Understandable if rich ole Bill owned the network, perhaps. Just weird. "The same number of people believe the pandemic is being used to force people into getting vaccinations."
Probably mean them commies in govt. SloMo & his suits, who they recently elected. "A new Essential poll has revealed the proportion of people who believe coronavirus conspiracy theories. One in five people believe the media and government are exaggerating the death toll to scare the population. Two in five think the virus was engineered and released from a lab in the Chinese city of Wuhan".
Still, I doubt anyone ever accused Australians of being rational. They seem to be becoming a lot more Australian than usual, though.
"The same number of people believe the pandemic is being used to force people into getting vaccinations."
Tell me, do you believe that an eventual covid19 vaccine should be entirely voluntary, without any kind of legal, social or economic coercion? Or do you think there should be negative incentives to increase uptake?
Does your position change if the vaccine is rushed to market with little testing?
Does it change if efficacy is unclear?
Do you think adverse reaction reporting will be better with covid than normal or worse?
No, I'm not an anti-vaxxer. But I'm also not going to write off concerns about covid vaccine use at the medical, social and political levels. The people raising concerns might seem stupid to some but the questions above are legitimate and need to be addressed at some point. Taking a vaccination is god approach won't help and will further polarise people.
(also, let's not forget the third party, nefarious actors in the debate. It's pretty clear that the trolls are there, and I would guess astroturferers as well).
btw, I think you will find that there are plenty of left wing voters who are in the subculture concerned about vaccination generally, and how it will be handled with covid specifically.
If a vaccine is developed, I wouldn't make people take it accept in the case of travel, all incoming people would need proof of vaccination and so world any exiting kiwis that wish to return.
I'm sure the PM will explain it patiently for people who need more time to get it, but if we get another outbreak and there's an effective vaccine with not nearly as many adverse effects as covid19 has, there are only a couple of options that stop us turning into UK/US/Sweden:
L4 no exemptions.
L4 with exemptions for vaccinated people.
Compulsory vaccination without L4.
If you can think of another variation that won't result in thousands of dead, sing out.
I understood what you meant McFlock. I am pointing out that mandatory and compulsory vaccination brings large societal issues and this is part of why the anti-vaxxers are all over covid. The polarisation will increase until there is a meeting ground.
Let's not forget it's not the anti-vaxxers in NZ that have dropped general vaccination rates, it's the neoliberal fuckery with the health system that has limited access. This is why the MoH isn't overly worried about anti-vaxxers.
true in some contexts. If we look at vaccination discussions on TS they tend to be the more heated ones and that's without the third party troll element. On FB and twitter it tends to be a shit show, so I would say that we have lost a large part of our ability to have the conversations.
Beyond that, most 'anti-vaxers' are often ordinary people with legitimate concerns about where society is going but not necessarily the frame work to discuss those in because of poor science literacy. My observation is that hating on them is radicalising them.
Somewhere like NZ, we still have a good chance of finding ways to both address concerns about vaccination and gain relatively high rates without having to use authoritarianism.
It's less authoritarian to offer a vaccine than it is just put everyone into level 4 without an opt-out.
As far as I can see, the discussion here has included compulsory vaccination only for people coming into the country. Personally, I favour compulsory quarantine, as vaccination records can be falsified.
As far as I can see, the discussion here has included compulsory vaccination only for people coming into the country.
Is that what you were meaning in this conversation? I thought you and I were talking about the NZ population.
Personally, I favour compulsory quarantine, as vaccination records can be falsified.
I favour quarantine until we have longer term data on efficacy of the vaccine. I'd be surprised if we have that at the point that it starts being rolled out overseas.
The MAGA crowd are dead against taking a vaccine. They have this twisted idea that a vaccine is used to control people and that Covid tests are designed just to collect a persons DNA.
Probably part of the reason Covid is running rampant over there, trump and his dimwitted supporters.
Yes. Vaccination is already a fact of life if you want to travel extensively. I carry two passports … the usual kiwi one, and my separate vaccination booklet. Yellow fever is the big one, but they’ll check for typhus and Hepatitis A as well.
Not all borders demand to see your vaccination booklet, but if you want to get home without dramas ….
I wouldn't be surprised if some employers require people to have the COVID vaccination (assuming there is one that is effective, safe, available and affordable), especially in some places or industries. Even if an employer cannot legally require existing employees to get a vaccination (can't see that happening but then again, maybe in some occupations it should), new employees could be required to have it or at least preferred. There may be exceptions for medical reasons perhaps.
My bet is that there will be no vaccine, it is much more likely that there may well be a treatment much like Aids. Too many victims have gotten the virus a second time in particular the U.S. sailors on their ship, which may prove that if you get over it but go back into or stay in an infected environment you have not acquired immunity.
It’s important to hold an acute awareness of why you got into this stuff in the first place. Whatever your individual ideological position, you got into this because you want to actually change things; to change the world, to cause a movement away from humanity’s unhealthy patterns and toward health. It’s not about petty vendettas against opposing factions or subfactions or individuals who don’t see things exactly the same way you do. And your energy expenditure should reflect this.
Generally, people in dissident circles are under the delusion that this whole thing is about having the perfect beliefs in your head. That if you can just have exactly the right opinions about what’s going on, you “win” in some way, so a ton of energy goes toward finding what looks like the very best set of opinions and arguing with anyone who sees things a tiny little bit differently. And that’s just not what this is about.
This thing is about changing the world, and changing you. That’s it. If you’re not actually, concretely doing one of those two things in any given moment while engaging in dissident circles, you’re just participating in another nerdy hobby group, with about as much consequence.
Goggle summary says about the publisher behind the link:
Medium (website) – Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Medium_(website)
Medium is an online publishing platform developed by Evan Williams and launched in August 2012. It is owned by A Medium Corporation. The platform is an …
Owner: A Medium Corporation
CEO: Evan Williams
Founder(s): Evan Williams
Employees: 85 (May 2017)
Holacracy · freeCodeCamp · Electronic publishing · Social journalism
The reason why this is important is that no single individual can hold an sufficiently complete and sane view of the world in their head. Reality is too damned complicated for that … we actually need other people, with all of their confounding, contradictory disagreeable ideas and beliefs in order to arrive at sane, functional plans of action.
Controlled or otherwise, the fabric of politics is aggression. Pretty primitive stuff. To engage politically, one has to be fighting for or against something *clue-word, "fighting”
I quite like fighting, although I prefer tai chi to hard combat. Strength, tone, concentration, ability to be present can be built in the process, as well as the clarifying of ideas and intent.
I'm less convinced that politics *has to be this way though. Isn't there politics in everything, even the human endeavours that avoid fighting for or against?
Yes. Much more so than all the known alternatives.
But never forget this, effective political operators, for all the positional games they play, ultimately know how to make the deal. And deals are negotiated.
Of course the alternative to the description of nerdy hobby groups is to be conservatively in favour of the status quo. My impression of National is they resist even considering "progressive" changes. Especially the big issues like Climate change, or social imbalances.
So I would like to see myself as championing valuable change. And I am not ashamed of that even though I can't do much about it.
China is covering up again in Northern China the new outbreak is far worse than the figures they are providing the WHO.
All other outbreaks around the world show a rapid increase followed by a slow decline.
The figures for the last 10 days show 1420 new cases every day for 10days no change.
Very suspicious no increase no decline but exactly the same number.
The National party want us to start bringing in students from overseas by July ,put them into isolation .why waste resources if one of those students need hospital care or are asymptomatic then we could be back to square one.
The National party want us to start bringing in students from overseas by July ,put them into isolation .why waste resources if one of those students need hospital care or are asymptomatic then we could be back to square one.
You don’t happen to have a link for that, do you?
I find your choice of words an odd one. What do you mean by “waste resources”? You do know that visitors to and guests in and of our country do receive medical attention and healthcare when required, don’t you? International students pay for mandatory health insurance AFAIK. How and why should an overseas student be seen differently from a returning Kiwi, who could equally be asymptomatic?
What exactly is the problem with not being able to link?
I presume you mean this:
The MP [Dr Shane Reti] is proposing to reopen the border to international students for the second semester in July, if they undergo quarantine, and "if we open the border in a protected way … our arrivals card has to be perfect".
Yes, I understand that a returning Kiwi is coming home to the Motherland but what difference does that make to the health risks involved?
At least you’re open and honest about your biased and binary attitude towards education of international students. I’d say it is much more than what you make it out to be but that’s a different conversation and a different reason for refusing people entry into the country or a VISA to study here. FYI, the NZ universities are non-profit institutions and they are operating with a 3% operating surplus guideline set by TEC.
Oh dear – he has never realised that he has run the hero to zero trajectory. Perhaps we could refer the british media to our own Marist school cluster which looks like it may have been going for only about a week before everyone was asked to isolate.
Think tank report wanting more foreign direct investment.. Rather than us saving up and owning our own stuff
This think tank has had a number of reports quoted in stuff. They operate under the university of auckland but I wondered just how independent they are and who is funding them. They list at least one foundation partner who has given support who looks like they may be an overseas based hedge fund manager . A quick google and he looks like he may also have been the beneficiary of being able to buy sensitive NZ land by bunging some money to a local school (Not a policy I have ever been in favour of? ) Is there any conflict of interests?
Good research RedBaronCV (Curriculum vitae or CoronaVirus?)
I hope that our efficacious and tenacious legal and justice systems are checking to see whether these overseas 'invest-us' are getting value for money. /sarc
thank you GW. I spend a lot of my time wondering who pulls the strings. I'll go with corona virus as the cv is historical but i don't want to trouble the mods!
I've actually gone off and had a skim through some of their papers. What they do not appear to be is
– peer reviewed
– evidence based. although they do reference other publications – it's hard to know how selective this referencing might be
– whether these are academics operating within their expertise or not. I've seen elsewhere lawyers writing as if they were experts on how to format the advanced statistical modelling of virus transmission when the understanding is trite.
_ if these are “discussion papers” where and when is the feedback taken
Really it looks like academics who may be way outside their lane writing a blog and hiding behind a think tank designation/branding. to diseminate prefered political ideas/
Twitter and face book and the standard are likely better informed.
Personally I’ve always wondered where Mr Gluckman was as the Nact science advisor when Nact where doing all the drug testing and moving people out of their homes because of so called “P” contamination.
Think tank report wanting more foreign direct investment..
That $US 4 trillion Congress has given to US corporations is a lot of money that's going to be looking for somewhere to be in a world decimated by the depression that's coming straight at us.
edit – To clarify – I think there will be a lot of pressure to align with US business interests.
Well the heath app is here. I see they are making no promises about deleting the contact details . Just where you went after 21 days. And it looks like the data is on offshore servers.
Honestly I'm just going to take a photo of the businesses I'vr gone into – that will show where I have been.
And how long before there is discrimination – no app and you are not allowed in?
With that app, where you went is stored only on your phone. They get your contact details on their server.
And there have already been businesses trading for weeks that will not let you in the door without verifying you have logged into one of several other apps.
Yep I understand that but at the end of level two or level one when the tracing is no longer needed then they should delete the contact details on their server otherwise some new bad actor (Maybe Act gets elected) changes the rules and decides that it can be used for other purposes.
Are they going to enshrine these rules so an 80% majority is required to change them – thought not!
Well the “you must use an app” is a form of discrimination – no poor people need apply ? They can do without my money then. And if they have been trading for weeks then have they been breaking the lockdown rules?
The MOH shouldn't have stacks of data on me. I've opted out of everything plus I have the ultimate weapon. I belong to a long lived family that goes to the doctor about twice in an adult lifetime. I haven't been for years.
I don’t mind paper records – somebody stands on them or loses them pretty quickly in my experience. It’s the electronic stuff that hangs around.
Well that answers a few questions so why doesn't the health department put it on it's website? Looks like taking a photo of where I go (one in one out) is just as good as the app so why didn't they tell us that ages ago – instead of people like me just doing it and the government wasting money on the app. And for what it's worth I'm not interested in enriching Amazon even marginally with web hosting fees.
Just gone in and read the app FAQ on the MOH website. Well as far as I can see they have failed at the first step of being "transparent". Who developed this app. Peter Thiel – someone else? Are they a developer who may leave a trapdoor in the app so they can harvest data. Do they have a track record for respecting data privacy or not? Do they pay their taxes or just stuff it in tax havens?
Why is an email address necessary to use the app? Who apart from the contract tracing service is harvesting this email address? How do households who share an email address get along? Honestly if it is phone based why does it not simply record a phone number on the base so they can do a "call me text" to the phone owners they want to contact.
And of course they can't help themselves – they want extra information to collate -from the website below are these statements. And who reads the fine print and they are already saying that they are going to update it.
27.3. Aggregate demographic information of Consumers, including approximate age range, gender, and ethnicity, is captured to provide reporting on the usage of the CCTA by different segments of the population. This data is used to inform wider Ministry efforts about the equity of the overall technology response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
33.1. when recording their contact details for upload to the Ministry (other than the email address required for registration) they may choose what contact and identification details they include;
No I'm not anxious – I work in tech related fields – but it seriously annoys me when people stand up and go it's safe, nobody can see it and when you look closely that is simply not the case. Health seems particularly prone to this particular delusion. In particular terms of use can be changed unilaterally without options being given to delete the data. Or the whole contact tracing service could be sold (right wing government anyone?)
Think Facebook Cambridge Analytica, the creator of the digital face recognition who just helped themselves to private photos on the web. We should not be naive about data use and aggregation
And don’t forget that within the last few decades at various times abortions, homosexuality single parents unemployed, various ethnic groups have had to deal with their behaviour being either outright criminalised or the state has acted as if they basically were. Put not your trust in princes.
I agree. Credible information is reassuring but hard to find. Having done some work on health IT privacy, it is more advanced in thinking than some other areas. Not often well-explained though.
Totally agree RB. Anyone in receipt of a main benefit should seriously think twice about this, and it's not paranoia. Back in the 1970s the public were encouraged to dob in solo mums for putting a packet of chocolate biscuits in their supermarket trolley. The modern version of this you really don't want WINZ to find out you've been into a cafe or- heaven forbid, a cinema- because that's evidence that a)you're clearly being given too much money and more scarily b) you're lying about your disability if you're capable of leaving the house. Many people in the UK have been affected by the latter so it's a perfectly reasonable thing to consider.
No way will I ever trust any sort of tracking app created by anyone, yet alone the government. I'll sign in hard copy, but not electronic. Anyway, I don't have mobile data, so moot.
Good to see I have friends and it's not just me.The less info the govt has the better.
BTW as per the above – the solo parents who may be on a benefit or even families on a benefit are likely to be told they have to covid vaccine their kids – we'll get the usual rubbish about how they are slack parents and have to be told what to do.. Me I'd vaccinate all the parents who don't pay or play (look after their kids) then if it has some unusual side effects ….
<i>She [Professor Carolyn King] began her career in Oxford, and was studying weasels in 1971, when she was asked to come and help us get rid of stoats in New Zealand.
She wrote the first ever book on predators in New Zealand Immigrant Killers in 1984 and then The Handbook of New Zealand Mammals (1990), she’s is now working on the third edition.
"I am very concerned about the possibility of people getting carried away by genetic modification. There's a lot of talk about gene drives, modified genes that can be introduced to a population. They're trying some in Australia for example with the Daughterless Carp Program and these are fish that can produce sons but not daughters. So if you have a whole population with one gender, than sooner or later the population will die out, without you having to set traps or poisons..</i>
Is it possible some National Party leaning folk at Colmar Brunton or TVNZ might leak the result of their poll to Farrar or National Party HQ to allow them to strategise ahead of the release at 6:00pm tomorrow?
The fish people know a thing or two about targeting the vulnerable.
In its final 20 minutes, the documentary film AKA Jane Roe delivers quite the blow to conservatives who have weaponized the story of Jane Roe herself—real name, Norma McCorvey—to argue that people with uteruses should have to carry any and all pregnancies to term.
[…]
But those filmmakers, and the rest of the pro-life evangelical community, have another curveball coming. In the final third of director Nick Sweeney’s 79-minute documentary, featuring many end-of-life reflections from McCorvey—who grew up queer, poor, and was sexually abused by a family member her mother sent her to live with after leaving reform school—the former Jane Roe admits that her later turn to the anti-abortion camp as a born-again Christian was “all an act.”
“This is my deathbed confession,” she chuckles, sitting in a chair in her nursing home room, on oxygen. Sweeney asks McCorvey, “Did [the evangelicals] use you as a trophy?” “Of course,” she replies. “I was the Big Fish.” “Do you think you would say that you used them?” Sweeney responds. “Well,” says McCorvey, “I think it was a mutual thing. I took their money and they took me out in front of the cameras and told me what to say. That’s what I’d say.” She even gives an example of her scripted anti-abortion lines. “I’m a good actress,” she points out. “Of course, I’m not acting now.”
I read it and really felt for the restaurant staff . They didn't deserve to be dragged into some political statement not of their own making. But that's a Nat behaviour – no care for anyone else
Of course boosting a specific facebook campaigns numbers might be the point?
Robert Guyton, it might help to be able to read the link. The bits after the question mark can mean a lot of things to the web-site. In this case they appear to be showing that you came from facebook.com with a specific advertising campaign number. I don't know what utm_source=facebook.com, utm_content, utm_medium=social and utm_campaign mean specifically to that publisher (I can guess) but in some cases this can reveal information about how you came to that page.
In really dumb cases somebody encodes a user name and password into the url parameters and somebody else posts it elsewhere, though I haven't seen one of these for long time.
Though the parameters can lead to different pages, Sacha's rule of thumb is usually right because most sites don't do that.
Every lefty should be messaging Nat mp's saying "they won't vote national if Simon is removed, he is a fighter who will claw support back like he did last year" I'm rooting for you Simon, I'm almost certain he's a Labour party supporter! Hang on comrade! You're the best thing to ever happen to Labour!
it's kind of where the culture is at too. There's a taboo about talking about the sometimes severe limits of the biomedical model of psychiatry. That combined with 30 years of neoliberalism and health cuts is a potently bad brew.
Agree that the funding cuts haven't helped but really the predilection to medicate goes way back….my personal experience of the service is if you don't have forceful advocacy (and to a degree even if you do) then the easy option is the only option
Clarification…personal means family member in case anyone was wondering
Food prices increased by 4.4% average, with "grocery food prices" increasing 4.2%. Not sure how they got there because if I look at my weekly shopping my calculation comes to an increase that sits at double digits. And I am not the only one saying this.
With wages seeing a freeze and thousands loosing their job lets see how this looks in 3 months time. Any money needs to stretch even further, its even worse for people on any type of benefit.
Part of the ugly reality of Covid. 1000 FBU employees layed off. I struggle with the minimising covid deaths policy of the Labour led government when this is the trade off.
"We have to make some very difficult decisions which include looking at reducing the number of people we employ by approximately 10%. This will equate to around 1,000 positions across New Zealand."
Every country is seeing the same thing, ppl losing jobs, we are one of the few coming out of lockdown, infact we've had one of the shorter lock downs. Every one is feeling pain and disruption, again, saving lives is saving the economy.
Feel bad for the ones to be laid off but really what does Fletcher's think they are doing. The board & executive had to be really pushed to make even small $ cuts in their very large wages , there have been very strong signals about the levels of money to be spent on government infrastructure – so why not look to at least be creating half time jobs for those who may want this. Then they have at least some income plus half a week to do other work etc and be available when the infrastructure spend comes through
Yup, the wheels have come off ERC. When will they pull the plug? Next week, when National may or may not have new Leader? Imagine Simon surviving the challenge and then being kicked out of his sandpit.
"In New Zealand the UBI was raised during the last election campaign by Gareth Morgan and The Opportunities Party – TOP – and it’s back again pushing for it, (although Morgan is no longer the party leader) saying this is an important transitional period in people’s lives and they need support.
None of the parties in Parliament have picked it up so far.
Max Rashbrooke writes about economic inequality and is a 2020 JD Stout Fellow at Victoria University.
He says UBI is not the answer – not because he thinks we'll end up with a workless society, but because the system is hugely draining on the economy."
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TL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above that was recorded yesterday afternoon above between and The Kākā’s climate correspondent : An independent review panel into the emergency response to Cyclone Gabrielle in Hawkes Bayconcluded “that ...
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This story by Naveena Sadasivam and Kate Yoder was originally published by Grist and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. The long-awaited jobs board for the American Climate Corps, promised early in the Biden administration, will open next month, according to details shared exclusively ...
Should landlords be able to deduct the interest on the loans they take out to bankroll their property speculation? The US Senate Budget Committee and Bloomberg News don’t think this is a good idea, for reasons set out below. Regardless, our coalition government has been burning through a ton of ...
Treasury’s first report on the economy since the change of government presents a damning indictment of Labour’s economic management. The problem for National is that it is so damning that logically, coupled with a rapidly slowing economy, Finance Minister Nicola Willis should respond to it by postponing or even cancelling ...
Budget tensions are becoming evident within the Coalition Government. Winston Peters made numerous political points in his speech to the NZF annual conference. But the attack on his own government’s fiscal policies raised issues of substance. ‘Today in the Sunday Star Times, journalist and former advisor to the Labour ...
Buzz from the Beehive The media – sure enough – have been binging on Finance Minister Nicola Willis’ release of the Budget Policy Statement and a statement headed Government announces Budget priorities This assures us – or rather, this parrots the Luxon team mantra – that the Budget “will deliver ...
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News that the Chinese ATP 40 cyber-hacking unit penetrated parliamentary internet networks in 2021 has renewed concerns about the PRC’s malign intentions in Aotearoa. But is the hack that significant given the length of time that has passed since its … Continue reading → ...
When Parliament passed the Intelligence and security Act in 2017, they assured us all that it was full of safeguards. Any intrusive surveillance of New Zealanders would be subject to a "triple lock", requiring the approval of the Minister and (supposedly independent) Commissioner of Intelligence Warrants, as well as post-facto ...
Eric Crampton writes – Richard Harman’s Politik newsletter provides a bit of the context that ought to have been showing up in other media reports on potential reductions in public service staffing. Media has been reporting on staffing cuts on the order of about 7%. Is that ...
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On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Buzz from the Beehive China has loomed large in Beehive considerations over the past 24 hours, largely because of that country’s mischief-making in the cyber espionage department. Two media statements emerged on that subject hard on the heels of the PM baulking at questions put to him on RNZ’s Morning ...
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The furore. In case you didn’t notice there was a controversy in the weekend involving dolphins in a little town off the South Island. Don’t panic, they haven’t declared independence and resumed whaling, this was simply a sailing event.The problem began when racing was cancelled on the opening day of ...
For 20 years or more, the case for a meaningful capital tax gains has been mulled over and analysed to death, including by the tax working group chaired by Sir Michael Cullen. More than once, the International Monetary Fund has said a CGT would be a good idea for New ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: The Public Health Communications Centre (PHCC) call for urgent preventive action and a risk assessment survey of long covid in this briefing noteLocal scoop: NZ road deaths surpass OECD rates, so why is the govt reversing safety plans? ...
This story was originally published by Grist and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. This story is part of a collaboration with Grist and WABE to demystify the Georgia Public Service Commission, the small but powerful state-elected board that makes critical decisions about everything from raising ...
This is a guest post from Robert McLachlan Global warming is accelerating; 2023 was off the charts. We need to stop burning fossil fuels. In New Zealand, transport accounts for half of all fossil fuels burnt. In the Emissions Reduction Plan, transport emissions fall 41% by 2035. As the ...
Labour productivity has been receding rapidly over the past two years, reversing a post-lockdown rise. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy as at 6:26am on Tuesday, March 26 include:Workers have been treading water in output per hour worked for 12 years, ...
TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to April 2 include:Today, Parliament resumes sitting at 2pm for the second week of a two-week session. Officials for SIS and GCSB report their annual reviews in public to the Intelligence and Security Select Committee from 5.10pm.Tomorrow, ...
Faced with a barrage of criticism over the promised tax cuts from usually supportive commentators, Finance Minister Nicola Willis yesterday reaffirmed her intention to include them in this year’s Budget. The Government is up against it over the cuts just about every way it turns. Commentators like Fran O’Sullivan, Matthew ...
Here’s my pick of today’s substack posts as of 6:26pm on Monday, March 25: writes via his substack that Market-rate housing will make your city cheaper writes via his substack about the problems talking to double-cab ute (truck) drivers about their vehicles. today about moments of radicalisation in ...
Buzz from the Beehive Just before Christmas, Finance Minister Nicola Willis delivered something that was pitched as a mini-budget and brayed about the decisive action being taken to repair the Government books and support income tax relief in Budget 2024. In a statement headed Fiscal repair job underway. she introduced ...
My sister Belinda asked Dad yesterday what one word would describe Mum best. He said: vivacious.If you only knew her from the photos on the slideshow we've made for today,you might wonder about that, because the camera tended to lie with Mum.If ever she saw a camera pointed at her, she ...
There are two major public consultations closing in the next week, Auckland Council’s Long Term Plan (LTP), and the draft Government Policy Statement on Land Transport (GPS). Closing dates and times: LTP closes Thursday 28 February, at 11.59pm – a minute to midnight! GPS closes Tuesday 2 April, at 12pm noon – note that’s ...
From Kiwiblog’s David Farrar – Bryce Wilkinson writes: Senior Fellow Bryce Wilkinson’s analysis reveals that since March 2009, New Zealand has spent $158 billion more overseas than it has earned, but its NIIP has only fallen by $32 billion.Statistics New Zealand shows that receipts from overseas reinsurers have ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition? Brian Easton writes – The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could ...
Dear Nicola Willis,Right now you’ve probably got lots of competing demands coming at you. Ministers who’ve inherited quite a mess, or so you’ve told us, looking for money in the budget to improve things. I imagine that’s why they came to parliament - to make things better.You’ll have to make ...
The Local Government, Transport and Auckland Minister hasthreatened councils with intervention if they don’t merge water assets to take them off balance sheet, just as the now-repealed Three Waters plan directed. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things of note this morning for Monday, March 25 include:Simeon ...
A listing of 36 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 17, 2024 thru Sat, March 23, 2024. Story of the week Thanks to John Mason having the stamina to sit down to watch "Climate - the Movie" ...
This morning the Q&A programme had Simeon Brown on to talk about National’s replacement for Three Waters. In case anyone’s forgotten the three are - drinking water, waste water, and sewerage. It’s quite important not to get them mixed up. In much the same way that you wouldn’t want to ...
Today’s newsletter comes with a mini-podcast conversation between me and my buddy Liv Tennet, talking about her time as a child actor in Lord of the Rings. It’s a conversation with a lot of giggles as she talks about falling off a horse, and becoming a meme. Read ...
The Desmog Climate Disinformation Database documents, "individuals and organisations that have helped to delay and distract the public and our elected leaders from taking needed action to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and fight global warming." It's a who's who of the organised climate change denial movement, in other words. In ...
Bob Edlin writes – A High Court judge has decided miscreants who have mana – or who claim to have mana – should be treated differently from miscreants who have none. It’s a ruling that suggests indigenous law-breakers have a better chance of securing a discharge without conviction ...
Welcome to the first, and possibly last, edition of Brickbats, Bouquets and Bull’s Wool. In which I’ll take a look at the events of the last week or so, and rate them.In such ratings the numbers usually have more to do with the opinions of the reviewer, than the actual ...
Roger Partridge writes – My earlier column this month, New Zealand’s highest court could be facing a turning point, prompted a flood of feedback from business readers and lawyers alike. A common query was what Parliament can do to restrain an overreaching judiciary. This week I discuss two steps Parliament ...
TL;DR: In today’s ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.16pm on Friday, March 22: writes about New Zealand's Building Boom—And What the World Must Learn From It over at his substack. challenges the Auckland Council’s use of a 3.8 degrees of warming forecast to oppose a wave-park and data centre project ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition?The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could deliver her promised income tax cuts. Appointed minister, she ...
Buzz from the Beehive Ministers of the Crown have drawn attention to one sector of the science sector which is unlikely to be subjected to heavy spending cuts, a state-funded broadcaster which is doing nicely, thank you, and a sporting event that had $5.4 million from the public purse puffed ...
Abbott’s Freestyle Libre sensors allow continuous glucose monitoring (CGM). The sensor is applied to the back of the patient’s arm, with a thin filament under the skin measuring glucose levels constantly. But it costs around $100 per sensor and must be replaced once every 14 days. Photo by BSIP/Universal Images ...
The Inspector General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) recently released a report in which he exposes the existence of a foreign intelligence partner-controlled technological “capability” inside the headquarters of the GCSB, NZ’s 5 Eyes-affiliated signals intelligence collection and analysis agency. … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – Nearly three decades after the introduction of MMP and multiparty governments there should be a greater level of understanding about their finer points than often appears to be the case. The reaction to the despicable outburst from the Deputy Prime Minister at the weekend highlights ...
The sweet kisses from fruit of summerHave slowly been turning dullerYou say, "those times"And "remember the daysWhen we went outside and there still was the shade?"Taking no reason into play…Autumn. Clear, blue days shortening to longer nights, growing colder. Aotearoa.That’s us. The temperature dropping, the looming car crash - so ...
Bryce Edwards writes – “It is often said that behind every great man is a great woman”. This is the pitch by the National Party Botany electorate branch to attend their “Ladies Afternoon Tea with Amanda Luxon”. For $110 including GST, you can turn up on Saturday 20 April ...
David Farrar writes – The Electoral Commission has published the expense returns for political parties for the 2023 election. I’ve put them in a table with how many votes a party got so we can see the spend per vote. National only spent $3.34 for every vote they got, almost ...
Winston Peters’ headline-making actions over the past week may have been a show of political power intended to strengthen his hand in Budget negotiations. It was no accident that his State of the Nation speech was as it was. He made it as New Zealand First Leader, not as Deputy ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:Former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson bowed out of politics this week, giving a series of exit ...
Graham Adams writes — If you love the law or sausages, as the saying goes, best not to look too closely at how they are made. And after watching the orgy of self-pity when Newshub’s closure was announced on February 28, television journalism should definitely be added to the list of those ...
Venerable New Zealand political commentator, Chris Trotter (https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/), is a sad creature these days. Once one of the most reliable Leftist writers out there – Economic Left at that – Trotter seems to have absorbed the worldview of Auckland culture-war obsessives. It is not for me to categorise what he ...
The cruelty of short-term memory loss is that each time you ask where she is, you get the fresh shock and grief of the news. That was Dad's day yesterday.Comfortingly, it seems to be less so today. Last night he looked crumpled, today he seems more settled. There's a card ...
The Coalition Government’s plan to ‘get Auckland moving’ is a cuts cover-up that will ultimately cost Aucklanders more to move around the city, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Slashing the Ministry of Pacific Peoples by 40% will have a devastating impact on pacific communities and further highlights how little this government cares about anything other than cutting taxes for the wealthiest few. ...
Labour has proposed an urgent inquiry to investigate the ever-increasing profits of supermarkets, aiming to lower costs for shoppers and food producers alike, says Labour Spokesperson for Commerce and Consumer Affairs Arena Williams and Primary Production Spokesperson Cushla Tangaere-Manuel. ...
With 14% of jobs on the line at the Ministry for Ethnic Communities, the responsible Minister Melissa Lee is failing to stand up for the very communities she’s meant to be representing. ...
COURT OF APPEAL: TRIFECTA OF VICTORY FOR NZ FIRST, TRIFECTA OF FAILURE FOR OPPONENTS For the third time since April 2020, New Zealand First has defeated the Serious Fraud Office and all those complicit in a malicious attack against a political party going about its lawful business in a lawful ...
The Green Party stands with people who live in public housing, people in dire housing need, experts and advocates in demanding better than the Government’s archaic approach to housing those who need our support the most. ...
New Zealand has recently lost the hosting rights of some major international sporting events including the America’s Cup, the Rugby Championship, Netball World Cup, and the Wellington Sevens. We are now at a huge risk of losing SailGP as well. And it won’t stop there. The recent issues with SailGP ...
A Member’s Bill drawn this week would modernise insurance law and make things fairer and more transparent for consumers, Christchurch Central MP Duncan Webb said. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues has confirmed she was aware of funding issues in mid-December and did nothing to stop it. On 14 March, she signed off on changes that were announced and implemented on 18 March without any consultation with disability communities. ...
Green Party MP Julie Anne Genter says her members' bill is an opportunity for the coalition government to plug the gap in electric vehicle incentives. ...
The National Government continues to talk about irresponsible tax cuts that will only drive up inflation, despite the country entering a technical recession. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues must act urgently to reinstate flexibility around the funding for disability support and apologise to disabled carers. ...
This story has been initiated by a leftie shill reporter who proactively sought to call a member of a former band, which disbanded twelve years ago, give their biased appraisal of what was said in my speech, and concocted a ham-fisted attempt at a story that does nothing but show ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Many in the mainstream media have taken what was said in New Zealand First’s State of the Nation Speech in Palmerston North on Sunday and deliberately, deceitfully, and ignorantly misrepresented what I said and why I said it. The headlines and commentary on the news stated that I compared ‘co-governance ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
Good afternoon. Thank you for, in your very busy lives, turning up to this meeting today. On October 14th last year New Zealanders overwhelmingly voted for change. That is exactly what this new government is bringing. New Zealand First campaigned to ‘take back our country’ and stop the disastrous economic ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed the passing of legislation to move light electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) into the road user charges system from 1 April. “It was always intended that EVs and PHEVs would be exempt from road user charges until they reached two ...
New Zealand is strengthening its ability to combat illegal fishing outside its domestic waters and beef up regulation for its own commercial fishers in international waters through a Bill which had its first reading in Parliament today. The Fisheries (International Fishing and Other Matters) Amendment Bill 2023 sets out stronger ...
Economists Carl Hansen and Professor Prasanna Gai have been appointed to the Reserve Bank Monetary Policy Committee, Finance Minister Nicola Willis announced today. The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is the independent decision-making body that sets the Official Cash Rate which determines interest rates. Carl Hansen, the executive director of Capital ...
Apartment owners and buyers will soon have greater protections as further changes to the law on unit titles come into effect, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “The Unit Titles (Strengthening Body Corporate Governance and Other Matters) Amendment Act had already introduced some changes in December 2022 and May 2023, and ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters will travel to Egypt and Europe from this weekend. “This travel will focus on a range of New Zealand’s traditional diplomatic and security partnerships while enabling broad engagement on the urgent situation in Gaza,” Mr Peters says. Mr Peters will attend the NATO Foreign ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown is encouraging all road users to stay safe, plan their journeys ahead of time, and be patient with other drivers while travelling around this Easter long weekend. “Road safety is a responsibility we all share, and with increased traffic on our roads expected this Easter we ...
About 1.4 million New Zealanders will receive cost of living relief through increased government assistance from April 1 909,000 pensioners get a boost to Superannuation, including 5000 veterans 371,000 working-age beneficiaries will get higher payments 45,000 students will see an increase in their allowance Over a quarter of New Zealanders ...
Ensuring social housing is being provided to those with the greatest needs is front of mind as the Government restarts social housing tenancy reviews, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. “Our relentless focus on building a strong economy is to ensure we can deliver better public services such as social ...
The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary will not go ahead, with Cabinet deciding to stop work on the proposed reserve and remove the Bill that would have established it from Parliament’s order paper. “The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary Bill would have created a 620,000 sq km economic no-go zone,” Oceans and Fisheries Minister ...
Dam safety regulations are being amended so that smaller dams won’t be subject to excessive compliance costs, Minister for Building and Construction Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on reducing costs and removing unnecessary red tape so we can get the economy back on track. “Dam safety regulations ...
The coalition Government is expanding the medium-scale adverse event classification to parts of the North Island as dry weather conditions persist, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced today. “I have made the decision to expand the medium-scale adverse event classification already in place for parts of the South Island to also cover the ...
The passing of legislation giving effect to coalition Government tax commitments has been welcomed by Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “The Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill will help place New Zealand on a more secure economic footing, improve outcomes for New Zealanders, and make our tax system ...
Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins and Tertiary Education and Skills Minister Penny Simmonds today announced plans to transform our science and university sectors to boost the economy. Two advisory groups, chaired by Professor Sir Peter Gluckman, will advise the Government on how these sectors can play a greater ...
The Budget will deliver urgently-needed tax relief to hard-working New Zealanders while putting the government’s finances back on a sustainable track, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The Finance Minister made the comments at the release of the Budget Policy Statement setting out the Government’s Budget objectives. “The coalition Government intends ...
The coalition Government will look at options to address a zoning issue that limits how much financial support Queenstown residents can get for accommodation. Cabinet has agreed on a response to the Petitions Committee, which had recommended the geographic information MSD uses to determine how much accommodation supplement can be ...
Cabinet has agreed to a short extension to the final reporting timeframe for the Royal Commission into Abuse in Care from 28 March 2024 to 26 June 2024, Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden says. “The Royal Commission wrote to me on 16 February 2024, requesting that I consider an ...
The coalition Government is delivering an $18 million boost to New Zealanders needing to travel for specialist health treatment, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says. “These changes are long overdue – the National Travel Assistance (NTA) scheme saw its last increase to mileage and accommodation rates way back in 2009. ...
The Government is recognising the innovative and rising talent in New Zealand’s growing space sector, with the Prime Minister and Space Minister Judith Collins announcing the new Prime Minister’s Prizes for Space today. “New Zealand has a growing reputation as a high-value partner for space missions and research. I am ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed New Zealand’s concerns about cyber activity have been conveyed directly to the Chinese Government. “The Prime Minister and Minister Collins have expressed concerns today about malicious cyber activity, attributed to groups sponsored by the Chinese Government, targeting democratic institutions in both New ...
Independent Reviewers appointed for School Property Inquiry Education Minister Erica Stanford today announced the appointment of three independent reviewers to lead the Ministerial Inquiry into the Ministry of Education’s School Property Function. The Inquiry will be led by former Minister of Foreign Affairs Murray McCully. “There is a clear need ...
State Highway 1 across the Brynderwyns will be open for Easter weekend, with work currently underway to ensure the resilience of this critical route being paused for Easter Weekend to allow holiday makers to travel north, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Today I visited the Brynderwyn Hills construction site, where ...
Introduction Good morning to you all, and thanks for having me bright and early today. I am absolutely delighted to be the Minister for Infrastructure alongside the Minister of Housing and Resource Management Reform. I know the Prime Minister sees the three roles as closely connected and he wants me ...
New Zealand stands with the United Kingdom in its condemnation of People’s Republic of China (PRC) state-backed malicious cyber activity impacting its Electoral Commission and targeting Members of the UK Parliament. “The use of cyber-enabled espionage operations to interfere with democratic institutions and processes anywhere is unacceptable,” Minister Responsible for ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Judith Collins today announced New Zealand will provide logistics support for the upcoming Solomon Islands election. “We’re sending a team of New Zealand Defence Force personnel and two NH90 helicopters to provide logistics support for the election on 17 April, at the request ...
The European Union Free Trade Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill received Royal Assent today, completing the process for New Zealand’s ratification of its free trade agreement with the European Union. “I am pleased to announce that today, in a small ceremony at the Beehive, New Zealand notified the European Union ...
Public consultation on the terms of reference for the Royal Commission into COVID-19 Lessons has concluded, Internal Affairs Minister Hon Brooke van Velden says. “I have been advised that there were over 11,000 submissions made through the Royal Commission’s online consultation portal.” Expanding the scope of the Royal Commission of ...
Hardworking families are set to benefit from a new credit to help them meet their early childcare education (ECE) costs, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. From 1 July, parents and caregivers of young children will be supported to manage the rising cost of living with a partial reimbursement of their ...
A specialised Independent Technical Advisory Group (ITAG) tasked with preparing and publishing independent non-binding advice on the design of a "green" (sustainable finance) taxonomy rulebook is being established, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “Comprising experts and market participants, the ITAG's primary goal is to deliver comprehensive recommendations to the ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins has thanked the Chief of Army, Major General John Boswell, DSD, for his service as he leaves the Army after 40 years. “I would like to thank Major General Boswell for his contribution to the Army and the wider New Zealand Defence Force, undertaking many different ...
25 March 2024 Minister to meet Australian counterparts and Manufacturing Industry Leaders Small Business, Manufacturing, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly will travel to Australia for a series of bi-lateral meetings and manufacturing visits. During the visit, Minister Bayly will meet with his Australian counterparts, Senator Tim Ayres, Ed ...
Government commits almost $3 million for period products in schools The Coalition Government has committed $2.9 million to ensure intermediate and secondary schools continue providing period products to those who need them, Minister of Education Erica Stanford announced today. “This is an issue of dignity and ensuring young women don’t ...
Good morning, it’s great to be here. First, I would like to acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of Building Surveyors and thank you for the opportunity to be here this morning. I would like to use this opportunity to outline the Government’s ambitious plan and what we hope to ...
Minister for Pacific Peoples Dr Shane Reti has announced the Government’s commitment to the Auckland Secondary Schools Māori and Pacific Islands Cultural Festival, more commonly known as Polyfest. “The Ministry for Pacific Peoples is a longtime supporter of Polyfest and, as it celebrates 49 years in 2024, I’m proud to ...
Before moving onto the substance of today’s address, I want to recognise the very significant and ongoing contribution the Breast Cancer Foundation makes to support the lives of New Zealand women and their families living with breast cancer. I very much enjoy working with you. I also want to recognise ...
New Zealand has notched up a first with the launch of University of Canterbury research to the International Space Station, Science, Innovation and Technology and Space Minister Judith Collins says. The hardware, developed by Dr Sarah Kessans, is designed to operate autonomously in orbit, allowing scientists on Earth to study ...
Introduction Thank you for inviting me to speak with you today and I’m sorry I can’t be there in person. Yesterday I started in Wellington for Breakfast TV, spoke to a property conference in Auckland, and finished the day speaking to local government in Christchurch, so it would have been ...
The Coalition Government is contributing more than $1 million to support the establishment of an emergency multi-agency coordination centre in Northland. Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell announced the contribution today during a visit of the Whangārei site where the facility will be constructed. “Northland has faced a number ...
New Zealanders have enjoyed a broader range of voices telling the story of Aotearoa thanks to the creation of Whakaata Māori 20 years ago, says Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka. The minister spoke at a celebration marking the national indigenous media organisation’s 20th anniversary at their studio in Auckland on ...
Commercial catch limits for some fisheries have been increased following a review showing stocks are healthy and abundant, Ocean and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The changes, along with some other catch limit changes and management settings, begin coming into effect from 1 April 2024. "Regular biannual reviews of fish ...
COMMENTARY:By Ronny Kareni Since the atrocious footage of the suffering of an indigenous Papuan man reverberates in the heart of Puncak by the brute force of Indonesia’s army in early February, shocking tactics deployed by those in power to silence critics has been unfolding. Nowhere is this more evident ...
Analysis - Nicola Willis is holding firm on tax cuts despite the economic outlook being worse than forecast and critics urging her to wait, writes Peter Wilson for The Week In Politics. ...
Opposition MPs and unions are criticising a proposal by New Zealand’s Ministry of Pacific Peoples to cut staff by 40 percent. The country’s largest trade union — The Public Service Association — says the ministry has informed staff that it is looking to shed 63 of 156 positions. Opposition MPs ...
A poem by Poetry Aotearoa Yearbook 2024 featured poet Carin Smeaton. Daughtr of the 90s when she gets promoted to usherette a baby blu eel carries her all the way up to mothership she’s hovering high she lets the underaged in to see keanu reeves she lets the only lonely ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Keith Rankin, trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand. My earlier article – Can ‘Good’ be the Greater Evil? – looked at the issue of how wars should end, and how Good versus Evil ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 AMMA by Saraid de Silva (Moa Press, $38)A stunning debut novel reviewed by Brannavan ...
From Steve Martin to Ricky Stanicky, a pick’n’mix of things worth watching and listening to this long weekend. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. If you’re at a loss for something to occupy yourself with this Easter, don’t panic: The Spinoff’s got ...
Jesus had dinner with his 12 disciples right before he died. Noted historian Madeleine Chapman finds out who really deserved to be there.First published in 2018 but let’s be honest, the subject is timeless. As you sit on your couch this Easter Sunday, eating a chocolate egg you know ...
The newly-promoted Northern League club is on a mission to return to the National League for the first time in two decades. Plenty about domestic football in New Zealand has changed in that time – but the sense that this amateur competition is not an entirely level playing field remains. ...
Comment: Every year on February 2, a dozen men in tuxedos and top hats approach the burrow of a groundhog in Gobbler’s Knob, Pennsylvania and entice the beaver-like rodent to emerge and predict the weather. If the groundhog, named Punxsutawney Phil, sees its own shadow when it is summoned, legend ...
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Auckland Council has put a deadline on new weather-impacted property owners applying for categorisation as government funding looks set to run out. Councillors have voted to support a deadline of September 30 for property owners who haven’t accessed support to come forward and engage with the council’s recovery office. It ...
NONFICTION 1 BBQ Economics by Liam Dann (Penguin Random House, $40) “It’s official,” wrote Dann nine days ago in the Herald, where he works as business editor at large, “we’re in recession.” Yeah, great. He delivered the bad stats: “GDP fell 0.1 percent in the December 2023 quarter, compared with ...
By Anneke Smith, RNZ News political reporter A petition urging the New Zealand government to provide urgent humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people has been tabled in the House. More than 200 people gathered on Parliament’s forecourt today and they were met by MPs from Labour, the Greens and Te ...
Pacific Media Watch The Paris-based global media freedom watchdog RSF (Reporters Without Borders) has appealed for information about the “disappearance” of Palestinian journalist Bayan Abusultan. She was reportedly last seen on March 19 among people “sequestered” in this week’s raid and siege of Al Shifa hospital by Israeli troops in ...
EDITORIAL:The Jakarta Post It happens again and again; indigenous Papuans fall victim to Indonesian soldiers. This time, we have photographic evidence for the brutality, with videos on social media showing a Papuan man being tortured by a group of plainclothes men alleged to be the Indonesian Military (TNI) members. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robyn J. Whitaker, Director of the Wesley Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Policy & Associate Professor, New Testament, Pilgrim Theological College, University of Divinity A strange and eclectic range of activities takes place across these few weeks of the year. Some ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Panizza Allmark, Professor Visual & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University It’s Easter weekend, which means many of us will be kicking back with the greatest hits on repeat. But whether you’re a boomer, or an ‘80s or ’90s kid, you might be ...
RNZ Pacific Fiji’s Acting Public Prosecutor has filed an appeal against the sentences of former prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama and suspended police chief Sitiveni Qiliho in their corruption case. Bainimarama was granted an absolute discharge for attempting to pervert the course of justice while Qiliho received a conditional discharge with ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Arosha Weerakoon, Senior Lecturer and General Dentist, School of Dentistry, The University of Queensland Casezy idea/Shutterstock How does toothpaste work? What did people use before toothpaste was invented? – Amelia, age 7, Meanjin (Brisbane) Thanks for your ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brett Hallam, Associate professor, UNSW Sydney IM Imagery/Shutterstock Solar SunShot is well named. The Australian government announced today it would plough A$1 billion into bringing back solar manufacturing to Australia, boosting energy security, swapping coal and gas jobs for those ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Dix, Research Fellow in Nutrition & Dietetics, The University of Queensland Easter is the time for chocolate. The shops are full of fantastically packaged and shiny chocolates in all shapes and sizes, making trips to the supermarket with children more challenging ...
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Paranoia strikes deep into Oz: "One in eight Australians believe Microsoft founder Bill Gates is somehow responsible for the coronavirus and the 5G wireless network is to blame for spreading the disease." https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/world/utterly-baseless-one-in-eight-australians-believe-5g-spreading-covid-19
Understandable if rich ole Bill owned the network, perhaps. Just weird. "The same number of people believe the pandemic is being used to force people into getting vaccinations."
Probably mean them commies in govt. SloMo & his suits, who they recently elected. "A new Essential poll has revealed the proportion of people who believe coronavirus conspiracy theories. One in five people believe the media and government are exaggerating the death toll to scare the population. Two in five think the virus was engineered and released from a lab in the Chinese city of Wuhan".
Still, I doubt anyone ever accused Australians of being rational. They seem to be becoming a lot more Australian than usual, though.
It's about the poor education system, I suspect – like America
That article is an excellent example of the Association Fallacy.
"The same number of people believe the pandemic is being used to force people into getting vaccinations."
Tell me, do you believe that an eventual covid19 vaccine should be entirely voluntary, without any kind of legal, social or economic coercion? Or do you think there should be negative incentives to increase uptake?
Does your position change if the vaccine is rushed to market with little testing?
Does it change if efficacy is unclear?
Do you think adverse reaction reporting will be better with covid than normal or worse?
No, I'm not an anti-vaxxer. But I'm also not going to write off concerns about covid vaccine use at the medical, social and political levels. The people raising concerns might seem stupid to some but the questions above are legitimate and need to be addressed at some point. Taking a vaccination is god approach won't help and will further polarise people.
(also, let's not forget the third party, nefarious actors in the debate. It's pretty clear that the trolls are there, and I would guess astroturferers as well).
btw, I think you will find that there are plenty of left wing voters who are in the subculture concerned about vaccination generally, and how it will be handled with covid specifically.
If a vaccine is developed, I wouldn't make people take it accept in the case of travel, all incoming people would need proof of vaccination and so world any exiting kiwis that wish to return.
what if we end up with community transmission in NZ again? And more deaths and disability as a result?
Recruiting 🙂
what?
An old joke about getting more people into the disabled community. Philip Patson had a good version in his comedy routine.
ah, yes.
Except one of the issues here will be rushing out a vaccine and any harm done by that.
We accept all-comers.
To some degree, it would depend on the efficacy of the vaccine. We might be able to protect some if voluntary uptake is sufficient.
If not, L4 or a jab. You choose, police enforce, ankle tags if necessary.
Or if that framing is unpalatable, everyone goes into L4 again unless they get the vaccine.
this is why there are anti-vaxxers.
It's pretty simple: if there is community transmission without a vaccine, we all go back into L4 again.
If you don't want the vaccine, go back into L4. Just don't get upset that people who made a different choice get to leave their homes.
And any unintended harm from vaccine is just put down to… collateral damage, taking one for the team?
We also just take everything the pharmaceutical company says as gospel?
I'd imagine said vaccine would cost a pretty penny too.
You don't want it, you don't have to have it.
Just stay home under L4 conditions. Like we've all just done.
"You don't want it, you don't have to have it."
Let's stomp on any nuance and jump straight to fundamentalism.
This isn't a nuanced issue.
I'm sure the PM will explain it patiently for people who need more time to get it, but if we get another outbreak and there's an effective vaccine with not nearly as many adverse effects as covid19 has, there are only a couple of options that stop us turning into UK/US/Sweden:
If you can think of another variation that won't result in thousands of dead, sing out.
I am not so good at the political terms.
I imagine what you have described is on the authoritarian end of the scale.
I would imagine there would be a lot of resistance to your idea, and not just from the pro plaguers.
"Authoritarian scale".
We just came out of Level 4. That's as authoritarian as it gets. Because of a fecking pandemic.
A voluntary vaccine gives you an alternative to Level 4, but you need to take it for it to work.
It certainly will Gsays , the race to a vaccine isn't a race to save lives, its a race to make shitloads of money
I understood what you meant McFlock. I am pointing out that mandatory and compulsory vaccination brings large societal issues and this is part of why the anti-vaxxers are all over covid. The polarisation will increase until there is a meeting ground.
Let's not forget it's not the anti-vaxxers in NZ that have dropped general vaccination rates, it's the neoliberal fuckery with the health system that has limited access. This is why the MoH isn't overly worried about anti-vaxxers.
People can discuss societal issues and ethics without being anti-vax. In the same way people can have a moral framework without being religious.
And a lot of the time, either flavour is just noise drowning out more developed discussions.
true in some contexts. If we look at vaccination discussions on TS they tend to be the more heated ones and that's without the third party troll element. On FB and twitter it tends to be a shit show, so I would say that we have lost a large part of our ability to have the conversations.
Beyond that, most 'anti-vaxers' are often ordinary people with legitimate concerns about where society is going but not necessarily the frame work to discuss those in because of poor science literacy. My observation is that hating on them is radicalising them.
Somewhere like NZ, we still have a good chance of finding ways to both address concerns about vaccination and gain relatively high rates without having to use authoritarianism.
It's less authoritarian to offer a vaccine than it is just put everyone into level 4 without an opt-out.
As far as I can see, the discussion here has included compulsory vaccination only for people coming into the country. Personally, I favour compulsory quarantine, as vaccination records can be falsified.
Is that what you were meaning in this conversation? I thought you and I were talking about the NZ population.
I favour quarantine until we have longer term data on efficacy of the vaccine. I'd be surprised if we have that at the point that it starts being rolled out overseas.
bwaghorn mentioned it being compulsory for people coming into NZ.
I've simply been saying that if we get community transmission, we'll all return to level 4 except the ones who choose to vaccinate.
That's not compulsory vaccination, it's compulsory isolation with an out. Currently, there is no out for L4.
The MAGA crowd are dead against taking a vaccine. They have this twisted idea that a vaccine is used to control people and that Covid tests are designed just to collect a persons DNA.
Probably part of the reason Covid is running rampant over there, trump and his dimwitted supporters.
I confidant that enough people will voluntarily get vaccinated to get herd immunity. This is a scary bug.
Yes. Vaccination is already a fact of life if you want to travel extensively. I carry two passports … the usual kiwi one, and my separate vaccination booklet. Yellow fever is the big one, but they’ll check for typhus and Hepatitis A as well.
Not all borders demand to see your vaccination booklet, but if you want to get home without dramas ….
I've been to countries, in the past, where you couldn't enter without Cholera, Yellow fever and even TB, vaccinations.
And parents need to show proof of vaccination certs when children enter pre-school and school.
I wouldn't be surprised if some employers require people to have the COVID vaccination (assuming there is one that is effective, safe, available and affordable), especially in some places or industries. Even if an employer cannot legally require existing employees to get a vaccination (can't see that happening but then again, maybe in some occupations it should), new employees could be required to have it or at least preferred. There may be exceptions for medical reasons perhaps.
My bet is that there will be no vaccine, it is much more likely that there may well be a treatment much like Aids. Too many victims have gotten the virus a second time in particular the U.S. sailors on their ship, which may prove that if you get over it but go back into or stay in an infected environment you have not acquired immunity.
Here's an Australian worth reading
This quote in particular speaks to me .I recognise myself and others
"The mind can turn anything into a toy for the ego, and this is never more clear than in online discussion forums."
https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/dissident-circles-too-often-become-another-nerdy-hobby-group-7bd43bdf9bf8
Well spotted!
Edited.
And this bit nuts things out well.
Generally, people in dissident circles are under the delusion that this whole thing is about having the perfect beliefs in your head. That if you can just have exactly the right opinions about what’s going on, you “win” in some way, so a ton of energy goes toward finding what looks like the very best set of opinions and arguing with anyone who sees things a tiny little bit differently. And that’s just not what this is about.
This thing is about changing the world, and changing you. That’s it. If you’re not actually, concretely doing one of those two things in any given moment while engaging in dissident circles, you’re just participating in another nerdy hobby group, with about as much consequence.
Goggle summary says about the publisher behind the link:
Medium (website) – Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Medium_(website)
Medium is an online publishing platform developed by Evan Williams and launched in August 2012. It is owned by A Medium Corporation. The platform is an …
Owner: A Medium Corporation
CEO: Evan Williams
Founder(s): Evan Williams
Employees: 85 (May 2017)
Holacracy · freeCodeCamp · Electronic publishing · Social journalism
The reason why this is important is that no single individual can hold an sufficiently complete and sane view of the world in their head. Reality is too damned complicated for that … we actually need other people, with all of their confounding, contradictory disagreeable ideas and beliefs in order to arrive at sane, functional plans of action.
Agreed .And we need to observe our combative urges , to notice them , but let them go in order to listen to other points of view
Oh but what vicious pleasures there are in adversarial flame wars
Politics is aggression.
No it's fucking not.
sorry, couldn't resist.
Controlled or otherwise, the fabric of politics is aggression. Pretty primitive stuff. To engage politically, one has to be fighting for or against something *clue-word, "fighting”
I quite like fighting, although I prefer tai chi to hard combat. Strength, tone, concentration, ability to be present can be built in the process, as well as the clarifying of ideas and intent.
I'm less convinced that politics *has to be this way though. Isn't there politics in everything, even the human endeavours that avoid fighting for or against?
Politics is controlled confrontation.
Aggression is what happens when politics fails.
Politics is passive-aggressive Machiavellian power games in a silk suit. I guess that makes it more civilised?
Yes. Much more so than all the known alternatives.
But never forget this, effective political operators, for all the positional games they play, ultimately know how to make the deal. And deals are negotiated.
Agreed, and JA has mastered the art, by being awesome at networking (aka making friends).
https://twitter.com/publicaddress/status/1262996506488889344?s=20
Grey, what's your point about the people behind the publishing platform?
Evan Williams has rock solid credentials in that space: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evan_Williams_(Internet_entrepreneur)
Of course the alternative to the description of nerdy hobby groups is to be conservatively in favour of the status quo. My impression of National is they resist even considering "progressive" changes. Especially the big issues like Climate change, or social imbalances.
So I would like to see myself as championing valuable change. And I am not ashamed of that even though I can't do much about it.
China is covering up again in Northern China the new outbreak is far worse than the figures they are providing the WHO.
All other outbreaks around the world show a rapid increase followed by a slow decline.
The figures for the last 10 days show 1420 new cases every day for 10days no change.
Very suspicious no increase no decline but exactly the same number.
The National party want us to start bringing in students from overseas by July ,put them into isolation .why waste resources if one of those students need hospital care or are asymptomatic then we could be back to square one.
You don’t happen to have a link for that, do you?
I find your choice of words an odd one. What do you mean by “waste resources”? You do know that visitors to and guests in and of our country do receive medical attention and healthcare when required, don’t you? International students pay for mandatory health insurance AFAIK. How and why should an overseas student be seen differently from a returning Kiwi, who could equally be asymptomatic?
RNZ this morning for Nationals Education spokes person.
I still can't get the sharing link working.
Looking at ABC news one person has tested positive 3 times over 2 month as covid has come back twice after initial infection.
So if some body coming in from overseas and starts another cluster that could cost us way more .
What exactly is the problem with not being able to link?
I presume you mean this:
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/417075/sore-throat-omitted-from-covid-19-arrival-cards
You haven’t answered how this is any different for an overseas traveller compared to a returning Kiwi.
I'm guessing it is the basic mechanics at issue. #101
The most obvious difference is a returning Kiwi is coming home.
The student is here as part of a commercial arrangement, a cog in a profit driven enterprise. That's enough for me to make a discernment.
Yes, I understand that a returning Kiwi is coming home to the Motherland but what difference does that make to the health risks involved?
At least you’re open and honest about your biased and binary attitude towards education of international students. I’d say it is much more than what you make it out to be but that’s a different conversation and a different reason for refusing people entry into the country or a VISA to study here. FYI, the NZ universities are non-profit institutions and they are operating with a 3% operating surplus guideline set by TEC.
https://www.universitiesnz.ac.nz/about-university-sector/how-nz-universities-are-funded
A returning Kiwi/NZ resident we can't refuse but we have a choice about anyone else who comes in.
Of course.
I had to walk away from this thread.
Firstly your use of Motherland, "I find your choice of words an odd one".
Then to go on and imply there was some basic racist intention behind my thinking – binary and biased.
It is the indecent rush to BAU, that motivated me, just because current funding models are not enough.
Not to fear, have I got a politician for you: Muller wants to open our border to China, right after Aussie.
China is covering up again in Northern China the new outbreak is far worse than the figures they are providing the WHO.
The figures for the last 10 days show 1420 new cases every day for 10days no change
Link or links? Thank you in advance.
Sociopath war criminal given platform on BBC to spread more lies
https://twitter.com/five15design/status/1262852969977937922?s=20
Oh dear – he has never realised that he has run the hero to zero trajectory. Perhaps we could refer the british media to our own Marist school cluster which looks like it may have been going for only about a week before everyone was asked to isolate.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/121561276/coronavirus-new-zealand-needs-to-wise-up-says-report
Think tank report wanting more foreign direct investment.. Rather than us saving up and owning our own stuff
This think tank has had a number of reports quoted in stuff. They operate under the university of auckland but I wondered just how independent they are and who is funding them. They list at least one foundation partner who has given support who looks like they may be an overseas based hedge fund manager . A quick google and he looks like he may also have been the beneficiary of being able to buy sensitive NZ land by bunging some money to a local school (Not a policy I have ever been in favour of? ) Is there any conflict of interests?
https://informedfutures.org/our-story/
Good research RedBaronCV (Curriculum vitae or CoronaVirus?)
I hope that our efficacious and tenacious legal and justice systems are checking to see whether these overseas 'invest-us' are getting value for money. /sarc
thank you GW. I spend a lot of my time wondering who pulls the strings. I'll go with corona virus as the cv is historical but i don't want to trouble the mods!
CV = Colonial Viper, cause of many historical flamewars (and much amusement)
I've actually gone off and had a skim through some of their papers. What they do not appear to be is
– peer reviewed
– evidence based. although they do reference other publications – it's hard to know how selective this referencing might be
– whether these are academics operating within their expertise or not. I've seen elsewhere lawyers writing as if they were experts on how to format the advanced statistical modelling of virus transmission when the understanding is trite.
_ if these are “discussion papers” where and when is the feedback taken
Really it looks like academics who may be way outside their lane writing a blog and hiding behind a think tank designation/branding. to diseminate prefered political ideas/
Twitter and face book and the standard are likely better informed.
Personally I’ve always wondered where Mr Gluckman was as the Nact science advisor when Nact where doing all the drug testing and moving people out of their homes because of so called “P” contamination.
Think tank report wanting more foreign direct investment..
That $US 4 trillion Congress has given to US corporations is a lot of money that's going to be looking for somewhere to be in a world decimated by the depression that's coming straight at us.
edit – To clarify – I think there will be a lot of pressure to align with US business interests.
yep US business interests will arrive here just long enough to rip us off before stuffing it into a tax haven.
Well the heath app is here. I see they are making no promises about deleting the contact details . Just where you went after 21 days. And it looks like the data is on offshore servers.
Honestly I'm just going to take a photo of the businesses I'vr gone into – that will show where I have been.
And how long before there is discrimination – no app and you are not allowed in?
With that app, where you went is stored only on your phone. They get your contact details on their server.
And there have already been businesses trading for weeks that will not let you in the door without verifying you have logged into one of several other apps.
Yep I understand that but at the end of level two or level one when the tracing is no longer needed then they should delete the contact details on their server otherwise some new bad actor (Maybe Act gets elected) changes the rules and decides that it can be used for other purposes.
Are they going to enshrine these rules so an 80% majority is required to change them – thought not!
Well the “you must use an app” is a form of discrimination – no poor people need apply ? They can do without my money then. And if they have been trading for weeks then have they been breaking the lockdown rules?
The Ministry of Health already has lots of information about us on its servers. This adds very little.
Not all businesses were banned from trading. All of them needed to record who was entering their premises.
You are welcome to stay away from all places that require you to record your presence, if that makes you feel better.
The MOH shouldn't have stacks of data on me. I've opted out of everything plus I have the ultimate weapon. I belong to a long lived family that goes to the doctor about twice in an adult lifetime. I haven't been for years.
I don’t mind paper records – somebody stands on them or loses them pretty quickly in my experience. It’s the electronic stuff that hangs around.
For those interested in answers: https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2020/05/20/1180650/everything-you-need-to-know-about-nzs-new-covid-19-app
Well that answers a few questions so why doesn't the health department put it on it's website? Looks like taking a photo of where I go (one in one out) is just as good as the app so why didn't they tell us that ages ago – instead of people like me just doing it and the government wasting money on the app. And for what it's worth I'm not interested in enriching Amazon even marginally with web hosting fees.
That is a very good reason against, in this case. Not like that guy needs any more money.
Just gone in and read the app FAQ on the MOH website. Well as far as I can see they have failed at the first step of being "transparent". Who developed this app. Peter Thiel – someone else? Are they a developer who may leave a trapdoor in the app so they can harvest data. Do they have a track record for respecting data privacy or not? Do they pay their taxes or just stuff it in tax havens?
Why is an email address necessary to use the app? Who apart from the contract tracing service is harvesting this email address? How do households who share an email address get along? Honestly if it is phone based why does it not simply record a phone number on the base so they can do a "call me text" to the phone owners they want to contact.
And of course they can't help themselves – they want extra information to collate -from the website below are these statements. And who reads the fine print and they are already saying that they are going to update it.
27.3. Aggregate demographic information of Consumers, including approximate age range, gender, and ethnicity, is captured to provide reporting on the usage of the CCTA by different segments of the population. This data is used to inform wider Ministry efforts about the equity of the overall technology response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
33.1. when recording their contact details for upload to the Ministry (other than the email address required for registration) they may choose what contact and identification details they include;
You seem anxious. What would it take for that to change?
No I'm not anxious – I work in tech related fields – but it seriously annoys me when people stand up and go it's safe, nobody can see it and when you look closely that is simply not the case. Health seems particularly prone to this particular delusion. In particular terms of use can be changed unilaterally without options being given to delete the data. Or the whole contact tracing service could be sold (right wing government anyone?)
Think Facebook Cambridge Analytica, the creator of the digital face recognition who just helped themselves to private photos on the web. We should not be naive about data use and aggregation
And don’t forget that within the last few decades at various times abortions, homosexuality single parents unemployed, various ethnic groups have had to deal with their behaviour being either outright criminalised or the state has acted as if they basically were. Put not your trust in princes.
I agree. Credible information is reassuring but hard to find. Having done some work on health IT privacy, it is more advanced in thinking than some other areas. Not often well-explained though.
If the covid app is a sign of advanced health privacy I 'll push the opt out button.
BTW has any thought to ask if the data on the amazon server is actually encrypted and everything can be hacked
Totally agree RB. Anyone in receipt of a main benefit should seriously think twice about this, and it's not paranoia. Back in the 1970s the public were encouraged to dob in solo mums for putting a packet of chocolate biscuits in their supermarket trolley. The modern version of this you really don't want WINZ to find out you've been into a cafe or- heaven forbid, a cinema- because that's evidence that a)you're clearly being given too much money and more scarily b) you're lying about your disability if you're capable of leaving the house. Many people in the UK have been affected by the latter so it's a perfectly reasonable thing to consider.
No way will I ever trust any sort of tracking app created by anyone, yet alone the government. I'll sign in hard copy, but not electronic. Anyway, I don't have mobile data, so moot.
yep, me as well. Same reason I won't use the login on the WINZ website, nor any govt ID validation.
Good to see I have friends and it's not just me.The less info the govt has the better.
BTW as per the above – the solo parents who may be on a benefit or even families on a benefit are likely to be told they have to covid vaccine their kids – we'll get the usual rubbish about how they are slack parents and have to be told what to do.. Me I'd vaccinate all the parents who don't pay or play (look after their kids) then if it has some unusual side effects ….
Everything is fine.
https://twitter.com/UrgentAlertNews/status/1262894788610789377
Home of Dow Chemical, I saw some other footage of the flooding, it's pretty bad.
Has chump blamed Obama yet?
This sounds a good caution.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/afternoons/audio/2018746935/expert-feature-professor-carolyn-king-invasive-mammals
<i>She [Professor Carolyn King] began her career in Oxford, and was studying weasels in 1971, when she was asked to come and help us get rid of stoats in New Zealand.
She wrote the first ever book on predators in New Zealand Immigrant Killers in 1984 and then The Handbook of New Zealand Mammals (1990), she’s is now working on the third edition.
But her most recent published book is called Invasive Predators in New Zealand – Disaster on Four Small Paws...
"I am very concerned about the possibility of people getting carried away by genetic modification. There's a lot of talk about gene drives, modified genes that can be introduced to a population. They're trying some in Australia for example with the Daughterless Carp Program and these are fish that can produce sons but not daughters. So if you have a whole population with one gender, than sooner or later the population will die out, without you having to set traps or poisons..</i>
Is it possible some National Party leaning folk at Colmar Brunton or TVNZ might leak the result of their poll to Farrar or National Party HQ to allow them to strategise ahead of the release at 6:00pm tomorrow?
And Bridges wants to move the caucus vote to Friday to leave less time for plotting after the poll. https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300016914/simon-bridges-considering-early-caucus-meeting-to-head-off-leadership-challenge
It's on: https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300016914/national-caucus-will-meet-on-friday-to-decide-simon-bridges-fate
Dang, what an ending to the week, one more sleep until the poll, two more sleeps until a possible roll.
Hehehe the tories can't complain that the media isn't covering them now LMAO!
Humans, huh.
https://twitter.com/NFSAonline/status/1262599231447003136
Beautiful, but heartbreakingly sad.
The fish people know a thing or two about targeting the vulnerable.
In its final 20 minutes, the documentary film AKA Jane Roe delivers quite the blow to conservatives who have weaponized the story of Jane Roe herself—real name, Norma McCorvey—to argue that people with uteruses should have to carry any and all pregnancies to term.
[…]
But those filmmakers, and the rest of the pro-life evangelical community, have another curveball coming. In the final third of director Nick Sweeney’s 79-minute documentary, featuring many end-of-life reflections from McCorvey—who grew up queer, poor, and was sexually abused by a family member her mother sent her to live with after leaving reform school—the former Jane Roe admits that her later turn to the anti-abortion camp as a born-again Christian was “all an act.”
“This is my deathbed confession,” she chuckles, sitting in a chair in her nursing home room, on oxygen. Sweeney asks McCorvey, “Did [the evangelicals] use you as a trophy?” “Of course,” she replies. “I was the Big Fish.” “Do you think you would say that you used them?” Sweeney responds. “Well,” says McCorvey, “I think it was a mutual thing. I took their money and they took me out in front of the cameras and told me what to say. That’s what I’d say.” She even gives an example of her scripted anti-abortion lines. “I’m a good actress,” she points out. “Of course, I’m not acting now.”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/jane-roe-confesses-anti-abortion-conversion-all-an-act-paid-for-by-the-christian-right
( alt link http://archive.li/B8tTv )
Someone told me Northland MP Matt King was arrogant. I know the world isn't going to end over his latest publicity.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12333489
I read it and really felt for the restaurant staff . They didn't deserve to be dragged into some political statement not of their own making. But that's a Nat behaviour – no care for anyone else
Dowie out, Simmonds in.
https://whatsoninvers.nz/sit-boss-looking-forward-to-new-challenge/?utm_content=buffer84e40&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer&fbclid=IwAR36fr4Hl4Q_Kb5Tvz9ZO59Yf1TgKS_6mNTO47sgKX46H8dh-9-PmcuUjoE
https://whatsoninvers.nz/sit-boss-looking-forward-to-new-challenge/
I see now.
look for the question mark.
The ol' eroteme, eh! Elegant!
Of course boosting a specific facebook campaigns numbers might be the point?
Robert Guyton, it might help to be able to read the link. The bits after the question mark can mean a lot of things to the web-site. In this case they appear to be showing that you came from facebook.com with a specific advertising campaign number. I don't know what utm_source=facebook.com, utm_content, utm_medium=social and utm_campaign mean specifically to that publisher (I can guess) but in some cases this can reveal information about how you came to that page.
In really dumb cases somebody encodes a user name and password into the url parameters and somebody else posts it elsewhere, though I haven't seen one of these for long time.
Though the parameters can lead to different pages, Sacha's rule of thumb is usually right because most sites don't do that.
Thanks, Nic, I knew none of that, till now. You and Sacha have delivered me a good learning' and I'm grateful for it.
Robert G @ 14
Whenever I hear a pollie talking about having "a passion" for something I turn off.
Every lefty should be messaging Nat mp's saying "they won't vote national if Simon is removed, he is a fighter who will claw support back like he did last year" I'm rooting for you Simon, I'm almost certain he's a Labour party supporter! Hang on comrade! You're the best thing to ever happen to Labour!
Simply the Best – Better Than All the Rest (thank-you Tauranga)
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12322849
https://twitter.com/rhymeswithbeg/status/1260251496345743364
https://www.tiktok.com/@austyn_farrell/video/6825242909328166149
Disturbing that the mental health services first. last and (almost) only option appears to be medication, efficacious or not.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/checkpoint/audio/2018747288/more-lives-at-risk-in-mental-health-units-grieving-parents
it's kind of where the culture is at too. There's a taboo about talking about the sometimes severe limits of the biomedical model of psychiatry. That combined with 30 years of neoliberalism and health cuts is a potently bad brew.
Agree that the funding cuts haven't helped but really the predilection to medicate goes way back….my personal experience of the service is if you don't have forceful advocacy (and to a degree even if you do) then the easy option is the only option
Clarification…personal means family member in case anyone was wondering
Food prices increased by 4.4% average, with "grocery food prices" increasing 4.2%. Not sure how they got there because if I look at my weekly shopping my calculation comes to an increase that sits at double digits. And I am not the only one saying this.
With wages seeing a freeze and thousands loosing their job lets see how this looks in 3 months time. Any money needs to stretch even further, its even worse for people on any type of benefit.
CPI is not representative…we need a new way to measure inflation …but that doesn't suit those that run the system
Everything is political.
Part of the ugly reality of Covid. 1000 FBU employees layed off. I struggle with the minimising covid deaths policy of the Labour led government when this is the trade off.
"We have to make some very difficult decisions which include looking at reducing the number of people we employ by approximately 10%. This will equate to around 1,000 positions across New Zealand."
https://www.nzx.com/announcements/353361
In the cold calculus of cost-benefit analysis, a highly pessimistic view of the economic costs of Australia’s shutdown comes to around $90 billion.
It is a small price to pay compared to the statistical value of lives the shutdown should save, around A$1.1 trillion.
It produces a simple message. The shutdown wins."
https://theconversation.com/the-costs-of-the-shutdown-are-overestimated-theyre-outweighed-by-its-1-trillion-benefit-138303
NZ will be the same
Every country is seeing the same thing, ppl losing jobs, we are one of the few coming out of lockdown, infact we've had one of the shorter lock downs. Every one is feeling pain and disruption, again, saving lives is saving the economy.
Feel bad for the ones to be laid off but really what does Fletcher's think they are doing. The board & executive had to be really pushed to make even small $ cuts in their very large wages , there have been very strong signals about the levels of money to be spent on government infrastructure – so why not look to at least be creating half time jobs for those who may want this. Then they have at least some income plus half a week to do other work etc and be available when the infrastructure spend comes through
Because our managers aren't very imaginative RedBaron, or creative. It's quite unfortunate and that is what is "ruining" NZ.
Hear hear about the management. They use the same playbook every time. I'm debating buying some shares the AGM could be a doosie .
Yup, the wheels have come off ERC. When will they pull the plug? Next week, when National may or may not have new Leader? Imagine Simon surviving the challenge and then being kicked out of his sandpit.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/121570573/coronavirus-prime-minister-defends-letter-ordering-ministers-and-officials-not-to-appear-before-covid-select-committee
"In New Zealand the UBI was raised during the last election campaign by Gareth Morgan and The Opportunities Party – TOP – and it’s back again pushing for it, (although Morgan is no longer the party leader) saying this is an important transitional period in people’s lives and they need support.
None of the parties in Parliament have picked it up so far.
Max Rashbrooke writes about economic inequality and is a 2020 JD Stout Fellow at Victoria University.
He says UBI is not the answer – not because he thinks we'll end up with a workless society, but because the system is hugely draining on the economy."
https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/the-detail/story/2018746923/could-a-free-money-for-all-scheme-catch-on-here
A much better proposal
Couple of late night vids for amusement (via Kos)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdQbIt1lRTs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igh9iO5BxBo
Kia Ora Newshub.
A 4 day week could work out.
The dolphins putting spung on their nose show me they are intelligent and have personalitys.
Ka kite Ano.
Kia Ora Te Ao Maori News.
It looks like we are going to have A tangata government for the next election Ka pai.
I say Maori trust farms should open their eyes and see exactly how there tangata are treated.
Its good to see more wahine with moko kau.
Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora The Am Show.
William he is just stirring the pot to boost the viewers.
That's correct they forgot about training Kiwis it's cheaper to just import them who cares about the lower classes.
That's is cool New Zealand being 3rd in the World for charity koha.
No Kanikani in bars.
Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora Te Ao Maori News.
That's awesome all the Tangata supporting that Kuia from ponsonby who received a bad letter kia kaha.
Ka kite Ano