The UK Government Manufacture of False Sexual Allegations
by CRAIG MURRAY, Jan. 9, 2019
…. mud sticks, and the smear was used to discredit my evidence on torture and extraordinary rendition, and has been so used ever since.
Alex Salmond is far more of a threat to the British establishment than I ever was. So is Julian Assange and so is Tommy Sheridan. Anybody who looks at any of these examples, and does not understand that the state will actually fabricate allegations and fabricate evidence to back them, is a fool.
Yes Morrisey, it is the horrible kind of political expediency.
Or worse, what happened to a certain reporter in an embassy.
Governments practice it to degrees. Here we had a unionist killed by a bomb, and in Britain a Kiwi protester went that way under the truncheon of a horseback Bobbie.
Being discredited pulls political teeth, being sexually discredited by rumour or innuendo removes the chance of being believed.
Being killed to prevent the truth coming out happens. It depends on the material and the power of the threatened.
All governments have methods of dealing with opposition, most ok but some not so.
Thanks for that reminder, patricia. The National government, in concert with the “Defence” chiefs and their usual media accomplices, led a campaign of lies against Jon Stephenson and Nicky Hager. I’m extremely upset with this Labour government bowing to those “Defence” chiefs and covering up the “inquiry” into the SAS raids in Afghanistan.
It’s also worth remembering that it’s not only Saudi Arabia that holds the concept of “embassy” in contempt: the rogue U.K. regime at one stage considered raiding the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.
Thanks for reminding us of last year’s news, Naki Man. I suspect it would be really helpful for these tourists if one of them could enter into a relationship with a National party hack and drip feed titbits to the media over a period of months in an attempt to embarrass the Immigration Minister.
That worked so well in the Sroubek affair that the Minister was forced to, er, stay on as Minister.
One faced court after a night in the cells. The Police acted on a report by a Hamilton business.
The group were met by Police and had to buy two child restraint seats.
Why are you saying Police action happened after publication, when clearly events were published after court and police action. Your point was?
Apparently they reside in Liverpool and have UK passports, but listening to those vids on the news sites, it’s sounds very much like mrs brown’s boys to me. But who knows?
I did read a report on stuff (I think) from an ex pad Irish who was doing their best to distance themselves from these tourists, claiming they were likely to be first or second generation traveller imports to England.
Either way, not the best both nations have to offer from what I’ve seen and read.
Lucky for them their old fella is the tenth richest man in blighty. He’ll be able to pay all the fines and cost with ease 😆
They have not been instantly deported but have been issued with a Deportation Liability Notice, according the Newshub report link below:
When officers arrived at the scene, immigration officers were with them, ready to serve the tourists with a Deportation Liability Notice (DLN)
“You have 14 days to appeal to Immigration NZ on why you should remain in New Zealand or 28 to appeal to the Immigration and Protection Tribunal,” they were told.
Peter Devoy, Assistant General Manager for Immigration New Zealand, told Newshub that Section 157(5) of the Immigration Act 2009 meant temporary visa holders could be issued with a DLN on several grounds, including for matters relating to character.
Simon Laurent, principal for Laurent Law, told Newshub the section of the Act referring to “other matters relating to character” could be applied if complaints had been raised about the visitors.
“It’s open door for [Immigration NZ] to say ‘they haven’t been charged with anything but they are undesirables, we think they might have committed offences, they might have been disturbing the peace’ even if they haven’t been taken to court,” said Mr Laurent.
Temporary visa holders could also be served a notice under a “criminal offending” provision.
“That means they say that ‘we feel there has been criminal offending, the courts haven’t decided that finally, but we believe this offending has taken place because there is a weight of evidence behind it’ or whatever it might be.”
If individuals served with a DLN were deported “there would be a prohibition on them coming back into the country, there is a five year ban,” said Mr Laurent.
“Whenever they apply for a visa for anywhere else, or they try to enter some other country and they’re asked if they have ever been deported, well they’re going to have to say yes, and they could be stopped at the border,” he said.
Mr Laurent said technically the Minister of Immigration was the individual empowered to deport someone, but decisions of this nature were often delegated out to appropriate level immigration staff.
The article also provides more details of damage, aggression etc in both Auckland and Hamilton – just astonishingly bad behaviour.
———————–
Oops – almost missed these details at the end of the article:
“Another member of the group, David, also denied the travellers were Irish gypsies and were instead English citizens in New Zealand for a two week holiday.
But those plans now seem to have been cut short, with the group planning to head off on Wednesday.”
So, if they leave today as now planned, that probably means that they will not have officially been deported and will be free to take their bad behaviour elsewhere in the future. In the meantime, what likelihood of their paying for all the damage etc they have caused?
——————-
Here is a link to a TVNZ article on the group:
RNZ News have reported that the 26 yr old woman from the group arrested in Hamilton has been convicted on two shoplifting charges of stealing $55 worth of goods from a petrol station in Albany, Auckland.
“She was accused of stealing Red Bull energy drinks, rope and a pair of sunglasses totalling $55 from a Caltex service station in Albany in late December and early January. …
“She was convicted and ordered to pay reparation in court today, appearing for a second time after the case was stood down pending an application for legal aid.
“Ms Cash was described in court documents as having no fixed abode.”
“In sentencing, Community Magistrate Ngaire Marcelle gave Cash credit for her early plea and took into account that she had spent the night in police cells.
“Ms Marcelle described the night in custody as a significant penalty for a first offence.”
While I also think good riddance to the Irish travellers, the mind boggles why some disorderly behaviour managed to get them deported so quickly and the police and immigration involved without even a prosecution, while we have so many criminals living in NZ who break the law and actually destroy other people’s lives with their crimes and they are still here or their crimes un noticed for decades, often even being granted permanent residency? Personally find those that ask $40k for a fake job, import in 40k of crystal meth or give out fake drivers licenses are more dangerous to NZ society than littering and doing a runner on a meal from an obnoxious family.
If only more visitors and residents could be deported or asked to leave by authorities, after being convicted so promptly and exhibiting antisocial/criminal behaviour, we might have a much nicer society and many less Kiwis in poverty and our prisons not overflowing and shorter times to receive medical attention.
Just a few high profile migrant criminals that are in jail costing Kiwis hundreds of thousands of dollars who ‘eventually’ got deported or are still here fighting deportation or not deported at all… Sroubek, Joanne Harrison, Ka Kit Yim alias Chris Yim, Virgil Balajadia, Gurpreet Singh, Faroz Ali to name but a few making headlines…
Maybe if the government were more interested in stopping and protecting and deporting scammers and criminals who were not born here and trying to get permanent residency or citizenship, we might have a better society and not people queuing up at the food banks and living in overcrowded accommodation with so many people who do not deserve to reside in NZ, having the priority rather than the safety and fairness and welfare of those who do.
Every time someone makes a dollar, speculators arrive to mess things up. It’s the fear of missing out that drives the pile on. It’s ‘competition’ say the business folk who, never thinking always acting, jostle for position on the gravy train; and fuck our ecology again.
This is the plight of starving bees with newcomers piling on trying to make manuka honey.
I have a hive. And to have this hive I have to register said hive. This means there is somewhere a central authority with the numbers of hives in each region. This also means there is someone, somewhere, approving the overstocking of our lands for business interests, again.
I’ve got an issue with bees. I have hardly seen any this year. Last year there was plenty. Not many wasps, only a few bumblebees, seen no frogs, or tadpoles, few flys.
Im one of those people who let there lawn go to flower. At one property the lawn was still pretty short but was a near perfect white lawn. To me it was buitifull, but the landlord disagreed. This Christmas the lawn was a mix of white and yellow. But hardly any bees.
The thing with bees is the don’t know about our on paper boarders. Unlike humans, not even walls stop them. So it’s not possible to ban a person putting bees on land they own, or expect those bees will not come on your land. They may grow a crop that needs bees themselves. The registering system is not an opproval system.
We could significantly increase bees as a small Buisiness model in NZ, within co-operatives to enable products and high value exports. So registering bees is a good idea. Opposite to overstocking as an intent, it exposes overstocking, it exposes shortages and areas needing investment in small buisinesses in those areas.
Somebody may have land that grows Manuka and the neighbor brings in bees to take advantage. How do you stop it? I may get honey from my lawn, and the neighbor sees that and puts a hive at my fence, themselves mowing there own lawn all the time, having no flowers.
” may get honey from my lawn”
Wow!
You want to ring-fence the pollen from the flowers that grow in your garden?
Have you considered patenting the colour of your flowers?
Some people might be looking over your fence and soaking it up with their eyes; exploiters!!!
I think you got the wrong end of the stick. I can understand why people who plant land for honey production only for next door profiting are complianing. I was pointing out reality is it’s impossible to prevent.
Unless you make having a bee hive a resource consent event. You could create a Beehive Bureaucracy just for subservience to the state and protection of preferred landowners.
I think I prefer the flaws of freedom.
In my own lawn example, I would encourage others to do the same if they want to keep bees, as well as flowering bushes, trees. The mowed lawn is a desert. A lawn allowed to flower supports many more insects and the things that feed on them. Then it can be mowed and you get a great composting crop.
DJ you should do a post on bees and the rural economy of honey.
My family own a reasonable sized drystock farm south of Kaitaia, and most everywhere around it has reverted to Manuka. Plenty of very, very competitive apiarists up there now. And a fair few jobs.
Personally I could see the family farm just hold their nose for four years and let the whole thing revert, then go straight to honey production. Much better return, whole bunch more viable, and good for the land.
Yes I watched a documentary a year or so on a family as you described up north.
I don’t do it myself because I’m a bit allergic to them. My best friend has a close friend who is involved with bee keeping in an urban setting for himself as well as having worked in the industry overseas. Plus a workmate did it for awhile as well. So I have had quite a few conversations, helped make things, and relaxed in his backyard while watching the hives in action.
IIRC someone (one of the admin/moderators? ) mentioned in passing some weeks ago that he and someone else(?) were “on sabbatical” – but cannot find the comment.
My sincere apologies for snapping at you re PG – was trying to be open minded about other commenters such as PG being able to comment here – and then did exactly to you what I accused you of. Mea culpa.
All good – I did feel sad – but that was because I ‘made’ you and Robert comment to me like that not sad actually about your comment which was fair enough.
I agree that I miss Bill’s opinions which I also rarely agreed with but they nevertheless were valid and needed to be considered even if not agreed with. But I do not miss his moderation … Less said the better, but I know it drove some people away, including me, on occasions. I have a fairly thick skin, but his attacks were well over the top sometimes.
Moderation is always problematic, vv, and it takes a toll on the person doing the mahe too. None of the authors want to see people removed from the site, however, that’s often the best thing to keep the place ticking along.
Bill put in place a really good system where we authors can keep track of moderation decisions and the reasoning for them. It means that when making the big calls on a misbehaving commenter, there is a record of previous attempts to get an improvement from them. That really helps with consistency.
Each moderator has their own style, but I can tell you, it gets incredibly frustrating when people don’t take the hint. It can be really, really hard to be diplomatic in those circumstances.
I certainly don’t disagree with any of that, trp. And I am interested that it was Bill who set up the recording system for moderation decisions and similar.
From time to time I am a moderator/administrator on a worldwide blog of a completely different nature, subject etc to this one, so know from personal experience the problems etc. Each instance requiring moderation is different in some aspect to similar instances in the past, and it is a tightrope walk as I know. But I still stand by my comments above from observation and personal experience. But lets leave it at that.
+1.
I know/am related to a Scottish Maori just like him. Much we can agree on, a lot we cannot.
Could have used him when entertaining the family Tory faction Christmas lunch time
Ed was one of the best at taking moderation on board and not getting banned for the same thing, while others continue to be banned for the same behaviour.
The truth is Ed was not wanted on this board by certain parts, and that is why he is banned.
Maui. Please don’t be a goose. This thread has been pretty good till now and the conversation has been an adult discussion about what was a genuinely difficult moderation decision. I know you don’t like the facts of the matter, but the truth is Ed (and his many alternative names) never learned a fucken thing. For whatever reason, he just kept coming back, doing the same dumb shit day after day. Which is why he was repeatedly banned by multiple moderators.
And, no, I don’t want to get into a discussion about it. Suck it up and move on.
He tried a couple of comments on TDB on Jan 11 also, complaining about TS, but haven’t seen any since (although I have not really checked since). Wonder whether he has been blocked there? [Rhetorical question only … ]
ED says:
JANUARY 11, 2019 AT 10:22 AM
I was attacked and abused on the Standard for stating this about Russia.
Joe90, Stuart Munro, Andre and Te Reo Putake are cheerleaders for war against Russia on that centrist chattering club.
(A few other familar TS commenters also on that thread.)
ED says:
JANUARY 11, 2019 AT 10:19 AM
I was silenced by Te Reo Putake for suggesting radical solutions to climate change.
The Standard has become a centrist chattering club with tints of Mccarthyism.
I agree with your moderation TRP but purely for entertainment Ed was gold, I know that’s not the purpose of the site but I am sure that’s why a lot of people come here, sorry not high brow but the left wing punch ups are way more entertaining than dealing to RWnJ like me😊
Dead right, Bewildered. That’s one of the reasons why it was a hard call. There’s an old saying ‘no grit, no pearl’, which suggests that the occasional irritation can lead to a beautiful outcome. However, this situation felt more like ‘all grit, no pearl’.
Is it to do with phases of the moon or something? There seems to be even more frenzy than usual going on on the trademe message board site.
I see there the Prime Minister is lazy and is on holiday recovering from all the days she didn’t turn up to work , etc., etc. School’s out I suppose and kids have to occupy themselves doing something.
I miss Ed too. I found that his links were very informative. I think that his banning was something of an ego trip. (lefter than thou?) If you are not well educated and somewhat inarticulate , it can be really intimidating to comment on The Standard. I think it has become something of an echo chamber. Where are the working class/beneficiaries voices? I gave up commenting after a sarcastic response from Bill because I posted something that had already posted. James takes over threads with his bullshit and gets away with all sorts of shit. ‘Birds of a feather” etc.
beatie
You make te point that James takes over threads and so does Ed. To my mind that was one of his main disadvantages. his isn’t a place for people’s entertainment by the way. We might make our comments in entertaining ways
and if you want to comment about serious matters and got put off by Bill, have another go with some detail and not just your moans about how bad things are and opinions which is what Ed did.
I agree with you. Now with Ed, Bill and CV gone there is a large chasm with the ‘alt-left’ voice pretty much wiped out from here. Whoever fills the void won’t last long I suspect.
KIRK HOPE: China is an example of a rapidly industrializing country which is also rapidly digitizing. It’s replaced the fulltime jobs of an industrial economy with trading. That’s the secret behind the success of Ali Baba! One or two people on line.
MEGAN WHELAN:[clearly dubious] That’s significantly less secure, though.
KIRK HOPE: I’m not sure it is. We have to think about what it will look like. There’s a LOT of work to go on in the education system; our funding models, what’s happening at the secondary level.
MEGAN WHELAN: Another thing with Richard—-I realize I’m sounding like a socialist revolutionary, and I don’t mean to, ha ha ha ha!—but he was worried about workers’ rights.
KIRK HOPE: People will have more flexibility. They might want to take six months off and travel.
MEGAN WHELAN: Yeah but not a lot of people have this option. It’s different when it’s thrust on them. …. Anyway, what’s the last song you’ve chosen?
Yes, and thank you Totally off topic but may give some a laugh
Hubby and I turn up to pre-op hospital education session.
After meeting 5 team members, we were given a ‘Grabber” to pick things up after the hip op.
We were most interested in the talk about easy ways to get into the car.
So we get out there, we successfully try their method.. Yay!!
N packs everything in and we are off.
Get home… where is the grabber?
Oh heck, put it on the roof of the car didn’t we!! N goes back …no luck.
We ring to explain. Much laughter from the desk. Half hour later, ‘phone goes
“Don’t worry, it was handed in, and no-one had driven over it. The team was delighted to hear you were so keen to practice what you were taught!! Further you made their day..they had a right old laugh… see you Friday.”
They already have my number I think!!
I liked the warning of Kirk Hope that if the government was too thorough in its changes, businesses wouldn’t want to do government work. That is so funny.
The whole trend for neo-liberals is to bad-mouth the government’s effectiveness and efficiency so that business gets to do and make a profit from providing government services, mainly by cutting wages and staff, and showing bad faith to the citizens in their dealings and practices.
No way are they going to want to stop milking the government, no matter how it tightens its teats.
yep. Well I guess we’re all the product of the bubbles we choose to operate in, and the degree to which we’re prepared to sacrifice principles.
Seems like in Kirk’s case, and many others, principles come cheap.
(That is until they don’t and it all goes tits up)
“The first video shows Chang’e-4’s descent into the Von Karman crater. The CLEP chose the crater as its landing site because of the crater’s depth. Von Karman is a crater-within-a-crater, and it’s possible that the impact event blasted away the crust and exposed some of the Moon’s mantle. The CLEP is using Chang’e-4 to examine the chemical and geological nature of the area, and to try and discover more about the Moon’s formation and interior.”
The New Zealand Prime Ministers’ office comments:
“They discussed the detention and legal treatment of Canadian citizens in China.
“Although the cases are a consular matter between Canada and China – as the extradition case relates to a Huawei executive in Canada – there are principles at stake that concern us all,” the spokeswoman said.
She added that the Government closely monitors international developments which may affect the safety of New Zealanders abroad, but advice for travel to China was to exercise normal safety and security precautions.
Earlier, Trudeau’s office confirmed to the Herald the pair had spoken.
“The prime ministers discussed the detention and legal treatment of Canadian citizens in China and the need for all countries to respect judicial procedure and rule of law,” a spokesperson said.
“The leaders also exchanged perspectives on shared priorities, including their commitment to promoting gender equality and women’s economic empowerment.”
Interesting to see non-Five Eyes countries such as Japan and Poland make similar moves against Huawei on security grounds.
But for Canada and New Zealand, nothing like something as basic to New Zealand as Commonwealth justice concepts coming up against Chinese ones.
Sooner or later Xi Jinping is going to have to bend.
Well let’s hope Petey Dutto and Scottie Morro and Grayo RIcho and Mattey Cormmo, and even Joolie Bisho and Petey Credo and Petey Gleeso, not to mention Ashey Gillo and Andy Bolto and Davo Speersy and Kerry Gilbo and a shitload of others are right in amongst it.
Ozzie Ozzie Ozzie Oi Oi OI
And the big debate at the moment is some people choosing to ingest some herb thats been around and ingested since dawn of time. Gives some perspective to what really matters.
Watched the video and had a look at what the wingnutosphere is saying about 5G tech.
And of course they can’t can’t make up their minds about whether 5G is an eat your brain cancer causing mind control plot or a nefarious, deep state/google socialistic watching me plot. Or Jews.
Thanks for the video Bruce. I’m really concerned about this. I’ve just had a smart meter installed (against my wishes) and it happens to be outside my bedroom . Unfortunately when I read the small print of my power contract it allowed for smart meter installation. It’s all about the money eh? I have an autoimmune disease and over the years (25) I have found that environmental factors have a huge impact, yet Big Pharma rules I don’t believe assurances from the telecom industry that every thing will be OK, because again it’s all about the money and fuck the consumer.
“I feel a bit sorry for Theresa May”…”I think she’s acted honorably.”
Mora’s gone, but The Panel is still bedeviled with bland and brainless blather. The Panel, Wednesday 16 January 2019
Wallace Chapman, Joe Bennett, Emma Espiner, Caitlin Cherry
This tired light chat show has been shaken up a little over the holiday period. They’ve rejigged the format a bit. And as we saw yesterday, Wallace Chapman seems a little bit more rigorous than Jim Mora, and seems to have at long last developed a backbone, in contrast to his supine behaviour in 2014, when he let he-man author Lee Child rhasodize insanely about how in real life “we all” want to see violent thugs like Jack Reacher torture and murder people.
Sadly, however, the vapid chatter of the Mora era has not gone away.
The first discussion topic in today’s pre-show chat was the vexed question of how to get boys and men to read books. This was the chance for perky producer Caitlin Cherry to put in her two cents worth:
CAITLIN CHERRY: You just have to introduce them to Lee Child books!
….Awkward silence….
EMMA ESPINER:[awkwardly] Ha ha ha.
CAITLIN CHERRY: Well, he’s a manly man.
….Awkward silence….
JOE BENNETT:[grimly] “Lee Child book” is an oxymoron.
Significantly, perhaps, Wallace Chapman did not spring to the defence of the man he had allowed, unchallenged, to spout such disgusting bilge four and a half years ago.
After that encouraging moment, it was back to the baloney. The subject was the Brexit vote in the U.K. parliament, and the Panellists competed for the most banal and brainless utterance of the day….
EMMA ESPINER: I feel a bit sorry for Theresa May.
JOE BENNETT: I think she’s acted honorably.
Then he burbled that “it’s a KNOWN FACT that Russia interfered in Brexit.” Wallace Chapman demurred at that: “Are you sure?” And Bennett doubled down pompously: “Oh YES….”
Morrissey you should put your name forward and suggest that they have a regular spot for a stirrer of some sort who might make some outrageous, to the bland,
comment. There wouls be a circular wheel which the stirrers could hop on for a swing and be replaced so they never appeared more than once. And offer yourself for the first. That would ginger it up.
He didn’t last long, but Michelle Boag will never forget being humiliated by him on the program. You can be sure she lobbied fearsomely for his removal when the opportunity presented itself. That opportunity was, of course, his display of lèse majesté in 2011, when he foolishly dared to point out the Prime Minister’s loutish imbecility in the House.
Been there, Shark, and done it. Back in 2013 I was an excruciatingly incompetent, utterly tongue-tied, nervous, giggling, useless Panellist. It was an April afternoon that will go down in infamy…
CHRISTINE RANKIN: Ha ha ha ha ha ha!
MORRISSEY BREEN: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Um.
JIM MORA: Ha ha ha ha ha! It’s time to find out what our Panelists have been thinking about. Christine Rankin, what’s been on YOUR mind lately?
CHRISTINE RANKIN: Well, Jim, look, I’ve been so busy working for the reintroduction of corporal punishment for the under-fives that I haven’t had TIME to do any thinking at all for several years now. I really can’t think of one thing to talk about.
JIM MORA:[long, irritated silence] Mmmmm-kay. Morrissey, have YOU got something on your mind?
MORRISSEY BREEN: Ummm, ahhhh, I’m going to abandon my, uh, carefully prepared speech about foreign policy, and comment on Christine’s failure to ummm, errr, honour her, ummmm, commitments to your show.
CHRISTINE RANKIN: [indignant] I’ve been BUSY.
MORRISSEY BREEN: Ummmm, ahhhh, yeah. Ummm…to paraphrase Dr. Johnson, I will say this about Christine: “This woman’s thinking is like a dog’s walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.”
JIM MORA: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! That’s very funny! I think he’s talking about you Christine!
MORRISSEY BREEN: And that’s all I have to say, Jim. Um.
JIM MORA: Short and sweet. That’s the way we like them on the Panel! Okay, next up, Lanthanide will tell us why he thinks a nuclear reactor in the middle of Christchurch would be a good idea. First, though, what do the Panelists think of this?
RANKIN:[fervently] That’s a SPLENDID idea. At last, somebody talking some sense….
“However FIRST Union General Secretary Dennis Maga claims worker shortages are due to low pay.
“There’s a reason no one wants to work in these jobs, their time isn’t worth the money and they often cannot afford to live on what some of these businesses choose to offer,” he said.
He cited horticulture as an example of a sector which has the money to pay.
“Horticulture is one of our highest export earners,” he said.
“If you want people to do the work, pay them fairly, pay them what they’re worth to you and stop crying out for migrant workers to exploit.”
He said New Zealanders are hard workers and they will do the work, as long as they feel it’s fair pay for the work.
“It’s important that we red-flag companies that claim to have a worker shortage to ensure they’re not exploiting migrants due to their low pay not attracting workers who already live here.”
The reality is that we have allowed a situation to develop across practically every work space in NZ under neoliberalism of ‘subcontracting’ out the responsibility of employees.
From hospital meals to Spotless, NZ has constantly contracted out to third parties taking a profit while driving wages and conditions down, to Chorus subcontractors going through 3 – 4 companies and 92% of these workers being paid below minimum wages.
Then we have the horticulture industry with unliveable wages and temporary jobs at those low wages not attracting normal people who used to work there 20 years ago, now not welcome or they just don’t have the money to work there after paying for accomodation and transport down!
Industry in NZ has become used to giving a cheque to a middle man to bring in 100 workers because it is easier (and cheaper) to do so.
Part of the issue is the work safe issues which have become non sensical when Pike river is ok and work safe never prosecuted, but teachers are now responsible for kids safety at a micro level.
Our laws have become impractical and as well as the appearance of cost savings and ease of contracting out responsibility there is also real reasons why employers want to contract out due to impractical rules on safety and responsibility.
Absolutely. I have broken a number on farm picking and pruning records for kiwifruit, blueberries, grapes, pears and apples, and can supervise a gang to go fast alongside me. You want your crop cared for or brought in fast I can do it. I even love the work.
But they won’t pay me right so they can sod off and whine about their problems elsewhere.
Yep @ WTB. You posted a video the other day (recovering from desertification, etc).
In your experiences, did you ever witness one of those immigration raids on orchards?
Not so long ago, even one of the cops (of long experience) that had to accompany a LI/INZ raid told me how bloody embarrassed he felt. He knew that the victims of all the exploitation were about to be tipped out while the perpetrator was just going for another round, and another, and another………..
(see 13.1 below as well)
I also don’t think it is so much as migrant exploitation but a cozy relationship between migrants trying to game the system to enter NZ and become a permanent resident or citizen here, when they do not have the necessary job skills or criteria to get in legally. Hence a plethora of ways, from marriage to paying for a fake job or paying to do a useless qualification here (often at a private institution) has emerged.
Most of the migrants are not being exploited but are willing participants in it, so it has become a symbiotic relationship to make the NZ government grant citizenship/residency in return for a cheap or free worker , a fake course or a speedy marriage or child being conceived in NZ to help get the points.
Some of the migrants are exploited but plenty have a clear path to try and get the permanent visa or citizenship so they can give up the pretence and have access to (by world standards) very generous social welfare in NZ.
If it costs you $100k to buy your way in NZ but you then get 2 new countries to work in including OZ , free health, education and super and social welfare, accomodation supplements and child allowances and can bring your relatives in in many cases too, it sounds like a good deal for many.
You probably need to ask yourself @SaveNZ how it all started. You’re not wrong about all the scheming and scamming in many cases, however the system we implemented (immigration policies, false promises made, complete lack of monitoring and oversight of tertiary education providers, charlatan immigration advisors with cosy little links offshore – “vertically integrated”, labour hire companies et al).
The saddest thing is that it has affected the truly genuine immigrants with a commitment to the place.
Any legit immigration lawyer will tell you the number of cases they have on file due to some or all of the above. Some of them have been screaming about it for several years and it’s only now things are starting to happen (SLOWLY).
I could tell you of a number of cases where we’ve lost the skills and commitment we’re supposedly after because lack of oversight, incompetence and under-resourcing has enabled the genuine to be confused with the dross and scammers by INZ. I could give you examples where lil ole Nu Zull has lost some really skilled and committed people to places like Canada and a few European countries.
I’m not just talking about horticulturalists whose green credentials are second nature to them, but also IT professionals, and even one that Rocket LAb would love to have gotten their hands on.
Oh Dear – too bad
but if only INZ, the Labour Inspectorate, IAA and associated had listened to a few people at the coal face (Immigrant Workers’ Assoc, legit Immigration Lawyers, Unions, etc. they probably could have prevented a lot of this and saved themselves a lot of trouble. They chose not to and kept with the policies and enforcement that just kept all the churn going – good business and a bloody good earn for some.
Scientist Brad Lister returned to Puerto Rican rainforest after 35 years to find 98% of ground insects had vanished
“We knew that something was amiss in the first couple days,” said Brad Lister. “We were driving into the forest and at the same time both Andres and I said: ‘Where are all the birds?’ There was nothing.”
His return to the Luquillo rainforest in Puerto Rico after 35 years was to reveal an appalling discovery. The insect population that once provided plentiful food for birds throughout the mountainous national park had collapsed. On the ground, 98% had gone. Up in the leafy canopy, 80% had vanished. The most likely culprit by far is global warming.
[…]
Since Lister’s first visits to Luquillo, other scientists had predicted that tropical insects, having evolved in a very stable climate, would be much more sensitive to climate warming. “If you go a little bit past the thermal optimum for tropical insects, their fitness just plummets,” he said.
As the data came in, the predictions were confirmed in startling fashion. “The number of hot spells, temperatures above 29C, have increased tremendously,” he said. “It went from zero in the 1970s up to something like 44% of the days.” Factors important elsewhere in the world, such as destruction of habitat and pesticide use, could not explain the plummeting insect populations in Luquillo, which has long been a protected area.
Data on other animals that feed on bugs backed up the findings. “The frogs and birds had also declined simultaneously by about 50% to 65%,” Lister said. The population of one dazzling green bird that eats almost nothing but insects, the Puerto Rican tody, dropped by 90%. Not due to destruction of habitat or pesticide use etc. Pure climate change outcomes.
Poor Ozzies getting the brunt of Climate change already. Just too damn hot to function so there goes productivity…
A heatwave will greatly reduce farm production here too I’d say. Only a matter of time. farmers ought to get planting. Fast growing nitrogenous species and crop trees they support. Get on it!
It only takes a minute walking around the city to see how bad all the concrete and tarseal is for heating the place up – offset it with trees, plant now for everyone’s comfort.
Northern Australia is feeling it atm, with a lack of rain during the “Wet Season. Darwin and including its rural area where the wife and I live has have the driest December in record since 1991. Atm we have had about a quarter of our wet season rain (about 300mm) which is going to cause problems for a number of people who still run off bores or use rain water tanks for storage. The gap between a good wet season and a bad (dry) wet season is getting smaller and some us are starting think this wet season is going to be dry one, which is going to cause issues this coming dry season/ fire season.
From an environment POV, a lot of estuarine fish species have disappeared to deeper water and other main fish species have move further of offshore. The real sad thing is our sea turtles and sea cows have disappeared or those that have sighted are in sort of distress. It’s the same for our min crabs as well.
Move over Gilets Jaunes. Last week an estimated 150-200 million Indian workers went on strike in protest against what they describe as the anti-labour policies of Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party government.
(I’ll keep an eye out but nothing much in English language media about outcomes)
Right to Strike
This strike, like the 17 before it, is about livelihood issues and about the right to strike. A new trade union law sits in the legislature. It would mean the death of trade unionism in India. Tapan Sen’s statement about enslavement seems less hyperbolic in this context. If workers have no power, then they are effectively enslaved to the firm. This is already the case in factories that operate almost like concentration camps.
Walking through factories along the Chennai-Coimbatore corridor or in the Manesar area gives you a sense of the power of these new factories. They are a fortress, difficult to breach. Or a prison. Either way, trade unions are not welcome there. They are kept out by force—either violence or political muscle. Workers are often brought in from far away, migrants with few roots in the area. No workers stay long. As soon as they appear settled, they are removed.
Footloose workers and harassed trade unionists make for a harsh work environment. The culture of working-class solidarity erodes, social violence grows—the seedbed of neofascist politics.
Trying to register on Kiwiblog. Why? I know little about life but I do know about fight. Resistance from’m. Maybe I do matter.
You have a regular 100 comments, they have a regular 300. Everyone here has to be ‘correto’, in fact and opinion, they allow the whole field. A certain openness.
My b.a. Christian brother is scouring-of-the-centre-of-the-earth sceptical of everything outside what he swallowed whole without looking.
The Left regard reality as their bedrock, the Right have regard for fairy tales.
Are country’s getting loose with the ways they treat people crossing their borders.
The Iran English language tv channel says that its anchorwoman flew to the USA and was then arrested, and no-one knows why or can find out where she is.
Labour MP and former Police Association president Greg O’Connor has been hit with a $150 fine and 20 demerit points after a member of the public photographed him driving on the wrong side of the road…
…Last week, Mr O’Connor said he had no memory of driving in a way that would warrant police attention, and he repeated that when contacted yesterday.
But he had been shown photographs of his car crossing the centreline.
“I’ve accepted that I crossed the line and I’ve paid the ticket,” Mr O’Connor said…
Tax Lawyer Barbara Edmonds vs Emperor Justinian I- Nolo Contendere: False historical explanations of pivotal events are very far from being inconsequential.WHEN BARBARA EDMONDS made reference to the Roman Empire, my ears pricked up. It is, lamentably, very rare to hear a politician admit to any kind of familiarity ...
It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just show a minimal amount of flux in public support for the various parties in ...
Buzz from the Beehive Housing Minister Chris Bishop delivered news – packed with the ingredients to enflame political passions – worthy of supplanting Winston Peters in headline writers’ priorities. He popped up at the post-Cabinet press conference to promise a crackdown on unruly and antisocial state housing tenants. His ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The Reserve Bank is advertising for a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion advisor. The Bank has one mandate – to keep inflation between one and three percent. It has failed in that and is only slowly getting inflation back down to the upper limit. Will it ...
Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency Waka KotahiThe fact that a ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: Gavin Jacobson talks to Thomas Piketty 10 years on from Capital in the 21st CenturyThe SalvoLocal scoop: Green MP’s business being investigated over migrant exploitation claims StuffSteve KilgallonLocal deep-dive: The commercial contractors making money from School ...
It’s a home - but Kāinga Ora tenants accused of “abusing the privilege” may lose it. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The Government announced a crackdown on Kāinga Ora tenants who were unruly and/or behind on their rent, with Housing Minister Chris Bishop saying a place in a state ...
This is a guest post by Connor Sharp of Surface Light Rail Light rail in Auckland: A way forward sooner than you think With the coup de grâce of Auckland Light Rail (ALR) earlier this year, and the shift of the government’s priorities to roads, roads, and more roads, it ...
Note: As a paid-up Webworm member, I’ve recorded this Webworm as a mini-podcast for you as well. Some of you said you liked this option - so I aim to provide it when I get a chance to record! Read more ...
TL;DR: In my ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.06pm on Monday, March 18:IKEA is accused of planting big forests in New Zealand to green-wash; REDD-MonitorA City for People takes a well-deserved victory lap over Wellington’s pro-YIMBY District Plan votes; A City for PeopleSteven Anastasiou takes a close look at the sticky ...
Buzz from the Beehive Here’s hoping for a lively post-cabinet press conference when the PM and – perhaps – some of his ministers tell us what was discussed at their meeting today. Until then, Point of Order has precious little Beehive news to report after its latest monitoring of the ...
David Farrar writes – We now have almost all 2023 data in, which has allowed me to update my annual table of how labour went against its promises. This is basically their final report card. The promiseThe result Build 100,000 affordable homes over 10 ...
I’m a bit worried that I’ve started a previous newsletter with the words “just when you think they couldn’t get any worse…” Seems lately that I could begin pretty much every issue with that opening. Such is the nature of our coalition government that they seem to be outdoing each ...
Geoffrey Miller writes – Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. ...
Depictions of Islam in Western popular culture have rarely been positive, even before 9/11. Five years on from the mosque shootings, this is one of the cultural headwinds that the Muslim community has to battle against. Whatever messages of tolerance and inclusion are offered in daylight, much of our culture ...
Last week Transport Minster Simeon Brown and Mayor Wayne Brown opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre. The new train control centre will see teams from KiwiRail, Auckland Transport and Auckland One Rail working more closely together to improve train services across the city. The Auckland Rail Operations Centre in ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson said in an exit interview with Q+A yesterday the Government can and should sustain more debt to invest in infrastructure for future generations. Elsewhere in the news in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 6:36am: Read more ...
Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. It is more than just a happy ...
TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to March 18 include:China’s Foreign Minister visiting Wellington today;A post-cabinet news conference this afternoon; the resumption of Parliament on Tuesday for two weeks before Easter;retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson gives his valedictory speech in Parliament; ...
New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters’s state-of-the-nation speech on Sunday was really a state-of-Winston-First speech. He barely mentioned any of the Government’s key policies and could not even wholly endorse its signature income tax cuts. Instead, he rehearsed all of his complaints about the Ardern Government, including an extraordinary claim ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
“I’ve been internalising a really complicated situation in my head.”When they kept telling us we should wait until we get to know him, were they taking the piss? Was it a case of, if you think this is bad, wait till you get to know the real Christopher, after the ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
.“$10 and a target that bleeds” - Bleeding Targets for Under $10!.Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.This government appears hell-bent on either scrapping life-saving legislation or reintroducing things that - frustrated critics insist - will be dangerous and likely ...
“It hardly strikes me as fair to criticise a government for doing exactly what it said it was going to do. For actually keeping its promises.”THUNDER WAS PLAYING TAG with lightning flashes amongst the distant peaks. Its rolling cadences interrupted by the here-I-come-here-I-go Doppler effect of the occasional passing car. ...
Subversive & Disruptive Technologies: Just as happened with that other great regulator of the masses, the Medieval Church, the advent of a new and hard-to-control technology – the Internet – is weakening the ties that bind. Then, and now, those who enjoy a monopoly on the dissemination of lies, cannot and will ...
Been Here Before: To find the precedents for what this Coalition Government is proposing, it is necessary to return to the “glory days” of Muldoonism.THE COALITION GOVERNMENT has celebrated its first 100 days in office by checking-off the last of its listed commitments. It remains, however, an angry government. It ...
Bob Edlin writes – And what is the world watching today…? The email newsletter from Associated Press which landed in our mailbox early this morning advised: In the news today: The father of a school shooter has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter; prosecutors in Trump’s hush-money case ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is another Green MP on their way out? And are the Greens severely tarnished by another integrity scandal? For the second time in three months, the Green Party has secretly suspended an MP over integrity issues. Mystery is surrounding the party’s decision to ...
For the last few years, the Green Party has been the party that has managed to avoid the plague of multiple scandals that have beleaguered other political parties. It appears that their luck has run out with a second scandal which, unfortunately for them, coincided with Golraz Ghahraman, the focus ...
TL;DR: The six newsey things that stood out to me as of 6:46am on Saturday, March 16.Andy Foster has accidentally allowed a Labour/Green amendment to cut road user chargers for plug-in hybrid vehicles, which the Government might accept; NZ HeraldThomas CoughlanSimeon Brown has rejected a plea from Westport ...
What seemed a booming success a couple of years ago has collapsed into fraud convictions.I looked at the crash of FTX (short for ‘Futures Exchange’) in November 2022 to see whether it would impact on the financial system as a whole. Fortunately there was barely a ripple, probably because it ...
Anybody following the situation in Ukraine and Russia would probably have been amused by a recent Tweet on X NATO seems to be putting in an awful lot of effort to influence what is, at least according to them, a sham election in an autocracy.When do the Ukrainians go to ...
TL;DR:Shaun Baker on Wynyard Quarter's transformation. Magdalene Taylor on the problem with smart phones. How private equity are now all over reinsurance. Dylan Cleaver on rugby and CTE. Emily Atkin on ‘Big Meat’ looking like ‘Big Oil’.Bernard’s six-stack of substacks at 6pm on March 15Photo by Jeppe Hove Jensen ...
Buzz from the Beehive Finance Minister Nicola Willis had plenty to say when addressing the Auckland Business Chamber on the economic growth that (she tells us) is flagging more than we thought. But the government intends to put new life into it: We want our country to be a ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee has reported back on the Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) Amendment Bill, basicly rubberstamping it. While there was widespread support among submitters for the principle that EV and PHEV drivers should pay their fair share for the roads, they also overwhelmingly disagreed with ...
Peter Dunne writes – This week’s government bailout – the fifth in the last eighteen months – of the financially troubled Ruapehu Alpine Lifts company would have pleased many in the central North Island ski industry. The government’s stated rationale for the $7 million funding was that it ...
See if you can spot the difference. An Iranian born female MP from a progressive party is accused of serial shoplifting. Her name is leaked to the media, which goes into a pack frenzy even before the Police launch an … Continue reading → ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The government is omitting general Treaty references from legislation : The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last Government in a bid to get greater coherence in the public service on Treaty ...
What was that judge thinking?Peter Williams writes – That Golriz Ghahraman and District Court Judge Maria Pecotic were once lawyer colleagues is incontrovertible. There is published evidence that they took at least one case to the Court of Appeal together. There was a report on ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Climate Scorpion – the sting is in the tail. Introducing planetary solvency. A paper via the University of Exeter’s Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.Local scoop:Kāinga Ora starts pulling out of its Auckland projects and selling land RNZ ...
Wellington’s massively upzoned District Plan adds the opportunity for tens of thousands of new homes not just in the central city (such as these Webb St new builds) but also close to the CBD and public transport links. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Wellington gave itself the chance of ...
It’s Friday and we’re halfway through March Madness. Here’s some of the things that caught our attention this week. This Week in Greater Auckland On Monday Matt asked how we can get better event trains and an option for grade separating Morningside Dr. On Tuesday Matt looked into ...
Something you might not know about me is that I’m quite a stubborn person. No, really. I don’t much care for criticism I think’s unfair or that I disagree with. Few of us do I suppose.Back when I was a drinker I’d sometimes respond defensively, even angrily. There are things ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:PM Christopher Luxon said the reversal of interest deductibility for landlords was done to help renters, who ...
It was not so much the Labour Party but really the Chris Hipkins party yesterday at Labour’s caucus retreat in Martinborough. The former Prime Minister was more or less consistent on wealth tax, which he was at best equivocal about, and social insurance, which he was not willing to revisit. ...
Buzz from the BeehiveThe text reproduced above appears on a page which records all the media statements and speeches posted on the government’s official website by Melissa Lee as Minister of Media and Communications and/or by Jenny Marcroft, her Parliamentary Under-secretary. It can be quickly analysed ...
For forty years, Robert Muldoon has been a dirty word in our politics. His style of government was so repulsive and authoritarian that the backlash to it helped set and entrench our constitutional norms. His pig-headedness over forcing through Think Big eventually gave us the RMA, with its participation and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is the new government reducing tax on rental properties to benefit landlords or to cut the cost of rents? That’s the big question this week, after Associate Finance Minister David Seymour announced on Sunday that the Government would be reversing the Labour Government’s removal ...
Saudi Arabia is rarely far from the international spotlight. The war in Gaza has brought new scrutiny to Saudi plans to normalise relations with Israel, while the fifth anniversary of the controversial killing of Jamal Khashoggi was marked shortly before the war began on October 7. And as the home ...
Questions need to be asked on both sides of the worldPeter Williams writes – The NRL Judiciary hands down an eight week suspension to Sydney Roosters forward Spencer Leniu , an Auckland-born Samoan, after he calls Ezra Mam, Sydney-orn but of Aboriginal and Torres Strait ...
Ele Ludemann writes – Contrary to what many headlines and news stories are saying, residential landlords are not getting a tax break. The government is simply restoring to them the tax deductibility of interest they had until the previous government removed it. There is no logical reason ...
I can't remember when it was goodMoments of happiness in bloomMaybe I just misunderstoodAll of the love we left behindWatching our flashbacks intertwineMemories I will never findIn spite of whatever you becomeForget that reckless thing turned onI think our lives have just begunI think our lives have just begunDoes anyone ...
Michael Bassett writes – At first reading, a front-page story in the New Zealand Herald on 13 March was bizarre. A group of severely intellectually limited teenagers, with little understanding of the law, have been pleading to the Justice Select Committee not to pass a bill dealing with ram ...
How much political capital is Christopher Luxon willing to burn through in order to deliver his $2.9 billion gift to landlords? Evidently, Luxon is: (a) unable to cost the policy accurately. As Anna Burns-Francis pointed out to him on Breakfast TV, the original ”rock solid” $2.1 billion cost he was ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Jonathon Porritt calling bullshit in his own blog post on mainstream climate science as ‘The New Denialism’.Local scoop:The Wellington City Council’s list of proposed changes to the IHP recommendations to be debated later today was leaked this ...
TL;DR:Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said yesterday tenants should be grateful for the reinstatement of interest deductibility because landlords would pass on their lower tax costs in the form of lower rents. That would be true if landlords were regulated monopolies such as Transpower or Auckland Airport1, but they’re not, ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Tom Toro Tom Toro is a cartoonist and author. He has published over 200 cartoons in The New Yorker since 2010. His cartoons appear in Playboy, the Paris Review, the New York Times, American Bystander, and elsewhere. Related: What 10 EV lovers ...
The business section of the NZ Herald is full of opinion. Among the more opinionated of all is the ex-Minister of Transport, ex-Minister of Railways, ex MP for Auckland Central (1975-93, Labour), Wellington Central (1996-99, ACT, then list-2005), ex-leader of the ACT Party, uncle to actor Antonia, the veritable granddaddy ...
Hi,Just quickly — I’m blown away by the stories you’ve shared with me over the last week since I put out the ‘Gary’ podcast, where I told you about the time my friend’s flatmate killed the neighbour.And you keep telling me stories — in the comments section, and in my ...
The first season of Rings of Power was not awful. It was thoroughly underwhelming, yes, and left a lingering sense of disappointment, but it was more expensive mediocrity than catastrophe. I wrote at length about the series as it came out (see the Review section of the blog, and go ...
Buzz from the Beehive Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden told Auckland Business Chamber members they were the first audience to hear her priorities as a minister in a government committed to cutting red tape and regulations. She brandished her liberalising credentials, saying Flexible labour markets are the ...
Chris Trotter writes – TO UNDERSTAND WHY NEWSHUB FAILED, it is necessary to understand how TVNZ changed. Up until 1989, the state broadcaster had been funded by a broadcasting licence fee, collected from every citizen in possession of a television set, supplemented by a relatively modest (compared ...
Bob Edlin writes – The Māori Party has been busy issuing a mix of warnings and threats as its expresses its opposition to interest deductibility for landlords and the plans of seabed miners. It remains to be seen whether they follow the example of indigenous litigants in Australia, ...
Every year, in the Budget, Parliament forks out money to government agencies to do certain things. And every year, as part of the annual review cycle, those agencies are meant to report on whether they have done the things Parliament gave them that money for. Agencies which consistently fail to ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – Recent events in American universities point to an underlying crisis of coherent thinking, an issue that increasingly affects the progressive left across the Western world. This of course is nothing new as anyone who can either remember or has read of the late ...
The thing about life’s little victories is that they can be followed by a defeat.Reader Darryl told me on Monday night:Test again Dave. My “head cold” last week became COVID within 24 hours, and is still with me. I hear the new variants take a bit longer to show up ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Angus Deaton on rethinking his economics IMFLocal scoop: The people behind Tamarind, the firm that left a $500m cleanup bill for taxpayers at Taranaki’s Tui oil well, are back operating in Taranaki under a different company name. Jonathan ...
Normally when we talk about accessing public transport it’s about improving how easy it is to get to, such as how easy is it to cross roads in a station/stop’s walking catchment, is it possible to cycle to safely, do bus connections work, or even if are there new routes/connections ...
Politicians are not renowned for telling the truth. Some tell us things that are verifiably not true. They offer statements that omit critical pieces of information. Gloss over risks, preferring to offer the best case scenario.Some not truths are quite small, others amusing in their transparency. There are those repeated ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
The New Zealand public voted for a change in direction at the 2023 general election and that is exactly what this coalition government has been delivering in its first 100 days. There was an immediate focus on the economy, easing the cost of living, cracking down on law and order ...
The Government has left the health system as an afterthought, announcing half-baked targets at the last minute of their 100-day plan, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
Kiwis are still waiting for their promised cost of living support after 100 days of a National Government that is taking us backwards, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
100 days of National taking NZ backwardsThe National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
The Government must commit to funding free and healthy school lunches, as thousands of people sign the petition to keep them, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti says. ...
If the Government was serious about moving families into public housing, they would build more houses so there is actually somewhere for people to go. ...
The free and healthy school lunches programme feeds our kids, helps them to learn, and saves families money – but it is at risk under this Government, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
The Government’s proposed changes to Firearms Prohibition Orders (FPO) add almost nothing new and are merely an attempt to distract from its plans to loosen gun laws, police spokesperson Ginny Andersen and justice spokesperson Dr Duncan Webb said. ...
The great Victorian era English politician Lord Macauley stood in the British House of Parliament and said, "The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm".He understood and outlined even way back then, the significant role and influence media have in a democracy. ...
The government’s attack on Māori health this week is committing tangata-whenua to a premature death, says Te Pāti Māori. “The government have begun their onslaught on Māori health with the abolishment of the Māori Health Authority and smokefree laws in the same day” said health spokesperson and co-leader, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. ...
Today marks a tragic milestone for New Zealanders as the Coalition Government side with big tobacco to repeal the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Act 2022, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins and Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said. ...
New Zealand’s social workers are qualified, experienced, and more representative of the communities they serve, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “I want to acknowledge and applaud New Zealand’s social workers for the hard work they do, providing invaluable support for our most vulnerable. “To coincide with World ...
Cabinet has agreed to a reduced road user charge (RUC) rate for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. Owners of PHEVs will be eligible for a reduced rate of $38 per 1,000km once all light electric vehicles (EVs) move into the RUC system from 1 April. ...
Minister of Agriculture and Trade, Todd McClay, says that today’s opening of Riverland Foods manufacturing plant in Christchurch is a great example of how trade access to overseas markets creates jobs in New Zealand. Speaking at the official opening of this state-of-the-art pet food factory the Minister noted that exports ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Wellington today. “It was a pleasure to host Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his first official visit to New Zealand since 2017. Our discussions were wide-ranging and enabled engagement on many facets of New Zealand’s relationship with China, including trade, ...
Kāinga Ora – Homes & Communities has been instructed to end the Sustaining Tenancies Framework and take stronger measures against persistent antisocial behaviour by tenants, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Earlier today Finance Minister Nicola Willis and I sent an interim Letter of Expectations to the Board of Kāinga Ora. ...
Tēna koutou katoa. Greetings everyone. Thank you to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and the Honourable Simon Bridges for hosting this address today. I acknowledge the business leaders in this room, the leaders and governors, the employers, the entrepreneurs, the investors, and the wealth creators. The coalition Government shares your ...
Minister Winston Peters completed the final leg of his visit to South and South East Asia in Singapore today, where he focused on enhancing one of New Zealand’s indispensable strategic partnerships. “Singapore is our most important defence partner in South East Asia, our fourth-largest trading partner and a ...
Minister of Internal Affairs and Workplace Relations and Safety, Hon. Brooke van Velden, will travel to the Republic of Korea to represent New Zealand at the Third Summit for Democracy on 18 March. The summit, hosted by the Republic of Korea, was first convened by the United States in 2021, ...
ICNZ Speech 7 March 2024, Auckland Acknowledgements and opening Mōrena, ngā mihi nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Good morning, it’s a privilege to be here to open the ICNZ annual conference, thank you to Mark for the Mihi Whakatau My thanks to Tim Grafton for inviting me ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Lead Coordination Minister Judith Collins have expressed their deepest sympathy on the five-year anniversary of the Christchurch terror attacks. “March 15, 2019, was a day when families, communities and the country came together both in sorrow and solidarity,” Mr Luxon says. “Today we pay our respects to the 51 shuhada ...
Speech for Financial Advice NZ Conference 5 March 2024 Acknowledgements and opening Morena, Nga Mihi Nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Thanks Nate for your Mihi Whakatau Good morning. It’s a pleasure to formally open your conference this morning. What a lovely day in Wellington, What a great ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters held discussions in Jakarta today about the future of relations between New Zealand and South East Asia’s most populous country. “We are in Jakarta so early in our new government’s term to reflect the huge importance we place on our relationship with Indonesia and South ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters has announced that the Foreign Minister of China, Wang Yi, will visit New Zealand next week. “We look forward to re-engaging with Foreign Minister Wang Yi and discussing the full breadth of the bilateral relationship, which is one of New Zealand’s ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has today opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre, which will bring together KiwiRail, Auckland Transport, and Auckland One Rail to improve service reliability for Aucklanders. “The recent train disruptions in Auckland have highlighted how important it is KiwiRail and Auckland’s rail agencies work together to ...
The Government is proud to support the 10th edition of Crankworx Rotorua as the Crankworx World Tour returns to Rotorua from 16-24 March 2024, says Minister for Economic Development Melissa Lee. “Over the past 10 years as Crankworx Rotorua has grown, so too have the economic and social benefits that ...
Legislation implementing coalition Government tax commitments and addressing long-standing tax anomalies will be progressed in Parliament next week, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The legislation is contained in an Amendment Paper to the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill issued today. “The Amendment Paper represents ...
Associate Environment Minister Andrew Hoggard has today announced that the Government has agreed to suspend the requirement for councils to comply with the Significant Natural Areas (SNA) provisions of the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity for three years, while it replaces the Resource Management Act (RMA).“As it stands, SNAs ...
Agriculture Minister Todd McClay has classified the drought conditions in the Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts as a medium-scale adverse event, acknowledging the challenging conditions facing farmers and growers in the district. “Parts of Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts are in the grip of an intense dry spell. I know ...
The Government is helping farmers eradicate the significant impact of facial eczema (FE) in pastoral animals, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “A $20 million partnership jointly funded by Beef + Lamb NZ, the Government, and the primary sector will save farmers an estimated NZD$332 million per year, and aims to ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has completed a successful visit to India, saying it was an important step in taking the relationship between the two countries to the next level. “We have laid a strong foundation for the Coalition Government’s priority of enhancing New Zealand-India relations to generate significant future benefit for both countries,” says Mr Peters, ...
Cabinet has agreed to provide $7 million to ensure the 2024 ski season can go ahead on the Whakapapa ski field in the central North Island but has told the operator Ruapehu Alpine Lifts it is the last financial support it will receive from taxpayers. Cabinet also agreed to provide ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Lower fruit and vegetable prices are welcome news for New Zealanders who have been doing it tough at the supermarket, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. Stats NZ reported today the price of fruit and vegetables has dropped 9.3 percent in the 12 months to February 2024. “Lower fruit and vege ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the sixty-eighth session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
The coalition Government is supporting farmers to enhance land management practices by investing $3.3 million in locally led catchment groups, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “Farmers and growers deliver significant prosperity for New Zealand and it’s vital their ongoing efforts to improve land management practices and water quality are supported,” ...
Good evening everyone and thank you for that lovely introduction. Thank you also to the Honourable Simon Bridges for the invitation to address your members. Since being sworn in, this coalition Government has hit the ground running with our 100-day plan, delivering the changes that New Zealanders expect of us. ...
Recommendations from the Climate Change Commission for New Zealand on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) auction and unit limit settings for the next five years have been tabled in Parliament, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “The Commission provides advice on the ETS annually. This is the third time the ...
The coalition Government is beginning its fight to lower building costs and reduce red tape by exempting minor building work from paying the building levy, says Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk. “Currently, any building project worth $20,444 including GST or more is subject to the building levy which is ...
Proposed changes to tax legislation to prevent the over-taxation of low-earning trusts are welcome, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The changes have been recommended by Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure Committee following consideration of submissions on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill. “One of the ...
Assalaamu alaikum. السَّلَام عليكم In light of the holy month of Ramadan, I want to extend my warmest wishes to our Muslim community in New Zealand. Ramadan is a time for spiritual reflection, renewed devotion, perseverance, generosity, and forgiveness. It’s a time to strengthen our bonds and appreciate the diversity ...
Former Transport Minister and CEO of the Auckland Business Chamber Hon Simon Bridges has been appointed as the new Board Chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) for a three-year term, Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced today. “Simon brings extensive experience and knowledge in transport policy and governance to the role. He will ...
Good morning all, it is a pleasure to be here as Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology. It is fantastic to see how connected and collaborative the life science and biotechnology industry is here in New Zealand. I would like to thank BioTechNZ and NZTech for the invitation to address ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says he is looking forward to the day when three key water projects in Northland are up and running, unlocking the full potential of land in the region. Mr Jones attended a community event at the site of the Otawere reservoir near Kerikeri on Friday. ...
Associate Finance Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government has agreed to restore deductibility for mortgage interest on residential investment properties. “Help is on the way for landlords and renters alike. The Government’s restoration of interest deductibility will ease pressure on rents and simplify the tax code,” says ...
Sport and Recreation Minister Chris Bishop will travel to Switzerland today to attend an Executive Committee meeting and Symposium of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Mr Bishop will then travel on to London where he will attend a series of meetings in his capacity as Infrastructure Minister. “New Zealanders believe ...
This year’s Pacific Language Weeks celebrate regional unity and the contribution of Pacific communities to New Zealand culture, says Minister for Pacific Peoples Dr Shane Reti. Dr Reti announced dates for the 2024 Pacific Language Weeks during a visit to the Pasifika festival in Auckland today and says there’s so ...
Greater Wellington is inviting feedback on proposed changes to its Revenue and Financing Policy. The Revenue and Financing Policy covers the Council’s various sources of funding, and how the cost of services is shared across the region. This includes ...
Labour has conceded it could have done more to deal with disruptive state housing tenants while in government but says the current coalition is going too far. ...
The band has asked their record label to issue a cease and desist to stop the NZ First leader using their 1997 hit to support his ‘misguided political views’. “I get knocked down, but I get up again,” blared through the speakers on Sunday as Winston Peters took the stage ...
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist Food rationing is underway in remote areas in Papua New Guinea’s Highlands following torrential rain and flash flooding. More than 20 people have been reported dead in Chimbu Province. In nearby Enga Province, the centre of last month’s massacre, a 15-year-old boy has been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Hughes, Lecturer, Research School of Management, Australian National University After months of debate and intrigue, the AFL’s 19th and newest team, the Tasmania Devils, finally launched its jumper, logo and colours in Devonport this week. The Devils will wear green, ...
Brannavan Gnanalingam reviews the debut novel by Saraid de Silva.One of the most baffling things for children who move to a new country is what their parents’ (or grandparents’) lives were like prior to moving – for kids in particular, they’re too busy trying to fit in in their ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Gaunson, Associate Professor in Cinema Studies, RMIT University Narelle Portanier/Binge “If you don’t know who your mob are, you don’t know who you are,” Detective Andrea “Andie” Whitford (played by Leah Purcell) is told early into the new crime ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elise Klein, Associate professor, Australian National University It’s commonly accepted that women do the vast majority of caregiving in Australian society. But less appreciated is that Indigenous women do larger amounts of unpaid care than any other group. Working with the Aboriginal ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne Joe Biden and Donald Trump have both secured their parties’ nominations for the November 5 United States general election by winning a ...
Comment: There has been a striking contrast in trans-Tasman interest about Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi’s visit to New Zealand and Australia. While the Australian press has been full of articles about the visit – including his curious decision to meet with former prime minister and China booster Paul Keating ...
After years of pressuring banks and other institutions to stop investing in fossil fuels, climate campaigners are making some progress. So how does divestment work?For years, climate activists have been pushing banks and other big institutions to divest from fossil fuels. New research from climate advocacy group 350 Aotearoa ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. The three young Polynesians are part of a K-pop fan community in Tāmaki Makaurau. It’s one of many that have sprung up worldwide as K-pop has gone ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. This one-off documentary presents three intimate portraits of young Polynesians who are pulled into a Korean cultural phenomenon. K-POLYS is directed by Litia Tuiburelevu, Produced by Hex ...
There’s ample evidence demonstrating free school lunch programmes provide wide benefits across schools, households and communities according to public health researchers. ACT Minister David Seymour wants to reduce the spending on Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
By Wata Shaw in Suva Fiji is facing an exodus of Fijians as many are leaving for overseas seeking employment and education and others are migrating, says Opposition MP Viliame Naupoto. Speaking in Parliament, he said: “His Excellency’s speech (Ratu Wiliame Katonivere) comes after a little over one year of ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming comments from Christopher Luxon this morning recommitting to ‘no new taxes’ as part of Budget 2024. “Mr Luxon’s refusal at the Post-Cabinet press conference yesterday to repeat the ‘no new taxes’ promise ...
SAFE is urgently calling on the Environment Committee to reject the Government’s Fast-Track Approvals Bill, and is urging New Zealanders to rally behind the call. The proposed Bill, currently under consideration with the Environment select committee, ...
Teammates who spend all their time picking fights with spectators are only helpful for the other team, writes Madeleine Chapman. Anyone who has ever played a team sport competitively, particularly as a child and particularly, for some reason, basketball, will know that there’s a lot of politics involved. While there ...
The long-running Wellington music festival is too focused on the Jim Beam-ness and not enough on the Homegrown-ness.There is something about Homegrown that’s difficult to place. A barely perceptible-ness. Like feeling a ghost is watching you from the corner of the room but when you look, there’s nothing there. ...
The latest Ipsos New Zealand Issues Monitor reveals that fewer New Zealanders believe crime / law and order is one of the top issues facing our country. In 2018, Ipsos New Zealand started tracking the key issues facing New Zealand. In this wave ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Griffiths, Deputy Program Director, Budgets and Government, Grattan Institute Australia’s political donations rules are woefully inadequate, but donations reform is finally on the agenda. The federal government has signalled its interest in reform and will soon begin briefing MPs on its ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Patrick Taylor, Chief Environmental Scientist, EPA Victoria; Honorary Professor, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University Naiyana Somchitkaeo/Shutterstock A recent study published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine has linked microplastics with risk to human health. The study ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Albert Van Dijk, Professor, Water and Landscape Dynamics, Fenner School of Environment & Society, Australian National University Global climate records were shattered in 2023, from air and sea temperatures to sea-level rise and sea-ice extent. Scores of countries recorded their hottest year ...
As part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, a teacher explains why he and his partner are in frugal mode – and how they’re making it work. Gender: Male Age: 35Ethnicity: Pākehā Role: I am an intermediate school teacher and my partner is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Bendall, Senior Lecturer, Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, Australian Catholic University Binge Mary & George, the new British television drama series, depicts the real-life story of Mary Villiers and her son George, and their social climbing at the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jason Nassios, Associate Professor, Centre of Policy Studies, Victoria University This article is part of The Conversation’s series examining the housing crisis. Read the other articles in the series here. Australian state and federal governments spend money in many ways to ...
The finance minister is denying that there’s a $5.6b shortfall in paying for the government’s campaign promises, including tax cuts. At his post-cabinet press conference yesterday, the PM refused to rule out new taxes to pay for the cuts, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s ...
Kāinga Ora tenants abused by their neighbours are doubting the government's crackdown on disruptive tenants will make a difference on their behaviour. ...
Kāinga Ora is New Zealand’s biggest residential landlord, housing more than 180,000 vulnerable people in more than 67,000 properties. Yesterday the government announced a crackdown on its tenants who fall behind on rent. One longtime Kāinga Ora tenant shares her experience.For 18 years I lived in a 1960s standalone ...
Why does this myth persist, and what’s the real reason our skin is suffering?It’s one of the biggest international grievances New Zealanders hold, up there with the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior and 1981’s underarm incident. We’re quick to tell international travellers that the world’s pollution led to the ...
Opinion: In a move that has shocked road safety advocates across the country, the new Minister of Transport, Simeon Brown, is poised to abandon the previous government’s speed limit reduction policy, particularly around schools. Even more alarmingly, he wants school speed limits to be variable rather than full-time, arguing ...
Auckland Council is opposing a fast-track development backed by Sir John Kirwan and Spark NZ, because it doesn’t meet stringent new climate adaptation requirements The post Surf-data centre faces new 3.8C climate warming rules appeared first on Newsroom. ...
When the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act was introduced in 2009 it was firmly targeted at gangs and drugs. The legislation means police no longer need a conviction to seize assets that criminals can’t prove were paid for legitimately, as long as their alleged offences are punishable by more than a ...
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Bob’s relationship with certain members of Lincoln’s academic staff continued to deteriorate in the 1990s. Others supported him publicly, though articles such as Roland Clark’s 1993 piece in Growing Today cannot have pleased the university management. Clark wrote that Bob was selling onions from the Biological Husbandry Unit to a ...
SailGP’s races feature in-your-face action, with agile, hydro-foiling catamarans tacking and jibing for the title over several days. However, public comments ahead of the global series’ return to New Zealand have left this past year’s controversy in the shadows, as a key appointment attracts criticism from dolphin advocates. A year ...
Opinion: We are fast approaching a fundamental change in prisons. As the number of people on custodial remand looks set to overtake the number of sentenced prisoners, the main function of prisons in New Zealand may become incarcerating un-sentenced people who may not be guilty of offending. We have already ...
A huge seven months lies in store for the White Ferns, beginning this week with the visit of England and culminating with the T20 World Cup in Bangladesh in September and October. Starting on Tuesday in Dunedin, the world ranked No. 2 visitors will play five T20s and three ODIs, ...
The letters, which were published last week, were addressed to Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) Chairperson Megawati Sukarnoputri, National Democrat Party (NasDem) Chairperson Surya Paloh, National Awakening Party (PKB) Chairperson Muhaimin Iskandar, Justice and Prosperity Party (PKS) President Ahmad Syaikhu and United Development Party (PPP) Chairperson Muhammad Mardiono. In ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emerald L King, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania IMDB Between Netflix’s 2023 live-action version of One Piece, and its latest take on Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans are once again asking: why are live-action anime adaptations so tricky to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emerald L King, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania IMDB Between Netflix’s 2023 live-action version of One Piece, and its latest take on Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans are once again asking: why are live-action anime adaptations so tricky to ...
The government says it still intends to deliver tax cuts by July, but will not lock them in until they have got them past their coalition partners. ...
Kiingi Tuheitia Pootatau Te Wherowhero VII has hosted members of the Green Party Caucus at Tuurangawaewae Marae in Ngaaruawahia. The audience follows the King’s Hui-aa-Motu on 20 January, where more than 10,000 people gathered to discuss national ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dr Rachael Potter, Research Associate and Lecturer in Work and Organisational Psychology, University of South Australia Ground Picture/Shutterstock Pregnant women and workers with children are often unfairly treated by their bosses and colleagues, despite laws to protect against workplace discrimination ...
Reacting to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s refusal to rule out introducing new taxes at the budget, Taxpayers’ Union Campaigns Manager, Connor Molloy, said: “Today’s refusal to rule out new taxes suggests the Government is nothing more ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Duckett, Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne Aila Images/Shutterstock Aged-care workers will receive a significant pay increase after the Fair Work Commission ruled they ...
He’s bringing ‘Sophie’ back, yeah. Goodshirt’s ‘Sophie’ music video is one of the most instantly recognisable New Zealand music videos of all time. Featuring a woman listening to the song on headphones while her entire house is burgled behind her, the video won the New Zealand music award for Best ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Blaxland, Professor, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University A year ago, the AUKUS agreement was formally announced between Australian and UK Prime Ministers Anthony Albanese and Rishi Sunak and US President Joe Biden. The agreement mapped out the “optimal ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andreas Helwig, Associate Professor, Electro-Mechanical Engineering, University of Southern Queensland SmartS/Shutterstock Steam locomotives clattering along railway tracks. Paddle steamers churning down the Murray. Dreadnought battleships powered by steam engines. Many of us think the age of steam has ended. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carrie Leonetti, Associate Professor of Law, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau Victims who experience family violence in Aotearoa New Zealand are treated differently, depending on which part of the justice system they turn to for help. But a new member’s bill ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Tesch, Visiting Fellow at the ANU Centre for European Studies, Australian National University In perhaps the least surprising news of the year, Vladimir Putin has triumphed at the Russian ballot box and been enthroned for the fifth time as president. He ...
The Papua New Guinea Supreme Court has stopped a byelection for the Madang Open seat being held until an appeal filed by former MP Bryan Kramer is concluded. Kramer had appealed to the Supreme Court over a National Court decision not to review his application of the Leadership Tribunal decision ...
By Miriam Zarriga in Port Moresby Despite a “historic” ceasefire agreement in Papua New Guinea between Enga authorities and tribal leaders after months of bitter warfare, a young woman has been found brutally killed near Kaekin village, Wapenamanda. Despite the peace agreement and signing concluded in Port Moresby last Thursday ...
The second season of Ryan Murphy’s Feud is a sadder and slower entry into his canon of true story-telling, leaning heavily on a verdict about the cost of a single work of art. Hollywood heavyweight Ryan Murphy has had a bit of “ick” about him in the last few years. ...
Are you deeply passionate about sharing Māori stories? We’re on the hunt for an experienced writer/editor to lead coverage in our Ātea section.Ātea is a deeply valued section of The Spinoff site, offering Māori perspectives and insights across politics, current affairs and culture. We are thrilled to be looking ...
By Aisha Azeemah in Suva With the lights on one of his sneakers blinking as he ran through the gallery, a little boy looked up at several works of art. One of them was a sculpture of his grandfather: the man who changed how we see the Pacific — Epeli ...
WHAT: Uber drivers are holding a rally outside the Court of Appeal in Wellington tomorrow, as the company begins its appeal against 2022’s Employment Court verdict (in a case taken jointly by FIRST Union and E tū) that four drivers were permanent ...
The UK Government Manufacture of False Sexual Allegations
by CRAIG MURRAY, Jan. 9, 2019
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2019/01/the-uk-government-manufacture-of-false-sexual-allegations/
Yes Morrisey, it is the horrible kind of political expediency.
Or worse, what happened to a certain reporter in an embassy.
Governments practice it to degrees. Here we had a unionist killed by a bomb, and in Britain a Kiwi protester went that way under the truncheon of a horseback Bobbie.
Being discredited pulls political teeth, being sexually discredited by rumour or innuendo removes the chance of being believed.
Being killed to prevent the truth coming out happens. It depends on the material and the power of the threatened.
All governments have methods of dealing with opposition, most ok but some not so.
Thanks for that reminder, patricia. The National government, in concert with the “Defence” chiefs and their usual media accomplices, led a campaign of lies against Jon Stephenson and Nicky Hager. I’m extremely upset with this Labour government bowing to those “Defence” chiefs and covering up the “inquiry” into the SAS raids in Afghanistan.
It’s also worth remembering that it’s not only Saudi Arabia that holds the concept of “embassy” in contempt: the rogue U.K. regime at one stage considered raiding the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.
Deported. https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/380201/tourists-served-deportation-notices-at-hamilton-burger-king
Be interesting to see if the airline will let them fly. As they could be a danger to the flight?
And the deportation could come to haunt them when they want to travel again.
Sedation appeals.
They should have sedated this violent old rogue.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11455637
May have to go in smaller groups on different flights?
It seems strange that such a group can get away with pretty obnoxious behaviour for so long. “Public Nuisance” if it was you or I behaving badly.
Pale skin may have confused the authorities. I’m impressed they eventually got deported on the spot rather than faffing around with court etc.
I think that they have 28 days in which to Appeal. Very appealing I don’t think.
If they are deported ahead of when they were booked to leave the country ? who pays for the airtickets?
The Government may have decided it was cheaper to change their tickets than host them further lol.
No doubt they will claim they are in danger if they return home and Galloway will grant them residency.
See 2.4 below. Unlikely to go to the Minister of Immigration, but they apparently have decided to cut their holiday short and leave today.
Thanks for reminding us of last year’s news, Naki Man. I suspect it would be really helpful for these tourists if one of them could enter into a relationship with a National party hack and drip feed titbits to the media over a period of months in an attempt to embarrass the Immigration Minister.
That worked so well in the Sroubek affair that the Minister was forced to, er, stay on as Minister.
We facitious comment TRP that’s the sort of comment you regularly get on Kiwibog.
They should have donated a $100k to the nats and got one of them on to the list .
Not serious enough offences for the NZ Police to take any action until it got to the media ?
One faced court after a night in the cells. The Police acted on a report by a Hamilton business.
The group were met by Police and had to buy two child restraint seats.
Why are you saying Police action happened after publication, when clearly events were published after court and police action. Your point was?
NZ goes full ‘Snatch’
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eIcbIxm5z48
Dya loik dags?
Lol – apparently they’re from Liverpool I heard.
Apparently they reside in Liverpool and have UK passports, but listening to those vids on the news sites, it’s sounds very much like mrs brown’s boys to me. But who knows?
I did read a report on stuff (I think) from an ex pad Irish who was doing their best to distance themselves from these tourists, claiming they were likely to be first or second generation traveller imports to England.
Either way, not the best both nations have to offer from what I’ve seen and read.
Lucky for them their old fella is the tenth richest man in blighty. He’ll be able to pay all the fines and cost with ease 😆
There Tinkers ( Irish gypsies) ran across a lot of them on my OE, as per Hillary Clinton they truly are deplorables
They have not been instantly deported but have been issued with a Deportation Liability Notice, according the Newshub report link below:
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2019/01/rowdy-tourists-group-served-deportation-notice-may-be-banned-from-new-zealand-for-5-years.html
The article also provides more details of damage, aggression etc in both Auckland and Hamilton – just astonishingly bad behaviour.
———————–
Oops – almost missed these details at the end of the article:
“Another member of the group, David, also denied the travellers were Irish gypsies and were instead English citizens in New Zealand for a two week holiday.
But those plans now seem to have been cut short, with the group planning to head off on Wednesday.”
So, if they leave today as now planned, that probably means that they will not have officially been deported and will be free to take their bad behaviour elsewhere in the future. In the meantime, what likelihood of their paying for all the damage etc they have caused?
——————-
Here is a link to a TVNZ article on the group:
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/tourists-served-deportation-notices-immigration-new-zealand-after-incident-hamilton-burger-king?variant=tb_v_1
LATEST NEWS on TOURIST GROUP
RNZ News have reported that the 26 yr old woman from the group arrested in Hamilton has been convicted on two shoplifting charges of stealing $55 worth of goods from a petrol station in Albany, Auckland.
“She was accused of stealing Red Bull energy drinks, rope and a pair of sunglasses totalling $55 from a Caltex service station in Albany in late December and early January. …
“She was convicted and ordered to pay reparation in court today, appearing for a second time after the case was stood down pending an application for legal aid.
“Ms Cash was described in court documents as having no fixed abode.”
“In sentencing, Community Magistrate Ngaire Marcelle gave Cash credit for her early plea and took into account that she had spent the night in police cells.
“Ms Marcelle described the night in custody as a significant penalty for a first offence.”
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/380201/court-convicts-woman-from-unruly-tourist-group
While I also think good riddance to the Irish travellers, the mind boggles why some disorderly behaviour managed to get them deported so quickly and the police and immigration involved without even a prosecution, while we have so many criminals living in NZ who break the law and actually destroy other people’s lives with their crimes and they are still here or their crimes un noticed for decades, often even being granted permanent residency? Personally find those that ask $40k for a fake job, import in 40k of crystal meth or give out fake drivers licenses are more dangerous to NZ society than littering and doing a runner on a meal from an obnoxious family.
1. They have not been deported but may have left or may be leaving NZ today of their own accord. See 2.4 above.
2. One of them was prosecuted on two charges of shoplifting today and convicted. See 2.5 above.
3. It has not been confirmed that they are Irish (travellers, tinkers or not) and it has been reported they are from Liverpool.
4. Their obnoxious behaviour was far more than “littering and doing a runner on a meal”.
There Tinkers 100pc
This not Irish or English to there way of thinking any way
If only more visitors and residents could be deported or asked to leave by authorities, after being convicted so promptly and exhibiting antisocial/criminal behaviour, we might have a much nicer society and many less Kiwis in poverty and our prisons not overflowing and shorter times to receive medical attention.
Just a few high profile migrant criminals that are in jail costing Kiwis hundreds of thousands of dollars who ‘eventually’ got deported or are still here fighting deportation or not deported at all… Sroubek, Joanne Harrison, Ka Kit Yim alias Chris Yim, Virgil Balajadia, Gurpreet Singh, Faroz Ali to name but a few making headlines…
Maybe if the government were more interested in stopping and protecting and deporting scammers and criminals who were not born here and trying to get permanent residency or citizenship, we might have a better society and not people queuing up at the food banks and living in overcrowded accommodation with so many people who do not deserve to reside in NZ, having the priority rather than the safety and fairness and welfare of those who do.
Every time someone makes a dollar, speculators arrive to mess things up. It’s the fear of missing out that drives the pile on. It’s ‘competition’ say the business folk who, never thinking always acting, jostle for position on the gravy train; and fuck our ecology again.
This is the plight of starving bees with newcomers piling on trying to make manuka honey.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12190479
I have a hive. And to have this hive I have to register said hive. This means there is somewhere a central authority with the numbers of hives in each region. This also means there is someone, somewhere, approving the overstocking of our lands for business interests, again.
I’ve got an issue with bees. I have hardly seen any this year. Last year there was plenty. Not many wasps, only a few bumblebees, seen no frogs, or tadpoles, few flys.
Im one of those people who let there lawn go to flower. At one property the lawn was still pretty short but was a near perfect white lawn. To me it was buitifull, but the landlord disagreed. This Christmas the lawn was a mix of white and yellow. But hardly any bees.
The thing with bees is the don’t know about our on paper boarders. Unlike humans, not even walls stop them. So it’s not possible to ban a person putting bees on land they own, or expect those bees will not come on your land. They may grow a crop that needs bees themselves. The registering system is not an opproval system.
We could significantly increase bees as a small Buisiness model in NZ, within co-operatives to enable products and high value exports. So registering bees is a good idea. Opposite to overstocking as an intent, it exposes overstocking, it exposes shortages and areas needing investment in small buisinesses in those areas.
Somebody may have land that grows Manuka and the neighbor brings in bees to take advantage. How do you stop it? I may get honey from my lawn, and the neighbor sees that and puts a hive at my fence, themselves mowing there own lawn all the time, having no flowers.
” may get honey from my lawn”
Wow!
You want to ring-fence the pollen from the flowers that grow in your garden?
Have you considered patenting the colour of your flowers?
Some people might be looking over your fence and soaking it up with their eyes; exploiters!!!
I think you got the wrong end of the stick. I can understand why people who plant land for honey production only for next door profiting are complianing. I was pointing out reality is it’s impossible to prevent.
Unless you make having a bee hive a resource consent event. You could create a Beehive Bureaucracy just for subservience to the state and protection of preferred landowners.
I think I prefer the flaws of freedom.
In my own lawn example, I would encourage others to do the same if they want to keep bees, as well as flowering bushes, trees. The mowed lawn is a desert. A lawn allowed to flower supports many more insects and the things that feed on them. Then it can be mowed and you get a great composting crop.
DJ you should do a post on bees and the rural economy of honey.
My family own a reasonable sized drystock farm south of Kaitaia, and most everywhere around it has reverted to Manuka. Plenty of very, very competitive apiarists up there now. And a fair few jobs.
Personally I could see the family farm just hold their nose for four years and let the whole thing revert, then go straight to honey production. Much better return, whole bunch more viable, and good for the land.
Yes I watched a documentary a year or so on a family as you described up north.
I don’t do it myself because I’m a bit allergic to them. My best friend has a close friend who is involved with bee keeping in an urban setting for himself as well as having worked in the industry overseas. Plus a workmate did it for awhile as well. So I have had quite a few conversations, helped make things, and relaxed in his backyard while watching the hives in action.
I’ll have look at the subject, and a think.
I’ll put something on, How do we get there.
Miss You Ed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfwcBaX2Gjw
Heh! I raise you one John Waite:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9e157Ner90
I miss Bill a bunch more.
He was a grumpy fuck but he was our grumpy fuck.
Too right, Ad. I rarely agreed with Bill’s opinions, but I loved the way he expressed them.
Where is he?
Edit I think Anne means ed.
Really missing ED.
Me not so much but I was wondering what has happened to bill.
IIRC someone (one of the admin/moderators? ) mentioned in passing some weeks ago that he and someone else(?) were “on sabbatical” – but cannot find the comment.
My sincere apologies for snapping at you re PG – was trying to be open minded about other commenters such as PG being able to comment here – and then did exactly to you what I accused you of. Mea culpa.
All good – I did feel sad – but that was because I ‘made’ you and Robert comment to me like that not sad actually about your comment which was fair enough.
I agree that I miss Bill’s opinions which I also rarely agreed with but they nevertheless were valid and needed to be considered even if not agreed with. But I do not miss his moderation … Less said the better, but I know it drove some people away, including me, on occasions. I have a fairly thick skin, but his attacks were well over the top sometimes.
Moderation is always problematic, vv, and it takes a toll on the person doing the mahe too. None of the authors want to see people removed from the site, however, that’s often the best thing to keep the place ticking along.
Bill put in place a really good system where we authors can keep track of moderation decisions and the reasoning for them. It means that when making the big calls on a misbehaving commenter, there is a record of previous attempts to get an improvement from them. That really helps with consistency.
Each moderator has their own style, but I can tell you, it gets incredibly frustrating when people don’t take the hint. It can be really, really hard to be diplomatic in those circumstances.
I certainly don’t disagree with any of that, trp. And I am interested that it was Bill who set up the recording system for moderation decisions and similar.
From time to time I am a moderator/administrator on a worldwide blog of a completely different nature, subject etc to this one, so know from personal experience the problems etc. Each instance requiring moderation is different in some aspect to similar instances in the past, and it is a tightrope walk as I know. But I still stand by my comments above from observation and personal experience. But lets leave it at that.
A song for Bill – here is Willie Nelson Always on my Mind.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7f189Z0v0Y
and a bit more nostalgia
Crosby Stills Nash Young
It’s been a Long Time
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVW9sOsXAjU
And I’ll throw in Woodstock with lyrics.
And we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g25DlXOWmMo
Yes, where is Bill? Oh Anne I see.
+1.
I know/am related to a Scottish Maori just like him. Much we can agree on, a lot we cannot.
Could have used him when entertaining the family Tory faction Christmas lunch time
Well, if he had learnt from his mistakes and played by the rules of the site he would still be here maui.
He did learn Anne, as I stated here (https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-10-01-2019/#comment-1570382) and no-one disagreed.
Ed was one of the best at taking moderation on board and not getting banned for the same thing, while others continue to be banned for the same behaviour.
The truth is Ed was not wanted on this board by certain parts, and that is why he is banned.
Maui. Please don’t be a goose. This thread has been pretty good till now and the conversation has been an adult discussion about what was a genuinely difficult moderation decision. I know you don’t like the facts of the matter, but the truth is Ed (and his many alternative names) never learned a fucken thing. For whatever reason, he just kept coming back, doing the same dumb shit day after day. Which is why he was repeatedly banned by multiple moderators.
And, no, I don’t want to get into a discussion about it. Suck it up and move on.
Silence != agreement
Important lesson to learn, that one.
Bring back Ed
Ed’s trying to come back, Bewildered. Lots of comments in the trash from his sockpuppets 😉
He tried a couple of comments on TDB on Jan 11 also, complaining about TS, but haven’t seen any since (although I have not really checked since). Wonder whether he has been blocked there? [Rhetorical question only … ]
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2019/01/11/3-under-the-news-radar-2018-so-about-all-the-russia-hysteria/#comment-449736
ED says:
JANUARY 11, 2019 AT 10:22 AM
I was attacked and abused on the Standard for stating this about Russia.
Joe90, Stuart Munro, Andre and Te Reo Putake are cheerleaders for war against Russia on that centrist chattering club.
(A few other familar TS commenters also on that thread.)
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2019/01/11/5-under-the-news-radar-2018-the-brutal-occupation-of-palestine-brutal-saudi-fuelled-civil-war-in-yemen-the-magnitude-of-climate-catastrophe/#comment-449735
ED says:
JANUARY 11, 2019 AT 10:19 AM
I was silenced by Te Reo Putake for suggesting radical solutions to climate change.
The Standard has become a centrist chattering club with tints of Mccarthyism.
LOL
Crikey, that last comment reassures me that I made the correct decision. Still, Tints of McCarthy would make a great name for an emo band 😉
Exactly! ROFL. “Tints of McCarthy” is wonderful!
I agree with your moderation TRP but purely for entertainment Ed was gold, I know that’s not the purpose of the site but I am sure that’s why a lot of people come here, sorry not high brow but the left wing punch ups are way more entertaining than dealing to RWnJ like me😊
Dead right, Bewildered. That’s one of the reasons why it was a hard call. There’s an old saying ‘no grit, no pearl’, which suggests that the occasional irritation can lead to a beautiful outcome. However, this situation felt more like ‘all grit, no pearl’.
Is it to do with phases of the moon or something? There seems to be even more frenzy than usual going on on the trademe message board site.
I see there the Prime Minister is lazy and is on holiday recovering from all the days she didn’t turn up to work , etc., etc. School’s out I suppose and kids have to occupy themselves doing something.
KIwiblog very vicious on Winston today. Laugh a minute, very disrespectful though, they have a feeding frenzy over there at times.
They refer to Jacinda as SLG.
lol totally not an echo chamber. /sarc
I don’t even want to know how they get to “SLG”, it just means that nobody else knows what they’re wanking on about.
I miss Ed too. I found that his links were very informative. I think that his banning was something of an ego trip. (lefter than thou?) If you are not well educated and somewhat inarticulate , it can be really intimidating to comment on The Standard. I think it has become something of an echo chamber. Where are the working class/beneficiaries voices? I gave up commenting after a sarcastic response from Bill because I posted something that had already posted. James takes over threads with his bullshit and gets away with all sorts of shit. ‘Birds of a feather” etc.
beatie
You make te point that James takes over threads and so does Ed. To my mind that was one of his main disadvantages. his isn’t a place for people’s entertainment by the way. We might make our comments in entertaining ways
and if you want to comment about serious matters and got put off by Bill, have another go with some detail and not just your moans about how bad things are and opinions which is what Ed did.
“My ‘moans’ about how bad things are” are my reality greywarshark. I apologise if that makes you uncomfortable.
Well I’m not on an ego trip. That’s my reality. I don’t know about yours.
I agree with you. Now with Ed, Bill and CV gone there is a large chasm with the ‘alt-left’ voice pretty much wiped out from here. Whoever fills the void won’t last long I suspect.
We have still got Mozz leading from the front thank the almighty
Good on you, wilde Breed. Best wishes, mon ami.
https://tenor.com/view/bear-hug-love-huggable-cute-bear-gif-8094447
Jesus Christ, mauī!?!?!?!?!?
Ed Shareen?!?!?!? Hasn’t Ed been punished enough?
https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2018/04/godawful-new-hobbit-song-fails-to.html
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/380206/ethics-code-may-see-mega-ministry-contracts-lost-lobby-group-says
Well done MoBIE – at last, and on one of the issues it faces. Lets hope it signals an overall change in culture.
But what is Kirk Hope saying/threatening here?
That businesses should only have to be ‘pretty ethical’, ‘pretty legal’?
Kirk Hope? Shallow, complacent, doltishly doctrinaire. Utterly despicable.
https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2018/04/megan-whelan-interviews-kirk-hope-jan.html
Sounds like if we hadn’t had a change in junta from the gNats, Kirk would have been a shoo-in for Smol’s replacement as MoBIE CEO
We had a lucky escape, and the gNats china arm was ready to be installed.
Off topic, but is Friday the big day IIRC?
If so, my very best wishes and I will be sending good vibes for an excellent outcome.
Yes, and thank you Totally off topic but may give some a laugh
Hubby and I turn up to pre-op hospital education session.
After meeting 5 team members, we were given a ‘Grabber” to pick things up after the hip op.
We were most interested in the talk about easy ways to get into the car.
So we get out there, we successfully try their method.. Yay!!
N packs everything in and we are off.
Get home… where is the grabber?
Oh heck, put it on the roof of the car didn’t we!! N goes back …no luck.
We ring to explain. Much laughter from the desk. Half hour later, ‘phone goes
“Don’t worry, it was handed in, and no-one had driven over it. The team was delighted to hear you were so keen to practice what you were taught!! Further you made their day..they had a right old laugh… see you Friday.”
They already have my number I think!!
Somebody above loves you.
I liked the warning of Kirk Hope that if the government was too thorough in its changes, businesses wouldn’t want to do government work. That is so funny.
The whole trend for neo-liberals is to bad-mouth the government’s effectiveness and efficiency so that business gets to do and make a profit from providing government services, mainly by cutting wages and staff, and showing bad faith to the citizens in their dealings and practices.
No way are they going to want to stop milking the government, no matter how it tightens its teats.
yep. Well I guess we’re all the product of the bubbles we choose to operate in, and the degree to which we’re prepared to sacrifice principles.
Seems like in Kirk’s case, and many others, principles come cheap.
(That is until they don’t and it all goes tits up)
Cool
“The first video shows Chang’e-4’s descent into the Von Karman crater. The CLEP chose the crater as its landing site because of the crater’s depth. Von Karman is a crater-within-a-crater, and it’s possible that the impact event blasted away the crust and exposed some of the Moon’s mantle. The CLEP is using Chang’e-4 to examine the chemical and geological nature of the area, and to try and discover more about the Moon’s formation and interior.”
https://www.universetoday.com/141197/incredible-descent-video-of-the-chinese-lander-to-the-lunar-far-side/#more-141197
Well well, the Prime Minister of Canada Mr Trudeau asks Prime Minister Ardern with assistance in the Huawei-China digital security issue.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12191245
The New Zealand Prime Ministers’ office comments:
“They discussed the detention and legal treatment of Canadian citizens in China.
“Although the cases are a consular matter between Canada and China – as the extradition case relates to a Huawei executive in Canada – there are principles at stake that concern us all,” the spokeswoman said.
She added that the Government closely monitors international developments which may affect the safety of New Zealanders abroad, but advice for travel to China was to exercise normal safety and security precautions.
Earlier, Trudeau’s office confirmed to the Herald the pair had spoken.
“The prime ministers discussed the detention and legal treatment of Canadian citizens in China and the need for all countries to respect judicial procedure and rule of law,” a spokesperson said.
“The leaders also exchanged perspectives on shared priorities, including their commitment to promoting gender equality and women’s economic empowerment.”
Interesting to see non-Five Eyes countries such as Japan and Poland make similar moves against Huawei on security grounds.
But for Canada and New Zealand, nothing like something as basic to New Zealand as Commonwealth justice concepts coming up against Chinese ones.
Sooner or later Xi Jinping is going to have to bend.
Japan and Poland…
Both are ‘under management’ by ‘The West’…
Values based foreign policy
It’s a cover story…
Any serious discussion about radio frequency networks would include ‘safety’…
Not just security…
The canary in the coalmine is looking a bit ‘peaky’ again.
Is there anywhere a bigger moron than ScoMo?
Well let’s hope Petey Dutto and Scottie Morro and Grayo RIcho and Mattey Cormmo, and even Joolie Bisho and Petey Credo and Petey Gleeso, not to mention Ashey Gillo and Andy Bolto and Davo Speersy and Kerry Gilbo and a shitload of others are right in amongst it.
Ozzie Ozzie Ozzie Oi Oi OI
https://youtu.be/H_f9gpg4t6c
And the big debate at the moment is some people choosing to ingest some herb thats been around and ingested since dawn of time. Gives some perspective to what really matters.
Watched the video and had a look at what the wingnutosphere is saying about 5G tech.
And of course they can’t can’t make up their minds about whether 5G is an eat your brain cancer causing mind control plot or a nefarious, deep state/google socialistic watching me plot. Or Jews.
https://twitter.com/CassandraRules/status/961338157408116736
Thanks for the video Bruce. I’m really concerned about this. I’ve just had a smart meter installed (against my wishes) and it happens to be outside my bedroom . Unfortunately when I read the small print of my power contract it allowed for smart meter installation. It’s all about the money eh? I have an autoimmune disease and over the years (25) I have found that environmental factors have a huge impact, yet Big Pharma rules I don’t believe assurances from the telecom industry that every thing will be OK, because again it’s all about the money and fuck the consumer.
“I feel a bit sorry for Theresa May”…”I think she’s acted honorably.”
Mora’s gone, but The Panel is still bedeviled with bland and brainless blather.
The Panel, Wednesday 16 January 2019
Wallace Chapman, Joe Bennett, Emma Espiner, Caitlin Cherry
This tired light chat show has been shaken up a little over the holiday period. They’ve rejigged the format a bit. And as we saw yesterday, Wallace Chapman seems a little bit more rigorous than Jim Mora, and seems to have at long last developed a backbone, in contrast to his supine behaviour in 2014, when he let he-man author Lee Child rhasodize insanely about how in real life “we all” want to see violent thugs like Jack Reacher torture and murder people.
Sadly, however, the vapid chatter of the Mora era has not gone away.
The first discussion topic in today’s pre-show chat was the vexed question of how to get boys and men to read books. This was the chance for perky producer Caitlin Cherry to put in her two cents worth:
CAITLIN CHERRY: You just have to introduce them to Lee Child books!
….Awkward silence….
EMMA ESPINER: [awkwardly] Ha ha ha.
CAITLIN CHERRY: Well, he’s a manly man.
….Awkward silence….
JOE BENNETT: [grimly] “Lee Child book” is an oxymoron.
Significantly, perhaps, Wallace Chapman did not spring to the defence of the man he had allowed, unchallenged, to spout such disgusting bilge four and a half years ago.
After that encouraging moment, it was back to the baloney. The subject was the Brexit vote in the U.K. parliament, and the Panellists competed for the most banal and brainless utterance of the day….
EMMA ESPINER: I feel a bit sorry for Theresa May.
JOE BENNETT: I think she’s acted honorably.
Then he burbled that “it’s a KNOWN FACT that Russia interfered in Brexit.” Wallace Chapman demurred at that: “Are you sure?” And Bennett doubled down pompously: “Oh YES….”
ad nauseam….
[1] https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-15-01-2019/#comment-1571765
Morrissey you should put your name forward and suggest that they have a regular spot for a stirrer of some sort who might make some outrageous, to the bland,
comment. There wouls be a circular wheel which the stirrers could hop on for a swing and be replaced so they never appeared more than once. And offer yourself for the first. That would ginger it up.
Bomber tried that. Didn’t last long!
He didn’t last long, but Michelle Boag will never forget being humiliated by him on the program. You can be sure she lobbied fearsomely for his removal when the opportunity presented itself. That opportunity was, of course, his display of lèse majesté in 2011, when he foolishly dared to point out the Prime Minister’s loutish imbecility in the House.
Gordon Campbell, another eloquent critic of the Key regime and therefore banned from The Panel, wrote an admirable account of the censoring….
http://gordoncampbell.scoop.co.nz/2011/10/10/gordon-campbell-on-rnz%E2%80%99s-banning-of-bomber-bradbury/
Been there, Shark, and done it. Back in 2013 I was an excruciatingly incompetent, utterly tongue-tied, nervous, giggling, useless Panellist. It was an April afternoon that will go down in infamy…
Ummmm. Hahahah. Morrissey – have you ever been on Jim Mora’s show?
Yes or no.
At last some sensible commentary on the issue…
“However FIRST Union General Secretary Dennis Maga claims worker shortages are due to low pay.
“There’s a reason no one wants to work in these jobs, their time isn’t worth the money and they often cannot afford to live on what some of these businesses choose to offer,” he said.
He cited horticulture as an example of a sector which has the money to pay.
“Horticulture is one of our highest export earners,” he said.
“If you want people to do the work, pay them fairly, pay them what they’re worth to you and stop crying out for migrant workers to exploit.”
He said New Zealanders are hard workers and they will do the work, as long as they feel it’s fair pay for the work.
“It’s important that we red-flag companies that claim to have a worker shortage to ensure they’re not exploiting migrants due to their low pay not attracting workers who already live here.”
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/rural/2019/01/union-fires-broadside-at-worker-shortage-claims.html
The reality is that we have allowed a situation to develop across practically every work space in NZ under neoliberalism of ‘subcontracting’ out the responsibility of employees.
From hospital meals to Spotless, NZ has constantly contracted out to third parties taking a profit while driving wages and conditions down, to Chorus subcontractors going through 3 – 4 companies and 92% of these workers being paid below minimum wages.
Then we have the horticulture industry with unliveable wages and temporary jobs at those low wages not attracting normal people who used to work there 20 years ago, now not welcome or they just don’t have the money to work there after paying for accomodation and transport down!
Industry in NZ has become used to giving a cheque to a middle man to bring in 100 workers because it is easier (and cheaper) to do so.
Part of the issue is the work safe issues which have become non sensical when Pike river is ok and work safe never prosecuted, but teachers are now responsible for kids safety at a micro level.
Our laws have become impractical and as well as the appearance of cost savings and ease of contracting out responsibility there is also real reasons why employers want to contract out due to impractical rules on safety and responsibility.
Absolutely. I have broken a number on farm picking and pruning records for kiwifruit, blueberries, grapes, pears and apples, and can supervise a gang to go fast alongside me. You want your crop cared for or brought in fast I can do it. I even love the work.
But they won’t pay me right so they can sod off and whine about their problems elsewhere.
Pot bellied pigs = NZ hort business owners.
Yep @ WTB. You posted a video the other day (recovering from desertification, etc).
In your experiences, did you ever witness one of those immigration raids on orchards?
Not so long ago, even one of the cops (of long experience) that had to accompany a LI/INZ raid told me how bloody embarrassed he felt. He knew that the victims of all the exploitation were about to be tipped out while the perpetrator was just going for another round, and another, and another………..
(see 13.1 below as well)
I also don’t think it is so much as migrant exploitation but a cozy relationship between migrants trying to game the system to enter NZ and become a permanent resident or citizen here, when they do not have the necessary job skills or criteria to get in legally. Hence a plethora of ways, from marriage to paying for a fake job or paying to do a useless qualification here (often at a private institution) has emerged.
Most of the migrants are not being exploited but are willing participants in it, so it has become a symbiotic relationship to make the NZ government grant citizenship/residency in return for a cheap or free worker , a fake course or a speedy marriage or child being conceived in NZ to help get the points.
Some of the migrants are exploited but plenty have a clear path to try and get the permanent visa or citizenship so they can give up the pretence and have access to (by world standards) very generous social welfare in NZ.
If it costs you $100k to buy your way in NZ but you then get 2 new countries to work in including OZ , free health, education and super and social welfare, accomodation supplements and child allowances and can bring your relatives in in many cases too, it sounds like a good deal for many.
You probably need to ask yourself @SaveNZ how it all started. You’re not wrong about all the scheming and scamming in many cases, however the system we implemented (immigration policies, false promises made, complete lack of monitoring and oversight of tertiary education providers, charlatan immigration advisors with cosy little links offshore – “vertically integrated”, labour hire companies et al).
The saddest thing is that it has affected the truly genuine immigrants with a commitment to the place.
Any legit immigration lawyer will tell you the number of cases they have on file due to some or all of the above. Some of them have been screaming about it for several years and it’s only now things are starting to happen (SLOWLY).
I could tell you of a number of cases where we’ve lost the skills and commitment we’re supposedly after because lack of oversight, incompetence and under-resourcing has enabled the genuine to be confused with the dross and scammers by INZ. I could give you examples where lil ole Nu Zull has lost some really skilled and committed people to places like Canada and a few European countries.
I’m not just talking about horticulturalists whose green credentials are second nature to them, but also IT professionals, and even one that Rocket LAb would love to have gotten their hands on.
Oh Dear – too bad
but if only INZ, the Labour Inspectorate, IAA and associated had listened to a few people at the coal face (Immigrant Workers’ Assoc, legit Immigration Lawyers, Unions, etc. they probably could have prevented a lot of this and saved themselves a lot of trouble. They chose not to and kept with the policies and enforcement that just kept all the churn going – good business and a bloody good earn for some.
A bottom up collapse, and we’re done.
.
Scientist Brad Lister returned to Puerto Rican rainforest after 35 years to find 98% of ground insects had vanished
“We knew that something was amiss in the first couple days,” said Brad Lister. “We were driving into the forest and at the same time both Andres and I said: ‘Where are all the birds?’ There was nothing.”
His return to the Luquillo rainforest in Puerto Rico after 35 years was to reveal an appalling discovery. The insect population that once provided plentiful food for birds throughout the mountainous national park had collapsed. On the ground, 98% had gone. Up in the leafy canopy, 80% had vanished. The most likely culprit by far is global warming.
[…]
Since Lister’s first visits to Luquillo, other scientists had predicted that tropical insects, having evolved in a very stable climate, would be much more sensitive to climate warming. “If you go a little bit past the thermal optimum for tropical insects, their fitness just plummets,” he said.
As the data came in, the predictions were confirmed in startling fashion. “The number of hot spells, temperatures above 29C, have increased tremendously,” he said. “It went from zero in the 1970s up to something like 44% of the days.” Factors important elsewhere in the world, such as destruction of habitat and pesticide use, could not explain the plummeting insect populations in Luquillo, which has long been a protected area.
Data on other animals that feed on bugs backed up the findings. “The frogs and birds had also declined simultaneously by about 50% to 65%,” Lister said. The population of one dazzling green bird that eats almost nothing but insects, the Puerto Rican tody, dropped by 90%. Not due to destruction of habitat or pesticide use etc. Pure climate change outcomes.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/15/insect-collapse-we-are-destroying-our-life-support-systems
If anyone is interested in the evidence being brought against Manafort, this article in the Guardian has the actual charge sheet before the court:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jan/15/paul-manafort-robert-mueller-russia-trump-2016-campaign
Poor Ozzies getting the brunt of Climate change already. Just too damn hot to function so there goes productivity…
A heatwave will greatly reduce farm production here too I’d say. Only a matter of time. farmers ought to get planting. Fast growing nitrogenous species and crop trees they support. Get on it!
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12191268
It only takes a minute walking around the city to see how bad all the concrete and tarseal is for heating the place up – offset it with trees, plant now for everyone’s comfort.
Northern Australia is feeling it atm, with a lack of rain during the “Wet Season. Darwin and including its rural area where the wife and I live has have the driest December in record since 1991. Atm we have had about a quarter of our wet season rain (about 300mm) which is going to cause problems for a number of people who still run off bores or use rain water tanks for storage. The gap between a good wet season and a bad (dry) wet season is getting smaller and some us are starting think this wet season is going to be dry one, which is going to cause issues this coming dry season/ fire season.
From an environment POV, a lot of estuarine fish species have disappeared to deeper water and other main fish species have move further of offshore. The real sad thing is our sea turtles and sea cows have disappeared or those that have sighted are in sort of distress. It’s the same for our min crabs as well.
Move over Gilets Jaunes. Last week an estimated 150-200 million Indian workers went on strike in protest against what they describe as the anti-labour policies of Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party government.
(I’ll keep an eye out but nothing much in English language media about outcomes)
Right to Strike
This strike, like the 17 before it, is about livelihood issues and about the right to strike. A new trade union law sits in the legislature. It would mean the death of trade unionism in India. Tapan Sen’s statement about enslavement seems less hyperbolic in this context. If workers have no power, then they are effectively enslaved to the firm. This is already the case in factories that operate almost like concentration camps.
Walking through factories along the Chennai-Coimbatore corridor or in the Manesar area gives you a sense of the power of these new factories. They are a fortress, difficult to breach. Or a prison. Either way, trade unions are not welcome there. They are kept out by force—either violence or political muscle. Workers are often brought in from far away, migrants with few roots in the area. No workers stay long. As soon as they appear settled, they are removed.
Footloose workers and harassed trade unionists make for a harsh work environment. The culture of working-class solidarity erodes, social violence grows—the seedbed of neofascist politics.
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/01/08/heres-what-real-strike-looks-150-million-say-no-despotism-india?amp
Trying to register on Kiwiblog. Why? I know little about life but I do know about fight. Resistance from’m. Maybe I do matter.
You have a regular 100 comments, they have a regular 300. Everyone here has to be ‘correto’, in fact and opinion, they allow the whole field. A certain openness.
My b.a. Christian brother is scouring-of-the-centre-of-the-earth sceptical of everything outside what he swallowed whole without looking.
The Left regard reality as their bedrock, the Right have regard for fairy tales.
In real fairy tales there is a lot of instructive stuff about human behaviour though.
Are country’s getting loose with the ways they treat people crossing their borders.
The Iran English language tv channel says that its anchorwoman flew to the USA and was then arrested, and no-one knows why or can find out where she is.
There have been stressed relations recently between the countries.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12191542
What the hell was o’connor thinking???
https://www.odt.co.nz/regions/queenstown/oconnor-promises-keep-left-after-crossing-line
Silly. Probably either distraction or fatigue, neither should have been occurring.
Crossing the centreline sounds less hairy than driving on the wrong side of the road. He’s lucky someone didn’t throw his keys in the bush.