Resident Standard poster Eddy is, actively dissuading political parties and activists from giving any support to the wharfies, calling on the Greens and even Occupy Activists to join the Labour Party in turning their back on these workers.
Eddie refuses to admit that this dispute is about union busting, repeating the right wing narrative about this dispute, that it is all about wage demands. Eddie has a closed mind (and heart), when it comes to this dispute.
Compare this to the Greens, Denise Roche’s statement on this dispute. Roche prefers to keep an open mind, going right to the heart of the matter in questioning the management’s motives:
I wonder what the management’s real aims are, given that the company had previously drawn up a strategy to contract out the workforce
Denise Roche
Read Denise Roche full post on Frogblog
Compare Denise post to Eddie’s post against giving support to the wharfies.
Some have compared the Port of Auckland dispute to the 1890 waterfront dispute, 1913 general strike, and 1951 lockout. They want Labour and the Greens to get involved. Actually, this is no 1951 redux.
Eddie
Eddie justifies his call to withhold support from the wharfies, by minimising their struggle in comparison with past struggles.
Only 300 workers in one port are involved at present and there have been a few hours delays for a handful of ships on the 5 days of striking. Those disputes (in the past) were about workers trying to win fundamental gains: the right to form unions, the right to paid breaks, the right to a fair pay increase. They were about the fundamental balance of power between capital and labour.
Eddie
Eddie refuses to contemplate the idea that this dispute is also about principle, instead spreading the lie that this dispute is all about wage levels between competing companies, and ignoring the central issue of the dispute, management’s intention to contract out all the union jobs.
This dispute is about a business trying to cuts its wage bill so that it can undercut a competitor.
Eddie
Not once in his post does Eddie even mention the words “contracting out”.
If this is what Labour supporters like Eddie are openly admitting to in public, I can only imagine the hidden pressure the Labour Party is putting on the Greens, left activists and other unionists to distance themselves from the wharfies.
To the Green Party, Occupy Activists and all trade unionists in Aotearoa, Stay strong, resist the demand of the Labour Party to betray the wharfies by withholding your support. Instead do the opposite.
Eddies unspoken sub-text, that the wharfies struggle, “is about a business trying to cuts its wage bill”, Is that, if only the workers made more concessions, this dispute would be over and their jobs would be saved.
Eddie is either ignorant of the facts or being deliberately misleading.
Eddie has omitted the fact that MUNZ has made every concession the company have asked for.
The company is also offering workers a 10% wage increase, to workers to leave the union.
Eddie claimed, that unlike disputes of the past, the wharfies struggle is not about workers trying to win fundamental gains: the right to form unions, the right to paid breaks, the right to a fair pay increase. About the fundamental balance of power between capital and labour.
This is exactly what this struggle is about.
To consciously promote this lie, is to expose yourself as an active enemy of working people.
My hope is that someone in the Labour Party with some authority, will have the courage to speak up and distance the Labour Party from Eddie’s views.
I’m quite impressed by the pressure that is starting to build momentum, for Labour to “step up”. From party members, and the wider left.
I think the chances of Labour leadership giving the wharfies unequivocal support are about the same as those for me winning lotto. But hey – I have every confidence that I will win it one day.
btw Jenny – I appreciate your work here at The Standard.
Here, EDDIE thought it would have been excellent for Shearer to speak out on the following (in fact penning the words FOR Shearer), saying that it would “consolidate his (Shearer’s) brand”:
So perhaps EDDIE is pushing for Shearer not to get involved on the side of the union and PoA workers at this stage, because doing so wouldn’t fit ‘Shearer’s brand’. Whatever that is.
“We will protect the right of workers to negotiate for fair pay rises. We will continue to argue that workers are an asset, not a cost, to business, and they deserve fair pay. We do not agree that workers have to lift their productivity before wages can rise – increases have been outstripping wages for decades and the share of GDP that goes to workers here is much lower than in Australia”
Now, this paragraph has direct application to the PoA dispute.
So why would Shearer not say the exact words above while speaking about the PoA dispute not in specifics but in terms of Labour’s principles.
If Shearer did not want to get involved personally at this stage (and tactically there might be sense there), then why not allow one of his spokespeople to issue a press release about the dispute, supporting worker rights to good faith bargaining and standing firm against downgrading of their job security.
I feel these are questions worth asking.
PS does anyone ever talk about Gandhi’s “brand”? Martin Luther King’s “brand”? Michael Joseph Savage’s “brand”? Norman Kirk’s “brand”? I find this part of it fucking ridiculous.
‘PS does anyone ever talk about Gandhi’s “brand”? Martin Luther King’s “brand”? Michael Joseph Savage’s “brand”? Norman Kirk’s “brand”? I find this part of it fucking ridiculous.”
Modern drivel speak along the lines of the corporate credo, mission statement etc etc.
Every time I hear someone quoting them I’m reminded of a line I read in the UK years ago –
Oh dear. I sure hope my lotto outlook is brighter.
From Idiot Savant at ‘No Right Turn’:
Useless
So its come to this: after a week of silence on the Ports of Auckland dispute, the Labour Party has come out and confirmed that it is in fact a useless waste of space:
Yesterday Labour industrial relations spokeswoman Darien Fenton, who has been spotted on the picket line at the port, said her party was not taking sides in the dispute.
“We’ve been hoping that the parties will settle this, that they’ll find a way through this.”
Ms Fenton said Mr Shearer had been in regular touch with both sides, “and he’s in contact with me and we’re all discussing it regularly”.
“Our strong view at this point is it’s not helpful for politicians to get involved.”
Its not quite Walter Nash’s “neither for nor against”, but it amounts to the same thing. Faced with a test of its core values, Labour flunked, preferring to sit on the fence than speak up. And as a result, their party’s name is now an exercise in false advertising. What does Labour stand for now? It’s certainly not labour. Instead, all they offer is an alternative set of political managers, a different set of bums on seats. And this is supposed to inspire people to turn out and vote for them? The only thing it inspires me to do is look for a party that actually appears to believe in something.
But its not just a case of undermining their brand. Labour has just sent a clear message to its supporters that that support is a one-way street. You can support them, but they won’t support you. No self-respecting person should accept such a one-sided relationship.
according to that most right wing of right wing media outlets the dompost, the dispute is about lumbering the POAL with all the costs while the stevedoring is privatised.
that was yesterday for $1.60.
I must check the library to day to see if anything has changed.
Much of the net will soon be dark… many websites are being taken down in protest against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA), which are backed by big entertainment and media interests.
The 18th January 2012 marks the day when sites like Google (not a full blackout), Wikipedia, Reddit and BoingBoing will go black in protest. The blackout will be in effect for 24 hours, worldwide, beginning at 05:00 UTC.
The Jackal has ceased transmission in support of killing the bill. #SOPASTRIKE
SOPA has already been canned by the house. Senate is still going ahead with PIPA AFAIK but without the house passing it, it doesn’t really matter much. Also the executive (white house) issued a statement saying they were very cautious about it; I reckon if it came to it Obama probably would have pocket-veto’d it.
Hey Lanth – just as Obama said he had serious concerns about the NDAA and its detention without trial of US citizens on US soil clause, and that he might veto it?
Jenny tried that this morning. For anyone with post editing (at least), her post today showed up as complete black. She’d managed to put in a empty color box div that covered the whole post by default.
I haven’t been annoying the trolls for a while and thought today was an excellent day to do just that.
Here is a new video detailing the different elements of the collapse of the three WTC buildings on 911.
Bombs in the basement and the lobby and three pyroclastic flows as hot as a vocano’s pyroclastic flow are some of the puzzling and unexplained issues addressed here.
You should totally use it in conversation. My boyfriend and I have. It’s fun to watch people’s slight double-take “did I really hear that right?” reactions before they just assume that actually you said his name properly.
How’s Richad Gage’s petition coming along? Has he reached critical mass yet? I mean he has been gathering signatures for a good number of years he surely must have close to 100,000 people. It can’t take that long to get support especially when you have the ‘truth’ behind you.
It’ll all come out at the upcoming Toronto conference, Gosman. That’s where the truth will finally be revealed and the guilty parties will be named.
No wait, they already had the Toronto conference and, er, nothing happened. It’s a conspiracy, I tells ya! The NWO engineered the truthers to spontaneously explode under the weight of their own prejudices by igniting the hot air they produce in a series of giant waffle makers that were smuggled into the hall disguised as aircraft.
Damn George W. Bush, the smartest, cleverest and most dangerous drunk and coke addled illuminati to ever walk the earth. Quick, pass the Koolaid, I feel the rapture coming on!
VOR doesn’t realise that these things take time. Unlike a nano-thermite charge which can cut through an inch of rebar as if it were butter left out on a summers day.
The above link is well worth a look imo. Bomber hosts David Cunliffe and ‘Back-Benchers’ presenter, Wallace Chapman, and they discuss their predictions for 2012. They all impress, in their different ways.
RIP Stratos. Still very pissed-off about Stratos and TV 7
Agree, freewiew is becoming a joke and Sky’s the winner under the nats….funny that.
Heartland going behind sky’s paywall is a typical example of taxpayer funded content lining their mates pockets. wonder where recycling rick will pop up next being a good old blueboy.
I watched that this morning, what a great panel. Cunliffe is an exceptionally cool cat. Love listening to him speak, his personality and his politics. Great mix of relaxed, authoritative, friendly and accessible. I think Labour have it right, if Shearer fails to fire, there’s a well oiled machine ready go…
I watch this wishing more than ever that David Cunliffe was leading our country right now. Or was it’s Finance Minister.
When you think of all the talent that has come out of bfM and craccum matured through our broadcasting system it is also sad that at the moment Wallace Chapman and Bomber can’t get a wider audience for their work. bFm still misses Chapman’s ads.
Only marginal bright spot is the talk of cooperation between Labour and the other opposition parties, that they would ‘hunt like a pack’. I mean this simply has to happen strategically when you look at the way the Nats have used ACT, Maori party and UF.
Wish Cunliffe had looked this relaxed on previous tv appearances, rather than tried to look finance ministerial. Joyce/Key always look relaxed- it gives them authority even when they are talking crap or spinning moonbeams.
However I draw the limit at fire and forget trolls. If people respond to critics with thought, even if they avoid the questions raised, then they are fulfilling the requirements of the site because they are engaging with people.
Think it through. It is a self-correcting problem. If they wind up with noone bothering to interact with them then their comments by definition become fire and forget (or in the worst cases they wind up talking to themselves) trolls. Then I’d act.
It is the responsibility of commentators to be relevant to the others here. Otherwise they’ll start losing their ability to comment…. evil eh? 😈
I don’t like how the rss feed only shows a snip-it of story, it used to show the whole think.
This means it takes me more time to read your posts and on somedays this will mean I wont read them at all.
Please please go back to the old system, your not loosing money over the difference and if you are are doing it for the vanity of page view then you know you could use feedburner to count how many people are reading your rss feed.
The triggering problem was with people reading just the initial RSS feed and responding to that because the client side RSS systems weren’t picking up the revisions. Posts often get a bit of editing just after publishing. I noticed several people doing it and it irritated me (Cactus Kate being the triggering example).
But as the sysop I have been very concerned about RSS for some time as well because the RSS feeds are now starting to rival the spambots for overseas data volumes (and a lot of those appear to be spambots).
Even the traffic for RSS feeds for identifiable people is increasing. Presumably because many people aren’t using aggregation systems like feedburner. I’m always concerned about data volumes especially overseas traffic because if I can keep those down then I can use smaller and cheaper servers.
To give you an idea of the problem. The main server is currently in NZ. It is convenient to keep in NZ because it massively improves performance for the 95+% of our readers who are in NZ. When I moved it back here I set it up with near realtime replication with a server in the US and routed all overseas traffic outside Oceania to it. The problem was as that we ramped up in posts and comments towards the election the replication traffic broke our overseas datacap.
The NZ server has free local traffic and a 60GB overseas traffic datacap that costs $3/GB over that cap. That is mostly because of the costing model for the Southern Cross cable which is horrendous for local servers. Replication was costing us hundreds of dollars per month. So I pulled all of the traffic to NZ and relegated the US server to a warm backup. However as we got closer to the election the overseas traffic kept increasing and shows little sign of dropping post-election. It is now starting to cost us over the cap.
There are a few humans using the overseas data for reading the sites. But mostly it is robots like RSS feeds, spambots and search engines. I’m happy to tolerate the search engines crawling the site (~20GB per month) and I can mostly use SEO tuning to minimize their impacts on our data. Spambots I tend to remove using .htaccess and other tools and their traffic has been reducing.
But the RSS feeds have been most of the the overseas traffic increase. Based on the posts that they picking up (comments have a different pattern) they’re crawling the whole site. So presume they’ve bots and I don’t think that there are too many humans using it.
So I can leave the RSS with full posts. But I’d have to move the server out of NZ to get around these poxy overseas data caps, thereby reducing the service for most of the readers. Or I can massively reduce the size of the RSS posts and piss a few people off – incidentally the people who cost us without helping to pay for the site.
Sorry – RSS is becoming a liability in NZ. If I can figure out a way of doing it, I’ll probably get around to putting full feeds on something like feedburner. But I can’t leave the RSS’s wide open.
Why not put the RSS feed on a cheaper USA server, speed isn’t really an issue for rss data.
Have to come to the site to read the story would cost you more as the amount of data on a web page vs RSS feed is much greater. 1mb vs 30kb … (public service ads + comments)
Having the RSS data there would not cost so much, if the cost is so much, then use a vpn service like astrill so you can send your data through a NZ vpn address (national data cost) to the USA for $5 a month (vpn cost).
I don’t see much spam on the standard and rss would not be the problem, the user signup would the problem there.
If you update a post from it’s original (rss copy) then have a note saying that it has been updated.
Please reconsider, as a Labour movement (not party) I thought it would be in the Standards ideology to make it as easy as possible to read your content and not make a task more labour intensive that it need be.
I would second the request for a return to full RSS feeds, if at all possible. I read blogs first on my smartphone and the ones that have full RSS feeds are so much easier to read via Google Reader.
For blogs that don’t have full RSS feeds (like Pundit and now The Standard), I generally only read every 2-3 days on my main PC. Even then I still use Google Reader, but it’s so much easier to read websites on a PC screen. (I still appreciate the mobile version of The Standard, but no real comparison to a RSS feed).
Why not put the RSS feed on a cheaper USA server, speed isn’t really an issue for rss data.
Have to come to the site to read the story would cost you more as the amount of data on a web page vs RSS feed is much greater. 1mb vs 30kb … (public service ads + comments)
I think you missed the point.
I don’t care about the cost of people reading the pages inside NZ. Local bandwidth is effectively ‘free’, ie part of the server base cost. But the RSS feed is currently open not only to NZ, but also to the rest of the world and that is where I have a problem. About 90% of the RSS post traffic is from outside the country, probably has nothing to do with human readers, and any overseas traffic has a cap on it beyond which we get charged an excess.
Now I could cut off the RSS for everything outside NZ, which would be easy to do and would get rid of the GB’s of overseas traffic that cause the issue. That would also cut off such overseas sources as feedburner and google reader.
I could have moved the whole server offshore and got around the ridiculous local overseas caps. But that would slow the site for the vast majority of users to satisfy a small minority who use RSS.
I could have done something tricky like a VPN, but bearing in mind the likelihood of violating terms of service with the subsequent demands on my time, I wasn’t really that interested in complicating my own life.
So I compromised and changed it to exactly what is seen when people go to the front page. That should drop the overseas traffic down far enough that we don’t wind up paying excesses for overseas traffic while still keeping the RSS feed open.
Please reconsider, as a Labour movement (not party) I thought it would be in the Standards ideology to make it as easy as possible to read your content and not make a task more labour intensive that it need be.
It is exactly as easy as it is for everyone else who reads on the site. You are wanting it to be easier.
After I get this code release for work done at the end of Feburary and I start having more free time, I’ll have a look at what else can be done. But in the meantime this solution gets rid of my current problem while limiting only a few readers.
I suspect that the ideal will be to restrict the full RSS feed to inside NZ and to a limited number of overseas aggregating servers like google reader, feedburner, and the like.
Would there be any issues if I data minded the page to build a full RSS feed?
BTW, I don’t think a VPN would break any terms, it would just tunnel traffic through a 2nd NZ service (local data) to the USA. The Astrill NZ service has no worries with data as they provide enough bandwidth for people outside NZ to view TVonDemand.
“Sure, employers can seek reasonable efficiencies, effective labour utilisation and a fair return on investment. The Ports are an important part of our transport infrastructure and they need to be operating as productively and efficiently as possible.
But good faith bargaining and working together to find common ground is the way to achieve this, not wholesale redundancies and contracting out.”
and most importantly which has not been said loudly enough by anyone:
“Three deaths at the Ports of Tauranga in the last 15 months should make us all question the safety of contracted out stevedoring firms who compete with each other for business.
No worker has died at the Ports of Auckland for 18 years.”
Will the POT be charged? Or are we seeing people as expendable like those at Foxxconn in China where they put nets on the sides of their buildings to prevent suicides? It’s a slippery slope and we are heading down not up.
EDIT: see that I/S isn’t buying it as too little too late, and an attempt to mouth words to placate supporters (like me) without actually doing anything or helping the union.
“Sure, employers can seek reasonable efficiencies, effective labour utilisation and a fair return on investment. The Ports are an important part of our transport infrastructure and they need to be operating as productively and efficiently as possible.
But good faith bargaining and working together to find common ground is the way to achieve this, not wholesale redundancies and contracting out.”
No mention of
1) The difference between assets owned for the public good and those for the maximum profit of private shareholders.
2) No analysis of the wider economic benefits of having a port, i.e. the assessment only deals with the port in isolation.
3) The externalisation of costs on to the community from the withdrawal of wages and dependable permanent employment.
4) The demands of the Auckland City Council for ever higher returns on investment without investigating whether the assumptions behind those demands are at all feasible.
The vitriolic racist comments by Michael Laws regarding the recent rape case involving overseas visitors is disturbing to say the least.
His continual use of “Feral Maori ” is insulting and foul . As far as I know there has be no mention of the race of the offender in this case . The regular ranting against Maori by Laws makes one wonder if he is becoming mentally unbalanced.
‘ makes one wonder if he is becoming mentally unbalanced.’ already has been for some time PP, pretty sure it’s why radio Live use him, shock jock = ratings amongst certain listener groups.
The fact he’s still on air shows both how p’weak our broadcasting rules are and how desperate Mediaworks are for exposure.
The vitriolic racist comments by Michael Laws regarding the recent rape case involving overseas visitors is disturbing to say the least.
His continual use of “Feral Maori ” is insulting and foul
I hadn’t heard these comments, but they seem typical of him… 🙁
Yes M. Laws is a racist prick.
I saw him on TV talking about Maori and violent crime and had to wonder why anybody would want the opinion of a fuckwit who talks about shooting newsroom staff.
hot off the MSN news.
Phil Twyford has stepped up to bat for the watersiders.
dont blow it Phil.
you know whats at stake.
and once you’re gone you cant come back.
when you’re out of the blue and into the black.
Oxy Morgan has flicked his Kiwi Saver business, no doubt pocketing a hansom sum in the proses
The oxymoron of Gareth Morgan is that he talks about climate change in one breath, then the next one he is promoting something that locks us into more climate change (for the bad) as the few awake people understand Kiwi Saver is based on continued economic growth. And for Russell Norman’s fictional 25 year old that growth must continue for the next 45 years.
Morgan also likes to fly around the world to go joyriding on his motor bike. His footprint must be the size of several small African villages ;).
“This (austerity) is akin to a doctor telling a patient suffering from pneumonia to go on a diet and get more exercise. While exercise is important, it assumes a healthy patient. If the patient is sick, he must build up his strength until he is physically capable of exercising again…
Balance sheet recessions, which occur when businesses and households rush to pay down debt in spite of zero interest rates, are a kind of pneumonia. The only way to treat them is for the government to become the borrower and spender of last resort with fiscal stimulus aimed at propping up aggregate demand.”
Is reality at some point going to catch up with the Right, now that their ideologies are truly being put to the test, and are failing?
“it would also be obtuse not to recognise that a private-sector and market failure is at the heart of the current crisis; or to reconsider the role that new forms of public ownership could play in a modern economy in the light of China’s experience…”
Other than Greece the Sovereign debt in Europe has escalated as a result of the recession which resulted from the GFC which was the result of Greenspan and his gaggle of Ayn Rand Theocrats believing the invisible hand was all that was needed and failed to see the sub-prime bubble and the CDS’s triggering and subsequent wipe out of Lehman Bros & AIG.. yada yada..
Your Free market caused this crisis Gosman, Greek debt isn’t a get out of jail free card for any but the least informed or the faithful.
Evidently C & T have found a new recruit who managed to slither his way onto the Back Benches panel and started spouting the ‘politics is boring/ hard to understand’ memes…..
Talk about blatent, its not fucking Shortland St buddy, though I hope for your sake you are being paid per word because your delivery has only served to convince me that the right is woefully short on talent.
As for Jorden whoever , now he’s an expert!!!? I thought one of the most important outcomes from winning the referendum was so that we never had to listen to/ look at that annoying prat again.
Wallace, I like your show, but you have got to do a better job of filtering out the lizards.
which part of gosman is the windup key and when is the spring going to break.
the whole thing is a failure of the so called free market.
where is there a free market?
show us all so we can be as enlightened as you!
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Sparse offerings outside a Te Kauwhata church. Meanwhile, the Government is cutting spending in ways that make thousands of hungry children even hungrier, while also cutting funding for the charities that help them. It’s also doing that while winding back new building of affordable housing that would allow parents to ...
It is difficult to make sense of the Luxon Coalition Government’s economic management.This end-of-year review about the state of economic management – the state of the economy was last week – is not going to cover the National Party contribution. Frankly, like every other careful observer, I cannot make up ...
This morning I awoke to the lovely news that we are firmly back on track, that is if the scale was reversed.NZ ranks low in global economic comparisonsNew Zealand's economy has been ranked 33rd out of 37 in an international comparison of which have done best in 2024.Economies were ranked ...
Remember those silent movies where the heroine is tied to the railway tracks or going over the waterfall in a barrel? Finance Minister Nicola Willis seems intent on portraying herself as that damsel in distress. According to Willis, this country’s current economic problems have all been caused by the spending ...
Similar to the cuts and the austerity drive imposed by Ruth Richardson in the 1990’s, an era which to all intents and purposes we’ve largely fiddled around the edges with fixing in the time since – over, to be fair, several administrations – whilst trying our best it seems to ...
String-Pulling in the Dark: For the democratic process to be meaningful it must also be public. WITH TRUST AND CONFIDENCE in New Zealand’s politicians and journalists steadily declining, restoring those virtues poses a daunting challenge. Just how daunting is made clear by comparing the way politicians and journalists treated New Zealanders ...
Dear Nicola Willis, thank you for letting us know in so many words that the swingeing austerity hasn't worked.By in so many words I mean the bit where you said, Here is a sea of red ink in which we are drowning after twelve months of savage cost cutting and ...
The Open Government Partnership is a multilateral organisation committed to advancing open government. Countries which join are supposed to co-create regular action plans with civil society, committing to making verifiable improvements in transparency, accountability, participation, or technology and innovation for the above. And they're held to account through an Independent ...
Today I tuned into something strange: a press conference that didn’t make my stomach churn or the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Which was strange, because it was about the torture of children. It was the announcement by Erica Stanford — on her own, unusually ...
This is a must watch, and puts on brilliant and practical display the implications and mechanics of fast-track law corruption and weakness.CLICK HERE: LINK TO WATCH VIDEOOur news media as it is set up is simply not equipped to deal with the brazen disinformation and corruption under this right wing ...
NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi Acting Secretary Erin Polaczuk is welcoming the announcement from Minister of Workplace Relations and Safety Brooke van Velden that she is opening consultation on engineered stone and is calling on her to listen to the evidence and implement a total ban of the product. “We need ...
The Government has announced a 1.5% increase in the minimum wage from 1 April 2025, well below forecast inflation of 2.5%. Unions have reacted strongly and denounced it as a real terms cut. PSA and the CTU are opposing a new round of staff cuts at WorkSafe, which they say ...
The decision to unilaterally repudiate the contract for new Cook Strait ferries is beginning to look like one of the stupidest decisions a New Zealand government ever made. While cancelling the ferries and their associated port infrastructure may have made this year's books look good, it means higher costs later, ...
Hi there! I’ve been overseas recently, looking after a situation with a family member. So apologies if there any less than focused posts! Vanuatu has just had a significant 7.3 earthquake. Two MFAT staff are unaccounted for with local fatalities.It’s always sad to hear of such things happening.I think of ...
Today is a special member's morning, scheduled to make up for the government's theft of member's days throughout the year. First up was the first reading of Greg Fleming's Crimes (Increased Penalties for Slavery Offences) Amendment Bill, which was passed unanimously. Currently the House is debating the third reading of ...
We're going backwardsIgnoring the realitiesGoing backwardsAre you counting all the casualties?We are not there yetWhere we need to beWe are still in debtTo our insanitiesSongwriter: Martin Gore Read more ...
Willis blamed Treasury for changing its productivity assumptions and Labour’s spending increases since Covid for the worsening Budget outlook. Photo: Getty ImagesMōrena. Long stories short, the six things that matter in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Wednesday, December 18 in The Kākā’s Dawn Chorus podcast above ...
Today the Auckland Transport board meet for the last time this year. For those interested (and with time to spare), you can follow along via this MS Teams link from 10am. I’ve taken a quick look through the agenda items to see what I think the most interesting aspects are. ...
Hi,If you’re a New Zealander — you know who Mike King is. He is the face of New Zealand’s battle against mental health problems. He can be loud and brash. He raises, and is entrusted with, a lot of cash. Last year his “I Am Hope” charity reported a revenue ...
Probably about the only consolation available from yesterday’s unveiling of the Half-Yearly Economic and Fiscal Update (HYEFU) is that it could have been worse. Though Finance Minister Nicola Willis has tightened the screws on future government spending, she has resisted the calls from hard-line academics, fiscal purists and fiscal hawks ...
The right have a stupid saying that is only occasionally true:When is democracy not democracy? When it hasn’t been voted on.While not true in regards to branches of government such as the judiciary, it’s a philosophy that probably should apply to recently-elected local government councillors. Nevertheless, this concept seemed to ...
Long story short: the Government’s austerity policy has driven the economy into a deeper and longer recession that means it will have to borrow $20 billion more over the next four years than it expected just six months ago. Treasury’s latest forecasts show the National-ACT-NZ First Government’s fiscal strategy of ...
Come and join myself and CTU Chief Economist for a pop-up ‘Hoon’ webinar on the Government’s Half Yearly Economic and Fiscal Update (HYEFU) with paying subscribers to The Kākā for 30 minutes at 5 pm today.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream to watch our chat. Don’t worry if ...
In 1998, in the wake of the Paremoremo Prison riot, the Department of Corrections established the "Behaviour Management Regime". Prisoners were locked in their cells for 22 or 23 hours a day, with no fresh air, no exercise, no social contact, no entertainment, and in some cases no clothes and ...
New data released by the Treasury shows that the economic policies of this Government have made things worse in the year since they took office, said NZCTU Economist Craig Renney. “Our fiscal indicators are all heading in the wrong direction – with higher levels of debt, a higher deficit, and ...
At the 2023 election, National basically ran on a platform of being better economic managers. So how'd that turn out for us? In just one year, they've fucked us for two full political terms: The government's books are set to remain deeply in the red for the near term ...
AUSTERITYText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedMy spreadsheet insists This pain leads straight to glory (File not found) Read more ...
The NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi are saying that the Government should do the right thing and deliver minimum wage increases that don’t see workers fall further behind, in response to today’s announcement that the minimum wage will only be increased by 1.5%, well short of forecast inflation. “With inflation forecast ...
Oh, I weptFor daysFilled my eyesWith silly tearsOh, yeaBut I don'tCare no moreI don't care ifMy eyes get soreSongwriters: Paul Rodgers / Paul Kossoff. Read more ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Bob HensonIn this aerial view, fingers of meltwater flow from the melting Isunnguata Sermia glacier descending from the Greenland Ice Sheet on July 11, 2024, near Kangerlussuaq, Greenland. According to the Programme for Monitoring of the Greenland Ice Sheet (PROMICE), the ...
In August, I wrote an article about David Seymour1 with a video of his testimony, to warn that there were grave dangers to his Ministry of Regulation:David Seymour's Ministry of Slush Hides Far Greater RisksWhy Seymour's exorbitant waste of taxpayers' money could be the least of concernThe money for Seymour ...
Willis is expected to have to reveal the bitter fiscal fruits of her austerity strategy in the HYEFU later today. Photo: Lynn Grieveson/TheKakaMōrena. Long stories short, the six things that matter in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Tuesday, December 17 in The Kākā’s Dawn Chorus podcast ...
On Friday the government announced it would double the number of toll roads in New Zealand as well as make a few other changes to how toll roads are used in the country. The real issue though is not that tolling is being used but the suggestion it will make ...
The Prime Minister yesterday engaged in what looked like a pre-emptive strike designed to counter what is likely to be a series of depressing economic statistics expected before the end of the week. He opened his weekly post-Cabinet press conference with a recitation of the Government’s achievements. “It certainly has ...
This whooping cough story from south Auckland is a good example of the coalition government’s approach to social need – spend money on urging people to get vaccinated but only after you’ve cut the funding to where they could get vaccinated. This has been the case all year with public ...
And if there is a GodI know he likes to rockHe likes his loud guitarsHis spiders from MarsAnd if there is a GodI know he's watching meHe likes what he seesBut there's trouble on the breezeSongwriter: William Patrick Corgan Read more ...
Here’s a quick round up of today’s political news:1. MORE FOOD BANKS, CHARITIES, DOMESTIC VIOLENCE SHELTERS AND YOUTH SOCIAL SERVICES SET TO CLOSE OR SCALE BACK AROUND THE COUNTRY AS GOVT CUTS FUNDINGSome of Auckland's largest foodbanks are warning they may need to close or significantly reduce food parcels after ...
Iain Rennie, CNZMSecretary and Chief Executive to the TreasuryDear Secretary, Undue restrictions on restricted briefings This week, the Treasury barred representatives from four organisations, including the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions Te Kauae Kaimahi, from attending the restricted briefing for the Half-Year Economic and Fiscal Update. We had been ...
This is a guest post by Tim Adriaansen, a community, climate, and accessibility advocate.I won’t shut up about climate breakdown, and whenever possible I try to shift the focus of a climate conversation towards solutions. But you’ll almost never hear me give more than a passing nod to ...
A grassroots backlash has forced a backdown from Brown, but he is still eyeing up plenty of tolls for other new roads. And the pressure is on Willis to ramp up the Government’s austerity strategy. Photo: Getty ImagesMōrena. Long stories short, the six things that matter in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
Hi all,I'm pretty overwhelmed by all your messages and emails today; thank you so very much.As much as my newsletter this morning was about money, and we all need to earn money, it was mostly about world domination if I'm honest. 😉I really hate what’s happening to our country, and ...
A listing of 23 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, December 8, 2024 thru Sat, December 14, 2024. Listing by Category Like last week's summary this one contains the list of articles twice: based on categories and based on ...
I started writing this morning about Hobson’s Pledge, examining the claims they and their supporters make, basically ripping into them. But I kept getting notifications coming through, and not good ones.Each time I looked up, there was another un-subscription message, and I felt a bit sicker at the thought of ...
Once, long before there was Harry and Meghan and Dodi and all those episodes of The Crown, they came to spend some time with us, Charles and Diana. Was there anyone in the world more glamorous than the Princess of Wales?Dazzled as everyone was by their company, the leader of ...
The collective right have a problem.The entire foundation for their world view is antiscientific. Their preferred economic strategies have been disproven. Their whole neoliberal model faces accusations of corporate corruption and worsening inequality. Climate change not only definitely exists, its rapid progression demands an immediate and expensive response in order ...
National has only been in power for a year, but everywhere you look, its choices are taking New Zealand a long way backwards. In no particular order, here are the National Government's Top 50 Greatest Misses of its first year in power. ...
The Government is quietly undertaking consultation on the dangerous Regulatory Standards Bill over the Christmas period to avoid too much attention. ...
The Government’s planned changes to the freedom of speech obligations of universities is little more than a front for stoking the political fires of disinformation and fear, placing teachers and students in the crosshairs. ...
The Ministry of Regulation’s report into Early Childhood Education (ECE) in Aotearoa raises serious concerns about the possibility of lowering qualification requirements, undermining quality and risking worse outcomes for tamariki, whānau, and kaiako. ...
A Bill to modernise the role of Justices of the Peace (JP), ensuring they remain active in their communities and connected with other JPs, has been put into the ballot. ...
Labour will continue to fight unsustainable and destructive projects that are able to leap-frog environment protection under National’s Fast-track Approvals Bill. ...
The Green Party has warned that a Green Government will revoke the consents of companies who override environmental protections as part of Fast-Track legislation being passed today. ...
The Green Party says the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update shows how the Government is failing to address the massive social and infrastructure deficits our country faces. ...
The Government’s latest move to reduce the earnings of migrant workers will not only hurt migrants but it will drive down the wages of Kiwi workers. ...
Te Pāti Māori has this morning issued a stern warning to Fast-Track applicants with interests in mining, pledging to hold them accountable through retrospective liability and to immediately revoke Fast-Track consents under a future Te Pāti Māori government. This warning comes ahead of today’s third reading of the Fast-Track Approvals ...
The Government’s announcement today of a 1.5 per cent increase to minimum wage is another blow for workers, with inflation projected to exceed the increase, meaning it’s a real terms pay reduction for many. ...
All the Government has achieved from its announcement today is to continue to push responsibility back on councils for its own lack of action to help bring down skyrocketing rates. ...
The Government has used its final post-Cabinet press conference of the year to punch down on local government without offering any credible solutions to the issues our councils are facing. ...
The Government has failed to keep its promise to ‘super charge’ the EV network, delivering just 292 chargers - less than half of the 670 chargers needed to meet its target. ...
The Green Party is calling for the Government to stop subsidising the largest user of the country’s gas supplies, Methanex, following a report highlighting the multi-national’s disproportionate influence on energy prices in Aotearoa. ...
The Green Party is appalled with the Government’s new child poverty targets that are based on a new ‘persistent poverty’ measure that could be met even with an increase in child poverty. ...
New independent analysis has revealed that the Government’s Emissions Reduction Plan (ERP) will reduce emissions by a measly 1 per cent by 2030, failing to set us up for the future and meeting upcoming targets. ...
The loss of 27 kaimahi at Whakaata Māori and the end of its daily news bulletin is a sad day for Māori media and another step backwards for Te Tiriti o Waitangi justice. ...
Yesterday the Government passed cruel legislation through first reading to establish a new beneficiary sanction regime that will ultimately mean more households cannot afford the basic essentials. ...
Today's passing of the Government's Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill–which allows landlords to end tenancies with no reason–ignores the voice of the people and leaves renters in limbo ahead of the festive season. ...
After wasting a year, Nicola Willis has delivered a worse deal for the Cook Strait ferries that will end up being more expensive and take longer to arrive. ...
Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick has today launched a Member’s Bill to sanction Israel for its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, as the All Out For Gaza rally reaches Parliament. ...
After years of advocacy, the Green Party is very happy to hear the Government has listened to our collective voices and announced the closure of the greyhound racing industry, by 1 August 2026. ...
In response to a new report from ERO, the Government has acknowledged the urgent need for consistency across the curriculum for Relationship and Sexuality Education (RSE) in schools. ...
The Green Party is appalled at the Government introducing legislation that will make it easier to penalise workers fighting for better pay and conditions. ...
Thank you for the invitation to speak with you tonight on behalf of the political party I belong to - which is New Zealand First. As we have heard before this evening the Kinleith Mill is proposing to reduce operations by focusing on pulp and discontinuing “lossmaking paper production”. They say that they are currently consulting on the plan to permanently shut ...
Auckland Central MP, Chlöe Swarbrick, has written to Mayor Wayne Brown requesting he stop the unnecessary delays on St James Theatre’s restoration. ...
Kiwis planning a swim or heading out on a boat this summer should remember to stop and think about water safety, Sport & Recreation Minister Chris Bishop and ACC and Associate Transport Minister Matt Doocey say. “New Zealand’s beaches, lakes and rivers are some of the most beautiful in the ...
The Government is urging Kiwis to drive safely this summer and reminding motorists that Police will be out in force to enforce the road rules, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“This time of year can be stressful and result in poor decision-making on our roads. Whether you are travelling to see ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says Health New Zealand will move swiftly to support dozens of internationally-trained doctors already in New Zealand on their journey to employment here, after a tripling of sought-after examination places. “The Medical Council has delivered great news for hardworking overseas doctors who want to contribute ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has appointed Sarah Ottrey to the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC). “At my first APEC Summit in Lima, I experienced firsthand the role that ABAC plays in guaranteeing political leaders hear the voice of business,” Mr Luxon says. “New Zealand’s ABAC representatives are very well respected and ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has announced four appointments to New Zealand’s intelligence oversight functions. The Honourable Robert Dobson KC has been appointed Chief Commissioner of Intelligence Warrants, and the Honourable Brendan Brown KC has been appointed as a Commissioner of Intelligence Warrants. The appointments of Hon Robert Dobson and Hon ...
Improvements in the average time it takes to process survey and title applications means housing developments can progress more quickly, Minister for Land Information Chris Penk says. “The government is resolutely focused on improving the building and construction pipeline,” Mr Penk says. “Applications to issue titles and subdivide land are ...
The Government’s measures to reduce airport wait times, and better transparency around flight disruptions is delivering encouraging early results for passengers ahead of the busy summer period, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Improving the efficiency of air travel is a priority for the Government to give passengers a smoother, more reliable ...
The Government today announced the intended closure of the Apollo Hotel as Contracted Emergency Housing (CEH) in Rotorua, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. This follows a 30 per cent reduction in the number of households in CEH in Rotorua since National came into Government. “Our focus is on ending CEH in the Whakarewarewa area starting ...
The Government will reshape vocational education and training to return decision making to regions and enable greater industry input into work-based learning Tertiary Education and Skills Minister, Penny Simmonds says. “The redesigned system will better meet the needs of learners, industry, and the economy. It includes re-establishing regional polytechnics that ...
The Government is taking action to better manage synthetic refrigerants and reduce emissions caused by greenhouse gases found in heating and cooling products, Environment Minister Penny Simmonds says. “Regulations will be drafted to support a product stewardship scheme for synthetic refrigerants, Ms. Simmonds says. “Synthetic refrigerants are found in a ...
People travelling on State Highway 1 north of Hamilton will be relieved that remedial works and safety improvements on the Ngāruawāhia section of the Waikato Expressway were finished today, with all lanes now open to traffic, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“I would like to acknowledge the patience of road users ...
Tertiary Education and Skills Minister, Penny Simmonds, has announced a new appointment to the board of Education New Zealand (ENZ). Dr Erik Lithander has been appointed as a new member of the ENZ board for a three-year term until 30 January 2028. “I would like to welcome Dr Erik Lithander to the ...
The Government will have senior representatives at Waitangi Day events around the country, including at the Waitangi Treaty Grounds, but next year Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has chosen to take part in celebrations elsewhere. “It has always been my intention to celebrate Waitangi Day around the country with different ...
Two more criminal gangs will be subject to the raft of laws passed by the Coalition Government that give Police more powers to disrupt gang activity, and the intimidation they impose in our communities, Police Minister Mark Mitchell says. Following an Order passed by Cabinet, from 3 February 2025 the ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Justice Christian Whata as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Whata’s appointment as a Judge of the Court of Appeal will take effect on 1 August 2025 and fill a vacancy created by the retirement of Hon Justice David Goddard on ...
The latest economic figures highlight the importance of the steps the Government has taken to restore respect for taxpayers’ money and drive economic growth, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. Data released today by Stats NZ shows Gross Domestic Product fell 1 per cent in the September quarter. “Treasury and most ...
Tertiary Education and Skills Minister Penny Simmonds and Associate Minister of Education David Seymour today announced legislation changes to strengthen freedom of speech obligations on universities. “Freedom of speech is fundamental to the concept of academic freedom and there is concern that universities seem to be taking a more risk-averse ...
Police Minister, Mark Mitchell, and Internal Affairs Minister, Brooke van Velden, today launched a further Public Safety Network cellular service that alongside last year’s Cellular Roaming roll-out, puts globally-leading cellular communications capability into the hands of our emergency responders. The Public Safety Network’s new Cellular Priority service means Police, Wellington ...
State Highway 1 through the Mangamuka Gorge has officially reopened today, providing a critical link for Northlanders and offering much-needed relief ahead of the busy summer period, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“The Mangamuka Gorge is a vital route for Northland, carrying around 1,300 vehicles per day and connecting the Far ...
The Government has welcomed decisions by the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) and Ashburton District Council confirming funding to boost resilience in the Canterbury region, with construction on a second Ashburton Bridge expected to begin in 2026, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Delivering a second Ashburton Bridge to improve resilience and ...
The Government is backing the response into high pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in Otago, Biosecurity Minister Andrew Hoggard says. “Cabinet has approved new funding of $20 million to enable MPI to meet unbudgeted ongoing expenses associated with the H7N6 response including rigorous scientific testing of samples at the enhanced PC3 ...
Legislation that will repeal all advertising restrictions for broadcasters on Sundays and public holidays has passed through first reading in Parliament today, Media Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “As a growing share of audiences get their news and entertainment from streaming services, these restrictions have become increasingly redundant. New Zealand on ...
Today the House agreed to Brendan Horsley being appointed Inspector-General of Defence, Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Mr Horsley’s experience will be invaluable in overseeing the establishment of the new office and its support networks. “He is currently Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, having held that role since June 2020. ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government has agreed to the final regulations for the levy on insurance contracts that will fund Fire and Emergency New Zealand from July 2026. “Earlier this year the Government agreed to a 2.2 percent increase to the rate of levy. Fire ...
The Government is delivering regulatory relief for New Zealand businesses through changes to the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act. “The Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Amendment Bill, which was introduced today, is the second Bill – the other being the Statutes Amendment Bill - that ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed further progress on the Hawke’s Bay Expressway Road of National Significance (RoNS), with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) Board approving funding for the detailed design of Stage 1, paving the way for main works construction to begin in late 2025.“The Government is moving at ...
The Government today released a request for information (RFI) to seeking interest in partnerships to plant trees on Crown-owned land with low farming and conservation value (excluding National Parks) Forestry Minister Todd McClay announced. “Planting trees on Crown-owned land will drive economic growth by creating more forestry jobs in our regions, providing more wood ...
Court timeliness, access to justice, and improving the quality of existing regulation are the focus of a series of law changes introduced to Parliament today by Associate Minister of Justice Nicole McKee. The three Bills in the Regulatory Systems (Justice) Amendment Bill package each improve a different part of the ...
A total of 41 appointments and reappointments have been made to the 12 community trusts around New Zealand that serve their regions, Associate Finance Minister Shane Jones says. “These trusts, and the communities they serve from the Far North to the deep south, will benefit from the rich experience, knowledge, ...
The Government has confirmed how it will provide redress to survivors who were tortured at the Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital Child and Adolescent Unit (the Lake Alice Unit). “The Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care found that many of the 362 children who went through the Lake Alice Unit between 1972 and ...
It has been a busy, productive year in the House as the coalition Government works hard to get New Zealand back on track, Leader of the House Chris Bishop says. “This Government promised to rebuild the economy, restore law and order and reduce the cost of living. Our record this ...
“Accelerated silicosis is an emerging occupational disease caused by unsafe work such as engineered stone benchtops. I am running a standalone consultation on engineered stone to understand what the industry is currently doing to manage the risks, and whether further regulatory intervention is needed,” says Workplace Relations and Safety Minister ...
Mehemea he pai mō te tangata, mahia – if it’s good for the people, get on with it. Enhanced reporting on the public sector’s delivery of Treaty settlement commitments will help improve outcomes for Māori and all New Zealanders, Māori Crown Relations Minister Tama Potaka says. Compiled together for the ...
Mr Roger Holmes Miller and Ms Tarita Hutchinson have been appointed to the Charities Registration Board, Community and Voluntary Sector Minister Louise Upston says. “I would like to welcome the new members joining the Charities Registration Board. “The appointment of Ms Hutchinson and Mr Miller will strengthen the Board’s capacity ...
More building consent and code compliance applications are being processed within the statutory timeframe since the Government required councils to submit quarterly data, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “In the midst of a housing shortage we need to look at every step of the build process for efficiencies ...
Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey is proud to announce the first three recipients of the Government’s $10 million Mental Health and Addiction Community Sector Innovation Fund which will enable more Kiwis faster access to mental health and addiction support. “This fund is part of the Government’s commitment to investing in ...
New Zealand is providing Vanuatu assistance following yesterday's devastating earthquake, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. "Vanuatu is a member of our Pacific family and we are supporting it in this time of acute need," Mr Peters says. "Our thoughts are with the people of Vanuatu, and we will be ...
The Government welcomes the Commerce Commission’s plan to reduce card fees for Kiwis by an estimated $260 million a year, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says.“The Government is relentlessly focused on reducing the cost of living, so Kiwis can keep more of their hard-earned income and live a ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour has welcomed the Early Childhood Education (ECE) regulatory review report, the first major report from the Ministry for Regulation. The report makes 15 recommendations to modernise and simplify regulations across ECE so services can get on with what they do best – providing safe, high-quality care ...
The Government‘s Offshore Renewable Energy Bill to create a new regulatory regime that will enable firms to construct offshore wind generation has passed its first reading in Parliament, Energy Minister Simeon Brown says.“New Zealand currently does not have a regulatory regime for offshore renewable energy as the previous government failed ...
Kick Back has growing concerns about the impact that denying young people access to shelter is having on the mental health and physical safety of the young people we serve. ...
By Litia Cava, FBC News multimedia journalist Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka has revealed how arms and ammunition used to conduct the 1987 military coup were secretly brought into Fiji on board a naval survey ship. Speaking at the commissioning of a new research vessel for the Lands and Mineral ...
Youth advocates are worried tighter rules for emergency housing could lead to someone dying due to the impacts on mental health and physical safety for those denied shelter. ...
“We urge the Health Select Committee to extend the date for submissions,” concluded Rev Bush. “There is too much at stake to leave the outcome of this review only in the hands of politicians or those with vested interests.” ...
A separate passport, citizenship and membership of the United Nations are only available to fully independent nations, Winston Peters' office says. ...
By Emma Andrews, Henare te Ua Māori Journalism Intern at RNZ News The New Zealand fuel company Z Energy is swapping out street names for “correct” kupu on service stops around the country, with the help of local hapū. When Z took over 226 fuel sites from Shell in 2010, ...
Summer reissue: Was it a false measurement, a full-blown conspiracy or just some mild incompetence? Mad Chapman uncovers the truth of Maddi Wesche’s final throw. The Spinoff needs to double the number of paying members we have to continue telling these kinds of stories. Please read our open letter and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julie Old, Associate Professor, Biology, Zoology, Animal Science, Western Sydney University Dmitry Chulov, Shutterstock At this time of year, images of reindeer are everywhere. I’ve had a soft spot for reindeer ever since I was a little girl. Doesn’t everyone? ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Grozdana Manalo, Career Services Manager (Education), University of Sydney hedgehog94/Shutterstock Getting casual work over summer, or a part-time job that you might continue once your tertiary course starts, can be a great way to get workplace experience and earn some extra ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ty Ferguson, Research associate in exercise, nutrition and activity, University of South Australia Peera_Stockfoto/Shutterstock It’s never been easier to stay connected to work. Even when we’re on leave, our phones and laptops keep us tethered. Many of us promise ourselves we ...
The NZ Media Council upheld the complaint under principle four: comment and fact On 5 September 2024, The Spinoff published a brief article titled Made in Palestine, found in 1970s Hastings, which highlighted an upcoming art exhibition featuring photographs of vintage cosmetic products labelled “Made in Palestine.” The piece, described ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kasey Symons, Lecturer of Communication, Sports Media, Deakin University We are well and truly in cricket season. The Australian men’s cricket team is taking centre stage against India in the Border Gavaskar Trophy series while the Big Bash League is underway, as ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Woods, Lecturer, Nursing, Faculty of Health, Southern Cross University FTiare/Shutterstock Summer is here and for many that means going to the beach. You grab your swimmers, beach towel and sunscreen then maybe check the weather forecast. Did you think to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Saman Khalesi, Senior Lecturer and Discipline Lead in Nutrition, School of Health, Medical and Applied Sciences, CQUniversity Australia Dean Clarke/Shutterstock The holiday season can be a time of joy, celebration, and indulgence in delicious foods and meals. However, for many, it ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ari Mattes, Lecturer in Communications and Media, University of Notre Dame Australia Late Night With The Devil. Maslow Entertainment Marketing is critical to the success of commercial films, and companies will often spend half as much again on top of the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Francisco Jose Testa, Lecturer in Earth Sciences (Mineralogy, Petrology & Geochemistry), University of Tasmania The Conversation As a kid, it was tough for me to grasp the massive time scale of Earth’s history. Now, with nearly two decades of experience as ...
Te Pāti Māori has had to adopt a new way of debating, operating and even thinking in Parliament in response to the Government’s “onslaught” against te ao Māori, co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer says.In an end-of-year interview with Newsroom, the Te Tai Hauauru MP reflected on how 2024 has differed from her ...
Opinion: The latest Trends in International Mathematics and Science report was announced earlier this month, yet it didn’t get the flurry of media attention and political hand-wringing that typically accompanies these announcements. This might be because it presented good news, or you could argue, no news; the results paint a ...
NewsroomBy Dr Lisa Darragh, Dr Raewyn Eden and Dr David Pomeroy
At long last, The Spinoff shells out for a nut ranking. The Spinoff needs to double the number of paying members we have to continue telling these kinds of stories. Please read our open letter and sign up to be a member today.It recently came to The Spinoff’s attention ...
I was one of hundreds of people who lost my government job this week. Here’s exactly how it played out. The Spinoff needs to double the number of paying members we have to continue telling these kinds of stories. Please read our open letter and sign up to be a ...
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Resident Standard poster Eddy is, actively dissuading political parties and activists from giving any support to the wharfies, calling on the Greens and even Occupy Activists to join the Labour Party in turning their back on these workers.
Eddie refuses to admit that this dispute is about union busting, repeating the right wing narrative about this dispute, that it is all about wage demands. Eddie has a closed mind (and heart), when it comes to this dispute.
“1951 it ain’t for now“, says Eddie.
Compare this to the Greens, Denise Roche’s statement on this dispute. Roche prefers to keep an open mind, going right to the heart of the matter in questioning the management’s motives:
Read Denise Roche full post on Frogblog
Compare Denise post to Eddie’s post against giving support to the wharfies.
Eddie justifies his call to withhold support from the wharfies, by minimising their struggle in comparison with past struggles.
Eddie refuses to contemplate the idea that this dispute is also about principle, instead spreading the lie that this dispute is all about wage levels between competing companies, and ignoring the central issue of the dispute, management’s intention to contract out all the union jobs.
Not once in his post does Eddie even mention the words “contracting out”.
If this is what Labour supporters like Eddie are openly admitting to in public, I can only imagine the hidden pressure the Labour Party is putting on the Greens, left activists and other unionists to distance themselves from the wharfies.
To the Green Party, Occupy Activists and all trade unionists in Aotearoa, Stay strong, resist the demand of the Labour Party to betray the wharfies by withholding your support. Instead do the opposite.
Kia Kaha
Solidarity forever.
You sure like to repeat Eddie’s name a lot, don’t you?
Eddies unspoken sub-text, that the wharfies struggle, “is about a business trying to cuts its wage bill”, Is that, if only the workers made more concessions, this dispute would be over and their jobs would be saved.
Eddie is either ignorant of the facts or being deliberately misleading.
Eddie has omitted the fact that MUNZ has made every concession the company have asked for.
The company is also offering workers a 10% wage increase, to workers to leave the union.
Eddie claimed, that unlike disputes of the past, the wharfies struggle is not about workers trying to win fundamental gains: the right to form unions, the right to paid breaks, the right to a fair pay increase. About the fundamental balance of power between capital and labour.
This is exactly what this struggle is about.
To consciously promote this lie, is to expose yourself as an active enemy of working people.
My hope is that someone in the Labour Party with some authority, will have the courage to speak up and distance the Labour Party from Eddie’s views.
I’m quite impressed by the pressure that is starting to build momentum, for Labour to “step up”. From party members, and the wider left.
I think the chances of Labour leadership giving the wharfies unequivocal support are about the same as those for me winning lotto. But hey – I have every confidence that I will win it one day.
btw Jenny – I appreciate your work here at The Standard.
+1 Ditto to both points
Here, EDDIE thought it would have been excellent for Shearer to speak out on the following (in fact penning the words FOR Shearer), saying that it would “consolidate his (Shearer’s) brand”:
http://thestandard.org.nz/shearers-address-in-reply/
So perhaps EDDIE is pushing for Shearer not to get involved on the side of the union and PoA workers at this stage, because doing so wouldn’t fit ‘Shearer’s brand’. Whatever that is.
Now, this paragraph has direct application to the PoA dispute.
So why would Shearer not say the exact words above while speaking about the PoA dispute not in specifics but in terms of Labour’s principles.
If Shearer did not want to get involved personally at this stage (and tactically there might be sense there), then why not allow one of his spokespeople to issue a press release about the dispute, supporting worker rights to good faith bargaining and standing firm against downgrading of their job security.
I feel these are questions worth asking.
PS does anyone ever talk about Gandhi’s “brand”? Martin Luther King’s “brand”? Michael Joseph Savage’s “brand”? Norman Kirk’s “brand”? I find this part of it fucking ridiculous.
‘PS does anyone ever talk about Gandhi’s “brand”? Martin Luther King’s “brand”? Michael Joseph Savage’s “brand”? Norman Kirk’s “brand”? I find this part of it fucking ridiculous.”
Modern drivel speak along the lines of the corporate credo, mission statement etc etc.
Every time I hear someone quoting them I’m reminded of a line I read in the UK years ago –
‘Punch, it’s a load of fucking old wank!’
Oh dear. I sure hope my lotto outlook is brighter.
From Idiot Savant at ‘No Right Turn’:
Useless
So its come to this: after a week of silence on the Ports of Auckland dispute, the Labour Party has come out and confirmed that it is in fact a useless waste of space:
Yesterday Labour industrial relations spokeswoman Darien Fenton, who has been spotted on the picket line at the port, said her party was not taking sides in the dispute.
“We’ve been hoping that the parties will settle this, that they’ll find a way through this.”
Ms Fenton said Mr Shearer had been in regular touch with both sides, “and he’s in contact with me and we’re all discussing it regularly”.
“Our strong view at this point is it’s not helpful for politicians to get involved.”
Its not quite Walter Nash’s “neither for nor against”, but it amounts to the same thing. Faced with a test of its core values, Labour flunked, preferring to sit on the fence than speak up. And as a result, their party’s name is now an exercise in false advertising. What does Labour stand for now? It’s certainly not labour. Instead, all they offer is an alternative set of political managers, a different set of bums on seats. And this is supposed to inspire people to turn out and vote for them? The only thing it inspires me to do is look for a party that actually appears to believe in something.
But its not just a case of undermining their brand. Labour has just sent a clear message to its supporters that that support is a one-way street. You can support them, but they won’t support you. No self-respecting person should accept such a one-sided relationship.
Posted by Idiot/Savant
according to that most right wing of right wing media outlets the dompost, the dispute is about lumbering the POAL with all the costs while the stevedoring is privatised.
that was yesterday for $1.60.
I must check the library to day to see if anything has changed.
Much of the net will soon be dark… many websites are being taken down in protest against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA), which are backed by big entertainment and media interests.
The 18th January 2012 marks the day when sites like Google (not a full blackout), Wikipedia, Reddit and BoingBoing will go black in protest. The blackout will be in effect for 24 hours, worldwide, beginning at 05:00 UTC.
The Jackal has ceased transmission in support of killing the bill. #SOPASTRIKE
SOPA has already been canned by the house. Senate is still going ahead with PIPA AFAIK but without the house passing it, it doesn’t really matter much. Also the executive (white house) issued a statement saying they were very cautious about it; I reckon if it came to it Obama probably would have pocket-veto’d it.
SOPA will be suspended until there’s a broader consensus among lawmakers about the legislation… it has not been canned.
Hey Lanth – just as Obama said he had serious concerns about the NDAA and its detention without trial of US citizens on US soil clause, and that he might veto it?
And then quietly just signed it?
Jenny tried that this morning. For anyone with post editing (at least), her post today showed up as complete black. She’d managed to put in a empty color box div that covered the whole post by default.
I must remember that technique….
I did wonder why that happened.
’twas Jenny Michie. She probably slipped and hit one of the controls on the edit bar for the post. I think I might remove that one.
Good grief. I am a complete technophobe. What can I say, except oops and thanks for rescuing me (again).
P.S. Have I invented something?
If I have, I can ensure you it was completely accidental.
Oops sorry, I meant Jenny Michie in her post.
I haven’t been annoying the trolls for a while and thought today was an excellent day to do just that.
Here is a new video detailing the different elements of the collapse of the three WTC buildings on 911.
Bombs in the basement and the lobby and three pyroclastic flows as hot as a vocano’s pyroclastic flow are some of the puzzling and unexplained issues addressed here.
Enjoy!
I’m pretty sure all the 9/11 hijackers were Iranian. Osama Bin Laden was also Iranian! The Iranians must pay!
And Ahmadinajad financed it all!!!
I always think of the phrase “I’m a dinner jacket” when I hear his name 🙂
You should totally use it in conversation. My boyfriend and I have. It’s fun to watch people’s slight double-take “did I really hear that right?” reactions before they just assume that actually you said his name properly.
We go with “I’m in a dinner jacket” though.
🙂
How’s Richad Gage’s petition coming along? Has he reached critical mass yet? I mean he has been gathering signatures for a good number of years he surely must have close to 100,000 people. It can’t take that long to get support especially when you have the ‘truth’ behind you.
It’ll all come out at the upcoming Toronto conference, Gosman. That’s where the truth will finally be revealed and the guilty parties will be named.
No wait, they already had the Toronto conference and, er, nothing happened. It’s a conspiracy, I tells ya! The NWO engineered the truthers to spontaneously explode under the weight of their own prejudices by igniting the hot air they produce in a series of giant waffle makers that were smuggled into the hall disguised as aircraft.
Damn George W. Bush, the smartest, cleverest and most dangerous drunk and coke addled illuminati to ever walk the earth. Quick, pass the Koolaid, I feel the rapture coming on!
I’m impressed VoR.
I’m also quite interested in finding out more about this Toronto conference. No really I am.
So Travellerev what was the deal with that? Was it meant to be some sort of life changing event or just more much ado about nothing?
Don’t drink the Koolaid, VOR
VOR doesn’t realise that these things take time. Unlike a nano-thermite charge which can cut through an inch of rebar as if it were butter left out on a summers day.
http://www.tumeke.blogspot.com/
The above link is well worth a look imo. Bomber hosts David Cunliffe and ‘Back-Benchers’ presenter, Wallace Chapman, and they discuss their predictions for 2012. They all impress, in their different ways.
RIP Stratos. Still very pissed-off about Stratos and TV 7
Agree, freewiew is becoming a joke and Sky’s the winner under the nats….funny that.
Heartland going behind sky’s paywall is a typical example of taxpayer funded content lining their mates pockets. wonder where recycling rick will pop up next being a good old blueboy.
I watched that this morning, what a great panel. Cunliffe is an exceptionally cool cat. Love listening to him speak, his personality and his politics. Great mix of relaxed, authoritative, friendly and accessible. I think Labour have it right, if Shearer fails to fire, there’s a well oiled machine ready go…
Agree about others being ready to go, not so sure about a well oiled machine…..with rusty relics like Mallard still around the neck.
This is depressing watching.
I watch this wishing more than ever that David Cunliffe was leading our country right now. Or was it’s Finance Minister.
When you think of all the talent that has come out of bfM and craccum matured through our broadcasting system it is also sad that at the moment Wallace Chapman and Bomber can’t get a wider audience for their work. bFm still misses Chapman’s ads.
wait- really really depressing.
Only marginal bright spot is the talk of cooperation between Labour and the other opposition parties, that they would ‘hunt like a pack’. I mean this simply has to happen strategically when you look at the way the Nats have used ACT, Maori party and UF.
Wish Cunliffe had looked this relaxed on previous tv appearances, rather than tried to look finance ministerial. Joyce/Key always look relaxed- it gives them authority even when they are talking crap or spinning moonbeams.
lprent please do something about the geek on here who keeps talking about the other posters but never addressing the issues.
Which one? There are several…
However I draw the limit at fire and forget trolls. If people respond to critics with thought, even if they avoid the questions raised, then they are fulfilling the requirements of the site because they are engaging with people.
Think it through. It is a self-correcting problem. If they wind up with noone bothering to interact with them then their comments by definition become fire and forget (or in the worst cases they wind up talking to themselves) trolls. Then I’d act.
It is the responsibility of commentators to be relevant to the others here. Otherwise they’ll start losing their ability to comment…. evil eh? 😈
I don’t like how the rss feed only shows a snip-it of story, it used to show the whole think.
This means it takes me more time to read your posts and on somedays this will mean I wont read them at all.
Please please go back to the old system, your not loosing money over the difference and if you are are doing it for the vanity of page view then you know you could use feedburner to count how many people are reading your rss feed.
Thanks
The triggering problem was with people reading just the initial RSS feed and responding to that because the client side RSS systems weren’t picking up the revisions. Posts often get a bit of editing just after publishing. I noticed several people doing it and it irritated me (Cactus Kate being the triggering example).
But as the sysop I have been very concerned about RSS for some time as well because the RSS feeds are now starting to rival the spambots for overseas data volumes (and a lot of those appear to be spambots).
Even the traffic for RSS feeds for identifiable people is increasing. Presumably because many people aren’t using aggregation systems like feedburner. I’m always concerned about data volumes especially overseas traffic because if I can keep those down then I can use smaller and cheaper servers.
To give you an idea of the problem. The main server is currently in NZ. It is convenient to keep in NZ because it massively improves performance for the 95+% of our readers who are in NZ. When I moved it back here I set it up with near realtime replication with a server in the US and routed all overseas traffic outside Oceania to it. The problem was as that we ramped up in posts and comments towards the election the replication traffic broke our overseas datacap.
The NZ server has free local traffic and a 60GB overseas traffic datacap that costs $3/GB over that cap. That is mostly because of the costing model for the Southern Cross cable which is horrendous for local servers. Replication was costing us hundreds of dollars per month. So I pulled all of the traffic to NZ and relegated the US server to a warm backup. However as we got closer to the election the overseas traffic kept increasing and shows little sign of dropping post-election. It is now starting to cost us over the cap.
There are a few humans using the overseas data for reading the sites. But mostly it is robots like RSS feeds, spambots and search engines. I’m happy to tolerate the search engines crawling the site (~20GB per month) and I can mostly use SEO tuning to minimize their impacts on our data. Spambots I tend to remove using .htaccess and other tools and their traffic has been reducing.
But the RSS feeds have been most of the the overseas traffic increase. Based on the posts that they picking up (comments have a different pattern) they’re crawling the whole site. So presume they’ve bots and I don’t think that there are too many humans using it.
So I can leave the RSS with full posts. But I’d have to move the server out of NZ to get around these poxy overseas data caps, thereby reducing the service for most of the readers. Or I can massively reduce the size of the RSS posts and piss a few people off – incidentally the people who cost us without helping to pay for the site.
Sorry – RSS is becoming a liability in NZ. If I can figure out a way of doing it, I’ll probably get around to putting full feeds on something like feedburner. But I can’t leave the RSS’s wide open.
Interestingly the prices for international data have gone down by 44%, “coincidentally” at the same time a new trans-tasman cable plan was announced.
So hopefully data will become cheaper in the next few months.
Why not put the RSS feed on a cheaper USA server, speed isn’t really an issue for rss data.
Have to come to the site to read the story would cost you more as the amount of data on a web page vs RSS feed is much greater. 1mb vs 30kb … (public service ads + comments)
Having the RSS data there would not cost so much, if the cost is so much, then use a vpn service like astrill so you can send your data through a NZ vpn address (national data cost) to the USA for $5 a month (vpn cost).
I don’t see much spam on the standard and rss would not be the problem, the user signup would the problem there.
If you update a post from it’s original (rss copy) then have a note saying that it has been updated.
Please reconsider, as a Labour movement (not party) I thought it would be in the Standards ideology to make it as easy as possible to read your content and not make a task more labour intensive that it need be.
I would second the request for a return to full RSS feeds, if at all possible. I read blogs first on my smartphone and the ones that have full RSS feeds are so much easier to read via Google Reader.
For blogs that don’t have full RSS feeds (like Pundit and now The Standard), I generally only read every 2-3 days on my main PC. Even then I still use Google Reader, but it’s so much easier to read websites on a PC screen. (I still appreciate the mobile version of The Standard, but no real comparison to a RSS feed).
http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-18012012/#comment-427898
The problem for me is that we can’t keep bleeding overseas bandwidth and the associated high costs for the few humans that read the channel.
I don’t have time until March at the earliest (I’m moving house in march after I finish my current project) to look for a better fix.
Catching up (been a tad busy).
I think you missed the point.
I don’t care about the cost of people reading the pages inside NZ. Local bandwidth is effectively ‘free’, ie part of the server base cost. But the RSS feed is currently open not only to NZ, but also to the rest of the world and that is where I have a problem. About 90% of the RSS post traffic is from outside the country, probably has nothing to do with human readers, and any overseas traffic has a cap on it beyond which we get charged an excess.
Now I could cut off the RSS for everything outside NZ, which would be easy to do and would get rid of the GB’s of overseas traffic that cause the issue. That would also cut off such overseas sources as feedburner and google reader.
I could have moved the whole server offshore and got around the ridiculous local overseas caps. But that would slow the site for the vast majority of users to satisfy a small minority who use RSS.
I could have done something tricky like a VPN, but bearing in mind the likelihood of violating terms of service with the subsequent demands on my time, I wasn’t really that interested in complicating my own life.
So I compromised and changed it to exactly what is seen when people go to the front page. That should drop the overseas traffic down far enough that we don’t wind up paying excesses for overseas traffic while still keeping the RSS feed open.
It is exactly as easy as it is for everyone else who reads on the site. You are wanting it to be easier.
After I get this code release for work done at the end of Feburary and I start having more free time, I’ll have a look at what else can be done. But in the meantime this solution gets rid of my current problem while limiting only a few readers.
I suspect that the ideal will be to restrict the full RSS feed to inside NZ and to a limited number of overseas aggregating servers like google reader, feedburner, and the like.
Would there be any issues if I data minded the page to build a full RSS feed?
BTW, I don’t think a VPN would break any terms, it would just tunnel traffic through a 2nd NZ service (local data) to the USA. The Astrill NZ service has no worries with data as they provide enough bandwidth for people outside NZ to view TVonDemand.
No problem. There are some traps for scanners, but their params are pretty wide to handle the search engine spiders and the national library.
I don’t see much spam on the standard and rss would not be the problem, the user signup would the problem there.
There should be none. However that doesn’t mean that the buggers down’t spend a lot of effort trying to get in.
Darien Fenton on Labour and the POA dispute:
“Sure, employers can seek reasonable efficiencies, effective labour utilisation and a fair return on investment. The Ports are an important part of our transport infrastructure and they need to be operating as productively and efficiently as possible.
But good faith bargaining and working together to find common ground is the way to achieve this, not wholesale redundancies and contracting out.”
and most importantly which has not been said loudly enough by anyone:
“Three deaths at the Ports of Tauranga in the last 15 months should make us all question the safety of contracted out stevedoring firms who compete with each other for business.
No worker has died at the Ports of Auckland for 18 years.”
Will the POT be charged? Or are we seeing people as expendable like those at Foxxconn in China where they put nets on the sides of their buildings to prevent suicides? It’s a slippery slope and we are heading down not up.
EDIT: see that I/S isn’t buying it as too little too late, and an attempt to mouth words to placate supporters (like me) without actually doing anything or helping the union.
No mention of
1) The difference between assets owned for the public good and those for the maximum profit of private shareholders.
2) No analysis of the wider economic benefits of having a port, i.e. the assessment only deals with the port in isolation.
3) The externalisation of costs on to the community from the withdrawal of wages and dependable permanent employment.
4) The demands of the Auckland City Council for ever higher returns on investment without investigating whether the assumptions behind those demands are at all feasible.
The vitriolic racist comments by Michael Laws regarding the recent rape case involving overseas visitors is disturbing to say the least.
His continual use of “Feral Maori ” is insulting and foul . As far as I know there has be no mention of the race of the offender in this case . The regular ranting against Maori by Laws makes one wonder if he is becoming mentally unbalanced.
‘ makes one wonder if he is becoming mentally unbalanced.’ already has been for some time PP, pretty sure it’s why radio Live use him, shock jock = ratings amongst certain listener groups.
The fact he’s still on air shows both how p’weak our broadcasting rules are and how desperate Mediaworks are for exposure.
I hadn’t heard these comments, but they seem typical of him… 🙁
Yes M. Laws is a racist prick.
I saw him on TV talking about Maori and violent crime and had to wonder why anybody would want the opinion of a fuckwit who talks about shooting newsroom staff.
hot off the MSN news.
Phil Twyford has stepped up to bat for the watersiders.
dont blow it Phil.
you know whats at stake.
and once you’re gone you cant come back.
when you’re out of the blue and into the black.
Oxy Morgan has flicked his Kiwi Saver business, no doubt pocketing a hansom sum in the proses
The oxymoron of Gareth Morgan is that he talks about climate change in one breath, then the next one he is promoting something that locks us into more climate change (for the bad) as the few awake people understand Kiwi Saver is based on continued economic growth. And for Russell Norman’s fictional 25 year old that growth must continue for the next 45 years.
Morgan also likes to fly around the world to go joyriding on his motor bike. His footprint must be the size of several small African villages ;).
yeah, and he let slater and hooton and farrar run riot over maori and jw’s when he owned trademe.
he’s pretty slimy.
For Gosman
“This (austerity) is akin to a doctor telling a patient suffering from pneumonia to go on a diet and get more exercise. While exercise is important, it assumes a healthy patient. If the patient is sick, he must build up his strength until he is physically capable of exercising again…
Balance sheet recessions, which occur when businesses and households rush to pay down debt in spite of zero interest rates, are a kind of pneumonia. The only way to treat them is for the government to become the borrower and spender of last resort with fiscal stimulus aimed at propping up aggregate demand.”
http://pragcap.com/deficits-are-good-during-a-balance-sheet-recession?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
Is reality at some point going to catch up with the Right, now that their ideologies are truly being put to the test, and are failing?
“it would also be obtuse not to recognise that a private-sector and market failure is at the heart of the current crisis; or to reconsider the role that new forms of public ownership could play in a modern economy in the light of China’s experience…”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/17/china-success-challenges-america-britain
Which part of the sovereign debt crisis in Europe is indicative of the failure of the free market?
Other than Greece the Sovereign debt in Europe has escalated as a result of the recession which resulted from the GFC which was the result of Greenspan and his gaggle of Ayn Rand Theocrats believing the invisible hand was all that was needed and failed to see the sub-prime bubble and the CDS’s triggering and subsequent wipe out of Lehman Bros & AIG.. yada yada..
Your Free market caused this crisis Gosman, Greek debt isn’t a get out of jail free card for any but the least informed or the faithful.
Evidently C & T have found a new recruit who managed to slither his way onto the Back Benches panel and started spouting the ‘politics is boring/ hard to understand’ memes…..
Talk about blatent, its not fucking Shortland St buddy, though I hope for your sake you are being paid per word because your delivery has only served to convince me that the right is woefully short on talent.
As for Jorden whoever , now he’s an expert!!!? I thought one of the most important outcomes from winning the referendum was so that we never had to listen to/ look at that annoying prat again.
Wallace, I like your show, but you have got to do a better job of filtering out the lizards.
which part of gosman is the windup key and when is the spring going to break.
the whole thing is a failure of the so called free market.
where is there a free market?
show us all so we can be as enlightened as you!