Just sitting down to watch Q&A. Let’s see if they can extract some sense out the Housing Minister Smith after Gower didn’t have the skills on The Nation yesterday. So far he is dodging the real question of the lack of available data from his regime.
Smith was woeful showing up how hopeless their front bench is without Key, who will be back on deck tomorrow, all sun tanned having jetted back in from his Hawaiian holiday.
Expect Key to be sucking air in and sounding like a bath tub drain pipe after pulling the plug. The issues are mounting economically and Key is getting hamstrung and tied down with his odd hair fondling fetish.
No one has made the comment that with less than 3 months before the earth works season commences, many earth moving companies are already filling their books for work this year, It will not be long before the capabilities of this sector will be maxed out. Rates for this work will rise rapidly not only affecting land development but also to a large degree roading. That is if you will be able to find anyone wanting to commit to the work, we will soon hear land owners lamenting about being unable to develop or how expensive the process is and not just limiting their comments towards council costs.
Rates for excavation and site works have already risen and will lift again soon As you say a large number of contractors are booked already, similar story for builders charge rates are now hitting $70+gst per hour. Makes me laugh when politicians talk about affordable housing in Auckland when the labour rates are rising so quickly…
Do they ever check their stories? A brief look and the first thing that stands out is an error on their front page. It isn’t Oprah’s first time in NZ as she stayed at Huka Lodge a few years back.
“It’s not to Television New Zealand’s credit that they employ him.”
Nicky Hager damns Mike “Contra” Hosking Mediawatch, Radio NZ National, Sunday 19 July 2015
One year after the release of his latest exposé of the National Party’s assault on democracy, Nicky Hager was interviewed by Colin Peacock. Hager said that there is a huge gap between journalists and the organisations that employ them. In spite of having to work for organisations like the New Zealand Herald, Mediaworks and TVNZ, most people in the media are serious and well informed journalists—with the exception of one or two, who didn’t let the fact they had not read the book stop them from launching crazed attacks on him.
Colin Peacock pressed him to name one of those lazy, ill-informed National Party loyalists. Hager hesitated, and then said: “Well, Mike Hosking. It’s not to Television New Zealand’s credit that they hire him…”
I thought he said: the bounce isn’t as high as Labour would have hoped.
Well of course it isn’t – yet. The story only broke a week ago and it takes much longer than a week for these issues to sink in among the majority of voters – plus the poll must have started before the story broke.
Or you could look at it differently. Business confidence dropping effects of the low milk solids price is starting to effect every town and city in New Zealand. Gone is the rhetoric of our economy being solid as a rock, hence the Rock Star title, down to more realistic economic view of snap crackle and finally bang…pop deflated. So Pop Star is more fitting these days.
Yep and that dynamic is building slowly and likely caused the RM lift. I was just thinking of how a sudden bounce now might be characterised by some commentators.
It’ll be interesting, but Colmar Brunton’s built in 5% lean to the right should make it look OK for the Nats. Expect the lead story to be a beat up about how the housing crisis exposure hasn’t helped Labour. As if that was why it was done.
Maybe by the odd media shill, however with our economy on the skids and heading to a crisis the punters will see a wider range of issues not just Housing.
I’m only going to note that it’s really interesting how the first defence of the story was “Labour has to appeal to more voters” and now that there’s not going to be a bump out of it the new defence is “oh we didn’t do it to get more votes anyway.” (Or Anne’s alternative, “voters are too stupid to have figured out whether they support this or not yet”.)
The non resident foreigners buying property issue won’t be showing to any great degree in this poll. And even in the next polls, as there are numerous issues that those surveyed may have an axe to grind with this incumbent regime. It can be as simple as the more the population hear our economy is on the rocks, the more likely they are going to blame Key and his cronies for their unacceptable inaction. That is my opinion for what it’s worth.
It’s a very fair opinion. I just tire of the paradoxical arguments, i.e. “this will appeal to voters, but that appeal will mysteriously not be reflected in poll results”.
The idea that dogwhistling on people’s surnames wasn’t actually a great move is apparently unspeakable.
Just because something will appeal to voters, doesn’t mean it should result in a clear signal in the polls, particularly immediately after the event. Also if the polling started on the Saturday, a lot of people simply would not have heard about it until Monday anyway.
Labour lost the last election because they didn’t look like they could form a credible government. Their attack on foreign speculators in the last week doesn’t speak directly towards that particular criticism either.
Also notable is that National haven’t really responded to Labour’s attacks on them; that will likely be occurring in this week. National’s response is partly what will drive polling intentions – do they agree with the problem and are they doing something concrete about it, or are they just going to keep on claiming that there is no problem? Or, most likely, are they just going to deflect onto the ‘racism’ angle and refuse to talk about the issue?
Thanks for that Stephanie, yes I was very disappointed at the dog whistle tactic, the sloppiness was amateurish. There was a lack of being honest and frank. Where was the confession “Labour doesn’t have the funds to resource for paying an agency to provide the details…unlike National who have large donators like property magnates like Mr Barfoot who contributed $20,000 at last year’s election”.
You didn’t see that approach from me, Stephanie. In fact, I’m struggling to recall anybody who made an argument that it was done because “Labour has to appeal to more voters”. I’m pretty sure that most people accept that it was an issue that needed raising, but there was considerable difference on how it should have been done.
Stephanie… you seem to like reading things into people’s comment that are not there. It’s a well known fact that most people are not into politics in the same way we are, and therefore take longer to respond to political issues when they arise. Nothing to do with “stupidity” as you well know. I will respond in kind by saying I think that was a witting attempt to drive a wedge where no wedges should exist.
Wallace Chapman talking to author about NZ wines and regions! WTF – that’s Metros area or the Sunday inserts. Why waste valuable interviewing time on such lifestyle matters. It isn’t even part of a business overview which informed people should know about.
Jane Kelsey is being interviewed on her new book The Fire Economy. Good.
Perhaps we are being presented with a ‘balanced’ set of interview, the acceptable lifestyle ones, with a token piece of searching, thoughtful stuff to show that it’s all not souffles with madeira wine flavouring. Now wouldn’t that be an attractive dessert. If you like the idea, it’s yours.
There’s nothing wrong with talking about wine. The problem is the utter triviality of most of the rest of his programme. A few minutes ago, he said: “What’s your favorite tree? THAT is the theme of the day.”
Chapman also has people texting in about what their favorite David Bowie song is. A few weeks ago, he begged people to text in about their favorite Beatles song. Every week, he asks people to say what their favorite city, or favorite snack or favorite movie is.
Unlike some people in the media—Mike “Contra” Hosking, Leighton Smith, Larry “Lackwit” Williams, Sean Plunket—Wallace Chapman is neither lazy nor ill-informed. This trivialization of the Sunday morning programme is not his idea, it’s something that some genius in Radio New Zealand management has forced on him.
“This trivialization of the Sunday morning programme is not his idea, it’s something that some genius in Radio New Zealand management has forced on him.”
So, its not just us then? Switched the squawk box off 1/2 an hour ago.
I thought Natrad was trying to build its audience???
Yes I have noticed the attempt at drawing people to use their ‘apps’ to contact Wallace at Radionz about matters which is something that the commercial is likely to do. That may be necessary as so many young to middle-aged people view life through the tiny space of a reversed telescope their smartphone screen gives. There is a need to bring young people into the Radionz circle. But it dilutes the effective time for big media stuff. It seems to me like bringing special needs pupils into the ordinary everyday classroom, the teacher time and attention available to other children is lessened.
But Radionz cannot be allowed to become only for the older age group, it will need to bring in the younger group. I hope that we don’t lose the majority of intelligent, informed discussion about the world’s news, in favour of the soft option of discussing the interests of the middle class and nice pieces from most favoured nations that imitate the pretty words of a travelogue.
Your final sentence is also my worry. This trivialization of the Sunday morning programme is not his idea, it’s something that some genius in Radio New Zealand management has forced on him.
Hey, the tree discussion was actually focused on the effects of climate change (trees dying in Melbourne because of long-term droughts), and explored the connection people feel to trees that form part of their sense of self and community. I thought it was an imaginative approach to a subject that people often find dry or abstract and hard to connect to. The sample emails he read out were great – heart-warming, moving, funny, poetic… Not everything has to be hard-hitting. Sometimes a more quirky or unexpected approach can really touch a nerve and get people thinking.
Another thought re Wallace and wine buff interview. The sort of people that would enjoy listening to the talk about NZs fine wine are those who realise that the early favourites of Cold Duck or Blue Nun were rather sweet, perhaps even sugar-added, They now have more sophisticated palates, prefer something drier, appreciate the nuances in flavour.
But they have equally developed a preference for their news to reflect the sweet life. The bitter aftertaste of thorough coverage of real-world news requires a higher sort of sophistication from them before it can be embraced.
Patty Culhane of Al Jazeera on Obama’s legacy
Al Jazeera News, Saturday 18 July 2015
The U.S.-friendly official mouthpiece of the Qatari dictatorship took several minutes out of its “news” for a specially prepared item by Patty Culhane in Washington, pondering the legacy of Barack Obama as he approaches the final year of his presidency. Over several photographs of Obama looking serious, dignified and “presidential”, Culhane assured viewers that “much, perhaps most, of what happens internationally is beyond his control”. To illustrate how helpless the U.S. President is, she cited Yemen and ISIS in Iraq and Syria—none of which, apparently, has any connection to the United States.
The item finished with a long shot of a serious-looking President Obama gazing through the window, framed dramatically by the grand Oval Office windows.
I’m not sure now, but I think there was reflective violin music playing for the whole item, to emphasise the lonely vigil of this embattled human rights warrior.
Not sure if ‘don’t understand’ is the same as ‘doesn’t actually exist’, weka! Generally, I prefer laughing at people who make money by exploiting the gullible, something I appear to have in common with Mitchell and Webb.
I can pretty much guarantee that homeopathy (and acupuncture and chiropractic and…) will outlast energy intensive complexity reliant high funding requiring ‘modern medicine’.
… and I can pretty much guarantee that treatments such as homeopathy will be continue to be completely ineffective for any serious illnesses such as cancer, diabetes etc ….
well, I can pretty much guarantee to you that a traditional Japanese or African or Greek diet is better for cancer and diabetes than anything modern medicine can come up with 😉
We know how it’s supposed to work, Weka, because the woo-woo-witch-doctor gave evidence at the British Parliamentary Inquiry that:
“Dr Fisher stated that the process of ‘shaking is important’ but was unable to say how much shaking was required. He said ‘that has not been fully investigated’ but did tell us that ‘You have to shake it vigorously […] if you just stir it gently, it does not work’.
In other words, the woo-woo-witch-doctor hasn’t got a clue, but he believes it very very hard.
Mainstream science, on the other hand, does have a clue: Homeopathy relies 100% on the Placebo effect.
The “placebo effect” can actually be broken down into many individual factors.
In fact, what is measured by the “placebo effect” in drug trials is simply the the amount of healing that took place for the control group that weren’t given the drug. This naturally therefore lumps “the body’s natural healing ability” in under the umbrella “placebo effect”. Which is interesting.
One factor that is known to have a big benefit, and this is probably why modern medicine is not as effective as it ‘should’ be, and these alternative medicines seem to show more effect than they ‘should’, is simply the level of attention given to the patient from the practitioner. Studies have been done where pain killers were given to patients, but the amount of attention given to the patient varied dramatically. Some patients were simply proscribed the intervention after a short discussion, while others had long conversations with frequent follow-ups and discussions of the progress. It was found that patients that had more involvement from their practitioners had a statistically significant improvement in symptoms compared to those who were simply proscribed the intervention and then left to their own devices.
In other words, if modern medicine could be practised in a way that showed more concern for patients, overall we’d get better outcomes. A tricky question is whether the improved outcomes are worth the increased investment.
Anyway, that ‘hands-on’ attention is a clear difference between alternative ‘medicine’ and modern medicine, and likely explains a lot of the positive results.
Placebo is more than the body’s normal healing processes. That’s why drug trials also include a control group. Placebo will often show better results than the control. What’s the mechanism behind that? I agree that pracitioner/client relationship is part of it, but it’s more than that. Natural health practitioners are much better at engaging the placebo response than conventional.
“Placebo is more than the body’s normal healing processes.”
I never said it wasn’t. In fact I said it is made up of many parts, one of which is the body’s natural healing process. Re-reading I can see that this isn’t as clear as it should be, but reading the whole comment I don’t think you can construe that I said placebo is only natural healing.
Succussing is how the remedy is prepared. That’s not what I am talking about. I’m talking about how homeopathic practice works. I’m happy to add you to the list of people who express opinions about this when they are still largely ignorant of the theory they are critiquing.
What you are demonstrating is faith and superstition. The faith is in omnipotence of the metatrials, despite them being quite easily critiqued (i.e. I would guess you have no idea about the shortcomings). The superstition is ridiculing something you don’t get understand.
“Mainstream science, on the other hand, does have a clue: Homeopathy relies 100% on the Placebo effect.”
I suggest you go and extend your reading OAB. Placebo is a very useful thing in healing and health management. Even mainstream science is catching on to that one. The rest of us have know about it forever.
I did a Google scholar search for “bedside manner” as a consequence of Lanth’s comment. The medical profession is way ahead of you, and was at the time of Hippocrates.
As for further reading on Placebos, I recommend you read the link too.
Yep, and the Persians were there before Hippocrates. But ffs, the Chinese have been doing this shit for thousands of years longer than we have. Btw, physicians in Hippocrates’ time did things and believed things that you would consider woowoo, so I’m not sure why you are invoking his name.
If you are suggesting that placebo from bedside manner is the only thing happening with alternative pracitioners, then you have a very limited idea of what placebo is or how it works. It also backs up my suspicion that you have no idea what homeopathic practice is. These are very basic illogics, it’s hard to believe I’m in a conversation with otherwise thoughtful people. But ideology trumps every time.
Although effective in temporarily relieving back pain, that’s where it begins and ends.
If you can accept the science behind climate change proven by reputable scientists and researchers, why the fuck would you accept these frauds perpetuated by charlatans which have been disproven through the similar research methodologies and rigour. It’s preying on the daft and the gullible. About as genuine as Scientology.
Otago and Southland residents have been using chiropractic care since post WWI. For many different reasons. And they continue to do so in their thousands and thousands. These are smart practical people who don’t put up with BS which doesn’t work. University lecturers, PhD candidates, medical doctors, nurses and physiotherapists, some of them 🙂
My understanding of acupuncture is that it’s placebo – more drastic seeming interventions tend to have more positive outcomes – and (as linked above) more 1-on-1 contact time from the administrator of the procedure compared to some other forms of treatment.
@OAB: I can’t actually read the article, only the abstract. But they appear to be comparing a single control individual, since the other 39 in the group didn’t complete the programme?
If that’s the case, the results aren’t statistically significant.
As I’ve said before, I’ve had very good results from Chiropractic treatment for sciatica. This is not unusual: cf the medical literature cited by Realblue above.
The argument that science has proved something doesn’t exist is flawed, and most people who are anti-homeopathy are not willing to be honest about this.
the ongoing multi-centuries long fucking arrogance of you scientism types who in your ignorance and pridefulness believe you possess all the valid knowledge of mankind; in fact the very same attitude as when the brightest medical doctors of the day were prescribing bleeding, arsenic and opium. Or thalidomide, vioxx and Dalkon Shields.
But it’s not science making the absurd claim. It’s really up to the rip off artists to justify themselves. Though they’re highly incentivised to do no such thing.
Perhaps for the sake of clarity you should explain what yu mean by homeopathy.
Some people use the term to cover using such products as Arnica and other herbal/natural medications, while others use it in its narrowest definition relating to dilution and shaking to a level wherein no molecules are left within the product apart from the diluent.
In this narrow definition homeopathy has been repeatedly proven to be no more effective than placebo as such its use in preference to an active proven effective treatment in anything but simple maladies cannot be recommended by any healthcare professional, I’m not sure why you find that disturbing.
Homoeopathy, where somehow the water ‘remembers’ the ‘cure’ that was put in it through mystical vibrations or whatever is utter bullshit. How come the water remembers the ‘cure’, but not all the other millions of years where it had literal shit or toxic metals in it?
Herbal remedies may have some limited healing powers in some uses.
@ RedLogix:
“Good-oh. I’ll take your placebo effect thank you very much. Cheap, reliable and often effective. And no list of risks and side-effects.”
Actually it works both ways: the “nocebo effect” is where drugs and actual treatments are less effective than they should be, because that brain of ours has some funny ideas about how its body should behave sometimes.
This is to follow on from Colonial Rawshark’s response to Realblue –
Acupuncture is taught at Otago University and at AUT in Auckland as a post grad course and as Bachelor and Master programmes at private colleges in Auckland and Wellington. Wiki is well known for its bias against complementary and alternative medicine. Fortunately NZQA do not rely on Wiki.
“If you can accept the science behind climate change proven by reputable scientists and researchers, why the fuck would you accept these frauds perpetuated by charlatans which have been disproven through the similar research methodologies and rigour. It’s preying on the daft and the gullible.”
If you can’t tell the difference between evidence of something and trying to prove the absence of something then you really shouldn’t be trying to use science as part of your argument.
You also shouldn’t go anywhere near healthcare other than your own given you appear to have no clue about informed consent or patient centred practice.
btw, it’s those attitudes that keep the gulf between the scienceheads and the woo wooers. They’re both entrenched in belief systems that they can’t see out of, but the sad thing is that the woo wooers will never come back to science while it is so damn patronising and mean.
Perhaps the reason woo-wooers find scientists patronising and mean [citation needed] is that woo-wooers expect to be taken seriously when they have a profound information deficit.
Or are you ok with unqualified civil engineers too?
Ancient civilisations built pyramids, aquaducts, irrigation systems and highways without your ‘qualified civil engineers’. And some of that shit lasted for centuries – better than anything built today is going to last.
Yes, they had no master builders or architects and had not learned from experience. They just let anyone design and build things like the tomb of the Emperor or The Parthenon.
The narrow bands have been packaged up and locked into mind traps which they mistake for knowledge
Some of the wee monkeys understand limitations ,while other wee monkeys prefer to masturbate in public believing they are the apex of universal evolution
Human beings are monkeys with prehistoric tools believing they are unlocking the secrets of the universe.
Stroke on wee monkeys
[I’ve pointed out previously that your chosen handle is homophobic. Please don’t use it again. TRP]
I think CV’s point might be better interpreted like this; that the ancients were capable of building remarkable structures based purely on their observational and artisan skills.
Yes the people entrusted with supervising these projects would have been carefully chosen as the most talented and trusted people to do it – but few of them would have been burdened much by many years of mathematics, structural analysis, finite object analysis and so on. In other words they achieved all those things prior to any of the scientific revolution, and with none of the tools civil engineers take for granted today.
@Lanth
Well yes but what portion of structures that WE build do you think will stand in 1000 years time?
As I stated elsewhere today, I’m as much a creature and beneficiary of the experimental scientific method as anyone here. I was trained in it and have earned a living at it all my life.
But as a method it has it’s limits, and I’ve always been aware that all other non-Western cultures use a more observational approach arrive at quite another set of rules and guides for understanding the world they live in. And with quite remarkable degrees of coherence across multiple cultures. It’s a pretty gross arrogance, a racist conceit even, to simply erase that vast, complex and correlated body of knowledge as mere superstition and ignorance.
And I’m old enough to have my own modest little collection of experiences that no explanation within the scientific model. Most of these experiences arrived uninvited, unexpected and left their own very specific memories.
One example: when I was younger I used to have very vivid OOBE dreams. When I was six years old one night I ‘visited’ a house, down the driveway, around the back and into the kitchen. Next day at school I actually made a drawing of it.
At the age of ten my family moved into that house. My mum recognised the room and found the old drawing. One problem; there was a big set of cupboards in my picture which was not definitely not there. Still she was pretty impressed.
About four years later my dad and I lifted the flooring to move a wall – and there on the boards was the clear outline of the missing cupboards.
Western Science has zero explanation for this kind of thing, yet in conversation with people over the years I know that it’s also pretty common. Yes I know anecdote ‘proves’ nothing. I’m not trying to.
Yet tell this tale to most non-Westerners, indigenous peoples especially – and the response is a ‘so what boringly ho-hum and commonplace’. They’d typically find it no more remarkable than a detailed description of my last bowel movement.
At no point am I suggesting that this invalidates or diminishes the scientific method. It remains the reliable pivot around which I understand my world. But neither is there any proof to show that it is the ONLY way to understand reality, or indeed that it’s method can ever encompass an understanding of ALL reality.
Because I think this is all that people like CV, weka and myself ask for; is that science has the humility to acknowledge the boundaries of it’s domain, and remain open to the possibility that future generations will uncover new ideas and new knowledge that none of us can properly imagine just now.
To my mind that makes them explicable by Physics. Science hasn’t yet demonstrated the mechanism: it’s still the best tool for researching the phenomenon.
And that’s the point I was making. I totally agree that physics (or some yet to be understood extension of it) will be the best explanation.
Indeed that IS the power of the scientific method. Once it can create a reliable model of a phenomenon, it can then be expanded into a reproducible technology.
But just dismissing these out-of-domain experiences as woo-woo simply slows the process down – and crucially is a betrayal of the fundamental spirit of science. And ordinary people are pretty good at detecting that sort of thing.
I characterised Fisher’s pathetic testimony to the Parliamentary Science and Technology Select Committee as “woo-woo-witch-doctor”. I stand by that description.
For anyone who thinks evidence-free drivel is a good idea I have one word: Neoliberalism.
So what? Woo-woo-witch-doctors don’t give a fuck about evidence, absent or not: they just want to inflict their afflictions upon everyone else while demanding “respect” and most importantly, public money.
The Roger Douglases and Max Bradfords of this world: in any sane universe they only deserve oxygen because I let my foot off their throat.
I’ll just throw this into the mix as it’s semi-relevant.
People with near death experiences in hospitals often claim they have visions of hovering up and over their body, looking down on themselves while doctors crowd around trying to heal them etc.
So a study was done (it was mentioned on QI, unfortunately I haven’t been able to google it) where they placed various objects on top of cabinets and shelves high up in the room, that could only be seen by someone who had a genuine out-of-body experience.
Over the years that the study ran, none of the hundred or so people who reported OOBE where they were hovering over their beds were able to recall the objects so-placed.
How quickly and easily RL’s comments are thrown away.
Fact is – a single incident of the type RL relates and you must admit that everything we know about the scientifically known universe – is not that much.
A prospect terrifying to some – but liberating to others.
Sorry OAB – but for such a determined defender of science you’ve been quick to abandon it here. If there is no evidence for something there are at least four logical possibilities:
1. You haven’t found it yet, or more likely, you haven’t really looked
2. You’re looking for the wrong kind of evidence, in the wrong places
3. You have found it, but you’ve failed to recognise it’s significance
4. It really does not exist
You don’t have to have a go at me. I actually do logic on a daily basis for a living. And getting my head around ALL the possible states is the key to getting a complete and robust solution.
Of course you are quite right; charlatans of all types will indulge lazy and wishful thinkers by parting them from their money at every opportunity. But you have to accept – alternative medicines, while especially prone to it, do not have that affliction on their own.
RL – when did I abandon it again? I’m not having a go at you – it’s quite clear that there is plenty of independent evidence that mirrors your own experience, and mine for that matter.
Neuroscience has mapped the territory a bit better, and will explore further if the rate of growth of literature on the subject is any indication. The only people I can see with grounds to be “frightened” of this are the woo-woo brigade, who are financially dependent on ignorance.
Meanwhile, CR’s strawman doesn’t stand scrutiny: ask any scientist and they’ll tell you that the more they learn the more they realise they don’t know.
Fact is – a single incident of the type RL relates and you must admit that everything we know about the scientifically known universe – is not that much.
Oh bollocks CR – there are dozens of possible explanations for RL’s experience before mysterious powers need to be introduced.
Did RL see their house in the future, or did RL’s parents like the house because it looked like RL’s picture? If a house has been around long enough, most walls would have had cupboards against them at one stage or another.
There is a huge amount to learn, yes. Maybe even remote viewing or something similar is possible. Hell, maybe even this is what RL’s experience was, rather than clouded memories of long ago or any other explanation. All I’m really saying is that confirmation bias is a wonderful thing, and eyewitness testimony is frequently unreliable.
Déjà vu, (Listeni/ˌdeɪʒɑː ˈvuː/; French pronunciation: [de.ʒa.vy]) from French, literally “already seen”, is the phenomenon of having the strong sensation that an event or experience currently being experienced, has already been experienced in the past, whether it has actually happened or not.
I figure that there’s an everyday description of it that’s known and understood by everybody because it’s, as you say, common.
Clinical experiments with patients who suffer from epilepsy…
found that synchronized neural firing between the rhinal cortices and the hippocampus or amygdala were increased in stimulations that induced déjà vu. This suggests that some sort of coincident occurrence in medial temporal lobe structures may “trigger” activation of the recollection system.
.
Epilepsy research has also yielded interesting results regarding OOBEs.
Speaker Bronwyn Bishop blows $5 grand of taxpayer dosh on a helicopter trip from Melbourne to Geelong and back so that she can attend a Liberal Party fundraiser, doesn’t see the inherent problem.
The gummint has noticed that there are organised fights within our prisons, disapproves, and has put the entities in charge ‘on notice’.
I know just how the gummint feels. As with so many in our country, I have listened to the farce of bouts needing Queensberry Rules that the gummint turn Parliament’s Question Time into. I and a great number of others, I hope, put them ‘on notice’ to be meted out at the next election.
And they can’t resist involving David Cunliffe on spurious grounds. (Note to political
media advisor – Tell pollie to always say ‘I can’t remember.it was many years ago. I will have to check on that.’)
Stuff has repeated :Former Labour leader David Cunliffe was also put on the back foot after it was proved he had signed a letter in 2003 supporting Liu, having initially denied doing so.
VetSouth to offer free services to struggling dairy farmers (for a month, but it could be extended), who would otherwise shoot cows rather than call the vet.
It’s really encouraging to see this kind of thing – the banks need to adopt a similar attitude to managing the dairy bust. If managed correctly land values and production can drop to a realistic level without exacting a severe toll on farmers and their families.
”We thought that wasn’t good enough and we could do better … by supporting the farmers who supported us. We wanted to tip the balance in favour of the cows.”
Farmers typically wanted to do their best for their stock and it was hoped the offer would ”remove some of the pain” and ease both the situation for both farmers and cows, he said.
”The reasoning behind this is simple – it’s not a cow’s fault if she gets sick in a low-payout season.”
Of course, slower growth in the population means slower growth in the size of the economy. But what of it? What do we lose?
The economic rationale for economic growth is that it raises our material standard of living. But this happens only if GDP grows faster than the population grows. So it doesn’t follow that slower GDP growth caused by slower population growth leaves us worse off materially.
That would be true only if slower population growth caused slower growth in GDP per person. I suspect many people unconsciously assume it does, but where’s the evidence?
I doubt there is any. The most significant recent study, conducted by the Productivity Commission in 2006, concluded that even skilled migration would do little to increase income per person. And what little growth the commission could find was appropriated by the new arrivals.
An interesting article that raises interesting questions.
Assuming that higher GDP = better standard of living is stupid, anyway.
It’s quite easy for GDP to increase, even increase at a rate faster than population growth, but general standard of living doesn’t go up.
It’d even be quite easy for the GDP to go down while living standards increase. The two obvious causes are unequal distribution of the wealth, and then more efficient/effective technologies being introduced that improve living standards.
Throughout this era I’ve watched truckloads of provincial rural reporters do nothing more than suck, and grease, and fawn over the entire industry. With very few exceptions, nary a searching question has passed their lips.
What questions should they have asked? Here’s a random selection of thousands that could and should have been asked.
Why are we content to produce masses of low-commodity, low-value milk powder to the lactose-intolerant Chinese?
Why aren’t we actively pursuing value-added products to trade with the rest of the world?
Why do we think that high input farming – having to use imported feed like PKE – isn’t ‘factory farming’?
How sustainable is this industry given the level of intensification, outside inputs, environmental damage and debt required to conduct “normal” business?
Has the short-term boom been worth the long-term bust of our dying waterways?
Have farmers been doing enough to protect the environment while making that quick buck?
You see, right about here lies one of the problems. An indignant, arrogant press release would suddenly appear from “BigAg” saying that farmers have spent “$1b to date” on cleaning up their effects on the environment. Yet, not one journalist has ever asked ask them to quantify that figure. Not one.
Makes you wonder what else is going straight over their heads, doesn’t it?
Our economy and our environment is pretty much fucked and a large part of the blame lies squarely with farming but a lot of that could have been prevented if we’d had a Fourth Estate asking the correct questions and a government willing to reign in the depredations of the farmers.
Tory peers like Lord
Cormack argued in favour of moving away from tax funding, saying:
“All forms of funding must be
looked at. We have to have a plurality of funding if we are to have a
sustainable NHS. Whether the extra funding comes from compulsory
insurances or certain charges matters not, but it has to come.”
Matters not!? As a true Tory, he says that
the funding should not come from taxing the rich (which he does not even
countenance), but instead from taxing the sick.
More disappointing were the contributions from
Labour peers like (the notoriously pro-privatisation) Lord Warner:
“Our tax-funded, largely free at the point of
clinical need NHS is rapidly approaching an existential moment. The voices of
dissent and outrage will no doubt be deafening but a wise Government
should begin now the process of helping the public engage in a
discourse about future funding of the NHS.”
This open-for-business, under-new-management cliché-pockmarked government of Christopher Luxon is not the thing of beauty he imagines it to be. It is not the powerful expression of the will of the people that he asserts it to be. It is not a soaring eagle, it is a malodorous vulture. This newest poll should make ...
The latest labour market statistics, showing a rise in unemployment. There are now 134,000 unemployed - 14,000 more than when the National government took office. Which is I guess what happens when the Reserve Bank causes a recession in an effort to Keep Wages Low. The previous government saw a ...
Three opinion polls have been released in the last two days, all showing that the new government is failing to hold their popular support. The usual honeymoon experienced during the first year of a first term government is entirely absent. The political mood is still gloomy and discontented, mainly due ...
National's Finance Minister once met a poor person.A scornful interview with National's finance guru who knows next to nothing about economics or people.There might have been something a bit familiar if that was the headline I’d gone with today. It would of course have been in tribute to the article ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Throughout the pandemic, the new Vice-Chancellor-of-Otago-University-on-$629,000 per annum-Can-you-believe-it-and-Former-Finance-Minister Grant Robertson repeated the mantra over and over that he saved “lives and livelihoods”.As we update how this claim is faring over the course of time, the facts are increasingly speaking differently. NZ ...
Chris Trotter writes – IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in acknowledgement of electoral victory: “We’ll govern for all New Zealanders.” On the face of it, the pledge is a strange one. Why would any political leader govern in ways that advantaged the huge ...
Bryce Edwards writes – The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 10:06am on Wednesday, May 1:The Lead: Business confidence fell across the board in April, falling in some areas to levels last seen during the lockdowns because of a collapse in ...
Over the past 36 hours, Christopher Luxon has been dong his best to portray the centre-right’s plummeting poll numbers as a mark of virtue. Allegedly, the negative verdicts are the result of hard economic times, and of a government bravely set out on a perilous rescue mission from which not ...
Auckland Transport have started rolling out new HOP card readers around the network and over the next three months, all of them on buses, at train stations and ferry wharves will be replaced. The change itself is not that remarkable, with the new readers looking similar to what is already ...
Completed reads for April: The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling Carnival of Saints, by George Herman The Snow Spider, by Jenny Nimmo Emlyn’s Moon, by Jenny Nimmo The Chestnut Soldier, by Jenny Nimmo Death Comes As the End, by Agatha Christie Lord of the Flies, by ...
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 ...
Have a story to share about St Paul’s, but today just picturesPopular novels written at this desk by a young man who managed to bootstrap himself out of father’s imprisonment and his own young life in a workhouse Read more ...
The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill English, Simon Bridges, Steven Joyce, Roger Sowry, ...
Newsroom has a story today about National's (fortunately failed) effort to disestablish the newly-created Inspector-General of Defence. The creation of this agency was the key recommendation of the Inquiry into Operation Burnham, and a vital means of restoring credibility and social licence to an agency which had been caught lying ...
Holding On To The Present:The moment a political movement arises that attacks the whole idea of social progress, and announces its intention to wind back the hands of History’s clock, then democracy, along with its unwritten rules, is in mortal danger.IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in ...
Stuck In The Middle With You:As Christopher Luxon feels the hot breath of Act’s and NZ First’s extremists on the back of his neck and, as he reckons with the damage their policies are already inflicting upon a country he’s described as “fragile”, is there not some merit in reaching out ...
The unpopular coalition government is currently rushing to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The clause is Oranga Tamariki's Treaty clause, and was inserted after its systematic stealing of Māori children became a public scandal and resulted in physical resistance to further abductions. The clause created clear obligations ...
Buzz from the Beehive The government’s official website – which Point of Order monitors daily – not for the first time has nothing much to say today about political happenings that are grabbing media headlines. It makes no mention of the latest 1News-Verian poll, for example. This shows National down ...
It Takes A Train To Cry:Surely, there is nothing lonelier in all this world than the long wail of a distant steam locomotive on a cold Winter’s night.AS A CHILD, I would lie awake in my grandfather’s house and listen to the traffic. The big wooden house was only a ...
Packing A Punch: The election of the present government, including in its ranks politicians dedicated to reasserting the rights of the legislature in shaping and determining the future of Māori and Pakeha in New Zealand, should have alerted the judiciary – including its anomalous appendage, the Waitangi Tribunal – that its ...
Dead Woman Walking: New Zealand’s media industry had been moving steadily towards disaster for all the years Melissa Lee had been National’s media and communications policy spokesperson, and yet, when the crisis finally broke, on her watch, she had nothing intelligent to offer. Christopher Luxon is a patient man - but he’s not ...
Chris Trotter writes – New Zealand politics is remarkably easy-going: dangerously so, one might even say. With the notable exception of John Key’s flat ruling-out of the NZ First Party in 2008, all parties capable of clearing MMP’s five-percent threshold, or winning one or more electorate seats, tend ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is ...
Luxon will no doubt put a brave face on it, but there is no escaping the pressure this latest poll will put on him and the government. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political ...
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler In the wake of any unusual weather event, someone inevitably asks, “Did climate change cause this?” In the most literal sense, that answer is almost always no. Climate change is never the sole cause of hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, or ...
Something odd happened yesterday, and I’d love to know if there’s more to it. If there was something which preempted what happened, or if it was simply a throwaway line in response to a journalist.Yesterday David Seymour was asked at a press conference what the process would be if the ...
Hi,From time to time, I want to bring Webworm into the real world. We did it last year with the Jurassic Park event in New Zealand — which was a lot of fun!And so on Saturday May 11th, in Los Angeles, I am hosting a lil’ Webworm pop-up! I’ve been ...
Education Minister Erica Standford yesterday unveiled a fundamental reform of the way our school pupils are taught. She would not exactly say so, but she is all but dismantling the so-called “inquiry” “feel good” method of teaching, which has ruled in our classrooms since a major review of the New ...
Exactly where are we seriously going with this government and its policies? That is, apart from following what may as well be a Truss-Lite approach on the purported economic “plan“, and Victorian-era regression when it comes to social policy.Oh it’ll work this time of course, we’re basically assured, “the ...
Hey Uncle Dave, When the Poms joined the EEC, I wasn't one of those defeatists who said, Well, that’s it for the dairy job. And I was right, eh? The Chinese can’t get enough of our milk powder and eventually, the Poms came to their senses and backed up the ute ...
Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is higher than for any other mayor ...
Buzz from the Beehive Pharmac has been given a financial transfusion and a new chair to oversee its spending in the pharmaceutical business. Associate Health Minister David Seymour described the funding for Pharmac as “its largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff”. ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its ...
TL;DR: Here’s my top 10 ‘pick ‘n’ mix of links to news, analysis and opinion articles as of 10:10am on Monday, April 29:Scoop: The children's ward at Rotorua Hospital will be missing a third of its beds as winter hits because Te Whatu Ora halted an upgrade partway through to ...
span class=”dropcap”>As hideous as David Seymour can be, it is worth keeping in mind occasionally that there are even worse political figures (and regimes) out there. Iran for instance, is about to execute the country’s leading hip hop musician Toomaj Salehi, for writing and performing raps that “corrupt” the nation’s ...
Yesterday marked 10 years since the first electric train carried passengers in Auckland so it’s a good time to look back at it and the impact it has had. A brief history The first proposals for rail electrification in Auckland came in the 1920’s alongside the plans for earlier ...
Right now, in Aotearoa-NZ, our ‘animal spirits’ are darkening towards a winter of discontent, thanks at least partly to a chorus of negative comments and actions from the Government Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on ...
You make people evil to punish the paststuck inside a sequel with a rotating castThe following photos haven’t been generated with AI, or modified in any way. They are flesh and blood, human beings. On the left is Galatea Young, a young mum, and her daughter Fiadh who has Angelman ...
April has been a quiet month at A Phuulish Fellow. I have had an exceptionally good reading month, and a decently productive writing month – for original fiction, anyway – but not much has caught my eye that suggested a blog article. It has been vaguely frustrating, to be honest. ...
A listing of 31 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 21, 2024 thru Sat, April 27, 2024. Story of the week Anthropogenic climate change may be the ultimate shaggy dog story— but with a twist, because here ...
Hi,I spent about a year on Webworm reporting on an abusive megachurch called Arise, and it made me want to stab my eyes out with a fork.I don’t regret that reporting in 2022 and 2023 — I am proud of it — but it made me angry.Over three main stories ...
The new Victoria University Vice-Chancellor decided to have a forum at the university about free speech and academic freedom as it is obviously a topical issue, and the Government is looking at legislating some carrots or sticks for universities to uphold their obligations under the Education and Training Act. They ...
Do you remember when Melania Trump got caught out using a speech that sounded awfully like one Michelle Obama had given? Uncannily so.Well it turns out that Abraham Lincoln is to Winston Peters as Michelle was to Melania. With the ANZAC speech Uncle Winston gave at Gallipoli having much in ...
She was born 25 years ago today in North Shore hospital. Her eyes were closed tightly shut, her mouth was silently moving. The whole theatre was all quiet intensity as they marked her a 2 on the APGAR test. A one-minute eternity later, she was an 8. The universe was ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park in collaboration with members from our Skeptical Science team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Is Antarctica gaining land ice? ...
Images of US students (and others) protesting and setting up tent cities on US university campuses have been broadcast world wide and clearly demonstrate the growing rifts in US society caused by US policy toward Israel and Israel’s prosecution of … Continue reading → ...
Barrie Saunders writes – Dear Paul As the new Minister of Media and Communications, you will be inundated with heaps of free advice and special pleading, all in the national interest of course. For what it’s worth here is my assessment: Traditional broadcasting free to air content through ...
Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its arguments for such a bold reform. ...
Peter Dunne writes – The great nineteenth British Prime Minister, William Gladstone, once observed that “the first essential for a Prime Minister is to be a good butcher.” When a later British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, sacked a third of his Cabinet in July 1962, in what became ...
Ele Ludemann writes – New Zealanders had the OECD’s second highest tax increase last year: New Zealanders faced the second-biggest tax raises in the developed world last year, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) says. The intergovernmental agency said the average change in personal income tax ...
We all know something’s not right with our elections. The spread of misinformation, people being targeted with soundbites and emotional triggers that ignore the facts, even the truth, and influence their votes.The use of technology to produce deep fakes. How can you tell if something is real or not? Can ...
This video includes conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Simon Clark. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). This year you will be lied to! Simon Clark helps prebunk some misleading statements you'll hear about climate. The video includes ...
It is all very well cutting the backrooms of public agencies but it may compromise the frontlines. One of the frustrations of the Productivity Commission’s 2017 review of universities is that while it observed that their non-academic staff were increasing faster than their academic staff, it did not bother to ...
Buzz from the Beehive Two speeches delivered by Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters at Anzac Day ceremonies in Turkey are the only new posts on the government’s official website since the PM announced his Cabinet shake-up. In one of the speeches, Peters stated the obvious: we live in a troubled ...
1. Which of these would you not expect to read in The Waikato Invader?a. Luxon is here to do business, don’t you worry about thatb. Mr KPI expects results, and you better believe itc. This decisive man of action is getting me all hot and excitedd. Melissa Lee is how ...
…it has a restricted jurisdiction which must not be abused: it is not an inquisitionNOTE – this article was published before the High Court ruled that Karen Chhour does not have to appear before the Waitangi Tribunal Gary Judd writes – The High Court ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – One of reasons Oranga Tamariki exists is to prevent child neglect. But could the organisation itself be guilty of the same?Oranga Tamariki’s statistics show a decrease in the number and age of children in care. “There are less children ...
David Farrar writes: Graeme Edgeler wrote in 2017: In the first five years after three strikes came into effect 5248 offenders received a ‘first strike’ (that is, a “stage-1 conviction” under the three strikes sentencing regime), and 68 offenders received a ‘second strike’. In the five years prior to ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has surprised everyone with his ruthlessness in sacking two of his ministers from their crucial portfolios. Removing ministers for poor performance after only five months in the job just doesn’t normally happen in politics. That’s refreshing and will be extremely ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the two days to 6:06am on Thursday, April 25:Politics: PM Christopher Luxon has set up a dual standard for ministerial competence by demoting two National Cabinet ministers while leaving also-struggling ...
Hi,Today I mainly want to share some of your thoughts about the recent piece I wrote about success and failure, and the forces that seemingly guide our lives. But first, a quick bit of housekeeping: I am doing a Webworm popup in Los Angeles on Saturday May 11 at 2pm. ...
It is hard to see what Melissa Lee might have done to “save” the media. National went into the election with no public media policy and appears not to have developed one subsequently. Lee claimed that she had prepared a policy paper before the election but it had been decided ...
Open access notablesIce acceleration and rotation in the Greenland Ice Sheet interior in recent decades, Løkkegaard et al., Communications Earth & Environment:In the past two decades, mass loss from the Greenland ice sheet has accelerated, partly due to the speedup of glaciers. However, uncertainty in speed derived from satellite products ...
Buzz from the Beehive A statement from Children’s Minister Karen Chhour – yet to be posted on the Government’s official website – arrived in Point of Order’s email in-tray last night. It welcomes the High Court ruling on whether the Waitangi Tribunal can demand she appear before it. It does ...
Mr Bombastic:Ironically, the media the academic experts wanted is, in many ways, the media they got. In place of the tyrannical editors of yesteryear, advancing without fear or favour the interests of the ruling class; the New Zealand news media of today boasts a troop of enlightened journalists dedicated to ...
It's hard times try to make a livingYou wake up every morning in the unforgivingOut there somewhere in the cityThere's people living lives without mercy or pityI feel good, yeah I'm feeling fineI feel better then I have for the longest timeI think these pills have been good for meI ...
In 1974, the US Supreme Court issued its decision in United States v. Nixon, finding that the President was not a King, but was subject to the law and was required to turn over the evidence of his wrongdoing to the courts. It was a landmark decision for the rule ...
Every day now just seems to bring in more fresh meat for the grinder.In their relentlessly ideological drive to cut back on the “excessive bloat” (as they see it) of the previous Labour-led government, on the mountains of evidence accumulated in such a short period of time do not ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Megan Valére SosouMarket gardening site of the Itchèléré de Itagui agricultural cooperative in Dassa-Zoumè (Image credit: Megan Valère Sossou) For the residents of Dassa-Zoumè, a city in the West African country of Benin, choosing between drinking water and having enough ...
Buzz from the Beehive Melissa Lee – as may be discerned from the screenshot above – has not been demoted for doing something seriously wrong as Minister of ...
Morning in London Mother hugs beloved daughter outside the converted shoe factory in which she is living.Afternoon in London Travelling writer takes himself and his wrist down to A&E, just to be sure. Read more ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi, and Mema Paremata mō Tāmaki-Makaurau, Takutai Tarsh Kemp, will travel to the Gold Coast to strengthen ties with Māori in Australia next week (15-21 April). The visit, in the lead-up to the 9th Australian National Kapa haka Festival, will be an opportunity for both ...
The Green Party has today launched a step-by-step guide to help New Zealanders make their voice heard on the Government’s democracy dodging and anti-environment fast track legislation. ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
The Government and Rotorua Lakes Council are committed to working closely together to end the use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing) Tama Potaka says the Government remains committed to ending the long-term use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua by the ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is today travelling to Europe where he’ll update the United Nations Human Rights Council on the Government’s work to restore law and order. “Attending the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva provides us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while ...
Associate Agriculture Minister, Mark Patterson, formally reopened the world’s largest wool processing facility today in Awatoto, Napier, following a $50 million rebuild and refurbishment project. “The reopening of this facility will significantly lift the economic opportunities available to New Zealand’s wool sector, which already accounts for 20 per cent of ...
Hon Andrew Bayly, Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing At the Southland Otago Regional Engineering Collective (SOREC) Summit, 18 April, Dunedin Ngā mihi nui, Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Ko Whanganui aho Good Afternoon and thank you for inviting me to open your summit today. I am delighted ...
The Government is delivering on its commitment to bring back the Three Strikes legislation, Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee announced today. “Our Government is committed to restoring law and order and enforcing appropriate consequences on criminals. We are making it clear that repeat serious violent or sexual offending is not ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today announced four new diplomatic appointments for New Zealand’s overseas missions. “Our diplomats have a vital role in maintaining and protecting New Zealand’s interests around the world,” Mr Peters says. “I am pleased to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the ...
New Zealand is contributing NZ$7 million to support communities affected by severe food insecurity and other urgent humanitarian needs in Ethiopia and Somalia, Foreign Minister Rt Hon Winston Peters announced today. “Over 21 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance across Ethiopia, with a further 6.9 million people ...
Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Paul Goldsmith is congratulating Mataaho Collective for winning the Golden Lion for best participant in the main exhibition at the Venice Biennale. "Congratulations to the Mataaho Collective for winning one of the world's most prestigious art prizes at the Venice Biennale. “It is good ...
The Government is reforming financial services to improve access to home loans and other lending, and strengthen customer protections, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly and Housing Minister Chris Bishop announced today. “Our coalition Government is committed to rebuilding the economy and making life simpler by cutting red tape. We are ...
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Sir Robert devoted his life to disability rights after living in institutions in his younger years, says Kaihautū Tika Hauātanga | Disability Rights Commissioner Prudence Walker. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anastasia Powell, Professor, Family and Sexual Violence, RMIT University Violence against women is not a women’s problem to solve, it is a whole of society problem to solve; and men in particular have to take responsibility. Those were the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jessica Allen, Senior Lecturer in Chemical and Renewable Energy Engineering, University of Newcastle Snapshot freddy/ShutterstockPlans to revive an old coal-fired power station using bioenergy are being considered in the Hunter region of New South Wales. Similar plans for the station ...
Responding to the long-awaited release of judges’ special allowances, including free air travel and hotels for spouses, generous sabbaticals, and access to limousines, Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Alex Murphy said: “In what world does your employer ...
Analysis - The United States has unveiled plans to boost the weapons trade with Australia and the UK, on the same day that Winston Peters is expected to sketch NZ's position on AUKUS. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrea Carson, Professor of Political Communication, Department of Politics, Media and Philosophy, La Trobe University Since Australia’s First Nations Voice to Parliament referendum in October 2023, diverse commentaries have sought to explain why it failed. But what does an analysis of media ...
Lawyers representing two iwi as well as the Māori Women’s Welfare League on Wednesday asked the Court of Appeal to overturn last week’s High Court decision on the Waitangi Tribunal’s decision to summons Children’s Minister Karen Chhour. The Tribunal is currently investigating the Government’s decision to repeal section 7AA of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The Albanese government will introduce legislation to ban deepfake pornography and provide more funding for the eSafety Commission to pilot age-assurance technologies. The contribution of internet sites to gender-based violence was one major issue ...
Average ordinary time hourly earnings, as measured by the Quarterly Employment Survey (QES), increased 5.2 percent in the year to the March 2024 quarter, according to figures released by Stats NZ today. Annual wage cost inflation, as measured by the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dimitrios Salampasis, FinTech Capability Lead | Senior Lecturer, Emerging Technologies and FinTech, Swinburne University of Technology Clem Onojeghuo/Unsplash In the digital era, the job market is increasingly becoming a minefield – demanding and difficult to navigate. According to the Australian Bureau ...
As of the March 2024 quarter, we can now look back on 20 years of data related to youth not in employment, education, or training (NEET), as collected by the Household Labour Force Survey (HLFS), according to figures released by Stats NZ today. "The ...
Thousands of workers attended public events in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch today to celebrate International Workers’ Day (May Day), but union representatives are urging caution and vigilance over the Government’s blatantly "anti-worker" ...
The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 4.3 percent in the March 2024 quarter, compared with 4.0 percent in the previous quarter, according to figures released by Stats NZ today. ...
The PSA is warning the Government that the sensitive information of New Zealanders held by various agencies will fall into the wrong hands if the latest round of proposed cuts goes ahead. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Talitha Best, Professor of Psychology, CQUniversity Australia Victoria Rodriguez/Unsplash How do sugar rushes work? – W.H, age nine, from Canberra What a terrific question W.H! Let’s explore this, starting with some of the basics. What is sugar? ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Karinna Saxby, Research Fellow, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne MART PRODUCTION/Pexels Increasing income support could help keep women and children safe according to new work demonstrating strong links between financial insecurity and domestic violence. ...
ANALYSIS:By Olli Hellmann, University of Waikato When New Zealanders commemorate Anzac Day today on April 25, it’s not only to honour the soldiers who lost their lives in World War I and subsequent conflicts, but also to mark a defining event for national identity. The battle of Gallipoli against ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark A Gregory, Associate Professor, School of Engineering, RMIT University The telecommunications industry faces a major shakeup following the release of the post-incident report on last November’s 12-hour Optus outage. Telecommunications companies will have to share more information with customers during future ...
Welcome to The Spinoff Bookseller Confessional, in which we get to know Aotearoa’s booksellers. This week: Eden Denyer, bookseller at Unity Books Auckland.Weirdest question/request you’ve had on the shop floorA mother came in looking for anything we might have on Alaskan bison as that was her little boy’s ...
NZCTU Economist Craig Renney said new data released by Statistics New Zealand shows the need for Government to act now, with unemployment rising from 3.4% to 4.3%. ...
The outpouring of anger over Maiki Sherman’s hyperbolic presentation of this week’s ‘nightmare’ poll is itself an overreaction, argues Stewart Sowman-Lund. Politicians love nothing more than to pretend they don’t care about polls. This week, deputy prime minister Winston Peters said he didn’t give a “rat’s derriere” about a TVNZ ...
Asia Pacific Report Ngāti Kahungunu in Aotearoa New Zealand’s Hawkes Bay region has become the first indigenous Māori iwi (tribe) to sign a resolution calling for a “ceasefire in Palestine”, reports Te Ao Māori News. Reporter Te Aniwaniwa Paterson talked to Te Otāne Huata, who has been organising peace rallies ...
By Dale Luma in Port Moresby “We want grants and not concessional loans,” is the crisp message from Papua New Guinea businesses directly affected by the Black Wednesday looting four months ago. The businesses, which lost millions after the January 10 rioting and looting, say they need grants as part ...
Happy May Day. Join a union. Q: What’s worse than a staff break room where the only place to sit and have a cup of tea is on a teetering stack of old pornography magazines? A: Your boss replacing the magazine stacks with chairs that are “heartily encrusted with ...
By Koroi Hawkins, RNZ Pacific editor Former opposition leader Matthew Wale has been announced as the second prime ministerial candidate ahead of the election in Solomon Islands tomorrow. He will face off against former foreign affairs minister Jeremiah Manele, who was announced by the Coalition for National Unity and Transformation ...
We get but one birthday a year – why not make it last as long as possible by scheduling as many meals with friends and family as you can? This is an excerpt from our weekly food newsletter, The Boil Up. How do you celebrate your birthday? Do you celebrate at ...
A Koi Tū discussion paper released today proposes sweeping changes to New Zealand’s media industry. The principal’s key author, Gavin Ellis, explains how journalists have a key role to play in making others value their role in society. This is an abridged version of a piece first published on knightlyviews.com ...
The Government’s spending cuts are again targeting support for Māori with proposed reform of the agency charged with advising on Māori wellbeing and development. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Douglas, Honorary Senior Lecturer, UNSW Aviation., UNSW Sydney The history of budget jet airlines in Australia is a long road littered with broken dreams. New entrants have consistently struggled to get a foothold. Low-cost carrier Bonza has just become the industry’s ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Duckett, Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne stockfour/Shutterstock Preliminary bulk billing data released this week shows a 2.1% rise in bulk billing up to March. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Samantha Schulz, Senior Lecturer, University of Adelaide Australia is once again grappling with how we can stop gendered violence in our country. Protests over the weekend show there is enormous community anger over the number of women who are dying and National ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Erin Harrington, Senior Lecturer in English and Cultural Studies, University of Canterbury The Conversation It seems to be a time of old favourites. This month our experts have recommended two new seasons – the second season of Alone Australia (although ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonti Horner, Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland A bright Eta Aquariid meteor photobombed this photo of comet C/2020 F8 (SWAN) in May 2020.Jonti Horner Meteors – commonly known as shooting stars – can be seen on any night of the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Flannery, Honorary fellow, The University of Melbourne Shutterstock Current concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO₂) in Earth’s atmosphere are unprecedented in human history. But CO₂ levels today, and those that might occur in coming decades, did occur millions of years ago. ...
Winston Peters has been keen to dismiss speculation on our involvement in Aukus but will give a speech tonight on the direction of our foreign policy, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Patrick Usmar, Lecturer in Critical Media Literacies, Auckland University of Technology Getty Images With the coalition government’s ban of student mobile phones in New Zealand schools coming into effect this week, reaction has ranged from the sceptical (kids will just get ...
Hospitals around the country are not allowed to make a single hiring decision without the approval of Te Whatu Ora's head office, including for cleaners and administration staff. ...
A new report on protecting journalism and democracy in New Zealand recommends a levy be charged on global platforms like Facebook and Google to fund media firms undertaking public interest reporting. It also calls for the reinstatement of a powerful Broadcasting Commission to distribute public funding for journalism and other ...
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Just sitting down to watch Q&A. Let’s see if they can extract some sense out the Housing Minister Smith after Gower didn’t have the skills on The Nation yesterday. So far he is dodging the real question of the lack of available data from his regime.
Don’t hold your breath.
Smith was woeful showing up how hopeless their front bench is without Key, who will be back on deck tomorrow, all sun tanned having jetted back in from his Hawaiian holiday.
Expect Key to be sucking air in and sounding like a bath tub drain pipe after pulling the plug. The issues are mounting economically and Key is getting hamstrung and tied down with his odd hair fondling fetish.
ask him what has happened to the “demand” side of the “supply and demand” equation so beloved of right wing nutbars everywhere…
Smith will look you in the eye while standing on the lawn and tell you that grass is not green …….. why do you think he has one wonky eye?
What’s Q&A?. Oh I remember that party political broadcast on behalf of the National Party used as a current affairs programme.
This turned up in my twitter feed:
No one has made the comment that with less than 3 months before the earth works season commences, many earth moving companies are already filling their books for work this year, It will not be long before the capabilities of this sector will be maxed out. Rates for this work will rise rapidly not only affecting land development but also to a large degree roading. That is if you will be able to find anyone wanting to commit to the work, we will soon hear land owners lamenting about being unable to develop or how expensive the process is and not just limiting their comments towards council costs.
Rates for excavation and site works have already risen and will lift again soon As you say a large number of contractors are booked already, similar story for builders charge rates are now hitting $70+gst per hour. Makes me laugh when politicians talk about affordable housing in Auckland when the labour rates are rising so quickly…
Do they ever check their stories? A brief look and the first thing that stands out is an error on their front page. It isn’t Oprah’s first time in NZ as she stayed at Huka Lodge a few years back.
Useless MSM
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=11483399
The big question there is: Why is it even news?
“It’s not to Television New Zealand’s credit that they employ him.”
Nicky Hager damns Mike “Contra” Hosking
Mediawatch, Radio NZ National, Sunday 19 July 2015
One year after the release of his latest exposé of the National Party’s assault on democracy, Nicky Hager was interviewed by Colin Peacock. Hager said that there is a huge gap between journalists and the organisations that employ them. In spite of having to work for organisations like the New Zealand Herald, Mediaworks and TVNZ, most people in the media are serious and well informed journalists—with the exception of one or two, who didn’t let the fact they had not read the book stop them from launching crazed attacks on him.
Colin Peacock pressed him to name one of those lazy, ill-informed National Party loyalists. Hager hesitated, and then said: “Well, Mike Hosking. It’s not to Television New Zealand’s credit that they hire him…”
If you can bear it, there’s more Hosking here….
http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-15032015/#comment-985614
http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-05022015/#comment-963999
Man on Q and A says Colmar Brunton poll tonight hasn’t given Labour a boost.
I thought he said: the bounce isn’t as high as Labour would have hoped.
Well of course it isn’t – yet. The story only broke a week ago and it takes much longer than a week for these issues to sink in among the majority of voters – plus the poll must have started before the story broke.
A sharp bounce would be undesirable anyway, as it would feed the Labour’s Orewa narrative.
Exactly.
Or you could look at it differently. Business confidence dropping effects of the low milk solids price is starting to effect every town and city in New Zealand. Gone is the rhetoric of our economy being solid as a rock, hence the Rock Star title, down to more realistic economic view of snap crackle and finally bang…pop deflated. So Pop Star is more fitting these days.
Yep and that dynamic is building slowly and likely caused the RM lift. I was just thinking of how a sudden bounce now might be characterised by some commentators.
The Colmar Brunton poll period was 11-15 July, i.e. started the day the story broke.
It’ll be interesting, but Colmar Brunton’s built in 5% lean to the right should make it look OK for the Nats. Expect the lead story to be a beat up about how the housing crisis exposure hasn’t helped Labour. As if that was why it was done.
Maybe by the odd media shill, however with our economy on the skids and heading to a crisis the punters will see a wider range of issues not just Housing.
Yep. I don’t see much to boost the nats in our future. Mind you, All Black captain John Key has won two tests already this year, so there’s that.
I’m only going to note that it’s really interesting how the first defence of the story was “Labour has to appeal to more voters” and now that there’s not going to be a bump out of it the new defence is “oh we didn’t do it to get more votes anyway.” (Or Anne’s alternative, “voters are too stupid to have figured out whether they support this or not yet”.)
The non resident foreigners buying property issue won’t be showing to any great degree in this poll. And even in the next polls, as there are numerous issues that those surveyed may have an axe to grind with this incumbent regime. It can be as simple as the more the population hear our economy is on the rocks, the more likely they are going to blame Key and his cronies for their unacceptable inaction. That is my opinion for what it’s worth.
It’s a very fair opinion. I just tire of the paradoxical arguments, i.e. “this will appeal to voters, but that appeal will mysteriously not be reflected in poll results”.
The idea that dogwhistling on people’s surnames wasn’t actually a great move is apparently unspeakable.
Just because something will appeal to voters, doesn’t mean it should result in a clear signal in the polls, particularly immediately after the event. Also if the polling started on the Saturday, a lot of people simply would not have heard about it until Monday anyway.
Labour lost the last election because they didn’t look like they could form a credible government. Their attack on foreign speculators in the last week doesn’t speak directly towards that particular criticism either.
Also notable is that National haven’t really responded to Labour’s attacks on them; that will likely be occurring in this week. National’s response is partly what will drive polling intentions – do they agree with the problem and are they doing something concrete about it, or are they just going to keep on claiming that there is no problem? Or, most likely, are they just going to deflect onto the ‘racism’ angle and refuse to talk about the issue?
Thanks for that Stephanie, yes I was very disappointed at the dog whistle tactic, the sloppiness was amateurish. There was a lack of being honest and frank. Where was the confession “Labour doesn’t have the funds to resource for paying an agency to provide the details…unlike National who have large donators like property magnates like Mr Barfoot who contributed $20,000 at last year’s election”.
You didn’t see that approach from me, Stephanie. In fact, I’m struggling to recall anybody who made an argument that it was done because “Labour has to appeal to more voters”. I’m pretty sure that most people accept that it was an issue that needed raising, but there was considerable difference on how it should have been done.
Stephanie… you seem to like reading things into people’s comment that are not there. It’s a well known fact that most people are not into politics in the same way we are, and therefore take longer to respond to political issues when they arise. Nothing to do with “stupidity” as you well know. I will respond in kind by saying I think that was a witting attempt to drive a wedge where no wedges should exist.
Wallace Chapman talking to author about NZ wines and regions! WTF – that’s Metros area or the Sunday inserts. Why waste valuable interviewing time on such lifestyle matters. It isn’t even part of a business overview which informed people should know about.
Wallace is pretty damn good most of the time though. Asks hard questions while not seeming to.
Wallace is pretty damn good most of the time though. Asks hard questions while not seeming to.
Sadly, that’s not true. He has provided an unquestioning, even groveling platform for some utterly despicable ideologues.
There was his pathetic interview with the right wing author Lee Child….
http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-31082014/#comment-876904
Even worse was this interview with Israeli apologist Jonathon Spyer. No sign of even one “hard question” from anyone “pretty damn good” on this occasion….
http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-14122014/#comment-939764
Jane Kelsey is being interviewed on her new book The Fire Economy. Good.
Perhaps we are being presented with a ‘balanced’ set of interview, the acceptable lifestyle ones, with a token piece of searching, thoughtful stuff to show that it’s all not souffles with madeira wine flavouring. Now wouldn’t that be an attractive dessert. If you like the idea, it’s yours.
According to wikipedia Lee Child was “involved with shows including Brideshead Revisited, The Jewel in the Crown, Prime Suspect, and Cracker…”
These are some of the best shows that have ever been on British TV.
He also “told the Daily Mail that he writes while high on marijuana, and that he has smoked cannabis five nights a week for 44 years..’
On the negative side he is a Villa fan…..
I haven’t read his books. Is there solid evidence of his rightist leanings?
There’s nothing wrong with talking about wine. The problem is the utter triviality of most of the rest of his programme. A few minutes ago, he said: “What’s your favorite tree? THAT is the theme of the day.”
Chapman also has people texting in about what their favorite David Bowie song is. A few weeks ago, he begged people to text in about their favorite Beatles song. Every week, he asks people to say what their favorite city, or favorite snack or favorite movie is.
Unlike some people in the media—Mike “Contra” Hosking, Leighton Smith, Larry “Lackwit” Williams, Sean Plunket—Wallace Chapman is neither lazy nor ill-informed. This trivialization of the Sunday morning programme is not his idea, it’s something that some genius in Radio New Zealand management has forced on him.
“This trivialization of the Sunday morning programme is not his idea, it’s something that some genius in Radio New Zealand management has forced on him.”
So, its not just us then? Switched the squawk box off 1/2 an hour ago.
I thought Natrad was trying to build its audience???
I hope they’re following this….
Yes I have noticed the attempt at drawing people to use their ‘apps’ to contact Wallace at Radionz about matters which is something that the commercial is likely to do. That may be necessary as so many young to middle-aged people view life through the tiny space of a reversed telescope their smartphone screen gives. There is a need to bring young people into the Radionz circle. But it dilutes the effective time for big media stuff. It seems to me like bringing special needs pupils into the ordinary everyday classroom, the teacher time and attention available to other children is lessened.
But Radionz cannot be allowed to become only for the older age group, it will need to bring in the younger group. I hope that we don’t lose the majority of intelligent, informed discussion about the world’s news, in favour of the soft option of discussing the interests of the middle class and nice pieces from most favoured nations that imitate the pretty words of a travelogue.
Your final sentence is also my worry. This trivialization of the Sunday morning programme is not his idea, it’s something that some genius in Radio New Zealand management has forced on him.
Hey, the tree discussion was actually focused on the effects of climate change (trees dying in Melbourne because of long-term droughts), and explored the connection people feel to trees that form part of their sense of self and community. I thought it was an imaginative approach to a subject that people often find dry or abstract and hard to connect to. The sample emails he read out were great – heart-warming, moving, funny, poetic… Not everything has to be hard-hitting. Sometimes a more quirky or unexpected approach can really touch a nerve and get people thinking.
Now Wallace is talking about food in Italy and an Italian visitor and an item on I think the film festival. So weekend lifestyle. Sh.t.
Another thought re Wallace and wine buff interview. The sort of people that would enjoy listening to the talk about NZs fine wine are those who realise that the early favourites of Cold Duck or Blue Nun were rather sweet, perhaps even sugar-added, They now have more sophisticated palates, prefer something drier, appreciate the nuances in flavour.
But they have equally developed a preference for their news to reflect the sweet life. The bitter aftertaste of thorough coverage of real-world news requires a higher sort of sophistication from them before it can be embraced.
Patty Culhane of Al Jazeera on Obama’s legacy
Al Jazeera News, Saturday 18 July 2015
The U.S.-friendly official mouthpiece of the Qatari dictatorship took several minutes out of its “news” for a specially prepared item by Patty Culhane in Washington, pondering the legacy of Barack Obama as he approaches the final year of his presidency. Over several photographs of Obama looking serious, dignified and “presidential”, Culhane assured viewers that “much, perhaps most, of what happens internationally is beyond his control”. To illustrate how helpless the U.S. President is, she cited Yemen and ISIS in Iraq and Syria—none of which, apparently, has any connection to the United States.
The item finished with a long shot of a serious-looking President Obama gazing through the window, framed dramatically by the grand Oval Office windows.
I’m not sure now, but I think there was reflective violin music playing for the whole item, to emphasise the lonely vigil of this embattled human rights warrior.
More on Obama….
http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-29062015/#comment-1036160
http://thestandard.org.nz/amazing-grace/#comment-1035417
http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-27062015/#comment-1035414
I prefer my humour watered down:
Gotta love ignorant people laughing at things they don’t understand.
+1
Not sure if ‘don’t understand’ is the same as ‘doesn’t actually exist’, weka! Generally, I prefer laughing at people who make money by exploiting the gullible, something I appear to have in common with Mitchell and Webb.
You better tell the BMJ – this week it hosted a debate on something that doesn’t actually exist!
I can pretty much guarantee that homeopathy (and acupuncture and chiropractic and…) will outlast energy intensive complexity reliant high funding requiring ‘modern medicine’.
… and I can pretty much guarantee that treatments such as homeopathy will be continue to be completely ineffective for any serious illnesses such as cancer, diabetes etc ….
well, I can pretty much guarantee to you that a traditional Japanese or African or Greek diet is better for cancer and diabetes than anything modern medicine can come up with 😉
Bollocks.
Perhaps you’d like to rephrase or withdraw.
Agreed. Because there’s a sucker born every minute.
Whatever. The BMJ is pretty convinced that it’s pants, actually, ER.
You don’t seem to get what ”hosted a debate” means. In Britain there isn’t the degree of professional and intellectual conformity that prevails in NZ.
They still have science there, though. So, yeah, still bollocks.
Fisher of “shaken not stirred” fame – a rich vein for comedy if it weren’t for the harm that Edzard Ernst points out.
Why couldn’t the BMJ find someone credible on the woo-woo side?
“Not sure if ‘don’t understand’ is the same as ‘doesn’t actually exist’, weka!”
I’m reasonably confident that you have no idea how homeopathy is alleged to work, so ‘ignorant’ and ‘don’t understand’ seem appropriate.
“Generally, I prefer laughing at people who make money by exploiting the gullible, something I appear to have in common with Mitchell and Webb.”
Yet you appear very selective in that, which makes me think it’s ideological rather than reality based.
Reality based! Gotta clean my keyboard now!!!
Yep, like I said, ideological which is why it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.
We know how it’s supposed to work, Weka, because the woo-woo-witch-doctor gave evidence at the British Parliamentary Inquiry that:
In other words, the woo-woo-witch-doctor hasn’t got a clue, but he believes it very very hard.
Mainstream science, on the other hand, does have a clue: Homeopathy relies 100% on the Placebo effect.
The “placebo effect” can actually be broken down into many individual factors.
In fact, what is measured by the “placebo effect” in drug trials is simply the the amount of healing that took place for the control group that weren’t given the drug. This naturally therefore lumps “the body’s natural healing ability” in under the umbrella “placebo effect”. Which is interesting.
One factor that is known to have a big benefit, and this is probably why modern medicine is not as effective as it ‘should’ be, and these alternative medicines seem to show more effect than they ‘should’, is simply the level of attention given to the patient from the practitioner. Studies have been done where pain killers were given to patients, but the amount of attention given to the patient varied dramatically. Some patients were simply proscribed the intervention after a short discussion, while others had long conversations with frequent follow-ups and discussions of the progress. It was found that patients that had more involvement from their practitioners had a statistically significant improvement in symptoms compared to those who were simply proscribed the intervention and then left to their own devices.
In other words, if modern medicine could be practised in a way that showed more concern for patients, overall we’d get better outcomes. A tricky question is whether the improved outcomes are worth the increased investment.
Anyway, that ‘hands-on’ attention is a clear difference between alternative ‘medicine’ and modern medicine, and likely explains a lot of the positive results.
https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/placebo-are-you-there/#more-36036
Placebo is more than the body’s normal healing processes. That’s why drug trials also include a control group. Placebo will often show better results than the control. What’s the mechanism behind that? I agree that pracitioner/client relationship is part of it, but it’s more than that. Natural health practitioners are much better at engaging the placebo response than conventional.
[citation needed]
Although given that for many “natural” “health” “practitioners” the context effect is all they’ve got, they’d better be good at it, eh.
“Placebo is more than the body’s normal healing processes.”
I never said it wasn’t. In fact I said it is made up of many parts, one of which is the body’s natural healing process. Re-reading I can see that this isn’t as clear as it should be, but reading the whole comment I don’t think you can construe that I said placebo is only natural healing.
Thanks for that Lanth: lots to absorb there 🙂
…the placebo object is not necessary for the contextual effect.
Much of the literature regarding bedside manner stresses the need for better practice: it looks like the profession agrees with you 🙂
“We know how it’s supposed to work, Weka”
Succussing is how the remedy is prepared. That’s not what I am talking about. I’m talking about how homeopathic practice works. I’m happy to add you to the list of people who express opinions about this when they are still largely ignorant of the theory they are critiquing.
What you are demonstrating is faith and superstition. The faith is in omnipotence of the metatrials, despite them being quite easily critiqued (i.e. I would guess you have no idea about the shortcomings). The superstition is ridiculing something you don’t get understand.
“Mainstream science, on the other hand, does have a clue: Homeopathy relies 100% on the Placebo effect.”
I suggest you go and extend your reading OAB. Placebo is a very useful thing in healing and health management. Even mainstream science is catching on to that one. The rest of us have know about it forever.
I did a Google scholar search for “bedside manner” as a consequence of Lanth’s comment. The medical profession is way ahead of you, and was at the time of Hippocrates.
As for further reading on Placebos, I recommend you read the link too.
Yep, and the Persians were there before Hippocrates. But ffs, the Chinese have been doing this shit for thousands of years longer than we have. Btw, physicians in Hippocrates’ time did things and believed things that you would consider woowoo, so I’m not sure why you are invoking his name.
If you are suggesting that placebo from bedside manner is the only thing happening with alternative pracitioners, then you have a very limited idea of what placebo is or how it works. It also backs up my suspicion that you have no idea what homeopathic practice is. These are very basic illogics, it’s hard to believe I’m in a conversation with otherwise thoughtful people. But ideology trumps every time.
It’s clear you haven’t absorbed the information in the article Lanth linked above.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeopathy
If you believe this is medicine when it’s been proven to be ineffective other than for placebo effect you need your head read (by a doctor).
Or this
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiropractic
Although effective in temporarily relieving back pain, that’s where it begins and ends.
If you can accept the science behind climate change proven by reputable scientists and researchers, why the fuck would you accept these frauds perpetuated by charlatans which have been disproven through the similar research methodologies and rigour. It’s preying on the daft and the gullible. About as genuine as Scientology.
What I find funny about scientology is that even the name of it sounds bogus, like it was deliberately named to take in the naive and vulnerable.
Realblue:
Otago and Southland residents have been using chiropractic care since post WWI. For many different reasons. And they continue to do so in their thousands and thousands. These are smart practical people who don’t put up with BS which doesn’t work. University lecturers, PhD candidates, medical doctors, nurses and physiotherapists, some of them 🙂
Kind of like all those people in India who use integrated health care that includes homeopathy. They must be suckers and idiots.
Or the millions of people in China that use the integrated system there that includes that woo woo acupuncture.
The Lancet has published articles on the efficacy of acupuncture; so much for “woo-woo”.
I’d like to see a Lancet article that explains the mechansim of chi, thanks.
It doesn’t require an article, weka. It doesn’t exist. Much like God and other fairy stories.
“Where the mind goes, the Chi follows”: the name of a physical sensation. Can it be said to exist in a mechanistic sense?
My understanding of acupuncture is that it’s placebo – more drastic seeming interventions tend to have more positive outcomes – and (as linked above) more 1-on-1 contact time from the administrator of the procedure compared to some other forms of treatment.
Better than the placebo control group in this trial.
@OAB: I can’t actually read the article, only the abstract. But they appear to be comparing a single control individual, since the other 39 in the group didn’t complete the programme?
If that’s the case, the results aren’t statistically significant.
Not sure that this will be in the right place as the numbering of answers seems to have vanished. But here is a recently published article about acupuncture. Like it or not, believe in it or not, it is becoming more and more accepted throughout western countries and frequently people are being referred to acupuncturists by their GPs and specialists. http://www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu/explore-healing-practices/traditional-chinese-medicine/-tcm-evidence-based-and-safe
As I’ve said before, I’ve had very good results from Chiropractic treatment for sciatica. This is not unusual: cf the medical literature cited by Realblue above.
Did bacteria exist before the microscope?
The argument that science has proved something doesn’t exist is flawed, and most people who are anti-homeopathy are not willing to be honest about this.
Of course that particular argument is flawed. The fact remains, however, that the best way to discredit a Homeopath is to let them speak.
the ongoing multi-centuries long fucking arrogance of you scientism types who in your ignorance and pridefulness believe you possess all the valid knowledge of mankind; in fact the very same attitude as when the brightest medical doctors of the day were prescribing bleeding, arsenic and opium. Or thalidomide, vioxx and Dalkon Shields.
Yeah whatever CR, have fun with your strawman.
But it’s not science making the absurd claim. It’s really up to the rip off artists to justify themselves. Though they’re highly incentivised to do no such thing.
Hi Weka
Perhaps for the sake of clarity you should explain what yu mean by homeopathy.
Some people use the term to cover using such products as Arnica and other herbal/natural medications, while others use it in its narrowest definition relating to dilution and shaking to a level wherein no molecules are left within the product apart from the diluent.
In this narrow definition homeopathy has been repeatedly proven to be no more effective than placebo as such its use in preference to an active proven effective treatment in anything but simple maladies cannot be recommended by any healthcare professional, I’m not sure why you find that disturbing.
Good-oh. I’ll take your placebo effect thank you very much. Cheap, reliable and often effective. And no list of risks and side-effects.
And besides, the moment you invoke the term ‘placebo effect’ you’re opening a remarkably interesting can of worms anyhow.
Yes, this.
Homoeopathy, where somehow the water ‘remembers’ the ‘cure’ that was put in it through mystical vibrations or whatever is utter bullshit. How come the water remembers the ‘cure’, but not all the other millions of years where it had literal shit or toxic metals in it?
Herbal remedies may have some limited healing powers in some uses.
@ RedLogix:
“Good-oh. I’ll take your placebo effect thank you very much. Cheap, reliable and often effective. And no list of risks and side-effects.”
Actually it works both ways: the “nocebo effect” is where drugs and actual treatments are less effective than they should be, because that brain of ours has some funny ideas about how its body should behave sometimes.
Because of human intention which can cross time and space FFS; how is it you people are so ignorant??? Are you all dyed in the wool materialists?
RL I don’t think you understand what the term ‘placebo effect’ means.
@CV:
So the human intention of people dumping toxic waste into water (which is then diluted to huge degrees) doesn’t harm people, because…?
How come ‘human intention’ requires mixing stuff up with water? Why can’t we just pray disease away? What is the mechanism by which this works?
Is it strictly limited to “human” intention, I wander?
Otherwise there’s a massive vibe of fish-jizz in my morning cup of tea…
This is to follow on from Colonial Rawshark’s response to Realblue –
Acupuncture is taught at Otago University and at AUT in Auckland as a post grad course and as Bachelor and Master programmes at private colleges in Auckland and Wellington. Wiki is well known for its bias against complementary and alternative medicine. Fortunately NZQA do not rely on Wiki.
And acupuncture (and chinese medicine in general) is going to be taught to the medical specialists of the Russian defence forces – by the PLA.
“If you can accept the science behind climate change proven by reputable scientists and researchers, why the fuck would you accept these frauds perpetuated by charlatans which have been disproven through the similar research methodologies and rigour. It’s preying on the daft and the gullible.”
If you can’t tell the difference between evidence of something and trying to prove the absence of something then you really shouldn’t be trying to use science as part of your argument.
You also shouldn’t go anywhere near healthcare other than your own given you appear to have no clue about informed consent or patient centred practice.
btw, it’s those attitudes that keep the gulf between the scienceheads and the woo wooers. They’re both entrenched in belief systems that they can’t see out of, but the sad thing is that the woo wooers will never come back to science while it is so damn patronising and mean.
Perhaps the reason woo-wooers find scientists patronising and mean [citation needed] is that woo-wooers expect to be taken seriously when they have a profound information deficit.
Or are you ok with unqualified civil engineers too?
What a dick comment.
Ancient civilisations built pyramids, aquaducts, irrigation systems and highways without your ‘qualified civil engineers’. And some of that shit lasted for centuries – better than anything built today is going to last.
Yes, they had no master builders or architects and had not learned from experience. They just let anyone design and build things like the tomb of the Emperor or The Parthenon.
No, wait…
He’s also using survivorship bias to ignore the 99.99% of buildings built by ancient cultures that aren’t still standing today.
The narrow bands have been packaged up and locked into mind traps which they mistake for knowledge
Some of the wee monkeys understand limitations ,while other wee monkeys prefer to masturbate in public believing they are the apex of universal evolution
Human beings are monkeys with prehistoric tools believing they are unlocking the secrets of the universe.
Stroke on wee monkeys
[I’ve pointed out previously that your chosen handle is homophobic. Please don’t use it again. TRP]
@OAB
I think CV’s point might be better interpreted like this; that the ancients were capable of building remarkable structures based purely on their observational and artisan skills.
Yes the people entrusted with supervising these projects would have been carefully chosen as the most talented and trusted people to do it – but few of them would have been burdened much by many years of mathematics, structural analysis, finite object analysis and so on. In other words they achieved all those things prior to any of the scientific revolution, and with none of the tools civil engineers take for granted today.
@Lanth
Well yes but what portion of structures that WE build do you think will stand in 1000 years time?
As I stated elsewhere today, I’m as much a creature and beneficiary of the experimental scientific method as anyone here. I was trained in it and have earned a living at it all my life.
But as a method it has it’s limits, and I’ve always been aware that all other non-Western cultures use a more observational approach arrive at quite another set of rules and guides for understanding the world they live in. And with quite remarkable degrees of coherence across multiple cultures. It’s a pretty gross arrogance, a racist conceit even, to simply erase that vast, complex and correlated body of knowledge as mere superstition and ignorance.
And I’m old enough to have my own modest little collection of experiences that no explanation within the scientific model. Most of these experiences arrived uninvited, unexpected and left their own very specific memories.
One example: when I was younger I used to have very vivid OOBE dreams. When I was six years old one night I ‘visited’ a house, down the driveway, around the back and into the kitchen. Next day at school I actually made a drawing of it.
At the age of ten my family moved into that house. My mum recognised the room and found the old drawing. One problem; there was a big set of cupboards in my picture which was not definitely not there. Still she was pretty impressed.
About four years later my dad and I lifted the flooring to move a wall – and there on the boards was the clear outline of the missing cupboards.
Western Science has zero explanation for this kind of thing, yet in conversation with people over the years I know that it’s also pretty common. Yes I know anecdote ‘proves’ nothing. I’m not trying to.
Yet tell this tale to most non-Westerners, indigenous peoples especially – and the response is a ‘so what boringly ho-hum and commonplace’. They’d typically find it no more remarkable than a detailed description of my last bowel movement.
At no point am I suggesting that this invalidates or diminishes the scientific method. It remains the reliable pivot around which I understand my world. But neither is there any proof to show that it is the ONLY way to understand reality, or indeed that it’s method can ever encompass an understanding of ALL reality.
Because I think this is all that people like CV, weka and myself ask for; is that science has the humility to acknowledge the boundaries of it’s domain, and remain open to the possibility that future generations will uncover new ideas and new knowledge that none of us can properly imagine just now.
Western Science has zero explanations for OOBEs, does it? Shall I Google the studies for you?
sighs … but not the ability to ‘see’ a place you have definitely never been to. Nor explain why that particular house and not the one next door.
And I only chose that example because of it’s pretty commonplace, banal even, nature.
I’ve had a few myself.
To my mind that makes them explicable by Physics. Science hasn’t yet demonstrated the mechanism: it’s still the best tool for researching the phenomenon.
And that’s the point I was making. I totally agree that physics (or some yet to be understood extension of it) will be the best explanation.
Indeed that IS the power of the scientific method. Once it can create a reliable model of a phenomenon, it can then be expanded into a reproducible technology.
But just dismissing these out-of-domain experiences as woo-woo simply slows the process down – and crucially is a betrayal of the fundamental spirit of science. And ordinary people are pretty good at detecting that sort of thing.
I characterised Fisher’s pathetic testimony to the Parliamentary Science and Technology Select Committee as “woo-woo-witch-doctor”. I stand by that description.
For anyone who thinks evidence-free drivel is a good idea I have one word: Neoliberalism.
But equally the absence of evidence is not proof of absence.
So what? Woo-woo-witch-doctors don’t give a fuck about evidence, absent or not: they just want to inflict their afflictions upon everyone else while demanding “respect” and most importantly, public money.
The Roger Douglases and Max Bradfords of this world: in any sane universe they only deserve oxygen because I let my foot off their throat.
I’ll just throw this into the mix as it’s semi-relevant.
People with near death experiences in hospitals often claim they have visions of hovering up and over their body, looking down on themselves while doctors crowd around trying to heal them etc.
So a study was done (it was mentioned on QI, unfortunately I haven’t been able to google it) where they placed various objects on top of cabinets and shelves high up in the room, that could only be seen by someone who had a genuine out-of-body experience.
Over the years that the study ran, none of the hundred or so people who reported OOBE where they were hovering over their beds were able to recall the objects so-placed.
How quickly and easily RL’s comments are thrown away.
Fact is – a single incident of the type RL relates and you must admit that everything we know about the scientifically known universe – is not that much.
A prospect terrifying to some – but liberating to others.
The same study was mentioned in Supernature iirc. Perhaps not the most credible citation.
One reason neuroscience takes them seriously is the number of patients who’ve reported verifiable events that happened while they were ‘unconscious’.
In sports contexts there are many many accounts of people watching themselves perform athletic acts in real time.
Sorry OAB – but for such a determined defender of science you’ve been quick to abandon it here. If there is no evidence for something there are at least four logical possibilities:
1. You haven’t found it yet, or more likely, you haven’t really looked
2. You’re looking for the wrong kind of evidence, in the wrong places
3. You have found it, but you’ve failed to recognise it’s significance
4. It really does not exist
You don’t have to have a go at me. I actually do logic on a daily basis for a living. And getting my head around ALL the possible states is the key to getting a complete and robust solution.
Of course you are quite right; charlatans of all types will indulge lazy and wishful thinkers by parting them from their money at every opportunity. But you have to accept – alternative medicines, while especially prone to it, do not have that affliction on their own.
RL – when did I abandon it again? I’m not having a go at you – it’s quite clear that there is plenty of independent evidence that mirrors your own experience, and mine for that matter.
Neuroscience has mapped the territory a bit better, and will explore further if the rate of growth of literature on the subject is any indication. The only people I can see with grounds to be “frightened” of this are the woo-woo brigade, who are financially dependent on ignorance.
Meanwhile, CR’s strawman doesn’t stand scrutiny: ask any scientist and they’ll tell you that the more they learn the more they realise they don’t know.
Oh bollocks CR – there are dozens of possible explanations for RL’s experience before mysterious powers need to be introduced.
Did RL see their house in the future, or did RL’s parents like the house because it looked like RL’s picture? If a house has been around long enough, most walls would have had cupboards against them at one stage or another.
There is a huge amount to learn, yes. Maybe even remote viewing or something similar is possible. Hell, maybe even this is what RL’s experience was, rather than clouded memories of long ago or any other explanation. All I’m really saying is that confirmation bias is a wonderful thing, and eyewitness testimony is frequently unreliable.
@McF
Yes I’ve done my best over the years to consider all of those possibilities. Most of them I can categorically rule out.
Déjà vu
I figure that there’s an everyday description of it that’s known and understood by everybody because it’s, as you say, common.
Clinical experiments with patients who suffer from epilepsy…
.
Epilepsy research has also yielded interesting results regarding OOBEs.
Including OOBE’s which can place furniture and fittings in exact locations from whence they have been gone for years?
R/L may have visualised the house as it was the day they ‘visited’ it. That seems less unlikely.
“if that doesn’t cure him I don’t know what will’…….lol!!
Epic.
Tory Entitlement Update No94: Oz
Speaker Bronwyn Bishop blows $5 grand of taxpayer dosh on a helicopter trip from Melbourne to Geelong and back so that she can attend a Liberal Party fundraiser, doesn’t see the inherent problem.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-18/bishop-calls-travel-investigation-a-beat-up/6630724
Jane Kelsey on RNZ now for an interview about her new book. Should be good.
The gummint has noticed that there are organised fights within our prisons, disapproves, and has put the entities in charge ‘on notice’.
I know just how the gummint feels. As with so many in our country, I have listened to the farce of bouts needing Queensberry Rules that the gummint turn Parliament’s Question Time into. I and a great number of others, I hope, put them ‘on notice’ to be meted out at the next election.
Fourteen tenants, one toilet: Donghua Liu’s ‘slum’ rental
Can anybody really say that they’re surprised by this?
And they can’t resist involving David Cunliffe on spurious grounds. (Note to political
media advisor – Tell pollie to always say ‘I can’t remember.it was many years ago. I will have to check on that.’)
Stuff has repeated :Former Labour leader David Cunliffe was also put on the back foot after it was proved he had signed a letter in 2003 supporting Liu, having initially denied doing so.
http://www.odt.co.nz/regions/otago/349473/vetsouth-offers-free-care-dairy-cows
VetSouth to offer free services to struggling dairy farmers (for a month, but it could be extended), who would otherwise shoot cows rather than call the vet.
It’s really encouraging to see this kind of thing – the banks need to adopt a similar attitude to managing the dairy bust. If managed correctly land values and production can drop to a realistic level without exacting a severe toll on farmers and their families.
”We thought that wasn’t good enough and we could do better … by supporting the farmers who supported us. We wanted to tip the balance in favour of the cows.”
Farmers typically wanted to do their best for their stock and it was hoped the offer would ”remove some of the pain” and ease both the situation for both farmers and cows, he said.
”The reasoning behind this is simple – it’s not a cow’s fault if she gets sick in a low-payout season.”
How population growth can make us worse off
An interesting article that raises interesting questions.
Assuming that higher GDP = better standard of living is stupid, anyway.
It’s quite easy for GDP to increase, even increase at a rate faster than population growth, but general standard of living doesn’t go up.
It’d even be quite easy for the GDP to go down while living standards increase. The two obvious causes are unequal distribution of the wealth, and then more efficient/effective technologies being introduced that improve living standards.
Rachel Stewart: Media should have seen dairy slump coming
Our economy and our environment is pretty much fucked and a large part of the blame lies squarely with farming but a lot of that could have been prevented if we’d had a Fourth Estate asking the correct questions and a government willing to reign in the depredations of the farmers.
Tory pigs are at it again.
Tory peers like Lord
Cormack argued in favour of moving away from tax funding, saying:
“All forms of funding must be
looked at. We have to have a plurality of funding if we are to have a
sustainable NHS. Whether the extra funding comes from compulsory
insurances or certain charges matters not, but it has to come.”
Matters not!? As a true Tory, he says that
the funding should not come from taxing the rich (which he does not even
countenance), but instead from taxing the sick.
More disappointing were the contributions from
Labour peers like (the notoriously pro-privatisation) Lord Warner:
“Our tax-funded, largely free at the point of
clinical need NHS is rapidly approaching an existential moment. The voices of
dissent and outrage will no doubt be deafening but a wise Government
should begin now the process of helping the public engage in a
discourse about future funding of the NHS.”
https://www.opendemocracy.net/ournhs/richard-grimes/government-moves-to-consider-nhs-user-charges