Great to amazon making it's shit TV in good old New Zealand, here is a clip from one of their upcoming delights… prefaced by quite a good comment about the clip, just so you have an idea of what you are letting yourself in for…
"No matter how cynical you might be about propagandistic American media, you are not prepared for how much watching this trailer is like snorting 100% pure John Bolton"
Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish activist who has galvanized young people across the world to strike for more action to combat the impact of global warming, politely reminded them that she was a student, not a scientist – or a senator.
“Please save your praise. We don’t want it,” she said. “Don’t invite us here to just tell us how inspiring we are without actually doing anything about it because it doesn’t lead to anything.
“If you want advice for what you should do, invite scientists, ask scientists for their expertise. We don’t want to be heard. We want the science to be heard.”
In remarks meant for Congress as a whole, she said: “I know you are trying but just not hard enough. Sorry.”
… IN: How do you make sure that workers, and particularly workers of color and women, and other marginalized groups have a seat at the table?
NK: Right. I think it means that the green movement has to be taking on the supposedly green companies that are engaged in union busting, like Tesla, and fighting alongside unions to make sure that green jobs are good, unionized jobs.
It’s also in the text of the AOC, of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ed Markey’s resolution that there should be not only a jobs guarantee, but that workers should be guaranteed to be paid at the same level, same level of salary and benefits in their new jobs as they were in their older jobs. So that’s in the text of the resolution. These are protections that can and must be built into the transition…
…
NK: Right. When you look at polling around the momentum for climate action, it actually hews very closely to how well the economy is doing. So because the kinds of climate policies that have tended to be on the agenda have been these market-based solutions, like a carbon tax for instance, right, or cap and trade or maybe paying a little bit more for renewable energy, right, what often happens is that people will get scared about the science. A film like “An Inconvenient Truth” will come out. There’ll be a sense of “Yes, we have to do this.” And then there’ll be a recession, right. People will be struggling to hold on to their homes, they will be desperately looking for jobs and facing those daily crises in an economic emergency.
And then what happens is that interest in climate action goes down, because as they say in France, the gilet jaunes [yellow vest] movement, “You care about the end of the world. We care about the end of the month,” right. And so that’s what happened during the Obama years. There was this momentum, but as the recession really began to bite, the momentum, climate action came to be equated with a luxury that you couldn’t afford in a time of economic downturn…
…
IN: One passage in the book that particularly struck me was when you talked to a woman protesting, saying, “The hard truth is that the answer to the question ‘What can I, as an individual, do to stop climate change?’ is: nothing.” I wondered if you could talk a little bit more about that, because I think there is a growing tension between individual actions, like cutting out meat and driving less and trying to lobbying for giant corporations and governments to reduce their carbon emissions, even change their whole business models, to protect the environment.
NK: Well, I think that I don’t think anybody is arguing or I mean anybody serious is arguing that we are going to achieve the levels of emission reductions that we need through voluntary lifestyle changes. There’s no doubt that you can lower your own personal carbon footprint, right, by cutting out meat, by not flying, by not driving or driving electric [cars] powered by renewables. Most people don’t have these choices, and in order for this to add up to the level of change that we need, you would need every single person to voluntarily do it.
But that said, if we look at the historical precedence where we have seen massive societal change, whether it is the New Deal or whether it is the transformations of the American economy during the Second World War, it was absolutely critical that there was a perception of fairness. Meaning that it was not only working people who were being asked to make changes, to make sacrifices, that it was also massive corporations who were being dragged kicking and screaming to also make sacrifices, to also make changes, to also abide by new regulations that impacted their profits.
And that perception of fairness was absolutely critical in terms of people accepting the change. What we see in France with the gilet jaunes movement is that it is precisely the double standard, right, of seeing the tax breaks being given to big polluters and multimillionaires whose carbon footprints are sky high, while people who are already facing all of these stresses in a precarious economy are being asked to pay more.
I don’t think anybody serious seriously is saying voluntary lifestyle changes are going to do it. But I do think that you can make a serious argument that it’s important if you can, to change your lifestyle so that you can see and show others that actually it is possible to live well within our carbon budget. And that is an important kind of lived reality to be able to hold up in the face of all of this scaremongering that you’re going to get from the Fox Newses and all of the fossil fuel talking points that this is about just destroying people’s lives and so on, right. There are going to be sacrifices if we design this well.
We’re also going to have way better public transit. We can have better jobs and better working conditions, better services like for health care and education and a care economy. We can have a renaissance in public art. There are things that will improve. And yes, there are some things that will contract. We have to be honest about that.
So many environmental responses have just been minor tweaks to an economy based on endless consumption — take your electric car to the drive-through for an Impossible Burger and a Coke with a paper straw. Of course it’s better than the alternative. But it’s nowhere close to the depth of change required if we hope to actually pull our planet back from the brink. Restricting plastic straws is great. But we also need a ban on those significantly larger cylindrical sucking things. And electric cars are nice, if you can afford them. But what we really need is free, zero emissions public transit with energy-efficient non-market housing and health care steps away. We need new ways of thinking, beyond Trumpian temper tantrums or the dangerous incrementalism of the supposedly serious centrists.
Similar attempts at incrementalism is what makes submitting on consultation processes like Auckland Council's Climate Change framework so dispiriting. The framework itself is self-limiting in what it is looking at, and so, is limited in effective change. Anyone can provide feedback – even non-Aucklanders IIRC.
It's a pity she hasn't been heard from about the disgraceful cover-up that the Government has been running on the activities of their employee in Parliament isn't it?
The first article is basically a rehash of the party line. eg. She never claimed there was any sexual assault and so on.
The latter on, a couple of days ago, was one I hadn't seen. Mau has finally come out on the side of the victims. I hadn't seen this as I don't buy the printed Dom/Post any longer and I don't see everything they print.. It is really the first time though that she has broken her silence though isn't it? However yes I was wrong. She has finally come out of her shell. And about time.
Did you ever consider that the Labour panel might have simply described the truth. So far I haven't seen any evidence that indicates otherwise. For that matter when you read Alison Mau's articles closely, she is very cautious about saying talking about generalities rather than specifics.
Or is it just that you just have a pathological need to think that everyone involved in Labour will always just lie for the hell of it?
I think that your attitude says way way more about you than anyone else. Partisan and quite stupid.
Of course I did. After all I don't know they were told the things the victim says she told them. But if I believed the Party line I would have to believe that Ms Ardern didn't know anything about the claims of assault until a few days ago. No-one told her she says. Hmm.
I would have to believe she didn't even suspect anything might have gone on, despite the blogs have been full of the topic for a month and a half. Hmm.
However, what do I think is the likely situation? I really find it very difficult to accept that the victim was lying, and the Party representatives are telling the truth. Very, very difficult to see that as more than a very high odds. Perhaps more likely that winning Powerball but about on a par with winning Lotto.
Another question you ask is whether I think "Labour will always just lie for the hell of it". Of course I don't think that. They will lie if they think it is their interest to lie. That isn't the same thing. It is merely par for the course with politicians who have screwed things up. Good politicians don't actually lie of course. They just fool you into thinking they said something other than what they really did.
As far as your opinion of my attitude goes. I find your opinion quite silly. But everyone is entitled to some silly moments.
However, what do I think is the likely situation? I really find it very difficult to accept that the victim was lying, and the Party representatives are telling the truth. Very, very difficult to see that as more than a very high odds.
You must have observed politics for some time, right? What is the approved way to lie? After all you only have to look at the experts like Bennett, Farrar, or Collins (and some on the left as well). They prevaricate, obstrufacate, and divert.
What Simon Mitchell and co have done is to not do any of those things. What he said was that he never saw or heard anything to do with sexual assault allegations presented to him from the person who said that they had. He also pointed directly to the documents that he received and saw, apparently the same ones that a complainant referred to.
Good politicians don't actually lie of course. They just fool you into thinking they said something other than what they really did.
So point to something in the simple statement that Simon Mitchell put out as an example – show me the where he has said something that can’t be checked in the forensic record or from the other witnesses present.
Try to see any of the traditional political techniques in there for lying without getting caught. Basically I bet that
1. you haven’t tried.
2. you are probably too timid to do so because it would upset your personal bigotry.
Of course I don't think that. They will lie if they think it is their interest to lie.
So where exactly is Simon Mitchell's interest in lying? A volunteer who has no real economic stake in the Labour party and who lends himself to the thankless task of a volunteer on the NZ Council (and it is a thankless task).
This isn't a politician. Most of the time he runs essentially unopposed and probably secretly wishes some would oppose him.
Nigel Howarth is the same. I've run across him a few times. Mu guess is that he will be happy to get back to academia.
Which is EXACTLY why I think that you are an extremely stupid partisan dimwit who is too stupid to use your brains.
But everyone is entitled to some silly moments.
Yes – but you seem to have them all of the time when it comes to anything left-wing. You ever ask yourself why you believe such stupid ideas – because you are a simpleton bigot, Or are you just too lazy to think. Or just too stupid…
Or all three?
The only person I see lying around here is you – and I suspect that you’re mostly lying to yourself. It is cowardly and quite pathetic.
I do too, in life you come to realise that many things are often very simple but some can be elevated, or develop, into something more than they were. In work, business or family slight mismanagements, actions or misunderstandings can either reach good outcomes or outcomes, estrangements and divisions that can never, or often rarely, can be undone. Some media play that up for their own reasons and the National Party are relying on it as almost their only path back to government at this time.
Oh yes. I imagine the first time I met a Prime Minister was before you were born.
"Simon Mitchell". I believe he, and the other people on his panel did, to the best of their ability, do what they were supposed to. Find that nothing happened in other words. If he didn't happen to see something I don't believe that he would have hunted for it. That might have meant being forced to see something he didn't want to.
"(and it is a thankless task)".
Of course it is. However he will now find out the worst. The only thing that matters is to keep attention of the Leader. If you fail at that you will discover that you are expendable. I imagine that is what he is discovering now.
He doesn't really matter of course. The politicians thast have power matter and they are finding it very hard to escape scrutiny.
"The only person I see lying around here is you – and I suspect that you’re mostly lying to yourself. It is cowardly and quite pathetic."
Frankly I give a damn what you think. I don't see the world the way you do and therefore you are striking out with all your impotent rage.
McGregor too was found to have defamed Craig and had instituted her own legal proceedings against him.
The decision says this:
"The disputes between Mr Craig and Ms MacGregor were actually resolved in a confidential settlement in May 2015, with the help of two senior lawyers. That settlement was undone in material part by the involvement of a Mr Williams and a Mr Slater, both of whom have also been engaged in defamation proceedings with Mr Craig.
The defamation case raised the harrasemnt all over again
However Craig offered to settle with McGregor
"During 2018 he did make a number of open offers that both parties withdraw their claims and his last offer included an offer to pay $30,000 on account of costs. Ms MacGregor declined those offers.
Dont see the any reality for a 'poor woman dragged through the Courts' at all.
Dont see the any reality for a 'poor woman dragged through the Courts' at all.
Oh she was. In the cases with Craig against Williams it was perfectly evident that she didn't want to be there and had been compelled to be there.
Go and dig out the reports and the transcripts from the time.
As the Mau article stated…
In 2015, MacGregor had good reason to think the pain might be over. She had settled her sexual harassment case against Craig at the Human Rights Commission. The settlement was confidential, and MacGregor expected to be able to put the whole sorry experience behind her. No chance.
Craig went on to hold two media conferences, publish a pamphlet that went to 1.6 million Kiwi homes, and be interviewed in a sauna on the subject. It's those actions, and MacGregor's response to Craig's original harassment, that formed the nub of the High Court trial last year.
Effectively this particular episode has been through at least 5 legal rounds so far (not counting this one reported), and effectively only the first was initiated by McGregor – the one to the human rights about employment.
The rest of it has been by three complete arseholes – Craig, Williams and Slater using her as a witness pawn in their political and legal games. The High court case just concluded (and maybe its inevitable appeal) was a direct result of Craig breaking his previous agreement after Williams used material held by him in trust for safe-keeping.
Do you think that Craig could be trusted not to drag her into court again? He would in a heart beat as far as I can see. I wouldn’t trust any assurance from him – he doesn’t appear to be particularly aware of the concepts of having personal ethics or morals.
Reading that article, I think that the real problem was that she hadn’t been paid for months during the election campaign and that the Craig had loaned her money rather than paying her. Do you think that was a reasonable behaviour for an employer…
Perhaps you should try reading the articles you link to.
What you have to remember is that the only reason that this came to light again was because that despicable arsehole Jordan Williams gave documents that he was holding in trust for her to Cameron Slater to attack Colin Craig.
This has been well -established across multiple court cases. Perhaps you should try reading rather than playing with yourself and writing your misogynist grunts here.
He's leaving the option open that he could be dictated to by someone else. A political consultant, for instance. A suitable female with political aspirations may see the opportunity to become the power behind JT's throne as mayor. Acquiring whip & fishnet stockings, she may offer her services – to issue instructions in bondage sessions. A traditional lifestyle even before Lou Reed sang about it in the Velvet Underground (firstly in mid 1965, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_in_Furs_(song)).
Yeah, I know, bit of a stretch. Only normal for upper-class Englishmen. But you never know – stranger things have happened.
Chris Trotter giving John Tamihere his day in the court of outraged opinion over his Seig Heil riposte. Foolish and makes him appear to be all mouth and no trousers!
"Godwin has stated that he introduced Godwin's law in 1990 as an experiment in memetics." It worked: "In 2012, "Godwin's law" became an entry in the third edition of the Oxford English Dictionary."
"Coined by Leo Strauss in 1953, reductio ad Hitlerum borrows its name from the term used in logic, reductio ad absurdum (reduction to the absurd). According to Strauss, reductio ad Hitlerum is a form of ad hominem, ad misericordiam, or a fallacy of irrelevance. The suggested rationale is one of guilt by association. It is a tactic often used to derail arguments, because such comparisons tend to distract and anger the opponent."
So when a bunch of commentators here were busy likening Trump to Hitler (as recently as the year before last), I bet they didn't know they were exhibiting a syndrome identified more than sixty years ago!
fuck godwins law – and the faux-prohibition it attempts..
(and i say 'faux' because ti my mind it is bullshit..)
a nazi is a nazi..end of story..
and if the direct comparisons cannot be made between germany under hitler – and what trump is doing to immigrant families/children – clearly not enough attention is being paid..
and if you don't compare the barbaric behavior of trump – to the works of hitler..?
Won't disagree – I had the same stance all thro the '70s, all thro the '80s, all thro the '90s. Problem with growing old (with an open mind) is you gradually acquire a tolerance of other views. If empathic, you even end up seeing things from other points of view too.
So my generation of rebels called govts fascist (regardless of whether they were Labour or National, Democrat or Republican) when they acted accordingly, which was most of the time. Police brutality was normal, for instance. Left & right both enjoyed eliminating the civil rights of cannabis smokers – target a minority group, the establishment gets off on that shit.
So demonising Trump, who comes across as a clown rather than a fascist, seems more like missing the point to me. I don't defend his immigration policy, just point it out when folks misrepresent it. He's just doing what he was elected to do. Democracy.
But is it the same today> Everything warps over time and I guess that a syndrome does too, after all it's "a characteristic combination of opinions, emotions, or behaviour."
Hitler seems much closer now than 60 years ago and we understand from the numerous studies of 1930 – 1940s how he found his wormhole to power. I don't think that Godwin's law can be thrown at every mention of that name; perhaps we should update it and replace it with 'Douglas', I have thought that the moustache had a certain familiarity.
"So when a bunch of commentators here were busy likening Trump to Hitler (as recently as the year before last), I bet they didn't know they were exhibiting a syndrome identified more than sixty years ago!"
Except that Trump is trying to create a fascist state. There's been a large amount of political analysis of this. That's not invoking Godwin's Law. A commenter calling another commenter a Nazi is.
You really believe that? Must be a generational thing. Those of us who have had to live much of our lives threatened by the spectre of fascism know it when we see it.
As I pointed out last time this topic was seriously raised, Roger Donaldson would not have made Sleeping Dogs if it hadn't been in our cultural ambience at the time. But Muldoon merely talked tough. He didn't actually do fascism via govt policy. Where is the Wanganui computer now? Trash heap? I recall when it was promising us Orwell's 1984 made real in Aotearoa.
I get that Trump's style is Muldoon a little (but with a dose of LSD & speed thrown in, not to mention Alice in Wonderland). People have a right to see others as a threat, that's human nature, but it's a big political mistake to assume others will see it similarly.
Bolton got fired the other day. Too hardline, apparently. If Trump really was fascist, he wouldn’t have felt that way. To him, his political allies are as disposable as his political enemies. My way or the highway. Makes him more like Stalin than Hitler. But don’t let that comparison tempt you. The Don hasn’t shot anyone. Nor even employed thugs to eliminate irritants. Media libs would have been doing outrage about it if it had happened…
Did. Agree the connection to Roger Stone is worth knowing. "At a televised Trump rally in Miami, Florida, on February 18, 2019, Tarrio was seated directly behind President Trump wearing a "Roger stone did nothing wrong" tee shirt." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Stone
Violent fellow-travellers only, so far. Potential threat, sure. Only 3 years into it, so yet to withstand the test of time. Anti-porn & masturbation is the key – mental/emotional self-discipline as part of group ethos does make guys tough. One to watch…
For me, the big thing was the separation of kids with no intention of ever returning them to their parents. And the deaths in custody. If the deaths were a bureaucratic error, there would be bureaucracy for eventually reuniting the kids and the parents. But the system doesn't even regard immigrants as highly as livestock these days.
Which means his dehumanisation of immigrants wasn't just rhetoric, it was policy he was happy to watch implemented.
As far as he thinks about policy (which isn't much) Dolt45 is an isolationist nazi-adjacant. Bolton is an imperialist. That's why they were at odds. Hard line in different directions.
That he's trying to create an authoritarian state? Yes. Whether that will look like historical fascism or not I don't know. But it's not about my beliefs, there are plenty of people with experience in either studying and writing about fascism and how it arises, or with direct experience of fascism who are making these critiques about Trump. Including Jewish people btw.
"Makes him more like Stalin than Hitler. But don’t let that comparison tempt you. The Don hasn’t shot anyone. Nor even employed thugs to eliminate irritants. Media libs would have been doing outrage about it if it had happened…"
There was a point at which Stalin hadn't shot people yet, so I don't know what you are trying to say there. That the US isn't a fascist state in 2019? Sure, I'd agree with that. Fascism doesn't just spring up one day, so I'm more interested in what the process is.
Having owned and read at least two biographies of Stalin, my guess is that the point he hadn't yet shot anyone was when he was in the seminary, studying to be a priest, prior to his career in the Tsar's secret police.
Fascism is an ideology, historically, more than a behaviour. Trump has no evident ideology (too mercenary). It requires an organisation to give it political form and impact. The USA lacks that. The authoritarian state in that federation has been under attack from the right for a long time – he uses it as an operational convenience to achieve a suitable historical legacy.
As such, I see no evidence that he's any more than a conservative narcissist playing the radical (to steer the establishment away from global elite control).
Definitely. He was quite popular with conservatives in western democracies right up until the invasion of Poland. Even that only thinned out the numbers – took another couple of years for him to get beyond the pale.
"left wingers" who would vote for a guy who hated immigrants. Yeah nah.
He won because he was the loudest fuckwit in an uninspiring pool of primary candidates, and people tried to fight (and report) him like he was a competent politician. All the lying the repugs have done since the 1990s – ken starr, WMD, tea party – bit them in the arse and their anointed blandity (Bush 3) still tried to keep one foot in reality.
People need to figure out how to fight a reality vacuum. Calling it out in contempt seems to do better against bojo than tryinhg to debate with him like he’s a normal huiman being.
No, he's still doing both. I agree re Hitler not taken seriously. Don't agree re your denial of global elites &/or Trump's leading the rightist charge to rout them. Try learning from Brexit.
Try making a damned point about them, rather than just using random incantations.
If drumpf was such an opponent of the "global elites" (depending on how you even define that term), why are the career repugs fucking their own grandmothers' corpses to keep him in power?
Why aren't US billionaires (real ones) pulling funding from the repugs?
If he really is just playing "a conservative narcissist playing the radical (to steer the establishment away from global elite control)", he's not having much success at steering the "establishment". They're not doing anything they don't want to do. He's shitting golden turds for them – neutering the EPA, boosting drilling, firing money into the prison-industrial complex, selling weapons, and making immigrants more scared, powerless, and exploitable. That's why they like him.
As such, I see no evidence that he’s any more than a conservative narcissist playing the radical (to steer the establishment away from global elite control).
You missed one crucial word – “incompetent” is also one of his outstanding qualities. There are several others to do with his inability to work with competent people and his attraction for syncopathic vermin.
the only thing stopping trump from going ballistic against his own are the checks and balances on u.s. system..
but i have said before that trump hasn't invaded anyone (yet)..unlike his nobel peace prize winning predecessor – who was wasting libya about now in his presidency..
(one for those saying trump is no different to those who came before him..
it comes from the same source as his addiction-info – from a writer on the apprentice and the celebrity apprentice..(who i follow on twitter..)
'Trump in reality is far worse than most imagine. He has done horrible things over many decades to many victims. What he is doing to the US will be no different. It’s like living next door to Dahmer and ignoring the smell.'
Ah, I see my reply went into moderation limbo, probably too much quoting from Wikipedia. This bit from Trotter is worth pointing out: "Tamihere, in blurting “Sieg Heil to that”, wasn’t signalling his membership of some perverse right-wing fraternity. All he was doing was signalling his membership of something much less acceptable – the Maori working-class of West Auckland."
I suspect JT is actually making a play for rightist voters – if only to demonstrate that their own side are failing to front impressive contenders – but he could easily pull in all those offended by pc-conformism as well. Speaking the lingo of the land does actually produce a resonance of authenticity in folks' minds (not just `the Maori working-class of West Auckland').
I don't go along with this light attitude to Trump you take DF. Whether he is going to exhibit the right spots to enable the disease to be firmly stated to be fascism or not, what he is doing is serious.
So not a subject for learned unpicking or idle conjecture.
Bush Jr seemed worse. Reagan much worse. Nixon, very much worse. What do you call serious? His attitude on climate change? True, that's a serious problem. Would the USA do any different under a Democrat? Doubt it. History says no.
And Obama has gone down in history as achieving the largest arms trade deal ever. Just google Obama largest arms trade deal in history, you get plenty of sites reporting his track record. Pretty cool for the dude that won the Nobel Peace Prize.
I wasn't running a book on Trump v anybody. He is part of a filmset that has strayed from its desert setting with wide open spaces to roam and gone to the more mannered cityscape, and the actor-in-chief hasn't been tamed yet. Quite unsuitable for his task. I wonder when the people will realise that they are losing stuff they never appreciated and pull back?
Would I be right to say that our Immigration Department is full of white ants that are eating out the heart of NZ enterprise? Its lack of acumen and sensible targetting and systems affecting our businesses – in this case the harvesting of food which must be dealt with in timely fashion which can't wait until some squirts in Immigration and their anally retentive managers and CEO get wise to what we need and the applicants for entry deserve, is affecting our earnings and our standing in the world.
Immigration and social welfare seem to have captured all that is negative and backward in this country, transmogrified it, and turned it into sausages that pass as 'civil servants' up with the ways of the modern world.
I see the white ants among growers, who for decades have been getting cheap imported labour, without ever once even being asked to come up with a plan for harvesting their crops without bending the law. Why is that not part of a resource consent?
If immigration was anything like social welfare, the growers would be asked to come up with an action plan to end their dependence on the state, even a medium term one would do. But,…, nothing,….ever.
Nothing is to be done until it is an emergency. That is how NZ acts and manages isn't it – all else is like communism trying to plan ahead and stifle imagination and opportunities. The freemarket must reign and be bailed out when all the little businessmen and women who imagine themselves gods of business, rather than just beyond being bourgeois, need to have the road swept for them where it has become stony.
So to protect them and their businesses, they can blackmail government because we already have a slowdown in the economy. We neeNothing is to be done until it is an emergency. That is how NZ acts and manages isn't it – all else is like communism trying to plan ahead and stifle imagination and opportunities. The freemarket must reign and be bailed out when all the little businessmen and women who imagine themselves gods of business, rather than just beyond being bourgeois, need to have the road swept for them where it has become stony.
So to protect them and their businesses, they can blackmail government because we already have a slowdown in the economy. We need to help them now and do that other thing you mentioned Augustus. What was it? Plan for future requirements, resource management inadequacy, action to improve situation here – train and transport NZs, set them firmly into a seasonal workforce that pays adequately, enables them to keep their earnings and go back on the dole if that is where they are at (they need to be match-fit to do the seasonal work though). And the NZ seasonal workforce would merge with a Pacific Island one with permanent quotas so they can earn money here to enable improvements back home.
A win-win situation that would be cheered as an adept move better than a sporting maneouvre. And perhaps there should be a sporting fixture, with the visitors, a real friendly with no concussions etc if that is possible, before they go home and they can take half of the proceeds back with them plus goodwill.
Ms Dyson said Ms Barry's behaviour was particularly stark compared to what was an otherwise improving culture in Parliament.
Ms Barry is looking stressed. She feels deeply about not getting her own way in the euthanasia debacle which is so important because she knows she is right, and is backed up by a large number of pigeons who can be relied on to keep pecking at the 'No' door. Spoiler – snide remark coming up – the old saying about watching out or the wind will change Ms Barry and your lines and bags will get locked in place, applies.
(someone pointed out/i agreed) – the problem with the pro-euthanasia is that if people want to end their own lives – there are many ways to do this – (and you can't be prosecuted for it..)
so why must the state be brought into it..?..
why must the insistance be that someone else do it..?
..and with all the inbuilt potential for abuse by greedy relatives/benificiaries of any estate..
I'm confused by the pro-euthanasia crowd – I mean if they want to kill themselves – why don't they. No one is stopping them – no one. But like Phillip ure you gotta wonder why they want to bring the state in, and create situations where avarice becomes the new normal.
You really have to question why the pro-euthanasia crowd think it's OK to undermine the trust in doctors, ignore and put down disabled people's concerns, and generally bash anyone who opposes them.
But hey, why deal with underlying economic problems in society – when the baby boomers are jumping up and down demanding somthing for themselves again.
Dude, I don't support euthanasia. But at least I can see why in some cases a patient might need someone else to end the patient's life because the patient is unable to do so, or provide expert assistance while the patient does so. I just think that bureaucratising the process will be worse than the current situation. Think about it. Coma, some sort of locked in situation, fearful and anxious dementia, or constant pain and immobility leading to a 99.9% chance of a long but painful death… these are valid scenarios in this days and age that can be planned for in advance with living wills.
Just saying they can kill themselves is a mischaracterisation of the problem so gross that, if intentional, I think the description "straw man" could well apply.
FFS stop being sanctimonious the pair of you – reread how I said what I said. Let me lay it out for you – I was having a go at pro-euthanasia people for being sanctimonious – too soon?
As for sickening, you went to a real sick place with the comment
" or constant pain and immobility leading to a 99.9% chance of a long but painful death"
Just more of the usual dismissing the concerns of disabled to prove your point. People can live with constant pain, I have for 35 years, and diminishing mobility, so I'm going to die slowly and painfully – news flash – life is hard and dying is awful.
Here the thing – bugger this euthanasia bill and all the muppets supporting it, when people are living in cars, kids are getting preventable diseases and the bottom 30% keep getting poorer.
They end up being a bunch of sanctimonious prats who have no moral compass.
I did read the comment and quoted the bit I was referring to, which was the same argument as Phillip Ure's: that people supporting voluntary euthanasia legislation are promoting a state-run murder service for people too scared or too lazy to commit suicide. That's a blatant straw man, for the fairly obvious reason that McFlock pointed out above: it's actually for people who are no longer capable of committing suicide.
I didn't address your other point, that it's wrong to consider private member's bills before the government's achieved the goals you're interested in, because it's a silly point.
Why should the 'greedy relatives etc' be brought into the consideration. It is another matter entirely. The law should be straightforward so that the person leaves clear information about their wishes re property etc. The relatives are always interested in dealing with the artifacts of the person's life and that will be covered under what has been already considered and drawn up and used by people who have gone ahead without waiting for the pathetic bunch of pollies who want to wield power, but make only decisions that give them and their mates a boost in the pocketbook.
Some of you people who write here are so distant from the reality of what is needed in a well-run polity that you might as well be on your own island or planet.
I think you shouldn't make ridiculous statements about something you clearly don't have the facts on, so I suggest you read the bill and educate yourself a little.
I don't care whether you respond, or not, it won't stop me posting. If you want to admit defeat in advance, so be it.
The bit about ad homs is amusing considering your reply to PM above. Innocent victim you aint. lol
Its great to see The Rugby World Cup in Asia Japan.
Eco Maori lives with discrimination every day.
That's awesome to see hundreds of thousands of tangata in Australia joining The Climate Change strike today Kia Kaha to everyone around the Papatuanuku who joined in the strike.
That’s the way Andrew thanks for backing our youth to get to vote Ka pai.
Mullens tangi was today it looks like its a hakare for someone of his great Mana. It takes a great man to rise a good whanau in Te Maori Papatuanuku. He gave me a sore face quite a few times he will be missed in Aotearoa.
The more PEE getting taken off our streets is great the shit is poisoning Te tangata whenua.
Smart Environment solutions to monitoring our Wai show great innovation its great to see tangata caring for our Taonga Wai.
Its excellent to see the Wellington tangata supporting Te Reo Maori place names in Wellington.
The Rugby World Cup in Asia Japan is starting in a hour Ka pai. I tryed to sort my free subscription for the Rugby World Cup I could not get it sorted I think someone is stuffing with my subscription as my email address would not load up WTF.
Kia Kaha to all the Tangata Protesting to protect OUR FUTURE'S climate. THE NEANDERTHAL WILL learn to listen to our Rangatahi
Across the globe, millions join biggest climate protest ever
Young and old alike took to the streets in an estimated 185 countries to demand action
Millions of people demonstrated across the world yesterday demanding urgent action to tackle global heating, as they united across timezones and cultures to take part in the biggest climate protest in history.
In an explosion of the youth movement started by the Swedish school striker Greta Thunberg just over 12 months ago, people protested from the Pacific islands, through Australia, across-south east Asia and Africa into Europe and onwards to the Americas.
For the first time since the school strikes for climate began last year, young people called on adults to join them – and they were heard. Trade unions representing hundreds of millions of people around the world mobilised in support, employees left their workplaces, doctors and nurses marched and workers at firms like Amazon, Google and Facebook walked out to join the climate strikes.
Global climate strike: Greta Thunberg and school students lead climate crisis protest – as it happened
In the estimated 185 countries where demonstrations took place, the protests often had their individual targets; from rising sea levels in the Solomon Islands, toxic waste in South Africa, to air pollution and plastic waste in India and coal expansion in Australia.
But the overall message was unified – a powerful demand for an urgent step-change in action to cut emissions and stabilise the climate.
The demonstrations took place on the eve of a UN climate summit, called by the secretary general, António Guterres, to inject urgency into government action to restrict the rise in global temperatures to 1.5C, as agreed under the 2015 Paris agreement.
That's is. Cool the carved waharoa gifted to Japan for the Rugby World Cup.
The International Monetary Fund is correct Aotearoa is doing great. Our governments management of our economy is fine.
Some farmers are going to kick up a stink no matter what Our Coalition government does WHY because they are South Island national supporters.
Ka pai Te Papatuanuku biggest strike for OUR futures Climate Ka pai yes the pollies will have to bend the knee to the intelligent tangata striking for our future.
Hue great mahi helping native trees grow in Hinewai. I research that planting native trees they need to planted in a canopy to protect them from frost when they are young. We are going to plant Te Totara trees they grow fast no need to be treated easy to carve. Ka kite Ano
Cool that the Fisheries Minister has promised to look after the far north 90 mile Tangaroa shores environment to Te tangata whenua. I think tangata whenua need to be included in the mahi and wealth of the industry shear the lollies.
That's is not on its a breach of human rights locking 1200 people who have not been charged with a crime.
Using tangata whenua art to help heal tangata with mental health issues is a good idea Ka pai.
I… Henry we only get one body so it's correct that you took time off to let your injuries heal Kia Kaha.
I think it's great that Soap for Society Organisations are asking for sanitary products donations so they can give them to people who can not afford them
My alarm didn't go for the Allblack delayed game and I miss the 3 pm replay We were moderafiying our Wind Turbine.
That's is a good way to show how much Papatuanuku Warming is a Reality. The Swiss having A Tangi for their taonga Glacier Poziol it has lost 80 % of its mass
.Spark did its best to prove A good service. Its not there Fault that companies in other Countries dropped the BALL. Some people will use anything for leverage. This is all the more reasons to roll out 5 G Services.
Tangata Mental health wellbeing is a big thing as not everyone can figure out weather they have a problem or not. I think some educational program should be interduced to our tamariki about how their thought process actually works. I say the SURGE in Aotearoa mental health problems and rising suercide rates can be directly linked to A surge in PEE use over the last 20 years
Kume Amnesty International is a great organisation highlighting the problems around Papatuanuku the biggest problem we are going to face Human Caused Climate change.
The difference between Aotearoa is we have A Coalition Government that knows Climate change is Reality not like some pollies denies Global warming trying to gain putea. Kia Kaha to all the Tangata strikeing for Our future climate.
Aotearoa is a great position to mitergate climate change. We have a climate that has the fastest tree growth in the world. We have 80 % renewable energy already we have the best clean Sky for Solar power we actually get 20 % more power out of Solar than the manufacturer Stats. We have one of the Tawhirimate places on Papatuanuku great for Wind Turbine.We have great Geothermal resources that can provide back up power for Green Energy as well A Hydro power that can be used as back up power for Green Energy. The only reason why our Emissions have climb is because we have just kicked out a carbon pro Government that did everything to boost our carbon use. Big moterways canning Rail canning planned Wind turbine construction . Changing laws to alow the Cutting down of heaps of trees. ECT.
Tax Lawyer Barbara Edmonds vs Emperor Justinian I- Nolo Contendere: False historical explanations of pivotal events are very far from being inconsequential.WHEN BARBARA EDMONDS made reference to the Roman Empire, my ears pricked up. It is, lamentably, very rare to hear a politician admit to any kind of familiarity ...
It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just show a minimal amount of flux in public support for the various parties in ...
Buzz from the Beehive Housing Minister Chris Bishop delivered news – packed with the ingredients to enflame political passions – worthy of supplanting Winston Peters in headline writers’ priorities. He popped up at the post-Cabinet press conference to promise a crackdown on unruly and antisocial state housing tenants. His ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The Reserve Bank is advertising for a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion advisor. The Bank has one mandate – to keep inflation between one and three percent. It has failed in that and is only slowly getting inflation back down to the upper limit. Will it ...
Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency Waka KotahiThe fact that a ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: Gavin Jacobson talks to Thomas Piketty 10 years on from Capital in the 21st CenturyThe SalvoLocal scoop: Green MP’s business being investigated over migrant exploitation claims StuffSteve KilgallonLocal deep-dive: The commercial contractors making money from School ...
It’s a home - but Kāinga Ora tenants accused of “abusing the privilege” may lose it. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The Government announced a crackdown on Kāinga Ora tenants who were unruly and/or behind on their rent, with Housing Minister Chris Bishop saying a place in a state ...
This is a guest post by Connor Sharp of Surface Light Rail Light rail in Auckland: A way forward sooner than you think With the coup de grâce of Auckland Light Rail (ALR) earlier this year, and the shift of the government’s priorities to roads, roads, and more roads, it ...
Note: As a paid-up Webworm member, I’ve recorded this Webworm as a mini-podcast for you as well. Some of you said you liked this option - so I aim to provide it when I get a chance to record! Read more ...
TL;DR: In my ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.06pm on Monday, March 18:IKEA is accused of planting big forests in New Zealand to green-wash; REDD-MonitorA City for People takes a well-deserved victory lap over Wellington’s pro-YIMBY District Plan votes; A City for PeopleSteven Anastasiou takes a close look at the sticky ...
Buzz from the Beehive Here’s hoping for a lively post-cabinet press conference when the PM and – perhaps – some of his ministers tell us what was discussed at their meeting today. Until then, Point of Order has precious little Beehive news to report after its latest monitoring of the ...
David Farrar writes – We now have almost all 2023 data in, which has allowed me to update my annual table of how labour went against its promises. This is basically their final report card. The promiseThe result Build 100,000 affordable homes over 10 ...
I’m a bit worried that I’ve started a previous newsletter with the words “just when you think they couldn’t get any worse…” Seems lately that I could begin pretty much every issue with that opening. Such is the nature of our coalition government that they seem to be outdoing each ...
Geoffrey Miller writes – Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. ...
Depictions of Islam in Western popular culture have rarely been positive, even before 9/11. Five years on from the mosque shootings, this is one of the cultural headwinds that the Muslim community has to battle against. Whatever messages of tolerance and inclusion are offered in daylight, much of our culture ...
Last week Transport Minster Simeon Brown and Mayor Wayne Brown opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre. The new train control centre will see teams from KiwiRail, Auckland Transport and Auckland One Rail working more closely together to improve train services across the city. The Auckland Rail Operations Centre in ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson said in an exit interview with Q+A yesterday the Government can and should sustain more debt to invest in infrastructure for future generations. Elsewhere in the news in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 6:36am: Read more ...
Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. It is more than just a happy ...
TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to March 18 include:China’s Foreign Minister visiting Wellington today;A post-cabinet news conference this afternoon; the resumption of Parliament on Tuesday for two weeks before Easter;retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson gives his valedictory speech in Parliament; ...
New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters’s state-of-the-nation speech on Sunday was really a state-of-Winston-First speech. He barely mentioned any of the Government’s key policies and could not even wholly endorse its signature income tax cuts. Instead, he rehearsed all of his complaints about the Ardern Government, including an extraordinary claim ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
“I’ve been internalising a really complicated situation in my head.”When they kept telling us we should wait until we get to know him, were they taking the piss? Was it a case of, if you think this is bad, wait till you get to know the real Christopher, after the ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
.“$10 and a target that bleeds” - Bleeding Targets for Under $10!.Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.This government appears hell-bent on either scrapping life-saving legislation or reintroducing things that - frustrated critics insist - will be dangerous and likely ...
“It hardly strikes me as fair to criticise a government for doing exactly what it said it was going to do. For actually keeping its promises.”THUNDER WAS PLAYING TAG with lightning flashes amongst the distant peaks. Its rolling cadences interrupted by the here-I-come-here-I-go Doppler effect of the occasional passing car. ...
Subversive & Disruptive Technologies: Just as happened with that other great regulator of the masses, the Medieval Church, the advent of a new and hard-to-control technology – the Internet – is weakening the ties that bind. Then, and now, those who enjoy a monopoly on the dissemination of lies, cannot and will ...
Been Here Before: To find the precedents for what this Coalition Government is proposing, it is necessary to return to the “glory days” of Muldoonism.THE COALITION GOVERNMENT has celebrated its first 100 days in office by checking-off the last of its listed commitments. It remains, however, an angry government. It ...
Bob Edlin writes – And what is the world watching today…? The email newsletter from Associated Press which landed in our mailbox early this morning advised: In the news today: The father of a school shooter has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter; prosecutors in Trump’s hush-money case ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is another Green MP on their way out? And are the Greens severely tarnished by another integrity scandal? For the second time in three months, the Green Party has secretly suspended an MP over integrity issues. Mystery is surrounding the party’s decision to ...
For the last few years, the Green Party has been the party that has managed to avoid the plague of multiple scandals that have beleaguered other political parties. It appears that their luck has run out with a second scandal which, unfortunately for them, coincided with Golraz Ghahraman, the focus ...
TL;DR: The six newsey things that stood out to me as of 6:46am on Saturday, March 16.Andy Foster has accidentally allowed a Labour/Green amendment to cut road user chargers for plug-in hybrid vehicles, which the Government might accept; NZ HeraldThomas CoughlanSimeon Brown has rejected a plea from Westport ...
What seemed a booming success a couple of years ago has collapsed into fraud convictions.I looked at the crash of FTX (short for ‘Futures Exchange’) in November 2022 to see whether it would impact on the financial system as a whole. Fortunately there was barely a ripple, probably because it ...
Anybody following the situation in Ukraine and Russia would probably have been amused by a recent Tweet on X NATO seems to be putting in an awful lot of effort to influence what is, at least according to them, a sham election in an autocracy.When do the Ukrainians go to ...
TL;DR:Shaun Baker on Wynyard Quarter's transformation. Magdalene Taylor on the problem with smart phones. How private equity are now all over reinsurance. Dylan Cleaver on rugby and CTE. Emily Atkin on ‘Big Meat’ looking like ‘Big Oil’.Bernard’s six-stack of substacks at 6pm on March 15Photo by Jeppe Hove Jensen ...
Buzz from the Beehive Finance Minister Nicola Willis had plenty to say when addressing the Auckland Business Chamber on the economic growth that (she tells us) is flagging more than we thought. But the government intends to put new life into it: We want our country to be a ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee has reported back on the Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) Amendment Bill, basicly rubberstamping it. While there was widespread support among submitters for the principle that EV and PHEV drivers should pay their fair share for the roads, they also overwhelmingly disagreed with ...
Peter Dunne writes – This week’s government bailout – the fifth in the last eighteen months – of the financially troubled Ruapehu Alpine Lifts company would have pleased many in the central North Island ski industry. The government’s stated rationale for the $7 million funding was that it ...
See if you can spot the difference. An Iranian born female MP from a progressive party is accused of serial shoplifting. Her name is leaked to the media, which goes into a pack frenzy even before the Police launch an … Continue reading → ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The government is omitting general Treaty references from legislation : The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last Government in a bid to get greater coherence in the public service on Treaty ...
What was that judge thinking?Peter Williams writes – That Golriz Ghahraman and District Court Judge Maria Pecotic were once lawyer colleagues is incontrovertible. There is published evidence that they took at least one case to the Court of Appeal together. There was a report on ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Climate Scorpion – the sting is in the tail. Introducing planetary solvency. A paper via the University of Exeter’s Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.Local scoop:Kāinga Ora starts pulling out of its Auckland projects and selling land RNZ ...
Wellington’s massively upzoned District Plan adds the opportunity for tens of thousands of new homes not just in the central city (such as these Webb St new builds) but also close to the CBD and public transport links. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Wellington gave itself the chance of ...
It’s Friday and we’re halfway through March Madness. Here’s some of the things that caught our attention this week. This Week in Greater Auckland On Monday Matt asked how we can get better event trains and an option for grade separating Morningside Dr. On Tuesday Matt looked into ...
Something you might not know about me is that I’m quite a stubborn person. No, really. I don’t much care for criticism I think’s unfair or that I disagree with. Few of us do I suppose.Back when I was a drinker I’d sometimes respond defensively, even angrily. There are things ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:PM Christopher Luxon said the reversal of interest deductibility for landlords was done to help renters, who ...
It was not so much the Labour Party but really the Chris Hipkins party yesterday at Labour’s caucus retreat in Martinborough. The former Prime Minister was more or less consistent on wealth tax, which he was at best equivocal about, and social insurance, which he was not willing to revisit. ...
Buzz from the BeehiveThe text reproduced above appears on a page which records all the media statements and speeches posted on the government’s official website by Melissa Lee as Minister of Media and Communications and/or by Jenny Marcroft, her Parliamentary Under-secretary. It can be quickly analysed ...
For forty years, Robert Muldoon has been a dirty word in our politics. His style of government was so repulsive and authoritarian that the backlash to it helped set and entrench our constitutional norms. His pig-headedness over forcing through Think Big eventually gave us the RMA, with its participation and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is the new government reducing tax on rental properties to benefit landlords or to cut the cost of rents? That’s the big question this week, after Associate Finance Minister David Seymour announced on Sunday that the Government would be reversing the Labour Government’s removal ...
Saudi Arabia is rarely far from the international spotlight. The war in Gaza has brought new scrutiny to Saudi plans to normalise relations with Israel, while the fifth anniversary of the controversial killing of Jamal Khashoggi was marked shortly before the war began on October 7. And as the home ...
Questions need to be asked on both sides of the worldPeter Williams writes – The NRL Judiciary hands down an eight week suspension to Sydney Roosters forward Spencer Leniu , an Auckland-born Samoan, after he calls Ezra Mam, Sydney-orn but of Aboriginal and Torres Strait ...
Ele Ludemann writes – Contrary to what many headlines and news stories are saying, residential landlords are not getting a tax break. The government is simply restoring to them the tax deductibility of interest they had until the previous government removed it. There is no logical reason ...
I can't remember when it was goodMoments of happiness in bloomMaybe I just misunderstoodAll of the love we left behindWatching our flashbacks intertwineMemories I will never findIn spite of whatever you becomeForget that reckless thing turned onI think our lives have just begunI think our lives have just begunDoes anyone ...
Michael Bassett writes – At first reading, a front-page story in the New Zealand Herald on 13 March was bizarre. A group of severely intellectually limited teenagers, with little understanding of the law, have been pleading to the Justice Select Committee not to pass a bill dealing with ram ...
How much political capital is Christopher Luxon willing to burn through in order to deliver his $2.9 billion gift to landlords? Evidently, Luxon is: (a) unable to cost the policy accurately. As Anna Burns-Francis pointed out to him on Breakfast TV, the original ”rock solid” $2.1 billion cost he was ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Jonathon Porritt calling bullshit in his own blog post on mainstream climate science as ‘The New Denialism’.Local scoop:The Wellington City Council’s list of proposed changes to the IHP recommendations to be debated later today was leaked this ...
TL;DR:Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said yesterday tenants should be grateful for the reinstatement of interest deductibility because landlords would pass on their lower tax costs in the form of lower rents. That would be true if landlords were regulated monopolies such as Transpower or Auckland Airport1, but they’re not, ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Tom Toro Tom Toro is a cartoonist and author. He has published over 200 cartoons in The New Yorker since 2010. His cartoons appear in Playboy, the Paris Review, the New York Times, American Bystander, and elsewhere. Related: What 10 EV lovers ...
The business section of the NZ Herald is full of opinion. Among the more opinionated of all is the ex-Minister of Transport, ex-Minister of Railways, ex MP for Auckland Central (1975-93, Labour), Wellington Central (1996-99, ACT, then list-2005), ex-leader of the ACT Party, uncle to actor Antonia, the veritable granddaddy ...
Hi,Just quickly — I’m blown away by the stories you’ve shared with me over the last week since I put out the ‘Gary’ podcast, where I told you about the time my friend’s flatmate killed the neighbour.And you keep telling me stories — in the comments section, and in my ...
The first season of Rings of Power was not awful. It was thoroughly underwhelming, yes, and left a lingering sense of disappointment, but it was more expensive mediocrity than catastrophe. I wrote at length about the series as it came out (see the Review section of the blog, and go ...
Buzz from the Beehive Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden told Auckland Business Chamber members they were the first audience to hear her priorities as a minister in a government committed to cutting red tape and regulations. She brandished her liberalising credentials, saying Flexible labour markets are the ...
Chris Trotter writes – TO UNDERSTAND WHY NEWSHUB FAILED, it is necessary to understand how TVNZ changed. Up until 1989, the state broadcaster had been funded by a broadcasting licence fee, collected from every citizen in possession of a television set, supplemented by a relatively modest (compared ...
Bob Edlin writes – The Māori Party has been busy issuing a mix of warnings and threats as its expresses its opposition to interest deductibility for landlords and the plans of seabed miners. It remains to be seen whether they follow the example of indigenous litigants in Australia, ...
Every year, in the Budget, Parliament forks out money to government agencies to do certain things. And every year, as part of the annual review cycle, those agencies are meant to report on whether they have done the things Parliament gave them that money for. Agencies which consistently fail to ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – Recent events in American universities point to an underlying crisis of coherent thinking, an issue that increasingly affects the progressive left across the Western world. This of course is nothing new as anyone who can either remember or has read of the late ...
The thing about life’s little victories is that they can be followed by a defeat.Reader Darryl told me on Monday night:Test again Dave. My “head cold” last week became COVID within 24 hours, and is still with me. I hear the new variants take a bit longer to show up ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Angus Deaton on rethinking his economics IMFLocal scoop: The people behind Tamarind, the firm that left a $500m cleanup bill for taxpayers at Taranaki’s Tui oil well, are back operating in Taranaki under a different company name. Jonathan ...
Normally when we talk about accessing public transport it’s about improving how easy it is to get to, such as how easy is it to cross roads in a station/stop’s walking catchment, is it possible to cycle to safely, do bus connections work, or even if are there new routes/connections ...
Politicians are not renowned for telling the truth. Some tell us things that are verifiably not true. They offer statements that omit critical pieces of information. Gloss over risks, preferring to offer the best case scenario.Some not truths are quite small, others amusing in their transparency. There are those repeated ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
The New Zealand public voted for a change in direction at the 2023 general election and that is exactly what this coalition government has been delivering in its first 100 days. There was an immediate focus on the economy, easing the cost of living, cracking down on law and order ...
The Government has left the health system as an afterthought, announcing half-baked targets at the last minute of their 100-day plan, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
Kiwis are still waiting for their promised cost of living support after 100 days of a National Government that is taking us backwards, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
100 days of National taking NZ backwardsThe National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
The Government must commit to funding free and healthy school lunches, as thousands of people sign the petition to keep them, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti says. ...
If the Government was serious about moving families into public housing, they would build more houses so there is actually somewhere for people to go. ...
The free and healthy school lunches programme feeds our kids, helps them to learn, and saves families money – but it is at risk under this Government, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
The Government’s proposed changes to Firearms Prohibition Orders (FPO) add almost nothing new and are merely an attempt to distract from its plans to loosen gun laws, police spokesperson Ginny Andersen and justice spokesperson Dr Duncan Webb said. ...
The great Victorian era English politician Lord Macauley stood in the British House of Parliament and said, "The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm".He understood and outlined even way back then, the significant role and influence media have in a democracy. ...
The government’s attack on Māori health this week is committing tangata-whenua to a premature death, says Te Pāti Māori. “The government have begun their onslaught on Māori health with the abolishment of the Māori Health Authority and smokefree laws in the same day” said health spokesperson and co-leader, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. ...
Today marks a tragic milestone for New Zealanders as the Coalition Government side with big tobacco to repeal the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Act 2022, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins and Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said. ...
New Zealand’s social workers are qualified, experienced, and more representative of the communities they serve, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “I want to acknowledge and applaud New Zealand’s social workers for the hard work they do, providing invaluable support for our most vulnerable. “To coincide with World ...
Cabinet has agreed to a reduced road user charge (RUC) rate for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. Owners of PHEVs will be eligible for a reduced rate of $38 per 1,000km once all light electric vehicles (EVs) move into the RUC system from 1 April. ...
Minister of Agriculture and Trade, Todd McClay, says that today’s opening of Riverland Foods manufacturing plant in Christchurch is a great example of how trade access to overseas markets creates jobs in New Zealand. Speaking at the official opening of this state-of-the-art pet food factory the Minister noted that exports ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Wellington today. “It was a pleasure to host Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his first official visit to New Zealand since 2017. Our discussions were wide-ranging and enabled engagement on many facets of New Zealand’s relationship with China, including trade, ...
Kāinga Ora – Homes & Communities has been instructed to end the Sustaining Tenancies Framework and take stronger measures against persistent antisocial behaviour by tenants, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Earlier today Finance Minister Nicola Willis and I sent an interim Letter of Expectations to the Board of Kāinga Ora. ...
Tēna koutou katoa. Greetings everyone. Thank you to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and the Honourable Simon Bridges for hosting this address today. I acknowledge the business leaders in this room, the leaders and governors, the employers, the entrepreneurs, the investors, and the wealth creators. The coalition Government shares your ...
Minister Winston Peters completed the final leg of his visit to South and South East Asia in Singapore today, where he focused on enhancing one of New Zealand’s indispensable strategic partnerships. “Singapore is our most important defence partner in South East Asia, our fourth-largest trading partner and a ...
Minister of Internal Affairs and Workplace Relations and Safety, Hon. Brooke van Velden, will travel to the Republic of Korea to represent New Zealand at the Third Summit for Democracy on 18 March. The summit, hosted by the Republic of Korea, was first convened by the United States in 2021, ...
ICNZ Speech 7 March 2024, Auckland Acknowledgements and opening Mōrena, ngā mihi nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Good morning, it’s a privilege to be here to open the ICNZ annual conference, thank you to Mark for the Mihi Whakatau My thanks to Tim Grafton for inviting me ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Lead Coordination Minister Judith Collins have expressed their deepest sympathy on the five-year anniversary of the Christchurch terror attacks. “March 15, 2019, was a day when families, communities and the country came together both in sorrow and solidarity,” Mr Luxon says. “Today we pay our respects to the 51 shuhada ...
Speech for Financial Advice NZ Conference 5 March 2024 Acknowledgements and opening Morena, Nga Mihi Nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Thanks Nate for your Mihi Whakatau Good morning. It’s a pleasure to formally open your conference this morning. What a lovely day in Wellington, What a great ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters held discussions in Jakarta today about the future of relations between New Zealand and South East Asia’s most populous country. “We are in Jakarta so early in our new government’s term to reflect the huge importance we place on our relationship with Indonesia and South ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters has announced that the Foreign Minister of China, Wang Yi, will visit New Zealand next week. “We look forward to re-engaging with Foreign Minister Wang Yi and discussing the full breadth of the bilateral relationship, which is one of New Zealand’s ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has today opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre, which will bring together KiwiRail, Auckland Transport, and Auckland One Rail to improve service reliability for Aucklanders. “The recent train disruptions in Auckland have highlighted how important it is KiwiRail and Auckland’s rail agencies work together to ...
The Government is proud to support the 10th edition of Crankworx Rotorua as the Crankworx World Tour returns to Rotorua from 16-24 March 2024, says Minister for Economic Development Melissa Lee. “Over the past 10 years as Crankworx Rotorua has grown, so too have the economic and social benefits that ...
Legislation implementing coalition Government tax commitments and addressing long-standing tax anomalies will be progressed in Parliament next week, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The legislation is contained in an Amendment Paper to the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill issued today. “The Amendment Paper represents ...
Associate Environment Minister Andrew Hoggard has today announced that the Government has agreed to suspend the requirement for councils to comply with the Significant Natural Areas (SNA) provisions of the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity for three years, while it replaces the Resource Management Act (RMA).“As it stands, SNAs ...
Agriculture Minister Todd McClay has classified the drought conditions in the Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts as a medium-scale adverse event, acknowledging the challenging conditions facing farmers and growers in the district. “Parts of Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts are in the grip of an intense dry spell. I know ...
The Government is helping farmers eradicate the significant impact of facial eczema (FE) in pastoral animals, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “A $20 million partnership jointly funded by Beef + Lamb NZ, the Government, and the primary sector will save farmers an estimated NZD$332 million per year, and aims to ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has completed a successful visit to India, saying it was an important step in taking the relationship between the two countries to the next level. “We have laid a strong foundation for the Coalition Government’s priority of enhancing New Zealand-India relations to generate significant future benefit for both countries,” says Mr Peters, ...
Cabinet has agreed to provide $7 million to ensure the 2024 ski season can go ahead on the Whakapapa ski field in the central North Island but has told the operator Ruapehu Alpine Lifts it is the last financial support it will receive from taxpayers. Cabinet also agreed to provide ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Lower fruit and vegetable prices are welcome news for New Zealanders who have been doing it tough at the supermarket, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. Stats NZ reported today the price of fruit and vegetables has dropped 9.3 percent in the 12 months to February 2024. “Lower fruit and vege ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the sixty-eighth session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
The coalition Government is supporting farmers to enhance land management practices by investing $3.3 million in locally led catchment groups, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “Farmers and growers deliver significant prosperity for New Zealand and it’s vital their ongoing efforts to improve land management practices and water quality are supported,” ...
Good evening everyone and thank you for that lovely introduction. Thank you also to the Honourable Simon Bridges for the invitation to address your members. Since being sworn in, this coalition Government has hit the ground running with our 100-day plan, delivering the changes that New Zealanders expect of us. ...
Recommendations from the Climate Change Commission for New Zealand on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) auction and unit limit settings for the next five years have been tabled in Parliament, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “The Commission provides advice on the ETS annually. This is the third time the ...
The coalition Government is beginning its fight to lower building costs and reduce red tape by exempting minor building work from paying the building levy, says Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk. “Currently, any building project worth $20,444 including GST or more is subject to the building levy which is ...
Proposed changes to tax legislation to prevent the over-taxation of low-earning trusts are welcome, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The changes have been recommended by Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure Committee following consideration of submissions on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill. “One of the ...
Assalaamu alaikum. السَّلَام عليكم In light of the holy month of Ramadan, I want to extend my warmest wishes to our Muslim community in New Zealand. Ramadan is a time for spiritual reflection, renewed devotion, perseverance, generosity, and forgiveness. It’s a time to strengthen our bonds and appreciate the diversity ...
Former Transport Minister and CEO of the Auckland Business Chamber Hon Simon Bridges has been appointed as the new Board Chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) for a three-year term, Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced today. “Simon brings extensive experience and knowledge in transport policy and governance to the role. He will ...
Good morning all, it is a pleasure to be here as Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology. It is fantastic to see how connected and collaborative the life science and biotechnology industry is here in New Zealand. I would like to thank BioTechNZ and NZTech for the invitation to address ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says he is looking forward to the day when three key water projects in Northland are up and running, unlocking the full potential of land in the region. Mr Jones attended a community event at the site of the Otawere reservoir near Kerikeri on Friday. ...
Associate Finance Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government has agreed to restore deductibility for mortgage interest on residential investment properties. “Help is on the way for landlords and renters alike. The Government’s restoration of interest deductibility will ease pressure on rents and simplify the tax code,” says ...
Sport and Recreation Minister Chris Bishop will travel to Switzerland today to attend an Executive Committee meeting and Symposium of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Mr Bishop will then travel on to London where he will attend a series of meetings in his capacity as Infrastructure Minister. “New Zealanders believe ...
This year’s Pacific Language Weeks celebrate regional unity and the contribution of Pacific communities to New Zealand culture, says Minister for Pacific Peoples Dr Shane Reti. Dr Reti announced dates for the 2024 Pacific Language Weeks during a visit to the Pasifika festival in Auckland today and says there’s so ...
Greater Wellington is inviting feedback on proposed changes to its Revenue and Financing Policy. The Revenue and Financing Policy covers the Council’s various sources of funding, and how the cost of services is shared across the region. This includes ...
Labour has conceded it could have done more to deal with disruptive state housing tenants while in government but says the current coalition is going too far. ...
The band has asked their record label to issue a cease and desist to stop the NZ First leader using their 1997 hit to support his ‘misguided political views’. “I get knocked down, but I get up again,” blared through the speakers on Sunday as Winston Peters took the stage ...
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist Food rationing is underway in remote areas in Papua New Guinea’s Highlands following torrential rain and flash flooding. More than 20 people have been reported dead in Chimbu Province. In nearby Enga Province, the centre of last month’s massacre, a 15-year-old boy has been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Hughes, Lecturer, Research School of Management, Australian National University After months of debate and intrigue, the AFL’s 19th and newest team, the Tasmania Devils, finally launched its jumper, logo and colours in Devonport this week. The Devils will wear green, ...
Brannavan Gnanalingam reviews the debut novel by Saraid de Silva.One of the most baffling things for children who move to a new country is what their parents’ (or grandparents’) lives were like prior to moving – for kids in particular, they’re too busy trying to fit in in their ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Gaunson, Associate Professor in Cinema Studies, RMIT University Narelle Portanier/Binge “If you don’t know who your mob are, you don’t know who you are,” Detective Andrea “Andie” Whitford (played by Leah Purcell) is told early into the new crime ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elise Klein, Associate professor, Australian National University It’s commonly accepted that women do the vast majority of caregiving in Australian society. But less appreciated is that Indigenous women do larger amounts of unpaid care than any other group. Working with the Aboriginal ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne Joe Biden and Donald Trump have both secured their parties’ nominations for the November 5 United States general election by winning a ...
Comment: There has been a striking contrast in trans-Tasman interest about Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi’s visit to New Zealand and Australia. While the Australian press has been full of articles about the visit – including his curious decision to meet with former prime minister and China booster Paul Keating ...
After years of pressuring banks and other institutions to stop investing in fossil fuels, climate campaigners are making some progress. So how does divestment work?For years, climate activists have been pushing banks and other big institutions to divest from fossil fuels. New research from climate advocacy group 350 Aotearoa ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. The three young Polynesians are part of a K-pop fan community in Tāmaki Makaurau. It’s one of many that have sprung up worldwide as K-pop has gone ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. This one-off documentary presents three intimate portraits of young Polynesians who are pulled into a Korean cultural phenomenon. K-POLYS is directed by Litia Tuiburelevu, Produced by Hex ...
There’s ample evidence demonstrating free school lunch programmes provide wide benefits across schools, households and communities according to public health researchers. ACT Minister David Seymour wants to reduce the spending on Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
By Wata Shaw in Suva Fiji is facing an exodus of Fijians as many are leaving for overseas seeking employment and education and others are migrating, says Opposition MP Viliame Naupoto. Speaking in Parliament, he said: “His Excellency’s speech (Ratu Wiliame Katonivere) comes after a little over one year of ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming comments from Christopher Luxon this morning recommitting to ‘no new taxes’ as part of Budget 2024. “Mr Luxon’s refusal at the Post-Cabinet press conference yesterday to repeat the ‘no new taxes’ promise ...
SAFE is urgently calling on the Environment Committee to reject the Government’s Fast-Track Approvals Bill, and is urging New Zealanders to rally behind the call. The proposed Bill, currently under consideration with the Environment select committee, ...
Teammates who spend all their time picking fights with spectators are only helpful for the other team, writes Madeleine Chapman. Anyone who has ever played a team sport competitively, particularly as a child and particularly, for some reason, basketball, will know that there’s a lot of politics involved. While there ...
The long-running Wellington music festival is too focused on the Jim Beam-ness and not enough on the Homegrown-ness.There is something about Homegrown that’s difficult to place. A barely perceptible-ness. Like feeling a ghost is watching you from the corner of the room but when you look, there’s nothing there. ...
The latest Ipsos New Zealand Issues Monitor reveals that fewer New Zealanders believe crime / law and order is one of the top issues facing our country. In 2018, Ipsos New Zealand started tracking the key issues facing New Zealand. In this wave ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Griffiths, Deputy Program Director, Budgets and Government, Grattan Institute Australia’s political donations rules are woefully inadequate, but donations reform is finally on the agenda. The federal government has signalled its interest in reform and will soon begin briefing MPs on its ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Patrick Taylor, Chief Environmental Scientist, EPA Victoria; Honorary Professor, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University Naiyana Somchitkaeo/Shutterstock A recent study published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine has linked microplastics with risk to human health. The study ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Albert Van Dijk, Professor, Water and Landscape Dynamics, Fenner School of Environment & Society, Australian National University Global climate records were shattered in 2023, from air and sea temperatures to sea-level rise and sea-ice extent. Scores of countries recorded their hottest year ...
As part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, a teacher explains why he and his partner are in frugal mode – and how they’re making it work. Gender: Male Age: 35Ethnicity: Pākehā Role: I am an intermediate school teacher and my partner is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Bendall, Senior Lecturer, Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, Australian Catholic University Binge Mary & George, the new British television drama series, depicts the real-life story of Mary Villiers and her son George, and their social climbing at the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jason Nassios, Associate Professor, Centre of Policy Studies, Victoria University This article is part of The Conversation’s series examining the housing crisis. Read the other articles in the series here. Australian state and federal governments spend money in many ways to ...
The finance minister is denying that there’s a $5.6b shortfall in paying for the government’s campaign promises, including tax cuts. At his post-cabinet press conference yesterday, the PM refused to rule out new taxes to pay for the cuts, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s ...
Kāinga Ora tenants abused by their neighbours are doubting the government's crackdown on disruptive tenants will make a difference on their behaviour. ...
Kāinga Ora is New Zealand’s biggest residential landlord, housing more than 180,000 vulnerable people in more than 67,000 properties. Yesterday the government announced a crackdown on its tenants who fall behind on rent. One longtime Kāinga Ora tenant shares her experience.For 18 years I lived in a 1960s standalone ...
Why does this myth persist, and what’s the real reason our skin is suffering?It’s one of the biggest international grievances New Zealanders hold, up there with the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior and 1981’s underarm incident. We’re quick to tell international travellers that the world’s pollution led to the ...
Opinion: We are fast approaching a fundamental change in prisons. As the number of people on custodial remand looks set to overtake the number of sentenced prisoners, the main function of prisons in New Zealand may become incarcerating un-sentenced people who may not be guilty of offending. We have already ...
A huge seven months lies in store for the White Ferns, beginning this week with the visit of England and culminating with the T20 World Cup in Bangladesh in September and October. Starting on Tuesday in Dunedin, the world ranked No. 2 visitors will play five T20s and three ODIs, ...
Opinion: In a move that has shocked road safety advocates across the country, the new Minister of Transport, Simeon Brown, is poised to abandon the previous government’s speed limit reduction policy, particularly around schools. Even more alarmingly, he wants school speed limits to be variable rather than full-time, arguing ...
Auckland Council is opposing a fast-track development backed by Sir John Kirwan and Spark NZ, because it doesn’t meet stringent new climate adaptation requirements The post Surf-data centre faces new 3.8C climate warming rules appeared first on Newsroom. ...
When the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act was introduced in 2009 it was firmly targeted at gangs and drugs. The legislation means police no longer need a conviction to seize assets that criminals can’t prove were paid for legitimately, as long as their alleged offences are punishable by more than a ...
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Bob’s relationship with certain members of Lincoln’s academic staff continued to deteriorate in the 1990s. Others supported him publicly, though articles such as Roland Clark’s 1993 piece in Growing Today cannot have pleased the university management. Clark wrote that Bob was selling onions from the Biological Husbandry Unit to a ...
SailGP’s races feature in-your-face action, with agile, hydro-foiling catamarans tacking and jibing for the title over several days. However, public comments ahead of the global series’ return to New Zealand have left this past year’s controversy in the shadows, as a key appointment attracts criticism from dolphin advocates. A year ...
The letters, which were published last week, were addressed to Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) Chairperson Megawati Sukarnoputri, National Democrat Party (NasDem) Chairperson Surya Paloh, National Awakening Party (PKB) Chairperson Muhaimin Iskandar, Justice and Prosperity Party (PKS) President Ahmad Syaikhu and United Development Party (PPP) Chairperson Muhammad Mardiono. In ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emerald L King, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania IMDB Between Netflix’s 2023 live-action version of One Piece, and its latest take on Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans are once again asking: why are live-action anime adaptations so tricky to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emerald L King, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania IMDB Between Netflix’s 2023 live-action version of One Piece, and its latest take on Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans are once again asking: why are live-action anime adaptations so tricky to ...
The government says it still intends to deliver tax cuts by July, but will not lock them in until they have got them past their coalition partners. ...
Kiingi Tuheitia Pootatau Te Wherowhero VII has hosted members of the Green Party Caucus at Tuurangawaewae Marae in Ngaaruawahia. The audience follows the King’s Hui-aa-Motu on 20 January, where more than 10,000 people gathered to discuss national ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dr Rachael Potter, Research Associate and Lecturer in Work and Organisational Psychology, University of South Australia Ground Picture/Shutterstock Pregnant women and workers with children are often unfairly treated by their bosses and colleagues, despite laws to protect against workplace discrimination ...
Reacting to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s refusal to rule out introducing new taxes at the budget, Taxpayers’ Union Campaigns Manager, Connor Molloy, said: “Today’s refusal to rule out new taxes suggests the Government is nothing more ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Duckett, Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne Aila Images/Shutterstock Aged-care workers will receive a significant pay increase after the Fair Work Commission ruled they ...
He’s bringing ‘Sophie’ back, yeah. Goodshirt’s ‘Sophie’ music video is one of the most instantly recognisable New Zealand music videos of all time. Featuring a woman listening to the song on headphones while her entire house is burgled behind her, the video won the New Zealand music award for Best ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Blaxland, Professor, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University A year ago, the AUKUS agreement was formally announced between Australian and UK Prime Ministers Anthony Albanese and Rishi Sunak and US President Joe Biden. The agreement mapped out the “optimal ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andreas Helwig, Associate Professor, Electro-Mechanical Engineering, University of Southern Queensland SmartS/Shutterstock Steam locomotives clattering along railway tracks. Paddle steamers churning down the Murray. Dreadnought battleships powered by steam engines. Many of us think the age of steam has ended. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carrie Leonetti, Associate Professor of Law, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau Victims who experience family violence in Aotearoa New Zealand are treated differently, depending on which part of the justice system they turn to for help. But a new member’s bill ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Tesch, Visiting Fellow at the ANU Centre for European Studies, Australian National University In perhaps the least surprising news of the year, Vladimir Putin has triumphed at the Russian ballot box and been enthroned for the fifth time as president. He ...
The Papua New Guinea Supreme Court has stopped a byelection for the Madang Open seat being held until an appeal filed by former MP Bryan Kramer is concluded. Kramer had appealed to the Supreme Court over a National Court decision not to review his application of the Leadership Tribunal decision ...
By Miriam Zarriga in Port Moresby Despite a “historic” ceasefire agreement in Papua New Guinea between Enga authorities and tribal leaders after months of bitter warfare, a young woman has been found brutally killed near Kaekin village, Wapenamanda. Despite the peace agreement and signing concluded in Port Moresby last Thursday ...
The second season of Ryan Murphy’s Feud is a sadder and slower entry into his canon of true story-telling, leaning heavily on a verdict about the cost of a single work of art. Hollywood heavyweight Ryan Murphy has had a bit of “ick” about him in the last few years. ...
Are you deeply passionate about sharing Māori stories? We’re on the hunt for an experienced writer/editor to lead coverage in our Ātea section.Ātea is a deeply valued section of The Spinoff site, offering Māori perspectives and insights across politics, current affairs and culture. We are thrilled to be looking ...
By Aisha Azeemah in Suva With the lights on one of his sneakers blinking as he ran through the gallery, a little boy looked up at several works of art. One of them was a sculpture of his grandfather: the man who changed how we see the Pacific — Epeli ...
WHAT: Uber drivers are holding a rally outside the Court of Appeal in Wellington tomorrow, as the company begins its appeal against 2022’s Employment Court verdict (in a case taken jointly by FIRST Union and E tū) that four drivers were permanent ...
Great to amazon making it's shit TV in good old New Zealand, here is a clip from one of their upcoming delights… prefaced by quite a good comment about the clip, just so you have an idea of what you are letting yourself in for…
"No matter how cynical you might be about propagandistic American media, you are not prepared for how much watching this trailer is like snorting 100% pure John Bolton"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Un2zXkM-03U
hilarious
Certainly illustrates the swinging door between the Pentagon, the CIA and Hollywood
Kid has more nous in her little finger than an entire legislature put together has.
https://twitter.com/Independent/status/1174367982107189248
Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish activist who has galvanized young people across the world to strike for more action to combat the impact of global warming, politely reminded them that she was a student, not a scientist – or a senator.
“Please save your praise. We don’t want it,” she said. “Don’t invite us here to just tell us how inspiring we are without actually doing anything about it because it doesn’t lead to anything.
“If you want advice for what you should do, invite scientists, ask scientists for their expertise. We don’t want to be heard. We want the science to be heard.”
In remarks meant for Congress as a whole, she said: “I know you are trying but just not hard enough. Sorry.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/sep/17/greta-thunberg-to-congress-youre-not-trying-hard-enough-sorry
On the topic of climate change, there is a good interview with Naomi Klein on Truthdig.
Naomi Klein also in a video on The Intercept:
"What's in a Trump Straw?"
Similar attempts at incrementalism is what makes submitting on consultation processes like Auckland Council's Climate Change framework so dispiriting. The framework itself is self-limiting in what it is looking at, and so, is limited in effective change. Anyone can provide feedback – even non-Aucklanders IIRC.
NK is very clear and clued up sounding.
Alison Mau is one of a group of women who formed a Trust in 2017, to help Rachel MacGregor meet the legal fees needed for a High Court trial.
Here's her report of the outcome just now published: Rachel MacGregor 1, Colin Craig 0.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/115912281/alison-mau-rachel-macgregors-win-is-one-for-all-workers
Is that what Ms Mau has been up to?
It's a pity she hasn't been heard from about the disgraceful cover-up that the Government has been running on the activities of their employee in Parliament isn't it?
So Alwyn, what is this, then? What cave you've been dwelling in? https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/115751933/labour-was-warned-it-had-a-major-problem-before-summer-camp-scandal?rm=a
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/115801937/when-people-speak-out-why-do-we-find-it-so-hard-to-believe
Alwrong is what hes known for.
The first article is basically a rehash of the party line. eg. She never claimed there was any sexual assault and so on.
The latter on, a couple of days ago, was one I hadn't seen. Mau has finally come out on the side of the victims. I hadn't seen this as I don't buy the printed Dom/Post any longer and I don't see everything they print.. It is really the first time though that she has broken her silence though isn't it? However yes I was wrong. She has finally come out of her shell. And about time.
Did you ever consider that the Labour panel might have simply described the truth. So far I haven't seen any evidence that indicates otherwise. For that matter when you read Alison Mau's articles closely, she is very cautious about saying talking about generalities rather than specifics.
Or is it just that you just have a pathological need to think that everyone involved in Labour will always just lie for the hell of it?
I think that your attitude says way way more about you than anyone else. Partisan and quite stupid.
Good call Iprent
"I think that your attitude says way way more about you than anyone else. Partisan and quite stupid."
Nice one
"Did I ever consider .."
Of course I did. After all I don't know they were told the things the victim says she told them. But if I believed the Party line I would have to believe that Ms Ardern didn't know anything about the claims of assault until a few days ago. No-one told her she says. Hmm.
I would have to believe she didn't even suspect anything might have gone on, despite the blogs have been full of the topic for a month and a half. Hmm.
However, what do I think is the likely situation? I really find it very difficult to accept that the victim was lying, and the Party representatives are telling the truth. Very, very difficult to see that as more than a very high odds. Perhaps more likely that winning Powerball but about on a par with winning Lotto.
Another question you ask is whether I think "Labour will always just lie for the hell of it". Of course I don't think that. They will lie if they think it is their interest to lie. That isn't the same thing. It is merely par for the course with politicians who have screwed things up. Good politicians don't actually lie of course. They just fool you into thinking they said something other than what they really did.
As far as your opinion of my attitude goes. I find your opinion quite silly. But everyone is entitled to some silly moments.
You must have observed politics for some time, right? What is the approved way to lie? After all you only have to look at the experts like Bennett, Farrar, or Collins (and some on the left as well). They prevaricate, obstrufacate, and divert.
What Simon Mitchell and co have done is to not do any of those things. What he said was that he never saw or heard anything to do with sexual assault allegations presented to him from the person who said that they had. He also pointed directly to the documents that he received and saw, apparently the same ones that a complainant referred to.
Good politicians don't actually lie of course. They just fool you into thinking they said something other than what they really did.
So point to something in the simple statement that Simon Mitchell put out as an example – show me the where he has said something that can’t be checked in the forensic record or from the other witnesses present.
Try to see any of the traditional political techniques in there for lying without getting caught. Basically I bet that
1. you haven’t tried.
2. you are probably too timid to do so because it would upset your personal bigotry.
So where exactly is Simon Mitchell's interest in lying? A volunteer who has no real economic stake in the Labour party and who lends himself to the thankless task of a volunteer on the NZ Council (and it is a thankless task).
This isn't a politician. Most of the time he runs essentially unopposed and probably secretly wishes some would oppose him.
Nigel Howarth is the same. I've run across him a few times. Mu guess is that he will be happy to get back to academia.
Which is EXACTLY why I think that you are an extremely stupid partisan dimwit who is too stupid to use your brains.
Yes – but you seem to have them all of the time when it comes to anything left-wing. You ever ask yourself why you believe such stupid ideas – because you are a simpleton bigot, Or are you just too lazy to think. Or just too stupid…
Or all three?
The only person I see lying around here is you – and I suspect that you’re mostly lying to yourself. It is cowardly and quite pathetic.
I echo Ianmac – another good call.
I do too, in life you come to realise that many things are often very simple but some can be elevated, or develop, into something more than they were. In work, business or family slight mismanagements, actions or misunderstandings can either reach good outcomes or outcomes, estrangements and divisions that can never, or often rarely, can be undone. Some media play that up for their own reasons and the National Party are relying on it as almost their only path back to government at this time.
"observed politics for some time, right".
Oh yes. I imagine the first time I met a Prime Minister was before you were born.
"Simon Mitchell". I believe he, and the other people on his panel did, to the best of their ability, do what they were supposed to. Find that nothing happened in other words. If he didn't happen to see something I don't believe that he would have hunted for it. That might have meant being forced to see something he didn't want to.
"(and it is a thankless task)".
Of course it is. However he will now find out the worst. The only thing that matters is to keep attention of the Leader. If you fail at that you will discover that you are expendable. I imagine that is what he is discovering now.
He doesn't really matter of course. The politicians thast have power matter and they are finding it very hard to escape scrutiny.
"The only person I see lying around here is you – and I suspect that you’re mostly lying to yourself. It is cowardly and quite pathetic."
Frankly I give a damn what you think. I don't see the world the way you do and therefore you are striking out with all your impotent rage.
While Craig has been highly unsavoury person.
McGregor too was found to have defamed Craig and had instituted her own legal proceedings against him.
The decision says this:
"The disputes between Mr Craig and Ms MacGregor were actually resolved in a confidential settlement in May 2015, with the help of two senior lawyers. That settlement was undone in material part by the involvement of a Mr Williams and a Mr Slater, both of whom have also been engaged in defamation proceedings with Mr Craig.
The defamation case raised the harrasemnt all over again
However Craig offered to settle with McGregor
"During 2018 he did make a number of open offers that both parties withdraw their claims and his last offer included an offer to pay $30,000 on account of costs. Ms MacGregor declined those offers.
Dont see the any reality for a 'poor woman dragged through the Courts' at all.
https://www.courtsofnz.govt.nz/cases/craig-v-mcgregor/@@images/fileDecision?r=923.114967511
Oh she was. In the cases with Craig against Williams it was perfectly evident that she didn't want to be there and had been compelled to be there.
Go and dig out the reports and the transcripts from the time.
Effectively this particular episode has been through at least 5 legal rounds so far (not counting this one reported), and effectively only the first was initiated by McGregor – the one to the human rights about employment.
The rest of it has been by three complete arseholes – Craig, Williams and Slater using her as a witness pawn in their political and legal games. The High court case just concluded (and maybe its inevitable appeal) was a direct result of Craig breaking his previous agreement after Williams used material held by him in trust for safe-keeping.
Do you think that Craig could be trusted not to drag her into court again? He would in a heart beat as far as I can see. I wouldn’t trust any assurance from him – he doesn’t appear to be particularly aware of the concepts of having personal ethics or morals.
That poor woman. She has had years of hell due to that vindictive man.
If Colin Craig had paid Ms McGregor more when she wanted it would the situation have run as it has and over so many years?
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11708735
Reading that article, I think that the real problem was that she hadn’t been paid for months during the election campaign and that the Craig had loaned her money rather than paying her. Do you think that was a reasonable behaviour for an employer…
Perhaps you should try reading the articles you link to.
What you have to remember is that the only reason that this came to light again was because that despicable arsehole Jordan Williams gave documents that he was holding in trust for her to Cameron Slater to attack Colin Craig.
This has been well -established across multiple court cases. Perhaps you should try reading rather than playing with yourself and writing your misogynist grunts here.
Gee Jimmy you put that so well, you big soft-hearted thing.
"Tamihere says he won't be dictated to by the thought police." Often what politicians don't say is more significant that what they do say, and that could be the case here. https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/middayreport/audio/2018713976/midday-news-for-19-september-2019
He's leaving the option open that he could be dictated to by someone else. A political consultant, for instance. A suitable female with political aspirations may see the opportunity to become the power behind JT's throne as mayor. Acquiring whip & fishnet stockings, she may offer her services – to issue instructions in bondage sessions. A traditional lifestyle even before Lou Reed sang about it in the Velvet Underground (firstly in mid 1965, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_in_Furs_(song)).
Yeah, I know, bit of a stretch. Only normal for upper-class Englishmen. But you never know – stranger things have happened.
Chris Trotter giving John Tamihere his day in the court of outraged opinion over his Seig Heil riposte. Foolish and makes him appear to be all mouth and no trousers!
https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/2019/09/jojo-tamihere-salutes-herr-goff.html
Godwin's law is almost thirty years old: "Promulgated by the American attorney and author Mike Godwin in 1990, Godwin's law originally referred specifically to Usenet newsgroup discussions. It is now applied to any threaded online discussion, such as Internet forums, chat rooms, and comment threads, as well as to speeches, articles, and other rhetoric where reductio ad Hitlerum occurs."
"Godwin has stated that he introduced Godwin's law in 1990 as an experiment in memetics." It worked: "In 2012, "Godwin's law" became an entry in the third edition of the Oxford English Dictionary."
"Coined by Leo Strauss in 1953, reductio ad Hitlerum borrows its name from the term used in logic, reductio ad absurdum (reduction to the absurd). According to Strauss, reductio ad Hitlerum is a form of ad hominem, ad misericordiam, or a fallacy of irrelevance. The suggested rationale is one of guilt by association. It is a tactic often used to derail arguments, because such comparisons tend to distract and anger the opponent."
So when a bunch of commentators here were busy likening Trump to Hitler (as recently as the year before last), I bet they didn't know they were exhibiting a syndrome identified more than sixty years ago!
fuck godwins law – and the faux-prohibition it attempts..
(and i say 'faux' because ti my mind it is bullshit..)
a nazi is a nazi..end of story..
and if the direct comparisons cannot be made between germany under hitler – and what trump is doing to immigrant families/children – clearly not enough attention is being paid..
and if you don't compare the barbaric behavior of trump – to the works of hitler..?
just who do you compare it to..?
(as i said – fuck godwins' law..)
Won't disagree – I had the same stance all thro the '70s, all thro the '80s, all thro the '90s. Problem with growing old (with an open mind) is you gradually acquire a tolerance of other views. If empathic, you even end up seeing things from other points of view too.
So my generation of rebels called govts fascist (regardless of whether they were Labour or National, Democrat or Republican) when they acted accordingly, which was most of the time. Police brutality was normal, for instance. Left & right both enjoyed eliminating the civil rights of cannabis smokers – target a minority group, the establishment gets off on that shit.
So demonising Trump, who comes across as a clown rather than a fascist, seems more like missing the point to me. I don't defend his immigration policy, just point it out when folks misrepresent it. He's just doing what he was elected to do. Democracy.
But is it the same today> Everything warps over time and I guess that a syndrome does too, after all it's "a characteristic combination of opinions, emotions, or behaviour."
Hitler seems much closer now than 60 years ago and we understand from the numerous studies of 1930 – 1940s how he found his wormhole to power. I don't think that Godwin's law can be thrown at every mention of that name; perhaps we should update it and replace it with 'Douglas', I have thought that the moustache had a certain familiarity.
It's not a syndrome if it's a thoughtful, reasoned comparison.
"So when a bunch of commentators here were busy likening Trump to Hitler (as recently as the year before last), I bet they didn't know they were exhibiting a syndrome identified more than sixty years ago!"
Except that Trump is trying to create a fascist state. There's been a large amount of political analysis of this. That's not invoking Godwin's Law. A commenter calling another commenter a Nazi is.
Trump is trying to create a fascist state
You really believe that? Must be a generational thing. Those of us who have had to live much of our lives threatened by the spectre of fascism know it when we see it.
As I pointed out last time this topic was seriously raised, Roger Donaldson would not have made Sleeping Dogs if it hadn't been in our cultural ambience at the time. But Muldoon merely talked tough. He didn't actually do fascism via govt policy. Where is the Wanganui computer now? Trash heap? I recall when it was promising us Orwell's 1984 made real in Aotearoa.
I get that Trump's style is Muldoon a little (but with a dose of LSD & speed thrown in, not to mention Alice in Wonderland). People have a right to see others as a threat, that's human nature, but it's a big political mistake to assume others will see it similarly.
Bolton got fired the other day. Too hardline, apparently. If Trump really was fascist, he wouldn’t have felt that way. To him, his political allies are as disposable as his political enemies. My way or the highway. Makes him more like Stalin than Hitler. But don’t let that comparison tempt you. The Don hasn’t shot anyone. Nor even employed thugs to eliminate irritants. Media libs would have been doing outrage about it if it had happened…
Yeah, look up the "proud boys" and their connections to the repugs some time.
Did. Agree the connection to Roger Stone is worth knowing. "At a televised Trump rally in Miami, Florida, on February 18, 2019, Tarrio was seated directly behind President Trump wearing a "Roger stone did nothing wrong" tee shirt." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Stone
Violent fellow-travellers only, so far. Potential threat, sure. Only 3 years into it, so yet to withstand the test of time. Anti-porn & masturbation is the key – mental/emotional self-discipline as part of group ethos does make guys tough. One to watch…
They're not the only ones.
For me, the big thing was the separation of kids with no intention of ever returning them to their parents. And the deaths in custody. If the deaths were a bureaucratic error, there would be bureaucracy for eventually reuniting the kids and the parents. But the system doesn't even regard immigrants as highly as livestock these days.
Which means his dehumanisation of immigrants wasn't just rhetoric, it was policy he was happy to watch implemented.
As far as he thinks about policy (which isn't much) Dolt45 is an isolationist nazi-adjacant. Bolton is an imperialist. That's why they were at odds. Hard line in different directions.
"You really believe that?"
That he's trying to create an authoritarian state? Yes. Whether that will look like historical fascism or not I don't know. But it's not about my beliefs, there are plenty of people with experience in either studying and writing about fascism and how it arises, or with direct experience of fascism who are making these critiques about Trump. Including Jewish people btw.
"Makes him more like Stalin than Hitler. But don’t let that comparison tempt you. The Don hasn’t shot anyone. Nor even employed thugs to eliminate irritants. Media libs would have been doing outrage about it if it had happened…"
There was a point at which Stalin hadn't shot people yet, so I don't know what you are trying to say there. That the US isn't a fascist state in 2019? Sure, I'd agree with that. Fascism doesn't just spring up one day, so I'm more interested in what the process is.
Having owned and read at least two biographies of Stalin, my guess is that the point he hadn't yet shot anyone was when he was in the seminary, studying to be a priest, prior to his career in the Tsar's secret police.
Fascism is an ideology, historically, more than a behaviour. Trump has no evident ideology (too mercenary). It requires an organisation to give it political form and impact. The USA lacks that. The authoritarian state in that federation has been under attack from the right for a long time – he uses it as an operational convenience to achieve a suitable historical legacy.
As such, I see no evidence that he's any more than a conservative narcissist playing the radical (to steer the establishment away from global elite control).
Forget the "global elite control" bs.
Is there any difference between a "conservative narcissist" and the radical you think he plays, once he's in office?
They're still doing the raids.
He still banned immigrants based on religion.
Right wing thugs are still marching with greater vigour.
And anyway did anyone say the same thing about hitler: that he's not really serious about it all? Probably.
Definitely. He was quite popular with conservatives in western democracies right up until the invasion of Poland. Even that only thinned out the numbers – took another couple of years for him to get beyond the pale.
he was also popular with left-wingers – 'cos of the strong domestic (socialist for want of a better word..) polices he instigated..
those 'family-support' domestic polices were what gained him the strong domestic support he had..
and if read without knowing the origin – many if those policies wd be applauded by current leftwingers..
(he didn't just come to power in a vacuum – there are reasons/explanations for the support he had..)
so contrary to what p.m said – many leftists/intellectuals in the west supported hitler – at first..
"left wingers" who would vote for a guy who hated immigrants. Yeah nah.
He won because he was the loudest fuckwit in an uninspiring pool of primary candidates, and people tried to fight (and report) him like he was a competent politician. All the lying the repugs have done since the 1990s – ken starr, WMD, tea party – bit them in the arse and their anointed blandity (Bush 3) still tried to keep one foot in reality.
People need to figure out how to fight a reality vacuum. Calling it out in contempt seems to do better against bojo than tryinhg to debate with him like he’s a normal huiman being.
No, he's still doing both. I agree re Hitler not taken seriously. Don't agree re your denial of global elites &/or Trump's leading the rightist charge to rout them. Try learning from Brexit.
Try making a damned point about them, rather than just using random incantations.
If drumpf was such an opponent of the "global elites" (depending on how you even define that term), why are the career repugs fucking their own grandmothers' corpses to keep him in power?
Why aren't US billionaires (real ones) pulling funding from the repugs?
If he really is just playing "a conservative narcissist playing the radical (to steer the establishment away from global elite control)", he's not having much success at steering the "establishment". They're not doing anything they don't want to do. He's shitting golden turds for them – neutering the EPA, boosting drilling, firing money into the prison-industrial complex, selling weapons, and making immigrants more scared, powerless, and exploitable. That's why they like him.
wot mcflock said..
(‘gplden turds’ comment..)
You missed one crucial word – “incompetent” is also one of his outstanding qualities. There are several others to do with his inability to work with competent people and his attraction for syncopathic vermin.
an adderal/cocaine addiction is also quite distracting..
the only thing stopping trump from going ballistic against his own are the checks and balances on u.s. system..
but i have said before that trump hasn't invaded anyone (yet)..unlike his nobel peace prize winning predecessor – who was wasting libya about now in his presidency..
(one for those saying trump is no different to those who came before him..
it comes from the same source as his addiction-info – from a writer on the apprentice and the celebrity apprentice..(who i follow on twitter..)
'Trump in reality is far worse than most imagine. He has done horrible things over many decades to many victims. What he is doing to the US will be no different. It’s like living next door to Dahmer and ignoring the smell.'
Ah, I see my reply went into moderation limbo, probably too much quoting from Wikipedia. This bit from Trotter is worth pointing out: "Tamihere, in blurting “Sieg Heil to that”, wasn’t signalling his membership of some perverse right-wing fraternity. All he was doing was signalling his membership of something much less acceptable – the Maori working-class of West Auckland."
I suspect JT is actually making a play for rightist voters – if only to demonstrate that their own side are failing to front impressive contenders – but he could easily pull in all those offended by pc-conformism as well. Speaking the lingo of the land does actually produce a resonance of authenticity in folks' minds (not just `the Maori working-class of West Auckland').
You *have to link if you are cutting and pasting from elsewhere. This has been a long standing policy, and I'm getting sick of reminding people.
I was commenting in response to 5.1, where the link was posted…
I don't go along with this light attitude to Trump you take DF. Whether he is going to exhibit the right spots to enable the disease to be firmly stated to be fascism or not, what he is doing is serious.
So not a subject for learned unpicking or idle conjecture.
Bush Jr seemed worse. Reagan much worse. Nixon, very much worse. What do you call serious? His attitude on climate change? True, that's a serious problem. Would the USA do any different under a Democrat? Doubt it. History says no.
History says Obama vetoed the Keystone pipeline, and the orange fuckwit resurrected it.
History says Obama entered into the Paris Accord, while fucko mcliesalot is getting out of it.
And Obama has gone down in history as achieving the largest arms trade deal ever. Just google Obama largest arms trade deal in history, you get plenty of sites reporting his track record. Pretty cool for the dude that won the Nobel Peace Prize.
Nice slide from climate change.
I googled "largest arms trade deal" and got one signed and largely negotiated by the current regime, much larger than the one proposed by Obama.
Play equivalence all you want, in most national interest objectives the current incumbent is one of the worst ever, light years below Obama.
I wasn't running a book on Trump v anybody. He is part of a filmset that has strayed from its desert setting with wide open spaces to roam and gone to the more mannered cityscape, and the actor-in-chief hasn't been tamed yet. Quite unsuitable for his task. I wonder when the people will realise that they are losing stuff they never appreciated and pull back?
Back to real considerations for a balanced left-wing blog!
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/country/399107/growers-say-fruit-will-rot-unless-govt-speeds-up-migrant-worker-decision
Would I be right to say that our Immigration Department is full of white ants that are eating out the heart of NZ enterprise? Its lack of acumen and sensible targetting and systems affecting our businesses – in this case the harvesting of food which must be dealt with in timely fashion which can't wait until some squirts in Immigration and their anally retentive managers and CEO get wise to what we need and the applicants for entry deserve, is affecting our earnings and our standing in the world.
Immigration and social welfare seem to have captured all that is negative and backward in this country, transmogrified it, and turned it into sausages that pass as 'civil servants' up with the ways of the modern world.
I see the white ants among growers, who for decades have been getting cheap imported labour, without ever once even being asked to come up with a plan for harvesting their crops without bending the law. Why is that not part of a resource consent?
If immigration was anything like social welfare, the growers would be asked to come up with an action plan to end their dependence on the state, even a medium term one would do. But,…, nothing,….ever.
Nothing is to be done until it is an emergency. That is how NZ acts and manages isn't it – all else is like communism trying to plan ahead and stifle imagination and opportunities. The freemarket must reign and be bailed out when all the little businessmen and women who imagine themselves gods of business, rather than just beyond being bourgeois, need to have the road swept for them where it has become stony.
So to protect them and their businesses, they can blackmail government because we already have a slowdown in the economy. We neeNothing is to be done until it is an emergency. That is how NZ acts and manages isn't it – all else is like communism trying to plan ahead and stifle imagination and opportunities. The freemarket must reign and be bailed out when all the little businessmen and women who imagine themselves gods of business, rather than just beyond being bourgeois, need to have the road swept for them where it has become stony.
So to protect them and their businesses, they can blackmail government because we already have a slowdown in the economy. We need to help them now and do that other thing you mentioned Augustus. What was it? Plan for future requirements, resource management inadequacy, action to improve situation here – train and transport NZs, set them firmly into a seasonal workforce that pays adequately, enables them to keep their earnings and go back on the dole if that is where they are at (they need to be match-fit to do the seasonal work though). And the NZ seasonal workforce would merge with a Pacific Island one with permanent quotas so they can earn money here to enable improvements back home.
A win-win situation that would be cheered as an adept move better than a sporting maneouvre. And perhaps there should be a sporting fixture, with the visitors, a real friendly with no concussions etc if that is possible, before they go home and they can take half of the proceeds back with them plus goodwill.
Sorry don't know what I did to muck the above up so much. I hope some point shows up as useful.
wot augustus said..
"When has that ever happened though? When has there been a sensible, non-emotional discussion about the right numbers of people in this country?"
https://www.interest.co.nz/opinion/101732/david-hargreaves-looks-new-temporary-work-visa-proposals-latest-broken-election
Politicians will continue to avoid this conversation like the plague
Naggie Barry [sick].
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/399108/labour-mp-ruth-dyson-accepts-apology-from-maggie-barry
Ms Dyson said Ms Barry's behaviour was particularly stark compared to what was an otherwise improving culture in Parliament.
Ms Barry is looking stressed. She feels deeply about not getting her own way in the euthanasia debacle which is so important because she knows she is right, and is backed up by a large number of pigeons who can be relied on to keep pecking at the 'No' door. Spoiler – snide remark coming up – the old saying about watching out or the wind will change Ms Barry and your lines and bags will get locked in place, applies.
(someone pointed out/i agreed) – the problem with the pro-euthanasia is that if people want to end their own lives – there are many ways to do this – (and you can't be prosecuted for it..)
so why must the state be brought into it..?..
why must the insistance be that someone else do it..?
..and with all the inbuilt potential for abuse by greedy relatives/benificiaries of any estate..
I'm confused by the pro-euthanasia crowd – I mean if they want to kill themselves – why don't they. No one is stopping them – no one. But like Phillip ure you gotta wonder why they want to bring the state in, and create situations where avarice becomes the new normal.
You really have to question why the pro-euthanasia crowd think it's OK to undermine the trust in doctors, ignore and put down disabled people's concerns, and generally bash anyone who opposes them.
But hey, why deal with underlying economic problems in society – when the baby boomers are jumping up and down demanding somthing for themselves again.
I'm confused by the pro-euthanasia crowd – I mean if they want to kill themselves – why don't they. No one is stopping them – no one.
Say, that's a mighty impressive straw man you have there – did you make it yourself?
have another try..eh..?
You'd like me to fight your straw man? That would be silly – it's made of straw.
Ahh the great bullshiter rises his head again, the year ban taught you nothing.
Dude, I don't support euthanasia. But at least I can see why in some cases a patient might need someone else to end the patient's life because the patient is unable to do so, or provide expert assistance while the patient does so. I just think that bureaucratising the process will be worse than the current situation. Think about it. Coma, some sort of locked in situation, fearful and anxious dementia, or constant pain and immobility leading to a 99.9% chance of a long but painful death… these are valid scenarios in this days and age that can be planned for in advance with living wills.
Just saying they can kill themselves is a mischaracterisation of the problem so gross that, if intentional, I think the description "straw man" could well apply.
FFS stop being sanctimonious the pair of you – reread how I said what I said. Let me lay it out for you – I was having a go at pro-euthanasia people for being sanctimonious – too soon?
As for sickening, you went to a real sick place with the comment
" or constant pain and immobility leading to a 99.9% chance of a long but painful death"
Just more of the usual dismissing the concerns of disabled to prove your point. People can live with constant pain, I have for 35 years, and diminishing mobility, so I'm going to die slowly and painfully – news flash – life is hard and dying is awful.
Here the thing – bugger this euthanasia bill and all the muppets supporting it, when people are living in cars, kids are getting preventable diseases and the bottom 30% keep getting poorer.
They end up being a bunch of sanctimonious prats who have no moral compass.
I did read the comment and quoted the bit I was referring to, which was the same argument as Phillip Ure's: that people supporting voluntary euthanasia legislation are promoting a state-run murder service for people too scared or too lazy to commit suicide. That's a blatant straw man, for the fairly obvious reason that McFlock pointed out above: it's actually for people who are no longer capable of committing suicide.
I didn't address your other point, that it's wrong to consider private member's bills before the government's achieved the goals you're interested in, because it's a silly point.
Why should the 'greedy relatives etc' be brought into the consideration. It is another matter entirely. The law should be straightforward so that the person leaves clear information about their wishes re property etc. The relatives are always interested in dealing with the artifacts of the person's life and that will be covered under what has been already considered and drawn up and used by people who have gone ahead without waiting for the pathetic bunch of pollies who want to wield power, but make only decisions that give them and their mates a boost in the pocketbook.
Some of you people who write here are so distant from the reality of what is needed in a well-run polity that you might as well be on your own island or planet.
'greedy'/impatient relatives is not a bloody minor problem..
it is the major problem as i see it..
and you really can't see the potential for wholesale abuse..?
as killing old people becomes normalised..?
Such ignorance on display 🙄 Have another try
Eligibility criteria in the bill
A person would be eligible for assisted dying if they:
i think there should be the option give them heroin…or heroin and cocaine..
let them enjoy that..
that will postpone thoughts of ending it all..for most..
(b.t.w. allen – this is the last time i respond to you if you include yr usual ad hom..mm-kay..?,,try and lift yr game..
your call…)
I think you shouldn't make ridiculous statements about something you clearly don't have the facts on, so I suggest you read the bill and educate yourself a little.
I don't care whether you respond, or not, it won't stop me posting. If you want to admit defeat in advance, so be it.
The bit about ad homs is amusing considering your reply to PM above. Innocent victim you aint. lol
A Labour MP says the way National's Maggie Barry shouted at her in Parliament was "totally inappropriate"
I guess Maggie mistook Ruth Dyson for one of her staff there for a moment…
Mindsets – mental health; addictions and triggers for prejudice and negative/positive leitmotifs (clowns and their faces bring strong reactions).
Alcohol addiction and its insidious deterioration of society from over-use.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2018713955/elizabeth-elliott-fetal-alcohol-spectrum-disorders
and
Phobias about things such as seeing clowns/clown faces.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2018713961/not-funny-will-it-spawn-more-clown-phobias
it is a proven formula..
if you want to stimulate/'save' an economy – you increase the incomes of the poorest..
'cos they spend it – it feeds straight back into the economy..
cd labour go against their neoliberal-incrementalist ethos..?
(and end/give a serious nudge to poverty at the same time..)
what is not to love about all that..?
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2019/09/economist-suggests-literally-giving-money-to-the-poor-to-save-the-economy.html
Muldoon used the phrase "the velocity of money"
Mark Richardsons question at the end is a real gem. Bless him.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/19/scaling-back-graduate-invents-plastic-alternative-from-fish-waste
Kia Ora Newshub.
Its great to see The Rugby World Cup in Asia Japan.
Eco Maori lives with discrimination every day.
That's awesome to see hundreds of thousands of tangata in Australia joining The Climate Change strike today Kia Kaha to everyone around the Papatuanuku who joined in the strike.
That’s the way Andrew thanks for backing our youth to get to vote Ka pai.
Ka kite Ano.
Kia Ora Te Ao Maori News
Mullens tangi was today it looks like its a hakare for someone of his great Mana. It takes a great man to rise a good whanau in Te Maori Papatuanuku. He gave me a sore face quite a few times he will be missed in Aotearoa.
The more PEE getting taken off our streets is great the shit is poisoning Te tangata whenua.
Smart Environment solutions to monitoring our Wai show great innovation its great to see tangata caring for our Taonga Wai.
Its excellent to see the Wellington tangata supporting Te Reo Maori place names in Wellington.
The Rugby World Cup in Asia Japan is starting in a hour Ka pai. I tryed to sort my free subscription for the Rugby World Cup I could not get it sorted I think someone is stuffing with my subscription as my email address would not load up WTF.
Ka kite Ano
Looks like the nation has been taken over by national supporters . Its not worth watching since Lisa left Ana to kai
Kia Kaha to all the Tangata Protesting to protect OUR FUTURE'S climate. THE NEANDERTHAL WILL learn to listen to our Rangatahi
Across the globe, millions join biggest climate protest ever
Young and old alike took to the streets in an estimated 185 countries to demand action
Millions of people demonstrated across the world yesterday demanding urgent action to tackle global heating, as they united across timezones and cultures to take part in the biggest climate protest in history.
In an explosion of the youth movement started by the Swedish school striker Greta Thunberg just over 12 months ago, people protested from the Pacific islands, through Australia, across-south east Asia and Africa into Europe and onwards to the Americas.
For the first time since the school strikes for climate began last year, young people called on adults to join them – and they were heard. Trade unions representing hundreds of millions of people around the world mobilised in support, employees left their workplaces, doctors and nurses marched and workers at firms like Amazon, Google and Facebook walked out to join the climate strikes.
Global climate strike: Greta Thunberg and school students lead climate crisis protest – as it happened
In the estimated 185 countries where demonstrations took place, the protests often had their individual targets; from rising sea levels in the Solomon Islands, toxic waste in South Africa, to air pollution and plastic waste in India and coal expansion in Australia.
But the overall message was unified – a powerful demand for an urgent step-change in action to cut emissions and stabilise the climate.
The demonstrations took place on the eve of a UN climate summit, called by the secretary general, António Guterres, to inject urgency into government action to restrict the rise in global temperatures to 1.5C, as agreed under the 2015 Paris agreement.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/sep/21/across-the-globe-millions-join-biggest-climate-protest-ever
Kia Ora Newshub.
I will watch the Rugby on TV 1 .
That's is. Cool the carved waharoa gifted to Japan for the Rugby World Cup.
The International Monetary Fund is correct Aotearoa is doing great. Our governments management of our economy is fine.
Some farmers are going to kick up a stink no matter what Our Coalition government does WHY because they are South Island national supporters.
Ka pai Te Papatuanuku biggest strike for OUR futures Climate Ka pai yes the pollies will have to bend the knee to the intelligent tangata striking for our future.
Hue great mahi helping native trees grow in Hinewai. I research that planting native trees they need to planted in a canopy to protect them from frost when they are young. We are going to plant Te Totara trees they grow fast no need to be treated easy to carve. Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora Te Ao Maori News.
Cool that the Fisheries Minister has promised to look after the far north 90 mile Tangaroa shores environment to Te tangata whenua. I think tangata whenua need to be included in the mahi and wealth of the industry shear the lollies.
That's is not on its a breach of human rights locking 1200 people who have not been charged with a crime.
Using tangata whenua art to help heal tangata with mental health issues is a good idea Ka pai.
I… Henry we only get one body so it's correct that you took time off to let your injuries heal Kia Kaha.
Ka kite Ano
https://youtu.be/qQfetkoGrpU
Kia Ora The Am Show.
I think it's great that Soap for Society Organisations are asking for sanitary products donations so they can give them to people who can not afford them
My alarm didn't go for the Allblack delayed game and I miss the 3 pm replay We were moderafiying our Wind Turbine.
That's is a good way to show how much Papatuanuku Warming is a Reality. The Swiss having A Tangi for their taonga Glacier Poziol it has lost 80 % of its mass
.Spark did its best to prove A good service. Its not there Fault that companies in other Countries dropped the BALL. Some people will use anything for leverage. This is all the more reasons to roll out 5 G Services.
Tangata Mental health wellbeing is a big thing as not everyone can figure out weather they have a problem or not. I think some educational program should be interduced to our tamariki about how their thought process actually works. I say the SURGE in Aotearoa mental health problems and rising suercide rates can be directly linked to A surge in PEE use over the last 20 years
Kume Amnesty International is a great organisation highlighting the problems around Papatuanuku the biggest problem we are going to face Human Caused Climate change.
The difference between Aotearoa is we have A Coalition Government that knows Climate change is Reality not like some pollies denies Global warming trying to gain putea. Kia Kaha to all the Tangata strikeing for Our future climate.
Aotearoa is a great position to mitergate climate change. We have a climate that has the fastest tree growth in the world. We have 80 % renewable energy already we have the best clean Sky for Solar power we actually get 20 % more power out of Solar than the manufacturer Stats. We have one of the Tawhirimate places on Papatuanuku great for Wind Turbine.We have great Geothermal resources that can provide back up power for Green Energy as well A Hydro power that can be used as back up power for Green Energy. The only reason why our Emissions have climb is because we have just kicked out a carbon pro Government that did everything to boost our carbon use. Big moterways canning Rail canning planned Wind turbine construction . Changing laws to alow the Cutting down of heaps of trees. ECT.
Ka kite Ano