Organised by St Paul’s and Centre for Sustainability (University of Otago). Sustainability has been one of the dominant issues of the election campaign in Dunedin. There have been two candidate forums dedicated to the issue, and at general candidate meetings the topic was prominent in questions being asked.
“There will be a screening of the movie “Inside Job”, followed by brief reactions from a specially invited panel including Mayor Dave Cull; the Dean of St Paul’s, the Very Rev Dr Trevor James; the Chief Executive of Methodist Mission, Laura Black; and representatives from business, law, the university and other community bodies in Dunedin.
The discussion will be hosted by Damian Newell of More FM.”
Why are there no representatives from the poor, the underclasses, occupy, beneficiaries, low income workers etc on that specially invited panel?
You should ask the organisers. This is what I’ve been told:
We are inviting a number of key people from Dunedin’s businesses, the voluntary sector, the University, churches, law and order agents, trades unions, the occupation, the media
The voluntary sector, trade unions, the occupation seems to cover some of it.
Coincidently, I got up early today and watched ‘Inside Job’. This documentary does indeed tackle a complex topic comprehensively in a format I believe conducive to a wide audience. Distressing and sobering, it could be enough to make one give up in despair, simply because it is still happening! While I had thought ‘ all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing’, even that doesn’t explain this situation. Some good people did speak out but were just ignored or trivialised. The global economic crisis was due to out and out orchestrated greed. Lobby groups specifically targeted and changed legislation to allow greed to further itself unhindered! ‘Inside Job’ did answer a lingering question of mine. What happened to the importance of ethics and morals being entwined with University and Business School degrees? Surely the power of knowledge is linked soundly to personal integrity and responsibility. Unfortunately corruption is shown to be present in educational institutions also.
If ever we needed to stand by those protesting for the 99% it is now, for good people are speaking out. Perhaps it just needs the momentum of many to overcome the power of money and corruption.
Good article on Stuff this morning with people involved in charities stating that increasingly people in NZ are struggling to pay for the basics. There’s a good sample of extracts from readers letters, a couple supporting the neolibreal aspirational line, but most opposed to it.
Charities say they have watched with concern as the gap between rich and poor grew over the past few years with no solution in sight.
[…]
City Missioner Susan Blaikie said she had previously worked in the corporate world where beneficiaries were seen as bludgers.
“But I don’t know anyone that actually wants to be on a benefit. The bigger the gap is between the richest and the poorest, the more likely there will be social problems and crime.”
The Reverend Blaikie had spent the last decade working with the church and said the issue was worse today than ever before.
She was concerned that no major party had produced a serious policy this close to the election.
The Salvation Army’s social services spokesman, Major Campbell Roberts, said he had seen the gap grow over his 40 years there and in recent times more people were worse off.
[…] Great Divide strikes chord with readers
“Hard work is a red herring. Let’s say hypothetically that everyone in NZ worked just as hard and were equally as motivated and as educated as everyone else. Even after all that, someone still has to clean the toilets, empty the septic tanks.” – Jim Kirk
“If you are mega-rich you are a wealth deprivator; you are impacting on people’s ordinary lives and aspirations more than any everyday criminal probably could. Graham Hart spending $85 million on a yacht made from money milked from the NZ economy … clearly over the boundaries and a man whose soul has become corrupted by his wealth. What’s he giving back?” – John Gower
“I do work hard – sometimes 11 hours a day, I have a degree which cost me huge amounts in student loans and didn’t help me get a job, and I have aspirations. To me the problem is not that there are rich and poor; this will always happen as it’s human nature. The problem is that more and more people in the same boat as myself are finding it hard to live due to the rising cost of food, petrol and rates.” – Catherine
Poverty is caused by everyone believing they can “get ahead”. Aspiration is the problem. It’s like the Griffins biscuit ad, “…just one more….ok?” Remove aspiration form the national psyche and the game will change entirely. No more hiding behind material wealth, no more toys to buy, no more plans to spend more on more things no one needs. Just life, facing who and what you are. Scarey as hell for some and they’ll run over anyone to avoid stopping to see themselves. It’s cowardice.
People are somewhat compelled to ‘get ahead’, Uturn. It’s built into the rules that if you don’t, then you’ll go under. And that can mean a lack of access to necessary material goods or services (healthcare, education, diet, housing etc) Aspiration isn’t the problem. Poverty is a symptom or result of production and distribution being dictated by the ‘winner takes all and the losers can go fuck themselves’ market economy.
I don’t think it’s fair to condemn people for wanting what’s best for themselves. Even in a democratic economy, people would want what was best; aspiration would remain. But since the rules ( the various incentives, punishments and rewards) inherent to a democratic economy are different to those of a market economy, the consequences from aspiring for what would be best wouldn’t be the destructive and misanthropic mess we create on both an individual and general level at present.
The solution is a lot easier than changing people’s minds in some radical way. We simply need to to change the nature of our economy (an external environment) and behaviours will adapt accordingly.
“The solution is a lot easier than changing people’s minds in some radical way. We simply need to to change the nature of our economy (an external environment) and behaviours will adapt accordingly.”
And how do we “change the nature of our economy” without “changing people’s minds in some radical way”?
The circumstances we find ourselves in in 2011 are generating an sustaining a significant network of movements which are kind of epitomised by the evolving ‘occupy’ movement. A counterculture which is, at the very least, sprinkling a few seeds of doubt in the wider communities.
But when the different threads try to work together, and it’s happening all over the place, they are confronted by problems which can only be positively resolved by individuals and groups ‘radically changing their minds’. External and internal environments can’t be simply decoupled.
It’s a process, is all I’m saying, and not necessarily one which is going succeed. At the moment I’m very pessimistic about our prospects.
Yup, it’s a kind of chicken and egg scenario. I’m not implying that external and internal environments are seperate and distinct….they are aspects of the one thing that reinforce one another to lend the totality a given ‘shape’. But put simply, if we are engaging in ‘a game’ with a particular set of rules that encourage some behaviours and discourage others, then it would seem obvious to focus on ‘the game’ and its rules if the intent is to alter behaviour.
We know we don’t like ‘the game’ that is this particular economy. And we know we don’t like the behaviours it endorses and encourages via it’s various reward mechanisms. But we can understand or percieve the dynamics of the economy and its effects; we can see how it works. Which means we can change things…we can incrementally withdraw our participation from ‘this game’ while similtaneously setting up a new one.
It can be done, has been done. And if a group of people (not even necessarily a huge number to begin with) are succesfully operating from a different, far more desirable economic premise that is not isolated from the dominant economic way of thinking and acting; and if they can find a way to promulgate it to the wider community/society, then hey, there’s your process.
Otherwise, are we not relying on some supernatural or mystical mechanism to affect change? It’s always been one of my bug bears with Marx, that he envisaged…even relied on or had faith invested in, some ‘spontaneous raising of consciousness’ on the part of workers. And to me, that’s no different to religion and no more likely to produce results.
Some of the misunderstanding is that I did not define aspiration. Aspiration is not a hungry person feeling like they need food to change their state to one of satisfaction. Aspiration is constantly living in the future, rather than facing today. Building a better TV is a form of aspiration. Wanting to be the world’s best wakeboarder, is aspiration. Wanting to rule your village is aspiration. Planning for your holiday is aspiration.
Anything that moves your mind forward from the present and creates an anxiety of what you imagine then not happening, is aspiration at work. Tackling real life problems as they happen is not aspiration. Aspiration is fueled by fear: what if we don’t have enough tomorrow? The line between fact and preparation and fear is very thin and aspiration is as dangerous as religion in the hands of those with child minds. It never comes with a warning. By the time a child is five they will know who Harvey Norman are, but not why they don’t need what those people sell.
It is not built into the rules that you must pile up the corpses just to eat, be healthy and participate in a society. That thinking is condescending. It shifts responsibility from the aggressor to the victim, using fear to force him to enter the culture of aspiration. It’s what politicians use: cultural violence. Nothing is easy. To stop aspiration, each individual must decide to stop, and that will come at a price. It takes courage.
I think it is hope and fear that are companions, not fear and aspiration. The anxiety of ‘what if tomorrow doesn’t pan out as hoped’ is an expression of fear rather than a result of aspiration.
Anyway, putting aside trivial yet highly destructive aspirations, what’s wrong with aspiring for a better world or a better whatever?
And whether you like it or not, it is the rules of our market economy that we ‘must pile up the corpses just to eat’, as you put it. The alternative is to be one of the corpses. It’s winners and losers with nothing inbetween. Social democracy has tried to create a space in the middle through creating various welfare provisions within core national economies. But the cost of that provisioning has been borne by those living in the peripheral national economies being subject, literally and routinely to famine and various other precarious situations. (Piling up the bodies)
The ‘civilised’ market economy flowed quite nicely and deliberately from the brutal, military backed plunderings of colonialism and ‘locked in’, albeit under a more civilised guise, the same dynamics of exploitation.
Aspiration is a positive rather than a negative. Aspiration is that quality of thinking that is transformative to the human condition, and defines our uniqueness as a species on Earth.
There is absolutely no point to having a large brain without some purpose to drive its engine – purpose is fueled by aspiration.
To me the problem is not that there are rich and poor; this will always happen as it’s human nature.
No, it’s not human nature. It’s the nature of psychopaths which only make up a small percentage of the population. So, why are we building and accepting a psychopathic society?
The early polls suggest Mr Key has not suffered, though insiders are divided. Some say National has sailed through unscathed, while others report internal polling recorded sharp dips on a couple of nights this week as the saga played out.
Good analysis of the issues from Vernon Small, including turning Key’s extreme News of the World, youth suicide arguments back on Key:
Since Mr Key has used the extreme, in the case of the rich couple and suicidal children, what if we apply the same logic here?
What if Mr Key and Mr Banks were plotting a major crime? An unconstitutional takeover? What about a mass defacing of Labour billboards? Or even, as has been hinted at, they were discussing a coup in ACT? In the end the boundary is a judgment call, but there is clearly a case for the public’s right to know in some cases.
What about lesser levels of public interest? Is there a right to know if the prime minister and Mr Banks say different things in private to in public? What about differences of style; that in private the carefully nurtured Brand Key drops and he is disparaging, even prone to the odd expletive?
Don’t we all do that; present a different face in public than in private; so is it fair to hold politicians to a different standard?
I agree with that.
And I also agree with Small when he suggests it was one of the stupidist tea parties ever – Key seemed to be a reluctant participant, it was a desperate attempt at camp[aign revival by Act, egged on a massive omelette scale by the media.
Truth be told, I dont really care what happens in this election as long as ACT doesnt get back in. “The good people of Epsom” have the best chance yet of voting for Goldsmith (even though he looks like a total smarmy jumped up tosser) and consigning ACT and its bunch of redneck social darwinists to the dustbin of history. I would rather National govern alone than in coalition with ACT. National only want to push you to the ground. ACT want to push you to the ground then put the boot in. I dont want the boot.
And I’m sorry, Mr George, but voters in Ohariu-Belmont also have the chance to get rid of Dunne as well, and consign that bunch of jelly fish to history (if Labour were Coke and National Pepsi, then UF would be that watered down budget cola that costs 99c a bottle)..
So if you are a left winger, who lives in Epsom, then vote Goldsmith. You have to do it. You have to ask yourself if we want Don “cut wages to catch up with Australia” Brash, John “Drink and drug crazed polynesian men are going to rape respectable white Epsom housewives” Banks, and Don “farmers can put what they like in the rivers because that’s how profits are made” Nicholson.
Agreed, I would derive great pleasure from seeing both of those pathetic parties gone, and the wretched sellout Maori party too, though that’s probably too much to ask. The best case scenario if the dubious polls are indeed right is that the Nats get the most votes but don’t have enough seats to pass asset sales legislation, mwahahahaha.
“Key seemed to be a reluctant participant, ”
Oh really? He just looked smug and enjoyed saying “Not today.” Egged on by the media? Key set the scene so is responsible for the outcome. And if he lost the smug look well and good.
The media weere pestering for a cup of tea story for a week up until it happened. Act may have been behind that, the way they promoted it at their “campaign launch” indicates theyb thought it was their saviour. But to me Key had seemed lukewarm.
I agree, the tea party was in response to media pressure. Key or Banks/Brash could have come out a couple of weeks earlier and said that they had no plans for any meet up at all, and when questioned could have later said “there are no plans” instead of his stupid “not today” answer.
In fact Key could have just given a long-form answer to a question that was effectively an endorsement for Banks without actually having to go through the stupid media stunt that it was. IMO that would have worked better as it would’ve been more genuine and less crass, and obviously in hindsight we wouldn’t have had this whole stupid tape problem.
Yes, Key could have dealt with this better from the start. He didn’t instigate the circus but enabled it. But that’s history now, he couldn’t have foreseen the eventual circumstances nor the eventual media obsession with stuff all.
The media are not running for parliament pete. It was a political stunt that backfired. If u actually believe the media wields undue influence you should have said something before – piping up now just makes you look like a NAct apologist – which you are of course.
It was a political and media stunt. That combo dominates the campaign.
How do you know what I have or haven’t said about media influence prior to this? It’s obvious the media wields significant influence and sometimes abuses that influence, this week being a prime example.
The collusion between TV3 and Winston Peters when they publicised non-sensational supposed contents of the recording – quite possibly illegally (knowing nothing coukld be done about it before the election) – waas disgraceful.
I’m not an ‘NAct’ apologist – that claim is just you with no argument so resorting to trying to smear.
I don’t think Act deserve any success this election, Brash/Banks are a disaster (Isaacs may be better). I support some National policies, positions and priorities, and disagree with others. Same for Labour and Greens.
I’ve openly supported some Green policies online and at candidate meetings. I have agreed with Clare Cullan and Michael Woodhouse and metiria Turei at candidates on some things, and I’ve also disagreed with them on other things.
“The collusion between TV3 and Winston Peters when they publicised non-sensational supposed contents of the recording – quite possibly illegally (knowing nothing coukld be done about it before the election) – waas disgraceful.”
What about the collusion of mediaworks and the Nats when they produced Shonkeys radio show ‘moonbeam at midday….’ quite possibly illegally (knowing nothing could be done about it before the election) – disgraceful too?
What is your/ united follicles policy position on foreign ownership/ regulation/ public service obligations in broadcasting and the media?
If you actually give a shit about the fourth estate how about committing to some non negotiable policy that will help it become again the conscience and defender of our democracy.
“But that’s history now, he couldn’t have foreseen the eventual circumstances nor the eventual media obsession with stuff all.”
All of a sudden the man with 137 odd spin doctors in his employ couldn’t predict what would happen when he walked out of a press conference and got the police involved in a spat with a journo? Now he is a hapless victim of circumstance?
“Don’t we all do that; present a different face in public than in private; so is it fair to hold politicians to a different standard?”
This highlights an important part of both the cause and manifestation of the malady we call the modern world. My answer is that we should hold everyone to that standard, politician and non-politician alike.
The split between the public and the private is a very recent phenomenon. The ‘private’ sphere itself is a late construction in history.
The very word ‘society’, in fact, arises with the courtly shenanigans in Europe (hence young belles ‘entering society’ in debutante balls). Interestingly, it arises in popular contemporary commentary (roughly, 16th and 17th C) at the same time as the concept of the ‘self’ (same reason; in the Royal Courts, presentation of self became an absolute obsession since it was the way to gain favour). Even more interestingly, it is coincidental with widespread commentary on ‘melancholia’.
The public/private split is one of the contours of our modern society that needs to be eroded. It encourages a lack of ‘integrity’ (literally, an integrated character – across time and situations).
Exactly right Ianmac.Could be seen on Campbell Live the other evening (Wed.orThurs) that someone was leaning around that opening just over John Key’s back . Key had to know he was there.
How on earth could the idiots think they could not be over heard and so could have private/secret conversation???? It defies belief that they felt they could be so indiscreet.
This meeting was just a stage managed set up so I thought. It would never have occurred to me that the idiots would use it to discuss serious private and duplicitous matters!! It was only a ten minute cuppa!
Is not jk head of NZSIS? The example he sets of intelligent behaviour in Epsom should score ‘well below average’ on his carefully thought out national standards.
Re Phil Goff not remembering figures when Duncan Garner demanded he produce them without reference to his notes was typical bully boy behaviour by man-child Garner.
It’s one thing to ‘not have costings prepared yet’ (so claimed at the press ‘debate’), it’s quite another to have them written on a piece of paper in front of you and not being allowed to read the number off.
How dare Garner say ‘no, don’t look them up’ to Phil Goff. It wasn’t a primary school mental arithemetic test for crying out loud.!!!!!!
He was the one that asked for the exact / projected (oxymoron?) figures. He had already been told by Goff that they would be lowish, like20-50million to start with, and then grow. If he wanted more accurate figures, Phil had the exact figures to hand to tell him. And yet Phil was told – ‘no, no don’t look” !?! Are you sure??
How rude,arrogant,priggish and ignorant the silly little Garner was. His childish behaviour was right up there with the ‘stupidest tea party’ ever this week..
I despair of New Zealand ‘s media when we have such pathetic journalists as ‘uriah heepish not-a-clue’ Duncan Garner doing his level best to back the duplicity and ghastly exploitation of our democratic principles as practised by johnkey and his national party.
Go and get a drink Duncan and look carefully at a future career in the used car trade- you’d be a sure fire winner there.Just your mental level, judging by your journalistic beheviour.
(And Rebecca Wright tried to do a hatchet job on Goff on 3News last night with this spin.Has she gone to the dark side now she is in the gallery or was she ‘guided’ into doing this story by her political editor?)
CV, Phil should have shut him down straight off and said, “I will refer to my notes – I don’t need your permission” and given Garner the steely stare I know he can.
Who the hell does that corpulent little toad think he is? He exists in a sea of unthinking, arse-licking hacks who would gladly serve as Key’s toilet paper for the rest of their lives.
seeker I know you were trying to be kind but I wouldn’t rate Garner worthy of a post even as a used car salesman.
Correct. Key had notes at the televised leaders debate. Goff did not
I look forward to him being asked to make his points “without looking John” from here on in
Ace idea Banter. Some one suggest this to John Campbell for Monday’s debate. If he’s not sure how to carry this out, he can always ask his tv3 colleague- the school exam invigilator himself Mr.Snape- Garner.
I agree that expecting any politician to remember every detail is unreasonable. Not much different to forgetting details of one of hundreds of personal conversations on the campaign trail.
But in the heat of their biggest ego event not all political mediapeople think reasonable.
Wasn’t it clever to dig up the footage from the debate. To bad they didn’t show Key reading from his notes.Paul Mcartney was wrong ($ 43 million ) can buy plenty of love.
A court prosecutor has offical deem
that an executive should stand trial
for the unlawful deaths of 29 men.
The local Mayor, still blithly makes
out he such a nice guy. Sorry, but
isn’t that the problem, nice guys
are often compensating (with niceness)
for not doing their jobs, alledgedly.
Has a she’ll be right mentality locked
NZ into periodic decline? Leading to
child poverty, young migration overseas,
managers who run a tight safety regime?
Begger thy neighbor attitude ever
presenting in the latest round of government
cutting. Key is a nice guy too.
Property is a tax, its a tax on everyone that
has lost their access to use the property, now
conveniently forgotten when talking about
tax cuts for those who own the most
property, not tax cuts for those who have
little in the way of property.
[…] John Key made time in his diary this week for a secretive meeting with the boss of an oil company that wants to undertake deep sea drilling off New Zealand’s coast. The company is controversial; it was party to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico, one of the biggest environmental disasters in history. […]
Con mankey has aged considerably in the last week and it shows so much so that Next week he’ll be having a secret cup of tea with Winston who he will be needing to form a government.
Just another broken promise [lie]par for the course .Any one with shares in race horses look for an increase in funding next year.200,00 children will have to miss out.
It is clear that the oil and gas industry tries to minimize negative public perception and financial liability by falsely reporting the amount of oil spilled. It is much the same with fracking, with continued spills showing that self regulation and weak administration has failed to ensure environmental safety…
The victims of pike river are in the same quandary after another broken promise by Nationals Brownoselee &manKey only one person has received the help all New Zealanders contributed to and now its 1st year anniversary for these grieving families.It shows the same level of concern that National had for the safety of the miners.SCF gets $1.6 billion straight away national voters mostly I bet!
I normally believe in polls, especially if they are all saying the same thing, but the latest roy morgan poll has the greens at 13%?????
FROM ROY MORGAN
The latest New Zealand Roy Morgan Poll shows Prime Minister John Key’s National Party set for a clear victory in next Saturday’s New Zealand election with National (53%, unchanged) increasing its lead over the Labour Party (24.5%, down 1.5%). Support for the Green Party (13%, up 1%) has continued to increase while New Zealand First (3%, down 1.5%), ACT NZ (1.5%, up 0.5%) and United Future ( > 0.5%, unchanged) will all struggle to win seats in the new Parliament.
Anyone heard a rumour that National will means test super and (possibly aggregate other superannuation that you might be drawing) – claiming the changed state of the economy as the reason – below the radar at the moment but using the similar argument as they did for GST? Seems to be plausible considering the way Key has dismissed Labour’s plans to make superannuation more affordable.
Remember Key’s remark during the CGT chat that the rich will just find other ways to hide assets.
And this will also fit as the very rich will find ways of hiding assets against Means Testing.
Wouldn’t it be great if National really followed Labour’s lead and got serious about finding ways to deal with those asset cheats or even legal ways of Avoidance..
Granted it’s Paul Holmes practically writing a National press release (think he gets paid twice for those pieces? Once by the tories and once by the paper) but still. A bomb?
Key ruined a very useful and accurate word when, in the minds of people, he associated dynamic with lying. It’s going to take some time to find a similar word that is readily understood. Thanks, Key: a knighthood for destructive services to the English language.
Actually I think Key has added a new word to the English lexicon – dinamic meaning to lie, as in “dinamic environment’ meaning an environment which facilitates lying or causes/allows one to lie. Princess Anne did a similar thing when she introduced the endearing word “naff” which can be used in the following ways: “‘John Key’s smile is so naff now,” or “John Key’s lies are naff .” or, “I wish John Key would naff off to Hawaii for good.”
Spinsters have quite a record with word destruction. During the nineties “passion” was chucked around quite a bit as a euphemism for greed. And “aspirational” has had its tedious run: since aspiration means breathing as well as wanting more money and prestige (in Keyspeak), I presume these aspirational people want all the oxygen as well.
“Fast forward another 10 years and I am sure the Google cache will still be bringing up stories on how – on the eve of a general election – police targeted New Zealand media on Key’s wishes.
Maybe police should have charged Key for wasting their time.”
Be interesting to see the format on Monday night TV 3 7-8:30, for the Leaders Debate chaired by John Campbell. Key V Goff.
For me I will watch Key’s body talk and at times try listening with eyes closed to check on the credibility away from the “boyish charm.”
Is there any chance at this late stage before the election that the media. or even the Standard for that matter, will get back to the election opening broadcasts – reflecting the various parties’ values and differences in terms of competence, honesty and commitment to a fairer society?
Well we know that the nats will sell off our power companies to multinationals if they get the numbers in the election. That’s the only issue of importance for me. So that’s why I’m giving my party vote to Winston Peters for the first time ever. He is totally opposed to asset sales and most importantly is most effective as an opposition mp.
Labour have been useless in opposition so for the first time ever they don’t get my party vote. I don’t care what other policies nz1 espouse, who gives a shit, I’m desperate. Asset sales is all I’m interested in and Peters unlike Labour knows how to speak to the public via the media and get a coherent message across. Perhaps with Peters’ example then Labour might realise what being opposition MPs actually means.
Interestingly my father has always been a national voter but he is adamantly opposed to asset sales and in a quandary about who to vote for. I would say there are a lot of older voters like him. I advised him to vote for Peters as a tactical move; he agrees.
And do you believe that Peters will remain unalligned to any party. Stick by HIS word ? Voting away from National to a “maybe”, is exactly what National want and a good way to ensure asset sales will go through. The cup a tea was the same strategy.
riding my motorbike down south I saw a hoarding for Maryanne Street as local Labour candidate. Who? I havent heard a word from her as an opposition mp in the past three years. Same with most of the rest of the high list ranking Labour mps. Im guessing Peters hates the nats due to their campaign against him prior to last election and opposes asset sales. Thats enough for me.
Some interesting twists by other National MP’s manipulating statistics this weekend in deceptive ways.
Judith Collins quoted her role as a “spectatular” success and not one piece of investigation into the “7% drop in crime” claim by Key also..So magically this election swinging issue has crime minimalised because Judiths on to it? Boot camp was a vote winner in 2008..?
2010/2011 Negligent acts endangering others up17.2%; SEXUALOFFENCES up 14.9% SEXUALASSAULT up12.3%;MANSLAUGHTER AND DRIVING CAUSING DEATH up 12.9%;ABDUCTION AND KIDNAPPING up 8.4%;DECEPTIVE BUSINESS/GOVERNMENT PRACTICES up 18.2%;
FRAUD AND DECEPTION OFFENCES up 3%; BREACH OF VIOLENCE AND NON-VIOLENCE RESTRAINING ORDERS up; COMMERCIAL/INDUSTRY/FINANCIAL REGULATION up 53.3 %. Biggest rise and more money ever to “white collar crime” at a cost to every citizen.
Public Sector cuts..CYFs struggling to cope with quote Ministers report over 2400 reports of child abuse EVERY WEEK..Police for all crime in this reported year had average of 65% resolution
Why are such misrepresentations unchallenged ?
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It’s one of New Zealand’s great sustaining myths: the spirit of ANZAC, our mates across the ditch, the spirit of Earl’s Court, Antipodeans united against the world. It is also a myth; it is not reality. That much was clear from a series of speakers, including a former Australian Prime ...
Many people have been unsatisfied for years that things have not improved for them, some as individuals, many more however because their families are clearly putting in more work, for less money – and certainly far less purchase on society. This general discontent has grown exponentially since the GFC. ...
A listing of 34 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, February 9, 2025 thru Sat, February 15, 2025. This week's roundup is again published soleley by category. We are still interested in feedback to hone the categorization, so if ...
The Salvation Army’s State of the Nation report shows worsening food poverty and housing shortages mean more than 400,000 people now need welfare support, the highest level since the 1990s. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in our political economy around housing, climate and ...
You're just too too obscure for meOh you don't really get through to meAnd there's no need for you to talk that wayIs there any less pessimistic things to say?Songwriters: Graeme DownesToday, I thought we’d take a look at some of the most cringe-inducing moments from last week, but don’t ...
Please note: I’ve delayed my “What can we do?” article for this video.The video above shows Destiny Church members assaulting staff and librarians as they pushed through to a room of terrified parents and young children.It was posted to social media last night.But if you read Sinead Boucher’s Stuff, you ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Is sea level rise exaggerated? Sea levels are rising at an accelerating rate, not stagnating or decreasing. Warming global temperatures cause land ice ...
Here is a scenario, but first a historical parallel. Hitler and the Nazis could well have accomplished everything that they wanted to do within German borders, including exterminating Jews, so long as they confined their ambitious to Germany itself. After all, the world pretty much sat and watched as the ...
I’ve spent the last couple of days in Hamilton covering Waikato University’s annual NZ Economics Forum, where (arguably) three of the most influential people in our political economy right now laid out their thinking in major speeches about the size and role of Government, their views on for spending, tax ...
Simeon Brown’s Ideology BentSimeon Brown once told Kiwis he tries to represent his deep sense of faith by interacting “with integrity”.“It’s important that there’s Christians in Parliament…and from my perspective, it’s great to be a Christian in Parliament and to bring that perspective to [laws, conversations and policies].”And with ...
Severe geological and financial earthquakes are inevitable. We just don’t know how soon and how they will play out. Are we putting the right effort into preparing for them?Every decade or so the international economy has a major financial crisis. We cannot predict exactly when or exactly how it will ...
Questions1. How did Old Mate Grabaseat describe his soon-to-be-Deputy-PM’s letter to police advocating for Philip Polkinghorne?a.Ill-advisedb.A perfect letterc.A letter that will live in infamyd.He had me at hello2. What did Seymour say in response?a.What’s ill-advised is commenting when you don’t know all the facts and ...
NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi President Richard Wagstaff has called on OJI Fibre Solutions to work with the government, unions, and the community before closing the Kinleith Paper Mill. “OJI has today announced 230 job losses in what will be a devastating blow for the community. OJI needs to work with ...
NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi President Richard Wagstaff is sounding the alarm about the latest attack on workers from Minister of Workplace Relations and Safety Brooke van Velden, who is ignoring her own officials to pursue reckless changes that would completely undermine the personal grievance system. “Brooke van Velden’s changes will ...
Hi,When I started writing Webworm in 2020, I wrote a lot about the conspiracy theories that were suddenly invading our Twitter timelines and Facebook feeds. Four years ago a reader, John, left this feedback under one of my essays:It’s a never ending labyrinth of lunacy which, as you have pointed ...
And if you said this life ain't good enoughI would give my world to lift you upI could change my life to better suit your moodBecause you're so smoothAnd it's just like the ocean under the moonOh, it's the same as the emotion that I get from youYou got the ...
Aotearoa remains the minority’s birthright, New Zealand the majority’s possession. WAITANGI DAY commentary see-saws manically between the warmly positive and the coldly negative. Many New Zealanders consider this a good thing. They point to the unexamined patriotism of July Fourth and Bastille Day celebrations, and applaud the fact that the ...
The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night features co-hosts & talking about the week’s news with regular and special guests, including: and on the week in geopolitics, including the latest from Donald Trump’s administration over Gaza and Ukraine; on the ...
Up until now, the prevailing coalition view of public servants was that there were simply too many of them. But yesterday the new Public Service Commissioner, handpicked by the Luxon Government, said it was not so much numbers but what they did and the value they produced that mattered. Sir ...
In a moment we explore the question: What is Andrew Bayly wanting to tell ACC, and will it involve enjoying a small wine tasting and then telling someone to fuck off? But first, for context, a broader one: What do we look for in a government?Imagine for a moment, you ...
As expected, Donald Trump just threw Ukraine under the bus, demanding that it accept Russia's illegal theft of land, while ruling out any future membership of NATO. Its a colossal betrayal, which effectively legitimises Russia's invasion, while laying the groundwork for the next one. But Trump is apparently fine with ...
A ballot for a single member's bill was held today, and the following bill was drawn: Employment Relations (Collective Agreements in Triangular Relationships) Amendment Bill (Adrian Rurawhe) The bill would extend union rights to employees in triangular relationships, where they are (nominally) employed by one party, but ...
This is a guest post by George Weeks, reviewing a book called ‘How to Fly a Horse’ by Kevin AshtonBook review: ‘How to Fly a Horse’ by Kevin Ashton (2015) – and what it means for Auckland. The title of this article might unnerve any Greater Auckland ...
This story was originally published by Capital & Main and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. Within just a week, the sheer devastation of the Los Angeles wildfires has pushed to the fore fundamental questions about the impact of the climate crisis that have been ...
In this world, it's just usYou know it's not the same as it wasSongwriters: Harry Edward Styles / Thomas Edward Percy Hull / Tyler Sam JohnsonYesterday, I received a lovely message from Caty, a reader of Nick’s Kōrero, that got me thinking. So I thought I’d share it with you, ...
In past times a person was considered “unserious” or “not a serious” person if they failed to grasp, behave and speak according to the solemnity of the context in which they were located. For example a serious person does not audibly pass gas at Church, or yell “gun” at a ...
Long stories short, the top six things in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Thursday, February 13 are:The coalition Government’s early 2024 ‘fiscal emergency’ freeze on funding, planning and building houses, schools, local roads and hospitals helped extend and deepen the economic and jobs recession through calendar ...
For obvious reasons, people feel uneasy when the right to be a citizen is sold off to wealthy foreigners. Even selling the right to residency seems a bit dubious, when so many migrants who are not millionaires get turned away or are made to jump through innumerable hoops – simply ...
A new season of White Lotus is nearly upon us: more murder mystery, more sumptuous surroundings, more rich people behaving badly.Once more we get to identify with the experience of the pampered tourist or perhaps the poorly paid help; there's something in White Lotus for all New Zealanders.And unlike the ...
In 2016, Aotearoa shockingly plunged to fourth place in the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index. Nine years later, and we're back there again: New Zealand has seen a further slip in its global ranking in the latest Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI). [...] In the latest CPI New Zealand's score ...
1. You’ve started ranking your politicians on how much they respect the rule of law2. You’ve stopped paying attention to those news publications3. You’ve developed a sudden interest in a particular period of history4. More and more people are sounding like your racist, conspiracist uncle.5. Someone just pulled a Nazi ...
Transforming New Zealand: Brian EastonBrian Easton will discuss the above topic at 2/57 Willis Street, Wellington at 5:30pm on Tuesday 26 February at 2/57 Willis Street, WellingtonThe sub-title to the above is "Why is the Left failing?" Brian Easton's analysis is based on his view that while the ...
Salvation Army’s State of the Nation 2025 report highlights falling living standards, the highest unemployment rates since the 1990s and half of all Pacific children going without food. There are reports of hundreds if not thousands of people are applying for the same jobs in the wake of last year’s ...
Mountain Tui is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Correction: On the article The Condundrum of David Seymour, Luke Malpass conducted joint reviews with Bryce Wilkinson, the architect of the Regulatory Standards Bill - not Bryce Edwards. The article ...
Tomorrow the council’s Transport, Resilience and Infrastructure Committee meet and agenda has a few interesting papers. Council’s Letter of Expectation to Auckland Transport Every year the council provide a Letter of Expectation to Auckland Transport which is part of the process for informing AT of the council’s priorities and ...
All around in my home townThey're trying to track me down, yeahThey say they want to bring me in guiltyFor the killing of a deputyFor the life of a deputySongwriter: Robert Nesta Marley.Support Nick’s Kōrero today with a 20% discount on a paid subscription to receive all my newsletters directly ...
Hi,I think all of us have probably experienced the power of music — that strange, transformative thing that gets under our skin and helps us experience this whole life thing with some kind of sanity.Listening and experiencing music has always been such a huge part of my life, and has ...
Business frustration over the stalled economy is growing, and only 34% of voters are confidentNicola Willis can deliver. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Wednesday, February 12 are:Business frustration is growing about a ...
I have now lived long enough to see a cabinet minister go both barrels on their Prime Minister and not get sacked.It used to be that the PM would have a drawer full of resignations signed by ministers on the day of their appointment, ready for such an occasion. But ...
This session will feature Simon McCallum, Senior Lecturer in Engineering and Computer Science (VUW) and recent Labour Party candidate in the Southland Electorate talking about some of the issues around AI and how this should inform Labour Party policy. Simon is an excellent speaker with a comprehensive command of AI ...
The proposed Waimate garbage incinerator is dead: The company behind a highly-controversial proposal to build a waste-to-energy plant in the Waimate District no longer has the land. [...] However, SIRRL director Paul Taylor said the sales and purchase agreement to purchase land from Murphy Farms, near Glenavy, lapsed at ...
The US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act has been a vital tool in combatting international corruption. It forbids US companies and citizens from bribing foreign public officials anywhere in the world. And its actually enforced: some of the world's biggest companies - Siemens, Hewlett Packard, and Bristol Myers Squibb - have ...
December 2024 photo - with UK Tory Boris Johnson (Source: Facebook)Those PollsFor hours, political poll results have resounded across political hallways and commentary.According to the 1News Verizon poll, 50% of the country believe we are heading in the “wrong direction”, while 39% believe we are “on the right track”.The left ...
A Tai Rāwhiti mill that ran for 30 years before it was shut down in late 2023 is set to re-open in the coming months, which will eventually see nearly 300 new jobs in the region. A new report from Massey University shows that pensioners are struggling with rising costs. ...
As support continues to fall, Luxon also now faces his biggest internal ructions within the coalition since the election, with David Seymour reacting badly to being criticised by the PM. File photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate ...
Not since 1988 when Richard Prebble openly criticised David Lange have we seen such a challenge to a Prime Minister as that of David Seymour to Christopher Luxon last night. Prebble suggested Lange had mental health issues during a TV interview and was almost immediately fired. Seymour hasn’t gone quite ...
Three weeks in, and the 24/7 news cycle is not helping anyone feel calm and informed about the second Trump presidency. One day, the US is threatening 25% trade tariffs on its friends and neighbours. The reasons offered by the White House are absurd, such as stopping fentanyl coming in ...
This video includes personal musings and conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Adam Levy. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). Wherever you look, you'll hear headlines claiming we've passed 1.5 degrees of global warming. And while 2024 saw ...
Photo by Heather M. Edwards on UnsplashHere’s the key news, commentary, reports and debate around Aotearoa’s politics and economy in the week to Feb 10 below. That’s ahead of live chats on the Substack App and The Kākā’s front page on Substack at 5pm with: on his column in The ...
Is there anyone in the world the National Party loves more than a campaign donor? Why yes, there is! They will always have the warmest hello and would you like to slip into something more comfortable for that great god of our age, the High Net Worth Individual.The words the ...
Waste and fraud certainly exist in foreign aid programs, but rightwing celebration of USAID’s dismantling shows profound ignorance of the value of soft power (as opposed to hard power) in projecting US influence and interests abroad by non-military/coercive means (think of “hearts and minds,” “hugs, not bullets,” “honey versus vinegar,” ...
Health New Zealand is proposing to cut almost half of its data and digital positions – more than 1000 of them. The PSA has called on the Privacy Commissioner to urgently investigate the cuts due to the potential for serious consequences for patients. NZNO is calling for an urgent increase ...
We may see a few more luxury cars on Queen Street, but a loosening of rules to entice rich foreigners to invest more here is unlikely to “turbocharge our economic growth”. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate ...
Let us not dance daintily around the elephant in the room. Our politicians who serve us in the present are not honest, certainly not as honest as they should be, and while the right are taking out most of the trophies for warping narratives and literally redefining “facts”, the kiwi ...
A few weeks ago I took a look at public transport ridership in 2024. In today’s post I’m going to be looking a bit deeper at bus ridership. Buses make up the vast majority of ridership in Auckland with 70 million boardings last year out of a total of 89.4 ...
Oh, you know I did itIt's over and I feel fineNothing you could say is gonna change my mindWaited and I waited the longest nightNothing like the taste of sweet declineSongwriters: Chris Shiflett / David Eric Grohl / Nate Mendel / Taylor Hawkins.Hindsight is good, eh?The clarity when the pieces ...
Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on UnsplashHere’s what we’re watching in the week to February 16 and beyond in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty:Monday, February 10The Kākā’s weekly wrap-up of news about politics and the economy is due at midday, followed by webinar for paying subscribers in Substack’s ...
A listing of 23 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, February 2, 2025 thru Sat, February 8, 2025. This week's roundup is again published soleley by category. We are still interested in feedback to hone the categorization, so if ...
Today, I stumbled across a Twitter Meme: the ending of The Lord of the Rings as a Chess scenario: https://x.com/mellon_heads/status/1887983845917564991 It gets across the basic gist. Aragorn and Gandalf offering up ‘material’ at the Morannon allows Frodo and Samwise to catch Sauron unawares – fair enough. But there are a ...
Last week, Kieran McAnulty called out Chris Bishop and Nicola Willis for their claims that Kāinga Ora’s costs were too high.They had claimed Kāinga Ora’s cost were 12% higher than market i.e. private devlopersBut Kāinga Ora’s Chair had already explained why last year:"We're not building to sell, so we'll be ...
The Government's sudden cancellation of the tertiary education funding increase is a reckless move that risks widespread job losses and service reductions across New Zealand's universities. ...
National’s cuts to disability support funding and freezing of new residential placements has resulted in significant mental health decline for intellectually disabled people. ...
The hundreds of jobs lost needlessly as a result of the Kinleith Mill paper production closure will have a devastating impact on the Tokoroa community - something that could have easily been avoided. ...
Today Te Pāti Māori MP for Te Tai Tokerau, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi, released her members bill that will see the return of tamariki and mokopuna Māori from state care back to te iwi Māori. This bill will establish an independent authority that asserts and protects the rights promised in He Whakaputanga ...
The Whangarei District Council being forced to fluoridate their local water supply is facing a despotic Soviet-era disgrace. This is not a matter of being pro-fluoride or anti-fluoride. It is a matter of what New Zealanders see and value as democracy in our country. Individual democratically elected Councillors are not ...
Nicola Willis’ latest supermarket announcement is painfully weak with no new ideas, no real plan, and no relief for Kiwis struggling with rising grocery costs. ...
Half of Pacific children sometimes going without food is just one of many heartbreaking lowlights in the Salvation Army’s annual State of the Nation report. ...
The Salvation Army’s State of the Nation report is a bleak indictment on the failure of Government to take steps to end poverty, with those on benefits, including their children, hit hardest. ...
New Zealand First has today introduced a Member’s Bill which would restore decision-making power to local communities regarding the fluoridation of drinking water. The ‘Fluoridation (Referendum) Legislation Bill’ seeks to repeal the Health (Fluoridation of Drinking Water) Amendment Act 2021 that granted centralised authority to the Direct General of Health ...
New Zealand First has introduced a Member’s Bill aimed at preventing banks from refusing their services to businesses because of the current “Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Framework”. “This Bill ensures fairness and prevents ESG standards from perpetuating woke ideology in the banking sector being driven by unelected, globalist, climate ...
Erica Stanford has reached peak shortsightedness if today’s announcement is anything to go by, picking apart immigration settings piece by piece to the detriment of the New Zealand economy. ...
Our originating document, theTreaty of Waitangi, was signed on February 6, 1840. An agreement between Māori and the British Crown. Initially inked by Ngā Puhi in Waitangi, further signatures were added as it travelled south. The intention was to establish a colony with the cession of sovereignty to the Crown, ...
Te Whatu Ora Chief Executive Margie Apa leaving her job four months early is another symptom of this government’s failure to deliver healthcare for New Zealanders. ...
The Green Party is calling for the Prime Minister to show leadership and be unequivocal about Aotearoa New Zealand’s opposition to a proposal by the US President to remove Palestinians from Gaza. ...
The latest unemployment figures reveal that job losses are hitting Māori and Pacific people especially hard, with Māori unemployment reaching a staggering 9.7% for the December 2024 quarter and Pasifika unemployment reaching 10.5%. ...
Waitangi 2025: Waitangi Day must be community and not politically driven - Shane Jones Our originating document, theTreaty of Waitangi, was signed on February 6, 1840. An agreement between Māori and the British Crown. Initially inked by Ngā Puhi in Waitangi, further signatures were added as it travelled south. ...
Despite being confronted every day with people in genuine need being stopped from accessing emergency housing – National still won’t commit to building more public houses. ...
The Green Party says the Government is giving up on growing the country’s public housing stock, despite overwhelming evidence that we need more affordable houses to solve the housing crisis. ...
Before any thoughts of the New Year and what lies ahead could even be contemplated, New Zealand reeled with the tragedy of Senior Sergeant Lyn Fleming losing her life. For over 38 years she had faithfully served as a front-line Police officer. Working alongside her was Senior Sergeant Adam Ramsay ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson will return to politics at Waitangi on Monday the 3rd of February where she will hold a stand up with fellow co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick. ...
Te Pāti Māori is appalled by the government's blatant mishandling of the school lunch programme. David Seymour’s ‘cost-saving’ measures have left tamariki across Aotearoa with unidentifiable meals, causing distress and outrage among parents and communities alike. “What’s the difference between providing inedible food, and providing no food at all?” Said ...
The Government is doubling down on outdated and volatile fossil fuels, showing how shortsighted and destructive their policies are for working New Zealanders. ...
Green Party MP Steve Abel this morning joined Coromandel locals in Waihi to condemn new mining plans announced by Shane Jones in the pit of the town’s Australian-owned Gold mine. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to strengthen its just-announced 2030-2035 Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) under the Paris Agreement and address its woeful lack of commitment to climate security. ...
Today marks a historic moment for Taranaki iwi with the passing of the Te Pire Whakatupua mō Te Kāhui Tupua/Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bill in Parliament. "Today, we stand together as descendants of Taranaki, and our tūpuna, Taranaki Maunga, is now formally acknowledged by the law as a living tūpuna. ...
Labour is relieved to see Children’s Minister Karen Chhour has woken up to reality and reversed her government’s terrible decisions to cut funding from frontline service providers – temporarily. ...
The Government’s commitment to get New Zealand’s roads back on track is delivering strong results, with around 98 per cent of potholes on state highways repaired within 24 hours of identification every month since targets were introduced, Transport Minister Chris Bishop says. “Increasing productivity to help rebuild our economy is ...
The former Cadbury factory will be the site of the Inpatient Building for the new Dunedin Hospital and Health Minister Simeon Brown says actions have been taken to get the cost overruns under control. “Today I am giving the people of Dunedin certainty that we will build the new Dunedin ...
From today, Plunket in Whāngarei will be offering childhood immunisations – the first of up to 27 sites nationwide, Health Minister Simeon Brown says. The investment of $1 million into the pilot, announced in October 2024, was made possible due to the Government’s record $16.68 billion investment in health. It ...
New Zealand’s strong commitment to the rights of disabled people has continued with the response to an important United Nations report, Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston has announced. Of the 63 concluding observations of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), 47 will be progressed ...
Resources Minister Shane Jones has launched New Zealand’s national Minerals Strategy and Critical Minerals List, documents that lay a strategic and enduring path for the mineral sector, with the aim of doubling exports to $3 billion by 2035. Mr Jones released the documents, which present the Coalition Government’s transformative vision ...
Firstly I want to thank OceanaGold for hosting our event today. Your operation at Waihi is impressive. I want to acknowledge local MP Scott Simpson, local government dignitaries, community stakeholders and all of you who have gathered here today. It’s a privilege to welcome you to the launch of the ...
Racing Minister, Winston Peters has announced the Government is preparing public consultation on GST policy proposals which would make the New Zealand racing industry more competitive. “The racing industry makes an important economic contribution. New Zealand thoroughbreds are in demand overseas as racehorses and for breeding. The domestic thoroughbred industry ...
Business confidence remains very high and shows the economy is on track to improve, Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis says. “The latest ANZ Business Outlook survey, released yesterday, shows business confidence and expected own activity are ‘still both very high’.” The survey reports business confidence fell eight points to +54 ...
Enabling works have begun this week on an expanded radiology unit at Hawke’s Bay Fallen Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital which will double CT scanning capacity in Hawke’s Bay to ensure more locals can benefit from access to timely, quality healthcare, Health Minister Simeon Brown says. This investment of $29.3m in the ...
The Government has today announced New Zealand’s second international climate target under the Paris Agreement, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand will reduce emissions by 51 to 55 per cent compared to 2005 levels, by 2035. “We have worked hard to set a target that is both ambitious ...
Nine years of negotiations between the Crown and iwi of Taranaki have concluded following Te Pire Whakatupua mō Te Kāhui Tupua/the Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bill passing its third reading in Parliament today, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “This Bill addresses the historical grievances endured by the eight iwi ...
As schools start back for 2025, there will be a relentless focus on teaching the basics brilliantly so all Kiwi kids grow up with the knowledge, skills and competencies needed to grow the New Zealand of the future, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “A world-leading education system is a key ...
Housing Minister Chris Bishop and Associate Agriculture Minister Mark Patterson have welcomed Kāinga Ora’s decision to re-open its tender for carpets to allow wool carpet suppliers to bid. “In 2024 Kāinga Ora issued requests for tender (RFTs) seeking bids from suppliers to carpet their properties,” Mr Bishop says. “As part ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour has today visited Otahuhu College where the new school lunch programme has served up healthy lunches to students in the first days of the school year. “As schools open in 2025, the programme will deliver nutritious meals to around 242,000 students, every school day. On ...
Minister for Children Karen Chhour has intervened in Oranga Tamariki’s review of social service provider contracts to ensure Barnardos can continue to deliver its 0800 What’s Up hotline. “When I found out about the potential impact to this service, I asked Oranga Tamariki for an explanation. Based on the information ...
A bill to make revenue collection on imported and exported goods fairer and more effective had its first reading in Parliament, Customs Minister Casey Costello said today. “The Customs (Levies and Other Matters) Amendment Bill modernises the way in which Customs can recover the costs of services that are needed ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Department of Internal Affairs [the Department] has achieved significant progress in completing applications for New Zealand citizenship. “December 2024 saw the Department complete 5,661 citizenship applications, the most for any month in 2024. This is a 54 per cent increase compared ...
Reversals to Labour’s blanket speed limit reductions begin tonight and will be in place by 1 July, says Minister of Transport Chris Bishop. “The previous government was obsessed with slowing New Zealanders down by imposing illogical and untargeted speed limit reductions on state highways and local roads. “National campaigned on ...
Finance Minister Nicola Willis has announced Budget 2025 – the Growth Budget - will be delivered on Thursday 22 May. “This year’s Budget will drive forward the Government’s plan to grow our economy to improve the incomes of New Zealanders now and in the years ahead. “Budget 2025 will build ...
The reality is that we have no obligation to tolerate the intolerant. They are using violence to shut down and silence others. The result of tolerating intolerant views is the loss of everyone’s freedom of speech except for the one who most effectively ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert Davis, Associate Professor in Conservation, Edith Cowan University Adwo/Shutterstock Humans have been poisoning rodents for centuries. But fast-breeding rats and mice have evolved resistance to earlier poisons. In response, manufacturers have produced second generation anticoagulant rodenticides such as bromadiolone, widely ...
Alex Casey unearths Simon Court’s full sales pitch for how menstrual cups could end poverty. On Friday last week, Act MP Simon Court was accused of “mansplaining” during a parliamentary committee hearing about benefit sanctions. After submitter Rachel Dibble shared her concerns about period poverty and the impact that sanctions ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexander Gillespie, Professor of Law, University of Waikato It’s an unfortunate fact that bad people sometimes want guns. And while laws are designed to prevent guns falling into the wrong hands, the determined criminal can be highly resourceful. There are three main ...
Asia Pacific Report Two independent Jewish Voices groups in Aotearoa New Zealand have written an open letter to the government condemning the Zionist “colonisation” project leading to genocide and criticising the role of the NZ Jewish Council for its “unelected” and “uncritical support” for Israel. The groups, Alternative Jewish Voices ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne A national Newspoll, conducted February 10–14 from a sample of 1,244, gave the Coalition a 51–49 lead, unchanged from the previous Newspoll, ...
We round up everything coming to streaming services this week, including Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Apple TV+, ThreeNow, Neon and TVNZ+. If you enjoy whip-smart satire: The White Lotus (Neon, February 17) HBO’s award-winning The White Lotus is back for what critics are calling “an absolutely exquisite third ...
NZPF called for a slowdown of the curriculum change, asking for one subject at a time, so that teachers and principals could be fully trained and feel confident and competent to implement the changes, New Zealand Principals’ Federation (NZPF) President ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By T.J. Thomson, Senior Lecturer in Visual Communication & Digital Media, RMIT University Indonesia’s TVOne launched an AI news presenter in 2023.T.J. Thomson Generative artificial intelligence (AI) has taken off at lightning speed in the past couple of years, creating disruption in ...
Many of the young vapers interviewed by a team of public health researchers said they felt unable to resist the pro-vaping environment that surrounded them. New Zealand’s smokefree law was hailed around the world for creating a smokefree generation that would have lifelong protection from smoking’s harms. The smokefree ...
Analysis: While most Wellingtonians enjoyed a rare but unbeatable sunny day on Saturday, some New Zealand diplomats will have been briefly shocked by a screenshot making the rounds on social media showing US President Donald Trump calling us a “third world country”.The image, it appears, was a fake – certainly a ...
ActionStation Director, Kassie Hartendorp says that the Treaty Principles Bill has galvanised the biggest movement in support of Te Tiriti in modern history. ...
While it is in the interests of Wellington ratepayers to sell off this subsidy for the rich, it is unfortunate that it has come to this point. The council should have never spent a penny on this programme, and the $3.4 million spent is a flagrant abuse ...
A search for the person behind a social media account ridiculing Māori.Last week, while scrolling Facebook, I came across a post shared to the New Zealand Centre for Political Research group. The post began, “From Matua Kahurangi on X”, before pasting his critique of iwi leadership – particularly Ngāpuhi ...
On the heels of The White Lotus season three, Tara Ward travels to Koh Samui, Thailand, to live her best life as a five-star wannabe. I’ve never been one for luxury travel. Despite religiously watching TV shows like Luxury Escapes: World’s Best Holidays and harbouring grand dreams of one day ...
The Treaty Principles Bill submission hearings continue at Parliament today with a range of submitters expected including councils, iwi, community organisations and individuals. ...
It’s become of one of Christchurch’s most famous landmarks online, but why? Alex Casey steps through the portal of the brutalist Timezone. Ask anyone what Christchurch’s most iconic building is and you might expect to hear some of the dusty old classics like the Cathedral, or the Town Hall, or ...
New Zealand’s alignment with the White House is further underscored by its refusal to oppose Trump’s sanctions against the International Criminal Court (ICC). ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amin Saikal, Emeritus Professor of Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies, Australian National University The dismantling of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) is a serious blow to the soft power of the United States and disastrous for many poor countries ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Janet Hoek, Professor in Public Health, University of Otago Shutterstock/Aliaksandr Barouski New Zealand’s smokefree law was hailed around the world for creating a smokefree generation that would have lifelong protection from smoking’s harms. The smokefree generation would have ended sales of ...
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The resignation of the director general of health is the latest departure in what Labour is calling a ‘purge’ of health leadership. Another day, another health resignation It’s a dangerous time to be a top health executive. On Friday, Dr Diana Sarfati announced her resignation as director general of health ...
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After a morning spent calf marking, Flock Hill Station manager Richard Hill headed up Bridge Hill – about 100km from Christchurch on the way to the West Coast – to check on a fire near the station’s boundary.It was December 5 last year, and the Craigieburn area had experienced three ...
It can’t be much of a surprise that a relatively inexperienced Act MP, handed the workplace relations portfolio, doesn’t want to entertain the country’s biggest union in her office.But it still astonishes the head of that union, the CTU’s president, Richard Wagstaff.After all, he’s met regularly with ministers of all ...
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A public forum in Dunedin today to look at a movie and also to look at the Octagon and Occupy in relation to the global financial problems.
Saturday 17 November, 3.30 pm – 6.30 pm, St Paul’s Cathedral (Octagon, Dunedin)
More details: Special public forum on the Octagon .
Organised by St Paul’s and Centre for Sustainability (University of Otago). Sustainability has been one of the dominant issues of the election campaign in Dunedin. There have been two candidate forums dedicated to the issue, and at general candidate meetings the topic was prominent in questions being asked.
“There will be a screening of the movie “Inside Job”, followed by brief reactions from a specially invited panel including Mayor Dave Cull; the Dean of St Paul’s, the Very Rev Dr Trevor James; the Chief Executive of Methodist Mission, Laura Black; and representatives from business, law, the university and other community bodies in Dunedin.
The discussion will be hosted by Damian Newell of More FM.”
Why are there no representatives from the poor, the underclasses, occupy, beneficiaries, low income workers etc on that specially invited panel?
thats so true, why not? as there are a large number of them here in dunedin. great movie though.
You should ask the organisers. This is what I’ve been told:
The voluntary sector, trade unions, the occupation seems to cover some of it.
It is a public forum, anyone who wants to can go.
I wasn’t talking about who could go, I was talking about who is on the specially invited panel.
Coincidently, I got up early today and watched ‘Inside Job’. This documentary does indeed tackle a complex topic comprehensively in a format I believe conducive to a wide audience. Distressing and sobering, it could be enough to make one give up in despair, simply because it is still happening! While I had thought ‘ all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing’, even that doesn’t explain this situation. Some good people did speak out but were just ignored or trivialised. The global economic crisis was due to out and out orchestrated greed. Lobby groups specifically targeted and changed legislation to allow greed to further itself unhindered! ‘Inside Job’ did answer a lingering question of mine. What happened to the importance of ethics and morals being entwined with University and Business School degrees? Surely the power of knowledge is linked soundly to personal integrity and responsibility. Unfortunately corruption is shown to be present in educational institutions also.
If ever we needed to stand by those protesting for the 99% it is now, for good people are speaking out. Perhaps it just needs the momentum of many to overcome the power of money and corruption.
Good article on Stuff this morning with people involved in charities stating that increasingly people in NZ are struggling to pay for the basics. There’s a good sample of extracts from readers letters, a couple supporting the neolibreal aspirational line, but most opposed to it.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/5996449/Growing-wealth-gap-alarms-charities
Poverty is caused by everyone believing they can “get ahead”. Aspiration is the problem. It’s like the Griffins biscuit ad, “…just one more….ok?” Remove aspiration form the national psyche and the game will change entirely. No more hiding behind material wealth, no more toys to buy, no more plans to spend more on more things no one needs. Just life, facing who and what you are. Scarey as hell for some and they’ll run over anyone to avoid stopping to see themselves. It’s cowardice.
People are somewhat compelled to ‘get ahead’, Uturn. It’s built into the rules that if you don’t, then you’ll go under. And that can mean a lack of access to necessary material goods or services (healthcare, education, diet, housing etc) Aspiration isn’t the problem. Poverty is a symptom or result of production and distribution being dictated by the ‘winner takes all and the losers can go fuck themselves’ market economy.
I don’t think it’s fair to condemn people for wanting what’s best for themselves. Even in a democratic economy, people would want what was best; aspiration would remain. But since the rules ( the various incentives, punishments and rewards) inherent to a democratic economy are different to those of a market economy, the consequences from aspiring for what would be best wouldn’t be the destructive and misanthropic mess we create on both an individual and general level at present.
The solution is a lot easier than changing people’s minds in some radical way. We simply need to to change the nature of our economy (an external environment) and behaviours will adapt accordingly.
“The solution is a lot easier than changing people’s minds in some radical way. We simply need to to change the nature of our economy (an external environment) and behaviours will adapt accordingly.”
And how do we “change the nature of our economy” without “changing people’s minds in some radical way”?
The circumstances we find ourselves in in 2011 are generating an sustaining a significant network of movements which are kind of epitomised by the evolving ‘occupy’ movement. A counterculture which is, at the very least, sprinkling a few seeds of doubt in the wider communities.
But when the different threads try to work together, and it’s happening all over the place, they are confronted by problems which can only be positively resolved by individuals and groups ‘radically changing their minds’. External and internal environments can’t be simply decoupled.
It’s a process, is all I’m saying, and not necessarily one which is going succeed. At the moment I’m very pessimistic about our prospects.
Yup, it’s a kind of chicken and egg scenario. I’m not implying that external and internal environments are seperate and distinct….they are aspects of the one thing that reinforce one another to lend the totality a given ‘shape’. But put simply, if we are engaging in ‘a game’ with a particular set of rules that encourage some behaviours and discourage others, then it would seem obvious to focus on ‘the game’ and its rules if the intent is to alter behaviour.
We know we don’t like ‘the game’ that is this particular economy. And we know we don’t like the behaviours it endorses and encourages via it’s various reward mechanisms. But we can understand or percieve the dynamics of the economy and its effects; we can see how it works. Which means we can change things…we can incrementally withdraw our participation from ‘this game’ while similtaneously setting up a new one.
It can be done, has been done. And if a group of people (not even necessarily a huge number to begin with) are succesfully operating from a different, far more desirable economic premise that is not isolated from the dominant economic way of thinking and acting; and if they can find a way to promulgate it to the wider community/society, then hey, there’s your process.
Otherwise, are we not relying on some supernatural or mystical mechanism to affect change? It’s always been one of my bug bears with Marx, that he envisaged…even relied on or had faith invested in, some ‘spontaneous raising of consciousness’ on the part of workers. And to me, that’s no different to religion and no more likely to produce results.
Some of the misunderstanding is that I did not define aspiration. Aspiration is not a hungry person feeling like they need food to change their state to one of satisfaction. Aspiration is constantly living in the future, rather than facing today. Building a better TV is a form of aspiration. Wanting to be the world’s best wakeboarder, is aspiration. Wanting to rule your village is aspiration. Planning for your holiday is aspiration.
Anything that moves your mind forward from the present and creates an anxiety of what you imagine then not happening, is aspiration at work. Tackling real life problems as they happen is not aspiration. Aspiration is fueled by fear: what if we don’t have enough tomorrow? The line between fact and preparation and fear is very thin and aspiration is as dangerous as religion in the hands of those with child minds. It never comes with a warning. By the time a child is five they will know who Harvey Norman are, but not why they don’t need what those people sell.
It is not built into the rules that you must pile up the corpses just to eat, be healthy and participate in a society. That thinking is condescending. It shifts responsibility from the aggressor to the victim, using fear to force him to enter the culture of aspiration. It’s what politicians use: cultural violence. Nothing is easy. To stop aspiration, each individual must decide to stop, and that will come at a price. It takes courage.
I think it is hope and fear that are companions, not fear and aspiration. The anxiety of ‘what if tomorrow doesn’t pan out as hoped’ is an expression of fear rather than a result of aspiration.
Anyway, putting aside trivial yet highly destructive aspirations, what’s wrong with aspiring for a better world or a better whatever?
And whether you like it or not, it is the rules of our market economy that we ‘must pile up the corpses just to eat’, as you put it. The alternative is to be one of the corpses. It’s winners and losers with nothing inbetween. Social democracy has tried to create a space in the middle through creating various welfare provisions within core national economies. But the cost of that provisioning has been borne by those living in the peripheral national economies being subject, literally and routinely to famine and various other precarious situations. (Piling up the bodies)
The ‘civilised’ market economy flowed quite nicely and deliberately from the brutal, military backed plunderings of colonialism and ‘locked in’, albeit under a more civilised guise, the same dynamics of exploitation.
Aspiration is a positive rather than a negative. Aspiration is that quality of thinking that is transformative to the human condition, and defines our uniqueness as a species on Earth.
There is absolutely no point to having a large brain without some purpose to drive its engine – purpose is fueled by aspiration.
No, it’s not human nature. It’s the nature of psychopaths which only make up a small percentage of the population. So, why are we building and accepting a psychopathic society?
Vernon Small states that he’s heard claims that Nats polling this week did show some dips in support in the middle of the last week:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion
Good analysis of the issues from Vernon Small, including turning Key’s extreme News of the World, youth suicide arguments back on Key:
It’s worth nmoting what Small wrote aftyer that:
I agree with that.
And I also agree with Small when he suggests it was one of the stupidist tea parties ever – Key seemed to be a reluctant participant, it was a desperate attempt at camp[aign revival by Act, egged on a massive omelette scale by the media.
Truth be told, I dont really care what happens in this election as long as ACT doesnt get back in. “The good people of Epsom” have the best chance yet of voting for Goldsmith (even though he looks like a total smarmy jumped up tosser) and consigning ACT and its bunch of redneck social darwinists to the dustbin of history. I would rather National govern alone than in coalition with ACT. National only want to push you to the ground. ACT want to push you to the ground then put the boot in. I dont want the boot.
And I’m sorry, Mr George, but voters in Ohariu-Belmont also have the chance to get rid of Dunne as well, and consign that bunch of jelly fish to history (if Labour were Coke and National Pepsi, then UF would be that watered down budget cola that costs 99c a bottle)..
So if you are a left winger, who lives in Epsom, then vote Goldsmith. You have to do it. You have to ask yourself if we want Don “cut wages to catch up with Australia” Brash, John “Drink and drug crazed polynesian men are going to rape respectable white Epsom housewives” Banks, and Don “farmers can put what they like in the rivers because that’s how profits are made” Nicholson.
Agreed, I would derive great pleasure from seeing both of those pathetic parties gone, and the wretched sellout Maori party too, though that’s probably too much to ask. The best case scenario if the dubious polls are indeed right is that the Nats get the most votes but don’t have enough seats to pass asset sales legislation, mwahahahaha.
“Key seemed to be a reluctant participant, ”
Oh really? He just looked smug and enjoyed saying “Not today.” Egged on by the media? Key set the scene so is responsible for the outcome. And if he lost the smug look well and good.
+1
The media weere pestering for a cup of tea story for a week up until it happened. Act may have been behind that, the way they promoted it at their “campaign launch” indicates theyb thought it was their saviour. But to me Key had seemed lukewarm.
It was a media event, strongly promoted by media.
I agree, the tea party was in response to media pressure. Key or Banks/Brash could have come out a couple of weeks earlier and said that they had no plans for any meet up at all, and when questioned could have later said “there are no plans” instead of his stupid “not today” answer.
In fact Key could have just given a long-form answer to a question that was effectively an endorsement for Banks without actually having to go through the stupid media stunt that it was. IMO that would have worked better as it would’ve been more genuine and less crass, and obviously in hindsight we wouldn’t have had this whole stupid tape problem.
Yes, Key could have dealt with this better from the start. He didn’t instigate the circus but enabled it. But that’s history now, he couldn’t have foreseen the eventual circumstances nor the eventual media obsession with stuff all.
Purile Git git over it Conman Key has been found out
Jinxs every
The media are not running for parliament pete. It was a political stunt that backfired. If u actually believe the media wields undue influence you should have said something before – piping up now just makes you look like a NAct apologist – which you are of course.
It was a political and media stunt. That combo dominates the campaign.
How do you know what I have or haven’t said about media influence prior to this? It’s obvious the media wields significant influence and sometimes abuses that influence, this week being a prime example.
The collusion between TV3 and Winston Peters when they publicised non-sensational supposed contents of the recording – quite possibly illegally (knowing nothing coukld be done about it before the election) – waas disgraceful.
I’m not an ‘NAct’ apologist – that claim is just you with no argument so resorting to trying to smear.
I don’t think Act deserve any success this election, Brash/Banks are a disaster (Isaacs may be better). I support some National policies, positions and priorities, and disagree with others. Same for Labour and Greens.
I’ve openly supported some Green policies online and at candidate meetings. I have agreed with Clare Cullan and Michael Woodhouse and metiria Turei at candidates on some things, and I’ve also disagreed with them on other things.
“The collusion between TV3 and Winston Peters when they publicised non-sensational supposed contents of the recording – quite possibly illegally (knowing nothing coukld be done about it before the election) – waas disgraceful.”
What about the collusion of mediaworks and the Nats when they produced Shonkeys radio show ‘moonbeam at midday….’ quite possibly illegally (knowing nothing could be done about it before the election) – disgraceful too?
What is your/ united follicles policy position on foreign ownership/ regulation/ public service obligations in broadcasting and the media?
If you actually give a shit about the fourth estate how about committing to some non negotiable policy that will help it become again the conscience and defender of our democracy.
“But that’s history now, he couldn’t have foreseen the eventual circumstances nor the eventual media obsession with stuff all.”
All of a sudden the man with 137 odd spin doctors in his employ couldn’t predict what would happen when he walked out of a press conference and got the police involved in a spat with a journo? Now he is a hapless victim of circumstance?
Whatever.
Yes there is because it shows that they’re lying.
You would but then you seem all for keeping the status quo, the secrecy and unaccountability that is presently within our political system.
“Don’t we all do that; present a different face in public than in private; so is it fair to hold politicians to a different standard?”
This highlights an important part of both the cause and manifestation of the malady we call the modern world. My answer is that we should hold everyone to that standard, politician and non-politician alike.
The split between the public and the private is a very recent phenomenon. The ‘private’ sphere itself is a late construction in history.
The very word ‘society’, in fact, arises with the courtly shenanigans in Europe (hence young belles ‘entering society’ in debutante balls). Interestingly, it arises in popular contemporary commentary (roughly, 16th and 17th C) at the same time as the concept of the ‘self’ (same reason; in the Royal Courts, presentation of self became an absolute obsession since it was the way to gain favour). Even more interestingly, it is coincidental with widespread commentary on ‘melancholia’.
The public/private split is one of the contours of our modern society that needs to be eroded. It encourages a lack of ‘integrity’ (literally, an integrated character – across time and situations).
he also has this piece with Kate Chapman.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/fairfax-media-poll/5996629/Tape-talk-private-say-voters
Funny how he neglects to mention how RNZ gave them a platform to talk policy from
and National ‘declined to respond’
on the private/public debate, this photo simply shuts the door on any suggestions this was a private situation
http://media.nzherald.co.nz/webcontent/image/jpg/201147/SCCZEN_A_121111NZLDWKEY01_460x230.JPG
Note the opening where there is no soundproof glass to the right of Key. Private? Never!
Exactly right Ianmac.Could be seen on Campbell Live the other evening (Wed.orThurs) that someone was leaning around that opening just over John Key’s back . Key had to know he was there.
How on earth could the idiots think they could not be over heard and so could have private/secret conversation???? It defies belief that they felt they could be so indiscreet.
This meeting was just a stage managed set up so I thought. It would never have occurred to me that the idiots would use it to discuss serious private and duplicitous matters!! It was only a ten minute cuppa!
Is not jk head of NZSIS? The example he sets of intelligent behaviour in Epsom should score ‘well below average’ on his carefully thought out national standards.
Re Phil Goff not remembering figures when Duncan Garner demanded he produce them without reference to his notes was typical bully boy behaviour by man-child Garner.
I think most people will see through it.
It’s one thing to ‘not have costings prepared yet’ (so claimed at the press ‘debate’), it’s quite another to have them written on a piece of paper in front of you and not being allowed to read the number off.
Key never has that problem of needing a crib sheet because he never fronts up for serious interviews and therefore needs to give no answers.
Aye, and any answers he does give are subject to change from day to day anyway, due to the dinimic environment.
How dare Garner say ‘no, don’t look them up’ to Phil Goff. It wasn’t a primary school mental arithemetic test for crying out loud.!!!!!!
He was the one that asked for the exact / projected (oxymoron?) figures. He had already been told by Goff that they would be lowish, like20-50million to start with, and then grow. If he wanted more accurate figures, Phil had the exact figures to hand to tell him. And yet Phil was told – ‘no, no don’t look” !?! Are you sure??
How rude,arrogant,priggish and ignorant the silly little Garner was. His childish behaviour was right up there with the ‘stupidest tea party’ ever this week..
I despair of New Zealand ‘s media when we have such pathetic journalists as ‘uriah heepish not-a-clue’ Duncan Garner doing his level best to back the duplicity and ghastly exploitation of our democratic principles as practised by johnkey and his national party.
Go and get a drink Duncan and look carefully at a future career in the used car trade- you’d be a sure fire winner there.Just your mental level, judging by your journalistic beheviour.
(And Rebecca Wright tried to do a hatchet job on Goff on 3News last night with this spin.Has she gone to the dark side now she is in the gallery or was she ‘guided’ into doing this story by her political editor?)
Goff should have said – hey Duncan, why don’t you conduct the rest of your interview without any notes mate and so will I.
CV, Phil should have shut him down straight off and said, “I will refer to my notes – I don’t need your permission” and given Garner the steely stare I know he can.
Who the hell does that corpulent little toad think he is? He exists in a sea of unthinking, arse-licking hacks who would gladly serve as Key’s toilet paper for the rest of their lives.
seeker I know you were trying to be kind but I wouldn’t rate Garner worthy of a post even as a used car salesman.
Actually, I thought Key had to use notes when he is giving speeches or in a debate, but Goff generally doesn’t seem to.
Correct. Key had notes at the televised leaders debate. Goff did not
I look forward to him being asked to make his points “without looking John” from here on in
Ace idea Banter. Some one suggest this to John Campbell for Monday’s debate. If he’s not sure how to carry this out, he can always ask his tv3 colleague- the school exam invigilator himself Mr.Snape- Garner.
I agree that expecting any politician to remember every detail is unreasonable. Not much different to forgetting details of one of hundreds of personal conversations on the campaign trail.
But in the heat of their biggest ego event not all political mediapeople think reasonable.
Wasn’t it clever to dig up the footage from the debate. To bad they didn’t show Key reading from his notes.Paul Mcartney was wrong ($ 43 million ) can buy plenty of love.
A court prosecutor has offical deem
that an executive should stand trial
for the unlawful deaths of 29 men.
The local Mayor, still blithly makes
out he such a nice guy. Sorry, but
isn’t that the problem, nice guys
are often compensating (with niceness)
for not doing their jobs, alledgedly.
Has a she’ll be right mentality locked
NZ into periodic decline? Leading to
child poverty, young migration overseas,
managers who run a tight safety regime?
Begger thy neighbor attitude ever
presenting in the latest round of government
cutting. Key is a nice guy too.
Property is a tax, its a tax on everyone that
has lost their access to use the property, now
conveniently forgotten when talking about
tax cuts for those who own the most
property, not tax cuts for those who have
little in the way of property.
Local mayor Cockshaun wants more mining loves the Jinxed Conman Key
I had a dream…but it started as a nightmare.
A nightmare of bickering and bull, where egos and ideologies over ruled…
check your link
Not sure what happened there, have another go…
http://www.3news.co.nz/Key-keeps-meeting-with-Anadarko-boss-quiet/tabid/1160/articleID/233099/Default.aspx
[…] John Key made time in his diary this week for a secretive meeting with the boss of an oil company that wants to undertake deep sea drilling off New Zealand’s coast. The company is controversial; it was party to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico, one of the biggest environmental disasters in history. […]
Con mankey has aged considerably in the last week and it shows so much so that Next week he’ll be having a secret cup of tea with Winston who he will be needing to form a government.
Just another broken promise [lie]par for the course .Any one with shares in race horses look for an increase in funding next year.200,00 children will have to miss out.
mik e. kweewee is a jinx allright.
if he gets another term then the whole weight of bad luck will come down on new zealand.
Spilling outright lies
It is clear that the oil and gas industry tries to minimize negative public perception and financial liability by falsely reporting the amount of oil spilled. It is much the same with fracking, with continued spills showing that self regulation and weak administration has failed to ensure environmental safety…
The victims of the Exxon Valdez have yet to receive one cent in compensation . Exxon just keeps tying it up in litigation.
The victims of pike river are in the same quandary after another broken promise by Nationals Brownoselee &manKey only one person has received the help all New Zealanders contributed to and now its 1st year anniversary for these grieving families.It shows the same level of concern that National had for the safety of the miners.SCF gets $1.6 billion straight away national voters mostly I bet!
I normally believe in polls, especially if they are all saying the same thing, but the latest roy morgan poll has the greens at 13%?????
FROM ROY MORGAN
The latest New Zealand Roy Morgan Poll shows Prime Minister John Key’s National Party set for a clear victory in next Saturday’s New Zealand election with National (53%, unchanged) increasing its lead over the Labour Party (24.5%, down 1.5%). Support for the Green Party (13%, up 1%) has continued to increase while New Zealand First (3%, down 1.5%), ACT NZ (1.5%, up 0.5%) and United Future ( > 0.5%, unchanged) will all struggle to win seats in the new Parliament.
Anyone heard a rumour that National will means test super and (possibly aggregate other superannuation that you might be drawing) – claiming the changed state of the economy as the reason – below the radar at the moment but using the similar argument as they did for GST? Seems to be plausible considering the way Key has dismissed Labour’s plans to make superannuation more affordable.
Remember Key’s remark during the CGT chat that the rich will just find other ways to hide assets.
And this will also fit as the very rich will find ways of hiding assets against Means Testing.
Wouldn’t it be great if National really followed Labour’s lead and got serious about finding ways to deal with those asset cheats or even legal ways of Avoidance..
Possibly the best yet, the recording of Key and Banks having a public conversation is as bad as…a bomb! Yes, a bomb, that thing that blows up buildings and makes people explode…
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10767070
Granted it’s Paul Holmes practically writing a National press release (think he gets paid twice for those pieces? Once by the tories and once by the paper) but still. A bomb?
Key ruined a very useful and accurate word when, in the minds of people, he associated dynamic with lying. It’s going to take some time to find a similar word that is readily understood. Thanks, Key: a knighthood for destructive services to the English language.
keep using the word properly. The Left is too keen to cede languaging to the Right. Key is an asshole.
Actually I think Key has added a new word to the English lexicon – dinamic meaning to lie, as in “dinamic environment’ meaning an environment which facilitates lying or causes/allows one to lie. Princess Anne did a similar thing when she introduced the endearing word “naff” which can be used in the following ways: “‘John Key’s smile is so naff now,” or “John Key’s lies are naff .” or, “I wish John Key would naff off to Hawaii for good.”
Spinsters have quite a record with word destruction. During the nineties “passion” was chucked around quite a bit as a euphemism for greed. And “aspirational” has had its tedious run: since aspiration means breathing as well as wanting more money and prestige (in Keyspeak), I presume these aspirational people want all the oxygen as well.
Fran Wild nails Key, tells him to “harden up”
“Fast forward another 10 years and I am sure the Google cache will still be bringing up stories on how – on the eve of a general election – police targeted New Zealand media on Key’s wishes.
Maybe police should have charged Key for wasting their time.”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10767130
Be interesting to see the format on Monday night TV 3 7-8:30, for the Leaders Debate chaired by John Campbell. Key V Goff.
For me I will watch Key’s body talk and at times try listening with eyes closed to check on the credibility away from the “boyish charm.”
Ah yes thanks, I wasn’t sure when that was on.
Is there any chance at this late stage before the election that the media. or even the Standard for that matter, will get back to the election opening broadcasts – reflecting the various parties’ values and differences in terms of competence, honesty and commitment to a fairer society?
Well we know that the nats will sell off our power companies to multinationals if they get the numbers in the election. That’s the only issue of importance for me. So that’s why I’m giving my party vote to Winston Peters for the first time ever. He is totally opposed to asset sales and most importantly is most effective as an opposition mp.
Labour have been useless in opposition so for the first time ever they don’t get my party vote. I don’t care what other policies nz1 espouse, who gives a shit, I’m desperate. Asset sales is all I’m interested in and Peters unlike Labour knows how to speak to the public via the media and get a coherent message across. Perhaps with Peters’ example then Labour might realise what being opposition MPs actually means.
Interestingly my father has always been a national voter but he is adamantly opposed to asset sales and in a quandary about who to vote for. I would say there are a lot of older voters like him. I advised him to vote for Peters as a tactical move; he agrees.
And do you believe that Peters will remain unalligned to any party. Stick by HIS word ? Voting away from National to a “maybe”, is exactly what National want and a good way to ensure asset sales will go through. The cup a tea was the same strategy.
riding my motorbike down south I saw a hoarding for Maryanne Street as local Labour candidate. Who? I havent heard a word from her as an opposition mp in the past three years. Same with most of the rest of the high list ranking Labour mps. Im guessing Peters hates the nats due to their campaign against him prior to last election and opposes asset sales. Thats enough for me.
Some interesting twists by other National MP’s manipulating statistics this weekend in deceptive ways.
Judith Collins quoted her role as a “spectatular” success and not one piece of investigation into the “7% drop in crime” claim by Key also..So magically this election swinging issue has crime minimalised because Judiths on to it? Boot camp was a vote winner in 2008..?
2010/2011 Negligent acts endangering others up17.2%; SEXUALOFFENCES up 14.9% SEXUALASSAULT up12.3%;MANSLAUGHTER AND DRIVING CAUSING DEATH up 12.9%;ABDUCTION AND KIDNAPPING up 8.4%;DECEPTIVE BUSINESS/GOVERNMENT PRACTICES up 18.2%;
FRAUD AND DECEPTION OFFENCES up 3%; BREACH OF VIOLENCE AND NON-VIOLENCE RESTRAINING ORDERS up; COMMERCIAL/INDUSTRY/FINANCIAL REGULATION up 53.3 %. Biggest rise and more money ever to “white collar crime” at a cost to every citizen.
Public Sector cuts..CYFs struggling to cope with quote Ministers report over 2400 reports of child abuse EVERY WEEK..Police for all crime in this reported year had average of 65% resolution
Why are such misrepresentations unchallenged ?