Just think, with Lochinver Station not sold to foreigners it may now become affordable for New Zealanders to purchase. We will no longer have to compete with the millions and billions of millionaires and billionaires in Europe, Asia, North America and, well the whole world….. all of whom have made zero contribution to our society. They just steam in and whip it out from under us. Wankers.
but yep, how many millions have just been wiped off Lochinver’s “value”. A “value” we should remember that is artificially and vastly inappropriately marked up due to the presence of foreign buyers.
Remove all foreign buyers from NZ and our land values will drop back significantly, meaning none of us will have to take on as much to debt to get into farming, and we will have more money in our back pockets at the end of each working day. Wouldn’t that be something……. seems so simple .. I should let John Key know – he seems oblivious
Yep, and banksters make money out of selling “money products” like debt.
The more debt for NZ the better it is for banks
Quite why the media listens to bank economists I have no idea – they are the most heavily conflicted economists in the economy with completely and utterly vested interests. As such bank economists views must discounted to zip.
Oh its much worse than that. When we do business with indebted people, companies, countries, we have to pay more since they need to cover their interest on their debt. When we become indebted, we all have to pay each other more and charge more. Now get this, the Green party are the real free traders, not the neolibs, the neolibs are big government types who won’t put a value on pollution, note they use the power of the state to support big industry, big militra, big pharm, big agro, from paying a real cost , so the free market never is price correctly. Greens are even pro-migration, why would yo holdup a population in any region to destroy it ecology,when there as much less impact on ecology by pricing it the real cost and then letting people move, I.e a free market in peoole. Our whole world economy is rigged by government parties who load us all up with debt,force costs up, and then don’t value the most precious thing on the planet, global ecology that sustains us all.
But wait its worse. In the sevenities neolibs took over claiming the wealth and growth inevitable from cheap high density liquid non-renewables was down to their policies that pillage the planet and create huge growth, not of infrastructure and better society, but of war, of debt growth, of capital stagnation. the neolibs then sat on their hands locking gifts to the will of private corporates because they don’t have to do anything, the free market will. Yet these supposed friends of the free market weren’t actual free marketeers, power can never lie in any one segment of society, it just becomes corrpt and distortionary. Aka honey bee colony collapse, plastic ocean islands, climate carbon extreme, wars, etc.
The middle ages were a time when power lay with priests, this age, these last thirty years, power has been handed away into a void where any destruction, any acculuation of negatives is rewarded, and all good is regarded as ineffient waste.
Yes, I understand that, however I think you will notice a big ‘risk’ element being imposed on Lochinver (and other similar rural properties) by any new purchaser, thereby discounting its value.
There is no doubt that this decision will raise red flags in the minds of foreigners looking at becoming absentee landlords.
Kevin McKenna: Jeremy Corbyn’s victory gives us a glimpse behind the mask of his opponents
SEPTEMBER 14TH, 2015 – 12:13 AM KEVIN MCKENNA 15 COMMENTS
THE favoured tactic of the right in this country has always been to label any left-wing views that cause them discomfort as “extremist”. The prefix “hard” is applied to ideas of the left which they fear could cause any ripples in their world of pre-arranged privilege and social management. Their entire political strategy rests on ensuring that the rest of us look the other way as they ensure that real power will always be deployed from within their tiny, privileged elite.
Once, they were bred like battery hens and taken early from their families to spend what was left of their childhoods at places such as Eton and Harrow, learning how to wield power. Sentimental attachments to mummy and daddy could never be allowed to come before serving the state and their appointed place in it: at the top. They were scattered to the far ends of the British Empire to administer British control and to ensure that the fuzzy-wuzzies didn’t get too truculent about being ruthlessly robbed and exploited by the British East India Company.
When the sun began to set on that empire they retreated to their fortresses at home to ensure that they could hold on to control of the UK at least. They deploy The British Armed Forces like their own personal private army by deluding them into thinking they are serving the Queen and their country. And they rely on the right-wing press to be their nightwatchmen, ever-ready to defame and besmirch any who might rise up from the masses and attempt to tell the truth.
Occasionally, useful idiots like Tony Blair arrive to peddle some state-sponsored radicalism and soften up us, the idiot punters, for another stretch of reactionary Conservatism.
So, it was pleasing to observe the shock of the Right at the election of Jeremy Corbyn on Saturday as leader of the UK Labour Party. How to explain the fact that more than 250,000 people, across every category of Labour supporter, voted for Corbyn – more than the other three candidates combined? They can’t all be raving Marxists and revolutionary Communists?
The narrative of unpleasantness and vindictiveness has already been cranked up. Blairites like Peter Mandelson, who grew almost as rich as his master on the takings of the New Labour delusion, and David Blunkett are already talking about the death of the party. Tony Blair, pausing for a moment from his lucrative occupation of conning gullible eastern potentates into believing that they, too, can be global statesmen, said that Corbyn supporters had mental health issues.
Even just the prospect of a Corbyn victory gave us a glimpse of what lay behind the mask of Blair and his wretched gang: careerism, acquiescence lies and corruption.
Jeremy Corbyn had better get used to this, for it will become worse, far worse. When the miners looked like they were going to defeat Margaret Thatcher and the mine-owners, every division of the British state was mobilised to destroy them: the Metropolitan Police attacked and assaulted striking miners in the knowledge that the judiciary would all be taking holidays. Stella Rimington, head of MI5 deployed a double agent at the top of the NUM to gather intelligence on how best to destroy Scargill. In the end they settled for a lie, eagerly advanced by the press, that he had been filching funds from his own union.
In last year’s referendum on Scottish independence the same divisions of the British state were deployed once more and useful idiots in the so-called left- wing press were also somehow persuaded to chip in. For of course this was never about preserving the Union, it was about maintaining
Britain’s seat at the UN and not being seen to have lost a quarter of the kingdom on your watch.
How can a party call itself “patriotic” when it cheerfully sends thousands of its young people to their deaths in illegal wars, ill-equipped and under-paid? And how many of us now believe we were far safer as a country before we started slaughtering Muslims in their own homes on the lie that they were harbouring weapons of mass destruction?
IT’S not difficult to see why the UK right hates Corbyn. His avowed aim of withdrawing from the nuclear club will not make the UK more vulnerable, it will simply detach the UK’s face from America’s arse and free us from the delusion that we are a super-power.
A Corbyn-led government will make the unions stronger in defending the lost rights of British workers, something that Blair and his useless crony Gordon Brown failed to do despite the safety net of a three-term stretch. It will also seek alternatives to making the most vulnerable in our society pay for the profligacy of the rich which led to the credit crisis. People don’t mind being asked to make sacrifices if they believe that all other sections of society are being asked to as well.
The lickspittles of the right, like Blair, Brown and Mandelson, will wail and gnash their teeth and insist that a Labour government under Jeremy Corbyn can never regain power. They conveniently forget that whatever party they all thought they were representing in office between 1997 and 2010 it certainly wasn’t recognisably Labour. Yet these people today are reeling at the sheer volume of numbers of those who voted for Corbyn. He now has a bigger mandate than Blair ever had.
If Corbyn can expose the lies that sit at the heart of Conservative ideology then he may indeed be set fair for government: we are not all in it together, we’re all in it for a few; we are not one of the most prosperous countries in the world, we are one of the most unequal; we are not spending billions to defend ourselves, we are a militaristic basket-case who would rather spend billions keeping weapons of mass destruction operational than some vital community services.
And if Kezia Dugdale reads the signs of the times and resists the advice of those advisers who lost Scotland, she will suggest to Corbyn that the party drops its ridiculously hostile attitude to the idea of an independent Scotland. If so, then the Labour Party in Scotland can begin to entertain the notion of defeating the SNP.
Copied from The National
Btw. Mckenna has an irrational view of the SNP. He does not get it that the SNP is the authentic Labour Party in Scotland. McKenna has a very Labour centric view of things and is often myopic.
” it was pleasing to observe the shock of the Right at the election of Jeremy Corbyn”
The only shock being displayed on the Right is disbelief that Labour has abandoned the electoral middle ground. ‘Glee’ would be a more appropriate term for the current mood among the Tories?
“How to explain the fact that more than 250,000 people, across every category of Labour supporter, voted for Corbyn – more than the other three candidates combined? They can’t all be raving Marxists and revolutionary Communists?”
Well that’s the question that really matters.
I think is fair to assume that the people who voted in Corbyn are current Leftist voters who were highly dissatisfied with the status quo in the U.K Labour Party?
But is that the extent of it? Merely a schism emerging between the various shades of Left?
Or the first signs of a widespread groundswell of support for societal change in a Leftist direction?
If the latter turns out to be the case, the Right will be truly shocked, but the poll above won’t be causing them to lose any sleep at this point.
There is a lot on the line here for both Left and Right. Fascinating stuff.
“The only shock being displayed on the Right is disbelief that Labour has abandoned the electoral middle ground. ‘Glee’ would be a more appropriate term for the current mood among the Tories?”
Paring the public sector back to Walpole era levels is not ‘centre ground’.
The 18th and 19th century saw misery to a lot of people — it was more ‘Gangs of New York’ rather than ‘Wuthering Heights’
Or were you meaning the Walpole comparison? Such things that you tories get your knickers in a twist about while clutching at straws…
It might be an interesting phd thesis, actually – obviously social service expenditure was minimal, but military expenditure was quite high, and administration was all by hand. I’ve no idea which way it would come out in terms of different measures such as %GDP, per capita population in government service, etc.
Military expenditure wasn’t particularly high relative to what passed for GDP during the period. It was just high relative to government revenue.
Pretty damn hard to find out. The accounting standards of the period seemed to be designed to sequester revenues rather than to disclose it transparently.
“Paring the public sector back to Walpole era levels is not ‘centre ground’.
The 18th and 19th century saw misery to a lot of people — it was more ‘Gangs of New York’ rather than ‘Wuthering Heights’”
Millsy either support your assertions with a link or fuck off with your drivel.
[The only person who’ll be ‘fucking off with their drivel’ is yourself. Millsy has quoted from a previous comment and offered a qualifying or additional opinion on top. You either agree or disagree. What you don’t get to do is harangue. As to PR, so to you. Get a grip.] – Bill
Bill, Millsy’s comment is patently absurd as is your protection of it.
To suggest the public sector/welfarism in 2015 is in any way comparable with that of Walpole’s area is twilight zone stuff.
[lprent: You expressed YOUR complaint about it in a way that forced moderators to waste time looking at it, and then finding that you were being a stupid timewasting shithead. Why shouldn’t we feel irritated? It is your behaviour that is causing us extra and unwarranted work – not millsy. ]
Surely if one is making such claims there would be some kind of evidence to back it up or is everything here now just opinion ?
It’s like the moron Hooten saying that the poor now live a better life that Henry VIII – just an absolutely absurd and meaningless comparison.
[lprent: I’d agree. But both were more rhetorical than statements of fact.
As far as I can tell that was rhetorical and clearly was such. Surely anyone who knows british history is aware that Robert Walpole was in charge of the british treasury for a couple of decades from the 1721 (and widely credited with being the first PM). It was a period when there was effectively no government support for much. Also that he was rather notorious for not having accurate accounts by even 19th century standards.
But I can see how if you you were too lazy to look up Walpole, then you’d have a problem. But if you want to raise problems with his comment, then I would have been slamming him for not providing a link to Walpole. Many people won’t know who in the hell he was.
But coming to think of it being lazy and moaning about it in a way that I have to check is a problem. It means I waste time looking up whatever crap you want to be a pissant pain about expressing it in terms that I have to do as moderator, and then write a note about it.
Perhaps you should read the policy again about wasting moderator time. I am sure I reciprocate and find some time for ban in response if I get to do this again. In fact I will be extremely generous. ]
You’re trying my patience. Opinions are proffered. that’s the nature of this site. Those who disagree can debate. Attempting to shut people down through carping for evidence to substantiate an opinion is irksome bullshit and nonsense. If you don’t have the presence of mind to lay out a counter position, or if you can’t demonstrate or argue why an opinion is lacking, then don’t comment.
Since you’re kind of lacking in the upstairs department, let me offer a throw-away example.
John Key is a nice man.
Posit examples that would suggest otherwise if you wish. Or agree. But don’t attempt to shut people down by calling for proof on stuff that’s obviously just an opinion. – end –
It was a period when there was effectively no government support for much. Also that he was rather notorious for not having accurate accounts…
So the comparison with the National Party is apt, despite being somewhat of an exaggeration. Divisive, check. Defended charges of corruption by asserting that “they do it too”, check.
Simplistic arguments sometimes miss the point. National is of course center-right – they are “centre” over important issues like the flag and gay marriage, they are “hard-right” over small thinks like economic policy – so “center-right” (american spelling deliberate) must be a reasonable description – right, TLS?
As i think you are implying, the degree of Right or Leftness of our major political Parties tends to vary policy by policy.
NZ Labour and National are both Centrist Parties by any world standard I would have thought?
By the way, the article by ex UK Labour MP Bryan Gould contains a fine example of that assumption Corbyn represents that groundswell of general change that the Left so wants to see…. “His appeal to the voters is the best evidence so far that the “free-market” hegemony that has held us all – and not least Labour politicians – in thrall for so long is now on the wane.
As discussed, if Corbyn is the ‘best evidence’ of a ‘wane’, then the other evidence coming through is not showing much support for that contention at this point.
However, Corbyn needs to just occupy the crease and build a decent innings. Its going to be hard on a green pitch and humid condition, with half your batting partners wanting to run you out, and Osborne/Cameron lobbing down unplayable deliveries, but Corbyn cannot afford any while swinging or crazy shots right now.
He did a few wild swings in the first over, but he has settled down for the moment.
Corbyn has certainly had a rocky first few days. The organisation of his leadership campaign is almost universally acknowledged to have been brilliant, the same can’t be said for his first week as leader.
But given the shitstorm of smears and ridicule that he’s had to put up with on a daily basis from the British political and media establishment over the last 10 weeks, the real surprise in this YouGov Poll is that defence is the only issue where an absolute majority perceive him negatively. The numbers aint good, but they could have been a damn sight worse.
The worry is that first impressions (created by this unprecedented shitstorm of media / elite abuse) will last. The Tories (and New Labour Grandees) have sought to shape and define his image early on and it could be hard to shift.
I know Amy Adams is hardly going to care about this but would be good to get the 3000 signatures none the less. Thank you. It’s a beautiful building if you don’t know it, Dunedin is lucky to have it still.
So we received the national party “view seeking” full colour glossy mustve cost a fortune survey in the post this week…. asking what issues I care about and what my political affiliation is….yueech. In parliamentary service envelopes with freepost return post also on the taxpayer …. not fair they should at minimum pay for their own postage to do their greasy pre election poll research. Very icky getting personally addressed mail from nats asking you who you vote (“support”) for.. yuck.
For all the right wingers in or associated with Labour (yes you Goff, Robertson, Mumblefuck, Pagani) disingenuously claiming that they have to pursue the mirage of “the centre”, research in the UK hows that Labour becomes more popular the further left it moves.
Similar feedback here has shown support for Labour NZs left policies and in both cases it has been the toxic brand of the party or its leadership for incompetence and instability that has been the vote-loser.
Why then are these people and their vanity allowed to undermine Labour’s chances when they have nothing positive and much that is negative to contribute?
Yep, I’ve been reading quite a lot of British Election Study research over recent weeks (as well as a whole lot of other UK poll data).
Despite the never-ending flow of unmitigated bullshit emanating from the Blairites (including dear old Tony himself), the Brownites, the Tories and all of their little enablers in the media and academic establishment, the poll data does not suggest that UK voters are pro-Austerity or deeply enamoured of the Cameron Government’s economic performance.
Rather, they have very little trust in the economic competence of the major figures associated with the last Blair and Brown Governments. Large majorities think the Tory-Lib Dem Coalition’s economic performance was poor or very poor, but overwhelming majorities think the pre-Corbyn Labour leadership was even worse, even less competent.
Most of Corbyn’s policy proposals (as tentative and potentially flexible as many of them are), are entirely in tune with public opinion. Renationalising railways and utilities, rent controls, higher taxes for the super-wealthy, a mandatory living wage, cuts to tuition fees and so on. Immigration is the most obvious exception (and it’s an issue that has unusually high salience at the moment), but then precisely the same goes for the other 3 who stood as Labour Leadership candidates and for the respective PLP factions they represent. And indeed for the Tories. British public opinion is to the Left of the major parties on most issues but well to the Right of all the parties (except Ukip) on immigration and has been for quite some time.
Jane Green generally de-emphasises the importance of precise ideological direction for voters’ decision-making and instead emphasises valence issues like general competence and, in particular, perceived economic competence. (Valence issues tend to become more important when major parties ideologically converge as they did during the Blair/Brown years).
The evidence coming through at the moment in terms of the May 2015 Election loss downplays English voter wariness of a Labour government relying on the SNP as a factor. Instead, it points to 2 key problems – a very low regard for Ed Miliband’s potential competence as PM and an equally low regard for Labour’s economic competence.
2 key problems – a very low regard for Ed Miliband’s potential competence as PM and an equally low regard for Labour’s economic competence.
Latest Poll YouGov (see link above) indicates these are problems Corbyn has inherited to a large extent.
From what you have seen or heard about Jeremy Corbyn, do you think he will do well or badly….
As leader of the Labour party?
Very well 10
Fairly well 20
TOTAL WELL 30
Fairly badly 20
Very badly 28
TOTAL BADLY 48
Don’t know 23
Managing the economy?
Would trust a lot 7
Would trust a fair amount 16
TOTAL TRUST 23
Would not trust very much 14
Would not trust at all 36
TOTAL NOT TRUST 50
Don’t know enough about him to say 27
Incidentally, the first Party Support Poll to come out suggests Labour has cut the Tory lead from 9 points to 6 (half the poll was conducted before the leadership win announced / half after, but all of it conducted at a time when Corbyn’s victory was universally assumed).
When you say ‘Labour had cut the lead from 9 to 6’, it should be pointed out that Labour support had only increased by 1%. Obviously the other 2 points the Tories had lost were not to Labour.
But as you say, all of the polling was conducted during a time when Corbyn’s leadership was assumed.
So it would be very hard to read a 1% increase as an indication that Corbyn’s politics were indicative of any kind of widespread support for his politics outside the current Left?
Yaaaaaaawwwwwwnnnnn
So over this UK/Corbyn/Labour rant.
Thank goodness my forebears had the wit and courage to emigrate to New Zealand in the 19thC and leave behind Dickensian England.
Good luck to Jeremy but what has he got to do with NZ politics? The Key to a better NZ is Key & his mates. IMHO
Yeah, but what you’re ignoring are the widespread claims from the British
MSM / Blair-Brownites / Tories = that Corbyn’s leadership is going to be absolutely disastrous, that the Party’s support will plunge to the sub-20% zone.
Early days, who knows how dire the relentless media shitstorm will become over the next few months and how effective it’ll be in shaping voter perceptions. But, at the moment, the negative connotations being ascribed to this latest ‘Attitudes to Corbyn’YouGov poll are not being reflected in the latest Party SupportICM/Guardian Poll.
Here’s some interesting stats from the YouGov Poll, indicating potential inroads a Corbyn-led Labour Party could make into Lib Dem / Ukip support:
Despite 10 weeks worth of intense attacks and smears on Corbyn (becoming noticeably worse over the last week), there are still supporters of other parties who hold positive views about him.
Bearing in mind that there are plenty of people in the ‘Don’t know enough about him to answer the question’ category …… Here’s the Proportion of Lib Dem and Ukip supporters who:
Are explicitly positive about Corbyn’s win as leader
Lib Dem 32%, Ukip 19%
Think he will do well as leader
Lib Dem 37%, Ukip 19%
Trust him to make the right decisions on govt spending / cuts
Lib Dem 32%, Ukip 12%
Trust him on NHS
Lib Dem 51%, Ukip 29%
Trust him on managing the economy
Lib Dem 27%, Ukip 12%
EU
Lib Dem 32%, Ukip 13%
Taxes
Lib Dem 31%, Ukip 13%
On most issues, only a minority of Lib Dem supporters say they Don’t trust Corbyn, while usually at least a third of Ukip voters either trust him or say they don’t know enough about him yet.
Suggests a quarter to a third of Lib Dems are at least potentially up for grabs, certainly sympathetic, along with maybe 10-20% of Ukip voters (putting aside all those in the ‘Don’t Know enough about him yet’ category). This dovetails with polls conducted during the leadership campaign when you generally had around 20% or more of Ukip voters feeling genuinely positive about Corbyn.
Along with the fairly consistent 4-7% of Tory voters who trust him on these various issues (rising to 19% on the NHS), that represents potentially 7 or 8 percentage points up for grabs, with the aim of holding on to Labour doubters.
That’s putting aside, of course, the overwhelmingly positive attitudes that Green supporters (currently around 3-6% in the polls) have of a Corbyn-led Labour Party. There’s the potential for at least a third, maybe half, of the Green vote to move to Labour. Particularly, if an electoral accommodation is made.
And, as always, under FPP, attitudes/public opinion in the key marginals are all that count, from a purely electoral viewpoint. That’s where they need to shift votes.
Summing up then, Corbyn’s election to Labour Leadership does not appear to have had a significant immediate effect on the Parties overall electoral position, either for better or worse.
Yep, that’s about the size of it. Although, very early days. Let’s see where the polls go over the next couple of months.
I’d say, though, that the very fact that Labour’s support is holding up (and that their main opponents are down) is remarkable, given the 10 week onslaught of elite hysteria.
Incidentally, a Survation Poll, conducted immediately after Corbyn’s win was announced, found that 6% of Tories, 20% of Ukip supporters, 23% of Lib Dems and 17% of 2015 Non-Voters say they are more likely to vote Labour at the next Election as a result of Corbyn’s leadership.
Just a bit confused by that. I know next to nothing of UK politics, but aren’t UKIP supporters heavily anti-immigration? Isn’t Corbyn known to be heavily pro-immigration, especially for refugees? Why would 20% of UKIP’s seriously contemplate changing horses, or do you reckon they were just taking the piss?
I would guess that a lot of UKIP voters are fed up to the gills with the professional political class, and also suspect that this class uses immigration to impose austerity on the locals, by cutting them out of jobs and houses. So someone who is not the darling of the political class and opposes austerity is attractive to them. They key feature, I think, is austerity and those who cheerfully impose it.
Objectively (though not necessarily subjectively), Ukip voters are very much like NZF voters here – essentially the socially-conservative Left (and disproportionately older, working class and male).
Polls over the last couple of years suggest they are:
– strongly anti-austerity
– highly-alienated from / dissatisfied with the political class
– almost as strongly supportive of public ownership/renationalisation as Labour and Green voters are
– believe the Torys do not govern with their best interests in mind
– believe (the pre-Corbyn) Labour Party no longer had the interests of ordinary people like them at heart
Polls also suggest that you can divide Ukip supporters into 3 groups in terms of their ideological self-placement / self-perceptions. The largest are the core supporters. Second largest are the Right-leaners, who vote Ukip while greatly preferring a Tory (to Labour) govt, with the smallest faction (roughly 20-25%) being those who subjectively see themselves as Left-leaners,
ie Ukippers naturally disposed to the Labour Party, more often than not being former supporters.
There’s no doubt though that Immigration is going to be a difficult hurdle for Corbyn (particularly given its increasing salience to voters. At the moment, you have close to 50% of British voters (an unprecedented number) ranking it as the most serious issue facing Britain today). As I suggested above, the UK electorate is to the Left of the major parties (pre-Corbyn) on most issues but well to the Right of all parties (except Ukip) on Immigration.
What Corbyn shouldn’t do (and I don’t think it’s in his character anyway) is the typical upper-middle class urban liberal, morally-superior finger-wagging (ie “racists, racists, racists !!!”, much in the same way that fundamentalist Christians chastise everybody else with “sinners, sinners, sinners !!!”). Needs to listen to their fears about job security and so on sympathetically.
Ukippers are also anti-EU. So, a Labour Party led by a Euro-sceptic like Corbyn could potentially be attractive.
@ Lyn: Editing comments is *very* slow, and has been for a week or so now. It takes at least 45 seconds to 1 minute to load the edit window, it used to only take 1-3.
Wow! Read Toby Manhire’s advice to the Australian PM.
“What then can you learn from your cross-ditch human template?
…..My first instinct is to say, ignore the performance of recent weeks. The craven and laggardly action to take extra refugees showed a distinct lack of moral leadership. Then there was the mealy-mouthed refusal to support Sue Moroney’s paid parental leave bill. The adolescent politicking around the flag shortlist.
I’d say all this, coming after defeat in Northland, the fallout from Dirty Politics and scandals such as the Saudi sheep farrago, suggests that John Key’s honeymoon has come to an end.” …….
“These prisoners and their personal privacy—to HELL with it!”
How long will it be till Hillary Barry and Jim Kayes walk? PAUL HENRY, TV3, Friday 18 September 2015
depravedadj.1. morally bad or debased; corrupt
Straight after the 7 o’clock news, Henry embarks on a savage rant: “Rihannon-basher Chris Brown—why would we let him into this country?” This is especially ironic in light of the guest he has lined up for later that hour: the gruesome S.S. Obergruppenführer Garth “The Knife” McVicar, who is the most shameless exponent of extreme violence in this country. [1]
7:29 a.m. I tune in just in time to catch the last five seconds of Phil “Goofy” Goff, who is also denouncing Chris Brown. Fellow guest commentator Judith “Crusher” Collins nods her head approvingly and smiles in that supercilious way of hers.
After the 7:30 news, there is a particularly lame segment, where a number of children are asked their views about the “Hakarena” parody. My niece (13 years old) says: “They’re trying to be like Jono and Ben!” My nephew (10) says: “This is not funny.”
At 7:45 a.m. it’s time to ramp up the outrage even more. As well as the calamitous prospect of Chris Brown coming to New Zealand, there have been revelations that a number of prisoners have breached their parole conditions and are on the loose. No better person to interview, then, than the S.S. Obergruppenführer. Or to be more precise, to let him wax philosophical….
GARTH MCVICAR: ….Absolute débâcle. … Parole is a con, a sham… We have a criminial-centred system in this country, the victim is always a secondary consideration. … The system is always concerned about the offender, to ensure that THEIR rights aren’t breached. …Publlc safety has got too be of paramount consideration. ….[he continues talking like this for another minute or so]….
PAUL HENRY:[clucks tongue to indicate how impressed he is] There’s no reason to talk about this any longer. You’re absolutely right, Garth. Have a good weekend.
Then he turns and shouts at his hapless slaves, Hillary Barry and Jim Kayes, who sit glumly silent across from Henry, looking half bewildered and half disgusted…
HENRY: He’s RIGHT isn’t he! These prisoners and their personal privacy—to HELL with it!
Hillary and Jim maintain an awkward silence. Henry gives up on them….
HENRY: Perlina, what are people saying about this?
PERLINA LAU: Eighty-five per cent of people in our survey say that Chris Brown should NOT be allowed in.
HENRY: Eighty-five per cent? That means fifteen per cent think he SHOULD be allowed in! We don’t need him! He’s just a BASTARD, a nasty BASTARD! The British in 2010 said “Nuh!” and the Canadians said “Nuh!” We don’t need him!
In summary, Lessig says that the DoJ has failed to prove a case of direct civil copyright infringement or of criminal copyright infringement. Neither has it proven a case of criminal conspiracy or wire fraud. Overall, Lessig believes that the DoJ case is so weak that extradition for Dotcom et al will not be possible.
“It is my opinion that the Superseding Indictment and Record of the Case filed by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) do not meet the requirements necessary to support a prima facie case that would be recognized by United States federal law and subject to the US – NZ Extradition Treaty,” Lessig writes.
“Insofar as they are alleged in the Superceding Indictment and the [Record of the Case], respondents’ actions were not prohibited by criminal statutes of the United States. Filings of the DOJ attempt to create a false impression of criminal guilt and are not reliable.”
Google Richard O’Dwyer and TVShack. Pretty sure there are parallels worth exploring. I believe the UK, unlike their craven NZ counterparts, told the US to ‘go take a leap’.
There were other very similar cases too, but I can’t remember names or such-like.
Somewhere there is a free streaming documentary looking at how the porn industry was trying to shut down ‘free’ sites and what not. The basic thrust of part of the docu was that it was exploring possible legal arguments/strategies that could then be used by major studios against the likes of (the then unknown) O’Dwyer and Dotcom.
When kim sues us for 15 gazillion dollars for the misconduct of our Attourney General and police is there a simmilar “undertaking of liability” under which we can recover these funds from the u s of a. Its looking quite likely now
Ten days ago the serious Fraud Office announced that it was investigating Taratahi Agricultural Training Centre over a potential $8.6 million fraud. The training centre falsely enrolled tutors as students and delivered fewer courses than it was funded for in order to get more funding. Yesterday, it emerged in the House that National MP Barbara Kuriger was on the board while that fraud was committed:
Electorate as well so if she ends up going to jail there’ll be a by-election.
IMO, if the fraud is proven then the board should be going to jail.
But then who knows what stupidity lurks in the hearts of morons. I know of an incident where someone walked around using R/T and cellphone while carrying and showing people the (intentionally) suspicious device they’d found.
And then another time when the hazmat team had to fully deploy because someone thought a bulk-bin bag of flour was a “suspicious white powder” sitting in the gutter. Someone went without pancakes that day.
Although to be fair I reckon the emergency services figured it for what it was pretty quickly after responding to the call from the paranoid member of the public, but used it more as a decent training opportunity rather than a germ warfare attack.
Here’s another one. The science teacher could tell that there were no explosive bits, but still thought the clock could be part of a bomb. The stupid is in the culture of paranoia.
The engineering teacher intrigues me – I suspect that the warning not to show the clock to other teachers was made in the full knowledge that some of those teachers were paranoid bigots who would cause exactly this situation.
If everyone was acting rationally and intelligently.
I suspect the English teacher is a confirmed bigot and moron who should lose her job.
The cops could be morons with things that might go bang, they could have suspected it was part of a device he was constructing, they could have been humouring a noisy paranoid teacher simply because it was easier for the cops, or they could have had the goal of ‘humilitating a little Muslim, African boy’.
Any of those could be the case, and now everyone’s in “bullshit to cover their arse” mode.
Justice Asher did not find the instances of contempt to be deliberate and in all but one case described them as “minor but not so trivial as to warrant a finding of no contempt”.
It was the publication of information from the settlement conference which he described as “more serious”, labelling it an “accidental contempt of court by Slater but one that was the result of significant carelessness”.
Justice Asher said Slater had testified he had told his wife about details from the confidential conference and that she had published the article on the Whaleoil blog while he was on a plane to Europe.
Just me reckoning ‘bollocks’? Not deliberate and/or a wee bit careless! Beggers belief…
Open access notablesIce acceleration and rotation in the Greenland Ice Sheet interior in recent decades, Løkkegaard et al., Communications Earth & Environment:In the past two decades, mass loss from the Greenland ice sheet has accelerated, partly due to the speedup of glaciers. However, uncertainty in speed derived from satellite products ...
Buzz from the Beehive A statement from Children’s Minister Karen Chhour – yet to be posted on the Government’s official website – arrived in Point of Order’s email in-tray last night. It welcomes the High Court ruling on whether the Waitangi Tribunal can demand she appear before it. It does ...
Mr Bombastic:Ironically, the media the academic experts wanted is, in many ways, the media they got. In place of the tyrannical editors of yesteryear, advancing without fear or favour the interests of the ruling class; the New Zealand news media of today boasts a troop of enlightened journalists dedicated to ...
It's hard times try to make a livingYou wake up every morning in the unforgivingOut there somewhere in the cityThere's people living lives without mercy or pityI feel good, yeah I'm feeling fineI feel better then I have for the longest timeI think these pills have been good for meI ...
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Buzz from the Beehive Melissa Lee – as may be discerned from the screenshot above – has not been demoted for doing something seriously wrong as Minister of ...
Morning in London Mother hugs beloved daughter outside the converted shoe factory in which she is living.Afternoon in London Travelling writer takes himself and his wrist down to A&E, just to be sure. Read more ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – The recent announcement of the University Advisory Group, chaired by Sir Peter Gluckman, makes very clear where the Government’s focus and priorities lie. The remit of the Advisory Group is that Group members will consider challenges and opportunities for improvement in the university sector including: ...
Eric Crampton writes – The Reserve Bank of New Zealand desperately wants to find reasons to have workstreams in climate change. It makes little sense. They’ve run another stress test on the banks looking to see if they could find a prudential regulation case. They couldn’t. They ...
Rob MacCullough writes – Pundits from the left and the right are arguing that National’s Fast Track Bill that is designed to speed up infrastructure decisions could end up becoming mired in a cesspool of corruption. Political commentator ...
Looking at the headlines this morning it’s hard to feel anything other than pessimistic about the future of humanity.Note that I’m not speaking about the future of mankind, but the survival of our humanity. The values that we believe in seem to be ebbing away, by the day.Perhaps every generation ...
Swabbing mixed breed baby chicks to test for avian influenzaUh oh. Bird flu – often deadly to humans – is not only being transmitted from infected birds to dairy cows, but is now travelling between dairy cows. As of last Friday, Bloomberg News reports, there were 32 American dairy herds ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
What is it with the mining industry? Its not enough for them to pillage the earth - they apparently can't even be bothered getting resource consent to do so: The proponent behind a major mine near the Clutha River had already been undertaking activity in the area without a ...
Photo # 1 I am a huge fan of Singapore’s approach to housing, as described here two years ago by copying and pasting from The ConversationWhat Singapore has that Australia does not is a public housing developer, the Housing Development Board, which puts new dwellings on public and reclaimed land, ...
Buzz from the Beehive Reactions to news of the government’s readiness to make urgent changes to “the resource management system” through a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) suggest a balanced approach is being taken. The Taxpayers’ Union says the proposed changes don’t go far enough. Greenpeace says ...
I’m starting to wonder if Anna Burns-Francis might be the best political interviewer we’ve got. That might sound unlikely to you, it came as a bit of a surprise to me.Jack Tame can be excellent, but has some pretty average days. I like Rebecca Wright on Newshub, she asks good ...
Chris Trotter writes – Willie Jackson is said to be planning a “media summit” to discuss “the state of the media and how to protect Fourth Estate Journalism”. Not only does the Editor of The Daily Blog, Martyn Bradbury, think this is a good idea, but he has also ...
Graeme Edgeler writes – This morning [April 21], the Wellington High Court is hearing a judicial review brought by Hon. Karen Chhour, the Minister for Children, against a decision of the Waitangi Tribunal. This is unusual, judicial reviews are much more likely to brought against ministers, rather than ...
Both of Parliament’s watchdogs have now ripped into the Government’s Fast-track Approvals Bill. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāMy pick of the six newsey things to know from Aotearoa’s political economy and beyond on the morning of Tuesday, April 23 are:The Lead: The Auditor General,John Ryan, has joined the ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Sarah SpengemanPeople wait to board an electric bus in Pune, India. (Image credit: courtesy of ITDP) Public transportation riders in Pune, India, love the city’s new electric buses so much they will actually skip an older diesel bus that ...
The infrastructure industry yesterday issued a “hurry up” message to the Government, telling it to get cracking on developing a pipeline of infrastructure projects.The hiatus around the change of Government has seen some major projects cancelled and others delayed, and there is uncertainty about what will happen with the new ...
Hi,Over the weekend I revisited a podcast I really adore, Dead Eyes. It’s about a guy who got fired from Band of Brothers over two decades ago because Tom Hanks said he had “dead eyes”.If you don’t recall — 2001’s Band of Brothers was part of the emerging trend of ...
Buzz from the Beehive The 180 or so recipients of letters from the Government telling them how to submit infrastructure projects for “fast track” consideration includes some whose project applications previously have been rejected by the courts. News media were quick to feature these in their reports after RMA Reform Minister Chris ...
It would not be a desirable way to start your holiday by breaking your back, your head, or your wrist, but on our first hour in Singapore I gave it a try.We were chatting, last week, before we started a meeting of Hazel’s Enviro Trust, about the things that can ...
Calling all journalists, academics, planners, lawyers, political activists, environmentalists, and other members of the public who believe that the relationships between vested interests and politicians need to be scrutinised. We need to work together to make sure that the new Fast-Track Approvals Bill – currently being pushed through by the ...
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Bryce Edwards writes- The ability of the private sector to quickly establish major new projects making use of the urban and natural environment is to be supercharged by the new National-led Government. Yesterday it introduced to Parliament one of its most significant reforms, the Fast Track Approvals Bill. ...
Michael Bassett writes – If you think there is a move afoot by the radical Maori fringe of New Zealand society to create a parallel system of government to the one that we elect at our triennial elections, you aren’t wrong. Over the last few days we have ...
Without a corresponding drop in interest rates, it’s doubtful any changes to the CCCFA will unleash a massive rush of home buyers. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: The six things that stood out to me in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, poverty and climate on Monday, April 22 included:The Government making a ...
Sunday was a lazy day. I started watching Jack Tame on Q&A, the interviews are usually good for something to write about. Saying the things that the politicians won’t, but are quite possibly thinking. Things that are true and need to be extracted from between the lines.As you might know ...
In our Weekly Roundup last week we covered news from Auckland Transport that the WX1 Western Express is going to get an upgrade next year with double decker electric buses. As part of the announcement, AT also said “Since we introduced the WX1 Western Express last November we have seen ...
TL;DR: The six key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to April 29 include:PM Christopher Luxon is scheduled to hold a post-Cabinet news conference at 4 pm today. Stats NZ releases its statutory report on Census 2023 tomorrow.Finance Minister Nicola Willis delivers a pre-Budget speech at ...
A listing of 29 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 14, 2024 thru Sat, April 20, 2024. Story of the week Our story of the week hinges on these words from the abstract of a fresh academic ...
The ability of the private sector to quickly establish major new projects making use of the urban and natural environment is to be supercharged by the new National-led Government. Yesterday it introduced to Parliament one of its most significant reforms, the Fast Track Approvals Bill. The Government says this will ...
This is a column to say thank you. So many of have been in touch since Mum died to say so many kind and thoughtful things. You’re wonderful, all of you. You’ve asked how we’re doing, how Dad’s doing. A little more realisation each day, of the irretrievable finality of ...
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Two-thirds of the country think that “New Zealand’s economy is rigged to advantage the rich and powerful”. They also believe that “New Zealand needs a strong leader to take the country back from the rich and powerful”. These are just two of a handful of stunning new survey results released ...
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Roger Partridge writes – When the Coalition Government took office last October, it inherited a country on a precipice. With persistent inflation, decades of insipid productivity growth and crises in healthcare, education, housing and law and order, it is no exaggeration to suggest New Zealand’s first-world status was ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – In 2022, the Curriculum Centre at the Ministry of Education employed 308 staff, according to an Official Information Request. Earlier this week it was announced 202 of those staff were being cut. When you look up “The New Zealand Curriculum” on the Ministry of ...
Chris Bishop’s bill has stirred up a hornets nest of opposition. Photo: Lynn Grieveson for The KākāTL;DR: The six things that stood out to me in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, poverty and climate from the last day included:A crescendo of opposition to the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill is ...
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Hello! Here comes the Saturday edition of More Than A Feilding, catching you up on the past week’s editions.State of humanity, 20242024, it feels, keeps presenting us with ever more challenges, ever more dismay.Do you give up yet? It seems to ask.No? How about this? Or this?How about this?Full story Share ...
Determining the hardest sport in the world is a subjective matter, as the difficulty level can vary depending on individual abilities, physical attributes, and experience. However, based on various factors including physical demands, technical skills, mental fortitude, and overall accomplishment, here is an exploration of some of the most challenging ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
The Green Party has today launched a step-by-step guide to help New Zealanders make their voice heard on the Government’s democracy dodging and anti-environment fast track legislation. ...
The National Government’s proposed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act will mean tenants can be turfed from their homes by landlords with little notice, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson is calling on all parties to support a common-sense change that’s great for the planet and great for consumers after her member’s bill was drawn from the ballot today. ...
A significant milestone has been reached in the fight to strike an anti-Pasifika and unfair law from the country’s books after Teanau Tuiono’s members’ bill passed its first reading. ...
New Zealand has today missed the opportunity to uphold the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, says James Shaw after his member’s bill was voted down in its first reading. ...
Today’s advice from the Climate Change Commission paints a sobering reality of the challenge we face in combating climate change, especially in light of recent Government policy announcements. ...
Minister for Disability Issues Penny Simmonds appears to have delayed a report back to Cabinet on the progress New Zealand is making against international obligations for disabled New Zealanders. ...
The Government’s newly announced review of methane emissions reduction targets hints at its desire to delay Aotearoa New Zealand’s urgent transition to a climate safe future, the Green Party said. ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
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Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is today travelling to Europe where he’ll update the United Nations Human Rights Council on the Government’s work to restore law and order. “Attending the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva provides us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while ...
Associate Agriculture Minister, Mark Patterson, formally reopened the world’s largest wool processing facility today in Awatoto, Napier, following a $50 million rebuild and refurbishment project. “The reopening of this facility will significantly lift the economic opportunities available to New Zealand’s wool sector, which already accounts for 20 per cent of ...
Hon Andrew Bayly, Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing At the Southland Otago Regional Engineering Collective (SOREC) Summit, 18 April, Dunedin Ngā mihi nui, Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Ko Whanganui aho Good Afternoon and thank you for inviting me to open your summit today. I am delighted ...
The Government is delivering on its commitment to bring back the Three Strikes legislation, Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee announced today. “Our Government is committed to restoring law and order and enforcing appropriate consequences on criminals. We are making it clear that repeat serious violent or sexual offending is not ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today announced four new diplomatic appointments for New Zealand’s overseas missions. “Our diplomats have a vital role in maintaining and protecting New Zealand’s interests around the world,” Mr Peters says. “I am pleased to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the ...
New Zealand is contributing NZ$7 million to support communities affected by severe food insecurity and other urgent humanitarian needs in Ethiopia and Somalia, Foreign Minister Rt Hon Winston Peters announced today. “Over 21 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance across Ethiopia, with a further 6.9 million people ...
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The Government is reforming financial services to improve access to home loans and other lending, and strengthen customer protections, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly and Housing Minister Chris Bishop announced today. “Our coalition Government is committed to rebuilding the economy and making life simpler by cutting red tape. We are ...
“China remains a strong commercial opportunity for Kiwi exporters as Chinese businesses and consumers continue to value our high-quality safe produce,” Trade and Agriculture Minister Todd McClay says. Mr McClay has returned to New Zealand following visits to Beijing, Harbin and Shanghai where he met ministers, governors and mayors and engaged in trade and agricultural events with the New ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has completed a successful trip to Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, deepening relationships and capitalising on opportunities. Mr Luxon was accompanied by a business delegation and says the choice of countries represents the priority the New Zealand Government places on South East Asia, and our relationships in ...
New Zealand is demonstrating its commitment to reducing global greenhouse emissions, and supporting clean energy transition in South East Asia, through a contribution of NZ$41 million (US$25 million) in climate finance to the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-led Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM). Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced ...
The Government is today releasing a list of organisations who received letters about the Fast-track applications process, says RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop. “Recently Ministers and agencies have received a series of OIA requests for a list of organisations to whom I wrote with information on applying to have a ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Wellington Barrister David Jonathan Boldt as a Judge of the High Court, and the Honourable Justice Matthew Palmer as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Boldt graduated with an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington in 1990, and also holds ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford will lead the New Zealand delegation at the 2024 International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP) held in Singapore. The delegation includes representatives from the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) Te Wehengarua and the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa. The summit is co-hosted ...
A stopbank upgrade project in Tairawhiti partly funded by the Government has increased flood resilience for around 7000ha of residential and horticultural land so far, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones today attended a dawn service in Gisborne to mark the end of the first stage of the ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters will represent the Government at Anzac Day commemorations on the Gallipoli Peninsula next week and engage with senior representatives of the Turkish government in Istanbul. “The Gallipoli campaign is a defining event in our history. It will be a privilege to share the occasion ...
Science, Innovation and Technology and Defence Minister Judith Collins will next week attend the OECD Science and Technology Ministerial conference in Paris and Anzac Day commemorations in Belgium. “Science, innovation and technology have a major role to play in rebuilding our economy and achieving better health, environmental and social outcomes ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with the President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The Prime Minister was accompanied by MP Paulo Garcia, the first Filipino to be elected to a legislature outside the Philippines. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon and President Marcos Jr discussed opportunities to ...
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Just think, with Lochinver Station not sold to foreigners it may now become affordable for New Zealanders to purchase. We will no longer have to compete with the millions and billions of millionaires and billionaires in Europe, Asia, North America and, well the whole world….. all of whom have made zero contribution to our society. They just steam in and whip it out from under us. Wankers.
but yep, how many millions have just been wiped off Lochinver’s “value”. A “value” we should remember that is artificially and vastly inappropriately marked up due to the presence of foreign buyers.
Remove all foreign buyers from NZ and our land values will drop back significantly, meaning none of us will have to take on as much to debt to get into farming, and we will have more money in our back pockets at the end of each working day. Wouldn’t that be something……. seems so simple .. I should let John Key know – he seems oblivious
John Key is part of the international bankster cartel.
Yep, and banksters make money out of selling “money products” like debt.
The more debt for NZ the better it is for banks
Quite why the media listens to bank economists I have no idea – they are the most heavily conflicted economists in the economy with completely and utterly vested interests. As such bank economists views must discounted to zip.
Oh its much worse than that. When we do business with indebted people, companies, countries, we have to pay more since they need to cover their interest on their debt. When we become indebted, we all have to pay each other more and charge more. Now get this, the Green party are the real free traders, not the neolibs, the neolibs are big government types who won’t put a value on pollution, note they use the power of the state to support big industry, big militra, big pharm, big agro, from paying a real cost , so the free market never is price correctly. Greens are even pro-migration, why would yo holdup a population in any region to destroy it ecology,when there as much less impact on ecology by pricing it the real cost and then letting people move, I.e a free market in peoole. Our whole world economy is rigged by government parties who load us all up with debt,force costs up, and then don’t value the most precious thing on the planet, global ecology that sustains us all.
But wait its worse. In the sevenities neolibs took over claiming the wealth and growth inevitable from cheap high density liquid non-renewables was down to their policies that pillage the planet and create huge growth, not of infrastructure and better society, but of war, of debt growth, of capital stagnation. the neolibs then sat on their hands locking gifts to the will of private corporates because they don’t have to do anything, the free market will. Yet these supposed friends of the free market weren’t actual free marketeers, power can never lie in any one segment of society, it just becomes corrpt and distortionary. Aka honey bee colony collapse, plastic ocean islands, climate carbon extreme, wars, etc.
The middle ages were a time when power lay with priests, this age, these last thirty years, power has been handed away into a void where any destruction, any acculuation of negatives is rewarded, and all good is regarded as ineffient waste.
No, it just won’t be sold to this particular group of Chinese, under this particular business plan. Another foreign company could still buy it.
Yes, I understand that, however I think you will notice a big ‘risk’ element being imposed on Lochinver (and other similar rural properties) by any new purchaser, thereby discounting its value.
There is no doubt that this decision will raise red flags in the minds of foreigners looking at becoming absentee landlords.
The price just went down
First poll since Corbyn elected leader.
Doesn’t show any evidence enthusiasm has spread beyond the hard Left yet.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/8-charts-that-reveal-what-people-think-about-jeremy-corbyn-on-the-issues-that-really-matter-10505992.html
Kevin McKenna: Jeremy Corbyn’s victory gives us a glimpse behind the mask of his opponents
SEPTEMBER 14TH, 2015 – 12:13 AM KEVIN MCKENNA 15 COMMENTS
THE favoured tactic of the right in this country has always been to label any left-wing views that cause them discomfort as “extremist”. The prefix “hard” is applied to ideas of the left which they fear could cause any ripples in their world of pre-arranged privilege and social management. Their entire political strategy rests on ensuring that the rest of us look the other way as they ensure that real power will always be deployed from within their tiny, privileged elite.
Once, they were bred like battery hens and taken early from their families to spend what was left of their childhoods at places such as Eton and Harrow, learning how to wield power. Sentimental attachments to mummy and daddy could never be allowed to come before serving the state and their appointed place in it: at the top. They were scattered to the far ends of the British Empire to administer British control and to ensure that the fuzzy-wuzzies didn’t get too truculent about being ruthlessly robbed and exploited by the British East India Company.
When the sun began to set on that empire they retreated to their fortresses at home to ensure that they could hold on to control of the UK at least. They deploy The British Armed Forces like their own personal private army by deluding them into thinking they are serving the Queen and their country. And they rely on the right-wing press to be their nightwatchmen, ever-ready to defame and besmirch any who might rise up from the masses and attempt to tell the truth.
Occasionally, useful idiots like Tony Blair arrive to peddle some state-sponsored radicalism and soften up us, the idiot punters, for another stretch of reactionary Conservatism.
So, it was pleasing to observe the shock of the Right at the election of Jeremy Corbyn on Saturday as leader of the UK Labour Party. How to explain the fact that more than 250,000 people, across every category of Labour supporter, voted for Corbyn – more than the other three candidates combined? They can’t all be raving Marxists and revolutionary Communists?
The narrative of unpleasantness and vindictiveness has already been cranked up. Blairites like Peter Mandelson, who grew almost as rich as his master on the takings of the New Labour delusion, and David Blunkett are already talking about the death of the party. Tony Blair, pausing for a moment from his lucrative occupation of conning gullible eastern potentates into believing that they, too, can be global statesmen, said that Corbyn supporters had mental health issues.
Even just the prospect of a Corbyn victory gave us a glimpse of what lay behind the mask of Blair and his wretched gang: careerism, acquiescence lies and corruption.
Jeremy Corbyn had better get used to this, for it will become worse, far worse. When the miners looked like they were going to defeat Margaret Thatcher and the mine-owners, every division of the British state was mobilised to destroy them: the Metropolitan Police attacked and assaulted striking miners in the knowledge that the judiciary would all be taking holidays. Stella Rimington, head of MI5 deployed a double agent at the top of the NUM to gather intelligence on how best to destroy Scargill. In the end they settled for a lie, eagerly advanced by the press, that he had been filching funds from his own union.
In last year’s referendum on Scottish independence the same divisions of the British state were deployed once more and useful idiots in the so-called left- wing press were also somehow persuaded to chip in. For of course this was never about preserving the Union, it was about maintaining
Britain’s seat at the UN and not being seen to have lost a quarter of the kingdom on your watch.
How can a party call itself “patriotic” when it cheerfully sends thousands of its young people to their deaths in illegal wars, ill-equipped and under-paid? And how many of us now believe we were far safer as a country before we started slaughtering Muslims in their own homes on the lie that they were harbouring weapons of mass destruction?
IT’S not difficult to see why the UK right hates Corbyn. His avowed aim of withdrawing from the nuclear club will not make the UK more vulnerable, it will simply detach the UK’s face from America’s arse and free us from the delusion that we are a super-power.
A Corbyn-led government will make the unions stronger in defending the lost rights of British workers, something that Blair and his useless crony Gordon Brown failed to do despite the safety net of a three-term stretch. It will also seek alternatives to making the most vulnerable in our society pay for the profligacy of the rich which led to the credit crisis. People don’t mind being asked to make sacrifices if they believe that all other sections of society are being asked to as well.
The lickspittles of the right, like Blair, Brown and Mandelson, will wail and gnash their teeth and insist that a Labour government under Jeremy Corbyn can never regain power. They conveniently forget that whatever party they all thought they were representing in office between 1997 and 2010 it certainly wasn’t recognisably Labour. Yet these people today are reeling at the sheer volume of numbers of those who voted for Corbyn. He now has a bigger mandate than Blair ever had.
If Corbyn can expose the lies that sit at the heart of Conservative ideology then he may indeed be set fair for government: we are not all in it together, we’re all in it for a few; we are not one of the most prosperous countries in the world, we are one of the most unequal; we are not spending billions to defend ourselves, we are a militaristic basket-case who would rather spend billions keeping weapons of mass destruction operational than some vital community services.
And if Kezia Dugdale reads the signs of the times and resists the advice of those advisers who lost Scotland, she will suggest to Corbyn that the party drops its ridiculously hostile attitude to the idea of an independent Scotland. If so, then the Labour Party in Scotland can begin to entertain the notion of defeating the SNP.
Copied from The National
Btw. Mckenna has an irrational view of the SNP. He does not get it that the SNP is the authentic Labour Party in Scotland. McKenna has a very Labour centric view of things and is often myopic.
” it was pleasing to observe the shock of the Right at the election of Jeremy Corbyn”
The only shock being displayed on the Right is disbelief that Labour has abandoned the electoral middle ground. ‘Glee’ would be a more appropriate term for the current mood among the Tories?
“How to explain the fact that more than 250,000 people, across every category of Labour supporter, voted for Corbyn – more than the other three candidates combined? They can’t all be raving Marxists and revolutionary Communists?”
Well that’s the question that really matters.
I think is fair to assume that the people who voted in Corbyn are current Leftist voters who were highly dissatisfied with the status quo in the U.K Labour Party?
But is that the extent of it? Merely a schism emerging between the various shades of Left?
Or the first signs of a widespread groundswell of support for societal change in a Leftist direction?
If the latter turns out to be the case, the Right will be truly shocked, but the poll above won’t be causing them to lose any sleep at this point.
There is a lot on the line here for both Left and Right. Fascinating stuff.
“The only shock being displayed on the Right is disbelief that Labour has abandoned the electoral middle ground. ‘Glee’ would be a more appropriate term for the current mood among the Tories?”
Paring the public sector back to Walpole era levels is not ‘centre ground’.
The 18th and 19th century saw misery to a lot of people — it was more ‘Gangs of New York’ rather than ‘Wuthering Heights’
Got any proof of what you say?
[Opinions are opinions are opinions. They only require agreement or disagreement. Get a grip!] – Bill
Dickens & Marx.
Or were you meaning the Walpole comparison? Such things that you tories get your knickers in a twist about while clutching at straws…
It might be an interesting phd thesis, actually – obviously social service expenditure was minimal, but military expenditure was quite high, and administration was all by hand. I’ve no idea which way it would come out in terms of different measures such as %GDP, per capita population in government service, etc.
Military expenditure wasn’t particularly high relative to what passed for GDP during the period. It was just high relative to government revenue.
Pretty damn hard to find out. The accounting standards of the period seemed to be designed to sequester revenues rather than to disclose it transparently.
“Paring the public sector back to Walpole era levels is not ‘centre ground’.
The 18th and 19th century saw misery to a lot of people — it was more ‘Gangs of New York’ rather than ‘Wuthering Heights’”
Millsy either support your assertions with a link or fuck off with your drivel.
[The only person who’ll be ‘fucking off with their drivel’ is yourself. Millsy has quoted from a previous comment and offered a qualifying or additional opinion on top. You either agree or disagree. What you don’t get to do is harangue. As to PR, so to you. Get a grip.] – Bill
Bill, Millsy’s comment is patently absurd as is your protection of it.
To suggest the public sector/welfarism in 2015 is in any way comparable with that of Walpole’s area is twilight zone stuff.
[lprent: You expressed YOUR complaint about it in a way that forced moderators to waste time looking at it, and then finding that you were being a stupid timewasting shithead. Why shouldn’t we feel irritated? It is your behaviour that is causing us extra and unwarranted work – not millsy. ]
Aw fuck – asking someone to provide a link to back their opinion isn’t absurd!? Give me a break.
Not sure what your point is Bill ?
Millsy has made this comment twice at least now..
http://thestandard.org.nz/uk-cameron-loses-his-shit-new-members-flood-to-labour/#comment-1070250
Surely if one is making such claims there would be some kind of evidence to back it up or is everything here now just opinion ?
It’s like the moron Hooten saying that the poor now live a better life that Henry VIII – just an absolutely absurd and meaningless comparison.
[lprent: I’d agree. But both were more rhetorical than statements of fact.
As far as I can tell that was rhetorical and clearly was such. Surely anyone who knows british history is aware that Robert Walpole was in charge of the british treasury for a couple of decades from the 1721 (and widely credited with being the first PM). It was a period when there was effectively no government support for much. Also that he was rather notorious for not having accurate accounts by even 19th century standards.
But I can see how if you you were too lazy to look up Walpole, then you’d have a problem. But if you want to raise problems with his comment, then I would have been slamming him for not providing a link to Walpole. Many people won’t know who in the hell he was.
But coming to think of it being lazy and moaning about it in a way that I have to check is a problem. It means I waste time looking up whatever crap you want to be a pissant pain about expressing it in terms that I have to do as moderator, and then write a note about it.
Perhaps you should read the policy again about wasting moderator time. I am sure I reciprocate and find some time for ban in response if I get to do this again. In fact I will be extremely generous. ]
You’re trying my patience. Opinions are proffered. that’s the nature of this site. Those who disagree can debate. Attempting to shut people down through carping for evidence to substantiate an opinion is irksome bullshit and nonsense. If you don’t have the presence of mind to lay out a counter position, or if you can’t demonstrate or argue why an opinion is lacking, then don’t comment.
Since you’re kind of lacking in the upstairs department, let me offer a throw-away example.
John Key is a nice man.
Posit examples that would suggest otherwise if you wish. Or agree. But don’t attempt to shut people down by calling for proof on stuff that’s obviously just an opinion. – end –
It was a period when there was effectively no government support for much. Also that he was rather notorious for not having accurate accounts…
So the comparison with the National Party is apt, despite being somewhat of an exaggeration. Divisive, check. Defended charges of corruption by asserting that “they do it too”, check.
At least he wasn’t a warmonger.
Thanks for that I’ve had a read of the policy.
🙄
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11514519
Simplistic arguments sometimes miss the point. National is of course center-right – they are “centre” over important issues like the flag and gay marriage, they are “hard-right” over small thinks like economic policy – so “center-right” (american spelling deliberate) must be a reasonable description – right, TLS?
As i think you are implying, the degree of Right or Leftness of our major political Parties tends to vary policy by policy.
NZ Labour and National are both Centrist Parties by any world standard I would have thought?
By the way, the article by ex UK Labour MP Bryan Gould contains a fine example of that assumption Corbyn represents that groundswell of general change that the Left so wants to see….
“His appeal to the voters is the best evidence so far that the “free-market” hegemony that has held us all – and not least Labour politicians – in thrall for so long is now on the wane.
As discussed, if Corbyn is the ‘best evidence’ of a ‘wane’, then the other evidence coming through is not showing much support for that contention at this point.
It’s still early days yet.
However, Corbyn needs to just occupy the crease and build a decent innings. Its going to be hard on a green pitch and humid condition, with half your batting partners wanting to run you out, and Osborne/Cameron lobbing down unplayable deliveries, but Corbyn cannot afford any while swinging or crazy shots right now.
He did a few wild swings in the first over, but he has settled down for the moment.
Its going to be a fascinating match though.
Sounds just like Little here.
Corbyn has certainly had a rocky first few days. The organisation of his leadership campaign is almost universally acknowledged to have been brilliant, the same can’t be said for his first week as leader.
But given the shitstorm of smears and ridicule that he’s had to put up with on a daily basis from the British political and media establishment over the last 10 weeks, the real surprise in this YouGov Poll is that defence is the only issue where an absolute majority perceive him negatively. The numbers aint good, but they could have been a damn sight worse.
The worry is that first impressions (created by this unprecedented shitstorm of media / elite abuse) will last. The Tories (and New Labour Grandees) have sought to shape and define his image early on and it could be hard to shift.
Lost sheep
The poll relates to trust.
Yet, his policies are very popular amongst the wider public. Therefore, the enthusiasm is there.
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/petition/The_Hon_Amy_Adams_Minister_of_Justice_Save_the_Dunedin_Courthouse/?ayQSgcb
I know Amy Adams is hardly going to care about this but would be good to get the 3000 signatures none the less. Thank you. It’s a beautiful building if you don’t know it, Dunedin is lucky to have it still.
Signed. Couldn’t believe Amy Adams attitude to this-refusing to release details of the costings so the local council could check them.
Not a vote winner for the philistine Nats. Labour and the Greens should commit to saving the courthouse.
just another example of the nats’ War on Dunedin. The rest of the south is collateral damage.
So we received the national party “view seeking” full colour glossy mustve cost a fortune survey in the post this week…. asking what issues I care about and what my political affiliation is….yueech. In parliamentary service envelopes with freepost return post also on the taxpayer …. not fair they should at minimum pay for their own postage to do their greasy pre election poll research. Very icky getting personally addressed mail from nats asking you who you vote (“support”) for.. yuck.
For all the right wingers in or associated with Labour (yes you Goff, Robertson, Mumblefuck, Pagani) disingenuously claiming that they have to pursue the mirage of “the centre”, research in the UK hows that Labour becomes more popular the further left it moves.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-34278338?SThisFB
Similar feedback here has shown support for Labour NZs left policies and in both cases it has been the toxic brand of the party or its leadership for incompetence and instability that has been the vote-loser.
Why then are these people and their vanity allowed to undermine Labour’s chances when they have nothing positive and much that is negative to contribute?
Yep, I’ve been reading quite a lot of British Election Study research over recent weeks (as well as a whole lot of other UK poll data).
Despite the never-ending flow of unmitigated bullshit emanating from the Blairites (including dear old Tony himself), the Brownites, the Tories and all of their little enablers in the media and academic establishment, the poll data does not suggest that UK voters are pro-Austerity or deeply enamoured of the Cameron Government’s economic performance.
Rather, they have very little trust in the economic competence of the major figures associated with the last Blair and Brown Governments. Large majorities think the Tory-Lib Dem Coalition’s economic performance was poor or very poor, but overwhelming majorities think the pre-Corbyn Labour leadership was even worse, even less competent.
Most of Corbyn’s policy proposals (as tentative and potentially flexible as many of them are), are entirely in tune with public opinion. Renationalising railways and utilities, rent controls, higher taxes for the super-wealthy, a mandatory living wage, cuts to tuition fees and so on. Immigration is the most obvious exception (and it’s an issue that has unusually high salience at the moment), but then precisely the same goes for the other 3 who stood as Labour Leadership candidates and for the respective PLP factions they represent. And indeed for the Tories. British public opinion is to the Left of the major parties on most issues but well to the Right of all the parties (except Ukip) on immigration and has been for quite some time.
Jane Green generally de-emphasises the importance of precise ideological direction for voters’ decision-making and instead emphasises valence issues like general competence and, in particular, perceived economic competence. (Valence issues tend to become more important when major parties ideologically converge as they did during the Blair/Brown years).
The evidence coming through at the moment in terms of the May 2015 Election loss downplays English voter wariness of a Labour government relying on the SNP as a factor. Instead, it points to 2 key problems – a very low regard for Ed Miliband’s potential competence as PM and an equally low regard for Labour’s economic competence.
2 key problems – a very low regard for Ed Miliband’s potential competence as PM and an equally low regard for Labour’s economic competence.
Latest Poll YouGov (see link above) indicates these are problems Corbyn has inherited to a large extent.
From what you have seen or heard about Jeremy Corbyn, do you think he will do well or badly….
As leader of the Labour party?
Very well 10
Fairly well 20
TOTAL WELL 30
Fairly badly 20
Very badly 28
TOTAL BADLY 48
Don’t know 23
Managing the economy?
Would trust a lot 7
Would trust a fair amount 16
TOTAL TRUST 23
Would not trust very much 14
Would not trust at all 36
TOTAL NOT TRUST 50
Don’t know enough about him to say 27
See my comment at 2.3
Incidentally, the first Party Support Poll to come out suggests Labour has cut the Tory lead from 9 points to 6 (half the poll was conducted before the leadership win announced / half after, but all of it conducted at a time when Corbyn’s victory was universally assumed).
When you say ‘Labour had cut the lead from 9 to 6’, it should be pointed out that Labour support had only increased by 1%. Obviously the other 2 points the Tories had lost were not to Labour.
But as you say, all of the polling was conducted during a time when Corbyn’s leadership was assumed.
So it would be very hard to read a 1% increase as an indication that Corbyn’s politics were indicative of any kind of widespread support for his politics outside the current Left?
Yaaaaaaawwwwwwnnnnn
So over this UK/Corbyn/Labour rant.
Thank goodness my forebears had the wit and courage to emigrate to New Zealand in the 19thC and leave behind Dickensian England.
Good luck to Jeremy but what has he got to do with NZ politics? The Key to a better NZ is Key & his mates. IMHO
Yeah, but what you’re ignoring are the widespread claims from the British
MSM / Blair-Brownites / Tories = that Corbyn’s leadership is going to be
absolutely disastrous, that the Party’s support will plunge to the sub-20% zone.
Early days, who knows how dire the relentless media shitstorm will become over the next few months and how effective it’ll be in shaping voter perceptions. But, at the moment, the negative connotations being ascribed to this latest ‘Attitudes to Corbyn’ YouGov poll are not being reflected in the latest Party Support ICM/Guardian Poll.
Here’s some interesting stats from the YouGov Poll, indicating potential inroads a Corbyn-led Labour Party could make into Lib Dem / Ukip support:
Despite 10 weeks worth of intense attacks and smears on Corbyn (becoming noticeably worse over the last week), there are still supporters of other parties who hold positive views about him.
Bearing in mind that there are plenty of people in the ‘Don’t know enough about him to answer the question’ category …… Here’s the Proportion of Lib Dem and Ukip supporters who:
Are explicitly positive about Corbyn’s win as leader
Lib Dem 32%, Ukip 19%
Think he will do well as leader
Lib Dem 37%, Ukip 19%
Trust him to make the right decisions on govt spending / cuts
Lib Dem 32%, Ukip 12%
Trust him on NHS
Lib Dem 51%, Ukip 29%
Trust him on managing the economy
Lib Dem 27%, Ukip 12%
EU
Lib Dem 32%, Ukip 13%
Taxes
Lib Dem 31%, Ukip 13%
On most issues, only a minority of Lib Dem supporters say they Don’t trust Corbyn, while usually at least a third of Ukip voters either trust him or say they don’t know enough about him yet.
Suggests a quarter to a third of Lib Dems are at least potentially up for grabs, certainly sympathetic, along with maybe 10-20% of Ukip voters (putting aside all those in the ‘Don’t Know enough about him yet’ category). This dovetails with polls conducted during the leadership campaign when you generally had around 20% or more of Ukip voters feeling genuinely positive about Corbyn.
Along with the fairly consistent 4-7% of Tory voters who trust him on these various issues (rising to 19% on the NHS), that represents potentially 7 or 8 percentage points up for grabs, with the aim of holding on to Labour doubters.
That’s putting aside, of course, the overwhelmingly positive attitudes that Green supporters (currently around 3-6% in the polls) have of a Corbyn-led Labour Party. There’s the potential for at least a third, maybe half, of the Green vote to move to Labour. Particularly, if an electoral accommodation is made.
And, as always, under FPP, attitudes/public opinion in the key marginals are all that count, from a purely electoral viewpoint. That’s where they need to shift votes.
Summing up then, Corbyn’s election to Labour Leadership does not appear to have had a significant immediate effect on the Parties overall electoral position, either for better or worse.
Yep, that’s about the size of it. Although, very early days. Let’s see where the polls go over the next couple of months.
I’d say, though, that the very fact that Labour’s support is holding up (and that their main opponents are down) is remarkable, given the 10 week onslaught of elite hysteria.
Incidentally, a Survation Poll, conducted immediately after Corbyn’s win was announced, found that 6% of Tories, 20% of Ukip supporters, 23% of Lib Dems and 17% of 2015 Non-Voters say they are more likely to vote Labour at the next Election as a result of Corbyn’s leadership.
Just a bit confused by that. I know next to nothing of UK politics, but aren’t UKIP supporters heavily anti-immigration? Isn’t Corbyn known to be heavily pro-immigration, especially for refugees? Why would 20% of UKIP’s seriously contemplate changing horses, or do you reckon they were just taking the piss?
I would guess that a lot of UKIP voters are fed up to the gills with the professional political class, and also suspect that this class uses immigration to impose austerity on the locals, by cutting them out of jobs and houses. So someone who is not the darling of the political class and opposes austerity is attractive to them. They key feature, I think, is austerity and those who cheerfully impose it.
Pretty much what Olwyn says.
Objectively (though not necessarily subjectively), Ukip voters are very much like NZF voters here – essentially the socially-conservative Left (and disproportionately older, working class and male).
Polls over the last couple of years suggest they are:
– strongly anti-austerity
– highly-alienated from / dissatisfied with the political class
– almost as strongly supportive of public ownership/renationalisation as Labour and Green voters are
– believe the Torys do not govern with their best interests in mind
– believe (the pre-Corbyn) Labour Party no longer had the interests of ordinary people like them at heart
Polls also suggest that you can divide Ukip supporters into 3 groups in terms of their ideological self-placement / self-perceptions. The largest are the core supporters. Second largest are the Right-leaners, who vote Ukip while greatly preferring a Tory (to Labour) govt, with the smallest faction (roughly 20-25%) being those who subjectively see themselves as Left-leaners,
ie Ukippers naturally disposed to the Labour Party, more often than not being former supporters.
There’s no doubt though that Immigration is going to be a difficult hurdle for Corbyn (particularly given its increasing salience to voters. At the moment, you have close to 50% of British voters (an unprecedented number) ranking it as the most serious issue facing Britain today). As I suggested above, the UK electorate is to the Left of the major parties (pre-Corbyn) on most issues but well to the Right of all parties (except Ukip) on Immigration.
What Corbyn shouldn’t do (and I don’t think it’s in his character anyway) is the typical upper-middle class urban liberal, morally-superior finger-wagging (ie “racists, racists, racists !!!”, much in the same way that fundamentalist Christians chastise everybody else with “sinners, sinners, sinners !!!”). Needs to listen to their fears about job security and so on sympathetically.
Ukippers are also anti-EU. So, a Labour Party led by a Euro-sceptic like Corbyn could potentially be attractive.
Thanks. Interesting.
@ Lyn: Editing comments is *very* slow, and has been for a week or so now. It takes at least 45 seconds to 1 minute to load the edit window, it used to only take 1-3.
Wow! Read Toby Manhire’s advice to the Australian PM.
“What then can you learn from your cross-ditch human template?
…..My first instinct is to say, ignore the performance of recent weeks. The craven and laggardly action to take extra refugees showed a distinct lack of moral leadership. Then there was the mealy-mouthed refusal to support Sue Moroney’s paid parental leave bill. The adolescent politicking around the flag shortlist.
I’d say all this, coming after defeat in Northland, the fallout from Dirty Politics and scandals such as the Saudi sheep farrago, suggests that John Key’s honeymoon has come to an end.” …….
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11514702
Bureaucracy out of control…..
City defends $63m staff blowout
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11514748
Wages bill $792 million
FTE staff 9678
Average wage $81,835
Last year the average wage was $76,979, that’s a 6.3% increase
Porkers…..
What’s the distribution?
Distribution of what?
Of salaries and which salary band got what increase.
“These prisoners and their personal privacy—to HELL with it!”
How long will it be till Hillary Barry and Jim Kayes walk?
PAUL HENRY, TV3, Friday 18 September 2015
depraved adj. 1. morally bad or debased; corrupt
Straight after the 7 o’clock news, Henry embarks on a savage rant: “Rihannon-basher Chris Brown—why would we let him into this country?” This is especially ironic in light of the guest he has lined up for later that hour: the gruesome S.S. Obergruppenführer Garth “The Knife” McVicar, who is the most shameless exponent of extreme violence in this country. [1]
7:29 a.m. I tune in just in time to catch the last five seconds of Phil “Goofy” Goff, who is also denouncing Chris Brown. Fellow guest commentator Judith “Crusher” Collins nods her head approvingly and smiles in that supercilious way of hers.
After the 7:30 news, there is a particularly lame segment, where a number of children are asked their views about the “Hakarena” parody. My niece (13 years old) says: “They’re trying to be like Jono and Ben!” My nephew (10) says: “This is not funny.”
At 7:45 a.m. it’s time to ramp up the outrage even more. As well as the calamitous prospect of Chris Brown coming to New Zealand, there have been revelations that a number of prisoners have breached their parole conditions and are on the loose. No better person to interview, then, than the S.S. Obergruppenführer. Or to be more precise, to let him wax philosophical….
GARTH MCVICAR: ….Absolute débâcle. … Parole is a con, a sham… We have a criminial-centred system in this country, the victim is always a secondary consideration. … The system is always concerned about the offender, to ensure that THEIR rights aren’t breached. …Publlc safety has got too be of paramount consideration. ….[he continues talking like this for another minute or so]….
PAUL HENRY: [clucks tongue to indicate how impressed he is] There’s no reason to talk about this any longer. You’re absolutely right, Garth. Have a good weekend.
Then he turns and shouts at his hapless slaves, Hillary Barry and Jim Kayes, who sit glumly silent across from Henry, looking half bewildered and half disgusted…
HENRY: He’s RIGHT isn’t he! These prisoners and their personal privacy—to HELL with it!
Hillary and Jim maintain an awkward silence. Henry gives up on them….
HENRY: Perlina, what are people saying about this?
PERLINA LAU: Eighty-five per cent of people in our survey say that Chris Brown should NOT be allowed in.
HENRY: Eighty-five per cent? That means fifteen per cent think he SHOULD be allowed in! We don’t need him! He’s just a BASTARD, a nasty BASTARD! The British in 2010 said “Nuh!” and the Canadians said “Nuh!” We don’t need him!
Hillary and Jim sit there, glum and silent.
….ad nauseam….
[1] http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-13072014/#comment-848129
Harvard Law Professor picks apart the US case against Kim Dotcom.
https://torrentfreak.com/presidential-candidate-lawrence-lessig-steps-up-to-assist-kim-dotcom-150916/
Google Richard O’Dwyer and TVShack. Pretty sure there are parallels worth exploring. I believe the UK, unlike their craven NZ counterparts, told the US to ‘go take a leap’.
There were other very similar cases too, but I can’t remember names or such-like.
Somewhere there is a free streaming documentary looking at how the porn industry was trying to shut down ‘free’ sites and what not. The basic thrust of part of the docu was that it was exploring possible legal arguments/strategies that could then be used by major studios against the likes of (the then unknown) O’Dwyer and Dotcom.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHxMgX0GUoY
When kim sues us for 15 gazillion dollars for the misconduct of our Attourney General and police is there a simmilar “undertaking of liability” under which we can recover these funds from the u s of a. Its looking quite likely now
NRT: Incompetence or fraud?
Electorate as well so if she ends up going to jail there’ll be a by-election.
IMO, if the fraud is proven then the board should be going to jail.
lpent you need to upgrade your potato.
They never thought he had a bomb…
It’s a theory.
But then who knows what stupidity lurks in the hearts of morons. I know of an incident where someone walked around using R/T and cellphone while carrying and showing people the (intentionally) suspicious device they’d found.
And then another time when the hazmat team had to fully deploy because someone thought a bulk-bin bag of flour was a “suspicious white powder” sitting in the gutter. Someone went without pancakes that day.
BUT was the bag of flour arrested Mac?
Depends on whether the flour was white or brown ….
just sayin’ 😉
everyone who approached it had a nice shower.
Although to be fair I reckon the emergency services figured it for what it was pretty quickly after responding to the call from the paranoid member of the public, but used it more as a decent training opportunity rather than a germ warfare attack.
“It’s a theory.”
Here’s another one. The science teacher could tell that there were no explosive bits, but still thought the clock could be part of a bomb. The stupid is in the culture of paranoia.
Another possility, yes.
The engineering teacher intrigues me – I suspect that the warning not to show the clock to other teachers was made in the full knowledge that some of those teachers were paranoid bigots who would cause exactly this situation.
Such a fucking stupid situation.
Dunno if that’s so much a theory as a logical demolition job of the ‘official line’.
If the various actions and inactions are accurate, then yeah – they didn’t think he had a bomb.
If everyone was acting rationally and intelligently.
I suspect the English teacher is a confirmed bigot and moron who should lose her job.
The cops could be morons with things that might go bang, they could have suspected it was part of a device he was constructing, they could have been humouring a noisy paranoid teacher simply because it was easier for the cops, or they could have had the goal of ‘humilitating a little Muslim, African boy’.
Any of those could be the case, and now everyone’s in “bullshit to cover their arse” mode.
Oh Dear … Whale found in Contempt of Court ..
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11515312
Only kinda sorta found guilty of contempt.
Just me reckoning ‘bollocks’? Not deliberate and/or a wee bit careless! Beggers belief…
Yeah, I’d say that was bollocks. Slater’s has been saying for years that he’s going to publish information that had been closed down by court order.