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???
What can we make of where National’s current leader Simon Bridges and the Party’s reliable water carrier Paula Bennett are taking their campaign to “win back the Treasury benches”? Going by the often petulant tone he has adopted, and the frequent histrionics of the most ardent supporters: going nowhere, and ...
by Daphna Whitmore It is surprising how rarely the authorities take an evolutionary perspective when dealing with health crises, such as the latest coronavirus spread. They talk about viruses mutating but that is a frequent occurrence, and they treat mutation as though it were equivalent to evolution. A mutation is ...
For over a decade, Heathrow airport has been wanting to add a third runway, to increase air traffic. Its been vigorously opposed by people concerned about the environmental impact. And now, its been ruled illegal on climate change grounds:Plans for a third runway at Heathrow airport have been ruled illegal ...
Many readers will probably have read this RNZ article (or heard the related interview), or seen calls for consultation on the Ministry of Education’s suggested changes to the number of subjects – and achievement standards – on offer to year 11 students. I’ve been following (& participating, where I ...
Method In Our Madness? When a liberal-democratic society encounters racism its first impulse is to shut it down – not interrogate it. But, is this wise? Is it reasonable to assume that a phenomenon as powerful, pernicious and persistent as racism is entirely without purpose? Surely, there must be, as Shakespeare puts it: ...
Here is the speech that Maya Forstater gave at the Woman’s Place UK Women’s Liberation 2020 conference at UCL on February 1st In a recent newsletter she wrote: it was an amazing day (and brilliant to meet so many people in real life). I talked about what makes people and ...
NZ First portrays itself as an anti-establishment party, standing up for "the little guy" (always a guy) against Big Auckland Money and its tool-parties. But it turns out that its secret slush fund is funded by the very people it claims to oppose:Stuff can reveal a longer list of donors ...
Peter TalleyI really don’t envy Jacinda Ardern’s position as Prime Minister of New Zealand. She’s probably got the hardest job in the country. Not only does she have to ensure her own MPs are behaving properly, she has to negotiate with Winston Peters and other NZ First MPs who seem ...
Will She, Or Won't She? Jacinda’s white vestments may look impressive on the cover of the international edition of TIME magazine, but every day Labour’s relationship with Winston Peters and NZ First continues, her ability to go on wearing them back home in New Zealand – without exciting derision – diminishes.IT WAS ...
BAMS survey of 2018 extreme weather The Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society has published a collection of articles examining unusually extreme weather events of 2018 and connections of those to climate change. These investigations are listed separately below but thanks to the generosity of AMS appear free for ...
Less than two months after China told the WHO there was a problem, a lot has happened. Sadly, deaths, confirmed cases and countries affected are increasing every day. However, on a scientific and medical level, what is going on to contain, cure and prevent this new disease is truly inspirational. ...
From 2015 to 2019 the NSA ran a program of mass surveillance of Americans' domestic communications. It was intrusive, totalitarian, and a collosal waste of money:A National Security Agency system that analyzed logs of Americans’ domestic phone calls and text messages cost $100 million from 2015 to 2019, but yielded ...
I must say that it’s at loggerheads with the inclusive and free society we want to create in New Zealand that one of our largest media outlets, MediaWorks, would allow Hannah Tamaki to perform on their show, Dancing With The Stars.Hannah Tamaki and her husband Brian are after all well-known ...
The media is reporting that an Auckland man has been charged with terrorism. Unfortunately, that's all we know, because all details have been suppressed. Who are they? What are they alleged to have done? Its all secret. There may be good reason for some of this (e.g. protection of the ...
Dr David ChagnéNew Zealand is involved in a US$12.8 million USDA grant to improve the quality of blueberry and cranberry. The four-year project, led by North Carolina State University, is part of the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture Specialty Crop Research Initiative, which funds multi-year, multi-institutional collaborative ...
The Cranky Uncle vs. Climate Change book is now available! The book uses cartoons, humor, and critical thinking to expose how and why some people reject climate science. It's now available for sale on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other book outlets. If you're near the DC area, you're very welcome to ...
by the Council of Disobedient Women When Moana Maniapoto recently lamented that Rachel Stewart was no longer writing for the Herald, political commentator Morgan Godfery was quick to brag on Twitter, like a schoolyard bully, how proud he was of “driving Rachel Stewart from the Herald”. What a contrast Morgan ...
You’re probably aware that the Achievement Standards used to assess senior school students’ learning are being reviewed. Science is one of the ‘pilot’ subjects in this process, where a ‘Subject Expert Group’ has developed 4 draft Science standards¹ (a significant step away from the current 30+, and a response to ...
John MacCormickTo succeed in an unpredictable and changing world, adaptability is the key. Let’s be chameleons. Technology continues to change people’s jobs and work environments. But change so far is not as fast and extensive as some pundits claim. Nor is it as fast and extensive as it needs ...
It seems we can’t even get through a week these days without the National Party's leader, Simon Bridges, making some sort of silly announcement about a policy that doesn’t actually exist.Usually concerning Bridges’ gut instinct and the undoing of whatever the Government has recently announced, National’s reactionary opinions and uncosted ...
Oh look! NZ First's secret slush fund was laundering donations from Talley's:One of the country's biggest fishing companies, Talley's, and its managing director donated nearly $27,000 to the New Zealand First Foundation, which has been bankrolling the New Zealand First Party. The foundation received $26,950 from seafood giant Talley's and ...
Janet Hoek, Richard Edwards, Andrew Waa, Nick Wilson, George ThomsonMinister Jenny Salesa announced the Government’s long-awaited Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Vaping) Amendment Bill on Sunday 23 February. The Bill contains some important provisions as it works to strike a balance between ensuring regulated products are available to ...
Surprisingly enough, one could argue (as I often do) that the day inserted into a leap year is not that we label 29th February, but actually the 24th of February. Here I explain why, briefly. Almost everyone assumes that the day added into February in a leap year is the ...
If you haven’t watched Newsroom’s video showing Oranga Tamariki staff attempting to uplift a newborn baby yet you should do so. Although it's not the worst case as far as interventions go, it’s certainly not a good look for the Government. Because of this controversy there’s been a plethora of ...
Genesis Energy is planning to build the country's biggest PV solar farm:Power generator and retailer Genesis Energy says it is in advanced discussions to build New Zealand's biggest solar farm in northern Waikato. The company, which earlier reported a 15 per cent decline in operating earnings to $167.2 million, said ...
Transport is our second largest source of greenhouse gas emissions. Any credible effort to reduce emissions to net-zero has to target it. So what is the government doing? Subsidising some of the dirtiest, most inefficient vehicles on the roads:New Zealand's favourite cars - double cab utes - are largely exempt ...
You’ve really got to wonder what the NZ First Party was thinking and drinking last Friday? Not only did they hamstring the Greens by halting one of their main environmental policies, the electric vehicle fee-bate scheme, a policy that the public was led to believe was a done deal…but they ...
High Risk Call: Insensitive though it may seem to even pose the question: how will the electorate respond to what the Prime Minister’s opponents will undoubtedly characterise as an attack on New Zealanders’ freedom of speech? At more than twelve month’s remove from the terrible events of 15 March 2019, ...
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A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week, i.e., Sun, Feb 16, 2020 through Sat, Feb 22, 2020 Editor's Pick JP Morgan economists warn climate crisis is threat to human raceLeaked report for world’s major fossil fuel financier says ...
Last week the Wall Street Journal published an article ‘The Dangerous Denial of Sex by two scientists Colin Wright and Emma Hilton. Write is an evolutionary biologist at Penn State and Hilton is a developmental biologist at the University of Manchester. It is well worth reading the article in full. Here ...
I am about to mail my overseas ballot to Florida so that it can be counted in the Democratic primary on March 17. In Florida you have closed as opposed to open primaries, which means that one must declare a party preference in order to vote in a party primary. ...
Winston Peters - Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the NZ First PartyWe all know that politics can be pretty messy at times. Just look at the Dirty Politics saga in New Zealand, the misgovernment of the Australian bushfires or the recent Trump impeachment debacle in the US. In a ...
Last Monday SpaceX launched another clutch of Starlink satellites into low-Earth orbit, bringing up to 300 the number of these units intended to bring 5G internet to the whole globe. In this post I present a movie showing how all 300 such satellites will be zipping around our planet over ...
The recent floods in Southland have highlighted the issue of Rio Tinto's illegal toxic waste dump in Mataura. But according to Newsroom, there's an even worse mess in Ruakaka near Whangarei:A Northland property stockpiled one million litres of flammable and toxic chemicals. Almost two years since the situation came to ...
It’s amazing just how many attack ads $100,000 buys you these days. The National Party has really been going to town lately, with their latest Twitter campaign making a number of questionable and blatantly false assertions, one being that poverty has worsened under the Labour led Government.The National Party's claim ...
OMV's exploratory drilling in the Great South Basin has failed to find oil. Good. Firstly, because we can't afford to burn the oil and gas we've already found, so there's just no point looking for more. And secondly, because offshore, deep-water drilling poses a risk of an environmental catastrophe, which ...
The government has announced it will strengthen whistleblower protections. The major change is "allowing people to report serious wrongdoing direct to an external authority if they wish", which fixes one of the big flaws in the Act. At present, whistleblowers must generally make their disclosure direct to the body they ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Bruce Lieberman CARLSBAD, CA. – When it comes to paying the electric bill, most people don’t give it a second thought – it’s something that in effect is “baked in.” But across California and several other states, local governments increasingly are ...
Excerpts from Being and Being Bought, by Kajsa Ekis Ekman, Spinifex Press, 2013. Part 4 Ekman, a Swedish journalist and critic, brings together a Marxist and feminist analysis of prostitution and surrogacy in this groundbreaking book. This is the fourth part of a synopsis and brief commentary of the book by Daphna ...
The Democracy Virus: China’s authoritarian political system enables a level of social surveillance and control that liberal democratic societies cannot match. The Chinese Government makes full use of the latest digital technology to both punish – and reward – its citizens. The plans it formulates cannot be challenged, or hindered. Where ...
Another day, another IPCA report on criminal conduct by policy. This time they kicked a child in the head when he was handcuffed:Police chased him and yelled out for him to stop. When he turned to face the police, he threatened them with a hammer. That's when the officers tasered ...
The investigation of two of the five parties in Parliament for fraud around their election donations has pushed the issue of party funding back into the spotlight. And while there are obvious things we can do to tighten up the donations regime - a much lower declaration threshold, realtime disclosure ...
While the south of New Zealand has been struggling with too much rain in recent days, here in the north we are so very short of it (though Saturday’s forecast looks promising). Basically, we have had almost none since Christmas.As someone who relies on rain to wash the car, ...
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Stand Clear! Winston Peters is encouraging voters to think of RNZ as belonging to “The Media Party”. He wants them to see it as a politically partisan institution with its own, vicious attack-dogs in the electoral fight. If he succeeds, it will be, and probably should be, the end of ...
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In mid-December the Israeli secret police, the Shin Beit, revealed it had arrested dozens of Palestinian left-wing activists, including members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), in the previous few months. Among those arrested was one of the central leaders of the PFLP, Khalida Jarrar. As ...
Former National Party chief whip Jami-Lee Ross is one of the four people charged over National's multiple fraudulent donations. How unsurprising. Meanwhile, just days ago National leader Simon Bridges was trying to pretend the charges were nothing to do with his party. Yeah, right. When your chief whip effectively publicly ...
If you've been watching FYI for a while, you'll have noticed that the police have a bad habit of demanding ID from requesters. They have apparently been repeatedly told to stop doing this by the Ombudsman, but we all know what law enforcement thinks of the law, so thye keep ...
Collateral Damage: For the Green Phoenix to be reborn, the funeral pyre so patiently assembled by its identity politicians over the course of many fractious years – but with growing intensity over the past three – first has to be ignited. The terrible probability, of course, is that, in setting ...
If you follow politics in New Zealand you've likely noticed that the right wing have been going on and on about the Coalition Government failing to reduce poverty. In fact they’ve been incessantly claiming, in the absence of any conclusive data, that poverty has been getting worse.Yesterday, NewstalkZB reported:Mike Hosking: ...
The Herald reported over the weekend that an Auckland business owner is being targeted with asset forfeiture laws over a workplace death:A workplace fatality has seen police use a law usually associated with drugs and organised crime to seize millions of dollars in assets from a business owner because of ...
Just days after talking about how people feel "squeezed" and promising tax and service cuts as a "solution", National is talking about cancelling a rise in the minimum wage if elected: National is considering scrapping the Government's planned minimum wage increase if it wins this year's election, the party's finance ...
Nobody thinks about the next century anymore. That at least is Sci-Fi writer William Gibson’s observation (in this BBC 4 short interview, starting at 1:43:50 ). He calls it “Futures Fatigue”, but isn’t judgemental about it. Gibson notes that in the 20th century speculation about the 21st (and beyond) was common. Now ...
A Labour government desperate for the numbers crawls into bed with Winston Peters. Winston ignores the law and secretly takes money under the table from someone. When it is exposed just months out from an election, he is investigated by the Serious Fraud Office. That's what happened back in 2008. ...
So the Serious Fraud Office has another secret $100,050 National Party donation before the Courts in a major scandal that looks set to quash any chances Simon Bridges had of winning the 2020 election.Yesterday, Newsroom reported:The Serious Fraud Office prosecution of four people over donations to the National Party involves ...
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Prof Philippa Howden-ChapmanHousing policy is building up to be the key election issue again. In this blog I reflect on the importance of the role of the New Zealand Government in improving access to affordable housing. I look at what the Government has been doing to increase quality public housing ...
Writing on The Spinoff, Danyl Mclauchlan argues that we have a vacuum in our political system, in that there is no longer an anti-establishment party anymore:I think there’s a vacuum in our political system. There are obvious problems with the status quo but no real critics offering reform. It’s a ...
Stuff today has a piece about the government discovering it has been oversubsidising polluters for a decade under the Emissions Trading scheme:The Government is pledging to urgently fix an issue within the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), after it emerged some polluters are likely being over-compensated with taxpayer-funded carbon credits. [...] ...
The Marlborough District Council, tired of public scrutiny, wants to increase the amount it charges for LGOIMA requests:The cost of requesting official information from Marlborough's government agency could almost double after a jump in "fishing expeditions". Charges could be raised from $60 to $100 an hour for information supplied by ...
When Winston Peters was caught money laundering donations and stalking journalists, the Greens were conspicuous by their silence. It was another example of how getting along with their government partners was eroding their values and their own reputation. It was obviously unsustainable, and so now James Shaw has finally spoken ...
I am among the most pro-free speech people I know. I don’t doubt there are others more strident than me, but I’m certainly up there. And my support for freedom of expression isn’t limited to opposition to government-imposed restrictions. It extends to a belief that employers should have limited powers ...
With over 69,000 confirmed cases and 1,600 deaths, here’s your round-up of the latest coronavirus news. New disease and virus have now officially been named On the 11th February, the WHO Director General announced a new name for the disease: COVID-19 which is short for coronavirus disease 2019. The naming ...
The eastern Bay of Plenty town of Ōpōtiki is getting a new harbour, which will create 1,850 new jobs in the region, in a new round of regional services funding announced by Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones. Ōpōtiki's harbour is currently unusable by most ships, but it will receive ...
Darroch Ball MP, New Zealand First Spokesperson for Law and Order New Zealand First Law and Order spokesman Darroch Ball has submitted the ‘Sentencing (Priority of Interests in Sentencing) Amendment Bill’ – a Members Bill which introduces a new overarching ‘priority and weighting provision’ that courts must follow when sentencing ...
Fletcher Tabuteau MP, New Zealand First Deputy Leader A total delivery of 2,000 new Police Officers has been achieved. New Zealand First Deputy Leader, Fletcher Tabuteau attended the latest police graduation of Recruit Wing 335 in Porirua today. Mr Tabuteau said, “Increasing police numbers and boosting their resources was one of ...
Taupō District mayor David Trewavas has welcomed today’s announcement from regional economic development minister Shane Jones outlining $5.87m of funding for the re-development of the Taupō Airport. The bulk of the investment ($5 million) will come from the Provincial Growth Fund, while the rest will be from the New Zealand ...
Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters has defended multi-million dollar provincial growth fund money for Northland water storage. The New Zealand First leader, along with Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones, were recently in Dargaville to announce up to $12.745 million PGF funding top-up for water storage initiatives in the ...
One of our most immediate priorities upon forming Government was to get people out of sleeping in cars, garages, or on the street and into safe and warm housing. Since then, we've made major progress towards breaking the cycle of homelessness, including expanding Housing First, building more state houses, and ...
Kids learn better with a full stomach. That's why we launched our Lunches in Schools programme, which is already providing free and healthy school lunches to thousands of children so they can focus on what's important - learning. ...
Mark Patterson MP, New Zealand First List MP based in Clutha-Southland This afternoon to a crowd of over 100 people in Mataura -- Mark Patterson, New Zealand First List MP based in Clutha-Southland launched a parliamentary petition regarding the aluminium dross issue in Mataura, Southland. The petition asks that the ...
Fletcher Tabuteau MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development New Zealand First Deputy Leader and Spokesperson for Finance, Fletcher Tabuteau has welcomed Statistics New Zealand’s latest report as a timely reminder of the value that this Coalition Government brings to every day New Zealanders: “This Coalition Government has meant a ...
Today New Zealand First made a pledge to campaign at the election to fund St John Ambulance the 90 per cent it has asked for. Government funding would allow St. John’s to achieve fully funded status. Leader of New Zealand First, Rt Hon Winston Peters publicly declared his determination to deliver ...
Darroch Ball MP, Spokesperson for Law and Order Newly released Police data shows once again the number of fleeing drivers have continued to skyrocket with a record 512 incidents occurring in December – almost tripling the number of incidents occurring just ten years ago, says New Zealand First Law and ...
While the Provincial Growth Fund has provided $2 million to set up temporary water supplies in Kaikohe and Kaitaia, Regional Economic Minister Shane Jones said he is greatly concerned that there are “issues” in implementing the projects. The Minister said the immediate solution was to pipe water from a bore ...
Mark Patterson MP, New Zealand First List MP for Clutha-Southland NZ First is calling on Rio Tinto to accept its responsibilities to the Southland community and enable the immediate removal of the toxic Aluminium Dross from the Mataura Paper Mill site. New Zealand First List MP for Clutha-Southland, Mark Patterson ...
The Coalition Government has announced that a further $500,000 will be given to help residents in Southland and Otago to speed up recovery efforts from the floods. It follows prior government assistance of $200,000 earlier this month where the Southland Mayoral Relief Fund received $100,000 to support communities impacted by ...
Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones was on RNZ’s Morning Report talking about the recent droughts in the Northland region and what the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) is doing to alleviate its impact. The PGF recently announced a funding of $2 million for temporary water supplies to Kaikohe and Kaitaia, ...
Speaking to The Country’s Jamie Mackay, New Zealand First MP and Cabinet Minister Shane Jones talks water storage, plant-based meat imitation, and superstar Hollywood director James Cameron. While water storage may have its critics, Minister Jones defended the scheme by saying: “unless we invest and continue to invest” in this ...
Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones is accusing northern iwi leaders of selling out Māori by voting for ideologically-driven court cases rather than practical steps to increase water supply. “I just think that iwi leaders who think that water issues are going to be solved by perpetually fighting in the ...
A dairy owner in St Kilda, Dunedin was delighted to hear that an attempted robbery of his establishment was foiled by a government-funded security system. Sean Lee was delighted at how well the anti-theft smoke system worked. When a knife-wielding man entered the store, the shop assistant immediately pressed a ...
Customs says it stopped more than three tonnes of illegal drugs coming into New Zealand last year. This includes 1,180kg of methamphetamine, 329kg of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine precursors, which could have been converted into 246kg of methamphetamine, 739kg and 6469 pills of MDMA or Ecstasy and 60kg of cocaine. Offshore, ...
Hon. Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development Up to $2 million will be allocated from the Provincial Growth Fund to set up temporary water supplies in Kaikohe and Kaitaia where drought is biting hard, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has announced. Drought conditions in Northland have led to ...
Darroch Ball, Spokesperson for Law and Order New Zealand First welcomes the deployment of an Eagle Police helicopter in Christchurch in what is a step towards fulfilling its long-standing goal to increase the use of police helicopters for the front line, particularly in addressing the scourge of fleeing drivers. Christchurch leads ...
It may have been the first sitting week of 2020, but our Government is already in full-swing - managing a strong economy, investing in infrastructure, and working to break the cycle of homelessness. Read below for all that, and more... ...
In a heated debate in Parliament, National's Deputy Leader Paula Bennett claimed that “nearly 1600 patched gang members have been added” since the Coalition Government took power. To illustrate her point, she altered a chart used by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to show her government’s progress in housing to instead ...
Speech by the Rt Hon Winston Peters at Parliament’s Opening 2020 "We all need insurance" This year New Zealanders are going to have a clear choice to make That choice is between: Optimism versus pessimism; More progress versus back to the future; Investment versus divestment; Unity versus division. New Zealand ...
Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones has slammed the Board of Auckland Airport following the airport's runway closing twice within two weeks due to maintenance. Around 2,000 passengers were affected by last week’s runway closures, according to 1NEWS. Another maintenance closure on January 24 saw two international flights and three domestic flights ...
It’s my pleasure to be in Sydney today for our annual meeting, Prime Minister. It’s fair to say that since we last met, tragedy and disaster have befallen our two countries. They say that in moments of that nature, the true character of an individual comes to the fore. I ...
Travel restrictions introduced for Iran from today No exemptions for students from China to enter the country Increased health staff presence at international airports The Government has announced a suite of new actions as it steps up its response to the rapidly changing global spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus. This ...
Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor has today classified the drought conditions in Waikato and South Auckland as an adverse event for the primary sector, unlocking $80,000 in Government support for farmers and growers. “This is recognition that the extreme and prolonged nature of this dry spell is taking its toll on ...
The Crown accounts are in a strong position to weather any economic uncertainty as a result of coronavirus, with the books in surplus and expenses close to forecast, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. The Treasury today released the Crown accounts for the seven months to January. The operating balance before ...
Supporting New Zealand to make most of digital and data driven technologies will be the focus of a new Digital Council that begins its work today. Minister for Government Digital Services, Kris Faafoi, and Minister of Statistics, James Shaw, have confirmed the group of experts chosen to advise the Government ...
Safety and climate change resilience are behind South Island regional roading projects that are being brought forward as part of the New Zealand Upgrade Programme, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has announced. As part of the NZ Upgrade, $300 million was allocated for regional investment opportunities. “I’m pleased to ...
Digital and air connectivity in Fiordland are getting a big boost, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has announced. As part of the $12 billion New Zealand Upgrade Programme announced in January, $300 million was allocated for regional investment opportunities, to be administered by the Provincial Development Unit. “I’m pleased ...
West Coast ports and roads will benefit from an investment of $18.6 million to improve safety and resilience and enable future economic growth, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today. The $12 billion NZ Upgrade Programme announced last month allocated $300 million for regional investment opportunities, to be administered ...
Regional roading projects that will improve safety and resilience are being brought forward as part of the New Zealand Upgrade Programme, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has announced. As part of the NZ Upgrade, $300 million was allocated for regional investment opportunities. “I spend a lot of time in ...
The Eastern Bay of Plenty will finally get the harbour development it has wanted for decades, thanks to a $79.4 million central Government investment, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today. This game-changing project will revitalise the township of Ōpōtiki and the wider Eastern Bay of Plenty, creating hundreds ...
Regional New Zealand will be a hive of activity in the coming months as the New Zealand Upgrade Programme delivers on its promise to modernise our infrastructure, prepare for climate change and help grow our economy. As part of the $12 billion NZ Upgrade Programme announced by the Government last ...
A milestone has been reached with the graduation of more than 2,000 new Police officers since the Coalition Government took office in October 2017. Police Minister Stuart Nash says the graduation today of Wing 335 marks a surge of 2,023 new officers, and coincides with some significant breakthroughs against organised ...
Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media Minister, Kris Faafoi, and the Minister of Education, Chris Hipkins, have welcomed a new cyber security qualification as a step towards countering cyber threats and keeping New Zealanders safe. Attending the launch of the new Level 6 Diploma of Cyber Security at Auckland’s Unitec Institute ...
Government Ministers today celebrated 20 years of the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park/ Ko te Pataka kai o Tikapa Moana/ Te Moananui a Toi, and recognise there is much to celebrate and so much more to do to give nature a helping hand. Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage said “New Zealanders care deeply about nature.I want to ...
Prepared remarks on coronavirus by Finance Minister Grant Robertson to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and Massey University. Good morning ladies and gentlemen, The topic of this speech is the Budget 2020 priorities. But, given the considerable interest that I imagine is in the room about COVID-19 coronavirus, I do ...
E ngā mana, e ngā reo, e ngā iwi, e ngā rau rangatira ma. Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa. Ni sa bula vinaka. Namaste Thank you Shamima, Hon. Minister Vuniwaqa, community leaders and Women’s Crisis Centre staff for your warm welcome. It’s an honour and privilege to officially ...
The Government has released a comprehensive response to ensuring New Zealanders get a fairer deal at the petrol pump. This follows the Commerce Commission fuel market study which found motorists were paying more than they should for petrol and includes: Fuel Market Bill drafting, to pass mid-year Industry consultation in ...
E ngā mana, e ngā reo, e ngā iwi, e ngā rau rangatira ma Tēnā koutou katoa Ni sa bula vinaka As-salaam alaikum It is a privilege to be here today. Thank you for welcoming us to your house of prayer. Thank you for your warmth. Thank you for greeting ...
Taupō Airport is to be upgraded and expanded through a $5.9 million Government funding boost, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has announced. “Taupō Airport is the gateway to the Central North Island. It is essential for both keeping local people and businesses connected, but also to bring more people ...
The Minister of Housing Megan Woods has confirmed the Government is working with Rotorua Lakes District Council and Te Arawa for the second place-based assessment to better understand the housing and urban issues affecting the city. “Every New Zealander has a right to a warm, safe and secure place to ...
19 new community homes (in addition to 14 opened in December) delivered in Takanini, Auckland 500 people housed by CORT Housing Trust by end of March 2,290 new public housing homes delivered in Auckland (November 2017 – December 2019). Another nineteen new public housing homes are being delivered in Auckland, ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Minister for Trade and Export Growth David Parker met today with Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar to discuss ways to strengthen ties between New Zealand and India. “India is a priority relationship for New Zealand. We share common democratic traditions, growing two-way trade, extensive people-to-people links, ...
Speech to the Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA) Delhi, India Wednesday 26 February 2020 [CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY] The Indo-Pacific: from principles to partnerships Distinguished guests, good afternoon and thank you for your invitation. It is good to be here at a time where New Zealand needs less of an introduction than ...
Tihei mauri ora Te Whare e tu nei Te Papa e takoto Tēnā korua No reira tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa Ni sa bula Vinaka It is a real pleasure to be here today, and to have the honour of addressing you all. If you’ll indulge me I’m ...
Improved air quality to support better health and environmental wellbeing is the focus of proposed amendments to air quality regulations, says the Associate Minister for the Environment, Hon Nanaia Mahuta. “Although our air quality is good in most places, during winter certain places have spikes in air pollution, mainly from ...
The remote eastern Bay of Plenty community of Raukokere will receive a Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) investment of $10.6 million for a water storage facility, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones says. “This is great news for the rural community. The landowner, Te Whānau a Maruhaeremuri Hapū Trust, will use ...
The Lake Ōkaro lakebed has transferred to Te Arawa Lakes Trust, Minister for Māori Crown Relations: Te Arawhiti Kelvin Davis announced today. Kelvin Davis joined Te Arawa at Te Papaiōuru Marae in Rotorua to celebrate the reinstatement of Te Arawa Lakes Trust as a key decision maker over the bed ...
New legislation is being proposed which aims to reduce the stress and financial hardship caused by late payments to small businesses. The Minister for Small Business Stuart Nash is considering stricter rules around payment practices between businesses. “Late payments from large organisations to smaller suppliers can be crippling for these ...
A new partnership programme between the New Zealand Police and Fiji Police will focus on combatting transnational organised crime and enhancing investigative skills, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced on the first day of her visit to Fiji. The programme will see: · New Zealand Institute of Environmental Science and Research ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Prime Minister Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama met today in Suva, and renewed their commitment to continue to strengthen Fiji-New Zealand relations on a foundation of shared values and equal partnership. The Prime Ministers acknowledged the kinship between Fijians and New Zealanders, one that has endured over ...
A $19.9 million investment from the Provincial Growth Fund will help develop essential infrastructure for an industrial hub in the Bay of Plenty town of Kawerau, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones says. “The funding will go to three projects to further develop the Putauaki Trust Industrial Hub, an industrial ...
The Provincial Growth Fund is investing $8.3 million on a roading package for Mahia that will lead to greater and wider economic benefits for the region and beyond, Under Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau announced at an event in Mahia today. The $8.3 million announced consists of: $7 ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has welcomed new reporting showing the Coalition Government is on track to meet its child poverty targets, with 18,400 children lifted out of poverty as a result of the Families Package. Stats NZ has released the first set of comprehensive child poverty statistics since the Government ...
Associate Minister of Transport Julie Anne Genter today announced that Bikes in Schools facilities have been rolled out to 20,000 more kiwi kids under this Government. She made the announcement at the opening of a new bike track at Henderson North School in Auckland. “Bikes in Schools facilities give kids ...
Benefit settings rise in line with wages as of 1 April Main benefits will increase by over 3 percent, instead of 1.66 percent, on 1 April with the Government’s decision to annually adjust benefit rates to increases in the average wage. The Minister for Social Development, Carmel Sepuloni, said ...
Strengthening New Zealand’s political and business ties with India will be the focus of Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters’ and Trade and Export Growth Minister David Parker’s visit to India this week. The Ministers are co-leading a high level business delegation to India to support increased people and economic engagement ...
The Minister for Pacific Peoples, Aupito William Sio continues to champion for greater Pacific participation in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) careers with the announcement of the Toloa Awards, with 8 recipients of the Toloa Community Fund and 13 Toloa Tertiary Scholarships. “The Toloa Programme encourages more Pacific peoples ...
Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage has extended the date for people to have their say on proposed changes to improve management of whitebait across New Zealand. Submissions were due to close on 2 March 2020 but will now remain open until 9am on Monday 16 March 2020. “I have ...
The endangered toroa/Antipodean albatross has new international protection for its 100,000km annual migration, thanks to collaborative efforts led by New Zealand, Australia and Chile. Today, 130 countries agreed to strictly protect Antipodean albatross at the Conference of Parties on the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild ...
No sales to under-18-year-olds No advertising and sponsorship of vaping products and e-cigarettes No vaping or smokeless tobacco in smokefree areas Regulates vaping product safety comprehensively, - including devices, flavours and ingredients Ensure vaping products are available for those who want to quit smoking Vaping regulation that balances ...
By RNZ News Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern confirmed today that a suspected case of Covid-19 coronavirus has tested positive in New Zealand. Ardern said the person was in their 60s, and was a citizen of New Zealand who had recently travelled from Iran via Bali. The person had previously ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonti Horner, Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland Happy February 29! It doesn’t come round very often, so make sure you enjoy it. But why do we have these extra days? Well, if we didn’t, the seasons would gradually move around the ...
New Zealand Pompe Network Allyson Lock, MNZM An open letter to New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern “Know us by our deeds”. This was the headline next to your picture on the cover of Time Magazine, for all the world to see. I saw it. I’m ...
Analysis: The government faces economic strife and uncertainty as the coronavirus continues to spread, four men charged in National's donations case plead not guilty, and more revelations about NZ First's "slush fund". ...
New Zealand’s first case of COVID-19 has just been confirmed. Here’s what we know so far.What’s the latest?Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has confirmed New Zealand’s first case of COVID-19 coronavirus. New Zealand is the 48th country to have a confirmed case of the virus. What do we know about the patient?The ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Leah Mercer, Associate Professor of Theatre Arts, Curtin University Review: Leviathan, directed by Yaron Lifschitz. Circa in collaboration with Co:3 Australia, MAXIMA Circus and CircusWA for Perth Festival. As the audience takes their seats, two feet poke out from beneath the curtain. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tom Bailey, Research Fellow, The University of Queensland If you’re hot and sticky even before your daily commute, you might ask why you sweat so much. Sweating is usually the body’s way of stopping you overheating. But for some people, sweating becomes ...
At a tense press conference in Sydney, the New Zealand prime minister has just issued a stark challenge to Australia over its treatment of NZ citizens. Here’s what she said. We appreciate that many Kiwis have taken up the opportunity to live and work in Australia – many more than has ...
New Zealand has widened, not narrowed, its coronavirus travel ban despite universities pleading for an exemption for international students The Government has extended its coronavirus-related travel restrictions to include Iran, while resisting calls from universities to provide an exemption for international students from China. Health officials will also monitor an ...
The Serious Fraud Office has today received a referral from NZ Police in relation to Phil Goff’s election expenses. The SFO will be assessing the matter and has no further comment at this time. ...
The series, a collaboration between Spinoff Members and Verb Wellington, kicks off with a discussion on politics and the media. As all right thinking people know, there are a mere 204 days until the general election. To get in the mood, we’re launching a new series of live events. And not ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi (Picador, $20)What are you even up to, Auckland.2 Eleanor ...
Finance Minister Grant Robertson insists NZ is in a strong position to weather the fallout from coronavirus, even though Australia has declared it a pandemic. He underlines the Crown accounts are buoyant, the fundamentals of the economy are strong and careful management has seen the economy continue to grow in ...
On the heels of the arrival of The Outsider on NEON, Jean Sergent explores how screen adaptations of Stephen King’s work are able to take on a life of their own. Stephen King, the 72 year old horror author from Portland, has a better work ethic than you or I and ...
Iwi are too reliant on investments in property and primary industries, restricting returns for their members, according to a new report. The annual Iwi Investment Report by consulting firm TDB Advisory, showed the country's eight largest iwi with a collective $9 billion worth of assets, had weak growth in the ...
Announcing a package of regional capital projects worth about $190 million, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones mentioned climate change. He said Regional New Zealand “will be a hive of activity in the coming months as the New Zealand Upgrade Programme delivers on its promise to modernise our infrastructure, prepare ...
The people of India have been holding mass protests all over India ever since the anti Muslim and anti working class Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) was enacted into law on 12 December 2019. The state has made many attempts to suppress the rising ...
New Zealand consumer confidence remains high, according to the ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence Index. The index was down just one point on last month to 122. "Consumers are feeling pretty happy with their lot at the moment - the lifting housing market is making homeowners feel richer, job opportunities are ...
Jacinda Ardern has described difficult conversations with Australia as being "gnarly'' - but says the trans-Tasman relationship is strong enough to get through them. ...
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 contentPolitical donations Yvette McCullough (RNZ): Transparency International warns need for political funding reform is urgent Gordon Campbell: On where the ...
Continued strong demand for chicken, burgers and tacos has resulted in another strong year for Restaurant Brands. The fast food operator's net profit for the year ended December fell nearly 16 percent to $30.1m, but that was for a 44-week period, versus the year earlier's 52-week period. That company changed ...
The New Zealand share market opened lower on Friday, following a sixth day of world market losses as investors respond to the economic threat of coronavirus. The NZX benchmark top 50 index opened down 1.5 percent, after last night's 0.9 percent fall. The benchmark top 50 Index has fallen more ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Maggie Tonkin, Senior Lecturer, English and Creative Writing, University of Adelaide Review: Dance Nation, directed by Imara Savage. State Theatre Company South Australia and Belvoir for the Adelaide Festival Dance is at the heart of playwright Clare Barron’s Dance Nation, from the ...
The Government’s response to new revelations that one of the country’s biggest fishing companies, Talley’s, and its managing director has donated tens of thousands of undisclosed dollars to the New Zealand First Foundation is unacceptable. “The ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Michelle Grattan talks with Assistant Professor Caroline Fisher about the week in politics, including the implementation of an emergency plan to tackle the spread of coronavirus, the major parties’ policies on climate change, national security ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Euan Ritchie, Associate Professor in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, Centre for Integrative Ecology, School of Life & Environmental Sciences, Deakin University On Churchill Island, southeast of Melbourne, small cone-shaped, shallow holes (digs) puncture the grass. They’re widespread, and reveal moist soil below ...
The University of Auckland's Tim Dare examines what SkyCity's 'de-platforming' of controversial speaker Peter Singer might mean for free speech In work first appearing in the late 1970s, Princeton Philosophy Professor Peter Singer argued that in a limited range of circumstances parents ought to be able to ask doctors to end ...
By Stefan Armbruster of SBS News in Brisbane Thousands of New Zealanders who are denied disability support are hoping Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will take the issue up with her counterpart Scott Morrison when they meet today. Despite paying taxes and the NDIS levy, New Zealanders who have come ...
The Maori Development Minister Nanaia Mahuta and her Australian counterpart have met in Sydney and formally agreed to share ideas on how to better support each country's indegineous people ...
Apparently you have a vacancy on your programme after Kanoa Lloyd decided she didn’t “need to see a homophobic Pasodoble or a xenophobic Cha Cha.” Now, we have to admit we don’t know what a Pasodoble is. But we do know xenophobia when we see ...
Public services are increasingly migrating to the internet, but as the government prioritises digital interaction many of the people who need those services the most are left behind, according to a new report. Pita, an elderly gentleman, received a letter from the IRD that claimed he hadn’t paid his tax obligations ...
By Felipe F. Salvosa II in Manila Philippines Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon has dismissed comments by Senator Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Go that “politics” is behind the filing of a proposed concurrent resolution calling on regulators to temporarily allow television giant ABS-CBN to operate as Congress deliberates on its ...
The Serious Fraud Office has received a referral from NZ Police in relation to Lianne Dalziel’s election expenses. The SFO will be assessing the matter and has no further comment at this time. ...
Employers are encouraged to sign up for Road Safety Week 2020 (4-10 May), and join hundreds of communities, schools and organisations running activities to raise awareness of road safety issues. Brake, the road safety charity, which coordinates the event, ...
A poem by US National Youth Poet Laureate Kara Jackson.i woke up and the day caught me in its mouth like a strand of yarni am usefulthe motivation for a scarf, maybe some stitch started to be finishedi will make up someone’sheat i will be a fireso intricate it can be worn i ...
The euthanasia debate took an unusual turn this week when Vision NZ, the political party associated with the Destiny Church, made an unexpected policy announcement. It appeared that Vision NZ supported voluntary euthanasia, but just for one person, co-host of TV3’s The Project, Kanoa Lloyd. The now former campaign manager ...
State Services Commissioner Peter Hughes has today announced the findings of an inquiry into how Budget-sensitive material was accessed at the Treasury. The inquiry, led by Ms Jenn Bestwick, was launched by the Commission at the request of the Treasury ...
A scathing report into the accidental release of sensitive Budget 2019 information by the Treasury has found poor procurement processes and governance failures by senior leadership were to blame for security flaws in its website not being identified earlier The inquiry into the accidental release of Budget 2019 information prior ...
The Port of Tauranga's first half result is flat, despite a drop in cargo handled through the country's biggest port. The port company's net profit dropped 1.4 percent to $48.3 million in the six months to December, but was otherwise flat after accounting for a tax adjustment of $0.6m. Revenue ...
For those mothers who gave birth by non-elective Caesarean section, feelings of sadness – even of failure – can be overwhelming, writes Janice Sharan.I’m sitting next to my 15-month-old. He’s sleeping peacefully, his mop of dark hair damp with sweat, lips pursed and his chest rising and falling as he ...
Today is the last day Kiwibank will accept cheques, and its customers will no longer be able to make a payment by cheque. Inland Revenue and ACC will also follow suit on 1 March. The number of cheques has been going down by about 20 percent year-on-year and last year ...
Television New Zealand has reported a strong increase in first half profit, driven up by an increase in advertising revenue. The state-owned broadcaster made a net profit of $15.8 million in the six months to December, beating the year earlier by $5m or 47 percent. "Strong ratings performance for our ...
Air New Zealand has launched its latest safety video that moves away from celebrity appearances to push an environmental message on New Zealand's endangered native birds. The video A Journey to Safety takes a different approach from the widely criticised video of two years ago - called a 'weird mish-mash' ...
A report into how sensitive documents were accessed by the National Party before last year's Budget has found Treasury governance, oversight and risk management processes fell short. ...
In the lead up to Children’s Day in New Zealand on Sunday 1 March, The Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP) Aotearoa NZ President Dr Jeff Brown says the wellbeing of children and their whānau must remain a priority for all of society, not only ...
A Kiwi firm is trialling a mobile device and app that could test for Covid-19 in hospitals, schools, factories and homes anywhere in the world within 40 minutes No-one wishes harm on anyone, but sometimes a crisis is also an opportunity to quickly develop new technologies and systems to solve ...
Ahead of the forthcoming public meeting on Monday 2 March regarding the Newlands Volunteer Fire Brigade former Ohariu MP Hon Peter Dunne is extending his best wishes to all those involved in the current campaign to keep the station open. "Although ...
Sure, the new wave of RTDs might have cool labels and no carbs or whatever, but for Sam Brooks, none come close to the perfection held within that little yellow can.RTDs are coming back, if they were ever really gone. I remember the halcyon days of getting drunk off Purple ...
The ongoing strike by NorthTec tutors steps up a notch today with a public rally. For two weeks the members of Te Hautū Kahurangi | New Zealand Tertiary Education Union have been on strike. The action has meant not completing attendance registers; ...
The cut price fuel retailer, Waitomo says the Government’s proposed changes to the fuel market will mean customers will be able to see if they are getting fleeced. ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will use today’s meeting with counterpart Scott Morrison in Sydney to tell him his Government is deporting Australian criminals to New Zealand. ...
Coronavirus: Finance Minister Grant Robertson - NZ in shadow of the biggest economic uncertainty in recent times; and A2 Milk result: Net profit leaps 21% on China sales. ...
Thousands of Kiwis are expected to attend the March for Life in Auckland this Saturday (29 February). With Parliament just days away from voting on a Bill to liberalise abortion-up-to-birth in New Zealand those marching will be making a public stand ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Simon Tormey, Professor of Politics, University of Bristol Of the many issues thrown up by Brexit, one of the most pressing is the territorial integrity of the United Kingdom. Brexit was in large measure a revolt by a certain section of English ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katherine Gibney, NHMRC early career fellow, The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity While countries around the globe have been taking precautions to prevent the spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, it has now been reported in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lee Baumgartner, Professor of Fisheries and River Management, Institute for Land, Water, and Society, Charles Sturt University As this summer draws to a close, it marks just over a year since successive fish death events at Menindee in Lower Darling River made ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Holden, Professor of Economics, UNSW Every January Larry Fink, the head of the world’s largest funds manager, BlackRock, sends a letter to the chief executives of major public companies. This year’s letter focused on climate risk. “Climate change has become a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kevin Davis, Professor of Finance, University of Melbourne The government’s financial system inquiry, on which I sat, reported five years ago. It recommended that the creators of financial products be subject to a design and distribution obligation (DDO), which would mean the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andy Simionato, Lecturer, RMIT University Books are always transforming. The book we hold today has arrived through a number of materials (clay, papyrus, parchment, paper, pixels) and forms (tablet, scroll, codex, kindle). The book can be a tool for communication, reading, entertainment, ...
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Ardern gets diplomatic, fuel market legislation released, and police pinged over employment records breach.There hasn’t really been much coverage of it in The Bulletin, but it’s worth looking back at quite an important diplomatic week for the PM. She has been ...
This week's biggest-selling New Zealand books, as recorded by the Nielsen BookScan New Zealand bestseller list and described by Steve Braunias.Fiction 1 The Absolute Book by Elizabeth Knox (Victoria University Press, $35) ReadingRoom broke the storydetailing how Knox’s novel was fought over by US publishers in a ...
Sky Sport News presenters Kate King and Goran Paladin deliver the latest news of Kiwi sporting women at home and around the globe. *WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE* Hurdler Portia Bing has reinvented herself in a bid to make the Tokyo Olympics and take another step towards putting last year's disqualification at ...
Embarrassingly for the Department of Conservation, a scheduled ministerial announcement last year was postponed. David Williams reports A much-delayed project to better protect the Mackenzie Basin’s stunning landscapes and bolster biodiversity has a new boss. In the 2018 Budget, Conservation and Lands Minister Eugenie Sage announced $2.6 million to find ...
Trying to reduce drownings - and bring on a new generation of surfers - the Wave Warriors teach kids from low-decile schools water safety wrapped in a surf lesson. Eight-year-old Athena Talavai is less than half the height of the surfboard she’s expected to stand on, and probably only a quarter of the weight. She ...
The decision to give Ihumātao the highest heritage listing available sends a strong signal to the Government and Auckland Council, write Dr Frances Hancock and Nicola Short Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga (HNZPT) has upgraded the heritage listing of the Ōtuataua Stonefields Reserve and included adjacent and long-contested land at ...
If Simon Bridges manages to pull off an election victory, his next headache will be choosing his Cabinet from a somewhat uninspiring line-up, writes Peter Dunne Every election year there is a call to use the election as a chance to refresh Parliament and get rid of at least some ...
An anonymous Department of Conservation staff member, who wishes to be known only as the Carefree Vigilante, provides a handy guide to dealing with menstruation, and menstrual products, in the wild.This post was first published on the Department of Conservation blog.I’ve got six or seven rational fears and about 900 ...
There is a surge of cases of the virus outside China. Australia says it expects Covid-19 to turn into a global pandemic. We cannot afford to panic in New Zealand. But we must prepare, writes Dr Siouxsie Wiles.It’s now clear to me that the new coronavirus responsible for Covid-19 is ...
Open Mike 16/12/2016 
What can we make of where National’s current leader Simon Bridges and the Party’s reliable water carrier Paula Bennett are taking their campaign to “win back the Treasury benches”? Going by the often petulant tone he has adopted, and the frequent histrionics of the most ardent supporters: going nowhere, and ...2 hours ago
by Daphna Whitmore It is surprising how rarely the authorities take an evolutionary perspective when dealing with health crises, such as the latest coronavirus spread. They talk about viruses mutating but that is a frequent occurrence, and they treat mutation as though it were equivalent to evolution. A mutation is ...3 hours ago
With sincere apologies to Martin Niemöller ...5 hours ago
For over a decade, Heathrow airport has been wanting to add a third runway, to increase air traffic. Its been vigorously opposed by people concerned about the environmental impact. And now, its been ruled illegal on climate change grounds:Plans for a third runway at Heathrow airport have been ruled illegal ...6 hours ago
Many readers will probably have read this RNZ article (or heard the related interview), or seen calls for consultation on the Ministry of Education’s suggested changes to the number of subjects – and achievement standards – on offer to year 11 students. I’ve been following (& participating, where I ...11 hours ago
Method In Our Madness? When a liberal-democratic society encounters racism its first impulse is to shut it down – not interrogate it. But, is this wise? Is it reasonable to assume that a phenomenon as powerful, pernicious and persistent as racism is entirely without purpose? Surely, there must be, as Shakespeare puts it: ...13 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