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.
Michael Bassett writes – I’m not sure that it’s much comfort to anyone to know that the post-Covid surge in violent crimes, gang activity, ram raids, random shootings, thuggery and stabbings is occurring in other countries as well as New Zealand. These days, wagging school, out-of-control welfare and ...
Oliver Hartwich writes – Cast your mind back to mid-December. A new Prime Minister had just been sworn in, the new Government started its 100-day programme, and Christmas was only days away.Amid all the haste, a report landed that would have deserved our attention.I am talking about the ...
TL;DR: An unseasonally early icy blast at the same time as some long-overdue maintenance almost caused Aotearoa-NZ’s electricity system to black out this week. That’s because a quadropoly of gentailers1 have prioritised paying dividends from their rising profits and adding debt over investing in 1.5 GigaWatts of new wind farms ...
Hi,Before we crack into today’s Webworm, I wanted to acknowledge the fact that Israel is pushing into Rafah. Over 100,000 Palestinians are now attempting to flee the one place that was deemed “safe”.Trouble is, the place they’re fleeing to is already destroyed. Total annihilation is the end goal here.“Israel is ...
‘It has been said that figures rule the world. Maybe. I am quite sure that it is figures which show us whether it is being ruled well or badly.’ GoetheI was struck at a recent conference on equity for the elderly, how many presenters implicitly relied upon Statistics New Zealand. ...
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Peter Dunne writes – I am always wary when I hear that the Controller and Auditor-General has commented on or made recommendations to the government about an issue of public policy that does not relate strictly to public expenditure. According to the legislation, the role of the Controller ...
How Labour’s and National’s failure to move beyond neoliberalism has brought NZ to the brink of economic and cultural chaos Chris Trotter writes – TO START LOSING, so soon after you won, requires a special kind of political incompetence. At the heart of this Coalition ...
And why did the Crown not challenge the Tribunal’s jurisdiction? Gary Judd writes – Retired District Court Judge, David Harvey, has posted on his A Halflings View Substack an excellent summary of Justice Isacs’ judgment declining to uphold the witness summons issued by the Waitangi Tribunal ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Do you believe New Zealand runs its general elections fairly and competently? As a voter, can you be confident that the votes on your ballot will be counted towards the final result?As a political scientist, I’ve been asked these questions many times and ...
Macklemore isn’t someone I’d usually think about. Sure I liked his big hit from a few years back, everybody did it was catchy and cool with some memorable lines. But if I was going to think of artists who might speak out on political matters or world events, he wouldn’t ...
Another week goes by in the Luxon government’s efforts to roll back the past 70 years of social progress. The school lunches programme is to be downgraded by $107 million, and women need bother their heads no longer about pay equity, let alone expect ACC to provide adequate sexual violence ...
Brrr, the first cold snap of the year. Hope you’re rugged up nice and warm. Here are some stories that caught our eye this week… This Week on Greater Auckland On Monday, we had a post from a new contributor, Connor Sharp, who dug into the public feedback ...
Almost all of the Wellington City Council’s recommended zoning changes to allow many more apartments and townhouses in its inner-suburbs have been approved.Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for subscribers features co-hosts and , along with regular guest on geopolitics, ...
Open access notablesA Global Increase in Nearshore Tropical Cyclone Intensification, Balaguru et al., Earth's Future:Tropical Cyclones (TCs) inflict substantial coastal damages, making it pertinent to understand changing storm characteristics in the important nearshore region. Past work examined several aspects of TCs relevant for impacts in coastal regions. However, ...
Do you believe New Zealand runs its general elections fairly and competently? As a voter, can you be confident that the votes on your ballot will be counted towards the final result? As a political scientist, I’ve been asked these questions many times and always answered “yes”, with very few ...
Thus far May has followed on from a quiet April in the blogging department, but in fairness, it has been another case of doing what I am supposed to be doing, namely writing original fiction. Plus reading. So don’t worry – I have been productive. But in order to reassure ...
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Bryce Edwards writes – “Follow the money” is the classic directive to journalists trying to understand where power and influence lie in society. In terms of uncovering who influences various New Zealand political parties and governments, it therefore pays to look at who is funding them. The ...
Alwyn Poole writes – After being elected to Parliament in 2008 the maiden speech of Hipkins was substantially around education policy. He was Labour’s spokesperson for education 2011 – 2017. He was Minister for Education from 2017 until February 2023. This is approximately 88% of the time Labour ...
Eric Crampton writes – A fashion industry group is lobbying for protections. They make the usual arguments and a newer one. None of it makes sense. An industry group says it pumped $7.8 billion into the economy last year – that’s 1.9 percent of New Zealand’s GDP. ...
In December 2006, Fiji's military leader Voreqe Bainimarama overthrew the elected government in a coup. He ruled Fiji for the next 16 years, first as dictator, then as "elected" Prime Minister. But now, he's finally been sent to jail where he belongs. Sadly, this isn't for his real crime of ...
Don't like National's corrupt Muldoonist "fast-track" law? Aotearoa's environmental NGO's - Greenpeace, Forest & Bird, WWF, Coromandel Watchdog, Coal Action Network Aotearoa, Kiwis Against Seabed Mining, and others - have announced a joint march against it in Auckland in June: When: 13:00, 8 June, 2024 Where: Aotea Square, Auckland You ...
Seymour describes sushi as too woke for school meals. There are no fish sushi meals recommended by the School Lunches programme. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty ImagesTL;DR: The Government will swap out hot meals for packaged sandwiches to save $107 million on school lunches for poor kids. MSD has pulled ...
I don't mind stealin' bread from the mouths of decadenceBut I can't feed on the powerless when my cup's already overfilled, yeahBut it's on the table, the fire's cookin'And they're farmin' babies, while slaves are workin'The blood is on the table and the mouths are chokin'But I'm goin' hungry, yeahSome ...
The Ardern Government’s chickens came home to roost yesterday with the news that the country is short of natural gas. In 2018, Labour banned offshore petroleum exploration, and industry executives say that the attendant loss of confidence by the industry impacted overall investment in onshore gas fields. Energy Resources Minister ...
Hi,If you’ve been digging through the newly launched Webworm store (orders are being dispatched worldwide as I type!) you’ll have noticed the best model we had was Calvin.This is Calvin.Calvin.Calvin is 7, and is the son of my producer over on Flightless Bird, Rob — aka “Wobby Wob”. Rob also ...
This video includes conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Adam Levy. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). Climate change is everywhere. And when something's everywhere it can feel like it's nowhere. So how do we get our heads ...
Its a law like gravity: whenever a right-wing government is elected, they start attacking democracy. And now, after talking to their Republican and Tory and Fidesz chums at the International Democracy Union forum in Wellington, National is doing it here, announcing plans to remove election-day enrolment. Or, to put it ...
Yesterday Winston Peters focussed his attention on the important matter at hand. Tweeting. Like the former, and quite possibly next, orange POTUS, from whom he takes much of his political strategy, Winston is an avid X’er.His message didn’t resemble an historic address this time. In fact it was more reminiscent ...
Buzz from the Beehive A significant decline in natural gas production has given Resources Minister Shane Jones an opportunity to reiterate his enthusiasm for the mining and burning of coal. For good measure, he has praised an announcement from Genesis Energy that it will resume importing coal. He and Energy ...
“Follow the money” is the classic directive to journalists trying to understand where power and influence lie in society. In terms of uncovering who influences various New Zealand political parties and governments, it therefore pays to look at who is funding them. The political parties are legally obliged to make ...
Rob MacCullough writes – Here is my subjective ranking on a “most-left” to “most-right” scale of most of our major NZ Universities, with some anecdotal (and at times amusing) evidence to back up the claim.Extreme Left Auckland University of TechnologyEvidenceThe ...
Eric Crampton writes – I hadn’t thought about this one until a helpful email showed up in my inbox.It’s pretty obvious that income tax thresholds should automatically index with inflation – whether to anchor the thresholds in percentiles of the income distribution, or to anchor against a real ...
Jacqui Van Der Kaay writes – Parliament’s speaker had no option but to refer Green MP Julie Anne Genter to the Privileges Committee for her behaviour in the House last Wednesday evening. The incident, in which she crossed the floor to wave a book and yell at National ...
Gary Judd writes – The Dean of the law school at the Auckland University of Technology is someone called Khylee Quince. I have been sent her social media posting in which she has, over the LawNews headline “Senior King’s Counsel files complaint about compulsory tikanga Maori studies for ...
Cleo Paskal writes – WASHINGTON, D.C.: ‘Many of us have received phone calls from [the opposing camp] telling them if they join the camp they will be given projects for their wards and $300,000 [around US$35,000] each’, says former Malaita Premier Daniel Suidani. The elections in Solomon Islands aren’t ...
With hindsight, it was inevitable that (a) Hamas would agree to the ceasefire deal brokered by Egypt and Qatar and that ( b) Israel would then immediately launch attacks on Rafah, regardless. We might have hoped the concessions made by Hamas would cause Israel to desist from slaughtering thousands more ...
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There’s been a few smaller public transport announcements over the last week or so that I thought I’d cover in a single post. Fareshare I’ve long called for Auckland Transport to offer a way to enable employer-subsidised public transport options. The need for this took on even more importance ...
Parliament’s speaker had no option but to refer Green MP Julie Anne Genter to the Privileges Committee for her behaviour in the House last Wednesday evening. The incident, in which she crossed the floor to wave a book and yell at National Minister Matt Doocey, reflects poorly on Genter and ...
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Who likes being sneered at? Nobody. Worse yet, when the sneerer has their facts all wrong, and might well be an idiot.The sneer in question is The adults are in charge now, and it is a sneer offered in retort to criticism of this new Government, no matter how well ...
When in government, Labour pushed to extend the Parliamentary term to four years, to reduce accountability and our ability to vote out a bad government. And now, they're trying to do it through the member's ballot, with a Four-Year Parliamentary Term Legislation Bill. The bill at least requires a referendum ...
A ballot for a single Member's Bill was held today, and the following bill was drawn: Public Works (Prohibition of Compulsory Acquisition of Māori Land) Amendment Bill (Hūhana Lyndon) The bill would prevent the government from stealing Māori land in breach of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. It ...
Simeon Brown, alongside Wayne Brown, is favouring a political figleaf now in exchange for loading up tens of millions in extra interest costs on Auckland ratepayers. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s is pushing back hard at suggestions from Local Government Minister Simeon Brown and Mayor Wayne Brown ...
Buzz from the Beehive One headline-grabber from the Beehive yesterday was the OECD’s advice that the government must bring the Budget deficit under control or face higher interest rates. Another was the announcement of a $1.9 billion “investment” in Corrections over the next four years. In the best interests of ...
Chris Trotter writes – Had Zheng He’s fleet sailed east, not west, in the early Fifteenth Century, how different our world would be. There is little reason to suppose that the sea-going junks of the Ming Dynasty, among the largest and most sophisticated sailing vessels ever constructed, would have failed ...
David Farrar writes – Two articles give a useful contrast in balance. Both seek to be neutral explainer articles. This one in the Herald on Social Investment covers the pros and cons nicely. It links to critical pieces and talks about aspects that failed and aspects that are more ...
The tikanga regulations will compel law students to be taught that a system which does not conform with the rule of law is nevertheless law which should be observed and applied…Gary Judd KC writes – I have made a complaint to Parliament’s Regulation ...
The future of Te Huia, the train between Hamilton and Auckland, has been getting a lot of attention recently as current funding for it is only in place till the end of June. The government initially agreed to a five year trial, through to April 2026, but that was subject ...
TL;DR: Hamas has just agreed to Israel’s ceasefire plan. Nelson hospital’s rebuild has been cut back to save money. The OECD suggests New Zealand break up network monopolies, including in electricity. PM Christopher Luxon’s news conference on a prison expansion announcement last night was his messiest yet.Here’s my top six ...
A homicide in Ponsonby, a manhunt with a killer on the run. The nation’s leader stands before a press conference reassuring a frightened nation that he’ll sort it out, he’ll keep them safe, he’ll build some new prison spaces.Sorry what? There’s a scary dude on the run with a gun ...
Hi,I know it’s been awhile since there’s been any Webworm merch — and today that all changes!Over the last four months, I’ve been working with New Zealand artist Jess Johnson to create a series of t-shirts, caps and stickers that are infused with Webworm DNA — and as of right ...
The OECD’s chief economist yesterday laid it on the line for the new Government: bring the deficit under control or face higher Reserve Bank interest rates for longer. And to bring the deficit under control, she meant not borrowing for tax cuts. But there was more. Without policy changes—introducing a ...
After a hiatus of over four months Selwyn Manning and I finally got it together to re-start the “A View from Afar” podcast series. We shall see how we go but aim to do 2 episodes per month if possible. … Continue reading → ...
In 2008, the UK Parliament passed the Climate Change Act 2008. The law established a system of targets, budgets, and plans, with inbuilt accountability mechanisms; the aim was to break the cycle of empty promises and replace it with actual progress towards emissions reduction. The law was passed with near-universal ...
Buzz from the Beehive Local Water Done Well – let’s be blunt – is a silly name, but the first big initiative to put it into practice has gone done well. This success is reflected in the headline on an RNZ report:District mayors welcome Auckland’s new water deal with ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate ConnectionsA farmworker cleans the solar panels of a solar water pump in the village of Jagadhri, Haryana Country, India. (Photo credit: Prashanth Vishwanathan/ IWMI) Decisions made in India over the next few years will play a key role in global ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – The Children’s Minister, Karen Chhour, intends to repeal Section 7AA from the Oranga Tamariki Act 1989 because it creates conflict between claimed Crown Treaty obligations and the child’s best interests. In her words, “Oranga Tamariki’s governing principles and its act should be colour ...
Geoffrey Miller writes – The gloves are off. That might seem to be the undertone of surprisingly tough talk from New Zealand’s foreign and trade ministers. Winston Peters, the foreign minister, may be facing legal action after making allegations about former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr on Radio New Zealand. ...
Brian Easton writes – This is about the time that the Treasury will be locking up its economic forecasts to be published in the 2024 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) on budget day, 30 May. I am not privy to what they will be (I will report on them ...
TL;DR:Winston Peters is reported to have won a budget increase for MFAT. David Seymour wanted his Ministry of Regulation to be three times bigger than the Productivity Commission. Simeon Brown is appointing a Crown Monitor to Watercare to protect the Claytons Crown Guarantee he had to give ratings agencies ...
The gloves are off. That might seem to be the undertone of surprisingly tough talk from New Zealand’s foreign and trade ministers. Winston Peters, the foreign minister, may be facing legal action after making allegations about former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr on Radio New Zealand. Carr had made highly ...
I could be a florist'Round the corner from Rye LaneI'll be giving daisies to craziesBut, baby, I'll wrap you up real safe Oh, I can give you flowers At the end of every dayFor the center of your table, a rainbowIn case you have people 'round to stay Depending on ...
TL;DR: The six key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to May 12 include:PM Christopher Luxon is scheduled to hold a post-Cabinet news conference at 4 pm today. Finance Minister Nicola Willis will give a pre-budget speech on Thursday.Parliament sits from Question Time at 2pm on ...
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Today New Zealand First will introduce a Member’s Bill that will protect women’s spaces. The ‘Fair Access to Bathrooms Bill’ will require, primarily in the interest and safety of women and girls, that all new non-domestic publicly accessible buildings provide separate, clearly demarcated, unisex and single sex bathrooms. This Bill ...
The Green Party is welcoming Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ continuation of Hon. James Shaw’s cross-party work on climate adaptation, now in the form of a Finance and Expenditure Committee Inquiry. ...
The National Government plans to cut 390 jobs at ACC, including roles in the areas of prevention of sexual violence, road safety and workplace safety. ...
The Government has been caught in opposition to evidence once again as it looks to usher in tried, tested and failed work seminar obligations for job-seeking beneficiaries. ...
The Green Party is welcoming the announcement by the Minister Responsible for RMA Reform Chris Bishop to approve most of the Wellington City Council’s District Plan recommendations. ...
David Seymour has failed to get the sweeping cuts he wanted to the free and healthy school lunch programme, Labour education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
Hon Willie Jackson has been invited by the Oxford Union to debate the motion “This House Believes British Museums are not Very British’ on May 23rd. ...
Green Party MP Hūhana Lyndon says her Public Works (Prohibition of Compulsory Acquisition of Māori Land) Amendment Bill is an opportunity to right some past wrongs around the alienation of Māori land. ...
A senior, highly respected King’s Counsel with decades of experience in our law courts, Gary Judd KC, has filed a complaint about compulsory tikanga Māori studies for law students - highlighting the utter depths of absurdity this woke cultural madness has taken our society. The tikanga regulations will compel law ...
The Government needs to be clear with the people of the Nelson Marlborough region about the changes it is considering for the Nelson Hospital rebuild, Labour health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said. ...
Ministers must front up about which projects it will push through under its Fast Track Approvals legislation, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
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The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
New Zealand voted in favour of a resolution broadening Palestine’s participation at the United Nations General Assembly overnight, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The resolution enhances the rights of Palestine to participate in the work of the UN General Assembly while stopping short of admitting Palestine as a full ...
Introduction Good morning. It’s a great privilege to be here at the 2024 Infrastructure Symposium. I was extremely happy when the Prime Minister asked me to be his Minister for Infrastructure. It is one of the great barriers holding the New Zealand economy back from achieving its potential. Building high ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins today announced the upcoming Budget will include new funding of $571 million for Defence Force pay and projects. “Our servicemen and women do New Zealand proud throughout the world and this funding will help ensure we retain their services and expertise as we navigate an increasingly ...
New Zealand’s ability to cope with climate change will be strengthened as part of the Government’s focus to build resilience as we rebuild the economy, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “An enduring and long-term approach is needed to provide New Zealanders and the economy with certainty as the climate ...
Jobseeker beneficiaries who have work obligations must now meet with MSD within two weeks of their benefit starting to determine their next step towards finding a job, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “A key part of the coalition Government’s plan to have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker ...
A new standalone Social Investment Agency will power-up the social investment approach, driving positive change for our most vulnerable New Zealanders, Social Investment Minister Nicola Willis says. “Despite the Government currently investing more than $70 billion every year into social services, we are not seeing the outcomes we want for ...
Check against delivery Good morning. It is a pleasure to be with you to outline the Coalition Government’s approach to our first Budget. Thank you Mark Skelly, President of the Hutt Valley Chamber of Commerce, together with your Board and team, for hosting me. I’d like to acknowledge His Worship ...
Your Excellency Ambassador Meredith, Members of the Diplomatic Corps and Ambassadors from European Union Member States, Ministerial colleagues, Members of Parliament, and other distinguished guests, Thank you everyone for joining us. Ladies and gentlemen - In diplomacy, we often speak of ‘close’ and ‘long-standing’ relations. ...
The Therapeutic Products Act (TPA) will be repealed this year so that a better regime can be put in place to provide New Zealanders safe and timely access to medicines, medical devices and health products, Associate Health Minister Casey Costello announced today. “The medicines and products we are talking about ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop, today released his decision on twenty recommendations referred to him by the Wellington City Council relating to its Intensification Planning Instrument, after the Council rejected those recommendations of the Independent Hearings Panel and made alternative recommendations. “Wellington notified its District Plan on ...
Rape Awareness Week (6-10 May) is an important opportunity to acknowledge the continued effort required by government and communities to ensure that all New Zealanders can live free from violence, say Ministers Karen Chhour and Louise Upston. “With 1 in 3 women and 1 in 8 men experiencing sexual violence ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government will be delivering a more efficient Healthy School Lunches Programme, saving taxpayers approximately $107 million a year compared to how Labour funded it, by embracing innovation and commercial expertise. “We are delivering on our commitment to treat taxpayers’ money ...
New research on the impacts of extreme weather on coastal marine habitats in Tairāwhiti and Hawke’s Bay will help fishery managers plan for and respond to any future events, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. A report released today on research by Niwa on behalf of Fisheries New Zealand ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Winston Peters will lead a broad political delegation on a five-stop Pacific tour next week to strengthen New Zealand’s engagement with the region. The delegation will visit Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, and Tuvalu. “New Zealand has deep and ...
There has been a material decline in gas production according to figures released today by the Gas Industry Co. Figures released by the Gas Industry Company show that there was a 12.5 per cent reduction in gas production during 2023, and a 27.8 per cent reduction in gas production in the ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins tonight announced the recipients of the Minister of Defence Awards of Excellence for Industry, saying they all contribute to New Zealanders’ security and wellbeing. “Congratulations to this year’s recipients, whose innovative products and services play a critical role in the delivery of New Zealand’s defence capabilities, ...
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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).
Wonderful news from across the ditch.
"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”.
It's fair enough to feel scared and angry and unsure about all this. Biden is another thing altogether. 🙂
"It's fair enough to feel scared and angry and unsure about all this. Biden is another thing altogether."
Yes agreed – what is unhelpful is spreading false information and creating confusion.
Kia Ora Newshub.
Our government virus finance package is good from a Tangata government all the Tangata not just the wealthiest first. What would have happened if the tax cut happened like another government has done.
Simon just loves kicking the less fortunate tangata.
Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora Te Ao Maori News.
Yes give putea to the poor it will go back into the economy.
The governments financial package should ease Tangata Whenua.
The Super market in Turanginui A Kiwa has had big sales a lot of people come from the coast to buy Kai.
Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora The Am Show
It's called stimulating the internal Aotearoa economy or is that a bit hard for you to grasp + I'm sure Grant said big business could talk to him about their plans no good paying out billion just to see it end up under the mattress.
You know that trickle down lie that was flogged to us for nine years well in reality money flows up.
Kia Kaha to all the sports stars.
Its good to see more jobs for local workers in Aotearoa back to the days of old.
The less plastic waste that is produced the better our environment will be.
I quite enjoy the Off grid program.
Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora Newshub.
That's a good to test people for the virus in the car park testing people in their cars to minimise the spread risk of the virus.
You mite have to use the family towl.
Ka kite Ano.
Kia Ora Te Ao Maori News.
I don't think that our government will divert the money for Te reo or other Māori programs.
Its good to see Kura making plans for the effects of the virus.
Ka pai to Iwi working with health departments to plan for the virus.
Our government rescue package is will help tangata whenua .
Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora The Am Show.
It would be good to see more money invested in Railways railways has a lower carbon footprint than other fright transporters.
Money is a imagine 4 million value for every person life in Aotearoa it would be nice if Tangata Whenua O Aotearoa were valued more.??????.
There you go organisation that can could have a third of their employees working from home at 1 time to save our futures environment.
Your opinions change because of Reality I think it's time to change finance to a more stable mode that is not effected by Shocks like this. A sestanable system that is not fooled into thinking that the Papatuanuku has finite RESOURCEs.?????.
That's a good idea live online exercise programs.
Exercise is good for mental health the same as mahi.
BBM is great at getting brown people moving into exercise.
Yes it a opportunity to show kindness sharing compassion empthy.
Ka kite Ano