Someone has been making money… a brave whistler blower has exposed joyces super ministry has been spending way way to much money on contractors. Especially job recruitment agencies for YEARS. Excellent article by Matt Nippert
” The data — leaked from internal MBIE financial reports by an anonymous source claiming to be concerned about “waste” — covers more than $250 million in payments to more than 2000 individual contractors, and $54m in payments to consulting firms, over the past four years.
Analysis of the data shows spending on contractors, as a percentage of MBIE’s salary bill, has increased every year over the period — from 20.4 per cent in 2014, to 30.2 per cent in the financial year ended June 2017.
The number of highly paid contractors — those earning more than $200,000 a year — more than quadrupled in the period, from 23 to 94.”
I believe this won’t be the only instance of such decisions, government should also look at the spending of contracting security guards for WINZ, personally I feel that is another money making rort.
We should be employing people, not outsourcing work to our contracting mates. But hey, national made it LOOK like they were cutting backing/capping the number of government employees. Freaking bunch of loop hole cowboys.
Dear new Government, can we please have greater protection for whistler blowers? Thank you.
I’m not at all surprised @Cinny. All that (and more) while entities such as INZ, and the Labour Inspectorate have been utterly underfunded and under-resourced.
But, as previously commented, just have a look at MoBIE’s history, structure and the backgrounds of its senior management.
Hi Cinny, This is pure gold as I thin there is some proof here of Steven joyce acting outside the law here.
‘The data — leaked from internal MBIE financial reports by an anonymous source claiming to be concerned about “waste” — covers more than $250 million in payments to more than 2000 individual contractors, and $54m in payments to consulting firms, over the past four years.’
Cinny I recall this event below;
Before the last election there was a program on one of the ‘public affairs’ shows on RNZ , Q+A, or The Nation, – where Matthew Hooten was speaking about Steven joyce offering the contract to a road building company wongly & illegally without lthe usual ‘letting the contract out for tender firstly.’
Next to Hooten being interviewed was Michelle Boag who turned viciously on Hooten and said “Matthew are you mad!!! why are you saying this!!!! you need to see a doctor!!”
Now there maybe a connnection to this here somewhere as Steven Joyce was then actually running the ‘MBIE’ agency.
And since Steven Joyce alone had setup this mega agency called ‘MBIE’, the real possibility of corruption is there now, that it may have been easily done arranged for deals to have been done by Joyce as he had so much power nover the agency then…. So this needs a deep investigation now.
Thanks Cinny. A couple of years ago Gordon Campbell (I think) wrote a scathing review of the running of MBIE. I can’t find it but his analysis was of huge inefficiencies and wastefulness and worse the combined Ministries finding it hard to get things done.
Maybe that explains the big money on consultants?
Penny Bright (hopefully she’ll link to a few of them) has linked to many articles over the years showing that when government uses contractors rather than in-house employees their costs go up dramatically. As there is no way that the previous government would have been unaware of this then we must assume that it was done on purpose.
So, who were the contractors and what’s their connection with the National Party?
EDIT:
McRobie said the variance between MBIE’s 2017 Annual Report, which said the Ministry had spent $56.1m on contractors and consultants, and the spreadsheet’s $93.8m tally for such spending, was explained by accounting treatments.
Translation: We were able to doctor the document to make it look better.
Am so hearing that, will go on a link hunt next time I come inside. joyces (no capital letter for that scum) superministry seems to be naught but a marketing tactic, the more I learn about it.
Media coverage will be a real teller of inbed/embedded tory journalists, now the government has changed.
Unfortunately @Cinny, the coalition hasn’t (yet) seen fit to pull out some of its functions and have them ‘refocus’ (to use a buzzword) – just as they have done with MPI. If ever their was a Ministry in need, MoBIE was it. (Not that there aren’t others)
If you check back through Open Mike (even around 3,4,5 December) people have touched on them.
RNZ have done a number of stories on the functions for which MoBIE is respobsible. It’s a very ugly story overall.
Mr Smug (Joyce) and Mr Smug (Coleman) designed this bugger’s muddle of a Ministry that has basically been working as designed and its only real achievements have been the lowering of standards, the exploitation of people and enabling a heirarchy of ticket clippers to take advantage of it all.
Thankfully, the likes of Iain Lees-Galloway aren’t stupid …. but we’ll have to wait and see a bit longer.
In a statement, MBIE’s McRobie decried the leak and claimed it disclosed “personally and commercially sensitive information about current and former contractors” and was being treated as a “serious issue”.
No, it’s not commercially sensitive information. It’s information that your employers, the public, need access to. You trying to keep it from us is, as a matter of fact, you not doing your job properly.
We, the public, need that information to make proper decisions about the running our country.
We now have the evidence & heard and now seen the proof found from 2014 three weeks before the last election also.
That newly found information was in a leak from the political panel on a radio show
we just located that a large contract worth between $50 million and 100 million was illegally given by Steven Joyce for a roading contractor that was made though MBIE.
The contractor complaned to them that they were not legally allowed to carry out that contract that way.
After complaining the contractor was told flatly “that is the way we want you to do it”
Steven Joyce broke the rules here again, so we need a royal enquiry into this arrogant little man now!!!
Ironic when he has been going around blaming everyone else for their wrong doings eh???
We are prepared to release the evidence when an enquiry is set up to investigate MBIE wrongful illegal operations.
Tee hee. Looks like the only one to have dug himself a fiscal hole is Dildo Joyce. It’s high time that smirking little stoat got a sound drubbing. I suspect it’s one of the reasons they were all so keen to be back on the government benches. More time to stuff skeletons back into Beehive cupboards. It’s just a crying shame that, as per usual, it’s only now that National have been chucked out we start to see the true extent of their vandalism. Bloody wreckers, the lot of them.
“Unbelievable brutality, day after day, night after night….
No other society anywhere lives in such willed ignorance.”
Gideon Levy at Mt Eden War Memorial Hall, Dominion Road
Sunday 3 December 2017, 3 p.m. (Part 1 of 2)
On a gorgeous early summer afternoon, the Mt Eden War Memorial Hall was packed for this rare chance to see someone who is without any doubt a hero and an inspiration to human rights activists around the world. However, there were some notable absentees: where were the “liberal” bloggers such as Russell Brown and his court? Where was Māori Television? Where was TVNZ? Where was “THREE”? Where was the Herald?
Ngati Whatua o Orakei welcomed Gideon In an eloquent and moving couple of minutes, the speaker established a connection between New Zealand’s treatment of Māori and Israel’s dispossession of Palestinians. He recalled how in 1951 the National Government and the Auckland City Council collaborated to evict Māori families from their homes in Okahu Bay. “It traumatised our people, though they rarely spoke of it. More recently, John Key’s government allowed people to claim our land. We are in the courts all across the land. My advice to the Palestinian people is not to fall for that. Our dispossession was of a different severity to the dispossession of the Palestinians, but they both had the same result.”
Next came some introductory remarks by Nicholas Rowe, who lived in Ramallah from 2000 to 2008, teaching in refugee camps. Professor Rowe is especially interested in the phenomenon of addiction, and why people do such injurious things to themselves. Nationalism, he said, is crystal meth, cooked up in think tanks and exacerbated by peer pressure. Like all addictions, nationalism does not discriminate on the basis of economics. The Israel-Palestine conflict is not a religious one, it’s political. Manufactured ideals are terribly addictive. Prof. Rowe said that Gideon Levy is like a crack baby. He has had to struggle to break away from the grip of nationalism. It’s a very hard struggle. Israel’s brutal politics of exclusion is an issue that needs to be addressed.
The great journalist then began his speech. (I’ve organised this point by point. It’s pretty much verbatim.)
GIDEON LEVY:
1.) First of all, I have to say that, in spite of the grimness and darkness of the situation, there is still hope. I learned a great deal from my host Parata yesterday. I was greatly impressed to learn of the immense scale and length of the protests in New Zealand against another apartheid state in 1981. We are not pro-Palestinian, we are pro-justice. We are struggling for justice, equality and for respect for international law. (APPLAUSE)
2.) I was stunned to see Māori art at Auckland International Airport. Just imagine Palestinian art at Ben Gurion Airport! It would be erased within hours.
3.) Solidarity is essential. I was born in Tel Aviv. I was a “good Tel Aviv boy.” I was taught to believe the Palestinians are always wrong, that WE are weak, that on the other side are golem who want to push us into the sea. We were a people without land, who came to a land without people. There were ruins around the roads in Israel. I never asked what those ruins were. I never heard the word nakba until I was twenty years old. We were told that the Palestinian leaders had incited their people to run away.
4.) In the late 1980s, I went to the Palestinian Territories. I was working for the IDF and Shimon Peres; I don’t know which was worse. (LAUGHTER)
5.) In the Occupied Territories I saw unbelievable brutality, day after day, night after night. I decided that I would make it my life’s work to cover the Occupation. For this I have been labeled a “self-hating Jew.”
6.) I’m not “covering the Palestinians”—I’m a journalist. I am covering the story, and holding up a mirror to my fellow Israelis, and saying: “You, and each of us, is accountable.”
7.) In Israel there is a broad coalition of opinion, which says “We don’t want to know.” No other society anywhere lives in such willed ignorance, abetted and amplified by the Israeli media and the Jewish establishment in New Zealand and Australia. Israel is becoming increasingly militaristic, nationalistic, and religious.
8.) In Canberra last week I met some Australian members of parliament. It gave me hope, because until I heard them speak I had always thought that Israel’s right wing politicians were the worst. —-(LAUGHTER)— I’ve never heard any Israeli politician speak about the Palestinian people the way that those Australian politicians did. But they are Australia’s problem, not mine. (LAUGHTER) I spoke with the Australian foreign minister; she talked and she was very nice but we could not agree on anything. (LAUGHTER)
9.) Israel has three regimes. First, there is the “liberal democracy” which is the privilege of its Jewish citizens, but there are many threats to this. The second regime is aimed at the Palestinians—the “Israeli Arabs” who comprise 20 per cent of the population, and who have formal civil rights; they are deeply discriminated against in every way. The third regime is very different from any “liberal” posturing—this is Israel’s dark heart, the regime in the Occupied Territories. This is one of the most brutal tyrannies on Earth today, no less than that.
10.) Israel cannot be defined as anything other than an apartheid regime. It is apartheid. No one with an open heart could not be shocked and moved by the situation in the Occupied Territories. Israel claimed for years that the Occupation was “temporary. We cannot find a partner.” The Occupation is part of Israel, therefore we cannot define Israel as a democracy. Either ALL the inhabitants of Israel enjoy civil rights, or they do not. Either you are a democracy, or there are other names to call you.
11.) I enjoy full freedoms. But this is just a front. You in this audience know more than the average Israeli does, because you are interested. How can Israeli society live with this terrible reality in our backyard? This brutality, this criminal reality.
12.) Whenever there is a catastrophe overseas, Israel sends a rescue team. But we are blind to the catastrophe in our backyard. The roots of this problem lie in the message with which we are inculcated from birth and right through the school system: (a) “Israelis are the Chosen People—therefore we do not have to obey the law”; (b) “Israelis are the greatest victims in history. Not only are we the greatest victims in history, we are the ONLY victims in history, therefore we can do what we want”; (c) “The Palestinians are not human beings like us; the Palestinians are cruel, brutal terrorists, who want to push us us into the ocean. They are NOT human beings.” This message is very effective because if it is accepted, then there is no question of the Palestinians deserving human rights.Though more severe, this is similar to what has been done to the Māori; this is what the colonizer does, dehumanize people.
13.) The informal religion of Israelis is the worship of security. This lets us do whatever we like. No one speaks of the security of the Palestinians, who paid a much bigger price. Israel is the regional superpower, with all the weapons in the world , and still we pretend to be David facing existential threat.
14.) Don’t expect any change from within Israeli society. Life is too good in Israel, and Israeli people are brainwashed. Never before has there been an occupatioin where the occupying force is the victim. There have been longer and more brutal occupations, but this is the only one where the occupier pretends to be the victim.
15.) Israel never stops making excuses for its refusal to negotiate with the Palestinians. “Arafat is too strong, Abu Mazen is too weak. Hamas wants to exterminate us.” But the world is watching. The world agrees, from Africa to Australia to the United States, everyone wants a two-state solution, no one recognizes the Occupation. Israel’s second best friend is Micronesia. The world pays lip service to the two-state solution year after year, and Israel takes advantage. There are endless “peace plans”, all of them the same: Israel must recognize the 1967 borders. In the meantime, Israel has exploded its influence in the Occupied Territories. There are now SEVEN HUNDRED THOUSAND illegal settlers in the Occupied Territories, including East Jerusalem. Will they ever evacuate 700,000 settlers?
16.) But don’t blame the settlers. We are ALL settlers. We have missed the train of one state shared justly. The Occupation is stronger and more brutal than ever. We have to change the discourse and talk of one thing: equal rights for everyone between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean.
17.) New Zealand is a democracy; that’s enough for my country. (APPLAUSE) There are six million Palestinians, therefore Israel cannot be a purely Jewish state. Israel has to accept it is an apartheid state. The international community fought against South Africa; don’t we have to do the same against this apartheid state? Or do we choose to support, blindly and intentionally, the apartheid state? There is no other way to describe Israel: it is an apartheid state.
18.) The so-called “friends of Israel”, who support Israel automatically and blindly: this has nothing to do with friendship. They are enemies of Israel—they corrupt us. The Jewish establishment in Australia kept saying to me: “Israel right or wrong.” Well, Israel is wrong and they need to stop supporting it. Continuous support by Western governments and by the Jewish establishment is anything BUT friendship.
19.) Gaza is the biggest cage on Earth. It is the biggest experiment on human beings that has ever been taken: let’s lock two million people in a cage and see what happens to them. One in three of Gaza’s children has been a victim of sexual harassment. Families, and society, are falling apart in Gaza. No one is able to support the children. Addiction to painkillers is rampant. Gaza was famous for its solidarity, its willpower, and its devotion. Gazans were famous for being always happy, and never complaining. Now it is falling apart, even Gaza’s famous solidarity. The United Nations has declared that Gaza will be unlivable by the year 2020. That is two years from now. In fact, it is already unlivable. Anyone who goes there is horrified. There is sewage in the streets, and the electricity is cut constantly. Launching rockets is the only way to get world attention.
20.) The occupation of the West Bank has always been brutal. Hundreds of Palestinians are kidnapped by the I.D.F. every week. I ask you to imagine teams of soldiers descending on your home in the night, then taking one family member away for weeks, even months, even years, into “administrative detention. None of us, except the Palestinians here, can imagine living under occupation. Humiliation in front of your family, the routine, daily humiliation and degradation more than the bloodshed, which is horrifying at certain times. Their only hope is civil society—NGOs like yours (Kia Ora Gaza, the NZ Palestine Solidarity Network, ), the Boycott, Divestment and
Sanctions movement, etc. For me, meeting people like you gives me hope.
21.) New Zealand has a good reputation. On the Q+A program this morning, I was asked about the United Nations Resolution 2334 led by New Zealand last year. Each New Zealander should be so proud of that. (PROLONGED APPLAUSE) The resolution states: “The settlements are a violation of international law.” Who can deny it? Israel denies it of course. Of course, anyone can deny anything. You could say today is not Sunday, but at the end of the day some things are beyond dispute. The settlements are a brutal violation of international law. Some will try to make your government’s brave leadership in this matter an international scandal. The United States did not veto the Resolution because Obama felt guilty after eight years of doing nothing. So don’t let your politicians do the wrong thing; you know more than they do.
22.) Many things in history happen unexpectedly. Think of the last thirty years: apartheid South Africa—gone. The Soviet Union—gone. The Berlin Wall—gone. This gives us hope, even though I can’t expect the situation to change right now. In our part of the world, one should be realistic enough to believe in miracles. (LAUGHTER) And we need miracles. (PROLONGED, SUSTAINED APPLAUSE.)
Interesting interview on RNZ with Kim Hill at the mo : 8.20 Anthony Daniels (aka Theodore Dalrymple) – The Proper Procedure.
Link not yet up.
It might be a bit tedious to get through, but it’ll be interesting to hear/see feedback
Theodore Dalrymple is a great writer. His work on Indian history is stunning, and as well as that he is an authority on the oppression of the Palestinians.
Tim Watkins writes an analysis of the Moko verdict at Pundit
The core issue is spending. Money. Our tax dollars. We are trying to provide for the care of our most vulnerable children on the cheap, and kids like Moko are picking up the cheque.
It struck me
How far would have the 26 million for Keys bloody flag referendum have gone to help that under funding
$26,000,000 would have paid for about 400 social workers.
In 2014 Chief Social Worker Paul Nixon reported CYF were over 350 social workers short.
“$26,000,000 would have paid for about 400 social workers.”
But those social workers would have to do their job, properly.
Their overarching responsibility must be the protection of children.
Let’s look, again, at the organisations who came in contact with Moko’s mother and the friend she entrusted with the care of her other two children while caring for another child who was hospitalised.
“Child Youth and Family, the Auckland DHB, the Maori Women’s Welfare Refuge, the Waipahihi Kindergarten, Family Works, as well as the Rural Education Activities Programme. ”
All of these funded organisations knew this family was under stress and should have extrapolated from that the the two children who ended up in Shailer’s care were potentially at risk.
Not a single one of these funded organisations put the welfare of those two children first.
If they had, Moko would still be alive and his older sister would not have to live with the accusation from Shailer that she delivered the fatal kick to her brother ringing forever in her ears.
I wholeheartedly agree that the National party approach of targetted ‘investment’ and the Ministry for Vulnerable Children moniker has the potential to stigmatise certain groups and result in unfair and possibly dangerous profiling.
That is why I support Coroner Bain’s call for monitoring of ALL children up to the age of five.
As I said yesterday, this can be done in such a fashion that the accusation of ‘fascism’ is avoided.
I distinctly recall my colleagues at work back in the eighties referring to the poor Plunket Nurse who was charged with ensuring that as a new and inexperienced mother I didn’t damage my baby, as my Probation Officer. Because certainly there were parallels between her monitoring of me (as I returned to work within days of the mites’s birth) and the monitoring of some of our residents in the halfway house I was working in.
I look back with a little shame as subsequent Plunket Nurses were subject to a certain amount of disrespect from me as I now (having bred a couple of times more) had more hands on experience of child rearing than these usually childless women.
However…I was also aware, through my work, that failure to ensure that children received optimal loving care from day one had the potential to, at least, have those grown children now dealing with drug and alcohol and mental health issues and seriously entanglements with the Justice system.
So I sucked it up and submitted to what I saw as unfair scrutiny in the hope that the ‘system’ would pick up those who really needed extra attention.
That was thirty years ago, and despite billions being spent nothing has changed.
And this causes me considerable personal grief as a ‘survivor’ of childhood abuse and neglect that at risk children today are no safer.
Your point about having to the job properly is certainly valid.
One of the key issues is that the workers have to time to do their job.
The shortage will not have helped that.
Why the hell would the 99% of parents who have no problem keeping themselves sober, drug free, out of prison and not killing children be subject to some more state monitoring of their children? The Investment model can almost predict which children are at risk, as can many of us with eyes and the ability to read coroners reports. You are worried about stigmatising these low life’s rather than protecting children? FFS
The Investment model can almost predict which children are at risk
So it can’t predict which children are at risk then.
Meanwhile, we can predict that more children will be at risk the longer this level of inequality continues. We can also predict that the National Party’s policies lead to more children being at risk, and our prediction will be accurate because that’s exactly what has happened.
So we already know exactly who the low-lives are, and their crocodile tears for the victims of their sadistic greedy policies are already seen for what they are.
What about the parents who don’t support greedy sadism?
You are putting yourself on the side of the gods funstigator. If you want to comment here and have a rant that is therapeutic, but it is important that you don’t flash round pseudo stats like 99% and talk about the investment model without trying to understand its nature and cost.
… because you’re a pretentious idiot who’s contaminating the thread with your stupidity?
I’ll make it easier for you:
Q1: will the big brother approach reduce instances of children being beaten to death?
Q2: if not, why not?
Q3: if it will reduce the numbers of children being beaten to death, is there a better non-BB option?
Q4: if there is not a better option, and the BB option will reduce the number of children being beaten to death, why shouldn’t we make that decision to implement that plan?
Frankly, I think any impact in Q1 would be more the product of extra people on the ground than the monitoring benefits, so “more social workers with more resources and lower caseloads” would probably be the better option requested in Q3.
Do you have any coherent thoughts on the matter, preferably expressed using precise grammar and lots of nouns?
Oh, ok. Not under any conditions. Neighbours reports screams, kids with limps and facial bruising, but don’t actually see violence occurring. You’d not give social workers the authority to check while the kid is still alive.
The reason you gave for your opinion – “There isn’t a solution which will prevent tragedies from occurring” – is bullshit, because the premise is that there are solutions that will reduce tragedies. It’s a strawman argument.
Should anyone else be stupid enough to employ your “argument” against the ‘Big Brother’ proposal, ‘Big Brother’ advocates win.
I see the 659 million spending blow out on our two frigates is causing a rucus.
I guess we need to understand what the frigates are for. They primary role is to be able in any hot war is to slot into the escort screen of a Naval force made up mainly of the USN (as well as RCN, RAN and possibly RN) ships. Other roles like fisheries protection, anti-piracy patrols, enforcement of UN mandated sanctions, SAR, etc etc are secondary to their primary combat mission. Since the end of the cold war, when the RNZN had the fairly simple mission of providing dedicated ASW escorts to the US Pacific fleet to combat the usually second line Soviet submarines of the Soviet Pacific fleet that ventured beyond the Okhotsk bastion, and the emergence of a multi-polar world the threats have grown more complex and potentially more dangerous, and hence our ships have adopted CIWS, SSM and SAM systems. In addition, we have to factor in the possibility our warships would be required to engage well-armed Chinese warships.
It is worth considering that many theorists (myself included) consider that advances in robot weapons and the supreme superiority of submarines over surface ships since the 1940s means even the most modern warships are only capable of feeble defense in the face of an airborne onslaught of missiles and completely defenseless in the face of modern nuclear powered attack submarines.
Now, if you are an anti-American, anti-ANZAC supporter of peace at any price you will hate that mission description and you’ll think the frigates are a waste of money.
If you are a unilaterally disarming peacenik with an isolationist bent, you’d scrap the Navy and replace it with a Coast Guard with a primary mission of fisheries protection, SAR, and customs patrols.
If you are an isolationist who demands an armed neutrality, you would be crying out fora force of submarines that could attack and sink any amphibious attack force threatening our home islands and fast attack corvettes able to sally forth from isolated and hidden coastal bays and river mouths and subject attackers to a hail of SSMs before retiring to reload.
What will we need to repel the Australians if they can’t grow enough food on that ugly, overheating great slab of rock and come looking for ‘lebensraum’?
Australian boat people will never be allowed here! We will send them to a holding camp on the Auckland islands. So we just need a few converted fishing boats to intercept their people smuggler boats.
I’m an integrationist with a strong bent of self-sufficiency. Integrate with the global system but if/when it all goes to custard we can stand on our own two feet.
Produce enough food to feed ourselves.
Produce all the goods and services that we need to function as a modern society.
Produce all the weapons systems that we need to defend ourselves adequately.
Defence would be based around land based ballistic anti-ship missiles with a range of 2000km or more and land based anti-aircraft/missile missiles with a range of 400km or more.
Force projection (part of that global integration) would be based around capital ship battle-group or two.
To help with information and detection of hostile forces a polar-orbit satellite system that covers the entire globe every ten minutes.
Isn’t patrolling he Antarctic to protect our fisheries supposed to be one of their roles. The fishing companies themselves are law breakers and should be watched, then there are the furriners. But we need to make an effort to look after our fisheries.
Isn’t patrolling he Antarctic to protect our fisheries supposed to be one of their roles.
Yep, it is and you wouldn’t want to send merely a patrol boat to do it. Doesn’t have the necessary range or capabilities.
That said, when one of our frigates caught a boat illegally fishing in the Southern Ocean they didn’t do anything about it. Seems that they don’t have the necessary capabilities either.
If we want to just be able to deal with disasters, chasing pirates around the Indian Ocean, monitor climate change, etc etc then disband the Navy and sell the frigates and buy something like this for a Coast Guard:
Unfortunately for you we actually do need military vessels capable of being in a fight. Reducing that capability is a bad idea as we do need to be able to defend ourselves.
The bold in the moderation is a generic one that gets attached to a comment when it is moved to OM.
I moved your comment because it looked designed to inflame. The comment you replied to looked like an observation, that while not great for you, wasn’t framed in a way designed to create a fight. It also made a political point.
Write about your best friend Steven Joyce who seems to be in big trouble down at his “own made mega agency, MBIE” as they are now finding all manner of wrong doings and his hands are involved we hear now.
You really are very dumb, aren’t you?
Do you ever bother to read answers to questions you pose?
I do you the courtesy of replying to your comments and you either never bother to read them or immediately forget what I said.
You asked questions about my supposed relationship to Joyce.
I replied here https://thestandard.org.nz/media-response-to-labours-budget/#comment-1426835
Did you even look at it?
Do you always ignore answers to your questions?
Did you not understand big words like ZERO?
I fail to see how Joyce could possibly be my “best friend”.
Yours, however, is clearly your colon. It clearly connects directly to your mouth and is what you use to produce the words you use.
They have a word for people like you that is widely used in North America.
You are a schmuck.
Now have a good cry about it.
He is an extremely un-hinged soul isn’t he.
Very sad chappy, must be having a bad life since his national party is hitting the skids now as MBIE is under investigation.
I imagine you will consider the contribution from the schmuck “cleangreen” that comes immediately before this?
Or not, as the case may be.
Do you think that reading what other people say, and taking account of it is the mark of a civilised, intelligent human being and simply continuing an irrational diatribe is the mark of a schmuck?
Or perhaps he is merely an extremely in-hinged soul and we should simply feel sorry for “cleangreen”
Check out what Wayne Mapp is saying on The Spinoff. Basically:
1) The new government is settling in and doing well – lots of credit to Jacinda Ardern.
2) Some targets are really ambitious (mud thrown at David Clark and Phill Twyford).
3) NZF are described as “National’s nemesis” and Mapp doesn’t think they’ll go with the Nats in 2020.
4) Nats need a small party friend and hey! – they’ve already got one. Just need to build up ACT!
…Cos no-one’s sick of ACT, are they, Wayne? And no-one can see through the cynicism of that pretence that they’re a real, independent party. We’re all too thick for that, presumably.
Its painful, but every now and then I agree with Wayne – at least based on your summary red blooded. Don’t have time to read the piece, but Wayne had to throw a few sticks and who better than two of the more energetic and enlightened ministers – one at each end of the country. 🙂
ACT is pretty much their best bet. Install the right people (in their books) and build up their finances again. That is what happened in the beginning and it can be done again.
‘Today, while we’ve discussed other matters, huge masses of ice that had been frozen for millennia thawed, wept out in trickles, converged into streams, ran into rivers of meltwater, then flowed into rising seas.
My family’s pretty good with salads, so in my veg days we had bean salad, green salad, tabouleh. I usually made something else that only a few people would eat 😛
I still eat lots of vegetarian. What do you put in your pie marty?
Tin of tomatoes and one of chickpeas ☺ plus whatever is around. Like brassicas, greens, onion, garlic anything really. My short time in the hari krsna’s taught me to make a medium pastry and flavourings cumin, coriandar etc is pretty standard.
Although as I write all that I’m thinking garlic buttered filo pastry with asparagus and mushroom sauce. Yum haven’t made that for a while prob too much butter and bloody expensive.
Lol the tomatoes and chickpeas. I had a rant in me few days ago about how many low income people I know who are vegetarian and who would appreciate tinned chickpeas if in dire straights and we need to stop pathologising food (also, some cultures eat chickpeas daily as a staple). I never got around to tweeting it, probably just as well.
Yes! Did you see the whole thing on twitter about the aunties and tinned tomatoes? In there there was some dissing of chickpeas as useless, hipster food amongst the righteous political critique of telling women in refuges what to eat. I thought we could be righteous about that without dissing foods.
Well, I mean, I can understand them being useless for donating to people in extremes. (I didn’t get originally the rationale for not wanting tinned tomatoes, but it made perfect sense once I saw it) I can absolutely see the same logic applying to chickpeas.
Chickpeas may be used in several hipstery meals, but they are cheap, fast to cook, and taste good. That said, I wouldn’t get down on anyone for not eating them, I just think they’re a good option if you cook for yourself.
BM, the point of that whole thing is that people wanting to help need to listen to the people needing help about what they need and not impose their own ideas on them. e.g. not assuming something about ‘most of these women’, or that because of some perceived cultural/class issue they won’t want x food. Just ask. And listen.
I’ve never been that keen on tomatoes. i think once when I was young I got hives after eating some. I also am just not keen on the taste of canned tomatoes in meals, or of tomato soup.
But I’d use chickpeas and lentils. We all have different tastes.
Basically, it’s necessary to check with refuges and foodbanks when donating food for the ones that people will use/eat. You may have no idea about why some foods are preferred over others.
A shelf of three different brands of tinned tomatos and nothing else in the pantry would be pretty bloody depressing when you need to eat, let alone feed the kids.
“(S)He’s one academic, and like lawyers, I can provide you with another one that will give you a counterview. ”
* “Loss of Arctic sea ice owing to climate change is the primary threat to polar bears throughout their range… Our findings support the potential for large declines in polar bear numbers.”
Our Environment Centre has long found that Corporates have their lawyers using false prepared reports to counter the real truth of any environmental and health issues.
It is therefore not surprising to see these ‘mules’ repeating the phrase, “there is no evidence” because they planted ghost studies to counter the ‘real truth’.
Many National bloggers we see here use this same policy.
That is why we never respond to their use of their “ghost reports” and diversions as they just keep repeating their lies, and using phony studies just as we saw happen when the Tobacco excecutives of those companies in the dock lying about smoking not being addictive.
Sometimes we have to ignore their comments as they are worthless.
Thanks for voting for me, suckers. Now if you don’t mind, could you quietly FO and die.
/
Charleston, W.Va. (AP) — President Donald Trump’s mining regulators are reconsidering rules meant to protect underground miners from breathing coal and rock dust — the cause of black lung — and diesel exhaust, which can cause cancer. An advocate for coal miners said Friday that this sends a “very bad signal.”
The Mine Safety and Health Administration has asked for public comments on whether standards “could be improved or made more effective or less burdensome by accommodating advances in technology, innovative techniques, or less costly methods.”
The Trump administration is prohibiting officials at the nation’s top public health agency from using a list of seven words or phrases — including “fetus” and “transgender” — in any official documents being prepared for next year’s budget.
Policy analysts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta were told of the list of forbidden words at a meeting Thursday with senior CDC officials who oversee the budget, according to an analyst who took part in the 90-minute briefing. The forbidden words are “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender,” “fetus,” “evidence-based” and “science-based.”
[…]
Other CDC officials confirmed the existence of a list of forbidden words.It’s likely that other parts of HHS are operating under the same guidelines regarding the use of these words, the analyst said.
At the CDC, several offices have responsibility for work that uses some of these words. The National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention is working on ways to prevent HIV among transgender people and reduce health disparities. The CDC’s work on birth defects caused by the Zika virus includes research on the developing fetus.
look at any theocracy anywhere at any given time past or present and show me where it has not been lunacy on the part of those that make the rules and deadly for those that were on the loosing end of these rules.
Talibans, ISIS, Roman Catholic Inquisition etc etc etc
Anyway, it is merely semantics; what’s going on in the USA is not theocracy but mass psychosis AKA lunacy with the leader that goes with that. A pattern that we have seen many times before.
By banning certain words in areas relating to reproduction, gender, replacing other terms with community standards and wishes and indulging their end-times Jerusalem is Israel’s capital fantasy, tRump’s theological dog-whistling to his evangelical base reminds them that he is carrying out their version of Dog’s will, culminating in what they really want, dominion.
Indeed, they want dominion and power, but not for (their) God (I assume that’s what you meant to write), but for themselves. Trump does not bow to anybody …
Been there, done that, and they cannot go back in time; the world has changed in so many ways that this can only be labelled as an illusion. An illusion that has a lot of power because of where it springs from and how it is being fed.
it would not the first time that people hide behind ‘god’ in order to fill their coffers.
in fact is that not why religion was invented in the first place?
Or how else would you get people to ‘tithe’ you a few percent of their earnings. lol.
I currently subscribe to Jung’s theories regarding religion: it is outward projection onto God(s) as a symbol/archetype. Organised religion is built on this and the rest is history 😉
wanting to impose ‘person’ ‘baby’ ‘human’ but mainly ‘person’ for their special ‘personhood’ amendment where the gestating human parasite living in the female body will end up having more rights to live, liberty and pursuit of happiness then the actual female gestating the human parasite that once born will be a baby, then toddler, then preschooler etc etc and person.
i also like how Paul Ryan has done his bid in breeding three white children – his wife – who no one ever mentiones – seen but not heard of ever – was obviously not involved in the breeding of his three white children – and now expects the white women of the US of A to do some more breeding – economics be damned – only white male working class persons have economic anxiety that is important to aspiring lawmakers.
also diversity, evidence based, science based is for suckers
transgender is a mental illness and can be electrocuted away
vulnerable is for rich kids that don’t want to pay taxes on inheritances over several millions worth of dollars
and entitlements is something form me but not for thee
And unless the FETUS is born it is nothing more then a ‘parasite’ that feeds of the body of the gestating women in order to come to live. Without that body it is a mess of cells that often ends up flushed down the toilet in the case of spontaneous miscarriages. But that would be sience based and such can’t be mentioned.
Maybe that is the way to treat women who miscarry the parasite err FETUS
Many thanks to Peter Jackson for being honest and giving his true opinion of H
harvey weinstein as a minupulating bigot bully and all people like this rich and poor need to be held accountable for there actions Ka pai.
My discription of neo liberal is they like to deceive everyone an make US believe that they have our best interests at heart. There actions prove
That they only care about the 1%. They keep lying to the World and us even when they are caught red hand cheating stealing they like to play games and they are playing the long game on the rest of us around the world this is why the 1% have got the power over the other 99% and they don’t care about the damage they do to get power You no that old saying the best trick the DEVIL has acompleshed is having people believing he does not exist. Well the way these neo liberal bigots behave sure look very similar to the Devil to me. I think there is a God but when I was younger I was not happy that God would takeaway the one person who made me feel safe and loved but now I see I am part of the fait of our world and I have been given the Mana to advocate for equality for all the people of OUR world and advercate for a humane future for mother earth and all the creatures on her. This is why I back the Rock to go for the President of the USA. Kai kaha
EPA adminstrator hiring a GOP oppo research group to hunt down ideological subversives in his own agency is NUTS https://t.co/AjOixGPoR3#inners— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) December 16, 2017
I can see that the cops are carrying on there farcical smear campaign against ECO. Once again I say if anything they have said had a gram of factual evidence to back there lying smear campaign against me don’t you think they would arrest me. I no I have shown up the hole police force in NZ up to the very top men. And everything I have said can be proven to be fact they no this. What is a state organisation that does not have a functioning complaint process what does that tell the intelligence people of the world the independent police conduct authority is run by the police so how is that independent they just use that name to bullshit everyone into believing that it’s independent people they are playing with your emotions.
They are playing with me like I’m not human. They don’t care about the effects there game has on my family or anyone I associate with work mostly they are jeopardiseing the future of my mokos and what do you all think that because they are my mokos that is just collateral damage. We all no that the effects of people perception of one’s familys behaviour in OUR society can have a positive or negative effect on there futures progress this is fact so to all my Maori culture people please behave yourself and set a good example for all OUR mokos Ana to Ka Kai Kaha
Graham Adams writes about the $55m media fund — When Patrick Gower was asked by Mike Hosking last week what he would say to the many Newstalk ZB callers who allege the Labour government bribed media with $55 million of taxpayers’ money via the Public Interest Journalism Fund — and ...
Note: this blog post has been put together over the course of the week I followed the happenings at the conference virtually. Should recordings of the Great Debates and possibly Union Symposia mentioned below, be released sometime after the conference ends, I'll include links to the ones I participated in. ...
The following was my submission made on the “Fast Track Approvals Bill”. This potential law will give three Ministers unchecked powers, un-paralled since the days of Robert Muldoon’s “Think Big” projects.The submission is written a bit tongue-in-cheek. But it’s irreverent because the FTAB is in itself not worthy of respect. ...
One Could Reduce Child Poverty At No Fiscal CostFollowing the Richardson/Shipley 1990 ‘redesign of the welfare state’ – which eliminated the universal Family Benefit and doubled the rate of child poverty – various income supplements for families have been added, the best known being ‘Working for Families’, introduced in 2005. ...
Buzz from the Beehive A few days ago, Point of Order suggested the media must be musing “on why Melissa is mute”. Our article reported that people working in the beleaguered media industry have cause to yearn for a minister as busy as Melissa Lee’s ministerial colleagues and we drew ...
1. What was The Curse of Jim Bolger?a. Winston Peters b. Soon after shaking his hand, world leaders would mysteriously lose office or shuffle off this mortal coilc. Could never shake off the Mother of All Budgetsd. Dandruff2. True or false? The Chairman of a Kiwi export business has asked the ...
Jack Vowles writes – New Zealand is said to be suffering from ‘serious populist discontent’. An IPSOS MORI survey has reported that we have an increasing preference for strong leaders, think that the economy is rigged toward the rich and powerful, and political elites are ignoring ‘hard-working people’. ...
Chris Trotter writes – MELISSA LEE should be deprived of her ministerial warrant. Her handling – or non-handling – of the crisis engulfing the New Zealand news media has been woeful. The fate of New Zealand’s two linear television networks, a question which the Minister of Broadcasting, Communications ...
TL;DR: The podcast above features co-hosts and , along with regular guests Robert Patman on Gaza and AUKUS II, and on climate change.The six things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the ...
Policymakers rarely wish to make plain or visible their desire to dismantle environmental policy, least of all to the young. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Here’s the top five news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above between Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent ...
I like to keep an eye on what’s happening in places like the UK, the US, and over the ditch with our good mates the Aussies. Let’s call them AUKUS, for want of a better collective term. More on that in a bit.It used to be, not long ago, that ...
TL;DR: The global economy will be one fifth smaller than it would have otherwise been in 2050 as a result of climate damage, according to a new study by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and published in the journal Nature. (See more detail and analysis below, and ...
New Zealand is said to be suffering from ‘serious populist discontent’. An IPSOS MORI survey has reported that we have an increasing preference for strong leaders, think that the economy is rigged toward the rich and powerful, and political elites are ignoring ‘hard-working people’. The data is from February this ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters is understood to be planning a major speech within the next fortnight to clear up the confusion over whether or not New Zealand might join the AUKUS submarine project. So far, there have been conflicting signals from the Government. RNZ reported the Prime Minister yesterday in ...
Life throws curveballs, and sometimes, those curveballs necessitate wiping your iPhone clean and starting anew. Whether you’re facing persistent software glitches, preparing to sell your device, or simply wanting a fresh start, knowing how to factory reset iPhone without a computer is a valuable skill. While using a computer with ...
Gone are the days when communication was limited to landline phones and physical proximity. Today, computers have become powerful tools for connecting with people across the globe through voice and video calls. But with a plethora of applications and methods available, how to call someone on a computer might seem ...
Open access notables Glacial isostatic adjustment reduces past and future Arctic subsea permafrost, Creel et al., Nature Communications:Sea-level rise submerges terrestrial permafrost in the Arctic, turning it into subsea permafrost. Subsea permafrost underlies ~ 1.8 million km2 of Arctic continental shelf, with thicknesses in places exceeding 700 m. Sea-level variations over glacial-interglacial cycles control ...
The operating system (OS) is the heart and soul of a computer, orchestrating every action and interaction between hardware and software. But have you ever wondered where on a computer is the operating system generally stored? The answer lies in the intricate dance between hardware and software components, particularly within ...
Laptops have become essential tools for work, entertainment, and communication, offering portability and functionality. However, with rising energy costs and growing environmental concerns, understanding a laptop’s power consumption is more important than ever. So, how many watts does a laptop use? The answer, unfortunately, isn’t straightforward. It depends on several ...
Screen recording has become an essential tool for various purposes, such as creating tutorials, capturing gameplay footage, recording online meetings, or sharing information with others. Fortunately, Dell laptops offer several built-in and external options for screen recording, catering to different needs and preferences. This guide will explore various methods on ...
A cracked or damaged laptop screen can be a frustrating experience, impacting productivity and enjoyment. Fortunately, laptop screen repair is a common service offered by various repair shops and technicians. However, the cost of fixing a laptop screen can vary significantly depending on several factors. This article delves into the ...
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The annual inventory report of New Zealand's greenhouse gas emissions has been released, showing that gross emissions have dropped for the third year in a row, to 78.4 million tons: All-told gross emissions have decreased by over 6 million tons since the Zero Carbon Act was passed in 2019. ...
Experiencing a locked computer can be frustrating, especially when you need access to your files and applications urgently. The methods to unlock your computer will vary depending on the specific situation and the type of lock you encounter. This guide will explore various scenarios and provide step-by-step instructions on how ...
While the world has largely transitioned to digital communication, faxing still holds relevance in certain industries and situations. Fortunately, gone are the days of bulky fax machines and dedicated phone lines. Today, you can easily send and receive faxes directly from your computer, offering a convenient and efficient way to ...
In our increasingly digital world, home computers have become essential tools for work, communication, entertainment, and more. However, this increased reliance on technology also exposes us to various cyber threats. Understanding these threats and taking proactive steps to protect your home computer is crucial for safeguarding your personal information, finances, ...
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The absolute brass neck of this guy.We want more medical doctors, not more spin doctors, Luxon was saying a couple of weeks ago, and now we’re told the guy has seven salaried adults on TikTok duty. Sorry, doing social media. The absolute brass neck of it. The irony that the ...
Buzz from the Beehive Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones relishes spatting and eagerly takes issue with environmentalists who criticise his enthusiasm for resource development. He relishes helping the fishing industry too. And so today, while the media are making much of the latest culling in the public service to ...
Having written, taught and worked for the US government on issues involving unconventional warfare and terrorism for 30-odd years, two things irritate me the most when the subject is discussed in public. The first is the Johnny-come-lately academics-turned-media commentators who … Continue reading → ...
Eric Crampton writes – Kainga Ora is the government’s house building agency. It’s been building a lot of social housing. Kainga Ora has its own (but independent) consenting authority, Consentium. It’s a neat idea. Rather than have to deal with building consents across each different territorial authority, Kainga Ora ...
Muriel Newman writes – The Coalition Government says it is moving with speed to deliver campaign promises and reverse the damage done by Labour. One of their key commitments is to “defend the principle that New Zealanders are equal before the law.” To achieve this, they have pledged they “will not advance ...
Chris Trotter writes – The absence of anything resembling a fightback from the public servants currently losing their jobs is interesting. State-sector workers’ collective fatalism in the face of Coalition cutbacks indicates a surprisingly broad acceptance of impermanence in the workplace. Fifty years ago, lay-offs in the thousands ...
Mariupol, on the Azov Sea coast, was one of the first cities to suffer almost complete destruction after the start of the Ukraine War started in late February 2022. We remember the scenes of absolute destruction of the houses and city structures. The deaths of innocent civilians – many of ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – Ten years ago, I wrote the following in a Listener column: Every year around one in five new-born babies will be reliant on their caregivers benefit by Christmas. This pattern has persisted from at least 1993. For Maori the number jumps to over one in three. ...
Climate change is expected to generate more and more extreme events, delivering a sort of structural shock to inflation that central banks will have to react to as if they were short-term cyclical issues. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāMy pick of the six newsey things to know from Aotearoa’s ...
It’s a simple deal. We pay taxes in order to finance the social services we want and need. The carnage now occurring across the public sector though, is breaking that contract. Over 3,000 jobs have been lost so far. Many are in crucial areas like Education where the impact of ...
Hi,A friend had their 40th over the weekend and decided to theme it after Curb Your Enthusiasm fashion icon Susie Greene. Captured in my tiny kitchen before I left the house, I ending up evoking a mix of old lesbian and Hillary Clinton — both unintentional.Me vs Hillary ClintonIf you’re ...
This is a re-post from Andrew Dessler at the Climate Brink blogIn 2023, the Earth reached temperature levels unprecedented in modern times. Given that, it’s reasonable to ask: What’s going on? There’s been lots of discussions by scientists about whether this is just the normal progression of global warming or if something ...
The schools are on holiday and the sun is shining in the seaside village and all day long I have been seeing bunches of bikes; Mums, Dads, teens and toddlers chattering, laughing, happy, having a bloody great time together. Cheers, AT, for the bits of lane you’ve added lately around the ...
Today in our National-led authoritarian nightmare: Shane Jones thinks Ministers should be above the law: New Zealand First MP Shane Jones is accusing the Waitangi Tribunal of over-stepping its mandate by subpoenaing a minister for its urgent hearing on the Oranga Tamariki claim. The tribunal is looking into the ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Politicians across the political spectrum are implicated in the New Zealand media’s failing health. Either through neglect or incompetent interventions, successive governments have failed to regulate, foster, and allow a healthy Fourth Estate that can adequately hold politicians and the powerful to account. ...
Citizen Science writes – Last week saw two significant developments in the debate over the treatment of trans-identifying children and young people – the release in Britain of the final report of Dr Hilary Cass’s review into gender healthcare, and here in New Zealand, the news that the ...
One night while sleeping in my bed I had a beautiful dreamThat all the people of the world got together on the same wavelengthAnd began helping one anotherNow in this dream, universal love was the theme of the dayPeace and understanding and it happened this wayAfter such an eventful day ...
This is a guest post by Oscar Simms who is a housing activist, volunteer for the Coalition for More Homes, and was the Labour Party candidate for Auckland Central at the last election. ...
Turning what Labour called the “holiday highway” into a four-lane expressway from Auckland to Whangarei could bring at least an economic benefit of nearly two billion a year for Northland each year. And it could help bring an end to poverty in one of New Zealand’s most deprived regions. The ...
Tonight’s six-stack includes: launching his substack with a bunch of his previous documentaries, including this 1992 interview with Dame Whina Cooper. and here crew give climate activists plenty to do, including this call to submit against the Fast Track Approvals bill. writes brilliantly here on his substack ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
You're in the mall when you hear it: some kind of popping sound in the distance, kids with fireworks, maybe. But then a moment of eerie stillness is followed by more of the fireworks sound and there’s also screaming and shrieking and now here come people running for their lives.Does ...
Karl du Fresne writes – There’s a crisis in the news media and the media are blaming it on everyone except themselves. Culpability is being deflected elsewhere – mainly to the hapless Minister of Communications, Melissa Lee, and the big social media platforms that are accused of hoovering ...
I don’t normally send out two newsletters in a day but I figured I’d say something about… the news. If two newsletters is a bit much then maybe just skip one, I don’t want to overload people. Alternatively if you’d be interested in sometimes receiving multiple, smaller updates from me, ...
Buzz from the Beehive David Seymour and Winston Peters today signalled that at least two ministers of the Crown might be in Wellington today. Seymour (as Associate Minister of Education) announced the removal of more red tape, this time to make it easier for new early learning services to be ...
Politicians across the political spectrum are implicated in the New Zealand media’s failing health. Either through neglect or incompetent interventions, successive governments have failed to regulate, foster, and allow a healthy Fourth Estate that can adequately hold politicians and the powerful to account. Our political system is suffering from the ...
David Farrar writes – The Broadcasting Standards Authority ruled: Comments by radio host Kate Hawkesby suggesting Māori and Pacific patients were being prioritised for surgery due to their ethnicity were misleading and discriminatory, the Broadcasting Standards Authority has found. It is a fact such patients are prioritised. ...
PRC and its proxies in Solomons have been preparing for these elections for a long time.A lot of money, effort and intelligence have gone into ensuring an outcome that won’t compromise Beijing’s plans. Cleo Paskall writes – On April 17th the Solomon Islands, a country of ...
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You're a fraud, and you know itBut it's too good to throw it all awayAnyone would do the sameYou've got 'em goingAnd you're careful not to show itSometimes you even fool yourself a bitIt's like magicBut it's always been a smoke and mirrors gameAnyone would do the sameForty six billion ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections The June general election in Mexico could mark a turning point in ensuring that the country’s climate policies better reflect the desire of its citizens to address the climate crisis, with both leading presidential candidates expressing support for renewable energy. Mexico is the ...
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Buzz from the Beehive A pet project and governmental tunnel vision jump out from the latest batch of ministerial announcements. The government is keen to assure us of its concern for the wellbeing of our pets. It will be introducing pet bonds in a change to the Residential Tenancies Act ...
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Remember the good old days, back when New Zealand had a PM who could think and speak calmly and intelligently in whole sentences without blustering? Even while Iran’s drones and missiles were still being launched, Helen Clark was live on TVNZ expertly summing up the latest crisis in the Middle ...
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True loveYou're the one I'm dreaming ofYour heart fits me like a gloveAnd I'm gonna be true blueBaby, I love youI’ve written about the job cuts in our news media last week. The impact on individuals, and the loss to Aotearoa of voices covering our news from different angles.That by ...
While commentators, including former Prime Minister Helen Clark, are noting a subtle shift in New Zealand’s foreign policy, which now places more emphasis on the United States, many have missed a key element of the shift. What National said before the election is not what the government is doing now. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
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The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
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A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
The Green Party has today launched a step-by-step guide to help New Zealanders make their voice heard on the Government’s democracy dodging and anti-environment fast track legislation. ...
The National Government’s proposed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act will mean tenants can be turfed from their homes by landlords with little notice, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson is calling on all parties to support a common-sense change that’s great for the planet and great for consumers after her member’s bill was drawn from the ballot today. ...
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Today’s advice from the Climate Change Commission paints a sobering reality of the challenge we face in combating climate change, especially in light of recent Government policy announcements. ...
Minister for Disability Issues Penny Simmonds appears to have delayed a report back to Cabinet on the progress New Zealand is making against international obligations for disabled New Zealanders. ...
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The Government must commit to the Maitai School building project for students with high and complex needs, to ensure disabled students from the top of the South Island have somewhere to learn. ...
Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey and his Government colleagues have made a meal of their mental health commitments, showing how flimsy their efforts to champion the issue truly are, says Labour Mental Health spokesperson Ingrid Leary. ...
Māori are yet to see anything from this Government except cuts, reversals and taking our people backwards, Māori Development spokesperson Willie Jackson said. ...
The Coalition Government’s refusal to commit to ongoing funding for social housing is seeing the sector pull back on developments and families watch their dreams of securing a home fade away, says Labour Housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty. ...
Changes to minimum wage and benefit indexation means many New Zealanders will get less this year, as the Government gives a big tax break to landlords instead. ...
New Zealand is demonstrating its commitment to reducing global greenhouse emissions, and supporting clean energy transition in South East Asia, through a contribution of NZ$41 million (US$25 million) in climate finance to the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-led Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM). Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced ...
The Government is today releasing a list of organisations who received letters about the Fast-track applications process, says RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop. “Recently Ministers and agencies have received a series of OIA requests for a list of organisations to whom I wrote with information on applying to have a ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Wellington Barrister David Jonathan Boldt as a Judge of the High Court, and the Honourable Justice Matthew Palmer as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Boldt graduated with an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington in 1990, and also holds ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford will lead the New Zealand delegation at the 2024 International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP) held in Singapore. The delegation includes representatives from the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) Te Wehengarua and the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa. The summit is co-hosted ...
A stopbank upgrade project in Tairawhiti partly funded by the Government has increased flood resilience for around 7000ha of residential and horticultural land so far, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones today attended a dawn service in Gisborne to mark the end of the first stage of the ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters will represent the Government at Anzac Day commemorations on the Gallipoli Peninsula next week and engage with senior representatives of the Turkish government in Istanbul. “The Gallipoli campaign is a defining event in our history. It will be a privilege to share the occasion ...
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Someone has been making money… a brave whistler blower has exposed joyces super ministry has been spending way way to much money on contractors. Especially job recruitment agencies for YEARS. Excellent article by Matt Nippert
” The data — leaked from internal MBIE financial reports by an anonymous source claiming to be concerned about “waste” — covers more than $250 million in payments to more than 2000 individual contractors, and $54m in payments to consulting firms, over the past four years.
Analysis of the data shows spending on contractors, as a percentage of MBIE’s salary bill, has increased every year over the period — from 20.4 per cent in 2014, to 30.2 per cent in the financial year ended June 2017.
The number of highly paid contractors — those earning more than $200,000 a year — more than quadrupled in the period, from 23 to 94.”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11960761
I believe this won’t be the only instance of such decisions, government should also look at the spending of contracting security guards for WINZ, personally I feel that is another money making rort.
We should be employing people, not outsourcing work to our contracting mates. But hey, national made it LOOK like they were cutting backing/capping the number of government employees. Freaking bunch of loop hole cowboys.
Dear new Government, can we please have greater protection for whistler blowers? Thank you.
I’m not at all surprised @Cinny. All that (and more) while entities such as INZ, and the Labour Inspectorate have been utterly underfunded and under-resourced.
But, as previously commented, just have a look at MoBIE’s history, structure and the backgrounds of its senior management.
Hi Cinny, This is pure gold as I thin there is some proof here of Steven joyce acting outside the law here.
‘The data — leaked from internal MBIE financial reports by an anonymous source claiming to be concerned about “waste” — covers more than $250 million in payments to more than 2000 individual contractors, and $54m in payments to consulting firms, over the past four years.’
Cinny I recall this event below;
Before the last election there was a program on one of the ‘public affairs’ shows on RNZ , Q+A, or The Nation, – where Matthew Hooten was speaking about Steven joyce offering the contract to a road building company wongly & illegally without lthe usual ‘letting the contract out for tender firstly.’
Next to Hooten being interviewed was Michelle Boag who turned viciously on Hooten and said “Matthew are you mad!!! why are you saying this!!!! you need to see a doctor!!”
Now there maybe a connnection to this here somewhere as Steven Joyce was then actually running the ‘MBIE’ agency.
And since Steven Joyce alone had setup this mega agency called ‘MBIE’, the real possibility of corruption is there now, that it may have been easily done arranged for deals to have been done by Joyce as he had so much power nover the agency then…. So this needs a deep investigation now.
Thanks Cinny. A couple of years ago Gordon Campbell (I think) wrote a scathing review of the running of MBIE. I can’t find it but his analysis was of huge inefficiencies and wastefulness and worse the combined Ministries finding it hard to get things done.
Maybe that explains the big money on consultants?
Penny Bright (hopefully she’ll link to a few of them) has linked to many articles over the years showing that when government uses contractors rather than in-house employees their costs go up dramatically. As there is no way that the previous government would have been unaware of this then we must assume that it was done on purpose.
So, who were the contractors and what’s their connection with the National Party?
EDIT:
Translation: We were able to doctor the document to make it look better.
This needs a full Royal inquiry.
Am so hearing that, will go on a link hunt next time I come inside. joyces (no capital letter for that scum) superministry seems to be naught but a marketing tactic, the more I learn about it.
Media coverage will be a real teller of inbed/embedded tory journalists, now the government has changed.
Penny and Gordon, double thumbs up.
Unfortunately @Cinny, the coalition hasn’t (yet) seen fit to pull out some of its functions and have them ‘refocus’ (to use a buzzword) – just as they have done with MPI. If ever their was a Ministry in need, MoBIE was it. (Not that there aren’t others)
If you check back through Open Mike (even around 3,4,5 December) people have touched on them.
RNZ have done a number of stories on the functions for which MoBIE is respobsible. It’s a very ugly story overall.
Mr Smug (Joyce) and Mr Smug (Coleman) designed this bugger’s muddle of a Ministry that has basically been working as designed and its only real achievements have been the lowering of standards, the exploitation of people and enabling a heirarchy of ticket clippers to take advantage of it all.
Thankfully, the likes of Iain Lees-Galloway aren’t stupid …. but we’ll have to wait and see a bit longer.
No, it’s not commercially sensitive information. It’s information that your employers, the public, need access to. You trying to keep it from us is, as a matter of fact, you not doing your job properly.
We, the public, need that information to make proper decisions about the running our country.
Cinny, Draco, ianmac,
We now have the evidence & heard and now seen the proof found from 2014 three weeks before the last election also.
That newly found information was in a leak from the political panel on a radio show
we just located that a large contract worth between $50 million and 100 million was illegally given by Steven Joyce for a roading contractor that was made though MBIE.
The contractor complaned to them that they were not legally allowed to carry out that contract that way.
After complaining the contractor was told flatly “that is the way we want you to do it”
Steven Joyce broke the rules here again, so we need a royal enquiry into this arrogant little man now!!!
Ironic when he has been going around blaming everyone else for their wrong doings eh???
We are prepared to release the evidence when an enquiry is set up to investigate MBIE wrongful illegal operations.
Tee hee. Looks like the only one to have dug himself a fiscal hole is Dildo Joyce. It’s high time that smirking little stoat got a sound drubbing. I suspect it’s one of the reasons they were all so keen to be back on the government benches. More time to stuff skeletons back into Beehive cupboards. It’s just a crying shame that, as per usual, it’s only now that National have been chucked out we start to see the true extent of their vandalism. Bloody wreckers, the lot of them.
“Unbelievable brutality, day after day, night after night….
No other society anywhere lives in such willed ignorance.”
Gideon Levy at Mt Eden War Memorial Hall, Dominion Road
Sunday 3 December 2017, 3 p.m. (Part 1 of 2)
On a gorgeous early summer afternoon, the Mt Eden War Memorial Hall was packed for this rare chance to see someone who is without any doubt a hero and an inspiration to human rights activists around the world. However, there were some notable absentees: where were the “liberal” bloggers such as Russell Brown and his court? Where was Māori Television? Where was TVNZ? Where was “THREE”? Where was the Herald?
Ngati Whatua o Orakei welcomed Gideon In an eloquent and moving couple of minutes, the speaker established a connection between New Zealand’s treatment of Māori and Israel’s dispossession of Palestinians. He recalled how in 1951 the National Government and the Auckland City Council collaborated to evict Māori families from their homes in Okahu Bay. “It traumatised our people, though they rarely spoke of it. More recently, John Key’s government allowed people to claim our land. We are in the courts all across the land. My advice to the Palestinian people is not to fall for that. Our dispossession was of a different severity to the dispossession of the Palestinians, but they both had the same result.”
Next came some introductory remarks by Nicholas Rowe, who lived in Ramallah from 2000 to 2008, teaching in refugee camps. Professor Rowe is especially interested in the phenomenon of addiction, and why people do such injurious things to themselves. Nationalism, he said, is crystal meth, cooked up in think tanks and exacerbated by peer pressure. Like all addictions, nationalism does not discriminate on the basis of economics. The Israel-Palestine conflict is not a religious one, it’s political. Manufactured ideals are terribly addictive. Prof. Rowe said that Gideon Levy is like a crack baby. He has had to struggle to break away from the grip of nationalism. It’s a very hard struggle. Israel’s brutal politics of exclusion is an issue that needs to be addressed.
The great journalist then began his speech. (I’ve organised this point by point. It’s pretty much verbatim.)
GIDEON LEVY:
1.) First of all, I have to say that, in spite of the grimness and darkness of the situation, there is still hope. I learned a great deal from my host Parata yesterday. I was greatly impressed to learn of the immense scale and length of the protests in New Zealand against another apartheid state in 1981. We are not pro-Palestinian, we are pro-justice. We are struggling for justice, equality and for respect for international law. (APPLAUSE)
2.) I was stunned to see Māori art at Auckland International Airport. Just imagine Palestinian art at Ben Gurion Airport! It would be erased within hours.
3.) Solidarity is essential. I was born in Tel Aviv. I was a “good Tel Aviv boy.” I was taught to believe the Palestinians are always wrong, that WE are weak, that on the other side are golem who want to push us into the sea. We were a people without land, who came to a land without people. There were ruins around the roads in Israel. I never asked what those ruins were. I never heard the word nakba until I was twenty years old. We were told that the Palestinian leaders had incited their people to run away.
4.) In the late 1980s, I went to the Palestinian Territories. I was working for the IDF and Shimon Peres; I don’t know which was worse. (LAUGHTER)
5.) In the Occupied Territories I saw unbelievable brutality, day after day, night after night. I decided that I would make it my life’s work to cover the Occupation. For this I have been labeled a “self-hating Jew.”
6.) I’m not “covering the Palestinians”—I’m a journalist. I am covering the story, and holding up a mirror to my fellow Israelis, and saying: “You, and each of us, is accountable.”
7.) In Israel there is a broad coalition of opinion, which says “We don’t want to know.” No other society anywhere lives in such willed ignorance, abetted and amplified by the Israeli media and the Jewish establishment in New Zealand and Australia. Israel is becoming increasingly militaristic, nationalistic, and religious.
8.) In Canberra last week I met some Australian members of parliament. It gave me hope, because until I heard them speak I had always thought that Israel’s right wing politicians were the worst. —-(LAUGHTER)— I’ve never heard any Israeli politician speak about the Palestinian people the way that those Australian politicians did. But they are Australia’s problem, not mine. (LAUGHTER) I spoke with the Australian foreign minister; she talked and she was very nice but we could not agree on anything. (LAUGHTER)
9.) Israel has three regimes. First, there is the “liberal democracy” which is the privilege of its Jewish citizens, but there are many threats to this. The second regime is aimed at the Palestinians—the “Israeli Arabs” who comprise 20 per cent of the population, and who have formal civil rights; they are deeply discriminated against in every way. The third regime is very different from any “liberal” posturing—this is Israel’s dark heart, the regime in the Occupied Territories. This is one of the most brutal tyrannies on Earth today, no less than that.
10.) Israel cannot be defined as anything other than an apartheid regime. It is apartheid. No one with an open heart could not be shocked and moved by the situation in the Occupied Territories. Israel claimed for years that the Occupation was “temporary. We cannot find a partner.” The Occupation is part of Israel, therefore we cannot define Israel as a democracy. Either ALL the inhabitants of Israel enjoy civil rights, or they do not. Either you are a democracy, or there are other names to call you.
11.) I enjoy full freedoms. But this is just a front. You in this audience know more than the average Israeli does, because you are interested. How can Israeli society live with this terrible reality in our backyard? This brutality, this criminal reality.
12.) Whenever there is a catastrophe overseas, Israel sends a rescue team. But we are blind to the catastrophe in our backyard. The roots of this problem lie in the message with which we are inculcated from birth and right through the school system: (a) “Israelis are the Chosen People—therefore we do not have to obey the law”; (b) “Israelis are the greatest victims in history. Not only are we the greatest victims in history, we are the ONLY victims in history, therefore we can do what we want”; (c) “The Palestinians are not human beings like us; the Palestinians are cruel, brutal terrorists, who want to push us us into the ocean. They are NOT human beings.” This message is very effective because if it is accepted, then there is no question of the Palestinians deserving human rights.Though more severe, this is similar to what has been done to the Māori; this is what the colonizer does, dehumanize people.
13.) The informal religion of Israelis is the worship of security. This lets us do whatever we like. No one speaks of the security of the Palestinians, who paid a much bigger price. Israel is the regional superpower, with all the weapons in the world , and still we pretend to be David facing existential threat.
14.) Don’t expect any change from within Israeli society. Life is too good in Israel, and Israeli people are brainwashed. Never before has there been an occupatioin where the occupying force is the victim. There have been longer and more brutal occupations, but this is the only one where the occupier pretends to be the victim.
15.) Israel never stops making excuses for its refusal to negotiate with the Palestinians. “Arafat is too strong, Abu Mazen is too weak. Hamas wants to exterminate us.” But the world is watching. The world agrees, from Africa to Australia to the United States, everyone wants a two-state solution, no one recognizes the Occupation. Israel’s second best friend is Micronesia. The world pays lip service to the two-state solution year after year, and Israel takes advantage. There are endless “peace plans”, all of them the same: Israel must recognize the 1967 borders. In the meantime, Israel has exploded its influence in the Occupied Territories. There are now SEVEN HUNDRED THOUSAND illegal settlers in the Occupied Territories, including East Jerusalem. Will they ever evacuate 700,000 settlers?
16.) But don’t blame the settlers. We are ALL settlers. We have missed the train of one state shared justly. The Occupation is stronger and more brutal than ever. We have to change the discourse and talk of one thing: equal rights for everyone between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean.
17.) New Zealand is a democracy; that’s enough for my country. (APPLAUSE) There are six million Palestinians, therefore Israel cannot be a purely Jewish state. Israel has to accept it is an apartheid state. The international community fought against South Africa; don’t we have to do the same against this apartheid state? Or do we choose to support, blindly and intentionally, the apartheid state? There is no other way to describe Israel: it is an apartheid state.
18.) The so-called “friends of Israel”, who support Israel automatically and blindly: this has nothing to do with friendship. They are enemies of Israel—they corrupt us. The Jewish establishment in Australia kept saying to me: “Israel right or wrong.” Well, Israel is wrong and they need to stop supporting it. Continuous support by Western governments and by the Jewish establishment is anything BUT friendship.
19.) Gaza is the biggest cage on Earth. It is the biggest experiment on human beings that has ever been taken: let’s lock two million people in a cage and see what happens to them. One in three of Gaza’s children has been a victim of sexual harassment. Families, and society, are falling apart in Gaza. No one is able to support the children. Addiction to painkillers is rampant. Gaza was famous for its solidarity, its willpower, and its devotion. Gazans were famous for being always happy, and never complaining. Now it is falling apart, even Gaza’s famous solidarity. The United Nations has declared that Gaza will be unlivable by the year 2020. That is two years from now. In fact, it is already unlivable. Anyone who goes there is horrified. There is sewage in the streets, and the electricity is cut constantly. Launching rockets is the only way to get world attention.
20.) The occupation of the West Bank has always been brutal. Hundreds of Palestinians are kidnapped by the I.D.F. every week. I ask you to imagine teams of soldiers descending on your home in the night, then taking one family member away for weeks, even months, even years, into “administrative detention. None of us, except the Palestinians here, can imagine living under occupation. Humiliation in front of your family, the routine, daily humiliation and degradation more than the bloodshed, which is horrifying at certain times. Their only hope is civil society—NGOs like yours (Kia Ora Gaza, the NZ Palestine Solidarity Network, ), the Boycott, Divestment and
Sanctions movement, etc. For me, meeting people like you gives me hope.
21.) New Zealand has a good reputation. On the Q+A program this morning, I was asked about the United Nations Resolution 2334 led by New Zealand last year. Each New Zealander should be so proud of that. (PROLONGED APPLAUSE) The resolution states: “The settlements are a violation of international law.” Who can deny it? Israel denies it of course. Of course, anyone can deny anything. You could say today is not Sunday, but at the end of the day some things are beyond dispute. The settlements are a brutal violation of international law. Some will try to make your government’s brave leadership in this matter an international scandal. The United States did not veto the Resolution because Obama felt guilty after eight years of doing nothing. So don’t let your politicians do the wrong thing; you know more than they do.
22.) Many things in history happen unexpectedly. Think of the last thirty years: apartheid South Africa—gone. The Soviet Union—gone. The Berlin Wall—gone. This gives us hope, even though I can’t expect the situation to change right now. In our part of the world, one should be realistic enough to believe in miracles. (LAUGHTER) And we need miracles. (PROLONGED, SUSTAINED APPLAUSE.)
Thanks for that Morrissey
My pleasure. The Question and Answer session will be up shortly.
Interesting interview on RNZ with Kim Hill at the mo : 8.20 Anthony Daniels (aka Theodore Dalrymple) – The Proper Procedure.
Link not yet up.
It might be a bit tedious to get through, but it’ll be interesting to hear/see feedback
Theodore Dalrymple is a great writer. His work on Indian history is stunning, and as well as that he is an authority on the oppression of the Palestinians.
https://theodoredalrymple.wordpress.com/category/palestinian-liberation-organisation/
Hell of a coincidence because William Dalrympole is quite the Indian historian.
Dalrymple.
The link:
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday/audio/2018626664/anthony-daniels-aka-theodore-dalrymple-the-proper-procedure
Tim Watkins writes an analysis of the Moko verdict at Pundit
“$26,000,000 would have paid for about 400 social workers.”
But those social workers would have to do their job, properly.
Their overarching responsibility must be the protection of children.
Let’s look, again, at the organisations who came in contact with Moko’s mother and the friend she entrusted with the care of her other two children while caring for another child who was hospitalised.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11918075
and https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/99831946/Missed-opportunities-that-could-have-saved-Moko-Rangitoheriri
“Child Youth and Family, the Auckland DHB, the Maori Women’s Welfare Refuge, the Waipahihi Kindergarten, Family Works, as well as the Rural Education Activities Programme. ”
All of these funded organisations knew this family was under stress and should have extrapolated from that the the two children who ended up in Shailer’s care were potentially at risk.
Not a single one of these funded organisations put the welfare of those two children first.
If they had, Moko would still be alive and his older sister would not have to live with the accusation from Shailer that she delivered the fatal kick to her brother ringing forever in her ears.
I wholeheartedly agree that the National party approach of targetted ‘investment’ and the Ministry for Vulnerable Children moniker has the potential to stigmatise certain groups and result in unfair and possibly dangerous profiling.
That is why I support Coroner Bain’s call for monitoring of ALL children up to the age of five.
As I said yesterday, this can be done in such a fashion that the accusation of ‘fascism’ is avoided.
I distinctly recall my colleagues at work back in the eighties referring to the poor Plunket Nurse who was charged with ensuring that as a new and inexperienced mother I didn’t damage my baby, as my Probation Officer. Because certainly there were parallels between her monitoring of me (as I returned to work within days of the mites’s birth) and the monitoring of some of our residents in the halfway house I was working in.
I look back with a little shame as subsequent Plunket Nurses were subject to a certain amount of disrespect from me as I now (having bred a couple of times more) had more hands on experience of child rearing than these usually childless women.
However…I was also aware, through my work, that failure to ensure that children received optimal loving care from day one had the potential to, at least, have those grown children now dealing with drug and alcohol and mental health issues and seriously entanglements with the Justice system.
So I sucked it up and submitted to what I saw as unfair scrutiny in the hope that the ‘system’ would pick up those who really needed extra attention.
That was thirty years ago, and despite billions being spent nothing has changed.
And this causes me considerable personal grief as a ‘survivor’ of childhood abuse and neglect that at risk children today are no safer.
Your point about having to the job properly is certainly valid.
One of the key issues is that the workers have to time to do their job.
The shortage will not have helped that.
Why the hell would the 99% of parents who have no problem keeping themselves sober, drug free, out of prison and not killing children be subject to some more state monitoring of their children? The Investment model can almost predict which children are at risk, as can many of us with eyes and the ability to read coroners reports. You are worried about stigmatising these low life’s rather than protecting children? FFS
Don’t think its 99% Fun.
The Investment model can almost predict which children are at risk
So it can’t predict which children are at risk then.
Meanwhile, we can predict that more children will be at risk the longer this level of inequality continues. We can also predict that the National Party’s policies lead to more children being at risk, and our prediction will be accurate because that’s exactly what has happened.
So we already know exactly who the low-lives are, and their crocodile tears for the victims of their sadistic greedy policies are already seen for what they are.
What about the parents who don’t support greedy sadism?
You are putting yourself on the side of the gods funstigator. If you want to comment here and have a rant that is therapeutic, but it is important that you don’t flash round pseudo stats like 99% and talk about the investment model without trying to understand its nature and cost.
As I said yesterday, this can be done in such a fashion that the accusation of ‘fascism’ is avoided.
It doesn’t matter if ‘it’ managed to avoid such a label..
‘It’, should not be done!
Okay, One Two, do better.
Expand on your comment, and perhaps suggest an alternative?
You know…a discussion….;-)
Hi Rosemary, thanks for the offer
There isn’t a solution which will prevent tragedies from occurring…
It’s not possible, under any circumstances..
Strawman. No-one has suggested that it is possible to prevent tragedies from occurring.
What is being argued is that it is possible to reduce or increase the frequency with which they occur.
Not the National Party way though.
Hello OAB , how are you today?
Strawman. No, that’s the wrong response and you’re terribly off track with that comment
At Rosemarys request, I elaborated on my first comment, and gave a reason as to why I am not in favour of forced check ups…
See if you can link it all together…I’ll start you off…
I’m not in favour of forced checkups because [complete the sentence ]…
You can do it, off you go
… because you’re a pretentious idiot who’s contaminating the thread with your stupidity?
I’ll make it easier for you:
Q1: will the big brother approach reduce instances of children being beaten to death?
Q2: if not, why not?
Q3: if it will reduce the numbers of children being beaten to death, is there a better non-BB option?
Q4: if there is not a better option, and the BB option will reduce the number of children being beaten to death, why shouldn’t we make that decision to implement that plan?
Frankly, I think any impact in Q1 would be more the product of extra people on the ground than the monitoring benefits, so “more social workers with more resources and lower caseloads” would probably be the better option requested in Q3.
Do you have any coherent thoughts on the matter, preferably expressed using precise grammar and lots of nouns?
Your questions are pointless and of no consequence to my position
I’ll make it simple for you
I’m not in favor of forced checkups…under any conditions!
So why do you construct bullshit strawmen that proponents of forced checkups can use to discredit your position?
Oh, ok. Not under any conditions. Neighbours reports screams, kids with limps and facial bruising, but don’t actually see violence occurring. You’d not give social workers the authority to check while the kid is still alive.
I’m not in favour of forced checkups because of a strawman argument that doesn’t address the issue, and I don’t like it being pointed out.
At least you’ve managed to tone down the abuse in recent comments towards mine..
You’re still wrong about the strawman though…but you’re not one to admit it, so you go into parrot mode hoping to convince yourself…
I’ll try to make it easy for you to understand why you’re wrong…again…
I’m not in favor of forced checkups…under any conditions!
I’ve made my opinion very clear multiple times and this will be the last time I use energy responding to you..
Now let go of the urge to try and override the obvious opinion of my comment,and find someone else to stalk..
The reason you gave for your opinion – “There isn’t a solution which will prevent tragedies from occurring” – is bullshit, because the premise is that there are solutions that will reduce tragedies. It’s a strawman argument.
Should anyone else be stupid enough to employ your “argument” against the ‘Big Brother’ proposal, ‘Big Brother’ advocates win.
Slow clap.
I see the 659 million spending blow out on our two frigates is causing a rucus.
I guess we need to understand what the frigates are for. They primary role is to be able in any hot war is to slot into the escort screen of a Naval force made up mainly of the USN (as well as RCN, RAN and possibly RN) ships. Other roles like fisheries protection, anti-piracy patrols, enforcement of UN mandated sanctions, SAR, etc etc are secondary to their primary combat mission. Since the end of the cold war, when the RNZN had the fairly simple mission of providing dedicated ASW escorts to the US Pacific fleet to combat the usually second line Soviet submarines of the Soviet Pacific fleet that ventured beyond the Okhotsk bastion, and the emergence of a multi-polar world the threats have grown more complex and potentially more dangerous, and hence our ships have adopted CIWS, SSM and SAM systems. In addition, we have to factor in the possibility our warships would be required to engage well-armed Chinese warships.
It is worth considering that many theorists (myself included) consider that advances in robot weapons and the supreme superiority of submarines over surface ships since the 1940s means even the most modern warships are only capable of feeble defense in the face of an airborne onslaught of missiles and completely defenseless in the face of modern nuclear powered attack submarines.
Now, if you are an anti-American, anti-ANZAC supporter of peace at any price you will hate that mission description and you’ll think the frigates are a waste of money.
If you are a unilaterally disarming peacenik with an isolationist bent, you’d scrap the Navy and replace it with a Coast Guard with a primary mission of fisheries protection, SAR, and customs patrols.
If you are an isolationist who demands an armed neutrality, you would be crying out fora force of submarines that could attack and sink any amphibious attack force threatening our home islands and fast attack corvettes able to sally forth from isolated and hidden coastal bays and river mouths and subject attackers to a hail of SSMs before retiring to reload.
Anyway, my 5c worth to the discussion.
What will we need to repel the Australians if they can’t grow enough food on that ugly, overheating great slab of rock and come looking for ‘lebensraum’?
Australian boat people will never be allowed here! We will send them to a holding camp on the Auckland islands. So we just need a few converted fishing boats to intercept their people smuggler boats.
I’m an integrationist with a strong bent of self-sufficiency. Integrate with the global system but if/when it all goes to custard we can stand on our own two feet.
Produce enough food to feed ourselves.
Produce all the goods and services that we need to function as a modern society.
Produce all the weapons systems that we need to defend ourselves adequately.
Defence would be based around land based ballistic anti-ship missiles with a range of 2000km or more and land based anti-aircraft/missile missiles with a range of 400km or more.
Force projection (part of that global integration) would be based around capital ship battle-group or two.
To help with information and detection of hostile forces a polar-orbit satellite system that covers the entire globe every ten minutes.
Isn’t patrolling he Antarctic to protect our fisheries supposed to be one of their roles. The fishing companies themselves are law breakers and should be watched, then there are the furriners. But we need to make an effort to look after our fisheries.
Yep, it is and you wouldn’t want to send merely a patrol boat to do it. Doesn’t have the necessary range or capabilities.
That said, when one of our frigates caught a boat illegally fishing in the Southern Ocean they didn’t do anything about it. Seems that they don’t have the necessary capabilities either.
anti war, but frigates are freaking important re climate change, natural disasters etc etc.
Why the blow out? Seems to be a common theme with the prior government.
What’s costing so much $$$
If we want to just be able to deal with disasters, chasing pirates around the Indian Ocean, monitor climate change, etc etc then disband the Navy and sell the frigates and buy something like this for a Coast Guard:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Cutter
You do understand that that actually a bigger ship than our frigates right?
Bigger but cheaper, for reasons that include not being built to military damage control specifications.
Unfortunately for you we actually do need military vessels capable of being in a fight. Reducing that capability is a bad idea as we do need to be able to defend ourselves.
What about lots and lots of drones?
There, there diddums.
If you didn’t write rubbish that is totally divorced from facts I wouldn’t feel the need to correct you.
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
This was originally written as a response to the following comment.
https://thestandard.org.nz/james-shaw-a-stocktake-on-climate-change-action-in-aotearoa-livestream-announcement-11am/#comment-1426787
I thought it was entirely relevant to the comment I was replying to, which amounted to personal abuse of me.
I agree that it was, just like the one I have linked to here, quite irrelevant to the discussion about Shaw’s stocktake.
I shall endeavour to resist replying to irrelevant comments by other people in future.
.
That comment you linked to seems reasonable.
Your one was complete bollocks.
The bold in the moderation is a generic one that gets attached to a comment when it is moved to OM.
I moved your comment because it looked designed to inflame. The comment you replied to looked like an observation, that while not great for you, wasn’t framed in a way designed to create a fight. It also made a political point.
Glad to hear that alwyn is waking up.
Write about your best friend Steven Joyce who seems to be in big trouble down at his “own made mega agency, MBIE” as they are now finding all manner of wrong doings and his hands are involved we hear now.
You really are very dumb, aren’t you?
Do you ever bother to read answers to questions you pose?
I do you the courtesy of replying to your comments and you either never bother to read them or immediately forget what I said.
You asked questions about my supposed relationship to Joyce.
I replied here
https://thestandard.org.nz/media-response-to-labours-budget/#comment-1426835
Did you even look at it?
Do you always ignore answers to your questions?
Did you not understand big words like ZERO?
I fail to see how Joyce could possibly be my “best friend”.
Yours, however, is clearly your colon. It clearly connects directly to your mouth and is what you use to produce the words you use.
They have a word for people like you that is widely used in North America.
You are a schmuck.
Now have a good cry about it.
Your intention to make other people feel shitty is noted alwyn.
He is an extremely un-hinged soul isn’t he.
Very sad chappy, must be having a bad life since his national party is hitting the skids now as MBIE is under investigation.
Does someone work there?
I imagine you will consider the contribution from the schmuck “cleangreen” that comes immediately before this?
Or not, as the case may be.
Do you think that reading what other people say, and taking account of it is the mark of a civilised, intelligent human being and simply continuing an irrational diatribe is the mark of a schmuck?
Or perhaps he is merely an extremely in-hinged soul and we should simply feel sorry for “cleangreen”
Why don’t you, alwyn, and cleangreen both turn over the page?
Check out what Wayne Mapp is saying on The Spinoff. Basically:
1) The new government is settling in and doing well – lots of credit to Jacinda Ardern.
2) Some targets are really ambitious (mud thrown at David Clark and Phill Twyford).
3) NZF are described as “National’s nemesis” and Mapp doesn’t think they’ll go with the Nats in 2020.
4) Nats need a small party friend and hey! – they’ve already got one. Just need to build up ACT!
…Cos no-one’s sick of ACT, are they, Wayne? And no-one can see through the cynicism of that pretence that they’re a real, independent party. We’re all too thick for that, presumably.
And the title? “National’s best chance now – the eradication of NZF”. Those grapes are really tasting sour, aren’t they?
Its painful, but every now and then I agree with Wayne – at least based on your summary red blooded. Don’t have time to read the piece, but Wayne had to throw a few sticks and who better than two of the more energetic and enlightened ministers – one at each end of the country. 🙂
ACT is pretty much their best bet. Install the right people (in their books) and build up their finances again. That is what happened in the beginning and it can be done again.
Worth a read but may raise emotions
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/dec/14/a-different-dimension-of-loss-great-insect-die-off-sixth-extinction?
That and this.
The real news.
That doesn’t get reported.
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/12/12/16767152/arctic-sea-ice-extent-chart
‘Today, while we’ve discussed other matters, huge masses of ice that had been frozen for millennia thawed, wept out in trickles, converged into streams, ran into rivers of meltwater, then flowed into rising seas.
That’s the real news of the day.’
https://twitter.com/AlexSteffen/status/941771024961376256
Yes ed, agreed.
For 37 years I’ve had a vegetarian Christmas. How you going getting ready as a vegan?
Going to make lots of delicious salads on Christmas Eve for a Christmas feast.
What are you doing?
Everyone else eats meat so salad spuds maybe a nice homemade vege pie.
My family’s pretty good with salads, so in my veg days we had bean salad, green salad, tabouleh. I usually made something else that only a few people would eat 😛
I still eat lots of vegetarian. What do you put in your pie marty?
Tin of tomatoes and one of chickpeas ☺ plus whatever is around. Like brassicas, greens, onion, garlic anything really. My short time in the hari krsna’s taught me to make a medium pastry and flavourings cumin, coriandar etc is pretty standard.
Although as I write all that I’m thinking garlic buttered filo pastry with asparagus and mushroom sauce. Yum haven’t made that for a while prob too much butter and bloody expensive.
That second one sounds amazing.
Lol the tomatoes and chickpeas. I had a rant in me few days ago about how many low income people I know who are vegetarian and who would appreciate tinned chickpeas if in dire straights and we need to stop pathologising food (also, some cultures eat chickpeas daily as a staple). I never got around to tweeting it, probably just as well.
Was someone talking down chickpeas? They’re bloody good!
Yes! Did you see the whole thing on twitter about the aunties and tinned tomatoes? In there there was some dissing of chickpeas as useless, hipster food amongst the righteous political critique of telling women in refuges what to eat. I thought we could be righteous about that without dissing foods.
Offered without comment …
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/99767397/Give-generously-but-please-no-tinned-tomatoes-or-chickpeas-say-charities
Well, I mean, I can understand them being useless for donating to people in extremes. (I didn’t get originally the rationale for not wanting tinned tomatoes, but it made perfect sense once I saw it) I can absolutely see the same logic applying to chickpeas.
Chickpeas may be used in several hipstery meals, but they are cheap, fast to cook, and taste good. That said, I wouldn’t get down on anyone for not eating them, I just think they’re a good option if you cook for yourself.
Tinned tomatoes are awesome, the issue is I don’t most of these women have ever eaten chickpeas or canned tomatoes.
Would you serve Jake the Muss a chickpea salad? I don’t think so.
Eggs, Spuds, mince, corned beef, fatty boil ups, white bread with heaps of cheap margarine, pre-cooked sausages, that’s pretty much it
Fix me some mixed kebab! 😈
BM, the point of that whole thing is that people wanting to help need to listen to the people needing help about what they need and not impose their own ideas on them. e.g. not assuming something about ‘most of these women’, or that because of some perceived cultural/class issue they won’t want x food. Just ask. And listen.
I’ve never been that keen on tomatoes. i think once when I was young I got hives after eating some. I also am just not keen on the taste of canned tomatoes in meals, or of tomato soup.
But I’d use chickpeas and lentils. We all have different tastes.
Basically, it’s necessary to check with refuges and foodbanks when donating food for the ones that people will use/eat. You may have no idea about why some foods are preferred over others.
A shelf of three different brands of tinned tomatos and nothing else in the pantry would be pretty bloody depressing when you need to eat, let alone feed the kids.
A Heart Wrenching, (and emotive illustration), of the real news..
“We stood there crying—filming with tears rolling down our cheeks,”
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/12/polar-bear-starving-arctic-sea-ice-melt-climate-change-spd/
https://twitter.com/Greenpeace/status/940672908296359942
Not really “real news”.
Perhaps you could have a look at the website of Susan J. Crockford, a published researcher on polar bears, who has discussed this video extensively. https://polarbearscience.com/2017/12/09/one-starving-bear-is-not-evidence-of-climate-change-despite-gruesome-photos/
Just like John Key eh?
“(S)He’s one academic, and like lawyers, I can provide you with another one that will give you a counterview. ”
* “Loss of Arctic sea ice owing to climate change is the primary threat to polar bears throughout their range… Our findings support the potential for large declines in polar bear numbers.”
http://www.carbonbrief.org/polar-bears-and-climate-change-what-does-the-science-say
JC.
Our Environment Centre has long found that Corporates have their lawyers using false prepared reports to counter the real truth of any environmental and health issues.
It is therefore not surprising to see these ‘mules’ repeating the phrase, “there is no evidence” because they planted ghost studies to counter the ‘real truth’.
Many National bloggers we see here use this same policy.
That is why we never respond to their use of their “ghost reports” and diversions as they just keep repeating their lies, and using phony studies just as we saw happen when the Tobacco excecutives of those companies in the dock lying about smoking not being addictive.
Sometimes we have to ignore their comments as they are worthless.
Thanks for voting for me, suckers. Now if you don’t mind, could you quietly FO and die.
/
Charleston, W.Va. (AP) — President Donald Trump’s mining regulators are reconsidering rules meant to protect underground miners from breathing coal and rock dust — the cause of black lung — and diesel exhaust, which can cause cancer. An advocate for coal miners said Friday that this sends a “very bad signal.”
The Mine Safety and Health Administration has asked for public comments on whether standards “could be improved or made more effective or less burdensome by accommodating advances in technology, innovative techniques, or less costly methods.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-15/trump-reconsiders-rules-protecting-miners-from-black-lung
Keep this disgusting creep out of our country.
Surely Matt Lauer (Groper No. 15 in our ongoing Daisycutter Sports series) fails to meet any character requirements to buy land here….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fo8fF0lMPTI
Building the theocracy, one word at a time.
The Trump administration is prohibiting officials at the nation’s top public health agency from using a list of seven words or phrases — including “fetus” and “transgender” — in any official documents being prepared for next year’s budget.
Policy analysts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta were told of the list of forbidden words at a meeting Thursday with senior CDC officials who oversee the budget, according to an analyst who took part in the 90-minute briefing. The forbidden words are “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender,” “fetus,” “evidence-based” and “science-based.”
[…]
Other CDC officials confirmed the existence of a list of forbidden words.It’s likely that other parts of HHS are operating under the same guidelines regarding the use of these words, the analyst said.
At the CDC, several offices have responsibility for work that uses some of these words. The National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention is working on ways to prevent HIV among transgender people and reduce health disparities. The CDC’s work on birth defects caused by the Zika virus includes research on the developing fetus.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/cdc-gets-list-of-forbidden-words-fetus-transgender-diversity/2017/12/15/f503837a-e1cf-11e7-89e8-edec16379010_story.html?tid=ss_tw&utm_term=.5393852e612a
Shocking, but that’s not theocracy, it is lunacy.
theocracy is lunacy
Theocracy is the worst way to govern, becasue it brings out all and any lunacy within a religion.
And rewards the biggest lunatic of them all, by calling them leader…
Theocracy is not necessarily lunacy in a literal sense but what’s going on in the USA definitely is lunacy as in mass psychosis.
look at any theocracy anywhere at any given time past or present and show me where it has not been lunacy on the part of those that make the rules and deadly for those that were on the loosing end of these rules.
Talibans, ISIS, Roman Catholic Inquisition etc etc etc
In present time, the Vatican.
Anyway, it is merely semantics; what’s going on in the USA is not theocracy but mass psychosis AKA lunacy with the leader that goes with that. A pattern that we have seen many times before.
let’s agree to disagree.
🙂
By banning certain words in areas relating to reproduction, gender, replacing other terms with community standards and wishes and indulging their end-times Jerusalem is Israel’s capital fantasy, tRump’s theological dog-whistling to his evangelical base reminds them that he is carrying out their version of Dog’s will, culminating in what they really want, dominion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_Theology
Indeed, they want dominion and power, but not for (their) God (I assume that’s what you meant to write), but for themselves. Trump does not bow to anybody …
They want to live in a theocratic society where power is held by a religious class — their preachers.
Been there, done that, and they cannot go back in time; the world has changed in so many ways that this can only be labelled as an illusion. An illusion that has a lot of power because of where it springs from and how it is being fed.
it would not the first time that people hide behind ‘god’ in order to fill their coffers.
in fact is that not why religion was invented in the first place?
Or how else would you get people to ‘tithe’ you a few percent of their earnings. lol.
I currently subscribe to Jung’s theories regarding religion: it is outward projection onto God(s) as a symbol/archetype. Organised religion is built on this and the rest is history 😉
fetus
gestating human parasite ?
lol
wanting to impose ‘person’ ‘baby’ ‘human’ but mainly ‘person’ for their special ‘personhood’ amendment where the gestating human parasite living in the female body will end up having more rights to live, liberty and pursuit of happiness then the actual female gestating the human parasite that once born will be a baby, then toddler, then preschooler etc etc and person.
i also like how Paul Ryan has done his bid in breeding three white children – his wife – who no one ever mentiones – seen but not heard of ever – was obviously not involved in the breeding of his three white children – and now expects the white women of the US of A to do some more breeding – economics be damned – only white male working class persons have economic anxiety that is important to aspiring lawmakers.
http://www.newsweek.com/paul-ryan-wants-you-have-more-kids-749328
also diversity, evidence based, science based is for suckers
transgender is a mental illness and can be electrocuted away
vulnerable is for rich kids that don’t want to pay taxes on inheritances over several millions worth of dollars
and entitlements is something form me but not for thee
get on with it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNwxFocJ138&ab_channel=SuicideSqueezeRecords
i don’t watch videos that are posted without comments.
and yes, unless the ‘forced birthers’ ban coathangers, bleach, knitting needles, toilet cleaners, etc women will have abortions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-induced_abortion
And unless the FETUS is born it is nothing more then a ‘parasite’ that feeds of the body of the gestating women in order to come to live. Without that body it is a mess of cells that often ends up flushed down the toilet in the case of spontaneous miscarriages. But that would be sience based and such can’t be mentioned.
Maybe that is the way to treat women who miscarry the parasite err FETUS
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world-0/el-salvador-abortion-case-raped-woman-jailed-miscarriage-evelyn-beatriz-hern-ndez-cruz-prison-a7827891.html
also what does childbirth do to your body ……… and no it aint nice (and i am not talking about stretchmarks and sagging boobs)
https://www.piedmont.org/living-better/long-term-effects-of-pregnancy-women-dont-talk-about
Luckily that men don’t ever have to live through any of it. Right Adam? It makes the men flu seem like a walk in a rainy park.
Corporations have been using the same approach, for ages
Governments and corporations have merged into indistinguishable business partners
This is not new behaviour
Many thanks to Peter Jackson for being honest and giving his true opinion of H
harvey weinstein as a minupulating bigot bully and all people like this rich and poor need to be held accountable for there actions Ka pai.
My discription of neo liberal is they like to deceive everyone an make US believe that they have our best interests at heart. There actions prove
That they only care about the 1%. They keep lying to the World and us even when they are caught red hand cheating stealing they like to play games and they are playing the long game on the rest of us around the world this is why the 1% have got the power over the other 99% and they don’t care about the damage they do to get power You no that old saying the best trick the DEVIL has acompleshed is having people believing he does not exist. Well the way these neo liberal bigots behave sure look very similar to the Devil to me. I think there is a God but when I was younger I was not happy that God would takeaway the one person who made me feel safe and loved but now I see I am part of the fait of our world and I have been given the Mana to advocate for equality for all the people of OUR world and advercate for a humane future for mother earth and all the creatures on her. This is why I back the Rock to go for the President of the USA. Kai kaha
Next up, political commissars.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/15/us/politics/epa-scott-pruitt-foia.html
I can see that the cops are carrying on there farcical smear campaign against ECO. Once again I say if anything they have said had a gram of factual evidence to back there lying smear campaign against me don’t you think they would arrest me. I no I have shown up the hole police force in NZ up to the very top men. And everything I have said can be proven to be fact they no this. What is a state organisation that does not have a functioning complaint process what does that tell the intelligence people of the world the independent police conduct authority is run by the police so how is that independent they just use that name to bullshit everyone into believing that it’s independent people they are playing with your emotions.
They are playing with me like I’m not human. They don’t care about the effects there game has on my family or anyone I associate with work mostly they are jeopardiseing the future of my mokos and what do you all think that because they are my mokos that is just collateral damage. We all no that the effects of people perception of one’s familys behaviour in OUR society can have a positive or negative effect on there futures progress this is fact so to all my Maori culture people please behave yourself and set a good example for all OUR mokos Ana to Ka Kai Kaha