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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The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill English, Simon Bridges, Steven Joyce, Roger Sowry, ...
Newsroom has a story today about National's (fortunately failed) effort to disestablish the newly-created Inspector-General of Defence. The creation of this agency was the key recommendation of the Inquiry into Operation Burnham, and a vital means of restoring credibility and social licence to an agency which had been caught lying ...
Holding On To The Present:The moment a political movement arises that attacks the whole idea of social progress, and announces its intention to wind back the hands of History’s clock, then democracy, along with its unwritten rules, is in mortal danger.IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in ...
Stuck In The Middle With You:As Christopher Luxon feels the hot breath of Act’s and NZ First’s extremists on the back of his neck and, as he reckons with the damage their policies are already inflicting upon a country he’s described as “fragile”, is there not some merit in reaching out ...
The unpopular coalition government is currently rushing to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The clause is Oranga Tamariki's Treaty clause, and was inserted after its systematic stealing of Māori children became a public scandal and resulted in physical resistance to further abductions. The clause created clear obligations ...
Buzz from the Beehive The government’s official website – which Point of Order monitors daily – not for the first time has nothing much to say today about political happenings that are grabbing media headlines. It makes no mention of the latest 1News-Verian poll, for example. This shows National down ...
It Takes A Train To Cry:Surely, there is nothing lonelier in all this world than the long wail of a distant steam locomotive on a cold Winter’s night.AS A CHILD, I would lie awake in my grandfather’s house and listen to the traffic. The big wooden house was only a ...
Packing A Punch: The election of the present government, including in its ranks politicians dedicated to reasserting the rights of the legislature in shaping and determining the future of Māori and Pakeha in New Zealand, should have alerted the judiciary – including its anomalous appendage, the Waitangi Tribunal – that its ...
Dead Woman Walking: New Zealand’s media industry had been moving steadily towards disaster for all the years Melissa Lee had been National’s media and communications policy spokesperson, and yet, when the crisis finally broke, on her watch, she had nothing intelligent to offer. Christopher Luxon is a patient man - but he’s not ...
Chris Trotter writes – New Zealand politics is remarkably easy-going: dangerously so, one might even say. With the notable exception of John Key’s flat ruling-out of the NZ First Party in 2008, all parties capable of clearing MMP’s five-percent threshold, or winning one or more electorate seats, tend ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is ...
Luxon will no doubt put a brave face on it, but there is no escaping the pressure this latest poll will put on him and the government. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political ...
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler In the wake of any unusual weather event, someone inevitably asks, “Did climate change cause this?” In the most literal sense, that answer is almost always no. Climate change is never the sole cause of hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, or ...
Something odd happened yesterday, and I’d love to know if there’s more to it. If there was something which preempted what happened, or if it was simply a throwaway line in response to a journalist.Yesterday David Seymour was asked at a press conference what the process would be if the ...
Hi,From time to time, I want to bring Webworm into the real world. We did it last year with the Jurassic Park event in New Zealand — which was a lot of fun!And so on Saturday May 11th, in Los Angeles, I am hosting a lil’ Webworm pop-up! I’ve been ...
Education Minister Erica Standford yesterday unveiled a fundamental reform of the way our school pupils are taught. She would not exactly say so, but she is all but dismantling the so-called “inquiry” “feel good” method of teaching, which has ruled in our classrooms since a major review of the New ...
Exactly where are we seriously going with this government and its policies? That is, apart from following what may as well be a Truss-Lite approach on the purported economic “plan“, and Victorian-era regression when it comes to social policy.Oh it’ll work this time of course, we’re basically assured, “the ...
Hey Uncle Dave, When the Poms joined the EEC, I wasn't one of those defeatists who said, Well, that’s it for the dairy job. And I was right, eh? The Chinese can’t get enough of our milk powder and eventually, the Poms came to their senses and backed up the ute ...
Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is higher than for any other mayor ...
Buzz from the Beehive Pharmac has been given a financial transfusion and a new chair to oversee its spending in the pharmaceutical business. Associate Health Minister David Seymour described the funding for Pharmac as “its largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff”. ...
Bryce Edwards writes – 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 is trying to achieve and its ...
TL;DR: Here’s my top 10 ‘pick ‘n’ mix of links to news, analysis and opinion articles as of 10:10am on Monday, April 29:Scoop: The children's ward at Rotorua Hospital will be missing a third of its beds as winter hits because Te Whatu Ora halted an upgrade partway through to ...
span class=”dropcap”>As hideous as David Seymour can be, it is worth keeping in mind occasionally that there are even worse political figures (and regimes) out there. Iran for instance, is about to execute the country’s leading hip hop musician Toomaj Salehi, for writing and performing raps that “corrupt” the nation’s ...
Yesterday marked 10 years since the first electric train carried passengers in Auckland so it’s a good time to look back at it and the impact it has had. A brief history The first proposals for rail electrification in Auckland came in the 1920’s alongside the plans for earlier ...
Right now, in Aotearoa-NZ, our ‘animal spirits’ are darkening towards a winter of discontent, thanks at least partly to a chorus of negative comments and actions from the Government Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
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. ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters discussed the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and enhanced cooperation in the Pacific with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock during her first official visit to New Zealand today. "New Zealand and Germany enjoy shared interests and values, including the rule of law, democracy, respect for the international system ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
The Government and Rotorua Lakes Council are committed to working closely together to end the use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing) Tama Potaka says the Government remains committed to ending the long-term use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua by the ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
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 ...
Comment: Almost half the world is voting in national elections this year and artificial intelligence is the elephant in the room. There are genuine fears AI-generated or AI-edited deepfakes will potentially manipulate election outcomes not just in the US and UK, but critically in countries such as India. For that ...
Ahead of the reality franchise’s return to New Zealand, allow us to introduce the eight brides and grooms. Chuck on a veil and tie back your man bun, because it’s time to say “I do” to a new season of Married at First Sight NZ. The reality TV “social experiment” ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Norton, Professor in the Practice of Higher Education Policy, Australian National University Every year on June 1, student debt in Australia is indexed to inflation. In 2023, high inflation pushed the indexation rate to 7.1%, the highest since 1990. This ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Changes in the May 14 budget will cut the student debt of more than three million people, wiping more than $3 billion from what people owe. The government will cap the HELP indexation rate ...
Asia Pacific Report The prosecutor’s office at the International Criminal Court (ICC) has appealed for an end to what it calls intimidation of its staff, saying such threats could constitute an offence against the “administration of justice” by the world’s permanent war crimes court. The Hague-based office of ICC Prosecutor ...
By Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific desk A women’s union in New Caledonia has staged a sit-in protest this week to support senior Kanak indigenous journalist Thérèse Waia, who works for public broadcaster Nouvelle-Calédonie la Première, after a smear attack by critics. The peaceful demonstration was held on ...
New Zealand Food Safety is monitoring overseas recalls of Indian packaged spice products manufactured by MDH and Everest due to concerns over a cancer-causing pesticide. ...
By Stephen Wright and Stefan Armbruster of BenarNews Fiji’s ranking in a global press freedom index has jumped into the top tier of countries with free or mostly free media after its government last year repealed a draconian law that threatened journalists with prison for doing their jobs. Fiji’s improvement ...
We might be in Invercargill but all anyone can talk about is Gore. Specifically, Salford Street. That’s where three-year-old Lachlan Jones lived, south of the centre of town, between the A&P Showgrounds and the Mataura River. Roughly 1.2 km away from the single level home he lived in with his ...
Keen hiker and second-year MSc student Liam Hewson wears two hats when he’s in the great outdoors. “The scientist in me appreciates nature and goes, ‘Oh, there’s that thing and there’s another thing,’ but then the tramper and the outdoorsy person in me thinks, ‘Cool bush.’” Born and bred in ...
MONDAY I lined up the latest round of civil servants from city hall against the wall, and signalled for the firing squad to drop their rifles. I stepped up onto a wooden crate to look at the office workers in the eye. But that didn’t feel right, so I found ...
After a long and illustrious career as a goal kicker, Dan Carter’s favourite way to unwind is… kicking goals. Why can’t he get enough of it? And what it’s like to watch him do it for an hour straight? A semicircle of people wielding cameras and phones has formed in ...
Dame Susan Devoy takes us through her life in television, including late night ER debriefs, her proudest CTI moment and the show she watches in secret. Quite aside from her four world champion squash titles, Dame Susan Devoy will likely go down in history as one of the best Celebrity ...
Hera Lindsay Bird reveals the best places in Ōtepoti to score more for your apocalypse-prep book hoard.Sometimes I get the feeling I’ve been killed in a car crash, and this second half of my life is just the brain unspooling itself, like one of those episodes of a hospital ...
ThreeNow’s new murder mystery series takes us on a dark, damp journey into the Australian wilderness.This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. High Country is ThreeNow’s new Australian eight-part crime drama, set in a remote part of the Victorian highlands. It tells ...
Introducing a new way to read The Spinoff every weekend. After nearly 10 years of being an online magazine, we’re finally embracing the weekend liftout. Despite our best efforts to convince you otherwise, writers and editors at The Spinoff don’t work weekend. It is through the sheer power of technology ...
Tip one: let yourself be nurtured by this big old man. Tip two: don’t ask him to adopt you. So, you’ve arrived at your first session with a new therapist. He tells you to make yourself comfortable and you opt for the tweed armchair, hoping it makes you look like ...
I didn’t know books could open you back up; that there were books that stayed with you, where reading was like a chemical event. I knew nothing.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.Not too long ago, I was listening to the American ...
Former Olympic swimmer James Magnussen has already started training for the Enhanced games, though says he won’t start taking performance enhancing substances until about nine months out from the competition. The Australian world champion was the first athlete to be announced by Enhanced, but he says the organisation has had ...
Everyone thinks he’s dead. Every day they expect his body to be washed up along the coast. Most likely up Karitane way, the way the tide’s running. But nobody’ll be too surprised if his body’s never found. Even in death he wouldn’t have wished for such attention. He would have ...
Council members voted 21 to 4 in favour of Ahluwalia returning to the Laucala campus following a much-awaited meeting in Vanuatu this week. It comes as USP and its two unions — the Association of the University of the South Pacific Staff (AUSPS) and the Administration and Support Staff Union ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicola Henry, Professor & Australian Research Council Future Fellow, Social and Global Studies Centre, RMIT University Shutterstock Following an emergency meeting of the National Cabinet this week, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced a raft of measures to tackle the problem ...
Analysis - A poll showing the opposition is more popular than the government raises questions, politicians go through their 'trial by pay rise' and a Green MP loses her cool in the debating chamber. ...
The entire stretch of Tokomaru Bay on the East Coast will be subject to a joint customary marine title for two hapū, and extending up to four miles out to sea. A High Court judge has found the two groups, who during the case settled a dispute over boundaries for ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Hall, Lecturer, Media & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University A longstanding feud between TikTok and Universal Music Group seems to have finally reached an end, with both parties signing a deal that will see Universal-backed music returned to the social media ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Siobhan O’Dean, Postdoctoral Research Associate, The Matilda Centre for Research in Mental Health and Substance Use, University of Sydney After several highly publicised alleged murders of women in Australia, the Albanese government this week pledged more than A$925 million over five years ...
Political parties have now fully disclosed the donations they received last year - with National getting more than double the cash of any other party. ...
A Pacific regionalism expert has called out New Zealand's Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters for withholding information from the public on AUKUS military pact. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard de Grijs, Professor of Astrophysics, Macquarie University Bruno Scramgnon/Pexels All systems are “go” for tonight’s launch of China’s next step in a carefully planned lunar exploration program. Placed on top of a powerful Long March 5 rocket, the Chang’e 6 ...
National returned a massive donation the day after a Newsroom story linked the donors to a property being investigated for operating unlawfully as a migrant workers’ hostel. The party’s 2023 donation filings, released on Friday, show it returned a $200,000 donation from Buen Holdings on August 23. That was the ...
Pacific Media Watch New Zealand has slumped to an unprecedented 19th place in the annual Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index survey released today on World Press Freedom Day — May 3. This was a drop of six places from 13th last year when it slipped out of its ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joshua Black, Political Historian and Administrator Officer, Australian Historical Association, Australian National University Australia has had its fair share of public record-keeping controversies in recent years. Some have been mere farce, as in the case of two formerly government-owned filing cabinets (containing ...
Heavenly Culture, World Peace, Restoration of Light (HWPL), a United Nations-affiliated organization dedicated to fostering peace through civilian-led initiatives, has issued a statement in response to the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran. ...
A poem by Tessa Keenan, from AUP New Poets 10. Mātou These days we are a photograph; one of a farm strewn with cows that used to be bright harakeke or swamp. The kids point at it and say the sun sits behind a smudge (left by someone at Christmas); ...
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 Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan (Faber & Faber, $25)The masterful Irish writer ...
Marriage and civil union statistics record the number of marriages and civil unions registered in New Zealand each year, and divorce statistics record the number of divorces granted in New Zealand each year. Key facts Marriages and civil unions In ...
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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://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.