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.
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Medical face masks from the national reserve supply are now being distributed to District Health Boards, while at the same time local production is being ramped up. Yesterday more than 640,000 masks were sent to DHBS – that is an immediate two week supply, with more to follow in coming ...
The Government has made modifications to the wage subsidy scheme to ensure people don’t lose their jobs during the national lockdown. These changes will soften the impact of COVID-19 on workers, families and businesses, and position them to exit the lockdown and look to recovery, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. ...
Farmers whose herds were culled in response to the outbreak of Mycoplasma bovis will be able to minimise the tax treatment of their income in some circumstances. Revenue Minister Stuart Nash says Cabinet has agreed to change the law. It means farmers may be eligible to spread their income over ...
A $27 million dollar package, effective immediately, is being provided to social sector services and community groups to ensure they can continue to provide essential support to communities as we stay at home as a nation to stop the spread of COVID-19, Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni announced. “At ...
“The guilty plea today will provide some relief to the many people whose lives were shattered by what happened on March 15,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said. “These guilty pleas and conviction bring accountability for what happened and also save the families who lost loved ones, those who were injured, ...
The Prime Minister is holding daily press conferences to update New Zealanders on the Government's response to COVID-19. Links to videos and transcripts of these updates below. These transcripts also include All of Government press conferences led by Director Ministry of Health's Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield. 25 March: Live update from the Prime ...
Frontline Police numbers have broken through the 10,000 mark for the first time in history as officers step forward to keep the community safe during the COVID19 lockdown. “Two Police graduations in Auckland and Wellington in the past week have been conducted in unprecedented circumstances,” Police Minister Stuart Nash said. ...
Urgent legislation has been passed to support the package of economic and social measures needed to recover from the impact of the coronavirus outbreak. “The COVID-19 Response (Taxation and Social Assistance Urgent Measures) Bill will cushion New Zealanders from the worst economic impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak,” said Revenue Minister ...
From tomorrow, Government support for farmers and growers affected by drought will be expanded and extended across the country, with access to Rural Assistance Payments (RAPS) available throughout the North Island, parts of the South Island and the Chatham Islands, Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni announced. “These challenging conditions have ...
Parliament has passed amendments to legislation that give the Secretary of Education stronger powers to act in the fight to limit the spread of COVID-19, Education Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “They are part of a suite of changes passed under the COVID-19 Response (Urgent Management Measures) Legislation Bill,” Chris ...
Canada, Australia, Chile, Brunei and Myanmar have joined forces with New Zealand and Singapore by committing to keep supply chains open and remove any existing trade restrictive measures on essential goods, especially medical supplies, in the face of the Covid-19 crisis. Trade and Export Growth Minister David Parker today welcomed ...
Immediate freeze on rent increases Tenancies will not be terminated during the lock-down period, unless the parties agree, or in limited circumstances Tenants who had previously given notice can stay in their if they need to stay in the tenancy during the lock-down period Tenants will still be able to ...
As New Zealand unites to lock-down in the fight against COVID-19, the Finance Minister is urging all businesses and workers to stay connected over the next four weeks. “We understand the extreme pressure many businesses are under right now. I know most business owners think of their workers as family ...
A State of National Emergency has been declared across the country as the Government pulls out all the stops to curtail the spread of COVID-19. “Today we put in place our country’s second ever State of National Emergency as we fight a global pandemic, save New Zealanders’ lives and prevent ...
Mr Speaker I wish to make a Ministerial Statement under Standing Order 347 in relation to the recent declaration of a State of National Emergency. Having considered the advice of the Director Civil Defence Emergency Management, the Minister of Civil Defence declared a State of National Emergency for the whole of ...
People needing to travel on domestic flights, trains and Cook Strait ferries to get home before the country moves into level 4 lock-down tomorrow night will be able to continue using the passenger services until midnight on Friday, Transport Minister Phil Twyford said today. Domestic passenger services, particularly ferries, have ...
The Government, retail banks and the Reserve Bank are today announcing a major financial support package for home owners and businesses affected by the economic impacts of COVID-19. The package will include a six month principal and interest payment holiday for mortgage holders and SME customers whose incomes have been ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says it's too early to claim success against the spread of Covid-19 but 11 days into lockdown, New Zealand has made a good start. ...
Sam Brooks, a lifelong Studio Ghibli fan, presents a guide to the Japanese studio’s animated films, including which ones to show your kids when.Just heard ‘Let It Go’ for the billionth time? Sick of those class-traitor dogs that make up the cast of Paw Patrol? Look no further than the ...
Alan Simmons co-leader of the NZ Outdoors Party says tensions are at breaking point around New Zealand. “I cannot keep up with the calls and messages from New Zealanders who are extremely stressed, distressed and frustrated by dramatic changes imposed ...
Welcome back to Papercuts, our monthly books podcast hosted by Louisa Kasza, Jenna Todd and Kiran Dass.Well, we’ve all said we wish we had more time to read and now we’ve got what we wished for. Jenna, Kiran and Louisa delve into some book news (that’s not too heavy for ...
The prime minister says she expects the health minister to continue doing his job, including media interviews, after he broke the lockdown rules last week to go mountain biking. ...
There have been calls for major institutions like Auckland Art Gallery to do better in identifying queer or queer-associated artists. New Auckland Art Gallery director Kirsten Paisley believes it’s ‘a conversation that needs to happen’. Writer Samuel Te Kani digs into the complications below the surface of the erasures of ...
Ardern says the role of planning for moving out of lockdown is not the Government's alone Businesses should plan how they will operate in an environment where intensive contact tracing would be needed post-lockdown, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said today. The Government was working on additional guidance for the move to Level 3 ...
Netflix’s four-part series Unorthodox traces a woman’s escape from a Hasidic Jewish community in Brooklyn. Emily Writes considers the lessons we can all learn from her journey. There was a moment watching Netflix’s miniseries Unorthodox when I felt like I was actually in Berlin, where much of the show is ...
How is Covid-19 spreading within the country? Newsroom is collating information as it's available to paint a picture of what's happening.The following charts are based on numbers shared at the daily press conference. These may vary from the full day's numbers released in the Ministry of Health's spreadsheet of ...
By RNZ Pacific The number of people with Covid-19 in the Pacific continues to climb with French Polynesia hitting 40 cases, Guam now over 90 and the US state of Hawai’i suffering its third coronavirus death. In the past day, another person tested positive for Covid-19 in French Polynesia. ...
We needed a reasonable period of time to allow the recent surging wave of highly geared first home buyers to get financially comfortable. We didn’t get it, writes David Hargreaves of interest.co.nz.You know, I was really beginning to think (as well as hope) that we might just get away with it.By ‘it’ ...
Being stuck inside all day might be wearing you and your kids down, but there’s never been a better time to encourage them to pick up their musical instrument and get stuck into writing songs. Mike Chunn from Play It Strange explains how. Mums and dads and households with teenage children. ...
Siouxsie Wiles on the vitriolic correspondence she’s received since the Covid-19 outbreak struck, and the realities of communicating evidence.I recently received an email and text from someone telling me they are planning to email my boss, the University of Auckland vice chancellor. They are going to ask for me to ...
In our new series The Lockdown Letters, five of New Zealand’s best writers chronicle the days of Covid-19 alert level four. Today, Fiona Farrell.There’s a sign sticky-taped to the bakery window. Closed Until Further Notice. Stay Safe NZ and Be Kind. We will get through this!We all know where the words ...
For all The Spinoff’s latest coverage of Covid-19 see here. Read Siouxsie Wiles’s work here. New Zealand is currently in alert level four. The country is shut down, apart from essential services. For updated official government advice, see here.The Spinoff’s coverage of the Covid-19 outbreak is funded by The Spinoff Members. To support this work, join The ...
Covid-19 is a real threat to older people, but these Central Otago seniors are embracing technology, experiencing no FOMO, and finding new ways to connect and share, finds Jill Herron When the full lockdown began on March 25 it meant the end of going for a swim, spa or to ...
Former editor of the Woman's Weekly, Nicky Pellegrino, bids farewell to the magazine that brought information and fun to generations of New Zealand women. All those stories. Gone. Stories about our politics, our health, our education, our aspirations. Stories about the houses we lived in and the gardens we grew, ...
As small businesses fight for their survival in the Covid-19 lockdown, it seems one of the country’s biggest retail landlords is not keen to share the pain. On the one side, you have Jonathan*. Jonathan runs a small business out of South Auckland’s Sylvia Park - New Zealand’s biggest mall. ...
With no Covid-19 cases and its economy desperate to restart, the Chathams is keen to go fishing again, writes Jim Kayes.It shouldn’t really be a surprise. They are, after all, ahead of New Zealand by 45 minutes.And though they are part of Wellington’s Rongotai electorate, the fiercely ...
On Friday night, the government quietly laid down some lockdown rules via a legal order under the Health Act. Law professor Andrew Geddis explains what it means for all of us (including David Clark). As the first week of level four lockdown unfolded, mounting questions grew as to just what was ...
The health and wellbeing of people working and being held inside our prisons needs to be a priority, writes JustSpeak director Tania Sawicki Mead. Kelvin Davis’s interview on The Hui last weekend made it clear that precautions taken by Corrections to stop the spread of Covid-19 will create an unprecedented restriction ...
Like countless New Zealanders stranded overseas, Wellingtonian Rosie O’Hagan will be braving authorities, airlines, airports and uncertainty to make it back from the other side of the world, writes Jim Kayes.Rosie O’Hagan hadn’t stepped outside for three weeks.When she finally did – around midnight on Friday ...
PACIFIC PANDEMIC DIARY:By David Robie A rather beautiful Guåhan legend is rather poignant in these stressed pandemic times. It is one about survival and cooperation. In ancient times, goes the story, a giant fish was eating great chunks out of this western Pacific island. The men used muscle ...
Simon Wren-Lewis, Emeritus Professor of Economics and Fellow of Merton College, University of Oxford, raises good questions about Britain’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. Some of them seem germane to this country’s response. Wren-Lewis posted his critique on his Mainly Macro blog under the heading Following the Science or a ...
Alex Casey speaks to a dream expert about why so many people are suddenly remembering their vivid and often horrible dreams. As the days begin to blur together and the only thing we get between sleeps is unimaginably horrible news and an embarrassing tootle around the block, it’s no surprise ...
How is Covid-19 spreading within the country? Newsroom is collating information as it's available to paint a picture of what's happening.The following charts are based on numbers shared at the daily press conference. These may vary from the full day's numbers released in the Ministry of Health's spreadsheet of ...
Medical centres across the country are condensing services, moving online, and ushering in pandemic plans. Josie Adams assesses what it’s like to access and provide essential medical care under alert level four.On Monday, Sandra Russell woke up before dawn and drove to Milford to get her blood tested. She has ...
In our new series The Lockdown Letters, some of New Zealand’s best writers tell us what they’ve been up to in the days of Covid-19 alert level four. Today, writer and doctor Glenn Colquhoun, with the second of his Letters to Hone Tūwhare and his Travelling Band of Constant Companions. ...
ANALYSIS:By Haiqing Yu of RMIT University and Michael Keane of Curtin University China has gradually emerged out of its shadow of despair as the epicentre where the coronavirus pandemic started. Now, there is face saving required – as well as agenda-setting in the global power play. China played ...
Tech giant Google has released a giant global data set which shows how different countries are locking down, and which NZ regions are most compliant with its lockdown.A giant set of reports released by Google, created using its anonymised cellphone location data reveals the scale of human behaviour change the ...
Comedian Penny Ashton writes on the necessity of the arts, especially during lockdown.On March 22, everyone’s favourite fiscal bloodhounds, the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union, sent out a tweet in response to Creative New Zealand’s announcement that it will dedicate an emergency response package to helping New Zealand’s artists, in the ...
Wellington writer Philippa Swan’s new novel TheNight of All Souls is an homage to Pulitzer-winning and all-round fabulous American writer Edith Wharton. Wharton died in 1937 but, Swan writes, she’s very much of the moment. Nobody does social distancing like Wharton did. While Wharton was still comparatively young, she created the ...
For all The Spinoff’s latest coverage of Covid-19 see here. Read Siouxsie Wiles’s work here. New Zealand is currently in alert level four. The country is shut down, apart from essential services. For updated official government advice, see here.The Spinoff’s coverage of the Covid-19 outbreak is funded by The Spinoff Members. To support this work, join The ...
Normally heaving year-round, Queenstown has ground to an eerie halt as Covid-19 cases rise and tourism income plummets, reports Paul Taylor. On a hill behind Queenstown's coronavirus Covid-19 community testing centre, the resort's iconic Skyline gondola sits motionless. More than 17 million people are estimated to have ridden the gondola ...
Are we drinking more in the lockdown? Hard to know, writes David Slack, but we’re certainly having to get creative about it. Almost every phone call I’ve answered this week has begun the same way: “You still off the drink, then?” Fair question. What a time to be not drinking. ...
Kiwi clinical psychologist Desiree Dickerson is stuck with her family in Spain and has written a guide in Nature: "Seven tips to manage your mental health and well-being during the Covid-19 outbreak." It’s Day 17 of the Covid-19 lockdown in Spain. In a small village on the Mediterranean coast, about ...
"Will our ills be cured? Will our feet carry us? For how long?": a short story set in Henderson by West Auckland writer Serie Barford.I learned to drive a tractor when I was a kid feeding out hay with my cousins on a dairy farm down the line. I ...
Without active testing in the community our Covid-19 picture isn’t complete, an epidemiologist says. David Williams reports. There are worse places to be self-isolating than Whakatāne, in the Bay of Plenty, says Bridget Robson, who lives on a two-acre block and keeps chickens. “We live in a beautiful part of ...
How do you hold a funeral service with the country in lockdown? Where there’s a will – and a tech-savvy uncle – there’s a way, Erin Kavanagh-Hall discovered.I was floating somewhere in the Cook Strait when I heard my grandfather’s funeral had been cancelled.I should elaborate. It was a Monday, ...
‘Stay in your bubble’ didn’t exist 100 years ago, but our ancestors would want us to know how essential it is to do so, says Jai Breitnauer.It was a warm but slightly grey January day in 2019 when I pulled the car over to the side of SH1, just south ...
David Clark’s misadventure in mountain biking was a stupid, but ultimately forgivable offence. The bigger problem is the continued uncertainty around what is and isn’t appropriate activity in lockdown, as Sam Sachdeva writes. Given the pressure he and his Cabinet colleagues are under, it is little surprise Health Minister David ...
Assessing the economic impact of Covid-19 requires a new approach to a problem economists have not encountered in modern times, writes Dr Kirdan Lees Covid-19 has presented quite a problem for economists. Containment policies that seek to flatten the Covid-19 curve or eliminate the virus, restrict economic activity. All governments ...
Every day at 1pm New Zealand’s Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield announces precise figures on the number of confirmed and probable cases of Covid-19 in the country. He is working on the best information available, and during this week the level of community transmission was put at around ...
Most of New Zealand's MPs are in lockdown just like the rest of us, confined to their neighbourhoods and stuck in their bubbles. Checkpoint called a few to ask them what they're doing. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben Deery, Lecturer in Early Childhood Education, University of Melbourne “Stupid coronavirus!” I heard my six-year-old mumble while talking in her sleep. Earlier that day her swimming and basketball lessons were cancelled, a birthday party postponed, and she had to race with ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Tuffley, Senior Lecturer in Applied Ethics & CyberSecurity, Griffith University “Zoombombing” in case you haven’t heard, is the unsavoury practice of posting distressing comments, pictures or videos after gatecrashing virtual meetings hosted by the videoconferencing app Zoom. With hundreds of millions ...
Analysis - A leading epidemiologist says health authorities 'really have no idea' of the extent of community spread, Parliament's Epidemic Response Committee gets its teeth into what's going on during the lockdown and the horrendous economic imp ...
The fifth in our new series of charts, graphics and data visualisations by Chris McDowall, covering the Covid-19 epidemic within New Zealand. We’ll publish the latest set each day on The Spinoff.This work is entirely funded by the generosity of The Spinoff MembersInformation about confirmed and probable cases of Covid-19 ...
The Finance Minister says struggling companies will be able to put some debt into hibernation, under new legislation unveiled today. Watch the latest government update here. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Lund, Commissioning Editor, The Conversation Editor’s note: The following is current as at April 3, 2020. Things are changing quickly so best to keep an eye on the latest information from WA Health, as well as the federal government.This article ...
During the challenges associated with lockdown, the Māori Party are congratulating Ngāti Ruanui and South Taranaki on the decision of the Court of Appeal, announced today, to stop Trans-Tasman Resources plans for risky seabed mining off the South ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sunanda Creagh, Head of Digital Storytelling What does the COVID-19 pandemic sound like? For this episode, Dallas Rogers – a senior lecturer in the School of Architecture, Design and Planning at the University of Sydney – asked academic colleagues from all over ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sven Gallasch, Lecturer in Law, Swinburne University of Technology “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion,” wrote Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations (published in 1776), “but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the ...
Environment Minister David Parker has directed officials to find ways to fast-track consents for infrastructure and development projects. He says his goal is to help create a pipeline of projects so that some can start immediately once Covid-19 restrictions are lifted “so people can get back into work as fast ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin Spain and Switzerland top cases, countries converging. Chart by Keith Rankin.Spain and Switzerland top cases, countries converging. Chart by Keith Rankin.Of the larger European countries, Italy is now in third place for known cases per person in the population. Spain has overtaken Switzerland for ...
Contact tracing is a crucial part of the Covid-19 puzzle and technology might prove essential to scaling up New Zealand's tracing capacity, Marc Daalder reports With the lockdown reducing physical contact between members of the public and testing ramping up, the only missing piece of the Covid-19 puzzle is contact tracing. ...
Insolvency laws will be temporarily changed to allow troubled companies to trade while technically insolvent Finance Minister Grant Robertson has announced changes to the Companies Act to allow companies to put their debts into "hibernation". Robertson said companies facing liquidity problems would have "safe harbour" from their normal insolvency duties ...
Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Ruanui and Te Kaahui o Rauru are celebrating the decision of the Court of Appeal, announced today, to stop Trans-Tasman Resources plans for risky seabed mining off the South Taranaki Bight. The Court of Appeal found that there ...
Bernard Hickey talks to Kiwibank Chief Economist Jarrod Kerr about a massive spike in US jobless claims, and they talk about an inspiring Kiwi app to fight Covid-19 globally. Guest, Pie Funds chief executive Mike Taylor also joins them to talk about the massive market swings and hopes for recovery. Bernard zooms out ...
Political commentators from the left and right sides of the political divide are questioning the powers being exercised by police during the nation-wide “lockdown”. The Asian Invasion 2019 blog draws attention to the warning sounded by former UK Supreme Court Justice Jonathan Sumption when he challenged Covid-19 actions by British ...
Pacific Media Watch The International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) has strongly condemned the shoot-to-kill order by President Rodrigo Duterte this week as a ‘dangerous’ opening to target and kill anyone in a public space. “We are raising the alarm in the international community on President ...
The Reserve Bank looks set to start buying council bonds as well as Government bonds to unfreeze financial markets and allow councils to defer rates and jointly invest in infrastructure with the central Government, Dileepa Fonseka reports In what would be another unprecedented move to calm financial markets and help ...
Four PhD students engaged a clinical psychologist to help them navigate an uncertain time in their studies. They share their findings here.As four PhD students from Massey University’s Joint Centre for Disaster Research we, like many others, can’t stop reading and talking about the unfolding events that have gripped our ...
The SpinoffBy Ashleigh Rushton, Lisa McLaren, Marion Tan & Sara Harrison
Covid-19 testing of the wider population is on the cards as World Health Organisation research shows people are most contagious within their first few days of being infected Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield says Covid-19 carriers are highly infectious when they show few signs of carrying the virus. People were ...
Z Energy is the latest company to cut its dividend payout and start talking to its banks about strengthening its finances. Chief executive Mike Bennetts said the company, the largest fuel retailer in the country, had been battered by a range of issues over the past 18 months, and was ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Melissa Kang, Associate professor, University of Technology Sydney Young people in Australia are among the fastest-growing group to contract COVID19. According to the Department of Health, there are now more cases in Australia among people aged 20 – 29 years than any ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cassandra Pattinson, Research Fellow, The University of Queensland Getting a good night’s sleep can be difficult at the best of times. But it can be even harder when you’re anxious or have something on your mind – a global pandemic, for example. ...
Journalist and Great Barrier Island resident Lindsay Wright reflects on outer gulf pandemic preparedness. Hardy locals can tough it out but Auckland bach owners and boaties should keep their distance. Aotea Great Barrier, the easternmost island in the Hauraki Gulf, are undergoing a Covid-19-inspired population flood. Great Barrier has scenery that makes ...
The Pharmaceutical Society of New Zealand is delighted that the government has moved quickly to provide an initial financial support package for pharmacy. The $15 million package was paid this week to pharmacy contract holders. Pharmaceutical Society president ...
How is Covid-19 spreading within the country? Newsroom is collating information as it's available to paint a picture of what's happening.The following charts are based on numbers shared at the daily press conference and are "as of 9am" of the day. There were 71 new cases of Covid-19 in ...
A new poem by Wellington poet and bookseller Ash Davida Jane. washed up! it gets tiring pushing the fire alarm every nightbut things keep catching on fireor sometimes ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Charles Foster, Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Sydney Our earliest vertebrate (animals with backbones) ancestors laid eggs, but over millions of years of evolution, some species began to give birth to live young. There is a traditional dichotomy in vertebrate reproduction: species ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Charles Foster, Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Sydney Our earliest vertebrate (animals with backbones) ancestors laid eggs, but over millions of years of evolution, some species began to give birth to live young. There is a traditional dichotomy in vertebrate reproduction: species ...
Open mike 16/03/2020 
As the world economy slides rapidly towards deep recession there are growing calls for a Universal Benefit coming from some leftists and rightists. Now Finance Minister Grant Robertson is saying it is on the table. This article by a French party Workers Struggle provides analysis of various forms of universal ...1 hour ago
This is the advice from the very top of the anti-fluoride movement – Paul Connett, director of the Fluoride Action Network (FAN). Don’t worry about reading up on all the scientific information “You only have ... 3 hours ago
. . April 4: Day 10 of living in lock-down… I wake up to a fine Saturday morning which normally would be like an early Christmas. But it’s Day 10 of Level 4 Lock Down. What will my fellow New Zealanders be doing on a day like this – staying ...7 hours ago
Comfortably, in the very first round, with an impressive 56% of the votes.I wonder, did members of the Shadow Cabinet start tweeting their resignations during Starmer's victory speech, or is that only a trick the right pull?It is odd how all the talk of how the next leader "needs to ...9 hours ago
One of the key voices in this extraordinary time in which we live is that of University of Otago epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker. Philip Matthews did an an excellent job this weekend of capturing the way he became the man for this moment in a profile for The Press.But one ...9 hours ago
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern addressed the nation today about the decline in daylight New Zealand has been experiencing over the previous few months. She said “As many of you will notice, our attempts to stem the dwindling of the daylight over the last few months have been completely ...24 hours ago
As the first week of Level Four lockdown unfolded, mounting questions grew as to just what was (and was not) allowed under its “rules”. Partly these were driven by some apparently contradictory messages from different authority figures and explanations carried in the media. Partly they reflected a somewhat sketchy legal basis ...1 day ago
We must root out the traitors among us! ...2 days ago
In order to meet our 2050 carbon target and do our bit to avoid making the Earth uninhabitable, New Zealand needs to decarbonise our economy, replacing fossil fuels with electricity in the energy, industrial and transport sectors. The good news is that it will mean cheaper power for all of ...2 days ago
As Aotearoa enters week two of lockdown, it’s clear we’re all still working out what our “bubbles” look like and how to stay in them to stop the spread of Covid-19. New to the government’s Covid-19 website is some good guidance for people living in apartment blocks. Recent decades have ...2 days ago
Resuming Normal Service: The Republican Party's nominee for in 1920, Warren Harding, promised the American people: “not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration”. If she wishes to remain our prime minister, then Jacinda Ardern will offer New Zealanders the same.HOW EDUCATED AMERICA snickered when the ...3 days ago
I haven’t done a huge amount in the last few days. I’m reading The Poppy War and I’ve sort of poked at a couple of games – I started SOMA but I’m a wimp and I quit while in the first room after the brain scan. I might try it ...3 days ago
46 Articles Physical science of global warming & effects Global response of evapotranspiration ratio to climate conditions and watershed characteristics in a changing environment Greenhouse effect: the relative contributions of emission height and total absorption Observations & observational methods of global warming & effects Climate change induced a ...4 days ago
Image credit: Diamond Harbour School Blogs I notice a few regulars no longer allow public access to the site counters. This may happen accidentally when the blog format is altered. If your blog is unexpectedly missing or ... 4 days ago
The Covid-19 saga will no doubt produce many twists and turns for us before it is finally brought to an end. But one thing it has shown us – and what comfort it should bring us – is that our country’s government is in good hands. I am not thinking ...5 days ago
The following statement was released on March 28 by the National Network on Cuba, a coalition of 40 groups, based in the United States. In recent weeks, Cuba has deployed hundreds of medical providers to over a dozen countries in Europe, Asia, as well as to their neighbors in Latin ...5 days ago
Yesterday, New Zealand recorded its first Covid-19 related death on the West Coast. Unfortunately this is unlikely to be the only fatality, with the virus now being found in every region of the country.However despite the significant danger, people are still unfortunately breaching lockdown rules.There’s really only one main very ...6 days ago
The CV-19 (COVID) pandemic has seen the imposition of a government ordered national quarantine and the promulgation of a series of measures designed to spread the burden of pain and soften the economic blow on the most strategically important and most vulnerable sectors of society. The national narrative is framed ...1 week ago
Society-wise, aside from the specific morbidity shall we say of the medically-oriented aspects of this COVID-19 crisis, what is unfolding before the world is in more than one way an instructive study of humanity and reactions to a high intensity, high stress environment in real time. Friends, we are at ...1 week ago
Right now low waged and insecure workers are feeling the economic brunt of the looming #Covid19 Recession. In response legal advocate Toby Cooper* and hospitality and worker’s rights advocate Chloe Ann-King, are putting together a series of legal blogs about your employment rights: In this legal blog we outline some ...1 week ago
From the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, our Government has striven to provide calm, clear and consistent communication, including daily press conference updates from the Prime Minister. ...2 hours ago
Foreign Minister Winston Peters says getting New Zealanders back home and other travellers out of the country is "a nightmare for our embassies, consuls, and staff around the world". Speaking to NewstalkZB's Mike Hosking, the Foreign Minister said that he gave a clear message to people travelling overseas that they ...2 days ago
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The scale of what we face right now is unlike anything we have ever seen before. Overcoming it is our common purpose. ...2 weeks ago
The Government will be introducing legislation to make changes to the Companies Act to help companies facing insolvency due to COVID-19 to remain viable and keep New Zealanders in jobs. The temporary changes include: Giving directors of companies facing significant liquidity problems because of COVID-19 a ‘safe harbour’ from insolvency ...2 days ago
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says it's too early to claim success against the spread of Covid-19 but 11 days into lockdown, New Zealand has made a good start. ...1 hour ago
Sam Brooks, a lifelong Studio Ghibli fan, presents a guide to the Japanese studio’s animated films, including which ones to show your kids when.Just heard ‘Let It Go’ for the billionth time? Sick of those class-traitor dogs that make up the cast of Paw Patrol? Look no further than the ...2 hours ago
Alan Simmons co-leader of the NZ Outdoors Party says tensions are at breaking point around New Zealand. “I cannot keep up with the calls and messages from New Zealanders who are extremely stressed, distressed and frustrated by dramatic changes imposed ...3 hours ago
Ardern says the role of planning for moving out of lockdown is not the Government's alone Businesses should plan how they will operate in an environment where intensive contact tracing would be needed post-lockdown, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said today. The Government was working on additional guidance for the move to Level 3 ...5 hours ago
How is Covid-19 spreading within the country? Newsroom is collating information as it's available to paint a picture of what's happening. The following charts are based on numbers shared at the daily press conference. These may vary from the full day's numbers released in the Ministry of Health's spreadsheet of ...6 hours ago
By RNZ Pacific The number of people with Covid-19 in the Pacific continues to climb with French Polynesia hitting 40 cases, Guam now over 90 and the US state of Hawai’i suffering its third coronavirus death. In the past day, another person tested positive for Covid-19 in French Polynesia. ...7 hours ago
Covid-19 is a real threat to older people, but these Central Otago seniors are embracing technology, experiencing no FOMO, and finding new ways to connect and share, finds Jill Herron When the full lockdown began on March 25 it meant the end of going for a swim, spa or to ...13 hours ago
Former editor of the Woman's Weekly, Nicky Pellegrino, bids farewell to the magazine that brought information and fun to generations of New Zealand women. All those stories. Gone. Stories about our politics, our health, our education, our aspirations. Stories about the houses we lived in and the gardens we grew, ...13 hours ago
As small businesses fight for their survival in the Covid-19 lockdown, it seems one of the country’s biggest retail landlords is not keen to share the pain. On the one side, you have Jonathan*. Jonathan runs a small business out of South Auckland’s Sylvia Park - New Zealand’s biggest mall. ...13 hours ago
With no Covid-19 cases and its economy desperate to restart, the Chathams is keen to go fishing again, writes Jim Kayes. It shouldn’t really be a surprise. They are, after all, ahead of New Zealand by 45 minutes. And though they are part of Wellington’s Rongotai electorate, the fiercely ...13 hours ago
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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
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”.
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