The government should (for some months at least) end the abatement regime on other income for those on benefits.
This will allow an alternative to wage subsidy (which may not be enough to keep employees in their job).
And it would make the move to no wait dole more effective as people looked to supplement this income to afford rents. Otherwise W and I will have huge administrative issues managing other income abatement and people will not being to pay their current rent on lower level benefits + $100 other income before abatement at 90%.
the government should simply declare a rent/mortgage holiday for the period of any shut down.
As for staff….good grief, us small businesses we sit there with baited breath wondering how long we are allowed to work. I have cut hours. In what should be one of my busiest times in year i am worried how to make bill payments. We are good for now, but next month? Two month? Who knows, does anyone care?
The government needs to realize that we are looking at long term mass unemployment unless they do more then just give free money to the Hotel Industry, Air NZ and the likes.
Most businesses will have reductions in turnover. That affects capital. I reckon pretty soon rents, both residential and commercial will be mandatory cut by 10%, then if necessary by 20%. We are not there yet, but we can’t be that far away, maybe an announcement in April?
Income support for those in the gig economy (and causal workers in tourism and hospitality) whose hours reduce and or fluctuate is an administrative nightmare if they apply the abatement regime on other income.
If these people go down to dole + $100 a week they will not be able to pay rent.
It's great for those borrowing money to buy another rental as a home goes through a mortgagee sale (loss of job income) – disaster capitalism at its finest.
I can’t see the banks flooding the market with mortgagee sales.
The OCR cut is going to help, but it was never intended to help everybody or help everybody equally. Where do these ideas come from? It is just one tool available to RBNZ and the more targeted measures will need to come from Government (tomorrow).
"I see the Reserve Bank has reduced their interest rate. Straight away that will provide mortgage relief."
"Yeah right" and what did Orr achieve when he dropped the cash rate to 1%. I will tell, you sweet F….all except made every property speculating spiv rub their hands with glee.
Some of us on the pension were told by your mates when Muldoom was the PM and brought in his disastrous election bribing pension scheme "to save for your retirement as there will be no pension when you retire". We did and went short (could not borrow much in those days) and now the interest we get does not cover inflation let alone use it to supplement our pension, when in the local veggie shop this week-end all prices were elevated and there was NOTHING under $2.99 per item for leafy greens.
The virus outbreak has shown what any able thinking person has known all along that this Neo Liberal crap started by Friedman and the Chicago school taken up by Pinochet, Thatcher, Reagan and our own beloved Douglas and Richardson has been shown for what it is, a complete and utter disaster as soon as the first major collective problem hit the world.
There has to be a complete re- think, don't continue with crap that has not worked.
Lowering the cash rate to .25% will achieve F…all except further speculation in the property market.
Go away, to your paid of house, with your government paid perks that you are still to receive and just stay away.
You are of no use to anyone. Go away!
Edit, Business have been down since January because our tourist season was shit.
mechanics are starting to have issues cause spare parts ain’t arriving, cause they ain’t being produced.
People the world over are not leaving their homes, they are not working, they are not producing, they are not packing, loading and shipping.
And you want to cut rent maybe 10% . Good grief. Good fucking grief.
If it wasn't so serious, I would be having a quiet chortle about one of our resident right wingers, advocating "socialist" responses.
Though, I always thought Wayne was pragmatic, rather than doctrinaire.
Meanwhile the hypocrisy, and irony, of the very industries, tourism for example, that have been dodging paying decent wages, taxes, and their true costs to the rest of the community, having their hands out for "socialist" redistribution, seems to go unremarked. Just like the farmers, with their hands out, for draught relief from the "pretty communist".
"Meanwhile the hypocrisy, and irony, of the very industries, tourism for example, that have been dodging paying decent wages, taxes, and their true costs to the rest of the community, having their hands out for "socialist" redistribution, seems to go unremarked. Just like the farmers, with their hands out, for draught relief from the "pretty communist"."
How true KJT, like the corporates who hate "socialism" but loved the big bail outs by Obama.
I do love these people who have this "rugged" independent attitude that we All must stand on our own two feet, hate taxes so do their best to avoid paying taxes through tax avoidance schemes, blaming the less fortunate for their situation with an attitude of "if they got off their arses they could be like them" , suddenly find that socialism is the greatest thing since sliced bread, provided it is only applied to them as they work soooo hard and deserve it.
I hope you are also willing to spit your venom towards those keepers of the left that have been and are in govt. but it is different when our side replicates what has gone before.
Wayne – really, I think you should stop this sort of inflammatory anti-capitalist rhetoric at a time like this. Civility man! There will be market-based solutions. Right?
Many mortgages are fixed term, so any reduction will only benefit those with terms about to expire or are on floating – With reduction of interest will rents reduce ??? Have they ever ??
What about those retirees that are dependant upon interest income to support their living costs.
It would be good if financiers like banks can forgo their profit margin as a temporary contribution to the greater good. Same with all loans and mortgages, really. Govt could underwrite only smaller lenders.
Treading water is small price to pay when others are going under.
A local here i know is going into self quarantine. The child arrives back from the US and they are not taking a risk – non of them have symptoms but the child was in a state with a high infection rate. They are also holding a fund raiser cause they don't have the money to just not work and have no income.
Seriously to the Labour people reading here, a public announcement that outlines what services the people can expect would help. And i hope that they have instructed or will instruct the staff at Winz to 'dole' out these aids indiscriminatly and generously, so that people can actually survive.
– food money for anyone on a benefit
– one of payment to every household
– rent/mortgage/commercial lease holiday
-funds to help small and owner occupied businesses to weather this storm
-legislation to stop any evictions, any shut offs of water/electricity
would be nice to make such an announcment today, your people will need it, and it might be the difference between still having a somewhat functioning country at the end of it. So yeah, government, bail out your workers, your doers, you number 8 wire guys and girls.
The PM has said the announcement you want will come on Tuesday after cabinet have signed off on it at their meeting today (imagine the horse-trading with Winston and Labour's righties).
Good. Because right now there is a lot of fear in the country and it ain't the fear of the virus, but the fear of total societal collapse.
So yeah, i am looking forward to hearing the annoncments tomorrow. If we as a country going to waste taxpayers money to bail out those that don't actually need it, then we as a country can help our citizens to stay afloat.
When your house is on fire, you can either do the bare minimum and risk it turning into a raging inferno, or you can do your best to put out the flames completely. If it looks like the house isn’t going to be salvageable you can try doing a controlled burn. That way if fire engines are needed somewhere else, they aren’t all tied up at your place.
Similarly, if your neighbour’s house starts burning, one option for protecting your property is to stand guard with a bunch of fire extinguishers and try putting out any embers that come your way. That obviously only works to a point. If it’s burning too brightly next door, then you’ll soon run out of fire extinguishers. At that stage, firebreaks are going to be needed.
Towards the end of her 3 minutes of air time, she made mention of a UBI. I'm no fan of UBI, but if I'm meant to isolate for a few weeks or more if/when I get ill, and bearing in mind that I'm fucking poor, then how the fuck am I meant to stock up with 2 or 3 or 4 weeks of foodstuff without a huge boost to my weekly income?
I agree with Wiles that it's time to re-imagine the future and grasp this opportunity to dump some woeful mind sets and ridiculous ways of ordering our society.
I've said it already, but in the twin light of conovavirus and AGW, all those economic activities that contribute nothing to societal well being need to be ditched and our focus shifted from the financial economy to the human one. Permanently.
Yes. And no doubt this comment (and Wiles's comment also) will be seen as trying to hijack these crises to advance some pre-existing 'left'or 'anti-capitalist' agenda. We need to remember though, that if we don't use a crisis well, the other side certainly will. So I am sure we will be hearing a lot about 'market-based solutions' to AGW if we give them any oxygen rather than jump all over them and stamp them out as soon as they appear.
Have you considered the other,rather more likely, scenario?
New Zealanders fleeing our failing health system in order to try and get treatment in a country where their system is still working?
Tell me again about how Australia is preventing New Zealand residents from entering Australia unless they have the right sort of Permanent Resident visa.
1. you are in a country where there is community spread (Europe and North America) and the health system is over-run, there will be community lockdowns.
2. you know of people who have been infected, but you do not yet have symptoms.
3. there is the option of travelling to a place where there is no community spread – and all you are required to do is have 2 weeks isolation in a homestay or hotel to access this place. And if you come down with symptoms during the two week isolation – well the local hospital will still have health staff yet to be exhausted and spare respirators if you need one.
Basically we are a bolt-hole for those with the means to manage risk.
4. Then there those – as today – backpackers with no intention of isolating for 2 weeks.
We are going to have to require evidence of a 2 week stand-down place to prevent community transmission (require it before they fly here).
"Woolworths has announced that they will be introducing a dedicated shopping hour across its stores to ensure the elderly and people with a disability don’t miss out on essential items, as shoppers continue to wipe supermarket shelves clean amid the coronavirus crisis.
From Tuesday, until at least Friday, Woolworths Supermarkets will be opening exclusively for the elderly and those with a disability to shop from 7am to 8am."
Meanwhile that most vicious guard dog of the liberal free market status quo The Guardian run a piece by Blair telling us all how bad Sanders would be etc….FFS
I hope all you liberal fundamentalists out there are familiar with the old saying "you lay down with dogs you get up with fleas" getting itchy yet?
And just in case you have may have forgotten, here is the figure head of your ideology …."Here's who Joe Biden is reportedly considering for top positions in his administration as he touts a 'Return to Normal' plan"
Bloomberg and Jamie Dimon! It seems then that Biden vs Trump is a minor schismatic disagreement between two sections of the oligarchy. At least if we are talking about substance and the material conditions of people's lives. I suppose there is all the surface theatre around Trump being a disgusting person though. Maybe tut-tutting about civility is all our democracy is left with?
With US Congress (organized by Pelosi) passing a bipartisan Coronavirus package, wouldn't it it be great to see Bridges standing shoulder to shoulder with Ardern tomorrow at her big package announcement?
If Trump can support Pelosi, surely our own Opposition can unite with the government for the sake of the country.
Because tone is important. When people learn new information, then don’t just take in the core content – they take in the tone as well. If they don’t agree with the tone (by looking at other people’s reactions), or they don’t like what the tone brings up for them (in terms of conflicting feelings or beliefs), they are more likely to reject the core message. However, if they see that the source is also willing to reflect and modify their message as the situation changes and / or they receive feedback, even if they don’t like your message, they’ll be far more likely to keep listening.
When Jesus said "The poor you will always have with you," he was taking it as read that we're always going to have the stupid with us. This guy is way up there.
What [Deleted] did achieve was his stated goal of persecuting NZ firearms owners. One of his declared aims was to initiate the removal of firearms from the civilian population, and he knew that this mass murder would be used by our [Deleted; baseless opinion] politicians and police, as the excuse they needed to follow Australia’s example and confiscate firearms and put in place universal firearms registration.
The only two purposes of any registration are either to tax something, or to locate it. Taxing something or locating it does not make that item safer, or less liable for theft. In the case of an animal, registration does not change its behaviour.
In 1990 the mass murder in Aramoana led to the 1992 amendment to the arms act that introduced registration for military style semiautomatic firearms and removed the red book, the lifetime firearms licence held by over 365,000 NZérs, replacing it with a ten year plastic ID card. When the re-licencing was complete, only 215,000 had purchased the new licence, and about 5,000 of those were endorsed to possess the newly created category of MSSA, and those 5,000 registered about 7,500 MSSA.
You can see that through this re-licencing process, 150,000 licence holders didn’t bother acquiring a new plastic card or possibly an endorsement as well. Their reasons may be many, perhaps many felt that as they already had a lifetime licence, and as they were fairly sure they weren’t dead, then they didn’t need another. In any case, over a third of the licence holders just disappeared from the record.
Now there is another Arms amendment before parliament, that proposes to re-licence firearms owners, and register their firearms as well as charge them full cost recovery for the supposed public good. Most firearms owners see registration and re-licencing of individuals and clubs as a financial burden, unfairly imposed on them as scapegoats for the actions of a murderer. They see the police as culpable by authorizing the murderer to possess firearms and ammunition, though shortcutting the vetting process. The see the registration of their property as the precursor to confiscation further down the line.
Have a think about what happened in 1992 where a 1/3 declined to get with the program, and consider now, when trust between the firearms owning public, and police and parliament is at an all-time low, when universal registration happens, how many will get with the plan, or decline to accept the govt’s generous offer.
Those firearms will still be in fit and proper hands for a while, but everyone dies, and there they are, an item of value, that can’t be sold legally. Human nature will prevail.
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
It was posted under "remember March 15" as very much on topic and relevant as the author commented on the first firearms laws rushed through parliament with only lip-service paid to due process, and bemoaning the holdup to the second phase of persecution.
I would not have posted comment there on our current and past legislation if the writer had been on topic. Our firearms legislation had nothing to do with the mass murders, although police administration of the act, puts them fairly in the frame. [Deleted] will not be prosecuted under the arms act which only deals with regulatory offences, but under the crimes act 1961 for murder.
I am surprised that you find the gun at fault, rather than what was happening in the blokes head.
Never mind, it seems you have lot of company. Being right is not a majority position, unlike getting your own way under our current system with a programmed electorate
Now that is funny! Someone who believes that we are living in a democracy.
Under FPP we were controlled by a minority, and it got worse when we accepted the sick pup, MMP. We are ruled by the parasites who fund our political parties, and unable to sack a politician as they will return as a list MP.
Political parties are the true evil of our age. Anyone who can distinguish between them is truly a genius. Akin to being able to pick up a turd from the clean end. Yet all have their devoted tribal religious following.
The box you have placed me in doesn’t fit. I do not see myself as a gun advocate. Just a free man who wishes to go about his business without unnecessary interference from others. I do not need my sport and recreation supervised by the state, and I most certainly do not want to fund a huge, ever expanding bureaucracy to interfere with my activities that harm no one else.
Actually yes. At some point in our future we will recognise this and parties will cease to exist. Over the past 13 odd years I've participated here I've mentioned this maybe 4 – 6 times, and every time it gets either the silent treatment or angry denial.
What interests me is how politics would work without parties, and I've made some tentative suggestions as to how we might structure systems to achieve this.
Where real democracy makes political parties, and who funds them, almost irrevelant, and politicians have to be the day to day managers of their employer's, the electorates, goals, as they should be.
Of course it won't happen, as too many of our political types, on both sides, have an equal contempt for, "the masses". Along with a liking for having their three to nine year, "turn" with absolute power.
However a majority, including very likely a majority of gun licence holders, want the added safety of restricting guns.
John. Above, is no different from a race car driver who decides his right to drive a McLaren down the Southern motorway at rush hour should override the rights of the rest of us to be safe. Because, "individual freedom".
It is doubtful any political system will allow him the "freedom" to put other people at hazard, he desires.
New Zealanders, generally, do not have the same stupid attitude to guns that USA’ians have.
Many of us rather like the idea we can go about our business, without getting shot by a "law abiding gun owner" with the ability to kill dozens of people in a short time. The less of those types of guns that are around, the safer we all are.
I object to police carrying guns for the same reason. I don't think we should have to get "accustomed to innocent bystanders getting killed in the crossfire" as one police union representative, suggested. It is bad enough the cops inflicting the death penalty, by motor vehicle, way too often, already.
Many of us rather like the idea we can go about our business, without getting shot by a "law abiding gun owner" with the ability to kill dozens of people in a short time.
A person who uses any gun to kill other people is by definition not law abiding.
However a majority, including very likely a majority of gun licence holders,
A dubious assertion given the relative failure of the buyback scheme.
It is doubtful any political system will allow him the "freedom" to put other people at hazard, he desires.
All political systems have to find a balance between individual rights and freedoms and collective safety. In general you can have one or the other, but not both. It's a tradeoff.
Up until March last year the existing tradeoff was considered acceptable. Then in the gut wrenching aftermath when emotions were running high, and the anti-gun lobby had been gifted an unprecedented moral authority, new legislation was rushed into place. The vast majority of gun owners, who despised the killer as much as the rest of us, suddenly found themselves paying a substantial price for the deviant actions of one individual. There was no attempt at gaining their consent or buy in.
Instead they found themselves being conflated with white supremacists and terrorists, openly demonised as 'gun nuts' etc. And you wonder why there is push back.
There is an old maxim in law that says 'bad cases make for bad laws' … this would appear to be an excellent example.
As I said above, this is the argument of all authoritarians, the demand to give up personal freedoms in exchange for a largely illusory 'safety'.
All societies understand this tradeoff; total safety is impossible, but the mere demand to achieve it would eventually see the personal freedoms we take for granted taken from us. (The converse is also true, total personal freedom is illusory too because it dismantles the necessary social trust that is fundamental to all things.)
Imagine if every time there was a road accident, the govt unilaterally implemented a lowering of speed limits by 5km/hr insisting that we would all be 'safer'. After all road deaths each and every year total almost 10 times the toll in ChCh; yet there is no appetite to implement such a measure. You are not going to like me saying this, but why do 51 Muslim lives take such a dramatic precedence over those of 500 or so ordinary NZ citizens? It's not just the numbers in any one event, we've seen rail and shipping accidents take similar numbers.
The answer is of course that transport is a massive public benefit in total and we tolerate the cost in lives because of this. By contrast the anti-gun lobby discounts the value of gun sports to zero for personal and ideological reasons, but those who do own them have a quite different view.
And of course a lot of them are older, white males … so who gives a fuck?
"You are not going to like me saying this, but why do 51 Muslim lives take such a dramatic precedence over those of 500 or so ordinary NZ citizens?" – RL
Might it have something to do with the comparatively 'dramatic' way in which those 51 people lost their lives, and the fact that the taking of those lives was deliberate? Try substituting 'Christian' for 'Muslim' in your question, then reflect on why you consider it OK to minimise the event. Maybe consider the effect of asking such a question, indeed consider directing that question at the survivors of the attacks, and the relatives of those that did not survive.
IMHO such 'othering' is odious. I get why the shooter/mass murderer considered his targets to be something other than 'ordinary' people, but they were/are ordinary people, just as older white males are ordinary people.
Is it possible to make your argument without 'othering' the victims?
“By contrast the anti-gun lobby discounts the value of gun sports to zero for personal and ideological reasons…“
Good governments also restrict personal freedoms because of a few bad eggs.
Sometimes they ban things entirely (or only permit after extensive paperwork) – driving unsafe vehicles on public roads, purchasing high explosive, making guided missiles.
Because sometimes law-abiding people suddenly become non-law-abiding and kill people with the shit they legally bought. We can't tell which ones are going to do this, so we have to ban the destructive shit they bought.
This isn't authoritarianism. It's make-murderers-less-successfulism.
Try substituting 'Christian' for 'Muslim' in your question, then reflect on why you consider it OK to minimise the event.
Well I'd only have to look to Sub Saharan Africa to find plenty of up to date examples … but apparently that would be a mere distraction. Besides they're just Christians so who'd ever think to mention them here; they really are 'others'.
But to the point, when the Tangiwai disaster killed 151 New Zealanders, was there any call to ban trains? Or shipping in the wake of the Waihine sinking?
Or in the aftermath of the Nice truck bombing was there a ban put on the Quran which was the scripture used to justify the killing? The left would have gone into a total meltdown if that had been suggested.
The point is that 99.9999% of the time, guns are used with safe and legal intent. Rushing into making substantial changes based on extreme outlier events, tragic and gut wrenching as they are, without the consent from the people most affected is a recipe for generating totally unnecessary pushback.
And just to make it clear, I have probably read more of the Quran and spent more of my life immersed in an Islamic setting than all the rest of the regulars here combined. Over the years I've written defending Islam and explained in detail it's origins, history and why most Westerners struggle to understand it's scriptures. I've also vociferously condemned the fundamentalist, reactionary versions of it that have proven so vile and dangerous this past 30 odd years.
@McF Because sometimes law-abiding people suddenly become non-law-abiding and kill people with the shit they legally bought.
Did we ban trucks, fertiliser and diesel in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing? Not on your nelly, and mainly because there was no pre-existing anti truck, fertiliser and diesel lobby just itching to exploit this disaster to ram it's agenda through.
It's my observation that gun owners tend toward the libertarian end of the spectrum and people who hate guns tend toward the authoritarian. This debate has a very real clash of values undertone. As for me, while I don't actually mind much that full automatics have been banned (I’ve never owned a gun in my life), the context in which this has been done will I believe prove to be counter-productive in the longer run. The 'safety' argument will turn out to be based on shifting sands.
You really could not have done any more calculating to foster extremism in the gun community. Exactly as was the shooter's intention. Well done.
Did we ban trucks, fertiliser and diesel in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing? Not on your nelly, and mainly because there was no pre-existing anti truck, fertiliser and diesel lobby just itching to exploit this disaster to ram it's agenda through.
Actually, more because in NZ you could buy fertilizer and diesel, but fuzes, detonators, and boosters already took a shedload more paperwork and checks to get hold of.
I'd probably be ok with firearms being controlled in the same way as explosives. Anyone can get them if they pass extensive checks and training certification, and can demonstrate why they need them. Why would anyone need a high capacity magazine to hunt deer?
but fuzes, detonators, and boosters already took a shedload more paperwork and checks to get hold of.
That's pretty weak really, and according to an old mate of mine I just talked to, who's worked with explosives extensively, detonators are not that hard to fabricate.
If we really wanted to tighten up gun ownership a sincere govt would have, sans disaster, gone to the various major gun owner organisations and asked them to engage in an authentic consultation over a period of years. It wouldn't necessarily be easy, but a proactive approach like this would ultimately get to a better place, with much less of the pushback. Like how we do all other legislation … such as making detonators hard to obtain.
That's pretty weak really, and according to an old mate of mine I just talked to, who's worked with explosives extensively, detonators are not that hard to fabricate.
Do you know how to do it? Would your mate show you without any questions? What about fuzes and a booster charge?
You can make firearms in your home workshop, too, even the bulk of it on your cheap 3d printer.
The difference is precision and quality control. Chch fucko walked around town and shot over a hundred people, killing half of them. A German fucko tried to copy him with devices he constructed, shot 5 killed 2 because his homemade weapons didn't have the same reliability as a storebought firearm (Halle, Oct 2019). Another guy did a similar thing with a glock17: shot 16 killed 11 (Hanau, Feb 2020).
Spending your inheritance on precision-made weapons enables you to murder more people than making your own.
And years of consultation is fine when corporate interests are involved. Worked a treat with global warming, too. /sarc
For guns yes, for a bomb that only needs to work once, well lets say I'm told that fabricating and testing your design is well within the capability of a moderately technical person. Hell we used to fuck around with some pretty big bangs as teenagers
But all this is a distraction.
And years of consultation is fine when corporate interests are involved. Worked a treat with global warming, too. /sarc
OK so no more bothersome consultation with stakeholders … that'll set a fine standard going forward.
The attacker tried to enter the synagogue yard, firing shots and trying to ignite home-made explosives.
What you are told may be correct, but it is also irrelevant. Restrictions reduce the sample of successful fuckos to people who are fuckos enough to want to kill screeds of people and who also have enough technical ability to make their artisanal arseholery work effectively that one time.
Whereas these fuckos seem to be much more effective murderers when their technical ability can be limited to operating an eftpos handset and reading a user manual.
Oh, and yeah, fuck stakeholders when their response to people being killed by shit they like to play with is to send MPs propaganda produced by overseas lobby groups.
And that McFuck face is precisely why gun owners as so angry. They had nothing to do with him, they loath him as much as if not more than you do. But you persistently imply there is no difference between ordinary gun owners and a sicko terrorist.
You are doing his real word for him, and you know it. You my sick fucko are the same as him.
And that McFuck face is precisely why gun owners as so angry. They had nothing to do with him, they loath him as much as if not more than you do. But you persistently imply there is no difference between ordinary gun owners and a sicko terrorist.
So if he's so different, why didn't they spot him?
Could it be that they, like everyone else, can't tell who is going to go berserk until the person actually goes berserk?
So early identification doesn't work. There's no precognition, no thoughtcrime. Some perfectly fine law abiding gun owner keeps his plans to himself until the morning he gets up and murders people.
I mean, we could stop him buying the firearms that really add numbers to his tally, restricting him to machetes and firearms with a lower rate of fire. But then other law abiding firearms owners won't get to play with their bangbangs.
I mean, on average it's only something like 5 people a year shot by spree killers over the last thirty years, innit. Two of those five being murdered. Why shouldn't an ordinary deer hunter be able to lay down suppressing fire. It's pc gone mad, eh. 🙄
Well yes. I read somewhere years ago the suggestion that the formation of the Dept of Homeland Security was bin Laden's proudest moment.
You can argue if you like that it made American's safer, but it also watered the seeds of a mistrust between the American people and their government, which has grown over 20 years into the hyperpolarisation that Trump is but one manifestation of.
This is explicitly what bid Laden and he who must not be named had in common; it was not the immediate act that was the long term goal. Muslims were not the real target of ChCh, although 51 of them paid the price for it, it was the destabilisation of the whole of NZ society.
As for the bangbangs you sneer at; neither my friend, nor my son in law have ever owned a full automatic and never intended to. (Actually apart from a quick thrill at the range, they're rather boring weapons from a skill and sport perspective.) But what has happened is that it's definitely exacerbated is a loss of trust in our government in both of them that I've never seen before.
You think? Then why does everyone here keep telling me how white supremacy and militant gun nuttery is on the rise, and how dangerous this is?
While WS always existed in various dark corners, the actual number of people committed to it was tiny. And they were always marginalised, the vast majority of people considered them literally beyond the pale. Now not so much; there is the thought that if the left is allowed to play the identity politics card … why can’t we? That really is dangerous.
Govts put legal constraints on all sorts of things, all the time. But not always; sometimes they get it horribly wrong. Like for example the Prohibition.
Nobody gives a shit about anoraks who can have 3 hour discussions about whether a 238gr load is substantially different to a 245gr load. Or even rich fools who want to plug a deer from a mile away using an expensive rifle with expensive optics and match-grade expensive ammunition.
The problem is the white supremacist who gets their hands on that kit.
Unfortunately, WS cunningly fail to wear labels (at the moment). So nobody – not me, not you, not your friends – can see who is the WS who is buying a tool of mass murder.
This is why we can't have nice things. A few bad apples do indeed spoil the barrel.
If your friends really can't figure that out and are all angry at the government, maybe they shouldn't have guns in the first place. Anger management issues, and all that.
Which also puts paid to the related issue of how our security system 'failed to spot' him. How and why this guy was radicalised remains an open question that no-one is talking about anymore. Sure we know something of his motives that he outlines in his manifesto, but something happened in Turkey or Bulgaria that has never been openly explained. And probably never will.
This is the crucial link in the chain that I believe has far more significance that his ability to buy guns here.
If your friends really can't figure that out and are all angry at the government, maybe they shouldn't have guns in the first place.
Subtracting the weapon is, sadly, more likely to succeed that attempting to subtract whiste supremacists from society.
Just like subtracting morons who liked to blow up letterboxes would have been preferable to subtracting the firecrackers from society. Sadly, we'll always have morons and racists, but weapons and crackers can be regulated away with large amounts of success.
The authoritarians first instinct to ban things doesn't always pan out as well as intended, and the way this one has been done sucks. It's arguably not worked on it's own terms, barely 25% of full autos have been handed in, and it's prompted an unfortunate and dangerous blowback that was precisely the express intent of the mass killer.
Right up above I said this:
There is an old maxim in law that says 'bad cases make for bad laws' … this would appear to be an excellent example.
And the more I talk this through, the more convinced I am this was an old and wise principle that we forget at considerable cost.
The authoritarians first instinct to ban things doesn't always pan out as well as intended, and the way this one has been done sucks. It's arguably not worked on it's own terms, barely 25% of full autos have been handed in, and it's prompted an unfortunate and dangerous blowback that was precisely the express intent of the mass killer.
He wanted a race war, not a bunch of babies who just want their damned toys.
Obviously 3/4 of owners of mass-killing tools are not "law abiding" firearm owners then, are they. They're just entitled folk who obey the law when it suits them and believe they're above the law when it doesn't.
It's good to whittle down the number of this type of firearm ("full auto"? wtf?) in the community. The number of mass-killing firearms will steadily decrease as criminals get caught. Including those criminals who believe they are law-abiding.
I made the decision to move your comment to OM because I don’t think it is appropriate to have the discussion that you want to have under a Post to commemorate the victims of the shootings on 15 March 2019. My decision is final.
The other thing is that the name of the shooter is not to be mentioned here on this site. We don’t want to give him more prominence than he’s already receiving from some quarters of our society.
The mass murder of 51 innocent people is a sensitive topic, to say the least, and should be treated with dignity and respect. Commenters who cannot abide by this can go somewhere else.
If hypothetically Parliament was to pass a law requiring the sacrifice of all the first-born children to appease the God COVID … do you think everyone would meekly 'abide' by this new law?
The distinguishing feature between democracy and tyranny is that in a democracy Parliament rules by the assent of the people. And a large fraction of gun owners who were happy enough to abide by the old rules, have not consented to these new ones.
I'm sure a large fraction of motorist don't "consent" to the laws against speeding!
Actually they do. For many years the open road speed limit was 110km/hr and the police often set a 10km/hr tolerance band over that. Then over time, the authorities made a reasonable case that the limit needed reducing and the driving public, with rare exceptions, bought into this and consented when the limit was reduced to 100k/hr.
What the govt of the day didn't do was exploit one single disasterously deviant act of speeding to demonise all motorists and then ram through the legislative change with no buy in.
The problem with this argument is simple. If every time an extreme outlier event is exploited to justify radically tilting the safety vs freedom balance … it becomes a ratchet action.
Because there is no equivalent kind of event that can ever tilt the balance back toward individual freedom, it's all one way traffic toward increasing levels of an often illusory safety gained at the cost of increasing authoritarianism.
And as John pointed out above, this was explicitly one of the motives of the ChCh killer. You are in effect doing is real work for him.
Our government virus finance package is good from a Tangata government all the Tangata not just the wealthiest first. What would have happened if the tax cut happened like another government has done.
Simon just loves kicking the less fortunate tangata.
It's called stimulating the internal Aotearoa economy or is that a bit hard for you to grasp + I'm sure Grant said big business could talk to him about their plans no good paying out billion just to see it end up under the mattress.
You know that trickle down lie that was flogged to us for nine years well in reality money flows up.
Kia Kaha to all the sports stars.
Its good to see more jobs for local workers in Aotearoa back to the days of old.
The less plastic waste that is produced the better our environment will be.
It would be good to see more money invested in Railways railways has a lower carbon footprint than other fright transporters.
Money is a imagine 4 million value for every person life in Aotearoa it would be nice if Tangata Whenua O Aotearoa were valued more.??????.
There you go organisation that can could have a third of their employees working from home at 1 time to save our futures environment.
Your opinions change because of Reality I think it's time to change finance to a more stable mode that is not effected by Shocks like this. A sestanable system that is not fooled into thinking that the Papatuanuku has finite RESOURCEs.?????.
That's a good idea live online exercise programs.
Exercise is good for mental health the same as mahi.
BBM is great at getting brown people moving into exercise.
Yes it a opportunity to show kindness sharing compassion empthy.
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 27 were:1. The Minister for Ford Rangers strikes againTransport Minister Simeon Brown was again the busiest of the Cabinet ministers this week, announcing an ...
You got a fast carAnd I want a ticket to anywhereMaybe we make a dealMaybe together we can get somewhereAny place is betterYesterday’s newsletter, Trust In Me, on the report of abuse in state care, and by religious organisations, between 1950 and 2019, coupled with the hypocrisy of Christopher Luxon ...
New Zealand is again having to reconcile conflicting pressures from its military and its trade interests. Should we join Pillar Two of AUKUS and risk compromising our markets in China? For a century after New Zealand was founded in 1840, its external security arrangements and external economics arrangements were aligned. ...
The ‘50 Shades of Green’ farmers’ protest in 2019 was heavy on climate change denial, but five years on, scepticism and criticism about the idea that pine forests can save us is growing across the board. File photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in climate ...
This morning the sky was bright.The birds, in their usual joyous bliss. Nature doesn’t seem to feel the heat of what might angst humans.Their calls are clear and beautiful.Just some random thoughts:MāoriPaul Goldsmith has announced his government will roll back the judiciary’s rulings on Māori Customary Marine Title, which recognises ...
In 2003, the Court of Appeal delivered its decision in Ngati Apa v Attorney-General, ruling that Māori customary title over the foreshore and seabed had not been universally extinguished, and that the Māori Land Court could determine claims and confirm title if the facts supported it. This kicked off the ...
Earlier this week at Parliament, Labour leader Chris Hipkins was applauded for saying that the response to the final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care had to be “bigger than politics.” True, but the fine words, apologies and “we hear you” messages will soon ring ...
TL;DR: In news breaking this morning:The Ministry of Education is cutting $2 billion from its school building programme so the National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government has enough money to deliver tax cuts; The Government has quietly lowered its child poverty reduction targets to make them easier to achieve;Te Whatu Ora-Health NZ’s ...
Kia ora. These are some stories that caught our eye this week – as always, feel free to share yours in the comments. Our header image this week (via Eke Panuku) shows the planned upgrade for the Karanga Plaza Tidal Swimming Steps. The week in Greater Auckland On ...
1. What's not to love about the way the Harris campaign is turning things around?a. Nothingb. Love all of itc. God what a reliefd. Not that it will be by any means easye. All of the above 2. Documents released by the Ministry of Health show Associate Health Minister Casey ...
Trust in me in all you doHave the faith I have in youLove will see us through, if only you trust in meWhy don't you, you trust me?In a week that saw the release of the 3,000 page Abuse in Care report Christopher Luxon was being asked about Boot Camps. ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking about the Royal Commission Inquiry into Abuse in Carereport released this week, and with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent on a UN push to not recognise carbon offset markets and ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 26, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Transport: Simeon Brown announced$802.9 million in funding for 18 new trains on the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines, which ...
The northern expressway extension from Warkworth to Whangarei is likely to require radical changes to legislation if it is going to be built within the foreseeable future. The Government’s powers to purchase land, the planning process and current restrictions on road tolling are all going to need to be changed ...
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedFirst they came for the doctors But I was confused by the numbers and costs So I didn't speak up Then they came for our police and nurses And I didn't think we could afford those costs anyway So I ...
Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on UnsplashWe’re back again after our mid-winter break. We’re still with the ‘new’ day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when we have our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream ...
Notes: This is a free article. Abuse in Care themes are mentioned. Video is at the bottom.BackgroundYesterday’s report into Abuse in Care revealed that at least 1 in 3 of all who went through state and faith based care were abused - often horrifically. At least, because not all survivors ...
Luxon speaks in Parliament yesterday about the Abuse in Care report. Photo: Hagen Hopkins/Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:PM Christopher Luxon said yesterday in tabling the Abuse in Carereport in Parliament he wanted to ‘do the ...
About a decade ago I worked with a bloke called Steve. He was the grizzled veteran coder, a few years older than me, who knew where the bodies were buried - code wise. Despite his best efforts to be approachable and friendly he could be kind of gruff, through to ...
Some of the recent announcements from the government have reminded us of posts we’ve written in the past. Here’s one from early 2020. There were plenty of reactions to the government’s infrastructure announcement a few weeks ago which saw them fund a bunch of big roading projects. One of ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Thursday, July 25 are:News: Why Electric Kiwi is closing to new customers - and why it matters RNZ’s Susan EdmundsScoop: Government drops ...
Hi,I felt a small wet tongue snaking through one of the holes in my Crocs. It explored my big toe, darting down one side, then the other. “He’s looking for some toe cheese,” said the woman next to me, words that still haunt me to this day.Growing up in New ...
Yesterday I happily quoted the Prime Minister without fact-checking him and sure enough, it turns out his numbers were all to hell. It’s not four kg of Royal Commission report, it’s fourteen.My friend and one-time colleague-in-comms Hazel Phillips gently alerted me to my error almost as soon as I’d hit ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Thursday, July 25, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day were:The Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquirypublished its final report yesterday.PM Christopher Luxon and The Minister responsible for ...
The Official Information Act has always been a battle between requesters seeking information, and governments seeking to control it. Information is power, so Ministers and government agencies want to manage what is released and when, for their own convenience, and legality and democracy be damned. Their most recent tactic for ...
TL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:Transport and Energy Minister Simeon Brown is accelerating plans to spend at least $10 billion through Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) to extend State Highway One as a four-lane ‘Expressway’ from Warkworth to Whangarei ...
I live my life (woo-ooh-ooh)With no control in my destinyYea-yeah, yea-yeah (woo-ooh-ooh)I can bleed when I want to bleedSo come on, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)You can bleed when you want to bleedYea-yeah, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)Everybody bleed when they want to bleedCome on and bleedGovernments face tough challenges. Selling unpopular decisions to ...
Please note:To skip directly to the- parliamentary footage in the video, scroll to 1:21 To skip to audio please click on the headphone iconon the left hand side of the screenThis video / audio section is under development. ...
Given the crackdown on wasteful government spending, it behooves me to point to a high profile example of spending by the Luxon government that looks like a big, fat waste of time and money. I’m talking about the deployment of NZDF personnel to support the US-led coalition in the Red ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:40 am on Wednesday, July 24 are:Deep Dive: Chipping away at the housing crisis, including my comments RNZ/Newsroom’s The DetailNews: Government softens on asset sales, ...
As I reported about the city centre, Auckland’s rail network is also going through a difficult and disruptive period which is rapidly approaching a culmination, this will result in a significant upgrade to the whole network. Hallelujah. Also like the city centre this is an upgrade predicated on the City ...
Today, a 4 kilogram report will be delivered to Parliament. We know this is what the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care weighs, because our Prime Minister told us so.Some reporter had blindsided him by asking a question about something done by ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Wednesday, July 24, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Beehive:Transport Minister Simeon Brownannounced plans to use PPPs to fund, build and run a four-lane expressway between Auckland ...
NewstalkZB host Mike Hosking, who can usually be relied on to give Prime Minister Christopher Luxon an easy run, did not do so yesterday when he interviewed him about the HealthNZ deficit. Luxon is trying to use a deficit reported last year by HealthNZ as yet another example of the ...
Back in January a StatsNZ employee gave a speech at Rātana on behalf of tangata whenua in which he insulted and criticised the government. The speech clearly violated the principle of a neutral public service, and StatsNZ started an investigation. Part of that was getting an external consultant to examine ...
Renting for life: Shared ownership initiatives are unlikely to slow the slide in home ownership by much. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:A Deloittereport for Westpac has projected Aotearoa’s home-ownership rate will ...
You're broken down and tiredOf living life on a merry go roundAnd you can't find the fighterBut I see it in you so we gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsWe gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsAnd I'll rise upI'll rise like the dayI'll rise upI'll rise unafraidI'll rise upAnd I'll ...
There’s been a change in Myers Park. Down the steps from St. Kevin’s Arcade, past the grassy slopes, the children’s playground, the benches and that goat statue, there has been a transformation. The underpass for Mayoral Drive has gone from a barren, grey, concrete tunnel, to a place that thrums ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Global society may have finally slammed on the brakes for climate-warming pollution released by human fossil fuel combustion. According to the Carbon Monitor Project, the total global climate pollution released between February and May 2024 declined slightly from the amount released during the same ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Tuesday, July 23 are:Deep Dive: Penlink: where tolling rhetoric meets reality BusinessDesk-$$$’sOliver LewisScoop:Te Pūkenga plans for regional polytechs leak out ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Tuesday, July 23, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Health: Shane Reti announcedthe Board of Te Whatu Ora-Health New Zealand was being replaced with Commissioner Lester Levy ...
Health NZ warned the Government at the end of March that it was running over Budget. But the reasons it gave were very different to those offered by the Prime Minister yesterday. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon blamed the “botched merger” of the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) to create Health ...
Long ReadKey Summary: Although National increased the health budget by $1.4 billion in May, they used an old funding model to project health system costs, and never bothered to update their pre-election numbers. They were told during the Health Select Committees earlier in the year their budget amount was deficient, ...
As a momentous, historic weekend in US politics unfolded, analysts and commentators grasped for precedents and comparisons to help explain the significance and power of the choice Joe Biden had made. The 46th president had swept the Democratic party’s primaries but just over 100 days from the election had chosen ...
TL;DR: I’m casting around for new ideas and ways of thinking about Aotearoa’s political economy to find a few solutions to our cascading and self-reinforcing housing, poverty and climate crises.Associate Professor runs an online masters degree in the economics of sustainability at Torrens University in Australia and is organising ...
The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back on National's Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. The bill sets up water for privatisation, and was introduced under urgency, then rammed through select committee with no time even for local councils to make a proper submission. Naturally, national's select committee ...
Some years ago, I bought a book at Dunedin’s Regent Booksale for $1.50. As one does. Vandrad the Viking (1898), by J. Storer Clouston, is an obscure book these days – I cannot find a proper online review – but soon it was sitting on my shelf, gathering dust alongside ...
History is not on the side of the centre-left, when Democratic presidents fall behind in the polls and choose not to run for re-election. On both previous occasions in the past 75 years (Harry Truman in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1968) the Democrats proceeded to then lose the White House ...
This is a free articleCoverageThis morning, US President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the Presidential race. And that is genuinely newsworthy. Thanks for your service, President Biden, and all the best to you and yours.However, the media in New Zealand, particularly the 1News nightly bulletin, has been breathlessly covering ...
A homeless person’s camp beside a blocked-off slipped damage walkway in Freeman’s Bay: we are chasing our tail on our worsening and inter-related housing, poverty and climate crises. Photo: Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
What has happened to it all?Crazy, some'd sayWhere is the life that I recognise?(Gone away)But I won't cry for yesterdayThere's an ordinary worldSomehow I have to findAnd as I try to make my wayTo the ordinary worldYesterday morning began as many others - what to write about today? I began ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Monday, July 22 are:Today’s Must Read: Father and son live in a tent, and have done for four years, in a million ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Orderimage, ...
Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
Te Rangi e tu nei (The sky above us) Te Papa e takoto nei (The land beneath us) Tatou katoa te hunga ora (To us all the living) Tena koutou katoa (Greetings) ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
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The government should (for some months at least) end the abatement regime on other income for those on benefits.
This will allow an alternative to wage subsidy (which may not be enough to keep employees in their job).
And it would make the move to no wait dole more effective as people looked to supplement this income to afford rents. Otherwise W and I will have huge administrative issues managing other income abatement and people will not being to pay their current rent on lower level benefits + $100 other income before abatement at 90%.
the government should simply declare a rent/mortgage holiday for the period of any shut down.
As for staff….good grief, us small businesses we sit there with baited breath wondering how long we are allowed to work. I have cut hours. In what should be one of my busiest times in year i am worried how to make bill payments. We are good for now, but next month? Two month? Who knows, does anyone care?
The government needs to realize that we are looking at long term mass unemployment unless they do more then just give free money to the Hotel Industry, Air NZ and the likes.
Here is hoping that they do the right thing.
Sabine,
That would be going too far. A gain for one is a loss for another. It surely depends on individual circumstances.
That is why income support for affected people is a better approach, at least in the first instance. It enables them to meet their obligations.
Depending on how long things go for, it might be necessary to have mortgage and rent relief, but it is not the first thing you do.
I see the Reserve Bank has reduced their interest rate. Straight away that will provide mortgage relief.
What ways do you see owners of capital paying their share like workers will do by losing jobs or hours?
Most businesses will have reductions in turnover. That affects capital. I reckon pretty soon rents, both residential and commercial will be mandatory cut by 10%, then if necessary by 20%. We are not there yet, but we can’t be that far away, maybe an announcement in April?
Thank you. That's the sort of thing I'm imagining too.
Income support for those in the gig economy (and causal workers in tourism and hospitality) whose hours reduce and or fluctuate is an administrative nightmare if they apply the abatement regime on other income.
If these people go down to dole + $100 a week they will not be able to pay rent.
How will the ocr rate cut provide me mortgage relief on my existing home loan?
It's great for those borrowing money to buy another rental as a home goes through a mortgagee sale (loss of job income) – disaster capitalism at its finest.
Yep, and doesn't give any relief to mortgage holders with fixed loans, unless they stump up an exorbitant break fee and refinance.
I can’t see the banks flooding the market with mortgagee sales.
The OCR cut is going to help, but it was never intended to help everybody or help everybody equally. Where do these ideas come from? It is just one tool available to RBNZ and the more targeted measures will need to come from Government (tomorrow).
Wayne @ 1.1.1wrote
"I see the Reserve Bank has reduced their interest rate. Straight away that will provide mortgage relief."
"Yeah right" and what did Orr achieve when he dropped the cash rate to 1%. I will tell, you sweet F….all except made every property speculating spiv rub their hands with glee.
Some of us on the pension were told by your mates when Muldoom was the PM and brought in his disastrous election bribing pension scheme "to save for your retirement as there will be no pension when you retire". We did and went short (could not borrow much in those days) and now the interest we get does not cover inflation let alone use it to supplement our pension, when in the local veggie shop this week-end all prices were elevated and there was NOTHING under $2.99 per item for leafy greens.
The virus outbreak has shown what any able thinking person has known all along that this Neo Liberal crap started by Friedman and the Chicago school taken up by Pinochet, Thatcher, Reagan and our own beloved Douglas and Richardson has been shown for what it is, a complete and utter disaster as soon as the first major collective problem hit the world.
There has to be a complete re- think, don't continue with crap that has not worked.
Lowering the cash rate to .25% will achieve F…all except further speculation in the property market.
Yeah, fixed the mortgage last month. It ain't gonna help me. At least I can work from home.
with all due respect Wayne, go away.
Go away, to your paid of house, with your government paid perks that you are still to receive and just stay away.
You are of no use to anyone. Go away!
Edit, Business have been down since January because our tourist season was shit.
mechanics are starting to have issues cause spare parts ain’t arriving, cause they ain’t being produced.
People the world over are not leaving their homes, they are not working, they are not producing, they are not packing, loading and shipping.
And you want to cut rent maybe 10% . Good grief. Good fucking grief.
Settle down. Wayne is one of the few righties that ventures here. It's a persective worth us being aware of.
If it wasn't so serious, I would be having a quiet chortle about one of our resident right wingers, advocating "socialist" responses.
Though, I always thought Wayne was pragmatic, rather than doctrinaire.
Meanwhile the hypocrisy, and irony, of the very industries, tourism for example, that have been dodging paying decent wages, taxes, and their true costs to the rest of the community, having their hands out for "socialist" redistribution, seems to go unremarked. Just like the farmers, with their hands out, for draught relief from the "pretty communist".
KJT wrote
"Meanwhile the hypocrisy, and irony, of the very industries, tourism for example, that have been dodging paying decent wages, taxes, and their true costs to the rest of the community, having their hands out for "socialist" redistribution, seems to go unremarked. Just like the farmers, with their hands out, for draught relief from the "pretty communist"."
How true KJT, like the corporates who hate "socialism" but loved the big bail outs by Obama.
I do love these people who have this "rugged" independent attitude that we All must stand on our own two feet, hate taxes so do their best to avoid paying taxes through tax avoidance schemes, blaming the less fortunate for their situation with an attitude of "if they got off their arses they could be like them" , suddenly find that socialism is the greatest thing since sliced bread, provided it is only applied to them as they work soooo hard and deserve it.
See no 10 below.
Hey KJT I cant seem to open the link. Would love to see it. Bit thick at times, point me in the right direction, thanks.
I’ve fixed the link.
I hope you are also willing to spit your venom towards those keepers of the left that have been and are in govt. but it is different when our side replicates what has gone before.
No need for your unwarranted spray.
So home owners get immediate relief, but renters, who by default are usually in worse financial positions get none…that doesn't sound fair at all.
@Wayne "a gain for one is a loss for another"
Wayne – really, I think you should stop this sort of inflammatory anti-capitalist rhetoric at a time like this. Civility man! There will be market-based solutions. Right?
Many mortgages are fixed term, so any reduction will only benefit those with terms about to expire or are on floating – With reduction of interest will rents reduce ??? Have they ever ??
What about those retirees that are dependant upon interest income to support their living costs.
Will credit card interest rates reduce ?
The government is looking at some arrangement with banks as to business customers (deferring repayments maybe)
An option is interest free loans to business to make rent and debt repayments (this can be repaid when they return to profit).
It would be good if financiers like banks can forgo their profit margin as a temporary contribution to the greater good. Same with all loans and mortgages, really. Govt could underwrite only smaller lenders.
Treading water is small price to pay when others are going under.
I doubt it. They are all busily looking around to find ways they can "capitalise" the disaster, as we speak.
Agree SPC. The numbers on abatement were due to change from April 2020, but not by enough to cover market rents in this situation.
https://communitylaw.org.nz/community-law-manual/chapter-22-dealing-with-work-and-income/benefit-rates-how-much-youll-get-and-how-much-you-can-earn/how-earning-money-will-affect-your-benefit-abatement/
WINZ/MSD needs to drop most of their sadistic/moralistic bs and bring in income splitting for couples etc. also.
Well that would be fine and dandy given an abundance of available work. Otherwise, bit of an empty gesture.
For those going from 40 hours a week to 10-20 hours a week in various gig/casual work it is the only way they will be paying their rent.
A local here i know is going into self quarantine. The child arrives back from the US and they are not taking a risk – non of them have symptoms but the child was in a state with a high infection rate. They are also holding a fund raiser cause they don't have the money to just not work and have no income.
Seriously to the Labour people reading here, a public announcement that outlines what services the people can expect would help. And i hope that they have instructed or will instruct the staff at Winz to 'dole' out these aids indiscriminatly and generously, so that people can actually survive.
– food money for anyone on a benefit
– one of payment to every household
– rent/mortgage/commercial lease holiday
-funds to help small and owner occupied businesses to weather this storm
-legislation to stop any evictions, any shut offs of water/electricity
would be nice to make such an announcment today, your people will need it, and it might be the difference between still having a somewhat functioning country at the end of it. So yeah, government, bail out your workers, your doers, you number 8 wire guys and girls.
The PM has said the announcement you want will come on Tuesday after cabinet have signed off on it at their meeting today (imagine the horse-trading with Winston and Labour's righties).
Good. Because right now there is a lot of fear in the country and it ain't the fear of the virus, but the fear of total societal collapse.
So yeah, i am looking forward to hearing the annoncments tomorrow. If we as a country going to waste taxpayers money to bail out those that don't actually need it, then we as a country can help our citizens to stay afloat.
Another way of looking at our pandemic response, from microbiologist Siouxsie Wiles: https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/16-03-2020/the-world-is-on-fire-my-message-to-new-zealanders-on-covid-19/
Dr Siouxie Wiles speaks on Morning Report this morning.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018738602/covid-19-onus-on-public-to-stop-spread-microbiologist
Towards the end of her 3 minutes of air time, she made mention of a UBI. I'm no fan of UBI, but if I'm meant to isolate for a few weeks or more if/when I get ill, and bearing in mind that I'm fucking poor, then how the fuck am I meant to stock up with 2 or 3 or 4 weeks of foodstuff without a huge boost to my weekly income?
I agree with Wiles that it's time to re-imagine the future and grasp this opportunity to dump some woeful mind sets and ridiculous ways of ordering our society.
I've said it already, but in the twin light of conovavirus and AGW, all those economic activities that contribute nothing to societal well being need to be ditched and our focus shifted from the financial economy to the human one. Permanently.
Yes. And no doubt this comment (and Wiles's comment also) will be seen as trying to hijack these crises to advance some pre-existing 'left'or 'anti-capitalist' agenda. We need to remember though, that if we don't use a crisis well, the other side certainly will. So I am sure we will be hearing a lot about 'market-based solutions' to AGW if we give them any oxygen rather than jump all over them and stamp them out as soon as they appear.
The one risk of our 14 day arrival stand-down is people fleeing a failing health system to get treatment here.
Because of this we are going to add, nation by nation, to the China, Iran and Italy ban.
Have you considered the other,rather more likely, scenario?
New Zealanders fleeing our failing health system in order to try and get treatment in a country where their system is still working?
Tell me again about how Australia is preventing New Zealand residents from entering Australia unless they have the right sort of Permanent Resident visa.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/120241864/coronavirus-kiwi-couples-dream-holiday-cut-short-after-italy-goes-into-lockdown
Do you really think that they aren't going to extend the approach to all New Zealand residents when we get a lot more occurrences of the disease here?
Why would we be more likely to get community transfer before Oz?
PS the link is to a story about not allowing anyone not Australian to go to Oz from Italy.
And to help you think it through
1. you are in a country where there is community spread (Europe and North America) and the health system is over-run, there will be community lockdowns.
2. you know of people who have been infected, but you do not yet have symptoms.
3. there is the option of travelling to a place where there is no community spread – and all you are required to do is have 2 weeks isolation in a homestay or hotel to access this place. And if you come down with symptoms during the two week isolation – well the local hospital will still have health staff yet to be exhausted and spare respirators if you need one.
Basically we are a bolt-hole for those with the means to manage risk.
4. Then there those – as today – backpackers with no intention of isolating for 2 weeks.
We are going to have to require evidence of a 2 week stand-down place to prevent community transmission (require it before they fly here).
"Woolworths has announced that they will be introducing a dedicated shopping hour across its stores to ensure the elderly and people with a disability don’t miss out on essential items, as shoppers continue to wipe supermarket shelves clean amid the coronavirus crisis.
From Tuesday, until at least Friday, Woolworths Supermarkets will be opening exclusively for the elderly and those with a disability to shop from 7am to 8am."
http://www.mygc.com.au/woolworths-introduces-special-shopping-hour-for-the-elderly-and-disabled-amid-coronavirus-crisis/
that an if this thing last longer then two to twelve weeks maybe rationing is on order.
7am? Joking if they think most disabled people can be there by then.
We could just stay up all night.
Done it before. 🙂
Meanwhile that most vicious guard dog of the liberal free market status quo The Guardian run a piece by Blair telling us all how bad Sanders would be etc….FFS
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/15/ex-british-pm-tony-blair-bernie-sanders-gamble?fbclid=IwAR0mGlCJYgqhkmHZKw-j1nZdRHfvW4Gp3wf44hiUFi0PjwKzMbYughTUL6E
I hope all you liberal fundamentalists out there are familiar with the old saying "you lay down with dogs you get up with fleas" getting itchy yet?
And just in case you have may have forgotten, here is the figure head of your ideology …."Here's who Joe Biden is reportedly considering for top positions in his administration as he touts a 'Return to Normal' plan"
.https://www.businessinsider.com.au/who-joe-biden-will-appoint-to-top-cabinet-positions-axios-2020-3?r=US&IR=T
Bloomberg and Jamie Dimon! It seems then that Biden vs Trump is a minor schismatic disagreement between two sections of the oligarchy. At least if we are talking about substance and the material conditions of people's lives. I suppose there is all the surface theatre around Trump being a disgusting person though. Maybe tut-tutting about civility is all our democracy is left with?
There will be interest as to the impact of less planes in the skies.
https://globalnews.ca/news/2934513/empty-skies-after-911-set-the-stage-for-an-unlikely-climate-change-experiment/
With US Congress (organized by Pelosi) passing a bipartisan Coronavirus package, wouldn't it it be great to see Bridges standing shoulder to shoulder with Ardern tomorrow at her big package announcement?
If Trump can support Pelosi, surely our own Opposition can unite with the government for the sake of the country.
Simon is doing a good job keeping a National brand viable while Ardern and advisers work on coronavirus response in uncertain times.
Nationalist responses are futile when facing global existential threats like COV-19.
National is arguably redundant in this highly inter-connected world.
Of course Trump would stand by Pelosi, like most men of his ilk he needs a woman to clean up his mess.
C'est le ton qui fait la musique.
https://sciblogs.co.nz/psychology-report/2020/03/16/if-your-comms-message-is-suboptimal-change-it/ [from Feeds on RH side of TS homepage]
https://evonomics.com/why-garbage-men-should-earn-more-than-bankers/?fbclid=IwAR2etjQMMKuELIV65Tpis0dOoxL_J9NlDiPeRnCrEZPAdjrIT6Q7ogFcS_
"These products are essentially, like a tax on the rest of the population".
Just a reminder, of who the real "moochers" really are.
[Link fixed]
Ta.
I'm not very happy about the bloke that traveled from Brisbane to Wellington after taking a Covid 19 test but not having the results back.
Very inconsiderate of him as I believe he is now case no. 7 or 8!
When Jesus said "The poor you will always have with you," he was taking it as read that we're always going to have the stupid with us. This guy is way up there.
What [Deleted] did achieve was his stated goal of persecuting NZ firearms owners. One of his declared aims was to initiate the removal of firearms from the civilian population, and he knew that this mass murder would be used by our [Deleted; baseless opinion] politicians and police, as the excuse they needed to follow Australia’s example and confiscate firearms and put in place universal firearms registration.
The only two purposes of any registration are either to tax something, or to locate it. Taxing something or locating it does not make that item safer, or less liable for theft. In the case of an animal, registration does not change its behaviour.
In 1990 the mass murder in Aramoana led to the 1992 amendment to the arms act that introduced registration for military style semiautomatic firearms and removed the red book, the lifetime firearms licence held by over 365,000 NZérs, replacing it with a ten year plastic ID card. When the re-licencing was complete, only 215,000 had purchased the new licence, and about 5,000 of those were endorsed to possess the newly created category of MSSA, and those 5,000 registered about 7,500 MSSA.
You can see that through this re-licencing process, 150,000 licence holders didn’t bother acquiring a new plastic card or possibly an endorsement as well. Their reasons may be many, perhaps many felt that as they already had a lifetime licence, and as they were fairly sure they weren’t dead, then they didn’t need another. In any case, over a third of the licence holders just disappeared from the record.
Now there is another Arms amendment before parliament, that proposes to re-licence firearms owners, and register their firearms as well as charge them full cost recovery for the supposed public good. Most firearms owners see registration and re-licencing of individuals and clubs as a financial burden, unfairly imposed on them as scapegoats for the actions of a murderer. They see the police as culpable by authorizing the murderer to possess firearms and ammunition, though shortcutting the vetting process. The see the registration of their property as the precursor to confiscation further down the line.
Have a think about what happened in 1992 where a 1/3 declined to get with the program, and consider now, when trust between the firearms owning public, and police and parliament is at an all-time low, when universal registration happens, how many will get with the plan, or decline to accept the govt’s generous offer.
Those firearms will still be in fit and proper hands for a while, but everyone dies, and there they are, an item of value, that can’t be sold legally. Human nature will prevail.
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
It was posted under "remember March 15" as very much on topic and relevant as the author commented on the first firearms laws rushed through parliament with only lip-service paid to due process, and bemoaning the holdup to the second phase of persecution.
I would not have posted comment there on our current and past legislation if the writer had been on topic. Our firearms legislation had nothing to do with the mass murders, although police administration of the act, puts them fairly in the frame. [Deleted] will not be prosecuted under the arms act which only deals with regulatory offences, but under the crimes act 1961 for murder.
Amazing how much damage the guy did with a kid's slingshot, eh.
I am surprised that you find the gun at fault, rather than what was happening in the blokes head.
Never mind, it seems you have lot of company. Being right is not a majority position, unlike getting your own way under our current system with a programmed electorate
Yup, no worries there – a gun advocate who doesn't like democracy, what could go wrong…
Now that is funny! Someone who believes that we are living in a democracy.
Under FPP we were controlled by a minority, and it got worse when we accepted the sick pup, MMP. We are ruled by the parasites who fund our political parties, and unable to sack a politician as they will return as a list MP.
Political parties are the true evil of our age. Anyone who can distinguish between them is truly a genius. Akin to being able to pick up a turd from the clean end. Yet all have their devoted tribal religious following.
The box you have placed me in doesn’t fit. I do not see myself as a gun advocate. Just a free man who wishes to go about his business without unnecessary interference from others. I do not need my sport and recreation supervised by the state, and I most certainly do not want to fund a huge, ever expanding bureaucracy to interfere with my activities that harm no one else.
Political parties are the true evil of our age.
Actually yes. At some point in our future we will recognise this and parties will cease to exist. Over the past 13 odd years I've participated here I've mentioned this maybe 4 – 6 times, and every time it gets either the silent treatment or angry denial.
What interests me is how politics would work without parties, and I've made some tentative suggestions as to how we might structure systems to achieve this.
We already have an example. Switzerland.
Where real democracy makes political parties, and who funds them, almost irrevelant, and politicians have to be the day to day managers of their employer's, the electorates, goals, as they should be.
Of course it won't happen, as too many of our political types, on both sides, have an equal contempt for, "the masses". Along with a liking for having their three to nine year, "turn" with absolute power.
However a majority, including very likely a majority of gun licence holders, want the added safety of restricting guns.
John. Above, is no different from a race car driver who decides his right to drive a McLaren down the Southern motorway at rush hour should override the rights of the rest of us to be safe. Because, "individual freedom".
It is doubtful any political system will allow him the "freedom" to put other people at hazard, he desires.
New Zealanders, generally, do not have the same stupid attitude to guns that USA’ians have.
Many of us rather like the idea we can go about our business, without getting shot by a "law abiding gun owner" with the ability to kill dozens of people in a short time. The less of those types of guns that are around, the safer we all are.
I object to police carrying guns for the same reason. I don't think we should have to get "accustomed to innocent bystanders getting killed in the crossfire" as one police union representative, suggested. It is bad enough the cops inflicting the death penalty, by motor vehicle, way too often, already.
Many of us rather like the idea we can go about our business, without getting shot by a "law abiding gun owner" with the ability to kill dozens of people in a short time.
A person who uses any gun to kill other people is by definition not law abiding.
However a majority, including very likely a majority of gun licence holders,
A dubious assertion given the relative failure of the buyback scheme.
It is doubtful any political system will allow him the "freedom" to put other people at hazard, he desires.
All political systems have to find a balance between individual rights and freedoms and collective safety. In general you can have one or the other, but not both. It's a tradeoff.
Up until March last year the existing tradeoff was considered acceptable. Then in the gut wrenching aftermath when emotions were running high, and the anti-gun lobby had been gifted an unprecedented moral authority, new legislation was rushed into place. The vast majority of gun owners, who despised the killer as much as the rest of us, suddenly found themselves paying a substantial price for the deviant actions of one individual. There was no attempt at gaining their consent or buy in.
Instead they found themselves being conflated with white supremacists and terrorists, openly demonised as 'gun nuts' etc. And you wonder why there is push back.
There is an old maxim in law that says 'bad cases make for bad laws' … this would appear to be an excellent example.
The buyback scheme didn't fail for a start. The intent, of reducing the amount of dangerous weapons out there, worked.
You are repeating a bad faith argument from the gun lobby.
The existing model, wasn’t working. Which is perfectly obvious.
When authoritarians are gifted some unearned moral authority, it's always revealing to see what they do with it.
You are confusing "authoritarian" with the communities right to be safe from gun toting extremists.
They are not the same.
As I said above, this is the argument of all authoritarians, the demand to give up personal freedoms in exchange for a largely illusory 'safety'.
All societies understand this tradeoff; total safety is impossible, but the mere demand to achieve it would eventually see the personal freedoms we take for granted taken from us. (The converse is also true, total personal freedom is illusory too because it dismantles the necessary social trust that is fundamental to all things.)
Imagine if every time there was a road accident, the govt unilaterally implemented a lowering of speed limits by 5km/hr insisting that we would all be 'safer'. After all road deaths each and every year total almost 10 times the toll in ChCh; yet there is no appetite to implement such a measure. You are not going to like me saying this, but why do 51 Muslim lives take such a dramatic precedence over those of 500 or so ordinary NZ citizens? It's not just the numbers in any one event, we've seen rail and shipping accidents take similar numbers.
The answer is of course that transport is a massive public benefit in total and we tolerate the cost in lives because of this. By contrast the anti-gun lobby discounts the value of gun sports to zero for personal and ideological reasons, but those who do own them have a quite different view.
And of course a lot of them are older, white males … so who gives a fuck?
Might it have something to do with the comparatively 'dramatic' way in which those 51 people lost their lives, and the fact that the taking of those lives was deliberate? Try substituting 'Christian' for 'Muslim' in your question, then reflect on why you consider it OK to minimise the event. Maybe consider the effect of asking such a question, indeed consider directing that question at the survivors of the attacks, and the relatives of those that did not survive.
IMHO such 'othering' is odious. I get why the shooter/mass murderer considered his targets to be something other than 'ordinary' people, but they were/are ordinary people, just as older white males are ordinary people.
Is it possible to make your argument without 'othering' the victims?
Your hyperbolic steak is showing, again.
51 dead isn't an illusion.
Good governments also restrict personal freedoms because of a few bad eggs.
Sometimes they ban things entirely (or only permit after extensive paperwork) – driving unsafe vehicles on public roads, purchasing high explosive, making guided missiles.
Because sometimes law-abiding people suddenly become non-law-abiding and kill people with the shit they legally bought. We can't tell which ones are going to do this, so we have to ban the destructive shit they bought.
This isn't authoritarianism. It's make-murderers-less-successfulism.
@DMK
Try substituting 'Christian' for 'Muslim' in your question, then reflect on why you consider it OK to minimise the event.
Well I'd only have to look to Sub Saharan Africa to find plenty of up to date examples … but apparently that would be a mere distraction. Besides they're just Christians so who'd ever think to mention them here; they really are 'others'.
But to the point, when the Tangiwai disaster killed 151 New Zealanders, was there any call to ban trains? Or shipping in the wake of the Waihine sinking?
Or in the aftermath of the Nice truck bombing was there a ban put on the Quran which was the scripture used to justify the killing? The left would have gone into a total meltdown if that had been suggested.
The point is that 99.9999% of the time, guns are used with safe and legal intent. Rushing into making substantial changes based on extreme outlier events, tragic and gut wrenching as they are, without the consent from the people most affected is a recipe for generating totally unnecessary pushback.
And just to make it clear, I have probably read more of the Quran and spent more of my life immersed in an Islamic setting than all the rest of the regulars here combined. Over the years I've written defending Islam and explained in detail it's origins, history and why most Westerners struggle to understand it's scriptures. I've also vociferously condemned the fundamentalist, reactionary versions of it that have proven so vile and dangerous this past 30 odd years.
Your accusation of othering is rejected.
@McF
Because sometimes law-abiding people suddenly become non-law-abiding and kill people with the shit they legally bought.
Did we ban trucks, fertiliser and diesel in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing? Not on your nelly, and mainly because there was no pre-existing anti truck, fertiliser and diesel lobby just itching to exploit this disaster to ram it's agenda through.
It's my observation that gun owners tend toward the libertarian end of the spectrum and people who hate guns tend toward the authoritarian. This debate has a very real clash of values undertone. As for me, while I don't actually mind much that full automatics have been banned (I’ve never owned a gun in my life), the context in which this has been done will I believe prove to be counter-productive in the longer run. The 'safety' argument will turn out to be based on shifting sands.
You really could not have done any more calculating to foster extremism in the gun community. Exactly as was the shooter's intention. Well done.
Actually, more because in NZ you could buy fertilizer and diesel, but fuzes, detonators, and boosters already took a shedload more paperwork and checks to get hold of.
I'd probably be ok with firearms being controlled in the same way as explosives. Anyone can get them if they pass extensive checks and training certification, and can demonstrate why they need them. Why would anyone need a high capacity magazine to hunt deer?
but fuzes, detonators, and boosters already took a shedload more paperwork and checks to get hold of.
That's pretty weak really, and according to an old mate of mine I just talked to, who's worked with explosives extensively, detonators are not that hard to fabricate.
If we really wanted to tighten up gun ownership a sincere govt would have, sans disaster, gone to the various major gun owner organisations and asked them to engage in an authentic consultation over a period of years. It wouldn't necessarily be easy, but a proactive approach like this would ultimately get to a better place, with much less of the pushback. Like how we do all other legislation … such as making detonators hard to obtain.
Do you know how to do it? Would your mate show you without any questions? What about fuzes and a booster charge?
You can make firearms in your home workshop, too, even the bulk of it on your cheap 3d printer.
The difference is precision and quality control. Chch fucko walked around town and shot over a hundred people, killing half of them. A German fucko tried to copy him with devices he constructed, shot 5 killed 2 because his homemade weapons didn't have the same reliability as a storebought firearm (Halle, Oct 2019). Another guy did a similar thing with a glock17: shot 16 killed 11 (Hanau, Feb 2020).
Spending your inheritance on precision-made weapons enables you to murder more people than making your own.
And years of consultation is fine when corporate interests are involved. Worked a treat with global warming, too. /sarc
The difference is precision and quality control.
For guns yes, for a bomb that only needs to work once, well lets say I'm told that fabricating and testing your design is well within the capability of a moderately technical person. Hell we used to fuck around with some pretty big bangs as teenagers![devil devil](https://cdn.ckeditor.com/4.11.3/full-all/plugins/smiley/images/devil_smile.png)
But all this is a distraction.
And years of consultation is fine when corporate interests are involved. Worked a treat with global warming, too. /sarc
OK so no more bothersome consultation with stakeholders … that'll set a fine standard going forward.
From the diy fucko link:
What you are told may be correct, but it is also irrelevant. Restrictions reduce the sample of successful fuckos to people who are fuckos enough to want to kill screeds of people and who also have enough technical ability to make their artisanal arseholery work effectively that one time.
Whereas these fuckos seem to be much more effective murderers when their technical ability can be limited to operating an eftpos handset and reading a user manual.
Oh, and yeah, fuck stakeholders when their response to people being killed by shit they like to play with is to send MPs propaganda produced by overseas lobby groups.
Ah yes the typical leftie 'fuck em' response to people we don't approve of.
It always comes out in the end.
Doubling our national murder rate in one afternoon, that's what I really don't approve of.
And that McFuck face is precisely why gun owners as so angry. They had nothing to do with him, they loath him as much as if not more than you do. But you persistently imply there is no difference between ordinary gun owners and a sicko terrorist.
You are doing his real word for him, and you know it. You my sick fucko are the same as him.
So if he's so different, why didn't they spot him?
Could it be that they, like everyone else, can't tell who is going to go berserk until the person actually goes berserk?
So early identification doesn't work. There's no precognition, no thoughtcrime. Some perfectly fine law abiding gun owner keeps his plans to himself until the morning he gets up and murders people.
I mean, we could stop him buying the firearms that really add numbers to his tally, restricting him to machetes and firearms with a lower rate of fire. But then other law abiding firearms owners won't get to play with their bangbangs.
I mean, on average it's only something like 5 people a year shot by spree killers over the last thirty years, innit. Two of those five being murdered. Why shouldn't an ordinary deer hunter be able to lay down suppressing fire. It's pc gone mad, eh. 🙄
It's pc gone mad, eh
Well yes. I read somewhere years ago the suggestion that the formation of the Dept of Homeland Security was bin Laden's proudest moment.
You can argue if you like that it made American's safer, but it also watered the seeds of a mistrust between the American people and their government, which has grown over 20 years into the hyperpolarisation that Trump is but one manifestation of.
This is explicitly what bid Laden and he who must not be named had in common; it was not the immediate act that was the long term goal. Muslims were not the real target of ChCh, although 51 of them paid the price for it, it was the destabilisation of the whole of NZ society.
As for the bangbangs you sneer at; neither my friend, nor my son in law have ever owned a full automatic and never intended to. (Actually apart from a quick thrill at the range, they're rather boring weapons from a skill and sport perspective.) But what has happened is that it's definitely exacerbated is a loss of trust in our government in both of them that I've never seen before.
I was upset when they got rid of pohas and tom thumbs as well. I got over it, so will they.
I got over it, so will they.
You think? Then why does everyone here keep telling me how white supremacy and militant gun nuttery is on the rise, and how dangerous this is?
While WS always existed in various dark corners, the actual number of people committed to it was tiny. And they were always marginalised, the vast majority of people considered them literally beyond the pale. Now not so much; there is the thought that if the left is allowed to play the identity politics card … why can’t we? That really is dangerous.
Govts put legal constraints on all sorts of things, all the time. But not always; sometimes they get it horribly wrong. Like for example the Prohibition.
…we can grow AR15s and G3s with yeast? 😮
Nobody gives a shit about anoraks who can have 3 hour discussions about whether a 238gr load is substantially different to a 245gr load. Or even rich fools who want to plug a deer from a mile away using an expensive rifle with expensive optics and match-grade expensive ammunition.
The problem is the white supremacist who gets their hands on that kit.
Unfortunately, WS cunningly fail to wear labels (at the moment). So nobody – not me, not you, not your friends – can see who is the WS who is buying a tool of mass murder.
This is why we can't have nice things. A few bad apples do indeed spoil the barrel.
If your friends really can't figure that out and are all angry at the government, maybe they shouldn't have guns in the first place. Anger management issues, and all that.
Unfortunately, WS cunningly fail to wear labels
Which also puts paid to the related issue of how our security system 'failed to spot' him. How and why this guy was radicalised remains an open question that no-one is talking about anymore. Sure we know something of his motives that he outlines in his manifesto, but something happened in Turkey or Bulgaria that has never been openly explained. And probably never will.
This is the crucial link in the chain that I believe has far more significance that his ability to buy guns here.
If your friends really can't figure that out and are all angry at the government, maybe they shouldn't have guns in the first place.
The very definition of a self-serving argument.
White supremacist+factory made weapon= massacre.
Subtracting the weapon is, sadly, more likely to succeed that attempting to subtract whiste supremacists from society.
Just like subtracting morons who liked to blow up letterboxes would have been preferable to subtracting the firecrackers from society. Sadly, we'll always have morons and racists, but weapons and crackers can be regulated away with large amounts of success.
The authoritarians first instinct to ban things doesn't always pan out as well as intended, and the way this one has been done sucks. It's arguably not worked on it's own terms, barely 25% of full autos have been handed in, and it's prompted an unfortunate and dangerous blowback that was precisely the express intent of the mass killer.
Right up above I said this:
There is an old maxim in law that says 'bad cases make for bad laws' … this would appear to be an excellent example.
And the more I talk this through, the more convinced I am this was an old and wise principle that we forget at considerable cost.
He wanted a race war, not a bunch of babies who just want their damned toys.
Obviously 3/4 of owners of mass-killing tools are not "law abiding" firearm owners then, are they. They're just entitled folk who obey the law when it suits them and believe they're above the law when it doesn't.
It's good to whittle down the number of this type of firearm ("full auto"? wtf?) in the community. The number of mass-killing firearms will steadily decrease as criminals get caught. Including those criminals who believe they are law-abiding.
I made the decision to move your comment to OM because I don’t think it is appropriate to have the discussion that you want to have under a Post to commemorate the victims of the shootings on 15 March 2019. My decision is final.
The other thing is that the name of the shooter is not to be mentioned here on this site. We don’t want to give him more prominence than he’s already receiving from some quarters of our society.
The mass murder of 51 innocent people is a sensitive topic, to say the least, and should be treated with dignity and respect. Commenters who cannot abide by this can go somewhere else.
Did you accidentally mix up firearms law issues and race hate murders? Easy mistake to make you betcha.
His argument seems to be more regulations are useless, because gun owners won't abide by them?
Yes, that law abiding gun owners won't abide by the law.
If hypothetically Parliament was to pass a law requiring the sacrifice of all the first-born children to appease the God COVID … do you think everyone would meekly 'abide' by this new law?
The distinguishing feature between democracy and tyranny is that in a democracy Parliament rules by the assent of the people. And a large fraction of gun owners who were happy enough to abide by the old rules, have not consented to these new ones.
I'm sure a large fraction of motorist don't "consent" to the laws against speeding!
Doesn't mean we shouldn't have them.
The majority don't like getting killed in head on crashes because of some "individuals freedom" to do 148km/hr.
I'm sure a large fraction of motorist don't "consent" to the laws against speeding!
Actually they do. For many years the open road speed limit was 110km/hr and the police often set a 10km/hr tolerance band over that. Then over time, the authorities made a reasonable case that the limit needed reducing and the driving public, with rare exceptions, bought into this and consented when the limit was reduced to 100k/hr.
What the govt of the day didn't do was exploit one single disasterously deviant act of speeding to demonise all motorists and then ram through the legislative change with no buy in.
A legislative change that should have been made after Aramoana.
Except it was opposed by a relatively few vocal gun lobbyists whose "individual rights" overrode our rights to safety.
Which 51 people have now paid the price, for.
The problem with this argument is simple. If every time an extreme outlier event is exploited to justify radically tilting the safety vs freedom balance … it becomes a ratchet action.
Because there is no equivalent kind of event that can ever tilt the balance back toward individual freedom, it's all one way traffic toward increasing levels of an often illusory safety gained at the cost of increasing authoritarianism.
And as John pointed out above, this was explicitly one of the motives of the ChCh killer. You are in effect doing is real work for him.
It wasn't an outlier. Forgotten Molineux in Tauranga, already. To name just one.
The gangs confronting cops with guns, they obtained from "law abiding gun owners have been happening more and more frequently.
You think we should just ignore it, and hope it all goes away.
We are getting increasing authoritarianism already, affecting everyone, just so a few can have “the right to bear arms”.
It's fair enough to feel scared and angry and unsure about all this. Biden is another thing altogether. 🙂
"It's fair enough to feel scared and angry and unsure about all this. Biden is another thing altogether."
Yes agreed – what is unhelpful is spreading false information and creating confusion.
Kia Ora Newshub.
Our government virus finance package is good from a Tangata government all the Tangata not just the wealthiest first. What would have happened if the tax cut happened like another government has done.
Simon just loves kicking the less fortunate tangata.
Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora Te Ao Maori News.
Yes give putea to the poor it will go back into the economy.
The governments financial package should ease Tangata Whenua.
The Super market in Turanginui A Kiwa has had big sales a lot of people come from the coast to buy Kai.
Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora The Am Show
It's called stimulating the internal Aotearoa economy or is that a bit hard for you to grasp + I'm sure Grant said big business could talk to him about their plans no good paying out billion just to see it end up under the mattress.
You know that trickle down lie that was flogged to us for nine years well in reality money flows up.
Kia Kaha to all the sports stars.
Its good to see more jobs for local workers in Aotearoa back to the days of old.
The less plastic waste that is produced the better our environment will be.
I quite enjoy the Off grid program.
Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora Newshub.
That's a good to test people for the virus in the car park testing people in their cars to minimise the spread risk of the virus.
You mite have to use the family towl.
Ka kite Ano.
Kia Ora Te Ao Maori News.
I don't think that our government will divert the money for Te reo or other Māori programs.
Its good to see Kura making plans for the effects of the virus.
Ka pai to Iwi working with health departments to plan for the virus.
Our government rescue package is will help tangata whenua .
Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora The Am Show.
It would be good to see more money invested in Railways railways has a lower carbon footprint than other fright transporters.
Money is a imagine 4 million value for every person life in Aotearoa it would be nice if Tangata Whenua O Aotearoa were valued more.??????.
There you go organisation that can could have a third of their employees working from home at 1 time to save our futures environment.
Your opinions change because of Reality I think it's time to change finance to a more stable mode that is not effected by Shocks like this. A sestanable system that is not fooled into thinking that the Papatuanuku has finite RESOURCEs.?????.
That's a good idea live online exercise programs.
Exercise is good for mental health the same as mahi.
BBM is great at getting brown people moving into exercise.
Yes it a opportunity to show kindness sharing compassion empthy.
Ka kite Ano