This is good stuff, but why does it stop at the arrival of euros in NZ? Surely for a comprehensive NZ history it should go back pre-euro, to how NZ was colonised by the polynesians, why and how they came here, the trials and tribulations in spreading across the country, the conflicts and wars, the new lands, the extinctions, the explorations, the good times and bad.
The current obsession with just one part of this history – the wars with the english crown – is distorting the full picture and will not result in a "historically aware aotearoa"
The full picture is fascinating. We should embrace it – warts and all – not just certain parts of it.
The Musket Wars, that drove Waikato iwi into invading Taranaki, pushing some Taranaki tribes to migrate down the Te Ika West Coast into the Kapiti & Wellington areas, the murder & subjugation of the Moriori by one of those Taranaki tribes, the Rampages into Nelson/Marlborough by Te Rauparaha – these are all also part of the history of Kiwiland that should be unashamedly & dispassionately taught.
As First Nations peoples, Māori iwi were all essentially separate small independent nations in the same way that the US American First Nations were: Apache, Commanche, Kiowa, Cheyenne etc.
The history of Maori inter-tribal warfare mirrors that of long-established societies everywhere. Europe & UK went thru similar inter-tribal conflcts. Ditto every other continent & large populated Islands. It’s just part of the human condition.
Michael King estimated that between 1800 and 1840 iwi managed to reduce their own population by around 40%. That’s an impressive genocide by anyone’s measure.
It’s just part of the human condition.
Yes and no. The human condition is an immensely powerful driver of human affairs but I don't believe it's an implacable monster we cannot negotiate with
It took less than a generation for Europeans to slaughter each other in huge numbers after the Great War, the first war to industrialise killing.
Look at what’s going on in the Sahel & other parts of Africa, just to name ine part of the world. We never seem as a species to be able to get away with global peace breaking out for long.
Too many human apes are Silverback Gorilla equivalents & too many other human apes are forced – or consent – to attak other human apes often for reasons that have nothing to do with food or access to resources for survival.
The “brute” wiring in the human brain is still way too primitively powerful. It overrides the higher intellect way too easily.
Yup. There is no 'Genocide Olympics' to be won here, everyone reading this understands that human history is littered with atrocities – everywhere.
But this does not mean progress has not happened either. It's entirely remarkable but usually overlooked fact, that in 2021 the average person is far less likely to die in warfare or violence than at any time in our history ever. We might want to celebrate this a little more than we do.
It is of course no guarantee of future peace, a constant vigilance is necessary to guard against atrocity – but the progress we have achieved is not nothing. It hints at what we might really be capable of.
The problem is the world does not want to have a global law: nations can't agree on many things. The UN is in many respects as toothless – when it comes to preventing conflicts – as the League of Nations was. The superpowers and great powers on the SC do as they please.
Even the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is eschewed by Muslim nations who've signed up to the lesser Islamic version:
The Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam (CDHRI) is a declaration of the member states of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) adopted in Cairo, Egypt, on 5 August 1990, (Conference of Foreign Ministers, 9–14 Muharram 1411H in the Islamic calendar) which provides an overview on the Islamic perspective on human rights, and affirms Islamic sharia as its sole source. CDHRI declares its purpose to be "general guidance for Member States [of the OIC] in the field of human rights".
This declaration is widely acknowledged as an Islamic response to the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), adopted in 1948. It guarantees some, but not all, of the UDHR and serves as a living document of human rights guidelines prescribed for all members of the OIC to follow, but restricts them explicitly to the limits set by the sharia. Because of this limit, the CDHRI has been criticized as an attempt to shield OIC member states from international criticism for human rights violations, as well as for failing to guarantee freedom of religion, justifying corporal punishment and allowing discrimination against non-Muslims and women.
Many signed peace treaties that were ignored by invaders as well.colonizers claiming to bring civilization were just raping and piliging and demonising indigeonous people as inferior.
Yes that's a good framing vto. Historical awareness is something you tend to gain with maturity and age, but selective awareness usually serves another purpose altogether.
According to the headline I won't click on it's to be into "our terrible Covid response."
As is said in Parliament's Question Time, "I reject the premise of the question." That is, there is no "terrible covid response to look into because the response was not terrible.
Stephen Bannon has said to destroy the opposition baffle them with mountains of BS. Troll the Democrats into oblivion.
Hosking NZs Bannon the bullying BSer.
Looks like that's happening here even on this site with tag team trolling.Their is a pattern of Trolling by a few players who's job it is just to continually wind up the left.
My understanding is: a 'review' of the government's handling of the Covid pandemic is already underway. That would be a good start, followed by a full-scale inquiry if it was deemed necessary to clear up suspicion and innuendo one way or the other.
Transgender women should no longer be required to reduce their testosterone levels to compete in the women’s sport category, new International Olympic Committee guidelines have suggested.
The new IOC framework, which replaces its 2015 guidelines, also concludes there should be no presumption that trans women have an automatic advantage over natal women – a controversial view that reverses the IOC’s previous position.
However the IOC says ultimately it is up to individual sports to decide their rules – and they can still impose restrictions on trans women entering the female category if needed to ensure fair and safe competition.
Such decisions, it adds, should be based on “robust and peer-reviewed science … which demonstrates a consistent, unfair and disproportionate competitive advantage and/or an unpreventable risk to the safety of the athletes.”
My bold. IOC are gutless and are handing the problem on.
I'm sure there is a dark parody to be done here. Men are no longer to be considered a specific sexual or physical violence threat to women. There should be no presumption that men have an automatic physical advantage over natal women.
If that were true ( that men cannot be presumed to have a physical advantage over women) we should do away with men's and women's sports altogether. Also why not get rid of other classes in sport as well such as weight classes and age classes? And anybody should be able to take whatever hormone or testosterone treatments they like and still compete. Clearly I just don't get it.
Equestrian events are sports and don't have a separate male/female category. If your the IOC you also need to account for outliers so a blanket rule of assuming advantage can force these exceptions to adjust, even if its nearly always true. And I don't have any idea how male rhythmic gymnasts fit into this (are there any?).
This document is probably badly worded but pushing the decision down to sports federations is a good decision.
Each sport has and will have different rules, traditions and requirements so ultimately the decisions must rest with them how they define a sporting sub category. The IOC can't define a blanket rule because there will be exceptions, and the blanket rule of testosterone limits was not a good one.
I also think Ross makes some good points about describing the framework inside which each code should define those specifics.
Its also a more democratic structure, where the activism is setup to take over a structure from the top-down. I don't think a lot of the people cheering this activism on give a toss about sport and how its run anyway and don't participate in it. While the discussion was happening over Rugby and Woman's Rugby codes there were 0 trans Rugby players identified in NZ anyway (and NZ Rugby is able to decide separately to World Rugby). But the question comes up, are we actually talking about sports and sports governance, or is this a theoretical discussion happening online between people who are not interested in playing sports anyway.
dunno, maybe talk to GC women who play sport or work in the area.
IOC could have said there will be a female category and you cannot play in it if you are male (no matter the hormones and surgery you choose). Intersex issues can be dealt with in addition to that (because they're not gender identity issues). That doesn’t preclude individual sporting associations from having their own boundaries and processes. But if x sport says yes to trans women in female sports, how is that fair at the Olympics.
The rule that you will have a female category and will exclude males from that is presently violated by Equestrian events. It clearly depends on the sport so should be left to the code how that works for each code.
If a code can justify (and that includes evidence) that its fair and safe for trans women to be in the female then that would be a reasonable outcome to include them there for social reasons.
If that were true ( that men cannot be presumed to have a physical advantage over women) we should do away with men's and women's sports altogether. Also why not get rid of other classes in sport as well such as weight classes and age classes? And anybody should be able to take whatever hormone or testosterone treatments they like and still compete. Clearly I just don't get it.
Quite. I think the bit you might not be getting is the politics around gender identity and biological sex. The problem is some people want us to elevate the importance of GI and lower or remove the importance of biological sex. That's a political position.
IMO Blazer makes a lot of pronouncements from a position of cluelessness. Lots of sports organisations look to the IOC for leadership and high standards. This is a pathetic abdication of responsibility.
If you can't see what a can of worms this is and the mitigating factors regarding all the sports that have Olympic representation,and think' one size fits all',you have alot to…learn.
I don't care much about pronouns – I’ve never liked to use them myself
I’m not overly bothered by the public toilets issue – I reckon some clever designers are beginning to manage solutions.
For personal reasons the term 'pregnant people' doesn't bother me
I don't even know why we still have the problematic M/F check box on our birth certificates
I very much care if women are losing spaces that enable them to compete fairly and safely in sports, in education, in business and anything else. The IOC is evading their duty to uphold these values. A separate category, or changing the men's category to 'open' would have been fairer.
I'm thinking that women may as well have their own Olympics because these Olympics have just been closed to them in terms of being the supposed best in the world.
Public toilets/changing rooms/rape refuges/domestic violence homes are all women's spaces that had the protected characteristic of biological sex.
Thinking this is just about toilets, ignores the very implications for women in all such spaces. Particularly for women whose religious, cultural, trauma or modesty precludes them from being in such spaces with male-bodied people. By insisting on the inclusion of male-bodied people into women's spaces, we now have excluded groups of women. Just let that sink in.
There is also a pushback against provision of third spaces, such as in sports. If you look further, there is a demand for total capitulation, not actually provision of alternative spaces. While there may be reasons for this, misogyny, requiring external validation, none of them are justified.
Those other small adjustments to language may also seem innocuous, but after much thought, I don't think they are. Distortion of language means conversations become all about semantics and meanings, rather than dealing with the issues at hand. Statistics no longer sex-based become meaningless, and we end up with stories like this.
The IOC have capitulated, and joined the ranks of those unconcerned about the impact on women.
I agree with you Molly, It's just that I've seen (and used) uni-sex public toilets and changing rooms that still retain the privacy that women need. So I think this issue can be solved.
I agree totally that rape refuges/domestic violence homes are all women's spaces that had the protected characteristic of biological sex. Transgender women clearly need their own spaces as well and their need is great. It's just that it's incompatible with born women's needs. And that spaces that relate to reproductive health, pregnancy and post-natal spaces are absolutely reserved for females as well.
I also agree that statistics that are no longer sex-based become meaningless. This conflict has led me to question whether we actually need a sex definition on a birth certificate where that information that is accurate or can be inferred is, these days available in other places. Of course I realise this is just a personal opinion and I'm not going to try and convince anyone else.
The IOC, on the other hand, is a whole different issue, and I agree that the IOC have capitulated, and joined the ranks of those unconcerned about the impact on women.
Miravox, most change rooms aren't unisex, they are female or male only. even with unisex cubicles it still opens the doors for biological males to be in what I believe should be women only spaces. This gives them access to do things like plant cameras to film women getting changed. Happened recently in a unisex gym in Auckland. I have also read that women are assaulted more in unisex change and bathrooms.
Personally I don't want male bodied people in these spaces and I certainly don't want them around girls and teen girls.
I do think the IOC's decision might be the catalyst that brings things to a head. Around the time of the Olympics there were numberous polls, unscientific I admit, that overwhelmingly showed Kiwis did not support transwomen competing in women's sport. It will be a disaster for women. If you don't think some men who are not really trans at all will use these regulations to enter and win women's sporting competitions, your dreaming. Think of a mediocre male athelete declaring themself non-binary. They were born male and have all the biology that gives men the advantage over women in sport. Why not compete against women! You have got politicians, media cheering you on telling you how brave you are etc, etc! And female atheletes being silenced as was reported by a brave woman weight lifter who spoke up and said they were being told to shut up about Laureen Hubbard. I hope this situation causes the outrage it deserves.
I agree with you Molly, It's just that I've seen (and used) uni-sex public toilets and changing rooms that still retain the privacy that women need. So I think this issue can be solved.
If it could be solved, with consideration given to the groups of women I mentioned before, I think I still would have some concern. Because I have seen protections and safeguards eroded bit by bit, and I think you do have to have a frank and full discussion before conceding hard-won ground. For me, third spaces fit the bill – given that the majority of transwomen have no surgical or medical transitioning, and are male-bodied.
I don't want to give much ground on the issue of change rooms.
The mumber of transwomen in NZ was infitesimal and likely those who had transitioned biology did make use of women's bathrooms, although I remember a student holiday job I had with a women who was likely trans. She never declared she was, but the voice, the hands kind of gave it away. She was well accepted at work and people liked her. I don't recall seeing her in a women's bathroom, but it wasn't an issue as such.
What is an issue is male who assert their gender identity trumps biological reality and expect women to go along with this.
Anyone who thinks some men won't use gender self id to access womens spaces for neferious purposes is dreaming.
It does get me that transwomen feel unsafe in men's toilets, but don't understand that the same thing occurs when women see 'some' transwomen in female toilets. I agree that some men will use take advantage – they do already (hence the obvious fear).
Honestly, I prefer spaces with closed cubicles and open hand washing spaces that are discrete but easily accessible if someone has a health or security problem. I don't, by any stretch of the imagination think that most of our current loos are safe if shared, but I've been in places that have shared spaces that work really well, I think. I do feel this is an issue that can be resolved by design. Maybe it's not perfect yet, but people are working on this I'm interested to see where this goes.
So I consider myself to be for want of a better term, an expert on safety in women's change rooms, having experienced what could have been a very serious sexual assault possibly homicide. It happened many, many years ago. And when that young women was raped and murdered in Mt Albert a few months back, I knew exactly how she would have felt the moment she knew she was in trouble. Adrenalin pulsing threw my body, I thought I was going to be murdered.
One of the things that saved me is my attacker tried to stop me getting the hell out of the change room and told me to "get back in the cubicle". Instinctively, perhaps from the old protests days, I sat down and told him "do it here". This really flawed him I think. If I had of gone back in the cubicle I think I would have been raped, possibly murdered.
For years I never talked about this attack (I was remarkably unscathed physically but he did punch me in the face). One of the things that I have found deeply shocking in this debate, both on The Standard and in letters I have written to female MP's is nobody who is pushing trans ideology has expressed any sympathy or compassion about what I might feel about women's change rooms and toilets. And how for years I avoided them like the plague. So when men on this site have told me no problem with the toilets or others have trivialized my concerns I feel very angry.
So my personal experience of women's change rooms with cubicles is its not all good. He obviously wanted me in that cubicle for a reason such as easier to stop me yelling if someone entered the change room
I'm so sorry you experienced this horror. Please don't think I'm trivialising your concerns. Safety is the major reason why I believe a redesign is necessary. It's rather ironic that the trans debate has brought the issue of safety in public toilets to the fore, when these places always have been dangerous for women and girls. Thank you for disclosing something so personal – please be kind to yourself today.
Thanks Mirovox. I do appreciate that and I appreciate where you are coming from re bathroom design. I believe you are correct on that, because what happened to me shows that a public change room can be a really unsafe space. Just like for the poor Mt Albert woman, walking alone in a bushy area was unsafe.
And by the way, I don't disagree with anything you said (perhaps other than the cublicle comment as instintively I knew when he ordered me back into the cubicle where I had been changing it wasn't going to go well, that I would be more vulnerable).
This attack happened in 1997 btw. A lot of the friends I have made since then don't know about it. I think psychologically I have been left remarkable unscathed, but my fear around public change rooms persisted for sometime. I still do a quick check of cubicles when I find myself in a public toilet on my own. I don't talk about it much. But when I heard about gender self id, I was immedicatly concerned. Frankly it felt like a kick in the guts that my concerns about sharing public change rooms and toilets with male bodied people was trivialized and discounted. Sometimes it has been implied that I am transphobic or a prude. Both are deeply offensive to me. And I see them as tactics to silence women. It is also quite galling when some people claim to care about women who have been murdered in similar circumstances. Maybe they are geniune in their concern, sure they are, but the reality is I have lived through the most frightening experience of realising that I was in deep trouble. When I first saw the guy (who was wearing a mask by the way) I thought I am going to be murdered. I know how that feels. How women who have been murdered would have felt when they realized their fate. That I thought I would be murdered I think made me less scared that he would rape me. That's why I sat down and refused to get back in the cubicle.
This is one of the things lead me into the gender ideology issue. The more I read, the more I couldn't believe how reasonably intelligent people were taking on this new ideology without question and a gospel like zeal.
Back in the early 1990s my favorite game was "Wing Commander". Found a legacy copy a few years ago, tried cranking it up and forgot how much command-line code was needed to calibrate the video and sound cards, because WC was just before plug and play standardisation came in. I gave up. That experience reminded me of linux.
Damien Grant was one of two liquidators of a hydroponics company
The liquidators of a hydroponics company have been ordered to pay creditors more than $56,000 after charging “not reasonably incurred” fees, a High Court judge has ruled.
Maybe his good character was offset by a belief that any fee payable to him is reasonable.
Or maybe he was smoking what a lot of hydroponics enthusiasts are selling, and that inhibited his record-keeping, and he earned every penny but couldn't keep up with the paperwork.
Or maybe it was a perfectly innocent slip of the pen that overcharged the fees by (checks article) half as much again.
Liquidators should be regulated very rarely do you see low fees for this sort of work. Most insolvencies end up with the liquidators taking nearly all the money/assets leaving nothing or very little for creditors.
Looks like Covid is spreading to animals wild white tail deer in the US have found to have contracted C19.scary as this could be a new breeding ground for the virus to mutate.
Keeping MIQ in place is a must if a mutation ends up like Delta it could be more disastrous for our country.
Got an annoying bit of spam today: the freeze peach shallot (shallots aren't really "onions") looks to be shilling its membership to uni folk because "The Royal Society is undermining the academic freedom of their own".
They don't support or oppose intellectually-and-morally-bankrupt pro-covid talk, but think academics should have the right to step well outside their scope of expertise in order to promulgate material that is directly contradicted by the scientific evidence and consensus amongst actual specialists in that area. Ot at least, that's what it looks like the Royal Society might be investigating in regards these two academics.
Funnily enough, the email doesn't seem to say anywhere that my FSU membership dues or donation will actually be spent assisting those two academics. Probably an oversight /sarc
I suspect they've just trawled tertiary education websites for email addresses to plug this academic freedom BS. I sure as heck haven't been signing petitions for them, lol
New Ipsos poll is out. It's much more detailed than the TV polls, going beyond the headlines.
Asked to rate the gov't out of 10, 54% said 7 or higher. Only 18% said 0-3. So all that foamy frothing about tyrant Cindy represents less than 1 in 5 of NZ voters.
Asked who was best at 20 different issues (health, housing, climate change etc) National scored … zero. (Labour 17, Greens 2, TPM 1).
The last poll was 3 months ago and Auckland has been in lockdown since then, and are thoroughly exhausted and exasperated. So the gov't rating from Aucklanders has declined, from 6.5 to 6. You'd think it would be 3 or 4.
Summary: government obviously down from an election high, opposition still no alternative.
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This is a guest post from Robert McLachlan Global warming is accelerating; 2023 was off the charts. We need to stop burning fossil fuels. In New Zealand, transport accounts for half of all fossil fuels burnt. In the Emissions Reduction Plan, transport emissions fall 41% by 2035. As the ...
Labour productivity has been receding rapidly over the past two years, reversing a post-lockdown rise. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy as at 6:26am on Tuesday, March 26 include:Workers have been treading water in output per hour worked for 12 years, ...
TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to April 2 include:Today, Parliament resumes sitting at 2pm for the second week of a two-week session. Officials for SIS and GCSB report their annual reviews in public to the Intelligence and Security Select Committee from 5.10pm.Tomorrow, ...
Faced with a barrage of criticism over the promised tax cuts from usually supportive commentators, Finance Minister Nicola Willis yesterday reaffirmed her intention to include them in this year’s Budget. The Government is up against it over the cuts just about every way it turns. Commentators like Fran O’Sullivan, Matthew ...
Here’s my pick of today’s substack posts as of 6:26pm on Monday, March 25: writes via his substack that Market-rate housing will make your city cheaper writes via his substack about the problems talking to double-cab ute (truck) drivers about their vehicles. today about moments of radicalisation in ...
Buzz from the Beehive Just before Christmas, Finance Minister Nicola Willis delivered something that was pitched as a mini-budget and brayed about the decisive action being taken to repair the Government books and support income tax relief in Budget 2024. In a statement headed Fiscal repair job underway. she introduced ...
My sister Belinda asked Dad yesterday what one word would describe Mum best. He said: vivacious.If you only knew her from the photos on the slideshow we've made for today,you might wonder about that, because the camera tended to lie with Mum.If ever she saw a camera pointed at her, she ...
There are two major public consultations closing in the next week, Auckland Council’s Long Term Plan (LTP), and the draft Government Policy Statement on Land Transport (GPS). Closing dates and times: LTP closes Thursday 28 February, at 11.59pm – a minute to midnight! GPS closes Tuesday 2 April, at 12pm noon – note that’s ...
From Kiwiblog’s David Farrar – Bryce Wilkinson writes: Senior Fellow Bryce Wilkinson’s analysis reveals that since March 2009, New Zealand has spent $158 billion more overseas than it has earned, but its NIIP has only fallen by $32 billion.Statistics New Zealand shows that receipts from overseas reinsurers have ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition? Brian Easton writes – The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could ...
Dear Nicola Willis,Right now you’ve probably got lots of competing demands coming at you. Ministers who’ve inherited quite a mess, or so you’ve told us, looking for money in the budget to improve things. I imagine that’s why they came to parliament - to make things better.You’ll have to make ...
The Local Government, Transport and Auckland Minister hasthreatened councils with intervention if they don’t merge water assets to take them off balance sheet, just as the now-repealed Three Waters plan directed. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things of note this morning for Monday, March 25 include:Simeon ...
A listing of 36 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 17, 2024 thru Sat, March 23, 2024. Story of the week Thanks to John Mason having the stamina to sit down to watch "Climate - the Movie" ...
This morning the Q&A programme had Simeon Brown on to talk about National’s replacement for Three Waters. In case anyone’s forgotten the three are - drinking water, waste water, and sewerage. It’s quite important not to get them mixed up. In much the same way that you wouldn’t want to ...
Today’s newsletter comes with a mini-podcast conversation between me and my buddy Liv Tennet, talking about her time as a child actor in Lord of the Rings. It’s a conversation with a lot of giggles as she talks about falling off a horse, and becoming a meme. Read ...
The Desmog Climate Disinformation Database documents, "individuals and organisations that have helped to delay and distract the public and our elected leaders from taking needed action to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and fight global warming." It's a who's who of the organised climate change denial movement, in other words. In ...
Bob Edlin writes – A High Court judge has decided miscreants who have mana – or who claim to have mana – should be treated differently from miscreants who have none. It’s a ruling that suggests indigenous law-breakers have a better chance of securing a discharge without conviction ...
Welcome to the first, and possibly last, edition of Brickbats, Bouquets and Bull’s Wool. In which I’ll take a look at the events of the last week or so, and rate them.In such ratings the numbers usually have more to do with the opinions of the reviewer, than the actual ...
Roger Partridge writes – My earlier column this month, New Zealand’s highest court could be facing a turning point, prompted a flood of feedback from business readers and lawyers alike. A common query was what Parliament can do to restrain an overreaching judiciary. This week I discuss two steps Parliament ...
TL;DR: In today’s ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.16pm on Friday, March 22: writes about New Zealand's Building Boom—And What the World Must Learn From It over at his substack. challenges the Auckland Council’s use of a 3.8 degrees of warming forecast to oppose a wave-park and data centre project ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition?The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could deliver her promised income tax cuts. Appointed minister, she ...
Buzz from the Beehive Ministers of the Crown have drawn attention to one sector of the science sector which is unlikely to be subjected to heavy spending cuts, a state-funded broadcaster which is doing nicely, thank you, and a sporting event that had $5.4 million from the public purse puffed ...
Abbott’s Freestyle Libre sensors allow continuous glucose monitoring (CGM). The sensor is applied to the back of the patient’s arm, with a thin filament under the skin measuring glucose levels constantly. But it costs around $100 per sensor and must be replaced once every 14 days. Photo by BSIP/Universal Images ...
The Inspector General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) recently released a report in which he exposes the existence of a foreign intelligence partner-controlled technological “capability” inside the headquarters of the GCSB, NZ’s 5 Eyes-affiliated signals intelligence collection and analysis agency. … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – Nearly three decades after the introduction of MMP and multiparty governments there should be a greater level of understanding about their finer points than often appears to be the case. The reaction to the despicable outburst from the Deputy Prime Minister at the weekend highlights ...
The sweet kisses from fruit of summerHave slowly been turning dullerYou say, "those times"And "remember the daysWhen we went outside and there still was the shade?"Taking no reason into play…Autumn. Clear, blue days shortening to longer nights, growing colder. Aotearoa.That’s us. The temperature dropping, the looming car crash - so ...
Bryce Edwards writes – “It is often said that behind every great man is a great woman”. This is the pitch by the National Party Botany electorate branch to attend their “Ladies Afternoon Tea with Amanda Luxon”. For $110 including GST, you can turn up on Saturday 20 April ...
David Farrar writes – The Electoral Commission has published the expense returns for political parties for the 2023 election. I’ve put them in a table with how many votes a party got so we can see the spend per vote. National only spent $3.34 for every vote they got, almost ...
Winston Peters’ headline-making actions over the past week may have been a show of political power intended to strengthen his hand in Budget negotiations. It was no accident that his State of the Nation speech was as it was. He made it as New Zealand First Leader, not as Deputy ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:Former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson bowed out of politics this week, giving a series of exit ...
Graham Adams writes — If you love the law or sausages, as the saying goes, best not to look too closely at how they are made. And after watching the orgy of self-pity when Newshub’s closure was announced on February 28, television journalism should definitely be added to the list of those ...
Venerable New Zealand political commentator, Chris Trotter (https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/), is a sad creature these days. Once one of the most reliable Leftist writers out there – Economic Left at that – Trotter seems to have absorbed the worldview of Auckland culture-war obsessives. It is not for me to categorise what he ...
The Coalition Government’s plan to ‘get Auckland moving’ is a cuts cover-up that will ultimately cost Aucklanders more to move around the city, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Slashing the Ministry of Pacific Peoples by 40% will have a devastating impact on pacific communities and further highlights how little this government cares about anything other than cutting taxes for the wealthiest few. ...
Labour has proposed an urgent inquiry to investigate the ever-increasing profits of supermarkets, aiming to lower costs for shoppers and food producers alike, says Labour Spokesperson for Commerce and Consumer Affairs Arena Williams and Primary Production Spokesperson Cushla Tangaere-Manuel. ...
With 14% of jobs on the line at the Ministry for Ethnic Communities, the responsible Minister Melissa Lee is failing to stand up for the very communities she’s meant to be representing. ...
COURT OF APPEAL: TRIFECTA OF VICTORY FOR NZ FIRST, TRIFECTA OF FAILURE FOR OPPONENTS For the third time since April 2020, New Zealand First has defeated the Serious Fraud Office and all those complicit in a malicious attack against a political party going about its lawful business in a lawful ...
The Green Party stands with people who live in public housing, people in dire housing need, experts and advocates in demanding better than the Government’s archaic approach to housing those who need our support the most. ...
New Zealand has recently lost the hosting rights of some major international sporting events including the America’s Cup, the Rugby Championship, Netball World Cup, and the Wellington Sevens. We are now at a huge risk of losing SailGP as well. And it won’t stop there. The recent issues with SailGP ...
A Member’s Bill drawn this week would modernise insurance law and make things fairer and more transparent for consumers, Christchurch Central MP Duncan Webb said. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues has confirmed she was aware of funding issues in mid-December and did nothing to stop it. On 14 March, she signed off on changes that were announced and implemented on 18 March without any consultation with disability communities. ...
Green Party MP Julie Anne Genter says her members' bill is an opportunity for the coalition government to plug the gap in electric vehicle incentives. ...
The National Government continues to talk about irresponsible tax cuts that will only drive up inflation, despite the country entering a technical recession. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues must act urgently to reinstate flexibility around the funding for disability support and apologise to disabled carers. ...
This story has been initiated by a leftie shill reporter who proactively sought to call a member of a former band, which disbanded twelve years ago, give their biased appraisal of what was said in my speech, and concocted a ham-fisted attempt at a story that does nothing but show ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Many in the mainstream media have taken what was said in New Zealand First’s State of the Nation Speech in Palmerston North on Sunday and deliberately, deceitfully, and ignorantly misrepresented what I said and why I said it. The headlines and commentary on the news stated that I compared ‘co-governance ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
Good afternoon. Thank you for, in your very busy lives, turning up to this meeting today. On October 14th last year New Zealanders overwhelmingly voted for change. That is exactly what this new government is bringing. New Zealand First campaigned to ‘take back our country’ and stop the disastrous economic ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed the passing of legislation to move light electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) into the road user charges system from 1 April. “It was always intended that EVs and PHEVs would be exempt from road user charges until they reached two ...
New Zealand is strengthening its ability to combat illegal fishing outside its domestic waters and beef up regulation for its own commercial fishers in international waters through a Bill which had its first reading in Parliament today. The Fisheries (International Fishing and Other Matters) Amendment Bill 2023 sets out stronger ...
Economists Carl Hansen and Professor Prasanna Gai have been appointed to the Reserve Bank Monetary Policy Committee, Finance Minister Nicola Willis announced today. The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is the independent decision-making body that sets the Official Cash Rate which determines interest rates. Carl Hansen, the executive director of Capital ...
Apartment owners and buyers will soon have greater protections as further changes to the law on unit titles come into effect, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “The Unit Titles (Strengthening Body Corporate Governance and Other Matters) Amendment Act had already introduced some changes in December 2022 and May 2023, and ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters will travel to Egypt and Europe from this weekend. “This travel will focus on a range of New Zealand’s traditional diplomatic and security partnerships while enabling broad engagement on the urgent situation in Gaza,” Mr Peters says. Mr Peters will attend the NATO Foreign ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown is encouraging all road users to stay safe, plan their journeys ahead of time, and be patient with other drivers while travelling around this Easter long weekend. “Road safety is a responsibility we all share, and with increased traffic on our roads expected this Easter we ...
About 1.4 million New Zealanders will receive cost of living relief through increased government assistance from April 1 909,000 pensioners get a boost to Superannuation, including 5000 veterans 371,000 working-age beneficiaries will get higher payments 45,000 students will see an increase in their allowance Over a quarter of New Zealanders ...
Ensuring social housing is being provided to those with the greatest needs is front of mind as the Government restarts social housing tenancy reviews, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. “Our relentless focus on building a strong economy is to ensure we can deliver better public services such as social ...
The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary will not go ahead, with Cabinet deciding to stop work on the proposed reserve and remove the Bill that would have established it from Parliament’s order paper. “The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary Bill would have created a 620,000 sq km economic no-go zone,” Oceans and Fisheries Minister ...
Dam safety regulations are being amended so that smaller dams won’t be subject to excessive compliance costs, Minister for Building and Construction Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on reducing costs and removing unnecessary red tape so we can get the economy back on track. “Dam safety regulations ...
The coalition Government is expanding the medium-scale adverse event classification to parts of the North Island as dry weather conditions persist, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced today. “I have made the decision to expand the medium-scale adverse event classification already in place for parts of the South Island to also cover the ...
The passing of legislation giving effect to coalition Government tax commitments has been welcomed by Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “The Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill will help place New Zealand on a more secure economic footing, improve outcomes for New Zealanders, and make our tax system ...
Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins and Tertiary Education and Skills Minister Penny Simmonds today announced plans to transform our science and university sectors to boost the economy. Two advisory groups, chaired by Professor Sir Peter Gluckman, will advise the Government on how these sectors can play a greater ...
The Budget will deliver urgently-needed tax relief to hard-working New Zealanders while putting the government’s finances back on a sustainable track, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The Finance Minister made the comments at the release of the Budget Policy Statement setting out the Government’s Budget objectives. “The coalition Government intends ...
The coalition Government will look at options to address a zoning issue that limits how much financial support Queenstown residents can get for accommodation. Cabinet has agreed on a response to the Petitions Committee, which had recommended the geographic information MSD uses to determine how much accommodation supplement can be ...
Cabinet has agreed to a short extension to the final reporting timeframe for the Royal Commission into Abuse in Care from 28 March 2024 to 26 June 2024, Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden says. “The Royal Commission wrote to me on 16 February 2024, requesting that I consider an ...
The coalition Government is delivering an $18 million boost to New Zealanders needing to travel for specialist health treatment, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says. “These changes are long overdue – the National Travel Assistance (NTA) scheme saw its last increase to mileage and accommodation rates way back in 2009. ...
The Government is recognising the innovative and rising talent in New Zealand’s growing space sector, with the Prime Minister and Space Minister Judith Collins announcing the new Prime Minister’s Prizes for Space today. “New Zealand has a growing reputation as a high-value partner for space missions and research. I am ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed New Zealand’s concerns about cyber activity have been conveyed directly to the Chinese Government. “The Prime Minister and Minister Collins have expressed concerns today about malicious cyber activity, attributed to groups sponsored by the Chinese Government, targeting democratic institutions in both New ...
Independent Reviewers appointed for School Property Inquiry Education Minister Erica Stanford today announced the appointment of three independent reviewers to lead the Ministerial Inquiry into the Ministry of Education’s School Property Function. The Inquiry will be led by former Minister of Foreign Affairs Murray McCully. “There is a clear need ...
State Highway 1 across the Brynderwyns will be open for Easter weekend, with work currently underway to ensure the resilience of this critical route being paused for Easter Weekend to allow holiday makers to travel north, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Today I visited the Brynderwyn Hills construction site, where ...
Introduction Good morning to you all, and thanks for having me bright and early today. I am absolutely delighted to be the Minister for Infrastructure alongside the Minister of Housing and Resource Management Reform. I know the Prime Minister sees the three roles as closely connected and he wants me ...
New Zealand stands with the United Kingdom in its condemnation of People’s Republic of China (PRC) state-backed malicious cyber activity impacting its Electoral Commission and targeting Members of the UK Parliament. “The use of cyber-enabled espionage operations to interfere with democratic institutions and processes anywhere is unacceptable,” Minister Responsible for ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Judith Collins today announced New Zealand will provide logistics support for the upcoming Solomon Islands election. “We’re sending a team of New Zealand Defence Force personnel and two NH90 helicopters to provide logistics support for the election on 17 April, at the request ...
The European Union Free Trade Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill received Royal Assent today, completing the process for New Zealand’s ratification of its free trade agreement with the European Union. “I am pleased to announce that today, in a small ceremony at the Beehive, New Zealand notified the European Union ...
Public consultation on the terms of reference for the Royal Commission into COVID-19 Lessons has concluded, Internal Affairs Minister Hon Brooke van Velden says. “I have been advised that there were over 11,000 submissions made through the Royal Commission’s online consultation portal.” Expanding the scope of the Royal Commission of ...
Hardworking families are set to benefit from a new credit to help them meet their early childcare education (ECE) costs, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. From 1 July, parents and caregivers of young children will be supported to manage the rising cost of living with a partial reimbursement of their ...
A specialised Independent Technical Advisory Group (ITAG) tasked with preparing and publishing independent non-binding advice on the design of a "green" (sustainable finance) taxonomy rulebook is being established, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “Comprising experts and market participants, the ITAG's primary goal is to deliver comprehensive recommendations to the ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins has thanked the Chief of Army, Major General John Boswell, DSD, for his service as he leaves the Army after 40 years. “I would like to thank Major General Boswell for his contribution to the Army and the wider New Zealand Defence Force, undertaking many different ...
25 March 2024 Minister to meet Australian counterparts and Manufacturing Industry Leaders Small Business, Manufacturing, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly will travel to Australia for a series of bi-lateral meetings and manufacturing visits. During the visit, Minister Bayly will meet with his Australian counterparts, Senator Tim Ayres, Ed ...
Government commits almost $3 million for period products in schools The Coalition Government has committed $2.9 million to ensure intermediate and secondary schools continue providing period products to those who need them, Minister of Education Erica Stanford announced today. “This is an issue of dignity and ensuring young women don’t ...
Good morning, it’s great to be here. First, I would like to acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of Building Surveyors and thank you for the opportunity to be here this morning. I would like to use this opportunity to outline the Government’s ambitious plan and what we hope to ...
Minister for Pacific Peoples Dr Shane Reti has announced the Government’s commitment to the Auckland Secondary Schools Māori and Pacific Islands Cultural Festival, more commonly known as Polyfest. “The Ministry for Pacific Peoples is a longtime supporter of Polyfest and, as it celebrates 49 years in 2024, I’m proud to ...
Before moving onto the substance of today’s address, I want to recognise the very significant and ongoing contribution the Breast Cancer Foundation makes to support the lives of New Zealand women and their families living with breast cancer. I very much enjoy working with you. I also want to recognise ...
New Zealand has notched up a first with the launch of University of Canterbury research to the International Space Station, Science, Innovation and Technology and Space Minister Judith Collins says. The hardware, developed by Dr Sarah Kessans, is designed to operate autonomously in orbit, allowing scientists on Earth to study ...
Introduction Thank you for inviting me to speak with you today and I’m sorry I can’t be there in person. Yesterday I started in Wellington for Breakfast TV, spoke to a property conference in Auckland, and finished the day speaking to local government in Christchurch, so it would have been ...
The Coalition Government is contributing more than $1 million to support the establishment of an emergency multi-agency coordination centre in Northland. Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell announced the contribution today during a visit of the Whangārei site where the facility will be constructed. “Northland has faced a number ...
New Zealanders have enjoyed a broader range of voices telling the story of Aotearoa thanks to the creation of Whakaata Māori 20 years ago, says Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka. The minister spoke at a celebration marking the national indigenous media organisation’s 20th anniversary at their studio in Auckland on ...
Commercial catch limits for some fisheries have been increased following a review showing stocks are healthy and abundant, Ocean and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The changes, along with some other catch limit changes and management settings, begin coming into effect from 1 April 2024. "Regular biannual reviews of fish ...
COMMENTARY:By Ronny Kareni Since the atrocious footage of the suffering of an indigenous Papuan man reverberates in the heart of Puncak by the brute force of Indonesia’s army in early February, shocking tactics deployed by those in power to silence critics has been unfolding. Nowhere is this more evident ...
Analysis - Nicola Willis is holding firm on tax cuts despite the economic outlook being worse than forecast and critics urging her to wait, writes Peter Wilson for The Week In Politics. ...
Opposition MPs and unions are criticising a proposal by New Zealand’s Ministry of Pacific Peoples to cut staff by 40 percent. The country’s largest trade union — The Public Service Association — says the ministry has informed staff that it is looking to shed 63 of 156 positions. Opposition MPs ...
A poem by Poetry Aotearoa Yearbook 2024 featured poet Carin Smeaton. Daughtr of the 90s when she gets promoted to usherette a baby blu eel carries her all the way up to mothership she’s hovering high she lets the underaged in to see keanu reeves she lets the only lonely ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Keith Rankin, trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand. My earlier article – Can ‘Good’ be the Greater Evil? – looked at the issue of how wars should end, and how Good versus Evil ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 AMMA by Saraid de Silva (Moa Press, $38)A stunning debut novel reviewed by Brannavan ...
From Steve Martin to Ricky Stanicky, a pick’n’mix of things worth watching and listening to this long weekend. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. If you’re at a loss for something to occupy yourself with this Easter, don’t panic: The Spinoff’s got ...
Jesus had dinner with his 12 disciples right before he died. Noted historian Madeleine Chapman finds out who really deserved to be there.First published in 2018 but let’s be honest, the subject is timeless. As you sit on your couch this Easter Sunday, eating a chocolate egg you know ...
The newly-promoted Northern League club is on a mission to return to the National League for the first time in two decades. Plenty about domestic football in New Zealand has changed in that time – but the sense that this amateur competition is not an entirely level playing field remains. ...
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Auckland Council has put a deadline on new weather-impacted property owners applying for categorisation as government funding looks set to run out. Councillors have voted to support a deadline of September 30 for property owners who haven’t accessed support to come forward and engage with the council’s recovery office. It ...
NONFICTION 1 BBQ Economics by Liam Dann (Penguin Random House, $40) “It’s official,” wrote Dann nine days ago in the Herald, where he works as business editor at large, “we’re in recession.” Yeah, great. He delivered the bad stats: “GDP fell 0.1 percent in the December 2023 quarter, compared with ...
Comment: Every year on February 2, a dozen men in tuxedos and top hats approach the burrow of a groundhog in Gobbler’s Knob, Pennsylvania and entice the beaver-like rodent to emerge and predict the weather. If the groundhog, named Punxsutawney Phil, sees its own shadow when it is summoned, legend ...
By Anneke Smith, RNZ News political reporter A petition urging the New Zealand government to provide urgent humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people has been tabled in the House. More than 200 people gathered on Parliament’s forecourt today and they were met by MPs from Labour, the Greens and Te ...
Pacific Media Watch The Paris-based global media freedom watchdog RSF (Reporters Without Borders) has appealed for information about the “disappearance” of Palestinian journalist Bayan Abusultan. She was reportedly last seen on March 19 among people “sequestered” in this week’s raid and siege of Al Shifa hospital by Israeli troops in ...
EDITORIAL:The Jakarta Post It happens again and again; indigenous Papuans fall victim to Indonesian soldiers. This time, we have photographic evidence for the brutality, with videos on social media showing a Papuan man being tortured by a group of plainclothes men alleged to be the Indonesian Military (TNI) members. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robyn J. Whitaker, Director of the Wesley Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Policy & Associate Professor, New Testament, Pilgrim Theological College, University of Divinity A strange and eclectic range of activities takes place across these few weeks of the year. Some ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Panizza Allmark, Professor Visual & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University It’s Easter weekend, which means many of us will be kicking back with the greatest hits on repeat. But whether you’re a boomer, or an ‘80s or ’90s kid, you might be ...
RNZ Pacific Fiji’s Acting Public Prosecutor has filed an appeal against the sentences of former prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama and suspended police chief Sitiveni Qiliho in their corruption case. Bainimarama was granted an absolute discharge for attempting to pervert the course of justice while Qiliho received a conditional discharge with ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Arosha Weerakoon, Senior Lecturer and General Dentist, School of Dentistry, The University of Queensland Casezy idea/Shutterstock How does toothpaste work? What did people use before toothpaste was invented? – Amelia, age 7, Meanjin (Brisbane) Thanks for your ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brett Hallam, Associate professor, UNSW Sydney IM Imagery/Shutterstock Solar SunShot is well named. The Australian government announced today it would plough A$1 billion into bringing back solar manufacturing to Australia, boosting energy security, swapping coal and gas jobs for those ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Dix, Research Fellow in Nutrition & Dietetics, The University of Queensland Easter is the time for chocolate. The shops are full of fantastically packaged and shiny chocolates in all shapes and sizes, making trips to the supermarket with children more challenging ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emma Felton, Adjunct Senior Researcher, University of South Australia Even in a stubborn cost-of-living crisis, it seems there’s one luxury most Australians won’t sacrifice – their daily cup of coffee. Coffee sales have largely remained stable, even as financial pressures have ...
Mining company Trans-Tasman Resources has unexpectedly withdrawn its application for a consent to suck the valuable metals vanadium and titanium from the Taranaki seafloor, as it apparently wagers on the Government’s new fast-track process. It had spent two-and-a-half days putting its case to the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision-making committee, at ...
Contrary to the Associate Minister of Education’s claims, analysis of Healthy School Lunches Programme - Ka Ora, Ka Ako assessments has revealed it provides excellent value for the taxpayer dollar, as a groundswell of public opposition to Government ...
Greenpeace says wannabe Taranaki seabed miner Trans-Tasman Resources is likely banking on Christopher Luxon’s fast-track process to side-step proper scrutiny of its Taranaki seabed mining proposal by bailing out of the Environmental Protection Agency hearing ...
Kiwis Against Seabed mining today slammed Australian owned would-be seabed miner Trans Tasman Resources (TTR) for abandoning its application to the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) to mine the seabed of the South Taranaki Bight. The company ...
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This is good stuff, but why does it stop at the arrival of euros in NZ? Surely for a comprehensive NZ history it should go back pre-euro, to how NZ was colonised by the polynesians, why and how they came here, the trials and tribulations in spreading across the country, the conflicts and wars, the new lands, the extinctions, the explorations, the good times and bad.
The current obsession with just one part of this history – the wars with the english crown – is distorting the full picture and will not result in a "historically aware aotearoa"
The full picture is fascinating. We should embrace it – warts and all – not just certain parts of it.
2c
https://www.stuff.co.nz/pou-tiaki/300456857/signs-are-encouraging-for-a-historically-aware-aotearoa
thumbs up to that
Ditto.
The Musket Wars, that drove Waikato iwi into invading Taranaki, pushing some Taranaki tribes to migrate down the Te Ika West Coast into the Kapiti & Wellington areas, the murder & subjugation of the Moriori by one of those Taranaki tribes, the Rampages into Nelson/Marlborough by Te Rauparaha – these are all also part of the history of Kiwiland that should be unashamedly & dispassionately taught.
As First Nations peoples, Māori iwi were all essentially separate small independent nations in the same way that the US American First Nations were: Apache, Commanche, Kiowa, Cheyenne etc.
The history of Maori inter-tribal warfare mirrors that of long-established societies everywhere. Europe & UK went thru similar inter-tribal conflcts. Ditto every other continent & large populated Islands. It’s just part of the human condition.
Michael King estimated that between 1800 and 1840 iwi managed to reduce their own population by around 40%. That’s an impressive genocide by anyone’s measure.
It’s just part of the human condition.
Yes and no. The human condition is an immensely powerful driver of human affairs but I don't believe it's an implacable monster we cannot negotiate with
It took less than a generation for Europeans to slaughter each other in huge numbers after the Great War, the first war to industrialise killing.
Look at what’s going on in the Sahel & other parts of Africa, just to name ine part of the world. We never seem as a species to be able to get away with global peace breaking out for long.
Too many human apes are Silverback Gorilla equivalents & too many other human apes are forced – or consent – to attak other human apes often for reasons that have nothing to do with food or access to resources for survival.
The “brute” wiring in the human brain is still way too primitively powerful. It overrides the higher intellect way too easily.
Yup. There is no 'Genocide Olympics' to be won here, everyone reading this understands that human history is littered with atrocities – everywhere.
But this does not mean progress has not happened either. It's entirely remarkable but usually overlooked fact, that in 2021 the average person is far less likely to die in warfare or violence than at any time in our history ever. We might want to celebrate this a little more than we do.
It is of course no guarantee of future peace, a constant vigilance is necessary to guard against atrocity – but the progress we have achieved is not nothing. It hints at what we might really be capable of.
Do you mean the' average western person'?
I imagine the average middle eastern person would not…agree.
The problem is the world does not want to have a global law: nations can't agree on many things. The UN is in many respects as toothless – when it comes to preventing conflicts – as the League of Nations was. The superpowers and great powers on the SC do as they please.
Even the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is eschewed by Muslim nations who've signed up to the lesser Islamic version:
The Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam (CDHRI) is a declaration of the member states of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) adopted in Cairo, Egypt, on 5 August 1990, (Conference of Foreign Ministers, 9–14 Muharram 1411H in the Islamic calendar) which provides an overview on the Islamic perspective on human rights, and affirms Islamic sharia as its sole source. CDHRI declares its purpose to be "general guidance for Member States [of the OIC] in the field of human rights".
This declaration is widely acknowledged as an Islamic response to the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), adopted in 1948. It guarantees some, but not all, of the UDHR and serves as a living document of human rights guidelines prescribed for all members of the OIC to follow, but restricts them explicitly to the limits set by the sharia. Because of this limit, the CDHRI has been criticized as an attempt to shield OIC member states from international criticism for human rights violations, as well as for failing to guarantee freedom of religion, justifying corporal punishment and allowing discrimination against non-Muslims and women.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairo_Declaration_on_Human_Rights_in_Islam
Apologies for not doing justice to this. Worth revisiting at some other time.
No Gezza the gorilla eats greens and is a vegetarian. Chimpanzees our nearest kin hunt and kill for meat.
Chimps can be very dangerous. Smart, aggressive and resourceful.
Zoos pair them with the wildcats etc in terms of the threat and security required to mitigate.
Many signed peace treaties that were ignored by invaders as well.colonizers claiming to bring civilization were just raping and piliging and demonising indigeonous people as inferior.
The same behaviour iwi had been inflicting on each other since forever. Exactly what moral molehill are you trying to perch on here?
That lot come as christians,no
"signed peace treaties" is the relevant bit you missed, I guess.
The new colonisers claim to bring civilization but we're just the same as you point out.
Yet obviously they're not the same. Somewhere you need to re-think your logic.
Yes that's a good framing vto. Historical awareness is something you tend to gain with maturity and age, but selective awareness usually serves another purpose altogether.
Selective awareness is of course a bad thing. It might be worse though to believe that one's self is not guilty of it.
I suspect that many teachers will take the new curriculum as a guide.
Most will focus on their own rohe. If that includes the Musket Wars, Te Rauparaha's atrocities, as well as colonial devastation, so be it.
.
https://vimeo.com/262508731
Week old baby pukeko, Jojo, and her family, on a sunny Autumn morning in North Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand (Kiwiland)
Dogs barks at passing car….in other news hosk wants a royal commission.
What on?
And is he offering to pay for it?
According to the headline I won't click on it's to be into "our terrible Covid response."
As is said in Parliament's Question Time, "I reject the premise of the question." That is, there is no "terrible covid response to look into because the response was not terrible.
it is the type of thing that needs a royal commission. not for hoskings reasons, but to ensure that we are better prepared next time.
If the first few paragraphs are any guide he want a royal commission to relitigate the 2017 election result. GET OVER IT MIKE.
Gotta keep those attack lines current for his paymasters.
Stephen Bannon has said to destroy the opposition baffle them with mountains of BS. Troll the Democrats into oblivion.
Hosking NZs Bannon the bullying BSer.
Looks like that's happening here even on this site with tag team trolling.Their is a pattern of Trolling by a few players who's job it is just to continually wind up the left.
My understanding is: a 'review' of the government's handling of the Covid pandemic is already underway. That would be a good start, followed by a full-scale inquiry if it was deemed necessary to clear up suspicion and innuendo one way or the other.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/nov/16/trans-women-should-not-have-to-reduce-testosterone-say-new-ioc-guidelines
Hmmmm
Seems like we're about to scrap sex segregation in sport
This will affect a few women's sporting careers
Looks like the male hormone is undermining the female hormone.
Why not just have a separate category
When World Rugby made this offer, it was turned down, according to Ross Tucker.
Sorry, link to Instagram video where he said this.
Thanks for this.
But,
My bold. IOC are gutless and are handing the problem on.
I'm sure there is a dark parody to be done here. Men are no longer to be considered a specific sexual or physical violence threat to women. There should be no presumption that men have an automatic physical advantage over natal women.
If that were true ( that men cannot be presumed to have a physical advantage over women) we should do away with men's and women's sports altogether. Also why not get rid of other classes in sport as well such as weight classes and age classes? And anybody should be able to take whatever hormone or testosterone treatments they like and still compete. Clearly I just don't get it.
Equestrian events are sports and don't have a separate male/female category. If your the IOC you also need to account for outliers so a blanket rule of assuming advantage can force these exceptions to adjust, even if its nearly always true. And I don't have any idea how male rhythmic gymnasts fit into this (are there any?).
This document is probably badly worded but pushing the decision down to sports federations is a good decision.
How so? Not sure you are wrong, but would like to hear your thinking.
(and the IOC are still gutless).
Each sport has and will have different rules, traditions and requirements so ultimately the decisions must rest with them how they define a sporting sub category. The IOC can't define a blanket rule because there will be exceptions, and the blanket rule of testosterone limits was not a good one.
I also think Ross makes some good points about describing the framework inside which each code should define those specifics.
Its also a more democratic structure, where the activism is setup to take over a structure from the top-down. I don't think a lot of the people cheering this activism on give a toss about sport and how its run anyway and don't participate in it. While the discussion was happening over Rugby and Woman's Rugby codes there were 0 trans Rugby players identified in NZ anyway (and NZ Rugby is able to decide separately to World Rugby). But the question comes up, are we actually talking about sports and sports governance, or is this a theoretical discussion happening online between people who are not interested in playing sports anyway.
dunno, maybe talk to GC women who play sport or work in the area.
IOC could have said there will be a female category and you cannot play in it if you are male (no matter the hormones and surgery you choose). Intersex issues can be dealt with in addition to that (because they're not gender identity issues). That doesn’t preclude individual sporting associations from having their own boundaries and processes. But if x sport says yes to trans women in female sports, how is that fair at the Olympics.
The rule that you will have a female category and will exclude males from that is presently violated by Equestrian events. It clearly depends on the sport so should be left to the code how that works for each code.
If a code can justify (and that includes evidence) that its fair and safe for trans women to be in the female then that would be a reasonable outcome to include them there for social reasons.
Quite. I think the bit you might not be getting is the politics around gender identity and biological sex. The problem is some people want us to elevate the importance of GI and lower or remove the importance of biological sex. That's a political position.
Imo the IOC are quite right and handing the problem on to those who need to deal with it.
For further info, Prof Ross Tucker podcast.
IMO Blazer makes a lot of pronouncements from a position of cluelessness. Lots of sports organisations look to the IOC for leadership and high standards. This is a pathetic abdication of responsibility.
If you can't see what a can of worms this is and the mitigating factors regarding all the sports that have Olympic representation,and think' one size fits all',you have alot to…learn.
maybe you could both explain your thinking instead of having a pop at each other.
Yes, good idea. 👌🏼 Not a very edifying exchange for the reader.
I don't care much about pronouns – I’ve never liked to use them myself
I’m not overly bothered by the public toilets issue – I reckon some clever designers are beginning to manage solutions.
For personal reasons the term 'pregnant people' doesn't bother me
I don't even know why we still have the problematic M/F check box on our birth certificates
I very much care if women are losing spaces that enable them to compete fairly and safely in sports, in education, in business and anything else. The IOC is evading their duty to uphold these values. A separate category, or changing the men's category to 'open' would have been fairer.
I'm thinking that women may as well have their own Olympics because these Olympics have just been closed to them in terms of being the supposed best in the world.
This sucks. Big Time, imo.
Public toilets/changing rooms/rape refuges/domestic violence homes are all women's spaces that had the protected characteristic of biological sex.
Thinking this is just about toilets, ignores the very implications for women in all such spaces. Particularly for women whose religious, cultural, trauma or modesty precludes them from being in such spaces with male-bodied people. By insisting on the inclusion of male-bodied people into women's spaces, we now have excluded groups of women. Just let that sink in.
There is also a pushback against provision of third spaces, such as in sports. If you look further, there is a demand for total capitulation, not actually provision of alternative spaces. While there may be reasons for this, misogyny, requiring external validation, none of them are justified.
Those other small adjustments to language may also seem innocuous, but after much thought, I don't think they are. Distortion of language means conversations become all about semantics and meanings, rather than dealing with the issues at hand. Statistics no longer sex-based become meaningless, and we end up with stories like this.
The IOC have capitulated, and joined the ranks of those unconcerned about the impact on women.
I agree with you Molly, It's just that I've seen (and used) uni-sex public toilets and changing rooms that still retain the privacy that women need. So I think this issue can be solved.
I agree totally that rape refuges/domestic violence homes are all women's spaces that had the protected characteristic of biological sex. Transgender women clearly need their own spaces as well and their need is great. It's just that it's incompatible with born women's needs. And that spaces that relate to reproductive health, pregnancy and post-natal spaces are absolutely reserved for females as well.
I also agree that statistics that are no longer sex-based become meaningless. This conflict has led me to question whether we actually need a sex definition on a birth certificate where that information that is accurate or can be inferred is, these days available in other places. Of course I realise this is just a personal opinion and I'm not going to try and convince anyone else.
The IOC, on the other hand, is a whole different issue, and I agree that the IOC have capitulated, and joined the ranks of those unconcerned about the impact on women.
Miravox, most change rooms aren't unisex, they are female or male only. even with unisex cubicles it still opens the doors for biological males to be in what I believe should be women only spaces. This gives them access to do things like plant cameras to film women getting changed. Happened recently in a unisex gym in Auckland. I have also read that women are assaulted more in unisex change and bathrooms.
Personally I don't want male bodied people in these spaces and I certainly don't want them around girls and teen girls.
I do think the IOC's decision might be the catalyst that brings things to a head. Around the time of the Olympics there were numberous polls, unscientific I admit, that overwhelmingly showed Kiwis did not support transwomen competing in women's sport. It will be a disaster for women. If you don't think some men who are not really trans at all will use these regulations to enter and win women's sporting competitions, your dreaming. Think of a mediocre male athelete declaring themself non-binary. They were born male and have all the biology that gives men the advantage over women in sport. Why not compete against women! You have got politicians, media cheering you on telling you how brave you are etc, etc! And female atheletes being silenced as was reported by a brave woman weight lifter who spoke up and said they were being told to shut up about Laureen Hubbard. I hope this situation causes the outrage it deserves.
I do think some men will do exactly this. That is why I'm entirely against the IOC decision.
Exactly Mirovox. Sorry I didn't write that well, I didn't mean you personally, I meant if you are one of the people who think that.
I agree with you Molly, It's just that I've seen (and used) uni-sex public toilets and changing rooms that still retain the privacy that women need. So I think this issue can be solved.
If it could be solved, with consideration given to the groups of women I mentioned before, I think I still would have some concern. Because I have seen protections and safeguards eroded bit by bit, and I think you do have to have a frank and full discussion before conceding hard-won ground. For me, third spaces fit the bill – given that the majority of transwomen have no surgical or medical transitioning, and are male-bodied.
Exactly Mirovox. Sorry I didn't write that well, I didn't mean you personally, I meant if you are one of the people who think that.
I don't want to give much ground on the issue of change rooms.
The mumber of transwomen in NZ was infitesimal and likely those who had transitioned biology did make use of women's bathrooms, although I remember a student holiday job I had with a women who was likely trans. She never declared she was, but the voice, the hands kind of gave it away. She was well accepted at work and people liked her. I don't recall seeing her in a women's bathroom, but it wasn't an issue as such.
What is an issue is male who assert their gender identity trumps biological reality and expect women to go along with this.
Anyone who thinks some men won't use gender self id to access womens spaces for neferious purposes is dreaming.
It does get me that transwomen feel unsafe in men's toilets, but don't understand that the same thing occurs when women see 'some' transwomen in female toilets. I agree that some men will use take advantage – they do already (hence the obvious fear).
Honestly, I prefer spaces with closed cubicles and open hand washing spaces that are discrete but easily accessible if someone has a health or security problem. I don't, by any stretch of the imagination think that most of our current loos are safe if shared, but I've been in places that have shared spaces that work really well, I think. I do feel this is an issue that can be resolved by design. Maybe it's not perfect yet, but people are working on this I'm interested to see where this goes.
So I consider myself to be for want of a better term, an expert on safety in women's change rooms, having experienced what could have been a very serious sexual assault possibly homicide. It happened many, many years ago. And when that young women was raped and murdered in Mt Albert a few months back, I knew exactly how she would have felt the moment she knew she was in trouble. Adrenalin pulsing threw my body, I thought I was going to be murdered.
One of the things that saved me is my attacker tried to stop me getting the hell out of the change room and told me to "get back in the cubicle". Instinctively, perhaps from the old protests days, I sat down and told him "do it here". This really flawed him I think. If I had of gone back in the cubicle I think I would have been raped, possibly murdered.
For years I never talked about this attack (I was remarkably unscathed physically but he did punch me in the face). One of the things that I have found deeply shocking in this debate, both on The Standard and in letters I have written to female MP's is nobody who is pushing trans ideology has expressed any sympathy or compassion about what I might feel about women's change rooms and toilets. And how for years I avoided them like the plague. So when men on this site have told me no problem with the toilets or others have trivialized my concerns I feel very angry.
So my personal experience of women's change rooms with cubicles is its not all good. He obviously wanted me in that cubicle for a reason such as easier to stop me yelling if someone entered the change room
Hi Anker,
I'm so sorry you experienced this horror. Please don't think I'm trivialising your concerns. Safety is the major reason why I believe a redesign is necessary. It's rather ironic that the trans debate has brought the issue of safety in public toilets to the fore, when these places always have been dangerous for women and girls. Thank you for disclosing something so personal – please be kind to yourself today.
Thanks Mirovox. I do appreciate that and I appreciate where you are coming from re bathroom design. I believe you are correct on that, because what happened to me shows that a public change room can be a really unsafe space. Just like for the poor Mt Albert woman, walking alone in a bushy area was unsafe.
And by the way, I don't disagree with anything you said (perhaps other than the cublicle comment as instintively I knew when he ordered me back into the cubicle where I had been changing it wasn't going to go well, that I would be more vulnerable).
This attack happened in 1997 btw. A lot of the friends I have made since then don't know about it. I think psychologically I have been left remarkable unscathed, but my fear around public change rooms persisted for sometime. I still do a quick check of cubicles when I find myself in a public toilet on my own. I don't talk about it much. But when I heard about gender self id, I was immedicatly concerned. Frankly it felt like a kick in the guts that my concerns about sharing public change rooms and toilets with male bodied people was trivialized and discounted. Sometimes it has been implied that I am transphobic or a prude. Both are deeply offensive to me. And I see them as tactics to silence women. It is also quite galling when some people claim to care about women who have been murdered in similar circumstances. Maybe they are geniune in their concern, sure they are, but the reality is I have lived through the most frightening experience of realising that I was in deep trouble. When I first saw the guy (who was wearing a mask by the way) I thought I am going to be murdered. I know how that feels. How women who have been murdered would have felt when they realized their fate. That I thought I would be murdered I think made me less scared that he would rape me. That's why I sat down and refused to get back in the cubicle.
This is one of the things lead me into the gender ideology issue. The more I read, the more I couldn't believe how reasonably intelligent people were taking on this new ideology without question and a gospel like zeal.
Hi Anker, thanks for sharing.
Your perspective about refusing to leave the open area for the private cubicles put voice to one of my concerns about unisex toilets as a solution.
I agree with your comments on this.
No thank you
Anybody here taken up Microsoft's offer to download and install Microsoft 11 yet?
If so, whaddya think of it?
Yep. Couple of weeks ago.
No major changes. Lots of little ones, some quite good. I like being able to have Chrome tabs along side each other, foe example.
It doesn't cope well with Google Meet, gets slow. But I think 10 did that too.
Bet that is deliberate. 🙂
I want to, have been waiting for the first load of patches, because like all 1.0 releases it is full of bugs!
Why not ditch microsux and install Linux?
Tried linux. Needed a degree in rocket surgery to get games and random software fully armed and operational.
Linus Torvalds had a wee rant about this in 2014. So many different distros require their own bespoke package development, and the different distros tend to break backwards compatability.
Back in the early 1990s my favorite game was "Wing Commander". Found a legacy copy a few years ago, tried cranking it up and forgot how much command-line code was needed to calibrate the video and sound cards, because WC was just before plug and play standardisation came in. I gave up. That experience reminded me of linux.
I like Linux, use it all the time, as long as it stays in its little sandbox in the WSL environment (windows services for linux). 😛
Most of the time I'm in MacOS, i.e. a proper Unix implementation.
The only thing I miss is a really good CAD program and don't find GIMP as intuitive as photoshop.
I use gimp – the lack of drawing shapes is an issue, but I cut and paste from office-style programmes lol
@ Brigid
Old habits die hard.
Damien Grant was one of two liquidators of a hydroponics company
The liquidators of a hydroponics company have been ordered to pay creditors more than $56,000 after charging “not reasonably incurred” fees, a High Court judge has ruled.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/126989003/liquidators-ordered-to-pay-creditors-56000-after-charging-not-reasonably-incurred-fees
A sense of entitlement? He has been convicted of fraud and had to go to court to get his licence, seems the regulator could see this coming?
Hey, that's unfair.
Maybe his good character was offset by a belief that any fee payable to him is reasonable.
Or maybe he was smoking what a lot of hydroponics enthusiasts are selling, and that inhibited his record-keeping, and he earned every penny but couldn't keep up with the paperwork.
Or maybe it was a perfectly innocent slip of the pen that overcharged the fees by (checks article) half as much again.
maybe lol
Seems his financial ethics are still in the toilet.
He learned a good lesson in jail…..be more sophisticated in how you go about ripping people.
Liquidators should be regulated very rarely do you see low fees for this sort of work. Most insolvencies end up with the liquidators taking nearly all the money/assets leaving nothing or very little for creditors.
Looks like Covid is spreading to animals wild white tail deer in the US have found to have contracted C19.scary as this could be a new breeding ground for the virus to mutate.
Keeping MIQ in place is a must if a mutation ends up like Delta it could be more disastrous for our country.
Got an annoying bit of spam today: the freeze peach shallot (shallots aren't really "onions") looks to be shilling its membership to uni folk because "The Royal Society is undermining the academic freedom of their own".
They don't support or oppose intellectually-and-morally-bankrupt pro-covid talk, but think academics should have the right to step well outside their scope of expertise in order to promulgate material that is directly contradicted by the scientific evidence and consensus amongst actual specialists in that area. Ot at least, that's what it looks like the Royal Society might be investigating in regards these two academics.
Funnily enough, the email doesn't seem to say anywhere that my FSU membership dues or donation will actually be spent assisting those two academics. Probably an oversight /sarc
Seems the FSU has been doing naughty things with their email list. Someone on twitter was also complaining about their spam today.
I suspect they've just trawled tertiary education websites for email addresses to plug this academic freedom BS. I sure as heck haven't been signing petitions for them, lol
New Ipsos poll is out. It's much more detailed than the TV polls, going beyond the headlines.
Asked to rate the gov't out of 10, 54% said 7 or higher. Only 18% said 0-3. So all that foamy frothing about tyrant Cindy represents less than 1 in 5 of NZ voters.
Asked who was best at 20 different issues (health, housing, climate change etc) National scored … zero. (Labour 17, Greens 2, TPM 1).
The last poll was 3 months ago and Auckland has been in lockdown since then, and are thoroughly exhausted and exasperated. So the gov't rating from Aucklanders has declined, from 6.5 to 6. You'd think it would be 3 or 4.
Summary: government obviously down from an election high, opposition still no alternative.
PDF link:
https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2021-11/15th%20Ipsos%20New%20Zealand%20Issues%20Monitor_Report%20V2.pdf