Open mike 17/11/2021

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, November 17th, 2021 - 150 comments
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Open mike is your post.

For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.

The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).

Step up to the mike …

150 comments on “Open mike 17/11/2021 ”

  1. GreenBus 1

    If the AV mob are at higher risk of getting infected by Covid, which is just about a given, and we can see that the rule breakers are also the same AV mob, then how good is the home isolating of these same people going to work out? My guess they won't be keen on following the rules and who and how can the MoH or local GP's keep them at home and not just do whatever they want. They look likely to be a significant proportion of the forthcoming sick people and contact tracing is already falling apart.

    • Gezza 1.1

      Yes, you’re right, & this is a very real & very scary prospect.

      It means we all need to get our booster shots and avoid known anti-vaxers like the plage many of them will be carrying.

      Also means continual handwashing / hand sanitising & mask-wearing will continue to be needed by everyone, really.

  2. pat 2

    "That's only compounded by the fact that Renwick's optimistic view of the future still entails a certain level of disaster. He told the Nature survey that 2 degrees of warming was most likely – more optimistic than most of his colleagues, but a prediction that would still have dire implications for human civilisation."

    https://www.newsroom.co.nz/grappling-with-dread-on-the-frontlines-of-the-climate-fight

    Best case scenario and its still grim.

    • tc 2.1

      Optimism not shared by experts at COP26. They got together all the blah blah assurances, targets etc at the completion and came up with……2.4deg.

    • Gezza 2.2

      Now’s the time for the inventors & engineers & venture capitalists & govts to all be pulling their fingers out & coming up with varioys forms of mechanical carbon scrubbers & to be sequestering huge amounts in rocks n stuff.

      The ever-short-sighted, arrogant & selfish human ape is still too busy with making money & creature comforts for no other creature than itself to see its own extinction or significant reduction in numbers becoming a real prospect on the compartively near horizon.

      It’s almost like Nature has started coming up with its own solutions to the problem of so many humans outcompeting them & being so dangerous to other life forms. 😐

      • Gezza 2.2.1

        😡 My kingdom for a good pre-Submit Comment proof- reader! 😰
        My current one’s fking useless! 😠

        • alwyn 2.2.1.1

          I suggest you follow the advice in the ad.

          "You should have gone to Specsavers"

        • Patricia Bremner 2.2.1.2

          No Gezza "my Kingdom for a horse" Richard the 111 ended up in a carpark.

          We guessed what happened All been there lately.

      • RedLogix 2.2.2

        Now’s the time for the inventors & engineers & venture capitalists & govts to all be pulling their fingers out & coming up with varioys forms of mechanical carbon scrubbers & to be sequestering huge amounts in rocks n stuff.

        And in the below-deck engineering spaces all these things, and more, are being worked on. Out of sight.

        Meanwhile up on deck the performative sabre rattling, flag waving and siren wailing continue to serve an entirely different purpose.

        • Gezza 2.2.2.1

          “Meanwhile up on deck the performative sabre rattling, flag waving and siren wailing continue to serve an entirely different purpose.”
          ……………………………..

          Being, in your opinion, what, exactly, Red? o_O

          • RedLogix 2.2.2.1.1

            Years ago I noticed that if I wrote something on the alarmist, fearmongering side of CC there was lots of noisy engagement. If I write to the solution side – /crickets

            • Gezza 2.2.2.1.1.1

              Understood, I think.

              How about just put it in a nutshell, pour moi? And don’t engage with your usual critics? I’m just curious.

              • RedLogix

                My starting point is these five pre-conditions:

                • That human population will peak out at around 10b by the end of this century
                • That human development will continue to shift us from a short lived, many children to a longer lived, fewer children species
                • That we have no right to tell the 6b odd people who live in the developing world they must remain poor
                • That carbon neutral is not enough, we need carbon negative (the CO2 scrubber idea that you first mentioned).
                • Electricity explains the world.

                While no-one can predict the future in detail, it's reasonable to project by 2100 that most people will live in high energy, high tech urban centres. We already have a lot of knowledge and experience in building far more liveable, human centred habitats. All of humanity will be able to access what we currently regard in the developed world as an ‘upper middle class’ standard of living in many senses, but likely different in others.

                High intensity industrial zones will exploit advances in materials and processes to deliver the totally decarbonised energy and closed loop resource use needed to sustain modernity. The trend will be toward an accelerated de-coupling of human demands on the natural world.

                Surrounding them will be layered zones of agricultural and managed landscapes serving a range of purposes. A sophisticated permaculture plan but on a regional scale.

                At least half of the ice-free planet will revert to wilderness in some form.

                To achieve this we need around 5 – 10 times more electricity and process heat than we currently consume.

                The only technological pathway that delivers on this is the next generation of advanced nuclear fission reactors that are on a fast path toward being delivered this decade. /nutshell

                • swordfish

                  .

                  Read it … always impressed by your honesty, realism, intellectual courage & intellectual rigour.

                  Don't always agree with you, RL … but far more often than not I do.

                • roblogic

                  Would also help if humans could greatly reduce their love affair with the automobile. Not just increasing supply of electricity, but reducing the current massive demand for devices that eat the future with their insatiable demand. Personal transport is costed all wrong. The prevalence of huge SUV's on NZ roads is a completely avoidable and unnecessary environmental crime that only serves to bolster the egos of the rich.

                  • RedLogix

                    That's pretty much going to happen as the convergence of EV and AI will shift us towards a 'mobility as a service' model of transport.

                  • Gezza

                    God yes. Just one look at my local Suzuki & Mitsubishi dealer’s front lot is enuf. The vehicles just keep getting bigger & bigger every freakin year. Backing out of an angle park in the local main drag shopping area is a nerve-wracking ‘stick your car’s arse out into the traffic’ exercise because half the time you can’t see thru the high up smoky windows of the bloody swanky “truck” parked next to you.

                    Average cars have now got to ridiculous sizes.

              • RedLogix

                /crickets

                As I said – I came to the conclusion a while back that many people who make a lot of noise about CC have no real interest whatsoever in solving it.

                What they really want to achieve is something else.

                • Gezza

                  Not crickets here, avec moi. Just disappeared becos I had an appointment at Welly Hospital at 11 am, & just got home.

                  I find your above comments very interesting.

                  But it was the “something else” you refer to that I really wanted put in a nutshell. Apologies for not making myself clearer.

                  • RedLogix

                    I should have made it clearer that my comment above was not directed to you.

                    But still this is pretty much how it goes.

                • gsays

                  Rest assured there is another one who reads what you write, not always agreeing with it.

                  The crickets observation is reflected down thread with wekas comment that folk basically don't care about the environment, or at least not enough to act.

                  • RedLogix

                    Yes – oddly enough weka and I both agree on this point, even though we come at it from completely opposite directions.

                    But I'd suggest it's wrong to think people 'don't care about the environment'. They do – but they understandably care about themselves and their family more.

                    And interestingly it's the wealthy countries where people actively care for the environment the most.

                    And no – I really do not necessarily want people to ‘agree with me’. More than anything the value I get from being here comes with seeing people learn to speak their own minds clearly and honestly.

                    • Blazer

                      Its comforting to know all will be well in another 80 years.

                      A brave new world indeed….meanwhile..

                    • Gezza

                      @B

                      Meanwhile … what ? Any suggestions?

                      Hard for me to envisage any significant, lasting changes happening to the way societies operate globally, tbh.

                      Problem is with the nature of the human ape. Too many too easily led & manipulated by the equivalents of the gorillas’ Silverbacks.

                • AB

                  "I came to the conclusion a while back that many people who make a lot of noise about CC have no real interest whatsoever in solving it. What they really want to achieve is something else."

                  OK. So the accusation here is of a hidden agenda to 'end capitalism' or whatever. But hidden agenda accusations are easy to make, and because they are essentially inventions, they can always be made against whatever target is the enemy du jour.

                  Here's a different one for example – and it's nonsense too: I came to the conclusion a while back that many people who are very focused only on technology solutions to CC have no real interest in solving it. What they really want to achieve is something else – no change to an economic system that encourages infinite growth and has turbocharged CO2 emissions by pursuing profit at all costs.

                  Best to steer clear of intellectually questionable styles of argument imo. The politicisation of the climate change response is gong to be a disaster, so best not to add to it.

      • Bearded Git 2.2.3

        Gezza….much easier to stop using fossil fuels in the first place.

        Solar is now massively cheaper and than it used to be and methods of storing solar power are being developed rapidly. That is the technology we need to concentrate on.

        Carbon scrubbers etc. are ambulances at the bottom of the cliff.

        • Tricledrown 2.2.3.1

          Carbon scrubbers are very inefficient .People can all use less Carbon .Changing people's behaviour is the most logical way to reduce Carbon. When purchasing if everyone bought low carbon emissions product,reduced unnecessary travel,over indulgences to much food(we are an obese society) reduced our clothes purchases ,stop buying junk that falls to bits it would be easier to recycle. Plastic is every where ,only recyclable plastic should be allowed. It will cost more in some cases but using less will actually save money. Plastic bottles in Europe are much lighter thinner and the likes of Germany pay a deposit 20c € refundable on the thinner Plastic bottles.Also Europe limits the amount of sugar in soft drinks and juices they taste much nicer too.

          • Tricledrow 2.2.3.1.1

            Oh I forgot the richest 1% are responsible for 35% of all global carbon emissions.So they or we need to some how reduce their massive carbon footprint. Super yacht,private jet.taxes ,mansion ,luxury taxes.food and clothing waste taxes.

            • Tricledrown 2.2.3.1.1.1

              Friggen he'll that box is hyper sensitive.

            • weka 2.2.3.1.1.2

              user name.

              • left for dead

                Morning Weka,any chance this problem will get sorted,it been sometime now.

                • Nic the NZer

                  More problematic is the mobile paste box, which works well enough to pop up but not well enough to accept pasted text via mobile controls.

                  Without checking it looks like the javascript which tries to do something sophisticated with the contents of a paste also throws an unhandled exception.

                  Alternatively it might be detecting a paste in the paste control and popping up again ready to accept a paste (to which it will popup again).

                  I don't think the javascript paste control which prevents the built in browser function of pasting is the best use of javascript I have seen.

                • weka

                  afaik, Lynn sees it as a user end issue (in the software at the user end), not something he can change, but I will ask again.

          • RedLogix 2.2.3.1.2

            Carbon scrubbers are very inefficient .

            Efficiency doesn't matter if the energy source is both cheap and carbon free. And especially not if the end product – in this case reduced CO2 – is of existential value.

        • Patricia Bremner 2.2.3.2

          Added to that Bearded Git, is a need to develop regenerative farming, limit nitrates and work with nature using her well developed and balanced systems instead of industrialized mono systems which destroy the very soil we depend on.

          Like our fight against covid, many intertwined approaches, methods and systems used together will be what we have, as sadly agreeing a safety margin is still not achieved. 1.5 is very bad 2.4 pushing disaster.sad

          The most useful advances have been in applied biology, so far. imo.

          Looking back, we are sickened by the excesses of Rome, but we do not live very differently. We wonder at cities and even civilizations lost. The answer usually loss of water, depleted resources, or religious wars. We are in some ways slow to learn. So the pot gets hotter.

    • pat 2.3

      Does Renwick (or the other climate scientists contributing) have a fag waving, sabre rattling agenda?…are they spending their working lives on a false mission?…somehow I dont think so.

  3. GreenBus 4

    I can envision a whole industry of house raising contractors and business springing up in the near future. Lift housing off the ground and put them up on piles. Let the water go underneath without damaging the house and drainage specialists to get rid of the sea water.

    A near certainty nothing will be done to change the world away from it's current trajectory. Like the Housing crisis nobody wants to change, we will have to adapt.

  4. Chris T 5

    I have made a conscious effort to not get involved in the is the govt handling covid well arguments.

    I realise as a govt it is a shit hand to be dealt.

    I saw an interview this morning with Hipkins about vax cert validity and expiration and needing boosters to renew and it seems they haven't even thought about it.

    Apologies. But my patience is running thin.

    This may be a stupid question. But does anyone know why our govt can't just talk to aus and copy their template?

    • Because Oz has handled Covid so well ChrisT?

      Australia 73 deaths/million. NZ 7 deaths/million.

      • Chris T 5.1.1

        Yes they did handle it badly.

        Now some states have a working vax certs app

        Working together is better than fart arsing around with no clue like Hipkins interview came across

        • Tricledrown 5.1.1.1

          Australians pay more taxes have a better funded health system have both Federal and State bearaucracy to run better responses maybe you can volunteer by paying 45% of your income in federal tax then pay your state taxes as well as higher local body rates .

          • Chris T 5.1.1.1.1

            Fair enough. But all the more reason to borrow/nick their more well funded tech.

            She ain't like they will say no.

            They want the trans tas bubble back as much as we do.

            • bwaghorn 5.1.1.1.1.1

              Is it at all possible that the kings of underarm ,sandpaper, and 501s dont like us and wont share??

    • Craig Hall 5.2

      The passes are valid for 6 months to allow for boosters being mandatory if that's where cabinet lands.

      My guess as to whether a booster will be required will depend on factors like spread, medical advice, overseas practice, and particularly if the vaccine course recommendation changes from 2 doses at least 3 weeks apart with an extra dose for immunocompromised folk 8 weeks after dose 2 (as currently) to 3 doses with dose 2 after 3-12 weeks and dose 3 at least 6 months after dose 2 for most people and an extra dose for the immunocompromised folk 8 weeks after dose 2.

      • Chris T 5.2.1

        You see I read those numbers and get it.

        Fine.

        Are they expecting the whole of nz with aged population. And no smart phone. Disabled people. Low education to do the same?

        As again acknoeding the govt has had a a tough thing to be dealt is bloody stupid

        • Tricledrown 5.2.1.1

          Chris snowflake was the right whingers go to put down of socialists looks like its bounced off a come home to roost.

      • Chris T 5.2.2

        Honestly

        (sorry to be naggy)

        It was a pin in the arse trying to get the country 90% vaxed.

        Now we have to do it all over again for people having to have a booster to renew their vax cert that runs out in a time frame Hipkins couldn't name

        • Tricledrown 5.2.2.1

          Chri T Well if we want our economy to flourish and our underfunded health system to function these are the sacrifices we need to make.Better vaccines are on the way better antiviral treatments are on the way.

          Provided Covid does outsmart out pace our scientist's.

          It sound like you would like lockdown to continue or open the floodgates and damage our health system and economy at the same time. Or maybe your just channeling Brian Tamaki.

          • Chris T 5.2.2.1.1

            The country is basically 90% vaxed.

            I'm vaxed.

            Everyone I know is vaxed.

            I don't care if some weirdo standing 2 meters away isn't vaxed. Because I'm vaxed. Delta is here to stay.

            Just open the door. You can't live hiding under rocks for ever.

            • Chris T 5.2.2.1.1.1

              Sorry

              Just suddenly realised I have now got involved in things I was purposefully avoiding.

              Lol

              If I was annoying I apologise!

            • Tricledrown 5.2.2.1.1.2

              You may be vaxxed children and people with underlying health conditions the hesitant etc.

              We need to be careful and not reckless.

    • weka 5.3

      a link would help. Or even just where you heard it. Vague questions get vague answers.

      • Chris T 5.3.1

        Sorry

        Hoskings show..And AM

        Google newstalkzb week on demand. Think 10 past 7. But might have got timings wrong. Haven't time now but will try to find a proper link to audio later. End of day. Was on national media. I also appreciate my interpretation of interview is obviously not going to match other people's. Especially on here.

      • Matiri 5.3.2

        Just downloaded our vaccine passports – easy process but we were already set up in Real Me/My Covid Record. PDF which can be saved on your phone, printed, valid for 6 months.

        • Chris T 5.3.2.1

          And after the 6 months then what happens.

          What do you need for another.

          How long does that one last

          Who isuppossed to use it to screen people and how does it work

  5. Gezza 6

    .
    https://vimeo.com/287960906

    After maybe 6 hours of steady, near horizontal rain, driven by a howling Southerly of the kind that only Wellington seems to deliver.

    • Patricia Bremner 6.1

      Where do your pals shelter in that Gezza?

      • Gezza 6.1.1

        A question I sometimes ask myself, Patricia. Both the ducks & the pukekos tendvto just "disappear" when the weather gets foul. It's tempting to think of them huddled up & shivering in the foliage somewhere but all the waterbirds keep themselves groomed daily & thus their feathers are waterproof & dry, & probably keep them warm as they just hunker down wherever their sleeping nests are.

        Once the rain stops, or lets off a little, the birds soon appear on either side of the stream, or swimming in the middle of it. Neither ducks nor pooks seem much bothered by inclement weather.

  6. Adrian 7

    Stuffs story “Covid 19: freedoms shrinking “ this morning has a very succinct sum up of how vulnerable the antis are to getting Covid. At the 90% vaccination rate, of 10,000 people , the 9000 vaccinated will have 675 Cases of whom 23 will be hospitalised but of the 1000 unvaccinated, 500 will get Covid and 50 will be hospitalised. That is why we cannot have teachers etc anywhere near us or our tamariki because 50% of them will be carriers at some time. Even then the the hospitalisation numbers are a bit scary meaning for every 10,000 people there will be 73 cases, 23 for the vacced 50 for the unvaxxed , albeit not all at the same time but still a lot of people for small DHBs of say 150,000 people that’s 1095 patients of whom about 10 will die, maybe less as the vacced have a lower rate of mortality. That is pretty bloody scary.
    That is why the unvaccinated must be ring-fenced and not allowed to mingle.

    • Craig Hall 7.1

      To add to that, children are disease vectors at the best of times, and with education being compulsory for children so having to attend school classes at some point, even if Cabinet did nothing about mandates, many schools would end up mandating vaccinations anyway as a health and safety measure for teachers following a risk assessment. At least a mandate means schools don't have to work it out for themselves or deal with the legal fallout so much.

  7. Adrian 8

    Why please is the edit function not working, and on my iPad it does not allow me to directly reply to another reply? Is it my ineptitude or is it just that my first shot of 5G is internally fighting with my second one of the Anti-Christ venom.

    • weka 8.1

      on an iphone there is a choice of Mobile or Desktop versions of the site. One has functional reply buttons, the other doesn't. I switch back and forth between the two (readability, commenting). You could see if that works on an ipad, switching buttons at the bottom of every page.

      Don't know about the edit function sorry, but see if the other version works better for that too.

      • Craig Hall 8.1.1

        I get the impression that the edit function has been disabled? Not present on Chrome desktop.

  8. Stephen D 9

    For all the Sinophiles and Sinophobes out there.

    https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/taiwan-china-wargames/

    A whole lot of what ifs.

  9. Jimmy 10

    Why the heck don't they charge people at the time they leave MIQ like a hotel does then we wouldn't need to have the costs of the debt collectors? The chance of collecting the old overdue amounts is getting slimmer and slimmer. It really does show up their lack of business experience as I can foresee a large amount of bad debts being written off in the future.

    'Incomplete, inaccurate data' behind 14,000 returnees not invoiced for MIQ stay, $36m not collected (msn.com)

    • Tricledrown 10.1

      Jimmy who gives your just pathetically nit picking .In the overall Covid response $100 billion plus its very small brickies and nit picking time wasting chasing a small amount . Those bearaucracy could spend their time much better elsewhere.When you look at govt money being wasted South Cantrbury Finance $ 1.6 billion Auckland conference Centre $400 million Clyde Dam $2 billion probably $4 billion in today's money its chicken feed it would take a bird brain to figure $30 million is worth worrying about.

      • Sabine 10.1.1

        Well, why don't we make the service free again. After all we have money to spend and waste, and surely every one knows that 30 million is peanuts, its after all only taxpayers money that gets wasted. Right?

      • Nic the NZer 10.1.2

        Are you not constantly complaining about the easy ride given to tax cheats and the frenzy at any hint if benefit cheating. Jimmy just seems to be applying that principal to people with the means to go overseas (who mostly aren't beneficiaries). Its hard to see the need of selective interpretation, though I would note applying it as a tax which gets handed on might send a few MIQ hotels bankrupt when they can't collect that 3 grand bill off the same. Of course the govt will easily collect whats due, paid on leaving or not.

      • Jimmy 10.1.3

        That's the attitude…it's only a small amount of someone else's (tax payers as Sabine says) money, plenty more where that came from. You missed the point that they would not need to bother chasing the debts if they applied a bit of normal business sense and billed them at the time to a credit card.

        • McFlock 10.1.3.1

          Maybe they weren't focused on running it as a business.

          Shocking thought, I know. Everything exists only for profit. To prioritise anything else is cray-cray…

          • Herodotus 10.1.3.1.1

            The PM from this link doesn't agree with you, & believes that those using MIQ should pay, and compared this cost to student loans. So if it wasn't worth the effort why did the government implement the policy and then increase the fee ?

            https://www.1news.co.nz/2021/03/11/miq-debt-collection-regime-similar-to-student-loan-pm-says-as-people-able-to-leave-nz-without-paying/

            "The aim of the charges is to share the costs in a way that fairly reflects the benefits to both the New Zealand public of having a robust system, and those who leave and enter the country."

            https://www.miq.govt.nz/being-in-managed-isolation/charges-for-managed-isolation/

            • McFlock 10.1.3.1.1.1

              Are student loans a business?

              MIQ was initially started with the objective of isolating returnees. They tacked on a cost recovery system after that.

              Sure, cost recovery is "important" to greater or lesser degrees, but it's not like "oh, we need this money to come in otherwise the staff don't get paid", like an actual business.

              It's not a business. It's not even full cost recovery. Sure, implementing the new charging system had some issues. But you change the requirements on a large project, shit's going to go wrong.

              • Herodotus

                My response was centred around why the govt placed so much effort into setting up and announcing this policy, and now we see that it has been left to rust away without any intentions of living up to the announce policy.

                I am only quoting the pm in her response re student loans, her words to support the charge.

                • McFlock

                  What your replies have to do with my comments about MIQ not being run as a business, I don't know.

                  I mean, hell, they wiped off $135mil in student loans last year.

                  • Herodotus

                    My initial response was directed to comment 10.1, not to your response, my mistake.

                    But as we have engaged in conservation. It was not rocket science to setup a system in recovery/collect the costs that the government was seeking. It is IMO an issue of fairness and trust, to those who have paid or were charged. The govt was going to charge those entering the country under certain conditions as per their announced policy. It there was no intention for this to be carried out, then why bother in the policy ?

                    • Herodotus

                      And I see we have no ability to edit a comment, or change our response to the correct comment, which can lead to confusion or mis communication ☹️

                    • McFlock

                      Of course there was an intention to collect. Just as every pilot intends to give their passengers a smooth and speedy flight. But sometimes these priorities take a back seat to not crashing the plane.

                      The priority of MIQ was to keep covid out. It failed at that, possibly because we didn't send new arrivals to actual internment camps instead of hotels, but it did a good effort. Money, schmoney.

          • Jimmy 10.1.3.1.2

            They don't have to run it as a business making a profit, but just as a "user pays" where the burden doesn't fall on the poor old tax payer yet again would be nice.

            • McFlock 10.1.3.1.2.1

              Would have been nicer if it had worked at keeping covid out a few more months.

            • Nic the NZer 10.1.3.1.2.2

              What I don't get about this is your 'user pays' is actually going to turn MIQ into govt debt collectors. If it passes on the cost its going to be easier to collect the fee off MIQ than the users, so handing on default risk. Why would anybody think thats a good idea?

              • Jimmy

                I don't understand your comment. I'm simply saying if they charged people as they arrive or leave MIQ there would be no debts to collect so problem solved….simple.

                • Nic the NZer

                  Have a think about who is owed the debt and who is collecting it. I don't think we want to turn MIQ facilities into debt collectors, they should be focused on protecting the border.

                  • Jimmy

                    So are you saying MIQ stays should be free? ie. basically paid for by tax payers? As many of these people travelling can certainly afford overseas trips and MIQ.

                    • Nic the NZer

                      No, I'm just saying the govt should be happy to collect its own debts. Responsibility for debt collection is not something MIQ facilities need on their hands right now either.

  10. Molly 11

    Good article in the Australian The Age, regarding the August position statement from Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP):

    Recognising and addressing the mental health needs of people experiencing Gender Dysphoria / Gender Incongruence

    Written by Dr Sandra Pertot: "Now I'm hopeful we can talk about teens and gender"

    My clinical training is to assess and treat each client as an individual, and it is not appropriate to have any preconceived beliefs about a diagnosis until a thorough assessment has been undertaken. I would never try to talk a client out of their beliefs, but I do try to give them permission to explore what pathway is right for them. It is a client-affirming approach. Unfortunately, this approach clashes with the gender-affirming approach that now dominates the socio-political discourse about transgender people, and many health services worldwide.It

    The article talks about the rise in FTM patients, and receiving her first formal complaint after making this podcast.

  11. gsays 13

    It occurs to me, there are two very conflicting, diametrically opposed desires operating amongst most of us.

    Page after page of desires to get back to enjoying hospitality, the 'economy' to get going again, BAU.

    And, we must reduce out carbon footprint/stop ruining the planet.

    I called in on a previous employer yesty and sat while a few had lunch.

    Vege burgers and fries. The fries are from the U.S., packaged in 2 kg lots in a single use plastic bag. 5 x bag in a waxed cardboard box. Moved to Auckland, trucked to a distribution hub, trucked to Palmy food wholesaler, trucked to site.

    Burger buns, made in Auckland, each layer seperated by a thin, single use plastic bag, ditto the distribution.

    The greens, in this case a slaw, made in Auckland, 2kgs in a heavy wall, single use vac-pac bag, ditto distribution.

    The aioli was made in house, but with eggs from Auckland, and canola oil made goodness knows where, garlic processed in Auckland….

    The point is we need a radical shift in our consumer behaviour, basically far less of it. Trigger warning- this includes our coffees.

    Despite 35 years of neo liberal thinking, we can't just sub-contract our way out of destroying the planet.

    Rant over.

    • Foreign Waka 13.1

      That would be great, just sometimes not practical. Not everybody lives near a vege pad of a size that feeds a family all year round.

      Also many companies are making bulk deals that include minimum delivery so that they get a better price and everybody out there can afford their product. Health and Safety law and regulation will demand the overuse of packaging (my all time pet hate). The trading of food returns taxes and GST….there is admittingly no need to import unless our cows are being part of an export deal in exchange….perhaps..

      The taxes taken to pay back those 16 Billion dollars will not create an environment of fast paced self-sufficiency and funds to improve waste water etc. In fact I have a bet that after the next election GST will go up by 2%.

      We could go hundreds of years back but this means the deal between ordinary folks and the government is off. The exchange was land for convenience of mass distribution and access to food and goods. After the royalty was killed off. Most will choose convenience. If we are to go back we need the land to support ourselves. Provided we have the skills to work it and the land is arable.

      So where is the middle? And why are we building houses on the best land in NZ to grow food? Why are we allowing waste water to go into the waterways and sea?

      • gsays 13.1.1

        No problems with anything you say.

        What I am getting at is the business model is broken, no longer fit for purpose.

        The chips are a prime example. Buy spuds from a localish producer, delivery in reusable 20kg hessian sacks. Process and add value in-house. Money stays in local economy and school age person can get good knife skills.

        Food outlets can specialize rather than the 50 item menu that is commonplace now.

        • Sabine 13.1.1.1

          School aged person will cost you 20 NZD per hour, plus kiwi saver, plus holiday pay, plus sick pay, will need training and will need another person at the ready to replace the school aged person while they are on leave or on holiday.

          • gsays 13.1.1.1.1

            Excellent! Win win.

            That is also funding work ethic, more disposable income locally and contributing to a youngsters self worth.

            Far better that than more trucks, more plastic, more carbon more returns to foreign owned companies.

    • weka 13.2

      well said gsays. I've been wanting to write a post about this for a long time. At the moment I'm tending towards thinking that most New Zealanders don't actually give a shit about the climate or ecology. They say they do but when it comes down to it, most are not willing to change or act in ways that will make a difference. Covid has made this very obvious. Hard to write about the issue given that.

      • gsays 13.2.1

        Hard to disagree with you weka. Lip service comes to mind.

        I was feeling curmudgeonly when I wrote it. As much as a reminder that we can't have it both ways- the return of an industry that is poorly paid and relies on ignoring externalities while doing our bit facing CC.

        Not wanting to tell you how to suck eggs but maybe framed in the context of our most popular PM's 'nuclear moment'?

        We do need reminding.

        • weka 13.2.1.1

          the problem for me with centering Labour is that atm I always want to use the headling "fuck Labour" (when writing about climate, or water, or poverty, or housing…)

      • RedLogix 13.2.2

        They say they do but when it comes down to it, most are not willing to change or act in ways that will make a difference.

        Given a choice between climate and poverty guess which wins every time.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSZzVm3nT50

        • gsays 13.2.2.1

          Is it fair to describe a far less carbon intensive lifestyle as poverty?

          Sure, we may be less 'rich' but that is coming down from a very high bar.

          Plus the unintended consequences of pivoting to a localised economy means the same $ are shared among more people nearer the bottom end of the scale.

          Or less for shareholders and other rentiers.

          • RedLogix 13.2.2.1.1

            Is it fair to describe a far less carbon intensive lifestyle as poverty?

            It's accurate to say that a lifestyle without electricity is poverty. The question is how carbon intensive is that electricity? Two related but different things.

            The point being made is that in all the developing countries – when it comes to a choice between no electricity and dirty coal generated electricity – the coal wins every time. And that's the crux of the climate change debate.

            The only technical pathway forward is carbon free, reliable electricity that is cheaper than coal.

            (I will add that making coal more expensive by stopping subsidies and adding a carbon price really would help a lot in the developed world – but then again you cannot blame countries like say Indonesia looking at this as a very poor deal indeed.)

    • roblogic 13.3

      well considering that global supply chains are all turning to custard due to Covid and other factors we are all gonna be buying local a lot more, I suspect.

  12. swordfish 14

    More from the NZ arm of a recent international Lord Ashcroft Poll:

    .

    As Graham Adams recently asked:

    is the Prime Minister trapped between electoral disaster and the relentless ambitions of her Māori caucus?

    .

    Lord Ashcroft Poll:

    Q: Best way to ensure all New Zealanders are treated fairly is to have:

    1. Laws, institutions & public services that apply to everyone no matter what their background:

    2. Some laws, institutions & public services dedicated to Māori and indigenous people:

    ……………… 1. Everyone % …….. 2. Māori-Indigenous %

    All ……………….. 77 ………………….. 22

    Male ………..…….. 79 ………………….. 20

    Female …………….. 74 ………………….. 24

    Age

    18-24 ……………… 64 …………………. 34

    25-34 …………..….. 71 …………………. 29

    35-44 …………..….. 76 …………………. 23

    45-54 ……………….. 78 …………………. 21

    55-64 ……………….. 83 …………………. 16

    65 + ……………….… 85 …………………. 14

    Party Support

    Māori …………..…… 52 …………………. 48

    Green …………..….. 53 …………………. 46

    Labour ……………… 74 …………………. 25

    NZF ……………..…. 81 …………………. 18

    National ………….…. 86 …………………. 13

    ACT ……………..…. 90 …………………. 10

    Ethnicity

    Māori …………….… 56 …………………. 43

    Mixed Māori ………… 65 …………………. 35

    Pasikika …………….. 69 …………………. 29

    Other Mixed …………. 74 …………………. 24

    Asian …………….… 77 …………………. 22

    White/Euro ……….… 79 …………………. 20

    Other Ethnicity …….… 86 …………………. 13

    • RedLogix 14.1

      I think the older you get the more likely you recall the phrase "full and final settlement".

      • lprent 14.1.1

        The one from the 1940s? That was when I believe it was first used. For instance this "full settlement" that was arbitrarily imposed Taranaki iwi in the mid-1940s by the self-interested beneficiaries of outright land theft in the Taranaki.

        https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/8/11/162/pdf

        For the 143,870 acres confiscated from Te Whakatohea, which included ‘all the flat and useful ¯ land’, the Commission recommended an annual payment of £300.

        A subsequent petition from the people of Te Whakatohea summed up the tribe’s view of the Crown’s ‘generosity’: ¯ What generous gentlemen those Commissioners were! What magnanimity! What liberality! 143,870 acres of the flat, fertile and alluvial lands in and around the township of Opotiki politically and scientifically filched from the Natives by the early administrators of this country—and the said liberal gentlemen recommended £300! What lavish prodigal generosity . . . It was political robbery from people who were defenceless; it was spoliation of a Native race [61].

        ‘Final Settlement’ of claims relating to the confiscation of Maori land was reached in the ¯ mid-1940s when legislation was enacted giving effect to the recommendations of the Sim Commission. Taranaki Maori received their £5000 annuity and an additional £300 for the ‘loss and destruction’ of ¯ certain ‘goods and chattels’ during the Crown’s invasion of the pacifist settlement of Parihaka [62]. The Crown would later concede that during the invasion of Parihaka in 1881, Crown troops committed a number of rapes, residents were wrongly and indefinitely detained, others were forcibly evicted, their homes and sacred buildings destroyed or desecrated, their heirlooms stolen, and their crops and livestock systematically destroyed [63]. By way of ‘Final Settlement’ for the loss of 1.2 million acres, Waikato-Tainui and Ngati Maniapoto received an annuity of £5000, an additional one-o ¯ ff payment of £5000 and a further £1000 annuity for a duration of 45 years [64]. Having rejected the £300 initially offered, Whakatohea received a one-o ¯ ff payment of £20,000 in final settlement for the confiscation of 143,870 acres [65].

        5. The Waitangi Tribunal and the Contemporary Treaty Settlement Process

        With such paltry compensation, it is hardly surprising that Maori continued to call for the return ¯ of their lands—the centrality of land to Maori identity and social, economic and spiritual wellbeing ¯ cannot be overstated [66]. During the 1960s and 1970s, and in an international context of increasingly vociferous protest against war and imperialism and for, among other things, indigenous rights, women’s rights, and queer rights, Maori were involved in a number of high-profile protest actions aimed at ¯ the return of their ancestral lands [26] (pp 21–24, 25), [67–69]

        Note that "the return of their ancestral lands" means getting a income in perpetuity rather then getting a gratuity that gets eroded by inflation and has final dates. For some reason that wasn’t offered for a act of theft – instead there was this arbitrarily imposed “full settlement”.

        That is why if you look at the best run iwi organisations, they tend to focus on acquiring land and then leasing it as market rentals (where they aren't putting up their own housing).

        There is a reason why Maori, especially the elderly, are so distrustful of "full and final settlements" imposed or extorted from them by people who are using their theft 'rights' to put them over barrel.

        They are also entirely aware that the medical system that works for others seem to leave their population with distressingly low life expectancy, education systems that seem to only prepare their kids for jail, settlers who seem to like spending their time using rivers and waterway like the sewers that they left in Europe in the 19th century, etc.

        They rightfully say that those systems alien to their culture are clearly not working for them – and say that they should be changed so that they do. I have a great deal of sympathy for that point of view.

        I found the Kiwi education system to be a pile of crap myself – more of a daycare for working parents rather than a education system – I managed to educate myself despite its clear deficiencies with the support of my family and a huge stockpile of books from university.

        • RedLogix 14.1.1.1

          Your comment implicitly rejects any possibility of the the Treaty process ever being finalised. And that's because as framed it cannot be.

          In one sense the only way to resolve it finally is for everything that happened in NZ after 1840 to be erased – everything removed or destroyed if it could not be – and then given back to the iwi chiefs as found and in a form no longer ‘alien to their culture’. That would return precisely what was taken – full and final.

          The problem is that the modernity and progress that the vile, thieving colonials brought with them – keeps on adding to the value of everything. Settlement one decade will always be 'paltry' the next.

          I concluded back in the 80's that the process was designed by both sides to never achieve finality.

          • Tricledrown 14.1.1.1.1

            It's always been paltry the wellington settlement for $170 million plus some land was all the govt could give under the $2 billion overall cap.The land stolen and confiscated was estimated at the time to be worth $17 billion.

            Yet Maori gave some of this land in the paltry settlement back as a National Park. To show how generous they are.You would not get that from those who have profited out of that stolen land.

          • lprent 14.1.1.1.2

            I concluded back in the 80's that the process was designed by both sides to never achieve finality.

            I would say that you were just impatient and clearly didn't understand the complexity of the task.

            We are talking about claims running back to 1840, and concentrated in the 1860-1890 era. My direct family tree were here for much of that period – the first of whom arrived in the early 1820s and the last in the 1880s.

            I couldn't give you a genealogy running much past 1930 or a land history of property running much past the 40 years. That is despite the best efforts of some of my deceased elders who got interested in things like that in their retirement. I'm someone who is strongly interested in history – just not particularly of DNA breeding patterns or the tales of my ancestors. In this I'm pretty typical of Europeans culture outside of some self-appointed aristocracy who lean on their ancestors achievements rather than their own.

            Maori have a very different culture. They still have a tradition of carrying a verbal history as a iwi, hapu or just a family clan. Sometimes, like all verbal histories that aren't taken down from the living, these are frequently blurred by time and embellishments.

            That Waitangi Treaty was envisaged as a process – at least in part because was going to be bloody difficult dealing with century old claims.

            The problem with finality is the sheer number of land cases where land was confiscated unlawfully or where the laws were made without a legal justification. Each of which has to be documented as evidence and then negotiated. This was always going to take decades. Just doing the historical research when virtually everyone involved in the original deeds was dead was immense.

            It was also what the lazy 'full and final settlement' morons running the processes for the crown back in the 1940s neglected to do at all. So there wasn't even a record from that, let alone from when the expropriations were made. Quite simply the crown didn't hold sufficient records to refute claims and they had to work like crazy digging back into the remaining records to verify or refute claims.

            Maori were never going to get all of their land back – their only prospect of that was to claim back land that the state had grabbed from them and still held, or compensatory assets (typically of less value). The money paid out was generally targeted by iwi towards buying other revenue generating assets.

            A key part of the negotiation was putting place forward agreements so that when certain types of crown held property became available that iwi often got first refusal and an acceptable purchase process. That process is ongoing.

            But as far as I am aware each land settlement that has been achieved has been final, subject to any outstanding claims outside of the agreement. And once the appeals from competing hapu and competing iwi were dealt with.

            In one sense the only way to resolve it finally is for everything that happened in NZ after 1840 to be erased – everything removed or destroyed if it could not be – and then given back to the iwi chiefs as found and in a form no longer ‘alien to their culture’. That would return precisely what was taken – full and final.

            You could also ask for the dead killed by European diseases to arise from the grave too along with the families that they never had. However none of those things were in the Waitangi Tribunal enabling legislation.

            The land claims are slowly coming to an end because new claims were closed off in 2008 and while the remaining historical claims (before September 1992) are large – they are few.

            There are a number of non-assets claims still proceeding related to the principles in the Treaty. The most important of those (in my view) have to do with despoliation of water. Something that I have a great deal of sympathy about because the crown has traditionally screwed this up really badly. We will be spending another century cleaning them up because we have to (and that is the earth sciences and history student in me talking).

            But the other major problem that remains is the 180 years odd violations of the treaty provisions social effects on the Maori population. I usually boil this down to one set of statistics – the percentage of Maori in prisons is obscene and clearly points to the failure of kiwi society and the crown at all levels.

            As at 2018 about 1 in 142 Maori males will spend time in prison in their lifetime compared to 1 in 880 kiwis of euro ancestry. Our male prisons usually hold about 50% or more Maori population at any one time, and about 68% in female prisons.

            Maori are about 15% of our total population. Those prison figure haven't budged much in my lifetime. And they probably won't until Maori feel more comfortable in our common society.

            That is just dead weight on our common society. Clearly the opportunities must be limited to force so many down that unproductive path (even if there wasn't the filtering effect of the justice system – see this Stuff interactive)

            In the tech areas that I have been working in for the last 30 years, I can't recall ever working with any Maori colleagues at all – despite most of those organisations having some pretty diverse hires from both local born and immigration. Somehow I don't think that having 15% of our population effectively excluded from some of the highest paying professional jobs is a good sign.

            The only place that I have ever seen over the last 45 years in my jobs where Maori employment at comparable or better levels was when I was in in the army.

            The regular force enlisted were close to 50% of their intake. The TF intake I was was ridiculously European for a kid coming from Mt Albert Grammar with its diversity of population back in 1977. That spoke to me as being a systematic poverty problem. I suspect that it might be a bit better today

            Until those kinds of inequities subside to an acceptable, the Waitangi Tribunal needs to continue their work – because it is clear that the promises in any version of our founding treaty haven't been fulfilled.

            Plus having a disaffected population who doesn't trust the crown or the state and isn't able to work to their capabilities through lack of opportunities is just unproductive. You only have to look at the Maori vaccination rates to see consequences of that.

            • RedLogix 14.1.1.1.2.1

              I read that and find myself nodding at most points. You touch on two main themes – the ToW process itself and the obvious alienation of many – but certainly not all – Maori.

              Stepping back I'd argue that we've both made the case, from differing directions, that the idea of the ToW process bringing any kind of finality to the table was always wrong. Both parties were always going to be disappointed because the land itself – important as it is in some ways – was never really the issue.

              The real issue is one that has repeated itself uncountable times over millennia – what happens when one society that has progressed to a wider stage of evolution encounters one that has not. Essentially Maori – like so many similar peoples elsewhere – were a tribal society that were never going to remain unchanged when modernity arrived.

              This doesn't mean that tribal societies have no value, nor lack their own sophistication and history. It says nothing about the stature and mana of the people who lived in that world. But ultimately their tribal social technology had no answer to the nation state the Europeans brought with them.

              This is the very stuff of history – peoples who had adopted broader based social structures and wider moral horizons, displacing those who had yet to. Absent this process we would still be hunter-gatherers, numbering no more than a few 10's of millions across the whole planet. Neither of us would be here to type out this conversation.

              Your second theme on the alienation of some Maori within the wider NZ society is too complex to deal with concisely. I'll confine myself to noting that while the left has been spitting out phrases like 'structural racism' and 'white supremacy' for quite some time now – there is no evidence that any of this effort has reduced the Maori head count in our prisons by so much as one.

              • lprent

                I'll confine myself to noting that while the left has been spitting out phrases like 'structural racism' and 'white supremacy' for quite some time now – there is no evidence that any of this effort has reduced the Maori head count in our prisons by so much as one.

                Sure – but that is more of an indictment of the tendency for the hand-wringers of the left to talk without doing anything productive when they don't feel the problem personally. They love talking about problems but recoil from looking for solutions. And they too bloody impatient looking for results. Social changes take many decades, and usually many generations.

                BTW: The conservatives have the opposite problem – they're always looking to stop talking and do stupid actions. Short-term actions that don't solve problems and tend to create even larger ones. Look at any policy driven by Judith Collins in her ministerial career for the definitive exemplars.

                But the problem you're talking about is exactly what the Maori activists that I took time to go and listen to back in the 80s and 90s said would happen. Attempts to do things the European way using crown entities on a Maori population that didn't trust those processes was doomed to fail.

                They have never worked in the past – but fools in politics, ministerial policies, and their departments keep trying to repeat the same failed approaches over and over again. I went back into the history and that is exactly what happened 150 years.

                The argument of the activists was that only way to lift Maori out of the vast hole that those failed policies had created was to get Maori to designed the policies and ideally to largely handle them (there are obvious issues with skill shortages).

                The only system that even looked like that was the attempt to rescue the Maori language from its impending oblivion. Started without state support in 1985, gained that in 1990. It has now been spreading up the education chain as you can see from the latest stats.

                As a person who knows roughly 90 computer languages, I really miss not having had the chance to learn Maori myself. I have absolutely no ear for Maori, and I find I keep needing it more and more as Maori spreads into daily life – especially in the names of government organisations. They all 'sound' the same to me. I have never used the spoken and written Latin, French, and German that I did to varying degrees at school.

                Outside of a few Iwi organisations starting in the later 90s, there weren't any other attempts to follow this singular and as far as I can tell only mature successful strategy example of Maori-led solutions for Maori until the 21st century. These were few even then and now.

                So I'd say – don't be so frigging impatient. These are generational changes not ones that turn on a historical dime.

                But at least as a society we're slowly getting out of the habit of trying to tailor generic solutions for problems that are specific to Maori and other groups.

                I tend to focus on Maori because of the usual Pareto analysis way of solving systematic issues. Identify the biggest problem first (ie like prison populations) and figure out based on the previous failed solutions and odd successful one on what to try next until you find things that keep working – then expand from that.

                Right now the only visible effect is the slow rise of a Maori middle income group, in a large part mostly working on Maori issues or organisations. That works for me – it was what I argued was the only useful path back in the 1980s and 1990s when the Waitangi Tribunal process started making decisions that eventually started to capitalise Iwi corporations. That Maori working for Maori was the only historically viable process.

                This is the very stuff of history – peoples who had adopted broader based social structures and wider moral horizons, displacing those who had yet to. Absent this process we would still be hunter-gatherers, numbering no more than a few 10's of millions across the whole planet. Neither of us would be here to type out this conversation.

                Yes and no. We don't exactly have a human monoculture world wide despite our massively generic similarity compared to any other species apart from cheetahs. I'd argue that historically you can identify the successful cultures by their very lack of a monoculture. They are the bastard mixes of cultures that learn to accommodate differences.

                In NZ, I really noticed this when I left the Ponsonby and Mt Albert environs of the 1970s and went working around the rest of the North and South island cities and towns in the 1980s. They felt class ridden and stagnant to me. Plus the food was terrible.

                • RedLogix

                  I'm short on time to do justice to this conversation but again – mostly in agreement. The nitpick that leapt out at me was this:

                  . I'd argue that historically you can identify the successful cultures by their very lack of a monoculture.

                  Tell that to much of Asia – but still I take the point. However what I had in mind was not so much 'culture' in the sense you are using it here, but 'social technology' in the sense of the staged progression from the small clan based nomadic hunter-gather, the territorial tribalists, the regional based city based empire, the rise of the civilisational empire and toward the modern nation state. The most important distinction at each stage is the scope of their 'moral horizon' – how many people are on the inside vs the outside.

                  This concept is really not the same as culture or ethnicity at all. And while the transition from one stage to the other is always turbulent, in the long run the society that has adopted the broader based social horizon dominates.

        • Descendant Of Smith 14.1.1.2

          Particularly galling is the compensation paid to the farmers for losing their free land was more than that paid to the owners whose land it was. They also extended the leases further.

          Apparently Maori don't get the same property rights / compensation that white settlers do. Same as the compensation paid to slave owners for losing their slaves really!

          https://forms.justice.govt.nz/search/Documents/WT/wt_DOC_68188083/Taranaki%20Maori%20Dairy%20Industry%20Changes%20etc.pdf

      • Stuart Munro 14.1.2

        It's really a tool for hopeless debtors to avoid bankruptcy, it would never be a credible option for a government that is not utterly desperate.

    • swordfish 14.2

      Sadly, no edit function … so can't tidy up table [no matter how neat & careful you are … it never ends up that way once posted angry]

      • roblogic 14.2.1

        @swordfish:
        1. turn off javascript to get the plain comment box
        2. use the <pre> tag to print fixed width text
        3. construct your table like so.. (dunno if the html table tags are supported.. could test it out later)

        | Use a | fixed width | font perhaps? |
        | Line1 | ..column2.. | .. column3 .. |
        | dunno | if it will  | .. work??? .. |
        
      • Tricledrown 14.2.2

        It's always been paltry the wellington settlement for $170 million plus some land was all the govt could give under the $2 billion overall cap.The land stolen and confiscated was estimated at the time to be worth $17 billion.

        Yet Maori gave some of this land in the paltry settlement back as a National Park. To show how generous they are.You would not get that from those who have profited out of that stolen land.

  13. Sabine 15

    There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver and the rest of Canada.

    The Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley are now completely cut off from the rest of British Columbia and the country by road.

    https://www.kamloopsbcnow.com/watercooler/news/news/Provincial/Vancouver_is_now_completely_cut_off_to_the_rest_of_Canada_by_road/

    ouch.

  14. gsays 16

    Great news. Police have announced they have discovered 2 bodies in the Pike River mine.

    Using boreholes and modern detection equipment, they have very clear images of the remains of two of the men.

    Too soon for police to say if prosecutions will follow as the investigation is on-going.

    https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/127014143/live-police-to-announce-remains-of-men-killed-in-pike-river-mine-disaster-found

  15. McFlock 17

    So this isn't the first time someone has used their health credentials and then argued that they shouldn't be held responsible because they were doing so "in a personal capacity". a recently-departed Southern DHB board member did something similar.

    Makes me wonder whether "personal capacity" is doing the rounds as an "absolve responsibility free" card, like "I don't recognise your authority" and "sovereign citizen". Seems to have about the same success rate.

    • joe90 17.1

      Of course I had to look. Barking. Just short of it's the Joos but "Immortal" Hydra Vulgaris got a mention in the comments.

    • Gezza 17.2

      Yep, I expect the same.

      The government (in the "person" of OSH) should teally ibe the first in the dock over the Pike River deaths

      Big day. Need to crash. Nite all

    • Blazer 17.3

      Its a subtle twist on the many hats defence popularised by a recent P.M.

  16. Foreign waka 18

    A sign of things to come? "We care for people on both end of the leach"

    https://youtu.be/cdkvvafeMzk

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    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 ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    12 hours ago
  • Bernard's Top 10 @ 10 'pick 'n' mix' at 10:10am on Tuesday, March 19
    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 Century The SalvoLocal scoop: Green MP’s business being investigated over migrant exploitation claims Stuff Steve KilgallonLocal deep-dive: The commercial contractors making money from School ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    12 hours ago
  • Bernard's six newsy things on Tuesday, March 19
    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 ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    13 hours ago
  • New Life for Light Rail
    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 ...
    Greater AucklandBy Guest Post
    14 hours ago
  • Why Are Bosses Nearly All Buffoons?
    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 ...
    David FarrierBy David Farrier
    16 hours ago
  • Bernard’s six-stack of substacks at 6.06 pm on March 18
    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 ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    1 day ago
  • Peters holds his ground on co-governance, but Willis wriggles on those tax cuts and SNA suspension l...
    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 ...
    Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
    1 day ago
  • Labour’s final report card
    David Farrar writes –  We now have almost all 2023 data in, which has allowed me to update my annual table of how  went against its promises. This is basically their final report card. The promise The result Build 100,000 affordable homes over 10 ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    1 day ago
  • “Drunk Uncle at a Wedding”
    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 ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    1 day ago
  • Wang Yi’s perfectly-timed, Aukus-themed visit to New Zealand
    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. ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    1 day ago
  • Gordon Campbell on Dune 2, and images of Islam
    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 ...
    1 day ago
  • New Rail Operations Centre Promises Better Train Services
    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 ...
    2 days ago
  • Bernard's six newsy things at 6.36am on Monday, March 18
    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 ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    2 days ago
  • Geoffrey Miller: Wang Yi’s perfectly-timed, Aukus-themed visit to New Zealand
    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 ...
    Democracy ProjectBy Geoffrey Miller
    2 days ago
  • The Kaka’s diary for the week to March 25 and beyond
    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; ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    2 days ago
  • Bitter and angry; Winston First
    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 ...
    PolitikBy Richard Harman
    2 days ago
  • 2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #11
    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 ...
    2 days ago
  • 2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #11
    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 ...
    2 days ago
  • Out of Touch.
    “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 ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    2 days ago
  • Bring out your Dad
    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, ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    3 days ago
  • Bring out your Dad
    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, ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    3 days ago
  • Bring out your Dad
    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, ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    3 days ago
  • The bewildering world of Chris Luxon – Guns for all, not no lunch for kids
    .“$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 ...
    Frankly SpeakingBy Frank Macskasy
    3 days ago
  • Expert Opinion: Ageing Boomers, Laurie & Les, Talk Politics.
    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. ...
    3 days ago
  • Manufacturing The Truth.
    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 ...
    3 days ago
  • A Powerful Sensation of Déjà Vu.
    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 ...
    3 days ago
  • Can you guess where world attention is focussed (according to Greenpeace)? It’s focussed on an EPA...
    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 ...
    Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
    3 days ago
  • Further integrity problems for the Greens in suspending MP Darleen Tana
    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 ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    3 days ago
  • Jacqui Van Der Kaay: Greens’ transparency missing in action
    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 ...
    Democracy ProjectBy bryce.edwards
    4 days ago
  • Bernard’s Dawn Chorus with six newsey things at 6:46am for Saturday, March 16
    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 Herald Thomas Coughlan Simeon Brown has rejected a plea from Westport ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    4 days ago
  • How Did FTX Crash?
    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 ...
    PunditBy Brian Easton
    4 days ago
  • Elections in Russia and Ukraine
    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 ...
    4 days ago
  • Bernard’s six stack of substacks at 6pm on March 15
    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 ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    4 days ago
  • 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 ...
    Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
    4 days ago
  • National’s clean car tax advances
    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 ...
    No Right TurnBy Idiot/Savant
    4 days ago
  • Government funding bailouts
    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 ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    4 days ago
  • Two offenders, different treatments.
    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 ...
    KiwipoliticoBy Pablo
    4 days ago
  • Treaty references omitted
    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 ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    4 days ago
  • The Ghahraman Conflict
    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 ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    4 days ago
  • Bernard's Top 10 @ 10 'pick 'n' mix' for March 15
    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 ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    4 days ago
  • The day Wellington up-zoned its future
    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 ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    5 days ago
  • Weekly Roundup 15-March-2024
    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 ...
    Greater AucklandBy Greater Auckland
    5 days ago
  • That Word.
    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 ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    5 days ago
  • The Hoon around the week to March 15
    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 ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    5 days ago
  • Labour’s policy gap
    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. ...
    PolitikBy Richard Harman
    5 days ago
  • Skeptical Science New Research for Week #11 2024
    Open access notables A Glimpse into the Future: The 2023 Ocean Temperature and Sea Ice Extremes in the Context of Longer-Term Climate Change, Kuhlbrodt et al., Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society: In the year 2023, we have seen extraordinary extrema in high sea surface temperature (SST) in the North Atlantic and in ...
    5 days ago
  • Melissa remains mute on media matters but has something to say (at a sporting event) about economic ...
     Buzz from the Beehive   The 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 ...
    Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
    5 days ago
  • The return of Muldoon
    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 ...
    No Right TurnBy Idiot/Savant
    5 days ago
  • Will the rental tax cut improve life for renters or landlords?
    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 ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    5 days ago
  • Geoffrey Miller: What Saudi Arabia’s rapid changes mean for New Zealand
    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 ...
    Democracy ProjectBy Geoffrey Miller
    5 days ago
  • Racism’s double standards
    Questions need to be asked on both sides of the world Peter 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 ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    5 days ago
  • It’s not a tax break
    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 ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    5 days ago
  • The Plastic Pig Collective and Chris' Imaginary Friends.
    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 ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    5 days ago
  • Who is responsible for young offenders?
    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 ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    5 days ago
  • Gordon Campbell on National’s fantasy trip to La La Landlord Land
    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 ...
    5 days ago
  • Bernard's Top 10 @ 10 'pick 'n' mix' for March 14
    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 ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    5 days ago
  • No, Prime Minister, rents don’t rise or fall with landlords’ costs
    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, ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    6 days ago
  • Cartoons: ‘At least I didn’t make things awkward’
    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 ...
    6 days ago
  • Solving traffic congestion with Richard Prebble
    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 ...
    Greater AucklandBy Patrick Reynolds
    6 days ago
  • I Think I'm Done Flying Boeing
    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 ...
    David FarrierBy David Farrier
    6 days ago
  • Invoking Aristotle: Of Rings of Power, Stones, and Ships
    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 ...
    6 days ago
  • Van Velden brings free-market approach to changing labour laws – but her colleagues stick to distr...
    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 ...
    Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
    6 days ago
  • Why Newshub failed
    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 ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    6 days ago
  • Māori Party on the warpath against landlords and seabed miners – let’s see if mystical creature...
    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, ...
    Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
    6 days ago

  • Government moves to quickly ratify the NZ-EU FTA
    "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 ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    5 hours ago
  • Positive progress for social worker workforce
    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 ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    10 hours ago
  • Minister confirms reduced RUC rate for PHEVs
    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.  ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    12 hours ago
  • Trade access to overseas markets creates jobs
    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 ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    12 hours ago
  • NZ and Chinese Foreign Ministers hold official talks
    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, ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 day ago
  • Kāinga Ora instructed to end Sustaining Tenancies
    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. ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 day ago
  • Speech to Auckland Business Chamber: Growth is the answer
    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 ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    3 days ago
  • Singapore rounds out regional trip
    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 ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    4 days ago
  • Minister van Velden represents New Zealand at International Democracy Summit
    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, ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    4 days ago
  • Insurance Council of NZ Speech, 7 March 2024, Auckland
    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 ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    4 days ago
  • Five-year anniversary of Christchurch terror attacks
    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 ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    4 days ago
  • Speech for Financial Advice NZ Conference 5 March 2024
    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 ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    4 days ago
  • Early visit to Indonesia strengthens ties
    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 ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    5 days ago
  • China Foreign Minister to visit
    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 ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    5 days ago
  • Minister opens new Auckland Rail Operations Centre
    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 ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    5 days ago
  • Celebrating 10 years of Crankworx Rotorua
    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 ...
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    5 days ago
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