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. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9BSsIX2j7M
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.
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.
Open access notables A survey of interventions to actively conserve the frozen North, van Wijngaarden et al., Climatic Change:The frozen elements of the high North are thawing as the region warms much faster than the global mean. The dangers of sea level rise due to melting glacier ice, increased ...
Bryce Edwards writes – New Zealand’s biggest-ever political donations scandal is finally at an end. But what is the conclusion? No one can really be sure. The Court of Appeal released its judgement on Tuesday about the Serious Fraud Office case against the NZ First Foundation. On ...
In 2015, then-Prime Minister John Key announced plans for a huge ocean sanctuary around the Kermadec Islands, banning fishing and mining from 15% of Aotearoa's EEZ. It was bold, it was ambitious, and it suggested that National might actually care about the environment. Except they fucked it up: Key failed ...
1. Who has just been given the accolade New Zealander of the Year?a. The Kokakob. The Cook Strait Ferryc. Fair God. Dr Jim Salinger 2. Which of these is an affront to decent society?a. Dame Edna Everageb. Mrs Doubtfire c. Dr. Frank-N-Furterd. Brian 3. Who is Penny Simmonds?a. The aspiring actress in Big ...
New Zealand’s biggest-ever political donations scandal is finally at an end. But what is the conclusion? No one can really be sure.The Court of Appeal released its judgement on Tuesday about the Serious Fraud Office case against the NZ First Foundation. On the face of it, the court found ...
Buzz from the Beehive Waves of rain are set to lash much of the North Island during Easter Weekend as a low-pressure system forms east of New Zealand, according to a weather forecast published in the past day or so. Niwa was warning of a “moisture-laden” long weekend, with rain expected ...
Look around us…Nicola Willis’ promises of balancing the books, of cutting spending without reducing services, and of delivering game changing tax cuts are disappearing before her eyes.Everyday we see stories of violent crime ending in horrific injuries, or worse. The cost of living worsens, whereas the PM claimed renters would ...
TL;DR: My top six news of note on the morning of Thursday, March 28 include:The Government will have to borrow between $10 billion to $15 billion more than previously expected in order to make up for a slowing economy and to pay for $14.9 billion of tax cuts, according to ...
This story by Naveena Sadasivam and Kate Yoder was originally published by Grist and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. The long-awaited jobs board for the American Climate Corps, promised early in the Biden administration, will open next month, according to details shared exclusively ...
Should landlords be able to deduct the interest on the loans they take out to bankroll their property speculation? The US Senate Budget Committee and Bloomberg News don’t think this is a good idea, for reasons set out below. Regardless, our coalition government has been burning through a ton of ...
Treasury’s first report on the economy since the change of government presents a damning indictment of Labour’s economic management. The problem for National is that it is so damning that logically, coupled with a rapidly slowing economy, Finance Minister Nicola Willis should respond to it by postponing or even cancelling ...
Budget tensions are becoming evident within the Coalition Government. Winston Peters made numerous political points in his speech to the NZF annual conference. But the attack on his own government’s fiscal policies raised issues of substance. ‘Today in the Sunday Star Times, journalist and former advisor to the Labour ...
Buzz from the Beehive The media – sure enough – have been binging on Finance Minister Nicola Willis’ release of the Budget Policy Statement and a statement headed Government announces Budget priorities This assures us – or rather, this parrots the Luxon team mantra – that the Budget “will deliver ...
The Ides of March brought me COVID followed by a bereavement. No wonder they tell you to be careful of them.I’m home now and have resumed the interrupted recuperation. Very much looking forward to getting back to regular things. Meanwhile, some thoughts…OneThis new Prime Minister guy just keeps getting more dire. ...
News that the Chinese ATP 40 cyber-hacking unit penetrated parliamentary internet networks in 2021 has renewed concerns about the PRC’s malign intentions in Aotearoa. But is the hack that significant given the length of time that has passed since its … Continue reading → ...
When Parliament passed the Intelligence and security Act in 2017, they assured us all that it was full of safeguards. Any intrusive surveillance of New Zealanders would be subject to a "triple lock", requiring the approval of the Minister and (supposedly independent) Commissioner of Intelligence Warrants, as well as post-facto ...
Eric Crampton writes – Richard Harman’s Politik newsletter provides a bit of the context that ought to have been showing up in other media reports on potential reductions in public service staffing. Media has been reporting on staffing cuts on the order of about 7%. Is that ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – It’s becoming increasingly apparent that many perceive free speech to have become the preserve of the politically right wing, the religiously conservative, the libertarian fringe, the anti-trans, the anti-Māori and…. well, just fill in with whatever groups or individuals you don’t like and don’t ...
Don Brash writes – As everybody who is not blind and deaf is aware, there is a huge political preoccupation with climate change at the moment, a widespread (though by no means unanimous) belief that global temperatures are rising mainly as a result of the greenhouse gases created ...
TL;DR: My six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy on Wednesday, March 27 include:Chris Bishop laid out his vision for filling Aotearoa-NZ’s $100 billion infrastructure deficit in a speech yesterday, emphasising user pays and private funding, but failed to say how to achieve bipartisanship on population, public borrowing and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Former Finance Minister Grant Robertson and former Prime Minister Chris Hipkins have been conveying how unhappy they are with the tax system. Last week in his valedictory speech, Robertson called for the introduction of a wealth or capital gains tax. And this week Hipkins ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Buzz from the Beehive China has loomed large in Beehive considerations over the past 24 hours, largely because of that country’s mischief-making in the cyber espionage department. Two media statements emerged on that subject hard on the heels of the PM baulking at questions put to him on RNZ’s Morning ...
Chris Trotter writes – WHY IS THE NATIONAL PARTY doing so much for landlords, property developers, trucking, and construction companies, and so little for everybody who isn’t already pretty well-off? It’s as if protecting landlords’ investments and building apartments and roads now constitute the whole of National’s ...
Bryce Edwards writes – When she was campaigning to be Minister of Finance last year, Nicola Willis pledged that she would resign from the job if she failed to deliver tax cuts in her first Budget. Now, it’s that pledge, along with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s ...
Robert MacCulloch writes – The Reserve Bank has doubled staff numbers in five years to 510, with personnel costs rising to $80 million in 2023 from $32 million in 2018 – up by a whopping 150%. I guess when you print $50 billion and flood markets with liquidity, ...
The furore. In case you didn’t notice there was a controversy in the weekend involving dolphins in a little town off the South Island. Don’t panic, they haven’t declared independence and resumed whaling, this was simply a sailing event.The problem began when racing was cancelled on the opening day of ...
For 20 years or more, the case for a meaningful capital tax gains has been mulled over and analysed to death, including by the tax working group chaired by Sir Michael Cullen. More than once, the International Monetary Fund has said a CGT would be a good idea for New ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: The Public Health Communications Centre (PHCC) call for urgent preventive action and a risk assessment survey of long covid in this briefing noteLocal scoop: NZ road deaths surpass OECD rates, so why is the govt reversing safety plans? ...
This story was originally published by Grist and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. This story is part of a collaboration with Grist and WABE to demystify the Georgia Public Service Commission, the small but powerful state-elected board that makes critical decisions about everything from raising ...
This is a guest post from Robert McLachlan Global warming is accelerating; 2023 was off the charts. We need to stop burning fossil fuels. In New Zealand, transport accounts for half of all fossil fuels burnt. In the Emissions Reduction Plan, transport emissions fall 41% by 2035. As the ...
Labour productivity has been receding rapidly over the past two years, reversing a post-lockdown rise. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy as at 6:26am on Tuesday, March 26 include:Workers have been treading water in output per hour worked for 12 years, ...
TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to April 2 include:Today, Parliament resumes sitting at 2pm for the second week of a two-week session. Officials for SIS and GCSB report their annual reviews in public to the Intelligence and Security Select Committee from 5.10pm.Tomorrow, ...
Faced with a barrage of criticism over the promised tax cuts from usually supportive commentators, Finance Minister Nicola Willis yesterday reaffirmed her intention to include them in this year’s Budget. The Government is up against it over the cuts just about every way it turns. Commentators like Fran O’Sullivan, Matthew ...
Here’s my pick of today’s substack posts as of 6:26pm on Monday, March 25: writes via his substack that Market-rate housing will make your city cheaper writes via his substack about the problems talking to double-cab ute (truck) drivers about their vehicles. today about moments of radicalisation in ...
Buzz from the Beehive Just before Christmas, Finance Minister Nicola Willis delivered something that was pitched as a mini-budget and brayed about the decisive action being taken to repair the Government books and support income tax relief in Budget 2024. In a statement headed Fiscal repair job underway. she introduced ...
My sister Belinda asked Dad yesterday what one word would describe Mum best. He said: vivacious.If you only knew her from the photos on the slideshow we've made for today,you might wonder about that, because the camera tended to lie with Mum.If ever she saw a camera pointed at her, she ...
There are two major public consultations closing in the next week, Auckland Council’s Long Term Plan (LTP), and the draft Government Policy Statement on Land Transport (GPS). Closing dates and times: LTP closes Thursday 28 February, at 11.59pm – a minute to midnight! GPS closes Tuesday 2 April, at 12pm noon – note that’s ...
From Kiwiblog’s David Farrar – Bryce Wilkinson writes: Senior Fellow Bryce Wilkinson’s analysis reveals that since March 2009, New Zealand has spent $158 billion more overseas than it has earned, but its NIIP has only fallen by $32 billion.Statistics New Zealand shows that receipts from overseas reinsurers have ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition? Brian Easton writes – The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could ...
Dear Nicola Willis,Right now you’ve probably got lots of competing demands coming at you. Ministers who’ve inherited quite a mess, or so you’ve told us, looking for money in the budget to improve things. I imagine that’s why they came to parliament - to make things better.You’ll have to make ...
The Local Government, Transport and Auckland Minister hasthreatened councils with intervention if they don’t merge water assets to take them off balance sheet, just as the now-repealed Three Waters plan directed. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things of note this morning for Monday, March 25 include:Simeon ...
A listing of 36 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 17, 2024 thru Sat, March 23, 2024. Story of the week Thanks to John Mason having the stamina to sit down to watch "Climate - the Movie" ...
This morning the Q&A programme had Simeon Brown on to talk about National’s replacement for Three Waters. In case anyone’s forgotten the three are - drinking water, waste water, and sewerage. It’s quite important not to get them mixed up. In much the same way that you wouldn’t want to ...
Today’s newsletter comes with a mini-podcast conversation between me and my buddy Liv Tennet, talking about her time as a child actor in Lord of the Rings. It’s a conversation with a lot of giggles as she talks about falling off a horse, and becoming a meme. Read ...
The Desmog Climate Disinformation Database documents, "individuals and organisations that have helped to delay and distract the public and our elected leaders from taking needed action to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and fight global warming." It's a who's who of the organised climate change denial movement, in other words. In ...
Bob Edlin writes – A High Court judge has decided miscreants who have mana – or who claim to have mana – should be treated differently from miscreants who have none. It’s a ruling that suggests indigenous law-breakers have a better chance of securing a discharge without conviction ...
Welcome to the first, and possibly last, edition of Brickbats, Bouquets and Bull’s Wool. In which I’ll take a look at the events of the last week or so, and rate them.In such ratings the numbers usually have more to do with the opinions of the reviewer, than the actual ...
Roger Partridge writes – My earlier column this month, New Zealand’s highest court could be facing a turning point, prompted a flood of feedback from business readers and lawyers alike. A common query was what Parliament can do to restrain an overreaching judiciary. This week I discuss two steps Parliament ...
TL;DR: In today’s ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.16pm on Friday, March 22: writes about New Zealand's Building Boom—And What the World Must Learn From It over at his substack. challenges the Auckland Council’s use of a 3.8 degrees of warming forecast to oppose a wave-park and data centre project ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition?The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could deliver her promised income tax cuts. Appointed minister, she ...
Buzz from the Beehive Ministers of the Crown have drawn attention to one sector of the science sector which is unlikely to be subjected to heavy spending cuts, a state-funded broadcaster which is doing nicely, thank you, and a sporting event that had $5.4 million from the public purse puffed ...
Abbott’s Freestyle Libre sensors allow continuous glucose monitoring (CGM). The sensor is applied to the back of the patient’s arm, with a thin filament under the skin measuring glucose levels constantly. But it costs around $100 per sensor and must be replaced once every 14 days. Photo by BSIP/Universal Images ...
The Inspector General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) recently released a report in which he exposes the existence of a foreign intelligence partner-controlled technological “capability” inside the headquarters of the GCSB, NZ’s 5 Eyes-affiliated signals intelligence collection and analysis agency. … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – Nearly three decades after the introduction of MMP and multiparty governments there should be a greater level of understanding about their finer points than often appears to be the case. The reaction to the despicable outburst from the Deputy Prime Minister at the weekend highlights ...
The sweet kisses from fruit of summerHave slowly been turning dullerYou say, "those times"And "remember the daysWhen we went outside and there still was the shade?"Taking no reason into play…Autumn. Clear, blue days shortening to longer nights, growing colder. Aotearoa.That’s us. The temperature dropping, the looming car crash - so ...
Bryce Edwards writes – “It is often said that behind every great man is a great woman”. This is the pitch by the National Party Botany electorate branch to attend their “Ladies Afternoon Tea with Amanda Luxon”. For $110 including GST, you can turn up on Saturday 20 April ...
David Farrar writes – The Electoral Commission has published the expense returns for political parties for the 2023 election. I’ve put them in a table with how many votes a party got so we can see the spend per vote. National only spent $3.34 for every vote they got, almost ...
Winston Peters’ headline-making actions over the past week may have been a show of political power intended to strengthen his hand in Budget negotiations. It was no accident that his State of the Nation speech was as it was. He made it as New Zealand First Leader, not as Deputy ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:Former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson bowed out of politics this week, giving a series of exit ...
Graham Adams writes — If you love the law or sausages, as the saying goes, best not to look too closely at how they are made. And after watching the orgy of self-pity when Newshub’s closure was announced on February 28, television journalism should definitely be added to the list of those ...
Venerable New Zealand political commentator, Chris Trotter (https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/), is a sad creature these days. Once one of the most reliable Leftist writers out there – Economic Left at that – Trotter seems to have absorbed the worldview of Auckland culture-war obsessives. It is not for me to categorise what he ...
The cruelty of short-term memory loss is that each time you ask where she is, you get the fresh shock and grief of the news. That was Dad's day yesterday.Comfortingly, it seems to be less so today. Last night he looked crumpled, today he seems more settled. There's a card ...
Photo by Alvan Nee on UnsplashIt’s that new day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when and I co-host our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm. Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream for our chat about the week’s news ...
Buzz from the Beehive One minister is talking tough while a colleague – whose ministry had acted tough and drawn a barrage of flak – has shown an official softening. Some ministers are doing what Labour was good at, which is distributing public funds to causes regarded as worthy or ...
A ballot for 4 Member's Bills was held today, and the following bills were drawn: Insurance Contracts Bill (Duncan Webb) Income Tax (Clean Transport FBT Exclusion) Amendment Bill (Julie Anne Genter) Crimes (Increased Penalties for Slavery Offences) Amendment Bill (Greg Fleming) Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) ...
One of the strongest narratives about "our" spy agencies is that they are basically institutional traitors, working for foreign powers (or just themselves), without any control or oversight by the elected government. And today, we have yet another report from the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security which explicitly confirms this. ...
“It is often said that behind every great man is a great woman”. This is the pitch by the National Party Botany electorate branch to attend their “Ladies Afternoon Tea with Amanda Luxon”. For $110 including GST, you can turn up on Saturday 20 April to meet the Prime Minister’s ...
The Coalition Government’s plan to ‘get Auckland moving’ is a cuts cover-up that will ultimately cost Aucklanders more to move around the city, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Slashing the Ministry of Pacific Peoples by 40% will have a devastating impact on pacific communities and further highlights how little this government cares about anything other than cutting taxes for the wealthiest few. ...
Labour has proposed an urgent inquiry to investigate the ever-increasing profits of supermarkets, aiming to lower costs for shoppers and food producers alike, says Labour Spokesperson for Commerce and Consumer Affairs Arena Williams and Primary Production Spokesperson Cushla Tangaere-Manuel. ...
With 14% of jobs on the line at the Ministry for Ethnic Communities, the responsible Minister Melissa Lee is failing to stand up for the very communities she’s meant to be representing. ...
COURT OF APPEAL: TRIFECTA OF VICTORY FOR NZ FIRST, TRIFECTA OF FAILURE FOR OPPONENTS For the third time since April 2020, New Zealand First has defeated the Serious Fraud Office and all those complicit in a malicious attack against a political party going about its lawful business in a lawful ...
The Green Party stands with people who live in public housing, people in dire housing need, experts and advocates in demanding better than the Government’s archaic approach to housing those who need our support the most. ...
New Zealand has recently lost the hosting rights of some major international sporting events including the America’s Cup, the Rugby Championship, Netball World Cup, and the Wellington Sevens. We are now at a huge risk of losing SailGP as well. And it won’t stop there. The recent issues with SailGP ...
A Member’s Bill drawn this week would modernise insurance law and make things fairer and more transparent for consumers, Christchurch Central MP Duncan Webb said. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues has confirmed she was aware of funding issues in mid-December and did nothing to stop it. On 14 March, she signed off on changes that were announced and implemented on 18 March without any consultation with disability communities. ...
Green Party MP Julie Anne Genter says her members' bill is an opportunity for the coalition government to plug the gap in electric vehicle incentives. ...
The National Government continues to talk about irresponsible tax cuts that will only drive up inflation, despite the country entering a technical recession. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues must act urgently to reinstate flexibility around the funding for disability support and apologise to disabled carers. ...
This story has been initiated by a leftie shill reporter who proactively sought to call a member of a former band, which disbanded twelve years ago, give their biased appraisal of what was said in my speech, and concocted a ham-fisted attempt at a story that does nothing but show ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Many in the mainstream media have taken what was said in New Zealand First’s State of the Nation Speech in Palmerston North on Sunday and deliberately, deceitfully, and ignorantly misrepresented what I said and why I said it. The headlines and commentary on the news stated that I compared ‘co-governance ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
Good afternoon. Thank you for, in your very busy lives, turning up to this meeting today. On October 14th last year New Zealanders overwhelmingly voted for change. That is exactly what this new government is bringing. New Zealand First campaigned to ‘take back our country’ and stop the disastrous economic ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed the passing of legislation to move light electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) into the road user charges system from 1 April. “It was always intended that EVs and PHEVs would be exempt from road user charges until they reached two ...
New Zealand is strengthening its ability to combat illegal fishing outside its domestic waters and beef up regulation for its own commercial fishers in international waters through a Bill which had its first reading in Parliament today. The Fisheries (International Fishing and Other Matters) Amendment Bill 2023 sets out stronger ...
Economists Carl Hansen and Professor Prasanna Gai have been appointed to the Reserve Bank Monetary Policy Committee, Finance Minister Nicola Willis announced today. The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is the independent decision-making body that sets the Official Cash Rate which determines interest rates. Carl Hansen, the executive director of Capital ...
Apartment owners and buyers will soon have greater protections as further changes to the law on unit titles come into effect, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “The Unit Titles (Strengthening Body Corporate Governance and Other Matters) Amendment Act had already introduced some changes in December 2022 and May 2023, and ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters will travel to Egypt and Europe from this weekend. “This travel will focus on a range of New Zealand’s traditional diplomatic and security partnerships while enabling broad engagement on the urgent situation in Gaza,” Mr Peters says. Mr Peters will attend the NATO Foreign ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown is encouraging all road users to stay safe, plan their journeys ahead of time, and be patient with other drivers while travelling around this Easter long weekend. “Road safety is a responsibility we all share, and with increased traffic on our roads expected this Easter we ...
About 1.4 million New Zealanders will receive cost of living relief through increased government assistance from April 1 909,000 pensioners get a boost to Superannuation, including 5000 veterans 371,000 working-age beneficiaries will get higher payments 45,000 students will see an increase in their allowance Over a quarter of New Zealanders ...
Ensuring social housing is being provided to those with the greatest needs is front of mind as the Government restarts social housing tenancy reviews, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. “Our relentless focus on building a strong economy is to ensure we can deliver better public services such as social ...
The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary will not go ahead, with Cabinet deciding to stop work on the proposed reserve and remove the Bill that would have established it from Parliament’s order paper. “The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary Bill would have created a 620,000 sq km economic no-go zone,” Oceans and Fisheries Minister ...
Dam safety regulations are being amended so that smaller dams won’t be subject to excessive compliance costs, Minister for Building and Construction Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on reducing costs and removing unnecessary red tape so we can get the economy back on track. “Dam safety regulations ...
The coalition Government is expanding the medium-scale adverse event classification to parts of the North Island as dry weather conditions persist, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced today. “I have made the decision to expand the medium-scale adverse event classification already in place for parts of the South Island to also cover the ...
The passing of legislation giving effect to coalition Government tax commitments has been welcomed by Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “The Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill will help place New Zealand on a more secure economic footing, improve outcomes for New Zealanders, and make our tax system ...
Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins and Tertiary Education and Skills Minister Penny Simmonds today announced plans to transform our science and university sectors to boost the economy. Two advisory groups, chaired by Professor Sir Peter Gluckman, will advise the Government on how these sectors can play a greater ...
The Budget will deliver urgently-needed tax relief to hard-working New Zealanders while putting the government’s finances back on a sustainable track, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The Finance Minister made the comments at the release of the Budget Policy Statement setting out the Government’s Budget objectives. “The coalition Government intends ...
The coalition Government will look at options to address a zoning issue that limits how much financial support Queenstown residents can get for accommodation. Cabinet has agreed on a response to the Petitions Committee, which had recommended the geographic information MSD uses to determine how much accommodation supplement can be ...
Cabinet has agreed to a short extension to the final reporting timeframe for the Royal Commission into Abuse in Care from 28 March 2024 to 26 June 2024, Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden says. “The Royal Commission wrote to me on 16 February 2024, requesting that I consider an ...
The coalition Government is delivering an $18 million boost to New Zealanders needing to travel for specialist health treatment, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says. “These changes are long overdue – the National Travel Assistance (NTA) scheme saw its last increase to mileage and accommodation rates way back in 2009. ...
The Government is recognising the innovative and rising talent in New Zealand’s growing space sector, with the Prime Minister and Space Minister Judith Collins announcing the new Prime Minister’s Prizes for Space today. “New Zealand has a growing reputation as a high-value partner for space missions and research. I am ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed New Zealand’s concerns about cyber activity have been conveyed directly to the Chinese Government. “The Prime Minister and Minister Collins have expressed concerns today about malicious cyber activity, attributed to groups sponsored by the Chinese Government, targeting democratic institutions in both New ...
Independent Reviewers appointed for School Property Inquiry Education Minister Erica Stanford today announced the appointment of three independent reviewers to lead the Ministerial Inquiry into the Ministry of Education’s School Property Function. The Inquiry will be led by former Minister of Foreign Affairs Murray McCully. “There is a clear need ...
State Highway 1 across the Brynderwyns will be open for Easter weekend, with work currently underway to ensure the resilience of this critical route being paused for Easter Weekend to allow holiday makers to travel north, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Today I visited the Brynderwyn Hills construction site, where ...
Introduction Good morning to you all, and thanks for having me bright and early today. I am absolutely delighted to be the Minister for Infrastructure alongside the Minister of Housing and Resource Management Reform. I know the Prime Minister sees the three roles as closely connected and he wants me ...
New Zealand stands with the United Kingdom in its condemnation of People’s Republic of China (PRC) state-backed malicious cyber activity impacting its Electoral Commission and targeting Members of the UK Parliament. “The use of cyber-enabled espionage operations to interfere with democratic institutions and processes anywhere is unacceptable,” Minister Responsible for ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Judith Collins today announced New Zealand will provide logistics support for the upcoming Solomon Islands election. “We’re sending a team of New Zealand Defence Force personnel and two NH90 helicopters to provide logistics support for the election on 17 April, at the request ...
The European Union Free Trade Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill received Royal Assent today, completing the process for New Zealand’s ratification of its free trade agreement with the European Union. “I am pleased to announce that today, in a small ceremony at the Beehive, New Zealand notified the European Union ...
Public consultation on the terms of reference for the Royal Commission into COVID-19 Lessons has concluded, Internal Affairs Minister Hon Brooke van Velden says. “I have been advised that there were over 11,000 submissions made through the Royal Commission’s online consultation portal.” Expanding the scope of the Royal Commission of ...
Hardworking families are set to benefit from a new credit to help them meet their early childcare education (ECE) costs, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. From 1 July, parents and caregivers of young children will be supported to manage the rising cost of living with a partial reimbursement of their ...
A specialised Independent Technical Advisory Group (ITAG) tasked with preparing and publishing independent non-binding advice on the design of a "green" (sustainable finance) taxonomy rulebook is being established, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “Comprising experts and market participants, the ITAG's primary goal is to deliver comprehensive recommendations to the ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins has thanked the Chief of Army, Major General John Boswell, DSD, for his service as he leaves the Army after 40 years. “I would like to thank Major General Boswell for his contribution to the Army and the wider New Zealand Defence Force, undertaking many different ...
25 March 2024 Minister to meet Australian counterparts and Manufacturing Industry Leaders Small Business, Manufacturing, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly will travel to Australia for a series of bi-lateral meetings and manufacturing visits. During the visit, Minister Bayly will meet with his Australian counterparts, Senator Tim Ayres, Ed ...
Government commits almost $3 million for period products in schools The Coalition Government has committed $2.9 million to ensure intermediate and secondary schools continue providing period products to those who need them, Minister of Education Erica Stanford announced today. “This is an issue of dignity and ensuring young women don’t ...
Good morning, it’s great to be here. First, I would like to acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of Building Surveyors and thank you for the opportunity to be here this morning. I would like to use this opportunity to outline the Government’s ambitious plan and what we hope to ...
Minister for Pacific Peoples Dr Shane Reti has announced the Government’s commitment to the Auckland Secondary Schools Māori and Pacific Islands Cultural Festival, more commonly known as Polyfest. “The Ministry for Pacific Peoples is a longtime supporter of Polyfest and, as it celebrates 49 years in 2024, I’m proud to ...
Before moving onto the substance of today’s address, I want to recognise the very significant and ongoing contribution the Breast Cancer Foundation makes to support the lives of New Zealand women and their families living with breast cancer. I very much enjoy working with you. I also want to recognise ...
New Zealand has notched up a first with the launch of University of Canterbury research to the International Space Station, Science, Innovation and Technology and Space Minister Judith Collins says. The hardware, developed by Dr Sarah Kessans, is designed to operate autonomously in orbit, allowing scientists on Earth to study ...
Introduction Thank you for inviting me to speak with you today and I’m sorry I can’t be there in person. Yesterday I started in Wellington for Breakfast TV, spoke to a property conference in Auckland, and finished the day speaking to local government in Christchurch, so it would have been ...
The Coalition Government is contributing more than $1 million to support the establishment of an emergency multi-agency coordination centre in Northland. Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell announced the contribution today during a visit of the Whangārei site where the facility will be constructed. “Northland has faced a number ...
New Zealanders have enjoyed a broader range of voices telling the story of Aotearoa thanks to the creation of Whakaata Māori 20 years ago, says Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka. The minister spoke at a celebration marking the national indigenous media organisation’s 20th anniversary at their studio in Auckland on ...
Commercial catch limits for some fisheries have been increased following a review showing stocks are healthy and abundant, Ocean and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The changes, along with some other catch limit changes and management settings, begin coming into effect from 1 April 2024. "Regular biannual reviews of fish ...
EDITORIAL:The Jakarta Post It happens again and again; indigenous Papuans fall victim to Indonesian soldiers. This time, we have photographic evidence for the brutality, with videos on social media showing a Papuan man being tortured by a group of plainclothes men alleged to be the Indonesian Military (TNI) members. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robyn J. Whitaker, Director of the Wesley Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Policy & Associate Professor, New Testament, Pilgrim Theological College, University of Divinity A strange and eclectic range of activities takes place across these few weeks of the year. Some ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Panizza Allmark, Professor Visual & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University It’s Easter weekend, which means many of us will be kicking back with the greatest hits on repeat. But whether you’re a boomer, or an ‘80s or ’90s kid, you might be ...
RNZ Pacific Fiji’s Acting Public Prosecutor has filed an appeal against the sentences of former prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama and suspended police chief Sitiveni Qiliho in their corruption case. Bainimarama was granted an absolute discharge for attempting to pervert the course of justice while Qiliho received a conditional discharge with ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Arosha Weerakoon, Senior Lecturer and General Dentist, School of Dentistry, The University of Queensland Casezy idea/Shutterstock How does toothpaste work? What did people use before toothpaste was invented? – Amelia, age 7, Meanjin (Brisbane) Thanks for your ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brett Hallam, Associate professor, UNSW Sydney IM Imagery/Shutterstock Solar SunShot is well named. The Australian government announced today it would plough A$1 billion into bringing back solar manufacturing to Australia, boosting energy security, swapping coal and gas jobs for those ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Dix, Research Fellow in Nutrition & Dietetics, The University of Queensland Easter is the time for chocolate. The shops are full of fantastically packaged and shiny chocolates in all shapes and sizes, making trips to the supermarket with children more challenging ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emma Felton, Adjunct Senior Researcher, University of South Australia Even in a stubborn cost-of-living crisis, it seems there’s one luxury most Australians won’t sacrifice – their daily cup of coffee. Coffee sales have largely remained stable, even as financial pressures have ...
Mining company Trans-Tasman Resources has unexpectedly withdrawn its application for a consent to suck the valuable metals vanadium and titanium from the Taranaki seafloor, as it apparently wagers on the Government’s new fast-track process. It had spent two-and-a-half days putting its case to the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision-making committee, at ...
Contrary to the Associate Minister of Education’s claims, analysis of Healthy School Lunches Programme - Ka Ora, Ka Ako assessments has revealed it provides excellent value for the taxpayer dollar, as a groundswell of public opposition to Government ...
Greenpeace says wannabe Taranaki seabed miner Trans-Tasman Resources is likely banking on Christopher Luxon’s fast-track process to side-step proper scrutiny of its Taranaki seabed mining proposal by bailing out of the Environmental Protection Agency hearing ...
Kiwis Against Seabed mining today slammed Australian owned would-be seabed miner Trans Tasman Resources (TTR) for abandoning its application to the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) to mine the seabed of the South Taranaki Bight. The company ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katie Attwell, Associate Professor, School of Social Sciences, The University of Western Australia Ground Picture/Shutterstock Months after COVID vaccines were introduced in 2021, governments and private organisations mandated them for various groups. Health and aged care workers were among the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Dzurak, Scientia Professor Andrew Dzurak, CEO and Founder of Diraq, UNSW Sydney Diraq For decades, the pursuit of quantum computing has struggled with the need for extremely low temperatures, mere fractions of a degree above absolute zero (0 Kelvin or ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne A national Essential poll, conducted March 20–24 from a sample of 1,150, gave the Coalition a 50–44 lead including undecided, a reversal ...
The Taxpayers’ Union has today made a formal request under the Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on Open Government Information () for information held about how New Zealand Members of Parliament are spending taxpayer ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert Nelson, Honorary Principal Fellow, The University of Melbourne A Byzantine depiction of the Eucharist in Saint Sophia Cathedral, Kyiv.Jacek555/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA A nasty quarrel arose in the 11th century over what kind of bread should be used in holy ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Patrick Hesp, Professor, Flinders University Patrick Hesp In some parts of Australia, coastal dunes are retreating from the ocean at an alarming rate, as waves carve up the beach and wind blows the sand inland. But coastal communities are largely ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luke Heemsbergen, Senior Lecturer, Digital, Political, Media, Deakin University With an impressive 60% of the US smartphone market, Apple is undeniably big, but not a clear monopoly. Yet, years of innovation by Apple have effectively given the company its own exclusive ...
Whether you’re facing layoffs or are just an emotional junior staffer, it’s always a good idea to scout out a good crying place before you need it. It’s an incredibly hard time for Wellington. Across the city, thousands of public servants are hearing tough news about redundancies and layoffs. Government ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Miller-Jones, Professor, Curtin University Nuclear explosions on a neutron star feed its jets. Danielle Futselaar and Nathalie Degenaar, Anton Pannekoek Institute, University of Amsterdam, CC BY-SA How fast can a neutron star drive powerful jets into space? The answer, it ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daryl Adair, Associate Professor of Sport Management, University of Technology Sydney Earlier this week, independent MP Andrew Wilkie accused the AFL of conducting “off the books” illicit drug testing to identify players using substances of abuse, then inappropriately withdrawing them from matches ...
The Government’s announcement that it will scrap plans for a vast marine sanctuary around the Kermadec Islands is ‘shameful’ and will make it impossible for Aotearoa New Zealand to meet its international commitments, says the World Wide Fund for Nature ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Quiggin, Professor, School of Economics, The University of Queensland Shutterstock The federal government has bowed to pressure from the car industry, announcing it will relax proposed emissions rules for utes and vans and delay enforcement of the new standards ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Suzanne Rutland, Professor Emerita, University of Sydney In his latest book, Jewish Life in Medieval Spain, Jonathan Ray focuses on the tumult of the 14th century in Spain – a time of the plague, civil strife and war between the two largest ...
While creating a slate of world-class shows, Whakaata Māori also developed a generation of world-class creatives. Television is an odd word. It mixes the Ancient Greek and Latin languages, and its most literal meaning is “far-off sight”. In the contemporary and living language of te reo Māori, “whakaata” as a ...
Yesterday the UN Security Council passed a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza. This significant step and the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza prompted an urgent debate in the New Zealand Parliament. Leader ...
The Government’s decision to reduce access to continuous glucose monitors (CGM) not only threatens the lives of children with type 1 diabetes and increases the potential for ‘Dead in Bed’ syndrome, but also threatens the health of their parents an ...
Apples are available year-round, but the wide variety on offer involves intensive scientific research – and large-scale commercialisation. What’s beautiful, red, sweet and crunchy? Tony Martin’s favourite kind of apple: Sassy. The CEO of apple and pear breeding organisation Prevar, Martin’s fondness for Sassy represents professional success as well as ...
Family violence specialist service Shine is calling on employers to stop asking for proof of domestic violence in order for employees to access domestic violence leave. The call comes five years after the introduction of the Domestic Violence ...
The Deputy Chairperson of the Finance and Expenditure Committee is calling for public submissions on the Budget Policy Statement 2024. The Budget Policy Statement 2024 (BPS) sets out the Government's priorities for the 2024 Budget. It explains the approach ...
Brutal government spending cuts that will see the size of the Ministry for Pacific Peoples slashed by 40% will hit Pasifika communities hard, the PSA says. The Ministry has told staff that it is seeking voluntary redundancies, and to redeploy and reassign ...
I live with five people I mostly love, but our different ideas about generosity are starting to really irk me.Want Hera’s help? Email your problem to helpme@thespinoff.co.nzDear Hera,This is a bit of a random one but here goes. I’m 22 and work an OK job (OK meaning I get paid ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Maria Nicholas, Senior Lecturer in Language and Literacy Education, Deakin University Earlier this month, the New South Wales government announced it would roll out programs for gifted students in every public school in the state. This comes amid concerns gifted school ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christopher Rudge, Law lecturer, University of Sydney Massachusetts General Hospital In a world first, we heard last week that US surgeons had transplanted a kidney from a gene-edited pig into a living human. News reports said the procedure was a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Tombs, Howard Paterson Chair of Theology and Public Issues, University of Otago The 5th-century Maskell panel showing Jesus in a loincloth.British Museum, CC BY-NC-SA When Jesus is shown on the cross, he is almost always depicted wearing a loincloth around ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Panizza Allmark, Professor Visual & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University Shutterstock When you think about a red object, you might picture a red carpet, or the massive ruby in the Queen’s crown. Indeed, Western monarchies and marketing from brands such ...
COMMENTARY:Jewish Voice for Peace The UN Security Council passed a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza on Monday — and for the first time since the beginning of the Israeli military’s genocide of Palestinians, the United States abstained rather than vetoing it. Security Council resolutions are legally binding, ...
Asia Pacific Report A New Zealand investigative journalist and author says the US spy system hosted by the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) appears to be a controversial intelligence system used in global capture-kill operations. Writing a commentary for RNZ News today, Nicky Hager, author of Secret Power, a 1996 ...
While Nicola Willis wouldn’t give any details on its size, she said a package of tax cuts is definitely still coming in this year’s budget, writes Catherine McGregor in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming the investigation into the Department of Internal Affairs after it was revealed that the Department’s Chief Executive personally reached out to expedite a DJs passport application. Taxpayers’ Union Campaigns ...
Finance minister Nicola Willis delivers her first budget statement, and unwittingly helps Joel MacManus save his relationship. Nicola Willis strode into the Beehive Theatrette. Around me, on the green foldout seats, were the country’s top business and political journalists. They were all here to see her announce the Budget Policy ...
Twenty years ago today, Māori Television launched after much controversy. Jamie Tahana looks back on its survival and impact across two decades. Chad Chambers stepped onto the stage, the brim of his cap casting a shadow across his face. His smile beamed as bright as his white freezing works gumboots, ...
Tauranga, Rotorua, Wellsford, Onehunga, Westhaven marina – Gavin Strawhan walks the meanish streets of New Zealand in his entertaining debut novel The Call, almost sure to roar into the number 1 position on the Nielsen bestseller chart, its front cover bearing a rave from somebody: “A really good and genuinely ...
On a Thursday in February, at Wellington’s Conservation House, the Conservation Authority, a statutory body advising the eponymous department and minister, Tama Potaka, opened its 195th meeting. Under consideration that afternoon was an agenda item written by Tim Bamford, chief advisor in the Department of Conservation’s biodiversity, heritage and visitors ...
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A lengthy response to the recently released draft Government policy statement on transport will soon be delivered from Auckland Council to Minister of Transport Simeon Brown. A submission raising concerns about funding distribution and the plan’s treatment of Auckland passed through the council’s transport committee on Wednesday, despite some councillors ...
The unidentified foreign intelligence operation discussed in a scathing report by New Zealand’s Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) last week appears to be a controversial United States intelligence system. The IGIS report said the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) decision to host a foreign system from 2012-2020 was “improper” ...
As a young gymnast, Aimee Didierjean was always conscious of making sure her underwear wasn’t showing on the competition floor. A peek of a bra strap, or briefs if a leotard rode up, would cost a gymnast points in her routines. “When I was growing and going through puberty, it ...
Jubi/West Papua Daily Repeated cases of Indonesian military (TNI) soldiers torturing civilians in Papua have been evident, as seen in the viral video depicting the torture of civilians in the Puncak Regency allegedly done by soldiers of Raider 300/Brajawijaya Infantry Battalion. There is a pressing need for stringent law enforcement ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra In 2023, Anthony Albanese was shooting for the moon, his eyes on the Voice referendum. On one view, he looked like the idealist reflecting his left-wing roots. In 2024, we’re seeing a pragmatic, determined, ...
The House - The principle that all MPs are honourable and that they should be taken at their word has been tested multiple times this week in Parliament. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Helen Dickinson, Professor, Public Service Research, UNSW Sydney Drazen Zigic/Shutterstock Since the review of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) released its recommendations in December, there has been a series of Town Hall events to discuss them around the country ...
Asia Pacific Report Two of the global Freedom Flotilla ships are being prepared in Turkey and almost ready for the upcoming humanitarian mission to Gaza. It is expected that the flotilla will include a New Zealand medical team. Kia Ora Gaza is a member of the international Freedom Flotilla Coalition ...
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.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9BSsIX2j7M
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.
https://twitter.com/MichaelFieldNZ/status/1317979006252118018?s=20
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.