joe90: In NZ the very rich seem to live in high walled secure houses, or in gated communities. By contrast my modest belongings which barely need protection are not a worry to me when I am out. Every time that I see John Key under protection even within the corridors of Parliament I feel no envy. Does it suggest a degree of paranoia as a PM or is it that of a rich man?
And it is remarkably (?) surprising that the tax take has reduced in NZ after the Bush-like tax cuts. Surprise, followed by a cut in spending on Education and Health and Welfare. The parallels are here in NZ too Joe.
What you find should be a wake-up call for New Zealanders as well. Sobering Joe.
If you mass to protest in a way that will seriously threaten the power structure, you will die in a hail of bullets.
That may be how it starts, and it will start, it’s not how it ends. As we’ve seen throughout history the rich cannot maintain their power once everyone else is pissed off enough.
Does he think only the super-rich are going to be attacked by armed thugs? The thugs probably get their training in their own neighbourhood first.
Um, this bit Rosy.
In short, the thugs who are robbing America of our Social Security and Medicare and product safety and education today will live in fear of even bigger thugs tomorrow.
Yes, I get the point – It’s just that the comeuppance will, as usual, hit the poor first. They’ll live in more fear than even now – Mexico is a good example – It’s the poor who are paying for the US war on drugs. But then, they’re meant to expect it. It’s the super-rich who will be shocked when it hits them hard.
The violence can be traced to a civil war between the state and leftist rebels, a three-decade struggle that, from 1960 to 1996, was the dirtiest of Latin America’s dirty wars. More than two hundred thousand people were killed or “disappeared.” According to a U.N.-sponsored commission, at least ninety per cent of the killings were carried out by the state’s military forces or by paramilitary death squads with names like Eye for an Eye.
And isn’t this Tamaulipas state where Fisher & Paykel relocated to (Reynosa)? It makes me absolutely livid – It seems like history repeating with a new part of Latin America tied up in the US push for control – albeit of drugs this time, rather than coups and civil wars, like Guatemala, Nicaragua, Chile etc, etc.
Radio New Zealand shows why publicly owned news gathers and presenters are so vital. It reports on Telecom’s recent $12 million fine. This morning (no link as yet) a very strong link is being drawn between Telecom’s predatory action a decade ago and the Government’s intention to prevent Commerce Commission oversight of Telecom for the next decade.
Bend over and prepare to be rogered New Zealand by your unfriendly formerly publicly owned but overseas controlled telco which should properly be called telecon …
Telecon plan to appeal the decision as well… Watch for more moves against our civil liberties and organisations that hold private companies to account. The National ministers are so in the pocket of big business, when one of them realizes that their is a conflict of interest and steps down from a portfolio, hardly anybody bats an eyebrow… Maybe there are a few people around with their eyes open though:
Have you read The Predator State by James Galbraith? It puts what NACT are doing in context and there’s no way that it’s for the best of the country. What it’s to do is transfer wealth and power away from the people and to the wealthy. It’s unfortunate that so many people wish to help them in their corruption and theft.
Mr Key and your mates in the Business Round Table and all parliamentarians, try to understand this simple fact. New Zealand’s assets are NOT YOURS to sell.
If we do not have the expertise to extract resources, then invite tenders for that expertise to do the job, and pay for those services but the ownership must remain New Zealand’s.
Joseph E Stigliz issues a warning that the “unrest”, born of inequality, we see in the Middle East could happen on the streets of America: Of the 1%, By the 1% and for the 1%
Americans have been watching protests against oppressive regimes that concentrate massive wealth in the hands of an elite few. Yet in our own democracy, 1 percent of the people take nearly a quarter of the nation’s income—an inequality even the wealthy will come to regret.
As we gaze out at the popular fervor in the streets, one question to ask ourselves is this: When will it come to America? In important ways, our own country has become like one of these distant, troubled places.
Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee today announced the make-up of the independent review panel that will assess all legislative and regulatory changes under the new Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Act.
Dame Jenny Shipley being one of them, the people of CHCH will just love being told how there city should be rebuilt by this corrupt patronizing cow!
Yeah, she’ll do to them what she did to us in the 90’s.
Tell them it’s their fault. Tell them they are lazy and unproductive. And when they complain – tell them they are reacting out of the politics of envy.
If anyone is free today please go to the Labour Party Stop Asset Sales Facebook Page, its being overrun by the “tsunami of stupid” – all with plaquards from whale-oils blog. Beware they are stupid and angry, its kind of scarey..
Selfish bastards! Repeat selfish bastards! Required reading for anybody who does not want to sleep walk to defeat. http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/
Trotter emphatically makes the same statement that many of us lefties have: he does’nt care for the politics of the left. Damien was right and Labour were too collectively cowardly to get behind him versus factional groups. I am like Chris more than a little pissed that the efete liberal interest groups mean more to Labour than that of struggling Kiwis.
No, just frustrated Ianmac that Labour keeps drifting off track.
I don’t think they are Carol but they’re being flogged by the perception and both Trotter and O’Connor piss me off by fanning the flame. I want my party to work in the interests of workers and their families and in my case my family includes all of the above.
I’m a worker with a family and if a party doesn’t serve my interests then it’s not serving the interests of my family.
Agree, the only time Goff’s ratings improved were after the “sackings” of the homosexual Chris Carter and the “closet’ homosexual Darren Hughes. What does that tell you. That mainstream NZ is homophobic or is it because manistream Nz is fed up with the Rainbow faction, so powerful in the Labour Party?
What does that tell you. That mainstream NZ is homophobic or is it because manistream Nz is fed up with the Rainbow faction, so powerful in the Labour Party?
Are those two things meant to be mutually exclusive? Actually I’d rephrase the last part: perceived to be, or characterised as so powerful in the Labour Party?
Don’t agree on the analysis that Damien was right. Many of us emphatically want policians to support and promote the interests of those people stuggling on low incomes AND attacks on relatively marginal minorities. It’s not either/or. And exactly how is the current Labour Party putting gay interests etc above policies targetting economic inequalities at the moment? We should be working together. Such attacks just divide the left & REALLY are not helping at this time.
And exactly how is the current Labour Party putting gay interests etc
I don’t think they are Carol but they’re being flogged by the perception and both Trotter and O’Connor piss me off by fanning the flame. I want my party to work in the interests of workers and their families and in my case my family includes all of the above.
OK, joe90, then we’re in agreement. I do think that the focus should be on the interests of workers and their families and in my case my family includes all of the above.
and that attacking people who should be allies is not helpful. It’s buying into the right wing lines of attack and spin & letting them set the agenda. And going into panic mode in response to a shonky TV3 poll is not that helpful either. We know Labour is behind National in the polls. It’s time to focus on the essentials, and cut loose from the dominance of economically & socially destructive neo-liberal policies.
I reckon start at the start Carol, win back the people in the $30-$50K bracket who had a rush of blood to the head at the last election and thought they were tories.
As for identity politics, clueless gamed everybody with herceptin but sure, when you’ve got the numbers to advance an issue and, like a pub fight, never start something until you know that you can finish the job.
My belief is Carol is that Labour spent far too much political capital and headlines fighting for social liberalism, and not for policies that would help the bottom 50% of families and wage earners.
Social liberalism should have been done – while getting on with big progressive economic changes as the headlines.
Labour did not get the old message: its the economy, stupid.
(And making the property owners feel richer by driving up private debt levels and house prices to the sky doesn’t cut it)
Social liberalism should have been done – while getting on with big progressive economic changes as the headlines.
Yes, agreed that the economic issues should have been the major focus for a while. And I agree that dealing with them has now become even more urgent.
PS: I also think the neoliberal economic power and influence over the media at home and abroad, has also made it very hard for left wing parties in the west to follow their traditional agenda.
Can anyone point me to O’Conner speaking up for the poor and actually trying to promote economic leftie policy when he was in government?
Saying that it was the social liberals crowding out economic policy is just garbage. There is no reason that the party couldn’t walk and chew gum, and even if that was the case, there is no reason now to use illiberal rhetoric. Just get on with promoting the left wing econmics if that’s what you think would work.
Blaming it on social liberals, saying the party was taken over; is saying that left wing voters would rather have right wing economics than social liberalism. That might well be true, or it might not. But unless the economic left gets up on its hind legs and makes the positive case we can’t know.
It looks to me like Trotter et al spend far too much time crying and not enough time arguing their corner. It looks to me like they want to win votes from bigots via their bigotry rather than offering something that is more worthwhile to them than their bigotry.
The fact that they don’t seem to be able to articulate something more worthwhile without blaming social liberalism? that’s their problem right there.
Carol PB IanMac et al, I think I will go and sit with the “bigots” as you cheerfully label those working class Kiwis who went and voted for Key or did not vote at all. Your inability to see them as part of the left is precisely your electoral problem. I would suggest they are greater in number than your precious middle ground of social liberal chardonnnay socialists.
Bored, I was talking of an inclusive model, not an either/or one. I DO see working class people as part of the left, and people the left should be fighting for. Where have I eer said I don’t see them as part of the left? As far as I understand it, you are trying to exclude some other marginalised people from the left.
And I will challenge expressions of bigotry whereever I see it, on the left or the right.
Carol, I too will shout at bigotry from left or right. To marginalise any group is to exclude, which is precisely what Trotter (and myself) are saying. A core Labour voting block is being driven away because they percieve that their interests are not in alignment, and are placed behind that of sectoral interests. They dont care if you are a Martian, what they care about is that the Martian is one of them first and foremost. They also get mightily pissed off when the Martians then accuse them of bigotry.
Well, Bored, the problem with Labour seems to me, not that issues of social liberalism & policies against idenitity group marginalisation are squeezing out class issues, but that various marginalised groups are being used as a scapegoat for Labour’s limitations on class issues. The way forward seems to be indicated by PB in asking to positively state what you want Labour to support, rather than demonising groups within the left.
I think this demonising of some on the left is not helping the cause (or causes). Curiously, one of the reasons neo-liberalism has been so successful is that it has been able to attract a broad range of people under their umbrellla. It includes both social conservatives and social liberals. They tend not to tear themselves apart over it, at least not in public.
I gave up on voting Labour a while back as being too centrist, though I do think they have some good MPs and candidates in their ranks, and have some good policies (or atleast better than National). But if the left is going to succeeed in getting rid of the cancerous policies associated with neoliberalsm & neoconservatism, then the left needs to accept some differences, and work together on the crucial issues. It’s not going to help telling some on the left to ride in the back of the bus, while white men ride in the front.
According to critics like Trotter, the problem seems to be with Goff’s leadership (hardly someone who is virulently promoting gay, Maori & feminist agendas). The attacks on identity issues has been something that the right has beat up to try and undermine the left – divide and conquer. I don’t see it as helpful to be following their agenda. And as PB said:
Can anyone point me to O’Conner speaking up for the poor and actually trying to promote economic leftie policy when he was in government?
Meanwhile, we saw a very assertive interview with Cunliffe, yesterday, foregrounding the struggles of many relatively low income families, struggling to put food on their tables for their kids. There is no evidence that gays or self-serving unionists are dominating Labour policies, or positions on the labour list.
PB: Labour is not seen as the party of the working class and the under class. Consequently the working class and the under class are not rooting for Labour even though under this NACT Government they are larger than ever.
Neither, according to the polls, are many of the social liberals. However, in the final analysis this is not about blaming the social liberals for following their agenda.
Its about Labour losing its renown for being the champion of the working class and the underclass against all odds. And gaining instead renown for being the champion of civil unions, prostitution law reform, anti-smacking, foreshore and sea bed against all odds.
Thank you CV, precisely my position, summed up beautifully. For the record I have fully supported and endorsed social liberalism. I will not however give it primacy over the needs of the left.
Chur dude.
To me social liberalism even at its greatest extent risks sounding a hollow victory when your poor and old are eating cat food and your young and smart are leaving the country because there are no career prospects here.
Of course. Thats because they will favour the voting middle classes over the non-voting poor. Until we have compulsary voting in NZ, both major parties will betrying to bribe the middle.
Cannot wait for the “Neanderthal of Epsom” to pursue the PM over this one (the way he pursued Helen Clark in 2001) … Herald reports PM used airforce Iroquois to visit V8s
Of course, since the PM had the pressing important dinner engagement, he could have forgone the V8 photo op.
PM flies by helicopter at taxpayers expense so he won’t be late for dinner! Austerity strikes NZ.
Helen Clark was going to meet the Prime Minister of Australia,protocol dictated she not be late. If she’d used an Airforce helicopter the whine from Nat supporters would have been even louder and longer than it already was. And did you speak up when Key was travelling in an illegally speeding motorcade? He wanted a fucking shower!!!
LOLz people attacking a Labour PM who actually tried to fit lots of important shit into her schedule, as opposed to Key swanning around sports fixtures and photo ops.
Sean,
I was told be someone who attended the V8 race, that it took him 1 hour 40m to travel from Hamilton to Auckland on Sunday after the racing had finished.
Sean – actually the motorcade was not the issue here. It was Clark’s use of a military helicopter that the Neanderthal-perk-buster MP for Epsom was in a flap over in 2001. Just waiting for him to pursue the Prime Mincer over this recent issue.
It is ‘micro targeting’ voters, Shonkey got the attention of several thousand petrol heads “what a guy-he choppered in, wow! he’s one of us!” grunt, booya etc. Mission accomplished, any disapproval not important cause he scored.
Typically and quite conveniently, whoosh, Shonkey is nowhere to be found.
“Mr Key could not be contacted as he is in transit to Europe for political meetings and the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton at Westminster Abbey on 29 April.”
*Cough* flying from one photo-op to another photo-op.
Listen, folks, this won’t be the first time nor the last time he can’t be contacted. This is the modus operandi of a man who has gone beyond having a stake in NZ.
The Kiwi Saver trusties must be shivering in their boots over the governments order to pay back some of the free money they have coned out of the sucked in working public.
Wonder if it will lead to yet more government payouts? opps forgot unlike SCF etc, Kiwi Saver savings are not government guaranteed, if one of these ponzi scams goes tits up it is bad luck suckers.
And least we forget it was Labour and the Greeds that bought you this scam.
Captcha – school … which is were ever KS saver needs to go to learn there is no free lunch
Robert Atack – You seem to have a toxic view of the world. Did you know this is bad for your health? And doesn’t add anything helpful to the cogitations of others who believe there is a better way of doing things if it can be unearthed? That does mean that commenters have to dig down into their brain for ideas not just whirl them from the surface like flying frisbees with a knee-jerk stance.
The world is way worse for my health than anything my little brain can come up with.
Believing there is a better way is like believing in the tooth fairy or that a politician is worth voting for.
The ‘better way’ went out the window years ago.
Wake up P, even Charles Manson understands we are so very fucked )
Adele
I found the below comment at the top of a comments page the other day, it seems appropriate after reading your personal attack
Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data, ability to repeat discredited memes, and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Also, be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor even implied. Any irrelevancies you can mention will also be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous.
At least I have a name and am willing to stand by what I say.
My apologies for not responding sooner to your reply post. I have only just used the site search function to overview my posts – grammar could do with much improvement, although, I do write from an indigenous perspective which has a tendency to screw with western traditions.
I apologies to you sincerely and completely, I mis-used the language towards you – and did take it personal. Occasionally, it is warranted, but not in your case. I’ve read your blog and you fight the good fight – a fight that indigenous peoples practicing indigeneity would wholly applaud,
An indigenous view of science would say that science merely limits possibilities to the capacity of human thinking only. Which is why we are in this anthropogenic mess now. Science is largely responsible – aided and abetted by technology. It has provided the fuel to the human capacity to live selfishly – to live independently and unrelatedly to the natural world.
The dumb thing is, however, that it is not the natural world that suffers. Human beings are literally shitting in their own nest – and we’re supposed to have the intelligence.
Recently I was having a conversation with an old guy (with impressive credentials) and he marvelled at how mankind has progressed from eating their toe nails to landing on the moon – in a relatively short frame of time. Whereas, on reflection, I could only think we haven’t progressed at all.
Big deal that we have landed on the Moon – it simply means more whenua to shit on. We are polluting space as much as Earth. Indigenous peoples credit the natural world with an opinion, and I am fairly sure it will opine ‘good riddance’ once we have become extinct, or the gene pool has reduced to non-viability aka someone that votes National.
In the not to distant future we may very well be living back 200 years albeit with solar-powered internet. I am thinking how do I fit a horse in my backyard.
When I did that transcription from the Cunliffe interview yesterday, I typed it first onto a word document. When I cut & pasted it to the Standard comment box & submitted, it included all the WORD raw codes. I deleted them through editing, but it was a little cumbersome.
When I cut & pasted it to the Standard comment box & submitted, it included all the WORD raw codes.
Easy answer – don’t use MS Word. Either use a text editor (Notepad) or a word processor that doesn’t include unnecessary control codes (OpenOffice comes to mind).
Up to a point, opposition parliamentarians would track closely, i.e. the government proposes, the opposition oppose.
Up to a point, that is.
It would be a tactical call, on an issue to issue basis, for the opposition to propose alternatives. And it would be a strategic matter to decide when to systematically begin campaigning – hopefully neither too early, nor too late.
I suspect that horrible sensation you have is going to be about as good as it gets.
Remember how it’s suggested that Labour want to be ‘nice guys’ who seek compromise? So the response may well be a basic endorsement of the Nat’s proposals with a few suggestions of how they would implement the same basic broad agenda a little differently.
Who is this Labour party of which you speak? There used to be some folk who called themselves by that name but i haven’t seen them since the early eighties.
i did see a Moose the other day chasing a Moa, perhaps they could give us a map to the land of the Lost where these mythical creatures reside :]
Joe90 is pointing to the same threats in the first posts Item 1 today. Chilling stuff if the poor unite in USA. If the force of Govt in Libya flattens the “rebels”, imagine what the might of arms by the USA Govt against their “rebels” could do! They could even use cluster bombs against the people because they would be declared as terrorists.
Labour once claimed to be socialist, which would have involved using the resources of the state to improve the economy. These days, however, the economy is left to the private sector, which is then taxed to provide a “social dividend”. Both parties follow the same agenda. Apart from getting rid of National, do we have any reason for voting Labour?
Here is a bit of historical research that doesn’t the fit the nationalistic narrative of ANZAC Day and therefore won’t be done by anyone – How many of Massey’s Cossacks did the Turks kill off at Gallipoli?
It is an interesting question, because many of the volunteers who went off to fight in 1914-15 came from that particular class of little Britons who had also tasted service in Massey’s Cossacks. The views, letters and diaries of these 15,000 or so men who initially volunteered is all that is offered today as representative of what people in this country thought in 1914-15. The national myth is completely colonised by the words and utterances of a bunch of rather unpleasant reactionary and provincial imperialists.
Yet by 1916 conscription was needed and, dispite the considerable social pressure and incentives to do so (such as choice on what sort of unit you went to), less than a third of the available men in this country ever volunteered for service. Compulsion was required for rest. Could it be migrants from the slums of Glasgow were more sceptical of whose freedom they were defending than the golden sons of the rural squatocracy?
This question will of course not be addressed next Monday. Instead, we will get shrill and simplistic hyper-patriotism wrapped in a flag of maudlin and sentimental tripe.
This award should come as no surprise… Tony Hayward former President and CEO of BP is a complete asshole! Just look at his response to the fact that BP used a risky well-casing plan, did not conduct a test of the well’s cement job and did not use a “lockdown sleeve” device that “would have prevented the seal at the wellhead from being blown out,” all of which could have prevented the Deepwater Horizon disaster that continues to despoil the gulf of Mexico…
What could possibly go wrong. We have a management style that has made a virtue of doing more for less,” said Hayward. To increase BP’s profitability and share price, Browne had encouraged the departure of hundreds of BP’s skilled engineers. To save money, Browne believed BP should use subcontractors to drill for oil, maintain refineries, monitor corrosion in pipelines and supervise the construction of oil platforms. Investigations of the accidents blamed cost savings and the inadequate skills of BP’s own personnel for poor supervision of the subcontractors.
And that is the management style in NZ after 3 decades of neo-liberalism. Cut cut cut and then we wonder why our homes leak, our national telecommunications infrastructure is less than what it should be and the people who caused all the damage are the ones who are most well rewarded.
dtb – That’s not what we were promised in the 1980’s. Changes were needed we were told, there would be pain we were told, but there would be gain but we weren’t told by whom? While we waited for the gain in the normal way of rising wages and commerce we borrowed on our bright future. We been dun!
“Complete extraction of existing, hidden, and deleted phone data, including call history, text messages, contacts, images, and geotags,” a CelleBrite brochure explains regarding the device’s capabilities. “The Physical Analyzer allows visualization of both existing and deleted locations on Google Earth. In addition, location information from GPS devices and image geotags can be mapped on Google Maps.”
hey joe.
i know where you live and I know what you say and I know what you think so why would I get rid of the apparatus that allows me to keep tabs on YOU!
I so lurve how Paula Benefitformeandnotforyou wallows in politicking and deftly front-foots by pre-emptively screaming the other is politicking.
A great move from Tory 101.
So Mora’s Afternoons-party-political-broadcast-show with residential pundit, the Penguin tried again this afternoon. And the well informed Penguin spouted on giving us his “this-is-the-spin-you-are-to-use” line from above about family law excesses. Unfortunately for the Penguin, Law Professor Henaghan from Otago, politely discredited Farrar’s point and on that subject the Penguin added no further comment. Obviously because someone had rumbled that he didn’t know what he was talking about. Perhaps Mora’s panel would be better served by having experts on his show more often.
Then again, it’s irrelevant anyway, because as mentioned before, the listeners to the National Programme are not swayed, only riled, by what the panelists say.
Yeah he shut Farrar down pretty quick. The poison dwarf is so used to his audience of the ill-informed, the uneducated, and the wilfully ignorant sycophants that he doesn’t know what to do when his bullshit is shown up for what it is.
(on the radio he can’t log in under another name and hurl abuse at dissenters)
But yeah, the whole “panel of people who don’t know anything in particular” format is fucking retarded. It’s like a talkback station but the stupidest callers get to talk all afternoon.
Yes Deadly. Appalling that elderly folk are left out in the cold after laying down a plan and paid for security till they die. After paying insurance as part of the fees when they had bought a Kate Shepard unit, the earthquake wiped them out and they get minimal recompense. That’s bad.
But even worse is the way that three Ministers were approached for help, and each refused to reply/comment. Coleman, Carter and Brownlie(?) Not my problem they each said. Shame.
Last night I e-mailed TV3 to ask what happened to the Hide/Act Epson story that they were going to run. I received two replies. One from Pip Keane said that they ran out of Editorial time. Tomorrow instead. The second from John Campbell. Over run and had to cut said John and “We’ll run the story tomorrow.” he said. Today is tomorrow but no story. (I did ask in one word “political interference?” but John said “No such thing.” That just makes me more curious.
No political interference, but what about being politically interconnected?
I’ve recently given up watching Toryvision 3, TV3 … and also Toryvision New Zealand, TVNZ.
You should email them to say you patiently waited yesterday for tomorrow, but today is tomorrow, and you’re now anticipating yesterday’s tomorrow tomorrow.
But by tomorrow it will be yesterday-yesterday’s tomorrow and since everything is future or past, and there is no now I seem frozen in indecision just before and can’t manage the next moment. See?
There was a Pub in NZ that put a sign out that said Free BEER tomorrow!
The next day every one went to the bar and ordered their beers , were given their beers with the words “that’ll be 6 bucks thanks” but the sign said Free beer tomorrrow they complained. Yes thats true said the publican But as well know Tomorrow NEVER comes..
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As pressure on it grows, the livestock industry’s approach to the transition to Net Zero is increasingly being compared to that of fossil fuel interests. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty ImagesTL;DR: Here’s the top five news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above ...
The New Zealand Herald reports – Stats NZ has offered a voluntary redundancy scheme to all of its workers as a way to give staff some control over their “future” amidst widespread job losses in the public sector. In an update to staff this morning, seen by the Herald, Statistics New Zealand ...
On Werewolf/Scoop, I usually do two long form political columns a week. From now on, there will be an extra column each week about music and movies. But first, some late-breaking political events:The rise in unemployment numbers for the March quarter was bigger than expected – and especially sharp ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: TVNZ says it is dealing with about 50 formal complaints over its coverage of the latest 1News-Verian political poll, with some viewers – as well as the Prime Minister and a former senior Labour MP – critical of the tone of the 6pm report. ...
Muriel Newman writes – When Meridian Energy was seeking resource consents for a West Coast hydro dam proposal in 2010, local Maori “strenuously” objected, claiming their mana was inextricably linked to ‘their’ river and could be damaged. After receiving a financial payment from the company, however, the Ngai Tahu ...
Alwyn Poole writes – “An SEP,’ he said, ‘is something that we can’t see, or don’t see, or our brain doesn’t let us see, because we think that it’s somebody else’s problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it’s like a ...
Our trust in our political institutions is fast eroding, according to a Maxim Institute discussion paper, Shaky Foundations: Why our democracy needs trust. The paper – released today – raises concerns about declining trust in New Zealand’s political institutions and democratic processes, and the role that the overuse of Parliamentary urgency ...
This article was prepared for publication yesterday. More ministerial announcements have been posted on the government’s official website since it was written. We will report on these later today …. Buzz from the BeehiveThere we were, thinking the environment is in trouble, when along came Jones. Shane Jones. ...
New Zealand now has the fourth most depressed construction sector in the world behind China, Qatar and Hong Kong. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 8:46am on Thursday, May 2:The Lead: ...
Hi,I am just going to state something very obvious: American police are fucking crazy.That was a photo gracing the New York Times this morning, showing New York City police “entering Columbia University last night after receiving a request from the school.”Apparently in America, protesting the deaths of tens of thousands ...
Winston Peters’ much anticipated foreign policy speech last night was a work of two halves. Much of it was a standard “boilerplate” Foreign Ministry overview of the state of the world. There was some hardening up of rhetoric with talk of “benign” becoming “malign” and old truths giving way to ...
Graham Adams assesses the fallout of the Cass Review — The press release last Thursday from the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls didn’t make the mainstream news in New Zealand but it really should have. The startling title of Reem Alsalem’s statement — “Implementation of ‘Cass ...
This open-for-business, under-new-management cliché-pockmarked government of Christopher Luxon is not the thing of beauty he imagines it to be. It is not the powerful expression of the will of the people that he asserts it to be. It is not a soaring eagle, it is a malodorous vulture. This newest poll should make ...
The latest labour market statistics, showing a rise in unemployment. There are now 134,000 unemployed - 14,000 more than when the National government took office. Which is I guess what happens when the Reserve Bank causes a recession in an effort to Keep Wages Low. The previous government saw a ...
Three opinion polls have been released in the last two days, all showing that the new government is failing to hold their popular support. The usual honeymoon experienced during the first year of a first term government is entirely absent. The political mood is still gloomy and discontented, mainly due ...
National's Finance Minister once met a poor person.A scornful interview with National's finance guru who knows next to nothing about economics or people.There might have been something a bit familiar if that was the headline I’d gone with today. It would of course have been in tribute to the article ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Throughout the pandemic, the new Vice-Chancellor-of-Otago-University-on-$629,000 per annum-Can-you-believe-it-and-Former-Finance-Minister Grant Robertson repeated the mantra over and over that he saved “lives and livelihoods”.As we update how this claim is faring over the course of time, the facts are increasingly speaking differently. NZ ...
Chris Trotter writes – IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in acknowledgement of electoral victory: “We’ll govern for all New Zealanders.” On the face of it, the pledge is a strange one. Why would any political leader govern in ways that advantaged the huge ...
Bryce Edwards writes – The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 10:06am on Wednesday, May 1:The Lead: Business confidence fell across the board in April, falling in some areas to levels last seen during the lockdowns because of a collapse in ...
Over the past 36 hours, Christopher Luxon has been dong his best to portray the centre-right’s plummeting poll numbers as a mark of virtue. Allegedly, the negative verdicts are the result of hard economic times, and of a government bravely set out on a perilous rescue mission from which not ...
Auckland Transport have started rolling out new HOP card readers around the network and over the next three months, all of them on buses, at train stations and ferry wharves will be replaced. The change itself is not that remarkable, with the new readers looking similar to what is already ...
Completed reads for April: The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling Carnival of Saints, by George Herman The Snow Spider, by Jenny Nimmo Emlyn’s Moon, by Jenny Nimmo The Chestnut Soldier, by Jenny Nimmo Death Comes As the End, by Agatha Christie Lord of the Flies, by ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Have a story to share about St Paul’s, but today just picturesPopular novels written at this desk by a young man who managed to bootstrap himself out of father’s imprisonment and his own young life in a workhouse Read more ...
The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill English, Simon Bridges, Steven Joyce, Roger Sowry, ...
Newsroom has a story today about National's (fortunately failed) effort to disestablish the newly-created Inspector-General of Defence. The creation of this agency was the key recommendation of the Inquiry into Operation Burnham, and a vital means of restoring credibility and social licence to an agency which had been caught lying ...
Holding On To The Present:The moment a political movement arises that attacks the whole idea of social progress, and announces its intention to wind back the hands of History’s clock, then democracy, along with its unwritten rules, is in mortal danger.IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in ...
Stuck In The Middle With You:As Christopher Luxon feels the hot breath of Act’s and NZ First’s extremists on the back of his neck and, as he reckons with the damage their policies are already inflicting upon a country he’s described as “fragile”, is there not some merit in reaching out ...
The unpopular coalition government is currently rushing to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The clause is Oranga Tamariki's Treaty clause, and was inserted after its systematic stealing of Māori children became a public scandal and resulted in physical resistance to further abductions. The clause created clear obligations ...
Buzz from the Beehive The government’s official website – which Point of Order monitors daily – not for the first time has nothing much to say today about political happenings that are grabbing media headlines. It makes no mention of the latest 1News-Verian poll, for example. This shows National down ...
It Takes A Train To Cry:Surely, there is nothing lonelier in all this world than the long wail of a distant steam locomotive on a cold Winter’s night.AS A CHILD, I would lie awake in my grandfather’s house and listen to the traffic. The big wooden house was only a ...
Packing A Punch: The election of the present government, including in its ranks politicians dedicated to reasserting the rights of the legislature in shaping and determining the future of Māori and Pakeha in New Zealand, should have alerted the judiciary – including its anomalous appendage, the Waitangi Tribunal – that its ...
Dead Woman Walking: New Zealand’s media industry had been moving steadily towards disaster for all the years Melissa Lee had been National’s media and communications policy spokesperson, and yet, when the crisis finally broke, on her watch, she had nothing intelligent to offer. Christopher Luxon is a patient man - but he’s not ...
Chris Trotter writes – New Zealand politics is remarkably easy-going: dangerously so, one might even say. With the notable exception of John Key’s flat ruling-out of the NZ First Party in 2008, all parties capable of clearing MMP’s five-percent threshold, or winning one or more electorate seats, tend ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is ...
Luxon will no doubt put a brave face on it, but there is no escaping the pressure this latest poll will put on him and the government. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political ...
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler In the wake of any unusual weather event, someone inevitably asks, “Did climate change cause this?” In the most literal sense, that answer is almost always no. Climate change is never the sole cause of hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, or ...
Something odd happened yesterday, and I’d love to know if there’s more to it. If there was something which preempted what happened, or if it was simply a throwaway line in response to a journalist.Yesterday David Seymour was asked at a press conference what the process would be if the ...
Hi,From time to time, I want to bring Webworm into the real world. We did it last year with the Jurassic Park event in New Zealand — which was a lot of fun!And so on Saturday May 11th, in Los Angeles, I am hosting a lil’ Webworm pop-up! I’ve been ...
Education Minister Erica Standford yesterday unveiled a fundamental reform of the way our school pupils are taught. She would not exactly say so, but she is all but dismantling the so-called “inquiry” “feel good” method of teaching, which has ruled in our classrooms since a major review of the New ...
Exactly where are we seriously going with this government and its policies? That is, apart from following what may as well be a Truss-Lite approach on the purported economic “plan“, and Victorian-era regression when it comes to social policy.Oh it’ll work this time of course, we’re basically assured, “the ...
Hey Uncle Dave, When the Poms joined the EEC, I wasn't one of those defeatists who said, Well, that’s it for the dairy job. And I was right, eh? The Chinese can’t get enough of our milk powder and eventually, the Poms came to their senses and backed up the ute ...
Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is higher than for any other mayor ...
Buzz from the Beehive Pharmac has been given a financial transfusion and a new chair to oversee its spending in the pharmaceutical business. Associate Health Minister David Seymour described the funding for Pharmac as “its largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff”. ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its ...
TL;DR: Here’s my top 10 ‘pick ‘n’ mix of links to news, analysis and opinion articles as of 10:10am on Monday, April 29:Scoop: The children's ward at Rotorua Hospital will be missing a third of its beds as winter hits because Te Whatu Ora halted an upgrade partway through to ...
span class=”dropcap”>As hideous as David Seymour can be, it is worth keeping in mind occasionally that there are even worse political figures (and regimes) out there. Iran for instance, is about to execute the country’s leading hip hop musician Toomaj Salehi, for writing and performing raps that “corrupt” the nation’s ...
Yesterday marked 10 years since the first electric train carried passengers in Auckland so it’s a good time to look back at it and the impact it has had. A brief history The first proposals for rail electrification in Auckland came in the 1920’s alongside the plans for earlier ...
Right now, in Aotearoa-NZ, our ‘animal spirits’ are darkening towards a winter of discontent, thanks at least partly to a chorus of negative comments and actions from the Government Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on ...
You make people evil to punish the paststuck inside a sequel with a rotating castThe following photos haven’t been generated with AI, or modified in any way. They are flesh and blood, human beings. On the left is Galatea Young, a young mum, and her daughter Fiadh who has Angelman ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters discussed the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and enhanced cooperation in the Pacific with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock during her first official visit to New Zealand today. "New Zealand and Germany enjoy shared interests and values, including the rule of law, democracy, respect for the international system ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
The Government and Rotorua Lakes Council are committed to working closely together to end the use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing) Tama Potaka says the Government remains committed to ending the long-term use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua by the ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
By Stephen Wright and Stefan Armbruster of BenarNews Fiji’s ranking in a global press freedom index has jumped into the top tier of countries with free or mostly free media after its government last year repealed a draconian law that threatened journalists with prison for doing their jobs. Fiji’s improvement ...
We might be in Invercargill but all anyone can talk about is Gore. Specifically, Salford Street. That’s where three-year-old Lachlan Jones lived, south of the centre of town, between the A&P Showgrounds and the Mataura River. Roughly 1.2 km away from the single level home he lived in with his ...
MONDAY I lined up the latest round of civil servants from city hall against the wall, and signalled for the firing squad to drop their rifles. I stepped up onto a wooden crate to look at the office workers in the eye. But that didn’t feel right, so I found ...
Keen hiker and second-year MSc student Liam Hewson wears two hats when he’s in the great outdoors. “The scientist in me appreciates nature and goes, ‘Oh, there’s that thing and there’s another thing,’ but then the tramper and the outdoorsy person in me thinks, ‘Cool bush.’” Born and bred in ...
After a long and illustrious career as a goal kicker, Dan Carter’s favourite way to unwind is… kicking goals. Why can’t he get enough of it? And what it’s like to watch him do it for an hour straight? A semicircle of people wielding cameras and phones has formed in ...
Dame Susan Devoy takes us through her life in television, including late night ER debriefs, her proudest CTI moment and the show she watches in secret. Quite aside from her four world champion squash titles, Dame Susan Devoy will likely go down in history as one of the best Celebrity ...
Hera Lindsay Bird reveals the best places in Ōtepoti to score more for your apocalypse-prep book hoard.Sometimes I get the feeling I’ve been killed in a car crash, and this second half of my life is just the brain unspooling itself, like one of those episodes of a hospital ...
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Don’t envy the super rich…
The Nostradamus award goes to…
Secret memos..
Does he think only the super-rich are going to be attacked by armed thugs? The thugs probably get their training in their own neighbourhood first.
and, yes – just to confirm it was all about the oil.
joe90: In NZ the very rich seem to live in high walled secure houses, or in gated communities. By contrast my modest belongings which barely need protection are not a worry to me when I am out. Every time that I see John Key under protection even within the corridors of Parliament I feel no envy. Does it suggest a degree of paranoia as a PM or is it that of a rich man?
And it is remarkably (?) surprising that the tax take has reduced in NZ after the Bush-like tax cuts. Surprise, followed by a cut in spending on Education and Health and Welfare. The parallels are here in NZ too Joe.
What you find should be a wake-up call for New Zealanders as well. Sobering Joe.
Super rich link
That may be how it starts, and it will start, it’s not how it ends. As we’ve seen throughout history the rich cannot maintain their power once everyone else is pissed off enough.
Yes, I get the point – It’s just that the comeuppance will, as usual, hit the poor first. They’ll live in more fear than even now – Mexico is a good example – It’s the poor who are paying for the US war on drugs. But then, they’re meant to expect it. It’s the super-rich who will be shocked when it hits them hard.
Not just Mexicans losing their lives now Rosy and a cynic would say that the only way change will come is through more Americans losing their lives.
And this wee gem.
The violence can be traced to a civil war between the state and leftist rebels, a three-decade struggle that, from 1960 to 1996, was the dirtiest of Latin America’s dirty wars. More than two hundred thousand people were killed or “disappeared.” According to a U.N.-sponsored commission, at least ninety per cent of the killings were carried out by the state’s military forces or by paramilitary death squads with names like Eye for an Eye.
“Not just Mexicans losing their lives now”
And isn’t this Tamaulipas state where Fisher & Paykel relocated to (Reynosa)? It makes me absolutely livid – It seems like history repeating with a new part of Latin America tied up in the US push for control – albeit of drugs this time, rather than coups and civil wars, like Guatemala, Nicaragua, Chile etc, etc.
Radio New Zealand shows why publicly owned news gathers and presenters are so vital. It reports on Telecom’s recent $12 million fine. This morning (no link as yet) a very strong link is being drawn between Telecom’s predatory action a decade ago and the Government’s intention to prevent Commerce Commission oversight of Telecom for the next decade.
Bend over and prepare to be rogered New Zealand by your unfriendly formerly publicly owned but overseas controlled telco which should properly be called telecon …
Telecon plan to appeal the decision as well… Watch for more moves against our civil liberties and organisations that hold private companies to account. The National ministers are so in the pocket of big business, when one of them realizes that their is a conflict of interest and steps down from a portfolio, hardly anybody bats an eyebrow… Maybe there are a few people around with their eyes open though:
http://tumeke.blogspot.com/2011/04/national-are-dismantling-your-legal.html
Wake up New Zealand.
Have you read The Predator State by James Galbraith? It puts what NACT are doing in context and there’s no way that it’s for the best of the country. What it’s to do is transfer wealth and power away from the people and to the wealthy. It’s unfortunate that so many people wish to help them in their corruption and theft.
Mr Key and your mates in the Business Round Table and all parliamentarians, try to understand this simple fact. New Zealand’s assets are NOT YOURS to sell.
If we do not have the expertise to extract resources, then invite tenders for that expertise to do the job, and pay for those services but the ownership must remain New Zealand’s.
Exactly. Selling off our assets to make some foreign nationals richer is bad for us.
NZ for sale, sanctioned by the government.
Dear Key,
Our assets are not yours to sell
But when sold, they are yours to buy
Oh, the delightful market farces rules
for you
Joseph E Stigliz issues a warning that the “unrest”, born of inequality, we see in the Middle East could happen on the streets of America:
Of the 1%, By the 1% and for the 1%
Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee today announced the make-up of the independent review panel that will assess all legislative and regulatory changes under the new Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Act.
Dame Jenny Shipley being one of them, the people of CHCH will just love being told how there city should be rebuilt by this corrupt patronizing cow!
Yeah, she’ll do to them what she did to us in the 90’s.
Tell them it’s their fault. Tell them they are lazy and unproductive. And when they complain – tell them they are reacting out of the politics of envy.
http://www.imperatorfish.com/2011/04/further-tales-of-duc-deglise-de-christ.html
Nothing more that I can add to what Scott wrote.
If anyone is free today please go to the Labour Party Stop Asset Sales Facebook Page, its being overrun by the “tsunami of stupid” – all with plaquards from whale-oils blog. Beware they are stupid and angry, its kind of scarey..
Selfish bastards! Repeat selfish bastards! Required reading for anybody who does not want to sleep walk to defeat.
http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/
Trotter emphatically makes the same statement that many of us lefties have: he does’nt care for the politics of the left. Damien was right and Labour were too collectively cowardly to get behind him versus factional groups. I am like Chris more than a little pissed that the efete liberal interest groups mean more to Labour than that of struggling Kiwis.
Me too B, Labour, a workers party formed by workers for workers.
joe. A bit surprised that you endorse bored? Read your comment three times. Were you being ironic?
No, just frustrated Ianmac that Labour keeps drifting off track.
I don’t think they are Carol but they’re being flogged by the perception and both Trotter and O’Connor piss me off by fanning the flame. I want my party to work in the interests of workers and their families and in my case my family includes all of the above.
I’m a worker with a family and if a party doesn’t serve my interests then it’s not serving the interests of my family.
Agree, the only time Goff’s ratings improved were after the “sackings” of the homosexual Chris Carter and the “closet’ homosexual Darren Hughes. What does that tell you. That mainstream NZ is homophobic or is it because manistream Nz is fed up with the Rainbow faction, so powerful in the Labour Party?
Are those two things meant to be mutually exclusive? Actually I’d rephrase the last part: perceived to be, or characterised as so powerful in the Labour Party?
Hey Sam, do you want homosexuality recriminalised?
Remember, consenting adults and all that…
No.
But consenting adults do it in private, only “drama queens” flaunt it openly.
Don’t agree on the analysis that Damien was right. Many of us emphatically want policians to support and promote the interests of those people stuggling on low incomes AND attacks on relatively marginal minorities. It’s not either/or. And exactly how is the current Labour Party putting gay interests etc above policies targetting economic inequalities at the moment? We should be working together. Such attacks just divide the left & REALLY are not helping at this time.
OK, joe90, then we’re in agreement. I do think that the focus should be on
the interests of workers and their families and in my case my family includes all of the above.
and that attacking people who should be allies is not helpful. It’s buying into the right wing lines of attack and spin & letting them set the agenda. And going into panic mode in response to a shonky TV3 poll is not that helpful either. We know Labour is behind National in the polls. It’s time to focus on the essentials, and cut loose from the dominance of economically & socially destructive neo-liberal policies.
I reckon start at the start Carol, win back the people in the $30-$50K bracket who had a rush of blood to the head at the last election and thought they were tories.
As for identity politics, clueless gamed everybody with herceptin but sure, when you’ve got the numbers to advance an issue and, like a pub fight, never start something until you know that you can finish the job.
My belief is Carol is that Labour spent far too much political capital and headlines fighting for social liberalism, and not for policies that would help the bottom 50% of families and wage earners.
Social liberalism should have been done – while getting on with big progressive economic changes as the headlines.
Labour did not get the old message: its the economy, stupid.
(And making the property owners feel richer by driving up private debt levels and house prices to the sky doesn’t cut it)
Social liberalism should have been done – while getting on with big progressive economic changes as the headlines.
Yes, agreed that the economic issues should have been the major focus for a while. And I agree that dealing with them has now become even more urgent.
PS: I also think the neoliberal economic power and influence over the media at home and abroad, has also made it very hard for left wing parties in the west to follow their traditional agenda.
Can anyone point me to O’Conner speaking up for the poor and actually trying to promote economic leftie policy when he was in government?
Saying that it was the social liberals crowding out economic policy is just garbage. There is no reason that the party couldn’t walk and chew gum, and even if that was the case, there is no reason now to use illiberal rhetoric. Just get on with promoting the left wing econmics if that’s what you think would work.
Blaming it on social liberals, saying the party was taken over; is saying that left wing voters would rather have right wing economics than social liberalism. That might well be true, or it might not. But unless the economic left gets up on its hind legs and makes the positive case we can’t know.
It looks to me like Trotter et al spend far too much time crying and not enough time arguing their corner. It looks to me like they want to win votes from bigots via their bigotry rather than offering something that is more worthwhile to them than their bigotry.
The fact that they don’t seem to be able to articulate something more worthwhile without blaming social liberalism? that’s their problem right there.
Well said, PB.
Carol PB IanMac et al, I think I will go and sit with the “bigots” as you cheerfully label those working class Kiwis who went and voted for Key or did not vote at all. Your inability to see them as part of the left is precisely your electoral problem. I would suggest they are greater in number than your precious middle ground of social liberal chardonnnay socialists.
Bored, I was talking of an inclusive model, not an either/or one. I DO see working class people as part of the left, and people the left should be fighting for. Where have I eer said I don’t see them as part of the left? As far as I understand it, you are trying to exclude some other marginalised people from the left.
And I will challenge expressions of bigotry whereever I see it, on the left or the right.
Carol, I too will shout at bigotry from left or right. To marginalise any group is to exclude, which is precisely what Trotter (and myself) are saying. A core Labour voting block is being driven away because they percieve that their interests are not in alignment, and are placed behind that of sectoral interests. They dont care if you are a Martian, what they care about is that the Martian is one of them first and foremost. They also get mightily pissed off when the Martians then accuse them of bigotry.
Well, Bored, the problem with Labour seems to me, not that issues of social liberalism & policies against idenitity group marginalisation are squeezing out class issues, but that various marginalised groups are being used as a scapegoat for Labour’s limitations on class issues. The way forward seems to be indicated by PB in asking to positively state what you want Labour to support, rather than demonising groups within the left.
I think this demonising of some on the left is not helping the cause (or causes). Curiously, one of the reasons neo-liberalism has been so successful is that it has been able to attract a broad range of people under their umbrellla. It includes both social conservatives and social liberals. They tend not to tear themselves apart over it, at least not in public.
I gave up on voting Labour a while back as being too centrist, though I do think they have some good MPs and candidates in their ranks, and have some good policies (or atleast better than National). But if the left is going to succeeed in getting rid of the cancerous policies associated with neoliberalsm & neoconservatism, then the left needs to accept some differences, and work together on the crucial issues. It’s not going to help telling some on the left to ride in the back of the bus, while white men ride in the front.
According to critics like Trotter, the problem seems to be with Goff’s leadership (hardly someone who is virulently promoting gay, Maori & feminist agendas). The attacks on identity issues has been something that the right has beat up to try and undermine the left – divide and conquer. I don’t see it as helpful to be following their agenda. And as PB said:
Can anyone point me to O’Conner speaking up for the poor and actually trying to promote economic leftie policy when he was in government?
Meanwhile, we saw a very assertive interview with Cunliffe, yesterday, foregrounding the struggles of many relatively low income families, struggling to put food on their tables for their kids. There is no evidence that gays or self-serving unionists are dominating Labour policies, or positions on the labour list.
PB: Labour is not seen as the party of the working class and the under class. Consequently the working class and the under class are not rooting for Labour even though under this NACT Government they are larger than ever.
Neither, according to the polls, are many of the social liberals. However, in the final analysis this is not about blaming the social liberals for following their agenda.
Its about Labour losing its renown for being the champion of the working class and the underclass against all odds. And gaining instead renown for being the champion of civil unions, prostitution law reform, anti-smacking, foreshore and sea bed against all odds.
Thank you CV, precisely my position, summed up beautifully. For the record I have fully supported and endorsed social liberalism. I will not however give it primacy over the needs of the left.
Chur dude.
To me social liberalism even at its greatest extent risks sounding a hollow victory when your poor and old are eating cat food and your young and smart are leaving the country because there are no career prospects here.
Of course. Thats because they will favour the voting middle classes over the non-voting poor. Until we have compulsary voting in NZ, both major parties will betrying to bribe the middle.
Cannot wait for the “Neanderthal of Epsom” to pursue the PM over this one (the way he pursued Helen Clark in 2001) …
Herald reports PM used airforce Iroquois to visit V8s
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10720511
Of course, since the PM had the pressing important dinner engagement, he could have forgone the V8 photo op.
PM flies by helicopter at taxpayers expense so he won’t be late for dinner! Austerity strikes NZ.
So, I can assume you were extremely pissed off when Helen Clark used an illegally travelling motorcade to get to a rugby game then?
By the way – there are reports that it took 3 hours to get to Huntly from Hamilton after the V8’s – so it was actually a good move on the PM.
Helen Clark was going to meet the Prime Minister of Australia,protocol dictated she not be late. If she’d used an Airforce helicopter the whine from Nat supporters would have been even louder and longer than it already was. And did you speak up when Key was travelling in an illegally speeding motorcade? He wanted a fucking shower!!!
Clark was meeting a Head of State, Key was going to dinner at a golf club
‘nuf said
Proof that Clark could no allocate her time properly.
LOLz people attacking a Labour PM who actually tried to fit lots of important shit into her schedule, as opposed to Key swanning around sports fixtures and photo ops.
Sean,
I was told be someone who attended the V8 race, that it took him 1 hour 40m to travel from Hamilton to Auckland on Sunday after the racing had finished.
Sean – actually the motorcade was not the issue here. It was Clark’s use of a military helicopter that the Neanderthal-perk-buster MP for Epsom was in a flap over in 2001. Just waiting for him to pursue the Prime Mincer over this recent issue.
Like travelling in a motorcade at 160kph to egt to the rugby?
It is ‘micro targeting’ voters, Shonkey got the attention of several thousand petrol heads “what a guy-he choppered in, wow! he’s one of us!” grunt, booya etc. Mission accomplished, any disapproval not important cause he scored.
Typically and quite conveniently, whoosh, Shonkey is nowhere to be found.
“Mr Key could not be contacted as he is in transit to Europe for political meetings and the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton at Westminster Abbey on 29 April.”
*Cough* flying from one photo-op to another photo-op.
Listen, folks, this won’t be the first time nor the last time he can’t be contacted. This is the modus operandi of a man who has gone beyond having a stake in NZ.
The Kiwi Saver trusties must be shivering in their boots over the governments order to pay back some of the free money they have coned out of the sucked in working public.
Wonder if it will lead to yet more government payouts? opps forgot unlike SCF etc, Kiwi Saver savings are not government guaranteed, if one of these ponzi scams goes tits up it is bad luck suckers.
And least we forget it was Labour and the Greeds that bought you this scam.
Captcha – school … which is were ever KS saver needs to go to learn there is no free lunch
Robert Atack – You seem to have a toxic view of the world. Did you know this is bad for your health? And doesn’t add anything helpful to the cogitations of others who believe there is a better way of doing things if it can be unearthed? That does mean that commenters have to dig down into their brain for ideas not just whirl them from the surface like flying frisbees with a knee-jerk stance.
The world is way worse for my health than anything my little brain can come up with.
Believing there is a better way is like believing in the tooth fairy or that a politician is worth voting for.
The ‘better way’ went out the window years ago.
Wake up P, even Charles Manson understands we are so very fucked )
Teenaa koe, Rob
If the world had to depend on whatever issued forth from that little brain of yours, then yes, we are so very fucked.
Adele
I found the below comment at the top of a comments page the other day, it seems appropriate after reading your personal attack
Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data, ability to repeat discredited memes, and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Also, be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor even implied. Any irrelevancies you can mention will also be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous.
At least I have a name and am willing to stand by what I say.
http://oilcrash.com/articles/struggle.htm
Teenaa koe, Rob Atack
My apologies for not responding sooner to your reply post. I have only just used the site search function to overview my posts – grammar could do with much improvement, although, I do write from an indigenous perspective which has a tendency to screw with western traditions.
I apologies to you sincerely and completely, I mis-used the language towards you – and did take it personal. Occasionally, it is warranted, but not in your case. I’ve read your blog and you fight the good fight – a fight that indigenous peoples practicing indigeneity would wholly applaud,
An indigenous view of science would say that science merely limits possibilities to the capacity of human thinking only. Which is why we are in this anthropogenic mess now. Science is largely responsible – aided and abetted by technology. It has provided the fuel to the human capacity to live selfishly – to live independently and unrelatedly to the natural world.
The dumb thing is, however, that it is not the natural world that suffers. Human beings are literally shitting in their own nest – and we’re supposed to have the intelligence.
Recently I was having a conversation with an old guy (with impressive credentials) and he marvelled at how mankind has progressed from eating their toe nails to landing on the moon – in a relatively short frame of time. Whereas, on reflection, I could only think we haven’t progressed at all.
Big deal that we have landed on the Moon – it simply means more whenua to shit on. We are polluting space as much as Earth. Indigenous peoples credit the natural world with an opinion, and I am fairly sure it will opine ‘good riddance’ once we have become extinct, or the gene pool has reduced to non-viability aka someone that votes National.
In the not to distant future we may very well be living back 200 years albeit with solar-powered internet. I am thinking how do I fit a horse in my backyard.
Is this the format that is now permanent for this site?
I’ve found that by writing the full post and then adding links, quotes etc avoids the oddball text and the weird creeping format thing.
When I did that transcription from the Cunliffe interview yesterday, I typed it first onto a word document. When I cut & pasted it to the Standard comment box & submitted, it included all the WORD raw codes. I deleted them through editing, but it was a little cumbersome.
Easy answer – don’t use MS Word. Either use a text editor (Notepad) or a word processor that doesn’t include unnecessary control codes (OpenOffice comes to mind).
Thanks, DTB. That’s helpful.
Just had this horrible sensation that perhaps Labour are waiting for National to set the agenda for the election campaign so they can respond to it.
Please say it isn’t so.
Labour have gone out aggressively on the No Asset Sales campaign, which is causing reactive attacks from righties.
Up to a point, opposition parliamentarians would track closely, i.e. the government proposes, the opposition oppose.
Up to a point, that is.
It would be a tactical call, on an issue to issue basis, for the opposition to propose alternatives. And it would be a strategic matter to decide when to systematically begin campaigning – hopefully neither too early, nor too late.
I suspect that horrible sensation you have is going to be about as good as it gets.
Remember how it’s suggested that Labour want to be ‘nice guys’ who seek compromise? So the response may well be a basic endorsement of the Nat’s proposals with a few suggestions of how they would implement the same basic broad agenda a little differently.
Who is this Labour party of which you speak? There used to be some folk who called themselves by that name but i haven’t seen them since the early eighties.
i did see a Moose the other day chasing a Moa, perhaps they could give us a map to the land of the Lost where these mythical creatures reside :]
capcha: amuse
Numbness? Anaesthesia perhaps? Just a dull aching pain where a feeling of enthusiasm once existed?
I submit the following is a must-read:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/blocking_the_gates_to_the_temples_of_finance_20110418
Yes it’s the US today, but if it isn’t stopped there it will be here soon enough.
(Yes I know it is now, but it’s still cautious and a little bit timid. Once there’s nothing left to fear…..)
Joe90 is pointing to the same threats in the first posts Item 1 today. Chilling stuff if the poor unite in USA. If the force of Govt in Libya flattens the “rebels”, imagine what the might of arms by the USA Govt against their “rebels” could do! They could even use cluster bombs against the people because they would be declared as terrorists.
@ Name (required) Wow! I love this man on the basis of this one article! How is that for telling it like it is!
Labour once claimed to be socialist, which would have involved using the resources of the state to improve the economy. These days, however, the economy is left to the private sector, which is then taxed to provide a “social dividend”. Both parties follow the same agenda. Apart from getting rid of National, do we have any reason for voting Labour?
One reason is that’s it’s currently the most likely way to get the Greens onto the govt benches.
Yes, Greens need a strong Labour Party. I vote Green Party + Cunliffe for electorate.
Here is a bit of historical research that doesn’t the fit the nationalistic narrative of ANZAC Day and therefore won’t be done by anyone – How many of Massey’s Cossacks did the Turks kill off at Gallipoli?
It is an interesting question, because many of the volunteers who went off to fight in 1914-15 came from that particular class of little Britons who had also tasted service in Massey’s Cossacks. The views, letters and diaries of these 15,000 or so men who initially volunteered is all that is offered today as representative of what people in this country thought in 1914-15. The national myth is completely colonised by the words and utterances of a bunch of rather unpleasant reactionary and provincial imperialists.
Yet by 1916 conscription was needed and, dispite the considerable social pressure and incentives to do so (such as choice on what sort of unit you went to), less than a third of the available men in this country ever volunteered for service. Compulsion was required for rest. Could it be migrants from the slums of Glasgow were more sceptical of whose freedom they were defending than the golden sons of the rural squatocracy?
This question will of course not be addressed next Monday. Instead, we will get shrill and simplistic hyper-patriotism wrapped in a flag of maudlin and sentimental tripe.
Asshole of the Week Award
http://thejackalman.blogspot.com/2011/04/asshole-of-week-award_20.html
This award should come as no surprise… Tony Hayward former President and CEO of BP is a complete asshole! Just look at his response to the fact that BP used a risky well-casing plan, did not conduct a test of the well’s cement job and did not use a “lockdown sleeve” device that “would have prevented the seal at the wellhead from being blown out,” all of which could have prevented the Deepwater Horizon disaster that continues to despoil the gulf of Mexico…
Well he did replace an arsehole Todd.
What could possibly go wrong.
We have a management style that has made a virtue of doing more for less,” said Hayward. To increase BP’s profitability and share price, Browne had encouraged the departure of hundreds of BP’s skilled engineers. To save money, Browne believed BP should use subcontractors to drill for oil, maintain refineries, monitor corrosion in pipelines and supervise the construction of oil platforms. Investigations of the accidents blamed cost savings and the inadequate skills of BP’s own personnel for poor supervision of the subcontractors.
And that is the management style in NZ after 3 decades of neo-liberalism. Cut cut cut and then we wonder why our homes leak, our national telecommunications infrastructure is less than what it should be and the people who caused all the damage are the ones who are most well rewarded.
dtb – That’s not what we were promised in the 1980’s. Changes were needed we were told, there would be pain we were told, but there would be gain but we weren’t told by whom? While we waited for the gain in the normal way of rising wages and commerce we borrowed on our bright future. We been dun!
When will crusher introduce these.
“Complete extraction of existing, hidden, and deleted phone data, including call history, text messages, contacts, images, and geotags,” a CelleBrite brochure explains regarding the device’s capabilities. “The Physical Analyzer allows visualization of both existing and deleted locations on Google Earth. In addition, location information from GPS devices and image geotags can be mapped on Google Maps.”
More:
That means that there’s a built in back door to the encryption used on the phones. Bet that wasn’t touted as a feature on the shiny sales brochure.
hey joe.
i know where you live and I know what you say and I know what you think so why would I get rid of the apparatus that allows me to keep tabs on YOU!
Surely Mr Goff can take whoever he wants to attend these meetings. It is not a good look for any government to behave in this manner
http://www.stuff.co.nz/taranaki-daily-news/news/4907844/Little-angry-at-snub
I so lurve how Paula Benefitformeandnotforyou wallows in politicking and deftly front-foots by pre-emptively screaming the other is politicking.
A great move from Tory 101.
Isn’t this the same kind of bleating the Nats were doing last week with the Palmy MP? No politics, please, it’s election year.
Yup, typical of National MPs.
Remember when mega-genius Misfire Lee shot out at Phil Goff for playing politics at the memorial for Christchurch earthquake victims? And, typically, that backfired.
http://www.3news.co.nz/Melissa-Lee-makes-memorial-tie-gaffe/tabid/370/articleID/203015/Default.aspx
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1104/S00421/crete-veterans-to-be-honoured-at-parliament.htm
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/4904472/Govt-relents-on-grants-for-Crete-veterans
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/4874411/Veterans-seek-aid-to-join-Crete-celebrations
the dots continue to join themselves,
the timeline is a bit of a giveaway tho’
So Mora’s Afternoons-party-political-broadcast-show with residential pundit, the Penguin tried again this afternoon. And the well informed Penguin spouted on giving us his “this-is-the-spin-you-are-to-use” line from above about family law excesses. Unfortunately for the Penguin, Law Professor Henaghan from Otago, politely discredited Farrar’s point and on that subject the Penguin added no further comment. Obviously because someone had rumbled that he didn’t know what he was talking about. Perhaps Mora’s panel would be better served by having experts on his show more often.
Then again, it’s irrelevant anyway, because as mentioned before, the listeners to the National Programme are not swayed, only riled, by what the panelists say.
Yeah he shut Farrar down pretty quick. The poison dwarf is so used to his audience of the ill-informed, the uneducated, and the wilfully ignorant sycophants that he doesn’t know what to do when his bullshit is shown up for what it is.
(on the radio he can’t log in under another name and hurl abuse at dissenters)
But yeah, the whole “panel of people who don’t know anything in particular” format is fucking retarded. It’s like a talkback station but the stupidest callers get to talk all afternoon.
Here ya go .. from 3’39” at
http://podcast.radionz.co.nz/aft/aft-20110420-1608-The_Panel_with_Penny_Ashton_and_David_Farrar_part_1-048.mp3
Anyone watching Campbell live about the Kate Shepard retiree’s . Not too nice on the NAT politicians on it.
Yes Deadly. Appalling that elderly folk are left out in the cold after laying down a plan and paid for security till they die. After paying insurance as part of the fees when they had bought a Kate Shepard unit, the earthquake wiped them out and they get minimal recompense. That’s bad.
But even worse is the way that three Ministers were approached for help, and each refused to reply/comment. Coleman, Carter and Brownlie(?) Not my problem they each said. Shame.
Last night I e-mailed TV3 to ask what happened to the Hide/Act Epson story that they were going to run. I received two replies. One from Pip Keane said that they ran out of Editorial time. Tomorrow instead. The second from John Campbell. Over run and had to cut said John and “We’ll run the story tomorrow.” he said. Today is tomorrow but no story. (I did ask in one word “political interference?” but John said “No such thing.” That just makes me more curious.
No political interference, but what about being politically interconnected?
I’ve recently given up watching Toryvision 3, TV3 … and also Toryvision New Zealand, TVNZ.
You should email them to say you patiently waited yesterday for tomorrow, but today is tomorrow, and you’re now anticipating yesterday’s tomorrow tomorrow.
But by tomorrow it will be yesterday-yesterday’s tomorrow and since everything is future or past, and there is no now I seem frozen in indecision just before and can’t manage the next moment. See?
There was a Pub in NZ that put a sign out that said Free BEER tomorrow!
The next day every one went to the bar and ordered their beers , were given their beers with the words “that’ll be 6 bucks thanks” but the sign said Free beer tomorrrow they complained. Yes thats true said the publican But as well know Tomorrow NEVER comes..
A little wisdom lol
A little bit of deadly Irish methinks.