First of all, warm congratulations of a resounding victory.
But such an overwhelming win presents you and Labour with a real dilemma.
Do you play it safe to ensure another term in 2023 and continued jobs for your members of parliament, or do you go for broke and begin transforming this country.
History shows us that, by and large, the opposition doesn’t undo the transformative reforms initiated by the Labour Party, with the notable exception of Norman Kirk’s superannuation scheme. They tend to tinker around the edges, partly by instilling a sense of the ‘underserving poor’ into the welfare system, but they don’t unravel the reforms completely.
But these are unusual times, in particular because of climate change. Incrementalism is not viable in the face of changes which may lead to the extinction of the entire human race.
So, be bold, be transformative. Take the Greens into coalition (and the Maori Party) and shake this country to its roots. Prepare us for a 100% sustainable future, the only viable option.
While the 26.8% of party votes National received was not its worst ever result — that ignominious claim to fame remains that of former Clutha-Southland MP Bill English
Did Blinglish ever return to his Claimed Home in Dipton or did stay in Wellington?
Leader Judith Collins was defiant yesterday, saying she would not step down from National’s helm and launching a review of its election campaign.
Ah, so she is trying to claim that 35 seats = 35%.
The National caucus meeting tomorrow is going to be memorable for a lot of reasons. No doubt there will be some leaks. The build up started on Saturday night when National's position became clear.
Judith Collins on Morning Report (and elsewhere), incapable of taking responsibility, in denial as much as ever. Self-delusion before an election is one thing, but after that result … it beggars belief. She was given several opportunities by Susie Ferguson to say what she might have done differently, but no.
Real dilemma for Nat MPs now. If she would just do the usual platitudes ("I'm the leader, I take responsibility") then they could leave her there for a few weeks, before making the inevitable change when they are ready. They don't want to install another caretaker.
But the lame duck is quacking herself out of a job.
She's been tramping through the mountain range of born to rule arrogance and privilege so long now it's all she knows.
The obesity comments showed a breathtaking disconnect and appalling judgement all in one swoop which was all her own work.
Trumpian styled politics the electorate rejected and unlike Key's DP reign the electorate's a few terms older and wiser to DP stylings she appears unable to leave behind.
The not taking responsibility from Collins jumped out at me. The flip flop leader is probably going to be the dragon lady at the next caucus meeting. See how it goes with Denise Lee and Collins.
Goodluck to all the remaining and new National MPs.
One of the things that gets me is her comment that "she fears for the future of this country." She doesn't get that 60% or so of New Zealanders fear for the future of NZ, and that is why they voted Labour &/or Green.
I heard her using the… I've only been in the role for a short time excuse, crikey her memory must be short, Jacinda had only been in the role for a short time when she took it out last election.
Cinny, success is Judith's alone…. failure is caused by circumstance or someone else.
She is so full of hubris, but that fellow "Goodfellow" needs to go as well, as he has overseen so much poison and dirty politics and never come forward and called it out.
Talk about The Green's role in the new Government interests me; or rather, the language being used does; it sounds very adversarial, as though the parties will be locking horns and digging up turf with their hooves to fight for their positions; one leader pitched against the other, a battle of wills and a display of ruthlessness.
I don't buy it.
I think it won't be a matter of levering a spot, playing the strongest hand, out-manouvering the opposition.
I think we're in for a remarkable and pleasant surprise.
I think we're in for a remarkable and pleasant surprise.
Here's hoping. Jacinda would be wise to treat that relationship with respect. A lot of the Labour base like what the Green party bring to politics on the left. Hopefully they don't kowtow to the first time Labour voters because they will go back to their National home as soon as they start looking electable
Either the Greens are (somewhat) in the tent, sharing some of the burden of responsibility of Government and decision-making, or they could be a formidable left-Opposition eating away at Labour’s left base over the next three years. The two parties have much in common but also important differences. Labour wasn’t the only party that was given a mandate, as if there’s only one mandate to go around in NZ. A combined mandate is stronger than two (or three) single ones, not just in terms of numbers in the House, but in taking as many people along as possible. I agree that there’s a lot of positioning going on and now is the time.
There won't even be consideration of an arrangement with the Māori Party. Any deal would be a slap in the face to Labour's Māori MPs who are in direct competition with that party which would outweigh any future strategic advantages.
Is she saying that the Labour's Māori MPs are in Parliament to do the Party’s bidding first and for their Māori constituencies second? If yes, it could be a classical pākehā throwaway comment that gives some justification to the distrust of the political system and politicians that is not by Māori, for Māori, about Māori.
If Labour treated the Maori Party poorly in days gone by, it was because some prominent figures in the M.P. asked for it. Sure, there were some difficulties in the past but they were because of other issues prominent at the time. The F&S Act was a case in point. That Lab govt. was damned if it did and damned if it didn't.
And if their approach has not changed since the F&S Act days, how come there were stratospheric levels of Maori roll support for Labour on Saturday?
The F&S was about a stake in existing mussel leases. Treaty notwithstanding, Maori got nothing. And the treaty gives all fisheries, in their entirety, to Maori.
The argument can be made – but not in respect of the near shore stuff. That really was their food basket. That's where foreshore & seabed fell down.
It only allows for Māori to keep their traditional fishing areas
I can't read Te Reo, maybe a job for Robert, but the Treaty probably did not take pains to exclude non-traditional fisheries. They probably said "all", and all means all.
Even if it does cover foreshore and seabed it doesn't cover all of it either because they didn't traditionally fish along the entire coast.
A hell of a lot of Māori whinging about fishing over the last few decades has been Māori trying to grab more than the Treaty of Waitangi promised. Just look at their outright power grab over the Kermadec sanctuary which wasn't part of NZ when the Treaty was signed and thus not covered by the Treaty.
The preamble says it applies to "all parts of this land and (adjoining) islands". As soon as the Crown decided the Kermadecs were "adjoining islands" as part of NZ territory, there you are.
Lost in a war that they started. Considering the Land Wars there's a viable argument that the Treaty no longer applies at all. After all, treaties don't usually survive being broken by war and then the side that started the war keeping all the benefits of the treaty.
Were Māori treated badly? Yes.
Did they have viable arguments about how parliament handled that? Yes.
Should they have started a war? No.
And I'm not a supporter of Might Makes Right but that is definitely what applied at the time.
The preamble says it applies to "all parts of this land and (adjoining) islands". As soon as the Crown decided the Kermadecs were "adjoining islands" as part of NZ territory, there you are.
Nope:
That would make it actively retrospective and no law does that. Even laws that are made retrospective don't have that kind of open-ended aspect to them. Under that sort of bullshit they actually have claim to Antarctica as well.
It applies to their lands that each iwi held (in accordance with the understanding at the time which would have been Held, controlled, and used which is actually quite a large limitation) at the time of the signing as specified in Article the Second. In other words, their traditional lands.
I agree with Sacha that The Standard shouldn't be a place where denialists and aggravators on about hard-won agreements should be able to insert their wrecking bars.
In the last three years there has been increasing emphasis on Māori in government (with lower case) initiatives and funding, e.g. from MBIE and its VM framework.
Collins’s delusional sense of self importance was on full display yesterday when she called that presser for 11.30am in order to tell us nothing really. It’s unbelievable no one told her that pretty much the last person the country wanted to hear from, less than 24 hours after the rout, was the vanquished leader of the National Party.
Yes agree Robert. For my part happy to let them get on with it.
but as labour don’t need the Greens, this is likely to lessen the tussle.
marama Davidson showing poor judgement imho re saying she’d like a cabinet role. She has no ministerial experience and labour don’t need her…….I hope she shuts up.
re Kelvin Davis…..a comment about him yesterday and couldn’t Jacinda find him something else to do. NO! He is the Deputy. That is absolutely right imho.
btw he spoke with a lot of clarity and dignit on tv3 yesterday morning. While people like Grant appear to be more competent, that’s not what we need in a Deputy. We are a bi cultural nation
Agree Anker. The likelihood of Ardern taking the Deputy PM job off a senior Māori MP, whatever their shortcomings, is pretty much zero.
And yes, Greens would be wise to shut it for a bit and let the negotiations play out.
Trish, Neale and Kathryn dissect the election result. Neale Jones was Chief of Staff to Labour Leader Jacinda Ardern, and prior to that was Chief of Staff to Andrew Little. He is the director of Capital Government Relations. Trish Sherson is from corporate affairs firm Sherson Willis, and a former ACT press secretary.
Marama Davidson's demand that she be in cabinet is rather presumptuous. And her over-talking James Shaw on election night also. Like it or not, the Greens are sometimes considered to be too radical, so she needs to back off a bit. Jacinda will be mindful of the huge numbers of new Labour voters this time that she will not want to scare off.
[please provide evidence for the first sentence. A link, and a quote or time stamp. In premod until you or someone else provides the back up. If you don’t have evidence, please withdraw the assertion – weka]
[references below, which are both pre-eletion. So to clarify, Marama Daivdson hasn’t demanded that she be in cabinet since the election. And pre-election her position was described in MSM as a wish not a demand. Please be more careful in future about claims of fact – weka]
I haven't heard any demands of cabinet posts. She was just on Nine-to-Noon and was very reasonable sounding about their expectations. She acknowledged that being tied in a formal coalition might not be the best for the Greens ability to criticize independently
Labour will ignore the Greens and their own left wing at their own peril. It will be a lonely 3 years if they have an opposition to their right and left chipping away at their support
In a situation where Labour has "an opposition to their right and left chipping away at their support" the party will have to adopt a defensive, conservative mode; this is not what the country needs and Jacinda Ardern will be sensitive to that and therefore act to bring as many onside as possible (Green/Maori), imo.
It's not just on Ardern and Labour to make something like that work. Any other parties to that arrangement will also need to behave in a mature responsible way and not carry on like Rick from The Young Ones.
The green party increased their vote and, with covid and even a bit of centre switch-a-roo going on, that's huge.
If labour are going to be mindful of not upsetting the floaters and avoid doing the needed stuff on the left, then that's just going to burn them in '23, where they'll probably leech a chunk of lefty votes.
If, as it has before with a centrist labour party, and the greens get back to around 15%, the big question is will labour have enough votes remaining to form a government? What they do now determines this three years out.
Voters don’t like surprises but a single party commanding a majority is not in the spirit of MMP. As an aside, if we had less wasted vote, Labour would not have an absolute majority.
My view is that Labour was rewarded for its handling of Covid, not for its policy platform, which could be seen as a mandate for BAU. The Greens campaigned hard on policy and did well; I see that as a mandate for transformative policies.
Ardern has claimed that she is progressive and not a pragmatic centrist and that she wants to take as many people along and make decisions based on consensus. Let’s see what this rhetoric really means in practice.
The Greens are strong and experienced in certain policy areas. They have things/people to offer to Government that Labour does not have or necessarily want to.
Voters don’t like surprises but a single party commanding a majority is not in the spirit of MMP.
Wait, what?
What does that sentence even mean?
We have a single party majority government voted in through MMP. This was signalled as likely to happen prior to the election and so we must assume that it is in the spirit of MMP.
Its not in the spirit of democracy but, then, a large part of the reason why we have Representative Democracy is to prevent democracy. The rich really don't want the majority to have a say as the majority aren't likely to agree with what the rich want.
Gosh I hope that the Commission can classify the main reasons for this wastage – deliberate is probably one, then there is the strange idea on computer programs to utilise a cross in a box which indicates you choose something. That's been in for years and I still can't understand why they would throw aside what was normal and do the opposite – because we can?
Using the wrong pen? Not realising that you can't cross out a mistake? Not understanding that you can get a new sheet and have to hand in the old one?
If we can bring down the wastage that is a lot of votes to include.
Wasted is not the same as invalid – it just means that in our MMP system, some votes do not get translated into seats in parliament because small parties did not get over the 5% threshold.
Those 'wasted' votes are then shared out proportionally across the parties who did make it in. Happens every time. It’s why you do not need 50% of the votes on the night to end up with a majority.
Okay thanks Sacha I jumped to conclusion about meaning there. The plethora of new parties happens each time there is a big shakeup no doubt. I remember all sorts of little parties cropping up before. This time they didn't have the good humour of the McGonagle Party.
Hopefully Marama has toned it down. But yes I definitely heard her talking about wanting a cabinet position, which is really badly judged at this stage.
I trust that Jacinda, Grant and their "strong team' will make a good decision about the Greens. Their strategy during the election was perfect. They read things well. So I am happy to let them get on with it.
Someone else commented here that they hoped Jacinda would be respectful to the. Greens. Its' not all credible that she wouldn't be. She maintained a deep level of respect for Winston Peters, who I imagine was very difficult to work with, even post election. Why would she not be respectful to the Greens?If I was the Labour Cabinet, I would want to be shot of all other parties and just take the freedom I had to get on with it. But I know they are wiser heads than I am and that they will make good decisions around this.
bTW Anne Salmond has written a brilliant article about the election result, describing Jacinda as a master navigator. Will try and post later.
AND…….. Congratulations to all on the Standard. Our teams pulled off the most marvellous result. And many of us would have played some role in that.
"We would want to see roles that would progress [our work] programme, and yes, it would involve some ministerial responsibility at that level," she says.
"Across all of our MPs, we will be looking at aligning potential roles with the work programme, as a whole not just down to one person."
Thanks for the careful moderation, it's too easy for commentors to pick stuff up from interviews then misrepresent what someone has said when filtering comments through their own perspectives. It is obvious in this case that Marama Davidson was responding to a hypothetical scenario posed by Kathryn Ryan in the context of an interview and clearly did not express any claim or demand for a cabinet post. That aside, it seems there is a lot of projection, taking comments out of context or building of contexts around throw-away lines where Davidson is concerned. Over the election period, it would be fair to say that she has worked extremely hard to convey Green Party policy, and has put other party leaders to shame with her enthusiasm and presentation.
Sorry can't remember Weka. I have watched so election stuff in the last 48 hours, can't remember where I saw it. But I think someone else on the standard saw it too.
Unless I am dreaming politics now, which is always a possibility! But as sure as I can be I saw it.
just saw your above comment. It wasn’t Radio NZ I saw it on. She may have said ministerial roles. So I could be wrong about the Cabinet thing.
I stand by my point that given the electoral result and the lack of bargining power they have and also her lack of Ministerial experience, I think a poor call. IMHO
Thanks to those ‘new’ voters, Labour’s dominance means that the Greens, despite their own strong turn-out, may find themselves excluded from any meaningful power. On election night Greens coleader Marama Davidson was talking up her own preference to serve as a Cabinet Minister in an Ardern-led Government. But Davidson is getting ahead of herself.
NZ needs to offer itself as the experimental model for a first world decarbonised economy…providing the canvas, policy and training support for all the best (and holistic) ideas that will attract those with vision and abilities required, both from within and without the country…it will also provide investment, with the proviso that much of the ownership will remain public.
Yes while we have the world's attention over our Covid management let's see what other good things we can show to the world re realigning ourselves for climate change advance and attempts to slow that advance.
And of course, remembering that we haven't achieve saintly perfection yet, what about encouraging the greenies of the world to advise us on what they are doing which we haven't got to yet. Do all the greenies of the world have a fact based site where they share their country's advances and trials which we belong to? If there is one could someone advise if – must be scientific, and can anyone look at it.
I am finding so many of the news sites are blocked and while I understand their need for income etc. it is hard for citizen students of the world to gather reliable info. Of course I have to work at my tech skills which are dire. I can't get most pdfs at present and just have to look at converters or whatever that I probably already have. I get worried that there is so much to learn and the amount of general tv time that people spend doesn't give them time to read and imbibe the info coming from science and they end up half-informed, which these days is common.
'Greenies' tell us that one of the main drivers of global warning is excess consumption by Western nations: which is ironic given the emphasis on 'growth' on the part of the major parties. I would suggest that 'green growth' be redefined in terms of an increase in decarbonizatuion, even that growth is at the expense of fossil fuel use.
The problem is how fast can we let the air out of the tyres so we can get started. I suppose the decarb means less vehicles – smaller ones for a start. The boofheads are the sort that rammed their semi-tank into a car on the motorway which was particularly fun because it was a woman. Get them into a lower smaller vehicle and we could have fairer bullbar-fights.
What about putting a vehicle tax on private vehicles higher than a car, or with more seats than six? Gradual, but would brass off the dealers eh.
One of the parties – I don't remember whether it was Labour or the Greens – was advocating banning the import of ICE vehicles from 2030. I would ban them earlier: next week if it were practicable.
It's interesting that after the election a high level public servant of the State Services Commision (responsibility for Auckland) is making comments about how difficult it is for new MP's in parliament.
He is a former candidate for National, and one wonders what his role would have been if National did an ECAN on the Auckland regions local government as some in National were proposing.
No idea; maybe it's some uncurated web thing that automatically grabs an available photo with a name match?
As Lewis Dare Holden was a researcher for the 1986 Royal Commission on the Electoral System, when Lewis Joseph Holden (selected at age 29 as the National party candidate for the Rimutaka electorate in 2014 general) was but an infant, it's safe to assume that they're two different people.
Not disagreeing with LJH's comment about how tough is can be for new MPs, although since he's never been an MP himself that must be second-hand knowledge he's passing on.
Lewis Dare Holden was chief executive of the Ministry for Culture and Heritage prior to his current SSC role, and I think held that role in 2014, at the time of his namesake’s electoral tilt.
Are the elderly the biggest fans of Ayn Rand's thinking – especially The Virtue of Selfishness, without actually having read it or considered its intellectual and philosophical points?
One critique from shaunphilly delves into this in –
Skepticism, Properly Applied – Criticism is not uncivil
and points out that Rand defines selfishness differently from the norm. It seems to me that she ‘objectively’ considers it as focussing on oneself as a person and considering what you want out of life and going for it.
As a disclaimer, I view ethics as not based upon altruism (selflessness) or egoism (selfishness), and view the dichotomy, which Rand employs, between altruism and egoism as misguided as a means of thinking about ethics at a basic level. For me, ethics is based in the value of fairness, derived from freedom and its logical consequences. Further, while an analysis of ethical philosophy can start from consideration of selfish interests, so long as it remains there i[t] never becomes a discussion about ethics at all (I know some people disagree with m[e] on this point, and I’m willing to defend this view)….
This is one aspect of looking at how division and anti-social factors are working in modern society against the wide community, living well in near groups – separate but in reasonable harmony, having respect and trust between peoples, and inclusion though maintaining the right for individuality. It is not impossible but requires consideration between near neighbours, and thought for all.
And the glossing-up with sentimentality of the modern elderly, unwilling to accept death in their time, and willing to divorce themselves from the young in the film Cocoon, where residents of a retirement village choose eternal life amongst their age group by travelling to a distant planet, and one featured older couple leave behind their daughter and their grandchild whom they profess to love.
This film was an analogy for so much now; the cult of the deserving elderly not expected to reciprocate with caring interaction with society at all, and the wealthy not ready to reciprocate with Earth society and fixing their eyes and money on space and experimental societies there.
I suspect that in the main the exact opposite is the case….as the link I posted yesterday noted the elderly and young are bullied by the middle aged…note how many (Jim Bolger springs to mind) moderate or even radicalise their views as the spectre of mortality creeps ever closer.
edit
I note how good for retirement homes business the elderly are, especially while they have pensions. One reason that the old are the future, and why welfare gets cut to the young whose opportunities for social mobility and advancement have been pulled away from under their feet. I guess the middle-aged with middle-income are doing the bullying, as they are the ones surging forward with great money-making ideas. Everyone stand aside for the noble young entrepreneurs who have the sensitivity of those carrying out the Highland Clearances.
(This doesn't apply to all entrepreneurial people but of many such as the self-important new-age greenies act as in giving over our footpaths to small fast-moving vehicles never considering that there is an oxymoron? in not being pedantic and pedestrian about 'footpaths' but preferring the pedal-pushers.)
My comparison with the Highland Clearances and determination to dominate and denature by the ruling elite cannot be seen clearly now, but the mindset is there, and unleashed it looks like Judith Collins in full flow, or look back to a notable starter, Jenny Shipley. And all the others female and male who have been recipients of a progressive and reasonably caring society. Now they have got what they want they have wrung the wets out of society and dumped the 'reasonably caring' just leaving the dry 'progressive'; but to what?
This goes beyond greedy. It is the wrong word to use – did I? I can't remember. It is a mindset that needs to change. The world is changing, past systems were tailored for the need at that time.
The mature senior wants his cake and to eat it too; he and she are living longer, lining up for all the medical help of modern times, and as the ad for some retirememt place recently says, 70 is the new 50. The years from 65 to death at near 100 (increasingly) mean nearly one-third of life being paid to be an old-age pensioner.
But the active retired should be doing something for the society that enables them to have this secure life. They should not feel entitled to sit back and enjoy the comforts and do nothing to assist the wellbeing of the young and general society. Many grandparents are helping by raising their grandchildren. That probably wouldn't have been the case if there was more care from the country for our young people. With concern into assisting parents and children and being there when difficulties fall, families wouldn't collapse as now. And for the money-ridden, it would offer savings in tax, health, education and policing.
Life would be better for all if the older people, who tend to be better off, turned right round and looked back at the youth and extended friendship and interest, Not as an onerous task but just a little help, 3-5 hours a week should be a universally expected time, and become part of the general conversation. Not just volunteering by those who feel inclined, and those who do put themselves out. For instance the query would be heard routinely from one retired person to another, 'What are you getting into this year from the government program list?' After a gap year for the retired so they really enjoy a break for themselves and seeing their own family, then choose an interest from the Senior Societal Support program.
NEW YORK (AP) — The Trump White House has installed two political operatives at the nation’s top public health agency to try to control the information it releases about the coronavirus pandemic as the administration seeks to paint a positive outlook, sometimes at odds with the scientific evidence.
The two appointees assigned to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Atlanta headquarters in June have no public health background. They have instead been tasked with keeping an eye on Dr. Robert Redfield, the agency director, as well as scientists, according to a half-dozen CDC and administration officials who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal government affairs.
The risk that the second wave of the pandemic could derail the Euro zone's recovery from deep recession makes ultra-easy monetary policy all the more necessary, European Central Bank board member Fabio Panetta
Having already agreed to buy up to 1.35 trillion euros of debt through mid-2021 under an emergency purchase scheme, the ECB is not under pressure to act quickly – but investors are still looking for a commitment to bigger and longer debt buys.
A further mention of Steve Keen this time by Yanis Varoufakis.
A commenter's query: I’m currently reading Paul Sweezy’s Stagnation and Financialization and I find it fascinating. I was wondering if there are any books which add political reasons in addition to economic ones to explain the phenomenon described by Sweezy. I am interested in other words in the political economy of stagnation and financialization. It would be great if you could recommend me a book on this, if there is one that is.
Thanks very much
Stelios Papadopoulos
Reply
yanisv
19/01/2012 at 17:04
For the original treatise, see Rudolf Hilferding’s Finance Capital (http://www.marxists.org/archive/hilferding/index.htm). For more easy on the eye recent books (which touch upon stagnation and financialisation) try Steve Keen (Debunking Economics) and James Galbraith (Predator State). You may also be interested in David Laibman’s recent Political Economy after Economics). [Proceeding’s you, it is hard to improve upon Sweezy on these issues.]
Federal Reserve printed more money than ever to support the markets and to keep them stable during Covid-19. In fact 22% of all USD in existence were created in 2020 alone.
I've seen this in several reports, don't know if it is correct but if so it's astounding
Britain needs to impose a three-week period of national lockdown restrictions immediately to stop cases of COVID-19 spiralling, Government scientific adviser Jeremy Farrar said, adding that current regional measures would not be effective
Oh dear, expert criticism of the Tory government.
But if the PM follows such advice he will criticised by the neo-woke champions of the young on the Telegraph such as Madelaine Grant (those who locked youth out of the EU but oppose local lockdowns).
Union national secretary Joe Fleetwood said the union had raised concerns about the risk of having international ships carry domestic freight repeatedly.
He said nearly all domestic sea freight is carried by international ships running international crews who are not covered by New Zealand law.
I reckon this case adds weight to the theory the Auckland outbreak in Auckland came from international crews. Not a great sign there are still holes there but good it was picked up and traced early.
Well looks like this Government has its hands already full on the Foreign, Defence and Antarctic Policies?
First one was during the election which just about everyone failed to raise any questions was the encroachment of the Chinese and possibly the Taiwanese Fishing Fleet into NZ’s EEZ Nth /Nth East of the Kermadec Islands and Sth of the Minerva Reefs.
Apart from Michael Field who mentioned this on Twitter, none of NZ’s fourth estate, NZ’s MFAT said boo or the NZDF release a press release of the RNZAF or RNZN patrolling NZ’s EEZ up in NZ’s Nth’ern waters.
Now we what, I’ve described here on The Standard Blog for those who haven’t been following my comments here over the yrs. Is the last great race as a result of CC nowadays, the last great land grab when the Antarctic Treaty comes up for renewal in & round 2040-47. Well folks it looks like the race is about to kick off with Russia moving its Floating Nuclear Power under down for this years Antarctic Summer?
Yep a Nuclear Power Station in the Antarctic and yet we’re heard boo from Oz or NZ about this. This even more concerning that NZLP never release its Defence manifesto for the election just gone and even more concerning I did find anything on the Antarctic/ Southern Ocean either? There are two major tenders and possibly two others due at the tail end of this coming term or early next term?
The two major ones are this term is the 1 of 2 new Landing Ships with a docking well and the other is a new Southern Ocean Patrol Vessel. These two vessels won’t come cheap either and the Government will be very lucky to get any change out of NZD 1.5B for two of these vessels. The Southern Ocean Patrol Vessel is going to be a whooper of Ship in length 115m plus long, a beam (Width) of some 24m wide and Polar Classification of PC5 as a minimum or a PC6 this in part due to CC as a result of the massive big waves now being encountered down Sth.
Severe foreign policy shock coming at New Zealand? A Russian nuclear powered container ship & large icebreaker en route to Antarctica to build massive new base at Vostok – 1300 km from Scott Base. Looking decidedly territory claiming move ahead of breakup of Antarctic Treaty? pic.twitter.com/ZeESAnn4um
There is a bit more to this, in that the Chinese have cleaned out their surrounding waters including around Nth Korea and its also one the reasons for the 9 dash line in the South China Sea so the can rape & pillage that as well.
The Chinese have a very large ocean fishing which is also escorted by the Chinese Coast Guard and those ships aren't just any ship. These Ships have a displacement between a Frigate and Destroyer type Ship, but quite the firepower after the Chinese had a run in with the Chilean and the Argie Navies a couple of yrs back when they caught their EZZ's including in a Chilean No Fishing zone.
The Chinese Fishing Fleet are acting like modern day pirates on the High Seas, with no regards to EEZ's, reporting what they catch, No Fishing Zones, under reporting, breaching just about every international law in regards to fishing and if they get caught in the act. Where they act like thugs or worst sunk ships be it local fishing boats or that nations naval/ coast guard ships. Unless you are the Chilean or Argie Navies which shoot first and ask later, which is something NZ use to do in the 70's & 80's with its Navy and Airforce where everyone knew where they stood if you caught in NZ Waters/ the EEZ.
In other words the Chinese would rape & pillage anyone's waters until you put a shot across the their bows and sunk a fishing boat or boats as the Chinese a quite prepared to throw their weight as well to weak countries or those expose countries that rely on exporting to the Chinese market.
You completely sure there's a rooskie nuke power station going to be installed in Antarctica? Not just the supply ship that's nuke-powered?
There's the floating nuke station Akademik Lomonosov that got towed to a town in the Arctic last year to supply electricity and heat, but I haven't heard of one getting built for Antarctica.
Vostok Station is roughly 1000km from the nearest coast, so a floating nuke wouldn't help them out much, and it would be quite the engineering feat to build transmission lines from the coast to the station.
Having said all that, I'm not all that bovvered by nuke power stations, and I really wouldn't begrudge them one at Vostok Station. Reputedly the coldest place on earth, with a record low of -89 degrees C. Colder than dry ice.
Book: Arihia Latham reviews Te Mahi Oneone Hua Parakore: A Maori Soil Sovereignty and Wellbeing Handbook edited by Jessica Hutchings and Jo Smith. Published by Freerange Press.
an almost wholly unknown and mysterious category of life form, an entire underground realm whose workings are so wondrous and alien that they throw into question what we think life itself is and how it works.
Author: Merlin Sheldrake
"Bluest of Blue seats voters selected Labour MP's and Labour Party to keep the Greens out."
I have heard this theory from local Federated Farmers and as recently as on the Panel being expressed by Tim Watkins.
Actually, I think the "cockies" just don't understand MMP.
On the evidence, they gave two ticks to Labour. So in effect, ditched their own National MP as well. If they did mean to have a Labour government, they just needed the Party tick for Labour. Probably more precise is that they just felt that their beloved National Party is currently a shambles and didn't stand for anything.
Has Fran still got the networks to engineer another "winter of discontent" ? Murmurs of farmers in Rangitata supposedly strategically voting Labour to take the Greens out of play, plenty of media commentary about 'governing from the centre'. You can sense the wheels of the elite's extra-electoral self-preservation mechanisms turning. You can vote for whomever you like sonny, but it’s going to be a certain way…
There is a good discussion on trade – free trade – what trade etc going on the Daily Review 15/10. There is sure to be something you have thought of and some you haven't. Please go on if you have something else in mind McFlock and DTB. We need to think about it.
My belief is that it is only local trading, with some extended stuff, and specialist imports, that enables people to improve their standard of living. But of course cheapness can regn, and getting titimasu in the frigs from Italy! What am I, royalty, to be offered such treats requiring refrigeration from Italy.? Or are they made here under licence?
I remember a story in the New Internationalist. Up high in Nepal the tourists who were into the outdoors would go and stay. They liked tomatoes but for much of the year there wasn't enough warmth and sun locally to make them go red. Then a handy new road was put in and a truck ground its way up from the Indian fields below with lovely red toms. The green ones grown locally were not saleable. The truck had it hard though and one day it ground to a halt at the side of the road. The locals were able to sell their green ones. In a fairly poor community it is a capitalist trick to say that it is fine to compete, it may be literally taking food out of children's mouths. (They themselves probably didn't want to eat all the green tomatoes though they can be used in cooking and chutneys okay.)
This is the reason Murdoch's own son gave for leaving the business – saying it was not a reliable source of news, as the partisanship was impacting on its coverage.
Lee Kuan Yew bound his Singapore nation which was successful under capitalism but Yanis Varoufakis says it isn't a democracy. Can we manage to be successful AND a democracy? I don't think we have enough of the qualities he mentions.
“A nation is great not by its size alone. It is the will, the cohesion, the stamina, the discipline of its people and the quality of their leaders which ensure it an honourable place in history.”
― Kuan Yew Lee, The Wit and Wisdom of Lee Kuan Yew
I agree. The idea getting shopped around today that National voters just voted tactically to keep the Greens at bay is right wing spin. If that was the case Labour wouldn’t have flipped so many safe National seats. It’s just excuse making and speaks to the National Party born-to-rule bullshit mentality. They’re basically saying voters will realise their dumb mistake and come flooding back to where they rightfully belong. They haven’t learned anything from their ousting from office in 2017.
For all I know the National voters could have voted Labour because it is about survival.
Labour could do well with farming deals once Johnson leaves without a Brexit no deal. Talks have not gone well with the EU. NZ needs a persuasive agriculture minister to woo Johnson.
On the Friday 8 days before polling day, Judith Collins was advising an audience that to forestall the Greens they should vote two ticks blue.
To claim now that farmers voted two ticks Labour to forestall them is 1. logical but 2, not what Collins counselled.
So we are to believe that farmers disobeyed Collins, voted two ticks Labour to keep out the Greens?
Why two ticks? Why not just party vote Labour?
There's more to this and it's to do with the National party selecting poor candidates- disloyal, unethical, misogynistic, bullying, born to rule, unsavoury, better left unelected.
This discussion is from a Twitter thread by Martin Kulldorff on 20 December 2020. He is a Professor at Harvard Medical School specialising in disease surveillance methods, infectious disease outbreaks and vaccine safety. His Twitter handle is @MartinKulldorff #1 Public health is about all health outcomes, not just a single ...
The Treasury forecasts suggest the economy is doing better than expected after the Covid Shock. John Kenneth Galbraith was wont to say that economic forecasting was designed to make astrology look good. Unfair, but it raises the question of the purpose of economic forecasts. Certainly the public may treat them ...
Q: Will the COVID-19 vaccines prevent the transmission of the coronavirus and bring about community immunity (aka herd immunity)? A: Jury not in yet but vaccines do not have to be perfect to thwart the spread of infection. While vaccines induce protection against illness, they do not always stop actual ...
Joe Biden seems to be everything that Donald Trump was not – decent, straightforward, considerate of others, mindful of his responsibilities – but none of that means that he has an easy path ahead of him. The pandemic still rages, American standing in the world is grievously low, and the ...
Keana VirmaniFrom healthcare robots to data privacy, to sea level rise and Antarctica under the ice: in the four years since its establishment, the Aotearoa New Zealand Science Journalism Fund has supported over 30 projects.Rebecca Priestley, receiving the PM Science Communication Prize (Photo by Mark Tantrum) Associate Professor ...
Nothing more from me today - I'm off to Wellington, to participate in the city's annual roleplaying convention (which has also eaten my time for the whole week, limiting blogging despite there being interesting things happening). Normal bloggage will resume Tuesday. ...
The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weaponscame into force today, making the development, possession, use or threat of use of nuclear weapons illegal in international law. Every nuclear-armed state is now a criminal regime. The corporations and scientists who design, build and maintain their illegal weapons are now ...
"Come The Revolution!" The key objective of Bernard Hickey’s revolutionary solution to the housing crisis is a 50 percent reduction in the price of the average family home. This will be achieved by the introduction of Capital Gains, Land, and Wealth taxes, and by the opening up of currently RMA-protected ...
by Daphna Whitmore Twitter and Facebook shutting down Trump’s accounts after his supporters stormed Capitol Hill is old news now but the debates continue over whether the actions against Trump are a good thing or not. Those in favour of banning Trump say Twitter and Facebook are private companies and ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Democrats now control the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives for the first time in a decade, albeit with razor thin Congressional majorities. The last time, in the 111th Congress (2009-2011), House Democrats passed a carbon cap and trade bill, but it died ...
Session thirty-three was highly abbreviated, via having to move house in a short space of time. Oh well. The party decided to ignore the tree-monster and continue the attack on the Giant Troll. Tarsin – flying on a giant summoned bat – dumped some high-grade oil over the ...
Last night I stayed up till 3am just to see then-President Donald Trump leave the White House, get on a plane, and fly off to Florida, hopefully never to return. And when I woke up this morning, America was different. Not perfect, because it never was. Probably not even good, ...
Watching today’s inauguration of Joe Biden as the United States’ 46th president, there’s not a lot in common with the inauguration of Donald Trump just four destructive years ago. Where Trump warned of carnage, Biden dared to hope for unity and decency. But the one place they converge is that ...
Dan FalkBritons who switched on their TVs to “Good Morning Britain” on the morning of Sept. 15, 2020, were greeted by news not from our own troubled world, but from neighboring Venus. Piers Morgan, one of the hosts, was talking about a major science story that had surfaced the ...
Sara LutermanGrowing up autistic in a non-autistic world can be very isolating. We are often strange and out of sync with peers, despite our best efforts. Autistic adults have, until very recently, been largely absent from media and the public sphere. Finding role models is difficult. Finding useful advice ...
Doug JohnsonThe alien-like blooms and putrid stench of Amorphophallus titanum, better known as the corpse flower, draw big crowds and media coverage to botanical gardens each year. In 2015, for instance, around 75,000 people visited the Chicago Botanic Garden to see one of their corpse flowers bloom. More than ...
Getting to Browser Tab Zero so I can reboot the computer is awfully hard when the one open tab is a Table of Contents for the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, and every issue has more stuff I want to read. A few highlights: Gugler et al demonstrating ...
Timothy Ford, University of Massachusetts Lowell and Charles M. Schweik, University of Massachusetts AmherstTo mitigate health inequities and promote social justice, coronavirus vaccines need to get to underserved populations and hard-to-reach communities. There are few places in the U.S. that are unreachable by road, but other factors – many ...
Israel chose to pay a bit over the odds for the Pfizer vaccine to get earlier access. Here’s The Times of Israel from 16 November. American government will be charged $39 for each two-shot dose, and the European bloc even less, but Jerusalem said to agree to pay $56. Israel ...
Orla is a gender critical Marxist in Ireland. She gave a presentation on 15 January 2021 on the connection between postmodern/transgender identity politics and the current attacks on democratic and free speech rights. Orla has been active previously in the Irish Socialist Workers Party and the People Before Profit electoral ...
. . America: The Empire Strikes Back (at itself) Further to my comments in the first part of 2020: The History That Was, the following should be considered regarding the current state of the US. They most likely will be by future historians pondering the critical decades of ...
Nathaniel ScharpingIn March, as the Covid-19 pandemic began to shut down major cities in the U.S., researchers were thinking about blood. In particular, they were worried about the U.S. blood supply — the millions of donations every year that help keep hospital patients alive when they need a transfusion. ...
Sarah L Caddy, University of CambridgeVaccines are a marvel of medicine. Few interventions can claim to have saved as many lives. But it may surprise you to know that not all vaccines provide the same level of protection. Some vaccines stop you getting symptomatic disease, but others stop you ...
Back in 2016, the Portuguese government announced plans to stop burning coal by 2030. But progress has come much quicker, and they're now scheduled to close their last coal plant by the end of this year: The Sines coal plant in Portugal went offline at midnight yesterday evening (14 ...
The Sincerest Form Of Flattery: As anybody with the intestinal fortitude to brave the commentary threads of local news-sites, large and small, will attest, the number of Trump-supporting New Zealanders is really quite astounding. IT’S SO DIFFICULT to resist the temptation to be smug. From the distant perspective of New Zealand, ...
RNZ reports on continued arbitrariness on decisions at the border. British comedian Russell Howard is about to tour New Zealand and other acts allowed in through managed isolation this summer include drag queen RuPaul and musicians at Northern Bass in Mangawhai and the Bay Dreams festival. The vice-president of the ...
As families around the world mourn more than two million people dead from Covid-19, the Plan B academics and their PR industry collaborator continue to argue that the New Zealand government should stop focusing on our managed isolation and quarantine system and instead protect the elderly so that they can ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Jan 10, 2021 through Sat, Jan 16, 2021Editor's ChoiceNASA says 2020 tied for hottest year on record — here’s what you can do to helpPhoto by Michael Held on Unsplash ...
Health authorities in Norway are reporting some concerns about deaths in frail elderly after receiving their COVID-19 vaccine. Is this causally related to the vaccine? Probably not but here are the things to consider. According to the news there have been 23 deaths in Norway shortly after vaccine administration and ...
Happy New Year! No, experts are not concerned that “…one of New Zealand’s COIVD-1( vaccines will fail to protect the country” Here is why. But first I wish to issue an expletive about this journalism (First in Australia and then in NZ). It exhibits utter failure to actually truly consult ...
All nations have shadows; some acknowledge them. For others they shape their image in uncomfortable ways.The staunch Labour supporter was in despair at what her Rogernomics Government was doing. But she finished ‘at least, we got rid of Muldoon’, a response which tells us that then, and today, one’s views ...
Grigori GuitchountsIn November, Springer Nature, one of the world’s largest publishers of scientific journals, made an attention-grabbing announcement: More than 30 of its most prestigious journals, including the flagship Nature, will now allow authors to pay a fee of US$11,390 to make their papers freely available for anyone to read ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Gary Yohe, Henry Jacoby, Richard Richels, and Benjamin Santer Imagine a major climate change law passing the U.S. Congress unanimously? Don’t bother. It turns out that you don’t need to imagine it. Get this: The Global Change Research Act of 1990 was passed ...
“They’re here already! You’re next! You’re next! You’re next!”WHO CAN FORGET the penultimate scene of the 1956 movie classic, Invasion of the Body Snatchers? The wild-eyed doctor, stumbling down the highway, trying desperately to warn his fellow citizens: “They’re here already! You’re next! You’re next! You’re next!”Ostensibly science-fiction, the movie ...
TheOneRing.Net has got its paws on the official synopsis of the upcoming Amazon Tolkien TV series. It’s a development that brings to mind the line about Sauron deliberately releasing Gollum from the dungeons of Barad-dûr. Amazon knew exactly what they were doing here, in terms of drumming up publicity: ...
Since Dwight Eisenhower’s inauguration in 1953, US presidents have joined an informal club intended to provide support - and occasionally rivalry - between those few who have been ‘leaders of the free world’. Donald Trump, elected on a promise to ‘drain the swamp’ and a constant mocker of his predecessors, ...
For over a decade commentators have noted the rise of a new brand of explicitly ideological politics throughout the world. By this they usually refer to the re-emergence of national populism and avowedly illiberal approaches to governance throughout the “advanced” democratic community, but they also extend the thought to the ...
The US House of Representatives has just impeached Donald Trump, giving him the dubious honour of being the only US President to be impeached twice. Ten Republicans voted for impeachement, making it the most bipartisan impeachment ever. The question now is whether the Senate will rise to the occasion, and ...
Kieren Mitchell; Alice Mouton, Université de Liège; Angela Perri, Durham University, and Laurent Frantz, Ludwig Maximilian University of MunichThanks to the hit television series Game of Thrones, the dire wolf has gained a near-mythical status. But it was a real animal that roamed the Americas for at least 250,000 ...
Tide of tidal data rises Having cast our own fate to include rising sea level, there's a degree of urgency in learning the history of mean sea level in any given spot, beyond idle curiosity. Sea level rise (SLR) isn't equal from one place to another and even at a particular ...
Well, some of those chickens sure came home bigly, didn’t they… and proceeded to shit all over the nice carpet in the Capitol. What we were seeing here are societal forces that have long had difficulty trying to reconcile people to the “idea” of America and the reality of ...
In the wake of Donald Trump's incitement of an assault on the US capitol, Twitter finally enforced its terms of service and suspended his account. They've since followed that up with action against prominent QAnon accounts and Trumpers, including in New Zealand. I'm not unhappy with this: Trump regularly violated ...
Peter S. Ross, University of British ColumbiaThe Arctic has long proven to be a barometer of the health of our planet. This remote part of the world faces unprecedented environmental assaults, as climate change and industrial chemicals threaten a way of life for Inuit and other Indigenous and northern ...
Susan St John makes the case for taxing a deemed rate of return on excessive real estate holdings (after a family home exemption), to redirect scarce housing resources to where they are needed most. Read the full article here ...
I’m less than convinced by arguments that platforms like Twitter should be subject to common carrier regulation preventing them from being able to decide who to keep on as clients of their free services, and who they would not like to serve. It’s much easier to create competition for the ...
The hypocritical actions of political leaders throughout the global Covid pandemic have damaged public faith in institutions and governance. Liam Hehir chronicles the way in which contemporary politicians have let down the public, and explains how real leadership means walking the talk. During the Blitz, when German bombs were ...
Over the years, we've published many rebuttals, blog posts and graphics which came about due to direct interactions with the scientists actually carrying out the underlying research or being knowledgable about a topic in general. We'll highlight some of these interactions in this blog post. We'll start with two memorable ...
Yesterday we had the unseemly sight of a landleech threatening to keep his houses empty in response to better tenancy laws. Meanwhile in Catalonia they have a solution for that: nationalisation: Barcelona is deploying a new weapon in its quest to increase the city’s available rental housing: the power ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters, PhD The 2020 global wildfire season brought extreme fire activity to the western U.S., Australia, the Arctic, and Brazil, making it the fifth most expensive year for wildfire losses on record. The year began with an unprecedented fire event ...
NOTE: This is an excerpt from a digital story – read the full story here.Tess TuxfordKo te Kauri Ko Au, Ko te Au ko Kauri I am the kauri, the kauri is me Te Roroa proverb In Waipoua Forest, at the top of the North Island, New ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... Story of the Week... Coming attraction: IPCC's upcoming major climate assessmentLook for more emphasis on 'solutions,' efforts by cities, climate equity ... and outlook for emissions cuts in ...
Ringing A Clear Historical Bell: The extraordinary images captured in and around the US Capitol Building on 6 January 2021 mirror some of the worst images of America's past.THERE IS A SCENE in the 1982 movie Missing which has remained with me for nearly 40 years. Directed by the Greek-French ...
To impact or not to impeach? I understand why some of those who are justifiably aghast at Trump’s behaviour over recent days might still counsel against impeaching him for a second time. To impeach him, they argue, would run the risk of making him a martyr in the eyes of ...
The Capitol Building, Washington DC, Wednesday, 6 January 2021. Oh come, my little one, come.The day is almost done.Be at my side, behold the sightOf evening on the land.The life, my love, is hardAnd heavy is my heart.How should I live if you should leaveAnd we should be apart?Come, let me ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Jan 3, 2021 through Sat, Jan 9, 2021Editor's ChoiceAfter the Insurrection: Accountability, Reform, and the Science of Democracy The poisonous lies and enablers of sedition--including Senator Hawley, pictured ...
This article, guest authored by Prof. Angela Gallego-Sala & Dr. Julie Loisel, was originally published on the Carbon Brief website on Dec 21, 2020. It is reposted below in its entirety. Click here to access the original article and comments. Peatlands Peatlands are ecosystems unlike any other. Perpetually saturated, their ...
The assault on the US Capitol and constitutional crisis that it has caused was telegraphed, predictable and yet unexpected and confusing. There are several subplots involved: whether the occupation of the Michigan State House in May was a trial run for the attacks on Congress; whether people involved in the ...
On Christmas Eve, child number 1 spotted a crack in a window. It’s a double-glazed window, and inspection showed that the small, horizontal crack was in the outermost pane. It was perpendicular to the frame, about three-quarters of the way up one side. The origins are a mystery. It MIGHT ...
Anne-Marie Broudehoux, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)Will the COVID-19 pandemic prompt a shift to healthier cities that focus on wellness rather than functional and economic concerns? This is a hypothesis that seems to be supported by several researchers around the world. In many ways, containment and physical distancing ...
A growing public housing waiting list and continued increase of house prices must be urgently addressed by Government, Green Party Co-leader Marama Davidson said today. ...
[Opening comments, welcome and thank you to Auckland University etc] It is a great pleasure to be here this afternoon to celebrate such an historic occasion - the entry into force of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. This is a moment many feared would never come, but ...
The Government is providing $3 million in one-off seed funding to help disabled people around New Zealand stay connected and access support in their communities, Minister for Disability Issues, Carmel Sepuloni announced today. The funding will allow disability service providers to develop digital and community-based solutions over the next two ...
Border workers in quarantine facilities will be offered voluntary daily COVID-19 saliva tests in addition to their regular weekly testing, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. This additional option will be rolled out at the Jet Park Quarantine facility in Auckland starting on Monday 25 January, and then to ...
The next steps in the Government’s ambitious firearms reform programme to include a three-month buy-back have been announced by Police Minister Poto Williams today. “The last buy-back and amnesty was unprecedented for New Zealand and was successful in collecting 60,297 firearms, modifying a further 5,630 firearms, and collecting 299,837 prohibited ...
The Government has released its Public Housing Plan 2021-2024 which outlines the intention of where 8,000 additional public and transitional housing places announced in Budget 2020, will go. “The Government is committed to continuing its public house build programme at pace and scale. The extra 8,000 homes – 6000 public ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has congratulated President Joe Biden on his inauguration as the 46th President of the United States of America. “I look forward to building a close relationship with President Biden and working with him on issues that matter to both our countries,” Jacinda Ardern said. “New Zealand ...
A major investment to tackle wilding pines in Mt Richmond will create jobs and help protect the area’s unique ecosystems, Biosecurity Minister Damien O’Connor says. The Mt Richmond Forest Park has unique ecosystems developed on mineral-rich geology, including taonga plant species found nowhere else in the country. “These special plant ...
To further protect New Zealand from COVID-19, the Government is extending pre-departure testing to all passengers to New Zealand except from Australia, Antarctica and most Pacific Islands, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “The change will come into force for all flights arriving in New Zealand after 11:59pm (NZT) on Monday ...
Bay Conservation Cadets launched with first intake Supported with $3.5 million grant Part of $1.245b Jobs for Nature programme to accelerate recover from Covid Cadets will learn skills to protect and enhance environment Environment Minister David Parker today welcomed the first intake of cadets at the launch of the Bay ...
The Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern and the Prime Minister of the Cook Islands Mark Brown have announced passengers from the Cook Islands can resume quarantine-free travel into New Zealand from 21 January, enabling access to essential services such as health. “Following confirmation of the Cook Islands’ COVID ...
Jobs for Nature funding is being made available to conservation groups and landowners to employ staff and contractors in a move aimed at boosting local biodiversity-focused projects, Conservation Minister Kiritapu Allan has announced. It is estimated some 400-plus jobs will be created with employment opportunities in ecology, restoration, trapping, ...
The Government has approved an exception class for 1000 international tertiary students, degree level and above, who began their study in New Zealand but were caught offshore when border restrictions began. The exception will allow students to return to New Zealand in stages from April 2021. “Our top priority continues ...
Today’s deal between Meridian and Rio Tinto for the Tiwai smelter to remain open another four years provides time for a managed transition for Southland. “The deal provides welcome certainty to the Southland community by protecting jobs and incomes as the region plans for the future. The Government is committed ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has appointed Anna Curzon to the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC). The leader of each APEC economy appoints three private sector representatives to ABAC. ABAC provides advice to leaders annually on business priorities. “ABAC helps ensure that APEC’s work programme is informed by business community perspectives ...
The Government’s prudent fiscal management and strong policy programme in the face of the COVID-19 global pandemic have been acknowledged by the credit rating agency Fitch. Fitch has today affirmed New Zealand’s local currency rating at AA+ with a stable outlook and foreign currency rating at AA with a positive ...
The Government is putting in place a suite of additional actions to protect New Zealand from COVID-19, including new emerging variants, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “Given the high rates of infection in many countries and evidence of the global spread of more transmissible variants, it’s clear that ...
$36 million of Government funding alongside councils and others for 19 projects Investment will clean up and protect waterways and create local jobs Boots on the ground expected in Q2 of 2021 Funding part of the Jobs for Nature policy package A package of 19 projects will help clean up ...
The commemoration of the 175th anniversary of the Battle of Ruapekapeka represents an opportunity for all New Zealanders to reflect on the role these conflicts have had in creating our modern nation, says Associate Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Kiri Allan. “The Battle at Te Ruapekapeka Pā, which took ...
Babies born with tongue-tie will be assessed and treated consistently under new guidelines released by the Ministry of Health, Associate Minister of Health Dr Ayesha Verrall announced today. Around 5% to 10% of babies are born with a tongue-tie, or ankyloglossia, in New Zealand each year. At least half can ...
At an antagonistic hearing yesterday, the internet giant laid out the ‘worst case scenario’. And Facebook is also considering an ‘amputation’. Hal Crawford was watching.Google is poised to hit self-destruct in Australia according to a fractious Senate hearing into an unprecedented law that will force digital giants to pay money ...
It’s great to hear Phil Twyford celebrating a success. Not a personal ministerial success, it’s fair to say, but a success nevertheless related to arms control. The arms on which Twyford is focused, it should be noted, will make quite a mess if they are triggered. They tend to be ...
Duncan Greive and Leonie Hayden were young hip hop heads and music journalists during the era captured in a new documentary about the rise and fall of South Auckland hip hop label Dawn Raid. Here they discuss the film and their memories (what’s left of them) of that time. Warning: contains ...
Houses might be the most popular and inflated purchases in New Zealand, but there are plenty of other products that are seeing soaring demand and prices over the past few months. Here’s a list of what New Zealanders are spending their money on with international travel out of the picture.Used ...
"The young boy leaps, the muscles in his thighs tensing and twisting as he lifts from the handrail": the noble art of bombing, by Pātea writer Airana Ngarewa A beautifully muscled boy is posted on the side of a pool, his feet fixed to the top of a pair of ...
How Waiwera Hot Pools went from New Zealand’s most visited water park to dereliction and decay. Many who grew up in Auckland likely have fond memories of Waiwera Hot Pools. Like me, they remember summer days spent racing down the slides and playing in the naturally hot pools. But how did ...
A government contract for a P rehab programme was canned after half a million dollars of taxpayer money was given out. Aaron Smale investigates. The Ministry of Health spent over half a million dollars on a P Rehab contract before pulling the pin because there were no results or progress reports. ...
Kia Koropp and her husband John Daubeny have been cruising the Pacific, Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean over the past decade with their two children onboard their 50ft yacht, Atea. Starting in 2011 from Auckland, New Zealand, they have sailed more than 64,000 kilometres and just completed their longest ...
We are drowning out the natural world with synthetic sounds, and it’s getting worse, writes Michelle Langstone.It used to be quiet once. Remember that? Remember the hush that settled over the cities like the silence that comes down in a snowstorm? It’s less than a year since Aotearoa first locked ...
Summer reissue: Join Michèle A’Court, Alex Casey and Leonie Hayden in the latest episode of On the Rag as they examine the topic of boobs from every possible angle. First published November 16, 2020.Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The Spinoff’s journalism is funded by its ...
Seventy-five years after the US detonated the first nuclear tests in the Pacific, New Zealand pledges its support to Joe Biden's first tentative step towards disarmament. Today, the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons comes into effect, making it illegal for New Zealand and the 50 other ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Terry, Professor of Psychology, University of Southern Queensland The challenge of bringing the world’s best tennis players and support staff, about 1,200 people in all, from COVID-ravaged parts of the world to our almost pandemic-free shores was always going to be ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Geoffrey Browne, Research Fellow in International Urban Development, University of Melbourne The Victorian government has committed to removing 75 road/rail level crossings across Melbourne by 2025. That’s the fastest rate of removal in the city’s history. The scale of the investment — ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Holden, Professor of Economics, UNSW In an age of hyperpartisan politics, the Biden presidency offers a welcome centrism that might help bridge the divides. But it is also Biden’s economic centrism that offers a chance to cut through what has become ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Stevens, Lecturer in History, University of Waikato In a year of surprises, one of the more pleasant was the recent runaway viral popularity of 19th century sea shanties on TikTok. A collaborative global response to pandemic isolation, it saw singers and ...
The sudden departure of Graine Moss from her Chief Executive role at Oranga Tamariki is a vital first step in a sequence of changes that must take place at the Ministry according to a group of wahine Māori leaders. Dame Naida Glavish, Dame Tariana Turia, ...
A new poem from Dunedin poet Jenny Powell.Her uncle’s eyeShe introduced us to her uncle’s eye floating in a jar.Lost in an accident, he hadn’t wanted to lose it again. He left it to her in his will.We must have looked shocked. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I turn him to ...
The chief executive of Oranga Tamariki is quitting, leaving behind an agency she’s admitted suffers from structural racism. Justin Giovannetti looks at the future of Oranga Tamariki.Grainne Moss’s tenure as head of Oranga Tamariki has been untenable since November when the government’s senior Māori minister wouldn’t express any confidence in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christopher Sainsbury, Senior Lecturer Composition, Australian National University Despite having different cultural backgrounds and experiences — Indigenous composers with an Indigenous mentor, and a pianist descended from Anglo-colonial history — it is nevertheless possible to create a project that can serve as ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Plank, Professor in Applied Mathematics, University of Canterbury With new, more infectious variants of COVID-19 detected around the world, and at New Zealand’s border, the risk of further level 3 or 4 lockdowns is increased if those viruses get into the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachel Hogg, Lecturer in Psychology, Charles Sturt University Horse racing is an ethical hotbed in Australia. The Melbourne Cup alone has seen seven horses die after racing since 2013, and animal cruelty protesters have become a common feature at carnivals. The latest ...
Right now, our most fiery national debate is over whether New Zealanders were nice to the singer Amanda Palmer in a café. Desperate to restore peace in our nation, Hayden Donnell went in search of the truth.Joe Biden had barely finished calling for unity when Amanda Palmer posted a tweet ...
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Why isn't Chloe co-leader of the Greens already? Far more deserving and electable than Marama.
Because she's new – same reason Luxon isn't running National. And, having misplaced Metiria, the Greens need a Maori representative.
I think she is destined to be leader one day but may be a bit too soon at the moment.
How is she more deserving?
Marama Davidson is one brave Woman and has worked hard for her causes .Marama has earned her role.
The text of an email I sent to Jacinda:
First of all, warm congratulations of a resounding victory.
But such an overwhelming win presents you and Labour with a real dilemma.
Do you play it safe to ensure another term in 2023 and continued jobs for your members of parliament, or do you go for broke and begin transforming this country.
History shows us that, by and large, the opposition doesn’t undo the transformative reforms initiated by the Labour Party, with the notable exception of Norman Kirk’s superannuation scheme. They tend to tinker around the edges, partly by instilling a sense of the ‘underserving poor’ into the welfare system, but they don’t unravel the reforms completely.
But these are unusual times, in particular because of climate change. Incrementalism is not viable in the face of changes which may lead to the extinction of the entire human race.
So, be bold, be transformative. Take the Greens into coalition (and the Maori Party) and shake this country to its roots. Prepare us for a 100% sustainable future, the only viable option.
Well done T.V. my sentiments exactly.
Here's hoping it gets read and digested.
Nice one Tony.
And cartoon worth a smile : )
https://www.odt.co.nz/news/decision-2020/huge-win-heavy-loss
I like the Greens – legs tied together as in a Three-legged race, but cheerful and keen looking while the right wingers look manic.
I also…and the snail…and Winston having a race is over smoke : )
The snail – what does that say to you?
Welll…there COULD be much symbolism…but its usually "Slow as a…."
Oh just on a different…as you may be a Cyclist? Or at least Interested from a previous re fwits tryin to harm Cyclists.
Not all are young…
https://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/video-terrifying-moment-light-truck-rams-cyclist-bike
Pretty shocking ! Good the Police got him….
Did Blinglish ever return to his Claimed Home in Dipton or did stay in Wellington?
Ah, so she is trying to claim that 35 seats = 35%.
At the time, she wasn’t the Leader. Now, as the Leader, she’s made the Leader’s call that the Leader stays on as the Leader. End. Of.
The National caucus meeting tomorrow is going to be memorable for a lot of reasons. No doubt there will be some leaks. The build up started on Saturday night when National's position became clear.
I wonder if Judith will still be leader next week? But then again, who would want the job.
A complete reset is required when the new National caucus is ready to roll.
More leaders
Judith Collins on Morning Report (and elsewhere), incapable of taking responsibility, in denial as much as ever. Self-delusion before an election is one thing, but after that result … it beggars belief. She was given several opportunities by Susie Ferguson to say what she might have done differently, but no.
Real dilemma for Nat MPs now. If she would just do the usual platitudes ("I'm the leader, I take responsibility") then they could leave her there for a few weeks, before making the inevitable change when they are ready. They don't want to install another caretaker.
But the lame duck is quacking herself out of a job.
A staggering ego. Breath-taking, head-shaking Dunning-Kruger effect on display.
Collins has been camped at the top of Mt. Stupid for some time.
She's been tramping through the mountain range of born to rule arrogance and privilege so long now it's all she knows.
The obesity comments showed a breathtaking disconnect and appalling judgement all in one swoop which was all her own work.
Trumpian styled politics the electorate rejected and unlike Key's DP reign the electorate's a few terms older and wiser to DP stylings she appears unable to leave behind.
The not taking responsibility from Collins jumped out at me. The flip flop leader is probably going to be the dragon lady at the next caucus meeting. See how it goes with Denise Lee and Collins.
Goodluck to all the remaining and new National MPs.
One of the things that gets me is her comment that "she fears for the future of this country." She doesn't get that 60% or so of New Zealanders fear for the future of NZ, and that is why they voted Labour &/or Green.
Personal responsibility? ROFL.
I heard her using the… I've only been in the role for a short time excuse, crikey her memory must be short, Jacinda had only been in the role for a short time when she took it out last election.
Cinny, success is Judith's alone…. failure is caused by circumstance or someone else.
She is so full of hubris, but that fellow "Goodfellow" needs to go as well, as he has overseen so much poison and dirty politics and never come forward and called it out.
Talk about The Green's role in the new Government interests me; or rather, the language being used does; it sounds very adversarial, as though the parties will be locking horns and digging up turf with their hooves to fight for their positions; one leader pitched against the other, a battle of wills and a display of ruthlessness.
I don't buy it.
I think it won't be a matter of levering a spot, playing the strongest hand, out-manouvering the opposition.
I think we're in for a remarkable and pleasant surprise.
Here's hoping. Jacinda would be wise to treat that relationship with respect. A lot of the Labour base like what the Green party bring to politics on the left. Hopefully they don't kowtow to the first time Labour voters because they will go back to their National home as soon as they start looking electable
Either the Greens are (somewhat) in the tent, sharing some of the burden of responsibility of Government and decision-making, or they could be a formidable left-Opposition eating away at Labour’s left base over the next three years. The two parties have much in common but also important differences. Labour wasn’t the only party that was given a mandate, as if there’s only one mandate to go around in NZ. A combined mandate is stronger than two (or three) single ones, not just in terms of numbers in the House, but in taking as many people along as possible. I agree that there’s a lot of positioning going on and now is the time.
most of this talk is media looking for stories.
Agree Woodart, and one thing this election has taught us is 60% of the country do not listen to the media …
Jane Patterson on RNZ:
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/on-the-inside/428654/election-2020-what-now
Is she saying that the Labour's Māori MPs are in Parliament to do the Party’s bidding first and for their Māori constituencies second? If yes, it could be a classical pākehā throwaway comment that gives some justification to the distrust of the political system and politicians that is not by Māori, for Māori, about Māori.
Labour have always treated the Māori party poorly. "Last cab off the rank" etc
It shows how little Labour have changed their approach to Māori since their Foreshore and Seabed Act days
If Labour treated the Maori Party poorly in days gone by, it was because some prominent figures in the M.P. asked for it. Sure, there were some difficulties in the past but they were because of other issues prominent at the time. The F&S Act was a case in point. That Lab govt. was damned if it did and damned if it didn't.
And if their approach has not changed since the F&S Act days, how come there were stratospheric levels of Maori roll support for Labour on Saturday?
The F&S was about a stake in existing mussel leases. Treaty notwithstanding, Maori got nothing. And the treaty gives all fisheries, in their entirety, to Maori.
Not Labour's finest hour.
No it doesn't. It only allows for Māori to keep their traditional fishing areas which is not all of the EEZ.
The argument can be made – but not in respect of the near shore stuff. That really was their food basket. That's where foreshore & seabed fell down.
It only allows for Māori to keep their traditional fishing areas
I can't read Te Reo, maybe a job for Robert, but the Treaty probably did not take pains to exclude non-traditional fisheries. They probably said "all", and all means all.
It says traditional fishing areas.
Even if it does cover foreshore and seabed it doesn't cover all of it either because they didn't traditionally fish along the entire coast.
A hell of a lot of Māori whinging about fishing over the last few decades has been Māori trying to grab more than the Treaty of Waitangi promised. Just look at their outright power grab over the Kermadec sanctuary which wasn't part of NZ when the Treaty was signed and thus not covered by the Treaty.
Which bit says "traditional fishing areas"?
Article the Second.
The problem is that Māori have decided to claim more than what was theirs.
Now, about all that land that was theirs..
Nope. Nothing there about "traditional".
The preamble says it applies to "all parts of this land and (adjoining) islands". As soon as the Crown decided the Kermadecs were "adjoining islands" as part of NZ territory, there you are.
Lost in a war that they started. Considering the Land Wars there's a viable argument that the Treaty no longer applies at all. After all, treaties don't usually survive being broken by war and then the side that started the war keeping all the benefits of the treaty.
Were Māori treated badly? Yes.
Did they have viable arguments about how parliament handled that? Yes.
Should they have started a war? No.
And I'm not a supporter of Might Makes Right but that is definitely what applied at the time.
Nope:
Their lands and adjoining islands. The kermadecs haven't moved that far in a couple of hundred years, have they?
edit: Seems to me that you’re recycling the old argument about broadcasting bandwidth not being included in the Treaty.
I'm not interested in debating Treaty denialists. Nor do I believe this should be a place for that sort of tosh.
I agree with Sacha that The Standard shouldn't be a place where denialists and aggravators on about hard-won agreements should be able to insert their wrecking bars.
Jane Patterson is not Labour.
In the last three years there has been increasing emphasis on Māori in government (with lower case) initiatives and funding, e.g. from MBIE and its VM framework.
Collins’s delusional sense of self importance was on full display yesterday when she called that presser for 11.30am in order to tell us nothing really. It’s unbelievable no one told her that pretty much the last person the country wanted to hear from, less than 24 hours after the rout, was the vanquished leader of the National Party.
but as labour don’t need the Greens, this is likely to lessen the tussle.
marama Davidson showing poor judgement imho re saying she’d like a cabinet role. She has no ministerial experience and labour don’t need her…….I hope she shuts up.
re Kelvin Davis…..a comment about him yesterday and couldn’t Jacinda find him something else to do. NO! He is the Deputy. That is absolutely right imho.
btw he spoke with a lot of clarity and dignit on tv3 yesterday morning. While people like Grant appear to be more competent, that’s not what we need in a Deputy. We are a bi cultural nation
Agree Anker. The likelihood of Ardern taking the Deputy PM job off a senior Māori MP, whatever their shortcomings, is pretty much zero.
And yes, Greens would be wise to shut it for a bit and let the negotiations play out.
Maybe he could be Minister of Iambic Pentameter.
Time for you to have lunch Gabby.
Collins has a job possibility coming up. Even though it is short term it suits her personality perfectly. Halloween.
Or maybe a stunt double in the Joker movie
A re-make of "Grendel"?
(Too harsh? Just joking!)
Bryan Gould's assessment is very good.
https://bryangould.com/lessons-from-the-election/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=lessons-from-the-election
A great political commentary this morning on Radionz.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2018768995/a-new-political-landscape-commentators-sherson-and-jones
Trish, Neale and Kathryn dissect the election result. Neale Jones was Chief of Staff to Labour Leader Jacinda Ardern, and prior to that was Chief of Staff to Andrew Little. He is the director of Capital Government Relations. Trish Sherson is from corporate affairs firm Sherson Willis, and a former ACT press secretary.
Neale Jones – the National Party is very white: 'there are more members named Chris in parliament than there are Maori members!' lol.
Yes I thought that it was quite a sparkling discussion with flashes of brilliance. But that's juse me.
Marama Davidson's demand that she be in cabinet is rather presumptuous. And her over-talking James Shaw on election night also. Like it or not, the Greens are sometimes considered to be too radical, so she needs to back off a bit. Jacinda will be mindful of the huge numbers of new Labour voters this time that she will not want to scare off.
[please provide evidence for the first sentence. A link, and a quote or time stamp. In premod until you or someone else provides the back up. If you don’t have evidence, please withdraw the assertion – weka]
[references below, which are both pre-eletion. So to clarify, Marama Daivdson hasn’t demanded that she be in cabinet since the election. And pre-election her position was described in MSM as a wish not a demand. Please be more careful in future about claims of fact – weka]
I haven't heard any demands of cabinet posts. She was just on Nine-to-Noon and was very reasonable sounding about their expectations. She acknowledged that being tied in a formal coalition might not be the best for the Greens ability to criticize independently
Labour will ignore the Greens and their own left wing at their own peril. It will be a lonely 3 years if they have an opposition to their right and left chipping away at their support
In a situation where Labour has "an opposition to their right and left chipping away at their support" the party will have to adopt a defensive, conservative mode; this is not what the country needs and Jacinda Ardern will be sensitive to that and therefore act to bring as many onside as possible (Green/Maori), imo.
It's not just on Ardern and Labour to make something like that work. Any other parties to that arrangement will also need to behave in a mature responsible way and not carry on like Rick from The Young Ones.
Election-night exuberance annoy you, did it 🙂
The green party increased their vote and, with covid and even a bit of centre switch-a-roo going on, that's huge.
If labour are going to be mindful of not upsetting the floaters and avoid doing the needed stuff on the left, then that's just going to burn them in '23, where they'll probably leech a chunk of lefty votes.
If, as it has before with a centrist labour party, and the greens get back to around 15%, the big question is will labour have enough votes remaining to form a government? What they do now determines this three years out.
Voters don’t like surprises but a single party commanding a majority is not in the spirit of MMP. As an aside, if we had less wasted vote, Labour would not have an absolute majority.
My view is that Labour was rewarded for its handling of Covid, not for its policy platform, which could be seen as a mandate for BAU. The Greens campaigned hard on policy and did well; I see that as a mandate for transformative policies.
Ardern has claimed that she is progressive and not a pragmatic centrist and that she wants to take as many people along and make decisions based on consensus. Let’s see what this rhetoric really means in practice.
The Greens are strong and experienced in certain policy areas. They have things/people to offer to Government that Labour does not have or necessarily want to.
Wait, what?
What does that sentence even mean?
We have a single party majority government voted in through MMP. This was signalled as likely to happen prior to the election and so we must assume that it is in the spirit of MMP.
Its not in the spirit of democracy but, then, a large part of the reason why we have Representative Democracy is to prevent democracy. The rich really don't want the majority to have a say as the majority aren't likely to agree with what the rich want.
Your IQ is high enough to work it out all by yourself without me holding your hand 😉
You have company.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/123137003/labours-singleparty-majority-is-not-a-failure-of-mmp-it-is-a-sign-nzs-electoral-system-is-working
Is there a significant wasted vote? Could you put link, I'd like to follow that up.
We'll know that when the reeferendum is tallied. 🙂
https://www.electionresults.govt.nz/electionresults_2020_preliminary/
179,228 votes divvied up among the five parties with seats, i.e. 7.5% of the total vote and almost equalling the Greens’ vote, which is 10 seats.
How else would Labour have 64/120 seats with only (!) 49.1% of the vote?
Gosh I hope that the Commission can classify the main reasons for this wastage – deliberate is probably one, then there is the strange idea on computer programs to utilise a cross in a box which indicates you choose something. That's been in for years and I still can't understand why they would throw aside what was normal and do the opposite – because we can?
Using the wrong pen? Not realising that you can't cross out a mistake? Not understanding that you can get a new sheet and have to hand in the old one?
If we can bring down the wastage that is a lot of votes to include.
Wasted is not the same as invalid – it just means that in our MMP system, some votes do not get translated into seats in parliament because small parties did not get over the 5% threshold.
Those 'wasted' votes are then shared out proportionally across the parties who did make it in. Happens every time. It’s why you do not need 50% of the votes on the night to end up with a majority.
Okay thanks Sacha I jumped to conclusion about meaning there. The plethora of new parties happens each time there is a big shakeup no doubt. I remember all sorts of little parties cropping up before. This time they didn't have the good humour of the McGonagle Party.
Hopefully Marama has toned it down. But yes I definitely heard her talking about wanting a cabinet position, which is really badly judged at this stage.
I trust that Jacinda, Grant and their "strong team' will make a good decision about the Greens. Their strategy during the election was perfect. They read things well. So I am happy to let them get on with it.
Someone else commented here that they hoped Jacinda would be respectful to the. Greens. Its' not all credible that she wouldn't be. She maintained a deep level of respect for Winston Peters, who I imagine was very difficult to work with, even post election. Why would she not be respectful to the Greens?If I was the Labour Cabinet, I would want to be shot of all other parties and just take the freedom I had to get on with it. But I know they are wiser heads than I am and that they will make good decisions around this.
bTW Anne Salmond has written a brilliant article about the election result, describing Jacinda as a master navigator. Will try and post later.
AND…….. Congratulations to all on the Standard. Our teams pulled off the most marvellous result. And many of us would have played some role in that.
"But yes I definitely heard her talking about wanting a cabinet position, which is really badly judged at this stage."
Where did she say that since the election?
This?
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018768874/greens-sweep-10-seats
A Ministerial responsibility =/= a Cabinet position.
yes, I want an actual source for the assertion. Moving into moderation mode.
Thanks for the careful moderation, it's too easy for commentors to pick stuff up from interviews then misrepresent what someone has said when filtering comments through their own perspectives. It is obvious in this case that Marama Davidson was responding to a hypothetical scenario posed by Kathryn Ryan in the context of an interview and clearly did not express any claim or demand for a cabinet post. That aside, it seems there is a lot of projection, taking comments out of context or building of contexts around throw-away lines where Davidson is concerned. Over the election period, it would be fair to say that she has worked extremely hard to convey Green Party policy, and has put other party leaders to shame with her enthusiasm and presentation.
Sorry can't remember Weka. I have watched so election stuff in the last 48 hours, can't remember where I saw it. But I think someone else on the standard saw it too.
Unless I am dreaming politics now, which is always a possibility! But as sure as I can be I saw it.
just saw your above comment. It wasn’t Radio NZ I saw it on. She may have said ministerial roles. So I could be wrong about the Cabinet thing.
I stand by my point that given the electoral result and the lack of bargining power they have and also her lack of Ministerial experience, I think a poor call. IMHO
thanks for clarifying anker
mod note for you Reality.
Not a demand, just expressing her wishes/desire/hope.
[Corrected user name]
where did she do that?
https://www.interest.co.nz/opinion/107594/hayden-wilson-and-linda-clark-dentons-kensington-swan-assess-what-weekends-election
My bold. This was never a ‘demand’ though.
NZ needs to offer itself as the experimental model for a first world decarbonised economy…providing the canvas, policy and training support for all the best (and holistic) ideas that will attract those with vision and abilities required, both from within and without the country…it will also provide investment, with the proviso that much of the ownership will remain public.
We must learn by doing.
Yes while we have the world's attention over our Covid management let's see what other good things we can show to the world re realigning ourselves for climate change advance and attempts to slow that advance.
And of course, remembering that we haven't achieve saintly perfection yet, what about encouraging the greenies of the world to advise us on what they are doing which we haven't got to yet. Do all the greenies of the world have a fact based site where they share their country's advances and trials which we belong to? If there is one could someone advise if – must be scientific, and can anyone look at it.
I am finding so many of the news sites are blocked and while I understand their need for income etc. it is hard for citizen students of the world to gather reliable info. Of course I have to work at my tech skills which are dire. I can't get most pdfs at present and just have to look at converters or whatever that I probably already have. I get worried that there is so much to learn and the amount of general tv time that people spend doesn't give them time to read and imbibe the info coming from science and they end up half-informed, which these days is common.
'Greenies' tell us that one of the main drivers of global warning is excess consumption by Western nations: which is ironic given the emphasis on 'growth' on the part of the major parties. I would suggest that 'green growth' be redefined in terms of an increase in decarbonizatuion, even that growth is at the expense of fossil fuel use.
The problem is how fast can we let the air out of the tyres so we can get started. I suppose the decarb means less vehicles – smaller ones for a start. The boofheads are the sort that rammed their semi-tank into a car on the motorway which was particularly fun because it was a woman. Get them into a lower smaller vehicle and we could have fairer bullbar-fights.
What about putting a vehicle tax on private vehicles higher than a car, or with more seats than six? Gradual, but would brass off the dealers eh.
What do you have in mind for decarbonization?
What do you have in mind for decarbonization?
One of the parties – I don't remember whether it was Labour or the Greens – was advocating banning the import of ICE vehicles from 2030. I would ban them earlier: next week if it were practicable.
It's interesting that after the election a high level public servant of the State Services Commision (responsibility for Auckland) is making comments about how difficult it is for new MP's in parliament.
He is a former candidate for National, and one wonders what his role would have been if National did an ECAN on the Auckland regions local government as some in National were proposing.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/10/labour-warned-inexperience-could-cause-problems-for-the-next-government.html
I think you might have the wrong Lewis Holden there!
Thanks Uncle Scrim (and thank-you Wikipedia) – quite right.
OK, but why is the photo of Lewis Joseph Holden shown here with the Lewis Dare Holden public servant bio?
https://www.google.com/search?q=Lewis+Dare+Holden&oq=Lewis+Dare+Holden&aqs=chrome..69i57&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
No idea; maybe it's some uncurated web thing that automatically grabs an available photo with a name match?
As Lewis Dare Holden was a researcher for the 1986 Royal Commission on the Electoral System, when Lewis Joseph Holden (selected at age 29 as the National party candidate for the Rimutaka electorate in 2014 general) was but an infant, it's safe to assume that they're two different people.
Not disagreeing with LJH's comment about how tough is can be for new MPs, although since he's never been an MP himself that must be second-hand knowledge he's passing on.
He's right about new MP's needing support.
But then again he is also one of many on the right inferring Labour are a lot of inexperienced lightweights not ready for the job.
Lewis Dare Holden was chief executive of the Ministry for Culture and Heritage prior to his current SSC role, and I think held that role in 2014, at the time of his namesake’s electoral tilt.
sounds like a patronising git to me. If this had been the Nacts it would be
"celebrating the infusion of new talent "
Are the elderly the biggest fans of Ayn Rand's thinking – especially The Virtue of Selfishness, without actually having read it or considered its intellectual and philosophical points?
One critique from shaunphilly delves into this in –
Skepticism, Properly Applied – Criticism is not uncivil
and points out that Rand defines selfishness differently from the norm. It seems to me that she ‘objectively’ considers it as focussing on oneself as a person and considering what you want out of life and going for it.
https://polyskeptic.com/2014/03/25/ayn-rands-the-virtue-of-selfishness-an-introductory-critique/
…Her dichotomy between altruism and selfishness (egoism) is sophomoric philosophy, and misses too much to be as influential as her thinking continues to be.
As a disclaimer, I view ethics as not based upon altruism (selflessness) or egoism (selfishness), and view the dichotomy, which Rand employs, between altruism and egoism as misguided as a means of thinking about ethics at a basic level. For me, ethics is based in the value of fairness, derived from freedom and its logical consequences. Further, while an analysis of ethical philosophy can start from consideration of selfish interests, so long as it remains there i[t] never becomes a discussion about ethics at all (I know some people disagree with m[e] on this point, and I’m willing to defend this view)….
This is one aspect of looking at how division and anti-social factors are working in modern society against the wide community, living well in near groups – separate but in reasonable harmony, having respect and trust between peoples, and inclusion though maintaining the right for individuality. It is not impossible but requires consideration between near neighbours, and thought for all.
One could think of this while listening to the Radionz interview of Kathryn winning Ryan with documentary maker Lance Oppenheim about the division and separation from the wider community of this Florida 'retirement village' which has 100,000 residents having multiple golf courses and diversions.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2018769002/some-kind-of-heaven-retirement-living-florida-style
.
This brings to mind the smaller South African Afrikaner township of Orania. There is separation from the wider community on different lines, with estimated 1700 residents. https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/oct/24/an-indictment-of-south-africa-whites-only-town-orania-is-booming
.
And the glossing-up with sentimentality of the modern elderly, unwilling to accept death in their time, and willing to divorce themselves from the young in the film Cocoon, where residents of a retirement village choose eternal life amongst their age group by travelling to a distant planet, and one featured older couple leave behind their daughter and their grandchild whom they profess to love.
This film was an analogy for so much now; the cult of the deserving elderly not expected to reciprocate with caring interaction with society at all, and the wealthy not ready to reciprocate with Earth society and fixing their eyes and money on space and experimental societies there.
I suspect that in the main the exact opposite is the case….as the link I posted yesterday noted the elderly and young are bullied by the middle aged…note how many (Jim Bolger springs to mind) moderate or even radicalise their views as the spectre of mortality creeps ever closer.
Youth are not only the future.
edit
I note how good for retirement homes business the elderly are, especially while they have pensions. One reason that the old are the future, and why welfare gets cut to the young whose opportunities for social mobility and advancement have been pulled away from under their feet. I guess the middle-aged with middle-income are doing the bullying, as they are the ones surging forward with great money-making ideas. Everyone stand aside for the noble young entrepreneurs who have the sensitivity of those carrying out the Highland Clearances.
(This doesn't apply to all entrepreneurial people but of many such as the self-important new-age greenies act as in giving over our footpaths to small fast-moving vehicles never considering that there is an oxymoron? in not being pedantic and pedestrian about 'footpaths' but preferring the pedal-pushers.)
My comparison with the Highland Clearances and determination to dominate and denature by the ruling elite cannot be seen clearly now, but the mindset is there, and unleashed it looks like Judith Collins in full flow, or look back to a notable starter, Jenny Shipley. And all the others female and male who have been recipients of a progressive and reasonably caring society. Now they have got what they want they have wrung the wets out of society and dumped the 'reasonably caring' just leaving the dry 'progressive'; but to what?
the greedy are always the greedy irrespective of age…and sadly too many are driven to positions of influence
This goes beyond greedy. It is the wrong word to use – did I? I can't remember. It is a mindset that needs to change. The world is changing, past systems were tailored for the need at that time.
The mature senior wants his cake and to eat it too; he and she are living longer, lining up for all the medical help of modern times, and as the ad for some retirememt place recently says, 70 is the new 50. The years from 65 to death at near 100 (increasingly) mean nearly one-third of life being paid to be an old-age pensioner.
But the active retired should be doing something for the society that enables them to have this secure life. They should not feel entitled to sit back and enjoy the comforts and do nothing to assist the wellbeing of the young and general society. Many grandparents are helping by raising their grandchildren. That probably wouldn't have been the case if there was more care from the country for our young people. With concern into assisting parents and children and being there when difficulties fall, families wouldn't collapse as now. And for the money-ridden, it would offer savings in tax, health, education and policing.
Life would be better for all if the older people, who tend to be better off, turned right round and looked back at the youth and extended friendship and interest, Not as an onerous task but just a little help, 3-5 hours a week should be a universally expected time, and become part of the general conversation. Not just volunteering by those who feel inclined, and those who do put themselves out. For instance the query would be heard routinely from one retired person to another, 'What are you getting into this year from the government program list?' After a gap year for the retired so they really enjoy a break for themselves and seeing their own family, then choose an interest from the Senior Societal Support program.
Straight out of a Clancy novel.
NEW YORK (AP) — The Trump White House has installed two political operatives at the nation’s top public health agency to try to control the information it releases about the coronavirus pandemic as the administration seeks to paint a positive outlook, sometimes at odds with the scientific evidence.
The two appointees assigned to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Atlanta headquarters in June have no public health background. They have instead been tasked with keeping an eye on Dr. Robert Redfield, the agency director, as well as scientists, according to a half-dozen CDC and administration officials who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal government affairs.
https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-virus-outbreak-pandemics-public-health-new-york-e321f4c9098b4db4dd6b1eda76a5179e
Or how Russia used to have political appointees supervising those who do. The term is Commissar is it not?
Buying up debt as an investment they can later sell – to whom and when? While interest rates offer miserable returns …
Let the grand ponzi roll on..
Debt Jubilee! Some links to much on – all crisp and crunchy not soggy and hopeless.
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/the-case-for-a-modern-debt-jubilee – Steve Keen is keen.
and 2012
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1204/S00101/debt-jubilee-for-new-zealand-the-great-reset.htm – Stephen Keys thinks this is the key.
(The names are a coincidence!)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt_jubilee
https://jubileedebt.org.uk/history-of-debt
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/03/21/debt-jubilee-is-only-way-avoid-depression/
https://www.ft.com/content/fb2c1718-a193-11ea-94c2-0526869b56b0 Sound the trumpet! Debt jubilees have arrived – Financial Times
https://www.jubileescotland.org.uk/the-issue/history-of-debt/
A further mention of Steve Keen this time by Yanis Varoufakis.
A commenter's query: I’m currently reading Paul Sweezy’s Stagnation and Financialization and I find it fascinating. I was wondering if there are any books which add political reasons in addition to economic ones to explain the phenomenon described by Sweezy. I am interested in other words in the political economy of stagnation and financialization. It would be great if you could recommend me a book on this, if there is one that is.
Thanks very much
Stelios Papadopoulos
Reply
19/01/2012 at 17:04
For the original treatise, see Rudolf Hilferding’s Finance Capital (http://www.marxists.org/archive/hilferding/index.htm). For more easy on the eye recent books (which touch upon stagnation and financialisation) try Steve Keen (Debunking Economics) and James Galbraith (Predator State). You may also be interested in David Laibman’s recent Political Economy after Economics). [Proceeding’s you, it is hard to improve upon Sweezy on these issues.]
I've seen this in several reports, don't know if it is correct but if so it's astounding
Oh dear, expert criticism of the Tory government.
But if the PM follows such advice he will criticised by the neo-woke champions of the young on the Telegraph such as Madelaine Grant (those who locked youth out of the EU but oppose local lockdowns).
Wow, didn't know this.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-coronavirus-ken-rei-logging-ship-carrying-close-contacts-of-new-covid-case-remains-anchored-off-napier/4WJ536K7SII3VT3QG5VVCTJEJI/
I reckon this case adds weight to the theory the Auckland outbreak in Auckland came from international crews. Not a great sign there are still holes there but good it was picked up and traced early.
Weka – Stuff 14 October George Block's column mentions Marama Davidson's wish for a Cabinet role.
Politik, Richard Hartman, 15 October – "Marama Davidson gave a heavy hint that she would want to be a minister this time around".
Sorry I did not quote sources in my earlier post, but I knew I had not made it up.
thanks, I've added to the mod note above.
'Wish' and 'hint' are not the same as 'demand'. Not clear why you wanted to say they were.
Agreed Sacha..and the added "heavy" is Harman making a story of something that is not really a story.
Reality take note.
Helps to think of the writer's agenda..
Maybe the implication being Marama is getting a little "uppity"?
‘Cheeky‘?
Too Lippy?
Well looks like this Government has its hands already full on the Foreign, Defence and Antarctic Policies?
First one was during the election which just about everyone failed to raise any questions was the encroachment of the Chinese and possibly the Taiwanese Fishing Fleet into NZ’s EEZ Nth /Nth East of the Kermadec Islands and Sth of the Minerva Reefs.
Apart from Michael Field who mentioned this on Twitter, none of NZ’s fourth estate, NZ’s MFAT said boo or the NZDF release a press release of the RNZAF or RNZN patrolling NZ’s EEZ up in NZ’s Nth’ern waters.
Now we what, I’ve described here on The Standard Blog for those who haven’t been following my comments here over the yrs. Is the last great race as a result of CC nowadays, the last great land grab when the Antarctic Treaty comes up for renewal in & round 2040-47. Well folks it looks like the race is about to kick off with Russia moving its Floating Nuclear Power under down for this years Antarctic Summer?
Yep a Nuclear Power Station in the Antarctic and yet we’re heard boo from Oz or NZ about this. This even more concerning that NZLP never release its Defence manifesto for the election just gone and even more concerning I did find anything on the Antarctic/ Southern Ocean either? There are two major tenders and possibly two others due at the tail end of this coming term or early next term?
The two major ones are this term is the 1 of 2 new Landing Ships with a docking well and the other is a new Southern Ocean Patrol Vessel. These two vessels won’t come cheap either and the Government will be very lucky to get any change out of NZD 1.5B for two of these vessels. The Southern Ocean Patrol Vessel is going to be a whooper of Ship in length 115m plus long, a beam (Width) of some 24m wide and Polar Classification of PC5 as a minimum or a PC6 this in part due to CC as a result of the massive big waves now being encountered down Sth.
We have fishing relationship with Russia. Are we going to be pate' between Russia, China, and the USA?
There is a bit more to this, in that the Chinese have cleaned out their surrounding waters including around Nth Korea and its also one the reasons for the 9 dash line in the South China Sea so the can rape & pillage that as well.
The Chinese have a very large ocean fishing which is also escorted by the Chinese Coast Guard and those ships aren't just any ship. These Ships have a displacement between a Frigate and Destroyer type Ship, but quite the firepower after the Chinese had a run in with the Chilean and the Argie Navies a couple of yrs back when they caught their EZZ's including in a Chilean No Fishing zone.
The Chinese Fishing Fleet are acting like modern day pirates on the High Seas, with no regards to EEZ's, reporting what they catch, No Fishing Zones, under reporting, breaching just about every international law in regards to fishing and if they get caught in the act. Where they act like thugs or worst sunk ships be it local fishing boats or that nations naval/ coast guard ships. Unless you are the Chilean or Argie Navies which shoot first and ask later, which is something NZ use to do in the 70's & 80's with its Navy and Airforce where everyone knew where they stood if you caught in NZ Waters/ the EEZ.
In other words the Chinese would rape & pillage anyone's waters until you put a shot across the their bows and sunk a fishing boat or boats as the Chinese a quite prepared to throw their weight as well to weak countries or those expose countries that rely on exporting to the Chinese market.
Is it that or just a powered vessel?
This Nuclear Power Station floats on a barge which is towed by ocean going tugs
Nothing new, McMurdo Station =Nuclear power 1962–1972
Russia has a long history of exploration and science on that continent. Read Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen
You completely sure there's a rooskie nuke power station going to be installed in Antarctica? Not just the supply ship that's nuke-powered?
There's the floating nuke station Akademik Lomonosov that got towed to a town in the Arctic last year to supply electricity and heat, but I haven't heard of one getting built for Antarctica.
Vostok Station is roughly 1000km from the nearest coast, so a floating nuke wouldn't help them out much, and it would be quite the engineering feat to build transmission lines from the coast to the station.
Having said all that, I'm not all that bovvered by nuke power stations, and I really wouldn't begrudge them one at Vostok Station. Reputedly the coldest place on earth, with a record low of -89 degrees C. Colder than dry ice.
Some interesting green things that have come up recently in the media.
On Radionz – Fancy fungi – looks like a rose.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2018769012/fancy-fungi-ohau-gourmet-mushrooms
Book: Arihia Latham reviews Te Mahi Oneone Hua Parakore: A Maori Soil Sovereignty and Wellbeing Handbook edited by Jessica Hutchings and Jo Smith. Published by Freerange Press.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2018769003/book-review-te-mahi-oneone-hua-parakore
And Book on Fungi : https://www.penguin.co.nz/books/entangled-life-9781847925206
There is a life form on our planet so strange and wondrous that it challenges our conception of life itself…Entangled Life introduces
an almost wholly unknown and mysterious category of life form, an entire underground realm whose workings are so wondrous and alien that they throw into question what we think life itself is and how it works.
Author: Merlin Sheldrake
If Brownlee and Smith choose to retire, will we like their replacements?
Having a couple of fading senior MPs around in the National Party might help the Left mightn't it?
"Bluest of Blue seats voters selected Labour MP's and Labour Party to keep the Greens out."
I have heard this theory from local Federated Farmers and as recently as on the Panel being expressed by Tim Watkins.
Actually, I think the "cockies" just don't understand MMP.
On the evidence, they gave two ticks to Labour. So in effect, ditched their own National MP as well. If they did mean to have a Labour government, they just needed the Party tick for Labour. Probably more precise is that they just felt that their beloved National Party is currently a shambles and didn't stand for anything.
Has Fran still got the networks to engineer another "winter of discontent" ? Murmurs of farmers in Rangitata supposedly strategically voting Labour to take the Greens out of play, plenty of media commentary about 'governing from the centre'. You can sense the wheels of the elite's extra-electoral self-preservation mechanisms turning. You can vote for whomever you like sonny, but it’s going to be a certain way…
There is a good discussion on trade – free trade – what trade etc going on the Daily Review 15/10. There is sure to be something you have thought of and some you haven't. Please go on if you have something else in mind McFlock and DTB. We need to think about it.
My belief is that it is only local trading, with some extended stuff, and specialist imports, that enables people to improve their standard of living. But of course cheapness can regn, and getting titimasu in the frigs from Italy! What am I, royalty, to be offered such treats requiring refrigeration from Italy.? Or are they made here under licence?
I remember a story in the New Internationalist. Up high in Nepal the tourists who were into the outdoors would go and stay. They liked tomatoes but for much of the year there wasn't enough warmth and sun locally to make them go red. Then a handy new road was put in and a truck ground its way up from the Indian fields below with lovely red toms. The green ones grown locally were not saleable. The truck had it hard though and one day it ground to a halt at the side of the road. The locals were able to sell their green ones. In a fairly poor community it is a capitalist trick to say that it is fine to compete, it may be literally taking food out of children's mouths. (They themselves probably didn't want to eat all the green tomatoes though they can be used in cooking and chutneys okay.)
Murdoch media gaslighting Ardern.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/election-2020-aussies-hit-back-after-the-australian-columnist-slams-inept-jacinda-ardern/53AIA7UAPEGRJZF4WJKOCES4RE/
This is the reason Murdoch's own son gave for leaving the business – saying it was not a reliable source of news, as the partisanship was impacting on its coverage.
A lot of people got upset here and remarkably across different forums when I asked, "who wants to see Australia burn", on Christmas day.
This is one of the reasons why. Also, nice sunsets.
Interesting interactive here:
https://interactives.stuff.co.nz/2020/10/election-2020-results-analysis-labour-day/
If I told you there were just six local areas which showed gains for National and four of them were in South Auckland, would you believe me?
The biggest gain for National was 5.5% in…Mangere North. That is gentrification for you.
Don't know, it may be a creeping evangelisation connection to National Party.
It would be interesting to get to the bottom of it. Evangelism, or gentrification.
I think it would be both. National is courting PI to add to their ethnic blocs.
Lee Kuan Yew bound his Singapore nation which was successful under capitalism but Yanis Varoufakis says it isn't a democracy. Can we manage to be successful AND a democracy? I don't think we have enough of the qualities he mentions.
@ logie97 26.
I agree. The idea getting shopped around today that National voters just voted tactically to keep the Greens at bay is right wing spin. If that was the case Labour wouldn’t have flipped so many safe National seats. It’s just excuse making and speaks to the National Party born-to-rule bullshit mentality. They’re basically saying voters will realise their dumb mistake and come flooding back to where they rightfully belong. They haven’t learned anything from their ousting from office in 2017.
For all I know the National voters could have voted Labour because it is about survival.
Labour could do well with farming deals once Johnson leaves without a Brexit no deal. Talks have not gone well with the EU. NZ needs a persuasive agriculture minister to woo Johnson.
Johnson UK – woo woo! 'All mouth and (no) trousers'. Good luck.
greywarshark the economic shock of Covid is going to impact in 12 – 18 months. NZ needs as many long term trading partners as they can get.
On the Friday 8 days before polling day, Judith Collins was advising an audience that to forestall the Greens they should vote two ticks blue.
To claim now that farmers voted two ticks Labour to forestall them is 1. logical but 2, not what Collins counselled.
So we are to believe that farmers disobeyed Collins, voted two ticks Labour to keep out the Greens?
Why two ticks? Why not just party vote Labour?
There's more to this and it's to do with the National party selecting poor candidates- disloyal, unethical, misogynistic, bullying, born to rule, unsavoury, better left unelected.