No wonder workers get exploited- It is sooo difficult to turn a profit, almost not worth being in business. Just as well that one party is promising to rescind and minimum wage increase so such businesses will become MORE profitable. Now if we can only protect those workers being exploited under visa requirements.
That poor Mr. Singh. My heart goes out to him. How is he ever going to complete his unnecessarily opulent home now that he's no longer able to siphon the wages of his indentured servants via threats of deportation? And he's been disowned by Super Liquor. Dear me. It's all a ghastly nightmare. I wonder if he's considered setting up a GoFundMe page to see him through these turbulent waters?
Seriously, he should be in prison. This guy has form for this crap, and he's shitting on his own people. How he's regarded as a 'prominent person in the Sikh community' while pulling stunts like this is anyone's guess. Singh and people like him should be fined into penury and prohibited from running a business for the rest of their natural lives. And his wife looks as though she's happily complicit.
It would "shift the onus of proof", says Keene, and could lead to "more equal" outcomes – and might have made a difference in Jazmine Bell's case.
"The alleged perpetrator could be required to describe how they knew the other person was consenting throughout the process, so, for example, if the victim was asleep or unconscious, they would need to demonstrate why they thought they had obtained enthusiastic consent from the other person," she explains.
"This pretence that A and B are unimportant marginal figures is very odd. Both had in fact been considered outstanding professionals for the OPCW throughout their careers, and have many written notes commending the quality of their work. They were rehired – something the OPCW very rarely does – because the OPCW needed their experience.
The OPCW says they were rehired on a lower grade from the one they had previously held. It does not say that this was because the old higher grade had been abolished, and so it was no reflection on the two men’s skills and competence."
Hitchens , a long time anti-Assadist says there is more to come
I haven't followed this story much (the ME being a Deccan Death Trap where the truth crawls off to die) … but I must confess to considerable sadness at seeing an important UN organisation being subverted on such an important matter.
When people are punished for telling the truth, everyone else around them very quickly learns to tell nothing but lies.
Thanks for the link francesca, I notice that one of the big pushers of the original narrative our very own RNZ National, have remained very very quite on this story…
I have just been sitting in the lunch room flicking through a copy of Manufacturing Consent that just arrived in the shop, I read it a long time ago, it has lost none of it's power or relevance..it should be required reading at secondary school IMO.
They don't. Your tax dollers are specially selected out and used to pay for Winstons personal Wiskey collection. You can change to who your taxes are contributed by emailing, spending-programs-which-dont-exist@govt.nz at any time.
Personally – I would prefer not having my tax dollars pay for roads that Chris T drives on to get to his work computer and disseminate odd opinions. But I'm not six years old any more, accept that in the scheme of things my personal preferences don't amount to much, and that we have this thing called a society that we have to make work without killing each other.
The idea of Chris's taxes paying for anything makes no sense what-so-ever. The govt controls and operates the accounts which record these transactions of course but if they wish to change the numbers in the account entries they can just do so without needing to ask permission. Essentially we are just discussing changes in spreadsheet entries.
So apparently the Spinoff-Twitter crowd just got one of the world’s most famous left wing philosophers and animal rights activists cancelled?
I always thought that Peter Singer’s remarks about sentience in babies born disabled vs animals were made to serve his argument towards the improved treatment of animals, not the worse treatment of disabled people… it’s an argument supposed to induce a moral shock in readers. Should we ban a Modest Proposal next?
Singer’s comments were not meant to be satire but they were firmly about improved animal welfare and anyone who thinks otherwise is a moron…
“It’s a similar realm to Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneaux in that it’s about a ‘supreme race’…"
What! OMG I guess the only response in this intellectually impoverished day-and-age is an emoji.
Singer takes utilitarian to its logical end point, to the point of reductio ad absurdum, to call out specious arguments about human superiority based on arguments relating to sentience and quality of life, not in order to argue for infanticide.
Whoever is responsible for this should get a job running black ops for Fonterra.
This is perhaps, hands down, the stupidest and most counter-productive thing the “left” have done this year – so far.
I'm assuming that you have failed to provide a link to the Spinoff article because, like, disabled people who discuss Singer's warped attitudes are like, moronic?
My excuse is that I haven't been able to paste the link from my phone.
The Spinoff article is more than well worth a read and Red Nicholson nails it.
OK I can't help myself so I will quickly make a few points.
First, in response to your putting words in my mouth is saying:
"…disabled people who discuss Singer's warped attitudes are like, moronic?"
You are half right. Disabled people who discuss Singer's attitudes can be morons. They can also discover black holes from their wheelchairs. They can also get drunk and repeatedly drive their wheelchairs into their wives or nurses.
Judgement of a person's arguments or moral character does not come into my assessment of disabled people. I wouldn't want to prejudice them by suggesting they require me to treat them with kid gloves when the fact they can't walk, for example, has little to do with their potential to become one of the greatest living physicists.
By the same token, I won't pretend that because you have some diminished physical capacity that you can't be an asshole.
Second, to quickly address where Red Nicholson goes wrong from the get-go.
Nicholson writes "In 1979’s Practical Ethics, Singer wrote that the value of a life should be based on “rationality, autonomy and self-consciousness”.
That should Nicholson inserts is very important.
Singer does not write that the value of a life should be based on “rationality, autonomy and self-consciousness.
Singer is arguing within a specific philosophical tradition, utilitarianism, which variously argues that maximizing pleasure (higher, lower – it varies) is the end individuals and societies should aim for. He then argues for an expansion of our field of moral concern: to encompass people who we are not related to directly or by tribe or by nation, and also for non human beings. Controversially, he points to arguments about human superiority over animals based on sentience, as superior sentience is argued by some – like lots of utilitarians – to have a bearing on a human or non-human's persons capacity for pleasure.
There are arguments within utilitarianism which support the position that INDIVIDUAL sentience or capacity are less relevant to one's ability to experience pleasure, or a happy society.
There are also arguments outside of that tradition which argue for value on different grounds. In saying that, most utilitarians agree that human beings have inherent value. I can't remember what John Stuart Mill wrote about that off the top of my head but I will look it up.
Nicholson needs to work out what he is grappling with before he jumps into the arena because without doing that he could end up mischaracterizing a very deep thinker and contribute to getting him banned… by a gambling venue.
A copy of Practical Ethics should anyone want to read a book that presumably should be banned alongside Mein Kampf:
You know Billy when you make an argument – it's consider good form to attribute the right quote to the right people.
Strawman arguments are also a bit boorish as well – which general make me feel you have the need to full up space, and/or you know your wrong so you gotta make shit up, to knock it down.
Hi Adam, where's the wrong attribution? I quoted directly from the Spinoff article.
In that article, as I pointed out, Nicholson characterizes Singer as someone who advocates euthanasia for disabled people. I referred to Singer’s book and the passage from where Nicholson took and then altered the partial quote, turning it into a different sort of statement: as advocacy. Nicholson’s mischaracterization is the strawman argument here.
I’m not sure your response is in good faith.
It’s not “philosophical wank”, as someone claimed, to seek to right the way a philosopher’s position has been misrepresented. The later is, or worse.
Singer states quite clearly in a number of sources, primary and secondary, that that his questions around personhood "[are] a way of getting people involved in species membership. And try and get them to break this automatic nexus between species membership and moral status."
It was the author of the piece, not Red Nicholson, who wrote that sentence you quoted.
If you do take the time to go back and actually read the Spinoff article entire, you might just come to realize that Singer has a serious issue with disability.
Thanks Rosemary. I attributed something written by Leonie Hayden to Red Nicholson, who was quoted later in Hayden’s opinion piece. My mistake.
My criticism of that passage stands. My attribution did not affect my point.
My point was that the author put a spin on Singer's words in the original text, to which I linked. It's not the only passage that was coloured Singer’s arguments in that way.
Singer argues for the radical expansion of our definition of personhood and not for eugenics.
It’s true that Singer has stated that 28 day postpartum infanticide is acceptable. He also notes that this is already common practice in hospitals, and that parents frequently choose to abort severely disabled children up until late term, suggesting that infanticide is a lot less controversial in reality. I expect to see you with a picket sign outside an abortion clinic or hospital with the radical Catholics and the Evangelicals some day soon.
If you had actually sat down and read Practical Ethics you would have seen that Singer as a strong Utilitarian places no limit on abortion and struggles to find limits to getting rid of people who have major degenerative diseases.
Utilitarians like Singer are a pain in the ass, and as a general rule philosophers – particularly Utilitarians – have no place getting their mitts on the levers of power.
If you want to see a full-on Fordist hardass utilitarian really get their hands on power and see what they do with it, have a good look at McNamara planning the bombing of Vietnam in The Fog Of War. It's in his own words so there's no misinterpretation.
Not also Singer’s version of sentience based on self-consciousness means dealing with beings lower down the food-chain you can essentially harvest things for food, or otherwise use them as resource. As soon as you conceive of things as resource, as Heidegger reminded us, the more the entire world gets used up fast.
Singer has no concept of being.
Essentially everything starts to look like food.
So before you start having another good wank quoting philosphical passages at someone with a severely disabled dependent who has been doing so for many years (as in Rosemary's case), suck it up first and be more careful.
Thanks I was idly thinking about a response myself, but that's far better than I would have done. Utilitarian's are a refined form of materialism. Yes humans have to do business with the material world, but to pretend this is sufficient leads to terrible places.
Utilitarians are very valuable philosophers, in that they don't work on the principle that Homo Sapiens is the be-all and end-all of the Universe. The ability to step outside the automatic self-interest of your own species is a rare talent and a useful one. At the very least, utilitarians force us to think about the basis of our morality and what rational arguments there are for it. Unsurprisingly, people who think humanity is the pinnacle of evolution or God's special creation hate utilitarians, but that's their business.
Those are all fair points, but I don't think Singer can be lumped in with McNamara.
I sympathize with the difficulties you must have. And I can see how even a hint of these arguments could cause offense. Though, the arguments Singer makes around this are about logical inconsistencies with utilitarianism, for animal welfare (and the welfare of people not in your tribe).
I would like to unpick your response a bit because there are problems with it but I don’t have time at present.
So apparently the Spinoff-Twitter crowd just got one of the world’s most famous left wing philosophers and animal rights activists cancelled?
Yep. On the one hand it's refreshing to see philosophers once again considered a threat to established social order with their unpopular ideas, on the other hand it sucks to see the growth of intolerance, authoritarianism, anti-intellectualism and irrationality in our society.
NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report)—In an apparently successful attempt to get under the skin of Donald Trump, former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg has purchased Greenland from Denmark.
In an official statement released on Tuesday, the Prime Minister of Denmark, Mette Frederiksen, would not disclose the price that Bloomberg paid for Greenland but indicated that it was an “all-cash offer.”
“Mr. Bloomberg has a lot of money,” Frederiksen added.
News of Bloomberg’s purchase of Greenland reportedly infuriated Trump, who immediately ordered his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to make an offer to buy the Faroe Islands from Denmark.
Within minutes, however, Denmark rebuffed Kushner’s bid. “We do not believe Donald Trump is capable of running the Faroe Islands,” Frederiksen said.
As for Bloomberg, his campaign released a brief statement about the historic purchase of the 836,330-square-mile landmass, saying only, “Mike gets it done.”
Singer may know about animals but he is blatantly ignorant about disability and the value of being human. He echoes common stereotypes but his extremism with them is even more socially harmful.
Singer said it was disappointing that a speaking tour that was meant to be about the benefits of "effective altruism" has instead become focussed on infanticide.
He said he supported laws that ban hate speech against any group of people but he did not see his views as being in that category.
Saying it is good to kill a class of people because you do not see any value in their life seems pretty hateful from here. Be really brave, dude, and make it about race or gender, go on.
He is welcome to spitefully mutter into a beer at his local but no way is a public platform justified. Not adding anything new or useful. Others have already done it 'better'.
The trouble with "hate speech" is that people think it necessarily involves hate. Not so. People calmly doing a job can also utter or commit the most vile things, with no particular emotion or desire any more than one would file an invoice.
… he is blatantly ignorant about disability and the value of being human.
I couldn't comment on what he knows about disability, but a lot of his work is about what "the value of being human" actually means and what arguments there are for that value being significantly higher than the value of being something else. Doing that is one of the tasks of philosophy, and the fact that people don't like having to contemplate the basis and merit of their morality doesn't make philosophy "hate speech."
I'm not aware that Singer has suggested anyone should be euthanised. That would be political advocacy rather than philosophical argument, and would surely have been widely publicised.
I did, which is why I'm wondering about these accusations that he advocates killing people. Recognising that there's a philosophical argument for infanticide not being unethical under some circumstances is not advocating for infanticide. Feeling strongly about something doesn't given a person the right to misrepresent what the object of their anger is saying.
He doesn't. Our society has decided that the magic point at which someone achieves personhood is birth. Catholics believe the magic point occurs much earlier. Singer has said it is acceptable to terminate a newborn 28 days postpartum, and noted that it is common practice in hospitals today to let severely disabled children die. Personhood for him should include animals. He’s not an advocate for eugenics.
If you do believe in abortion, at which point is personhood achieved by the fetus or infant, or when falls the magic point at which termination is no longer acceptable, and why?
If you can’t provide an answer, you have no business preventing a philosopher who has considered these questions deeply from holding a talk on those and many other matters of profound ethical, social, cultural and political importance.
But doctors decide when people should die all the time.
When they give cancer patients a push-button controller for fatal doses of morphine. When they decide to stop treating someone, including a severely disabled child. Sometimes guardians or partners give their input. When a baby is in an incubator, at what point should we decide to turn that incubator off?
What if the advancement of medical technology meant that hospitals could keep every baby born alive artificially? Should hospitals keep every baby born alive, even if they are so severely disabled that they would otherwise die? Many disabled people rely on medical technology without which they would be dead. Some people are unable to communicate whether they want to continue living.
It seems to me that if it is not going to end well, we should at least have the best reasons for those decisions. And the public deserves forums in which those arguments can be aired – or should it be left up to the DHB’s accountants? Abortion legislation has passed through Parliament and been quite contentious. Battles over health funding are never going to go away. Those battles should have informed public input.
If you feel you're decending into Alice territory, take the hand of Harriet McBryde Johnson (a link to her article in the NYT is in the Spinoff piece for your convenience).
Walk with her through the maze, and perhaps drag yourself from the mire.
The self-appointed woke left have just cancelled perhaps the world’s most important moral and environmental philosopher who was in the country to give a talk on our collective duty to address global poverty.
Furthermore, they were content to advocate the silencing of this radical voice without even bothering to understand what he was actually saying. They’re not even willing, seemingly, to address the same difficult questions, which are unavoidable.
If you count yourself among this group you are a reactionary narcissist and not a leftist.
If there's no place for Peter Singer there's no place for me.
Hey, Billy, nobody from the left has cancelled Singer's visit. He's only lost a venue. He could still turn up and give his talk in another venue or even on a soapbox in Albert Park for that matter. If he doesn't front, it's entirely his own decision.
@Sacha – it seems sometimes a reply can be made to a comment at the bottom nesting level – I was really bummed when weka slipped one in above my "Bowelly" comment a while back and totally ruined the flow. Maybe it's when a reply is made from some mobile devices?
@Andre – I wonder if it might be the same person replying to themself that gets treated differently? Not a standard WordPress platform behaviour as far as I know.
Stuff report Jami Lee Ross and the 3 others, Yikun Zhang, Shijia Zheng, and Hengjia Zheng have had name suppression lifted. No surprises there then I guess. Poor little "Beijing Bridges" will be putting on his ballet shoes right now, ready for a bit of Pin Head dancing.
Be interesting to learn what offence(s) each of the four individuals involved has been charged with. I believe at the time of the donations, JLR was still a National MP!
JLR seems quite rational about it, judging by his statement in Stuff. Perhaps during legal proceedings in court, through JLR's defence and that of his co defendents, the National leader's name could pop up!
I suspected one was JLR because Bigmouth Bridges said at some stage early on that "no current Nat party member " had been charged. Bridges must be shitting himself because as JLR is charged Bridges is complicit. If only they did it like the old days, waiting for a big crowd outside his office before leading the perp out in cuffs before gently placing a big cop's hand on his head while still managing to whack it on the door opening of the Police Holden Kingswood.
I am suddenly having a good day.
P.s, I once asked a detective mate of mine over a few beers if that was deliberate, "Yeah, of course mate '" was the reply.
Seems a bit odd that by the telephone record, Bridges was complicit, but not charged.
And those big donors are very rich and can buy good lawyers, but Jamie…
And those others charged said,""Our clients are proud New Zealanders and philanthropists. They were urged to follow a process and are now deeply disappointed at being caught up in a donation's fiasco.
I think Winston is, putting it mildly, a blight on NZ politics. I would like it if Jacinda read him the riot but of course she won't because of the power Winston appears to have over her.
To counter this how difficult would it be, politically speaking, for Bridges to say to Ardern that if she strips everything she can from Winston (and if he throws his toys out of the cot and threatens to bring down the govt and cause an early election) then National will support the COL until the general election
On what basis could Bridges make a case to Ardern that his integrity is higher than that of Winston Peters? That is, why should Ardern feel that Peters isn't a fit person to work with but Bridges is a fit person to work with?
Yeah good on you, you managed to to say in a post how untrustworthy Bridges is, well done, big round of applause, herp derp Bridges bad
Its a hypothetical question therefore we can assume everyone is acting in good faith
The point of the post was about the implications, if any, of NZFirst breaking away from the COL and National supporting the govt through to the next election
Would this course of action help Labour or National more
Would this course of action reinforce peoples positive views of MMP and democracy in NZ or would it be viewed as a negative
Take your "COL" and shove it up your arse. Calling people Losers because they have different views than yours is nasty and with regard to your Grand Coalition arrangement to eliminate Peters, that's just further ganging up and bullying to eliminate a rival, but then I guess that comes easily to your ilk. Next they came for the National Supporters but …. etc
'The government was announced shortly before 7pm on Thursday, a coalition of Labour and New Zealand First – ending nine years of National governments.'
Actually I suspect you weren't using it as C.O. Labour as you strike me is too bright to not know that the Labour Party is not a Coalition, there is a C O Labour, NZ1st, Greens. but you didn't use an Anagram for that, did you, plus you even acknowledge you knew it's origin. Neither of your links refer to a COL do they. It's been my experience that everyone using that Anagram is a Completely Unethical National Toady so it's up to you if you fit that title.
I figure on the basic level a perceived coalition between Labour and National would go down as well with Labour voters as NZ1 and National went down with NZ1 voters in 1996. The Greens would probably have the integrity to walk and force an early election, in which case Labour is now reliant on national to replace greens and nz1. The "grand coalition" wet dream of friendless tories media pundits finally eventuates, Labour goes back to 20% or less, nats get bolstered for looking competent, and Luke blows up the death star.
Nice "hypothetical". Now, if we include people's characters and histories, Bridges has a fair chance of making the pact 4 months of hell followed by a snap election after he (or his successor) pulls support, NZ1 has a fair chance of being returned to office, and then Winston calls a plague on both parties because he doesn't like being treated like shit. Oh, and people think Labour is full of shit for swapping between two parties who both appear to be similarly dodgy with their donations.
Labour must keep ditching one or both, and only one has a track record of actually working well with Labour.
So coalition is a non event but confidence and supply might be a better option then
To my way of thinking theres only 7 months to the next election so if things turned to custard with Winnie (and on past history thats not impossible) we might not need an early election
The distinction between a formal coalition agreement and simple support for C&S is a subtle one that I suspect most people won't care about – it's the difference between seeing your partner in bed with someone else and simply seeing them having a romantic dinner with that person.
If you're friends with the other person and your partner is open about it, no worries. If you hate the other person and don't trust your partner because of a past betrayal, you might have an issue.
Well at the very least it would seem that there are a few options for the govt (including future ones) to not be held to hostage by another party threatening an early election
There are all sorts of mathematical possibilities – hell, NZ1 can go with national if Labour try to cut them loose.
It comes down to how contradictory parties are in policy principles and how the personalities work together. And some proposals are more wishful thinking than realistic ideas.
Maybe. Seymour's really trying hard to appeal to the voters not even NZ1 or the nats will go after openly (well, not since the nat staffer got all "emotional" for some reason).
Poverty is a big driver of most of the bad stats some people don't get it.
I say our farmers can lower their carbon footprint.
There is a study that points out that green house gases produce by big oil is under estimated by 40 %. In my view we need to focus on getting fossil fuel energy out of our energy mix not deflect all the blame on our farmers.
Tikapa beach is nice and clean.
You know that the last government of nine years was lead by a climate change denier under them thousands of heacture of forest got cut down prematurely wind turbine project got canned of course under a government like that farmers were not mitigating their environmental footprint.?????.
That's a good cause to champion lowering the voting age some parents have a hard time looking into the future past there hip pockets to see we are stuffing the future up.
Ngāti Kahunga had a good Kapa Haka festival.
Kura Kaupapa is saving tangata whenua o Aotearoa Te reo and cultural kia kaha.
Its cool seeing Iwi fighting to keep their Awa pristine and clean.
Great Waiheke Island is aiming for a predator free sanctuary for Aotearoa native wildlife.
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Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
.“$10 and a target that bleeds” - Bleeding Targets for Under $10!.Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.This government appears hell-bent on either scrapping life-saving legislation or reintroducing things that - frustrated critics insist - will be dangerous and likely ...
“It hardly strikes me as fair to criticise a government for doing exactly what it said it was going to do. For actually keeping its promises.”THUNDER WAS PLAYING TAG with lightning flashes amongst the distant peaks. Its rolling cadences interrupted by the here-I-come-here-I-go Doppler effect of the occasional passing car. ...
Subversive & Disruptive Technologies: Just as happened with that other great regulator of the masses, the Medieval Church, the advent of a new and hard-to-control technology – the Internet – is weakening the ties that bind. Then, and now, those who enjoy a monopoly on the dissemination of lies, cannot and will ...
Been Here Before: To find the precedents for what this Coalition Government is proposing, it is necessary to return to the “glory days” of Muldoonism.THE COALITION GOVERNMENT has celebrated its first 100 days in office by checking-off the last of its listed commitments. It remains, however, an angry government. It ...
Bob Edlin writes – And what is the world watching today…? The email newsletter from Associated Press which landed in our mailbox early this morning advised: In the news today: The father of a school shooter has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter; prosecutors in Trump’s hush-money case ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is another Green MP on their way out? And are the Greens severely tarnished by another integrity scandal? For the second time in three months, the Green Party has secretly suspended an MP over integrity issues. Mystery is surrounding the party’s decision to ...
For the last few years, the Green Party has been the party that has managed to avoid the plague of multiple scandals that have beleaguered other political parties. It appears that their luck has run out with a second scandal which, unfortunately for them, coincided with Golraz Ghahraman, the focus ...
TL;DR: The six newsey things that stood out to me as of 6:46am on Saturday, March 16.Andy Foster has accidentally allowed a Labour/Green amendment to cut road user chargers for plug-in hybrid vehicles, which the Government might accept; NZ HeraldThomas CoughlanSimeon Brown has rejected a plea from Westport ...
What seemed a booming success a couple of years ago has collapsed into fraud convictions.I looked at the crash of FTX (short for ‘Futures Exchange’) in November 2022 to see whether it would impact on the financial system as a whole. Fortunately there was barely a ripple, probably because it ...
Anybody following the situation in Ukraine and Russia would probably have been amused by a recent Tweet on X NATO seems to be putting in an awful lot of effort to influence what is, at least according to them, a sham election in an autocracy.When do the Ukrainians go to ...
TL;DR:Shaun Baker on Wynyard Quarter's transformation. Magdalene Taylor on the problem with smart phones. How private equity are now all over reinsurance. Dylan Cleaver on rugby and CTE. Emily Atkin on ‘Big Meat’ looking like ‘Big Oil’.Bernard’s six-stack of substacks at 6pm on March 15Photo by Jeppe Hove Jensen ...
Buzz from the Beehive Finance Minister Nicola Willis had plenty to say when addressing the Auckland Business Chamber on the economic growth that (she tells us) is flagging more than we thought. But the government intends to put new life into it: We want our country to be a ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee has reported back on the Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) Amendment Bill, basicly rubberstamping it. While there was widespread support among submitters for the principle that EV and PHEV drivers should pay their fair share for the roads, they also overwhelmingly disagreed with ...
Peter Dunne writes – This week’s government bailout – the fifth in the last eighteen months – of the financially troubled Ruapehu Alpine Lifts company would have pleased many in the central North Island ski industry. The government’s stated rationale for the $7 million funding was that it ...
See if you can spot the difference. An Iranian born female MP from a progressive party is accused of serial shoplifting. Her name is leaked to the media, which goes into a pack frenzy even before the Police launch an … Continue reading → ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The government is omitting general Treaty references from legislation : The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last Government in a bid to get greater coherence in the public service on Treaty ...
What was that judge thinking?Peter Williams writes – That Golriz Ghahraman and District Court Judge Maria Pecotic were once lawyer colleagues is incontrovertible. There is published evidence that they took at least one case to the Court of Appeal together. There was a report on ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Climate Scorpion – the sting is in the tail. Introducing planetary solvency. A paper via the University of Exeter’s Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.Local scoop:Kāinga Ora starts pulling out of its Auckland projects and selling land RNZ ...
Wellington’s massively upzoned District Plan adds the opportunity for tens of thousands of new homes not just in the central city (such as these Webb St new builds) but also close to the CBD and public transport links. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Wellington gave itself the chance of ...
It’s Friday and we’re halfway through March Madness. Here’s some of the things that caught our attention this week. This Week in Greater Auckland On Monday Matt asked how we can get better event trains and an option for grade separating Morningside Dr. On Tuesday Matt looked into ...
Something you might not know about me is that I’m quite a stubborn person. No, really. I don’t much care for criticism I think’s unfair or that I disagree with. Few of us do I suppose.Back when I was a drinker I’d sometimes respond defensively, even angrily. There are things ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:PM Christopher Luxon said the reversal of interest deductibility for landlords was done to help renters, who ...
It was not so much the Labour Party but really the Chris Hipkins party yesterday at Labour’s caucus retreat in Martinborough. The former Prime Minister was more or less consistent on wealth tax, which he was at best equivocal about, and social insurance, which he was not willing to revisit. ...
Buzz from the BeehiveThe text reproduced above appears on a page which records all the media statements and speeches posted on the government’s official website by Melissa Lee as Minister of Media and Communications and/or by Jenny Marcroft, her Parliamentary Under-secretary. It can be quickly analysed ...
For forty years, Robert Muldoon has been a dirty word in our politics. His style of government was so repulsive and authoritarian that the backlash to it helped set and entrench our constitutional norms. His pig-headedness over forcing through Think Big eventually gave us the RMA, with its participation and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is the new government reducing tax on rental properties to benefit landlords or to cut the cost of rents? That’s the big question this week, after Associate Finance Minister David Seymour announced on Sunday that the Government would be reversing the Labour Government’s removal ...
Saudi Arabia is rarely far from the international spotlight. The war in Gaza has brought new scrutiny to Saudi plans to normalise relations with Israel, while the fifth anniversary of the controversial killing of Jamal Khashoggi was marked shortly before the war began on October 7. And as the home ...
Questions need to be asked on both sides of the worldPeter Williams writes – The NRL Judiciary hands down an eight week suspension to Sydney Roosters forward Spencer Leniu , an Auckland-born Samoan, after he calls Ezra Mam, Sydney-orn but of Aboriginal and Torres Strait ...
Ele Ludemann writes – Contrary to what many headlines and news stories are saying, residential landlords are not getting a tax break. The government is simply restoring to them the tax deductibility of interest they had until the previous government removed it. There is no logical reason ...
I can't remember when it was goodMoments of happiness in bloomMaybe I just misunderstoodAll of the love we left behindWatching our flashbacks intertwineMemories I will never findIn spite of whatever you becomeForget that reckless thing turned onI think our lives have just begunI think our lives have just begunDoes anyone ...
Michael Bassett writes – At first reading, a front-page story in the New Zealand Herald on 13 March was bizarre. A group of severely intellectually limited teenagers, with little understanding of the law, have been pleading to the Justice Select Committee not to pass a bill dealing with ram ...
How much political capital is Christopher Luxon willing to burn through in order to deliver his $2.9 billion gift to landlords? Evidently, Luxon is: (a) unable to cost the policy accurately. As Anna Burns-Francis pointed out to him on Breakfast TV, the original ”rock solid” $2.1 billion cost he was ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Jonathon Porritt calling bullshit in his own blog post on mainstream climate science as ‘The New Denialism’.Local scoop:The Wellington City Council’s list of proposed changes to the IHP recommendations to be debated later today was leaked this ...
TL;DR:Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said yesterday tenants should be grateful for the reinstatement of interest deductibility because landlords would pass on their lower tax costs in the form of lower rents. That would be true if landlords were regulated monopolies such as Transpower or Auckland Airport1, but they’re not, ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Tom Toro Tom Toro is a cartoonist and author. He has published over 200 cartoons in The New Yorker since 2010. His cartoons appear in Playboy, the Paris Review, the New York Times, American Bystander, and elsewhere. Related: What 10 EV lovers ...
The business section of the NZ Herald is full of opinion. Among the more opinionated of all is the ex-Minister of Transport, ex-Minister of Railways, ex MP for Auckland Central (1975-93, Labour), Wellington Central (1996-99, ACT, then list-2005), ex-leader of the ACT Party, uncle to actor Antonia, the veritable granddaddy ...
Hi,Just quickly — I’m blown away by the stories you’ve shared with me over the last week since I put out the ‘Gary’ podcast, where I told you about the time my friend’s flatmate killed the neighbour.And you keep telling me stories — in the comments section, and in my ...
The first season of Rings of Power was not awful. It was thoroughly underwhelming, yes, and left a lingering sense of disappointment, but it was more expensive mediocrity than catastrophe. I wrote at length about the series as it came out (see the Review section of the blog, and go ...
Buzz from the Beehive Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden told Auckland Business Chamber members they were the first audience to hear her priorities as a minister in a government committed to cutting red tape and regulations. She brandished her liberalising credentials, saying Flexible labour markets are the ...
Chris Trotter writes – TO UNDERSTAND WHY NEWSHUB FAILED, it is necessary to understand how TVNZ changed. Up until 1989, the state broadcaster had been funded by a broadcasting licence fee, collected from every citizen in possession of a television set, supplemented by a relatively modest (compared ...
Bob Edlin writes – The Māori Party has been busy issuing a mix of warnings and threats as its expresses its opposition to interest deductibility for landlords and the plans of seabed miners. It remains to be seen whether they follow the example of indigenous litigants in Australia, ...
Every year, in the Budget, Parliament forks out money to government agencies to do certain things. And every year, as part of the annual review cycle, those agencies are meant to report on whether they have done the things Parliament gave them that money for. Agencies which consistently fail to ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – Recent events in American universities point to an underlying crisis of coherent thinking, an issue that increasingly affects the progressive left across the Western world. This of course is nothing new as anyone who can either remember or has read of the late ...
The thing about life’s little victories is that they can be followed by a defeat.Reader Darryl told me on Monday night:Test again Dave. My “head cold” last week became COVID within 24 hours, and is still with me. I hear the new variants take a bit longer to show up ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Angus Deaton on rethinking his economics IMFLocal scoop: The people behind Tamarind, the firm that left a $500m cleanup bill for taxpayers at Taranaki’s Tui oil well, are back operating in Taranaki under a different company name. Jonathan ...
Normally when we talk about accessing public transport it’s about improving how easy it is to get to, such as how easy is it to cross roads in a station/stop’s walking catchment, is it possible to cycle to safely, do bus connections work, or even if are there new routes/connections ...
Politicians are not renowned for telling the truth. Some tell us things that are verifiably not true. They offer statements that omit critical pieces of information. Gloss over risks, preferring to offer the best case scenario.Some not truths are quite small, others amusing in their transparency. There are those repeated ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
The New Zealand public voted for a change in direction at the 2023 general election and that is exactly what this coalition government has been delivering in its first 100 days. There was an immediate focus on the economy, easing the cost of living, cracking down on law and order ...
The Government has left the health system as an afterthought, announcing half-baked targets at the last minute of their 100-day plan, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
Kiwis are still waiting for their promised cost of living support after 100 days of a National Government that is taking us backwards, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
100 days of National taking NZ backwardsThe National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
The Government must commit to funding free and healthy school lunches, as thousands of people sign the petition to keep them, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti says. ...
If the Government was serious about moving families into public housing, they would build more houses so there is actually somewhere for people to go. ...
The free and healthy school lunches programme feeds our kids, helps them to learn, and saves families money – but it is at risk under this Government, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
The Government’s proposed changes to Firearms Prohibition Orders (FPO) add almost nothing new and are merely an attempt to distract from its plans to loosen gun laws, police spokesperson Ginny Andersen and justice spokesperson Dr Duncan Webb said. ...
The great Victorian era English politician Lord Macauley stood in the British House of Parliament and said, "The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm".He understood and outlined even way back then, the significant role and influence media have in a democracy. ...
The government’s attack on Māori health this week is committing tangata-whenua to a premature death, says Te Pāti Māori. “The government have begun their onslaught on Māori health with the abolishment of the Māori Health Authority and smokefree laws in the same day” said health spokesperson and co-leader, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. ...
Today marks a tragic milestone for New Zealanders as the Coalition Government side with big tobacco to repeal the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Act 2022, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins and Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said. ...
New Zealand’s social workers are qualified, experienced, and more representative of the communities they serve, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “I want to acknowledge and applaud New Zealand’s social workers for the hard work they do, providing invaluable support for our most vulnerable. “To coincide with World ...
Cabinet has agreed to a reduced road user charge (RUC) rate for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. Owners of PHEVs will be eligible for a reduced rate of $38 per 1,000km once all light electric vehicles (EVs) move into the RUC system from 1 April. ...
Minister of Agriculture and Trade, Todd McClay, says that today’s opening of Riverland Foods manufacturing plant in Christchurch is a great example of how trade access to overseas markets creates jobs in New Zealand. Speaking at the official opening of this state-of-the-art pet food factory the Minister noted that exports ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Wellington today. “It was a pleasure to host Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his first official visit to New Zealand since 2017. Our discussions were wide-ranging and enabled engagement on many facets of New Zealand’s relationship with China, including trade, ...
Kāinga Ora – Homes & Communities has been instructed to end the Sustaining Tenancies Framework and take stronger measures against persistent antisocial behaviour by tenants, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Earlier today Finance Minister Nicola Willis and I sent an interim Letter of Expectations to the Board of Kāinga Ora. ...
Tēna koutou katoa. Greetings everyone. Thank you to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and the Honourable Simon Bridges for hosting this address today. I acknowledge the business leaders in this room, the leaders and governors, the employers, the entrepreneurs, the investors, and the wealth creators. The coalition Government shares your ...
Minister Winston Peters completed the final leg of his visit to South and South East Asia in Singapore today, where he focused on enhancing one of New Zealand’s indispensable strategic partnerships. “Singapore is our most important defence partner in South East Asia, our fourth-largest trading partner and a ...
Minister of Internal Affairs and Workplace Relations and Safety, Hon. Brooke van Velden, will travel to the Republic of Korea to represent New Zealand at the Third Summit for Democracy on 18 March. The summit, hosted by the Republic of Korea, was first convened by the United States in 2021, ...
ICNZ Speech 7 March 2024, Auckland Acknowledgements and opening Mōrena, ngā mihi nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Good morning, it’s a privilege to be here to open the ICNZ annual conference, thank you to Mark for the Mihi Whakatau My thanks to Tim Grafton for inviting me ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Lead Coordination Minister Judith Collins have expressed their deepest sympathy on the five-year anniversary of the Christchurch terror attacks. “March 15, 2019, was a day when families, communities and the country came together both in sorrow and solidarity,” Mr Luxon says. “Today we pay our respects to the 51 shuhada ...
Speech for Financial Advice NZ Conference 5 March 2024 Acknowledgements and opening Morena, Nga Mihi Nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Thanks Nate for your Mihi Whakatau Good morning. It’s a pleasure to formally open your conference this morning. What a lovely day in Wellington, What a great ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters held discussions in Jakarta today about the future of relations between New Zealand and South East Asia’s most populous country. “We are in Jakarta so early in our new government’s term to reflect the huge importance we place on our relationship with Indonesia and South ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters has announced that the Foreign Minister of China, Wang Yi, will visit New Zealand next week. “We look forward to re-engaging with Foreign Minister Wang Yi and discussing the full breadth of the bilateral relationship, which is one of New Zealand’s ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has today opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre, which will bring together KiwiRail, Auckland Transport, and Auckland One Rail to improve service reliability for Aucklanders. “The recent train disruptions in Auckland have highlighted how important it is KiwiRail and Auckland’s rail agencies work together to ...
The Government is proud to support the 10th edition of Crankworx Rotorua as the Crankworx World Tour returns to Rotorua from 16-24 March 2024, says Minister for Economic Development Melissa Lee. “Over the past 10 years as Crankworx Rotorua has grown, so too have the economic and social benefits that ...
Legislation implementing coalition Government tax commitments and addressing long-standing tax anomalies will be progressed in Parliament next week, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The legislation is contained in an Amendment Paper to the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill issued today. “The Amendment Paper represents ...
Associate Environment Minister Andrew Hoggard has today announced that the Government has agreed to suspend the requirement for councils to comply with the Significant Natural Areas (SNA) provisions of the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity for three years, while it replaces the Resource Management Act (RMA).“As it stands, SNAs ...
Agriculture Minister Todd McClay has classified the drought conditions in the Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts as a medium-scale adverse event, acknowledging the challenging conditions facing farmers and growers in the district. “Parts of Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts are in the grip of an intense dry spell. I know ...
The Government is helping farmers eradicate the significant impact of facial eczema (FE) in pastoral animals, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “A $20 million partnership jointly funded by Beef + Lamb NZ, the Government, and the primary sector will save farmers an estimated NZD$332 million per year, and aims to ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has completed a successful visit to India, saying it was an important step in taking the relationship between the two countries to the next level. “We have laid a strong foundation for the Coalition Government’s priority of enhancing New Zealand-India relations to generate significant future benefit for both countries,” says Mr Peters, ...
Cabinet has agreed to provide $7 million to ensure the 2024 ski season can go ahead on the Whakapapa ski field in the central North Island but has told the operator Ruapehu Alpine Lifts it is the last financial support it will receive from taxpayers. Cabinet also agreed to provide ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Lower fruit and vegetable prices are welcome news for New Zealanders who have been doing it tough at the supermarket, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. Stats NZ reported today the price of fruit and vegetables has dropped 9.3 percent in the 12 months to February 2024. “Lower fruit and vege ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the sixty-eighth session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
The coalition Government is supporting farmers to enhance land management practices by investing $3.3 million in locally led catchment groups, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “Farmers and growers deliver significant prosperity for New Zealand and it’s vital their ongoing efforts to improve land management practices and water quality are supported,” ...
Good evening everyone and thank you for that lovely introduction. Thank you also to the Honourable Simon Bridges for the invitation to address your members. Since being sworn in, this coalition Government has hit the ground running with our 100-day plan, delivering the changes that New Zealanders expect of us. ...
Recommendations from the Climate Change Commission for New Zealand on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) auction and unit limit settings for the next five years have been tabled in Parliament, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “The Commission provides advice on the ETS annually. This is the third time the ...
The coalition Government is beginning its fight to lower building costs and reduce red tape by exempting minor building work from paying the building levy, says Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk. “Currently, any building project worth $20,444 including GST or more is subject to the building levy which is ...
Proposed changes to tax legislation to prevent the over-taxation of low-earning trusts are welcome, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The changes have been recommended by Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure Committee following consideration of submissions on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill. “One of the ...
Assalaamu alaikum. السَّلَام عليكم In light of the holy month of Ramadan, I want to extend my warmest wishes to our Muslim community in New Zealand. Ramadan is a time for spiritual reflection, renewed devotion, perseverance, generosity, and forgiveness. It’s a time to strengthen our bonds and appreciate the diversity ...
Former Transport Minister and CEO of the Auckland Business Chamber Hon Simon Bridges has been appointed as the new Board Chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) for a three-year term, Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced today. “Simon brings extensive experience and knowledge in transport policy and governance to the role. He will ...
Good morning all, it is a pleasure to be here as Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology. It is fantastic to see how connected and collaborative the life science and biotechnology industry is here in New Zealand. I would like to thank BioTechNZ and NZTech for the invitation to address ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says he is looking forward to the day when three key water projects in Northland are up and running, unlocking the full potential of land in the region. Mr Jones attended a community event at the site of the Otawere reservoir near Kerikeri on Friday. ...
Associate Finance Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government has agreed to restore deductibility for mortgage interest on residential investment properties. “Help is on the way for landlords and renters alike. The Government’s restoration of interest deductibility will ease pressure on rents and simplify the tax code,” says ...
Sport and Recreation Minister Chris Bishop will travel to Switzerland today to attend an Executive Committee meeting and Symposium of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Mr Bishop will then travel on to London where he will attend a series of meetings in his capacity as Infrastructure Minister. “New Zealanders believe ...
This year’s Pacific Language Weeks celebrate regional unity and the contribution of Pacific communities to New Zealand culture, says Minister for Pacific Peoples Dr Shane Reti. Dr Reti announced dates for the 2024 Pacific Language Weeks during a visit to the Pasifika festival in Auckland today and says there’s so ...
Greater Wellington is inviting feedback on proposed changes to its Revenue and Financing Policy. The Revenue and Financing Policy covers the Council’s various sources of funding, and how the cost of services is shared across the region. This includes ...
Labour has conceded it could have done more to deal with disruptive state housing tenants while in government but says the current coalition is going too far. ...
The band has asked their record label to issue a cease and desist to stop the NZ First leader using their 1997 hit to support his ‘misguided political views’. “I get knocked down, but I get up again,” blared through the speakers on Sunday as Winston Peters took the stage ...
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist Food rationing is underway in remote areas in Papua New Guinea’s Highlands following torrential rain and flash flooding. More than 20 people have been reported dead in Chimbu Province. In nearby Enga Province, the centre of last month’s massacre, a 15-year-old boy has been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Hughes, Lecturer, Research School of Management, Australian National University After months of debate and intrigue, the AFL’s 19th and newest team, the Tasmania Devils, finally launched its jumper, logo and colours in Devonport this week. The Devils will wear green, ...
Brannavan Gnanalingam reviews the debut novel by Saraid de Silva.One of the most baffling things for children who move to a new country is what their parents’ (or grandparents’) lives were like prior to moving – for kids in particular, they’re too busy trying to fit in in their ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Gaunson, Associate Professor in Cinema Studies, RMIT University Narelle Portanier/Binge “If you don’t know who your mob are, you don’t know who you are,” Detective Andrea “Andie” Whitford (played by Leah Purcell) is told early into the new crime ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elise Klein, Associate professor, Australian National University It’s commonly accepted that women do the vast majority of caregiving in Australian society. But less appreciated is that Indigenous women do larger amounts of unpaid care than any other group. Working with the Aboriginal ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne Joe Biden and Donald Trump have both secured their parties’ nominations for the November 5 United States general election by winning a ...
Comment: There has been a striking contrast in trans-Tasman interest about Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi’s visit to New Zealand and Australia. While the Australian press has been full of articles about the visit – including his curious decision to meet with former prime minister and China booster Paul Keating ...
After years of pressuring banks and other institutions to stop investing in fossil fuels, climate campaigners are making some progress. So how does divestment work?For years, climate activists have been pushing banks and other big institutions to divest from fossil fuels. New research from climate advocacy group 350 Aotearoa ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. The three young Polynesians are part of a K-pop fan community in Tāmaki Makaurau. It’s one of many that have sprung up worldwide as K-pop has gone ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. This one-off documentary presents three intimate portraits of young Polynesians who are pulled into a Korean cultural phenomenon. K-POLYS is directed by Litia Tuiburelevu, Produced by Hex ...
There’s ample evidence demonstrating free school lunch programmes provide wide benefits across schools, households and communities according to public health researchers. ACT Minister David Seymour wants to reduce the spending on Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
By Wata Shaw in Suva Fiji is facing an exodus of Fijians as many are leaving for overseas seeking employment and education and others are migrating, says Opposition MP Viliame Naupoto. Speaking in Parliament, he said: “His Excellency’s speech (Ratu Wiliame Katonivere) comes after a little over one year of ...
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No wonder workers get exploited- It is sooo difficult to turn a profit, almost not worth being in business. Just as well that one party is promising to rescind and minimum wage increase so such businesses will become MORE profitable. Now if we can only protect those workers being exploited under visa requirements.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/119602924/liquor-store-owners-planned-mansion-while-company-probed
Meanwhile we hear 'Kiwis' don't want to work'.
A lot easier to exploit a migrant than a local. Same problem in HB in horticulture.
That poor Mr. Singh. My heart goes out to him. How is he ever going to complete his unnecessarily opulent home now that he's no longer able to siphon the wages of his indentured servants via threats of deportation? And he's been disowned by Super Liquor. Dear me. It's all a ghastly nightmare. I wonder if he's considered setting up a GoFundMe page to see him through these turbulent waters?
Seriously, he should be in prison. This guy has form for this crap, and he's shitting on his own people. How he's regarded as a 'prominent person in the Sikh community' while pulling stunts like this is anyone's guess. Singh and people like him should be fined into penury and prohibited from running a business for the rest of their natural lives. And his wife looks as though she's happily complicit.
Let's do this:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/119484045/he-said-she-said-how-we-might-tackle-changes-to-our-sexual-consent-laws
It was great to hear the Police Officer in charge of Crime Prevention say on RNZ this afternoon that no one should have sex with drunk people.
Many will argue that getting at least slightly drunk is the only way they actually get sex.
But in the context of Orientation Week, it's the right message for the Police to get out.
The MSM generally does not linger on any controversies that embarrass the western
PTB, the news cycle must go on
Peter Hitchens ,however , is not letting this go.
https://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2020/02/someone-has-been-telling-lies-about-a-and-b-kafka-comes-to-the-hague.html
An excerpt
"This pretence that A and B are unimportant marginal figures is very odd. Both had in fact been considered outstanding professionals for the OPCW throughout their careers, and have many written notes commending the quality of their work. They were rehired – something the OPCW very rarely does – because the OPCW needed their experience.
The OPCW says they were rehired on a lower grade from the one they had previously held. It does not say that this was because the old higher grade had been abolished, and so it was no reflection on the two men’s skills and competence."
Hitchens , a long time anti-Assadist says there is more to come
https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2019/12/in-praise-of-telling-the-truth
I haven't followed this story much (the ME being a Deccan Death Trap where the truth crawls off to die) … but I must confess to considerable sadness at seeing an important UN organisation being subverted on such an important matter.
When people are punished for telling the truth, everyone else around them very quickly learns to tell nothing but lies.
Thanks for the link francesca, I notice that one of the big pushers of the original narrative our very own RNZ National, have remained very very quite on this story…
I have just been sitting in the lunch room flicking through a copy of Manufacturing Consent that just arrived in the shop, I read it a long time ago, it has lost none of it's power or relevance..it should be required reading at secondary school IMO.
Personally would prefer not having more of my tax dollars paying for the nutty Green Party, New Conservatives or the next Colin Craig.
They don't. Your tax dollers are specially selected out and used to pay for Winstons personal Wiskey collection. You can change to who your taxes are contributed by emailing, spending-programs-which-dont-exist@govt.nz at any time.
Personally – I would prefer not having my tax dollars pay for roads that Chris T drives on to get to his work computer and disseminate odd opinions. But I'm not six years old any more, accept that in the scheme of things my personal preferences don't amount to much, and that we have this thing called a society that we have to make work without killing each other.
The idea of Chris's taxes paying for anything makes no sense what-so-ever. The govt controls and operates the accounts which record these transactions of course but if they wish to change the numbers in the account entries they can just do so without needing to ask permission. Essentially we are just discussing changes in spreadsheet entries.
So apparently the Spinoff-Twitter crowd just got one of the world’s most famous left wing philosophers and animal rights activists cancelled?
I always thought that Peter Singer’s remarks about sentience in babies born disabled vs animals were made to serve his argument towards the improved treatment of animals, not the worse treatment of disabled people… it’s an argument supposed to induce a moral shock in readers. Should we ban a Modest Proposal next?
Singer’s comments were not meant to be satire but they were firmly about improved animal welfare and anyone who thinks otherwise is a moron…
“It’s a similar realm to Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneaux in that it’s about a ‘supreme race’…"
What! OMG I guess the only response in this intellectually impoverished day-and-age is an emoji.
Singer takes utilitarian to its logical end point, to the point of reductio ad absurdum, to call out specious arguments about human superiority based on arguments relating to sentience and quality of life, not in order to argue for infanticide.
Whoever is responsible for this should get a job running black ops for Fonterra.
This is perhaps, hands down, the stupidest and most counter-productive thing the “left” have done this year – so far.
I'm assuming that you have failed to provide a link to the Spinoff article because, like, disabled people who discuss Singer's warped attitudes are like, moronic?
My excuse is that I haven't been able to paste the link from my phone.
The Spinoff article is more than well worth a read and Red Nicholson nails it.
I don't think Red Nicholson understands what Peter Singer is doing.
I've got to get busy now but I will rebut the article here this afternoon.
The article: https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/19-02-2020/disabled-voices-on-peter-singer-whos-actually-listening-to-this-guy/
Oh, well done for providing the link…good on you!
Pray, oh Wise One, exactly what is Singer "doing" that Red Nicholson is failing to understand?
OK I can't help myself so I will quickly make a few points.
First, in response to your putting words in my mouth is saying:
"…disabled people who discuss Singer's warped attitudes are like, moronic?"
You are half right. Disabled people who discuss Singer's attitudes can be morons. They can also discover black holes from their wheelchairs. They can also get drunk and repeatedly drive their wheelchairs into their wives or nurses.
Judgement of a person's arguments or moral character does not come into my assessment of disabled people. I wouldn't want to prejudice them by suggesting they require me to treat them with kid gloves when the fact they can't walk, for example, has little to do with their potential to become one of the greatest living physicists.
By the same token, I won't pretend that because you have some diminished physical capacity that you can't be an asshole.
Second, to quickly address where Red Nicholson goes wrong from the get-go.
Nicholson writes "In 1979’s Practical Ethics, Singer wrote that the value of a life should be based on “rationality, autonomy and self-consciousness”.
That should Nicholson inserts is very important.
Singer does not write that the value of a life should be based on “rationality, autonomy and self-consciousness.
Singer is arguing within a specific philosophical tradition, utilitarianism, which variously argues that maximizing pleasure (higher, lower – it varies) is the end individuals and societies should aim for. He then argues for an expansion of our field of moral concern: to encompass people who we are not related to directly or by tribe or by nation, and also for non human beings. Controversially, he points to arguments about human superiority over animals based on sentience, as superior sentience is argued by some – like lots of utilitarians – to have a bearing on a human or non-human's persons capacity for pleasure.
There are arguments within utilitarianism which support the position that INDIVIDUAL sentience or capacity are less relevant to one's ability to experience pleasure, or a happy society.
There are also arguments outside of that tradition which argue for value on different grounds. In saying that, most utilitarians agree that human beings have inherent value. I can't remember what John Stuart Mill wrote about that off the top of my head but I will look it up.
Nicholson needs to work out what he is grappling with before he jumps into the arena because without doing that he could end up mischaracterizing a very deep thinker and contribute to getting him banned… by a gambling venue.
A copy of Practical Ethics should anyone want to read a book that presumably should be banned alongside Mein Kampf:
http://www.stafforini.com/docs/Singer%20-%20Practical%20ethics.pdf
You know Billy when you make an argument – it's consider good form to attribute the right quote to the right people.
Strawman arguments are also a bit boorish as well – which general make me feel you have the need to full up space, and/or you know your wrong so you gotta make shit up, to knock it down.
"…good form to attribute the right quote to the right people.. "
Come, come now Adam….give Billy a break.
There's an awful lot going on in Hayden's article…so very easy to get a wee bit muddled.
Hi Adam, where's the wrong attribution? I quoted directly from the Spinoff article.
In that article, as I pointed out, Nicholson characterizes Singer as someone who advocates euthanasia for disabled people. I referred to Singer’s book and the passage from where Nicholson took and then altered the partial quote, turning it into a different sort of statement: as advocacy. Nicholson’s mischaracterization is the strawman argument here.
I’m not sure your response is in good faith.
It’s not “philosophical wank”, as someone claimed, to seek to right the way a philosopher’s position has been misrepresented. The later is, or worse.
Singer states quite clearly in a number of sources, primary and secondary, that that his questions around personhood "[are] a way of getting people involved in species membership. And try and get them to break this automatic nexus between species membership and moral status."
source: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/1999/nov/06/weekend.kevintoolis
Go back and have another read Billy, laddie.
It was the author of the piece, not Red Nicholson, who wrote that sentence you quoted.
If you do take the time to go back and actually read the Spinoff article entire, you might just come to realize that Singer has a serious issue with disability.
Thanks Rosemary. I attributed something written by Leonie Hayden to Red Nicholson, who was quoted later in Hayden’s opinion piece. My mistake.
My criticism of that passage stands. My attribution did not affect my point.
My point was that the author put a spin on Singer's words in the original text, to which I linked. It's not the only passage that was coloured Singer’s arguments in that way.
Singer argues for the radical expansion of our definition of personhood and not for eugenics.
It’s true that Singer has stated that 28 day postpartum infanticide is acceptable. He also notes that this is already common practice in hospitals, and that parents frequently choose to abort severely disabled children up until late term, suggesting that infanticide is a lot less controversial in reality. I expect to see you with a picket sign outside an abortion clinic or hospital with the radical Catholics and the Evangelicals some day soon.
If you had actually sat down and read Practical Ethics you would have seen that Singer as a strong Utilitarian places no limit on abortion and struggles to find limits to getting rid of people who have major degenerative diseases.
Utilitarians like Singer are a pain in the ass, and as a general rule philosophers – particularly Utilitarians – have no place getting their mitts on the levers of power.
If you want to see a full-on Fordist hardass utilitarian really get their hands on power and see what they do with it, have a good look at McNamara planning the bombing of Vietnam in The Fog Of War. It's in his own words so there's no misinterpretation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LsRRTvPigY
Not also Singer’s version of sentience based on self-consciousness means dealing with beings lower down the food-chain you can essentially harvest things for food, or otherwise use them as resource. As soon as you conceive of things as resource, as Heidegger reminded us, the more the entire world gets used up fast.
Singer has no concept of being.
Essentially everything starts to look like food.
So before you start having another good wank quoting philosphical passages at someone with a severely disabled dependent who has been doing so for many years (as in Rosemary's case), suck it up first and be more careful.
Thanks I was idly thinking about a response myself, but that's far better than I would have done. Utilitarian's are a refined form of materialism. Yes humans have to do business with the material world, but to pretend this is sufficient leads to terrible places.
McNamara is an especially unlovely character in US history. Then there is this episode of shame.
Marxists are also materialists.
Utilitarians are very valuable philosophers, in that they don't work on the principle that Homo Sapiens is the be-all and end-all of the Universe. The ability to step outside the automatic self-interest of your own species is a rare talent and a useful one. At the very least, utilitarians force us to think about the basis of our morality and what rational arguments there are for it. Unsurprisingly, people who think humanity is the pinnacle of evolution or God's special creation hate utilitarians, but that's their business.
Those are all fair points, but I don't think Singer can be lumped in with McNamara.
I sympathize with the difficulties you must have. And I can see how even a hint of these arguments could cause offense. Though, the arguments Singer makes around this are about logical inconsistencies with utilitarianism, for animal welfare (and the welfare of people not in your tribe).
I would like to unpick your response a bit because there are problems with it but I don’t have time at present.
Theres lived experience and then theres intellectual (?) exercise …ne'er the twain shall meet
And then there's the Socratic method which people no longer seem to understand and wish to stamp out.
It’s disturbing that those people seem to have a purchase on the state.
The Socratic method is limited and I would suggest not applicable in this instance.
A time and place for everything
So apparently the Spinoff-Twitter crowd just got one of the world’s most famous left wing philosophers and animal rights activists cancelled?
Yep. On the one hand it's refreshing to see philosophers once again considered a threat to established social order with their unpopular ideas, on the other hand it sucks to see the growth of intolerance, authoritarianism, anti-intellectualism and irrationality in our society.
Meanwhile..
Andrew Little just did an interview on Magic Talk did anyone hear it as I missed it but its getting a lot of negative flak.
That'll just be James and alwyn tag-team-calling.
?????
?????
https://www.magic.co.nz/home/news/2020/02/sean-plunket-and-justice-minister-in-fiery-argument-over-right-t.html
Little really needs some help with media training, he started with the insults and then it went down hill from there
Singer may know about animals but he is blatantly ignorant about disability and the value of being human. He echoes common stereotypes but his extremism with them is even more socially harmful.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/119641143/skycity-cancels-philosopher-peter-singers-booking-over-disability-concerns
Saying it is good to kill a class of people because you do not see any value in their life seems pretty hateful from here. Be really brave, dude, and make it about race or gender, go on.
He is welcome to spitefully mutter into a beer at his local but no way is a public platform justified. Not adding anything new or useful. Others have already done it 'better'.
The trouble with "hate speech" is that people think it necessarily involves hate. Not so. People calmly doing a job can also utter or commit the most vile things, with no particular emotion or desire any more than one would file an invoice.
… he is blatantly ignorant about disability and the value of being human.
I couldn't comment on what he knows about disability, but a lot of his work is about what "the value of being human" actually means and what arguments there are for that value being significantly higher than the value of being something else. Doing that is one of the tasks of philosophy, and the fact that people don't like having to contemplate the basis and merit of their morality doesn't make philosophy "hate speech."
I haven't the time, but point me to the place where Singer the Wise states that recidivist rapists and child sex offenders should also be euthanized?
I'm not aware that Singer has suggested anyone should be euthanised. That would be political advocacy rather than philosophical argument, and would surely have been widely publicised.
Err…you did, of course, read the Spinoff piece?
The one that directly quotes the Wise One?
Where he says the bit about parents being able to kill a disabled newborn?
That this would be a good, an ethical and moral thing to do?
You might want to read a little more widely on the pontifications of Singer.
I did, which is why I'm wondering about these accusations that he advocates killing people. Recognising that there's a philosophical argument for infanticide not being unethical under some circumstances is not advocating for infanticide. Feeling strongly about something doesn't given a person the right to misrepresent what the object of their anger is saying.
He doesn't. Our society has decided that the magic point at which someone achieves personhood is birth. Catholics believe the magic point occurs much earlier. Singer has said it is acceptable to terminate a newborn 28 days postpartum, and noted that it is common practice in hospitals today to let severely disabled children die. Personhood for him should include animals. He’s not an advocate for eugenics.
All just a harmless thought experiment, guv.
He's a clever lad is that Singer fellow.
He has a reputation for philosophizing right back up his own aft crevasse.
Rosemary, do you believe in abortion?
If you do believe in abortion, at which point is personhood achieved by the fetus or infant, or when falls the magic point at which termination is no longer acceptable, and why?
If you can’t provide an answer, you have no business preventing a philosopher who has considered these questions deeply from holding a talk on those and many other matters of profound ethical, social, cultural and political importance.
Deciding when people count as humans never seems to end well.
But doctors decide when people should die all the time.
When they give cancer patients a push-button controller for fatal doses of morphine. When they decide to stop treating someone, including a severely disabled child. Sometimes guardians or partners give their input. When a baby is in an incubator, at what point should we decide to turn that incubator off?
What if the advancement of medical technology meant that hospitals could keep every baby born alive artificially? Should hospitals keep every baby born alive, even if they are so severely disabled that they would otherwise die? Many disabled people rely on medical technology without which they would be dead. Some people are unable to communicate whether they want to continue living.
It seems to me that if it is not going to end well, we should at least have the best reasons for those decisions. And the public deserves forums in which those arguments can be aired – or should it be left up to the DHB’s accountants? Abortion legislation has passed through Parliament and been quite contentious. Battles over health funding are never going to go away. Those battles should have informed public input.
This is insane. I'm out.
Whoa there Billy lad….!!!
If you feel you're decending into Alice territory, take the hand of Harriet McBryde Johnson (a link to her article in the NYT is in the Spinoff piece for your convenience).
Walk with her through the maze, and perhaps drag yourself from the mire.
All the best.
The self-appointed woke left have just cancelled perhaps the world’s most important moral and environmental philosopher who was in the country to give a talk on our collective duty to address global poverty.
Furthermore, they were content to advocate the silencing of this radical voice without even bothering to understand what he was actually saying. They’re not even willing, seemingly, to address the same difficult questions, which are unavoidable.
If you count yourself among this group you are a reactionary narcissist and not a leftist.
If there's no place for Peter Singer there's no place for me.
Hey, Billy, nobody from the left has cancelled Singer's visit. He's only lost a venue. He could still turn up and give his talk in another venue or even on a soapbox in Albert Park for that matter. If he doesn't front, it's entirely his own decision.
True that TRP, but would He be able to charge the folks $160 to hear his Words of Wisdom from his soapbox in Albert Park?
Billy, the only people 'appointing' the 'woke' are the same right-wing gits we have suffered from for decades.
And do not let the door hit you on your way out.
(@lprent – interesting that nesting of these final level comments is not keeping to the posting time.)
@Sacha – it seems sometimes a reply can be made to a comment at the bottom nesting level – I was really bummed when weka slipped one in above my "Bowelly" comment a while back and totally ruined the flow. Maybe it's when a reply is made from some mobile devices?
@Andre – I wonder if it might be the same person replying to themself that gets treated differently? Not a standard WordPress platform behaviour as far as I know.
Stuff report Jami Lee Ross and the 3 others, Yikun Zhang, Shijia Zheng, and Hengjia Zheng have had name suppression lifted. No surprises there then I guess. Poor little "Beijing Bridges" will be putting on his ballet shoes right now, ready for a bit of Pin Head dancing.
Link: https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/119624613/three-of-four-names-revealed-in-national-party-donation-sfo-case
And the Herald. Jamie adds to his comment.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12309887
Red Blooded One (9) … I just read about it.
Be interesting to learn what offence(s) each of the four individuals involved has been charged with. I believe at the time of the donations, JLR was still a National MP!
"I believe at the time of the donations, JLR was still a National MP! "
That's why Simon has been very careful in only using the present tense in his denials.
Of course. 'Currently' gave it away.
JLR seems quite rational about it, judging by his statement in Stuff. Perhaps during legal proceedings in court, through JLR's defence and that of his co defendents, the National leader's name could pop up!
I imagine it will frequently. A good look during an election year… possibly popcorn time
He was the bloody National Party Chief Whip.
I suspected one was JLR because Bigmouth Bridges said at some stage early on that "no current Nat party member " had been charged. Bridges must be shitting himself because as JLR is charged Bridges is complicit. If only they did it like the old days, waiting for a big crowd outside his office before leading the perp out in cuffs before gently placing a big cop's hand on his head while still managing to whack it on the door opening of the Police Holden Kingswood.
I am suddenly having a good day.
P.s, I once asked a detective mate of mine over a few beers if that was deliberate, "Yeah, of course mate '" was the reply.
Seems a bit odd that by the telephone record, Bridges was complicit, but not charged.
And those big donors are very rich and can buy good lawyers, but Jamie…
And those others charged said,""Our clients are proud New Zealanders and philanthropists. They were urged to follow a process and are now deeply disappointed at being caught up in a donation's fiasco.
Sniff?
I think Winston is, putting it mildly, a blight on NZ politics. I would like it if Jacinda read him the riot but of course she won't because of the power Winston appears to have over her.
To counter this how difficult would it be, politically speaking, for Bridges to say to Ardern that if she strips everything she can from Winston (and if he throws his toys out of the cot and threatens to bring down the govt and cause an early election) then National will support the COL until the general election
Is this doable or even possible?
(Basically I want Winston gone)
On what basis could Bridges make a case to Ardern that his integrity is higher than that of Winston Peters? That is, why should Ardern feel that Peters isn't a fit person to work with but Bridges is a fit person to work with?
Not quite the point of the post (but well done for for the attempted diversion)
Not really. Why would Ardern fire Winston to rely on a promise from Bridges?
Yeah good on you, you managed to to say in a post how untrustworthy Bridges is, well done, big round of applause, herp derp Bridges bad
Its a hypothetical question therefore we can assume everyone is acting in good faith
The point of the post was about the implications, if any, of NZFirst breaking away from the COL and National supporting the govt through to the next election
Would this course of action help Labour or National more
Would this course of action reinforce peoples positive views of MMP and democracy in NZ or would it be viewed as a negative
Take your "COL" and shove it up your arse. Calling people Losers because they have different views than yours is nasty and with regard to your Grand Coalition arrangement to eliminate Peters, that's just further ganging up and bullying to eliminate a rival, but then I guess that comes easily to your ilk. Next they came for the National Supporters but …. etc
Actually I was referring to the Coalition of Labour but using the acronym
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/341924/labour-nz-first-government-what-you-need-to-know
'The government was announced shortly before 7pm on Thursday, a coalition of Labour and New Zealand First – ending nine years of National governments.'
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/109372044/after-a-huge-year-in-politics-one-politician-stands-out
'The unlikely coalition of Labour, NZ First and the Greens is looking locked in.'
Actually I suspect you weren't using it as C.O. Labour as you strike me is too bright to not know that the Labour Party is not a Coalition, there is a C O Labour, NZ1st, Greens. but you didn't use an Anagram for that, did you, plus you even acknowledge you knew it's origin. Neither of your links refer to a COL do they. It's been my experience that everyone using that Anagram is a Completely Unethical National Toady so it's up to you if you fit that title.
Yes dear
Glad you agree and acknowledge your intention.
Thats nice
Come on Pucky, you're/were better than that!
We like you.. when you talk straight.
Even the best of us get a little salty at times
No you were not. Own your snark like a big boy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0O32YA4Ibs
oh, I forgot that's what it stood for.
The winningest "losers" in parliament lol
It may have started out as that but I assumed it was now accepted as Coalition of Labour
You want Winston out, fine.
The people didn't.
I figure on the basic level a perceived coalition between Labour and National would go down as well with Labour voters as NZ1 and National went down with NZ1 voters in 1996. The Greens would probably have the integrity to walk and force an early election, in which case Labour is now reliant on national to replace greens and nz1. The "grand coalition" wet dream of
friendless toriesmedia pundits finally eventuates, Labour goes back to 20% or less, nats get bolstered for looking competent, and Luke blows up the death star.Nice "hypothetical". Now, if we include people's characters and histories, Bridges has a fair chance of making the pact 4 months of hell followed by a snap election after he (or his successor) pulls support, NZ1 has a fair chance of being returned to office, and then Winston calls a plague on both parties because he doesn't like being treated like shit. Oh, and people think Labour is full of shit for swapping between two parties who both appear to be similarly dodgy with their donations.
Labour must keep ditching one or both, and only one has a track record of actually working well with Labour.
So coalition is a non event but confidence and supply might be a better option then
To my way of thinking theres only 7 months to the next election so if things turned to custard with Winnie (and on past history thats not impossible) we might not need an early election
The distinction between a formal coalition agreement and simple support for C&S is a subtle one that I suspect most people won't care about – it's the difference between seeing your partner in bed with someone else and simply seeing them having a romantic dinner with that person.
Thats an accurate if slightly disturbing way of looking at it.
I don't know much about what crossbench support means but would that be another option?
That's seeing them having coffee in a cafe.
If you're friends with the other person and your partner is open about it, no worries. If you hate the other person and don't trust your partner because of a past betrayal, you might have an issue.
Well at the very least it would seem that there are a few options for the govt (including future ones) to not be held to hostage by another party threatening an early election
Hypothetically speaking of course
There are all sorts of mathematical possibilities – hell, NZ1 can go with national if Labour try to cut them loose.
It comes down to how contradictory parties are in policy principles and how the personalities work together. And some proposals are more wishful thinking than realistic ideas.
Oh I know mine is wishful thinking but its good to know its possible, if extremely unlikely
Also good to know that Winnie can't hold the country to ransom anymore
Meh.
I'd prefer no nats to no winston.
Interesting, I'd prefer any of the minor parties to Winnie
You almost had me in agreement, then I remembered ACT lol
I predict three MPs for Act this election, possibly even four and they'd be disappointed with two
Maybe. Seymour's really trying hard to appeal to the voters not even NZ1 or the nats will go after openly (well, not since the nat staffer got all "emotional" for some reason).
I mean that seriously. Fuck ACT.
Swapping the party that's only under investigation over donations for the one whose then MP & Whip has been charged would be a good look.
Especially as the leader is on record having interesting phone conversations with the MP in question …
Belated Valentine's Card
http://normanfinkelstein.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/IMG_3866.jpg
Nice!
Kia Ora The Am Show.
Congratulations on winning NZ of the year.
Poverty is a big driver of most of the bad stats some people don't get it.
I say our farmers can lower their carbon footprint.
There is a study that points out that green house gases produce by big oil is under estimated by 40 %. In my view we need to focus on getting fossil fuel energy out of our energy mix not deflect all the blame on our farmers.
Tikapa beach is nice and clean.
You know that the last government of nine years was lead by a climate change denier under them thousands of heacture of forest got cut down prematurely wind turbine project got canned of course under a government like that farmers were not mitigating their environmental footprint.?????.
Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora Newshub.
Treating others with respect even when they are a different culture is a great quality.
I agree racism is a dumb thing so are haters.
The Milfordsounds roads are fixed the rain made a mess of those roads.
Children can be quite cruel to children that are different to them.
Ka kite Ano.
Kia Ora Te Ao Maori News.
The Crown did a lot of dirty deeds. Taking Ngāti Apakura whenua.
That's cool pop up health clinics to give advice and health services to the people.
Mana Wahine.
Ka kite Ano
Some Eco Maori Music For The Minute.
https://youtu.be/mWRsgZuwf_8
Kia Ora Newshub.
Times are changing some people can't see when the writings on the walls for Electric cars.
The good old roundabout intercetion are a good low carbon efficient way to sort traffic.
All products need to have a charge built into them to pay for recycling. What a big messy problem for Africa Western waste piling up.
That's cool A new 1 hour Friends HBO being made.
Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora Te Ao Maori News.
That's a good cause to champion lowering the voting age some parents have a hard time looking into the future past there hip pockets to see we are stuffing the future up.
Ngāti Kahunga had a good Kapa Haka festival.
Kura Kaupapa is saving tangata whenua o Aotearoa Te reo and cultural kia kaha.
Its cool seeing Iwi fighting to keep their Awa pristine and clean.
Great Waiheke Island is aiming for a predator free sanctuary for Aotearoa native wildlife.
Never to long in the tooth to learn your culture.
Ka kite Ano
https://youtu.be/qQfetkoGrpU
Kia Ora Newshub.
Aotearoa makes some of the Best Kai in the world with our environment being cleaner than most other countries.
Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora Te Ao Maori News.
Ngāti Paoa the same thing happened in Te Tairawhiti during the Maori land court scams.
Ka pai.
Sports is good for Te tangata.
Ka kite Ano.