””It is absolutely extraordinary that they are able to get away with paying zero tax in this country. I really like Apple products – they’re incredibly innovative – but it looks like their tax department is even more innovative than their product designers,” Shaw said.”
apple ripping nz of
Why don’t we just have a 10% tax on all money as it leaves the country ,?
Very good work by Mr Nippert again. John Campbell has also been on the Apple case for more than a year – trying to get some explanation from Apple about their activities in NZ.
According to Nippert, Apple has at least several dozen employees in NZ. It’s NZ sales are handled by its Aussie office – so can claim not to have a business here, I think. Legal but morally dodgy.
“Apple aims to be a force for good and we’re proud of the contributions we’ve made in New Zealand over the past decade. Because our products and services are created, designed and engineered in the US, that’s where the vast majority of our tax is paid,” the spokesperson said.
But aren’t most of the products made by cheap labour in Asian countries?
Spark chief executive Simon Moutter said Apple’s zero tax bill reinforced his concerns that New Zealand’s tax base was threatened by the burgeoning wave of technology companies.
“Some of these companies are willing to use every trick in the book to minimise the tax they pay towards the cost of running our schools, hospitals and social infrastructure,” Moutter said.
…
“Whether something can be done about it is another question. The United Kingdom and Australia are taking a lead on this and it will be interesting to see how it works out for them.”
Both Australia and Britain have gone further than the New Zealand Government and impose a diverted profits tax on companies trying to unfairly skirt national tax obligations.
John Payne, spokesman for the big business umbrella outfit the Corporate Taxpayers Group, cautioned against radical changes to the tax regime and warned the mechanism used by Apple was also used by local exporters.
“It’s Tax 101 in terms of activity … and it’s quid pro quo for us when we’re operating similarly in another country,” Payne said.
But NZ companies tend not to be on the same scale as the likes of Apple. So NZ ultimately is the loser. We’d be better off if all companies, NZ and others, paid a fair share of the tax in countries where they sell products and get some income.
Although I suspect there is some self / corporate interest there – good on Simon Moutter for sounding more engaged in the country’s welfare than our RW Nact Politicians.
Don’t forget any local competitor is stuck with uncompetative outcomes as they pay onshore tax.
Is the TOP tax policy actually a good idea? Or is it just a brainfart from a mouthy millionaire out-of-touch economist that can only see things in terms of dollars?
Most of the argument will no doubt focus on the harmful effects on the asset-rich income-poor, such as the elderly who live in areas where property values have skyrocketed. This policy suggests they build up debt to pay their imputed tax, which destroys their security and peace of mind. Or they sell up and move out, which trashes the idea of community. Basically these problems come about from viewing a home as just another capital asset, which economists only value for producing income. The alternative is a capital gains tax, as used in most of the rest of the world. This gets levied at the time of sale, at the time the property has changed from being a home to just another financial instrument.
But this policy also favours businesses with low capital requirements such as Trademe, Infometrics etc over businesses that require substantial capital investment to produce tangible goods. For instance, this 3D printing firm http://www.rapidman.co.nz/ would have needed to invest a huge chunk up-front to start up their 3D printing business. Slamming them with a tax liability on that investment right from the beginning would be a big disincentive to starting up. But long term, it’s the actually tangible goods businesses that are better for the economy.
Hitting farmers with a capital tax strikes me as a particularly crap idea. It gives them yet more incentive to try to wring yet more income from their very expensive investment. Do we really want to drive more intensification by changing the tax system to favour it?
The TOP proposal also puts a continuous burden on cashflow. This adds another difficulty to companies going though a rough patch, and may put some under that would otherwise survive.
Seems to me a capital gains tax, as used in most of the rest of the world, is a much fairer, less distortionary way of taxing capital. I favour including everything, even family homes (with rollover provisions for family homes). It more fairly captures the income enjoyed by the founders of businesses with low capital requirements that achieve a high sell price because of intangibles such as customer base, brand, intellectual property. TOP’s proposal is light on companies such as TradeMe, Infometrics, Charlie’s, 42 Below, while it would hit hard companies like F&P that need to invest in substantial equipment.
Finally, since capital gains taxes are widely used elsewhere, there’s plenty of other examples to look to and pick what works and eliminate the loopholes from the beginning.
My reading of their tax policy is more as a capital investment policy. The tax is on equity, so is designed to encourage property owners to borrow against their property and to invest in income generating businesses.
A noble aspiration, and a very correct observation of what is wrong with all our wealth tied up in non-productive real estate, and Morgan’s ideas may be a solution to that, but there’s some serious transition issues around how we get there.
Also, on the face of it, a huge structural subsidy (even more of a licence to print money) in favour of the banks.
Encouraging debt can’t be a good thing. I know of a bunch of businesses that went under 2009/2010. Most of them were running on borrowed money. I know a bunch of businesses that survived 2009/2010 with just a bit of belt-tightening. Most of them were debt-free or nearly. The correlation was pretty good.
Let alone encouraging more mortgage debt to avoid paying tax to live in your own home…
Seems to me a better way to encourage investment in more productive sectors is to clean up the financial shenanigans that make non-property investment so unattractive in NZ.
Yeah, I’m not a fan of it for those reasons too. The whole thing looks like a few rather noble ideas with rather poorly thought out execution. But that’s how Morgan operates.
You’re on the button about this problem needing a carrot approach to make productive investment safer than hence more attractive than real estate. It’s the financial markets that need the stick, not the property owners.
That’s a bit too generic a statement. A lot of new investment is debt funded so any form of encouraging investment is going to encourage debt. The problem occurs when your getting a lot of debt taken on which is chasing capital gains anticipated due to expanding underlying debt levels.
In terms of Morgans policy proposals, I doubt that the indirect measures like tax changes will have much effect. Even a capital gains tax has worked where? If we were serious about stopping the housing bubble in NZ then you need to prevent competition in taking on more debt directly. The LVR ratio is a start but needs to apply property by property (to stop competition between borrowers) and the cap could be on all borrowing, and lower. Also its still tied into the valuations, so make it loan to rental income to serious stop the competition in who can take on the biggest loan at purchase time.
Cleaning up the share market and dodgy practices there would do a lot to improve investment, but it will take a long while to kick in, many people have been scammed in the past and have a long memory.
I too doubt capital gains taxes will do much to slow the housing bubble inflating.
CGT is more an equity argument about those that benefit from a societal environment that allows capital investment to be protected and grow being required to contribute something back to maintaining that society. Instead of parasitically keeping it all in their pocket like they do now in NZ.
I don’t really believe in that fairness arguments. If some people are profiting off of others falling into significant indebitedness, that is unfair and problematic for society even if the government is taking a cut or even a very significant cut. If Capital Gains Taxes actually work then they need to be set at levels where they collect very little revenue because the underlying behavior is being discouraged by them. On the other hand I don’t think I have seen any examples of them working to actually achieve that.
My reasoning around Morgan’s tax policies is that essentially he believes the market is fundamentally pretty rational and so if profit is discouraged by taxation then this behavior will desist. I don’t think the market is anywhere near that rational, there are plenty of analysis saying that essentially many property investors are already losing money with their housing speculation and would get better returns with more productive investments anyway.
“A lot of new investment is debt funded so any form of encouraging investment is going to encourage debt. The problem occurs when your getting a lot of debt taken on which is chasing capital gains anticipated due to expanding underlying debt levels.”
The problem occurs when the interest paid gobbles up profit to the extent that little or no income tax is paid. Banks, however, don’t invest in businesses; they lend to investors, whether proprietors or shareholders, who do the investing. The trouble is that monies borrowed represent a personal benefit to the borrower since he is provided thereby with funds to invest in, and own, a business or property, and of course interest is the cost of that personal benefit, and personal benefits, while normally not tax deductible (this why we have fringe benefit tax), seem to have been deemed deductible in the case of interest.
Getting rid of deductibility of interest for tax purposes would probably mitigate many problems.
Banks do lend to businesses, interest is only deductible for the payer of the interest, so if interest is being deducted before profits are taxed then the business is making the interest payments.
We don’t want investment in productive businesses because they pay more tax to the government (which is pretty much irrelevant). We want that because it avoids the economy being a contest in speculation, which is prone to busts. Getting rid of interest deductibility is unlikely to solve that problem, though it is likely to make borrowing have a higher interest cost which will likely hamper investment in productive business as well as speculation. That kind of measure needs to be carefully targeted at speculative businesses.
“Banks do lend to businesses, interest is only deductible for the payer of the interest, so if interest is being deducted before profits are taxed then the business is making the interest payments.”
Businesses don’t pay interest; the person to whom the monies were lent, ie the proprietor, pays the interest. It doesn’t matter whether the proprietor pays it from his “business” account or from his “personal” account, it is the proprietor who is paying.
The issue is not the effect that non deductibility would have on this or that business. The issue is whether it is fair that someone who puts his own savings into (say) a rental property, and earns a decent profit, pays a respectable amount of tax, while someone who borrows heavily to invest pays very little tax because most of his profit is being eaten up by a personal expense.
of course they can, but will the government be able to continue paying the Accommodation Supplement that would allow Landlords to charge higher rents?
and how long before we have riots in the streets and would that be a good outcome?
Hmm, but maybe that is the intended outcome, destroy a bit of real estate, lock up a few people, insurance pay out, rebuild, charge higher rents.
so how do you like your current society vs the one i just painted?
cause it seems that the ‘burn down the house in which you are living’ is a thing at the moment with certain people on the left and the right.
“Seems to me a capital gains tax, as used in most of the rest of the world, is a much fairer, less distortionary way of taxing capital. I favour including everything, even family homes (with rollover provisions for family homes).”
A capital gain is still capital, but it represents only a small part of the capital that exists.
It is therefore difficult to see how taxing capital gains is “fairer” or “less distortionary”
when other capital is not being taxed.
“Finally, since capital gains taxes are widely used elsewhere, there’s plenty of other examples to look to and pick what works and eliminate the loopholes from the beginning.”
CGTs don’t seem to have “worked” elsewhere. Countries that have them seem to have just as many problems with property as we have here. I suspect the reason most countries persist with them is because they are a relatively easy to collect form of revenue. That they do not have much effect on interest rates probably makes them popular with the banks as well.
Great thread of discussion. At Gareth Morgan recent meeting he talked about stamp duty and estate duty that used to be ways of clipping tickets of valuable assets. Seems good idea if not set unreasonably high. Farms shouldn’t have to be sold to pay death duties etc.
It would be fairer to bring down GST to 7andhalf as I envisage, and make up the slack with tax on transferring properties. Any being sold under 5 years ownership, having a good tax on the difference between purchase and sale, only allowing for CPI and reasonable costs. (That way there would be a little correction for the huge difference between CPI and the burst in house prices.)
This is only connected in that it involves business people playing with their money in NZ to help them to get all of our money of us. Old news bac in 2012 but for lovers of interesting back stories might fill in gaps
Why is urban land expensive in NZ? Because it is just a way to gain Monopoly
money.
The property was acquired by Victoria Properties Consolidated in 2005 for $5.4 million with an optimistic forecast of potential value of $18 million to be gleaned from section sales after rezoning….
About 150 mainly Otago investors have money in the Victoria group, which is managed by Britannia Management, whose directors include National Party director and Canterbury Westland chairman Roger Bridge and financial adviser Craig Myles.
Probably where some of the payout from Hubbard’s South Canterbury Finance debacle went.
Agreed. Maybe after their Republican Messiah bloodies their collective noses, they’ll feel a little differently. Although, judging by some of the comments Trump’s supporters have made in the past, coherent thought is simply a bridge too far.
Trump: "Major meeting" tonight at Mar-a-Lago to "talk all about the VA"*turns to VA Sec.*Will you be there?*awkwardly shakes head no* pic.twitter.com/Up2tPEIxbO— Steve Kopack (@SteveKopack) March 17, 2017
this was after their meeting and i would suggest that Mutti just did not give him the love he so thinks he deserves.
Also there is that Mutti thing that they orange one has, unless the chick is young, has big boobs and a fine ass he is not interested. All other women, especially ones with guts and smarts remind him to much of his mother. And he can’t bribe his mother into fucking him for a pot of gold, cause shes seen it all before and he aint anything special. 🙂
it takes a lot of guts to board a ship at seventeen and to move to a new country to work as a domestic, even if you have sisters that already live and work there.
Mother Trump had guts and in the end lived glory, as she did well in the US.
Hekia has been attempting to bully Salisbury School into closure for many years now, by denying girls the best facility in the country for their needs, instead preferring they use a ‘wrap around’ service.
Once again we discover another story of the struggle a family has gone through over a number of years to have their daughter attend Salisbury School.
Finally she has been excepted, Salisbury will change and improve her life and that of her family tremendously.
I wish this family all the very best, your girl is going to love Salisbury, so happy you finally got there.
A change of government will help to keep one of the most valuable schools in the country open.
Some wrap around services must be making a fortune, Salisbury school is not about making money, it’s about improving lives. Would be interesting to know who is making money from the wrap around services, someone is.
Have you any idea what ‘wrap around services’ are or are they just double speak for actually doing nothing?
I’m not surprised they’ve been trying to shut down what seems to me to be a great school – they’ve been making it harder and harder for children with additional needs to access suitable education.
For that matter, they’ve been busy screwing the whole education system from top to bottom to suit their own ideological ends – they’ve got to go!!!
Have you any idea what ‘wrap around services’ are or are they just double speak for actually doing nothing?
I suspect that it’s doublespeak for the average, run of the mill school that suits most children but is detrimental to those that are outside the norm.
Yesah Salisbury School is an incredible place which saves lives.
Sometimes residential care is the best option rather than mainstream school. And the way this school prepares the girls for life is outstanding. Like when they reach a certain age they are moved to little villas to live with each other, on site with staff support, to give them life skills in a supportive controlled environment. Awesome.
They get to experience a strong sense of community, not only in the school, but also in Richmond itself and sometimes that will be the first time some girls have ever felt a sense of community or inclusion.
Hekia has been hell bent on closing Salisbury down, it’s more like a competition to her, the urge to win. People shouldn’t play games like that with the lives of others.
It’s so hard for me to understand why push the wrap around services which haven’t worked for some families, rather than supporting a facility that has been up and running and making a huge difference for decades. So I begin to wonder things like… do her friends have a wrap around service business?
Should some parents not be told about the school from the beginning as an option?
Anyways, Salisbury is a very very good school, huge respect for all the staff whom have made it so amazing over the many years it has been operating, and looking forward to seeing the roll increase in the future, rather than more road blocks, and more suffering from the outgoing government.
Connections?
Rangiora High School has Trust land. The Ministry wants to grab the control off the BOT so they can sell the land. So destroy Principal and BOT.
Salisbury has valuable land. The Ministry wants to grab the control off the BOT so they can sell the land. So destroy Principal and BOT and strangle the entrance for the girls.
Good on Parata! Yay!
Kempthorne wants the school to remain open, and is vocally strong about his support, so many MP’s are as well, Tracey Martin, Catherine Delahunty, Chris Hipkins, Damien O’Connor and others, am so thankful to them for their ongoing support
Beware of moving from Auckland Council (Corporate) Controlled Organisations (CCOs) to Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs).
This upcoming ‘review’ needs to, in my view, make a top priority of returning all public services provided by Auckland Council and CCOs back to ‘in house’ service provision under the genuine, not-for-profit public service model.
Which was never broken before we had two doses of Neo-liberal ‘Rogernomic$’ reforms forced upon the public majority of Aucklanders.
In my view, we also need a huge clean out of ex-private sector businesspeople from ‘public servant’ roles.
How do people from the private sector ‘transmogrify’ into genuine public servants – serving the public and the public interest?
In my view – they don’t.
They’re from Planet ‘Private Profit’ and come from a completely different background and culture
– make money for shareholders – look after yourself and your mates?
Time for some BIG changes!
OPEN THE BOOKS!
CUT OUT THE CONSULTANTS ,
CONTRACTORS and CCOs!
BRING COUNCIL PUBLIC SERVICES BACK ‘IN HOUSE’ UNDER THE ‘NOT-FOR-PROFIT’ PUBLIC SERVICE MODEL!
This upcoming ‘review’ needs to, in my view, make a top priority of returning all public services provided by Auckland Council and CCOs back to ‘in house’ service provision under the genuine, not-for-profit public service model.
That’s would be the desired end result but the review should do an unbiased cost/benefit review. If they do that then moving all back in house should be a no-brainer.
The PPP model simply costs too much for limited returns that often makes things worse.
“If Forest & Bird gets its way, marine farming could never be considered…”
While “Forest & Bird Otago/Southland regional manager Sue Maturin said it did not consider marine farming to be appropriate for internationally significant and special places such as Fiordland and the wild pristine waters of Stewart Island, or the marine mammal sanctuaries for Hector’s dolphins in Curio Bay and Te Wae Wae”.
They’re talking about two bays by the sounds of things. Sounds reasonable.
“He was concerned the Wellington-based organisation was “not prepared to compromise” and said court action would cost a lot of money for Southland ratepayers.”
I’m sure all the Southland F and B members and volunteers who work in the area will love that bit.
Weka Interested to know more about 2 Bays… interested in hearing more.. Link Please…
Seems a default setting/response whenever these sorts of questions are raised…
“court action would cost a lot of money for Southland ratepayers.” (or any her Ratepayers… Why is is it that only Ratepayers count when these are National issues! Just like Dairy Intensification!
Northland/Westland/Canterbury/Horowhenua… wherever… Why is it that only Ratepayers, (As I am), only allowed to comment on/have impute into “district” issues”
Surely Marine Farming in Fiordland or Stewart Island, (as part of NZ), or the planet! If it’s unsustainable/ and/or inappropriate,( In some circumstance) (Just like Cows in the McKenzie Country, or Canterbury…) Why is it that these issues can only be allowed/commented on by _”Rate Payers”..
When there is so much apathy locally surely there’s a need for other parties to put their 10 cents worth in. For the Good of All!
Or can the few in Jackson’s Bay, ( or the Westland Council) determine whats Best…
I only know about Curio and Te Waewae Bays issues from the article (although I have been to both places too). I trust F and B’s judgement. Hopefully Robert Guyton will comment. He would also know if there is a place for non-rate payers to have input.
I also think getting it written into the Regional Policy Statement is critical, because so much time, energy, effort and resource is being wasted having to refight these battles over and over and over.
My concern is that too many people are saying we need to put a price on water. I think we should have a moratorium on all new exports until we sort this out.
If we’re going to keep with a market system then we most definitely need to put a price on it.
Me, I’d like to put science on it and determine just how much water we can use before it becomes unsustainable.
I’m also pretty sure that we’re well into the unsustainable usage now and it’s just getting worse as the farms suck up more water and the water bottlers export it.
“If we’re going to keep with a market system then we most definitely need to put a price on it”
Quite. Which is why I think focussing on the price rather than a moratorium is buying into neoliberal framing. Have the conversation first about water being life, then talk about the limits, then see what if any price is needed. But then I think bottling water for profit is up there in terms of evil alongside Monsanto or chopping down rainforest to make burgers.
“Me, I’d like to put science on it and determine just how much water we can use before it becomes unsustainable.
I’m also pretty sure that we’re well into the unsustainable usage now and it’s just getting worse as the farms suck up more water and the water bottlers export it.”
I also believe we are well past anything remotely sustainable. I’m not sure we could even determine what sustainable is under the current system. Industrial export dairying would have to stop for a start, and no-one even wants to talk about that apart from those of us who have nothing to lose. And Rachel Steward 🙂
Look at the bigger picture. Bottled water is a pollutant because of plastic’s accumulation in the environment (e.g. the Pacific gyre), and because plastic is an endocrine disruptor.
Exporting water has a ridiculous carbon cost. It actively supports the despoilment of local aquifers and watersheds in the places it is being sold. There is a reason people need to ship water from here. It’s daft beyond all reasoning to be moving water from one side of the planet to another using fossil fuels, but even if that were sustainable, it doesn’t get around why people need the water in the first place. Making money off other people’s destruction of the environment is not only amoral, it’s going to back lash against us. You think people with bigger sticks won’t come and take water from us if we let the civilisation get to the point of mass water wars?
“It is very little water that the bottlers are exporting.”
That argument I am not convince about. It’s the overall take from a catchment that counts, and if an aquifer is depleting (e.g. farming), then taking out water for bottling is still a further depletion. We also don’t know what the demand will be going forward except that it’s most likely to increase and may increase exponentially. We should be setting limits now, not doing what we have done with dairy and seeing how far we can push the plunder. From what I understand replenishing an aquifer is not a quick or easy thing, and by the time we get to that point we will be well into direct climate change issues.
We’re already at the point of fucking with the groundwater beyond our ken,
Everyone agrees that the world has real physical limits. The interesting bit starts when you talk about what those limits are, how close we are to exceeding them, and what should be done about it.
My point is that water bottling (as opposed to dairy) takes you only a very little closer to reaching a hard limit.
Everyone agrees that the world has real physical limits.
That’s not actually true. Many of the conservative bent don’t think that the world has limits. They’re easy to spot as they insist that we can just keep using more and more of the worlds limited resources with consequences.
Bottling water is fine because it uses so little. Owning and running a car is fine because it uses so little.
They don’t seem to understand the effect of multiplication and that it’s not just a single bottling plant and just one car being but many. That the demands upon those scarce resources isn’t just one thing but many and they all have their cost that reduces amount available.
You cannot have your cake and eat it too.
But very few people understand that. Even, IMO, most economists don’t get it despite it being at the root of their profession.
My point is that water bottling (as opposed to dairy) takes you only a very little closer to reaching a hard limit.
But what is the limit? Without knowing that how can you say that water bottling doesn’t take us over it?
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The Ugandan government wants to murder gay people:Uganda has announced plans to impose the death penalty on homosexuals. The bill, colloquially known as “Kill the Gays” in Uganda, was nullified five years ago on a technicality, but the government said on Thursday it plans to resurrect it within weeks. The ...
Freedom Of Speech? The Säuberung (cleansing by fire) was the work of the German Student Union which, on 10 May 1933, under the watchful eye of the Nazi Reichminister for Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, consigned 25,000 books to the flames in a ritual exorcism of “un-German thought”. According to the logic of the ...
“There can be no such thing as kaupapa Māori political parties or politics in Aotearoa” (Willie Jackson, Labour Party (2017). Māori TV, General/List Election Special) I begin with that claim because at the time, I was confounded at first that it fell out of Willie Jackson’s mouth, and then ...
New Zealand has prided itself for decades with regard to its lack of pollution, and all will be aware that the ‘100% Pure New Zealand‘ meme is under threat through land, water and air pollution of various causes. There is another type of contamination that the country also faces: light ...
New Zealand’s media is doing its part in Japan, reassuring those in the path of the storm that they won’t miss any rugby while away from their flooded homes. New Zealand sports reporters stationed in Japan for the Rugby World Cup have had the rare and heartwarming opportunity to inform ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones is the only Cabinet member in favour of putting it all on green. As Finance Minister Grant Robertson finds himself with an enormous $7.5 billion surplus, the Government has begun intense, at times contentious conversations about whether to put the money on red or black at ...
by Susanne Kemp At the start of September close to 100,000 school teachers went on strike in Jordan. They demanded a 50% pay rise. A pay rise actually agreed to by the regime back in 2014. In early October, however, in the face of government repression and threats, the teachers’ ...
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nzWhy do people still think climate change isn’t real?David ...
Back in 2011, journalist Nicky Hager published Other People's Wars, an expose on NZDF's activities over the previous decade of the "war on terror". NZDF didn't like this, and especially didn't like the fact that it was base don leaks from their own. So, they had the SIS investigate him ...
The Zero Carbon Bill is due back from select committee in two weeks, and will likely pass its final stages in November. So naturally, farmers are planning a hate-march against it. But they're not just demanding lower methane targets so they can keep on destroying the planet; they're also demanding ...
Last year, California burned. This year, to stop it happening again (or rather, to stop themselves from being found liable if it happens again), Pacific Gas and Electric is cutting power to half the state for a week:Schools are closed. Traffic lights down. Tunnels dark. Businesses unopened. Hospitals running on ...
The Best Way: Missing from the on-line voting debate is any reference to the voting system that produces turn-out figures ranging from 77 to 93 percent of registered voters. The voting system used to collect and count the votes cast in our parliamentary elections. The system that involves citizens making ...
Among the great new bunch of political friends we have been making recently is the excellent Australian-based Marxist gender-critical site, Freer Lives. So we asked the comrade who set up that blog to write something for Redline on the blog, himself, his analysis of the rise of gender politics and ...
by Don Franks The Auckland City Mission is struggling with a 40 percent increase in demand for food parcels this year. A total of 23,020 were needed by June. Last month Missioner Chris Farrelly told the Herald the “cupboards are bare” and without an emergency food drive, he can’t see ...
by The Council of Disobedient Women Massey Wellington Student Association had a sit-in today. Imagine a sit-in. On a campus. Against a women’s rights meeting. Did the ’60s really happen or did we fucking dream it? They gathered in the student square, an echo chamber. Sitting on soft pillows ...
For some reasons, my post about the mystery message from inside the Downing Street bunker seemed to catch people's attention. Quite a lot of hits from NZ (unsurprisingly) and the USA (a bit more puzzlingly, but hi there, USAians!!) and 76 views from the Ukraine.I've celebrated my Ukrainian readers in ...
First, almost a score of Labour MPs seem to have sent a letter to the EU basically begging them to accept a deal - any deal - just so Britain can get the Heck on with Brexiting instead of being trapped in limbo:
by Phil Duncan In 2016 the National-led government suspended the Parent Visa Category, through which migrants were able to bring their parents into New Zealand. Since then over 5,700 people have been in immigration limbo, stuck on the visa wait list. Labour is now bringing back the scheme. Well, sort ...
The following was released yesterday (Tues, October 8) by the women’s liberation organisation Speak Up for Women. On 23 September Speak Up For Women announced that we would be holding an event at the Massey University Theaterette in Wellington. The event is called Feminism 2020. The intention of the event ...
The government is currently consulting on plans to improve freshwater quality. So naturally, farmers oppose it:South Taranaki farmers are preparing to fight proposed national freshwater changes that some fear will bankrupt them. The Government's proposed National Environment Standard on Freshwater Management, released in September, rated the Waingongoro River as one ...
Yesterday was the last day for (reliably) posting your vote away in local body elections. Turnouts are mostly much lower than the equivalent time last year (Palmerston North is down 2.3%), and so naturally people are pushing their online-voting snake oil again. Because the online census worked so well, lets ...
This essay, on the political legacy of the eugenics movement, by Kenan Malik was originally published in the Observer on 6 October 2019, under the headline ‘The spirit of eugenics is still with us, as immigrants know to their cost’. Birth control. Intelligence tests. Town planning. Immigration controls. It’s striking how ...
Another year, and the government has announced another enormous government "surplus". And just like last year, its nothing of the sort. When we have people homeless and sick and hungry, when we have schools and hospitals still falling down, when we have underpaid public servants and infrastucture unmaintained or unbuilt, ...
James Forsyth at The Spectator (I know, I know) has tapped one of his contacts inside Number Ten for an insight into the Johnson administration's thinking and strategy.It is fascinating, unsettling and quite, quite mad. Some key points:Negotiations have stalled and the Johnson administration are keen to blame the EU: ...
Fatal Contact: With the arrival of captain James Cook in October 1769, the islands of what would become New Zealand ceased to be the preserve of Polynesian navigators and settlers and became a part of both the world’s map and the world’s history.THE MAORI NATIONALIST assault upon the historical meaning ...
Another round of tactical talks about forming a Government of National Unity have come to nothing with the Liberal Democrats still refusing countenance putting Jeremy Corbyn into Downing Street:Opposition talks on Monday made little headway over when to try and vote down Boris Johnson's government and who might succeed him as ...
by Nick Rogers The debate around the meaning of sex and gender made an appearance at this year’s British Labour Party conference in Brighton. Women’s Place UK – an organisation that questions the demand that biological males who self-identify as woman should have access to women’s spaces, to all-women shortlists, ...
Yesterday I went down to Wellington to participate in the Extinction Rebellion protest. Its part of the latest global wave of XR actions, with actions happening all over the world. Some of those protests are massively disruptive: in Canada, XR is blocking major bridges, stopping people from getting to work. ...
The Workshop is a charitable trust for public good. The Workshop undertake research to find ways of communicating that will build support for the solutions that work to solve complex social and environmental problems. See their Report on Talking about Poverty and Welfare Reform below. ...
What is language? We generally assume that it a facility unique to humans, allowing us to share what’s in and on our minds. We can tell of our plans, our past exploits, our knowledge. It also allows us to lie. And yet there are vast numbers of people we can’t ...
Being and Being Bought (Spinifex Press, 2013) by Kajsa Ekis Ekman A synopsis and commentary of Chapters 1-2 by Daphna Whitmore Ekman, a Swedish journalist and critic, brings together a Marxist and feminist analysis of prostitution and surrogacy in this groundbreaking book She opens the discussion with a definition of ...
I make no claims to having much legal knowledge, so I defer to those trained in this area.I am very much enjoying this twitter stream from m'learned friend in Edinburgh, deciphering the legal arguments around the Scottish court challenge to Boris Johnson, based on the charmingly obscure principle of Nobile ...
Ivory Folly? The University of Auckland’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Stuart McCutcheon, upheld the right of the radical nationalist group, Action Zealandia to exercise their freedom of speech – not matter how distasteful that speech might be. A wiser community of students and scholars would have nodded their agreement and moved on. ...
If you are not convinced terrorist Organisation ‘Extinction Rebellion’ is very, very dangerous – watch this video at one of their recent meetings. Not only is this obviously mentally ill Woman begging the other terrorists to promote killing and “eating” babies and children, if you watch carefully other members nod ...
The Ombudsman has been surveying people about their knowledge of the OIA and the right to information. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem that widespread:The Chief Ombudsman says too many New Zealanders were in the dark over their right to access official information. Peter Boshier said an independent survey released yesterday on ...
In the wake of last Friday's climate strike, Peter McKenzie had an article in The Spinoff about protest strategies. The school strike movement is "polite" and cooperates with those in power because that's its kaupapa - its led by schoolkids who understandably don't want to risk arrest. But there's more ...
So, the latest ruminations on the gnews from Westminster (Again, sorry; I'll stop making that pun right now). This follows on from, and likely repeats bits of, my last post, on the suggestion that a Government of National Unity (GNU) should be set up and then oversee a referendum before ...
New Zealand likes to think of itself as not a racist country (despite being founded on the racist dispossession and subjugation of Maori). But for years, we've had a racist refugee policy, which basicly excludes refugees from Africa and the Middle East unless they already have relatives here. Now, the ...
Several people have asked me whether a particular repeat litigant could be declared a vexatious litigant, in light of their recent decision to appeal an adverse High Court ruling. My nascent tweet thread was getting ridiculously long, so it became this blog post instead.The short answer is: no. The particular ...
Appealing To The Past: Action Zealandia, like so many of the organisations springing up on the far-Right, across what they call the “Anglosphere”, is born out of the profound confusion over what a man is supposed to be in the twenty-first century and, more importantly, what he is supposed to do.THE STATUE OF ...
The attempts of anti-democratic transactivists to (often violently) disrupt women’s rights organising is largely ignored by those sections of the left most prone to misogyny and authoritarianism in New Zealand. In Britain, however, scores of trade union and left activists added their names to a letter in July, defending ...
The Justice Committee has reported back on the Criminal Cases Review Commission Bill. The Bill would establish an independent, quasi-judicial body to investigate and review potential miscarriages of justice, and refer them back to the Court of appeal if required. It would be a vital backstop to our judiciary, help ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters is predicting a hard Brexit for the United Kingdom, as he believes British Prime Minister Boris Johnson won’t be able to negotiate terms before the October 30 deadline. The Minister, who was one of the first to publicly come out and predict British voters would leave ...
Speaking at the Council of Trade Unions' (CTU) biennial conference, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters told unionists that any future attacks on the Government won't work. "Now, we are being attacked by the union movement in this country. You can have your views but I'm here to say standing ...
We want every New Zealander to be happy, safe, and healthy. To do this, we need to support strong, safe communities, and a robust and efficient health system. ...
Defence Minister Ron Mark has used his powers to overrule a noise complaint ruling against Whenuapai airbase on the grounds of "national security". The Environment Court last month released a ruling in favour of a private developer, declaring the Auckland airbase had to comply with noise restrictions when it performs ...
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has opened fire against "unreconstructed morons" after NZ First MP Shane Jones was photographed on holiday holding an AR-15 rifle. Mr Peters is defending Mr Jones, telling Magic Talk host Peter Williams that his MP was just having fun "like most people do". "The ...
New Zealand First Deputy Leader and Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau was in attendance during the morning blessing of the Rotorua Lakefront development project. Around 60 people gathered on the shores of Lake Rotorua, including city mayor Steve Chadwick and deputy Dave Donaldson. The Lakefront development is a ...
Forestry Minister Shane Jones is considering reining in on conversions of farmland to forestry, and also issued a warning to foreign-owned forestry companies that make up nearly 75 per cent of the industry. He said too many foreign companies had not provided enough access for domestic processors to get timber. ...
Speaking to Radio NZ, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters said the tightening of the parental category visa is a direct result of the Party’s coalition negotiations with the Labour Party. He said the new changes switch the financial onus from the parent moving to New Zealand to the child ...
The Coalition Government is set to cut red tape in the building and construction sector in an effort to allow more houses to be built, including prefabricated houses. The changes will enable the mass factory production of "high quality" buildings, slash the likely number of building inspections for factory produced ...
Since coming into Government, we’ve worked hard to tackle homelessness and make sure everyone has a warm, dry home. And today, on World Homeless Day, we want to report back and update you on our progress so far. ...
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has hit back at National Party leader Simon Bridges who criticized the Coalition Government’s approach to crime, and said that the latter isn't credible in his attack on the Government over gang recruitment. "We've got as massive drug problem in this country. It is ...
New Zealand Mānuka honey exporters have welcomed an initiative by the Coalition Government to help secure the term “mānuka honey” to be used exclusively by Kiwi exporters, ensuring that our multimillion-dollar industry is protected. Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones had recently announced that a Provincial Growth Funding of $5.7 ...
Political commentator Mike Hosking has labelled New Zealand First leader Winston Peters as “the voice of reason in a government soft on drugs”, for the Party’s stance on drug testing at music festivals. “If common sense is worth a vote, Winston Peters is quids in,” Mr Hosking said. The Labour ...
Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau has announced Provincial Growth Funding to ensure work opportunities in Turangi and Whanganui, through its skills and employment programme, Te Ara Mahi. A fund of $500,000 will go to Rafting NZ in Turangi for a 16-week river guide training course to train ...
Treasury has shown that the Coalition Government has a $7.5 billion surplus, which is $4 billion higher than what was expected in the 2019 Budget unveiled last May. It is also $2 billion higher than the actual surplus unveiled this time last year, and at a size that has not ...
Official Information Act figures released to NZME show there were 350 assaults on officers in the year to the end of June, 79 more than the year before. The increase in attacks have sparked calls for more legal protection for first responders to be enacted. The assaults included officers being ...
“Nobody wants to see babies uplifted”, this was the pronouncement of Minister for Children Hon. Tracey Martin as her department, Oranga Tamariki, faces multiple inquiries into the number of babies being taken from their families. “But a baby can die with a single punch, “the Minister continued. “So sometimes, Oranga ...
We're making progress on tackling the long-term challenges: from homelessness, to strengthening border security, to bringing banking back New Zealand's small towns. ...
Associate Transport Minister Shane Jones has backed the ambitious plan to move Auckland’s port to Northport, at Whangarei harbour, which he says will be the “King Kong of infrastructure”. The plan is part of the recommendations of a six-person independent working group, which has recommended the Ports of Auckland be ...
A six-member independent working group selected the option of moving Auckland’s port to Northport, in Whangarei, ahead of other options. In what could be New Zealand’s most ambitious infrastructure project yet, a major expansion of the Marsden Point port could happen within 15 years. The project, officially called the “Upper ...
The final Electricity Price Review recommended prohibiting prompt payment discounts but allowing “reasonable” late fees. The findings of this review was welcomed by the Coalition Government, but they hope companies will follow through with its recommendations without regulations needed to be passed. Meridian Energy had already stopped prompt payment discounts, ...
Fletcher Tabuteau, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF)through its skills and employment programme, Te Ara Mahi,will invest nearly $600,000 to ensure work opportunities for locals in Turangia and Whanganui, Parliamentary Under Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau announced today. “I’m pleased to announce the PGF ...
An export-led economy is one of New Zealand First’s key principles, and our commitment to achieving this is shown by the continuing skyrocketing demand for our beef and sheep meat exports. Beef + Lamb New Zealand's New Season Outlook 2019-20 report forecasts beef, lamb and mutton prices to lift from ...
Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today in Gisborne an investment of $17.27m into bringing “world-leading” food-growing technology and the creation of more than 100 new jobs in the East Coast city. The funding comes from the Provincial Growth Fund, and included a $15 million loan to LeaderBrand, a ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development More than 100 people in Tairāwhiti’s Tolaga Bay will benefit from two employment initiatives supported by the Provincial Growth Fund, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones and Employment Minister Willie Jackson announced today. “Tolaga Bay is an incredibly tight-knit community, but one in ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) is supporting Gisborne business Leaderbrand to produce salad vegetables year round and create more jobs in the Tairāwhiti region, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today. “Our support for Leaderbrand will help them build large greenhouses ...
“Nobody wants to see babies uplifted”, this was the pronouncement of Minister for Children Hon. Tracey Martin as her department, Oranga Tamariki, faces multiple inquiries into the number of babies being taken from their families. “But a baby can die with a single punch, “the Minister continued. “So sometimes, Oranga ...
Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has praised the promise by New Zealand’s biggest banks not to close any provincial branches while the Coalition Government trials regional banking hubs across the country. The Minister said the announce was the “first sign of hope for regional communities”, many of which have ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, New Zealand First Leader New Zealand First is proud to have delivered an upgrade of the SuperGold Card website and a new smartphone app, which will help unlock the full benefits of the SuperGold Card for 750,000 New Zealand seniors.Party Leader Rt Hon Winston Peters, ...
Delivering a key election campaign promise, New Zealand First is proud to have accomplished a long overdue upgrade of the SuperGold Card today. At an event in Auckland, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters joined Minister for Seniors Hon. Tracey Martin in unveiling the new website and smartphone app which ...
Another busy week, from speaking with world leaders on the world stage about climate change, to equipping our school leavers with everything they need to get ahead in life. ...
At 1.30pm tomorrow, hundreds of thousands of Kiwis will join about 65 million people around the globe in ShakeOut, the world’s biggest earthquake drill. The annual drill is to remind people of the right action to take during an earthquake which is to Drop, Cover, Hold, and to practise their ...
Kiwis are benefiting from higher wage growth and low inflation under the Coalition Government. Stats NZ data out today shows the rise in the cost of living remains low, as annual Consumers Price Index (CPI) inflation fell to 1.5% in September from 1.7% in June. “The low inflation comes as ...
New Zealand’s economic strength and resilience has been recognised in a major update on the state of the global economy. The IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook released overnight shows a reduced global growth forecast over the next two years as issues like the US-China trade war and Brexit take hold. ...
Justice Minister Andrew Little has today introduced a new Bill to prevent terrorism and support the de-radicalisation of New Zealanders returning from overseas. The Terrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Bill gives the New Zealand Police the ability to apply to the High Court to impose control orders on New Zealanders who ...
A Bill that proposes targeted changes to simplify the processes for Māori land owners when engaging with the Māori Land Court has had its First Reading today. “The approach taken by the Government is to ensure that the protection of Māori land remains a priority as we seek to improve ...
Let me first thank all the new unionists and members in the room. There is nothing more important to improving people’s working lives than people making the decision to care, to get on board and help, to take up the reins and get involved. Congratulations to you. You bring the ...
Minister of Defence Ron Mark has signed a certificate exempting the activity of engine testing at Whenuapai Airbase from the Resource Management Act 1991. The Act gives the Minister of Defence the power to exempt activities for the purposes of national security. The certificate will mean the recent Environment Court ...
Finance Minister Grant Robertson has announced New Zealand will join the Coalition of Finance Ministers for Climate Action while attending APEC meetings in Chile. The objective of the 39 member Coalition is to share information and promote action to tackle climate change. It was formed in April this year, in ...
Ladies and gentlemen, NZCTU President Richard Wagstaff, members of respective unions – thank you for the invitation to speak to you today. This might be preaching to the choir, but the importance of trade unions in New Zealand’s historical arch is difficult to understate. And it is my belief that ...
"Let’s start by acknowledging that it has been a huge year. " Police Association Annual Conference James Cook Grand Chancellor Hotel Wellington Nau mai, haere mai. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, ka nui te mihi, ki a koutou katoa. President of the Police Association, Chris Cahill; Members of the Association and ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters and Minister of Defence Ron Mark have announced the New Zealand Government’s decision to again deploy a Royal New Zealand Air Force P-3K2 (P-3) maritime patrol aircraft to support the implementation of United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions imposing sanctions against North Korea. New ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters says New Zealand continues to have serious concerns for peace and stability in north-east Syria. “Recent reports that hundreds of ISIS-affiliated families have fled from a camp are deeply concerning from a humanitarian and security perspective”, Mr Peters says. “While we acknowledge Turkey’s domestic security ...
Biosecurity Minister Damien O’Connor is warning travelling Kiwis to be vigilant as the high-season for the crop-eating brown marmorated stink bug (BMSB) is under way. “We’re on high alert to stop BMSB arriving in NZ. The high season runs until April 30 and we’ve strengthened our measures to stop stink ...
The Government is moving swiftly to change the law to improve the welfare and pastoral care of students living in university halls of residence and other tertiary hostels. Cabinet has agreed to several changes, including creating a new mandatory Code of Practice that sets out the duty of pastoral care ...
The Minister for Conservation Eugenie Sage has launched a new comprehensive trapping guide for community trappers to help them protect our native birds, plants and other wildlife, at Zealandia in Wellington today. ‘A practical guide to trapping’, has been developed by the Department of Conservation (DOC), and was launched during ...
Associate Health Minister Julie Anne Genter welcomes PHARMAC’s move to improve access to long-acting reversible contraception (LARCs). PHARMAC has today announced it will fund the full cost of Mirena and Jaydess for anyone seeking long term contraception, lifting previous restrictions on access to Mirena. “I welcome women having greater choices ...
The Government has approved the next stage of a major redevelopment of Taranaki Base Hospital, which will deliver new and improved facilities for patients. Health Minister Dr David Clark has announced details of a $300 million dollar project to build a new East Wing at the New Plymouth hospital. It ...
Extra funding will allow Rural Support Trusts to help farming families, says Minister for Rural Communities and Agriculture Damien O’Connor. “I know that rural families are worried about some of the challenges facing them, including the ongoing uncertainty created by the Mycoplasma bovis outbreak. “Those concerns sit alongside ongoing worries ...
Thank you for the opportunity to be here to present certificates to the 16 graduates who have completed a beekeeping course delivered by the Howard League. Let us start by acknowledging Auckland Prison’s Deputy Prison Director Tom Sherlock, and Acting Assistant Regional Commissioner of Corrections Northern Region Scott Walker - ...
Finance Minister Grant Robertson leaves this weekend to attend the APEC Finance Ministers meeting in Santiago, Chile. Discussions between APEC Finance Ministers at the meeting will include the effects of the current global economic uncertainty, risks for APEC economies and sustainable development of the region. While at APEC Grant Robertson ...
The Minister for Pacific Peoples Aupito William Sio says for Pacific people, language can be a source of strength. It can help ground us and give us confidence. When we speak them, our languages provide us with an immediate and intimate access to our identity and our story - and ...
The Coalition Government has announced an action plan to improve the wellbeing of disabled New Zealanders by addressing inequalities in play, active recreation and sport. The initiative includes training to develop a workforce that understands the needs of children and young people with a range of impairments, advocacy for fit ...
The construction sector is being freed up to allow more homes to be built more quickly as the Government cuts through some of the red tape of the Building Act. “Every New Zealander deserves a warm, dry, safe home and old inefficiencies in the Building Act make building slow and ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has welcomed further details on the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall’s visit to New Zealand next month. Their Royal Highnesses will visit New Zealand from 17-23 November – their third joint visit to New Zealand and first in four years. They arrive in Auckland ...
Minister of State for Trade and Export Growth and Minister of Agriculture, Damien O’Connor, heads to Thailand today to attend the final Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) Ministerial meeting, as negotiations enter their final stages. “The RCEP Agreement would anchor New Zealand in a regional agreement that covers 16 countries, ...
Pacific young people living in the Hawke’s Bay, Southland and Otago regions will have access to support services that have proved successful in helping young people find new earning and learning opportunities. “Tupu Aotearoa is about changing Pacific young peoples’ lives. Our young people are talented, they are smart, they ...
Introduction As the Minister for ACC I thank you all for the work that you do supporting New Zealanders in their literally most vulnerable moments. From those who hold people’s lives in their hands, to the people who research technique, technology and trends, your work is highly valued. A special ...
Notes prepared for speeches in Christchurch – Wednesday 9 October 2019 Today’s topic, “trends and opportunities for the New Zealand economy,” is certainly one getting a great deal of commentary at the moment. Looking across the media landscape lately you’ll notice we aren’t the only ones having this discussion. There ...
Minister of Health Dr David Clark and Associate Minister of Health Peeni Henare say this year’s World Mental Health Day theme is a reminder of why the Government’s work on mental health is so important. “This year the World Federation for Mental Health has made suicide prevention the main theme ...
Associate Arts, Culture and Heritage Minister Carmel Sepuloni will represent the government at Australia’s Meeting of Cultural Ministers in Adelaide this week. “This year’s meeting is special because New Zealand is expected to become an International Member of the Meeting of Cultural Ministers at this Australian forum,” Carmel Sepuloni said. “The meeting is an opportunity to ...
The Greater Christchurch Claims Resolution Service has resolved 608 insurance and EQC claims in its first year in operation, Minister Megan Woods has announced. The government service, which celebrates its first birthday today, provides a one stop shop to help Cantabrians still battling to get their homes repaired or rebuilt ...
Today’s topic, “trends and opportunities for the New Zealand economy,” is certainly one getting a great deal of commentary at the moment. Looking across the media landscape lately you’ll notice we aren’t the only ones having this discussion. There has been an increasing amount of attention paid to the outlook ...
The Government is acting swiftly to strengthen NZTA’s regulatory role following a review into the Transport Agency, and Ministry of Transport’s performance as its monitor, Transport Minister Phil Twyford said today. An independent review by Martin Jenkins has found NZTA failed to properly regulate the transport sector under the previous ...
The Netherlands and New Zealand have a long-standing and close relationship based on many shared interests and values. We value the rule of law, our democracies, and multilateralism. And we value our environment – at home and globally. Right now there are major global challenges in all of these areas – ...
The Government is putting right a decade’s worth of underpayment to nurses, doctors and other health workers, says Health Minister Dr David Clark. Initial sampling of District Health Boards payroll records has found that around $550-$650 million is owed to DHB staff to comply with the Holidays Act. It’s expected ...
A strong surplus and low debt show the economy is performing well, and means the Government is in a good position to meet the challenges of global economic uncertainty. “The surplus and low levels of debt show the economy is in good shape. This allows the Government to spend more ...
New applications from mining company OceanaGold to purchase land in Waihi for new tailings ponds associated with its gold mines have been approved. Minister of Finance Grant Robertson and Associate Minister of Finance David Parker considered the applications under the Overseas Investment Act. Earlier this year, applications from OceanaGold to ...
New Zealanders in Tūranganui-a-Kiwa / Poverty Bay will witness Māori, Pākehā and Pacific voyaging traditions come together today as the Tuia 250 Voyage flotilla assembles for the first time, Māori Crown Relations: Te Arawhiti Minister Kelvin Davis says. “Tuia 250 is a national commemoration and an opportunity for honest conversations ...
Minister for Trade and Export Growth David Parker leaves tomorrow for Dubai, London and Berlin for a series of meetings to advance New Zealand’s trade interests. In Dubai he will visit New Zealand’s Pavilion at Expo 2020 where construction is underway. There he will meet Minister of State for International Cooperation, Her ...
Confirmation that PHARMAC will fund two new cancer drugs is further evidence of the good progress the Government is making to improve the treatment of New Zealand’s leading cause of death, Health Minister David Clark says. From 1 December PHARMAC will fund alectinib (Alecensa) for ALK positive advanced non-small cell ...
Alex Casey talks to Henessey Griffiths, a 22 year-old Dunedin student who just finished her dissertation about one of Youtube’s most controversial stars. Content warning: this article contains mention of suicide, please take careYesterday afternoon in Dunedin, honours student Henessey Griffiths sent a tweet that was a year (or rather, five ...
The Transport Minister has released almost all of the letters he's received from Green MPs, but still refuses to release the letter from Julie Anne Genter that is now at the centre of an Ombudsman complaint. ...
Court documents have confirmed Winston Peters was sent a letter by officials four years into his seven-year overpayment of national superannuation asking him to check details he had supplied, including that he was 'single'. ...
Olympic sailors Blair Tuke and Peter Burling are throwing their weight behind a campaign encouraging New Zealander consumers and businesses to reduce their plastic pollution. ...
National Party leader Simon Bridges says his MP Agnes Loheni let him know she'd be contesting the candidacy for Botany, adding it's a "free world". ...
Think you’ve got your KiwiSaver sorted? Try Kōura’s ‘robo-advice’ questionnaire and you might be surprised.If a person who looks like they know about finance asks you whether your appetite for risk is low, medium or high, what do you say? The problem is most Kiwis don’t understand what the question ...
The Social Services and Community Committee is seeking submissions on the Rates Rebate (Statutory Declarations) Amendment Bill. This bill aims to improve the process of applying for rates rebates. It proposes: • Removing the requirement to make a statutory ...
The Māori Affairs Committee is calling for submissions on the Te Ture Whenua Maori (Succession, Dispute Resolution, and Related Matters) Amendment Bill. ...
The New Zealand Police have been used as a political pawn which is stretching their resources and seriously affecting their ability to address the real causes of crime, such as gang related supply of illicit drugs. ...
Alex Casey yarns to Karen O’Leary, early childhood teacher by day and star of Wellington Paranormal and What We Do in The Shadows by night. Two of the funniest moments in New Zealand television last year were entirely fence-based. First up there was Agni on The Block NZ, who packed a ...
NZ Police wish to clarify that cartridges filled with steel or lead shot are not prohibited. They may still be used under the Arms (Prohibited Ammunition) Order 2019 as shotgun cartridges are specifically excluded from the prohibition order. ...
NZ Police wish to clarify that cartridges filled with steel or lead shot are not prohibited. They may still be used under the Arms (Prohibited Ammunition) Order 2019 as shotgun cartridges are specifically excluded from the prohibition order. ...
Josie Adams is in tonight’s episode of Have You Been Paying Attention. Specifically, she is in the audience.When you watch Have You Been Paying Attention? tonight, please consider the bladders of audience members watching it live. They offer beverages, but my God it’s a dangerous offer. As I found out ...
Despite comments from Auckland City Council CCOs Board Chairs re pay and performance bonuses for top managers—Herald Newspaper Tuesday Oct 15th--there is very little evidence that says high pay and bonuses improve the performance of a company. Most ...
By Michael Andrew Pacific diplomats, academics and youth leaders will gather in Auckland this week to discuss security, economic development and other pressing issues shaping the region’s future. Pacific Futures will be held on October 18 and will feature speakers from across the region, including Samoa’s Deputy Prime Minister ...
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Fast food company Restaurant Brands has made a smaller half year profit largely because of accounting changes as it prepares to invest heavily in the launch of Taco Bell in New Zealand. ...
Pacific Media Centre Newsdesk Papua New Guinea police have issued a warrant for the arrest of former Prime Minister Peter O’Neill. According to EMTV News, the Waigana district court issued the warrant which was based on evidence previously compiled by police investigators. Acting Police Commissioner David Manning said he ...
Patient Voice Aotearoa welcomes the comments made by the Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters on ‘The Project’ on Friday last week. Peters stated “Right now…we know we are not spending nearly enough on pharmaceuticals and first world drugs…the ...
The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union is calling on outgoing Porirua Mayor Mike Tana to repay money clocked up on his ratepayer-funded fuel card for personal travel. The Ernst and Young report released yesterday reveals that, within less than three ...
Barely a month after the Solomon Islands switched diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to the People’s Republic of China, the country’s Central Province has signed an agreement with the Beijing-based Sam Group to develop Tulagi Island, across Ironbottom Sound from the capital Honiara. Tulagi was the pre-war base of the British ...
We review the entire country and culture of New Zealand, one thing at a time. Today, a new hole-in-the-wall eatery in Auckland dedicated to New Zealand’s favourite snack.Cheese On Toast has unsavoury connotations for a lot of New Zealand music fans, but now you can wash that bad taste out ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Md Arif Hasan, PhD candidate, Victoria University of Wellington CC BY-NDClimate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.If you have a question you’d like an expert ...
There’s an innovation renaissance brewing in post-earthquake Christchurch as multicultural entrepreneurship replaces the old boys’ network. This required a new name, writes Steven Moe.An unusual name that evokes images from Harry Potter is fine by the Ministry of Awesome, because it immediately sets it apart. Founded in the aftermath of ...
Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) and Ngā Tāngata Microfinance endorse the Salvation Army’s call for tougher regulations on debt collectors and mechanisms to provide forgiveness or waivers for debts to private lenders and Government that are "effectively ...
Cotton On members are currently negotiating a new Collective Agreement with their employer, but despite the company’s repeated claims that they will provide “a pathway to the living wage”, a “people first focus” and a “commitment to ...
Today the Wellington Howard League releases the results of its fourth annual Wellington Howard League prison survey. The survey suggests a variation in the conditions experienced across prisons in New Zealand and an overall decline in most aspects surveyed. This ...
Some people go for a run to let off steam after work, while others try their hand at ballroom dancing or hit up a pub quiz. And some, as Greta Yeoman discovers, throw sharp objects at walls. She gives it a go.An uncoordinated, anxious journalist with terrible aim is probably ...
A move by Australia's financial regulator could be enough to turn the big banks' threat to ditch New Zealand into a reality - or at least see them charge customers more. ...
A staffing survey carried out by the senior doctors’ union, the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists, has found a gaping shortfall of hospital specialists at the Northland DHB. ...
Iain Lees-Galloway has defended granting residency to a man with multiple drink-driving convictions saying the person had been in the country for 20 years and had kept out of trouble for a long time. ...
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.Today’s content by Dr Bryce Edwards.Industrial relations Luke Malpass (Stuff): Winston Peters holds the keys to new union laws. Will ...
Not the impeachment investigation. Nor Ukraine. Syrian Kurds.Last week, Turkey invaded the bit of Syria controlled by America’s Kurdish hitherto-allies, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan says he only wants to occupy a border strip to resettle Syrian refugees and create a buffer zone between ...
Yes we fully support Minister of transport plan to use special speed cameras finally catching all speeding trucks, and other vehicles on our narrow single lane roads that are not fit to use as a speedway by any vehicle. ...
This afternoon Fish & Game posted a public statement responding to my email to supporters this morning – specifically rejecting our claim that steel shot is now deemed "enhanced penetration ammunition" and therefore possession of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mandie Shean, Lecturer, School of Education, Edith Cowan University Two-thirds of young people experience levels of exam stress that mental health organisation ReachOut describes as “worrying”. Research shows high levels of exam stress can interfere with attention and reduce working memory, leading ...
The National Party's outrage that the Immigration Minister granted residency to a protected person and recidivist drink driver, entitling them to the same benefits as New Zealanders, has backfired. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jennifer Beckett, Lecturer in Media and Communications, University of Melbourne Reports of Facebook moderators’ appalling working conditions have been making headlines worldwide. Workers say they are burning out as they moderate vast flows of violent content under pressure, with vague, ever-changing guidelines. ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Marshall, Lecturer, Landscape Architecture and Urban Ecology, University of Melbourne You may mock the national anthem by singing “Our land abounds in nature strips” but what you might not know is how true that is. In Melbourne, for example, more than ...
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Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Pressure on government from unions, mosque attack victim widows turned down for residency, and another Nat eyes safe Botany seat nomination.Pressure is being put on the government to deliver on one of their major promises to the union movement, reports the NZ ...
It’s the end of an era at Three as MAFS NZ and Guy Williams’ new show canceled and 7 Days cut to bone, writes Duncan Greive.A trio of shows which have been amongst Three’s most important local productions are either being canceled or severely cut back, as the channel’s agonising ...
'Joker' expects viewers not only to understand its cruelty, but to understand the justified violence of a white man when the protests of black men and women in the US are regularly met with condemnation, vilification and exclusion. ...
She runs the women's Aussie Rules and netball programmes at one of Australia's oldest sports clubs, so why is Jane Woodlands-Thompson sitting on the Silver Ferns bench? ...
As someone with a severe chronic illness, Hannah McGowan has a vested interest in getting to the bottom of what cannabis can and can’t do for her health. The reality, she discovers, is complicated.Woo [colloq.]: Mystical, supernatural or pseudo-scientific beliefs not backed up by evidence. I crave a well informed, ...
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Open Mike 18/03/2017 
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http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11820240
””It is absolutely extraordinary that they are able to get away with paying zero tax in this country. I really like Apple products – they’re incredibly innovative – but it looks like their tax department is even more innovative than their product designers,” Shaw said.”
apple ripping nz of
Why don’t we just have a 10% tax on all money as it leaves the country ,?
Suspect this would infringe our international commitments
So does being a tax haven.
Thanks to the National Party, we are in no position to say jack shit about people who avoid tax.
Tobin tax, about same size as CC charge.
Very good work by Mr Nippert again. John Campbell has also been on the Apple case for more than a year – trying to get some explanation from Apple about their activities in NZ.
According to Nippert, Apple has at least several dozen employees in NZ. It’s NZ sales are handled by its Aussie office – so can claim not to have a business here, I think. Legal but morally dodgy.
But aren’t most of the products made by cheap labour in Asian countries?
But NZ companies tend not to be on the same scale as the likes of Apple. So NZ ultimately is the loser. We’d be better off if all companies, NZ and others, paid a fair share of the tax in countries where they sell products and get some income.
Although I suspect there is some self / corporate interest there – good on Simon Moutter for sounding more engaged in the country’s welfare than our RW Nact Politicians.
Don’t forget any local competitor is stuck with uncompetative outcomes as they pay onshore tax.
Apple’s ripping every country off. That’s why it keeps all of its profits in tax havens.
And, yes, a Tobin Tax is a remarkably good idea if we’re going to keep offshore ownership.
Hi draco, I seem to recall dear leader saying the havens provided $43m to those who administered them, so be relaxed.
The same reason you pay no tax when buying shit from overseas. Tax isn’t applied in the foreign country in most cases.
sorry you are wrong i don’t spend my time trying to avoid paying for all the good things like schools and medical help
Is the TOP tax policy actually a good idea? Or is it just a brainfart from a mouthy millionaire out-of-touch economist that can only see things in terms of dollars?
http://www.top.org.nz/top1
Most of the argument will no doubt focus on the harmful effects on the asset-rich income-poor, such as the elderly who live in areas where property values have skyrocketed. This policy suggests they build up debt to pay their imputed tax, which destroys their security and peace of mind. Or they sell up and move out, which trashes the idea of community. Basically these problems come about from viewing a home as just another capital asset, which economists only value for producing income. The alternative is a capital gains tax, as used in most of the rest of the world. This gets levied at the time of sale, at the time the property has changed from being a home to just another financial instrument.
But this policy also favours businesses with low capital requirements such as Trademe, Infometrics etc over businesses that require substantial capital investment to produce tangible goods. For instance, this 3D printing firm http://www.rapidman.co.nz/ would have needed to invest a huge chunk up-front to start up their 3D printing business. Slamming them with a tax liability on that investment right from the beginning would be a big disincentive to starting up. But long term, it’s the actually tangible goods businesses that are better for the economy.
http://www.vox.com/new-money/2017/3/16/14939624/tesla-billion-raise-uber
Hitting farmers with a capital tax strikes me as a particularly crap idea. It gives them yet more incentive to try to wring yet more income from their very expensive investment. Do we really want to drive more intensification by changing the tax system to favour it?
The TOP proposal also puts a continuous burden on cashflow. This adds another difficulty to companies going though a rough patch, and may put some under that would otherwise survive.
Seems to me a capital gains tax, as used in most of the rest of the world, is a much fairer, less distortionary way of taxing capital. I favour including everything, even family homes (with rollover provisions for family homes). It more fairly captures the income enjoyed by the founders of businesses with low capital requirements that achieve a high sell price because of intangibles such as customer base, brand, intellectual property. TOP’s proposal is light on companies such as TradeMe, Infometrics, Charlie’s, 42 Below, while it would hit hard companies like F&P that need to invest in substantial equipment.
Finally, since capital gains taxes are widely used elsewhere, there’s plenty of other examples to look to and pick what works and eliminate the loopholes from the beginning.
My reading of their tax policy is more as a capital investment policy. The tax is on equity, so is designed to encourage property owners to borrow against their property and to invest in income generating businesses.
A noble aspiration, and a very correct observation of what is wrong with all our wealth tied up in non-productive real estate, and Morgan’s ideas may be a solution to that, but there’s some serious transition issues around how we get there.
Also, on the face of it, a huge structural subsidy (even more of a licence to print money) in favour of the banks.
Encouraging debt can’t be a good thing. I know of a bunch of businesses that went under 2009/2010. Most of them were running on borrowed money. I know a bunch of businesses that survived 2009/2010 with just a bit of belt-tightening. Most of them were debt-free or nearly. The correlation was pretty good.
Let alone encouraging more mortgage debt to avoid paying tax to live in your own home…
Seems to me a better way to encourage investment in more productive sectors is to clean up the financial shenanigans that make non-property investment so unattractive in NZ.
Yeah, I’m not a fan of it for those reasons too. The whole thing looks like a few rather noble ideas with rather poorly thought out execution. But that’s how Morgan operates.
You’re on the button about this problem needing a carrot approach to make productive investment safer than hence more attractive than real estate. It’s the financial markets that need the stick, not the property owners.
“Encouraging debt can’t be a good thing.”
That’s a bit too generic a statement. A lot of new investment is debt funded so any form of encouraging investment is going to encourage debt. The problem occurs when your getting a lot of debt taken on which is chasing capital gains anticipated due to expanding underlying debt levels.
In terms of Morgans policy proposals, I doubt that the indirect measures like tax changes will have much effect. Even a capital gains tax has worked where? If we were serious about stopping the housing bubble in NZ then you need to prevent competition in taking on more debt directly. The LVR ratio is a start but needs to apply property by property (to stop competition between borrowers) and the cap could be on all borrowing, and lower. Also its still tied into the valuations, so make it loan to rental income to serious stop the competition in who can take on the biggest loan at purchase time.
Cleaning up the share market and dodgy practices there would do a lot to improve investment, but it will take a long while to kick in, many people have been scammed in the past and have a long memory.
I too doubt capital gains taxes will do much to slow the housing bubble inflating.
CGT is more an equity argument about those that benefit from a societal environment that allows capital investment to be protected and grow being required to contribute something back to maintaining that society. Instead of parasitically keeping it all in their pocket like they do now in NZ.
I don’t really believe in that fairness arguments. If some people are profiting off of others falling into significant indebitedness, that is unfair and problematic for society even if the government is taking a cut or even a very significant cut. If Capital Gains Taxes actually work then they need to be set at levels where they collect very little revenue because the underlying behavior is being discouraged by them. On the other hand I don’t think I have seen any examples of them working to actually achieve that.
My reasoning around Morgan’s tax policies is that essentially he believes the market is fundamentally pretty rational and so if profit is discouraged by taxation then this behavior will desist. I don’t think the market is anywhere near that rational, there are plenty of analysis saying that essentially many property investors are already losing money with their housing speculation and would get better returns with more productive investments anyway.
“A lot of new investment is debt funded so any form of encouraging investment is going to encourage debt. The problem occurs when your getting a lot of debt taken on which is chasing capital gains anticipated due to expanding underlying debt levels.”
The problem occurs when the interest paid gobbles up profit to the extent that little or no income tax is paid. Banks, however, don’t invest in businesses; they lend to investors, whether proprietors or shareholders, who do the investing. The trouble is that monies borrowed represent a personal benefit to the borrower since he is provided thereby with funds to invest in, and own, a business or property, and of course interest is the cost of that personal benefit, and personal benefits, while normally not tax deductible (this why we have fringe benefit tax), seem to have been deemed deductible in the case of interest.
Getting rid of deductibility of interest for tax purposes would probably mitigate many problems.
Banks do lend to businesses, interest is only deductible for the payer of the interest, so if interest is being deducted before profits are taxed then the business is making the interest payments.
We don’t want investment in productive businesses because they pay more tax to the government (which is pretty much irrelevant). We want that because it avoids the economy being a contest in speculation, which is prone to busts. Getting rid of interest deductibility is unlikely to solve that problem, though it is likely to make borrowing have a higher interest cost which will likely hamper investment in productive business as well as speculation. That kind of measure needs to be carefully targeted at speculative businesses.
“Banks do lend to businesses, interest is only deductible for the payer of the interest, so if interest is being deducted before profits are taxed then the business is making the interest payments.”
Businesses don’t pay interest; the person to whom the monies were lent, ie the proprietor, pays the interest. It doesn’t matter whether the proprietor pays it from his “business” account or from his “personal” account, it is the proprietor who is paying.
The issue is not the effect that non deductibility would have on this or that business. The issue is whether it is fair that someone who puts his own savings into (say) a rental property, and earns a decent profit, pays a respectable amount of tax, while someone who borrows heavily to invest pays very little tax because most of his profit is being eaten up by a personal expense.
> Getting rid of deductibility of interest for tax purposes would probably mitigate many problems.
It would send rents through the roof
A.
too late, they are already sky high.
Oh they can still go higher
of course they can, but will the government be able to continue paying the Accommodation Supplement that would allow Landlords to charge higher rents?
and how long before we have riots in the streets and would that be a good outcome?
Hmm, but maybe that is the intended outcome, destroy a bit of real estate, lock up a few people, insurance pay out, rebuild, charge higher rents.
so how do you like your current society vs the one i just painted?
cause it seems that the ‘burn down the house in which you are living’ is a thing at the moment with certain people on the left and the right.
Steady on, raising rents was mikesh’s idea not mine!!
“Seems to me a capital gains tax, as used in most of the rest of the world, is a much fairer, less distortionary way of taxing capital. I favour including everything, even family homes (with rollover provisions for family homes).”
A capital gain is still capital, but it represents only a small part of the capital that exists.
It is therefore difficult to see how taxing capital gains is “fairer” or “less distortionary”
when other capital is not being taxed.
“Finally, since capital gains taxes are widely used elsewhere, there’s plenty of other examples to look to and pick what works and eliminate the loopholes from the beginning.”
CGTs don’t seem to have “worked” elsewhere. Countries that have them seem to have just as many problems with property as we have here. I suspect the reason most countries persist with them is because they are a relatively easy to collect form of revenue. That they do not have much effect on interest rates probably makes them popular with the banks as well.
CGT doesn’t do much by itself – land tax and stamp duty are much more powerful options.
Great thread of discussion. At Gareth Morgan recent meeting he talked about stamp duty and estate duty that used to be ways of clipping tickets of valuable assets. Seems good idea if not set unreasonably high. Farms shouldn’t have to be sold to pay death duties etc.
It would be fairer to bring down GST to 7andhalf as I envisage, and make up the slack with tax on transferring properties. Any being sold under 5 years ownership, having a good tax on the difference between purchase and sale, only allowing for CPI and reasonable costs. (That way there would be a little correction for the huge difference between CPI and the burst in house prices.)
Further on housing
A piece on the bust of a Toronto housing bubble had me thinking of previous NZ ones.
In 2009
http://www.interest.co.nz/news/44330/opinion-why-golden-oldies-are-wrong-housing-less-affordable-now-1987-and-1975-corrected
and in 2016
http://transportblog.co.nz/2016/07/11/remember-the-last-time-house-prices-crashed-40/
John Key is going to work for this Japanese businessman/golfing enthusiast/philanthropist/priest Handa! Now where have I heard this name before?
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11820452
Handa was made an honorary member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2016…
Gee, I wonder who arranged that for him?
This is only connected in that it involves business people playing with their money in NZ to help them to get all of our money of us. Old news bac in 2012 but for lovers of interesting back stories might fill in gaps
Why is urban land expensive in NZ? Because it is just a way to gain Monopoly
money.
https://www.nbr.co.nz/article/tuesday-heartland-moves-over-toxic-nelson-loan-ch-p-127482
The property was acquired by Victoria Properties Consolidated in 2005 for $5.4 million with an optimistic forecast of potential value of $18 million to be gleaned from section sales after rezoning….
About 150 mainly Otago investors have money in the Victoria group, which is managed by Britannia Management, whose directors include National Party director and Canterbury Westland chairman Roger Bridge and financial adviser Craig Myles.
Probably where some of the payout from Hubbard’s South Canterbury Finance debacle went.
trump is a rude man – what possible reason other than that is there for this?
nah nothing stacks up – he is a petulant, pathetic man-child
“”Do you want to have a handshake?” Merkel asked Trump, leaning closer to Trump after the US president failed to respond to the requests.
Trump continued to stare straight ahead and didn’t answer, leaving Merkel high and dry.”
http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/americas/90579146/donald-trump-angela-merkel-hold-first-facetoface-meeting-at-white-house
Whatever he is, he just loooooves sticking it to the marks that voted for him.
http://www.salon.com/2017/03/17/trump-is-cutting-programs-that-help-the-appalachian-voters-who-helped-put-him-in-office/
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/03/donald-trumps-budget-sticks-it-people-who-elected-him
It may be the only way that those people are going to realise that the Republicans are not their friends.
Agreed. Maybe after their Republican Messiah bloodies their collective noses, they’ll feel a little differently. Although, judging by some of the comments Trump’s supporters have made in the past, coherent thought is simply a bridge too far.
Oh, I’m sure that there’ll be a few that will find some way to blame Obama and the Democrats for what Trump does.
The grey matter’s melting.
https://twitter.com/SteveKopack/status/842751054769020928
this was after their meeting and i would suggest that Mutti just did not give him the love he so thinks he deserves.
Also there is that Mutti thing that they orange one has, unless the chick is young, has big boobs and a fine ass he is not interested. All other women, especially ones with guts and smarts remind him to much of his mother. And he can’t bribe his mother into fucking him for a pot of gold, cause shes seen it all before and he aint anything special. 🙂
Nah. How much guts and smarts would it take to go stay with one of three sisters already in the states. Plenty of other Lewis women took off round the same time. Smart move marrying Fred though.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3602299/An-uncomfortable-truth-REAL-story-Trump-s-mother-climbed-penniless-Scottish-immigrant-wife-businessman-revealed.html
it takes a lot of guts to board a ship at seventeen and to move to a new country to work as a domestic, even if you have sisters that already live and work there.
Mother Trump had guts and in the end lived glory, as she did well in the US.
Her middle child however …..
German reporter – Why do keep saying things you know are not true?
They shook hands later.
http://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2017-03/angela-merkel-donald-trump-besuch
Christchurch City Council committee keen to introduce city’s own dollar.
The committee is focusing on the Bristol Pound as a potential model.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/90493334/christchurch-city-council-committee-keen-to-introduce-citys-own-dollar
Parents win ‘fight’ to get daughter into Salisbury School
Hekia has been attempting to bully Salisbury School into closure for many years now, by denying girls the best facility in the country for their needs, instead preferring they use a ‘wrap around’ service.
Once again we discover another story of the struggle a family has gone through over a number of years to have their daughter attend Salisbury School.
Finally she has been excepted, Salisbury will change and improve her life and that of her family tremendously.
Salisbury School is NZs most valuable educational facility for girls with complex needs, a wrap around service is not enough for some girls, Salisbury saves lives.
I wish this family all the very best, your girl is going to love Salisbury, so happy you finally got there.
A change of government will help to keep one of the most valuable schools in the country open.
Some wrap around services must be making a fortune, Salisbury school is not about making money, it’s about improving lives. Would be interesting to know who is making money from the wrap around services, someone is.
Have you any idea what ‘wrap around services’ are or are they just double speak for actually doing nothing?
I’m not surprised they’ve been trying to shut down what seems to me to be a great school – they’ve been making it harder and harder for children with additional needs to access suitable education.
For that matter, they’ve been busy screwing the whole education system from top to bottom to suit their own ideological ends – they’ve got to go!!!
I suspect that it’s doublespeak for the average, run of the mill school that suits most children but is detrimental to those that are outside the norm.
This explains wraparound services:
http://www.education.govt.nz/school/student-support/special-education/intensive-wraparound-service-iws/
Salisbury sounds very good
A.
Thanks for that – sounds like a few hours with a psychologist and on yer bike! Charming!
A cynical piecemeal approach that has one advantage from the National Party’s perspective: it’s easier to defund.
Yesah Salisbury School is an incredible place which saves lives.
Sometimes residential care is the best option rather than mainstream school. And the way this school prepares the girls for life is outstanding. Like when they reach a certain age they are moved to little villas to live with each other, on site with staff support, to give them life skills in a supportive controlled environment. Awesome.
They get to experience a strong sense of community, not only in the school, but also in Richmond itself and sometimes that will be the first time some girls have ever felt a sense of community or inclusion.
Hekia has been hell bent on closing Salisbury down, it’s more like a competition to her, the urge to win. People shouldn’t play games like that with the lives of others.
It’s so hard for me to understand why push the wrap around services which haven’t worked for some families, rather than supporting a facility that has been up and running and making a huge difference for decades. So I begin to wonder things like… do her friends have a wrap around service business?
Should some parents not be told about the school from the beginning as an option?
Anyways, Salisbury is a very very good school, huge respect for all the staff whom have made it so amazing over the many years it has been operating, and looking forward to seeing the roll increase in the future, rather than more road blocks, and more suffering from the outgoing government.
> So I begin to wonder things like… do her friends have a wrap around service business?
I don’t think you need to invoke corruption here – ideological blinders and a fairly hefty dose of incompetence is enough
A.
PS _Some_ people do well on wrap around, I understand
Connections?
Rangiora High School has Trust land. The Ministry wants to grab the control off the BOT so they can sell the land. So destroy Principal and BOT.
Salisbury has valuable land. The Ministry wants to grab the control off the BOT so they can sell the land. So destroy Principal and BOT and strangle the entrance for the girls.
Good on Parata! Yay!
Edit:Meant for Cinny
Yes land was a question raised, it’s prime real estate.
The TDC mayor assures us all that it won’t be a land grab.
The land belongs to Rangitane Iwi
Kempthorne wants the school to remain open, and is vocally strong about his support, so many MP’s are as well, Tracey Martin, Catherine Delahunty, Chris Hipkins, Damien O’Connor and others, am so thankful to them for their ongoing support
How ridiculously childish is this POTUS ?
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/video.cfm?c_id=1503076&gal_cid=1503076&gallery_id=173026
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
Beware of moving from Auckland Council (Corporate) Controlled Organisations (CCOs) to Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs).
This upcoming ‘review’ needs to, in my view, make a top priority of returning all public services provided by Auckland Council and CCOs back to ‘in house’ service provision under the genuine, not-for-profit public service model.
Which was never broken before we had two doses of Neo-liberal ‘Rogernomic$’ reforms forced upon the public majority of Aucklanders.
In my view, we also need a huge clean out of ex-private sector businesspeople from ‘public servant’ roles.
How do people from the private sector ‘transmogrify’ into genuine public servants – serving the public and the public interest?
In my view – they don’t.
They’re from Planet ‘Private Profit’ and come from a completely different background and culture
– make money for shareholders – look after yourself and your mates?
Time for some BIG changes!
OPEN THE BOOKS!
CUT OUT THE CONSULTANTS ,
CONTRACTORS and CCOs!
BRING COUNCIL PUBLIC SERVICES BACK ‘IN HOUSE’ UNDER THE ‘NOT-FOR-PROFIT’ PUBLIC SERVICE MODEL!
Penny Bright
‘Anti-privatisation / anti-corruption campaigner’
That’s would be the desired end result but the review should do an unbiased cost/benefit review. If they do that then moving all back in house should be a no-brainer.
The PPP model simply costs too much for limited returns that often makes things worse.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/southland-times/news/90495259/Forest-Bird-holding-Environment-Southland-to-ransom-ES-chair
“If Forest & Bird gets its way, marine farming could never be considered…”
While “Forest & Bird Otago/Southland regional manager Sue Maturin said it did not consider marine farming to be appropriate for internationally significant and special places such as Fiordland and the wild pristine waters of Stewart Island, or the marine mammal sanctuaries for Hector’s dolphins in Curio Bay and Te Wae Wae”.
They’re talking about two bays by the sounds of things. Sounds reasonable.
“He was concerned the Wellington-based organisation was “not prepared to compromise” and said court action would cost a lot of money for Southland ratepayers.”
I’m sure all the Southland F and B members and volunteers who work in the area will love that bit.
Weka Interested to know more about 2 Bays… interested in hearing more.. Link Please…
Seems a default setting/response whenever these sorts of questions are raised…
“court action would cost a lot of money for Southland ratepayers.” (or any her Ratepayers… Why is is it that only Ratepayers count when these are National issues! Just like Dairy Intensification!
Northland/Westland/Canterbury/Horowhenua… wherever… Why is it that only Ratepayers, (As I am), only allowed to comment on/have impute into “district” issues”
Surely Marine Farming in Fiordland or Stewart Island, (as part of NZ), or the planet! If it’s unsustainable/ and/or inappropriate,( In some circumstance) (Just like Cows in the McKenzie Country, or Canterbury…) Why is it that these issues can only be allowed/commented on by _”Rate Payers”..
When there is so much apathy locally surely there’s a need for other parties to put their 10 cents worth in. For the Good of All!
Or can the few in Jackson’s Bay, ( or the Westland Council) determine whats Best…
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/88099749/From-national-park-to-overseas-Plan-to-export-billions-of-litres-of-West-Coast-water
I only know about Curio and Te Waewae Bays issues from the article (although I have been to both places too). I trust F and B’s judgement. Hopefully Robert Guyton will comment. He would also know if there is a place for non-rate payers to have input.
I also think getting it written into the Regional Policy Statement is critical, because so much time, energy, effort and resource is being wasted having to refight these battles over and over and over.
Locals Rule!
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/326886/few-local-objections-to-shipping-water-overseas-mayor
My concern is that too many people are saying we need to put a price on water. I think we should have a moratorium on all new exports until we sort this out.
If we’re going to keep with a market system then we most definitely need to put a price on it.
Me, I’d like to put science on it and determine just how much water we can use before it becomes unsustainable.
I’m also pretty sure that we’re well into the unsustainable usage now and it’s just getting worse as the farms suck up more water and the water bottlers export it.
“If we’re going to keep with a market system then we most definitely need to put a price on it”
Quite. Which is why I think focussing on the price rather than a moratorium is buying into neoliberal framing. Have the conversation first about water being life, then talk about the limits, then see what if any price is needed. But then I think bottling water for profit is up there in terms of evil alongside Monsanto or chopping down rainforest to make burgers.
“Me, I’d like to put science on it and determine just how much water we can use before it becomes unsustainable.
I’m also pretty sure that we’re well into the unsustainable usage now and it’s just getting worse as the farms suck up more water and the water bottlers export it.”
I also believe we are well past anything remotely sustainable. I’m not sure we could even determine what sustainable is under the current system. Industrial export dairying would have to stop for a start, and no-one even wants to talk about that apart from those of us who have nothing to lose. And Rachel Steward 🙂
It is very little water that the bottlers are exporting. By all means worry about the farms but I really wouldn’t lose sleep over the bottling
Look at the bigger picture. Bottled water is a pollutant because of plastic’s accumulation in the environment (e.g. the Pacific gyre), and because plastic is an endocrine disruptor.
Exporting water has a ridiculous carbon cost. It actively supports the despoilment of local aquifers and watersheds in the places it is being sold. There is a reason people need to ship water from here. It’s daft beyond all reasoning to be moving water from one side of the planet to another using fossil fuels, but even if that were sustainable, it doesn’t get around why people need the water in the first place. Making money off other people’s destruction of the environment is not only amoral, it’s going to back lash against us. You think people with bigger sticks won’t come and take water from us if we let the civilisation get to the point of mass water wars?
“It is very little water that the bottlers are exporting.”
That argument I am not convince about. It’s the overall take from a catchment that counts, and if an aquifer is depleting (e.g. farming), then taking out water for bottling is still a further depletion. We also don’t know what the demand will be going forward except that it’s most likely to increase and may increase exponentially. We should be setting limits now, not doing what we have done with dairy and seeing how far we can push the plunder. From what I understand replenishing an aquifer is not a quick or easy thing, and by the time we get to that point we will be well into direct climate change issues.
We’re already at the point of fucking with the groundwater beyond our ken,
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/the-country/news/article.cfm?c_id=16&objectid=11705149
Well, I sympathise with your desire for better water management
But, like all RWNJs, don’t like the idea that there are real physical limits that we need to live within.
I dont have a problem with that idea
That is not the way that you come across with your ‘sympathy’ nor your excusing of water bottlers.
Everyone agrees that the world has real physical limits. The interesting bit starts when you talk about what those limits are, how close we are to exceeding them, and what should be done about it.
My point is that water bottling (as opposed to dairy) takes you only a very little closer to reaching a hard limit.
I understand Weka’s rejoinder however.
A.
That’s not actually true. Many of the conservative bent don’t think that the world has limits. They’re easy to spot as they insist that we can just keep using more and more of the worlds limited resources with consequences.
Bottling water is fine because it uses so little. Owning and running a car is fine because it uses so little.
They don’t seem to understand the effect of multiplication and that it’s not just a single bottling plant and just one car being but many. That the demands upon those scarce resources isn’t just one thing but many and they all have their cost that reduces amount available.
You cannot have your cake and eat it too.
But very few people understand that. Even, IMO, most economists don’t get it despite it being at the root of their profession.
But what is the limit? Without knowing that how can you say that water bottling doesn’t take us over it?
Every little bit counts.
Watercare aren’t asking for one person to save a lot, they’re asking everyone to save a little which will add up to a lot.
feed your head – great vocal – ‘Grace Slick’s isolated vocals tracks for “White Rabbit.’
why? – just a point – does ‘why’ need a question mark?
anyway – we must look at things from different angles – we can do it with a song and with a few other things as well…
Arrg, not the ear worm!! (great track though).