Tze Ming Mok is a writer and social researcher specialising in race and ethnicity, whose parents are from Singapore and Malaysia. His contribution to our multicultural analysis illuminates the dangers of over-generalising. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12144581
“The more the CCP tries to insert its agenda into wider New Zealand Chinese spaces while claiming to speak for all overseas Chinese, the more private animosity there is towards Mainlanders among the non-Mainland-born, even as we try to maintain our own “united front” against racism.”
Well it may fit, as regulars here will testify I can be irritatingly stubborn as a goat, and whacking my head on a steel beam results in a dull thud. 🙂
is that the Tze Ming Mok who writes about NZ from London ?
Its clear she doesnt know enough about circumstances , except to take potshots at labour “Putting aside whether Mr Zhang (MNZM, gonged by Labour)”
Zhang was recommended by National party figures and Goff- thats how it works, its not just the gift of the government.
Seems to me you cant write about life in NZ- from London. especially this
“It’s endlessly irritating and insulting that both Labour and National have lazily assigned Chinese communities as the fiefdoms of politicians openly backed by the Chinese government.”
What is even more irritating is being lectured to from London.
Liked her last paragraph…
“New Zealand needs to be the unicorn that can resist CCP influence as a way to uphold the rights of its own Chinese populations to political independence. We deserve better than to be trapped between knee-jerk racists and Xi Jinping Thought. Abandoning us to this fate is racism too.”
“There’s some rotten, awful things that have happened in the National Party over a long period of time. They should be exposed.” “I think I have a responsibility to keep doing that.”
For a long time, National has been able to cultivate the myth of a unified party while fully engaged in practicing DP to take political all enemies down. Obviously, these two carefully crafted faces, or personae rather, of the National Party were mutually inconsistent if not contradictory but thanks to MSM this incongruence did not take hold in the public and with the voters; it resonated strongly with many people’s beliefs and personal biases. To be clear, this doesn’t make National voters bad or stupid; it simply shows how easily consent can be manufactured and public opinion can be manipulated, with a little help of ‘friends’.
DP (and MSM) operatives have known this for a long time and some have made it their business.
This is my problem that National are seen as covering their own tracks now and hiding any truth now and the media is lax at going at national for the truth.
The media and National caucus leadership are both negligent in their duty to come clean as at present, because their own honesty is wanting.
Let us see the time capsule here beginning from last monday when Jamie Lee Ross said he was going to the police;
At 1pm Monday 15th October 2018; – after the meeting was confirmed with them; – to take his evidence of Simon Bridges conducting illegal activities over a Chinese investor donation of $100 00.
By 16th October 2018; – when the confirmation was made for his evidence delivered of illegal activities of a $100 000 donation,
We heard a series of reports from National Caucus leaders; including;
Simon Bridges,
Judith Collins,
Amy Adams,
Paula Bennett,
Mark Mitchell’
Lawrence Yule.
All said; – there was no evidence found of a “$100 000 donation was ever made to the national Party relating to the allegations made by Jami Lee Ross.
Judith Collins said clearly that it was a “fictitious claim just made up by Jami Lee Ross”.
From the 16th October 2018 the National Party caucus had expelled Jami lee Ross without learning the truth of the truth and existence of the $100 000 donation.
From 16th no retraction/correction of apologies has ever been forthcoming by either National Party caucus, nor any media error of reporting false stories of “no evidence found of a “$100 000 donation was ever made to the national Party relating to the allegations made by Jami Lee Ross.”
So we have sen both the national Party lying and the Media backing those falsely quoted allegations.
The voting public demand honestly and integrity here so we hope the police get the true facts straight now for the NZ Public, and it shows national were releasing the “fictitious claim just made up by (them and not from) Jami Lee Ross”.
Lifted from Scoop. Celia Lashlie is a kiwi hero; I admire her guts and honesty intensely:
Celia Lashlie “(is).. not suggesting poverty or lack of advantage justifies crimimal behaviour:“…but…it has often occurred to me that the people who dismiss any link often do so from a position of relative wealth. They have no idea about what its like to live hand to mouth, to see no hope of changing that way of life on the horizon and to want better for your children. It seems that as the gap between rich and poor has widened in our society, so too has the arrogance of the ‘rich’ grown in terms of the views they hold about how everyone else should live.”
Alongside financial poverty is poverty of opportunity, and alternate choices.
When you have a “wealth of choices” available to you, at little differing cost, then it is sometimes hard to recognise how difficult it is for those without diverse experience or relationship contacts, to make changes or take chances.
Poverty can make every decision fraught with anxiety – because the ‘wrong’ choice can result in even higher levels of deprivation.
“Poverty can make every decision fraught with anxiety – because the ‘wrong’ choice can result in even higher levels of deprivation.”
Molly
Indeed Molly
At the Tenants vs Landlords debate at Uni last Wednesday, it was a surprise to me to discover that the preponderance of the 22 strong audience were mostly made up of landlords.
Speaking with one of the Tenants advocates later. He explained why this might be; saying, ‘What the Landlord advocates don’t realise is that most tenants live with fear and are unlikely to turn up at public events like this, whereas the landlords (and their advocates) don’t know any fear or hesitancy in attending, or putting their point of view across publicly.
Alex Braae is the author of The Bulletin – a daily wrap of New Zealand news and politics from across the media. “Throughout this week, rogue National MP Jami-Lee Ross has shown himself accomplished at the marathon press conference. Tonight, he revealed a hitherto unknown media talent – the train-crash one on one interview. He decided to go head to head with Heather du Plessis-Allen on Newstalk ZB. It was astonishing on the radio. On video, it was something else.”
“the by-election could still go ahead though… They could always invoke the newly passed waka-jumping bill, thus entirely proving Winston Peters right about the value of the law. It won’t necessarily be being used to stifle political dissent – though Ross claims he’s being pushed out for challenging the party hierarchy – it will be used to get rid of a guy who has thrown Molotov cocktails through the caucus room windows.”
“And those will keep coming. Ross says there’s a deep rot in the National party, hinting at stories about the various hits he’s been asked to carry out. “But you were the rot!” protested HDPA. He might have been following orders, and it’s probably worth listening to what he says. But it’s unclear why following orders absolves him from the responsibility of carrying them out. National of course argued vehemently against the waka-jumping legislation, but at this stage of the story, Simon Bridges could easily just say fuck it and force him out.”
Shoot the messenger. Use of the Nuremberg defense viable? Didn’t work for the top Nazis. For many this will prompt the Trumpian reflex condemnation. However, once you factor in political psychology, the nuances come into play. Power morphs human nature. Someone can be well-intentioned, then when a political party puts them in a position of power, they discover they feel good when using it. Like any hormone-trigger, addiction can lead to abuse. Don’t rule out redemption.
The Bulletin is “a free daily digest of the most important news from around New Zealand” launched by The Spinoff early this year. Generic link https://thespinoff.co.nz/category/the-bulletin/
Alex Braae is an author of The Bulletin; but the specific Braae article DF is quoting from is a Spinoff article, and not a specific Bulletin one. Here is the link.
It is well worth reading the full article. Braae also did a couple of earlier ones this week on the JLR disaster – available from the generic Bulletin link above.
It won’t be, as someone wrote here yesterday, just a few husbands afraid to ask the question as to what Jami-Lee Ross does, but a lot of wives as well asking about whether what he says is true.
I’m actually gobsmacked that people appear to be shocked about these revelations about the sex lives of MPs. These are the so-called ”corridors of power”, after all. Are we a prudent lot, naive, or just a tad hypocritical? Perhaps the only real ‘surprise’ is how long they have managed to keep it out of the limelight …
To hell with power, people are working long days together in jobs with highs and lows and a certain bunker mentality. Lange wasn’t a one-off by any means.
From No Right Turn, “Reminder: Saudi Arabia kidnapped people from New Zealand
You have to wonder what our government did about this, should have been an international incident, but I guess when trade is more important than human rights and principals and international law and our government is openly for Sale….
“Earlier this month, journalist Jamal Khashoggi visited the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. He was then beaten, drugged, and dismembered – apparently while still alive – by a 15-man Saudi kill team who had been specially flown in for the purpose. Its a horrific act, and one which should make Saudi Arabia an international pariah. But Khashoggi is not the only victim of the Saudi regime. As Stuff reminds us, in 2014 they apparently kidnapped a refugee from New Zealand:
Friends of Khalid Muidh Alzahrani, who they called Daniel, know what the Saudi regime is capable of.
Four years ago, the refugee disappeared from his sparse flat in Redwood, Christchurch, and they haven’t spoken to him since. They fear he’s been executed.
Daniel had converted to Christianity – a crime in Saudi Arabia – and his friends believe he was forcibly repatriated, possibly with his family’s help.
The original media stories are here and here. And as this story makes clear, Alzahrani wasn’t the only one: in May 2013 an unnamed Saudi refugee was apparently snatched off the street in Auckland and rendered to Saudi Arabia, where he was reportedly tortured.”
That’s a pattern of serious significance. Looks like Putin’s treatment of renegades who flee to Britain, but worse. With Saudi Arabia, add abduction for the purpose of torture, prior to elimination. Onus is now on Trump to do a bit of moral leadership, and fortunately yesterday we had reports he `toughened his language’.
Nothing short of punishment will suffice: he either has to pull the plug on the Saudi regime, or direct it to operate in a civilised manner under the threat of enforcement. Time for the dude to man up.
Interpol ex-chief may be dead, wife fears, after capture by Chinese
Grace Meng speaks out about ‘cruel, dirty’ Chinese authorities after disappearance of France-based Meng Hongwei
There’s big differences between you and CV, Red. For starters, you’re against the march of the totalitarians. CV, on the other hand, wanted to be parade marshall.
Also did the National government turn a ‘blind eye’ because they were trying to bribe Saudi officials with the sheep deal bribe (against all advice) and maybe just ignored the rendition and torture of a refugee on NZ soil?
The only bit about which she had doubts about the legality was the export of live sheep.
You are stretching it a great deal to turn it into a comment that the deal itself was illegal.
Have you been taking lessons from JLR in how to exaggerate things far beyond reality?
The Government has been accused of paying a bribe and doing dodgy deals after pouring more than $11 million of taxpayer money into an influential Saudi businessman’s farm.
The timing of the disappearance of the refugees should be scrutinised, as why there has not been more of an investigation into what happened to them in NZ, and what did happen to them, in light of the reported butcher of Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi embassy.
Bennett according to JLR was involved with what was going on in Barclay’s electorate office. Bennett probably was the broker between the electorate worker and Goodfellow. The electorate worker received a payout from a fund which Key had, due to being tapped by Barclay without her knowledge. A confidentiality clause was signed.
JLR was sent to Barclay’s electorate office as matters were starting to stink for English and Bennett was not shutting the stink down.
Now there is a situation involving JLR and a woman and a confidentiality clause between the woman and JLR, which occurred 2 years ago, (I would like to have a precise date for this). There has been no mention of a payment to the woman.
Bennett is throwing mud at JLR, she was sneaky over the Barclay issue, she worked with JLR to protect English, JLR tried to get rid of Barclay but could not once it was revealed tapes existed.
Now Bennett seems to be the front person for Bridges to take JLR down using affairs JLR has had in recent years.
Bennett appears to be an insider for the National Party cover up brigade. JLR is no longer an insider for the cover up brigade, he now appears to be a whistle blower.
How loud his whistle will blow is unknown and the response from those he has in his sight is yet to be established.
Ross’s problem is that he seems to be under the delusion that he is the dark-haired reincarnation of Julian Assange.
He actually makes Assange seem a good person by comparison which is something of a miracle.
Full Ballistic?
I’ll tell you what full ballistic is.
Just go back a couple of months to when Ardern’s baby was born. Trevor Mallard, that pillar of bullshit and shit throwing threatened the Gallery journalists that if they ever accidentally took a photo of the baby in the public areas of Parliament, including the area where TV interviews are normally done, and did not immediately delete it, he would kick them out of the Press Gallery.
As we have discovered of course his leader uses the baby as a draw card for the women’s magazines. So much for protecting the baby from publicity.
Kicking people out of the Press Gallery for accidentally showing a baby in the background of a public area.
Now that was really going ballistic. Bridges is simply pointing out the truth to the fools in the fourth estate.
Can you defend Trevor?
Surely you don’t consider his actions and threats to be harmless and just the behavior of a caring old grandfather protecting an innocent child from the attention seeking actions of her mother?
Tell me. Do you think that taking your child into the General Assembly of the UN, and posing her for the photographers, is the action of someone who is trying to protect the baby from the eyes of the world?.
Is that going to be less intrusive than the possibility that the baby might, for a few seconds, appear in the distance behind someone being interviewed in the public spaces of Parliament?
Ringing up the media to warn them to comply is over stepping the mark. Especially when you are embroiled in the situation you are trying to prevent the media reporting.
This is not the way to shut down/control the issue.
JLR is leading the race with coming clean.
I really hope that any new issues are not stacked on the pile.
At the end of the day all the actual facts will not be known, those involved will be tarnished or ruined.
Maybe honesty is the policy National need to be working on now.
JLR coming clean? You really are joking, aren’t you?
Really. Have you ever compared what Ross claims he is doing with the “evidence” he produces?
Look at the claims he made about there being a $100,000 donation that the National Party are supposed to have covered up.
It turns out, when he releases a tape, that the party officials actually acted completely within the law. There was no $100,000 donation. There were a number of donations that Ross collected on the parties behalf and that the party official went to some trouble to identify exactly who they were and that they existed.
Ross really seems to have lost his sense of reality. He simply makes up stories which are never justified by the information he produces. Sooner or later the journalists are going to accept that they have been played. A few of them may then start to tell the truth about Ross.
Ross is following in the steps of that unlamented ex-MP Meteria Turei. Fantasies about how she had to lie and defraud the taxpayer to feed her baby. Finally, of course it got to much for the family of the baby’s father and they told the truth to John Campbell. Bye-bye Turei. The same thing will happen to Ross.
Don’t be so silly.
I was comparing Trevor’s threats to the whole of the Press Gallery to Bridges’ fairly mild warning to people in the MSM.
It was Trevor who went totally over the top.
You will have noticed that I never once mentioned the baby’s name or sex or said anything about her at all. I only mentioned her mother.
Jacinda Ardern does not get the same consideration.
Stop trying to divert the debate into irrelevancies because you cannot justify Trevor’s behavior.
Hating babies is one thing – vile attacks are completely ott. It is a sign he’s really gone burger – a seedy wee man smacking his keyboard with hateful strokes and all against a defenceless wee baby.
You have clearly never read what I said.
You are merely exhibiting the truth of the dictum
“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”.
You have proved that you are not only a fool but a miserable specimen of humanity in your irrational attacks on what I actually said.
Stick to the point you silly boy. Can you really consider that Bridges has gone ballistic when compared to Mallard’s totally over the top threats to the Press Gallery?
You aren’t going to answer that question of course. To tell the truth would earn you an attack from you foolish friends. To tell a lie and claim that Trevor was simply giving a measured response will make you a laughing stock to all except the one-eyed left leaners.
Aren’t you the person who was demanding to know the names of the women that Ross claimed to have had affairs with?
Why is it any of your business? Do you just want to make more trouble?
You should have stopped your sentence at the end of the word “understand”
Saying “I just don’t understand” is an accurate statement on your part. The rest of it simply exhibits your stupidity.
There, there, muttonhead. Have another go at the P.
Have any kids yourself? You certainly sound like a smelly old billy goat so I suppose it is possible.
Then try, although I am sure you will find it very difficult, to discuss the point of the comment. If you can’t do that give up and let the adults talk. Your stupidity simply illustrates the general intellectual dishonesty of your cabal.
@muttonhead
I suppose that to a 12 year old like you I must seem old.
Never mind. You might, and I have my doubts, become older and wiser some day.
Meanwhile I suppose you will continue to post your ridiculous comments because you are unable to debate the facts.
Sad, really. You are more to be pitied than laughed at, as my Irish friends would say.
The situation has got so out of hand because JLR cannot go through the usual channels an MP would use when they are being warned.
You do not go to your boss if the boss is seen to be dodgy by you, even if you are dodgy.
Bridges has inherited the mess Key and English left behind that JLR was involved in. Then Bennett and Bridges have used affairs and inappropriate behaviour against JLR.
I would like to see the issues dealt with separately because there is so much contamination that no one involved is THINKING straight.
JLR, Bridges and Bennett need to take leave for a couple weeks.
Bridges expenses was the spark and the fire is raging.
It is not hard to do a list of the issues and for the issues to be dealt with separately and independently by those with the proper skills and those slinging shit at each other to have a truce.
Kindergarten kids are better at settling a dispute and have better negoiating skills.
The identity of the leaker into Bridges expenses was inconclusive. There now has to be a further process to either confirm it was JLR or someone else. Or to concede and drop the issue.
Using an affair against someone is blackmail. Two things could be done about inappropriate behaviour, a police complaint or a a work dispute complaint. Had this initially occurred something constructive would have happened. Instead inappropriate behaviour went unchecked and there were no proper consequences.
As for the 100k donation the police are currently investigating and will need to verify who and what was donated.
I would have to agree that Assange is still alive and that it would have to be delusional of Ross.
Does Ross understand that though?
He doesn’t seem to understand that the tapes he is producing support Bridges and make Ross look foolish.
Alwyn, I’m not getting you here; JLR is not “producing” tapes, he’s “providing” them, isn’t he? Are you saying they’re doctored? I also don’t understand the binary thinking about what’s been played out at the moment with SB and JLR as the two focus points at the moment.
D-Day in Malcolm Turnbull’s old seat of Wentworth in Sydney’s eastern suburbs today. It has always voted Liberal so a loss for Dave Sharma, a former Ambassador to Israel (the seat has Australia’s largest Jewish population) would be historic and strip ScoMo of his majority in the House of Reps.
Economically conservative but very progressive socially there are signs that voters in the seat are losing patience with a Liberal Party that they feel has been overrun by the Christian Right and big money Coal and Mining interests. Climate Change and getting the kids off Nauru are touted as the main issues on the minds of voters. Add to that the fact that they are mightily pissed at the way their popular MP, Malcolm Turnbull was treated by his party and it’s possible that independant candidate Dr Kerryn Phelps, the first LGBT woman to become president of the Australian Medical Association, could prevail. https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/we-made-it-impossible-for-sharma-senior-liberal-on-wentworth-vote-20181019-p50ar5.html
The swing against the Liberals is historic and the largest ever in a byelection in Australia. Even the bluest areas of the electorate Rose Bay and Point Piper recorded 20% against the Liberals.
Yes, skimmed through it quickly, looks like good read for later. More nuanced than usual; the roots of the collapse are complex, but clearly an example of what happens when socialism degenerates into totalitarianism.
If there is one apparent omission, it underplays the role outside actors, especially the USA and Colombia.
Take that into account, but it doesn’t necessarily invalidate everything else being said. As articles go it’s well informed, well written and reasonably even-handed. It has it’s bias, but then so does everyone; which is why I try and read from a range of sources.
I know this is Gossy playing his usual ‘whaddabout Venezuela’ game … but this linky is worth reading.
For a long time National and ACT, acting as advocates for the property sector have been complaining of a lack of supply as the root cause of the housing crisis.
With over 30,000 empty houses in Auckland alone. The problem is not lack of supply, it is lack of affordability.
Overseas examples are a warning of what is about to occur unless the government acts to prevent it.
As the current building boom reaches its peak, all political effort must be put into making sure that we don’t let the developers and speculators use the excuse of “over supply” to let empty homes rot, (eventually having them demolished en mass).
We have been warned: As long as there one homeless family left unhoused, the government must not let this happen in this country. (Even if we have to nationalise these homes at no recompense to the developers to prevent them leaving these homes to fall into disrepair or be left unfinished)
@Jenny, regarding ‘oversupply in Chch – I guess when Brownlee is recreating the city in his own image, and it’s become a hot bed of corruption and people can’t actually rely on council and building regulations to guarantee the quality of housing in the desperation to build something nobody wants (something that will come back to bite all the other cities in particular Auckland) then yep, nobody wants the houses.
Although just as likely people want to buy the houses but can’t afford them on their low wages and the banks won’t lend on their insecure jobs and their pay outs from the earthquake and the fake recovery on the back of lazy migration and deals for Natz pals, were never going to be a long term fix.
If you fake a recovery and building is not local but just a way to make a profit before moving on, then long term you probably are not creating a healthy longevity community.
Saying that, this article is probably fake news to generate sales and corporate welfare, and the houses cost a bomb, and are overpriced.
@Jenny, regarding the US link – Why neoliberalism is crazy. US has massive homelessness but destroys new houses to keep prices up?? Dysfunctional financing routs!
Thanks Jenny for that housing item and great photographs of the Irish result of the no regulation, sleazy credit decade. Capitalism unfettered – business is not always right or to be trusted. Can we have our country and economy back now please?
But now demolition has begun on some of the last of the remaining ghost estates, built during the economic boom of ‘Celtic Tiger’ years but now deemed ‘not economically viable’.
Between the mid-1990s and 2007, Irish developers flocked to build new homes, spurred on by the easy availability of credit, cheap labour from eastern Europe and a vibrant Dublin property market….
But then the bottom fell out and by 2010 there were an estimated 600 ghost estates in Ireland with an estimated 300,000 homes lying empty.
Some unlucky buyers were caught in the middle of the crash and found themselves trapped living in dangerous, unfinished properties next to rows of empty buildings.
I am sorry Rosemary to cause you distress. Yes it is enough to make you want to cry.
Even the landlords are worried.
The elephant in the room
On Wednesday I attended a debate, between representatives of landlord and property investors on one side, and tenants and student advocates on the other.
The background to the debate are the reforms to The Tenancies Act currently passing through parliament. The tenants advocates argued in support of more regulation of the housing rental industry, while the landlord advocates argued for less.
Near the end of the debate, the question of over supply in Christchurch as related to falling rental returns due to oversupply, was briefly brought up by David Falkner near the end of the debate, at some obvious discomfort to him and the other Landlord Advocates.
Debate – Landlords v Tenants: We need to fix renting!
Motion: We need to fix renting: but do some or all of the RTA reforms go too far?
Pro (yes) : Andrew King (NZPIF), David Faulkner (Real iQ) and Stephen Berry (ACT Party)
Con (no): Robert Whitaker (Renters United), Peter Klein (TPA Auckland) and Helen Munro LLB (AUTSA Advocacy Manager)
The Government is currently amending the Residential Tenancies Act 1986 to make life better for renters in NZ.
Commentators say that the reforms are needed to stop escalating rents, ensure all houses are warm, healthy and dry to stop housing-related illness and generally give better protection for tenants.
Other commentators have said the reforms go too far by unfairly punishing good landlords and driving them out of the renting market which could end up hurting tenants and drive up rents.
· Hosted by The University of Auckland Debating Society and Renters United
Maths & Physics Building – MLT1 303-G23 – University of Auckland
Thankfully, most of the debate between the two sides avoided swapping the sensational horror stories about bad tenants and bad landlords favoured by the media in debates between landlords and tenants,, and instead got down to addressing the fundamental issues, of suitability, availability and affordability, and how these factors play out in a regulated and unregulated market.
The Landlord advocates made a very compelling case of how they are losing money on a falling property market. The repeated common refrain from this sector over the last few years, and repeatedly echoed again here in this debate, by the Landlord’s team was, ‘we need less regulation, so that we can increase supply, which according to them, ‘will increase affordability, in the rental and housing market generally’.
‘
At the end of the debate, In the question and answer session; a property manager in the audience, generally rubbished the claim of lack of supply, she said she managed 50 properties, and media reports of bidding wars were nonsense, and that she was struggling to fill her properties at the current rents. She said that a number of the properties she advertised for rent, (she didn’t say how many), didn’t attract any inquiries at all, and were being kept empty.
Renters vs Landlords debate @35:42 minutes last comment of the night.
Un-named property manager speaks speaks out from the floor, (with some bitterness.)
….You wouldn’t believe it at the moment, I’ve been in the residential property market and rental market for twenty years. Prices are not likely to rise at the moment.
“We are struggling to rent [out] properties at the moment.
If you look on Trade Me Boardroom; Over the last three months, there might be like four thousand properties available. Of that four thousand, two weeks ago,after three months, two and half thousand were still empty.
I’ve got a property, a one bedroom flat, recently reconditioned, $300 a week, empty.”
“So actually at the moment in the market, for the first time, we are seeing that the market, the renters, are saying enough is enough.” [Turning to address the Tenant Advocates] And so they [rents] are going down, we are having to drop some properties [rents] by $50 a week. And so you are winning at the moment…..”
I think you should make clear – the housing estate thats never been lived in is because of the standard of construction makes them unlivableas the building was so slip-shod
Many of the half-finished estates lack basic amenities like lighting and schools and are deemed uneconomically viable
Did it say that the building was slipshod? They were unfinished, so lighting had not been installed, and the lack of regulated planning meant that they were distant from amenities needed, like schools. That is the authorities’ fault.
I can believe that the building may have been slipshod, but that was not made clear as the reason for demolition.
Just as you say Draco, rather than take their losses, they want their pound of flesh, and they intend to get it. Even on a falling market.
History shows that if you leave it up to the landlords and speculators they will demolish new houses, or not finish half completed ones, to artificially limit the supply and keep house prices and rents up.
Wow. Apart from the normal pro-National angle we are used to reading from Tracy Watkins, here she opens up on the simpering relationship she has with Simon Bridges.
Bridges’ valve burst Wednesday evening when he phoned around political editors to warn them he had been defamed and his reputation damaged. In his conversation with me, he threatened to walk away from our weekly interview because I was too negative.
Just think about that for a moment. Bridges has called all the political editors threatening to pull interviews unless they be kinder to him. What a big baby.
And here Watkins duly obliges, fearful of losing her weekly slot with the only party in parliament she has good access to.
Someone in National needs to hold their nose and reach out to rogue MP Jami-Lee Ross to broker a cease fire before any more people are hurt.
That’s how John Key’s National Party would have handled this problem – in-house, below the radar and the leaker dispatched by whatever means necessary.
Talk about a lack of awareness! Key’s approach is what landed them in the shit in the first place. It was Key’s method which has cause the rot within the National Party, Tracy.
Actually his apparent back-ground lends itself to some sympathy for him. Doesn’t know who is father was… mother incapable of looking after him (don’t know why but drugs perhaps) and brought up by his grandmother. No father figure to guide him during his teenage years.
When I first saw his background on Wikipedia long before the present situation, I read the mother bit differently – mh rather than drugs but the two can be well be interlinked – they are not mutually exclusive.
But I just found this article from a couple of days ago, which throws more light on his family background and childhood.
In reality he has achieved a lot in his 32 years – more than many others from more privileged backgrounds and/or much higher educational qualifications.
It is hard to see much likeable, honourable etc etc in him at present and a lot of people are writing him off for the future, but with that history of achievement I actually believe that he is quite capable of “picking himself up, shaking himself off, and starting all over again”.
Who knows, perhaps he has really had a Road to Damascus moment. There are not many people who would come out as he has done and admit adultery etc etc …
Current behaviour may well have a link with his childhood.
There are so many adverse effects children can have due to parental separation, (anger, mistrust, low self esteem, relationship issues in adult years).
I am no counsellor but I had serious detachment in my childhood, more so with my mother than my father.
Once I learnt how to manage my anger without directing it at people, I felt more at peace within my self.
Who knows, perhaps he has really had a Road to Damascus moment.
It’s possible. I’ll be more inclined to believe it if he leaves the National Party of his own free will rather than being pushed and what he does afterwards.
I agree. I’m staying with Jekyll & Hyde. No evidence that Nicky Wagner is right (“psychotic”). So the dark side is bullying, abusive sex, etc, applied coercion.
On the bright side I’ve been seeing the moral crusader from the start. I agree his complicity makes him seem part of the problem, but I had a professional career in television commercial editing before editing news & current affairs stories, and the management practice of applying coercion to make individuals conform to organisational requirements that I experienced in both media often forced me to act against my conscience, and not in the public interest. I expect he suffered the same learning curve. Enough of that shit in the Greens too – easy to imagine it was at least ten times worse in National.
So that bit about taking on Len Brown as a youngster & defeating him to achieve accountability for misuse of council funds rings true, especially as he cited it as his motivation in trying to hold his party accountable. I agree that a positive male role model as mentor would be a great help. Not easy to find these days, eh? Especially in National (and Labour). Can’t see Lusk serving that purpose!
Oh, and the other part of the bright side I forgot to mention is the likelihood that he’s actually empathic to some extent. Not enough to be able to manage relations with partners well, obviously, but enough to suggest the narcissist thesis is invalid. He actually listens to people. His conversation is natural and flows easily. You see that both in his interviews & press conferences. Now a narcissist sees others as part of their interior psychic furniture, as objects. Their style of communicating is consequently to talk at people, rather than with them. No rapport possible.
For some reason Norm Hewitt keeps popping into my mind as someone who could help JLR. I honestly have no idea where this is coming from so I just throw it out there …
But, unlike the media in NZ, they focus on the most important and serious aspect of the affair:
“It looks like a donation from a businessman, but who is that businessman, actually?” Chen said. “The Chinese Communist Party has been gradually making donations to political parties here and there via their agents in Western political circles.”
“This is a very serious problem … and yet the government here in New Zealand doesn’t seem to be taking much of a stand,” Chen said. “The New Zealand’s relationship with China is too cozy, with a lot of vested interests tied up with it.”
When you bite the hand that’s feeding you, you’re losing.
Julian Assange is to launch legal action against the government of Ecuador, accusing it of violating his “fundamental rights and freedoms”.
The Wikileaks co-founder has lived in its UK embassy since 2012 after seeking asylum to avoid extradition to Sweden over a rape inquiry – later dropped.
He was given a set of house rules by the London embassy this week, including taking better care of his cat.
Mr Assange faces arrest for allegedly breaching bail conditions if he leaves.
Wikileaks lawyer Baltasar Garzon is in Ecuador to launch the case, which the Press Association reports is expected to be heard in court next week.
Wikileaks said the country’s government had threatened to remove the protection Mr Assange has had since being granted political asylum.
It added that his access to the outside world had been “summarily cut off”.
In a memo, it threatened to confiscate the pet if he did not look after it, it said.
I commented at 9.1 above that I thought Ross was behaving as if he thought he was Assange.
That was before I read your comment and the linked story. Now your link makes me even more convinced of it. Assange is behaving exactly like Ross as well. I’ll bet that Ecuador are sorry that they ever went near the guy, or more precisely that he let Assange get near them. Talk about lying down with a dog will get you fleas.
Years ago Assange was exhibiting his narcissism, now it looks like he’s actually lost his marbles. I don’t agree with your equation, however. The only common factors are them both taking a strong moral stand and having flawed characters. A combination that is no longer a christian monopoly.
The more I see of Scott Eady’s ‘sculpture’, the more I wonder whether it’s a pisstake tribute to the modern day National Party.
The gold-plated turd with a bit of glittering atop a gNat blue column.
I hope he was paid well. A fitting monument.
(https://www.sculpture.org.nz/the-sculptures
The Scott Eady column in link at 16 dates from 2015 apparently. And also illustrates that rich people when they are philanthropic show this usually in the art world. They don’t appreciate the beautiful works of natural art that are people, or see the curious cultural web that we set up as fantastic art work either. So the money usually doesn’t trickle down to water the amazing creative potential for good that is in all of us.
(https://www.odt.co.nz/lifestyle/magazine/speaking-those-no-voice This year, in August, a commissioned public sculpture by Eady was installed in Wellington’s Cuba St. Titled The Philanthropist’s Stone, it is a tall Corinthian column, a gold-plated bronze nugget and 10 candles with hand-blown glass flames.
The 4m-tall sculpture commemorates the centenary of the philanthropic trust established on the death of businessman Thomas George Macarthy, of Wellington.
Mr Macarthy began his fortune in the Otago goldfields and the T. G. Macarthy Trust has given $61.4 million to charities during the past 100 years.
The diamond invention—the creation of the idea that diamonds are rare and valuable, and are essential signs of esteem—is a relatively recent development in the history of the diamond trade. Until the late nineteenth century, diamonds were found only in a few riverbeds in India and in the jungles of Brazil, and the entire world production of gem diamonds amounted to a few pounds a year. In 1870, however, huge diamond mines were discovered near the Orange River, in South Africa, where diamonds were soon being scooped out by the ton. Suddenly, the market was deluged with diamonds. The British financiers who had organized the South African mines quickly realized that their investment was endangered; diamonds had little intrinsic value—and their price depended almost entirely on their scarcity. The financiers feared that when new mines were developed in South Africa, diamonds would become at best only semiprecious gems.
A great example of how advertising manipulates us into false beliefs and positions that are detrimental to us.
It is really rare but again MPs are human and [Mr Ross] is obviously going through something and we just need to be really sensitive to that,” she said.
“My heart goes out to him and I’m thinking of him.”
Ms Kaye said going on leave can be tough and people need to respect Mr Ross.
‘It’s a challenging situation and I think we just need to be really respectful and thoughtful
Was Kaye or the rest of the Nat caucus not briefed at all, or was it merely politically expedient to run this line at the time? Further evidence of the lack of morals and opportunism which has taken root in the National Party of New Zealand.
If this is the level of ‘political management’ offered by Paula Bennett and Simon Bridges then the pair of them need to f**k off, pronto.
I bet Nikki Kaye wishes she could take those words back.
They have to write it that way- Bridges has read the riot act to the editors about defamation. Even though as a politician its a very high bar, but he would have the party chiefs contacting the people who employ the editors and getting them to put the party first
They allude to this by JLR staying in parliament to say ‘things under privilege’- which would keep the national partys lawyers at bay.
It looks like National will rip out the still beating heart of its newest MP if it has to get rid of JLR from Parliament and its protections for what Mps say.
The other approach may be to see if JLR would be tempted by ‘greenmail’ and take a golden parachute for what he could earn from parliament for 2 years
I’m sure there are pleas for fundraising going out to donors right now with which to pay Ross off.
That would be typical of the National Party who believe meeting someones price is the the ethical way to go.
What really disappointed me about this latest Edwards fluff piece is that he claims in the opening sentence both Ross and the National Party are coming to terms with reality:
There are signs that National’s civil war has forced a reality check for both the party and Jami-Lee Ross
Perhaps I’m being naive but that to me suggested that Edwards was going to talk about Ross coming clean on all his own personal misdemeanours and also the toxic methods of the National Party. And it suggested that Edwards felt the National Party were beginning to take a look at themselves, finding their behaviour wasn’t up to scratch and that they were about to embark on a drive to clean out the party on malevolent influence.
But no, it was about Ross suddenly realising he couldn’t win Botany and the ‘reality check’ for National wasn’t about them taking a look at themselves it was about their means of escape.
How this clown Edwards is considered a mature and impartial commenter is beyond me.
Eric Idle on the excellent interview this morning with Kim, said that the British press regularly taking down the Pythons, white-anting them were one of the reasons why they shifted to the USA. Also he commented that the Press in UK were probably behind the push for Brexit; something about the press barons living in tax havens and didn’t want new legislation that would cut their nirvana a notch. e&oe
Listen duration 45′ :56″
Eric Idle is a comedian, actor, writer and musician, most notable for his membership of the Monty Python comedy troupe. His career in comedy began in earnest in 1968 when he began writing and acting in two series of a children’s TV hit, Do Not Adjust Your Set, with Michael Palin, Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam.
The success of this show led to four series of Monty Python’s Flying Circus for the BBC from July 1969 through 1973, with the addition of John Cleese and Graham Chapman. The group enjoyed great success on stage and screen until disbanding in 1983.
After Python, Idle continued to work on radio comedies, write books, appear in movies and even on the opera stage. He has recently released a ‘sortabiography’ called Always Look on the Bright Side of Life – also the title of a song he composed for the closing of the movie Life of Brian – and one which has grown to become a signature tune for Monty Python.
“After years on Nauru, 15 asylum seekers, all in families, flew to Australia on Monday. Three more families travelled on Tuesday. Yet more left on Wednesday. And another seven families on Thursday, according to a briefing that Immigration Minister David Coleman gave crossbench members of Parliament this week. All families, all with kids, all travelling on medical advice that they need treatment in Australia.”
Apparently the kids and their families are being resettled in US
” “Anyone with even a stubbed toe is getting approved” for treatment in Australia, he says.”
means they can still say with a straight face- no change in the ‘policy’
Thats when it gets really weird
“Asylum seekers on Nauru are not in detention. They have been free to move and integrate into the community for two years now. They are classified as temporary residents of Nauru with 20-year visas. Under the terms of their visas, they need to get exit visas from the Nauruan government before leaving for Australia.
That would be very interesting if true because it adds to the theory that the Nats dumped the story on Reid in the last couple of weeks as per Ross’ allegation, rather than Reid’s own claim that she’d been working on it with these women for a year.
Also, did the MP having given her anonymous story to Reid not believe she’d have to back it up at some stage?
“That would be very interesting if true because it adds to the theory that the Nats dumped the story on Reid in the last couple of weeks as per Ross’ allegation, rather than Reid’s own claim that she’d been working on it with these women for a year.”
I have no idea what you are implying here
That his behaviour to the women in question is made up?
No. that the National Party of New Zealand held back the complaints but these women when it suited them and then dumped the complaints by these women on the media when it suited them.
Except for the writer of the article who said they had been working on it for a year.
I tend to go with their version given the lack of any other evidence
But if you think
National got all the different stories together, contacted the reporter and talked them into writing it, got the reporter to get all 4 women together and find background and quotes, her editorial team to double check all the sources, the madias lawyers to get together and check that there was no chance of defamation and double check it, the women to then agree with the draft of it being released nationally, all in the space of the 36 hours after his stand up, you have a higher opinion of these peoples skills than I do,
Don’t you find it remarkably convenient this story appeared right when National needed it?
I’m sure these anonymous accounts were lined up ready to go when required.
I know you don’t have much independence of thought and you take your cues from the National party machine but if you could at least make an effort to think for yourself once in a while?
What I would imagine is they just went with it earlier than planned as the subject of the investigation just became national news story of the year after his stand up and it would be stupid not to.
“I know you don’t have much independence of thought and you take your cues from the National party machine but if you could at least make an effort to think for yourself once in a while?”
Lol
I missed this
How about looking at evidence rather than your own need for conspiracy around every corner, for 2 seconds
Well the National Party has created a fertile ground for all sorts of theories behind motivation. This has happened because they are crooked to the core.
Many members of the middle class don’t want to lose all that money they made through Key’s property Ponzi scheme.
35 years of neoliberalism and we have in our midst a significant minority of the population who was incredibly selfish people.
They won’t sacrifice their international holidays to solve poverty. Too many trips overseas in pampered resorts and on slave cruise ships has got them used to being treated as colonial masters.
They want their flash Ute, forget the unemployed.
They want.
They want.
They want.
It all goes back to Roger Douglas.
I hope I live to see the day he goes to trial.
“However, his public reception was dwarfed by the enthusiasm that greeted Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.
As the Prime Minister left the main stage, she was mobbed by people – many of whom were mothers and young daughter in saris – seeking selfies with her.”
Indian Member of Parliament Kanwaljit Bakshi’s defence of his beleaguered leader Simon Bridges on his clear-as-daylight acquiescence to Jami-Lee Ross’ “Two Chinese would be more valuable than two Indians, I have to say” comment is, to say the least, abject.
[…]
Blaming it all on Ross is fine but as a representative of Kiwi Indians, his constituents would have expected more from Bakshi than this pathetic fig leaf of a defence of his leader. For the question is not of Ross saying what he said. It is rather of Bridges’ acquiescence to what was said and his continuing the conversation about the “value” of ethnic MPs and their numbers and issues around accommodating more of them.
We think (the Waka-jumping Bill) is repugnant to democracy. There’s centuries of thought and practice about what an MP is and their ability to be able to stand up from time to time and say we disagree with our party.
Farrar has tried to worm his way out of this by claiming the Nats only meant policy and not morals and action but quite frankly that will hold little or no water with the media nor the voting public.
Which bit of the media is either serious or fair-minded about this? They’re desperate to bail out poor old Bridges and his cronies. Various “wits” on RNZ National, for example, have been busy ridiculing Jami-Lee Ross and insisting that Bridges will survive this scandal.
I know why Labour has left it for a week but the crux of the matter is about electoral integrity and the need to promote it with the voting public.
JA could and should make a statement gently kicking the Nats in the arse but at the same time reassuring NZ that everything is being done to eliminate poor practice from politics.
BTW, I replied to a post you made on Kiwiblog a while ago, and it has been placed in “moderation”, i.e. it’s been disappeared from that site. I’ve put it on my blog if you’d like to see it…..
That comment by RF is a shocker and should remind us of what it is we are fighting, particularly with reference to what has come to light in the last week about the behaviour, the morals and the motives of the National Party.
Kia ora Newshub Conner I have been following the Wentworth byelection for a bit last nite I posted about it last nite.
Larry Ellison is just a sore loser he lost to Team New Zealand If he was a Honorable person he would have entered a Yacht in the Americas Cup race.
What he is doing he is trying to beat Team New Zealand buy cheating and stealing there competitors and audiences by starting a new competing Yacht race were else but New Zealand.
I think Britain need to have a second vote on the Britexit I will tell what happened the EU told British bankers that they have to stop laundering the worlds corrupt money .
The money people did not like being put into line so they set in motion Britexit as plan as day I see this.
If Britain leaves the EU the bankers will make heaps while the common person will be young dumb and broke.
Niki The League test was a good match the Tongans are good sports people kia kaha Tonga Ka kite ano
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Exactly where are we seriously going with this government and its policies? That is, apart from following what may as well be a Truss-Lite approach on the purported economic “plan“, and Victorian-era regression when it comes to social policy.Oh it’ll work this time of course, we’re basically assured, “the ...
Hey Uncle Dave, When the Poms joined the EEC, I wasn't one of those defeatists who said, Well, that’s it for the dairy job. And I was right, eh? The Chinese can’t get enough of our milk powder and eventually, the Poms came to their senses and backed up the ute ...
Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is higher than for any other mayor ...
Buzz from the Beehive Pharmac has been given a financial transfusion and a new chair to oversee its spending in the pharmaceutical business. Associate Health Minister David Seymour described the funding for Pharmac as “its largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff”. ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its ...
TL;DR: Here’s my top 10 ‘pick ‘n’ mix of links to news, analysis and opinion articles as of 10:10am on Monday, April 29:Scoop: The children's ward at Rotorua Hospital will be missing a third of its beds as winter hits because Te Whatu Ora halted an upgrade partway through to ...
span class=”dropcap”>As hideous as David Seymour can be, it is worth keeping in mind occasionally that there are even worse political figures (and regimes) out there. Iran for instance, is about to execute the country’s leading hip hop musician Toomaj Salehi, for writing and performing raps that “corrupt” the nation’s ...
Yesterday marked 10 years since the first electric train carried passengers in Auckland so it’s a good time to look back at it and the impact it has had. A brief history The first proposals for rail electrification in Auckland came in the 1920’s alongside the plans for earlier ...
Right now, in Aotearoa-NZ, our ‘animal spirits’ are darkening towards a winter of discontent, thanks at least partly to a chorus of negative comments and actions from the Government Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on ...
You make people evil to punish the paststuck inside a sequel with a rotating castThe following photos haven’t been generated with AI, or modified in any way. They are flesh and blood, human beings. On the left is Galatea Young, a young mum, and her daughter Fiadh who has Angelman ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters discussed the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and enhanced cooperation in the Pacific with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock during her first official visit to New Zealand today. "New Zealand and Germany enjoy shared interests and values, including the rule of law, democracy, respect for the international system ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
The Government and Rotorua Lakes Council are committed to working closely together to end the use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing) Tama Potaka says the Government remains committed to ending the long-term use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua by the ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
By Stephen Wright and Stefan Armbruster of BenarNews Fiji’s ranking in a global press freedom index has jumped into the top tier of countries with free or mostly free media after its government last year repealed a draconian law that threatened journalists with prison for doing their jobs. Fiji’s improvement ...
We might be in Invercargill but all anyone can talk about is Gore. Specifically, Salford Street. That’s where three-year-old Lachlan Jones lived, south of the centre of town, between the A&P Showgrounds and the Mataura River. Roughly 1.2 km away from the single level home he lived in with his ...
MONDAY I lined up the latest round of civil servants from city hall against the wall, and signalled for the firing squad to drop their rifles. I stepped up onto a wooden crate to look at the office workers in the eye. But that didn’t feel right, so I found ...
Keen hiker and second-year MSc student Liam Hewson wears two hats when he’s in the great outdoors. “The scientist in me appreciates nature and goes, ‘Oh, there’s that thing and there’s another thing,’ but then the tramper and the outdoorsy person in me thinks, ‘Cool bush.’” Born and bred in ...
After a long and illustrious career as a goal kicker, Dan Carter’s favourite way to unwind is… kicking goals. Why can’t he get enough of it? And what it’s like to watch him do it for an hour straight? A semicircle of people wielding cameras and phones has formed in ...
Dame Susan Devoy takes us through her life in television, including late night ER debriefs, her proudest CTI moment and the show she watches in secret. Quite aside from her four world champion squash titles, Dame Susan Devoy will likely go down in history as one of the best Celebrity ...
Hera Lindsay Bird reveals the best places in Ōtepoti to score more for your apocalypse-prep book hoard.Sometimes I get the feeling I’ve been killed in a car crash, and this second half of my life is just the brain unspooling itself, like one of those episodes of a hospital ...
ThreeNow’s new murder mystery series takes us on a dark, damp journey into the Australian wilderness.This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. High Country is ThreeNow’s new Australian eight-part crime drama, set in a remote part of the Victorian highlands. It tells ...
Introducing a new way to read The Spinoff every weekend. After nearly 10 years of being an online magazine, we’re finally embracing the weekend liftout. Despite our best efforts to convince you otherwise, writers and editors at The Spinoff don’t work weekend. It is through the sheer power of technology ...
Tip one: let yourself be nurtured by this big old man. Tip two: don’t ask him to adopt you. So, you’ve arrived at your first session with a new therapist. He tells you to make yourself comfortable and you opt for the tweed armchair, hoping it makes you look like ...
I didn’t know books could open you back up; that there were books that stayed with you, where reading was like a chemical event. I knew nothing.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.Not too long ago, I was listening to the American ...
Former Olympic swimmer James Magnussen has already started training for the Enhanced games, though says he won’t start taking performance enhancing substances until about nine months out from the competition. The Australian world champion was the first athlete to be announced by Enhanced, but he says the organisation has had ...
Everyone thinks he’s dead. Every day they expect his body to be washed up along the coast. Most likely up Karitane way, the way the tide’s running. But nobody’ll be too surprised if his body’s never found. Even in death he wouldn’t have wished for such attention. He would have ...
Council members voted 21 to 4 in favour of Ahluwalia returning to the Laucala campus following a much-awaited meeting in Vanuatu this week. It comes as USP and its two unions — the Association of the University of the South Pacific Staff (AUSPS) and the Administration and Support Staff Union ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicola Henry, Professor & Australian Research Council Future Fellow, Social and Global Studies Centre, RMIT University Shutterstock Following an emergency meeting of the National Cabinet this week, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced a raft of measures to tackle the problem ...
Analysis - A poll showing the opposition is more popular than the government raises questions, politicians go through their 'trial by pay rise' and a Green MP loses her cool in the debating chamber. ...
The entire stretch of Tokomaru Bay on the East Coast will be subject to a joint customary marine title for two hapū, and extending up to four miles out to sea. A High Court judge has found the two groups, who during the case settled a dispute over boundaries for ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Hall, Lecturer, Media & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University A longstanding feud between TikTok and Universal Music Group seems to have finally reached an end, with both parties signing a deal that will see Universal-backed music returned to the social media ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Siobhan O’Dean, Postdoctoral Research Associate, The Matilda Centre for Research in Mental Health and Substance Use, University of Sydney After several highly publicised alleged murders of women in Australia, the Albanese government this week pledged more than A$925 million over five years ...
Political parties have now fully disclosed the donations they received last year - with National getting more than double the cash of any other party. ...
A Pacific regionalism expert has called out New Zealand's Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters for withholding information from the public on AUKUS military pact. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard de Grijs, Professor of Astrophysics, Macquarie University Bruno Scramgnon/Pexels All systems are “go” for tonight’s launch of China’s next step in a carefully planned lunar exploration program. Placed on top of a powerful Long March 5 rocket, the Chang’e 6 ...
National returned a massive donation the day after a Newsroom story linked the donors to a property being investigated for operating unlawfully as a migrant workers’ hostel. The party’s 2023 donation filings, released on Friday, show it returned a $200,000 donation from Buen Holdings on August 23. That was the ...
Pacific Media Watch New Zealand has slumped to an unprecedented 19th place in the annual Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index survey released today on World Press Freedom Day — May 3. This was a drop of six places from 13th last year when it slipped out of its ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joshua Black, Political Historian and Administrator Officer, Australian Historical Association, Australian National University Australia has had its fair share of public record-keeping controversies in recent years. Some have been mere farce, as in the case of two formerly government-owned filing cabinets (containing ...
Heavenly Culture, World Peace, Restoration of Light (HWPL), a United Nations-affiliated organization dedicated to fostering peace through civilian-led initiatives, has issued a statement in response to the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran. ...
A poem by Tessa Keenan, from AUP New Poets 10. Mātou These days we are a photograph; one of a farm strewn with cows that used to be bright harakeke or swamp. The kids point at it and say the sun sits behind a smudge (left by someone at Christmas); ...
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 Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan (Faber & Faber, $25)The masterful Irish writer ...
Marriage and civil union statistics record the number of marriages and civil unions registered in New Zealand each year, and divorce statistics record the number of divorces granted in New Zealand each year. Key facts Marriages and civil unions In ...
Marriage and civil union statistics record the number of marriages and civil unions registered in New Zealand each year, and divorce statistics record the number of divorces granted in New Zealand each year. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lennon Y.C. Chang, Associate Professor of Cyber Risk and Policy, Deakin University Taiwan stands out as a beacon of democracy, innovation and resilience in an increasingly autocratic region. But this is under growing threat. In recent years, China has used a variety ...
In this excerpt from her new memoir, Dame Susan Devoy remembers her turn as star contestant on the 2022 season of Celebrity Treasure Island. The most anxious time of every day was pre-elimination, when you knew this could be your final day on the show. I felt such contradictory emotions, ...
A week that began in triumph ended in an all-too-familiar disaster for the Green Party. Duncan Greive asks if there’s something in the mission that breaks its best and brightest. A long, strange week for the Green party began with a fantastic poll result. On one level this is hardly ...
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist Vanuatu’s former prime minister and opposition MP Ishmael Kalsakau has stepped down — just two days after he confirmed he was the rightful opposition leader. Kalsakau, MP for Port Vila, confirmed to ABC’s Pacific Beat, and the Vanuatu Daily Post on Thursday that he ...
What’s to blame for the coalition’s choppy start? Six months in, and the mojo meter is in the doldrums. A new poll would put National out of power and sees its leader, Chris Luxon, sliding in popularity. How much is it about policy, how much coalition management and a perception ...
The striking report goes far beyond the proposed repeal of the Oranga Tamariki Act’s Treaty of Waitangi provision, and its impact should be felt far beyond the unique circumstances of the claim it addresses. Earlier this week, the Waitangi Tribunal released an interim report on the government’s proposed repeal of ...
The world has been experiencing a productivity slowdown, from which New Zealand has not been exempt. COVID-19 temporarily boosted labour productivity, but more recently, productivity has retreated. The overall trend since 2007 has been one of slow productivity ...
What’s more wasteful than spending $315k on syrup and machine maintenance? Trying to drum up a controversy about it.Cast your mind back to the pre-pandemic idylls of 2019. A “rat” was a disgusting rodent and not a self-administered plague test; the sixth Labour government was in power; and the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Fitz-Gibbon, Professor of Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts, Monash University, Monash University Ken stocker/Shutterstock In the wake of numerous killings of women allegedly by men’s violence in 2024, thousands of Australians have joined rallies across the country to demand action ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Henry Cutler, Professor and Director, Macquarie University Centre for the Health Economy, Macquarie University Oleg Ivanov IL/Shutterstock Waiting times for public hospital elective surgery have been in the news ahead of this year’s federal budget. That’s the type of non-emergency surgery ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Konstantine Panegyres, McKenzie Postdoctoral Fellow, Historical and Philosophical Studies, The University of Melbourne Amna Artist/Shutterstock One of the earliest descriptions of someone with cancer comes from the fourth century BC. Satyrus, tyrant of the city of Heracleia on the Black Sea, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Rose, Professor of Sustainable Future Transport, University of Sydney LanaElcova/Shutterstock Electric vehicles are often seen as the panacea to cutting emissions – and air pollution – from transport. Is this view correct? Yes – but only once uptake accelerates. Despite the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Giselle Natassia Woodley, Researcher and Phd Candidate, Edith Cowan University There is widespread agreement Australia needs to do better when it comes to gender-based violence. Anger and frustration at the numbers of women being killed saw national rallies over the weekend and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Graham, Lecturer in Economics, University of Sydney Mark and Anna Photography/Shutterstock As home ownership moves further out of reach for many Australians, “rentvesting” is being touted as a lifesaver. Rentvesting is the practice of renting one property to live ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sukhmani Khorana, Associate Professor, Faculty of Arts, Design and Architecture, UNSW Sydney Netflix The new season of Heartbreak High is garnering mixed reviews. Critics are writing about the racy story lines, comparing it to other coming-of-age series about teenage relationships and ...
Bob Carr intends to launch legal action against Winston Peters and Julie Anne Genter is facing a second allegation of bullying. Both sucked the air out of an announcement on education, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in ...
In 1995, Sally Clark went out on her own in a bold and unorthodox attempt to join an illustrious group of equestrian riders conquering the world. In the days of glovebox road maps, brick cell phones, and the hit song How Bizarre, Clark refused to follow Sir Mark Todd, Blyth ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben Beaglehole, Senior Lecturer, Department of Psychological Medicine, University of Otago niphon/Getty Images The number of people accessing medication for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in Aotearoa New Zealand increased significantly between 2006 and 2022. But the disorder is still under-diagnosed and ...
To celebrate the start of New Zealand music month, we look back at the best local tuneage that managed to weasel its way into Hollywood productions. There’s nothing quite like the thrilling zap of recognition when New Zealand weasels its way into a glamorous Hollywood production. Crack open a Tui ...
People trust other people more than institutions. So how can the media gain that trust through journalists without losing what’s important about the institution? Anna Rawhiti-Connell reflects on two years of curating the news for The Bulletin.Amonth ago, armed cops descended on my neighbourhood as calls to “lock your ...
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Loading…(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A,DIV,A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k<ql.length;k++){ql[k].id='quiz-embed-'+k;ql[k].href="javascript:var i=document.getElementById('quiz-embed-"+k+"');try{qz.startQuiz(i)}catch(e){i.start=1;i.style.cursor='wait';i.style.opacity='0.5'};void(0);"}}};i['QP']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)})(window,document,'script','https://take.quiz-maker.com/3012/CDN/quiz-embed-v1.js','qp'); Got a good quiz question?Send Newsroom your questions. The post Newsroom daily quiz, Friday 3 May appeared first on Newsroom. ...
A warning – suicide is discussed in this podcast New Zealand’s own long-running soap Shortland Street doesn’t hesitate to kill off its much-loved characters. But would TVNZ dare to kill off our favourite soap? That’s the fear as times get tough in television – even though it’s been pointed out ...
Tze Ming Mok is a writer and social researcher specialising in race and ethnicity, whose parents are from Singapore and Malaysia. His contribution to our multicultural analysis illuminates the dangers of over-generalising. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12144581
“The more the CCP tries to insert its agenda into wider New Zealand Chinese spaces while claiming to speak for all overseas Chinese, the more private animosity there is towards Mainlanders among the non-Mainland-born, even as we try to maintain our own “united front” against racism.”
Tze Ming Mok – “He” is a “She”
Thanks for that info – not evident on the Herald page I quoted from.
Love the handle … on that basis maybe I should change mine to WoodenGoat 🙂
If that’s the Chinese animal for your birth year, go for it!
Well it may fit, as regulars here will testify I can be irritatingly stubborn as a goat, and whacking my head on a steel beam results in a dull thud. 🙂
Earth Monkey T Bastard?
Nah, doesn’t roll of the tongue as well.
Ha! Mine’s Earth Monkey too… but happy in Space… 🙂
is that the Tze Ming Mok who writes about NZ from London ?
Its clear she doesnt know enough about circumstances , except to take potshots at labour
“Putting aside whether Mr Zhang (MNZM, gonged by Labour)”
Zhang was recommended by National party figures and Goff- thats how it works, its not just the gift of the government.
Seems to me you cant write about life in NZ- from London. especially this
“It’s endlessly irritating and insulting that both Labour and National have lazily assigned Chinese communities as the fiefdoms of politicians openly backed by the Chinese government.”
What is even more irritating is being lectured to from London.
She was born and educated in Auckland, so I suppose she is as entitled as anyone to express an opinion. http://www.tzemingmok.com
She seems to be making a call for Chinese New Zealanders to stand up and identify as a group separate from the CCP.
Good luck to her, but she will probably be silenced.
Liked her last paragraph…
“New Zealand needs to be the unicorn that can resist CCP influence as a way to uphold the rights of its own Chinese populations to political independence. We deserve better than to be trapped between knee-jerk racists and Xi Jinping Thought. Abandoning us to this fate is racism too.”
“Its clear she doesnt know enough about circumstances , except to take potshots at labour
“Putting aside whether Mr Zhang (MNZM, gonged by Labour)”
Zhang was recommended by National party figures and Goff- thats how it works, its not just the gift of the government.”
One does not have to look far to find a pic of our current PM cuddling said gentleman. Literally…he has his arm right around her. Didn’t see no gun.
Put aside your partisan prejudices and read her piece entire.
“Jacinda Ardern’s actually right. We need a better kind of politics in New Zealand.” JLR to Herald reporter yesterday, explaining that his motivation is accountability. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/video.cfm?c_id=280&gal_cid=280&gallery_id=199619
“There’s some rotten, awful things that have happened in the National Party over a long period of time. They should be exposed.” “I think I have a responsibility to keep doing that.”
For a long time, National has been able to cultivate the myth of a unified party while fully engaged in practicing DP to take
politicalall enemies down. Obviously, these two carefully crafted faces, or personae rather, of the National Party were mutually inconsistent if not contradictory but thanks to MSM this incongruence did not take hold in the public and with the voters; it resonated strongly with many people’s beliefs and personal biases. To be clear, this doesn’t make National voters bad or stupid; it simply shows how easily consent can be manufactured and public opinion can be manipulated, with a little help of ‘friends’.DP (and MSM) operatives have known this for a long time and some have made it their business.
There’s my comment here that covers the manipulation of advertising and, of course, Noam Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent
The simple fact is that we’re manipulated into thinking what the rich want us to think.
Yes Denis;
This is my problem that National are seen as covering their own tracks now and hiding any truth now and the media is lax at going at national for the truth.
The media and National caucus leadership are both negligent in their duty to come clean as at present, because their own honesty is wanting.
Let us see the time capsule here beginning from last monday when Jamie Lee Ross said he was going to the police;
At 1pm Monday 15th October 2018; – after the meeting was confirmed with them; – to take his evidence of Simon Bridges conducting illegal activities over a Chinese investor donation of $100 00.
By 16th October 2018; – when the confirmation was made for his evidence delivered of illegal activities of a $100 000 donation,
We heard a series of reports from National Caucus leaders; including;
Simon Bridges,
Judith Collins,
Amy Adams,
Paula Bennett,
Mark Mitchell’
Lawrence Yule.
All said; – there was no evidence found of a “$100 000 donation was ever made to the national Party relating to the allegations made by Jami Lee Ross.
Judith Collins said clearly that it was a “fictitious claim just made up by Jami Lee Ross”.
From the 16th October 2018 the National Party caucus had expelled Jami lee Ross without learning the truth of the truth and existence of the $100 000 donation.
From 16th no retraction/correction of apologies has ever been forthcoming by either National Party caucus, nor any media error of reporting false stories of “no evidence found of a “$100 000 donation was ever made to the national Party relating to the allegations made by Jami Lee Ross.”
So we have sen both the national Party lying and the Media backing those falsely quoted allegations.
The voting public demand honestly and integrity here so we hope the police get the true facts straight now for the NZ Public, and it shows national were releasing the “fictitious claim just made up by (them and not from) Jami Lee Ross”.
National – un-trustworthy.
Winston Peters admits choosing National would have been ‘tidiest’ option
New Zealand Herald, September 13, 2018
Lifted from Scoop. Celia Lashlie is a kiwi hero; I admire her guts and honesty intensely:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1810/S00091/the-journey-to-prison-celia-lashlies-writing-revisited.htm
She was fabulous – a huge loss to NZ
Alongside financial poverty is poverty of opportunity, and alternate choices.
When you have a “wealth of choices” available to you, at little differing cost, then it is sometimes hard to recognise how difficult it is for those without diverse experience or relationship contacts, to make changes or take chances.
Poverty can make every decision fraught with anxiety – because the ‘wrong’ choice can result in even higher levels of deprivation.
Indeed Molly
At the Tenants vs Landlords debate at Uni last Wednesday, it was a surprise to me to discover that the preponderance of the 22 strong audience were mostly made up of landlords.
Speaking with one of the Tenants advocates later. He explained why this might be; saying, ‘What the Landlord advocates don’t realise is that most tenants live with fear and are unlikely to turn up at public events like this, whereas the landlords (and their advocates) don’t know any fear or hesitancy in attending, or putting their point of view across publicly.
Alex Braae is the author of The Bulletin – a daily wrap of New Zealand news and politics from across the media. “Throughout this week, rogue National MP Jami-Lee Ross has shown himself accomplished at the marathon press conference. Tonight, he revealed a hitherto unknown media talent – the train-crash one on one interview. He decided to go head to head with Heather du Plessis-Allen on Newstalk ZB. It was astonishing on the radio. On video, it was something else.”
“the by-election could still go ahead though… They could always invoke the newly passed waka-jumping bill, thus entirely proving Winston Peters right about the value of the law. It won’t necessarily be being used to stifle political dissent – though Ross claims he’s being pushed out for challenging the party hierarchy – it will be used to get rid of a guy who has thrown Molotov cocktails through the caucus room windows.”
“And those will keep coming. Ross says there’s a deep rot in the National party, hinting at stories about the various hits he’s been asked to carry out. “But you were the rot!” protested HDPA. He might have been following orders, and it’s probably worth listening to what he says. But it’s unclear why following orders absolves him from the responsibility of carrying them out. National of course argued vehemently against the waka-jumping legislation, but at this stage of the story, Simon Bridges could easily just say fuck it and force him out.”
Shoot the messenger. Use of the Nuremberg defense viable? Didn’t work for the top Nazis. For many this will prompt the Trumpian reflex condemnation. However, once you factor in political psychology, the nuances come into play. Power morphs human nature. Someone can be well-intentioned, then when a political party puts them in a position of power, they discover they feel good when using it. Like any hormone-trigger, addiction can lead to abuse. Don’t rule out redemption.
Was the last paragraph yours or Alex Braae’s? A link would have been helpful 😉
Sorry, forgot. Last paragraph was me. Here ’tis: https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/19-10-2018/jami-lee-ross-just-heaved-yet-another-gallon-of-petrol-all-over-nz-politics/
Last para is Dennis’.
The Bulletin is “a free daily digest of the most important news from around New Zealand” launched by The Spinoff early this year. Generic link https://thespinoff.co.nz/category/the-bulletin/
Alex Braae is an author of The Bulletin; but the specific Braae article DF is quoting from is a Spinoff article, and not a specific Bulletin one. Here is the link.
https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/19-10-2018/jami-lee-ross-just-heaved-yet-another-gallon-of-petrol-all-over-nz-politics/
It is well worth reading the full article. Braae also did a couple of earlier ones this week on the JLR disaster – available from the generic Bulletin link above.
EDIT – SNAP with DF’s reply.
Jamie-Lee Ross is saying “there’s a lot of bed hopping in parliament” which makes me want to vomit in my mouth a little
It won’t be, as someone wrote here yesterday, just a few husbands afraid to ask the question as to what Jami-Lee Ross does, but a lot of wives as well asking about whether what he says is true.
This is what I think I heard Jamie Lee Ross say in yesterdays duplicity Allan interview, Oh boy…
I’m actually gobsmacked that people appear to be shocked about these revelations about the sex lives of MPs. These are the so-called ”corridors of power”, after all. Are we a prudent lot, naive, or just a tad hypocritical? Perhaps the only real ‘surprise’ is how long they have managed to keep it out of the limelight …
And power has always been the greatest aphrodisiac.
Exactly.
To hell with power, people are working long days together in jobs with highs and lows and a certain bunker mentality. Lange wasn’t a one-off by any means.
Important by-election across the ditch today; Turnbull’s old seat Wentworth is up for grabs and the Liberals could well lose their one seat majority.
One of the great things about Aussie politics is the sheer diversity of parties on offer:’
https://www.news.com.au/finance/work/leaders/byelection-expected-in-wentworth-to-replace-malcolm-turnbull/news-story/67422a697c4681e6ee7758bb04dceb91
And the dice rolled … the Lib/Nat coalition lose it’s majority:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-20/wentworth-by-election-results-kerryn-phelps-dave-sharma-battle/10400270
The ScoMo may well be the shortest use PM yet.
lol nice
From No Right Turn, “Reminder: Saudi Arabia kidnapped people from New Zealand
You have to wonder what our government did about this, should have been an international incident, but I guess when trade is more important than human rights and principals and international law and our government is openly for Sale….
“Earlier this month, journalist Jamal Khashoggi visited the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. He was then beaten, drugged, and dismembered – apparently while still alive – by a 15-man Saudi kill team who had been specially flown in for the purpose. Its a horrific act, and one which should make Saudi Arabia an international pariah. But Khashoggi is not the only victim of the Saudi regime. As Stuff reminds us, in 2014 they apparently kidnapped a refugee from New Zealand:
Friends of Khalid Muidh Alzahrani, who they called Daniel, know what the Saudi regime is capable of.
Four years ago, the refugee disappeared from his sparse flat in Redwood, Christchurch, and they haven’t spoken to him since. They fear he’s been executed.
Daniel had converted to Christianity – a crime in Saudi Arabia – and his friends believe he was forcibly repatriated, possibly with his family’s help.
The original media stories are here and here. And as this story makes clear, Alzahrani wasn’t the only one: in May 2013 an unnamed Saudi refugee was apparently snatched off the street in Auckland and rendered to Saudi Arabia, where he was reportedly tortured.”
http://norightturn.blogspot.com/2018/10/reminder-saudi-arabia-kidnapped-people.html
That’s a pattern of serious significance. Looks like Putin’s treatment of renegades who flee to Britain, but worse. With Saudi Arabia, add abduction for the purpose of torture, prior to elimination. Onus is now on Trump to do a bit of moral leadership, and fortunately yesterday we had reports he `toughened his language’.
Nothing short of punishment will suffice: he either has to pull the plug on the Saudi regime, or direct it to operate in a civilised manner under the threat of enforcement. Time for the dude to man up.
Interpol ex-chief may be dead, wife fears, after capture by Chinese
Grace Meng speaks out about ‘cruel, dirty’ Chinese authorities after disappearance of France-based Meng Hongwei
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2018/oct/19/interpol-ex-chief-may-be-dead-wife-fears-after-capture-by-chinese
Exactly; while the liberal West distracts itself with endless, largely petty culture wars, the totalitarians march on.
Why do I sometimes feel like I’m channeling CV these days? 🙂
There’s big differences between you and CV, Red. For starters, you’re against the march of the totalitarians. CV, on the other hand, wanted to be parade marshall.
Wonder what happened to ol’ CV….
Dude’s still flat out picking twitter fights armed with a shed load of google-learnings, with predictable results.
Sounds about right
Considering the stories coming out we should be disconnecting our nation from both China and Saudi Arabia and their enablers.
Unfortunately, trade seems to be more important to our ‘leaders’ than morality.
Also did the National government turn a ‘blind eye’ because they were trying to bribe Saudi officials with the sheep deal bribe (against all advice) and maybe just ignored the rendition and torture of a refugee on NZ soil?
Auditor-General had doubts Saudi sheep deal was legal
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/70827429/auditorgeneral-had-doubts-saudi-sheep-deal-might-not-have-been-legal
His crime apparently (the Saudi refugee), is he is a Christian…
The only bit about which she had doubts about the legality was the export of live sheep.
You are stretching it a great deal to turn it into a comment that the deal itself was illegal.
Have you been taking lessons from JLR in how to exaggerate things far beyond reality?
@Alwyn, Government accused of bribery over farm
The Government has been accused of paying a bribe and doing dodgy deals after pouring more than $11 million of taxpayer money into an influential Saudi businessman’s farm.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/274808/government-accused-of-bribery-over-farm
Furthermore,
Saudi sheep deal: No evidence of legal threat from Saudi businessman
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11922583
The timing of the disappearance of the refugees should be scrutinised, as why there has not been more of an investigation into what happened to them in NZ, and what did happen to them, in light of the reported butcher of Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi embassy.
Bennett according to JLR was involved with what was going on in Barclay’s electorate office. Bennett probably was the broker between the electorate worker and Goodfellow. The electorate worker received a payout from a fund which Key had, due to being tapped by Barclay without her knowledge. A confidentiality clause was signed.
JLR was sent to Barclay’s electorate office as matters were starting to stink for English and Bennett was not shutting the stink down.
Now there is a situation involving JLR and a woman and a confidentiality clause between the woman and JLR, which occurred 2 years ago, (I would like to have a precise date for this). There has been no mention of a payment to the woman.
Bennett is throwing mud at JLR, she was sneaky over the Barclay issue, she worked with JLR to protect English, JLR tried to get rid of Barclay but could not once it was revealed tapes existed.
Now Bennett seems to be the front person for Bridges to take JLR down using affairs JLR has had in recent years.
Bennett appears to be an insider for the National Party cover up brigade. JLR is no longer an insider for the cover up brigade, he now appears to be a whistle blower.
How loud his whistle will blow is unknown and the response from those he has in his sight is yet to be established.
Ross’s problem is that he seems to be under the delusion that he is the dark-haired reincarnation of Julian Assange.
He actually makes Assange seem a good person by comparison which is something of a miracle.
So Bridges has gone to the countrys political editors and threatened them with defamation laws.
Ross isnt the only one going full ballistic as even the normally compliant Tracy Watkins is warned with being cut off for being ‘too hostile’
Full Ballistic?
I’ll tell you what full ballistic is.
Just go back a couple of months to when Ardern’s baby was born. Trevor Mallard, that pillar of bullshit and shit throwing threatened the Gallery journalists that if they ever accidentally took a photo of the baby in the public areas of Parliament, including the area where TV interviews are normally done, and did not immediately delete it, he would kick them out of the Press Gallery.
As we have discovered of course his leader uses the baby as a draw card for the women’s magazines. So much for protecting the baby from publicity.
Kicking people out of the Press Gallery for accidentally showing a baby in the background of a public area.
Now that was really going ballistic. Bridges is simply pointing out the truth to the fools in the fourth estate.
alwyn. You can defend Bridges ringing journalists and threatening them for being too negative.
Can you defend Trevor?
Surely you don’t consider his actions and threats to be harmless and just the behavior of a caring old grandfather protecting an innocent child from the attention seeking actions of her mother?
alwrong , you are confusing the multiple times Bridges has had the Womens mags in his home doing baby stories with jacinda.
https://www.nowtolove.co.nz/parenting/family/clarke-gayford-on-staying-at-home-with-baby-neve-39079
Look here and we see a story with file photos- not exclusives in the home like Bridges who uses his family like the political opportunist he is.
https://www.nowtolove.co.nz/parenting/parenting-news/national-party-leader-simon-bridges-introduces-his-newborn-daughter-36756
Big big difference in how the photos were done.
Tell me. Do you think that taking your child into the General Assembly of the UN, and posing her for the photographers, is the action of someone who is trying to protect the baby from the eyes of the world?.
Is that going to be less intrusive than the possibility that the baby might, for a few seconds, appear in the distance behind someone being interviewed in the public spaces of Parliament?
Any baby or child is entitled to privacy.
Ringing up the media to warn them to comply is over stepping the mark. Especially when you are embroiled in the situation you are trying to prevent the media reporting.
This is not the way to shut down/control the issue.
JLR is leading the race with coming clean.
I really hope that any new issues are not stacked on the pile.
At the end of the day all the actual facts will not be known, those involved will be tarnished or ruined.
Maybe honesty is the policy National need to be working on now.
JLR coming clean? You really are joking, aren’t you?
Really. Have you ever compared what Ross claims he is doing with the “evidence” he produces?
Look at the claims he made about there being a $100,000 donation that the National Party are supposed to have covered up.
It turns out, when he releases a tape, that the party officials actually acted completely within the law. There was no $100,000 donation. There were a number of donations that Ross collected on the parties behalf and that the party official went to some trouble to identify exactly who they were and that they existed.
Ross really seems to have lost his sense of reality. He simply makes up stories which are never justified by the information he produces. Sooner or later the journalists are going to accept that they have been played. A few of them may then start to tell the truth about Ross.
Ross is following in the steps of that unlamented ex-MP Meteria Turei. Fantasies about how she had to lie and defraud the taxpayer to feed her baby. Finally, of course it got to much for the family of the baby’s father and they told the truth to John Campbell. Bye-bye Turei. The same thing will happen to Ross.
Alywyn…..let’s wait and see what the police find. Too early to tell.
Candidates for donations implied in the recording
Cover up of people by Goodfellow reporting abusive behavior,
I agree early days yet.
Speaking out is the first step. Who you believe is the last step.
Leave the Prime Ministers’ baby out of this National party shitfest please. Nothing to do with her. How low can you go?
Compass rose 100%
Alwyn can go lower I assure you. He’s a real mix of envy and inadequacy. Sad loser.
This is the problem RWNJ losers like alwyn have.
No-one at all accepts their attacks on the baby except other deranged RWNJs.
I do hope he’s not the Alwyn in the education sector
Don’t be so silly.
I was comparing Trevor’s threats to the whole of the Press Gallery to Bridges’ fairly mild warning to people in the MSM.
It was Trevor who went totally over the top.
You will have noticed that I never once mentioned the baby’s name or sex or said anything about her at all. I only mentioned her mother.
Jacinda Ardern does not get the same consideration.
Stop trying to divert the debate into irrelevancies because you cannot justify Trevor’s behavior.
I just don’t understand why you hate babies so much.
Hating babies is one thing – vile attacks are completely ott. It is a sign he’s really gone burger – a seedy wee man smacking his keyboard with hateful strokes and all against a defenceless wee baby.
You have clearly never read what I said.
You are merely exhibiting the truth of the dictum
“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”.
You have proved that you are not only a fool but a miserable specimen of humanity in your irrational attacks on what I actually said.
Stick to the point you silly boy. Can you really consider that Bridges has gone ballistic when compared to Mallard’s totally over the top threats to the Press Gallery?
You aren’t going to answer that question of course. To tell the truth would earn you an attack from you foolish friends. To tell a lie and claim that Trevor was simply giving a measured response will make you a laughing stock to all except the one-eyed left leaners.
Lol nah but keep digging alwyn your hole is getting bigger…
The crackiling is great, but Alwyn just can’t get the seasoning right.
Aren’t you the person who was demanding to know the names of the women that Ross claimed to have had affairs with?
Why is it any of your business? Do you just want to make more trouble?
You should have stopped your sentence at the end of the word “understand”
Saying “I just don’t understand” is an accurate statement on your part. The rest of it simply exhibits your stupidity.
Oh dear, the baby hater just doesn’t understand why people would push back against his position.
There, there, muttonhead. Have another go at the P.
Have any kids yourself? You certainly sound like a smelly old billy goat so I suppose it is possible.
Then try, although I am sure you will find it very difficult, to discuss the point of the comment. If you can’t do that give up and let the adults talk. Your stupidity simply illustrates the general intellectual dishonesty of your cabal.
alwyn. You are the troll here.
You offer nothing worth of debate. What you do offer is cantankerously juvenile. It is anti-family and curmudgeonly.
You are like an depressed old man who has nothing left to offer the world except mean barbs.
Why don’t you get off the child hating gig and enjoy what limited time you have left?
@muttonhead
I suppose that to a 12 year old like you I must seem old.
Never mind. You might, and I have my doubts, become older and wiser some day.
Meanwhile I suppose you will continue to post your ridiculous comments because you are unable to debate the facts.
Sad, really. You are more to be pitied than laughed at, as my Irish friends would say.
Most impressed Ross is a whale rider lol.
I hope they recorded him.
The situation has got so out of hand because JLR cannot go through the usual channels an MP would use when they are being warned.
You do not go to your boss if the boss is seen to be dodgy by you, even if you are dodgy.
Bridges has inherited the mess Key and English left behind that JLR was involved in. Then Bennett and Bridges have used affairs and inappropriate behaviour against JLR.
I would like to see the issues dealt with separately because there is so much contamination that no one involved is THINKING straight.
JLR, Bridges and Bennett need to take leave for a couple weeks.
Bridges expenses was the spark and the fire is raging.
It is not hard to do a list of the issues and for the issues to be dealt with separately and independently by those with the proper skills and those slinging shit at each other to have a truce.
Kindergarten kids are better at settling a dispute and have better negoiating skills.
What’s Ross got to gain by doing that?
The identity of the leaker into Bridges expenses was inconclusive. There now has to be a further process to either confirm it was JLR or someone else. Or to concede and drop the issue.
Using an affair against someone is blackmail. Two things could be done about inappropriate behaviour, a police complaint or a a work dispute complaint. Had this initially occurred something constructive would have happened. Instead inappropriate behaviour went unchecked and there were no proper consequences.
As for the 100k donation the police are currently investigating and will need to verify who and what was donated.
Yes, truly delusional, Alwyn, because Julian Assange is not dead yet.
I would have to agree that Assange is still alive and that it would have to be delusional of Ross.
Does Ross understand that though?
He doesn’t seem to understand that the tapes he is producing support Bridges and make Ross look foolish.
Alwyn, I’m not getting you here; JLR is not “producing” tapes, he’s “providing” them, isn’t he? Are you saying they’re doctored? I also don’t understand the binary thinking about what’s been played out at the moment with SB and JLR as the two focus points at the moment.
D-Day in Malcolm Turnbull’s old seat of Wentworth in Sydney’s eastern suburbs today. It has always voted Liberal so a loss for Dave Sharma, a former Ambassador to Israel (the seat has Australia’s largest Jewish population) would be historic and strip ScoMo of his majority in the House of Reps.
Economically conservative but very progressive socially there are signs that voters in the seat are losing patience with a Liberal Party that they feel has been overrun by the Christian Right and big money Coal and Mining interests. Climate Change and getting the kids off Nauru are touted as the main issues on the minds of voters. Add to that the fact that they are mightily pissed at the way their popular MP, Malcolm Turnbull was treated by his party and it’s possible that independant candidate Dr Kerryn Phelps, the first LGBT woman to become president of the Australian Medical Association, could prevail.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/we-made-it-impossible-for-sharma-senior-liberal-on-wentworth-vote-20181019-p50ar5.html
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-20/wentworth-by-election-results-kerryn-phelps-dave-sharma-battle/10400270?section=politics
Independent candidate Kerryn Phelps has claimed victory in the Wentworth by-election …
The swing against the Liberals is historic and the largest ever in a byelection in Australia. Even the bluest areas of the electorate Rose Bay and Point Piper recorded 20% against the Liberals.
A brilliant and detailed article on the background to the current situation in Venezuela.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/south-america/2018-10-15/venezuelas-suicide
Yes, skimmed through it quickly, looks like good read for later. More nuanced than usual; the roots of the collapse are complex, but clearly an example of what happens when socialism degenerates into totalitarianism.
If there is one apparent omission, it underplays the role outside actors, especially the USA and Colombia.
… [ If there is one apparent omission, it underplays the role of outside actors, especially the USA and Colombia. ] …
Oh yes,… but they are always loathe to mention that fact, aren’t they…
Take that into account, but it doesn’t necessarily invalidate everything else being said. As articles go it’s well informed, well written and reasonably even-handed. It has it’s bias, but then so does everyone; which is why I try and read from a range of sources.
I know this is Gossy playing his usual ‘whaddabout Venezuela’ game … but this linky is worth reading.
Yeah some people are so set on the idea the USA must have done it they fail to see how completely inept and corrupt the leaders of Venezuela are
Those are probably people who have difficulty viewing the USA pimples in close-up.
‘
Is Christchurch the only New Zealand city with too many houses?
Michael Wright – Stuff.co.nz, October 20, 2018
For a long time National and ACT, acting as advocates for the property sector have been complaining of a lack of supply as the root cause of the housing crisis.
With over 30,000 empty houses in Auckland alone. The problem is not lack of supply, it is lack of affordability.
Overseas examples are a warning of what is about to occur unless the government acts to prevent it.
As the current building boom reaches its peak, all political effort must be put into making sure that we don’t let the developers and speculators use the excuse of “over supply” to let empty homes rot, (eventually having them demolished en mass).
We have been warned: As long as there one homeless family left unhoused, the government must not let this happen in this country. (Even if we have to nationalise these homes at no recompense to the developers to prevent them leaving these homes to fall into disrepair or be left unfinished)
Demolished, the brand new housing estate that’s NEVER been lived in
Confiscating assets without compensation? Nah, we only do that to Maori in this country.
Is Christchurch the only New Zealand city with too many houses?
The answer sadly is no. That is if you qualify the question as, are there too many unafordable houses.
The Ebert collapse is another early warning.
“Destroying new homes”
“It is sad to watch actually, knowing that someone could have lived in these homes”
This must not be allowed to happen here
@Jenny, regarding ‘oversupply in Chch – I guess when Brownlee is recreating the city in his own image, and it’s become a hot bed of corruption and people can’t actually rely on council and building regulations to guarantee the quality of housing in the desperation to build something nobody wants (something that will come back to bite all the other cities in particular Auckland) then yep, nobody wants the houses.
Although just as likely people want to buy the houses but can’t afford them on their low wages and the banks won’t lend on their insecure jobs and their pay outs from the earthquake and the fake recovery on the back of lazy migration and deals for Natz pals, were never going to be a long term fix.
If you fake a recovery and building is not local but just a way to make a profit before moving on, then long term you probably are not creating a healthy longevity community.
Saying that, this article is probably fake news to generate sales and corporate welfare, and the houses cost a bomb, and are overpriced.
@Jenny, regarding the US link – Why neoliberalism is crazy. US has massive homelessness but destroys new houses to keep prices up?? Dysfunctional financing routs!
Confiscation is definitely preferable to demolition.
More US resources being wasted is unsurprising.
Thanks Jenny for that housing item and great photographs of the Irish result of the no regulation, sleazy credit decade. Capitalism unfettered – business is not always right or to be trusted. Can we have our country and economy back now please?
But now demolition has begun on some of the last of the remaining ghost estates, built during the economic boom of ‘Celtic Tiger’ years but now deemed ‘not economically viable’.
Between the mid-1990s and 2007, Irish developers flocked to build new homes, spurred on by the easy availability of credit, cheap labour from eastern Europe and a vibrant Dublin property market….
But then the bottom fell out and by 2010 there were an estimated 600 ghost estates in Ireland with an estimated 300,000 homes lying empty.
Some unlucky buyers were caught in the middle of the crash and found themselves trapped living in dangerous, unfinished properties next to rows of empty buildings.
That was a disturbing read Jenny….and damn near ruined an otherwise glorious dawn.
There is something cold and close to sociopathic in the language used by the poor, distressed builders and developers.
For some reason I was nearly brought to tears.
Sad that this Current Mob’s model for addressing the housing crisis involves canoodling with these predators.
I am sorry Rosemary to cause you distress. Yes it is enough to make you want to cry.
Even the landlords are worried.
The elephant in the room
On Wednesday I attended a debate, between representatives of landlord and property investors on one side, and tenants and student advocates on the other.
The background to the debate are the reforms to The Tenancies Act currently passing through parliament. The tenants advocates argued in support of more regulation of the housing rental industry, while the landlord advocates argued for less.
Near the end of the debate, the question of over supply in Christchurch as related to falling rental returns due to oversupply, was briefly brought up by David Falkner near the end of the debate, at some obvious discomfort to him and the other Landlord Advocates.
Thankfully, most of the debate between the two sides avoided swapping the sensational horror stories about bad tenants and bad landlords favoured by the media in debates between landlords and tenants,, and instead got down to addressing the fundamental issues, of suitability, availability and affordability, and how these factors play out in a regulated and unregulated market.
The Landlord advocates made a very compelling case of how they are losing money on a falling property market. The repeated common refrain from this sector over the last few years, and repeatedly echoed again here in this debate, by the Landlord’s team was, ‘we need less regulation, so that we can increase supply, which according to them, ‘will increase affordability, in the rental and housing market generally’.
‘
At the end of the debate, In the question and answer session; a property manager in the audience, generally rubbished the claim of lack of supply, she said she managed 50 properties, and media reports of bidding wars were nonsense, and that she was struggling to fill her properties at the current rents. She said that a number of the properties she advertised for rent, (she didn’t say how many), didn’t attract any inquiries at all, and were being kept empty.
Renters vs Landlords debate @35:42 minutes last comment of the night.
Un-named property manager speaks speaks out from the floor, (with some bitterness.)
P.S. All care is taken, but due to the poor quality of the Smart phone recording I apologise in advance for any transcription errors. J.
“I am sorry Rosemary to cause you distress. Yes it is enough to make you want to cry.”
Not you. I’d read that earlier this morning. I nearly posted, but knew someone close to the issue would pick it up.
Respect to those on the frontline of tenants’ advocacy.
I think you should make clear – the housing estate thats never been lived in is because of the standard of construction makes them unlivableas the building was so slip-shod
Many of the half-finished estates lack basic amenities like lighting and schools and are deemed uneconomically viable
Please dont leave out important facts
The fact of the existence of the houses shows that such amenities could also be built.
The problem isn’t if they’re viable or not but if the rich pricks are making a profit.
I guess they deregulated the resource consent process, aka NZ style for in particular for transport… schools…pollution…hospitals…
Did it say that the building was slipshod? They were unfinished, so lighting had not been installed, and the lack of regulated planning meant that they were distant from amenities needed, like schools. That is the authorities’ fault.
I can believe that the building may have been slipshod, but that was not made clear as the reason for demolition.
That proves that the physical resources and capability are available to address these issues but that the people in charge want their pound of flesh.
Just as you say Draco, rather than take their losses, they want their pound of flesh, and they intend to get it. Even on a falling market.
History shows that if you leave it up to the landlords and speculators they will demolish new houses, or not finish half completed ones, to artificially limit the supply and keep house prices and rents up.
Probably just a tax dodge.. and they can write off their losses and save $$$ somewhere else.
That too.
Wow. Apart from the normal pro-National angle we are used to reading from Tracy Watkins, here she opens up on the simpering relationship she has with Simon Bridges.
Just think about that for a moment. Bridges has called all the political editors threatening to pull interviews unless they be kinder to him. What a big baby.
And here Watkins duly obliges, fearful of losing her weekly slot with the only party in parliament she has good access to.
Is that not common or garden blackmail?
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/107971088/the-jamilee-ross-saga–dirty-ugly-nasty-politics-with-no-end-in-sight
Also in the same article she states:
Talk about a lack of awareness! Key’s approach is what landed them in the shit in the first place. It was Key’s method which has cause the rot within the National Party, Tracy.
It’s my Party and I’ll cry if I want to …
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbOrjHBaDzQ&w=560&h=315%5D
Edit: as you can tell, I haven’t figured out yet how to embed those video clips 🙁
Simon looks just like the huffy boy who is alway taking his ball home.
I think you just paste the link straight and the clip image eventually comes up.
Like this?
Yup! Any handy tips?
words enter
link address enter
boom!
hopefully 😉
Gawd weren’t some of the 60s songs awful. As a gawky teenage wanna be chick I used to bop away to them in my bedroom – sans male partner.
I quite enjoy feelings of nostalgia but sometimes they turn into melancholy or the odd cringe 😉
Embedding videos is near automatic – just need to have one line between your comment and the link with the link being the last line.
Thus:
Lol incognito
Who is the best male in the National Party a generation older than JLR to have a sit down with JLR.
Any other volunteers from another political party or a retired MP.
If anyone really cared about JLR they would reach out to him.
It is not about him being the loudest, it is about his self preservation and holding his ground appropriately.
JLR is in a lonely place in parliament, for attempting to expose the many years of rot within the National Party.
Actually his apparent back-ground lends itself to some sympathy for him. Doesn’t know who is father was… mother incapable of looking after him (don’t know why but drugs perhaps) and brought up by his grandmother. No father figure to guide him during his teenage years.
Being or feeling abandoned or rejected in childhood and not having a male role model would have been tough on him.
Obviously no good role models for him in the National Party.
What were Key and English thinking when they used him to sort out Barclay and other mess.
Both Key and English have nothing to say.
I did not realise JLR is only 32. Too young for what he was asked to do.
When I first saw his background on Wikipedia long before the present situation, I read the mother bit differently – mh rather than drugs but the two can be well be interlinked – they are not mutually exclusive.
But I just found this article from a couple of days ago, which throws more light on his family background and childhood.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12143225
In reality he has achieved a lot in his 32 years – more than many others from more privileged backgrounds and/or much higher educational qualifications.
It is hard to see much likeable, honourable etc etc in him at present and a lot of people are writing him off for the future, but with that history of achievement I actually believe that he is quite capable of “picking himself up, shaking himself off, and starting all over again”.
Who knows, perhaps he has really had a Road to Damascus moment. There are not many people who would come out as he has done and admit adultery etc etc …
Current behaviour may well have a link with his childhood.
There are so many adverse effects children can have due to parental separation, (anger, mistrust, low self esteem, relationship issues in adult years).
I am no counsellor but I had serious detachment in my childhood, more so with my mother than my father.
Once I learnt how to manage my anger without directing it at people, I felt more at peace within my self.
It’s possible. I’ll be more inclined to believe it if he leaves the National Party of his own free will rather than being pushed and what he does afterwards.
I agree. I’m staying with Jekyll & Hyde. No evidence that Nicky Wagner is right (“psychotic”). So the dark side is bullying, abusive sex, etc, applied coercion.
On the bright side I’ve been seeing the moral crusader from the start. I agree his complicity makes him seem part of the problem, but I had a professional career in television commercial editing before editing news & current affairs stories, and the management practice of applying coercion to make individuals conform to organisational requirements that I experienced in both media often forced me to act against my conscience, and not in the public interest. I expect he suffered the same learning curve. Enough of that shit in the Greens too – easy to imagine it was at least ten times worse in National.
So that bit about taking on Len Brown as a youngster & defeating him to achieve accountability for misuse of council funds rings true, especially as he cited it as his motivation in trying to hold his party accountable. I agree that a positive male role model as mentor would be a great help. Not easy to find these days, eh? Especially in National (and Labour). Can’t see Lusk serving that purpose!
Oh, and the other part of the bright side I forgot to mention is the likelihood that he’s actually empathic to some extent. Not enough to be able to manage relations with partners well, obviously, but enough to suggest the narcissist thesis is invalid. He actually listens to people. His conversation is natural and flows easily. You see that both in his interviews & press conferences. Now a narcissist sees others as part of their interior psychic furniture, as objects. Their style of communicating is consequently to talk at people, rather than with them. No rapport possible.
I really like your comment. It is balanced, thoughtful and mature.
For some reason Norm Hewitt keeps popping into my mind as someone who could help JLR. I honestly have no idea where this is coming from so I just throw it out there …
National’s little spat has made it to RFA – Radio Free Asia
https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/donation-10192018104953.html
But, unlike the media in NZ, they focus on the most important and serious aspect of the affair:
“It looks like a donation from a businessman, but who is that businessman, actually?” Chen said. “The Chinese Communist Party has been gradually making donations to political parties here and there via their agents in Western political circles.”
“This is a very serious problem … and yet the government here in New Zealand doesn’t seem to be taking much of a stand,” Chen said. “The New Zealand’s relationship with China is too cozy, with a lot of vested interests tied up with it.”
When you bite the hand that’s feeding you, you’re losing.
Julian Assange is to launch legal action against the government of Ecuador, accusing it of violating his “fundamental rights and freedoms”.
The Wikileaks co-founder has lived in its UK embassy since 2012 after seeking asylum to avoid extradition to Sweden over a rape inquiry – later dropped.
He was given a set of house rules by the London embassy this week, including taking better care of his cat.
Mr Assange faces arrest for allegedly breaching bail conditions if he leaves.
Wikileaks lawyer Baltasar Garzon is in Ecuador to launch the case, which the Press Association reports is expected to be heard in court next week.
Wikileaks said the country’s government had threatened to remove the protection Mr Assange has had since being granted political asylum.
It added that his access to the outside world had been “summarily cut off”.
In a memo, it threatened to confiscate the pet if he did not look after it, it said.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-45915017
I commented at 9.1 above that I thought Ross was behaving as if he thought he was Assange.
That was before I read your comment and the linked story. Now your link makes me even more convinced of it. Assange is behaving exactly like Ross as well. I’ll bet that Ecuador are sorry that they ever went near the guy, or more precisely that he let Assange get near them. Talk about lying down with a dog will get you fleas.
As a bargaining chip, he’s losing value.
And isn’t the UK looking for trade partners at the moment?
Years ago Assange was exhibiting his narcissism, now it looks like he’s actually lost his marbles. I don’t agree with your equation, however. The only common factors are them both taking a strong moral stand and having flawed characters. A combination that is no longer a christian monopoly.
The more I see of Scott Eady’s ‘sculpture’, the more I wonder whether it’s a pisstake tribute to the modern day National Party.
The gold-plated turd with a bit of glittering atop a gNat blue column.
I hope he was paid well. A fitting monument.
https://www.google.com/search?q=scott+eady+philanthropists+stone&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=XfLX1i6Wf8zafM%253A%252Cw6CdN6R9JFDfuM%252C_&usg=AI4_-kSUFT2rdPDg4cRwsEPdAFk_KE6MyQ&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi2_NmRz5PeAhUFPo8KHdIGAmoQ9QEwAnoECAUQBA#imgrc=XfLX1i6Wf8zafM:
All it needs now is for Wellington’s homeless to camp out at its base
And knives in its back.
Wellington needs to put up brightly coloured tiny houses all over with murals on the side as art works. Thus providing practical as well as artistic points of interest throughout the city. I realise this is a bit mundane and lower class for the higher intellects to entertain but hey it’s thinking outside of the square.
https://theflyingtortoise.blogspot.com/2012/01/tiny-colourful-homes-in-italy.html
https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-marina-grande-fishing-village-is-a-timeless-world-with-its-own-pace-39565334.html
(https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=tiny+houses+nz&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiEm6v85JPeAhVJRo8KHcCeD1IQ_AUIDigB&biw=1119&bih=541
colourful tiny houses
Wellington has already had $1 million damage caused from some late-schoolboy-adult knuckledragger.
5:47 pm on 8 October 2018
A Len Lye sculpture on Wellington’s waterfront that cost more than $1 million to install has been broken by a man swinging on it.
(https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/368197/wellington-sculpture-broken-by-man-swinging-on-it
(https://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/107729160/wellington-man-who-admitted-climbing-waterfront-sculpture-charged-with-wilful-damage
(https://www.sculpture.org.nz/the-sculptures
The Scott Eady column in link at 16 dates from 2015 apparently. And also illustrates that rich people when they are philanthropic show this usually in the art world. They don’t appreciate the beautiful works of natural art that are people, or see the curious cultural web that we set up as fantastic art work either. So the money usually doesn’t trickle down to water the amazing creative potential for good that is in all of us.
(https://www.odt.co.nz/lifestyle/magazine/speaking-those-no-voice
This year, in August, a commissioned public sculpture by Eady was installed in Wellington’s Cuba St. Titled The Philanthropist’s Stone, it is a tall Corinthian column, a gold-plated bronze nugget and 10 candles with hand-blown glass flames.
The 4m-tall sculpture commemorates the centenary of the philanthropic trust established on the death of businessman Thomas George Macarthy, of Wellington.
Mr Macarthy began his fortune in the Otago goldfields and the T. G. Macarthy Trust has given $61.4 million to charities during the past 100 years.
Have You Ever Tried to Sell a Diamond?
A great example of how advertising manipulates us into false beliefs and positions that are detrimental to us.
This from Nikki Kaye on 03 October.
Was Kaye or the rest of the Nat caucus not briefed at all, or was it merely politically expedient to run this line at the time? Further evidence of the lack of morals and opportunism which has taken root in the National Party of New Zealand.
If this is the level of ‘political management’ offered by Paula Bennett and Simon Bridges then the pair of them need to f**k off, pronto.
I bet Nikki Kaye wishes she could take those words back.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2018/10/national-mps-stand-by-jami-lee-ross-over-taking-leave.html
Bryce Edwards steps up to the plate for National again.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/on-the-inside/369063/reality-bites-for-jami-lee-ross
They have to write it that way- Bridges has read the riot act to the editors about defamation. Even though as a politician its a very high bar, but he would have the party chiefs contacting the people who employ the editors and getting them to put the party first
They allude to this by JLR staying in parliament to say ‘things under privilege’- which would keep the national partys lawyers at bay.
It looks like National will rip out the still beating heart of its newest MP if it has to get rid of JLR from Parliament and its protections for what Mps say.
The other approach may be to see if JLR would be tempted by ‘greenmail’ and take a golden parachute for what he could earn from parliament for 2 years
I’m sure there are pleas for fundraising going out to donors right now with which to pay Ross off.
That would be typical of the National Party who believe meeting someones price is the the ethical way to go.
What really disappointed me about this latest Edwards fluff piece is that he claims in the opening sentence both Ross and the National Party are coming to terms with reality:
Perhaps I’m being naive but that to me suggested that Edwards was going to talk about Ross coming clean on all his own personal misdemeanours and also the toxic methods of the National Party. And it suggested that Edwards felt the National Party were beginning to take a look at themselves, finding their behaviour wasn’t up to scratch and that they were about to embark on a drive to clean out the party on malevolent influence.
But no, it was about Ross suddenly realising he couldn’t win Botany and the ‘reality check’ for National wasn’t about them taking a look at themselves it was about their means of escape.
How this clown Edwards is considered a mature and impartial commenter is beyond me.
Eric Idle on the excellent interview this morning with Kim, said that the British press regularly taking down the Pythons, white-anting them were one of the reasons why they shifted to the USA. Also he commented that the Press in UK were probably behind the push for Brexit; something about the press barons living in tax havens and didn’t want new legislation that would cut their nirvana a notch. e&oe
https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday/audio/2018667675/eric-idle-always-look-on-the-bright-side-of-life
arts
Eric Idle – Always Look on the Bright Side of Life
From Saturday Morning, 8:10 am today
Listen duration 45′ :56″
Eric Idle is a comedian, actor, writer and musician, most notable for his membership of the Monty Python comedy troupe. His career in comedy began in earnest in 1968 when he began writing and acting in two series of a children’s TV hit, Do Not Adjust Your Set, with Michael Palin, Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam.
The success of this show led to four series of Monty Python’s Flying Circus for the BBC from July 1969 through 1973, with the addition of John Cleese and Graham Chapman. The group enjoyed great success on stage and screen until disbanding in 1983.
After Python, Idle continued to work on radio comedies, write books, appear in movies and even on the opera stage. He has recently released a ‘sortabiography’ called Always Look on the Bright Side of Life – also the title of a song he composed for the closing of the movie Life of Brian – and one which has grown to become a signature tune for Monty Python.
Here is the video of yesterdays ZB interview with Jami-Lee Ross.
https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/news/politics/exclusive-jami-lee-ross-admits-to-affairs-with-two-women-vows-to-stay-in-parliament/#ath
“After years on Nauru, 15 asylum seekers, all in families, flew to Australia on Monday. Three more families travelled on Tuesday. Yet more left on Wednesday. And another seven families on Thursday, according to a briefing that Immigration Minister David Coleman gave crossbench members of Parliament this week. All families, all with kids, all travelling on medical advice that they need treatment in Australia.”
https://www.smh.com.au/national/progress-scott-morrison-doesn-t-want-to-advertise-20181019-p50arp.html
Apparently the kids and their families are being resettled in US
” “Anyone with even a stubbed toe is getting approved” for treatment in Australia, he says.”
means they can still say with a straight face- no change in the ‘policy’
Thats when it gets really weird
“Asylum seekers on Nauru are not in detention. They have been free to move and integrate into the community for two years now. They are classified as temporary residents of Nauru with 20-year visas. Under the terms of their visas, they need to get exit visas from the Nauruan government before leaving for Australia.
Oz –
‘Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practise to deceive.’
Walter Scott
Good news that something positive has been done. Our prayers go with the families and I am sure that the Aussie doctors putting the case for urgent attention has brought the move about. Thanks to those outspoken caring people.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/oct/15/almost-6000-doctors-sign-letter-to-pm-demanding-children-be-taken-off-nauru
Something has pierced the Oz gummint’s thick, insensitive skin. Must have sat on a redback in the dunny.
But they were on Nauru against their free will. Sort of like a political prisoner in detention. Can’t leave the island.
At least there is progress for the children in particular.
Show us the document, Katrina.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/107995418/national-partys-katrina-bungard-received-no-money-at-mediation
It seems the ‘married MP’ who JLR referred to was one of the 4 women who anonymously gave their story to Melanie Reid.
His push back and naming her makes sense ( to him) in that light.
That would be very interesting if true because it adds to the theory that the Nats dumped the story on Reid in the last couple of weeks as per Ross’ allegation, rather than Reid’s own claim that she’d been working on it with these women for a year.
Also, did the MP having given her anonymous story to Reid not believe she’d have to back it up at some stage?
She needs to come out next week.
All very murky.
“That would be very interesting if true because it adds to the theory that the Nats dumped the story on Reid in the last couple of weeks as per Ross’ allegation, rather than Reid’s own claim that she’d been working on it with these women for a year.”
I have no idea what you are implying here
That his behaviour to the women in question is made up?
No. that the National Party of New Zealand held back the complaints but these women when it suited them and then dumped the complaints by these women on the media when it suited them.
That clearly happened.
Well we don’t know that
Except for the writer of the article who said they had been working on it for a year.
I tend to go with their version given the lack of any other evidence
But if you think
National got all the different stories together, contacted the reporter and talked them into writing it, got the reporter to get all 4 women together and find background and quotes, her editorial team to double check all the sources, the madias lawyers to get together and check that there was no chance of defamation and double check it, the women to then agree with the draft of it being released nationally, all in the space of the 36 hours after his stand up, you have a higher opinion of these peoples skills than I do,
Don’t you find it remarkably convenient this story appeared right when National needed it?
I’m sure these anonymous accounts were lined up ready to go when required.
I know you don’t have much independence of thought and you take your cues from the National party machine but if you could at least make an effort to think for yourself once in a while?
What I would imagine is they just went with it earlier than planned as the subject of the investigation just became national news story of the year after his stand up and it would be stupid not to.
Eye-balls = $$
“I know you don’t have much independence of thought and you take your cues from the National party machine but if you could at least make an effort to think for yourself once in a while?”
Lol
I missed this
How about looking at evidence rather than your own need for conspiracy around every corner, for 2 seconds
Well the National Party has created a fertile ground for all sorts of theories behind motivation. This has happened because they are crooked to the core.
What we have is Ross making claims. You jump on them
His evidence doesn’t match his claims. You stop mentioning his claims.
Next we have a story of him being an arsehole to women. You jump on National for not doing anything to help the women
The women say National helped. You stop mentioning National didn’t do anything
Now you turn to not trusting the womens version…..
For what it is worth
You could be right
National may have covered it all up, be as bad as you say.
I just doubt it from the evidence
OMG. Does this clown have no shame?
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2018/10/simon-bridges-defends-asian-comments-from-ross-recording-at-auckland-s-diwali-festival.html
@Muttonbird – Nope. But he will give them 1/2 price MP’s – only $50k donation to make up…
Bridges has been in a lot of photo ops with turban wearing men in the last few days.
I wonder why?
Clearly no shame .
Bridges has no principles he wouldn’t ditch for power.
That’s the thing. His ambitions are to power and status rather than serving Kiwis.
I’m surprised more of the voting public haven’t seen this yet.
Bridges repeats in the clip that ‘we’re talking about one bad egg’ but it’s clear he was bosom buddies with that one bad egg for a decade and more.
Many members of the middle class don’t want to lose all that money they made through Key’s property Ponzi scheme.
35 years of neoliberalism and we have in our midst a significant minority of the population who was incredibly selfish people.
They won’t sacrifice their international holidays to solve poverty. Too many trips overseas in pampered resorts and on slave cruise ships has got them used to being treated as colonial masters.
They want their flash Ute, forget the unemployed.
They want.
They want.
They want.
It all goes back to Roger Douglas.
I hope I live to see the day he goes to trial.
Who is advising him? The first thing he does after monetising Indian candidates in a taped conversation is to go get a red dot on his forehead.
What the hell is he thinking?
Meanwhile…
“However, his public reception was dwarfed by the enthusiasm that greeted Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.
As the Prime Minister left the main stage, she was mobbed by people – many of whom were mothers and young daughter in saris – seeking selfies with her.”
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12145904
Play their cards right and Labour may be able to cleave off a substantial part of the nat’s Indian community support and claim it for themselves.
Yep. They just have to keep doing what they’re doing. Leave the gnats to eat themselves and say zip about all the stuff.
Jami-lee thinks he’s in kill bill and demanding ownership of severed limbs but he’s not that character imo – he’s wearing a patch over his eye.
Oh dear.
Indian Member of Parliament Kanwaljit Bakshi’s defence of his beleaguered leader Simon Bridges on his clear-as-daylight acquiescence to Jami-Lee Ross’ “Two Chinese would be more valuable than two Indians, I have to say” comment is, to say the least, abject.
[…]
Blaming it all on Ross is fine but as a representative of Kiwi Indians, his constituents would have expected more from Bakshi than this pathetic fig leaf of a defence of his leader. For the question is not of Ross saying what he said. It is rather of Bridges’ acquiescence to what was said and his continuing the conversation about the “value” of ethnic MPs and their numbers and issues around accommodating more of them.
https://www.indianweekender.co.nz/Pages/ArticleDetails/65/9947/Political/Indian-MPs-fig-leaf-for-beleaguered-National-leader
Well here it is in Bridges’ own words:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/107996313/waka-jumping-bill-could-come-to-the-aid-of-national-as-jamilee-ross-refuses-to-quit
Farrar has tried to worm his way out of this by claiming the Nats only meant policy and not morals and action but quite frankly that will hold little or no water with the media nor the voting public.
Is it time someone from the government made a statement on the shambles that is the National Party of New Zealand?
I feel the Nats implosion in all its enormity is beginning to overshadow the good things the government is doing.
Which bit of the media is either serious or fair-minded about this? They’re desperate to bail out poor old Bridges and his cronies. Various “wits” on RNZ National, for example, have been busy ridiculing Jami-Lee Ross and insisting that Bridges will survive this scandal.
I know why Labour has left it for a week but the crux of the matter is about electoral integrity and the need to promote it with the voting public.
JA could and should make a statement gently kicking the Nats in the arse but at the same time reassuring NZ that everything is being done to eliminate poor practice from politics.
Indeed.
BTW, I replied to a post you made on Kiwiblog a while ago, and it has been placed in “moderation”, i.e. it’s been disappeared from that site. I’ve put it on my blog if you’d like to see it…..
http://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2018/10/jacinda-derangement-syndrome-on.html
Thanks Morrissey.
That comment by RF is a shocker and should remind us of what it is we are fighting, particularly with reference to what has come to light in the last week about the behaviour, the morals and the motives of the National Party.
Kia ora Newshub Conner I have been following the Wentworth byelection for a bit last nite I posted about it last nite.
Larry Ellison is just a sore loser he lost to Team New Zealand If he was a Honorable person he would have entered a Yacht in the Americas Cup race.
What he is doing he is trying to beat Team New Zealand buy cheating and stealing there competitors and audiences by starting a new competing Yacht race were else but New Zealand.
I think Britain need to have a second vote on the Britexit I will tell what happened the EU told British bankers that they have to stop laundering the worlds corrupt money .
The money people did not like being put into line so they set in motion Britexit as plan as day I see this.
If Britain leaves the EU the bankers will make heaps while the common person will be young dumb and broke.
Niki The League test was a good match the Tongans are good sports people kia kaha Tonga Ka kite ano