James a UK immigrant to NZ ,,, and resident troll here …. supports and participates in the the breaking of NZ laws … and such is his pride he brags about it at left wing blogs.
Uber a tax dodging law flouting corporation came into New Zealand ….. and under the last National Government were allowed to operate …. despite, but yet typically under the last Nact Government, they were at least 80% non-compliant to the Land Transport Passenger Service regulations … under which they are lawfully and legally required to operate.
It makes you wonder what other laws and regulations James thinks should be ignored …. food?, ignoring all those burdensome hygine and food safty regulations… a james bbq with pink chicken would make a uber fine food provider.
Uber doctors? …. where maybe they don’t actually have a legit doctors certificate … but they can fill your prescritions cheap of the internet… what a uber bargin that would be.
anyway it begs the question ….Did James lie on his NZ residency application?? … treating his legal requirements and honesty as merely optional… or did he declare that he would help NZ, by leading the way in showing us what laws and regulations should be ignored
###############################
The Pike River Mine / deathtrap was run like a corner cutting and regulation ignoring Uber outfit.
I highly recommend this Pike River documentary …
Watching it left me vastly better informed of the criminal disregard for workers safety .. red line after red line were crossed and ignored …non compliance with the regulations and ignoring laws pertaining to explosive gasses …all leading to the inevitable but preventable deaths for the 29 West Coast workers.
And for me it really highlighted our dishonest grave dancer Alwyn … and his degenerate smears on this subject relating to Andrew Little.
I need to get my mojo back is what it is, the current set up in National is not motivating enough, I need inspiration, I need National not Labour-lite, I need something to believe in, I need a hero, I need…
Well for someone who was only doing what you suggest as being “His job was to administer the organisation,” he certainly had a lot to say about the details of the operation.
Did you bother to read that link and see exactly what Little did say? They are direct quotes you know.
I’ve read it many times. In fact, pretty much every time some git makes the same mistake about Little’s role. Pike River were anti-union, and incentivised their staff to breach health and safety rules and kept the true situation in the mine secret. Andrew Little is a clever guy, but he doesn’t possess ESP.
“Little was the head of the union.”
And in that capacity he defended PRC management on their safety record, and led a union that failed to act on specific concerns raised prior to the accident.
“His job was to administer the organisation…”
Are you seriously arguing he isn’t responsible for his own comments about PRC? That as head of the union he bears no responsibility for the safety of the union’s members? What was he paid to do exactly?
“…not personally visit every worksite to check for issues.”
But he is responsible for what he says. Particularly when what he says reflects precisely on those safety issues. And he was ultimately responsible for the union and it’s members. He failed.
Again, bullshit. His comments were based on what information he had at the time. As I’ve already said, the company lied through its teeth and made life as difficult as possible for the union. To use the National party’s excuse du jour, it was an operational matter. Andrew was an administrator based in Wellington, not an organiser based in Greymouth. He could only report what he was told, becuase he had no direct involvement.
be good to see Andrew Little make some sort of definitive statement on this, one mad Trot offshoot newsletter, is what the various Nattys keep quoting
as I understand it Mr Whitall ran an anti union/union busting culture that saw the organiser reduced to riding the workers bus to try and get access to the site! Rebecca McFie’s “Tragedy at Pike River Mine” lays it out how marginalised the Union was there, requests from Mr Rockhouse to include the EPMU in training exercises were met with dismissive emails from Whitall–“the Union and Pike are not to be mentioned in the same sentence”…etc.
the attacks on Little are rather transparent given Solid Energy’s “seal it up” plan being derailed, and the Pike River Recovery Agency charging ahead with reentry
You do realise, I hope, that all Andrew’s statements were made AFTER the explosion that almost certainly killed the workers.
The explosion was on 19 November. Little’s statements were made to the Herald, and Close Up on 22 November.
If he hadn’t found out what was going on by then he damn well should have. Both he, and the MP for the area, O’Connor had by then been to the mine and still they defended the company and said that everything was fine and there were no concerns by the Union about safety.
“His comments were based on what information he had at the time.”
Which were ill-informed, and ignored concerns of others from within the business and the industry.
“As I’ve already said, the company lied through its teeth and made life as difficult as possible for the union.”
And Little enabled them.
“Andrew was an administrator based in Wellington, not an organiser based in Greymouth.”
That’s a terrific cop-out. Andrew Little was with the EPMU/Engineers Union since before 1997. He was National Secretary from 2000. In summary, at the time of Pike he had been with the union for more than 13 years, 10 as National Secretary. For you to argue his position was simply as “an administrator based in Wellington” is pure nonsense.
I must say this is a shock. James is not even a real Kiwi even though he pretends he is.
Immigration management in this country in the last 20 years has been terrible. There has been zero work done on the ability of social infrastructure to cope with the flood of toff-nosed poms washing onto our shores.
James claims to be about 48 years old and has sent three kids through Kristin at 25K per annum each. The eldest of these kids owns and runs their own business now and is approximately late 20s.
I’m left wondering when it was that James actually entered New Zealand as an immigrant with his British family?
James himself might like to shed some light on this…
…. anyway it begs the question ….Did James lie on his NZ residency application?? … treating his legal requirements and honesty as merely optional… or did he declare that he would help NZ, by leading the way in showing us what laws and regulations should be ignored
Did ya james ? … do tell.
it will also distract you from your unhealthy obsession with Ed … otherwise known as trolling.
James is an opinionated ignoramus. A classic case of “opening mouth before engaging brain”. I recently posted about the demise of CanTeen’s AYA regional cancer service, only to receive an uninformed, abusive response from this idiot.
Surprisingly little reaction from other Standardistas to what is an avoidable calamity for young cancer patients in New Zealand. https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2018/12/19/370303/the-fight-to-save-cash-strapped-canteen
“CanTeen, which relies on community support and donations, helps youngsters aged between 13 and 24 dealing with cancer. It provides someone to talk to, connects peers, runs activities and workshops, helps people with their grief. The website says: “CanTeen takes care of things like topping up your phone, getting you to appointments or the food situation in your cupboard so you don’t need to stress.””
Such great work supporting very vulnerable people. My niece is younger, with her third cancerous growth returning, at age 12. Such a tough area to be able to support people. I hope finding can come – a vital, underrated service.
As for James he’s just another weakling rwnj. A loser pretender who is probably the saddest of all of us here truth be told.
Ignoring your garbled syntax, “that you obviously have issues” is not a question wee James, it’s a statement. Stalking? Pot, kettle, black?
Are you really so conceited that you can’t appreciate your own immaturity. Back in the UK you’d be rightly termed a prat.
Leading war-mongers are dismayed. “Trump’s own national security adviser, John Bolton, is adamantly opposed to the decision”. “Lindsey Graham, a senior Republican senator who is a Trump loyalist on most issues, denounced the decision. “If these media reports are true, it will be an Obama-like mistake made by the Trump administration,” Graham said in a statement. “While American patience in confronting radical Islam may wane, the radical Islamists’ passion to kill Americans and our allies never wavers.”
Trump wants a Nobel peace prize? He didn’t actually tweet that he had made peace in Syria – yet. But Obama got one without making peace. Perhaps Trump is considering calling the Nobel committee bluff. Would look good on the cv. He could send his Secretary of State to meet Assad with terms: you declare peace, thank Trump for creating it, we’ll give you foreign aid to grind up all them random bits of concrete everywhere, for recycling.
His cabinet ministers calling him a moron, his hired help getting sent to prison, you might think prospects of impeachment had increased since Democrats started promoting them, eh? Well, Gordon Campbell assessed those prospects a week ago and concluded “Trump’s destiny is to be a winner, not a loser.” http://werewolf.co.nz/2018/12/gordon-campbell-on-whether-trump-is-likely-to-be-impeached/
I still feel the same, and doubt Mueller has any rabbit in his hat. Doesn’t matter how much the US media trumpets Trump’s influence-buying, voters know that’s all just American politics as usual – the only way it could harm him is if there was a positive alternative they could anticipate. No sign of that.
Erdogan will be pleased, he can now go ahead and butcher those of the most effective force fighting Islamic State in Syria (which Turkey itself never did).
This might well also enable the settlement of Islamists backed by Turkey in their failed attempt to depose the government of Syria in “Kurdish” areas on their border.
The withdrawal otherwise means the US has no leverage in the future of Syria, but Turkey’s hand will be stronger.
I think its probably also an acknowledgement that the Astana process for a peace settlement and a new constitution in Syria is the only game in town, and the US is not part of it. When you’ve lost the war and are not part of the peace(and the spoils)why waste any more cash
I predict a fresh “outrage” chemical or otherwise,clearly perpetrated by the Syrian govt, to pull the US back in .
Trump attempted this withdrawal once before, Khan Sheikhoun was the result.
I guess Assad just doesn’t want the Yanks to leave (eye- rolling -tongue -in- cheek)
Surely the Kurds knew the US would betray them in the end?
Maybe now they’ll consider the offers of increased autonomy from the Syrian govt
Probably a little late, but there’s surely no chance now of a purely Kurdish state at this point
Sure the smart move for the Kurds would be to do a deal with Damascus and get Syrian government troops in before the Turks can act.
The complication might be the presence of some of the Syrian Arabs who fought IS alongside them, some of whom left the battle against the Syrian government once Islamists began to dominate rebel held areas – they might well now be in the refugee category.
Erdogan will be pleased, he can now go ahead and butcher those of the most effective force fighting Islamic State in Syria (which Turkey itself never did).
That does seem to be the case.
The withdrawal otherwise means the US has no leverage in the future of Syria, but Turkey’s hand will be stronger.
True about the US but I’m sure that Turkey won’t have any say either. This is going to fall to Syria, Russia and Iran to fix. Assad would do bloody well stepping up to support the Kurds.
Since Trump and Erdogan talked last Friday the US has cleared the sale of Patriot missiles to Turkey, ordered State Department personnel in Syria to be evacuated from the country within 24 hours, declared victory over ISIS, and Turkey’s request to extradite Fethullah Gülen is to be looked at.
“President Putin, speaking at a meeting with his top military brass in Moscow, singled out his new Kinzhal hypersonic missile and the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle, saying they have significantly bolstered Russia’s military capability, reports news.com.au.
“No one has hypersonic weapons yet, but we have it,” he said.”
ummm vlad I think you mean no one ELSE has them
Also overnight, the US government admitted it is powerless to defend against these ‘game changer’ hypersonic weapons. The Government Accountability Office says their speed, altitude and maneuverability simply make them too difficult to stop.
The report states: “There are no existing countermeasures.”
“Putin has said about a dozen countries were producing missiles of the type banned by the INF treaty.” Well okay, but if Russian intelligence agencies have indeed discovered this and reported it to him, why doesn’t he identify them? If those countries have signed the INF treaty, wouldn’t it expose them to ridicule and condemnation?
Not to mention discrediting the entire notion of arms reduction treaties. And their usage in international law. And, consequently, the viability of international law as a method of peace-keeping. So now we await deployment by those countries, and the reassurance that such proliferation will provide its own deterrent effect on usage.
“Which countries are developing hypersonic weapons? “The U.S., Russia and China are ahead of other nations in developing hypersonic weapons,” Richard Speier, adjunct staff with Rand, told CNBC. Speier, who worked to initiate the Pentagon’s Office of Counter-Proliferation Policy, added that France, India, and Australia are also developing military uses of hypersonic technology.” https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/21/hypersonic-weapons-what-they-are-and-why-us-cant-defend-against-them.html
I think you will find Russia’s missiles are more of a defensive mechanism than an offensive weapon. Useful against western propaganda at least. For instance without the Russian S-400 we would have seen much more destruction in the Middle East.
You do understand that there’s nothing that they can do right?
Climate change is happening. This will result in mass migration. The target countries for that mass migration can’t support the migrants. This means that those target countries have to stop those migrants. Some of those migrants are going to be bloody well armed and so the target countries will also need to be well armed. There will be some well armed other countries trying to force the target countries to take the migrants despite knowing that they can’t afford them.
Countries have the right and the responsibility to defend themselves.
Just accepting reality an the simple fact that, when climate change truly bites, it’s going to leave a lot of people (measured in the billions) either facing death or looking to migrate an that the places that they can migrate to can’t afford them.
The UN really should have looked at curbing population growth back in the 1970s. They didn’t and most governments of the world still think that increasing population is the Bees Knees and so still won’t do it and so out younger generations are still fucked.
Yep. I especially liked one comment:
“Stuart Ward BREAKING NEWS !!!
The ‘national’ party has welcomed the news that they no longer have to worry about what their M.Ps and SUPPORTERS will use for brains if KFC needs the cabbages for coleslaw.
A new product on the hair care market, Control GX “the shampoo with brains” will provide a satisfactory alternative.
Consideration is being given to replacing Simon Bridges with either a “complimentary hotel bottle” of the shampoo, or his nearest contender, an adolescent tiger slug by the name of Slimey Norman”
Meanwhile here in NZ, trying to find out some information through an 0800 number about CourierPost’s processes, I have been taken through 4 options that don’t apply and left with 5 which seemed mostly related to NZPost, where shops are etc and tried that in the absence of other options. I got a repeat of the options from 1-5 again.
So NZPost apparently doesn’t know what it is doing, and proposes to keep customers on a loop running after their tails, while they decide.
Really a small example of the route the country has gone.
I find that true of many businesses and not just in NZ. Their attempt to get the customer to the right person via an automated system almost invariably ends up confusing the customer.
Some have called for New Zealand to be more involved in peace-making and arbitration, as per Norway and Sweden.
Neither of them (Norway is in NATO and Sweden is in the EU) have been involved in the matter of Ukraine. And we have our stalled FTA with Russia to consider. So this is one which we might well take up.
The issues are well known, Russia does not like former territories of the USSR joining NATO or the EU. It uses the presence of ethnic Russians in these territories as an excuse and economic dependence on gas as a means to intefere in their nations affairs politically.
The central issue is the tension that occurs when loyalty to nation state and ethnic identity patriotism (over the future of the Ukraine in the EU and NATO) is divided.
There are obvious paths to resolution, but the question is whether NATO and Russia would prefer the impasse to continue rather than realise one. So the first question that we would have to ask each party (before offering to mediate), do they want the matter resolved?
Does the EU actually want Ukraine?
Particularly now that Its economy has dive bombed. And its adherence to European “values”is seriously in question with the current Poroshenko govt at least
Tymoshenko won’t be much better
Of course Russia doesn’t want NATO on its doorstep, any more than the US would have accepted the Warsaw pact in Mexico
Ukraine can’t be in NATO while there is the war in Eastern Ukraine
Russia would need very strong assurances from NATO (and would they be worth the paper they’re written on) to withdraw their support for Donetsk and Lugansk
And what about the wishes of the people who live in those areas?
Very early on in Putin’s rule , he wanted to join NATO
Maybe this should be looked at again
Sure back in mid 2001 there was the option of a European security co-operation on the one hand and a united defence force for world peace-keeping at UN direction. Russia in NATO. But the later military intervention in the ME (choice of response to 9/11 soon ended the trust required for that).
At the moment the momentum is towards a EU defence force (ironically made possible by the US request for 2% GDP defence spending in the region), with independent relationships with both Russia and (possibly via a continuing NATO) the USA (and maybe UK depending on where that is headed).
The medium term issues – the nature of the EU and Russian gas supply agreements while sanctions continue and whether Russian pressure on Ukraine has any impact on its domestic politics.
Germany’s economic and industrial well being depends on Nord Stream2 ;any alternatives are too expensive. US imposed sanctions are only going to reshape how Europe does business, to the detriment of US control.
US gas, reliant on fracking, is never going to be cost effective against Russian gas, which doesn’t involve fracking, let alone the difficulties of transport.
Germany and Russia together…the horror!
After all NATO was to keep Russia out, to keep America in, and to keep Germany down
Does the EU actually want Ukraine?
Particularly now that Its economy has dive bombed.
Probably not any more. The Ukraine’s economy wasn’t all that good to start with which is why the USSR’s leadership gave it Crimea. Now that Crimean has left it’s back to being a basket case.
And what about the wishes of the people who live in those areas?
According to the US’s overturning of democratic governments – they can be ignored.
Afraid so. This could be even worse than the circumstances that led to the termination of his contract at that Swiss finishing school. More details when they become available.
Earth to Morrissey, are you reading?
Nice to have you back old bean. Squadron Leader and I were seriously, seriously concerned about your time in the brig.
Pip pip. Chin up, let bygones be bygones and we’ll all move forward what?
The country’s first crime and victims survey suggests almost two million crimes were committed last year, about seven times the number reported to police.
I don’t think they got everyone. S.S. trust wrongly exposed a criminal, and so frustrated the he’ll out of everyone who wants to know who these peolle are, it’s a crime surely to distract and misinfirm. Geez how can I be sure that anything the Sen.Sen.Tru. say!
Perhaps the Coalition of Losers will try and take New Zealand back to the situation in the late 1930’s.
Radio news broadcasts were written in the Prime Minister’s office and had to be read out on New Zealand radio stations exactly as they were written.
I’m sure that Tsar Winnie and his off-sider [Jacinda] would love to bring that back.
Then we wouldn’t get stories on the TV news about how they are going to halve the number of children in poverty, but not for at least a decade, book-ended by a story about the number of people needing food parcels from the City Mission having doubled during their first year in office and another story about how the number of homeless people and of drug users on Queen St having also risen greatly in the last year and how people working in shops are routinely assaulted these days.
I’m afraid that this current Government is offering only the promises that were described so well in the Union rallying song of 1911.
As the International Workers of the World put it.
“Work and pray, live on hay, you’ll get pie in the sky when you die.”
“do Facebook”?
Wash your mouth out. I looked at the way Facebook was designed to operate when it started. I decided that I would never, ever go on that crazy system.
Never have and never will.
Obviously I looked at how it would work with a great deal more care than those of you who rushed into it like lemmings running over a cliff and are now regretting it.
“I’ve never been on Facebook”.
I have obviously misjudged you in my assumption.
You are very sensible. I think their business case is a terrible one, particularly as it has become almost compulsory for teenagers to use it if they don’t want to be isolated from everything their friends are up to.
On the other hand I don’t really see how it can be safely “regulated” as you put it. That just puts someone else in a position of power over what people are allowed to see. I think I still prefer the glorious anarchy that was the original internet. The only regulation I would accept is that people should legally own their own data and they, and they alone, should have the ability to allow, or disallow, companies like Facebook from using it.
I think their business case is a terrible one, particularly as it has become almost compulsory for teenagers to use it if they don’t want to be isolated from everything their friends are up to.
Not quite, Facebook is now for Mums and Grandmothers.
All the younger people have bolted to Instagram , snap chat, twitter, what’s app etc.
I had heard that was happening but I didn’t realise that the decline started so long ago.
Those numbers are for the US I suppose. I wonder when it dived here?
Long-haired preachers come out every night
To tell you what’s wrong and what’s right
But when asked how about something to eat
They will answer in voices so sweet:
You will eat, bye and bye
In that glorious land above the sky
Work and pray, live on hay
You’ll get pie in the sky when you die.
That’s a lie
And the starvation army they play
They sing and they clap and they pray
‘Till they get all your coin on the drum
Then they’ll tell you when you’re on the bum:
You’re gonna eat, bye and bye, poor boy
In that glorious land above the sky, way up high
Work and pray, live on hay
You’ll get pie in the sky when you die
Dirty lie
What the PM told us has been achieved so far by this coalition government when she spoke yesterday in the adjournment debate.
“…… I could just say this about the last 12 months: 3.9 percent unemployment, a Budget surplus, 73,000 more jobs, 2.7 percent GDP growth including 1 percent in the June 2018 quarter alone, 111 Provincial Growth Fund projects, 60 million trees planted, $917 million contributed to the New Zealand Superannuation Fund after almost a decade of nothing, 384,000 families better of with the Families Package, 774,000 New Zealanders now receiving a winter energy payment, 4,000 KiwiBuild homes under contract, 1,200 new public housing places, more than 200 new or rebuilt classrooms, 1,500 new teachers, 600 new learning support coordinators, 600,000 New Zealanders with access to cheaper GP visits, and hundreds of new police officers already.”
” $917 million contributed to the New Zealand Superannuation Fund”.
That is a bit like saying that you contributed $100 to the TAB.
In October the return on the fund was -4.84%. That’s right it dropped in value by a couple of billion dollars. I suspect the same thing happened in November and will probably also happen this month. https://www.nzsuperfund.co.nz/sites/default/files/documents-sys/October%202018%20Monthly%20Report.pdf
“4,000 KiwiBuild homes under contract,”.
Really. It is rather more significant that they can’t even get offers on the houses that Twyford is buying, and that the sort of place that they are calling “homes” are studio apartments. Subsidies are now being made available to anyone who will buy a place.
Those places were meant to be for families who were locked out of the market. Instead they have sold to people like the Doctor/Marketing Manager couple we were told about.
Other stories tell us that the lottery winners who are offered the property refuse to buy them and that they are then sold on the open market for whatever they can get for them.
“Yes, I’m extremely proud of the actions we have taken this year as the Government, some of which include extending paid parental leave, stopping foreign purchasing of Kiwi homes, making the first year of tertiary study free, stopping the State house sell-off, building that first KiwiBuild home, restarting super fund contributions, increasing the minimum wage, passing the Child Poverty Reduction Bill in my name, implementing the Families Package, making GP visits cheaper for many New Zealanders, investing in fixing hospitals and schools, funding more teachers, beginning to plant one billion trees, investing in the regions through the Provincial Growth Fund, beginning to recruit 1,800 more police—”
I am trying to suppress the smugness, about 6 or 7 years ago a colleague made the observation that ‘ with Facebook, you are not the customer, you are the product’.
I wish I had thought of that wording. It very accurately, and succinctly, sums up what I thought when I first looked at the scheme.
I suppose I should also follow your example and try and suppress the smugness about never having gone near it.
I finally managed to get out of Facebook (it was like the bloody Hotel California …you can check in but never leave) but still had concerns about my profile being up , so thats a great piece of info there. Thanks for that Joe
Jim Mora apparently believes substandard content is acceptable as long
as he occasionally “balances” it with “the NYT, the Guardian, the Atlantic.”
On Friday 30 November this writer, and no doubt many other people, listened with disbelief and horror as Jim Mora abandoned all pretence to be running any sort of intelligent or reasoned discussion on his RNZ light chat show. The first two guests seemed designed to insult and provoke anyone who cared about anything. At 4:28 p.m. I sent the following email….
Kiwiblog?!!?? Bob McCoskrie?!! WTF?
Dear Jim,
You first quoted the extreme right wing Kiwiblog, then in the very next breath you quoted the even more extreme Bob McCoskrie. Ali Jones reacted the way that any sensible listener would have: “What a load of RUBBISH!”
What’s next? Are you going to approvingly quote the complacent right wing New York Times opinionist David Brooks, or some mad article from the Daily Telegraph, or the so-called “Sensible Sentencing Trust”, as you so often do?
Have you thought of quoting someone who actually writes in a thoughtful and balanced manner? Gordon Campbell perhaps?
You have a duty, surely, to assemble a credible and serious hour of broadcasting. Kiwiblog and Family First are anything but credible and serious.
Yours in concern at the standard of your program,
Morrissey Breen
Northcote Point
At 5:10 p.m. Jim Mora replied:
I also quoted The Standard yesterday, Morrissey, I regularly quote the NYT, the Guardian, the Atlantic. Jim
And that is the core of the problem with Mora and his show: this spurious hypothesis that quoting something relatively sane makes up for treating the likes of Bob McCoskrie as a serious commentator.
Yesterday (Wednesday December 19th) Mora—or his producer Julie Moffett—was back at it. To discuss the planned Hamilton-Auckland rail link, they once again wheeled on the worst possible person. I sent off another email pronto…
Gary Mallett???!!!
Dec 19, 2018, 4:37 PM
Dear Jim,
A lot of people and organizations have spent a great deal of time and effort considering the pros and cons of the Hamilton to Auckland rail link. However, instead of bringing on someone who knew what he/she was talking about, you—or your producer—chose the extreme right wing Hamilton councillor Gary Mallett. He’s an ACT Party member notorious for, amongst other things, his unhinged attacks on Māori. His language in your interview this afternoon reflected his simplistic thinking: “absolutely pathetic….pathetic…absolutely no impact in reducing congestion…. costing mega-millions… this is people’s hard-earned money…I’m completely agnostic as to how we travel…”
Both Penny Ashton and Mike Rehu expressed their disapproval, but you joked that “Gary’s supporting some interesting arguments though!”
That’s five minutes of airtime wasted.
Yours sincerely,
Morrissey Breen
Northcote Point
So far, Jim Mora has not replied to that remonstration.
What is it with these husband and wife media “duos” you would expect they would have common interests but some impartiality surely goes with the job?
In a double dose today his wife, somebody Lambie, was “doing” the afternoon show on a “competing” station and doing her best to absolve the “Sensible Sentencing ‘Trust'” for their appalling and derelict behaviour. The result was her interviewing the (?) McVicar who immediately somehow to turn it round inextricably to the “trust” being the victim in all this.
Why are these tag teams insulting the people of NZ – that pair, Hosking etc, Soper etc it’s getting beyond tedious they’re everywhere like pack of “Stepford” wives”.
It’s as they say “all about the business” and by the look of it cases of not “what you know” but “who”, do they get two for the price of one?
I find it quite off-putting being harangued, I like something a bit topical or “newsy” while driving but this level of “opinion” will see me turn to the music stations. I’m still trying to work out how Lambie framed McVicar as the “victim” but she did with very little mention of what they had posted and how serious that was – it was found out about last March so that was kept quiet for a long time while donations were still being sought publicly.
Makes my head spin sometimes, but I can believe it – I live in Tauranga and while in lots of ways it is great, the divide in the way we think between me and some family members/aquaintances is sometimes surprising and I am hard pressed to understand how we can see things so differently.
Then I read this https://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=12180474 and conclude that there are some people in the world who are going quite mad.
Who is this “we” being referred to very often? I believe in the “village” much of the time but not one rigid mindset.
Is he one of these increasingly crazy people who think the public needs saving from itself and only he/we/they “peddle” the truth? It’s becoming quite bizzare.
That fool was nominally “in charge” of the NZRFU in 1999; most infamously, he allowed advertising lout Kevin Roberts to have an Air New Zealand jet “decorated” with a hideous distorted picture of the All Black front row on it. The players were mortified and embarrassed, and pleaded for them not to do it, but Moffett and Roberts didn’t care and the monstrosity was forced through.
Jacinda Ardern is not the first person to be dismissed rancorously by David Moffett. His harebrained “traitors” remark is just the latest in a long line of stupid insults. When he was NZRFU head creep, he angered Rugby League supporters by (accurately) scoffing at the sport as “five tackles and kick”. Later, the hypocrite took a job as CEO of the National Rugby League.
Another Australian whacko, Peter Scutts, was the CEO of the Auckland Blues while Moffett was running his ignorant mouth. Scutts, to show how “professional” the Auckland Rugby Union was, took it on himself to ban the Wellington Supporters Club from running onto the hallowed turf of Eden Park with their Leo the Lion mascot, something that they’d done for about a hundred years. Even worse than that little piece of meanness, in 1997 Scutts refused to change the playing strip of the Blues for the Super 12 final against the ACT Brumbies; both teams had almost identical strips. Scutts cited “the heritage of the Auckland Blues”—-the team was less than two years old. In the event, the final was a shambles, with two almost identically dressed teams on the field, and the game of rugby football reduced to a laughing stock.
I like Mr Farrar, and I appreciate the light hand he wields on his site. However, to pretend that anyone with his stridently anti-union and wildly pro-Israel views—he came back from a (guided) tour of the Occupied Territories a few years back and solemnly informed Jim Mora that he had seen nothing going on there—is not extremely right wing would be less than honest.
He’s certainly more civilized and personable than Cameron Slater, but there’s not a great deal of difference in their politics.
There are many Jewish (and wider related group of relatives) centrists blinded by nationalism and or religion into a pro Zionist position, this does not make them right wing, let alone extreme right wing. DPF would be in the former cateogry (though he is right wing all the same).
There are many Christian Adventists (Slater is one) whose support for Zionism is religious and part of some concept of a Judeo-Christian nationalism where Israel is a western Christendom colonial pet project.
This is right wing in that this Christian dominionism (American) uses the idea of end time Advent ending human self government/democracy to justify lack of human action on social justice (and climate change) in the USA or the wider world. It serves to enable the GOP to serve 1% mammon with their votes.
Tempting to file him in the `useful idiot’ category of rightists, but probably a tad unfair and I was inclining toward your more generous view when I realised a reality-check is probably a good idea. So I googled his political alignment and found this on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Farrar_(blogger)
“Farrar professes a classical liberal approach to politics, that is often compromised by his party affiliation with the liberal conservative National Party (for instance over state security powers vs individual rights) and identifies as a moderate of the center-right on the political spectrum. He was a co-chair of National’s Classical Liberal Policy Advisory Group at its formation in 2004. He supported the legalisation of prostitution and of civil unions in New Zealand. Farrar supports a New Zealand republic, and is on the National Council of the New Zealand Republican Movement. Economically his views are more in keeping with those of parties to the right of the National Party, such as the market fundamentalism of the minority ACT party.”
So socially liberal, economically dry, but the quote implies he self-identifies “as a moderate of the center-right on the political spectrum.” As a Republican, he seems progressive rather than conservative to us (but the contrary to Americans due to their early departure from monarchy).
Extreme right and extreme left is quite rare, so I would agree.
He is a liberal, but a right wing one, certainly no centrist.
The debate point is between centre right or simply right. I’d go with the latter – some confuse his being liberal with being centre right. No so for mine. Sure there is common cause between right wing and centrist and centre-left liberals from time to time but his vehemently anti-Green posts do not come from a centrist position, but a right wing one. The same with his involvment with the Taxpayers Union.
Like most of the right wing of the National Party they tend to hide in plain sight and manouvre to achieve the right wing change by both stealth and by increment.
I challenge anyone to condemn me for promoting a plant based diet.
After watching this 45 minute documentary from the UK.
It is not for the faint-hearted.
I condemn thee for the sin of hubris, nay even the of crime against all humanity in seeking us to forsake our own Judith-given right to the flesh, the delicious flesh, of farmed animals, to give up out culture, our beliefs, there is only one sentence:
Nope. I’ve already stated that the best path for NZ would be to make all sheep, beef, pork and chicken (and any other type of animal I’ve missed) farming free range
Whilst I have no issues with people choosing to follow a vegan lifestyle (usually this is done when a person has had a chance to challenge all the information put before them), I’m against people trying to force others to follow it as if there is no other dietary choice. The reality is that this world does not need overlords – especially vegan ones.
I’m not trying to force you to follow a plant based diet.
However I am asking that you actually look at what 21st century industrial farming looks like.
But all of you critics are too scared to confront the reality of what factory farming looks like.
Why lead with this then? “I challenge anyone to condemn me for promoting a plant based diet.” Should you have lead with, “I challenge anyone to support factory farming, after watching this.”
Just because he is pro Israel does not make him extreme right.
I would agree he is right rather than centre right. But if you think David is extreme right, then so is Simon Bridges. But maybe that is what you think.
“if you think David is extreme right, then so is Simon Bridges.”
Simon Bridges is far right, so is the current lot of all National MP’s, and i would include Bill English, the double dipper from Dipton in that lot too.
There is not one current man or women in the National Party that would not put themselves and Party above Country, Duty and Honor. A bit like the republican lot in the US.
The National party are extreme because their beliefs do no match up with reality.
Me, I’m all for living within the physical limits of the world. Which means to say that I’m not extreme in anyway, shape or form.
The problem that you, like many, is that you think that trying to live within those limits is extreme. And yet, the whole point of the market was actually to bring about living within those limits.
I don’t actually think how you think I do and we have more in common that you might realise. Particularly around how finite our resources are and how they need to be utilised.
But you can’t just say “National are extreme right” based upon your own metrics because it doesn’t work that way. They aren’t extreme right by any real political, economic or social methodology that is in common parlance or study. It’s no different to someone on Kiwiblog saying labour are extreme left because they are so far right themselves.
When you or the kiwi blogger say “extreme right/left” what I hear is “I don’t know what words mean”
I don’t actually think how you think I do and we have more in common that you might realise. Particularly around how finite our resources are and how they need to be utilised.
I have, occasionally, considered that we may be talking past each other.
But you can’t just say “National are extreme right” based upon your own metrics because it doesn’t work that way.
Reality isn’t my metric – it just is. It has physical constraints that we need to live within and we’re not doing that.
And compared to reality Labour is also extreme right-wing as they’re still following the same failed economics that National follow.
The question I have is: Why do so many econ students (or anyone else for that matter) not learn about the physical resources that the economy is based upon?
Given the greatly amplified role of professional economists at every level of policy making, the extent to which economics is disconnected from reality is becoming more alarming.
This is most telling point about modern economics that needs to said and repeated:
Modern economics is simply not connected to reality.
This article misses a bit though that may even be far more important than the fact that economics ignores actual human motivations. Modern economics misses the fact that economics is about the availability and distribution of scarce resources.
How much land do we have?
How much of that land can be used to support humanity?
How much is needed to maintain a healthy environment?
These are questions (and others of a similar bent) that modern economics not only doesn’t answer – it doesn’t ask. And so we have nations converting every square in of land to farms and the extinction rate increasing tilting the environment further to outright collapse. We’ve fished up so much fish that the ocean ecology is also close to collapse.
We do this for profit because its supposed to bring about the best outcome and yet all the evidence shows that the profit motive is bringing about the worst possible outcomes. Climate change and ecological collapse has been brought about by the drive for profit and the need to have a growing economy to feed that profit. A growing economy can only come about with a growing population.
All the evidence is that the carrying capacity of the Earth as far as humans go is about two billion. We’re presently at seven and climbing.
Economics, the stuff that the economists and politicians ignore, tells us that we need to live within physical constraints but we’ve gone way past those constraints chasing profit.
Labour is centrist, and the Green Party’s agreement with them to spend no more than 30% GDP declared their coalition government would be centrist. This is why they could and did include NZ First. They had to in any case to get a majority and that need gives them an excuse for their moderation – which is given again and again to their party members and all those in society who wanted more.
It’s not getting worse under them, it’s going to get better … slowly.
Or they will not go further right, but they will not cross any centre lines moving back to the left at such a slow pace.
Dang !!! That’s a lot of expensive bureaucratic paperwork.
Has been suggested to give out credit cards, which would absolutely cut back processing costs for expenses.
I thought they would already have ministerial credit cards, then I remembered paula bennet, her staff member misused the office credit card.
Can someone clear up my confusion please, as it appears ministerial credit cards are not a new thing, were they scrapped at some stage? Or did they never exist?
Government Ministers still have credit cards, Cinny. They have not been scraped.
I don’t have time to go into detail as due out, but here are a couple of links re these Ministerial credit cards. All expenses etc relating to Ministers of the Crown are handled by Ministerial Services, part of the Dept of Internal Affairs.
I actually found that Newshub article confusing and questionable, but don’t have time etc at present to go into detail but MPs who are not Ministers also can claim expenses etc but this is done through Parliamentary Service – not Ministerial Services in DIA.
Up north the land of stupid people end their year will all the class one would expect of them.
May the great prevaricator, who takes procrastination to another level, has apparently reduced Corbyn, the great communicator, to whispering to himself “stupid woman” (no recording of this exists, he claims he said “stupid people”).
After recent attempts to pose a vote of no confidence in the PM, but not yet her government, this does not seem credible (the argument that either stupid woman and stupid people were statements of fact is a strong one, and one leads to the other, as these were the people that kept her on as leader of their party).
Apparently because May is a woman, noting that she is stupid while being a woman is seen as a sexist attack, or misogny. This is taking identity politics micro aggression to the next level, and given this is the Tory Party, it is obviously an attempt trying to divert attention from their own reality – May has chosen to delay the vote on her Brexit plan and leave it to the media to run a Brexit with no deal scare campaign over the holiday break to soften up the MP’s before the vote.
All ones eggs in one basket (she has said their will be not be another referendum to over-ride a parliamentary impasse).
So should the deal not get parliamentary approval, Corbyn will propose a vote of no confidence in the government over it facing a no deal Brexit (the media scare campaign will help him in this).
So will posing Corbyn as an anti-semite, and now as a misogynist, save the Tory Party from their own Brexit divisions. May needs the so called “Blairites” (while moderates and the May deal is the middle course between a no deal Brexit and staying in the EU, they mostly prefer going back to a referendum) to vote for the deal for fear of a no deal Brexit if they vote no. Thus the hard-line refusal to go to a referendum is to influence them.
Stupid people are playing chicken on the highway called Brexit in the UK parliament because they claim giving the people another say, is not respecting what they decided last time they were asked. This is a brain dead parliament that reigns as a tyrant for 5 years and treats it subjects for this period of incarceration as fools. Stupid people.
On the face to it, Corbyn has shown himself completely incompetent during the Brexit debates. His standing will have gone down (including among his moderate MP’s), though perhaps not enough to stop him becoming PM at the next election.
However, nothing he has done has either bought an election forward, or will result in a second referendum. He should have been able to achieve one of those.
Instead he has made it more likely May’s deal will get through. Maybe that is what he wants, hence his tactics to date. So an election, whenever it happens, can be fought in clear air.
His policy is to have the May deal fail in parliament.
A sort of alliance between the hard Brexit Tories and those who want a referendum facilitated by having a position based standards for a deal they would support not being met (maybe not possible).
If he is successful, May might resign rather than preside over a no deal Brexit – after all parliament could easily deny consent to a no deal Brexit government being in office.
Corbyn could however choose to play white knight – entice Tories against a no deal Brexit into supporting a parliamentary move to suspend Brexit and call for a new referendum, rather than a new election.
With a May deal, the government takes responsibility – most now favour remain in polls – and the Tory Party divisions (there are as many for a hard Brexit and remain as in favour in their caucus and party membership) are going nowhere. Nor is the Northern Ireland, Scotland and the LD (where will the pro remain Tories and anti Corbyn Blairites go?).
There is no way the Tories can win this game, whatever happens, Corbyn’s Labour has the advantage/all the cards.
101 stuff that UK labour or Corbyn haven’t found an answer to. The distraction that sticks
Parliament descended into chaos on Wednesday as angry Tory MPs accused Jeremy Corbyn of calling Theresa May a “stupid woman”, which the Labour leader vehemently denied.
I liked this bit: “While May was still in the house, the former Tory chair Patrick McLoughlin asked Bercow to censure Corbyn. “He muttered words which were quite clearly visible, accusing the prime minister of being a ‘stupid woman’,” he said, as MPs shouted “Shame!” and “Disgrace!””
Since the former Tory chair confirms that the words were clearly visible, they will show up on any video recording of Corbyn uttering them, so their inaudibility is no real problem. Sceptics just need to watch the recording to see those words hanging there in the air just after emerging from his mouth…
What he should have said was “I realise honourable members are looking for ways to take offence, and I now wonder whether they’d have preferred it if I’d said – Silly Lady boy, and “I’m offended you are offended just as you will be offended I am offended by you’re being offended”
Well it looks like Hummer’s an arsehole but not a workplace bully christy, and being an arsehole is pretty much de rigueur for high placed smootharse bureaucrats.
A new report (on the Funded Family Care system) commissioned by the Government points to a host of failings, but makes no recommendation for change.
A disability advocate says the report is a waste of time and the Government should simply get on with changes everyone knows are overdue.
There is concern the report will allow the Government to procrastinate.
Associate Health Minister Julie Anne Genter said she expected the government would announce its plans to overhaul the Funded Family Care system in less than a year, but she wouldn’t commit to a specific time-frame nor give away any details. However, she acknowledged affected families have been waiting a long time for justice.
@Anne and Denis, and probably a few others:
You might be interested in this (as in when the PS started to go tits up with corporatisation): https://www.bbc.com/news/education-46608818
Kia ora Newshub One has to expect more accidents with all the exra cars and people in Aotearoa of late and not much investment in the road network in the last few years.
Those are huge hailstones in Australia hope not to many people have been hurt what a mess we have to get use to weather like that.
We need to pay a return on waste to save our wild life and enviroment that poor seal nearly lost its life paying a return on all waste is way cheaper than have to try and pull plastic waste out of the sea the size of the Pacific waste .
Ka pai Mark with your song we built this city on sausagerolls hitting number one in Britain lol
One must be real carefull when working in construction I have heard of some shocking accidents
Rob that’s the way Wellington showing you the aroha for being Maori santa . People in Aotearoa have expect maori are going to show there pride of being a tangata whenua.
Kate Wreck it Ralph will keep the mokopunas happy for a while.
ka kite ano P.S I have to use a new search ap and it has not got spell check loaded yet some one crashed the old one
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We know that when our rural communities do well, all of New Zealand benefits. Labour is committed to supporting our regions so that, together, we can achieve even more. Here are just some of the ways we’re backing rural communities. ...
Government data today shows that the wealthiest New Zealanders aren’t paying their fair share of tax, whilst everyone else chips in, Green Party spokesperson on Finance Julie Anne Genter said today. ...
The Green Party welcomes the change in the Reserve Bank’s remit to consider the impacts on housing when making financial decisions, but housing affordability shouldn’t be left to the Reserve Bank, Green Party Co-leader and Housing spokesperson Marama Davidson said today. ...
The Green Party welcomes the passing of the Local Electorate Act Māori Wards Amendment Bill which ensures Māori have a say on local issues across Aotearoa New Zealand. ...
New UMR research reveals that 69 percent of New Zealanders agree that the government should increase the amount if income support paid to those on low incomes or not in paid work. ...
The Green Party are celebrating the Labour Government bringing forward the timeline to ban conversion therapy, and will push to ensure any draft bill properly protects all of our Rainbow communities. ...
The Green Party is joining the call for ‘brave policy action’ to address rapidly increasing inequality in New Zealand, which is likely to be exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. ...
Today marks Children’s Day / Te Rā o Ngā Tamariki and the Minister for Children, Kelvin Davis is asking all New Zealanders to think about their responsibility to support the lives of the tamariki in their communities and to make this a special day for celebrating them. Children’s Day / ...
Health Minister Andrew Little welcomes the Initial Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission’s assessment that transformation of New Zealand’s approach to mental health and addiction is underway. “This is an important step in the Government’s work to provide better and equitable mental health and wellbeing outcomes for all people in New ...
The Government’s Consumer Travel Reimbursement Scheme has helped return over $352 million of refunds and credits to New Zealanders who had overseas travel cancelled due to COVID-19, Consumer Affairs Minister David Clark says. “Working with the travel sector, we are helping New Zealanders retrieve the money owed to them by ...
An additional 88,000 students in 322 schools and kura across the country have started the school year with a regular lunch on the menu, thanks to the Government’s Ka Ora, Ka Ako Healthy School Lunches programme. They join 42,000 students already receiving weekday lunches under the scheme, which launched last ...
New Zealand’s economic recovery has again been reflected in the Government’s books, which are in better shape than expected. The Crown accounts for the seven months to the end of January 2021 were better than forecast in the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update (HYEFU). The operating balance before gains ...
More than half of New Zealand’s estimated 12,000 border workforce have now received their first vaccinations, as a third batch of vaccines arrive in the country, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins says. As of midnight Tuesday, a total of 9,431 people had received their first doses. More than 70 percent ...
The Government is significantly increasing its investment in restoring Central Otago’s waterways while at the same time delivering jobs to the region hard-hit by the economic impact of Covid-19, says Land Information Minister, Damien O’Connor. Mr O’Connor says two new community projects under the Jobs for Nature funding programme will ...
The Government has confirmed details of COVID-19 support for business and workers following the increased alert levels due to a resurgence of the virus over the weekend. Following two new community cases of COVID-19, Auckland moved to Alert Level 3 and the rest of New Zealand moved to Alert Level ...
The Government remains committed to hosting the Women’s Rugby World Cup in New Zealand in 2022 should a decision be made by World Rugby this weekend to postpone this year’s tournament. World Rugby is recommending the event be postponed until next year due to COVID-19, with a final decision to ...
Community and social service support providers have again swung into action to help people and families affected by the current COVID-19 alert levels. “The Government recognises that in many instances social service, community, iwi and Whānau Ora organisations are best placed to provide vital support to the communities impacted by ...
The Government is following through on an election promise to conduct an independent review into PHARMAC, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Health Minister Andrew Little announced today. The Review will focus on two areas: How well PHARMAC performs against its current objectives and whether and how its performance against these ...
Some of the country’s most forward-thinking early-career conservationists are among recipients of a new scholarship aimed at supporting a new generation of biodiversity champions, Conservation Minister Kiri Allan says. The Department of Conservation (DOC) has awarded one-year postgraduate research scholarships of $15,000 to ten Masters students in the natural ...
I acknowledge our whānau overseas, joining us from Te Whenua Moemoeā, and I wish to pay respects to their elders past, present, and emerging. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you all today. I am very pleased to be part of the conversation on Indigenous business, and part ...
Social Development and Employment Minister Carmel Sepuloni announced today that main benefits will increase by 3.1 percent on 1 April, in line with the rise in the average wage. The Government announced changes to the annual adjustment of main benefits in Budget 2019, indexing main benefit increases to the average ...
A Deed of Settlement has been signed between Ngāti Maru and the Crown settling the iwi’s historical Treaty of Waitangi claims, Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Andrew Little announced today. The Ngāti Maru rohe is centred on the inland Waitara River valley, east to the Whanganui River and its ...
With a suite of Government income support packages available, Minister for Social Development and Employment Carmel Sepuloni is encouraging people, and businesses, connected to the recent Auckland COVID-19 cases to check the Work and Income website if they’ve been impacted by the need to self-isolate. “If you are required to ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has expressed her condolences at the passing of long-serving former Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, Grand Chief Sir Michael Somare. “Our thoughts are with Lady Veronica Somare and family, Prime Minister James Marape and the people of Papua New Guinea during this time of great ...
E te tī, e te tā Tēnei te mihi maioha ki a koutou Ki te whenua e takoto nei Ki te rangi e tū iho nei Ki a tātou e tau nei Tēnā tātou. It’s great to be with you today, along with some of the ministerial housing team; Hon Peeni Henare, the ...
The Government is backing a new project to use drone technology to transform our understanding and protection of the Māui dolphin, Aotearoa’s most endangered dolphin. “The project is just one part of the Government’s plan to save the Māui dolphin. We are committed to protecting this treasure,” Oceans and Fisheries ...
Major water reform has taken a step closer with the appointment of the inaugural board of the Taumata Arowai water services regulator, Hon Nanaia Mahuta says. Former Director General of Health and respected public health specialist Dame Karen Poutasi will chair the inaugural board of Crown agency Taumata Arowai. “Dame ...
The newly completed Hibiscus Coast Bus Station will help people make better transport choices to help ease congestion and benefit the environment, Transport Minister Michael Wood and Auckland Mayor Phil Goff said today. Michael Wood and Phil Goff officially opened the Hibiscus Coast Bus Station which sits just off the ...
New funding announced by Conservation Minister Kiri Allan today will provide work and help protect the unique values of Northland’s Te Ārai Nature Reserve for future generations. Te Ārai is culturally important to Te Aupōuri as the last resting place of the spirits before they depart to Te Rerenga Wairua. ...
Today the Government has taken a key step to support Pacific people to becoming Community Housing providers, says the Minister for Pacific Peoples, Aupito William Sio. “This will be great news for Pacific communities with the decision to provide Pacific Financial Capability Grant funding and a tender process to ...
Conservation Minister Kiri Allan is encouraging New Zealanders to have their say on a proposed marine mammal sanctuary to address the rapid decline of bottlenose dolphins in Te Pēwhairangi, the Bay of Islands. The proposal, developed jointly with Ngā Hapū o te Pēwhairangi, would protect all marine mammals of the ...
Attorney-General David Parker today announced the appointment of three new District Court Judges. Two of the appointees will take up their roles on 1 April, replacing sitting Judges who have reached retirement age. Kirsten Lummis, lawyer of Auckland has been appointed as a District Court Judge with jury jurisdiction to ...
Government announces list of life-shortening conditions guaranteeing early KiwiSaver access The Government changed the KiwiSaver rules in 2019 so people with life-shortening congenital conditions can withdraw their savings early The four conditions guaranteed early access are – down syndrome, cerebral palsy, Huntington’s disease and fetal alcohol spectrum disorder An alternative ...
The Reserve Bank is now required to consider the impact on housing when making monetary and financial policy decisions, Grant Robertson announced today. Changes have been made to the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee’s remit requiring it to take into account government policy relating to more sustainable house prices, while working ...
The Labour Government will invest $6 million for 70 additional adult cochlear implants this year to significantly reduce the historical waitlist, Health Minister Andrew Little says. “Cochlear implants are life changing for kiwis who suffer from severe hearing loss. As well as improving an individual’s hearing, they open doors to ...
The Local Electoral (Māori Wards and Māori Constituencies) Amendment Bill passed its third reading today and will become law, Minister of Local Government Hon Nanaia Mahuta says. “This is a significant step forward for Māori representation in local government. We know how important it is to have diversity around ...
The Government has added 1,000 more transitional housing places as promised under the Aotearoa New Zealand Homelessness Action Plan (HAP), launched one year ago. Minister of Housing Megan Woods says the milestone supports the Government’s priority to ensure every New Zealander has warm, dry, secure housing. “Transitional housing provides people ...
A second batch of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines arrived safely yesterday at Auckland International Airport, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins says. “This shipment contained about 76,000 doses, and follows our first shipment of 60,000 doses that arrived last week. We expect further shipments of vaccine over the coming weeks,” Chris Hipkins said. ...
The Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Carmel Sepuloni has today announced $18 million to support creative spaces. Creative spaces are places in the community where people with mental health needs, disabled people, and those looking for social connection, are welcomed and supported to practice and participate in the arts ...
Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Minister Andrew Little today welcomed Moriori to Parliament to witness the first reading of the Moriori Claims Settlement Bill. “This bill is the culmination of years of dedication and hard work from all the parties involved. “I am delighted to reach this significant milestone today,” Andrew ...
22,400 fewer children experiencing material hardship 45,400 fewer children in low income households on after-housing costs measure After-housing costs target achieved a year ahead of schedule Government action has seen child poverty reduce against all nine official measures compared to the baseline year, Prime Minister and Minister for Child Poverty ...
It’s time to recognise the outstanding work early learning services, kōhanga reo, schools and kura do to support children and young people to succeed, Minister of Education Chris Hipkins says. The 2021 Prime Minister’s Education Excellence Awards are now open through until April 16. “The past year has reminded us ...
Three new Jobs for Nature projects will help nature thrive in the Bay of Plenty and keep local people in work says Conservation Minister Kiri Allan. “Up to 30 people will be employed in the projects, which are aimed at boosting local conservation efforts, enhancing some of the region’s most ...
The Government has accepted all of the Holidays Act Taskforce’s recommended changes, which will provide certainty to employers and help employees receive their leave entitlements, Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Michael Wood announced today. Michael Wood said the Government established the Holidays Act Taskforce to help address challenges with the ...
The Government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and faster than expected economic recovery has been acknowledged in today’s credit rating upgrade. Credit ratings agency Standard & Poor’s (S&P) today raised New Zealand’s local currency credit rating to AAA with a stable outlook. This follows Fitch reaffirming its AA+ rating last ...
Tena koutou e nga Maata Waka Ngai Tuahuriri, Ngai Tahu whanui, Tena koutou. Nau mai whakatau mai ki tenei ra maumahara i te Ru Whenua Apiti hono tatai hono, Te hunga mate ki te hunga mate Apiti hono tatai hono, Te hunga ora ki te hunga ora Tena koutou, Tena ...
The Minister of Justice has reaffirmed the Government’s urgent commitment, as stated in its 2020 Election Manifesto, to ban conversion practices in New Zealand by this time next year. “The Government has work underway to develop policy which will bring legislation to Parliament by the middle of this year and ...
During the pandemic Pasifika people have had rates of hospital admission for Covid-19 almost five times that of non-Pasifika and non-Māori. Data from the Minister of Covid-19 Response Chris Hipkins has revealed that seven of the 18 people admitted ...
Covid-19 may have exposed the egregious gender disparity in our labour market. But, as Vanisha Narsey writes, it should be an opportunity to use the data and rebalance the scales.I’m a statistic – one of 10,000 women made redundant in 2020 following New Zealand’s Covid-19 level four lockdown. That was ...
The PM is ‘running for the hills’, says the Newstalk ZB host. ‘She, and all her ministers, will continue to appear on the show as and when issues arise,’ says the prime minister’s office.Monday mornings for Jacinda Ardern have long involved a flurry of media interviews, where the prime minister ...
This week, a bill that would ensure pregnant people seeking abortion don’t have to be confronted by angry mobs outside of clinics is expected to have its first reading. Terry Bellamak explains why safe areas are so crucial for vulnerable patients.Last March, New Zealand legalised abortion. The new law changed ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Frances Flanagan, Sydney Fellow, Discipline of Work and Organisational Studies, University of Sydney After heated criticism from several quarters, the federal government last month announced a meagre rise in the JobSeeker payment for people looking for work. But at just $25 more ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kelly Burrowes, Senior Researcher, University of Auckland International Women’s Day celebrates women’s achievements and raises awareness of the continuing mission towards gender equality. So it’s a good time to be reminded we still need to correct decades — centuries even — of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Carr, Senior Lecturer, Environment and Society Group, UNSW Days after US rioters stormed Capitol Hill in January, a manatee was found in a Florida river with the word “TRUMP” scraped into its back. The aftermath of the disturbing incident revealed a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marcia Devlin, Adjunct Professor, Victoria University Australian university leaders are nearly three times more likely to be a man than a woman. Of 37 public university chancellors, just 10 are women (27%) and 27 (73%) are men. It’s exactly the same for ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Leah Ruppanner, Associate Professor in Sociology and Co-Director of The Policy Lab, The University of Melbourne Flexible workplace policies designed to improve gender gaps in employment and pay might actually make things worse for women. Flexible work has been on offer to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dawn LaValle Norman, Research Fellow, Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry, Australian Catholic University When we conjure up ancient philosophers the image that springs to mind might be a bald Socrates discoursing with beautiful young men in the sun, or a scholarly ...
Welcome to The Spinoff’s live updates for March 8. Auckland is now at alert level two, NZ at level one. Get in touch at stewart@thespinoff.co.nz Help us keep you informed on the stories that matter. Click here to learn how you can support The Spinoff from as little as $1.8.00am: Restrictions ...
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Assessing the latest lockdown, two arrested after threats to Christchurch mosques, and tsunami warning system holds up well. Plus – some thoughts down the page on reaching an anniversary.As with any major government decision made in a potential emergency situation, ...
On International Women’s Day, Dr Nikki Turner, Director of the Immunisation Advisory Centre, talks about the importance of vaccines and why women should never be excluded Women’s voices, women’s approach and women’s thinking should be visible in every level of our society. Too often they’re not and the results are frustrating. ...
Aerial photographs of New Zealand volcanic eruptions from a new book Lloyd Homer took more than140,000 aerial and landscape photos in his career as a photographer for the New Zealand Geological Survey. He used a Pentax 67, and his favourite camera, a Technorama 617. He worked on the edge of ...
On International Women's Day, three of our top sportswomen band together to support each other ahead of an exceptional two years in NZ sport. Sophie Devine, Kendra Cocksedge and Katie Bowen hovered on the rooftop over Eden Park, looking down on the ground all three may play on in their upcoming World Cups. Getting ...
In part six of our video series: Hīkoi: Long Shadow of the March we profile Miriama Rauhihi Ness. Miriama was a key organiser of the epic land march led by Dame Whina Cooper in 1975, attending the first hui for the hīkoi in Auckland’s Fanshaw Street in 1974. Responsible for the ...
The weather guru who's helped Team NZ skippers call the shots for more than two decades hopes his final forecasts will be winners. When Te Rehutai first glides into the America’s Cup start box on Wednesday, Clouds will be sitting on a hill somewhere overlooking the Hauraki Gulf, looking at, ...
The University of Otago's Dr Ben Gray explains who he believes we should be prioritising in our vaccine rollout New Zealand has begun to roll out its Covid-19 vaccination programme, starting with those working at the border, including in the Managed Isolation and Quarantine (MIQ) facilities. There have been calls ...
Business & Investing: A bigger than expected dairy payout on the horizon, Plus My Food Bag investors now wait for its first financial results in May ...
Two types of tsunami threat in one day showed the range of tactics, scientific, personal and political, required in responding to major events, writes earthquake expert Ursula Cochran.It was an exceptional morning: three large earthquakes within six hours, and an unfolding of events that put our emergency preparedness to the ...
As a doctor with an ear to minority ethnic communities, Carolyn Providence has bad news: for many, vaccine hesitancy is perfectly rational – and it’s next to impossible to shame people out of it. I’ve been thinking a lot about what happens when trust between communities and healthcare systems erodes ...
No one expected the level of intensity and brazenness used by a blogger, a former politician and a PR man in the saga that became known as "dirty politics" Whaleoil … Rawshark … inside information … political skullduggery … court delaying tactics … this saga has seen it all. ...
Asia Pacific Report New Caledonia, one of the Pacific territories to have avoided the covid-19 pandemic so far, is to go into strict two-week lockdown after detecting nine cases, reports Les Nouvelles Calédoniennes. The outbreak on the French archipelago was detected after a school headteacher fell ill on the Wallis ...
OPEN LETTER:By Gary Juffa in Port Moresby Dear all, I had covid-19. I am now covid-free for 13 days now. Not sure where I contracted it, but I gave all details for contact tracing to the papua New Guinea’s National Department of Health (NDOH) who are doing the ...
New Zealand’s COVID-19 response highlights the need to centre children’s rights in all government planning, especially if we are to be prepared for future shocks and crises, Commissioner for Children Andrew Becroft says. A report from the Children’s ...
The people who clean managed isolation facilities are doing an essential frontline service. But many are making little more than minimum wage, reports Michael Neilson for the NZ Herald. Tina Eitiare works at the frontline of New Zealand’s Covid-19 response while supporting her family, and yet earns just 25c an hour ...
All the major news events, which will hopefully not be too many. Auckland is now at alert level three, NZ at level two. Get in touch at info@thespinoff.co.nz Help keep The Spinoff alive and kicking. Click here to learn how you can support The Spinoff from as little as $1.8.30am: The ...
Times like these call for an enormous great slice of carrot cake – and this is an absolute beauty. It seems appropriate, as the seasons shift and the leaves start to turn from green to orange and from orange to brown, that I share this recipe for carrot cake. I love ...
Dispatches from a bike trail through the regions, discovering the small communities that have prospered – and those that haven't Big country, small column. I revel in the first, and apologise for the second. The odds on me writing a long column receded during the week as I cycled halfway ...
Vroom vroom, beep beep, get in losers! Drag Race Down Under is coming to TVNZ later this year, and today the 10 Australian and New Zealand competitors have been revealed.The wiggiest show this side of Real Housewives is finally making its way to the southern hemisphere. That’s right, RuPaul’s Drag ...
Three years ago clinical psychologist and culture warrior Jordan Peterson rode a bestseller to equal parts adulation and excoriation. Danyl Mclauchlan reviews a sequel that sprang from chaos. Since publishing his mega-bestselling self-help guide 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos in 2018, Jordan Peterson has led an existence ...
Asia Pacific Report Papua New Guinea’s Supreme and National Courts in Port Moresby will be partially closed for a week beginning yesterday after a judge has been tested positive for the covid-19, reports The National. Registrar Ian Augerea said in a statement the closure was to prevent any further infections ...
By RNZ News Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says it is hard not to feel like New Zealand is having a run of bad luck, with residents waking up today to a tsunami alert amid the covid-19 restrictions. The tsunami alert was triggered after three quakes overnight – the first of ...
Asia Pacific Report The Australia West Papua Association (AWPA) has called on the Australian government to stop trying to keep Papua off the agenda at the Pacific Islands Forum and “strenuously support” Pacific leaders in urging Jakarta to allow a PIF fact-finding mission to the territory. Congratulating the PIF Secretary-General ...
Did you sense the roads were busier in this Auckland lockdown than previous ones? Google mobility data indicates that you’re right.More people were going to work, and more heading out shopping, during the current lockdown in Auckland than during the August equivalent, which also took place under alert level three ...
The only statement to emerge from the Beehive in the past two days was cheery in tone but foreshadowed further increases in the funding devoted to mental health. The statement was issued by Health Minister Andrew Little, who welcomed the Initial Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission’s assessment that transformation ...
The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union is condemning Wellington City Council’s refusal to consult on the privatisation of the central library as undemocratic. “Wellingtonians threatened with a 13.5 percent rate hike deserve a full menu of cost-saving options ...
This morning the Māori Party confirmed their new National Executive including Che Wilson, Fallyn Flavell, John Tamihere and Kaiarahi Takirua: Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. Wilson returns for a second term as President and the two new members ...
New Zealand is now two weeks into the largest immunisation programme ever undertaken here, with border and managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) workers first in line. “We are so proud of our people for doing the right thing by stepping up and being ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Camilo López-Aguirre, PhD Candidate, UNSW Scientists have found another piece in the puzzle of how echolocation evolved in bats, moving closer to solving a decades-long evolutionary mystery. All bats — apart from the fruit bats of the family Pteropodidae (also called flying ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jordy Meekes, Research Fellow, Melbourne Institute: Applied Economic & Social Research, The University of Melbourne That Australian women earn less than Australian men is well-known. The latest calculation put the gap – the extent to which the average female full-time wage is ...
All the major news events, which will hopefully not be too many. Get in touch at info@thespinoff.co.nz Help keep The Spinoff alive and kicking. Click here to learn how you can support The Spinoff from as little as $1.8.00am: The day aheadThere are a couple of things we’ll be looking out ...
In this week's Critic's Choice review, Guy Somerset watches I Care a Lot on Amazon Prime and wonders if kindness has its limits Do you think Jacinda Ardern has been watching I Care a Lot? It would explain a lot, As Newsroom political editor Jo Moir wrote earlier this week, ...
By Ramzy Baroud At a glance, it may appear that the split of Arab political parties in Israel is consistent with a typical pattern of political and ideological divisions which have afflicted the Arab body politic for many years. This time, however, the ...
Discovering that her favourite summer drink is apparently an offence against wine, Charlotte Muru-Lanning sets out to uncover whether it’s actually so awful to serve red wine on the rocks.After many summers spent pouring red wine over ice without much thought, it recently struck me that maybe this combination was, ...
LISTEN: Extra Time examines two big issues in women's sport this week - postponing the Rugby World Cup and the Silver Ferns' battle for the crown that eludes them. Poised at one game a piece, can the Silver Ferns overcome a spirited young Australian Diamonds side and end a nine-year drought without netball's ...
"If Maggie said she was going to bake a cake, Lois always turned up with one that was bigger, more chocolatey and with fancier icing": a shaggy cake story by Shani Naylor. It was 2am. Maggie opened her eyes and lay still in bed. She could hear her husband Ken's ...
The art world is being bombarded with something called ‘non-fungible tokens’. We asked artist and crypto expert Simon Denny to help us explain what they are.At first glimpse, a gif of Nyan Cat is nothing special. It’s a bit cute, a bit nostalgic. So why did one sell for US$450,000? ...
Journalists avoid his calls, editors loathe it when he highlights mistakes. But he reckons he’s not scary at all. Chris Schulz meets RNZ’s Mr Mediawatch, Colin Peacock.Over his summer holidays, Colin Peacock tried to switch off. For much of the previous 12 months, the 52-year-old host of Radio ...
While it has since been deleted and apologised for, an op-ed by former Labour MP Michael Bassett published by the Northland Age and the NZ Herald this week caused an uproar for its racist cherry-picking and false reporting of historical facts. Historian Scott Hamilton sets the record straight.Michael Bassett is ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Deaths, West Europe still not “out of the woods”. Chart by Keith Rankin. Deaths, East Europe remains a major concern. Chart by Keith Rankin. At first glance through our rear-vision mirror, western Europe had a substantial spring outbreak of Covid19, and further outbreaks in spring and ...
A starter’s list for the national Aotearoa museum of the sporting damned. Richard Irvine confronts the demons.The sunGenerally it’s hard to make an argument against the giver of all life, as it provides photosynthesis, vitamin D and enables a wide range of recreational activities. But when it runs rampant around ...
Auckland can breathe a sigh relief knowing at 6am on Sunday the region will move down to Alert Level 2 after another seven long days in lockdown. Government and health officials are now turning their minds to lessons learnt, following a week of mixed messaging, rule-breaking and blame and shame, writes political ...
Three future scenarios after today’s large offshore earthquakes.A trio of serious earthquakes saw parts of Aotearoa shaken, tsunami threats triggered, and tens of thousands of people heading inland after evacuation instructions.Of the magnitude-7-plus events, the first, shortly before 2.30am, was centered off East Cape. Measuring 7.1, it was felt across ...
Analysis - The prime minister came down hard on lockdown rule-breakers but were they clearly told what they had to do? Peter Wilson looks into the reports as another crisis lurks in the background. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deborah Gleeson, Associate professor, La Trobe University News of the blockage of a shipment of 250,000 COVID-19 vaccines from Europe to Australia has caused concern and outrage. The immediate problem will probably be quickly solved through diplomatic channels. Even if it is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Timothy Stern, Professor of Geophysics, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington The Tonga Kermadec subduction zone stretches between New Zealand and south of Samoa.USGS, CC BY-SA A sequence of three major offshore earthquakes, including a magnitude 8.1 quake near ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra University of Canberra Professorial Fellow Michelle Grattan and Director of the Institute for Governance & Policy Analysis Dr Laine Dare discuss the week in politics. This week the pair discuss some of the 148 recommendations ...
The minister responsible for the country's spy agencies says they can't constantly monitor the internet to identify terror threats and instead rely on the public to raise the alarm. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Collins, Laureate Professor in Nutrition and Dietetics, University of Newcastle Celebrity testimonials abound for pills, potions and creams that purport to make you look younger. This time collagen supplements are in the spotlight, after Jennifer Aniston became the face of one ...
Have the government’s Covid-related messages been getting through to Pacific and non-Pacific ethnic communities in South Auckland? Justin Latif tried to find out.John Pulu is one of the best-known television and radio personalities in New Zealand’s Pacific community. He not only fronts TVNZ’s Tagata Pasifika Saturday morning show, but also hosts ...
James Elliott tries to work out what made Mike Hosking and Brian Tamaki tick everyone off this week. The week started with Aucklanders back under Alert level 3 and Mike Hosking on Alert Level 6. “Mike’s Minute” on NewstalkZB on Monday, which as usual lasted significantly longer than a minute, ...
Fonterra has confirmed what most analysts had been predicting and lifted its 2020/21 forecast farmgate milk price range to $7.30 – $7.90 kg/MS, up from $6.90 – $7.50. This should send a further surge of confidence across NZ’s rural regions, hopefully in a wave strong enough to encourage farmers to ...
A Financial Times leader delivers advice that Finance Minister Grant Robertson should (but probably won’t) consider. Essentially, the advice is to resist the temptation to involve the central bank in the challenge of slowing the rise in house prices. Changing regulation and reforming planning law is a smarter way to ...
The NZ Superannuation Fund has divested from five Israeli banks due to their suspected involvement in illegal settlement construction. Michael Andrew reports.The Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation, an autonomous crown entity and manager of the multi-billion NZ Super Fund, has divested from five Israeli banks due to their funding of ...
Uber Pike
James a UK immigrant to NZ ,,, and resident troll here …. supports and participates in the the breaking of NZ laws … and such is his pride he brags about it at left wing blogs.
Uber a tax dodging law flouting corporation came into New Zealand ….. and under the last National Government were allowed to operate …. despite, but yet typically under the last Nact Government, they were at least 80% non-compliant to the Land Transport Passenger Service regulations … under which they are lawfully and legally required to operate.
It makes you wonder what other laws and regulations James thinks should be ignored …. food?, ignoring all those burdensome hygine and food safty regulations… a james bbq with pink chicken would make a uber fine food provider.
Uber doctors? …. where maybe they don’t actually have a legit doctors certificate … but they can fill your prescritions cheap of the internet… what a uber bargin that would be.
anyway it begs the question ….Did James lie on his NZ residency application?? … treating his legal requirements and honesty as merely optional… or did he declare that he would help NZ, by leading the way in showing us what laws and regulations should be ignored
###############################
The Pike River Mine / deathtrap was run like a corner cutting and regulation ignoring Uber outfit.
I highly recommend this Pike River documentary …
Watching it left me vastly better informed of the criminal disregard for workers safety .. red line after red line were crossed and ignored …non compliance with the regulations and ignoring laws pertaining to explosive gasses …all leading to the inevitable but preventable deaths for the 29 West Coast workers.
And for me it really highlighted our dishonest grave dancer Alwyn … and his degenerate smears on this subject relating to Andrew Little.
Wow you really do have an unhealthy obsession with me.
Nice to see I’m in that little head of yours so early in the morning.
“And for me it really highlighted our dishonest grave dancer Alwyn … and his degenerate smears on this subject relating to Andrew Little.”
My, you really woke up with a hangover this morning, didn’t you.
I’m feeling a tad left out, don’t I even rate a mention?
You’re fully assimilated now, Pucky. Perhaps we should have said…a small ceremony, perhaps, maybe a badge…sorry!
I need to get my mojo back is what it is, the current set up in National is not motivating enough, I need inspiration, I need National not Labour-lite, I need something to believe in, I need a hero, I need…
https://i1.wp.com/www.whaleoil.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/1478989_561528227258268_120535684_n.jpg
There it is 🙂
I’m afraid you have gone over to the dark side.
Anakin Skywalker, better known as Darth Vader, seems to be more appropriate for you nowadays.
Well thats just mean 🙁
🙂
That’s not a documentary, it’s a dressed up presentation of opinions.
“and his degenerate smears on this subject relating to Andrew Little.”
I’m not aware of what James has said about Andrew Little and Pike River, but if it relates to Little’s time with the EPMU, then he may well have been referring to this http://nzagainstthecurrent.blogspot.com/2014/12/how-andrew-little-failed-pike-river.html.
Andrew Little was asleep at the wheel.
Bullshit. Little was the head of the union. His job was to administer the organisation, not personally visit every worksite to check for issues.
Well for someone who was only doing what you suggest as being “His job was to administer the organisation,” he certainly had a lot to say about the details of the operation.
Did you bother to read that link and see exactly what Little did say? They are direct quotes you know.
I’ve read it many times. In fact, pretty much every time some git makes the same mistake about Little’s role. Pike River were anti-union, and incentivised their staff to breach health and safety rules and kept the true situation in the mine secret. Andrew Little is a clever guy, but he doesn’t possess ESP.
“Little was the head of the union.”
And in that capacity he defended PRC management on their safety record, and led a union that failed to act on specific concerns raised prior to the accident.
“His job was to administer the organisation…”
Are you seriously arguing he isn’t responsible for his own comments about PRC? That as head of the union he bears no responsibility for the safety of the union’s members? What was he paid to do exactly?
“…not personally visit every worksite to check for issues.”
But he is responsible for what he says. Particularly when what he says reflects precisely on those safety issues. And he was ultimately responsible for the union and it’s members. He failed.
Again, bullshit. His comments were based on what information he had at the time. As I’ve already said, the company lied through its teeth and made life as difficult as possible for the union. To use the National party’s excuse du jour, it was an operational matter. Andrew was an administrator based in Wellington, not an organiser based in Greymouth. He could only report what he was told, becuase he had no direct involvement.
be good to see Andrew Little make some sort of definitive statement on this, one mad Trot offshoot newsletter, is what the various Nattys keep quoting
as I understand it Mr Whitall ran an anti union/union busting culture that saw the organiser reduced to riding the workers bus to try and get access to the site! Rebecca McFie’s “Tragedy at Pike River Mine” lays it out how marginalised the Union was there, requests from Mr Rockhouse to include the EPMU in training exercises were met with dismissive emails from Whitall–“the Union and Pike are not to be mentioned in the same sentence”…etc.
the attacks on Little are rather transparent given Solid Energy’s “seal it up” plan being derailed, and the Pike River Recovery Agency charging ahead with reentry
Hi Tiger.
The claims regarding Little’s involvement with Pike stem from his own comments and his own inaction. The material in the post (http://nzagainstthecurrent.blogspot.com/2014/12/how-andrew-little-failed-pike-river.html) is damning.
You do realise, I hope, that all Andrew’s statements were made AFTER the explosion that almost certainly killed the workers.
The explosion was on 19 November. Little’s statements were made to the Herald, and Close Up on 22 November.
If he hadn’t found out what was going on by then he damn well should have. Both he, and the MP for the area, O’Connor had by then been to the mine and still they defended the company and said that everything was fine and there were no concerns by the Union about safety.
Of course it’s conceivable he was lied to wally.
“His comments were based on what information he had at the time.”
Which were ill-informed, and ignored concerns of others from within the business and the industry.
“As I’ve already said, the company lied through its teeth and made life as difficult as possible for the union.”
And Little enabled them.
“Andrew was an administrator based in Wellington, not an organiser based in Greymouth.”
That’s a terrific cop-out. Andrew Little was with the EPMU/Engineers Union since before 1997. He was National Secretary from 2000. In summary, at the time of Pike he had been with the union for more than 13 years, 10 as National Secretary. For you to argue his position was simply as “an administrator based in Wellington” is pure nonsense.
I must say this is a shock. James is not even a real Kiwi even though he pretends he is.
Immigration management in this country in the last 20 years has been terrible. There has been zero work done on the ability of social infrastructure to cope with the flood of toff-nosed poms washing onto our shores.
James claims to be about 48 years old and has sent three kids through Kristin at 25K per annum each. The eldest of these kids owns and runs their own business now and is approximately late 20s.
I’m left wondering when it was that James actually entered New Zealand as an immigrant with his British family?
James himself might like to shed some light on this…
More fun to leave you wondering and obsessing.
There are honest commenters on this forum, and then there is you.
There are morons – then there is you who will never raise to that level of intellect.
…. anyway it begs the question ….Did James lie on his NZ residency application?? … treating his legal requirements and honesty as merely optional… or did he declare that he would help NZ, by leading the way in showing us what laws and regulations should be ignored
Did ya james ? … do tell.
it will also distract you from your unhealthy obsession with Ed … otherwise known as trolling.
Spill your 10 pound pom uber guts ….
Resin – if James trolls you, you are doing something right.
Remember Roosevelt’s words.
“I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made.”
And are reasons statements true James?
Reason seems to think so. But then again he/she seems to have issues.
So you don’t deny them then.
Interesting to know.
I note that reason hasn’t denied having an unhealthy obsession with me – interesting to know.
So james. I will have to believe what Reason has written about you.
Sayonna
James is an opinionated ignoramus. A classic case of “opening mouth before engaging brain”. I recently posted about the demise of CanTeen’s AYA regional cancer service, only to receive an uninformed, abusive response from this idiot.
Surprisingly little reaction from other Standardistas to what is an avoidable calamity for young cancer patients in New Zealand.
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2018/12/19/370303/the-fight-to-save-cash-strapped-canteen
I missed your post thanks for reposting.
“CanTeen, which relies on community support and donations, helps youngsters aged between 13 and 24 dealing with cancer. It provides someone to talk to, connects peers, runs activities and workshops, helps people with their grief. The website says: “CanTeen takes care of things like topping up your phone, getting you to appointments or the food situation in your cupboard so you don’t need to stress.””
Such great work supporting very vulnerable people. My niece is younger, with her third cancerous growth returning, at age 12. Such a tough area to be able to support people. I hope finding can come – a vital, underrated service.
As for James he’s just another weakling rwnj. A loser pretender who is probably the saddest of all of us here truth be told.
Your comments beg the question that you obviously have issues.
Do you stalk women on the internet publishing what you think you know about them?
Are you one of those creepy internet stalkers ?
Ignoring your garbled syntax, “that you obviously have issues” is not a question wee James, it’s a statement. Stalking? Pot, kettle, black?
Are you really so conceited that you can’t appreciate your own immaturity. Back in the UK you’d be rightly termed a prat.
I note that reason hasn’t denied staking women on the internet- interesting to know.
You stalk goats don’t you or is it just sheep? Come on geezer fess up.
You’re getting James confused with Bwaghorn.
He’s the sheep botherer.
Deleted.
I never bothered a sheep that didn’t deserve it.
You guys just dropped down too Kiwiblog speak.
Only the good looking goats.
And the occasional opossum.
Onya
So you live in the Americas to enjoy opossums, James?
We have possums in NZ, phalangeridae, the bushy-tailed phalanger.
Opossums are Amurrican.
This fact makes me doubt your assertion.
I import them.
You’re now worse than the Hawkes Bay slave trader, James……. I’d quit while you’re still out of jail!
About the only crime not committed here is treason, so I’d leave the corgis well out of it.
Trump tweeted that Isis is defeated in Syria: “Trump is reported to have ordered a full, rapid withdrawal of the 2,000 US troops in Syria, declaring victory over the Islamic State, and taking allies and his own advisers by surprise.” https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/dec/19/us-troops-syria-withdrawal-trump
Leading war-mongers are dismayed. “Trump’s own national security adviser, John Bolton, is adamantly opposed to the decision”. “Lindsey Graham, a senior Republican senator who is a Trump loyalist on most issues, denounced the decision. “If these media reports are true, it will be an Obama-like mistake made by the Trump administration,” Graham said in a statement. “While American patience in confronting radical Islam may wane, the radical Islamists’ passion to kill Americans and our allies never wavers.”
Trump wants a Nobel peace prize? He didn’t actually tweet that he had made peace in Syria – yet. But Obama got one without making peace. Perhaps Trump is considering calling the Nobel committee bluff. Would look good on the cv. He could send his Secretary of State to meet Assad with terms: you declare peace, thank Trump for creating it, we’ll give you foreign aid to grind up all them random bits of concrete everywhere, for recycling.
His cabinet ministers calling him a moron, his hired help getting sent to prison, you might think prospects of impeachment had increased since Democrats started promoting them, eh? Well, Gordon Campbell assessed those prospects a week ago and concluded “Trump’s destiny is to be a winner, not a loser.” http://werewolf.co.nz/2018/12/gordon-campbell-on-whether-trump-is-likely-to-be-impeached/
I still feel the same, and doubt Mueller has any rabbit in his hat. Doesn’t matter how much the US media trumpets Trump’s influence-buying, voters know that’s all just American politics as usual – the only way it could harm him is if there was a positive alternative they could anticipate. No sign of that.
Erdogan will be pleased, he can now go ahead and butcher those of the most effective force fighting Islamic State in Syria (which Turkey itself never did).
This might well also enable the settlement of Islamists backed by Turkey in their failed attempt to depose the government of Syria in “Kurdish” areas on their border.
The withdrawal otherwise means the US has no leverage in the future of Syria, but Turkey’s hand will be stronger.
I think its probably also an acknowledgement that the Astana process for a peace settlement and a new constitution in Syria is the only game in town, and the US is not part of it. When you’ve lost the war and are not part of the peace(and the spoils)why waste any more cash
I predict a fresh “outrage” chemical or otherwise,clearly perpetrated by the Syrian govt, to pull the US back in .
Trump attempted this withdrawal once before, Khan Sheikhoun was the result.
I guess Assad just doesn’t want the Yanks to leave (eye- rolling -tongue -in- cheek)
Surely the Kurds knew the US would betray them in the end?
Maybe now they’ll consider the offers of increased autonomy from the Syrian govt
Probably a little late, but there’s surely no chance now of a purely Kurdish state at this point
Sure the smart move for the Kurds would be to do a deal with Damascus and get Syrian government troops in before the Turks can act.
The complication might be the presence of some of the Syrian Arabs who fought IS alongside them, some of whom left the battle against the Syrian government once Islamists began to dominate rebel held areas – they might well now be in the refugee category.
Next comprehensive Kurd massacre coming up.
That does seem to be the case.
True about the US but I’m sure that Turkey won’t have any say either. This is going to fall to Syria, Russia and Iran to fix. Assad would do bloody well stepping up to support the Kurds.
Since Trump and Erdogan talked last Friday the US has cleared the sale of Patriot missiles to Turkey, ordered State Department personnel in Syria to be evacuated from the country within 24 hours, declared victory over ISIS, and Turkey’s request to extradite Fethullah Gülen is to be looked at.
That’s one helluva phone call.
/
ummm vlad I think you mean no one ELSE has them
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12179868
Okay now I see a problem – facing a humanity wide crisis of climate change you toolboxes decide to build more deadly weapons – I curse you all.
“Putin has said about a dozen countries were producing missiles of the type banned by the INF treaty.” Well okay, but if Russian intelligence agencies have indeed discovered this and reported it to him, why doesn’t he identify them? If those countries have signed the INF treaty, wouldn’t it expose them to ridicule and condemnation?
Not to mention discrediting the entire notion of arms reduction treaties. And their usage in international law. And, consequently, the viability of international law as a method of peace-keeping. So now we await deployment by those countries, and the reassurance that such proliferation will provide its own deterrent effect on usage.
“Which countries are developing hypersonic weapons? “The U.S., Russia and China are ahead of other nations in developing hypersonic weapons,” Richard Speier, adjunct staff with Rand, told CNBC. Speier, who worked to initiate the Pentagon’s Office of Counter-Proliferation Policy, added that France, India, and Australia are also developing military uses of hypersonic technology.” https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/21/hypersonic-weapons-what-they-are-and-why-us-cant-defend-against-them.html
Mutually assured destruction, I remark cheerfully! What an oxymoron.
I think you will find Russia’s missiles are more of a defensive mechanism than an offensive weapon. Useful against western propaganda at least. For instance without the Russian S-400 we would have seen much more destruction in the Middle East.
Yeah nah.
We agree, great.
It’s most likely a bad translation.
Climate change is going to cause mass migration and resource wars. Given this fact responsible governments are gearing up to repel the invaders.
https://www.vox.com/world/2017/11/14/16589878/global-climate-change-conflict-environment
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/once-again-climate-change-cited-as-trigger-for-war/
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/377634/defence-force-sets-its-sights-on-climate-change
People in danger of dying tend to act in ways to protect their life.
Responsible governments wasting billions on stuff that won’t work while the things they could do go undone. That is irresponsible imo.
You do understand that there’s nothing that they can do right?
Climate change is happening. This will result in mass migration. The target countries for that mass migration can’t support the migrants. This means that those target countries have to stop those migrants. Some of those migrants are going to be bloody well armed and so the target countries will also need to be well armed. There will be some well armed other countries trying to force the target countries to take the migrants despite knowing that they can’t afford them.
Countries have the right and the responsibility to defend themselves.
Yeah you’re a real gunfight on the titanic type of guy – I’m not.
Just accepting reality an the simple fact that, when climate change truly bites, it’s going to leave a lot of people (measured in the billions) either facing death or looking to migrate an that the places that they can migrate to can’t afford them.
The UN really should have looked at curbing population growth back in the 1970s. They didn’t and most governments of the world still think that increasing population is the Bees Knees and so still won’t do it and so out younger generations are still fucked.
NZfirsts facebook page makes for interesting reading today
https://www.facebook.com/NZFirst/?ref=br_rs
They’re a pretty selfish vindictive bunch aren’t they puckers. Forget pulling up the ladder, just set that sucker on fire.
I agree, I’ve never voted for NZFirst and I never will
Yep. I especially liked one comment:
“Stuart Ward BREAKING NEWS !!!
The ‘national’ party has welcomed the news that they no longer have to worry about what their M.Ps and SUPPORTERS will use for brains if KFC needs the cabbages for coleslaw.
A new product on the hair care market, Control GX “the shampoo with brains” will provide a satisfactory alternative.
Consideration is being given to replacing Simon Bridges with either a “complimentary hotel bottle” of the shampoo, or his nearest contender, an adolescent tiger slug by the name of Slimey Norman”
Well you won’t have to worry about Simon Bridges because it”ll be JC sorting NZ out when shes elected PM 🙂
Thanks, PR, for the peek into the abyss.
I probably should have added a warning to the comment 🙂
Do I sense another ode coming on.
There is something I’ve been working on but its not quite the right time yet 🙂
I do enjoy your odes.
“Shaken but not Stirred” An ode to the Collins
I took a look in th’ abyss,
Just a look, a little peek,
And what I saw will never miss
Down in the pits where she doth tryst-
Worse than the seven levels of Hades,
Where Tantalus strove in the Greek,
The Ban Sí in Eire’s green glades
Or the fell dwellings of the Shades-
The horror of her Gorgon gaze,
Too close e’en from the peaks
Of Darian- ‘mid the Centaur’s maze-
Where Judith eyes her prizéd preys.
Appropriate 🙂
Conservatives proving, yet again, just how bloody ignorant and stupid they are.
Add wilfully to the word ignorant.
And add selfish and greedy.
/agreed
Meanwhile here in NZ, trying to find out some information through an 0800 number about CourierPost’s processes, I have been taken through 4 options that don’t apply and left with 5 which seemed mostly related to NZPost, where shops are etc and tried that in the absence of other options. I got a repeat of the options from 1-5 again.
So NZPost apparently doesn’t know what it is doing, and proposes to keep customers on a loop running after their tails, while they decide.
Really a small example of the route the country has gone.
Try Spark.
They take the biscuit in this.
I find that true of many businesses and not just in NZ. Their attempt to get the customer to the right person via an automated system almost invariably ends up confusing the customer.
If you keep button mashing they machine gets fed up and you’l get a person. That’s what I have always found with the IRD at least. And ANZ
Some have called for New Zealand to be more involved in peace-making and arbitration, as per Norway and Sweden.
Neither of them (Norway is in NATO and Sweden is in the EU) have been involved in the matter of Ukraine. And we have our stalled FTA with Russia to consider. So this is one which we might well take up.
The issues are well known, Russia does not like former territories of the USSR joining NATO or the EU. It uses the presence of ethnic Russians in these territories as an excuse and economic dependence on gas as a means to intefere in their nations affairs politically.
The central issue is the tension that occurs when loyalty to nation state and ethnic identity patriotism (over the future of the Ukraine in the EU and NATO) is divided.
There are obvious paths to resolution, but the question is whether NATO and Russia would prefer the impasse to continue rather than realise one. So the first question that we would have to ask each party (before offering to mediate), do they want the matter resolved?
Does the EU actually want Ukraine?
Particularly now that Its economy has dive bombed. And its adherence to European “values”is seriously in question with the current Poroshenko govt at least
Tymoshenko won’t be much better
Of course Russia doesn’t want NATO on its doorstep, any more than the US would have accepted the Warsaw pact in Mexico
Ukraine can’t be in NATO while there is the war in Eastern Ukraine
Russia would need very strong assurances from NATO (and would they be worth the paper they’re written on) to withdraw their support for Donetsk and Lugansk
And what about the wishes of the people who live in those areas?
Very early on in Putin’s rule , he wanted to join NATO
Maybe this should be looked at again
https://www.deseretnews.com/article/853851/Putin-wants-NATO-to-let-Russia-join.html
I think he had a point
I would love NZ to be involved in mediation etc, but it would not be possible without serious “arm twisting” from our “special friend”over the ocean
Sure back in mid 2001 there was the option of a European security co-operation on the one hand and a united defence force for world peace-keeping at UN direction. Russia in NATO. But the later military intervention in the ME (choice of response to 9/11 soon ended the trust required for that).
At the moment the momentum is towards a EU defence force (ironically made possible by the US request for 2% GDP defence spending in the region), with independent relationships with both Russia and (possibly via a continuing NATO) the USA (and maybe UK depending on where that is headed).
The medium term issues – the nature of the EU and Russian gas supply agreements while sanctions continue and whether Russian pressure on Ukraine has any impact on its domestic politics.
Germany’s economic and industrial well being depends on Nord Stream2 ;any alternatives are too expensive. US imposed sanctions are only going to reshape how Europe does business, to the detriment of US control.
US gas, reliant on fracking, is never going to be cost effective against Russian gas, which doesn’t involve fracking, let alone the difficulties of transport.
Germany and Russia together…the horror!
After all NATO was to keep Russia out, to keep America in, and to keep Germany down
Probably not any more. The Ukraine’s economy wasn’t all that good to start with which is why the USSR’s leadership gave it Crimea. Now that Crimean has left it’s back to being a basket case.
According to the US’s overturning of democratic governments – they can be ignored.
I’m baa-a-a-a-a-aaackkk!
Eight days suspended, and I’m back.
Hopefully.
Testing….
Welcome back, cobber. I trust your loins are fully girded and you have a weeks worth of pent up commentary with which to handsomely entertain us.
PS, good on your former professor for staying away in solidarity 😉
The Professor is on “garden leave” at the moment, Te Reo.
Good Lord! Has he been accused of some impropriety?
Afraid so. This could be even worse than the circumstances that led to the termination of his contract at that Swiss finishing school. More details when they become available.
Great news.
Earth to Morrissey, are you reading?
Nice to have you back old bean. Squadron Leader and I were seriously, seriously concerned about your time in the brig.
Pip pip. Chin up, let bygones be bygones and we’ll all move forward what?
The country’s first crime and victims survey suggests almost two million crimes were committed last year, about seven times the number reported to police.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/378680/survey-reveals-volume-and-nature-of-crimes-committed-in-new-zealand-last-year
I don’t think they got everyone. S.S. trust wrongly exposed a criminal, and so frustrated the he’ll out of everyone who wants to know who these peolle are, it’s a crime surely to distract and misinfirm. Geez how can I be sure that anything the Sen.Sen.Tru. say!
Washington DC is sueing Facebook over Cambridge Analytica.
I’m hoping 2019 is the year all open societies legislate and regulate Facebook et al, as radio was in the 1920s and tv was in the 1950s.
Its corroding global democracy and must be controlled.
For those who want to join the stampede; a couple of tutorials on grabbing your data and deleting your account.
#DeleteFacebook
https://deletefacebook.com/
https://www.vpnmentor.com/blog/how-to-delete-your-facebook-account-really-update/
I ‘ve thought it easier to just keep posting pics of nipples and tits till they delete it , seems easier.
Sorry FCC formed 1930s.
Hopefully if Trump gets angry enough with tv news he’ll reform the Act.
Perhaps the Coalition of Losers will try and take New Zealand back to the situation in the late 1930’s.
Radio news broadcasts were written in the Prime Minister’s office and had to be read out on New Zealand radio stations exactly as they were written.
I’m sure that Tsar Winnie and his off-sider [Jacinda] would love to bring that back.
Then we wouldn’t get stories on the TV news about how they are going to halve the number of children in poverty, but not for at least a decade, book-ended by a story about the number of people needing food parcels from the City Mission having doubled during their first year in office and another story about how the number of homeless people and of drug users on Queen St having also risen greatly in the last year and how people working in shops are routinely assaulted these days.
I’m afraid that this current Government is offering only the promises that were described so well in the Union rallying song of 1911.
As the International Workers of the World put it.
“Work and pray, live on hay, you’ll get pie in the sky when you die.”
[Don’t use belittling language, ta. TRP]
Radio and tv and advertising are already regulated.
Alwyn do you do Facebook on a Remington?
“do Facebook”?
Wash your mouth out. I looked at the way Facebook was designed to operate when it started. I decided that I would never, ever go on that crazy system.
Never have and never will.
Obviously I looked at how it would work with a great deal more care than those of you who rushed into it like lemmings running over a cliff and are now regretting it.
I’ve never been on Facebook and never will.
I can see from your clear comments you agree to the necessity of regulating Facebook and similar companies.
“I’ve never been on Facebook”.
I have obviously misjudged you in my assumption.
You are very sensible. I think their business case is a terrible one, particularly as it has become almost compulsory for teenagers to use it if they don’t want to be isolated from everything their friends are up to.
On the other hand I don’t really see how it can be safely “regulated” as you put it. That just puts someone else in a position of power over what people are allowed to see. I think I still prefer the glorious anarchy that was the original internet. The only regulation I would accept is that people should legally own their own data and they, and they alone, should have the ability to allow, or disallow, companies like Facebook from using it.
No other part of our information or broadcasting is unregulated.
The Washington v Facebook re Cambridge Analytica case I pointed to is exactly the kind of regulation you are seeking.
I think their business case is a terrible one, particularly as it has become almost compulsory for teenagers to use it if they don’t want to be isolated from everything their friends are up to.
Not quite, Facebook is now for Mums and Grandmothers.
All the younger people have bolted to Instagram , snap chat, twitter, what’s app etc.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/250172/social-network-usage-of-us-teens-and-young-adults/
Which is hardly surprising, you don’t want your mother/grandmother reading about all the bad shit you’ve been up to.
I had heard that was happening but I didn’t realise that the decline started so long ago.
Those numbers are for the US I suppose. I wonder when it dived here?
Context.
Long-haired preachers come out every night
To tell you what’s wrong and what’s right
But when asked how about something to eat
They will answer in voices so sweet:
You will eat, bye and bye
In that glorious land above the sky
Work and pray, live on hay
You’ll get pie in the sky when you die.
That’s a lie
And the starvation army they play
They sing and they clap and they pray
‘Till they get all your coin on the drum
Then they’ll tell you when you’re on the bum:
You’re gonna eat, bye and bye, poor boy
In that glorious land above the sky, way up high
Work and pray, live on hay
You’ll get pie in the sky when you die
Dirty lie
What the PM told us has been achieved so far by this coalition government when she spoke yesterday in the adjournment debate.
“…… I could just say this about the last 12 months: 3.9 percent unemployment, a Budget surplus, 73,000 more jobs, 2.7 percent GDP growth including 1 percent in the June 2018 quarter alone, 111 Provincial Growth Fund projects, 60 million trees planted, $917 million contributed to the New Zealand Superannuation Fund after almost a decade of nothing, 384,000 families better of with the Families Package, 774,000 New Zealanders now receiving a winter energy payment, 4,000 KiwiBuild homes under contract, 1,200 new public housing places, more than 200 new or rebuilt classrooms, 1,500 new teachers, 600 new learning support coordinators, 600,000 New Zealanders with access to cheaper GP visits, and hundreds of new police officers already.”
Good eating, that. Gourmet. Tasty. Healthy.
“including 1 percent in the June 2018 quarter alone”.
Well that didn’t last very long did it?
Latest quarter was 0.3%, the lowest number for 5 years.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz//business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12180129&ref=clavis
” $917 million contributed to the New Zealand Superannuation Fund”.
That is a bit like saying that you contributed $100 to the TAB.
In October the return on the fund was -4.84%. That’s right it dropped in value by a couple of billion dollars. I suspect the same thing happened in November and will probably also happen this month.
https://www.nzsuperfund.co.nz/sites/default/files/documents-sys/October%202018%20Monthly%20Report.pdf
“4,000 KiwiBuild homes under contract,”.
Really. It is rather more significant that they can’t even get offers on the houses that Twyford is buying, and that the sort of place that they are calling “homes” are studio apartments. Subsidies are now being made available to anyone who will buy a place.
Those places were meant to be for families who were locked out of the market. Instead they have sold to people like the Doctor/Marketing Manager couple we were told about.
Other stories tell us that the lottery winners who are offered the property refuse to buy them and that they are then sold on the open market for whatever they can get for them.
Try this one.
“Yes, I’m extremely proud of the actions we have taken this year as the Government, some of which include extending paid parental leave, stopping foreign purchasing of Kiwi homes, making the first year of tertiary study free, stopping the State house sell-off, building that first KiwiBuild home, restarting super fund contributions, increasing the minimum wage, passing the Child Poverty Reduction Bill in my name, implementing the Families Package, making GP visits cheaper for many New Zealanders, investing in fixing hospitals and schools, funding more teachers, beginning to plant one billion trees, investing in the regions through the Provincial Growth Fund, beginning to recruit 1,800 more police—”
PM Ardern Q 1 18 December 2018 to Simon Bridges
I am trying to suppress the smugness, about 6 or 7 years ago a colleague made the observation that ‘ with Facebook, you are not the customer, you are the product’.
Seems to be spot on.
I wish I had thought of that wording. It very accurately, and succinctly, sums up what I thought when I first looked at the scheme.
I suppose I should also follow your example and try and suppress the smugness about never having gone near it.
A variation of if it’s free, you’re the product.
I finally managed to get out of Facebook (it was like the bloody Hotel California …you can check in but never leave) but still had concerns about my profile being up , so thats a great piece of info there. Thanks for that Joe
Jim Mora apparently believes substandard content is acceptable as long
as he occasionally “balances” it with “the NYT, the Guardian, the Atlantic.”
On Friday 30 November this writer, and no doubt many other people, listened with disbelief and horror as Jim Mora abandoned all pretence to be running any sort of intelligent or reasoned discussion on his RNZ light chat show. The first two guests seemed designed to insult and provoke anyone who cared about anything. At 4:28 p.m. I sent the following email….
What is it with these husband and wife media “duos” you would expect they would have common interests but some impartiality surely goes with the job?
In a double dose today his wife, somebody Lambie, was “doing” the afternoon show on a “competing” station and doing her best to absolve the “Sensible Sentencing ‘Trust'” for their appalling and derelict behaviour. The result was her interviewing the (?) McVicar who immediately somehow to turn it round inextricably to the “trust” being the victim in all this.
Why are these tag teams insulting the people of NZ – that pair, Hosking etc, Soper etc it’s getting beyond tedious they’re everywhere like pack of “Stepford” wives”.
Mora introduced an ex-S.S. trooper this afternoon as “victims’ advocate Ruth Money.”
Another horrible media husband and wife team, by the way, is Bill Ralston and Janet Wilson. It’s not always plain sailing between them, obviously….
It’s as they say “all about the business” and by the look of it cases of not “what you know” but “who”, do they get two for the price of one?
I find it quite off-putting being harangued, I like something a bit topical or “newsy” while driving but this level of “opinion” will see me turn to the music stations. I’m still trying to work out how Lambie framed McVicar as the “victim” but she did with very little mention of what they had posted and how serious that was – it was found out about last March so that was kept quiet for a long time while donations were still being sought publicly.
She presented McSticker as a victim as smoothly and casually as she and her husband call him and his cronies “victims’ advocates.”
The dishonesty has its limits, however. In 2011 Noelle McCarthy was forced to interview McSticker. She could not hide her revulsion….
https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2018/01/noelle-mccarthy-swallowed-vomit-for-15.html
Makes my head spin sometimes, but I can believe it – I live in Tauranga and while in lots of ways it is great, the divide in the way we think between me and some family members/aquaintances is sometimes surprising and I am hard pressed to understand how we can see things so differently.
Then I read this https://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=12180474 and conclude that there are some people in the world who are going quite mad.
Who is this “we” being referred to very often? I believe in the “village” much of the time but not one rigid mindset.
Is he one of these increasingly crazy people who think the public needs saving from itself and only he/we/they “peddle” the truth? It’s becoming quite bizzare.
That fool was nominally “in charge” of the NZRFU in 1999; most infamously, he allowed advertising lout Kevin Roberts to have an Air New Zealand jet “decorated” with a hideous distorted picture of the All Black front row on it. The players were mortified and embarrassed, and pleaded for them not to do it, but Moffett and Roberts didn’t care and the monstrosity was forced through.
Jacinda Ardern is not the first person to be dismissed rancorously by David Moffett. His harebrained “traitors” remark is just the latest in a long line of stupid insults. When he was NZRFU head creep, he angered Rugby League supporters by (accurately) scoffing at the sport as “five tackles and kick”. Later, the hypocrite took a job as CEO of the National Rugby League.
Another Australian whacko, Peter Scutts, was the CEO of the Auckland Blues while Moffett was running his ignorant mouth. Scutts, to show how “professional” the Auckland Rugby Union was, took it on himself to ban the Wellington Supporters Club from running onto the hallowed turf of Eden Park with their Leo the Lion mascot, something that they’d done for about a hundred years. Even worse than that little piece of meanness, in 1997 Scutts refused to change the playing strip of the Blues for the Super 12 final against the ACT Brumbies; both teams had almost identical strips. Scutts cited “the heritage of the Auckland Blues”—-the team was less than two years old. In the event, the final was a shambles, with two almost identically dressed teams on the field, and the game of rugby football reduced to a laughing stock.
Morrissey,
David Farrar, who writes all the primary items on Kiwiblog (it is his blog), is not extreme right. You have confused him with Cam Slater.
I would agree that some of the commenters on Kiwiblog are extreme right. But not David.
Just as I would say that The Standard is not extreme left, though I certainly think a number of the commenters are.
I like Mr Farrar, and I appreciate the light hand he wields on his site. However, to pretend that anyone with his stridently anti-union and wildly pro-Israel views—he came back from a (guided) tour of the Occupied Territories a few years back and solemnly informed Jim Mora that he had seen nothing going on there—is not extremely right wing would be less than honest.
He’s certainly more civilized and personable than Cameron Slater, but there’s not a great deal of difference in their politics.
There are many Jewish (and wider related group of relatives) centrists blinded by nationalism and or religion into a pro Zionist position, this does not make them right wing, let alone extreme right wing. DPF would be in the former cateogry (though he is right wing all the same).
There are many Christian Adventists (Slater is one) whose support for Zionism is religious and part of some concept of a Judeo-Christian nationalism where Israel is a western Christendom colonial pet project.
This is right wing in that this Christian dominionism (American) uses the idea of end time Advent ending human self government/democracy to justify lack of human action on social justice (and climate change) in the USA or the wider world. It serves to enable the GOP to serve 1% mammon with their votes.
Tempting to file him in the `useful idiot’ category of rightists, but probably a tad unfair and I was inclining toward your more generous view when I realised a reality-check is probably a good idea. So I googled his political alignment and found this on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Farrar_(blogger)
“Farrar professes a classical liberal approach to politics, that is often compromised by his party affiliation with the liberal conservative National Party (for instance over state security powers vs individual rights) and identifies as a moderate of the center-right on the political spectrum. He was a co-chair of National’s Classical Liberal Policy Advisory Group at its formation in 2004. He supported the legalisation of prostitution and of civil unions in New Zealand. Farrar supports a New Zealand republic, and is on the National Council of the New Zealand Republican Movement. Economically his views are more in keeping with those of parties to the right of the National Party, such as the market fundamentalism of the minority ACT party.”
So socially liberal, economically dry, but the quote implies he self-identifies “as a moderate of the center-right on the political spectrum.” As a Republican, he seems progressive rather than conservative to us (but the contrary to Americans due to their early departure from monarchy).
He uses being liberal/progressive to assist with mainstreaming his right wing cause. The rich get richer, the state doing less …
Extreme right and extreme left is quite rare, so I would agree.
He is a liberal, but a right wing one, certainly no centrist.
The debate point is between centre right or simply right. I’d go with the latter – some confuse his being liberal with being centre right. No so for mine. Sure there is common cause between right wing and centrist and centre-left liberals from time to time but his vehemently anti-Green posts do not come from a centrist position, but a right wing one. The same with his involvment with the Taxpayers Union.
Like most of the right wing of the National Party they tend to hide in plain sight and manouvre to achieve the right wing change by both stealth and by increment.
I challenge anyone to condemn me for promoting a plant based diet.
After watching this 45 minute documentary from the UK.
It is not for the faint-hearted.
https://www.kinderworld.org/videos/animal-rights-documentaries/land-of-hope-and-glory/
Challenge accepted:
http://time.com/4252373/meat-eating-veganism-evolution/
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/11/131124231817.htm
https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2018/03/30/why-humans-started-eating-meat-critical-diet/
I condemn thee for the sin of hubris, nay even the of crime against all humanity in seeking us to forsake our own Judith-given right to the flesh, the delicious flesh, of farmed animals, to give up out culture, our beliefs, there is only one sentence:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_EuNmQOpbw
Please don’t have a video duel. ffs
I recon a Naked and Afraid video of a starving urban vegetarian when a normal omnivore person catches a rat, priceless.
Did you watch the video?
Nope. I’ve already stated that the best path for NZ would be to make all sheep, beef, pork and chicken (and any other type of animal I’ve missed) farming free range
That would be a massive step forward.
Of course free range must mean free range.
Outdoors.
Veganism causes mental retardation:
https://www.google.co.nz/amp/s/www.newshub.co.nz/home/lifestyle/2018/12/veganism-causes-mental-retardation-in-kids-top-danish-doctor-claims.amp.html
You did not watch the film about the animal farming industry.
Until you have the courage to look at it – your opinion is simply shrill and desperate.
Did you read the study about veganism causing mental retardation?
Unless you do you are a biased uninformed leaf eating shrill.
Stalking me again.
Creepy.
This is a discussion forum, Ed. Replying to comments is not stalking and if you don’t want to engage with other commenters, you do not have to.
Equally, you have no right to try to stop them commenting whenever they feel fit. If you post a comment, then folk have the right to reply.
Has all the fat in your arteries cut off the oxygen from your brain jimby?
The film Forks over Knives explains the health benefits of a plant based diet.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/sick-toddlers-parents-charged-for-her-strict-vegan-diet/news-story/65e2d8943184e1f3e798c848ce4d1edf
Whilst I have no issues with people choosing to follow a vegan lifestyle (usually this is done when a person has had a chance to challenge all the information put before them), I’m against people trying to force others to follow it as if there is no other dietary choice. The reality is that this world does not need overlords – especially vegan ones.
I’m not trying to force you to follow a plant based diet.
However I am asking that you actually look at what 21st century industrial farming looks like.
But all of you critics are too scared to confront the reality of what factory farming looks like.
Why lead with this then? “I challenge anyone to condemn me for promoting a plant based diet.” Should you have lead with, “I challenge anyone to support factory farming, after watching this.”
“I challenge anyone to condemn me for promoting a plant based diet.
After watching this 45 minute documentary from the UK.”
Just because he is pro Israel does not make him extreme right.
I would agree he is right rather than centre right. But if you think David is extreme right, then so is Simon Bridges. But maybe that is what you think.
you finally typed something that is correct
“if you think David is extreme right, then so is Simon Bridges.”
Simon Bridges is far right, so is the current lot of all National MP’s, and i would include Bill English, the double dipper from Dipton in that lot too.
There is not one current man or women in the National Party that would not put themselves and Party above Country, Duty and Honor. A bit like the republican lot in the US.
/agreed
The National Party is extreme right-wing.
Bullshit Draco. Extreme right is what we see in the US republicans.
Extreme right are starting to build in Europe also. National is NOT extreme right.
They only seem extreme to you because you are so far left that you’re not even left anymore. Just some weird authoritarian collectivist.
The National party are extreme because their beliefs do no match up with reality.
Me, I’m all for living within the physical limits of the world. Which means to say that I’m not extreme in anyway, shape or form.
The problem that you, like many, is that you think that trying to live within those limits is extreme. And yet, the whole point of the market was actually to bring about living within those limits.
The market is there to restrict use of resources.
I don’t actually think how you think I do and we have more in common that you might realise. Particularly around how finite our resources are and how they need to be utilised.
But you can’t just say “National are extreme right” based upon your own metrics because it doesn’t work that way. They aren’t extreme right by any real political, economic or social methodology that is in common parlance or study. It’s no different to someone on Kiwiblog saying labour are extreme left because they are so far right themselves.
When you or the kiwi blogger say “extreme right/left” what I hear is “I don’t know what words mean”
I have, occasionally, considered that we may be talking past each other.
Reality isn’t my metric – it just is. It has physical constraints that we need to live within and we’re not doing that.
And compared to reality Labour is also extreme right-wing as they’re still following the same failed economics that National follow.
That’s what that article you posted is about. It’s a good article and shows up some of the failings of the economists.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DucIFuBU8AAAsIn.jpg
On a totally different topic but replying here to get your attention…
This might be of interest to you:
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/12/why-do-econ-classes-barely-mention-behavioral-economics/578092/
The question I have is: Why do so many econ students (or anyone else for that matter) not learn about the physical resources that the economy is based upon?
This is most telling point about modern economics that needs to said and repeated:
Modern economics is simply not connected to reality.
This article misses a bit though that may even be far more important than the fact that economics ignores actual human motivations. Modern economics misses the fact that economics is about the availability and distribution of scarce resources.
How much land do we have?
How much of that land can be used to support humanity?
How much is needed to maintain a healthy environment?
These are questions (and others of a similar bent) that modern economics not only doesn’t answer – it doesn’t ask. And so we have nations converting every square in of land to farms and the extinction rate increasing tilting the environment further to outright collapse. We’ve fished up so much fish that the ocean ecology is also close to collapse.
We do this for profit because its supposed to bring about the best outcome and yet all the evidence shows that the profit motive is bringing about the worst possible outcomes. Climate change and ecological collapse has been brought about by the drive for profit and the need to have a growing economy to feed that profit. A growing economy can only come about with a growing population.
All the evidence is that the carrying capacity of the Earth as far as humans go is about two billion. We’re presently at seven and climbing.
Economics, the stuff that the economists and politicians ignore, tells us that we need to live within physical constraints but we’ve gone way past those constraints chasing profit.
hear hear…well expressed
excellent article…well spotted
Somehow that got posted in the wrong place. It was about David Farrar, though I assume most people know that.
As for the comments, well if you think National is extreme far right, then I guess that makes Labour centre right or right.
Labour are Centre right.
National is right wing.
Labour is centrist, and the Green Party’s agreement with them to spend no more than 30% GDP declared their coalition government would be centrist. This is why they could and did include NZ First. They had to in any case to get a majority and that need gives them an excuse for their moderation – which is given again and again to their party members and all those in society who wanted more.
It’s not getting worse under them, it’s going to get better … slowly.
Or they will not go further right, but they will not cross any centre lines moving back to the left at such a slow pace.
How long have I been saying that the Labour Party is right-wing?
Parliamentary expenses and receipts.
Dang !!! That’s a lot of expensive bureaucratic paperwork.
Has been suggested to give out credit cards, which would absolutely cut back processing costs for expenses.
I thought they would already have ministerial credit cards, then I remembered paula bennet, her staff member misused the office credit card.
Can someone clear up my confusion please, as it appears ministerial credit cards are not a new thing, were they scrapped at some stage? Or did they never exist?
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2018/12/66-50-for-coffee-and-eggs-the-huge-cost-of-processing-mps-receipts-revealed.html
Think Shane Jones choice of movies
Government Ministers still have credit cards, Cinny. They have not been scraped.
I don’t have time to go into detail as due out, but here are a couple of links re these Ministerial credit cards. All expenses etc relating to Ministers of the Crown are handled by Ministerial Services, part of the Dept of Internal Affairs.
https://www.dia.govt.nz/Ministers-expense-releases
Actual monthly reports are here –
https://www.dia.govt.nz/pubforms.nsf/wpg_MCCE!OpenView
I actually found that Newshub article confusing and questionable, but don’t have time etc at present to go into detail but MPs who are not Ministers also can claim expenses etc but this is done through Parliamentary Service – not Ministerial Services in DIA.
Parliamentary Service is part of Parliament –
https://www.parliament.nz/en/footer/jobs/parliamentary-service/
https://www.parliament.nz/en/footer/about-us/parliamentary-service/about/who-we-are/
I know there is lots more on how MPs claim expenses etc through Parliamentary Services but must race out. Will try to get back to this later today.
Thanks so very much VV for the links, will have a good read and get my head around it. Much appreciated 🙂
Up north the land of stupid people end their year will all the class one would expect of them.
May the great prevaricator, who takes procrastination to another level, has apparently reduced Corbyn, the great communicator, to whispering to himself “stupid woman” (no recording of this exists, he claims he said “stupid people”).
After recent attempts to pose a vote of no confidence in the PM, but not yet her government, this does not seem credible (the argument that either stupid woman and stupid people were statements of fact is a strong one, and one leads to the other, as these were the people that kept her on as leader of their party).
Apparently because May is a woman, noting that she is stupid while being a woman is seen as a sexist attack, or misogny. This is taking identity politics micro aggression to the next level, and given this is the Tory Party, it is obviously an attempt trying to divert attention from their own reality – May has chosen to delay the vote on her Brexit plan and leave it to the media to run a Brexit with no deal scare campaign over the holiday break to soften up the MP’s before the vote.
All ones eggs in one basket (she has said their will be not be another referendum to over-ride a parliamentary impasse).
So should the deal not get parliamentary approval, Corbyn will propose a vote of no confidence in the government over it facing a no deal Brexit (the media scare campaign will help him in this).
So will posing Corbyn as an anti-semite, and now as a misogynist, save the Tory Party from their own Brexit divisions. May needs the so called “Blairites” (while moderates and the May deal is the middle course between a no deal Brexit and staying in the EU, they mostly prefer going back to a referendum) to vote for the deal for fear of a no deal Brexit if they vote no. Thus the hard-line refusal to go to a referendum is to influence them.
Stupid people are playing chicken on the highway called Brexit in the UK parliament because they claim giving the people another say, is not respecting what they decided last time they were asked. This is a brain dead parliament that reigns as a tyrant for 5 years and treats it subjects for this period of incarceration as fools. Stupid people.
I hope he did it in a cod French accent.
On the face to it, Corbyn has shown himself completely incompetent during the Brexit debates. His standing will have gone down (including among his moderate MP’s), though perhaps not enough to stop him becoming PM at the next election.
However, nothing he has done has either bought an election forward, or will result in a second referendum. He should have been able to achieve one of those.
Instead he has made it more likely May’s deal will get through. Maybe that is what he wants, hence his tactics to date. So an election, whenever it happens, can be fought in clear air.
His policy is to have the May deal fail in parliament.
A sort of alliance between the hard Brexit Tories and those who want a referendum facilitated by having a position based standards for a deal they would support not being met (maybe not possible).
If he is successful, May might resign rather than preside over a no deal Brexit – after all parliament could easily deny consent to a no deal Brexit government being in office.
Corbyn could however choose to play white knight – entice Tories against a no deal Brexit into supporting a parliamentary move to suspend Brexit and call for a new referendum, rather than a new election.
With a May deal, the government takes responsibility – most now favour remain in polls – and the Tory Party divisions (there are as many for a hard Brexit and remain as in favour in their caucus and party membership) are going nowhere. Nor is the Northern Ireland, Scotland and the LD (where will the pro remain Tories and anti Corbyn Blairites go?).
There is no way the Tories can win this game, whatever happens, Corbyn’s Labour has the advantage/all the cards.
While no expert on UK politics, I can’t help think that there is little to gain by acting too forthrightly currently.
Akin to being leader of the opposition.
101 stuff that UK labour or Corbyn haven’t found an answer to. The distraction that sticks
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/dec/19/jeremy-corbyn-accused-of-calling-theresa-may-a-stupid-woman
It may have been better to say yep I said it and here’s why…
I liked this bit: “While May was still in the house, the former Tory chair Patrick McLoughlin asked Bercow to censure Corbyn. “He muttered words which were quite clearly visible, accusing the prime minister of being a ‘stupid woman’,” he said, as MPs shouted “Shame!” and “Disgrace!””
Since the former Tory chair confirms that the words were clearly visible, they will show up on any video recording of Corbyn uttering them, so their inaudibility is no real problem. Sceptics just need to watch the recording to see those words hanging there in the air just after emerging from his mouth…
Guilty of being seen as having a thought crime – which is apparently calling a stupid person, a woman.
Stupid old white man would’ve been fine.
Everyone in the Commons would have looked at each other – the comment could have applied to themselves or the first other man they looked at.
Bercow’s a silly moo.
What he should have said was “I realise honourable members are looking for ways to take offence, and I now wonder whether they’d have preferred it if I’d said – Silly Lady boy, and “I’m offended you are offended just as you will be offended I am offended by you’re being offended”
A concerned school teacher provides a critical take on the issue of transgender children and medical intervention: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2018/12/20/death-by-puberty/
Thanks Philip, an interesting and informative read.
Surprised no one has brought up the Haumaha report.
Would be interesting to hear justification for Ardern not sacking him.
To piss off Chris Basher Bishop christy.
She doesn’t consider the report serious to the point of using it to annoy someone?
Interesting
Well it looks like Hummer’s an arsehole but not a workplace bully christy, and being an arsehole is pretty much de rigueur for high placed smootharse bureaucrats.
A new report (on the Funded Family Care system) commissioned by the Government points to a host of failings, but makes no recommendation for change.
A disability advocate says the report is a waste of time and the Government should simply get on with changes everyone knows are overdue.
There is concern the report will allow the Government to procrastinate.
Associate Health Minister Julie Anne Genter said she expected the government would announce its plans to overhaul the Funded Family Care system in less than a year, but she wouldn’t commit to a specific time-frame nor give away any details. However, she acknowledged affected families have been waiting a long time for justice.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/378613/report-highlights-discriminatory-disabled-care-system
https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018676219/disability-advocate-says-new-report-treats-people-as-fools
Lets hope the Government gets their A into G on this one and comes up with a balanced overhaul that will appease concerns.
@Anne and Denis, and probably a few others:
You might be interested in this (as in when the PS started to go tits up with corporatisation):
https://www.bbc.com/news/education-46608818
For those of you with hair and wanting a new image, to present a new younger you what about this:
https://www.dufp.co.nz/headlines
Manus Island – too small and vulnerable to cope as a dumping ground for problems too big for Australia to cope with.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/378215/manus-island-s-social-fabric-broken
Kia ora Newshub One has to expect more accidents with all the exra cars and people in Aotearoa of late and not much investment in the road network in the last few years.
Those are huge hailstones in Australia hope not to many people have been hurt what a mess we have to get use to weather like that.
We need to pay a return on waste to save our wild life and enviroment that poor seal nearly lost its life paying a return on all waste is way cheaper than have to try and pull plastic waste out of the sea the size of the Pacific waste .
Ka pai Mark with your song we built this city on sausagerolls hitting number one in Britain lol
One must be real carefull when working in construction I have heard of some shocking accidents
Rob that’s the way Wellington showing you the aroha for being Maori santa . People in Aotearoa have expect maori are going to show there pride of being a tangata whenua.
Kate Wreck it Ralph will keep the mokopunas happy for a while.
ka kite ano P.S I have to use a new search ap and it has not got spell check loaded yet some one crashed the old one
Eco Maori video for the minute