A police investigation into a campaign of harassment against prominent China researcher Anne-Marie Brady has widened to include apparent efforts to sabotage her car.
University of Canterbury professor Brady, who gained international profile over the past 18 months for her work exposing China’s influence campaigns – including in New Zealand – was subjected to a series of mysterious break-ins at her home and campus office in February.
These burglaries, apparently targeting electronic media including phones, computers and USB drives, sparked high-level interest with the Prime Minister expressing concern, and the Police began a nine-month – and still ongoing – investigation involving Interpol.
The vehicular sabotage represents an escalation for the case, coming on the heels of recent vitriolic editorials in local Chinese-language media describing the professor and New Zealand-Chinese democracy activists as “anti-Chinese sons of bitches”…..
……Commentary in local Chinese-language media has been an especially heated, with a recent op-ed by Morgan Xiao – published simultaneously by SkyKiwi, the Mandarin Pages and the New Zealand Chinese Daily News – describing Brady and other New Zealand-Chinese democracy activists as “anti-Chinese sons of bitches” who should “get out of New Zealand”.
+1 Ed – harassment, illegal activity like stealing data for foreign powers, (or worse) should NOT be acceptable in NZ and there should be a lot more resources on it.
We have had the French agents blowing up Rainbow Warrior, Isrealis stealing our passports and now Chinese agents apparently taking data/harrassment/stealing from NZ researchers and worse.
Is the Labour government going to say meh, or are they going to apprehend the perpetrators and prosecute them???? Considering the taxpayer funded budget of the SIS and GCSB you have to wonder how hard can it be and are they competent to do the job?
In addition NZ needs to step up with regards to espionage in NZ… look at the mess the Brits are in, when they are so internally focused they turn a blind eye to espionage in their own country. No wonder there are blatant assassinations going on around the world from foreign powers, as there as there does not seem much interest from governments in protecting citizens anymore.
Mysterious factory break-in raises suspicions about Chinese visit
“It was an unusual burglary, in which four or five laptops were stolen from a Scottish renewable energy manufacturer in the dead of a March night in 2011. So innovative was the company that it had been been visited by a 60-strong delegation led by China’s then vice-premier only two months before.
Nothing else was taken from the company and the crime, while irritating, went unsolved and forgotten – until a few years later pictures began emerging that showed a remarkably similar project manufactured in the world’s most populous country.”
I’ve read that China’s acquisition of IP developed elsewhere is estimated as the largest transfer of wealth ever.
If you look at the R&D costs over time, resources, infrastructure, trial and error you’d skip its a staggering value in today’s currency they’ve bypassed.
The xian y-20 compared to the us c-17 being one the most blatant as they got sprung using a Canadian based expat to highlight the files/folders from compromised servers for lift and shift to China.
@TC, yep and use that money to buy up assets like significant amounts of NZ and OZ…
While the west politicians are getting selfies and self promoting in magazines and MSM or firing off on Twitter, the Chinese government are to be admired in a way as they steadily and carefully advancing their cause, gathering power and strategic assets, partnerships and soft power…
Natz can be bought for $100k, how cheap is that?
Sadly our government in NZ has become greedy and/or naive self promoters hoping for a crust of bread and a pat on the head, as 30 years post Rogernomics our politicians and the general discourse being promoted is that Kiwis are only good at Rugby and a few other sports and incapable of self governing, working or running our own businesses, assets or countries successfully.
So very easy for the Chinese to step in to help, self govern NZ and their businesses and assets in the face of greed, disinterest and brainwashing of the NZ political elite and MSM.
We have also given up our security to others in particular the US in real terms and so now at the mercy of others.
There is a difference between collaboration/friendship and throwing your hands up and leaving it all up to other governments and paper agreements to decide your future and fate and NZ seems to be erring on the lazy second option with no plan B of self management.
Don’t blame them actually. Most US patents are not innovation, just blatant privatisation of others ideas. Parenting rounded corners on a cell phone. FFS.
Rentier capitalism at it’s worse.
US prosperity begins, by ignoring all previous British property rights.
Is the Labour government going to say meh, or are they going to apprehend the perpetrators and prosecute them?
All indications are that they’re going to say ‘meh’ so as to keep up Fonterra’s exports. Apparently maintaining NZ for NZers under NZ control comes a distant second to that.
It occurs to me that Ed is continually bringing up foreign problems and ctiticising the USA and China etc. Whereas I want to see this blog continue and look at what is happening here. If Ed steps on enough toes and makes enough wild assertions about the large dominating foreign powers, it takes time away from us. If it incurs enough wrath Ed’s stuff alone could make it a likely target to be taken to court or closed down.
And groups can get infiltrated; we have wondered who is behind these extra right regulars. There is something driven about them, and the same could apply to those supposedly speaking for the left. I’m just a concerned left-leaning twit myself. I wonder about Ed and others.
It occurs to me that Ed is continually bringing up foreign problems and ctiticising the USA and China etc. Whereas I want to see this blog continue and look at what is happening here.
There are parallels.
We know that the previous National government pretty much copied social policy from the UK and that they copied charter schools from the US. So, seeing what’s happening to them can give us an idea of the damages that National will do next time they’re in power.
This is normal for anyone who dares to criticize the new Mao, Chairman Xi. My main reading is Chinese web news sites in NZ. This is mild compared to everyday comments in Chinese language media. ANY opposing view that even slightly is against Community Party views is considered as being traitor. Yet many on this blog say how great China system is! It is not!
I am called a traitor to China by my own family and Chinese friends in NZ as I am in the process of applying for NZ Citizenship. This is what the Community Party has done to the people in my country.
Thank you for your brave words. The CCCP is indeed a soft tyranny of a nature the western world struggles to understand properly.
My only small objection is that I do not think a majority of us here are admirers of the Chinese regime and it’s expansionist ambitions. Most of us loath empire wherever it appears.
Yes, China is an empire, although few Kiwis see that. Mr Xi is step by step becoming Mao. The ‘Thoughts of Chairman Xi’ is now a reality that rivals the ‘Thoughts of Chairman Mao’. Unlimited term as leader. Increased censorship. Imprisonment and ‘re-education’ of Uyghurs. But in China most people support him still. Economically very good.
Forced abortion when already have one child was common 20 years ago. When I studied nursing, the man on the autopsy table was a criminal, a bullet hole clearly in his forehead. We thought this was right, but it is not. Bribery to get into hospital – yes this is the great Community Party state that so many Kiwis still think is a utopia. There are many things that were and in many parts of China, especially local places, are pure evil. But this was all we knew. Young Chinese people very very different. The future for China will be interesting I think.
Yes that is true, but in China even an emergency, life in danger, in many places you will not even get admitted to hospital. This is very true. And drugs you must pay for. In NZ, I do not have health insurance or my son, yet we get a higher level of care than in China.
In 2016, I spent 4 months in China. My son had been injured in an accident. His father and I paid for pain relief and antibiotics. NZ not that bad!
I haven’t noticed commentators here saying “how great China system is!” I’ve seen some (including myself) criticising it. Polarising into a simple binary view of anything is usually too simple-minded – those who do so lose accuracy in their description. Any political system will have pros & cons. I agree that the international community has been too tolerant of the endemic misbehaviour of the regime for far too long.
As far as your relations are concerned, it may help to frame things in generic terms – the future for China will require adaption to a common-interest framework. National self-interest therefore must be balanced by acknowledgment of the interests of other nations. In respect of China’s attempt to reassert their regional hegemony, we can expect all other nations affected to align in consensus to oppose such re-emergence of imperialism. A balance of equal and opposite forces is therefore eventually inevitable. Naive expectations of success will be replaced by realism. In the interim, any delusional thinking by decision-makers is dangerous…
Yes Chinese political system was necessary for our recent decades of rapid growth. We all pulled in the same direction. No serious opposition was allowed. But now it is still the same, yet the need is no longer there.
You mention my relations, no! Older than me and have never left China, so still have Maos isolationist view of the world.
The biggest challenges for China in the years ahead are the young people, who travel. And the looming huge problem of Xinjiang. And Xizang.
@Fang Zhou – some Kiwis are worried about the Chinese government too, so even if it seems that people might sound anti Chinese be aware most of the time it is directed against the CCP getting a stranglehold into NZ not against Chinese people and also the worry that Chinese residents might be pressured to work for the Chinese government interests even if they didn’t want to on foreign soil, so great might be influence be as our government and industry is asleep at the wheel.
To be fair to the TS, I have not seen anyone say they want the Chinese system. But they do want a return to authoritarian govt control, which could be interrupted as wanting the Chinese system.
A small number on the extreme Left want a authoritarian govt that own pretty much everything. (banks, insurance, utilities, Supermarkets, etc) I think but stand to be corrected that someone wrote that if a person invents something or has a innovative idea they shouldn’t own it but it becomes the property of the state and the people.
Much like what you have in China with the control of central govt over most things and most Chinese corps having some level of govt ownership or control.
China bans facebook and a number of other social sites and developed its own wechat and weibo that can be monitored.
Now we see millions of cameras, name and shame in papers and Huge LED screens around the cities highlighting wrong doing of citizens in real time for example j walking and social credit points for citizens.
I don’t see many on here that want a “Government controlled utopia”. Even the most ardent anti-capitalists still want a democratic Government. Many of the right wingers are open to increased democracy, also.
Government by us.
As for the State owning banks and utilities. When it is a real democratic State it is all of us that own them.
Ownership of patents and innovations very rarely accrues to the innovator. Usually they are acquired by a corporation which uses then for unearned rent for ridiculous lengths of time. Amazons book rights, for example.
You are confusing Democratic ownership with an authoritarian State. At the moment we have an Authoritarian State controlled by corporate donations and influence. And, I suspect, with considerable evidence, a lot of power exerted covertly by the US, Chinese and British Governments. Often in behalf of their corporations.
Good comment – in the long term CCP influence over the NZ Chinese community does not bode well for how that community is perceived by the wider population.
Here’s some interesting information on China and I’m a little concerned at was has happened, but not surprised IRT Professor Brady as the same thing happened to Clive Hamilton when he was trying to get his book published called “The Silent Invasion”.
Here’s some interesting information on China and I’m a little concerned at was has happened, but not surprised IRT Professor Brady as the same thing happened to Clive Hamilton when he was trying to get his book published called “The Silent Invasion
America has spent $5.9 trillion on wars in the Middle East and Asia since 2001, a new study says
The U.S. wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Pakistan have cost American taxpayers $5.9 trillion since they began in 2001.
The figure reflects the cost across the U.S. federal government since the price of war is not borne by the Defense Department alone.
The report also finds that more than 480,000 people have died from the wars and more than 244,000 civilians have been killed as a result of fighting. Additionally, another 10 million people have been displaced due to violence.
Interesting angle from Jeffrey Kaye on the killing of Khashoggi.
Fascinating.
Khashoggi was ‘the only non-royal Saudi who had the beef on the royals’ intimate dealing with al Qaeda in the lead-up to the 9/11 attacks.’
The 9/11 Commission’s final report went out of its way to absolve the Saudis of direct culpability in the attacks. “Saudi Arabia has long been considered the primary source of al-Qaeda funding, but we have found no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded the organisation,” the report said.
But there remain strong grounds to doubt the veracity of these findings, and allegations of high-level Saudi complicity in terrorism have not gone away. Even former 9/11 Commissioners have spoken on record about how they believed their entire investigation had been compromised by the White House, accusing the US government of wanting to “cover up” the full story of 9/11.
Earlier this year, a US lawsuit on behalf of families of the 9/11 victims linking Saudi officials to the 9/11 attacks was cleared to proceed by US District Judge George Daniels in New York.
“The [Saudi] Ministry of Islamic Affairs in the United States and other parts of the world had government officials who conspired with al-Qaeda to support them and to support the 9/11 hijackers,” said Andrew Maloney, a lawyer for the 9/11 victims’ families.
“The 9/11 Commission back in 2003 and 2004 either didn’t pursue, didn’t want to pursue, covered up for the Saudis or just never got around to finishing the investigation. That’s where we picked it up, and we’ve collected a lot more information and evidence since then.”
It’s the facts they’ve agreed too though. That a official signed off on a warrant for K. That they wanted to rendition K. That they targeted K when he sought a marriage licence, thus attacking the ability to legally start a family, nasty.So who paid for the flights. Who told the embassy to stock up on plastic sheets. Sorry but I can’t believe that a they got the go head without serious authority being involved, and that’s before you consider who was most irate and irritated by K. The idea that S.A. will walk away thinking people global don’t now know what they do in their embassies, that we all now sanction by allow those embassies on our soil. And then it gets worse, not only attacking the family of K, his future family, not only renditioning him, or murdering premeditively, but he was a top journalist resident of the USA. Their is serious no way Trump can stop action. So their laughable fake news conference, that only exposes a whole new raft of questions while reinforcing the view that a whitewash was in train, a whitewash protecting a ruthless man. And who could that be, the leprosy of Qatar, the evil in Yeman, and the how dare he get married. If the US does continue to dither, then its even worse, the moral ethical outrage, of the holy land for Islam, coupled to K, coupled to Israel new US embassy… …And then add the explosive that wars mean men don’t come home, mean four wives… …it’s not to hard to see soldiers getting fessup of being fodder, realizing their job actually is to die so their betters can have a extra wife.
If I were a progressive S.A. leader, I’d end multiple wives, pull out of Yeman, reengage Qatar… get Trump to backtrack on embassy… but all we get is dangerous dithering from Ryad.
Upper Hutt Posse, their frontman Dean Hapeta, at the end of his speech called out ‘Free Palestine’ condemned trump and called out government for sending our troops to fight fake wars over oil among other political messages.
Dean has never been afraid to speak his mind, “E Tu” & the Dam Native years all righteous stuff. Now await the vitriol coz a brown guy dare speak his truth…
Those names are a blast from the past.
I loved the first two upper hutt posse albums.
Cheers student radio.
Well ahead of its time, preceeding rage against the machine with the fusion of rock, rap and injustice.
The message was spot on although some stuff was hard to hear through pakeha ears.
Can you just clarify for me what wars we currently have troops fighting in? Motivation aside I can’t think of any current deployments that involve combat troops.
Government over the years and decades have sent troops to locations in the middle east to assist the USA lead wars. Which more often than not have one thing in common, oil. Peace isn’t profitable.
Pretty sure the speech made referenced Afghanistan.
Wonder if there is a clip of the full speech. The political part is at the end of the speech, will see if I can find later,
I think the question was ‘what wars we currently have troops fighting in’?
I have lost touch too Crashcart. Our Radionz news is full of what is happening in the USA but I don’t think we have any action within that country thank goodness. But elsewhere? What do the military buffs know?
@ grey: Just as MoBIE, MSD and others in gubbamint are concerned , AND in the interests of ‘open gubbamint’ (going forward), [Maybe, oneday lprent could give us his impressions and experiences on a thread we could call ‘technophobia’]
Maybe the NZDF might care to publish their activities (across the 3 – almy, navvie and ear force), and with all due deference (to ‘the 5’) on a website.
With a cuzzie that once served in ‘peace keeping’ in the Sinai, and Singapore, and in the spooks for a quite a while thereafter till the alcopops and the liver got the better of him, I’ve also lost track
It does seem reasonable though that they could keep all the plebs appraised of their activities (all within the bounds of keeping shit secret in our Neshnool interest)
I’ve lost touch too both @ Crashcart and @Grey[non]warshark – not that I ever wanted to have such ‘touch’ in the first place.
I did appreciate however being told not to go near a Bainimarama’s Fiji a decade ago – based on the passport I held at the time. As it happens ,it now makes me even more cynical about various ‘competencies’ in our public service – the silos, the politicisation, the egos, the incompetencies, the agendas, the conflicted interests ……
Yes, going off at a tangent here, again, I thought about our police and how they wouldn’t venture into Pike mine at the beginning and now they are playing it safe again. And how much grief and extra cost that has caused. And they wouldn’t provide backup when trained miners wanted to make a series of reccies.
Thinks, would the Thai cave success be equalled if it happened here? Of course it isn’t the same as Pike because there may be a case to be heard in Court. That would have eaten a large part of the police and justice budget allocation. I wonder if the departments were under instruction to curb their enthusiasm?
/Agreed.
(At the time, and probably/possibly still), completely the wrong agency to have been leading any rescue effort. Peter Cowan – nice enough bloke and all that, and a good cop, but in that situation, out of his depth and encumbered with the wrong sort of mission.
I think the decision not to go ahead with attempting a rescue of miners who were almost certainly dead, risking a lot more deaths, was the correct one.
I doubt that the police made the decision without expert advice.
Talking to one of the mine rescuers afterwards. He said the police probably saved his life, restraining them from rushing in.
Certainly it is unfair to judge the person who had to make that sort of decision in the moment, with the information available at the time, using information they didn’t have.
The picture of men, waiting for a rescue that didn’t come, is a powerful one. But the ones in charge had to weigh up the real risk to rescuers, against the, slight, possibility of survivors.
Not a decision I would like to have to make. Though I am aware it may happen.
And where’s that PM even if it was a fake acting one up here. I’ve got some words for you.
All of our armed forces and military that have been fighting in these fake wars in Afghanistan and Iraq for oil, for USA imperialism; get out of there!
What you need to be doing is going to Palestine to fight against the racist terrorism of the Israeli State, that’s where all of our fighting energy needs to be.
And also, even more, death to the Mexican USA border and defend that caravan of indigenous people seeking refugee status at the United Snakes of America kkk.
They are seeking refuge because their countries have been wrecked by that colonial power known as the USA.
The largest current deployment by far is the training team in Iraq (over 150). Just renewed by the current govt for another 12 months.
All about training Iraqi forces to defeat ISIS.
If you think ISIS should not be opposed (with military force) well that’s your view. But obviously Jacinda et al do not share that view.
I am pretty sure the majority of New Zealanders would think ISIS has to be militarily opposed and that NZ should, at least to some extent, be part of the international coalition. The training team was probably the right level of commitment. There were polls on thiols at the time of the initial deployment when John Key was PM which showed clear support.
I was actually surprised that Jacinda and the Cabinet renewed the mandate for another 12 months. After all, ISIS has largely been defeated in Iraq. So presumably it was about NZ showing our partners that we are a reliable partner, notwithstanding the change of government.
Dean Hapeta at the Music awards would well have represented the Green Party view (and the left of Labour) but it is a minority view.
“I am pretty sure the majority of New Zealanders would think ISIS has to be militarily opposed and that NZ should, at least to some extent, be part of the international coalition. ”
And that is based on what? Polling, focus group, personal preference?
“It was a decision that surprised Victoria University professor of strategic studies Robert Ayson, who believed there was good reason for a withdrawal from Iraq, given Isis was “no longer the battleground force it once was”.
“You need a compelling reason in Iraq to stay, and I’m not entirely sure that is there, so I think that now would have been a time to say, ‘Right, we’ve done what we said we were there to do’.”
My recollection is at the time of the initial deployment the public polls were clearly in favour.
As for the current extension, I essentially said what Dr Ayson said. But that is not the only consideration for the extension of the deployment. NZ does not like to be the first out of an international coalition, and that is pretty much what we would have been.
I suspect the Govt thought the deployment was sufficiently Ok that the extension would not to cause any significant local reaction. And they were right. It didn’t.
I may be doing you a disservice but I suspect your claim that it was an acceptance of the majority view that was the deciding factor in the deployment decision was more a case of wishful thinking rather than any knowledge of such.
Anything to do with the, almost, total lack of information on troop deployments from our news media.
So much so, that we learn about them first through the Ozzie papers.
And the constant propaganda about big bad Iraq. Which was OK until they threatened the petrodollar. Like Libya. And indeed, Iran’s Government in the 50’s. Too Democratic for the Western powers, replaced by the Shar, and Savak.
To begin with they also funded the mujahadeen.
This was to try and save putting soldiers on the ground.
The purpose to overthrow despot rigimes in both cases costly mistakes!
“Vanity projects and kamikaze loggias: Tbilisi’s architectural disaster
The centre of the Georgian capital has long been the plaything of outsize egos – but can its architecture biennial inspire useful debate about the city’s future?
Joseph Alexander Smith, a Briton who has lived in Tbilisi for the last six years, was driven by what he witnessed to stand for local election last year on a platform of environmental activism, campaigning against chronic traffic problems, pollution and the unabated development that has blighted much of the city. “We have lost one of the city’s oldest streets, Mirza Shafi,” he says, “and now developers are hand-in-glove with politicians, intent on destroying everything that is left. Everyone has a right to air, not just the right to breath clean air, but to look out of their window and not be confronted by the concrete wall of a new illegal building.”
Is this going to be Phil Goff, John Key, Brownlee’s fate…. exile with criminal charges for corruption and in NZ case, gross stupidity as well???
“Saakashvili behaved like a king, just picking his favourites with no competition or discussion,” says Zhvania. “He dismissed any opposition voices as retrogrades, standing in the way of modernisation.”
The former president may now be living in exile in the Netherlands, wanted on multiple criminal charges back home, but his physical legacy is still very much felt – and others have eagerly picked up where he left off.”
“Why? Because the council officials understood that a councillor’s reputation was built upon his or her ability to get things done for the people who voted them into office. Repeated failure to fix their problems would very soon lead to gripes about Councillor So-and-So being “useless”. The slightest whisper that such an opinion was abroad in the electorate would have the impugned councillor knocking very loudly on the door of the Town Clerk, demanding to know what the hell was going on. That’s why action almost always followed.”
“Councillors are reduced to a browbeaten collection of rubber-stampers: prey to private sector contractors, condescending legal advisers, and over-mighty CEOs. The final indignity being that, having signed up to the Councillors’ Code of Conduct, these poor souls are forbidden from speaking out angrily, or publicly, about their powerlessness.”
I think in Phil Goff’s case, he is being used by the CEO and private sector to be a front man on the attack against local government and democracy. How else do you fathom taking off 2 elected councillors from Auckland Transport (that gets the lions share of ratepayers rates, but has a poor and dismal service record)?
A continuation of the observation that the vast majority of voices are increasingly ignored in western democracies…..and we wonder why ‘populism’ gains currency.
The establishment brings it upon itself and only they can solve it.
When less than 50% of voters bother to vote this happens.
Then people moan endlessly but go out and drum up support for representation on council no!
You get what you don’t vote for the status quo!
Skippy’s public service reform should extend to local bodies.
Never was that being ‘forbidden from speaking out’ about what is best described as muppetry more evident in Wellington recently in a Simon Wolf – Lavery exchange.
It’s a case of ‘officials’ throwing elected representatives ‘under a bus’ if anything.
And even when those ‘officials’ are legally in the wrong, they’re apt to push things to the limit, often in the knowledge that people don’t have the resources to face them off.
Someone near me must get a hell of a lot of texts. There’s at least of couple of tuis doing the Samsung default alert, and a few years ago they were doing the Nokia alert.
Looks like service is already declining, tired of public services being cut or not funded appropriately for population and tourist growth that the government is so keen on, while our taxes are used to further private profits that are publicly funded!
Urgent answers needed after rescue helicopter unavailable
How come these communicators with the public can lie and never get called out on it? They need to be confronted, their organisation which is probably contracted to do government work, at their profit, should be exposed and tarred and feathered or made to walk through the streets with their trousers down looking stupid.
Brazilian military now taking over all the major roles in the Brazilian government. The US has been backing the coup with US, European and Brazilian corporates benefiting.
“I think what we are seeing is a massive transfer of Brazil’s natural resources to the north right now. Brazil is one of the richest countries in the world in terms of natural resources.Its petroleum, its minerals, its gold, its fresh water – they are talking about privatising the world’s largest acquifier to Coca Cola right now.”
How shameful “privatising the world’s largest acquifier to Coca Cola right now’
pity Jacinda is not using her status to question the fairness of bad deals and public asset transfer to private business, rather than actually promoting the practise of ‘FREE trade’ around the world. How bout they rebrand to FREEBIE trade agreements, it would be kinder and more honest.
Tellingly even with the excitement when apparently Mike Pence wanted to sit next to Arden, did she use the moment to discuss her supposedly nuclear free moment of climate change or urge US to uphold the Paris agreement and help the environment, nope instead it is reported that she focused on unsuccessfully pressing New Zealand’s case for an exemption on US tariffs on steel and aluminium which are mostly foreign owned multinational companies.
So who would even benefit from the lift of US tariffs on steel and aluminium – well mostly the profits of overseas firms.
Who owns NZ steel, well BHP, formerly known as BHP Billiton, is the trading entity of BHP Billiton Limited and BHP Billiton plc, an Anglo-Australian multinational mining, metals and petroleum dual-listed public company headquartered in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia and owns significant amounts of the formally known New Zealand Steel.
The raw material for NZ steel is ironsand which is disappearing fast around the world and can not be replaced and has virtually zero studies on the long term effects on the eco systems.
Who owns NZ Aluminimum, NZAS is 79.36 per cent owned by Pacific Aluminium which in turn is owned by Rio Tinto Group an Anglo-Australian multinational and one of the world’s largest metals and mining corporations and 20.64 per cent owned by Japan’s Sumitomo Chemical Company.
So when our politicians have the ear of world leaders are they really thinking of the people of NZ or international peace and well being and climate change and environmental issues, or just promoting the short term profiteering of multinational big business???
It seems clear to me where Labour’s focus is, either intentionally or unintentionally!
Collective bargaining works! Funny we all happy when sports people do it – but outside of a few select sectors how many people are organised collectively?
Big ups to the truckers in Iran. This is the second round of strikes and after the government arrested some of these same protestors – it takes real guts (unlike fake ponytail pulling guts) to carry on a strike in the face of a government used to suppressing working people.
Maine has its first taste of ranked choice voting for US House seats. On election night, the incumbent Repug won a plurality of first choice votes, but second (and maybe third) choices tipped it to the Dem. So naturally the loser Repug is suing.
Ranked choice is slowly spreading to other states as well. So despite all the crap around gerrymandering, voter suppression and loads of other noxious anti-democracy actions, there are still some pockets of progress towards better democracy in the US.
When it was revealed on Wednesday morning that the mysterious figure was Steve Bannon, few were surprised. The invitation was a predictably out-of-touch move by an institution that was once renowned for its impactful and passionate debates but is now more commonly visited by professional footballers, comedians on publicity tours and extremists looking for establishment credentials.
In his reasoning for the invite, the president of the union, Stephen Horvath, presented the standard, free-speech argument that “it is only through listening to the opinions of others that we can fully understand those opinions”. The idea being that a group of university students would be able to hold fascism to account through a one-hour debate on a Friday afternoon.
“Chinese speaking buyers offered first dibs on ‘top secret’ luxury apartment planned for Auckland
A “top secret” 24-storey luxury apartment tower planned for Auckland’s North Harbour has been snapped up by exclusive buyers months before the public gets a look in.
The 72.5 metre apartment planned for Kaipiho Lane, Albany will feature more than 280 apartments, 11 lifts, a helicopter landing pad, residents’ cinema, swimming pool, clubhouse, ballroom, 24 hour concierge and robotic valet parking.
A website marketing the development in Chinese, http://www.kaipiho.co.nz, said the apartments “caused a subscription frenzy” when they were promoted on Chinese social media app WeChat.:
P>S> clearly the government and councils measures to curb the housing shortages futile as seen in this example, but actually creating more poverty for Kiwis who end up subsidising the roads, congestion, Leaks, public transport, pollution etc that all these new developments for speculators who don’t even live here, are generating.
Chinese people want to get their money out of China and into gold bricks before their currency devalues or worse they take down the banks with lending, Kiwi housing investments should not be part of the solution of cash China 1.5 billion people, because our people and environment is the casualty of poor risk planning as is more exposure ‘If China Sneezes Will the Rest of the World Catch a Cold”.
And there aren’t even jobs for car valets. Perhaps someone will be able to hack their garage systems and send cars to be parked outside, or go to be serviced or such like. Just annoying glitches. We have plenty of those in NZ and would love to share them around.
I think you do not understand that whether you like it or not, NZ needs Chinese capital to flow in to correct balance of payments and keep Kiwi dollar high. Most Chinese property owners are resident in NZ, at least most of the time. We are a positive contribution to NZ, yet you paint us as fleeing China before the currency collapses. Maybe you should learn more about China and spend an extended period there before you preach the collapse of the Yuan.
Yes, corruption is sadly still normal in China, and at all levels. However, the younger Chinese not so much. But you seem to assume that the capital coming in to NZ is from corruption. This is, to me, if that is your thinking, not only wrong but racist wrong.
Many Chinese people are extremely wealthy not from corruption, but from riding the rapid growth of China economy. Look at Jack Ma, now one of the wealthiest men in the world. Not from corruption, but from business. There are 1.4 billion Chinese in China. 1 in 25 people in the world live within China’s borders. There are many many little Mr Ma’s, not wealthy from corruption but from hard work and smart work. Many of these want a better life in NZ, and many share their time between China and NZ, but invest in NZ and run business in China. This is good for NZ.
Please do not think all Chinese rich people are corrupt. They are not.
“Please do not think all Chinese rich people are corrupt. They are not.”
I don’t think all Chinese are corrupt, what is wrong with NZ is our NZ immigration policy is so pathetic and the criteria is not robust that our government has been bringing in all types of migrants or migrant workers who are corrupt, dishonest and liars, and they when they find out that they are all of that, they just let them stay here… all the while when we could have a robust policy to attract the best migrants here who could make a greater difference…
I don’t blame the Chinese, because it is not the Chinese fault that NZ government is stupid and does not discriminate against honest and dishonest people who come to NZ to live, work or study.
Should be, commit a crime in NZ, lie on your immigration forms or are found guilty of corruption and you are straight out the door and never to be allowed back into NZ whether you are Chinese, Korean, English, EU, Indian, or Russian or what have you. Not a ethnic based policy but a moral one.
Due to the isolation of NZ and our lack of robust immigration measures we do seem to attract our fair share of criminals trying to hide out here, or commit identity theft.
I didn’t say ‘the capital coming into NZ is from corruption’. I said corruption comes with the capital.
The other thing about Chinese wealth is the conditions under which it has been generated. Scant regard for human rights, political rights, worker rights, justice, and the environment has been the foundation upon which the Chinese capitalist economy has grown at such a fast pace.
You might have realised you are commenting on a forum which is inspired by the labour movement and so worker rights, and recently the environment, are high on most commenters’ list of priorities. I doubt whether a forum like The Standard would exist for very long in China and so when I look at the huge increase in wealth in that country I see it as tainted by injustice. You won’t find the same concerns on NZ blogs from the other side of the political divide.
Now, you might say it is the West’s consumerism which has partially funded the explosion of wealth in China and you would be right. I buy ‘made in China’ – it is difficult to not – so I too am guilty in a sense.
There will no doubt be some very good people emigrating to New Zealand but there will be a significant trail of corruption also and that is why we must ask questions, review settings, and be watchful.
You are right: The Standard (or any non-government blog) would not last very long in China.
And yes, I do realise I am commentating on a forum inspired by the labour movement. I also support that, but that does not mean blindly! A wrong by a socialist is just as bad as a wrong by a capitalist. Maybe worse, as the capitalist does not pretend what their motivation is.
The corruption I would disagree. In my experience, most Chinese coming here are reasonably young and well educated. They have experienced corruption throughout their life and do not like it. The money, including the big money that comes with them, is I think untouched.
Of more concern to NZ should be not the Chinese money coming to NZ, but rather when Kiwi engage in big business in China. It is inconceivable to me that Kiwirail or Fonterra are untouched by this. To do business in China at that level, well, I will not say the rest but you I am sure understand.
The other area of great concern to NZ should be immigration. I would suggest that almost EVERY Chinese that immigrates has been a party to corruption during the immigration process.
@Fang Zhou. It’s the market driven flow of capital and being at the mercy of that capital and bad foreign decisions (ak BNZ floating and having to bail them out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_of_New_Zealand) that has caused the biggest crashes and poverty in NZ..
the Chinese situation will be exactly the same but worse as NZ has created too much dependancy on both Chinese investment and US security decisions.
Sadly the dominant discourse in NZ is neoliberalism and the pursuit of money, making our government decisions short term, lazy and stupid and allowed too much dependancy on other countries.
I think NZ and China should be friends but NZ becoming dependant on them for investment is a complete mistake.
As for high dollar in NZ, causes people living and working here huge problems, much higher mortgages and lending, less money from exports. Cheaper imports.
“I think you do not understand that whether you like it or not, NZ needs Chinese capital to flow in to correct balance of payments and keep Kiwi dollar high. ”
I don’t know why you should think that. Even if it has been true in specific circumstances at one time, I do not see any need to favour Chinese capital over other capital, but it is also a destructive goal to set long term – if we need capital from immigrants, what does that tell you about wealth inequality within our country – and why wold an immigrant was to enter a country that requires immigrants to purchase capital assets to survive?
Far better that we fix some of the inequalities that currently plague us, that we develop domestic-owned enterprises to force competition on foreign owned companies (banks may be a good start), and recognise that we need to look after our population and leave them a country worth living, working and staying in – regardless of where they come from.
Sorry my bad explaining I think. No, should not favour Chinese capital over capital from elsewhere, but NZ needs capital inflow, regardless of where it comes from. Chinese invest heavily in NZ, certainly compared to many other immigrant groups. And yes, that can push up property prices but also many many Chinese build houses and buy businesses, and that provides work and increases the housing pool. And GST paid and so on.
Chinese, and others, wish to enter NZ as it is a better life here. Despite what many seem to think, the standard of living is about the same for the average person, but quality of life here is much higher.
Yes, I agree with you regarding NZ owned enterprises, looking after the NZ population. Do you not think though that I, coming here and, when I first arrived, buying a business was not also indirectly looking after the NZ population? I paid taxes, employed two part-timers.
It is not that I disagree with you, but ‘how’. Many immigrants just get on with it. Work long hours and invest in the next generation. Kiwi people work hard, but seem to prefer to be employees rather than take risks. Immigrants often have no choice but to risk everything (we did that by coming here!). So we invest, we buy businesses, we try harder. I know that is a generalisation, but that is my experience.
It’s interesting you object to a generalisation by making a generalisation about Kiwis preferring to be employees – none of our family are and are in a quite wide set of infrastructure and construction businesses. Years of long hard earned reputation and resilience has meant we have survived in the face of being undercut on prices and lower standards, some have not. That’s not some prejudiced “opinion”, it’s based on factual events and is something that is sad when it happen. Something NZ should be able to work for as it did historically is to uplift the conditions and prospects of NZers not have that regress by being damned into working longer hours or under conditions that are any longer than what is necessary to get the work done and get it done right and for a fair price.
Agree that many Chinese people are not their Government.
However our dollar is too high. One of the reasons for China’s recent economic ascendancy, is their Government deliberately keeps their currency low, encouraging exports and discouraging imports, into China.
I don’t think pushing house prices up beyound the reach of locals is a positive contribution to New Zealand. And it is USA’ians, British and South Africans, as well as Chinese. Any more than the British wealthy in, Spain hogging all the coastal real estate.
@ Monty, many thanks for that info. I have never heard the term “Robotic Parking” before, so as a result, my decrepit old brain went into overdrive (no pun intended) 🙂
Chinese property investment abroad is a diversification, risk managemrnt, as the domestic market may be in slow down (over supply).
The current or future value of the yuan would have little to do with it.
The development you mention, use of land for property to people not currently residents, shows what the governments relaxation of the its new rules for foreign purchase leads to.
I think the Chinese preference to invest in NZ real estate is that here you own the dirt.
All Chinese land is owned by everyone, it can only be leased.
We can leave our NZ properties to our children, in China it can be left for the duration of a lease but thereafter it resorts to state ownership and Mr Xi decides if continued occupation is desirable.
Having lived in Shanghai and now HKG for over 4 years now. Those type of complexes are common. The developers add these things to attract buyers its like an apartment arms race.
It is good and very convenient for the people living there.
The one I lived in Shanghai had all of that plus a super market, 10 underground tennis courts, couple B ball courts, pools training and resort style, Gym, Spa, Dance and Yoga studios.
The robotic parking was humorous as at least a couple people per week got caught and forgot to get out of the car and got stuck. (mainly their own fault wechatting and not being aware of the surroundings)
But where was she sitting in relation to Pence? Young doesn’t give us the seating plan in detail which is odd because it’s the detail which seems to have got under her skin.
Was the PM one over from Pence? If so I believe that’s as close as Pence will allow any woman other than his wife.
“For several days her officials had been telling New Zealand media that she would be sitting next to Pence at his request.“
What Young points out is the spin. ‘Next to Pence at his request’ is not next to Mrs Pence, whatever the seating plan. This would be nitpicking if those same officials hadn’t made such an issue if it.
I’m more thinking of those few minutes in the dark after both have put their books down, clicked off the Tiffany bedside lamps and while drowsing off Mrs Pence says…
“Have you seen any footage of those abandoned children on Nauru Island honey.”
Probably separate houses but for as long as Mrs Pence is on Mike’s arm at the many events they attend, there is no better path for Jacinda to pursue if she wants Mike to get onboard with something.
Breast-feeding Prime Ministers come with a fair slice of gravitas in the eyes of Washington’s silver vixens.
What about the big health and safety issue of onions on my sausage at Bunnings?
It is amusing when you hear it at first, but you cant deny they are taking safety seriously. Pity Pike river mine management was not as safety conscious as we may not have lost 29 people.
Because some muppet over here in Oz, slip on some BBQ onions with his sausage sanger at Bunnings in NSW or Vic and a filed a WHS complaint. This muppet may’ve even got a payout with WHS the complaint? Just like some of the muppets you slip on fruit/ veggies aisle or at the drinks aisle and try in sue the company for a few quid in the process.
Oh yeah – one of those things that caused so much outrage they u-turned in days.
Seems to be the corporate disease of “if it might mean work for head office, don’t do it”. Hence a memo about the order in which onions are put on sausages might absolve corporate from responsibility.
They could just sweep the spilled food up if the seagulls don’t take it, but whatevs
I see the ADF is purchasing a Squadron’s worth 12- 16 of the Armed version of the General Atom Reaper UAV’s this mornings Oz paper. There was talk of buying these back in 2014 and confirmed in the 2016 Defence White Paper with the impression it at purchase to buy in the early 2020’s, so it makes me wonder why the sudden purchase of these units now?
A New Zealand actor reports, in a tone of high seriousness,
that Israelis see themselves as “an underdog.”
RNZ National, Wednesday 14 November 2018
We’ve dealt before with the contemptible phenomenon of glib and ignorant theatre “luvvies” sounding off about things they lack the competence to comment on. There was the pretentious “theatre-maker” Stella Duffy [1], there was the “sooooo truthful” Tandi Wright [2] and of course who could ever forget the epically pompous stand-up comedian Andrew Clay? [3]
Now, I must report sadly, I have identified another talkative but shallow member of this sorority of the second-rate, this club of the clueless, this brotherhood of the bewildered, this guild of the giddy and guileless, this [That’s enough epithets.—J.A. Napes]. About 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday, as I steered the Breenmobile through the suburban dreamscapes of the North Shore, I chanced upon the actor Tim Balme being interviewed by that great gorgeous emptiness Jesse Mulligan. Amongst other things, Balme spoke about his play The Ballad of Jimmy Costello, which is based on the George Wilder story. He mentioned that he had performed it in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Speaking slowly and with as much gravitas as he could summon, Balme stated that Israeli audiences “loved it” because “it’s a play about an underdog, and Israel is a nation that considers itself an underdog.”
Israel “an underdog.” A nation that “considers itself an underdog.”
???????!!??!?!?
The absurdity, indeed the obscenity, of that propaganda seemed to be lost on Tim Balme, and of course it was lost on Jesse Mulligan.
“…. Israel is a nation that considers itself an underdog.”
When the privileged and powerful start making out, that they are the victim, everyone else is in danger.
The fascist rulers of Germany made big play of Germans being the underdog prior to WWII.
The White Minority government of South Africa also played the victim card.
And Trump also plays the, hard done by, victim card in appealing to his base.
All great lies have some truth, Germans suffered the unfairness of the reparations forced on them at the end of the First World War. When it was the German soldiery and sailors who mutinied that brought that brutal imperial conflict to an end.
The Boers painted themselves the victims of British imperialism.
And Trump’s supporters feel squeezed by the ‘elites’ (even though Trump is one of them).
And the present day Zionist rulers of the state of Israel use the excuse of the Holocaust inflicted on European Jews, by Germany, to carry out almost similar levels of repression and murder and dispossession against the Palestinian people.
Jenny, you may have confused Russia with Germany regarding the end of World War 1?
The collapse/rebellion in Germany was mainly civilian, not military. Some sailors joined a dockworkers’ rebellion, but by and large the German military forces, while being forced onto the retreat, were intact, not defeated, and still in French/Belgian territory.
This is why they later believed that they had been stabbed in the back, which helped Hitler.
More moronic comments from the mozz, of course Israel are the under dog. I do dispair with mozzies lack of cognitive reasoning making discourse pointless.
Kia ora Nation Simon & Emma The billion tree planting program from our Coalition Government is a good start but we need to invest more into climate change mitigation.
trump is a puppet his backers oil barons don’t want China’s manufacturing muscle to push oil into our history books as they will lose there control of the people on earth.
It was China that pushed the price of Solar down to a price that’s lower than thermal energy that is produced by coal and oil. China & Elon will push the petrol car into our history books and make energy democratic people producing there own power.
Ka kite ano. .
You see OUR Freedom and democracy is a illusion they keep most peoples reality in a big square box that the wealthy control the people on Mother Earth’s reality
Kia ora Newshub back with the moko’s lost track of time lets hope the The All Blacks test goes our way . The Black ferns Kia Kaha It’s awesome that the wahine World Cup is being hosted by Aotearoa I’m sure we will be good honest hoste . Ka pai to the young foot ball ferns .Looks like all the stories are about Jacinda trip overseas meeting other heads of state I will eaz on giving my of these people for the time being. Mike I read a story in Stuff on the reason why OUR weather is so variable at the minute after a long story the conclusion was human caused climate changes are the main causes
Ka Kite ano
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A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Dec 27, 2020 through Sat, Jan 2, 2021Editor's Choice7 Graphics That Show Why the Arctic Is in Trouble Arctic Sea Ice: NSIDC It’s no secret that the Arctic is ...
One of the books I read in 2020 was She, by H. Rider Haggard (1887). I thoroughly enjoyed it, as being an exemplar of a good old-fashioned adventure story. I also noted with amusement ...
Scottish doctor Malcolm Kendrick looks at the pandemic and the responses to it 30th December 2020 I have not written much about COVID19 recently. What can be said? In my opinion the world has simply gone bonkers. The best description can be found in Dante’s Inferno, written many hundreds of ...
I notice a few regulars no longer allow public access to the site counters. This may happen accidentally when the blog format is altered. If your blog is unexpectedly missing or the numbers seem very low please check this out. After correcting send me the URL for your ...
As we welcome in the new year, our focus is on continuing to keep New Zealanders safe and moving forward with our economic recovery. There’s a lot to get on with, but before we say a final goodbye to 2020, here’s a quick look back at some of the milestones ...
The Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern and the Prime Minister of the Cook Islands Mark Brown have announced passengers from the Cook Islands can resume quarantine-free travel into New Zealand from 21 January, enabling access to essential services such as health. “Following confirmation of the Cook Islands’ COVID ...
Jobs for Nature funding is being made available to conservation groups and landowners to employ staff and contractors in a move aimed at boosting local biodiversity-focused projects, Conservation Minister Kiritapu Allan has announced. It is estimated some 400-plus jobs will be created with employment opportunities in ecology, restoration, trapping, ...
The Government has approved an exception class for 1000 international tertiary students, degree level and above, who began their study in New Zealand but were caught offshore when border restrictions began. The exception will allow students to return to New Zealand in stages from April 2021. “Our top priority continues ...
Today’s deal between Meridian and Rio Tinto for the Tiwai smelter to remain open another four years provides time for a managed transition for Southland. “The deal provides welcome certainty to the Southland community by protecting jobs and incomes as the region plans for the future. The Government is committed ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has appointed Anna Curzon to the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC). The leader of each APEC economy appoints three private sector representatives to ABAC. ABAC provides advice to leaders annually on business priorities. “ABAC helps ensure that APEC’s work programme is informed by business community perspectives ...
The Government’s prudent fiscal management and strong policy programme in the face of the COVID-19 global pandemic have been acknowledged by the credit rating agency Fitch. Fitch has today affirmed New Zealand’s local currency rating at AA+ with a stable outlook and foreign currency rating at AA with a positive ...
The Government is putting in place a suite of additional actions to protect New Zealand from COVID-19, including new emerging variants, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “Given the high rates of infection in many countries and evidence of the global spread of more transmissible variants, it’s clear that ...
$36 million of Government funding alongside councils and others for 19 projects Investment will clean up and protect waterways and create local jobs Boots on the ground expected in Q2 of 2021 Funding part of the Jobs for Nature policy package A package of 19 projects will help clean up ...
The commemoration of the 175th anniversary of the Battle of Ruapekapeka represents an opportunity for all New Zealanders to reflect on the role these conflicts have had in creating our modern nation, says Associate Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Kiri Allan. “The Battle at Te Ruapekapeka Pā, which took ...
Babies born with tongue-tie will be assessed and treated consistently under new guidelines released by the Ministry of Health, Associate Minister of Health Dr Ayesha Verrall announced today. Around 5% to 10% of babies are born with a tongue-tie, or ankyloglossia, in New Zealand each year. At least half can ...
The prisoner disorder event at Waikeria Prison is over, with all remaining prisoners now safely and securely detained, Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis says. The majority of those involved in the event are members of the Mongols and Comancheros. Five of the men are deportees from Australia, with three subject to ...
Travellers from the United Kingdom or the United States bound for New Zealand will be required to get a negative test result for COVID-19 before departing, and work is underway to extend the requirement to other long haul flights to New Zealand, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins confirmed today. “The new PCR test requirement, foreshadowed last ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has added her warm congratulations to the New Zealanders recognised for their contributions to their communities and the country in the New Year 2021 Honours List. “The past year has been one that few of us could have imagined. In spite of all the things that ...
Attorney-General and Minister for the Environment David Parker has congratulated two retired judges who have had their contributions to the country and their communities recognised in the New Year 2021 Honours list. The Hon Tony Randerson QC has been appointed a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for ...
Minister for Pacific Peoples Aupito William Sio says the New Year’s Honours List 2021 highlights again the outstanding contribution made by Pacific people across Aotearoa. “We are acknowledging the work of 13 Pacific leaders in the New Year’s Honours, representing a number of sectors including health, education, community, sports, the ...
The Government’s investment in digital literacy training for seniors has led to more than 250 people participating so far, helping them stay connected. “COVID-19 has meant older New Zealanders are showing more interest in learning how to use technology like Zoom and Skype so they can to keep in touch ...
A nationwide poll has found majority support for the government to continue to closely monitor abortions in New Zealand and the reasons for it, despite the Ministry of Health recently suggesting that there is not a use for collecting much of this information. ...
The out-of-control growth in gangs, gun crime, and violent gang activity is exposing our communities to dangerous levels of violence that will inevitably end in tragedy, says Sensible Sentencing Trust. “The recent incidents of people being shot and ...
Successive governments have paid lip service to our productivity challenge but have failed to deliver. It's time to establish a Productivity Council charged with prioritising efforts. ...
Understanding the connection between chronic fatigue syndrome and ‘long Covid’ might be helpful in treating symptoms that doctors will find all too easy to dismiss.When people began to report signs of “long Covid”, characterised by a lack of full recovery from the virus and debilitating fatigue, I recognised their stories. ...
Nadine Anne Hura, who never considered herself an artist, reflects on what art and making has taught her.I couldn’t clean or cook or wash the clothes, but I could sew. That’s a lie, I’m a terrible sewer, but I left work early to fossick around in the $1 bin of ...
Summer reissue: In the final episode of this season of Bad News, Alice is joined by Billy T award winner Kura Forrester to look at how well we’re honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi in 2020.First published September 3, 2020.Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The ...
Lucy Revill’s The Residents is a blog about daily life in Wellington that has morphed into a stylish, low-key coffee-table book featuring interviews and photographic portraits of 38 Wellingtonians. In this extract, Revill profiles Eboni Waitere, owner and executive director of Huia Publishers. The Residents features names like Monique Fiso ...
Pacific Media Watch correspondent The pro-independence conflict in West Papua with a missionary plane reportedly being shot down at Intan Jaya has stirred contrasting responses from the TNI/POLRI state sources, church leaders and an independence leader. A shooting caused a plane to catch fire on 6 January 2021 in the ...
“Last year ACT warned that rewarding protestors at Ihumātao with taxpayer money would promote further squatting. We just didn’t think it would happen as quickly as it is in Shelly Bay” says ACT Leader David Seymour. “The prosperity of all ...
Our kindly PM registered her return to work as leader of the nation with yet another statement on the Beehive website, the second in two days (following her appointment of Anna Curzon to the APEC Business Advisory Council on Wednesday). It’s great to know we don’t have to check with ...
A Pūhoi pub is refusing to remove a piece of memorabilia bearing the n-word from its walls. Dr Lachy Paterson looks at the history of the word here, and New Zealand’s complicity in Britain’s shameful slave trading past.Content warning: This article contains racist language and images.On a pub wall in ...
Supermarket shoppers looking for citrus are seeing a sour trend at the moment – some stores are entirely tapped out of lemons. But why? Batches of homemade lemonade will be taking a hit this summer, with life not giving New Zealand shoppers lemons. Prices are high at supermarkets and grocers that ...
You’re born either a cheery soul or a gloomy one, reckons Linda Burgess – but what happens when gene pools from opposite ends of the spectrum collide?In our shoeboxes of photos that we have to sort out before we die or get demented – because who IS that kid on ...
Summer reissue: Prisoner voting rights are something that few in government seem particularly motivated to do anything about. Could a catchy charity single help draw attention to the issue?First published September 1, 2020.Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The Spinoff’s journalism is funded by its ...
Hundreds more Cook Islanders are expected to begin criss-crossing the Pacific, Air NZ will triple the number of flights to Rarotonga next week, and about 300 managed isolation places will be freed up for Kiwis returning from other parts of the world. When Thomas Tarurongo Wynne took a job in Wellington at ...
SPECIAL REPORT:By Ena Manuireva in Auckland It seems a long time ago – some 124 days – since Mā’ohi Nui deplored its first covid-19 related deaths of an elderly woman on 11 September 2020 followed by her husband just hours later, both over the age of 80. The local ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Turnbull, Postdoctoral research associate, UNSW A global coalition of more than 50 countries have this week pledged to protect over 30% of the planet’s lands and seas by the end of this decade. Their reasoning is clear: we need greater protection ...
The Reserve Bank Governor’s apology and claim he will ‘own the issue’ is laughable given the lack of answers and timing of its release. Jordan Williams, a spokesman for the Taxpayers’ Union said: “It’s been five days since they came clean, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Olga Kokshagina, Researcher – Innovation & Entrepreneurship, RMIT University Are too many online meetings and notifications getting you down? Online communication tools – from email to virtual chat and video-conferencing – have transformed the way we work. In many respects they’ve made ...
The Reserve Bank acknowledges information about some of its stakeholders may have been breached in a malicious data hack. The Governor of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand has commissioned an independent inquiry into how stakeholders' information was compromised when hackers breached a file sharing service used by the bank. “We ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Caitlin Syme, PhD in Vertebrate Palaeontology, The University of Queensland This story contains spoilers for Ammonite Palaeontologist Mary Anning is known for discovering a multitude of Jurassic fossils from Lyme Regis on England’s Dorset Coast from the age of ten in 1809. ...
A tribute to the sitcoms of old? In the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Yup. Sam Brooks reviews the audacious WandaVision.Nothing sends a chill up my spine like the phrase “Marvel Cinematic Universe”. Since launching in 2008 with Iron Man, the MCU has become a shambling behemoth, with over 23 films (not ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University The alt-right, QAnon, paramilitary and Donald Trump-supporting mob that stormed the US Capitol on January 6 claimed they were only doing what the so-called “founding fathers” of the US had done in ...
The Point of Order Ministerial Workload Watchdog and our ever-vigilant Trough Monitor were both triggered yesterday by an item of news from the office of Conservation Minister Kititapu Allan. The minister was drawing attention to new opportunities to dip into the Jobs for Nature programme (and her statement was the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andreas Kupz, Senior Research Fellow, James Cook University In July 1921, a French infant became the first person to receive an experimental vaccine against tuberculosis (TB), after the mother had died from the disease. The vaccine, known as Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG), is ...
The first Friday Poem for 2021 is by Wellington poet Rebecca Hawkes.While you were partying I studied the bladeI your ever-loving edgelord God-emperorof the bot army & bitcoin mine subsistingon an IV drip of gamer girl bathwaterfinally my lonelinessis your responsibility………. you seeI need a girlfriend assigned to me by the ...
The arming of police officers in Canterbury was inevitable with the growing numbers and brazenness of the gangs across the country – this should be a permanent step, says Sensible Sentencing Trust. “It is unfortunate that we have come to the point ...
Celebrations in Aotearoa New Zealand to mark the entry into force of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) will begin on Thursday 21 January with ICAN Aotearoa New Zealand’s Wellington and online event, and continue on Friday ...
Hardly anyone is using their Covid Tracer app. Something needs to change.As the mercury approaches 30°C in Aotearoa, there is a good deal of slipping and slopping, but, let’s face it, piss-all scanning. As few as around 500,000 QR codes are being scanned by users of the NZ Covid Tracer ...
On the East Coast, a group of Māori-owned enterprises is innovating to create new revenue streams while doing what they love.New Zealand’s remote and sparsely populated regions are typically not the best places to create thriving brick-and-mortar businesses. In small communities miles away from any major centres, there are so ...
As we reach the height of summer, it’s not too late to do a safety check on your gas bottle. The Environmental Protection Authority’s Safer Homes programme has some tips and tricks to keep in mind before you fire up the grill. "If you’ve ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1Troy: The Siege of Troy Retold by Stephen Fry (Michael Joseph, $37)If you’re in any way unsure about ...
“We may as well knock on the gang headquarters around this country and tell them we all give up," says Darroch Ball co-leader of Sensible Sentencing Trust. “It is simply outrageous that violent offender, James Tuwhangai, has been released from ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Ireland, Israel, and Lebanon. Chart by Keith Rankin. The countries with the most recent large outbreaks of Covid19 are those with large numbers of recent recorded cases, but yet to record the deaths that most likely will result. In this camp, this time, are Ireland, Israel ...
RuPaul is in Aotearoa, kicking back in managed isolation to await the filming of an Australasian version of her hugely popular reality show Drag Race. But not everyone is happy about, explains Eli Matthewson. The world’s most famous drag queen, RuPaul, is in New Zealand, the government confirmed earlier this week ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Melleuish, Professor, School of Humanities and Social Inquiry, University of Wollongong What can we make of Clive Palmer? This week, he announced his United Australia Party (UAP) would not contest the upcoming West Australian state election on March 13. After a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gisela Kaplan, Emeritus Professor in Animal Behaviour, University of New England Have you ever seenmagpies play-fighting with one another, or rolling around in high spirits? Or an apostlebird running at full speed with a stick in its beak, chased by a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jen Jackson, Program Director, Centre for Policy Development, and Associate Professor of Education, Mitchell Institute, Victoria University Childcare centres across Australia are suffering staff shortages, which have been exacerbated by the COVID crisis. Many childcare workers across Australia left when parents started ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Barrett, Senior Lecturer in Taxation, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington Rhetoric plays an important role in tax debate and therefore tax policy. If your side manages to gain traction in the public imagination with labels such as “death ...
*This article was first published on The Conversation and is republished with permission* Whoever leads the Republican Party post-Trump will need to consider how they will maintain the rabid support of his “base”, while working to regain more moderate voters who defected from the party in the 2020 election. In a historic ...
Covid-19 fears accelerated banks’ moves towards cashless transactions. But the Reserve Bank is fighting to protect cash, and those who still use it. ...
Good morning and welcome to this one-off edition of The Bulletin, covering major stories from the last few weeks.A quick preamble to this: Today’s special edition of The Bulletin is all about filling you in on some of the stories you might have missed over the summer period. Perhaps you had ...
Summer reissue: In this episode of Bad News, Alice Snedden is forced to confront her own mortality before hosting a very special dinner party to get to grips with the euthanasia debate.First published August 27, 2020.Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The Spinoff’s journalism is ...
The contrast between the words of John F Kennedy and today’s anti-democratic demagogue is inescapable, writes Dolores Janiewski I still remember three eloquent speeches by an American president. One happened in January 1961 and spoke about a “torch being passed to a new generation”. Two years later and one day apart, ...
The debate over cutting down a large macrocarpa to make way for a new residential development has highlighted a wider agreement between developers and protesters: that we also need to be planting far more trees. At the corner of Great North Road and Ash Street in Avondale, a 150-year-old macrocarpa stands its ground ...
More infectious variants of Covid-19 are increasingly being intercepted at the country’s borders, but the minister running New Zealand’s response is resisting pressure to accelerate vaccination plans despite demands from health experts as well as political friends and foes, Justin Giovannetti reports.New Zealand’s first Covid-19 jabs will be administered in ...
As CEO of her iwi rūnanga, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer was on the frontline protecting her community during the first outbreak of Covid-19. Now that more virulent strains threaten to breach our borders, the Māori Party co-leader calls on the government to introduce much stricter measures.As we enter the New Year I ...
The Prada Cup challenger series starts today. Suzanne McFadden goes behind the scenes of the world's only live yachting regatta to see what's in store for the next five weeks. At 6am on race days, Iain Murray wakes up and immediately checks the weather outside his Auckland window. “It’s all ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Raquel Peel, Lecturer, University of Southern Queensland This story contains spoilers for Bridgerton The first season of Bridgerton, Netflix’s new hit show based on Julia Quinn’s novels, premiered on December 25 last year. The show is set in London, during the ...
The New Zealand government believes its own negotiations with Rio Tinto will be resolved "fairly quickly" now there is certainty about the future of the Tiwai Point smelter. ...
Amanda Thompson and her family are attempting to cut back on the meat, so they gave all the vego sausies the local supermarket had to offer a hoon on the barbie. Here are the results.I was a vegetarian once. Even the best of us take a well-meaning wrong turn on ...
The Taxpayers’ Union welcomes the call by Wellington City Councillor Fleur Fitzsimons for a shift to land value based rates charges. Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke says, "Local government leaders across the country should join in Fitzsimons’s call ...
It’s been described as ‘pointless revenge’, but impeaching the president has a firm moral purpose, argues Michael Blake – setting a limit to what sorts of action a society will accept.A House majority, including 10 Republicans, voted today to impeach President Trump for “incitement of insurrection”. The vote will initiate ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bryan Cranston, Lead Academic Teacher – Politics & Social Science (Swinburne Online), Swinburne University of Technology In a historic vote today, Donald Trump became the only US president to be impeached twice. By a margin of 232–197, the Democrat-controlled US House of ...
Hurrah. The PM is back to posting her announcements on the government’s official website, her deputy is back in the business of self-congratulation, Rio Tinto is back in the business of sucking up cheap electricity to produce aluminium at Tiwai Point, near Bluff. And overseas students (some, anyway) can come ...
The electricity sector, Government and people of Southland are rejoicing after Tiwai Point aluminium smelter owner Rio Tinto announced the major industrial would be open until the end of 2024, Marc Daalder reports Stakeholders in the electricity sector and across Southland are celebrating the extension of the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter's ...
If you’ve been on social media this week, you may well have come across a surge in interest in sea shanties. We asked a veteran of the style why. In case you missed it, soon may the Wellerman come, to bring us sugar and tea and rum. If that sentence is even ...
“It is basic human decency to speak up and protect any vulnerable child from harm, so withholding information in child abuse cases and allowing the abuse to happen by not speaking up is, put simply, a cowardly move,” says Jess McVicar Co-Leader ...
Allowing 1,000 returning international students back to New Zealand is the right move by the Government, and hopefully we will be able to welcome more, says ExportNZ Executive Director Catherine Beard. "International education has contributed ...
A majority of the House of Representatives have voted to make Donald Trump the first US president ever to be impeached twice, formally charging him in his waning days in power with inciting an insurrection just a week after a violent mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol. Follow the ...
The Youth of NZ will be standing up for climate action once again on January 26th outside of Parliament for School Strike 4 Climate NZ’s 100 Days 4 Action campaign rally. “We believe it is vital to hold our new Labour-led government to account ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is calling on Rotorua Lakes District Council to urgently release the engineering report on the public safety and structural integrity of the visible foundation-misalignment and lean of the City’s Hemo Gorge monument to government ...
Changes in income and movement in and out of poverty over time are only weakly associated with higher rates of child hospitalisation in New Zealand, according to a new University of Auckland study. Published today in PLOS ONE, the collaborative study led by Dr ...
With a long, hot summer upon us, pet owners are urged to be extra mindful of their pet’s health and safety. Unusually warm weather can quickly take its toll on furry family members, who aren’t well equipped for dealing with blazing heat. The National ...
The Council for Civil Liberties is challenging a claim by former National Party leader Simon Bridges that people should have total freedom of expression on Twitter. ...
A century of sexual abuse of women in New Zealand is analysed in a University of Auckland study. The newly-published research looks back as far as 1922 by analysing interviews with thousands of women about their lifetime experiences. The study indicates ...
62,686 more native trees will be planted in New Zealand in 2021 thanks to generous Kiwis who chose to go green for Christmas gifting. <img src="https://img.scoop.co.nz/stories/images/2101/cf409712f141732a8543.jpeg" width="720" height="540"> Trees That Count, a programme ...
Source: Council on Hemispheric Affairs – Analysis-Reportage By Arturo López-LevyOakland, CaliforniaUnfortunately, the attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters, encouraged by the Inciter-in-Chief, will not be the last act of mischief. Trump is insisting on causing as much damage as possible to the interests and values ...
Concerning news.
Good work by Matt Nippert.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12160570
Some background.
John Campbell takes the time to research in more depth.
+1 Ed – harassment, illegal activity like stealing data for foreign powers, (or worse) should NOT be acceptable in NZ and there should be a lot more resources on it.
We have had the French agents blowing up Rainbow Warrior, Isrealis stealing our passports and now Chinese agents apparently taking data/harrassment/stealing from NZ researchers and worse.
Is the Labour government going to say meh, or are they going to apprehend the perpetrators and prosecute them???? Considering the taxpayer funded budget of the SIS and GCSB you have to wonder how hard can it be and are they competent to do the job?
In addition NZ needs to step up with regards to espionage in NZ… look at the mess the Brits are in, when they are so internally focused they turn a blind eye to espionage in their own country. No wonder there are blatant assassinations going on around the world from foreign powers, as there as there does not seem much interest from governments in protecting citizens anymore.
Mysterious factory break-in raises suspicions about Chinese visit
“It was an unusual burglary, in which four or five laptops were stolen from a Scottish renewable energy manufacturer in the dead of a March night in 2011. So innovative was the company that it had been been visited by a 60-strong delegation led by China’s then vice-premier only two months before.
Nothing else was taken from the company and the crime, while irritating, went unsolved and forgotten – until a few years later pictures began emerging that showed a remarkably similar project manufactured in the world’s most populous country.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/10/mysterious-factory-break-in-raises-suspicions-about-chinese-visit
I’ve read that China’s acquisition of IP developed elsewhere is estimated as the largest transfer of wealth ever.
If you look at the R&D costs over time, resources, infrastructure, trial and error you’d skip its a staggering value in today’s currency they’ve bypassed.
The xian y-20 compared to the us c-17 being one the most blatant as they got sprung using a Canadian based expat to highlight the files/folders from compromised servers for lift and shift to China.
@TC, yep and use that money to buy up assets like significant amounts of NZ and OZ…
While the west politicians are getting selfies and self promoting in magazines and MSM or firing off on Twitter, the Chinese government are to be admired in a way as they steadily and carefully advancing their cause, gathering power and strategic assets, partnerships and soft power…
Natz can be bought for $100k, how cheap is that?
Sadly our government in NZ has become greedy and/or naive self promoters hoping for a crust of bread and a pat on the head, as 30 years post Rogernomics our politicians and the general discourse being promoted is that Kiwis are only good at Rugby and a few other sports and incapable of self governing, working or running our own businesses, assets or countries successfully.
So very easy for the Chinese to step in to help, self govern NZ and their businesses and assets in the face of greed, disinterest and brainwashing of the NZ political elite and MSM.
We have also given up our security to others in particular the US in real terms and so now at the mercy of others.
There is a difference between collaboration/friendship and throwing your hands up and leaving it all up to other governments and paper agreements to decide your future and fate and NZ seems to be erring on the lazy second option with no plan B of self management.
Don’t blame them actually. Most US patents are not innovation, just blatant privatisation of others ideas. Parenting rounded corners on a cell phone. FFS.
Rentier capitalism at it’s worse.
US prosperity begins, by ignoring all previous British property rights.
All indications are that they’re going to say ‘meh’ so as to keep up Fonterra’s exports. Apparently maintaining NZ for NZers under NZ control comes a distant second to that.
It occurs to me that Ed is continually bringing up foreign problems and ctiticising the USA and China etc. Whereas I want to see this blog continue and look at what is happening here. If Ed steps on enough toes and makes enough wild assertions about the large dominating foreign powers, it takes time away from us. If it incurs enough wrath Ed’s stuff alone could make it a likely target to be taken to court or closed down.
And groups can get infiltrated; we have wondered who is behind these extra right regulars. There is something driven about them, and the same could apply to those supposedly speaking for the left. I’m just a concerned left-leaning twit myself. I wonder about Ed and others.
I write on many New Zealand issues.
Inequality
Poverty
Dairy farming
Spying
Housing
Socialism
The environment
The NZ media
NZ banking…..
There are parallels.
We know that the previous National government pretty much copied social policy from the UK and that they copied charter schools from the US. So, seeing what’s happening to them can give us an idea of the damages that National will do next time they’re in power.
Ed does not need this unwarranted atrack grey. Ed is a driving force behind conversation topics on this blog.
Yes maui that’s my point. Why are you not interested in NZ?
The National Party should be investigated as their deep ties look dodgy.
“anti-Chinese sons of bitches”
This is normal for anyone who dares to criticize the new Mao, Chairman Xi. My main reading is Chinese web news sites in NZ. This is mild compared to everyday comments in Chinese language media. ANY opposing view that even slightly is against Community Party views is considered as being traitor. Yet many on this blog say how great China system is! It is not!
I am called a traitor to China by my own family and Chinese friends in NZ as I am in the process of applying for NZ Citizenship. This is what the Community Party has done to the people in my country.
Thank you for your brave words. The CCCP is indeed a soft tyranny of a nature the western world struggles to understand properly.
My only small objection is that I do not think a majority of us here are admirers of the Chinese regime and it’s expansionist ambitions. Most of us loath empire wherever it appears.
Yes, China is an empire, although few Kiwis see that. Mr Xi is step by step becoming Mao. The ‘Thoughts of Chairman Xi’ is now a reality that rivals the ‘Thoughts of Chairman Mao’. Unlimited term as leader. Increased censorship. Imprisonment and ‘re-education’ of Uyghurs. But in China most people support him still. Economically very good.
Forced abortion when already have one child was common 20 years ago. When I studied nursing, the man on the autopsy table was a criminal, a bullet hole clearly in his forehead. We thought this was right, but it is not. Bribery to get into hospital – yes this is the great Community Party state that so many Kiwis still think is a utopia. There are many things that were and in many parts of China, especially local places, are pure evil. But this was all we knew. Young Chinese people very very different. The future for China will be interesting I think.
How else would you describe private health insurance in NZ? It gets some people in front of the same doctors earlier.
Yes that is true, but in China even an emergency, life in danger, in many places you will not even get admitted to hospital. This is very true. And drugs you must pay for. In NZ, I do not have health insurance or my son, yet we get a higher level of care than in China.
In 2016, I spent 4 months in China. My son had been injured in an accident. His father and I paid for pain relief and antibiotics. NZ not that bad!
China appears to have adopted the worst aspects of authoritarian socialism and capitalist meanness.
Yep. We have been colonised by Britain, the USA and looks like, now China.
Time we were independent!
I haven’t noticed commentators here saying “how great China system is!” I’ve seen some (including myself) criticising it. Polarising into a simple binary view of anything is usually too simple-minded – those who do so lose accuracy in their description. Any political system will have pros & cons. I agree that the international community has been too tolerant of the endemic misbehaviour of the regime for far too long.
I’m reading a recent acquisition: Everything Under The Heavens: How the Past Helps Shape China’s Push for Global Power, which I recommend to anyone interested in the current regime’s foreign policy. See https://www.amazon.com/Everything-Under-Heavens-Chinas-Global/dp/0385353324
As far as your relations are concerned, it may help to frame things in generic terms – the future for China will require adaption to a common-interest framework. National self-interest therefore must be balanced by acknowledgment of the interests of other nations. In respect of China’s attempt to reassert their regional hegemony, we can expect all other nations affected to align in consensus to oppose such re-emergence of imperialism. A balance of equal and opposite forces is therefore eventually inevitable. Naive expectations of success will be replaced by realism. In the interim, any delusional thinking by decision-makers is dangerous…
Yes Chinese political system was necessary for our recent decades of rapid growth. We all pulled in the same direction. No serious opposition was allowed. But now it is still the same, yet the need is no longer there.
You mention my relations, no! Older than me and have never left China, so still have Maos isolationist view of the world.
The biggest challenges for China in the years ahead are the young people, who travel. And the looming huge problem of Xinjiang. And Xizang.
[citation needed]
Welcome to being a NZer.
The people of China could stop them if they so wished.
@Fang Zhou – some Kiwis are worried about the Chinese government too, so even if it seems that people might sound anti Chinese be aware most of the time it is directed against the CCP getting a stranglehold into NZ not against Chinese people and also the worry that Chinese residents might be pressured to work for the Chinese government interests even if they didn’t want to on foreign soil, so great might be influence be as our government and industry is asleep at the wheel.
Hey,
To be fair to the TS, I have not seen anyone say they want the Chinese system. But they do want a return to authoritarian govt control, which could be interrupted as wanting the Chinese system.
A small number on the extreme Left want a authoritarian govt that own pretty much everything. (banks, insurance, utilities, Supermarkets, etc) I think but stand to be corrected that someone wrote that if a person invents something or has a innovative idea they shouldn’t own it but it becomes the property of the state and the people.
Much like what you have in China with the control of central govt over most things and most Chinese corps having some level of govt ownership or control.
China bans facebook and a number of other social sites and developed its own wechat and weibo that can be monitored.
Now we see millions of cameras, name and shame in papers and Huge LED screens around the cities highlighting wrong doing of citizens in real time for example j walking and social credit points for citizens.
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2157883/drones-facial-recognition-and-social-credit-system-10-ways-china
One link but the social credit and city surveillance is scary, but it is how an authoritarian govt maintains control.
Opposing views are not allowed.
Those that want the govt controlled utopia then also accept they will loose freedoms and free speech as the govt controls the narrative.
I don’t see many on here that want a “Government controlled utopia”. Even the most ardent anti-capitalists still want a democratic Government. Many of the right wingers are open to increased democracy, also.
Government by us.
As for the State owning banks and utilities. When it is a real democratic State it is all of us that own them.
Ownership of patents and innovations very rarely accrues to the innovator. Usually they are acquired by a corporation which uses then for unearned rent for ridiculous lengths of time. Amazons book rights, for example.
You are confusing Democratic ownership with an authoritarian State. At the moment we have an Authoritarian State controlled by corporate donations and influence. And, I suspect, with considerable evidence, a lot of power exerted covertly by the US, Chinese and British Governments. Often in behalf of their corporations.
Good comment – in the long term CCP influence over the NZ Chinese community does not bode well for how that community is perceived by the wider population.
Two refugees here have been renditioned back to Saudi Arabia – in 2013 and 2014.
http://norightturn.blogspot.com/2018/10/reminder-saudi-arabia-kidnapped-people.html
Here’s some interesting information on China and I’m a little concerned at was has happened, but not surprised IRT Professor Brady as the same thing happened to Clive Hamilton when he was trying to get his book published called “The Silent Invasion”.
Sorry for the double post, can the mods please delete post 1.4
Here’s some interesting information on China and I’m a little concerned at was has happened, but not surprised IRT Professor Brady as the same thing happened to Clive Hamilton when he was trying to get his book published called “The Silent Invasion
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-16/are-china-cheap-loans-to-poor-nations-a-debt-trap/10493286”.
The U.S.A.
A rogue state.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/14/us-has-spent-5point9-trillion-on-middle-east-asia-wars-since-2001-study.html?__source=sharebar|twitter&par=sharebar
Interesting angle from Jeffrey Kaye on the killing of Khashoggi.
Fascinating.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/north-africa-west-asia/nafeez-ahmed/did-us-and-britain-collude-in-murder-of-jamal-khashoggi
Ed did you catch the live presser from the Saudi’s last night? The story re Khashoggi changes so much.
He say’s he’s seeking the death penalty for some involved, but does not want to name them.
It’s a big freaking coverup, Saudis are good at that.
Cheers for the links above, will have a watch over the weekend. Much appreciated.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/11/saudi-top-prosecutor-seeks-death-penalty-khashoggi-murder-181115103958916.html
It’s the facts they’ve agreed too though. That a official signed off on a warrant for K. That they wanted to rendition K. That they targeted K when he sought a marriage licence, thus attacking the ability to legally start a family, nasty.So who paid for the flights. Who told the embassy to stock up on plastic sheets. Sorry but I can’t believe that a they got the go head without serious authority being involved, and that’s before you consider who was most irate and irritated by K. The idea that S.A. will walk away thinking people global don’t now know what they do in their embassies, that we all now sanction by allow those embassies on our soil. And then it gets worse, not only attacking the family of K, his future family, not only renditioning him, or murdering premeditively, but he was a top journalist resident of the USA. Their is serious no way Trump can stop action. So their laughable fake news conference, that only exposes a whole new raft of questions while reinforcing the view that a whitewash was in train, a whitewash protecting a ruthless man. And who could that be, the leprosy of Qatar, the evil in Yeman, and the how dare he get married. If the US does continue to dither, then its even worse, the moral ethical outrage, of the holy land for Islam, coupled to K, coupled to Israel new US embassy… …And then add the explosive that wars mean men don’t come home, mean four wives… …it’s not to hard to see soldiers getting fessup of being fodder, realizing their job actually is to die so their betters can have a extra wife.
If I were a progressive S.A. leader, I’d end multiple wives, pull out of Yeman, reengage Qatar… get Trump to backtrack on embassy… but all we get is dangerous dithering from Ryad.
The corrupt, no matter their country of origin, always think that they are because they think that they’re better, more intelligent than anyone else.
Good linkies this morning Ed. 😛
Did anyone catch the NZ Music Awards last night?
Upper Hutt Posse, their frontman Dean Hapeta, at the end of his speech called out ‘Free Palestine’ condemned trump and called out government for sending our troops to fight fake wars over oil among other political messages.
Much respect to them for speaking up.
Dean has never been afraid to speak his mind, “E Tu” & the Dam Native years all righteous stuff. Now await the vitriol coz a brown guy dare speak his truth…
Was so awesome to hear his words, felt very proud of him for speaking the truth.
Miss almost 14 had plenty of questions afterwards (she stayed up late to watch), was happy to answer them.
Lyrics about reality rather than money and sex, we need more lyrical reality, kudos to all who use a platform to speak up and inform others.
Those names are a blast from the past.
I loved the first two upper hutt posse albums.
Cheers student radio.
Well ahead of its time, preceeding rage against the machine with the fusion of rock, rap and injustice.
The message was spot on although some stuff was hard to hear through pakeha ears.
This bit G…. “The message was spot on although some stuff was hard to hear through pakeha ears” well said.
Can you just clarify for me what wars we currently have troops fighting in? Motivation aside I can’t think of any current deployments that involve combat troops.
Hey Crashcart,
Government over the years and decades have sent troops to locations in the middle east to assist the USA lead wars. Which more often than not have one thing in common, oil. Peace isn’t profitable.
Pretty sure the speech made referenced Afghanistan.
Wonder if there is a clip of the full speech. The political part is at the end of the speech, will see if I can find later,
I think the question was ‘what wars we currently have troops fighting in’?
I have lost touch too Crashcart. Our Radionz news is full of what is happening in the USA but I don’t think we have any action within that country thank goodness. But elsewhere? What do the military buffs know?
seems to be a vaguely current list.
Might not include special forces deployments though
@ grey: Just as MoBIE, MSD and others in gubbamint are concerned , AND in the interests of ‘open gubbamint’ (going forward), [Maybe, oneday lprent could give us his impressions and experiences on a thread we could call ‘technophobia’]
Maybe the NZDF might care to publish their activities (across the 3 – almy, navvie and ear force), and with all due deference (to ‘the 5’) on a website.
With a cuzzie that once served in ‘peace keeping’ in the Sinai, and Singapore, and in the spooks for a quite a while thereafter till the alcopops and the liver got the better of him, I’ve also lost track
It does seem reasonable though that they could keep all the plebs appraised of their activities (all within the bounds of keeping shit secret in our Neshnool interest)
I’ve lost touch too both @ Crashcart and @Grey[non]warshark – not that I ever wanted to have such ‘touch’ in the first place.
I did appreciate however being told not to go near a Bainimarama’s Fiji a decade ago – based on the passport I held at the time. As it happens ,it now makes me even more cynical about various ‘competencies’ in our public service – the silos, the politicisation, the egos, the incompetencies, the agendas, the conflicted interests ……
Yes, going off at a tangent here, again, I thought about our police and how they wouldn’t venture into Pike mine at the beginning and now they are playing it safe again. And how much grief and extra cost that has caused. And they wouldn’t provide backup when trained miners wanted to make a series of reccies.
Thinks, would the Thai cave success be equalled if it happened here? Of course it isn’t the same as Pike because there may be a case to be heard in Court. That would have eaten a large part of the police and justice budget allocation. I wonder if the departments were under instruction to curb their enthusiasm?
/Agreed.
(At the time, and probably/possibly still), completely the wrong agency to have been leading any rescue effort. Peter Cowan – nice enough bloke and all that, and a good cop, but in that situation, out of his depth and encumbered with the wrong sort of mission.
I think the decision not to go ahead with attempting a rescue of miners who were almost certainly dead, risking a lot more deaths, was the correct one.
I doubt that the police made the decision without expert advice.
Talking to one of the mine rescuers afterwards. He said the police probably saved his life, restraining them from rushing in.
Certainly it is unfair to judge the person who had to make that sort of decision in the moment, with the information available at the time, using information they didn’t have.
The picture of men, waiting for a rescue that didn’t come, is a powerful one. But the ones in charge had to weigh up the real risk to rescuers, against the, slight, possibility of survivors.
Not a decision I would like to have to make. Though I am aware it may happen.
Link…
https://www.threenow.co.nz/shows/2018-vodafone-new-zealand-music-awards/2018-vodafone-new-zealand-music-awards/S1825-116/M26539-595
Political part of the speech at 1:43.50 – 1:45.10
Text below…
“Free Palestine!
And where’s that PM even if it was a fake acting one up here. I’ve got some words for you.
All of our armed forces and military that have been fighting in these fake wars in Afghanistan and Iraq for oil, for USA imperialism; get out of there!
What you need to be doing is going to Palestine to fight against the racist terrorism of the Israeli State, that’s where all of our fighting energy needs to be.
And also, even more, death to the Mexican USA border and defend that caravan of indigenous people seeking refugee status at the United Snakes of America kkk.
They are seeking refuge because their countries have been wrecked by that colonial power known as the USA.
Death to all oppressors.”
Oh I must add when he refers to the PM as a fake one acting, that’s the lady from Jono & Ben who impersonates Jacinda.
Our Jacinda has willingly been involved in a few very good skits with her, including one last night on Jono & Ben.
Anyways she presented an award at the NZMA last night dressed up as Jacinda 🙂
It’s wasn’t a dig at our PM being fake.
Felt I needed to add that context, for those who didn’t see the full NZ Music Awards show last night.
The largest current deployment by far is the training team in Iraq (over 150). Just renewed by the current govt for another 12 months.
All about training Iraqi forces to defeat ISIS.
If you think ISIS should not be opposed (with military force) well that’s your view. But obviously Jacinda et al do not share that view.
“If you think ISIS should not be opposed (with military force) well that’s your view. But obviously Jacinda et al do not share that view.”
Importantly, what is the majority of Kiwis view…..or is that of no consequence?
I am pretty sure the majority of New Zealanders would think ISIS has to be militarily opposed and that NZ should, at least to some extent, be part of the international coalition. The training team was probably the right level of commitment. There were polls on thiols at the time of the initial deployment when John Key was PM which showed clear support.
I was actually surprised that Jacinda and the Cabinet renewed the mandate for another 12 months. After all, ISIS has largely been defeated in Iraq. So presumably it was about NZ showing our partners that we are a reliable partner, notwithstanding the change of government.
Dean Hapeta at the Music awards would well have represented the Green Party view (and the left of Labour) but it is a minority view.
“I am pretty sure the majority of New Zealanders would think ISIS has to be militarily opposed and that NZ should, at least to some extent, be part of the international coalition. ”
And that is based on what? Polling, focus group, personal preference?
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2018/09/17/240869/nzs-mission-creep-in-iraq-creeps-on
“It was a decision that surprised Victoria University professor of strategic studies Robert Ayson, who believed there was good reason for a withdrawal from Iraq, given Isis was “no longer the battleground force it once was”.
“You need a compelling reason in Iraq to stay, and I’m not entirely sure that is there, so I think that now would have been a time to say, ‘Right, we’ve done what we said we were there to do’.”
Pat,
My recollection is at the time of the initial deployment the public polls were clearly in favour.
As for the current extension, I essentially said what Dr Ayson said. But that is not the only consideration for the extension of the deployment. NZ does not like to be the first out of an international coalition, and that is pretty much what we would have been.
I suspect the Govt thought the deployment was sufficiently Ok that the extension would not to cause any significant local reaction. And they were right. It didn’t.
I may be doing you a disservice but I suspect your claim that it was an acceptance of the majority view that was the deciding factor in the deployment decision was more a case of wishful thinking rather than any knowledge of such.
Anything to do with the, almost, total lack of information on troop deployments from our news media.
So much so, that we learn about them first through the Ozzie papers.
And the constant propaganda about big bad Iraq. Which was OK until they threatened the petrodollar. Like Libya. And indeed, Iran’s Government in the 50’s. Too Democratic for the Western powers, replaced by the Shar, and Savak.
IsIs could re-emerge any time, last time the US pulled back that’s when they got a foot hold.
I doubt even you still believe the fable which is , ISIS…
You realise the US funded ISIS in Syria?
To begin with they also funded the mujahadeen.
This was to try and save putting soldiers on the ground.
The purpose to overthrow despot rigimes in both cases costly mistakes!
Reminds me of Auckland (and maybe Christchurch)
“Vanity projects and kamikaze loggias: Tbilisi’s architectural disaster
The centre of the Georgian capital has long been the plaything of outsize egos – but can its architecture biennial inspire useful debate about the city’s future?
Joseph Alexander Smith, a Briton who has lived in Tbilisi for the last six years, was driven by what he witnessed to stand for local election last year on a platform of environmental activism, campaigning against chronic traffic problems, pollution and the unabated development that has blighted much of the city. “We have lost one of the city’s oldest streets, Mirza Shafi,” he says, “and now developers are hand-in-glove with politicians, intent on destroying everything that is left. Everyone has a right to air, not just the right to breath clean air, but to look out of their window and not be confronted by the concrete wall of a new illegal building.”
Is this going to be Phil Goff, John Key, Brownlee’s fate…. exile with criminal charges for corruption and in NZ case, gross stupidity as well???
“Saakashvili behaved like a king, just picking his favourites with no competition or discussion,” says Zhvania. “He dismissed any opposition voices as retrogrades, standing in the way of modernisation.”
The former president may now be living in exile in the Netherlands, wanted on multiple criminal charges back home, but his physical legacy is still very much felt – and others have eagerly picked up where he left off.”
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/nov/15/vanity-projects-and-kamikaze-loggias-tbilisi-architectural-disaster
Is there a connection with Chris Trotters latests musing?
https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/2018/11/communication-breakdown.html
“Why? Because the council officials understood that a councillor’s reputation was built upon his or her ability to get things done for the people who voted them into office. Repeated failure to fix their problems would very soon lead to gripes about Councillor So-and-So being “useless”. The slightest whisper that such an opinion was abroad in the electorate would have the impugned councillor knocking very loudly on the door of the Town Clerk, demanding to know what the hell was going on. That’s why action almost always followed.”
+1 Pat & agree with Chris Trotter
“Councillors are reduced to a browbeaten collection of rubber-stampers: prey to private sector contractors, condescending legal advisers, and over-mighty CEOs. The final indignity being that, having signed up to the Councillors’ Code of Conduct, these poor souls are forbidden from speaking out angrily, or publicly, about their powerlessness.”
I think in Phil Goff’s case, he is being used by the CEO and private sector to be a front man on the attack against local government and democracy. How else do you fathom taking off 2 elected councillors from Auckland Transport (that gets the lions share of ratepayers rates, but has a poor and dismal service record)?
A continuation of the observation that the vast majority of voices are increasingly ignored in western democracies…..and we wonder why ‘populism’ gains currency.
The establishment brings it upon itself and only they can solve it.
When less than 50% of voters bother to vote this happens.
Then people moan endlessly but go out and drum up support for representation on council no!
You get what you don’t vote for the status quo!
Skippy’s public service reform should extend to local bodies.
Never was that being ‘forbidden from speaking out’ about what is best described as muppetry more evident in Wellington recently in a Simon Wolf – Lavery exchange.
It’s a case of ‘officials’ throwing elected representatives ‘under a bus’ if anything.
And even when those ‘officials’ are legally in the wrong, they’re apt to push things to the limit, often in the knowledge that people don’t have the resources to face them off.
On a lighter note:
A Tui in my street has learned the sound of a computer booting up.
It has confused several of us thinking our machines are turning themselves on, or have been hacked, or….
It’s a juvenile Tui sitting on a powerpole, laughing at us the little blighter…
When they learn the telephone ring it is a real pain.
Someone near me must get a hell of a lot of texts. There’s at least of couple of tuis doing the Samsung default alert, and a few years ago they were doing the Nokia alert.
Looks like service is already declining, tired of public services being cut or not funded appropriately for population and tourist growth that the government is so keen on, while our taxes are used to further private profits that are publicly funded!
Urgent answers needed after rescue helicopter unavailable
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1811/S00167/urgent-answers-needed-after-rescue-helicopter-unavailable.htm
How come these communicators with the public can lie and never get called out on it? They need to be confronted, their organisation which is probably contracted to do government work, at their profit, should be exposed and tarred and feathered or made to walk through the streets with their trousers down looking stupid.
Brazilian military now taking over all the major roles in the Brazilian government. The US has been backing the coup with US, European and Brazilian corporates benefiting.
“I think what we are seeing is a massive transfer of Brazil’s natural resources to the north right now. Brazil is one of the richest countries in the world in terms of natural resources.Its petroleum, its minerals, its gold, its fresh water – they are talking about privatising the world’s largest acquifier to Coca Cola right now.”
How shameful “privatising the world’s largest acquifier to Coca Cola right now’
pity Jacinda is not using her status to question the fairness of bad deals and public asset transfer to private business, rather than actually promoting the practise of ‘FREE trade’ around the world. How bout they rebrand to FREEBIE trade agreements, it would be kinder and more honest.
Tellingly even with the excitement when apparently Mike Pence wanted to sit next to Arden, did she use the moment to discuss her supposedly nuclear free moment of climate change or urge US to uphold the Paris agreement and help the environment, nope instead it is reported that she focused on unsuccessfully pressing New Zealand’s case for an exemption on US tariffs on steel and aluminium which are mostly foreign owned multinational companies.
So who would even benefit from the lift of US tariffs on steel and aluminium – well mostly the profits of overseas firms.
Who owns NZ steel, well BHP, formerly known as BHP Billiton, is the trading entity of BHP Billiton Limited and BHP Billiton plc, an Anglo-Australian multinational mining, metals and petroleum dual-listed public company headquartered in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia and owns significant amounts of the formally known New Zealand Steel.
The raw material for NZ steel is ironsand which is disappearing fast around the world and can not be replaced and has virtually zero studies on the long term effects on the eco systems.
The future of sand mining in NZ
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/104065329/the-future-of-sand-mining-in-nz
Who owns NZ Aluminimum, NZAS is 79.36 per cent owned by Pacific Aluminium which in turn is owned by Rio Tinto Group an Anglo-Australian multinational and one of the world’s largest metals and mining corporations and 20.64 per cent owned by Japan’s Sumitomo Chemical Company.
So when our politicians have the ear of world leaders are they really thinking of the people of NZ or international peace and well being and climate change and environmental issues, or just promoting the short term profiteering of multinational big business???
It seems clear to me where Labour’s focus is, either intentionally or unintentionally!
OMG. The face behind the Trump variety performance.
Collective bargaining works! Funny we all happy when sports people do it – but outside of a few select sectors how many people are organised collectively?
http://www.afl.com.au/news/2018-11-15/aflw-player-wages-to-rise-finals-prize-money-introduced
I’d add this is the third pay raise over three years, each year these players are getting substantially more.
In more union news.
Big ups to the truckers in Iran. This is the second round of strikes and after the government arrested some of these same protestors – it takes real guts (unlike fake ponytail pulling guts) to carry on a strike in the face of a government used to suppressing working people.
https://libcom.org/news/iww-statement-solidarity-striking-workers-iran-14112018
Maine has its first taste of ranked choice voting for US House seats. On election night, the incumbent Repug won a plurality of first choice votes, but second (and maybe third) choices tipped it to the Dem. So naturally the loser Repug is suing.
https://edition.cnn.com/2018/11/15/politics/democrats-maine-house-ranked-choice-jared-golden/index.html
Ranked choice is slowly spreading to other states as well. So despite all the crap around gerrymandering, voter suppression and loads of other noxious anti-democracy actions, there are still some pockets of progress towards better democracy in the US.
https://thinkprogress.org/utah-cities-ranked-choice-pilot-program-2fec6e710064/
Yep. There, here, and everywhere.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/15/steve-bannon-oxford-union
“Chinese speaking buyers offered first dibs on ‘top secret’ luxury apartment planned for Auckland
A “top secret” 24-storey luxury apartment tower planned for Auckland’s North Harbour has been snapped up by exclusive buyers months before the public gets a look in.
The 72.5 metre apartment planned for Kaipiho Lane, Albany will feature more than 280 apartments, 11 lifts, a helicopter landing pad, residents’ cinema, swimming pool, clubhouse, ballroom, 24 hour concierge and robotic valet parking.
A website marketing the development in Chinese, http://www.kaipiho.co.nz, said the apartments “caused a subscription frenzy” when they were promoted on Chinese social media app WeChat.:
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2018/11/16/investigation-into-sabotage-of-academics-car-must-finally-start-demanding-answers-about-chinese-influence-in-nz/
P>S> clearly the government and councils measures to curb the housing shortages futile as seen in this example, but actually creating more poverty for Kiwis who end up subsidising the roads, congestion, Leaks, public transport, pollution etc that all these new developments for speculators who don’t even live here, are generating.
Chinese people want to get their money out of China and into gold bricks before their currency devalues or worse they take down the banks with lending, Kiwi housing investments should not be part of the solution of cash China 1.5 billion people, because our people and environment is the casualty of poor risk planning as is more exposure ‘If China Sneezes Will the Rest of the World Catch a Cold”.
And there aren’t even jobs for car valets. Perhaps someone will be able to hack their garage systems and send cars to be parked outside, or go to be serviced or such like. Just annoying glitches. We have plenty of those in NZ and would love to share them around.
I think you do not understand that whether you like it or not, NZ needs Chinese capital to flow in to correct balance of payments and keep Kiwi dollar high. Most Chinese property owners are resident in NZ, at least most of the time. We are a positive contribution to NZ, yet you paint us as fleeing China before the currency collapses. Maybe you should learn more about China and spend an extended period there before you preach the collapse of the Yuan.
Most Kiwis are concerned about the corruption which comes along with that Chinese capital.
Yes, corruption is sadly still normal in China, and at all levels. However, the younger Chinese not so much. But you seem to assume that the capital coming in to NZ is from corruption. This is, to me, if that is your thinking, not only wrong but racist wrong.
Many Chinese people are extremely wealthy not from corruption, but from riding the rapid growth of China economy. Look at Jack Ma, now one of the wealthiest men in the world. Not from corruption, but from business. There are 1.4 billion Chinese in China. 1 in 25 people in the world live within China’s borders. There are many many little Mr Ma’s, not wealthy from corruption but from hard work and smart work. Many of these want a better life in NZ, and many share their time between China and NZ, but invest in NZ and run business in China. This is good for NZ.
Please do not think all Chinese rich people are corrupt. They are not.
@Fang Zhou,
“Please do not think all Chinese rich people are corrupt. They are not.”
I don’t think all Chinese are corrupt, what is wrong with NZ is our NZ immigration policy is so pathetic and the criteria is not robust that our government has been bringing in all types of migrants or migrant workers who are corrupt, dishonest and liars, and they when they find out that they are all of that, they just let them stay here… all the while when we could have a robust policy to attract the best migrants here who could make a greater difference…
I don’t blame the Chinese, because it is not the Chinese fault that NZ government is stupid and does not discriminate against honest and dishonest people who come to NZ to live, work or study.
Should be, commit a crime in NZ, lie on your immigration forms or are found guilty of corruption and you are straight out the door and never to be allowed back into NZ whether you are Chinese, Korean, English, EU, Indian, or Russian or what have you. Not a ethnic based policy but a moral one.
Due to the isolation of NZ and our lack of robust immigration measures we do seem to attract our fair share of criminals trying to hide out here, or commit identity theft.
I didn’t say ‘the capital coming into NZ is from corruption’. I said corruption comes with the capital.
The other thing about Chinese wealth is the conditions under which it has been generated. Scant regard for human rights, political rights, worker rights, justice, and the environment has been the foundation upon which the Chinese capitalist economy has grown at such a fast pace.
You might have realised you are commenting on a forum which is inspired by the labour movement and so worker rights, and recently the environment, are high on most commenters’ list of priorities. I doubt whether a forum like The Standard would exist for very long in China and so when I look at the huge increase in wealth in that country I see it as tainted by injustice. You won’t find the same concerns on NZ blogs from the other side of the political divide.
Now, you might say it is the West’s consumerism which has partially funded the explosion of wealth in China and you would be right. I buy ‘made in China’ – it is difficult to not – so I too am guilty in a sense.
There will no doubt be some very good people emigrating to New Zealand but there will be a significant trail of corruption also and that is why we must ask questions, review settings, and be watchful.
You are right: The Standard (or any non-government blog) would not last very long in China.
And yes, I do realise I am commentating on a forum inspired by the labour movement. I also support that, but that does not mean blindly! A wrong by a socialist is just as bad as a wrong by a capitalist. Maybe worse, as the capitalist does not pretend what their motivation is.
The corruption I would disagree. In my experience, most Chinese coming here are reasonably young and well educated. They have experienced corruption throughout their life and do not like it. The money, including the big money that comes with them, is I think untouched.
Of more concern to NZ should be not the Chinese money coming to NZ, but rather when Kiwi engage in big business in China. It is inconceivable to me that Kiwirail or Fonterra are untouched by this. To do business in China at that level, well, I will not say the rest but you I am sure understand.
The other area of great concern to NZ should be immigration. I would suggest that almost EVERY Chinese that immigrates has been a party to corruption during the immigration process.
I totally welcome you.
Plenty on the left still mistrust Chinese – even after Helen Clark’s apology for decades of racism.
I don’t trust the Chinese government.
But then we’ve never examined US spying here, or British.
We’re a different people since the 1970s and thank God for that.
Most Chinese do not trust the Chinese government! Mr Xi is good for China economically, but he is slowly becoming little Mao.
Agreed.
Mr Xi is getting far too authoritarian.
@Fang Zhou. It’s the market driven flow of capital and being at the mercy of that capital and bad foreign decisions (ak BNZ floating and having to bail them out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_of_New_Zealand) that has caused the biggest crashes and poverty in NZ..
the Chinese situation will be exactly the same but worse as NZ has created too much dependancy on both Chinese investment and US security decisions.
Sadly the dominant discourse in NZ is neoliberalism and the pursuit of money, making our government decisions short term, lazy and stupid and allowed too much dependancy on other countries.
I think NZ and China should be friends but NZ becoming dependant on them for investment is a complete mistake.
As for high dollar in NZ, causes people living and working here huge problems, much higher mortgages and lending, less money from exports. Cheaper imports.
Kiwirail buys locomotives from Dailian. These are now much cheaper. High dollar both good and bad I think. But I admit economics is not my strength.
Yep they still do buy those locomotives. They may be cheap but we used to value quality and safety in NZ over money…
KiwiRail withdraws 40 trains from service after asbestos discovered in paint
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-03-01/kiwirail-pulls-40-trains-after-asbestos-discovery/5292902
“I think you do not understand that whether you like it or not, NZ needs Chinese capital to flow in to correct balance of payments and keep Kiwi dollar high. ”
I don’t know why you should think that. Even if it has been true in specific circumstances at one time, I do not see any need to favour Chinese capital over other capital, but it is also a destructive goal to set long term – if we need capital from immigrants, what does that tell you about wealth inequality within our country – and why wold an immigrant was to enter a country that requires immigrants to purchase capital assets to survive?
Far better that we fix some of the inequalities that currently plague us, that we develop domestic-owned enterprises to force competition on foreign owned companies (banks may be a good start), and recognise that we need to look after our population and leave them a country worth living, working and staying in – regardless of where they come from.
Sorry my bad explaining I think. No, should not favour Chinese capital over capital from elsewhere, but NZ needs capital inflow, regardless of where it comes from. Chinese invest heavily in NZ, certainly compared to many other immigrant groups. And yes, that can push up property prices but also many many Chinese build houses and buy businesses, and that provides work and increases the housing pool. And GST paid and so on.
Chinese, and others, wish to enter NZ as it is a better life here. Despite what many seem to think, the standard of living is about the same for the average person, but quality of life here is much higher.
Yes, I agree with you regarding NZ owned enterprises, looking after the NZ population. Do you not think though that I, coming here and, when I first arrived, buying a business was not also indirectly looking after the NZ population? I paid taxes, employed two part-timers.
It is not that I disagree with you, but ‘how’. Many immigrants just get on with it. Work long hours and invest in the next generation. Kiwi people work hard, but seem to prefer to be employees rather than take risks. Immigrants often have no choice but to risk everything (we did that by coming here!). So we invest, we buy businesses, we try harder. I know that is a generalisation, but that is my experience.
It’s interesting you object to a generalisation by making a generalisation about Kiwis preferring to be employees – none of our family are and are in a quite wide set of infrastructure and construction businesses. Years of long hard earned reputation and resilience has meant we have survived in the face of being undercut on prices and lower standards, some have not. That’s not some prejudiced “opinion”, it’s based on factual events and is something that is sad when it happen. Something NZ should be able to work for as it did historically is to uplift the conditions and prospects of NZers not have that regress by being damned into working longer hours or under conditions that are any longer than what is necessary to get the work done and get it done right and for a fair price.
Immigrants have seed capital. Being the more wealthy in China.
Kiwi’s do not. After decades of high living costs and low wages.
Being an employee is not a choice.
Agree that many Chinese people are not their Government.
However our dollar is too high. One of the reasons for China’s recent economic ascendancy, is their Government deliberately keeps their currency low, encouraging exports and discouraging imports, into China.
I don’t think pushing house prices up beyound the reach of locals is a positive contribution to New Zealand. And it is USA’ians, British and South Africans, as well as Chinese. Any more than the British wealthy in, Spain hogging all the coastal real estate.
Pardon my ignorance, but Robotic valet parking? WTF?
It is very common in cities with limited space you can store large numbers of cars within a small space.
Effectively you pull into garage onto a parking pad, hop out and the system lifts then moves the pad to a vertical storage space.
There is NOT little robots running around parking cars.
@ Monty, many thanks for that info. I have never heard the term “Robotic Parking” before, so as a result, my decrepit old brain went into overdrive (no pun intended) 🙂
Chinese property investment abroad is a diversification, risk managemrnt, as the domestic market may be in slow down (over supply).
The current or future value of the yuan would have little to do with it.
The development you mention, use of land for property to people not currently residents, shows what the governments relaxation of the its new rules for foreign purchase leads to.
I think the Chinese preference to invest in NZ real estate is that here you own the dirt.
All Chinese land is owned by everyone, it can only be leased.
We can leave our NZ properties to our children, in China it can be left for the duration of a lease but thereafter it resorts to state ownership and Mr Xi decides if continued occupation is desirable.
Having lived in Shanghai and now HKG for over 4 years now. Those type of complexes are common. The developers add these things to attract buyers its like an apartment arms race.
It is good and very convenient for the people living there.
The one I lived in Shanghai had all of that plus a super market, 10 underground tennis courts, couple B ball courts, pools training and resort style, Gym, Spa, Dance and Yoga studios.
The robotic parking was humorous as at least a couple people per week got caught and forgot to get out of the car and got stuck. (mainly their own fault wechatting and not being aware of the surroundings)
I’m expecting the mic to be ripped out of Audrey’s hand any minute now….
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12160871
But where was she sitting in relation to Pence? Young doesn’t give us the seating plan in detail which is odd because it’s the detail which seems to have got under her skin.
Was the PM one over from Pence? If so I believe that’s as close as Pence will allow any woman other than his wife.
“For several days her officials had been telling New Zealand media that she would be sitting next to Pence at his request.“
What Young points out is the spin. ‘Next to Pence at his request’ is not next to Mrs Pence, whatever the seating plan. This would be nitpicking if those same officials hadn’t made such an issue if it.
It certainly is nitpicking. But then that’s what the Nats and their embedded media are reduced to right now.
@ mutton. + 100.
Well I’ve seen one article by one journalist and nothing from the National Party, so that’s a stretch.
Perhaps either the PM or her officials need to stop giving the “Nats and their embedded media” this kind of material?
Mike Pence would have lobbyists chewing on his ear every waking minute.
The most effective and successful of those lobbyists will be Mrs Pence.
jacinda is dumb like a fox.
Yep. Every word JA said to Mrs Pence Mr Pence will have heard loud and clear.
Whereas Audrey Young is just plain dumb.
I’m more thinking of those few minutes in the dark after both have put their books down, clicked off the Tiffany bedside lamps and while drowsing off Mrs Pence says…
“Have you seen any footage of those abandoned children on Nauru Island honey.”
They sleep in separate rooms, surely.
Probably separate houses but for as long as Mrs Pence is on Mike’s arm at the many events they attend, there is no better path for Jacinda to pursue if she wants Mike to get onboard with something.
Breast-feeding Prime Ministers come with a fair slice of gravitas in the eyes of Washington’s silver vixens.
Eventually, wives always win.
It’s the way it should be: Woman – Smart. Man – Stupid.
Woman: “Lets put a swish kitchen and bathroom into the rental?”
Man: “Don’t you think we need a depreciation nose diving 911 honey?”
Then why claim Jacinda was sitting next to Mr Pence? It just encourages the sort of article that Audrey Young wrote.
Here is the seating plan, Pence is sitting between his wife and another woman and Adern is next to Mrs Pence
https://www.google.co.nz/url?sa=i&source=images&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwj3g9GJ69feAhVZcCsKHX3_DR0QjRx6BAgBEAU&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newshub.co.nz%2Fhome%2Fpolitics%2F2018%2F11%2Fjacinda-ardern-reveals-what-she-talked-about-with-us-vice-president-mike-pence.html&psig=AOvVaw2JrA3Q74DfN2D7ZTaCCUky&ust=1542420706617964
A week before Thanksgiving, members of the same tribe who helped the pilgrims survive 400 years ago stood before the nation’s Capitol Building. But instead of celebrating, they spoke out against the Trump administration’s decision to take their reservation away.
https://newsmaven.io/indiancountrytoday/news/give-back-our-reservation-mashpee-wampanoag-and-allies-march-on-the-capitol-O2aeJIbIHkyFyrSwyU_WEw/
This is the precursor to selling of great wads of federal land. Or if your cynical, land not covered by a treaty from the people they stole it off.
Because if you an indigenous American you ain’t worth a damn thing to white settler thinking.
Bernie Sanders took on Amazon for higher minimum wages, and won handsomely.
Now he’s taking on Walmart.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-walmart-minimum-wage_us_5bedc525e4b0443db862a5a8
God it would be great to have an MP like this in New Zealand naming and shaming the big low-wage companies.
Glad you finally jumped on the Bernie train. 😉
Just Biden my time
🙂
We should have a Stein to celebrate.
🙂
What about the big health and safety issue of onions on my sausage at Bunnings?
It is amusing when you hear it at first, but you cant deny they are taking safety seriously. Pity Pike river mine management was not as safety conscious as we may not have lost 29 people.
Because some muppet over here in Oz, slip on some BBQ onions with his sausage sanger at Bunnings in NSW or Vic and a filed a WHS complaint. This muppet may’ve even got a payout with WHS the complaint? Just like some of the muppets you slip on fruit/ veggies aisle or at the drinks aisle and try in sue the company for a few quid in the process.
I love that it’s the same company that refused to have a defibrillator onsite. Maybe they learned from the rucus that caused…
I didn’t know that. Do they have them on site now? They bloody should do.
Oh yeah – one of those things that caused so much outrage they u-turned in days.
Seems to be the corporate disease of “if it might mean work for head office, don’t do it”. Hence a memo about the order in which onions are put on sausages might absolve corporate from responsibility.
They could just sweep the spilled food up if the seagulls don’t take it, but whatevs
What about onions on saus Can you pop a link up so we can have some trivia to lighten our lives?
I see the ADF is purchasing a Squadron’s worth 12- 16 of the Armed version of the General Atom Reaper UAV’s this mornings Oz paper. There was talk of buying these back in 2014 and confirmed in the 2016 Defence White Paper with the impression it at purchase to buy in the early 2020’s, so it makes me wonder why the sudden purchase of these units now?
playing to the base. And aren’t they also getting F35s? Probably after something that works to go with that, lol
A New Zealand actor reports, in a tone of high seriousness,
that Israelis see themselves as “an underdog.”
RNZ National, Wednesday 14 November 2018
We’ve dealt before with the contemptible phenomenon of glib and ignorant theatre “luvvies” sounding off about things they lack the competence to comment on. There was the pretentious “theatre-maker” Stella Duffy [1], there was the “sooooo truthful” Tandi Wright [2] and of course who could ever forget the epically pompous stand-up comedian Andrew Clay? [3]
Now, I must report sadly, I have identified another talkative but shallow member of this sorority of the second-rate, this club of the clueless, this brotherhood of the bewildered, this guild of the giddy and guileless, this [That’s enough epithets.—J.A. Napes]. About 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday, as I steered the Breenmobile through the suburban dreamscapes of the North Shore, I chanced upon the actor Tim Balme being interviewed by that great gorgeous emptiness Jesse Mulligan. Amongst other things, Balme spoke about his play The Ballad of Jimmy Costello, which is based on the George Wilder story. He mentioned that he had performed it in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Speaking slowly and with as much gravitas as he could summon, Balme stated that Israeli audiences “loved it” because “it’s a play about an underdog, and Israel is a nation that considers itself an underdog.”
Israel “an underdog.” A nation that “considers itself an underdog.”
???????!!??!?!?
The absurdity, indeed the obscenity, of that propaganda seemed to be lost on Tim Balme, and of course it was lost on Jesse Mulligan.
The decline of RNZ National continues.
[1] https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-03102015-2/#comment-1077820
[2] https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-28082015/#comment-1063760
[3] https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-04122013/#comment-738941
“…. Israel is a nation that considers itself an underdog.”
When the privileged and powerful start making out, that they are the victim, everyone else is in danger.
The fascist rulers of Germany made big play of Germans being the underdog prior to WWII.
The White Minority government of South Africa also played the victim card.
And Trump also plays the, hard done by, victim card in appealing to his base.
All great lies have some truth, Germans suffered the unfairness of the reparations forced on them at the end of the First World War. When it was the German soldiery and sailors who mutinied that brought that brutal imperial conflict to an end.
The Boers painted themselves the victims of British imperialism.
And Trump’s supporters feel squeezed by the ‘elites’ (even though Trump is one of them).
And the present day Zionist rulers of the state of Israel use the excuse of the Holocaust inflicted on European Jews, by Germany, to carry out almost similar levels of repression and murder and dispossession against the Palestinian people.
Jenny, you may have confused Russia with Germany regarding the end of World War 1?
The collapse/rebellion in Germany was mainly civilian, not military. Some sailors joined a dockworkers’ rebellion, but by and large the German military forces, while being forced onto the retreat, were intact, not defeated, and still in French/Belgian territory.
This is why they later believed that they had been stabbed in the back, which helped Hitler.
More moronic comments from the mozz, of course Israel are the under dog. I do dispair with mozzies lack of cognitive reasoning making discourse pointless.
You appear to have chosen your pseudonym well.
Kia ora Nation Simon & Emma The billion tree planting program from our Coalition Government is a good start but we need to invest more into climate change mitigation.
trump is a puppet his backers oil barons don’t want China’s manufacturing muscle to push oil into our history books as they will lose there control of the people on earth.
It was China that pushed the price of Solar down to a price that’s lower than thermal energy that is produced by coal and oil. China & Elon will push the petrol car into our history books and make energy democratic people producing there own power.
Ka kite ano. .
You see OUR Freedom and democracy is a illusion they keep most peoples reality in a big square box that the wealthy control the people on Mother Earth’s reality
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94dBVPpymac
Kia ora Newshub back with the moko’s lost track of time lets hope the The All Blacks test goes our way . The Black ferns Kia Kaha It’s awesome that the wahine World Cup is being hosted by Aotearoa I’m sure we will be good honest hoste . Ka pai to the young foot ball ferns .Looks like all the stories are about Jacinda trip overseas meeting other heads of state I will eaz on giving my of these people for the time being. Mike I read a story in Stuff on the reason why OUR weather is so variable at the minute after a long story the conclusion was human caused climate changes are the main causes
Ka Kite ano