Hopefully the win will be good for employment and the NZ economy. I'm sure all the businesses down at the viaduct appreciated it. I find it a bit ironic that you have the huge crowds of people all close together cheering, then when they catch the bus or train home, they have to put a mask on.
I thought a recession was two consecutive quarterly drops? Had a big bounce in sept quarter. 2021q1 might be a bit shit, too, but technically we don't know if we're in a recession yet.
To clarify without triggering a mod, Sabine's comment was about the latest mass shooting in Georgia where a local sherriff officer said the guy who allegedly murdered 8 people (including 6 women of Asian descent, a number that does not reflect the demographic pyramid of Atlanta Georgia), was having "a really bad day".
People around the world were touched by his sensitivity for the emotional well-being of the murdered alleged murderer.
And anyone who suggests ethnicity might be even a partial a motive for the words of the sherriff or the actions of the murderer is making an horrendous assumption that might require moderation, so I for one won't touch that angle with a bargepole.
Thank you for that. There was nothing in my comment that was racist.
A white man killed 8 people, one of the a white women, 6 of them asian, 1 white man, and one hispanic man is still in hospital.
That is not racist. That is what happened.
and a white cop made excuses as to why the white man did what he did.
He had a bad day.
If that triggers moderation then we will never be able to discuss racially motivated violence and gender motivated violence and the fact that white men seem to get easily protected by the cops in the US.
And please everyone, killing 8 people, driving 30 miles to three different places to do so, calling out ' i want to kill all asians' is what this white cop considered ' that thing'.
If it looks racist, sexists, then maybe it is. Even when we don't like what we see, even when what looks at us maybe look a bit like us.
White men are never terrorists, they're never thugs and they're never irredeemable.
That's what white supremacy is.
[RL: White men are perfectly capable of evil – exactly as I said a few days ago. As indeed are all humans, regardless of whatever fashionable identity we care to label them with. But substitute the word ‘black’ or ‘yellow’ for each time the word ‘white’ was used in that comment and everyone would have instantly seen it for what it was.]
I find this very sad. Perhaps the charge should have been murder as a 21 year old should know punching an infant several times is very likely to cause death.
Mitigating issues must be found. Responsibility is always on the victim never on the perpetrator.
6 month on home D will surely show him.
a friend of mine is emergency fostering a 4 month old. the baby came to them 2 month ago after it was so severely bashed that it had broken rips, extensive injuries to head and body, brain swelling etc. It will be permanently deaf as a result, we are just happy i thas not lost its eye sight as initially we thought that might be also. Luckily it started tracking movement when the swelling reduced. It appears that the bloke who beat that baby to an inch of its life is still wondering about the community. Violence is us, and we don’t give a fuck.
We've all been toddlers and tend to carry on what we learned right from the first – pre-speech. Answer to violence – love our young people and help them to find their skills and enable them into work.
Once a baby is on the way they go onto a special program where they plan how they are going to manage their tasks and there is assistance from government as they carry out their own program and find a house and place and work. And they can reassess what they will try for. And then there will be less negativity and violence in their behaviour for others to notice.
Responsibility is always on the victim never on the perpetrator.
Hit the nail there Sabine. There are plenty of perpetrators out there who are never brought to justice because they know or are related to powerful people – and in the past at least a few of those 'powerful people' have been among the highest in the land. Disgraceful.
One of the battles in the sex/gender wars. In the UK the Office for National Statistics, which runs the census, had included guidance on how to answer the gender and sex questions in the census that has this week been ruled illegal. I will link below to an explanation of this, and we should be paying attention in NZ because StatsNZ including the Minister are intending to make changes here too. Upshot is ONS were telling people they could answer the sex question with their gender identification rather than their biological sex.
Someone on twitter clarified what the legal guidance is, and their tweet was removed. Most likely what has happened here is that someone has reported the tweet and the twitter moderator doesn't understand what is going on and has been instructed to remove tweets that look like they're talking about biological sex in reference to trans people.
Fair Play For Women have today won their High Court challenge against the Office for National Statistics. The ONS has conceded that the proper meaning of Sex in the Census means sex as recognised by law.
The High Court has now ordered “What is your sex” means sex “as recorded on a birth certificate or Gender Recognition Certificate”.
…
The Guidance accompanying the question “What is your sex?” is now published, on a final basis, and directs everyone to answer according to their legal sex for the remainder of the Census.
Jason Coppel QC for Fair Play For Women argued that the sex question in the Census is “a straightforward binary question, not a choice” at the initial hearing on 9 March.
Sir James Eadie QC for the ONS had argued that sex was an ‘umbrella term’ that includes a range of concepts such as ‘lived’ and ‘self-identified’ sex. He also claimed that asking about a person’s sex as recognised by law risks a breach of Article 8 of the Human Rights Act, which relates to privacy. The judge Mr Justice Swift disagreed. He stated that Fair Play For Women had a “strongly arguable case” and granted an interim order that forced ONS to immediately change its Guidance.
This case establishes that sex is a distinct concept in law, not something shaped by how a person feels, and that organisations need not worry about asking people their sex when they need to do so.
This is clearer. The guidance was saying people could answer the question based on "the sex recorded on one of your legal documents such as a birth certificate, Gender Recognition Certificate, or passport." Passports and other ID in the UK are issued on the basis of gender self-id, not biological sex.
I have very strong views of this. I am against the gender self i.d. and very disappointed the first we have heard from our new Minister of Women's Affairs is that she is reserecting the gender self i.d. bill. So basically prioritizing the desires of men who want to become women over women whose sex was female at birth….
By the way, I think the most accurate way of knowing the true rate of trans gender would be to refer to the Dunedin Multi- disciplinary study. That’s where you would find out the true rate.
Women whose sex was female at birth have a completely different lived experience that men who want to transition. We are the ones who have grown up with sexism and misogomy. We are the ones who face the perils of being physically weaker than biological men (even after men transition to be women, they still retain much of their muscle mass and height advantage). We are the ones who have all the attendant problems with being the one's who carry children and give birth to them. We are the one's who experience health concern with our female reproductive system. Anyone remember that classic feminist text "Our bodies our selves" ?
I am utterly against the self gender id bill and I feel betrayed that one of the first things our minister of Women Affairs has announced is the gender self id. But I don't believe I will be listened too. I will be shouted down as anti trans etc.
I see the actor Ralph Fiennes has come out in support of J K Rowling saying that he can't understand the vitriol against her. Neither can I
I was hoping the UK situation would have progressed further so that by the time we got to the public debate here it would be easier. Still, the GCFs have done some amazing work, including the one above about the census.
One of the problems with counting trans people is that there is no clear definition of what trans is (unlike biological sex). There is disagreement even within the trans communities about whether gender dysphoria is a central part of the trans experience (I think it's not necessarily, gender dysphoria is probably at least partially to do with living in the patriarchy, but then that opens up the issues of cross dressing men, men who want to identify as women but have no desire to transition, men who want to be a woman only some of the time, and male people who are non-binary and who want access to women's spaces).
Given the politics, and as you mention the great difficulty in discussing this publicly, I think the only way we are going to get something equitable is to look at trans rights and women's rights and be honest about the conflict while also upholding the needs of both groups. Otherwise we're going to be in a major cultural war like other places. I suspect this will harm the left in NZ, especially the Greens who seem oblivious to how many women will object to self-ID once they understand what it means. Most women, most people are supportive of trans rights in a more general way, but start to have concerns once they dig down into where the politics and social movements are going. Sooner we can talk about it openly and honestly, the better for all concerned.
I find myself defending my rights and identity as a women. This is seen as anti trans.
I remember when I lived in UK many, many years ago seeing a documentary about a trans women. It was a great documentary and I felt deeply compassionate about the women involved.
But if you look at the debate and I read about the experience of lesbians in the US and the UK it seems like some very bad things are being directed against women, by the trans activists.
I often feel like the boy in the emperors new clothes. Am I the only one who can see that men who want to be women aren't biological women and the language being used is bloody ridiculous.
Women are always expected to accomodate and put others needs before their own. So it feels we are not able to defend our biology, without vitriol.
I don't know if you are on twitter, but there are large numbers of women (and some support from men) organising and discussing these issues. Best to set up a pseudonymous account, because yes, there are strong forces attacking women trying to talk about the issues (trans people are getting attacked too, and there are third party actors with their own agendas, trolls, MRAs, and people intent on sowing discord). It can be full on, but you don't have to tweet, it's just easier to follow the GCFs on twitter if you have an account. Some of the UK GCFs are doing incredible work and offer solidarity. I also follow trans people on both sides of the war, and lots of detrans people.
It is a bit of a struggle to get one's head around RL, and I'm always on the hunt for writings that clarify the terminology and the ideology and the reality.
Since a census is about eating information so countries can deal with issues, wouldnt make since to have to boxes ?,one for your birth gender then one for your current gender so government can get an accurate idea of how many people are born into genetically confused bodies.
Indeed. There are two questions afaik. One about biological sex, and one about gender ID. The first one was the one that had the bad guidance. ONS appeared to be using the census to allow people to validate their personal identity rather than collecting statistics.
Can't remember the thing about the two-box strategy offhand, but it's a freaking nightmare looking for a bureaucratic middle ground. It doesn't exist.
On the one hand you have both sides of the trans debate, but also there are various issues regarding sex labelling at birth relating to various intersex degrees and conditions.
And then you have how many people will get confused or screw up questions with any degree of complication (regardless of how activist they might be), and how you incorporated unexpected responses into the dataset.
unfortunately ONS decided that gathering sex stats wasn't that important, and Stats NZ seems to be going down the same path. Most people know what their biological sex is, it's not that hard to understand. Agencies can do the mahi with intersex people to figure out if the census is the best place to collect stats on them or if something else needs to be done. Intersex and trans are different groups of people and shouldn't be conflated (even given there are some people who are both). Whatever happens with intersex, and gender ID, we need stats on biological sex that isn't clouded by gender ID.
The two boxes don't need a middle ground, they need to be separate questions, they're eliciting different categories of information/data. The problem appears to be that some people now don't want to talk about biological sex. That's fine, but changing national stats collection because of that is not reasonable.
If it were that simple, it would have been sorted the first time they looked at it (rather than backing away after their first look at the intense and contradictory submissions).
And bear in mind, this is only from the submission side of the collection/collation/analysis/distribution process. Having two variables means that any analysis then has to figure out if the best option for their outputs is to favour one or the other or have some convoluted rule regarding the exponential possible value combinations for the two together.
All for something that I doubt would significantly affect 99% of health or social research outputs the census is used for.
Maybe have a read of the submissions made by researchers and stats bods in the UK about the range of problems with the censuses in Scotland and the rest of the UK, and why sex data matters.
Shaw has said that gender is more important, and for most purposes sex isn't necessary. He didn't ask women, looks like they specifically avoided asking women. And in the UK there has been massive pressure on academics, scientists and government employees to not talk about the issues. People are losing careers over it and being attacked in some pretty nasty ways. It's an incredibly unhealthy atmosphere, and at the very least public confidence in the government over data collection is at risk.
agree about the confusion. The first place I'd start with that is the government and NZ legislation, which is a hot mess of historical usage not keeping up with changes in language and concept use (sex, gender). Historically people have used gender = sex as well as gender = the social construct. Gender ID politics are pushing governments to abandon sex and the concepts and language need updating fast and clear communication to the public and the protection of biological sex as having meaning and use. Many people are still using gender to mean sex, but others are taking them to mean social construct. Worse, some people now believe that sex is a social construct. It's a fitting bloody mess for the end of the world.
I'll touch on the bureaucratic aspect of the census, because it's something I work with. But I won't get into the trans debate again because we fundamentally disagree on this issue and I have better things to get angry about at the moment.
and, it's not the trans debate. It's the debate over the conflict of rights that affects trans, NB, GNC people of both sexes and all genders, intersex, and women.
or at least, I'm not debating trans, I'm debating the sex/gender wars (plenty of trans and women on both sides), and most of what I read and comment about is women's rights, not trans people's rights.
sure, I'm just not sure that the connections between those can be severed (or at least I would find it odd to talk about the data separate from the reasons the data is collected).
In the case of the census, the reasons for collection are generally unknown in the specifics. There are regular products that have evolved over time into common use, but the actual research questions being asked (and the required granularity in the answers) are unknown, and people come up with new uses every year.
Sometimes it's a denominator, so we know the rate at which something happens in the population. E.g. homicide rate.
Sometimes it's numerator and denominator, e.g. counting housing ownership rates.
Most statsnz consultation papers I've read on census questions have a pretty broad basis for what sorts of things the question might be used for, and what different answers might mean or how they can be summarised, but the actual research is constructed by folks asking their own question and going "there's something vaguely along those lines in the census".
If it was designed with a narrow use profile in mind, it'll be no good for other uses. This is the problem with the current sex/gender question. But there's no broader-use design for this particular question area that will satisfy all groups.
All this thought about changing Royalty, it is work for idle minds who find chaos and the collapse of anything in society exciting to write about as long as the writer is standing away from the edge.
Peck peck at Meghan and Harry. Talk talk by them. Diana suffered the unhealthy attention. They are just feeding the publicity becoming Victims of the Year. The media will eat them up if allowed, and take bites out of royalty because they can and they like to build celebrities then take them apart like lego figures.
The Queen has held out for some order while the Barons rage on. The Royal Family are far better than anyone else I can think of. Speculation in the media, speculation in housing, it would be good if some people took up an occupation where they physically did something with a good outcome for society.
The Royal Family are far better than anyone else I can think of.
Certainly some (most?) of the Royal family are pretty good. The Queen of the UK (and other Commonwealth realms, including NZ) is admirable. Considering 'non-royals' (btw that's most of us), Malala Yousafzai and Greta Thunberg spring to mind. Nelson Mandela and Fred Hollows weren't bad either.
The essence of the human being is our capacity to help others. – Hollows
Good move. It's a health matter, not a local policy issue. Actually, general water quality should be in it, not just fluoridation. General things like lead, gastro bugs, nitrates, etc. Separates the reporting and monitoring body from the maintenance and supply body.
Yes a good move, prevents fringe groups with too much spare time forcing their weird views on the rest of us. And also frees up local councils to get on with what really matters.
A Cochrane review estimates a reduction in cavities when water fluoridation was used by children who had no access to other sources of fluoride to be 35% in baby teeth and 26% in permanent teeth.[8] Most European countries have experienced substantial declines in tooth decay without its use. Recent studies suggest that water fluoridation, particularly in industrialized countries, may be unnecessary because topical fluorides (such as in toothpaste) are widely used and caries rates have become low.[2] For this reason, some scientists consider fluoridation to be unethical due to "the debilitating effects of fluoride toxicity" and the lack of informed consent.[11]
Regardless of personal fluoridation views I do have some issues with how this is presented.
The implication is that all the 6500 hospital admissions come from unfluoridated areas. Probably not.
That all the people who do not currently have a fluoridated supply actually have a public supply that can be fluoridated- there are a lot of people in this country who don't really have a public supply to hook up to – rather than having one but being against fluoridation because "other people know what is best for them health wise".
So the dental health downside is unlikely to as severe as the article makes it out to be.
And of all the things that "do nothing Labour " could do they choose to pick a fight with a vocal group of people who would like a choice about their drinking water.
If you really want to get into it, about the best datasource is the community oral health survey of schoolkids. Not perfect, but the schools in fuoridated zones have lower mean decayed/missing/filled teeth (and higher "caries-free") numbers than schools in unflouridated areas. This is a pretty typical publication in the area. It works, it's safe at 0.7-1ppm, it saves teeth, and it's cheap.
But we also have a pretty significant oral health equity problem that fluoridation doesn't fix.
Yeah I get the fewer caries but the media release discussion is more than a bit disingenuous. At what point does this type of release promote the drawing of basically fake conclusions – more fluro water less hospital admissions. We don't need this type of "fake" promo from government and health departments. Right up there with the IRD "testing about 640,000 kiwisaver transactions" – i have a flying pig for you!
Why not just fluoro school supplies if it's kids that are the concern.
Yeah I get the data but are those without access even on supplies that can be fluoridated? And are the hospitalisations kids from these areas. The data needs a lot of filling out not the yeah yeah of the press release. And honestly aren't there a ton load of other urgent things that need doing by labour? Rather than picking this fight?
Another example of the nihilistic National Party who say a lot about how smart they are, but every time they open their mouths put their feet into them.
Seven workers from the show have been approved for critical workers visas by Immigration New Zealand for their tour "It's a Kinda Magic", which starts next month.
The National Party said it was a kick in the guts for families who were separated from loved ones and desperate for a place in managed isolation.
National might not have realised that the tight ship economically, that they have been running along with past 'Labour', have made consumerism an important part of the economy, and made the creatives and entertainment one of the big employers and earners for the younger generation.
Concerts are big earners, and they also keep people's spirits up in a kinder way than resorting to drugs and alcohol in addictive amounts as we see happening. So stop crying crocodile tears you nasty Gnats. Bite your own bums you mosquitoes.
The Plant and Food Research study found having more native plants near crops could attract insects that help with pollination and combat some harmful pests.
Figures from the Ministry for Primary Industries showed insect-pollinated crops such as kiwifruit and avocados were worth about $2 billion to the national economy.
Co-author of the study Dr Melanie Davidson said more farmers were starting to restore native flora and this research showed they would be rewarded for their efforts.
"What it means for farmers is that with the improved pollination you can increase your yield but also you're increasing the resilience of your system because you're not just relying on your potentially managed honeybees that a lot of farmers bring in," Dr Davidson said.
heh, that's called permaculture, glad the scientists and government are catching up. Doesn't have to be native plants, but there's good reason to make sure natives are included or prioritised in places.
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Buzz from the Beehive The 180 or so recipients of letters from the Government telling them how to submit infrastructure projects for “fast track” consideration includes some whose project applications previously have been rejected by the courts. News media were quick to feature these in their reports after RMA Reform Minister Chris ...
It would not be a desirable way to start your holiday by breaking your back, your head, or your wrist, but on our first hour in Singapore I gave it a try.We were chatting, last week, before we started a meeting of Hazel’s Enviro Trust, about the things that can ...
Calling all journalists, academics, planners, lawyers, political activists, environmentalists, and other members of the public who believe that the relationships between vested interests and politicians need to be scrutinised. We need to work together to make sure that the new Fast-Track Approvals Bill – currently being pushed through by the ...
Feel worried. Shane Jones and a couple of his Cabinet colleagues are about to be granted the power to override any and all objections to projects like dams, mines, roads etc even if: said projects will harm biodiversity, increase global warming and cause other environmental harms, and even if ...
Bryce Edwards writes- The ability of the private sector to quickly establish major new projects making use of the urban and natural environment is to be supercharged by the new National-led Government. Yesterday it introduced to Parliament one of its most significant reforms, the Fast Track Approvals Bill. ...
Michael Bassett writes – If you think there is a move afoot by the radical Maori fringe of New Zealand society to create a parallel system of government to the one that we elect at our triennial elections, you aren’t wrong. Over the last few days we have ...
Without a corresponding drop in interest rates, it’s doubtful any changes to the CCCFA will unleash a massive rush of home buyers. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: The six things that stood out to me in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, poverty and climate on Monday, April 22 included:The Government making a ...
Sunday was a lazy day. I started watching Jack Tame on Q&A, the interviews are usually good for something to write about. Saying the things that the politicians won’t, but are quite possibly thinking. Things that are true and need to be extracted from between the lines.As you might know ...
In our Weekly Roundup last week we covered news from Auckland Transport that the WX1 Western Express is going to get an upgrade next year with double decker electric buses. As part of the announcement, AT also said “Since we introduced the WX1 Western Express last November we have seen ...
TL;DR: The six key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to April 29 include:PM Christopher Luxon is scheduled to hold a post-Cabinet news conference at 4 pm today. Stats NZ releases its statutory report on Census 2023 tomorrow.Finance Minister Nicola Willis delivers a pre-Budget speech at ...
A listing of 29 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 14, 2024 thru Sat, April 20, 2024. Story of the week Our story of the week hinges on these words from the abstract of a fresh academic ...
The ability of the private sector to quickly establish major new projects making use of the urban and natural environment is to be supercharged by the new National-led Government. Yesterday it introduced to Parliament one of its most significant reforms, the Fast Track Approvals Bill. The Government says this will ...
This is a column to say thank you. So many of have been in touch since Mum died to say so many kind and thoughtful things. You’re wonderful, all of you. You’ve asked how we’re doing, how Dad’s doing. A little more realisation each day, of the irretrievable finality of ...
Identifying the engine type in your car is crucial for various reasons, including maintenance, repairs, and performance upgrades. Knowing the specific engine model allows you to access detailed technical information, locate compatible parts, and make informed decisions about modifications. This comprehensive guide will provide you with a step-by-step approach to ...
Introduction: The allure of racing is undeniable. The thrill of speed, the roar of engines, and the exhilaration of competition all contribute to the allure of this adrenaline-driven sport. For those who yearn to experience the pinnacle of racing, becoming a race car driver is the ultimate dream. However, the ...
Introduction Automobiles have become ubiquitous in modern society, serving as a primary mode of transportation and a symbol of economic growth and personal mobility. With countless vehicles traversing roads and highways worldwide, it begs the question: how many cars are there in the world? Determining the precise number is a ...
Maintaining a safe and reliable vehicle requires regular inspections. Whether it’s a routine maintenance checkup or a safety inspection, knowing how long the process will take can help you plan your day accordingly. This article delves into the factors that influence the duration of a car inspection and provides an ...
Mazda Motor Corporation, commonly known as Mazda, is a Japanese multinational automaker headquartered in Fuchu, Aki District, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan. The company was founded in 1920 as the Toyo Cork Kogyo Co., Ltd., and began producing vehicles in 1931. Mazda is primarily known for its production of passenger cars, but ...
Your car battery is an essential component that provides power to start your engine, operate your electrical systems, and store energy. Over time, batteries can weaken and lose their ability to hold a charge, which can lead to starting problems, power failures, and other issues. Replacing your battery before it ...
In most states, you cannot register a car without a valid driver’s license. However, there are a few exceptions to this rule. Exceptions to the RuleIf you are under 18 years old: In some states, you can register a car in your name even if you do not ...
Mazda, a Japanese automotive manufacturer with a rich history of innovation and engineering excellence, has emerged as a formidable player in the global car market. Known for its reputation of producing high-quality, fuel-efficient, and driver-oriented vehicles, Mazda has consistently garnered praise from industry experts and consumers alike. In this article, ...
Struts are an essential part of a car’s suspension system. They are responsible for supporting the weight of the car and damping the oscillations of the springs. Struts are typically made of steel or aluminum and are filled with hydraulic fluid. How Do Struts Work? Struts work by transferring the ...
Car registration is a mandatory process that all vehicle owners must complete annually. This process involves registering your car with the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and paying an associated fee. The registration process ensures that your vehicle is properly licensed and insured, and helps law enforcement and other authorities ...
Zoom is a video conferencing service that allows you to share your screen, webcam, and audio with other participants. In addition to sharing your own audio, you can also share the audio from your computer with other participants. This can be useful for playing music, sharing presentations with audio, or ...
Building your own computer can be a rewarding and cost-effective way to get a high-performance machine tailored to your specific needs. However, it also requires careful planning and execution, and one of the most important factors to consider is the time it will take. The exact time it takes to ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
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. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
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. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi, and Mema Paremata mō Tāmaki-Makaurau, Takutai Tarsh Kemp, will travel to the Gold Coast to strengthen ties with Māori in Australia next week (15-21 April). The visit, in the lead-up to the 9th Australian National Kapa haka Festival, will be an opportunity for both ...
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. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is today travelling to Europe where he’ll update the United Nations Human Rights Council on the Government’s work to restore law and order. “Attending the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva provides us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while ...
Associate Agriculture Minister, Mark Patterson, formally reopened the world’s largest wool processing facility today in Awatoto, Napier, following a $50 million rebuild and refurbishment project. “The reopening of this facility will significantly lift the economic opportunities available to New Zealand’s wool sector, which already accounts for 20 per cent of ...
Hon Andrew Bayly, Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing At the Southland Otago Regional Engineering Collective (SOREC) Summit, 18 April, Dunedin Ngā mihi nui, Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Ko Whanganui aho Good Afternoon and thank you for inviting me to open your summit today. I am delighted ...
The Government is delivering on its commitment to bring back the Three Strikes legislation, Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee announced today. “Our Government is committed to restoring law and order and enforcing appropriate consequences on criminals. We are making it clear that repeat serious violent or sexual offending is not ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today announced four new diplomatic appointments for New Zealand’s overseas missions. “Our diplomats have a vital role in maintaining and protecting New Zealand’s interests around the world,” Mr Peters says. “I am pleased to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the ...
New Zealand is contributing NZ$7 million to support communities affected by severe food insecurity and other urgent humanitarian needs in Ethiopia and Somalia, Foreign Minister Rt Hon Winston Peters announced today. “Over 21 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance across Ethiopia, with a further 6.9 million people ...
Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Paul Goldsmith is congratulating Mataaho Collective for winning the Golden Lion for best participant in the main exhibition at the Venice Biennale. "Congratulations to the Mataaho Collective for winning one of the world's most prestigious art prizes at the Venice Biennale. “It is good ...
The Government is reforming financial services to improve access to home loans and other lending, and strengthen customer protections, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly and Housing Minister Chris Bishop announced today. “Our coalition Government is committed to rebuilding the economy and making life simpler by cutting red tape. We are ...
“China remains a strong commercial opportunity for Kiwi exporters as Chinese businesses and consumers continue to value our high-quality safe produce,” Trade and Agriculture Minister Todd McClay says. Mr McClay has returned to New Zealand following visits to Beijing, Harbin and Shanghai where he met ministers, governors and mayors and engaged in trade and agricultural events with the New ...
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 ...
Asia Pacific Report From France to Australia, university pro-Palestine protests in the United States have now spread to several countries with students pitching on-campus camps. And students at Columbia and other US universities remain defiant as campuses have witnessed the biggest protests since the anti-Vietnam war and anti-apartheid eras in ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards, Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)New Zealand Government’s Fast Track legislation. Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government ...
Tara Ward talks to presenter Naomi Toilalo about the new TV show that turns food waste into a three course feast. Naomi Toilalo is standing in the warehouse at Good Neighbour Tauranga, helping unpack the two-and-a-half tonnes of rejected food that will arrive at the community support hub that day. ...
Scout is our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Scout’s human, Avril, for her support. Dog name: Scout (named after the little girl in To Kill a Mockingbird – she inherited the independent spirit ...
Megan Alatini takes us through her life in TV, including ‘terrible’ daytime TV, the class of Carol Hirschfeld and her most embarrassing TrueBliss moment. When she responded to a vague newspaper ad asking “do you have what it takes to be a popstar?” 25 years ago, Megan Alatini never guessed ...
A new exhibition in Wellington showcases the faces behind your local goods and services. Back in 1977, when I was a fine arts student at the University of Canterbury, I took a series of photographs of Christchurch shopkeepers. The photos were for a calendar – a project for my end ...
Toomaj and his resistance to tyranny through his songs have become an icon for the youth of Iran, so his sentence has hit the nation hard. Toomaj Salehi is not the first artist to pay the price for standing with the people. ...
My cousin Dylan and I spotted these big eels under the bridge that summer. We watched them lounging under the dark weed, facing into the flow of water, their mouths frozen open. Dylan and I couldn’t stop thinking about those eels. The night we went down to the creek, we ...
Newsroom, home of satire. My long-running weekly satirical series The Secret Diary has moved to Newsroom and will appear every Saturday, with Victor Billot’s wildly popular satirical Odes continuing to appear every Sunday. Diaries, Odes – while serious political columnists toil at meaningful opinions and stroke their chins to an ...
Tara Ward unravels the many nuanced layers of a cartoon about talking dogs.This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. It’s not often an episode of a children’s cartoon has adults sobbing into their sleeves, but that’s exactly what happened this week when ...
Working as a doctor in developing countries to help communities achieve better health outcomes is nothing short of a life goal for Jessica Tater. The University of Otago medical student has her sights firmly set on joining the international humanitarian organisation Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) when she qualifies ...
There’s an island in the far reaches of Auckland’s territory, sitting off the tip of the Coromandel Peninsula, 30 minutes by air from the city or four hours on the slow boat. Aotea Great Barrier is off-grid, it has a population of fewer than a thousand people … and most ...
Asia Pacific Report An Australian author and advocate, Jim Aubrey, today led a national symbolic one minute’s silence to mark the “blood debt” owed to Papuan allies during the Second World War indigenous resistance against the invading Japanese forces. “A promise to most people is a promise,” Aubrey said in ...
Asia Pacific Report The Freedom Flotilla is ready to sail to Gaza, reports Kia Ora Gaza. All the required paperwork has been submitted to the port authority, and the cargo has been loaded and prepared for the humanitarian trip to the besieged enclave. However, organisers received word of an “administrative ...
Pacific Media Watch Palestine solidarity protesters today demonstrated at the Auckland headquarters of Television New Zealand, accusing the country’s major TV network of broadcasting “propaganda” backing Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. About 50 protesters targeted the main entrance to the TVNZ building near Sky Tower and also picketed a side ...
Opinion by Lynley Hood. Forty years on from my 1985 Fulbright Grant, my disquiet over the war in Gaza evoked some troubling questions. The answer to my first question – What is the primary purpose of the Fulbright Programme? – was on the Fulbright NZ website. It says: US Senator, ...
The ministers responsible for green-lighting major projects need to be open about potential conflicts of interest, says Transparency International. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anastasia Powell, Professor, Family and Sexual Violence, RMIT University It has been a particularly distressing start to the year. There is little that can ease the current grief of individuals, families and communities who have needlessly lost a loved one to men’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Moore, Senior Research Associate, School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, The University of Melbourne Lichen, the first described example of symbiosis.AdeJ Artventure/Shutterstock Once known only to those studying biology, the word symbiosis is now widely used. Symbiosis is the intimate ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kim Hemsley, Head, Childhood Dementia Research Group, Flinders Health and Medical Research Institute, College of Medicine and Public Health, Flinders University Olena Ivanova/Shutterstock “Childhood” and “dementia” are two words we wish we didn’t have to use together. But sadly, around 1,400 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Whiteford, Professor, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University The government’s Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee has just published its second report. It was set up by Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Minister for Social Services Amanda Rishworth in 2022 to provide: ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne The Queensland state election will be held in October. A YouGov poll for The Courier Mail, conducted April 9–17 from a sample ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amin Naeni, PhD candidate at Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University There’s been much talk in recent months about what a possible second Donald Trump presidency in the United States could mean for Europe, Russia’s war in Ukraine, the ...
A brief round-up of submissions on the controversial proposed law. This is an excerpt from our weekly environmental newsletter Future Proof. Sign up here. Last week, submissions on the controversial Fast-track Approvals Bill closed just hours after the government released a list of stakeholder organisations who were sent letters advising how they could ...
A poem from Robin Peace’s new collection Detritus of Empire: feather / grass / rock. Cereal giving I see a woman’s hands, see her curious hands break a stalk as she walks through the tall prairie, the savannah, the steppe, wherever it was. See her idly bite the grass that ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Hemingway’s Goblet by Dermot Ross (Mary Egan Publishing, $38)A handsomely produced (debossed cover, lovely ...
The Commissioner's decision validates the longstanding efforts of the local community and ensures that Awataha Marae will be managed to serve the needs of the local community, particularly for hosting tangihanga. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tristan Salles, Associate professor, University of Sydney Examples of Australian landscapes.Unsplash Seventy thousand years ago, the sea level was much lower than today. Australia, along with New Guinea and Tasmania, formed a connected landmass known as Sahul. Around this time – ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Felicity Castagna, Lecturer, Creative Writing, Western Sydney University Day Day Market, ParramattaPhoto: Garry Trinh I live on the edge of Parramatta, Australia’s fastest-growing city, on the kind of old-fashioned suburban street that has 1950s fibros constructed in the post-war housing boom, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Ryan, Teaching Fellow in Economics, University of Waikato GettyImagesfatido/Getty Images There is an ongoing global debate over whether the high inflation seen in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic can be lowered without a recession. New Zealand is not ...
The ‘Wicked Game’ heartthrob is in his late 60s now. That didn’t stop him putting on a lively, goofy and very sparkly show. Apart from ‘Wicked Game’, which graces a sultry playlist of mine simply called 💋, my last sustained Chris Isaak listening session took place when I was about ...
Analysis - Two ministers were stripped of portfolios in a warning to Cabinet, drama broke out at the Waitangi Tribunal, and the gang patch ban bill ran into opposition. ...
Tara Ward makes an impassioned plea for some vital pop culture merch. In April 1999, I became obsessed with a new reality television show called Popstars. Every Tuesday night, five strangers transformed into music royalty before my very eyes as Joe, Keri, Carly, Erika and Megan were chosen to form ...
PNG Post-Courier In the early hours of ANZAC Day, aerial photographs captured an impressive gathering of Australians and Papua New Guineans at Isurava in the Northern (Oro) Province. The solemn dawn service yesterday was held at a site steeped in history, where some of the fiercest battles of World War ...
The PSA is shocked that Oranga Tamariki has used the cost cutting drive to downgrade its commitment to Te Ao Māori and remove many specialist Māori roles. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Kemish, Adjunct Professor, School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, The University of Queensland There can be no more powerful symbol of the relationship between Australia and Papua New Guinea than the prime ministers of these neighbouring countries walking together on the ...
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Goodness me, the NZ media seem to have spent most of yesterday interviewing slurring people about the America's Cup.
Hopefully the win will be good for employment and the NZ economy. I'm sure all the businesses down at the viaduct appreciated it. I find it a bit ironic that you have the huge crowds of people all close together cheering, then when they catch the bus or train home, they have to put a mask on.
Only the poor will catch the bus, the rest will drive home in their cars.
Unhelpful negative stereotype AKA another simplistic bumper sticker.
With the AC and St Pat’s Day some people may have made the right decision to use PT instead of drinking & driving.
You should read the news, NZ is technically in a recession after a GDP drop in the December quarter.
Last sentence in the article in Staff:
“With the domestic economy having already recovered its lost ground, further growth will be harder to come by in the coming year.”
caution: semantics ahead:
I thought a recession was two consecutive quarterly drops? Had a big bounce in sept quarter. 2021q1 might be a bit shit, too, but technically we don't know if we're in a recession yet.
[RL: Deleting this comment for blatant and repeated racist references]
ouch.
To clarify without triggering a mod, Sabine's comment was about the latest mass shooting in Georgia where a local sherriff officer said the guy who allegedly murdered 8 people (including 6 women of Asian descent, a number that does not reflect the demographic pyramid of Atlanta Georgia), was having "a really bad day".
People around the world were touched by his sensitivity for the emotional well-being of the
murderedalleged murderer.And anyone who suggests ethnicity might be even a partial a motive for the words of the sherriff or the actions of the murderer is making an horrendous assumption that might require moderation, so I for one won't touch that angle with a bargepole.
Thank you for that. There was nothing in my comment that was racist.
A white man killed 8 people, one of the a white women, 6 of them asian, 1 white man, and one hispanic man is still in hospital.
That is not racist. That is what happened.
and a white cop made excuses as to why the white man did what he did.
He had a bad day.
If that triggers moderation then we will never be able to discuss racially motivated violence and gender motivated violence and the fact that white men seem to get easily protected by the cops in the US.
And please everyone, killing 8 people, driving 30 miles to three different places to do so, calling out ' i want to kill all asians' is what this white cop considered ' that thing'.
If it looks racist, sexists, then maybe it is. Even when we don't like what we see, even when what looks at us maybe look a bit like us.
White men are never terrorists, they're never thugs and they're never irredeemable.
That's what white supremacy is.
[RL: White men are perfectly capable of evil – exactly as I said a few days ago. As indeed are all humans, regardless of whatever fashionable identity we care to label them with. But substitute the word ‘black’ or ‘yellow’ for each time the word ‘white’ was used in that comment and everyone would have instantly seen it for what it was.]
Trevor Noah has a good go on it as well, on the shooter and the sherriff.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDPgzDk2oVo
https://twitter.com/RichPhelps/status/1372257212966440960
I find this very sad. Perhaps the charge should have been murder as a 21 year old should know punching an infant several times is very likely to cause death.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/124558073/man-admits-causing-death-of-threemonthold-baby-during-covid19-lockdown
No of course we can not expect such.
Mitigating issues must be found. Responsibility is always on the victim never on the perpetrator.
6 month on home D will surely show him.
a friend of mine is emergency fostering a 4 month old. the baby came to them 2 month ago after it was so severely bashed that it had broken rips, extensive injuries to head and body, brain swelling etc. It will be permanently deaf as a result, we are just happy i thas not lost its eye sight as initially we thought that might be also. Luckily it started tracking movement when the swelling reduced. It appears that the bloke who beat that baby to an inch of its life is still wondering about the community. Violence is us, and we don’t give a fuck.
That is very sad to hear. I hope karma catches up with the piece of shit that did that to the baby.
I really hope law is catching up with him. Because it seems toddlers are fair game in NZ.
We've all been toddlers and tend to carry on what we learned right from the first – pre-speech. Answer to violence – love our young people and help them to find their skills and enable them into work.
Once a baby is on the way they go onto a special program where they plan how they are going to manage their tasks and there is assistance from government as they carry out their own program and find a house and place and work. And they can reassess what they will try for. And then there will be less negativity and violence in their behaviour for others to notice.
I hope you are correct too, but it seems our laws / judges are too soft on these types of people.
Hit the nail there Sabine. There are plenty of perpetrators out there who are never brought to justice because they know or are related to powerful people – and in the past at least a few of those 'powerful people' have been among the highest in the land. Disgraceful.
One of the battles in the sex/gender wars. In the UK the Office for National Statistics, which runs the census, had included guidance on how to answer the gender and sex questions in the census that has this week been ruled illegal. I will link below to an explanation of this, and we should be paying attention in NZ because StatsNZ including the Minister are intending to make changes here too. Upshot is ONS were telling people they could answer the sex question with their gender identification rather than their biological sex.
Someone on twitter clarified what the legal guidance is, and their tweet was removed. Most likely what has happened here is that someone has reported the tweet and the twitter moderator doesn't understand what is going on and has been instructed to remove tweets that look like they're talking about biological sex in reference to trans people.
https://twitter.com/alexrubner/status/1372257452587110407
This is in the context of tweets being regularly removed for talking about biological sex within the sex/gender wars.
The UK ruling,
https://fairplayforwomen.com/fair-play-for-women-wins-high-court-challenge-against-ons-census/
This is clearer. The guidance was saying people could answer the question based on "the sex recorded on one of your legal documents such as a birth certificate, Gender Recognition Certificate, or passport." Passports and other ID in the UK are issued on the basis of gender self-id, not biological sex.
https://archive.ph/dmZQt#selection-1227.93-1227.215 (The Telegraph).
I have very strong views of this. I am against the gender self i.d. and very disappointed the first we have heard from our new Minister of Women's Affairs is that she is reserecting the gender self i.d. bill. So basically prioritizing the desires of men who want to become women over women whose sex was female at birth….
By the way, I think the most accurate way of knowing the true rate of trans gender would be to refer to the Dunedin Multi- disciplinary study. That’s where you would find out the true rate.
Women whose sex was female at birth have a completely different lived experience that men who want to transition. We are the ones who have grown up with sexism and misogomy. We are the ones who face the perils of being physically weaker than biological men (even after men transition to be women, they still retain much of their muscle mass and height advantage). We are the ones who have all the attendant problems with being the one's who carry children and give birth to them. We are the one's who experience health concern with our female reproductive system. Anyone remember that classic feminist text "Our bodies our selves" ?
I am utterly against the self gender id bill and I feel betrayed that one of the first things our minister of Women Affairs has announced is the gender self id. But I don't believe I will be listened too. I will be shouted down as anti trans etc.
I see the actor Ralph Fiennes has come out in support of J K Rowling saying that he can't understand the vitriol against her. Neither can I
I was hoping the UK situation would have progressed further so that by the time we got to the public debate here it would be easier. Still, the GCFs have done some amazing work, including the one above about the census.
One of the problems with counting trans people is that there is no clear definition of what trans is (unlike biological sex). There is disagreement even within the trans communities about whether gender dysphoria is a central part of the trans experience (I think it's not necessarily, gender dysphoria is probably at least partially to do with living in the patriarchy, but then that opens up the issues of cross dressing men, men who want to identify as women but have no desire to transition, men who want to be a woman only some of the time, and male people who are non-binary and who want access to women's spaces).
Given the politics, and as you mention the great difficulty in discussing this publicly, I think the only way we are going to get something equitable is to look at trans rights and women's rights and be honest about the conflict while also upholding the needs of both groups. Otherwise we're going to be in a major cultural war like other places. I suspect this will harm the left in NZ, especially the Greens who seem oblivious to how many women will object to self-ID once they understand what it means. Most women, most people are supportive of trans rights in a more general way, but start to have concerns once they dig down into where the politics and social movements are going. Sooner we can talk about it openly and honestly, the better for all concerned.
Thanks Weka completely agree.
I find myself defending my rights and identity as a women. This is seen as anti trans.
I remember when I lived in UK many, many years ago seeing a documentary about a trans women. It was a great documentary and I felt deeply compassionate about the women involved.
But if you look at the debate and I read about the experience of lesbians in the US and the UK it seems like some very bad things are being directed against women, by the trans activists.
I often feel like the boy in the emperors new clothes. Am I the only one who can see that men who want to be women aren't biological women and the language being used is bloody ridiculous.
Women are always expected to accomodate and put others needs before their own. So it feels we are not able to defend our biology, without vitriol.
I don't know if you are on twitter, but there are large numbers of women (and some support from men) organising and discussing these issues. Best to set up a pseudonymous account, because yes, there are strong forces attacking women trying to talk about the issues (trans people are getting attacked too, and there are third party actors with their own agendas, trolls, MRAs, and people intent on sowing discord). It can be full on, but you don't have to tweet, it's just easier to follow the GCFs on twitter if you have an account. Some of the UK GCFs are doing incredible work and offer solidarity. I also follow trans people on both sides of the war, and lots of detrans people.
I strongly agree with your 3rd paragraph.
Now I am really confused.
Just as well this isn't a comment on the topic.
It is a bit of a struggle to get one's head around RL, and I'm always on the hunt for writings that clarify the terminology and the ideology and the reality.
Try here…https://speakupforwomen.nz/sufw_essays/response-to-the-hrc-prism-report/
Or here….https://genderminorities.com/database/glossary-transgender/
Thanks. Actually helpful.
Since a census is about eating information so countries can deal with issues, wouldnt make since to have to boxes ?,one for your birth gender then one for your current gender so government can get an accurate idea of how many people are born into genetically confused bodies.
Indeed. There are two questions afaik. One about biological sex, and one about gender ID. The first one was the one that had the bad guidance. ONS appeared to be using the census to allow people to validate their personal identity rather than collecting statistics.
Can't remember the thing about the two-box strategy offhand, but it's a freaking nightmare looking for a bureaucratic middle ground. It doesn't exist.
On the one hand you have both sides of the trans debate, but also there are various issues regarding sex labelling at birth relating to various intersex degrees and conditions.
And then you have how many people will get confused or screw up questions with any degree of complication (regardless of how activist they might be), and how you incorporated unexpected responses into the dataset.
Incredibly grateful I'm not with StatsNZ lol.
unfortunately ONS decided that gathering sex stats wasn't that important, and Stats NZ seems to be going down the same path. Most people know what their biological sex is, it's not that hard to understand. Agencies can do the mahi with intersex people to figure out if the census is the best place to collect stats on them or if something else needs to be done. Intersex and trans are different groups of people and shouldn't be conflated (even given there are some people who are both). Whatever happens with intersex, and gender ID, we need stats on biological sex that isn't clouded by gender ID.
The two boxes don't need a middle ground, they need to be separate questions, they're eliciting different categories of information/data. The problem appears to be that some people now don't want to talk about biological sex. That's fine, but changing national stats collection because of that is not reasonable.
If it were that simple, it would have been sorted the first time they looked at it (rather than backing away after their first look at the intense and contradictory submissions).
And bear in mind, this is only from the submission side of the collection/collation/analysis/distribution process. Having two variables means that any analysis then has to figure out if the best option for their outputs is to favour one or the other or have some convoluted rule regarding the exponential possible value combinations for the two together.
All for something that I doubt would significantly affect 99% of health or social research outputs the census is used for.
Maybe have a read of the submissions made by researchers and stats bods in the UK about the range of problems with the censuses in Scotland and the rest of the UK, and why sex data matters.
Shaw has said that gender is more important, and for most purposes sex isn't necessary. He didn't ask women, looks like they specifically avoided asking women. And in the UK there has been massive pressure on academics, scientists and government employees to not talk about the issues. People are losing careers over it and being attacked in some pretty nasty ways. It's an incredibly unhealthy atmosphere, and at the very least public confidence in the government over data collection is at risk.
agree about the confusion. The first place I'd start with that is the government and NZ legislation, which is a hot mess of historical usage not keeping up with changes in language and concept use (sex, gender). Historically people have used gender = sex as well as gender = the social construct. Gender ID politics are pushing governments to abandon sex and the concepts and language need updating fast and clear communication to the public and the protection of biological sex as having meaning and use. Many people are still using gender to mean sex, but others are taking them to mean social construct. Worse, some people now believe that sex is a social construct. It's a fitting bloody mess for the end of the world.
I'll touch on the bureaucratic aspect of the census, because it's something I work with. But I won't get into the trans debate again because we fundamentally disagree on this issue and I have better things to get angry about at the moment.
ok. I can't see how the data side and the human side can be separated like that.
and, it's not the trans debate. It's the debate over the conflict of rights that affects trans, NB, GNC people of both sexes and all genders, intersex, and women.
or at least, I'm not debating trans, I'm debating the sex/gender wars (plenty of trans and women on both sides), and most of what I read and comment about is women's rights, not trans people's rights.
Either way I'm not touching it with a bargepole tonight.
fair enough.
Because actually gathering and working with the data is a different problem to what that data represents or is felt to represent.
sure, I'm just not sure that the connections between those can be severed (or at least I would find it odd to talk about the data separate from the reasons the data is collected).
In the case of the census, the reasons for collection are generally unknown in the specifics. There are regular products that have evolved over time into common use, but the actual research questions being asked (and the required granularity in the answers) are unknown, and people come up with new uses every year.
Sometimes it's a denominator, so we know the rate at which something happens in the population. E.g. homicide rate.
Sometimes it's numerator and denominator, e.g. counting housing ownership rates.
Most statsnz consultation papers I've read on census questions have a pretty broad basis for what sorts of things the question might be used for, and what different answers might mean or how they can be summarised, but the actual research is constructed by folks asking their own question and going "there's something vaguely along those lines in the census".
If it was designed with a narrow use profile in mind, it'll be no good for other uses. This is the problem with the current sex/gender question. But there's no broader-use design for this particular question area that will satisfy all groups.
The expected jibe towards Ardern, but a refreshing read nonetheless.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/opinion/124555869/are-the-australians-really-our-friends
https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/the-detail/story/2018787857/imagining-a-monarchy-free-aotearoa
All this thought about changing Royalty, it is work for idle minds who find chaos and the collapse of anything in society exciting to write about as long as the writer is standing away from the edge.
Peck peck at Meghan and Harry. Talk talk by them. Diana suffered the unhealthy attention. They are just feeding the publicity becoming Victims of the Year. The media will eat them up if allowed, and take bites out of royalty because they can and they like to build celebrities then take them apart like lego figures.
The Queen has held out for some order while the Barons rage on. The Royal Family are far better than anyone else I can think of. Speculation in the media, speculation in housing, it would be good if some people took up an occupation where they physically did something with a good outcome for society.
Certainly some (most?) of the Royal family are pretty good. The Queen of the UK (and other Commonwealth realms, including NZ) is admirable. Considering 'non-royals' (btw that's most of us), Malala Yousafzai and Greta Thunberg spring to mind. Nelson Mandela and Fred Hollows weren't bad either.
Just as well it's not a competition.
Fluoridation to be the call of DG Health, not local authorities.
Good move. It's a health matter, not a local policy issue. Actually, general water quality should be in it, not just fluoridation. General things like lead, gastro bugs, nitrates, etc. Separates the reporting and monitoring body from the maintenance and supply body.
Yes a good move, prevents fringe groups with too much spare time forcing their weird views on the rest of us. And also frees up local councils to get on with what really matters.
…fringe groups with too much spare time forcing their weird views on the rest of us.
It would seem that includes most of the rest of the world…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fluoridation_by_country
A Cochrane review estimates a reduction in cavities when water fluoridation was used by children who had no access to other sources of fluoride to be 35% in baby teeth and 26% in permanent teeth.[8] Most European countries have experienced substantial declines in tooth decay without its use. Recent studies suggest that water fluoridation, particularly in industrialized countries, may be unnecessary because topical fluorides (such as in toothpaste) are widely used and caries rates have become low.[2] For this reason, some scientists consider fluoridation to be unethical due to "the debilitating effects of fluoride toxicity" and the lack of informed consent.[11]
Regardless of personal fluoridation views I do have some issues with how this is presented.
The implication is that all the 6500 hospital admissions come from unfluoridated areas. Probably not.
That all the people who do not currently have a fluoridated supply actually have a public supply that can be fluoridated- there are a lot of people in this country who don't really have a public supply to hook up to – rather than having one but being against fluoridation because "other people know what is best for them health wise".
So the dental health downside is unlikely to as severe as the article makes it out to be.
And of all the things that "do nothing Labour " could do they choose to pick a fight with a vocal group of people who would like a choice about their drinking water.
Media and pollys gonna media and polly, I guess.
If you really want to get into it, about the best datasource is the community oral health survey of schoolkids. Not perfect, but the schools in fuoridated zones have lower mean decayed/missing/filled teeth (and higher "caries-free") numbers than schools in unflouridated areas. This is a pretty typical publication in the area. It works, it's safe at 0.7-1ppm, it saves teeth, and it's cheap.
But we also have a pretty significant oral health equity problem that fluoridation doesn't fix.
Yeah I get the fewer caries but the media release discussion is more than a bit disingenuous. At what point does this type of release promote the drawing of basically fake conclusions – more fluro water less hospital admissions. We don't need this type of "fake" promo from government and health departments. Right up there with the IRD "testing about 640,000 kiwisaver transactions" – i have a flying pig for you!
Why not just fluoro school supplies if it's kids that are the concern.
Kids are the primary datasource, not the sole concern. They're also the low-hanging fruit of deservingness, easy for the pr.
Because we have such shit access to adult dental care, I doubt there's anything like the oral health survey for adult dental health.
But if Ashley makes the call in a year or so there will be a run of articles on back-room bureaucrats poisoning communities etc etc.
Meh. I'm trying to zen the stupidity of others a bit more these days.
More data….
https://www.ehinz.ac.nz/indicators/drinking-water-quality/oral-health-of-children/
Compares fluoridated and non fluoridated/% caries free/dmft/ethnicity/at age 5 and age 12 and a nifty map showing the numbers in various regions.
and…access to fluoridated drinking water. (with another nifty map.)
But at the end of the day…you can chuck a shit tonne of fluoride into the water supply but you can't make them drink it.
Yeah I get the data but are those without access even on supplies that can be fluoridated? And are the hospitalisations kids from these areas. The data needs a lot of filling out not the yeah yeah of the press release. And honestly aren't there a ton load of other urgent things that need doing by labour? Rather than picking this fight?
Another example of the nihilistic National Party who say a lot about how smart they are, but every time they open their mouths put their feet into them.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/438642/queen-tribute-act-border-approval-kick-in-the-guts-for-separated-families-national
Seven workers from the show have been approved for critical workers visas by Immigration New Zealand for their tour "It's a Kinda Magic", which starts next month.
The National Party said it was a kick in the guts for families who were separated from loved ones and desperate for a place in managed isolation.
National might not have realised that the tight ship economically, that they have been running along with past 'Labour', have made consumerism an important part of the economy, and made the creatives and entertainment one of the big employers and earners for the younger generation.
Concerts are big earners, and they also keep people's spirits up in a kinder way than resorting to drugs and alcohol in addictive amounts as we see happening. So stop crying crocodile tears you nasty Gnats. Bite your own bums you mosquitoes.
Also, a Queen tribute act is more the nat demographic than HP Boyz or the Wiggles. Might be shooting their support in the foot with that one lol
Queen were my main band growing up but I'm not desperate enough for a tribute act.
Green news – great to see.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/country/438662/native-plants-can-boost-crop-yields-new-study-shows
The Plant and Food Research study found having more native plants near crops could attract insects that help with pollination and combat some harmful pests.
Figures from the Ministry for Primary Industries showed insect-pollinated crops such as kiwifruit and avocados were worth about $2 billion to the national economy.
Co-author of the study Dr Melanie Davidson said more farmers were starting to restore native flora and this research showed they would be rewarded for their efforts.
"What it means for farmers is that with the improved pollination you can increase your yield but also you're increasing the resilience of your system because you're not just relying on your potentially managed honeybees that a lot of farmers bring in," Dr Davidson said.
heh, that's called permaculture, glad the scientists and government are catching up. Doesn't have to be native plants, but there's good reason to make sure natives are included or prioritised in places.
borage
just a lovely helpful little plant.
oh yes! makes itself useful all over the place.
Further –
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/afternoons/audio/2018787568/new-outfit-offering-free-soil-testing
At the moment we don't know very much about the content of New Zealand's domestic soil, says Auckland University scientist Dr Melanie Kah.
Her team are particularly interested in detecting heavy metals such as lead which may be in too-high concentrations in some areas.
To gather enough soil data, the scientists must gather and analyse as much soil as possible.
WetheBleeple I thought you might be interested in this.