Strike me ! ya Tory Blaggards, Scurvy Cut-throats and Scurrilous Scabs ! … If I aint just posted this provocative little treatise on me very own Blog !!! … Aye !, but not before sailing her to the South Pacific, scuttling her on the seas of high finance.and rowing ashore every last God-forsaken barrel of rum !!!
Ere’s a heartbreakin’ little quote from me very own Conclusion that pretty well sums up the whole Goddam thing, me Hearties
Prominent National Party operative David Farrar has very successfully managed to sell the MSM a bogus honeymoon meme. This, in turn, has generated a whole series of negative headlines for the Ardern Coalition … reinforcing, in the process, some of National’s key attack lines around the alleged fragility and illegitimacy of the new Government.
Hey swordfish, how about emailing a ‘condensed’ version of your findings to each of the journalists/columnists named and to Farrar himself of course. I say condensed because I doubt the attention span of some would be sufficient to cover the whole post.
Great work. If you want to condense it, can I suggest starting with your section containing the actual figures, then adding the preamble for those who need it. Also maybe explicitly add in NZF figures separately.
Would be great to see how some journos (don’t) react.
To clarify (now that my caffeine levels have been restored), I mean move the numbers section to the beginning.
I also believe you may be giving Farrar too much credit for strategic campaigns masterminded and spread by the Nat leader’s office (as we saw with Dirty Politics) to all their party operatives including the penguin and assorted tame hacks.
Aaarr matey, ’tis not International Talk Like a Pirate day til September, but Go’bli’me if it ain’t fun anytime.
Fuck that was a good post. Like the media suckers busy repeating it, I hadn’t imagined that Farrar would just make shit up to that extent. Thanks for putting in the work on it.
Apparently all pirates, including Arab, Turkish and Chinese pirates spoke with Cornish accents, and the were supposedly all loveable rogues, and not essentially Mongerel Mob prospects on sailing ships.
I was thinking the last time I saw ITLAP Day advertised that there’s probably a movie many decades ago of Treasure Island with someone hamming it up as Long John Silver, and that’s become the default “pirate” in people’s minds, even for those of us who’ve never seen that movie.
What amazes me about the obsession pundits on left blogs have with Farrara ability to craft media narratives is how it’s all rooted in jealously that no one can do it on the left. Despite all the outrage on twitter he generates
Post-election honeymoons are quite common across the world. It seems to me that David Farrar quite successfully appealed to people’s common sense and wishful thinking, with their other biases filling in the gaps, to concoct and highly plausible storyline, which then gets a life of its own and becomes self-perpetuating, self-reinforcing and sometimes even self-fulfilling …
There is a welcome, but sadly rare, investigation into the sale of Aotearoa to wealthy foreigners on Stuff this morning. Entitled Half a million hectares sold, it looks into the privatisation of the high country. The introfuction says.
We’ve paid $65m to get rid of some of our most treasured landscapes, through an obscure process critics have described as a vast wave of privatisation. Wealthy foreigners are snapping up valuable land once owned by the public, who in some cases paid to dispose of it. As gated estates and manicured golf courses spread through our wild places, Charlie Mitchell investigates: Who owns the high country?
It would be great to see continued follow up to this story in the mainstream media as it is an important story. Murray Horton and the Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa have for too long run a solo mission to record and struggle against the take over of our country by rich foreign interests. From the key facts page on their website, there are many startling piece of information many New Zealanders will not know. Here is one.
Foreign investors owned 24% (or $368 billion) of net wealth in New Zealand whose commercial net value totalled $1.5 trillion at March 2015. They owned 27% of private net wealth. This comprised housing, land, other property, plant, equipment and financial assets owned directly or indirectly by households, government, non-profit organisations and foreign investors.
This is another sad story of how New Zealand was looted and pillaged by neo-liberalism.
Key politicians should be brought before a people’s court and tried for treason.
you’ll get silence from the labour as they love giving good land to farmers while turning mountain country into weeds and killing of the high country lifestyle in one sweep, the Clark gov went full throttle at tenure review
i bet they were , they got paid for land that wasn’t theirs got to own top land for cheap then could afford to invest heavily on irrigation etc, and sell for huge capital gain if they wanted, the losers were the rest of us.
This one looks at how Maggy Barry and others pulled the wool over New Zealanders eyes with advertising and thereby put our threatened birdlife even more at risk.
Of course, if Fairfax cared about this issue, it would be a story front and foremost week in, week out, that would shame governments about our conservation. For 9 long years, under John Key, he was given a free hand by the media to loot and pillage this land for his very wealthy puppeteers.
Ask Tourism New Zealand what 100% Pure means and they’ll tell you: it’s not a ‘clean, green’ campaign, but a campaign that delivers a “100% Pure New Zealand experience”.
What it is is 100 per cent pure advertising, and a slogan fit to replace the fertiliser used in the country’s intensive farming.
John Saker has written an interesting piece which has some connection to the article I referred to about the looting of our high country. His story is about the corporate and foreign takeover of our wine industry.
He starts by saying
When I heard last year that Central Otago’s Mount Difficulty had been swallowed up by Foley Family Wines (one of US billionaire Bill Foley’s many companies), I felt a small sadness…….
He coninues
The Mount D sale hammered home how New Zealand’s wine-producing profile is being reshaped right now.
While overseas ownership is on the rise (roughly 40 per cent of the grapes crushed every year are foreign owned), so is the overall corporate share of NZ wine.
You are far too credulous with your rightie-rose-tinted spectacles, Stunned Mullet. Your foreign-owned vinyards that have been ‘reinvested in’ will be paying minimum wages or less, driving our country ever-deeper into the disastrous low-wage economy zone, while the vast majority of benefits go overseas. Your beloved policies will turn us into third-world tenants in our own country. Look to globalist right-wingers for throwaway buzzwords like ‘increased prosperity for all’.
Any link for the Foley Family Wines group paying minimum wage to their employees ?
Any link for the majority of benefits going overseas ?
Do you expect all of these wineries to stay in the original owners hands for ever ?
Good grief before you start bemoaning all and sundry why don’t you ask employees at the actual wineries in question how they are treated and the unions that represent them and then perhaps try to get some input from the senior people in the wine industry in NZ before going straight to the ‘overseas investment is bad mkay’.
But assuming that the new owner/s still employs, produces, sells, exports and the business resides in NZ for tax purposes surely there’s no net difference to the ‘riches’ or lack thereof for the ‘we’.
Big assumptions that have not been borne out over NZ history, in all categories you mention.
But to be kind to you, let’s go with all of them.
There are many smart New Zealanders who raise up a business out of nothing, and risk everything absolutely everything they have to do it, then in time sell.
Some of those who cash up reinvest in other businesses. And good on them.
But too many cash up in New Zealand.
The net effect is the businesses stay very small within NZ, or are subsumed. Wealth doesn’t grow, and is too highly concentrated.
Whereas what New Zealand needs more of is ambitious owners who are not satisfied, are prepared to form and protect a brand, don’t cash out, grow a business requiring more local shareholders, forming a broader pool of those who get the real money: profit in the form of dividends.
Neither National nor Labour have been able to support that over two decades.
So instead we have the pathetic necessity of the government having to shore up low wages with Working For Families increases. Which IMHO is no way to run a successful economy. And not enough rich people. And too many wage slaves. And of course far too many poor children.
Ok understand your position and I agree with much of what you say to a large extent – but from what I understand in this particular case the group who bought this vineyard and other vineyards in their group have taken private smallish vineyards and maintained the NZ flavour, workforce and managment and are reinvesting in the vineyards and have also allowed public investment.
We also have the perverse situation when individuals do just as you say – I’m thinking of people like George Fistonich of Villa Maria wines they’ll be accused by many commenters here of being rich pricks, 1%’rs etc etc.
Let’s face it Stunned, anything for the benefit of the general populace of New Zealander and not foreign owners or governments is bizarre to the right isn’t it mate.
Yes, seriously, right-wingers call that “investment.” The theory is that the guys the foreigners bought out will now spend that money on growing new NZ businesses, rather than taking an extended overseas vacation and buying some property and a new boat. Theory may not of course be born out in practice.
…rather than taking an extended overseas vacation and buying some property and a new boat.
And when that happens they say that it’s really great that the rich person has created some jobs while completely ignoring the fact that many more jobs have been lost and that the wages paid are going down.
NZ has been for sale, against the wishes of the people, since the neo-liberal implementation by the 4th Labour Government. And Labour still refuses to listen to the people and listens to the ideologues instead.
All these folks who are buying up NZ horticulture are not stupid.
They know the god profits they get here can be milked and extracted from this country with out any ‘real’ taxing of profit.
We the taxpayer of NZ are being milked for all its worth to these overseas “investors” they are in it for profits not to ‘enrich us all here on our very low wage economy.
Wine industry uses massive levels of water irrigation also, so folks need to remember the cost to our economy here too.
I’ve tracked the issue down. I usually access The Standard through an Opera browser on my phone.
I found one of the boxed Xs on my phone and navigated to the same post on my PC and found a smiley face. I went through the generic browser on my phone to find, the same smiley face.
So it seems to be a mobile Opera issue where it presents “smiley faces” as a small vertical box with a X in it.
Phew! I thought people had secret language you have to be “in” to use more advanced than smiley faces. 😀
It’s really scary when one is driving up the valley and a campervan is in front of you driving on the wrong side of a straight piece of road while approaching a blind corner.
Flashed my lights and leaned on the horn flat out, he pulled over (on the wrong side), I indicated to his Mrs to roll down the window, called out (nicely) that we drive on the left in NZ, they responded with a friendly wave, then seconds later a car towing a trailer came around the blind corner.
Something needs to be done about educating overseas visitors about our road rules. A big bright sticker on the dash reading keep left would be a good start. Not much scares me, but that sure did.
Cinny…if it was a rental campevan…get the rego and phone the rental company and kick up the appropriate amount of shit. Give them dates. times, location. They will have the renter’s cellphone number on record and will contact them…I understand threats/gentle reminders ensue. I have done this…
OTOH…having traveled hither and thither, on and off the tarseal, to all corners of the Rohe I’d safely bet that the predominant centre -line crossers are locals.
And…the more off road capable the vehicle looks, the more likely it is to be over the centre line avoiding the rough on the edge of the road.
Will do if it happens again, was so flabbergasted at the time I didn’t think about it. Good advice.
Locals are centre line crosses especially up the valley with the narrow roads (me included), blind corners being the exception, but dang, driving on the wrong side, that’s a def not a local thing.
I once hitchhiked in a camper van where the driver took photos of the river while driving over a one lane bridge. Not stopping, but actually driving, camera up to the face kind of thing. I guess the rails would have stopped us going over, but a big drop if we did.
Apparently insurance records show most accidents are caused by locals (proportionally). But I do think that there is a thing whereby if someone is used to driving on the right and they get into a fast moving situation their body memory is going to have to be overridden to prevent them from doing the wrong things. That combined with being on holiday is not a good mix.
And yep, locals who drive too fast or have vehicles that make them feel bullet proof, definitely an issue too.
That’s a good idea, but a shit design. Needs a little louvre screen over the top or something so the driver can’t see the sticker arrow pointing towards them.
“Forget the educating – just don’t let them drive.”
Today I’m cleaning up our 22 year old honda odyssey (with 275,000 ks on the clock) with the view to sell to the highest bidder. As a trade in…$500-1000 if we smile very nicely to a dealer. Advertise in the backpacker car arena and these wee 4 wheel drive puppies can go for at least $2000 with a current wof and rego.
We really need the $$$, so a sale to an young overseas driver is on the cards…and this doesn’t particularly worry me, as unsurprisingly the younger foreign travelers have much less of a problem adapting to driving on the left.
And they tend to drive these smaller, older vehicles.
The real problem, and I’m betting again, lies with the older drivers….30 years and up…who simply forget, or revert to drive right when stressed.
And these older overseas travelers are the ones who can afford to rent larger campervans or newer, higher powered cars.
(Hopefully I’ll get the opportunity to do a bit of driver and camper education when we sell….)
I think the problem is bit deeper than that Rosemary.
From my own experience we spent three months driving around Europe on the right (in our mid-20s) without a mishap or scare. Except for driving the wrong way down a one-way street in Delft but that had nothing to do with being on any side of the road!
Three decades later we spent some days driving in Italy and a week driving in Spain again with no mishaps. Got tooted at in Italy once and Spain once because in two situations I wasn’t sure who had right of way. We may have had one occasion where I started off on the wrong side after a stop but luckily my wife was alert.
So older people can drive safely in foreign lands as well as younger folk. But I think we were okay because at every stage we were very aware we were in somone else’s country and needed to follow their rules and wanted desparately not to have an embarassing crash and injure anyone.
In other words we were sh*t scared of doing anything wrong.
I think many of our tourists just don’t seem to give a sh*t. (Or they do but it’s by dumping in scenic places but that’s another story as we know).
I think we’re dealing with a shift in a whole lot of values, lack of empathy and responsibility, a sense of entitlement etc, that we thought were shared, but now aren’t.
It’s not just overseas drivers who do this – there is a poster on here who admits to doing it on purpose. To avoid the possibility of a filling rock from memory.
More than 677,000 users interacted with 50,000 supposedly Russian linked accounts tweeting the same message about the election at roughly the same time,
But it’s all a big nothing.
/
Consistent with our commitment to transparency, we are emailing notifications to 677,775 people in the United States who followed one of these accounts or retweeted or liked a Tweet from these accounts during the election period. Because we have already suspended these accounts, the relevant content on Twitter is no longer publicly available.
[…]
We have also provided Congress with the results of our supplemental analysis into activity believed to be automated, election-related activity originating out of Russia during the election period. Through our supplemental analysis, we have identified 13,512 additional accounts, for a total of 50,258 automated accounts that we identified as Russian-linked and Tweeting election-related content during the election period, representing approximately two one-hundredths of a percent (0.016%) of the total accounts on Twitter at the time. However any such activity represents a challenge to democratic societies everywhere, and we’re committed to continuing to work on this important issue.
How about we work on what we agree on – that trump is bad for working people. Rather than go with this divisive approach.
The Russian elites are as bad as the U.S elites. So let’s leave this stuff to investigators and wonks, and get on with helping our friends in the US fight this anti-work racist puke.
MORE: Coroner's office says specific cause of Petty's accidental death was "multisystem organ failure due to resuscitated cardiopulmonary arrest due to mixed drug toxicity (fentanyl, oxycodone, temazepam, alprazolam, citalopram, acetylfentanyl, and despropionyl fentanyl).— NBC News (@NBCNews) January 20, 2018
As a fan of his work I am also sad.
However how on earth can anyone call that “accidental drug overdose”?
How did he get hold of all those drugs? And why was he taking such a lethal cocktail? Didn’t anyone vet them or care what he was ingesting?
Am also a great fan and was very sad to hear of his death. But just as an aside as to the lethal cocktail of drugs and noting that he was suffering from a number of ailments..
I was in hospital for a couple of weeks recently following an accident and while there a man was admitted to our orthopaedic ward as there no beds left in the medical wards in a very bad state. He was on 29! different medications. All prescribed by his doctor, and administered to him by his wife a nurse who worked at the hospital. The first task was to wean him of all those medications monitoring his BP and and heart rates etc until he was stabilized.
But really – one would think that health professionals would know that mixing medications can have serious side effects.
They should, but it’s rich person and performance medicine combined. Michael Jackson was similar, and then there’s sports team doctors.
I was on a course with a bunch of folks about ten years back, and one of the others was an ER doctor. Some of the others asked if he was into sports medicine (because they were sporty) and his response was that he couldn’t do that to people. Had a sports figure turn up in ER with massive rectal bleeding because the team doctor had the player on antiinflammatories at high doses for so long that it bust his guts.
When physical performance goals conflict with the health of the patient, the person paying the cheque will usually find someone willing to try to balance that conflict in favour of performance and hope the patient doesn’t fall off the surfboard.
But 29 different pills! the poor guy was swallowing something different almost ever other hour! He was at deaths door when they admitted him.
My daughter had an experience a while back with an antibiotic and something else which I cant remember. She was getting much worse rather than better so I looked up the two prescriptions on line to see that there could be a reaction between them. I rang our doctor to see which she should cease. Ooops yes you are right! Dropping off the second medication had almost immediate positive results.
Yeah, it can be difficult enough looking for conflicts with just a few meds.
But when you get chronic pain, that gives a combo of slow release and maybe something to have at really bad times. Then you have surgeries on top, and the pit crew who managed the surgery might not have coordinated with the GP about who’s prescribing what. And then you have one that’s kind of the same as the other but not as good, but it does let/help you sleep, so that’s for night time. And if he was on the road and saw local docs, there’d be no coordination at all.
if you do find clashes or contra-indications that the doc has missed…say something…unless the doc has an ego problem you’ll be thanked.
It is imperative that people do their own research, double check, get second opinions and if you feel that the medical staff are not on to it…kick up bobsey…
When y’all having nothing better to do, spend a wee time here…
You really do need to be your own advocate, and learn what your on. Especially if you have or develop a chronic condition.
I would like to endorse Rosemary McDonalds comments and encourage people to look stuff up. New Ethicals is in plan(ish) english, a major plus by health advocates has been to get the medical profession to supply information in plan english. It’s no longer a hidden language.
If you do an internet search, check the source , check it’s peer reviewed, and check it’s legitimate – because there is still some idiots pushing ill informed quackery out there.
The Wellington Phoenix is a soccer team, isn’t it?
Someone at RNZ National doesn’t seem to realize.
RNZ National news, 5 p.m., Saturday 20 January 2018
Last item on the sports news in today’s bulletin was this surprising announcement:
…. and the Wellington Phoenix will play the Newcastle Jets tonight in an Australian Football League match, beginning at 9:30.
I’m sure I’m not the only one to be astonished that the Phoenix, and also by the sound of it, the Newcastle Jets, have abandoned the A-League and started playing in the Australian Football League.
What makes it more surprising is that the Australian Football League doesn’t start its 2018 season for another couple of months.
Radio New Zealand National: does NOT sound like us.
The Hyundai A league identify themselves [sic] as a football league
It’s a football league just like Super Rugby is, and just like the AFL is. But it’s known as a soccer league, and that’s what Australians call it. It doesn’t call itself the Australian Football League because that name has already been taken by what used to be the Victorian Football League.
….but feel free to revel in your pedantry if it makes you feel better.
Pedantry? Is the A-League the AFL or is it not? Try to be honest, now.
Actually, it’s mostly the yanks who tried to call football “soccer”. NZ and aus followed, but now we’re going with what the rest of the world calls it.
Yes, it can cause confusion, but if you’re going to play football then don’t use your bloody hands.
Actually, it’s mostly the yanks who tried to call football “soccer”.
It’s an English term, and it was used to distinguish Association football (codified in 1863) from Rugby football (codified in 1871). And the “Yanks” don’t try to call it soccer, they do call it soccer.
NZ and aus followed,
Along with Canada, Japan, Korea, and a good deal of the rest of the world.
but now we’re going with what the rest of the world calls it.
The rest of the world calls it soccer. Where there’s any doubt, it’s called soccer. When people like your good self scold others for using the word “soccer”, you’re simply following a directive from Sepp Blatter to stop calling it soccer and always call it football.
Yes, it can cause confusion, but if you’re going to play football then don’t use your bloody hands.
Goalkeepers? Heading? Throwing the ball in from touch? No kind of football is purely played with the feet.
Any other types of “football” where touching the ball with your hand is a foul?
Sure, other places also call football “soccer”. But the official name is football, always has been. It was founded as the “football association”, not a fucking soccer association.
Whatever, dude. If you want to follow american cultural norms, that’s your business.
Most of the forward movement is picking it up and carrying it, no?
No. There is only one way to propel the ball forward: that is to kick it. Yes it can be carried, too, but unlike in American football or rugby league, the kick is ever an option.
It’s “cuddleball”.
Unwittingly, perhaps, you’ve imitated perfectly the sneering putdowns of soccer that used to be so dire in this country, and that still, thanks to halfwits like Max Kellerman and Michelle Beadle on ESPN, are rife in the United States.
Drop goal. Is that the one where they hold it in their hands, then dropkick it?
The only type of scoring in rugby that doesn’t involve hands in some way is when literally everyone else stops playing and watches one dude kick.
There’s only one player in football who can hold the ball when the game is actually progressing and the ball is in the bounds of the game. And even then the space in which that is legal is heavily restricted. Even a football tackle is done with the feet.
Drop goal. Is that the one where they hold it in their hands, then dropkick it?
At last he shows some knowledge of football! Well done!
The only type of scoring in rugby that doesn’t involve hands in some way is when literally everyone else stops playing and watches one dude kick.
Fair point. Like soccer, hands are also used in rugby football. You’re onto it!
There’s only one player in football who can hold the ball when the game is actually progressing and the ball is in the bounds of the game.
Wrong. Any and all thirty players in football can hold the ball when the game is actually in progress.
And even then the space in which that is legal is heavily restricted.
In soccer, when the goalkeeper has the ball in his hands he can’t be shouldered or touched in any way. He’s protected absolutely, in the same way a kicker is in the NFL. (Now THERE’s a game which should not be called football; I wonder if you’re making a similar quixotic effort to police the language of Americans. Have you tried signing on to Deadspin?)
Even a football tackle is done with the feet.
Yes, when the ball is being dribbled, it is. But unfortunately, dribbling is almost always stymied because the laws of the game allow an opponent to dive on the ball and kill it—just like the goalkeeper does in association football.
and, lol, I ain’t you’re buddy, guy.
I told you before about “lol”. You haven’t got enough cred. to carry that off without coming across as a fool.
So to recap, the game you call football is primarily played with the hands holding the ball, and the game primarily played with the feet controlling the ball should not be called football.
In football, the ball is not merely dribbled – it is passed forward and back, and intercepted solely with the feet. Not in rugby (sorry, “cuddleball”).
Been called “Soccer” in New Zealand for over fifty years that I know of. Since I played it as a five year old.
Of course, if you want to be the language police?
What are you smoking, KJT? Only morons like Tony Veitch use that infantile word. It’s called “rugby” or “football”. It’s almost never called “rugby union”, “rugger” or “union”. And, as already mentioned, only the doltish and the puerile use the infantile “footy.”
Yeah – but what can you expect from Aussies!
Anyway they have 4 different types of “Footie” – just as well the American game hasn’t caught on there – so it can all be a bit confusing
The sandflys were swarming to day. They had 3 plays going at the same time lol like water off a ducks back. I could have gone for a check mate today but that risked a confrontation and they will minupulat that situation to what ever story they could dream up. Eco Maori say at least they won’t be harresing our Mokos and locking them up while they are pissing in the wind trying to play Me.
I think they should pay me with the crime rates in OUR beautiful COUNTRY NZ drop because of the ECO MAORI effect ie informaing the people about the realitys of the justice system of NZ and the west. Ana to kai
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Most economists agree that a currently slowing economy could do with some stimulus – and they would also agree that there is no shortage of infrastructure projects which could be brought to productive fruition with help from that stimulus. In view of the current practice of sub-contracting economic policy decisions ...
I did an interview on the TVNZ Breakfast Show about the situation in Hong Kong. I tried to frame the issue as a collective action problem between two sides with very different end games. The video is here. Because of time constraints we could not discuss the fact that the ...
Image Credit: Wild Rose College A new study reporting the ranges of values for kidney and liver parameters in a healthy population is being actively misrepresented by anti-fluoride campaigners. The Fluoride Action Network’s (FAN) latest ...
Image Credit: Wild Rose College A new study reporting the ranges of values for kidney and liver parameters in a healthy population is being actively misrepresented by anti-fluoride campaigners. The Fluoride Action Network’s (FAN) latest ...
AN OPEN LETTER FOR SIGN ON BY ORGANISATIONS AND MOVEMENTS ACROSS THE WORLD, ALLIED IN THE FIGHT AGAINST INEQUALITY. This letter was released at the UN Political Forum on 9 July, where the Sustainable Development Goal on inequality was reviewed. The purpose of the letter is to call out the ...
We asked a young gay science student and critic of trans ideology and the trans activists’ assault on women’s and gay rights to outline his views on Redline. Thanks to him for his article. by Cian Ó Catháin Gender identity ideology (Gender ID) is ripping through western society at full ...
The Environment Committee is currently hearing submissions on the Zero Carbon Bill, and Stuff is reporting on the submissions. Today, they're covering yesterday they heard from "NZ" Steel:NZ Steel has told MPs it may be forced to close with the loss of thousands of jobs if changes aren't made to ...
Students are striking against climate change on September 27. And this time, they're asking everyone to join them:Students are taking to the streets, beaches and parks on 27 September, and we're inviting everyone to join us. That's right, this is an intergenerational issue, and you're all invited to put pressure ...
Peter McKenzie has a piece on Newsroom this morning about how local body politics is awash with property developer cash. 70% of all the donations in the 2016 Wellington mayoral election came from property developers. And its pretty obvious what they want in exchange:That’s particularly important in local government, according ...
Source: Unknown, twitter user Recently, I wrote a (relatively) short paper titled as above, to explore what self-determination could like in a practical sense. Maybe I’m a bit of an international trade truther or something, but I absolutely believe trade is at the heart of achieving peace and self-determination. Since ...
In the 1960s, after I had graduated with a first-class Oxford postgraduate law degree, I joined the British Foreign Office as the top entrant of my year. There, I worked for a couple of years on European affairs and was eventually posted to the Embassy in Brussels. After this exposure ...
Alone, Alone. All, All Alone: Will it be a good or a bad thing, when humanity’s bright blue spacecraft is stricken by the civilisation-destroying problem of Climate Change, that no Huston Control will be standing-by to rescue the crew?“WE HAVE A PROBLEM, HUSTON.” These were the words used by the ...
I heard a 45 minute interview with Monica Lewinsky talking to TED’s Chris Anderson on BBC Radio 4 over the weekend, and have listened to it another two times out walking. I recommend it. Highly. Man, I am so impressed with how this woman has integrated her life experiences and ...
Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff, The Coddling of the American Mind: how good intentions and bad ideas are setting up a generation for failure, London, Penguin, 2019, 352pp; reviewed by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff’s book The Coddling of the American Mind is a timely book, whose ...
When the Justice Committee reported back on the Administration of Justice (Reform of Contempt of Court) Bill, free speech advocates breathed a sigh of relief. As originally introduced, the Bill reitered the ancient offence of "scandalising the court" - basicly, a special sedition law protecting judges from criticism. The select ...
Eighteen months ago, the government promised to strengthen the Bill of Rights Act, by explicitly affirming the power of the courts to issue declarations of inconsistency and requiring Parliament to formally respond to them. Since then - crickets. Which raises the obvious question: are they actually going to do this, ...
Back in March, the Ministry of Justice conducted a public consultation exercise on whether to hold a review of the Official Information Act. 285 people submitted on it. Now, Stuff has trawled through those submissions, and the case for reform is strong:The Justice Ministry asked Kiwis what they thought was ...
National's prisoner voting ban has gone down as one of the worst laws in New Zealand history. Passed after a farcical debate (including this farcial speech from ACT MP Hilary Calvert), it has subsequently been found to be inconsistent with the Bill of Rights Act by the High Court, Court ...
Divided Loyalties: Can the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, be relied upon? That’s what the boys and girls at Foggy Bottom and the Pentagon needed to be reassured about. Because, from the perspective of Washington, it’s looking more and more like Jacinda Ardern and her Labour Party comrades are getting ready ...
This handy Queer Theory Glossary is from thetranswidow.com In case you’ve had trouble keeping up with the spate of new queer theory terms, here’s a handy glossary for your reference. Queer – A straight person with an interesting haircut. Non-binary/genderqueer – A chubby young female, typically 16-28, who has ...
by Daphna Whitmore US social psychologist and author Jonathan Haidt spoke on 1 August in Auckland to a crowd of around one thousand people. He is best known for his bookThe Coddling of the American Mind which examines the new climate of trigger warnings and acute sensitivity of Gen Z. ...
What an extraordinarily depressing experience it is to be compelled to watch, at 12,000 miles distance, the contortions and machinations of the British political class as they set about their determined attempt to overturn the decision taken by the British people that they wish to leave the European Union. The ...
The winter grazing issue is becoming a highly sensitised one that I hope will not become so politicised that it delays solutions and results in the suicides of some very stressed farmers.Winter grazing has hit the headlines after a determined campaign, including the release of a video of some very ...
by Don Franks Way back when British guitar virtuoso Joe Brown was a beginning session guy he got to back a visiting American artist. Young Joe was an able technician but had yet to learn some points of professionalism. Part way through “Five foot high and rising” Joe tired of ...
Since scientists started studying climate change, they have warned that it will reduce food production. And now, its happening:The climate crisis is damaging the ability of the land to sustain humanity, with cascading risks becoming increasingly severe as global temperatures rise, according to a landmark UN report compiled by some ...
The Abortion Legislation Bill just passed its first reading, 94-23. Its a far bigger margin than I expected, even allowing for the Winston factor, and it reflects the overwhelming support there is in this country for reform. but that support isn't a new thing - it has existed for literally ...
The Justice Committee has called for submissions on the Referendums Framework Bill. The Bill does what it says on the label - establishes a framework for referenda. Things you may want to address in your submission: Whether the bill should apply only at the 2020 election, or whether it should ...
The Thompson and Clark / MBIE spying scandal continues to result in fallout, this time in the form of a report on the implementation of MBIE's "Operation Exploration", its internal operation to enforce the infamous Anadarko Amendment which criminalised protests against the oil industry. MBIE's enforcement operation was tainted by ...
So, Winston Peters is defending his last-minute demand for a referendum on abortion by claiming he was "blindsided" by the bill. Really? The bill is a government bill. It has been working through the cabinet approval process since December last year. As part of that process, NZ First was consulted, ...
The Green Part has been accused of lack of transparency in two recent situations. The first was the claimed media lockdown during Green's annual conference and the second was Julie Ann Genter's refusal to release a letter she had sent to Phil Twyford.I do get frustrated when journalist's succumb to ...
The Green Part has been accused of lack of transparency in two recent situations. The first was the claimed media lockdown during Green's annual conference and the second was Julie Ann Genter's refusal to release a letter she had sent to Phil Twyford.I do get frustrated when journalist's succumb to ...
Last week, the ongoing democracy protests in Hong Kong saw a pro-Hong Kong student assaulted at the University of Auckland. The Chinese consulate in Auckland followed this up with a press release "express[ing] its appreciation to the students for their spontaneous patriotism" - effectively condoning the assault and inciting further ...
Only those who close their eyes and minds to the evidence can still be in any doubt that we are facing a climate change crisis. The evidence is conclusive that the world is not only getting inexorably hotter, but also that the rising temperatures are creating a number of other ...
Rural communities are wailing about forestry conversions "taking land out of production" and putting it into locking up carbon. Its driven purely by economics: there's more money and lower costs in carbon than in sheep or beef, and if carbon prices rise, there'll be more net money than dairy even. ...
This week, the government introduced its (underwhelming) Abortion Legislation Bill. And despite having negotiated the text of the bill through the coalition process, Winston Peters is now suggesting that he will demand a referendum on it:NZ First leader Winston Peters has hinted that his party may only support the Government's ...
Blowing-Up The House: Is Winston Peters planning to put himself at the head of all those New Zealanders who refuse to countenance the Coalition Government caving-in to the Ihumatao protesters? The most effective way of doing this would be to issue Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern with an ultimatum. If she ...
Last night the police dramatically incresed their numbers at Ihumātao, shoving over protestors and threatening them with arrest. Despite police talk about the need to maintain "public order" and prevent a "breach of the peace", there appeared to be absolutely no justification for this: the protest camp is, was, and ...
A Cult, that many actors, politicians, and those with a low IQ are joining is sweeping across civilisation, with one main intention – ending humans reign on Earth. Starting as a well meaning though deeply flawed theory, that the Earth was warming due to mankind emitting greenhouse gasses, it was ...
Today's abortion reform announcement is just the latest in a long line of disappointing decisions or outright failures from the Labour government. The 90-day law. KiwiBuild. A capital gains tax. Climate change. Every time they make one of those decisions, we hope for better next time. No repeal of the ...
The Greens used their party conference over the weekend to push for a rent-to-own scheme, where people would be able to work towards home ownership by renting from the government. Its a sensible policy, and one which could make a real difference to home ownership rates. But its also basicly ...
by Daphna Whitmore Over the past fortnight, thousands of people have come to the Ihumātao land protest in South Auckland. On 23 July police prepared to evict a few dozen people who had maintained the encampment at Ihumātao for the past three years. As hundreds of supporters arrived the ...
The following article is translated from an article in Lutte de Classe (Class Struggle), the magazine of the French revolutionary workers’ organisation Lutte Ouvrière (Workers Struggle). The United States’ blacklisting of the Chinese telecommunications company Huawei, which took shape in Google’s ban on Huawei using its systems on its phones, marks a ...
There is a military phrase: “Full spectrum dominance”. It refers to the all-encompassing policy to dominate across all spheres of war. Lately, that has come to include the internet – in other words, cyberwarfare initiatives. That is in addition to land, sea, air and the like. Now, if ...
The IMF issued a Report on the state of the Economy as it is at present. Some of it points out significant issues that certainly warrant attention, but that we know already exist. Some of it is very much tied to the very obvious context of global concerns, that everyone ...
I'm glad to see the Lib Dems won.I had a moment of terror yesterday thinking that the Conservatives might cling on, due to a combination of Johnson's elevation to the premiership, the apparent uselessness of the Lib Dem candidate (who had failed to be elected in other constituencies) and the ...
. . Current Leader of the National Party, Simon Bridges gave the usual rah-rah speech to the Loyal & Faithful in Christchurch today (27 July). With National’s party polling and his own personal popularity sliding steadily in the polls, Mr Bridges has not much left to reverse his fortunes. ...
Those concerned for Langridge’s wellbeing say they hope he’ll change his mind when he sees the ocean coming. The protester who has vowed to stand outside Parliament every day until the Government announces a climate emergency says he accepts that his quest will most likely end in drowning. Ollie Langridge, ...
Opportunities to dodge tax are shrinking with the completion of a new tax agreement with Switzerland, Revenue Minister Stuart Nash announced today. Mr Nash and the Swiss Ambassador David Vogelsanger have today signed documents to update the double tax agreement (DTA). The previous DTA was signed in 1980. “Double tax ...
Small Business Minister Stuart Nash says the report of the Small Business Council will help maintain the momentum for innovation and improvements in the sector. Mr Nash has thanked the members of the Small Business Council (SBC) who this week handed over their report, Empowering small businesses to aspire, succeed ...
Extra Police officers are being deployed from Northland to Southland with the graduation of a new wing of recruits from the Royal New Zealand Police College. “The graduation of 78 constables today means that 1524 new constables have been deployed since the government took office,” says Police Minister Stuart Nash. ...
Ongoing drug-test sanctions contradicts Government’s rhetoric on drugs Reports that two-thirds of beneficiaries who fail drug tests are still having their benefit sanctioned contradicts the Government’s so-called health approach to drugs. Auckland ...
An Auckland Homelessness Collective is optimistic extra government support for sustaining tenancies signals a commitment to a multi-pronged approach to tackling homelessness. ...
Wanaka-based trust ONE New Zealand will be hosting six days of talks, workshops and hands-on activities with local and national experts to educate, inspire and enable grassroots action towards a sustainable future. ...
In last week’s episode of Politics in Full Sentences, David, Brooke and Ruwan discussed why Jacinda Ardern has been lecturing our friends overseas, why Andrew Little called ACT's three strikes law “fascism”, whether he will give prisoners the right to ...
“Community safety must be the paramount consideration when releasing an offender, and the only way for that to be achieved is for the offender to acknowledge their crimes.” ...
“District Health Boards are failing to foster a culture of distributed clinical leadership, despite its demonstrated benefits to the sector,” says Ian Powell, Executive Director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (ASMS). ...
Ratepayers around Auckland were spitting out their morning coffees listening to Phil Goff’s incredible claims on breakfast radio today that this election is about ‘honesty’ and that Aucklanders can trust him on his promises. Auckland Ratepayers’ ...
The Hōkai Rangi plan for reducing Māori reoffending announced today fails to fulfil the Waitangi Tribunal’s recommendations, says justice organisation People Against Prisons Aotearoa. Minister Kelvin Davis announced the plan this morning, which aims ...
Waatea News at the invitation of the North Island Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency will exclusively broadcast the next Māori-led Inquiry into Oranga Tamariki starting today at 1pm. ...
Staff at the Ministry of Social Development say they are enthusiastic about the government’s $54 million investment in housing the homeless, with many describing it as a welcome change. ...
Today posters have gone up outside ANZ branches across New Zealand to expose ANZ’s sponsorship of an exclusive oil industry group, ‘The Petroleum Club’. The satirical posters play on ANZ’s recent ad campaigns, replacing the banks’ tagline ‘healthy ...
Imagine a country where children look forward to walking or cycling to school, parents arrive home safely, and the journeys we take for work or pleasure do more than leave us alive or uninjured, they also improve our lives. This is happening now in countries ...
Sunday, 18 August, 2019 - Environmental groups and well known New Zealanders are preparing to deliver a 55,000 strong petition to the steps of Parliament tomorrow, calling on the Government to protect the world’s smallest dolphin. ...
The Government’s proposed rescue plan must be strengthened because it is the last chance to save Māui dolphins from extinction and secure the future for Hector’s dolphins, Forest & Bird says. ...
Simon Shepherd: Roads, schools, hospitals, prisons, the building blocks that keep society functioning. And we don't have enough. It's called the infrastructure deficit and will be the focus of a major conference this coming week. The man charged with ...
New Zealand has been issued a stark challenge from Pacific leaders to dramatically upscale its action to address climate breakdown, Oxfam says, after a clear rallying cry from nations at this week’s Pacific Islands Forum. ...
Support for Recreational Dope Going ‘Up in Smoke’ Family First NZ is welcoming yet another poll showing plummeting support for legalising cannabis in New Zealand. The Horizon Research poll shows support for legalising has plummeted from 60% last ...
The prospect of ending wider cannabis prohibition looks increasingly unlikely. Over the last nine months, the percentage of New Zealanders who would vote for legalising the personal use of cannabis has declined at a near linear rate of around 10% per ...
“It’s disappointing that news out of the United States of hospitalisations linked to illegal street drugs is somehow seen as relevant to the New Zealand vaping scene,” says Ben Pryor, Director of Alt New Zealand – the largest Kiwi-owned vaping company. ...
The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) welcomes the successful passing of Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill through parliament, by the New Zealand Government. ...
Today’s news from the Electoral Commission has provided the party with the clarity it was seeking around use of the word “Coalition” being used as the brand name of the party. ...
A recently released Otago University study has provided further evidence that low-quality housing is a significant problem in Aotearoa. This has prompted the Chief Executive of the Association of Consulting Engineers (ACENZ) Paul Evans to question “why ...
With the BNZ-Business NZ PMI signaling manufacturing is contracting , the Government needs to seriously consider tax relief, says the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union . ...
The New Zealand Maori Council has called for an overhaul of the Public Services executive ranks as the Corrections debacle shows mis-management and incompetence at the highest level. Matthew Tukaki, Executive Director of the New Zealand Maori Council has said ...
Findings from the 2018 New Zealand Consumer Survey have been released and the results are in; 48 per cent of respondents consider their purchases based on how ethically employees are treated. ...
The responsibility for the fact that Westland Milk Products is now in the hands of an overseas conglomerate 25% owned by the Chinese government can be laid fair and square at our government's doorstep. ...
As Fonterra is projecting multi million dollar losses for the second year in a row, it is clear the writing is on the wall for dairy as more and more Kiwis turn to plant milks. 22nd August is International Plant Milk Day and there is now a different plant ...
The $65,000 granted to Interislander so it can install electric vehicle chargers on its ferries is the most absurd waste of money yet to be delivered by the “Low Emissions” vehicle fund, says the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union. ...
Wellingtonians will have the chance to hear international child rights experts from Ireland, Scotland and Samoa speak at the Making Child Rights Real in Aotearoa New Zealand seminar to be held in the city on Wednesday 21 August. ...
Paul Evans, Chief Executive of the Association of Consulting Engineers (ACENZ), is advocating a balanced approach to the development of productive land. ...
CPAG (Child Poverty Action Group) says that new research from the University of Otago provides a solid foundation for why the Government must not delay instating a comprehensive Warrant of Fitness for tenanted homes in Aotearoa-New Zealand, and ...
The Independent Police Conduct Authority has found that an officer drove carelessly during a pursuit and that this was the primary cause of a collision with a motorcycle that injured the rider. ...
Responding to the Prime Minister’s commitment of $150 million in funding for climate change response in the Pacific, New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke says: “It is no secret that many Pacific nations lack serious oversight when it ...
AUT research not only shows an increase in political affiliation, but that candidates affiliated to a central political party are more likely to win seats in Auckland local government. ...
On the 23rd of August School Strike NZ will join Ollie Langridge in his 100th day of sitting outside of New Zealand Parliament calling for the government to declare a climate emergency. School Strike 4 Climate NZ also demand that Parliament acknowledge ...
You have stood up for what is fair, and I am sure you will speak for over 7 million people who have been muted and rendered voiceless in Indian occupied Kashmir for more than a 10 days now. I am writing to bring to your notice the plight of Kashmiri ...
In the last 10 months alone, 11 petitions have been delivered to Parliament calling for medicines to be funded by Pharmac. Today, another nine petitions have been launched by Patient Voice Aotearoa (PVA) members asking that life changing, saving and extending ...
When we were first working to get Miscanthus approved for import into New Zealand, the Environmental Risk Management Authority (ERMA) waived the fee for their work because they thought that having Miscanthus in New Zealand was so very much in the ...
PHARMAC’s recent decision to fund two additional drugs from December this year has been widely welcomed by patients and the general public alike. The drugs, Kadcyla and Ibrance, are used in the treatment of advanced lung and breast cancers and will ...
Animal rights organisation SAFE is urging the Government to include experts and advocates from outside the agriculture industry on its newly announced winter crop grazing taskforce. ...
The Government’s plans to prohibit housing on ‘productive’ farmland will serve as yet another regulatory tax on housing, and is a shameful breach of Jacinda Ardern’s promise to fix housing supply, says the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union . ...
The latest round of the Ethnic Communities Development Fund opens today, supporting projects that grow the leadership and capability of ethnic groups, improve cultural understanding, and ensure our ethnic communities are a vibrant and celebrated part ...
The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union is warning of the dangers of hiking excise tax, in response to calls from a former Prime Minister for stronger action on alcohol harm. Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke says, “It seems inevitable ...
Is a second attempt at merging parts of Stuff and NZ Herald owner NZME planned, with a bid for political intervention to help the media industry? Tim Murphy reports. ...
How the NZ Superfund has drummed up $15 trillion to put pressure on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube giants over livestreaming following the Christchurch terror attacks. ...
Kiwi Jamie Greene has established herself as one of the fittest women on the globe in the fast-growing gruelling sport of CrossFit. And she wants to thank her runner sister for helping drive her. ...
Newsroom is delighted to welcome the University of Otago as our third university partner for the IdeasRoom section exploring issues of importance to society and the country’s future. ...
Who should decide how many more tourists fly into Queenstown and Wanaka? Journalist and former district councillor, Cath Gilmour, argues local residents should, not the airlines. ...
Phil Goff has kept a low profile compared with his headline-grabbing opponent in the early stages of the Auckland mayoral campaign. Hayden Donnell heads along to see if the mayor can win back the spotlight at his campaign launch.The Spinoff local election coverage is made possible thanks to ...
Backed by businessman Eric Watson and launched in a blaze of publicity, online trader Fashbae disappeared almost as quickly as it arrived. Now its founder is traversing the globe in a jeep. Business editor Maria Slade tries to keep up with events.It had it all. A suave multi-millionaire investor and ...
Pacific Media Watch Newsdesk Rioting broke out in Manokwari, West Papua, today as local people – mostly university students – protested against racial abuse of Papuan students in East Java, reports TheJakarta Post. The protesters blocked a number of major streets in the city this morning, cutting down ...
By Ben Bilua in Suva Multimedia skills and innovation are key to adapting to the changing media landscape, said US academic Professor Debora Wenger as newsmakers around the world continue to grapple with challenges arising from the transformation of technology and social media. Speaking to journalists at a regional ...
The new RBNZ seems to crave the limelight and be known for advocacy of new causes, and that has not impressed macroeconomics professor Robert MacCulloch. ...
The prime minister won't meet with Ihumātao protesters before Thursday - the deadline given by the group to stop them marching to her Auckland electorate office. ...
Cabinet ministers will discuss possible law changes to what mail can be received and sent by prisoners, after the accused Christchurch gunman was able to send mail to supporters. ...
The Catholic and Anglican churches are still considering quashing legal agreements that may prevent abuse survivors from giving evidence to the inquiry investigating historical abuse in care. ...
The new joint from the team behind one of Wellington’s favourite craft beer bars is dedicated to minimal-intervention, organic wine – and more exciting things are coming to the heritage building it’s housed in.Before the Cadbury factory opened in Dunedin in 1930, New Zealanders ate Cadbury chocolate made in England. ...
Alex Casey chats to Bree Tomasel about hosting Celebrity Treasure Island NZ, farting in the ZM studio and going viral on the regular. The most important thing you need to know about Bree Tomasel is not the fact that she peed her pants during Celebrity Treasure Island NZ, but the glee ...
Dr Bryce EdwardsAnalysis by Dr Bryce Edwards – The election race is on. The nominations process for local government positions has now closed, and the political campaign is officially underway. But does the public care? Will many of us even vote for any of the various mayoral or council ...
At Eden Park on Saturday night, the Wallabies were on the receiving end of a ruthless players’ revenge, writes Scotty StevensonThe rain came. It always seems to at Eden Park, just as the Wallabies warm up on the pitch, dreaming of ending a drought. It came from the west, the ...
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.Today’s content by Dr Bryce Edwards.Local government Michael Fallow (Stuff): Your council – what’s its job description? Dileepa Fonseka and ...
Protesters occupying land at Ihumātao will begin a four-hour hikoi to Mt Albert on Thursday to present a petition calling on the Prime Minister to visit the land. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jamie Walvisch, Lecturer, Monash University This morning an Extinction Rebellion protester was arrested after hanging from a rope over the William Jolly Bridge in Brisbane, blocking all lanes to peak hour traffic. And earlier this month in Brisbane, more than 70 climate ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Jobson, Senior Lecturer in Clinical Psychology, Monash University Many of us enjoy writing in a diary, reading autobiographies or nostalgically reflecting with others about past times. Why is remembering our past so important? Are there downsides? And what can we do ...
Roll Red Roll is a brutal, painfully illuminating documentary on the Steubenville High School rape case, a shocking crime that made headlines worldwide. Emily Writes reviews. This review discusses rape and sexual violenceAugust 11, 2012: two teenage boys rape an unconscious teenage girl as two of their peers watch and ...
By RNZ Pacific Tuvalu’s Prime Minister has condemned the Australian Prime Minister’s conduct at last week’s Pacific Islands Forum, calling Scott Morrison’s attitude “unfortunate” and “neo-colonial,” and questioning Australia’s future in the 18-member body. In an interview with RNZ on Sunday, Enele Sopoaga also threatened to pull Tuvaluan labour from ...
The second hui of the Māori-led inquiry into Oranga Tamariki takes place in Hamilton today. Newsroom, in partnership with Radio Waatea, are broadcasting it live from 1pm. ...
Prolific, award-winning Palmerston North poet Paula Harris somehow manages to be stroppy and properly vulnerable all at once. Here, she writes about her first slam competition – and why she cried all the way home. I am old enough to have given birth to most of the people here.Sure, there’s a ...
High speed rail links between cities could play a massive role in revitalising regional New Zealand, says a visiting transport infrastructure expert. Professor Andrew McNaughton spoke to Alex Braae. Imagine commuting from Hamilton to Auckland, and it only taking an hour to get there. It’s a vision of how the right ...
On the good days, riding a bike is the best. But in Auckland there aren’t nearly enough of those days, and unless decision makers take urgent action, that’s not going to change.This piece originally appeared on Bike AucklandMy first bike crash in central Auckland happened on Symonds Street. I was ...
It's not since 1989 that a mayoralty campaign in the southern city has been so unpredictable - a record 14 candidates have put their names forward. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Mills, Hon Senior Lecturer, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Sydney On the morning of the last Monday in April, 2019, federal election officials opened the doors of more than 500 pre-poll voting centres around Australia, and waited for ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Veronica Alfano, Research Fellow, Australian Catholic University Memorising poetry was once common in classrooms. But it has, for the most part, gone out of style. There are good reasons for this. Memorisation can clash with creativity and analytical thought. Rote learning can ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Darren Paul Fisher, Head of Directing, Department of Film, Screen and Creative Media, Bond University What do J.J. Abrams, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Shonda Rhimes, David Lynch, Aaron Sorkin, Donald Glover, Jenji Kohan, Jordan Peele, Tina Fey, and Joss Whedon have in common? They ...
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Mayors launch bids to return in Auckland and Wellington, Hamilton’s skyline could change significantly, and support for cannabis legalisation plummets in poll.Two incumbent mayors have launched their re-election campaigns over the weekend, with a bigger fight on their hands than ...
MediaWorks has been lobbying the Government to turn TVNZ 1 into a non-commercial channel to help stem its own financial bleeding. Frustrated, and getting nowhere, it’s decided to change tack. ...
Open Mike 20/01/2018 
by Philip Ferguson This weekend just past marks the 50th anniversary of Woodstock, the most famous of the great 1960s music festivals. It was held over the weekend (Friday-Monday) of August 15-18, 1969. Woodstock was a highpoint of the US ‘counter-culture’, and also the beginning of its end. When exploring the ...16 hours ago
Last week, Australia sabotaged the Pacific Forum by opposing action on climate change. Their Deputy Prime Minister followed that up by saying that Pacific Peoples could always pick Australian fruit - just as they had done in the era of blackbirding. And now, that arrogant, tone-deaf approach has drawn a ...16 hours ago
In the previous two posts, I laid out the context and set the theoretical framework to answer a question: whether indigenous economies should take the LEAP. This final part outlines ways to conceive of practicing mana motuhake within the existing legal system by carving out special jurisdictions that enable Indigenous ...2 days ago
Fully Informed? Labour’s 2017 promises raised expectations that were little short of revolutionary. Unfortunately, they were never adequately shaken through the fiscal sieve. The hard economic work was not done – and it shows. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s critics have long complained that her grasp of the way the New ...2 days ago
You cannot expect to pound communities into the ground day after day, year after year, decade after decade and just expect them to take it lying down. There’s a point at which the place will explode. And we’re faced with some very big ructions on both sides of the Atlantic ...3 days ago
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Going Down? Once truth and propaganda become fused in the minds of one’s followers, debate and discussion become redundant. If one’s opponents are all outrageous liars, then engaging with them in any way is pointless. Rather than waste its time, a political party should, instead, target all its messages at ...4 days ago
We need to fundamentally reframe our systems settings to address the drivers causing and underpinning inequality; structural change in systems especially financial. The Equality Network Hui was held in Wellington on 27 June 2019. The hui covered important topics such as child poverty; a living wage; taxation; public health; mental ...5 days ago
The views-per-page for some of my recent postings:Depressing, isn't it? Provide thoughtful and wise commentary on the mainstream of British politics and no-one notices. Make a passing reference to Tommy DICKHEAD Robinson in a thread title and you get hundreds of views. Write something about anti-Semitism and you get another ...6 days ago
The government has announced plans to move the Treaty of Waitangi and other taonga to a new site. Great news! So where are they going? Right next to the old one:The new plan will see a new 22,000-square-metre archive built on the former site of Defence House - the former ...6 days ago
Back in June, StatsNZ went public about a project to track population data on an hourly level by using people's cellphones. It wasn't as bad as it initially looked - they were receiving no individual data, only counts by suburb - but there was still a huge consent problem, so ...6 days ago
Most economists agree that a currently slowing economy could do with some stimulus – and they would also agree that there is no shortage of infrastructure projects which could be brought to productive fruition with help from that stimulus. In view of the current practice of sub-contracting economic policy decisions ...6 days ago
I did an interview on the TVNZ Breakfast Show about the situation in Hong Kong. I tried to frame the issue as a collective action problem between two sides with very different end games. The video is here. Because of time constraints we could not discuss the fact that the ...6 days ago
Image Credit: Wild Rose College A new study reporting the ranges of values for kidney and liver parameters in a healthy population is being actively misrepresented by anti-fluoride campaigners. The Fluoride Action Network’s (FAN) latest ... 6 days ago
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Strike me ! ya Tory Blaggards, Scurvy Cut-throats and Scurrilous Scabs ! … If I aint just posted this provocative little treatise on me very own Blog !!! … Aye !, but not before sailing her to the South Pacific, scuttling her on the seas of high finance.and rowing ashore every last God-forsaken barrel of rum !!!
Farrar’s Honeymoon Scam
https://subzpsubzp.blogspot.co.nz/
Ere’s a heartbreakin’ little quote from me very own Conclusion that pretty well sums up the whole Goddam thing, me Hearties
Least ways, that’s how I sees it, says I.
Good post. Mind if we cross post these from time to time?
No Probs, micky
Though this particular one is probably slightly out of date (really should’ve finished it weeks ago), not to mention a little overly-long & repetitive
I need to be just a little more ruthless with my editing
Hey swordfish, how about emailing a ‘condensed’ version of your findings to each of the journalists/columnists named and to Farrar himself of course. I say condensed because I doubt the attention span of some would be sufficient to cover the whole post.
Excellent job from an excellent pundit.
Great work. If you want to condense it, can I suggest starting with your section containing the actual figures, then adding the preamble for those who need it. Also maybe explicitly add in NZF figures separately.
Would be great to see how some journos (don’t) react.
To clarify (now that my caffeine levels have been restored), I mean move the numbers section to the beginning.
I also believe you may be giving Farrar too much credit for strategic campaigns masterminded and spread by the Nat leader’s office (as we saw with Dirty Politics) to all their party operatives including the penguin and assorted tame hacks.
You be cross posting that treasure chest, arrrhhh to be sure.
ummm, why are we talking like pirates?
Aaarr matey, ’tis not International Talk Like a Pirate day til September, but Go’bli’me if it ain’t fun anytime.
Fuck that was a good post. Like the media suckers busy repeating it, I hadn’t imagined that Farrar would just make shit up to that extent. Thanks for putting in the work on it.
Apparently all pirates, including Arab, Turkish and Chinese pirates spoke with Cornish accents, and the were supposedly all loveable rogues, and not essentially Mongerel Mob prospects on sailing ships.
I was thinking the last time I saw ITLAP Day advertised that there’s probably a movie many decades ago of Treasure Island with someone hamming it up as Long John Silver, and that’s become the default “pirate” in people’s minds, even for those of us who’ve never seen that movie.
Robert Newton.
Funnily enough, the origin of the pirate voice came up somewhere a week or two back – probably a QI rerun lol
Excellent analysis swordfish! Very interesting read. And your analysis of voting preference compared to family income is telling!
Nice work…..the length would deter some but none of it superfluous.
Have you sent a copy to all the ‘journalists’ named?
Farrar’s Honeymoon Scam
Actual link for posterity.
What amazes me about the obsession pundits on left blogs have with Farrara ability to craft media narratives is how it’s all rooted in jealously that no one can do it on the left. Despite all the outrage on twitter he generates
In this case, “craft media narratives” is a euphemism for “lying”.
People on the left can certainly lie. We just try not to, because it’s wrong.
Nailed it. Well done.
Post-election honeymoons are quite common across the world. It seems to me that David Farrar quite successfully appealed to people’s common sense and wishful thinking, with their other biases filling in the gaps, to concoct and highly plausible storyline, which then gets a life of its own and becomes self-perpetuating, self-reinforcing and sometimes even self-fulfilling …
There is a welcome, but sadly rare, investigation into the sale of Aotearoa to wealthy foreigners on Stuff this morning. Entitled Half a million hectares sold, it looks into the privatisation of the high country. The introfuction says.
It would be great to see continued follow up to this story in the mainstream media as it is an important story. Murray Horton and the Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa have for too long run a solo mission to record and struggle against the take over of our country by rich foreign interests. From the key facts page on their website, there are many startling piece of information many New Zealanders will not know. Here is one.
This is another sad story of how New Zealand was looted and pillaged by neo-liberalism.
Key politicians should be brought before a people’s court and tried for treason.
Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa
http://canterbury.cyberplace.co.nz/community/CAFCA/
you’ll get silence from the labour as they love giving good land to farmers while turning mountain country into weeds and killing of the high country lifestyle in one sweep, the Clark gov went full throttle at tenure review
yeah, but it’s not like farmers weren’t really into it either given they got given huge tracts of public land for really good prices.
i bet they were , they got paid for land that wasn’t theirs got to own top land for cheap then could afford to invest heavily on irrigation etc, and sell for huge capital gain if they wanted, the losers were the rest of us.
yep. Something just turned up on twitter about this (or more, the net loss to taxpayers), might see if I can get a post up.
what you say is essentially so although the previous Labour Gov. did belatedly stop the process in 2007…only for Key to reinstate it upon election
“But not long after the reviews were stopped, the John Key-led National Party came to power, and in 2009 restarted the process.”
https://interactives.stuff.co.nz/2018/01/half-a-million-hectares-sold/
An excellent article in Stuff today.
Kiwis need to realise 100 per cent pure is 100 per cent propaganda.
This one looks at how Maggy Barry and others pulled the wool over New Zealanders eyes with advertising and thereby put our threatened birdlife even more at risk.
Of course, if Fairfax cared about this issue, it would be a story front and foremost week in, week out, that would shame governments about our conservation. For 9 long years, under John Key, he was given a free hand by the media to loot and pillage this land for his very wealthy puppeteers.
The final story from Stuff to catch my eye this morning is titled Are our wine regions at risk?
John Saker has written an interesting piece which has some connection to the article I referred to about the looting of our high country. His story is about the corporate and foreign takeover of our wine industry.
He starts by saying
He coninues
Aotearoa is not for sale.
Yeah, right.
Great to see the ongoing support for and investment in the NZ wine industry.
So you didn’t read the article.
Yes read it earlier today – great to see the ongoing support for and investment in the nz wine industry.
So you call buying the whole thing out and taking the profits overseas “investment”? A bit rose-tinted? Others might call it economic imperialism.
So the profits are being taken out overseas, no reinvestment into the wine industry in NZ ? I call bullshit on your throwaway buzzwords.
You are far too credulous with your rightie-rose-tinted spectacles, Stunned Mullet. Your foreign-owned vinyards that have been ‘reinvested in’ will be paying minimum wages or less, driving our country ever-deeper into the disastrous low-wage economy zone, while the vast majority of benefits go overseas. Your beloved policies will turn us into third-world tenants in our own country. Look to globalist right-wingers for throwaway buzzwords like ‘increased prosperity for all’.
Any link for the Foley Family Wines group paying minimum wage to their employees ?
Any link for the majority of benefits going overseas ?
Do you expect all of these wineries to stay in the original owners hands for ever ?
Good grief before you start bemoaning all and sundry why don’t you ask employees at the actual wineries in question how they are treated and the unions that represent them and then perhaps try to get some input from the senior people in the wine industry in NZ before going straight to the ‘overseas investment is bad mkay’.
We’re not going to get rich unless we own the business
So we’re nationalising the wine industry now ?
Bizarre notion but I’m willing to listen to the argument.
Nope not proposing nationalizing anything let alone the wine industry.
It’s pretty simple:
We will stay a low-wage and low-innovation economy unless we own the businesses.
Who’s ‘we’.
“We” of New Zealand.
ah OK understood.
But assuming that the new owner/s still employs, produces, sells, exports and the business resides in NZ for tax purposes surely there’s no net difference to the ‘riches’ or lack thereof for the ‘we’.
Big assumptions that have not been borne out over NZ history, in all categories you mention.
But to be kind to you, let’s go with all of them.
There are many smart New Zealanders who raise up a business out of nothing, and risk everything absolutely everything they have to do it, then in time sell.
Some of those who cash up reinvest in other businesses. And good on them.
But too many cash up in New Zealand.
The net effect is the businesses stay very small within NZ, or are subsumed. Wealth doesn’t grow, and is too highly concentrated.
Whereas what New Zealand needs more of is ambitious owners who are not satisfied, are prepared to form and protect a brand, don’t cash out, grow a business requiring more local shareholders, forming a broader pool of those who get the real money: profit in the form of dividends.
Neither National nor Labour have been able to support that over two decades.
So instead we have the pathetic necessity of the government having to shore up low wages with Working For Families increases. Which IMHO is no way to run a successful economy. And not enough rich people. And too many wage slaves. And of course far too many poor children.
Ok understand your position and I agree with much of what you say to a large extent – but from what I understand in this particular case the group who bought this vineyard and other vineyards in their group have taken private smallish vineyards and maintained the NZ flavour, workforce and managment and are reinvesting in the vineyards and have also allowed public investment.
We also have the perverse situation when individuals do just as you say – I’m thinking of people like George Fistonich of Villa Maria wines they’ll be accused by many commenters here of being rich pricks, 1%’rs etc etc.
Stunned @1.30pm wrote,
“Bizarre notion”
Let’s face it Stunned, anything for the benefit of the general populace of New Zealander and not foreign owners or governments is bizarre to the right isn’t it mate.
Yes, seriously, right-wingers call that “investment.” The theory is that the guys the foreigners bought out will now spend that money on growing new NZ businesses, rather than taking an extended overseas vacation and buying some property and a new boat. Theory may not of course be born out in practice.
And sending the profits to the Caymans
And when that happens they say that it’s really great that the rich person has created some jobs while completely ignoring the fact that many more jobs have been lost and that the wages paid are going down.
I though you and Ed were anti anything to do with alcohol are you now arguing for more local owners and growth. ?
Do you have any evidence of many jobs have being lost and the wages paid are going down in this case ?
It’s a general trend.
Wages have decreased and to counter the loss of real work we’ve seen the rise of Bullshit Jobs.
So that’s a no …good oh.
Specificity isn’t necessary as we have the general trend.
But you already knew that which is why you for specific data related to the wine industry. It’s a distraction from what’s actually happening.
In other words, reality is proving you wrong again and so you’re trying to hide from it by ignoring all relevant information.
🙄
NZ has been for sale, against the wishes of the people, since the neo-liberal implementation by the 4th Labour Government. And Labour still refuses to listen to the people and listens to the ideologues instead.
100% Draco,
All these folks who are buying up NZ horticulture are not stupid.
They know the god profits they get here can be milked and extracted from this country with out any ‘real’ taxing of profit.
We the taxpayer of NZ are being milked for all its worth to these overseas “investors” they are in it for profits not to ‘enrich us all here on our very low wage economy.
Wine industry uses massive levels of water irrigation also, so folks need to remember the cost to our economy here too.
Can someone tell me what the vertical X box thing means please.
This might be a bit cryptic. I’m referring to the framed X symbol used occasionally by posters on The Standard.
Still a bit cryptic I’m afraid. Can you link to an example?
😳
I’ve tracked the issue down. I usually access The Standard through an Opera browser on my phone.
I found one of the boxed Xs on my phone and navigated to the same post on my PC and found a smiley face. I went through the generic browser on my phone to find, the same smiley face.
So it seems to be a mobile Opera issue where it presents “smiley faces” as a small vertical box with a X in it.
Phew! I thought people had secret language you have to be “in” to use more advanced than smiley faces. 😀
heh, there are a few geeks around who occasionally do some things with comments the rest of us can’t. Glad you got it sorted.
Clean green New Zealand.
100 % pure.
Yeah right.
Don’t swim on the Kapiti Coast this weekend.
I used to know a time when we all had a clean green country when the population was half what it is now at around 2.4 Million.
I am sad at 74 yrs old how our beautiful country has now suffered so badly.
It’s really scary when one is driving up the valley and a campervan is in front of you driving on the wrong side of a straight piece of road while approaching a blind corner.
Flashed my lights and leaned on the horn flat out, he pulled over (on the wrong side), I indicated to his Mrs to roll down the window, called out (nicely) that we drive on the left in NZ, they responded with a friendly wave, then seconds later a car towing a trailer came around the blind corner.
Something needs to be done about educating overseas visitors about our road rules. A big bright sticker on the dash reading keep left would be a good start. Not much scares me, but that sure did.
+1
A sticker is a good idea.
Cinny…if it was a rental campevan…get the rego and phone the rental company and kick up the appropriate amount of shit. Give them dates. times, location. They will have the renter’s cellphone number on record and will contact them…I understand threats/gentle reminders ensue. I have done this…
OTOH…having traveled hither and thither, on and off the tarseal, to all corners of the Rohe I’d safely bet that the predominant centre -line crossers are locals.
And…the more off road capable the vehicle looks, the more likely it is to be over the centre line avoiding the rough on the edge of the road.
Humans.
Will do if it happens again, was so flabbergasted at the time I didn’t think about it. Good advice.
Locals are centre line crosses especially up the valley with the narrow roads (me included), blind corners being the exception, but dang, driving on the wrong side, that’s a def not a local thing.
I once hitchhiked in a camper van where the driver took photos of the river while driving over a one lane bridge. Not stopping, but actually driving, camera up to the face kind of thing. I guess the rails would have stopped us going over, but a big drop if we did.
Good idea about the photos/contacting.
Apparently insurance records show most accidents are caused by locals (proportionally). But I do think that there is a thing whereby if someone is used to driving on the right and they get into a fast moving situation their body memory is going to have to be overridden to prevent them from doing the wrong things. That combined with being on holiday is not a good mix.
And yep, locals who drive too fast or have vehicles that make them feel bullet proof, definitely an issue too.
Rentals have all sorts of keep left reminders splashed over the steering wheel/dash/instrument panel.
https://resources.stuff.co.nz/content/dam/images/1/n/e/c/3/a/image.related.StuffLandscapeSixteenByNine.620×349.1ncazw.png/1513055027503.jpg
I can’t make out what that is. Is it a sticker? Or a screen?
Poor man’s heads up display – a reflective sticker on the dash.
It’s a sticker on the dashboard designed to reflect on the windscreen so that the driver can see it without losing visibility.
ok, so the arrow going the wrong way is ignorable, the person driving just sees something on the left so they know they have to stay on that side?
Yes.
That’s a good idea, but a shit design. Needs a little louvre screen over the top or something so the driver can’t see the sticker arrow pointing towards them.
Forget the educating – just don’t let them drive.
“Forget the educating – just don’t let them drive.”
Today I’m cleaning up our 22 year old honda odyssey (with 275,000 ks on the clock) with the view to sell to the highest bidder. As a trade in…$500-1000 if we smile very nicely to a dealer. Advertise in the backpacker car arena and these wee 4 wheel drive puppies can go for at least $2000 with a current wof and rego.
We really need the $$$, so a sale to an young overseas driver is on the cards…and this doesn’t particularly worry me, as unsurprisingly the younger foreign travelers have much less of a problem adapting to driving on the left.
And they tend to drive these smaller, older vehicles.
The real problem, and I’m betting again, lies with the older drivers….30 years and up…who simply forget, or revert to drive right when stressed.
And these older overseas travelers are the ones who can afford to rent larger campervans or newer, higher powered cars.
(Hopefully I’ll get the opportunity to do a bit of driver and camper education when we sell….)
Good luck Rosemary.
I think the problem is bit deeper than that Rosemary.
From my own experience we spent three months driving around Europe on the right (in our mid-20s) without a mishap or scare. Except for driving the wrong way down a one-way street in Delft but that had nothing to do with being on any side of the road!
Three decades later we spent some days driving in Italy and a week driving in Spain again with no mishaps. Got tooted at in Italy once and Spain once because in two situations I wasn’t sure who had right of way. We may have had one occasion where I started off on the wrong side after a stop but luckily my wife was alert.
So older people can drive safely in foreign lands as well as younger folk. But I think we were okay because at every stage we were very aware we were in somone else’s country and needed to follow their rules and wanted desparately not to have an embarassing crash and injure anyone.
In other words we were sh*t scared of doing anything wrong.
I think many of our tourists just don’t seem to give a sh*t. (Or they do but it’s by dumping in scenic places but that’s another story as we know).
I think we’re dealing with a shift in a whole lot of values, lack of empathy and responsibility, a sense of entitlement etc, that we thought were shared, but now aren’t.
Some tourist tipped his campervan on Baldwin st. His only comment was that the insurance guy wasn’t going to be happy. Didn’t give a shit.
deport
Forget the educating – just don’t let them drive.
Love it! Problem solved.
All the New Zealanders I see crossing the centreline and passing, on blind corners.
Confiscate their car. Problem solved.
It’s not just overseas drivers who do this – there is a poster on here who admits to doing it on purpose. To avoid the possibility of a filling rock from memory.
Finally, one rag gets it right about Trump’s physical.
https://archive.li/1dPRU/7540e78381f56da637c0ab6aaa6569948c74231e.png
😆
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On shit-holes 🙂
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Outstanding! Made my day.
Thanks Bill, that was so awesome.
🙂 🙂 🙂
More than 677,000 users interacted with 50,000 supposedly Russian linked accounts tweeting the same message about the election at roughly the same time,
But it’s all a big nothing.
/
Consistent with our commitment to transparency, we are emailing notifications to 677,775 people in the United States who followed one of these accounts or retweeted or liked a Tweet from these accounts during the election period. Because we have already suspended these accounts, the relevant content on Twitter is no longer publicly available.
[…]
We have also provided Congress with the results of our supplemental analysis into activity believed to be automated, election-related activity originating out of Russia during the election period. Through our supplemental analysis, we have identified 13,512 additional accounts, for a total of 50,258 automated accounts that we identified as Russian-linked and Tweeting election-related content during the election period, representing approximately two one-hundredths of a percent (0.016%) of the total accounts on Twitter at the time. However any such activity represents a challenge to democratic societies everywhere, and we’re committed to continuing to work on this important issue.
https://blog.twitter.com/official/en_us/topics/company/2018/2016-election-update.html
How about we work on what we agree on – that trump is bad for working people. Rather than go with this divisive approach.
The Russian elites are as bad as the U.S elites. So let’s leave this stuff to investigators and wonks, and get on with helping our friends in the US fight this anti-work racist puke.
Oh fuck, this makes me sad.
https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/music/tom-petty-died-accidental-drug-overdose-coroner-family-say-n839381
As a fan of his work I am also sad.
However how on earth can anyone call that “accidental drug overdose”?
How did he get hold of all those drugs? And why was he taking such a lethal cocktail? Didn’t anyone vet them or care what he was ingesting?
Read the family statement.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DT8WYMVWkAYQMfv.jpg
Am also a great fan and was very sad to hear of his death. But just as an aside as to the lethal cocktail of drugs and noting that he was suffering from a number of ailments..
I was in hospital for a couple of weeks recently following an accident and while there a man was admitted to our orthopaedic ward as there no beds left in the medical wards in a very bad state. He was on 29! different medications. All prescribed by his doctor, and administered to him by his wife a nurse who worked at the hospital. The first task was to wean him of all those medications monitoring his BP and and heart rates etc until he was stabilized.
But really – one would think that health professionals would know that mixing medications can have serious side effects.
They should, but it’s rich person and performance medicine combined. Michael Jackson was similar, and then there’s sports team doctors.
I was on a course with a bunch of folks about ten years back, and one of the others was an ER doctor. Some of the others asked if he was into sports medicine (because they were sporty) and his response was that he couldn’t do that to people. Had a sports figure turn up in ER with massive rectal bleeding because the team doctor had the player on antiinflammatories at high doses for so long that it bust his guts.
When physical performance goals conflict with the health of the patient, the person paying the cheque will usually find someone willing to try to balance that conflict in favour of performance and hope the patient doesn’t fall off the surfboard.
But 29 different pills! the poor guy was swallowing something different almost ever other hour! He was at deaths door when they admitted him.
My daughter had an experience a while back with an antibiotic and something else which I cant remember. She was getting much worse rather than better so I looked up the two prescriptions on line to see that there could be a reaction between them. I rang our doctor to see which she should cease. Ooops yes you are right! Dropping off the second medication had almost immediate positive results.
Yeah, it can be difficult enough looking for conflicts with just a few meds.
But when you get chronic pain, that gives a combo of slow release and maybe something to have at really bad times. Then you have surgeries on top, and the pit crew who managed the surgery might not have coordinated with the GP about who’s prescribing what. And then you have one that’s kind of the same as the other but not as good, but it does let/help you sleep, so that’s for night time. And if he was on the road and saw local docs, there’d be no coordination at all.
Shouldn’t have bloody happened.
Y”eah, it can be difficult enough looking for conflicts with just a few meds.?
Shouldn’t be.
You’ll find a copy of this…
http://www.mims.co.nz/MIMSNewEthicals.aspx
…on most hospital wards and medical centres.
Ask to borrow a copy and look shit up.
if you do find clashes or contra-indications that the doc has missed…say something…unless the doc has an ego problem you’ll be thanked.
It is imperative that people do their own research, double check, get second opinions and if you feel that the medical staff are not on to it…kick up bobsey…
When y’all having nothing better to do, spend a wee time here…
http://www.hdc.org.nz/decisions–case-notes/commissioner's-decisions
You really do need to be your own advocate, and learn what your on. Especially if you have or develop a chronic condition.
I would like to endorse Rosemary McDonalds comments and encourage people to look stuff up. New Ethicals is in plan(ish) english, a major plus by health advocates has been to get the medical profession to supply information in plan english. It’s no longer a hidden language.
If you do an internet search, check the source , check it’s peer reviewed, and check it’s legitimate – because there is still some idiots pushing ill informed quackery out there.
The Wellington Phoenix is a soccer team, isn’t it?
Someone at RNZ National doesn’t seem to realize.
RNZ National news, 5 p.m., Saturday 20 January 2018
Last item on the sports news in today’s bulletin was this surprising announcement:
I’m sure I’m not the only one to be astonished that the Phoenix, and also by the sound of it, the Newcastle Jets, have abandoned the A-League and started playing in the Australian Football League.
What makes it more surprising is that the Australian Football League doesn’t start its 2018 season for another couple of months.
Radio New Zealand National: does NOT sound like us.
The Hyundai A league identify themselves as a football league but feel free to revel in your pedantry if it makes you feel better.
The Hyundai A league identify themselves [sic] as a football league
It’s a football league just like Super Rugby is, and just like the AFL is. But it’s known as a soccer league, and that’s what Australians call it. It doesn’t call itself the Australian Football League because that name has already been taken by what used to be the Victorian Football League.
….but feel free to revel in your pedantry if it makes you feel better.
Pedantry? Is the A-League the AFL or is it not? Try to be honest, now.
https://www.a-league.com.au
Actually, it’s mostly the yanks who tried to call football “soccer”. NZ and aus followed, but now we’re going with what the rest of the world calls it.
Yes, it can cause confusion, but if you’re going to play football then don’t use your bloody hands.
Actually, it’s mostly the yanks who tried to call football “soccer”.
It’s an English term, and it was used to distinguish Association football (codified in 1863) from Rugby football (codified in 1871). And the “Yanks” don’t try to call it soccer, they do call it soccer.
NZ and aus followed,
Along with Canada, Japan, Korea, and a good deal of the rest of the world.
but now we’re going with what the rest of the world calls it.
The rest of the world calls it soccer. Where there’s any doubt, it’s called soccer. When people like your good self scold others for using the word “soccer”, you’re simply following a directive from Sepp Blatter to stop calling it soccer and always call it football.
Yes, it can cause confusion, but if you’re going to play football then don’t use your bloody hands.
Goalkeepers? Heading? Throwing the ball in from touch? No kind of football is purely played with the feet.
Any other types of “football” where touching the ball with your hand is a foul?
Sure, other places also call football “soccer”. But the official name is football, always has been. It was founded as the “football association”, not a fucking soccer association.
Whatever, dude. If you want to follow american cultural norms, that’s your business.
In rugby football, you cannot move the ball forward except by kicking it. It’s football.
Most of the forward movement is picking it up and carrying it, no? And they have that weird group hug thing too.
It’s “cuddleball”.
Most of the forward movement is picking it up and carrying it, no?
No. There is only one way to propel the ball forward: that is to kick it. Yes it can be carried, too, but unlike in American football or rugby league, the kick is ever an option.
It’s “cuddleball”.
Unwittingly, perhaps, you’ve imitated perfectly the sneering putdowns of soccer that used to be so dire in this country, and that still, thanks to halfwits like Max Kellerman and Michelle Beadle on ESPN, are rife in the United States.
lol
So how is a try scored again?
And how’s a drop-goal scored exactly?
Word of advice, buddy: drop the “lol” habit. It does as much for your credibility as your assertion that “the yanks” invented the word “soccer.”
Drop goal. Is that the one where they hold it in their hands, then dropkick it?
The only type of scoring in rugby that doesn’t involve hands in some way is when literally everyone else stops playing and watches one dude kick.
There’s only one player in football who can hold the ball when the game is actually progressing and the ball is in the bounds of the game. And even then the space in which that is legal is heavily restricted. Even a football tackle is done with the feet.
and, lol, I ain’t you’re buddy, guy.
Drop goal. Is that the one where they hold it in their hands, then dropkick it?
At last he shows some knowledge of football! Well done!
The only type of scoring in rugby that doesn’t involve hands in some way is when literally everyone else stops playing and watches one dude kick.
Fair point. Like soccer, hands are also used in rugby football. You’re onto it!
There’s only one player in football who can hold the ball when the game is actually progressing and the ball is in the bounds of the game.
Wrong. Any and all thirty players in football can hold the ball when the game is actually in progress.
And even then the space in which that is legal is heavily restricted.
In soccer, when the goalkeeper has the ball in his hands he can’t be shouldered or touched in any way. He’s protected absolutely, in the same way a kicker is in the NFL. (Now THERE’s a game which should not be called football; I wonder if you’re making a similar quixotic effort to police the language of Americans. Have you tried signing on to Deadspin?)
Even a football tackle is done with the feet.
Yes, when the ball is being dribbled, it is. But unfortunately, dribbling is almost always stymied because the laws of the game allow an opponent to dive on the ball and kill it—just like the goalkeeper does in association football.
and, lol, I ain’t you’re buddy, guy.
I told you before about “lol”. You haven’t got enough cred. to carry that off without coming across as a fool.
So to recap, the game you call football is primarily played with the hands holding the ball, and the game primarily played with the feet controlling the ball should not be called football.
In football, the ball is not merely dribbled – it is passed forward and back, and intercepted solely with the feet. Not in rugby (sorry, “cuddleball”).
lol
The fool invokes foolishness.
Been called “Soccer” in New Zealand for over fifty years that I know of. Since I played it as a five year old.
Of course, if you want to be the language police?
no shortage of recruits to the force in this thread…
You can singlehandedly try to change the long used, and standard NZ word “Soccer” if you wish. Good luck with that.
And Rugby was “Rugby” or “footy”.
“Football”is the anachronism in New Zealand .
What are you smoking, KJT? Only morons like Tony Veitch use that infantile word. It’s called “rugby” or “football”. It’s almost never called “rugby union”, “rugger” or “union”. And, as already mentioned, only the doltish and the puerile use the infantile “footy.”
Yeah – but what can you expect from Aussies!
Anyway they have 4 different types of “Footie” – just as well the American game hasn’t caught on there – so it can all be a bit confusing
The word is football.
And there’s a fair case for saying that the American game is NOT football, as this idiotic article demonstrates…
https://deadspin.com/5823549/dear-chris-kluwe-when-we-want-the-punters-opinion-well-ask-for-it-we-wont
You use the word “football”if that makes you happy.
Aussies go to the “Footie”
No, they go to the football. Only the puerile and the stupid—like Tony Veitch and All Black flanker Sam Cane—use that infantile word for football.
On refection you’re absolutely right Moz – send a letter to RNZ demanding the immediate execution of the employee in question.
As is evident by the sloppiness of that item, standards of accuracy matter little at RNZ.
I think a protest in person is vital Moz – get the placard ready and turn up outside their offices bright and early Monday morning.
Great idea, Mullet. Thanks.
Shush….they’re easily confused so don’t tell them…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gridiron_Australia#Member_leagues_and_teams
The sandflys were swarming to day. They had 3 plays going at the same time lol like water off a ducks back. I could have gone for a check mate today but that risked a confrontation and they will minupulat that situation to what ever story they could dream up. Eco Maori say at least they won’t be harresing our Mokos and locking them up while they are pissing in the wind trying to play Me.
I think they should pay me with the crime rates in OUR beautiful COUNTRY NZ drop because of the ECO MAORI effect ie informaing the people about the realitys of the justice system of NZ and the west. Ana to kai