This is Russia's last ever war as a unified power. Putin's nationalistic paranoia has destroyed a potentially great nation. When he pops his clogs it will probably fragment into a bunch of smaller territories. He is so desperate that he's trying to bribe women into having more babies. And he's a gobshite hypocrite to accuse the USA of attempting to destabilise Taiwan & Ukraine.
It will take a very long time for them to replace all the equipment they have lost. And their demographics are against them in terms of raising future armies.
He was never going to turn up as his argument is, it was a kangaroo court and the decision had already been made in the 'secret' meeting the night before.
This is obviously a tricky situation and apparently Sharma has had his lawyer involved for some time, which I’d do to if I were in a tricky spot with my employer. It makes perfect sense to have a meeting to discuss internally the options and possible outcomes before two parties in a dispute meet up. When there is a highly or most likely option it doesn’t necessarily mean that this is a predetermined option & outcome – parties should meet in good faith. However, if one party doesn’t give the other one any other realistic options it may indeed look like it was predetermined from the outset. By not showing up it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and thus a fait accompli. To have a leg to stand on, rather than spinning it to suit your narrative, you must follow (due) process and show good faith.
All of what you say is correct, however Sharma is citing the (recorded) conversation with a fellow MP as evidence that the decision WAS predetermined. I can only see two alternatives: Either that MP completely misread the discussion in the Monday meeting, or the outcome was indeed determined at that meeting.
If Sharma has proof it was pre-determined in the secret meeting that he was not invited to, then the second half of your comment is pretty much irrelevant.
Either you cannot read or you cannot think, or both. If he decided it was pre-determined and acted accordingly, then he forced the outcome to meet his pre-determined expectation. The fact that there was a special meeting set up for and with him strongly suggests that there were still things to discussed and decided. He failed to attend and thus signed his own fate. My question is whether this was reasonable process and whether this could have been handled better by Labour knowing that he’s in a spot of bother, mentally, at least.
Lol "secret meeting." Is there any organisation that wouldn't get relevant people together to discuss what to do about the loose unit who's shitting on them in the media? As for "pre-determined," the only thing surprising there is that they didn't immediately give him the boot.
As for "pre-determined," the only thing surprising there is that they didn't immediately give him the boot.
This is what makes me doubt the 'other' MP or the tape. The other MP says that the Monday meeting had predetermined the outcome and they were going to give him the 'whack',
Instead we find that the actual decision by Caucus and reported by the PM was to suspend him from the Labour Caucus, provide a way back and time for this to occur and mediation.
I am wondering if Sharma's mole misread the tenor of the Monday meeting because I find that what came out after the Caucus meeting on the Tuesday, is far from giving him the whack.
Instead it seems that the function of the meeting was in fact to provide a safe and non-leaking space to express concern & disappointment at their colleagues actions and these will no doubt have been feisty from some.
The other option, other than misreading the tenor of the meeting and/or the function of the Monday meeting and how it relates to the Tuesday caucus, is that the Sharma's source is as lacking in knowledge about process and nuance as Sharma himself.
PM has said that Sharma has misread what his colleague was saying.
The thing is, we've all had to deal with a Gaurav at some time or another in the workplace. The guy who has lost the plot. Got a job he wasn't suited for and has popped a fuse. You might be the HR manager who inwardly sighs when he turns up with his lawyer and 100s of pages in his dossier, knowing you are going to have spend two days a week for the next six months to get rid of the guy. Or you might be the union rep, who has to sit through his diatribe sixty four million times before going to the meeting with the HR manager and fight his corner (been there, done that). Or his line manager who has to meticulously document ever interaction with him. Or his direct reports, who do everything to aviod and not engage and generally keep away from the guy who has lost the plot. Or just a colleague, who smells the taint of dissent and just wants to enjoy his or her job in peace. Once you've lived a while, we will ALL have been around a Gaurav.
Now the fact of the matter is he has lost the plot. That I think is a matter of obvious public record. Being egged on by a salacious, partisan media looking for scandal and breathlessly reported on by lazy court journalists from the press gallery, who like all courtiers thrive on court gossip and preen at being consulted doesn't help anyone but there you have it. The central question then isn't Dr. Sharma's rationality – he is clearly irrational, obsessed and operating with all the bad faith one would expect to come from that – but what led him to lose the plot, which leads us to consider his accusations. Which is all they are. Accusations. He has not offered a shred of evidence to back up his increasingly outlandish claims. The latest "explosive revelation" is he was forced (FORCED, oh the inhumanity!) to attend a workshop (practically the same as the Gulag!) where new candidates were coached on how to avoid OIA requests. Forced to attend a workshop. I mean, for God's sake man get a grip. Words just fail me.
Until he does get some actual evidence then in the great court of public opinion (in the algorthim driven Herald site his story vanished almost immediately) he has, IMHO, been pigeon holed with that Gaurav we've had the misfortune to deal with at least once in our lives at work.
Sad to see, should probably never have got the job, pretty unfortunate all round, all a bit embarassing, avoid at all costs in the lunch room, thank God he is gone, hope he does well somewhere else, let's hope they recruit better next time.
That's very much the impression I get too. When I was working in Kuwait we had a Gaurav who, when HR finally did manage to fire him, got pissed that night and chucked a concrete block through the rear window of the boss' Trans Am. Jacinda Ardern should probably count herself lucky she doesn't own a sports car.
Yeah, yeah, they should have gone all lovey dove with Sharma, 'embraced' him, given him 'another chance.'
Then you would have been on here saying they were gutless, didn't have the balls to deal with him as he should have been dealt with.
And left you to go off sort of as vindictive bunches of shits do. And naturally put aside the truth of the 'dude's' claims. I mean why let facts and the truth intrude?
Given the sensitive nature of some of the allegations, and the historical nature of them, secrecy and confidentiality for the sake of all parties, including those on the receiving end of the actions of Young Uffindel, is entirely appropriate.
This is now the objective of the Herald/NewsHub operatives pushing the story: The "Independent Enquiry into Labour Party Bullying" has a nice ring to it. Just substitute "anti-semitism" for "bullying" and you can see both the historical precedent and the desired outcome.
Jimmy, if your assertion the decision had already been made, self-centred Sharma deserved it by his behaviour to his party and colleagues and former staff. Some self-reflection by him towards simply getting along with people is badly needed. He seems to have no idea about working co-operatively. Right from the start of his entering Parliament he has been difficult to deal with.
Hopefully, by now his Parliamentary "colleagues" have learned that anything they say to him is likely to be recorded and used by him with or without their approval. Also that any personal correspondence to him, or which he has access to will also be publicised by him if it suites his narrative, We saw this earlier in the week when Darien Fenton sent him a personal message suggesting how he might get assistance. He then published it and Darien was subjected to hours of trolling by the usual suspects. The man is coming across as having a very well tuned sense of his own importance and of his own victimhood. Neither seems to rest on firm foundations.
If they can be bothered to dig back far enough (and they won't) they would probably find he has done it before. Those types usually have. And they are very good at playing the victim and turning the innocent party or parties into the perpetrators.
In severe cases, they will go so far as to commit crimes such as stalking, unlawful entries to property and other misdemeanors in order to maintain control over the life of the victim. Making serious allegations (sometimes anonymously) against the victim/victims is another favourite tool. That ensures everyone is concentrating on the victim/victims and not on themselves.
I don't believe Sharma is anywhere near that level, but they exist and some manage to get away with it for a life-time.
Oh god, sorry…. I of course, was forgetting you have had some quite "up close" involvement with those kind of swine.
And yes I do also see Sharma as maybe a lower order variety. Those who have known him..will probably be breathing relief that he didnt go as far on them ?
"I… was forgetting you have had some quite "up close" involvement with those kind of swine."
Their behaviour adversely affected the Labour Party in the 1970s and the first half of the 1980s. Unfortunately I did not know they were the culprits at the time. However that is the reason they later targeted me. Like all guilty parties, they were paranoid I might figure it out and the motivations behind their antics. Quite a story it is. Puts Sharma and co. well into the shadows. 😉
Exactly Anne, "Look at them, meeting without me" "Look at Jacinda lying"
Does he ever look at his own behaviour? Even for a moment? Yes, and he believes "I have done nothing wrong" "I am not the bully"
Sadly, he has accused someone of misappropriation of funds, which turned out to be a travel allowance. Did he apologise?
He wanted someone sacked, it appears an inquiry found against him, and he interpreted that as undermining his authority, which he did not have to begin with.
Now he is calling on friends to back him in the face of an apparent long running situation of "I will lawyer up" "You are asking me/directing me to do training".
He has not appeared for meetings previously, accusing other MPs of some type of agenda. He appears to be quite rigid in his relationships.
Depression and focus on detail and documentation are obvious coping strategies, and his cry about long hours backs that.
He is clever annoying and pedantic, seeming to lose the main idea in a plethora of supposed slights.
Now he has put himself in a corner, so he is letting fly. An enquiry would be difficult as he would not take part in good faith the moment he felt it was not going in his favour.
This is a pattern, and there may be personal issues he knows about and has yet to face imo. Sad for him and the party.
That doesn't excuse Labour using the mental health of the alleged victim of bullying to discredit their claims though (which seems to be what he is claiming).
Doesn't answer the question of who introduced the question and what possib;e reply could be made given that he opened up the topic. Once opened, it had to be addressed.
I note also that you are hiding behind words. You wrote, "(which seems to be what he is claiming). Note the words 'seems' and 'claiming'.
If anyone is claiming without evidence, it is you.
No, I'm simply being cautious. The idea that a person's mental health could be weaponised against him to discredit his complaints is despicable. If true. And we don't know if it's true, we only have his word for it. At the moment, anyway.
If true, all your pontificating and insinuating here is based on idle speculation and the word of one person who is under a huge amount of pressure and, by his own admission, suffering from depression and suicidal thoughts, which will undoubtedly affect his thinking and actions.
If true, you simply keep sucking away oxygen here.
If true, I have enough of this pattern behaviour of yours.
If true, you can draw your own conclusion of what will happen next.
"all your pontificating and insinuating here is based on idle speculation and the word of one person "
He has evidence that he has presented. Text messages. A taped phone conversation that the media have verified comes from another Labour MP. This is either a grand conspiracy, or Labour supporters will have to accept that this government is so transparent we can see right through them.
[You said it yourself:
And we don’t know if it’s true, we only have his word for it.
Now, you’re claiming that there’s more than just his word. I have not seen it and you have not seen it, so you’re speculating and taking him at his word and distrusting the word of many others who deny his word, including the PM and Labour Ministers.
The truth will be somewhere in the middle, as usual when there are two wildly conflicting stories, but your conspiracy thoughts will not get us any closer to it. When new info and/or new insights come to hand and when there are new developments things will hopefully become clearer. Until then you’ll have nothing to add to what you have already said here. I will again put a stop to your oxygen-wasting commenting behaviour here, if I have too. This is your warning – Incognito]
"Now, you’re claiming that there’s more than just his word."
Now you're being dishonest. You know my comment was referring to the warnings he received about Labour weaponising his mental health issues. We do only have his word about that. But we have text's and a recorded phone message as evidence of his other claims.
[Gaslights consume oxygen. You are a major gaslight here on TS. We need oxygen for discourse to flourish. We cannot flourish with you around. Take a week off, this time; I have no time to play games with you and I’ve got much work to do this weekend – Incognito]
C'mon Mac1. Liberty Lady doesn't want the facts. She (if she is a she) only wants to "misrepresent" them so that she can claim a negative agenda which fits into the "Jacinda Ardern is a liar and cheat" meme.
I realise that your natural inclination to be deceitful and dishonest in the interest of a bunch of ultra right-wing losers transcends all genuine considerations.
The Green Party is calling on Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ) to agree to improve the pay and conditions of our professional firefighters who are on the front line risking their health and life to protect New Zealanders.
FENZ’s failure to agree to safe staffing levels, to upgrade equipment so it is safe and reliable, and to boost wages means firefighters will be on strike today for one hour between 11am and 12pm, and again on Friday 26 August.
“Firefighters put their health at risk to protect us, so it is crucial that we do everything we can to look after them,” says Jan Logie, Green Party spokesperson for workplace relations and safety.
“Green Party MPs have been visiting fire stations around the country over the last few weeks. Every time, firefighters are raising the same concerns but with more examples specific to their station – dangerously long hours, unsafe equipment, not being listened to, and a lack of appropriate health support or training.
FENZ’s behaviour has been in the least deceptive if not outright dishonest. It is the antithesis of good faith.
FENZ has employed every delay tactic it could over the past 14 months to prolong the bargaining so this has clearly been a strategy from early on. They are aborting a process that was arranged with the support of the Minister in favour of lengthy and costly litigation that may end up in non-binding recommendations and therefore only delay any prospect of resolution.
FENZ would be better to spend the public funding and their energy on resolving the bargaining.
The disrespect to the NZPFU membership is unfathomable.
We’ve long thought that our first responders should be fully professional. Fire, Ambulance, and Surf Lifesaving.
By all means provide a place for volunteers, but ensure that the majority are paid, from the public purse.
I would be a bit more sympathetic to the Firefighter's Union if they had not worked so hard for so long not to allow women into their ranks. Thanks to the persistence of Firefighter England, they were forced by legal action to admit women. However, there has continued to be a steady campaign of harassment and discouragement against female firefighters.
Uffindell has a proven nasty bullying past that should have been enough for him not to be selected as a candidate but National was willing to ignore this. His bullying and anti women violence (“hit the road fatty”) was hidden from voters.
Sharma admits to depression which may explain in part his recent behaviour. He seems to be very self-entitled, perhaps on the basis of his strong academic background. When power/authority/recognition didn't fall into his lap in the rough and tumble of parliament he threw his toys out of the cot. He has turned out to be a bad choice of candidate; this can happen. But none of his claims to have been bullied or other accusations against Labour MP's have been proven.
This is what I'm struggling with Weka. I'm completely lost as to what they're meant to be enquiring into and what the substance of the complaint is. For all the noise there are not a lot of hard allegations of fact in the public domain (unlike Uffindell where it is crystal clear what he is said to have done). Do they just want an enquiry into the general culture within the Labour caucus? If so, to what end? Why stop at Labour – you may as well enquire into the caucus culture of all Parliamentary parties while you're at it. Those would be very broad terms of reference. The usual bad faith actors seem to be just yelling "Independent Enquiry" without knowing what they're really asking for, and these same people would usually be the first to rubbish Labour for wasting money on enquiries.
The staff relationship problems clearly evident in his office.
How they were responded to by parliamentary service and party whips. The steps taken to resolve these and if they were made in a timely and appropriate fashion.
Is the appropriate oversight in place for new Mps given they can suddenly find themselves in people management roles with zero practical experience.
Is it really the party whips' role to manage employment issues between their MPs and the staff assigned to them by Parliamentary Service? Genuine question. I had always thought the whips were there to keep MPs in line on political/policy issues rather than operational matters.
Aside from that, those terms of reference sound reasonable to me although they have little if anything to do with embarrassing the prime minister so I don't think they will satisfy the usual suspects.
I think the whips have a role to play in relation to the Mp and how they deal with staff especially if the Mp is out of their depth.
This could be providing / arranging appropriate support. I'm not sure that's something that has been handled very well in this case and no doubt many others to the detriment of the staffers who end up putting up with shitty behavior.
Parliament is a high pressure environment but the staff dont deserve to be treated like shit and it's not ok that they can be and expected to suck it up. Nick Smith springs to mind.
National’s problem is self-inflicted because they selected a candidate who was upfront and disclosed ‘personal history’ and then failed to manage it. You cannot push forward a candidate and then withdraw your support when the going gets tough. It shows lack of leadership, managerial skills, good process, and loyalty – hiding behind a QC and a secret report is weak, to say the least.
I’d start with a full psychiatric evaluation, which will raise privacy issues, of course, and one cannot be forced to cooperate against their will. So far, one person has made it abundantly clear that he’s not willing to cooperate at all, or follow due process, but that he’s rather inclined to go down his rollercoaster path. Anybody who has some experience with clinical depression (and suicide) may realise that this might be a loud cry for help – it makes me wonder if it was sufficiently known in his workplace and handled appropriately (but not necessarily by his employer(s)) and at face value the answer seems to be “No”.
You are a qualified and registered Psychiatrist or Psychologist are you?
Who did you have in mind for this evaluation by the way? Or are you suggesting it would be best to evaluate all the people accused of bullying. That is beginning to be rather a long list isn't it?
Sharma said that he slowly fell into a cycle of stress and depression. “I thought to myself about how despite listening to and assisting many of my constituents with bullying and harassment issues, I had to put a bold face up as I struggled everyday with the thought of contemplating suicide.”
Any other unhelpful comments you want to make to show your usual prejudice and bias as well as your lack of reading comprehension?
Any professional, legal, medical, or other, knows better than to do a professional assessment and judgement online, least of all on a public forum, on a public figure who’s also in the midst of a controversy (aka shit storm). Clearly, you’re not in that category of professionals and more a sensationalist armchair wrestler.
Or are you suggesting it would be best to evaluate all the people accused of bullying. That is beginning to be rather a long list isn't it?
MPs should model decent behaviour – will be challenging for some, but they can learn – best not to right off new MPs for a few misdemeanours – give them time.
The Parliamentary Code Of Conduct Is A First Step, Much More Is Needed [30 July 2020]
"The culture of Parliament is such that the very behaviours that require the code are demonstrated by MPs who fail to see its necessity. Now that the door is opened, all Parliamentarians need to walk through it and be on their best behaviour prior to the election,"says Suzanne Snively, Chair of Transparency International New Zealand.
I heard Sharma's interview on Newstalk ZB this morning. He gave very specific information about training MPs were given on how to avoid OIA requests, or at least control the narrative.
If that is true, it would have to be concerning. Open and transparent government, not so much.
Its true. Multiple levels of the public service right up to MPs receive training on what is able to be OIA'd and what is not. An important part of OIA legislation is staff being compliant with and understanding it.
Its the same training. The PS tries to avoid being OIA'd all the time, its basically best practice not to have to deal with it. What they take from the training is up to them of course.
Also, in future, please don't tell me your email address when commenting here as it allows somebody to co-opt and impersonate your handle.
Except the claim is that the training was how to avoid being subject to OIA’s.
Do new MPs receive OI requests? There've been any number of claims relating to recent turns of political events, and no doubt more to come. I'd want to read an accurate quote, in context, before forming an opinion – won't stop some though.
On another issue relating to transparency, some believe avoidance is OK, while others see nothing wrong with a little evasion. And then there's minimisation and mitigation – so many ways to 'get ahead'.
Training for something you even questioned happens?
Do you mean my questioning whether ‘new MPs receiving OI requests’ is a thing? I honestly don’t know if that happens – do you?
Of course some new MPs might eventually become Ministers – guess it all depends on how steep Parliament wants that learning curve to be. The training of new MPs is evolving – wonder when new MPs first started getting training relating to OI requests – the OIA has been around for a while (enacted in 1982, under a National Government – who would have guessed!)
If true [How difficult would it have been to include the words immediately below the quote you provided: “Dr Sharma didn’t provide any evidence to support his allegations.“?] – in which case the OIA and other legislation designed to promote open and transparent Government should be beefed up – nothing to hide, nothing to fear.
Political roundup: New Zealand's closed government
So is this the most transparent government ever? Multiple abuses of the Official Information Act (OIA) would suggest otherwise. This mechanism is the most important indicator of open governance, yet it appears to be being weakened by the current government – as was the case with previous governments.
This was a issue highlighted yesterday by Russel Norman in his valedictory speech in Parliament, in which he said the OIA had become "relatively moribund", which means "we've got a problem with accessing information in this country"
"If true [How difficult would it have been to include the words immediately below the quote you provided: “Dr Sharma didn’t provide any evidence to support his allegations.“?]"
But he has provided evidence, hasn't he. His own testimony. And is anyone denying it?
Is that a question? Jamie Ensor, author of the item you (selectively) quoted from @5:03 pm, didn't think so, but maybe he's biased
"They said the staffing arrangements are done in a way that some staff work part-time for Labour Leader's Office and part-time for Prime Minister's Office and when they want to prevent OIA, they just sort of make it that this is Labour Leader's problem, this is not the Prime Minister's office problem and then they can get away with it."
As for your “statement of fact” claims, since the only links you’ve chosen to provide in this thread are in your comment @5:03 pm, I’ll keep an open mind.
I wonder if that could be considered a criminal offence of some type? I note on Three News last night Sharma handed over an alleged tape of a fellow Labour MP informing him of what went down during the caucus meeting that convened without him. So he seems to be a man who keeps good records. However, he will need to release more information to back up other claims he has made.
It is possible that the secret caller was trying to assist Sharma to cope/manage with his probable censure and laying it on the line as to the real probability of expulsion. Depends on the tone of the whole message.
I have very little trust in anything like this which is released as a "snippet" out of context from the whole. A bit like JLR's recorded call of Simon Bridges about donation splitting which was supposed to expose Bridges but ended up being a total own goal.
a)Total number of staff employed/seconded to work in Sharma's Office versus the average of other Labour backbench MP's
b)Number of contacts/complaints from Sharma to Parliamentary Service versus the average of other Labour backbench MP's
c)Number of contacts/complaints from Sharma's staff to Parliamentary Service versus the average of other Labour backbench MP's
d) The numbers of both (b) and (c) before Parliamentary Service asked for the Labour Party's whip's assistance
e) The dates and numbers of times that Sharma was offered training and or mentorship and the number and any details of his refusals of these offers
f) The numbers of both (b) and (c) before Parliamentary Service advised Sharma that they would no longer engage with him.
g) The numbers of payouts, redundancies, firings and transfers of staff from Sharma's office versus the average of other Labour backbench MP's.
h) The amount of sick day and personal time off for staff from Sharma's office versus the average of other Labour backbench MP's.
i) Has Sharma threatened to sue? (yes) If so how many times and whom was threatened and when?
I think that is all I can think of to ask and avoid loopholes and semantic silly buggery. The numbers should tell a compelling story. Oh one last thought – can we have more detail over the bruhaha about the storage of fridge magnets – I suspect that the miss-storage of fridge magnets is crucial to unraveling the mystery of this tragic situation.
This is yet another example of why PAYE should be paid by employers directly to IRD on payday. It is the employees money – not the employers do do with what they like.
Paying directly on payday would help ensure such perfidy did not happen. I have family who have been victims of this and student loan money deducted from their wages not being paid to IRD and have little sympathy for employers who do this. Nightmare for the employee to sort out and entirely preventable.
Matthew 6:13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one is the most obvious verse but in this case given the Ubereats Psalm 141:4 might be more appropriate.
Incline not my heart to any evil thing,
To practise wicked works with men that work iniquity:
And let me not eat of their dainties.
Win was required to deduct and pay PAYE to Inland Revenue monthly by the 20th of the month.
Between November 2017 to September 2019, Win employed eight workers and deducted PAYE from their wages and filed PAYE returns accounting for the deductions from employees’ wages. But for each month within that period, except between May 2018 and July 2018, he did not pay the deducted amounts by the due date.
And we complain about beneficiaries fiddling the system. What this man did is repeated many fold in NZ to the tune of not hundreds of thousands but hundreds of millions.
That was annoying. It appears that a disk fell out of raid on a restart after a security update. It deactivated the TS raid. Tricky to fix. Shouldn't have happened.
Reason unknown. I will fix when I get back home.
It may be a bit sluggish. Running rescue mode so I could turn off the problem and manually start the required services.
Moteliers have the leverage not the government. Besides why rent at market rates instead of buying? It’s like telling someone to keep renting instead of paying off a mortgage
There is plenty of good reason for Kainga Ora not to buy old motels:
They are not built for long stays with whole families
They would need massive investment to bring them up to Rental Code
They are largely built in the 1970s and early 1980s and hence are close to the end of their useful lives as structures, needing major maintenance on average just to make liveable let alone code-able
They rarely have play areas or anything resembling useful facilities for families, as one would find in a new Kainga Ora build
When things go really wrong as they did in Wanganui recently when such accommodation was turned into a major meth-dealing facility, the owner pretty much has to gut the entire unit. No need to have that liability.
Owners may want them back for when the tourists come back, which is likely
But people are still having to live in them now. Government has been using motels for more than half a decade.
Given that why not own instead of pay high rent? If the building is at end of its life they can rebuild on the land they own once there isn’t such a demand on emergency housing.
If they bought the motels, this would suggest they thought the problem was not temporary. It would suggest they were incapable of solving the problem via other means.
What else are they doing that gives you confidence there will be a time when there is less demand for emergency housing?
People who want to sell their motels. Go have a look in Trademe.
If they bought the motels, this would suggest they thought the problem was not temporary. It would suggest they were incapable of solving the problem via other means.
or, it suggests that solving the housing crisis is a long term problem (thanks FJK) with no quick fixes and that we will need emergency housing for some time to come.
What else are they doing that gives you confidence there will be a time when there is less demand for emergency housing?
Not a lot. I don't think Labour can solve the housing crisis. They do do way less damage than Nact, and set us on the right path though.
This type of 'housing' is very far from ideal, and I don't know how many motels might be involved, but any Govt motel ownership wouldn't survive a NAct Govt. Imho, purchasing motels would provide a future opportunity to deliver public assets (at bargain basement prices) into private hands – NAct have form.
A whole lot of them are old, run down, and need a lot of maintenance. Also if as a government you wanted to be seen as managing a temporary crisis buying a shoddy old motel as permanent housing for our homeless might not be the right thing to do.
What i would like to know is, why the government not simply rent Houses of the market and put homeless family into them. Even that would be cheaper then 3500 per week for a 3 bedroom motel unit that this women found – whilst in labour – to house her and her kids.
it was that article that prompted the question (rest of the piece is totally barbaric, still processing).
A whole lot of them are old, run down, and need a lot of maintenance.
Yes, but we already expect people to live in them, so that's not an argument against buying the motels.
Also if as a government you wanted to be seen as managing a temporary crisis buying a shoddy old motel as permanent housing for our homeless might not be the right thing to do.
Again, yes, but it's not for permanent housing, it's emergency housing. Everyone knows the crisis isn't going to be over soon. Going to get worse if Buller and Nelson are anything to go by.
i guess the argument that goes against buying them is
a. is it legal? These places are for short term occupation, Fenton Street in Rotorua is zoned short term occupation for motels. The current situation is actually in breach of council bylaw.
b. is it safe/hygenic etc – we had one motel burn down total, and fires are quite common.
c. how many people can you shove into one bedroom units and for how long before issues arise, and we have motels in Rotorua were private security don't work anymore, these motels have police stationed outdoors pretty much 24/7
also what happens say if a fire breaks out and lifes are lost. Who is responsible for the death? Council? Management of the Motel? Government? Do we care?
IF buying Motels is the best we can do, then we have given up. Consider as well that 25% of a benefit is taxed right away to pay for these hovels. Maybe settling homeless with housing debt to be repaid at 5 bucks a week was actually the better option. But Do we care?
I don't have much to add to the discussion on Sharma, beyond what Sanctuary so accurately described above, and the point already made that he is hilariously available for numerous media appearances now, but still too busy to be available for the PM or the caucus.
I'd just add that it's always useful to step outside the incestuous political bubble where commentators and us poli-geeks reside. If anyone thinks that the public care about this story any more, they should really go outside and meet the public.
He'll continue to make headlines, of course. Public tantrums by an MP always will. But the public are already bored and soon the media will be too.
The next election will be about many important issues. Gaurav Sharma won't be one of them. Ask Jami-Lee Ross. Or Brendan Horan (who?) or Gordon Copeland (who?) or Vernon Tava (who?) or … the other ones so memorable, nobody can remember.
And for those desperate to keep making the false equivalence, here's a concise summary from the reporter who broke the Uffindel story:
The Uffindell allegations were substantiated by five witnesses, put to him, and the story checked by lawyers before publishing as opposed to Guarav’s allegations which were tossed into the news cycle completely unchecked … in an opinion piece
There seems to be some serious sensitivity here to any suggestion that the Labour Party might actually share some blame in the Sharma revelations.
The seems to be a blind acceptance by some of the PM's assertion that there is no bullying within the party, that the fate of Sharma was not determined at a secret meeting she called and which was only revealed when a Labour MP rather foolishly sent Sharma a picture of the Zoom.
The Ombudsman is doing exactly what he should. A letter to ask for clarification.
Of course, the Ombudsman is independent, but if/when the Ombudsman reports "no issue here", there will be a tiresome right wing chorus of "No, not that wasn't independent, we only want the kind of independence that tell us what we want to hear".
The Ombudsman is looking at the issue of how OIAs are responded to and seeking assurances around this. He is not looking at the Sharma issue.
If I were the Ombudsman I too would be seeking this assurance after Sharma's complete misunderstanding of the Policy and the legislation around OIAs. This would have formed part of a routine induction just as it does when you join the PS.
His lack of understanding about how Parliament/Govt/legislation works is clear from his statements about what he was told. Very mixed up. Clearly he had/has difficulty with this and seems to have difficulty with nuance.
Mind you if he is suffering from depression/stress etc as he has said coping with nuance and things that are not black & white is usually difficult and thinking often becomes a bit rigid. That is giving him the benefit of the doubt that stress is/was the cause of his inability to manage his staff or accept his limitations.
I have the feeling though, based on his seeming inability to reflect, (that we have seen) that perhaps there is some sort of personality problem or tendencies as well.
Politics is about compromise, right? And framing it so the voters see your compromise as the better one. John Key was a skilful exponent of this approach (as was Keith Holyoake in an earlier age), and Chris Luxon isn’t too bad either. But in politics, the process whereby an old ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
It’s being explained as an “inadvertent error”. However, National MP David MacLeod’s excuse for failing to disclose $178,000 in donations for his election campaign last year is not necessarily enough to prevent some serious consequences. A Police investigation is now likely, and the result of his non-disclosure could even see ...
The relentless drone coming out of the Prime Minister and his deputy for a million days now has been that the last government was just hosing money all over the show and now at last the grownups are in charge and shutting that drunken sailor stuff down. There is a word ...
Buzz from the Beehive Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed a New Zealand Government plane will head to riot-torn New Caledonia in the next hour in the first in a series of proposed flights to begin bringing New Zealanders home. Today’s flight will carry around 50 passengers with the most ...
Precious declaration saysYours is yours and mine you leave alone nowPrecious declaration saysI believe all hope is dead no longerTick tick tick Boom!Unexploded ordnance. A veritable minefield. A National caucus with a large number of unknowns, candidates who perhaps received little in the way of vetting as the party jumped ...
Rex Ahdar writes – The Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, likes to trace his political lineage back to the pioneers of parliamentary Maoridom. I will refer to these as the ‘big four’ or better still, the Four Knights. Just as ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Willie Jackson will participate in the prestigious Oxford Union debate on Thursday, following in David Lange’s footsteps. Coincidentally, Jackson has also followed Lange’s footsteps by living in his old home in South Auckland. And like Lange, Jackson might be the sort of loud-mouth scrapper ...
That is the only way to describe an MP "forgetting" to declare $178,000 in donations. The amount of money involved - more than five times the candidate spending cap, and two and a half times the median income - is boggling. How do you just "forget" that amount of money? ...
In this week’s “A View from Afar” podcast Selwyn Manning and spoke about the upcoming US elections and what the possibility of another Trump presidency means for the US role in world affairs. We also spoke about the problems Joe … Continue reading → ...
Hi,Two years ago I briefly featured in Justin Pemberton’s Web of Chaos documentary, which touched on things like QAnon during the pandemic.I mostly prattled on about how intertwined conspiracy narratives are with Evangelical Christian thinking, something Webworm’s explored in the past.(The doc is available on TVNZ+, if you’re not in ...
The Government is leaving the entire construction sector and the community housing sector in limbo. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The Government released the long-awaited Bill English-led review of Kāinga Ora yesterday, but delayed key decisions on its build plan and how to help community housing providers (CHPs) build ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Daisy Simmons Farmers who can’t sleep, worrying they’ll lose everything amid increasing drought. Youth struggling with depression over a future that feels hopeless. Indigenous people grief-stricken over devastated ecosystems. For all these people and more, climate change is taking a clear toll ...
New Zealand’s relationship with China is becoming harder to define, and with that comes a worry that a deteriorating political relationship could spill over into the economic relationship. It is about more than whether New Zealand will join Pillar Two of Aukus, though the Chinese Ambassador, more or less, suggested ...
Been hoping we would see something like this from Sir Geoffrey Palmer. This is excellent.The present Bill goes further than the National Development Act 1979 in stripping away procedures designed to ensure that environmental issues are properly considered. The 1979 approach was not acceptable then and this present approach is ...
He’s Got The Moxie: Only Willie Jackson possesses the credentials to meld together a new Labour message that is, at one and the same moment, staunchly working-class, union-friendly, and which speaks to the hundreds-of-thousands of urban Māori untethered to the neo-tribal capitalist elites of the Iwi Leaders Forum.IT’S ONE OF THE ...
Tree-huggers may well accuse the Government of giving them the fingers, after Energy Minister Simeon Brown announced new measures to protect powerlines from trees, rather than measures to protect trees from powerlines. It can be no coincidence, surely, that this has been announced at the same as Fisheries Minister Shane Jones ...
Willie Jackson will participate in the prestigious Oxford Union debate on Thursday, following in David Lange’s footsteps. Coincidentally, Jackson has also followed Lange’s footsteps by living in his old home in South Auckland. And like Lange, Jackson might be the sort of loud-mouth scrapper who could take over the Labour ...
Barrister Gary Judd KC’s complaint to the Regulatory Review Committee has sparked a fierce debate about the place of tikanga Māori – or Māori customs, values and spiritual beliefs – in the law.Judd opposes the New Zealand Council of Legal Education’s plans to make teaching tikanga compulsory in the legal curriculum.AUT ...
Alwyn Poole writes – In New Zealand we have approximately 460 high schools. The gaps between the schools that produce the best results for students and those at the other end of the spectrum are enormous.In terms of the data for their leavers, the top 30 schools have ...
Bryce Edwards writes – New Zealand First Cabinet Minister Shane Jones has become the best advertisement against the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill. In selling the radical new resource consenting processes, in which ministers can green light any mine, dam, or other major development, Jones seems to be ...
Brian Eastonwrites – The Fast-Track Approvals Bill enables cabinet ministers to circumvent key environmental planning and protection processes for infrastructure projects. Its difficulties have been well canvassed. This column suggests a different way of thinking about the proposal. I am ...
The split opening up in Israel’s “War Cabinet” is not just between PM Benjamin Netanyahu and his long-term rival Benny Gantz. It is actually a three-way split, set in motion by Defence Minister Yoav Gallant. It was Gallant’s open criticism of Netanyahu that finally flushed Gantz out into the open. ...
On Thursday 17 May, the Mayoral Proposal for Auckland’s Long Term Plan 2024-2034 was passed by Auckland Council, 20 to 1. It is set to be formally adopted by the Governing Body at its June 27th meeting. The entire process took 8 hours, with the vast majority of that time ...
Pakanga o muaTukua, ka ngaroPuritia taku ringaNgaro ana te ara ki pae rauThere's a battle aheadMany battles are lostBut you'll never see the end of the roadWhile you're travelling with meLate yesterday morning I headed to Wynyard Quarter to see Marama Davidson and Chlöe Swarbrick give their pre-budget State of ...
Maybe the Prime Minister and his Finance Minister expected the worst, so they mounted a stout defence of the Budget tax cuts to their party faithful at a party conference over the weekend. In turn, they were greeted with applause, which, though it may have been less than wildly enthusiastic, ...
A listing of 34 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, May 12, 2024 thru Sat, May 18, 2024. Story of the week “The legislation I signed today [will] keep windmills off our beaches, gas in our tanks, and ...
TL;DR: Here’s six links that stood out to me in the last day in Aotearoa’s political economy to 6:06am on Sunday, May 19:Aotearoa-NZ is the seventh worst in the OECD’s homelessness rankings, just behind the United States and just ahead of Australia. BlackRock thinks rate hikes actually worsen inflation because ...
Halfway up a historic tower in York, we are neither up nor down. At the top you will have views of a city steeped in antiquity, made and remade by Romans, Normans, Vikings, Tescos. Below, you will find a retired minister happy to tell you all about this most astonishing ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park in collaboration with members from our Skeptical Science team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Does breathing contribute to CO2 ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: KiwiRail’s seemingly endless requests for more money is damning. At one point, KiwiRail assured Robertson when he was the Finance Minister that the worst-case scenario would be an extra $300 million before requesting $1.2 billion a few months later. Not what most people ...
No one knows what it's likeTo be the bad manTo be the sad manBehind blue eyesNo one knows what it's likeTo be hatedTo be fatedTo telling only liesHave you ever wondered what life must be like for Mike Hosking? Seeing things in black and white through blue tinted specs? In ...
Hello! Here comes the Saturday edition of More Than A Feilding, catching you up on the past two week’s editions.Share More Than A FeildingBike bling, London Read more ...
Hi,I think we all made it through another week — congratulations. I’ve been digesting the new Arab Strap record, which is astonishing. In other news, I’m going to be doing a Webworm popup in Auckland, New Zealand on Saturday July 13. I’ll bring a bunch of merch, and some other ...
The Fast-Track Approvals Bill enables cabinet ministers to circumvent key environmental planning and protection processes for infrastructure projects. Its difficulties have been well canvassed. This column suggests a different way of thinking about the proposal. I am going to explore the Bill from the perspective of its proponents with their ...
New Zealand First Cabinet Minister Shane Jones has become the best advertisement against the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill. In selling the radical new resource consenting processes, in which ministers can green light any mine, dam, or other major development, Jones seems to be shooting the proposal in the foot. ...
Buzz from the Beehive Associate Education Minister David Seymour is urging the PostPrimary Teachers Association to put learning ahead of ideology. He wants the union leaders to call off their teachers meetings around the country where they hope to muster the strength to undo the government’s plans to establish several ...
What are police for? "Fighting crime" is the obvious answer. If there's a burglary, they should show up and investigate. Ditto if there's a murder or sexual assault. Speeding or drunk or dangerous driving is a crime, so obviously they should respond to that. And obviously, they should respond to ...
Michael Reddell writes – I got curious yesterday about how the Australia/New Zealand real exchange rate had changed over the last decade, and so dug out the data on the changes in the two countries’ CPIs. Over the 10 years from March 2014 to March 2024, New Zealand’s ...
Graham Adams writes that 20 years after the land march, judges are quietly awarding a swathe of coastal rights to iwi. Early this month, an hour-long documentary was released by TVNZ to mark the 20th anniversary of the land-rights march to oppose Helen Clark’s Foreshore and Seabed Act. The account ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: Suspended Green MP Darleen Tana has passed an unpleasant milestone: she has now been absent for as many parliamentary sitting days as she has been present for this year. Tana is on full pay while she is suspended, and will benefit from a ...
Peter Dunne writes – It is no coincidence that two Labour should-have-been MPs are making the most noise about public sector cuts. As assistant general secretary of the Public Service Association, Fleur Fitzsimons has been at the forefront of revealing where the next round of state sector job ...
Bryce Edwards writes – It’s becoming a classic case study for why lobbying deals with politicians need greater scrutiny. Former National Minister Steven Joyce runs a lobbying company with a major client – the University of Waikato. The University desperately wants $300m+ of taxpayer funding to establish a ...
This is one of the (extra) weekly columns on music or movies. Plenty of solid analyses of Possession exist online and most of them – inevitably – contain spoilers. This column is more in the way of a first-timer’s aid to getting your initial bearings. You don’t need to have ...
I am painting in oil, a portrait of a manWho has taken all the heart aches,And all the pain he can stand.I am using all the colors of blue,I have here on my stand.I am painting in oil, a portrait of a man.This has been an interesting week for me. ...
Helen Clark joins the Hoon as a special guest talking whether Aotearoa should join Aukus II, and her views on the fast track legislation and how Luxon and the new Government are performing. File Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for subscribers features co-hosts ...
With an election due in less than nine months, Britain’s embattled PM, Rishi Sunak, gave a useful speech earlier this week. He made a substantial case for his government, perhaps as compelling as is possible in the current environment. Quite an achievement. His overall theme was security, first pulling ...
Open access notablesPublicly expressed climate scepticism is greatest in regions with high CO2 emissions, Pearson et al., Climatic Change:We analysed a recently released corpus of climate-related tweets to examine the macro-level factors associated with public declarations of climate change scepticism. Analyses of over 2 million geo-located tweets in the U.S. showed that climate ...
You can be all negative about these charter schools if you want, but I’m here to accentuate the positive. You can get all worked up, if you want to, by the contradiction of Luxon saying We’re going to make sure that every school in the country is teaching exactly the same ...
Losing The Room: One can only speculate about what has persuaded the Coalition Government that it will pay no electoral price for unreasonably pushing ahead with policies that are so clearly against the national interest. They seem quite oblivious to the risk that by doing so they will convince an increasing ...
Name suppression decisions can be tough sometimes. No matter your views on free speech, you have to be hard-hearted not to be torn by the tug of the competing arguments. I think you can feel the Supreme Court wrestling with that in M v The King. The case for ...
The Merchants of Menace: The Coalition Government has convinced itself that the “Brahmins’” emollient functions have become much too irksome and expensive. Those who see themselves as the best hope of rebuilding New Zealand’s ailing capitalist system, appear to have convinced themselves that a little bit of blunt trauma is what their mollycoddled ...
When National first proposed its Muldoonist "fast-track" law, they were warned that it would inevitably lead to corruption. And that is exactly what has happened, with Resources Minister Shane Jones taking secret meetings with potential applicants:On Tuesday, in a Newsroom story, questions were raised about a dinner Jones ...
Buzz from the Beehive One day – hopefully – we will push that Russian rascal, Vladimir Putin, beyond breaking point. Perhaps it will happen today, when he learns that Foreign Minister Winston Peters is again tightening the thumbscrews. Peters announced further sanctions, this time on 28 individuals and 14 entities ...
How Labour’s and National’s failure to move beyond neoliberalism has brought New Zealand to the brink of economic and cultural chaos.TO START LOSING, so soon after you won, requires a special kind of political incompetence. At the heart of this Coalition Government’s failure to retain, and build upon, the public ...
“Members of Parliament don’t work for us, they represent us, an entirely different thing. As with so much that has turned out badly, the re-organising of MPs’ responsibilities began with the Fourth Labour Government. That’s when they began to be treated like employees – public servants – whose diaries had ...
It’s becoming a classic case study for why lobbying deals with politicians need greater scrutiny. Former National Minister Steven Joyce runs a lobbying company with a major client – the University of Waikato. The University desperately wants $300m+ of taxpayer funding to establish a third medical school in New Zealand, ...
Time To Choose: Like it or not, the Kiwis are either going into AUKUS’s “Pillar 2” – or they are going to China.HAD ZHENG HE’S FLEET sailed east, not west, in the early Fifteenth Century, how different our world would be. There is little reason to suppose that the sea-going junks ...
Henry Ergas writes – When in Randall Jarrell’s Pictures from an Institution, a college president is accused of being a hypocrite, the novel’s narrator retorts that the description is grossly unfair. After all, the man is still far from the stage of moral development at which the charge ...
David Farrar writes – Radio NZ reports: The Education Review Office says too many new teachers feel poorly prepared for their jobs. In a report published on Monday, the review office said 60 percent of the principals it interviewed said their new teachers were not ready. ...
New Zealand’s economic performance and the PM’s vision Michael Reddell writes – When I wrote yesterday morning’s post, highlighting how poorly both New Zealand and its Anglo peer countries have been doing in respect of productivity in recent times (ie, in the case of New ...
Hi all,Firstly - thank you! You guys are awesome. The response I’ve received to last night’s mail has been quite overwhelming. It’s a ghastly day outside, but there are no clouds in here.In case you didn’t read my email and are wondering what on earth I’m talking about you can ...
If there was still any doubt as to who is actually running this government – and it isn’t the buffoon from Botany – then this week’s announcement of a huge spend up on charter schools has settled the matter. While jobs and public services continue to be cut in the ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Gaye Taylor As widespread drought raises expectations for a repeat of last year’s ferocious wildfire season, response teams across Canada are grappling with the rapidly changing face of fire in a warming climate. No longer quenched by winter, nor quelled by the ...
Half of Christchurch City Holdings Ltd’s directors and its chair resigned en masse last night in protest at Christchurch City Council’s demand to front-load dividends File Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The chair of Christchurch City Council’s investment company and four of its independent directors resigned in protest last ...
The University of Waikato has reworded an advertisement that begins the tender process for its new $300 million-plus medical school even though the Government still needs to approve it. However, even the reworded ad contains an architect’s visualisations of what the school might look like. ACT leader David Seymour told ...
As a follow-up to the Rings of Power trailer discussion, I thought I needed to add something. There has been some online mockery about the use of the same actor for both the Halbrand and Annatar incarnations of Sauron. The reasoning is that Halbrand with a shave and a new ...
This isn’t quite as dramatic as the title might suggest. I’m not going anywhere, but there is something I wanted to talk to you about.Let’s start with a typical day.Most days I send out a newsletter in the morning. If I’ve written a lot the previous evening it might be ...
Buzz from the Beehive The promise of tax relief loomed large in his considerations when the PM delivered a pre-Budget speech to the Auckland Business Chamber. The job back in Wellington is getting government spending back under control, he said, bandying figures which show that in per capita terms, the ...
Yesterday de facto Prime Minister David Seymour announced that his glove puppet government would be re-introducing charter schools, throwing $150 million at his pet quacks, donors and cronies and introducing an entire new government agency to oversee them (the existing Education Review Office, which actually knows how to review schools, ...
Te Pāti Māori have launched a petition to stop the repeal of Section 7AA from the Oranga Tamariki Act. This announcement comes prior to the first reading of the Section 7AA repeal bill in Parliament today. “Section 7AA forces the Government to adhere to Te Tiriti o Waitangi with respect ...
The Government has yet again failed to do the one thing that needs to happen to ensure houses can be built – commit to ongoing funding, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Treasury officials have outlined many ways in which the Fast Track Approvals Bill is deeply flawed, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking says. ...
Green Party co-leaders Marama Davidson and Chlöe Swarbrick used this year's State of the Planet to call on the Government to prioritise people and planet as the delivery of the Budget approaches. A full transcript of their speeches can be found below. ...
Green Party co-leaders Marama Davidson and Chlöe Swarbrick have used their State of the Planet speeches to challenge the Government to prioritise people and planet over profit as the delivery of the Budget approaches. ...
The Government’s introduction of legislation that would enable landlords to end tenancies with no reason marks a dark day for the 1.4 million people who rent their home in Aotearoa. ...
The Minister for Mental Health has found the Suicide Prevention Office and mental health support for 111 calls slipping through his fingers, says Labour spokesperson for Mental Health Ingrid Leary. ...
Today’s justification from the Minister for Children for scrapping protections for our tamariki was either a case of ignorance or deliberate deception. ...
The Green Party says the Government’s misguided policy on gangs will fail, following the announcement of the establishment of a national gang unit and district gang disruption units to target gang activities. ...
“With Police pay negotiations still unresolved after six months in Government, Mark Mitchell has today rolled the Commissioner out for a rebrand of their approach to gang crime,” Labour police spokesperson Ginny Andersen said. ...
The Government bringing back 50 charter schools will not increase achievement and is a distraction from the core mission of the education system, Labour education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
Te Pāti Māori is showing extreme concern over the Environment Select Committees adoption of a lucky dip draw to determine hearings for the Fast Track Approvals bill. Of the 27,000 submissions, 2,900 requested to present. All organisations will be heard; however, the remaining 2,350 submitters will be subject to a ...
Today New Zealand First will introduce a Member’s Bill that will protect women’s spaces. The ‘Fair Access to Bathrooms Bill’ will require, primarily in the interest and safety of women and girls, that all new non-domestic publicly accessible buildings provide separate, clearly demarcated, unisex and single sex bathrooms. This Bill ...
The Green Party is welcoming Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ continuation of Hon. James Shaw’s cross-party work on climate adaptation, now in the form of a Finance and Expenditure Committee Inquiry. ...
The National Government plans to cut 390 jobs at ACC, including roles in the areas of prevention of sexual violence, road safety and workplace safety. ...
The Government has been caught in opposition to evidence once again as it looks to usher in tried, tested and failed work seminar obligations for job-seeking beneficiaries. ...
The Green Party is welcoming the announcement by the Minister Responsible for RMA Reform Chris Bishop to approve most of the Wellington City Council’s District Plan recommendations. ...
David Seymour has failed to get the sweeping cuts he wanted to the free and healthy school lunch programme, Labour education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
Hon Willie Jackson has been invited by the Oxford Union to debate the motion “This House Believes British Museums are not Very British’ on May 23rd. ...
Green Party MP Hūhana Lyndon says her Public Works (Prohibition of Compulsory Acquisition of Māori Land) Amendment Bill is an opportunity to right some past wrongs around the alienation of Māori land. ...
A senior, highly respected King’s Counsel with decades of experience in our law courts, Gary Judd KC, has filed a complaint about compulsory tikanga Māori studies for law students - highlighting the utter depths of absurdity this woke cultural madness has taken our society. The tikanga regulations will compel law ...
The Government needs to be clear with the people of the Nelson Marlborough region about the changes it is considering for the Nelson Hospital rebuild, Labour health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said. ...
Ministers must front up about which projects it will push through under its Fast Track Approvals legislation, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
The Coalition Government’s Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill, which will improve tenancy laws and help increase the supply of rental properties, has passed its first reading in Parliament says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “The Bill proposes much-needed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act 1986 that will remove barriers to increasing private ...
Standing here in Cassino War Cemetery, among the graves looking up at the beautiful Abbey of Montecassino, it is hard to imagine the utter devastation left behind by the battles which ended here in May 1944. Hundreds of thousands of shells and bombs of every description left nothing but piled ...
I present a legislative statement on the Oranga Tamariki (Repeal of Section 7AA) Amendment Bill Mr. Speaker, I move that the Oranga Tamariki (Repeal of Section 7AA) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Social Services and Community Committee to consider the Bill. Thank you, Mr. ...
The Bill to repeal Section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act has had its first reading in Parliament today. The Bill reaffirms the Coalition Government’s commitment to the care and safety of children in care, says Minister for Children Karen Chhour. “When I became the Minister for Children, I made ...
Kia ora koutou, good morning, and zao shang hao. Thank you Fran for the opportunity to speak at the 2024 China Business Summit – it’s great to be here today. I’d also like to acknowledge: Simon Bridges - CEO of the Auckland Chamber of Commerce. His Excellency Ambassador - Wang ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed a New Zealand Government plane will head to New Caledonia in the next hour in the first in a series of proposed flights to begin bringing New Zealanders home. “New Zealanders in New Caledonia have faced a challenging few days - and bringing them ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed a New Zealand Government plane will head to New Caledonia in the next hour in the first in a series of proposed flights to begin bringing New Zealanders home. “New Zealanders in New Caledonia have faced a challenging few days - and bringing ...
The Coalition Government will introduce legislation this year that will enable roadside drug testing as part of our commitment to improve road safety and restore law and order, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Alcohol and drugs are the number one contributing factor in fatal road crashes in New Zealand. In ...
The Government has announced a series of immediate actions in response to the independent review of Kāinga Ora – Homes and Communities, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “Kāinga Ora is a large and important Crown entity, with assets of $45 billion and over $2.5 billion of expenditure each year. It ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour is pleased that Pseudoephedrine can now be purchased by the general public to protect them from winter illness, after the coalition government worked swiftly to change the law and oversaw a fast approval process by Medsafe. “Pharmacies are now putting the medicines back on their ...
Tēnā koutou katoa. Da jia hao. Good morning everyone. Prime Minister Luxon, your excellency, a great friend of New Zealand and my friend Ambassador Wang, Mayor of what he tells me is the best city in New Zealand, Wayne Brown, the highly respected Fran O’Sullivan, Champion of the Auckland business ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced that the Government will make it easier for lines firms to take action to remove vegetation from obstructing local powerlines. The change will ensure greater security of electricity supply in local communities, particularly during severe weather events. “Trees or parts of trees falling on ...
Wairarapa Moana ki Pouakani were the top winners at this year’s Ahuwhenua Trophy awards recognising the best in Māori dairy farming. Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka announced the winners and congratulated runners-up, Whakatōhea Māori Trust Board, at an awards celebration also attended by Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Finance Minister ...
"On the 27th of March, I sought assurances from the Chief Executive, Department of Internal Affairs, that the Department’s correct processes and policies had been followed in regards to a passport application which received media attention,” says Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden. “I raised my concerns after being ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins has announced the appointment of three new District Court Judges, to replace Judges who have recently retired. Peter James Davey of Auckland has been appointed a District Court Judge with a jury jurisdiction to be based at Whangarei. Mr Davey initially started work as a law clerk/solicitor with ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour is calling on the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) to put ideology to the side and focus on students’ learning, in reaction to the union holding paid teacher meetings across New Zealand about charter schools. “The PPTA is disrupting schools up and down the ...
Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly today announced the appointment of Craig Stobo as the new chair of the Financial Markets Authority (FMA). Mr Stobo takes over from Mark Todd, whose term expired at the end of April. Mr Stobo’s appointment is for a five-year term. “The FMA plays ...
Surf Life Saving New Zealand and Coastguard New Zealand will continue to be able to keep people safe in, on, and around the water following a funding boost of $63.644 million over four years, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Associate Transport Minister Matt Doocey say. “Heading to the beach for ...
New Zealand and Tuvalu have reaffirmed their close relationship, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand is committed to working with Tuvalu on a shared vision of resilience, prosperity and security, in close concert with Australia,” says Mr Peters, who last visited Tuvalu in 2019. “It is my pleasure ...
New Zealand is gravely concerned about the situation in New Caledonia, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The escalating situation and violent protests in Nouméa are of serious concern across the Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “The immediate priority must be for all sides to take steps to de-escalate the ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon met today with Samoa’s O le Ao o le Malo, Afioga Tuimalealiifano Vaaletoa Sualauvi II, who is making a State Visit to New Zealand. “His Highness and I reflected on our two countries’ extensive community links, with Samoan–New Zealanders contributing to all areas of our national ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has announced that he has approved Waiheke Island ferry operator Island Direct to be eligible for SuperGold Card funding, paving the way for a commercial agreement to bring the operator into the scheme. “Island Direct started operating in November 2023, offering an additional option for people ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters today announced further sanctions on 28 individuals and 14 entities providing military and strategic support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “Russia is directly supported by its military-industrial complex in its illegal aggression against Ukraine, attacking its sovereignty and territorial integrity. New Zealand condemns all entities and ...
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Ka nui te mihi kia koutou. Kia ora and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you so much for having me here in the lead up to my Government’s first Budget. Before I get started can I acknowledge: Simon Bridges – Auckland Business Chamber CEO. Steve Jurkovich – Kiwibank CEO. Kids born ...
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This is Russia's last ever war as a unified power. Putin's nationalistic paranoia has destroyed a potentially great nation. When he pops his clogs it will probably fragment into a bunch of smaller territories. He is so desperate that he's trying to bribe women into having more babies. And he's a gobshite hypocrite to accuse the USA of attempting to destabilise Taiwan & Ukraine.
Vladimir Putin revives 'Mother Heroine' cash bonus for women who have 10 children – NZ Herald
I'm inclined to think that any woman who has ten children probably deserves a cash bonus, whatever their nationality.
The US is not trying to destabilize Ukraine and Taiwan. It is trying to destabilize Russia. Ukraine and Taiwan are simply a means to that end.
It will take a very long time for them to replace all the equipment they have lost. And their demographics are against them in terms of raising future armies.
They still have hypersonic missiles and their nuclear capability is not…diminished.
Dr Sharma couldn't be tracked down earlier in the week when the most important meeting about him was to happen.
He had a very busy schedule, he had things on. Now he's on RNZ, he's been on Newshub and I see he's on Hosking.
He's on a crazed campaign, before he's on his bike.
He was never going to turn up as his argument is, it was a kangaroo court and the decision had already been made in the 'secret' meeting the night before.
This is obviously a tricky situation and apparently Sharma has had his lawyer involved for some time, which I’d do to if I were in a tricky spot with my employer. It makes perfect sense to have a meeting to discuss internally the options and possible outcomes before two parties in a dispute meet up. When there is a highly or most likely option it doesn’t necessarily mean that this is a predetermined option & outcome – parties should meet in good faith. However, if one party doesn’t give the other one any other realistic options it may indeed look like it was predetermined from the outset. By not showing up it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and thus a fait accompli. To have a leg to stand on, rather than spinning it to suit your narrative, you must follow (due) process and show good faith.
All of what you say is correct, however Sharma is citing the (recorded) conversation with a fellow MP as evidence that the decision WAS predetermined. I can only see two alternatives: Either that MP completely misread the discussion in the Monday meeting, or the outcome was indeed determined at that meeting.
If Sharma has proof it was pre-determined in the secret meeting that he was not invited to, then the second half of your comment is pretty much irrelevant.
Either you cannot read or you cannot think, or both. If he decided it was pre-determined and acted accordingly, then he forced the outcome to meet his pre-determined expectation. The fact that there was a special meeting set up for and with him strongly suggests that there were still things to discussed and decided. He failed to attend and thus signed his own fate. My question is whether this was reasonable process and whether this could have been handled better by Labour knowing that he’s in a spot of bother, mentally, at least.
Lol "secret meeting." Is there any organisation that wouldn't get relevant people together to discuss what to do about the loose unit who's shitting on them in the media? As for "pre-determined," the only thing surprising there is that they didn't immediately give him the boot.
This is what makes me doubt the 'other' MP or the tape. The other MP says that the Monday meeting had predetermined the outcome and they were going to give him the 'whack',
Instead we find that the actual decision by Caucus and reported by the PM was to suspend him from the Labour Caucus, provide a way back and time for this to occur and mediation.
I am wondering if Sharma's mole misread the tenor of the Monday meeting because I find that what came out after the Caucus meeting on the Tuesday, is far from giving him the whack.
Instead it seems that the function of the meeting was in fact to provide a safe and non-leaking space to express concern & disappointment at their colleagues actions and these will no doubt have been feisty from some.
The other option, other than misreading the tenor of the meeting and/or the function of the Monday meeting and how it relates to the Tuesday caucus, is that the Sharma's source is as lacking in knowledge about process and nuance as Sharma himself.
PM has said that Sharma has misread what his colleague was saying.
.
The thing is, we've all had to deal with a Gaurav at some time or another in the workplace. The guy who has lost the plot. Got a job he wasn't suited for and has popped a fuse. You might be the HR manager who inwardly sighs when he turns up with his lawyer and 100s of pages in his dossier, knowing you are going to have spend two days a week for the next six months to get rid of the guy. Or you might be the union rep, who has to sit through his diatribe sixty four million times before going to the meeting with the HR manager and fight his corner (been there, done that). Or his line manager who has to meticulously document ever interaction with him. Or his direct reports, who do everything to aviod and not engage and generally keep away from the guy who has lost the plot. Or just a colleague, who smells the taint of dissent and just wants to enjoy his or her job in peace. Once you've lived a while, we will ALL have been around a Gaurav.
Now the fact of the matter is he has lost the plot. That I think is a matter of obvious public record. Being egged on by a salacious, partisan media looking for scandal and breathlessly reported on by lazy court journalists from the press gallery, who like all courtiers thrive on court gossip and preen at being consulted doesn't help anyone but there you have it. The central question then isn't Dr. Sharma's rationality – he is clearly irrational, obsessed and operating with all the bad faith one would expect to come from that – but what led him to lose the plot, which leads us to consider his accusations. Which is all they are. Accusations. He has not offered a shred of evidence to back up his increasingly outlandish claims. The latest "explosive revelation" is he was forced (FORCED, oh the inhumanity!) to attend a workshop (practically the same as the Gulag!) where new candidates were coached on how to avoid OIA requests. Forced to attend a workshop. I mean, for God's sake man get a grip. Words just fail me.
Until he does get some actual evidence then in the great court of public opinion (in the algorthim driven Herald site his story vanished almost immediately) he has, IMHO, been pigeon holed with that Gaurav we've had the misfortune to deal with at least once in our lives at work.
Sad to see, should probably never have got the job, pretty unfortunate all round, all a bit embarassing, avoid at all costs in the lunch room, thank God he is gone, hope he does well somewhere else, let's hope they recruit better next time.
FYI…todays latest on this is the #2 story on the Herakd on line as of right now.
Brilliant Sanc. Says it all.
Have you seen the Australian TV series Utopia? It superbly satirises the type of scenario you describe above.
That's very much the impression I get too. When I was working in Kuwait we had a Gaurav who, when HR finally did manage to fire him, got pissed that night and chucked a concrete block through the rear window of the boss' Trans Am. Jacinda Ardern should probably count herself lucky she doesn't own a sports car.
going down in a blaze of glory. Someone needs to give him Jami-Lee's number
Putting aside the truth of the dudes claims. Labour are looking like they are a vindictive bunch of shits who couldnt run a bath.
Just agree to an independent inquiry..
The reason they refuse to obviously even more shifty stuff they are trying to hide
I've changed your name back to lower case (upper case is SHOUTING). Might want to have a look at your email address.
Yeah, yeah, they should have gone all lovey dove with Sharma, 'embraced' him, given him 'another chance.'
Then you would have been on here saying they were gutless, didn't have the balls to deal with him as he should have been dealt with.
And left you to go off sort of as vindictive bunches of shits do. And naturally put aside the truth of the 'dude's' claims. I mean why let facts and the truth intrude?
No -They can suspend him and undertake an independent enquiry.
That will then shut everyone up and bury the issue.
Suspend, have independent enquiry AND keep the findings secret.
That's the way to go.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2022/08/national-s-independent-review-into-sam-uffindell-allegations-to-be-kept-secret-christopher-luxon-says.html
No – release the findings. There is nothing to hide here. Sharma is a narcissist
Given the sensitive nature of some of the allegations, and the historical nature of them, secrecy and confidentiality for the sake of all parties, including those on the receiving end of the actions of Young Uffindel, is entirely appropriate.
Get stuck in Chris T!
You've smelled blood and your pecker's up!
Swoop! Strike!
Now's your chance!
I agree 100%! Hire a QC, do an internal review, and keep the report secret.
Perfect. Can you direct me to a template/precedent for this approach?
Mac1 below has snapped me: https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-19-08-2022/#comment-1906497.
This is now the objective of the Herald/NewsHub operatives pushing the story: The "Independent Enquiry into Labour Party Bullying" has a nice ring to it. Just substitute "anti-semitism" for "bullying" and you can see both the historical precedent and the desired outcome.
Jimmy, if your assertion the decision had already been made, self-centred Sharma deserved it by his behaviour to his party and colleagues and former staff. Some self-reflection by him towards simply getting along with people is badly needed. He seems to have no idea about working co-operatively. Right from the start of his entering Parliament he has been difficult to deal with.
Hopefully, by now his Parliamentary "colleagues" have learned that anything they say to him is likely to be recorded and used by him with or without their approval. Also that any personal correspondence to him, or which he has access to will also be publicised by him if it suites his narrative, We saw this earlier in the week when Darien Fenton sent him a personal message suggesting how he might get assistance. He then published it and Darien was subjected to hours of trolling by the usual suspects. The man is coming across as having a very well tuned sense of his own importance and of his own victimhood. Neither seems to rest on firm foundations.
If they can be bothered to dig back far enough (and they won't) they would probably find he has done it before. Those types usually have. And they are very good at playing the victim and turning the innocent party or parties into the perpetrators.
There would be a trail of broken egg shells his unfortunate contacts would have been treading…worriedly.
Any of his colleagues would be wary, should be wary of him. What they say could be turned into evidence against them and their party.
The upshot of that? He'll call the shunning 'bullying.'
Good point Anne.
An accomplished Narcissist …with, as usual for that type, no care for the consequences of such. Even to themselves !
Oh no. They care for themselves.
In severe cases, they will go so far as to commit crimes such as stalking, unlawful entries to property and other misdemeanors in order to maintain control over the life of the victim. Making serious allegations (sometimes anonymously) against the victim/victims is another favourite tool. That ensures everyone is concentrating on the victim/victims and not on themselves.
I don't believe Sharma is anywhere near that level, but they exist and some manage to get away with it for a life-time.
Oh god, sorry…. I of course, was forgetting you have had some quite "up close" involvement with those kind of swine.
And yes I do also see Sharma as maybe a lower order variety. Those who have known him..will probably be breathing relief that he didnt go as far on them ?
"I… was forgetting you have had some quite "up close" involvement with those kind of swine."
Their behaviour adversely affected the Labour Party in the 1970s and the first half of the 1980s. Unfortunately I did not know they were the culprits at the time. However that is the reason they later targeted me. Like all guilty parties, they were paranoid I might figure it out and the motivations behind their antics. Quite a story it is. Puts Sharma and co. well into the shadows. 😉
Hi Anne. Seems it was both bad that you had to undergo this…BUT, good that you had your Wits..and obvious Fortitude to best them !
Maybe one day tell your story….
Exactly Anne, "Look at them, meeting without me" "Look at Jacinda lying"
Does he ever look at his own behaviour? Even for a moment? Yes, and he believes "I have done nothing wrong" "I am not the bully"
Sadly, he has accused someone of misappropriation of funds, which turned out to be a travel allowance. Did he apologise?
He wanted someone sacked, it appears an inquiry found against him, and he interpreted that as undermining his authority, which he did not have to begin with.
Now he is calling on friends to back him in the face of an apparent long running situation of "I will lawyer up" "You are asking me/directing me to do training".
He has not appeared for meetings previously, accusing other MPs of some type of agenda. He appears to be quite rigid in his relationships.
Depression and focus on detail and documentation are obvious coping strategies, and his cry about long hours backs that.
He is clever annoying and pedantic, seeming to lose the main idea in a plethora of supposed slights.
Now he has put himself in a corner, so he is letting fly. An enquiry would be difficult as he would not take part in good faith the moment he felt it was not going in his favour.
This is a pattern, and there may be personal issues he knows about and has yet to face imo. Sad for him and the party.
"Sharma says he was warned that the machinations of the Labour Party would either discredit his claims or blame mental health. And the warning was sound. The Prime Minister's Office has moved to discredit him saying he is misrepresenting conversations, his wellbeing called into question. "
If that’s the tactics Labour employ, sad indeed.
LibertyBelle, he is the one who said he had issues around depression and suicide. He said it. Over a week ago. https://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/mp-sharma-unleashes-fresh-wave-allegations
So, no, not the tactics that Labour employs.
Indeed, imagine the furore if such issues had been ignored once brought into the open by him. And rightly so.
That doesn't excuse Labour using the mental health of the alleged victim of bullying to discredit their claims though (which seems to be what he is claiming).
Doesn't answer the question of who introduced the question and what possib;e reply could be made given that he opened up the topic. Once opened, it had to be addressed.
I note also that you are hiding behind words. You wrote, "(which seems to be what he is claiming). Note the words 'seems' and 'claiming'.
If anyone is claiming without evidence, it is you.
No, I'm simply being cautious. The idea that a person's mental health could be weaponised against him to discredit his complaints is despicable. If true. And we don't know if it's true, we only have his word for it. At the moment, anyway.
If true, all your pontificating and insinuating here is based on idle speculation and the word of one person who is under a huge amount of pressure and, by his own admission, suffering from depression and suicidal thoughts, which will undoubtedly affect his thinking and actions.
If true, you simply keep sucking away oxygen here.
If true, I have enough of this pattern behaviour of yours.
If true, you can draw your own conclusion of what will happen next.
Truly cautious would, I suggest, be not to proffer a conjecture at all.
Otherwise you get a reputation for making stuff up to fit a narrative that suits you, as Anne alludes to below.
Evidence. Facts. Better than the unsubstantiated accusations of a man in some personal difficulty.
Well someone far above your and my paygrade wants answers:
Newshub can reveal the Chief Ombudsman has written to the Prime Minister seeking assurances her Government understands its transparency obligations.
"all your pontificating and insinuating here is based on idle speculation and the word of one person "
He has evidence that he has presented. Text messages. A taped phone conversation that the media have verified comes from another Labour MP. This is either a grand conspiracy, or Labour supporters will have to accept that this government is so transparent we can see right through them.
[You said it yourself:
Now, you’re claiming that there’s more than just his word. I have not seen it and you have not seen it, so you’re speculating and taking him at his word and distrusting the word of many others who deny his word, including the PM and Labour Ministers.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/473116/jacinda-ardern-is-lying-labour-mp-gaurav-sharma-questions-pm-s-credibility
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/473162/sharma-s-suspension-not-predetermined-labour-ministers-say
The truth will be somewhere in the middle, as usual when there are two wildly conflicting stories, but your conspiracy thoughts will not get us any closer to it. When new info and/or new insights come to hand and when there are new developments things will hopefully become clearer. Until then you’ll have nothing to add to what you have already said here. I will again put a stop to your oxygen-wasting commenting behaviour here, if I have too. This is your warning – Incognito]
Mod note
"Now, you’re claiming that there’s more than just his word."
Now you're being dishonest. You know my comment was referring to the warnings he received about Labour weaponising his mental health issues. We do only have his word about that. But we have text's and a recorded phone message as evidence of his other claims.
[Gaslights consume oxygen. You are a major gaslight here on TS. We need oxygen for discourse to flourish. We cannot flourish with you around. Take a week off, this time; I have no time to play games with you and I’ve got much work to do this weekend – Incognito]
Mod note
C'mon Mac1. Liberty Lady doesn't want the facts. She (if she is a she) only wants to "misrepresent" them so that she can claim a negative agenda which fits into the "Jacinda Ardern is a liar and cheat" meme.
I realise the entire notion that your beloved PM could possibly be lying is probably too much for you to bear.
I realise that your natural inclination to be deceitful and dishonest in the interest of a bunch of ultra right-wing losers transcends all genuine considerations.
Sorry again. No longer have laptop so using a phone and never text.
A if some one wants to speak so bad they would ring. Learning stuff though which is cool.
that is cool. Sing out if you need any pointers.
Support striking workers.
https://www.greens.org.nz/green_party_stands_with_firefighters
https://www.nzpfu.org.nz/news/fenzs-deceptive-conduct-is-unveiled/
We’ve long thought that our first responders should be fully professional. Fire, Ambulance, and Surf Lifesaving.
By all means provide a place for volunteers, but ensure that the majority are paid, from the public purse.
I would be a bit more sympathetic to the Firefighter's Union if they had not worked so hard for so long not to allow women into their ranks. Thanks to the persistence of Firefighter England, they were forced by legal action to admit women. However, there has continued to be a steady campaign of harassment and discouragement against female firefighters.
Different union.
This strike is by the union for professional firefighters.
You are referring to the UFBA, which is more focussed on volunteer brigades.
I just find it suspicicous Ardern is to scared to have an independent inquiry when theit was the first thing the nats did with their idiot.
You know. Given how open and transparent she promised her govt would be evers
National has open and transparent process?
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2022/08/national-s-independent-review-into-sam-uffindell-allegations-to-be-kept-secret-christopher-luxon-says.html
The two cases are entirely different.
Uffindell has a proven nasty bullying past that should have been enough for him not to be selected as a candidate but National was willing to ignore this. His bullying and anti women violence (“hit the road fatty”) was hidden from voters.
Sharma admits to depression which may explain in part his recent behaviour. He seems to be very self-entitled, perhaps on the basis of his strong academic background. When power/authority/recognition didn't fall into his lap in the rough and tumble of parliament he threw his toys out of the cot. He has turned out to be a bad choice of candidate; this can happen. But none of his claims to have been bullied or other accusations against Labour MP's have been proven.
An independent inquiry into what exactly? Be specific.
This is what I'm struggling with Weka. I'm completely lost as to what they're meant to be enquiring into and what the substance of the complaint is. For all the noise there are not a lot of hard allegations of fact in the public domain (unlike Uffindell where it is crystal clear what he is said to have done). Do they just want an enquiry into the general culture within the Labour caucus? If so, to what end? Why stop at Labour – you may as well enquire into the caucus culture of all Parliamentary parties while you're at it. Those would be very broad terms of reference. The usual bad faith actors seem to be just yelling "Independent Enquiry" without knowing what they're really asking for, and these same people would usually be the first to rubbish Labour for wasting money on enquiries.
I'll have a crack.
The staff relationship problems clearly evident in his office.
How they were responded to by parliamentary service and party whips. The steps taken to resolve these and if they were made in a timely and appropriate fashion.
Is the appropriate oversight in place for new Mps given they can suddenly find themselves in people management roles with zero practical experience.
Is it really the party whips' role to manage employment issues between their MPs and the staff assigned to them by Parliamentary Service? Genuine question. I had always thought the whips were there to keep MPs in line on political/policy issues rather than operational matters.
Aside from that, those terms of reference sound reasonable to me although they have little if anything to do with embarrassing the prime minister so I don't think they will satisfy the usual suspects.
I think the whips have a role to play in relation to the Mp and how they deal with staff especially if the Mp is out of their depth.
This could be providing / arranging appropriate support. I'm not sure that's something that has been handled very well in this case and no doubt many others to the detriment of the staffers who end up putting up with shitty behavior.
Parliament is a high pressure environment but the staff dont deserve to be treated like shit and it's not ok that they can be and expected to suck it up. Nick Smith springs to mind.
Its something we need to fix.
This reflects the good old difference between "the public interest" and "what the public is interested in." What specific events need investigating?
Obviously the dude knows stuff they dont want out
So they will just keep him till the next election
You 're right about Uffindell!
He is also an idiot
Which is why they have an independent inquiry
A helpful assessment and commentary, which will lift the quality of discourse here beyond our wildest dreams.
So, all idiots require independent enquiries? That'll be the new industry, after mental health counsellors.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/opinion/129587238/we-need-to-stop-labelling-all-our-emotions-as-mental-health-problems
Exactly! You can read between the lines 🙂
National’s problem is self-inflicted because they selected a candidate who was upfront and disclosed ‘personal history’ and then failed to manage it. You cannot push forward a candidate and then withdraw your support when the going gets tough. It shows lack of leadership, managerial skills, good process, and loyalty – hiding behind a QC and a secret report is weak, to say the least.
Yikes, who would be left to conduct the enquiries?
You and me, obviously……
Just what kind of thing is Dr Sharma (so far) above posting on Facebook?
Fantastic. Nats crap. Never said they werent
Now can you give a reason Ardern is refusing an independent inquiry!?
I’d start with a full psychiatric evaluation, which will raise privacy issues, of course, and one cannot be forced to cooperate against their will. So far, one person has made it abundantly clear that he’s not willing to cooperate at all, or follow due process, but that he’s rather inclined to go down his rollercoaster path. Anybody who has some experience with clinical depression (and suicide) may realise that this might be a loud cry for help – it makes me wonder if it was sufficiently known in his workplace and handled appropriately (but not necessarily by his employer(s)) and at face value the answer seems to be “No”.
Good, thoughtful response, Incognito. I can hear the black dog barking.
You are a qualified and registered Psychiatrist or Psychologist are you?
Who did you have in mind for this evaluation by the way? Or are you suggesting it would be best to evaluate all the people accused of bullying. That is beginning to be rather a long list isn't it?
https://thespinoff.co.nz/live-updates/12-08-2022/labour-mp-gaurav-sharma-names-main-bully-within-caucus-alleges-misspending-of-taxpayer-funds
Any other unhelpful comments you want to make to show your usual prejudice and bias as well as your lack of reading comprehension?
Any professional, legal, medical, or other, knows better than to do a professional assessment and judgement online, least of all on a public forum, on a public figure who’s also in the midst of a controversy (aka shit storm). Clearly, you’re not in that category of professionals and more a sensationalist armchair wrestler.
MPs should model decent behaviour – will be challenging for some, but they can learn – best not to right off new MPs for a few misdemeanours – give them time.
I heard Sharma's interview on Newstalk ZB this morning. He gave very specific information about training MPs were given on how to avoid OIA requests, or at least control the narrative.
If that is true, it would have to be concerning. Open and transparent government, not so much.
Its true. Multiple levels of the public service right up to MPs receive training on what is able to be OIA'd and what is not. An important part of OIA legislation is staff being compliant with and understanding it.
Except the claim is that the training was how to avoid being subject to OIA’s.
Its the same training. The PS tries to avoid being OIA'd all the time, its basically best practice not to have to deal with it. What they take from the training is up to them of course.
Also, in future, please don't tell me your email address when commenting here as it allows somebody to co-opt and impersonate your handle.
I have no idea how you got to see my email address? Bizarre.
Oh I didn't, see anything. I merely explained to you why 'The Standard' doesn't publish that detail and keeps it a secret.
Do new MPs receive OI requests? There've been any number of claims relating to recent turns of political events, and no doubt more to come. I'd want to read an accurate quote, in context, before forming an opinion – won't stop some though.
The OIA for Ministers and agencies [PDF; August 2019]
A guide to processing official information requests
On another issue relating to transparency, some believe avoidance is OK, while others see nothing wrong with a little evasion. And then there's minimisation and mitigation – so many ways to 'get ahead'.
I would be surprised if new MP's received OIA's, but that begs the question of why they need this 'training'.
New MPs receiving training? Bizarre – surely they can just wing it
Members’ Guide [PDF]
Aratiki Mema
52nd Parliament (can't find the most recent one)
Training for something you even questioned happens?
Do you mean my questioning whether ‘new MPs receiving OI requests’ is a thing? I honestly don’t know if that happens – do you?
Of course some new MPs might eventually become Ministers – guess it all depends on how steep Parliament wants that learning curve to be. The training of new MPs is evolving – wonder when new MPs first started getting training relating to OI requests – the OIA has been around for a while (enacted in 1982, under a National Government – who would have guessed!)
I doubt it happens, but it can't be ruled out. The bigger issue is what this 'training' involved. This is how it's been reported:
He also made the claim that Labour held a workshop to teach new MPs how to handle information so it didn't fall into the public's hands. That included on how to get around the Official Information Act.
"They said the staffing arrangements are done in a way that some staff work part-time for Labour Leader's Office and part-time for Prime Minister's Office and when they want to prevent OIA, they just sort of make it that this is Labour Leader's problem, this is not the Prime Minister's office problem and then they can get away with it."
If true, that not open or transparent.
If true [How difficult would it have been to include the words immediately below the quote you provided: “Dr Sharma didn’t provide any evidence to support his allegations.“?] – in which case the OIA and other legislation designed to promote open and transparent Government should be beefed up – nothing to hide, nothing to fear.
"If true [How difficult would it have been to include the words immediately below the quote you provided: “Dr Sharma didn’t provide any evidence to support his allegations.“?]"
But he has provided evidence, hasn't he. His own testimony. And is anyone denying it?
Is that a question? Jamie Ensor, author of the item you (selectively) quoted from @5:03 pm, didn't think so, but maybe he's biased
"Is that a question?"
No, it's a statement of fact. He has presented copies of text messages, a 55 minute recording of another Labour MP.
Are you picking and choosing which parts of Ensor's extensive report, selectively quoted in your comment at 5:03 pm, to believe? How very partisan.
When Ensor wrote this, immediately after the excerpt from his report that you quoted, was he lying, in your opinion?
As for your “statement of fact” claims, since the only links you’ve chosen to provide in this thread are in your comment @5:03 pm, I’ll keep an open mind.
Your MO, LibertyBelle, seems to be "begging the question".
Fortunately, we see through this.
I wonder if that could be considered a criminal offence of some type? I note on Three News last night Sharma handed over an alleged tape of a fellow Labour MP informing him of what went down during the caucus meeting that convened without him. So he seems to be a man who keeps good records. However, he will need to release more information to back up other claims he has made.
It is possible that the secret caller was trying to assist Sharma to cope/manage with his probable censure and laying it on the line as to the real probability of expulsion. Depends on the tone of the whole message.
I have very little trust in anything like this which is released as a "snippet" out of context from the whole. A bit like JLR's recorded call of Simon Bridges about donation splitting which was supposed to expose Bridges but ended up being a total own goal.
that's what I would guess. Without hearing it, it's hard to tell.
Lol martyr complex.
What I suspect the public should know
a)Total number of staff employed/seconded to work in Sharma's Office versus the average of other Labour backbench MP's
b)Number of contacts/complaints from Sharma to Parliamentary Service versus the average of other Labour backbench MP's
c)Number of contacts/complaints from Sharma's staff to Parliamentary Service versus the average of other Labour backbench MP's
d) The numbers of both (b) and (c) before Parliamentary Service asked for the Labour Party's whip's assistance
e) The dates and numbers of times that Sharma was offered training and or mentorship and the number and any details of his refusals of these offers
f) The numbers of both (b) and (c) before Parliamentary Service advised Sharma that they would no longer engage with him.
g) The numbers of payouts, redundancies, firings and transfers of staff from Sharma's office versus the average of other Labour backbench MP's.
h) The amount of sick day and personal time off for staff from Sharma's office versus the average of other Labour backbench MP's.
i) Has Sharma threatened to sue? (yes) If so how many times and whom was threatened and when?
I think that is all I can think of to ask and avoid loopholes and semantic silly buggery. The numbers should tell a compelling story. Oh one last thought – can we have more detail over the bruhaha about the storage of fridge magnets – I suspect that the miss-storage of fridge magnets is crucial to unraveling the mystery of this tragic situation.
At this point Luxon must call for a bi-partisan independent committee investigation into the storage of fridge magnets.
OK he will want a new job.
WHO would even think abt employing him now?
This is yet another example of why PAYE should be paid by employers directly to IRD on payday. It is the employees money – not the employers do do with what they like.
Paying directly on payday would help ensure such perfidy did not happen. I have family who have been victims of this and student loan money deducted from their wages not being paid to IRD and have little sympathy for employers who do this. Nightmare for the employee to sort out and entirely preventable.
Matthew 6:13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one is the most obvious verse but in this case given the Ubereats Psalm 141:4 might be more appropriate.
Incline not my heart to any evil thing,
To practise wicked works with men that work iniquity:
And let me not eat of their dainties.
Win was required to deduct and pay PAYE to Inland Revenue monthly by the 20th of the month.
Between November 2017 to September 2019, Win employed eight workers and deducted PAYE from their wages and filed PAYE returns accounting for the deductions from employees’ wages. But for each month within that period, except between May 2018 and July 2018, he did not pay the deducted amounts by the due date.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/129624817/christchurch-builder-pleads-guilty-to-300000-tax-evasion
You can do that now, it's called payday filing, and it's actually far simpler for the business, and smooths cash flow.
I'm suggesting it should be compulsory.
I tend to agree. It would not only resolve the original issue you raised, it would be far more efficient.
And we complain about beneficiaries fiddling the system. What this man did is repeated many fold in NZ to the tune of not hundreds of thousands but hundreds of millions.
https://www.treasury.govt.nz/sites/default/files/2015-02/tgls-marriott-slides.pdf
.https://thestandard.org.nz/what-tax-evasion-robs-us-of-in-nz/
That was annoying. It appears that a disk fell out of raid on a restart after a security update. It deactivated the TS raid. Tricky to fix. Shouldn't have happened.
Reason unknown. I will fix when I get back home.
It may be a bit sluggish. Running rescue mode so I could turn off the problem and manually start the required services.
anyone?
https://twitter.com/wekatweets/status/1560476185535979520
Or simply renting at normal market rates using volume as a negotiating tool?
Moteliers have the leverage not the government. Besides why rent at market rates instead of buying? It’s like telling someone to keep renting instead of paying off a mortgage
Because the capital required to buy motels is better put to building houses so people don't need to love in hotels!
that only makes sense if you are counting houses, rather than people needing emergency accommodation.
There is plenty of good reason for Kainga Ora not to buy old motels:
But people are still having to live in them now. Government has been using motels for more than half a decade.
Given that why not own instead of pay high rent? If the building is at end of its life they can rebuild on the land they own once there isn’t such a demand on emergency housing.
Would they buy the motels forcefully?
Who would sell willingly?
If they bought the motels, this would suggest they thought the problem was not temporary. It would suggest they were incapable of solving the problem via other means.
What else are they doing that gives you confidence there will be a time when there is less demand for emergency housing?
People who want to sell their motels. Go have a look in Trademe.
or, it suggests that solving the housing crisis is a long term problem (thanks FJK) with no quick fixes and that we will need emergency housing for some time to come.
Not a lot. I don't think Labour can solve the housing crisis. They do do way less damage than Nact, and set us on the right path though.
This type of 'housing' is very far from ideal, and I don't know how many motels might be involved, but any Govt motel ownership wouldn't survive a NAct Govt. Imho, purchasing motels would provide a future opportunity to deliver public assets (at bargain basement prices) into private hands – NAct have form.
that's easily the best argument against.
A whole lot of them are old, run down, and need a lot of maintenance. Also if as a government you wanted to be seen as managing a temporary crisis buying a shoddy old motel as permanent housing for our homeless might not be the right thing to do.
But Govt did buy some in Rotorua
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/rotorua-daily-post/news/sold-government-pays-81m-for-boulevard-motel-to-house-homeless/WBRLIMDOR5BDLCE5T3EZGJMFX4/
and is seeking to lease even more spaces as there this homeless crisis is going to be permanent for a long long time to come.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/rotorua-daily-post/news/rotorua-motels-for-more-than-1000-homeless-submissions-open-for-resource-consent-applications/LHJQANMEK7BI4MARU7IL2LXCK4/
What i would like to know is, why the government not simply rent Houses of the market and put homeless family into them. Even that would be cheaper then 3500 per week for a 3 bedroom motel unit that this women found – whilst in labour – to house her and her kids.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/bay-of-plenty/300663775/pregnant-cancer-sufferer-goes-into-labour-in-work-and-income-office-told-to-find-own-accommodation
It all seems somewhat barbaric.
it was that article that prompted the question (rest of the piece is totally barbaric, still processing).
Yes, but we already expect people to live in them, so that's not an argument against buying the motels.
Again, yes, but it's not for permanent housing, it's emergency housing. Everyone knows the crisis isn't going to be over soon. Going to get worse if Buller and Nelson are anything to go by.
i guess the argument that goes against buying them is
a. is it legal? These places are for short term occupation, Fenton Street in Rotorua is zoned short term occupation for motels. The current situation is actually in breach of council bylaw.
b. is it safe/hygenic etc – we had one motel burn down total, and fires are quite common.
c. how many people can you shove into one bedroom units and for how long before issues arise, and we have motels in Rotorua were private security don't work anymore, these motels have police stationed outdoors pretty much 24/7
also what happens say if a fire breaks out and lifes are lost. Who is responsible for the death? Council? Management of the Motel? Government? Do we care?
IF buying Motels is the best we can do, then we have given up. Consider as well that 25% of a benefit is taxed right away to pay for these hovels. Maybe settling homeless with housing debt to be repaid at 5 bucks a week was actually the better option. But Do we care?
https://www.rotorualakescouncil.nz/our-council/news/news?item=id:2hw4fjprm1cxbyncy6py
I don't have much to add to the discussion on Sharma, beyond what Sanctuary so accurately described above, and the point already made that he is hilariously available for numerous media appearances now, but still too busy to be available for the PM or the caucus.
I'd just add that it's always useful to step outside the incestuous political bubble where commentators and us poli-geeks reside. If anyone thinks that the public care about this story any more, they should really go outside and meet the public.
He'll continue to make headlines, of course. Public tantrums by an MP always will. But the public are already bored and soon the media will be too.
The next election will be about many important issues. Gaurav Sharma won't be one of them. Ask Jami-Lee Ross. Or Brendan Horan (who?) or Gordon Copeland (who?) or Vernon Tava (who?) or … the other ones so memorable, nobody can remember.
And for those desperate to keep making the false equivalence, here's a concise summary from the reporter who broke the Uffindel story:
The Uffindell allegations were substantiated by five witnesses, put to him, and the story checked by lawyers before publishing as opposed to Guarav’s allegations which were tossed into the news cycle completely unchecked … in an opinion piece
https://twitter.com/kirsty_johnston/status/1560359241491173376
There seems to be some serious sensitivity here to any suggestion that the Labour Party might actually share some blame in the Sharma revelations.
The seems to be a blind acceptance by some of the PM's assertion that there is no bullying within the party, that the fate of Sharma was not determined at a secret meeting she called and which was only revealed when a Labour MP rather foolishly sent Sharma a picture of the Zoom.
So maybe its time to change the subject, and let the Ombudsman do his work.
Apparently Dr Sharma is doing fine now, and is no longer feeling under stress.
The Ombudsman is doing exactly what he should. A letter to ask for clarification.
Of course, the Ombudsman is independent, but if/when the Ombudsman reports "no issue here", there will be a tiresome right wing chorus of "No, not that wasn't independent, we only want the kind of independence that tell us what we want to hear".
The Ombudsman is looking at the issue of how OIAs are responded to and seeking assurances around this. He is not looking at the Sharma issue.
If I were the Ombudsman I too would be seeking this assurance after Sharma's complete misunderstanding of the Policy and the legislation around OIAs. This would have formed part of a routine induction just as it does when you join the PS.
His lack of understanding about how Parliament/Govt/legislation works is clear from his statements about what he was told. Very mixed up. Clearly he had/has difficulty with this and seems to have difficulty with nuance.
Mind you if he is suffering from depression/stress etc as he has said coping with nuance and things that are not black & white is usually difficult and thinking often becomes a bit rigid. That is giving him the benefit of the doubt that stress is/was the cause of his inability to manage his staff or accept his limitations.
I have the feeling though, based on his seeming inability to reflect, (that we have seen) that perhaps there is some sort of personality problem or tendencies as well.
I think the only thing that will put the Gaurav Sharma thing to bed is to have a full, independent and transparent inquiry.
Otherwise this will keep going on for ages.
Ardern must be regretting not going straight to an inquiry, as opposed to trying to smooth things over.
The boils needs to be lanced.
See my comment at 16.
The public have put it to bed. You may want to keep it awake, but please don't pretend the old "just asking questions" line is sincere.
I've asked you before, are you fishing or baiting? Be careful what you might catch or attract here.