She's demonstrating political nous, eh? Generate headlines is the best way to raise your public profile. She's not blaming govt pakeha, specifically. Nor is she blaming Maori govt ministers for the ethnic cleansing. Very clever!
"The lack of Māori response by the Government to COVID-19, the lack of Māori engagement with Māori leadership during the lockdown, the removal by force of our rights protected under Te Tiriti o Waitangi and legislation rushed through under urgency further eroding civil liberties, in short is ethnic cleansing".
She knows how to play the media game. Sometimes people look behind what is said and try to understand what it means.
From the Newshub link, "Modelling released in April by research group Te Pūnaha Matatini shows that because of underlying health conditions, socioeconomic disadvantage and structural racism, the death rate for COVID-19 could be 2.5 times higher for Māori."
"According to the latest data, Māori represent 8 percent of the total cases so far – or 126 people." The statistics are current and obviously might change, significantly or not.
Pokere-Phillips will have genuine concerns about state powers. Getting attention on that with emotional links to bloody extermination is powerful. In method it's a David Farrar approach. The Ministry of Health lists Covid-19 cases by ethnicity. Maybe that's a good place to start in checking the reality of 'ethnic cleansing.'
"I’m angry the NZ Herald dumped the horoscopes, it was the only quality journalism they did." Get real. Those were merely sun-sign generalisations. A horoscope is the diagram of an event in relation to local cosmos. Can't expect journos to grasp such depths.
And he's still banging on about the "5 Eyes intelligence dossier "published in the Murdoch press despite the fact its been refuted several times over
Here's one such in the Guardian
"The deputy chair of the Australian parliament’s intelligence and security committee, Anthony Byrne, has been angered by the reported dossier, fearing the episode was reminiscent of the saga surrounding intelligence about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in 2003."
Until someone can intelligently walk me past the fact that a virus closely linked to bats, has it's first major human outbreak in the same city that happened to have the only lab in the world studying the same family of virus from bats … all the self-serving denials in the world mean nothing.
It could of course be an amazing coincidence, but then if I was found standing over a dead body holding a smoking gun, would any investigator accept my claim that "it wasn't me, it must have been some other bullet"? And then allow me to control access to the crime scene, control all the evidence and tell the police to go away?
Well , I guess its like John Key said ..more or less my experts against your experts, but lets keep it to science not "intelligence"
Professor Edward Holmes is an evolutionary virologist and a member of the Charles Perkins Centre and the Marie Bashir Institute for Infectious Diseases and Biosecurity at the University of Sydney
"There is no evidence that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 in humans, originated in a laboratory in Wuhan, China.
Coronaviruses like SARS-CoV-2 are commonly found in wildlife species and frequently jump to new hosts. This is also the most likely explanation for the origin of SARS-CoV-2.
The closest known relative of SARS-CoV-2 is a bat virus named RaTG13, which was kept at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. There is some unfounded speculation that this virus was the origin of SARS-CoV-2. However:
(i) RaTG13 was sampled from a different province of China (Yunnan) to where COVID-19 first appeared; and
(ii) the level of genome sequence divergence between SARS-CoV-2 and RaTG13 is equivalent to an average of 50 years (and at least 20 years) of evolutionary change.
Hence, SARS-CoV-2 was not derived from RaTG13.
In addition, we know that viruses related to SARS-CoV-2 are also found in pangolins. This suggests that other wildlife species are likely to carry relatives of SARS-CoV-2.
In summary, the abundance, diversity and evolution of coronaviruses in wildlife strongly suggests that SARS-CoV-2 is of natural origin. However, a greater sampling of animal species in nature, including bats from Hubei province, is needed to resolve the exact origins of SARS-CoV-2."
Martenson does a pretty good job of picking apart Holmes's statement at the 18:40 mark of Tony Veitch's video posted above.
Holmes even reinforces the non-natural origin theory by saying that Covid is closest to RaTG13, the lab had access to RaTG13, and RaTG13 is naturally occuring in a different region of China to Wuhan.
I’m extremely reluctant to wade into this but the science aspect is mighty interesting.
One of the many missing pieces of the puzzle is why there was a 7-year gap between discovering RaTG13 and publishing the data? If RaTG13 occurs naturally then it should be possible to isolate it from a (its?) natural source, e.g. in the cave where it was purported to have been found in 2013.
A variation is that a bat urinated on a technician in the Wuhan laboratory. This really strengthens the laboratory theory, it ties so well into the 'bat-shit' crazy response to the epidemic from a number of world leaders
"OK so let's go with that idea. Now if we had a terrible accident at this firing range … what would be the first thing the person in charge might do? "
Well I'd hazard a guess it wouldnt be let the bent bat shit crazy chief of police that hates your guts and would love to send you down for anything run the investigation.
And in the meantime the person right next to the dead body, holding the hot smoking gun, gets to shutdown the scene, prevent any police from entering the property, control all the information and deny any possible guilt?
A ten year old wouldn't buy it.
The logical problem for anyone wanting to promote the idea that "there is no evidence" that it came from a lab, is they equally have no evidence that it came from a natural host either.
It's like your local police chief standing up at a presser and saying "I don't have a fucking clue" and pretending that somehow solved the case.
"And in the meantime the person right next to the dead body, holding the hot smoking gun, gets to shutdown the scene, prevent any police from entering the property, control all the information and deny any possible guilt?"
What smoking gun?…your problem is there is nobody standing next to a body holding a smoking gun…theres somebody saying there MIGHT have been somebody standing next to the body holding a smoking gun…..or the corpse may not even have a bullet wound…it could have been a heart attack for all you know.
Now you are being obdurate, pretending there is no biolab in Wuhan, that it was not studying closely related virus's, that it hadn't published papers on the topic, that their top researcher was not well known for her work in this field … and that the first major COVID outbreak was not in Wuhan.
Yes I can see that if you make all those facts go away, then there is no smoking gun either.
Indeed. And the question of whether the person had even been shot.
Forunately, just as a gun leaves a wound and powder residue genetic sequences provide information as to ancestry and provenance. There is no bullet wound.
Oh and that link you gave is to a paper, Holmes is one of the authors, published in early March (and presumably written in the weeks prior) that Martenson addresses in the light of subsequent understanding.
Just because Trump has gotten his sticky mitts on this story does not make him anyone's hero, and it certainly doesn't change the known fact that the CCP have done everything in their power to shut down independent investigation, and promote a narrative exonerating themselves at every step.
Pat, and others, you're missing the point. Chris Martenson is strictly apolitical. He's not trying to support any Trump conspiracy theories, he's looking at the evidence from an entirely logical and evidence based point of view.
His point is that the coronavirus has 'gain of function' additives which could only – stress only – have been added in a lab. He backs up his conclusions with proof which seems convincing to my unscientific mind.
Whether all this feeds into Trump's paranoia and politicising, he makes no comment on.
no need to waste 18 minutes….those studying the virus (and without political motives) have determined it is natural in origin…if they change their minds I will re-evaluate.
The first link relies on the idea that the closest known bat virus is decades apart in evolutionary terms, but selectively omits that it's routine procedure to force evolution in the lab in a matter of days.
The second link is just reporting assertions with no data
The third link is a re-run of the spike protein optimisation argument that Martenson suggests is not as water tight as being pretended.
The fourth link uses the argument that purposeful genetic manipulation always leaves behind 'telltale fingerprints', which is also not true. The method for avoiding this has been known since 2002, and is well known.
Now my quick scan of your four references is not terribly conclusive, except that even with my very limited understanding I can spot troubling questions and presuppositions in all of them. None of them even vaguely attempt to explain why the first major outbreak occurs in Wuhan, a city many hundreds of km from where the bloody bats live.
Agreed Pat. Human-mediated habitat destruction may have played a role in the formation of Covid-19; advocating that the virus was engineered in a lab is just (bat)shit-stirring – let's wait!
Novel human coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2): A lesson from animal coronaviruses Our review was reasonably prepared also to highlight (once more!) how CoVs originate, evolve, jump, mutate and infect their host. Could have the current COVID-19 outbreak been avoided? Answering this question is not relevant now, but actions to avoid the next viral spillover from animals to humans is certainly a priority. This task needs to be coupled with massive genomic surveillance in wild animals not limited to CoVs. Massive sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 strains detected in humans and CoVs of wildlife will help further assess the origin of this novel human pandemic and plan future measures able to reduce the risk of emergence of new CoV spillover events. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378113520302935
Origin and evolution of pathogenic coronaviruses
“…given the prevalence and great genetic diversity of bat SARS-rCoVs, their close coexistence and the frequent recombination of CoVs, it is expected that novel variants will emerge in the future” https://www.nature.com/articles/s41579-018-0118-9
Watched the video at ~19 minutes, including Dr Martenson's first conclusion after 'analysing' "this Professor Holmes" statement:
"There is no evidence that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 in humans, originated in a laboratory in Wuhan, China."
The excitable Martenson accepted that statement, and then assigned equal likelihood to the contrary statement that 'the virus did originate in a lab', on the basis that there's no evidence either way. IMHO anyone still listening after that 'analysis' is wasting their time, me included.
Martenson is espousing a belief, and asserting that expert virologists are (deliberately) ignoring his ‘analysis’. The idea that Professor Holmes' job depends (somehow) on Holmes not understanding Martenson's belief is ludicrous – wacky stuff!
Martenson's smoking gun, the presence of a "polybasic furin cleavage site" encoded in the Covid-19 genome, was commented on over three months ago – it's nothing new.
"…no clear evolutionary pathway has [yet] been identified that would explain the presence of COVID-19’s furin polybasic cleavage site…" – nevertheless, the idea that current molecular sequence databases magically contain a complete record of extant and transient/extinct coronavirus diversity – well, imagine!
Whereas conspiracy beliefs describing the pandemic as a hoax were more strongly associated with reduced containment-related behavior, conspiracy beliefs about sinister forces purposefully creating the virus related to an increase in self-centered prepping behavior. https://psyarxiv.com/ye3ma/
"a bat manages to pass a coronavirus to a pangolin, one of only a few thousand left in the world,"
in a wet market where both species were present and in close contact
"which somehow manages to swap part of that virus with a variation already in the pangolin"
which has occurred and been documented on many previous occasions
"This then picks up other critical parts of the virus composition present in pangolins, and –"
see previous
"miracle of miracles – jumps from animals to humans."
previously occurred
"All of the above can be done in a lab."
not easily and only with considerable luck as explained in the linked articles from my previous post…indeed the odds are far greater of it occurring naturally than by design.
lol. My explanation sure does miss the make a bit – and that's because the science is way beyond me – in terms of explaining it.
But I hope you'll take the time to go to the video and the 50 minute make and spend a few minutes listening to the explanation given by Chris Martenson. Then get back to me.
What if there was a pangolin in the Wuhan lab which caught the virus from a bat and the pangolin was not disposed of properly and someone touched a piece of the pangolin or materials which were used in the disposal of the pangolin?
Without doubt the virus has occurred naturally and is not man made.
Does it really matter if the virus came from the lab or the Wuhan market?
How the virus jumped to humans from bats/pangolins is what I would like to know?
Without doubt the virus has occurred naturally and is not man made.
Huh? How can one (e.g. you) be so absolutely 100% sure of this? Has anybody isolated it from a (its?) natural source other than infected humans and now cats, it appears?
If it was man-made we wouldn’t have to worry about how exactly it jumped species, would we?
Incorrect! The virus is not seen in bats and pangolins; there are similar viruses found in these species but they are not identical and definitely not close enough to be called “the virus”. There are some interesting questions hanging over the origin of RaTG13 based on close analysis and inspection of its genome (i.e. by sequencing). AFAIK, all reports of infected cats have been controlled experimental studies in the lab and large cats in zoos (https://thestandard.org.nz/dont-infect-your-feline-master/) and human-to-cat transfer, not the other way round. In any case, this is the same virus that jumps, not a similar one.
I have not read a closer fit than the theory that a bat gave the virus to a pangolin and a pangolin is the likely transmission to a human host.
When it comes to what reservoir caused AIDS, Ebola, MERs and similar viruses a lot is still unknown. Maybe there is a connection and this needs research.
Yes, I know you said that but the important (to me) point was that this is the same virus. They have yet to figure out where it came from and how and when it jumped and from which species to human.
Indeed, more research is needed and not just on SARS-COVID-2.
Except observing gradually increasing numbers of people with pneumonia isn't quite as obvious as the firing range analogy would suggest. Analogies do have their limits.
Did China act suspiciously slowly? I'm not so sure on that – they coded the sequence pretty quickly, got WHO in towards the end of January ISTR. Yeah, they did some "in denial" initially, but that seems to be common practise these days – very few of the top-tier nations can throw stones in that regard, so maybe China simply had the same motives as around half the members of the G7/8.
How early? When do you know they first had it? Only by knowing that you can say it was 'early' or not.
Sequencing these days is remarkably fast; once there were cases in other countries it was only a matter of days before the sequence became public domain anyway.
Chinese scientists submitted the gene sequencing data for posting on Virological.org, a hub for prepublication data designed to assist with public health activities and research. Earlier this week, they announced that they had isolated and fully sequenced the virus, setting off calls for full release of the details. The post was communicated by Edward Holmes, PhD, with the University of Sydney, on behalf of a Chinese group led by Yong-Zhen Zhang, PhD, with Fudan University in Shanghai.
Because the virus comes with it's own plan, once it got out of China it was a matter of days before everyone had it anyway.
Nor is anyone here using the term 'bioweapon' because that implies malicious intent. Because to date we have no trusted investigation, and no evidence based chain of events, no-one should yet be claiming this virus was intended to have a military purpose.
But that is quite different to ruling out a lab origin.
Yes there is a massive difference; that's why I was careful to use the term 'potential window'. Yes it's highly unlikely anyone would have sequenced the new virus back in November, but equally releasing it just before it was going to become public domain anyway really doesn't mean much.
In essence it comes back to knowing exactly when Chinese first had a sequence for it, and until you know that for certain any notion of 'early' is arbitrary.
"Early" is always a relative term, but when judging actions it usually is in reference to something that could be known at the time.
24 december first test of an unresolved clinical case throws up the issue. Alert raised a few days later. Sequence released 11 jan.
I mean, good luck with pretending that the first case was identified as a new disease and covered up for six weeks. The coverup is plausible – we've seen it from a variety of regimes. Identifying case #1 at the time? Not so much, especially if it looks like pneumonia and is in winter.
Wrong. The first case was on December the 27th in Paris,spread by a food hall worker returning from a Xmas trip to Wuhan to a co-worker who gave it to her husband. Nice Chrissy pressie. All as widely reported a few weeks ago.
Now, if you can't even get that right, where does all this bat-shit crazy stuff come from. Out of the arse of some foaming RW nutjob?
Hence the first cases outside of China that were diagnosed and could have been sequenced by non-Chinese researchers were sometime in mid January, which doesn't change the timeline at all.
In reality the Chinese lab in Shanghai (apparently shut down since) probably did the right thing and published the sequence pretty much when they first got it in early January. But to then claim this was somehow virtuously ‘early’, when the damned virus had already gone global is kind of stretching it.
As for my sources, I’ve been open on this for months. I am close to a well connected Chinese family, who have been conveying all this and much more to me since mid January.
What do you mean? Samples from patients have been sequenced all around the world, including New Zealand. Unless the Chinese scientists share the original sample for independent sequencing, it is just a long sequence of four letters. The similarity between the published original sequence and subsequent patient samples is very high.
Well, yes, and the so-called phylogenetic tree of the human cases is highly consistent with the published first sequence. None of this, however, proves anything about the true origin of the virus and where/how it allegedly jumped to humans.
Why not ask the French since it’s a joint French/Chinese research facility? Or do idiot levels of xenophobia simply not extend beyond Asian peoples to European ones?
The US outsourced it's bat virus research to China, too.
Newsweek recently put out some surprising reports that the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) had funded the controversial Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). The WIV is the level four research facility suspected by some of being a possible source for the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has already been on record confirming and defending this funding, saying it was “to protect American people from labs that aren’t up to standard.”
[…]
A third reason could be the fact that the United States has long held a fierce debate about the ethics and risks of gain-of-function (GOF) research. Critics, such as Harvard epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch, have argued that such work “entails a unique risk that a laboratory accident could spark a pandemic, killing millions.” These objections motivated the Obama administration to halt all domestic GOF research in 2011, a restriction that was later lifted in 2017, following the implementation of new safety protocols. Although we do not know exactly what went into the decision to fund the WIV during this moratorium, it is likely that domestic restrictions may have played a role, forcing the proponents of such work to seek opportunities abroad. These proponents are of the opinion that GOF research is worth the risk, being the best way to understand, prevent, and treat pandemics, an argument that is not without merit
As for the 'idiot levels of xenophobia' my Chinese friends would like to explain that not all Chinese think the CCP is wonderful. They find the idea that they all think exactly alike a little bit patronising.
Thank God Australia is breaking through all thise po-faced Chinese "you can't criticise us" crap.
New Zealand is reportedly among 62 nations that have come together to back Australia's call for an independent inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic.
The Australian newspaper reported that it had obtained a draft resolution to be put to the World Health Assembly on Tuesday which was backed by key nations including India, Japan, the UK, Canada, New Zealand, Indonesia, Russia, Mexico, Brazil, and all 27 EU member states.
It demands World Health Organisation director-general Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus "initiate at the earliest appropriate moment … a stepwise process of impartial, independent and comprehensive evaluation" of the international response to the pandemic, the actions of the WHO and its timeline of the pandemic.
Yes my perspective here is probably coloured not just by my close contacts with Chinese locally, but because I'm reading a lot more Australian media than many people here.
One thing that is quite remarkable is this CCP 'wolf warrior' diplomacy the CCP let loose in April, and just how many nations they have gone out of their way to pick a fight with in just the past six weeks. Here in Australia alone they have shutdown imports from four major abbatoirs on transparently bogus 'technical' grounds, are in the process of an absurd 80% tariff on barley (apparently due to govt subsidises), have threatened to go to Brazil for iron ore and beef, and are now hinting that Chinese will not 'want' to visit Australia nor send their children to University here.
And Australia is by no means the only nation being threatened like this, the list is growing almost daily. Even NZ has gotten the treatment over Winston's proposal that Taiwan should be recognised by WHO.
Much of this will turn out to be bluster, but then last week when Trump mused about 'shutting down the entire relationship with China', official state media reported senior CCP officials saying that if that happened then there would be no restraint stopping them from a military invasion of Taiwan.
None of this strikes me as a China acting from a position of strength and confidence. The theory most plausible at the moment is the CCP is striving hard to inflame domestic nationalistic passions that can be directed toward internal repression, and maintenance of political control in the one party state.
"The embassy in Canberra declined to comment on a report in the Nine newspapers on Thursday of suspicions within senior ranks of the government and the intelligence community about a staffer’s possible role."
Blame a junior staffer has become popular of late. Usually interns or on short-term contracts, thus expendable. Also privacy law means you can never name them. Keeps the theory conjectural – anonymity plus obfuscation covers up reliably.
Rudd advises not drawing conclusions "until all the facts are on the table". Reminds us why he was such a spectacular failure as PM. Has anyone ever seen China put all the facts on the table about anything? Of course not. Nor the US, in recent memory.
You're suggesting that the wish to have all facts on the table before accusing another nation of the most dire malevolent actions disqualifies him from public office?
Jesus, no wonder we have politicians of such low calibre these days
No, just pointing to the fact that wishing to have all the facts on the table (about anything) is merely wishful thinking. An intelligent person would realise that before making a fool of themselves in public, right?
I fully support the democratic right of wishful thinkers to have political careers, of course. Likewise the mentally ill. Those who complain about Trump having no right to be doing his deranged thing are exhibiting their discrimination against mentally-challenged folk…
Thanks for the links francesca. To me the topic is summed up nicely at the end of the first link:
“It’s puzzling to me, there is a perfectly natural or scientific explanation staring you in the face. But there seems to be a need from some people to say ‘that’s too simple, there must be a conspiracy here’.”
It not just simplicity. It's politics – as opposed to a well researched scientific explanation which is not yet complete.
A handful of leaders have good cause to introduce conspiracy theories despite the fact there is no evidential backing for them. Leading the charge is Trump. That tells me it is designed to cover his own appalling record of narcissism, arrogance, incompetence, stupidity and incoherence reminiscent of a two year old having a tantrum.
Leading the charge is Trump. That tells me it is designed to cover his own appalling record of narcissism, arrogance, incompetence, stupidity and incoherence reminiscent of a two year old having a tantrum.
Which is all true of Trump.
But this does not speak to anything that happened in Wuhan or the subsequent actions of the CCP to close down any investigation. Trump's stupidity and incoherence does not erase the known perfidy of the CCP.
And besides the work being done by many people trying to independently understand the origin of SARS-COV-2 was underway months before Trump got onto the bandwagon.
No, it does not speak to what happened in Wuhan, but Trump is the one spreading the conspiracies (together with his influential supporters in the media and elsewhere) and he isn't doing so out of genuine concern to trace the origin of the virus.
We don't yet know the truth of what happened in Wuhan but I'll wager a bet it was never part of the sinister conspiracy Trump and co. are trying to generate in an attempt to detract from his miserable performance.
One theory I heard sometime back which has a grain of plausibility:
this research centre in Wuhan might have been offloading some of its ' specimens' to the wet markets once they no longer had any use for them. Now, if that proved to be the case, it wouldn't surprise me if China is trying to keep it under wraps.
I'll wager a bet any country including America would do the same thing under the same circumstances. That's not a conspiracy though. It's a guilty conscience that the local Chinese authorities took their eyes off the ball.
There are a whole range of possibilities; everything from an engineered bio-weapon through to naturally occurring mutation, with a LOT of possibilities in between. At this point in time I'm willing to accept they're all in play, no-one has conclusively ruled anything in or out.
But right from the outset the CCP has been acting as if they had something to hide. Sure there has been cooperation and apparent transparency where it aligns with their self-serving narrative, but no rigorous independent outside scrutiny by a trusted authority. Every week that has gone by has reduced the chance of anyone ever finding out the truth of this matter, and over time the CCP can probably count of people not caring enough to insist.
Maybe Stalin was right when he said "the death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions a statistic".
How does the Chinese government behaviour differ from that of any other nation that has hidden the extent of its problem, gamed the data or testing to keep apparent numbers low, or simply claimed to have a minimal problem while its all-cause mortality rate seems to have gone through the roof?
If the first outbreak had been in Auckland, our govt had badly mishandled it so that it got loose in the world, and then refused to engage with any independent accountability … would you be making the same excuse?
Will Star Wars be coming to New Zealand? Sounds far fetched but there is increasing speculation (not just this entertainment article) that our government's response could reap big rewards with the risk averse international film industry.
Apparently, the NZ guilds and safety industry worked very hard to get their work protocol document signed off by Work Safe. A government sanctioned system in a one state country looks very attractive to both producers and cast alike.
Wasn't a NZ story, which is what I meant. I also thought JoJo Rabbit was shite, had some laughs, but pretty Carry On really (yet I loved Thor Ragnarok so I'm not total kill joy). Looking forward to the Luminaries tonight.
An idea moving forward . Move to a 4 on 4 off working week. Business open 7 days spreads the congestion over 7 days ,rather than 5 full on 2 less so. Increased employment opportunities And 4 day weekends will encourage more getaways to enhance local tourism. Work and life would be in balance.
My statistician son has filled me in on a very comprehensive survey of the pandemic in Spain. Out of 230,000 cases and 29,000 deaths it leaves a mortality rate of 1.15%, almost exactly the same as NZs.
But the key finding was that only 5% of the Spanish population were exposed to it which shoots down the whole "herd immunity" bullshit, unless you are happy to let it run wild and kill 1.15% of your population which in our case would be about 54,000 dead.
So the projections that Jacinda and co were presented with were pretty accurate, so thank you very much to the Labour Government and the brilliant advisory team for keeping us safe and saving us all of the anguish and grieving.
Spain's population is somewhere around 46 to 47 million and 29,000 deaths (worldometers.info has it 27,500 at the moment) I can't see how you got the mortality rate of 1.15%… that would mean somewhere around 500,000 deaths.
My guess is someone used the 5% of exposed population in Spain, so around 2,3 million and 29,000 deaths. How do you precisely determine the “exposed population”?
For me doing forward estimates the mortality is the number of know COVID19 related deaths by the number of known COVID19 cases. And therefore the number is for many countries closer to 10% than 1% (worldometer has a global average of 15%) and will probably reduce over time when the number cases will increase retrospectively (unknown asymptomatic cases at the moment, but known cases in the future, for example determined by blood-tests).
Not following your maths Adrian. 29,000 deaths / 230,000 infections = 12.6% 'mortality rate' for Spain, based on your numbers, so not sure where the "mortality rate of 1.15%" comes from. The apparent death rate in NZ is 21 deaths / 1,150 confirmed infections = 1.8%, or 1.4% if you include probable cases/infections.
IMHO (and from my point of view) our government, public service health workers, and the NZ public in general have done an outstanding job of moderating the impact of Covid-19 on the health and welfare of NZers – long may that continue.
Back in the day, people were obliged to read the Bible. If, like me, you had this brainwashing forced upon you, treat yourself to a fun literary nostalgia trip: https://www.pundit.co.nz/content/a-pandemic-parable
Oscar Kightley: "to some people, broadcaster and journalist Piers Morgan is the devil." Probably because they haven't noticed his lack of horns & forked tail.
Piers may have become less cunty because he can't threaten to sic his reporters on people he hates. Unlike the Generalissimo he doesn't have the apparatus of a fascist state backing him (officially).
Has anyone with a bit of knowledge on the matter got any idea of what is likely to happen with the NZME's attempt to take over Stuff, and what the implications are?
Let's see what that editorial writer says when the actual government rescue package arrives.
The government has both cash carrot and regulatory and legislative sticks in play already. All the power to reorganise the mainstream media to survive 2020 is with Chris Fa'afoi now.
On May 5, Allison, whose real name is being withheld for her safety, received a strange DM. It was from a woman she didn’t know, who informed her that she was on a disturbing website that was compiling information about white women in interracial relationships.
When she went to the website, she found her name, photos, and social media handles under the label “traitors.”
“It was weird, and strange, and creepy,” said Allison, 28. “I was thinking, ‘Who takes the time to do this?’”
The website names, shames, and effectively promotes violence against interracial couples and families — and it’s been circulated in some of the darkest corners of the internet, including in neo-Nazi Discord servers and accelerationist Telegram channels.
[…]
The website was created in April but was taken offline after their initial hosting provider cut ties with them. They then found a home with one of Russia’s largest domain registrars, R01. VICE News contacted R01 on Tuesday to ask whether the site violated their policies. An hour later, the site was taken offline, but as of Wednesday morning it was back up. Tatiana Agafonova, a spokesperson for R01, wrote in an email that the company would “diligently render its services to customers” unless a court rules otherwise or they’re contacted by law enforcement.
There are always post-budget polls in NZ. This year?
I wonder if Mediaworks have the cash. Otherwise it's just Colmar Brunton and TVNZ. And the fewer public polls there are, the more "private" polls get used to fill the gap (as we've seen with the UMR 29% story).
I am sure most (if not everyone) would support the wage subsidy that the govt implemented, a few less on the extension. Given the urgency of the situation at the time, I am pleasantly taken back by effectiveness of the response. BUT I hope that there is adequate follow up on those companies gaming the generosity of this country.
"Our form on this is deeply discouraging. We have already spent some $40b on Christchurch’s rebuild from its earthquakes – and the job’s far from complete. But all we’ve done is create a pleasant replica of a mid-20th century city. Not an exhilarating example of a 21st century city, with all the amenities, technology and liveability that would offer."
"If our businesses and government wonder how New Zealand could follow some of Vivid’s recommendations, they need look no further than The Green Covid Response written by Greenpeace New Zealand."
Greenpeace…not the Greens
"The worry is the coalition parties actually don’t know how to do that."
Prime minister Sophie Wilmès received a cold reception from staff at the Saint Peter hospital in Brussels yesterday on an official visit, when staff formed a reception committee and turned their backs on her ministerial car on arrival.
[…]
The dialogue with the nursing staff and other front-line workers appeared slightly different on her arrival, however. As her car entered the Saint Peter hospital grounds and made its way to the entrance, a double row of health care workers lining the route ostentatiously turned their backs on her arrival, in what some observers described as a “guard of dishonour”.
Representatives later explained that front-line workers were disappointed in the government’s handling of the crisis, and its approach to health care in general, including issues such as budget cuts, low salaries and staff shortages. They are also unhappy about the government’s attempts to recruit unqualified staff to provide support to nursing personnel, rather than pay for trained professionals.
from tourism at least it appears not to any great extent…there are still other areas that have a negative net impact….then there is likely commodity deflation to contend with.
Hopefully much of that reduced activity will parallel property deflation.
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
TL;DR: In today’s ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.06pm on Tuesday, March 19:Kāinga Ora’s dry rot The Spinoff DailyBill McKibben on ‘Climate Superfunds’ making Big Oil pay for climate damage The Crucial YearsPreston Mui on returning to 1980s-style productivity growth NoahpinionAndy Boenau on NIMBYs needing unusual bedfellows Urbanism SpeakeasyNed Resnikoff's case ...
Negative yesterday, negative today. Negative all year, according to one departing reader telling me I’ve grown strident and predictable. Fair enough. If it’s any help, every time I go to write about a certain topic that begins with C and ends with arrrrs, I do brace myself and ask: Again? Are ...
Bryce Edwards writes – It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just show a minimal amount of flux in public support ...
Inspirational: The Family of Man is a glorious hymn to human equality, but, more than that, it is a clarion call to human freedom. Because equality, unleavened by liberty, is a broken piano, an unstrung harp; upon which the songs of fraternity will never be played.“Somebody must have been telling lies about ...
Tax Lawyer Barbara Edmonds vs Emperor Justinian I- Nolo Contendere: False historical explanations of pivotal events are very far from being inconsequential.WHEN BARBARA EDMONDS made reference to the Roman Empire, my ears pricked up. It is, lamentably, very rare to hear a politician admit to any kind of familiarity ...
It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just show a minimal amount of flux in public support for the various parties in ...
Buzz from the Beehive Housing Minister Chris Bishop delivered news – packed with the ingredients to enflame political passions – worthy of supplanting Winston Peters in headline writers’ priorities. He popped up at the post-Cabinet press conference to promise a crackdown on unruly and antisocial state housing tenants. His ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The Reserve Bank is advertising for a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion advisor. The Bank has one mandate – to keep inflation between one and three percent. It has failed in that and is only slowly getting inflation back down to the upper limit. Will it ...
Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency Waka KotahiThe fact that a ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: Gavin Jacobson talks to Thomas Piketty 10 years on from Capital in the 21st CenturyThe SalvoLocal scoop: Green MP’s business being investigated over migrant exploitation claims StuffSteve KilgallonLocal deep-dive: The commercial contractors making money from School ...
It’s a home - but Kāinga Ora tenants accused of “abusing the privilege” may lose it. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The Government announced a crackdown on Kāinga Ora tenants who were unruly and/or behind on their rent, with Housing Minister Chris Bishop saying a place in a state ...
This is a guest post by Connor Sharp of Surface Light Rail Light rail in Auckland: A way forward sooner than you think With the coup de grâce of Auckland Light Rail (ALR) earlier this year, and the shift of the government’s priorities to roads, roads, and more roads, it ...
Note: As a paid-up Webworm member, I’ve recorded this Webworm as a mini-podcast for you as well. Some of you said you liked this option - so I aim to provide it when I get a chance to record! Read more ...
TL;DR: In my ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.06pm on Monday, March 18:IKEA is accused of planting big forests in New Zealand to green-wash; REDD-MonitorA City for People takes a well-deserved victory lap over Wellington’s pro-YIMBY District Plan votes; A City for PeopleSteven Anastasiou takes a close look at the sticky ...
Buzz from the Beehive Here’s hoping for a lively post-cabinet press conference when the PM and – perhaps – some of his ministers tell us what was discussed at their meeting today. Until then, Point of Order has precious little Beehive news to report after its latest monitoring of the ...
David Farrar writes – We now have almost all 2023 data in, which has allowed me to update my annual table of how labour went against its promises. This is basically their final report card. The promiseThe result Build 100,000 affordable homes over 10 ...
I’m a bit worried that I’ve started a previous newsletter with the words “just when you think they couldn’t get any worse…” Seems lately that I could begin pretty much every issue with that opening. Such is the nature of our coalition government that they seem to be outdoing each ...
Geoffrey Miller writes – Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. ...
Depictions of Islam in Western popular culture have rarely been positive, even before 9/11. Five years on from the mosque shootings, this is one of the cultural headwinds that the Muslim community has to battle against. Whatever messages of tolerance and inclusion are offered in daylight, much of our culture ...
Last week Transport Minster Simeon Brown and Mayor Wayne Brown opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre. The new train control centre will see teams from KiwiRail, Auckland Transport and Auckland One Rail working more closely together to improve train services across the city. The Auckland Rail Operations Centre in ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson said in an exit interview with Q+A yesterday the Government can and should sustain more debt to invest in infrastructure for future generations. Elsewhere in the news in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 6:36am: Read more ...
Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. It is more than just a happy ...
TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to March 18 include:China’s Foreign Minister visiting Wellington today;A post-cabinet news conference this afternoon; the resumption of Parliament on Tuesday for two weeks before Easter;retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson gives his valedictory speech in Parliament; ...
New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters’s state-of-the-nation speech on Sunday was really a state-of-Winston-First speech. He barely mentioned any of the Government’s key policies and could not even wholly endorse its signature income tax cuts. Instead, he rehearsed all of his complaints about the Ardern Government, including an extraordinary claim ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
“I’ve been internalising a really complicated situation in my head.”When they kept telling us we should wait until we get to know him, were they taking the piss? Was it a case of, if you think this is bad, wait till you get to know the real Christopher, after the ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
.“$10 and a target that bleeds” - Bleeding Targets for Under $10!.Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.This government appears hell-bent on either scrapping life-saving legislation or reintroducing things that - frustrated critics insist - will be dangerous and likely ...
“It hardly strikes me as fair to criticise a government for doing exactly what it said it was going to do. For actually keeping its promises.”THUNDER WAS PLAYING TAG with lightning flashes amongst the distant peaks. Its rolling cadences interrupted by the here-I-come-here-I-go Doppler effect of the occasional passing car. ...
Subversive & Disruptive Technologies: Just as happened with that other great regulator of the masses, the Medieval Church, the advent of a new and hard-to-control technology – the Internet – is weakening the ties that bind. Then, and now, those who enjoy a monopoly on the dissemination of lies, cannot and will ...
Been Here Before: To find the precedents for what this Coalition Government is proposing, it is necessary to return to the “glory days” of Muldoonism.THE COALITION GOVERNMENT has celebrated its first 100 days in office by checking-off the last of its listed commitments. It remains, however, an angry government. It ...
Bob Edlin writes – And what is the world watching today…? The email newsletter from Associated Press which landed in our mailbox early this morning advised: In the news today: The father of a school shooter has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter; prosecutors in Trump’s hush-money case ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is another Green MP on their way out? And are the Greens severely tarnished by another integrity scandal? For the second time in three months, the Green Party has secretly suspended an MP over integrity issues. Mystery is surrounding the party’s decision to ...
For the last few years, the Green Party has been the party that has managed to avoid the plague of multiple scandals that have beleaguered other political parties. It appears that their luck has run out with a second scandal which, unfortunately for them, coincided with Golraz Ghahraman, the focus ...
TL;DR: The six newsey things that stood out to me as of 6:46am on Saturday, March 16.Andy Foster has accidentally allowed a Labour/Green amendment to cut road user chargers for plug-in hybrid vehicles, which the Government might accept; NZ HeraldThomas CoughlanSimeon Brown has rejected a plea from Westport ...
What seemed a booming success a couple of years ago has collapsed into fraud convictions.I looked at the crash of FTX (short for ‘Futures Exchange’) in November 2022 to see whether it would impact on the financial system as a whole. Fortunately there was barely a ripple, probably because it ...
Anybody following the situation in Ukraine and Russia would probably have been amused by a recent Tweet on X NATO seems to be putting in an awful lot of effort to influence what is, at least according to them, a sham election in an autocracy.When do the Ukrainians go to ...
TL;DR:Shaun Baker on Wynyard Quarter's transformation. Magdalene Taylor on the problem with smart phones. How private equity are now all over reinsurance. Dylan Cleaver on rugby and CTE. Emily Atkin on ‘Big Meat’ looking like ‘Big Oil’.Bernard’s six-stack of substacks at 6pm on March 15Photo by Jeppe Hove Jensen ...
Buzz from the Beehive Finance Minister Nicola Willis had plenty to say when addressing the Auckland Business Chamber on the economic growth that (she tells us) is flagging more than we thought. But the government intends to put new life into it: We want our country to be a ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee has reported back on the Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) Amendment Bill, basicly rubberstamping it. While there was widespread support among submitters for the principle that EV and PHEV drivers should pay their fair share for the roads, they also overwhelmingly disagreed with ...
Peter Dunne writes – This week’s government bailout – the fifth in the last eighteen months – of the financially troubled Ruapehu Alpine Lifts company would have pleased many in the central North Island ski industry. The government’s stated rationale for the $7 million funding was that it ...
See if you can spot the difference. An Iranian born female MP from a progressive party is accused of serial shoplifting. Her name is leaked to the media, which goes into a pack frenzy even before the Police launch an … Continue reading → ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The government is omitting general Treaty references from legislation : The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last Government in a bid to get greater coherence in the public service on Treaty ...
What was that judge thinking?Peter Williams writes – That Golriz Ghahraman and District Court Judge Maria Pecotic were once lawyer colleagues is incontrovertible. There is published evidence that they took at least one case to the Court of Appeal together. There was a report on ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Climate Scorpion – the sting is in the tail. Introducing planetary solvency. A paper via the University of Exeter’s Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.Local scoop:Kāinga Ora starts pulling out of its Auckland projects and selling land RNZ ...
Wellington’s massively upzoned District Plan adds the opportunity for tens of thousands of new homes not just in the central city (such as these Webb St new builds) but also close to the CBD and public transport links. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Wellington gave itself the chance of ...
It’s Friday and we’re halfway through March Madness. Here’s some of the things that caught our attention this week. This Week in Greater Auckland On Monday Matt asked how we can get better event trains and an option for grade separating Morningside Dr. On Tuesday Matt looked into ...
Something you might not know about me is that I’m quite a stubborn person. No, really. I don’t much care for criticism I think’s unfair or that I disagree with. Few of us do I suppose.Back when I was a drinker I’d sometimes respond defensively, even angrily. There are things ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:PM Christopher Luxon said the reversal of interest deductibility for landlords was done to help renters, who ...
It was not so much the Labour Party but really the Chris Hipkins party yesterday at Labour’s caucus retreat in Martinborough. The former Prime Minister was more or less consistent on wealth tax, which he was at best equivocal about, and social insurance, which he was not willing to revisit. ...
Buzz from the BeehiveThe text reproduced above appears on a page which records all the media statements and speeches posted on the government’s official website by Melissa Lee as Minister of Media and Communications and/or by Jenny Marcroft, her Parliamentary Under-secretary. It can be quickly analysed ...
For forty years, Robert Muldoon has been a dirty word in our politics. His style of government was so repulsive and authoritarian that the backlash to it helped set and entrench our constitutional norms. His pig-headedness over forcing through Think Big eventually gave us the RMA, with its participation and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is the new government reducing tax on rental properties to benefit landlords or to cut the cost of rents? That’s the big question this week, after Associate Finance Minister David Seymour announced on Sunday that the Government would be reversing the Labour Government’s removal ...
Saudi Arabia is rarely far from the international spotlight. The war in Gaza has brought new scrutiny to Saudi plans to normalise relations with Israel, while the fifth anniversary of the controversial killing of Jamal Khashoggi was marked shortly before the war began on October 7. And as the home ...
Questions need to be asked on both sides of the worldPeter Williams writes – The NRL Judiciary hands down an eight week suspension to Sydney Roosters forward Spencer Leniu , an Auckland-born Samoan, after he calls Ezra Mam, Sydney-orn but of Aboriginal and Torres Strait ...
Ele Ludemann writes – Contrary to what many headlines and news stories are saying, residential landlords are not getting a tax break. The government is simply restoring to them the tax deductibility of interest they had until the previous government removed it. There is no logical reason ...
I can't remember when it was goodMoments of happiness in bloomMaybe I just misunderstoodAll of the love we left behindWatching our flashbacks intertwineMemories I will never findIn spite of whatever you becomeForget that reckless thing turned onI think our lives have just begunI think our lives have just begunDoes anyone ...
Michael Bassett writes – At first reading, a front-page story in the New Zealand Herald on 13 March was bizarre. A group of severely intellectually limited teenagers, with little understanding of the law, have been pleading to the Justice Select Committee not to pass a bill dealing with ram ...
How much political capital is Christopher Luxon willing to burn through in order to deliver his $2.9 billion gift to landlords? Evidently, Luxon is: (a) unable to cost the policy accurately. As Anna Burns-Francis pointed out to him on Breakfast TV, the original ”rock solid” $2.1 billion cost he was ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Jonathon Porritt calling bullshit in his own blog post on mainstream climate science as ‘The New Denialism’.Local scoop:The Wellington City Council’s list of proposed changes to the IHP recommendations to be debated later today was leaked this ...
TL;DR:Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said yesterday tenants should be grateful for the reinstatement of interest deductibility because landlords would pass on their lower tax costs in the form of lower rents. That would be true if landlords were regulated monopolies such as Transpower or Auckland Airport1, but they’re not, ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Tom Toro Tom Toro is a cartoonist and author. He has published over 200 cartoons in The New Yorker since 2010. His cartoons appear in Playboy, the Paris Review, the New York Times, American Bystander, and elsewhere. Related: What 10 EV lovers ...
The business section of the NZ Herald is full of opinion. Among the more opinionated of all is the ex-Minister of Transport, ex-Minister of Railways, ex MP for Auckland Central (1975-93, Labour), Wellington Central (1996-99, ACT, then list-2005), ex-leader of the ACT Party, uncle to actor Antonia, the veritable granddaddy ...
Hi,Just quickly — I’m blown away by the stories you’ve shared with me over the last week since I put out the ‘Gary’ podcast, where I told you about the time my friend’s flatmate killed the neighbour.And you keep telling me stories — in the comments section, and in my ...
The first season of Rings of Power was not awful. It was thoroughly underwhelming, yes, and left a lingering sense of disappointment, but it was more expensive mediocrity than catastrophe. I wrote at length about the series as it came out (see the Review section of the blog, and go ...
Buzz from the Beehive Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden told Auckland Business Chamber members they were the first audience to hear her priorities as a minister in a government committed to cutting red tape and regulations. She brandished her liberalising credentials, saying Flexible labour markets are the ...
Chris Trotter writes – TO UNDERSTAND WHY NEWSHUB FAILED, it is necessary to understand how TVNZ changed. Up until 1989, the state broadcaster had been funded by a broadcasting licence fee, collected from every citizen in possession of a television set, supplemented by a relatively modest (compared ...
Bob Edlin writes – The Māori Party has been busy issuing a mix of warnings and threats as its expresses its opposition to interest deductibility for landlords and the plans of seabed miners. It remains to be seen whether they follow the example of indigenous litigants in Australia, ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
The New Zealand public voted for a change in direction at the 2023 general election and that is exactly what this coalition government has been delivering in its first 100 days. There was an immediate focus on the economy, easing the cost of living, cracking down on law and order ...
The Government has left the health system as an afterthought, announcing half-baked targets at the last minute of their 100-day plan, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
Kiwis are still waiting for their promised cost of living support after 100 days of a National Government that is taking us backwards, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
100 days of National taking NZ backwardsThe National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
The Government must commit to funding free and healthy school lunches, as thousands of people sign the petition to keep them, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti says. ...
If the Government was serious about moving families into public housing, they would build more houses so there is actually somewhere for people to go. ...
The free and healthy school lunches programme feeds our kids, helps them to learn, and saves families money – but it is at risk under this Government, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
The Government’s proposed changes to Firearms Prohibition Orders (FPO) add almost nothing new and are merely an attempt to distract from its plans to loosen gun laws, police spokesperson Ginny Andersen and justice spokesperson Dr Duncan Webb said. ...
The great Victorian era English politician Lord Macauley stood in the British House of Parliament and said, "The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm".He understood and outlined even way back then, the significant role and influence media have in a democracy. ...
The government’s attack on Māori health this week is committing tangata-whenua to a premature death, says Te Pāti Māori. “The government have begun their onslaught on Māori health with the abolishment of the Māori Health Authority and smokefree laws in the same day” said health spokesperson and co-leader, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. ...
"The Government is moving quickly to realise an additional $46 million in tariff savings in the EU market this season for Kiwi exporters,” Minister for Trade and Agriculture, Todd McClay says. Parliament is set, this week, to complete the final legislative processes required to bring the New Zealand – European ...
New Zealand’s social workers are qualified, experienced, and more representative of the communities they serve, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “I want to acknowledge and applaud New Zealand’s social workers for the hard work they do, providing invaluable support for our most vulnerable. “To coincide with World ...
Cabinet has agreed to a reduced road user charge (RUC) rate for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. Owners of PHEVs will be eligible for a reduced rate of $38 per 1,000km once all light electric vehicles (EVs) move into the RUC system from 1 April. ...
Minister of Agriculture and Trade, Todd McClay, says that today’s opening of Riverland Foods manufacturing plant in Christchurch is a great example of how trade access to overseas markets creates jobs in New Zealand. Speaking at the official opening of this state-of-the-art pet food factory the Minister noted that exports ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Wellington today. “It was a pleasure to host Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his first official visit to New Zealand since 2017. Our discussions were wide-ranging and enabled engagement on many facets of New Zealand’s relationship with China, including trade, ...
Kāinga Ora – Homes & Communities has been instructed to end the Sustaining Tenancies Framework and take stronger measures against persistent antisocial behaviour by tenants, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Earlier today Finance Minister Nicola Willis and I sent an interim Letter of Expectations to the Board of Kāinga Ora. ...
Tēna koutou katoa. Greetings everyone. Thank you to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and the Honourable Simon Bridges for hosting this address today. I acknowledge the business leaders in this room, the leaders and governors, the employers, the entrepreneurs, the investors, and the wealth creators. The coalition Government shares your ...
Minister Winston Peters completed the final leg of his visit to South and South East Asia in Singapore today, where he focused on enhancing one of New Zealand’s indispensable strategic partnerships. “Singapore is our most important defence partner in South East Asia, our fourth-largest trading partner and a ...
Minister of Internal Affairs and Workplace Relations and Safety, Hon. Brooke van Velden, will travel to the Republic of Korea to represent New Zealand at the Third Summit for Democracy on 18 March. The summit, hosted by the Republic of Korea, was first convened by the United States in 2021, ...
ICNZ Speech 7 March 2024, Auckland Acknowledgements and opening Mōrena, ngā mihi nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Good morning, it’s a privilege to be here to open the ICNZ annual conference, thank you to Mark for the Mihi Whakatau My thanks to Tim Grafton for inviting me ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Lead Coordination Minister Judith Collins have expressed their deepest sympathy on the five-year anniversary of the Christchurch terror attacks. “March 15, 2019, was a day when families, communities and the country came together both in sorrow and solidarity,” Mr Luxon says. “Today we pay our respects to the 51 shuhada ...
Speech for Financial Advice NZ Conference 5 March 2024 Acknowledgements and opening Morena, Nga Mihi Nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Thanks Nate for your Mihi Whakatau Good morning. It’s a pleasure to formally open your conference this morning. What a lovely day in Wellington, What a great ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters held discussions in Jakarta today about the future of relations between New Zealand and South East Asia’s most populous country. “We are in Jakarta so early in our new government’s term to reflect the huge importance we place on our relationship with Indonesia and South ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters has announced that the Foreign Minister of China, Wang Yi, will visit New Zealand next week. “We look forward to re-engaging with Foreign Minister Wang Yi and discussing the full breadth of the bilateral relationship, which is one of New Zealand’s ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has today opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre, which will bring together KiwiRail, Auckland Transport, and Auckland One Rail to improve service reliability for Aucklanders. “The recent train disruptions in Auckland have highlighted how important it is KiwiRail and Auckland’s rail agencies work together to ...
The Government is proud to support the 10th edition of Crankworx Rotorua as the Crankworx World Tour returns to Rotorua from 16-24 March 2024, says Minister for Economic Development Melissa Lee. “Over the past 10 years as Crankworx Rotorua has grown, so too have the economic and social benefits that ...
Legislation implementing coalition Government tax commitments and addressing long-standing tax anomalies will be progressed in Parliament next week, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The legislation is contained in an Amendment Paper to the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill issued today. “The Amendment Paper represents ...
Associate Environment Minister Andrew Hoggard has today announced that the Government has agreed to suspend the requirement for councils to comply with the Significant Natural Areas (SNA) provisions of the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity for three years, while it replaces the Resource Management Act (RMA).“As it stands, SNAs ...
Agriculture Minister Todd McClay has classified the drought conditions in the Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts as a medium-scale adverse event, acknowledging the challenging conditions facing farmers and growers in the district. “Parts of Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts are in the grip of an intense dry spell. I know ...
The Government is helping farmers eradicate the significant impact of facial eczema (FE) in pastoral animals, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “A $20 million partnership jointly funded by Beef + Lamb NZ, the Government, and the primary sector will save farmers an estimated NZD$332 million per year, and aims to ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has completed a successful visit to India, saying it was an important step in taking the relationship between the two countries to the next level. “We have laid a strong foundation for the Coalition Government’s priority of enhancing New Zealand-India relations to generate significant future benefit for both countries,” says Mr Peters, ...
Cabinet has agreed to provide $7 million to ensure the 2024 ski season can go ahead on the Whakapapa ski field in the central North Island but has told the operator Ruapehu Alpine Lifts it is the last financial support it will receive from taxpayers. Cabinet also agreed to provide ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Lower fruit and vegetable prices are welcome news for New Zealanders who have been doing it tough at the supermarket, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. Stats NZ reported today the price of fruit and vegetables has dropped 9.3 percent in the 12 months to February 2024. “Lower fruit and vege ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the sixty-eighth session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
The coalition Government is supporting farmers to enhance land management practices by investing $3.3 million in locally led catchment groups, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “Farmers and growers deliver significant prosperity for New Zealand and it’s vital their ongoing efforts to improve land management practices and water quality are supported,” ...
Good evening everyone and thank you for that lovely introduction. Thank you also to the Honourable Simon Bridges for the invitation to address your members. Since being sworn in, this coalition Government has hit the ground running with our 100-day plan, delivering the changes that New Zealanders expect of us. ...
Recommendations from the Climate Change Commission for New Zealand on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) auction and unit limit settings for the next five years have been tabled in Parliament, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “The Commission provides advice on the ETS annually. This is the third time the ...
The coalition Government is beginning its fight to lower building costs and reduce red tape by exempting minor building work from paying the building levy, says Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk. “Currently, any building project worth $20,444 including GST or more is subject to the building levy which is ...
Proposed changes to tax legislation to prevent the over-taxation of low-earning trusts are welcome, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The changes have been recommended by Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure Committee following consideration of submissions on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill. “One of the ...
Assalaamu alaikum. السَّلَام عليكم In light of the holy month of Ramadan, I want to extend my warmest wishes to our Muslim community in New Zealand. Ramadan is a time for spiritual reflection, renewed devotion, perseverance, generosity, and forgiveness. It’s a time to strengthen our bonds and appreciate the diversity ...
Former Transport Minister and CEO of the Auckland Business Chamber Hon Simon Bridges has been appointed as the new Board Chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) for a three-year term, Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced today. “Simon brings extensive experience and knowledge in transport policy and governance to the role. He will ...
Good morning all, it is a pleasure to be here as Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology. It is fantastic to see how connected and collaborative the life science and biotechnology industry is here in New Zealand. I would like to thank BioTechNZ and NZTech for the invitation to address ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says he is looking forward to the day when three key water projects in Northland are up and running, unlocking the full potential of land in the region. Mr Jones attended a community event at the site of the Otawere reservoir near Kerikeri on Friday. ...
Associate Finance Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government has agreed to restore deductibility for mortgage interest on residential investment properties. “Help is on the way for landlords and renters alike. The Government’s restoration of interest deductibility will ease pressure on rents and simplify the tax code,” says ...
Sport and Recreation Minister Chris Bishop will travel to Switzerland today to attend an Executive Committee meeting and Symposium of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Mr Bishop will then travel on to London where he will attend a series of meetings in his capacity as Infrastructure Minister. “New Zealanders believe ...
Pacific Media Watch Ismail al-Ghoul, an Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent who was held for 12 hours at Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital, says Israeli forces rounded up Palestinian journalists at the facility and made them kneel on the ground for hours, while naked and blindfolded. “The occupation forces handcuffed and blindfolded us ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Wood, Program Director, Energy, Grattan Institute chinasong, Shutterstock Electricity customers in four Australian states can breathe a sigh of relief. After two years in a row of 20% price increases, power prices have finally stabilised. In many places they’re ...
Chumbawamba have reportedly issued the deputy PM a cease-and-desist notice after he used their song 'Tubthumping' before his state of the nation speech. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deborah Lupton, SHARP Professor, Vitalities Lab, Centre for Social Research in Health and Social Policy Centre, and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, UNSW Sydney kitzcorner/Shutterstock The assertion from Queensland’s chief health officer John Gerrard that ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Shutterstock Why are musicians so keen to get played on the radio? It can’t be because of the money. In Australia they are paid at rates so low they ...
"Farmers make a point not to tell our urban cousins how to live, yet Chlöe from central Auckland is hell-bent on having her say about farmers," says ACT Rural Communities spokesman Mark Cameron. “On her first day in the House as Green ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards – Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)Political scientist, Dr Bryce Edwards. It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Curran, Associate Professor of Ecology, Lincoln University, New Zealand Getty Images/Gerald Corsi In the latest move to reform environmental laws in New Zealand, the coalition government has introduced a bill to fast-track consenting processes for projects deemed to ...
Uber has argued it does not have as much control over drivers as the unions suggest, and wants a judgment ruling that drivers are employees and not contractors set aside and sent back to the Employment Court. The 2022 ruling followed a three-week hearing in which four drivers sought to ...
What can and can’t be purchased by disabled people or their carers has been slashed in an effort by the Ministry of Disabled People Whaikaha to save money. The purchasing guidelines, a set of rules that sets out what can be purchased using the various streams of Government disability funding, ...
The Treasury has published today a new Analytical Note by Tod Wright and Hien Nguyen, Fiscal incidence in New Zealand: The effects of taxes and benefits on household incomes in tax year 2018/19 . Analyses of the distributional impact of taxation and government ...
The Treasury has published today a new Analytical Note by Cory Davis, Boston Hart and Benjamin Stubbing, Household cost-of-living impacts from the Emissions Trading Scheme and using transfers to mitigate regressive outcomes . This Analytical Note ...
A coalition of public transport and climate organisations, united as ‘Transport for All’, is actively opposing the government’s transport proposals. The draft Government Policy Statement (GPS) includes plans for higher fares for public transport, ...
Greater Wellington is inviting feedback on proposed changes to its Revenue and Financing Policy. The Revenue and Financing Policy covers the Council’s various sources of funding, and how the cost of services is shared across the region. This includes ...
Labour has conceded it could have done more to deal with disruptive state housing tenants while in government but says the current coalition is going too far. ...
The band has asked their record label to issue a cease and desist to stop the NZ First leader using their 1997 hit to support his ‘misguided political views’. “I get knocked down, but I get up again,” blared through the speakers on Sunday as Winston Peters took the stage ...
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist Food rationing is underway in remote areas in Papua New Guinea’s Highlands following torrential rain and flash flooding. More than 20 people have been reported dead in Chimbu Province. In nearby Enga Province, the centre of last month’s massacre, a 15-year-old boy has been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Hughes, Lecturer, Research School of Management, Australian National University After months of debate and intrigue, the AFL’s 19th and newest team, the Tasmania Devils, finally launched its jumper, logo and colours in Devonport this week. The Devils will wear green, ...
Brannavan Gnanalingam reviews the debut novel by Saraid de Silva.One of the most baffling things for children who move to a new country is what their parents’ (or grandparents’) lives were like prior to moving – for kids in particular, they’re too busy trying to fit in in their ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Gaunson, Associate Professor in Cinema Studies, RMIT University Narelle Portanier/Binge “If you don’t know who your mob are, you don’t know who you are,” Detective Andrea “Andie” Whitford (played by Leah Purcell) is told early into the new crime ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elise Klein, Associate professor, Australian National University It’s commonly accepted that women do the vast majority of caregiving in Australian society. But less appreciated is that Indigenous women do larger amounts of unpaid care than any other group. Working with the Aboriginal ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne Joe Biden and Donald Trump have both secured their parties’ nominations for the November 5 United States general election by winning a ...
Comment: There has been a striking contrast in trans-Tasman interest about Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi’s visit to New Zealand and Australia. While the Australian press has been full of articles about the visit – including his curious decision to meet with former prime minister and China booster Paul Keating ...
After years of pressuring banks and other institutions to stop investing in fossil fuels, climate campaigners are making some progress. So how does divestment work?For years, climate activists have been pushing banks and other big institutions to divest from fossil fuels. New research from climate advocacy group 350 Aotearoa ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. The three young Polynesians are part of a K-pop fan community in Tāmaki Makaurau. It’s one of many that have sprung up worldwide as K-pop has gone ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. This one-off documentary presents three intimate portraits of young Polynesians who are pulled into a Korean cultural phenomenon. K-POLYS is directed by Litia Tuiburelevu, Produced by Hex ...
There’s ample evidence demonstrating free school lunch programmes provide wide benefits across schools, households and communities according to public health researchers. ACT Minister David Seymour wants to reduce the spending on Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
By Wata Shaw in Suva Fiji is facing an exodus of Fijians as many are leaving for overseas seeking employment and education and others are migrating, says Opposition MP Viliame Naupoto. Speaking in Parliament, he said: “His Excellency’s speech (Ratu Wiliame Katonivere) comes after a little over one year of ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming comments from Christopher Luxon this morning recommitting to ‘no new taxes’ as part of Budget 2024. “Mr Luxon’s refusal at the Post-Cabinet press conference yesterday to repeat the ‘no new taxes’ promise ...
SAFE is urgently calling on the Environment Committee to reject the Government’s Fast-Track Approvals Bill, and is urging New Zealanders to rally behind the call. The proposed Bill, currently under consideration with the Environment select committee, ...
Teammates who spend all their time picking fights with spectators are only helpful for the other team, writes Madeleine Chapman. Anyone who has ever played a team sport competitively, particularly as a child and particularly, for some reason, basketball, will know that there’s a lot of politics involved. While there ...
The long-running Wellington music festival is too focused on the Jim Beam-ness and not enough on the Homegrown-ness.There is something about Homegrown that’s difficult to place. A barely perceptible-ness. Like feeling a ghost is watching you from the corner of the room but when you look, there’s nothing there. ...
The latest Ipsos New Zealand Issues Monitor reveals that fewer New Zealanders believe crime / law and order is one of the top issues facing our country. In 2018, Ipsos New Zealand started tracking the key issues facing New Zealand. In this wave ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Griffiths, Deputy Program Director, Budgets and Government, Grattan Institute Australia’s political donations rules are woefully inadequate, but donations reform is finally on the agenda. The federal government has signalled its interest in reform and will soon begin briefing MPs on its ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Patrick Taylor, Chief Environmental Scientist, EPA Victoria; Honorary Professor, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University Naiyana Somchitkaeo/Shutterstock A recent study published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine has linked microplastics with risk to human health. The study ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Albert Van Dijk, Professor, Water and Landscape Dynamics, Fenner School of Environment & Society, Australian National University Global climate records were shattered in 2023, from air and sea temperatures to sea-level rise and sea-ice extent. Scores of countries recorded their hottest year ...
As part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, a teacher explains why he and his partner are in frugal mode – and how they’re making it work. Gender: Male Age: 35Ethnicity: Pākehā Role: I am an intermediate school teacher and my partner is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Bendall, Senior Lecturer, Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, Australian Catholic University Binge Mary & George, the new British television drama series, depicts the real-life story of Mary Villiers and her son George, and their social climbing at the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jason Nassios, Associate Professor, Centre of Policy Studies, Victoria University This article is part of The Conversation’s series examining the housing crisis. Read the other articles in the series here. Australian state and federal governments spend money in many ways to ...
The finance minister is denying that there’s a $5.6b shortfall in paying for the government’s campaign promises, including tax cuts. At his post-cabinet press conference yesterday, the PM refused to rule out new taxes to pay for the cuts, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s ...
Kāinga Ora tenants abused by their neighbours are doubting the government's crackdown on disruptive tenants will make a difference on their behaviour. ...
Kāinga Ora is New Zealand’s biggest residential landlord, housing more than 180,000 vulnerable people in more than 67,000 properties. Yesterday the government announced a crackdown on its tenants who fall behind on rent. One longtime Kāinga Ora tenant shares her experience.For 18 years I lived in a 1960s standalone ...
Why does this myth persist, and what’s the real reason our skin is suffering?It’s one of the biggest international grievances New Zealanders hold, up there with the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior and 1981’s underarm incident. We’re quick to tell international travellers that the world’s pollution led to the ...
Opinion: In a move that has shocked road safety advocates across the country, the new Minister of Transport, Simeon Brown, is poised to abandon the previous government’s speed limit reduction policy, particularly around schools. Even more alarmingly, he wants school speed limits to be variable rather than full-time, arguing ...
Auckland Council is opposing a fast-track development backed by Sir John Kirwan and Spark NZ, because it doesn’t meet stringent new climate adaptation requirements The post Surf-data centre faces new 3.8C climate warming rules appeared first on Newsroom. ...
When the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act was introduced in 2009 it was firmly targeted at gangs and drugs. The legislation means police no longer need a conviction to seize assets that criminals can’t prove were paid for legitimately, as long as their alleged offences are punishable by more than a ...
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Bob’s relationship with certain members of Lincoln’s academic staff continued to deteriorate in the 1990s. Others supported him publicly, though articles such as Roland Clark’s 1993 piece in Growing Today cannot have pleased the university management. Clark wrote that Bob was selling onions from the Biological Husbandry Unit to a ...
SailGP’s races feature in-your-face action, with agile, hydro-foiling catamarans tacking and jibing for the title over several days. However, public comments ahead of the global series’ return to New Zealand have left this past year’s controversy in the shadows, as a key appointment attracts criticism from dolphin advocates. A year ...
Opinion: We are fast approaching a fundamental change in prisons. As the number of people on custodial remand looks set to overtake the number of sentenced prisoners, the main function of prisons in New Zealand may become incarcerating un-sentenced people who may not be guilty of offending. We have already ...
A huge seven months lies in store for the White Ferns, beginning this week with the visit of England and culminating with the T20 World Cup in Bangladesh in September and October. Starting on Tuesday in Dunedin, the world ranked No. 2 visitors will play five T20s and three ODIs, ...
The letters, which were published last week, were addressed to Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) Chairperson Megawati Sukarnoputri, National Democrat Party (NasDem) Chairperson Surya Paloh, National Awakening Party (PKB) Chairperson Muhaimin Iskandar, Justice and Prosperity Party (PKS) President Ahmad Syaikhu and United Development Party (PPP) Chairperson Muhammad Mardiono. In ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emerald L King, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania IMDB Between Netflix’s 2023 live-action version of One Piece, and its latest take on Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans are once again asking: why are live-action anime adaptations so tricky to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emerald L King, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania IMDB Between Netflix’s 2023 live-action version of One Piece, and its latest take on Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans are once again asking: why are live-action anime adaptations so tricky to ...
The government says it still intends to deliver tax cuts by July, but will not lock them in until they have got them past their coalition partners. ...
Kiingi Tuheitia Pootatau Te Wherowhero VII has hosted members of the Green Party Caucus at Tuurangawaewae Marae in Ngaaruawahia. The audience follows the King’s Hui-aa-Motu on 20 January, where more than 10,000 people gathered to discuss national ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dr Rachael Potter, Research Associate and Lecturer in Work and Organisational Psychology, University of South Australia Ground Picture/Shutterstock Pregnant women and workers with children are often unfairly treated by their bosses and colleagues, despite laws to protect against workplace discrimination ...
"A new Māori Party candidate is accusing the Government of "ethnic cleansing" over its COVID-19 response. Donna Pokere-Phillips, who's standing in the Hauraki-Waikato electorate seat" https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/05/covid-19-new-maori-party-candidate-accuses-government-of-ethnic-cleansing.html
She's demonstrating political nous, eh? Generate headlines is the best way to raise your public profile. She's not blaming govt pakeha, specifically. Nor is she blaming Maori govt ministers for the ethnic cleansing. Very clever!
"The lack of Māori response by the Government to COVID-19, the lack of Māori engagement with Māori leadership during the lockdown, the removal by force of our rights protected under Te Tiriti o Waitangi and legislation rushed through under urgency further eroding civil liberties, in short is ethnic cleansing".
She knows how to play the media game. Sometimes people look behind what is said and try to understand what it means.
From the Newshub link, "Modelling released in April by research group Te Pūnaha Matatini shows that because of underlying health conditions, socioeconomic disadvantage and structural racism, the death rate for COVID-19 could be 2.5 times higher for Māori."
"According to the latest data, Māori represent 8 percent of the total cases so far – or 126 people." The statistics are current and obviously might change, significantly or not.
Pokere-Phillips will have genuine concerns about state powers. Getting attention on that with emotional links to bloody extermination is powerful. In method it's a David Farrar approach. The Ministry of Health lists Covid-19 cases by ethnicity. Maybe that's a good place to start in checking the reality of 'ethnic cleansing.'
https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/diseases-and-conditions/covid-19-novel-coronavirus/covid-19-current-situation/covid-19-current-cases#ethnicity
That, or it's all she's got.
https://www.electionresults.govt.nz/electionresults_1999/e9/html/e9_partIII_1.html
https://www.electionresults.govt.nz/electionresults_2017/statistics/split-votes-electorate-14.html
A nimble party-hopper! Nobody will accuse her of having convictions. Not a party-pooper. 💃🏽 🍷
The bomber lists 27 things that are currently making him angry. I wonder if he has ever thought of taking a course in anger management? Could reduce the tally. https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2020/05/16/my-pandemic-of-rage/
"I’m angry the NZ Herald dumped the horoscopes, it was the only quality journalism they did." Get real. Those were merely sun-sign generalisations. A horoscope is the diagram of an event in relation to local cosmos. Can't expect journos to grasp such depths.
Oooo Mandy, you are awful!
But I like the cut of your jib and the sophistication that saunters along with it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJmg-879j5o
An horoscope was an helpful guide for your Reagan neocon Den.
Bomber should do daily numerology it is more accurate.
And he's still banging on about the "5 Eyes intelligence dossier "published in the Murdoch press despite the fact its been refuted several times over
Here's one such in the Guardian
"The deputy chair of the Australian parliament’s intelligence and security committee, Anthony Byrne, has been angered by the reported dossier, fearing the episode was reminiscent of the saga surrounding intelligence about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in 2003."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/07/australia-hits-back-at-us-claim-linking-coronavirus-to-wuhan-lab
And Kevin Rudd not holding back
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/murdoch-media-s-china-coronavirus-conspiracy-has-one-aim-get-trump-re-elected-1.4250379
Until someone can intelligently walk me past the fact that a virus closely linked to bats, has it's first major human outbreak in the same city that happened to have the only lab in the world studying the same family of virus from bats … all the self-serving denials in the world mean nothing.
It could of course be an amazing coincidence, but then if I was found standing over a dead body holding a smoking gun, would any investigator accept my claim that "it wasn't me, it must have been some other bullet"? And then allow me to control access to the crime scene, control all the evidence and tell the police to go away?
Absolutely RL.
Check out Chris Martenson in this postings and ones before it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eD3ztjqYGbg
Conspiracy Theories abound those who invent them and spread them are trying to be relevant fame seekers.
Trump is their perfect super hero.
He's the hero they deserve.
Unfortunately it fucks everyone else, as well.
Next: Trump gets called batshit crazy. May have already happened.
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=batshit%20crazy
Well , I guess its like John Key said ..more or less my experts against your experts, but lets keep it to science not "intelligence"
Professor Edward Holmes is an evolutionary virologist and a member of the Charles Perkins Centre and the Marie Bashir Institute for Infectious Diseases and Biosecurity at the University of Sydney
Martenson does a pretty good job of picking apart Holmes's statement at the 18:40 mark of Tony Veitch's video posted above.
Holmes even reinforces the non-natural origin theory by saying that Covid is closest to RaTG13, the lab had access to RaTG13, and RaTG13 is naturally occuring in a different region of China to Wuhan.
Hmmmm
economic researcher and "futurist" spouting Trumpian conspiracy theories versus virologists and reputed medical journals
https://www.vox.com/2020/4/23/21226484/wuhan-lab-coronavirus-china
I’m extremely reluctant to wade into this but the science aspect is mighty interesting.
One of the many missing pieces of the puzzle is why there was a 7-year gap between discovering RaTG13 and publishing the data? If RaTG13 occurs naturally then it should be possible to isolate it from a (its?) natural source, e.g. in the cave where it was purported to have been found in 2013.
The reason that lab was studying diseases in bats is because … in that region are disease carrying bats. Even the US spies deny it's lab made.
Perhaps, just perhaps, they deny it's lab made because Fauci and the CDC were helping to finance research into coronavirus in Wuhan?
A variation is that a bat urinated on a technician in the Wuhan laboratory. This really strengthens the laboratory theory, it ties so well into the 'bat-shit' crazy response to the epidemic from a number of world leaders
/sarc
nope a cat playing with the vial on a shelf knocked it off!!
Maybe the person holding a gun was doing so because they were at a firing range?
It's not uncommon to set up research centres in areas most convenient to conduct that research. Some might say it's almost sensible to do so.
OK so let's go with that idea. Now if we had a terrible accident at this firing range … what would be the first thing the person in charge might do?
Now compare this with what happened in Wuhan?
"OK so let's go with that idea. Now if we had a terrible accident at this firing range … what would be the first thing the person in charge might do? "
Well I'd hazard a guess it wouldnt be let the bent bat shit crazy chief of police that hates your guts and would love to send you down for anything run the investigation.
lol
And in the meantime the person right next to the dead body, holding the hot smoking gun, gets to shutdown the scene, prevent any police from entering the property, control all the information and deny any possible guilt?
A ten year old wouldn't buy it.
The logical problem for anyone wanting to promote the idea that "there is no evidence" that it came from a lab, is they equally have no evidence that it came from a natural host either.
It's like your local police chief standing up at a presser and saying "I don't have a fucking clue" and pretending that somehow solved the case.
"And in the meantime the person right next to the dead body, holding the hot smoking gun, gets to shutdown the scene, prevent any police from entering the property, control all the information and deny any possible guilt?"
What smoking gun?…your problem is there is nobody standing next to a body holding a smoking gun…theres somebody saying there MIGHT have been somebody standing next to the body holding a smoking gun…..or the corpse may not even have a bullet wound…it could have been a heart attack for all you know.
What smoking gun?
Now you are being obdurate, pretending there is no biolab in Wuhan, that it was not studying closely related virus's, that it hadn't published papers on the topic, that their top researcher was not well known for her work in this field … and that the first major COVID outbreak was not in Wuhan.
Yes I can see that if you make all those facts go away, then there is no smoking gun either.
and everyone who dies in the presence of firearms has been deliberately shoot….good grief
Every death in the presence of firearms is thoroughly and carefully investigated by a trusted authority.
Only then can the question of intent be resolved.
Indeed. And the question of whether the person had even been shot.
Forunately, just as a gun leaves a wound and powder residue genetic sequences provide information as to ancestry and provenance. There is no bullet wound.
And the question of whether the person had even been shot.
I would have thought 311,516 deaths to date would have been enough for you.
Oh and that link you gave is to a paper, Holmes is one of the authors, published in early March (and presumably written in the weeks prior) that Martenson addresses in the light of subsequent understanding.
Just because Trump has gotten his sticky mitts on this story does not make him anyone's hero, and it certainly doesn't change the known fact that the CCP have done everything in their power to shut down independent investigation, and promote a narrative exonerating themselves at every step.
Pat, and others, you're missing the point. Chris Martenson is strictly apolitical. He's not trying to support any Trump conspiracy theories, he's looking at the evidence from an entirely logical and evidence based point of view.
His point is that the coronavirus has 'gain of function' additives which could only – stress only – have been added in a lab. He backs up his conclusions with proof which seems convincing to my unscientific mind.
Whether all this feeds into Trump's paranoia and politicising, he makes no comment on.
The forensic evidence points to natural causes….I'll go with the evidence
Please watch the video before commenting – from about the 18 minute mark.
no need to waste 18 minutes….those studying the virus (and without political motives) have determined it is natural in origin…if they change their minds I will re-evaluate.
I've been listening to it for the past 38 min as I'm typing here. Martenson makes a logical and documented case.
And I’m curious how you know the other nameless experts you are relying on are ‘without political motives’.
If you spent a fraction of the energy on seeking out scientific opinion as you do conspiracy hunting you would find ample
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-scientists-think-the-novel-coronavirus-developed-naturally-not-in-a-chinese-lab/
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/health/coronavirus-is-natural-in-origin-who/1826213
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/03/200317175442.htm
https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2020-05-09/was-the-coronavirus-made-in-a-wuhan-lab-heres-what-the-genetic-evidence-shows
The first link relies on the idea that the closest known bat virus is decades apart in evolutionary terms, but selectively omits that it's routine procedure to force evolution in the lab in a matter of days.
The second link is just reporting assertions with no data
The third link is a re-run of the spike protein optimisation argument that Martenson suggests is not as water tight as being pretended.
The fourth link uses the argument that purposeful genetic manipulation always leaves behind 'telltale fingerprints', which is also not true. The method for avoiding this has been known since 2002, and is well known.
Now my quick scan of your four references is not terribly conclusive, except that even with my very limited understanding I can spot troubling questions and presuppositions in all of them. None of them even vaguely attempt to explain why the first major outbreak occurs in Wuhan, a city many hundreds of km from where the bloody bats live.
According to Chris Martenson, and I paraphrase,
All of the above can be done in a lab.
If you believe the above ‘natural’ selection process, I have a bridge for sale!
For a more scientific version, check out the video at about the 50 minute mark.
thats 4 very poor summaries
Suspect the only solution is a hammer and a nail
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/sunday/audio/2018746806/what-makes-us-believe-conspiracy-theories
Agreed Pat. Human-mediated habitat destruction may have played a role in the formation of Covid-19; advocating that the virus was engineered in a lab is just (bat)shit-stirring – let's wait!
Watched the video at ~19 minutes, including Dr Martenson's first conclusion after 'analysing' "this Professor Holmes" statement:
The excitable Martenson accepted that statement, and then assigned equal likelihood to the contrary statement that 'the virus did originate in a lab', on the basis that there's no evidence either way. IMHO anyone still listening after that 'analysis' is wasting their time, me included.
Martenson is espousing a belief, and asserting that expert virologists are (deliberately) ignoring his ‘analysis’. The idea that Professor Holmes' job depends (somehow) on Holmes not understanding Martenson's belief is ludicrous – wacky stuff!
Martenson's smoking gun, the presence of a "polybasic furin cleavage site" encoded in the Covid-19 genome, was commented on over three months ago – it's nothing new.
https://www.virology.ws/2020/02/13/furin-cleavage-site-in-the-sars-cov-2-coronavirus-glycoprotein/
"…no clear evolutionary pathway has [yet] been identified that would explain the presence of COVID-19’s furin polybasic cleavage site…" – nevertheless, the idea that current molecular sequence databases magically contain a complete record of extant and transient/extinct coronavirus diversity – well, imagine!
"a bat manages to pass a coronavirus to a pangolin, one of only a few thousand left in the world,"
in a wet market where both species were present and in close contact
"which somehow manages to swap part of that virus with a variation already in the pangolin"
which has occurred and been documented on many previous occasions
"This then picks up other critical parts of the virus composition present in pangolins, and –"
see previous
"miracle of miracles – jumps from animals to humans."
previously occurred
"All of the above can be done in a lab."
not easily and only with considerable luck as explained in the linked articles from my previous post…indeed the odds are far greater of it occurring naturally than by design.
Do you own a bridge?
lol. My explanation sure does miss the make a bit – and that's because the science is way beyond me – in terms of explaining it.
But I hope you'll take the time to go to the video and the 50 minute make and spend a few minutes listening to the explanation given by Chris Martenson. Then get back to me.
Cheers.
What if there was a pangolin in the Wuhan lab which caught the virus from a bat and the pangolin was not disposed of properly and someone touched a piece of the pangolin or materials which were used in the disposal of the pangolin?
Without doubt the virus has occurred naturally and is not man made.
Does it really matter if the virus came from the lab or the Wuhan market?
How the virus jumped to humans from bats/pangolins is what I would like to know?
Huh? How can one (e.g. you) be so absolutely 100% sure of this? Has anybody isolated it from a (its?) natural source other than infected humans and now cats, it appears?
If it was man-made we wouldn’t have to worry about how exactly it jumped species, would we?
If it wasn't a natural source I think that this would have been picked up with the sequencing.
The virus is seen in bats, pangolins, humans and cats. There is a clue that the virus does jump in a natural way as it has jumped from humans to cats.
Nothing is 100% with science.
How would sequencing pick that up?
Incorrect! The virus is not seen in bats and pangolins; there are similar viruses found in these species but they are not identical and definitely not close enough to be called “the virus”. There are some interesting questions hanging over the origin of RaTG13 based on close analysis and inspection of its genome (i.e. by sequencing). AFAIK, all reports of infected cats have been controlled experimental studies in the lab and large cats in zoos (https://thestandard.org.nz/dont-infect-your-feline-master/) and human-to-cat transfer, not the other way round. In any case, this is the same virus that jumps, not a similar one.
I said human to cat transmission.
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-05-08/Latest-finding-of-the-novel-coronavirus-origin-bat-and-pangolin-Qku7BSHP5m/index.html
I have not read a closer fit than the theory that a bat gave the virus to a pangolin and a pangolin is the likely transmission to a human host.
When it comes to what reservoir caused AIDS, Ebola, MERs and similar viruses a lot is still unknown. Maybe there is a connection and this needs research.
I cannot fix the link.
[Link fixed]
Yes, I know you said that but the important (to me) point was that this is the same virus. They have yet to figure out where it came from and how and when it jumped and from which species to human.
Indeed, more research is needed and not just on SARS-COVID-2.
I’ve fixed the link.
Except observing gradually increasing numbers of people with pneumonia isn't quite as obvious as the firing range analogy would suggest. Analogies do have their limits.
Did China act suspiciously slowly? I'm not so sure on that – they coded the sequence pretty quickly, got WHO in towards the end of January ISTR. Yeah, they did some "in denial" initially, but that seems to be common practise these days – very few of the top-tier nations can throw stones in that regard, so maybe China simply had the same motives as around half the members of the G7/8.
AND they released the genome sequence publicly early.
How early? When do you know they first had it? Only by knowing that you can say it was 'early' or not.
Sequencing these days is remarkably fast; once there were cases in other countries it was only a matter of days before the sequence became public domain anyway.
This is dated Jan 11
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/01/china-releases-genetic-data-new-coronavirus-now-deadly
Chinese scientists submitted the gene sequencing data for posting on Virological.org, a hub for prepublication data designed to assist with public health activities and research. Earlier this week, they announced that they had isolated and fully sequenced the virus, setting off calls for full release of the details. The post was communicated by Edward Holmes, PhD, with the University of Sydney, on behalf of a Chinese group led by Yong-Zhen Zhang, PhD, with Fudan University in Shanghai.
The first known case is now thought to be back in November 13.
The first cases known outside of China was in Thailand early in January
This means there was a potential 8 week window in which the virus could have been sequenced in China before it reached the rest of the world.
In fact it was published in the very last week of that window. Holding this up as virtuously 'early' doesn't seem impressive to me.
May be not that impressive, BUT if you are developing a bioweapon why publish the plans?
Because the virus comes with it's own plan, once it got out of China it was a matter of days before everyone had it anyway.
Nor is anyone here using the term 'bioweapon' because that implies malicious intent. Because to date we have no trusted investigation, and no evidence based chain of events, no-one should yet be claiming this virus was intended to have a military purpose.
But that is quite different to ruling out a lab origin.
Oh come on – there's a massive difference between a known case of a new syndrome and a retrospective diagnosis.
@McF
Yes there is a massive difference; that's why I was careful to use the term 'potential window'. Yes it's highly unlikely anyone would have sequenced the new virus back in November, but equally releasing it just before it was going to become public domain anyway really doesn't mean much.
In essence it comes back to knowing exactly when Chinese first had a sequence for it, and until you know that for certain any notion of 'early' is arbitrary.
"Early" is always a relative term, but when judging actions it usually is in reference to something that could be known at the time.
24 december first test of an unresolved clinical case throws up the issue. Alert raised a few days later. Sequence released 11 jan.
I mean, good luck with pretending that the first case was identified as a new disease and covered up for six weeks. The coverup is plausible – we've seen it from a variety of regimes. Identifying case #1 at the time? Not so much, especially if it looks like pneumonia and is in winter.
Wrong. The first case was on December the 27th in Paris,spread by a food hall worker returning from a Xmas trip to Wuhan to a co-worker who gave it to her husband. Nice Chrissy pressie. All as widely reported a few weeks ago.
Now, if you can't even get that right, where does all this bat-shit crazy stuff come from. Out of the arse of some foaming RW nutjob?
[Please keep your tone civil, thanks – Incognito]
See my Moderation note @ 1:05 PM.
@Adrian
Indeed. The cases in Thailand were the ones recognised early, while the case in Paris has only been found in retrospect within the past week, so for the purpose of my argument it is absolutely irrelevant.
Hence the first cases outside of China that were diagnosed and could have been sequenced by non-Chinese researchers were sometime in mid January, which doesn't change the timeline at all.
In reality the Chinese lab in Shanghai (apparently shut down since) probably did the right thing and published the sequence pretty much when they first got it in early January. But to then claim this was somehow virtuously ‘early’, when the damned virus had already gone global is kind of stretching it.
As for my sources, I’ve been open on this for months. I am close to a well connected Chinese family, who have been conveying all this and much more to me since mid January.
Do you know if the genome sequence has been checked independently?
What do you mean? Samples from patients have been sequenced all around the world, including New Zealand. Unless the Chinese scientists share the original sample for independent sequencing, it is just a long sequence of four letters. The similarity between the published original sequence and subsequent patient samples is very high.
So checking has been done.
As for the original sequence sample I will give China the benefit of the doubt unless proven to be otherwise.
Yes i read a detailed account of how they could track the speed of the virus by the characteristics of the genome.
I put a comment here a while back.
Well, yes, and the so-called phylogenetic tree of the human cases is highly consistent with the published first sequence. None of this, however, proves anything about the true origin of the virus and where/how it allegedly jumped to humans.
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2020/05/08/1158204/the-new-zealand-strains-how-the-coronavirus-got-here
Well, do people outside this lab have contact with bats? Are you suggesting the virus came first?
Why not ask the French since it’s a joint French/Chinese research facility? Or do idiot levels of xenophobia simply not extend beyond Asian peoples to European ones?
The US outsourced it's bat virus research to China, too.
Newsweek recently put out some surprising reports that the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) had funded the controversial Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). The WIV is the level four research facility suspected by some of being a possible source for the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has already been on record confirming and defending this funding, saying it was “to protect American people from labs that aren’t up to standard.”
[…]
A third reason could be the fact that the United States has long held a fierce debate about the ethics and risks of gain-of-function (GOF) research. Critics, such as Harvard epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch, have argued that such work “entails a unique risk that a laboratory accident could spark a pandemic, killing millions.” These objections motivated the Obama administration to halt all domestic GOF research in 2011, a restriction that was later lifted in 2017, following the implementation of new safety protocols. Although we do not know exactly what went into the decision to fund the WIV during this moratorium, it is likely that domestic restrictions may have played a role, forcing the proponents of such work to seek opportunities abroad. These proponents are of the opinion that GOF research is worth the risk, being the best way to understand, prevent, and treat pandemics, an argument that is not without merit
https://thediplomat.com/2020/05/why-would-the-us-have-funded-the-controversial-wuhan-lab/
https://asiatimes.com/2020/04/why-us-outsourced-bat-virus-research-to-wuhan/
The French were involved in designing and building the WIV facility but not operating it.
As for the 'idiot levels of xenophobia' my Chinese friends would like to explain that not all Chinese think the CCP is wonderful. They find the idea that they all think exactly alike a little bit patronising.
Thank God Australia is breaking through all thise po-faced Chinese "you can't criticise us" crap.
New Zealand is reportedly among 62 nations that have come together to back Australia's call for an independent inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic.
The Australian newspaper reported that it had obtained a draft resolution to be put to the World Health Assembly on Tuesday which was backed by key nations including India, Japan, the UK, Canada, New Zealand, Indonesia, Russia, Mexico, Brazil, and all 27 EU member states.
It demands World Health Organisation director-general Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus "initiate at the earliest appropriate moment … a stepwise process of impartial, independent and comprehensive evaluation" of the international response to the pandemic, the actions of the WHO and its timeline of the pandemic.
Yes my perspective here is probably coloured not just by my close contacts with Chinese locally, but because I'm reading a lot more Australian media than many people here.
One thing that is quite remarkable is this CCP 'wolf warrior' diplomacy the CCP let loose in April, and just how many nations they have gone out of their way to pick a fight with in just the past six weeks. Here in Australia alone they have shutdown imports from four major abbatoirs on transparently bogus 'technical' grounds, are in the process of an absurd 80% tariff on barley (apparently due to govt subsidises), have threatened to go to Brazil for iron ore and beef, and are now hinting that Chinese will not 'want' to visit Australia nor send their children to University here.
And Australia is by no means the only nation being threatened like this, the list is growing almost daily. Even NZ has gotten the treatment over Winston's proposal that Taiwan should be recognised by WHO.
Much of this will turn out to be bluster, but then last week when Trump mused about 'shutting down the entire relationship with China', official state media reported senior CCP officials saying that if that happened then there would be no restraint stopping them from a military invasion of Taiwan.
None of this strikes me as a China acting from a position of strength and confidence. The theory most plausible at the moment is the CCP is striving hard to inflame domestic nationalistic passions that can be directed toward internal repression, and maintenance of political control in the one party state.
"The embassy in Canberra declined to comment on a report in the Nine newspapers on Thursday of suspicions within senior ranks of the government and the intelligence community about a staffer’s possible role."
Blame a junior staffer has become popular of late. Usually interns or on short-term contracts, thus expendable. Also privacy law means you can never name them. Keeps the theory conjectural – anonymity plus obfuscation covers up reliably.
Rudd advises not drawing conclusions "until all the facts are on the table". Reminds us why he was such a spectacular failure as PM. Has anyone ever seen China put all the facts on the table about anything? Of course not. Nor the US, in recent memory.
You're suggesting that the wish to have all facts on the table before accusing another nation of the most dire malevolent actions disqualifies him from public office?
Jesus, no wonder we have politicians of such low calibre these days
No, just pointing to the fact that wishing to have all the facts on the table (about anything) is merely wishful thinking. An intelligent person would realise that before making a fool of themselves in public, right?
I fully support the democratic right of wishful thinkers to have political careers, of course. Likewise the mentally ill. Those who complain about Trump having no right to be doing his deranged thing are exhibiting their discrimination against mentally-challenged folk…
Rudd didn't ask himself, what would the Generalissimo have done? An horrible herror.
Thanks for the links francesca. To me the topic is summed up nicely at the end of the first link:
It not just simplicity. It's politics – as opposed to a well researched scientific explanation which is not yet complete.
A handful of leaders have good cause to introduce conspiracy theories despite the fact there is no evidential backing for them. Leading the charge is Trump. That tells me it is designed to cover his own appalling record of narcissism, arrogance, incompetence, stupidity and incoherence reminiscent of a two year old having a tantrum.
Leading the charge is Trump. That tells me it is designed to cover his own appalling record of narcissism, arrogance, incompetence, stupidity and incoherence reminiscent of a two year old having a tantrum.
Which is all true of Trump.
But this does not speak to anything that happened in Wuhan or the subsequent actions of the CCP to close down any investigation. Trump's stupidity and incoherence does not erase the known perfidy of the CCP.
And besides the work being done by many people trying to independently understand the origin of SARS-COV-2 was underway months before Trump got onto the bandwagon.
No, it does not speak to what happened in Wuhan, but Trump is the one spreading the conspiracies (together with his influential supporters in the media and elsewhere) and he isn't doing so out of genuine concern to trace the origin of the virus.
We don't yet know the truth of what happened in Wuhan but I'll wager a bet it was never part of the sinister conspiracy Trump and co. are trying to generate in an attempt to detract from his miserable performance.
One theory I heard sometime back which has a grain of plausibility:
this research centre in Wuhan might have been offloading some of its ' specimens' to the wet markets once they no longer had any use for them. Now, if that proved to be the case, it wouldn't surprise me if China is trying to keep it under wraps.
I'll wager a bet any country including America would do the same thing under the same circumstances. That's not a conspiracy though. It's a guilty conscience that the local Chinese authorities took their eyes off the ball.
There are a whole range of possibilities; everything from an engineered bio-weapon through to naturally occurring mutation, with a LOT of possibilities in between. At this point in time I'm willing to accept they're all in play, no-one has conclusively ruled anything in or out.
But right from the outset the CCP has been acting as if they had something to hide. Sure there has been cooperation and apparent transparency where it aligns with their self-serving narrative, but no rigorous independent outside scrutiny by a trusted authority. Every week that has gone by has reduced the chance of anyone ever finding out the truth of this matter, and over time the CCP can probably count of people not caring enough to insist.
Maybe Stalin was right when he said "the death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions a statistic".
How does the Chinese government behaviour differ from that of any other nation that has hidden the extent of its problem, gamed the data or testing to keep apparent numbers low, or simply claimed to have a minimal problem while its all-cause mortality rate seems to have gone through the roof?
If the first outbreak had been in Auckland, our govt had badly mishandled it so that it got loose in the world, and then refused to engage with any independent accountability … would you be making the same excuse?
Or do special rules apply to the CCP?
It was a pretty simple question.
Asking for comparisons to the behaviour of countries like the US or Russia is quite the opposite of making excuses and a double standard for China.
Was it the question you objected to, or was it merely the answer that initially came to your mind?
Will Star Wars be coming to New Zealand? Sounds far fetched but there is increasing speculation (not just this entertainment article) that our government's response could reap big rewards with the risk averse international film industry.
Apparently, the NZ guilds and safety industry worked very hard to get their work protocol document signed off by Work Safe. A government sanctioned system in a one state country looks very attractive to both producers and cast alike.
Capacity is an issue though.
They made those prequels in Aus, so why not. I just wish our big flash directors made NZ movies again, instead of easy cash cows.
Jojo rabbit was a NZ movie, Nelson author and huge number of Kiwis fought to stop the stupidity.
Wasn't a NZ story, which is what I meant. I also thought JoJo Rabbit was shite, had some laughs, but pretty Carry On really (yet I loved Thor Ragnarok so I'm not total kill joy). Looking forward to the Luminaries tonight.
An idea moving forward . Move to a 4 on 4 off working week. Business open 7 days spreads the congestion over 7 days ,rather than 5 full on 2 less so. Increased employment opportunities And 4 day weekends will encourage more getaways to enhance local tourism. Work and life would be in balance.
My statistician son has filled me in on a very comprehensive survey of the pandemic in Spain. Out of 230,000 cases and 29,000 deaths it leaves a mortality rate of 1.15%, almost exactly the same as NZs.
But the key finding was that only 5% of the Spanish population were exposed to it which shoots down the whole "herd immunity" bullshit, unless you are happy to let it run wild and kill 1.15% of your population which in our case would be about 54,000 dead.
So the projections that Jacinda and co were presented with were pretty accurate, so thank you very much to the Labour Government and the brilliant advisory team for keeping us safe and saving us all of the anguish and grieving.
"Out of 230,000 cases and 29,000 deaths it leaves a mortality rate of 1.15%, almost exactly the same as NZs."
That's 12.6% by my calculator
Of the population, sorry should have clearer.
Spain's population is somewhere around 46 to 47 million and 29,000 deaths (worldometers.info has it 27,500 at the moment) I can't see how you got the mortality rate of 1.15%… that would mean somewhere around 500,000 deaths.
My guess is someone used the 5% of exposed population in Spain, so around 2,3 million and 29,000 deaths. How do you precisely determine the “exposed population”?
For me doing forward estimates the mortality is the number of know COVID19 related deaths by the number of known COVID19 cases. And therefore the number is for many countries closer to 10% than 1% (worldometer has a global average of 15%) and will probably reduce over time when the number cases will increase retrospectively (unknown asymptomatic cases at the moment, but known cases in the future, for example determined by blood-tests).
Not following your maths Adrian. 29,000 deaths / 230,000 infections = 12.6% 'mortality rate' for Spain, based on your numbers, so not sure where the "mortality rate of 1.15%" comes from. The apparent death rate in NZ is 21 deaths / 1,150 confirmed infections = 1.8%, or 1.4% if you include probable cases/infections.
IMHO (and from my point of view) our government, public service health workers, and the NZ public in general have done an outstanding job of moderating the impact of Covid-19 on the health and welfare of NZers – long may that continue.
+1000 even with barfly’s correction
Adrian plus 1000
Back in the day, people were obliged to read the Bible. If, like me, you had this brainwashing forced upon you, treat yourself to a fun literary nostalgia trip: https://www.pundit.co.nz/content/a-pandemic-parable
Oscar Kightley: "to some people, broadcaster and journalist Piers Morgan is the devil." Probably because they haven't noticed his lack of horns & forked tail.
"You could hardly accuse Morgan of being a bleeding heart, liberal, SWJ, leftie socialist. He probably has more in common with Mike Hosking than, say, John Campbell. And yet even Morgan says that Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has done a great job leading the country through the global Covid19 pandemic. Furthermore, Morgan wishes the UK had a leader like Ardern." https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/121535321/the-worlds-turned-upside-down-when-piers-morgan-praises-jacinda-ardern
Well, there you go. Evidence of cross-over appeal established. Goldsmith will have to become heroic to prevail. I bet he doesn't know how.
Piers may have become less cunty because he can't threaten to sic his reporters on people he hates. Unlike the Generalissimo he doesn't have the apparatus of a fascist state backing him (officially).
Wrong way round too, sport.
https://twitter.com/brahaminda/status/1261657076432089089
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7Cs-VIDKSY
Has anyone with a bit of knowledge on the matter got any idea of what is likely to happen with the NZME's attempt to take over Stuff, and what the implications are?
It's giving me the willies!
Stuff told them to fuck off in no uncertain terms. No idea what happens next though.
Read this from Stuff's political editor. It's extraordinary.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/121506766/govt-wont-bail-out-media-but-stuff-has-other-dance-partners
Wow – that's hugely helpful – thanks Weka
Let's see what that editorial writer says when the actual government rescue package arrives.
The government has both cash carrot and regulatory and legislative sticks in play already. All the power to reorganise the mainstream media to survive 2020 is with Chris Fa'afoi now.
Guerilla warfare by the 5G Liberation Front seems to be escalating. RNZ news at noon reported 17 tower attacks recently.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/300014192/fires-at-cell-phone-tower-power-box-in-south-auckland-investigated
Are super spreaders just loud mouths?
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/300014255/coronavirus-speaking-loudly-could-help-spread-covid19-study-finds
Russia plays footsie with nazis, again.
//
On May 5, Allison, whose real name is being withheld for her safety, received a strange DM. It was from a woman she didn’t know, who informed her that she was on a disturbing website that was compiling information about white women in interracial relationships.
When she went to the website, she found her name, photos, and social media handles under the label “traitors.”
“It was weird, and strange, and creepy,” said Allison, 28. “I was thinking, ‘Who takes the time to do this?’”
The website names, shames, and effectively promotes violence against interracial couples and families — and it’s been circulated in some of the darkest corners of the internet, including in neo-Nazi Discord servers and accelerationist Telegram channels.
[…]
The website was created in April but was taken offline after their initial hosting provider cut ties with them. They then found a home with one of Russia’s largest domain registrars, R01. VICE News contacted R01 on Tuesday to ask whether the site violated their policies. An hour later, the site was taken offline, but as of Wednesday morning it was back up. Tatiana Agafonova, a spokesperson for R01, wrote in an email that the company would “diligently render its services to customers” unless a court rules otherwise or they’re contacted by law enforcement.
https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/n7ww4w/white-supremacists-built-a-website-to-doxx-interracial-couples-and-its-going-to-be-hard-to-take-down
https://twitter.com/aceoaces/status/1261751511672995841
There are always post-budget polls in NZ. This year?
I wonder if Mediaworks have the cash. Otherwise it's just Colmar Brunton and TVNZ. And the fewer public polls there are, the more "private" polls get used to fill the gap (as we've seen with the UMR 29% story).
Sun/Mon night, we'll find out. Save Our Simon!
I am sure that when a party is not doing well they would want polls being kept to a minimum months out from an election.
This is Trump's America…
F**kin sick!
https://twitter.com/NeverAgainActn/status/1261354366193328129
..and barking..
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1261747580666552320
USA Covid-19 update.
Cases: 1,507,773
Deaths: 90,113
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
1 sneeze away from > Vietnam + Korea combined
It must feel like waiting round to die. Hat tip to the sadly not immortal Townes van Zandt.
I am sure most (if not everyone) would support the wage subsidy that the govt implemented, a few less on the extension. Given the urgency of the situation at the time, I am pleasantly taken back by effectiveness of the response. BUT I hope that there is adequate follow up on those companies gaming the generosity of this country.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/opinion-analysis/121148182/coronavirus-wage-subsidy-biggest-money-scramble-nz-has-seen
https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/news/business/restaurant-chain-good-group-makes-more-than-150-workers-redundant/
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/121500097/farmers-slammed-for-taking-covid19-wage-subsidies
Herodotus, you forgot to publish the repayments.
Comedian Jim Carrey has a cough and a runny nose.
https://www.twitter.com/JimCarrey/status/1261722745978490882
"Our form on this is deeply discouraging. We have already spent some $40b on Christchurch’s rebuild from its earthquakes – and the job’s far from complete. But all we’ve done is create a pleasant replica of a mid-20th century city. Not an exhilarating example of a 21st century city, with all the amenities, technology and liveability that would offer."
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2020/05/17/1173269/lets-buy-the-best
a pleasant (badly built) replica at that…
"If our businesses and government wonder how New Zealand could follow some of Vivid’s recommendations, they need look no further than The Green Covid Response written by Greenpeace New Zealand."
Greenpeace…not the Greens
"The worry is the coalition parties actually don’t know how to do that."
Cheers to Rod Oram.
He has the temerity to suggest this government should have future-focused ideals and form a plan that will deliver them.
Wilmes was Minister of Budget in the prior government when austerity measures were introduced.
https://twitter.com/JoshuaPotash/status/1261789548520132612
Prime minister Sophie Wilmès received a cold reception from staff at the Saint Peter hospital in Brussels yesterday on an official visit, when staff formed a reception committee and turned their backs on her ministerial car on arrival.
[…]
The dialogue with the nursing staff and other front-line workers appeared slightly different on her arrival, however. As her car entered the Saint Peter hospital grounds and made its way to the entrance, a double row of health care workers lining the route ostentatiously turned their backs on her arrival, in what some observers described as a “guard of dishonour”.
Representatives later explained that front-line workers were disappointed in the government’s handling of the crisis, and its approach to health care in general, including issues such as budget cuts, low salaries and staff shortages. They are also unhappy about the government’s attempts to recruit unqualified staff to provide support to nursing personnel, rather than pay for trained professionals.
https://www.brusselstimes.com/all-news/belgium-all-news/112032/prime-minister-gets-a-chilly-reception-from-hospital-staff/
https://theconversation.com/amp/the-costs-of-the-shutdown-are-overestimated-theyre-outweighed-by-its-1-trillion-benefit-138303
Good read. Keen to see if that estimate upon which it's all based of 60% population infection to get to herd immunity holds up.
This is the kind of analysis we need from similar academics for New Zealand.
https://tradingeconomics.com/new-zealand/balance-of-trade
balance of trade seasonal…look at the long run data and you will see the pattern is (as yet) unchanged
Yet to be seen I suppose. The current account is on that site also.
Personally I don't think our, net! overseas earnings will be much affected.
So many things balance out.
from tourism at least it appears not to any great extent…there are still other areas that have a negative net impact….then there is likely commodity deflation to contend with.
Hopefully much of that reduced activity will parallel property deflation.
Land deflation would be a good thing to come out of this.
Though we can already see the attempts, to get "high net worth immigrants" to keep the land speculation gravy train going.