Open mike 16/05/2024
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- Treasury warns deeper recession worsening Budget deficit
The gift that keeps giving: David Seymour has now opened a split in the coalition over the future of National’s promise to build a new medical school. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / TheKakaKia ora. Long stories short, here’s my top things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and ...6 hours ago - Weekly Roundup 22-November-2024
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Record Numbers: The Hīkoi mō te Tiriti, which began at the tip of the North, and the tail of the South, on 11 November, culminated outside Parliament on Tuesday, 19 November 2024, in one of the largest demonstrations in New Zealand’s political history.ACCORDING TO TE ARA, the Ministry of Culture ...7 hours ago - The Rush To Blame “The Activists”
Activists are such easy scapegoats. The right and center have been conditioned for decades to roll their eyes at all protests. The left are easily aggravated over students leading movements they see as belonging to grownups, who have more important concerns like the economy and whether the trains come on ...7 hours ago - Cutting Through An Inundation of Dipshit Racists
Hi,Watching New Zealand from afar offers a strange perspective. It can be a good thing — distance from Aotearoa helped keep me sane while I reported on abuse at New Zealand’s biggest megachurch over the course of a year. It helps fuel my silly podcast. But it can also be ...8 hours ago - This is bad news
The speech yesterday by Treasury’s Chief Economic Advisor warning that the books are in worse shape than forecasted looks like it’s part of a softening-up process for either more cuts or a longer wait to get back into surplus. The speech was a highly unusual public preview of Treasury’s Half-Yearly ...10 hours ago - Skeptical Science New Research for Week #47 2024
Open access notables Projected increase in the frequency of extremely active Atlantic hurricane seasons, Lopez et al., Science Advances: Future changes to the year-to-year swings between active and inactive North Atlantic tropical cyclone (TC) seasons have received little attention, yet may have great societal implications in areas prone to hurricane ...19 hours ago - Chicken Kiev
Chatting in the supermarket this morning, I found I needed to lunge for the chicken drumsticks.Coping mechanisms: who hasn’t felt a greater need for them lately?When it all gets too much, I turn to demonstrating handy butchery hacks.It wasn’t that she’d said anything wrong, our friend, not at all. We ...22 hours ago - The year is 2024 and it’s 1984
This is written in response to the highly significant open letter from a group of economists that was today addressed to Christopher Luxon. The year is 2024, and it’s 1984. The country is reeling from a record Olympic medal gold haul, while the globe grapples with the choice of the ...23 hours ago - The IPCA has failed
Back in 2022, RNZ took an in-depth look at the "Independent" Police Conduct Authority and its handling of killings by police. These are the most serious test of oversight, and you would expect the police's use of lethal force to receive the most severe scrutiny. But despite the police regularly ...1 day ago - Thursday 21 November 2024
The Hīkoi mō Te Tiriti arrived at Parliament on Tuesday – the size is being debated but estimates range from 42,000 to 100,000. The Prime Minister is defending not attending due to some of the organisers being affiliated with Te Pāti Māori. The national gang patch ban came into force ...1 day ago - ‘These budget cuts are counter-productive and make no sense’
I spoke to former Productivity Chair Nana this morning about the letter he and a group of other economists sent to PM Christopher Luxon to urge the Government to urgently suspend cuts to spending and investment for the sake of the economy, struggling businesses and the wellbeing of vulnerable ...1 day ago
- ACT’s Astroturfing & A Co-ordinated Attack on Te Pati Māori
Unity on the Streets / Unity at the TableAfter the Hīkoi, all three right wing Coalition leaders came together to push the idea that the 42,000 - 50,000 + strong Hikoi was somehow less potent and brave, and more illegitimate than the energy and crowd displayed.Prime Minister Christopher Luxon 20-November: ...1 day ago - Durability of carbon dioxide removal is critical for stabilizing temperatures
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- Economists call on PM to suspend budget cuts for the sake of the economy
Nicola Willis’ budget cuts are under fire from economists for having no clear rationale and worsening the recession. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāKia ora. Long stories short, here’s my top things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Thursday, November 21: The news at ...1 day ago
- The end of policing by consent
National has appointed a new police commissioner. And he explicitly rejects policing by consent: Asked if he subscribed to policing by consent, he said he did not. “I don’t talk about policing by consent. I talk about trust and confidence, and it is fundamentally important that the police have ...2 days ago
- The Treaty Principles Bill: A Who’s Who
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- 27% of kids going hungry, up from 21% in a year
One in four Kiwi children live in households where food runs out often or sometimes. Photo: Getty ImagesKia ora. Long stories short, here’s my top things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Wednesday, November 20: The lead: The official annual Health Survey found sharp ...2 days ago - Transport modelling is an illusion
This guest post by Tim Adriaansen, an advocate for accessibility and sustainable transport, originally published on LinkedIn and cross posted here with permission. People prefer cars, right? Probably not. Here’s why. Granted, most people in English-speaking countries use a car to get around. This simple reality underpins our transport ...2 days ago
- Young Maori take over
Neither Wellington nor Parliament has ever seen anything like it before. The Police said there were more than 40,000 but however many there were, yesterday’s Hikoi to Parliament was a monumental event. It was almost three times the Foreshore and Seabed martch of 2004 and many,many times bigger than ...2 days ago
- Gordon Campbell On The Hikoi Aftermath
The euphoria from yesterday’s hikoi may be transitory, but is no less valuable for that. It is pretty rare for the left to feel itself to be in the overwhelming majority, and speaking as the voice of the people. Lest that momentum be lost, the organisers will no doubt be ...3 days ago - Sabin 33 #3 – Solar panels generate too much waste and will overwhelm landfills
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Like everyone else (everyone who wasn't there, anyway), I've spent the morning watching the hikoi march on Parliament. The pictures are astounding: parliament grounds and the surrounding streets are full, and there are still people backed up along Lambton Quay. The police are estimating 35,000 people, and that's a floor ...3 days ago
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There were urgent moves yesterday at Parliament to try and defuse the tension building up over ACT’s Treaty Principles Bill. The Bill’s author, ACT leader David Seymour, told reporters that he understood the Justice Select Committee met yesterday to discuss how long it should take to consider submissions on the ...3 days ago
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7 days ago - More lawlessness from National
On Tuesday, sick of government stonewalling, the Waitangi Tribunal issued a rare court order, ordering the Minister of Health to release unredacted documents within 48 hours showing its reasoning for disestablishing Te Aka Whai Ora, the Māori Health Authority. The government's response to the lawful order of a court? Yeah, ...7 days ago
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Day One of the Treaty Principles Bill…and everyone got what they wanted, and did what they liked. Heated words were exchanged. Culturally appropriate acts of outrage were performed. David Seymour got to play the victim card. Willie Jackson got kicked out of class. A comically red-faced Mr Speaker bellowed “Order, ...1 week ago
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The government's Treaty Principles Bill is up for its first reading today - bought forward in a rush in a desperate effort to avoid the hikoi which is currently marching on Wellington. But the Prime Minister won’t be there for it – he’s literally running away to Peru! But he ...1 week ago
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Good morning, and I’m sorry I’ve been away for a couple of days.I’ve been focusing on the Hikoi, and also testing out sentiment on the Treaty Principles Bill. It’s complicated, and the Treaty Principles Bill will be debated in the House today. The Government’s own lawyers have told them the ...1 week ago - Government must vote down ACT Members Bill that would undermine workers’ rights
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The Treaty Principles Bill is set to have its First Reading in the House today, as the Hīkoi mō Te Tiriti continues. More than 40 KCs have written to the Prime Minister and Attorney-General outlining their “grave concerns” about the substance of the Treaty Principles Bill, while an academic and ...1 week ago
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When the Government says it has reduced the number of people in emergency housing, what it means is it is stopping people from accessing it in the first place. ...1 day ago
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The Government is turning its back on children by not only weakening child poverty reduction targets, but also removing child mental wellbeing as a priority focus in their Child and Youth Wellbeing Strategy. ...1 day ago
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- Release: Call for Palestine recognition by NZ, Australian and Canadian MPs
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Today, Hīkoi mō te Tiriti arrived in Wellington, with thousands gathering to march in unity against the divisive Treaty Principles Bill. ...3 days ago
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...1 week ago
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Kua hinga te manawa kairākau o Te Rua Tekau Ma Waru Tiwhatiwha te po! Kakarauru i te po! Ka rapuhia kei hea koe kua riro! Haere e te Ika a Whiro ki o tini hoa kua ngaro atu ki te Pō ...2 weeks ago
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The opposition parties stand united for an Aotearoa that honours Te Tiriti, rather than seeking to rewrite it. Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori are working together against the Government’s divisive Treaty Principles Bill. ...2 weeks ago
- Release: Labour, Greens and Te Pāti Māori call on the Prime Minister to block the Treaty Principle...
The opposition parties stand united for an Aotearoa that honours Te Tiriti, rather than seeking to rewrite it. Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori are working together against the Government’s divisive Treaty Principles Bill. ...2 weeks ago
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The server will be getting hardware changes this evening starting at 10pm NZDT.
The site will be off line for some hours.
Maybe some dog whistles ?
And , Luxon opines, unsurprisingly..
Of course to a
meanwhile for the rest ( who voted for them? ) the buyers remorse will be kicking in…hard
"sell out" crowd indeed, well described.
And of course the…the Anti Rail (they sure arent Pro Rail !)
Support Te Huia and also fight for Rail in NZ
"Lunch Budgets will hurt students", Opunake Principal says. Stuff Editor's Picks.( if someone can link for me I would be grateful.)
That heading should say "Corporates take food production from the local Community."
In an interesting summary of actions, the article indicates what will be lost along with variety and fresh food in school lunches.
The loss of local supplies, work opportunities, community involvement and a sense of togetherness will go, to be replaced by an overseas corporate trucking in cold lunches, bypassing the locals, and having an unspoken "teachers will distribute" implied.
As the current lunch programme has employed local people locally for local schools, it has created a pool of parents and others who take an active interest in the foods reception, and has led to variety and pupil participation at high levels.
Act does not believe in Community or community building. Act believes in Corporates.
Hence in its costs and budgets trumpeted widely, Act will not count the loss to local businesses or workers, to the surprise of some who possibly voted for one of the three parties.
The unemployment, the loss of contracts to supply, a tipping point for many a local who may then not be able to pay their rent or mortgage, and may have to leave that community.
That fallout will not appear on Act's spread sheets. Rather a tick in the box for Act funders.
It is reduced to a mean scheme about money, not children or their community.
Perhaps taking half a cold lunch from one child to give it to another child makes sense to them. They all "get" something which is better than nothing, but it is processed and lacks heart.
False savings all round, lauded by Act as "We are saving the Lunch Programme", when really they are gutting a system that was working fine, so we have six months to show the real costs.
So soon? Have they been told already or is it that they are anticipating the downside of Seymour's folly?
The current scheme is funded 'till the end of the year, @ $8 per hot lunch. Next year that is cut to $3 and corporates will supply… no more local input.
It's so disheartening to read that but thanks Patricia.
The intangible (at least on a balance sheet) good that comes from community organising and achieving is almost as fruitful as the children being fed.
Kai, sharing, preparing and consuming is a fundamental, dare I say it spiritual act.
To have it able to be demeaned because of economics (eg hospital food contracts) shows us how much we have lost.
Neo-liberalism writ large.
Agree Patricia. Not much has been said about this aspect of it, but it strikes me as maybe the saddest and most destructive feature of the policy. It wrongly elevates a principle of secondary importance (efficiency and more narrowly cost efficiency) to a dominant position as the determining force of what our society looks like. When efficiency gets out of control in this way, it becomes an enemy of the common good.
Someone with imagination might have viewed the community production of school lunches as a spark to start other sorts of community-building and local entrepreneurship. But the efficiency zealots have intervened.
Well articulated points AB & Patricia. And the lack of community involvement sends all the wrong signals to children.
link
https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/350276178/school-business-counting-cost-slashed-lunch-budget
For a government that claims to support more funding to local areas centralising supply (for those 11-18) it is is wrong on so many levels.
Lower quality food will have health cost consequences.
It undermines the local job market and community connection to the school.
Thanks SPC Well summed up.
Where did my post go?
Will Simeon Brown apologise for lying to the House or for incompetence?
https://newsroom.co.nz/2024/05/15/transpower-takes-blame-for-simeon-browns-misleading-chart/?utm_source=Newsroom&utm_campaign=5cf7090b39-Daily_Briefing+16.05.2024&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_71de5c4b35-5cf7090b39-95522477&mc_cid=5cf7090b39&mc_eid=88a3081e75
You started the comment, edited it, and then trashed it, according to the TS records in the back-end; you must have accidentally hit the wrong button. It’s sitting in the Trash folder.
OK Thanks Incognito. Will do better next time.
Paywalled but the lede tells you all you need to know about these arseholes.
/
@marcdaalder
New: Diplomats representing New Zealand at negotiations for a Pandemic Treaty have been told by the Government to focus on making sure New Zealand can opt out of international health rules rather than stopping future pandemics.
https://x.com/marcdaalder/status/1790833218402570444
The supporters of NZF demanded that the UN not be allowed to "dictate" what we should do. Expect that "the opt out" clause is to appease that minority group. (Growing respect for Marc Daalder eh?)
I realise that said supporters are completely beyond reasoning with now, but wouldn't it be lovely if they could just stop their grizzling for 5 minutes to appreciate that they're still alive to grizzle?
I'd really like to know their thinking on an H5N1 bird flu outbreak* that has crossed to humans and has a 50% mortality rate in humans. I seem to remember raising such scenarios during the covid pandemic and people refusing to answer or sidestepping.
*the one that's already in dairy cows as well as wild birds and factory farmed birds.
A little perspective on the threat H5N1 poses.
@kakape
With #H5N1 #birdflu spreading amongst dairy cows, one of the most important things to think about right now is what would need to happen for this virus to actually start a pandemic. I'm on a train, so a brief thread…
https://x.com/kakape/status/1789690737237299502
The Covid-19 pandemic will “look minor” compared with what humanity faces from the growing number of superbugs resistant to current drugs, Prof Dame Sally Davies, England’s former chief medical officer, has warned.
Davies, who is now the UK’s special envoy on antimicrobial resistance (AMR), lost her goddaughter two years ago to an infection that could not be treated.
She paints a bleak picture of what could happen if the world fails to tackle the problem within the next decade, warning that the issue is “more acute” than climate change. Drug-resistant infections already kill at least 1.2 million people a year.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/article/2024/may/13/superbugs-antibiotics-drugs-antimicrobial-resistance-infections-pandemics-sally-davies
The increased levels of populism by NZF and Winston Peters in particular are a concern for all policy-making by this coalition government because it often flies directly in the face of being evidence-based and rational; this includes the ideological bonfire of regulations and repeals.
To silence the critics who claim that NZ is (too) small to make a meaningful difference globally, e.g., with countering CC, this is absurd nonsense, as we’re being watched all the time for creating precedents that can and will be used as convenient escape clauses & excuses by other nations.
'Why do we have to pay huge salaries for a list MP (that no one voted for) when they aren't even working? I'm sure Darleen is hoping the enquiry drags on and on. Was supposed to take between 2 and 4 weeks and has now been 9!
Seems like Greens may have already made their decision anyway as Darleen has not appeared on the Greens website for sometime now.
Suspended Green MP Darleen Tana has missed half of Parliament sittings in 2024, on full pay – NZ Herald
Pleased to see you support the principle of guilty until proven innocent. I wonder if the Herald has been so keen to feign horror over any non-female, non-brown, non-left-wing MPs in the past who have drawn a salary while temporarily suspended?
Not that I intend wasting time poking round in that sewer to find out. As that lyrically gifted but deservedly out of fashion minor versifier A.E. Housman said, "of my three score years and ten,
twentymany will not come again".Seems like the Greens leadership may also support the "guilty until proven innocent" thing as well since she has already been removed from the website.
That whole party vote thing is a bit of a mystery, eh.
/
Seymour wants pre-packaged sandwiches and muesli bars for school lunches. Not freshly made and same old same old. No hot meals it seems. Seeing he has raised the issue of waste, can't help but wonder if these will contribute to a lot of waste.
I was speaking to someone who helps at her local primary school. The children all sit down together, learn to socialise and learn table manners. No hats are allowed. System works very well and the children are happy.
Another positive anecdote about the value of hot school lunches from my local rural Area School newsletter. Are noodles woke food?? Garlic bread?
The birth rate – now around 1.5 per woman (we had been around 2 in recent decades – after the c1960 peak of 4). Freedom of choice related to poverty during fertility years (land – housing cost).
We've done WFF tax credits, parental leave, pre school care subsidy, interest free tertiary loans (maybe repayment free for those in public service roles – education and health?), but the housing cost factor is still there.
The death rate – 2019 6.87 and now 7.13 (peak 7.55 2022-2023 omicron comes for all variant and flu back in with the end of lockdown being factors).
The continuing factor will be lack of access to primary care, including dental and poor public health policy (nutrition policy etc).
https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/350275167/nz-politics-live-chris-hipkins-talks-school-lunches-programme-faces-changes
Just about all negative statistics in NZ can now be traced back to housing costs (or lack of housing).
The attempted assassination of Slovakian PM Fico… curiouser and curiouser..
Szabolcs Panyi
@panyiszabolcs
Wow. Looks like Slovak PM Robert Fico's reported assailant, writer Juraj Cintula, was associated with pro-Russian paramilitary group Slovenskí Branci (SB). Their leader was even trained by Russian ex-Spetsnaz soldiers. Read more on @VSquare_Project https://vsquare.org/slovenski-branci-uniformed-fools-or-an-armed-threat/
https://x.com/panyiszabolcs/status/1790789652078526939