Yeah, you got the right questions. One could perhaps deem it a commons thing: the state created a ludicrous situation in the colonial era, and in our neocolonial era the view we all hold in common is that democracy is incapable of fixing it.
The proof of that lies in the track record of govts: a century of leftists & rightists working together in collusion to evade the problem is extremely compelling.
It’s totally understandable that everyone still believes in democracy despite the evidence: you just ignore the evidence and everything's fine. Who could ignore such universally-successful magical thinking?
"It’s totally understandable that everyone still believes in democracy despite the evidence: you just ignore the evidence and everything's fine. Who could ignore such universally-successful magical thinking?"
By all means describe a better alternative…..and then convince enough people your proposition will improve things.
Persuasion usually doesn't work, so I leave it to those motivated to give it a go. In respect of Maori figuring there's got to be a better way (than a century of failed democracy), the wisdom of that crowd ought to prevail.
Complaining about the Crown's behaviour hasn't solved the problem, so they ought to apply diy…
Most of them are that busy trying to keep their heads to gather while the hamster wheel spins faster they haven't got time to think.
But on an ancadata front I recently got half a story about a farmer offering easement to a large piece of landlocked moari land but the vogons made it so hard everyone gave up,
That's sensible. Best way to wean simpletons off binary thinking is to make them focus on 3 not 2.
First was a focus on the electorate. "I want you to be focused on the needs of your people, build those relationships across the local government, build those relationships across iwi, build them across the different community groups and the different businesses that are in your electorate, have presence and be very present in your electorate, take time to explain the problems and the reality that we're facing. Most importantly, take the time to explain how we're going to resolve that, how we're going to solve those problems.
Building local community relations grounds your identity in their view of the world, and explaining how to solve problems differentiates the Nat brand from Labour.
Second, he called for a focus on the work of Parliament. "We've got lots of new MPs, and we've talked a lot about it and recent caucus meetings, but make sure you become good Parliamentarians. You know, learn the House, learn Parliament, make diligent contributions."
Finally, he urged the MPs to work together. "We've made immense progress over the last two years on because we've built a high performance team. And as I've said, from day one, politics is not an individual sport, politics is a team sport. We all play positions on our team.
Playing as a team with due diligence also recycles traditional wisdoms. The vital thing is not doing anything clever or new – that would destroy conservative authenticity – but they all already know that anyway. Back to the future again…
Corporate speak from someone who thinks he knows all the answers but who, in reality, doesn’t know much apart from how to make a bob or two.
What he's telling them is what MPs have been doing since God made little apples. Sure, some are better at it than others but anyone who has to be told those things shouldn't be there.
Finally, he urged the MPs to work together. "We've made immense progress over the last two years on because we've built a high performance team. And as I've said, from day one, politics is not an individual sport, politics is a team sport. We all play positions on our team.
He'll probably have them performing ritualisitic type bonding sessions before each caucus.
They've built a high performance team? With a few exceptions, I think they will prove to be a bunch of mediocres whose sole purpose is to look good on the debating chamber benches and wouldn't be capable of a complete original thought between them.
"take time to explain the problems and the reality that we're facing. Most importantly, take the time to explain how we're going to resolve that, how we're going to solve those problems.
" It reads to me that it's like an old sales pitch from a vacuum cleaner salesman – identify (invent) a problem that your product can solve so you can sell the story that you solved it and attach it to the product..so madam has a deep pile carpet that no matter how much you vacuum with a conventional cleaner won't be clean EVER and you NEED to have this thing the size and price of a truck to fix that problem – which didn't exist until he arrived at the front door and told you. Business is not like politics.
"So far it looks like cancelling things and changing names… but is it really what Kiwis were expecting when they voted to get the country, “Back on Track”?"
Well, Nick, yes, I think that is what many of those who voted NACTFirst hoped for; cancelling things and changing names.
I suspect Act will be more than willing to fill that vacuum and no doubt Winston will hop on the bandwagon if it helps get a pet project or 3 across the line.
Don't try too hard, don't rock the boat, because the wide-world is a benign, stable place, demanding nothing of us, except holding the line, sticking to our knitting.
When have this bunch ever repaired anything, the great undoing is this lots legacy, aucklanders are doomed to another 15 years atleast of idling their life away in their cars, now the light rail is dead, and I bet bo 2nd crossing come either.
Mental health is relative to normalcy. Who wants to be a norm?
New Zealand’s first ever Minister of Mental Health, Matt Doocey, will be busy putting together a work programme for his return to Parliament at the end of summer. Labour failed to deliver on their promise of transforming mental health in their six years of power. What will be different about National’s approach and what advice will he be getting?
Firstly, he will need no reminding that mental health will not be moving off the agenda. We are now a knowledge-based economy, and conditions that impact the way we think, feel and interact with others – the essence of our mental health – will continue to touch the lives of all New Zealanders.
Current services, which remain largely unchanged since our asylums were decanted in the 90s, are no longer fit for purpose. These one-size-fits-all institutions were transplanted into the community but have retained their paternalistic and isolated ways. Mental illness now impacts one in five of us every year and half of us over our lifetime, and we need a suite of services and options to meet our needs that are fully integrated into the mainstream of health provision.
Gosh, it's almost as if the prospect of reform looms. How ghastly a thing for a conservative to be forced to contemplate. A sad fate. Yet they do say `cometh the hour, cometh the man'. Judging by the state of that English, they've been saying so for quite a while. Maybe it means his time has come.
Politically, economically, socially, by any measure, we live in a sick society.
Aotearoa grows enough food to feed it's citizens amply. Yet, foodbanks are in greater demand. Working folk need welfare to 'get by'. Ecosystems are collapsing and flora and fauna are disappearing at a great rate.
Mental ill health and the profoundly mentally ill are on the increase.
I'm not pretending to have all the answers, but, again the answer is local. Share your food, your time, your love.
This next sentences are probably a tad irresponsible, as I am gonna pop out for most of the day but here we go anyhow.
The sick society aspect raised it's head for me back in 2007/8. Personal circumstance and growth, the state of the world etc, I was made aware of the Free man on the land concept. Quite possibly closely linked to the current manifestation of the Sovereign Citizens.
When society is so broken; rising inequality and growing poverty, a big disconnect between the work done and the renumeration received (Covid and our essential workers care givers, nurses, home help etc), vs CEOs of companies or bankers and bank profits. Seemingly the only tool is to vote every three years to get a regime of a slightly different hue. Made a mockery when one considers the influence and hold of the trucking lobby, for instance.
There can be a desire to question, if we live in a free society, are we free to leave it? What happens when a flesh and blood human being does not have a birth certificate? . The person is the legal subject or substance of which rights and duties are attributes. But not every human being is a person as was the case in Old England when there were slaves.
I have no desire to convince anyone nor defend the worst of those that claim sovereign citizen status. (Lots that I have seen are putting the cart before the horse and shooting their mouths off. After all Jesus said, go quietly amongst your people.)
At the heart of it, was to be let love be the rule. Where there is love, there is no law. Where there is law, there is no love.
Edit; if you wanna have a looksie yrself try googling Robert-Arthur:Menard Freesoul-on-the-Land
I hope that when you return, you'll be ready to defend your quarter 🙂
I attended a meeting of would-be, wanna-be Sovereign Citizens. I listened to their spiels. I asked some straightforward questions. I nearly got lynched!
There were crackpots aplenty at that meeting. Each of them went on to protest Covid measures, some at Parliament, a couple were arrested.
I didn't espouse anything at all, I just asked a couple of questions. Perhaps I could ask you? One woman described what to do and say when stopped by police; refuse to comply, make the Sovereign Citizen statement, show the certificate of exemption etc. She was adamant the police would wave her through. I asked if she thought the police might have discussed this possibility, given there had already been some instances and might have decided to simply arrest the Sovereign, despite their protestations. This flummoxed her mightily. and she left to her feet etc.
Where do you stand/sit on the issue of exemption from the laws of NZ?
The halfwits up the road from me have a bunch of signs on the gates saying that you are not allowed on the property unless you have a specific invitation. I bet the Police will just walk past it. They are there quite often as the "affordable accommodation" has a bunch of people with "ankle bracelets" so they will be doing bail checks.
I understand what gsays is talking about. Most of their comment was about the social and political conditions that have given rise to the movement.
I have friends who are into that stuff. I don't talk to people locally about it because I value the friendships, and because some of it is irrational. Of course the police are doing to arrest a free man if they have cause. That's just basic power analysis.
The one that gets me is the faith in the position despite the evidence (I think gsays calls this cart before the horse, but it's also a lot of deception on some level).
However, those people aren't wrong about the state of society. Call them nutters, but are they any more fucked up than successive governments that have resisted meaningful climate action? The main differences I see there are around who has power and who knows how to play the mainstream game in wielding that power. There are some who are batshit crazy too, but it's now how I would characterise the movement generally. They're just counter culture instead of NACT MPs.
I believe I know what gsays means also, in the same way I believe I know what the anti-vaxxers mean, what the terfs mean 🙂 but it's the inability of those people holding those views to bat ideas about that don't fit the rigid confines that come with those positions that gets me; get a word wrong and all hell breaks loose 🙂
I'm highly confident that you don't actually know what Gender Critical Feminists mean, based on seeing what you have said on TS.
If you use terms like terf and cooney, I will moderate. Please stop with this, it says clearly in the site Policy that tone or language that has the effect of excluding others is not acceptable. I don't want a semantic argument about this, I've cut you a fair amount of slack on this already, but now the demeaning and dehumanising language has to stop. It's akin to flaming, and as far as I can see its usage is exactly to exclude people.
As I said, I'm not interested in semantic argument.
I've watched you for a number of weeks using language that is either inflammatory or insulting to people that comment here. I'm asking you to stop because I don't want to moderate.
If you don't understand where the boundaries are here, please ask in a straightforward manner using whole sentences.
All I'm seeing is you ignoring moderation Robert. For the third time, I'm not interested in a debate about semantics. If you don't understand the boundaries, please ask as I suggested above.
and to pre-emptively clarify, the word cooney is a US pejorative. Most people won't know that it is also Liz Gunn's previous name. My reading right now is that you were making a play on words, and understood the pejorative well enough. I'm thinking that because in this whole conversation for the past weeks you've just shifted from one pejorative to another. I've explained the problem a number of times, you keep ignoring it.
And this is exactly the problem. Maybe you think it's a lighthearted thing, but a mod is starting to get pissed off at having to waste our time. Again.
Second rule of moderation, don't waste the mods' time. This is why you got banned last time. You took a position of not having to work within moderation of the site.
It's personally horrible for me, because I consider you an online friend.
I've offered you a relatively easy way through this. Ball is in your court.
Robert, I'd suggest that you listen to weka. It isn't what you're arguing that is the issue – it is repeatably using silly slogans without context or argument.
Using words for effect occasionally is one behaviour, using them repeatably is a whole different one and one that the moderators (including me) watch for.
Even a damned tree-fornicator should be able to understand that. 🙂
The story of Master of Paxwax, Mann's second book, centers around the life of Pawl Paxwax. Pawl – and his name is significant – is the second son of the Fifth Family in a galaxy-wide empire ruled by Eleven Great Families. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_Paxwax
At $305 billion, the Al Nahyan family—oil tycoons, politicians, and royalty—is the richest family in the world.
The Waltons are the second richest family in the world with a fortune estimated at $259.7 billion thanks to their massive stake in Walmart (and only recently, in 2023, were usurped by the Al Nahyan family for the top spot.)
Gsays: … At the heart of it, was to be let love be the rule. Where there is love, there is no law. Where there is law, there is no love
Robert: ”Where do you stand/sit on the issue of exemption from the laws of NZ?”
Gsays: Yr not gonna like this.. when you operate from love there is no need for law.
Weka: how does that work with rapists?
Gsays: Clearly with rape there is no love. There is law for that.
How I took that originally was you saying that society wouldn’t need laws if everyone related from a place of love.
Not everyone does relate from a place of love. So we need laws. Which means the aphorism “At the heart of it, was to be let love be the rule. Where there is love, there is no law. Where there is law, there is no love” is philosophically sound but has no meaning in real life terms in society.
A rapist is not operating from love. There are laws and consequences to deal with them.
Police have two main roles. Primarily, keeping the peace. Then policy enforcement, hence the name.
Rape contravenes the peace and policy.
A rapist can not legitimately claim freeman on the land status.
Edit.”Where there is love, there is no law. Where there is law, there is no love” is philosophically sound but has no meaning in real life terms in society.”
Correct, and that is why some seek to remove their strawman, their personhood from said society.
I've been consciously aware of living in a sick society since I was a teenager in the 1960s, so this option seems like part of my cultural tradition (alt-Aotearoa):
Praxis of relativism applies though, and living within/without mainstreamers (simultaneously) has long been my pragmatic response option. The oscillating blend of the lifestyle & trajectory forms a triadic function, organic.
Whilst it was 1% of the whole back then it now seems in the region of 20%, which is apparently the critical mass threshold – so I expect an increasingly alternative future.
yes, local, and love. I don't see any other way out of current predicament. I don't think it's possible to have love without law, or that law inherently means no love. We have to have ways of collectively managing society, that's law. And love.
I know a fully hardcore Greenie, organic and permaculture up the wahoo. Great source of knowledge and inspiration. Deals in the essence of flowers and homoeopathy.
I wouldn't follow her to a toilet however. As grounded in her land and horses as she is, let her into the city, she is as prone to a supermarket rottisserie chicken as anyone.
My laboured point is, none of us have it sussed and are true to our convictions. Ignore the extremes of folk, get the common ground and we are unstoppable.
Robert and crew's initiative of the electric bus doing the produce loop in Riverton and environs is precisely the sort of thing that needs to happen.
I don't wanna chip him for his lack of a response to a recent question about contributing to paying ACC levies or Road User Charges because it's a jolly good idea. Money/trade kept local, empowering primary producers and fresh fresh fresh. (This is my cyber equivalent of yr not wanting to talk to friends about it because you value their friendship). Just cause there is a wee wedge, no need to hit it.
My laboured point is, none of us have it sussed and are true to our convictions. Ignore the extremes of folk, get the common ground and we are unstoppable.
Completely agree. One of the reasons why I keep my relationships with people I disagree with going as much as I am able.
Good ol' Aleister put it like this: "Love is the law: love under will". (I'll just have to wear any ticking-off.) Elucidations/interpretations abound all over the web.
"Current services, which remain largely unchanged since our asylums were decanted in the 90s, are no longer fit for purpose. These one-size-fits-all institutions were transplanted into the community but have retained their paternalistic and isolated ways"
What does retain it's paternalism is the total lack of oversight of some of the support and conditions of whaiora who live in support homes and emergency accomodations while landlords who provide these disgusting conditions rake in the cash. Some of these landlords are upstanding citizens and in my mind also responsible for the actual financial and other emotional abuse that can take place there. The community trusts that are supposed to be helping very unwell people are also coining it from both ends. It's not new and it was there under previous national governments as well. National are equally responsible for these top heavy services and the capitalist corporatisation of mental wellness in our communities which happens at the detriment of vulnerable people. They DO NOT have the right to throw stones about this they encourage it. And it needs to be stopped. Btw I work in mental health with whaiora who are the people exploited by these slumlords and fake carers. These people need to be put in the frickin stocks but they'll probably run for council instead.
What do you all make of this? He's rejecting Biden on Palestine.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday vowed to oppose a Palestinian state in any post-war scenario. Netanyahu’s comments underscored the growing rift between the Israeli and U.S. governments. The Biden administration has supported Israel’s offensive in Gaza, which has killed more than 24,000 people, according to Palestinian authorities, but has called on Israel to scale back its attacks and said the establishment of a Palestinian state should be part of the “day after” the war. Netanyahu, who has long opposed the formation of a Palestinian state, rejected any such notion on Thursday.
A shift in thinking at the European Parliament on the topic of ceasefire.
The European Parliament has made a groundbreaking decision to tie a call for a ceasefire in Gaza to the condition of dismantling the terrorist organization Hamas and the immediate, unconditional release of all abductees. The resolution, passed with a resounding majority of 312 supporters against 131 opponents, sets a precedent in the European stance on the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Sounds like the Europeans are saying no ceasefire then, but they would accept unconditional surrender by Hamas in return for ending the ongoing atrocities and collective punishment of every Palestinian.
This sounds like a warning across the bow to Russia, Iran, Hezbollah and the Houthi as much as to Hamas.
This is a Europe facing Russia in Ukraine without much American help this year (and next year maybe), and letting everyone know they will not be heavied, by attacks on their shipping, into supporting a cease-fire and allowing Hamas to continue as they have been.
If the Hamas political wing does not find shelter in the PLO, it looks they are going into exile when the PA (and if they refuse …. ) takes over Gaza.
A Gulf, EU/USA rebuild of Gaza based around Hamas in the PLO, the military wing dismantled and the PA back in Gaza and in control of the gun. Also parliamentary and presidential elections.
From there two options, either a Gaza Palestine nation state (own borders, sea port, airport and economic zone) member of the UN while Israel continues to occupy the WB, or restoration of the peace process with Israel.
What I make of that is what has been clear from the beginning of this slaughter: the U.S. supports it, but is squeamish about it. Sort of the same position it was in when it was Saddam Hussein's armourer and dipolomatic protector.
To bring it back to Aotearoa/NZ politics, here is the latest of what ACT is doing.
The ACT Party has lodged a bill to put an end to trading restrictions on Good Friday and Easter Sunday. If passed, the private member's bill by ACT MP Cameron Luxton would allow retailers to keep their doors open as normal through Easter.
Jonathan Cook is a British freelance journalist formerly based in Nazareth, Israel. Like another outstanding independent, Glenn Greenwald, he used to work for the Grauniad, but he could not put up with that paper's complicity with the British state's campaigns of disinformation and its character assassination of dissenting journalists. This is his latest piece….
Why is the real story of October 7 off-limits to western, but not Israeli, media?
Israeli army 'ethics' chief says crimes committed by soldiers against Israel's own civilians are 'horrifying'. How is this not newsworthy for British journalists?
Jonathan Cook
18 Jan 2024
The Israeli Haaretz newspaper interviewed this week the army's “ethics” chief, Asa Kasher, of Tel Aviv university, about two major incidents on October 7:
1. An Israeli commander ordered a tank to fire into a home in Kibbutz Be'eri knowing that there were 14 Israeli civilians inside, incinerating them.
2. Israeli helicopters fired missiles at dozens of cars with Israeli hostages inside, killing the inhabitants, again often by incinerating them.
In both cases, the official Israeli narrative is that Hamas was responsible for these “barbaric” acts, supposedly justifying the genocide Israel is carrying out – “in response” – against the civilian Palestinian population of Gaza.
Haaretz and Kasher ascribe these “friendly fire” incidents to Israel's classified “Hannibal directive”, which requires soldiers to stop Israelis being taken hostage at all costs. Kasher thinks – probably wrongly – that the directive was misunderstood and misapplied by commanders on the day.
Urging an immediate investigation, Kasher says of the first incident: "How is it possible that a high ranking army official would give a command that so immediately and definitely endangers the life of so many civilians? It's just horrifying."
And of the second incident, he says: "This sounds totally unacceptable from every aspect. Against orders. Against procedure. Against values. Against ethics. And possibly against the law."
Efforts to re-examine the Israeli government's October 7 narrative are all over the Israeli media. Many of the families of the Israelis killed on October 7 are demanding an investigation.
So how is it possible that the BBC and the rest of the western media keep revisiting the horrors of October 7 but never to raise these issues , even though they have been so prominent in the Israeli public space for many weeks?
The only possible answer is that western media outlets are consciously censoring this story because it directly conflicts with the West's ideological and strategic agenda. It raises disturbing questions about western complicity in genocide. ….
It maybe what Blinken et al are afraid of is Israel turning into a real multi player shit fight and having to find space for batcrazy fundamentalist Israeli refugees in the US who would present real problems for the Democrats in particular. It probably can’t afford to have The IDF fail.
" This is why a coalition government under National party hegemony is perhaps the best expression of what New Zealand’s collective identity looks like; it may not be one the centre-left likes but it is the normative expression of our collective myths in power and action."
Oh, yeah? TheLuxon/Peters/Seymour "monster mash" is what we see when we look in the mirror?
Dunno who he is but that citation only seems credible when Labour is in eclipse (like now). If Labour were to return to source to regain credibility his proposition would be tested! Nothing like a bit of pie in the sky thinking to ruffle normalcy, eh?
Seen the results of wonderful work both in the Kaikōura rebuild and the efforts with wlike seals and dolphins everywhere to be seen up the coast and plenty of vantage points on the road – well done to all involved.
But why do visitors bring their dogs and cats to doc camp grounds where there are signs everywhere that dogs and pets are not allowed in the camp grounds at any time ?? When you book there is info of this as well as signage everywhere, how to potentially destroy all the hard efforts my many doc staff and volunteers😤
Have you seen how much it costs to put them in kennels for a fortnight Herodotus ? Its cheaper to cyrogenicly freeze them and chuck them in the fridge while you're gone and thaw the buggers out when you get back.
“The public service has been knee deep in this interpretation so it’s not surprising its advice mirrors this. New Zealanders want a respectful debate on the constitutional future of our country and that’s what they’ve voted for.”
How to counter this sort of BS from Seymour? To say "New Zealanders" want and voted for a parliamentary bill on the principles of Te Tiriti implies a majority, when in fact only 8.7% of those who voted in the 2023 election voted for ACT and their divisive, racist policy.
Merely a shadow-boxing play. They're taking it to first reading, to give ACT their opportunity at due parliamentary process. Nats have signalling this with the tacit flag that they aren’t intending to support it further.
I agree Seymour's framing is naive. At most those who voted to replace the govt are okay with a public debate but I bet any precisely directed science-based sampling of public opinion would discover the proportion of voters interested in any such public debate would be around a quarter max. Too many other concerns…
Just looking at its providence (the would-be Kim Hill bête noir Karl du Fresne) will be enough to alert a discriminating reader that this article will be highly dodgy at best. Five words in it, however, confirm just how dodgy it is: those five words occur at the beginning of the second sentence in the eleventh paragraph.
Right now, the object of du Fresne's contempt is Golriz Gharaman. In the early days of the Key regime, it was Kim Hill he could not stand. Her sin? Making an unsavoury politician a little uncomfortable….
Ani O'Brien continues the same crap for natstalkzb, ignoring the facts that GG fronted up, resigned, and is fully cooperating w police. It's just a hate-fest at this point.
There's a guy on Xitter 💩 who was tweeting nasty things about GG and I asked him to show some christian compassion and kindness.
This of course earned me mockery, scorn, and insults.
(I will be deleting X soon as it's just too toxic. Elon and Matt Walsh are slagging off therapy and suggesting that people should just harden up. Tell that to combat veterans with PTSD. The platform is awash in fakeness and abuse.)
I just glaze over D (ACT) and G (NZF) to get the zitgeist of the where the TF is these days, the corner of the paddock is the safest option – those with the wrong crowd but not as mean as those at the core.
Our JC and MM, an odd couple – in the end a points win to JC, when MM left the GOP and became a libertarian.
It said there was a need for the legislation because the principles of the Treaty were not defined in legislation, and "their importance requires there be certainty anc (sic) clarity about their meaning.
Parliament should be intentional n (sic) the principle's (sic) definition, and how they operate in law and society".
Looks like they might have had a few beers first. I can imagine their glee in composing the thing: `this'll rattle the mental cage of those prats!'
What are the chances Lux will bite? Zilch. Any aspiring aristocrat knows you widen the circle at your peril. Every capitalist knows profit-sharing must be stingy to teach hired help their place in the social hierarchy. Exceptions in Silicon Valley? Yeah, them dudes are naturally progressive. However his stance could wobble if conservatives agree their inner chieftainship ought to be acknowledged so it can then be acted out in real life.
If so, the young guys who kept on calling me chief a few decades back may become precognitive in retrospect (no big deal as they called other guys chief too – it was echoing Maxwell Smart of the 1965 tv comedy Get Smart)…
Dilute identity by appealing to diversity within a group. Divide and conquer. Colonialism, cultural erosion and David Seymour come to mind.
Reduce decision making to the lowest and most flawed host of democracy, local government. Extremely poor turnout consolidates power to the already wealthy.
Easton is writing this to a fundy with a gaggle of other fundies with his party who feel threatened by the very changes which Easton thinks are great. No hope.
New Zealand is a diverse society. For over a century we suppressed this truism by relegating women to the kitchen, Māori to the pa, gays to the closet, and ignoring the role of religion in secular life. We practised majoritarianism by a group – who among other things were straight, Pakeha, Anglican, middle-class, male, rugby followers – which pretended theirs was the only acceptable lifestyle and the country should be run in their interests. Those who did not conform to this majority were ignored, treated as quaint eccentrics, or repressed.
Presumably Brian Easton means well, yet he admits supporting the move to market organisation of society (from 1984) while conceding the results were poor (because of …. excuses).
And wants the government to go further in that direction (as too does Douglas), he calls it the government not being authoritarian, not controlling from the centre (despite it being the area reformed via MMP and accountability via both financial and oversight systems) instead devolving to the more local level (without any reference to funding and capacity issues, competence and lack of media oversight/informed consent processes).
To the extent this has been done already, we have foreign companies providing ECE for profit and Australians profiting from managing ownership of assets from older New Zealanders to foreign organised/centralised/corporate capital).
And he wants to encourage more of this to the government, in education and health etc … . He seems to imagine a society as somehow more coherent and less divided, if managed around NGO's secular and or religious, rather than centralised government supply and delivery. It seems of a nostalgia for a time when there was a more active voluntary community – eroded by the necessity two working partners to afford housing, end of the 40 hour week – fragmentation of shift work (reducing participation) and of late, living cost pressures.
He is encouraging the right to move where it intends to go, without thought to the consequences – just as in 1984.
"… yet he admits supporting the move to market organisation of society (from 1984) while conceding the results were poor (because of …. excuses)."
Although I have never seen him state it, I suspect his reasoning is that NZ as a small trading nation had no choice but to follow the international order as was being constructed by the neolibs at the time….the (….excuses) are a recognition that while we may have had little choice we could have done the transition considerably better and with less damage. (something I have seen him state on numerous occasions)
He calls for more de-evolution of decision making as opposed to centralisation….something many here have also called for in their areas of interest…the funding and oversight are not that difficult to implement if the will is there, and are unnecessary for the purposes of the article.
Subsiditarity is not (necessarily) privatisation and may explain why you attribute a right wing bias that is not apparent.
Not apparent … yeah right. This government is not full of plans to fully fund what is, and its plans for replacing it are not either.
In the past they handed over state housing and expecting the provider to maintain the property and maintain low rents – that is either by its own fund-raising or operating run down property before demolishing.
Jewish activists shutting down Grand Central Station to protest against Israel's genocidal onslaught in Gaza was only the start
Rabbi's daughter Ilana Cruger-Zaken: "We're in the building. Anti-Zionist Jews are here to stay, and there's no way that Zionists can hold a meeting now without hearing us."
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 27 were:1. The Minister for Ford Rangers strikes againTransport Minister Simeon Brown was again the busiest of the Cabinet ministers this week, announcing an ...
You got a fast carAnd I want a ticket to anywhereMaybe we make a dealMaybe together we can get somewhereAny place is betterYesterday’s newsletter, Trust In Me, on the report of abuse in state care, and by religious organisations, between 1950 and 2019, coupled with the hypocrisy of Christopher Luxon ...
New Zealand is again having to reconcile conflicting pressures from its military and its trade interests. Should we join Pillar Two of AUKUS and risk compromising our markets in China? For a century after New Zealand was founded in 1840, its external security arrangements and external economics arrangements were aligned. ...
The ‘50 Shades of Green’ farmers’ protest in 2019 was heavy on climate change denial, but five years on, scepticism and criticism about the idea that pine forests can save us is growing across the board. File photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in climate ...
This morning the sky was bright.The birds, in their usual joyous bliss. Nature doesn’t seem to feel the heat of what might angst humans.Their calls are clear and beautiful.Just some random thoughts:MāoriPaul Goldsmith has announced his government will roll back the judiciary’s rulings on Māori Customary Marine Title, which recognises ...
In 2003, the Court of Appeal delivered its decision in Ngati Apa v Attorney-General, ruling that Māori customary title over the foreshore and seabed had not been universally extinguished, and that the Māori Land Court could determine claims and confirm title if the facts supported it. This kicked off the ...
Earlier this week at Parliament, Labour leader Chris Hipkins was applauded for saying that the response to the final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care had to be “bigger than politics.” True, but the fine words, apologies and “we hear you” messages will soon ring ...
TL;DR: In news breaking this morning:The Ministry of Education is cutting $2 billion from its school building programme so the National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government has enough money to deliver tax cuts; The Government has quietly lowered its child poverty reduction targets to make them easier to achieve;Te Whatu Ora-Health NZ’s ...
Kia ora. These are some stories that caught our eye this week – as always, feel free to share yours in the comments. Our header image this week (via Eke Panuku) shows the planned upgrade for the Karanga Plaza Tidal Swimming Steps. The week in Greater Auckland On ...
1. What's not to love about the way the Harris campaign is turning things around?a. Nothingb. Love all of itc. God what a reliefd. Not that it will be by any means easye. All of the above 2. Documents released by the Ministry of Health show Associate Health Minister Casey ...
Trust in me in all you doHave the faith I have in youLove will see us through, if only you trust in meWhy don't you, you trust me?In a week that saw the release of the 3,000 page Abuse in Care report Christopher Luxon was being asked about Boot Camps. ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking about the Royal Commission Inquiry into Abuse in Carereport released this week, and with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent on a UN push to not recognise carbon offset markets and ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 26, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Transport: Simeon Brown announced$802.9 million in funding for 18 new trains on the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines, which ...
The northern expressway extension from Warkworth to Whangarei is likely to require radical changes to legislation if it is going to be built within the foreseeable future. The Government’s powers to purchase land, the planning process and current restrictions on road tolling are all going to need to be changed ...
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedFirst they came for the doctors But I was confused by the numbers and costs So I didn't speak up Then they came for our police and nurses And I didn't think we could afford those costs anyway So I ...
Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on UnsplashWe’re back again after our mid-winter break. We’re still with the ‘new’ day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when we have our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream ...
Notes: This is a free article. Abuse in Care themes are mentioned. Video is at the bottom.BackgroundYesterday’s report into Abuse in Care revealed that at least 1 in 3 of all who went through state and faith based care were abused - often horrifically. At least, because not all survivors ...
Luxon speaks in Parliament yesterday about the Abuse in Care report. Photo: Hagen Hopkins/Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:PM Christopher Luxon said yesterday in tabling the Abuse in Carereport in Parliament he wanted to ‘do the ...
About a decade ago I worked with a bloke called Steve. He was the grizzled veteran coder, a few years older than me, who knew where the bodies were buried - code wise. Despite his best efforts to be approachable and friendly he could be kind of gruff, through to ...
Some of the recent announcements from the government have reminded us of posts we’ve written in the past. Here’s one from early 2020. There were plenty of reactions to the government’s infrastructure announcement a few weeks ago which saw them fund a bunch of big roading projects. One of ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Thursday, July 25 are:News: Why Electric Kiwi is closing to new customers - and why it matters RNZ’s Susan EdmundsScoop: Government drops ...
Hi,I felt a small wet tongue snaking through one of the holes in my Crocs. It explored my big toe, darting down one side, then the other. “He’s looking for some toe cheese,” said the woman next to me, words that still haunt me to this day.Growing up in New ...
Yesterday I happily quoted the Prime Minister without fact-checking him and sure enough, it turns out his numbers were all to hell. It’s not four kg of Royal Commission report, it’s fourteen.My friend and one-time colleague-in-comms Hazel Phillips gently alerted me to my error almost as soon as I’d hit ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Thursday, July 25, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day were:The Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquirypublished its final report yesterday.PM Christopher Luxon and The Minister responsible for ...
The Official Information Act has always been a battle between requesters seeking information, and governments seeking to control it. Information is power, so Ministers and government agencies want to manage what is released and when, for their own convenience, and legality and democracy be damned. Their most recent tactic for ...
TL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:Transport and Energy Minister Simeon Brown is accelerating plans to spend at least $10 billion through Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) to extend State Highway One as a four-lane ‘Expressway’ from Warkworth to Whangarei ...
I live my life (woo-ooh-ooh)With no control in my destinyYea-yeah, yea-yeah (woo-ooh-ooh)I can bleed when I want to bleedSo come on, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)You can bleed when you want to bleedYea-yeah, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)Everybody bleed when they want to bleedCome on and bleedGovernments face tough challenges. Selling unpopular decisions to ...
Please note:To skip directly to the- parliamentary footage in the video, scroll to 1:21 To skip to audio please click on the headphone iconon the left hand side of the screenThis video / audio section is under development. ...
Given the crackdown on wasteful government spending, it behooves me to point to a high profile example of spending by the Luxon government that looks like a big, fat waste of time and money. I’m talking about the deployment of NZDF personnel to support the US-led coalition in the Red ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:40 am on Wednesday, July 24 are:Deep Dive: Chipping away at the housing crisis, including my comments RNZ/Newsroom’s The DetailNews: Government softens on asset sales, ...
As I reported about the city centre, Auckland’s rail network is also going through a difficult and disruptive period which is rapidly approaching a culmination, this will result in a significant upgrade to the whole network. Hallelujah. Also like the city centre this is an upgrade predicated on the City ...
Today, a 4 kilogram report will be delivered to Parliament. We know this is what the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care weighs, because our Prime Minister told us so.Some reporter had blindsided him by asking a question about something done by ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Wednesday, July 24, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Beehive:Transport Minister Simeon Brownannounced plans to use PPPs to fund, build and run a four-lane expressway between Auckland ...
NewstalkZB host Mike Hosking, who can usually be relied on to give Prime Minister Christopher Luxon an easy run, did not do so yesterday when he interviewed him about the HealthNZ deficit. Luxon is trying to use a deficit reported last year by HealthNZ as yet another example of the ...
Back in January a StatsNZ employee gave a speech at Rātana on behalf of tangata whenua in which he insulted and criticised the government. The speech clearly violated the principle of a neutral public service, and StatsNZ started an investigation. Part of that was getting an external consultant to examine ...
Renting for life: Shared ownership initiatives are unlikely to slow the slide in home ownership by much. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:A Deloittereport for Westpac has projected Aotearoa’s home-ownership rate will ...
You're broken down and tiredOf living life on a merry go roundAnd you can't find the fighterBut I see it in you so we gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsWe gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsAnd I'll rise upI'll rise like the dayI'll rise upI'll rise unafraidI'll rise upAnd I'll ...
There’s been a change in Myers Park. Down the steps from St. Kevin’s Arcade, past the grassy slopes, the children’s playground, the benches and that goat statue, there has been a transformation. The underpass for Mayoral Drive has gone from a barren, grey, concrete tunnel, to a place that thrums ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Global society may have finally slammed on the brakes for climate-warming pollution released by human fossil fuel combustion. According to the Carbon Monitor Project, the total global climate pollution released between February and May 2024 declined slightly from the amount released during the same ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Tuesday, July 23 are:Deep Dive: Penlink: where tolling rhetoric meets reality BusinessDesk-$$$’sOliver LewisScoop:Te Pūkenga plans for regional polytechs leak out ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Tuesday, July 23, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Health: Shane Reti announcedthe Board of Te Whatu Ora-Health New Zealand was being replaced with Commissioner Lester Levy ...
Health NZ warned the Government at the end of March that it was running over Budget. But the reasons it gave were very different to those offered by the Prime Minister yesterday. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon blamed the “botched merger” of the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) to create Health ...
Long ReadKey Summary: Although National increased the health budget by $1.4 billion in May, they used an old funding model to project health system costs, and never bothered to update their pre-election numbers. They were told during the Health Select Committees earlier in the year their budget amount was deficient, ...
As a momentous, historic weekend in US politics unfolded, analysts and commentators grasped for precedents and comparisons to help explain the significance and power of the choice Joe Biden had made. The 46th president had swept the Democratic party’s primaries but just over 100 days from the election had chosen ...
TL;DR: I’m casting around for new ideas and ways of thinking about Aotearoa’s political economy to find a few solutions to our cascading and self-reinforcing housing, poverty and climate crises.Associate Professor runs an online masters degree in the economics of sustainability at Torrens University in Australia and is organising ...
The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back on National's Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. The bill sets up water for privatisation, and was introduced under urgency, then rammed through select committee with no time even for local councils to make a proper submission. Naturally, national's select committee ...
Some years ago, I bought a book at Dunedin’s Regent Booksale for $1.50. As one does. Vandrad the Viking (1898), by J. Storer Clouston, is an obscure book these days – I cannot find a proper online review – but soon it was sitting on my shelf, gathering dust alongside ...
History is not on the side of the centre-left, when Democratic presidents fall behind in the polls and choose not to run for re-election. On both previous occasions in the past 75 years (Harry Truman in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1968) the Democrats proceeded to then lose the White House ...
This is a free articleCoverageThis morning, US President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the Presidential race. And that is genuinely newsworthy. Thanks for your service, President Biden, and all the best to you and yours.However, the media in New Zealand, particularly the 1News nightly bulletin, has been breathlessly covering ...
A homeless person’s camp beside a blocked-off slipped damage walkway in Freeman’s Bay: we are chasing our tail on our worsening and inter-related housing, poverty and climate crises. Photo: Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
What has happened to it all?Crazy, some'd sayWhere is the life that I recognise?(Gone away)But I won't cry for yesterdayThere's an ordinary worldSomehow I have to findAnd as I try to make my wayTo the ordinary worldYesterday morning began as many others - what to write about today? I began ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Monday, July 22 are:Today’s Must Read: Father and son live in a tent, and have done for four years, in a million ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Orderimage, ...
Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
Te Rangi e tu nei (The sky above us) Te Papa e takoto nei (The land beneath us) Tatou katoa te hunga ora (To us all the living) Tena koutou katoa (Greetings) ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says a bill that has passed its first reading will improve parental leave settings and give non-biological parents more flexibility as primary carer for their child. The Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill (No3), passed its first reading this morning. “It includes a change ...
Two Bills designed to improve regulation and make it easier to do business have passed their first reading in Parliament, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill make key changes to legislation administered by the Ministry ...
New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says newly appointed Commissioner, Grant Illingworth KC, will help deliver the report for the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons, due on 28 November 2024. “I am pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will commence his appointment as ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters travels to Laos this week to participate in a series of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-led Ministerial meetings in Vientiane. “ASEAN plays an important role in supporting a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Mr Peters says. “This will be our third visit to ...
Construction of a new mental health facility at Te Nikau Grey Hospital in Greymouth is today one step closer, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says. “This $27 million facility shows this Government is delivering on its promise to boost mental health care and improve front line services,” Mr Doocey says. ...
New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says proposed changes to the Education and Training Amendment Bill will ensure charter schools have more flexibility to negotiate employment agreements and are equipped with the right teaching resources. “Cabinet has agreed to progress an amendment which means unions will not be able to initiate ...
In response to serious concerns around oversight, overspend and a significant deterioration in financial outlook, the Board of Health New Zealand will be replaced with a Commissioner, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti announced today. “The previous government’s botched health reforms have created significant financial challenges at Health NZ that, without ...
Minister for Space and Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins will travel to Adelaide tomorrow for space and science engagements, including speaking at the Australian Space Forum. While there she will also have meetings and visits with a focus on space, biotechnology and innovation. “New Zealand has a thriving space ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will travel to China on Saturday to attend the Ministerial on Climate Action meeting held in Wuhan. “Attending the Ministerial on Climate Action is an opportunity to advocate for New Zealand climate priorities and engage with our key partners on climate action,” Mr Watts says. ...
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https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/507023/flaws-in-crown-s-land-legislation-caused-taihape-landlocking-waitangi-tribunal
The long road to righting wrongs continues
The Crown…"prioritised European land owners' interests to the disadvantage of Māori land owners"
Was that a "Crown thing, a pākehā thing, a coloniser thing or a farmer thing, I wonder?
To whom do we sheet that kind of behaviour?
Yeah, you got the right questions. One could perhaps deem it a commons thing: the state created a ludicrous situation in the colonial era, and in our neocolonial era the view we all hold in common is that democracy is incapable of fixing it.
The proof of that lies in the track record of govts: a century of leftists & rightists working together in collusion to evade the problem is extremely compelling.
It’s totally understandable that everyone still believes in democracy despite the evidence: you just ignore the evidence and everything's fine. Who could ignore such universally-successful magical thinking?
I'll bite
"It’s totally understandable that everyone still believes in democracy despite the evidence: you just ignore the evidence and everything's fine. Who could ignore such universally-successful magical thinking?"
By all means describe a better alternative…..and then convince enough people your proposition will improve things.
Persuasion usually doesn't work, so I leave it to those motivated to give it a go. In respect of Maori figuring there's got to be a better way (than a century of failed democracy), the wisdom of that crowd ought to prevail.
Complaining about the Crown's behaviour hasn't solved the problem, so they ought to apply diy…
All four surely, maybe five, add in tory sheep shaggers.
“infamy, infamy–they’ve all got it in for me”
–Carry on Cleo 1964
It is usually one step up and two steps back for Māori interests in this country.
Crown, colonialism, and farmer where one in the same back then I believe.
Indeed. And now..?
Most of them are that busy trying to keep their heads to gather while the hamster wheel spins faster they haven't got time to think.
But on an ancadata front I recently got half a story about a farmer offering easement to a large piece of landlocked moari land but the vogons made it so hard everyone gave up,
Luxon's triad:
That's sensible. Best way to wean simpletons off binary thinking is to make them focus on 3 not 2.
Building local community relations grounds your identity in their view of the world, and explaining how to solve problems differentiates the Nat brand from Labour.
Playing as a team with due diligence also recycles traditional wisdoms. The vital thing is not doing anything clever or new – that would destroy conservative authenticity – but they all already know that anyway. Back to the future again…
Corporate speak from someone who thinks he knows all the answers but who, in reality, doesn’t know much apart from how to make a bob or two.
What he's telling them is what MPs have been doing since God made little apples. Sure, some are better at it than others but anyone who has to be told those things shouldn't be there.
He'll probably have them performing ritualisitic type bonding sessions before each caucus.![sad sad](https://cdn2.thestandard.org.nz/wp-content/plugins/ark-wysiwyg-comment-editor/ckeditor/plugins/smiley/images/sad_smile.png?x42494)
They've built a high performance team? With a few exceptions, I think they will prove to be a bunch of mediocres whose sole purpose is to look good on the debating chamber benches and wouldn't be capable of a complete original thought between them.
Being present in the electorate and learning parliament seem to competing priorities. One of the two, or both, will be diluted. Who knew?
This is the interesting bit
"take time to explain the problems and the reality that we're facing. Most importantly, take the time to explain how we're going to resolve that, how we're going to solve those problems.
" It reads to me that it's like an old sales pitch from a vacuum cleaner salesman – identify (invent) a problem that your product can solve so you can sell the story that you solved it and attach it to the product..so madam has a deep pile carpet that no matter how much you vacuum with a conventional cleaner won't be clean EVER and you NEED to have this thing the size and price of a truck to fix that problem – which didn't exist until he arrived at the front door and told you. Business is not like politics.
What will this Government be known for, asks Nick Rockel;
https://nickrockel.substack.com/p/delivering-the-deliverables
"So far it looks like cancelling things and changing names… but is it really what Kiwis were expecting when they voted to get the country, “Back on Track”?"
Well, Nick, yes, I think that is what many of those who voted NACTFirst hoped for; cancelling things and changing names.
I agree with you Robert.
National didn't promise to do anything positive or new. It was simply "we will cancel, repeal or stop stuff".
I am not entirely sure what the hell they will do once the 100 days are up and they have completed their 'stop stuff' campaign.
They'll then look to dismantle anything that works so they'll have a fresh set of problems they can say they're going to fix.
I suspect Act will be more than willing to fill that vacuum and no doubt Winston will hop on the bandwagon if it helps get a pet project or 3 across the line.
James Simpson – I think the media are closely watching that very large and cavernous space.
Maybe a term of just stabilising the country, repairing what needs repairing, and otherwise not trying too hard is what we need.
Don't try too hard, don't rock the boat, because the wide-world is a benign, stable place, demanding nothing of us, except holding the line, sticking to our knitting.
Baaaaa!
Indeed, while the world burns
When have this bunch ever repaired anything, the great undoing is this lots legacy, aucklanders are doomed to another 15 years atleast of idling their life away in their cars, now the light rail is dead, and I bet bo 2nd crossing come either.
Mental health is relative to normalcy. Who wants to be a norm?
Gosh, it's almost as if the prospect of reform looms. How ghastly a thing for a conservative to be forced to contemplate. A sad fate. Yet they do say `cometh the hour, cometh the man'. Judging by the state of that English, they've been saying so for quite a while. Maybe it means his time has come.
https://newsroom.co.nz/2024/01/19/some-mental-health-advice-for-minister-doocey/
Not meant to be a diversion from what you are highlighting, but…
I am reminded of the observation of Jiddu Krishnamurti ; “It is no measure of health to be well–adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
https://kfoundation.org/it-is-no-measure-of-health-to-be-well-adjusted-to-a-profoundly-sick-society/
Politically, economically, socially, by any measure, we live in a sick society.
Aotearoa grows enough food to feed it's citizens amply. Yet, foodbanks are in greater demand. Working folk need welfare to 'get by'. Ecosystems are collapsing and flora and fauna are disappearing at a great rate.
Mental ill health and the profoundly mentally ill are on the increase.
I'm not pretending to have all the answers, but, again the answer is local. Share your food, your time, your love.
This next sentences are probably a tad irresponsible, as I am gonna pop out for most of the day but here we go anyhow.
The sick society aspect raised it's head for me back in 2007/8. Personal circumstance and growth, the state of the world etc, I was made aware of the Free man on the land concept. Quite possibly closely linked to the current manifestation of the Sovereign Citizens.
When society is so broken; rising inequality and growing poverty, a big disconnect between the work done and the renumeration received (Covid and our essential workers care givers, nurses, home help etc), vs CEOs of companies or bankers and bank profits. Seemingly the only tool is to vote every three years to get a regime of a slightly different hue. Made a mockery when one considers the influence and hold of the trucking lobby, for instance.
There can be a desire to question, if we live in a free society, are we free to leave it? What happens when a flesh and blood human being does not have a birth certificate? . The person is the legal subject or substance of which rights and duties are attributes. But not every human being is a person as was the case in Old England when there were slaves.
I have no desire to convince anyone nor defend the worst of those that claim sovereign citizen status. (Lots that I have seen are putting the cart before the horse and shooting their mouths off. After all Jesus said, go quietly amongst your people.)
At the heart of it, was to be let love be the rule. Where there is love, there is no law. Where there is law, there is no love.
Edit; if you wanna have a looksie yrself try googling Robert-Arthur:Menard Freesoul-on-the-Land
Geewhizz, gsays, that's a big reveal!!
I hope that when you return, you'll be ready to defend your quarter 🙂
I attended a meeting of would-be, wanna-be Sovereign Citizens. I listened to their spiels. I asked some straightforward questions. I nearly got lynched!
There were crackpots aplenty at that meeting. Each of them went on to protest Covid measures, some at Parliament, a couple were arrested.
Can we know a person by the company they keep 🙂
I wasn't invited back.
Heh, I imagine akin to turning up to a Biodynamic growers meeting espousing the benefits of potassium, nitrates and phosphorous.
If yr opinion is that the last Labour government wasn't so bad, this isn't for you.
I didn't espouse anything at all, I just asked a couple of questions. Perhaps I could ask you? One woman described what to do and say when stopped by police; refuse to comply, make the Sovereign Citizen statement, show the certificate of exemption etc. She was adamant the police would wave her through. I asked if she thought the police might have discussed this possibility, given there had already been some instances and might have decided to simply arrest the Sovereign, despite their protestations. This flummoxed her mightily. and she left to her feet etc.
Where do you stand/sit on the issue of exemption from the laws of NZ?
The halfwits up the road from me have a bunch of signs on the gates saying that you are not allowed on the property unless you have a specific invitation. I bet the Police will just walk past it. They are there quite often as the "affordable accommodation" has a bunch of people with "ankle bracelets" so they will be doing bail checks.
I understand what gsays is talking about. Most of their comment was about the social and political conditions that have given rise to the movement.
I have friends who are into that stuff. I don't talk to people locally about it because I value the friendships, and because some of it is irrational. Of course the police are doing to arrest a free man if they have cause. That's just basic power analysis.
The one that gets me is the faith in the position despite the evidence (I think gsays calls this cart before the horse, but it's also a lot of deception on some level).
However, those people aren't wrong about the state of society. Call them nutters, but are they any more fucked up than successive governments that have resisted meaningful climate action? The main differences I see there are around who has power and who knows how to play the mainstream game in wielding that power. There are some who are batshit crazy too, but it's now how I would characterise the movement generally. They're just counter culture instead of NACT MPs.
Sure you mean't not how…
I believe I know what gsays means also, in the same way I believe I know what the anti-vaxxers mean, what the terfs mean 🙂 but it's the inability of those people holding those views to bat ideas about that don't fit the rigid confines that come with those positions that gets me; get a word wrong and all hell breaks loose 🙂
The Soverigns though – Cooneys all 🙂
I'm highly confident that you don't actually know what Gender Critical Feminists mean, based on seeing what you have said on TS.
If you use terms like terf and cooney, I will moderate. Please stop with this, it says clearly in the site Policy that tone or language that has the effect of excluding others is not acceptable. I don't want a semantic argument about this, I've cut you a fair amount of slack on this already, but now the demeaning and dehumanising language has to stop. It's akin to flaming, and as far as I can see its usage is exactly to exclude people.
Sovereigns too?
Actiods?
Nats?
Happy-clappers?
It's a tangled web we weave!
Bro, from where I sit it's less the words it's the attitude behind them.
As I said, I'm not interested in semantic argument.
I've watched you for a number of weeks using language that is either inflammatory or insulting to people that comment here. I'm asking you to stop because I don't want to moderate.
If you don't understand where the boundaries are here, please ask in a straightforward manner using whole sentences.
Footnote:
You seemed to think "Gunnites" might be okay.
Liz Gunn's real last name is Cooney.
All I'm seeing is you ignoring moderation Robert. For the third time, I'm not interested in a debate about semantics. If you don't understand the boundaries, please ask as I suggested above.
and to pre-emptively clarify, the word cooney is a US pejorative. Most people won't know that it is also Liz Gunn's previous name. My reading right now is that you were making a play on words, and understood the pejorative well enough. I'm thinking that because in this whole conversation for the past weeks you've just shifted from one pejorative to another. I've explained the problem a number of times, you keep ignoring it.
And this is exactly the problem. Maybe you think it's a lighthearted thing, but a mod is starting to get pissed off at having to waste our time. Again.
Second rule of moderation, don't waste the mods' time. This is why you got banned last time. You took a position of not having to work within moderation of the site.
It's personally horrible for me, because I consider you an online friend.
I've offered you a relatively easy way through this. Ball is in your court.
Robert, I'd suggest that you listen to weka. It isn't what you're arguing that is the issue – it is repeatably using silly slogans without context or argument.
Using words for effect occasionally is one behaviour, using them repeatably is a whole different one and one that the moderators (including me) watch for.
Even a damned tree-fornicator should be able to understand that. 🙂
" My reading right now is that you were making a play on words, and understood the pejorative well enough."
I wasn't, I didn't. No matter, I understand the situation, thanks.
👍
”Where do you stand/sit on the issue of exemption from the laws of NZ?”
Yr not gonna like this.. when you operate from love there is no need for law.
how does that work with rapists?
Or the rich?
@RBReich
Combined wealth of 5 richest billionaires…
In 2020: $405 billion
Today: $869 billion
They got $14 million richer…every single hour.
Meanwhile, 60% of the global population has become poorer since 2020.
Inequality is eating the world alive.
https://twitter.com/RBReich/status/1747748142336933962
NZ GDP (2022): $248 billion.
https://tradingeconomics.com/new-zealand/gdp
It's a ‘funny’ old world.
Clearly with rape there is no love.
There is law for that.
can you explain that a bit more please? I'm obviously not understanding the adages here
Hypotheticals are wonderful.,,
I am not 100% sure what yr question is.
Parrotdog may or may not have something to do with that.
How I took that originally was you saying that society wouldn’t need laws if everyone related from a place of love.
Not everyone does relate from a place of love. So we need laws. Which means the aphorism “At the heart of it, was to be let love be the rule. Where there is love, there is no law. Where there is law, there is no love” is philosophically sound but has no meaning in real life terms in society.
What am I missing?
Not missing anything as such.
A rapist is not operating from love. There are laws and consequences to deal with them.
Police have two main roles. Primarily, keeping the peace. Then policy enforcement, hence the name.
Rape contravenes the peace and policy.
A rapist can not legitimately claim freeman on the land status.
Edit.”Where there is love, there is no law. Where there is law, there is no love” is philosophically sound but has no meaning in real life terms in society.”
Correct, and that is why some seek to remove their strawman, their personhood from said society.
I've been consciously aware of living in a sick society since I was a teenager in the 1960s, so this option seems like part of my cultural tradition (alt-Aotearoa):
https://www.scribd.com/document/223339093/Robert-Arthur-Menard-The-World-Freeman-Society-Introduction
Praxis of relativism applies though, and living within/without mainstreamers (simultaneously) has long been my pragmatic response option. The oscillating blend of the lifestyle & trajectory forms a triadic function, organic.
Whilst it was 1% of the whole back then it now seems in the region of 20%, which is apparently the critical mass threshold – so I expect an increasingly alternative future.
Cheers Dennis, TBH I've had to let yr comment percolate bit.
I reckon the 20% may be a tad high, but the commitment and enthusiasm is definitely there.
Organisation is what is needed.
yes, local, and love. I don't see any other way out of current predicament. I don't think it's possible to have love without law, or that law inherently means no love. We have to have ways of collectively managing society, that's law. And love.
Chur weka, appreciate yr elucidation above.
I know a fully hardcore Greenie, organic and permaculture up the wahoo. Great source of knowledge and inspiration. Deals in the essence of flowers and homoeopathy.
I wouldn't follow her to a toilet however. As grounded in her land and horses as she is, let her into the city, she is as prone to a supermarket rottisserie chicken as anyone.
My laboured point is, none of us have it sussed and are true to our convictions. Ignore the extremes of folk, get the common ground and we are unstoppable.
Robert and crew's initiative of the electric bus doing the produce loop in Riverton and environs is precisely the sort of thing that needs to happen.
I don't wanna chip him for his lack of a response to a recent question about contributing to paying ACC levies or Road User Charges because it's a jolly good idea. Money/trade kept local, empowering primary producers and fresh fresh fresh. (This is my cyber equivalent of yr not wanting to talk to friends about it because you value their friendship). Just cause there is a wee wedge, no need to hit it.
Completely agree. One of the reasons why I keep my relationships with people I disagree with going as much as I am able.
Good ol' Aleister put it like this: "Love is the law: love under will". (I'll just have to wear any ticking-off.) Elucidations/interpretations abound all over the web.
are the free man/sovereign movements referencing Crowley? Because that would put a new and important spin on things.
I've never heard Crowley come up in these circles. It has been a while since I investigated it though.
"Current services, which remain largely unchanged since our asylums were decanted in the 90s, are no longer fit for purpose. These one-size-fits-all institutions were transplanted into the community but have retained their paternalistic and isolated ways"
What does retain it's paternalism is the total lack of oversight of some of the support and conditions of whaiora who live in support homes and emergency accomodations while landlords who provide these disgusting conditions rake in the cash. Some of these landlords are upstanding citizens and in my mind also responsible for the actual financial and other emotional abuse that can take place there. The community trusts that are supposed to be helping very unwell people are also coining it from both ends. It's not new and it was there under previous national governments as well. National are equally responsible for these top heavy services and the capitalist corporatisation of mental wellness in our communities which happens at the detriment of vulnerable people. They DO NOT have the right to throw stones about this they encourage it. And it needs to be stopped. Btw I work in mental health with whaiora who are the people exploited by these slumlords and fake carers. These people need to be put in the frickin stocks but they'll probably run for council instead.
What do you all make of this? He's rejecting Biden on Palestine.
https://www.salon.com/2024/01/18/from-the-river-to-the-sea-netanyahu-says-he-told-biden-he-opposes-any-palestinian-state-after/
A shift in thinking at the European Parliament on the topic of ceasefire.
https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/international/europe/1705607509-european-parliament-conditions-ceasefire-on-hamas-dismantling-and-abductees-release
Whatever works, I hope they find a route out of this hell somewhere.
Sounds like the Europeans are saying no ceasefire then, but they would accept unconditional surrender by Hamas in return for ending the ongoing atrocities and collective punishment of every Palestinian.
This sounds like a warning across the bow to Russia, Iran, Hezbollah and the Houthi as much as to Hamas.
This is a Europe facing Russia in Ukraine without much American help this year (and next year maybe), and letting everyone know they will not be heavied, by attacks on their shipping, into supporting a cease-fire and allowing Hamas to continue as they have been.
If the Hamas political wing does not find shelter in the PLO, it looks they are going into exile when the PA (and if they refuse …. ) takes over Gaza.
Blinken has enabled untagged weapons delivery to Israel and hence lost all leverage – and doesn't seem to be worried by the loss.
Fully consistent with stronger US withdrawal out of anything from Afghanistan to Iraq to Syria, other than naval hits and the UAE bases.
This is what dissolving US hegemony feels like in real time.
Biden needs a PA he can work with.
A Gulf, EU/USA rebuild of Gaza based around Hamas in the PLO, the military wing dismantled and the PA back in Gaza and in control of the gun. Also parliamentary and presidential elections.
From there two options, either a Gaza Palestine nation state (own borders, sea port, airport and economic zone) member of the UN while Israel continues to occupy the WB, or restoration of the peace process with Israel.
has called on Israel to scale back its attacks…
What I make of that is what has been clear from the beginning of this slaughter: the U.S. supports it, but is squeamish about it. Sort of the same position it was in when it was Saddam Hussein's armourer and dipolomatic protector.
To bring it back to Aotearoa/NZ politics, here is the latest of what ACT is doing.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2024/01/act-lodges-bill-to-ditch-antiquated-easter-trading-restrictions.html
They've been whining about Easter Trading on Kiwiblog for decades now.
They'll be rapt!
Nailed it!
That'll be an interesting negotiation wit the happy clappy faction of National….
Wonder what the happy clappies will ask in return. Curriculum changes?
Providing those happy-clappers aren't prosperity gospellers…
… hang on!!
Luxon has proven that his beliefs are flexible.
Like wet spaghetti.
Jonathan Cook is a British freelance journalist formerly based in Nazareth, Israel. Like another outstanding independent, Glenn Greenwald, he used to work for the Grauniad, but he could not put up with that paper's complicity with the British state's campaigns of disinformation and its character assassination of dissenting journalists. This is his latest piece….
https://twitter.com/Jonathan_K_Cook/status/1678729702347776000
It maybe what Blinken et al are afraid of is Israel turning into a real multi player shit fight and having to find space for batcrazy fundamentalist Israeli refugees in the US who would present real problems for the Democrats in particular. It probably can’t afford to have The IDF fail.
" This is why a coalition government under National party hegemony is perhaps the best expression of what New Zealand’s collective identity looks like; it may not be one the centre-left likes but it is the normative expression of our collective myths in power and action."
Oh, yeah? TheLuxon/Peters/Seymour "monster mash" is what we see when we look in the mirror?
https://pointofordernz.wordpress.com/2024/01/19/mike-grimshaw-societies-have-always-been-divided-its-the-degree-of-division-that-counts/
Dunno who he is but that citation only seems credible when Labour is in eclipse (like now). If Labour were to return to source to regain credibility his proposition would be tested! Nothing like a bit of pie in the sky thinking to ruffle normalcy, eh?
Seen the results of wonderful work both in the Kaikōura rebuild and the efforts with wlike seals and dolphins everywhere to be seen up the coast and plenty of vantage points on the road – well done to all involved.
But why do visitors bring their dogs and cats to doc camp grounds where there are signs everywhere that dogs and pets are not allowed in the camp grounds at any time ?? When you book there is info of this as well as signage everywhere, how to potentially destroy all the hard efforts my many doc staff and volunteers😤
Have you seen how much it costs to put them in kennels for a fortnight Herodotus ? Its cheaper to cyrogenicly freeze them and chuck them in the fridge while you're gone and thaw the buggers out when you get back.
Sounds like they should just have the dog walkers come around to walk them, feed and ensure available water.
“The public service has been knee deep in this interpretation so it’s not surprising its advice mirrors this. New Zealanders want a respectful debate on the constitutional future of our country and that’s what they’ve voted for.”
How to counter this sort of BS from Seymour? To say "New Zealanders" want and voted for a parliamentary bill on the principles of Te Tiriti implies a majority, when in fact only 8.7% of those who voted in the 2023 election voted for ACT and their divisive, racist policy.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/350151916/highly-contentious-leaked-ministry-doc-raises-issues-treaty-principles-bill
Merely a shadow-boxing play. They're taking it to first reading, to give ACT their opportunity at due parliamentary process. Nats have signalling this with the tacit flag that they aren’t intending to support it further.
I agree Seymour's framing is naive. At most those who voted to replace the govt are okay with a public debate but I bet any precisely directed science-based sampling of public opinion would discover the proportion of voters interested in any such public debate would be around a quarter max. Too many other concerns…
Agreed about the process for the bill. But I don't think Seymour's framing is naive. It's devious and disingenuous.
And you hear it in other spaces – that "this" is what "the majority" voted for.
Just looking at its providence (the would-be Kim Hill bête noir Karl du Fresne) will be enough to alert a discriminating reader that this article will be highly dodgy at best. Five words in it, however, confirm just how dodgy it is: those five words occur at the beginning of the second sentence in the eleventh paragraph.
https://pointofordernz.wordpress.com/2024/01/19/karl-du-fresne-the-striking-outpouring-of-media-empathy-for-golriz-ghahraman/
Right now, the object of du Fresne's contempt is Golriz Gharaman. In the early days of the Key regime, it was Kim Hill he could not stand. Her sin? Making an unsavoury politician a little uncomfortable….
http://karldufresne.blogspot.com/2010/11/howard-deserved-more-balanced-treatment.html
Ani O'Brien continues the same crap for natstalkzb, ignoring the facts that GG fronted up, resigned, and is fully cooperating w police. It's just a hate-fest at this point.
Ani O'Brien: Making excuses isn’t taking responsibility (newstalkzb.co.nz)
There's a guy on Xitter 💩 who was tweeting nasty things about GG and I asked him to show some christian compassion and kindness.
This of course earned me mockery, scorn, and insults.
(I will be deleting X soon as it's just too toxic. Elon and Matt Walsh are slagging off therapy and suggesting that people should just harden up. Tell that to combat veterans with PTSD. The platform is awash in fakeness and abuse.)
Because that is how it makes money. Thank facebook for this brave new world.
One of the worst is SP, but I suppose he lives in fear of the loss of his turf to Cranmer's ZB+.
Instead of deleting your account, you could try curating it. I have to go look for the abusive posts now (mostly). DM me if you want tips.
Thanks 🙂
The one about Golriz actually hurt, the guy broke a long term cordiality in favour of malice.
I'll take a break and think on it.
I just glaze over D (ACT) and G (NZF) to get the zitgeist of the where the TF is these days, the corner of the paddock is the safest option – those with the wrong crowd but not as mean as those at the core.
Our JC and MM, an odd couple – in the end a points win to JC, when MM left the GOP and became a libertarian.
What?
It should be
If D and G want more left wing followers on X they can come here and invite us/you over to their field …
SP, D, G, JC, MM? Why should we have to translate or internet search?
SP – South Pacific?
D – David S
G – Dunno
JC – Judith Collins
MM – Dunno. Thought it might be Mark Mitchell but… GOP?
Sean Plunkett … Platform vs Cranmer's ZB+ … and two couples, one local and one American.
Oh well, I had a stab.
Our couple are as funny as James Carville and Mary Matalin, in their own way.
I'm thrilled that our public service is proposing to make me a chief of the land I own. In the second of its proposed principles as it appears in the video from the Maori Party co-leader, I mean: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/507090/government-confirms-leaked-document-was-a-ministry-treaty-principles-bill-memo
Looks like they might have had a few beers first. I can imagine their glee in composing the thing: `this'll rattle the mental cage of those prats!'
What are the chances Lux will bite? Zilch. Any aspiring aristocrat knows you widen the circle at your peril. Every capitalist knows profit-sharing must be stingy to teach hired help their place in the social hierarchy. Exceptions in Silicon Valley? Yeah, them dudes are naturally progressive. However his stance could wobble if conservatives agree their inner chieftainship ought to be acknowledged so it can then be acted out in real life.
If so, the young guys who kept on calling me chief a few decades back may become precognitive in retrospect (no big deal as they called other guys chief too – it was echoing Maxwell Smart of the 1965 tv comedy Get Smart)…
An open letter from Brian Easton to the PM….which as Mr Easton is wont to do, contains some well considered advice.
https://www.pundit.co.nz/content/the-prime-ministers-biggest-challenge
Easton wants to do two things:
Dilute identity by appealing to diversity within a group. Divide and conquer. Colonialism, cultural erosion and David Seymour come to mind.
Reduce decision making to the lowest and most flawed host of democracy, local government. Extremely poor turnout consolidates power to the already wealthy.
Obviously you didnt read the letter…..or at least one would hope not if your comment is any indication
I read it. My comment is several times more full of content than either of yours.
Why don't you ever provide thoughts of your own?
Only if slogans are considered content.
Easton is writing this to a fundy with a gaggle of other fundies with his party who feel threatened by the very changes which Easton thinks are great. No hope.
New Zealand is a diverse society. For over a century we suppressed this truism by relegating women to the kitchen, Māori to the pa, gays to the closet, and ignoring the role of religion in secular life. We practised majoritarianism by a group – who among other things were straight, Pakeha, Anglican, middle-class, male, rugby followers – which pretended theirs was the only acceptable lifestyle and the country should be run in their interests. Those who did not conform to this majority were ignored, treated as quaint eccentrics, or repressed.
Presumably Brian Easton means well, yet he admits supporting the move to market organisation of society (from 1984) while conceding the results were poor (because of …. excuses).
And wants the government to go further in that direction (as too does Douglas), he calls it the government not being authoritarian, not controlling from the centre (despite it being the area reformed via MMP and accountability via both financial and oversight systems) instead devolving to the more local level (without any reference to funding and capacity issues, competence and lack of media oversight/informed consent processes).
To the extent this has been done already, we have foreign companies providing ECE for profit and Australians profiting from managing ownership of assets from older New Zealanders to foreign organised/centralised/corporate capital).
And he wants to encourage more of this to the government, in education and health etc … . He seems to imagine a society as somehow more coherent and less divided, if managed around NGO's secular and or religious, rather than centralised government supply and delivery. It seems of a nostalgia for a time when there was a more active voluntary community – eroded by the necessity two working partners to afford housing, end of the 40 hour week – fragmentation of shift work (reducing participation) and of late, living cost pressures.
He is encouraging the right to move where it intends to go, without thought to the consequences – just as in 1984.
"… yet he admits supporting the move to market organisation of society (from 1984) while conceding the results were poor (because of …. excuses)."
Although I have never seen him state it, I suspect his reasoning is that NZ as a small trading nation had no choice but to follow the international order as was being constructed by the neolibs at the time….the (….excuses) are a recognition that while we may have had little choice we could have done the transition considerably better and with less damage. (something I have seen him state on numerous occasions)
He calls for more de-evolution of decision making as opposed to centralisation….something many here have also called for in their areas of interest…the funding and oversight are not that difficult to implement if the will is there, and are unnecessary for the purposes of the article.
Subsiditarity is not (necessarily) privatisation and may explain why you attribute a right wing bias that is not apparent.
Not apparent … yeah right. This government is not full of plans to fully fund what is, and its plans for replacing it are not either.
In the past they handed over state housing and expecting the provider to maintain the property and maintain low rents – that is either by its own fund-raising or operating run down property before demolishing.
????….how is Brian Easton responsible for any of that?
Does he know what this is about? 3rd and 4th paras.
https://thestandard.org.nz/labour-and-the-democrats/#comment-1985674
Why would anyone want to go further down that right wing neo-liberal road?
Good grief…tangent upon tangent
Jewish activists shutting down Grand Central Station to protest against Israel's genocidal onslaught in Gaza was only the start
Rabbi's daughter Ilana Cruger-Zaken: "We're in the building. Anti-Zionist Jews are here to stay, and there's no way that Zionists can hold a meeting now without hearing us."