe loved control a little too much.
And before Stuff whips this off their front page, where the title is ‘John Key has no idea’ for the record:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/5443275/Teen-mums-told-to-get-back-to-work
And already the Title on Stuff’s main page has changed to: Get to work, teen mums told.
And earlier this morning the ‘John Key Has No Idea’ title was the top story on the site, with more top of the article focus on the criticisms.
No doubt we will be waiting for the usual economic libertarians on this blog to do a “no show” on this issue. Liberty for money and the money masters will always trump liberty for those with little. Principles of “freedom” only apply to them and their money.
And on TVNZ the masses were praising Key – scary, but true!
Stuff is amazing, Usually it takes a hlaf hour if not a half day to see a comment posted
but not today, 8:36am – 9:14 am, 38minutes 54 comments, 90+% supporting the proposal with flag waving platitudes and very similar talking points. All pretty much running the anti drug/booze/ciggie line.
yet since 9:14 am it seems no-one has anything to say,
11:35am, I submitted my 2c, l look forward to seeing it up immediately . . . . . . . . . ???
addendum:
the Stuff poll now has fewer ‘no’ votes than it did an hour ago.
Not a lower %, a lower number of votes
might have to start screengrabbing poll results if this is Fairfox’s election strategy to manufacture support for National’s policies
Hmmm
What are the numbers freedom?
when i wrote that the no. was 14 then about fifteen minutes later it was at 11, now at 18
but look at the question they asked,
“What do you think of National’s plan to deny booze and tobacco to young beneficiaries?”
it is so removed from the intent of the policy as to be meaningless, i would vote yes for it just on the health concerns alone,
that is if i wasn’t aware of what these guys have planned for the privatisation of NZ’s Education, Welfare and Prison systems
And the poll results don’t seem to reflect the mix of comments below the article.
Don’t you get sick of the Herald polls were they have a one sided article. Like the one that forgot to mention that only 2500 odd kids are on the independent youth benefit.
Hardly earthshaking policy.
Then they invite a poll.
Must of had a shock with the asset sales one though.
Shows that people cannot be taken with the same BS twice.
Yep I have done that a couple of times this weekend and yesterdays still has not appeared. And aren’t the Radid righties out in force in the comments section..
John Key, “the needs of children need to be balanced against the needs of other New Zealanders”.
Bill English, Peter Jackson, ——— John Key?
Please preface Peter Jackson with “the Sainted”……he who forgot his class origins and the tax payers who funded his rise, then rorted everybody, and in particular the workers. One of our greatest successes and our greatest dissappointments. A scumbag.
I prefer the term Peter Jackson, master story teller. It’s a bit more subtle than scumbag, but means the same thing.
Peter Jackson a successful industry leader who has had subsidies from government to assist in gaining large projects that are made in NZ employing NZs and bringing recognition and kudos to NZ. There should be more assistance to businesses doing work in NZ, employing NZs to help build our non-primary industry economy. Putting money into NZ Rail to assist in building rolling stock for the railways should be another project helped. Just the same as helping the film industry. One sector shouldn’t be favoured and not the other.
His films are all about 50% too long – they are rubbish (IMHO) – give me Tarantino, Kubrik or Coppola any day!
Return of the King had the ending dragged out at least 20 min too long, and King Kong had the middle go on for too long.
Have to admit though, Im going to see The Hobbit when it comes out. Even through SPJ refused to acsede to demand that I thought were quite moderate and reasonable.
be fair, The Lovely Bones is a top class A1 masterfully brilliant piece of work !!!
and never forget he gave us Meet the Feebles, oh on second thoughts maybe that was a precursor of things to come. If only we had satire and paordy protection in our copyright laws then we could do a sequel and call it the 2011 National Election Campaign
Lord Jackson’s work is generally ‘ripe’. How many liquid eyed ‘poor me’ shots of Frodo did viewers have to endure in LOTR? Lord Jacko may be an industry big shot but is certainly no top draw director artistically.
I went somewhat off the Hobbit when one volume became two films and totally off following the shameful Labour day Weta company town anti union rally.
Oh please Kubrik? Only if you like pretentiousness dressed up as “art” and Coppolas a spent force, I mean whats he done thats decent in the last 20 years?
Tarantinos awesome though
speaking of forces of nature, You do what exactly Chris?
any one who can carve Apocolypse Now out of the quagmire of the 1970’s mass market movie machines and retain an assemblage of their sanity deserves a bit more respect.
According to experts, it is generally accepted a physicist’s best work is done before turning 30 years of age. Einsteins’ final forty years of work contributed little and actually began to question itself. Do you belittle his place in the annals of history? Lord Earnest Rutherford contributed almost nothing to the progression of hard science after splitting the Atom, he chose to focus on smaller problems and seemed happy to do so.
A man’s work is an army built of its own endeavours, creative work especially. Kubrick, well that is a whole other echelon peopled by the likes of Kieslowski, Vincent Ward and Wim Wenders,
Artworks are not targeting software,
they do not require updates to remain valid expressions of Society
though the strength required will always depend upon the weakness of their targets
how you feel that reflects on Tarantino, well that’s art for you,
a one on one with your own perception
That may well be but I whatever hes (Coppolas) done in the past (as good as it is) doesn’t make up for what hes done in the last 20 years
Besides which art and popularity don’t have to be seperate, you can have both (Chinatown and The Godfather as example)
At least you didn’t put Malick in there
“Coppolas a spent force, I mean whats he done thats decent in the last 20 years?”
If that were a valid way to critique someone’s stature as an artist, I’d be asking you what Tarantino made in the 70s and 80s that was worth watching.
But I wouldn’t, because then I’d be an retarded like you.
Ok Felix you’re a sad little man but I’ll indulge you…
See when I said “spent force” I was suggesting hes well spent which is why I said whats he done in the last 20 years…because I’m saying hes spent
I’m not saying he hasn’t done incredible work (because he has) but he hasn’t done anything even remotely close to his best work in decades which is why I said hes a spent force
What I’m saying is (and I have to repeat myself so you’ll get the message) hes a spent force, I’m not trying to take anything away from the great work in the past but hes spent
Is that clear enough for you
(in case its not I’ll say it again, hes a spent force)
Oh dear, I suppose I shouldn’t have expected too much from someone who puts the word “art” in quotation marks when discussing, um, art.
But to clarify for you dearie, you were actually using the “spent force” line to say that Jackson is a superior artist to Coppola.
Maybe you forgot how your comment came about and what you were responding to (no big deal, it happens) but you still said it and the context makes it very clear that that’s what you meant.
Silly goose.
KUBRIK is pure art just about every frame would make it into an art gallery by its self he understood the medium better than most.Dialogue was kept to a minimum less being more.
Naa Peter Jackson Bullshit artist of the first order. Scumbag is easier to type tho’
Whatever you think of Sir (and hes earned it) Peter Jacksons views the fact is he pushed the bar with special effects and he managed to film a supposedly unfilmable film
Not many others can say that
You don’t think there are many who can say they’ve “pushed the bar with special effects”?
Really?
I’m starting to wonder if you’ve ever watched a film.
Are you Spud by any chance?
Ok clever boy list me some directors who’ve pushed the bar with special effects and managed to film a supposedly unfilmable film, all at the same time
off the top of my head Chris
how about the guy who wrote the book on doing that very thing
Stanley Kubrick
example: 2001 A Space Odessey
“Oh please Kubrik? Only if you like pretentiousness dressed up as “art”” Chris73 roflmfao
2001 I thought was long and boring but that means out of all of the directors that have ever done special effects and tried to make a movie out of a difficult book theres been two directors…I don’t know about you but thats pretty damn good in my book
You’re hilarious.
Ok champ, define clearly what an “unfilmable film” is and we’ll go from there.
Not holding my breath.
I think he proved LOTR would take a lot more talent to film than PJ has.
Rather disappointing, pointlessly long winded films where it was almost impossible to engage with the characters.
Should have stayed with horror movies.
Well I agree that the length of the directors cut was too long but the movie length was pretty spot on and as someone who used to play AD&D (a long time ago) I think it was pretty good because at times it felt like an adventure you’d play (didn’t much like Liv Tyler though)
On the NZ Herald news pages
and
Arguably they’ll be struggling here too, but at least they will have their orange card!
also,
So the same families end up in overcrowded homes and theur kids still don’t get breakfast!
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10745190
Australia is hitting its slow down now. Will be tough times away from the mining boom areas. The Oz govt has treated NZ workers like labour of convenience. When things get tough – as demonstrated by the flood relief that Kiwis could not access – you are a one. They have no loyalty to you even if you have been a tax payer.
Wait until unemployed NZers decide they need to come back here because at least here they will have the dole. With 700,000 NZers over in Oz only a fraction would need to come back for our unemployment numbers to spike.
The days of Australia being a sink for the west’s massive excess labour pool are closing.
Serious crime and prostitution eh? Exactly what kind of work does John Key anticipate teen mums being able to get in this depressed economic environment?
Colonial Viper – Good points. It is my belief that Aussies have treated us like Mexican wetbacks are treated by the USA. Doing useful work in the country’s workforce that isn’t acknowledged with a government and voters that cling to erroneous ideas around numerous welfare bludgers and xenophobic attitudes. What can be expected from a country that voted John Howard back in after his disgraceful lies about the sea-borne refugees.
Ignoring the fact that a greater proportion of immigrant New Zealanders are in employment than native Australians.
Nouriel Roubini – Permabear Economist – Says Marx Was Right
Informative interview from one of Wall Streets “perma-bears”. Conducted by the Wall St Journal no less!
Marx was highly critical of the classical economists and his theory is completely antithetical to neoclassical economists (note this please Thomas).
Roubini also says that our belief that markets work may be wrong and that it is clear that financial markets are failing. Another stab to the heart of the neo-classical economics dream of “efficient market theory”. More orthodox economics which we have seen doesn’t work in real life.
http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/130373/leading-economist-nourial-roubini-karl-marx-was-right/
He’s making the same point that I do. The free-market seems rational at an individual level but is irrational at a community level.
narrowly defined markets can also appear to act rationally. But the complex confluence of multiple markets integrated into an actual ‘economy’. No way.
Even in the case of individual specific markets, total irrationality can occur. Tulip bulbs for instance…
Just glancing at Arthur Schopenhauer on women. Looked at from his perspective they don’t ‘fare’ well. Only a male intellect clouded by the sexual drive could call the stunted, narrow-shouldered, broad-hipped and short-legged sex the fair sex…
He didn’t marry though was interested in having a relationship with a woman. Wikipedia says –
I think it should be pretty clear that this special eftpos card to be issued to youth beneficiaries is simply the thin end of the wedge. Once it’s rolled out and implemented, it won’t be too long until it is rolled out to general DPB beneficiaries, probably the unemployment benefit and other benefit types like emergency assistance grants etc.
/agreed.
Jokey Hen very revealing about acceptance of NZ inequality of living standards and opportunities this morning on Radionz.
He says NACTs very concerned about children but they are just part of the concerns of the country. Now the advocates are breaking through this class-oriented approach to social justice to emphasising economic advantage. The smug and uncaring attitude that is a carry-over from our earliest colonial days may respond to this idea of more money and less problems to the country with positive assistance for the low income, low opportunity, low-skilled sector.
One town has had zero youth unemployment as they have youth training programs and helping gain employment.
US MSM admits that it picks and chooses political candidate winners
In the game of Ron Paul vs Michelle Bachmann, Michelle is pretty and electable, Ron is old, anti-establishment and to be ignored.
it is getting downright surreal how direct the networks’ statements on media manipultion are becoming, yet the sheeple still go Baaaaachmann even though six months ago they hadn’t heard of her, just like that other luminary who was going to lead their future: ex 1/2 term Governor, Sarah ‘proud ally of north Korea’ Palin
here is a repost of a FoxNews nationwide poll FoxNews removed from the FoxNews site
http://www.topix.com/issue/fox/gop-debate-aug11
and at $30 a ticket to have the right to vote at the debate, and Poll rules allowing Candidate’s to give away voting tickets to supporters, and the vast wealth of Bachman’s network compared to Paul’s it does lead the question:
How many honest votes did Ron Paul actually win the Straw Poll by?
Moderate alcoholic drinking is good for a person.
Drinking is a social lubricator, often how many people get jobs is over a pint.
Drinking is cultural, even part of religious and most certainly a social activity for families
who use wine at the diner table.
Alcohol is a cheap medicine, mouth wash for the elderly, even keeps bugs at bay.
If i eat something slightly off a swig of brew always helps.
Now add to this, the benefit cannot keep people in alcohol, enough to binge.
Kids on the benefit can’t by alcohol so why is Key justifying it.
And if kids are getting alcohol its from others.
So what a creepy policy.
The solution to the issue of youth welfare ‘dependency’ is simple.
Throw the international students out of our schools and force them to focus on kiwi students, agressively monitoring those at risk of dropping out.
Problem there Millsy; the foreigners are bringing in big bucks; I think there are about 2% overseas students at my kids high schools, and they bring learning opportunities for lots of students at the school, without the dollars the school budget would be hammered (although saying that they wouldn’t need to employ the couple of staff overseeing them).
Well then the government should be funding our schools more.
Fact: Schools are catering to international students at the expense of our own. They must be chucked out yesterday.
We never had this nonsence before Tomorrows Schools in 89 and our school system was OK. They just focused on New Zealand students
“Fact: Schools are catering to international students at the expense of our own. They must be chucked out yesterday.”
I don’t think that’s the case at all.
A principal from CHCH was on the radio talking about a loss of 40 international students due to the earthquake, which was almost $500,000 worth of funding they missed out on.
Do you really think all that $500,000 would be spent on the 40 international students with none of it spent on locals? Because that’s what you’re asserting.
have to agree, the international kids aren’t the problem, they are bringing in revenue by the bucket load, more than they expend; also the students are not dummies. My daughter has a German friend, a year younger than her, fluent in three languages, her English is excellent, she is in the top maths and science classes – kids like that are an asset, because they have a fantastic work ethic.
The trouble is, if the international students bring in the money then the school starts putting them first, and the ones who are at risk of dropping out etc get left further and further behind, because all the attention is being lavished on the international students. (and because the schools want to push out the ‘dumb’ kids).
Our schools need to put New Zealand kids first, and start realising that their purpose to to educate new zealand kids, not make a profit on the international student market.
International students can be educated by the private sector.
Aside from ESOL courses, I didn’t see any special attention given to the international students in my high school.
I think you’re imagining a problem that doesn’t really exist.
“not make a profit on the international student market.”
How exactly would a school make a “profit”? There are no shareholders. They don’t get to pocket the extra money themselves. Any school board that appropriated funds from the school for its member’s benefit would be committing fraud.
Where they will get ripped off… I work when I can, as an ESOL teacher for private schools, all of which are thoroughly unethical cess-pits, hell-bent on getting fees, and nowt else. That’s bad enough for teens and adults, you want that for kids? (Not all international students are wealthy – in fact most aren’t).
An additional problem is: why would you not want NZ children to associate with children from other countries? Are we going to also kick out foreign students from our universities, med and dental schools?
I don’t have the numbers on hand, but NZ gets a lot of money from the education sector.
“Youth welfare dependency” is also framing which doesn’t work. Like drug dependency. Blame the addict and blame the drug, right? So the answer is to victimise the young person and cut off the drug (the benefit). Some answer.
We have an economy which is low in value, misallocates capital and does not produce decent paying jobs, either in the public sector or the private sector.
IMO that’s the underlying disease, all this other running around is simply treating symptoms.
http://www.channelonline.tv/channelonline_jerseynews/displayarticle.asp?id=493520
FROM THE HORROR VAULT
Proof that worshipping the Royal Family robs Britons of all taste and class
Before the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, a poll in Britain found that the favourite song that people would play at any street parties would be “Dancing in the Streets”.
Sounds great, you think? Martha and the Vandellas! [1] Fantastic!
But wait a minute! The poll means something else entirely. That’s right—what these Hello!– and News of the World-reading morons wanted was not Detroit’s finest femmes, but the most unhip cover [2] in the history of popular music (equal worst with Whitney Houston’s desecration [3] of “I Will Always Love You”[4])…
Dancing in the street for Royal Wedding
If you are planning a party to celebrate the Royal Wedding, then chances are you could be bopping along to ‘Dancing in the Street’. The Mick Jagger and David Bowie cover hit has topped a poll of songs that people would play at a street party to celebrate the Royal Wedding. …
Read the rest of this indictment of the English HERE….
http://www.channelonline.tv/channelonline_jerseynews/displayarticle.asp?id=493520
[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdvITn5cAVc
[2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9G4jnaznUoQ&ob=av2e
[3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JWTaaS7LdU&ob=av2e
[4] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gS-F4rfU4ns
Yep, that was the bookend that marked the completion of the ground breaking, literate and hip rock star phase of Bowie’s career and the start of the coke addled fool period. The only Mick he ever needed was Mick Ronson, possibly the greatest rock guitarist Britain ever produced.
Happily, I understand that Dave is spending his time working on art, rather than trying to relive the glory days. Just for everything he did between 1965 and 1981 he deserves every happiness in his retirement. And the Western Springs gig in ’78 is still the best arena show I’ve ever seen. Only the Cramps rank higher for me in the great gig stakes, but that’s a different kinda rock entirely.
Jagger, of course, remains a flannelled fool. Just ask Keith Richards.
Woah, you saw The Cramps live – kudos mate; my claims to fame are The Ramones and The Dead kennedy’s
Happily, they played Auckland a few times in the mid eighties, Ian. First time I saw them was on my birthday, and the next time they came to town I saw them both nights. One or more of those gigs was the basis of the Rockin n Reelin in Auckland New Zealand rekkid. You know Lux died? I always thought he was what Elvis’s dead twin would have grown up to be.
This is a superb live psychotic reaction and this is the last version of the band five years ago. And this is how all rock and gigs are meant to end.
Let’s just hope Bowie never tries to dance again. Or Jagger.
“Are we going to also kick out foreign students from our universities, med and dental schools?”
An education system focused on the needs of New Zealand students rather than attracting fee-paying international students will go a long way to ensuring that our young people arent left on the scrap heap.
Case in point: At my local polytech our big spending CEO decided to spend millions of dollars on attracting international students about 10 years ago.
He knocked down horticultural training gardens to build a student hostel to accomodate the Chinese students.
He spent millions of dollars changing the name from Taranaki Polytechnic to WITT because appearently international employers wouldnt know what the hell a ‘polytechnic’ was.
As a result, it almost went bankrupt and half the courses were shut down. A lot of our young people now have to leave town if they want a meaningful qualification
While NZ primary and high school education remain strong, there are serious problems with the role and structure of our tertiary education institutions. Basically there needs to be a top to bottom review of what NZ society needs from those institutions in the 21st century.
Within that context, the CEO you talk about sounds like he went on a money grab. The issue sounds like it was less about foreign students per se and more about their fees and ways he could shore up his bottom line (perhaps in the face of expected future funding pressures or budget cuts).
Globalisation is fraught with dangers and in many cases just plain damaging. However, I feel that giving NZ children the opportunity to meet and study alongside young people from other cultures is generally a good thing.
The other point I would make is that all the best tertiary training or education in the world is of no help at the moment. Our economy does not udecent jobs for young people, whether they are school leavers or marketing graduates. So young people come out of these courses still unemployed, but with the extra bonus of student debt.
” I feel that giving NZ children the opportunity to meet and study alongside young people from other cultures is generally a good thing.”
Quite, thats why we have historically had student exchanges and scholarships for those from developing countries (the Colombo Plan I think it was).
If we are going to have students from overseas study at our schools and tertiary institiutes, I would much rather it be as part of the above.
Similar happened here – where an institution with similar letters are still actively recruiting in India and now Turkey! CEO is a clot, but fortunately departing to Brisbane, their loss, our gain!
Funny, can’t find anything today about Global Warming…….
tbh grumpy… was going to make a sarcasm post this morning when I woke up and saw snow for the first time at this property in the 30+ years of my life… but obviously you beat me to it
Climate change predicts these kinds of extreme weather events. Congratulations on being a moron.
Oh, yes, of course it does……now the names been changed from Global Warming to Climate Change. Had to really….eh???
Just like the Global Financial Crisis is going to be renamed the Great Collapse. Doesn’t mean it’s any better…quite the opposite, likely.
No. It is still AGW to those who are grounded in reality. Because that is what it is. Global warming caused by human atmospheric pollution.
You can show that increasing carbon dioxide retains heat on a kitchen table experiment.
Do you really think if there was any credible scientific rebuttal to AGW some bright researcher wouldn’t have claimed the millions on offer from Exxon and other well funded self interested denialists.
Do you want to bet the future of humanity on the ignorant and unscientific BS from Moncton et-all. The same group who reckon tobacco is good for us.
Ok, this is the only issue on which I agree with grumpy. How exactly does climate change formerly known as global warming ‘predict’ these events? Tell me how extra carbon dioxide in the air as some guy said on Facebook cause extreme cold? The last time I asked to be educated on this (non)-issue, I just got sarcasm and abuse, and was eventually told that I am in the pay of Big Oil (I wish!) and to “look it up” myself…
Perhaps lprent who got his 36th degree in “earth sciences” could help us out here???
..lprent who got his 36th degree in “earth sciences”..
First degree.
I’m sure this has been answered (I’ve been down with a cold). But is pretty simple. Just think of the atmosphere and oceans as being a energy transfer of heat mechanism – pretty much what you see when cook with the heat only on one side. Weather is a way of moving heat from areas that have too much to areas that have too little and vice versa. Winds, air masses, and currents do this using various means as a result of the effects of their stored energy. Low and high pressure systems in the atmosphere, and salinity and density differences in the oceans.
It is an obvious consequence of a planet that receives relatively less energy per air molecule or land area in its polar regions than it does in the equatorial regions that it has inequalities in the stored atmospheric and ocean energy. So we have weather through heat transfers. The axial tilt just makes that more extreme.
So if on top of that, you make the atmosphere more efficient at holding heat, then the proportional differences between the cold areas and warm areas will get more extreme. That is because the polar regions while also getting more efficient at storage also receive less energy to start with. The higher the imbalance between the regions, the more energy is available to move air masses around. So they tend to happen faster and mover further and with greater differences (ie wind speeds).
Now the absolute differences are not that much. But climate and weather have a delicate balance normally anyway. You only have to look at the effects that the minor shift of the el nino/ la nina ocean current effects have on global weather. So you get more extreme local effects and changes in climate.
You’ll note that movement of air masses will involve cold and warm air masses moving around, just as it does now. It just tends to have more extreme events as far as we’re concerned.
Here, here, and here.
…”there is some evidence”….and….”suggests”…. does not seem to me that “the science is settled”.
And evolution is “just a theory”.
When a politician says “there is some evidence”, they’re making shit up. When a scientist says it, they’re pretty confident that it’s on the right track. learn the difference.
Please don’t be a prat, McFlock. Not all global warming sceptics are ‘anti-science’…
Rather uncomfortably I agree with Grumpy when he says “”there is some evidence”….and….”suggests”…. does not seem to me that “the science is settled”.”
Humans have to take action on incomplete knowledge. On global anthropogenic climate change the evidence is already 90%-95% in.
The nice thing about acting now instead of waiting later is that we get a lot of different benefits: new clean technologies, green industries, making more efficient use of our finite energy resources, transitioning to a de-industrialising civilisation etc.
It just so happens that we also get the best change of staving off a potential extinction level event by acting earlier rather than later.
btw it’s my opinion that energy depletion (hits hard in next 15 years causing massive geopolitical strife) will screw civilisation before climate change (hits hard in 80-120 years from now).
Humans have to take action on incomplete knowledge. On global anthropogenic climate change the evidence is already 90%-95% in.
How complete is the knowledge of how effective any counter measures will be?
Who cares? The point is that we made this mess and we have to sort it out.
In order to sort it out it sort of matters what will be effective, or even if there’s anything we can do that will be effective.
Another Yes Minister, as I recall:
Standard Foreign Office response in a time of crisis.
In stage one we say nothing is going to happen.
Stage two, we say something may be about to happen, but we should do nothing about it.
In stage three, we say that maybe we should do something about it, but there’s nothing we *can* do. [PeteG asking whether countermeasures will be effective, in his eternally passive-aggressive way]
Stage four, we say maybe there was something we could have done, but it’s too late now.
Science! Is never settled. Nothing is 100% probability until after the fact.
When there is 95% probability that something is occurring though you can pretty much say it is a certainty within the limits of our knowledge. A scientific theory, rather than a hypothesis.
There is a high probability that the fluid dynamics that keep a plane in the air, work as scientists think they do.
We can say that evolution is by far the most likely explanation for variation and changes in species.
We can also say that AGW is the most likely explanation by far for changes observed in temperatures, glaciation, ice cover and species distribution.
It is OK to be sceptical, but to deny something when almost all the available evidence points towards it is just stupid. Like the US republicans voting that AGW does not exist.
When I fly in a plane I prefer to think that the scientists and engineers have got their calculations right. I rely on the same science that tells us AGW is most likely happening.
I would not rely on some politicians opinion.
No, the “theory” example is quite pertinent, because most established scientists would probably rather chop their own leg off than say “we have definitively proved XYZ”, especially on the macro level. The reason being that their career is down the toilet when the inevitable counterexample is published.
“Suggests” generally means “we reckon this is the cause, but there might be a decent counter-hypothesis against it lurking out there somewhere so we’ll hedge our bets”. “Inconclusive” means “oh okay, we know that there IS another explanation, and we can’t pick between the two”.
I don’t think it is so much “anti-science” as pop-science missing nuances of expression, simply because grumpy doesn’t have a $300k grant application depending on him not being publicly discredited in the next 2 months.
Pretty simple really. The more energy/heat you put into a system, the more unsettled it becomes.
Look at a kettle on a hot gas flame. All sorts of whirlpools of hot and cold.
Heat water slowly on low and it warms through gradually without all the whirlpools and bubbling.
More extreme weather, on average, is exactly what you would expect with AGW.
Awful, awful segment on Mora’s show this arvo. Some meatheaded CCD’er on the show for ‘balance’, who the two panellists agreed with every step of the way. To be fair to Mora, he didn’t join in with the dumbfest, just prodded the participants occasionally when their non-comprehension started getting dangerously close to parody.
grumpy
Not to mention The Shock Doctrine which tells us in some detail the current and future plans for New Zealand by America’s man JKeyll and his masters.
Disaster capitalism is very useful for turning people’s misery to money’s benefit. Just ask Friedman – page 5 of the chapter called Blank is Beautiful where his philosophy of using disaster to benefit private business – privatising schools, firing teachers and installing the bulk funding regime to weaken the staff’s employment rights in this case.
Christchurch is now a blank slate; the people are weakened and suffering still – perfect for a Friedman takeover.
Key a friend of Friedman’s philosophy on using disaster to create a paradise for private interests over people’s future welfare?
Hi Jum,
Funnily enough, the snow didn’t bring me out in deep thoughts about the Friedmanite school of economics. Strange that.
If it had I would probably have thoughts about the frigid approach to humanity and the desolate wasteland it leaves behind.
Mind you, I still have my Samuelson text books so am a bit behind the times.
But, now you mention it, there is bugger all between “Global Warming”and Friedman theories. Both suffer from blind faith adherents, both believe the “science is settled” and both lead to economic ruin.
AGW has evidence to support it.
All the evidence so far shows Freidmanite economics is bullshit.
We’re heading into Global Cooling. Unfortunately, because of the wishy washy-ness that is/was AGW/Global Warming etc, “Climate Change/Challenge/Crap” has become the new buzzword.
It’s not a change. It’s not a challenge. The theory is crap.
Snow in Auckland in… 1931, 1976, 2011. Looks like a 35 year trend between each of those events.
Hmm, couldn’t be a cyclical event could it? No, that’s just a preposterous idea. These “unusual” weather events are solely caused by mankind managing to put out CO2 by burning natural fuels such as coal, oil and wood, which is carbon neutral as it’s already taken CO2 from the atmosphere when it was exceedingly higher than current.
Now that Co2 levels are starting to rise very slowly, expect far more winter storms until James Hansen’s excellent paper “Climate Process and Sensitivity” is reviewed yet again, and some smarter cookie realises that the feedback mechanisms prevalent in that paper actually relate to extreme cooling on a global scale rather than warming.
After all, I’ve said on this site before (and been lambasted for it) that Wellington would see snow this year.
Average temperatures worldwide going up = global cooling.
Less ice in the at the poles every year almost year on year (ice free access in the NW passage for the first time in recorded history) = Global cooling.
Yeah right!
Where has that “smart cookie” been. There is a fortune waiting for him.
No, no……they’re just “weather events”…..unless, of course, they support the warmist’s theories, in which case they become “climate change”.
I suggest you look up the difference between “weather” and long term trends.
One “weather event” does not show a trend.
A whole pattern of increasingly violent/or less violent “weather events” over time does.
Grumpy probably can’t remember what he had for breakfast 3 days ago (I know I can’t).
You’re asking way too much with this ‘keep in mind long term trends’ stuff 😛
Not to mention the record heat wave in the US, or the record high average May and June temperatures here in NZ this year.
This is just a weather event. A remarkably cold one for sure, but what everyone is forgetting is how pleasantly warm it was just a few days prior. I was wandering around the Tararua tops a few days ago in not much more than a t-shirt.
Let’s get this clear. Snow is the result of cold air at ground level lifting up masses of relatively warm moist air above it. Absolutely both conditions must be present.
What is interesting is that we are getting both conditions because the oceans around us at present are quite warm, so there is plenty of moisture about. At the same time we are getting these massive high pressure systems that are so large they plunge past the circum-polar wind patterns that normally keep polar air away from us, which are bringing these huge surges of cold air up into our latitudes.
Bear in mind too that when this cold polar air moves north, it MUST be being replaced by warmer sub-tropical air moving south to balance it out. So while little NZ is getting it colder for a few days, the southern Antarctic latitudes must be warmer than normal.
Climate change? Maybe. It is consistent with the idea that more energy trapped into the weather system will cause more dramatic events, with more energetic mixing of systems. But as with anything to do with climate, one event is neither conclusive, nor irrelevant. It is the pattern and the trend that matters.
Yup and Country Calendar on saturday had yet again more comments on changing unreliable rainfall patterns and water levels fluctuating in steams way beyond anything known previously. But hey with NACT it’s put head in sand and breath deeply… to generational farmers of the same land.
Not that this farmer was complaining with his truck come horse float/caravan they sold the bach to fund…..the gap just keeps growing.
Bloody nice truck – eh?
Am very perturbed at the report this morning about the man who was nearly convicted for asking people to leash their dogs on Mount Kaukau.
They called the cops.What is going on here. Nobody in New Zealand can calla spade a spade or tolerate any restricitions on their behaviour. Having a choice means anything you choose to do is okay and if you have disposable income then you are a superior person if not an actual aristocrat.
worst of all any social problems are sent to the cost accountants first and any empathy or insight is trampled by the hordes running to get the government funded contract.
Hey New Zealand the way you want it.
i couldn’t connect to the Std for about half an hour there – anyone else have the same issue? Wondering if its just my internet.
I could connect to the Standard and some other sites, but not to one other or to Twitter. Got a “network error: cannot connect to DNS Server’ message
Thanks Carol. I couldn’t connect to The Std or Red Alert, but I could to Stuff. Google would do international searches, but I couldn’t reach many international sites.
Damn peculiar.
I’m going to have to start recording the IP addresses of my fav sites so that I can still reach them even if the domain name system goes down.
Horowhenua:
I lost complete connection for 45 minutes around lunchtime. No access to anything anywhere. was all running fine then connection just dissapeared
Got the DNS error when running a diagnostic, saying could not find microsoft.com (don’t we wish!)
From the herald http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10745328
Another telecom failure…
so it wasn’t a plan to silence reactionary dissent from the masses then ? good to know! 🙂
Sure you’re not in moderation 🙂
‘Celebration of freedom of expression’ and support of Ian Wishart’s highly controversial book ‘Breaking Silence’.
Tuesday, August 16 · 11:30am – 1:30pm
Location
Outside Whitcoulls 210 Queen St Auckland City
Full credit to Whitcoulls bookstores for NOT bowing to intimidatory threats and allowing customers to choose whether or not we want to read for ourselves ‘Breaking Silence’ – which will be available from Tuesday 16 August 2011. Those who wish to celebrate and support both the book ‘Breaking Silence’ and Whitcoull’s principled stand ( profits from the sale of ‘Breaking Silence’ will be donated to charity) are very welcome to attend. (The Police have been advised of this ‘gathering’). Macsyna King – MOTHER – key Police witness who has never been charged, let alone convicted of any offence regarding the deaths of HER baby sons – has the lawful right to TELL her story. Award-winning investigative journalist Ian Wishart has the lawful right to WRITE her story. We the public have the lawful right to buy and READ this story. End of story.
Look forward to seeing you there! 🙂
(For more background information :FACEBOOK: ‘Break the Kahui Code of Silence..’ )
Penny Bright
Penny Bright
The interesting thing about Ian Wishart is his Investigate magazine. He now has a His on one side and a Hers on the other, with different pictures, which implies that men and women cannot handle the same sort of article. Oh dear – is he starting to force men and women into role play when all they actually require is OBJECTIVE articles from all media outlets – a failed enterprise in New Zealand.
Mind you the article he wrote about Helen Clark is an exercise in how he sees women as either evil because they aspire to be leaders or moneymakers which is what King is. I used to think he was a brilliant investigative reporter. Unfortunately, he is not an objective one and he only seeks to “tell the truth” when it suits him.
You lose my respect when you side with him at all.
You still have my respect over your fight against private water ownership/contracts.
It doesn’t matter WHAT you think of Ian Wishart. The principle here is one of support for FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION. End of story. Without freedom of expression – politically – you have nothing. WHO WILL BE NEXT if a stirred up lynch mob – who haven’t even READ the book – through unlawful threats against persons and property – help force some bookstores not to stock a book? This is a HUGE issue – which is why I have spent the last 6 weeks fulltime helping to fight the hatred and bigotry against MOTHER Macsyna King who is trying to help expose the Kahui Code of Silence and help get justice for HER murdered baby sons. If you want more information / informed debate on the issues – check out FACEBOOK: ‘Break the Kahui Code of Silence..
You might want to get your keyboard checked out, I think you have a problem with your caps lock
Penny Bright,
Actually, to me, it does matter what I think of Ian Wishart; his past political attacks on Helen Clark and his bad conclusion analysis proves a risky ask for me to listen to anything he says. You can. Go right ahead. I’ve been there; he wasn’t worth it.
The whole case gives this government just another excuse to shut down on treating any beneficiaries as human beings. If you follow Wishart’s past campaigning for the conservative right you will understand there is another agenda for him. Like I said, tho’, just my opinion. Freedom of expression I am willing to fight for. Agendas of the right and the religious extremists; that’s quite another fight I’m not willing to pay lip service to.
“Freedom of expression I am willing to fight for”. So we’ll see you outside Whitcoulls tomorrow then Jum? 😉
There are plenty of places to buy this book personally I would rather have a free pizza
Penny Bright
Sorry, not in the CBD yesterday. Whitcoulls isn’t that the place that rehired people on less wages? Then we had people criticizing those workers for complaining about it. Great divide and conquer politics going on in NZ. Worker against worker. Key and Joyce will be loving it.
An interesting opinion piece from Warren Buffett
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/opinion/stop-coddling-the-super-rich.html?_r=2
3 News making excuses for Jokey Hen again… are we sure Murdoch doesn’t own them already?
How wonderful they think his new anti-youth plan is!
Murdoch, private equity, goldman Sachs ….they all follow their masters wishes, or get sacked. That loan was effectively buying their support via joyces association.
How convenient that the Herald is sending 8 weeks worth of free Heralds out to people, when it coincides with NAct’s big conference and various other news items which the rightwing thieves and liars can latch on to to use their asset stripping and freedom stripping and dignity stripping laws on.
It’s all about framing the lie to NActMU’s advantage for the Herald isn’t it.
A startling figure of deaths in custody of British youth, I think non-white. It is up to a thousand with no convictions against police, no jail sentences. Just heard that on radionz.
Deaths in police custody since 1998: 333; officers convicted: none.
so how did they die?
if this isn’t a story then someone controls the media.
Also, the Metropolitan Police Authority’s own figures.
edit: More here. http://leejasper.blogspot.com/
Unexpected earthquake observation #1,001;
That the earthquakes would move back west to whence they came .
No Thank You Peter Goodfellow
Recently the National parties Website underwent an extensive and flashy make over giving more emphasis on appearance rather than substance. As well as unashamedly promoting John Key’s smile and wave policy, a request to donate to the blue team became a key feature of the redesign…
Lies!!!
It’s never had any substance 😛
http://whaleoil.gotcha.co.nz/index.php/2011/08/a-response-from-the-electoral-commission/
Someones getting sent to the naughty chair again…
How kind of you to provide Blubber Boys e-mail address!
Well you know I’d hate it if I’d thought you guys would miss out on yet another example of Labour not following the rules they themselves set up