I see the drum beat on comments sections, Facebook and Twitter seems to be increasing about shutting the border entirely.
I posted this on OM late last night but thought it could be a good discussion point.
While there are certainly problems in restricting citizens rights to return back to their country of citizenship, NZ could stop entry to NZ by permanent resident visa holders – say those that were not in NZ for longer than 6 months prior to February 2020. PRVs have citizenship of another country so will not be stateless. I understand that around 40,000 people who have come through MiQ are just PRVs – not citizens.
Then again, Samoa shut it's borders to it's citizens for a lengthy period. One could argue that there is a justifiable limitation (protecting the health of the remaining population) on restricting the ability of citizens to come back.
One way of doing it would be to shut the borders to all unless they have a real and genuine desire to permanently relocate to NZ. That would get rid of the rich who just want to fly in for a few months before leaving again. There could be exemptions granted for those who need to come in on a temporary basis i.e. funerals/dying relatives but with the increased risk of infection I can't see people being allowed to leave MIQ early to go to funerals etc… As it stands, I'm happy with film and tv coming to NZ as that does have a beneficial effect for our screen industry – but no more blimming tax breaks!
I'm very annoyed at the likes of the pizza owner published in Stuff who's come back to NZ "for a break from USA" and criticising our Covid response without actually recognising he's putting our Covid response at risk. Those people would be capture by the "no entry unless you're permanently settling"
I would define permanent as being in NZ for longer than 12 months. And make them pay for their MIQ before they leave NZ.
Would probably need to do an OIA to MBIE to find out the information about PRVs. In any event, if they've been out of NZ for longer than 6 months, even 12, it's clear they haven't got a life here. They're a citizen of another country so we'd be perfectly at right to place a temporary ban on their entry to NZ being a justifiable limitation of the suspension of their entry allowance under the immigration act. The NZ Bill of Rights only allows free movement to citizens. Permanent residents are not citizens.
As for film/tv makers – they're directly employing many people in the screen industry in NZ. I'd rather that happen than the govt providing endless subsidies like they are to tourism operators who need to, in the true capitalist sense, adapt or die. Tv and film makers keep NZ workers employed. People like Pizza Guy coming in for 92 days to get shits and giggles for "a break from the USA" do not help to keep people employed in the same manner. Unless you're coming to NZ on a relocation basis or to directly provide jobs i.e. film/tv (and such groups must pay for their MIQ stay) , I think we should close our borders to everyone else particularly those coming for shits and giggles.
We need a royal commission into our broken immigration system, a huge number of visas are fraudulent, but I suppose that big biz enjoys wage suppression and exploitation. The govt should have clamped down on this shit years ago.
I do not think it's at all coincidence that the "pathway to residency" that National put in place for students coming to NZ to study low value degrees from 1999 subsequently saw a massive increase in house prices from 2002. That policy setting then allowed students to bring their parents over and the rest of their family. Likely that 2002 saw the boom in house prices because overseas students realised Labour wasn't going to change the policy settings so started buying up houses for their extended family.
NZ shouldn't be providing pathways to residency for students imo. It should only be for the high skills we actually need – doctors, dentists, nurses, etc. We certainly do not need any more exploited immigrants in alcohol stores. Those jobs can easily be done by people already in New Zealand.
I’ve made an attempt at collating data from various sources; there are others with further breakdowns of Visa approvals, et cetera. I’ve not bothered with MIQ stats, but I assume most arrivals will now go through MIQ anyway. Somebody else can dig these out, if they want, and try match these to the data below 😉
At least, it gives you a rough idea of what’s been happening.
Edit: Arrivals for the selected visa types, excluding those who are not issued a visa at the border (mostly New Zealand nationals) and those who are refused entry.
Obviously, these are not New Zealand citizens and permanent residents.
Residents are people who require and are entitled to a NZ Residence Visa.
The last column is the difference between Total Arrivals and Total Visas (i.e. the specified categories in the other columns) and is therefore “mostly New Zealand nationals”.
I thought when they were saying NZers could come home they were actually meaning NZ born people , not people holding two passports , one of them a NZ.passport.
I would now really like to know who has been and who is coming into this country through quarantine.
There have been 500,000 permanent resident visas issued since 2015. Who knows how many more before then. I am unable to find that data, just as I am unable to find data that specifies how many of those PRV holders actually reside in New Zealand.
NZ is the only country that does not require a PRV to be renewed every 2 – 3 years, with evidence to be supplied that you are living in NZ to be eligible for renewal. It is my suspicion that many PRVs get the visa, then bugger off back to their own home country and come to NZ for free healthcare, and/or come back at 59 years old for the minimum 5 years living in NZ to be eligible for National Superannuation.
As I said earlier, there have been tens of thousands of PRVs through MIQ since April 2020. I don’t know how many of them actually live in NZ or are coming here because their country of citizenship is a shit show with the virus running rampant wherever they might have come from.
It should be citizens only, and those PRVs who actually live here and have evidence they lived here within the 6 month period preceding March 2020.
The MBIE Migration Data Explorer has the information (https://mbienz.shinyapps.io/migration_data_explorer/ ) back to 2010, albeit needs a bit of knowledge to use it. Specifically, arrival and departure data from Customs states Resident Visa for all residence class visas other than Australians (who are captured and listed separately), but for INZ application data, Permanent Resident Visa (PRV) applications are reported separately from other residence class visas as Returning Residence Visa in the application categories (this relates to the visa framework in the Immigration Act). This category also includes Variation of Travel Conditions applications, so requires some drilling to get PRV numbers.
According to that, there were 132,237 resident visa holders and 261,867 Australians who arrived in the 2020 calendar year, down from 491,451 and 1,131,450 respectively in 2019. Most of them arrived by 31 March 2020, as the average after that was less than 2,000 residents per month and 500 Australians. In total, from 1 April 2020 – 31 December 2020, 13,974 residents and 3,939 Australians arrived, for a total of 17,913 people with residence class visas through one process or another. It was already known through arrival cards that most Australians were visitors, but this really cements that understanding. It's technically "tens of thousands", albeit slightly less than 1.8 tens of thousands.
A total of 493,527 resident visas were approved in the 10 years from 1 Jan 2011 to 31 Dec 2020, of whom 397,926 were onshore i.e. in NZ, so most of them were already here via temporary visas.
Separately from that, 403,698 PRVs were approved in the same time period, of whom 389,679 were onshore i.e. in NZ and 12,192 were not.
To clarify something, the Immigration Act sets out a few things for residence:
There are three classes of visa, residence class, temporary entry class and transit visas.
Residence class visas includes resident visas and permanent resident visas, with PRVs usually following resident visas. Prior to the current Act, PR was a nickname for standard residence because returning resident visa (RRV) was what people with residence got next, so this terminology can easily confuse people. The most common criteria for obtaining PRV is holding a resident visa for 2 years and some level of presence in NZ during that 2 years, although there are some other options/requirements depending on category residence was originally obtained under. The main difference between them is that a resident visa can expire while the holders are outside NZ (but never in NZ), while PRVs never expire regardless of presence (or not) in NZ.
The holder of a PRV and the holder of a resident visa granted in New Zealand and the holder of a resident visa arriving in New Zealand for a second or subsequent time as the holder of the visa can't be refused entry, so any changes to this would require legislation.
In terms of data for current residence class visa holders in NZ, nobody really knows because large numbers of them predate current computerised records which date back to the late 80s, and even the current system itself, as residence used to be granted on arrival, so a lot of older residents just have a stamp in a passport from when they arrived which could be 50+ years ago, and no other interaction with INZ to have them appear in the INZ computer system.
If you have a NZ passport, that's it. Restricting it to "NZ born" opens a whole other can of worms.
But, with the exception of one or two billionaires that have been reported in the news, getting a NZ passport seems to require a decent level of residence in NZ.
No it doesn,t . I know a couple of teenagers who came to NZ around 2005 to study at our tertiary institutions , ended up with jobs then residency in NZ which "qualified" the parents to become resident in NZ. However they decided to stay in their own country for many years. They moved to NZ early this year !
Fair call – was confusing citizenship with passport.
Not sure on what basis parents get residency or permanent residency, or hold it. But if they hold it, fair enough: they should still be allowed in. If we got lax about who we issue our diplomatic protection to, that's our fault.
Bernie Sanders as Chair of Senate Budget Committee is sure going to tie a few Republican Senator knickers in a knot. In particular Sr Linsey Graham who would have got the job were it not for the Democrats gaining the Georgia two.
The Senate Budget Committee is not an important one. The real powerhouses in the area are the Appropriations Committee and the Finance Committee. Sanders won't have much influence if the becomes the Budget Chairman.
The Senate Committees are split into classes A, B and C.
The A ones have the real power and among them Appropriations, Armed Service, Foreign Affairs and Finance are the most important. See the comment at the bottom of page 4 in the link which notes.
"One such rule generally prohibits any Republican from serving on more than one of the “Super A,” or “big four” category “A,” committees: Appropriations, Armed Services, Finance, and Foreign Relations".
The Democrats have a similar rule.
Budget is a class B, along with committees like Veterans Affairs. They aren't really that important.
I guess that I can only refer you to the reply by Mandy Rice-Davies to the lawyer questioning her in the Ward trial. The question, and the supposed answer about her claimed affair with Lord Astor have been quoted ever since as.
"Do you know Lord Astor has made a statement to the police saying that these allegations of yours are absolutely untrue? – He would, wouldn't he?"
I say supposed because the question of what exactly she said has been debated for almost 60 years.
Lindsey Graham and the Republicans were trying keep control of the Senate. Sander was, gasp, horror, a Socialist. Would Graham try and frighten the voters? "He would, wouldn't he"
It doesn't make the Committee any more important though does it? And I really doubt that Graham would have bothered to take the chairmanship. He was already on Appropriations and Foreign Relations and Chairman of the Judiciary Committee. Sure he was (is?) on Budget but I'll bet he doesn't see that as the highlight of his career.
By the way, I omitted one little item I had meant to talk about.
The rules of the Senate only allow a Senator to Chair one Committee.
Do you really think he would have given up the Chairmanship of Judiciary, which is responsible for the appointment of all Federal Judges up to and including the Supreme Court so that he could be the Chair of the grade B Budget Committee?
You will of course have noted that he is on 3 of the class A Committees although the rules only allow 2. That was to allow the party who control the Senate to have a majority on any Committee. He will have to give up one of the 3 class A's he is on now that the Democrats control the Senate.
However, it doesn't really affect my opinion. He would never have given up the Chair of Judiciary to run Budget. Could you imagine Grant giving up Minister of Finance so he could take over Food Safety?
Edit. I see I was just expanding on the topic when you put your query in. Does it explain why I don’t think he really meant hat he was saying?
I’m suitably impressed how you can turn a simple answer to one of the questions you posed @ 3.1.1.1 into a strip show of intellectual prowess and pride. Even by your standards, that was quite an achievement, I have to admit. Obviously, I cannot mind-read Senator Lindsey Graham when he tweeted that almost a month before the US Elections because my Tardis is at the panel beaters. But thank you so much; your explanation was more than illuminating. In fact, it was quite telling.
Well, I admit I did assume that when you commented on the proposed actions of a US Senator you actually understood why the rules of the Senate made what he said a most unlikely event.
Next time I won't make any assumptions at all about your knowledge about the topic under discussion. I will keep it down to the absolutely basic principles and keep in mind that you may not know anything about the matter at hand.
I’ve seen this film before — and I didn’t like the ending.
Violence roiling a society. Soldiers on the streets. Lawmakers in fear that their colleagues will conspire to harm them.
The insurrectionary violence of Jan. 6 ripped away an assurance that many Americans felt — that such strife occurs in other places, not here.
Those of us who come from some other places feel a painful thud of familiarity and a growing dread of what may be to come.
I was born in Belfast in 1974.
[…]
In some ways, the contours of The Troubles are very different from the current American moment. Rival national identities and naked religious sectarianism loomed large.
But there are huge and ominous similarities.
The biggest is a grim equation that holds true everywhere — incendiary words lead to incendiary deeds.
During my youth, the most dangerous demagogue was the late Rev. Ian Paisley.
Paisley was a fundamentalist Protestant preacher and an ambitious politician.
His appeal was built on three often-repeated claims: the majority Protestant population of Northern Ireland was being undercut by a subversive minority; the “plain people” were being sold out by a traitorous establishment elite; and he alone could save them.
Secondly, any profitability entirely depends on the price of aluminium – which has been going up and down like a yo-yo for decades – but on a general downward trend.
Thirdly, that just means that Rio Tinto is making a profit on the deal – not that New Zealand, or the power companies are. That is why what the Meridian boss actually said was
But Barclay said the new price at which Meridian had agreed to supply the smelter was “not sustainable” and indicated he was optimistic Meridian could find higher-paying customers for its power in the interim.
The smelter had no automatic right to buy electricity from Meridian beyond 2024, he made clear.
Essentially because the TransPower lines aren’t in place to move power northward, they’re giving a good price so they don’t spill water.
Fourthly, the smelter is still in negotiation with the government on their contributions to the overall power network (ie Transpower) and it is entirely possible that if those break down, as there is good possibility that they will because it appears that they are asking for a free lunch, then Rio Tinto will just start doing this crap again.
Basically the smelter is a dying profitless business for NZ that permanently has its hand out for welfare.
secondly..they have shaved $100 million off their energy costs…
energy costs that if owned by us essentially would/could not exist..
(making it an even more 'very profitable' enterprise..you'd think..?.)
thirdly..no argument there..you note the deal makes it more profitable for rio tinto…which would be for nz..if we owned it..which just strengthens my case for this option to be considered…not thought of as unthinkable..by all the players..
..which I think is selling nz short…
fourthly…of course rio tinto will continue with this hustle…it works so well for them ..
I am suggesting the gummint show some interest in a voluntary nationalisation of tiwai by rio tinto ….
and a willingness for rio tinto to just piss off..to call them on their bluff bluff..
if nothing else..it could stop rio tinto running that 'threaten to leave' hustle…
There are more efficient smelters now in nations closer to the end-customers. Why would NZ want to buy this old one? We do not even have the main ingredient here.
There are more efficient smelters now in nations closer to the end-customers.
It's my understanding that the cost of electricity still outweighs these factors considerably. A newer smelter would have to be a lot more efficient to make much difference, and shipping is cheap.
The big differentiator in terms of end product is the high purity technical grades produced at Bluff, which is probably expensive to replicate elsewhere.
Still I'd agree that Bluff is probably not a good investment for the NZ govt to buy. It would lack connection and expertise in the industry, and more importantly the carbon free advantage of cheap Manapouri electricity is about to disappear in the next decade.
Wait until Rio wake up and decide that vertically integrating into SMR's or renewables makes sense for them.
I'm sure the experience can be hired to run the smelter; but an entity like Rio has enormous industry connections, market knowledge and influence that the NZ govt could never achieve.
Having worked around big heavy industry most of my life I'm aware of, but by no means well informed, of what it takes to make multi-billion dollar investments work. And even then they run into big trouble from time to time.
I'm not saying it couldn't be done (Norway's Statoil is a good example), but this has to be one of the reasons why nationalised industries typically don't have a stellar record; the people and competency factor falls short.
Now, just as an exercise, how about going and finding out what the actual facts are about what Alaska pays to its citizens.
Then have a good think about how well the facts match to what you've asserted here. (hint: sorta kinda matches is being generous)
Now have a ponder about why you get … robust responses … from those of us that are somewhat more fact and evidence oriented.
Then maybe you should go and actually check the accuracy of some of the other things you have asserted as fact today and been challenged on, and you haven't yet backed up.
Then there was that instance when you were moderated by weka about your alleged cover-ups by Dr Bloomfield: https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-15-01-2021/#comment-1774773. Your response was less than satisfactory IMO, but weka let you off the hook and or hasn’t yet seen it. Just as well, because I’d have banned just for that inadequate response to a moderation request!
Today, between all the gibberish that you’ve been spouting and noise that you’ve been generating here partly because of your astonishingly poor reading comprehension, you asserted that they [??] got 19,000 votes at the last election. After a few root-canal trips I managed to extract out of you that you were referring to the party led by Billy TK. But still no link 🙁
You stated:
it is in my head from the widely published election results..
…
the billy t.k./trumpist party got about 19,000 votes..
I’m sure it is ‘in your head’ and that you believe the number to be reasonably close. However, that doesn’t make it true and accurate. Here’s a link, one that I’ve asked you to provide numerous times: https://electionresults.govt.nz/electionresults_2020/. Now, go and update the figure ‘in your head’.
Lastly, for now, Andre challenged you to fact-check your “alaskan example”: https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-18-01-2021/#comment-1775075. Of course, in your typical idiosyncratic style of poor wee hard-done-by victim, you flipped your lid and shared a whole lot of orifice plucks with us. Belatedly, you provided a “correction”, but still no link 🙁
You claim that a moderator [??] owes you an apology. You claim that you’re treated unreasonably. You claim that we should be satisfied with the orifice plucks inside your head and your ‘common sense’. You claim that links are not needed because it’s all “year ww2 ended territory”.
I disagree.
This is your last final last warning to stop with this nonsense and lift your game here or bugger off for a while. Don’t reply with another tear-jerker rant; just lift your game – Incognito]
@solkta: well, aluminium is often called "solid electricity", so yes it is exported in that form. It just doesn't make sense to export electricity at a wildly discounted price when we've got much better uses for it here.
Oh good, you are actually capable of checking facts. What did it say about the intent of the fund and how much of the oil permit revenue went into it?
Now, try making a habit of fact-checking before posting. Then you might not come across as quite so much of a substance-addled wastrel rambling out half-remembered factoids that might or might not be relevant to the thread or comment you're replying to.
I’m sure Phil’s degree is real and that his thesis was nothing like his comments here. I don’t care whether he’s the Queen of Sheba; what I care about is how people comment here and conduct themselves on TS. Even ex-Ministers with PhD degrees are given a hard time here when they deserve it and a ban when they overstep the line.
It won't be particularly difficult to produce the high purity elsewhere. There's nothing special about the equipment or electricity supply at Tiwai, it's simply what they choose to do in the process, particularly the anodes, that results in the high purity. Which is likely why the high purity gets very little premium pricing.
There certainly are efforts underway in making smelting more amenable to variable energy supply from renewables. One such effort is Energia Potior (at least partly a spin-off from Auckland University), which is a cooling/insulating system for the pots which allows them to vary production by +/-30% from nominal (compared to +/-5% from nominal for conventional pots)
Great environmental logic – Import tropical strip mined bauxite, use huge amounts of energy to make aluminium, then export it back off shore. Carbon footprint much?
Using that logic, you've made a similar case for meat and dairy exports (and they don’t even have to import cows or sheep), in that if it makes money, and farms being a revenue generating asset, it's okay.
I'd want to see the relative footprint if the bauxite were processed by a coal or gas electric plant before making that argument.
I mean now if we were building a smelter from scratch, sure have it somewhere between the mine and the aluminium users, and maybe use solar or whatever other renewables were between the two points.
But fifty years ago hydro from West coast rainfall was probably the greenest option out.
Thing is, Tiwai is sucking the clean juice that could be going to shutting down Huntly. As well as inhibiting the build-out of more new renewables. Who is going to invest in new generation when there's the threat of a sudden massive oversupply at any moment from shutting Tiwai?
So as far as I'm concerned, it's entirely fair to consider our emissions from Huntly to be because of Tiwai. So shutting Tiwai which allows shutting Huntly, and that smelting getting replaced by coal fired electricity elsewhere would just be a wash in terms of global emissions.
And that’s the worst case, the aluminium industry is quite conscious of their emissions and prefer to be able to trumpet clean sourcing. Hence their interest in Canada and Iceland for smelting.
There wasn't a hydro plant close until they built Manapouri.
That's my point – if they were building a new smelter now, fair call on the emissions issue. But keeping this one running might be a better-footprint call than building a new and more efficient one somewhere else,
I agree with you re: keeping this smelter might have an overall better footprint than building new closer to another energy source. I missed the point.
But either option would still involve importing mined materials, using large amounts of energy, and exporting it to turn a dollar. I think, as a wannabe green nation, that's not in our best interest.
If it were renewable energy, and we still didn’t burn coal or gas, then it may become more attractive.
If our government is going to invest in anything in that part of the country, I'd rather it was submarine cable infrastructure to connect data centres and associated high-value businesses using Manapouri electricity to the world. Looks like even those cables are being built by the private sector already..
It's not just aluminium price that controls profitability of course – Tiwai, having no red mud cycle, is a price taker in the alumina market. As an internal customer of a very large mining conglomerate, they pay whatever minimizes their tax liability or otherwise improves the company's overall position. This is why NZ can't just nationalise it – the price of alumina would 'magically' increase.
Or you could say that Rio have been smart enough to play their position as a monopoly buyer just as long as successive NZ govts failed to build sufficient transmission capacity to the rest of the market.
Manapouri is after all in a pretty remote spot, far from the bulk of the demand in the NI. And until very recently the economic case for building new transmission lines, vs the cost of losing Southland's most valuable employer was probably pretty marginal.
If the ground really has shifted, then it's up to the govt to make it's case, make the investment and then take their new negotiating position to Rio and see what happens.
The grid upgrade to get Manapouri power to the southern end of the HVDC link is already underway and should be complete sometime in 2023. So by December 2024, Meridian won't be in a position of spilling a lot of water if Tiwai shuts down. That will make a huge difference to Meridian's economic case.
There will still be somewhat of a weak link from the northern end of the HVDC link at Haywards to Whakamaru. That part of the grid tops out at 220kV. For full flexibility to distribute South Island power and properly shut down Huntly, either the HVDC link needs to be extended to Whakamaru, or the grid from Haywards to Whakamaru needs to be upgraded to 400kV like the recent Whakamaru to Auckland upgrade.
Well, I dunno if the grid would be up to supplying another few hundred MW 24/7 to Christchurch if you've got in mind setting up a mega-data-centre there.
But the bottleneck at the moment is the lower South Island. Getting Manapouri power to Christchurch is as constrained as it is getting it to the North Island. Until the upgrade is complete in 2023.
The HVDC doesn't have a connection for Christchurch. Dunno what the reasons for that actually are, but I can think of several good reasons that might contribute to that.
That Gas/Coal is the two older units at Huntly that can run burn either gas or coal. They are the most important ones to be shut down, since their thermal efficiency is so low, less than 40%.
The Gas generation is mostly the combined cycle unit at Huntly plus the combined cycle units at Stratford. Their efficiency is somewhat better, in the mid50s %. There's also some open-cycle gas turbines included, which are low efficiency. It will be a bit harder to get them closed down, because they tend to be the fast-startup peaker generation.
About 10% of installed capacity, but about 16% of actual electricity generated. Because it runs at roughly 85% to 90% capacity almost all the time. Ideal baseload generation.
There's about 1000MW of installed capacity now, and it's commonly estimated there's around another 1000MW of potential. So it could potentially double. There's around 350MW of already consented projects yet to be built.
There's also potential for more use of geothermal for direct heating for drying milk and timber, and other industrial uses. I don't know whether those potential users directly compete with power generation or if there's differences in geothermal fields that make one more suitable than the other.
In the past few years there's been some articles about high temps close to the surface on the West Coast as a potential geothermal resource. As I understand it, this would require different technology, and I don't recall anyone putting any numbers to how big a resource it might be. There's also the earthquake issues on the West Coast.
There's a bit of geothermal heating of commercial greenhouses on the Coast, growing eggplants and capsicums. I've heard of quite a bit at planning / development as well.
The geotechnical challenges on the Coast aren't really all that different in impact to the central North Island, or even Auckland, they are all very likely to go bang at some stage, and without much warning. The distance for transmission and terrain would probably be the limiting factor, it's hard enough getting electricity into the Coast, the same would apply getting it out.
The geothermal resource is also quite different to the North Island volcanic resource being in a narrow band along the fault rather than around a 'hot spot'. This would make large centralised plants difficult, but ideal for smaller scale process or growth heating. I can see this having quite an impact on the Coast once the resource is better understood and applications fully developed, but it's unlikely to be large scale electricity generation.
[Please use the same user name here throughout without changing it, as this creates work for Moderators for no obvious good reason, thanks. I’ve changed it to your usual user name – Incognito]
Sorry, totally unintentional. The name field tends to grab any stray cursor and either overwrite add to the autofilled name. This seems to be a common problem for many commenters. I normally catch it but this one slipped through.
Is it possible to lock the field to prevent this and save your time.
No worries; those Moderator notes can be perceived as harsh and/or intimidating even though that’s not the intention.
I know there have been and apparently still are issues with wayward cursors and I don’t think this has ever been fully sorted. It appears a problem mostly (?) on the ‘client side’. I think when something ends up in the user name field it is stored in a cache or something rather and can stay there for a long time until it is cleared by closing the browser or through more direct and targeted user intervention, which is why Moderators try to get the attention of the user and alert them to the issue. Some users, however, seem oblivious to replies to their comments, which I cannot really understand …
Lprent and/or weka might be able to shed some light on it, as I’m way out of my depth with this.
The geotechnical challenges on the Coast aren't really all that different in impact to the central North Island, or even Auckland
The nearest equivalent Ak has to the Alpine Fault are volcanic eruptions every millenia or so. With the West Coast and Welli it is a matter of how many years or decades until the big one, not if.
Palmy, Hamilton and Whangarei are pretty safe locations for critical infrastructure.
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The amount of paint needed to paint a car depends on a number of factors, including the size of the car, the number of coats you plan to apply, and the type of paint you are using. In general, you will need between 1 and 2 gallons of paint for ...
Jump-starting a car is a common task that can be performed even in adverse weather conditions like rain. However, safety precautions and proper techniques are crucial to avoid potential hazards. This comprehensive guide will provide detailed instructions on how to safely jump a car in the rain, ensuring both your ...
Graham Adams writes about the $55m media fund — When Patrick Gower was asked by Mike Hosking last week what he would say to the many Newstalk ZB callers who allege the Labour government bribed media with $55 million of taxpayers’ money via the Public Interest Journalism Fund — and ...
Note: this blog post has been put together over the course of the week I followed the happenings at the conference virtually. Should recordings of the Great Debates and possibly Union Symposia mentioned below, be released sometime after the conference ends, I'll include links to the ones I participated in. ...
The following was my submission made on the “Fast Track Approvals Bill”. This potential law will give three Ministers unchecked powers, un-paralled since the days of Robert Muldoon’s “Think Big” projects.The submission is written a bit tongue-in-cheek. But it’s irreverent because the FTAB is in itself not worthy of respect. ...
One Could Reduce Child Poverty At No Fiscal CostFollowing the Richardson/Shipley 1990 ‘redesign of the welfare state’ – which eliminated the universal Family Benefit and doubled the rate of child poverty – various income supplements for families have been added, the best known being ‘Working for Families’, introduced in 2005. ...
Buzz from the Beehive A few days ago, Point of Order suggested the media must be musing “on why Melissa is mute”. Our article reported that people working in the beleaguered media industry have cause to yearn for a minister as busy as Melissa Lee’s ministerial colleagues and we drew ...
1. What was The Curse of Jim Bolger?a. Winston Peters b. Soon after shaking his hand, world leaders would mysteriously lose office or shuffle off this mortal coilc. Could never shake off the Mother of All Budgetsd. Dandruff2. True or false? The Chairman of a Kiwi export business has asked the ...
Jack Vowles writes – New Zealand is said to be suffering from ‘serious populist discontent’. An IPSOS MORI survey has reported that we have an increasing preference for strong leaders, think that the economy is rigged toward the rich and powerful, and political elites are ignoring ‘hard-working people’. ...
Chris Trotter writes – MELISSA LEE should be deprived of her ministerial warrant. Her handling – or non-handling – of the crisis engulfing the New Zealand news media has been woeful. The fate of New Zealand’s two linear television networks, a question which the Minister of Broadcasting, Communications ...
TL;DR: The podcast above features co-hosts and , along with regular guests Robert Patman on Gaza and AUKUS II, and on climate change.The six things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the ...
Policymakers rarely wish to make plain or visible their desire to dismantle environmental policy, least of all to the young. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Here’s the top five news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above between Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent ...
I like to keep an eye on what’s happening in places like the UK, the US, and over the ditch with our good mates the Aussies. Let’s call them AUKUS, for want of a better collective term. More on that in a bit.It used to be, not long ago, that ...
TL;DR: The global economy will be one fifth smaller than it would have otherwise been in 2050 as a result of climate damage, according to a new study by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and published in the journal Nature. (See more detail and analysis below, and ...
New Zealand is said to be suffering from ‘serious populist discontent’. An IPSOS MORI survey has reported that we have an increasing preference for strong leaders, think that the economy is rigged toward the rich and powerful, and political elites are ignoring ‘hard-working people’. The data is from February this ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters is understood to be planning a major speech within the next fortnight to clear up the confusion over whether or not New Zealand might join the AUKUS submarine project. So far, there have been conflicting signals from the Government. RNZ reported the Prime Minister yesterday in ...
Life throws curveballs, and sometimes, those curveballs necessitate wiping your iPhone clean and starting anew. Whether you’re facing persistent software glitches, preparing to sell your device, or simply wanting a fresh start, knowing how to factory reset iPhone without a computer is a valuable skill. While using a computer with ...
Gone are the days when communication was limited to landline phones and physical proximity. Today, computers have become powerful tools for connecting with people across the globe through voice and video calls. But with a plethora of applications and methods available, how to call someone on a computer might seem ...
Open access notables Glacial isostatic adjustment reduces past and future Arctic subsea permafrost, Creel et al., Nature Communications:Sea-level rise submerges terrestrial permafrost in the Arctic, turning it into subsea permafrost. Subsea permafrost underlies ~ 1.8 million km2 of Arctic continental shelf, with thicknesses in places exceeding 700 m. Sea-level variations over glacial-interglacial cycles control ...
The operating system (OS) is the heart and soul of a computer, orchestrating every action and interaction between hardware and software. But have you ever wondered where on a computer is the operating system generally stored? The answer lies in the intricate dance between hardware and software components, particularly within ...
Laptops have become essential tools for work, entertainment, and communication, offering portability and functionality. However, with rising energy costs and growing environmental concerns, understanding a laptop’s power consumption is more important than ever. So, how many watts does a laptop use? The answer, unfortunately, isn’t straightforward. It depends on several ...
Screen recording has become an essential tool for various purposes, such as creating tutorials, capturing gameplay footage, recording online meetings, or sharing information with others. Fortunately, Dell laptops offer several built-in and external options for screen recording, catering to different needs and preferences. This guide will explore various methods on ...
A cracked or damaged laptop screen can be a frustrating experience, impacting productivity and enjoyment. Fortunately, laptop screen repair is a common service offered by various repair shops and technicians. However, the cost of fixing a laptop screen can vary significantly depending on several factors. This article delves into the ...
Gaming laptops represent a significant investment for passionate gamers, offering portability and powerful performance for immersive gaming experiences. However, a common concern among potential buyers is their lifespan. Unlike desktop PCs, which allow for easier component upgrades, gaming laptops have inherent limitations due to their compact and integrated design. This ...
The annual inventory report of New Zealand's greenhouse gas emissions has been released, showing that gross emissions have dropped for the third year in a row, to 78.4 million tons: All-told gross emissions have decreased by over 6 million tons since the Zero Carbon Act was passed in 2019. ...
Experiencing a locked computer can be frustrating, especially when you need access to your files and applications urgently. The methods to unlock your computer will vary depending on the specific situation and the type of lock you encounter. This guide will explore various scenarios and provide step-by-step instructions on how ...
While the world has largely transitioned to digital communication, faxing still holds relevance in certain industries and situations. Fortunately, gone are the days of bulky fax machines and dedicated phone lines. Today, you can easily send and receive faxes directly from your computer, offering a convenient and efficient way to ...
In our increasingly digital world, home computers have become essential tools for work, communication, entertainment, and more. However, this increased reliance on technology also exposes us to various cyber threats. Understanding these threats and taking proactive steps to protect your home computer is crucial for safeguarding your personal information, finances, ...
In the ever-evolving world of technology, server-based computing has emerged as a cornerstone of modern digital infrastructure. This article delves into the concept of server-based computing, exploring its various forms, benefits, challenges, and its impact on the way we work and interact with technology. Understanding Server-Based Computing: At its core, ...
The absolute brass neck of this guy.We want more medical doctors, not more spin doctors, Luxon was saying a couple of weeks ago, and now we’re told the guy has seven salaried adults on TikTok duty. Sorry, doing social media. The absolute brass neck of it. The irony that the ...
Buzz from the Beehive Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones relishes spatting and eagerly takes issue with environmentalists who criticise his enthusiasm for resource development. He relishes helping the fishing industry too. And so today, while the media are making much of the latest culling in the public service to ...
Having written, taught and worked for the US government on issues involving unconventional warfare and terrorism for 30-odd years, two things irritate me the most when the subject is discussed in public. The first is the Johnny-come-lately academics-turned-media commentators who … Continue reading → ...
Eric Crampton writes – Kainga Ora is the government’s house building agency. It’s been building a lot of social housing. Kainga Ora has its own (but independent) consenting authority, Consentium. It’s a neat idea. Rather than have to deal with building consents across each different territorial authority, Kainga Ora ...
Muriel Newman writes – The Coalition Government says it is moving with speed to deliver campaign promises and reverse the damage done by Labour. One of their key commitments is to “defend the principle that New Zealanders are equal before the law.” To achieve this, they have pledged they “will not advance ...
Chris Trotter writes – The absence of anything resembling a fightback from the public servants currently losing their jobs is interesting. State-sector workers’ collective fatalism in the face of Coalition cutbacks indicates a surprisingly broad acceptance of impermanence in the workplace. Fifty years ago, lay-offs in the thousands ...
Mariupol, on the Azov Sea coast, was one of the first cities to suffer almost complete destruction after the start of the Ukraine War started in late February 2022. We remember the scenes of absolute destruction of the houses and city structures. The deaths of innocent civilians – many of ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – Ten years ago, I wrote the following in a Listener column: Every year around one in five new-born babies will be reliant on their caregivers benefit by Christmas. This pattern has persisted from at least 1993. For Maori the number jumps to over one in three. ...
Climate change is expected to generate more and more extreme events, delivering a sort of structural shock to inflation that central banks will have to react to as if they were short-term cyclical issues. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāMy pick of the six newsey things to know from Aotearoa’s ...
It’s a simple deal. We pay taxes in order to finance the social services we want and need. The carnage now occurring across the public sector though, is breaking that contract. Over 3,000 jobs have been lost so far. Many are in crucial areas like Education where the impact of ...
Hi,A friend had their 40th over the weekend and decided to theme it after Curb Your Enthusiasm fashion icon Susie Greene. Captured in my tiny kitchen before I left the house, I ending up evoking a mix of old lesbian and Hillary Clinton — both unintentional.Me vs Hillary ClintonIf you’re ...
This is a re-post from Andrew Dessler at the Climate Brink blogIn 2023, the Earth reached temperature levels unprecedented in modern times. Given that, it’s reasonable to ask: What’s going on? There’s been lots of discussions by scientists about whether this is just the normal progression of global warming or if something ...
The schools are on holiday and the sun is shining in the seaside village and all day long I have been seeing bunches of bikes; Mums, Dads, teens and toddlers chattering, laughing, happy, having a bloody great time together. Cheers, AT, for the bits of lane you’ve added lately around the ...
Today in our National-led authoritarian nightmare: Shane Jones thinks Ministers should be above the law: New Zealand First MP Shane Jones is accusing the Waitangi Tribunal of over-stepping its mandate by subpoenaing a minister for its urgent hearing on the Oranga Tamariki claim. The tribunal is looking into the ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Politicians across the political spectrum are implicated in the New Zealand media’s failing health. Either through neglect or incompetent interventions, successive governments have failed to regulate, foster, and allow a healthy Fourth Estate that can adequately hold politicians and the powerful to account. ...
Citizen Science writes – Last week saw two significant developments in the debate over the treatment of trans-identifying children and young people – the release in Britain of the final report of Dr Hilary Cass’s review into gender healthcare, and here in New Zealand, the news that the ...
One night while sleeping in my bed I had a beautiful dreamThat all the people of the world got together on the same wavelengthAnd began helping one anotherNow in this dream, universal love was the theme of the dayPeace and understanding and it happened this wayAfter such an eventful day ...
This is a guest post by Oscar Simms who is a housing activist, volunteer for the Coalition for More Homes, and was the Labour Party candidate for Auckland Central at the last election. ...
Turning what Labour called the “holiday highway” into a four-lane expressway from Auckland to Whangarei could bring at least an economic benefit of nearly two billion a year for Northland each year. And it could help bring an end to poverty in one of New Zealand’s most deprived regions. The ...
Tonight’s six-stack includes: launching his substack with a bunch of his previous documentaries, including this 1992 interview with Dame Whina Cooper. and here crew give climate activists plenty to do, including this call to submit against the Fast Track Approvals bill. writes brilliantly here on his substack ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
You're in the mall when you hear it: some kind of popping sound in the distance, kids with fireworks, maybe. But then a moment of eerie stillness is followed by more of the fireworks sound and there’s also screaming and shrieking and now here come people running for their lives.Does ...
Karl du Fresne writes – There’s a crisis in the news media and the media are blaming it on everyone except themselves. Culpability is being deflected elsewhere – mainly to the hapless Minister of Communications, Melissa Lee, and the big social media platforms that are accused of hoovering ...
I don’t normally send out two newsletters in a day but I figured I’d say something about… the news. If two newsletters is a bit much then maybe just skip one, I don’t want to overload people. Alternatively if you’d be interested in sometimes receiving multiple, smaller updates from me, ...
Buzz from the Beehive David Seymour and Winston Peters today signalled that at least two ministers of the Crown might be in Wellington today. Seymour (as Associate Minister of Education) announced the removal of more red tape, this time to make it easier for new early learning services to be ...
Politicians across the political spectrum are implicated in the New Zealand media’s failing health. Either through neglect or incompetent interventions, successive governments have failed to regulate, foster, and allow a healthy Fourth Estate that can adequately hold politicians and the powerful to account. Our political system is suffering from the ...
David Farrar writes – The Broadcasting Standards Authority ruled: Comments by radio host Kate Hawkesby suggesting Māori and Pacific patients were being prioritised for surgery due to their ethnicity were misleading and discriminatory, the Broadcasting Standards Authority has found. It is a fact such patients are prioritised. ...
PRC and its proxies in Solomons have been preparing for these elections for a long time.A lot of money, effort and intelligence have gone into ensuring an outcome that won’t compromise Beijing’s plans. Cleo Paskall writes – On April 17th the Solomon Islands, a country of ...
Is speeding up the trip to and from Wellington airport by 12 minutes worth spending up more than $10 billion? Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The six news items that stood out to me in the last day to 8:26 am today are:The Lead: Transport Minister Simeon Brownannounced ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
The Green Party has today launched a step-by-step guide to help New Zealanders make their voice heard on the Government’s democracy dodging and anti-environment fast track legislation. ...
The National Government’s proposed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act will mean tenants can be turfed from their homes by landlords with little notice, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson is calling on all parties to support a common-sense change that’s great for the planet and great for consumers after her member’s bill was drawn from the ballot today. ...
A significant milestone has been reached in the fight to strike an anti-Pasifika and unfair law from the country’s books after Teanau Tuiono’s members’ bill passed its first reading. ...
New Zealand has today missed the opportunity to uphold the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, says James Shaw after his member’s bill was voted down in its first reading. ...
Today’s advice from the Climate Change Commission paints a sobering reality of the challenge we face in combating climate change, especially in light of recent Government policy announcements. ...
Minister for Disability Issues Penny Simmonds appears to have delayed a report back to Cabinet on the progress New Zealand is making against international obligations for disabled New Zealanders. ...
The Government’s newly announced review of methane emissions reduction targets hints at its desire to delay Aotearoa New Zealand’s urgent transition to a climate safe future, the Green Party said. ...
The Government must commit to the Maitai School building project for students with high and complex needs, to ensure disabled students from the top of the South Island have somewhere to learn. ...
Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey and his Government colleagues have made a meal of their mental health commitments, showing how flimsy their efforts to champion the issue truly are, says Labour Mental Health spokesperson Ingrid Leary. ...
Māori are yet to see anything from this Government except cuts, reversals and taking our people backwards, Māori Development spokesperson Willie Jackson said. ...
The Coalition Government’s refusal to commit to ongoing funding for social housing is seeing the sector pull back on developments and families watch their dreams of securing a home fade away, says Labour Housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty. ...
Changes to minimum wage and benefit indexation means many New Zealanders will get less this year, as the Government gives a big tax break to landlords instead. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has completed a successful trip to Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, deepening relationships and capitalising on opportunities. Mr Luxon was accompanied by a business delegation and says the choice of countries represents the priority the New Zealand Government places on South East Asia, and our relationships in ...
New Zealand is demonstrating its commitment to reducing global greenhouse emissions, and supporting clean energy transition in South East Asia, through a contribution of NZ$41 million (US$25 million) in climate finance to the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-led Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM). Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced ...
The Government is today releasing a list of organisations who received letters about the Fast-track applications process, says RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop. “Recently Ministers and agencies have received a series of OIA requests for a list of organisations to whom I wrote with information on applying to have a ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Wellington Barrister David Jonathan Boldt as a Judge of the High Court, and the Honourable Justice Matthew Palmer as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Boldt graduated with an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington in 1990, and also holds ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford will lead the New Zealand delegation at the 2024 International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP) held in Singapore. The delegation includes representatives from the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) Te Wehengarua and the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa. The summit is co-hosted ...
A stopbank upgrade project in Tairawhiti partly funded by the Government has increased flood resilience for around 7000ha of residential and horticultural land so far, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones today attended a dawn service in Gisborne to mark the end of the first stage of the ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters will represent the Government at Anzac Day commemorations on the Gallipoli Peninsula next week and engage with senior representatives of the Turkish government in Istanbul. “The Gallipoli campaign is a defining event in our history. It will be a privilege to share the occasion ...
Science, Innovation and Technology and Defence Minister Judith Collins will next week attend the OECD Science and Technology Ministerial conference in Paris and Anzac Day commemorations in Belgium. “Science, innovation and technology have a major role to play in rebuilding our economy and achieving better health, environmental and social outcomes ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with the President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The Prime Minister was accompanied by MP Paulo Garcia, the first Filipino to be elected to a legislature outside the Philippines. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon and President Marcos Jr discussed opportunities to ...
The Government has announced that $20 million in funding will be made available to Westport to fund much needed flood protection around the town. This measure will significantly improve the resilience of the community, says Local Government Minister Simeon Brown. “The Westport community has already been allocated almost $3 million ...
The Government is proud to support the first ever Repco Supercars Championship event in Taupō as up to 70,000 motorsport fans attend the Taupō International Motorsport Park this weekend, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. “Anticipation for the ITM Taupō Super400 is huge, with tickets and accommodation selling out weeks ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced an increase to the Rates Rebate Scheme, putting money back into the pockets of low-income homeowners. “The coalition Government is committed to bringing down the cost of living for New Zealanders. That includes targeted support for those Kiwis who are doing things tough, such ...
The Coalition Government is investing in a project to boost survival rates of New Zealand mussels and grow the industry, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones has announced. “This project seeks to increase the resilience of our mussels and significantly boost the sector’s productivity,” Mr Jones says. “The project - ...
Benefit figures released today underscore the importance of the Government’s plan to rebuild the economy and have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker Support, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “Benefit numbers are still significantly higher than when National was last in government, when there was about 70,000 fewer ...
The Government’s commitment to doubling New Zealand’s renewable energy capacity is backed by new data showing that clean energy has helped the country reach its lowest annual gross emissions since 1999, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand’s latest Greenhouse Gas Inventory (1990-2022) published today, shows gross emissions fell ...
The Government is bringing the earthquake-prone building review forward, with work to start immediately, and extending the deadline for remediations by four years, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “Our Government is focused on rebuilding the economy. A key part of our plan is to cut red tape that ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his Thai counterpart, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, have today agreed that New Zealand and the Kingdom of Thailand will upgrade the bilateral relationship to a Strategic Partnership by 2026. “New Zealand and Thailand have a lot to offer each other. We have a strong mutual desire to build ...
RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and Transport Minister Simeon Brown have today announced the Coalition Government’s intention to extend port coastal permits for a further 20 years, providing port operators with certainty to continue their operations. “The introduction of the Resource Management Act in 1991 required ports to obtain coastal ...
Today’s announcement that inflation is down to 4 per cent is encouraging news for Kiwis, but there is more work to be done - underlining the importance of the Government’s plan to get the economy back on track, acting Finance Minister Chris Bishop says. “Inflation is now at 4 per ...
Refreshed health guidance released today will help parents and schools make informed decisions about whether their child needs to be in school, addressing one of the key issues affecting school attendance, says Associate Education Minister David Seymour. In recent years, consistently across all school terms, short-term illness or medical reasons ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is streamlining high-level oceans management while maintaining a focus on supporting the sector’s role in the export-led recovery of the economy. “I am working to realise the untapped potential of our fishing and aquaculture sector. To achieve that we need to be smarter with ...
Associate Agriculture Minister Mark Patterson is speaking at the International Wool Textile Organisation Congress in Adelaide, promoting New Zealand wool, and outlining the coalition Government’s support for the revitalisation the sector. "New Zealand’s wool exports reached $400 million in the year to 30 June 2023, and the coalition Government ...
The Government is making legislative changes to make it easier for new early learning services to be established, and for existing services to operate, Associate Education Minister David Seymour says. The changes involve repealing the network approval provisions that apply when someone wants to establish a new early learning service, ...
Changes to the Resource Management Act will align consenting for coal mining to other forms of mining to reduce barriers that are holding back economic development, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The inconsistent treatment of coal mining compared with other extractive activities is burdensome red tape that fails to acknowledge ...
Trade, Agriculture and Forestry Minister Todd McClay has concluded productive discussions with ministerial counterparts in Beijing today, in support of the New Zealand-China trade and economic relationship. “My meeting with Commerce Minister Wang Wentao reaffirmed the complementary nature of the bilateral trade relationship, with our Free Trade Agreement at its ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon today paid tribute to Singapore’s outgoing Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. Meeting in Singapore today immediately before Prime Minister Lee announced he was stepping down, Prime Minister Luxon warmly acknowledged his counterpart’s almost twenty years as leader, and the enduring legacy he has left for Singapore and South East ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. While in Singapore as part of his visit to South East Asia this week, Prime Minister Luxon also met with Singapore President Tharman Shanmugaratnam and will meet with Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has made further appointments to the Board of Antarctica New Zealand as part of a continued effort to ensure the Scott Base Redevelopment project is delivered in a cost-effective and efficient manner. The Minister has appointed Neville Harris as a new member of the Board. Mr ...
Finance Minister Nicola Willis will travel to the United States on Tuesday to attend a meeting of the Five Finance Ministers group, with counterparts from Australia, the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. “I am looking forward to meeting with our Five Finance partners on how we can work ...
The coalition Government has today announced purrfect and pawsitive changes to the Residential Tenancies Act to give tenants with pets greater choice when looking for a rental property, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Pets are important members of many Kiwi families. It’s estimated that around 64 per cent of New ...
State Highway 1 (SH1) through Wellington City is heavily congested at peak times and while planning continues on the duplicate Mt Victoria Tunnel and Basin Reserve project, the Government has also asked NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) to consider and provide advice on a Long Tunnel option, Transport Minister Simeon Brown ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Foreign Minister Winston Peters have condemned Iran’s shocking and illegal strikes against Israel. “These attacks are a major challenge to peace and stability in a region already under enormous pressure," Mr Luxon says. "We are deeply concerned that miscalculation on any side could ...
Hundreds of people in little over a week have turned out in Northland to hear Regional Development Minister Shane Jones speak about plans for boosting the regional economy through infrastructure. About 200 people from the infrastructure and associated sectors attended an event headlined by Mr Jones in Whangarei today. Last ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti has today thanked outgoing Health New Zealand – Te Whatu Ora Chair Dame Karen Poutasi for her service on the Board. “Dame Karen tendered her resignation as Chair and as a member of the Board today,” says Dr Reti. “I have asked her to ...
The NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has signalled their proposed delivery approach for the Government’s 15 Roads of National Significance (RoNS), with the release of the State Highway Investment Proposal (SHIP) today, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Boosting economic growth and productivity is a key part of the Government’s plan to ...
New Zealand is renewing its connections with a world facing urgent challenges by pursuing an active, energetic foreign policy, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “Our country faces the most unstable global environment in decades,” Mr Peters says at the conclusion of two weeks of engagements in Egypt, Europe and the United States. “We cannot afford to sit back in splendid ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has announced the Australian Governor-General, His Excellency General The Honourable David Hurley and his wife Her Excellency Mrs Linda Hurley, will make a State visit to New Zealand from Tuesday 16 April to Thursday 18 April. The visit reciprocates the State visit of former Governor-General Dame Patsy Reddy ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced that Medsafe has approved 11 cold and flu medicines containing pseudoephedrine. Pharmaceutical suppliers have indicated they may be able to supply the first products in June. “This is much earlier than the original expectation of medicines being available by 2025. The Government recognised ...
New Zealand and the United States have recommitted to their strategic partnership in Washington DC today, pledging to work ever more closely together in support of shared values and interests, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The strategic environment that New Zealand and the United States face is considerably more ...
April 11, 2024 Joint Declaration by United States Secretary of State the Honorable Antony J. Blinken and New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs the Right Honourable Winston Peters We met today in Washington, D.C. to recommit to the historic partnership between our two countries and the principles that underpin it—rule ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Duckett, Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne iamharin/Shutterstock For many people, the term “bulk billed” refers to a GP visit they don’t have to pay ...
Emmas Hislop, Sidnam and Wehipeihana discuss what’s in a name. Emma Sidnam: Hello Emmas! Thank you so much for agreeing to do this with me. My first question for you is related to what’s been on my mind for a while. It’s very important. You see we’ve recently had some ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Sievers, Research Fellow, Global Wetlands Project, Australia Rivers Institute, Griffith University Chris Brown Humans love the coast. But we love it to death, so much so we’ve destroyed valuable coastal habitat – in the case of some types of habitat, ...
Josh Thomson on the 80s milk ad jingle he can’t stop singing, the beauty of The Simpsons, why Jersey Shore is as good as Shakespeare and more. For someone who spends a lot of time on our screens, popping up in everything from 7 Days to Taskmaster, Educators to Good ...
In apparent defiance of the Biden administration, the Netanyahu government has now initiated missile strikes against Iran. Last Saturday night (Sunday morning in New Zealand) Iran launched more than 300 drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles against Israeli military targets. With the assistance of US, UK and possibly French forces, ...
Māori representation brings a perspective that encompasses not only the interests of Māori communities but also a broader, holistic approach to environmental stewardship and community well-being, principles deeply embedded in Te Ao Māori (the Māori ...
This week in Auckland, a group of young people took over the microphone at a ministerial press conference, to explain why they oppose the Fast-Track Approvals Bill. One young woman said, ‘We’re here because we love Aotearoa New Zealand. We want to raise our children in an environment that’s thriving, ...
The summer was wonderful. Evie was wonderful, too; finally a teenager, finally worthy of long, hot days. She shaved her legs for the first time and bought cut-off shorts from the op-shop that made them look long. She got a Warehouse singlet so tight on her new shape that her ...
When Thomas James was on his solo camp as part of Outward Bound, the keen outdoorsman didn’t find it too challenging, as others often do. In what might just be the perfect illustration of his character, he saw it as a great opportunity to solve a few problems. “I thought, ...
From the unstable and drippy to the hi-tech and pretty, here’s our ranking of all the tunnels you can drive through in this country. The first tunnel seems to have been built in 2200BC in Babylonia, kicking off a global phenomenon for digging holes in order to get places more ...
Lucinda Bennett on the art of being greedy but resourceful. This is an excerpt from our weekly food newsletter, The Boil Up. When I picture the market, it is always this time of year. Crisp air, dripping nose, counting coins with cold fingers. Sunlight pale, filtered through specks of dew still ...
Zoë Colling’s favourite piece in the ‘That’s So Last Century’ collection is a lubrication chart for a sewing machine from the ’60s. It’s about the size of a postcard, and carefully maintained. “I like it that this piece of ephemera highlights that manual and technical side of the skill involved ...
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I see the drum beat on comments sections, Facebook and Twitter seems to be increasing about shutting the border entirely.
I posted this on OM late last night but thought it could be a good discussion point.
While there are certainly problems in restricting citizens rights to return back to their country of citizenship, NZ could stop entry to NZ by permanent resident visa holders – say those that were not in NZ for longer than 6 months prior to February 2020. PRVs have citizenship of another country so will not be stateless. I understand that around 40,000 people who have come through MiQ are just PRVs – not citizens.
Then again, Samoa shut it's borders to it's citizens for a lengthy period. One could argue that there is a justifiable limitation (protecting the health of the remaining population) on restricting the ability of citizens to come back.
One way of doing it would be to shut the borders to all unless they have a real and genuine desire to permanently relocate to NZ. That would get rid of the rich who just want to fly in for a few months before leaving again. There could be exemptions granted for those who need to come in on a temporary basis i.e. funerals/dying relatives but with the increased risk of infection I can't see people being allowed to leave MIQ early to go to funerals etc… As it stands, I'm happy with film and tv coming to NZ as that does have a beneficial effect for our screen industry – but no more blimming tax breaks!
I'm very annoyed at the likes of the pizza owner published in Stuff who's come back to NZ "for a break from USA" and criticising our Covid response without actually recognising he's putting our Covid response at risk. Those people would be capture by the "no entry unless you're permanently settling"
I would define permanent as being in NZ for longer than 12 months. And make them pay for their MIQ before they leave NZ.
"say those that were not in NZ for longer than 6 months prior to February 2020."
how many people does that apply to? (or did apply to in the past 12 months).
Closing the borders to NZers but not movie makers is a long way outside what would be culturally acceptable here.
Would probably need to do an OIA to MBIE to find out the information about PRVs. In any event, if they've been out of NZ for longer than 6 months, even 12, it's clear they haven't got a life here. They're a citizen of another country so we'd be perfectly at right to place a temporary ban on their entry to NZ being a justifiable limitation of the suspension of their entry allowance under the immigration act. The NZ Bill of Rights only allows free movement to citizens. Permanent residents are not citizens.
As for film/tv makers – they're directly employing many people in the screen industry in NZ. I'd rather that happen than the govt providing endless subsidies like they are to tourism operators who need to, in the true capitalist sense, adapt or die. Tv and film makers keep NZ workers employed. People like Pizza Guy coming in for 92 days to get shits and giggles for "a break from the USA" do not help to keep people employed in the same manner. Unless you're coming to NZ on a relocation basis or to directly provide jobs i.e. film/tv (and such groups must pay for their MIQ stay) , I think we should close our borders to everyone else particularly those coming for shits and giggles.
We need a royal commission into our broken immigration system, a huge number of visas are fraudulent, but I suppose that big biz enjoys wage suppression and exploitation. The govt should have clamped down on this shit years ago.
I do not think it's at all coincidence that the "pathway to residency" that National put in place for students coming to NZ to study low value degrees from 1999 subsequently saw a massive increase in house prices from 2002. That policy setting then allowed students to bring their parents over and the rest of their family. Likely that 2002 saw the boom in house prices because overseas students realised Labour wasn't going to change the policy settings so started buying up houses for their extended family.
NZ shouldn't be providing pathways to residency for students imo. It should only be for the high skills we actually need – doctors, dentists, nurses, etc. We certainly do not need any more exploited immigrants in alcohol stores. Those jobs can easily be done by people already in New Zealand.
I’ve made an attempt at collating data from various sources; there are others with further breakdowns of Visa approvals, et cetera. I’ve not bothered with MIQ stats, but I assume most arrivals will now go through MIQ anyway. Somebody else can dig these out, if they want, and try match these to the data below 😉
At least, it gives you a rough idea of what’s been happening.
[lprent: click for a larger image]
https://www.customs.govt.nz/globalassets/documents/covid-19/air-pax-movements-1-jan-until-31-dec-2020.pdf
https://www.immigration.govt.nz/documents/statistics/statistics-arrivals-by-month
Edit: Arrivals for the selected visa types, excluding those who are not issued a visa at the border (mostly New Zealand nationals) and those who are refused entry.
Most arrivals MIQ, why not all?
Australians?
Residents = residents and citizens? Or difference = citizens?
Sorry, not sure what I'm looking at there.
Because there are exemptions for people not going through MIQ.
https://www.immigration.govt.nz/new-zealand-visas/apply-for-a-visa/about-visa/australian-resident-visa
Obviously, these are not New Zealand citizens and permanent residents.
Residents are people who require and are entitled to a NZ Residence Visa.
The last column is the difference between Total Arrivals and Total Visas (i.e. the specified categories in the other columns) and is therefore “mostly New Zealand nationals”.
HTH
ta. What do you think is happening with the visitor visas?
BDM
what is that?
Sorry, Births, Deaths & Marriages.
how are the 1500 visitor visas related to that? Non-residents being allowed in for funerals?
You asked what I think, not what I know 😉
However, it seems I might be barking up the wrong tree with this one 🙁
Maybe this is closer to the truth?
https://www.immigration.govt.nz/new-zealand-visas/apply-for-a-visa/about-visa/critical-purpose-visitor-visa
I thought when they were saying NZers could come home they were actually meaning NZ born people , not people holding two passports , one of them a NZ.passport.
I would now really like to know who has been and who is coming into this country through quarantine.
There have been 500,000 permanent resident visas issued since 2015. Who knows how many more before then. I am unable to find that data, just as I am unable to find data that specifies how many of those PRV holders actually reside in New Zealand.
NZ is the only country that does not require a PRV to be renewed every 2 – 3 years, with evidence to be supplied that you are living in NZ to be eligible for renewal. It is my suspicion that many PRVs get the visa, then bugger off back to their own home country and come to NZ for free healthcare, and/or come back at 59 years old for the minimum 5 years living in NZ to be eligible for National Superannuation.
As I said earlier, there have been tens of thousands of PRVs through MIQ since April 2020. I don’t know how many of them actually live in NZ or are coming here because their country of citizenship is a shit show with the virus running rampant wherever they might have come from.
It should be citizens only, and those PRVs who actually live here and have evidence they lived here within the 6 month period preceding March 2020.
Looks around 60/40 nz passports to other.
Use the portal at stats.
https://www.stats.govt.nz/experimental/covid-19-data-portal
The MBIE Migration Data Explorer has the information (https://mbienz.shinyapps.io/migration_data_explorer/ ) back to 2010, albeit needs a bit of knowledge to use it. Specifically, arrival and departure data from Customs states Resident Visa for all residence class visas other than Australians (who are captured and listed separately), but for INZ application data, Permanent Resident Visa (PRV) applications are reported separately from other residence class visas as Returning Residence Visa in the application categories (this relates to the visa framework in the Immigration Act). This category also includes Variation of Travel Conditions applications, so requires some drilling to get PRV numbers.
According to that, there were 132,237 resident visa holders and 261,867 Australians who arrived in the 2020 calendar year, down from 491,451 and 1,131,450 respectively in 2019. Most of them arrived by 31 March 2020, as the average after that was less than 2,000 residents per month and 500 Australians. In total, from 1 April 2020 – 31 December 2020, 13,974 residents and 3,939 Australians arrived, for a total of 17,913 people with residence class visas through one process or another. It was already known through arrival cards that most Australians were visitors, but this really cements that understanding. It's technically "tens of thousands", albeit slightly less than 1.8 tens of thousands.
A total of 493,527 resident visas were approved in the 10 years from 1 Jan 2011 to 31 Dec 2020, of whom 397,926 were onshore i.e. in NZ, so most of them were already here via temporary visas.
Separately from that, 403,698 PRVs were approved in the same time period, of whom 389,679 were onshore i.e. in NZ and 12,192 were not.
To clarify something, the Immigration Act sets out a few things for residence:
In terms of data for current residence class visa holders in NZ, nobody really knows because large numbers of them predate current computerised records which date back to the late 80s, and even the current system itself, as residence used to be granted on arrival, so a lot of older residents just have a stamp in a passport from when they arrived which could be 50+ years ago, and no other interaction with INZ to have them appear in the INZ computer system.
If you have a NZ passport, that's it. Restricting it to "NZ born" opens a whole other can of worms.
But, with the exception of one or two billionaires that have been reported in the news, getting a NZ passport seems to require a decent level of residence in NZ.
No it doesn,t . I know a couple of teenagers who came to NZ around 2005 to study at our tertiary institutions , ended up with jobs then residency in NZ which "qualified" the parents to become resident in NZ. However they decided to stay in their own country for many years. They moved to NZ early this year !
Only NZ citizens are entitled to hold a NZ passport, NZ residents carry a different passport with their Visa/Permit in it.
Fair call – was confusing citizenship with passport.
Not sure on what basis parents get residency or permanent residency, or hold it. But if they hold it, fair enough: they should still be allowed in. If we got lax about who we issue our diplomatic protection to, that's our fault.
As usual, the brilliant Katie Halper nails it…
https://twitter.com/kthalps/status/1350316197494054913
Flippen right.
Bernie Sanders as Chair of Senate Budget Committee is sure going to tie a few Republican Senator knickers in a knot. In particular Sr Linsey Graham who would have got the job were it not for the Democrats gaining the Georgia two.
Sanders will have a fun time.
The Senate Budget Committee is not an important one. The real powerhouses in the area are the Appropriations Committee and the Finance Committee. Sanders won't have much influence if the becomes the Budget Chairman.
The Senate Committees are split into classes A, B and C.
The A ones have the real power and among them Appropriations, Armed Service, Foreign Affairs and Finance are the most important. See the comment at the bottom of page 4 in the link which notes.
"One such rule generally prohibits any Republican from serving on more than one of the “Super A,” or “big four” category “A,” committees: Appropriations, Armed Services, Finance, and Foreign Relations".
The Democrats have a similar rule.
Budget is a class B, along with committees like Veterans Affairs. They aren't really that important.
https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/RL/RL30743
None of that is incompatible with Repug knickers getting twisted into knots over Sanders becoming Chair, particularly Graham's knickers.
Nor is it incompatible with Sanders having fun in the position.
Why should Graham be particularly concerned, and why does Ad think he would have become Chairman?
He was only the fourth ranked Republican in the 116th Congress and as far as I know Grassley and Crapo, who were ranked above him, are still there.
Also just what "fun" do you think Sanders can have. The Budget Committee really doesn't have that much influence as far as I can see.
https://twitter.com/LindseyGrahamSC/status/1314713377973907456
I guess that I can only refer you to the reply by Mandy Rice-Davies to the lawyer questioning her in the Ward trial. The question, and the supposed answer about her claimed affair with Lord Astor have been quoted ever since as.
"Do you know Lord Astor has made a statement to the police saying that these allegations of yours are absolutely untrue? – He would, wouldn't he?"
I say supposed because the question of what exactly she said has been debated for almost 60 years.
Lindsey Graham and the Republicans were trying keep control of the Senate. Sander was, gasp, horror, a Socialist. Would Graham try and frighten the voters? "He would, wouldn't he"
It doesn't make the Committee any more important though does it? And I really doubt that Graham would have bothered to take the chairmanship. He was already on Appropriations and Foreign Relations and Chairman of the Judiciary Committee. Sure he was (is?) on Budget but I'll bet he doesn't see that as the highlight of his career.
Que?
By the way, I omitted one little item I had meant to talk about.
The rules of the Senate only allow a Senator to Chair one Committee.
Do you really think he would have given up the Chairmanship of Judiciary, which is responsible for the appointment of all Federal Judges up to and including the Supreme Court so that he could be the Chair of the grade B Budget Committee?
You will of course have noted that he is on 3 of the class A Committees although the rules only allow 2. That was to allow the party who control the Senate to have a majority on any Committee. He will have to give up one of the 3 class A's he is on now that the Democrats control the Senate.
However, it doesn't really affect my opinion. He would never have given up the Chair of Judiciary to run Budget. Could you imagine Grant giving up Minister of Finance so he could take over Food Safety?
Edit. I see I was just expanding on the topic when you put your query in. Does it explain why I don’t think he really meant hat he was saying?
I’m suitably impressed how you can turn a simple answer to one of the questions you posed @ 3.1.1.1 into a strip show of intellectual prowess and pride. Even by your standards, that was quite an achievement, I have to admit. Obviously, I cannot mind-read Senator Lindsey Graham when he tweeted that almost a month before the US Elections because my Tardis is at the panel beaters. But thank you so much; your explanation was more than illuminating. In fact, it was quite telling.
Well, I admit I did assume that when you commented on the proposed actions of a US Senator you actually understood why the rules of the Senate made what he said a most unlikely event.
Next time I won't make any assumptions at all about your knowledge about the topic under discussion. I will keep it down to the absolutely basic principles and keep in mind that you may not know anything about the matter at hand.
Would that help?
Would it make you feel better?
Strange anti-democratic people.
I'm not sure whether the Select Committee system we have in our own Parliament is that different.
Years of incendiary words and here they are.
I’ve seen this film before — and I didn’t like the ending.
Violence roiling a society. Soldiers on the streets. Lawmakers in fear that their colleagues will conspire to harm them.
The insurrectionary violence of Jan. 6 ripped away an assurance that many Americans felt — that such strife occurs in other places, not here.
Those of us who come from some other places feel a painful thud of familiarity and a growing dread of what may be to come.
I was born in Belfast in 1974.
[…]
In some ways, the contours of The Troubles are very different from the current American moment. Rival national identities and naked religious sectarianism loomed large.
But there are huge and ominous similarities.
The biggest is a grim equation that holds true everywhere — incendiary words lead to incendiary deeds.
During my youth, the most dangerous demagogue was the late Rev. Ian Paisley.
Paisley was a fundamentalist Protestant preacher and an ambitious politician.
His appeal was built on three often-repeated claims: the majority Protestant population of Northern Ireland was being undercut by a subversive minority; the “plain people” were being sold out by a traitorous establishment elite; and he alone could save them.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/534347-belfasts-troubles-echo-in-todays-washington
one for those who sneered at my idea of pissing off rio tinto..
and retaining a working tiwai point…for the benefit of new zealanders…
it is a viable idea..
https://i.stuff.co.nz/business/123976062/its-a-very-profitable-smelter-now-meridian-boss-says-after-price-beatdown
Firstly, he would say that. It costs him nothing.
Secondly, any profitability entirely depends on the price of aluminium – which has been going up and down like a yo-yo for decades – but on a general downward trend.
Thirdly, that just means that Rio Tinto is making a profit on the deal – not that New Zealand, or the power companies are. That is why what the Meridian boss actually said was
Essentially because the TransPower lines aren’t in place to move power northward, they’re giving a good price so they don’t spill water.
Fourthly, the smelter is still in negotiation with the government on their contributions to the overall power network (ie Transpower) and it is entirely possible that if those break down, as there is good possibility that they will because it appears that they are asking for a free lunch, then Rio Tinto will just start doing this crap again.
Basically the smelter is a dying profitless business for NZ that permanently has its hand out for welfare.
firstly…unsure about your opening ad hom.
secondly..they have shaved $100 million off their energy costs…
energy costs that if owned by us essentially would/could not exist..
(making it an even more 'very profitable' enterprise..you'd think..?.)
thirdly..no argument there..you note the deal makes it more profitable for rio tinto…which would be for nz..if we owned it..which just strengthens my case for this option to be considered…not thought of as unthinkable..by all the players..
..which I think is selling nz short…
fourthly…of course rio tinto will continue with this hustle…it works so well for them ..
I am suggesting the gummint show some interest in a voluntary nationalisation of tiwai by rio tinto ….
and a willingness for rio tinto to just piss off..to call them on their bluff bluff..
if nothing else..it could stop rio tinto running that 'threaten to leave' hustle…
nothing you said has changed my opinion on this..
There are more efficient smelters now in nations closer to the end-customers. Why would NZ want to buy this old one? We do not even have the main ingredient here.
There are more efficient smelters now in nations closer to the end-customers.
It's my understanding that the cost of electricity still outweighs these factors considerably. A newer smelter would have to be a lot more efficient to make much difference, and shipping is cheap.
The big differentiator in terms of end product is the high purity technical grades produced at Bluff, which is probably expensive to replicate elsewhere.
Still I'd agree that Bluff is probably not a good investment for the NZ govt to buy. It would lack connection and expertise in the industry, and more importantly the carbon free advantage of cheap Manapouri electricity is about to disappear in the next decade.
Wait until Rio wake up and decide that vertically integrating into SMR's or renewables makes sense for them.
@ r.l..
I am not suggesting g.robertson start running it..
as I noted in first floating of this idea..
the requisite skills can be hired to do the job..
so hardly a reason not to consider the concept..?
I'm sure the experience can be hired to run the smelter; but an entity like Rio has enormous industry connections, market knowledge and influence that the NZ govt could never achieve.
Having worked around big heavy industry most of my life I'm aware of, but by no means well informed, of what it takes to make multi-billion dollar investments work. And even then they run into big trouble from time to time.
I'm not saying it couldn't be done (Norway's Statoil is a good example), but this has to be one of the reasons why nationalised industries typically don't have a stellar record; the people and competency factor falls short.
I understand what you say about the economic risks of investing in such plant..
but surely that is the beauty of this scenario..
no need for that large investment…
that is already done…
and the energy source is free..
I am puzzled others cannot see what a win win that is for us…
we can just reap the profits…
..and save all those southland jobs at the same time ..
what's not to love..?
there is another state run option I like..
in alaska oil permits etc were predicated on the profits going back to the people..
and each citizen gets a dividend cheque each year…
(from memory it is about six grand a year..for each/every citizen..)
now..how could we do something like that here..?
a state-sanctoned/supported solar energy industry..?
with profits to go directly back to the people..?
Ummm, i don't think we would be able to export electricity.
Now, just as an exercise, how about going and finding out what the actual facts are about what Alaska pays to its citizens.
Then have a good think about how well the facts match to what you've asserted here. (hint: sorta kinda matches is being generous)
Now have a ponder about why you get … robust responses … from those of us that are somewhat more fact and evidence oriented.
Then maybe you should go and actually check the accuracy of some of the other things you have asserted as fact today and been challenged on, and you haven't yet backed up.
wot..?..as in the number of votes billy tks' party got..?
are you effing serious..?
that is year ww2 ended territory..
and I am getting the shits about being constantly accused of being a liar/making shit up .
I have a fucken master's degree . ..I did news/stuff on bfm for a few yrs..I ran a news website for about 15 years..
all of it dealing in proveable facts..
so fuck off with yr accusations of making things up in this forum..
that's the only way you can attack what I argue for.
and several weeks ago a moderator in this forum accused me of being known for making up shit in this forum..
I would like one..just one..example of this ..and failing that…a fucken apology..
is that unreasonable . !
and I am talking about the concept of large state owned enterprises paying a direct dividend to the citizens…
try evaluating that..
[Stop playing a victim and lift up your socks, FFS!
Let’s start with one of you more recent ad homs and accusations: https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-12-01-2021/#comment-1774185. lurgee obliged with a response and replied to you directly only yesterday. You: crickets. You’re nothing but a lazy troll 🙁
Then there was that instance when you were moderated by weka about your alleged cover-ups by Dr Bloomfield: https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-15-01-2021/#comment-1774773. Your response was less than satisfactory IMO, but weka let you off the hook and or hasn’t yet seen it. Just as well, because I’d have banned just for that inadequate response to a moderation request!
Today, between all the gibberish that you’ve been spouting and noise that you’ve been generating here partly because of your astonishingly poor reading comprehension, you asserted that they [??] got 19,000 votes at the last election. After a few root-canal trips I managed to extract out of you that you were referring to the party led by Billy TK. But still no link 🙁
You stated:
I’m sure it is ‘in your head’ and that you believe the number to be reasonably close. However, that doesn’t make it true and accurate. Here’s a link, one that I’ve asked you to provide numerous times: https://electionresults.govt.nz/electionresults_2020/. Now, go and update the figure ‘in your head’.
Lastly, for now, Andre challenged you to fact-check your “alaskan example”: https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-18-01-2021/#comment-1775075. Of course, in your typical idiosyncratic style of poor wee hard-done-by victim, you flipped your lid and shared a whole lot of orifice plucks with us. Belatedly, you provided a “correction”, but still no link 🙁
You claim that a moderator [??] owes you an apology. You claim that you’re treated unreasonably. You claim that we should be satisfied with the orifice plucks inside your head and your ‘common sense’. You claim that links are not needed because it’s all “year ww2 ended territory”.
I disagree.
This is your last final last warning to stop with this nonsense and lift your game here or bugger off for a while. Don’t reply with another tear-jerker rant; just lift your game – Incognito]
See my Moderation note @ 8:10 PM.
here's a thought: we could renationalise what j.key sold off…and reconfigure that industry to return those renationalised profits..
in a citizens' dividend..
a la the alaskan example..
@solkta: well, aluminium is often called "solid electricity", so yes it is exported in that form. It just doesn't make sense to export electricity at a wildly discounted price when we've got much better uses for it here.
correction: dividend maximum is just over two grand..
lowest ever payout was $331 in 1984..
Oh good, you are actually capable of checking facts. What did it say about the intent of the fund and how much of the oil permit revenue went into it?
Now, try making a habit of fact-checking before posting. Then you might not come across as quite so much of a substance-addled wastrel rambling out half-remembered factoids that might or might not be relevant to the thread or comment you're replying to.
@Phil
I have a fucken master's degree
I don't believe you. I can't see how you could complete even a graduate degree without paragraphs and sentences.
I’m sure Phil’s degree is real and that his thesis was nothing like his comments here. I don’t care whether he’s the Queen of Sheba; what I care about is how people comment here and conduct themselves on TS. Even ex-Ministers with PhD degrees are given a hard time here when they deserve it and a ban when they overstep the line.
It won't be particularly difficult to produce the high purity elsewhere. There's nothing special about the equipment or electricity supply at Tiwai, it's simply what they choose to do in the process, particularly the anodes, that results in the high purity. Which is likely why the high purity gets very little premium pricing.
There certainly are efforts underway in making smelting more amenable to variable energy supply from renewables. One such effort is Energia Potior (at least partly a spin-off from Auckland University), which is a cooling/insulating system for the pots which allows them to vary production by +/-30% from nominal (compared to +/-5% from nominal for conventional pots)
https://www.energiapotior.com/
@sacha..
if owned by us…I guess we would do what rio tinto do..
buy bauxite..
and it does make money…
it is a revenue-generating asset..
that could be a reason why we should own it .
Great environmental logic – Import tropical strip mined bauxite, use huge amounts of energy to make aluminium, then export it back off shore. Carbon footprint much?
Using that logic, you've made a similar case for meat and dairy exports (and they don’t even have to import cows or sheep), in that if it makes money, and farms being a revenue generating asset, it's okay.
I'd want to see the relative footprint if the bauxite were processed by a coal or gas electric plant before making that argument.
I mean now if we were building a smelter from scratch, sure have it somewhere between the mine and the aluminium users, and maybe use solar or whatever other renewables were between the two points.
But fifty years ago hydro from West coast rainfall was probably the greenest option out.
Thing is, Tiwai is sucking the clean juice that could be going to shutting down Huntly. As well as inhibiting the build-out of more new renewables. Who is going to invest in new generation when there's the threat of a sudden massive oversupply at any moment from shutting Tiwai?
So as far as I'm concerned, it's entirely fair to consider our emissions from Huntly to be because of Tiwai. So shutting Tiwai which allows shutting Huntly, and that smelting getting replaced by coal fired electricity elsewhere would just be a wash in terms of global emissions.
And that’s the worst case, the aluminium industry is quite conscious of their emissions and prefer to be able to trumpet clean sourcing. Hence their interest in Canada and Iceland for smelting.
I don't think there's any nearby coal or gas power stations to the smelter, so you'd have to factor freight into that carbon equation.
There wasn't a hydro plant close until they built Manapouri.
That's my point – if they were building a new smelter now, fair call on the emissions issue. But keeping this one running might be a better-footprint call than building a new and more efficient one somewhere else,
I agree with you re: keeping this smelter might have an overall better footprint than building new closer to another energy source. I missed the point.
But either option would still involve importing mined materials, using large amounts of energy, and exporting it to turn a dollar. I think, as a wannabe green nation, that's not in our best interest.
If it were renewable energy, and we still didn’t burn coal or gas, then it may become more attractive.
Sunk cost in CO2. No point in trying to re litigate the past issues in this case. It was an issue when I was in my teens.
If our government is going to invest in anything in that part of the country, I'd rather it was submarine cable infrastructure to connect data centres and associated high-value businesses using Manapouri electricity to the world. Looks like even those cables are being built by the private sector already..
It's not just aluminium price that controls profitability of course – Tiwai, having no red mud cycle, is a price taker in the alumina market. As an internal customer of a very large mining conglomerate, they pay whatever minimizes their tax liability or otherwise improves the company's overall position. This is why NZ can't just nationalise it – the price of alumina would 'magically' increase.
Or you could say that Rio have been smart enough to play their position as a monopoly buyer just as long as successive NZ govts failed to build sufficient transmission capacity to the rest of the market.
Manapouri is after all in a pretty remote spot, far from the bulk of the demand in the NI. And until very recently the economic case for building new transmission lines, vs the cost of losing Southland's most valuable employer was probably pretty marginal.
If the ground really has shifted, then it's up to the govt to make it's case, make the investment and then take their new negotiating position to Rio and see what happens.
The grid upgrade to get Manapouri power to the southern end of the HVDC link is already underway and should be complete sometime in 2023. So by December 2024, Meridian won't be in a position of spilling a lot of water if Tiwai shuts down. That will make a huge difference to Meridian's economic case.
There will still be somewhat of a weak link from the northern end of the HVDC link at Haywards to Whakamaru. That part of the grid tops out at 220kV. For full flexibility to distribute South Island power and properly shut down Huntly, either the HVDC link needs to be extended to Whakamaru, or the grid from Haywards to Whakamaru needs to be upgraded to 400kV like the recent Whakamaru to Auckland upgrade.
Ta. I had a sense that would be the case, thanks for confirming.
Will that extension reach Chch before then?
I wasn't aware there were any particular weaknesses in the grid supply to Christchurch that needed upgrading.
So extra power could be taken that far already. Good.
Well, I dunno if the grid would be up to supplying another few hundred MW 24/7 to Christchurch if you've got in mind setting up a mega-data-centre there.
But the bottleneck at the moment is the lower South Island. Getting Manapouri power to Christchurch is as constrained as it is getting it to the North Island. Until the upgrade is complete in 2023.
The HVDC doesn't have a connection for Christchurch. Dunno what the reasons for that actually are, but I can think of several good reasons that might contribute to that.
I have different plans for Chch 🙂
https://www.scmp.com/business/commodities/article/1297651/overcapacity-plagues-aluminium-sector
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aluminium_smelters
Still a lot of thermal being produced in the North Island
https://www.transpower.co.nz/power-system-live-data
Current Generation (MW)
Power Generation(as at) 18 Jan 2021 17:46
North Island
Wind 418.68 MW
Hydro 781.487 MW
Geothermal 919.204 MW
Gas/Coal 368.466 MW
Gas 509.959 MW
Diesel/Oil 0 MW
Co-Gen 146.054 MW
South Island
Wind 40.57 MW
Hydro 1835.181 MW
That Gas/Coal is the two older units at Huntly that can run burn either gas or coal. They are the most important ones to be shut down, since their thermal efficiency is so low, less than 40%.
The Gas generation is mostly the combined cycle unit at Huntly plus the combined cycle units at Stratford. Their efficiency is somewhat better, in the mid50s %. There's also some open-cycle gas turbines included, which are low efficiency. It will be a bit harder to get them closed down, because they tend to be the fast-startup peaker generation.
Interesting. Had no idea geothermal was that big a share.
It is what 16% of our generation capacity and rising.
About 10% of installed capacity, but about 16% of actual electricity generated. Because it runs at roughly 85% to 90% capacity almost all the time. Ideal baseload generation.
Have we maxed it out, or could more be added to replace coal and gas?
There's about 1000MW of installed capacity now, and it's commonly estimated there's around another 1000MW of potential. So it could potentially double. There's around 350MW of already consented projects yet to be built.
There's also potential for more use of geothermal for direct heating for drying milk and timber, and other industrial uses. I don't know whether those potential users directly compete with power generation or if there's differences in geothermal fields that make one more suitable than the other.
https://www.mbie.govt.nz/building-and-energy/energy-and-natural-resources/energy-generation-and-markets/geothermal-energy-generation/
In the past few years there's been some articles about high temps close to the surface on the West Coast as a potential geothermal resource. As I understand it, this would require different technology, and I don't recall anyone putting any numbers to how big a resource it might be. There's also the earthquake issues on the West Coast.
There's a bit of geothermal heating of commercial greenhouses on the Coast, growing eggplants and capsicums. I've heard of quite a bit at planning / development as well.
https://www.gns.cri.nz/Home/News-and-Events/Media-Releases-and-News/geothermal-potential
The geotechnical challenges on the Coast aren't really all that different in impact to the central North Island, or even Auckland, they are all very likely to go bang at some stage, and without much warning. The distance for transmission and terrain would probably be the limiting factor, it's hard enough getting electricity into the Coast, the same would apply getting it out.
The geothermal resource is also quite different to the North Island volcanic resource being in a narrow band along the fault rather than around a 'hot spot'. This would make large centralised plants difficult, but ideal for smaller scale process or growth heating. I can see this having quite an impact on the Coast once the resource is better understood and applications fully developed, but it's unlikely to be large scale electricity generation.
[Please use the same user name here throughout without changing it, as this creates work for Moderators for no obvious good reason, thanks. I’ve changed it to your usual user name – Incognito]
See my Moderation note @ 8:50 AM.
Sorry, totally unintentional. The name field tends to grab any stray cursor and either overwrite add to the autofilled name. This seems to be a common problem for many commenters. I normally catch it but this one slipped through.
Is it possible to lock the field to prevent this and save your time.
No worries; those Moderator notes can be perceived as harsh and/or intimidating even though that’s not the intention.
I know there have been and apparently still are issues with wayward cursors and I don’t think this has ever been fully sorted. It appears a problem mostly (?) on the ‘client side’. I think when something ends up in the user name field it is stored in a cache or something rather and can stay there for a long time until it is cleared by closing the browser or through more direct and targeted user intervention, which is why Moderators try to get the attention of the user and alert them to the issue. Some users, however, seem oblivious to replies to their comments, which I cannot really understand …
Lprent and/or weka might be able to shed some light on it, as I’m way out of my depth with this.
The nearest equivalent Ak has to the Alpine Fault are volcanic eruptions every millenia or so. With the West Coast and Welli it is a matter of how many years or decades until the big one, not if.
Palmy, Hamilton and Whangarei are pretty safe locations for critical infrastructure.
For some reason hydro was still bigger in my head.
btw, Cancel Reply function no longer working for me. Running FF84 on MacOS10.15.7
MAGA
Now stands for:
My Ass Got Arrested
Opportunities, opportunities …
She’s one classy lady.