The introduction of charter schools is not a new Kiwi idea of course. (Our ministry of education seems to develop most of its recent policy from what it reads on the internet). However, given Banks’ and other government MP’s “faiths” and the utterances that these schools will be free to deliver their own curriculum, will our government insist that sound science is taught, as in the apparent ruling in the UK, and withdraw funding if otherwise …
I don’t think that charter schools are necessarily evil except when being run exclusively as money-making corporate entities. In principle they aren’t that much different to experimental schools like Steiner or Montessori.
I somehow doubt it will ever get as bad as this, however: http://www.salon.com/2012/01/13/americas_dangerously_removed_elite/singleton/
The herald editorial comments on Josy Pagani’s thoughts on what went wrong for Labour, especially:
“The hardest week to door- knock,” she said, “was when we were telling people who had just come home from a day’s work earning the minimum wage, that it was a great idea to extend their Working for Families tax credit to beneficiaries.” She could see them thinking, ‘so what’s the point of working my guts out all week while someone sitting at home on the dole gets the same tax credit as me?’
That was probably the clincher for Labour’s lack of traction.
If it can tell people only that they are poor, deprived, under-valued, and obese, it will not give the Government a run for our money.
Which will mean same old another wasted three years in opposition.
If Labour can go to the next election with well-developed ideas for helping people who aspire to work hard, make sound choices, raise happy and healthy children, maybe start a business and invest their savings, it will strike a strong chord.
If.
It will take a major change in attitude in the party and amongst it’s vocal supporters.
One of United Future’s main problems was the public wasn’t very interested in listening to the party. That is partly due to a common problem experienced by small parties on coalition, and partly due to how the party presents itself. To an extent the party’s bubble has burst and needs to be re-established.
Labour’s problem was they weren’t good at listening to the public. Oblivious to outside reality inside it’s own bubble.
so why are you going on about labour instead of sorting out your own ambitions for your burstbubble party? things not going according to plan in dunners eh pete – occupypete a fizzer.
I go on about whatever I feel like on blogs. I think it’s important for New Zealand that Labour becomes a strong mostly positive government-in-waiting party.
Things are going very much to plan in Dunedin despite a few (only on blog) persistent negative attacks of no substance. Here the Labour MPs (and the Green and National MPs) are happy to talk and work co-operatively for the good of the city.
why was the question, why, when you can ‘go on about whatever you feel like on blogs’, are you going on about this issue – especially when you and your own party fared so poorly in the election. The blahblahgoodforNZblahblah is really weak and I think you have other motives – just like you had other motives with all the occupy stuff – how about fronting up for 2012 pete.
Seriously…did Josie Pagani use Labour’s extension of WFF to beneficiaries as an opening line when talking to working households that she door knocked.
Its what that quote makes it sound like. And if someone brought the topic up and she couldn’t explain to them convincingly why Labour had made that call (ie as a way to bolster families income above poverty during a time of high unemployment) …she shouldn’t be in PR or in politics.
Josie managed to substantially cut the majority in a blue ribbon rural Tory seat in an election that Labour lost heavily, CV. If I remember rightly, she and her team got the second best result of any electorate for the red team. I think that gives her more than enough credibility to speak about what worked and what didn’t, don’t you?
Where is Pagani bene bashing? Read the quote again, lefty, it’s the reaction of the working poor to the policy she is talking about and she does not bash beneficiaries in the least, nor condemn the policy itself.
Except that isn’t what she said, CV. The problem Pagani is identifying is that Labour failed to win support for the policy among the working poor, not that the policy was wrong.
The circumstances here are substantially different to those previously: the move is a move to combate child poverty- is Pagani saying it is ok to have child poverty if you are on a benefit? Or that an improvement in child poverty is a hard sell? Annette King did a fine job on Q and A with that one.
Why is Labour continuing to talk itself down? Is a move to improve child poverty gloomy?
This seems some odd communication from Labour allowing the Herald to define their party as this:
” Labour’s natural constituency is those who need some help.”
which I strongly, strenously and harshly disagree with.
It is frustrating that Labour allows this to happen. The constituency is those who dislike inequality in society and recognise that it is the best way to deal with a raft of expensive social problems. It is the constituency that doesn’t think we need people in working poverty to make us successful.
or continue the meme that we have chronic welfare dependency problems:
“Labour should devise welfare programmes that are targeted to temporary need and help people become self-supporting.” (like the ones that helped Paula Bennett and have been cut? FFS.)
Labour has come out of the blocks in the new year talking about welfare reform. It allows the Herald to say:
“If it can tell people only that they are poor, deprived, under-valued, and obese, it will not give the Government a run for our money.”
labour chose the wrong leader he only started making traction in the last month before the election after world cup and sucky msm non existent investigative journalism just overpaid glamorized reporters.
Labour need to expose the lie about welfare. Its a safety net not a holiday. Welfare is not there to support the low income, its there to support those in work, with a safety net, with disease control (meaning the poor children don’t give you kids disease), with clean street clear of bums (who are mentally ill), with lower prices because more people have access to Doctors, Dentists, etc and thus drive down the price by economies of scale. Essentially we have a welfare system because it supports the majority, its good economics. Sure when the world economy is run so damn badly then the numbers on unemployment will be too high but whose fault is that/ Parliament YES, crony capitalism, YES. The unemployed NO. Labour isn’t a party of the left because it buys into the big lie, that welfare is bad because the people on the benefit are evil. Simply the welfare system is how we become a much more efficient first world nation, instead of wasting generations who trawl the rubbish for a dollar to make ends meet. Just imagine that, some kid coming to your kids school whose mum and dad pick through the rubbish tip.
Welfare is also a em0loyment scheme, it keeps thousands in jobs, forces wages down, and even helps government load small business up with regulation tht protect you from poor food, poor working conditions, social discord, etc, etc.
Where welfare is a problem is at the top end of town.
“The hardest week to door- knock,” she said, “was when we were telling people who had just come home from a day’s work earning the minimum wage, that it was a great idea to extend their Working for Families tax credit to beneficiaries.” She could see them thinking, ‘so what’s the point of working my guts out all week while someone sitting at home on the dole gets the same tax credit as me?’
This is exactly what I thought would happen when I heard this policy. I support it for sure, but they were really incredibly stupid rolling it out the way they did. This was about the same time that they rolled out the eligibility changes for superannuation.
Up until that point we had seen Labour (and Goff as perferred PM) firming up and slowly rising in the polls, then after that point it appeared to slide back and went to the Greens, even though they had similar policies anyway. Probably it was really a combination of people thinking about Labour going back to National or NZFirst, while the Greens grabbed those that wanted more spine than Labour was showing.
IMO Labour just should have avoided the WFF stuff and not even mentioned it. National hardly had any policies to campaign on and not much in the way of details for the ones they did, so I don’t see why Labour thought they had to put absolutely everything on the table.
We’ll probably waste another decade before we get around to putting in a sorely needed CGT now. Unless there are significant economic disruptions in this current term that the left can put together the proposal again and win with it in 2014.
Yes Labour/Labour was amazingly successful electorially post 1949 wasn’t it. In the 35 years between that date and 1984 how many years was Labour/Labour in power for?
goose labour got more votes than National in just about every election other than the 1951 election because of gerrymandering of boundaries by vested interests.
Luckily the likes of Kiwi Keith new the mandate he had was tenuous and was a relatively pragmatic leader.
It’s not “funny” at all – UF have always claimed to be centrist, though there may be some confusion over what they mean by that. And as NAct currently demonstrates, the parties that capture and stay in power are centrist – although it creeps me out no end that for the majority of the electorate “centrist” has crept that far to the right. If disaffected voters have crept to the right in order to stay centre, what on earth makes you think a “Labour/Labour” – by which I assume you mean hard left, is going to attract them back?
“Well, in our country,” said Alice, still panting a little, “you’d generally get to somewhere else — if you run very fast for a long time, as we’ve been doing.”
“A slow sort of country!” said the Queen. “Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”
If disaffected voters have crept to the right in order to stay centre, what on earth makes you think a “Labour/Labour” – by which I assume you mean hard left, is going to attract them back?
Perhaps but you missed one point. The issue of participation.
As the latest election results show, a lot of people don’t give a rats ass about National or about Labour.
And each one of those million deserves a slap in the face for making the vote of all those who did count for less and effectively giving the NActs a mandate to do a whole bunch of stuff that the polls suggest they didn’t want to happen. So what DO they want? (though perhaps if they really are SO stupid as to not realise how important an election really is, maybe it would be better if they didn’t vote… Just joking)
The point is that a third of the population, or more, do not think that NACT or NACT lite(Labour) reflect their views or aspirations.
Many did vote. BUT. Not because they supported Labour or National, but simply for whichever one they thought was the lesser of 2 evils.
And of many other voters, their information was the Herald and TV, which, like our politicians, have totally abandoned any semblance of journalism to become unashamed pursuers of corporate crumbs from their puppetmasters…
I would suggest that a Labour, Labour would bring back many disaffected voters.
Well, I concede that it’s possible, but it also seems to me just as likely that a “Labour, Labour” party (and I would appreciate if you could define that a bit more clearly for me as there’s a big spectrum of Left there) might scare a big chunk of the less-committed centrist and more conservative elements of Labour running to the arms of that nice Mr Key. Again, I ask, what do the silent million want in terms of policy that they couldn’t find in any of the other “minor” (a word that really can’t be applied to the Greens anymore) parties – which again, KJT, is why I’d like you to more closely define this hypothetical “Labour, Labour” party. What do you think they want that no one else could give them?
People’s attitudes follow their behaviour which, in turn, follows the necessities of life imposed by broader social structures.
The political fight is over those structures.
The cynical approach (adopted by Roger Douglas) is that rapidly changing the structures within which people live their lives and then deflecting and disrupting resistance is the way to make ‘progress’ on a political agenda.
That is, it is based on the correct insight – as above – that people’s attitudes will conform once the pragmatics of their lives makes it necessary to change their attitudes in order to maintain some sort of cognitive and emotional comfort and coherence in their lives (in relation to what they find they have to do in order to survive).
A second approach is to stick to a straightforward attempt to persuade people that your agenda is best – for them and for society as a whole.
A third approach is simply to find out what people want and at least sound like that’s what you’re giving them. This is the approach of marketers. Like marketers, however, this usually descends into a softer, more surreptitious version of the first approach. I think this is Key’s approach.
For a number of reasons, I find the first and third approaches disreputable (which is why I also don’t like marketing – the pretence that one’s aim is to give people what they want when, in reality, your primary motive is to make your business profitable. While sometimes compatible, these goals inevitably diverge and, then, the primary motive asserts itself.).
I’m enough of a political pragmatist to compromise or concede on the occasional policy but I just can’t see the point in conceding on my analysis of the social and economic world in order to be more in tune with the ‘centre’.
The aim should be to convince the ‘centre’ (or anyone else) to shift towards your analysis. It should not be to shift your analysis – at least for any reason other than that you are convinced that your analysis is faulty.
Call me old-fashioned, but I can’t see the point of being politically active in order to institute something I don’t believe is true.
I read Steve Jobs biography over Christmas. It is a fascinating read. He is a complex character, obsessive, driven and flawed as a human being. Yet these qualities no doubt were instrumental in what he achieved.
His comments concerning Teacher Unions were eye opening.
Amongst other things he said that America’s education system was being “crippled by union work rules”. He also said “[u]ntil the teachers’ unions were broken, there was almost no hope for education reform.” Jobs proposed allowing principals to hire and fire teachers based on merit, that schools stay open until 6 p.m. and that they be open 11 months a year. These ideas and the teacher union bashing that accompanies them are percolating throughout the Western World.
I have never understood why the right such as Slater should be so vehemently anti teacher union. But these American ideas are so clearly being applied to the New Zealand situation despite the clear differences.
It is really weird that we should be told that we need to follow trends in a country where the direction its education system is heading is clearly wrong. As was noted previously by Salsy we should look to Finland for where we should be taking out system.
“I have never understood why the right such as Slater should be so vehemently anti teacher union.”
Considering last week a whole bunch of leftist posters here basically stated that teachers should indoctrinate children in leftist ideology I don’t think it is too hard to work that one out.
Not indoctrinate – merely teach the truth and how to think. That’s all that’s needed. That alone will bring people to the left as it highlights the delusion of the right.
Whatever DTB. But thanks for highlighting exactly why right wingers are wary of teacher unions. People who believe that there is a ‘correct’ way to think are potentially very dangerous.
Gosman, if anything turns me off from listening to another point of view (yours) it is the use of ‘whatever’ as a response as it indicates to me shallow, unconsidered and dismissive attitudes.
That is correct. I am extrapolating that he meant the correct way to think because teachers already teach children to think. Unless you think teachers in NZ are failing in this pretty basic piece of the learning process Felix. Do you really think NZ teachers are that incompetent that NZ children are not being taught to think?
Nicely avoiding the uncomfortable question there felix. So you disagree with the view that kids aren’t being taught to think in school at the moment do you?
With 1 child in Primary and 1 in intermediate, my opinion is yes Gosman, they are being failed in this fundamental way. Their teachers are all hard working and well meaning, but to teach critical thinking is not their mandate.
So Nz teachers are incompetent in your view Mcflock are they? They are failing to teach a large proportion of the population to think. Hmmmmm…. I wonder if the Labour party will take up the challenge and bring this national shame to light.
There’s a difference between teaching people to think and wrote learning. NAct seem to want to go back to wrote learning style of the 19th century whereas modern teachers want to teach people to think. Interestingly enough, it’s NAct and their supporters who are complaining about teachers and how they teach.
So you are now stating that teacher ARE teaching children to think are you? Well then no problem then. I’m sure within a very short period of time the schools will be churning out your socially conscious little comrades by the bucketful. I don’t know what you are worried about.
By the way who on the right is pushing for rote learning? I have yet to read or hear anyone on the right recently argue that we should change our education system to one involving rote learning. Perhaps you have some link to a right leaning educationalist in NZ who makes the case?
Testing, testing and more testing as required by National Standards which, due to then penalising teachers if they don’t teach to the test, results in rote learning.
No, he didn’t specifically say “anything about a correct way to think” but there are bizarre implications in what he said.
Coercing how to think based on left = truth sounds like religious (or political) fundamentalism rather than education. If our schools were based on those sorts of delusions it would be dangerous.
Bricks in the wall with the right and centre knocked off sounds a bit thick.
So why does DTB want teachers to teach children to think if they are already doing so. It would be like wanting my butcher to sell meat. Kind of pointless as that is what they already do.
There seems to be confusion over trying to teach children what to think or how to develop their thinking.
For example, should a teacher try and teach children “left good, right bad”, or should they help them develop critial thinking so they can make up their own minds?
It looks like DtB prefers trying to train everyone to be left clones, or expecting everyone will naturally become left clones if they are taught what he thinks as ‘truth’.
Pete, it’s the right who are coercing the teaching model and the model that they’re coercing is a model which fails to teach people to think. Instead it teaches people to believe what they’re told and not to ask questions.
Didn’t say anything about a correct way to think. What I said was that there is truth and there is what RWNJs believe. The two are completely different, the first is fact and the second is delusion.
No, just that that is what the teachers need to do.
Any proposed changes, such as National Standards and charter schools (run by any religious nutjob group), that make it difficult for teachers to teach children to think should be rejected on that basis.
Seems pretty obvious. Then again maybe I was taught to think.
Gosman, have you ever tried to ‘think’ without any content? It’s hard to do one without the other.
The whole point of ‘thinking’ (that common or garden word covers a huge range of cognitive activity – both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ thinking) is surely to provide a reasonable guide to action. Action – in a real world – requires some sense of what can be relied upon. That is, it requires some sense of what is ‘true’.
Of course, ‘truth’ is not necessarily forever but it amounts to what any ‘thinking person’ – who is able to put such truths to the test of thought and action – would go along with.
I’m not sure how you expect teachers to teach ‘thinking’ without also including a few ‘truths’ to think with. BTW, teaching thinking is not just teaching formal logic or some method of thought. All methods – even logic – come along with assumptions about what is true.
Without worrying about the difference between logical ‘truth’ and empirical ‘truth’, I think it’s safe to say that thinking requires some idea of what is true.
DTB’s point was that if you teach the truths from the relevant disciplines you’ll detect that it is more likely to conform to a general ‘left’ analysis (e.g., that those with power and wealth tend to distort social and economic systems in their favour). Presumably he’s thinking about the social and economic worlds here, and the relevant knowledge in those areas.
Interestingly, it is because of this perceived ‘left’ bias in the humanities and social sciences that many on the right complain about just these disciplines, often concocting conspiracy theories – The History Man notwithstanding – about them and the knowledge they generate (while blessing their cotton socks for the discipline of economics which is often touted – incorrectly – as the only truly empirical social science).
Finally,
“People who believe that there is a ‘correct’ way to think are potentially very dangerous”
(I presume, here, that you don’t actually mean ‘way’ – ie, method – but, rather, something like ‘thought’ or ‘thoughts’.)
People who believe there is no ‘correct’ way to think are also potentially dangerous – and simplistically misunderstand the normative notion of ‘correct’.
I’m not going to call you names, Gosman, but I interpreted that as “how to think critically”, not what to think. Any unbalanced ideological indoctrination at the school level is a fairly unpleasant prospect, but I do notice that more often than not the people who gravitate to the higher levels of academia are of a leftish bent – largely because those of a rightish bent would rather be out in the corporate sector.
What rot. You just need to read DTB’s reply above to see that he at least thinks people just need to be taught to think in the correct manner and they will suddenly have their eye’s opened to the wonders of the leftist world view.
So how come it is generally the lefties who resort to infantile name calling like you have just done Mcflock? Or is this really an example of your superior intellect whereby you don’t need to debate at all as your views are so obviously correct therefore leaving more time for mindless abuse of those who dare to express differing opinions?
Two reasons: Firstly, the complete failure and/or intractable unwillingness of folk like yourself to understand basic logic makes logical arguments futile. Secondly, I was just calling it how I saw it.
Please elucidate for me then. How about we use DTB’s argument that teachers should teach children to think as an example? Now to me logically this means that they are failing to teach children to think at the moment. Is that not the logical inference from that position. If not, then what is the logical inference about our current teaching system?
So far the only answer from DTB is that he does now think they are being taught to think at the moment. Yet if that is the case then there is no indication that I know of that the children are much more likely to be left leaning. Certainly the proportion of left and right voters has not been steadily being skewed in favour of the left over the last few decades. They can’t be doing their job very well if that is the case.
That probably follows logically from any number of your assumptions, but as you’ve misunderstood the entire discussion from the outset it’s neither here nor there to anyone else.
How about we use DTB’s argument that teachers should teach children to think as an example? Now to me logically this means that they are failing to teach children to think at the moment. Is that not the logical inference from that position.
You: “[quoting mickeysavage]“I have never understood why the right such as Slater should be so vehemently anti teacher union.” Considering last week a whole bunch of leftist posters here basically stated that teachers should indoctrinate children in leftist ideology I don’t think it is too hard to work that one out.”
DTB: “Not indoctrinate – merely teach the truth and how to think. That’s all that’s needed. That alone will bring people to the left as it highlights the delusion of the right.”
So DTB’s statement is that “[teachers should ] merely teach the truth and how to think. That’s all that’s needed. That alone will bring people to the left as it highlights the delusion of the right.”
Is the left vote 0%? Are teachers 100% unionised? Are 100% of children taught by teachers? Is critical thinking a core component of the curriculum that all children have to achieve adequate skill in?
You go from a philosophical “should” to a generalised ” logically this means that they are failing to teach children to think at the moment.”.
Some teachers do fail – this is a fact. “They” as a group do not.
Most schoolchildren are not voters. Therefore evidence of a prior failure by some teachers (possibly as a result of systemic issues rather than individual shortcomings), i.e. Key’s election, does not logically imply a current failure.
By not recognising any of this, you reveal that you were failed by your teacher. Which tends to support the proposition that you, a regular tory advocate, lack critical thinking skills. As do a number of your compatriots, generally a higher percentage from what I can see than the left.
The left has nutty or stupid commenters here as well, but there are few of them and many commenters. There are fewer tory commenters here, yes, but many more of them as a proportion are nutty or stupid.
A society needs ideological and philosophical underpinnings. You teach them to your children directly, explicitly and consciously – or you leave it blank and wait for individualistic, commercial and political interests to fill their heads with crap.
Oh that’s barely the start of my character flaws. But regularly confusing “wishful thinking caused by personal bigotry” and “logical inference” isn’t one of them.
No, I just don’t buy into the leftist spin and intellectual arrogance that is behind the statement, Words of Gosman
Obviously from reading your regular gurgles you like the rightist spin and intellectual arrogance that accompanies it. What DTB is for is the ability to take an overview not trample education underfoot by contesters who might as well be on the opposing sides of a boxing ring.
I have never understood why the right such as Slater should be so vehemently anti teacher union.
Slater hates anybody who doesn’t share his bigotries. Yesterday he was bullying a sixteen year old girl, Jazmine Heka for wanting an end to child poverty. What a scumbag!
Hopefully Slater is converting Jazmine into a hardened dedicated leftie through his complete lack of compassion or understanding.
If anyone would like to sign Jazmine’s petitions they are here. The themes are simple but clear. They have three simple idealistic goals which if achieved would go a long way to solving problems associateed with childhood poverty. The petitions wants the Government to:
1. Provide free healthcare for all children including prescription costs.
2. Introduce warrant of fitness’s for all rental houses.
3. Provide free healthy school lunches to all children attending schools.
New Zealand employers use similar tactics bonded labour farm workers.
Isolated farm workers are promised the earth free Accommodation, free meat,free milk, good income. a salary of $50,000 per annum. then they are made to work unholy hours one young fellow newly married working in Nth Canterbury made to from 3 am till 8 pm every day 1 day off a fortnight.No free meat no free milk no compensation for hours worked outside the 45 hours per week contracted this is common as in the dairy industry.
Frivolous litigation is the scourge of the United States, with some firms founded entirely on the destructive practice. Righthaven is one such lawsuit factory…
Okay then I am not one of these people who glare at other people’s kids in public when they are making a disturbance, in fact I hate those people who do that, having got younger relatives who get a bit crazy (like all kids) I wont judge someone else kids if they are misbehaving, in saying that their has to be a limit, and there has to be a time when a parent/caregiver starts to take control. I think kids should be able to be kids in public, even have meltdowns, or just generally act stupid.
Its the parents reaction that gets to me.
For example I was in this cafe, having a quiet meal, (the cafe was a normal run of the mill cafe, not way over the top posh, but it was nice) A mother had a couple of children there,
the oldest was probably nine the youngest around six or seven.
Well the kids started running around, the youngest had a toy car which he liked to bang on other peoples tables, while the oldest, screamed “lets play tag” they were hiding behind myself and other people at this cafe, behind the chairs etc etc, laughing, bumping into people, well the cafe manager came out and gave them a look that said “dont do that”
Well the mother was beside herself, she stood up and screamed “Dont have fun kids, remember dont have fun, your not allowed to laugh or be happy” then she started cracking up and giving people dirty looks while still saying “Oh your having to much fun, the police are going to come now” The lady she was with was cheering her on.
Like I said, Kids should be allowed to be kids, but was this too over the top, or am I being grumpy???? The place wasnt fastfood, it was a nice cafe, not sandwiches but meals.
Some people have no idea how to raise children.
If I was the cafe owner, I would have told the stupid bitch to fuck off and banned her from the premises.
I feel you there Brett(s). I’ve got a bit of a rep with some of the parents around town as being a grumpy bastard who doesn’t like kids, but nothing could be further from the truth.
It’s the parents who piss me off, the ones who think their little darlings are too special to have boundaries. Most of the kids I like just fine.
I’ve been in similar circumstances myself. Either me or my wife (usually her) will firmly tell such children to be considerate – the parents usually look shocked or embarrassed.
Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but I put it down to the overweening love affair modern society has with ‘privacy’, individualism and ‘property rights’. Parents seem to think that any reprimand from another adult, in public, of their children is some sort of invasion of their (the parents’) ‘privacy’ (now that is ironic) and ‘property rights’, insofar as they see children as their possessions.
For me, reprimanding these children is less about some poe-faced moralistic castigation as it is about giving children the respect to believe that they are ‘persons in process’ and need to be socialised. The kids often respond well – better than the parents.
I think the irritation other adults often feel in the presence of unruly children stems from the perception that the parents will get all indignant at ‘strangers’ telling their children what they should be doing.
Children should be able to express themselves in lively ways, and places such as cafes (and their patrons) should accept that. But, that expressiveness also needs to be challenged (not completely squashed) when it goes too far.
I think that, these days, there isn’t enough civilised argie-bargie between people in public places. We shouldn’t just silently keep our thoughts to ourselves and then bitch about others later. We should engage – civilly – at the time. Especially when it comes to socialising children.
Then, if we overstep the mark and reprimand a child unnecessarily or too harshly other adults can also step in and challenge us.
This is how we learn to get along – and live out our social nature.
Quite right – NZers internalise way too many things without expressing them in assertive yet productive and well intentioned ways. From this kids in a cafe scenario to be badly treated by a customer services rep on the phone or in a store.
Are we that afraid of meaningful communication and confrontation (your “meaningful argie bargy”)?
Insofar as people can say what they want, yes. Personally I would have thought that a little bit of respect for people’s personal space was in order, though.
But then I’m a fascist prick at heart, so need to consciously moderate my more totalitarian impulses 😉
Ask Pete George or Gosman, I’m sure they will explain that the mother is a DPB bludger getting overpaid and needs to sent into poverty big time as punishment.
There does seem to be a generation of mothers with a very strong sense of entitlement (dare I mention militant breast feeders as well?), but instinct tells me that you can’t really do anything unless (1) the child is about to hurt themselves, someone else, or property – and you have to act in loco parentis because mummy in question is some borderline narcissistic personality disorder for whom her children are an autonomous accessory of only limited interest, or (2) the kiddiwink in question is actually invading your space and interracting with you directly (chair kickers and other monsters etc).
She seemed quite well off, Not sure if she was on the DPB, all I know is that she didnt give a fuck about the people around her, or the business owner.
It’s quite common to see kids of the “quite well off” running riot as mummy and daddy teach them they own the world, and a select few will soon enough too.
I’m not entirely sure that this is a class issue, to the extent that it is an issue at all. I certainly don’t believe Brett was making that point. God knows I disagree with him enough, but the fact is that teaching kids a bit of consideration for other people is not out of order – especially as he isn’t talking about toddlers in this instance.
Tell you what. I know a few old fashioned Tories raising their children. Very methodical and very disciplined. End result – good kids with manners who know which end is up and which end is down, know how to manage their own bank accounts and know to avoid credit cards. The ones off farms can be immensely practical. As in, know how to lift engines out of old Holdens practical.
The other kind of Tory parents with more money than sense, and who think that spoiling little Johnny with expensive gifts will somehow make up for their guilt in not spending quality time and attention supervising him, not so much.
Methyl iodide is a pesticide that is sometimes used for fumigating soil before planting. In june 2010, the Environmental Risk Management Authority (ERMA) approved an application to import and manufacture Ripper, which contains methyl iodide, for the use in the strawberry industry. ERMA appears to have ignored various peer reviewed studies in making that decision.
The problem is that methyl iodide was initially misclassified by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation. It’s classification is now being questioned in a court of law, and it’s likely the legal challenge will win…
Saving the Rich, Losing the economy In Europe, as in the US, the driver of economic policy quickly became saving the private banks from losses on their portfolios. A deal was struck with the socialist government of Greece, which represented the banks and not the Greek people. The ECB would violate its charter and together with the IMF, which would also violate its charter, would lend enough money to the Greek government to avoid default on its sovereign bonds to the private banks that had purchased the bonds. In return for the ECB and IMF loans and in order to raise the money to repay them, the Greek government had to agree to sell to private investors the national lottery, Greece’s ports and municipal water systems, a string of islands that are a national preserve, and in addition to impose a brutal austerity on the Greek people by lowering wages, cutting social benefits and pensions, raising taxes, and laying off or firing government workers.
In other words, the Greek population is to be sacrificed to a small handful of foreign banks in Germany, France and the Netherlands. The Greek people, unlike “their” socialist government, did not regard this as a good deal. They have been in the streets ever since.
Jean-Claude Trichet, head of the ECB, said that the austerity imposed on Greece was a first step. If Greece did not deliver on the deal, the next step was for the EU to take over Greece’s political sovereignty, make its budget, decide its taxation, decide its expenditures and from this process squeeze out enough from Greeks to repay the ECB and IMF for lending Greece the money to pay the private banks.
In other words, Europe under the EU and Jean-Claude Trichet is a return to the most extreme form of feudalism in which a handful of rich are pampered at the expense of everyone else.
This is what economic policy in the West has become–a tool of the wealthy used to enrich themselves by spreading poverty among the rest of the population.
The Greeks can still default if they want. They will just be kicked out of the Euro and get no significant further cash to support their leftist policies. That is how Merkel and Sarkozy managed to reign in the previous Greek PM when he stated the austerity meassures would be subject to a referendum. They basically told him it was either Austerity or no money and no Euro. The Greeks seem to want to still get bail out money and be part of the Euro but without austerity. It isn’t happening.
Goose head the Greek economy is “spiroling”down the gurgler Austerity equals smaller economy less money to pay bills,Greek migration is huge leaving even less people to pick up the tab.
Greece under neo liberal austerity is fucked no possible cure.
Thats why Merkel and Sarkosy want a financial transaction tax to keep the fraudulent banks a float that lent these countries all this money fully knowing that they would default.
If Greece pulls out of the Euro it has many more options like devaluing, printing money, raising taxes on the rich etc.
German Swiss and French banks would go bankrupt doing more damage to the rest of Europe .
Its not a leftist policy to not pay tax at all like a lot of Greek tycoons do, now thats why they are based their corrupting officials to get their way right wing fascists more like it.
Greece is being forced to buy tens of millions in armaments from Germany and other countries as part of its bail out deal.
i.e. repatriating money leant from EU countries to back to those same EU countries in exchange for pointless munitions and more indebtedness. Greece is screwed.
Edit – I stand corrected. Its BILLIONS in weapon systems that Greece is buying. Austerity for you, Eurofighters for us!!!
Yet the Greek government still wants to be part of the Eurozone and still wants the bail out billions. Perhaps if they hadn’t got themselves into such a mess in the first place then they wouldn’t be in such a exploitable position as they are in now. Instead of having a bloated and over paid civil service and people retiring at 55 as well as paying no taxes they could have instead been more productive and law abiding and would be lending money to places like Italy and Spain rather than needing it from places like France and Germany.
Greece, if I’ve been reading it right, still expect the EU to get rid of the corruption that is endemic to their political system. It’s that corruption that caused Greek spending and it’s only the Greeks that can get rid of it. The banksters, being also corrupt, are using that corruption to give themselves Greek assets so that they get a permanent rentier income.
BS goose head Obviously you haven’t been watching the riots happening in Athens.
According to overseas reports I’ve been reading Greece is becoming a tinder box for revolt.
i.e, Arab spring I Predict full scale riots to come until Greece leaves the euro.
Greece does provide an interesting case study for those who argue that having a low retirement age reduces unemployment especially amongst the young though.
“Before the crisis Spain had low and declining debt. Italy had high debt inherited from the past, but it was steadily working that debt down relative to GDP. Neither country was being profligate — that’s just not what happened. Since the crisis debt has been rising relative to GDP, but that’s what happens when you have an economic crisis.
Yes, Greece. But Greece is now a tiny part of this story. As I said in today’s column, Greece (GDP of about $300 billion) is roughly Greater Miami ($270 billion). Italy and Spain are the big stories, and they were not, repeat not, fiscally profligate.”
Maybe it’s Germany who should and will leave the Euro..
Have the Greeks used fighter jets in suppressing the austerity protests previously? Has any Westernised country used fighter jets in this way in the past few decades?
Slippery Gos. “Armaments” is not restricted to “fighter jets”. Those are for if friction with Turkey flares up again.
The helicopter gunships will be particularly useful in riot control. Their camera systems alone will be useful. The cannon will be just a bonus. As will the tanks. And some westernised countries love to use heavy artillery in civilian built up areas – just not their own.
The fact that Syria is currently crawling with Russian military personnel, and Russia and China would veto any UN resolution supporting a no fly zone hugely complicates US/NATO plans.
I agree that the international response to the suggestion is cool at best. However, it simply reinforces the point that aircraft are being used to suppress protest, which explains why the Syrian opposition wants a no fly zone.
During his long summer hiatus in Hawaii, John Key has had an epiphany and decided to cast off his teflon coated suit along with other trappings of power and showmanship like his toupee…
I was just reading Key’s entry in Wikipedia – I knew his mother was an Austrian-Jew (and therefore might be expected to know something about suffering, oppression and marginalisation), but apparently his English father fought in the Spanish Civil War – one assumes not on the Fascist side. How the hell did they produce Johnny?
The Italian ship which ran into rocks and went down might have taken the wrong side of an island to get closer to the scenic shore. It sounds like the Mikhail Lermontov episode here, for the same reason.
paula beenit says the green paper will solve the mystery of infanticide in New Zealand.
there have been “160” submissions already.
most of those will be opinions.
by my count there are at least 6 universities in new zealand.
if they graduate 10 anthropolgy students per year then that is 60 qualified people that could be undertaking a proper scientific study instead of the usual bumble that we are getting now.
oh I forgot.
you would have to pay them but opinions are free.
We don’t need anthropology students we need social science/social work/psychology post grads contributing.
Although its pretty simple the answers around living conditions, poverty, substance abuse, anger management, parenting skills etc are already all very well known, its simply a case of operationalising them. Bennett is just wasting time with some kind of “need more research” bullshit.
CV Its just another excuse for doing nothing need more research
1987 ropa report on behalf of Roger Douglas
Poverty main causes of child poverty and violence toward children and why so many poor people end up in jail.
Poor housing
Poor access to health care
long term unemployment refer to two lines above
Being a relatively small Island nation in the Pacific means we’re somewhat isolated from what happens in the rest of the world. But that’s no excuse for New Zealand’s mainstream media ignoring many important stories.
Clearly they’re underreporting on many relevant topics. So in light of this censorship… here’s a small sample of the stories that we don’t get to see here in gods own…
The Key government’s asset sales agenda is derived from the Washington Consensus – a set of Wall Street-driven policies that were pronounced dead after the global financial meltdown in 2008.[1] The New Zealand government, however, remains loyal to this failed ideology.
[…]
The world on its present course cannot avoid fuel shortages, debt-deflation, fiscal austerity, increasing poverty, political and environmental conflicts over energy and essential commodities, unprecedented global protests against Wall Street financial injustice, political and legal challenges for full reserve monetary reform, climate and humanitarian disasters, further revolution and war.
We are facing the perfect economic storm, in which sacrificing long-term high performing income would guarantee poverty for the majority. Selling public assets amounts to economic suicide.
The sales related costs estimate of 3% or $180 million is probably a bit of the low side, but otherwise a very good read.
A listing of 31 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 21, 2024 thru Sat, April 27, 2024. Story of the week Anthropogenic climate change may be the ultimate shaggy dog story— but with a twist, because here ...
Hi,I spent about a year on Webworm reporting on an abusive megachurch called Arise, and it made me want to stab my eyes out with a fork.I don’t regret that reporting in 2022 and 2023 — I am proud of it — but it made me angry.Over three main stories ...
The new Victoria University Vice-Chancellor decided to have a forum at the university about free speech and academic freedom as it is obviously a topical issue, and the Government is looking at legislating some carrots or sticks for universities to uphold their obligations under the Education and Training Act. They ...
Do you remember when Melania Trump got caught out using a speech that sounded awfully like one Michelle Obama had given? Uncannily so.Well it turns out that Abraham Lincoln is to Winston Peters as Michelle was to Melania. With the ANZAC speech Uncle Winston gave at Gallipoli having much in ...
She was born 25 years ago today in North Shore hospital. Her eyes were closed tightly shut, her mouth was silently moving. The whole theatre was all quiet intensity as they marked her a 2 on the APGAR test. A one-minute eternity later, she was an 8. The universe was ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park in collaboration with members from our Skeptical Science team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Is Antarctica gaining land ice? ...
Images of US students (and others) protesting and setting up tent cities on US university campuses have been broadcast world wide and clearly demonstrate the growing rifts in US society caused by US policy toward Israel and Israel’s prosecution of … Continue reading → ...
Barrie Saunders writes – Dear Paul As the new Minister of Media and Communications, you will be inundated with heaps of free advice and special pleading, all in the national interest of course. For what it’s worth here is my assessment: Traditional broadcasting free to air content through ...
Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its arguments for such a bold reform. ...
Peter Dunne writes – The great nineteenth British Prime Minister, William Gladstone, once observed that “the first essential for a Prime Minister is to be a good butcher.” When a later British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, sacked a third of his Cabinet in July 1962, in what became ...
Ele Ludemann writes – New Zealanders had the OECD’s second highest tax increase last year: New Zealanders faced the second-biggest tax raises in the developed world last year, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) says. The intergovernmental agency said the average change in personal income tax ...
We all know something’s not right with our elections. The spread of misinformation, people being targeted with soundbites and emotional triggers that ignore the facts, even the truth, and influence their votes.The use of technology to produce deep fakes. How can you tell if something is real or not? Can ...
This video includes conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Simon Clark. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). This year you will be lied to! Simon Clark helps prebunk some misleading statements you'll hear about climate. The video includes ...
It is all very well cutting the backrooms of public agencies but it may compromise the frontlines. One of the frustrations of the Productivity Commission’s 2017 review of universities is that while it observed that their non-academic staff were increasing faster than their academic staff, it did not bother to ...
Buzz from the Beehive Two speeches delivered by Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters at Anzac Day ceremonies in Turkey are the only new posts on the government’s official website since the PM announced his Cabinet shake-up. In one of the speeches, Peters stated the obvious: we live in a troubled ...
1. Which of these would you not expect to read in The Waikato Invader?a. Luxon is here to do business, don’t you worry about thatb. Mr KPI expects results, and you better believe itc. This decisive man of action is getting me all hot and excitedd. Melissa Lee is how ...
…it has a restricted jurisdiction which must not be abused: it is not an inquisitionNOTE – this article was published before the High Court ruled that Karen Chhour does not have to appear before the Waitangi Tribunal Gary Judd writes – The High Court ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – One of reasons Oranga Tamariki exists is to prevent child neglect. But could the organisation itself be guilty of the same?Oranga Tamariki’s statistics show a decrease in the number and age of children in care. “There are less children ...
David Farrar writes: Graeme Edgeler wrote in 2017: In the first five years after three strikes came into effect 5248 offenders received a ‘first strike’ (that is, a “stage-1 conviction” under the three strikes sentencing regime), and 68 offenders received a ‘second strike’. In the five years prior to ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has surprised everyone with his ruthlessness in sacking two of his ministers from their crucial portfolios. Removing ministers for poor performance after only five months in the job just doesn’t normally happen in politics. That’s refreshing and will be extremely ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the two days to 6:06am on Thursday, April 25:Politics: PM Christopher Luxon has set up a dual standard for ministerial competence by demoting two National Cabinet ministers while leaving also-struggling ...
Hi,Today I mainly want to share some of your thoughts about the recent piece I wrote about success and failure, and the forces that seemingly guide our lives. But first, a quick bit of housekeeping: I am doing a Webworm popup in Los Angeles on Saturday May 11 at 2pm. ...
It is hard to see what Melissa Lee might have done to “save” the media. National went into the election with no public media policy and appears not to have developed one subsequently. Lee claimed that she had prepared a policy paper before the election but it had been decided ...
Open access notablesIce acceleration and rotation in the Greenland Ice Sheet interior in recent decades, Løkkegaard et al., Communications Earth & Environment:In the past two decades, mass loss from the Greenland ice sheet has accelerated, partly due to the speedup of glaciers. However, uncertainty in speed derived from satellite products ...
Buzz from the Beehive A statement from Children’s Minister Karen Chhour – yet to be posted on the Government’s official website – arrived in Point of Order’s email in-tray last night. It welcomes the High Court ruling on whether the Waitangi Tribunal can demand she appear before it. It does ...
Mr Bombastic:Ironically, the media the academic experts wanted is, in many ways, the media they got. In place of the tyrannical editors of yesteryear, advancing without fear or favour the interests of the ruling class; the New Zealand news media of today boasts a troop of enlightened journalists dedicated to ...
It's hard times try to make a livingYou wake up every morning in the unforgivingOut there somewhere in the cityThere's people living lives without mercy or pityI feel good, yeah I'm feeling fineI feel better then I have for the longest timeI think these pills have been good for meI ...
In 1974, the US Supreme Court issued its decision in United States v. Nixon, finding that the President was not a King, but was subject to the law and was required to turn over the evidence of his wrongdoing to the courts. It was a landmark decision for the rule ...
Every day now just seems to bring in more fresh meat for the grinder.In their relentlessly ideological drive to cut back on the “excessive bloat” (as they see it) of the previous Labour-led government, on the mountains of evidence accumulated in such a short period of time do not ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Megan Valére SosouMarket gardening site of the Itchèléré de Itagui agricultural cooperative in Dassa-Zoumè (Image credit: Megan Valère Sossou) For the residents of Dassa-Zoumè, a city in the West African country of Benin, choosing between drinking water and having enough ...
Buzz from the Beehive Melissa Lee – as may be discerned from the screenshot above – has not been demoted for doing something seriously wrong as Minister of ...
Morning in London Mother hugs beloved daughter outside the converted shoe factory in which she is living.Afternoon in London Travelling writer takes himself and his wrist down to A&E, just to be sure. Read more ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – The recent announcement of the University Advisory Group, chaired by Sir Peter Gluckman, makes very clear where the Government’s focus and priorities lie. The remit of the Advisory Group is that Group members will consider challenges and opportunities for improvement in the university sector including: ...
Eric Crampton writes – The Reserve Bank of New Zealand desperately wants to find reasons to have workstreams in climate change. It makes little sense. They’ve run another stress test on the banks looking to see if they could find a prudential regulation case. They couldn’t. They ...
Rob MacCullough writes – Pundits from the left and the right are arguing that National’s Fast Track Bill that is designed to speed up infrastructure decisions could end up becoming mired in a cesspool of corruption. Political commentator ...
Looking at the headlines this morning it’s hard to feel anything other than pessimistic about the future of humanity.Note that I’m not speaking about the future of mankind, but the survival of our humanity. The values that we believe in seem to be ebbing away, by the day.Perhaps every generation ...
Swabbing mixed breed baby chicks to test for avian influenzaUh oh. Bird flu – often deadly to humans – is not only being transmitted from infected birds to dairy cows, but is now travelling between dairy cows. As of last Friday, Bloomberg News reports, there were 32 American dairy herds ...
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 ...
What is it with the mining industry? Its not enough for them to pillage the earth - they apparently can't even be bothered getting resource consent to do so: The proponent behind a major mine near the Clutha River had already been undertaking activity in the area without a ...
Photo # 1 I am a huge fan of Singapore’s approach to housing, as described here two years ago by copying and pasting from The ConversationWhat Singapore has that Australia does not is a public housing developer, the Housing Development Board, which puts new dwellings on public and reclaimed land, ...
Buzz from the Beehive Reactions to news of the government’s readiness to make urgent changes to “the resource management system” through a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) suggest a balanced approach is being taken. The Taxpayers’ Union says the proposed changes don’t go far enough. Greenpeace says ...
I’m starting to wonder if Anna Burns-Francis might be the best political interviewer we’ve got. That might sound unlikely to you, it came as a bit of a surprise to me.Jack Tame can be excellent, but has some pretty average days. I like Rebecca Wright on Newshub, she asks good ...
Chris Trotter writes – Willie Jackson is said to be planning a “media summit” to discuss “the state of the media and how to protect Fourth Estate Journalism”. Not only does the Editor of The Daily Blog, Martyn Bradbury, think this is a good idea, but he has also ...
Graeme Edgeler writes – This morning [April 21], the Wellington High Court is hearing a judicial review brought by Hon. Karen Chhour, the Minister for Children, against a decision of the Waitangi Tribunal. This is unusual, judicial reviews are much more likely to brought against ministers, rather than ...
Both of Parliament’s watchdogs have now ripped into the Government’s Fast-track Approvals Bill. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāMy pick of the six newsey things to know from Aotearoa’s political economy and beyond on the morning of Tuesday, April 23 are:The Lead: The Auditor General,John Ryan, has joined the ...
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The infrastructure industry yesterday issued a “hurry up” message to the Government, telling it to get cracking on developing a pipeline of infrastructure projects.The hiatus around the change of Government has seen some major projects cancelled and others delayed, and there is uncertainty about what will happen with the new ...
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Buzz from the Beehive The 180 or so recipients of letters from the Government telling them how to submit infrastructure projects for “fast track” consideration includes some whose project applications previously have been rejected by the courts. News media were quick to feature these in their reports after RMA Reform Minister Chris ...
It would not be a desirable way to start your holiday by breaking your back, your head, or your wrist, but on our first hour in Singapore I gave it a try.We were chatting, last week, before we started a meeting of Hazel’s Enviro Trust, about the things that can ...
Calling all journalists, academics, planners, lawyers, political activists, environmentalists, and other members of the public who believe that the relationships between vested interests and politicians need to be scrutinised. We need to work together to make sure that the new Fast-Track Approvals Bill – currently being pushed through by the ...
Feel worried. Shane Jones and a couple of his Cabinet colleagues are about to be granted the power to override any and all objections to projects like dams, mines, roads etc even if: said projects will harm biodiversity, increase global warming and cause other environmental harms, and even if ...
Bryce Edwards writes- The ability of the private sector to quickly establish major new projects making use of the urban and natural environment is to be supercharged by the new National-led Government. Yesterday it introduced to Parliament one of its most significant reforms, the Fast Track Approvals Bill. ...
Michael Bassett writes – If you think there is a move afoot by the radical Maori fringe of New Zealand society to create a parallel system of government to the one that we elect at our triennial elections, you aren’t wrong. Over the last few days we have ...
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In our Weekly Roundup last week we covered news from Auckland Transport that the WX1 Western Express is going to get an upgrade next year with double decker electric buses. As part of the announcement, AT also said “Since we introduced the WX1 Western Express last November we have seen ...
TL;DR: The six key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to April 29 include:PM Christopher Luxon is scheduled to hold a post-Cabinet news conference at 4 pm today. Stats NZ releases its statutory report on Census 2023 tomorrow.Finance Minister Nicola Willis delivers a pre-Budget speech at ...
A listing of 29 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 14, 2024 thru Sat, April 20, 2024. Story of the week Our story of the week hinges on these words from the abstract of a fresh academic ...
The ability of the private sector to quickly establish major new projects making use of the urban and natural environment is to be supercharged by the new National-led Government. Yesterday it introduced to Parliament one of its most significant reforms, the Fast Track Approvals Bill. The Government says this will ...
This is a column to say thank you. So many of have been in touch since Mum died to say so many kind and thoughtful things. You’re wonderful, all of you. You’ve asked how we’re doing, how Dad’s doing. A little more realisation each day, of the irretrievable finality of ...
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Introduction: The allure of racing is undeniable. The thrill of speed, the roar of engines, and the exhilaration of competition all contribute to the allure of this adrenaline-driven sport. For those who yearn to experience the pinnacle of racing, becoming a race car driver is the ultimate dream. However, the ...
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Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
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. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
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. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
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. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi, and Mema Paremata mō Tāmaki-Makaurau, Takutai Tarsh Kemp, will travel to the Gold Coast to strengthen ties with Māori in Australia next week (15-21 April). The visit, in the lead-up to the 9th Australian National Kapa haka Festival, will be an opportunity for both ...
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. ...
A significant milestone has been reached in the fight to strike an anti-Pasifika and unfair law from the country’s books after Teanau Tuiono’s members’ bill passed its first reading. ...
New Zealand has today missed the opportunity to uphold the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, says James Shaw after his member’s bill was voted down in its first reading. ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is today travelling to Europe where he’ll update the United Nations Human Rights Council on the Government’s work to restore law and order. “Attending the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva provides us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while ...
Associate Agriculture Minister, Mark Patterson, formally reopened the world’s largest wool processing facility today in Awatoto, Napier, following a $50 million rebuild and refurbishment project. “The reopening of this facility will significantly lift the economic opportunities available to New Zealand’s wool sector, which already accounts for 20 per cent of ...
Hon Andrew Bayly, Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing At the Southland Otago Regional Engineering Collective (SOREC) Summit, 18 April, Dunedin Ngā mihi nui, Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Ko Whanganui aho Good Afternoon and thank you for inviting me to open your summit today. I am delighted ...
The Government is delivering on its commitment to bring back the Three Strikes legislation, Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee announced today. “Our Government is committed to restoring law and order and enforcing appropriate consequences on criminals. We are making it clear that repeat serious violent or sexual offending is not ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today announced four new diplomatic appointments for New Zealand’s overseas missions. “Our diplomats have a vital role in maintaining and protecting New Zealand’s interests around the world,” Mr Peters says. “I am pleased to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the ...
New Zealand is contributing NZ$7 million to support communities affected by severe food insecurity and other urgent humanitarian needs in Ethiopia and Somalia, Foreign Minister Rt Hon Winston Peters announced today. “Over 21 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance across Ethiopia, with a further 6.9 million people ...
Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Paul Goldsmith is congratulating Mataaho Collective for winning the Golden Lion for best participant in the main exhibition at the Venice Biennale. "Congratulations to the Mataaho Collective for winning one of the world's most prestigious art prizes at the Venice Biennale. “It is good ...
The Government is reforming financial services to improve access to home loans and other lending, and strengthen customer protections, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly and Housing Minister Chris Bishop announced today. “Our coalition Government is committed to rebuilding the economy and making life simpler by cutting red tape. We are ...
“China remains a strong commercial opportunity for Kiwi exporters as Chinese businesses and consumers continue to value our high-quality safe produce,” Trade and Agriculture Minister Todd McClay says. Mr McClay has returned to New Zealand following visits to Beijing, Harbin and Shanghai where he met ministers, governors and mayors and engaged in trade and agricultural events with the New ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has completed a successful trip to Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, deepening relationships and capitalising on opportunities. Mr Luxon was accompanied by a business delegation and says the choice of countries represents the priority the New Zealand Government places on South East Asia, and our relationships in ...
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 ...
Science, Innovation and Technology and Defence Minister Judith Collins will next week attend the OECD Science and Technology Ministerial conference in Paris and Anzac Day commemorations in Belgium. “Science, innovation and technology have a major role to play in rebuilding our economy and achieving better health, environmental and social outcomes ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with the President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The Prime Minister was accompanied by MP Paulo Garcia, the first Filipino to be elected to a legislature outside the Philippines. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon and President Marcos Jr discussed opportunities to ...
The Government has announced that $20 million in funding will be made available to Westport to fund much needed flood protection around the town. This measure will significantly improve the resilience of the community, says Local Government Minister Simeon Brown. “The Westport community has already been allocated almost $3 million ...
The Government is proud to support the first ever Repco Supercars Championship event in Taupō as up to 70,000 motorsport fans attend the Taupō International Motorsport Park this weekend, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. “Anticipation for the ITM Taupō Super400 is huge, with tickets and accommodation selling out weeks ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced an increase to the Rates Rebate Scheme, putting money back into the pockets of low-income homeowners. “The coalition Government is committed to bringing down the cost of living for New Zealanders. That includes targeted support for those Kiwis who are doing things tough, such ...
The Coalition Government is investing in a project to boost survival rates of New Zealand mussels and grow the industry, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones has announced. “This project seeks to increase the resilience of our mussels and significantly boost the sector’s productivity,” Mr Jones says. “The project - ...
Benefit figures released today underscore the importance of the Government’s plan to rebuild the economy and have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker Support, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “Benefit numbers are still significantly higher than when National was last in government, when there was about 70,000 fewer ...
The Government’s commitment to doubling New Zealand’s renewable energy capacity is backed by new data showing that clean energy has helped the country reach its lowest annual gross emissions since 1999, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand’s latest Greenhouse Gas Inventory (1990-2022) published today, shows gross emissions fell ...
The Government is bringing the earthquake-prone building review forward, with work to start immediately, and extending the deadline for remediations by four years, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “Our Government is focused on rebuilding the economy. A key part of our plan is to cut red tape that ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his Thai counterpart, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, have today agreed that New Zealand and the Kingdom of Thailand will upgrade the bilateral relationship to a Strategic Partnership by 2026. “New Zealand and Thailand have a lot to offer each other. We have a strong mutual desire to build ...
RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and Transport Minister Simeon Brown have today announced the Coalition Government’s intention to extend port coastal permits for a further 20 years, providing port operators with certainty to continue their operations. “The introduction of the Resource Management Act in 1991 required ports to obtain coastal ...
The protest outside the White House correspondents’ dinner hotel. Image: Anatolu video screenshot APR More than two dozen Palestinian journalists had called for a boycott of the dinner, writing an open letter urging their American colleagues not to attend. “You have a unique responsibility to speak truth to power and ...
“Our exporters should, therefore, be deeply concerned that the Fast-track Approvals Bill was not assessed for consistency with any of our free trade commitments prior to being introduced to the House,” says Gary Taylor, Chief Executive of the Environmental ...
NZCTU President Richard Wagstaff is calling on all political parties to support the new Member’s Bill from Labour’s workplace relations and safety spokesperson Camilla Belich MP that would ensure negligent companies are held accountable when their employees ...
A historian with a track record of predicting US election winners tells RNZ's Sunday Morning that President Biden looks to be on track for another term, but things could still go wrong for him. ...
A historian with an uncanny track record of predicting US election winners tells RNZ's Sunday Morning that President Biden looks to be on track for another term, but things could still go very wrong for him. ...
Ngaio Marsh House is one of Christchurch’s best kept secrets – and contains more than a few mysteries of its own.Trust Ngaio Marsh to leave more than a few mysteries scattered through her house long after her departure. For a start, there’s the curious concrete portal in the garden, ...
Appointment viewing has been lost to the mists of time, but memories of Montana Sunday Theatre can still be conjured by hitting play on a particular piece of classical music. “You’re not going to be able to sell it.” Over 30 years on, Karen Bieleski still recalls how the task ...
Performance Review King Luxon sat behind His massive polished oak desk. It is Performance Review time. There is a knock on the door. “Enter!” says the King. In steps Minister of Disabilities and Carer Pedicures, Penny Simmonds. “I can explain everything …” she begins. “Fine,” says King Luxon, pressing the ...
The pair opened their first fully collaborative exhibition, Nina for Flowers, last Saturday. Gabi Lardies visited their studio to find out who Nina is and what working together was like.‘It didn’t start out like, ‘This is a show about Nina,’” says Josephine Jelicich, gripping a thermos of peppermint tea. ...
Thank you, Dr Maximilian Oskar Bircher-Benner, for your brilliant invention. I’m another mid-20s Kiwi who had an OE last year. I hopped on my bicycle where France meets the Atlantic and cycled east. I pedalled through the Loire Valley, down rivers lined with willows and ancient wisteria-draped chateaus. I relished ...
Asia Pacific Report From France to Australia, university pro-Palestine protests in the United States have now spread to several countries with students pitching on-campus camps. And students at Columbia and other US universities remain defiant as campuses have witnessed the biggest protests since the anti-Vietnam war and anti-apartheid eras in ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards, Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)New Zealand Government’s Fast Track legislation. Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government ...
Tara Ward talks to presenter Naomi Toilalo about the new TV show that turns food waste into a three course feast. Naomi Toilalo is standing in the warehouse at Good Neighbour Tauranga, helping unpack the two-and-a-half tonnes of rejected food that will arrive at the community support hub that day. ...
Scout is our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Scout’s human, Avril, for her support. Dog name: Scout (named after the little girl in To Kill a Mockingbird – she inherited the independent spirit ...
Megan Alatini takes us through her life in TV, including ‘terrible’ daytime TV, the class of Carol Hirschfeld and her most embarrassing TrueBliss moment. When she responded to a vague newspaper ad asking “do you have what it takes to be a popstar?” 25 years ago, Megan Alatini never guessed ...
A new exhibition in Wellington showcases the faces behind your local goods and services. Back in 1977, when I was a fine arts student at the University of Canterbury, I took a series of photographs of Christchurch shopkeepers. The photos were for a calendar – a project for my end ...
Toomaj and his resistance to tyranny through his songs have become an icon for the youth of Iran, so his sentence has hit the nation hard. Toomaj Salehi is not the first artist to pay the price for standing with the people. ...
My cousin Dylan and I spotted these big eels under the bridge that summer. We watched them lounging under the dark weed, facing into the flow of water, their mouths frozen open. Dylan and I couldn’t stop thinking about those eels. The night we went down to the creek, we ...
Newsroom, home of satire. My long-running weekly satirical series The Secret Diary has moved to Newsroom and will appear every Saturday, with Victor Billot’s wildly popular satirical Odes continuing to appear every Sunday. Diaries, Odes – while serious political columnists toil at meaningful opinions and stroke their chins to an ...
Tara Ward unravels the many nuanced layers of a cartoon about talking dogs.This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. It’s not often an episode of a children’s cartoon has adults sobbing into their sleeves, but that’s exactly what happened this week when ...
Working as a doctor in developing countries to help communities achieve better health outcomes is nothing short of a life goal for Jessica Tater. The University of Otago medical student has her sights firmly set on joining the international humanitarian organisation Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) when she qualifies ...
There’s an island in the far reaches of Auckland’s territory, sitting off the tip of the Coromandel Peninsula, 30 minutes by air from the city or four hours on the slow boat. Aotea Great Barrier is off-grid, it has a population of fewer than a thousand people … and most ...
Asia Pacific Report An Australian author and advocate, Jim Aubrey, today led a national symbolic one minute’s silence to mark the “blood debt” owed to Papuan allies during the Second World War indigenous resistance against the invading Japanese forces. “A promise to most people is a promise,” Aubrey said in ...
Asia Pacific Report The Freedom Flotilla is ready to sail to Gaza, reports Kia Ora Gaza. All the required paperwork has been submitted to the port authority, and the cargo has been loaded and prepared for the humanitarian trip to the besieged enclave. However, organisers received word of an “administrative ...
Pacific Media Watch Palestine solidarity protesters today demonstrated at the Auckland headquarters of Television New Zealand, accusing the country’s major TV network of broadcasting “propaganda” backing Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. About 50 protesters targeted the main entrance to the TVNZ building near Sky Tower and also picketed a side ...
Opinion by Lynley Hood. Forty years on from my 1985 Fulbright Grant, my disquiet over the war in Gaza evoked some troubling questions. The answer to my first question – What is the primary purpose of the Fulbright Programme? – was on the Fulbright NZ website. It says: US Senator, ...
The ministers responsible for green-lighting major projects need to be open about potential conflicts of interest, says Transparency International. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anastasia Powell, Professor, Family and Sexual Violence, RMIT University It has been a particularly distressing start to the year. There is little that can ease the current grief of individuals, families and communities who have needlessly lost a loved one to men’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Moore, Senior Research Associate, School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, The University of Melbourne Lichen, the first described example of symbiosis.AdeJ Artventure/Shutterstock Once known only to those studying biology, the word symbiosis is now widely used. Symbiosis is the intimate ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kim Hemsley, Head, Childhood Dementia Research Group, Flinders Health and Medical Research Institute, College of Medicine and Public Health, Flinders University Olena Ivanova/Shutterstock “Childhood” and “dementia” are two words we wish we didn’t have to use together. But sadly, around 1,400 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Whiteford, Professor, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University The government’s Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee has just published its second report. It was set up by Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Minister for Social Services Amanda Rishworth in 2022 to provide: ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne The Queensland state election will be held in October. A YouGov poll for The Courier Mail, conducted April 9–17 from a sample ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amin Naeni, PhD candidate at Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University There’s been much talk in recent months about what a possible second Donald Trump presidency in the United States could mean for Europe, Russia’s war in Ukraine, the ...
A brief round-up of submissions on the controversial proposed law. This is an excerpt from our weekly environmental newsletter Future Proof. Sign up here. Last week, submissions on the controversial Fast-track Approvals Bill closed just hours after the government released a list of stakeholder organisations who were sent letters advising how they could ...
A poem from Robin Peace’s new collection Detritus of Empire: feather / grass / rock. Cereal giving I see a woman’s hands, see her curious hands break a stalk as she walks through the tall prairie, the savannah, the steppe, wherever it was. See her idly bite the grass that ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Hemingway’s Goblet by Dermot Ross (Mary Egan Publishing, $38)A handsomely produced (debossed cover, lovely ...
The Commissioner's decision validates the longstanding efforts of the local community and ensures that Awataha Marae will be managed to serve the needs of the local community, particularly for hosting tangihanga. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tristan Salles, Associate professor, University of Sydney Examples of Australian landscapes.Unsplash Seventy thousand years ago, the sea level was much lower than today. Australia, along with New Guinea and Tasmania, formed a connected landmass known as Sahul. Around this time – ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Felicity Castagna, Lecturer, Creative Writing, Western Sydney University Day Day Market, ParramattaPhoto: Garry Trinh I live on the edge of Parramatta, Australia’s fastest-growing city, on the kind of old-fashioned suburban street that has 1950s fibros constructed in the post-war housing boom, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Ryan, Teaching Fellow in Economics, University of Waikato GettyImagesfatido/Getty Images There is an ongoing global debate over whether the high inflation seen in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic can be lowered without a recession. New Zealand is not ...
The ‘Wicked Game’ heartthrob is in his late 60s now. That didn’t stop him putting on a lively, goofy and very sparkly show. Apart from ‘Wicked Game’, which graces a sultry playlist of mine simply called 💋, my last sustained Chris Isaak listening session took place when I was about ...
Analysis - Two ministers were stripped of portfolios in a warning to Cabinet, drama broke out at the Waitangi Tribunal, and the gang patch ban bill ran into opposition. ...
Tara Ward makes an impassioned plea for some vital pop culture merch. In April 1999, I became obsessed with a new reality television show called Popstars. Every Tuesday night, five strangers transformed into music royalty before my very eyes as Joe, Keri, Carly, Erika and Megan were chosen to form ...
PNG Post-Courier In the early hours of ANZAC Day, aerial photographs captured an impressive gathering of Australians and Papua New Guineans at Isurava in the Northern (Oro) Province. The solemn dawn service yesterday was held at a site steeped in history, where some of the fiercest battles of World War ...
The PSA is shocked that Oranga Tamariki has used the cost cutting drive to downgrade its commitment to Te Ao Māori and remove many specialist Māori roles. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Kemish, Adjunct Professor, School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, The University of Queensland There can be no more powerful symbol of the relationship between Australia and Papua New Guinea than the prime ministers of these neighbouring countries walking together on the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sharon Robinson, Distinguished Professor and Deputy Director of ARC Securing Antarctica’s Environmental Future (SAEF), University of Wollongong, University of Wollongong Andrew Netherwood Over the last 25 years, the ozone hole which forming over Antarctica each spring has started to shrink. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Viktoria Kahui, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Economics, University of Otago Getty Images/Amy Toensing Biodiversity is declining at rates unprecedented in human history. This suggests the ways we currently use to manage our natural environment are failing. One emerging concept focuses on ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Timothy Colin Bednall, Associate Professor in Management, Swinburne University of Technology marvent/Shutterstock Finding the best person to fill a position can be tough, from drafting a job ad to producing a shortlist of top interview candidates. Employers typically consider information from ...
Wondering where to host your next BYO? Whether its a small gathering or a massive party, we’ve got some recommendations. I was first introduced to the concept of BYOs at Dunedin’s India Gardens, a legendary but sadly defunct establishment, which purveyed enormous quantities of mango chicken to Aotearoa’s drunkest future ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julien Cooper, Honorary Lecturer, Department of History and Archaeology, Macquarie University Julien Cooper The hyper-arid desert of Eastern Sudan, the Atbai Desert, seems like an unlikely place to find evidence of ancient cattle herders. But in this dry environment, my new ...
The sector says it’s hopeful her replacement Paul Goldsmith will be able to throw it a lifeline, after six months with a minister deemed missing in action, writes Catherine McGregor in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign ...
The government can't just rely on axing public sector jobs and has to do more to cut spending, says the chief economist at a free market think tank. ...
Rock The Vote NZ, known for its advocacy for minor party unity and its role within the Freedoms NZ Coalition during the 2023 General Election, celebrates this merger as a strategic enhancement of its operational strength and outreach. ...
The introduction of charter schools is not a new Kiwi idea of course. (Our ministry of education seems to develop most of its recent policy from what it reads on the internet). However, given Banks’ and other government MP’s “faiths” and the utterances that these schools will be free to deliver their own curriculum, will our government insist that sound science is taught, as in the apparent ruling in the UK, and withdraw funding if otherwise …
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/jan/15/free-schools-creationism-intelligent-design
I don’t think that charter schools are necessarily evil except when being run exclusively as money-making corporate entities. In principle they aren’t that much different to experimental schools like Steiner or Montessori.
I somehow doubt it will ever get as bad as this, however:
http://www.salon.com/2012/01/13/americas_dangerously_removed_elite/singleton/
The herald editorial comments on Josy Pagani’s thoughts on what went wrong for Labour, especially:
That was probably the clincher for Labour’s lack of traction.
Which will mean same old another wasted three years in opposition.
If.
It will take a major change in attitude in the party and amongst it’s vocal supporters.
So Petey why did United Follicles not gain any traction? Whatsoever? Of any sort?
The parties have quite different problems.
One of United Future’s main problems was the public wasn’t very interested in listening to the party. That is partly due to a common problem experienced by small parties on coalition, and partly due to how the party presents itself. To an extent the party’s bubble has burst and needs to be re-established.
Labour’s problem was they weren’t good at listening to the public. Oblivious to outside reality inside it’s own bubble.
so why are you going on about labour instead of sorting out your own ambitions for your burstbubble party? things not going according to plan in dunners eh pete – occupypete a fizzer.
I go on about whatever I feel like on blogs. I think it’s important for New Zealand that Labour becomes a strong mostly positive government-in-waiting party.
Things are going very much to plan in Dunedin despite a few (only on blog) persistent negative attacks of no substance. Here the Labour MPs (and the Green and National MPs) are happy to talk and work co-operatively for the good of the city.
why was the question, why, when you can ‘go on about whatever you feel like on blogs’, are you going on about this issue – especially when you and your own party fared so poorly in the election. The blahblahgoodforNZblahblah is really weak and I think you have other motives – just like you had other motives with all the occupy stuff – how about fronting up for 2012 pete.
unbalanced follicles live in hope not having “to pay “the price of having more than one member
Seriously…did Josie Pagani use Labour’s extension of WFF to beneficiaries as an opening line when talking to working households that she door knocked.
Its what that quote makes it sound like. And if someone brought the topic up and she couldn’t explain to them convincingly why Labour had made that call (ie as a way to bolster families income above poverty during a time of high unemployment) …she shouldn’t be in PR or in politics.
Josie managed to substantially cut the majority in a blue ribbon rural Tory seat in an election that Labour lost heavily, CV. If I remember rightly, she and her team got the second best result of any electorate for the red team. I think that gives her more than enough credibility to speak about what worked and what didn’t, don’t you?
Yep, acting like a tory will get you votes in a tory area.
Pagani is beneficiary bashing and that is one way to get votes. But is that what Labour wants to stand for?
I
Where is Pagani bene bashing? Read the quote again, lefty, it’s the reaction of the working poor to the policy she is talking about and she does not bash beneficiaries in the least, nor condemn the policy itself.
spelling out that a policy of assisting beneficiary incomes is a sure vote loser is what then, in your view?
Except that isn’t what she said, CV. The problem Pagani is identifying is that Labour failed to win support for the policy among the working poor, not that the policy was wrong.
The circumstances here are substantially different to those previously: the move is a move to combate child poverty- is Pagani saying it is ok to have child poverty if you are on a benefit? Or that an improvement in child poverty is a hard sell? Annette King did a fine job on Q and A with that one.
Why is Labour continuing to talk itself down? Is a move to improve child poverty gloomy?
This seems some odd communication from Labour allowing the Herald to define their party as this:
” Labour’s natural constituency is those who need some help.”
which I strongly, strenously and harshly disagree with.
It is frustrating that Labour allows this to happen. The constituency is those who dislike inequality in society and recognise that it is the best way to deal with a raft of expensive social problems. It is the constituency that doesn’t think we need people in working poverty to make us successful.
or continue the meme that we have chronic welfare dependency problems:
“Labour should devise welfare programmes that are targeted to temporary need and help people become self-supporting.” (like the ones that helped Paula Bennett and have been cut? FFS.)
Labour has come out of the blocks in the new year talking about welfare reform. It allows the Herald to say:
“If it can tell people only that they are poor, deprived, under-valued, and obese, it will not give the Government a run for our money.”
Own goal. Not happy.
labour chose the wrong leader he only started making traction in the last month before the election after world cup and sucky msm non existent investigative journalism just overpaid glamorized reporters.
You know the New Year has started when the Herald does a concern troll editorial giving Labour ‘advice’.
lol
Labour need to expose the lie about welfare. Its a safety net not a holiday. Welfare is not there to support the low income, its there to support those in work, with a safety net, with disease control (meaning the poor children don’t give you kids disease), with clean street clear of bums (who are mentally ill), with lower prices because more people have access to Doctors, Dentists, etc and thus drive down the price by economies of scale. Essentially we have a welfare system because it supports the majority, its good economics. Sure when the world economy is run so damn badly then the numbers on unemployment will be too high but whose fault is that/ Parliament YES, crony capitalism, YES. The unemployed NO. Labour isn’t a party of the left because it buys into the big lie, that welfare is bad because the people on the benefit are evil. Simply the welfare system is how we become a much more efficient first world nation, instead of wasting generations who trawl the rubbish for a dollar to make ends meet. Just imagine that, some kid coming to your kids school whose mum and dad pick through the rubbish tip.
Welfare is also a em0loyment scheme, it keeps thousands in jobs, forces wages down, and even helps government load small business up with regulation tht protect you from poor food, poor working conditions, social discord, etc, etc.
Where welfare is a problem is at the top end of town.
“The hardest week to door- knock,” she said, “was when we were telling people who had just come home from a day’s work earning the minimum wage, that it was a great idea to extend their Working for Families tax credit to beneficiaries.” She could see them thinking, ‘so what’s the point of working my guts out all week while someone sitting at home on the dole gets the same tax credit as me?’
This is exactly what I thought would happen when I heard this policy. I support it for sure, but they were really incredibly stupid rolling it out the way they did. This was about the same time that they rolled out the eligibility changes for superannuation.
Up until that point we had seen Labour (and Goff as perferred PM) firming up and slowly rising in the polls, then after that point it appeared to slide back and went to the Greens, even though they had similar policies anyway. Probably it was really a combination of people thinking about Labour going back to National or NZFirst, while the Greens grabbed those that wanted more spine than Labour was showing.
IMO Labour just should have avoided the WFF stuff and not even mentioned it. National hardly had any policies to campaign on and not much in the way of details for the ones they did, so I don’t see why Labour thought they had to put absolutely everything on the table.
We’ll probably waste another decade before we get around to putting in a sorely needed CGT now. Unless there are significant economic disruptions in this current term that the left can put together the proposal again and win with it in 2014.
Funny how Pete George always support people who want Labour to remain National/ACT light.
Hasn’t he been reading about the failure of the last 30 years of policies of meanness and market dogma all around the world.
ACT/Labour was rejected in 1990 and National lite /Labour was rejected in 2008.
What is needed to get disaffected voters back is Labour/Labour. MIA since Norman Kirk.
Yes Labour/Labour was amazingly successful electorially post 1949 wasn’t it. In the 35 years between that date and 1984 how many years was Labour/Labour in power for?
goose labour got more votes than National in just about every election other than the 1951 election because of gerrymandering of boundaries by vested interests.
Luckily the likes of Kiwi Keith new the mandate he had was tenuous and was a relatively pragmatic leader.
It’s not “funny” at all – UF have always claimed to be centrist, though there may be some confusion over what they mean by that. And as NAct currently demonstrates, the parties that capture and stay in power are centrist – although it creeps me out no end that for the majority of the electorate “centrist” has crept that far to the right. If disaffected voters have crept to the right in order to stay centre, what on earth makes you think a “Labour/Labour” – by which I assume you mean hard left, is going to attract them back?
“Well, in our country,” said Alice, still panting a little, “you’d generally get to somewhere else — if you run very fast for a long time, as we’ve been doing.”
“A slow sort of country!” said the Queen. “Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”
Perhaps but you missed one point. The issue of participation.
As the latest election results show, a lot of people don’t give a rats ass about National or about Labour.
Roughly a million of them.
And each one of those million deserves a slap in the face for making the vote of all those who did count for less and effectively giving the NActs a mandate to do a whole bunch of stuff that the polls suggest they didn’t want to happen. So what DO they want? (though perhaps if they really are SO stupid as to not realise how important an election really is, maybe it would be better if they didn’t vote… Just joking)
The point is that a third of the population, or more, do not think that NACT or NACT lite(Labour) reflect their views or aspirations.
Many did vote. BUT. Not because they supported Labour or National, but simply for whichever one they thought was the lesser of 2 evils.
And of many other voters, their information was the Herald and TV, which, like our politicians, have totally abandoned any semblance of journalism to become unashamed pursuers of corporate crumbs from their puppetmasters…
I would suggest that a Labour, Labour would bring back many disaffected voters.
Well, I concede that it’s possible, but it also seems to me just as likely that a “Labour, Labour” party (and I would appreciate if you could define that a bit more clearly for me as there’s a big spectrum of Left there) might scare a big chunk of the less-committed centrist and more conservative elements of Labour running to the arms of that nice Mr Key. Again, I ask, what do the silent million want in terms of policy that they couldn’t find in any of the other “minor” (a word that really can’t be applied to the Greens anymore) parties – which again, KJT, is why I’d like you to more closely define this hypothetical “Labour, Labour” party. What do you think they want that no one else could give them?
People’s attitudes follow their behaviour which, in turn, follows the necessities of life imposed by broader social structures.
The political fight is over those structures.
The cynical approach (adopted by Roger Douglas) is that rapidly changing the structures within which people live their lives and then deflecting and disrupting resistance is the way to make ‘progress’ on a political agenda.
That is, it is based on the correct insight – as above – that people’s attitudes will conform once the pragmatics of their lives makes it necessary to change their attitudes in order to maintain some sort of cognitive and emotional comfort and coherence in their lives (in relation to what they find they have to do in order to survive).
A second approach is to stick to a straightforward attempt to persuade people that your agenda is best – for them and for society as a whole.
A third approach is simply to find out what people want and at least sound like that’s what you’re giving them. This is the approach of marketers. Like marketers, however, this usually descends into a softer, more surreptitious version of the first approach. I think this is Key’s approach.
For a number of reasons, I find the first and third approaches disreputable (which is why I also don’t like marketing – the pretence that one’s aim is to give people what they want when, in reality, your primary motive is to make your business profitable. While sometimes compatible, these goals inevitably diverge and, then, the primary motive asserts itself.).
I’m enough of a political pragmatist to compromise or concede on the occasional policy but I just can’t see the point in conceding on my analysis of the social and economic world in order to be more in tune with the ‘centre’.
The aim should be to convince the ‘centre’ (or anyone else) to shift towards your analysis. It should not be to shift your analysis – at least for any reason other than that you are convinced that your analysis is faulty.
Call me old-fashioned, but I can’t see the point of being politically active in order to institute something I don’t believe is true.
Pete wasn’t talking about his party he was talking about yours Greg. Another example of failing to listen.
+1
I read Steve Jobs biography over Christmas. It is a fascinating read. He is a complex character, obsessive, driven and flawed as a human being. Yet these qualities no doubt were instrumental in what he achieved.
His comments concerning Teacher Unions were eye opening.
Amongst other things he said that America’s education system was being “crippled by union work rules”. He also said “[u]ntil the teachers’ unions were broken, there was almost no hope for education reform.” Jobs proposed allowing principals to hire and fire teachers based on merit, that schools stay open until 6 p.m. and that they be open 11 months a year. These ideas and the teacher union bashing that accompanies them are percolating throughout the Western World.
I have never understood why the right such as Slater should be so vehemently anti teacher union. But these American ideas are so clearly being applied to the New Zealand situation despite the clear differences.
It is really weird that we should be told that we need to follow trends in a country where the direction its education system is heading is clearly wrong. As was noted previously by Salsy we should look to Finland for where we should be taking out system.
“I have never understood why the right such as Slater should be so vehemently anti teacher union.”
Considering last week a whole bunch of leftist posters here basically stated that teachers should indoctrinate children in leftist ideology I don’t think it is too hard to work that one out.
Not indoctrinate – merely teach the truth and how to think. That’s all that’s needed. That alone will bring people to the left as it highlights the delusion of the right.
Whatever DTB. But thanks for highlighting exactly why right wingers are wary of teacher unions. People who believe that there is a ‘correct’ way to think are potentially very dangerous.
Gosman, if anything turns me off from listening to another point of view (yours) it is the use of ‘whatever’ as a response as it indicates to me shallow, unconsidered and dismissive attitudes.
Draco didn’t say anything about a correct way to think, Gos.
Fascinating though. It’s almost always the borderline illiterate fucks like yourself with no comprehension skills who think education is the enemy.
That is correct. I am extrapolating that he meant the correct way to think because teachers already teach children to think. Unless you think teachers in NZ are failing in this pretty basic piece of the learning process Felix. Do you really think NZ teachers are that incompetent that NZ children are not being taught to think?
That’s not extrapolating, it’s a total rewrite. He didn’t say anything of the sort.
Exposes your own views on thinking rather nicely though.
Nicely avoiding the uncomfortable question there felix. So you disagree with the view that kids aren’t being taught to think in school at the moment do you?
I reject your inference entirely and have no time or inclination to argue about what you wish Draco had said.
With 1 child in Primary and 1 in intermediate, my opinion is yes Gosman, they are being failed in this fundamental way. Their teachers are all hard working and well meaning, but to teach critical thinking is not their mandate.
Do you really think NZ teachers are that incompetent that NZ children are not being taught to think?
Around 49% of the electorate have indicated that this is indeed the case. Fool me once, and all that.
So Nz teachers are incompetent in your view Mcflock are they? They are failing to teach a large proportion of the population to think. Hmmmmm…. I wonder if the Labour party will take up the challenge and bring this national shame to light.
lol. You are too easy.
There’s a difference between teaching people to think and wrote learning. NAct seem to want to go back to wrote learning style of the 19th century whereas modern teachers want to teach people to think. Interestingly enough, it’s NAct and their supporters who are complaining about teachers and how they teach.
So you are now stating that teacher ARE teaching children to think are you? Well then no problem then. I’m sure within a very short period of time the schools will be churning out your socially conscious little comrades by the bucketful. I don’t know what you are worried about.
By the way who on the right is pushing for rote learning? I have yet to read or hear anyone on the right recently argue that we should change our education system to one involving rote learning. Perhaps you have some link to a right leaning educationalist in NZ who makes the case?
It’s called NACT standards, Gosman.
Testing, testing and more testing as required by National Standards which, due to then penalising teachers if they don’t teach to the test, results in rote learning.
Hi DTB – Your mind was thinking rote but your fingers wrote wrote.
Yeah, sometimes I just want to strangle the English language 👿
No, he didn’t specifically say “anything about a correct way to think” but there are bizarre implications in what he said.
Coercing how to think based on left = truth sounds like religious (or political) fundamentalism rather than education. If our schools were based on those sorts of delusions it would be dangerous.
Bricks in the wall with the right and centre knocked off sounds a bit thick.
“Coercing how to think based on left = truth sounds like religious (or political) fundamentalism rather than education.”
And why do you bring that up, Pete? Draco certainly didn’t.
These bizarre interpretations of a very straightforward statement are saying a lot more about you and Gos than anything else. Quite enlightening.
So are you statng that teachers are currently failing in their role of teaching children how to think?
Only someone who never learned to think would make such an inference.
So why does DTB want teachers to teach children to think if they are already doing so. It would be like wanting my butcher to sell meat. Kind of pointless as that is what they already do.
Not really interested in your misinterpretations Gos, doesn’t seem like anyone else is either.
I wonder if 2012 will be the year that people on blogs stop taking idiots seriously.
Everyone learns to think.
There seems to be confusion over trying to teach children what to think or how to develop their thinking.
For example, should a teacher try and teach children “left good, right bad”, or should they help them develop critial thinking so they can make up their own minds?
It looks like DtB prefers trying to train everyone to be left clones, or expecting everyone will naturally become left clones if they are taught what he thinks as ‘truth’.
Nobody has said anything about teaching kids what to think.
The fact the you and Gos immediately inferred that speaks volumes.
Pete, it’s the right who are coercing the teaching model and the model that they’re coercing is a model which fails to teach people to think. Instead it teaches people to believe what they’re told and not to ask questions.
Are you insinuating those on the right, like UF, are as thick as a brick, by any chance.
Didn’t say anything about a correct way to think. What I said was that there is truth and there is what RWNJs believe. The two are completely different, the first is fact and the second is delusion.
Actually you stated the following “…teach the truth and how to think”.
So does this mean you think Teachers are currently failing to teach children to think?
No, just that that is what the teachers need to do.
Any proposed changes, such as National Standards and charter schools (run by any religious nutjob group), that make it difficult for teachers to teach children to think should be rejected on that basis.
Seems pretty obvious. Then again maybe I was taught to think.
You think?
“…teach the truth and how to think”
Gosman, have you ever tried to ‘think’ without any content? It’s hard to do one without the other.
The whole point of ‘thinking’ (that common or garden word covers a huge range of cognitive activity – both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ thinking) is surely to provide a reasonable guide to action. Action – in a real world – requires some sense of what can be relied upon. That is, it requires some sense of what is ‘true’.
Of course, ‘truth’ is not necessarily forever but it amounts to what any ‘thinking person’ – who is able to put such truths to the test of thought and action – would go along with.
I’m not sure how you expect teachers to teach ‘thinking’ without also including a few ‘truths’ to think with. BTW, teaching thinking is not just teaching formal logic or some method of thought. All methods – even logic – come along with assumptions about what is true.
Without worrying about the difference between logical ‘truth’ and empirical ‘truth’, I think it’s safe to say that thinking requires some idea of what is true.
DTB’s point was that if you teach the truths from the relevant disciplines you’ll detect that it is more likely to conform to a general ‘left’ analysis (e.g., that those with power and wealth tend to distort social and economic systems in their favour). Presumably he’s thinking about the social and economic worlds here, and the relevant knowledge in those areas.
Interestingly, it is because of this perceived ‘left’ bias in the humanities and social sciences that many on the right complain about just these disciplines, often concocting conspiracy theories – The History Man notwithstanding – about them and the knowledge they generate (while blessing their cotton socks for the discipline of economics which is often touted – incorrectly – as the only truly empirical social science).
Finally,
“People who believe that there is a ‘correct’ way to think are potentially very dangerous”
(I presume, here, that you don’t actually mean ‘way’ – ie, method – but, rather, something like ‘thought’ or ‘thoughts’.)
People who believe there is no ‘correct’ way to think are also potentially dangerous – and simplistically misunderstand the normative notion of ‘correct’.
I’m not going to call you names, Gosman, but I interpreted that as “how to think critically”, not what to think. Any unbalanced ideological indoctrination at the school level is a fairly unpleasant prospect, but I do notice that more often than not the people who gravitate to the higher levels of academia are of a leftish bent – largely because those of a rightish bent would rather be out in the corporate sector.
gooseman the only thinking the right want brainless consumerism, read Vaclav Havel.
MSM just pump out drivel that makes the ads look good
As usual you didn’t understand that discussion at all Gos.
It was about nothing of the sort.
What rot. You just need to read DTB’s reply above to see that he at least thinks people just need to be taught to think in the correct manner and they will suddenly have their eye’s opened to the wonders of the leftist world view.
Then you didn’t understand Draco’s comment above either.
No, I just don’t buy into the leftist spin and intellectual arrogance that is behind the statement,
Care to explain the reasoning for the view that children who are taught to think are going to be lefties?
Why bother? If you can’t show that you understood the comment then there’s nothing to debate.
Because most tories I’ve encountered have been fucking morons.
So how come it is generally the lefties who resort to infantile name calling like you have just done Mcflock? Or is this really an example of your superior intellect whereby you don’t need to debate at all as your views are so obviously correct therefore leaving more time for mindless abuse of those who dare to express differing opinions?
Two reasons: Firstly, the complete failure and/or intractable unwillingness of folk like yourself to understand basic logic makes logical arguments futile. Secondly, I was just calling it how I saw it.
Please elucidate for me then. How about we use DTB’s argument that teachers should teach children to think as an example? Now to me logically this means that they are failing to teach children to think at the moment. Is that not the logical inference from that position. If not, then what is the logical inference about our current teaching system?
“Now to me logically this means that they are failing to teach children to think at the moment.”
Which beautifully illustrates McF’s characterisation of you and your ilk being incapable of understanding logic.
How so felix?
So far the only answer from DTB is that he does now think they are being taught to think at the moment. Yet if that is the case then there is no indication that I know of that the children are much more likely to be left leaning. Certainly the proportion of left and right voters has not been steadily being skewed in favour of the left over the last few decades. They can’t be doing their job very well if that is the case.
That probably follows logically from any number of your assumptions, but as you’ve misunderstood the entire discussion from the outset it’s neither here nor there to anyone else.
You: “[quoting mickeysavage]“I have never understood why the right such as Slater should be so vehemently anti teacher union.”
Considering last week a whole bunch of leftist posters here basically stated that teachers should indoctrinate children in leftist ideology I don’t think it is too hard to work that one out.”
DTB: “Not indoctrinate – merely teach the truth and how to think. That’s all that’s needed. That alone will bring people to the left as it highlights the delusion of the right.”
So DTB’s statement is that “[teachers should ] merely teach the truth and how to think. That’s all that’s needed. That alone will bring people to the left as it highlights the delusion of the right.”
Is the left vote 0%? Are teachers 100% unionised? Are 100% of children taught by teachers? Is critical thinking a core component of the curriculum that all children have to achieve adequate skill in?
You go from a philosophical “should” to a generalised ” logically this means that they are failing to teach children to think at the moment.”.
Some teachers do fail – this is a fact. “They” as a group do not.
Most schoolchildren are not voters. Therefore evidence of a prior failure by some teachers (possibly as a result of systemic issues rather than individual shortcomings), i.e. Key’s election, does not logically imply a current failure.
By not recognising any of this, you reveal that you were failed by your teacher. Which tends to support the proposition that you, a regular tory advocate, lack critical thinking skills. As do a number of your compatriots, generally a higher percentage from what I can see than the left.
The left has nutty or stupid commenters here as well, but there are few of them and many commenters. There are fewer tory commenters here, yes, but many more of them as a proportion are nutty or stupid.
A society needs ideological and philosophical underpinnings. You teach them to your children directly, explicitly and consciously – or you leave it blank and wait for individualistic, commercial and political interests to fill their heads with crap.
What , as opposed to being a judgemental nasty little person, nice one McFlunk
Oh that’s barely the start of my character flaws. But regularly confusing “wishful thinking caused by personal bigotry” and “logical inference” isn’t one of them.
No, I just don’t buy into the leftist spin and intellectual arrogance that is behind the statement, Words of Gosman
Obviously from reading your regular gurgles you like the rightist spin and intellectual arrogance that accompanies it. What DTB is for is the ability to take an overview not trample education underfoot by contesters who might as well be on the opposing sides of a boxing ring.
mickysavage
Slater hates anybody who doesn’t share his bigotries. Yesterday he was bullying a sixteen year old girl, Jazmine Heka for wanting an end to child poverty. What a scumbag!
I saw that Jackel and I shook my head in awe.
Hopefully Slater is converting Jazmine into a hardened dedicated leftie through his complete lack of compassion or understanding.
If anyone would like to sign Jazmine’s petitions they are here. The themes are simple but clear. They have three simple idealistic goals which if achieved would go a long way to solving problems associateed with childhood poverty. The petitions wants the Government to:
1. Provide free healthcare for all children including prescription costs.
2. Introduce warrant of fitness’s for all rental houses.
3. Provide free healthy school lunches to all children attending schools.
There is also a facebook group “Children against Poverty“.
Perhaps the Standard could think about running a post supporting the petitions?
Cheap Chinese labour imported and paid less than the minimum wage
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10778932
New Zealand employers use similar tactics bonded labour farm workers.
Isolated farm workers are promised the earth free Accommodation, free meat,free milk, good income. a salary of $50,000 per annum. then they are made to work unholy hours one young fellow newly married working in Nth Canterbury made to from 3 am till 8 pm every day 1 day off a fortnight.No free meat no free milk no compensation for hours worked outside the 45 hours per week contracted this is common as in the dairy industry.
i see paganis’ exhortations for a continuation of that rightwing divide and rule (against the poor) experiment of the last decades…
..has been endorsed by both the herald..(in an editorial no less..)..and by farrar…
..(dosen’t that tell you something..?.)
..and a reality check on that inclusion of the poorest families in working for families policy from labour..
..it was promised ‘by 2018’…
..that’s about eight years away…
..and those two facts..the policy..and the timeframe..
..taken together..
…must make it eligible for an award of sorts..?
..surely…!
phil(whoar.co.nz)
..
(ahem,..!..basic math-fail..make that ‘six years away’..)
phil(whoar.co.nz)
Righthaven is a schmuck!
Frivolous litigation is the scourge of the United States, with some firms founded entirely on the destructive practice. Righthaven is one such lawsuit factory…
Okay then I am not one of these people who glare at other people’s kids in public when they are making a disturbance, in fact I hate those people who do that, having got younger relatives who get a bit crazy (like all kids) I wont judge someone else kids if they are misbehaving, in saying that their has to be a limit, and there has to be a time when a parent/caregiver starts to take control. I think kids should be able to be kids in public, even have meltdowns, or just generally act stupid.
Its the parents reaction that gets to me.
For example I was in this cafe, having a quiet meal, (the cafe was a normal run of the mill cafe, not way over the top posh, but it was nice) A mother had a couple of children there,
the oldest was probably nine the youngest around six or seven.
Well the kids started running around, the youngest had a toy car which he liked to bang on other peoples tables, while the oldest, screamed “lets play tag” they were hiding behind myself and other people at this cafe, behind the chairs etc etc, laughing, bumping into people, well the cafe manager came out and gave them a look that said “dont do that”
Well the mother was beside herself, she stood up and screamed “Dont have fun kids, remember dont have fun, your not allowed to laugh or be happy” then she started cracking up and giving people dirty looks while still saying “Oh your having to much fun, the police are going to come now” The lady she was with was cheering her on.
Like I said, Kids should be allowed to be kids, but was this too over the top, or am I being grumpy???? The place wasnt fastfood, it was a nice cafe, not sandwiches but meals.
Some people have no idea how to raise children.
If I was the cafe owner, I would have told the stupid bitch to fuck off and banned her from the premises.
I feel you there Brett(s). I’ve got a bit of a rep with some of the parents around town as being a grumpy bastard who doesn’t like kids, but nothing could be further from the truth.
It’s the parents who piss me off, the ones who think their little darlings are too special to have boundaries. Most of the kids I like just fine.
No, IMO you are, for perhaps the first time that I have ever seen, perfectly correct… 🙂
I’ve been in similar circumstances myself. Either me or my wife (usually her) will firmly tell such children to be considerate – the parents usually look shocked or embarrassed.
Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but I put it down to the overweening love affair modern society has with ‘privacy’, individualism and ‘property rights’. Parents seem to think that any reprimand from another adult, in public, of their children is some sort of invasion of their (the parents’) ‘privacy’ (now that is ironic) and ‘property rights’, insofar as they see children as their possessions.
For me, reprimanding these children is less about some poe-faced moralistic castigation as it is about giving children the respect to believe that they are ‘persons in process’ and need to be socialised. The kids often respond well – better than the parents.
I think the irritation other adults often feel in the presence of unruly children stems from the perception that the parents will get all indignant at ‘strangers’ telling their children what they should be doing.
Children should be able to express themselves in lively ways, and places such as cafes (and their patrons) should accept that. But, that expressiveness also needs to be challenged (not completely squashed) when it goes too far.
I think that, these days, there isn’t enough civilised argie-bargie between people in public places. We shouldn’t just silently keep our thoughts to ourselves and then bitch about others later. We should engage – civilly – at the time. Especially when it comes to socialising children.
Then, if we overstep the mark and reprimand a child unnecessarily or too harshly other adults can also step in and challenge us.
This is how we learn to get along – and live out our social nature.
Quite right – NZers internalise way too many things without expressing them in assertive yet productive and well intentioned ways. From this kids in a cafe scenario to be badly treated by a customer services rep on the phone or in a store.
Are we that afraid of meaningful communication and confrontation (your “meaningful argie bargy”)?
shit yeah and then gone round and nuked her house and spayed all her relatives.
mate and thats just for starters.
Seriously? Was I right just to say nothing? Was the mothers reaction okay?
Insofar as people can say what they want, yes. Personally I would have thought that a little bit of respect for people’s personal space was in order, though.
But then I’m a fascist prick at heart, so need to consciously moderate my more totalitarian impulses 😉
Ask Pete George or Gosman, I’m sure they will explain that the mother is a DPB bludger getting overpaid and needs to sent into poverty big time as punishment.
There does seem to be a generation of mothers with a very strong sense of entitlement (dare I mention militant breast feeders as well?), but instinct tells me that you can’t really do anything unless (1) the child is about to hurt themselves, someone else, or property – and you have to act in loco parentis because mummy in question is some borderline narcissistic personality disorder for whom her children are an autonomous accessory of only limited interest, or (2) the kiddiwink in question is actually invading your space and interracting with you directly (chair kickers and other monsters etc).
Fender:
She seemed quite well off, Not sure if she was on the DPB, all I know is that she didnt give a fuck about the people around her, or the business owner.
It’s quite common to see kids of the “quite well off” running riot as mummy and daddy teach them they own the world, and a select few will soon enough too.
I’m not entirely sure that this is a class issue, to the extent that it is an issue at all. I certainly don’t believe Brett was making that point. God knows I disagree with him enough, but the fact is that teaching kids a bit of consideration for other people is not out of order – especially as he isn’t talking about toddlers in this instance.
Tell you what. I know a few old fashioned Tories raising their children. Very methodical and very disciplined. End result – good kids with manners who know which end is up and which end is down, know how to manage their own bank accounts and know to avoid credit cards. The ones off farms can be immensely practical. As in, know how to lift engines out of old Holdens practical.
The other kind of Tory parents with more money than sense, and who think that spoiling little Johnny with expensive gifts will somehow make up for their guilt in not spending quality time and attention supervising him, not so much.
One of the few times I agree totally with everything you say. 🙂
Methyl iodide challenged
Methyl iodide is a pesticide that is sometimes used for fumigating soil before planting. In june 2010, the Environmental Risk Management Authority (ERMA) approved an application to import and manufacture Ripper, which contains methyl iodide, for the use in the strawberry industry. ERMA appears to have ignored various peer reviewed studies in making that decision.
The problem is that methyl iodide was initially misclassified by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation. It’s classification is now being questioned in a court of law, and it’s likely the legal challenge will win…
Saving the Rich, Losing the economy
In Europe, as in the US, the driver of economic policy quickly became saving the private banks from losses on their portfolios. A deal was struck with the socialist government of Greece, which represented the banks and not the Greek people. The ECB would violate its charter and together with the IMF, which would also violate its charter, would lend enough money to the Greek government to avoid default on its sovereign bonds to the private banks that had purchased the bonds. In return for the ECB and IMF loans and in order to raise the money to repay them, the Greek government had to agree to sell to private investors the national lottery, Greece’s ports and municipal water systems, a string of islands that are a national preserve, and in addition to impose a brutal austerity on the Greek people by lowering wages, cutting social benefits and pensions, raising taxes, and laying off or firing government workers.
In other words, the Greek population is to be sacrificed to a small handful of foreign banks in Germany, France and the Netherlands. The Greek people, unlike “their” socialist government, did not regard this as a good deal. They have been in the streets ever since.
Jean-Claude Trichet, head of the ECB, said that the austerity imposed on Greece was a first step. If Greece did not deliver on the deal, the next step was for the EU to take over Greece’s political sovereignty, make its budget, decide its taxation, decide its expenditures and from this process squeeze out enough from Greeks to repay the ECB and IMF for lending Greece the money to pay the private banks.
In other words, Europe under the EU and Jean-Claude Trichet is a return to the most extreme form of feudalism in which a handful of rich are pampered at the expense of everyone else.
This is what economic policy in the West has become–a tool of the wealthy used to enrich themselves by spreading poverty among the rest of the population.
The Greeks can still default if they want. They will just be kicked out of the Euro and get no significant further cash to support their leftist policies. That is how Merkel and Sarkozy managed to reign in the previous Greek PM when he stated the austerity meassures would be subject to a referendum. They basically told him it was either Austerity or no money and no Euro. The Greeks seem to want to still get bail out money and be part of the Euro but without austerity. It isn’t happening.
Goose head the Greek economy is “spiroling”down the gurgler Austerity equals smaller economy less money to pay bills,Greek migration is huge leaving even less people to pick up the tab.
Greece under neo liberal austerity is fucked no possible cure.
Thats why Merkel and Sarkosy want a financial transaction tax to keep the fraudulent banks a float that lent these countries all this money fully knowing that they would default.
If Greece pulls out of the Euro it has many more options like devaluing, printing money, raising taxes on the rich etc.
German Swiss and French banks would go bankrupt doing more damage to the rest of Europe .
Its not a leftist policy to not pay tax at all like a lot of Greek tycoons do, now thats why they are based their corrupting officials to get their way right wing fascists more like it.
Greece is being forced to buy tens of millions in armaments from Germany and other countries as part of its bail out deal.
i.e. repatriating money leant from EU countries to back to those same EU countries in exchange for pointless munitions and more indebtedness. Greece is screwed.
Edit – I stand corrected. Its BILLIONS in weapon systems that Greece is buying. Austerity for you, Eurofighters for us!!!
http://www.presseurop.eu/en/content/article/1383501-greece-still-splashes-out-billions-defence
Yet the Greek government still wants to be part of the Eurozone and still wants the bail out billions. Perhaps if they hadn’t got themselves into such a mess in the first place then they wouldn’t be in such a exploitable position as they are in now. Instead of having a bloated and over paid civil service and people retiring at 55 as well as paying no taxes they could have instead been more productive and law abiding and would be lending money to places like Italy and Spain rather than needing it from places like France and Germany.
nah what we have here is a Bankster Occupation.
The Greek Govt doesn’t actually work on behalf of the Greek people any more. Just on behalf of French and German banks.
Yet the Greeks on the whole aren’t calling for Greece to leave the Eurozone. Why is this CV?
Your statement is false.
Greece, if I’ve been reading it right, still expect the EU to get rid of the corruption that is endemic to their political system. It’s that corruption that caused Greek spending and it’s only the Greeks that can get rid of it. The banksters, being also corrupt, are using that corruption to give themselves Greek assets so that they get a permanent rentier income.
BS goose head Obviously you haven’t been watching the riots happening in Athens.
According to overseas reports I’ve been reading Greece is becoming a tinder box for revolt.
i.e, Arab spring I Predict full scale riots to come until Greece leaves the euro.
The Goldman Sachs finance minister want them to stay in the Euro while all Greek govt assets are stripped at fire sale prices.
Greece does provide an interesting case study for those who argue that having a low retirement age reduces unemployment especially amongst the young though.
On Europe.. 4 Gosman – But your a banker aren’t you Gos, so you’ll likely be more inclined towards Goldman Sacs narrative.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/05/no-its-not-the-welfare-state/
http://blogs.ft.com/martin-wolf-exchange/2011/12/28/what-has-the-ecb-done-in-the-crisis-the-role-of-target-balances/#axzz1jaQjoyya
http://blogs.ft.com/martin-wolf-exchange/2012/01/09/the-delicate-balance-of-fixing-the-eurozone/#axzz1jaQjoyya
And on Spanish & Italian debt before Wall St destroyed the global economy.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/02/profligate-zombies/
“Before the crisis Spain had low and declining debt. Italy had high debt inherited from the past, but it was steadily working that debt down relative to GDP. Neither country was being profligate — that’s just not what happened. Since the crisis debt has been rising relative to GDP, but that’s what happens when you have an economic crisis.
Yes, Greece. But Greece is now a tiny part of this story. As I said in today’s column, Greece (GDP of about $300 billion) is roughly Greater Miami ($270 billion). Italy and Spain are the big stories, and they were not, repeat not, fiscally profligate.”
Maybe it’s Germany who should and will leave the Euro..
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/german-anger-finally-coming-boil-even-local-ceos-say-time-exit-euro-may-have-arrived
“i.e. repatriating money leant from EU countries to back to those same EU countries in exchange for pointless munitions and more indebtedness.”
Not pointless. I am sure the armaments are going to be very handy for suppressing all the riots!! 🙂
Have the Greeks used fighter jets in suppressing the austerity protests previously? Has any Westernised country used fighter jets in this way in the past few decades?
Slippery Gos. “Armaments” is not restricted to “fighter jets”. Those are for if friction with Turkey flares up again.
The helicopter gunships will be particularly useful in riot control. Their camera systems alone will be useful. The cannon will be just a bonus. As will the tanks. And some westernised countries love to use heavy artillery in civilian built up areas – just not their own.
Your question and its phrasing reflects a very narrow perspective.
It also makes the rather stupid assumption that prior events can predict future events.
Fighter jets can be used to suppress populations of civilians, armed or unarmed, for any reason, political, social or economic.
That’s what western fighter jets did in Libya, that’s what they do in Afghanistan.
Now they are using (currently still unarmed) Predator drones and other formerly military UAVs in civilian law enforcement on US citizens in the US.
Those drones can be armed with Hellfire II missiles at any time, just like the military ones can.
I guess thats why a no fly zone is being called for over Syria at the moment.
Called for by whom, though?
The fact that Syria is currently crawling with Russian military personnel, and Russia and China would veto any UN resolution supporting a no fly zone hugely complicates US/NATO plans.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/russia-warns-of-syrian-nofly-zone-claim-6288966.html
“Called for by whom, though?”
That would be the Syrian opposition.
I agree that the international response to the suggestion is cool at best. However, it simply reinforces the point that aircraft are being used to suppress protest, which explains why the Syrian opposition wants a no fly zone.
TinTin just got a golden globe!
Lunch with John Key
During his long summer hiatus in Hawaii, John Key has had an epiphany and decided to cast off his teflon coated suit along with other trappings of power and showmanship like his toupee…
Devilish eyes noted!
I was just reading Key’s entry in Wikipedia – I knew his mother was an Austrian-Jew (and therefore might be expected to know something about suffering, oppression and marginalisation), but apparently his English father fought in the Spanish Civil War – one assumes not on the Fascist side. How the hell did they produce Johnny?
that can’t be right can it? It would mean that Key’s father was born pre WWI.
Granny Herald would appear to be the source http://www.nzherald.co.nz/john-key-the-unauthorised-biography/news/article.cfm?c_id=1502247&objectid=10522313 Draw your own conclusions.
his toupee must be on holiday to
Maybe it’s the toupee that’s running things.
The Italian ship which ran into rocks and went down might have taken the wrong side of an island to get closer to the scenic shore. It sounds like the Mikhail Lermontov episode here, for the same reason.
paula beenit says the green paper will solve the mystery of infanticide in New Zealand.
there have been “160” submissions already.
most of those will be opinions.
by my count there are at least 6 universities in new zealand.
if they graduate 10 anthropolgy students per year then that is 60 qualified people that could be undertaking a proper scientific study instead of the usual bumble that we are getting now.
oh I forgot.
you would have to pay them but opinions are free.
We don’t need anthropology students we need social science/social work/psychology post grads contributing.
Although its pretty simple the answers around living conditions, poverty, substance abuse, anger management, parenting skills etc are already all very well known, its simply a case of operationalising them. Bennett is just wasting time with some kind of “need more research” bullshit.
CV Its just another excuse for doing nothing need more research
1987 ropa report on behalf of Roger Douglas
Poverty main causes of child poverty and violence toward children and why so many poor people end up in jail.
Poor housing
Poor access to health care
long term unemployment refer to two lines above
Failed to report
Being a relatively small Island nation in the Pacific means we’re somewhat isolated from what happens in the rest of the world. But that’s no excuse for New Zealand’s mainstream media ignoring many important stories.
Clearly they’re underreporting on many relevant topics. So in light of this censorship… here’s a small sample of the stories that we don’t get to see here in gods own…
Lewis Verduyn – NZ Asset Sales Policy Began On Wall Street:
The sales related costs estimate of 3% or $180 million is probably a bit of the low side, but otherwise a very good read.