Barely a ripple, then, in the NZ media about a massacre bigger than Sharpeville, a mass killing larger than Soweto, a crime as obscene as My Lai.
Our media by its silence is complicit in Israel’s crime.
Here is some detail of the horrific event.
“Laila Anwar al-Ghandour, an eight-month-old baby girl, died of tear-gas inhalation at dawn, Gaza’s Ministry of Health says, highlighting international outrage over the killings by Israeli soldiers of 60 Palestinians who joined in a massive protest against the opening of the US embassy in Jerusalem.
Laila was the youngest fatality of the demonstrations on Monday, which were held in the run up to the 70th anniversary on Tuesday of the Nakba, or Catastrophe, the day the state of Israel was established on May 15, 1948, forcing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes…..
The Israeli military has imposed a land, sea and air blockade on the Gaza Strip for more than a decade, cutting the Palestinian territory off from the outside world and leaving many of its residents impoverished, including the al-Ghandour family.
For the past seven weeks, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have been protesting as part of a campaign demanding the right of return for Palestinian refugees to the areas they were forcibly expelled from in 1948.
Since the protests began on March 30, Israeli forces have killed at least 108 Palestinians in the coastal enclave and wounded about 12,000 people.”
No you are wrong, RNZ have not had one story on the massacres since the 14th, yet constant updates on the wedding, and most (not all) of the coverage from other MSM sources have been misleading in their framing of the massacre at best…but really what is the difference between the massacre in Gaza on 14/05/2018 and South Africa Sharpeville 21/03/1960 or Soweto on 16/06/1976?
I second your comments above at 1.1, 1.1.1.1, and 1.1.1.1.1.1.
There has been extensive reports on NZ and overseas media sites, including those you have linked to and many others. But there are none so blind as those who wear blinkers to avoid their ignorance and bias being challenged.
It’s hard to understand how media can’t find it reportable. I find myself speculating about how pressure could be applied to such a large amount of media. Seems impossible, yet it happens. How is this so? 🙁
It’s probably not anti-Semitism but abhorrence at the actions of Israel which is then portrayed as anti-Semitism by those who wish to defend the actions of Israel.
“Stephen Silverman, director of investigations and enforcement at the Campaign against Antisemitism, said the trust figures were indicative of official 2017 police statistics. “Antisemitic crime has been rising dramatically since 2014 and that rise is not explained by an increase in reporting, and we have seen no noticeable impact from Brexit,” he said.
“We believe that Jews are being singled out disproportionately and with increasing violence due to the spread of antisemitic conspiracy myths originating from Islamists, the far-left and far-right, which society is failing to address, as evidenced by the ongoing disgraceful situation in the Labour party, and because the Crown Prosecution Service declines to prosecute so often that antisemites no longer fear any consequences to their actions.”
I’m saying that there are possible consequences to Israel’s war crimes as well even if the Western governments and other apologists don’t want to do anything about them.
“Malmo’s sole Hasidic rabbi has reported being the victim of more than 100 incidents of hostility ranging from hate speech to physical assault. In response to such attacks, the Simon Wiesenthal Center issued a travel warning in 2010 advising “extreme caution when visiting southern Sweden” because of officials’ failure to act against the “serial harassment” of Jews in Malmo.
“Henryk Grynfeld, a teacher at a high school in a mostly immigrant neighborhood in Malmo, was told by a student: “We’re going to kill all Jews.” He said other students yell “yahoud,” the Arabic word for Jew, at him.
The fear of being accused of intolerance has paralyzed Sweden’s leaders from properly addressing deep-seated intolerance.
Some of the country’s leaders have even used Israel as a convenient boogeyman to explain violence. After the terrorist attacks in Paris in November 2015, Sweden’s foreign minister, Margot Wallstrom, explained radicalism among European Muslims with reference to Israel: “Here, once again, we are brought back to situations like the one in the Middle East, where not least, the Palestinians see that there isn’t a future. We must either accept a desperate situation or resort to violence.”
Gee using Israel as an excuse for the attacks, who’da thunk it?
“Historically, anti-Semitism in Sweden could mainly be attributed to right-wing extremists. While this problem persists, a study from 2013 showed that 51 percent of anti-Semitic incidents in Sweden were attributed to Muslim extremists. Only 5 percent were carried out by right-wing extremists; 25 percent were perpetrated by left-wing extremists.
Swedish politicians have no problem condemning anti-Semitism carried out by right-wingers. When neo-Nazis planned a march that would go past the Goteborg synagogue on Yom Kippur this September, for example, it stirred up outrage across the political spectrum. A court ruled that the demonstrators had to change their route.”
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People who can’t tell the degrees of difference between fact and supposition/prejudice like RW such as PR don’t throw any light or understanding onto gnarly problems.
who brings a baby to a riot? That is irresponsible parenting.
As for the terrorists killed, good riddance. Unfortunately about 10 civilians were caught in the crossfires.
humma
That is a good question. And can’t be answered with sweeping condemnation. For sure there will be poverty and control in the various threads of the answer.
Humma & Babayoga. The massacre of more than 60 unarmed protesters this week was covered by many cameras for all the world to see. In addition, 2700 people were injured. These figures have been validated by MSF ( doctors without borders).
IDF troops were firing into Gaza from the buffer zone. A fence (not a border) separated protesters, who were fired on from fortified sniper positions and tanks. While some young men approached the fence, most were at least 50 metres away. The baby who died from inhaling teargas was a long way from the action in a tent used by medics & media.
You can minimise or obfuscate this brutality all you like. The cameras of the world showed the truth. More Israeli war crimes.
Mycoplasma bovis is here. It’s what comes next that’s important
by The Listener / 17 May, 2018
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At a time when the link between town and country is weak, our reaction to cow disease Mycoplasma bovis will be a revealing test of national solidarity.
It almost seems like the stuff of science fiction: a debilitating epidemic spreads unseen and stays several steps ahead of efforts to contain it. But the cow disease Mycoplasma bovis is not part of a far-fetched plot in a Hollywood film. For the rural sector, it has become a real-life horror story. Agriculture minister Damien O’Connor bluntly describes it as a disaster.
It’s a crisis with heartbreaking personal consequences as well as serious economic dimensions. Good farmers care deeply for their livestock, and few people would not have been moved by the sight of a Canterbury farmer almost in tears as he talked of his infected herd, painstakingly built up over decades of careful breeding, having to be slaughtered. This was the human face of an industry often pilloried for greed and environmental vandalism.
This thing MB is not strange and unknown. They have had it in Australia to the extent that they manage it apparently. The uncaring NZ RW governments who want foreign money and goods to come into the country for their benefit are uncaring about protecting and conserving our natural resources, one being that we have been free of many nasties. They make a show of having controls but then the guardians have limited budgets, probably inspect sample numbers, do their virtual kaitiaki from their computers.
A good coverage of the mycoplasma bovis problem from an experienced scientist Keith Woodford comes with a warning that we have to ramp up our controls over health. In 2018 Labour is set to see that NAIT is brought up to speed:
Given the lack of evidence for semen being the source, other possibilities need to be considered.
The normal transmission method for Mycoplasma bovis is from animal to animal. That raises the possibility that the original source is a live import. However, the oral advice from MPI (yet to be confirmed in writing) is that there have been no live cattle imported into New Zealand for the last three years.
Regardless of when animals were last imported into New Zealand, the importer was not the van Leeuwens, and the van Leeuwens have never received live imports on their farms. So once again, if a live import is the source, then the van Leeuwens have been exceedingly unlucky to the recipients of the disease. And what was the path by which it got there?…
If Mycoplasma is found to be endemic in New Zealand, then it will not be the death knell of the industry. But it will be a big nuisance. And we will undoubtedly need to implement some of the dairy hygiene measures that are typically seen overseas but which are largely ignored in New Zealand. In particular, farmers will need to think carefully about sending their young stock off-farm for grazing with young stock from other farms. Feeding raw (non-pasteurised) milk to calves will also need to be eliminated. Purchased bulls are another potential source of disease transfer. https://www.interest.co.nz/rural-news/90786/keith-woodford-says%C2%A0we-should-not-be-confident-we-have-mycoplasma-bovis-contained
Stuff and NZ Farmer covered it in August 2017 reporting on the experience of a Kiwi in Australia. While the prevalence of the disease in Australian herds was relatively low – about 3.5 per cent – it was spreading, and once a herd was infected, it remained infected at a subclinical level. The key was to be vigilant and quickly isolate any animal suspected of having the disease.
Goold estimated there might be about up to a dozen cases in the state of Victoria, the centre of the Australian dairy industry. Across the Tasman Mycoplasma has a very low profile; he had been farming for 10 years before hearing about it.
(I note the mention of up to a dozen cases in Victoria. We seem to have that number already.)
Then in November 2017 the farming business, the van Leeuwen Dairy Group which reported it initially was featured in Farmers Weekly.
In July one of the group’s farms was identified with the notifiable disease Mycoplasma bovis that initiated a full Ministry for Primary Industries biosecurity response.
While pretty much the rest of the world already had it, it was a first for NZ….
the van Leeuwens harbour much disappointment over how the response was managed.
“It has been horrendous on us, our staff and our contract and sharemilkers.
“The impact has been devastating on all our people and for many it will mean the end forever – their businesses and their reputations have been destroyed.”
The near 90 staff had just had enough and being associated with a group farm had tainted them for the future, van Leeuwen said. https://farmersweekly.co.nz/#
The van Leeuwens noted that after they notified government about the disease, MPI was very slow to respond. “It took them five days to find out where our farms were and 10 days to put their feet on the first infected farm.
“We had the cows well sorted and separated by then – thank God this was not foot and mouth,” he said.
Back in 2017 Guy dithered when the disease was found in a farm owned by rich-listers. I suspect it was all kept secret and quick and decisive action held up while compensation was being negotiated. It is interesting to see how compensation seems to be the only issue over the Mycoplasma bovis outbreak that has taxed the mind of Guy last year when he was minister, and now in Opposition.
“…Just how much damage did the John Key government do? I think we are only just beginning to find out…”
The fact remains that National’s 2009-11 tax cuts were by far the most ideologically driven piece of economic mismanagement of the countries economy so far this century. They were completely unaffordble, and made worse by a promise to return to surplus. These facts were papered over by the Key/English government by borrowing and the fetishisation of cutting government expenditure to the point huge swaths of civil society were trashed and huge areas of the civic governance of the country were defunded to the point of ineffectiveness.
The whole economic story of the Key/English era is basically one of reckless, ideologically driven tax cuts and a promise to return to surplus driving a policy obsession with the impossible task (of their own making) of squaring the resultant economic circle.
The result was the abandonment of governance of large areas of public policy in favour of an unregulated and increasingly corrupt form of crony capitalism and at the same time the running into the ground of the public sector.
yesterday 17/5/18 we presented our NGO teleconference submission to the Select panel on TPP 11 or what it is called now.
We spoke about the environmental issues we felt would be further damaged by entering this restrictive “trade agreement” as it would make it easy for foreign corporations to sue NZ Government or anyone else who attempted to tighten up environmental regulations.
I must say that the chair (National’s Simon O’connor was very receptive and very patient with our verbal submission and he is a pleasant man.
we gave him our full submission and to (Edward Siebert) the Clark of the committee requesting that he also supply it to all other members of the committee receiving all submissions against the trade agreement as it stands today.
So we hope they take note after we warned that any loosening of our environmental regulations now will ultimately destroy NZ if more spread of these imported diseases spread to our farming and destroy our exports.
here is a part of our submission;
Public COMMUNITY SUBMISSION TO; – the panel on the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership(CPTPP), also known as TPP11”
17th May 2018
Our response following a review of the agreement and media coverage by Government and other parties.
Our teleconference at 10am to 10.15am 17th May 2018 with the panel on the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership(CPTPP), also known as TPP11”
Our speech will be as follows;
Our concerns with the final draft of “The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership(CPTPP), also known as TPP11”
Pros: – Free trade is a good thing in the right situations.
Any of you who’ve taken introductory level Macroeconomics will likely already know this.
But trade between nations allow each country to specialise on producing what they have the comparative advantage in.
By removing barriers to trade such as tariffs and quotas.
The TPP agreement would allow global businesses to trade profitably in markets they are currently unable to do so in.
For example, Japan has very high tariffs on pork products in order to protect their own pork industry.
If TPP is used with Japan as a member, these tariffs would be done away with and U.S. companies could then compete in Japan on a level playing field.
TPP installs new intellectual property laws in an attempt to protect the original rights holders.
This is obviously a hotly debated topic, and there are costs and benefits on both sides of the issue.
Cons: –
TPP could possibly be very detrimental to the environment.
Under the TPP Environmental chapter, corporations could sue governments should they enact environmental legislation that would hurt their business.
Essentially, TPP asserts to the world that business’s profits are more important than the health of Earth.
This partnership would allow companies to sue countries.
Let that sink in for a moment; – instead of working in the best interest of their people, governments of member nations would be liable for damages and compensation if they passed legislation that hurt a foreign companies business.
Environment, public health, zoning codes – all are potential vulnerabilities under TPP depending on the wording of the final draft.
Intellectual property law would once again be strengthened.
While some protections are a good thing and help to ensure creators are properly rewarded for their time and effort, if taken too far such legislation can prove detrimental to creativity and innovation.
While the supporters of the TPP believe the provisions contained within are a good thing, the opposition to the TPP believes in the other side of the coin.
Local business will be damaged;
Our business CER Ltd Est’ 2002 is solely involved with monitoring the environment to protect the health and wellbeing of the communities we represent in NZ and will under this TPP agreement be subject to legal threats upon our business instead of working in the best interest of their people, as we are continually working alongside our local and central NZ government to make our environment, and transport systems operate in a safer place to live and encourage our government to introduce new legislation to protect our environment and people.
So Governments such as ours under TPP 11 will become a member with other nations would be liable for damages and compensation if they passed legislation that hurt a foreign companies business.
Environmental NGO’s will be damaged;
Under CEAC a publicly funded Environmental Advocacy NGO would also become legally threatened, instead of working in the best interest of their people, as these Governments in TPP 11 of member nations would be liable for damages and compensation if they passed legislation that hurt a foreign companies business.
This will damage our environment and our health under the current rules in this trade agreement.
Our resolution;
We request the NZ Government make changes before finally signing up to this restrictive trade agreement.
• To protect all NZ legislation and environmental regulations.
• Protect both current and future introduced new environmental legislation.
• Allow free flowing of all environmental submissions and discussions between all NZ communities, environmental business interests, and their local & Central Government.
• Protect the local & Central Government abilities to freely promote such environmental legislation to protect the environment and the communities they represent in NZ.
• Protect all Government agencies such as ‘The parliamentary commissioner of the Environment’ (see attached “HB Expressway noise & air quality issues”, as one case still under advisory status) and all other similar such environmental agencies advising Government of environmental issues.
Well said. Whole heartily agree. Reckless at best! 2.2.1.2
I’ve lived a good bit of my life in farming communities; farmers who care about their animals is an anomaly. Each animal is a unit, with value; that’s the sum total of their caring.
It’s ridiculous to suggest a farmer cares about every one of his 1500 cows or 4000 sheep.
The consequence of greed and environmental vandalism is Mycoplasma bovis.
The farmer whose herd, painstakingly built up over decades of careful breeding, which now has to be slaughtered is justifiably saddened, but not because he cares about the animals, but because his life’s work is in ruins.
If he and others like him had put pressure on his fellow farmers to farm with some sort of integrity, he’d still have his herd.
Hi Brigid,
Yes my mini farm is alongside a cattle and sheep farmer who said to me once “dont worry about animals they live and then they die”
My Family came to Wairoa from the Canvas town/Havelock uper south island area after WW1 after one of my grandfathers brothers got injured and disabled in the Western front with “shell shock”.
So Frank was awarded a 300 acre farm in Clyde and was the first farm that produced milk for the Wairoa dairy factory in HB.
I am a survivor of a workplace chemical poisoning accident to and came here in the Gisborne hills to recover from my injuries too.
Today’s farmers do not use their own initiative to clean up their stockyards and use contractors to take the stock to other farms and bring other stock to their farms so any disease can easily be transmitted now by this method.
When rail transported all stock the local farmer had their own truck to transport their stock to market, and had the ability to keep their trucks free of contamination as they didn’t carry other stock all the time as tjey do now so this is why.
We now have a easily transmitted system of contamination now so we are reaping the rewards of lazy multi use of transport sources.
cleangreen
The way that farmers use others to do the transporting of animals over distance, with the likelihood of cross contamination, seems the same as what was reported from the UK as the reason for the spread of their awful disease back a few decades. But efficiency wins over effectiveness when it is neo lib economics and free unregulated markets and PROFIT AND COMPETITION ie a race to cut out all competition until a suitable cartel remains.
A cow with BSE: Infected animals lose the ability to stand. Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), commonly known as mad cow disease, is a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy and fatal neurodegenerative disease in cattle that may be passed to humans who have eaten infected flesh.
The epidemic in cattle in Britain reached incredible proportions; by 1993 more than 1,000 cases per week were being reported. More than 160,000 infected cows have now been identified, involving more than 50% of the dairy herds in the UK. Protein supplements containing sheep and cattle offal were banned in the UK in 1988, but it was not until 1991-1992 that the ban was strictly enforced. Given the long incubation of BSE, the epidemic curve (number of new cases reported per week) didn’t start downward until late 1993. It is now down to about 250 cases per week.. http://mad-cow.org/~tom/vet_interview.html
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/apr/25/mad-cow-disease-british-crisis
Mad cow disease – a very British response to an international crisis It may have started with the death of a cow on a farm in Pitsham, West Sussex, England, in 1984 – two years before “mad cow disease” was officially identified. It ended by changing the way the UK approaches farming, prepares food, conducts surgery and gives blood.
“It’s hard to feel sorry for people who have consistently been destroying our environment for their own enrichment.”
Bloody hard! even as there are some who are desperately trying to give them a break (up against the corporates’ intent on corrupting their co-operative with promises of treats and trinkets, the banks, and others).
What’s worse is that they’ve not only shat on the environment, but also their fellows in the farming community – I often wonder how the hell @ Countryboy puts up with the egg rolls who’re stuck with their selfish blinkers on and their ideology (supposedly gNatsi’s are the farmer’s friend), and we’ll fucking well do what we like……we’re the backbone of the country…..and the city folk just don’t understand how tough it all is. Think of the children!!!
These arsholes are responsible for shitting on every farmer that is trying to do the right thing, and New Zealand. And they’re also riding on the reputation of those that ARE actually making an effort.
Oh you mean like these people taking out 2 acres of shellfish from environmental pollution and all the polluted beaches this year, so they can build multimillion dollar developments with the rest of Auckland having to pick up the infrastructure costs…
11 people trapped in a lift with maximum capacity for 8. Trapped group consisted of mainly of lobbyists, reporters, and political advisors. Fresh air had to be pumped in.
From memory those lifts are really tiny. I’m surprised that they managed to get 11 in. I kinda remember finding it awkward being in there with 6 people.
millsy (4.5) … I got stuck in a lift in Australia with 6 others. It wasn’t so much the lift being stuck that I found frightening, but the reaction of a couple of women, who were (understandably I guess) out of control, screaming, banging, pushing and grabbing those of us who were trying our best to keep calm and reassure them, not wanting to add to the problem!
Fortunately we weren’t stuck long. However that experience of other people’s panicky reactions has given me good reason to avoid lifts, preferring to use stairs whenever possible now.
“Green co-leader Marama Davidson told TV3’s The Hui “there is no Government that the Greens could be part of that would allow this to continue…”
The statement was made in reference to Housing NZ’s refusal to allow a disabled tenant to install a solar power starter package that was going to be provided and installed for free.”
I did watch the clip and can confirm this is what Davidson said.
Perhaps experience will teach her about consistent messaging.
https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/together/pages/329/attachments/original/1526583055/CTU-Report-on-Budget-2018.pdf?1526583055
From the CTU
I have just been playing with a few numbers here.
Wages from 2018-2021 are forecast to increase by 9%, adding 3.2%,2.7% & 3.1%
yet min wage that is currently $16.50 is set to increase to $20 by 2021 that is 21%.
From these then are we to see that those at the bottom end receive the increase and many e.g. teachers, nurses, police, trades etc are expected to be below the 9% , and great for those at the bottom end But there are many others also struggling just above this min threshold, and this comment on slow wage growth flies in the face of what demands we see from the unions and their deserving members.
“Treasury also forecasts continued relatively slow wage growth with the average hourly wage rising 2.8 percent in the year to June 2019, though rising slightly faster in subsequent years.
The continued rise in immigration and higher Working for Families payments are likely to put downward pressure on wages unless improved employment laws can counter that.”
The terrorists out, the government in: All kinds of repair and maintenance workshops enter the town of #Harbnafseh in #Hama Province to repair the electricity, the water, the roads, the schools and everything damaged by the terrorists
The terrorists out, the government in: All kinds of repair and maintenance workshops enter the town of #Harbnafseh in #Hama Province to repair the electricity, the water, the roads, the schools and everything damaged by the terrorists#FromSyriapic.twitter.com/ou68D1D0XM
This is the first EU-initiated break with U.S. foreign policy in quite some time.
It also make sit more likely that the EU will more assiduously court China as a preferred trading partner with Iran.
With the US now self-excluded from major trade relationships, the isolation from Trump will in time hurt the future growth of the US economy.
Thank God the EU still has the strength to stand up to the US.
Point of Order. I seek your indulgence Mr Speaker. Given the rules and conditions of entry to this interweb site, I wonder whether there might not be some way that I might pay for a motel room, or some other venue where the contributor @ Stunned Mullet, and his or prey @ Ed could get together and either make love or war, or at least resolve the issue of one’s obsession with the other.
Mr Speaker, I understand that WINZ has control over most of the available motel rooms in the region, but I suggest, in light of comments as annotated by heading level 1 and below, a VERY, VERY special case could be made to allow @Stunned Mullet and @Ed to resolve the former’s obsession which is now in danger of affecting the entire @TS community.
Mr Speaker, if there is some way this could be achieved, I’ll get back to teaching woodwork hopeful that counselling services and/or a bloody good root will ensure the TS community is no longer burdened with their fluff and flutter.
Question:
Does @Ed place posts on this blog specifically for the enlightenment of @Stunned Mullet?
If not, why does @Stunned Mullet find it necessary to respond to all of @Ed’s posts?
to the honourable member @Brigid,
That is exactly my concern (going forward).
All the evidence so far, and as the parliamentary record will show, @Stunned Mullet does seem to see it necessary to respond to the most innocuous of @ Ed’s comments that others might simply ignore if it wasn’t of concern. I’m merely trying to assist in the proceedings by proposing that the frustrations that might be apparent could be alleviated by a bloody good root based on the stereotypical idea that a Stunned Mullet is most likely bloke with a brain it considers to be of above average intelligence, or maybe that substantial wanking is at play.
And for more selfish reasons, the scroll down mechanisms on my primitive technology are wearing out (and of course because I’m utterly gorgeous and better than anybody else – which is why I get my jingles from looking at few others on this site.)
Mycobacterium ulcerans causes an infectious disease known internationally as Buruli ulcer, and also as Bairnsdale ulcer or Daintree ulcer in Australia. It causes severe destructive lesions of skin and soft tissue, resulting in significant morbidity, in attributable mortality and often in long term disability and cosmetic deformity.
All age groups, including young children, are affected, and the emotional and psychological impact on patients and their carers is substantial (Box 1). Although treatment effectiveness has improved in recent years, with cure rates approaching 100% using combination antibiotic regimens such as rifampicin and clarithromycin, these antibiotics are not covered by the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme for this condition and are, therefore, expensive to patients.
Moreover, these antibiotics have severe side effects in up to one-quarter of patients,1 and many people also require reparative plastic surgery, sometimes with prolonged hospital
admissions.
Welcome to Globalisation, lax border control and selfish tourists who can’t be bothered to clean equipment etc that don’t give shit about their or the host country’s environment.
Must be the same selfish tourists that caused the closure of the forested areas of the Waitākere Ranges Regional Park to protect against kauri dieback disease. Selfish bastards!
Probably wouldn’t surprise me or a lazy local that clean his or her’s kit after a overseas trip. I’ve come across a few lazy tourists over the last few years.
We’ve found Phytopthora agathadicida has been here for at least hundreds of years, probably part of the landscape. So no, it’s not tourists that is the issue, but whatever has changed since man arrived.
How about massive deforestation, loss of biodiversity, air soil and water pollution…
If it has been here all along my guess is it has a counterpart in nature. A controlling agent which I suspect will be a fungal-pathogenic fungi.
If you want to be angry over this issue by all means be my guest. I’m very angry, they have no plan, I wrote a plan. They asked me about doing a Doctorate I said yes I’ve waited nearly 18 months now for NOTHING.
The only feedback I got on a plan I spent months poring over was from an individual scientist I contacted myself – who said it was a good plan and they want me on board the Kauri Dieback Team. I said OK lets try, heard nothing back since January.
One supervisor wont work with me cos I told him off for handing out advice that led to poisoning of large numbers of mushroom pickers in Taranaki in the 80’s.
Another dropped me immediately after I mentioned one of his colleagues tried to creep on me when I asked for advice – and I left study for a year due to that predator.
Can’t lump em all in the same basket many are amazing hard working people. But….
That was kinda the point I was trying to make but in a slightly more subtle way 😉
In any case, the most pressing problem is slowing/preventing the spread of the disease; it’s here to stay, as you say.
I wish you good luck with sorting out your doctoral research project. In the long term, a scientific approach/solution is the only option. I do find it odd that “they” asked you to do a doctorate and then nothing happened … Has the funding been sorted? A word of advice: don’t let personal ‘politics’ or ‘beliefs’ get in the way of a good science proposal 😉
This pisses me off….. an anti-abortion group are attempting to collect 12,000 pairs of booties to place outside of parliament, not to highlight how many women have gone through the trauma of an abortion, but rather to shame them for not being godfearing enough to not terminate.
Disgusting.
Having a termination is traumatic enough with out strangers heaping guilt upon ones shoulders due to their religious beliefs. I had a termination in my early 20’s, it was not an easy decision, but the lone male elderly anti-abortion protester at the clinic made a horrid day ten times worse for me.
I was happy to give some mandarins a couple of months ago to the counter protesters I saw opposite the termination clinic in Dominion Road Mount Eden – women’s bodies = women’s rights IMO.
Newshub Nation Simon Maori are benefiting from the reforms of the Coalition government.Grant Robertson is a excellent finance minister he learned his trade from the best Michael Cullen . The is no need to waste billions on jails we need to reach and teach people before they get into the system show them there are better choices out there than crime.
The state is run by old white men with a culture of cover there m8 ass at any cost and never admit to being wrong they set there m8 up with all the top jobs to strengthen there hold on the systems. P.S I new crime was dropping it was just a waiting game for the facts to be published Ka kite ano Yes Barnard The Green have received great wins the billion regions fund to plant more trees 1 wealth fare 2 carbon neutral targets
Good evening Newshub Eco Maori gives condolences to the Cuban people who lost whano members in that plane crash .
Every bone in trumps body is raciest I can see every move he makes is to dump on every one that is not ———.
Kate yes I say that Queen movie Bohemian Rhapsody will be a awsome move .
It was a good weekend of sports for Eco Maori .
That volcano in Hawaii is still going hard its cold and wet in Rotorua at the minute.
Ka kite ano P.S Aoteroa is such a beautiful country thanks to my Tipunas
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The Warehouse, one of New Zealand's biggest retailers, has decided to stop selling coal. Good. Coal is a dirty, polluting fossil fuel, and the less of it we have out there, the better. Retailers choosing not to sell it sends a clear message that this is not a fuel we ...
The labour market statistics have been released, and they show that unemployment actually dropped last quarter. All told, there are 111,000 unemployed - 15,000 fewer than when the government took office. But before anyone thinks that the pandemic hasn't put people out of work, remember that this is for ...
Judy KavanaghI’m OK with wearing a CovidCard. But are you? There’s no point me doing it alone.The author modelling a (fake) CovidCard. I didn’t know much about the CovidCard proposal until I read Dave’s latest blog post. You would wear the card visibly on your person. It ...
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nzWhy can’t I use the battery from my electric car ...
As many good things come in threes (as the saying goes), we are happy to announce a third partnership between Skeptical Science and other websites. Fakebook.eco in Brazil is joining Klimafakten.de in Germany and Nauka o Klimacie in Poland to leverage translated rebuttal material and to make the information readily available in other ...
This interview on RNZ with Ross Tucker, the scientist who headed a review of transgender athletes playing in women’s rugby, discusses the findings of the review and what it means for women in sports. The review that World Rugby undertook had a broad range of independent experts and included a ...
Siouxsie WilesThe restrictions in place for metropolitan Melbourne now are in some ways stricter than those that were in force during New Zealand’s COVID-19 lockdown. A curfew is in place and most people have to wear masks when they leave their home – neither of which happened in New ...
On Friday the Hit and Run inquiry delivered a devastating report which found that NZDF had systematically misled Ministers over civilian deaths. The report called into question civilian control of the military (and indeed, military control of the military), a fundamental principle of our democracy. So you'd expect our politicians ...
Let's Do This Again: What else can Jacinda do in a political environment so bereft of imagination and courage but seek a continuance? If she trades upon the extraordinary personal qualities that she has, miraculously, carried with her into the office of Prime Minister, then I, for one, will offer ...
How corrupt are the New Zealand Police? This corrupt: On 10 February 2019, Police attended a family harm incident. The suspect attempted to run the attending officers over in a driveway with his car, narrowly missing them, before fleeing the scene. A short pursuit followed, ending when the suspect stopped ...
Parliament's triennial Review of Standing Orders was released today, and it contains a number of welcome, if minor, improvements. The ones that caught my are: A move to encourage "pre-legislative engagement" - the government consulting widely on legislation before it is introduced - by promising easier passage (e.g. with ...
Lauren Vargo, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of WellingtonGlaciers around the world are melting — and for the first time, we can now directly attribute annual ice loss to climate change. We analysed two years in which glaciers in New Zealand melted the most in at least four ...
Caroline Shaw, Anja MizdrakE-bikes are everywhere. Sales are booming and predicted to overtake sales of new cars in a few years. There were three times as many e-bikes and e-scooters imported into NZ in 2019 alone as there are e-cars in the entire country. You can’t go out in ...
New Zealand First is facing a difficult struggle to get re-elected, but Josh Van Veen, who was once a researcher for Winston Peters, argues that there is still a very significant section of cultural conservatives who oppose mass immigration and political correctness and might yet be won back over to ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Karin Kirk Many Americans these days seem unable to avoid controversy on practically any topic, so why not embrace the discord and wade into the especially volatile arena of nuclear energy? Advocates claim it’s the only way to meet global climate goals, ...
Can we trust New Zealand’s military? There must now be serious doubt, given the landmark report released on Friday concluding the investigation into allegations made in the book Hit and Run by Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson about a 2010 SAS killing raid in Afghanistan. The most recent Colmar Brunton ...
In New Zealand, we've just had the report of the Hit and Run inquiry, which found that a New Zealand led raid had accidentally killed civilians, including a child. meanwhile, around the same time, the British SAS was conducting its own raids in Afghanistan, and theirs were a hell of ...
In addition to establishing a process for setting emissions reductions plans, the Zero Carbon Act established a process for managing the risks of climate change. The first part of this is the preparation of regular risk assessments, looking at the risks to our economy, society, environment, and ecology. The first ...
Over on The spinoff, Amnesty International's Meg de Ronde has a response to Friday's release of the Hit and Run report. And in response to Attorney-General David Parker's claim that the government was being "transparent" by releasing the report, its titled "we shouldn’t have to work this hard to get ...
Story of the Week... Opinion of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... Story of the Week... Rising Seas Could Menace Millions Beyond Shorelines, Study FindsAs climate change raises sea levels, storm surges and high tides will ...
There's an election next month, so you'd be expecting political parties to be telling us what they stand for and what they'd do if they'd win. But while the Greens have given us a detailed policy platform, and National has talked about roads and austerity, Labour, currently leading the polls ...
"Who's youse accusin' of innference?" Without the timely intervention of a team of top American political consultants and campaign experts, Boris Yeltsin would never have won his second term as President of the Russian Federation. The Russians waited 20 years to return the favour.WHEN IT COMES to the disinformation game, ...
As polling day in the American presidential election draws closer, things are looking bad for Donald Trump. The polls show that he is tracking well behind his Democrat rival. Most people assume that the President will be striving might and main to avoid what looks increasingly likely to be a ...
Our health professionals do an amazing job. Image credit: Wikipedia – Cardiac surgery. Finally, I have got back to these rankings. A long period in hospital and computer problems meant the June 2020 rankings were abandoned. Now, with a new personal defibrillator implanted in my chest and a new hard ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, July 26 through Sat, Aug 1, 2020Editor's ChoiceThe four types of climate denier, and why you should ignore them allThe shill, the grifter, the egomaniac and the ideological ...
Over the last few days, reports have emerged of people travelling from New Zealand and testing positive for Covid-19 upon arrival at their destination. First in South Korea and now in Australia. What might these positive tests mean?They’re false-positives As Toby Morris and I have explained before, there are ...
Former National Minister - Wayne MappYou could tell that the Hit and Run book by investigative journalists Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson was right on the money by the way former National Party Minister of Defence, Wayne Mapp, reacted to its now largely vindicated claims.Even though the recent inquiry into ...
So, the Hit and Run inquiry has reported back, and found some appalling shit at NZDF and NZSIS. And while they quibble a few of the details - the name of a dead child - they basicly uphold Hager and Stephenson's version of events. The SAS went to those villages. ...
We are failing to think though the interdependencies in an economy. We miss economist Bryan Philpott (1921-2000). I miss him personally – we used to have such great discussions – but this column is about how the nation misses his economic experience and wisdom. We tend to ...
Michelle Boag - LeakerThe Heron report (PDF) was released yesterday, and it was a bit disappointing to say the least. It correctly found that former National Party president Michelle Boag and National Party MP Hamish Walker were politically motivated in leaking peoples private medical information, but didn’t look further into ...
On different trajectories and from different ends of the political spectrum, last night’s One News/Colmar Brunton poll has the Green Party and ACT converging around the five percent mark. And, as odd as it may sound, they head into the election campaign with a lot in common.Putting the Greens and ...
Janet Stephenson, University of OtagoA proposed multibillion-dollar project to build a pumped hydro storage plant could make New Zealand’s electricity grid 100% renewable, but expensive new infrastructure may not be the best way to achieve this. New Zealand’s electricity generation is already around 80% renewable, with just over half ...
Truth In Advertising: Labour, it would seem, is the party that knows nothing about running the economy right up until the moment that it does. HOW DID LABOUR acquire its reputation for being a poor economic manager? As with most things political and historical, it’s a long story.In the beginning, the ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Government rulemakers looking to decide how much money to spend to avoid adding more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere need a good estimate of what a warming climate will cost in social damages, for example through more extreme weather events. That point makes ...
Fact Check: New Zealand’s own relationship with China might, however, be salvageable if our own Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade was willing to equip its minister, Winston Peters, with a few facts. Legislating for the protection of national security – the very action our Foreign Minister is decrying – ...
I hope we can all agree that charging only certain returning expats for isolation costs is the right call. Instead of a blanket fee, which may have resulted in a small number of Kiwis deciding not to return home because of financial reasons, the Government has chosen to implement a ...
Back at the beginning of this government, the Greens made a foolish decision to support the Electoral Integrity Act - demanded by Winston Peters to keep his own backbench in line as part of his coalition deal with Labour - as an act of good faith within the coalition. It ...
SATURDAY AUGUST 1Artefact (Prime, 7.30pm). The series presented by Dame Anne Salmond screened on Māori Television, but is totally worth revisiting if you saw it the first time. Dame Anne tells the stories of taonga that highlight the history of Aotearoa. Further reading: this 2013 interview with Dame Anne by the lovely ...
Have unions and the Government sold workers short with their attempt at fixing the so-called “Hobbit Law”? Unionist Ian Powell argues that the union movement has been outmanoeuvered, and the Government has agreed to a new piece of anti-worker legislation that retains the principles of the previous National Government’s hated ...
Most of the claims made by anti-fluoride propagandists are simply wrong. Image source:Fluoridation and the ‘sciency’ facts of critics Anti-fluoride propagandists continually cite studies from areas of endemic fluorosis in their arguments against ...
An article in the EETimes suggests that advances in autonomous vehicles are not moving as quickly as expected because those working on them have confused complicated problems with complex ones. Engineering can only take you so far in complex worlds. Complicated systems tend to have fairly predictable inputs, processes and outputs. Complex systems (like ...
Last week, after Judith Collins announced that National would be cruel and vicious to kiwis caught overseas by the pandemic, and rob them at the border if they returned home, Labour looked like it was falling all over itself to cry "me too". But now, it looks like kindness has ...
If entry into New Zealand from abroad is safe, it should be allowed. People arriving from places that are Covid-free, or no more risky than New Zealand, and who get here on flights that do not intersect with risky places, should return to normal travel arrangements. Currently, the Cook ...
Liz SlootenScientists from the University of Otago, working with colleagues from around the world, have found that New Zealand right whales are doing much better than right whales in other parts of the world. The research was published as the feature article in the journal Marine Ecology Progress ...
Back in 2019, the government asked for a comprehensive, independent review of the Resource Management Act and associated legislation. That review has now reported back and recommended a complete repeal and re-enactment. Despite the headlines, this is not a "scrapping" - we're still going to have a resource management law, ...
By Associate Professor Mik Black, Department of Biochemistry, University of OtagoThe increased availability of complex biological data sets means that analysis and computation are becoming critically important skills for New Zealand’s future scientists. Because of this, we need to be doing everything we can to help our students develop ...
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nzIs humanity doomed? If in 2030 we have not reduced ...
Britain's spy agencies are supposedly overseen by various watchdogs, including the investigatory powers tribunal. But it turns out that MI6 at least has contempt for those watchdogs, and attempted to interfere with the operations of the tribunal by concealing evidence from its judges: MI6 has been accused of “inappropriate interference” ...
Daphna Whitmore So far this year over 7.4 million people have died from preventable communicable diseases. There were 4.3 million children who died under the age of five. Nearly one million people have died of HIV/AIDS in the past six months. A similar number of people have died from malaria ...
Four weeks ago I wrote about the last time a sizable asteroid hit our planet – the ‘Tunguska Event’ of 1908, when an object about 50 metres across exploded above the Siberian taiga – but smaller cosmic rocks shoot close by Earth fairly frequently. In the past 42 hours ...
Last month, China imposed a new "national security law" on Hong Kong. The law imposes a penalty of life imprisonment for secession, subversion, and "colluding with foreign forces" - which basicly means peacefully advocating for democracy or independence. It has been used to crush peaceful protests and interpreted by the ...
Powerful Connection: Neoliberalism is the antithesis of everything that has traditionally been associated with the feminine aspects of human nature. Kindness and compassion, nurturance and inclusiveness: such qualities have no place in the neoliberal order. When Jacinda proclaimed her determination to practice the “politics of kindness”, she was, wittingly or ...
The bad news: Jacinda Ardern still wants to bill exiled kiwis for returning home. The good news: it would require a law change, which the Greens won't back, so she'll need to go grovelling to National. The other good news: she's running out of time to do it. This ...
. . For the mainstream media, today (22 July) was even a better day than yesterday. More Sex. More Politics. More Sex AND Politics. Yesterday, the msm dealt with Andrew Falloon. The obscure backbench MP had been found to have sent pornographic images to at least four women. The woman’s ...
If you want to understand what is happening in this year’s election campaign, it’s worth looking to the past for guidance. Colin James delves into recent contests and finds some interesting parallels. July 28 is 53 days before the 2020 election. Just 53 days before the 2017 election ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters Wildfires burned much less acreage in the U.S. than average during the first half of the year, but with hot and dry conditions expected over much of the nation in the coming months, fire activity is likely to ramp up. ...
Today a full bench of the High Court is hearing Andrew Borrowdale's challenge to the legality of the COVID-19 lockdown. That lockdown ended two months ago, so the point seems moot - but it was never about ending it. Instead, as Andrew Geddis points out, its about a key principle ...
So far, this has been a relatively policy-free election campaign. The government has been trying to keep a low profile, on the basis that anything they say will only piss someone off, so better to say as little as possible. When its not knifing its leader, National has promised roads, ...
I hardly ever comment on polls, because horse-race politics is superficial and boring and most changes are statistically meaningless and so unworthy of attention (let alone the excitement they provoke amongst mathematically illiterate political journalists desperate to fill airtime). But we've now had two polls in a row showing Labour ...
The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back on its inquiry into the operation of the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act 2020. As you'd expect, they find that the law was "necessary and appropriate", but would like to see a permanent replacement providing for health emergency powers as the Health ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... John Cook in the News... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Claim Review... SkS Week in Review... Poster of the Week... Story of the Week... Major new climate study rules out less severe global warming scenariosAn analysis finds the most ...
It hasn’t taken long for the advent of Judith Collins as National party leader to change the tone of the political debate. After several days of headlines and airwaves dominated by reports of a National MP sending pornographic images to young women, the National leader had had enough of that ...
Don Franks An already fired up general election looks like getting even edgier. When final votes have been counted, a rather unlikely coalition government now seems possible As National and Labour implode with sexual proclivities while New Zealand First fling their last toys from the cot, others show more maturity. ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, July 19 through Sat, July 25, 2020Editor's ChoiceThe Climate Expert Who Delivered News No One Wanted to Hear From 2009: How a scientist known as the “father of global ...
There’s ultimately two key narratives overall that are seeking to take front row in order to reshape the world as a whole going forward from the COVID pandemic. The first is a very desperate attempt to reimpose “a return” to what is perceived as “the old normal”, quite impossible. ...
Henry Anderson-Elliott, University of CambridgeOn the morning of August 31 2017, I didn’t meet a remarkable polar bear. It was my third week of fieldwork-based out of Longyearbyen, Spitsbergen, studying the conservation of the bears on the Svalbard archipelago in Norway. Having spent a few days transcribing interviews in ...
SUNDAY JULY 26Country Calendar (TVNZ 1, 7.00pm). Tonight, kiwifruit growing in the King Country. Crazy!Normal People (TVNZ 1, 10.30pm). Holy cow, if you thought it was slow on a binge-watch, imagine what it's like in weekly doses. Nevertheless, it's like Richard Linklater's Boyhood – you don't really see the scope of ...
. . “The Martians had no resistance to the bacteria in our atmosphere to which we have long since become immune. Once they had breathed our air, germs, which no longer affect us, began to kill them. The end came swiftly. All over the world, their machines began to stop ...
With the June 2020 quarter showing underemployment increasing, the Green Party is calling for a Guaranteed Minimum Income and an increase to the abatement threshold to ensure everyone has a dignified income. ...
We went hard and we went early in our health response to COVID-19, and we did everything we could to cushion the economic impact too. In fact, we can fill every letter of the alphabet with the steps we took to fight COVID-19 and ensure we were in a position ...
Investing in our people, backing businesses, and upgrading infrastructure and housing throughout the country - it's been another week of progress for New Zealanders as we deliver our plan to recover and rebuild. ...
July was another busy month, packed with key investments aimed at progressing our economic recovery as we rebuild New Zealand. We extended support for businesses, helped create jobs through local infrastructure projects, and kept working to clean up our waterways so Kiwis can access safe clean water. Check out the ...
The Green Party is calling for the Defence Force Chiefs in place between 2010-2017 to front up and explain how dishonesty, process and policy failures within the Defence Force led to ‘a series of incorrect statements in briefings to ministers and public releases’ regarding alleged breaches of international torture prevention ...
Thanks to our strong health response, New Zealand’s economy is more open than many other countries. But as COVID continues to surge around the world, the economic consequences of the virus will continue to be a challenge, which is why we have a detailed plan to help New Zealand bounce ...
Thanks to our strong health response, New Zealand’s economy is more open than many other countries. But as COVID continues to surge around the world, the economic consequences of the virus will continue to be a challenge, which is why we have a detailed plan to help New Zealand bounce ...
The Green Party are ensuring that New Zealanders who were overseas when COVID-19 hit will not be charged for the cost of isolation or quarantine if they return home to live. ...
It's been another week of creating jobs, supporting local businesses, and investing in infrastructure up and down the country - all of which are helping to keep our economy moving post-COVID-19. ...
Law changes to end tenure review and provide for better management of Crown pastoral lands in the South Island high country were considered by Parliament today with the first reading of the Crown Pastoral Land Reform Bill says Minister for Land Information, Eugenie Sage. ...
The Green Party have secured legislative amendments in a bill expected to pass third reading this week, to ensure better rules for school teachers and staff, so they can de-escalate children with diverse needs and cognitive differences, such as autism, rather than using unnecessary and often traumatising force. ...
New Zealand needs to be more aggressive in pursuing economic opportunities and resist the short-term thinking affecting some of its major industry, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters says.Mr Peters told Wellington Chamber of Commerce members this morning that the planned closure of the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter will have ...
Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters has ridiculed the National Party "circus", with the politician saying it was in "chaos" after the resignation of another MP.Rangitata MP Andrew Falloon announced on Monday he would retire from politics after he allegedly sent inappropriate pornographic images to a young woman. Following a ...
Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters today outlined what he saw as the requirements to re-open New Zealand's borders for tourists and travellers. If New Zealand was dealing solely with an Australian state such as Tasmania, we wouldn't need a vaccine, said Mr Peters, but these moves were complicated by the ...
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters appears to have prompted last-minute alterations to proposed legislation for commercial landlords and their tenants. Mr Peters told reporters on Wednesday said that he was making sure the proposed bill was in step with what the parties had actually agreed to. He said he ...
Associate Minister for State Owned Enterprise and New Zealand First List MP Shane Jones attended the groundbreaking ceremony for the new NZ Post "super depot" in Wellington. The state-owned postal service, which got $280 million from the Coalition Government last month, is expanding its operations to handle surging parcel volumes. ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Leader of New Zealand First CHECK AGAINST DELIVERYIntroduction Good afternoon. Welcome to you all here today and party supporters watching from around the country. We appreciate your hard work keeping New Zealand First strong; thank you for keeping the faith. Sixty-three days out from Election Day, ...
The diversity of conservation boards around Aotearoa is increasing with 47 appointments to 14 of the 15 conservation boards across New Zealand announced today by the Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage. ...
The Green Party is honoured to be remembering former co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons today at a public memorial service in the heart of Wellington at the Cathedral of St. Paul’s. Following her passing in March, this celebration of her life brings together her friends, family and colleagues to honour her life ...
Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage has announced a $2.5 million boost for South Westland to help a regional alliance of local businesses and government agencies provide nature based jobs. ...
Investing in infrastructure is one major way we can create jobs, stimulate the economy, and keep New Zealand moving post COVID-19. That's why this week we rolled out a massive number of infrastructure announcements - in Tairāwhiti, Wairarapa, Otago, Southland and more! ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Leader of New Zealand First New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters says the National Party’s Auckland Transport announcement today is a breath-taking plan on the never never. While it is promising to see that National all of a sudden has rediscovered railways in Auckland, including trains ...
Landmark legislation passed today puts New Zealand on track to saving thousands of lives and having a smokefree generation sooner rather than later, Associate Health Minister, Jenny Salesa says. The Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Vaping) Amendment Bill regulates vaping products and heated tobacco devices. “There has long been concern ...
A discriminatory law that has been a symbol of frustration for many people needing and providing care and support, has been scrapped by the Government. “Part 4A of the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Amendment Bill (No 2) was introduced under urgency in 2013 by a National Government,” Associate ...
Kiwi motorists are set to reap the benefits of a more competitive fuel market following the passing of the Fuel Industry Bill tonight, Energy and Resources Minister Megan Woods says. “This Act is where the rubber meets the road in terms of our response to the recommendations made in the ...
The Government has delivered on its promise to New Zealanders to modernise tenancy laws with the passing of the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill 2020 today, says Associate Minister of Housing (Public Housing), Kris Faafoi. “The Residential Tenancies Act 1986 was out-dated and the reforms in the RTA modernise our ...
New rules to protect and restore New Zealand’s freshwater passed into law today. Environment Minister David Parker and Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor welcomed the gazetting of the new national direction on freshwater management. “These regulations deliver on the Government’s commitment to stop further degradation, show material improvements within five years and ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has announced the appointment of Jeremy Clarke-Watson as New Zealand’s new Consul-General in Los Angeles. “New Zealand and the United States share a close and dynamic partnership, based on a long history of shared values and democratic traditions,” Mr Peters said. “Mr Clarke-Watson is a ...
Victims of family violence can end a tenancy with two days’ notice Landlords can terminate tenancies with 14 days’ notice if tenants assault them Timeframe brought forward for limiting rent increases to once every 12 months Extension of time Tenancy Tribunal can hear cases via phone/video conference Reform of New ...
Two employment schemes – one new and one expanded – going live today will help tens of thousands of people continue training on the job and support thousands more into work, the Government has announced. Apprenticeship Boost, a subsidy of up to $12,000 per annum for first year apprentices and ...
The Government is funding a significant infrastructure package at Omokoroa which will create 150 new jobs and help transform the Western Bay of Plenty peninsula, Urban Development Minister Phil Twyford announced today. Phil Twyford says the Government is investing $14 million towards the $28 million roading and water package. This ...
The Bill allowing the Government to recover some costs for managed isolation and quarantine passed its third reading today, with charges coming into force as soon as regulations are finalised. Putting regulations into force is the next step. “The COVID-19 Public Health Response Amendment Bill and its supporting regulations will ...
Today’s unemployment data shows the Government’s plan to protect jobs and cushion the blow for businesses and households against the economic impact of COVID-19 was the right decision, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. Stats NZ said today that New Zealand’s unemployment rate in the June quarter – which includes the ...
A new role of New Zealand Reading Ambassador for children and young people is being established, Prime Minister and Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Jacinda Ardern and Minister for Internal Affairs and for Children, Tracey Martin announced today. The Reading Ambassador, announced at a Celebration of Reading event at ...
Community Law Centres will receive a funding boost to meet the increased need for free legal services due to COVID-19, Justice Minister Andrew Little said. The $3.5m funding is for the next three financial years and is additional to the almost $8 million for Community Law Centres announced in Budget ...
New Zealand has joined Canada and Chile in a new trade initiative aimed at increasing women’s participation in global trade. Trade and Export Growth Minister David Parker, together with Canada’s Minister for Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade Mary Ng, Chile’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrés Allamand, and Chile’s Vice ...
Building owners around New Zealand have benefited from the latest round of Heritage EQUIP funding with grants totalling $2,230,166. “The Heritage EQUIP grants for seismic strengthening assist private building owners to get the professional advice they need to go ahead with their projects or support them to carry out the ...
• New paediatric facilities, including a Special Baby Care Unit • Up to 50 extra inpatient beds • New lab facilities Northland babies and their whānau will soon have access to improved hospital care when they need it with Health Minister Chris Hipkins today confirming new paediatric facilities and more ...
People walking and cycling between Featherston and Greytown, or along Wellington’s Eastern Bays will soon have a safe shared path, as part of a $220 million shovel-ready cycleways package announced by Associate Transport Minister Julie Anne Genter. “During lockdown we saw many more families and kids out on their bikes, ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters today extended New Zealand’s condolences following the death of Vanuatu’s High Commissioner to New Zealand, Johnson Naviti, who passed away yesterday afternoon in Wellington. “Our thoughts are with the High Commissioner’s family and colleagues during this difficult time. This is a terrible loss both to ...
The Government has today set out the regional allocations of the $761 million Three Waters stimulus and reform funding for councils announced by Prime Minister Hon Jacinda Ardern this month. "I want to thank Councils around the country for engaging with the Central Local Government Steering Group who have been ...
Students with high and complex learning needs, as well as their teachers and parents, will benefit from a substantial increase to Ongoing Resourcing Scheme (ORS) funding, Associate Education Minister Martin announced today. “Nearly $160 million will go towards helping these students by lifting their base support over the next four ...
Funding for innovative projects to connect Kiwis with affordable, safe and wholesome food, reduce food waste, and help our food producers recover from COVID-19 has been announced today by Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor. “COVID-19 has seen an increasing number of families facing unprecedented financial pressure. Foodbanks and community food service ...
Eight shovel-ready projects within Kāinga Ora large-scale developments, and the Unitec residential development in Auckland have been given the go-ahead, Minister for Housing Dr Megan Woods announced today. Megan Woods says these significant infrastructure upgrades will ensure that the provision of homes in Auckland can continue apace. “The funding announced ...
The Government is funding a new separated walking and cycleway path along Napier’s Chambers and Ellison streets to provide safer access for local students and residents across Marine Parade and State Highway 51, Transport Minister Phil Twyford and Police Minister Stuart Nash announced today. Funding of $2.7 million has been ...
More than 13,000 people have been employed so far thanks to the Coalition Government’s Provincial Growth Fund, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has today announced. The number of jobs created by Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) investments has outstripped the 10,000 jobs target that the Government and Provincial Development Unit ...
Scientists and innovative fishing operators from Stewart Island and Fiordland to Nelson, Marlborough and Wellington have been honoured in the first ever Seafood Sustainability Awards. Fisheries Minister Stuart Nash has congratulated the winners of the inaugural Seafood Sustainability Awards held at Parliament. “The awards night honours six winners, from a wide ...
The Government is providing an investment totalling more than $100 million for regions to protect against and mitigate the effects of climate change, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones have announced. Six regions will receive funding from the $3 billion allocated to infrastructure projects from the ...
Three major local projects at Te Kuiti and Otorohanga have been given the money to get moving after the impact of Covid 19, says the Minister of Māori Development Hon Nanaia Mahuta. The projects range from a Sports Centre for Te Kuiti, a redevelopment of the Otorohanga Kiwi House and ...
The Coalition Government has extended three New Zealand Defence Force deployments to the Middle East and Africa by two years, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Ron Mark announced today. “These deployments promote peace in the Middle East and Africa by protecting civilians and countering the spread of ...
The release of the National Climate Change Risk Assessment shows that the progress this Government has made to solve the climate crisis is essential to creating cleaner and safer communities across New Zealand. “Because of this report, we can see clearer than ever that the action our Government is taking ...
The second round of the Community Resilience Fund is now open for applications for sport and recreation organisations experiencing financial hardship between 1 July and 30 September 2020. “The fund opens today for five weeks – closing on September 6. The amount awarded will be decided on a case-by-case basis ...
Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage today declared Rakitū Island, off the coast of Aotea/Great Barrier Island, predator free. “I’m delighted to announce that with rats now gone, Rakitū is officially predator free. This is a major milestone because Rakitū is the last DOC administered island in the Hauraki Gulf Marine ...
The Provincial Growth Fund is investing $8.75 million to restore significant historic sites at Ōhaeawai in the Far North, upgrade marae and fund fencing and riparian planting. Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones made the announcements following a service at the historic St Michael’s Anglican Church at Ōhaeawai today. Just ...
The Chatham Islands will receive close to $40 million for projects that will improve its infrastructure, add to its attraction as a visitor destination, and create jobs through a planned aquaculture venture, Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones has announced. “The COVID-19 pandemic has had a devastating impact on the islands, first ...
The Government is delivering more initiatives to reduce energy hardship and to give small electricity consumers a voice, Energy and Resources Minister Megan Woods said today. “In addition to the initiatives we have already delivered to support New Zealand families, we are responding to the Electricity Price Review with further ...
Government, iwi, NGOs and rehabilitation groups are working together to turn around the fortunes of the nationally endangered hoiho/yellow-eyed penguin following a series of terrible breeding seasons. The Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage helped launch the Five Year Action Plan at the annual Yellow-Eyed Penguin symposium in Dunedin today. “I ...
The membership of the Tourism Futures Taskforce has now been confirmed, Tourism Minister Kelvin Davis announced at an event at Whakarewarewa in Rotorua today. “The main purpose of the independent Tourism Futures Taskforce is to lead the thinking on the future of tourism in New Zealand,” Kelvin Davis said. Joining ...
More than $300 million in funding has been approved to protect strategic tourism businesses, drive domestic tourism through regional events and lift digital capability in the tourism industry, Tourism Minister Kelvin Davis announced today. A $400 million Tourism Recovery Package was announced at Budget 2020, and with today’s announcements is ...
From 2021 permits will be required for New Zealanders wanting to export hard-to-recycle plastic waste. The Associate Minister for the Environment, Eugenie Sage, today announced the requirements as part of New Zealand’s commitments to the Basel Convention, an international agreement of more than 180 countries which was amended in May ...
The building and construction sector is still showing strong growth, with the number of new dwellings consented up more than 8 per cent compared to last year, reflecting a welcome confidence in the Government’s COVID-19 response package, Minister for Building and Construction Jenny Salesa says. “While it is still too ...
Government investment of $23 million for Bay of Plenty flood protection will allow local communities to address long-standing flood risks and provide jobs, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau announced in Rotorua today. These projects are being funded by the Infrastructure Reference Group’s (IRG) shovel ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Scott Morrison will unveil on Thursday a cyber security package to give greater protection to critical Australian infrastructure and bolster the powers of the Australian Federal Police to pursue criminal networks on the dark web. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra A rumour that Victoria’s high profile chief health officer Brett Sutton was quitting caused a flurry in state government circles on Wednesday afternoon. Sutton has been one of the medical hardliners during the pandemic, at ...
Parliament has just passed a new law that will leave renters with a sense of relief. But many landlords aren’t too pleased. What’s all this then?The Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill passed under urgency this evening. It amends existing law around renting to increase rights for tenants. According to associate housing minister ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Noble, Education Policy Fellow, Mitchell Institute, Victoria University From tomorrow (Thursday, August 6) only children of permitted workers will be able to attend childcare in Melbourne, which is under stage 4 restrictions. Parents and providers have been waiting to understand what ...
Gone By Lunchtime’s Toby Manhire, Annabelle Lee-Mather and Ben Thomas denounce new poll results that very slightly contradict their opinions.The height of the summit for the National Party? A poll came out last week with Labour at 53%, and that was considered good news for Judith Collins and the Strong ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Melatos, Associate Professor of Economics, University of Sydney Virgin Australia’s plan to sack about 3,000 of its 9,000 staff, axe its budget brand Tigerair, streamline its fleet to only Boeing 737s and suspend long-haul international flying indefinitely should come as no ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Benjamin Reilly, Professor, University of Western Australia In international affairs, words are bullets, according to an old diplomatic saying. If so, Australia in recent years has begun firing new ammunition. In his address to the Aspen Security Forum today, Prime Minister Scott ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Aisling Rayne, PhD candidate, University of Canterbury Whakapapa [genealogy] binds tākata whenua [people of the land] to the mountains, rivers, coasts and other landscapes, linking the health of the people with that of the environment. Like humans, species have whakapapa that ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gabriel da Silva, Senior Lecturer in Chemical Engineering, University of Melbourne The Lebanese capital Beirut was rocked on Tuesday evening local time by an explosion that has killed at least 78 people and injured thousands more. The country’s prime minister Hassan Diab ...
The MacDiarmid Institute DiscoveryCamp gives Māori and Pasefika high school students a taste of life as a scientist. Teuila Fuatai finds the experience often leads to much more. Eden Skipper loves eeling. “It is a family tradition,” he says proudly. The 22-year-old of Ngāi Tahu descent grew up on the east ...
Te Tari Taiwhenua, Department of Internal Affairs, has announced Allot Limited as the new service provider for the Digital Child Exploitation Filter (DCEF) from 1 August 2020. The filter operates as a service provided to most New Zealand Internet ...
In the wake of National’s leadership woes, The Spinoff sat down with the party’s most popular face in recent history to talk Covid-19, Judith Collins – and why he thinks our border should be more ‘flexible’.John Key is confident about our country’s future.In part, that’s because he tunes in each ...
The new National Policy Statement and National Environmental Standard for Freshwater, gazetted by the Government today, is a significant step forward in reducing pollution in our rural and urban waterways caused by intensive farming and through regional ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David McCooey, Professor of Writing and Literature, Deakin University In our series Art for Trying Times, authors nominate a work they turn to for solace or perspective during this pandemic. One day in 1984, a friend and I went to have lunch ...
Data released by Stats NZ today shows the impact of Covid-19 on New Zealand jobs during the June quarter was disproportionately felt by women. Mary Jo Vergara from KiwiEconomics breaks down what it all means.Women have historically fared well in times of war and crisis. During the Second World War, ...
The Sir Julius Vogel Awards last Thursday were meant to be a celebration of some of our best genre writers. It didn’t turn out that way, as Casey Lucas, one of the winners, explains. This is the story of how the nominees and recipients of the 2020 Sir Julius Vogel ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Craig Jeffrey, Director and CEO of the Australia India Institute; Professor of Development Geography, University of Melbourne In recent days, the Indian government approved a new education policy — the first for 34 years. The policy comes after an expert group produced ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julian Elliott, Executive Director, National COVID-19 Clinical Evidence Taskforce, and Associate Professor, School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University With cases of COVID-19 on the rise, many Australians are asking: what happens if I test positive? With no known cure ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Professor Marcia Langton, Foundation Chair in Australian Indigenous Studies, University of Melbourne This is an edited transcript of the 2020 Thea Astley Address delivered by Marcia Langton at the Byron Writers Festival. It’s a longer read at 4,500 words. You can listen ...
As Auckland business leaders and the city’s economic development agency hold a day-long summit to thrash out a Covid-19 economic recovery plan, Finance Minister Grant Robertson is singing from a different song- book. He reckons NZ’s economy is doing well and “ … as we look ahead, there are ...
The National Party says it would create a new Auckland Transport-like authority and green-light a second Terrace tunnel National Party leader Judith Collins has announced National would give greater government funding for the Wellington region's existing transport plan and for a new agency to end the region's transport bickering. Collins made ...
Latest from the Beehive – The public debt is among the victims of the Covid-19 epidemic. According to the 2020 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update, in the current year and the next two fiscal years, operating deficits (operating balance before gains and losses) average around $28 billion while net core ...
The latest round of economic data won’t carry Judith Collins and the National Party into the promised land, and she’ll need to come up with something else to save her chances, writes political commentator Ben Thomas.The government has delivered an economic miracle! How else to describe today’s labour market statistics ...
Source: Council on Hemispheric Affairs – Analysis-Reportage John PerryFrom Masaya, Nicaragua An extraordinary leaked document gives a glimpse of the breadth and complexity of the US government’s plan to interfere in Nicaragua’s internal affairs up to and after its presidential election in 2021. The plan,[1] a 14-page extract from a ...
The Cook Islands language video.Pacific Media Centre Newsdesk The Cook Islands episode in AUT’s Pacific language video series – “Adapting to a changing world, shaping resilient futures” – is out now. The video is narrated in Cook Islands Māori (with English subtitles) to acknowledge the language being celebrated in ...
Community Law Centres welcome the additional Government funding announced to help address increased demand for free legal services due to COVID-19. Minister of Justice Andrew Little today announced an additional $3.47m over three years for Community ...
New Zealand’s unemployment rate has just fallen, defying experts and flying in the face of everything we expected. But according to Stats NZ, the devil is in the detail.What’s all this then?In a bizarre turn of events, New Zealand’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate has actually fallen from 4.2% to 4% ...
The outgoing immigration minister, Iain Lees-Galloway, has told MPs income criteria imposed on residents who want their parents to join them are "far too high". ...
Auckland Action Against Poverty is calling on the Government to increase abatement thresholds and lift benefits to liveable levels to support people affected by the growth of unemployment due to COVID-19. “Unemployment numbers do not tell us whether ...
A national survey of public drinking fountains around Aotearoa, recently undertaken by RefillNZ , has shown that, on average, there is only one drinking fountain for every 3,303 people and as few as one fountain for every 17,000 people in the worst-affected ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andreas Ortmann, Professor, UNSW Sweden has become something of a cautionary tale for what happens when you attempt to tackle coronavirus without lockdowns. In The Conversation last week The Grattan Institute’s Stephen Duckett and Will Mackey said its freer approach caused almost ...
In the June 2020 quarter, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell to 4.0 percent, down from 4.2 percent last quarter, while underutilisation rose, Stats NZ said today. ...
A conference on Auckland and the Covid-19 crisis hears calls for flexibility from the Government, including a loan to fund big projects and allowing foreign students into university quarantine Former Prime Minister John Key is urging the Government to throw out the rulebook and give Auckland Council a big, interest-free ...
Pacific Media Centre Newsdesk The safe reopening of entry points into six Pacific Islands countries amid the covid-19 pandemic is being discussed at a meeting in Fiji this week. The virtual roundtable is being convened by the United Nations and the Asian Development Bank with representatives from Solomon Islands, Kiribati, ...
The New Zealand Taxpayers' Union is welcoming confirmation from the National Party that income tax bracket indexation remains party policy. However, suggestions that the National Party has no plans to cut income taxes will come as a major disappointment ...
The Executive Director of the New Zealand Maori Council, Matthew Tukaki, has said unemployment in New Zealand will rise significantly over the next quarter and the figures out today are just the tip of a very fast-moving iceberg. Tukaki has said ...
Aggrieved members of the Firearms Community - from all over Canterbury and beyond - will once again take to the streets of Ashburton in good numbers this Saturday, 8th August. They continue to protest against the government’s Firearms Law Firearms ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Susan Hazel, Senior Lecturer, School of Animal and Veterinary Science, University of Adelaide What does a pandemic smell like? If dogs could talk, they might be able to tell us. We’re part of an international research team, led by Dominique Grandjean at ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Smith, Senior Lecturer in American Politics and Foreign Policy, US Studies Centre, University of Sydney Americans were alarmed last week when their president suggested on Twitter that the November 3 presidential election should be delayed because mail-in ballots would be fraudulent. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Judy Mullan, Associate Professor, School of Medicine, University of Wollongong According to 2016 Census data, 3.5% of Australians have limited English proficiency. When they’re receiving health care, it’s essential these Australians have access to interpreters. Research has shown professional interpreters facilitate effective ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Aliza Werner-Seidler, Senior Research Fellow in Mental Health & Clinical Psychologist, UNSW Access to mental health support has never been more important, as Melburnians are hit with a stage 4 lockdown and much of the rest of Australia braces for a potential ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Osman, Scientist, Energy Efficiency & Renewables, CSIRO Yesterday, Australia’s eastern states felt a vicious cold snap, and these wintry blasts make hunkering down in isolation at home a little easier. But as the temperature rises at home, so does our carbon ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alan Brent, Professor and Chair in Sustainable Energy Systems, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington CC BY-NDClimate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Prestridge, Senior Lecturer, Griffith University In early July, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews announced government school students in prep to Year 10 — in Metropolitan Melbourne and the Mitchell Shire —would learn from home for term three. Students in Years 11 and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Georgia Cervin, Honorary Research Fellow, University of Western Australia The new Netflix documentary Athlete A details how Larry Nassar, the US women’s gymnastics team doctor, was brought to justice after sexually abusing hundreds of gymnasts. Since its release, gymnasts around the world ...
Welcome to Election Live for August 5, bringing you the latest on election 2020 and other breaking news. For key dates in the election season click here. For all you need to know about the cannabis referendum click here. For the assisted dying referendum click here. Get in touch at ...
The Social Services and Community Committee is calling for public submissions on the Oranga Tamariki (Youth Justice Demerit Points) Amendment Bill, which was referred to the committee on 21 July 2020. This Member’s Bill would introduce a youth demerit ...
Ryman Healthcare's plans in Australia's Covid-19 hit state of Victoria prompt a note of caution, plus the Super Fund buys New Zealand's major lab testing company ...
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: IPCA and police at odds over decision not to charge officer, Canterbury DHB in crisis, and Shane Jones job creation claims disputed.The Independent Police Conduct Authority has issued a call for charges for an officer who used excessive force in ...
Covid-19 has underscored that the Government cannot address issues of magnitude alone. Dawn Freshwater looks at where universities fit into our country's recovery. University researchers have shown remarkable agility in their response to the Covid-19 pandemic. They have conducted research in new fields, collaborated across traditional disciplinary boundaries and joined forces ...
Fonterra’s proposed wastewater plant near Cambridge has drawn opposition from locals who say it should take place on industrial-zoned land, not in the middle of farms, lifestyle blocks and retirement homes Residents in a rural area of Cambridge are unhappy about Fonterra’s proposal to put a wastewater treatment plant on ...
Our first world weightlifting gold medallist, Kanah Andrews-Nahu, has struggled coming out of lockdown. But it’s helped her realise that to be great, she must be committed. Not only in sport, but a medical career too. This year’s North and South Island Olympic weightlifting championships were, understandably, like no other. Instead ...
It's time to end to the manipulation of newsfeeds, demand fact-checking and smash our echo chambers, writes Gehan Gunasekara Data privacy has now become a mainstream election issue on par with the likes of health or education. People care deeply how their personal information is managed. This is evidenced by the ...
The market failure imposed by the use of Tiwai Point as an aluminium smelter does not mean that there are no other good options. Nicola Gaston gives explores five of them. So it’s happened. Rio Tinto has announced it is pulling the plug on the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter, due to crashing prices ...
An essay by Ruby Solly about whakapapa, resistance, and the markers of history that often go unseen In my dark hair, there is a red fleck. Like Tiger's Eye stone, you see it run when the light hits it. The red fleck of totoweka, the blood in the stone. My ...
The first episode of our new podcast series tackles equality and equity and the role of our education system as a solution. Subscribe now to Conversations that Count – Ngā Kōrero Whai Take, for essential insight into the future of Aotearoa. The idea that all New Zealanders should have access to ...
When does advance voting open, when do the results get announced, and when are the TV debates? The essential election calendar.To read our bumper Q&A on the cannabis legalisation referendum see here, on the assisted dying referendum, see here. For all The Spinoff’s Election 2020 coverage go here.This post will ...
Alongside the general election of 2020, New Zealanders will be asked to vote on the Cannabis Legalisation and Control Bill, which legalises restricted access to cannabis. Here’s our bumper question-and-answer special on what it involves.Click here for everything you need to know about the assisted dying referendum. Read more from the ...
Here’s what we have planned for the weeks to come.A month from today, on Saturday September 5, voting begins in the general election of 2020. Election day itself isn’t for another fortnight, on September 19, but if the trends of recent times is a guide, more than half of all ...
Alongside the general election of 2020, New Zealanders will be asked to vote on the End of Life Choice bill, which allows voluntary euthanasia for those suffering terminal illnesses. Here’s our bumper question-and-answer special on what it involves.Click here for everything you need to know about the cannabis referendum. Read ...
After China's succession of food scares, and post-Covid wariness, consumer demands there are changing. New Zealand can take advantage of that, or be left behind Covid-19 has heightened Chinese consumer concerns about food safety, and industry players are warning New Zealand businesses to keep up. Today The Detail looks ...
Our banks are charging retailers hundreds of millions of dollars every year, for electronic payments. While credit card companies cut some fees this week, small Kiwi retailers are still paying too much. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Scott Morrison says the COVID-19 crisis has created new opportunities for “like-minded economies” to work together – but warned against “solely transactional” trade approaches undermining these relationships. In a Wednesday keynote speech to the US ...
A new Twilight book launches today. Its author talked to Catherine Woulfe about gender politics, anxiety, and the challenges of telling the Twilight story from Edward Cullen’s perspective. Midnight Sun is the original Twilight story, except instead of Bella Swan narrating it’s her vampire love, Edward Cullen.It’s a book that ...
Papua New Guinea has one new case of the novel coronavirus covid-19 reported yesterday bringing total cases to 111, reports EMTV News. National Pandemic Response Controller David Manning in a statement late yesterday said the new case was a 27-year-old male of the National Department of Health and was in ...
Open Mike 18/05/2018 
After I noticed that my name had been taken yet again in vain by my friendly antagonist Tom Hunter over at No Minister, I went over to see what the fuss was about. Nothing much, but then I discovered a post about the Operation Burnham Inquiry by Psycho Milt. I ...12 hours ago
The COVID-19 Public Health Response Act 2020 was extended today, until December 1st or the tenth sitting day following the resumption of Parliament after the election. It seems like a necessary extension. While we currently have eradicated the virus in New Zealand, it is still banging at the door, and ...12 hours ago
Judy Kavanagh I’m OK with wearing a CovidCard. But are you? There’s no point me doing it alone.
As many good things come in threes (as the saying goes), we are happy to announce a third partnership between Skeptical Science and other websites. Fakebook.eco in Brazil is joining Klimafakten.de in Germany and Nauka o Klimacie in Poland to leverage translated rebuttal material and to make the information readily available in other ...1 day ago
This interview on RNZ with Ross Tucker, the scientist who headed a review of transgender athletes playing in women’s rugby, discusses the findings of the review and what it means for women in sports. The review that World Rugby undertook had a broad range of independent experts and included a ...1 day ago
Let's Do This Again: What else can Jacinda do in a political environment so bereft of imagination and courage but seek a continuance? If she trades upon the extraordinary personal qualities that she has, miraculously, carried with her into the office of Prime Minister, then I, for one, will offer ...2 days ago
New Zealand First is facing a difficult struggle to get re-elected, but Josh Van Veen, who was once a researcher for Winston Peters, argues that there is still a very significant section of cultural conservatives who oppose mass immigration and political correctness and might yet be won back over to ...2 days ago
As polling day in the American presidential election draws closer, things are looking bad for Donald Trump. The polls show that he is tracking well behind his Democrat rival. Most people assume that the President will be striving might and main to avoid what looks increasingly likely to be a ...3 days ago
Our health professionals do an amazing job. Image credit: Wikipedia – Cardiac surgery. Finally, I have got back to these rankings. A long period in hospital and computer problems meant the June 2020 rankings were abandoned. Now, with a new personal defibrillator implanted in my chest and a new hard ...4 days ago
Former National Minister - Wayne MappYou could tell that the Hit and Run book by investigative journalists Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson was right on the money by the way former National Party Minister of Defence, Wayne Mapp, reacted to its now largely vindicated claims.Even though the recent inquiry into ...5 days ago
We are failing to think though the interdependencies in an economy. We miss economist Bryan Philpott (1921-2000). I miss him personally – we used to have such great discussions – but this column is about how the nation misses his economic experience and wisdom. We tend to ...5 days ago
TUESDAY AUGUST 4Grand Designs UK (Three, 7.30pm). ...7 days ago
Most of the claims made by anti-fluoride propagandists are simply wrong. Image source: Fluoridation and the ‘sciency’ facts of critics Anti-fluoride propagandists continually cite studies from areas of endemic fluorosis in their arguments against ... 1 week ago
. . For the mainstream media, today (22 July) was even a better day than yesterday. More Sex. More Politics. More Sex AND Politics. Yesterday, the msm dealt with Andrew Falloon. The obscure backbench MP had been found to have sent pornographic images to at least four women. The woman’s ...1 week ago
There’s ultimately two key narratives overall that are seeking to take front row in order to reshape the world as a whole going forward from the COVID pandemic. The first is a very desperate attempt to reimpose “a return” to what is perceived as “the old normal”, quite impossible. ...2 weeks ago
The Green Party is celebrating the passing of the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill, calling it a win for people who rent. ...8 hours ago
We went hard and we went early in our health response to COVID-19, and we did everything we could to cushion the economic impact too. In fact, we can fill every letter of the alphabet with the steps we took to fight COVID-19 and ensure we were in a position ...2 days ago
New Zealand needs to be more aggressive in pursuing economic opportunities and resist the short-term thinking affecting some of its major industry, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters says. Mr Peters told Wellington Chamber of Commerce members this morning that the planned closure of the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter will have ...2 weeks ago
Landmark legislation passed today puts New Zealand on track to saving thousands of lives and having a smokefree generation sooner rather than later, Associate Health Minister, Jenny Salesa says. The Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Vaping) Amendment Bill regulates vaping products and heated tobacco devices. “There has long been concern ...4 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Scott Morrison will unveil on Thursday a cyber security package to give greater protection to critical Australian infrastructure and bolster the powers of the Australian Federal Police to pursue criminal networks on the dark web. ...3 hours ago
A bill that increases security and stability for tenants has passed its final reading in Parliament. ...6 hours ago
Parliament has just passed a new law that will leave renters with a sense of relief. But many landlords aren’t too pleased. What’s all this then?The Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill passed under urgency this evening. It amends existing law around renting to increase rights for tenants. According to associate housing minister ...8 hours ago
Te Tari Taiwhenua, Department of Internal Affairs, has announced Allot Limited as the new service provider for the Digital Child Exploitation Filter (DCEF) from 1 August 2020. The filter operates as a service provided to most New Zealand Internet ...12 hours ago
New Zealand First and the Greens are facing the reality of the 'support partner' curse ...13 hours ago
As Auckland business leaders and the city’s economic development agency hold a day-long summit to thrash out a Covid-19 economic recovery plan, Finance Minister Grant Robertson is singing from a different song- book. He reckons NZ’s economy is doing well and “ … as we look ahead, there are ...14 hours ago
The National Party says it would create a new Auckland Transport-like authority and green-light a second Terrace tunnel National Party leader Judith Collins has announced National would give greater government funding for the Wellington region's existing transport plan and for a new agency to end the region's transport bickering. Collins made ...14 hours ago
Latest from the Beehive – The public debt is among the victims of the Covid-19 epidemic. According to the 2020 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update, in the current year and the next two fiscal years, operating deficits (operating balance before gains and losses) average around $28 billion while net core ...14 hours ago
A conference on Auckland and the Covid-19 crisis hears calls for flexibility from the Government, including a loan to fund big projects and allowing foreign students into university quarantine Former Prime Minister John Key is urging the Government to throw out the rulebook and give Auckland Council a big, interest-free ...16 hours ago
Ryman Healthcare's plans in Australia's Covid-19 hit state of Victoria prompt a note of caution, plus the Super Fund buys New Zealand's major lab testing company ...21 hours ago
The Government is claiming that National will have to drastically cut public services to meet its strict debt reduction target. Is that accurate? ...22 hours ago
Covid-19 has underscored that the Government cannot address issues of magnitude alone. Dawn Freshwater looks at where universities fit into our country's recovery. University researchers have shown remarkable agility in their response to the Covid-19 pandemic. They have conducted research in new fields, collaborated across traditional disciplinary boundaries and joined forces ...22 hours ago
Fonterra’s proposed wastewater plant near Cambridge has drawn opposition from locals who say it should take place on industrial-zoned land, not in the middle of farms, lifestyle blocks and retirement homes Residents in a rural area of Cambridge are unhappy about Fonterra’s proposal to put a wastewater treatment plant on ...22 hours ago
Our first world weightlifting gold medallist, Kanah Andrews-Nahu, has struggled coming out of lockdown. But it’s helped her realise that to be great, she must be committed. Not only in sport, but a medical career too. This year’s North and South Island Olympic weightlifting championships were, understandably, like no other. Instead ...22 hours ago
It's time to end to the manipulation of newsfeeds, demand fact-checking and smash our echo chambers, writes Gehan Gunasekara Data privacy has now become a mainstream election issue on par with the likes of health or education. People care deeply how their personal information is managed. This is evidenced by the ...22 hours ago
The market failure imposed by the use of Tiwai Point as an aluminium smelter does not mean that there are no other good options. Nicola Gaston gives explores five of them. So it’s happened. Rio Tinto has announced it is pulling the plug on the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter, due to crashing prices ...22 hours ago
An essay by Ruby Solly about whakapapa, resistance, and the markers of history that often go unseen In my dark hair, there is a red fleck. Like Tiger's Eye stone, you see it run when the light hits it. The red fleck of totoweka, the blood in the stone. My ...22 hours ago
After China's succession of food scares, and post-Covid wariness, consumer demands there are changing. New Zealand can take advantage of that, or be left behind Covid-19 has heightened Chinese consumer concerns about food safety, and industry players are warning New Zealand businesses to keep up. Today The Detail looks ...23 hours ago
Our banks are charging retailers hundreds of millions of dollars every year, for electronic payments. While credit card companies cut some fees this week, small Kiwi retailers are still paying too much. ...23 hours ago
Are people in politics interested in giving women what they need to live their lives fully? ...23 hours ago
Barely a ripple, then, in the NZ media about a massacre bigger than Sharpeville, a mass killing larger than Soweto, a crime as obscene as My Lai.
Our media by its silence is complicit in Israel’s crime.
Here is some detail of the horrific event.
“Laila Anwar al-Ghandour, an eight-month-old baby girl, died of tear-gas inhalation at dawn, Gaza’s Ministry of Health says, highlighting international outrage over the killings by Israeli soldiers of 60 Palestinians who joined in a massive protest against the opening of the US embassy in Jerusalem.
Laila was the youngest fatality of the demonstrations on Monday, which were held in the run up to the 70th anniversary on Tuesday of the Nakba, or Catastrophe, the day the state of Israel was established on May 15, 1948, forcing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes…..
The Israeli military has imposed a land, sea and air blockade on the Gaza Strip for more than a decade, cutting the Palestinian territory off from the outside world and leaving many of its residents impoverished, including the al-Ghandour family.
For the past seven weeks, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have been protesting as part of a campaign demanding the right of return for Palestinian refugees to the areas they were forcibly expelled from in 1948.
Since the protests began on March 30, Israeli forces have killed at least 108 Palestinians in the coastal enclave and wounded about 12,000 people.”
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/05/laila-anwar-al-ghandour-face-gaza-carnage-180515063150518.html
Gaza is the new Soweto.
https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/gaza-israel-soweto-180516123628499.html
I thought you didn’t partake of the Msm and preferred to inhabit more fringe type news sources.
Regardless your accusation is incorrect as the item in question has been in the Msm here and overseas on numerous occasions.
It has barely been covered.
More time has been spent discussing Royal weddings and reality TV shows.
Once again you are incorrect – It has been covered extensively both here and overseas.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/search?q=gaza
https://www.nytimes.com/search/gaza?action=click&contentCollection®ion=TopBar&WT.nav=searchWidget&module=SearchSubmit&pgtype=Homepage
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nzh-search/NZH/gaza/1/
https://www.stuff.co.nz/searchresults?cof=FORID%3A9&cx=006730714154542492986%3Aoh6vl0ybuqy&ie=UTF-8&q=gaza&Search+Site=&siteurl=www.stuff.co.nz%2F&ref=&ss=416j68224j4
No you are wrong, RNZ have not had one story on the massacres since the 14th, yet constant updates on the wedding, and most (not all) of the coverage from other MSM sources have been misleading in their framing of the massacre at best…but really what is the difference between the massacre in Gaza on 14/05/2018 and South Africa Sharpeville 21/03/1960 or Soweto on 16/06/1976?
https://www.radionz.co.nz/search/results?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=gaza&commit=Search
I note the many stories posted on RNZ since the 14th.
I second your comments above at 1.1, 1.1.1.1, and 1.1.1.1.1.1.
There has been extensive reports on NZ and overseas media sites, including those you have linked to and many others. But there are none so blind as those who wear blinkers to avoid their ignorance and bias being challenged.
It’s hard to understand how media can’t find it reportable. I find myself speculating about how pressure could be applied to such a large amount of media. Seems impossible, yet it happens. How is this so? 🙁
Holocaust hangover. Western people the world over still give Israel a free pass because of what happened in WW2.
Hence all the anti Semite rubbish in the uk directed at Corbyn. Getting him to toe the line and unable to criticise what Israel are up to.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/feb/01/antisemitic-incidents-in-uk-at-all-time-high
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-anti-semitism-adl-20180226-story.html
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-04-20/germany-has-a-new-anti-semitism-problem
http://www.dw.com/en/how-will-france-deal-with-rising-anti-semitism/a-43183365
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/14/opinion/sweden-antisemitism-jews.html
I’d suggest that anti-semitism is on the rise in the West, especially the UK so maybe a bit more tolerance is actually needed towards Jews
It’s probably not anti-Semitism but abhorrence at the actions of Israel which is then portrayed as anti-Semitism by those who wish to defend the actions of Israel.
Are you really being an apologist for antisemites?
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/feb/01/antisemitic-incidents-in-uk-at-all-time-high
“Stephen Silverman, director of investigations and enforcement at the Campaign against Antisemitism, said the trust figures were indicative of official 2017 police statistics. “Antisemitic crime has been rising dramatically since 2014 and that rise is not explained by an increase in reporting, and we have seen no noticeable impact from Brexit,” he said.
“We believe that Jews are being singled out disproportionately and with increasing violence due to the spread of antisemitic conspiracy myths originating from Islamists, the far-left and far-right, which society is failing to address, as evidenced by the ongoing disgraceful situation in the Labour party, and because the Crown Prosecution Service declines to prosecute so often that antisemites no longer fear any consequences to their actions.”
I’m saying that there are possible consequences to Israel’s war crimes as well even if the Western governments and other apologists don’t want to do anything about them.
Keep telling yourself that Draco
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/14/opinion/sweden-antisemitism-jews.html
“Malmo’s sole Hasidic rabbi has reported being the victim of more than 100 incidents of hostility ranging from hate speech to physical assault. In response to such attacks, the Simon Wiesenthal Center issued a travel warning in 2010 advising “extreme caution when visiting southern Sweden” because of officials’ failure to act against the “serial harassment” of Jews in Malmo.
“Henryk Grynfeld, a teacher at a high school in a mostly immigrant neighborhood in Malmo, was told by a student: “We’re going to kill all Jews.” He said other students yell “yahoud,” the Arabic word for Jew, at him.
The fear of being accused of intolerance has paralyzed Sweden’s leaders from properly addressing deep-seated intolerance.
Some of the country’s leaders have even used Israel as a convenient boogeyman to explain violence. After the terrorist attacks in Paris in November 2015, Sweden’s foreign minister, Margot Wallstrom, explained radicalism among European Muslims with reference to Israel: “Here, once again, we are brought back to situations like the one in the Middle East, where not least, the Palestinians see that there isn’t a future. We must either accept a desperate situation or resort to violence.”
Gee using Israel as an excuse for the attacks, who’da thunk it?
You don’t bring anything positive by conflating two clearly distinctive streams …
Is it a deliberate tactic?
Are you a ‘semite’, PR?
I wonder how recently Swedish the Swedish antisemites are.
To Gabby:
“Historically, anti-Semitism in Sweden could mainly be attributed to right-wing extremists. While this problem persists, a study from 2013 showed that 51 percent of anti-Semitic incidents in Sweden were attributed to Muslim extremists. Only 5 percent were carried out by right-wing extremists; 25 percent were perpetrated by left-wing extremists.
Swedish politicians have no problem condemning anti-Semitism carried out by right-wingers. When neo-Nazis planned a march that would go past the Goteborg synagogue on Yom Kippur this September, for example, it stirred up outrage across the political spectrum. A court ruled that the demonstrators had to change their route.”
25.30 the anti semite smear ….
Ad
+100DTB
People who can’t tell the degrees of difference between fact and supposition/prejudice like RW such as PR don’t throw any light or understanding onto gnarly problems.
Who are the ‘semites’ …
‘The zionist screams in pain while he stabs you’…
the anti semite smear 37.30
Why is Israel allowed to be the only culture allowed to practice anti semitism, after all Palestinians are a Semitic race.
On being 14
who brings a baby to a riot? That is irresponsible parenting.
As for the terrorists killed, good riddance. Unfortunately about 10 civilians were caught in the crossfires.
More lies from a supporter of Israel’s war crimes.
That’s ugly stuff…
Very ugly…
humma
That is a good question. And can’t be answered with sweeping condemnation. For sure there will be poverty and control in the various threads of the answer.
Have you seen the video of the allegedly dead Palestinian scratching themselves under the white cover? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPaq_TNEYwY.
Humma & Babayoga. The massacre of more than 60 unarmed protesters this week was covered by many cameras for all the world to see. In addition, 2700 people were injured. These figures have been validated by MSF ( doctors without borders).
IDF troops were firing into Gaza from the buffer zone. A fence (not a border) separated protesters, who were fired on from fortified sniper positions and tanks. While some young men approached the fence, most were at least 50 metres away. The baby who died from inhaling teargas was a long way from the action in a tent used by medics & media.
You can minimise or obfuscate this brutality all you like. The cameras of the world showed the truth. More Israeli war crimes.
the root of the problem …. stolen land … territory not terrorism
Occupation and apartheid
The truth … 21 mins
Inspiration … 27.30
Terrorism 43 mins
Mycoplasma bovis is here.
https://www.noted.co.nz/currently/environment/mycoplasma-bovis-is-in-new-zealand-it-s-what-comes-next-that-s-important/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=LISTENER_newsletter_17-05-2018&utm_content=Final&utm_term=list_nzlistener_newsletter
Mycoplasma bovis is here. It’s what comes next that’s important
by The Listener / 17 May, 2018
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At a time when the link between town and country is weak, our reaction to cow disease Mycoplasma bovis will be a revealing test of national solidarity.
It almost seems like the stuff of science fiction: a debilitating epidemic spreads unseen and stays several steps ahead of efforts to contain it. But the cow disease Mycoplasma bovis is not part of a far-fetched plot in a Hollywood film. For the rural sector, it has become a real-life horror story. Agriculture minister Damien O’Connor bluntly describes it as a disaster.
It’s a crisis with heartbreaking personal consequences as well as serious economic dimensions. Good farmers care deeply for their livestock, and few people would not have been moved by the sight of a Canterbury farmer almost in tears as he talked of his infected herd, painstakingly built up over decades of careful breeding, having to be slaughtered. This was the human face of an industry often pilloried for greed and environmental vandalism.
The fault for this lies squarely at the feet of Nathan Guy and his National government.
Now the taxpayer will have to pick up the cost for something farmers should have been insured for.
Dark times for New Zealand.
This thing MB is not strange and unknown. They have had it in Australia to the extent that they manage it apparently. The uncaring NZ RW governments who want foreign money and goods to come into the country for their benefit are uncaring about protecting and conserving our natural resources, one being that we have been free of many nasties. They make a show of having controls but then the guardians have limited budgets, probably inspect sample numbers, do their virtual kaitiaki from their computers.
A good coverage of the mycoplasma bovis problem from an experienced scientist Keith Woodford comes with a warning that we have to ramp up our controls over health. In 2018 Labour is set to see that NAIT is brought up to speed:
Given the lack of evidence for semen being the source, other possibilities need to be considered.
The normal transmission method for Mycoplasma bovis is from animal to animal. That raises the possibility that the original source is a live import. However, the oral advice from MPI (yet to be confirmed in writing) is that there have been no live cattle imported into New Zealand for the last three years.
Regardless of when animals were last imported into New Zealand, the importer was not the van Leeuwens, and the van Leeuwens have never received live imports on their farms. So once again, if a live import is the source, then the van Leeuwens have been exceedingly unlucky to the recipients of the disease. And what was the path by which it got there?…
If Mycoplasma is found to be endemic in New Zealand, then it will not be the death knell of the industry. But it will be a big nuisance. And we will undoubtedly need to implement some of the dairy hygiene measures that are typically seen overseas but which are largely ignored in New Zealand. In particular, farmers will need to think carefully about sending their young stock off-farm for grazing with young stock from other farms. Feeding raw (non-pasteurised) milk to calves will also need to be eliminated. Purchased bulls are another potential source of disease transfer.
https://www.interest.co.nz/rural-news/90786/keith-woodford-says%C2%A0we-should-not-be-confident-we-have-mycoplasma-bovis-contained
Stuff and NZ Farmer covered it in August 2017 reporting on the experience of a Kiwi in Australia.
While the prevalence of the disease in Australian herds was relatively low – about 3.5 per cent – it was spreading, and once a herd was infected, it remained infected at a subclinical level. The key was to be vigilant and quickly isolate any animal suspected of having the disease.
Goold estimated there might be about up to a dozen cases in the state of Victoria, the centre of the Australian dairy industry. Across the Tasman Mycoplasma has a very low profile; he had been farming for 10 years before hearing about it.
(I note the mention of up to a dozen cases in Victoria. We seem to have that number already.)
Then in November 2017 the farming business, the van Leeuwen Dairy Group which reported it initially was featured in Farmers Weekly.
In July one of the group’s farms was identified with the notifiable disease Mycoplasma bovis that initiated a full Ministry for Primary Industries biosecurity response.
While pretty much the rest of the world already had it, it was a first for NZ….
the van Leeuwens harbour much disappointment over how the response was managed.
“It has been horrendous on us, our staff and our contract and sharemilkers.
“The impact has been devastating on all our people and for many it will mean the end forever – their businesses and their reputations have been destroyed.”
The near 90 staff had just had enough and being associated with a group farm had tainted them for the future, van Leeuwen said.
https://farmersweekly.co.nz/#
The van Leeuwens noted that after they notified government about the disease, MPI was very slow to respond.
“It took them five days to find out where our farms were and 10 days to put their feet on the first infected farm.
“We had the cows well sorted and separated by then – thank God this was not foot and mouth,” he said.
Absolutely savage takedown of Nathan Guy here.
http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2018/05/mitch-mccann-a-tale-of-two-portfolios.html
As always, Guy and his mates in the National party look out, and cover up, for rich listers. Everyone else pays.
Just how much damage did the John Key government do? I think we are only just beginning to find out…
“…Just how much damage did the John Key government do? I think we are only just beginning to find out…”
The fact remains that National’s 2009-11 tax cuts were by far the most ideologically driven piece of economic mismanagement of the countries economy so far this century. They were completely unaffordble, and made worse by a promise to return to surplus. These facts were papered over by the Key/English government by borrowing and the fetishisation of cutting government expenditure to the point huge swaths of civil society were trashed and huge areas of the civic governance of the country were defunded to the point of ineffectiveness.
The whole economic story of the Key/English era is basically one of reckless, ideologically driven tax cuts and a promise to return to surplus driving a policy obsession with the impossible task (of their own making) of squaring the resultant economic circle.
The result was the abandonment of governance of large areas of public policy in favour of an unregulated and increasingly corrupt form of crony capitalism and at the same time the running into the ground of the public sector.
Yes thanks Muttonbird and Sanctuary
yesterday 17/5/18 we presented our NGO teleconference submission to the Select panel on TPP 11 or what it is called now.
We spoke about the environmental issues we felt would be further damaged by entering this restrictive “trade agreement” as it would make it easy for foreign corporations to sue NZ Government or anyone else who attempted to tighten up environmental regulations.
I must say that the chair (National’s Simon O’connor was very receptive and very patient with our verbal submission and he is a pleasant man.
we gave him our full submission and to (Edward Siebert) the Clark of the committee requesting that he also supply it to all other members of the committee receiving all submissions against the trade agreement as it stands today.
So we hope they take note after we warned that any loosening of our environmental regulations now will ultimately destroy NZ if more spread of these imported diseases spread to our farming and destroy our exports.
here is a part of our submission;
Public COMMUNITY SUBMISSION TO; – the panel on the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership(CPTPP), also known as TPP11”
17th May 2018
Our response following a review of the agreement and media coverage by Government and other parties.
Our teleconference at 10am to 10.15am 17th May 2018 with the panel on the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership(CPTPP), also known as TPP11”
Our speech will be as follows;
Our concerns with the final draft of “The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership(CPTPP), also known as TPP11”
Pros: – Free trade is a good thing in the right situations.
Any of you who’ve taken introductory level Macroeconomics will likely already know this.
But trade between nations allow each country to specialise on producing what they have the comparative advantage in.
By removing barriers to trade such as tariffs and quotas.
The TPP agreement would allow global businesses to trade profitably in markets they are currently unable to do so in.
For example, Japan has very high tariffs on pork products in order to protect their own pork industry.
If TPP is used with Japan as a member, these tariffs would be done away with and U.S. companies could then compete in Japan on a level playing field.
TPP installs new intellectual property laws in an attempt to protect the original rights holders.
This is obviously a hotly debated topic, and there are costs and benefits on both sides of the issue.
Cons: –
TPP could possibly be very detrimental to the environment.
Under the TPP Environmental chapter, corporations could sue governments should they enact environmental legislation that would hurt their business.
Essentially, TPP asserts to the world that business’s profits are more important than the health of Earth.
This partnership would allow companies to sue countries.
Let that sink in for a moment; – instead of working in the best interest of their people, governments of member nations would be liable for damages and compensation if they passed legislation that hurt a foreign companies business.
Environment, public health, zoning codes – all are potential vulnerabilities under TPP depending on the wording of the final draft.
Intellectual property law would once again be strengthened.
While some protections are a good thing and help to ensure creators are properly rewarded for their time and effort, if taken too far such legislation can prove detrimental to creativity and innovation.
While the supporters of the TPP believe the provisions contained within are a good thing, the opposition to the TPP believes in the other side of the coin.
Local business will be damaged;
Our business CER Ltd Est’ 2002 is solely involved with monitoring the environment to protect the health and wellbeing of the communities we represent in NZ and will under this TPP agreement be subject to legal threats upon our business instead of working in the best interest of their people, as we are continually working alongside our local and central NZ government to make our environment, and transport systems operate in a safer place to live and encourage our government to introduce new legislation to protect our environment and people.
So Governments such as ours under TPP 11 will become a member with other nations would be liable for damages and compensation if they passed legislation that hurt a foreign companies business.
Environmental NGO’s will be damaged;
Under CEAC a publicly funded Environmental Advocacy NGO would also become legally threatened, instead of working in the best interest of their people, as these Governments in TPP 11 of member nations would be liable for damages and compensation if they passed legislation that hurt a foreign companies business.
This will damage our environment and our health under the current rules in this trade agreement.
Our resolution;
We request the NZ Government make changes before finally signing up to this restrictive trade agreement.
• To protect all NZ legislation and environmental regulations.
• Protect both current and future introduced new environmental legislation.
• Allow free flowing of all environmental submissions and discussions between all NZ communities, environmental business interests, and their local & Central Government.
• Protect the local & Central Government abilities to freely promote such environmental legislation to protect the environment and the communities they represent in NZ.
• Protect all Government agencies such as ‘The parliamentary commissioner of the Environment’ (see attached “HB Expressway noise & air quality issues”, as one case still under advisory status) and all other similar such environmental agencies advising Government of environmental issues.
Agree whole heartedly. It was reckless at best!
I’ve lived a good bit of my life in farming communities; farmers who care about their animals is an anomaly. Each animal is a unit, with value; that’s the sum total of their caring.
It’s ridiculous to suggest a farmer cares about every one of his 1500 cows or 4000 sheep.
The consequence of greed and environmental vandalism is Mycoplasma bovis.
The farmer whose herd, painstakingly built up over decades of careful breeding, which now has to be slaughtered is justifiably saddened, but not because he cares about the animals, but because his life’s work is in ruins.
If he and others like him had put pressure on his fellow farmers to farm with some sort of integrity, he’d still have his herd.
Hi Brigid,
Yes my mini farm is alongside a cattle and sheep farmer who said to me once “dont worry about animals they live and then they die”
My Family came to Wairoa from the Canvas town/Havelock uper south island area after WW1 after one of my grandfathers brothers got injured and disabled in the Western front with “shell shock”.
So Frank was awarded a 300 acre farm in Clyde and was the first farm that produced milk for the Wairoa dairy factory in HB.
I am a survivor of a workplace chemical poisoning accident to and came here in the Gisborne hills to recover from my injuries too.
Today’s farmers do not use their own initiative to clean up their stockyards and use contractors to take the stock to other farms and bring other stock to their farms so any disease can easily be transmitted now by this method.
When rail transported all stock the local farmer had their own truck to transport their stock to market, and had the ability to keep their trucks free of contamination as they didn’t carry other stock all the time as tjey do now so this is why.
We now have a easily transmitted system of contamination now so we are reaping the rewards of lazy multi use of transport sources.
cleangreen
The way that farmers use others to do the transporting of animals over distance, with the likelihood of cross contamination, seems the same as what was reported from the UK as the reason for the spread of their awful disease back a few decades. But efficiency wins over effectiveness when it is neo lib economics and free unregulated markets and PROFIT AND COMPETITION ie a race to cut out all competition until a suitable cartel remains.
Bovine spongiform encephalopathy – Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bovine_spongiform_encephalopathy
A cow with BSE: Infected animals lose the ability to stand. Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), commonly known as mad cow disease, is a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy and fatal neurodegenerative disease in cattle that may be passed to humans who have eaten infected flesh.
The epidemic in cattle in Britain reached incredible proportions; by 1993 more than 1,000 cases per week were being reported. More than 160,000 infected cows have now been identified, involving more than 50% of the dairy herds in the UK. Protein supplements containing sheep and cattle offal were banned in the UK in 1988, but it was not until 1991-1992 that the ban was strictly enforced. Given the long incubation of BSE, the epidemic curve (number of new cases reported per week) didn’t start downward until late 1993. It is now down to about 250 cases per week..
http://mad-cow.org/~tom/vet_interview.html
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/apr/25/mad-cow-disease-british-crisis
Mad cow disease – a very British response to an international crisis
It may have started with the death of a cow on a farm in Pitsham, West Sussex, England, in 1984 – two years before “mad cow disease” was officially identified. It ended by changing the way the UK approaches farming, prepares food, conducts surgery and gives blood.
That probably has something to do with their greed and environmental vandalism.
It’s hard to feel sorry for people who have consistently been destroying our environment for their own enrichment.
“It’s hard to feel sorry for people who have consistently been destroying our environment for their own enrichment.”
Bloody hard! even as there are some who are desperately trying to give them a break (up against the corporates’ intent on corrupting their co-operative with promises of treats and trinkets, the banks, and others).
What’s worse is that they’ve not only shat on the environment, but also their fellows in the farming community – I often wonder how the hell @ Countryboy puts up with the egg rolls who’re stuck with their selfish blinkers on and their ideology (supposedly gNatsi’s are the farmer’s friend), and we’ll fucking well do what we like……we’re the backbone of the country…..and the city folk just don’t understand how tough it all is. Think of the children!!!
These arsholes are responsible for shitting on every farmer that is trying to do the right thing, and New Zealand. And they’re also riding on the reputation of those that ARE actually making an effort.
Oh you mean like these people taking out 2 acres of shellfish from environmental pollution and all the polluted beaches this year, so they can build multimillion dollar developments with the rest of Auckland having to pick up the infrastructure costs…
Israel the New Apartheid Goliath.
19 medics shot with live ammunition by IDF snipers in Gaza…
‘Meet Tarek Loubani, the Canadian Doctor Shot by Israeli Forces Monday While Treating Gaza’s Wounded’
Norman Finkelstein: Palestinians Have the Right to Break Free of the “Unlivable” Cage That Is Gaza
Wow, that Canadian doctor interview. That would make headlines around the world in a sane world.
Tight squeeze at the Beehive
11 people trapped in a lift with maximum capacity for 8. Trapped group consisted of mainly of lobbyists, reporters, and political advisors. Fresh air had to be pumped in.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12053862
No loss then.
“Fresh air had to be pumped in.”
Actually went and checked the link to see if that was real or humour as it works both ways
From memory those lifts are really tiny. I’m surprised that they managed to get 11 in. I kinda remember finding it awkward being in there with 6 people.
“1 people trapped in a lift with maximum capacity for 8”
The rules do not apply to us ..
11 occupants can’t read and breach a safety regulation. Says a lot about the folk concerned.
Which is why I always take the stairs if possible. I have a very real fear of getting stuck in a lift.
With good reason:
https://memegenerator.net/instance/60130359/mr-bean-that-face-you-get-when-you-fart-in-an-elevator
millsy (4.5) … I got stuck in a lift in Australia with 6 others. It wasn’t so much the lift being stuck that I found frightening, but the reaction of a couple of women, who were (understandably I guess) out of control, screaming, banging, pushing and grabbing those of us who were trying our best to keep calm and reassure them, not wanting to add to the problem!
Fortunately we weren’t stuck long. However that experience of other people’s panicky reactions has given me good reason to avoid lifts, preferring to use stairs whenever possible now.
11
There is that number again…
It would not have been 11 in the lift…that’s a made up number…
@ AsleepWhileWalking (4) … for a moment there I thought that maybe Gerry had stepped into the lift. He would have taken up the space of three!
I quite liked the text of this speech from Marama Davison of the Greens.
Somehow I think she has a pretty organised speechwriter.
https://www.greens.org.nz/news/speech/what-real-government-looks
Nothing like intelligent passionate dignified rage when you are in government and actually delivering stuff.
Hmmm…a change from her gauntlet throwing from the weekend….
“Green co-leader Marama Davidson told TV3’s The Hui “there is no Government that the Greens could be part of that would allow this to continue…”
The statement was made in reference to Housing NZ’s refusal to allow a disabled tenant to install a solar power starter package that was going to be provided and installed for free.”
I did watch the clip and can confirm this is what Davidson said.
Perhaps experience will teach her about consistent messaging.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/104001295/budget-2018-manawat-teachers-could-walk-principal-warns-following-lukewarm-education-slice
Hard to please all the people all the time
“You can fool some of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time”
Indeed
Lol
I confess that the Labour 2018 budget was about right.
(fa-KISHHH!)
https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/together/pages/329/attachments/original/1526583055/CTU-Report-on-Budget-2018.pdf?1526583055
From the CTU
I have just been playing with a few numbers here.
Wages from 2018-2021 are forecast to increase by 9%, adding 3.2%,2.7% & 3.1%
yet min wage that is currently $16.50 is set to increase to $20 by 2021 that is 21%.
From these then are we to see that those at the bottom end receive the increase and many e.g. teachers, nurses, police, trades etc are expected to be below the 9% , and great for those at the bottom end But there are many others also struggling just above this min threshold, and this comment on slow wage growth flies in the face of what demands we see from the unions and their deserving members.
“Treasury also forecasts continued relatively slow wage growth with the average hourly wage rising 2.8 percent in the year to June 2019, though rising slightly faster in subsequent years.
The continued rise in immigration and higher Working for Families payments are likely to put downward pressure on wages unless improved employment laws can counter that.”
The terrorists out, the government in: All kinds of repair and maintenance workshops enter the town of #Harbnafseh in #Hama Province to repair the electricity, the water, the roads, the schools and everything damaged by the terrorists
NZ Herald discusses NZ’s half-forgotten apartheid past:
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12053300
The EU is going to kickstart a law put in place in 1996 prohibiting European companies from complying with US sanctions on Iran:
http://www.dw.com/en/eu-to-reactivate-blocking-statute-against-us-sanctions-on-iran-for-european-firms/a-43826992
This is the first EU-initiated break with U.S. foreign policy in quite some time.
It also make sit more likely that the EU will more assiduously court China as a preferred trading partner with Iran.
With the US now self-excluded from major trade relationships, the isolation from Trump will in time hurt the future growth of the US economy.
Thank God the EU still has the strength to stand up to the US.
Point of Order. I seek your indulgence Mr Speaker. Given the rules and conditions of entry to this interweb site, I wonder whether there might not be some way that I might pay for a motel room, or some other venue where the contributor @ Stunned Mullet, and his or prey @ Ed could get together and either make love or war, or at least resolve the issue of one’s obsession with the other.
Mr Speaker, I understand that WINZ has control over most of the available motel rooms in the region, but I suggest, in light of comments as annotated by heading level 1 and below, a VERY, VERY special case could be made to allow @Stunned Mullet and @Ed to resolve the former’s obsession which is now in danger of affecting the entire @TS community.
Mr Speaker, if there is some way this could be achieved, I’ll get back to teaching woodwork hopeful that counselling services and/or a bloody good root will ensure the TS community is no longer burdened with their fluff and flutter.
Question:
Does @Ed place posts on this blog specifically for the enlightenment of @Stunned Mullet?
If not, why does @Stunned Mullet find it necessary to respond to all of @Ed’s posts?
to the honourable member @Brigid,
That is exactly my concern (going forward).
All the evidence so far, and as the parliamentary record will show, @Stunned Mullet does seem to see it necessary to respond to the most innocuous of @ Ed’s comments that others might simply ignore if it wasn’t of concern. I’m merely trying to assist in the proceedings by proposing that the frustrations that might be apparent could be alleviated by a bloody good root based on the stereotypical idea that a Stunned Mullet is most likely bloke with a brain it considers to be of above average intelligence, or maybe that substantial wanking is at play.
And for more selfish reasons, the scroll down mechanisms on my primitive technology are wearing out (and of course because I’m utterly gorgeous and better than anybody else – which is why I get my jingles from looking at few others on this site.)
While looking up M. bovis I found another nasty that we
have to watch out for – in humans – Mycobacterium ulcerans.
https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2018/208/7/tackling-worsening-epidemic-buruli-ulcer-australia-information-void-time-urgent
published 16 April 2018
Mycobacterium ulcerans causes an infectious disease known internationally as Buruli ulcer, and also as Bairnsdale ulcer or Daintree ulcer in Australia. It causes severe destructive lesions of skin and soft tissue, resulting in significant morbidity, in attributable mortality and often in long term disability and cosmetic deformity.
All age groups, including young children, are affected, and the emotional and psychological impact on patients and their carers is substantial (Box 1). Although treatment effectiveness has improved in recent years, with cure rates approaching 100% using combination antibiotic regimens such as rifampicin and clarithromycin, these antibiotics are not covered by the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme for this condition and are, therefore, expensive to patients.
Moreover, these antibiotics have severe side effects in up to one-quarter of patients,1 and many people also require reparative plastic surgery, sometimes with prolonged hospital
admissions.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-22/buruli-ulcer-how-to-avoid-flesh-eating-bacteria-infection/8975080
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/apr/16/tissue-destroying-ulcer-frequently-found-in-africa-spreading-rapidly-in-australia
Welcome to Globalisation, lax border control and selfish tourists who can’t be bothered to clean equipment etc that don’t give shit about their or the host country’s environment.
Must be the same selfish tourists that caused the closure of the forested areas of the Waitākere Ranges Regional Park to protect against kauri dieback disease. Selfish bastards!
Probably wouldn’t surprise me or a lazy local that clean his or her’s kit after a overseas trip. I’ve come across a few lazy tourists over the last few years.
That’s some pretty ignorant stuff there.
We’ve found Phytopthora agathadicida has been here for at least hundreds of years, probably part of the landscape. So no, it’s not tourists that is the issue, but whatever has changed since man arrived.
How about massive deforestation, loss of biodiversity, air soil and water pollution…
If it has been here all along my guess is it has a counterpart in nature. A controlling agent which I suspect will be a fungal-pathogenic fungi.
If you want to be angry over this issue by all means be my guest. I’m very angry, they have no plan, I wrote a plan. They asked me about doing a Doctorate I said yes I’ve waited nearly 18 months now for NOTHING.
The only feedback I got on a plan I spent months poring over was from an individual scientist I contacted myself – who said it was a good plan and they want me on board the Kauri Dieback Team. I said OK lets try, heard nothing back since January.
One supervisor wont work with me cos I told him off for handing out advice that led to poisoning of large numbers of mushroom pickers in Taranaki in the 80’s.
Another dropped me immediately after I mentioned one of his colleagues tried to creep on me when I asked for advice – and I left study for a year due to that predator.
Can’t lump em all in the same basket many are amazing hard working people. But….
Fucking disgraceful. Don’t blame the tourists.
That was kinda the point I was trying to make but in a slightly more subtle way 😉
In any case, the most pressing problem is slowing/preventing the spread of the disease; it’s here to stay, as you say.
I wish you good luck with sorting out your doctoral research project. In the long term, a scientific approach/solution is the only option. I do find it odd that “they” asked you to do a doctorate and then nothing happened … Has the funding been sorted? A word of advice: don’t let personal ‘politics’ or ‘beliefs’ get in the way of a good science proposal 😉
I am sure that you are right Exkiwiforces, for some of the spread of organisms etc, but they seem to be coming from everywhere.
This pisses me off….. an anti-abortion group are attempting to collect 12,000 pairs of booties to place outside of parliament, not to highlight how many women have gone through the trauma of an abortion, but rather to shame them for not being godfearing enough to not terminate.
Disgusting.
Having a termination is traumatic enough with out strangers heaping guilt upon ones shoulders due to their religious beliefs. I had a termination in my early 20’s, it was not an easy decision, but the lone male elderly anti-abortion protester at the clinic made a horrid day ten times worse for me.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/104022670/michelle-duff-in-a-dystopian-present-women-are-shamed-for-incorrect-womb-use
I was happy to give some mandarins a couple of months ago to the counter protesters I saw opposite the termination clinic in Dominion Road Mount Eden – women’s bodies = women’s rights IMO.
It’s such a hard emotive and serious subject with strong views on both sides and for good reasons.
This is not something that should be protested about. Every situation is different and complicated.
I am sorry that one sad assed bloke made a traumatic day even worse.
This is not a subject one “side” should be protesting.
I think it’s disgusting that they are.
As for my views – on this subject I really don’t know and try never to comment – but this protest pisses me off more than most.
James…. well said… “This is not something that should be protested about. Every situation is different and complicated.”
I think what really pisses me off is when people use religion in an attempt to control others views etc.
Newshub Nation Simon Maori are benefiting from the reforms of the Coalition government.Grant Robertson is a excellent finance minister he learned his trade from the best Michael Cullen . The is no need to waste billions on jails we need to reach and teach people before they get into the system show them there are better choices out there than crime.
The state is run by old white men with a culture of cover there m8 ass at any cost and never admit to being wrong they set there m8 up with all the top jobs to strengthen there hold on the systems. P.S I new crime was dropping it was just a waiting game for the facts to be published Ka kite ano Yes Barnard The Green have received great wins the billion regions fund to plant more trees 1 wealth fare 2 carbon neutral targets
Good evening Newshub Eco Maori gives condolences to the Cuban people who lost whano members in that plane crash .
Every bone in trumps body is raciest I can see every move he makes is to dump on every one that is not ———.
Kate yes I say that Queen movie Bohemian Rhapsody will be a awsome move .
It was a good weekend of sports for Eco Maori .
That volcano in Hawaii is still going hard its cold and wet in Rotorua at the minute.
Ka kite ano P.S Aoteroa is such a beautiful country thanks to my Tipunas
I new start away when Lisa Owen was not on this morning where she would be all the best to the Harry and Megan .Ka kite ano