There was going to be a big public media merger last year. Not now.
The next step after they cut the public service is to go after subsidized services. Food banks. School lunches. NZSO. Media support like Maori TV. Discretionary welfare payments like hardship. Public subsidies of all kinds.
It's the Ruth Richardson pattern, and it gets noisy.
Arts and cultural funding in general is an endangered species in NZ. We're governed by a bunch of philistines (successive governments, not just this one). Sports and roads are far more worthy, apparently. RNZ Concert might be 'niche' but it's practically all that's left, and must be saved.
Besides, it's a sanity saver when the news gets too much. I'm enjoying it as I type 🙂
Their argument would be that around 800 full time jobs are involved and over $100 million turnover between whakapapa and Turoa. Governments on both sides regard anything that is part of the tourism industry as very important. Tourism expenditure in 2022 was around $26 billion. (mostly domestic $24 billion)
Also I think it may be a loan rather than a straight out gift? Could be wrong on that.
Regardless, in my opinion it's still corporate welfare. No business is too big to fail IMO.
I used to work in philanthropic sector and we joked about 'groans' because if any org ever got a govt loan they morphed into grants that were never payed back.
Yep. I am at heart a supporter of the free market. And while I'm in favour of governments regulating markets when it is necessary, I draw as firm a line as I can at the public provides direct financial support to private sector organisations.
please don’t pick a fight with another author, and the site owner/sysop under my posts. This is a difficult enough conversation as it is. But even if it had not been another author, taking potshots at people over this is just a big no. You know how to use your words better than this.
Bombers hits the mark and this is why I’m increasingly ambivalent about gender debates
Class: You can not point out that the demarcation line in a capitalist democracy like NZ is the 1% richest plus their 9% enablers vs the 90% rest of us. Oh you can wank on and on about your identity and your feelings about your identity in a never ending intersectionist diversity pronoun word salad, but you can’t point out that it’s really the 90% us vs the 10% them class break down because that would be effective and we can’t have effective on mainstream media when feelings are the currency to audience solidarity in an ever diminishing pie of attention.
Annoys the hell out of me when people treat sexism as "identity politics." Sex isn't a feeling of identity, it's a class, and a far more sharply defined class than any of the economic or relationship-to-production ones Bomber might feel are proper classes.
Your current ambivalence comes across Rob, which is fine by me.
I strongly believe people should put their individual energy into their personal priorities. This is the only way sustained pressure can happen to enact long lasting change.
However, there is a distinction between that, and advising others on where they should put their priorities (and energy). I think Bomber falls into that trap of demanding people to align, rather than persuading them to.
Yes there have been trans people engaged in the debate here on TS. There probably still are, people aren’t required to share their gender identity before commenting.
Maybe next you will ask what happened to all the feminists that used to comment here.
Not wanting anyone to share their gender identity here, weka, just wondering how comfortable they might feel joining the debate atm. Naturally, there'd be a range of responses, but there might also be a trend that speaks to the tenor of the debate.
With regards the reasons for feminist authors and commenters leaving the site; I just don't know. If there were reasons expressed and I'd read them, I'd perhaps know, but I don't recall seeing anything explicit. Can you tell me, please?
In the past moderation was looser and there was more abuse. That puts women authors and commenters off.
In the debates that meant a lot to women eg discussion rape culture, it was incredibly hard going and many women simply had better things to do with their time and hearts.
There's also the general bloke nature of the place.
There was a period of time where specific men (commenters and authors) caused problems for feminists in particular.
Some of the women here worked on the women's project for many months behind the scenes to make some changes. Lynn offered to set up a sister site for women. Two of the male authors took a hatchet to the project and the women just walked away (myself included, I didn't write or comment onsite for over a year. Ihumātao brought me back).
There was a period of time before that when we had women authors and commenters and I at least moderated to encourage that. Lynn looked at the stats at one point and confirmed that the numbers of women here had increased. Many of those regular women are now gone. That's true of commenters and authors generally, they do tend to move through. But there have been specific issues for women that in the end were just too hard to address.
Likewise, it's hard to trans people to be here. Not all trans people support gender identity ideology, or they support some rights fights and not others. Some rely heavily on the rainbow culture. I try and moderate to temper how trans rights are talked about, and there are limits on how I can do that. For instance Joe linked to tWig asking for the term autogynephilia to be banned. That's just not possible. We don't ban words and we're not going to stop people talking about a psyhicatric condition listed in the DSM-5. I would however moderate if someone here started using AGP as a pejorative against another commenter.
It's also hard for Māori to be here. Same dynamics.
Intriguing to hear about a then-proposed sister site. It would be interesting to read its proposed kaupapa etc.
The list of groups who find it hard to be here could include neurodivergent people as well. All of those folk probably feel the same about being in the world outside of TS as well.
I left in Aug23 mainly because of being justly moderated off after becoming annoyed at the continual non participation, socratic type style or reckons of one poster.
I maintained a 'watching brief', ha ha, looking at TS every day. At first I had a sticky on my screen saying not to post on TS but toward the end of my time away it was automatic to read only.
I came back in Feb24. What brought me back was the excellence of the female author, Weka, and the posts from female posters of all stripes on women's issues. Should this coverage lessen or the reckons on women's issues from a base of ignorance increase I will happily go again. Life is too short. I crave the exchange of ideas not feeding the basics. Just a personal preference.
I am truly grateful that some men are looking at the Cass Review. it's companion piece article from BMJ makes a good combination.
It worries me a bit though, that much of this stuff had been pointed out by females on the site in times gone past but has been framed, if it was read/responded to at all, as being anti trans when in fact it was women's rights focussed. There is a difference.
I read and participate on X Twitter. I value the men there who avowedly support the womens' rights movement and in fact wrote to the two I follow deeply, after the bad patch I was in after Aug23 when the womens rights cause seemed to be misunderstood, generally, by many men here. X has virtues in being able to be pithy…..like an 'appetiser' but the 'main course' here on TS is worth its weight in gold.
Women who support YOUR version of the womens' rights movement, Shanreagh.
In the UK, a Womens' Equality Party was established in 2015, well before Posie Parker set up hers finally (after several attempts, with paperwork out of order in previous tries).
According to Wikipedia, in 2022 "the party voted in support of a motion to back gender self-identification. Of the party members who took part in the vote at the party's conference, 138 voted in favour of gender self-identification, while 29 opposed, and 5 abstained."
The party objectives and the position on transgender identification are ones that many, many NZ women support.
tWig I don't think I mentioned any version of the womens rights movements or parties, just that I wanted to come back when I read Weka's posts and read the replies. I'll go away just as quickly, as life is too short.
I tend not support parties as such. I support the women's movement or women's rights issues.
I was aware of PoW but did not know about the Womens Equality Party, so thanks for that advice. I will look them up.
I would if I could, Molly, but I've been shunted, as you were, into Open Mike and moderation at the same time, probably because of my random vague musings 🙂
Doubtless you are correct, roblogic. I felt those same drivers resulted in much of what happened on Parliament's lawn at the time Trevor Mallard was going through his Barry Manilow period.
The protests were nominally about the requirement for people to be vaccinated if they held jobs that faced the public aka "the mandates". And then it became a hodge-podge of diverse protests without any coherency and shadow protests from people trying to get publicity for their own, rather unpleasant, idiology.
Adolescence and identity formation. Trauma there can manifest in many ways later on. Anger around being told what to do, especially regarding body-sovereignty, seems not to fade over time.
I too, am commenting sincerely and can't understand your response, if it was addressed to me – sometimes it's hard to tell with this format. If it's me you are addressing, I can say I'd never mock your comments because I believe them to be sincere and thoughtful. I mean, who could confidently decode 5.2.1.3.1.2 ???? Is that you? Is that me? Is that …? Who???
There have been Robert and I remember being the only person to object and request moderation after Sabine insisted that they needed to apologise to their family for "what they had done".
Yep, yep, yep…
Its all gone a bit Best Bets sister publication around here.
One of the problems for people in refuse to use evidenced debate is that its really easy to point out where they are talking shite.
What Sabine actually said,
And fwiw, maybe maybe also at the very least acknowledge that your spouse, your kids, and your family and friends lost someone they thought they knew, married, had children with, and then you suddenly told them that that person don't exist and please call me Joanne. While this might was a great relieve for you, it was the end of the world for them. Just to be fair.
For the people that understand the politics of trans widows, Sabine's comment makes sense.
I did moderate in that conversation, but both the trans woman Joanne and Sabine had useful views to present. Joanne is great, they know how to hold their own. Sabine is also great, she brings in a strong style of honestly held belief that challenges other people's beliefs.
That's what we do here, provide a space for robust debate and work through the issues.
Yes there has been at least one Trans person reading this site and I have commented on some of the anti-trans posts in the past but to be honest I don't generally because I am tired. One way or another I have been fighting these battles for most of my 67 years and every time it appears transpeople are beginning to make some progress someone comes along and blows it all to hell. As for those who comment on these posts, only Weka makes any attempt to treat transpeople as people rather than an enemies to be defeated and I am tired of it, so I just live my non agressive and hopefully positive life. It ain't easy to be honest
We are all tired. [deleted] That's honesty. Not an insult.
[your additional comment and my mod note both disappeared when I was putting you in the ban list and I think because you were editing the comment. For clarity, below is what was deleted – weka]
Molly: Ah. Honesty is a problem for all it seems.
[perhaps, but moderation and not being able to read the room are a problem for only a few. 1 day ban because I’m not willing to continually spend my time supervising people who should know better – weka]
that’s the second time today I’ve had to moderate you. Please don’t make it three.
In this case, it’s about the part of the policy that covers tone or language that has the effect of excluding others. JP was sharing personally and answering a question they are best qualified to answer. Your response was utterly unnecessary and can only be perceived as provocation.
Everyone has their own idea about what an insult is, and sometimes it’s about timing and appropriateness as much as the words or one sided intent.
Everyone has their own idea about what an insult is…
Agree 100% weka – you'd have to be a "flailing idiot" not to
When an Argument Gets Too Heated, Here’s What to Say
[3 March 2016]
If you go first in validating the importance of the debate and the value of the person you’re debating with, you will reduce defensiveness, keep things issue-focused, and greatly increase the speed with which you get to a mutually agreeable solution. Give it a try in your next argument.
Wise words, imho – particularly "allow themselves". And agreeing to disagree.
To “agree to disagree” is to resolve a conflict (usually a debate or quarrel) by having all parties tolerating but not accepting the opposing positions. It generally occurs when all sides recognize that further conflict would be unnecessary, ineffective or otherwise undesirable.
“And now why should we not agree to differ, without either enmity or scorn?”
As far as Women's issues is concerned I have have been fighting seriously since I first joined the PS when I took a case to the Public Service Commission on not being given access to the Public Servant on transfer allowances and pool housing as these were for bread-winners (it said this in the manual) and by definition also in the manual) breadwinners were male. I took a case for a review of policy of the Govt Super fund that only had options for a male with a dependent health-wise spouse and no options for a female with a dependent halth-wise spouse, that I had. My dad thought I was possibly exaggerating and when he read the policy etc said 'this is so discriminatory it will be changed soon'
And dear reader it was changed in 1993 about 15 years after I had raised it
I missed out on a job because 'what would I do out in the field if I needed to go to the loo?' My husband and I missed out on the entry into a ballot for a house/land in Northland as the powers that be decided, perhaps I did not know or realise I'd have to leave the PS. Doh. So men making decisions without asking the woman concerned and being paternal. People lower down in the pecking order told me about these decisions later.
In the years since we have fought the same battles over and over again. They are more cunningly hidden/described now.
We've been part (because we are women) of the idiot 'anti Jacinda because she is a female' league and now the league that wants to sacrifice women's rights to sport and safe spaces because, you know 'feels' for men who want to dress as females. /sarc.
Having studied Womens Issues to a Stage 3 level many of the debates recently are evidence of:
the continued misogyny of some men
the sometimes uncritical/innate? support some men have for other men and what they want to do. (Something I've not found from women who do not hesitate to call you out if they feel you've missed a beat!)
the desire to suspend biology in the view that by holding a gender recognition certificate, dressed in the way they perceive a woman dresses whether accompanied by chemicals or surgery, men by some 'magick'/alchemy actually turn into women.
So yes I'm tired too. Then I realise I'm in a long line of battle hardened women (mother/grandmother) in my own family who've fought.
Joanne – I am 6 years older than you and have been Lesbian for most of my adult life. In my younger days, trans people were very much part of the Gay community. At a time when sex between men was unlawful – "transing away the gay" was understandable. A few woman also attempted to become the men they thought they should be as they were attracted to other women.
That kind of internalised homophobia should have gone out in the 1980's when same sex attraction became lawful for men and more widely accepted in society. We all worked very hard for that over a lot of years.
These days – the rise of the postmodernist "queering" of society, and the emergence of "gender ideology" which denies even the existence of same sex attraction and maintains that even very young children have a "gender identity" which is entirely separate from biological reality and should take precedence over it, puts us all at risk.
The demand of todays ideologists that everything should be subservient to the belief in a gendered soul has led to the sort of backlash where the force teaming of same sex attracted people with the rest of the "alphabet swamp" (most of whom are straight) endangers the social acceptance we worked so hard to attain.
"At a time when sex between men was unlawful – "transing away the gay" was understandable."
And how would you, a self confessed lesbian, know that? Or are going to type out some more of your amateur psychology? Am I allowed to speculate on why some lesbians dress "butch"? Can I engage in some cod psychology on the motivations of the Gender Critical movement? Is that OK? I have prepared some notes if it is OK.
"the rise of the postmodernist "queering" of society,"
"gender ideology" which denies even the existence of same sex attraction"
"maintains that even very young children have a "gender identity" which is entirely separate from biological reality and should take precedence over it"
You have not provided a single piece of evidence for these statements which you continually make – You do have some stats right? Or an academic study? A peer reviewed paper perhaps? Some actual evidence and not just your assertions?
Some weirdo's blog post where they make a word salad that resonates with you won't do. Nor will an individual Trans persons twitter post.
So, as is the standard at The Standard I ask that you provide the Post Modern Trans Manifesto you are always talking of. The one which matches your claims above. The one which apparently dictates the lives of every Trans person and their allies.
What is ridiculous is watching you constantly using the phrase gender ideology. It was coined by that great protector of women and children, the Roman Catholic Church:
"The labelling of gender as an ideology was later incorporated into Vatican documents and displaced the ‘culture of death’ as the framework for understanding the threat posed by SRR. Ratzinger, first as the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and later as Pope Benedict XVI, had a central role in the adoption, circulation, and legitimation of the term ‘gender ideology’. He had already been exposed to feminist critiques and politics while in Germany during the 1980’s as he expressed in the Ratzinger Report (1985), which, for Case (2019) contains the main dimensions of what would later come to be called ‘gender ideology’."
Speaking of tunnels it amazes me (but doesn't surprise me) that the Scandinavians and Germans can design and build an amazing 18km long underwater engineering marvel such as this for I think approx 10 billion euros,
Whilst we get an estimated price of potentially up to $45 billion NZD (twice as much?) for a much shorter and nowhere near as good tunnel option for a second Auckland harbor crossing.
Because crossing the Waitemata, smack in the middle of an active volcanic field in an area exposed to deep tropical depressions, is just like crossing the Øresund strait.
Having experienced a major traffic jam the other day on Auckland Harbour bridge, I sympathise with those who call for a second bridge.
But where do the cars go once they make the crossing? NZTA will have to bulldoze many houses in suburbs each side of the harbour so traffic can get to an arterial route.
Far better to avoid central Auckland altogether; it's only getting worse.
"Labour was wasteful" So let's splash out on mega motorways, tunnels, and unaffordable tax cuts for landlords on the one hand
But on the other "we are poor"
Austerity, public service cuts, collapsing schools, removal of fair pay agreements, cancelled ferries, worse public transport, failing water services, higher costs all around for the working class
Investment in transport infrastructure is neither 'splashing out' or 'wasteful' providing the investment has a viable business case.
On the Wellington tunnel, the government asked NZTA to 'investigate a Long Tunnel option for Stage Highway 1 in Wellington'. That includes 'advice on the technical feasibility, cost, and funding and financing options for the proposal'. Government investigates 4km tunnel under Wellington | RNZ News
That seems an appropriate approach, although as evidenced by your link above the project is opposed and supported by the usual suspects based on their particular self interest.
dunno Rob, don't you think that's all dreadfully obvious? I don't think people are distracted by identity pol or infighting, so much as they just don't know how to act any more. I was pretty disappointed in the SS4C for similar reasons.
I mean how do we fight dirty politics, social media manipulation, the disintegration of trust in media, at a time when we can't practice solidarity? So yeah, fair point about the infighting.
Yes it is well travelled ground, I don't have any striking new angles, it's just dirty politics continued from the last National regime. There are scurrilous rumours around John Key (again) but not sure if it's worth digging up that stench again
I'm being held in moderation – is this fair? Is there a justifiable reason? My comments are subject to decision by someone else, where everyone else has free rein/sovereinty to comment.
I put you in premod because of your inability or unwillingness to follow moderation cues and it was taking up too much of my time dealing with that. It’s easier for mods to see the comments and deal with them before they appear on the front end. Most moderation comes down to saving moderator time.
You are not the only one this happens to. There are currently four people in the premod list including yourself.
No-one has free rein to comment as they like on TS (with the exception of Lynn). Everyone can be moderated. Most people moderate themselves.
depends on who you think is royality. But generally moderators do what they do unless they grossly overstep the mark and then another moderator or admin will act. Sometimes we discuss each other’s moderations in the back end.
I appreciate the extra weight metaphor, that’s what I mean when I talk about the moderator work load. Atm, it comes down to whether I think it’s more or less work for me to keep you in premod or let you out. You don’t make it easy though Robert.
Seconding that validation of the worth/value of comments made by Robert Guyton.
A few of RG's comments might be considered tangential, opaque, cryptic, or otherwise 'challenging' (brain food, imho) – but 'offensive'? That's a stretch, although everyone has their own triggers and ideas/thresholds for what's offensive.
I'd guess there are no (zero) blogs, political or otherwise, that employ democratic moderation, for obvious reasons. Maybe AI will come to the rescue, but I prefer the human touch – seems well-calibrated here, warts and all, and (magically) it's free.
Sorry weka – I meant free to me and many other users of (the most excellent) TS platform/blog – sincerely hope it's not costing you, or anyone else, too much.
And a sincere thanks for the time and effort put in to keep the infrastructure and comments running smoothly – no doubt there are occasions that require frantic paddling below the surface! Re 'offensive', I was parroting ianmac, lazy creature that I am now
Christ (so to speak). Same day as the mall mass murder, a bishop was stabbed by a 15 year old while giving a sermon. The police have named it a terrorist incident.
Because the stabbing was streamed onto the internet, a crowd of hundreds of locals gathered outside the church demanding that the police hand over the 15 year old. Police had to bring in reinforcements before they could take him to hospital. Paramedics could also not leave.
Now there are people on twitter saying, oh well, the bishop was a homophobe/Islamophobe/cooker, so, context.
Seems likely to me that the Bondi attacker was in the middle of a psychotic break or similar. Just from the reports of his mental health history, isolation, and what he had been doing before the attack.
The police haven't said much about the church attacker, other than that he said Islamic words as he attacked. Could easily also be a mental health breakdown.
At the risk of further inflaming a hornet's nest, this thread is a wake-up call for feminists in America and other countries following them on the road to Christo-fascist Gilead
As I was helping my wife put on a hospital gown, we believe she started to miscarry.
That day is a traumatic blur.
After we returned home from the hospital, we curled up on the sofa and cried together, silently, for hours.
What I know now is, a D&C is a medical procedure — also known as an abortion.
I now understand how abortion is healthcare.
I also realize, now, we were actually lucky.
We were lucky to live in a state where abortion in legal.
We didn’t have to wait until my wife’s life was in imminent danger, or where sepsis irrevocably damaged her reproductive system.
tbf, this GCF was talking about this in 2016 before Trump was elected. There were leftie men arguing Trump's not so bad, which was a major reason for my series of Trump's Not So Bad posts. We (the feminists) knew what was coming and lots of people didn't take us seriously.
As for gender critical women now. The boat has sailed. There have been bitter fights online over this issue between GC women and lines drawn. The progressive feminists are outnumbered by the GC women who will do what it takes to protect women's sex based rights. For US women I expect some of them don't perceive the risk, others understand it very well and know that without winning the fight over sex we can't retain our abortion rights. It's not like if we all stopped the GC work that somehow things would work out. I learned the hard way that left wing men in particular will only support women's rights when it suits them. That's part of why so many women have so few fucks left to give (that, and the whole centre left choosing GII over women thing).
Just a little addition though a D & C is not necessarily thought of by lay people as an 'abortion' if performed to remove the remains of a non viable fetus/miscarriage. Tiny shifts of meaning/nuances make a difference. D & Cs are not only performed for miscarriages or abortions.
Abortions can be performed using the D & C technique and they can be performed using drugs.
The point you make is absolutely taken that the law makers in the US 'crazy' states will of course be using the widest definition of what constitutes an abortion whereas in places where abortion is permitted conversations can take place with nuances/care appropriate depending on the circumstances, for instance a miscarrying woman would not expect a Dr to roll up and say 'we're going to give you an abortion'.
The stories that came out of Ireland prior to 2018 with women dying of sepsis from retained products of miscarriages because Drs did not operate or mothers being forced to wait to birth spontaneously the child that everyone knew was dead plus facing sepsis. We don't want to go back to that type of regime.
From what I have been reading of the situation in the US there are groups helping women travel to states that will carry out an abortion. These groups have formed much like the SOS (Sisters Overseas Service) when NZ had restrictive laws. These groups supported women to travel to Australia by finding $$$, flights, accomodation and hospitals.
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David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: KiwiRail’s seemingly endless requests for more money is damning. At one point, KiwiRail assured Robertson when he was the Finance Minister that the worst-case scenario would be an extra $300 million before requesting $1.2 billion a few months later. Not what most people ...
No one knows what it's likeTo be the bad manTo be the sad manBehind blue eyesNo one knows what it's likeTo be hatedTo be fatedTo telling only liesHave you ever wondered what life must be like for Mike Hosking? Seeing things in black and white through blue tinted specs? In ...
Hello! Here comes the Saturday edition of More Than A Feilding, catching you up on the past two week’s editions.Share More Than A FeildingBike bling, London Read more ...
Hi,I think we all made it through another week — congratulations. I’ve been digesting the new Arab Strap record, which is astonishing. In other news, I’m going to be doing a Webworm popup in Auckland, New Zealand on Saturday July 13. I’ll bring a bunch of merch, and some other ...
The Fast-Track Approvals Bill enables cabinet ministers to circumvent key environmental planning and protection processes for infrastructure projects. Its difficulties have been well canvassed. This column suggests a different way of thinking about the proposal. I am going to explore the Bill from the perspective of its proponents with their ...
New Zealand First Cabinet Minister Shane Jones has become the best advertisement against the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill. In selling the radical new resource consenting processes, in which ministers can green light any mine, dam, or other major development, Jones seems to be shooting the proposal in the foot. ...
Buzz from the Beehive Associate Education Minister David Seymour is urging the PostPrimary Teachers Association to put learning ahead of ideology. He wants the union leaders to call off their teachers meetings around the country where they hope to muster the strength to undo the government’s plans to establish several ...
What are police for? "Fighting crime" is the obvious answer. If there's a burglary, they should show up and investigate. Ditto if there's a murder or sexual assault. Speeding or drunk or dangerous driving is a crime, so obviously they should respond to that. And obviously, they should respond to ...
Michael Reddell writes – I got curious yesterday about how the Australia/New Zealand real exchange rate had changed over the last decade, and so dug out the data on the changes in the two countries’ CPIs. Over the 10 years from March 2014 to March 2024, New Zealand’s ...
Graham Adams writes that 20 years after the land march, judges are quietly awarding a swathe of coastal rights to iwi. Early this month, an hour-long documentary was released by TVNZ to mark the 20th anniversary of the land-rights march to oppose Helen Clark’s Foreshore and Seabed Act. The account ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: Suspended Green MP Darleen Tana has passed an unpleasant milestone: she has now been absent for as many parliamentary sitting days as she has been present for this year. Tana is on full pay while she is suspended, and will benefit from a ...
Peter Dunne writes – It is no coincidence that two Labour should-have-been MPs are making the most noise about public sector cuts. As assistant general secretary of the Public Service Association, Fleur Fitzsimons has been at the forefront of revealing where the next round of state sector job ...
Bryce Edwards writes – It’s becoming a classic case study for why lobbying deals with politicians need greater scrutiny. Former National Minister Steven Joyce runs a lobbying company with a major client – the University of Waikato. The University desperately wants $300m+ of taxpayer funding to establish a ...
This is one of the (extra) weekly columns on music or movies. Plenty of solid analyses of Possession exist online and most of them – inevitably – contain spoilers. This column is more in the way of a first-timer’s aid to getting your initial bearings. You don’t need to have ...
I am painting in oil, a portrait of a manWho has taken all the heart aches,And all the pain he can stand.I am using all the colors of blue,I have here on my stand.I am painting in oil, a portrait of a man.This has been an interesting week for me. ...
Helen Clark joins the Hoon as a special guest talking whether Aotearoa should join Aukus II, and her views on the fast track legislation and how Luxon and the new Government are performing. File Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for subscribers features co-hosts ...
With an election due in less than nine months, Britain’s embattled PM, Rishi Sunak, gave a useful speech earlier this week. He made a substantial case for his government, perhaps as compelling as is possible in the current environment. Quite an achievement. His overall theme was security, first pulling ...
Open access notablesPublicly expressed climate scepticism is greatest in regions with high CO2 emissions, Pearson et al., Climatic Change:We analysed a recently released corpus of climate-related tweets to examine the macro-level factors associated with public declarations of climate change scepticism. Analyses of over 2 million geo-located tweets in the U.S. showed that climate ...
You can be all negative about these charter schools if you want, but I’m here to accentuate the positive. You can get all worked up, if you want to, by the contradiction of Luxon saying We’re going to make sure that every school in the country is teaching exactly the same ...
Losing The Room: One can only speculate about what has persuaded the Coalition Government that it will pay no electoral price for unreasonably pushing ahead with policies that are so clearly against the national interest. They seem quite oblivious to the risk that by doing so they will convince an increasing ...
Name suppression decisions can be tough sometimes. No matter your views on free speech, you have to be hard-hearted not to be torn by the tug of the competing arguments. I think you can feel the Supreme Court wrestling with that in M v The King. The case for ...
The Merchants of Menace: The Coalition Government has convinced itself that the “Brahmins’” emollient functions have become much too irksome and expensive. Those who see themselves as the best hope of rebuilding New Zealand’s ailing capitalist system, appear to have convinced themselves that a little bit of blunt trauma is what their mollycoddled ...
When National first proposed its Muldoonist "fast-track" law, they were warned that it would inevitably lead to corruption. And that is exactly what has happened, with Resources Minister Shane Jones taking secret meetings with potential applicants:On Tuesday, in a Newsroom story, questions were raised about a dinner Jones ...
Buzz from the Beehive One day – hopefully – we will push that Russian rascal, Vladimir Putin, beyond breaking point. Perhaps it will happen today, when he learns that Foreign Minister Winston Peters is again tightening the thumbscrews. Peters announced further sanctions, this time on 28 individuals and 14 entities ...
How Labour’s and National’s failure to move beyond neoliberalism has brought New Zealand to the brink of economic and cultural chaos.TO START LOSING, so soon after you won, requires a special kind of political incompetence. At the heart of this Coalition Government’s failure to retain, and build upon, the public ...
“Members of Parliament don’t work for us, they represent us, an entirely different thing. As with so much that has turned out badly, the re-organising of MPs’ responsibilities began with the Fourth Labour Government. That’s when they began to be treated like employees – public servants – whose diaries had ...
It’s becoming a classic case study for why lobbying deals with politicians need greater scrutiny. Former National Minister Steven Joyce runs a lobbying company with a major client – the University of Waikato. The University desperately wants $300m+ of taxpayer funding to establish a third medical school in New Zealand, ...
Time To Choose: Like it or not, the Kiwis are either going into AUKUS’s “Pillar 2” – or they are going to China.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 ...
Henry Ergas writes – When in Randall Jarrell’s Pictures from an Institution, a college president is accused of being a hypocrite, the novel’s narrator retorts that the description is grossly unfair. After all, the man is still far from the stage of moral development at which the charge ...
David Farrar writes – Radio NZ reports: The Education Review Office says too many new teachers feel poorly prepared for their jobs. In a report published on Monday, the review office said 60 percent of the principals it interviewed said their new teachers were not ready. ...
New Zealand’s economic performance and the PM’s vision Michael Reddell writes – When I wrote yesterday morning’s post, highlighting how poorly both New Zealand and its Anglo peer countries have been doing in respect of productivity in recent times (ie, in the case of New ...
Hi all,Firstly - thank you! You guys are awesome. The response I’ve received to last night’s mail has been quite overwhelming. It’s a ghastly day outside, but there are no clouds in here.In case you didn’t read my email and are wondering what on earth I’m talking about you can ...
If there was still any doubt as to who is actually running this government – and it isn’t the buffoon from Botany – then this week’s announcement of a huge spend up on charter schools has settled the matter. While jobs and public services continue to be cut in the ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Gaye Taylor As widespread drought raises expectations for a repeat of last year’s ferocious wildfire season, response teams across Canada are grappling with the rapidly changing face of fire in a warming climate. No longer quenched by winter, nor quelled by the ...
Half of Christchurch City Holdings Ltd’s directors and its chair resigned en masse last night in protest at Christchurch City Council’s demand to front-load dividends File Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The chair of Christchurch City Council’s investment company and four of its independent directors resigned in protest last ...
The University of Waikato has reworded an advertisement that begins the tender process for its new $300 million-plus medical school even though the Government still needs to approve it. However, even the reworded ad contains an architect’s visualisations of what the school might look like. ACT leader David Seymour told ...
As a follow-up to the Rings of Power trailer discussion, I thought I needed to add something. There has been some online mockery about the use of the same actor for both the Halbrand and Annatar incarnations of Sauron. The reasoning is that Halbrand with a shave and a new ...
This isn’t quite as dramatic as the title might suggest. I’m not going anywhere, but there is something I wanted to talk to you about.Let’s start with a typical day.Most days I send out a newsletter in the morning. If I’ve written a lot the previous evening it might be ...
Buzz from the Beehive The promise of tax relief loomed large in his considerations when the PM delivered a pre-Budget speech to the Auckland Business Chamber. The job back in Wellington is getting government spending back under control, he said, bandying figures which show that in per capita terms, the ...
Yesterday de facto Prime Minister David Seymour announced that his glove puppet government would be re-introducing charter schools, throwing $150 million at his pet quacks, donors and cronies and introducing an entire new government agency to oversee them (the existing Education Review Office, which actually knows how to review schools, ...
Seeing that, in order to discredit the figures and achieve moral superiority while attempting to deflect attention away from the military assault on Rafa, Israel supporters in NZ have seized on reports that casualty numbers in Gaza may be inflated … Continue reading → ...
David Farrar writes – Newstalk ZB report: The man responsible for a horror hit and run in central Wellington last year was on a suspended licence and was so drunk he later asked police, “Did I kill someone?” Jason Tuitama injured two women when he ran a red ...
Muriel Newman writes – Former US President Ronald Reagan once said, “Freedom is a fragile thing and it’s never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by way of inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation.” The fight for ...
Why Courts should have said Waitangi Tribunal could not summons Karen Chhour Gary Judd writes – In the High Court, Justice Isacs declined to uphold the witness summons issued by the Waitangi Tribunal to compel Minister for Children, Karen Chhour, to appear before it to be ...
Bryce Edwards writes – The number of voices raising concerns about the Government’s Fast-Track Approvals Bill is rapidly growing. This is especially apparent now that Parliament’s select committee is listening to submissions from the public to evaluate the proposed legislation. Twenty-seven thousand submissions have been made to Parliament ...
An average of 166 New Zealand citizens left the country every day during the March quarter, up 54% from a year ago.Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The economy and housing market is sinking into a longer recession through the winter after a slump in business and consumer confidence in ...
The government has made it abundantly clear they’re addicted to the smell of new asphalt. On Tuesday they introduced a new term to the country’s roading lexicon, the Roads of Regional Significance (RoRS), a little brother for the Roads of National (Party) Significance (RoNS). Driving ahead with Roads of Regional ...
School is outAnd I walk the empty hallwaysI walk aloneAlone as alwaysThere's so many lucky penniesLying on the floorBut where the hell are all the lucky peopleI can't see them any moreYesterday morning, I’d just sent out my newsletter on Tama Potaka, and I was struggling to make the coffee. ...
The Government has yet again failed to do the one thing that needs to happen to ensure houses can be built – commit to ongoing funding, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Treasury officials have outlined many ways in which the Fast Track Approvals Bill is deeply flawed, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking says. ...
Green Party co-leaders Marama Davidson and Chlöe Swarbrick used this year's State of the Planet to call on the Government to prioritise people and planet as the delivery of the Budget approaches. A full transcript of their speeches can be found below. ...
Green Party co-leaders Marama Davidson and Chlöe Swarbrick have used their State of the Planet speeches to challenge the Government to prioritise people and planet over profit as the delivery of the Budget approaches. ...
The Government’s introduction of legislation that would enable landlords to end tenancies with no reason marks a dark day for the 1.4 million people who rent their home in Aotearoa. ...
The Minister for Mental Health has found the Suicide Prevention Office and mental health support for 111 calls slipping through his fingers, says Labour spokesperson for Mental Health Ingrid Leary. ...
Today’s justification from the Minister for Children for scrapping protections for our tamariki was either a case of ignorance or deliberate deception. ...
The Green Party says the Government’s misguided policy on gangs will fail, following the announcement of the establishment of a national gang unit and district gang disruption units to target gang activities. ...
“With Police pay negotiations still unresolved after six months in Government, Mark Mitchell has today rolled the Commissioner out for a rebrand of their approach to gang crime,” Labour police spokesperson Ginny Andersen said. ...
The Government bringing back 50 charter schools will not increase achievement and is a distraction from the core mission of the education system, Labour education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
Te Pāti Māori is showing extreme concern over the Environment Select Committees adoption of a lucky dip draw to determine hearings for the Fast Track Approvals bill. Of the 27,000 submissions, 2,900 requested to present. All organisations will be heard; however, the remaining 2,350 submitters will be subject to a ...
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. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed a New Zealand Government plane will head to New Caledonia in the next hour in the first in a series of proposed flights to begin bringing New Zealanders home. “New Zealanders in New Caledonia have faced a challenging few days - and bringing ...
The Coalition Government will introduce legislation this year that will enable roadside drug testing as part of our commitment to improve road safety and restore law and order, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Alcohol and drugs are the number one contributing factor in fatal road crashes in New Zealand. In ...
The Government has announced a series of immediate actions in response to the independent review of Kāinga Ora – Homes and Communities, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “Kāinga Ora is a large and important Crown entity, with assets of $45 billion and over $2.5 billion of expenditure each year. It ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour is pleased that Pseudoephedrine can now be purchased by the general public to protect them from winter illness, after the coalition government worked swiftly to change the law and oversaw a fast approval process by Medsafe. “Pharmacies are now putting the medicines back on their ...
Tēnā koutou katoa. Da jia hao. Good morning everyone. Prime Minister Luxon, your excellency, a great friend of New Zealand and my friend Ambassador Wang, Mayor of what he tells me is the best city in New Zealand, Wayne Brown, the highly respected Fran O’Sullivan, Champion of the Auckland business ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced that the Government will make it easier for lines firms to take action to remove vegetation from obstructing local powerlines. The change will ensure greater security of electricity supply in local communities, particularly during severe weather events. “Trees or parts of trees falling on ...
Wairarapa Moana ki Pouakani were the top winners at this year’s Ahuwhenua Trophy awards recognising the best in Māori dairy farming. Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka announced the winners and congratulated runners-up, Whakatōhea Māori Trust Board, at an awards celebration also attended by Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Finance Minister ...
"On the 27th of March, I sought assurances from the Chief Executive, Department of Internal Affairs, that the Department’s correct processes and policies had been followed in regards to a passport application which received media attention,” says Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden. “I raised my concerns after being ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins has announced the appointment of three new District Court Judges, to replace Judges who have recently retired. Peter James Davey of Auckland has been appointed a District Court Judge with a jury jurisdiction to be based at Whangarei. Mr Davey initially started work as a law clerk/solicitor with ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour is calling on the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) to put ideology to the side and focus on students’ learning, in reaction to the union holding paid teacher meetings across New Zealand about charter schools. “The PPTA is disrupting schools up and down the ...
Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly today announced the appointment of Craig Stobo as the new chair of the Financial Markets Authority (FMA). Mr Stobo takes over from Mark Todd, whose term expired at the end of April. Mr Stobo’s appointment is for a five-year term. “The FMA plays ...
Surf Life Saving New Zealand and Coastguard New Zealand will continue to be able to keep people safe in, on, and around the water following a funding boost of $63.644 million over four years, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Associate Transport Minister Matt Doocey say. “Heading to the beach for ...
New Zealand and Tuvalu have reaffirmed their close relationship, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand is committed to working with Tuvalu on a shared vision of resilience, prosperity and security, in close concert with Australia,” says Mr Peters, who last visited Tuvalu in 2019. “It is my pleasure ...
New Zealand is gravely concerned about the situation in New Caledonia, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The escalating situation and violent protests in Nouméa are of serious concern across the Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “The immediate priority must be for all sides to take steps to de-escalate the ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon met today with Samoa’s O le Ao o le Malo, Afioga Tuimalealiifano Vaaletoa Sualauvi II, who is making a State Visit to New Zealand. “His Highness and I reflected on our two countries’ extensive community links, with Samoan–New Zealanders contributing to all areas of our national ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has announced that he has approved Waiheke Island ferry operator Island Direct to be eligible for SuperGold Card funding, paving the way for a commercial agreement to bring the operator into the scheme. “Island Direct started operating in November 2023, offering an additional option for people ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters today announced further sanctions on 28 individuals and 14 entities providing military and strategic support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “Russia is directly supported by its military-industrial complex in its illegal aggression against Ukraine, attacking its sovereignty and territorial integrity. New Zealand condemns all entities and ...
A year on from the tragedy at Loafers Lodge, the Government is working hard to improve building fire safety, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “I want to share my sincere condolences with the families and friends of the victims on the anniversary of the tragic fire at Loafers ...
Ka nui te mihi kia koutou. Kia ora and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you so much for having me here in the lead up to my Government’s first Budget. Before I get started can I acknowledge: Simon Bridges – Auckland Business Chamber CEO. Steve Jurkovich – Kiwibank CEO. Kids born ...
New Zealand and Vanuatu will enhance collaboration on issues of mutual interest, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “It is important to return to Port Vila this week with a broad, high-level political delegation which demonstrates our deep commitment to New Zealand’s relationship with Vanuatu,” Mr Peters says. “This ...
Minister for Land Information, Chris Penk will travel to Peru this week to represent New Zealand at a meeting of trade ministers from the Asia-Pacific region on behalf of Trade Minister Todd McClay. The annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Ministers Responsible for Trade meeting will be held on 17-18 May ...
Minister of Education Erica Stanford will head to the United Kingdom this week to participate in the 22nd Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers (CCEM) and the 2024 Education World Forum (EWF). “I am looking forward to sharing this Government’s education priorities, such as introducing a knowledge-rich curriculum, implementing an evidence-based ...
Minister of Education Erica Stanford has today thanked outgoing New Zealand Qualifications Authority Chair, Hon Tracey Martin. “Tracey Martin tendered her resignation late last month in order to take up a new role,” Ms Stanford says. Ms Martin will relinquish the role of Chair on 10 May and current Deputy ...
New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and President Emmanuel Macron of France today announced a new non-governmental organisation, the Christchurch Call Foundation, to coordinate the Christchurch Call’s work to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online. This change gives effect to the outcomes of the November 2023 Call Leaders’ Summit, ...
Distinguished public servant and former diplomat Sir Maarten Wevers will lead the independent review into the disability support services administered by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. The review was announced by Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston a fortnight ago to examine what could be done to strengthen the ...
Today’s announcement by Police Commissioner Andrew Coster of a National Gang Unit and district Gang Disruption Units will help deliver on the coalition Government’s pledge to restore law and order and crack down on criminal gangs, Police Minister Mark Mitchell says. “The National Gang Unit and Gang Disruption Units will ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today expressed regret at North Korea’s aggressive rhetoric towards New Zealand and its international partners. “New Zealand proudly stands with the international community in upholding the rules-based order through its monitoring and surveillance deployments, which it has been regularly doing alongside partners since 2018,” Mr ...
Air Vice-Marshal Tony Davies MNZM is the new Chief of Defence Force, Defence Minister Judith Collins announced today. The Chief of Defence Force commands the Navy, Army and Air Force and is the principal military advisor to the Defence Minister and other Ministers with relevant portfolio responsibilities in the defence ...
Legislation to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act has been introduced to Parliament. The Bill’s introduction reaffirms the Coalition Government’s commitment to the safety of children in care, says Minister for Children, Karen Chhour. “While section 7AA was introduced with good intentions, it creates a conflict for Oranga ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins will this week travel to the UK and Italy to meet with her defence counterparts, and to attend Battles of Cassino commemorations. “I am humbled to be able to represent the New Zealand Government in Italy at the commemorations for the 80th anniversary of what was ...
The upcoming Budget will include funding for up to 50 charter schools to help lift declining educational performance, Associate Education Minister David Seymour announced today. $153 million in new funding will be provided over four years to establish and operate up to 15 new charter schools and convert 35 state ...
“The results of the public consultation on the terms of reference for the Royal Commission into COVID-19 Lessons has now been received, with results indicating over 13,000 submissions were made from members of the public,” Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden says. “We heard feedback about the extended lockdowns in ...
Foreign Minister, Defence Minister, other Members of Parliament Acting Chief of Defence Force, Secretary of Defence Distinguished Guests Defence and Diplomatic Colleagues Ladies and Gentlemen, Good afternoon, tēna koutou, apinun tru It’s a pleasure to be back in Port Moresby today, and to speak here at the Kumul Leadership ...
Health, infrastructure, renewable energy, and stability are among the themes of the current visit to Papua New Guinea by a New Zealand political delegation, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “Papua New Guinea carries serious weight in the Pacific, and New Zealand deeply values our relationship with it,” Mr Peters ...
The coalition Government is launching Roads of Regional Significance to sit alongside Roads of National Significance as part of its plan to deliver priority roading projects across the country, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The Roads of National Significance (RoNS) built by the previous National Government are some of New Zealand’s ...
A high-level New Zealand political delegation in Honiara today congratulated the new Government of Solomon Islands, led by Jeremiah Manele, on taking office. “We are privileged to meet the new Prime Minister and members of his Cabinet during his government’s first ten days in office,” Deputy Prime Minister and ...
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 ...
Peter Jackson is bringing Lord of the Rings back to Wellington, producing two new Gollum films in Wellington. Madeleine Chapman (Gollum) argues with Madeleine Chapman (Smeagol) about it. First of all, I can’t believe we’re even having this conversation. Of course it’s great news!I don’t know, it gives me ...
As part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, a part-time media librarian and superannuitant explains how he spends and saves. Want to be part of The Cost of Being? Fill out the questionnaire here.Gender: Male Age: 65 Ethnicity: EuropeanRole: Media librarian ...
The Government’s Environmental Select Committee is refusing to engage meaningfully when it matters the most over new fast tracking environmental legislation, says Ngāti Ruanui. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Samantha Marsh, Senior Research Fellow in Public Health, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau Christoph Soeder/dpa New Zealand’s decision to no longer offer free influenza vaccines for all children under 12 will likely wipe out recent gains in uptake. And it ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexis Anja Kallio, Deputy Director (Research), Queensland Conservatorium, Griffith University Many young people in contact with the justice system come from backgrounds of extreme poverty, parental abuse or neglect, parental incarceration and disrupted education. These complex traumas often manifest as addictions ...
The agency was found to be underperforming and ‘not financially viable’, explains Stewart Sowman-Lund in this extract from The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. A damning report A government-ordered ...
Asia Pacific Report For more than 76 years, Palestinians have resisted occupation, dispossession and ethnic cleansing, culminating in Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. Yet in the midst of this catastrophic seven months of “hell on earth”, it is a paradox that there exists an extraordinary oasis of peace and nature. ...
You’ll never set foot in one. But its emissions still effect you. Shanti Mathias reports on a campaign to make private jet owners pay for their emissions in some way. The private jet passengers saunter down the red carpet, wearing sunglasses and heels; paparazzi cameras flash. The sky is blue, ...
Quality teachers back on the front line can only be a good thing. One of the difficult things we teach in senior English classes at secondary school is the development of an idea. This involves deepening your argument, without instead “going sideways” and merely adding examples while repeating the same ...
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Opinion: As an indication of the eye-watering sums involved for the mega-prison plans announced two weeks ago by Corrections Minister Mark Mitchell, consider that $932 million has already been spent on a separate facility due to open at Waikeria next year – that’s about $1.5 million for each of the ...
Opinion: People with certain types of health conditions are more likely than others to have their symptoms dismissed, minimised or disbelieved. These conditions are diagnosed based on the patient self-report of symptoms, where there is no definitive diagnostic test that can prove the existence of disease or demonstrate structural or ...
The intensity of it, ironically, can feel like bullying. Social media activism is reaching something of a peak with the war in Gaza, using the hashtag Blockout2024. It started at this year’s MetGala when influencer and model Haley Kalil was caught on video muttering ‘let them eat cake’ – suddenly ...
It’s 2011 and I am 43 years old. My partner, Christine, and I got together when I was 36. We had been friends for about 10 years before that. One of the first things I asked Christine was whether she wanted to have kids. I had just come out of ...
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What these organisations do in the privacy of their own death throes is entirely their business. But there should be no government support provided.
Would you support keeping NZOn Air funding?
Or government funding for Newsroom?
There's always a line to be drawn somewhere.
I support:
Hasn't this Government recently provided support to a ski field?
A ski field???
Ski fields are endangered species so they need taxpayer support.
Like ConcertFM.
Perhaps those using those spaces and listening to that station have influence over Ministers.
There was going to be a big public media merger last year. Not now.
The next step after they cut the public service is to go after subsidized services. Food banks. School lunches. NZSO. Media support like Maori TV. Discretionary welfare payments like hardship. Public subsidies of all kinds.
It's the Ruth Richardson pattern, and it gets noisy.
Arts and cultural funding in general is an endangered species in NZ. We're governed by a bunch of philistines (successive governments, not just this one). Sports and roads are far more worthy, apparently. RNZ Concert might be 'niche' but it's practically all that's left, and must be saved.
Besides, it's a sanity saver when the news gets too much. I'm enjoying it as I type 🙂
As a supporter and listener I wholeheartedly agree. It keeps me sane in Auckland's traffic woes for starters.
And Saudi sheep 'farms'.
Their argument would be that around 800 full time jobs are involved and over $100 million turnover between whakapapa and Turoa. Governments on both sides regard anything that is part of the tourism industry as very important. Tourism expenditure in 2022 was around $26 billion. (mostly domestic $24 billion)
Also I think it may be a loan rather than a straight out gift? Could be wrong on that.
Regardless, in my opinion it's still corporate welfare. No business is too big to fail IMO.
In the form of a 25% shareholding and loans. Even then I'm not entirely convinced it's a good idea.
I used to work in philanthropic sector and we joked about 'groans' because if any org ever got a govt loan they morphed into grants that were never payed back.
Yep. I am at heart a supporter of the free market. And while I'm in favour of governments regulating markets when it is necessary, I draw as firm a line as I can at the public provides direct financial support to private sector organisations.
What the hell is happening in Sydney with knife attacks.
My comments are being moderated.
"And that is before I get time to have a peek into the actual report."
Is there a reason we still don't have a rolling eyes emoticon?
[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.]
please don’t pick a fight with another author, and the site owner/sysop under my posts. This is a difficult enough conversation as it is. But even if it had not been another author, taking potshots at people over this is just a big no. You know how to use your words better than this.
Yes. You are right. I submit an apology for doing so.
You can delete if you prefer. Or keep it and my apology up.
👍
Bombers hits the mark and this is why I’m increasingly ambivalent about gender debates
it's why I talk about sex as a class as well.
Annoys the hell out of me when people treat sexism as "identity politics." Sex isn't a feeling of identity, it's a class, and a far more sharply defined class than any of the economic or relationship-to-production ones Bomber might feel are proper classes.
Your current ambivalence comes across Rob, which is fine by me.
I strongly believe people should put their individual energy into their personal priorities. This is the only way sustained pressure can happen to enact long lasting change.
However, there is a distinction between that, and advising others on where they should put their priorities (and energy). I think Bomber falls into that trap of demanding people to align, rather than persuading them to.
Wondering if there are, or ever have been, any trans people engaging in the debate here on TS?
Surely they'd appreciate the keen interest being shown and the great deal of background reading many of the commenters have done.
They would, of course, be warmly welcomed and invited to debate.
It puzzles me that their presence is not apparent. This surely must be a hot-spot for discussions on issues that affect them intimately.
Yes there have been trans people engaged in the debate here on TS. There probably still are, people aren’t required to share their gender identity before commenting.
Maybe next you will ask what happened to all the feminists that used to comment here.
Not wanting anyone to share their gender identity here, weka, just wondering how comfortable they might feel joining the debate atm. Naturally, there'd be a range of responses, but there might also be a trend that speaks to the tenor of the debate.
no shit. A tenor of debate that you contribute to.
Again, ask yourself why so many feminists and other women stopped being authors and commenting here.
Fair enough about spatting, weka.
With regards the reasons for feminist authors and commenters leaving the site; I just don't know. If there were reasons expressed and I'd read them, I'd perhaps know, but I don't recall seeing anything explicit. Can you tell me, please?
a number of things.
In the past moderation was looser and there was more abuse. That puts women authors and commenters off.
In the debates that meant a lot to women eg discussion rape culture, it was incredibly hard going and many women simply had better things to do with their time and hearts.
There's also the general bloke nature of the place.
There was a period of time where specific men (commenters and authors) caused problems for feminists in particular.
Some of the women here worked on the women's project for many months behind the scenes to make some changes. Lynn offered to set up a sister site for women. Two of the male authors took a hatchet to the project and the women just walked away (myself included, I didn't write or comment onsite for over a year. Ihumātao brought me back).
There was a period of time before that when we had women authors and commenters and I at least moderated to encourage that. Lynn looked at the stats at one point and confirmed that the numbers of women here had increased. Many of those regular women are now gone. That's true of commenters and authors generally, they do tend to move through. But there have been specific issues for women that in the end were just too hard to address.
Likewise, it's hard to trans people to be here. Not all trans people support gender identity ideology, or they support some rights fights and not others. Some rely heavily on the rainbow culture. I try and moderate to temper how trans rights are talked about, and there are limits on how I can do that. For instance Joe linked to tWig asking for the term autogynephilia to be banned. That's just not possible. We don't ban words and we're not going to stop people talking about a psyhicatric condition listed in the DSM-5. I would however moderate if someone here started using AGP as a pejorative against another commenter.
It's also hard for Māori to be here. Same dynamics.
Thanks, weka.
Intriguing to hear about a then-proposed sister site. It would be interesting to read its proposed kaupapa etc.
The list of groups who find it hard to be here could include neurodivergent people as well. All of those folk probably feel the same about being in the world outside of TS as well.
Who does this site suit best, I wonder?
why would neurodivergent people find it hard to be in a feminist online space? I'm neurodivergent and I love women's spaces. Lots of ND women do.
The purpose of the women's site was to suit women 💃
I wrote:
"The list of groups who find it hard to be here …"
and by "here", I meant TS.
This isn't a "feminist online space", is it?
👍 Understood.
I left in Aug23 mainly because of being justly moderated off after becoming annoyed at the continual non participation, socratic type style or reckons of one poster.
I maintained a 'watching brief', ha ha, looking at TS every day. At first I had a sticky on my screen saying not to post on TS but toward the end of my time away it was automatic to read only.
I came back in Feb24. What brought me back was the excellence of the female author, Weka, and the posts from female posters of all stripes on women's issues. Should this coverage lessen or the reckons on women's issues from a base of ignorance increase I will happily go again. Life is too short. I crave the exchange of ideas not feeding the basics. Just a personal preference.
I am truly grateful that some men are looking at the Cass Review. it's companion piece article from BMJ makes a good combination.
It worries me a bit though, that much of this stuff had been pointed out by females on the site in times gone past but has been framed, if it was read/responded to at all, as being anti trans when in fact it was women's rights focussed. There is a difference.
I read and participate on X Twitter. I value the men there who avowedly support the womens' rights movement and in fact wrote to the two I follow deeply, after the bad patch I was in after Aug23 when the womens rights cause seemed to be misunderstood, generally, by many men here. X has virtues in being able to be pithy…..like an 'appetiser' but the 'main course' here on TS is worth its weight in gold.
great sticky tactic! I deleted my twitter app from my phone sometimes as a way of curating what I engage with.
Women who support YOUR version of the womens' rights movement, Shanreagh.
In the UK, a Womens' Equality Party was established in 2015, well before Posie Parker set up hers finally (after several attempts, with paperwork out of order in previous tries).
This lists the party objectives here: https://www.womensequality.org.uk/objectives.
According to Wikipedia, in 2022 "the party voted in support of a motion to back gender self-identification. Of the party members who took part in the vote at the party's conference, 138 voted in favour of gender self-identification, while 29 opposed, and 5 abstained."
The party objectives and the position on transgender identification are ones that many, many NZ women support.
tWig I don't think I mentioned any version of the womens rights movements or parties, just that I wanted to come back when I read Weka's posts and read the replies. I'll go away just as quickly, as life is too short.
I tend not support parties as such. I support the women's movement or women's rights issues.
I was aware of PoW but did not know about the Womens Equality Party, so thanks for that advice. I will look them up.
Don't bother wondering at me, Robert. I don't find your random vague musings worth the reply.
Can you wander off somewhere else?
both of you, please stop the spat. Just walk away if you don't want to reply.
I would if I could, Molly, but I've been shunted, as you were, into Open Mike and moderation at the same time, probably because of my random vague musings 🙂
These issues might touch people here more closely than you realise. Adolescence and identity formation is a universal human experience (or should be!)
Doubtless you are correct, roblogic. I felt those same drivers resulted in much of what happened on Parliament's lawn at the time Trevor Mallard was going through his Barry Manilow period.
What drivers are these?
The protests were nominally about the requirement for people to be vaccinated if they held jobs that faced the public aka "the mandates". And then it became a hodge-podge of diverse protests without any coherency and shadow protests from people trying to get publicity for their own, rather unpleasant, idiology.
Adolescence and identity formation. Trauma there can manifest in many ways later on. Anger around being told what to do, especially regarding body-sovereignty, seems not to fade over time.
I was commenting sincerely but it seems you aren't. Mockery is unhelpful.
I too, am commenting sincerely and can't understand your response, if it was addressed to me – sometimes it's hard to tell with this format. If it's me you are addressing, I can say I'd never mock your comments because I believe them to be sincere and thoughtful. I mean, who could confidently decode 5.2.1.3.1.2 ???? Is that you? Is that me? Is that …? Who???
Thank-you Robert, I had my doubts, because you seemed to shoot off on a weird tangent, but that's OK.
There have been Robert and I remember being the only person to object and request moderation after Sabine insisted that they needed to apologise to their family for "what they had done".
Yep, yep, yep…
Its all gone a bit Best Bets sister publication around here.
what is the point of that video? It's the second time you've posted it.
From the video's comments:
"The best music to listen to being stuck in space together after unimaginable trauma"
One of the problems for people in refuse to use evidenced debate is that its really easy to point out where they are talking shite.
What Sabine actually said,
https://thestandard.org.nz/what-is-gender/#comment-1832670
For the people that understand the politics of trans widows, Sabine's comment makes sense.
I did moderate in that conversation, but both the trans woman Joanne and Sabine had useful views to present. Joanne is great, they know how to hold their own. Sabine is also great, she brings in a strong style of honestly held belief that challenges other people's beliefs.
That's what we do here, provide a space for robust debate and work through the issues.
Hi Robert,
Yes there has been at least one Trans person reading this site and I have commented on some of the anti-trans posts in the past but to be honest I don't generally because I am tired. One way or another I have been fighting these battles for most of my 67 years and every time it appears transpeople are beginning to make some progress someone comes along and blows it all to hell. As for those who comment on these posts, only Weka makes any attempt to treat transpeople as people rather than an enemies to be defeated and I am tired of it, so I just live my non agressive and hopefully positive life. It ain't easy to be honest
Thank you, Joanne – I had truly wondered how it might be.
"It ain't easy to be honest"
We are all tired. [deleted] That's honesty. Not an insult.
[your additional comment and my mod note both disappeared when I was putting you in the ban list and I think because you were editing the comment. For clarity, below is what was deleted – weka]
that’s the second time today I’ve had to moderate you. Please don’t make it three.
In this case, it’s about the part of the policy that covers tone or language that has the effect of excluding others. JP was sharing personally and answering a question they are best qualified to answer. Your response was utterly unnecessary and can only be perceived as provocation.
Everyone has their own idea about what an insult is, and sometimes it’s about timing and appropriateness as much as the words or one sided intent.
Agree 100% weka – you'd have to be a "flailing idiot" not to
Wise words, imho – particularly "allow themselves". And agreeing to disagree.
I'm tired too Molly.
As far as Women's issues is concerned I have have been fighting seriously since I first joined the PS when I took a case to the Public Service Commission on not being given access to the Public Servant on transfer allowances and pool housing as these were for bread-winners (it said this in the manual) and by definition also in the manual) breadwinners were male. I took a case for a review of policy of the Govt Super fund that only had options for a male with a dependent health-wise spouse and no options for a female with a dependent halth-wise spouse, that I had. My dad thought I was possibly exaggerating and when he read the policy etc said 'this is so discriminatory it will be changed soon'
And dear reader it was changed in 1993 about 15 years after I had raised it
I missed out on a job because 'what would I do out in the field if I needed to go to the loo?' My husband and I missed out on the entry into a ballot for a house/land in Northland as the powers that be decided, perhaps I did not know or realise I'd have to leave the PS. Doh. So men making decisions without asking the woman concerned and being paternal. People lower down in the pecking order told me about these decisions later.
In the years since we have fought the same battles over and over again. They are more cunningly hidden/described now.
We've been part (because we are women) of the idiot 'anti Jacinda because she is a female' league and now the league that wants to sacrifice women's rights to sport and safe spaces because, you know 'feels' for men who want to dress as females. /sarc.
Having studied Womens Issues to a Stage 3 level many of the debates recently are evidence of:
So yes I'm tired too. Then I realise I'm in a long line of battle hardened women (mother/grandmother) in my own family who've fought.
mod note.
Joanne – I am 6 years older than you and have been Lesbian for most of my adult life. In my younger days, trans people were very much part of the Gay community. At a time when sex between men was unlawful – "transing away the gay" was understandable. A few woman also attempted to become the men they thought they should be as they were attracted to other women.
That kind of internalised homophobia should have gone out in the 1980's when same sex attraction became lawful for men and more widely accepted in society. We all worked very hard for that over a lot of years.
These days – the rise of the postmodernist "queering" of society, and the emergence of "gender ideology" which denies even the existence of same sex attraction and maintains that even very young children have a "gender identity" which is entirely separate from biological reality and should take precedence over it, puts us all at risk.
The demand of todays ideologists that everything should be subservient to the belief in a gendered soul has led to the sort of backlash where the force teaming of same sex attracted people with the rest of the "alphabet swamp" (most of whom are straight) endangers the social acceptance we worked so hard to attain.
"At a time when sex between men was unlawful – "transing away the gay" was understandable."
And how would you, a self confessed lesbian, know that? Or are going to type out some more of your amateur psychology? Am I allowed to speculate on why some lesbians dress "butch"? Can I engage in some cod psychology on the motivations of the Gender Critical movement? Is that OK? I have prepared some notes if it is OK.
You have not provided a single piece of evidence for these statements which you continually make – You do have some stats right? Or an academic study? A peer reviewed paper perhaps? Some actual evidence and not just your assertions?
Some weirdo's blog post where they make a word salad that resonates with you won't do. Nor will an individual Trans persons twitter post.
So, as is the standard at The Standard I ask that you provide the Post Modern Trans Manifesto you are always talking of. The one which matches your claims above. The one which apparently dictates the lives of every Trans person and their allies.
What is ridiculous is watching you constantly using the phrase gender ideology. It was coined by that great protector of women and children, the Roman Catholic Church:
"The labelling of gender as an ideology was later incorporated into Vatican documents and displaced the ‘culture of death’ as the framework for understanding the threat posed by SRR. Ratzinger, first as the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and later as Pope Benedict XVI, had a central role in the adoption, circulation, and legitimation of the term ‘gender ideology’. He had already been exposed to feminist critiques and politics while in Germany during the 1980’s as he expressed in the Ratzinger Report (1985), which, for Case (2019) contains the main dimensions of what would later come to be called ‘gender ideology’."
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0037768620907561
Simian Brown should be sacked for incompetence.
New Wellington tunnel: 'An astonishing misunderstanding of transport priorities' | RNZ News
Speaking of tunnels it amazes me (but doesn't surprise me) that the Scandinavians and Germans can design and build an amazing 18km long underwater engineering marvel such as this for I think approx 10 billion euros,
Whilst we get an estimated price of potentially up to $45 billion NZD (twice as much?) for a much shorter and nowhere near as good tunnel option for a second Auckland harbor crossing.
Because crossing the Waitemata, smack in the middle of an active volcanic field in an area exposed to deep tropical depressions, is just like crossing the Øresund strait.
/
Having experienced a major traffic jam the other day on Auckland Harbour bridge, I sympathise with those who call for a second bridge.
But where do the cars go once they make the crossing? NZTA will have to bulldoze many houses in suburbs each side of the harbour so traffic can get to an arterial route.
Far better to avoid central Auckland altogether; it's only getting worse.
The left is eating itself while a far-right government pillages the commonwealth of Aotearoa unopposed. Sigh.
As predicted – what do you suggest?
Keep holding the buggers to account instead of getting sucked into rabbit holes.
send some relevant links my way (NZ based) and I'll see if I can do a post.
"Labour was wasteful" So let's splash out on mega motorways, tunnels, and unaffordable tax cuts for landlords on the one hand
But on the other "we are poor"
Austerity, public service cuts, collapsing schools, removal of fair pay agreements, cancelled ferries, worse public transport, failing water services, higher costs all around for the working class
The narratives are all haywire – a classic KGB technique to keep the masses confused
Investment in transport infrastructure is neither 'splashing out' or 'wasteful' providing the investment has a viable business case.
On the Wellington tunnel, the government asked NZTA to 'investigate a Long Tunnel option for Stage Highway 1 in Wellington'. That includes 'advice on the technical feasibility, cost, and funding and financing options for the proposal'. Government investigates 4km tunnel under Wellington | RNZ News
That seems an appropriate approach, although as evidenced by your link above the project is opposed and supported by the usual suspects based on their particular self interest.
dunno Rob, don't you think that's all dreadfully obvious? I don't think people are distracted by identity pol or infighting, so much as they just don't know how to act any more. I was pretty disappointed in the SS4C for similar reasons.
I mean how do we fight dirty politics, social media manipulation, the disintegration of trust in media, at a time when we can't practice solidarity? So yeah, fair point about the infighting.
Yes it is well travelled ground, I don't have any striking new angles, it's just dirty politics continued from the last National regime. There are scurrilous rumours around John Key (again) but not sure if it's worth digging up that stench again
I'm being held in moderation – is this fair? Is there a justifiable reason? My comments are subject to decision by someone else, where everyone else has free rein/sovereinty to comment.
I put you in premod because of your inability or unwillingness to follow moderation cues and it was taking up too much of my time dealing with that. It’s easier for mods to see the comments and deal with them before they appear on the front end. Most moderation comes down to saving moderator time.
You are not the only one this happens to. There are currently four people in the premod list including yourself.
No-one has free rein to comment as they like on TS (with the exception of Lynn). Everyone can be moderated. Most people moderate themselves.
So, for the moment, I'm hampered, like a horse that's forced to carry extra weight 🙂
When might I be released from this impediment? Is it a matter or (your) discretion?
Are there guidelines you follow, or is this a matter of Royal Assent?
depends on who you think is royality. But generally moderators do what they do unless they grossly overstep the mark and then another moderator or admin will act. Sometimes we discuss each other’s moderations in the back end.
I appreciate the extra weight metaphor, that’s what I mean when I talk about the moderator work load. Atm, it comes down to whether I think it’s more or less work for me to keep you in premod or let you out. You don’t make it easy though Robert.
I like and look forward to all your commentary. And have never thought that you were offensive to anyone. Please keep 'em coming.
he's not in premod for being offensive.
Seconding that validation of the worth/value of comments made by Robert Guyton.
A few of RG's comments might be considered tangential, opaque, cryptic, or otherwise 'challenging' (brain food, imho) – but 'offensive'? That's a stretch, although everyone has their own triggers and ideas/thresholds for what's offensive.
I'd guess there are no (zero) blogs, political or otherwise, that employ democratic moderation, for obvious reasons. Maybe AI will come to the rescue, but I prefer the human touch – seems well-calibrated here, warts and all, and (magically) it's free.
haha, not sure about the free bit tbh.
btw, RG isn't in premod for being offensive. I don't even know what is meant by offensive here.
Sorry weka – I meant free to me and many other users of (the most excellent) TS platform/blog – sincerely hope it's not costing you, or anyone else, too much.
And a sincere thanks for the time and effort put in to keep the infrastructure and comments running smoothly – no doubt there are occasions that require frantic paddling below the surface!
Re 'offensive', I was parroting ianmac, lazy creature that I am now
Christ (so to speak). Same day as the mall mass murder, a bishop was stabbed by a 15 year old while giving a sermon. The police have named it a terrorist incident.
Because the stabbing was streamed onto the internet, a crowd of hundreds of locals gathered outside the church demanding that the police hand over the 15 year old. Police had to bring in reinforcements before they could take him to hospital. Paramedics could also not leave.
Now there are people on twitter saying, oh well, the bishop was a homophobe/Islamophobe/cooker, so, context.
This is where we are at.
content warning, there are multiple images and videos of the stabbing on social media, so take care.
Yesterday's Bondi attacker was a white guy so "mental health", although some commentators were looking for a terrorism angle.
Today's horrible stabbing looks like a hate crime by one unhinged individual, not a planned attack by a "terrorist" organisation.
It certainly is indicative of social breakdown though
Seems likely to me that the Bondi attacker was in the middle of a psychotic break or similar. Just from the reports of his mental health history, isolation, and what he had been doing before the attack.
The police haven't said much about the church attacker, other than that he said Islamic words as he attacked. Could easily also be a mental health breakdown.
But yeah, society is stretched to its limit now.
At the risk of further inflaming a hornet's nest, this thread is a wake-up call for feminists in America and other countries following them on the road to Christo-fascist Gilead
tbf, this GCF was talking about this in 2016 before Trump was elected. There were leftie men arguing Trump's not so bad, which was a major reason for my series of Trump's Not So Bad posts. We (the feminists) knew what was coming and lots of people didn't take us seriously.
As for gender critical women now. The boat has sailed. There have been bitter fights online over this issue between GC women and lines drawn. The progressive feminists are outnumbered by the GC women who will do what it takes to protect women's sex based rights. For US women I expect some of them don't perceive the risk, others understand it very well and know that without winning the fight over sex we can't retain our abortion rights. It's not like if we all stopped the GC work that somehow things would work out. I learned the hard way that left wing men in particular will only support women's rights when it suits them. That's part of why so many women have so few fucks left to give (that, and the whole centre left choosing GII over women thing).
A few on Christian Right feel that if they can't "pray the gay away", they will "trans" it away
Yes indeed.
Just a little addition though a D & C is not necessarily thought of by lay people as an 'abortion' if performed to remove the remains of a non viable fetus/miscarriage. Tiny shifts of meaning/nuances make a difference. D & Cs are not only performed for miscarriages or abortions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilation_and_curettage
Abortions can be performed using the D & C technique and they can be performed using drugs.
The point you make is absolutely taken that the law makers in the US 'crazy' states will of course be using the widest definition of what constitutes an abortion whereas in places where abortion is permitted conversations can take place with nuances/care appropriate depending on the circumstances, for instance a miscarrying woman would not expect a Dr to roll up and say 'we're going to give you an abortion'.
The stories that came out of Ireland prior to 2018 with women dying of sepsis from retained products of miscarriages because Drs did not operate or mothers being forced to wait to birth spontaneously the child that everyone knew was dead plus facing sepsis. We don't want to go back to that type of regime.
From what I have been reading of the situation in the US there are groups helping women travel to states that will carry out an abortion. These groups have formed much like the SOS (Sisters Overseas Service) when NZ had restrictive laws. These groups supported women to travel to Australia by finding $$$, flights, accomodation and hospitals.
Sadly abortion surveillance is a thing.
Snapshot:
“I literally just got punched by some man on the sidewalk,” Brand said in the video. “He goes, ‘sorry,’ and then punches me in the head.”
“What the hell is happening?” said Brand, who could not be reached for comment."
https://www.stuff.co.nz/world-news/350247009/what-we-know-about-viral-tiktoks-saying-women-are-being-punched-nyc-streets