‘The aviation fuel crisis caused by a ruptured pipeline has suddenly become a central issue in a tight election contest, forcing the National Government to scramble in a bid to limit impact to the travelling public and to its own vote.
With just four days to go, Opposition parties piled into National with Labour leader Jacinda Ardern claiming that the failure of the infrastructure was a failure of leadership.
The unexpected headache has the potential to undermine one of National’s longstanding claims to being better managers than Labour.
But it is also an opportunity for the Government to show it can handle a crisis competently – and a test for no-nonsense Energy Minister Judith Collins in controlling the Government response….’
The minister for kauris response will probably be a quasi test for the leaders role.
Will she help the cause or help herself as they’re vulnerable due to the gutting of regulators, resources and rules in their adoration of ‘market knows best’.
Wonder if a scapegoat is being lined up for the ‘look how tough we are’ bs.
Winston Peters just said on Garner’s show that the damage done to the pipe was by a foreign owned organisation, operating out of the Cayman Islands and paying no tax.
Hope the media digs further on this – but with more precision that the foreign owned swamp kauri extractors.
I actually mind Labour getting back into power if HC and MC were back, house prices rose quicker under Labour than they did National so be good to make some real money
[care to explain why there are multiple pseudonyms using this IP address, especially after one of them got warned to pick a single name and stick to it? I’ll check in with Lynn to make sure I’m not missing anything here, but I can’t see any reason why you shouldn’t cop a lengthy ban. If you don’t feel comfortable discussing this in the front end, then email Lynn – weka]
You are between a rock and a hard place weka with some moderation. But The Rock sounds awfully like a troll to me, or a flamer, amusing himself poking a stick in to the ant hill, pulling wings off flies etc. Have a good day weka, hope it’s not raining your way, and perhaps a nice cup of tea?
I asked him once where The Cayman Islands were. His reply, as far as could decipher it in the late night noise in the Green Parrot in Wellington, was something like.
“Listen Sunshine. I’ve been going there ever since I first went while working down a mine in Australia. I know everything about it and I’ll stop all those Chinese coming to New Zealand and buying up all our farms ………………”.
Dead drunk! How dare you Sir.
I am the last relic of the WCTU. The purest of the pure.
Depart. Get back to your dungeon before I take to you with my shillelagh.
I can’t speak for Winston though.
Ed dont get caught in the msm positioning on this. The gnats have let down a whole swathe of people and they are showing how useless they are. There is no good for them from this.
But it is also an opportunity for the Government to show it can handle a crisis competently
I’m pretty sure that the Rena stranding was as well – and they failed there. Seems that they’re maintaining the same failed policies for emergencies, a policy of simply not having anything in place to deal with it because it’s cheaper in the short term.
It might not be a good idea to mention the Rena wreck.
The Green Party are in favour of getting rid of pipelines and switching transport to coastal shipping. It probably isn’t a great thingt to remind people that there are vastly more accidents from shipping than there have been from pipelines.
[citation needed for that claim. It needs to be direct (e.g. not just a vague point at policy). You’ve got until the end of the day to produce that. I don’t know what the GP policy on this is, so maybe you can teach us something. – weka]
Sorry MSM your man got his ass kicked . And all those fake smiles you people come on you people are to easy to read yes I am defensive But like to see what you would do in my situation shit your pants and run .
Now trump he wants the United Nations to Pay america to pay for more for the dum ass war they are fighting and defense spend.
Lets look at this from my view most of the money would go to america the Americans
have all the army bases around the world and trump wants US to pay them for this what a load of crap we should give that idiot trump anything the rest of the World can see right through you the only trick trump has is bulling everyone that doesn’t agree
with his neo liberal bullshit Ideals and this idiot will fuck up the negotiations with North Korea . One needs more skills than being a bully to try and lead OUR WORLD .
The carrot works Better than the stick come on this is basic human Psychology not fucken rocket science . Or is it that trump is like all neo liberals and thinks Koreans or anyone not white is not human. It is obvious that the UN and trumps moves is not working. ALL THE PEOPLE OF THE WOURLD NEED TO BE PUTTING ALL OUR RESOURCES INTO FIGHTING CLIMATE CHANGE NOT DUM ASS WARS WHICH IDIOTS START trump wants us to pay for the US war machine .
It would be nice if Draco T Bastard would post that you tube video on what motivates PEOPLE. This will help get our point to these people.
Nice one eco.
I would just point out that the Americans do not, and will not, negotiate with Nth Korea, and therein lies much of the problem. This goes back to the Korean war ,which is still a huge problem ( much of which America can’t be proud of, like Vietnam).
I didn’t see it as being so bad. He obviously wasn’t as well-informed as he perhaps should have been on how complex some similar taxes are already. He was also pointlessly combative on certain well-publicised details (apparently) not being on the Labour website, and pressed hard for some details that would probably best be finalised once the party had gained access to the Treasury benches and the advisory machinery of government. Overall, though, he posed some serious questions, and Ardern gave some decent answers. I don’t think too many voters are going to be put off by a politician acquitting herself well in a mildly hostile interview. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Hanswurst
A nice measured critique. It sometimes is hard not to damn the interviewer. But to get anywhere they may have to probe. Otherwise it’s all the same every day.
I thought him a nasty, negative spinner. At one point Jacinda said about the water tax that they had given 2 figures in a small range. Espiner immediately interrupted, saying, “Yes, but one figure is double the other.” That makes it sound like a big increase, exactly the vagueness and unpredictability that National are trying to play upon.
I wanted Jacinda to respond: “No, one figure is half the other.” (Making it sound small, spinning it the other way, and pointing out Espiner’s bias.)
Espiner does this to left-wing victims (sorry, interviewees) far more often than he does it to right-wing ones in my experience.
Yes I have heard Espiner pick on a point that he repeats over and over as if he is seeking the answer to the site of the Holy Grail. He decides what is important and it is more like a battle to assert victory over his victim (I mean interviewee). I was trying to be less prejudiced towards him, and have caught him sometimes doing a good job and thought he was improving.
I’d hate to be involved with him and all these opinionated hacks privately, his attitude is not just a persona he adopts and it would be a case of if he gives way on anything, he would keep score for the times he kindly gave in, and demand later balance.
Any half decent broadcaster knows their best interviewer is Kim Hill who takes no shit and gets questions answered.
Espinner is a tool of the right and needs to be removed if nact get turfed, you should always let the polly speak which he seems to only allow nat pollies spinning their BS.
Rubbish, lurgee. Kim Hill interrupts sometimes, but at others she lets people hang themselves by their own petards. She also creates really good, positive, non-combative interviews.
Susie and Guyon are your constant interrupter/talkover artists with scant thought or knowledge.
Heard guyon interviewing himself while driving this morning. He is downright intolerable when he resorts to bad mannered, shouting down methods of asserting his will and trying to direct the narrative to his desired outcome. He just fixates on something and will not let it drop until he either wears his interviewee down or it becomes clear he is not going to get his own way. He is quite irrational at times. At least Jacinda holds her own. Must annoy him no end.
The building of another pipeline is not cost effective for a small country like New Zealand. The real problem is the need for rules and regulations, which today are conveniently side-stepped by many businesses, eg. those looking for swamp kauri, where the Collins clan have a vested interest. Will a robust investigation in the rupture of the pipe line occur, or will it be another so-so investigation similar to that of the Pike River Coal Mine?
What about a large fuel silo at Auckland airport as a backup? You would think our largest airport would have a contingency like that and it wouldn’t be a huge expense in the scheme of things. Who knows they might already have one but it’s not big enough to help much.
It’s why the Greens should be in Government to apply some common sense. After the Rena disaster they were calling for cleanup crews to be based at our major ports just in case something went wrong.
We took 20 years to get rid of the sewerage ponds on the Manukau Harbour, and a whole bunch of people would object to that volume of toxic material being stored on the edge of the Manukau Harbour again.
I would rather see a heavy rail line from Puhinui to the airport as a supplement feeder of jet fuel only when needed for instances like now.
That seems odd. An A380 takes up to 323 cu m, a 250mm pipeline has a cross-sectional area of 0.05 sqm. So 323 cu m in 18000 seconds means it’s flowing at about 0.35 m/s. The guideline for maximum flow velocity for kerosene, diesel etc seems to be about 3 m/s.
To take a hand-waving order of magnitude guess at the capacity question, if the airport is taking 1.1 billion litres of jet fuel per year through the pipe, and take a wild guess at another billion litres of petrol and a billion litres of diesel (aroundabout 1500 litres petrol/diesel per capita per year for Aucklanders doesn’t look too absurd), then the pipe is carrying around 350 cu m per hour 365/24, which is about half its capacity. But then there’s downtime for product changeovers and maintenance etc.
I’m not confident about that 3 m/s flow velocity, pipe flows aren’t my thing. It’s just what most engineering tips web pages spit out. But a few of them claim higher flow rates.
NZ is a small vulnerable economy that is being marginalised annually, by geographic isolation, low volume trading, low wages and a narrow income base.
Further weakened by an at-risk demographic, eg on any given day up to a third of high school kids in south Auckland are absent. Just look at the High School passes of this group. Rank 30 th in the OECD. Also the crime Stats’ 50% of these folk occupy our prisons.
Gvt benefits payouts are the highest in the first world (Maori & P.I.)
Australia sees all this & is slowly closing its borders to Kiwi’s. Then this [deleted] Adern, standing for the Countries leadership, wants the Primary sector ( which is half of our international income) to pay out additional huge taxes.
Her 3-6 cents a pound for butter fat equals about $50,000 for many NZ Dairy farms. The remedy is dont vote for Labour its backward & communist. This system of Gvt has proven not to work.
[seeing as how we’re most likely heading for 3 years of Ardern as PM, I’m going to start pushing back against the inevitable casual sexism now. It’s unnecessary for the political points you want to make – weka]
[also edited for formatting so I can make sense of what is being said – weka]
I didn’t see the sexist statements that were moderated out, but there is still a hell of a lot of casual racism left in SB’s comment. For example, “Gvt benefits payouts are the highest in the first world. ( Maori & P.I.)”, without providing any any links to support that assertion (which would be difficult as the majority of benefits paid are superannuation, and Māori tend to be a bit too dead by that age to collect much of that). Then there are; “south Auckland” & “these folk”.
But in any case, what little there is of an argument is nonsensical (in as much as it is decipherable from the imprecise grammar). The remedy to current problems is to not change what you are doing?
As Mr English’s staff looked increasingly uncomfortable, Ms Lane argued low-wage workers were not getting the benefits of the growing economy that Mr English kept talking about.
Mr English told her a National-led government would continue to raise the minimum wage, but she said that was simply not enough.
“$3.75 [increase] over nine years – now how would you like it if your hourly rate went up $3.75 over a period of nine years?”
Mr English said that would be a challenge for him.
Thanks for pointing that out Dspare. I’ve reread the comment and agree about the casual racism. This is something useful to think about in terms off moderation, where the line is between removing content that is likely to put commenters off (or cause flame wars) vs allowing robust debate even where some of the content is gross.
I think there’s a line between personal attacks on politicians (e.g. had it been about say Turei and the personal comments had been ethnicity based rather than gender, then I would have removed those bits), and people making political arguments (e.g. their belief about ethnicity stats and what it means).
Generally the latter are left for people to argue over, and I certainly think it’s reasonable to ask people to back up claims of fact (I keep an eye out as a moderator for that). I need to have a think about that tolerance though. I draw a lot on the part of the Policy that’s about tone or language that excludes others, and am still trying to find the balance on that. Am open to feedback on this.
Please keep pointing these things out too, because it can be easy to miss especially when there is a lot going on.
I too agree with Dspare. To Stan Blanch I would say that you need to express yourself much more clearly and precisely. That last effort made me think you a semi-articulate right-wing redneck. You deserve the criticism and the moderation comments.
Theres much to attack her with so there’s no need to make it about her looks or gender or anything like that
Attack her flip-flopping, her lack of experience, the amount of time she spends campaigning in schools, her “captains calls”, her town v country divisive tactics, her smile and wave, attack all that
But leave the personal attacks out of it we’re better than that…or we should be
Lol. Heard english gloating the other day about how he was getting mobbed in schools and malls and excitedly said “they are coming, wanting photos. I am going to win!” ..
… Never trust the ankle biters Bill. They will turn on you at the drop of a lollipop.
Attack her flip-flopping, her lack of experience, the amount of time she spends campaigning in schools, her “captains calls”, her town v country divisive tactics,…
1) Her flip flopping? Just because voters make it clear they want to have a final say on changes to the outdated tax regime. That’s not flip flopping, that’s being sensible and heeding their concerns.
2) She’s been in parliament 9 years mate. Far longer than John Key was before becoming PM. Oh, I get it. He’s a man so he doesn’t need as long… right?
3) Lack of experience. She’s only headed a large international youth organisation… worked as an adviser and consultant in the Blair Government and she’s done other admirable things as well. She’s amply qualified for the job.
4) the amount of time she spends campaigning in schools, her “captains calls”…,. English spends equally as much time in schools and cuddling babies and animals . It represents around 20% of their campaign activity but its how the news teams like to portray them – the warm, fuzzy thing that attracts viewers.
5) her town v country divisive tactics,… You are not very insightful then. Anyone with a half a brain should be able to see who is the party creating the divisive tactics for political gain. NATIONAL.
Thanks Weka. I am SO SICK of the sexism already and she hasn’t even been elected PM yet. You don’t have to scratch too far in this country for rampant sexism and misogynism to be revealed. It disgusted me through the Helen Clark years and I can feel the same angry revulsion kicking in through this campaign.
I think it will be easy enough to knock the more blatant stuff on the head. The more subtle, Hooton-esque* stuff will be harder, but then that should be being dealt with in comments anyway (fingers crossed).
*e.g. his current line is that Ardern is incompetent, but he’s very careful to avoid any suggestion that it’s because of her gender. It’s still sexist as though.
” Her 3-6 cents a pound for butter fat equals about $50,000 for many NZ Dairy farms. ” Only for huge Corporate Dairy Farms but nonetheless please post your souce.
Oh, look, it’s a butt-hurt palagi whining bitterly about having to share this country with icky, icky, non-white people. Perish the thought that it could act upon the courage of its convictions, get off its fat lily-white arse and high-tail it back to England…
So the poor fellow might have to pay $1500 a year if the water tax is levied. Cry me a river. that’s pretty much the definition of negligible impact. It almost seems as though the only tax that some farmers would find acceptable would be one that cost nothing and that nobody had to pay.
The National Party organiser for the protest was a very poor advocate on Morning Report. Just shows how effective is English scaremongering.
“Labour wants to tax us for everything except the air we breathe.” http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player?audio_id=201859018
Yep that racist thick farmer is a good example of a farmer that lets us all down. Good the gnats have their shithead mates to push their dirty agenda. What a joke.
Yes, he just came across as uninformed and bigoted. Also, what was that supposed to be yesterday about a “positive message“? Was anything concrete at all said about “what farmers have done for the environment”? Certainly, all Lloyd Downing talked about in that interview was his not wanting other farmers to pay taxes real and imaginary. Not wanting to do something is negative in and of itself. It’s like they’ve thought up one PR line, “We want to make a positive statement about how awesome we are,” and one attack line, “Labour want to tax everything,” and not given a single thought to anything else.
“Lloyd Downing acknowledges farming is having an impact, but look how far we’ve come, he says. When asked for evidence, he tells the story of his old dad, back when Lloyd was a lad, taking the farm’s rubbish and chucking it in the river.
I used to shoot at the used light bulbs, he says, as they floated away! Nobody does that any more! ”
Good to see the redneck bigots falling back on McCarthyism! Time they looked ahead more than one season and started worrying about how their kids are going to survive.
Selling basic milk powder to the Chinese is economic stupidity as is intensive dairying on totally unsuitable terrain.
Their entrenched and narrow view of the changing world is very harmful for all of us.
And the Chinese are getting the hang of NZ dairy expertise at home. They at least have some idea of how to maintain their economy in their own interests.
‘The entrenched and narrow view of the changing world [by farmers] is very harmful for all of us.’ Indeed. And most of us including farmers who are over-leveraged, over any sort of precautionary controls on their overweening ambitions, will all go down together.
For those who like Tom Lehrer’s sarcasm seems to fit
The farmers will like his Pollution song as it has a go at cities, just up their street really.
Pollution
and it is followed by We will all go together when we go –
His song refers to the bomb but being hit by a collapsed economy and perhaps a hurricane will have a similar effect, and both are as possible as another strong earthquake.
notice that the article did not mention the size of his farm or his herds, no perspective in that story, $1500 is peanuts judging from what we can see in the picture/video of the size of his operation.
” …. water consumption of New Zealand dairy farms is equivalent to the residential use of 60 million people.
This is on top of the often quoted figure that New Zealand’s dairy herd has the environmental footprint equivalent to 90 million people.
“The implication is if a water royalty was imposed on irrigators then over 80 percent of dairy farmers will be unaffected”
However, this message is not getting through to farmers.
“As illustrated by the farmer protest (sic) in Morrinsville, it is clear many farmers are being unduly worried by baseless scaremongering – especially as Morrinsville is hardly ‘ground zero’ for irrigated dairying.”
If you shuffle income around the whanau up to each persons no tax threshold then max the farm expenses you can end up with a loss on the farm and everybody still gets cash to splash.
IIRC they get generous depreciation and write downs not available ouside the Ag sector unsure how the rebate picture is.
Well, let’s not get carried away here – the article says ‘locals’, but actually only quotes one person, who may have his own good reasons for telling porkies. A good percentage of Northland runs like a banana republic!
A pipe hit by a digger is going to show physical damage. I’m going to assume that they found that damage first (when they found the leak) and looked to the history of the area.
To MSM lets not create a divide between TOWN and COUNTRY we are all on this WAKA
called EARTH together. So when it starts sinking no one is going to think about that divide YOU are letting national impose on US there neo liberal bullshit ideals it is so primeval .
There are some todd mclay sign wavers in Rotorua they are not getting any support .
Because we all Know who his father is and what he got up to and that Trade Deal is bullshit if all agriculture is not included in it Europe dosen’t need our FOOD.
Well said Eco 😀
All of us wanting/needing clean water and less pollution so we can keep the planet alive is not divisive, it’s inclusive, survival of the planet and all the inhabitants depends on it.
Nat and media driven town v’s country division does nothing to solve any problem
Sharing ideas will help so much with solutions, that’s why I’m so very supportive of the water forum, because it brings all sectors etc together to find solutions which will unite NZ to improve life for all.
Why has the neo liberal Rotorua Lakes Council got no NITROGEN OR EFFLUENT mitigation plans in place Why have they got Lakes in there name and they are sitting on there assess and not even trying to fix that problem .
national have cut our science funding and this is one of the main tools we have to fight Climate Change and create a beautiful future for OUR grandchildren so fucken DUM.
If Jacinda and Labour really wanted to put the boot into dairy farmers in particular they would point out that in a report last year, I think, (sorry too busy or incompetent to find the reference ) that dairy farmers are tax negative by a long way.
On that note I would like to see in a new tax regime the inability of the buyer of a business to acquire simply for the tax losses associated with the target company.
When it’s sold the losses are wiped not credited to arseholes.
Chris Trotter sums up the Morrinsville farmer furore nicely:
“When Andrew McGiven and Lloyd Downing encouraged their rural brethren gather under Morrinsville’s giant cow yesterday, they were simply adding another chapter to an already very long story of rural antagonism towards the needs and aspirations of New Zealand’s urban majority. The latter looked on, appalled, at the selfishness and ignorance which unfailingly follow the country into town.”
The problem with that framing is that if we want to uplift the needs and aspirations of the majority then we will end up with Auckland running the place. There are distinct problems with most NZers living in cities, and one of them is that their ideas about nature are often once removed. People in cities also tend to see city life as normal and to then normalise that outwards. Hence the idea that part of the solution to the Auckland housing crisis is to send a whole bunch of people to the provinces, presumably to turn them into mini Aucklands. I’m appalled 😉
Besides, this country living person looked on appalled at the protest as well. No need to create a false divide.
The Feds and National have created the divide, imo. They couldn’t see that the optics would be so bad, because they’re in a bubble (methane mainly). I don’t hold with the idea that city-folk are more divorced from the real world than country people; in the country, the wild world is being actively suppressed and most farming action are aimed at suppressing the return of a natural environment. In the city, it’s largely over but city folk aren’t personally, in the main, poisoning stuff, burning stuff, chainsawing down stuff, as many in the farming community are.
true, but I think that’s lack of opportunity as much as anything. Otherwise we’d have had a Green-led govt by now. Look at the kaupapa of poisoning as part of conservation. Those are values held as much by city folk as anyone else. And the need to develop and improve things all the time to the detriment of the environment is a town as well as country value.
It’s not that I think city people are more divorced from the real world, it’s that I think the less time you spend in nature the more your thinking about and experience of it changes. That’s a generalisation, there are still many people in cities that give a shit about nature. But they tend to visit nature rather than seeing themselves as part of it. That’s a problem. Living in the country and seeing nature as something to be tamed is also a problem. Different problems, both need acknowledging and responding to.
weka in my experience of ten years dairyfaming I did not witness any farmers seeing their land as part of nature. They saw their land as a means of converting grass into milk and to hell with everything else.
I must confess that was also our aim when sharemilking.
We were told in the eighties of strict impending environmental laws and 3 year time frame was given. What did the industry do? sfa.
They can’t, garibaldi. Their cultural framing makes wildness invisible to them. They can though, just sense something threatening “over there”, but that can be Rounded-Up, no worries, mate.
If asked i think many city folk would love this idea. People living in cities with nature everywhere else, where the majority of the world would be a conservation estate – one that wouldn’t need looking after much but would be easy to visit.
Whether or not my uncle and his siblings were loaded onto a cattle wagon and transported to Siberia or they were on the very first TikiTour to Siberia is the subject of scientific debate, too. Pricks.
I guess the unpublished part of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, in which Germany and the USSR agreed to divide Poland up between them, must have been an invention of “the authors of biased historical narratives.”
“Four Auckland service stations ran out of 95 octane petrol yesterday – and more could run out today – as thousands of air passengers again face a day of cancelled flights.
Z Energy said it would be able to replenish the fuel today and told motorists there was no cause for concern.
Z’s corporate communications manager, Jonathan Hill, said in the first days after a pipeline from the Marsden Point Refinery ruptured, the company concentrated on delivering 91 octane petrol and diesel to Auckland.”
There is no cause for concern … except banner media headlines that freak voters out four days out from polling day.
Well. The locals do say there’s been no activity at the rupture site since it was built in 1981 and you’d think they would notice a digger pulling up Kauri, so…yeah.
I haven’t followed this side of it, but where I live it’s normal to have petrol supplied via tanker rather than a pipe. Is there some reason that isn’t happening enough? Is it simple physics (not enough tankers/time to meet demand)? Or am I missing something?
Auckland Airport say they supply 1.1 billion litres of jet fuel per year. That’s around 40,000 truckloads. That same pipe also delivers petrol and diesel to the Auckland region so local stations get supplied by truck from Wiri instead trucking it from Tauranga or Whangarei. At a guess that’s probably another couple billion litres of fuel down that pipe.
(that’s also around 1/270 of the world consumption of jet fuel at Auckland and NZ is 1/1600 of the world population)
The volume of fuel for auckland is somewhat high. It is about a third of the countries populaton. Similarly it is about 70% of the airplane fuel usage. It is also where most of the goods dispatched to the rest of nz come from. Auckland probably accounts for more than 40% of all fuelups.
The terrain between the refinery up north and auckland is difficult. They used to use coastal ships but it is likely that the unloading facility has been killed along with the tank farm at the harbour.
Truck tankers would fill an already full road and be pretty dangerous on some of the sharp corners in hill roads. Not to mention that we probably don’t have enough tanker trucks unless we use some milk tankers.
The State Services Commission has just put out a note to every single government Department that all flights by the public service into or out of Auckland are stopped until further notice.
I still haven’t had time to catch up properly, but it does seem very odd that people in general aren’t being advised to use less over the coming few weeks.
Would it be true that the rest of country is ok in terms of supply and supply chain?
Folks in Northland , Bay of Plenty & Waikato need to be aware that the primary focus of :
Ensuring the critical reduced volumes of Jet Fuel are delivered by Truck to Auckland
Ensuring that Diesel and 91 Octane petrol supply to Auckland is maintained
will result in negligible tanker deliveries in those regions.
Safe Gnat seats will get the least.
It’s unfortunate that the Pipeline outage occurred , even more unfortunate , IMO , that it didn’t occur a week earlier.
Wrong login. This pro-National post should have been under the light blue avatar.
[leave it alone please. Ad is an author, and anyone can comment from different devices and/or internet connections and end up with a different avatar. – weka]
No, we’ll take it up with you. You know that the avatar is created by Gravata via an algorithm shaped by the email address. Therefore the problem is you changing the email address.
But you must have changed/misspelled it on one of your devices so that it changes the avatar when you post on it. The one with the misspelling needs correcting.
There are approximately zero cars in New Zealand that need 95 octane petrol and won’t run perfectly happily on 91.
A large number of stations in Auckland don’t seem to have 95 anyway. Whenever I visit Auckland I seem to stop at stations that stock 91 and 98 instead.
I guess it is all the Ferraris and Porsches that seem to exist there.
91 and diesel supplies look like they will be fine for a while.
There will only be noticeable political impact if that changes by polling day.
Corin Dann will cover it on TVNZ news tonight – but it’s not yet a vote-turner.
Whenever one of my rellies mistakenly fills my Daihatsu Sirion 1.3 with 91, there’s nearly continual light knocking and fuel consumption noticeably increases.
Z don’t seem to try to foist overpriced 98 onto their customers, around here they all sell 95. Last time I checked into it, the 98 being sold had a lot of ethanol, so the energy content is low and fuel consumption would probably increase. So I avoid Gull, Mobil and BP.
Anyone who thinks policy analysis is the basis determining votes need only to listen to this interview to understand the base level at which the electorate determines what direction this country takes
It would also be pertinent to remind ourselves the history and origins of the National Party and we may then have a realistic expectation of the level of public discourse around rural issues
That interview was full of whining entitlement, the like of which you only ever hear from a certain sector of the farming community. Well done Peter Fraser for his rebuttal. Chris Trotter has a good post on the long history of farmer activism on his blog.
Has anyone else seen the full-page ad in today’s DomPost from the totally non-partisan (sarc) Taxpayers’ Union that claims that spending by a Labour/Greens/NZF government will cost every NZ household $229.41 per week over the next three years?
National/ACT at $22.05/week looks like a real bargain.
Kia Kaha Jacinda Ardern. Tough, tough time to lose a grandmother.
If there is poetic justice in this, it’s on Suffrage Day: 124 years after NZ led the world in granting women the vote. We are on the eve of electing a female Prime Minister for the second time….a time to remember we stand on the shoulder of giants and giantesses.
Always amazes me that people still think that National are telling the truth when they say that they manage the economy better. Decades of their mismanagement proves otherwise.
Could be msm isn’t pursuing the company which damaged the fuel pipeline at Ruakaka, while harvesting swamp kauri, because it might cause some embarrassment to Natz. If any issue needs some investigative journalism, this one certainly does! But to date, nothing at all!
NZ is definitely not being served by a free and open media, acting as a proxy for the people. Disgraceful!
Well for once in his career he has done the right thing – and about time – who would have believed it. Paddy has seen through their lies and corruption – am still shaking my head over it.
Now we no that the only thing that trump raised was a pile of cash and no mater how much shit that gets poured on money one can wash money clean.
My point is if he raised his children he would know that when you don’t give a child a healthy balanced diet they will get sick and in my view all living things are basically chemical factories and we have to make sure that the stock or vegetation and trees every living organism gets the right balanced diet to much of one chemical and the shit hits the fan.
OUR EARTH IS A LIVING ENTITY AND WE ARE PUT TO MUCH CARBON DIOXIDE INTO OUR LIVING MOTHER AND THE SHIT IS HITTING THE FAN THIS IS A FACT.
So I say fuck Dum ass Wars or money spent on war everyone on our EARTH has to work together to Heal OUR MOTHER EARTH OR WE ARE FUCKED Ka Pai.
Why not concentrate on our country. Trump is just part of the USA that looms and overshadows us all and makes our lives seem insignificant. Like a Hollywood sit com with big dark patches. NZ IS IMPORTANT. And we people here are important and our life here is important. We want to have one, and when we get it we want it to be better than just able to feed and house ourselves, just!
We have to watch the others but keep our eyes on us, and if we don’t no-one else will care. We need to care for all of us in our country 80% and 20% have kindness and interest in the rest of the world.
Trumpet can doodle out his own song in his own time, not take all of our time.
The 60 Years of New Zealand Television celebrations, such as they were, seemed to rely heavily on the classics: here we go again with Lynn of Tawa, A Week of It and the Country Calendar spoofs. Wonderful highlights of our televisual past, to be sure, but after hearing Paul Holmes’ ...
The Two Americas Collide: You gotta love the Americans marching for George Floyd and the fragile promises of the US Constitution. But, you also gotta keep your eye on the pale rider in the White House, and understand that behind him Hell follows.THE FRAGILITY of democracy’s promise is becoming clearer ...
Radical Proposition: The remote possibility that someone in the protest demonstrations might be carrying the coronavirus – and with no cases of community transmission detected for weeks that possibility is extremely remote – could not be permitted to constrain New Zealanders from demonstrating their support for the self-evident truth that black lives ...
Oliver Twist, famously asked for ‘more’. He did not challenge the system of workhouses – Dickens did – nor the authority of Beadle Bumble. He was only nine. I am often struck how critics of the current income maintenance system are like Oliver Twist. They ask for more, but they ...
New Zealand’s history as a sheep-farming nation means the command “Get in behind!” has long had a particular resonance — but not usually for journalists. However, in late March, as panic over the coronavirus pandemic surged around the world, Dr Gavin Ellis — former editor-in-chief of the NZ Herald — ...
When the New Zealand Police started using Armed Response Teams - gangs of heavily-armed police cruising Māori-Pacifica neighbourhoods in juiced-up gun-trucks - they told us it was a "trial". But it turns out that those armed police - who were mainly doing traffic stops and bail checks, rather than the ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections The Trump administration, after less than one full first term, has every likelihood of being adjudged the most anti-climate, anti-science, and anti-environment executive branch in U.S. history. With numerous high-level Trump nominees having cut their teeth as lobbyists with major polluting industries, the administration ...
Does National have any chance of winning the election in September? It’s looking very unlikely, especially after National’s change of leadership hasn’t exactly produced Mullermania in the first two weeks. Quite the opposite, in fact, as I summarised in Tuesday’s Political Roundup column: Todd Muller’s torrid start as National leader. ...
Another study comparing effect in children from nonendemic areas (Dagang) and endemic fluorosis area (Jinghai) about 80km apart in the Tianjin area of China. Hardly sampling the same population. Anti-fluoride campaigners still use studies from ...
George Thomson, Nick Wilson, Richard EdwardsThis blog discusses the passing of the Smoke-free Environments (Prohibiting Smoking in Motor Vehicles Carrying Children) Amendment Act last week. We briefly review some lessons from this legislation’s long journey and explore future smokefree possibilities in Aotearoa / New Zealand. A law ...
Last month I noted that the public policy debate was all about how we deal with covid-19. That’s changing now, and will change more over the next couple of months as the buffering impact of the wage subsidy disappears and we see starkly the economic hole out of which we ...
The mission of the New Zealand Police is to make this country the safest nation in the world. To achieve that aim, there is one important step the police need to take at the end of this month. When the evaluation of the Armed Response Teams’ trial is completed, the ...
The right of employees to strike is an internationally recognised employment right that has been a feature of New Zealand’s industrial relations system for over a century, albeit with different constraints and limitations at different times. Although more restricted, this right even continued under the anti-union Employment Contracts Act (1993-2000). ...
Bernard Hickey is one of New Zealand’s leading financial journalists. His latest article, published by Newsroom, lays bare the cruel treatment of hundreds of thousands of workers stranded since the lockdown. Our Prime Minister is lauded overseas for her compassion, but her Cabinet is refusing to properly support tens of ...
For a good part of my adult life I have studied civil-military relations. I have studied authoritarian and democratic variants, and I have studied them across countries and regions. I have also worked in and with several US security agencies and have lectured on the theme at a number of ...
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nzIf we stopped oil, gas and coal extraction immediately – ...
by The Spark “The system is broken”—the words of a young black man in Minneapolis watching flames destroy a police precinct demonstrators had torched. Broken? Yes, it is! What else could you say about a system whose police for nine minutes casually knelt on a black man’s neck, watching until ...
The latest opinion poll is out, and it’s more bad news for the National Party, with Roy Morgan putting them on only 26.5% support, against Labour’s 56.5%. You can see the details here: Roy Morgan May opinion poll. Roy Morgan is regarded as less accurate than other polling companies, and the ...
When miners pillage conservation land, they are typically required to "rehabilitate" it afterwards. Its not much compared to the damage they do, but its something. But apparently even that is now too much to expect. NZG Limited, a company owned by Oravida directors James Blackwell, Julia Jiyan Xu, Stone Shi, ...
Like everyone else, I've spent too much of the weekend watching the protests in America, and the increasingly brutal response to them. The overwhelming impression is of a nationwide police riot, as people speaking out against a murder and demanding change are beaten, gassed and shot by racist, militarised thugs ...
In mid-April, as New Zealand entered its fourth week of alert level 4, the Prime Minister warned us not to make comparisons with other countries over our Covid-19 pandemic response. This extraordinary advice came after Simon Bridges had urged the government to adopt a less-stringent lockdown similar to those in ...
Wales has lowered the voting age to 16: 16 and 17 year olds can now officially vote in Wales for Senedd elections. Votes at 16 & 17 come into force on Monday, as part of the Senedd and Elections (Wales) Act 2020. Next year’s Senedd elections will ...
The government announced more changes to the ETS today, including to the emissions budget for 2021 - 2025. The overall budget for that period will stay at 354 million tons of CO2-equivalent. But the ETS component of that - stockpile reduction, free allocation, and credits to be auctioned - budget ...
The new National Party leader, Todd Muller, had been at pains to portray himself as a solid, serious, safe pair of hands, in contrast to the increasingly Trumpian leanings of Simon Bridges, who Muller deposed in a leadership coup last Friday. But after an uneventful, if uninspiring, first press conference, ...
Minneapolis Police StationIf you’ve been keeping an eye on recent events in the United States, you’ll likely understand why there’s so much anger on the streets at the moment. Not only did police officers murder another black man; it is patently obvious that authorities initially attempted to cover up George ...
Becoming the leader of a political party is a bit like having a baby. Not so much the screaming and sleepless nights, as the fact that you’ve waited and hope and planned for something and it’s finally here. And when that wonderful gift finally arrives, you want to be ready, ...
The US appears to be headed towards what Antonio Gramsci and other Italian political theorists call an “organic crisis of the State.” It involves the simultaneous and compounded fractures of economy, society and politics, which together constitute a tipping point in a nation’s history. Social contradictions are exacerbated, class and ...
Like the rest of the world, I have been aghast at what I have seen of, and read and heard about, what is happening currently in the United States. It seems incredible that a once great country should be suffering the worst effects and the highest number of deaths worldwide ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Claim Review... SkS Week in Review... Poster of the Week... Story of the Week...
Climate concerns as Siberia experiences record-breaking heatHeat wave sparks concerns about devastating wildfire season and melting permafrost.Satellite ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, May 24 through Sat, May 30, 2020Editor's ChoiceAntarctic Ocean Reveals New Signs of Rapid Melt of Ancient Ice, Clues About Future Sea Level RiseA study of seafloor ripples ...
It’s almost painful to watch. Let’s be honest, maybe a pleasure too, in some quarters, but painful nonetheless. Because the fact is, for a democracy to function properly, any sitting Government does need honest and proper Opposition so that it doesn’t get ahead of itself. That’s what we should ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Karin Kirk A banner on the International Energy Agency website spells it out in bold font: “The global oil industry is experiencing a shock like no other in its history.” As the response to the coronavirus pandemic upends the lives of billions of ...
The ownership of newspapers and televison channels is in turmoil, and they want to redisorganise public broadcasting. *Three years ago, I expressed concern in a column about the future of the (traditional) media. Nothing has happened since to reduce the concern. It was based on an earlier column which ...
Australia's High Court has ruled that the "palace letters" between the queen and then-Governor-General John Kerr are public records rather than private papers: Historian Jenny Hocking has won her High Court bid to access the letters exchanged between then governor-general Sir John Kerr and the Queen around the time of ...
SATURDAY MAY 30Six60: Live at Western Springs 2020 (TVNZ 1, 8.45pm). Remember live concerts? The day will come again, friends, when we will be able to stand shoulder-to-shoulder in an uncomfortable sweaty venue with people we don’t know. It will happen. Sometimes the sound of concerts drifts over to the ...
New Zealand and its prime minister Jacinda Ardern have received international attention and praise, rightly so, for decisive leadership, clear communication and scientific management of the coronavirus pandemic. Observers point out that the nation has been through multiple crises under Ardern’s leadership – such as the Christchurch terrorist attack and ...
…a lot of things unrelated to the pandemic were happening. Relatively little attention was given to some major events on the global stage, so I thought I would do a quick recap of some of the high (or low) -lights, starting with something familiar. The common theme throughout is human ...
Labour's talk of gutting the RMA to push through "shovel ready" projects to boost employment after the pandemic predictably has every half-arsed pipe-dream crawling out of the woodwork demanding special treatment. Today, it's the West Coast inbreds, who are demanding a host of laws be rescinded so they can dig ...
"I can't breathe, Mama. I'm dying." - Last words of George Floyd.LOOK HARD at this image. Think about what it depicts. Ask yourself how one human-being could behave so brutally when so many eye-witnesses – and very soon millions of people online around the world – were there to watch ...
Since the government announced its pandemic wage subsidy, there have been regular stories about companies taking it and then sacking or refusing to pay their workers - essentially committing fraud. But how often does this happen? The Minister just doesn't want to know: Government ministers are not receiving up to ...
"You call that a conservative?Nah, this is a conservative!" New Zealanders are in the market for a quiet and reassuring small-c conservative political centrist. The critical question, however, is which politician is currently playing that role? Who has mastered the art of relaxed, informal and intimate political communication? Who ...
I’VE OFTEN WONDERED if South African immigrants passing through towns like Kerikeri and Kaikohe ever wonder how we do it. In their homeland, through the bitter years of Apartheid, keeping the races segregated required pass laws, Alsatian dogs, tear gas, rubber bullets and, all-too-often, live rounds. Not here. Not in ...
Below is the list of gender-critical material which appeared on Redline from July 31, 2019 to September 30, 2019. Sports categories must be by sex, not gender identity Queer theory glossary Woke misogyny and homophobia: a gay critique of trans ideology Another unfortunate experiment? New Zealand’s transgender health policy and ...
Smart Energy Europe: A Plan to provide 100% of ALL ENERGY using Renewable Energy to EuropeIntroductionAll Energy renewable energy systems are often commented on here at Skeptical Science. Many comments suggest that it will be difficult, expensive or impossible to use renewable energy to power the world. To ...
The government released its Action for Healthy Waterways package today, ostensibly with the goal of cleaning up our rivers and making them swimmable within a generation. Doing that, of course, requires confronting the cow in the room: the dairy industry which causes most of the pollution. But while they've imposed ...
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nzI would like to know if New Zealand’s carbon emissions ...
Simon Lamb, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington and Timothy Stern, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of WellingtonBack in the 1970s, scientists came up with a revolutionary idea about how Earth’s deep interior works. They proposed it is slowly churning like a lava lamp, with buoyant ...
Remember KiwiBuild? Previously the government's flagship policy, it was supposed to build thousands of new homes every year for kiwi families. But instead of flooding the market, we've got a pathetic dribble: The Government's former flagship housing policy is so far behind schedule it will take more than 400 years ...
Don Franks Now Covid-19 restrictions allow gatherings of a hundred, an urgent hui needs calling. A special conference of the Council of Trade Unions. Today, workers face the greatest attack on employment, pay and conditions since the depression, we need a strong united union voice. As it stands now, organised ...
George Henderson New Zealand schools have introduced a climate change resource that suggests children “eat less meat and dairy”, even though teachers will not know how much meat or dairy any child in their care has eaten. Opinion pieces in the papers have called for the reduction of meat and ...
Questioning the number of district health boards in New Zealand has got to the extent that “too many DHBs” has become a perceived truth requiring no further elaboration. It is rarely challenged by policy advisers, academics, and journalists. But when one drills down further it becomes clear that the number ...
The emergence of a new National party leader, seemingly out of nowhere, has – not surprisingly – raised a number of questions as to who Todd Mulller actually is and what makes him tick. He has been an MP for some time but seems to have hidden his light under ...
Costa Rica has become the first country in Central America to recognise same-sex marriage: The first same-sex weddings have taken place in Costa Rica, the first Central American country to equalise its marriage legislation. A lesbian couple became the first to tie the knot in a ceremony that took ...
There's a new twist in the Winston Peters secret donation story. It appears that a significant chunk of NZ First's secret laundered donations goes straight into the pockets of the people administering the scheme: Tens of thousands in donor's funds given to the New Zealand First Foundation were spent paying ...
Is Todd Muller the Ned Flanders of the National Party? This is how he’s been characterised by political commentator Gordon Campbell, who suggests the change in leadership is, in Simpsons terms, akin to swapping the scary and cruel Monty Burns for Homer Simpson’s compassionate but conservative neighbour. There’s almost a ...
We all know that many so-called journalists and political commentators in New Zealand work directly or indirectly for political parties or for certain political factions. This was obviously the case when pundit for hire Matthew Hooton launched a campaign against then National Party leader, Simon Bridges, over their numerous polling ...
Let's Roll! The easy victory over a Bridges-led National Party which the Left had every cause to anticipate just a few days ago is no longer in the offing. Our enemy’s position has changed. His numbers are swelling. A rapid thrust to the left, followed by an audacious outflanking manoeuvre ...
New National Party leader Todd Muller has been interviewed about his policies, and has promised to restart offshore fossil fuel exploration if elected: The Bay of Plenty MP rolled former leader Simon Bridges last week, but says the party has not changed its stance on previous promises. "That is ...
Anyone who keeps an eye on evidence around cannabis and public health will be familiar with the Christchurch Health and Development Study. It's one of two local longitudinal studies frequently cited with respect to cannabis and youth development. But in a new article in the New Zealand Medical Journal, it is ...
In the age of covid we are Jacinda’s team of five million, except for some. There has rarely been a more blatant case of discrimination against beneficiaries than Grant Robertson’s announcement yesterday that people who have lost their jobs because of the coronavirus will receive weekly payments of $490 per week for 12 weeks and $250 per week for part time ...
It was 75 years ago this month that Germany surrendered and the Allies celebrated VE (Victory in Europe) Day. Millions of people around the world had been killed and many more injured or captured. It was an end to war not just for Europeans, but their allies too, in countries across Africa. But its impact is ...
Well, we are out of lockdown, essentially. I did end up getting the wage subsidy while we were on levels 3 and 4 but I would have been fine if we didn’t. The first day of level 2, the Thursday, the office opened again for the people who weren’t able ...
Watching Todd Muller make his first speech as the newly minted Leader of the Opposition after Simon Bridges’ defenestration on Friday brought to mind a headmaster addressing a school assembly. He showed no particular desire to ingratiate himself with his audience although the occasional flash of self-deprecating humour indicated a ...
The government has announced another income support scheme for people affected by the economic aftershocks of the pandemic: a $490 a week tax-free payment for the newly unemployed, which you can get even if you have a working partner. Which is great, because its supporting people who need help, but ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters today announced two diplomatic appointments: New Zealand’s High Commissioner to India and Consul-General to Hong Kong. “As New Zealand recovers from COVID-19, our diplomatic and trade networks are more important than ever. That is ...
We started the week by announcing free apprenticeships to support Kiwis into work and to help get New Zealand moving again - and we ended the week by extending the wage subsidy to 40,000 more businesses, helping to protect businesses and workers alike. ...
We’re confident in the ability of Kiwi businesses to succeed in the face of COVID-19, and our Government is committed to doing our bit to enable that success. Kiwi businesses have always been innovative and resilient, and the COVID-19 pandemic has proven this yet again. Many businesses are finding new, creative ...
New Zealand First is pleased to release the names of its first tranche of candidates for the 2020 election. The includes all sitting New Zealand First Members of Parliament except Clayton Mitchell MP who earlier today announced he will not be seeking re-election. In alphabetical order they are: MP ...
Clayton Mitchell MP, New Zealand First List MP based in Tauranga New Zealand First MP Clayton Mitchell has decided not to seek re-election in this year’s General Election. “After serious consideration and discussion with my family, I have decided to pursue other passions in my life and spend a lot ...
Defence Minister Ron Mark has announced that new Lockheed Martin Super Hercules aircraft would replace the outdated and costly 1960s Hercules fleet. The $1.521b project will include a flight simulator for staff training and other supporting infrastructure. "This fleet will ensure the Defence Force can continue to support New Zealand's ...
The Green Party is urging the New Zealand Police to rule out the use of Armed Response Teams, following their recent trial in communities around Aotearoa. ...
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has described Labour's original COVID-19 commercial rent dispute proposal as "poorly targeted". Justice Minister Andrew Little hasannounced a temporary law changeto force commercial landlords and renters to consider COVID-19 in disputes over rent issues, almost two months after the Government first floated the idea. But ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Leader of New Zealand First New Zealand First acknowledges that some small businesses have been struggling to meet fixed costs due to the loss of revenue by COVID-19. We also know some businesses are at greater risk of insolvency when they cannot come to a reasonable ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Leader of New Zealand First New Zealand First is disappointed that the removal of the spousal deductions has had to be delayed by the Ministry fo Social Development, due to COVID19 workload pressures. “New Zealand First has always stood for fairness when it comes to superannuation ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Leader of New Zealand First On the steps of Parliament today the Leader of New Zealand First, Rt Hon Winston Peters received a petition from registered nurse Anna Maria Coervers, requesting an amendment to the Protection for First Responders Bill which will ensure the legislation also include registered ...
It's been a busy seven days as we start to rebuild New Zealand together. From delivering extra support for small businesses, to investing in our artists and arts organisations, to cutting red tape on home DIY projects, we're rolling out our plan to get the economy and New Zealand moving ...
Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters says alert level 2 restrictions have to be discussed during today's Cabinet meeting. Thousands gathered across the country, including at Parliament, yesterday forBlack Lives Matter marcheswhere social distancing and mass gathering rules were flouted. Mr Peters said the breaching of Alert Level 2 rules at ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of State Owned Enterprises KiwiRail’s Northland rail upgrade steps up another gear today and will help Northland recover from the impacts of COVID-19, State Owned Enterprises Minister Winston Peters says. The Government is investing $204.5 million through the Provincial Growth Fund to ...
“Today and every day we stand in solidarity with George Floyd’s family, friends and community who feel pain and fear about his untimely death at the hands of Minneapolis police”, said Green Party Co-leader and Māori Development spokesperson Marama Davidson. ...
Fletcher Tabuteau, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Hon Eugenie Sage, Minister of Conservation The West Coast forests of Mount Te Kinga at Kotuku Whakaoho/Lake Brunner are the latest predator free project to receive Government funding, announced Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage and Under Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher ...
The Green Party says major freshwater reforms announced today provide the strongest ever protections of our waterways, to help ensure the next generation can swim in the rivers of Aotearoa. ...
The Green Party has begun the process for a Select Committee inquiry into student accommodation, which has been exposed during COVID-19 as an under-regulated sector that straddles students with unfair debt. ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs Hon Megan Woods, Minister of Research, Science and Innovation Hon Dr David Clark, Minister of Health Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters, Research, Science and Innovation Minister Megan Woods, and Health Minister David Clark today announced a COVID-19 vaccine strategy, ...
Budget 2020 is about rebuilding together, supporting jobs, getting business moving and the books back into the black. It’s an integral part of our COVID-19 economic response, and our plan to grow our economy and get New Zealand moving again.Here’s a quick look at the five top things you ...
The Green Party is pleased to reveal its candidate list for the upcoming election. With a mix of familiar faces and fresh new talent, this exceptional group of candidates are ready to lead the Greens back into Government. ...
The Coalition Government has approved $206 million in essential upgrades at Ōhakea Air Base. Defence Minister Ron Mark said the money would be spent on improving old infrastructure. He said safety issues would be addressed, as well as upgrades to taxiways, accommodation and fresh, storm and waste water systems. "This ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Leader of New Zealand First “I am not persisting with this case just for myself, but for all people who have had their privacy breached. Privacy of information is a cornerstone of our country’s democracy. Without it our society truly faces a bleak future. We now ...
Hon Tracey Martin, Minister for ChildrenA major increase in funding and availability of support will improve the incomes and reduce the pressure on 14,000 caregivers looking after more than 22,000 children.Children’s Minister Tracey Martin says that caregivers – all those looking after someone else’s children both in and ...
Forestry Minister Shane Jones has introduced a Bill to Parliament that he says will "force more transparency, integrity and respect" for the domestic wood-processing sector through the registration of log traders and practice standards. The Forests (Regulation of Log Traders and Forestry Advisers) Amendment Bill had its first reading in ...
This summer presents a great opportunity for New Zealanders to get out into nature with bookings on Great Walks for 2020/21 set to open next week, says Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage. Bookings for the Great Walks will open between 9 and 11 June, excluding Milford and Routeburn tracks which ...
Extra 40,000 businesses to be eligible for wage subsidy extension Small business cashflow support application period extended The Government is today announcing further support for businesses that continue to be affected by the global COVID-19 pandemic, as the broader economy becomes one of the most open in the world following ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed five Lockheed Martin C-130J-30 Super Hercules transport aircraft will be purchased to replace the existing fleet, Defence Minister Ron Mark announced today. “Last year, Cabinet selected these aircraft as the preferred option to replace the current Hercules fleet. Procurement of the Super Hercules has been ...
New public housing that will save tenants money in energy bills, and provide warmer, healthier and more comfortable homes, is setting the standard for the Government’s future public housing programme, Housing Minister Megan Woods said. Dr Woods opened the new Kāinga Ora – Homes and Communities complex, which has a ...
The Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage is celebrating World Environment Day with an announcement of a major step towards Wairarapa Moana being recognised as an internationally significant wetland. “Wairarapa Moana is an ecosystem of 10,000 hectares of wetland and open water that provides a home for indigenous fish, birds and ...
A new-look Police graduation ceremony to take account of COVID19 health rules has marked the completion of training for 57 new constables. Police Minister Stuart Nash attended this afternoon's ceremony, where officers of Recruit Wing 337 were formally sworn in at the Royal New Zealand Police College without the normal support of ...
Mobile traders and truck shops must adhere to responsible lending requirements Interest rate cap on high-cost loans Lenders prohibited from offering further credit to an applicant who has taken two high-cost loans in the past 90 days The Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, Kris Faafoi, has signalled an end ...
94% of firms say wage subsidy had positive impact on cashflow 62% of firms say support helped to manage non-wage costs like rent A survey of business that have received the Government’s wage subsidy show it has played a significant role in saving jobs, and freed up cash flow to ...
New legislation introduced to Parliament today will support growth and assist businesses on the road to economic recovery, said Revenue Minister Stuart Nash. “The Taxation (Annual Rates for 2020-21, Feasibility Expenditure, and Remedial Matters) Bill proposes that businesses can get tax deductions for ‘feasibility expenditure’ on new investments,” said Mr ...
Sport and Recreation Minister Grant Robertson has welcomed the first release of funds from the $265 million Sport Recovery Package announced as part of Budget 2020. Sport NZ has announced that $4.6 million in funding will go to the Wellington Phoenix, NZ Warriors, Super Rugby teams and the ANZ Premiership ...
An iconic New Zealand tourism attraction and the country’s 31 Regional Tourism Organisations are the first recipients of support from the $400 million Tourism Sector Recovery Plan, to help position the sector for recovery from COVID-19, Tourism Minister Kelvin Davis announced today. The plan includes a Strategic Tourism Assets Protection ...
The Government will legislate to ensure businesses that suffered as a result of the COVID-19 response will get help to resolve disputes over commercial rent issues, Justice Minister Andrew Little announced today. A temporary amendment to the Property Law Act will insert a clause in commercial leases requiring a fair ...
The Minister for Small Business says new data from Xero highlights the urgency of prompt payment practices to small and medium enterprises as we move into economic recovery. Last month Government ministers wrote to significant private enterprises and the banking industry to request they join efforts by government agencies to ...
Young people in Waikato will be the first to have free access to period products in schools in another step to support children and young people in poverty,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said. During term 3, the Ministry of Education will begin providing free period products to schools following the ...
The Minister of Police Stuart Nash has issued the following statement in response to charges filed against three Police officers this morning in the New Plymouth District Court. “Any incident involving a loss of life in Police custody is taken very seriously. The charges today reflect the gravity of the ...
$196 million for Crown Research Institutes $150 million for R&D loan scheme $33 million for Māori research and development opportunities $12 million for the Nationally Significant Collections and Databases $10 million to help maintain in-house capability at Callaghan Innovation New Zealand’s entrepreneurs, innovators and crown researchers will benefit from a ...
Further temporary changes to NCEA and University Entrance (UE) will support senior secondary school students whose teaching and learning have been disrupted by COVID-19. “The wellbeing of students and teachers is a priority. As we are all aware, COVID-19 has created massive disruption to the school system, and the Government ...
Minister for Racing Winston Peters today announced that the terms for the directors of the Racing Industry Transition Agency (RITA) have been extended to 30 June 2021. Due to the COVID-19 crisis the transition period has been extended to ensure that the Racing Industry Bill can complete its progress through ...
The deadline for landlords to include detailed information in their tenancy agreements about how their property meets the Healthy Homes Standards, so tenants can see the home they are renting is compliant, has been extended from 1 July 2020 to 1 December 2020. The Healthy Homes Standards became law on 1 July 2019. The Standards are ...
Justice Minister Andrew Little today announced details of further appointments to the Criminal Cases Review Commission. “I am pleased to announce Paula Rose QSO OStJ as Deputy Chief Commissioner for a term of five years commencing on 15 June 2020,” said Andrew Little. “I am also pleased to announce the ...
The Targeted Training and Apprenticeships Fund (TTAF) will pay costs of learners of all ages to undertake vocational education and training The fund will target support for areas of study and training that will give learners better employment prospects as New Zealand recovers from COVID-19 Apprentices working in all industries ...
The Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) will finally start to cut New Zealand’s greenhouse gas pollution as it was originally intended to, because of changes announced today by the Minister for Climate Change, James Shaw. The changes include a limit on the total emissions allowed within the ETS, rules to ensure ...
Minister for Pacific Peoples Aupito William Sio says the Queen’s Birthday 2020 Honours List provides an abundance of examples that Pacific people’s leadership capability is unquestionable in Aotearoa. “The work and the individuals we acknowledge this year highlights the kind of visionary examples and dedicated community leadership that we need ...
The Government is backing a new $27 million project aimed at boosting sustainable horticulture production and New Zealand’s COVID-19 recovery efforts, says Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor. “Our horticulture sector has long been one of New Zealand’s export star performers, contributing around $6 billion a year to our economy. During and ...
Applications have opened for 2021 Ngā Karahipi Uru Rākau – Forestry Scholarships, which will support more Māori and women to pursue careers in forestry science, says Forestry Minister Shane Jones. “I’m delighted Te Uru Rākau is offering Ngā Karahipi Uru Rākau – Forestry Scholarships for the third year running. These ...
The Queen’s Birthday 2020 Honours List once again highlights the dedication by many to looking after our native plants and wildlife, including incredible work to restore the populations of critically endangered birds says Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage. Anne Richardson of Hororata has been made an Officer of the New ...
The Government will invest $10 million from the One Billion Trees Fund for large-scale planting to provide jobs in communities and improve the environment, Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor and Forestry Minister Shane Jones have announced. New, more flexible funding criteria for applications will help up to 10 catchment groups plant ...
Organisations that support women are invited to apply to a new $1,000,000 fund as part of the Government’s COVID-19 response. “We know women, and organisations that support women, have been affected by COVID-19. This new money will ensure funding for groups that support women and women’s rights,” said Minister for ...
Healthier waterways are front and centre in a new project involving more than 300 King Country sheep, beef and dairy farmers. The Government is investing $844,000 in King Country River Care, a group that helps farmers to lift freshwater quality and farming practice, Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor announced today. “Yesterday ...
A major funding package for libraries will allow them to play a far greater role in supporting their communities and people seeking jobs as part of the economic recovery from COVID-19. “Budget 2020 contains over $60 million of funding to protect library services and to protect jobs,” says Internal Affairs ...
A jobseekers programme for the creative sector and four new funds have been set up by the Government to help our arts and music industry recover from the blow of COVID-19. Thousands of jobs will be supported through today’s $175 million package in a crucial economic boost to support the ...
Minister for Veterans Ron Mark has welcomed the First Reading of a Bill that will make legislative changes to further improve the veterans’ support system. The Veterans’ Support Amendment Bill No 2, which will amend the Veterans’ Support Act 2014, passed First Reading today. The bill addresses a number of ...
Views sought on Order in Council to help fast track the reinstatement of the Christ Church Cathedral The Associate Minister for Greater Christchurch Regeneration, Hon Poto Williams, will be seeking public written comment, following Cabinet approving the drafting of an Order in Council aimed at fast-tracking the reinstatement of the ...
The law setting out New Zealanders’ basic civil and human rights is today one step towards being strengthened following the first reading of a Bill that requires Parliament to take action if a court says a statute undermines those rights. At present, a senior court can issue a ‘declaration of ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters today reiterated the deep concern of the New Zealand Government following confirmation by China’s National People’s Congress of national security legislation relating to Hong Kong. “New Zealand shares the international community’s significant and long-standing stake in Hong Kong’s prosperity and stability,” Mr Peters said. “New Zealand ...
Thousands of artists and creatives at hundreds of cultural and heritage organisations have been given much-needed support to recover from the impact of COVID-19, Prime Minister and Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Jacinda Ardern announced today. “The cultural sector was amongst the worst hit by the global pandemic,” Jacinda ...
Key New Zealand assets will be better protected from being sold to overseas owners in a way contrary to the national interest, with the passage of the Overseas Investment (Urgent Measures) Bill. The Bill, which passed its third reading in Parliament today, also cuts unnecessary red tape to help attract ...
Setting higher health standards at swimming spots Requiring urban waterways to be cleaned up and new protections for urban streams Putting controls on higher-risk farm practices such as winter grazing and feed lots Setting stricter controls on nitrogen pollution and new bottom lines on other measures of waterway health Ensuring ...
The Government is on the verge of reaching its target of state sector boards and committees made up of at least 50 percent women, says Minister for Women Julie Anne Genter and Minister for Ethnic Communities Jenny Salesa. For the first time, the Government stocktake measures the number of Māori, ...
By RNZ News Thousands of people were protesting across Australia today to oppose the deaths of Indigenous people in police custody. It comes as Black Lives Matter protests are held around the world after the death of George Floyd at the hands of a white police officer in the US ...
Wrapping everyone in a blanket of love, whakapapa and mauri for Matariki is the brave, exuberant and generous fabric art of Maungarongo Te Kawa, writes Amanda Thompson.E te AtuaNau enei rau harakeke he taongaTukuna ki a matouKia tika o matou mahiKo Papatuanuku e takoto neiTuturu WhakamauaKia tina, tinaHui eTaiki e.‘Karakia ...
For all The Spinoff’s latest coverage of Covid-19 see here. Read Siouxsie Wiles’s work here. New Zealand is currently in alert level two – read The Spinoff’s giant explainer about what that means here. For official government advice, see here.The Spinoff’s coverage of the Covid-19 outbreak is made possible thanks to donations from Spinoff Members. ...
One press statement from the Beehive yesterday sounded more like advertising – or a barker’s pitch – than a Government announcement. Another advised of two diplomatic appointment, one of them – has the woman who landed the post done something wrong? – to protest-troubled and politically volatile Hong Kong. And ...
It’s not often that someone graduates from university one year and becomes a senior economist commentating on national media the next. George Driver investigates the meteoric rise of the high-flying Brad Olsen.Google “senior economist Brad Olsen” and you’ll find him quoted in no fewer than 167 articles in the past ...
As public sentiment turned against Uber Eats, a new local operation emerged promising a more ethical alternative to help New Zealand’s struggling hospitality industry. But now Eat Local NZ has suspended trading after falling out with its Australian partner Mr Yum. So what happened?A dispute between local hospitality platform Eat ...
By Budi Sutrisno in Jakarta As the death of George Floyd, an African-American man who died while being arrested in the United States, sparks a global outcry, Indonesian rights advocates and young people have stepped forward to remind fellow citizens that racism has long been an issue at home as ...
Edward Cullen became a vampire to survive the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918. Now a new Twilight novel looms and Laura Surynt, a New Zealander living in the UK, wants to live forever too. As I lay in bed this morning watching Instagram stories, Tayi Tibble told my reluctant little Capricorn ...
Over the lockdown period, thousands of people joined a Facebook group dedicated to remembering the nightlife of inner-city Auckland. Its creator Simon Grigg explains why it touched a chord in lockdown.Within a few days of The Lost Nightlife of Inner-city Auckland Facebook page accidentally going live on May 12, we ...
Throughout Anglo colonial states there is a constant habit of defining people who aren’t white as a problem, writes Aaron Smale in this personal essay. It was a balmy summer evening in the capital and cops were standing over a young brown man. I was walking down Courtenay Place on ...
"The countdown clock ticks 2, then 1, then the prime minister raises her drink": dystopia, by Ōtautahi writer Laura Borrowdale. You stand in the centre of the room, and around you, the guests seem to swirl and blend into one. There’s a mouth, gaping and red, filled with laughter. A ...
Martin Luther King Jr said in 1963: “America has given the Black people a bad cheque, a cheque which has come back marked ‘insufficient funds’." Six generations of egregious police violence later, the sentiment out of which those bad cheques were born could be shifting. In the wake of egregious police violence, ...
WATCH: In a candid interview on Sky Sport, Dame Susan Devoy talks on her concern for rising sports stars, the state of NZ squash, and the spectre of racism. Dame Susan Devoy is proudly still “a little terrier who fights for the underdog”. “I have been doing it all my life and ...
Of the huge funding boost coming for early childhood education, Playcentre has been left with just the crumbs, writes Kate Barber. Amidst all the celebration of the $430m funding boost for early childhood education (ECE) announced in this year’s budget, little attention was paid to the plight of Playcentre. The ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vikrant Minhas, PhD candidate, University of Adelaide Although bacteria are single-celled and microscopically small, they still need energy to survive, just like us. One of the most efficient ways of acquiring energy for bacteria is through sweet, soluble carbohydrates: sugars. In fact, ...
PACIFIC PANDEMIC DIARY:By David Robie Three cartoonists had especially poignant takes on the tragic and toxic political aftermath of martyr George Floyd’s brutal killing under the knee of a white American policeman in Minneapolis last week. The Boston Globe’s Christopher Weyant featured a split frame contrasting a red-capped “Make ...
Are central bankers jealous that epidemiologists are the rock stars of the current crisis?There is talk that both the British and New Zealand central banks might institute negative interest rates as part of the policy response to the Covid shock. While Sweden’s central bank ended its five year experiment ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Monika Sarder, Senior Strategic Analyst, Monash University Algorithmic decision-making has enormous potential to do good. From identifying priority areas for first response after an earthquake hits, to identifying those at risk of COVID-19 within minutes, their application has proven hugely beneficial. But ...
LISTEN: This week's Extra Time podcast discusses racism in sport and the role of athletes and organisations in making a stand for good. Former Silver Fern and Black Fern Louisa Wall believes today's sports stars must have a social conscience and stand up against discrimination and divisiveness. Sport and politics, once ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emma Thomas, Associate professor, Flinders University We have seen ten days of protests in the United States over the death of George Floyd. While thousands of people have gathered to express their outrage peacefully, some demonstrations have been marred by vandalism and ...
40 percent of millennials have one, and an increasing number of GenXers and Baby Boomers do too. Two Cents' Worth delves into the world of side hustles. ...
Auckland writer Caroline Barron has a terrific book out today called Ripiro Beach: A Memoir of Life After Near Death. Here, she writes about the memoirs that have been a balm, a lesson, or both. Throughout my life, I’ve sought solace between the covers of books, particularly memoirs. There, I’ve learnt ...
An exclusive interview with Steve McSteverson about his traumatic and tragic ordeal this week.Many New Zealanders are struggling with the news that a children’s book not commissioned or authorised by Jacinda Ardern was advertised in a newsletter for children’s books. This horrific attack on New Zealanders whose ears are permanently ...
Air New Zealand staff are dismayed and angered at the company’s announcement to cut a further $150 million from their wage bill. On Friday, the company’s Chief Executive Officer, Greg Foran, made the announcement to employees, who are still ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dr. Bodean Hedwards, Lecturer, Monash University This week the leaders of India and Australia reaffirmed their mutual interest in closer diplomatic and economic ties. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi told Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison during their long-delayed Thursday “virtual summit”: ...
The Herald reported this morning that MediaWorks was on the verge of selling its TV assets to US TV giant Discovery – but an internal email and senior source suggest the story may have been premature.A senior MediaWorks source has emphatically denied a report in the NZ Herald that a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gery Karantzas, Associate professor in Social Psychology / Relationship Science, Deakin University Life in lockdown has been tough on many relationships. But negotiating the transition back to “normal” as restrictions continue to lift could also be a challenge for couples. So what ...
A slight bounce in the economy is brightening the outlook as the country heads into the winter months, Radio NZ reports. Retail spending is up and NZ shares rose on Thursday for a third day running. Key indicators have led some economists to point to a faster recovery than expected. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Geoff Hanmer, Adjunct Professor of Architecture, University of Adelaide HomeBuilder is a good idea gone bad. It is possibly the most complex and least equitable program the government could have devised to deliver construction jobs. It gives $25,000 to people who already ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Keller, Professor of Cognitive Science, Western Sydney University The coronavirus pandemic has silenced the world’s concert halls and opera theatres. Organisations specialising in live performance face an existential crisis under current restrictions on social gatherings, with up to 75% of people ...
Finance Minister Grant Robertson, wearing his Sport and Recreation ministerial hat, can show he can be a big spender and draw voters’ attention to his largess each time he dispenses money from the funds under his control – or the control of an agency within his ministerial bailiwick. Yesterday he ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Pi-Shen Seet, Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Edith Cowan University Scott Morrison wants to overhaul the skills workforce to ensure a better post-COVID-19 recovery. But there may not be enough people with the necessary skills to do so. And travel restrictions, which ...
As we transition out of a Covid-focused world and prepare for what comes next, New Zealand’s ICT industry is gearing towards growth.From app development helping track the Covid-19 virus to website engineering keeping businesses in touch and online, ICT knowledge has been crucial to keeping New Zealand working over the ...
Analysis: As New Zealand eases restrictions, it no longer has international precedent to look towards and must decide on its own how to reopen the economy while reducing the risk of a second wave of infections, Marc Daalder reports While most of the country eagerly awaits a likely move to ...
Ten days is too long. That from insurance claimant advocate, Ali Jones. EQC has today made contact with homeowners via email after accidentally releasing confidential details of 8000 insurance claims on May 26. Jones says although she has not received ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo (Penguin Classics, $24)Winner of the 2019 Booker Prize. The other day, ...
Simon Day discovers how the voluntary carbon market allows both individuals and companies to offset their emissions at the same time as investing in native forest regeneration.When Celia Wade-Brown sold her first batch of carbon credits earned from the native forest on her Wairarapa farm, she had two customers: Z ...
Simon Day discovers how the voluntary carbon market allows both individuals and companies to offset their emissions at the same time as investing in native forest regeneration.When Celia Wade-Brown sold her first batch of carbon credits earned from the native forest on her Wairarapa farm, she had two customers: Z ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Keith Rankin. The conversation around the 2020 covid19 pandemic has been widely framed as ‘health versus the economy’. It has been quite political, with people leaning to the left emphasising ‘health’, and people leaning to the right emphasising ‘the economy’. A couple of weeks ago ...
Sam Brooks pays tribute to Alex Rider, and the new TV series that (finally) captures the spirit of the books.“What if James Bond was a teenager?”The concept for Anthony Horowitz’s Alex Rider series is so simple but so brilliant. There’s a reason why the franchise has managed to sustain 12 ...
Analysis - The PM resists pressure to move immediately to level 1, Winston Peters' tactics play into the hands of the Opposition and the government at last works out a commercial rent solution, writes Peter Wilson. ...
Source: Council on Hemispheric Affairs – Analysis-Reportage By COHAFrom Washington DC Federal charges against the four protectors of the Venezuelan Embassy, who defended the building in Washington DC against violent opposition crowds for several weeks between April 10 and May 16 of 2019, were completely dropped in a case that ...
Source: Council on Hemispheric Affairs – Analysis-Reportage By COHA Editorial TeamFrom Washington DC The Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA) joins the Black Alliance for Peace[1] and other pro-democracy organizations throughout the world in calling for the United Nations to address the systemic violations of human rights by the police and ...
Being shot by police had a profound, transformational effect on Rob Mokaraka’s life in more ways than you’d expect. A new documentary, airing on Māori TV at 7.30pm on Sunday, explores the work he’s done to heal his own mind and to ensure nobody has to go through the same ...
Human rights watchdog TAPOL has condemned the demand by Indonesian prosecutors seeking 17 and five years imprisonment for West Papuan activists Buchtar Tabuni and Irwanus Uropmabin. On June 2, the Jayapura District Prosecutor’s Office issued 33 pages containing charges against the defendant Irwanus Uropmabin. In the document, the Public Prosecutor ...
The arrival of Dan Carter is far from the first time the ever-struggling Auckland team has hoped to turn around its fortunes with a star signing, writes Jamie Wall.New Zealand rugby Twitter is a generally desolate place, especially lately given that there’s been nothing to talk about ever since the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robyn J. Whitaker, Senior Lecturer in New Testament, Pilgrim Theological College, University of Divinity US President Donald Trump delivered an address this week in which he threatened military action on the nation. Then he walked to the nearby St John’s Episcopal Church ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vincent Ho, Senior Lecturer and clinical academic gastroenterologist, Western Sydney University Why do we burp? We sometimes also burp before meals, why does this happen? — Ahaana, age 7 That is a really interesting question, Ahaana! There ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Justine Bell-James, Associate Professor, TC Beirne School of Law, The University of Queensland After years of litigation, Australia’s highest court will today make a major decision on the fate of the controversial proposed expansion to the New Acland Coal mine in Queensland. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicholas Williams, Associate Professor in Urban Ecology and Urban Horticulture, University of Melbourne Tomorrow is the first World Green Roof Day. Cities around the world will celebrate the well-documented environmental, economic and social benefits of green roofs. New ground-level green spaces are ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elise Klein, Senior Lecturer, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Robodebt isn’t the only measure the government should consider withdrawing. Late last Friday, after a long press conference from the prime minister which avoided any mention of the topic, the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Holden, Professor of Economics, UNSW Harvard University’s Alberto Alesina died suddenly of a heart attack on May 23. He was 63. His long-time colleague and friend Larry Summers wrote that before him, “there was no academic field of political economy. Today, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julian Meyrick, Professor of Creative Arts, Griffith University What keeps democracies together? As America burns, Brazilians die and Europe braces for another wave of the coronavirus, the question assumes an alarming immediacy. If the answer is complicated in one way, it is ...
For all The Spinoff’s latest coverage of Covid-19 see here. Read Siouxsie Wiles’s work here. New Zealand is currently in alert level two – read The Spinoff’s giant explainer about what that means here. For official government advice, see here.The Spinoff’s coverage of the Covid-19 outbreak is made possible thanks to donations from Spinoff Members. ...
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Millions of dollars divvied up by Sport NZ, MSD’s problem with wrongly denied payments grows, and internal coalition battles emerge in time for election.It’s Friday, and there hasn’t been a lot of it recently, so we’re going to start with ...
The Government picks Waitomo caves as 'strategic tourism asset' and grants $4m to Tourism Holdings, boosting shares another 7.8 percent. Facebook staff and alumni revolt over Zuckerberg's inaction on Trump ...
This week's biggest-selling New Zealand books, as recorded by the Nielsen BookScan NZ bestseller list and described by ReadingRoom literary editor Steve Braunias.NON-FICTION 1 Vegful by Nadia Lim (Nude Food, $55) 2 Stop Surviving Start Fighting by Jazz Thornton (Penguin Random House, $38) 3 So Delish! by Simone Anderson ...
Systemic white violence against black Americans is alive and well, and it's white violence that sustains white supremacy Current scenes from the United States are both familiar and shocking. George Floyd’s life being brutally snuffed out by Minneapolis police, followed by peaceful protests of Floyd’s murder as well as legitimate ...
The US isn't the only country with a broken criminal justice system that works to criminalise and destroy the lives of black and brown families. Dylan Asafo puts forward two ways NZ could lead in dismantling systems of white supremacy. If you were to imagine a society without racial oppression, ...
Anomalies in the policy for superannuitants with overseas pensions are an indictment on the justice process in New Zealand, write Susan St John and Dr Claire Dale Along with many others, the Retirement Policy and Research Centre has worked assiduously for more than a decade to alert the public, policy-makers ...
A new study indicates native plants, despite their tendency to grow more slowly than exotic species like Pinus Radiata, are better at storing carbon in the soil for longer periods of time. ...
The British Tribe Next Door attracted over 60 complaints of racist themes from viewers when it first aired in the UK. Now TVNZ is streaming it on its OnDemand service attracting concerns from members of Aotearoa’s African community and a letter from race relations commissioner Meng Foon.When The British Tribe ...
When approached by The Spinoff Jeanette Wilson denied having told participants in an online session that the product ‘lined the lungs’, despite clear evidence to the contrary.The Covid-19 crisis has sparked misinformation in every corner of the world. In New Zealand, a “psychic healer” whose fixations read like a conspiracy ...
The union movement launched a push earlier this week to double the legal minimum of sick leave from five days a year to 10. Is a change likely?What’s all this then?In light of the recent global pandemic putting the focus on health in the workplace, unions have called for changes ...
An African American pastor from George Floyd's community gives The Detail a special insight into what's happening there - and gives us hope for the future. “Nobody in America wants to be a racist.” David Hill is a pastor in the Third Ward neighbourhood of Houston where George Floyd grew ...
Open Mike 19/09/2017 
The 60 Years of New Zealand Television celebrations, such as they were, seemed to rely heavily on the classics: here we go again with Lynn of Tawa, A Week of It and the Country Calendar spoofs. Wonderful highlights of our televisual past, to be sure, but after hearing Paul Holmes’ ...8 hours ago
The Two Americas Collide: You gotta love the Americans marching for George Floyd and the fragile promises of the US Constitution. But, you also gotta keep your eye on the pale rider in the White House, and understand that behind him Hell follows.THE FRAGILITY of democracy’s promise is becoming clearer ...15 hours ago
Oliver Twist, famously asked for ‘more’. He did not challenge the system of workhouses – Dickens did – nor the authority of Beadle Bumble. He was only nine. I am often struck how critics of the current income maintenance system are like Oliver Twist. They ask for more, but they ...1 day ago
New Zealand’s history as a sheep-farming nation means the command “Get in behind!” has long had a particular resonance — but not usually for journalists. However, in late March, as panic over the coronavirus pandemic surged around the world, Dr Gavin Ellis — former editor-in-chief of the NZ Herald — ...1 day ago
When the New Zealand Police started using Armed Response Teams - gangs of heavily-armed police cruising Māori-Pacifica neighbourhoods in juiced-up gun-trucks - they told us it was a "trial". But it turns out that those armed police - who were mainly doing traffic stops and bail checks, rather than the ...1 day ago
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections The Trump administration, after less than one full first term, has every likelihood of being adjudged the most anti-climate, anti-science, and anti-environment executive branch in U.S. history. With numerous high-level Trump nominees having cut their teeth as lobbyists with major polluting industries, the administration ...2 days ago
Another study comparing effect in children from nonendemic areas (Dagang) and endemic fluorosis area (Jinghai) about 80km apart in the Tianjin area of China. Hardly sampling the same population. Anti-fluoride campaigners still use studies from ... 3 days ago
George Thomson, Nick Wilson, Richard Edwards This blog discusses the passing of the Smoke-free Environments (Prohibiting Smoking in Motor Vehicles Carrying Children) Amendment Act last week. We briefly review some lessons from this legislation’s long journey and explore future smokefree possibilities in Aotearoa / New Zealand. A law ...3 days ago
Bernard Hickey is one of New Zealand’s leading financial journalists. His latest article, published by Newsroom, lays bare the cruel treatment of hundreds of thousands of workers stranded since the lockdown. Our Prime Minister is lauded overseas for her compassion, but her Cabinet is refusing to properly support tens of ...3 days ago
For a good part of my adult life I have studied civil-military relations. I have studied authoritarian and democratic variants, and I have studied them across countries and regions. I have also worked in and with several US security agencies and have lectured on the theme at a number of ...3 days ago
by The Spark “The system is broken”—the words of a young black man in Minneapolis watching flames destroy a police precinct demonstrators had torched. Broken? Yes, it is! What else could you say about a system whose police for nine minutes casually knelt on a black man’s neck, watching until ...4 days ago
Minneapolis Police StationIf you’ve been keeping an eye on recent events in the United States, you’ll likely understand why there’s so much anger on the streets at the moment. Not only did police officers murder another black man; it is patently obvious that authorities initially attempted to cover up George ...5 days ago
Like the rest of the world, I have been aghast at what I have seen of, and read and heard about, what is happening currently in the United States. It seems incredible that a once great country should be suffering the worst effects and the highest number of deaths worldwide ...5 days ago
Image credit: Writing an Article vs. Writing a Blog Post: What’s the Difference? I notice a few regulars no longer allow public access to the site counters. This may happen accidentally when the blog format is ... 6 days ago
It’s almost painful to watch. Let’s be honest, maybe a pleasure too, in some quarters, but painful nonetheless. Because the fact is, for a democracy to function properly, any sitting Government does need honest and proper Opposition so that it doesn’t get ahead of itself. That’s what we should ...1 week ago
Well, we are out of lockdown, essentially. I did end up getting the wage subsidy while we were on levels 3 and 4 but I would have been fine if we didn’t. The first day of level 2, the Thursday, the office opened again for the people who weren’t able ...2 weeks ago
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters today announced two diplomatic appointments: New Zealand’s High Commissioner to India and Consul-General to Hong Kong. “As New Zealand recovers from COVID-19, our diplomatic and trade networks are more important than ever. That is ...1 day ago
We started the week by announcing free apprenticeships to support Kiwis into work and to help get New Zealand moving again - and we ended the week by extending the wage subsidy to 40,000 more businesses, helping to protect businesses and workers alike. ...1 day ago
The Green Party is urging the New Zealand Police to rule out the use of Armed Response Teams, following their recent trial in communities around Aotearoa. ...2 days ago
This summer presents a great opportunity for New Zealanders to get out into nature with bookings on Great Walks for 2020/21 set to open next week, says Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage. Bookings for the Great Walks will open between 9 and 11 June, excluding Milford and Routeburn tracks which ...18 hours ago
Tania Tapsell is replacing MP Anne Tolley as National's candidate for the East Coast. ...2 hours ago
By RNZ News Thousands of people were protesting across Australia today to oppose the deaths of Indigenous people in police custody. It comes as Black Lives Matter protests are held around the world after the death of George Floyd at the hands of a white police officer in the US ...3 hours ago
Wrapping everyone in a blanket of love, whakapapa and mauri for Matariki is the brave, exuberant and generous fabric art of Maungarongo Te Kawa, writes Amanda Thompson.E te AtuaNau enei rau harakeke he taongaTukuna ki a matouKia tika o matou mahiKo Papatuanuku e takoto neiTuturu WhakamauaKia tina, tinaHui eTaiki e.‘Karakia ...9 hours ago
One press statement from the Beehive yesterday sounded more like advertising – or a barker’s pitch – than a Government announcement. Another advised of two diplomatic appointment, one of them – has the woman who landed the post done something wrong? – to protest-troubled and politically volatile Hong Kong. And ...11 hours ago
Throughout Anglo colonial states there is a constant habit of defining people who aren’t white as a problem, writes Aaron Smale in this personal essay. It was a balmy summer evening in the capital and cops were standing over a young brown man. I was walking down Courtenay Place on ...17 hours ago
"The countdown clock ticks 2, then 1, then the prime minister raises her drink": dystopia, by Ōtautahi writer Laura Borrowdale. You stand in the centre of the room, and around you, the guests seem to swirl and blend into one. There’s a mouth, gaping and red, filled with laughter. A ...17 hours ago
Martin Luther King Jr said in 1963: “America has given the Black people a bad cheque, a cheque which has come back marked ‘insufficient funds’." Six generations of egregious police violence later, the sentiment out of which those bad cheques were born could be shifting. In the wake of egregious police violence, ...18 hours ago
WATCH: In a candid interview on Sky Sport, Dame Susan Devoy talks on her concern for rising sports stars, the state of NZ squash, and the spectre of racism. Dame Susan Devoy is proudly still “a little terrier who fights for the underdog”. “I have been doing it all my life and ...18 hours ago
Are central bankers jealous that epidemiologists are the rock stars of the current crisis? There is talk that both the British and New Zealand central banks might institute negative interest rates as part of the policy response to the Covid shock. While Sweden’s central bank ended its five year experiment ...1 day ago
LISTEN: This week's Extra Time podcast discusses racism in sport and the role of athletes and organisations in making a stand for good. Former Silver Fern and Black Fern Louisa Wall believes today's sports stars must have a social conscience and stand up against discrimination and divisiveness. Sport and politics, once ...1 day ago
40 percent of millennials have one, and an increasing number of GenXers and Baby Boomers do too. Two Cents' Worth delves into the world of side hustles. ...1 day ago
Air New Zealand staff are dismayed and angered at the company’s announcement to cut a further $150 million from their wage bill. On Friday, the company’s Chief Executive Officer, Greg Foran, made the announcement to employees, who are still ...1 day ago
A slight bounce in the economy is brightening the outlook as the country heads into the winter months, Radio NZ reports. Retail spending is up and NZ shares rose on Thursday for a third day running. Key indicators have led some economists to point to a faster recovery than expected. ...1 day ago
Analysis: As New Zealand eases restrictions, it no longer has international precedent to look towards and must decide on its own how to reopen the economy while reducing the risk of a second wave of infections, Marc Daalder reports While most of the country eagerly awaits a likely move to ...1 day ago
The Government picks Waitomo caves as 'strategic tourism asset' and grants $4m to Tourism Holdings, boosting shares another 7.8 percent. Facebook staff and alumni revolt over Zuckerberg's inaction on Trump ...2 days ago
This week's biggest-selling New Zealand books, as recorded by the Nielsen BookScan NZ bestseller list and described by ReadingRoom literary editor Steve Braunias. NON-FICTION 1 Vegful by Nadia Lim (Nude Food, $55) 2 Stop Surviving Start Fighting by Jazz Thornton (Penguin Random House, $38) 3 So Delish! by Simone Anderson ...2 days ago
NZTA is allegedly exploring options for its $1b road to be built with a different set of builders. ...2 days ago
Systemic white violence against black Americans is alive and well, and it's white violence that sustains white supremacy Current scenes from the United States are both familiar and shocking. George Floyd’s life being brutally snuffed out by Minneapolis police, followed by peaceful protests of Floyd’s murder as well as legitimate ...2 days ago
The US isn't the only country with a broken criminal justice system that works to criminalise and destroy the lives of black and brown families. Dylan Asafo puts forward two ways NZ could lead in dismantling systems of white supremacy. If you were to imagine a society without racial oppression, ...2 days ago
Anomalies in the policy for superannuitants with overseas pensions are an indictment on the justice process in New Zealand, write Susan St John and Dr Claire Dale Along with many others, the Retirement Policy and Research Centre has worked assiduously for more than a decade to alert the public, policy-makers ...2 days ago
A new study indicates native plants, despite their tendency to grow more slowly than exotic species like Pinus Radiata, are better at storing carbon in the soil for longer periods of time. ...2 days ago
An African American pastor from George Floyd's community gives The Detail a special insight into what's happening there - and gives us hope for the future. “Nobody in America wants to be a racist.” David Hill is a pastor in the Third Ward neighbourhood of Houston where George Floyd grew ...2 days ago
Hope the high early vote turnout means high overall turnout as that’s what changes govts.
The national billboards have acquired yellow party vote overlays obscuring the warm fuzzy images in part now. When do they come down ?
‘The aviation fuel crisis caused by a ruptured pipeline has suddenly become a central issue in a tight election contest, forcing the National Government to scramble in a bid to limit impact to the travelling public and to its own vote.
With just four days to go, Opposition parties piled into National with Labour leader Jacinda Ardern claiming that the failure of the infrastructure was a failure of leadership.
The unexpected headache has the potential to undermine one of National’s longstanding claims to being better managers than Labour.
But it is also an opportunity for the Government to show it can handle a crisis competently – and a test for no-nonsense Energy Minister Judith Collins in controlling the Government response….’
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11923737
The minister for kauris response will probably be a quasi test for the leaders role.
Will she help the cause or help herself as they’re vulnerable due to the gutting of regulators, resources and rules in their adoration of ‘market knows best’.
Wonder if a scapegoat is being lined up for the ‘look how tough we are’ bs.
Winston Peters just said on Garner’s show that the damage done to the pipe was by a foreign owned organisation, operating out of the Cayman Islands and paying no tax.
Hope the media digs further on this – but with more precision that the foreign owned swamp kauri extractors.
! Glad team Winston are on the case
Well if Winston said it and with no proof to back it up then it must be true
You must hate National this campaign then.
I actually mind Labour getting back into power if HC and MC were back, house prices rose quicker under Labour than they did National so be good to make some real money
[care to explain why there are multiple pseudonyms using this IP address, especially after one of them got warned to pick a single name and stick to it? I’ll check in with Lynn to make sure I’m not missing anything here, but I can’t see any reason why you shouldn’t cop a lengthy ban. If you don’t feel comfortable discussing this in the front end, then email Lynn – weka]
moderation note above for you to read and respond to.
You are between a rock and a hard place weka with some moderation. But The Rock sounds awfully like a troll to me, or a flamer, amusing himself poking a stick in to the ant hill, pulling wings off flies etc. Have a good day weka, hope it’s not raining your way, and perhaps a nice cup of tea?
I asked him once where The Cayman Islands were. His reply, as far as could decipher it in the late night noise in the Green Parrot in Wellington, was something like.
“Listen Sunshine. I’ve been going there ever since I first went while working down a mine in Australia. I know everything about it and I’ll stop all those Chinese coming to New Zealand and buying up all our farms ………………”.
That was about when he, and I fell asleep.
Both dead drunk?
Dead drunk! How dare you Sir.
I am the last relic of the WCTU. The purest of the pure.
Depart. Get back to your dungeon before I take to you with my shillelagh.
I can’t speak for Winston though.
Ed dont get caught in the msm positioning on this. The gnats have let down a whole swathe of people and they are showing how useless they are. There is no good for them from this.
Roll on Rma reform, if they don’t get consent now and this happens, what happens when they don’t even have to bother with consent.
I’m pretty sure that the Rena stranding was as well – and they failed there. Seems that they’re maintaining the same failed policies for emergencies, a policy of simply not having anything in place to deal with it because it’s cheaper in the short term.
It might not be a good idea to mention the Rena wreck.
The Green Party are in favour of getting rid of pipelines and switching transport to coastal shipping. It probably isn’t a great thingt to remind people that there are vastly more accidents from shipping than there have been from pipelines.
[citation needed for that claim. It needs to be direct (e.g. not just a vague point at policy). You’ve got until the end of the day to produce that. I don’t know what the GP policy on this is, so maybe you can teach us something. – weka]
really? Got a source for the Greens wanting to ditch pipelines and replace them with coastal shipping?
Well here is their proposal to shift stuff by coastal shipping.
25% is the number by 2027 for shipping.
And here is an opinion about the pipeline caused damage.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1709/S00213/fuel-pipeline-debacle-puts-environment-at-risk.htm
By the way do you have a citation for your own views that I have enquired about?
You need to cut and paste the relevant bits, I’m not going to trawl links trying to figure out what you are referring to.
Don’t bother. It doesn’t say anything about fuel transport. Just another made up assertion by resident troll de jour, alwyn.
That’s what I’m guessing, but he needs to do the legwork before I moderate.
Nothing about pipes in your first link.
The second points out that we need stronger enforcement of existing laws to protect the environment.
At no point is there anything about ripping up pipelines.
And your third point: Large majorities of NZ First voters would prefer coalition deal with Labour
Sorry MSM your man got his ass kicked . And all those fake smiles you people come on you people are to easy to read yes I am defensive But like to see what you would do in my situation shit your pants and run .
Now trump he wants the United Nations to Pay america to pay for more for the dum ass war they are fighting and defense spend.
Lets look at this from my view most of the money would go to america the Americans
have all the army bases around the world and trump wants US to pay them for this what a load of crap we should give that idiot trump anything the rest of the World can see right through you the only trick trump has is bulling everyone that doesn’t agree
with his neo liberal bullshit Ideals and this idiot will fuck up the negotiations with North Korea . One needs more skills than being a bully to try and lead OUR WORLD .
The carrot works Better than the stick come on this is basic human Psychology not fucken rocket science . Or is it that trump is like all neo liberals and thinks Koreans or anyone not white is not human. It is obvious that the UN and trumps moves is not working. ALL THE PEOPLE OF THE WOURLD NEED TO BE PUTTING ALL OUR RESOURCES INTO FIGHTING CLIMATE CHANGE NOT DUM ASS WARS WHICH IDIOTS START trump wants us to pay for the US war machine .
It would be nice if Draco T Bastard would post that you tube video on what motivates PEOPLE. This will help get our point to these people.
Nice one eco.
I would just point out that the Americans do not, and will not, negotiate with Nth Korea, and therein lies much of the problem. This goes back to the Korean war ,which is still a huge problem ( much of which America can’t be proud of, like Vietnam).
Espiner ffs stfu
Jacinda maybe try this – so guyon you want our children to swim in shit do you?
I’d like some drug testing at rnz /sarc
She never gets Susie does she?
Guyon’s “interview” of Jacinda was appalling! He talked over the top of her and didn’t wait for the answers. It was embarrassingly bad.
I didn’t see it as being so bad. He obviously wasn’t as well-informed as he perhaps should have been on how complex some similar taxes are already. He was also pointlessly combative on certain well-publicised details (apparently) not being on the Labour website, and pressed hard for some details that would probably best be finalised once the party had gained access to the Treasury benches and the advisory machinery of government. Overall, though, he posed some serious questions, and Ardern gave some decent answers. I don’t think too many voters are going to be put off by a politician acquitting herself well in a mildly hostile interview. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Hanswurst
A nice measured critique. It sometimes is hard not to damn the interviewer. But to get anywhere they may have to probe. Otherwise it’s all the same every day.
I thought him a nasty, negative spinner. At one point Jacinda said about the water tax that they had given 2 figures in a small range. Espiner immediately interrupted, saying, “Yes, but one figure is double the other.” That makes it sound like a big increase, exactly the vagueness and unpredictability that National are trying to play upon.
I wanted Jacinda to respond: “No, one figure is half the other.” (Making it sound small, spinning it the other way, and pointing out Espiner’s bias.)
Espiner does this to left-wing victims (sorry, interviewees) far more often than he does it to right-wing ones in my experience.
Yes I have heard Espiner pick on a point that he repeats over and over as if he is seeking the answer to the site of the Holy Grail. He decides what is important and it is more like a battle to assert victory over his victim (I mean interviewee). I was trying to be less prejudiced towards him, and have caught him sometimes doing a good job and thought he was improving.
I’d hate to be involved with him and all these opinionated hacks privately, his attitude is not just a persona he adopts and it would be a case of if he gives way on anything, he would keep score for the times he kindly gave in, and demand later balance.
Any half decent broadcaster knows their best interviewer is Kim Hill who takes no shit and gets questions answered.
Espinner is a tool of the right and needs to be removed if nact get turfed, you should always let the polly speak which he seems to only allow nat pollies spinning their BS.
KIm Hill is an awful interviewer. She interrupts constantly and never lets the interviewees speak.
Rubbish, lurgee. Kim Hill interrupts sometimes, but at others she lets people hang themselves by their own petards. She also creates really good, positive, non-combative interviews.
Susie and Guyon are your constant interrupter/talkover artists with scant thought or knowledge.
Heard guyon interviewing himself while driving this morning. He is downright intolerable when he resorts to bad mannered, shouting down methods of asserting his will and trying to direct the narrative to his desired outcome. He just fixates on something and will not let it drop until he either wears his interviewee down or it becomes clear he is not going to get his own way. He is quite irrational at times. At least Jacinda holds her own. Must annoy him no end.
The building of another pipeline is not cost effective for a small country like New Zealand. The real problem is the need for rules and regulations, which today are conveniently side-stepped by many businesses, eg. those looking for swamp kauri, where the Collins clan have a vested interest. Will a robust investigation in the rupture of the pipe line occur, or will it be another so-so investigation similar to that of the Pike River Coal Mine?
What about a large fuel silo at Auckland airport as a backup? You would think our largest airport would have a contingency like that and it wouldn’t be a huge expense in the scheme of things. Who knows they might already have one but it’s not big enough to help much.
It’s why the Greens should be in Government to apply some common sense. After the Rena disaster they were calling for cleanup crews to be based at our major ports just in case something went wrong.
We took 20 years to get rid of the sewerage ponds on the Manukau Harbour, and a whole bunch of people would object to that volume of toxic material being stored on the edge of the Manukau Harbour again.
I would rather see a heavy rail line from Puhinui to the airport as a supplement feeder of jet fuel only when needed for instances like now.
To fill the A380 that flies direct to Dubai requires 5 hours pumping Jet A1 down that [damaged] 10 inch/250mm diameter pipe at 200 bar/2800psi .
The Fuel consumed/carbon footprint of our Tourism industry is enormous.
That’s insane – how close to capacity must it have been running?
That seems odd. An A380 takes up to 323 cu m, a 250mm pipeline has a cross-sectional area of 0.05 sqm. So 323 cu m in 18000 seconds means it’s flowing at about 0.35 m/s. The guideline for maximum flow velocity for kerosene, diesel etc seems to be about 3 m/s.
that’s still a solid half hour for one plane
Yep.
To take a hand-waving order of magnitude guess at the capacity question, if the airport is taking 1.1 billion litres of jet fuel per year through the pipe, and take a wild guess at another billion litres of petrol and a billion litres of diesel (aroundabout 1500 litres petrol/diesel per capita per year for Aucklanders doesn’t look too absurd), then the pipe is carrying around 350 cu m per hour 365/24, which is about half its capacity. But then there’s downtime for product changeovers and maintenance etc.
I’m not confident about that 3 m/s flow velocity, pipe flows aren’t my thing. It’s just what most engineering tips web pages spit out. But a few of them claim higher flow rates.
The outlay would be huge for a second line but so is the cost huge when the line fails.
Something else that wont be known til post election, but that is ok cos it is National.
NZ is a small vulnerable economy that is being marginalised annually, by geographic isolation, low volume trading, low wages and a narrow income base.
Further weakened by an at-risk demographic, eg on any given day up to a third of high school kids in south Auckland are absent. Just look at the High School passes of this group. Rank 30 th in the OECD. Also the crime Stats’ 50% of these folk occupy our prisons.
Gvt benefits payouts are the highest in the first world (Maori & P.I.)
Australia sees all this & is slowly closing its borders to Kiwi’s. Then this [deleted] Adern, standing for the Countries leadership, wants the Primary sector ( which is half of our international income) to pay out additional huge taxes.
Her 3-6 cents a pound for butter fat equals about $50,000 for many NZ Dairy farms. The remedy is dont vote for Labour its backward & communist. This system of Gvt has proven not to work.
[seeing as how we’re most likely heading for 3 years of Ardern as PM, I’m going to start pushing back against the inevitable casual sexism now. It’s unnecessary for the political points you want to make – weka]
[also edited for formatting so I can make sense of what is being said – weka]
Good moderation there Weka.
Hard to attract female commenters – and as Lyn notes in his post today, it’s a hard won democratic gain.
I didn’t see the sexist statements that were moderated out, but there is still a hell of a lot of casual racism left in SB’s comment. For example, “Gvt benefits payouts are the highest in the first world. ( Maori & P.I.)”, without providing any any links to support that assertion (which would be difficult as the majority of benefits paid are superannuation, and Māori tend to be a bit too dead by that age to collect much of that). Then there are; “south Auckland” & “these folk”.
But in any case, what little there is of an argument is nonsensical (in as much as it is decipherable from the imprecise grammar). The remedy to current problems is to not change what you are doing?
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/election-2017/339416/bill-english-grilled-on-wages-in-gisborne
Good points – stan the man is a sham despite his shit he needs a plan cos he’s a fuckwit gnat gland.
If the racism was cut stan would have nothing to say. Typical gnat – so thick he couldn’t fit in the toaster.
“If the racism was cut stan would have nothing to say.”
This is true. I did stumble a bit on the Labour are communists bit though. We wish.
true lol
That’ll be my new quick Gnat put-down – he/she’s a muffin ie too thick to fit in the toaster.
Thanks for pointing that out Dspare. I’ve reread the comment and agree about the casual racism. This is something useful to think about in terms off moderation, where the line is between removing content that is likely to put commenters off (or cause flame wars) vs allowing robust debate even where some of the content is gross.
I think there’s a line between personal attacks on politicians (e.g. had it been about say Turei and the personal comments had been ethnicity based rather than gender, then I would have removed those bits), and people making political arguments (e.g. their belief about ethnicity stats and what it means).
Generally the latter are left for people to argue over, and I certainly think it’s reasonable to ask people to back up claims of fact (I keep an eye out as a moderator for that). I need to have a think about that tolerance though. I draw a lot on the part of the Policy that’s about tone or language that excludes others, and am still trying to find the balance on that. Am open to feedback on this.
Please keep pointing these things out too, because it can be easy to miss especially when there is a lot going on.
I too agree with Dspare. To Stan Blanch I would say that you need to express yourself much more clearly and precisely. That last effort made me think you a semi-articulate right-wing redneck. You deserve the criticism and the moderation comments.
To Stan
Theres much to attack her with so there’s no need to make it about her looks or gender or anything like that
Attack her flip-flopping, her lack of experience, the amount of time she spends campaigning in schools, her “captains calls”, her town v country divisive tactics, her smile and wave, attack all that
But leave the personal attacks out of it we’re better than that…or we should be
Attack her for smiling?
Yeah, go on…
Smile and wave, smile and wave…reminds me of someone but I can’t remember who
Maybe HRH the Queen?
Lol. Heard english gloating the other day about how he was getting mobbed in schools and malls and excitedly said “they are coming, wanting photos. I am going to win!” ..
… Never trust the ankle biters Bill. They will turn on you at the drop of a lollipop.
Attack her flip-flopping, her lack of experience, the amount of time she spends campaigning in schools, her “captains calls”, her town v country divisive tactics,…
1) Her flip flopping? Just because voters make it clear they want to have a final say on changes to the outdated tax regime. That’s not flip flopping, that’s being sensible and heeding their concerns.
2) She’s been in parliament 9 years mate. Far longer than John Key was before becoming PM. Oh, I get it. He’s a man so he doesn’t need as long… right?
3) Lack of experience. She’s only headed a large international youth organisation… worked as an adviser and consultant in the Blair Government and she’s done other admirable things as well. She’s amply qualified for the job.
4) the amount of time she spends campaigning in schools, her “captains calls”…,. English spends equally as much time in schools and cuddling babies and animals . It represents around 20% of their campaign activity but its how the news teams like to portray them – the warm, fuzzy thing that attracts viewers.
5) her town v country divisive tactics,… You are not very insightful then. Anyone with a half a brain should be able to see who is the party creating the divisive tactics for political gain. NATIONAL.
Well said Anne. Thank you!
kia ora
Noho ora mai ra
Thanks Weka. I am SO SICK of the sexism already and she hasn’t even been elected PM yet. You don’t have to scratch too far in this country for rampant sexism and misogynism to be revealed. It disgusted me through the Helen Clark years and I can feel the same angry revulsion kicking in through this campaign.
I think it will be easy enough to knock the more blatant stuff on the head. The more subtle, Hooton-esque* stuff will be harder, but then that should be being dealt with in comments anyway (fingers crossed).
*e.g. his current line is that Ardern is incompetent, but he’s very careful to avoid any suggestion that it’s because of her gender. It’s still sexist as though.
He really must have hated almost the entire Cabinet post election 2008 with all those who had never been in cabinet before.
it is playing on sexist attitudes but Hooten is simply doing a Joyce and sowing doubt, I doubt he believes half the crap he spouts
+111
Why should agriculture get our resources for nothing?
Why should they get to pollute without consequence?
Really, your argument seems to be: Don’t vote Labour because it’s actually taking into account economics.
We havent used pounds since 1967.
” Her 3-6 cents a pound for butter fat equals about $50,000 for many NZ Dairy farms. ” Only for huge Corporate Dairy Farms but nonetheless please post your souce.
In Europe the closeness of 500gm to 1lb means that the term pound (livre in French) has actually survived. But I am not sure if that helps Stan..
No. No, I dont think it does
Oh, look, it’s a butt-hurt palagi whining bitterly about having to share this country with icky, icky, non-white people. Perish the thought that it could act upon the courage of its convictions, get off its fat lily-white arse and high-tail it back to England…
So the poor fellow might have to pay $1500 a year if the water tax is levied. Cry me a river. that’s pretty much the definition of negligible impact. It almost seems as though the only tax that some farmers would find acceptable would be one that cost nothing and that nobody had to pay.
The National Party organiser for the protest was a very poor advocate on Morning Report. Just shows how effective is English scaremongering.
“Labour wants to tax us for everything except the air we breathe.”
http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player?audio_id=201859018
Yep that racist thick farmer is a good example of a farmer that lets us all down. Good the gnats have their shithead mates to push their dirty agenda. What a joke.
Yes, he just came across as uninformed and bigoted. Also, what was that supposed to be yesterday about a “positive message“? Was anything concrete at all said about “what farmers have done for the environment”? Certainly, all Lloyd Downing talked about in that interview was his not wanting other farmers to pay taxes real and imaginary. Not wanting to do something is negative in and of itself. It’s like they’ve thought up one PR line, “We want to make a positive statement about how awesome we are,” and one attack line, “Labour want to tax everything,” and not given a single thought to anything else.
“Lloyd Downing acknowledges farming is having an impact, but look how far we’ve come, he says. When asked for evidence, he tells the story of his old dad, back when Lloyd was a lad, taking the farm’s rubbish and chucking it in the river.
I used to shoot at the used light bulbs, he says, as they floated away! Nobody does that any more! ”
FFS
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/96918129/alison-mau-morrinsville–where-the-politics-is-getting-dirtier-than-the-worst-farm-stream
Good to see the redneck bigots falling back on McCarthyism! Time they looked ahead more than one season and started worrying about how their kids are going to survive.
Selling basic milk powder to the Chinese is economic stupidity as is intensive dairying on totally unsuitable terrain.
Their entrenched and narrow view of the changing world is very harmful for all of us.
And the Chinese are getting the hang of NZ dairy expertise at home. They at least have some idea of how to maintain their economy in their own interests.
‘The entrenched and narrow view of the changing world [by farmers] is very harmful for all of us.’ Indeed. And most of us including farmers who are over-leveraged, over any sort of precautionary controls on their overweening ambitions, will all go down together.
For those who like Tom Lehrer’s sarcasm seems to fit
The farmers will like his Pollution song as it has a go at cities, just up their street really.
Pollution
and it is followed by We will all go together when we go –
His song refers to the bomb but being hit by a collapsed economy and perhaps a hurricane will have a similar effect, and both are as possible as another strong earthquake.
notice that the article did not mention the size of his farm or his herds, no perspective in that story, $1500 is peanuts judging from what we can see in the picture/video of the size of his operation.
Informative piece from economist Peter Fraser and agricultural consultant Dr Alison Dewes.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU1709/S00523/dairy-farms-using-same-amount-of-water-as-60-million-people.htm
” …. water consumption of New Zealand dairy farms is equivalent to the residential use of 60 million people.
This is on top of the often quoted figure that New Zealand’s dairy herd has the environmental footprint equivalent to 90 million people.
“The implication is if a water royalty was imposed on irrigators then over 80 percent of dairy farmers will be unaffected”
However, this message is not getting through to farmers.
“As illustrated by the farmer protest (sic) in Morrinsville, it is clear many farmers are being unduly worried by baseless scaremongering – especially as Morrinsville is hardly ‘ground zero’ for irrigated dairying.”
The truth isnt getting through… hmm Audrey Young is writing that artie right now…
Or John Roughan …
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11252504
Don’t waste your time reading the article. But the picture’s good, (and paints a thousand words…)
See below @ 9.1111
I’ve had two family members in accounting with experience with farmers accounts and both tell me that farmers don’t pay tax.
So, the only tax that farmers seem to approve of is one that they don’t pay.
You mean they don’t pay income tax? Or business tax?
Probably both as they’re already GST exempt.
If you shuffle income around the whanau up to each persons no tax threshold then max the farm expenses you can end up with a loss on the farm and everybody still gets cash to splash.
IIRC they get generous depreciation and write downs not available ouside the Ag sector unsure how the rebate picture is.
The Otago University Students Association comes out specifically for Labour:
https://www.critic.co.nz/issuu-archives/issuu/199/
They also state that it was imperative for the Green Party to be a part of government.
Which is in turn reported by the Otago Daily Times:
https://www.odt.co.nz/news/election-2017/student-magazine-endorses-labour-party
Well done Otago, Canterbury on the other hand…
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/96907663
Locals say there’s never been any digging there. Perhaps Refinery NZ hasn’t been doing its maintenance program properly and the whole pipe is at risk.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/96941407/digger-scraped-and-cut-crucial-jet-fuel-pipeline-affecting-thousands-of-auckland-airport-travellers
Well, let’s not get carried away here – the article says ‘locals’, but actually only quotes one person, who may have his own good reasons for telling porkies. A good percentage of Northland runs like a banana republic!
Here’s one local’s view…
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11923669
Hopefully this will all become clearer today!
$140k profit for waterblasting it, millions more for a couple of planks – swamp kauri seems to have drug-level markups.
Lets hope a few journos start digging! And unearth the dealer!
The Jackal just put a post if if you haven’t seen it…
http://thejackalman.blogspot.co.nz/2017/09/collins-and-swamp-kauri-petrol-crisis.html
Wow – so there is a swamp kauri business 2kms away that has connections to Oravida !!! Can one smell some very large rats here?
Yes.
This one I believe…
https://opencorporates.com/companies/nz/3518811
See also:
Although correlation does not imply causation… !
Looks like theres’ a good journo digging…
Something an adequately resourced regulator should be able to prove by referring to their latest compliance audit.
There’s nact cue to show NZild what a fantastic job of managing the economy they’ve been doing….don’t hold your breath.
A pipe hit by a digger is going to show physical damage. I’m going to assume that they found that damage first (when they found the leak) and looked to the history of the area.
Yup and the digger tracks and bucket marks around it will be a smoking gun.
To MSM lets not create a divide between TOWN and COUNTRY we are all on this WAKA
called EARTH together. So when it starts sinking no one is going to think about that divide YOU are letting national impose on US there neo liberal bullshit ideals it is so primeval .
There are some todd mclay sign wavers in Rotorua they are not getting any support .
Because we all Know who his father is and what he got up to and that Trade Deal is bullshit if all agriculture is not included in it Europe dosen’t need our FOOD.
+1
Lots of idiots in the town and country.
Well said Eco 😀
All of us wanting/needing clean water and less pollution so we can keep the planet alive is not divisive, it’s inclusive, survival of the planet and all the inhabitants depends on it.
Nat and media driven town v’s country division does nothing to solve any problem
Sharing ideas will help so much with solutions, that’s why I’m so very supportive of the water forum, because it brings all sectors etc together to find solutions which will unite NZ to improve life for all.
Why has the neo liberal Rotorua Lakes Council got no NITROGEN OR EFFLUENT mitigation plans in place Why have they got Lakes in there name and they are sitting on there assess and not even trying to fix that problem .
national have cut our science funding and this is one of the main tools we have to fight Climate Change and create a beautiful future for OUR grandchildren so fucken DUM.
If Jacinda and Labour really wanted to put the boot into dairy farmers in particular they would point out that in a report last year, I think, (sorry too busy or incompetent to find the reference ) that dairy farmers are tax negative by a long way.
On that note I would like to see in a new tax regime the inability of the buyer of a business to acquire simply for the tax losses associated with the target company.
When it’s sold the losses are wiped not credited to arseholes.
Seems like the herald are putting fuel shortage scares out .Nothing like a good panic buying splurge about NOW.
#fillupforchange
He he Mutton, Lets do this now—-fill up all.
It’s good for the economy… didn’t you know?
Chris Trotter sums up the Morrinsville farmer furore nicely:
“When Andrew McGiven and Lloyd Downing encouraged their rural brethren gather under Morrinsville’s giant cow yesterday, they were simply adding another chapter to an already very long story of rural antagonism towards the needs and aspirations of New Zealand’s urban majority. The latter looked on, appalled, at the selfishness and ignorance which unfailingly follow the country into town.”
I heard the farmer on the rnz. The one speaking was just an ignorant racist thick wanker exactly the sort of farmer that should not be in farming imo.
The problem with that framing is that if we want to uplift the needs and aspirations of the majority then we will end up with Auckland running the place. There are distinct problems with most NZers living in cities, and one of them is that their ideas about nature are often once removed. People in cities also tend to see city life as normal and to then normalise that outwards. Hence the idea that part of the solution to the Auckland housing crisis is to send a whole bunch of people to the provinces, presumably to turn them into mini Aucklands. I’m appalled 😉
Besides, this country living person looked on appalled at the protest as well. No need to create a false divide.
The Feds and National have created the divide, imo. They couldn’t see that the optics would be so bad, because they’re in a bubble (methane mainly). I don’t hold with the idea that city-folk are more divorced from the real world than country people; in the country, the wild world is being actively suppressed and most farming action are aimed at suppressing the return of a natural environment. In the city, it’s largely over but city folk aren’t personally, in the main, poisoning stuff, burning stuff, chainsawing down stuff, as many in the farming community are.
true, but I think that’s lack of opportunity as much as anything. Otherwise we’d have had a Green-led govt by now. Look at the kaupapa of poisoning as part of conservation. Those are values held as much by city folk as anyone else. And the need to develop and improve things all the time to the detriment of the environment is a town as well as country value.
It’s not that I think city people are more divorced from the real world, it’s that I think the less time you spend in nature the more your thinking about and experience of it changes. That’s a generalisation, there are still many people in cities that give a shit about nature. But they tend to visit nature rather than seeing themselves as part of it. That’s a problem. Living in the country and seeing nature as something to be tamed is also a problem. Different problems, both need acknowledging and responding to.
weka in my experience of ten years dairyfaming I did not witness any farmers seeing their land as part of nature. They saw their land as a means of converting grass into milk and to hell with everything else.
I must confess that was also our aim when sharemilking.
We were told in the eighties of strict impending environmental laws and 3 year time frame was given. What did the industry do? sfa.
Fonterra will be telling Lloyd Downing to shut up! All that money they spent on PR – they’ll have to bring back Richie McCaw.
LOL
They can’t, garibaldi. Their cultural framing makes wildness invisible to them. They can though, just sense something threatening “over there”, but that can be Rounded-Up, no worries, mate.
If asked i think many city folk would love this idea. People living in cities with nature everywhere else, where the majority of the world would be a conservation estate – one that wouldn’t need looking after much but would be easy to visit.
Agree @ false divide
Whether or not my uncle and his siblings were loaded onto a cattle wagon and transported to Siberia or they were on the very first TikiTour to Siberia is the subject of scientific debate, too. Pricks.
//
I guess the unpublished part of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, in which Germany and the USSR agreed to divide Poland up between them, must have been an invention of “the authors of biased historical narratives.”
Z Energy reporting that petrol stations are beginning to run out:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11923771
“Four Auckland service stations ran out of 95 octane petrol yesterday – and more could run out today – as thousands of air passengers again face a day of cancelled flights.
Z Energy said it would be able to replenish the fuel today and told motorists there was no cause for concern.
Z’s corporate communications manager, Jonathan Hill, said in the first days after a pipeline from the Marsden Point Refinery ruptured, the company concentrated on delivering 91 octane petrol and diesel to Auckland.”
There is no cause for concern … except banner media headlines that freak voters out four days out from polling day.
Um, are there likely to be people without petrol on Saturday?
My thoughts exactly. That would be a deep, dark ploy indeed. Unlikely, but grist to the paranoid-rumour mill 🙂
Well. The locals do say there’s been no activity at the rupture site since it was built in 1981 and you’d think they would notice a digger pulling up Kauri, so…yeah.
Actually, I wouldn’t expect anything like that. Personal observations are notoriously inaccurate.
No one is saying that yet.
TVNZ hasn’t really picked up on this story, but I can see it building all week.
I haven’t followed this side of it, but where I live it’s normal to have petrol supplied via tanker rather than a pipe. Is there some reason that isn’t happening enough? Is it simple physics (not enough tankers/time to meet demand)? Or am I missing something?
Auckland Airport say they supply 1.1 billion litres of jet fuel per year. That’s around 40,000 truckloads. That same pipe also delivers petrol and diesel to the Auckland region so local stations get supplied by truck from Wiri instead trucking it from Tauranga or Whangarei. At a guess that’s probably another couple billion litres of fuel down that pipe.
(that’s also around 1/270 of the world consumption of jet fuel at Auckland and NZ is 1/1600 of the world population)
Great stat there. We and the people who come here are massive users of aviation gas.
that is a great stat.
Did you see that Bill?
The volume of fuel for auckland is somewhat high. It is about a third of the countries populaton. Similarly it is about 70% of the airplane fuel usage. It is also where most of the goods dispatched to the rest of nz come from. Auckland probably accounts for more than 40% of all fuelups.
The terrain between the refinery up north and auckland is difficult. They used to use coastal ships but it is likely that the unloading facility has been killed along with the tank farm at the harbour.
Truck tankers would fill an already full road and be pretty dangerous on some of the sharp corners in hill roads. Not to mention that we probably don’t have enough tanker trucks unless we use some milk tankers.
ok, so given that, why aren’t they rationing already?
The State Services Commission has just put out a note to every single government Department that all flights by the public service into or out of Auckland are stopped until further notice.
Now leads front page of NZHerald:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11923945
Corin Dann will pick it up on TVNZ news tonight.
It’s definitely not Business As Usual any more.
I still haven’t had time to catch up properly, but it does seem very odd that people in general aren’t being advised to use less over the coming few weeks.
Would it be true that the rest of country is ok in terms of supply and supply chain?
Stay Calm and keep voting early!
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/96983542/four-z-energy-stations-have-no-95-after-company-focuses-on-regular-and-diesel
Folks in Northland , Bay of Plenty & Waikato need to be aware that the primary focus of :
Ensuring the critical reduced volumes of Jet Fuel are delivered by Truck to Auckland
Ensuring that Diesel and 91 Octane petrol supply to Auckland is maintained
will result in negligible tanker deliveries in those regions.
Safe Gnat seats will get the least.
It’s unfortunate that the Pipeline outage occurred , even more unfortunate , IMO , that it didn’t occur a week earlier.
Might be good to figure out how to use less petrol over the next week or so too.
Wrong login. This pro-National post should have been under the light blue avatar.
[leave it alone please. Ad is an author, and anyone can comment from different devices and/or internet connections and end up with a different avatar. – weka]
If you are having problems with the symbols for comments take it up with the site editor.
He’s busy. It’s not the symbols I’m interested in anyway, it’s the wild swings in the content of your posts.
see moderation note above please.
No, we’ll take it up with you. You know that the avatar is created by Gravata via an algorithm shaped by the email address. Therefore the problem is you changing the email address.
Pick one and stick with it.
I only have one email address. So suck it up.
If you are that bothered by the colour and shape of a little magic square, take it up with the site manager.
But you must have changed/misspelled it on one of your devices so that it changes the avatar when you post on it. The one with the misspelling needs correcting.
Either that or post on your login account.
The email login is automatic on my devices.
So, no.
I know that you can deal with different swirly shapes.
For instance, this.
And this.
There are approximately zero cars in New Zealand that need 95 octane petrol and won’t run perfectly happily on 91.
A large number of stations in Auckland don’t seem to have 95 anyway. Whenever I visit Auckland I seem to stop at stations that stock 91 and 98 instead.
I guess it is all the Ferraris and Porsches that seem to exist there.
91 and diesel supplies look like they will be fine for a while.
There will only be noticeable political impact if that changes by polling day.
Corin Dann will cover it on TVNZ news tonight – but it’s not yet a vote-turner.
Whenever one of my rellies mistakenly fills my Daihatsu Sirion 1.3 with 91, there’s nearly continual light knocking and fuel consumption noticeably increases.
Z don’t seem to try to foist overpriced 98 onto their customers, around here they all sell 95. Last time I checked into it, the 98 being sold had a lot of ethanol, so the energy content is low and fuel consumption would probably increase. So I avoid Gull, Mobil and BP.
My car can take 91 but doesn’t accelerate or tackle steep hills well unless its on 95. It’s a safety issue (accelerate out of danger).
And my car is more economical on 95.
“There are approximately zero cars in New Zealand that need 95 octane petrol and won’t run perfectly happily on 91.”
citation – coz Im calling bullshit.
There are plenty of cars that are recommended to run on 95+ and they are not all ferraris etc.
Anyone who thinks policy analysis is the basis determining votes need only to listen to this interview to understand the base level at which the electorate determines what direction this country takes
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/201859018/farm-protest-organiser-rural-economist-debate-water-tax
It would also be pertinent to remind ourselves the history and origins of the National Party and we may then have a realistic expectation of the level of public discourse around rural issues
https://nzhistory.govt.nz/page/nz-national-party-founded
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_Reform_Party
That interview was full of whining entitlement, the like of which you only ever hear from a certain sector of the farming community. Well done Peter Fraser for his rebuttal. Chris Trotter has a good post on the long history of farmer activism on his blog.
The Blenheim chapter of the National
FrontParty sound like lovely blokes.http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/election/2017/09/labour-candidate-s-dramatic-gatecrashing-of-english-s-campaign.html
Thanks Muttonbird. Janette must be pretty brave to bowl into the middle of a motley Nat mob. Bill English ran pretty quickly.
http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/election/2017/09/labour-candidate-s-dramatic-gatecrashing-of-english-s-campaign.html
Wouldn’t it have been a “run walk”
Has anyone else seen the full-page ad in today’s DomPost from the totally non-partisan (sarc) Taxpayers’ Union that claims that spending by a Labour/Greens/NZF government will cost every NZ household $229.41 per week over the next three years?
National/ACT at $22.05/week looks like a real bargain.
Yes Grey Try
https://thestandard.org.nz/the-man-who-will-do-anything-for-power/#comment-1387029 from 4 onwards.
Thanks. Busy so I couldn’t cover every thread.
If you are on a desktop, have a look at the replies tab on the right.
2008 exclusive bretheren replaced by 2017 inbred nevermen.
Unverified I assume? What happens when thd Taxpayers Union wastes the money of Taxpayer Union members.
Kia Kaha Jacinda Ardern. Tough, tough time to lose a grandmother.
If there is poetic justice in this, it’s on Suffrage Day: 124 years after NZ led the world in granting women the vote. We are on the eve of electing a female Prime Minister for the second time….a time to remember we stand on the shoulder of giants and giantesses.
Not the wife of the grandfather discharged at midnight?
Not sure. Quite possibly. She died in Hamilton hospital (from Herald report).
The official graph has been updated for yesterday’s voting:
http://www.elections.org.nz/events/2017-general-election/advance-voting-statistics
They haven’t given the actual number, but it’s well over 100,000. That’s massive!!
551482. As of 2pm today
Mobilised early to save the government or change it? What seems more plausible?
I’m betting change.
Woo hoo!
What a frigging shambles.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/97009580/air-new-zealand-refueling-long-haul-planes-in-wellington-as-auckland-jet-fuel-crisis-deepens
A good reason to vote Labour
https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/97012680/labour-promises-to-boost-teina-poras-compensation-if-elected
Surely a police investigation should be launched to bring the person/s who caused the damage to the pipeline to account.
Not holding my breath.
Muttonbird, I wouldn’t mind betting the surviving relations of the 900 sheep flown to Saudi Arabia are behind the damage to the pipeline.
New poll just came across my desk……..Cant agree with the economy bit as when nats came in
labour had virtually no crown debt @ $8 billion
National crown debt now stands @ $96 billion.
https://horizonpoll.co.nz/page/479/labour-best?gtid=3031264578076XWC
Labour best to manage most issues, but not the economy overall
19 Sep 17
Always amazes me that people still think that National are telling the truth when they say that they manage the economy better. Decades of their mismanagement proves otherwise.
+ 1 Exactly – I too wish their record was scrutinised in more detail – they seem to just get a free ride on that
Exactly. For a start our hospitals are in crisis like no time I can recall.
Hoots the spin merchant is twittering on about latest UMR polls show Labour vote fading. Anything in this?
Children being hospitalized due to malnutrition rockets….yes in NZ
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11923626
Could be msm isn’t pursuing the company which damaged the fuel pipeline at Ruakaka, while harvesting swamp kauri, because it might cause some embarrassment to Natz. If any issue needs some investigative journalism, this one certainly does! But to date, nothing at all!
NZ is definitely not being served by a free and open media, acting as a proxy for the people. Disgraceful!
Patrick Gower calls out Nats spreading false information about Labour’s income tax policy.
http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/opinion/2017/09/patrick-gower-national-guilty-of-biggest-campaign-lie.html
Well for once in his career he has done the right thing – and about time – who would have believed it. Paddy has seen through their lies and corruption – am still shaking my head over it.
Now we no that the only thing that trump raised was a pile of cash and no mater how much shit that gets poured on money one can wash money clean.
My point is if he raised his children he would know that when you don’t give a child a healthy balanced diet they will get sick and in my view all living things are basically chemical factories and we have to make sure that the stock or vegetation and trees every living organism gets the right balanced diet to much of one chemical and the shit hits the fan.
OUR EARTH IS A LIVING ENTITY AND WE ARE PUT TO MUCH CARBON DIOXIDE INTO OUR LIVING MOTHER AND THE SHIT IS HITTING THE FAN THIS IS A FACT.
So I say fuck Dum ass Wars or money spent on war everyone on our EARTH has to work together to Heal OUR MOTHER EARTH OR WE ARE FUCKED Ka Pai.
Why not concentrate on our country. Trump is just part of the USA that looms and overshadows us all and makes our lives seem insignificant. Like a Hollywood sit com with big dark patches. NZ IS IMPORTANT. And we people here are important and our life here is important. We want to have one, and when we get it we want it to be better than just able to feed and house ourselves, just!
We have to watch the others but keep our eyes on us, and if we don’t no-one else will care. We need to care for all of us in our country 80% and 20% have kindness and interest in the rest of the world.
Trumpet can doodle out his own song in his own time, not take all of our time.