Money quote (literally), to keep in mind for all those posts Farrar writes about how it’s really the rich people who pay all the taxes:
… figures from Inland Revenue’s high wealth individuals unit found more than a third of this group [New Zealanders worth more than $50 million] declared income less than $70,000 in 2015. The 252 individuals were linked to 7500 entities, some of whom are in dispute with the agency over nearly $111 million in tax.
“It blamed big business and the extremely wealthy for the growing discrepancy, saying they fuelled the inequality crisis by avoiding taxes, driving down wages for their workers and the prices paid to producers and investing less in their businesses.”
Well if you want to see exactly how extremely crazy and reactionary the rich and their media servants get if any politician even suggests limiting the flow of money upwards,then just google this.. ‘Corbyn income cap’ ..and witness the media frenzy, obviously there is to be no meaningful conversation around wealth inequality…just shut it down is the medias first and only reaction.
I am not saying I support or don’t support this income cap proposal, I am just saying look at the reaction….brutal and decisive.
I know. I’ve said it often enough here and it’s obvious that even those on the Left don’t agree with me despite all the evidence showing having rich people is bad for society.
Greed wins out even for those who say that they want an egalitarian society.
Well, you know, once Joyce and friends start being challenged in the public arena over their many and varied spurious claims, they start refusing to give interviews, and declining to front up altogether. Just ask John Campbell. No, they’re far more comfortable with tame interviewers who don’t ask the prickly questions and are less likely to humiliate them in public.
Joyce and tame interviews is a must for Natioanal’s pr campaign, especially if one listens to the weekly Joyce and Annette King segment with Hoskings on radio. How pathetic it is with Hoskings, supposedly being the “unbiased moderator” Yeah Right, what a sicko the man is.
I remember watching Key’s Hard Talk interview with Stephen Sackur. Our ex-PM limped away from that one with a bloody nose and a black eye, and given his talent for glib non-answers and evasion, it was poetry in motion. Less able charlatans like Joyce, Bennett and Brownlee would be crucified in a similar situation.
But no, with ‘true believers’ like Michael Hosking conducting the interrogation, they’ve nothing at all to worry about.
Yeh, Hosking and Henry both pretty despicable characters, but did you catch Gareth Morgan on Henry’s show? ..it was a beaut, resulting in this classic from Morgan…
“I’m about making New Zealand fair,” said Morgan. “You’re self-centred and you don’t give a toss about being fair in New Zealand.”
I stopped watching the Paul Henry Show some time ago. The man is an absolute clown, I don’t understand how he can get away with his biased and self-centered attitude. Nice to see someone like Morgan put Henry in his place. Cheers.
Well, I can’t speak for Paul, but for myself, yes, I do hate the rich. Self-serving, opportunistic, grabbing and largely irrelevant – they are a blot on any democracy!
This is not the NZ I grew up in, I am ashamed to say! The sooner we tax the bastards back to a reasonable level, and spread the wealth of society more equally, the better EVERYONE will be!
However we have a problem and it’s undermining our potential.
As a nation, we could be doing so much better.
An OECD report says: “rising inequality has wiped a third off New Zealand’s economic growth in recent decades.
New Zealand’s economy should have grown by nearly 44 per cent between 1990 and 2010, but a widening gap between the haves and have-nots saw it grow by only 28 per cent, according to the report.
The 15.5 percentage points New Zealand lost to inequality was the highest in the developed world.
Inequality was also found to have knocked 11 points off growth in Mexico, nearly 9 points in the United Kingdom, Finland and Norway and between 6 and 7 points in the United States, Italy and Sweden.
On the other hand, greater equality before the global financial crisis helped increase GDP per capita in Spain, France and Ireland.
The OECD has called for higher taxes and more redistribution of wealth to combat inequality, which it found was damaging the economic performance of most developed nations.”
Steven Joyce said it was inevitable some people would be more successful than others, which of course highlights his poor understanding of the problem.
Of course some will be more successful than others. The problem is the balance in income structures has become excessively imbalanced.
The pay difference between your average worker and your top executives has become far too extreme.
This is being compounded by the ballooning cost of housing adding to net worth while also making it more difficult to put a roof over ones head.
On top of that we have too many tax loopholes, leading to an industry dedicated to tax minimization, allowing businesses and individuals to avoid paying their fare share.
So not only are those at the top end being paid excessively more, a number of them are paying far less in tax. Weakening the Government’s capability to redistribute the wealth.
The weakening of Unions has also added to the income imbalance.
Therefore, it’s clear there are a number of areas that require a rethink to correct this excessive imbalance.
But even that is too simplistic – pretty much everyone who lives past 65, over their lifetime, gets more in benefit then they pay in tax because the most costly time of their life is in their last 6 months of life. By that stage, inflation has made what they paid in tax a pittance.
And it’s not only the cost of the benefit but the value of the benefit. Rich people get more value from the police force than poor people because rich people have more to lose if society became disordered. Rich people get more value from the legal system because they have the money to use it etc
Not true – as in other regimes the rich would just up sticks and live in private compounds while the poorer and middle class would suffer through higher crime etc.
Be interesting to find out how long an old person collects the Super for compared with other benefits. Conceivably they could draw the Super for 25 years…which I imagine is a shit load longer than most on other benefits.
Having said that…I do remember when they started calling the National Superannuation a “benefit” rather than an entitlement. There was an outcry at the time this linguistic manipulation of the national psyche, but it came to nought and “benefit” stuck.
Used to be that you paid your PAYE and a certain % was ringfenced for your future retirement income.
The system is set-up so that when you pay tax you are eventually going to get more benefit than what you put in. That’s because the tax/benefit system is adjusted for people’s life course. It makes no sense to call people “takers” and “makers” at one particular point in time because pretty much anyone living until 65 is going to be a net taker.
define folk
define more benefits then they pay in tax
are you speaking of Landlords who receive rent income that is actually financed by the Accommodation Supplement given to people who can’t afford basic housing?
are you speaking of People who recieve a food voucher which they will spend in a few Governmnet selected and favored businesses?
are you speaking of People who are homeless and are ‘housed’ by a Government agency in Motels for usurious prices that have been ‘negotiated’ with the Government agency / minister in charge?
are you speaking of People who receive unemployment benefits that they only receive because they lost a job and thus have paid taxes previously?
are you speaking of People who receive a single parent benefit, who may or may not be divorced, separated, widowed or ‘single’, and who may or may not work a few hours a week, or who may or may not have a special needs child at home and who need the benefit for the children?
are you speaking of People who are sick, may undergo treatment but need to be on the ‘Job Seekers Benefit’ cause we don’t have no more sickness benefit?
whom are you speaking of?
and are you aware that people on any benefit pay GSt on their income recieved? Or that they may be taxed Income Tax?
or do you just feel that the poor rich people of this country really are just hard done by and should just simply not pay tax at all cause Rich?
Then there are those who seem to wear a cloak of invisibility.
I know a member of my own family, who when dragged back to court for issues over financial support of his children, to be paid to his exwife, managed to prove that he had, to all intents and purposes, no actual income.
Rather surprising given his inner city villa, the private schooling and nannies, and yes, his notable job in what I shall loosely refer to as ‘The Financial Sector’.
I wonder how many people have enough assets and convoluted financial arrangements to get away with such a total piss take of the system??
Then there are those who seem to wear a cloak of invisibility.
I know a member of my own family, who when dragged back to court for issues over financial support of his children, to be paid to his exwife, managed to prove that he had, to all intents and purposes, no actual income.
Rather surprising given his inner city villa, the private schooling and nannies, and yes, his notable job in what I shall loosely refer to as ‘The Financial Sector’.
I wonder how many people have enough assets and convoluted financial arrangements to get away with such a total piss take of the system??
Instead of trying to tear folk down I would prefer constructive figures and Mpledger is obviously correct with the examples. The more affluent have the cash to employ accountants to keep their tax obligations down. While those without accept cash-in-hand to evade their obligations. “He without sin cast the first stone”
Apart from the fact that if a poor person evades tax, they spend it on food. If a rich person fiddles the books, they spend it on luxuries. And benefit fraudsters receive harsher penalties than tax fraudsters who fiddle the same amount.
But your personal preference for figures for people who receive more in benefits than they pay in tax says it all. You don’t care if they need those benefits to live in a rest home at a young age because of a head injury, or if they have some other problem that would make them “deserving poor”. It just pisses you off that some people live below ther poverty line on the government dime.
Going after beneficiaries is the punitive equivalent of harvesting the low-hanging fruit. They usually have minimal resources, are unfamiliar with our labyrinthine legal system, often unaware of their rights and are generally vilified by Joe Public. It also enables the government to claim they’re doing something to combat “scrounging bludgers who steal from hard-working tax-payers”.
Conversely, going after wealthy individuals and organisations, given their extensive networks of influence and vast resources, is frequently an expensive and difficult exercise with no guarantee of success. It’s easier to just leave all that in the too hard basket and keep pointing the finger at those dirty benes.
Joe Carolan, standing for the Mt Albert electorate as a socialist, has a qu&a now up on The Daily Blog”. Beware, Carolan uses the “l” word (not the lesbian word – the other word) as a criticism.
I think we need to have an alternative to that political class, that elite, and it needs to be led by working people themselves, the community themselves. Standing also in solidarity with other cultures. We’re a highly multicultural area here, my son goes to Owairaka school, a school of 50-60 cultures. The danger is if we don’t build a movement like that then we’re going to see the rise of a racist movement, what we’re seeing in England and the US, a polarisation of politics. The extreme centre – which is what we’re calling liberals now – cannot hold because it has no answers for the working class.
My bold
Some things Carolan stands for and by:
Parliament won’t change things for the better for working people. It needs a collection of mass movements by the people.
Carolan urges people to get involved in whichever movement they feel most strongly about.
So that’s one major way inequality manifests, the combination of low wages and high rents forcing people out of wonderful communities where they’re lived. Where you have unequal societies, even your middle class suffers – from more crime, more burglaries, more insecurity… I think there’s a growing number of middle class people in this area who worry about poverty, about where we’re going. They would support things like making the minimum wage a living wage, and some form of rent control so we don’t end up in segregated gated communities.
…
First of all, I share that distrust in politicians. When you look at parliamentary questions and see them bickering like schoolchildren, that turns everyone off. And their litany of broken promises. We have no control over these people once they do get elected. They can break every promise they make. And that’s all the major parties. I stand for a different kind of politics, based on people power and social movements themselves:
…
What we’re actually asking people to do is get involved in movements. If you want to fight for rent control, then join the housing movement. If you’re concerned about low pay, join a union. We’ll come and show you how to organise your workplace, how to fight back, get a big pay increase. These things are possible without politicians but it IS politics. Working class politics.
Quite a long q&a – more at the link above.
But he’s still standing for an electorate? Or is it just that he’s using it as a platform to encourage mobilisation of the people?
Edit: Carolan also attacks what he calls Green Party “Eco-facism” – their policy of “sustainable immigration” – Carolan says this is the first step towards Eco-fascism.
“The extreme centre – which is what we’re calling liberals now – cannot hold because it has no answers for the working class.”
Pretty hard to argue with that statement.
who exactly are the “extreme centre”?…and why can they have no answers for the working class?….seems a foolish statement to me given that for every 1000 people in NZ 554 are wage or salary earners…..the extreme centre and the working class would appear to me to have a substantial overlap .
No, because the centre ‘right’ and ‘left’ have at their core the same economic ideology, they in real terms occupy the same space, politically..so Corbyn is just tradition Left, and not hard left as the media make him out to be.
But as the media don’t acknowledge the two centists partys as being the same thing, which of course they wouldn’t, there are no surprises in their position.
ok…the short answer doesn’t address my post at all and i don’t have time to watch the long answer at the moment…how about you answer in your own words?
The “extreme centrte” refers to the dominant political parties, which label themselves as “left” and “right” but follow the same neoliberal agenda, as Olwyn explains below.
The working class – duh, is large numbers of people, not politicians or party members – well a handful of people from the working classes may become politicians: some from the working class (and some from the middle class) may believe that their party will help the working classes.
But if the main pollies and their parties follow neoliberal policies/agenda, then they have nothing to offer the working class – ie majority of people within that class.
The overlap is relatively small, and irrelevant if some working class people subscribe to a party agenda that does nothing for the working class in general.
so the extreme centre are the political parties, not a constituent cohort……think that unless that clear distinction is made (and throwing around the term extreme centre doesn’t do that) then any point attempted to be made around this will be largely dismissed.
Well, I guess it could include people who vote for the “extreme centre” parties.
Many of us think we are not being offered much of a difference between Nat/Labour/maybe Lab-Green; or between Republican/Democrat; or/Tory/Labour; or Aussie coalition/Labour. Though in each pair I’d say they Labour or Green parties are somewhat the better option. But all support the neoliberal agenda pretty much – well maybe not the Corbynistas.
And ultimately, the working classes, the unemployed, people on low incomes, the precariat, etc will continue to suffer, unless there is a true left wing option.
I do think it will need a strong, broad coalition of grass-roots, left wing campaigns and movements to shift political parties and pollies to a truly left wing position.
“Eco-fascists,” ffs. To committed socialists, everyone else is some kind of fascist. I guess I should be glad he restricted himself to “extreme centre” for describing liberals – I was half expecting it to be “liberal fascists.”
I’m also curious as to what kind of voter would try to elect to Parliament someone who thinks it’s a serious mistake to believe change can come “at a Parliamentary level.”
“The Extreme Centre” is a term coined by Tariq Ali, and refers to opposing parties having the same core commitment to a market economy, while maintaining differences in branding. https://www.versobooks.com/books/1943-the-extreme-centre
I think Joe Carolan right about forming and getting involved in movements. Neoliberalism has robbed a large part of the population of a real stake in society, and forming movements is a first step toward making a bid to reclaim it. I don’t see such movements as being in competition with the political parties of the left, but as creating platforms from which to influence and put pressure on them, rather as the business round table, etc. are able to do on the right.
Agree. So thinking of the union movement (when it was one) or the civil rights movement. Political Parties could ‘ride’ off the back of them in terms of legislation or policy formation, but the movements themselves were much, much broader (and messier in a good way) than anything a party could encapsulate.
Today, maybe momentum in the UK is playing that role to a degree.
In NZ, MANA tripped itself badly as a party by making claims to movement status. The attempt to be both introduces too many contradictions at too many levels to ever get off the ground.
I was thinking it would be nice if Joe showed signs of having understood from his time in MANA that one political entity cannot straddle (cannot be) both of those worlds (the world of political movements and the world of political parties).
So I read the piece looking for pointers, and sadly…
A lot of the parliamentary parties are hollowed out entities, they are not the movements they used to be – National, Labour and even the Greens.
The Labour Party was never a movement. Labour was a movement. The Labour Party was a party.
But maybe I’m putting too much score by a single pronouncement. Maybe it’s not really indicative of his thoughts and was a slip or just an unfortunate use of shorthand.
It’s probably charitable to regard the Joe quote as shorthand 🙂 I agree with you about not conflating a political movement with a parliamentary party, and am reminded of Roosevelt’s saying of the New Deal, “you make me do it”, meaning “I need pressure from the outside to get this through.” A strong movement from outside of parliament helps a political wing to fend off the counter-pressures that arise from within it.
Yes well it is a recipe for failure, but I wouldn’t totally mock rebranding, if properly executed. We’re not playing policy for the next day to 6 months, you should be trying to advertise policy that lands in the week leading up to early votes start pouring in. These types of analysis are tough to do, even the best prognosticators only get 6 out of ten calls right. But rebranding properly executed this way is a huge moral booster.
I don’t see such movements as being in competition with the political parties of the left, but as creating platforms from which to influence and put pressure on them, rather as the business round table, etc. are able to do on the right.
And good so. Best of luck to them all. But when it comes to political parties, for those of us who prefer to deal with the real, actually-existing world rather than utopias that could possibly come to exist if everyone else shared our ideology, the “extreme centre” Labour and Green parties with their shameful “core commitment to a market economy” are the only credible vehicles for effecting legislative change. Calling them eco-fascists and extremists isn’t the best way either to influence them or to have a chance of putting them where they can effect legislative change.
Having Carolan and Bright and/or others (TOP?) in the by-election might make for some interesting debates though. How will Ardern & Genter respond to such criticisms?
And it will be interesting to see which of the also-rans the MSM pick up on during their by-election coverage.
“eco-fascist” is Joe Carolan talking, not me. I said I agreed with him about the need for extra-parliamentary movements, but did not touch on his characterisation of the current parliamentary parties.
Sorry about that. My comment was aimed at clarifying my own views on Carolan’s post rather than addressing your comment, which I shouldn’t have because that isn’t really what the Reply button is there for.
On RNZ, highlighted as part of their “Best of 2016” series, and article and audio pretty much arguing the point I made a couple of days ago – about the “myth”/narrative of NZ identity, that has been historically constructed as rural, and associated with the open spaces and rural areas:
For about 100 years, most New Zealanders have lived in towns and cities, yet our national narrative is that we are people of the land.
…
An anti-urban current was also being felt in Australia and North America, he says, but by the end of the 19th century, their large impressive cities with strong manufacturing bases were winning people over.
He suspects the cultural divide between town and country has always been stronger here.
“In New Zealand it’s always been this idea that the backbone of the country is the farmers – the Farmer Backbone mantra … and cities are just peripheral to that.”
…
He sees New Zealand’s much-loved quarter-acre section as a kind of middle ground between rural and urban living.
“We’re urban, but we’re building cities that are different to those in the old world.”
Dr Schrader says we can still see this cultural thread today in the backlash against those arguing for the intensification of Auckland.
“For 150 years people have wanted to live in the city and the country at the same time.”
…
Dr Schrader says confirmation that the rural man alone is no longer seen as the archetypal New Zealander came back in 2012, when the Speights ‘Southern Man’ campaign ended.
“The relevance of the outdoor life has changed” said a Speights spokesperson at the time.
In my view – the forced Auckland ‘$upercity – for the 1%’, was effectively a corrupt corporate coup, and another massive dose of Neo-liberal ‘Rogernomics’ at NZ local government level.
Unlike all the other ‘declared’ Mt Albert by-election candidates, I was one of the very few, who has consistently and persistently opposed this Auckland ‘Supercity – super RIPOFF’ from Day One.
Day One being 5 September 2006, the day where the four previous City Council Mayors, at the Auckland Mayoral Forum in the Auckland Town Hall, ‘ganged up’ against Mike Lee (then Chair of the Auckland Regional Council ARC) and signed an ‘Open Letter’ to Labour PM Helen Clark, calling for an Auckland ‘Supercity’.
Fellow ‘Public Watchdog’ Lisa Prager and I, having been tipped off about this meeting, gate-crashed it and disrupted it, on the basis that there was no lawful basis for these Mayors to attempt to push any such thing, without first consulting the public.
It worked.
That day became known as ‘the failed Mayoral coup’.
How many of you knew about that?
The corporate agenda was always fewer contracts for fewer but bigger private contractors.
First Council Controlled Organisations (CCOs) – then Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs).
How many of the other ‘declared’ Mt Albert by-election candidates have consistently and persistently opposed these mechanisms for corporate control – CCOs and PPPs?
Penny, you’d have a chance if you didn’t [deleted] I mean refusing to pay your rates.., got you labelled a weirdo, you’ll have to do a lot of public good deeds to get that stigma off your name. I’m sorry if you don’t like reading it, but hell women you were all over the paper.
[Okay Richard. I’ve been tolerant and let a fair few things slide these past couple of days. But that bullshit just steps waaay over the line. Take a week out.] – Bill
However, if James is suggesting that folks shouldn’t vote for someone because they haven’t won when they’ve stood as a candidate – I’m just pointing out the inconsistency in that argument?
Don’t forget that in the Mt Albert electorate are a very large number of voters who have voted for parties other than Labour or the Greens?
What will they do?
For whom will they vote?
Will they all just stay home – or might a significant number of them be moved to cast a ‘protest vote’ against the rorts, ripoffs, bribery and corruption in order to get a proven ‘anti-corruption’ campaigner inside the House, which, in itself will send a clear message that can’t be ignored?
How will voting for an existing MP who is already in Parliament, with no proven track record in fighting for transparency in the spending of public monies on private consultants and contractors – do THAT?
How many of the ‘declared’ Mt Albert candidates and people generally, have yet studied the 226 page ‘Reasons for the Verdict of Fitzgerald J’ – in the unprecedented bribery and corruption convictions of Murray Noone and Stephen Borlase?
I stood as a candidate for the Water Pressure Group and polled 2nd, with nearly 6,500 votes.
Campaigned against Metrowater – the commercialisation and privatisation of water services, and against the ‘Rogernomics’ Neo-liberal model, and nearly caused an upset.
(700 votes behind Noelene Raffills).
Over 4000 votes more than the City Vision (Labour /Alliance) candidate.
I stood because a number of City Vision Auckland City Councillors had sold out on their stated policies / pledges to abolish Metrowater.
(There will be some from The Standard who will recall this.)
Raised a few eyebrows at the time….
Penny Bright
2017 Independent candidate for the Mt Albert by-election.
Aw, c’mon james, where’s your sense of humour? We could rename Parliament TV to “Penny in Da House” and it might even become fun to watch. Besides, 7 months of an MP’s salary should be enough for Penny to pay her rates bill so we can stop hearing about that all the time.
This shit has got to stop and restrictions put on foreign “investors”
The last sentence gets me
“Though it had no “concrete” plans for the properties, “commercial sense” indicated the site would be developed to help ease Auckland’s housing shortage.”
Nah fucking Bullshit, that is the last thing they are thinking of. They are more interested in making a killing owing to the housing crisis created by this pack of shit we have as a government.
remind me, you want a five or ten minute argument on the things governments have done.. I mean that’s a risky line, secondly, there are always restrictions..don’t make a little truth and then add a big fat lie.
and it was not Labour who let 70k a month into the country, they still had to go through the appropriate channels.., but under National they flooded the place with money, they sold out to crime and money laundering, National, there is no other you could compare to that.
as for stupidity both parties earn a gold star for wiliam liu turns out he’s connected with drug deals all sorts yet both parties were happy to blow him daily for cash..
aww the commies are after me, i’m rich.. how the hell do you get THAT rich in china?
James, your a proven shit stirrer, track record, every post, truth a smidgeon lies a lot.. /slap
Both Labour and National are slaves to neo-liberal ideology.
It would appear you support the more extreme version of neo-liberalism, so you hardly in a position to criticise Labour on this.
Who said it wasn’t but it still doesn’t get away from the fact we have a pack of shit as a government that has been in government for eight years and done fuck all about it and made the situation worse by selling off state houses.,.
If you are going to start the “labour did it as well” shit I haven’t seen this pack of crap reversing the rules YET.
Remind me which government signed the free trade agreement that allowed overseas Chinese to buy houses here with out restriction?
Labour. Now let’s remind ourselves which government has been in power for all the years since it became apparent that wasn’t a good idea and is causing the country significant damage? National.
Labour gets to claim “unforeseen consequences” to account for its role in this debacle. National gets to choose from “incompetence,” “neglect,” “greed” or “malice” to explain its involvement. My money would be on “greed,” that one’s always a safe bet with Nat govts.
Unitary Plan driving up the cost/value of housing.
“In scenes likely to be repeated across the Super City, large subdividable sites are proving irresistible to wealthy investors due to their newfound development potential under the Unitary Plan.”
Like, seriously, its 20 bleeding 17 and the Christchurch City Council is still discharging untreated wastewater and sewerage into the Avon and Heathcote Rivers.
FFS…stop blaming the earthquake….how about bulding a bigger capacity waste water treatment plant on some of that red zoned land?
Reporters don’t quite know what to make of the like economy because so much advertising revenue is getting sucked into social media, away from production costs. This is what trying to breathe life into a dead corpse looks like. It’s unfortunate this had to happen to people like Pilger/5thestate/Mihingarangi/Campbell/ect.
Simon Wilson highlights National’s Index of Shame.
For me, the issues I would focus on most are Inequality (#1, #4, #7, #8 and and #12), the Environment (#2, # 17 and #9) and workers rights (#5 and and #10)
1. Child poverty
2. Filthy rivers
3. Domestic violence
4. Tax evasion
5. Farm worker deaths
6. Underfunded mental health services
7. The surging wealth inequality gap
8. The housing crisis
9. The Emissions Trading Scheme
10. Pike River
11. The Saudi sheep deal
12. Housing the homeless
13. Healthy food in schools
14. Underfunded homecare services for the elderly
15. The neglect of Northland
16. Abuse of children in state care
17. Deep-sea oil drilling
18. Blaming Helen Clark
A woman in a hot air balloon realized she was lost. She reduced altitude and spotted a man below. She descended a bit more and shouted: “‘Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago but I don’t know where I am”. The man below replied “You’re in a hot air balloon hovering approximately 30 feet above the ground. You’re between 40 and 41 degrees north latitude and between 59 and 60 degrees west longitude”.
“You must be a technician.” said the balloonist. “I am” replied the man “how did you know?” “Well,” answered the balloonist, “everything you have told me is probably technically correct, but I’ve no idea what to make of your information and the fact is, I’m still lost. Frankly, you’ve not been much help at all. If anything, you’ve delayed my trip with your talk.”
The man below responded, “You must be in management”. “I am” replied the balloonist, “but how did you know?” “Well,” said the man “you don’t know where you are or where you’re going. You have risen to where you are, due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise, which you’ve no idea how to keep, and you expect people beneath you to solve your problems. The fact is you are in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but now, somehow, it’s my fucking fault!
Would you believe it? I have been gifted tickets to the Presidential Inauguration Ceremony of @realDonaldTrump – What an honour! #auspol— Pauline Hanson (@PaulineHansonOz) January 15, 2017
Here’s a tip: if the piece is in the “Opinion” section and says “Opinion” right next to the headline, chances are it’s an opinion piece and not news, fake or otherwise.
Nothing fake about this bit: The essential question of how to tackle the City banks and law firms that launder money for the Russian kleptocracy has yet to be faced.
Vlad doesn’t need to worry about the Tories taking any serious anti-Russian actions as long as that cash cornucopia’s still operating. In the unlikely event you see Theresa May actually doing something about that money-laundering, then it’s time to worry.
So, just to clarify, the Nick Cohen piece was clearly labelled as opinion and not pretending to be a news report, so therefore couldn not have been “fake news”.
Shame on Jesse Jackson, John Lewis, and Cory Booker;
When the U.S. most needs leadership, they have failed egregiously.
Over the last week or so, we have heard much about three men, all of them Democratic Party politicians, who have spoken out strongly against Donald Trump. Congressman JOHN LEWIS of Georgia is a legend in the civil rights community; more than fifty years ago, he marched with Martin Luther King Jr. from Selma to Birmingham, and had his skull smashed by “law enforcement” thugs. The Rev. JESSE JACKSON in 1988 got 6.6 million votes in his run for the Democratic nomination; he is famous around the world for his eloquent defense of human rights. And New Jersey senator CORY BOOKER last week became the second senator in history to testify against one of his colleagues when, at the Senate confirmation hearing, he spoke against Trump’s unbelievable nomination for Attorney General, the racist Alabama senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions.
This all sounds impressive, and it’s the kind of political news that gives people hope during these dark and dread-filled days of waiting for the horrifying reality of a Ku Klux Klan-endorsed candidate reciting the Presidential oath on Friday.
Actually, on close inspection, these three turn out to be no more honest or trustworthy than some of their more unpleasant, less revered colleagues. This past week both Lewis and Jackson have shown that, whatever glorious and brave deeds they have performed in the past, they are first and foremost Democratic Party loyalists. And being a Democratic Party loyalist right now means that you are under intense pressure to repeat the most absurd, fantastic and lurid anti-Russian propaganda.
The other day, on NBC’s Meet the Press John Lewis, civil rights hero, lowered himself to the level of the most shameless Clinton apparatchiks as he delivered the following fantasy, which might as well have been written for him by John Dean or Debbie Wasserman Schultz….
“I don’t see this president-elect as a legitimate president….I think the Russians participated in helping this man get elected. And they helped destroy the candidacy of Hillary Clinton.”
Equally on message, equally loyal, equally cynical is another former civil rights warrior, Jesse Jackson who, when taunted by a Fox News troll to comment on why Hillary Clinton lost, said this:
“Well somewhere between Russian hacking and corruption and voter suppression may give you an answer.”
At a time when the United States more than ever needs people of proven rectitude and character to step forward and speak truthfully and fearlessly, two old civil rights warriors have thrown in the towel, and a superficially attractive young politician is exposed as just another smooth-talking fraud. Thus party politics doth make cowards of us all.
. . April 8: Day 14 of living in lock-down… The good news first: the downward trajectory of new cases appears to be a real thing. In the last four days, since Sunday, new infections have been dropping: Sunday: 89 new cases Monday: 67 Tuesday: 54 Today (Wednesday): 50 The ...
The anti-fluoride movement wants to restrict your reading to “just four studies.” They actively ignore or attempt to discredit other relevant studies. Image credit:Censorship in media. For earlier articles in this series see: ...
Not Now, Not Ever, Never! The problem with Labour's leading activists is that there is never a good time for democratic socialism. Never. They are like Saint Augustine who prayed to the Almighty: “Lord, give me chastity and self-control – but not yet.” In the case of Labour "junior officers", however, ...
We are seeing what has been termed “a greater challenge than the crash of 2008” by a growing number of economists and more rational, sane commentators, because whilst that was a shocking exposure of the levels to which hubris had sunk, right down to the blank cheque given those who ...
I am a Kiwi living in Jersey City, New Jersey. Jersey City is the second-largest city in the state and is located directly across the Hudson River from downtown Manhattan. Locals call it New York’s sixth borough. More than 350,000 New Jersey citizens, including myself, commute to New York daily ...
It’s a beautiful autumn afternoon, we need to get out of the house, and so our bubble sets off on a bike ride around our local neighbourhood, Cambridge Park. The bikes come out of the garage, and, being really certain we have a front door key, close the garage door ...
. . April 7: Day 13 of living in lock-down… and unlucky for those who are superstitious. A day when there was a ray of sunshine from an otherwise bleak day of worrying signs. Today, as RNZ reported; Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield reported 54 new confirmed and probable cases ...
So far, universal basic income policies, which see people given a regular income without any conditions, have been trailed only on a small scale. But now, Spain is introducing one nationwide as a response to the pandemic: Spain is to roll out a universal basic income (UBI) “as soon as ...
Paul Connet, head of the anti-fluoride propaganda group, Fluoride Action Network, claims that the IQ of children bottle-fed in fluoridated areas drops by 9 points. But he misrepresented the research. There is no observable effect. For earlier articles in this series see: Part 1: Anti-fluoridation propaganda now relies on only ...
The Queen’s coronavirus broadcast, with its overtones of Winston Churchill and Vera Lynn, prompted me to reflect on the tribulations my parents’ generation suffered during the Second World War – and I imagine that those parallels, given her own wartime experience, were very much in the Queen’s mind as she ...
This is a re-post from Carbon Brief by Dr Christina Schädel Across vast swaths of the northern hemisphere’s higher reaches, frozen ground holds billions of tonnes of carbon. As global temperatures rise, this “permafrost” land is at increasing risk of thawing out, potentially releasing its long-held carbon into the atmosphere. Abrupt permafrost ...
Back in February, the Marlborough District Council increased the mount it charges for LGOIMA requests. I used the LGOIMA to poke into this, and it seems the case for increased charges is unjustified: the supposed increase in request volumes it rests on is an artefact of the Council suddenly deciding ...
. . April 6: Day 12 of living in lock-down… Another day of a near-empty Park N Ride carpark; . . And another day of near-empty Wellington streets; . . . Light traffic on the motorway. No apparent increase in volume. Commercial vehicles sighted; a gravel-hauling truck; McAuley’s Transport; a ...
Imagination By-Pass: Had the Communications Minister, Kris Faafoi (above) taken a firm stand with Bauer, reminding them of their obligations to both their staff and the wider New Zealand public, then a much more favourable outcome may well have ensued. He should have made it clear to the Bauer board ...
We all know that Simon Bridges has, at the best of times, an intermittent relationship with the truth. However you would think that during a pandemic and economic crisis the current opposition leader would pull his head in and start to do the right thing.Obviously leading by example should be ...
Connett promotes Riddell et al (2019) as one of the only four studies one needs to read about fluoridation. But he misunderstands and misrepresents the findings of this study. Image credit: Fluoride Action ...
This is a re-post from Carbon Brief by Dr. Richard Wood and Dr. Laura Jackson Generally, we think of climate change as a gradual process: the more greenhouse gases that humans emit, the more the climate will change. But are there any “points of no return” that commit us to irreversible ...
Last month I wrote my blog on covid-19 pointing out the in our pre Alert Level 4 days that a subject no one had heard here months ago was now dominating the media. An amazing feature of this crisis is how quickly it has swept every other issue aside worldwide. ...
Nick Wilson,1 Ayesha Verrall,1,2 Len Cook,3 Alistair Gray,3 Amanda Kvalsvig,1 Michael Baker,1 (1epidemiologists, 2infectious disease physician, 3statisticians)In this blog, we raise ideas for how New Zealand might optimise testing to both identify cases in the community as part of the COVID-19 elimination strategy, and to confirm when the virus ...
Maybe you’ve seen the graph that says those countries where everyone wears a mask are the ones that have managed to keep Covid-19 under control? The first thing to say about that claim is that those countries also did lots of other things, too – they acted fast, with intense ...
Story of the Week... Editorial of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Claim Review... SkS Week in Review... Poster of the Week... Story of the Week... North Atlantic's capacity to absorb CO2 overestimated, study suggestsResearch into ocean’s plankton likely to lead to ...
The Treaty on Open Skies is one of the most effective mechanisms for preventing war curently in force. By letting countries make surveillance flights over each others' territory, it eliminates fears that they are secretly preparing for war. So naturally, the US is planning to withdraw from it: The Trump ...
. . April 5: Day eleven of living in lock-down… My one day of rest for the week, and an opportunity to mow my lawns – which I’d been delaying for about three weeks. (On the plus side, the damp micro-climate in my back yard yielded three lovely fresh mushrooms ...
As far as anyone can say, New Zeaand still has a general election scheduled for September 19 this year. The election will be accompanied by two referenda, one of which will ask voters:Do you support the proposed Cannabis Legalisation and Control Bill?The official campaign period for the cannabis referendum begins ...
The vast majority of tributes to the Listener hearken back to its glory days, with little reflection on the magazine as it was at its end.I wrote for it, for half the Listener’s life; I have known personally all the editors except the first (mythical) three. From 1978 to 2014 ...
As the world economy slides rapidly towards deep recession there are growing calls for a Universal Benefit coming from some leftists and rightists. Now Finance Minister Grant Robertson is saying it is on the table. This article by a French party Workers Struggle provides analysis of various forms of universal ...
This is the advice from the very top of the anti-fluoride movement – Paul Connett, director of the Fluoride Action Network (FAN). Don’t worry about reading up on all the scientific information “You only have ...
. . April 4: Day 10 of living in lock-down… I wake up to a fine Saturday morning which normally would be like an early Christmas. But it’s Day 10 of Level 4 Lock Down. What will my fellow New Zealanders be doing on a day like this – staying ...
Some time during the night we went over the 850,000 views mark. We might have had our millionth view by the end of this year – certainly by early next year. Most of the people involved in Redline spent years and years producing various small left-wing papers and selling them ...
Comfortably, in the very first round, with an impressive 56% of the votes.I wonder, did members of the Shadow Cabinet start tweeting their resignations during Starmer's victory speech, or is that only a trick the right pull?It is odd how all the talk of how the next leader "needs to ...
One of the key voices in this extraordinary time in which we live is that of University of Otago epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker. Philip Matthews did an an excellent job this weekend of capturing the way he became the man for this moment in a profile for The Press.But one ...
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern addressed the nation today about the decline in daylight New Zealand has been experiencing over the previous few months. She said “As many of you will notice, our attempts to stem the dwindling of the daylight over the last few months have been completely ...
Redline received this article from the KOE a Marxist party in Greece Our friends in the KOE describe here the mounting crisis in Greece and tensions on the Turkish border. As desperate people flee from their homelands which have been ruined after decades of imperialist wars and interventions the people ...
As the first week of Level Four lockdown unfolded, mounting questions grew as to just what was (and was not) allowed under its “rules”. Partly these were driven by some apparently contradictory messagesfrom different authority figures and explanations carried in the media. Partly they reflected a somewhat sketchy legal basis ...
. . April 3: Day 9 of living in lock-down… Another late-start to my work day. Everything is temporarily upended as clients are shuffled around so we can minimise our “bubble” by reducing the number of people we help. One of my colleagues has been removed from his clients; his ...
In order to meet our 2050 carbon target and do our bit to avoid making the Earth uninhabitable, New Zealand needs to decarbonise our economy, replacing fossil fuels with electricity in the energy, industrial and transport sectors. The good news is that it will mean cheaper power for all of ...
For those folk who find my other Lock-Down Diary versions too “negative” or otherwise unpalatable… Here’s a photo of a pretty flower, . . Better? Tomorrow’s Sanitised Version: a cute animal video. . . . =fs= ...
. . April 2: Day eight of living in lock-down… Today, my work day starts late. Our rosters and clients have been dramatically changed, lessening (theoretically) the number of people in our work “bubble”. If just one of us catches covid19 the impact could be considerable as Grey Base Hospital ...
As Aotearoa enters week two of lockdown, it’s clear we’re all still working out what our “bubbles” look like and how to stay in them to stop the spread of Covid-19. New to the government’s Covid-19 website is some good guidance for people living in apartment blocks. Recent decades have ...
“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” Lenin Don’t we all know that feeling now.
Prospect Magazine alerted me to this particularly apt quote. It is a much more evocative quote than Hemingway’s “gradually then suddenly” which is also doing ...
Yesterday was the day the consequences of the lockdown suddenly got very real for many. Firms have been closing and laying people off since the outset of the quarantine but this has mostly been happening out of the public eye. The mass closure of a number of iconic New Zealand ...
Brian Williamson1, Prof Nick Wilson2 (1Economic consultant, UK; 2University of Otago Wellington)In this blog, we outline how a win-win social contract could be forged to address the major dimensions of response to the COVID-19 pandemic when using a mitigation strategy: the particular need to protect older people from high ...
Resuming Normal Service: The Republican Party's nominee for in 1920, Warren Harding, promised the American people: “not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration”. If she wishes to remain our prime minister, then Jacinda Ardern will offer New Zealanders the same.HOW EDUCATED AMERICA snickered when the ...
No Free Society Without A Free And Functioning News Media: If we are to surrender our civil rights to the broader cause of defeating Covid-19, then foreign corporations must, likewise, surrender their right to inflict immense economic and cultural harm on New Zealanders simply because it improves their bottom line.I’M ...
by Daphna Whitmore A third of the world is under lockdown and a clear assessment of this measure to curb the spread of COVID-19 is urgently needed. With any high-stakes decisions it has to be asked what are we dealing with here? Are the measures warranted? Will they achieve their ...
I haven’t done a huge amount in the last few days. I’m reading The Poppy War and I’ve sort of poked at a couple of games – I started SOMA but I’m a wimp and I quit while in the first room after the brain scan. I might try it ...
The swan politicians may be gliding on the water, occasionally snapping at one another. Meanwhile, as the Covid19 crisis illustrates, the officials are desperately paddling below providing the real locomotion. One of the most fatuous recent grandstanding comments (of about a week ago), adding to the public’s anxieties, was ...
Much has been written about the importance of discretion in an emergency situation, and the concerns raised by the potential for it to be exercised arbitrarily. Given the quality of the discussion, there seemed little point in adding to it at any length. In particular, I point to the evidence ...
Today has felt surreal. I was all set to touch base online with my science communication students when a colleague shared the news that Bauer Media would be shutting down its publications immediately. The first link I saw implied it was Woman’s Weekly affected, and even that shocked me. But ...
Bogeymen, Real And Imagined: Is the number of psychopathic and sociopathic individuals in any given society truly as vanishingly small as we like to tell ourselves? Isn’t it more likely that the mass-shooters and serial-killers filling the headlines represent only the tip of a much, much larger iceberg of frightfulness? ...
Outgoing Police Commissioner Mike Bush appeared before the Epidemic Response Committee today, who asked him for the rules police are using to enforce the lockdown. He refused:Police Commissioner Mike Bush has admitted the advice given to Kiwis about what they're able to do during the lockdown hasn't been clear enough. ...
For those folk who find my other Lock-Down Diary versions too “negative” or otherwise unpalatable… Here’s a photo of my cat, . . Better? Tomorrow’s Sanitised Version: a pretty flower. . . . =fs= ...
. . April 1: Day seven of living in lock-down… This morning I had a brief chat with one of my neighbours, “D” (social distance between us, a good three or four metres). I learned he had resigned from his previous job and had been hired by another company – ...
Funnily enough, my thought as I start this post is whether it will be well written enough. Or should that be well enough written? Because so much of what I know about good writing came from my two stints at The Listener, which this morning was shut down due to ...
With normal democratic procedures in abeyance, there were two ways to go. First, it was open for the government to dissolve itself and invite the National Party to join a ministry of national salvation. That would have lessened the democratic deficit of the times by having a team of rivals without ...
Dr Kirsty Ross Children and young people can respond differently in times of distress. This also varies by age and developmental stage, with younger children having more magical and imaginative thinking, and older children having more awareness and knowledge of the issues our communities are facing (which brings up ...
Hungary has been a virtual dictatorship for a decade now, as Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has gradually eroded its democracy. But now, its official, with the passage of an indefinite emergency law allowing rule by decree:Hungary’s parliament has passed a new set of coronavirus measures that includes jail terms for ...
While the economy is on pause under lockdown, the government is beginning to plan how to cope with the post-lockdown, post-tourism, post-export education world we will eventually find ourselves in. They're planning a lot of infrastructure spending as economic stimulus, and have asked for proposals which can start the moment ...
It's my distraction, setting up tiny scenes to photograph. I've got stuck on the Babushka dolls for now. Something about their bubble shape. Something about their never changing, smiling features, suggesting persistent equanimity. Can we get through everything that is being thrown at us and keep at least a tiny ...
. . March 31: Day six of living in lock-down… This time I managed to sleep a little longer and the alarm woke me at the pre-set time: 6.55am. Then remembered I was working a later shift and could’ve slept in. Oh well, there are things to do at home. ...
Image credit:Diamond Harbour School Blogs I notice a few regulars no longer allow public access to the site counters. This may happen accidentally when the blog format is altered. If your blog is unexpectedly missing or ...
Yesterday's Horizon poll showing support for a "Yes" vote in this year's cannabis referendum sliding into the majority for the first time in a year looked like good news for reformers – and it probably is. But the result warrants some scrutiny.The poll is the fifth in a series commissioned ...
For almost a week now, every one of us who isn’t an essential worker has been confined to their bubble. We are allowed to go shopping for groceries, to visit the doctor, and to get a bit of exercise if we stay local. The reason we are doing this is ...
The Covid-19 saga will no doubt produce many twists and turns for us before it is finally brought to an end. But one thing it has shown us – and what comfort it should bring us – is that our country’s government is in good hands. I am not thinking ...
In the absence of a vaccine or a cure for a deadly disease, staying home in your bubble is what you do, the concept is not new. To the best of my knowledge last time we did this in NZ was for polio, in the years before a vaccine came ...
The following statement was released on March 28 by the National Network on Cuba, a coalition of 40 groups, based in the United States. In recent weeks, Cuba has deployed hundreds of medical providers to over a dozen countries in Europe, Asia, as well as to their neighbors in Latin ...
This has been a terrible summer for Hector’s dolphins. The first indication was very low numbers of dolphin sightings during late spring and early summer. The Otago University Marine Mammal Research Team has carried out routine dolphin surveys at Banks Peninsula for more than 30 years. In all that time, ...
On March 17, Finance Minister Grant Robertson was quick out of the blocks with an economic rescue package to help businesses through the inevitable recession resulting from the coronavirus pandemic. Robertson had pulled together a scheme in short order that so far seems to have saved many jobs. In his ...
The purpose of the lockdown is to save lives, by reducing the spread of covid-19. We won't know if its really working for another week, but given the devastation that will result if it doesn't - 14,000 dead is the optimistic scenario - its definitely worth trying. But pausing the ...
. . March 30: Day five of living in lock-down… Woke up still in darkness. Alarm hadn’t gone off. Turn to radio clock; it’s a few minutes after 6am… I lie there in the dark, waiting to drift off to sleep… but it ain’t happening. Clock ticks over to 6.55 ...
Rt. Hon. Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Foreign Affairs Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced that New Zealand will enter into transit arrangements with a range of countries to make it easier for each other’s citizens to get home. “There are millions of people around the world stranded ...
From the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, our Government has striven to provide calm, clear and consistent communication, including daily press conference updates from the Prime Minister. ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters says getting New Zealanders back home and other travellers out of the country is "a nightmare for our embassies, consuls, and staff around the world".Speaking to NewstalkZB's Mike Hosking, the Foreign Minister said that he gave a clear message to people travelling overseas that they ...
The domestic travel ban has been lifted for stranded foreign tourists trying to get to international airports to fly home, after the Coalition Government announced a plan to help the tens of thousands of foreigners stranded here. Foreign Minister Rt. Hon. Winston Peters spoke with RNZ's Susie Ferguson said foreign ...
Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters believes the country is rediscovering its resilience and self-reliance through its response to the COVID-19 pandemic.He says he is heartened that the mass majority of New Zealanders are following lockdown rules and that the government looking at the future, including paying to keep much ...
New Zealand can emulate the success of the US after the Great Depression by exploiting our own resources to turn the economy around quickly, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters says. Mr. Peters told Magic Talk that New Zealand has an opportunity to come out of the COVID-19 pandemic a "superior, ...
All 45 New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) personnel are either on their way back to New Zealand, or already in the country, according to Defence Minister Ron Mark."Twenty-eight personnel arrived back in New Zealand last week and are in isolation at the Royal New Zealand Air Force base in ...
The COVID-19 situation in New Zealand is moving fast - and to avoid what we've seen overseas - the Government's response must be to move fast too. We're committed to keeping New Zealanders safe and well-informed every step of the way. ...
We know people are feeling anxious about COVID-19. While the situation is serious, New Zealand has a world-class health system and we’re well-prepared to keep New Zealanders safe. ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters is encouraging New Zealanders overseas to stay where they are amid the COVID-19 pandemic. "We are reaching a point where the best option for most New Zealanders offshore is to shelter in place, by preparing to safely stay where they are.” "This includes following the instructions ...
Rt. Hon. Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs Foreign Minister Winston Peters is encouraging the tens of thousands of New Zealanders travelling overseas to consider sheltering in place, in light of COVID-19. “Since 18 March, we have been warning New Zealanders offshore that the window for flying ...
Hon. Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic DevelopmentThe Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) is ramping up support for Tairāwhiti’s wood processing sector to bolster the region’s economy at a time of heightened uncertainty, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today.Following earlier announcements today of a regional support package for ...
All driver licences, WoFs, CoFs, and some vehicle certifications, that expired on or after 1 January 2020 will be valid for up to six months from 10 April 2020, Transport Minister Phil Twyford has announced. “People shouldn’t have to worry about getting fined for having an expired document if driving ...
The Government has today released the report from the Public Inquiry into the Earthquake Commission chaired by Dame Silvia Cartwright. Minister Responsible for the Earthquake Commission Grant Robertson says the Government wants to learn from people’s experiences following the Canterbury earthquakes and other recent natural disasters. “Dame Silvia’s report documents ...
The Government has extended by two weeks till April 27 the amount of time priority groups, such as health workers and those aged over 65, have to get their flu vaccine before it is made available to the wider public. This year’s vaccination campaign is a key component of the ...
Communities stepping up to help New Zealanders stay at home to break the transmission of COVID-19 and save lives have received Government support, said Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni. “Delivering groceries for the elderly who can’t shop online, providing data packs for low income families to keep them connected, and being ...
Across New Zealand 120 sites are taking samples to be tested for COVID-19. 68 community based assessment centres (CBACs) have been established to take samples from people with COVID-19 symptoms. Alongside this, 52 other centres including designated general practices, swabbing centres, and mobile clinics are now testing people for ...
The Ministry of Education is working with partners to develop a package of options so that students can learn at home when Term 2 begins on 15 April, Education Minister Chris Hipkins said today. Supports are also being prepared for households with children under five, to help parents and whānau ...
Māori Television to begin educational te reo programmes Ki te Ao Mārama – a new online learning space Thousands of hard copy learning packs ready for distribution Helpdesk and advice service for kōhanga, kura and wharekura Television, the internet and hard copy learning packs are some of the ways whānau ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has announced an initial package of support to help the people and the Government of Vanuatu respond to the impact of Tropical Cyclone Harold. “Our Pacific neighbours have been hit by a Category 5 Cyclone at the same time as dealing with the economic impacts ...
Tourism New Zealand to lead work reimagining the way tourism operates in post-COVID-19 world. Ministers to review International Visitor Conservation and Tourism Levy investment plan. The Government, industry and business are working together to develop a plan for how tourism will operate in a post-COVID-19 world, Tourism Minister Kelvin Davis ...
More New Zealanders are taking up the chance to work in horticulture as the sector keeps New Zealanders fed and in jobs during the COVID-19 Alert Level 4 lockdown. “Our horticulture sector has long been one of New Zealand’s export star performers, contributing around $6 billion a year to our ...
The Provincial Development Unit is working through applications and projects to see where Provincial Growth Fund money can be repurposed for initiatives deemed more critical to fighting the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones says. “We need to be throwing everything we have at ...
The Government’s wage subsidy to protect jobs and keep workers and businesses connected during the lockdown has now supported over a million New Zealanders, with $6.6 billion already paid out. “We’re supporting businesses to pay wages, and stay connected with their workers so that we are all in a better ...
The Government is stepping up efforts to help protect New Zealand’s Pacific communities in the fight against COVID-19. Cabinet has agreed that $17 million will be allocated to support a COVID-19 Pacific Response Package, which will: Support Pacific health and disability services facing increased demand; Ramp up public health messaging ...
“Yesterday evening the Health Minister advised me of his trip to a beach during the lockdown and offered his resignation,” Jacinda Ardern said. “Under normal conditions I would sack the Minister of Health. What he did was wrong, and there are no excuses. “But right now, my priority is our ...
Last night as part of my preparation for the Epidemic Response Committee, I provided the Prime Minister with a complete picture of my activity outside my home during Alert Level 4. That included the fact that on the first weekend of the Alert Level 4 lockdown I drove my family ...
A range of support is being rolled out across New Zealand to help people look after their mental health during COVID-19 Health Minister David Clark said this morning. “COVID-19 has brought a lot of uncertainty into our lives and many of us will be feeling some level of distress or ...
The New Zealand Government has made arrangements to charter a flight for New Zealanders stranded in Peru to depart the country, following agreement with the Chilean government to allow the necessary transit through Chile, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters announced today. “Like many travellers around the world at the moment, ...
Hospital preparations for COVID-19 are well advanced says Health Minister David Clark. “Hospitals across New Zealand are repurposing buildings and training staff to get ready for COVID-19 patients. This gives me confidence that we are well prepared for any potential increase in COVID-19 patients needing hospital level care,” said David ...
The Government will be introducing legislation to make changes to the Companies Act to help companies facing insolvency due to COVID-19 to remain viable and keep New Zealanders in jobs. The temporary changes include: Giving directors of companies facing significant liquidity problems because of COVID-19 a ‘safe harbour’ from insolvency ...
The Government’s plan to cushion the blow of COVID-19 by supporting incomes, jobs and businesses, and position the economy to recover has been backed by another international report. International credit rating agency Moody’s today reaffirmed its highest Aaa credit rating on New Zealand, saying the economy is expected to remain ...
The Government has stepped in to support vital air links to our offshore islands, the Chatham Islands, Great Barrier Island and Motiti Island, Transport Minister Phil Twyford announced today. “As part of our $600 million support package to minimise the impacts of COVID-19 on the aviation sector, the Government has ...
National sports organisations have been given certainty of funding to ensure they can remain viable through the COVID-19 pandemic, Sport and Recreation Minister Grant Robertson announced today. “The global spread of COVID-19 has had a significant impact on sport and recreation in New Zealand, including the cancellation or postponement of ...
Changes have been made to allow butchers to process pork, only for supply to supermarkets or other processors or retailers that are open, Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor has announced. “We carefully weighed the risk of allowing butchers to open their shops for retail customers, but the risk of spreading COVID-19 ...
Essential workers who take leave from work to comply with public health guidance are being supported with a leave scheme to ensure they will continue to receive income, say the Minister of Workplace Relations and Safety Iain Lees-Galloway and Minister for Social Development, Carmel Sepuloni. A number of essential businesses ...
A Government WhatsApp channel has been launched to help make information more easily accessible and shareable in the fight against COVID-19. Govt.NZ, which is free to use on any mobile device, will carry information and news for the public, businesses, healthcare providers, not for profits and local government. It can ...
The Government has announced a plan to enable the safe, orderly exit of tens of thousands of stranded foreign nationals from New Zealand during the current COVID-19 Alert Level 4 restrictions, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Winston Peters has said. “When we moved into lockdown a week ago, the ...
Health Minister Dr David Clark says the Government is delivering on its commitment to support general practice doctors and nurses, and pharmacies on the front-line of our fight against COVID-19. "For us to overcome COVID-19, we need community health services such as general practice and community pharmacy to step up ...
Justice Susan Thomas has been appointed Chief High Court Judge, Attorney-General David Parker announced today. She replaces Justice Geoffrey Venning who has resigned from the position. David Parker paid tribute to Justice Venning, who he said had stewarded the High Court very capably over the last five years. “On behalf ...
Businesses can start applying to their banks for loans under the Business Finance Guarantee Scheme set up to support the New Zealand economy during the COVID-19 pandemic. “We’re moving quickly to protect New Zealand businesses, jobs and the economy during this unprecedented global economic shock,” Finance Minister Grant Robertson said. ...
Work is underway looking at measures to speed up consents for development and infrastructure projects during the recovery from COVID 19, to provide jobs and stimulate our economy. Environment Minister David Parker said the COVID-19 pandemic is a serious global crisis that will have a wide ranging and lasting impact ...
Advance payments will be made to transport construction industry contractors to retain the workforce and ensure it is ready to quickly gear up to build projects which will be vital to New Zealand’s COVID-19 economic recovery, Transport Minister Phil Twyford announced today. He said keeping the workforce required to build ...
The Government has tasked a group of industry leaders to seek out infrastructure projects that are ready to start as soon as the construction industry returns to normal to reduce the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, Economic Development Minister Phil Twyford and Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones say. The Infrastructure ...
Work to scale up the health system in preparation for COVID-19 was today outlined by Health Minister David Clark, as he reported back to the new Epidemic Response Committee. “We are well placed to contain the spread of COVID-19. We have taken early and decisive action at our borders, and ...
The Government is refining its COVID-19 essential business guidance to include the distribution of news publications for communities which are hard to reach. The Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media, Kris Faafoi, said the move was in recognition of the importance for New Zealanders who might be harder to ...
The Government is ensuring supermarkets can open on Easter Sunday so we can buy groceries, but stay closed on Good Friday allowing workers to take a break. This provides a balanced approach and ensures we avoid large queues that two days closure may cause. “Supermarkets will be able to open ...
Following the successful conclusion of the Building Partner Capacity (BPC) mission at Taji, New Zealand defence personnel are returning to New Zealand from Iraq, in accordance with the Cabinet decision made in June 2019, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Ron Mark announced today. “New Zealand is very ...
The State of National Emergency to help stop the spread of COVID-19 has been extended for a further seven days, Minister of Civil Defence Peeni Henare said. The initial declaration on March 25 lasted seven days and can be extended as many times as necessary. “Since we went into isolation ...
New Zealand’s ability to go hard and go early in the fight against COVID-19 has been underpinned by strong Government finances and the growing economy heading into this global pandemic, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. The Treasury today released the Crown financial statements for the eight months to the end ...
Health Minister Dr David Clark says 36 new intensive care beds at Christchurch Hospital’s new Hagley building are being fast tracked so they are available for treatment of COVID-19 patients. The Ministry of Health is working with contractor CPB and Canterbury DHB to enable access to the hospital’s ICU, ...
The Government has fast-tracked up to $1 million to help Air New Zealand move urgent freight to and from New Zealand, with the first flight to Shanghai leaving tonight, Transport Minister Phil Twyford announced today. Phil Twyford says it’s crucial that trade in vital goods such as medical supplies and ...
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters wants an election on November 21st. Peters told RNZ he fought for that originally as it's his long held position that summer elections are better. ...
The national lockdown was justifiable to protect the nation's intensive care capacity. But any prolonged lockdown and border closure will cause economic issues that lead to broader, indirect problems for our health and wellbeing, writes Professor Grant Guilford. In a caring society it is right that we do our utmost ...
She’s not a teacher or a fluent speaker – she just wants to practise with you. Join Leonie Hayden as she works through the first four weeks of Scotty Morrison’s Māori Made Easy.Yesterday we were counting things, today we’re counting people. We have different ways of counting each because people aren’t ...
A news item by Māni Dunlop, Māori News Director, has been posted on the RNZ website under the heading Government urged to put Māori at forefront of Covid-19 planning. “Forefront” means the position of greatest importance or prominence. One implication to be drawn from the headline, therefore. is that Māori ...
Women’s Rights Commissioner Saunoamaali’i Karanina Sumeo is encouraging women to seek help immediately if they find themselves in an abusive situation during the COVID-19 isolation. Often, people who were already in an abusive situation will likely ...
COMMENTARY:By Georgie Bright, Australia associate director of Human Rights Watch Even before the coronavirus pandemic, the fragile health system in Papua New Guinea was underfunded and overwhelmed, with high rates of malaria, tuberculosis, and diabetes among its population of more than eight million. Access to hospitals is extremely ...
New home owners will pay tens of thousands of dollars more on their mortgage if they accept a six-month mortgage 'holiday' option. That’s money going to the banks. But should lender and borrower be sharing the pain? There’s always a nagging worry about holidays. They are fun while they last, but ...
An Auckland bus driver tells Leonie Hayden what it’s like to operate under alert level four, and the struggle to secure a safer work environment.Mike moved to New Zealand in 2001. “I’m a Kiwi now,” he says, “and a die-hard unionist.” He’s employed by a large New Zealand bus company ...
The 1pm briefing has become appointment viewing. But it is no substitute for transparent, timely information, even in such extraordinary times, writes Newshub investigations reporter Michael Morrah in this post originally published on Newshub.Like all journalists in New Zealand right now, I’ve been covering stories day after day, all of ...
The Chair of the Earthquake Commission, Sir Michael Cullen, has welcomed Dame Silvia Cartwright’s Report of the Public Inquiry into the Earthquake Commission, released today. “The Report lays out clearly the challenges faced by EQC in responding to ...
With 14 days before the lockdown period is - for now - set to end, big questions remain about how the country is going to be able to stamp out flareups of Covid-19. ...
Environmental groups from across New Zealand have written to the Prime Minister urging the Government to restore Aotearoa in the economic recovery after lockdown. Forest & Bird, Greenpeace, WWF-New Zealand, Generation Zero, EDS and Ecologic ...
We've published a Controller update on Government spending in response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. On 25 March 2020, Parliament passed legislation in response to the pandemic authorising the Government to spend up to $52 billion in addition ...
‘It is sobering watching what a country can do if it wants to. Having been told for so long that nothing is possible. These are strange times down the back of the bus, John.’Read more Lockdown Letters here.Dear John KeatsFunny that it’s had to come to this. But when I think ...
By Kelly Vacala in Suva Fiji disaster authorities have lifted movement restrictions imposed yesterday during the height of Severe Tropical Cyclone Harold have been lifted and both Queens and Kings highways are open. However, Covid-19 restrictions remain. Category 5 Harold is now heading for Tonga after leaving a trail ...
The Ministry of Social Development and the Ministry of Education will be taking questions from the opposition in the Epidemic Response Committee meeting. ...
Today’s EQC report urges the country’s natural disaster insurer to prepare for the next “big one”. David Williams reports The Canterbury earthquakes killed 185 people, and damaged 180,000 houses, some of which still haven’t been adequately repaired. Or re-repaired. But they also did something else. They shook people’s confidence in the ...
KiwiSaver funds invested solely in ethical companies are outperforming other funds amidst market volatility. An analysis of returns for the first quarter of 2020 shows growth funds were on average down more than 12 percent, but growth funds that were ethically invested lost on under 8 percent. Conservative and balanced ...
An Auckland small business owner says he's paying full price for broadband in an empty factory and it is not fair. Steve has been wrangling with Spark for days arguing it should share in the pain of thousands of its customers. He runs a small manufacturing business with a handful ...
Paywave limits will increase to $200 to reduce physical contact with PIN pads during the Covid-19 pandemic. Previously only transactions of $80 or less were able to be completed without a PIN using a contactless card. After a pilot, Payments NZ will progressively roll out the new higher contactless payment ...
The Overstory, the winnner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, is an engulfing, worldview-shifting novel about climate catastrophe and hope, writes Susan Wardell. (Photographs are from a photo essay on kauri dieback by Michelle Hyslop; captions by Andrea Ewing). The year before last, I spent the month of January hugging ...
US death toll jumps 779 in a day; WTO warns global trade could drop by 13-33%; Trump says WHO biased towards China; WHO boss says finger-pointing just results in 'many more body bags'US toll surges: The United States is standing out in the Coid-19 numbers count with more than ...
By Sri Krishnamurthi, contributing editor of Pacific Media Watch After some weeks of heavy criticism of Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape’s government amid the Covid-19 pandemic, support for the administration has come from a surprising quarter – one of the media. Scott Waide is the Lae bureau ...
NZX50 back over 10k again as Mainfreight keeps its profit forecast with just single digit fall in sales, while Tilt Renewables' big payday helps Infratil pay a dividendPushing higher: The NZX50 finally managed to close above the key 10,000 level for the first time in almost a month, finishing ...
A philanthropist known for funding the construction of the Wellington Children’s Hospital is supporting the Council of Licenced Firearms Owners’ (COLFO) campaign against the Arms Legislation Bill. Mark Dunajtschik has endorsed COLFO’s campaign ...
The lockdown may be set to end in two weeks but region-based restrictions are still likely to be in place by the time of the general election, Justice Minister Andrew Little says. ...
The opposition doubts the public will be ready for an election in September; and the National Party insists Covid-19 contact tracing is failing to find too many people or is too slow. ...
As the government starts to work on how it can move the country on at some point from its current Alert Level-4 status, the other political parties will be starting to think about how they can re-enter the fray and normal political debate can resume. ...
Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters has spoken of the "huge tensions" between looking after the health of New Zealanders but also saving the country's economy. ...
Covid-19: Ministry of Education reveals support plans for distance learning; and Coronavirus: Flight Centre to close 58 New Zealand stores, 300 jobs to go. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Milne, Senior Lecturer, Resources, Environment and Development, Australian National University The world faces profound disruption. For Australians who lived through the most horrific fire season on record, there has been no time to recover. The next crisis is now upon us ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Holden, Professor of Economics, UNSW It has been said we are “at war” with the COVID-19 coronavirus. I’m not drawn to martial metaphors, but that’s not wrong. Another way to put it is that we, as a society, are in a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adele Wessell, Associate Professor in History, Southern Cross University The washing, drying, ironing, airing, pushing baby in his pram – these can all take on a different aspect if done with figure consciousness … Stretch to the ceiling Relax to the ...
Most banks are increasing the contactless threshold for Paywave and Paypass cards, but most are still charging the high credit fees that discourage dairies from using them More paywave transactions will be made contactless after banks raise the threshold for keypad-free transactions from $80 to $200 today. Payments NZ Chief ...
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Quarantine announcement expected today for arrivals, John Tamihere accused of test-seeking dishonesty, and Cyclone Harold smashes Pacific.An announcement is expected today on mandatory 14-day quarantine for all arrivals at the border, in an effort to prevent outbreaks of Covid-19. That comes ...
Auckland’s new electorate of Flat Bush* will be given the opportunity to have New Conservative’s Deputy Leader fight for their needs and wants. Elliot Ikilei has both lived and worked in or around the electorate for over a decade, with close ...
The lockdown may be set to end in two weeks but region-based restrictions are still likely to be in place by the time of the general election, Justice Minister Andrew Little says. ...
Kiwi Wealth's online share and fund trading platform Hatch has never been so busy. GM Kristen Lunman talks to Bernard Hickey about why tens of thousands of New Zealanders are now trading stocks in US markets. General Manager and Co-Founder of Hatch Kristen Lunmen has never been busier helping ...
For all The Spinoff’s latest coverage of Covid-19 see here. Read Siouxsie Wiles’s work here. New Zealand is currently in alert level four. The country is shut down, apart from essential services. For updated official government advice, see here.The Spinoff’s coverage of the Covid-19 outbreak is funded by The Spinoff Members. To support this work, join The ...
Steve Braunias reviews Madeleine Chapman's new biography of Jacinda Ardern on Kindle (available in all good bookstores when all good bookstores reopen after the lockdown.) And then there was the time I popped in to see Jacinda Ardern for a cup of tea during those strange, dreamy weeks when New ...
When and how to start loosening anti-virus controls is a vexed question in countries around the world, writes Rod Oram Fighting Covid-19 remains the absolute priority for governments and citizens. But pressure is building to allow more social movement and economic activity along the way. Once again China is ...
Professor of Public Health Grant Schofield asks what happens if the lockdown doesn't work, and argues it's time to be looking at a mitigation strategy Yesterday morning my teenage boys Sam and Jackson were out riding their bikes. The police pulled them over to question them about what they were doing and where ...
If you think the lockdown is the perfect time to start an exercise regime, LockerRoom writer Ashley Stanley has a warning for you. It was the fifth day after I decided to exercise, and my body was still a painful reminder of my ridiculous thinking, yet again. I had ...
As many transition to unfamiliar systems as part of working from home, being vigilant about cyber security has never been more important, writes Victoria University of Wellington's Val Hooper The past few weeks have been tumultuous as the majority of us have scampered and scrabbled to get organised for, and come ...
As schools move their teaching online, we must be cautious of the risk of amplifying our shameful record of inequalities across the education system, writes Victoria University of Wellington's Louise Starkey When schools begin teaching again it will be through a distance mode. New Zealand has a long history of distance ...
There is a great deal of anxiety about Covid-19 but in many ways we're much better off than we would be after a natural disaster: the water will keep flowing, the power will stay on, the sewers will keep working. The University of Auckland's Bill McKay makes a case for city ...
MediaRoom: Inside the pressure building on the Government to step in and save news media businesses before it's too late. For months, some parts of the news media have been sending out SOS messages publicly and in intense lobbying in the shadows of bureaucracy for urgent Government financial and regulatory ...
Bulk testing of samples could be the way forward for coronavirus surveillance in New Zealand, reports Mirjam Guesgen.With the number of completed coronavirus tests in New Zealand breaking 4,000 in a day on Tuesday, scientists are looking at more efficient tests to push that number even higher.By testing samples from ...
By RNZ News Social media misinformation about Covid-19 is putting Pacific communities in New Zealand at particular risk, government advisers say. The government announced a $17 million package toward building an awareness campaign in Pacific languages, as well as support for health providers. Associate Health Minister Jenny Salesa identified ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marilyn McMahon, Deputy Dean, School of Law, Deakin University A distinctive feature of the prosecution of Cardinal George Pell is that the former choirboy who accused him of sexual abuse (known in the High Court as Complainant “A”) was regarded as a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Darren Palmer, Associate professor, Deakin University The law on what we can and can’t do during the coronavirus outbreak is changing on an almost hourly basis. Some of what is written now might be overtaken by the shifts in the pandemic powers ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cassandra Mudgway, Senior Lecturer in Law, Auckland University of Technology As millions of people are moving work and social interactions online to protect themselves from COVID-19, existing online safety measures may not be enough to deal with a surge in harassment and ...
Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor says the primary sector will play a critical role in NZ’s economic recovery once the country emerges from the Covid-19 lockdown. It is the first time (at least within Point of Order’s close surveillance of the issue) that a coalition minister has acknowledged how the pandemic ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Doughney, Emeritus professor, Victoria University The loss of international students due to COVID-19 restrictions, and predicted second semester declines, will see universities lose between A$3 and 4.5 billion, according to Universities Australia. The higher education sector was dealt another blow this ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brian Oliver, Research Leader in Respiratory cellular and molecular biology at the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research and Professor, Faculty of Science, University of Technology Sydney Harry Potter author JK Rowling says a breathing technique has helped her coronavirus-like respiratory symptoms, a ...
8 April 2020 This media release summarises changes to the operation of the courts entering week of COVID-19 alert level 4. It also looks ahead to how the courts will operate in the short and medium term under alert restrictions. Courts to function ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Glasziou, Professor of Medicine, Bond University Should members of the public be wearing face masks during the COVID-19 pandemic? It’s a controversial question, with different countries and authorities giving different advice. We have reviewed the results of more than a dozen ...
The Government is moving to safeguard businesses from insolvency with 'safe harbour' legislation for directors’ liabilities and a business debt hibernation regime. Practically, the business debt hibernation regime will see company directors seeking ...
This Passover, we won’t be attending synagogue, we won’t be participating in large raucous dinners and sharing our food with our extended family and friends, we won’t be welcoming strangers into our homes, as Jewish people are instructed to do, writes Juliet Moses.Tonight, on what is hopefully the halfway point ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brad Elphinstone, Lecturer in psychology., Swinburne University of Technology The same week social distancing measures were announced in Australia (March 16 – March 22), sales of game consoles leaped 285.6%. Prior to this, sales were declining month on month. We’ve also seen ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Harris, Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery, UNSW As part of the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, all elective surgeries across Australia have been temporarily cancelled. Elective surgery is non-urgent surgery people choose (elect) to have: things like cataract surgery, joint replacement, ...
Infratil and Wellington Council are preparing to lend Wellington Airport funds to help it cope with a traffic collapse because of Covid-19 restrictions, DIleepa Fonseka reports from Infratil's update to investors Wellington City Council and listed investment firm Infratil are preparing a loan to support Wellington Airport, which has seen ...
The latest in our new series of charts, graphics and data visualisations by Chris McDowall.This work is entirely funded by the generosity of The Spinoff MembersThese posts collate the most recent statistics and present them as charts and maps. The Ministry of Health typically publishes data updates in the early ...
After two weeks of lockdown, police are no longer taking "I didn't know the rules" as a valid excuse, Marc Daalder reports Two weeks into the nationwide lockdown, the police are starting to take non-compliance seriously. The number of prosecutions nearly tripled in 24 hours and 76 new breaches of ...
As the Ministry of Social Development struggles to cope with unprecedented inquiries due to Covid-19, Child Poverty Action Group is calling for the Government to fix our broken welfare system and redesign it so all New Zealanders, but particularly ...
Fijian authorities are scrambling to ensure Cyclone Harold doesn’t make the country’s Covid-19 crisis worse, Teuila Fuatai reports. As Cyclone Harold hits Fiji, authorities have issued physical distancing and sanitation guidelines for evacuation centres. Lashing rain and strong winds caused widespread flooding, power outages and damage to homes and buildings ...
The Government has announced a $88 million package to help students adjust to the new normal of learning from home Thousands of modems and internet-ready devices are being sent to households around the country, in a bid to bridge the digital divide before children resume their studies at home next ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christine Jenkins, Professor, Respiratory Medicine, UNSW Sydney and Clinical Professor at the University of Sydney, George Institute for Global Health The new respiratory coronavirus COVID-19 is particularly worrying for the 2.7 million Australians who already suffer from asthma. That’s roughly one in ...
By Maggie Boyle of FBC News Fiji disaster authorities have put the whole of Viti Levu island on restricted movement due to TC Harold. Director for National Disaster Management Vasiti Soko confirmed the step had been taken as a precautionary measure. Soko said everyone except emergency services were to ...
By Wansolwarastaff Fiji now has 15 coronavirus cases after a single new case has been confirmed by Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama. The new case was one of 25 samples that were tested at the molecular lab and is the husband of an existing patient from Lautoka – the Zumba ...
Open Mike 16/01/2017 
. . April 8: Day 14 of living in lock-down… The good news first: the downward trajectory of new cases appears to be a real thing. In the last four days, since Sunday, new infections have been dropping: Sunday: 89 new cases Monday: 67 Tuesday: 54 Today (Wednesday): 50 The ...14 mins ago
The anti-fluoride movement wants to restrict your reading to “just four studies.” They actively ignore or attempt to discredit other relevant studies. Image credit: Censorship in media. For earlier articles in this series see: ... 4 hours ago
Not Now, Not Ever, Never! The problem with Labour's leading activists is that there is never a good time for democratic socialism. Never. They are like Saint Augustine who prayed to the Almighty: “Lord, give me chastity and self-control – but not yet.” In the case of Labour "junior officers", however, ...5 hours ago
52 Articles Physical science of global warming & effects Sensitivity of ice flow to uncertainty in flow law parameters in an idealized one-dimensional geometry (open access) Observations & observational methods of global warming & effects Will heat stress take its toll on milk production in China? Uncoupled El Niño ...7 hours ago
We are seeing what has been termed “a greater challenge than the crash of 2008” by a growing number of economists and more rational, sane commentators, because whilst that was a shocking exposure of the levels to which hubris had sunk, right down to the blank cheque given those who ...18 hours ago
I am a Kiwi living in Jersey City, New Jersey. Jersey City is the second-largest city in the state and is located directly across the Hudson River from downtown Manhattan. Locals call it New York’s sixth borough. More than 350,000 New Jersey citizens, including myself, commute to New York daily ...21 hours ago
It’s a beautiful autumn afternoon, we need to get out of the house, and so our bubble sets off on a bike ride around our local neighbourhood, Cambridge Park. The bikes come out of the garage, and, being really certain we have a front door key, close the garage door ...22 hours ago
So far, universal basic income policies, which see people given a regular income without any conditions, have been trailed only on a small scale. But now, Spain is introducing one nationwide as a response to the pandemic: Spain is to roll out a universal basic income (UBI) “as soon as ...1 day ago
The Queen’s coronavirus broadcast, with its overtones of Winston Churchill and Vera Lynn, prompted me to reflect on the tribulations my parents’ generation suffered during the Second World War – and I imagine that those parallels, given her own wartime experience, were very much in the Queen’s mind as she ...1 day ago
We all know that Simon Bridges has, at the best of times, an intermittent relationship with the truth. However you would think that during a pandemic and economic crisis the current opposition leader would pull his head in and start to do the right thing.Obviously leading by example should be ...2 days ago
Connett promotes Riddell et al (2019) as one of the only four studies one needs to read about fluoridation. But he misunderstands and misrepresents the findings of this study. Image credit: Fluoride Action ... 2 days ago
Last month I wrote my blog on covid-19 pointing out the in our pre Alert Level 4 days that a subject no one had heard here months ago was now dominating the media. An amazing feature of this crisis is how quickly it has swept every other issue aside worldwide. ...3 days ago
As the world economy slides rapidly towards deep recession there are growing calls for a Universal Benefit coming from some leftists and rightists. Now Finance Minister Grant Robertson is saying it is on the table. This article by a French party Workers Struggle provides analysis of various forms of universal ...4 days ago
This is the advice from the very top of the anti-fluoride movement – Paul Connett, director of the Fluoride Action Network (FAN). Don’t worry about reading up on all the scientific information “You only have ... 4 days ago
Comfortably, in the very first round, with an impressive 56% of the votes.I wonder, did members of the Shadow Cabinet start tweeting their resignations during Starmer's victory speech, or is that only a trick the right pull?It is odd how all the talk of how the next leader "needs to ...4 days ago
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern addressed the nation today about the decline in daylight New Zealand has been experiencing over the previous few months. She said “As many of you will notice, our attempts to stem the dwindling of the daylight over the last few months have been completely ...5 days ago
We must root out the traitors among us! ...6 days ago
I haven’t done a huge amount in the last few days. I’m reading The Poppy War and I’ve sort of poked at a couple of games – I started SOMA but I’m a wimp and I quit while in the first room after the brain scan. I might try it ...7 days ago
Image credit: Diamond Harbour School Blogs I notice a few regulars no longer allow public access to the site counters. This may happen accidentally when the blog format is altered. If your blog is unexpectedly missing or ... 1 week ago
The following statement was released on March 28 by the National Network on Cuba, a coalition of 40 groups, based in the United States. In recent weeks, Cuba has deployed hundreds of medical providers to over a dozen countries in Europe, Asia, as well as to their neighbors in Latin ...1 week ago
Rt. Hon. Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Foreign Affairs Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced that New Zealand will enter into transit arrangements with a range of countries to make it easier for each other’s citizens to get home. “There are millions of people around the world stranded ...2 days ago
From the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, our Government has striven to provide calm, clear and consistent communication, including daily press conference updates from the Prime Minister. ...4 days ago
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The scale of what we face right now is unlike anything we have ever seen before. Overcoming it is our common purpose. ...2 weeks ago
All driver licences, WoFs, CoFs, and some vehicle certifications, that expired on or after 1 January 2020 will be valid for up to six months from 10 April 2020, Transport Minister Phil Twyford has announced. “People shouldn’t have to worry about getting fined for having an expired document if driving ...3 hours ago
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters wants an election on November 21st. Peters told RNZ he fought for that originally as it's his long held position that summer elections are better. ...28 mins ago
The national lockdown was justifiable to protect the nation's intensive care capacity. But any prolonged lockdown and border closure will cause economic issues that lead to broader, indirect problems for our health and wellbeing, writes Professor Grant Guilford. In a caring society it is right that we do our utmost ...50 mins ago
She’s not a teacher or a fluent speaker – she just wants to practise with you. Join Leonie Hayden as she works through the first four weeks of Scotty Morrison’s Māori Made Easy.Yesterday we were counting things, today we’re counting people. We have different ways of counting each because people aren’t ...54 mins ago
A news item by Māni Dunlop, Māori News Director, has been posted on the RNZ website under the heading Government urged to put Māori at forefront of Covid-19 planning. “Forefront” means the position of greatest importance or prominence. One implication to be drawn from the headline, therefore. is that Māori ...57 mins ago
Women’s Rights Commissioner Saunoamaali’i Karanina Sumeo is encouraging women to seek help immediately if they find themselves in an abusive situation during the COVID-19 isolation. Often, people who were already in an abusive situation will likely ...58 mins ago
COMMENTARY: By Georgie Bright, Australia associate director of Human Rights Watch Even before the coronavirus pandemic, the fragile health system in Papua New Guinea was underfunded and overwhelmed, with high rates of malaria, tuberculosis, and diabetes among its population of more than eight million. Access to hospitals is extremely ...58 mins ago
New home owners will pay tens of thousands of dollars more on their mortgage if they accept a six-month mortgage 'holiday' option. That’s money going to the banks. But should lender and borrower be sharing the pain? There’s always a nagging worry about holidays. They are fun while they last, but ...1 hour ago
With 14 days before the lockdown period is - for now - set to end, big questions remain about how the country is going to be able to stamp out flareups of Covid-19. ...3 hours ago
Today’s EQC report urges the country’s natural disaster insurer to prepare for the next “big one”. David Williams reports The Canterbury earthquakes killed 185 people, and damaged 180,000 houses, some of which still haven’t been adequately repaired. Or re-repaired. But they also did something else. They shook people’s confidence in the ...3 hours ago
KiwiSaver funds invested solely in ethical companies are outperforming other funds amidst market volatility. An analysis of returns for the first quarter of 2020 shows growth funds were on average down more than 12 percent, but growth funds that were ethically invested lost on under 8 percent. Conservative and balanced ...3 hours ago
An Auckland small business owner says he's paying full price for broadband in an empty factory and it is not fair. Steve has been wrangling with Spark for days arguing it should share in the pain of thousands of its customers. He runs a small manufacturing business with a handful ...4 hours ago
Paywave limits will increase to $200 to reduce physical contact with PIN pads during the Covid-19 pandemic. Previously only transactions of $80 or less were able to be completed without a PIN using a contactless card. After a pilot, Payments NZ will progressively roll out the new higher contactless payment ...4 hours ago
US death toll jumps 779 in a day; WTO warns global trade could drop by 13-33%; Trump says WHO biased towards China; WHO boss says finger-pointing just results in 'many more body bags' US toll surges: The United States is standing out in the Coid-19 numbers count with more than ...4 hours ago
NZX50 back over 10k again as Mainfreight keeps its profit forecast with just single digit fall in sales, while Tilt Renewables' big payday helps Infratil pay a dividend Pushing higher: The NZX50 finally managed to close above the key 10,000 level for the first time in almost a month, finishing ...4 hours ago
The opposition doubts the public will be ready for an election in September; and the National Party insists Covid-19 contact tracing is failing to find too many people or is too slow. ...4 hours ago
Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters has spoken of the "huge tensions" between looking after the health of New Zealanders but also saving the country's economy. ...5 hours ago
Covid-19: Ministry of Education reveals support plans for distance learning; and Coronavirus: Flight Centre to close 58 New Zealand stores, 300 jobs to go. ...5 hours ago
Most banks are increasing the contactless threshold for Paywave and Paypass cards, but most are still charging the high credit fees that discourage dairies from using them More paywave transactions will be made contactless after banks raise the threshold for keypad-free transactions from $80 to $200 today. Payments NZ Chief ...5 hours ago
Kiwi Wealth's online share and fund trading platform Hatch has never been so busy. GM Kristen Lunman talks to Bernard Hickey about why tens of thousands of New Zealanders are now trading stocks in US markets. General Manager and Co-Founder of Hatch Kristen Lunmen has never been busier helping ...7 hours ago
Steve Braunias reviews Madeleine Chapman's new biography of Jacinda Ardern on Kindle (available in all good bookstores when all good bookstores reopen after the lockdown.) And then there was the time I popped in to see Jacinda Ardern for a cup of tea during those strange, dreamy weeks when New ...7 hours ago
When and how to start loosening anti-virus controls is a vexed question in countries around the world, writes Rod Oram Fighting Covid-19 remains the absolute priority for governments and citizens. But pressure is building to allow more social movement and economic activity along the way. Once again China is ...7 hours ago
Professor of Public Health Grant Schofield asks what happens if the lockdown doesn't work, and argues it's time to be looking at a mitigation strategy Yesterday morning my teenage boys Sam and Jackson were out riding their bikes. The police pulled them over to question them about what they were doing and where ...8 hours ago
If you think the lockdown is the perfect time to start an exercise regime, LockerRoom writer Ashley Stanley has a warning for you. It was the fifth day after I decided to exercise, and my body was still a painful reminder of my ridiculous thinking, yet again. I had ...8 hours ago
As many transition to unfamiliar systems as part of working from home, being vigilant about cyber security has never been more important, writes Victoria University of Wellington's Val Hooper The past few weeks have been tumultuous as the majority of us have scampered and scrabbled to get organised for, and come ...8 hours ago
As schools move their teaching online, we must be cautious of the risk of amplifying our shameful record of inequalities across the education system, writes Victoria University of Wellington's Louise Starkey When schools begin teaching again it will be through a distance mode. New Zealand has a long history of distance ...8 hours ago
There is a great deal of anxiety about Covid-19 but in many ways we're much better off than we would be after a natural disaster: the water will keep flowing, the power will stay on, the sewers will keep working. The University of Auckland's Bill McKay makes a case for city ...8 hours ago
MediaRoom: Inside the pressure building on the Government to step in and save news media businesses before it's too late. For months, some parts of the news media have been sending out SOS messages publicly and in intense lobbying in the shadows of bureaucracy for urgent Government financial and regulatory ...8 hours ago
Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor says the primary sector will play a critical role in NZ’s economic recovery once the country emerges from the Covid-19 lockdown. It is the first time (at least within Point of Order’s close surveillance of the issue) that a coalition minister has acknowledged how the pandemic ...19 hours ago
Infratil and Wellington Council are preparing to lend Wellington Airport funds to help it cope with a traffic collapse because of Covid-19 restrictions, DIleepa Fonseka reports from Infratil's update to investors Wellington City Council and listed investment firm Infratil are preparing a loan to support Wellington Airport, which has seen ...21 hours ago
After two weeks of lockdown, police are no longer taking "I didn't know the rules" as a valid excuse, Marc Daalder reports Two weeks into the nationwide lockdown, the police are starting to take non-compliance seriously. The number of prosecutions nearly tripled in 24 hours and 76 new breaches of ...21 hours ago
Fijian authorities are scrambling to ensure Cyclone Harold doesn’t make the country’s Covid-19 crisis worse, Teuila Fuatai reports. As Cyclone Harold hits Fiji, authorities have issued physical distancing and sanitation guidelines for evacuation centres. Lashing rain and strong winds caused widespread flooding, power outages and damage to homes and buildings ...22 hours ago
The Government has announced a $88 million package to help students adjust to the new normal of learning from home Thousands of modems and internet-ready devices are being sent to households around the country, in a bid to bridge the digital divide before children resume their studies at home next ...22 hours ago
The country’s two wealthiest people own the same amount as the poorest 30 percent in New Zealand.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/322422/top-1-percent-of-nzers-own-20-percent-of-wealth
Money quote (literally), to keep in mind for all those posts Farrar writes about how it’s really the rich people who pay all the taxes:
… figures from Inland Revenue’s high wealth individuals unit found more than a third of this group [New Zealanders worth more than $50 million] declared income less than $70,000 in 2015. The 252 individuals were linked to 7500 entities, some of whom are in dispute with the agency over nearly $111 million in tax.
Here’s another.
“It blamed big business and the extremely wealthy for the growing discrepancy, saying they fuelled the inequality crisis by avoiding taxes, driving down wages for their workers and the prices paid to producers and investing less in their businesses.”
Well if you want to see exactly how extremely crazy and reactionary the rich and their media servants get if any politician even suggests limiting the flow of money upwards,then just google this.. ‘Corbyn income cap’ ..and witness the media frenzy, obviously there is to be no meaningful conversation around wealth inequality…just shut it down is the medias first and only reaction.
I am not saying I support or don’t support this income cap proposal, I am just saying look at the reaction….brutal and decisive.
An income cap and capital taxes are a necessity if we want to prevent our society going into collapse.
I agree, but try saying that in public like Corbyn, and see what happens.
I know. I’ve said it often enough here and it’s obvious that even those on the Left don’t agree with me despite all the evidence showing having rich people is bad for society.
Greed wins out even for those who say that they want an egalitarian society.
What a miserable interview by RNZ.
Stephen Joyce allowed to pontificate without any of his outrageous statements and evasions being challenged.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player?audio_id=201829878
Well, you know, once Joyce and friends start being challenged in the public arena over their many and varied spurious claims, they start refusing to give interviews, and declining to front up altogether. Just ask John Campbell. No, they’re far more comfortable with tame interviewers who don’t ask the prickly questions and are less likely to humiliate them in public.
Joyce and tame interviews is a must for Natioanal’s pr campaign, especially if one listens to the weekly Joyce and Annette King segment with Hoskings on radio. How pathetic it is with Hoskings, supposedly being the “unbiased moderator” Yeah Right, what a sicko the man is.
True.
I remember watching Key’s Hard Talk interview with Stephen Sackur. Our ex-PM limped away from that one with a bloody nose and a black eye, and given his talent for glib non-answers and evasion, it was poetry in motion. Less able charlatans like Joyce, Bennett and Brownlee would be crucified in a similar situation.
But no, with ‘true believers’ like Michael Hosking conducting the interrogation, they’ve nothing at all to worry about.
Yeh, Hosking and Henry both pretty despicable characters, but did you catch Gareth Morgan on Henry’s show? ..it was a beaut, resulting in this classic from Morgan…
“I’m about making New Zealand fair,” said Morgan. “You’re self-centred and you don’t give a toss about being fair in New Zealand.”
http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2016/12/tax-policy-bust-up-gareth-morgan-trades-insults-with-paul-henry.html
I stopped watching the Paul Henry Show some time ago. The man is an absolute clown, I don’t understand how he can get away with his biased and self-centered attitude. Nice to see someone like Morgan put Henry in his place. Cheers.
You mean you want them to do their job paul ?
good luck with that
Yes he do s as the NZ RT correspondent
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
I see your on your on Morning nap before they release the straight jacket for another bash this avo Paul
Attitudes like that say a lot about you.
So what? Are you whining about whether it is one two or three people. Do you hate the rich or are you just jealous?
Well, I can’t speak for Paul, but for myself, yes, I do hate the rich. Self-serving, opportunistic, grabbing and largely irrelevant – they are a blot on any democracy!
This is not the NZ I grew up in, I am ashamed to say! The sooner we tax the bastards back to a reasonable level, and spread the wealth of society more equally, the better EVERYONE will be!
I don’t hate the rich nor am I jealous.
However we have a problem and it’s undermining our potential.
As a nation, we could be doing so much better.
An OECD report says: “rising inequality has wiped a third off New Zealand’s economic growth in recent decades.
New Zealand’s economy should have grown by nearly 44 per cent between 1990 and 2010, but a widening gap between the haves and have-nots saw it grow by only 28 per cent, according to the report.
The 15.5 percentage points New Zealand lost to inequality was the highest in the developed world.
Inequality was also found to have knocked 11 points off growth in Mexico, nearly 9 points in the United Kingdom, Finland and Norway and between 6 and 7 points in the United States, Italy and Sweden.
On the other hand, greater equality before the global financial crisis helped increase GDP per capita in Spain, France and Ireland.
The OECD has called for higher taxes and more redistribution of wealth to combat inequality, which it found was damaging the economic performance of most developed nations.”
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/64000371/nz-economy-hard-hit-by-inequality-oecd
Steven Joyce said it was inevitable some people would be more successful than others, which of course highlights his poor understanding of the problem.
Of course some will be more successful than others. The problem is the balance in income structures has become excessively imbalanced.
The pay difference between your average worker and your top executives has become far too extreme.
This is being compounded by the ballooning cost of housing adding to net worth while also making it more difficult to put a roof over ones head.
On top of that we have too many tax loopholes, leading to an industry dedicated to tax minimization, allowing businesses and individuals to avoid paying their fare share.
So not only are those at the top end being paid excessively more, a number of them are paying far less in tax. Weakening the Government’s capability to redistribute the wealth.
The weakening of Unions has also added to the income imbalance.
Therefore, it’s clear there are a number of areas that require a rethink to correct this excessive imbalance.
Simplistic figures … I would rather know the proportions of folk who receive more in various benefits than they pay in tax.
But even that is too simplistic – pretty much everyone who lives past 65, over their lifetime, gets more in benefit then they pay in tax because the most costly time of their life is in their last 6 months of life. By that stage, inflation has made what they paid in tax a pittance.
And it’s not only the cost of the benefit but the value of the benefit. Rich people get more value from the police force than poor people because rich people have more to lose if society became disordered. Rich people get more value from the legal system because they have the money to use it etc
Not true – as in other regimes the rich would just up sticks and live in private compounds while the poorer and middle class would suffer through higher crime etc.
While it doesn’t directly answer your question, this chart seems relevant.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/better-business/88353916/chart-of-the-day-which-benefit-does-the-government-spend-the-most-on
Bloody old people!
Be interesting to find out how long an old person collects the Super for compared with other benefits. Conceivably they could draw the Super for 25 years…which I imagine is a shit load longer than most on other benefits.
Having said that…I do remember when they started calling the National Superannuation a “benefit” rather than an entitlement. There was an outcry at the time this linguistic manipulation of the national psyche, but it came to nought and “benefit” stuck.
Used to be that you paid your PAYE and a certain % was ringfenced for your future retirement income.
That chart needs wider dissemination.
The system is set-up so that when you pay tax you are eventually going to get more benefit than what you put in. That’s because the tax/benefit system is adjusted for people’s life course. It makes no sense to call people “takers” and “makers” at one particular point in time because pretty much anyone living until 65 is going to be a net taker.
But that’s not a bug, that’s a feature.
define folk
define more benefits then they pay in tax
are you speaking of Landlords who receive rent income that is actually financed by the Accommodation Supplement given to people who can’t afford basic housing?
are you speaking of People who recieve a food voucher which they will spend in a few Governmnet selected and favored businesses?
are you speaking of People who are homeless and are ‘housed’ by a Government agency in Motels for usurious prices that have been ‘negotiated’ with the Government agency / minister in charge?
are you speaking of People who receive unemployment benefits that they only receive because they lost a job and thus have paid taxes previously?
are you speaking of People who receive a single parent benefit, who may or may not be divorced, separated, widowed or ‘single’, and who may or may not work a few hours a week, or who may or may not have a special needs child at home and who need the benefit for the children?
are you speaking of People who are sick, may undergo treatment but need to be on the ‘Job Seekers Benefit’ cause we don’t have no more sickness benefit?
whom are you speaking of?
and are you aware that people on any benefit pay GSt on their income recieved? Or that they may be taxed Income Tax?
or do you just feel that the poor rich people of this country really are just hard done by and should just simply not pay tax at all cause Rich?
@Sabine +1
Then there are those who seem to wear a cloak of invisibility.
I know a member of my own family, who when dragged back to court for issues over financial support of his children, to be paid to his exwife, managed to prove that he had, to all intents and purposes, no actual income.
Rather surprising given his inner city villa, the private schooling and nannies, and yes, his notable job in what I shall loosely refer to as ‘The Financial Sector’.
I wonder how many people have enough assets and convoluted financial arrangements to get away with such a total piss take of the system??
There’s a reason talented lawyers and accountants can charge so much.
Then there are those who seem to wear a cloak of invisibility.
I know a member of my own family, who when dragged back to court for issues over financial support of his children, to be paid to his exwife, managed to prove that he had, to all intents and purposes, no actual income.
Rather surprising given his inner city villa, the private schooling and nannies, and yes, his notable job in what I shall loosely refer to as ‘The Financial Sector’.
I wonder how many people have enough assets and convoluted financial arrangements to get away with such a total piss take of the system??
Alot more than before national removed gift duty which means massive sums can go into trusts in a single event with no duty payable.
Once in a family trust its pretty much impregnable unless within 5 years and only to the IRD as far as I’m aware.
Plus capitalising their super that does not get measured in wealth calculations
Plus capitalising superannuation that does not get measured in wealth calculations
Instead of trying to tear folk down I would prefer constructive figures and Mpledger is obviously correct with the examples. The more affluent have the cash to employ accountants to keep their tax obligations down. While those without accept cash-in-hand to evade their obligations. “He without sin cast the first stone”
Apart from the fact that if a poor person evades tax, they spend it on food. If a rich person fiddles the books, they spend it on luxuries. And benefit fraudsters receive harsher penalties than tax fraudsters who fiddle the same amount.
But your personal preference for figures for people who receive more in benefits than they pay in tax says it all. You don’t care if they need those benefits to live in a rest home at a young age because of a head injury, or if they have some other problem that would make them “deserving poor”. It just pisses you off that some people live below ther poverty line on the government dime.
Going after beneficiaries is the punitive equivalent of harvesting the low-hanging fruit. They usually have minimal resources, are unfamiliar with our labyrinthine legal system, often unaware of their rights and are generally vilified by Joe Public. It also enables the government to claim they’re doing something to combat “scrounging bludgers who steal from hard-working tax-payers”.
Conversely, going after wealthy individuals and organisations, given their extensive networks of influence and vast resources, is frequently an expensive and difficult exercise with no guarantee of success. It’s easier to just leave all that in the too hard basket and keep pointing the finger at those dirty benes.
Joe Carolan, standing for the Mt Albert electorate as a socialist, has a qu&a now up on The Daily Blog”. Beware, Carolan uses the “l” word (not the lesbian word – the other word) as a criticism.
My bold
Some things Carolan stands for and by:
Parliament won’t change things for the better for working people. It needs a collection of mass movements by the people.
Carolan urges people to get involved in whichever movement they feel most strongly about.
Quite a long q&a – more at the link above.
But he’s still standing for an electorate? Or is it just that he’s using it as a platform to encourage mobilisation of the people?
Edit: Carolan also attacks what he calls Green Party “Eco-facism” – their policy of “sustainable immigration” – Carolan says this is the first step towards Eco-fascism.
So will it be fair to use Joe Carolan’s vote share to infer how much support there is for a popular movement based around those principles?
“The extreme centre – which is what we’re calling liberals now – cannot hold because it has no answers for the working class.”
Pretty hard to argue with that statement.
who exactly are the “extreme centre”?…and why can they have no answers for the working class?….seems a foolish statement to me given that for every 1000 people in NZ 554 are wage or salary earners…..the extreme centre and the working class would appear to me to have a substantial overlap .
Extreme centre….
short explanation…
Long explanation…
And by framing the right wing as centre, Corbyn becomes ‘hard left.’
(with reference to yesterday’s conversation)
No, because the centre ‘right’ and ‘left’ have at their core the same economic ideology, they in real terms occupy the same space, politically..so Corbyn is just tradition Left, and not hard left as the media make him out to be.
But as the media don’t acknowledge the two centists partys as being the same thing, which of course they wouldn’t, there are no surprises in their position.
Totally agree.
Thanks for the Tariq Ali links.
ok…the short answer doesn’t address my post at all and i don’t have time to watch the long answer at the moment…how about you answer in your own words?
The “extreme centrte” refers to the dominant political parties, which label themselves as “left” and “right” but follow the same neoliberal agenda, as Olwyn explains below.
The working class – duh, is large numbers of people, not politicians or party members – well a handful of people from the working classes may become politicians: some from the working class (and some from the middle class) may believe that their party will help the working classes.
But if the main pollies and their parties follow neoliberal policies/agenda, then they have nothing to offer the working class – ie majority of people within that class.
The overlap is relatively small, and irrelevant if some working class people subscribe to a party agenda that does nothing for the working class in general.
so the extreme centre are the political parties, not a constituent cohort……think that unless that clear distinction is made (and throwing around the term extreme centre doesn’t do that) then any point attempted to be made around this will be largely dismissed.
Well, I guess it could include people who vote for the “extreme centre” parties.
Many of us think we are not being offered much of a difference between Nat/Labour/maybe Lab-Green; or between Republican/Democrat; or/Tory/Labour; or Aussie coalition/Labour. Though in each pair I’d say they Labour or Green parties are somewhat the better option. But all support the neoliberal agenda pretty much – well maybe not the Corbynistas.
And ultimately, the working classes, the unemployed, people on low incomes, the precariat, etc will continue to suffer, unless there is a true left wing option.
I do think it will need a strong, broad coalition of grass-roots, left wing campaigns and movements to shift political parties and pollies to a truly left wing position.
“Eco-fascists,” ffs. To committed socialists, everyone else is some kind of fascist. I guess I should be glad he restricted himself to “extreme centre” for describing liberals – I was half expecting it to be “liberal fascists.”
I’m also curious as to what kind of voter would try to elect to Parliament someone who thinks it’s a serious mistake to believe change can come “at a Parliamentary level.”
Ideologically intolerant illiberal liberals
Possibly not someone who’d vote for an obvious QUOCKERWODGER?
Thinking John Key was a bit of a cockwomble quockerwodger…
“The Extreme Centre” is a term coined by Tariq Ali, and refers to opposing parties having the same core commitment to a market economy, while maintaining differences in branding. https://www.versobooks.com/books/1943-the-extreme-centre
I think Joe Carolan right about forming and getting involved in movements. Neoliberalism has robbed a large part of the population of a real stake in society, and forming movements is a first step toward making a bid to reclaim it. I don’t see such movements as being in competition with the political parties of the left, but as creating platforms from which to influence and put pressure on them, rather as the business round table, etc. are able to do on the right.
Agree. So thinking of the union movement (when it was one) or the civil rights movement. Political Parties could ‘ride’ off the back of them in terms of legislation or policy formation, but the movements themselves were much, much broader (and messier in a good way) than anything a party could encapsulate.
Today, maybe momentum in the UK is playing that role to a degree.
In NZ, MANA tripped itself badly as a party by making claims to movement status. The attempt to be both introduces too many contradictions at too many levels to ever get off the ground.
I was thinking it would be nice if Joe showed signs of having understood from his time in MANA that one political entity cannot straddle (cannot be) both of those worlds (the world of political movements and the world of political parties).
So I read the piece looking for pointers, and sadly…
A lot of the parliamentary parties are hollowed out entities, they are not the movements they used to be – National, Labour and even the Greens.
The Labour Party was never a movement. Labour was a movement. The Labour Party was a party.
But maybe I’m putting too much score by a single pronouncement. Maybe it’s not really indicative of his thoughts and was a slip or just an unfortunate use of shorthand.
It’s probably charitable to regard the Joe quote as shorthand 🙂 I agree with you about not conflating a political movement with a parliamentary party, and am reminded of Roosevelt’s saying of the New Deal, “you make me do it”, meaning “I need pressure from the outside to get this through.” A strong movement from outside of parliament helps a political wing to fend off the counter-pressures that arise from within it.
Yes well it is a recipe for failure, but I wouldn’t totally mock rebranding, if properly executed. We’re not playing policy for the next day to 6 months, you should be trying to advertise policy that lands in the week leading up to early votes start pouring in. These types of analysis are tough to do, even the best prognosticators only get 6 out of ten calls right. But rebranding properly executed this way is a huge moral booster.
I don’t see such movements as being in competition with the political parties of the left, but as creating platforms from which to influence and put pressure on them, rather as the business round table, etc. are able to do on the right.
And good so. Best of luck to them all. But when it comes to political parties, for those of us who prefer to deal with the real, actually-existing world rather than utopias that could possibly come to exist if everyone else shared our ideology, the “extreme centre” Labour and Green parties with their shameful “core commitment to a market economy” are the only credible vehicles for effecting legislative change. Calling them eco-fascists and extremists isn’t the best way either to influence them or to have a chance of putting them where they can effect legislative change.
Having Carolan and Bright and/or others (TOP?) in the by-election might make for some interesting debates though. How will Ardern & Genter respond to such criticisms?
And it will be interesting to see which of the also-rans the MSM pick up on during their by-election coverage.
“eco-fascist” is Joe Carolan talking, not me. I said I agreed with him about the need for extra-parliamentary movements, but did not touch on his characterisation of the current parliamentary parties.
Sorry about that. My comment was aimed at clarifying my own views on Carolan’s post rather than addressing your comment, which I shouldn’t have because that isn’t really what the Reply button is there for.
Good luck with your real world Psycho Milt, best of British luck in it. I look forward to your next anti working people rank.
My “next” anti-worker rant? When was the existing one?
Interesting article on source protection.
https://theintercept.com/2015/01/28/how-to-leak-to-the-intercept/
On RNZ, highlighted as part of their “Best of 2016” series, and article and audio pretty much arguing the point I made a couple of days ago – about the “myth”/narrative of NZ identity, that has been historically constructed as rural, and associated with the open spaces and rural areas:
Kim Hill’s interview with historian Ben Schrader, Oct 2016:
For those that missed it, here’s Trump’s first press conference.
In my view – the forced Auckland ‘$upercity – for the 1%’, was effectively a corrupt corporate coup, and another massive dose of Neo-liberal ‘Rogernomics’ at NZ local government level.
Unlike all the other ‘declared’ Mt Albert by-election candidates, I was one of the very few, who has consistently and persistently opposed this Auckland ‘Supercity – super RIPOFF’ from Day One.
Day One being 5 September 2006, the day where the four previous City Council Mayors, at the Auckland Mayoral Forum in the Auckland Town Hall, ‘ganged up’ against Mike Lee (then Chair of the Auckland Regional Council ARC) and signed an ‘Open Letter’ to Labour PM Helen Clark, calling for an Auckland ‘Supercity’.
Fellow ‘Public Watchdog’ Lisa Prager and I, having been tipped off about this meeting, gate-crashed it and disrupted it, on the basis that there was no lawful basis for these Mayors to attempt to push any such thing, without first consulting the public.
It worked.
That day became known as ‘the failed Mayoral coup’.
How many of you knew about that?
The corporate agenda was always fewer contracts for fewer but bigger private contractors.
First Council Controlled Organisations (CCOs) – then Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs).
How many of the other ‘declared’ Mt Albert by-election candidates have consistently and persistently opposed these mechanisms for corporate control – CCOs and PPPs?
Penny Bright
Proven ‘anti-privatisation / anti- corruption campaigner’.
2017 Independent candidate Mt Albert by-election.
Why would the people of Mt Albert vote for their MP, someone who was already an MP?
Wouldn’t that effectively be a wasted vote?
Penny Bright
Proven ‘anti-privatisation / anti-corruption campaigner’.
2017 Independent candidate Mt Albert by-election.
“Wouldn’t that effectively be a wasted vote?”
Nope.
A vote for Penny Bright is a wasted vote – evidenced by your track record.
I note that Jacinda didn’t win the electorate vote in Auckland Central – so does the same comment equally apply to her?
Just asking – nicely 🙂
Kind regards
Penny Bright
2017 Independent candidate for Mt Albert by-election.
Penny, you’d have a chance if you didn’t [deleted] I mean refusing to pay your rates.., got you labelled a weirdo, you’ll have to do a lot of public good deeds to get that stigma off your name. I’m sorry if you don’t like reading it, but hell women you were all over the paper.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/79459454/Auckland-protester-Penny-Bright-won-t-budge-over-50k-rates-arrears-bill
[deleted]
[Okay Richard. I’ve been tolerant and let a fair few things slide these past couple of days. But that bullshit just steps waaay over the line. Take a week out.] – Bill
Oh – you must have missed that over 7000 people did vote for me in the 2016 Auckland Mayoralty?
Despite the effective mainstream media censorship?
She got pretty close – it was worth the fight, and she and her team worked hard to get that close.
Appreciate that point.
However, if James is suggesting that folks shouldn’t vote for someone because they haven’t won when they’ve stood as a candidate – I’m just pointing out the inconsistency in that argument?
Don’t forget that in the Mt Albert electorate are a very large number of voters who have voted for parties other than Labour or the Greens?
What will they do?
For whom will they vote?
Will they all just stay home – or might a significant number of them be moved to cast a ‘protest vote’ against the rorts, ripoffs, bribery and corruption in order to get a proven ‘anti-corruption’ campaigner inside the House, which, in itself will send a clear message that can’t be ignored?
How will voting for an existing MP who is already in Parliament, with no proven track record in fighting for transparency in the spending of public monies on private consultants and contractors – do THAT?
How many of the ‘declared’ Mt Albert candidates and people generally, have yet studied the 226 page ‘Reasons for the Verdict of Fitzgerald J’ – in the unprecedented bribery and corruption convictions of Murray Noone and Stephen Borlase?
Here’s the full Judgment:
https://www.courtsofnz.govt.nz/cases/r-v-borlase-reasons/@@images/fileDecision
Ive spent days studying this document, and, in my view it’s politically explosive.
Interested in discussing it and intend to help make it a major Mt Albert by-election issue.
Penny Bright
No considering she was just a point or two of winning, your record is a gap bigger than the Grand Canyon under every campaign you have entered
Really?
So you are unaware of the Avondale / Mt Roskill (Auckland City Council) by-election result in 2000?
Penny Bright
2017 Independent candidate Mt Albert by-election.
if I was I would be very concerned why I know this, a council by election 16 years ago, honestly
I stood as a candidate for the Water Pressure Group and polled 2nd, with nearly 6,500 votes.
Campaigned against Metrowater – the commercialisation and privatisation of water services, and against the ‘Rogernomics’ Neo-liberal model, and nearly caused an upset.
(700 votes behind Noelene Raffills).
Over 4000 votes more than the City Vision (Labour /Alliance) candidate.
I stood because a number of City Vision Auckland City Councillors had sold out on their stated policies / pledges to abolish Metrowater.
(There will be some from The Standard who will recall this.)
Raised a few eyebrows at the time….
Penny Bright
2017 Independent candidate for the Mt Albert by-election.
I stand corrected and apoligise
Apology accepted 🙂
Aw, c’mon james, where’s your sense of humour? We could rename Parliament TV to “Penny in Da House” and it might even become fun to watch. Besides, 7 months of an MP’s salary should be enough for Penny to pay her rates bill so we can stop hearing about that all the time.
This shit has got to stop and restrictions put on foreign “investors”
The last sentence gets me
“Though it had no “concrete” plans for the properties, “commercial sense” indicated the site would be developed to help ease Auckland’s housing shortage.”
Nah fucking Bullshit, that is the last thing they are thinking of. They are more interested in making a killing owing to the housing crisis created by this pack of shit we have as a government.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11782787
“owing to the housing crisis created by this pack of shit we have as a government.”
Remind me which government signed the free trade agreement that allowed overseas Chinese to buy houses here with out restriction?
Hint – it was labour.
remind me, you want a five or ten minute argument on the things governments have done.. I mean that’s a risky line, secondly, there are always restrictions..don’t make a little truth and then add a big fat lie.
and it was not Labour who let 70k a month into the country, they still had to go through the appropriate channels.., but under National they flooded the place with money, they sold out to crime and money laundering, National, there is no other you could compare to that.
as for stupidity both parties earn a gold star for wiliam liu turns out he’s connected with drug deals all sorts yet both parties were happy to blow him daily for cash..
aww the commies are after me, i’m rich.. how the hell do you get THAT rich in china?
James, your a proven shit stirrer, track record, every post, truth a smidgeon lies a lot.. /slap
Both Labour and National are slaves to neo-liberal ideology.
It would appear you support the more extreme version of neo-liberalism, so you hardly in a position to criticise Labour on this.
James @ 10.1.1
Who said it wasn’t but it still doesn’t get away from the fact we have a pack of shit as a government that has been in government for eight years and done fuck all about it and made the situation worse by selling off state houses.,.
If you are going to start the “labour did it as well” shit I haven’t seen this pack of crap reversing the rules YET.
Remind me which government signed the free trade agreement that allowed overseas Chinese to buy houses here with out restriction?
Labour. Now let’s remind ourselves which government has been in power for all the years since it became apparent that wasn’t a good idea and is causing the country significant damage? National.
Labour gets to claim “unforeseen consequences” to account for its role in this debacle. National gets to choose from “incompetence,” “neglect,” “greed” or “malice” to explain its involvement. My money would be on “greed,” that one’s always a safe bet with Nat govts.
Unitary Plan driving up the cost/value of housing.
“In scenes likely to be repeated across the Super City, large subdividable sites are proving irresistible to wealthy investors due to their newfound development potential under the Unitary Plan.”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11782787
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11782951
This shit needs sorting now.
Like, seriously, its 20 bleeding 17 and the Christchurch City Council is still discharging untreated wastewater and sewerage into the Avon and Heathcote Rivers.
FFS…stop blaming the earthquake….how about bulding a bigger capacity waste water treatment plant on some of that red zoned land?
To sort out fake news from real news, you need to study art history – even more than STEM subjects (!):
http://www.salon.com/2017/01/15/the-art-of-learning-why-art-history-might-be-the-most-important-subject-you-could-study-today/
I dunno, man, that one looks dodgy to me. Better hold judgement until more corroboration comes along.
Reporters don’t quite know what to make of the like economy because so much advertising revenue is getting sucked into social media, away from production costs. This is what trying to breathe life into a dead corpse looks like. It’s unfortunate this had to happen to people like Pilger/5thestate/Mihingarangi/Campbell/ect.
How it should be (Basic Income)
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11782947
english backed labours ets , i wonder if he backed keys gutting of it .
It’s Time To Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is
Simon Wilson highlights National’s Index of Shame.
For me, the issues I would focus on most are Inequality (#1, #4, #7, #8 and and #12), the Environment (#2, # 17 and #9) and workers rights (#5 and and #10)
For more details read here
http://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/14-01-2017/nationals-index-of-shame-and-the-other-issues-the-left-need-to-focus-on-this-election/?utm_source=The+Spinoff&utm_medium=CPE&utm_campaign=National%E2%80%99s+Index+of+Shame%2C+and+the+other+issues+the+left+need+to+focus+on+this+election
He forgot this summer which to date has been pretty crap,
That’s down to the preevislabagummin.
Agree😀
Where’s ‘Corruption’ on this list?
Not there yet?
It will be ….
Penny Bright
2017 Independent candidate for the Mt Albert by-election.
Sounds like a worried man,but there is nothing new under the sun.
A woman in a hot air balloon realized she was lost. She reduced altitude and spotted a man below. She descended a bit more and shouted: “‘Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago but I don’t know where I am”. The man below replied “You’re in a hot air balloon hovering approximately 30 feet above the ground. You’re between 40 and 41 degrees north latitude and between 59 and 60 degrees west longitude”.
“You must be a technician.” said the balloonist. “I am” replied the man “how did you know?” “Well,” answered the balloonist, “everything you have told me is probably technically correct, but I’ve no idea what to make of your information and the fact is, I’m still lost. Frankly, you’ve not been much help at all. If anything, you’ve delayed my trip with your talk.”
The man below responded, “You must be in management”. “I am” replied the balloonist, “but how did you know?” “Well,” said the man “you don’t know where you are or where you’re going. You have risen to where you are, due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise, which you’ve no idea how to keep, and you expect people beneath you to solve your problems. The fact is you are in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but now, somehow, it’s my fucking fault!
Different shades of blue.
Sharon Murdoch points out the diary industry is doing everything they can to try and confuse people about water pollution
your link isn’t working
bizarre and broken link.
https://twitter.com/domesticanimal?lang=en
Guessing it was this. (second post down) I’ve no idea how to isolate shit from twitter feeds 😉
Click on the top right time/date stamp / three dots bottom centre /select embed tweet/ copy paste the embed code in the box.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C2Kd9sYVIAAHkPa.jpg
Time/date/three dots bottom center/embed tweet/copy paste embed code.
The image – https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C2Kd9sYVIAAHkPa.jpg
ohh he tapped a cow with his foot and called her a bitch , hang the bastard
You’ve lost me, bwag.
the mini vid in your link , if you scroll down, i wonder if your average radical vegan would like to be videoed in secret.
Thank you
Click on the date and the URL will change to that specific tweet e.g.
Good cartoon.
Cheers both.
Yes that was it
Fascists of the world unite.
/
heh
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2017/01/12/minding-their-knitting.html
Looks like a legal challenge of the Government’s stance on Medical Cannabis is brewing.
http://publicaddress.net/hardnews/is-the-ministry-of-health-acting-outside/
It’s going to the high court
Good read that one, thanks for the link
Despite all the discussions above I am still waiting for the Nat’s to tell us why Key resigned.
The King is dead. Long live the King.
Despite all the above concerns I am still waiting for the Nat’s to tell us why Key resigned.
He was concerned with level of KDS so he did it for the good of the people. All hail Jk
Fake news propagated by the Guardian
Russian treachery is extreme and it is everywhere
Here’s a tip: if the piece is in the “Opinion” section and says “Opinion” right next to the headline, chances are it’s an opinion piece and not news, fake or otherwise.
Nothing fake about this bit:
The essential question of how to tackle the City banks and law firms that launder money for the Russian kleptocracy has yet to be faced.
Vlad doesn’t need to worry about the Tories taking any serious anti-Russian actions as long as that cash cornucopia’s still operating. In the unlikely event you see Theresa May actually doing something about that money-laundering, then it’s time to worry.
And the Guardian promotes certain opinions a lot…..
so you are admitting your claims of fake news where Fake Paulsky
No.
Thanks for acknowledging my sources are the reputable journalists such as Cockburn, PIlger, Greenwald, Fisk, Oborne. Monbiot…..
Unlike the MSM fake propaganda from the BBC, the Washington Post, CNN, al Jazeera, Fairfax Media you depend on…
I shall stick to independent sources….neither Moscow nor Washington.
Your sources meanwhile come from US government talking points.
So, just to clarify, the Nick Cohen piece was clearly labelled as opinion and not pretending to be a news report, so therefore couldn not have been “fake news”.
David Bellamy uses shonky figures as basis for statement that world’s glaciers are growing. #FakeNews
http://mainstreammediaexposed.com/david-bellamy-being-humiliated-by-george-monbiot-over-climate-change-david-bellamy-and-bad-science-fakenews/
a train from china to england.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/14/china-silk-road-trade-train-rolls-london
awesome.
Indeed
Shame on Jesse Jackson, John Lewis, and Cory Booker;
When the U.S. most needs leadership, they have failed egregiously.
Over the last week or so, we have heard much about three men, all of them Democratic Party politicians, who have spoken out strongly against Donald Trump. Congressman JOHN LEWIS of Georgia is a legend in the civil rights community; more than fifty years ago, he marched with Martin Luther King Jr. from Selma to Birmingham, and had his skull smashed by “law enforcement” thugs. The Rev. JESSE JACKSON in 1988 got 6.6 million votes in his run for the Democratic nomination; he is famous around the world for his eloquent defense of human rights. And New Jersey senator CORY BOOKER last week became the second senator in history to testify against one of his colleagues when, at the Senate confirmation hearing, he spoke against Trump’s unbelievable nomination for Attorney General, the racist Alabama senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions.
This all sounds impressive, and it’s the kind of political news that gives people hope during these dark and dread-filled days of waiting for the horrifying reality of a Ku Klux Klan-endorsed candidate reciting the Presidential oath on Friday.
Actually, on close inspection, these three turn out to be no more honest or trustworthy than some of their more unpleasant, less revered colleagues. This past week both Lewis and Jackson have shown that, whatever glorious and brave deeds they have performed in the past, they are first and foremost Democratic Party loyalists. And being a Democratic Party loyalist right now means that you are under intense pressure to repeat the most absurd, fantastic and lurid anti-Russian propaganda.
The other day, on NBC’s Meet the Press John Lewis, civil rights hero, lowered himself to the level of the most shameless Clinton apparatchiks as he delivered the following fantasy, which might as well have been written for him by John Dean or Debbie Wasserman Schultz….
http://reason.com/blog/2017/01/14/rep-john-lewis-says-trump-is-not-a-legit
Equally on message, equally loyal, equally cynical is another former civil rights warrior, Jesse Jackson who, when taunted by a Fox News troll to comment on why Hillary Clinton lost, said this:
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/jesse-jackson-gave-fox-news-troll-perfect-answer-why-hillary-lost-less-10-seconds
And as for Senator Cory Booker: well, the United States needs another Barack Obama like it needs another nuclear weapons building program….
http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/1/14/14262732/cory-booker-senate-democrats
At a time when the United States more than ever needs people of proven rectitude and character to step forward and speak truthfully and fearlessly, two old civil rights warriors have thrown in the towel, and a superficially attractive young politician is exposed as just another smooth-talking fraud. Thus party politics doth make cowards of us all.
Stephen Cohen on Tucker Carlson: Empty Accusations of Russian Meddling Have Become “Grave National Security Threat”
Tucker Carlson and Glenn Greenwald Discuss Deep State War Vs Trump
“Trump will be assassinated” Paul Craig Roberts & Max Keiser
Last Minute Change in Security at Inauguration Reminiscent of JFK in Dealey Plaza