Open Mike 20/11/2018

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, November 20th, 2018 - 226 comments
Categories: open mike - Tags:

Open mike is your post.

For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).

Step up to the mike …

226 comments on “Open Mike 20/11/2018 ”

  • Comments are now closed

  1. Pat 1
    20 November 2018 at 6:38 am

    Reflecting on the recent (and current) industrial action I ask myself, where is the strike action aimed at Climate Change?

    • Gabby 1.1
      20 November 2018 at 8:06 am

      I believe a sitdown strike quite famously failed to turn back the tide patsy.

    • WeTheBleeple 1.2
      20 November 2018 at 11:00 am

      I just put out a boat load of mulch, tweaked spots with a barrow load of compost, planted a dozen pumpkins, and it freaking hailed on my pumpkins. That enforced a strike on my days plans to decrease food miles, temporarily.

      On the bright side: I got to have a run, and it wasn’t like this

      https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12052997

    • Jenny 1.3
      20 November 2018 at 7:54 pm

      at 1
      20 November 2018 at 6:38 am
      Reflecting on the recent (and current) industrial action I ask myself, where is the strike action aimed at Climate Change?

      Following the huge industrial strikes in support of the protests against nuclear ship visits.
      The incoming Lange Douglas administration in a clause in their Employment Relations Act made strikes over social and political issues illegal, with severe penalties.

      The National Party administration that replaced the Lange Douglas administration, increased the penalties for breaking the law against social and political strikes in their Employment Contracts Act.

      And the current Labour led government intends to tighten these restrictions “political strikes”.

      Labour government to extend bans on strikes
      John Braddock – Scoop politics, June 16, 2018

      It would be brave union leadership that dared call for a strike on any social or political issue other than the narrow wages and conditions strikes currently allowed by law.

      In fact it would be an act little short of self martyrdom

      • Pat 1.3.1
        20 November 2018 at 8:15 pm

        Strikes have a long history of being banned….indeed many were arrested for industrial action in our country’s short history, and I note that the civil disobedience groups fully expect to be arrested (that being part of the objective) in their stand against CC.

        I guess if we all wait for permission we’ll still be waiting when the last ice shelf collapses…..and that will be a tide that wont be turned.

        • Pat 1.3.1.1
          20 November 2018 at 8:44 pm

          and there could be a case made that it is a health and safety issue and therefore within the legislation.

  2. Dennis Frank 2
    20 November 2018 at 7:48 am

    Earlier this year I asked here why the unionists were targeting the new government, after giving the Nats a free pass for nine years. There was no intelligible response. To his credit, a unionist is now asking that question: https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/20-11-2018/why-didnt-we-strike-under-national/

    Since I wrote that the wave of strikes has continued to escalate. Unions seem to be working themselves into a state of strike hysteria. After such a long period of apathy and subservience to the state, it’s all quite puzzling. I’m starting to form the impression that they’ve decided the political left are their real enemy – not the right.

    “Middling progressive reforms like paid parental leave were fiercely resisted by Helen Clark in New Zealand, and public healthcare dismissed as impossible by Hillary Clinton in America as recently as two years ago.” So okay, maybe we can narrow it down to female leftist political leaders are the real enemy of the unions. Add the current PM as the third example, we get a pattern, right? A notable trend to watch…

    • gsays 2.1
      20 November 2018 at 8:27 am

      Thanks Dennis, a good read.
      From a nurses perspective, the strategy seemed to be to negotiate prior to the election, then if unsatisfactory results, strike while iron was hot with whomever won the election.
      As an aside, there seemed to be something too cosy with senior NZNO negotiators and the state.
      The initial offer was only gently rejigged 4 times and was recommended by the union each time. That and the announcement of 500 extra staff during the final ratification seriously undermined the workers position.

      Not that all the workers helped themselves.
      I know of 4 senior nurses that crossed picket line and one who stood on the picket line then went to work.
      As the article says, we have forgotten what it means to strike.

      As we live in a ‘global environment’ a return to the times of a global workforce may be overdue a la the wobblies.
      I need to re-read The Black Prince, the Fintan Patrick Walsh biography.

      • Dennis Frank 2.1.1
        20 November 2018 at 8:50 am

        The only time I was in a union was the nineties, the PSA, so I tend to see it from a sociological perspective. For a unionist, the common interest derives from what benefits all members. For a leftist nowadays, the common interest is so ephemeral that it is almost never articulated – leftists seem to be partisan without really explaining why most of the time.

        So the leftist political project succeeds now only via support from centrists – in government, where common ground gets established on an issue-by-issue basis, and consensus transforms into legislation via cabinet decisions.

        And this process seems driven by the collective agency of the middle class. Perhaps it is the perception of the unionists that they are being excluded? Maybe tacit categorisation of unions as working class is driving a class divide through the left?

        I haven’t read about Walsh but I gather from his first name that he was an Irish immigrant. I haven’t read John A Lee either but I suspect kiwi sources may be more authentic for us, or at least more relevant. Did the Federation of Labour die? If so, was it because it was a dinosaur?

        • patricia bremner 2.1.1.1
          20 November 2018 at 11:01 am

          Union membership was made difficult when during the Wharfies strike, their fighting fund was appropriated by the Government.

          Laws were passed after that limiting union rights.

          This continued through to the first reversal of some of that by this Government.

          After being suppressed for so long it is like the cork release on a champagne bottle.

          There are few strong unions left except in areas of the old Public Service.

          Now representatives of unions may enter work places more efforts to improve safety working conditions and pay have begun.

          It is a catch-up of 40+ years of neglect and ill treatment.

          • Dennis Frank 2.1.1.1.1
            20 November 2018 at 11:34 am

            Okay, Patricia, that seems a very good point. A combination of structural change and the resulting renewed confidence of organisers. I agree that it’s a viable interpretation. Perhaps mine was overly negative, eh?

            • soddenleaf 2.1.1.1.1.1
              20 November 2018 at 2:14 pm

              Neolib has failed, even our right of centre pm, Ardern is trying to hold the line but its to easy nowadays to expose short term thinking. Basically your lazy stupid politucian that winged it behind the myths of neolibs just can’t be seen either to reject the faith, or let the shackles on the people slip. I imagine the consequences, fresh food in the shop, affordable house, free universal health, not just living wage jobs but jobs you can save and start a business off. The economy isn’t incentivized correctly, that’s why flavorless apples are marketed as fresh, this science has shown makes us fatter as smell is linked to abesity, this drives up the costs of health care, etc etc. All the wrong incentives to create a rent seeking class that is only placated by more rent seeking incentives. It really a hard job one for the politicians, to maintain and extend the climate planet destroying efforts while being obviously wrong.

            • patricia bremner 2.1.1.1.1.2
              20 November 2018 at 9:22 pm

              No Frank, a natural reaction to a huge increase in reporting. We had all become used to a quiet scene of depressed hopelessness.

          • greywarshark 2.1.1.1.2
            20 November 2018 at 2:20 pm

            Unions have to be pragmatic. They can’t catch up on 40 years, and they can’t lay that task on this Labour Coalition. I hope they realise that and don’t start behaving like the old unions did, deciding the level of salary and conditons they deserved in their own opinion, and sticking to it until everyone lost respect and patience with them.

            Teachers etc have been underpaid, junior doctors have been driven to breakdown by conditions – the list goes on. Judge what you can get, make sure that the public know it isn’t just about wages but also more reasonable conditions that enable a life, time with the family, and after paying all needs, some enjoyment.

            But don’t get all hoity toity about what you deserve. Go as near as possible to where you want, perhaps offer to drop a little from the asking wage to get a better condition. And union leaders tell the members what seems to be the limit, and what you might get if they try a bit further. and what the likelihood is. And then do some role play so they get in the picture of what it is like to negotiate with the opposite side.

        • gsays 2.1.1.2
          20 November 2018 at 2:01 pm

          the decline of union membership and the rise of different divisions of lefties (environmental, gender politics, workers etc) seems to coincide.

          the absence of a common or uniting cause would appear to have left us to our own devices and interests.
          compulsory unionism is an abhorrent idea. how to raise their profile beyond conditions and wages further deteriorating.

          fintan walsh was kiwi born, and founding member of the nz communist party.
          from memory of his biography, he wasn’t shy of using violence and unsavoury methods to help folk see his point of view.

    • David Mac 2.2
      20 November 2018 at 8:56 am

      Not enemy. We’re seeing more strike action because it’s easier and more productive to ask family and friends for money.

      • Dennis Frank 2.2.1
        20 November 2018 at 9:38 am

        Hmm, I wonder if the asking actually produces a giving response. If sharing of wealth actually happens between friends & within families, I suspect it would be a natural response to extreme adversity and a kind of swimming against the cultural tide. An interesting perspective, David. Consider me a sceptic, due to self-reliance being a more evident part of our ethos, but I’d welcome any authentic emergence of collective wealth-sharing – driven by reciprocity, perhaps, rather than ideology…

        • David Mac 2.2.1.1
          20 November 2018 at 9:52 am

          Sure it’s more likely to produce a giving response. Regardless of what I need the $1000 for, it makes much more sense for me to ring my sister rather than Simon Bridges.

          I’m not convinced collective wealth sharing is a goal worth chasing Dennis. Because of the self reliance ethos you speak of, I think we will see increased contentment if we pursue an equality of opportunity.

      • bwaghorn 2.2.2
        20 November 2018 at 11:29 am

        Even if it’s likely to get your family and friends kicked out of their house come 2020.

      • Wayne 2.2.3
        20 November 2018 at 1:37 pm

        Why is it now easier to ask friends and family for money? It is not as if everyone has suddenly got lots more money.
        Is it because the family and friends believe the strike will succeed?
        In any event for nurses and teachers the strikes are so short that the reduction in income will be minor. In fact I would not be surprised if there are no deductions of salary for these groups. But that would not be the case with the Hamilton drivers. Their employer will definitely not be paying them.

    • Anne 2.3
      20 November 2018 at 10:29 am

      Unions seem to be working themselves into a state of strike hysteria.\

      I was certainly starting to get that impression a few days ago when the teachers went on strike with another one waiting in the wings. They won’t maintain the public’s support if they overdo it.

      Under the last govt. the teachers were bullied into compliance. A good example was National Standards being forced on them and the threat of bulk funding which was enough to keep them quiet. Early in their tenure Anne Tolley sat an entire school staff down and read them a children’s story about what happens if you don’t do what you’re told.

      Now that they have found themselves under a government that is sympathetic to their cause, the anger and frustrations of the past 10 years are flowing freely.

      Oops: one almighty clap of thunder. I’m off to the dungeons.

    • greywarshark 2.4
      20 November 2018 at 11:04 am

      Thining about this at 2 from Dennis Frank:
      “Middling progressive reforms like paid parental leave were fiercely resisted by Helen Clark in New Zealand, and public healthcare dismissed as impossible by Hillary Clinton in America as recently as two years ago.” So okay, maybe we can narrow it down to female leftist political leaders are the real enemy of the unions. Add the current PM as the third example, we get a pattern, right? A notable trend to watch…

      Margaret Thatcher comes to mind as part of this cohort. She comes from a group of girls that do well at school, feel they are self-made women, and with the confidence of their success can feel very powerful and wise. They have ticked all the boxes, excelled, and risen higher than ordinary women aspire to, and can foot it with men who learn that they have to move over to allow this ambitious woman through; that she is filled with hubris equal to their own.

      The stupid, irrational and simplistic cliche then runs through her head, ‘I’ve succeeded. Other women can do well if they just try and work hard.’ So she is not kind to women as they find their way, or not, in our English-speaking world that fakes concern about vulnerable people and parents. (It seems to me that other ‘advanced’ countries do better overall for families). And to people in general, such a woman takes a military, authoritarian slant that people should pull their socks up, and make the best of things relying on their own endeavours not the state.

      And we might look into the childhoods of these leaders. Have they had loving parents who took time to talk to them, help them with their difficulties, enrich their lives with experiences with other people in the wider public, and teach them values of self-respect and understanding then applying that to others? Often the children of people who have got into the elite, or are working hard to achieve wealth and security, don’t have this and are palmed off on to boarding schools so that parents are not concerned with their socialisation and values learning. Look to the parents, and their behaviour and thoughts and communication, and in how they interact with their children.

      The pre-seven thing has been recognised, but now the age has shrunk to about the first four years as the crucial period when so much is laid down in the brain that sets the base for the rest of the life for that person.

    • WeTheBleeple 2.5
      20 November 2018 at 11:10 am

      “Earlier this year I asked here why the unionists were targeting the new government, after giving the Nats a free pass for nine years”

      Perhaps there is some emboldening of the unions with the current Government where they feel they would actually be heard. That their resources wouldn’t be squandered talking to National who didn’t give a toss/would rather see them dead.

      Similar, but obviously different, to the emboldening of racism under Trump’s ‘leadership’.

      • Dennis Frank 2.5.1
        20 November 2018 at 11:40 am

        A subtle analogy, but I get it. The govt seems to be playing hardball, eh? Grant Robertson sitting on that massive surplus, not conceding that the union members are worthy recipients of a prompt generous share. Thus my perception of a class bias agenda. I’m just suggesting it fits the facts, no more than that…

  3. Gabby 3
    20 November 2018 at 8:08 am

    NZers have a long and proud tradition of craven subservience to bullies franky. We’re totes brave when we reckon we can get away with it.

    • Dennis Frank 3.1
      20 November 2018 at 9:02 am

      Yeah. I first noticed that syndrome as a teenager in the sixties. I rebelled against it instinctively. Now our leaders seem unsure whether subservience to China is better than subservience to the USA. Tough choice for them – which arse to kiss? Better kiss both – as the PM said the other day, we’re not taking sides.

      I reject such tacit cowardice. Our foreign policy ought to be just as paternalist as that of the great powers: point out what each is doing wrong. Turning a position of military weakness into a position of diplomatic strength is easy: just use the right words, and deliver them in the right tone. Guidance.

      • greywarshark 3.1.1
        20 November 2018 at 10:22 am

        DF 3.1
        Good luck with that. Reading history it seems that we follow cycles and there is something in the human psyche that will triumph over intelligent self-promotion
        (including country as well as personal), and integrity, Knowing when to play or not, getting good intelligence, and working out options and the various possible consequences, it is complex and simple, focussed minds of get-rich quick merchants are not aligned to spectrum thinking.

        I like the mantra of the song about playing cards for money. Great advice from Kenny Rogers:
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hx4gdlfamo

        And here it is with the words so you can sing along and learn the truths of our day and how to avoid the downsides, perhaps:
        (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDwCMxPwJ_4

        • Dennis Frank 3.1.1.1
          20 November 2018 at 10:41 am

          You’re not wrong. Guidance only succeeds via being appropriate to time & circumstance. Nowadays such marginal interventions are empowered conceptually via the science of complexity. When complex systems are close to a tipping point, a small force is all that is required to start them tipping.

          I recall when that song appeared wondering why such obvious reasoning would merit it, and I’m not a poker player. Still, it has been influential. Tell the yanks what they already know, get rich as a result. Ain’t capitalism wonderful!

  4. SaveNZ 4
    20 November 2018 at 8:37 am

    “An unfair allocation

    Radio New Zealand reports that business in Hawke’s Bay are looking at rationing water or shutting down production due to the rivers running dry. Meanwhile, six dairy farmers get to take half the region’s water:

    Some businesses and farmers in Central Hawke’s Bay may start rationing water as parts of the Waipawa and Tukituki rivers are already bone dry.

    It comes as figures obtained by RNZ show the top six water consent holders in the district are using more than half of all allocated water from the Ruataniwha Aquifer and rivers.”

    http://norightturn.blogspot.com/2018/11/an-unfair-allocation.html

    Reform our laws that are ethically unfair to the local person because the neoliberal business and commercial short term preferences of the RMA, OIA, and council consenting need urgent reform into the 21 century of drought and climate change.

    If you collect the water off your roof you own it, if you collect it from the aquifer than the community owns it and private interests should have 2nd place after social interests. It should be pretty easy to work that out ethically. Also consents should have terms of only 10 years and even then should be able to be revoked in emergencies like drought if it is in the public interest.

    Now they need to change to the law and interpret it, to be fair. The law does have some provision but it has been stretched in the neoliberal direction for so long, at the expense of the environment. Also fines and or jail time if public interest is effected aka polluting aquifers and overcorrecting allocations. If fake short term science and expert reports paid for to justify the consents that are not worth the paper they are written on and prove to be wrong – there should be hard consequences. At present our laws are a joke – like CTV building deaths and Pike River – no real consequences for those that made faulty recommendations on consents that should never have been given by council.

    When the aquifers are dry or diminished then there needs to be consequence to the people who allowed the faulty allocations of public water and those that benefited from it.

    • greywarshark 4.1
      20 November 2018 at 10:05 am

      Six dairy farmers taking half the region’s water? This is where the public mass and start throwing cowshit at the allocating bodies, perhaps personally as well as the building they operate from. Their self-cleaning mechanisms would be severely tested dealing with that.

      Meanwhile the group behind all this kerfaffle, the National Party and its supporters are trying to get education free for themselves, instead of going to university and paying for it like everyone else. This morning on Radionz I heard that they have input to the Labour Party, 42,000 questions which are just phishing and a cynical use of the money we pay them to do a decent Opposition job.

      However it became obvious, when theGnashional were in government, that they didn’t know how to run the country’s affairs; now they are trying to learn how to do so from Labour, and in the process slowing and burdening the Labour Coalition with this pathetic game playing.

      They should be inhibited by suitable laws that set a limit on such behaviour as being unparliamentary or something, also obstructive and whatever word that expresses OTT. And that would then apply to any Party in Opposition; we need to have better standards and more productivity from our Representatives, and make sure they represent everybody not just themselves and their crowd!

    • WeTheBleeple 4.2
      20 November 2018 at 11:23 am

      Hawkes Bay is prone to drought. Farming there it should be mandatory to have significant trees, ponds, swales and other forms of rain capture and retention.

      And, make it rain!

      http://www.irinnews.org/news/2013/02/08/will-more-trees-cause-more-rain

      • SaveNZ 4.2.1
        20 November 2018 at 11:46 am

        +1 WeTheBleeple

        If they can green the desert, what the hell are doing in NZ, when no positive action is being taken to survive longer term with less water in agriculture.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yI9wMtTvWps

        There are better links but I can’t find them for the moment on miraculous desalinising and greening up the deserts and how it was achieved cheaply.

      • Ian 4.2.2
        20 November 2018 at 7:46 pm

        The Ruataniwha dam would have provided water for suburban and rural Hawkes bay for a long time. You reap what you sow. Wankers.

    • bwaghorn 4.3
      20 November 2018 at 11:33 am

      Should a built a dam a !!

      • SaveNZ 4.3.1
        20 November 2018 at 11:48 am

        Speaking of dams. They think that solar will be cheaper in 10 years (hell it is cheaper now) than hydro, but in 10 years they won’t have any clean rivers or streams left in the Balkans by the look of it.

        http://watsupeurope.com/news/🇧🇦protests-in-balkans-to-stop-dams-and-protect-rivers/

      • greywarshark 4.3.2
        20 November 2018 at 11:52 am

        Problem is bwaghorn, that the private people who put money into a dam will want to take precedence over the public, and will use the water to expand their production until they are using more than their share, pushing the boundaries, that is how business works when it comes to water, liquid gold.

        And then there will be disadvantages in having the dam plus the fact that the dam water won’t come cheaply and be priced out of the purses of the public when it is really needed.

        There are so many future options that people who haven’t got the capacious business brain that can see Opportunities for Me everywhere and make sure they are first in the queue don’t realise. And questioning starts with a qu also. It’s important to see who will manage to get the most benefit, who can monopolise the water. So it’s just not storing water for summer use and droughts.

        • WeTheBleeple 4.3.2.1
          20 November 2018 at 12:58 pm

          Yep, decentralized e.g. on farm storage is required. Do the houses of our drought prone regions have water tanks?

          Hawke’s Bay:

          ‘Water storage is for the collection of rainwater to create a reserve from bore or reticulated supply. Because of public health requirements, it is not designed as a drinking water supply.

          The size of the domestic storage tank most commonly used is 2000 litres or less.

          Capturing local rainfall for non-potable purposes (eg your garden) can reduce the demand on the reticulated supply by up to 40% and councils in many areas are already encouraging this. A valuable by-product of rainfall collection is that it also reduces the pressure on stormwater systems.

          Reduces effluent leachate into surface and ground water. Improves local stream/river water quality.

          Increased domestic resilience in emergency event.’

          There are regulations and permits and hoops to jump through if you want to drink rainwater in an urban setting today. But it can be done.

          Rainwater supply should be required on new housing in drought prone areas be they urban or not, as well as retrofitting older stock where feasible.

          But those farms, they need to shape up or ship out.

          • greywarshark 4.3.2.1.1
            20 November 2018 at 1:22 pm

            Drought prone – can’t the accumulated information on tree planting for different terrains and conditions come to the fore for these areas. Clever use of already gathered and tested species plantings with carbon credits giving a return on the land to the farmer would enable them to farm suitably for conditions. Would you agree WtB?

            And further, thinking of drought and practical water use and controls – some of the wineries on stony slopes could be encouraged, and those on flat fertile land carry an impost. We need to return some dairy land to grain crops, particularly oats, and that could be encouraged through tax advantages, and gradual increase on dairying be introduced for each cow being milked, plus a pollution impost funding a national body doing cleaning of waterways work. Not left to regional outfits captured by the very culprits they were supposed to be taming.

            • DJ Ward 4.3.2.1.1.1
              20 November 2018 at 1:56 pm

              Cropping results in more fertilisers and pesticides, and more water use than Diary. The worst polluted rivers are those going through towns and cities.

              Diary farms have compulsory stream fencing now. You cannot supply to Fontera without farm inspection for compliance. Created without subsidy. There is a significant improvement in the last 10 years. Fertilisers can’t be applied without testing and justification. Effluent ponds can’t overflow to streams. Vastly different from the cowboy days.

              Get your head out of the bubble. You should be acknowledging the improvements, and constructively suggesting more ways to improve things.

              Farmers have shifted from monoculture grasses to more diverse multi species options. Decreasing fertiliser needs, adding drought resistance, better nutrition and animal health. As well as increasing non farmed species of animals, insects, and birds.

              Tax descrimination is never a good answer. Finding environmental solutions that improve financial performance is the way to go. Subsidies create unsustainable distortion.

              • Robert Guyton …
                20 November 2018 at 3:05 pm

                Let’s test your claims, DJ Ward;
                “Farmers have shifted from monoculture grasses to more diverse multi species options. ”
                How many farmers?
                What “multi species” options?

                • DJ Ward …
                  20 November 2018 at 3:37 pm

                  If you look for the data on plant species variety in NZ farmland you will see a rise in diversity in the last 20 years. Far from what it could be, or should be, but the diversity has increased.

                  An example would be it was just a grass species and clover.

                  Today it will be grass, multi clover species, and chicory, as an eg.

                  Not a huge change, but positive change.

                  • Robert Guyton …
                    20 November 2018 at 4:06 pm

                    You said, “Farmers have shifted from monoculture grasses to more diverse multi species options. ”
                    then “Not a huge change…”
                    Perhaps you’d have represented the situation better if you’d said “a few farmers have made a slight change toward multi-species pastures”.

              • Robert Guyton …
                20 November 2018 at 3:06 pm

                “As well as increasing non farmed species of animals, insects, and birds.”
                Which non farmed animals?
                Which insects?
                Which birds?

                • Robert Guyton …
                  20 November 2018 at 3:08 pm

                  ” The worst polluted rivers are those going through towns and cities.”
                  Which of those didn’t go through farmland first?

                  • DJ Ward …
                    20 November 2018 at 3:44 pm

                    Many of Aucklands streams never go near farmland. They are also the most polluted.

                    • Robert Guyton …
                      20 November 2018 at 4:03 pm

                      Oh! You said “rivers” so I assumed you meant…rivers. Do you have a link to support your claims or are they anecdotal?

                • DJ Ward …
                  20 November 2018 at 3:43 pm

                  If a paddock is healthier and more diverse, all species that live in or feed from that environment have better chances of survival.

                  Have you ever been on a farm to see there’s more going on than portrayed by anti farmers?

                  • Robert Guyton …
                    20 November 2018 at 4:11 pm

                    Indeed I have, DJ Ward. Your “If a paddock…” claim’s disingenuous, in my view, and very narrow in it’s scope. I hoped you could name some creatures that benefit from these “new” pastures you described:
                    “As well as increasing non farmed species of animals, insects, and birds.”
                    Which non farmed animals? I still wonder, which insects, which birds?
                    Wanna have another go?

                    • DJ Ward …
                      20 November 2018 at 4:30 pm

                      Paradise Ducks, Geese, Godwits, Herons, Starlings, Wax Eyes, Peacocks, Pheasants, Turkeys, Rabbits, Hares, Mice, Pukeko, Mallards, Spiders, Bees, Quail, Ladybirds, Native Reptiles, Pidgeons, Possums, Wild Goats, Pigs, Native Eels, Carp, Rudd, Deer, Rats, Beetles, Snails, Weta, Frogs, Stick Insects, Giant Moths, Sparrows, Rosella, Swans, Cave Weta, etc etc.

                      All of those plus, if you count insects, 100s more species are found on the Diary farm my partner manages.

                    • Robert Guyton …
                      20 November 2018 at 4:48 pm

                      And they’re newly arrived because your partner, ” shifted from monoculture grasses to more diverse multi species options”?
                      Tell us more? What changes has your partner made to the dairy farm he/she manages?

                    • DJ Ward …
                      20 November 2018 at 5:09 pm

                      Obviously my partner has not introduced any species herself.

                      She has actually increased production to record levels for the farm. Without irrigation.

                      It’s an eco system. Not one you like by the sounds of it but it exists. The Turkeys are over breeding. It would be nice to harvest them for poor families but nobody asks. I keep the possum numbers down and harvest the fur, helping our export economy. The Herons sleep in a tree beside the house.

                      Insects from the paddocks fall in the streams feeding the fish. Birds feed in the paddocks. Rabbits feeding in the paddocks fall prey to Hawks. Insects feeding on the paddock get eaten by the lizards.
                      Etc etc.

                      It’s not just grass and cows.

                    • Robert Guyton …
                      20 November 2018 at 7:11 pm

                      It’s not a matter of whether I like them or not, DJ Ward, it’s whether, as you claimed, they appeared as a result of a change in your partners farming practice “from monoculture grasses to more diverse multi species options”.
                      Did they?

                      “Farmers have shifted from monoculture grasses to more diverse multi species options. Decreasing fertiliser needs, adding drought resistance, better nutrition and animal health. As well as increasing non farmed species of animals, insects, and birds.”

                    • greywarshark …
                      20 November 2018 at 7:17 pm

                      I don’t believe anything that DJ Ward says about his so-called farm, he just sounds as if he is TTP.

                      Insects from the paddocks fall in the streams feeding the fish. Birds feed in the paddocks. Rabbits feeding in the paddocks fall prey to Hawks. Insects feeding on the paddock get eaten by the lizards.

                      He’s just making it up as he goes along. Sounds like a kindergarten book about Nature.

                    • Robert Guyton …
                      20 November 2018 at 7:56 pm

                      Canny observation, greywarshark. I found this claim:
                      “It’s an eco system. Not one you like by the sounds of it but it exists”. quite odd and though I searched, I couldn’t find any hint to support his claim.

                  • DJ Ward …
                    20 November 2018 at 10:28 pm

                    Anybody help!

                    I can’t be bothered what an Eco system meens.

                    ecosystem
                    /
                    nounECOLOGY
                    a biological community of interacting organisms and their physical environment.
                    “the marine ecosystem of the northern Gulf had suffered irreparable damage”
                    (in general use) a complex network or interconnected system.
                    “Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurial ecosystem”

                    …….
                    The ecosystem at DJ Wards place.

                    Your flats 1 meter wide house to fence, pathway ecosystem.

                    Oh my.

            • WeTheBleeple 4.3.2.1.1.2
              20 November 2018 at 3:17 pm

              Diversification is certainly required. I posted earlier about the fact 75% of our food is from 12 crops and 5 animals. Meanwhile 1000 food species of plants are declining/endangered.

              Evolution is an organisms way to survive change. global warming = rapid change. We have to diversify, it’s that simple. Diversifying pastures is part of it, riparian plantings, and similar initiatives will all help.

              But also on farm storage of water including soil storage by raising organic matter which holds water, significant shelter planting with functional design (stock food, nitrogen, pollinators, pest control, fruit, nuts, etc to make farm life nicer, timber for fuel, building, investment). Plus we need diversification of types of farm.

              Plants provide a large proportion of our needs and so farm diversification can go into other industries than simply food production (or bulk commodity as is NZ’s case). Medicine, textiles, materials, etc. A dairy farmer controlling hundreds of acres and whinging about not enough for the family, is a bit of an ass to put it mildly. All this consumption has not made happy people. Petty, nasty, fearful, envious people…

              Mom and pop (and workers) outfits on the land have been relegated to the past, but we’ll need people back on the land. Will they embrace the good life?

              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uf_qVE1sWMY

              There’s plenty of grains in pasture/hay for the cows, added protein with the legumes. Once trees play a significant part in farming systems topping up/feeding animals in peak summer and winter when pasture is struggling is viable from on-farm sources.

              Lower production is not lower profit if you can knock inputs on the head. There’s an awful lot of a farmers revenue goes straight to big oil and subsidiaries. Added to that 20% of production can be lost to wind chill, not to mention heat stress… Shelter belts and well placed plantings can do an awful lot of good on a farm.

              On-farm diversity of products, with provisioning/capture of inputs will provide insurance in many ways, including: biodiversity, drought protection, reduced inputs, and food security for both humans and their animals.

              • Robert Guyton …
                20 November 2018 at 3:25 pm

                Agree with all that. Divining for water with a willow rod, though not mentioned here 🙂 makes me think that touring farmland with a “sensitive”, maybe Goethe/Steiner-trained, taking note of their reactions and comments would be a great way to direct change in farming practice. It’s an obscure claim, perhaps, but well-meant 🙂

                • WeTheBleeple …
                  20 November 2018 at 3:45 pm

                  An old market gardening boss we had divined the well on the property. He was trained by David Bellamy, and then he trained me. So I’m a direct descendant…

          • Robert Guyton 4.3.2.1.2
            20 November 2018 at 3:28 pm

            We’ve 3 large tanks here. They’re full presently and will be used in the house and on seedlings. I don’t rely on them for the garden though; there, I’m banking on the humus created by our permaculture,forest garden practices. Subterranean “lakes” beat Burford tanks any day 🙂

        • DJ Ward 4.3.2.2
          20 November 2018 at 1:03 pm

          If the public wants a dam, buy the land and built it. Then they can dictate who gets the water. But who creates that money to invest in infastructure?

          If the private sector buys land and builds a dam, it’s their water. There is no public share. You can do that if we get this is like the mafia.

          There is however responsibilities.
          As long as streams have minimum flows, wildlife ladders, and water is captured during high flows then it should be encouraged.
          The increased productivity provides jobs, and pays more tax.
          Reduces effects of droughts.
          That is the public share.
          That’s what creates the money for public infastructure.

          Or it trades legal rights to block developement, eg public land, with a public share to enable developement without public investment.

          • AB 4.3.2.2.1
            20 November 2018 at 2:08 pm

            “If the private sector buys land and builds a dam, it’s their water”

            No – it’s their dam. It’s not their water. They have no inherent right to impound the public’s water behind their dam. They may seek the public’s permission to impound that water, and it may well be given if:
            a.) the downstream effects do not spoil the public’s safe enjoyment of that river (swimming, kayaking, fishing, walking etc.)
            b.) a proportion of the economic benefit that the private dam-owner gains from having that extra water, is shared directly with the public – not assumed to be shared by some dubious trickle-down mechanism.

            Water is part of the commons – we will not have it alienated.
            Once we have finished with water – we will extend this principle to other natural resources. My preferred second cab off the rank would be fish.

            • OnceWasTim 4.3.2.2.1.1
              20 November 2018 at 2:15 pm

              and air
              and the ether

              • AB …
                20 November 2018 at 2:49 pm

                Heh – the case of air has not been tested yet.
                However if some techno-lunatic had the technology and could derive financial benefit from impounding lots of air and leaving shortages of air outside those impoundments – I think similar arguments might apply (in between gasps for breath).

                The Ether, being a medieval metaphor rather than a natural resource, is not something we need to worry about. (Though capitalism is very ingenious at finding ways to enrich oneself by dispossessing others, so you can never say never)

                • DJ Ward …
                  20 November 2018 at 3:27 pm

                  Air is processed to collect Argon for welding processes and other inert atmosphere applications.
                  Nitrogen is removed as well for applications like Laser cutting.

                  Farmers remove Carbon Dioxide converting it into food.

                  • Robert Guyton …
                    20 November 2018 at 3:30 pm

                    “Farmers remove Carbon Dioxide converting it into food.”
                    And methane and CO2 pumping it direct to the atmosphere.

                    • DJ Ward …
                      20 November 2018 at 4:11 pm

                      Yes that does happen.
                      It’s however a far more neutral system than portrayed.
                      Forests and swamps create methane as well, as plant matter decomposes.
                      Ultimately nothing ejected into the atmosphere by farming wasn’t taken from the atmosphere.
                      Once options such as electric 4 wheelers, even tractors, with fast charging Ali ion batteries become real, fossil fuel use can be minimised as well.

                    • Robert Guyton …
                      20 November 2018 at 4:21 pm

                      “Ultimately nothing ejected into the atmosphere by farming wasn’t taken from the atmosphere.”

                      What about the fossil fuels used extensively on farms??? Where do their resulting gases go???

                      You must know that urea, used extensively across New Zealand farmland, has as a significant by-product, nitrous oxide, one of the very worst green house gases??? Surely?
                      And if you’re thinking of arguing that fossil fuels were once in the atmosphere…spare us the waste of time; pumping carbon sequestered eons ago back into the atmopsphere now at the rate we are doing it, it stupidity at its most spectacular!

                    • DJ Ward …
                      20 November 2018 at 5:18 pm

                      Robert. Obviously there is issues.

                      I did point out that I wish that farming can convert to EV vehicles. But they are not realistically available. I wish they were.

                      If we stopped Urea use our economy would be seriously hurt and if applied globally mass starvation would result.
                      I am aware of Nitrous Oxide, it’s small but disproportionate effect.

                      PS Stop assuming I’m a Climate Change Denier.

                    • Robert Guyton …
                      20 November 2018 at 5:47 pm

                      I haven’t assumed you to be a climate change denier, DJ Ward. I’m suspicious that you might be an apologist for conventional farming though 🙂 That said, you are making some good points, amongst your scatter-gun of factoids. I do appreciate your returning to have a go at answering them though. We’ll have to stop urea use, as we will palm kernel expeller. Big changes are coming, fast. The fastest adapters win!

                  • AB …
                    20 November 2018 at 5:06 pm

                    Wow interesting facts.
                    So interesting that they stay interesting despite being slathered everywhere as part of a meaningless reductio ad absurdum argument. Thanks

            • DJ Ward 4.3.2.2.1.2
              20 November 2018 at 2:31 pm

              So you support taxing rain?

              • AB …
                20 November 2018 at 2:52 pm

                Nope – though I would support taxing somebody who attempted to divert everyone else’s rain into their own water tank. That – or put them in jail maybe.

              • Ian …
                20 November 2018 at 8:00 pm

                So they are going to ban Nitrogen use and palm kernel. What’s next ?? Fast food, cars, plastic, air travel, gay policemen in uniform?
                How progressive.

                • Robert Guyton …
                  20 November 2018 at 8:01 pm

                  Ian! Your comments are Most Valuable and Well Considered – keep ’em coming’!!

                  • Ian …
                    20 November 2018 at 8:17 pm

                    Enjoy it while it lasts. I just obey the law and pay my taxes.Cheers mate.

                    • Robert Guyton …
                      20 November 2018 at 8:26 pm

                      ‘corse ya do! But isn’t it a legal requirement to pay your taxes? Why seperate out that one aspect? You could have said, “and drive on the left”. Curious.

            • greywarshark 4.3.2.2.1.3
              20 November 2018 at 4:42 pm

              AB
              You mention safety for recreation. But there is also the safety of dams that are too high, not built to a manageable level, not able to withstand tomorrow’s likely cloudbursts, water dumps, and extended periods of bad weather that don’t move off because of changing wind and weather from CC.

              There have been dam collapses in recent years listed below.
              Note the number of dead by the country name. But the many left bereft with everything gone and no shelter will be much more. Also note the Canadian one. We followed Canadian building practices that had resulted in leaky buildings blindly. We also don’t have good regulators and inspectors who respect their job and the public are thin on the ground. (because of budget constraints possibly). Because the government was likely following the low regulation-high-trust-in – business and didn’t ensure sharp and regular inspections by experienced people, the cam construction business got let off! Businesses take profit, government takes ultimate responsibility.

              Notice the number of heavy rain events, could be say a year’s average in a week, has caused a number of the collapses in recent years.

              Mount Polley tailings dam failure
              2014 Aug. 4th British Columbia, Canada 0 Tailings dam collapse due to negligent operation; reservoir was overfilled beyond design parameters despite repeated warnings of the danger [21][22][23] combined with a minor dam breach a few months before[24] and fundamental design flaws[25]. Failure of due-diligence and the honourable discharge of duty-of-care obligations by the regulator has resulted in complete exoneration of Imperial Metals, the dam operator.

              Germano mine tailings dams 2015 Nov. 5th Mariana, Minas Gerais, Brazil 24 One tailings dam collapse. One village destroyed, 600 people evacuated, 19 missing. Sixty-million cubic meters of iron waste sludge polluted Doce River, and the sea near the river’s mouth.

              Maple Lake 2017 Oct. 5th Paw Paw, Michigan 0 A heavy rainstorm caused a section of a dam to crumble because of the weight of a pond above, which happened around 5 a.m.[26]

              Patel Dam 2018 May 10th Solai, Kenya 47 Failed after several days of heavy rain.

              Panjshir Valley dam 2018 Jul. 11th Panjshir Valley, Afghanistan 10 Dilapidated dam crumbled under heavy summer rains, 13 missing, 300 houses destroyed.

              Xe-Pian Xe-Namnoy Dam 2018 Jul. 23rd Attapeu Province, Laos 36 Saddle dam under construction collapsed during rainstorms. 6600 people homeless, 98 missing.

              Swar Chaung Dam 2018 Aug. 19th Yedashe, Myanmar 4 Breach in the dam’s spillway. 63,000 evacuated, 3 missing.
              85 villages affected.
              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dam_failure

        • Ian 4.3.2.3
          20 November 2018 at 7:50 pm

          Why would you write such twaddle ?

  5. SaveNZ 5
    20 November 2018 at 9:10 am

    Scarcy stuff, this occurred in the UK with a NZ women, faking fake qualifications as a psychiatrist for 22 years. She was only discovered when she faked a will.

    Fake qualifications seem to be happening all the time now, and scarily often is not noticed for years as people relocate to hide their pasts and help cover up their fake qualifications.

    Time for any migrants in any industry coming to NZ (including construction) have to sit a detailed exam in NZ before they are let lose on the public to make sure their degrees or qualifications are not fake. If they fail, send them back to where they came from! Tired of substandard or fake people elocating around the world to impersonate skills that nobody seems to discover.

    Unqualified NZ woman practised psychiatry in UK for 22 years

    https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/376325/unqualified-nz-woman-practised-psychiatry-in-uk-for-22-years

    I seem to remember someone enquiring about a fake degree business degree in NZ, only to find out , in NZ it was a real degree, but apparently the applicant was passed without having to know anything. Sad we are turning into a third world country with fake degrees and around the world fake qualifications are not picked up.

    100% pure criminal NZ

  6. greywarshark 6
    20 November 2018 at 9:52 am

    The difficulty of NZ businesses to survive in the cutthroat market we have, is shown by what I saw on Trademe this morning. There is a takeover from traders in Auckland of my printing ink market; of 120 listings they were most from Auckland with 12 from Australia, 2 from Manawatu, 1 from Wellington, 1 from Southland.

    And the Auckland prices at the lowest were $2 black and $3 for any one colour. How can an ordinary NZ trader compete against that ridiculously low price? I have found the cheap ink is likely to be quite effective though I have read that there is not the colour-fastness. And the official ink cartridges are quite expensive so getting undercut and bought by poorer people like me. However at $3 it becomes a market grab severely undercutting other businesses with a cheap product obtained through questionable behaviour.

    I will be buying some from a private trader trying to sell bits and pieces, and also going to one of the regionals even if it costs more. Selective buying for support of each other in NZ people doing normal trade on a ‘level playing field’, needs to be the catchphrase of this century.

    • SaveNZ 6.1
      20 November 2018 at 10:24 am

      @ greywarshark, That is the problem, if you allow too many cheap and in many cases unregulated goods into a country undercutting better or tested products then it can drive better businesses out of business.

      And often better business pay people more and pay their taxes.

      It is also surprising how few products are being tested to be safe coming into NZ – aka the lead in tap ware example comes to mind, asbestos trains etc

      NZ seems to allowing open slather. Some really bad businesses are being propped up by fake jobs and questionable import/export business (that often have some extra drugs in imports) and they are expanding their business practices driving out and putting onto unemployment the businesses that are playing by the rules and not exploiting people.

      Clearly illegal wage conditions are not a high priority because

      Labour Inspectorate’s refusal to investigate workplace complaints slammed
      https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2018/11/labour-inspectorate-s-refusal-to-investigate-workplace-complaints-slammed.html

      • greywarshark 6.1.1
        20 November 2018 at 10:37 am

        You mention matters that are Key to the problem. Hah get it! He was very honest about being a faker, said he wanted to reduce wages or some such statement. Why didn’t we take notice as a country? Didn’t we give a shit about how we built NZ up to the state we had in the 1980s? We needed to thini then and overhaul as the process needed cleaning and clearing. But no, the national psyche was such that the National Party could flow into the mould and turn themselves into Darth Vaders or some malign comic book character, the Jester, the Penguin?

        And now we are so open that fakers fly in and out through special windows that are available to them 24/7. While the lumpenproletariat, (don’t you love the sound of that word, so evocative), they go through the cattle pens below, if they are lucky and keep alert to the latest tricks that can disadvantage them.

        • SaveNZ 6.1.1.1
          20 November 2018 at 10:49 am

          I have no idea how we got here greywarshark, but it seems to be a world wide western issue, that people are in denial about.

          I think the global media has a lot to do with it, and in particular with John Key who they let get away with everything without challenge.

          Hopefully things are changing. I think the murder of Jamal has caused a bobble in the world, and hopefully a lot more than that. Time the 1% in particular to wake up and wonder is that the world they want to create with no morals and enabling rich people to get away with murder and torture in the name of networking and trade and making a $.

          Or pollute the worlds water, ocean and change climate to trigger more natural disasters. Is that the world they want to create and leave to their kids?

          • greywarshark 6.1.1.1.1
            20 November 2018 at 11:19 am

            I hope they take their attention away from the colourful moving media keeping a distance from smelly, awkward, real humans, and away from deciding what new piece of furniture, or aspect of their decorative garden, or even their productive garden, or their clothes, or their hair, or their artistic and social pursuits, or their vehicle colour (don’t you just hate all that black, white and grey around) and…. What was that about climate change and the kids? They’re doing something about it, they will have it under control soon I’m sure. What do we pay the government for? etc etc etc etc

      • patricia bremner 6.1.2
        20 November 2018 at 11:15 am

        Aussies promote ‘buy Australian’ A wee map of Australia being the logo.

        Aussies paid $13.00 a kilo for bananas rather than import competition after a cyclone , giving farmers the 2 years needed to recover.

        When a similar idea of ‘buy NZ’ was mooted here it was tossed out as unworkable.
        Go figure.

        • SaveNZ 6.1.2.1
          20 November 2018 at 11:20 am

          yes because cheap bananas are more important than people being able to live an honest life around the world, that helps society and the environment. Better to spend money on oil taking goods from one side of the globe to the other and rip off local people on that side of the world so that the other side can discard the bananas as food waste and not value food anymore as it is cheap, or encourage business to clear fell for things like Palm oil so we can get cheap food and be obese and unhappy. sarcasm.

          Personally happy to spend $5 extra on bananas if I had a living wage that was actually a living wage and not live in a country that has growing numbers of working poor and people stealing the water for profit while others are have less and less.

        • WeTheBleeple 6.1.2.2
          20 November 2018 at 11:34 am

          I’m very happy to see more bananas emerging outside my window. Though I did admire Australian’s re: the pricey bananas. Carl Barron had a joke about it.

          Two bananas, doing my bit. $15? I’ll just put one back.

  7. Morrissey 7
    20 November 2018 at 11:07 am

    Three thoughtful Kiwi commentators—well, they’re thoughtful compared to
    these Australians—parse an imbecilic prime minister’s comments
    The Panel, RNZ National, Monday 19 November 2018
    Jim Mora, James Elliott, Catherine Robertson, Caitlin Cherry

    Jim Mora—or his producer Caitlin Cherry—evidently thought it would be amusing to mark International Men’s Day by endorsing the Australian prime minister cackling with the imbecilic hosts of a Murdoch-owned Gold Coast radio station at the suffering of Australia’s most famous dissident, and his leering comments about a woman pleading on behalf of that dissident. Note also that Mora speaks as if Julian Assange is the victim of Ecuador, and studiously avoids mentioning either the U.S. or U.K. regimes which are trying to destroy him.

    JIM MORA: W-w-we’re about to talk about m-m-me-e-en, and to set the scene for talking about men, …[loudly inhales]…former Baywatch star Pamela Anderson has grown close to Julian Assange from WikiLeaks over the years, [loudly inhales] and she appee-ealed on television to the Australian prime minister Scott Morrison to rescue hi-i-mmm—Assange—from the Ecuadorian Embassy, and have him able to call Australia home again after all these years. And then he replied, the Prime Minister replied, to Pamela Anderson. Here she IS, first of all.

    Pamela Anderson: Defend your friend, and get Julian his passport back, and, and take him back to Australia and be proud of him. And throw him a parade when he gets home.
    Scott Morrison: [amused snickering] Hynnnnn!
    1029 Hot Tomato’s Emily Jade: Errrrr. You want to throw him a parade?
    [In the background: derisive guffaws from Flan and Christo.]
    Scott Morrison: We-e-ell, it’s, heh heh, NO-O-O!
    Flan, Emily Jade and Christo: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
    Scott Morrison: First of all, but second, I’ve had plenty of MATES who’ve asked me if they could be my special ENVOY to sort the issue OUT—
    1029 Hot Tomato’s Christo: Yeaaah!
    Scott Morrison: –ahhhm, with Pamela Anderson, but putting—
    Christo: L.A.!
    Emily Jade: Ha ha!
    Scott Morrison: —putting that [guffawing] to one si-i-ide—

    MORA: So she has called this response of hi-i-i-is [inhales loudly] “smutty and L-L-LEWWWDD.” Was it L-L-LEWD and smutty, or breezy annnnd blokeeeyyy? What do you think?

    …uncomfortable silence….

    CATHERINE ROBERTSON: Y-you’re making me answer this aren’t you James?

    JAMES ELLIOTT: Ah, I was PAUSING here, James—

    CATHERINE ROBERTSON: A ha ha ha!

    MORA: No James is making you answer it.

    JAMES ELLIOTT: No I’m HAPPY to go fir–, I’m happy to go first, I think it was—

    CATHERINE ROBERTSON: No you go for it first!

    JAMES ELLIOTT: I was hap–, I think that was definitely on the lewd and smutty end of the thing by innuendo. So, yes, he didn’t, that was unnecessary.

    MORA: Unbecoming of a prime minister.

    CATHERINE ROBERTSON:

    JAMES ELLIOTT: Unbecoming of a prime minister.

    CATHERINE ROBERTSON: And it was purely disrespectful. Because it was demeaning her, and suggesting that she’s nothing but the sum of, you know, her, um, her appearances on T.V., et cetera, and it’s just—

    MORA: And trivializing the issue she raised.

    CATHERINE ROBERTSON: Yeah, that she’s basically a pair of boobs, and not, with no brains. So, yeah, it is.

    MORA: Okay. We use that example from [inhales audibly] Scott Morrison because many men do feel they are misunderstood in the modern era and it is International Men’s Day. [inhales audibly] Celebrating the positive value that men bring to the world, their families and communities. [inhales loudly] Do you think Western men—men in the Western world—have as secure a sense as they did once of their place in the world?

    ….Extended pause…

    CATHERINE ROBERTSON: Does ANYONE?

    JAMES ELLIOTT: Mmmm, yeah.

    CATHERINE ROBERTSON: I mean, yeah, interesting. I mean, the world changes all the time, the, the pace of change is, is, been EXTRAORDINARY over this century and last, a-a-a-and, ahhhmm, do, you know, who HAS a sense of their—, what even the boundaries of the world are going to BE? You know, we’re looking at Brexit, and European Unions, and Trump and China, and [chuckles] there’s no such THING as security! And I think, you know, Brexit was driven by a um, call for some sort of, a HANKERING for some sort of nostalgia for a simpler time, um, that time does not EXIST any more. And so we all have to—

    MORA: So we’re all less secure, not just men.

    CATHERINE ROBERTSON: Yeah yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

    ….extended pause…

    MORA: You’re thinking about it.

    CATHERINE ROBERTSON: James is thinking about it!

    JAMES ELLIOTT: Yeah I know. Ha ha ha ha! No I think you put it really well, Catherine, but, I belong to a music group at the moment, learning how to play in a band, and that’s morphed into a combination men’s group and band. Uh, we’ve found ourselves talking to each other about issues as men as much as ….

    ad nauseam…

    https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/thepanel/audio/2018671873/men-need-to-help-eachother

    • Dennis Frank 8.1
      20 November 2018 at 11:44 am

      🤣 👍 😎

      • greywarshark 8.1.1
        20 November 2018 at 1:29 pm

        And I vote for the young big guy who is letting his face be used on the wide media to promote thought about ideologies. Did he get asked? Where do they get the image from, which looks about right for the caption?

    • DJ Ward 8.2
      20 November 2018 at 2:11 pm

      Ask why the male vote has disproportionately abandoned the left, and the female vote disproportionately favours the left.

      Males are badly treated by the left.
      Females are favourably treated by the left.

      The reality is the right doesn’t treat males any better or females any worse but the driver of gender segregation and oppression of men, as well biased pro female legislation is the left.

      Male harmed by policy such as lost parenting rights, disproportionate punishment, financial oppression, restricted services, etc will vote right even if they are natural left voters.

      • AB 8.2.1
        20 November 2018 at 4:55 pm

        “Males are badly treated by the left.
        Females are favourably treated by the left.”

        Or it could be the inverse – you know – males are favourably treated by the right and females etc. etc. Or it could be neither.
        Or it could be any bullshit hypothesis any one of us pulls from our nether regions. Here’s one – females on average are a bit more compassionate and vote left, males on average are a bit more arseholey and vote right.
        I could invent a few more – each equally as worthless as yours.

      • Macro 8.2.2
        20 November 2018 at 5:09 pm

        🙄
        Good Grief!!!

        Males are badly treated by the left v’s The reality is the right doesn’t treat males any better
        Females are favourably treated by the left. v’s The reality is the right doesn’t treat… females any worse

        Make your mind up!

        Male harmed by policy such as lost parenting rights, disproportionate punishment, financial oppression, restricted services, etc links please. These are huge assertions, but you make no effort provide any proof for their veracity.

        • DJ Ward 8.2.2.1
          20 November 2018 at 10:42 pm

          Men in disputed custody get custody 6% of the time.
          No government funded refuge, or male parenting schools, screening programmes. Arbitrary arrest for DV but only for men. Females only have an exemption to perjury.

          I could write an essay of examples but it’s late.
          Goodnite fellow citizens.

          • Muttonbird 8.2.2.1.1
            20 November 2018 at 10:46 pm

            Men in disputed custody get custody 6% of the time.

            Because, like you, they seem to have zero interest in the offspring of their shabby trysts and complain about having to pay for it, even decades later.

            Night!

            • Antoine 8.2.2.1.1.1
              21 November 2018 at 4:10 am

              Hey Morrissey

              A hearty Fuck You, on behalf of all good dads who want some custody.

              Note I am not in this situation, nor have ever been, nor am a mens rights activist crazy, nor a DJ Ward fan.

              Cheers
              A.

    • DJ Ward 9.1
      20 November 2018 at 1:30 pm

      Yes.
      If during negotiating consent, the female lies about being on the pill, and the male would not have had sex or had sex differently if she told the truth. (NZ’s most common sex crime).

      Does the sex abuse victim (male) get to opt out of the pregnancy (responsibility) just as females can opt out with abortion or adoption when they are subject to a sex crime.

      • gsays 9.1.1
        20 November 2018 at 1:46 pm

        looks around and very quietly tip toeing backwards out of the room.

        • joe90 9.1.1.1
          20 November 2018 at 1:50 pm

          One of the sewer’s menz rights righties.

          • DJ Ward 9.1.1.1.1
            20 November 2018 at 2:15 pm

            Can you justify a women lying about being on the pill.

            Go on, so I can have a good laugh.

            • McFlock 9.1.1.1.1.1
              20 November 2018 at 4:06 pm

              Hey, if you don’t want a kid, don’t dump your spunk.

              • DJ Ward …
                20 November 2018 at 4:44 pm

                So you don’t have a response then.

                Strait to blame the male for the females actions.

                Try again.

                • McFlock …
                  20 November 2018 at 4:57 pm

                  What actions?
                  Let the buyer beware. If you only want to go for a paddle, wear your gumboots.

                  • DJ Ward …
                    20 November 2018 at 5:45 pm

                    Lying about being on the pill.
                    You are still victim blaming.

                    How do you justify women lying about being on the pill?

                    Waiting!

                    • Muttonbird …
                      20 November 2018 at 5:51 pm

                      I seriously don’t believe this is common behaviour. It might have happened to you once in your dreams maybe…

                    • McFlock …
                      20 November 2018 at 7:01 pm

                      So it’s a lie. That’s a dick move. But how is it a “sex crime”?

                      Why do you call it “NZ’s most common sex crime”? How do you know how common or not it is?

                • Sabine …
                  20 November 2018 at 6:06 pm

                  Personal responsibility.
                  You are responsible for your bodily fluids. You don’t want babies, you will have to learn now to prevent pregnancies. Nothing to do with the women. Or else learn how to be abstinent until you are happy to fornicate for procreation.

        • DJ Ward 9.1.1.2
          20 November 2018 at 2:13 pm

          Something you have done to a man then?

      • bwaghorn 9.1.2
        20 November 2018 at 5:17 pm

        Wtf has that got to do with abortion?

        • DJ Ward 9.1.2.1
          20 November 2018 at 5:59 pm

          It is an abortion question.

          Take Rowe vs Wade which revolved around a father not wanting the wife to abort the child. The court removed the right of a father to stop an abortion.

          I have no problem with that.
          Women should not be forced to have children. It’s even a Crime Against Humanity qualifier. Forced Pregnancy, even if the arguments can be perdantic.

          My comment points out the hypocrisy that males have no opt out options. 40% on pregnancies don’t occur with explicit consent to conceive by the male. They in effect become subject to pregnancies forced on them.

          I do believe that any argument for males becomes mute with the introduction of the male pill. All it would take is for the Minister of Health to legalise it, allow its import or manufacture in NZ under licence.

          • joe90 9.1.2.1.1
            20 November 2018 at 6:04 pm

            Take Rowe vs Wade which revolved around a father not wanting the wife to abort the child.

            You pulled that out of your arse, didn’t you.

            • greywarshark 9.1.2.1.1.1
              20 November 2018 at 6:40 pm

              A man knows little about any other place when he is talking about having children.

          • Sabine 9.1.2.1.2
            20 November 2018 at 6:12 pm

            making shit up for shits n giggles right?
            First came:
            n Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), the Supreme Court ruled that a state’s ban on the use of contraceptives violated the right to marital privacy. The case concerned a Connecticut law that criminalized the encouragement or use of birth control.

            Later decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court extended the principles of Griswold beyond its particular facts.

            Right to birth control for unmarried couples, 1972
            Eisenstadt v. Baird (1972) extended its holding to unmarried couples, whereas the “right of privacy” in Griswold was said to only apply to marital relationships.[12] The argument in Eisenstadt was that it was a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to deny unmarried couples the right to use contraception when married couples did have that right (under Griswold).[13] Writing for the majority, Justice Brennan wrote that Massachusetts could not enforce the law against married couples because of Griswold v. Connecticut, so the law worked “irrational discrimination” if not extended to unmarried couples as well.

            Right to abortion for any woman, 1973
            The reasoning and language of both Griswold and Eisenstadt were cited in the concurring opinion by Associate Justice Potter Stewart in support of Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973).[14] The decision in Roe struck down a Texas law that criminalized aiding a woman in getting an abortion.[15] The Court ruled that this law was a violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Abortion became legalized for any woman for any reason, up through the first trimester, with possible restrictions for maternal health in the second trimester (the midpoint of which is the approximate time of fetal viability). In the third trimester of pregnancy, abortion is potentially illegal with exception for the mother’s health, which the court defined broadly in Doe v. Bolton.

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griswold_v._Connecticut

            you have the rights to make up your truth as you want but facts are not on your side.

            • DJ Ward 9.1.2.1.2.1
              20 November 2018 at 6:24 pm

              The whole behavour around abortion was a disgrace in my opinion.
              So was it around the introduction of the pill.
              Having to cliam it was for controlling menstrual issues and not contraception is laughable looking back.
              We need to remember that religion was all powerful back then.

              If I got Rowe vs Wade wrong I apologise. Can you name what case I was referring too?

              I think the only against argument for legalising the male pill is that men can’t be trusted. Irony!

      • Sabine 9.1.3
        20 November 2018 at 6:04 pm

        Biology 101

        if you – the male – does not want to father a child, you….YES YOU! the male needs to prevent fathering a child. After all, you can have petting, oral sex, rubbing, frotting, and all sorts of other ‘sex’ that could very well be enjoyable to all consenting partners that do not lead to pregnancy. But the moment a man, you, ejaculate into a womens vagina you are consenting to baby making. Cause that is the only way – bar IVF – to make babies.

        Thievery else is just, she told me she did yadda yadda yadda, and i can’t be asked nor be bothered to a. use a condom – but the feelz, omygosh the feelz, b. have a vasectomy – snip snippery snip and done, also reversible, or c. Don’t ejaculate into a womens vagina, especially if you don’t want a child with her.

        How hard can that be to understand?

        IF YOU DON”T WANT A CHILD, DO NOT EJACULATE INTO A WOMANS VAGINA! Condoms are your friends. Vasectomies are excellent and under rated, and if all fails, don’t have vaginal intercourse.
        Essentially be responsible when having sex.

        • Sabine 9.1.3.1
          20 November 2018 at 6:16 pm

          Thievery – should be everything …….. not sure how this came into it 🙂

        • DJ Ward 9.1.3.2
          20 November 2018 at 6:25 pm

          How do you justify a woman lying about being on the pill?

          • Gabby 9.1.3.2.1
            20 November 2018 at 6:27 pm

            Lying’s a sin wardy, says so in the barble.

          • Sabine 9.1.3.2.2
            20 November 2018 at 6:35 pm

            If you don’t want to have babies, you don’t go fucking about without a condom, or having a vasectomy, or not having vaginal intercourse.

            think about that for a moment before you want to blame others for your fuckups.

            Be responsible. Personal responsibility starts with you.
            How about you justify to us your lack of personal responsibility cause clearly you don’t seem to do anything to prevent an unwanted pregnancy.

            • DJ Ward 9.1.3.2.2.1
              20 November 2018 at 9:12 pm

              An unwanted pregnancy?
              Didn’t the female lie about being on the pill?
              That’s planed. Well, by one person anyway.

              Im the only person advocating for the legalising of the male pill.

              So your “don’t seem to be doing anything to prevent unwanted pregnancy” is laughable, hypocritical, and insulting, all at the same time.

              Whatever you do don’t break anything.

              • McFlock …
                20 November 2018 at 9:26 pm

                “Im the only person advocating for the legalising of the male pill.”

                How is it illegal again? There are several options going through trials.

                Until then, don’t ejaculate into a vagina and you’ll be safe from the wiles of awful women who want to have your baby.

                • DJ Ward …
                  20 November 2018 at 9:36 pm

                  Your still victim blaming.

                  It exists, trailed, no side effects, virtualy 100% effective, 3 day reversible, non hormonal, thousands of years use as contraceptive in native use, factory ready. Better than any female options.

                  Just need it to be made legal. You can’t provide a medicine without it being made legal, pretty obvious.

              • Draco T Bastard …
                20 November 2018 at 10:07 pm

                Didn’t the female lie about being on the pill?

                What makes you think she lied?

                The pill is better contraception than a condom but it still has nearly a 1:10 failure rate.

                The only way to guarantee not to get a woman pregnant is to not have sex.

                • DJ Ward …
                  20 November 2018 at 10:16 pm

                  It is not a did she or didn’t she argument. If she didn’t then what? I have said nothing about accidental pregnancy. It’s doesn’t involve intent, or motive.

                  Let’s say it is a fact a particular women lied. Evidence, confession etc.

                  Now answer the question.

        • DJ Ward 9.1.3.3
          20 November 2018 at 6:31 pm

          How do you justify a woman lying about being on the pill?

          If a woman got pregnant when males get the pill, will women be forced to go full term with the baby if he lied. After all if you spread your legs you can get pregnant. She knew the risks.

          • Sabine 9.1.3.3.1
            20 November 2018 at 6:39 pm

            Mate, you are a grown up. You take care of business, if you don’t take care of business you can then not expect others to do so.

            And lastly, if you have sex with a women you know the risks. She could get pregnant while on the pill, while on an IUD, while breastfeeding after just having given birth, that is what women do. They get pregnant so that the species can continue.

            but you know the risks, every time you get between the legs of a women, so take your whingy self before a mirror and look at your reflection and repeat over and over again until it sinks in, “I am the master of my universe, I am responsible for the things that i do, and if I don’t want children then I need to actively prevent getting any sexual female partners i may have from getting pregnant.”

            bye now.

            • Muttonbird 9.1.3.3.1.1
              20 November 2018 at 6:50 pm

              Seems personal responsibility is compulsory for everyone but DJ.

              • DJ Ward …
                20 November 2018 at 8:49 pm

                Actually Mttonbird I paid Child Support for 18 years.

                So you should apologise. It would be the manly thing to do.

                • Muttonbird …
                  20 November 2018 at 8:52 pm

                  But you are sick about it. You’ve been whinging about women and their evil ways all day today. Why didn’t you make better personal choices in the first place, huh?

                  • DJ Ward …
                    20 November 2018 at 9:06 pm

                    That’s in your mind.
                    Not mine.
                    You are projecting your own insecurities on me.

                    My comments are about men.

                    Look at the beginning.
                    I asked a question about men in a specific legal circumstance.

                    Nobody has answered it.
                    Everybody has dodged the issue.

                    And your telling me I’m responsible for my own actions. Which has no relevance to the question.

                    • Muttonbird …
                      20 November 2018 at 9:16 pm

                      I see you are exhausted. The spamming of this forum which you have decided to attempt is harder than you thought, isn’t it?

                    • DJ Ward …
                      20 November 2018 at 9:28 pm

                      Nope. Plenty of free speech stored up in the memory banks.
                      I don’t call it spamming.
                      This is a political Forum.

                      If the Minister of Health announced to the male voter that it would legalise the male pill, and provide it to pharmacies before the next election. Labour would govern on its own.

                      There not spamming.

                      Just waiting for small mindedness to catch up.

                    • Muttonbird …
                      20 November 2018 at 9:38 pm

                      The men’s pill. That’s your political deal-breaker?

                      You’ve been hitting the nitrates too hard.

                    • DJ Ward …
                      20 November 2018 at 10:09 pm

                      Labour is about to impose Alimony on men.

                      Do you think that will attract men to vote Labour or something else?

            • DJ Ward 9.1.3.3.1.2
              20 November 2018 at 8:56 pm

              You know the risks is victim blaming.

              Two people negotiating to have sex.
              One person tells a lie.
              The other person would not have sex or do sex differently if they new the truth.
              It’s in the crimes act.

              Accidental pregnancy does not involve intent.

              Your argument in comparison is this.

              A women knows if she dresses provocatively, drunk, down dark alleys, and across deserted parks, that bad things can happen, so the male is not responsible. Which would be an offensive comment to make.
              Women don’t deserve not to feel safe.

              Men don’t deserve not to feel safe.

              • McFlock …
                20 November 2018 at 9:33 pm

                No, your analogy is flawed. Rape is something done to someone. Your scenario (which I don’t think I’ve heard of happening to anyone I’ve ever met, unlike actual sexual assault) is you giving someone something and getting pissed off that they used it when they promised not to.

                Because once you give someone a bag of seeds, it’s their’s to plant. If you don’t want the seeds to be planted, don’t sow them (or make sure they’re sterile, first).

                • DJ Ward …
                  20 November 2018 at 10:05 pm

                  No. You give a person the seed with the knowledge they would not use the seeds. But the person lied and intended to use the seeds unbeknown to the seed giver. If the seed giver knew the person would try and plant the seeds the seed would never be given.

                  Is it OK for a woman to lie about being on the pill.

                  Can you not resort to victim blaming.

                  Lying when negotiating sex is doing something to someone.
                  Do you have an STD? Lying when negotiating consent results in prosecution. Even lying by omission can result in prosecution. 2 years has been given in NZ.

                  You know that anytime you have sex you can get an STD. If it was by accident then no liability. But if you knew you had the STD then you can be prosecuted.

                  Same argument.

                  • McFlock …
                    20 November 2018 at 10:19 pm

                    You really need to link to the claims you’re making.

                    Transmitting something to someone is not the same as being the recipient of that thing. Misusing it after it was given to you is a civil action cause, not a crime in of itself.

                    Do women lie about being on the pill? Maybe. Probably not nearly as often as you making an issue of it would imply.

                    Is it ok? No.

                    Is it illegal? You might be able to argue your point with reference to S128A(7) of the Crimes Act 1961, but “nature” and “quality” might not even apply – even with contraception, pregnancy is a risk if you leave viable sperm in a vagina.

          • McFlock 9.1.3.3.2
            20 November 2018 at 9:28 pm

            Because no woman, ever, has ever gotten pregnant because she trusted the guy who told her he’d had the snip or would pull out before he came?

            • DJ Ward 9.1.3.3.2.1
              20 November 2018 at 9:31 pm

              And they deserve to be prosecuted. Men who put holes in condoms have been charged with rape.

              • McFlock …
                20 November 2018 at 9:46 pm

                An interesting discussion about the nature of “depositing inside” and “was deposited inside” is irrelevant to your worry about women forced to bring pregnancies to term if the chap lies about being sterile, however.

              • Cinny …
                20 November 2018 at 11:59 pm

                ‘And they deserve to be prosecuted. Men who put holes in condoms have been charged with rape.’

                Link and information to back that up please djward.

                Rape is rape, holey condom or not.

      • Cinny 9.1.4
        20 November 2018 at 11:57 pm

        Men should take personal responsibility to put a cover on it anytime they have sex if they don’t want a baby.

        The pill is not 100% effective. I know women who have taken the pill as directed and become pregnant. It happens, doesn’t make them liars or freaking sex criminals ffs.

        How many men finally ‘get lucky’ one night. Then, when fumbling for an expired condom tucked in the back of their wallet, one of two things happens…..

        1. They give up (because it does feel so much nicer without a condom) and say…. I won’t come inside you, I promise. then boom.. hello pre-cum, pregnant.

        2. The expired condom rips and tears and hello…. we’ve got swimmers on the loose.

        Prevention is the best method, don’t want kids… get an operation. Want kids just not right now, always use a condom or don’t have sex.

        Don’t want a sexual transmitted disease, then use a condom.

        As a woman who has children and had my tubes tied, it’s a massive relief and intimacy is out of this world as a result.

        Prior to that, like every other sexually active women on the planet, one would hold ones breath every month, waiting for ones period.

        Holey troll under a bridge. djward, is it attention you are desperate for, or has a woman harmed you?
        If I were you I’d contact a lawyer to address your question. Citizens Advice Bureau could probably hook you up, with other services as well.

  10. joe90 10
    20 November 2018 at 12:06 pm

    507K deaths in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq directly attributed to Dubya’s War on Terror escapade, 21 million Afghan, Iraqi, Pakistani, and Syrian war refugees and internally displaced persons, $6 trillion in war and war-related spending and obligations, 3 million veterans, 20% of combat veterans suffering PTSD, more than 300,000 with TBI’s, requiring health care and compensation for rest of their naturals.

    But hey, arms sales to the KSA.

    https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/papers/summary

    https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/

    • Poission 10.1
      20 November 2018 at 12:17 pm

      “I served in all commissioned ranks from second lieutenant to Major General. And during that period I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism. I suspected I was just part of the racket all the time. Now I am sure of it.”

      The RACKETS

      WAR is a racket. It always has been.

      https://archive.org/stream/WarIsARacket/WarIsARacket_djvu.txt

  11. Gabby 11
    20 November 2018 at 12:39 pm

    Does Doorknob Collins want the contract for kiwibuild doorknockers? Carved swamp kauri maybe.

  12. Gabby 12
    20 November 2018 at 12:41 pm

    I think the answer to ‘dozza minsa stambyes comets’ should henceforth be ‘not necessarily’.

    • OnceWasTim 12.1
      20 November 2018 at 2:06 pm

      duzzit kearnt tutha numma queshuns thear loud goan ford?
      If so, ‘ultimately’ moight not beeya beard thung

    • McFlock 12.2
      20 November 2018 at 2:32 pm

      Ha.

      Or “No, as I’ve already apologised for calling the member a moron”.

  13. greywarshark 13
    20 November 2018 at 1:33 pm

    gabby
    Sometimes you are too enigmatic. Can you try to add an explanatory short sentence to your brief notes?

  14. Ad 14
    20 November 2018 at 1:52 pm

    Good to see White House folding and letting CNNs Jim Acosta back.

    I suspect the Chief Of Staff got good constitutional advice from his legal team.

    • DJ Ward 14.1
      20 November 2018 at 2:22 pm

      Yes they have.
      The rules didn’t cover people like Acosta.

      Simply put nobody envisaged such a dropkick working as a reporter at the White House.

      They are making new rules so idiots can be dealt with easier.

      Trump however will continue to answer more questions from the media, by a profound margin than any other President. Even by Acostas replacement.

      The most open President in history.

      • McFlock 14.1.1
        20 November 2018 at 2:35 pm

        As open as a freshly-raked forest floor in Finland…

      • Ad 14.1.2
        20 November 2018 at 2:57 pm

        Rake America Great Again

        • Muttonbird 14.1.2.1
          20 November 2018 at 3:09 pm

          😂Make America Rake Again

          • dV 14.1.2.1.1
            20 November 2018 at 4:39 pm

            So when is this very open president releasing his tax returns?

            • DJ Ward 14.1.2.1.1.1
              20 November 2018 at 4:55 pm

              His tax returns are his Business, not yours.

              Since it’s a corporate return it would be looked over by the IRS with a fine tooth comb.
              His tax return is also not a fixed return as its continually reassessed due to the nature of corporate returns. As Trump said, you simply couldn’t understand it if he showed it to you. MSM would go full derangement syndrome on the tiniest of details.

              Have you ever asked a sitting NZ PM to provide there tax returns?

              No!

              Why the irrational fascination with Trumps returns.

              • McFlock …
                20 November 2018 at 5:01 pm

                At the moment, it’s just funny given that preceeding presidents have been more open about their personal finances and conflicts of interest than “the most open president in history”.

              • dV …
                20 November 2018 at 5:05 pm

                This is NZ.
                In US it is apparently usual for the president to release his tax returns.

                But hey you have a good point.
                NZ sitting PMs should release their tax returns

                • Macro …
                  20 November 2018 at 5:49 pm

                  Every year, MPs declare their personal interests in a number of specific categories. These include financial interests, such as shares in a company, and other interests, such as being a trustee of a trust. Their interests are then compiled into a Register that is presented to the House.

                  The Register’s purpose is to provide transparency of MPs’ interests, and to strengthen public trust and confidence in parliamentary processes and decision-making.

                  https://www.parliament.nz/en/mps-and-electorates/mps-financial-interests/

                  • joe90 …
                    20 November 2018 at 6:01 pm

                    When UK PM David Cameron was caught up in the Panama Papers carry-on, he released his tax returns.

                    FJK refused to release his.

                    • Macro …
                      20 November 2018 at 7:29 pm

                      Just saying what the current situation is Joe. From there on, in it should be pretty easy to work out just what each MP is paying in tax.

                    • joe90 …
                      20 November 2018 at 7:52 pm

                      IIRC, FJK’s statement of interests was pretty damn vague with no real clues to either the value of his assets or his income.

                    • Macro …
                      20 November 2018 at 8:09 pm

                      He put his interests into a “blind trust” which theoretically he had no input – There were several instances when Labour tried to show that he had a conflict of interest, Transrail and Vineyard holdings – but it didn’t come to much.
                      https://www.nbr.co.nz/article/john-keys-assets-how-blind-blind-trust-123858
                      This however is far more information than Trump is prepared to give, and is a step further on from the loose arrangement Trump has put in place.
                      Perhaps the most corrupt PM in recent NZ history would have to be Holyoake and his enrichment of himself from the public purse with his purchase of land at Kinloch and the subsequent public roading roading and infrastructure which significantly increased its value.
                      http://werewolf.co.nz/2012/04/public-office-private-gain/

              • Macro …
                20 November 2018 at 6:03 pm

                His tax returns are his Business, not yours.

                Actually they should be, and are, the concern of every citizen of the USA.
                Why?
                Because under the Constitution of the USA a sitting President is forbidden to enrich themselves from the any present or payment from a foreign country.
                The clause in particular states:

                “No Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them [the United States], shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.”

                That may seem innocuous enough but Trump has not released himself completely from all his business holdings, and many of his properties host foreign diplomats. His tax returns are indeed needed to ensure that he is not in contravention of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution.
                You can read more about this ethical matter here:
                https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/what-emoluments-clause-what-does-it-mean-president-n771081

          • Draco T Bastard 14.1.2.1.3
            20 November 2018 at 10:13 pm

            When did it stop being a rake?

          • Cinny 14.1.2.1.4
            21 November 2018 at 12:08 am

            Make America Rake Again

            LMFAO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

      • Gabby 14.1.3
        20 November 2018 at 6:04 pm

        There’s a shitforbrains working as prezzy in the wart house wardy.

  15. soddenleaf 15
    20 November 2018 at 2:29 pm

    Your invited over to stay, for the good of all parties. You take a dump in the middle of the bedroom floor. You make every effort to cleanup but are caught. Do you say sorry? No, you take the position of quantum mechanics describes, both being and not being. That the dump both did and did not happen. Photos of the event continue to trend globally, deeply offensive to the host, and his new resident family, and all who invite them over to their homes. It’s now obvious the whole incident was premeditated, but no, you keep faith with QM. This I believe is called a bifurcation in the diplomatic multiverse.

  16. OnceWasTim 16
    20 November 2018 at 2:58 pm

    The Standard seems to have a new oracle on board, and I (as in me me me) really really want to be JUST like him.
    I’m wondering whether my best option is as a tryout/tryhard for a D-D-D-J job (given that I’ve built sound mixers not too many years in the past, (apologies Mex). OR whether I’d be better off lobbying FACETV for a spot in which to impart my infinite wisdom.
    But even if my options don’t pan out going forward, may I just say how gorgeous, intelligent, and what an unboiced critical thinker a d-d-d-d jay ward is.
    He must really have huge balls THIS BIG
    (as requested by some………… /sarc)

    • veutoviper 16.1
      20 November 2018 at 3:07 pm

      Nah OWT, you don’t want to be JUST like him. We like you as you are.

      Besides, as I pointed out yesterday on OM, he is a regular at Kiwiblog who reports back on his comments here AND he has “flees” –

      “DJ Ward

      Did a couple of comments at the Standard last night.
      Literally had 2 flees crawling on my arm this morning”

      https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2018/11/general_debate_19_november_2018.html#comment-2361098

      • greywarshark 16.1.1
        20 November 2018 at 5:12 pm

        Thanks for venturing to the bog blog vv.
        And you came up with a good comment. Really worthwhile.

        I hope the flees, flee with his arm, a nice ringbarking effect would be good.

    • DJ Ward 16.2
      20 November 2018 at 3:14 pm

      Good critique.
      Unfortunately I’m not a teenage boy who is about to get his life ruined, and then suicides. So your internalising my comments results in thinking I talk about me, me, and me. But that’s inherently not possible. I’m also struggling with the moment leading up to your visualising the size of my manhood parts.

      I don’t profess to get everything correct. But don’t worry I’ll avoid intelligence shaming others.
      So you are welcome to counter anything I say with argument. I try and learn something new every day.
      Unfortunately I’m just getting, mostly, silly Personel attacks.

      • Robert Guyton 16.2.1
        20 November 2018 at 3:19 pm

        DJ Ward – good, you’re on board presently – I’ve asked you some questions here:
        https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-20-11-2018/#comment-1552241
        if you’d be so kind.

      • WeTheBleeple 16.2.2
        20 November 2018 at 3:37 pm

        Thing is DJ, you’re not even good at what you’re attempting to do.

        ‘Trump is da man’.

        Do you have a blueprint for your brain? Cos I’m building a fuckwit in the shed.

        But you’re right, down with the workers!*

        *[Personel] attack.

        • DJ Ward 16.2.2.1
          20 November 2018 at 5:39 pm

          And what makes you think I’m not a blue collar worker myself.

          PS if the thing in your shed is 1/2 as good as Trump, it will still be brilliant.

          • WeTheBleeple 16.2.2.1.1
            20 November 2018 at 5:57 pm

            “And what makes you think I’m not a blue collar worker myself”

            Jeepers creepers. Please tell me you don’t have access to power tools. 😀

    • Gabby 16.3
      20 November 2018 at 6:06 pm

      I reckon he’s oldfart or cmmiebokkie, one of the more rabid kiwibuggers.

    • Gabby 16.4
      20 November 2018 at 6:32 pm

      More of a tosstacle.

  17. ianmac 17
    20 November 2018 at 3:19 pm

    Funny or sad?
    “A 73-year-old woman took a small bag of meth to her doctors to be tested after she was scared what smoking it would do to her health.

    According to police in Polk County in the United States, Barbara Ray had been smoking meth for a month when she became worried about its side-effects and potential risks….”
    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=12163098

    • Anne 17.1
      20 November 2018 at 3:41 pm

      Bit of both I suppose… either someone had her on about its ‘medicinal’ properties, or the lady has lost the plot.

      • I feel love 17.2.1
        20 November 2018 at 8:07 pm

        I recommended that show to a workmate, the next day he said to me “You said it was a comedy! That was the most grim thing I have ever seen.” When the are sitting under the confederate flags watching the naked college guys getting hit, fuck I laughed so much. Brilliant show. Check out Fleabag and also Insecure for something along the same lines but different.

  18. greywarshark 18
    20 November 2018 at 5:08 pm

    Looks like DJ Ward is a PR man – with a pay by entry agreement.

    Just got that right amount of pomposity, superiority, know-all, sliding around unpleasant facts, presenting irrelevant counter arguments, presenting trigger points,
    a trivial mind that never wants to be more than half-educated about anything, except perhaps financial markets.

    • DJ Ward 18.1
      20 November 2018 at 5:36 pm

      Wrong and wrong. I’m very educated on some subjects. Financial markets not so much. I did however get relentlessly mocked for predicting the GFC by a property speculator friend, until it happened.

      I’m dealing with a little sliding around the facts myself.

      I got beaten up when I was 8 for being a know all. I thought I was normal but I guess not.

      • WeTheBleeple 18.1.1
        20 November 2018 at 6:03 pm

        “I got beaten up when I was 8 for being a know all.”

        I can assure you that would not be the case today.

    • Gabby 18.2
      20 November 2018 at 6:33 pm

      He might be a dud4justice.

  19. eco maori 19
    21 November 2018 at 7:40 am

    Kia ora The Am Show Some people love living in there crystal glass bubble and ignore other people’s reality .
    I give money to the poor beggars money when I have change whats 2 dollars or so.
    The new generation is making a stand and breaking outside the whitemans square box one harvest what they sow.
    And who is backing his follow old whitemen who don’t know the word No the head of the rain bow trust .
    There you go trump is a hypocrite one can do what they like so long as they kiss his —-.
    Thanks for the scrutiny Mark I forgot to put that in there last nite that the under 17 Football Ferns are looking sharp.
    With the change to the system need for the better Papatuanuku was not built in a day give the new Goverment a bit of time to correct the wrongs that have been forced on us in the last 9 years.
    Rats in the kitchen I told you Ian was set up by nationals m8’s in Immigration department . Tova the polls tell me a different story Jacinda is polling x 5 on simon and Labour is polling above national I say simon and national are lost .
    simon has suffered a big loss . Ka kite ano P.S I agree the health and safety line from the Tauranga mayor is just a line to deflect his responablity to the people he is payed to care for.
    Some one love’s giveing the poor a kick

  20. Eco Maori 20
    21 November 2018 at 3:32 pm

    Hear you go some more stories of our Aotearoa history being covered up.
    Maori were treated like dirt someone who didn’t deserve to own Whenua in some cases did not deserve to live as far as a few people thought Maori Wahine had just as much to do with the rights of Wahine right to vote as Kate Shepherd no mention of these Mana Wahine in our history books Ka kite ano link below.
    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12160584

  21. eco maori 21
    21 November 2018 at 6:44 pm

    Kia ora Newshub trump first is what he actually means
    Condolences to all the people who have been affected by the latest floods kia kaha.
    More mess to clean up from the last government shonky new about the rot in the Middle More hospital .
    Mercy radiology is giving a good service scanning people for cancer lumps in their neck and a biopsy to ka pai.
    Drones delivering goods that’s how fast the tec industry is advancing robots and AI will be providing most services .
    A person who got a drone for there birthday well on its first flight it flew straight up 10 mtrs into a tree its still there 2 weeks later .
    Ka kite ano

  22. eco maori 22
    21 November 2018 at 7:23 pm

    Kia ora The Crowd Goes Mulls & Storm Wild I know how the system works so I won’t comment on the local basket ball team that competes against Australia teams Anna.
    Josh a Fast ride on a Jet boat that was invented in Aotearoa is a Real adrenaline rush I had a few rides on a powerful Jet Boat.
    The ASB Classic tennis will be a awesome compertishion .
    All the best to the Sphenodon punctatus Team fingers crossed for your next game .
    Ka kite ano

  23. eco maori 23
    21 November 2018 at 8:30 pm

    Eco Maori Music For the minute I’m wacthing some Piris Weepu tiki tour.

  24. eco maori 24
    22 November 2018 at 8:08 am

    Kia ora The Am Show Well there you go some people charge way to much for maniacal
    jobs I fix my own cars and my offspring I have seen story of people been charger for spark plugs on a diesel car. Big sale on at Repco car parts starts today.
    Elon Mus has the correct fix to the Megalopolis Los Angeles traffic jams roads underground a smart fix to this Papatunuku problem and electric cars to real low maintenance big saving on fuel to .
    That’s the way the Next generation is coming up with kick’s keep it smart and simple .
    Speeding up a cancer diagnosis from 12 weeks to one hour ka pai Dr McCann an Dr Patel for this innervation . This is low hanging fruit for to get the big health care waiting list cut to 0 . A system set up to quickly diagnosing people and treat them one just has to step out side the square box to find efficient solutions.
    Kiwi bank has over 230 branches there internet security is one of the best or the best in the Banking industry its excellent and I have just changed my Banking to Kiwi bank .I do not that in Africa they love there Japaneses cars one brand they will pay %40 more for it I won’t say what brand one could easily work that out.
    AI is a technology we have to take seriously That and Global Warming is the biggest threat to humanity future a happy healthy future for all.
    Ka kite ano P.S The Eco Maori Effect is Mana

  25. eco maori 25
    22 November 2018 at 9:05 am

    The Cafe Mike Eco Maori music for the minute .

  26. eco maori 26
    22 November 2018 at 2:43 pm

    The world leaders who have strings attached to this catastrophe disaster in YEMEN.
    Should bow there heads in shame at all the Tamariki / children who have died.
    An estimated 85,000 children under the age of five have starved to death over the last three years as a result of Yemen’s civil war, a report from Save the Children has found, as the charity urged an immediate ceasefire to prevent more loss of life.

    The figure is a conservative estimate based on UN data on severe acute malnutrition, which the international body says has afflicted more than 1.3 million children since the conflict between Houthi rebels and the Saudi-led coalition that seeks to restore Yemen’s exiled government began in 2015. Ka kite ano link below.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/21/yemen-young-children-dead-starvation-disease-save-the-children

  27. eco maori 27
    22 November 2018 at 6:44 pm

    Kia ora Newshub Thats cool the Mid Wife’s are going to be at the hospital just in case of a birth emergency. I was think about the possibility’s of someone dying this morning .
    woodhouse what ???? look in the mirror .
    The state selling the Railways was the most stupid thing and selling half of some power company’s was just as bad shonky new the reality that business will just milk the people for higher profits Tom .
    Mataura Vally milk is a good innovative company making high value products nutrition products and China has built it ka pai our farmers deserve a better price for there milk and all the work they put into producing the milk.
    Smart toys getting hacked all the internet of thing can be hacked nothing is secure on the net I get hacked all the time .
    Ka pai Kenya in taking there wild life and forest wildlife environments seriously the whole world need to wake up and plant hundreds of billions of trees taking the tree planting approach is working with mother nature we don’t need to make machines to do what Papatuanuku all ready has been using for billions of years to take carbon out of the atmosphere trees and other green plants were do you think coal and oil came from in the first place.
    Ka kite ano .

  28. eco maori 28
    22 November 2018 at 7:21 pm

    Kai ora The Crowd Goes Wild Mulls & Wairangi cannot comment on Shag
    Mulls all the new construction in the middle east is built on slave labour $100 a week is crap for a worker I bet they work 70 + hours a week to.
    Eco a Warriors fan both codes to call me loyal.
    Anna that looks like a good thing the RedBull First extreme cooking competition.
    Because my job is posting stories and keeping the couch warm My cooking skills have developed a bit from my one pot wonder’s /boil up .
    Ka kite ano P.S theres a strange smell on the other channel at the minute

Recent Comments

Recent Posts

  • Bernard’s Saturday Soliloquy for the week to July 27

    Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 27 were:1. The Minister for Ford Rangers strikes againTransport Minister Simeon Brown was again the busiest of the Cabinet ministers this week, announcing an ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    40 mins ago
  • Ticket To Anywhere

    You got a fast carAnd I want a ticket to anywhereMaybe we make a dealMaybe together we can get somewhereAny place is betterYesterday’s newsletter, Trust In Me, on the report of abuse in state care, and by religious organisations, between 1950 and 2019, coupled with the hypocrisy of Christopher Luxon ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    1 hour ago
  • Stories of varying weight

    Hello! Here comes the Saturday edition of More Than A Feilding, catching you up on anything you may have missed. Share Read more ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    6 hours ago
  • Balancing External Security and the Economy

    New Zealand is again having to reconcile conflicting pressures from its military and its trade interests. Should we join Pillar Two of AUKUS and risk compromising our markets in China? For a century after New Zealand was founded in 1840, its external security arrangements and external economics arrangements were aligned. ...
    PunditBy Brian Easton
    19 hours ago
  • Weekly Climate Wrap: The unravelling of the offsets

    The ‘50 Shades of Green’ farmers’ protest in 2019 was heavy on climate change denial, but five years on, scepticism and criticism about the idea that pine forests can save us is growing across the board. File photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in climate ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    23 hours ago
  • What makes us tick

    This morning the sky was bright.The birds, in their usual joyous bliss. Nature doesn’t seem to feel the heat of what might angst humans.Their calls are clear and beautiful.Just some random thoughts:MāoriPaul Goldsmith has announced his government will roll back the judiciary’s rulings on Māori Customary Marine Title, which recognises ...
    Mountain TuiBy Mountain Tui
    1 day ago
  • Foreshore and seabed 2.0

    In 2003, the Court of Appeal delivered its decision in Ngati Apa v Attorney-General, ruling that Māori customary title over the foreshore and seabed had not been universally extinguished, and that the Māori Land Court could determine claims and confirm title if the facts supported it. This kicked off the ...
    No Right TurnBy Idiot/Savant
    1 day ago
  • Gordon Campbell on the Royal Commission report into abuse in care

    Earlier this week at Parliament, Labour leader Chris Hipkins was applauded for saying that the response to the final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care had to be “bigger than politics.” True, but the fine words, apologies and “we hear you” messages will soon ring ...
    WerewolfBy lyndon
    1 day ago
  • The Kākā’s Pick 'n' Mix for Friday, July 26

    TL;DR: In news breaking this morning:The Ministry of Education is cutting $2 billion from its school building programme so the National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government has enough money to deliver tax cuts; The Government has quietly lowered its child poverty reduction targets to make them easier to achieve;Te Whatu Ora-Health NZ’s ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    1 day ago
  • Weekly Roundup 26-July-2024

    Kia ora. These are some stories that caught our eye this week – as always, feel free to share yours in the comments. Our header image this week (via Eke Panuku) shows the planned upgrade for the Karanga Plaza Tidal Swimming Steps. The week in Greater Auckland On ...
    Greater AucklandBy Greater Auckland
    1 day ago
  • God what a relief

    1. What's not to love about the way the Harris campaign is turning things around?a. Nothingb. Love all of itc. God what a reliefd. Not that it will be by any means easye. All of the above 2. Documents released by the Ministry of Health show Associate Health Minister Casey ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    1 day ago
  • Trust In Me

    Trust in me in all you doHave the faith I have in youLove will see us through, if only you trust in meWhy don't you, you trust me?In a week that saw the release of the 3,000 page Abuse in Care report Christopher Luxon was being asked about Boot Camps. ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    1 day ago
  • The Hoon around the week to July 26

    TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking about the Royal Commission Inquiry into Abuse in Care report released this week, and with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent on a UN push to not recognise carbon offset markets and ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    1 day ago
  • The Kākā’s Journal of Record for Friday, July 26

    TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 26, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Transport: Simeon Brown announced $802.9 million in funding for 18 new trains on the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines, which ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    1 day ago
  • Radical law changes needed to build road

    The northern expressway extension from Warkworth to Whangarei is likely to require radical changes to legislation if it is going to be built within the foreseeable future. The Government’s powers to purchase land, the planning process and current restrictions on road tolling are all going to need to be changed ...
    PolitikBy Richard Harman
    1 day ago
  • Skeptical Science New Research for Week #30 2024

    Open access notables Could an extremely cold central European winter such as 1963 happen again despite climate change?, Sippel et al., Weather and Climate Dynamics: Here, we first show based on multiple attribution methods that a winter of similar circulation conditions to 1963 would still lead to an extreme seasonal ...
    Skeptical Science
    2 days ago
  • First they came for the Māori

    Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedFirst they came for the doctors But I was confused by the numbers and costs So I didn't speak up Then they came for our police and nurses And I didn't think we could afford those costs anyway So I ...
    Mountain TuiBy Mountain Tui
    2 days ago
  • Join us for the weekly Hoon on YouTube Live

    Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on UnsplashWe’re back again after our mid-winter break. We’re still with the ‘new’ day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when we have our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    2 days ago
  • Will the real PM Luxon please stand up?

    Notes: This is a free article. Abuse in Care themes are mentioned. Video is at the bottom.BackgroundYesterday’s report into Abuse in Care revealed that at least 1 in 3 of all who went through state and faith based care were abused - often horrifically. At least, because not all survivors ...
    Mountain TuiBy Mountain Tui
    2 days ago
  • Will debt reduction trump abuse in care redress?

    Luxon speaks in Parliament yesterday about the Abuse in Care report. Photo: Hagen Hopkins/Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:PM Christopher Luxon said yesterday in tabling the Abuse in Care report in Parliament he wanted to ‘do the ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    2 days ago
  • Olywhites and Time Bandits

    About a decade ago I worked with a bloke called Steve. He was the grizzled veteran coder, a few years older than me, who knew where the bodies were buried - code wise. Despite his best efforts to be approachable and friendly he could be kind of gruff, through to ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    2 days ago
  • Why were the 1930s so hot in North America?

    This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters and Bob Henson Those who’ve trawled social media during heat waves have likely encountered a tidbit frequently used to brush aside human-caused climate change: Many U.S. states and cities had their single hottest temperature on record during the 1930s, setting incredible heat marks ...
    Skeptical Science
    2 days ago
  • Throwback Thursday – Thinking about Expressways

    Some of the recent announcements from the government have reminded us of posts we’ve written in the past. Here’s one from early 2020. There were plenty of reactions to the government’s infrastructure announcement a few weeks ago which saw them fund a bunch of big roading projects. One of ...
    Greater AucklandBy Greater Auckland
    2 days ago
  • The Kākā’s Pick 'n' Mix for Thursday, July 25

    TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Thursday, July 25 are:News: Why Electric Kiwi is closing to new customers - and why it matters RNZ’s Susan EdmundsScoop: Government drops ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    2 days ago
  • The Possum: Demon or Friend?

    Hi,I felt a small wet tongue snaking through one of the holes in my Crocs. It explored my big toe, darting down one side, then the other. “He’s looking for some toe cheese,” said the woman next to me, words that still haunt me to this day.Growing up in New ...
    David FarrierBy David Farrier
    2 days ago
  • Not a story

    Yesterday I happily quoted the Prime Minister without fact-checking him and sure enough, it turns out his numbers were all to hell. It’s not four kg of Royal Commission report, it’s fourteen.My friend and one-time colleague-in-comms Hazel Phillips gently alerted me to my error almost as soon as I’d hit ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    2 days ago
  • The Kākā’s Journal of Record for Thursday, July 25

    TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Thursday, July 25, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day were:The Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquiry published its final report yesterday.PM Christopher Luxon and The Minister responsible for ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    2 days ago
  • A tougher line on “proactive release”?

    The Official Information Act has always been a battle between requesters seeking information, and governments seeking to control it. Information is power, so Ministers and government agencies want to manage what is released and when, for their own convenience, and legality and democracy be damned. Their most recent tactic for ...
    No Right TurnBy Idiot/Savant
    3 days ago
  • 'Let's build a motorway costing $100 million per km, before emissions costs'

    TL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:Transport and Energy Minister Simeon Brown is accelerating plans to spend at least $10 billion through Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) to extend State Highway One as a four-lane ‘Expressway’ from Warkworth to Whangarei ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    3 days ago
  • Lester's Prescription – Positive Bleeding.

    I live my life (woo-ooh-ooh)With no control in my destinyYea-yeah, yea-yeah (woo-ooh-ooh)I can bleed when I want to bleedSo come on, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)You can bleed when you want to bleedYea-yeah, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)Everybody bleed when they want to bleedCome on and bleedGovernments face tough challenges. Selling unpopular decisions to ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    3 days ago
  • Casey Costello gaslights Labour in the House

    Please note:To skip directly to the- parliamentary footage in the video, scroll to 1:21 To skip to audio please click on the headphone icon on the left hand side of the screenThis video / audio section is under development. ...
    Mountain TuiBy Mountain Tui
    3 days ago
  • Why is the Texas grid in such bad shape?

    This is a re-post from the Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler Headline from 2021 The Texas grid, run by ERCOT, has had a rough few years. In 2021, winter storm Uri blacked out much of the state for several days. About a week ago, Hurricane Beryl knocked out ...
    Skeptical Science
    3 days ago
  • Gordon Campbell on a textbook case of spending waste by the Luxon government

    Given the crackdown on wasteful government spending, it behooves me to point to a high profile example of spending by the Luxon government that looks like a big, fat waste of time and money. I’m talking about the deployment of NZDF personnel to support the US-led coalition in the Red ...
    WerewolfBy lyndon
    3 days ago
  • The Kākā’s Pick 'n' Mix for Wednesday, July 24

    TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:40 am on Wednesday, July 24 are:Deep Dive: Chipping away at the housing crisis, including my comments RNZ/Newsroom’s The DetailNews: Government softens on asset sales, ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    3 days ago
  • LXR Takaanini

    As I reported about the city centre, Auckland’s rail network is also going through a difficult and disruptive period which is rapidly approaching a culmination, this will result in a significant upgrade to the whole network. Hallelujah. Also like the city centre this is an upgrade predicated on the City ...
    Greater AucklandBy Patrick Reynolds
    3 days ago
  • Four kilograms of pain

    Today, a 4 kilogram report will be delivered to Parliament. We know this is what the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care weighs, because our Prime Minister told us so.Some reporter had blindsided him by asking a question about something done by ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    3 days ago
  • The Kākā’s Journal of Record for Wednesday, July 24

    TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Wednesday, July 24, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Beehive: Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced plans to use PPPs to fund, build and run a four-lane expressway between Auckland ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    3 days ago
  • Luxon gets caught out

    NewstalkZB host Mike Hosking, who can usually be relied on to give Prime Minister Christopher Luxon an easy run, did not do so yesterday when he interviewed him about the HealthNZ deficit. Luxon is trying to use a deficit reported last year by HealthNZ as yet another example of the ...
    PolitikBy Richard Harman
    3 days ago
  • A worrying sign

    Back in January a StatsNZ employee gave a speech at Rātana on behalf of tangata whenua in which he insulted and criticised the government. The speech clearly violated the principle of a neutral public service, and StatsNZ started an investigation. Part of that was getting an external consultant to examine ...
    No Right TurnBy Idiot/Savant
    4 days ago
  • Are we fine with 47.9% home-ownership by 2048?

    Renting for life: Shared ownership initiatives are unlikely to slow the slide in home ownership by much. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:A Deloitte report for Westpac has projected Aotearoa’s home-ownership rate will ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    4 days ago
  • Let's Win This

    You're broken down and tiredOf living life on a merry go roundAnd you can't find the fighterBut I see it in you so we gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsWe gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsAnd I'll rise upI'll rise like the dayI'll rise upI'll rise unafraidI'll rise upAnd I'll ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    4 days ago
  • Waimahara: The Singing Spirit of Water

    There’s been a change in Myers Park. Down the steps from St. Kevin’s Arcade, past the grassy slopes, the children’s playground, the benches and that goat statue, there has been a transformation. The underpass for Mayoral Drive has gone from a barren, grey, concrete tunnel, to a place that thrums ...
    Greater AucklandBy Connor Sharp
    4 days ago
  • A major milestone: Global climate pollution may have just peaked

    This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Global society may have finally slammed on the brakes for climate-warming pollution released by human fossil fuel combustion. According to the Carbon Monitor Project, the total global climate pollution released between February and May 2024 declined slightly from the amount released during the same ...
    Skeptical Science
    4 days ago
  • The Kākā’s Pick 'n' Mix for Tuesday, July 23

    TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Tuesday, July 23 are:Deep Dive: Penlink: where tolling rhetoric meets reality BusinessDesk-$$$’s Oliver LewisScoop: Te Pūkenga plans for regional polytechs leak out ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    4 days ago
  • The Kākā’s Journal of Record for Tuesday, July 23

    TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Tuesday, July 23, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Health: Shane Reti announced the Board of Te Whatu Ora- Health New Zealand was being replaced with Commissioner Lester Levy ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    4 days ago
  • HealthNZ and Luxon at cross purposes over budget blowout

    Health NZ warned the Government at the end of March that it was running over Budget. But the reasons it gave were very different to those offered by the Prime Minister yesterday. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon blamed the “botched merger” of the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) to create Health ...
    PolitikBy Richard Harman
    4 days ago
  • 2500-3000 more healthcare staff expected to be fired, as Shane Reti blames Labour for a budget defic...

    Long ReadKey Summary: Although National increased the health budget by $1.4 billion in May, they used an old funding model to project health system costs, and never bothered to update their pre-election numbers. They were told during the Health Select Committees earlier in the year their budget amount was deficient, ...
    Mountain TuiBy Mountain Tui
    4 days ago
  • Might Kamala Harris be about to get a 'stardust' moment like Jacinda Ardern?

    As a momentous, historic weekend in US politics unfolded, analysts and commentators grasped for precedents and comparisons to help explain the significance and power of the choice Joe Biden had made. The 46th president had swept the Democratic party’s primaries but just over 100 days from the election had chosen ...
    PunditBy Tim Watkin
    5 days ago
  • Solutions Interview: Steven Hail on MMT & ecological economics

    TL;DR: I’m casting around for new ideas and ways of thinking about Aotearoa’s political economy to find a few solutions to our cascading and self-reinforcing housing, poverty and climate crises.Associate Professor runs an online masters degree in the economics of sustainability at Torrens University in Australia and is organising ...
    The KakaBy Steven Hail
    5 days ago
  • Reported back

    The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back on National's Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. The bill sets up water for privatisation, and was introduced under urgency, then rammed through select committee with no time even for local councils to make a proper submission. Naturally, national's select committee ...
    No Right TurnBy Idiot/Savant
    5 days ago
  • Vandrad the Viking, Christopher Coombes, and Literary Archaeology

    Some years ago, I bought a book at Dunedin’s Regent Booksale for $1.50. As one does. Vandrad the Viking (1898), by J. Storer Clouston, is an obscure book these days – I cannot find a proper online review – but soon it was sitting on my shelf, gathering dust alongside ...
    A Phuulish FellowBy strda221
    5 days ago
  • Gordon Campbell On The Biden Withdrawal

    History is not on the side of the centre-left, when Democratic presidents fall behind in the polls and choose not to run for re-election. On both previous occasions in the past 75 years (Harry Truman in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1968) the Democrats proceeded to then lose the White House ...
    WerewolfBy lyndon
    5 days ago
  • Joe Biden's withdrawal puts the spotlight back on Kamala and the USA's complicated relatio...

    This is a free articleCoverageThis morning, US President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the Presidential race. And that is genuinely newsworthy. Thanks for your service, President Biden, and all the best to you and yours.However, the media in New Zealand, particularly the 1News nightly bulletin, has been breathlessly covering ...
    Mountain TuiBy Mountain Tui
    5 days ago
  • Why we have to challenge our national fiscal assumptions

    A homeless person’s camp beside a blocked-off slipped damage walkway in Freeman’s Bay: we are chasing our tail on our worsening and inter-related housing, poverty and climate crises. Photo: Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    5 days ago
  • Existential Crisis and Damaged Brains

    What has happened to it all?Crazy, some'd sayWhere is the life that I recognise?(Gone away)But I won't cry for yesterdayThere's an ordinary worldSomehow I have to findAnd as I try to make my wayTo the ordinary worldYesterday morning began as many others - what to write about today? I began ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    5 days ago
  • A speed limit is not a target, and yet…

    This is a guest post from longtime supporter Mr Plod, whose previous contributions include a proposal that Hamilton become New Zealand’s capital city, and that we should switch which side of the road we drive on. A recent Newsroom article, “Back to school for the Govt’s new speed limit policy“, ...
    Greater AucklandBy Guest Post
    5 days ago
  • The Kākā’s Pick 'n' Mix for Monday, July 22

    TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Monday, July 22 are:Today’s Must Read: Father and son live in a tent, and have done for four years, in a million ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    5 days ago
  • The Kākā’s Journal of Record for Monday, July 22

    TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    5 days ago
  • 2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #29

    A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
    Skeptical Science
    6 days ago
  • I'd like to share what I did this weekend

    This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
    Mountain TuiBy Mountain Tui
    6 days ago
  • For the children – Why mere sentiment can be a misleading force in our lives, and lead to unex...

    National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Order image, ...
    Mountain TuiBy Mountain Tui
    6 days ago
  • A friend in uncertain times

    Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    6 days ago
  • The Chaotic World of Male Diet Influencers

    Hi,We’ll get to the horrific world of male diet influencers (AKA Beefy Boys) shortly, but first you will be glad to know that since I sent out the Webworm explaining why the assassination attempt on Donald Trump was not a false flag operation, I’ve heard from a load of people ...
    David FarrierBy David Farrier
    6 days ago
  • It's Starting To Look A Lot Like… Y2K

    Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    1 week ago
  • Bernard’s Saturday Soliloquy for the week to July 20

    Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    1 week ago
  • Pharmac Director, Climate Change Commissioner, Health NZ Directors – The latest to quit this m...

    Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
    Mountain TuiBy Mountain Tui
    1 week ago
  • Flooding Housing Policy

    The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
    PunditBy Brian Easton
    1 week ago
  • A Voyage Among the Vandals: Accepted (Again!)

    As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
    A Phuulish FellowBy strda221
    1 week ago
  • The Kākā's Chorus for Friday, July 19

    An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    1 week ago
  • The Kākā’s Pick 'n' Mix for Friday, July 19

    TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    1 week ago
  • Weekly Roundup 19-July-2024

    Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
    Greater AucklandBy Greater Auckland
    1 week ago
  • Weekly Climate Wrap: A market-led plan for failure

    TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    1 week ago
  • Tobacco First

    Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    1 week ago
  • Trump’s Adopted Son.

    Waiting In The Wings: For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
    Bowalley Road
    1 week ago
  • The Kākā’s Journal of Record for Friday, July 19

    TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSA announced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    1 week ago

  • Joint statement from the Prime Ministers of Canada, Australia and New Zealand

    Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue.  We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    18 hours ago
  • AG reminds institutions of legal obligations

    Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    21 hours ago
  • More young people learning about digital safety

    Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views.  “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    21 hours ago
  • Speech to the Conference for General Practice 2024

    Tēnā tātou katoa,  Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    23 hours ago
  • Employers and payroll providers ready for tax changes

    New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts.  “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 day ago
  • Experimental vineyard futureproofs wine industry

    An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 day ago
  • Funding confirmed for regions affected by North Island Weather Events

    The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 day ago
  • Indonesian Foreign Minister to visit

    Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced.   “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 day ago
  • Strengthening partnership with Ngāti Maniapoto

    He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    2 days ago
  • Transport Minister thanks outgoing CAA Chair

    Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    2 days ago
  • Test for Customary Marine Title being restored

    The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says.  “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    2 days ago
  • Opposition united in bad faith over ECE sector review

    Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet.  “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    2 days ago
  • Kiwis having their say on first regulatory review

    After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks.  “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    2 days ago
  • Government upgrading Lower North Island commuter rail

    The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    2 days ago
  • Government moves to ensure flood protection for Wairoa

    Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    3 days ago
  • PM speech to Parliament – Royal Commission of Inquiry’s Report into Abuse in Care

    Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care.  At the heart of this report are the ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    3 days ago
  • Government acknowledges torture at Lake Alice

    For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    3 days ago
  • Government acknowledges courageous abuse survivors

    The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    3 days ago
  • Half a million people use tax calculator

    With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis.  “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    3 days ago
  • Paid Parental Leave improvements pass first reading

    Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says a bill that has passed its first reading will improve parental leave settings and give non-biological parents more flexibility as primary carer for their child. The Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill (No3), passed its first reading this morning. “It includes a change ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    3 days ago
  • Rebuilding the economy through better regulation

    Two Bills designed to improve regulation and make it easier to do business have passed their first reading in Parliament, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill make key changes to legislation administered by the Ministry ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    3 days ago
  • ‘Open banking’ and ‘open electricity’ on the way

    New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    3 days ago
  • Charity lotteries to be permitted to operate online

    Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    4 days ago
  • Accelerating Northland Expressway

    The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    4 days ago
  • Sir Don to travel to Viet Nam as special envoy

    Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced.    “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    4 days ago
  • Grant Illingworth KC appointed as transitional Commissioner to Royal Commission

    Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says newly appointed Commissioner, Grant Illingworth KC, will help deliver the report for the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons, due on 28 November 2024.  “I am pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will commence his appointment as ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    4 days ago
  • NZ to advance relationships with ASEAN partners

    Foreign Minister Winston Peters travels to Laos this week to participate in a series of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-led Ministerial meetings in Vientiane.    “ASEAN plays an important role in supporting a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Mr Peters says.   “This will be our third visit to ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    4 days ago
  • Backing mental health services on the West Coast

    Construction of a new mental health facility at Te Nikau Grey Hospital in Greymouth is today one step closer, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says. “This $27 million facility shows this Government is delivering on its promise to boost mental health care and improve front line services,” Mr Doocey says. ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    4 days ago
  • NZ support for sustainable Pacific fisheries

    New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    4 days ago
  • Students’ needs at centre of new charter school adjustments

    Associate Education Minister David Seymour says proposed changes to the Education and Training Amendment Bill will ensure charter schools have more flexibility to negotiate employment agreements and are equipped with the right teaching resources. “Cabinet has agreed to progress an amendment which means unions will not be able to initiate ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    4 days ago
  • Commissioner replaces Health NZ Board

    In response to serious concerns around oversight, overspend and a significant deterioration in financial outlook, the Board of Health New Zealand will be replaced with a Commissioner, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti announced today.  “The previous government’s botched health reforms have created significant financial challenges at Health NZ that, without ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    5 days ago
  • Minister to speak at Australian Space Forum

    Minister for Space and Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins will travel to Adelaide tomorrow for space and science engagements, including speaking at the Australian Space Forum.  While there she will also have meetings and visits with a focus on space, biotechnology and innovation.  “New Zealand has a thriving space ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    5 days ago
  • Climate Change Minister to attend climate action meeting in China

    Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will travel to China on Saturday to attend the Ministerial on Climate Action meeting held in Wuhan.  “Attending the Ministerial on Climate Action is an opportunity to advocate for New Zealand climate priorities and engage with our key partners on climate action,” Mr Watts says. ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    5 days ago
  • Oceans and Fisheries Minister to Solomons

    Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is travelling to the Solomon Islands tomorrow for meetings with his counterparts from around the Pacific supporting collective management of the region’s fisheries. The 23rd Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Committee and the 5th Regional Fisheries Ministers’ Meeting in Honiara from 23 to 26 July ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    7 days ago
  • Government launches Military Style Academy Pilot

    The Government today launched the Military Style Academy Pilot at Te Au rere a te Tonga Youth Justice residence in Palmerston North, an important part of the Government’s plan to crackdown on youth crime and getting youth offenders back on track, Minister for Children, Karen Chhour said today. “On the ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    7 days ago
  • Nine priority bridge replacements to get underway

    The Government has welcomed news the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has begun work to replace nine priority bridges across the country to ensure our state highway network remains resilient, reliable, and efficient for road users, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“Increasing productivity and economic growth is a key priority for the ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago
  • Update on global IT outage

    Acting Prime Minister David Seymour has been in contact throughout the evening with senior officials who have coordinated a whole of government response to the global IT outage and can provide an update. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has designated the National Emergency Management Agency as the ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago
  • New Zealand, Japan renew Pacific partnership

    New Zealand and Japan will continue to step up their shared engagement with the Pacific, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says.    “New Zealand and Japan have a strong, shared interest in a free, open and stable Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says.    “We are pleased to be finding more ways ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago
  • New infrastructure energises BOP forestry towns

    New developments in the heart of North Island forestry country will reinvigorate their communities and boost economic development, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones visited Kaingaroa and Kawerau in Bay of Plenty today to open a landmark community centre in the former and a new connecting road in ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago
  • 'Pacific Futures'

    President Adeang, fellow Ministers, honourable Diet Member Horii, Ambassadors, distinguished guests.    Minasama, konnichiwa, and good afternoon, everyone.    Distinguished guests, it’s a pleasure to be here with you today to talk about New Zealand’s foreign policy reset, the reasons for it, the values that underpin it, and how it ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago

Page generated in The Standard by Wordpress at 2024-07-27T01:07:03+00:00