That’s shocking as. Housing crisis to blame? Lack of motels maybe?
Why on earth put up guards at a Hotel, sick of it, sick of the overspending and mismanagement of NZ’s finances at the hands of the outgoing national government.
2 million !! Imagine the good that kind of money could have done rather than giving it all to a local hotel. I wonder if the national government needs some budgeting advice? Sick of them wasting money, enough is enough.
Cinny
Yes, exactly right. This is part of the National Party neolib adventure which promises business that it will sell, often quite cheaply, all its service performance requirements to them. Businesses are working to attach their suckers to every available entry in the government fabric.
Leeches are cleaners, useful insects when used in medicine. Private enterprise used sometimes is useful, but not when NZ is getting a third carve-up, first Maui, second the colonial rush, and third the neo lib nasties.
Bad medicine. Will this period be known as The Age of the Locusts?
This is now the third article by experienced independent journalists denouncing the propaganda being fed to the Western public,
This article is worth reporting in detail.
Why is it ok to bomb Mosul but not Aleppo?
Assad and his allies have carried out war crimes. But so have the rebels
by Peter Oborne
British news-papers have been informing their readers about two contrasting battles in the killing grounds of the Middle East.
For the past few weeks, One is Mosul , in northern Iraq, where western reporters are accompanying an army of liberation as it frees a joyful population from terrorist control. The other concerns Aleppo, just a few hundred miles to the west.This, apparently, is the exact opposite.
Here, a murderous dictator, hellbent on destruction, is waging war on his own people.
Both these narratives contain strong elements of truth. There is no question that President Assad and his Russian allies have committed war crimes, and we can all agree that Mosul will be far better off without Isis. Nevertheless, the situations in Mosul and Aleppo are fundamentally identical. In both cases, forces loyal to an internationally recognised government are attacking well-populated cities, with the aid of foreign air power. These cities are under the control of armed groups or terrorists, who are holding a proportion of their population hostage.
In Mosul, fewer than 10,000 Isis fighters control about a million people. In eastern Aleppo, it is estimated that about 5,000 armed men, the majority linked to al–Qaeda, dominate a population of about 200,000. In each case the armed groups use the zones they occupy to attack government areas with rockets, mortars and other weapons.
So Prime Minister al-Abadi in Iraq and President Assad in Syria face the same dilemma. Should they do nothing for fear of killing civilians? Or do they take air action and eliminate the so-called rebels, but at terrible cost in innocent blood as they wage merciless war against ruthless insurgents?
In both cases, enormous bloodshed could be prevented if the terrorist groups let the civilian population leave. Last month the UN special envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura, pleaded with Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (formerly al-Qaeda, but now decoupled and rebranded) to do just that: ‘One thousand of you are deciding the destiny of 270,000 civilians.’ He pointedly used the word ‘hostage’ to describe the way these civilians were being held by the rebels and not by Assad.
This episode highlighted the double standard about western reporting of these terrible problems.
In Mosul, western reporters travelling with the invading Iraqi army publish pictures of joyful populations liberated from the jihadists. In Aleppo, the attempt to free the city from al-Qaeda control is portrayed as a remorseless attack on the civilian population.
A further double standard concerns the reporting of Russian and Syrian atrocities. Much has — rightly — been made of the so-called barrel bombs dropped on Aleppo by the Russians. Yet rebel commanders in eastern Aleppo use equally hideous weapons. Last April, fighters from Jaish al-Islam, backed by Saudi Arabia and considered moderate enough that American diplomats retain relations with them, admitted to using chemical weapons against the Kurds in Aleppo. This attack received almost no attention from the media, and failed to generate the faintest outrage in Britain.
Yet another double standard applies to the destruction of hospitals. When I was in Aleppo, I interviewed Mohamad El-Hazouri, head of the department of health, at the Razi hospital. He told me that when rebel groups entered the city they put six of the 16 hospitals out of service, as well as 100 of the 201 health centres, and wiped out the ambulance service.
There is a wider pattern at work here. When opponents of the West try to reclaim urban areas from terrorists, they are denounced. When our allies do the same — think of Israel in Gaza or the Saudis in Yemen — we defend them. We judge Assad by one set of rules, and ourselves and our own allies by another.
Right at the end of the discussion, Stephen Cohen lost all patience with Roth, and dealt to him….
STEPHEN COHEN: That’s not talking with Putin; that’s putting pressure on Putin.
KENNETH ROTH: And talk to him, too. And we never objected to the ongoing debate, the ongoing conversation, but it shouldn’t be in lieu of the kind of pressure, which is all that Putin listens to these days.
STEPHEN COHEN: Oh, for God’s sake. That’s all he listens to. And you base that on what? Your careful study—
KENNETH ROTH: I’m watching—I’ve watched—
STEPHEN COHEN: Your careful study of Putin? Your following of Russian politics?
KENNETH ROTH: I’ve watched two—yeah, I’ve watched—let me answer. Let me answer.
STEPHEN COHEN: Look, at some point, let’s be fact-based, OK?
KENNETH ROTH: I’ve watched him for two years—
STEPHEN COHEN: You simply don’t know what you’re—oh.
KENNETH ROTH: —talk and talk and talk with Kerry and Lavrov.
STEPHEN COHEN: Oh, oh.
KENNETH ROTH: And he just continued with the atrocities.
STEPHEN COHEN: You watched it, or you listened to what he said? Or you listened—you read it?
KENNETH ROTH: The only way to ratchet up—the only way he has made any—
STEPHEN COHEN: Oh, for God’s sake.
KENNETH ROTH: —change in Syria is when the pressure mounts.
STEPHEN COHEN: We’re back to Syria now.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to have to leave it there. We’re going to have to leave it there, but I want to thank you both for being a part of this discussion. Stephen Cohen is professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at Princeton and New York University. And Kenneth Roth is executive director of Human Rights Watch. This is Democracy Now! When we come back, we look at Trump’s pick to be the secretary of energy, Rick Perry. Stay with us.
The only incoherent person in that studio was Kenneth Roth. Professor Cohen rightly pointed out that Roth knew virtually nothing and was a thoughtless megaphone for the State Department.
That you choose to call Professor Cohen’s challenging of that charlatan a “pointless interruption” tells us everything we need to know about how frivolous and insubstantial you are.
I had a look at the transcript on the site you linked to and I see Roth describing what’s happening and Cole obfuscating on behalf of the Russians. To you, that’s “frivolous and insubstantial,” but you always have plenty to say about how ignorant and unsophisticated other people are, usually while peddling some risible nonsense yourself, so I won’t be losing any sleep over it.
I had a look at the transcript on the site you linked to and I see Roth describing what’s happening and Cole [sic] obfuscating on behalf of the Russians.
If Roth had merely been “describing what’s happening”, Cohen would not have had to point out that he was merely repeating the most inflammatory State Department rhetoric. And you are deliberately misconstruing what Professor Cohen said.
The “frivolous and insubstantial” charge was directed at you.
This is now the third article by experienced independent journalists denouncing the propaganda being fed to the Western public…
Well, denouncing one side’s propaganda while propagating the other side’s, maybe.
And the headline “Why is it ok to bomb Mosul but not Aleppo?” must be one of the most cynical and disingenuous lines written about this conflict by someone not directly employed as a propagandist. No wonder you’re promoting it.
I don’t think you’ll find any of the above journalists are propagating one side.
They are simply pointing out that the corporate embedded message we are getting is extremely one sided.
So what? What is your point? That media is bias – well fuck me dead I never realised. //SARC
It seems like the – look at this disgusting porn which I have now watched for 3 hours non-stop to see how bad it is. War/propaganda porn is as damaging and delusional.
I get that Paul – is it the questioning of the narrative that is your main point.
Some of us never accept the narrative even if it is all over the MSM – you know that right. Some of us know that it is propaganda AND that still, in 2017, people are getting slaughtered – whether by this creed or that one – you know that right. Some of us are SO far away from the murders and atrocities that we realise ANY of our conclusions derived from some information from there, is always bias to our own preconceived ideas, ideals, and ethos, and we accept that.
Thanks Karen – I just find the fundamentalist “I know what is happening on the other side of the world and you don’t” line so arrogant, let alone false.
why don’t you piss off morrie – your snide digs show what an inadequate little prat you are – go send another email dissing Kim Hill why don’t you you pompous freak.
you know you’re a turd morrie – sure, a pretentious one who has a very inflated and puffed up view of his own intelligence and insight and that is your right. Try doing some wider and deeper reading if you want your piglet to fly.
marty mars
You would have more credibility if you didn’t erupt so violently and emotionally. It seems to happen quite often. Why waste words, just a few are more cutting. Morrissey grows faster with this sort of manure.
I get some enjoyment from using words/sentences – good for my scrabble too. I don’t think I erupted at all, from an unprovoked and nasty snide attack on me after I asked a question of Paul. I like the fact that some find me too ’emotional’ but I think it is too far and quite rude to call me violent 🙂 I do get that I swear a lot – sorry for those you don’t like swearing – they are just words…
It’s kind of funny that you’re on here every day posting propaganda from regime sympathisers while also claiming to be outraged about “media bias.” Your peddling of propaganda on behalf of Russia, Iran and their client Assad is an object lesson in bias.
As to the links you provide, the lack of civilian-casualty stories from Mosul isn’t a reflection of western media bias, it’s a reflection of the fact that the place is held by Da’Esh. It’s also a reflection of the fact that Mosul hasn’t been subjected to massive, indiscriminate aerial bombardment. Your and others’ efforts at false equivalence can’t alter those things.
As to the links you provide, the lack of civilian-casualty stories from Mosul isn’t a reflection of western media bias, it’s a reflection of the fact that the place is held by Da’Esh.
I claimed the lack of news reports in western media about civilian casualties in Mosul is a reflection of the place being held by Da’Esh. Not because there aren’t any civilian casualties (there’ll be plenty) but because the only stories Da’Esh is interested in supplying to western media are about the western prisoners they’re holding, the gruesome executions they’re carrying out, or the obnoxious bluster their spokesmen churn out.
Robert Fisk, Peter Oborn and Patrick Cockburn are not regime sympathisers nor do they peddle propaganda on behalf of Russia, Iran and their client Assad.
The Washington Post, al Jazeera, the BBC and the Guardian do promote an agenda, just as Press TV, RTV and others promote the other side.
Paul get real mate. Robert Fisk lives in South Lebanon. His narrative on Syria is largely from the Hezbollah perspective, nothing wrong with that per se but to pretend the guy is some neutral observer is just asinine. Your sources are just as biased as those you criticise.
You are aware of these three journalists impeccable credentials, aren’t you?
Yet you believe the establishment puppets.
Did you believe this one as well?
wayne mapp, bill english and Key were spreading the same lies and supporting war here in NZ …..
” In the leadup to the Iraq war, National MPs were howling for New Zealand to back the US and get involved. Then Foreign Affairs spokesperson Wayne Mapp complained that we had questioned US intelligence on WMDs (I bet he feels stupid now) and demanded that we “stand firm with [our] traditional friends and allies” by supporting a second resolution authorising the war. The party complained that we had supported the international consensus of demanding solid evidence before invading another country. When the war began, Bill English demanded that NZ troops be sent immediately …. ” http://norightturn.blogspot.co.nz/search?q=wayne+mapp%2Bwar
Mark Mitchell was part of the “mission accomplished” from that illegal war/invasion …. if any present mp in NZ has expertise on creating the conditions that empowers and grows groups like ISIS it would be him. ….
Patrick Oliver Cockburn ( born 5 March 1950) is an Irish journalist who has been a Middle East correspondent for The Independent. He has also worked as a correspondent in Moscow and Washington and is a frequent contributor to the London Review of Books.
He has written three books on Iraq’s recent history. He won the Martha Gellhorn Prize in 2005, the James Cameron Prize in 2006, the Orwell Prize for Journalism in 2009,Foreign Commentator of the Year (Editorial Intelligence Comment Awards 2013), Foreign Affairs Journalist of the Year (British Journalism Awards 2014), Foreign Reporter of the Year (The Press Awards For 2014). Seymour Hersh has described him as the “best western journalist at work in Iraq today.”
Robert Fisk (born 12 July 1946) is an English writer and journalist from Maidstone, Kent. He has been Middle East correspondent intermittently since 1976 for various media; since 1989 he is correspondent for The Independent, primarily based in Beirut. Fisk holds more British and international journalism awards than any other foreign correspondent and has been voted British International Journalist of the Year seven times. He has published a number of books and reported on several wars and armed conflicts.
What’s your point Paul? So you go googling to find some references that back up your argument and quote only those that do. Wow, that’s novel.
In the process of said googling you would undoubtedly have been presented with numerous other references that questioned your precious ‘impeccable credentials’ but of course you blithely ignore all those and see only what you want to see.
Fisk is well known to have good relations with Hezbollah, they wouldn’t let him live there if he didn’t. On the Syrian issue the other side won’t talk much with him, they know who he is. Most of his sources will be from the Hezbollah/Assad perspective and his reporting on Syria will reflect that.
Paul’s point is that he has an awesome argument from authority because the people he reads are trustworthy, objective experts in the field like, er, Eva Bartlett, which means Paul, by reading their stuff, is likewise brilliantly well-informed on the subject, whereas you are a mere dupe of western media bias. And also argument from authority is totally not a logical fallacy.
And the third journalist in Assad and Russia’s camp…..
Peter Alan Oborne (born 11 July 1957) is a British journalist. He is the associate editor of The Spectator and former chief political commentator of The Daily Telegraph, from which he resigned in early 2015. He is author of The Rise of Political Lying and The Triumph of the Political Class, and, with Frances Weaver, the pamphlet Guilty Men.
Oborne is known for his acerbic commentary on the hypocrisy and apparent mendacity of contemporary politicians.
On 17 February 2015, Oborne resigned from The Daily Telegraph. In a letter posted to the online news website, open Democracy, Oborne criticised his former employer for the allegedly unscrupulous relationship between their editorial and commercial arms. Specifically, Oborne outlined how the paper would suppress negative stories and drop investigations into the HSBC bank, a major source of their advertising revenue, which, in his opinion, compromised their journalistic integrity calling it a “form of fraud on its readers”.
There’s nothing I can say that will enlighten you Paul. You’ve got your view and nothing will will shake you from it.
When two opposing sides present their own version of events the truth is usually somewhere in the middle. The message being sent to you here, Paul, is that’s how most neutral people likely see the Syrian debacle. Both sides are lying propagandists, both are truth tellers. You choose to take a side, stop assuming that everyone else does.
Yet you believe the establishment puppets.
Did you believe this one as well?
It’s also kind of funny that you can spot propaganda when it’s from people you don’t like, but are happy to publish propaganda and defend it as objective reporting when it’s from people you do like.
So what are your sources psycho? I shall genuinely look at them.
Your nom de plume seems apt given the violent outbursts I receive for publishing contrarian viewpoints to the establishment narrative. Any chance you could tone down the aggro?
Absolutely. All that’s needed is for you to stop posting apologia for war crimes and then claiming the people who object to it are ill-informed.
As to my “sources,” I don’t have any impeccably-qualified authorities to spin logical fallacies from. I read things and watch the news, and am thereby no less ill-qualified to express opinions on this subject than you or Morrissey, who likewise read stuff and watch the news. None of us are experts on this subject, we’re people with opinions blathering on blog comments threads. If you could grasp that concept, you’d find fewer replies from me under your comments.
Right on Paul and Morrissey. PM and DH are suckers for Western propaganda. Sad thing is, so are most Westerners. We have had nothing but bullshit since half way through WW2 from Western interests, and still these suckers fall for every word.
Obectivity seems to be an impossible ask.
DH“His narrative on Syria is largely from the Hezbollah perspective,”
Ummm, no.
If there’s been one aspect over the last 2 decades where Fisk has come in for criticism from progressive scholars/writers/analysts on Lebanon … it’s that he was too closely aligned with the Hariri-block and with his friend Walid Jumblatt. And that, hence, Fisk was far too predisposed to regurgitate some of the more banal US-Israeli propaganda specifically on Hezbollah.
That’s a critique from experts who otherwise have a great deal of time for the high quality and integrity of his journalism.
All of which suggests – as Paul and Morrissey have already pointed out – that you really don’t have too much of a clue.
As anyone who has visited The Standard regularly over the last five years or so could tell you, actually, yes, swordfish does know what he’s talking about when it comes to Palestine, Israel, Lebanon and Syria.
And, as is painfully obvious, you know next to nothing.
Although I’m all for robust debate, I’m not sure I’d even bother with these Clintonistas, Paul. They’re a smug, preening, pompous little band of Stewie Griffins. Not a great deal of honesty, integrity or backbone. (you’ll look in vain for any critique of US foreign policy, for instance. Not in their interests. Where the New York Times and Washington Post go … they quickly follow – as fast as their little legs will carry them)
All you’re ever gonna get from these wonderfully droll wannabe hipsters are increasingly desperate attempts at erudite little bon mots. Such are the unquenchable depths of their self-delight.
An interesting article by Danyl McLaughlan – about how John Key’s expertise in finance trading gave him an understanding of how to play other complex systems – like politics – and “win” at the “game”. Means he was a conservative who favoured incremental change, but failed to deal with the most pressing issues facing the country.
He was a conservative who believed in incremental improvements rather than radical reform, and if that happened to benefit him and his caucus, and the parties membership and donor-class… well, that’s just politics, right?
This isn’t the worst way you can govern a country, as I suspect the various western democracies voting radical authoritarians into power are about to find out. But it did mean that most of the serious problems facing New Zealand, which could only be addressed by large-scale reform, never got fixed under his watch.
It’s frustrating, given Key’s obvious political genius, that he only addressed it to winning at the superficial elements of politics: raising money, winning elections, mocking the opposition as it self-destructed, getting good coverage, being popular. Understanding the game and then beating it. To me the most quintessential Key policy is his reform of the Emissions Trading Scheme: Key and his Trade Minister found a brilliant way to rort the international carbon trading system, buying hundreds of millions of dollars of quasi-legal Russian and Ukrainian carbon credits. It was an ingenious way to prevent New Zealand from having to reduce our carbon emissions, which would have lead to all sorts of reforms and costs that might have compromised Key’s popularity.
It may not be the absolute worst way to run a country – but that’s a very low bar. It certainly hasn’t helped the country, and it’s been very bad for the least well-off.
“To me the most quintessential Key policy is his reform of the Emissions Trading Scheme: Key and his Trade Minister found a brilliant way to rort the international carbon trading system, buying hundreds of millions of dollars of quasi-legal Russian and Ukrainian carbon credits. It was an ingenious way to prevent New Zealand from having to reduce our carbon emissions, which would have lead to all sorts of reforms and costs that might have compromised Key’s popularity.”
“brilliant, rort,ingenious?…..that says more about the author than it does about Key……the entire article needs to read with that as its foundation.
Like any day trader, he maximised short term profits (for himself and cronies) and left social destruction for others to clean up ( housing, immigration, super, tax havens, debt levels, etc). It does not require huge skills to asset strip a country over 8 years, but it does require skills to avoid detection and deflect blame).
I think he will go down as one of the worst PM’s we have ever had, once the books get opened. He’s a Muldoon – leaving a big mess for others.
It seems worth comparing McLaughlan’s It may not be the absolute worst way to run a country – but that’s a very low bar. It certainly hasn’t helped the country, and it’s been very bad for the least well-off. with Gould’s …the battle was not one of personality politics, but real politics…The personality was merely the means by which a deadly serious re-making of New Zealand – along ideological lines – was being undertaken.
By McLaughlin’s account, Key focused on winning and paid scant attention to the plight of the least well off. By Gould’s account he was a man on a mission who employed a winning strategy. I find Gould’s account the more plausible. When people are being kicked out of houses for fabricated reasons, and being plunged into huge debts that they will never be able to pay, and the architects of that scheme are elevated as Key’s anointed heirs, then it all looks more deliberate than accidental. In fact it is almost worth asking them if they hope, following in the footsteps of nineteenth century colonists, that the least wealthy 20-30% will either bugger off or gradually die out. It is what their actions suggest.
Edit: I should also have mentioned our overflowing prison population.
I found Gould’s account more realistic too, Olwyn. Key was parachuted in to do a job (for unknown others), he’s done it, and he’s flown out again – leaving an exploited demoralised country behind him.
If the appearances of a leader are taken on trust by influential commentators and the general populace, then mythology will prevail. History will be fabricated rather than examined. The three widely propagated myths about John Key are; that he was not really ideological, he occupied the political centre and that he left no legacy.
Its my last day of work for the year so might even be getting an early knock off so hopefully everyone has a good a Christmas as I’m going to or preferably even better!
Merry Christmas PR, enjoy your break, have a great time with friends and family and come back refreshed and ready to go for election year! (someone needs to remind these guys that NZ polls are generally accurate!)
We really do live in one of the best countries in the world, I mean sure theres no white Christmas but I think warm weather is better for festivities anyway
Beside the only the only poll that counts is on election day 😉
Not allowed to use the computer at home, Pucky?
Rules with an iron fist, does she? 🙂
Could be though, that you have self-discipline. If that’s the case, respect.
You are often the mustard on an otherwise great sandwich, (with a tendency towards vinegar) but sour taste and all, there is sometimes a moment when you provide the perfect note.
For that reason, (and not for the boasting of early holidays, you just can’t help yourself can you?) – enjoy your break.
Hey, Pucky – I was sequestered in the council chamber yesterday and not free to play the blogs, so missed your Christmas message and the opportunity to give you a ribbing. Have a good break, play fair and be kind to your people. Spend some time too, reflecting on aspects of your personality that are holding you back; your tendency to adore duplicitous authority figures, your habit of repeating nonsense ad nauseum, that sort of thing 🙂
In any case, see you in the New Year, by which time you’ll have realised what has happened and how parlous National’s position post-Key and you’ll have lost your puckiness, but there’ll still be a place here for you, in your depleted state.
Merry Christmas, Puck.
Go away Max, your dad has, time for you to do the same. If you really have let go of your ego, what’s with this professionally filmed self promotion? NZ is over it, go and promote yourself in Hawaii.
As for the Herald, wtf are you promoting? A washed up ex PM’s attention seeking son, jeepers you must be desperate for stories
a real man… does not ride a woman, a real man satisfies a woman by letting her ride him. Too much information? Nah just reality, something that boy Max needs a dose of. lololz
you do have redeeming attributes for a rightie – that is true – at least you are coherent in your rightieness and you do have a sense of humour which I find rarely in righties.
How about a real Kiwi Man? It appears PR may have left the building.. but in the spirit of Kiwi Men and Christmas giggles, i just gotta contribute more than words.. dun dun dunnnn taa da..
“Hidden due to low comment rating.”
How Kiwiblog’s sensitive souls are spared having to read my posts.
Yesterday (Thursday 15/12/16) I achieved some kind of record over on Kiwiblog. Seven—-count ’em, SEVEN—of my posts on just one discussion thread were accorded the grim accolade of “Hidden due to low comment rating.” This stern notice of exclusion is followed by the invitation: “Click here to see”, which rather defeats the purpose.
Now, I fancy myself as a bit of an amateur psychologist, and I reckon that’s the approximate equivalent to the old “sealed section” that magazines like Cleo used to entice readers back when people used to read magazines.
Well it is and it isn’t, Cinny. The forcing of my posts into that “naughty corner” is indeed a kind of censorship, but it’s not total censorship. David Farrar is far more tolerant, and intelligent, than Cameron “Whaleoil” Slater, who has banned me forever more.
Mind you, I was always headed for disaster over at Whaleoil, right from my very first post, which reminded the guys at Whaleoil that Todd McLay’s father Roger, the ex-National M.P. and persecutor of Peter Ellis, was in prison….
Oh, it’s happened all right. Things really got bad the day I muscled in on a thread administered by the formidable Queen of Thorns. It led to the Mother of All Bollockings……
Ha! The posters on Kiwiblog are currently lionizing one Bill English, who brazenly stole money from taxpayers in a notorious housing rort [1] which would have driven anyone with a conscience to resign in disgrace.
The rest of the time they spend praising one John Key, whose sub-zero respect for the law was laid bare in Nicky Hager’s Dirty Politics. [2]
Yet YOU claim that these moral paragons routinely heap the vilest personal abuse on a woman because they respect the law. Do you realise the irony of what you are saying?
I have defended my lawful rights as a citizen to find out exactly where ratepayers and citizens’ public monies are being spent on private sector consultants and contractors.
Feel rather vindicated, following the unprecedented verdict last Friday (9 December 2016 – International Anti-Corruption Day) in the Auckland High Court, by Justice Sally Fitzgerald, of bribery and corruption charges against a senior Auckland Transport manager and contractor.
The bribes over a 7 year period between those two amounted to $1.2 million.
(Sentencing will be on 22 February 2017).
I predict a ‘blue collar’ sentence for these two ‘white collar’ criminals.
That this is the ‘tip of the iceberg’ regarding corruption in the NZ roading industry, is the subject of a five page investigative article in today’s NBR (print version).
Penny Bright
‘Anti-privatisation / anti-corruption Public Watchdog’.
I was not directly involved in the SFO prosecution of the corrupt contractor and corrupt Auckland Transport senior manager.
However, I have been involved now for some years ‘blowing the whistle’ and ‘making a fuss’ against the lack of transparency in the spending of public monies on private sector consultants and contractors.
Penny Bright
‘Anti-privatisation / anti-corruption Public Watchdog’.
seems they rate you the same as many here – ‘oh dear – ego under attack – must think of pompous pretend intelligent reply’ – you’ve been lambasted here by some fine fellows and fellowesses over the years for inaccurate, nay made up ‘transcripts’ yet that water off your duck back is yellowish – none so blind eh morrie the minor.
You have a point to make in that flood of bile, marty, but it gets lost in the clumsy verbiage. greywarshark counseled you earlier today on the need to be concise; you should have listened.
About what? That lots of Kiwiblog’s commenters don’t like you? That seems to be the standard reason for down-ticking a comment over there. Shouldn’t you be pleased rather than offended that the Angry White Men of Kiwiblog don’t like your comments?
I’m afraid that since I was banned from the Daisycutter Sports Inc. following the 2005 Christmas party, my access to the young women and men who used to back me up so vociferously on nz.general and rec.sport.rugby.union has pretty much dried up.
Some people think that I’ve created the hapless “Psycho Milt” as a scapegoat sock puppet, but I can assure you that he puts those idiotic words up there by himself.
I think the government is losing Auckland in a big way and the opposition really needs to make sure voters know there is an alternative. One of governance and planning rather than a wild west free for all.
Yep. The ministry, which have denied there is a problem, has 500 teachers from England ready to go, apparently.
Where are they going to live? How are they going to get to work?
I can guarantee you those mythical 500 teachers from England will be shocked by the state of transport infrastructure and housing if they ever make it to Auckland.
Well what an end to the year in NZ politics. key gone, gnat mps gone, other mps gone, english and the fakewestieladderpuller in. Whew!!! I am LOVING it. Meanwhile the shit the system (and it’s little helpers) do, continues and the disadvantaged and less able continue to get shat on from a great height.
I sense a change in the centre of balance – I’m feeling a movement beginning (sorry potty humour).
Those who support left values are going to have to dig deep next year to take advantage of these changes. The pressure must be maintained and increased. The dumbarse gnat ministers must be hounded and continually asked the hard questions and their lies scrutinised and illuminated.
For left activists like me there are some very big decisions to make.
I can’t support Mana if they go with The MP
I can’t voter for labour or the Greens while they target the mythical middle
I will not support the agenda of morgan or winnie
The right are going down the gurgler and I don’t know who my precious vote will be going to to keep them going down.
Bring on the New Year – I’ll keep fighting the fight for the disadvantaged and those who struggle within our society and I’ll do it with or without a political party.
“Bring on the New Year – I’ll keep fighting the fight for the disadvantaged and those who struggle within our society and I’ll do it with or without a political party.”
You haven’t been interpreting Andrew Little’s comments about “the mythical middle” correctly, marty mars. He has said that wherever he goes people he talks to about their problems – housing, jobs, health, education – all consider themselves “middle NZ” – so its a very broad concept, not a narrow swinging vote in the centre of the left-right divide.
If it’s such a broad concept, why is it called “middle”? – this term seems to me to be derived from the long term US Democrat focus on the “middle class” – because, apparently no-one considers themselves working class or under class any more.
But where did that idea come from? – seems to me it’s the result of neoliberal propaganda, denying the existence or significance of the struggling working class and precariat.
Basically, it’s colluding with right wing spin. It becomes circular. Everyone considers themselves “middle” because that is what the media and third way pollies have been telling them for a couple of decades. It’s time to break the cycle.
“I can’t support Mana if they go with The MP
I can’t voter for labour or the Greens while they target the mythical middle
I will not support the agenda of morgan or winnie
The right are going down the gurgler and I don’t know who my precious vote will be going to to keep them going down.”
I’m with you on all four points there marty mars…and I’ve been accused of setting too high a standard…demanding an unreasonable level of integrity from the recipients of my two votes.
With the departure of Catherine Delahunty from the GP I fear that party is heading irretrievably almost centre right…when Jan Logie hands in her notice…
Oh well.
On the upside, next winter’s firewood is just about stacked under cover, the two water tanks are full to overflowing and the septic tank and it’s drainage field are still functioning as they ought. All we have to sort out is a generator(or alternate to grid power supply) so we can pump the water from our tanks and keep the freezer frozen and we’ll be right when the shit hits the fan.
I got a super nasty letter when I was a student, from ANZ bank, demanding I pay my $1000 interest free overdraft back even though I was still a student. Anyway I got rid of my ANZ bank account overdraft, closed my account and never returned to them and just the other day got an unsolicited letter from ANZ asking for my business again, which I will not be taking up.
Also have huge nightmare when someone used my identity to police for a fine, but after a lot of paperwork, declarations and huge amount of work, managed to prove I was overseas and could not have done it!
Very generally, with Key it’s a case of the golden times being over and the hard work was ahead – he couldn’t face the hard work.
With Henry, I just think he couldn’t stand being the person he is. He genuinely hates himself for the things he feels he has to say to maintain popularity.
He believed it, just that he hated himself for having to say it for money. He banged on about NZ being paradise but then tore strips off the most vulnerable citizens in that paradise. Unconscionable really.
His talk was pub talk and while pub talk is fine, it is only fine in a pub, if you know what I mean.
Just wondering… how much has Bridges spent on luring Oil Barons here to drill? Looks like that was a waste of money.
Maybe the Oil Barons realise that there will be a change of government here very soon and as a result don’t want to invest? Suits me.
Hey Government, instead of shelling out who knows how much to entertain oil giants, how about… funding science to get the whole country on free energy? Here’s an idea, how about an electric car manufacturing plant? Maybe a solar panel production factory? Hotels, helicopters and caviar instead with our tax dollars huh?
“I am underlining how important this is by creating the New Economy portfolio. Labour is committed to growing wealth in the economy through greater innovation and productivity.”
In other changes Michael Wood will be the spokesperson for Consumer Affairs, Ethnic Communities and Revenue.
Chris Hipkins adds all the associate delegations of Tertiary Education held by David Cunliffe to his overall Education duties.
“Education is a crucial area for Labour because of the funding freeze on schools and declining performance, and we’ll be increasing pressure on the Government on this. Chris will be focusing all his energies on this important area and so will be stepping down from the Senior Whip role. I will be nominating Kris Faafoi to be the new Senior Whip with the vote taking place at the first Caucus of 2017. Chris will retain the Shadow Leader of the House role.”
David Parker also takes over Foreign Affairs from David Shearer. Stuart Nash gains State Owned Enterprises and will also be the new spokesperson for Innovation and Science, and Research and Development.
Iain Lees-Galloway will be the new Defence spokesperson. Dr Megan Woods adds State Services to her duties while Clare Curran takes over ICT and moves into the Shadow Cabinet.
Where is CV? I have to agree with him on Clare Curran. Surely someone must be better?????
I still remember Clare Curran on FB with some voter trying to reach out to her in a really nice way, over TPPA, she just ignored them. But maybe she has changed her ways.
We can look at how well that Labour party blog went for evidence of Curran’s IT nous.
Still she probably knows more than whoever the dingbats were that had no idea what Uber was all about.
maui
What about going down to see Robert Guyton? He is more of a people person than I think Thoreau was. Our very own ‘wild man’. I think he would laugh at that, seemingly good-natured.
And marty mars
You are right about cherish. It is a word that hasn’t been spoiled by some dissonance. Some words seem to be 3D I think, stand clear of the page.
“We Miskitu women have a special relationship with our land – that sacred space that cannot be sold or divided up. For Indigenous People, land is community. It is living in harmony with Mother Earth. Our collective identity and sense of belonging is embedded in the land and so too our legal, political, economic and social systems.
And it is not just Miskitu women. Indigenous women all over the world have this special relationship with land and territory. We are transmitters of knowledge, persevering our cultures, systems and the ways our Indigenous Nations and Peoples organize.”
“Recently, members of the Yaqui tribe in Loma de Bácum won a moratorium against the construction of the pipeline. According to local media, however, Mexican authorities have announced that pipeline construction will continue because “one community” cannot stop “a project that will benefit future generations.””
“The United Nations has condemned the wave of violence and observed that “75% of the homicide victims were carrying out their activities in rural environments, and that the methods of the killings and assassination attempts show a high level of sophistication to conceal the intellectual authors.”
Responsibility for many of the attacks has been claimed, however, by paramilitary groups including the Aguilas Negras (Black Eagles), the Rastrojos, and the Urabeños; groups that developed out of the right-wing paramilitary Self-Defence Forces (AUC) following their partial demobilisation between 2003-2006.”
“All over the world today, Indigenous Peoples are confronting the destructive practices of industry—leading the charge against climate change while defending the lakes, forests and food systems that all of us depend on. At the same time, they are blocking governments from weakening basic rights and freedoms and turning to the courts of the world to correct over 500 years of historical wrongs. And all the while, Indigenous Peoples are breathing new life into the biocultural legacies that have the potential to sustain the entire human race until the sun goes nova.”
If you want to support indigenous struggles that are happening right now, all around the world, go to Intercontinentalcry.org – the wealth of information there is unsurpassed, the depth of the struggles is immediate, and the knowledge that NOW is just a continuation of THEN – the struggles for indigenous peoples against the juggernaut are enduring and ongoing and have been for generations.
If only the early hippies had listened to that 1962 song, A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall. Because it is at times apocalyptic, it paints visions of hell and despair (a dozen dead oceans), certainly not love and happiness. How did all of the new born love generation miss that? Nor was that the only one of his early songs, and it’s almost eery to see how many Dylan songs everyone knows that were written in just a few years time in the early 60s when he was just out of his teen years.
Robert Zimmerman always knew where he came from, but even more where his music came from. And he never stopped paying his respects.
Like the 7 year older Leonard Cohen, bless his soul, who I think should have gotten the Nobel before Dylan, just so Bob could have gotten it seven years later, Dylan’s songs are replete with images sourced from mythology and biblical texts. Both ‘recycle’ images that Carl Jung would have said are engraved in our minds.
Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, where have you been, my darling young one?
I’ve stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains
I’ve walked and I’ve crawled on six crooked highways
I’ve stepped in the middle of seven sad forests
I’ve been out in front of a dozen dead oceans
I’ve been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard
And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, and it’s a hard
And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall
“And what’ll you do now, my blue-eyed son?
And what’ll you do now, my darling young one?
I’m a-goin’ back out ‘fore the rain starts a-fallin’
I’ll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest
Where the people are many and their hands are all empty
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison
And the executioner’s face is always well hidden
Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten
Where black is the color, where none is the number
And I’ll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it…”
I’m one of the hippy generation that did pay attention to songs like that – and it just wasn’t about a potential nuclear mutual destruction. I think many others also paid attention to such songs.
And it is even more relevant now – good choice of song.
It’s just that such songs got swamped with the shifts from above, in right wing propaganda, the video revolution, etc, along with the consumerist mantras.
Many of us protested at the time…. but still the neoliberal tanks rolled all over everywhere.
I won’t read it but I see a Herald headline about young Keydashian. His father gradually being out of a permanent presence in the headlines certainly won’t stop his regular appearances.
He is of no more importance than any other citizen. If he is being foisted on me for crap, nothing reasons and events it is fair to consider I am being treated with contempt. I will take that as the okay to reciprocate.
It’s all coming out in the wash. Those real estate companies which have enriched the lives of a select few National party voters have been found to be corrupt.
Still, between 4 companies, 5% commission on the average Auckland house equals just 50 houses each sold to pay for this fine. A slap on the hand with a wet bus ticket.
Remember it is the National government under which these people are conducting their corrupt business practice.
They defrauded TradeMe and passed fee increases on to buyers. Nice people in that industry. One bunch of ticket clippers ripping off another. I wonder if the affected buyers get refunded from any of those penalties?
Time to nationalise the whole real estate industry, it’s a bloated parasite
Fascinating. This sort of behaviour is something we in New Zealand thought happened in new and third world countries. Yet under their government police corruption is happening right under our noses!
It will be an election issue next year. The New Nats refuse to do anything about it and this opens the door for the opposition to really canvas affected voters like they did in Mt Roskill.
Incredible. Not one person from authority fronted on this issue. As I said on another thread, Bennett and co will not have Paul Henry to stroke them next year. Bill’s not a great fit on The Rock, or More FM, so perhaps they’ll not show up anywhere???
The government has decided that someone has done Something Bad. But despite their belief, there seems to be no evidence that they have actually broken the law. So the government's solution is to pass a retrospective law allowing them to be punished anyway, on a lower standard of proof. If ...
So, Judith Collins has done a Facebook rant about climate change, peddling the same shit National has been shovelling for the past twenty years: the impacts are overstated, there's no need to do anything about it, and its too hard anyway (oh, and its so unfair that people who peddle ...
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nzThere is a lot of discussion on the benefits of ...
I came across this song quite by accident. If it isn't one of Greta Thunberg's favourites - it should be.Video courtesy of YouTube.This post is exclusive to Bowalley Road. ...
Last month, NZDF's shoddy coverup of what it knew about civilian casualties in Operation Burnham began to fall apart, with the revelation that a report on the matter, which NZDF claimed not to have, had been sitting in an NZDF safe for the past nine years. Yesterday, the man responsible ...
While many imagine that countries like the USA and Europe dominate space activities, in fact India is now a major player on this stage. It launches satellites for its own purposes and also commercially, and has constellations orbiting our planet and returning data of vital importance to that nation in ...
Thanks to a report from the Acting Inspector General of Intelligence and Security following a complaint by Nicky Hager, we have come to find out that the SIS illegally spied on Mr. Hager on behalf of the NZDF after publication of Hager’s 2011 book, Other People’s Wars. The NZDF justified ...
COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING MYTH 1: Global temperatures are rising at a rapid, unprecedented rate. FACT: The HadCRUT3 surface temperature index, produced by the Hadley Centre of the UK Met Office and the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia, shows warming to 1878, cooling to 1911, ...
For the past week, Extinction Rebellion has been peacefully protesting in London to demand action on climate change. The British government's response? Ban their protests:Police have banned Extinction Rebellion protests from continuing anywhere in London, as they moved in almost without warning to clear protesters who remained at the movement’s ...
An essay by Judith Collins MP reported on Carbon News yesterday seems to show an alarming shift in attitude within the National Party. Collins argues against the Zero Carbon Bill, the Paris Agreement, and downplays the magnitude of climate impacts. The Paris Agreement was adopted in December 2015 and ratified ...
When they were running for election, Labour promised to overhaul the Employment Relations Act and introduce fair pay agreements to set basic pay and conditions on an industry level, preventing bad employers from undercutting good ones. They followed this up by establishing a working group, which reported back in January ...
A list of indicators of bad science – many of these are found in articles promoted by anti-fluoride activists. Anti-fluoride activists have been pouring money into a scaremongering campaign warning pregnant women not to drink fluoridated water. They claim fluoride will lower the IQ of their future child. Fluoride ...
Nothing Left To Say: Labour's pollster, Stephen Mills, remains swaddled-up in the comforting myths of the 1980s. As if the experience of Roger Douglas’s genuinely radical post-Muldoon policy agenda was literally a once-in-a-lifetime thing – as much as the party could possibly absorb for at least the next 50 years.MEMO ...
The Royal Commission on abuse in care is very significant for the disability community. For many decades last century, thousands of disabled children, and adults who managed to survive, were locked away from families and communities. This was not for anything they had done, but for the perceived threat their ...
With an unfair voting system, uneven electorates and an un-elected upper house, the UK's "democracy" is barely worthy of the name. But now the government wants to make it worse:The government has been accused of suppressing voters’ rights with the potential disenfranchisement of tens of thousands of people after plans ...
Back in the 90's and early 2000's, the building industry was building leaky homes which should never have been granted consent. Now it turns out they've been building dodgy office blocks as well:New imaging technology has revealed hundreds of major buildings nationwide have defective or missing concrete or reinforcing steel. ...
Local body election results were released over the weekend, to joy or despair depending on where you live. In Auckland, Phil Goff trounced John Tamihere, who is muttering darkly about running for Parliament again (but which party would want him?) Wellington is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Weta Workshop, except ...
How could government evolve over the next decades? Reports of democracy’s imminent demise are greatly exaggerated. However, satisfaction with political systems in many countries is low, so there is much to do for governments of all political stripes to improve relevance and trust. Digital technologies are seen as one ...
Two years have now gone by since the Friday afternoon when my university-student son and I headed out of our Barcelona flat to a nearby primary school, designated as a polling station for the vote that was to be held the following Sunday: the referendum on Catalonia’s independence from Spain ...
Overruled: The joint decision of Finance Minister, Grant Robertson (Labour) and his Associate Minister, David Parker (Labour) arguably the two most powerful ministers in Jacinda Ardern’s government, to grant OceanaGold the consents which Land Information Minister, Eugenie Sage (Greens) had earlier denied them, offers bitter proof of how hard fighting ...
More than double the number of people who will vote in this year’s local body elections have tried marijuana or urinated somewhere they shouldn’t have. As local elections look set for the lowest turnout in decades, with many regions falling well short of 40%, the Government is exploring a number ...
A Statement on Abortion Law Reform by the Council of Disobedient Women On the eve of bringing an end to antiquated, anti-women abortion laws Green MP Jan Logie intends to write women out of the Bill. With a stroke of the pen, the woke are aiming for total erasure ...
Musings continue apace about “the experienced businessman!” soon to be taking up a National Party MP position. Or to be more accurate, being parachuted into a seat to shut down their former MP Jamie-Lee Ross, who despite his own shortcomings shed at least some more light on the inner workings ...
The Ugandan government wants to murder gay people:Uganda has announced plans to impose the death penalty on homosexuals. The bill, colloquially known as “Kill the Gays” in Uganda, was nullified five years ago on a technicality, but the government said on Thursday it plans to resurrect it within weeks. The ...
Freedom Of Speech? The Säuberung (cleansing by fire) was the work of the German Student Union which, on 10 May 1933, under the watchful eye of the Nazi Reichminister for Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, consigned 25,000 books to the flames in a ritual exorcism of “un-German thought”. According to the logic of the ...
“There can be no such thing as kaupapa Māori political parties or politics in Aotearoa” (Willie Jackson, Labour Party (2017). Māori TV, General/List Election Special) I begin with that claim because at the time, I was confounded at first that it fell out of Willie Jackson’s mouth, and then ...
New Zealand has prided itself for decades with regard to its lack of pollution, and all will be aware that the ‘100% Pure New Zealand‘ meme is under threat through land, water and air pollution of various causes. There is another type of contamination that the country also faces: light ...
New Zealand’s media is doing its part in Japan, reassuring those in the path of the storm that they won’t miss any rugby while away from their flooded homes. New Zealand sports reporters stationed in Japan for the Rugby World Cup have had the rare and heartwarming opportunity to inform ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones is the only Cabinet member in favour of putting it all on green. As Finance Minister Grant Robertson finds himself with an enormous $7.5 billion surplus, the Government has begun intense, at times contentious conversations about whether to put the money on red or black at ...
by Susanne Kemp At the start of September close to 100,000 school teachers went on strike in Jordan. They demanded a 50% pay rise. A pay rise actually agreed to by the regime back in 2014. In early October, however, in the face of government repression and threats, the teachers’ ...
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nzWhy do people still think climate change isn’t real?David ...
Back in 2011, journalist Nicky Hager published Other People's Wars, an expose on NZDF's activities over the previous decade of the "war on terror". NZDF didn't like this, and especially didn't like the fact that it was base don leaks from their own. So, they had the SIS investigate him ...
The Zero Carbon Bill is due back from select committee in two weeks, and will likely pass its final stages in November. So naturally, farmers are planning a hate-march against it. But they're not just demanding lower methane targets so they can keep on destroying the planet; they're also demanding ...
Last year, California burned. This year, to stop it happening again (or rather, to stop themselves from being found liable if it happens again), Pacific Gas and Electric is cutting power to half the state for a week:Schools are closed. Traffic lights down. Tunnels dark. Businesses unopened. Hospitals running on ...
The Best Way: Missing from the on-line voting debate is any reference to the voting system that produces turn-out figures ranging from 77 to 93 percent of registered voters. The voting system used to collect and count the votes cast in our parliamentary elections. The system that involves citizens making ...
Among the great new bunch of political friends we have been making recently is the excellent Australian-based Marxist gender-critical site, Freer Lives. So we asked the comrade who set up that blog to write something for Redline on the blog, himself, his analysis of the rise of gender politics and ...
by Don Franks The Auckland City Mission is struggling with a 40 percent increase in demand for food parcels this year. A total of 23,020 were needed by June. Last month Missioner Chris Farrelly told the Herald the “cupboards are bare” and without an emergency food drive, he can’t see ...
by The Council of Disobedient Women Massey Wellington Student Association had a sit-in today. Imagine a sit-in. On a campus. Against a women’s rights meeting. Did the ’60s really happen or did we fucking dream it? They gathered in the student square, an echo chamber. Sitting on soft pillows ...
For some reasons, my post about the mystery message from inside the Downing Street bunker seemed to catch people's attention. Quite a lot of hits from NZ (unsurprisingly) and the USA (a bit more puzzlingly, but hi there, USAians!!) and 76 views from the Ukraine.I've celebrated my Ukrainian readers in ...
First, almost a score of Labour MPs seem to have sent a letter to the EU basically begging them to accept a deal - any deal - just so Britain can get the Heck on with Brexiting instead of being trapped in limbo:
by Phil Duncan In 2016 the National-led government suspended the Parent Visa Category, through which migrants were able to bring their parents into New Zealand. Since then over 5,700 people have been in immigration limbo, stuck on the visa wait list. Labour is now bringing back the scheme. Well, sort ...
The following was released yesterday (Tues, October 8) by the women’s liberation organisation Speak Up for Women. On 23 September Speak Up For Women announced that we would be holding an event at the Massey University Theaterette in Wellington. The event is called Feminism 2020. The intention of the event ...
The government is currently consulting on plans to improve freshwater quality. So naturally, farmers oppose it:South Taranaki farmers are preparing to fight proposed national freshwater changes that some fear will bankrupt them. The Government's proposed National Environment Standard on Freshwater Management, released in September, rated the Waingongoro River as one ...
Yesterday was the last day for (reliably) posting your vote away in local body elections. Turnouts are mostly much lower than the equivalent time last year (Palmerston North is down 2.3%), and so naturally people are pushing their online-voting snake oil again. Because the online census worked so well, lets ...
This essay, on the political legacy of the eugenics movement, by Kenan Malik was originally published in the Observer on 6 October 2019, under the headline ‘The spirit of eugenics is still with us, as immigrants know to their cost’. Birth control. Intelligence tests. Town planning. Immigration controls. It’s striking how ...
Another year, and the government has announced another enormous government "surplus". And just like last year, its nothing of the sort. When we have people homeless and sick and hungry, when we have schools and hospitals still falling down, when we have underpaid public servants and infrastucture unmaintained or unbuilt, ...
James Forsyth at The Spectator (I know, I know) has tapped one of his contacts inside Number Ten for an insight into the Johnson administration's thinking and strategy.It is fascinating, unsettling and quite, quite mad. Some key points:Negotiations have stalled and the Johnson administration are keen to blame the EU: ...
Fatal Contact: With the arrival of captain James Cook in October 1769, the islands of what would become New Zealand ceased to be the preserve of Polynesian navigators and settlers and became a part of both the world’s map and the world’s history.THE MAORI NATIONALIST assault upon the historical meaning ...
Another round of tactical talks about forming a Government of National Unity have come to nothing with the Liberal Democrats still refusing countenance putting Jeremy Corbyn into Downing Street:Opposition talks on Monday made little headway over when to try and vote down Boris Johnson's government and who might succeed him as ...
by Nick Rogers The debate around the meaning of sex and gender made an appearance at this year’s British Labour Party conference in Brighton. Women’s Place UK – an organisation that questions the demand that biological males who self-identify as woman should have access to women’s spaces, to all-women shortlists, ...
Yesterday I went down to Wellington to participate in the Extinction Rebellion protest. Its part of the latest global wave of XR actions, with actions happening all over the world. Some of those protests are massively disruptive: in Canada, XR is blocking major bridges, stopping people from getting to work. ...
The Workshop is a charitable trust for public good. The Workshop undertake research to find ways of communicating that will build support for the solutions that work to solve complex social and environmental problems. See their Report on Talking about Poverty and Welfare Reform below. ...
What is language? We generally assume that it a facility unique to humans, allowing us to share what’s in and on our minds. We can tell of our plans, our past exploits, our knowledge. It also allows us to lie. And yet there are vast numbers of people we can’t ...
Being and Being Bought (Spinifex Press, 2013) by Kajsa Ekis Ekman A synopsis and commentary of Chapters 1-2 by Daphna Whitmore Ekman, a Swedish journalist and critic, brings together a Marxist and feminist analysis of prostitution and surrogacy in this groundbreaking book She opens the discussion with a definition of ...
I make no claims to having much legal knowledge, so I defer to those trained in this area.I am very much enjoying this twitter stream from m'learned friend in Edinburgh, deciphering the legal arguments around the Scottish court challenge to Boris Johnson, based on the charmingly obscure principle of Nobile ...
Ivory Folly? The University of Auckland’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Stuart McCutcheon, upheld the right of the radical nationalist group, Action Zealandia to exercise their freedom of speech – not matter how distasteful that speech might be. A wiser community of students and scholars would have nodded their agreement and moved on. ...
If you are not convinced terrorist Organisation ‘Extinction Rebellion’ is very, very dangerous – watch this video at one of their recent meetings. Not only is this obviously mentally ill Woman begging the other terrorists to promote killing and “eating” babies and children, if you watch carefully other members nod ...
The Ombudsman has been surveying people about their knowledge of the OIA and the right to information. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem that widespread:The Chief Ombudsman says too many New Zealanders were in the dark over their right to access official information. Peter Boshier said an independent survey released yesterday on ...
In the wake of last Friday's climate strike, Peter McKenzie had an article in The Spinoff about protest strategies. The school strike movement is "polite" and cooperates with those in power because that's its kaupapa - its led by schoolkids who understandably don't want to risk arrest. But there's more ...
So, the latest ruminations on the gnews from Westminster (Again, sorry; I'll stop making that pun right now). This follows on from, and likely repeats bits of, my last post, on the suggestion that a Government of National Unity (GNU) should be set up and then oversee a referendum before ...
New Zealand likes to think of itself as not a racist country (despite being founded on the racist dispossession and subjugation of Maori). But for years, we've had a racist refugee policy, which basicly excludes refugees from Africa and the Middle East unless they already have relatives here. Now, the ...
Several people have asked me whether a particular repeat litigant could be declared a vexatious litigant, in light of their recent decision to appeal an adverse High Court ruling. My nascent tweet thread was getting ridiculously long, so it became this blog post instead.The short answer is: no. The particular ...
Appealing To The Past: Action Zealandia, like so many of the organisations springing up on the far-Right, across what they call the “Anglosphere”, is born out of the profound confusion over what a man is supposed to be in the twenty-first century and, more importantly, what he is supposed to do.THE STATUE OF ...
The attempts of anti-democratic transactivists to (often violently) disrupt women’s rights organising is largely ignored by those sections of the left most prone to misogyny and authoritarianism in New Zealand. In Britain, however, scores of trade union and left activists added their names to a letter in July, defending ...
The Justice Committee has reported back on the Criminal Cases Review Commission Bill. The Bill would establish an independent, quasi-judicial body to investigate and review potential miscarriages of justice, and refer them back to the Court of appeal if required. It would be a vital backstop to our judiciary, help ...
by The Spark On September 14, a total of 22 drones and cruise missiles struck two oil installations in Saudi Arabia, the Abqaiq processing facility and the Khurais oil field. Abqaiq is the largest oil production facility in the world. For a few days afterwards, Saudi Aramco, the Saudi national ...
How much will NeoLiberal irregulation of the building sector and subsequent leaky homes crisis cost us? $47 billion, according to a new book:The total cost to fix all of New Zealand's leaky homes would be $47 billion, probably. The estimate comes from a new book, Rottenomics written by journalist Peter ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters is predicting a hard Brexit for the United Kingdom, as he believes British Prime Minister Boris Johnson won’t be able to negotiate terms before the October 30 deadline. The Minister, who was one of the first to publicly come out and predict British voters would leave ...
Speaking at the Council of Trade Unions' (CTU) biennial conference, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters told unionists that any future attacks on the Government won't work. "Now, we are being attacked by the union movement in this country. You can have your views but I'm here to say standing ...
We want every New Zealander to be happy, safe, and healthy. To do this, we need to support strong, safe communities, and a robust and efficient health system. ...
Defence Minister Ron Mark has used his powers to overrule a noise complaint ruling against Whenuapai airbase on the grounds of "national security". The Environment Court last month released a ruling in favour of a private developer, declaring the Auckland airbase had to comply with noise restrictions when it performs ...
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has opened fire against "unreconstructed morons" after NZ First MP Shane Jones was photographed on holiday holding an AR-15 rifle. Mr Peters is defending Mr Jones, telling Magic Talk host Peter Williams that his MP was just having fun "like most people do". "The ...
New Zealand First Deputy Leader and Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau was in attendance during the morning blessing of the Rotorua Lakefront development project. Around 60 people gathered on the shores of Lake Rotorua, including city mayor Steve Chadwick and deputy Dave Donaldson. The Lakefront development is a ...
Forestry Minister Shane Jones is considering reining in on conversions of farmland to forestry, and also issued a warning to foreign-owned forestry companies that make up nearly 75 per cent of the industry. He said too many foreign companies had not provided enough access for domestic processors to get timber. ...
Speaking to Radio NZ, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters said the tightening of the parental category visa is a direct result of the Party’s coalition negotiations with the Labour Party. He said the new changes switch the financial onus from the parent moving to New Zealand to the child ...
The Coalition Government is set to cut red tape in the building and construction sector in an effort to allow more houses to be built, including prefabricated houses. The changes will enable the mass factory production of "high quality" buildings, slash the likely number of building inspections for factory produced ...
Since coming into Government, we’ve worked hard to tackle homelessness and make sure everyone has a warm, dry home. And today, on World Homeless Day, we want to report back and update you on our progress so far. ...
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has hit back at National Party leader Simon Bridges who criticized the Coalition Government’s approach to crime, and said that the latter isn't credible in his attack on the Government over gang recruitment. "We've got as massive drug problem in this country. It is ...
New Zealand Mānuka honey exporters have welcomed an initiative by the Coalition Government to help secure the term “mānuka honey” to be used exclusively by Kiwi exporters, ensuring that our multimillion-dollar industry is protected. Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones had recently announced that a Provincial Growth Funding of $5.7 ...
Political commentator Mike Hosking has labelled New Zealand First leader Winston Peters as “the voice of reason in a government soft on drugs”, for the Party’s stance on drug testing at music festivals. “If common sense is worth a vote, Winston Peters is quids in,” Mr Hosking said. The Labour ...
Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau has announced Provincial Growth Funding to ensure work opportunities in Turangi and Whanganui, through its skills and employment programme, Te Ara Mahi. A fund of $500,000 will go to Rafting NZ in Turangi for a 16-week river guide training course to train ...
Treasury has shown that the Coalition Government has a $7.5 billion surplus, which is $4 billion higher than what was expected in the 2019 Budget unveiled last May. It is also $2 billion higher than the actual surplus unveiled this time last year, and at a size that has not ...
Official Information Act figures released to NZME show there were 350 assaults on officers in the year to the end of June, 79 more than the year before. The increase in attacks have sparked calls for more legal protection for first responders to be enacted. The assaults included officers being ...
“Nobody wants to see babies uplifted”, this was the pronouncement of Minister for Children Hon. Tracey Martin as her department, Oranga Tamariki, faces multiple inquiries into the number of babies being taken from their families. “But a baby can die with a single punch, “the Minister continued. “So sometimes, Oranga ...
We're making progress on tackling the long-term challenges: from homelessness, to strengthening border security, to bringing banking back New Zealand's small towns. ...
Associate Transport Minister Shane Jones has backed the ambitious plan to move Auckland’s port to Northport, at Whangarei harbour, which he says will be the “King Kong of infrastructure”. The plan is part of the recommendations of a six-person independent working group, which has recommended the Ports of Auckland be ...
A six-member independent working group selected the option of moving Auckland’s port to Northport, in Whangarei, ahead of other options. In what could be New Zealand’s most ambitious infrastructure project yet, a major expansion of the Marsden Point port could happen within 15 years. The project, officially called the “Upper ...
The final Electricity Price Review recommended prohibiting prompt payment discounts but allowing “reasonable” late fees. The findings of this review was welcomed by the Coalition Government, but they hope companies will follow through with its recommendations without regulations needed to be passed. Meridian Energy had already stopped prompt payment discounts, ...
Fletcher Tabuteau, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF)through its skills and employment programme, Te Ara Mahi,will invest nearly $600,000 to ensure work opportunities for locals in Turangia and Whanganui, Parliamentary Under Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau announced today. “I’m pleased to announce the PGF ...
An export-led economy is one of New Zealand First’s key principles, and our commitment to achieving this is shown by the continuing skyrocketing demand for our beef and sheep meat exports. Beef + Lamb New Zealand's New Season Outlook 2019-20 report forecasts beef, lamb and mutton prices to lift from ...
Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today in Gisborne an investment of $17.27m into bringing “world-leading” food-growing technology and the creation of more than 100 new jobs in the East Coast city. The funding comes from the Provincial Growth Fund, and included a $15 million loan to LeaderBrand, a ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development More than 100 people in Tairāwhiti’s Tolaga Bay will benefit from two employment initiatives supported by the Provincial Growth Fund, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones and Employment Minister Willie Jackson announced today. “Tolaga Bay is an incredibly tight-knit community, but one in ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) is supporting Gisborne business Leaderbrand to produce salad vegetables year round and create more jobs in the Tairāwhiti region, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today. “Our support for Leaderbrand will help them build large greenhouses ...
“Nobody wants to see babies uplifted”, this was the pronouncement of Minister for Children Hon. Tracey Martin as her department, Oranga Tamariki, faces multiple inquiries into the number of babies being taken from their families. “But a baby can die with a single punch, “the Minister continued. “So sometimes, Oranga ...
Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has praised the promise by New Zealand’s biggest banks not to close any provincial branches while the Coalition Government trials regional banking hubs across the country. The Minister said the announce was the “first sign of hope for regional communities”, many of which have ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, New Zealand First Leader New Zealand First is proud to have delivered an upgrade of the SuperGold Card website and a new smartphone app, which will help unlock the full benefits of the SuperGold Card for 750,000 New Zealand seniors.Party Leader Rt Hon Winston Peters, ...
Delivering a key election campaign promise, New Zealand First is proud to have accomplished a long overdue upgrade of the SuperGold Card today. At an event in Auckland, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters joined Minister for Seniors Hon. Tracey Martin in unveiling the new website and smartphone app which ...
Another busy week, from speaking with world leaders on the world stage about climate change, to equipping our school leavers with everything they need to get ahead in life. ...
At 1.30pm tomorrow, hundreds of thousands of Kiwis will join about 65 million people around the globe in ShakeOut, the world’s biggest earthquake drill. The annual drill is to remind people of the right action to take during an earthquake which is to Drop, Cover, Hold, and to practise their ...
Kiwis are benefiting from higher wage growth and low inflation under the Coalition Government. Stats NZ data out today shows the rise in the cost of living remains low, as annual Consumers Price Index (CPI) inflation fell to 1.5% in September from 1.7% in June. “The low inflation comes as ...
New Zealand’s economic strength and resilience has been recognised in a major update on the state of the global economy. The IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook released overnight shows a reduced global growth forecast over the next two years as issues like the US-China trade war and Brexit take hold. ...
Justice Minister Andrew Little has today introduced a new Bill to prevent terrorism and support the de-radicalisation of New Zealanders returning from overseas. The Terrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Bill gives the New Zealand Police the ability to apply to the High Court to impose control orders on New Zealanders who ...
A Bill that proposes targeted changes to simplify the processes for Māori land owners when engaging with the Māori Land Court has had its First Reading today. “The approach taken by the Government is to ensure that the protection of Māori land remains a priority as we seek to improve ...
Let me first thank all the new unionists and members in the room. There is nothing more important to improving people’s working lives than people making the decision to care, to get on board and help, to take up the reins and get involved. Congratulations to you. You bring the ...
Minister of Defence Ron Mark has signed a certificate exempting the activity of engine testing at Whenuapai Airbase from the Resource Management Act 1991. The Act gives the Minister of Defence the power to exempt activities for the purposes of national security. The certificate will mean the recent Environment Court ...
Finance Minister Grant Robertson has announced New Zealand will join the Coalition of Finance Ministers for Climate Action while attending APEC meetings in Chile. The objective of the 39 member Coalition is to share information and promote action to tackle climate change. It was formed in April this year, in ...
Ladies and gentlemen, NZCTU President Richard Wagstaff, members of respective unions – thank you for the invitation to speak to you today. This might be preaching to the choir, but the importance of trade unions in New Zealand’s historical arch is difficult to understate. And it is my belief that ...
"Let’s start by acknowledging that it has been a huge year. " Police Association Annual Conference James Cook Grand Chancellor Hotel Wellington Nau mai, haere mai. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, ka nui te mihi, ki a koutou katoa. President of the Police Association, Chris Cahill; Members of the Association and ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters and Minister of Defence Ron Mark have announced the New Zealand Government’s decision to again deploy a Royal New Zealand Air Force P-3K2 (P-3) maritime patrol aircraft to support the implementation of United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions imposing sanctions against North Korea. New ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters says New Zealand continues to have serious concerns for peace and stability in north-east Syria. “Recent reports that hundreds of ISIS-affiliated families have fled from a camp are deeply concerning from a humanitarian and security perspective”, Mr Peters says. “While we acknowledge Turkey’s domestic security ...
Biosecurity Minister Damien O’Connor is warning travelling Kiwis to be vigilant as the high-season for the crop-eating brown marmorated stink bug (BMSB) is under way. “We’re on high alert to stop BMSB arriving in NZ. The high season runs until April 30 and we’ve strengthened our measures to stop stink ...
The Government is moving swiftly to change the law to improve the welfare and pastoral care of students living in university halls of residence and other tertiary hostels. Cabinet has agreed to several changes, including creating a new mandatory Code of Practice that sets out the duty of pastoral care ...
The Minister for Conservation Eugenie Sage has launched a new comprehensive trapping guide for community trappers to help them protect our native birds, plants and other wildlife, at Zealandia in Wellington today. ‘A practical guide to trapping’, has been developed by the Department of Conservation (DOC), and was launched during ...
Associate Health Minister Julie Anne Genter welcomes PHARMAC’s move to improve access to long-acting reversible contraception (LARCs). PHARMAC has today announced it will fund the full cost of Mirena and Jaydess for anyone seeking long term contraception, lifting previous restrictions on access to Mirena. “I welcome women having greater choices ...
The Government has approved the next stage of a major redevelopment of Taranaki Base Hospital, which will deliver new and improved facilities for patients. Health Minister Dr David Clark has announced details of a $300 million dollar project to build a new East Wing at the New Plymouth hospital. It ...
Extra funding will allow Rural Support Trusts to help farming families, says Minister for Rural Communities and Agriculture Damien O’Connor. “I know that rural families are worried about some of the challenges facing them, including the ongoing uncertainty created by the Mycoplasma bovis outbreak. “Those concerns sit alongside ongoing worries ...
Thank you for the opportunity to be here to present certificates to the 16 graduates who have completed a beekeeping course delivered by the Howard League. Let us start by acknowledging Auckland Prison’s Deputy Prison Director Tom Sherlock, and Acting Assistant Regional Commissioner of Corrections Northern Region Scott Walker - ...
Finance Minister Grant Robertson leaves this weekend to attend the APEC Finance Ministers meeting in Santiago, Chile. Discussions between APEC Finance Ministers at the meeting will include the effects of the current global economic uncertainty, risks for APEC economies and sustainable development of the region. While at APEC Grant Robertson ...
The Minister for Pacific Peoples Aupito William Sio says for Pacific people, language can be a source of strength. It can help ground us and give us confidence. When we speak them, our languages provide us with an immediate and intimate access to our identity and our story - and ...
The Coalition Government has announced an action plan to improve the wellbeing of disabled New Zealanders by addressing inequalities in play, active recreation and sport. The initiative includes training to develop a workforce that understands the needs of children and young people with a range of impairments, advocacy for fit ...
The construction sector is being freed up to allow more homes to be built more quickly as the Government cuts through some of the red tape of the Building Act. “Every New Zealander deserves a warm, dry, safe home and old inefficiencies in the Building Act make building slow and ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has welcomed further details on the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall’s visit to New Zealand next month. Their Royal Highnesses will visit New Zealand from 17-23 November – their third joint visit to New Zealand and first in four years. They arrive in Auckland ...
Minister of State for Trade and Export Growth and Minister of Agriculture, Damien O’Connor, heads to Thailand today to attend the final Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) Ministerial meeting, as negotiations enter their final stages. “The RCEP Agreement would anchor New Zealand in a regional agreement that covers 16 countries, ...
Pacific young people living in the Hawke’s Bay, Southland and Otago regions will have access to support services that have proved successful in helping young people find new earning and learning opportunities. “Tupu Aotearoa is about changing Pacific young peoples’ lives. Our young people are talented, they are smart, they ...
Introduction As the Minister for ACC I thank you all for the work that you do supporting New Zealanders in their literally most vulnerable moments. From those who hold people’s lives in their hands, to the people who research technique, technology and trends, your work is highly valued. A special ...
Notes prepared for speeches in Christchurch – Wednesday 9 October 2019 Today’s topic, “trends and opportunities for the New Zealand economy,” is certainly one getting a great deal of commentary at the moment. Looking across the media landscape lately you’ll notice we aren’t the only ones having this discussion. There ...
Minister of Health Dr David Clark and Associate Minister of Health Peeni Henare say this year’s World Mental Health Day theme is a reminder of why the Government’s work on mental health is so important. “This year the World Federation for Mental Health has made suicide prevention the main theme ...
Associate Arts, Culture and Heritage Minister Carmel Sepuloni will represent the government at Australia’s Meeting of Cultural Ministers in Adelaide this week. “This year’s meeting is special because New Zealand is expected to become an International Member of the Meeting of Cultural Ministers at this Australian forum,” Carmel Sepuloni said. “The meeting is an opportunity to ...
The Greater Christchurch Claims Resolution Service has resolved 608 insurance and EQC claims in its first year in operation, Minister Megan Woods has announced. The government service, which celebrates its first birthday today, provides a one stop shop to help Cantabrians still battling to get their homes repaired or rebuilt ...
Today’s topic, “trends and opportunities for the New Zealand economy,” is certainly one getting a great deal of commentary at the moment. Looking across the media landscape lately you’ll notice we aren’t the only ones having this discussion. There has been an increasing amount of attention paid to the outlook ...
The Government is acting swiftly to strengthen NZTA’s regulatory role following a review into the Transport Agency, and Ministry of Transport’s performance as its monitor, Transport Minister Phil Twyford said today. An independent review by Martin Jenkins has found NZTA failed to properly regulate the transport sector under the previous ...
The Netherlands and New Zealand have a long-standing and close relationship based on many shared interests and values. We value the rule of law, our democracies, and multilateralism. And we value our environment – at home and globally. Right now there are major global challenges in all of these areas – ...
The Government is putting right a decade’s worth of underpayment to nurses, doctors and other health workers, says Health Minister Dr David Clark. Initial sampling of District Health Boards payroll records has found that around $550-$650 million is owed to DHB staff to comply with the Holidays Act. It’s expected ...
A strong surplus and low debt show the economy is performing well, and means the Government is in a good position to meet the challenges of global economic uncertainty. “The surplus and low levels of debt show the economy is in good shape. This allows the Government to spend more ...
New applications from mining company OceanaGold to purchase land in Waihi for new tailings ponds associated with its gold mines have been approved. Minister of Finance Grant Robertson and Associate Minister of Finance David Parker considered the applications under the Overseas Investment Act. Earlier this year, applications from OceanaGold to ...
New Zealanders in Tūranganui-a-Kiwa / Poverty Bay will witness Māori, Pākehā and Pacific voyaging traditions come together today as the Tuia 250 Voyage flotilla assembles for the first time, Māori Crown Relations: Te Arawhiti Minister Kelvin Davis says. “Tuia 250 is a national commemoration and an opportunity for honest conversations ...
Minister for Trade and Export Growth David Parker leaves tomorrow for Dubai, London and Berlin for a series of meetings to advance New Zealand’s trade interests. In Dubai he will visit New Zealand’s Pavilion at Expo 2020 where construction is underway. There he will meet Minister of State for International Cooperation, Her ...
Confirmation that PHARMAC will fund two new cancer drugs is further evidence of the good progress the Government is making to improve the treatment of New Zealand’s leading cause of death, Health Minister David Clark says. From 1 December PHARMAC will fund alectinib (Alecensa) for ALK positive advanced non-small cell ...
Olympic sailors Blair Tuke and Peter Burling are throwing their weight behind a campaign encouraging New Zealander consumers and businesses to reduce their plastic pollution. ...
National Party leader Simon Bridges says his MP Agnes Loheni let him know she'd be contesting the candidacy for Botany, adding it's a "free world". ...
Think you’ve got your KiwiSaver sorted? Try Kōura’s ‘robo-advice’ questionnaire and you might be surprised.If a person who looks like they know about finance asks you whether your appetite for risk is low, medium or high, what do you say? The problem is most Kiwis don’t understand what the question ...
The Social Services and Community Committee is seeking submissions on the Rates Rebate (Statutory Declarations) Amendment Bill. This bill aims to improve the process of applying for rates rebates. It proposes: • Removing the requirement to make a statutory ...
The Māori Affairs Committee is calling for submissions on the Te Ture Whenua Maori (Succession, Dispute Resolution, and Related Matters) Amendment Bill. ...
The New Zealand Police have been used as a political pawn which is stretching their resources and seriously affecting their ability to address the real causes of crime, such as gang related supply of illicit drugs. ...
Alex Casey yarns to Karen O’Leary, early childhood teacher by day and star of Wellington Paranormal and What We Do in The Shadows by night. Two of the funniest moments in New Zealand television last year were entirely fence-based. First up there was Agni on The Block NZ, who packed a ...
NZ Police wish to clarify that cartridges filled with steel or lead shot are not prohibited. They may still be used under the Arms (Prohibited Ammunition) Order 2019 as shotgun cartridges are specifically excluded from the prohibition order. ...
NZ Police wish to clarify that cartridges filled with steel or lead shot are not prohibited. They may still be used under the Arms (Prohibited Ammunition) Order 2019 as shotgun cartridges are specifically excluded from the prohibition order. ...
Josie Adams is in tonight’s episode of Have You Been Paying Attention. Specifically, she is in the audience.When you watch Have You Been Paying Attention? tonight, please consider the bladders of audience members watching it live. They offer beverages, but my God it’s a dangerous offer. As I found out ...
Despite comments from Auckland City Council CCOs Board Chairs re pay and performance bonuses for top managers—Herald Newspaper Tuesday Oct 15th--there is very little evidence that says high pay and bonuses improve the performance of a company. Most ...
By Michael Andrew Pacific diplomats, academics and youth leaders will gather in Auckland this week to discuss security, economic development and other pressing issues shaping the region’s future. Pacific Futures will be held on October 18 and will feature speakers from across the region, including Samoa’s Deputy Prime Minister ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Susan Hutchinson, PhD Candidate, Australian National University It has been more than two years since “clearance operations” by Myanmar’s security forces, the Tatmadaw, forced more than 700,000 Rohingya across the border to neighbouring Bangladesh. During this time, the UN Security Council has ...
Fast food company Restaurant Brands has made a smaller half year profit largely because of accounting changes as it prepares to invest heavily in the launch of Taco Bell in New Zealand. ...
Pacific Media Centre Newsdesk Papua New Guinea police have issued a warrant for the arrest of former Prime Minister Peter O’Neill. According to EMTV News, the Waigana district court issued the warrant which was based on evidence previously compiled by police investigators. Acting Police Commissioner David Manning said he ...
Patient Voice Aotearoa welcomes the comments made by the Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters on ‘The Project’ on Friday last week. Peters stated “Right now…we know we are not spending nearly enough on pharmaceuticals and first world drugs…the ...
The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union is calling on outgoing Porirua Mayor Mike Tana to repay money clocked up on his ratepayer-funded fuel card for personal travel. The Ernst and Young report released yesterday reveals that, within less than three ...
We review the entire country and culture of New Zealand, one thing at a time. Today, a new hole-in-the-wall eatery in Auckland dedicated to New Zealand’s favourite snack.Cheese On Toast has unsavoury connotations for a lot of New Zealand music fans, but now you can wash that bad taste out ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Md Arif Hasan, PhD candidate, Victoria University of Wellington CC BY-NDClimate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.If you have a question you’d like an expert ...
There’s an innovation renaissance brewing in post-earthquake Christchurch as multicultural entrepreneurship replaces the old boys’ network. This required a new name, writes Steven Moe.An unusual name that evokes images from Harry Potter is fine by the Ministry of Awesome, because it immediately sets it apart. Founded in the aftermath of ...
Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) and Ngā Tāngata Microfinance endorse the Salvation Army’s call for tougher regulations on debt collectors and mechanisms to provide forgiveness or waivers for debts to private lenders and Government that are "effectively ...
Cotton On members are currently negotiating a new Collective Agreement with their employer, but despite the company’s repeated claims that they will provide “a pathway to the living wage”, a “people first focus” and a “commitment to ...
Today the Wellington Howard League releases the results of its fourth annual Wellington Howard League prison survey. The survey suggests a variation in the conditions experienced across prisons in New Zealand and an overall decline in most aspects surveyed. This ...
Some people go for a run to let off steam after work, while others try their hand at ballroom dancing or hit up a pub quiz. And some, as Greta Yeoman discovers, throw sharp objects at walls. She gives it a go.An uncoordinated, anxious journalist with terrible aim is probably ...
A move by Australia's financial regulator could be enough to turn the big banks' threat to ditch New Zealand into a reality - or at least see them charge customers more. ...
A staffing survey carried out by the senior doctors’ union, the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists, has found a gaping shortfall of hospital specialists at the Northland DHB. ...
Iain Lees-Galloway has defended granting residency to a man with multiple drink-driving convictions saying the person had been in the country for 20 years and had kept out of trouble for a long time. ...
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.Today’s content by Dr Bryce Edwards.Industrial relations Luke Malpass (Stuff): Winston Peters holds the keys to new union laws. Will ...
Yes we fully support Minister of transport plan to use special speed cameras finally catching all speeding trucks, and other vehicles on our narrow single lane roads that are not fit to use as a speedway by any vehicle. ...
This afternoon Fish & Game posted a public statement responding to my email to supporters this morning – specifically rejecting our claim that steel shot is now deemed "enhanced penetration ammunition" and therefore possession of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mandie Shean, Lecturer, School of Education, Edith Cowan University Two-thirds of young people experience levels of exam stress that mental health organisation ReachOut describes as “worrying”. Research shows high levels of exam stress can interfere with attention and reduce working memory, leading ...
The National Party's outrage that the Immigration Minister granted residency to a protected person and recidivist drink driver, entitling them to the same benefits as New Zealanders, has backfired. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jennifer Beckett, Lecturer in Media and Communications, University of Melbourne Reports of Facebook moderators’ appalling working conditions have been making headlines worldwide. Workers say they are burning out as they moderate vast flows of violent content under pressure, with vague, ever-changing guidelines. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Lycett, Senior Research Officer, Deakin University; Honorary Fellow, The University of Melbourne, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute Three simple factors can predict whether a child is likely to be overweight or obese by the time they reach adolescence: the child’s body mass ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Marshall, Lecturer, Landscape Architecture and Urban Ecology, University of Melbourne You may mock the national anthem by singing “Our land abounds in nature strips” but what you might not know is how true that is. In Melbourne, for example, more than ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Keith Rathbone, Lecturer, Modern European History and Sports History, Macquarie University It’s unlikely Daryl Morey, general manager of the Houston Rockets basketball team, realised he’d be sparking an international diplomatic incident when, on October 4, he tweeted the following Stand with Hong ...
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Pressure on government from unions, mosque attack victim widows turned down for residency, and another Nat eyes safe Botany seat nomination.Pressure is being put on the government to deliver on one of their major promises to the union movement, reports the NZ ...
It’s the end of an era at Three as MAFS NZ and Guy Williams’ new show canceled and 7 Days cut to bone, writes Duncan Greive.A trio of shows which have been amongst Three’s most important local productions are either being canceled or severely cut back, as the channel’s agonising ...
'Joker' expects viewers not only to understand its cruelty, but to understand the justified violence of a white man when the protests of black men and women in the US are regularly met with condemnation, vilification and exclusion. ...
She runs the women's Aussie Rules and netball programmes at one of Australia's oldest sports clubs, so why is Jane Woodlands-Thompson sitting on the Silver Ferns bench? ...
As someone with a severe chronic illness, Hannah McGowan has a vested interest in getting to the bottom of what cannabis can and can’t do for her health. The reality, she discovers, is complicated.Woo [colloq.]: Mystical, supernatural or pseudo-scientific beliefs not backed up by evidence. I crave a well informed, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The last PM shock jock Alan Jones slapped down was Jacinda Ardern. His language was particularly offensive, advertisers deserted his program and he apologised to New Zealand’s leader. But at least Ardern didn’t have to ...
By Michael Andrew and Sri Krishnamurthi The true story of one of the Pacific’s great waka builders and sailor has been captured in a stirring and visually gripping documentary. Loimata: The Sweetest Tears follows the final years of Ema Siope, a Samoan born kiwi who endured a tumultuous past ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Benjamin Cowie, Director, WHO Collaborating Centre for Viral Hepatitis, The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity Around one-third of Australians living with hepatitis C have been cured in the last four years. Hepatitis means inflammation of the liver. Hepatitis C is ...
New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern. Image AsiaPacificReport.nz/RNZ.Commentators across the political spectrum seem to agree – the Labour-led Government’s popularity is being damaged by its failure to deliver in Jacinda Ardern’s self-proclaimed “Year of Delivery”. Instead, the delivery of bad news to Labour and the Government has come in ...
Internet Service Providers have cautiously greeted the news that the Government is exploring an internet filter for violent extremist and terrorist content. ...
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.Today’s content by Dr Bryce Edwards.Polls Richard Harman (Politik): Ardern now dependent on Peters Sam Sachdeva (Newsroom): Ardern still standing, but ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Greg Austin, Professor UNSW Canberra Cyber, UNSW This is part of a new series looking at the national security challenges facing Australia, how our leaders are responding to them and how these measures are impacting society. Read other stories in the series ...
Researchers from Lincoln University are investigating how to use nanotechnology in agriculture to increase productivity and reduce environmental impact. ...
The increased presence of anti-trans and white supremacist stickers around the University of Auckland campus is proof that inaction is enabling hate groups, write Anisha Sankar and Max Whitehurst.Anisha Sankar is a Chennai-born, Te Awakairangi-raised, South Indian Tamil studying at the University of Auckland. Max Whitehurst is a transgender Pākehā ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexander Gillespie, Professor of Law, University of Waikato Following the Christchurch mosque shootings, the New Zealand government’s first response was to ban the firearms the alleged gunman had used to murder 51 people. Seven months later, the second tranche of this process ...
The nine members for the next three year term of the Independent Māori Statutory Board (IMSB) for Auckland have been appointed by the statutory Selection Body. Their appointments begin on 1 November 2019 and continue to 31 October 2022. Mana Whenua ...
Open Mike 16/12/2016 
The government has decided that someone has done Something Bad. But despite their belief, there seems to be no evidence that they have actually broken the law. So the government's solution is to pass a retrospective law allowing them to be punished anyway, on a lower standard of proof. If ...3 hours ago
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nz There is a lot of discussion on the benefits of ...6 hours ago
I came across this song quite by accident. If it isn't one of Greta Thunberg's favourites - it should be.Video courtesy of YouTube.This post is exclusive to Bowalley Road. ...6 hours ago
Thanks to a report from the Acting Inspector General of Intelligence and Security following a complaint by Nicky Hager, we have come to find out that the SIS illegally spied on Mr. Hager on behalf of the NZDF after publication of Hager’s 2011 book, Other People’s Wars. The NZDF justified ...1 day ago
COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING MYTH 1: Global temperatures are rising at a rapid, unprecedented rate. FACT: The HadCRUT3 surface temperature index, produced by the Hadley Centre of the UK Met Office and the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia, shows warming to 1878, cooling to 1911, ...1 day ago
The Royal Commission on abuse in care is very significant for the disability community. For many decades last century, thousands of disabled children, and adults who managed to survive, were locked away from families and communities. This was not for anything they had done, but for the perceived threat their ...1 day ago
More than double the number of people who will vote in this year’s local body elections have tried marijuana or urinated somewhere they shouldn’t have. As local elections look set for the lowest turnout in decades, with many regions falling well short of 40%, the Government is exploring a number ...5 days ago
“There can be no such thing as kaupapa Māori political parties or politics in Aotearoa” (Willie Jackson, Labour Party (2017). Māori TV, General/List Election Special) I begin with that claim because at the time, I was confounded at first that it fell out of Willie Jackson’s mouth, and then ...6 days ago
https://mailchi.mp/7d9133add053/closing-the-gap-october-2019-newsletter ...6 days ago
For some reasons, my post about the mystery message from inside the Downing Street bunker seemed to catch people's attention. Quite a lot of hits from NZ (unsurprisingly) and the USA (a bit more puzzlingly, but hi there, USAians!!) and 76 views from the Ukraine.I've celebrated my Ukrainian readers in ...7 days ago
Foreign Minister Winston Peters is predicting a hard Brexit for the United Kingdom, as he believes British Prime Minister Boris Johnson won’t be able to negotiate terms before the October 30 deadline. The Minister, who was one of the first to publicly come out and predict British voters would leave ...1 hour ago
We want every New Zealander to be happy, safe, and healthy. To do this, we need to support strong, safe communities, and a robust and efficient health system. ...1 day ago
At 1.30pm tomorrow, hundreds of thousands of Kiwis will join about 65 million people around the globe in ShakeOut, the world’s biggest earthquake drill. The annual drill is to remind people of the right action to take during an earthquake which is to Drop, Cover, Hold, and to practise their ...3 hours ago
An ambitious target for new officers seems to have turned into a cynical redefinition - how will police take the news? ...5 mins ago
Olympic sailors Blair Tuke and Peter Burling are throwing their weight behind a campaign encouraging New Zealander consumers and businesses to reduce their plastic pollution. ...19 mins ago
National Party leader Simon Bridges says his MP Agnes Loheni let him know she'd be contesting the candidacy for Botany, adding it's a "free world". ...29 mins ago
Think you’ve got your KiwiSaver sorted? Try Kōura’s ‘robo-advice’ questionnaire and you might be surprised.If a person who looks like they know about finance asks you whether your appetite for risk is low, medium or high, what do you say? The problem is most Kiwis don’t understand what the question ...45 mins ago
The Social Services and Community Committee is seeking submissions on the Rates Rebate (Statutory Declarations) Amendment Bill. This bill aims to improve the process of applying for rates rebates. It proposes: • Removing the requirement to make a statutory ...59 mins ago
By Michael Andrew Pacific diplomats, academics and youth leaders will gather in Auckland this week to discuss security, economic development and other pressing issues shaping the region’s future. Pacific Futures will be held on October 18 and will feature speakers from across the region, including Samoa’s Deputy Prime Minister ...3 hours ago
Fast food company Restaurant Brands has made a smaller half year profit largely because of accounting changes as it prepares to invest heavily in the launch of Taco Bell in New Zealand. ...4 hours ago
Higher household costs helped to push consumer prices higher in the past three months, beating expectations. ...4 hours ago
Just talking about how good things will be if given the chance no longer cuts the electoral mustard. ...4 hours ago
In the 1980s, 78 percent of New Zealanders owned the home they lived in. Fast forward to today, and that's dropped to just 55 percent. ...4 hours ago
Principals nervously wait for the final outcomes of the biggest education system review in 30 years. ...5 hours ago
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At least 2 million bucks and counting for Corrections to put prison guards into hotels as they clean up the Serco mess at Mt Eden.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/320549/mt-eden-prison-guards-put-up-in-4-1-2-star-hotel
That’s shocking as. Housing crisis to blame? Lack of motels maybe?
Why on earth put up guards at a Hotel, sick of it, sick of the overspending and mismanagement of NZ’s finances at the hands of the outgoing national government.
2 million !! Imagine the good that kind of money could have done rather than giving it all to a local hotel. I wonder if the national government needs some budgeting advice? Sick of them wasting money, enough is enough.
Bet Scenic Hotels is not complaining.
Scenic Hotels? The same Scenic Hotels owned by a certain Earl Hagaman? What an astoundingly fortuitous coincidence.
Cinny
Yes, exactly right. This is part of the National Party neolib adventure which promises business that it will sell, often quite cheaply, all its service performance requirements to them. Businesses are working to attach their suckers to every available entry in the government fabric.
Leeches are cleaners, useful insects when used in medicine. Private enterprise used sometimes is useful, but not when NZ is getting a third carve-up, first Maui, second the colonial rush, and third the neo lib nasties.
Bad medicine. Will this period be known as The Age of the Locusts?
This is now the third article by experienced independent journalists denouncing the propaganda being fed to the Western public,
This article is worth reporting in detail.
Why is it ok to bomb Mosul but not Aleppo?
Assad and his allies have carried out war crimes. But so have the rebels
by Peter Oborne
Why is it ok to bomb Mosul but not Aleppo?
Peter Oborne is supported by Robert Fisk
There is more than one truth to tell in the terrible story of Aleppo
And Patrick Cockburn
Compare the coverage of Mosul and East Aleppo and it tells you a lot about the propaganda we consume
And Eva Bartlett
And Vanessa Beeley
And by Stephen Cohen, who ripped that sleazy and dishonest servant of Washington, Kenneth Roth, a new one on Democracy Now yesterday….
https://www.democracynow.org/2016/12/14/slaughter_or_liberation_a_debate_on
Right at the end of the discussion, Stephen Cohen lost all patience with Roth, and dealt to him….
STEPHEN COHEN: That’s not talking with Putin; that’s putting pressure on Putin.
KENNETH ROTH: And talk to him, too. And we never objected to the ongoing debate, the ongoing conversation, but it shouldn’t be in lieu of the kind of pressure, which is all that Putin listens to these days.
STEPHEN COHEN: Oh, for God’s sake. That’s all he listens to. And you base that on what? Your careful study—
KENNETH ROTH: I’m watching—I’ve watched—
STEPHEN COHEN: Your careful study of Putin? Your following of Russian politics?
KENNETH ROTH: I’ve watched two—yeah, I’ve watched—let me answer. Let me answer.
STEPHEN COHEN: Look, at some point, let’s be fact-based, OK?
KENNETH ROTH: I’ve watched him for two years—
STEPHEN COHEN: You simply don’t know what you’re—oh.
KENNETH ROTH: —talk and talk and talk with Kerry and Lavrov.
STEPHEN COHEN: Oh, oh.
KENNETH ROTH: And he just continued with the atrocities.
STEPHEN COHEN: You watched it, or you listened to what he said? Or you listened—you read it?
KENNETH ROTH: The only way to ratchet up—the only way he has made any—
STEPHEN COHEN: Oh, for God’s sake.
KENNETH ROTH: —change in Syria is when the pressure mounts.
STEPHEN COHEN: We’re back to Syria now.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to have to leave it there. We’re going to have to leave it there, but I want to thank you both for being a part of this discussion. Stephen Cohen is professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at Princeton and New York University. And Kenneth Roth is executive director of Human Rights Watch. This is Democracy Now! When we come back, we look at Trump’s pick to be the secretary of energy, Rick Perry. Stay with us.
Your transcript just shows an incoherent person pointlessly interrupting someone.
The only incoherent person in that studio was Kenneth Roth. Professor Cohen rightly pointed out that Roth knew virtually nothing and was a thoughtless megaphone for the State Department.
That you choose to call Professor Cohen’s challenging of that charlatan a “pointless interruption” tells us everything we need to know about how frivolous and insubstantial you are.
I had a look at the transcript on the site you linked to and I see Roth describing what’s happening and Cole obfuscating on behalf of the Russians. To you, that’s “frivolous and insubstantial,” but you always have plenty to say about how ignorant and unsophisticated other people are, usually while peddling some risible nonsense yourself, so I won’t be losing any sleep over it.
I had a look at the transcript on the site you linked to and I see Roth describing what’s happening and Cole [sic] obfuscating on behalf of the Russians.
If Roth had merely been “describing what’s happening”, Cohen would not have had to point out that he was merely repeating the most inflammatory State Department rhetoric. And you are deliberately misconstruing what Professor Cohen said.
The “frivolous and insubstantial” charge was directed at you.
This is now the third article by experienced independent journalists denouncing the propaganda being fed to the Western public…
Well, denouncing one side’s propaganda while propagating the other side’s, maybe.
And the headline “Why is it ok to bomb Mosul but not Aleppo?” must be one of the most cynical and disingenuous lines written about this conflict by someone not directly employed as a propagandist. No wonder you’re promoting it.
I don’t think you’ll find any of the above journalists are propagating one side.
They are simply pointing out that the corporate embedded message we are getting is extremely one sided.
Just look at the bias served to us by our media.
Aleppo
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11751073
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11720721
Mosul
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11762531
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11716068
Can’t you see it???
So what? What is your point? That media is bias – well fuck me dead I never realised. //SARC
It seems like the – look at this disgusting porn which I have now watched for 3 hours non-stop to see how bad it is. War/propaganda porn is as damaging and delusional.
fuck me dead I never realised
Sadly, some of your recent comments confirm that to be true, marty.
It is clear many people do take the news they consume at face value.
Simply questioning the narrative over Mosul and Aleppo has ensured a lot of flak.
I get that Paul – is it the questioning of the narrative that is your main point.
Some of us never accept the narrative even if it is all over the MSM – you know that right. Some of us know that it is propaganda AND that still, in 2017, people are getting slaughtered – whether by this creed or that one – you know that right. Some of us are SO far away from the murders and atrocities that we realise ANY of our conclusions derived from some information from there, is always bias to our own preconceived ideas, ideals, and ethos, and we accept that.
+1 Marty.
As usual, you sum up my view exactly.
Thanks Karen – I just find the fundamentalist “I know what is happening on the other side of the world and you don’t” line so arrogant, let alone false.
+2
why don’t you piss off morrie – your snide digs show what an inadequate little prat you are – go send another email dissing Kim Hill why don’t you you pompous freak.
Thanks! That’s a classic demonstration of indignatio.
May I use it for an upcoming playlet I’m working on?
you know you’re a turd morrie – sure, a pretentious one who has a very inflated and puffed up view of his own intelligence and insight and that is your right. Try doing some wider and deeper reading if you want your piglet to fly.
marty mars
You would have more credibility if you didn’t erupt so violently and emotionally. It seems to happen quite often. Why waste words, just a few are more cutting. Morrissey grows faster with this sort of manure.
I get some enjoyment from using words/sentences – good for my scrabble too. I don’t think I erupted at all, from an unprovoked and nasty snide attack on me after I asked a question of Paul. I like the fact that some find me too ’emotional’ but I think it is too far and quite rude to call me violent 🙂 I do get that I swear a lot – sorry for those you don’t like swearing – they are just words…
exactly !
from you that is a compliment – thank you x
The war and the lies are what’s “damaging and delusional”
Highlighting and exposing the lies are necessary…until the day the lies and war and evil has been stopped
No rest until that time comes!
Just look at the bias served to us by our media.
It’s kind of funny that you’re on here every day posting propaganda from regime sympathisers while also claiming to be outraged about “media bias.” Your peddling of propaganda on behalf of Russia, Iran and their client Assad is an object lesson in bias.
As to the links you provide, the lack of civilian-casualty stories from Mosul isn’t a reflection of western media bias, it’s a reflection of the fact that the place is held by Da’Esh. It’s also a reflection of the fact that Mosul hasn’t been subjected to massive, indiscriminate aerial bombardment. Your and others’ efforts at false equivalence can’t alter those things.
Now you are defending ISIS. Amazing!
Er, what?
You claimed the lack of civilian casualties in Mosul is a reflection of the place being held by ISIS.
I claimed the lack of news reports in western media about civilian casualties in Mosul is a reflection of the place being held by Da’Esh. Not because there aren’t any civilian casualties (there’ll be plenty) but because the only stories Da’Esh is interested in supplying to western media are about the western prisoners they’re holding, the gruesome executions they’re carrying out, or the obnoxious bluster their spokesmen churn out.
The US is supporting ISIS in Syria.
The Lizard People are supporting chem trails in the atmosphere.
Are you aiming for a competition to fill the thread with idiotic assertions?
I just don’t understand why you repeat western propaganda.
And get so angry the whole time.
Robert Fisk, Peter Oborn and Patrick Cockburn are not regime sympathisers nor do they peddle propaganda on behalf of Russia, Iran and their client Assad.
The Washington Post, al Jazeera, the BBC and the Guardian do promote an agenda, just as Press TV, RTV and others promote the other side.
Paul get real mate. Robert Fisk lives in South Lebanon. His narrative on Syria is largely from the Hezbollah perspective, nothing wrong with that per se but to pretend the guy is some neutral observer is just asinine. Your sources are just as biased as those you criticise.
You are aware of these three journalists impeccable credentials, aren’t you?
Yet you believe the establishment puppets.
Did you believe this one as well?
Another lie that was spread by the media to sell an an illegal war.
Did you believe this one?
wayne mapp, bill english and Key were spreading the same lies and supporting war here in NZ …..
” In the leadup to the Iraq war, National MPs were howling for New Zealand to back the US and get involved. Then Foreign Affairs spokesperson Wayne Mapp complained that we had questioned US intelligence on WMDs (I bet he feels stupid now) and demanded that we “stand firm with [our] traditional friends and allies” by supporting a second resolution authorising the war. The party complained that we had supported the international consensus of demanding solid evidence before invading another country. When the war began, Bill English demanded that NZ troops be sent immediately …. ”
http://norightturn.blogspot.co.nz/search?q=wayne+mapp%2Bwar
Mark Mitchell was part of the “mission accomplished” from that illegal war/invasion …. if any present mp in NZ has expertise on creating the conditions that empowers and grows groups like ISIS it would be him. ….
Despite Mitchells expertise in dog bites there is no link between him and abu ghraib https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse#/media/File:AbuGhraib13.jpg
http://www.antiwar.com/news/?articleid=8560
I enjoy Pauls links and think he supports peace …. not war.
Thanks Paul ….. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uap0GwBYdBA
Impeccable credentials? By whose standards Paul, their fan clubs?
I’m with Marty. Your inference that we’re all stupid and only you know the real truth is irritating.
Good enough for you??
Patrick Oliver Cockburn ( born 5 March 1950) is an Irish journalist who has been a Middle East correspondent for The Independent. He has also worked as a correspondent in Moscow and Washington and is a frequent contributor to the London Review of Books.
He has written three books on Iraq’s recent history. He won the Martha Gellhorn Prize in 2005, the James Cameron Prize in 2006, the Orwell Prize for Journalism in 2009,Foreign Commentator of the Year (Editorial Intelligence Comment Awards 2013), Foreign Affairs Journalist of the Year (British Journalism Awards 2014), Foreign Reporter of the Year (The Press Awards For 2014). Seymour Hersh has described him as the “best western journalist at work in Iraq today.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Cockburn
Good enough for you??
Robert Fisk (born 12 July 1946) is an English writer and journalist from Maidstone, Kent. He has been Middle East correspondent intermittently since 1976 for various media; since 1989 he is correspondent for The Independent, primarily based in Beirut. Fisk holds more British and international journalism awards than any other foreign correspondent and has been voted British International Journalist of the Year seven times. He has published a number of books and reported on several wars and armed conflicts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Fisk
What’s your point Paul? So you go googling to find some references that back up your argument and quote only those that do. Wow, that’s novel.
In the process of said googling you would undoubtedly have been presented with numerous other references that questioned your precious ‘impeccable credentials’ but of course you blithely ignore all those and see only what you want to see.
Fisk is well known to have good relations with Hezbollah, they wouldn’t let him live there if he didn’t. On the Syrian issue the other side won’t talk much with him, they know who he is. Most of his sources will be from the Hezbollah/Assad perspective and his reporting on Syria will reflect that.
Paul’s point is that he has an awesome argument from authority because the people he reads are trustworthy, objective experts in the field like, er, Eva Bartlett, which means Paul, by reading their stuff, is likewise brilliantly well-informed on the subject, whereas you are a mere dupe of western media bias. And also argument from authority is totally not a logical fallacy.
And the third journalist in Assad and Russia’s camp…..
Peter Alan Oborne (born 11 July 1957) is a British journalist. He is the associate editor of The Spectator and former chief political commentator of The Daily Telegraph, from which he resigned in early 2015. He is author of The Rise of Political Lying and The Triumph of the Political Class, and, with Frances Weaver, the pamphlet Guilty Men.
Oborne is known for his acerbic commentary on the hypocrisy and apparent mendacity of contemporary politicians.
On 17 February 2015, Oborne resigned from The Daily Telegraph. In a letter posted to the online news website, open Democracy, Oborne criticised his former employer for the allegedly unscrupulous relationship between their editorial and commercial arms. Specifically, Oborne outlined how the paper would suppress negative stories and drop investigations into the HSBC bank, a major source of their advertising revenue, which, in his opinion, compromised their journalistic integrity calling it a “form of fraud on its readers”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Oborne
Not stupid; just opinionated on a subject you are ill-informed about.
And you are ‘informed’ aye Paul. We’re all just gullible fools but you, well… you’re the worlds leading authority.
I refer to their credentials.
Who are your sources so I can become more enlightened?
There’s nothing I can say that will enlighten you Paul. You’ve got your view and nothing will will shake you from it.
When two opposing sides present their own version of events the truth is usually somewhere in the middle. The message being sent to you here, Paul, is that’s how most neutral people likely see the Syrian debacle. Both sides are lying propagandists, both are truth tellers. You choose to take a side, stop assuming that everyone else does.
Yet you believe the establishment puppets.
Did you believe this one as well?
It’s also kind of funny that you can spot propaganda when it’s from people you don’t like, but are happy to publish propaganda and defend it as objective reporting when it’s from people you do like.
So what are your sources psycho? I shall genuinely look at them.
Your nom de plume seems apt given the violent outbursts I receive for publishing contrarian viewpoints to the establishment narrative. Any chance you could tone down the aggro?
Absolutely. All that’s needed is for you to stop posting apologia for war crimes and then claiming the people who object to it are ill-informed.
As to my “sources,” I don’t have any impeccably-qualified authorities to spin logical fallacies from. I read things and watch the news, and am thereby no less ill-qualified to express opinions on this subject than you or Morrissey, who likewise read stuff and watch the news. None of us are experts on this subject, we’re people with opinions blathering on blog comments threads. If you could grasp that concept, you’d find fewer replies from me under your comments.
You don’t have a clue what you’re talking about, DH.
Fisk and Cockburn – propagandists for Putin.
What a joke.
Right on Paul and Morrissey. PM and DH are suckers for Western propaganda. Sad thing is, so are most Westerners. We have had nothing but bullshit since half way through WW2 from Western interests, and still these suckers fall for every word.
Obectivity seems to be an impossible ask.
DH “His narrative on Syria is largely from the Hezbollah perspective,”
Ummm, no.
If there’s been one aspect over the last 2 decades where Fisk has come in for criticism from progressive scholars/writers/analysts on Lebanon … it’s that he was too closely aligned with the Hariri-block and with his friend Walid Jumblatt. And that, hence, Fisk was far too predisposed to regurgitate some of the more banal US-Israeli propaganda specifically on Hezbollah.
That’s a critique from experts who otherwise have a great deal of time for the high quality and integrity of his journalism.
All of which suggests – as Paul and Morrissey have already pointed out – that you really don’t have too much of a clue.
And you do of course… have too much of a clue that is.
Pompous git.
See my comment below, sweet pea.
You seem to be projecting.
Your comment below speaks for itself and says a lot about you. I’ll let that lie where it falls, I don’t need to respond to it.
As anyone who has visited The Standard regularly over the last five years or so could tell you, actually, yes, swordfish does know what he’s talking about when it comes to Palestine, Israel, Lebanon and Syria.
And, as is painfully obvious, you know next to nothing.
Although I’m all for robust debate, I’m not sure I’d even bother with these Clintonistas, Paul. They’re a smug, preening, pompous little band of Stewie Griffins. Not a great deal of honesty, integrity or backbone. (you’ll look in vain for any critique of US foreign policy, for instance. Not in their interests. Where the New York Times and Washington Post go … they quickly follow – as fast as their little legs will carry them)
All you’re ever gonna get from these wonderfully droll wannabe hipsters are increasingly desperate attempts at erudite little bon mots. Such are the unquenchable depths of their self-delight.
That’s quite a personality assessment. For what it’s worth, I haven’t any thoughts or opinions about you.
An interesting article by Danyl McLaughlan – about how John Key’s expertise in finance trading gave him an understanding of how to play other complex systems – like politics – and “win” at the “game”. Means he was a conservative who favoured incremental change, but failed to deal with the most pressing issues facing the country.
It may not be the absolute worst way to run a country – but that’s a very low bar. It certainly hasn’t helped the country, and it’s been very bad for the least well-off.
“To me the most quintessential Key policy is his reform of the Emissions Trading Scheme: Key and his Trade Minister found a brilliant way to rort the international carbon trading system, buying hundreds of millions of dollars of quasi-legal Russian and Ukrainian carbon credits. It was an ingenious way to prevent New Zealand from having to reduce our carbon emissions, which would have lead to all sorts of reforms and costs that might have compromised Key’s popularity.”
“brilliant, rort,ingenious?…..that says more about the author than it does about Key……the entire article needs to read with that as its foundation.
Good point. yes. I do feel a uncomfortable about the element of worshiping Key’s (alleged) genius.
Like any day trader, he maximised short term profits (for himself and cronies) and left social destruction for others to clean up ( housing, immigration, super, tax havens, debt levels, etc). It does not require huge skills to asset strip a country over 8 years, but it does require skills to avoid detection and deflect blame).
I think he will go down as one of the worst PM’s we have ever had, once the books get opened. He’s a Muldoon – leaving a big mess for others.
hmm.., at least muldoon left a bit of a legacy.
the hydro electric dams.
good point about the day trader.
It seems worth comparing McLaughlan’s It may not be the absolute worst way to run a country – but that’s a very low bar. It certainly hasn’t helped the country, and it’s been very bad for the least well-off. with Gould’s …the battle was not one of personality politics, but real politics…The personality was merely the means by which a deadly serious re-making of New Zealand – along ideological lines – was being undertaken.
By McLaughlin’s account, Key focused on winning and paid scant attention to the plight of the least well off. By Gould’s account he was a man on a mission who employed a winning strategy. I find Gould’s account the more plausible. When people are being kicked out of houses for fabricated reasons, and being plunged into huge debts that they will never be able to pay, and the architects of that scheme are elevated as Key’s anointed heirs, then it all looks more deliberate than accidental. In fact it is almost worth asking them if they hope, following in the footsteps of nineteenth century colonists, that the least wealthy 20-30% will either bugger off or gradually die out. It is what their actions suggest.
Edit: I should also have mentioned our overflowing prison population.
Agreed. Very good contrast and analysis.
Olwyn
Happy Christmas and New Year and 2017 on and on.
Always enjoy reading your thoughtful stuff. Like a tonic you are.
Thanks grey – I look out for what you have to say also 🙂
I found Gould’s account more realistic too, Olwyn. Key was parachuted in to do a job (for unknown others), he’s done it, and he’s flown out again – leaving an exploited demoralised country behind him.
I agree, Olwyn – Gould’s analysis seems more accurate than Mclauchlan’s.
I also think Giovanni’s Tiso’s piece is very good.
https://overland.org.au/2016/12/the-man-without-a-legacy/
Yes I read that too and thought it was very good; very insightful.
This new article by Wayne Hope is also very good – on the myths the MSM promotes about John Key.
Its my last day of work for the year so might even be getting an early knock off so hopefully everyone has a good a Christmas as I’m going to or preferably even better!
Laters
Merry Christmas PR, enjoy your break, have a great time with friends and family and come back refreshed and ready to go for election year! (someone needs to remind these guys that NZ polls are generally accurate!)
We really do live in one of the best countries in the world, I mean sure theres no white Christmas but I think warm weather is better for festivities anyway
Beside the only the only poll that counts is on election day 😉
Merry Christmas
Seasons Greetings, happy Solstice PR. Enjoy your holidays.
I’ve always said the posters on here have more in common then differences 🙂
Merry Christmas!
Don’t let the tinsel covered door hit your arse on the way out.
Hopefully this will make you feel better
http://giphy.com/gifs/dog-sad-puppy-l5vObij2fAx8Y
Can we assume from your farewell post earlier that you will not be posting after today for the remainder of the year?
You won’t be hearing from me after today (I’m hoping to be knocked off at lunchtime but we’ll see) until January
But I’ll be watching…I’m always watching
Not allowed to use the computer at home, Pucky?
Rules with an iron fist, does she? 🙂
Could be though, that you have self-discipline. If that’s the case, respect.
“Rules with an iron fist, does she?”
I like strong, intelligent women, always have and always will 🙂
Laila it is then!
I’m thinking more…
Post-Pucky party!
Sad that we haven’t got Key to slag off, him having slunk off ‘n all.
Still, there’s Bill! Plenty of clods in that paddock!
Have a good break, I look forward to normal service being resumed next year.
Merry Christmas PR.
You are often the mustard on an otherwise great sandwich, (with a tendency towards vinegar) but sour taste and all, there is sometimes a moment when you provide the perfect note.
For that reason, (and not for the boasting of early holidays, you just can’t help yourself can you?) – enjoy your break.
Heres something you 🙂
http://giphy.com/gifs/disney-tangled-alice-in-wonderland-xbkgB7VYTsOGY
PR. You don’t know me at all.
More this: https://media.giphy.com/media/sUzZwE9AgI8iA/giphy.gif
🙂
This is accurate
Hey, Pucky – I was sequestered in the council chamber yesterday and not free to play the blogs, so missed your Christmas message and the opportunity to give you a ribbing. Have a good break, play fair and be kind to your people. Spend some time too, reflecting on aspects of your personality that are holding you back; your tendency to adore duplicitous authority figures, your habit of repeating nonsense ad nauseum, that sort of thing 🙂
In any case, see you in the New Year, by which time you’ll have realised what has happened and how parlous National’s position post-Key and you’ll have lost your puckiness, but there’ll still be a place here for you, in your depleted state.
Merry Christmas, Puck.
“I was sequestered in the council chamber yesterday ”
Well that doesn’t sound enjoyable at all
I’ll think about what you said, but no promises 🙂
Merry Christmas to you and everyone else
Go away Max, your dad has, time for you to do the same. If you really have let go of your ego, what’s with this professionally filmed self promotion? NZ is over it, go and promote yourself in Hawaii.
As for the Herald, wtf are you promoting? A washed up ex PM’s attention seeking son, jeepers you must be desperate for stories
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=11768085
A real man………
a real man… does not ride a woman, a real man satisfies a woman by letting her ride him. Too much information? Nah just reality, something that boy Max needs a dose of. lololz
A legend in his own mind if you ask me – and I agree with you about what makes a real man Cinny.
I humbly disagree, this is a real mans man
It’s now 11:47. You said you were off at mid-day. 13 minutes left!
yay – now only 9
Somehow I don’t think pukish rogue will be able to keep his/her end of the bargain.
Would you really want me to 😉
4 to go!!! I’m hoping, but righties aren’t known for sticking to their word – I hope the puck that puck will puck up the courage.
We all know the truth :-)https://cdn.meme.am/cache/instances/folder489/500x/54125489.jpg
Desperate to get in a few punches before a self imposed ban, he/she posts a broken link.
)https://cdn.meme.am/cache/instances/folder489/500x/54125489.jpg
Couldn’t script it better.
you do have redeeming attributes for a rightie – that is true – at least you are coherent in your rightieness and you do have a sense of humour which I find rarely in righties.
LMFAO !!! ROFL !!!!!!!!!!!!
How about a real Kiwi Man? It appears PR may have left the building.. but in the spirit of Kiwi Men and Christmas giggles, i just gotta contribute more than words.. dun dun dunnnn taa da..
“Hidden due to low comment rating.”
How Kiwiblog’s sensitive souls are spared having to read my posts.
Yesterday (Thursday 15/12/16) I achieved some kind of record over on Kiwiblog. Seven—-count ’em, SEVEN—of my posts on just one discussion thread were accorded the grim accolade of “Hidden due to low comment rating.” This stern notice of exclusion is followed by the invitation: “Click here to see”, which rather defeats the purpose.
Now, I fancy myself as a bit of an amateur psychologist, and I reckon that’s the approximate equivalent to the old “sealed section” that magazines like Cleo used to entice readers back when people used to read magazines.
What do Standardistas think about this?
http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2016/12/hosking_on_the_pike_protesters.html/comment-page-1#comment-1837884
‘hidden due to low comment rating’ I consider that to be their form of censorship, used when someone does not fall into line with the Kiwiblog agenda.
Well it is and it isn’t, Cinny. The forcing of my posts into that “naughty corner” is indeed a kind of censorship, but it’s not total censorship. David Farrar is far more tolerant, and intelligent, than Cameron “Whaleoil” Slater, who has banned me forever more.
Mind you, I was always headed for disaster over at Whaleoil, right from my very first post, which reminded the guys at Whaleoil that Todd McLay’s father Roger, the ex-National M.P. and persecutor of Peter Ellis, was in prison….
This was swooped on by the great man himself. …
From then on, my card was marked.
http://www.whaleoil.co.nz/2012/12/whaleoil-awards-best-electorate-mp-2/
You got banned for shit stirring? Man, that would never happen on a blog as tolerant and inclusive as The Standard.
Agree. You are still here.
Oh, it’s happened all right. Things really got bad the day I muscled in on a thread administered by the formidable Queen of Thorns. It led to the Mother of All Bollockings……
http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2013/01/general_debate_11_january_2013.html#comment-1076252
you have a long way to go to achieve the level of opprobrium generated by Penny Bright on KB.
A lot of the brutal comments directed at her are simply because she’s a woman.
That won’t bother her, PB just goes around the blogs to spam her latest 3000 word missive & never follows up
Yes, I’ve noticed that. She doesn’t really engage with anyone.
The brutal comments are directed at her because she steals from ratepayers and has zero respect for the law.
Ha! The posters on Kiwiblog are currently lionizing one Bill English, who brazenly stole money from taxpayers in a notorious housing rort [1] which would have driven anyone with a conscience to resign in disgrace.
The rest of the time they spend praising one John Key, whose sub-zero respect for the law was laid bare in Nicky Hager’s Dirty Politics. [2]
Yet YOU claim that these moral paragons routinely heap the vilest personal abuse on a woman because they respect the law. Do you realise the irony of what you are saying?
[1] http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/2711246/Bill-English-defends-taxpayer-cash-for-house
[2] https://dirtypoliticsnz.com/
There’s no answer that David C can give to that.
Except I will stop trolling on this site.
Great to know you’ll be stopping your trolling on this site Paul.
Paul, I’m afraid that poor “David C” is akin to a Samantha Power speech—i.e., completely devoid of any sense of the absurd.
Really?
I have defended my lawful rights as a citizen to find out exactly where ratepayers and citizens’ public monies are being spent on private sector consultants and contractors.
Feel rather vindicated, following the unprecedented verdict last Friday (9 December 2016 – International Anti-Corruption Day) in the Auckland High Court, by Justice Sally Fitzgerald, of bribery and corruption charges against a senior Auckland Transport manager and contractor.
The bribes over a 7 year period between those two amounted to $1.2 million.
(Sentencing will be on 22 February 2017).
I predict a ‘blue collar’ sentence for these two ‘white collar’ criminals.
That this is the ‘tip of the iceberg’ regarding corruption in the NZ roading industry, is the subject of a five page investigative article in today’s NBR (print version).
Penny Bright
‘Anti-privatisation / anti-corruption Public Watchdog’.
Were you involved in the case?
I was not directly involved in the SFO prosecution of the corrupt contractor and corrupt Auckland Transport senior manager.
However, I have been involved now for some years ‘blowing the whistle’ and ‘making a fuss’ against the lack of transparency in the spending of public monies on private sector consultants and contractors.
Penny Bright
‘Anti-privatisation / anti-corruption Public Watchdog’.
seems they rate you the same as many here – ‘oh dear – ego under attack – must think of pompous pretend intelligent reply’ – you’ve been lambasted here by some fine fellows and fellowesses over the years for inaccurate, nay made up ‘transcripts’ yet that water off your duck back is yellowish – none so blind eh morrie the minor.
You have a point to make in that flood of bile, marty, but it gets lost in the clumsy verbiage. greywarshark counseled you earlier today on the need to be concise; you should have listened.
well done you DID it
well done you did, IT
WELL, done you, did it?
well? DONE. you did it
well done YOU, did it
He’s having a go at humour now. Hmmmm….
https://cafedessports.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/h-20-1089739-1201429391.jpg
Thanks for that, marty. You’re back in the Breen good books now.
What do Standardistas think about this?
About what? That lots of Kiwiblog’s commenters don’t like you? That seems to be the standard reason for down-ticking a comment over there. Shouldn’t you be pleased rather than offended that the Angry White Men of Kiwiblog don’t like your comments?
Shouldn’t you be pleased rather than offended that the Angry White Men of Kiwiblog don’t like your comments?
Some of my posts garner a lot of upticks. The posters there are not as monolithic as you appear to think they are. It all depends on what I post up.
“Some of my posts garner a lot of upticks.”
How many sock puppets are you running these days Moz ?
I’m afraid that since I was banned from the Daisycutter Sports Inc. following the 2005 Christmas party, my access to the young women and men who used to back me up so vociferously on nz.general and rec.sport.rugby.union has pretty much dried up.
Some people think that I’ve created the hapless “Psycho Milt” as a scapegoat sock puppet, but I can assure you that he puts those idiotic words up there by himself.
More evidence the current government policy is hurting the children of Auckland voters.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/320543/housing-costs,-traffic-blamed-for-worsening-akl-teacher-shortage
I think the government is losing Auckland in a big way and the opposition really needs to make sure voters know there is an alternative. One of governance and planning rather than a wild west free for all.
Even the wealthy are getting miffed as they start to miss their air flights.
Watch out when little Benjamin’s private school can’t find a teacher.
or no-one to serve the latte
Nah, just import 1000 baristas from Bangladesh @ 10c /hour. That’s how we do “business” in NZ
Yep. The ministry, which have denied there is a problem, has 500 teachers from England ready to go, apparently.
Where are they going to live? How are they going to get to work?
I can guarantee you those mythical 500 teachers from England will be shocked by the state of transport infrastructure and housing if they ever make it to Auckland.
National has lost the battle for Auckland.
Charter school?
Well what an end to the year in NZ politics. key gone, gnat mps gone, other mps gone, english and the fakewestieladderpuller in. Whew!!! I am LOVING it. Meanwhile the shit the system (and it’s little helpers) do, continues and the disadvantaged and less able continue to get shat on from a great height.
I sense a change in the centre of balance – I’m feeling a movement beginning (sorry potty humour).
Those who support left values are going to have to dig deep next year to take advantage of these changes. The pressure must be maintained and increased. The dumbarse gnat ministers must be hounded and continually asked the hard questions and their lies scrutinised and illuminated.
For left activists like me there are some very big decisions to make.
I can’t support Mana if they go with The MP
I can’t voter for labour or the Greens while they target the mythical middle
I will not support the agenda of morgan or winnie
The right are going down the gurgler and I don’t know who my precious vote will be going to to keep them going down.
Bring on the New Year – I’ll keep fighting the fight for the disadvantaged and those who struggle within our society and I’ll do it with or without a political party.
“Bring on the New Year – I’ll keep fighting the fight for the disadvantaged and those who struggle within our society and I’ll do it with or without a political party.”
Woot woot !!! Kudos bro 😀
You haven’t been interpreting Andrew Little’s comments about “the mythical middle” correctly, marty mars. He has said that wherever he goes people he talks to about their problems – housing, jobs, health, education – all consider themselves “middle NZ” – so its a very broad concept, not a narrow swinging vote in the centre of the left-right divide.
perhaps, but I think I have heard and listened to them pretty well and my analysis is accurate
If it’s such a broad concept, why is it called “middle”? – this term seems to me to be derived from the long term US Democrat focus on the “middle class” – because, apparently no-one considers themselves working class or under class any more.
But where did that idea come from? – seems to me it’s the result of neoliberal propaganda, denying the existence or significance of the struggling working class and precariat.
Basically, it’s colluding with right wing spin. It becomes circular. Everyone considers themselves “middle” because that is what the media and third way pollies have been telling them for a couple of decades. It’s time to break the cycle.
“I can’t support Mana if they go with The MP
I can’t voter for labour or the Greens while they target the mythical middle
I will not support the agenda of morgan or winnie
The right are going down the gurgler and I don’t know who my precious vote will be going to to keep them going down.”
I’m with you on all four points there marty mars…and I’ve been accused of setting too high a standard…demanding an unreasonable level of integrity from the recipients of my two votes.
With the departure of Catherine Delahunty from the GP I fear that party is heading irretrievably almost centre right…when Jan Logie hands in her notice…
Oh well.
On the upside, next winter’s firewood is just about stacked under cover, the two water tanks are full to overflowing and the septic tank and it’s drainage field are still functioning as they ought. All we have to sort out is a generator(or alternate to grid power supply) so we can pump the water from our tanks and keep the freezer frozen and we’ll be right when the shit hits the fan.
I love your ‘On the upside’ Kia kaha!
Australian mum’s hilarious response to debt letter for a whopping 2 cents
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=11767905
Sadly in NZ it is more likely to be 62,400 per year for a motel room, than 2 cents being demanded.
love it, saveNZ !
I got a nasty letter from the Justice Dept this week, demanding $130 and if I didn’t pay up I would be summoned to Court or arrested.
Apparently I got a traffic fine back in July but the cops had been sending mail to the wrong address the whole time. FFS!
I got a super nasty letter when I was a student, from ANZ bank, demanding I pay my $1000 interest free overdraft back even though I was still a student. Anyway I got rid of my ANZ bank account overdraft, closed my account and never returned to them and just the other day got an unsolicited letter from ANZ asking for my business again, which I will not be taking up.
Also have huge nightmare when someone used my identity to police for a fine, but after a lot of paperwork, declarations and huge amount of work, managed to prove I was overseas and could not have done it!
Scary shit — identity theft is a handy trick to get the cops off your back I guess.
(Also a massive growth industry)
Basically the burden of proof seems to be on you to prove you don’t owe the money not the other way around!
The foul-mouthed, tittie-ogling quitter has left the building.
Great Christmas present for decent people across New Zealand.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/tv-radio/87631676/paul-henrys-final-tv3-breakfast-show-this-is-it
There are quite a few right wingers of questionable character quitting of late.
Don’t think I’ve ever seen a mass exodus of right wingers from NZ like this before.
No tinfoil hat required to sense that something just doesn’t sit well, could the excuse of 2016 be ‘family reasons’?
Yes. It is a curious phenomenon. And puzzling. Not sure what to make of it.
Very generally, with Key it’s a case of the golden times being over and the hard work was ahead – he couldn’t face the hard work.
With Henry, I just think he couldn’t stand being the person he is. He genuinely hates himself for the things he feels he has to say to maintain popularity.
I don’t have any understanding of Henry as I tend to avoid his shows.
But surely he wouldn’t say much of what he says if he didn’t believe it?
He believed it, just that he hated himself for having to say it for money. He banged on about NZ being paradise but then tore strips off the most vulnerable citizens in that paradise. Unconscionable really.
His talk was pub talk and while pub talk is fine, it is only fine in a pub, if you know what I mean.
Just wondering… how much has Bridges spent on luring Oil Barons here to drill? Looks like that was a waste of money.
Maybe the Oil Barons realise that there will be a change of government here very soon and as a result don’t want to invest? Suits me.
Hey Government, instead of shelling out who knows how much to entertain oil giants, how about… funding science to get the whole country on free energy? Here’s an idea, how about an electric car manufacturing plant? Maybe a solar panel production factory? Hotels, helicopters and caviar instead with our tax dollars huh?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/87614697/only-a-fraction-of-new-zealands-oil-territory-sells-in-block-offer-2016
Labour Party reshuffle announced by Little.
”Clare Curran takes over ICT and moves into the Shadow Cabinet.”
shit cv will be having a fit
Where is CV? I have to agree with him on Clare Curran. Surely someone must be better?????
I still remember Clare Curran on FB with some voter trying to reach out to her in a really nice way, over TPPA, she just ignored them. But maybe she has changed her ways.
cv on ban until 28th or something
That’s a bit hard. Plus we have not had comments on…
Russia warns New Zealand after UN comments
link fyi
http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2016/12/russia-warns-new-zealand-after-un-comments.html
disclaimer, under the fog of war, the first casualty is the truth
We can look at how well that Labour party blog went for evidence of Curran’s IT nous.
Still she probably knows more than whoever the dingbats were that had no idea what Uber was all about.
On the Fifth day of Christmas – On Friendship.
Nice – I love the word cherish
“to love, protect, and care for someone or something that is important to you”
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/cherish
and in your quote above cherish ‘something that is important to another’ – very beautiful to be able to do that and be true to that.
maui
What about going down to see Robert Guyton? He is more of a people person than I think Thoreau was. Our very own ‘wild man’. I think he would laugh at that, seemingly good-natured.
And marty mars
You are right about cherish. It is a word that hasn’t been spoiled by some dissonance. Some words seem to be 3D I think, stand clear of the page.
Interesting guy Thoreau. Who doesn’t want to go and live in the woods with simplicity and solitude for a while. I have to read Walden sometime too.
Some stories not making the news
“We Miskitu women have a special relationship with our land – that sacred space that cannot be sold or divided up. For Indigenous People, land is community. It is living in harmony with Mother Earth. Our collective identity and sense of belonging is embedded in the land and so too our legal, political, economic and social systems.
And it is not just Miskitu women. Indigenous women all over the world have this special relationship with land and territory. We are transmitters of knowledge, persevering our cultures, systems and the ways our Indigenous Nations and Peoples organize.”
https://intercontinentalcry.org/access-land-indigenous-women-essential-condition-eradicating-gender-violence/
“Recently, members of the Yaqui tribe in Loma de Bácum won a moratorium against the construction of the pipeline. According to local media, however, Mexican authorities have announced that pipeline construction will continue because “one community” cannot stop “a project that will benefit future generations.””
https://intercontinentalcry.org/mexico-moves-ahead-controversial-pipeline-indigenous-land-despite-moratorium/
“The United Nations has condemned the wave of violence and observed that “75% of the homicide victims were carrying out their activities in rural environments, and that the methods of the killings and assassination attempts show a high level of sophistication to conceal the intellectual authors.”
Responsibility for many of the attacks has been claimed, however, by paramilitary groups including the Aguilas Negras (Black Eagles), the Rastrojos, and the Urabeños; groups that developed out of the right-wing paramilitary Self-Defence Forces (AUC) following their partial demobilisation between 2003-2006.”
https://intercontinentalcry.org/black-eagles-and-black-windows/
“All over the world today, Indigenous Peoples are confronting the destructive practices of industry—leading the charge against climate change while defending the lakes, forests and food systems that all of us depend on. At the same time, they are blocking governments from weakening basic rights and freedoms and turning to the courts of the world to correct over 500 years of historical wrongs. And all the while, Indigenous Peoples are breathing new life into the biocultural legacies that have the potential to sustain the entire human race until the sun goes nova.”
https://intercontinentalcry.org/15-indigenous-struggles-need-know/
If you want to support indigenous struggles that are happening right now, all around the world, go to Intercontinentalcry.org – the wealth of information there is unsurpassed, the depth of the struggles is immediate, and the knowledge that NOW is just a continuation of THEN – the struggles for indigenous peoples against the juggernaut are enduring and ongoing and have been for generations.
Beautiful review of Bob Dylan’s career, and the song he chose in lieu of a Nobel Prize acceptance speech (for literature)
https://www.theautomaticearth.com/2016/12/a-dozen-dead-oceans/
“And what’ll you do now, my blue-eyed son?
And what’ll you do now, my darling young one?
I’m a-goin’ back out ‘fore the rain starts a-fallin’
I’ll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest
Where the people are many and their hands are all empty
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison
And the executioner’s face is always well hidden
Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten
Where black is the color, where none is the number
And I’ll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it…”
A modern-day prophet.
“And I’ll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it…”
I’m one of the hippy generation that did pay attention to songs like that – and it just wasn’t about a potential nuclear mutual destruction. I think many others also paid attention to such songs.
And it is even more relevant now – good choice of song.
It’s just that such songs got swamped with the shifts from above, in right wing propaganda, the video revolution, etc, along with the consumerist mantras.
Many of us protested at the time…. but still the neoliberal tanks rolled all over everywhere.
from the dreamtime.
God, talk about being slung back in time! We used to sing this at school…in the 60s in the UK and here in the 70s.
You know…being post Vietnam…we kinda hoped, like , you know, it might come true.
I won’t read it but I see a Herald headline about young Keydashian. His father gradually being out of a permanent presence in the headlines certainly won’t stop his regular appearances.
He is of no more importance than any other citizen. If he is being foisted on me for crap, nothing reasons and events it is fair to consider I am being treated with contempt. I will take that as the okay to reciprocate.
Those MSM chief editors probably having a hard time going cold turkey from their key spin cycles.
The Key kid is a DJ and promoting himself, and the papers love celebrity
It’s all coming out in the wash. Those real estate companies which have enriched the lives of a select few National party voters have been found to be corrupt.
Much like National party voters themselves.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11768413
Still, between 4 companies, 5% commission on the average Auckland house equals just 50 houses each sold to pay for this fine. A slap on the hand with a wet bus ticket.
Remember it is the National government under which these people are conducting their corrupt business practice.
Allo allo ‘allo… I see a national party donator there.. old Garth Barfoot.
“Justice Paul Heath today ordered Barfoot & Thompson to pay $2.575 million, Harcourts $2.575m, LJ Hooker $2.475m and Ray White $2.2m.
Bayleys was also subject to the agreement but that case was settled earlier this year after the firm agreed to pay a $2.2m penalty.”
More to follow says the Herald….
Maybe Nick Smith will resign for family reasons lololololoz how magical would that be?
They defrauded TradeMe and passed fee increases on to buyers. Nice people in that industry. One bunch of ticket clippers ripping off another. I wonder if the affected buyers get refunded from any of those penalties?
Time to nationalise the whole real estate industry, it’s a bloated parasite
A must see 3D video of Earths CO2 emissions
I spotted this….http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/12/accelerates-troop-deployment-poland-baltics-161214165133547.html the other night…and thought, ho hum,
and now this….http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11768380 “Swedish towns told to ‘make preparations regarding the threat of war and conflict’ with Russia”
Fake news?
Its getting a bit tight in here….
Fascinating. This sort of behaviour is something we in New Zealand thought happened in new and third world countries. Yet under their government police corruption is happening right under our noses!
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/320595/corrupt-cop-convinced-driver-to-hand-over-cash
John Campbell on Checkpoint is ferocious on housing today.
It will be an election issue next year. The New Nats refuse to do anything about it and this opens the door for the opposition to really canvas affected voters like they did in Mt Roskill.
Housing story starts at 12:20 in the above RNZ clip
Incredible. Not one person from authority fronted on this issue. As I said on another thread, Bennett and co will not have Paul Henry to stroke them next year. Bill’s not a great fit on The Rock, or More FM, so perhaps they’ll not show up anywhere???
Hopefully some dire poll results will force Blinglish to take some damn responsibility for a change.
48:50 class action against insurance companies dodging earthquake payouts
Sadly follows it up with a promotion for ISIS by repeating BBC propaganda.
-1 spam. You’ve already posted that clip, and 59 others on this topic