Woman sues ABC over Media Watch comments on her trip to United States
by RACHEL OLDING, Sydney Morning Herald, Monday 16 March 2015
A Sydney woman of American heritage is suing the ABC’s Media Watch for depicting her as a backer of, and a PR mouthpiece for, the brutal regime of President Barack Obama.
In a politically-sensitive case that will test alleged bias in media coverage of….
Media watch is an opinionated hosted critique by an established senior legal or journalist figure.
It has a history of controversy and I await some background on the piece, the woman and SMH angle as it may be more about getting at that pesky ABC than actual bias.
L Randall Wray – the evolution and instability of financialised money manager capitalism
Approx 21 mins. Wray is also an exponent of ‘Modern Monetary Theory’ which describes how governments can deficit spend to create money into an economy for households to use and save, quite independent of taxes and borrowing.
Why do people in NZ love to hate the middle class?
Why do those on the left in particular make such snide comments about middle class people?
Why do normally tolerant people who are all for liberal thinking and ethnic tolerance simply turn to shit when they see a bunch of middle class people?
I see it is Tahu Potiki’s turn to act in a prejudiced and bigoted manner against people based solely on photos of them appearing to be middle class, in having a crack at the kauri tree protestors. Tahu Potiki of course is maori and a some-time commentator from Dunedin-ways. He has likely experienced bigotry and prejudice and the like, yet he simple-headedly does the same himself. In his column this morning (no link yet sorry) he, on several occasions, ranted against these people on the basis of their middle classness alone. Tahu’s rant exposes in himself the same faults in humans that he has likely been subjected to himself – namely bigotry and prejudice.
Leave the middle class alone ffs. It is a failure in so very many ways to reference things to them in ways like Tahu Potiki has done.
The middle class want to save that kauri, or a kākāpō, or that mountain from having a windfarm put on it, but they don’t want to give up the affluence that threatens those things in the first place. They’re not alone in this of course (it seems to apply across all classes), but I think the idea is that the middle classes have more choice than the working class and underclass because of their assets and income and more sensibility for what’s right than the wealth class. Stuck in the middle.
Sure I can imagine how that might be imagined, however it is all conjecture and assumption on the part of the likes of Potiki. There is never any good argument put forward or evidnce provided for anything he intimated, not those matters you have highlighted above. Nothing. Just assumption.
It would actually be a good issue to dive into and evaluate properly – you know, comfortable in their jobs, nice 4wd, huge mortgage, provisional tax, pilloried and plied, ignorant and shallow, unknowing of anything but materiality, the list goes on …..
I can’t comment on Potiki until I read his article, and unfortunately you have a history of misrepresenting people’s word in situations like this.
I was more commenting on why some lefties in general have a downer on the middle class and from my perspective (others will tell it differently). I don’t think it’s what people imagine, it’s an analysis based on knowledge and experience (sure my comment was shorthanded and generalised).
“ignorant and shallow, unknowing of anything but materiality”
I’m less worried about those ones, than the ones that can think, who appreciate values other than possessions and consumption, who should know better but still aren’t willing to do what is needed to redress their privilege.
I would like to comment but need to read Tahu’s own words first rather than rely on your interpretation of what he may have written or have been quoted as saying.
It should turn up here eventually. I don’t know how long they take to put them up on the web though. Otherwise try the Press in hardcopy (was that today vto?)
Bought the Press, read the article, don’t entirely support vto’s perception of what the article in its entirety was saying.
That said, I don’t necessarily agree with his take on the Titirangi ‘save the trees’ event. My views are shaped from active involvement in resource management processes in the past and what I see as a flawed process that allowed a non-notified consent in the first place.
I took the article as a whole to reflect on the clashes of culture around resource use, management and preservation, conservation, restoration and how different groups place more or less emphasis on one idealised part.
Leaving out the ‘middle class’ references, what I read reminded me of my childhood experiences of going to catch whitebait with my father, uncle and grandparents and seeing hundred of very large eels rotting on the riverbank because the Acclimatisation Society wanted the trout to be predator free. It was horrific to see (and smell) but was an example to me of the lengths that the settler society would go to prioritise what was important to them.
One point that the article made, I thought, was that there is an element of hypocrisy in those who live on sections that were clear felled in the past, to deny to others the right to remove trees in order to enjoy their own section. I can see that viewpoint even if I disagree with it.
Suffice it to say, I neither agree nor disagree with the article in its totality and I found it an interesting read.
It is too long for me to type as a whole and, at the time of writing, is not up on the Press website but it is provocatively titled ‘A Grand Win for the Busybodies’.
hi vto,
what sticks in my craw with the middle class is the aspirations.
the idea of getting ahead.
i watched a ricardo semler ted talk (thanx felix) yesty.
he said if you get to a point in your life where you want to give back then you took too much in the first place.
had an interesting conversation with a self made man. he was ranting about the poor and how they should be saving to get their first property, leverage that to get a rental…(you get the picture), he could not see that for there to be a landlord there must be a tenant.
so as weka says below (or above), about an unwillingness to give up some affluence so all have enough.
its the ‘i’m alright jack’ or ‘blow the bridge i’m over’
I have yet to read Potiki’s opinion piece, but I take it from vto’s comment that he is attacking the middle class for the kind of safe activism that does not challenge the status quo – for engaging in their own little “rose revolutions” and congratulating themselves on “making a difference.”
As to the cry of “Why does NZ love to hate the middle class?” quite a few middle class people are either indifferent to the suffering of others or despise them for having gotten into that position in the first place. People you despise tend to despise you in turn. It is an aspect of what Stiglitz was talking about in an article RedLogix put up a few days ago, about the erosion of social trust.
Or you could see the middle class thinking of assets and income as being like lollies in a lolly scramble. They were out there and the people with the most were the hardest working and most motivated. Of course lolly scrambles have recently led to images of large young men scooping up the most amongst children that only came to their knees. Not cricket old man!
he could not see that for there to be a landlord there must be a tenant.
It’s more accurate to say that for there to be a landlord there must be many tenants. It is a question of support. Each landlord requires many tenants to support them.
While I haven’t read the article you’re referring to vto, I think you you make an interesting point:
“Why do normally tolerant people who are all for liberal thinking and ethnic tolerance simply turn to shit when they see a bunch of middle class people?”
I’ve seen this happen in conversations here at TS and heard it plenty in real life too. I find it a bit puzzling. It raises more questions for me than I have theories for as to why there is a dividing line where tolerance ends and spite begins
I wonder if it is hatred and mistrust that is intergenerational and so ingrained as if it has been handed down from our colonial past when we were Little Britain with it’s clear cut class groups (as much as settlers said they wanted to escape that but failed to do so).
Who are the middle class these days? We have shifting sands beneath the feet of society. Once people could be more upwardly mobile (and whether betraying/abandoning your class was scorned or applauded is another aside) but in very general terms, the effects of a Nat govt has bumped many once financially comfortable people harshly down the ladder whilst those below landed in a heap beneath them, finding themselves in an even more precarious living situation.
It’s often talked about, while many are being left behind the elite have increased their power control and wealth. So where are the middle classes in that? Are they the survivors?
Is middle class defined by wealth? Is it defined by the display of that wealth? Is it defined by the expression of taste? Lols, if taste comes into it then I wonder what my neighbours north of me in the higher priced houses end think they are achieving by trying to out do one another with the purchase of the latest shiniest largest luxury range SUV money can by. Are they trying to express their middle class-ness or are they just pathetic try hards?
So who are the middle class that folks criticise?
Or is it related to wealth and being rightly critical of the self serving behaviour of the wealthy who trample over others to get a bigger slice. for example, maybe an employer who has built a profitable business on the back of low paid, poorly treated workers?
In that case is the class group the employer belongs to seen as the oppressor, where in fact it is the boss being oppressive and who should be the focus of criticism? Is it wealth or class that oppresses in the case of the employer?
Should we not judge a person on their actions and behaviour rather than their class, what ever that is?
Gee Rosie, you are carrying this PC thing too far saying that the middle class should not be pointed at or criticised because they have feelings.
The middle class have willingly separated themselves off from struggling NZ as if that group were lepers. The women have got jobs where they often administer to the poorer class, rather patronisingly. And they feel entitled to their superior position and consequently don’t pay much attention to the structural side of the downward trend, aggravated by enabling policy.
The upper class live in a different planet and most rarely come down from the Ramtops to attempt to suss out what mayhem they are causing or enabling to the rest of NZ.
The middle class are still living the dream that they were brought up with and fully expect that their superior standards will be maintained for ever. All this talk about environment and climate is exaggerated and technology will deal with it. At present their task is to maintain their lovely home, educate their children to
ensure a well paid and fulfilling position, and keep their minds on higher things, such as art, healthy food. maintaining their looks and overseas holidays.
Is there any wonder that people who have the wide vision to take in all the classes, the whole range of NZers, get pissed off with the dopey, self-satisfied middle class who want it all without accepting citizen responsibility also.
Warbs, lols, please, I am not “carrying a PC thing”. You should know me better than that by now.
And I am definitely not saying they should not be criticised because they have feelings. I have never once mentioned the words feelings or expressed any sympathy for their feelings.
I am mainly asking who they are. How do we identify them? By their wealth, their taste, their level of wankiness?
The group you are referring to above are displaying attitudes and behaviours that are isolationist and excluding, anti the collective good and self promoting, potentially at the cost of the well being of others. I know these types and dislike them intensely for their selfish and cruel ways. (In fact I have had a run in with one of these sorts in recent days. The level of hatred for the concept of equality expressed by this person was truly gobsmacking).
So would you say middle class is defined by a set of behaviours and attitudes? (which comes back to wankiness)
The above behaviours you mention, I see belonging to the group within society that holds right wing views. I’m not sure that the entire spectrum of the middle classes is exclusively right wing, who ever this middle class are.
Hi Rosie
Middle class is a broad target. Which ones to shoot? I am thoroughly middle class myself without the necessary assets and liquidity to ponce about. So let’s keep on criticising the middle class as it’s a bit like throwing balls at a stall with moving faces in the fairground.
And it is hard to dent a middle class person’s self esteem. That’s how you know them. They just look at you with their eyebrows raised and either patronisingly smile or just turn away bored. There’s one of those rent-a-crowd rabble they say, just too too boring and repetitive. Always doing nothing and saying not fair. Of course they don’t like people who act vigorously to even up the fiscal balance either.
.
I usually mean what most people call “upper middle class” when I say “middle class” Which can lead to misunderstandings because it seems others mean a majority or large minority rather than this minority.
A particular cultural group rather than amount of money. Things that spring to mind are – highly socially connected; people who have influence, who have contacts, who have contacts who have contacts, which can cover a huge range of influence in a society, formally educated and qualified, use language very precisely but usually use effective subtext and nuance to express aggression, rank etc., who have particular social behaviours and understandings, who as a group are often unaware that their own behaviours and language can have very different meanings to those from other class cultures, people who tend to define, by their choices, what is considered “good taste” “good manners” “good ideas” etc.,
And heaps more but I don’t have time right now. People don’t control what class they are born into and it doesn’t determine goodness or badness, but middle-class is a variety of privilege. Like most privilege it is often either unrecognised or underrecognised and it is this that is often the source of most of the misunderstandings and occasional outright animosity imho.
Thank you just saying. I find that a very helpful beginning to understanding who the middle class are. I can envision this ‘class’ more clearly now as I know of people that belong to this particular grouping.
The people that I know that fit your definition I don’t find particularly offensive, and while there is an unspoken knowing between these folk and myself that a different level of privilege is enjoyed by them it doesn’t cause a tension.
On the hand, there are others I know of, like the person who I had a run in with, who fit some aspects of your definition, influential, with contacts / connections and formally educated and qualified, privileged in several ways but whose social skills are under developed, whose emotional intelligence is low and who are focused on the acquisition of wealth and property as a symbol of their success.
So if class doesn’t determine goodness or badness as you say perhaps it comes down to personality and behaviour, as to the source of division?
I’m just grappling and my head isn’t in the best place today.
I’m saying they are a a minority which has a big vested interest in the status quo. Some admit this and work hard to make their communities fairer anyway. Many don’t.
This might be a good place to mention a new book reviewed on Radionz this morning. It shows the nefarious ways that cunning pakeha managed to wangle land out of Maori hands. We ought to know this because it is behind Maori grievances which the Treaty of Waitangi is partly recompensing and the reason that it should not be too hurried and that Maori should be able to tell their histories.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player/20171204
Book review – At the Margin of Empire ( 6′ 16″ )
10:38 Paul Diamond reviews ‘At the Margin of Empire: John Webster and the Hokianga, 1842-1900’ by Jennifer Ashton. Published by Auckland University Press.
Tahu Potiki, by virtue of his whakapapa alone, was born a member of the iwi aristocracy if looked at through Eurocentric eyes. That he has worked hard to make himself a 21st century leader of his whanau, hapu and iwi is all his own doing and nothing at all to do with Treaty settlement processes.
As for his political views, I only know what he has published. If you see him as hard right you have either read things I haven’t or read into what was published what I didn’t. We are each entitled to our own views and perhaps mine are shaped by knowing the person and thus seeing an entirety, or as much as anyone may know another without being them!
Chur all comments above. Unfortunately as often seems to be the case I must away and have no time today to respond. Fwiw I see no difference in tolerance, willingness to protest the wrong, or anything like that, based on class. I do not see the lower classes doing more of this stuff (if anything I see them doing less and it aint because we have less). I do not see the upper classes doing more of this stuff at all either – they are too busy with the planning of their mid-winter escape-NZ hols looming now summer is at an end. I actually see most of the protesting of things wrong being carried out by so-called middle-class types.
Middle class types protested the kauris apparently. Good. It is they who protest the environment damagers mostly. It is the middle class who do most of the heavy lifting. That is what I see.
So in actual fact Mr Potiki has it completely arse-about. The reason he saw middle class people protesting at the kauris was because it is the middle class who do most of this stuff. They do the grunt. They get out on the street. They write to MPs.
The middle class should be supported in its efforts not vilified.
So in actual fact Mr Potiki has it completely arse-about. The reason he saw middle class people protesting at the kauris was because it is the middle class who do most of this stuff. They do the grunt. They get out on the street. They write to MPs.
The Waipoua Forest in Northland is a remnant Kauri Forest whose most famous inhabitant is Tāne Mahuta. Tāne is about 2,500 years old. The forest is riddled with Kauri Die-back Disease which is lethal to Kauri. The people trying to save the massive and ancient trees in this forest come from all walks of life.
People from all over Northland (hardly a bastion of middle-classness) consistently maintain a presence at the entrance to Waipoua to ensure people wash their footwear before entering the forest. This has been going on for a number of years. This is grunt work in action.
Was driving my old hot rod truck to work today, and noticed a couple of cyclists out in the Chch cold wearing their hi-viz gears and their helmets.
At the lights I pondered the general lack of cyclists on the road this morning, and the debate on cycle helmets, cyclist numbers and societal obesity aided by folk travelling to work in their old hot rod trucks instead of biking. (You can ponder these things if you dont turn the wireless on in the morning)
I have also seen the massive carnage of head injuries, but the simple truth is that most of those are alcohol related – auto accidents and assaults rather than bike accidents. And politicians have demonstrated over and over (regardless of who is in power) that they will not address our alcohol issues.
So should adults have the option of travelling helmetless if they are wearing hi-viz gear? More folk biking is good for the health of the nation
Im saying that that there may be some public health gains if adults didnt have to wear helmets, but wore safety vests instead.
The argument is out there saying that helmets put the vain of biking, (cant mess your hair up aye)
So any reduction in head injuries is the result of less adults biking, not in a similar number of cyclists having fewer serious head injuries due to wearing the helmets.
My take is that kids should wear the helmets because they arent necessarily as spatially aware as the average adult on a bike. I thought the vests I saw today stood out like dog nuts and gave us drivers fair warning of the cyclists ahead.
That makes sense, although from a public health or accident prevention perspective it might be a bit complex. We need to change the culture, and things like building every road with cyclists in mind would help.
Absolutely! For commuting, shopping and recreation it’s a pleasure to cycle in Europe in the sunshine, safely, with just a sunhat on.
Cycling for sport might still be a problem though.
It’s too difficult to cycle in relative safety in NZ and some of the cycleways that are being put in don’t meet cyclists needs. My favourite example is Karo Drive in Wellington where the planners had decided the cycleway on a brand new road should be built to end on one side of Karo Drive and start again on the other at the Cuba Street intersection. To swap sides they’ve put a diagonal cycle crossing on an intersection between two very busy pedestrian crossings. Chaos ensues.
Also the cycleway on the SH1 Taupo bypass – I do wonder how many tourists want to bypass Taupo. Or how many Taupo residents would use it.
Wiki summarises the cycle helmet debate quite well, I think, although this article doesn’t extend road design issues.
Do what I did, wake up in the middle of the road confused and combative with an ambulance officer standing over you, my thanks once again to Colin Slaughter, telling you you’ve had an accident and because you’ve been unconscious for quite some time he couldn’t just take you straight home so best he takes you to base hospital.
Thirty something stitches to sew an ear back on, another dozen to sew up scalp lacerations, an overnight stay to observe a serious concussion, cognitive impairments lasting several months and headaches that persist thirty years on and I reckon you’ll gladly wear a helmet.
Thanks for that joe 90. Your answer is what I have felt was needed to counter this drop your helmet macho stuff. They are a nuisance but the harm to the individual from head injuries can result in differing levels of loss of function but all of much concern.
In advanced cases of damage there is also the destruction of family life and happy relationships because of the need for lifelong care for the person who is not wholely well, perhaps with violent mood swings, and the cost in health care and rehabilitation to the nation is a good reason for everybody wearing a hemet. We block out how fragile we are on bikes on roads with metal tanks zooming at our side, and the bigger vehicles that have been foisted on the country are like tanks, and in my normal car I hate their great big wide backsides blocking my horizontal view and the high back window meaning I can’t see beyond them. Cyclists can’t either.
Mine is not a call to “drop your helmet” macho stuff as you so eloquently put it.
You could say I have a vested interest” in this subject, but regardless of this, what we are dealing with is the societal cost of serious brain injury (ACC, a few years back indicated it was a $2m per accident cost).
Beyond the societal financial costs, theres the massive mess it makes for the victims life, the victims family and the victims friends. Greywarshark is on the money with his/her comments. $2m per accident is about $0.50 per person, so at a Government fiscal level, not a big deal. (Especially since we pay levies to ACC so its not directly out of the tax war chest). But its a massive deal for the family of the victim.
We also have an obesity epidemic on the horizon. And that comes out of the health budget and is out of the tax war chest, so how to we make progress on that? Putting sugary foods back into school tuck shops as the Nats did as soon as they got back into power was one of the dopiest moves I have ever seen.
In terms of societal changes to health across the population, obesity isn’t a problem so much as diabetes and other Syndrome X diseases are. Obesity itself is not a disease (it’s possible to be fat and healthy, or thin and unhealthy).
Lots of really good reasons to get more people biking, and your point about whether helmets are a disincentive is worth considering.
I grew up next to a family (the parents, kids and quite a few of the cousins) who were fanatically mad-keen competitive cyclists – both road and track. It was the local “headquarters” of the cycling club at their place so there were cyclists everywhere on weekends. Talk to anyone of them and they were 100% behind helmets for all cyclists – they experienced the roads and traffic (and crappy NZ driving), they saw the consequences of being hit by motor vehicles.
So I say suck it up NZ and keep wearing your helmets – and get alongside the road planners and as OAB says get some decent separation for cyclists, pedestrians & motorists.
Used to cycle to work. When I didn’t wear a helmet, cars definitely gave me more room when overtaking etc. Never wore a helmet as a kid. Smashed my face up once by going straight over the handlebars, (know of others who have similar tales) wrecked knees and hands etc over and again, but never, ever landed on my head coming off a bike and don’t know anyone who did.
I’d actually be interested if cyclists head injuries are caused primarily by car impacts (likely given body trajectories and vehicle shape) and then have some info on what impact those helmets take. To overstate, if the impact is going to cause you serious injury or death, do the helmets actually offer any protection? I get that they will likely lessen the injuries caused by ‘moderate’ impacts, but at what speed of impact do they become pointless? I can’t really see them doing much to protect against a head being slammed by a hunk of metal moving at 50km/h…or should that be 70km/h…30km/h?
Yes, as I understand it, most of the serious injuries are when a car or other vehicle is involved. I don’t know what the optimal speed to injury ratio is but I would think that any protection is better than none when being hit by a car no matter what the speed. I’m thinking about the effect of not just the head being hit, but the body being hit and the force afterwards when the person bounces and hits their head on something. Don’t want to go into the grisly detail particularly, but I assume there are different ways that head injuries happen not just direct car to head trauma.
I do recall a coroner’s report in the paper about a cyclist who rode into the back of a stopped truck and died (in a unique twist on the “cyclist vs truck” story that almost always ends very badly).
Basically, the calculated speed at impact was I think in excess of 50km/hr (long downhill run). The coroner noted that at those speeds a bike helmet isn’t a lot of use, and really a full motorcycle helmet would have been needed to give the guy a chance.
But then I also saw a cyclist do a somersault over a car bonnet, when the driver had obviously been looking for oncoming cars, not bikes. Even though the speed was relatively low, I’m glad he was wearing a helmet – I suspect it seriously reduced the paperwork associated with the incident (I think the driver was in more shock than the cyclist – the first thing she said was “this is a new car” in a tone that strongly suggested concern over scratched paintwork. But the fact she was pale and shaking and took a minute or two to get with it made me put it down to “funny shit people say in extremis”).
Yeah, Bill, I whacked the top of my head against a gutter when I came off as an unprotected lad.
Later at Uni in the late sixties, a fellow student wore a pudding basin motorcycle helmet when cycling- when asked why, he said his father was a brain surgeon. I got that message.
And later, when teaching health at secondary, I’d ask the boys whether they’d like to run flat out head first into a concrete lamp post. They got that message.
Please fix the RSS feed. It was much better when it had the full story in it. Part of my day is spent outside of network access but if I cache the RSS feed I can keep up to date with the site. With it as excerpts I am behind and miss things.
One of the economic discussions now in NZ is about deflation. English is claiming the low to zero rate of inflation means that pay rises of 2% are really good pay rises.
Of course, if you’re one of the large number of low-paid living in the greater Auckland area paying rent and/or trying to save to buy a house, or paying a mortgage, that isn’t the case.
Deflation also presents problems of its own.
There always seems to be something going wrong in capitalism. Inflation is too high or too low. The dollar is too high or too low. We have a rock star economy, yet a mass of low-paid casualised workers and a chunk of workers who have zero-hour contracts. And still substantial levels of poverty.
Our primary production, our lifeblood keeping the nation ticking so we can have elections and afford a government. http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player/20171199
Latest on our once thriving sheep and beef farming from Radionz.
Crunch time for sheep and beef farms: report ( 28′ 56″ )
09:08 Farmers say the 8 billion dollar sheep and beef industry is approaching crisis point, and a single cooperative business model similar to Fonterra is the only way forward. Meat Industry Excellence group chairman, John McCarthy and Murray Taggart is Chair of the Alliance Group.
That was an interesting discussion. What I’d be interested to know though is whether or not farmers felt better off when we had the old ‘meat producer’s’ board, before the dereg mantra kicked in during the 80’s, etc.
I’m thinking that at present, Alliance and ?? are merely gigantic ticket clippers and that a more co-op system would be better.
I’m no expert on this issue but it troubles me that the actual producers seem to be getting little return, and the NZ public generally are being ripped (with shit meat sold thru’ supermarkets, pumped with water, etc.)
What are your thoughts?
A sideline – an interesting thing is that the butchers in supermarkets in Nelson get most of their meat precutup in Christchurch. Just another way that food is being prepared using factory processes and trucked a long way.
I wonder too about the advantages of a co-op. It was tried a while ago, to have more synergy with companies but failed to get the big tick. I think it may be that some of the sheep farmers are doing all right and don’t give a rats arse about any other producers. Now that rudeness might be undeserved but that sort of thing happens. The magnetic attraction to one’s own interests entirely is often irresistible.
IMO the best way is probably to have two companies, one a farmer-owned co-operative, and the other a privately owned/listed company. Two competing systems.
NORTHLAND BY-ELECTION WATCH: [or is it BI/BRIBE/BUY/BYE election watch?]
Winston is trying to win this by-election ALL BY HIMSELF and his bus, while a bridgeload of mustered Nats have been continuously descending on Northland day after day at tax payer’s expense of travel and time to beat the wise old man.
It would be interesting to see how many Nat Cabinet ministers, MPs and others have been here or will be here in pathetic panic state to pump up their own O for awesome candidate and beat Winny.
Here is my list so far. Please add to this list if you know of others:
How many Nats does it take to beat an old man?
1. John Key
2. M Osborne
3. Steven Joyce
4. Simon Bridges
5. Maggie Barry.
6. ?
I know the PM was a big successful money trader and is super clever with numbers and knows this stuff better than I do, but I thought 15% of $1.29 was 20c not 2c 😕
“If you think about iTunes, you download a song and it’s $1.29, there’s no reason why GST shouldn’t apply to that.
“In reality, GST would be 2 cents. But actually, 2 cents over a massive number of transactions still add up.”
you will note from his second comment, it was not a typo by the reporter
What a shock! They have since edited the article. It now says this:
“While the GST on some online goods and services would be very small, such as on a $1.29 iTunes song download, it could still be worth pursuing because of the scale of such purchases, Mr Key said.”
(Forgot to do a screengrab of the original)
CR
I like this author of books about policy and procedure and colleges and skulduggery. She often writes about Ireland and comes up with good fiction. And in the way of the saying that ‘you couldn’t make this shit up’ about reality, she probably is very good with reality too.
I liked this from rawsharkyeshe No.15 article from The Guardian 16 March 2015 –
– Ed Miliband called Cameron the “Prime minister for Benson and Hedge funds”. –
This Crosby is a devious machine. And the comment on the hardness of Australian politics probably explains why Crosby and Mark Textor are both Australians.
Background to their start in Oz: Still in his 30s, Crosby was promoted to deputy director and then director of the national party. There he worked with another rising and aggressive Liberal player, Mark Textor. Textor had taken Rod Cameron’s innovations with voter data and focus groups further, creating two archetypal swing voters, an imaginary middle-income couple called Phil and Jenny. The concept became so influential that during the 1996 national election, Liberal candidates would be asked by the campaign managers: “Have you spoken to Phil and Jenny lately?”
After 13 years out of power, the Liberals won. They won again in 1998, in 2001, and 2004. Significantly for the current British election, the Liberals often attracted fewer votes than Labor, usually not much more than 35% of the total, but these were decisively concentrated in marginal seats. “At its absolute simplest, a campaign is finding out who will decide the outcome,” Crosby said in a rare public masterclass he gave for charity in London in 2013, “where are they, what matters to them and how do you reach them?”
He played a central role in all four Liberal victories. The Liberal leader, John Howard, was uncharismatic but shrewd, and listened closely to Crosby. “Elsewhere in the party,” says Mills, Crosby became “somewhat feared and disliked”….
In Britain:
The Australian’s energy and attention to detail, his air of conviction, and his emphasis on the traditional rightwing issues of crime and immigration all won him rave reviews in the Tory press…..
The item relates how he cut and hacked at Livintone ending by Boris Johnson winning as Mayor for London. It finishes by saying that Crosby has to prove himself in the coming British elections. For the sake of his business standing it seems more important for his own standing that David Cameron wins for the Tories.
The British general election is on May 7, 2015.
Is it possible sometime to have a discussion about the lamentable habit of some posters to The Standard bastardising other commenters noms de plume.
I don’t personally care how much I personally disagree with a commenter, I have to respect their right to comment and to reflect their chosen ‘nick’ in my comments. I do admit to using abbreviations from time to time.
This is just the latest comment to raise my ire and, I admit, I am perhaps being unfair to single this out but here is a response to Te Reo Putake
‘Another crap article from Pistake. The Standard eh well if this is supposed to be “the standard” of articles the that the standard will put up with then it might be time to instigate a new standard, actually that kinda has a ring to it, “The New Standard” Great diversion tactic Pistake and if you happen to read this and I’m sure you will as your MO seems to dictate such YOU know exactly what I mean.’
If I am old fashioned and out of step, so be it, but can’t we disagree courteously?
I’m with you on that Hateatea. Some, eg those aimed at Fisiani, get pretty tedious and just distract from what is being said (I also think denigrating people via certain body parts adds to our culture’s body hatred but that’s another conversation).
I haven’t noticed whether people do this with real life names or if it’s only the pseudonyms (I suspect the latter). I take people’s names (ID or pseudonym) as extentions of the person so being mean via bastardisation is just a low form of wit that takes us into macho shithead territory pretty fast. I’m sure the defense is that Fisi and others deserve it because of their politics, but I think it will be putting other people off from commenting here and just adds to the culture of meanness unnecessarily.
(the irony of the Pistake commenter was that their comment was almost completely devoid of anything useful).
Yes, the fisiani example is particularly unpleasant, IMO. Not that I am pretending to be prudish. I can be both coarse and vulgar but seldom in public and never, I hope, in print!
I think that some of the verbal put downs do detract from discussion and probably do put people off. I did have to think seriously before I returned to commenting here again because of some of the discussions I read while lurking.
I am glad you have returned. The place will only change if enough people practice communicating well, but I get that sometimes it’s just not worth it.
I know it’s a challenge for me, I find it easy to get into the rude bordering on mean stuff. One of the reasons I like being here at the moment is I get to practice being more tolerant in the face of sometimes extreme provocation 😉
I did however notice recently that in real life I am more likely to argue with people like I do on ts. I’m not sure what I think about this yet. Am steering away from the overly challenging, but am liking my increased capacity to be staunch.
It is similar to the electoral process : you have to participate and vote in order to be able to comment on the outcome, in my opinion. Likewise a person needs to articulate their viewpoint to the best of their ability and hope to receive affirmation or negation from a reasoned response. Sadly, sometimes we all of us post in haste and repent at leisure 😉
I am glad if you are finding your input here is helping you in the real world. I may not always see things the way you do but I respect the manner in which you articulate your thoughts.
@ hateatea
You are unlikely to get brash rudeness here because you are thoughtful about your subjects and you are not repeating provocative comments that cut across the heart of what most of us feel fervently about.
Some people don’t realise that this is a lively forum for people with progressive viewpoints which does not take kindly to them dissing all that the Standardistas believe. Those who do it are sooner or later going to be villified, insulted and unfortunately, not sent to Coventry. People get annoyed and write something to match, or they feel forced to try and present a reasonable argument to the BS they are reading.
Reasonable politeness is received usually but sometimes the comments can be challenging. It’s not a gentle, quiet, meditative retreat. President Putin wouldn’t have come here to relax. But if you want to be safe from the over-excited, the Friday post of the Weekend doings is nice. People talk about the soothing personally useful things they are doing, and smile.
Things have improved recently but I agree with you Hateatea that discussions should be respectful although I have perhaps in the past not lived up to that standard 😀
come on micky, you’d be one of the leading examples of tolerance and reasonable discussion 😛 I can’t imagine you doing rude or mean (although I feel you could cut a certain beigity less slack).
David Fisher is brave and an excellent journalist:
“Analysis: The questions the Government must answer about the Snowden revelations……Can we tell the public what the British public now know to be true about their own security agencies? asks David Fisher?”
And here is the foreign news – a small but important bit: http://rt.com/news/241069-putin-rumours-back-alive/
Dated 16 March 2015
‘It’s boring without rumors’: Putin appears in public after week of MSM hysteria
Lots of questions regarding where the heck he “disappeared” to. One which made sense to me said that he had decided to do a few days religious retreat and put matters of state on hold while he recharged and reviewed.
Are you sure you would describe it as a “religious retreat”?
It really is absurd when you think about it. He had a 10 day break. So bloody what? It isn’t a crime to decide you need a break unless of course you are the Russian president…
then you have to do it in secret because your opponents – particularly in the West – will have a collective heart attack and go into a hyperactive state of hysteria.
That Putin was on the way out, either feet first or by a coup of inner circle generals, was probably wishful thinking on the part of a few western opinion makers…
Green Party mail out for members on how the leadership selection process works (no online link, so a long cut and paste sorry).
We are getting a lot of interest in how the leadership elections work with
recent announcements from four Green Party members that they intend to put
their hat in the ring for the male Co-leadership of the Party.
In fact the election process has not yet started – the announcements are
that these men intend to seek nomination. Nominations do not open until the
20th of March, and will close on the 17th April. When Russel announced that
he would not seek re-election as Male Co-leader, it was thankfully early
and in good time so that other talented men could step up.
Importantly, the party elects/re-elects all of our leadership positions at
our Annual General Meeting (AGM) every year. This includes both male and
female Co-leaders, Co-convenors of the Party and Policy Co-convenors.
Georgina Morrison (female Party Co-convenor) has also announced that she
will not be seeking re-election, and so we enter this AGM with at least two
vacant positions.
Information about the leadership contest [2] and the AGM [3] will be kept
up to date on the membership section of the website (go to http://www.greens.org.nz and click log in in the top right corner). We will be
providing on-line forums on that website for you to ask the candidates
questions. There will also be provincial meetings held so members have a
chance to engage with the candidates. And we will link to videos of this,
so you can view wherever you are.
The Party is proud of our internal democracy and consensus-based
decision-making. This is demonstrated in our Co-leadership/Co-convenor
model, our annual election of all leadership roles by the party at large,
and the consensus process we use to conduct that election.
The consensus process of election involves a series of local meetings. The
Provincial meetings and on-line forums are to inform members. In May each
branch will host a meeting at which they will decide how they want their
electorate votes to be cast. The discussion at the branch level is
instrumental in members hearing each other’s opinions about why they think
a particular candidate is the best option for the party. This discussion is
useful in forming an appreciation of the value the contendors bring to the
party and an understanding of viewpoints that are different from yours.
Each electorate has a set number of votes allocated depending on the number
of current members they have. Those votes are ‘carried’ by delegates to the
conference. The delegates are current members selected at a
formally-advertised meeting, and are instructed as to how the electorate
members would like them to vote. An STV-like voting system is used at the
AGM.
The same branch-level and AGM process is followed for all leadership
positions.
In Question Time today Key lead a reply to Russell’s question with a smart list of the fiscal facts that the Green contenders messed up on. (He had to read the list though.) Okay then. He had a second swipe a little later. OK smarty pants.
But wait. When Key was questioned by reporters tonight about GST on imported goods he said that as an example it would be silly to claim GST off an ITune download costing $1.79 because GST would only be—–wait for it—- about 2 cents.
What!!! Expert smarty pants. It would be about 26cents!
Hope Question Time gets a dig at Key tomorrow re his slip up in view of his Green digs, and to ask about Osbourne deciding the 10 one way bridges for about $70million but unable to name them, though he knew the name of the one near his house.
What goes around comes around.
If slippery has his way on the TPP we’ll be in the same boat.
The U.S. economy is picking up steam but most Americans aren’t feeling it. By contrast, most European economies are still in bad shape, but most Europeans are doing relatively well.
What’s behind this? Two big facts.
First, American corporations exert far more political influence in the United States than their counterparts exert in their own countries.
In fact, most Americans have no influence at all. That’s the conclusion of Professors Martin Gilens of Princeton and Benjamin Page of Northwestern University, who analyzed 1,799 policy issues — and found that “the preferences of the average American appear to have only a miniscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.”
Instead, American lawmakers respond to the demands of wealthy individuals (typically corporate executives and Wall Street moguls) and of big corporations – those with the most lobbying prowess and deepest pockets to bankroll campaigns.
The second fact is most big American corporations have no particular allegiance to America. They don’t want Americans to have better wages. Their only allegiance and responsibility to their shareholders — which often requires lower wages to fuel larger profits and higher share prices.
I’ve just caught up with Wilson’s emerging Kiwi Regional Airlines which will be hatching soonish.
Here’s a link about small airlines and this one, and has an intereting shot of a small plane coming into land in front of high rise housing fairly dense. http://3rdlevelnz.blogspot.co.nz/2015/01/kiwi-regional-airlines.html
Anyone got an opinion as to whether this housing would be good to live in, seem close? Is it the type of housing that should be available for small families and singles near town and small manufacturing hubs with public transport running near, just one, two streets away.?
I think the quality of life experienced in housing (that is well built and healthy, rather than shoddy and damp) does not rely solely on density, but includes the strength of connections to others, services, amenities and vibrant community spaces (and in NZ, access to natural environments if possible).
An interesting programme to watch is Kevin McCloud’s Slumming It. He visits the slum of Dharavi in Mumbai, as it has recently been cited as a “model community” even though it is built on waste ground including dump sites, and raw sewage ponds.
Those that live there have created an amazingly diverse and resilient community in such a small area – according to Wikipedia, the most densely populated area in the world.
Yes Molly they might enjoy it and do well with it. But we come from a different culture and have different expectations. It is interesting to store the knowledge of the ability of providing necessities in dense communities and the residents can maintain basic standards and stability. They have shown resilience in their place. We need to design one that allows us to manage our lives in our country and culture.
There have been thoughts that have probably not been well developed by government about how we could manage our living conditions better. I remember Dr Morgan Williams when he was Commissioner for the Environment talking about the way that a South American city Curitiba had acted to keep their city a good livable place. http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/ED0207/S00050/master-plan-urged-for-urban-sustainability.htm
Curitiba improved the conditions in their slums by working with the people. If they collected garbage and handed it in, they were rewarded with food such as eggs not money. It made a big difference to the place, helped the nutrition of the poor and raised community concern for better, more pleasant surroundings. http://www.rnzih.org.nz/pages/AbstractMorganWilliams.htm
There are programmes in the Auckland Council re giving communities a say in how their locales are developed, but not every Local Board has adopted them.
Thriving Communities is one, a village planning programme is another.
I suspect that I am agreeing with you, that local knowledge and input creates a more resilient and connected community. Unless specific commitments to encouraging this happen in NZ, we will continue to have a patchwork approach to housing and community building.
I’d quite happily live in one of those. They look like they even have room for a garden, and there’s bush nearby. I really prefer to sharing communal space with others to having a huge private yard.
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New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has described Labour's original COVID-19 commercial rent dispute proposal as "poorly targeted". Justice Minister Andrew Little hasannounced a temporary law changeto force commercial landlords and renters to consider COVID-19 in disputes over rent issues, almost two months after the Government first floated the idea. But ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Leader of New Zealand First New Zealand First acknowledges that some small businesses have been struggling to meet fixed costs due to the loss of revenue by COVID-19. We also know some businesses are at greater risk of insolvency when they cannot come to a reasonable ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Leader of New Zealand First New Zealand First is disappointed that the removal of the spousal deductions has had to be delayed by the Ministry fo Social Development, due to COVID19 workload pressures. “New Zealand First has always stood for fairness when it comes to superannuation ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Leader of New Zealand First On the steps of Parliament today the Leader of New Zealand First, Rt Hon Winston Peters received a petition from registered nurse Anna Maria Coervers, requesting an amendment to the Protection for First Responders Bill which will ensure the legislation also include registered ...
It's been a busy seven days as we start to rebuild New Zealand together. From delivering extra support for small businesses, to investing in our artists and arts organisations, to cutting red tape on home DIY projects, we're rolling out our plan to get the economy and New Zealand moving ...
Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters says alert level 2 restrictions have to be discussed during today's Cabinet meeting. Thousands gathered across the country, including at Parliament, yesterday forBlack Lives Matter marcheswhere social distancing and mass gathering rules were flouted. Mr Peters said the breaching of Alert Level 2 rules at ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of State Owned Enterprises KiwiRail’s Northland rail upgrade steps up another gear today and will help Northland recover from the impacts of COVID-19, State Owned Enterprises Minister Winston Peters says. The Government is investing $204.5 million through the Provincial Growth Fund to ...
“Today and every day we stand in solidarity with George Floyd’s family, friends and community who feel pain and fear about his untimely death at the hands of Minneapolis police”, said Green Party Co-leader and Māori Development spokesperson Marama Davidson. ...
Fletcher Tabuteau, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Hon Eugenie Sage, Minister of Conservation The West Coast forests of Mount Te Kinga at Kotuku Whakaoho/Lake Brunner are the latest predator free project to receive Government funding, announced Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage and Under Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher ...
The Green Party says major freshwater reforms announced today provide the strongest ever protections of our waterways, to help ensure the next generation can swim in the rivers of Aotearoa. ...
The Green Party has begun the process for a Select Committee inquiry into student accommodation, which has been exposed during COVID-19 as an under-regulated sector that straddles students with unfair debt. ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs Hon Megan Woods, Minister of Research, Science and Innovation Hon Dr David Clark, Minister of Health Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters, Research, Science and Innovation Minister Megan Woods, and Health Minister David Clark today announced a COVID-19 vaccine strategy, ...
Budget 2020 is about rebuilding together, supporting jobs, getting business moving and the books back into the black. It’s an integral part of our COVID-19 economic response, and our plan to grow our economy and get New Zealand moving again.Here’s a quick look at the five top things you ...
The Green Party is pleased to reveal its candidate list for the upcoming election. With a mix of familiar faces and fresh new talent, this exceptional group of candidates are ready to lead the Greens back into Government. ...
The Coalition Government has approved $206 million in essential upgrades at Ōhakea Air Base. Defence Minister Ron Mark said the money would be spent on improving old infrastructure. He said safety issues would be addressed, as well as upgrades to taxiways, accommodation and fresh, storm and waste water systems. "This ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Leader of New Zealand First “I am not persisting with this case just for myself, but for all people who have had their privacy breached. Privacy of information is a cornerstone of our country’s democracy. Without it our society truly faces a bleak future. We now ...
This summer presents a great opportunity for New Zealanders to get out into nature with bookings on Great Walks for 2020/21 set to open next week, says Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage. Bookings for the Great Walks will open between 9 and 11 June, excluding Milford and Routeburn tracks which ...
Extra 40,000 businesses to be eligible for wage subsidy extension Small business cashflow support application period extended The Government is today announcing further support for businesses that continue to be affected by the global COVID-19 pandemic, as the broader economy becomes one of the most open in the world following ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed five Lockheed Martin C-130J-30 Super Hercules transport aircraft will be purchased to replace the existing fleet, Defence Minister Ron Mark announced today. “Last year, Cabinet selected these aircraft as the preferred option to replace the current Hercules fleet. Procurement of the Super Hercules has been ...
The Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage is celebrating World Environment Day with an announcement of a major step towards Wairarapa Moana being recognised as an internationally significant wetland. “Wairarapa Moana is an ecosystem of 10,000 hectares of wetland and open water that provides a home for indigenous fish, birds and ...
New public housing that will save tenants money in energy bills, and provide warmer, healthier and more comfortable homes, is setting the standard for the Government’s future public housing programme, Housing Minister Megan Woods said. Dr Woods opened the new Kāinga Ora – Homes and Communities complex, which has a ...
A new-look Police graduation ceremony to take account of COVID19 health rules has marked the completion of training for 57 new constables. Police Minister Stuart Nash attended this afternoon's ceremony, where officers of Recruit Wing 337 were formally sworn in at the Royal New Zealand Police College without the normal support of ...
Mobile traders and truck shops must adhere to responsible lending requirements Interest rate cap on high-cost loans Lenders prohibited from offering further credit to an applicant who has taken two high-cost loans in the past 90 days The Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, Kris Faafoi, has signalled an end ...
94% of firms say wage subsidy had positive impact on cashflow 62% of firms say support helped to manage non-wage costs like rent A survey of business that have received the Government’s wage subsidy show it has played a significant role in saving jobs, and freed up cash flow to ...
New legislation introduced to Parliament today will support growth and assist businesses on the road to economic recovery, said Revenue Minister Stuart Nash. “The Taxation (Annual Rates for 2020-21, Feasibility Expenditure, and Remedial Matters) Bill proposes that businesses can get tax deductions for ‘feasibility expenditure’ on new investments,” said Mr ...
Sport and Recreation Minister Grant Robertson has welcomed the first release of funds from the $265 million Sport Recovery Package announced as part of Budget 2020. Sport NZ has announced that $4.6 million in funding will go to the Wellington Phoenix, NZ Warriors, Super Rugby teams and the ANZ Premiership ...
An iconic New Zealand tourism attraction and the country’s 31 Regional Tourism Organisations are the first recipients of support from the $400 million Tourism Sector Recovery Plan, to help position the sector for recovery from COVID-19, Tourism Minister Kelvin Davis announced today. The plan includes a Strategic Tourism Assets Protection ...
The Government will legislate to ensure businesses that suffered as a result of the COVID-19 response will get help to resolve disputes over commercial rent issues, Justice Minister Andrew Little announced today. A temporary amendment to the Property Law Act will insert a clause in commercial leases requiring a fair ...
The Minister for Small Business says new data from Xero highlights the urgency of prompt payment practices to small and medium enterprises as we move into economic recovery. Last month Government ministers wrote to significant private enterprises and the banking industry to request they join efforts by government agencies to ...
Young people in Waikato will be the first to have free access to period products in schools in another step to support children and young people in poverty,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said. During term 3, the Ministry of Education will begin providing free period products to schools following the ...
The Minister of Police Stuart Nash has issued the following statement in response to charges filed against three Police officers this morning in the New Plymouth District Court. “Any incident involving a loss of life in Police custody is taken very seriously. The charges today reflect the gravity of the ...
$196 million for Crown Research Institutes $150 million for R&D loan scheme $33 million for Māori research and development opportunities $12 million for the Nationally Significant Collections and Databases $10 million to help maintain in-house capability at Callaghan Innovation New Zealand’s entrepreneurs, innovators and crown researchers will benefit from a ...
Further temporary changes to NCEA and University Entrance (UE) will support senior secondary school students whose teaching and learning have been disrupted by COVID-19. “The wellbeing of students and teachers is a priority. As we are all aware, COVID-19 has created massive disruption to the school system, and the Government ...
Minister for Racing Winston Peters today announced that the terms for the directors of the Racing Industry Transition Agency (RITA) have been extended to 30 June 2021. Due to the COVID-19 crisis the transition period has been extended to ensure that the Racing Industry Bill can complete its progress through ...
The deadline for landlords to include detailed information in their tenancy agreements about how their property meets the Healthy Homes Standards, so tenants can see the home they are renting is compliant, has been extended from 1 July 2020 to 1 December 2020. The Healthy Homes Standards became law on 1 July 2019. The Standards are ...
Justice Minister Andrew Little today announced details of further appointments to the Criminal Cases Review Commission. “I am pleased to announce Paula Rose QSO OStJ as Deputy Chief Commissioner for a term of five years commencing on 15 June 2020,” said Andrew Little. “I am also pleased to announce the ...
The Targeted Training and Apprenticeships Fund (TTAF) will pay costs of learners of all ages to undertake vocational education and training The fund will target support for areas of study and training that will give learners better employment prospects as New Zealand recovers from COVID-19 Apprentices working in all industries ...
The Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) will finally start to cut New Zealand’s greenhouse gas pollution as it was originally intended to, because of changes announced today by the Minister for Climate Change, James Shaw. The changes include a limit on the total emissions allowed within the ETS, rules to ensure ...
Minister for Pacific Peoples Aupito William Sio says the Queen’s Birthday 2020 Honours List provides an abundance of examples that Pacific people’s leadership capability is unquestionable in Aotearoa. “The work and the individuals we acknowledge this year highlights the kind of visionary examples and dedicated community leadership that we need ...
The Government is backing a new $27 million project aimed at boosting sustainable horticulture production and New Zealand’s COVID-19 recovery efforts, says Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor. “Our horticulture sector has long been one of New Zealand’s export star performers, contributing around $6 billion a year to our economy. During and ...
Applications have opened for 2021 Ngā Karahipi Uru Rākau – Forestry Scholarships, which will support more Māori and women to pursue careers in forestry science, says Forestry Minister Shane Jones. “I’m delighted Te Uru Rākau is offering Ngā Karahipi Uru Rākau – Forestry Scholarships for the third year running. These ...
The Queen’s Birthday 2020 Honours List once again highlights the dedication by many to looking after our native plants and wildlife, including incredible work to restore the populations of critically endangered birds says Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage. Anne Richardson of Hororata has been made an Officer of the New ...
The Government will invest $10 million from the One Billion Trees Fund for large-scale planting to provide jobs in communities and improve the environment, Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor and Forestry Minister Shane Jones have announced. New, more flexible funding criteria for applications will help up to 10 catchment groups plant ...
Organisations that support women are invited to apply to a new $1,000,000 fund as part of the Government’s COVID-19 response. “We know women, and organisations that support women, have been affected by COVID-19. This new money will ensure funding for groups that support women and women’s rights,” said Minister for ...
Healthier waterways are front and centre in a new project involving more than 300 King Country sheep, beef and dairy farmers. The Government is investing $844,000 in King Country River Care, a group that helps farmers to lift freshwater quality and farming practice, Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor announced today. “Yesterday ...
A major funding package for libraries will allow them to play a far greater role in supporting their communities and people seeking jobs as part of the economic recovery from COVID-19. “Budget 2020 contains over $60 million of funding to protect library services and to protect jobs,” says Internal Affairs ...
A jobseekers programme for the creative sector and four new funds have been set up by the Government to help our arts and music industry recover from the blow of COVID-19. Thousands of jobs will be supported through today’s $175 million package in a crucial economic boost to support the ...
Minister for Veterans Ron Mark has welcomed the First Reading of a Bill that will make legislative changes to further improve the veterans’ support system. The Veterans’ Support Amendment Bill No 2, which will amend the Veterans’ Support Act 2014, passed First Reading today. The bill addresses a number of ...
Views sought on Order in Council to help fast track the reinstatement of the Christ Church Cathedral The Associate Minister for Greater Christchurch Regeneration, Hon Poto Williams, will be seeking public written comment, following Cabinet approving the drafting of an Order in Council aimed at fast-tracking the reinstatement of the ...
The law setting out New Zealanders’ basic civil and human rights is today one step towards being strengthened following the first reading of a Bill that requires Parliament to take action if a court says a statute undermines those rights. At present, a senior court can issue a ‘declaration of ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters today reiterated the deep concern of the New Zealand Government following confirmation by China’s National People’s Congress of national security legislation relating to Hong Kong. “New Zealand shares the international community’s significant and long-standing stake in Hong Kong’s prosperity and stability,” Mr Peters said. “New Zealand ...
Thousands of artists and creatives at hundreds of cultural and heritage organisations have been given much-needed support to recover from the impact of COVID-19, Prime Minister and Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Jacinda Ardern announced today. “The cultural sector was amongst the worst hit by the global pandemic,” Jacinda ...
Key New Zealand assets will be better protected from being sold to overseas owners in a way contrary to the national interest, with the passage of the Overseas Investment (Urgent Measures) Bill. The Bill, which passed its third reading in Parliament today, also cuts unnecessary red tape to help attract ...
Setting higher health standards at swimming spots Requiring urban waterways to be cleaned up and new protections for urban streams Putting controls on higher-risk farm practices such as winter grazing and feed lots Setting stricter controls on nitrogen pollution and new bottom lines on other measures of waterway health Ensuring ...
The Government is on the verge of reaching its target of state sector boards and committees made up of at least 50 percent women, says Minister for Women Julie Anne Genter and Minister for Ethnic Communities Jenny Salesa. For the first time, the Government stocktake measures the number of Māori, ...
Does a move to Covid-19 Level 1, that Cabinet is considering tomorrow (Monday, June 8), mean back-to-normal for 290,000 rental property owners and managers, Tenancies War spokesman Mike Butler said today. The Covid-19 Response (Urgent Management) Act, ...
ANALYSIS:By Denis Muller of theUniversity of Melbourne When a newspaper with the authority of The New York Times chooses to publish a party-political essay calculated to further inflame the violence wracking cities across America, serious questions arise. On June 3 the Times published in its opinion section an ...
For all The Spinoff’s latest coverage of Covid-19 see here. Read Siouxsie Wiles’s work here. New Zealand is currently in alert level two – read The Spinoff’s giant explainer about what that means here. For official government advice, see here.The Spinoff’s coverage of the Covid-19 outbreak is made possible thanks to donations from Spinoff Members. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Noble, Education Policy Fellow, Mitchell Institute, Victoria University Three quarters of a million Australian children are likely to be experiencing employment stress in the family as a result of COVID-19. This is on top of around 615,000 children whose families were ...
Spice up the classic banana muffin with a subtle touch of star anise.These muffins came about one rainy Saturday when the cupboards were bare and there was nothing much left in the fruit bowl aside from some very sad-looking bananas. Fortunately we know sad bananas result in the best kind ...
For years, Work and Income has been telling New Zealanders they couldn’t get the benefit until their redundancy payments ran out. Turns out, it was wrong.What’s all this then?Work and Income has long told New Zealanders receiving redundancy payments that they weren’t eligible for the benefit until their redundancy money ...
New Zealand writer Anna Rankin reports from Los Angeles. Last Friday afternoon, I went downtown to a protest outside the enormous Los Angeles Police Department headquarters on 1st Street. The LAPD had set up cordons, placing orange cones across streets to block traffic. Arms crossed, they stood with a wide ...
Until the sudden closure of Bauer Media in April, Simon Farrell-Green was the editor of HOME, New Zealand’s oldest architecture magazine. Here he explains what comes next.Being the editor of a major architecture magazine was the best job I ever had. I got it in 2016, after a career spent ...
A global success story or an overly generous, unsustainable scheme that is doing lasting damage to our fish stocks? Ethan Neville looks at the ongoing debate over New Zealand’s fishing quota management system. The management of our fisheries is a touchy topic – and why wouldn’t it be? New Zealanders ...
By RNZ News Thousands of people were protesting across Australia today to oppose the deaths of Indigenous people in police custody. It comes as Black Lives Matter protests are held around the world after the death of George Floyd at the hands of a white police officer in the US ...
Wrapping everyone in a blanket of love, whakapapa and mauri for Matariki is the brave, exuberant and generous fabric art of Maungarongo Te Kawa, writes Amanda Thompson.E te AtuaNau enei rau harakeke he taongaTukuna ki a matouKia tika o matou mahiKo Papatuanuku e takoto neiTuturu WhakamauaKia tina, tinaHui eTaiki e.‘Karakia ...
For all The Spinoff’s latest coverage of Covid-19 see here. Read Siouxsie Wiles’s work here. New Zealand is currently in alert level two – read The Spinoff’s giant explainer about what that means here. For official government advice, see here.The Spinoff’s coverage of the Covid-19 outbreak is made possible thanks to donations from Spinoff Members. ...
One press statement from the Beehive yesterday sounded more like advertising – or a barker’s pitch – than a Government announcement. Another advised of two diplomatic appointment, one of them – has the woman who landed the post done something wrong? – to protest-troubled and politically volatile Hong Kong. And ...
It’s not often that someone graduates from university one year and becomes a senior economist commentating on national media the next. George Driver investigates the meteoric rise of the high-flying Brad Olsen.Google “senior economist Brad Olsen” and you’ll find him quoted in no fewer than 167 articles in the past ...
As public sentiment turned against Uber Eats, a new local operation emerged promising a more ethical alternative to help New Zealand’s struggling hospitality industry. But now Eat Local NZ has suspended trading after falling out with its Australian partner Mr Yum. So what happened?A dispute between local hospitality platform Eat ...
By Budi Sutrisno in Jakarta As the death of George Floyd, an African-American man who died while being arrested in the United States, sparks a global outcry, Indonesian rights advocates and young people have stepped forward to remind fellow citizens that racism has long been an issue at home as ...
Edward Cullen became a vampire to survive the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918. Now a new Twilight novel looms and Laura Surynt, a New Zealander living in the UK, wants to live forever too. As I lay in bed this morning watching Instagram stories, Tayi Tibble told my reluctant little Capricorn ...
Over the lockdown period, thousands of people joined a Facebook group dedicated to remembering the nightlife of inner-city Auckland. Its creator Simon Grigg explains why it touched a chord in lockdown.Within a few days of The Lost Nightlife of Inner-city Auckland Facebook page accidentally going live on May 12, we ...
Throughout Anglo colonial states there is a constant habit of defining people who aren’t white as a problem, writes Aaron Smale in this personal essay. It was a balmy summer evening in the capital and cops were standing over a young brown man. I was walking down Courtenay Place on ...
"The countdown clock ticks 2, then 1, then the prime minister raises her drink": dystopia, by Ōtautahi writer Laura Borrowdale. You stand in the centre of the room, and around you, the guests seem to swirl and blend into one. There’s a mouth, gaping and red, filled with laughter. A ...
Martin Luther King Jr said in 1963: “America has given the Black people a bad cheque, a cheque which has come back marked ‘insufficient funds’." Six generations of egregious police violence later, the sentiment out of which those bad cheques were born could be shifting. In the wake of egregious police violence, ...
WATCH: In a candid interview on Sky Sport, Dame Susan Devoy talks on her concern for rising sports stars, the state of NZ squash, and the spectre of racism. Dame Susan Devoy is proudly still “a little terrier who fights for the underdog”. “I have been doing it all my life and ...
Of the huge funding boost coming for early childhood education, Playcentre has been left with just the crumbs, writes Kate Barber. Amidst all the celebration of the $430m funding boost for early childhood education (ECE) announced in this year’s budget, little attention was paid to the plight of Playcentre. The ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vikrant Minhas, PhD candidate, University of Adelaide Although bacteria are single-celled and microscopically small, they still need energy to survive, just like us. One of the most efficient ways of acquiring energy for bacteria is through sweet, soluble carbohydrates: sugars. In fact, ...
PACIFIC PANDEMIC DIARY:By David Robie Three cartoonists had especially poignant takes on the tragic and toxic political aftermath of martyr George Floyd’s brutal killing under the knee of a white American policeman in Minneapolis last week. The Boston Globe’s Christopher Weyant featured a split frame contrasting a red-capped “Make ...
Are central bankers jealous that epidemiologists are the rock stars of the current crisis?There is talk that both the British and New Zealand central banks might institute negative interest rates as part of the policy response to the Covid shock. While Sweden’s central bank ended its five year experiment ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Monika Sarder, Senior Strategic Analyst, Monash University Algorithmic decision-making has enormous potential to do good. From identifying priority areas for first response after an earthquake hits, to identifying those at risk of COVID-19 within minutes, their application has proven hugely beneficial. But ...
LISTEN: This week's Extra Time podcast discusses racism in sport and the role of athletes and organisations in making a stand for good. Former Silver Fern and Black Fern Louisa Wall believes today's sports stars must have a social conscience and stand up against discrimination and divisiveness. Sport and politics, once ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emma Thomas, Associate professor, Flinders University We have seen ten days of protests in the United States over the death of George Floyd. While thousands of people have gathered to express their outrage peacefully, some demonstrations have been marred by vandalism and ...
40 percent of millennials have one, and an increasing number of GenXers and Baby Boomers do too. Two Cents' Worth delves into the world of side hustles. ...
Auckland writer Caroline Barron has a terrific book out today called Ripiro Beach: A Memoir of Life After Near Death. Here, she writes about the memoirs that have been a balm, a lesson, or both. Throughout my life, I’ve sought solace between the covers of books, particularly memoirs. There, I’ve learnt ...
An exclusive interview with Steve McSteverson about his traumatic and tragic ordeal this week.Many New Zealanders are struggling with the news that a children’s book not commissioned or authorised by Jacinda Ardern was advertised in a newsletter for children’s books. This horrific attack on New Zealanders whose ears are permanently ...
Air New Zealand staff are dismayed and angered at the company’s announcement to cut a further $150 million from their wage bill. On Friday, the company’s Chief Executive Officer, Greg Foran, made the announcement to employees, who are still ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dr. Bodean Hedwards, Lecturer, Monash University This week the leaders of India and Australia reaffirmed their mutual interest in closer diplomatic and economic ties. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi told Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison during their long-delayed Thursday “virtual summit”: ...
The Herald reported this morning that MediaWorks was on the verge of selling its TV assets to US TV giant Discovery – but an internal email and senior source suggest the story may have been premature.A senior MediaWorks source has emphatically denied a report in the NZ Herald that a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gery Karantzas, Associate professor in Social Psychology / Relationship Science, Deakin University Life in lockdown has been tough on many relationships. But negotiating the transition back to “normal” as restrictions continue to lift could also be a challenge for couples. So what ...
A slight bounce in the economy is brightening the outlook as the country heads into the winter months, Radio NZ reports. Retail spending is up and NZ shares rose on Thursday for a third day running. Key indicators have led some economists to point to a faster recovery than expected. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Geoff Hanmer, Adjunct Professor of Architecture, University of Adelaide HomeBuilder is a good idea gone bad. It is possibly the most complex and least equitable program the government could have devised to deliver construction jobs. It gives $25,000 to people who already ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Keller, Professor of Cognitive Science, Western Sydney University The coronavirus pandemic has silenced the world’s concert halls and opera theatres. Organisations specialising in live performance face an existential crisis under current restrictions on social gatherings, with up to 75% of people ...
Finance Minister Grant Robertson, wearing his Sport and Recreation ministerial hat, can show he can be a big spender and draw voters’ attention to his largess each time he dispenses money from the funds under his control – or the control of an agency within his ministerial bailiwick. Yesterday he ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Pi-Shen Seet, Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Edith Cowan University Scott Morrison wants to overhaul the skills workforce to ensure a better post-COVID-19 recovery. But there may not be enough people with the necessary skills to do so. And travel restrictions, which ...
As we transition out of a Covid-focused world and prepare for what comes next, New Zealand’s ICT industry is gearing towards growth.From app development helping track the Covid-19 virus to website engineering keeping businesses in touch and online, ICT knowledge has been crucial to keeping New Zealand working over the ...
Analysis: As New Zealand eases restrictions, it no longer has international precedent to look towards and must decide on its own how to reopen the economy while reducing the risk of a second wave of infections, Marc Daalder reports While most of the country eagerly awaits a likely move to ...
Ten days is too long. That from insurance claimant advocate, Ali Jones. EQC has today made contact with homeowners via email after accidentally releasing confidential details of 8000 insurance claims on May 26. Jones says although she has not received ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo (Penguin Classics, $24)Winner of the 2019 Booker Prize. The other day, ...
Simon Day discovers how the voluntary carbon market allows both individuals and companies to offset their emissions at the same time as investing in native forest regeneration.When Celia Wade-Brown sold her first batch of carbon credits earned from the native forest on her Wairarapa farm, she had two customers: Z ...
Simon Day discovers how the voluntary carbon market allows both individuals and companies to offset their emissions at the same time as investing in native forest regeneration.When Celia Wade-Brown sold her first batch of carbon credits earned from the native forest on her Wairarapa farm, she had two customers: Z ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Keith Rankin. The conversation around the 2020 covid19 pandemic has been widely framed as ‘health versus the economy’. It has been quite political, with people leaning to the left emphasising ‘health’, and people leaning to the right emphasising ‘the economy’. A couple of weeks ago ...
Sam Brooks pays tribute to Alex Rider, and the new TV series that (finally) captures the spirit of the books.“What if James Bond was a teenager?”The concept for Anthony Horowitz’s Alex Rider series is so simple but so brilliant. There’s a reason why the franchise has managed to sustain 12 ...
Analysis - The PM resists pressure to move immediately to level 1, Winston Peters' tactics play into the hands of the Opposition and the government at last works out a commercial rent solution, writes Peter Wilson. ...
Source: Council on Hemispheric Affairs – Analysis-Reportage By COHAFrom Washington DC Federal charges against the four protectors of the Venezuelan Embassy, who defended the building in Washington DC against violent opposition crowds for several weeks between April 10 and May 16 of 2019, were completely dropped in a case that ...
Source: Council on Hemispheric Affairs – Analysis-Reportage By COHA Editorial TeamFrom Washington DC The Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA) joins the Black Alliance for Peace[1] and other pro-democracy organizations throughout the world in calling for the United Nations to address the systemic violations of human rights by the police and ...
Being shot by police had a profound, transformational effect on Rob Mokaraka’s life in more ways than you’d expect. A new documentary, airing on Māori TV at 7.30pm on Sunday, explores the work he’s done to heal his own mind and to ensure nobody has to go through the same ...
Human rights watchdog TAPOL has condemned the demand by Indonesian prosecutors seeking 17 and five years imprisonment for West Papuan activists Buchtar Tabuni and Irwanus Uropmabin. On June 2, the Jayapura District Prosecutor’s Office issued 33 pages containing charges against the defendant Irwanus Uropmabin. In the document, the Public Prosecutor ...
The arrival of Dan Carter is far from the first time the ever-struggling Auckland team has hoped to turn around its fortunes with a star signing, writes Jamie Wall.New Zealand rugby Twitter is a generally desolate place, especially lately given that there’s been nothing to talk about ever since the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robyn J. Whitaker, Senior Lecturer in New Testament, Pilgrim Theological College, University of Divinity US President Donald Trump delivered an address this week in which he threatened military action on the nation. Then he walked to the nearby St John’s Episcopal Church ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vincent Ho, Senior Lecturer and clinical academic gastroenterologist, Western Sydney University Why do we burp? We sometimes also burp before meals, why does this happen? — Ahaana, age 7 That is a really interesting question, Ahaana! There ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Justine Bell-James, Associate Professor, TC Beirne School of Law, The University of Queensland After years of litigation, Australia’s highest court will today make a major decision on the fate of the controversial proposed expansion to the New Acland Coal mine in Queensland. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicholas Williams, Associate Professor in Urban Ecology and Urban Horticulture, University of Melbourne Tomorrow is the first World Green Roof Day. Cities around the world will celebrate the well-documented environmental, economic and social benefits of green roofs. New ground-level green spaces are ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elise Klein, Senior Lecturer, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Robodebt isn’t the only measure the government should consider withdrawing. Late last Friday, after a long press conference from the prime minister which avoided any mention of the topic, the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Holden, Professor of Economics, UNSW Harvard University’s Alberto Alesina died suddenly of a heart attack on May 23. He was 63. His long-time colleague and friend Larry Summers wrote that before him, “there was no academic field of political economy. Today, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julian Meyrick, Professor of Creative Arts, Griffith University What keeps democracies together? As America burns, Brazilians die and Europe braces for another wave of the coronavirus, the question assumes an alarming immediacy. If the answer is complicated in one way, it is ...
For all The Spinoff’s latest coverage of Covid-19 see here. Read Siouxsie Wiles’s work here. New Zealand is currently in alert level two – read The Spinoff’s giant explainer about what that means here. For official government advice, see here.The Spinoff’s coverage of the Covid-19 outbreak is made possible thanks to donations from Spinoff Members. ...
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Millions of dollars divvied up by Sport NZ, MSD’s problem with wrongly denied payments grows, and internal coalition battles emerge in time for election.It’s Friday, and there hasn’t been a lot of it recently, so we’re going to start with ...
The Government picks Waitomo caves as 'strategic tourism asset' and grants $4m to Tourism Holdings, boosting shares another 7.8 percent. Facebook staff and alumni revolt over Zuckerberg's inaction on Trump ...
This week's biggest-selling New Zealand books, as recorded by the Nielsen BookScan NZ bestseller list and described by ReadingRoom literary editor Steve Braunias.NON-FICTION 1 Vegful by Nadia Lim (Nude Food, $55) 2 Stop Surviving Start Fighting by Jazz Thornton (Penguin Random House, $38) 3 So Delish! by Simone Anderson ...
Open mike 17/03/2015 
Open mike is your post.
You’ve got to wonder why the New Zealand Police undertook an armed response teams (ARTs) trial in the first place? Of course there was the Christchurch mosque terrorism attack, but that was an isolated incident and therefore cannot be used as an excuse to arm Police. What this trial does ...5 hours ago
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Woman sues ABC over Media Watch comments on her trip to United States
by RACHEL OLDING, Sydney Morning Herald, Monday 16 March 2015
A Sydney woman of American heritage is suing the ABC’s Media Watch for depicting her as a backer of, and a PR mouthpiece for, the brutal regime of President Barack Obama.
In a politically-sensitive case that will test alleged bias in media coverage of….
Read more…
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/woman-sues-abc-over-media-watch-comments-on-her-trip-to-syria-20150315-1420yg.html
Media watch is an opinionated hosted critique by an established senior legal or journalist figure.
It has a history of controversy and I await some background on the piece, the woman and SMH angle as it may be more about getting at that pesky ABC than actual bias.
Looks like the Insurance industry is gearing up to turn disaster insurance into a public private partnership. I would appreciate an informed, independent analysis of this topic and the press release from the Insurance Council of NZ.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1503/S00161/insurance-council-signs-un-statement-on-disaster-resilience.htm
Widen that analysis to the entire corporate sector and govts who turn chaos and mayhem into opportunity and plunder.
Naomi Klein’s ‘The Shock Doctrine’ covers what she calls ‘disaster capitalism’ quite well.
There’s certainly no human tragedy which can’t be turned into a chance to make a buck or two – well, billions actually.
Ain’t capitalism great?
Phil F
L Randall Wray – the evolution and instability of financialised money manager capitalism
Approx 21 mins. Wray is also an exponent of ‘Modern Monetary Theory’ which describes how governments can deficit spend to create money into an economy for households to use and save, quite independent of taxes and borrowing.
Why do people in NZ love to hate the middle class?
Why do those on the left in particular make such snide comments about middle class people?
Why do normally tolerant people who are all for liberal thinking and ethnic tolerance simply turn to shit when they see a bunch of middle class people?
I see it is Tahu Potiki’s turn to act in a prejudiced and bigoted manner against people based solely on photos of them appearing to be middle class, in having a crack at the kauri tree protestors. Tahu Potiki of course is maori and a some-time commentator from Dunedin-ways. He has likely experienced bigotry and prejudice and the like, yet he simple-headedly does the same himself. In his column this morning (no link yet sorry) he, on several occasions, ranted against these people on the basis of their middle classness alone. Tahu’s rant exposes in himself the same faults in humans that he has likely been subjected to himself – namely bigotry and prejudice.
Leave the middle class alone ffs. It is a failure in so very many ways to reference things to them in ways like Tahu Potiki has done.
The middle class want to save that kauri, or a kākāpō, or that mountain from having a windfarm put on it, but they don’t want to give up the affluence that threatens those things in the first place. They’re not alone in this of course (it seems to apply across all classes), but I think the idea is that the middle classes have more choice than the working class and underclass because of their assets and income and more sensibility for what’s right than the wealth class. Stuck in the middle.
Sure I can imagine how that might be imagined, however it is all conjecture and assumption on the part of the likes of Potiki. There is never any good argument put forward or evidnce provided for anything he intimated, not those matters you have highlighted above. Nothing. Just assumption.
It would actually be a good issue to dive into and evaluate properly – you know, comfortable in their jobs, nice 4wd, huge mortgage, provisional tax, pilloried and plied, ignorant and shallow, unknowing of anything but materiality, the list goes on …..
I can’t comment on Potiki until I read his article, and unfortunately you have a history of misrepresenting people’s word in situations like this.
I was more commenting on why some lefties in general have a downer on the middle class and from my perspective (others will tell it differently). I don’t think it’s what people imagine, it’s an analysis based on knowledge and experience (sure my comment was shorthanded and generalised).
“ignorant and shallow, unknowing of anything but materiality”
I’m less worried about those ones, than the ones that can think, who appreciate values other than possessions and consumption, who should know better but still aren’t willing to do what is needed to redress their privilege.
It is my neighbourhood. It is very middle class. But god bless every single one of them they were all motivated to save that ancient Kauri.
Probably a bit of NIMBYism going on as well. Nicer for the Titirangi locals to have a few trees about rather than infill housing.
+tahi. I’m grateful too, both for the trees saved, and for the inspiration and flow on effects.
Where did you read the article in question, vto?
I would like to comment but need to read Tahu’s own words first rather than rely on your interpretation of what he may have written or have been quoted as saying.
It should turn up here eventually. I don’t know how long they take to put them up on the web though. Otherwise try the Press in hardcopy (was that today vto?)
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/opinion/columnists/tahu-potiki/
Myself, I find Potiki’s articles thought-provoking even where I disagree with him.
Looks as if I may have to toddle down the street in search of the Press unless, perish the thought, it was in the ODT!
I did a search of the Press website and failed to find it thus far.
vto is in Chch or thereabouts so I’m guessing this one is in the Press. I’m interested to read it now too.
Bought the Press, read the article, don’t entirely support vto’s perception of what the article in its entirety was saying.
That said, I don’t necessarily agree with his take on the Titirangi ‘save the trees’ event. My views are shaped from active involvement in resource management processes in the past and what I see as a flawed process that allowed a non-notified consent in the first place.
I took the article as a whole to reflect on the clashes of culture around resource use, management and preservation, conservation, restoration and how different groups place more or less emphasis on one idealised part.
Leaving out the ‘middle class’ references, what I read reminded me of my childhood experiences of going to catch whitebait with my father, uncle and grandparents and seeing hundred of very large eels rotting on the riverbank because the Acclimatisation Society wanted the trout to be predator free. It was horrific to see (and smell) but was an example to me of the lengths that the settler society would go to prioritise what was important to them.
One point that the article made, I thought, was that there is an element of hypocrisy in those who live on sections that were clear felled in the past, to deny to others the right to remove trees in order to enjoy their own section. I can see that viewpoint even if I disagree with it.
Suffice it to say, I neither agree nor disagree with the article in its totality and I found it an interesting read.
It is too long for me to type as a whole and, at the time of writing, is not up on the Press website but it is provocatively titled ‘A Grand Win for the Busybodies’.
hi vto,
what sticks in my craw with the middle class is the aspirations.
the idea of getting ahead.
i watched a ricardo semler ted talk (thanx felix) yesty.
he said if you get to a point in your life where you want to give back then you took too much in the first place.
had an interesting conversation with a self made man. he was ranting about the poor and how they should be saving to get their first property, leverage that to get a rental…(you get the picture), he could not see that for there to be a landlord there must be a tenant.
so as weka says below (or above), about an unwillingness to give up some affluence so all have enough.
its the ‘i’m alright jack’ or ‘blow the bridge i’m over’
I have yet to read Potiki’s opinion piece, but I take it from vto’s comment that he is attacking the middle class for the kind of safe activism that does not challenge the status quo – for engaging in their own little “rose revolutions” and congratulating themselves on “making a difference.”
As to the cry of “Why does NZ love to hate the middle class?” quite a few middle class people are either indifferent to the suffering of others or despise them for having gotten into that position in the first place. People you despise tend to despise you in turn. It is an aspect of what Stiglitz was talking about in an article RedLogix put up a few days ago, about the erosion of social trust.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/21/in-no-one-we-trust/?_r=0
Or you could see the middle class thinking of assets and income as being like lollies in a lolly scramble. They were out there and the people with the most were the hardest working and most motivated. Of course lolly scrambles have recently led to images of large young men scooping up the most amongst children that only came to their knees. Not cricket old man!
upon reflection i need to give myself an uppercut.
i see myself (socially) to the far left. by that we are all one.
bill hicks says it best: we are all one consciousness expressing itself subjectively.
with that in mind, i am criticizing myself with my words above.
if i grew up in their shoes (the middle class) and had thir experiences i would behave the same.
just need to express a bit more tolerance or as my nana said- if you cant say something nice dont say anything at all.
It’s more accurate to say that for there to be a landlord there must be many tenants. It is a question of support. Each landlord requires many tenants to support them.
While I haven’t read the article you’re referring to vto, I think you you make an interesting point:
“Why do normally tolerant people who are all for liberal thinking and ethnic tolerance simply turn to shit when they see a bunch of middle class people?”
I’ve seen this happen in conversations here at TS and heard it plenty in real life too. I find it a bit puzzling. It raises more questions for me than I have theories for as to why there is a dividing line where tolerance ends and spite begins
I wonder if it is hatred and mistrust that is intergenerational and so ingrained as if it has been handed down from our colonial past when we were Little Britain with it’s clear cut class groups (as much as settlers said they wanted to escape that but failed to do so).
Who are the middle class these days? We have shifting sands beneath the feet of society. Once people could be more upwardly mobile (and whether betraying/abandoning your class was scorned or applauded is another aside) but in very general terms, the effects of a Nat govt has bumped many once financially comfortable people harshly down the ladder whilst those below landed in a heap beneath them, finding themselves in an even more precarious living situation.
It’s often talked about, while many are being left behind the elite have increased their power control and wealth. So where are the middle classes in that? Are they the survivors?
Is middle class defined by wealth? Is it defined by the display of that wealth? Is it defined by the expression of taste? Lols, if taste comes into it then I wonder what my neighbours north of me in the higher priced houses end think they are achieving by trying to out do one another with the purchase of the latest shiniest largest luxury range SUV money can by. Are they trying to express their middle class-ness or are they just pathetic try hards?
So who are the middle class that folks criticise?
Or is it related to wealth and being rightly critical of the self serving behaviour of the wealthy who trample over others to get a bigger slice. for example, maybe an employer who has built a profitable business on the back of low paid, poorly treated workers?
In that case is the class group the employer belongs to seen as the oppressor, where in fact it is the boss being oppressive and who should be the focus of criticism? Is it wealth or class that oppresses in the case of the employer?
Should we not judge a person on their actions and behaviour rather than their class, what ever that is?
Gee Rosie, you are carrying this PC thing too far saying that the middle class should not be pointed at or criticised because they have feelings.
The middle class have willingly separated themselves off from struggling NZ as if that group were lepers. The women have got jobs where they often administer to the poorer class, rather patronisingly. And they feel entitled to their superior position and consequently don’t pay much attention to the structural side of the downward trend, aggravated by enabling policy.
The upper class live in a different planet and most rarely come down from the Ramtops to attempt to suss out what mayhem they are causing or enabling to the rest of NZ.
The middle class are still living the dream that they were brought up with and fully expect that their superior standards will be maintained for ever. All this talk about environment and climate is exaggerated and technology will deal with it. At present their task is to maintain their lovely home, educate their children to
ensure a well paid and fulfilling position, and keep their minds on higher things, such as art, healthy food. maintaining their looks and overseas holidays.
Is there any wonder that people who have the wide vision to take in all the classes, the whole range of NZers, get pissed off with the dopey, self-satisfied middle class who want it all without accepting citizen responsibility also.
Warbs, lols, please, I am not “carrying a PC thing”. You should know me better than that by now.
And I am definitely not saying they should not be criticised because they have feelings. I have never once mentioned the words feelings or expressed any sympathy for their feelings.
I am mainly asking who they are. How do we identify them? By their wealth, their taste, their level of wankiness?
The group you are referring to above are displaying attitudes and behaviours that are isolationist and excluding, anti the collective good and self promoting, potentially at the cost of the well being of others. I know these types and dislike them intensely for their selfish and cruel ways. (In fact I have had a run in with one of these sorts in recent days. The level of hatred for the concept of equality expressed by this person was truly gobsmacking).
So would you say middle class is defined by a set of behaviours and attitudes? (which comes back to wankiness)
The above behaviours you mention, I see belonging to the group within society that holds right wing views. I’m not sure that the entire spectrum of the middle classes is exclusively right wing, who ever this middle class are.
Hi Rosie
Middle class is a broad target. Which ones to shoot? I am thoroughly middle class myself without the necessary assets and liquidity to ponce about. So let’s keep on criticising the middle class as it’s a bit like throwing balls at a stall with moving faces in the fairground.
And it is hard to dent a middle class person’s self esteem. That’s how you know them. They just look at you with their eyebrows raised and either patronisingly smile or just turn away bored. There’s one of those rent-a-crowd rabble they say, just too too boring and repetitive. Always doing nothing and saying not fair. Of course they don’t like people who act vigorously to even up the fiscal balance either.
.
I usually mean what most people call “upper middle class” when I say “middle class” Which can lead to misunderstandings because it seems others mean a majority or large minority rather than this minority.
A particular cultural group rather than amount of money. Things that spring to mind are – highly socially connected; people who have influence, who have contacts, who have contacts who have contacts, which can cover a huge range of influence in a society, formally educated and qualified, use language very precisely but usually use effective subtext and nuance to express aggression, rank etc., who have particular social behaviours and understandings, who as a group are often unaware that their own behaviours and language can have very different meanings to those from other class cultures, people who tend to define, by their choices, what is considered “good taste” “good manners” “good ideas” etc.,
And heaps more but I don’t have time right now. People don’t control what class they are born into and it doesn’t determine goodness or badness, but middle-class is a variety of privilege. Like most privilege it is often either unrecognised or underrecognised and it is this that is often the source of most of the misunderstandings and occasional outright animosity imho.
Thank you just saying. I find that a very helpful beginning to understanding who the middle class are. I can envision this ‘class’ more clearly now as I know of people that belong to this particular grouping.
The people that I know that fit your definition I don’t find particularly offensive, and while there is an unspoken knowing between these folk and myself that a different level of privilege is enjoyed by them it doesn’t cause a tension.
On the hand, there are others I know of, like the person who I had a run in with, who fit some aspects of your definition, influential, with contacts / connections and formally educated and qualified, privileged in several ways but whose social skills are under developed, whose emotional intelligence is low and who are focused on the acquisition of wealth and property as a symbol of their success.
So if class doesn’t determine goodness or badness as you say perhaps it comes down to personality and behaviour, as to the source of division?
I’m just grappling and my head isn’t in the best place today.
I’m saying they are a a minority which has a big vested interest in the status quo. Some admit this and work hard to make their communities fairer anyway. Many don’t.
Ok, thanks js. Appreciate your input. It’s making sense to me.
It’s a fascinating sociological topic.
I found that a useful sub thread too, thanks.
I would add that a sense of entitlement exists within the middle class that I don’t see so much in the working or underclass.
Pitoki is a hard right tribal elitist who thinks the middle class should stick to worrying about property values.
He is part of the iwi aristocracy that the treaty settlement process has created.
This might be a good place to mention a new book reviewed on Radionz this morning. It shows the nefarious ways that cunning pakeha managed to wangle land out of Maori hands. We ought to know this because it is behind Maori grievances which the Treaty of Waitangi is partly recompensing and the reason that it should not be too hurried and that Maori should be able to tell their histories.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player/20171204
Book review – At the Margin of Empire ( 6′ 16″ )
10:38 Paul Diamond reviews ‘At the Margin of Empire: John Webster and the Hokianga, 1842-1900’ by Jennifer Ashton. Published by Auckland University Press.
Another book to buy! Thanks, greywarshark. 😀
And you base your opinion on what, exactly, Millsy. Citing references would be really good, if possible.
BTW, you spell his last name POTIKI.
Tahu Potiki, by virtue of his whakapapa alone, was born a member of the iwi aristocracy if looked at through Eurocentric eyes. That he has worked hard to make himself a 21st century leader of his whanau, hapu and iwi is all his own doing and nothing at all to do with Treaty settlement processes.
As for his political views, I only know what he has published. If you see him as hard right you have either read things I haven’t or read into what was published what I didn’t. We are each entitled to our own views and perhaps mine are shaped by knowing the person and thus seeing an entirety, or as much as anyone may know another without being them!
Hi articles have a right wing slant. Plus he is on the charter schools advisory committee.
Chur all comments above. Unfortunately as often seems to be the case I must away and have no time today to respond. Fwiw I see no difference in tolerance, willingness to protest the wrong, or anything like that, based on class. I do not see the lower classes doing more of this stuff (if anything I see them doing less and it aint because we have less). I do not see the upper classes doing more of this stuff at all either – they are too busy with the planning of their mid-winter escape-NZ hols looming now summer is at an end. I actually see most of the protesting of things wrong being carried out by so-called middle-class types.
Middle class types protested the kauris apparently. Good. It is they who protest the environment damagers mostly. It is the middle class who do most of the heavy lifting. That is what I see.
So in actual fact Mr Potiki has it completely arse-about. The reason he saw middle class people protesting at the kauris was because it is the middle class who do most of this stuff. They do the grunt. They get out on the street. They write to MPs.
The middle class should be supported in its efforts not vilified.
Kiaora vto
So in actual fact Mr Potiki has it completely arse-about. The reason he saw middle class people protesting at the kauris was because it is the middle class who do most of this stuff. They do the grunt. They get out on the street. They write to MPs.
The Waipoua Forest in Northland is a remnant Kauri Forest whose most famous inhabitant is Tāne Mahuta. Tāne is about 2,500 years old. The forest is riddled with Kauri Die-back Disease which is lethal to Kauri. The people trying to save the massive and ancient trees in this forest come from all walks of life.
People from all over Northland (hardly a bastion of middle-classness) consistently maintain a presence at the entrance to Waipoua to ensure people wash their footwear before entering the forest. This has been going on for a number of years. This is grunt work in action.
I can’t find that one, but I saw another column saying Maori should vote National. I’m glad the tree’s still there.
Was driving my old hot rod truck to work today, and noticed a couple of cyclists out in the Chch cold wearing their hi-viz gears and their helmets.
At the lights I pondered the general lack of cyclists on the road this morning, and the debate on cycle helmets, cyclist numbers and societal obesity aided by folk travelling to work in their old hot rod trucks instead of biking. (You can ponder these things if you dont turn the wireless on in the morning)
I have also seen the massive carnage of head injuries, but the simple truth is that most of those are alcohol related – auto accidents and assaults rather than bike accidents. And politicians have demonstrated over and over (regardless of who is in power) that they will not address our alcohol issues.
So should adults have the option of travelling helmetless if they are wearing hi-viz gear? More folk biking is good for the health of the nation
Do you mean that having to wear a helmet puts people off biking?
I think the stats to compare are % of head injuries in bike accidents from before helmets were compulsory and after.
Im saying that that there may be some public health gains if adults didnt have to wear helmets, but wore safety vests instead.
The argument is out there saying that helmets put the vain of biking, (cant mess your hair up aye)
So any reduction in head injuries is the result of less adults biking, not in a similar number of cyclists having fewer serious head injuries due to wearing the helmets.
My take is that kids should wear the helmets because they arent necessarily as spatially aware as the average adult on a bike. I thought the vests I saw today stood out like dog nuts and gave us drivers fair warning of the cyclists ahead.
That makes sense, although from a public health or accident prevention perspective it might be a bit complex. We need to change the culture, and things like building every road with cyclists in mind would help.
Plan and build separately for cyclists, pedestrians, and motorists.
Absolutely! For commuting, shopping and recreation it’s a pleasure to cycle in Europe in the sunshine, safely, with just a sunhat on.
Cycling for sport might still be a problem though.
It’s too difficult to cycle in relative safety in NZ and some of the cycleways that are being put in don’t meet cyclists needs. My favourite example is Karo Drive in Wellington where the planners had decided the cycleway on a brand new road should be built to end on one side of Karo Drive and start again on the other at the Cuba Street intersection. To swap sides they’ve put a diagonal cycle crossing on an intersection between two very busy pedestrian crossings. Chaos ensues.
Also the cycleway on the SH1 Taupo bypass – I do wonder how many tourists want to bypass Taupo. Or how many Taupo residents would use it.
Wiki summarises the cycle helmet debate quite well, I think, although this article doesn’t extend road design issues.
Do the stats show a significant improvement post helmet? I wear my helmet but reluctantly.
Do what I did, wake up in the middle of the road confused and combative with an ambulance officer standing over you, my thanks once again to Colin Slaughter, telling you you’ve had an accident and because you’ve been unconscious for quite some time he couldn’t just take you straight home so best he takes you to base hospital.
Thirty something stitches to sew an ear back on, another dozen to sew up scalp lacerations, an overnight stay to observe a serious concussion, cognitive impairments lasting several months and headaches that persist thirty years on and I reckon you’ll gladly wear a helmet.
Thanks for that joe 90. Your answer is what I have felt was needed to counter this drop your helmet macho stuff. They are a nuisance but the harm to the individual from head injuries can result in differing levels of loss of function but all of much concern.
In advanced cases of damage there is also the destruction of family life and happy relationships because of the need for lifelong care for the person who is not wholely well, perhaps with violent mood swings, and the cost in health care and rehabilitation to the nation is a good reason for everybody wearing a hemet. We block out how fragile we are on bikes on roads with metal tanks zooming at our side, and the bigger vehicles that have been foisted on the country are like tanks, and in my normal car I hate their great big wide backsides blocking my horizontal view and the high back window meaning I can’t see beyond them. Cyclists can’t either.
Mine is not a call to “drop your helmet” macho stuff as you so eloquently put it.
You could say I have a vested interest” in this subject, but regardless of this, what we are dealing with is the societal cost of serious brain injury (ACC, a few years back indicated it was a $2m per accident cost).
Beyond the societal financial costs, theres the massive mess it makes for the victims life, the victims family and the victims friends. Greywarshark is on the money with his/her comments. $2m per accident is about $0.50 per person, so at a Government fiscal level, not a big deal. (Especially since we pay levies to ACC so its not directly out of the tax war chest). But its a massive deal for the family of the victim.
We also have an obesity epidemic on the horizon. And that comes out of the health budget and is out of the tax war chest, so how to we make progress on that? Putting sugary foods back into school tuck shops as the Nats did as soon as they got back into power was one of the dopiest moves I have ever seen.
In terms of societal changes to health across the population, obesity isn’t a problem so much as diabetes and other Syndrome X diseases are. Obesity itself is not a disease (it’s possible to be fat and healthy, or thin and unhealthy).
Lots of really good reasons to get more people biking, and your point about whether helmets are a disincentive is worth considering.
Good call joe90.
I grew up next to a family (the parents, kids and quite a few of the cousins) who were fanatically mad-keen competitive cyclists – both road and track. It was the local “headquarters” of the cycling club at their place so there were cyclists everywhere on weekends. Talk to anyone of them and they were 100% behind helmets for all cyclists – they experienced the roads and traffic (and crappy NZ driving), they saw the consequences of being hit by motor vehicles.
So I say suck it up NZ and keep wearing your helmets – and get alongside the road planners and as OAB says get some decent separation for cyclists, pedestrians & motorists.
Used to cycle to work. When I didn’t wear a helmet, cars definitely gave me more room when overtaking etc. Never wore a helmet as a kid. Smashed my face up once by going straight over the handlebars, (know of others who have similar tales) wrecked knees and hands etc over and again, but never, ever landed on my head coming off a bike and don’t know anyone who did.
I’d actually be interested if cyclists head injuries are caused primarily by car impacts (likely given body trajectories and vehicle shape) and then have some info on what impact those helmets take. To overstate, if the impact is going to cause you serious injury or death, do the helmets actually offer any protection? I get that they will likely lessen the injuries caused by ‘moderate’ impacts, but at what speed of impact do they become pointless? I can’t really see them doing much to protect against a head being slammed by a hunk of metal moving at 50km/h…or should that be 70km/h…30km/h?
Yes, as I understand it, most of the serious injuries are when a car or other vehicle is involved. I don’t know what the optimal speed to injury ratio is but I would think that any protection is better than none when being hit by a car no matter what the speed. I’m thinking about the effect of not just the head being hit, but the body being hit and the force afterwards when the person bounces and hits their head on something. Don’t want to go into the grisly detail particularly, but I assume there are different ways that head injuries happen not just direct car to head trauma.
There are far too many stories like this one to make me even contemplate going without a helmet.
I do recall a coroner’s report in the paper about a cyclist who rode into the back of a stopped truck and died (in a unique twist on the “cyclist vs truck” story that almost always ends very badly).
Basically, the calculated speed at impact was I think in excess of 50km/hr (long downhill run). The coroner noted that at those speeds a bike helmet isn’t a lot of use, and really a full motorcycle helmet would have been needed to give the guy a chance.
But then I also saw a cyclist do a somersault over a car bonnet, when the driver had obviously been looking for oncoming cars, not bikes. Even though the speed was relatively low, I’m glad he was wearing a helmet – I suspect it seriously reduced the paperwork associated with the incident (I think the driver was in more shock than the cyclist – the first thing she said was “this is a new car” in a tone that strongly suggested concern over scratched paintwork. But the fact she was pale and shaking and took a minute or two to get with it made me put it down to “funny shit people say in extremis”).
Yeah, Bill, I whacked the top of my head against a gutter when I came off as an unprotected lad.
Later at Uni in the late sixties, a fellow student wore a pudding basin motorcycle helmet when cycling- when asked why, he said his father was a brain surgeon. I got that message.
And later, when teaching health at secondary, I’d ask the boys whether they’d like to run flat out head first into a concrete lamp post. They got that message.
That does appear to be the case.
http://i.stuff.co.nz/national/health/10154986/Bicycle-helmet-debate-reignited
http://helmetfreedom.org/888/2-4-million-australians-put-off-their-bikes-by-helmet-laws/
Please fix the RSS feed. It was much better when it had the full story in it. Part of my day is spent outside of network access but if I cache the RSS feed I can keep up to date with the site. With it as excerpts I am behind and miss things.
One of the economic discussions now in NZ is about deflation. English is claiming the low to zero rate of inflation means that pay rises of 2% are really good pay rises.
Of course, if you’re one of the large number of low-paid living in the greater Auckland area paying rent and/or trying to save to buy a house, or paying a mortgage, that isn’t the case.
Deflation also presents problems of its own.
There always seems to be something going wrong in capitalism. Inflation is too high or too low. The dollar is too high or too low. We have a rock star economy, yet a mass of low-paid casualised workers and a chunk of workers who have zero-hour contracts. And still substantial levels of poverty.
Anyway, here’s the always-excellent Michael Roberts on the problems of deflation in economies:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/01/24/what-does-deflation-mean-for-economies/
Phil
As for how capitalism works and why, ultimately it doesn’t, here’s my little contribution:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2011/07/21/how-capitalism-works-%E2%80%93-and-doesn%E2%80%99t-work/
Here’s something I did some years ago on capitalism’s currency craziness: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2011/08/03/420/
And excellent video of Michael Roberts on Marx’s crisis theory and the world economy today: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2014/08/18/marxism-2014-michael-roberts-on-world-economy-plus-discussion-session/
Phil
Our primary production, our lifeblood keeping the nation ticking so we can have elections and afford a government. http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player/20171199
Latest on our once thriving sheep and beef farming from Radionz.
Crunch time for sheep and beef farms: report ( 28′ 56″ )
09:08 Farmers say the 8 billion dollar sheep and beef industry is approaching crisis point, and a single cooperative business model similar to Fonterra is the only way forward. Meat Industry Excellence group chairman, John McCarthy and Murray Taggart is Chair of the Alliance Group.
That was an interesting discussion. What I’d be interested to know though is whether or not farmers felt better off when we had the old ‘meat producer’s’ board, before the dereg mantra kicked in during the 80’s, etc.
I’m thinking that at present, Alliance and ?? are merely gigantic ticket clippers and that a more co-op system would be better.
I’m no expert on this issue but it troubles me that the actual producers seem to be getting little return, and the NZ public generally are being ripped (with shit meat sold thru’ supermarkets, pumped with water, etc.)
What are your thoughts?
A sideline – an interesting thing is that the butchers in supermarkets in Nelson get most of their meat precutup in Christchurch. Just another way that food is being prepared using factory processes and trucked a long way.
I wonder too about the advantages of a co-op. It was tried a while ago, to have more synergy with companies but failed to get the big tick. I think it may be that some of the sheep farmers are doing all right and don’t give a rats arse about any other producers. Now that rudeness might be undeserved but that sort of thing happens. The magnetic attraction to one’s own interests entirely is often irresistible.
IMO the best way is probably to have two companies, one a farmer-owned co-operative, and the other a privately owned/listed company. Two competing systems.
NORTHLAND BY-ELECTION WATCH: [or is it BI/BRIBE/BUY/BYE election watch?]
Winston is trying to win this by-election ALL BY HIMSELF and his bus, while a bridgeload of mustered Nats have been continuously descending on Northland day after day at tax payer’s expense of travel and time to beat the wise old man.
It would be interesting to see how many Nat Cabinet ministers, MPs and others have been here or will be here in pathetic panic state to pump up their own O for awesome candidate and beat Winny.
Here is my list so far. Please add to this list if you know of others:
How many Nats does it take to beat an old man?
1. John Key
2. M Osborne
3. Steven Joyce
4. Simon Bridges
5. Maggie Barry.
6. ?
I have just re-posted/transferred this comment to the new post below :
Saturday morning at Kaitaia Market with Maggie Barry were (6) Nikki Kaye and (7) Alfred Ngaro, all flanking Osbourne.
Supported by Ministers free accommodation and travel All on the taxpayers teet.
National digging a deeper hole by the day.
@Clem
When you look at that list Winston may as well stop campaigning now-it’s in the bag!
You can add Bill English to that list. Apparently he’s dropped everything to make a hurried visit.
Bureaucrats everywhere: http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/9741839/Parker-criticises-Dalziel-over-staff-spending
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/03/16/the-melting-of-antarctica-was-already-really-bad-it-just-got-worse/
What it means to discover that warmer ocean currents actually flow beneath Antarctica’s ice shelves and are melting them from beneath …. sigh.
Someone has been giving Chris Trotter the good Bikkies.
Two fine pieces from Chris I must say.
Enjoy
http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.co.nz/2015/03/inflation-is-defeated-but-at-whose.html
http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.co.nz/2015/03/empire-games-how-nicky-hagers.html
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11418586
I know the PM was a big successful money trader and is super clever with numbers and knows this stuff better than I do, but I thought 15% of $1.29 was 20c not 2c 😕
“If you think about iTunes, you download a song and it’s $1.29, there’s no reason why GST shouldn’t apply to that.
“In reality, GST would be 2 cents. But actually, 2 cents over a massive number of transactions still add up.”
you will note from his second comment, it was not a typo by the reporter
explains a lot about our current economy then !!!
What a shock! They have since edited the article. It now says this:
“While the GST on some online goods and services would be very small, such as on a $1.29 iTunes song download, it could still be worth pursuing because of the scale of such purchases, Mr Key said.”
(Forgot to do a screengrab of the original)
they protect him down to his undies, don’t they !!!
If a member of the opposition had said it, can you imagine what the NZH front page would look like right now 🙂
Instead of “Key Cocks Up Calculations” it would be “Labour Minister Fails Simple Math Tests and Costs Country Millions in Tax Take”.
oh dear, freedom .. wish this were not true !
lol, ok, but Key’s cockups and undies protection in close proximity is probably a bit much at this time of day. Or any time really.
@Freedom — but TV3 has just broadcast the full thing on 6 pm news .. and pointing out Key’s mistake !@!
Backgrounder in Guardian about Lynton Crosby .. The Lizard of Oz !
Seems for all his hard and dubious ( or do I mean odious?) work, Cameron is not a shoo in after all … shades of NZ …
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/mar/16/lynton-crosby-win-election-conservatives-tories-political-strategist
good luck to the Scottish National Party. UK Labour, not so much.
CR
I like this author of books about policy and procedure and colleges and skulduggery. She often writes about Ireland and comes up with good fiction. And in the way of the saying that ‘you couldn’t make this shit up’ about reality, she probably is very good with reality too.
Ruth Dudley Edwards writes on the possibility if Scottish Nationalism wins of them going through a blue period as it sorts out allegiances and over-reacts to opposition.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scottish-independence/11084603/Scotland-should-heed-a-harsh-lesson-from-across-the-Irish-Sea.html
Ahhh thanks for the link
and this .. he is owner of a Maltese tax haven company !!!
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/oct/03/tory-lynton-crosby-linked-tax-haven
I liked this from rawsharkyeshe No.15 article from The Guardian 16 March 2015 –
– Ed Miliband called Cameron the “Prime minister for Benson and Hedge funds”. –
This Crosby is a devious machine. And the comment on the hardness of Australian politics probably explains why Crosby and Mark Textor are both Australians.
Background to their start in Oz:
Still in his 30s, Crosby was promoted to deputy director and then director of the national party. There he worked with another rising and aggressive Liberal player, Mark Textor. Textor had taken Rod Cameron’s innovations with voter data and focus groups further, creating two archetypal swing voters, an imaginary middle-income couple called Phil and Jenny. The concept became so influential that during the 1996 national election, Liberal candidates would be asked by the campaign managers: “Have you spoken to Phil and Jenny lately?”
After 13 years out of power, the Liberals won. They won again in 1998, in 2001, and 2004. Significantly for the current British election, the Liberals often attracted fewer votes than Labor, usually not much more than 35% of the total, but these were decisively concentrated in marginal seats. “At its absolute simplest, a campaign is finding out who will decide the outcome,” Crosby said in a rare public masterclass he gave for charity in London in 2013, “where are they, what matters to them and how do you reach them?”
He played a central role in all four Liberal victories. The Liberal leader, John Howard, was uncharismatic but shrewd, and listened closely to Crosby. “Elsewhere in the party,” says Mills, Crosby became “somewhat feared and disliked”….
In Britain:
The Australian’s energy and attention to detail, his air of conviction, and his emphasis on the traditional rightwing issues of crime and immigration all won him rave reviews in the Tory press…..
The item relates how he cut and hacked at Livintone ending by Boris Johnson winning as Mayor for London. It finishes by saying that Crosby has to prove himself in the coming British elections. For the sake of his business standing it seems more important for his own standing that David Cameron wins for the Tories.
The British general election is on May 7, 2015.
It also explains why we have the tobacco industry candidates here, doesn’t it ?
Some “left wing” politicians in NZ would be quite tempted to get campaign advice from these right wing spiders. Some already appear to have.
Is it possible sometime to have a discussion about the lamentable habit of some posters to The Standard bastardising other commenters noms de plume.
I don’t personally care how much I personally disagree with a commenter, I have to respect their right to comment and to reflect their chosen ‘nick’ in my comments. I do admit to using abbreviations from time to time.
This is just the latest comment to raise my ire and, I admit, I am perhaps being unfair to single this out but here is a response to Te Reo Putake
‘Another crap article from Pistake. The Standard eh well if this is supposed to be “the standard” of articles the that the standard will put up with then it might be time to instigate a new standard, actually that kinda has a ring to it, “The New Standard” Great diversion tactic Pistake and if you happen to read this and I’m sure you will as your MO seems to dictate such YOU know exactly what I mean.’
If I am old fashioned and out of step, so be it, but can’t we disagree courteously?
I’m with you on that Hateatea. Some, eg those aimed at Fisiani, get pretty tedious and just distract from what is being said (I also think denigrating people via certain body parts adds to our culture’s body hatred but that’s another conversation).
I haven’t noticed whether people do this with real life names or if it’s only the pseudonyms (I suspect the latter). I take people’s names (ID or pseudonym) as extentions of the person so being mean via bastardisation is just a low form of wit that takes us into macho shithead territory pretty fast. I’m sure the defense is that Fisi and others deserve it because of their politics, but I think it will be putting other people off from commenting here and just adds to the culture of meanness unnecessarily.
(the irony of the Pistake commenter was that their comment was almost completely devoid of anything useful).
Yes, the fisiani example is particularly unpleasant, IMO. Not that I am pretending to be prudish. I can be both coarse and vulgar but seldom in public and never, I hope, in print!
I think that some of the verbal put downs do detract from discussion and probably do put people off. I did have to think seriously before I returned to commenting here again because of some of the discussions I read while lurking.
I am glad you have returned. The place will only change if enough people practice communicating well, but I get that sometimes it’s just not worth it.
I know it’s a challenge for me, I find it easy to get into the rude bordering on mean stuff. One of the reasons I like being here at the moment is I get to practice being more tolerant in the face of sometimes extreme provocation 😉
I did however notice recently that in real life I am more likely to argue with people like I do on ts. I’m not sure what I think about this yet. Am steering away from the overly challenging, but am liking my increased capacity to be staunch.
It is similar to the electoral process : you have to participate and vote in order to be able to comment on the outcome, in my opinion. Likewise a person needs to articulate their viewpoint to the best of their ability and hope to receive affirmation or negation from a reasoned response. Sadly, sometimes we all of us post in haste and repent at leisure 😉
I am glad if you are finding your input here is helping you in the real world. I may not always see things the way you do but I respect the manner in which you articulate your thoughts.
@ hateatea
You are unlikely to get brash rudeness here because you are thoughtful about your subjects and you are not repeating provocative comments that cut across the heart of what most of us feel fervently about.
Some people don’t realise that this is a lively forum for people with progressive viewpoints which does not take kindly to them dissing all that the Standardistas believe. Those who do it are sooner or later going to be villified, insulted and unfortunately, not sent to Coventry. People get annoyed and write something to match, or they feel forced to try and present a reasonable argument to the BS they are reading.
Reasonable politeness is received usually but sometimes the comments can be challenging. It’s not a gentle, quiet, meditative retreat. President Putin wouldn’t have come here to relax. But if you want to be safe from the over-excited, the Friday post of the Weekend doings is nice. People talk about the soothing personally useful things they are doing, and smile.
Things have improved recently but I agree with you Hateatea that discussions should be respectful although I have perhaps in the past not lived up to that standard 😀
We are none of us perfect, mickey 😀
come on micky, you’d be one of the leading examples of tolerance and reasonable discussion 😛 I can’t imagine you doing rude or mean (although I feel you could cut a certain beigity less slack).
The problem for me Hateatea is some on the right just attack, or argue in a very disingenuous manner.
Those little epigone to the slug and his mate the lick-spittle propagandist from kiwiblog – have done nothing on this site to earn my respect.
Personally I do deteriorate to a personal attack. Especially in the face of fatuous individuals.
Also, Tory scum, need to reminded the left have a backbone and won’t tolerate – hate, racism, sexism and the sickening devotion to cupidity.
David Fisher is brave and an excellent journalist:
“Analysis: The questions the Government must answer about the Snowden revelations……Can we tell the public what the British public now know to be true about their own security agencies? asks David Fisher?”
If only!
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11418653
“Fish” is one of NZ’s leading journalists on this subject matter, no doubt about that.
Yep and he did the mea culpa about Slater very early on. His stuff is always worth a read.
And here is the foreign news – a small but important bit:
http://rt.com/news/241069-putin-rumours-back-alive/
Dated 16 March 2015
‘It’s boring without rumors’: Putin appears in public after week of MSM hysteria
Lots of questions regarding where the heck he “disappeared” to. One which made sense to me said that he had decided to do a few days religious retreat and put matters of state on hold while he recharged and reviewed.
Are you sure you would describe it as a “religious retreat”?
It really is absurd when you think about it. He had a 10 day break. So bloody what? It isn’t a crime to decide you need a break unless of course you are the Russian president…
then you have to do it in secret because your opponents – particularly in the West – will have a collective heart attack and go into a hyperactive state of hysteria.
That Putin was on the way out, either feet first or by a coup of inner circle generals, was probably wishful thinking on the part of a few western opinion makers…
Green Party mail out for members on how the leadership selection process works (no online link, so a long cut and paste sorry).
Very informative thanks Weka for getting that together.
You’re welcome. I’m please to see the GP upping their game on transparency and process 🙂
Yes good to see. A Party to be proud of.
In Question Time today Key lead a reply to Russell’s question with a smart list of the fiscal facts that the Green contenders messed up on. (He had to read the list though.) Okay then. He had a second swipe a little later. OK smarty pants.
But wait. When Key was questioned by reporters tonight about GST on imported goods he said that as an example it would be silly to claim GST off an ITune download costing $1.79 because GST would only be—–wait for it—- about 2 cents.
What!!! Expert smarty pants. It would be about 26cents!
Hope Question Time gets a dig at Key tomorrow re his slip up in view of his Green digs, and to ask about Osbourne deciding the 10 one way bridges for about $70million but unable to name them, though he knew the name of the one near his house.
What goes around comes around.
If slippery has his way on the TPP we’ll be in the same boat.
The U.S. economy is picking up steam but most Americans aren’t feeling it. By contrast, most European economies are still in bad shape, but most Europeans are doing relatively well.
What’s behind this? Two big facts.
First, American corporations exert far more political influence in the United States than their counterparts exert in their own countries.
In fact, most Americans have no influence at all. That’s the conclusion of Professors Martin Gilens of Princeton and Benjamin Page of Northwestern University, who analyzed 1,799 policy issues — and found that “the preferences of the average American appear to have only a miniscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.”
Instead, American lawmakers respond to the demands of wealthy individuals (typically corporate executives and Wall Street moguls) and of big corporations – those with the most lobbying prowess and deepest pockets to bankroll campaigns.
The second fact is most big American corporations have no particular allegiance to America. They don’t want Americans to have better wages. Their only allegiance and responsibility to their shareholders — which often requires lower wages to fuel larger profits and higher share prices.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/03/robert-reich-why-americans-are-screwed-and-europeans-are-not/
That would be a hilarious statement, if it wasn’t so tragic.
I’ve just caught up with Wilson’s emerging Kiwi Regional Airlines which will be hatching soonish.
Here’s a link about small airlines and this one, and has an intereting shot of a small plane coming into land in front of high rise housing fairly dense.
http://3rdlevelnz.blogspot.co.nz/2015/01/kiwi-regional-airlines.html
Anyone got an opinion as to whether this housing would be good to live in, seem close? Is it the type of housing that should be available for small families and singles near town and small manufacturing hubs with public transport running near, just one, two streets away.?
I think the quality of life experienced in housing (that is well built and healthy, rather than shoddy and damp) does not rely solely on density, but includes the strength of connections to others, services, amenities and vibrant community spaces (and in NZ, access to natural environments if possible).
An interesting programme to watch is Kevin McCloud’s Slumming It. He visits the slum of Dharavi in Mumbai, as it has recently been cited as a “model community” even though it is built on waste ground including dump sites, and raw sewage ponds.
Those that live there have created an amazingly diverse and resilient community in such a small area – according to Wikipedia, the most densely populated area in the world.
Yes Molly they might enjoy it and do well with it. But we come from a different culture and have different expectations. It is interesting to store the knowledge of the ability of providing necessities in dense communities and the residents can maintain basic standards and stability. They have shown resilience in their place. We need to design one that allows us to manage our lives in our country and culture.
There have been thoughts that have probably not been well developed by government about how we could manage our living conditions better. I remember Dr Morgan Williams when he was Commissioner for the Environment talking about the way that a South American city Curitiba had acted to keep their city a good livable place.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/ED0207/S00050/master-plan-urged-for-urban-sustainability.htm
Curitiba improved the conditions in their slums by working with the people. If they collected garbage and handed it in, they were rewarded with food such as eggs not money. It made a big difference to the place, helped the nutrition of the poor and raised community concern for better, more pleasant surroundings.
http://www.rnzih.org.nz/pages/AbstractMorganWilliams.htm
This is a very interesting range of Bills in Parliament today.
http://www.parliament.nz/resource/en-nz/00HOHOrderPaper_20150318/46bded522d1e4699f0448e89d8141b257533723a
There are programmes in the Auckland Council re giving communities a say in how their locales are developed, but not every Local Board has adopted them.
Thriving Communities is one, a village planning programme is another.
I suspect that I am agreeing with you, that local knowledge and input creates a more resilient and connected community. Unless specific commitments to encouraging this happen in NZ, we will continue to have a patchwork approach to housing and community building.
I’d quite happily live in one of those. They look like they even have room for a garden, and there’s bush nearby. I really prefer to sharing communal space with others to having a huge private yard.
Thought that this talk by Robert Reich on why the tax cuts for the rich and austerity economics is bad for society would be of interest to the Standard readers.
http://www.socialeurope.eu/2015/03/the-3-biggest-economic-myths/
Well spotted – I reckon you should repost on today’s open mike.
Very relevant and sadly so true irascible. Yes worth a wider audience.