I've been wondering if Pence will run against Trump next time. A youngster compared to Biden & Trump (he's 62), his solid fundamentalist credentials would pull plenty of votes away from the top flake – who mysteriously held up a Bible for the tv cameras during last year's campaign without explaining why.
In response to a reporter Trump said "It's a Bible." There was no poll of how many viewers knew he was lying. Anyway, this report suggests Pence has a huge hill to climb before he seems sufficiently competitive: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/07/19/pence-flatlines-2024-499919
“There are some Trump supporters who think he’s the Antichrist,” said one Iowa GOP official. Obviously not protestants (who traditionally believe that's the Pope).
"“He’s got to justify to the Trumpistas why he isn’t Judas Iscariot, and then he’s got to demonstrate to a bunch of other Republicans why he hung out with someone they perceive to be a nutjob,” said Sean Walsh, a Republican strategist who worked in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush White Houses and on several presidential campaigns."
"Many Iowa Republicans had seen the results of the most recent Conservative Political Action Conference straw poll, released just days earlier, in which Pence flatlined, drawing no more than 1 percent support."
That would be due to the charisma deficit. The rabble do like a rouser & Trump gets them fired up. So looks like the Bible reader won't stand a chance against the Bible place-holder.
The US democratic system is going through one of it's periodic re-arrangements. While the nature of their voting system will ensure that the two big brand vehicles (Dem and Rep) will endure – their support factions and what they stand for, every now and then undergoes a dramatic reshuffle. It's happened before, and we're roughly in the middle of another one.
Reports of a democratic US in terminal decline are premature.
They so need preferential voting – within party candidate selection and to allow a third party Independent candidate to beat extremists who cannot get to 50%.
Yes. I'm on record here has regarding the democratic West and the US in particular being flawed but still better than all the proven alternatives.
What I do expect from the US is a capacity to change and evolve in response to an always shifting world. And in particular it needs to find a path to unshackling it's electoral system from 19th century. The US Constitution has largely served that nation well for a very long time, but nothing can stand untouched forever. Electoral reform has to be at the front of the queue.
The big challenge is that once the door is cracked to changing the electoral system, a flood of competing self-interests inevitably barge into the room. I'm not sure how to have such a discourse in the present circumstances. Maybe the reform we need runs deeper than an electoral system.
Reducing the risk of swings to the extreme helps lower the social media temperature a notch.
The problem in their system is that GOP use the Senate filibuster to block federal government while they assert their power at state level – gerrymander, voter suppression, conservative social regimes, low MW, minimal public health in their states (which just expands the old southern order nationwide into other GOP regions). This is leading to a fracture as distinct as the one of the 1850's and one now under protection of a GOP controlled SCOTUS (and likely to be so for a generation).
Pence hasn't a hope. Reason? So many Republican/Trump supporters see him as evil for doing what they think he should've done on January 6th. No, not be slain, (although that would have been acceptable), but stopped Biden being declared President.
Which he couldn't do, but who cares about trivialities?
Yes, but for me more middle class incentive than rewards for those that were early adopters and current users.
I would have preferred to see RUC deferred as long as possible. All EV owners would have had equal benefit, and we would not be subsidising those that could have afforded it already, but just couldn't be arsed.
How many of these vehicles are bought on tick, based on housing equity and such? Anyways the floodwaters of the future will not care one bit.
I am just "hoping" that there will be some government largesse trickling down to public transport users maybe in a rebate at the end of the tax year? 🙂
Only those with no choice will continue to take public transport under a global pandemic. We are heading for the lowest public transport use since the early 1990s.
This is the magic to the privacy, security and autonomy of your own car.
Public transport improvement and affordability should be the number one priority for transport.
I see the narrative around this being morphed into alternative transport systems that often benefit recrational middle class users. The focus should primarily be on commuter traffic – for all.
Molly half the folk I know including both our sons and most of their friends work from home. They avoid Public transport because of the virus, they find it hard to believe a piece of cloth will help. They shop by click and collect as a rule.
For the remaining aspirant middle class that we have, Mercedes have finally decided to step into the higher-end market that they had ceded for 6 years to Tesla.
The obvious problem with all these billionaires heading off into outer space is that they keep coming back.
Jimmy Buffet sang about a Beach House on the Moon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beach_House_on_the_Moon) a while back, so the billionaires ought to acquire real estate as per usual. Sailing on the lunar seas requires novel technology, of course. No water, so wheels. No wind, so Tesla batteries…
It's interesting that our Jeff thinks that in the future we can do dirty industrial stuff and mining in space – an all we can eat Warren Space Buffet – and keep the Earth green.
Indeed an interesting scenario. Long been a staple of sci-fi. Asteroid mining ought to be a goer. Residential hotels on hollowed-out & honeycombed asteroids would then become the next step (developed from initial miner habitat).
Yes, your view has been mine since the tide went out on the promethean stance in the '70s. The Russian/American collaboration on the space station was excellent but you did always have that sense that they were fighting a losing battle to maintain momentum.
My positive comment earlier was due to seeing a resurgence of promethean endeavour into space. First from Musk, now with the other two megadudes.
The difference is primarily due to the shift from public funding of space exploration to private funding. Think of it as x zillion dollars with nowhere to go since the megadudes already have all the toys they want. The scenario opening up is capitalists co-creating a new market. The bandwagon effect then takes over and drives the enterprise forward.
That said, I'm just as sceptical as I ever was re tech `perfection'. To keep people alive in a vacuum requires it. Shit always happens eventually…
The nice thing about the first few seasons of the Expanse TV show was that no society had a particularly good life – Belters had it tough, Mars was totalitarian, and Earth was a shithole. And this applied to everyone except the privileged few.
Space mining will not keep the Earth green, because we've already fucked it. The overlap is too long – 20-30 years at the earliest for scaled-up space mining, and we're already getting severe climate conditions.
Al Gillespie (Professor of Law @ University of Waikato) points to the crux of the problem: "most cybercrime originates overseas, and global solutions don’t really exist."
"In theory, the attacks can be divided into two types — those by criminals and those by foreign governments. In reality, the line between the two is blurred. Dealing with foreign criminals is slightly easier than combating attacks by other governments, and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has recognised the need for a global effort to fight this kind of cybercrime."
"Unfortunately, some of the countries most often suspected of allowing international cybercrime to be committed from within their borders have not signed, meaning they are not bound by its obligations. That includes Russia, China and North Korea. Along with several other countries not known for their tolerance of an open, free and secure internet, they are trying to create an alternative international cybercrime regime, now entering a drafting process through the United Nations."
So we're part of a global network of 66 nations operating independently of the UN, and the baddies are using the UN to compete with us. Shows how low the UN has now sunk in international esteem.
Along with several other countries not known for their tolerance of an open, free and secure internet…
Those "several other countries" include, of course, the notorious regimes in Washington and London. Any principled analyst or commentator would make that clear—but this is Professor Al Gillespie, who after the Key government had sustained serious and prolonged criticism for secretly negotiating the TPPA in 2015, expressed his faith that they would "not be as secretive in the future. … I think they will learn from this, and negotiations will not be as secretive in the future.”
As a critic of the US/UK establishment my entire adult life I'm happy to acknowledge that the goodies vs baddies framing is simplistic at best and serves to mask the truth at worst. However, it does persist as our cultural norm. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Thus nuance gets sacrificed on the altar of convention.
Rhetorically, it persists. In reality, as evidenced by the state persecution of (to name just a few) Daniel Ellsberg, Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden and Julian Assange, and the destruction of (to cite just a few) Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, the reality is something else entirely.
By the way, I forgot to add this damning statement from that little homily by Professor Gillespie: “To a degree we have to trust the government.”
"Quantitative easing spent its life buying up government and local government debt with the Reserve Bank’s money, effectively keeping the price of this debt low by moving around a couple of numbers on a spreadsheet. However, this is not how most people will remember it. They will instead fondly look back on it the way they imagined it: an inkjet printer in Orr’s office spitting out banknotes with an audible “brrrr”, and assistant governor Christian Hawkesby running the printouts down to Finance Minister Grant Robertson".
Our qe was gifted a lengthy name: "So the Large-Scale Asset Purchase (LSAP) programme was born. It started out capped at $30b with the Reserve Bank only able to hold a maximum of 50 per cent of all government bonds, but later expanded to $100b with a limit of 60 per cent. Its spending would never get anywhere near this last total; when its death was announced just $53b had been spent."
"Buying up so many of these bonds forced investors to put money into riskier assets. In New Zealand the word ‘’asset’’ is pretty much synonymous with the word “house”, which is one reason why property prices soared. Kerr said everyone was a little awkward about this very much intended side-effect now". No shit! Some are even a lot awkward. “We’ve found ourselves with this gaping hole and councils which are insufficiently funded. That is the New Zealand problem right there,” Kerr said. “That is the reason why we have a housing market which is up 30 per cent."
Given that qe was created in the US to save the capitalist system with imaginary money, the learning seems to be that usage of magical thinking in government policy produces big holes in other parts of the economy.
Not really buying that QE was a cause of house price increases.
The lockdowns definitely took the smashed avocado away from potential buyers causing savings (also due to the wage subsidy providing lockdown income). Once the lockdowns ended this enabled house buying to continue apace, with buyers being even more willing to push out fully paying off their mortgage. Also some long meaningful zoom calls with the parents (and future co-owners) were involved.
QE reduced what interest rate the govt pays on its debt and gets it paid to itself (RBNZ profits are rebated anyway). But it should be pretty obvious that if the govt paid more stiff interest rates but still had a lockdown and wage subsidy similar house price rises would have occurred.
The OCR rate drop, the greater availability of money to banks, and the suspension of the deposit requirements were the more direct reasons for the house price increase.
Banks don't need deposits to make additional loans, at last resort the funds to complete the transaction can always be borrowed at the OCR from the RBNZ.
The most important criteria for borrowing will be ability to repay the loan and having a deposit to complete the house purchase.
So as Robertson and yourself don’t believe yet we have had massive property increases (just as the experts predicted) what now? The last 9 months increases will take 10years of wage growth at 2% before we are in the same position as late last year and that is with a stagnant property market for 10 years 🤬
So when warned, Robertson did nothing but play his fiddle, he had options open. Yet have we not been told how this government is to implement policies to improve the situation, the actions suggest otherwise. Over promised to act and deliver nothing but dissappointment.
The Treasury advise Robertson and they forecast a fall in the property market.
It was because of Treasury advice that Orr of the RB decided to lower the OCR, expand money available to banks and suspend the equity/deposit requirement for bank lending.
How about this warning – and Robertson was …. Doing nothing, I know is is not normal to expect to ignore advice that holds true that Robertson and con are accountable for the balls up , unless the govt want property to dramatically increase in value. I am sure the promise regarding housing was made in the previous election but was it intended to be acted on ?
In Jan 2020 Orr advised the government that LSAP would cause house price inflation (this was not being practiced at the time).
In March Orr begins LSAP as a pandemic response – as Treasury expects there to be a recession (and fall in property values).
Since then
The governments incomes support, and successful end to community spread prevents a recession (two terms of decline).
Orr maintains the low OCR and suspension of the equity/deposit for home loans for 6 more months (rather than actively intervene in a market rising in value).
After we continue without community spread well into winter 2021 and look to have vaccination roll out in play with inflation rising above 3% and unemployment below 5% and falling he formally ends LSAP – presumably because we still have some money set aside for another lock down.
Experts or no, I really just don't think a lot the stories projecting where the economy (and particularly inflation) is heading in response to govt economic policy are credible. For this case we are told by Mr Kerr that the 30% increases only happened because of QE. But whats his counterfactual, because there were a bunch of policies around the lockdown not just QE.
And yet the QE program didn't do much for several recent months while further price increases continued and its hardly like house price increases were unprecedented before QE started either.
If you look further into QE you will find its just a permitted (e.g market inclusive) way for the RBNZ to fund the govt at low interest rates. Notice the RBNZ holds 53% of govt debt presently. Once you have that understanding the idea that the govt owning its own debt influences house prices seems a bit weird.
The minimum standard for claiming QE is causing a 30% house price appreciation should be, explain how these transactions influence people to buy into housing at 30% higher prices.
Also keeping amo spare is not a thing, the RBNZ can at any time repeat its QE policy to fund the govt further. It can do that while being in negative equity because the only institution it answers to is parliament and their not going to do anything if the RBNZ is in this state. This means (if it mattered) that govt debt held by the RBNZ could just be written off by mutual agreement.
Shock jocks who ran interference about vaccinations in USA such as Hannity are asking their audience to basically forget what they said and get the jab.
Interesting times…..Tucker’s unmoved as expected as Dominic Cummins keeps giving it up.
I travelled from Wellington to Auckland a return trip with a 12 month old in the mid 1980s on the over nighter. I shared both ways in a single bunk bed. The bed was to narrow for an infant and a skinny adult. I ended up sleeping on the floor so the infant got a good sleep.
We had one of the 1970's Auckland/Wellington silver star carriages here in a paddock behind A&G Price for years. Gone now – probably to a tramcar Bay 🙂
I used to have to travel on it frequently when I was on the Naval Staff in Def HQ and had to visit the Auckland Naval Base as part of my duties. It was either that or spend a day travelling on the Air Force Shuttle. (If you have time to spare – go by Air!). It wasn't the most comfortable of conveyances and although it was supposedly a sleeper – sleeping was pretty hard to do. The following day was pretty much a write-off.
For those who like to keep tabs on how corrupted Donald Trump was by foreign agents and foreign countries, we have a new addition to the current list of his indicted and convicted White House staff:
– Paul Manafort, his Campaign Chairman, acting for Ukrainian interests
– Rick Gates, another senior Trump campaign official, country name redacted as part of FBI deal
– Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, Trump's National Security Adviser, for Russian interests
– Michael Cohen Trump's commercial lawyer for years, for Russian interests
– Ken Kurson, President Trump's speechwriter, cyberstalking, country name redacted
– Roger Stone, Trump and Republican Party senior operative, for Russian interests
– George Papadopoulos, another Trump campaign aide, acting for Russian interests
– Elliott Broidy, senior Trump campaign fundraiser, operating for Chinese and Malaysian interests
– George Nader, for the United Arab Emirates. And child pornography.
– Imaaz Zuberi, major Trump donor, country redacted as part of deal
– Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, major Trump donors, for Ukrainian interests
– Sam Patten, senior Republican lobbyist, for Ukrainian interests
I'm not convinced that Deutsche Bank dirt will ever properly see the light of day with Trump and the house Democrats likely to "resolve issues" surrounding congressional subpoenas of his financial records from that bank.
"The parties are “continuing to engage in negotiations intended to narrow or resolve their disputes and believe they are close to an agreement,” the filing said. They asked a federal judge in New York for another 30 days to continue negotiations.
The House Financial Services Committee and the House Intelligence Committee subpoenaed Deutsche Bank in 2019, seeking years of the president’s personal and business records. Trump challenged the subpoenas as an intrusion on his powers as president.“:
That may well be true – but the stench will continue to linger. What other explanation can there be for the many millions in "loans" to a bankrupt when almost every other major bank in the US wouldn't touch him again with a barge pole.
The dislike is mutual. After Trump's first bankruptcy, major banks grew considerably more skittish about doing business with him.
"When underwriting some of these very large loans with very visible borrowers, there is an element or the possibility of headline risk," Chandan says.Lenders tend to look askance at borrowers who have a history of walking away from debts too quickly, says economist Sam Chandan, who is the Larry & Klara Silverstein chair of New York University's Schack Institute of Real Estate. They also avoid borrowers whose exploits can generate bad press.
To borrow money, Trump has had to turn to smaller and less conventional sources of capital, such as Ladder Capital Finance, a New York real estate investment trust that holds mortgages on several Trump properties. Ladder doesn't keep the mortgages it issues and instead packages them into securities and resells them to other financial institutions. It therefore has somewhat more freedom to take risks with its customers than more heavily regulated banks.
More troubling is Trump's relationship with his other major lender, Deutsche Bank Trust Company Americas, a subsidiary of the giant German bank, says Eisen of the Brookings Institution.
Deutsche Bank Trust Company Americas is in talks with the federal government over various financial irregularities and faces big potential fines over its handling of mortgage-backed securities. Like other big banks, it will be affected by Trump's vow to overhaul bank regulations.
"Here you have one of the world's largest financial institutions, Mr. Trump's principal lender, whom he owes many, many millions of dollars to, that creates a conflict that cuts across Mr. Trump's job as president, " Eisen says.
Agree generally, though I think Trump Org will just trade their bank debt into lower-tier banks i.e. even below Deutsche Bank who are pretty scummy already. That's a pretty useful escape route.
Problem is those lower-order banks tend to co-operate when squeezed, apropos the Cyprus bank that became a co-operating witness in the 2018 Manafort trial.
My instinct is that he will go to a very friendly Gulf State bank to re-set himself.
Trump is doing remarkably well to survive all of this since 2016, and while it would be great for some moment of high hubris to descend, I'm not counting on it.
Cost and relevance as it's neither amateur or the pinnacle of (insert sport/activity here) anymore in the 21st century which were almost a quarter through.
But then cost is all relative as Tokyo whined about the fine they'll cop if it doesn't go ahead. So on we go, fingers crossed for our competitors and support crews.
The current ambition is to have hosts who can cover their costs with TV and other revenues. Paris 2024 and LA 2028 will tell. If that is not possible, the option is either a permanent venue (Athens is favoured), or a small number of alternate venues (quick rotation would allow re-use of facilities).
Yup. While I think we can all hold some nostaglic regard for the original Olympic ideal, the ever advancing professionalisation and multiplying diversity of sports themselves has rather overtaken it.
Worse has been the exploitation of the Olympics for nationalistic purposes. The prospect of the 2022 Winter Olympics looking like a re-run of 1936 brings no-one any joy either.
It occurs to me that several thousand years ago, some Greeks and Romans were probably holding exactly this same conversation.
The Greeks were indeed having this conversation Isocrates in the Panegyricus argued strongly for wisdom over athletics.
Many times have I wondered at those who first convoked the national assemblies and established the athletic games,1 amazed that they should have thought the prowess of men's bodies to be deserving of so great bounties, while to those who had toiled in private for the public good and trained their own minds so as to be able to help also their fellow-men they apportioned no reward whatsoever.
when, in all reason, they ought rather to have made provision for the latter; for if all the athletes should acquire twice the strength which they now possess, the rest of the world would be no better off; but let a single man attain to wisdom, and all men will reap the benefit who are willing to share his insight.
A fit man is no burden, but the indolent man behind the keyboard eating junk food, while gaming or blogging, is only a decade from consequences for the taxpayer.
Wouldn't it have been wonderful if the New Zealand Government had said this a couple of years ago before we blew hundreds of millions on the fiasco that was the America's Cup?
Could even have been able to pay the nurses a bit more and have kept those heading off to the greener fields in Australia here in New Zealand where we need them.
One does not afford an annual expense by pruning capital spending (and the assets that remain in Auckland are real assets and are worth more than the net cost of the event).
This is kinda nice. Lots of businesses jump on the Pride bandwagon for marketing, only to send their ad money elsewhere on the first of July. So it's good to see a small gesture of inclusion actually progresses outside the month of June.
It's more shutting off the road for the paint to dry that would be difficult. A few litres of paint don't cost much on DCC scale of expenses.
That is what our last, unlamented, Mayor Justin Lester claimed in Wellington. Then the Wellington ratepayers found out that Lester had managed to blow $40,000 on the stupid thing!
Gosh. The Council come up with a claimed $27,000 and you think that is an acceptable number?
Where did you ever work? It sounds as if you never worked at anything outside of the Public Sector. Only people there would think that painting a few coloured stripes on a road was worth spending that sort of money. You certainly wouldn't think so if it was your own money, that is for sure.
Traffic management – including closing Dixon Street and diverting traffic while the installation was underway – cost $11,710.
Security guards were employed at a cost of $2,304 to make sure the rainbow crossing was installed safely in the heart of Wellington’s bustling entertainment district over the weekend of 6 and 7 October 2018.
We also took the opportunity to install and upgrade safety features in Dixon Street at a cost of $3,998.61
The remaining expenses (security fencing, signage and communication to neighbours) totalled $4,841.86.
$4k for a few coats of what I'm assuming is something more substantial than timbacryl and applied by people earning a living wage.
As for where I've worked, you seem to be confusing "spending your own money" with actually knowing the cost of doing the job.
You'd want to spend the minimum amount on inadequate paint and less on the people to do the job. I've definitely worked for arses like that before, generally in hospo. They looked a lot like the ones now bitching about a "skills shortage" because they don't have enough unemployed people to exploit.
Because there has been no official investigation of any such influence by any branch of the American government – so he cannot refer to it.
Which means it's a conspiracy theory … unlike UFO's (the cover up created by the US Air Force in 1947 to suppress public reference in media to sightings of spy craft in test flight development), esp since Space Force …
In a globalised world it's quite unrealistic to imagine every nation can politically stand in isolation. Influence will always be sought and wielded to some degree. In the absence of a formal, function global scale governance – all the more so.
The real question I would ask – how transparent is this influence? Right now the answer everywhere seems to be 'very opaque'.
"GCSB Minister Andrew Little said that the foreign intelligence agency has established links between Chinese state-sponsored actors known as Advanced Persistent Threat 40 (APT40) and malicious cyber activity in New Zealand. The GCSB had "worked through a robust technical attribution process" to establish its conclusions, Little said." https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/447239/government-points-finger-at-china-over-cyber-attacks
"The term "advanced persistent threat" has been cited as originating from the United States Air Force in 2006 with Colonel Greg Rattray cited as the individual who coined the term." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_persistent_threat
"APT40, also known as BRONZE MOHAWK, FEVERDREAM, G0065, Gadolinium, GreenCrash, Hellsing, Kryptonite Panda, Leviathan, MUDCARP, Periscope, Temp.Periscope, and Temp.Jumper, is an advanced persistent threat located in Haikou, Hainan Province, People's Republic of China (PRC), and has been active since at least 2009. APT40 has targeted governmental organizations, companies, and universities in a wide range of industries, including biomedical, robotics, and maritime research, across the United States, Canada, Europe, the Middle East, and the South China Sea area, as well as industries included in China's Belt and Road Initiative."
So it's official from the government that these cyber attacks emanate from a threat located in China (APT40) and this entity consists of "Chinese state-sponsored actors" which have been producing similar organised attacks against diverse targets in various countries for 12 years. Other western govts accept this reality also. Forensic computer analysis seems to have confirmed the identity of the source.
Assumption of Chinese state sponsoring the organisation derive, presumably, from the expectation that the state would eliminate the organisation if it were not operating in accord with state policy. Makes sense, but a sceptic would point out there's no proof and the authorities are basing foreign policy on blind faith in their spooks…
So wer,re expected to believe now that china is behind the latest cyber attacks in this country really ??what could they possibly gain from the somewhat seedy takedown of a hospitals network system ?Call me a CT if you wish but i seem to remember amongst the very large disclosure of documents released by wikileaks a few years ago called vault 7 there was evidence of american abilities to falsely attribute hacks and computer intrusions to another party .Personally given their past record for fabricating untruths i wouldnt trust any american intelligence source to tell me the time of day !
Your opinion isn't worth much unless you can do better than the evidence released yesterday.
Yesterday, the collected governments heading respective intelligence communities from the United States, NATO, EU, UK, Canada, Japan, Australia, and little old New Zealand came out simultaneously with the same message, and this is just New Zealand's bit of it:
What China has done is manage to unify the entire developed world against them in this kind of cyber war.
It’s now much more likely that you will see global cybersecurity enforcement formed into multilateral security agreements far, far larger than Five Eyes.
Is it a matter of trust, or competence? Most of them could be misled by colleagues and not realise it.
Most of the Senate did not know the difference between Sunni and Shia when voting on regime change in Iraq – that sort of advanced knowledge was to be found only on the Foreign Relations Committee.
And then again if you rang up Foggy Bottom or Langley and asked for the time and they got it right, you would have to suspect they were using NSA tracking sources to know your location.
According to the leaked documents, the NSA intercepts and stores the communications of over a billion people worldwide, including United States citizens. The documents also revealed the NSA tracks hundreds of millions of people's movements using cellphones' metadata.
NSA warns that the location of any powered-on smartphone can have its location tagged. … “Even if cellular service is turned off on a mobile device,” NSA says, “Wi-Fi and Bluteooth can determine a user's location
Seymour frames PM: "One has to ask, is the real reason we do not have a plan to get our way of life back is that the Government is still focus-grouping it?"
Flawed premise right there! We don't plan to get our way of life back while in the midst of a pandemic, so why expect the govt to do it for us??
"It's time to start treating New Zealanders like adults. Let us know what's going on in a timely way. Be up-front with us as issues arise instead of relying on polls and focus groups. Our COVID response is more important than Jacinda Ardern's popularity."
She doesn't need to worry about that – it's already right up there! Haven't you noticed?? She's crowd-sourcing feedback, obviously. Only people who volunteer it are those with a chip on their shoulder, eh? So making an organised effort to evaluate how folks see the thing going is sensible. You could even call it adult.
Seymour's childish need to get the govt to return his privileged way of life is just nanny-state thinking. Yet he can't see that he's just complaining about the pandemic tugging his security blanket away. A mental age of two years…
For mine that would mean the independently rich and publicly involved (as group leaders or associates) would retain freedom of speech, the rest would risk consequence – in employment, elsewhere online on other platforms and harrassment where they lived.
SPC you nail it – Free speech can never be truly free, but especially when you fix your moniker to it, it can be like punching yourself somewhere vital.
I sat on a board of trustees and we needed to do some recruitment. Most of the trustees wanted to scan the applicants social media accounts before shortlisting. I put my foot down and said that if they thought that was the right thing to do then w needed to be upfront about it with the applicants, tell them what we had found and how we used that information in our decision-making.
In the end they didn't want to be held accountable for their desire to be nosy. Trolling peoples social media as part of the recruitment of staff is the refuge of cowards for the most part.
“In Israel there is a strong political movement to make diplomacy through business,” said the person, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “Business first, diplomacy later. When you make a deal together, it opens a lot of doors to diplomacy.” It is common for governments to help companies export their products. NSO, after all, employs former Israeli cyber-intelligence officials and retains links to the defence ministry."
"In the case of Saudi Arabia, sources familiar with the matter said the kingdom was temporarily cut off from using Pegasus in 2018, for several months, following the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, but was allowed to begin using the spyware again in 2019 following the intervention of the Israeli government. It is unclear why the Israeli government urged NSO to reconnect the surveillance tool for Riyadh."
"NSO's founders are ex-members of Unit 8200, the Israeli Intelligence Corps unit responsible for collecting signals intelligence." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSO_Group
Benjamin Netanyahu once said that "Talpiot" was better than Five Eyes. His meaning would not be an elite unit within the IDF (10 year service and training in maths, physics IT), but the areas where they dispersed to – Shin Bet, Mossad, military intelligence and various tech firms like NSO.
Kushner and co – play nice with Israel and we'll flog you suites of nifty, purpose built tech to surveille and repress any and all domestic opposition.
Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, Turkey, Morocco, Saudi Arabia- righto!
Bibi and the Donald – we'll call it the Peace to Prosperity: A Vision to Improve the Lives of the Palestinian and Israeli People plan.
The Greens want a WOF for rental property, rather than require tenants to complain about the property meeting the standard (often renters are being offered dubious property and take it rather than miss out).
The Healthy Homes Standards, which became law on July 1, 2019, outline the minimum standards for heating, insulation, ventilation, moisture ingress and drainage, and draught-stopping in rented properties.
Last month, the Government announced that all private rentals must comply with the Healthy Homes Standards within 90 days of any new or renewed tenancy after July 1, with all private rentals complying by July 1, 2024
At current, all houses rented by Kāinga Ora (formerly Housing New Zealand) and registered Community Housing Providers must comply with the Healthy Homes Standards by July 1, 2023.
For mine what is needed is a random check policy between now and 2024 (covering all properties by July 2024), with a short period of notice to the landlord (tenants being able to "anonymously" notify the agency concerned about properties of concern, so the problem ones are sorted out more quickly).
Sounds like good thinking SPC. And on why everything is SNAFU on housing and everything:
Here is some more – a Ted talk on capitalism by someone who says he is at the top level of the 1% wweeaalltthhyy – people who have multiples of everything!
The point of course being to provide free checks, rather than charge for a WOF, and cover the cost by fining those landlords whose properties were not up to standard.
Right on SPC. Make it easy to be gooder, until the whole lot go up on a rising tide. Carrots needed more with sticks available to be used, that do get used.
And what about if you're renting a sound place at a really reasonable rental – and you can't afford any more. It has full spec insulation and an extractor fan over the oven. I keep it clean and well ventilated, there is no mould and it doesn't need a heat pump or extractor fans in the bathroom. Why should my landlord be forced to do unnecessary stuff – resulting in me paying more rent? Where is the common sense?
Poto Williams – You need to up your game. You need to represent all NZ'ers not just Maori and Pacific communities. What a train wreck of an interview – luckily it wasn't Mike Hosking.
Yes, as an elected member from Christchurch and a Minister of the Crown you would think she represents (1) the people of her electorate and (2) all New Zealanders. Clearly the Minister thinks otherwise. Doh!
Even though a lot has changed, historically speaking, the Democratic Party was the party of the Ku Klux Klan and slavery.
It's only when you step back and take a longer view of US politics that you begin to see just how much the support factions for each of the two major Parties (the two big brand vehicles) has changed over time in adaptation to the changing social ground. And will continue to change into the future.
Sure wind/solar being intermittent require a spare capacity such as gas (better than coal). Even our hydro based system needs back up in dry years (battery dam maybe) or we use Huntly (at some point only gas and no longer any coal).
He seems to be arguing for 100% nuclear as per France as better for AGW and the local environment. But how does anyone go from zero to 100% nuclear quickly?
There are all sorts of combinations possible 33%+- nuclear, 33%+- hydro and or dry year battery and 33%+- solar/wind with gas back up.
or we use Huntly (at some point only gas and no longer any coal).
The local gas is drying up.
From memory there hasn’t been a decent sized field found since Kupe in about 1986. That is despite significiant searches for new fields from the 2000s until recently. A couple of onshore small oil fields with a small gas compenent..
The large Kapuni was discovered when I was born (1959) and the massive Maui was when I listening to the moon landing (1969).
Our geology around the Zealandia continental area doesn’t really make it likely that we’ll find large cheap viable fields. Kupe has only recently started being exploited simply because it was far more expensive than Maui to exploit.
The plan is still to shut down the coal or gas fired units and only use the gas fired turbines (it seems we made a mistake exporting methanol to Japan etc) … importing gas from Oz?
That's only the plan if you follow the government's climate agenda, not its energy agenda.
In the same year the government declared a climate emergency, imports of an especially dirty type of coal from Indonesia topped a million tonnes for the first time since 2006.
New Zealand’s totally addicted to coal until there are huge new reliable wind farms all over the place. After the Lammermoor disaster and the Blueskin Bay nightmare, new projects large and small have been very slow to market – and who can blame them?
Fukushima is widely regarded as the second worst nuclear power incident ever. It should however teach us two important lessons.
One is the inherent vulnerability of large reactor designs that use water as their coolant/moderator. The critical necessity of needing to maintain both high pressure and high flow of this water through these reactor types even after the reaction has been shut down, was always their Archilles Heel. This is why all new Gen 4 designs eliminate this requirement in one manner or another, directly leading to substantial improvements in both innate safety and costs at the same time.
Lesson 1: Plan to replace the existing fleet of Gen 3 PWR type reactors as they reach the end of their life with better designs with innately lower risk profiles and costs.
The second idea to be learned is this, that the second worst nuclear power accident of all time has directly caused zero deaths and zero demonstrable harm to anyone. (This sets aside the 1600 odd deaths indirectly attributed to authorities panicking and evacuating many vulnerable people, completely unnecessarily, in sub-optimal circumstances.)
The reality is that we evolved and live on a planet bathed in a certain low level of ionising radiation. Below a certain level (probably about 100mSv) there is no possible harm, because the body repairs DNA damage much faster than the radiation causes it. In fact the data suggests that people living in areas with elevated background levels have somewhat lower rates of cancer. A fuller explanation here.
Lesson 2 : Not understanding that modest levels of ionising radiation is a normal and natural aspect of our world has led to irrational fearmongering that closed off decades ago the best path we had to avoiding climate change. This has been an incalculably high opportunity cost we have to address before any real progress in reducing CO2 levels (ie getting the atmospheric CO2 number back down under 350ppm) can be made.
Buzz from the Beehive Housing Minister Chris Bishop delivered news – packed with the ingredients to enflame political passions – worthy of supplanting Winston Peters in headline writers’ priorities. He popped up at the post-Cabinet press conference to promise a crackdown on unruly and antisocial state housing tenants. His ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The Reserve Bank is advertising for a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion advisor. The Bank has one mandate – to keep inflation between one and three percent. It has failed in that and is only slowly getting inflation back down to the upper limit. Will it ...
Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency Waka KotahiThe fact that a ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: Gavin Jacobson talks to Thomas Piketty 10 years on from Capital in the 21st CenturyThe SalvoLocal scoop: Green MP’s business being investigated over migrant exploitation claims StuffSteve KilgallonLocal deep-dive: The commercial contractors making money from School ...
It’s a home - but Kāinga Ora tenants accused of “abusing the privilege” may lose it. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The Government announced a crackdown on Kāinga Ora tenants who were unruly and/or behind on their rent, with Housing Minister Chris Bishop saying a place in a state ...
This is a guest post by Connor Sharp of Surface Light Rail Light rail in Auckland: A way forward sooner than you think With the coup de grâce of Auckland Light Rail (ALR) earlier this year, and the shift of the government’s priorities to roads, roads, and more roads, it ...
Note: As a paid-up Webworm member, I’ve recorded this Webworm as a mini-podcast for you as well. Some of you said you liked this option - so I aim to provide it when I get a chance to record! Read more ...
TL;DR: In my ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.06pm on Monday, March 18:IKEA is accused of planting big forests in New Zealand to green-wash; REDD-MonitorA City for People takes a well-deserved victory lap over Wellington’s pro-YIMBY District Plan votes; A City for PeopleSteven Anastasiou takes a close look at the sticky ...
Buzz from the Beehive Here’s hoping for a lively post-cabinet press conference when the PM and – perhaps – some of his ministers tell us what was discussed at their meeting today. Until then, Point of Order has precious little Beehive news to report after its latest monitoring of the ...
David Farrar writes – We now have almost all 2023 data in, which has allowed me to update my annual table of how labour went against its promises. This is basically their final report card. The promiseThe result Build 100,000 affordable homes over 10 ...
I’m a bit worried that I’ve started a previous newsletter with the words “just when you think they couldn’t get any worse…” Seems lately that I could begin pretty much every issue with that opening. Such is the nature of our coalition government that they seem to be outdoing each ...
Geoffrey Miller writes – Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. ...
Depictions of Islam in Western popular culture have rarely been positive, even before 9/11. Five years on from the mosque shootings, this is one of the cultural headwinds that the Muslim community has to battle against. Whatever messages of tolerance and inclusion are offered in daylight, much of our culture ...
Last week Transport Minster Simeon Brown and Mayor Wayne Brown opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre. The new train control centre will see teams from KiwiRail, Auckland Transport and Auckland One Rail working more closely together to improve train services across the city. The Auckland Rail Operations Centre in ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson said in an exit interview with Q+A yesterday the Government can and should sustain more debt to invest in infrastructure for future generations. Elsewhere in the news in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 6:36am: Read more ...
Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. It is more than just a happy ...
TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to March 18 include:China’s Foreign Minister visiting Wellington today;A post-cabinet news conference this afternoon; the resumption of Parliament on Tuesday for two weeks before Easter;retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson gives his valedictory speech in Parliament; ...
New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters’s state-of-the-nation speech on Sunday was really a state-of-Winston-First speech. He barely mentioned any of the Government’s key policies and could not even wholly endorse its signature income tax cuts. Instead, he rehearsed all of his complaints about the Ardern Government, including an extraordinary claim ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
“I’ve been internalising a really complicated situation in my head.”When they kept telling us we should wait until we get to know him, were they taking the piss? Was it a case of, if you think this is bad, wait till you get to know the real Christopher, after the ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
.“$10 and a target that bleeds” - Bleeding Targets for Under $10!.Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.This government appears hell-bent on either scrapping life-saving legislation or reintroducing things that - frustrated critics insist - will be dangerous and likely ...
“It hardly strikes me as fair to criticise a government for doing exactly what it said it was going to do. For actually keeping its promises.”THUNDER WAS PLAYING TAG with lightning flashes amongst the distant peaks. Its rolling cadences interrupted by the here-I-come-here-I-go Doppler effect of the occasional passing car. ...
Subversive & Disruptive Technologies: Just as happened with that other great regulator of the masses, the Medieval Church, the advent of a new and hard-to-control technology – the Internet – is weakening the ties that bind. Then, and now, those who enjoy a monopoly on the dissemination of lies, cannot and will ...
Been Here Before: To find the precedents for what this Coalition Government is proposing, it is necessary to return to the “glory days” of Muldoonism.THE COALITION GOVERNMENT has celebrated its first 100 days in office by checking-off the last of its listed commitments. It remains, however, an angry government. It ...
Bob Edlin writes – And what is the world watching today…? The email newsletter from Associated Press which landed in our mailbox early this morning advised: In the news today: The father of a school shooter has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter; prosecutors in Trump’s hush-money case ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is another Green MP on their way out? And are the Greens severely tarnished by another integrity scandal? For the second time in three months, the Green Party has secretly suspended an MP over integrity issues. Mystery is surrounding the party’s decision to ...
For the last few years, the Green Party has been the party that has managed to avoid the plague of multiple scandals that have beleaguered other political parties. It appears that their luck has run out with a second scandal which, unfortunately for them, coincided with Golraz Ghahraman, the focus ...
TL;DR: The six newsey things that stood out to me as of 6:46am on Saturday, March 16.Andy Foster has accidentally allowed a Labour/Green amendment to cut road user chargers for plug-in hybrid vehicles, which the Government might accept; NZ HeraldThomas CoughlanSimeon Brown has rejected a plea from Westport ...
What seemed a booming success a couple of years ago has collapsed into fraud convictions.I looked at the crash of FTX (short for ‘Futures Exchange’) in November 2022 to see whether it would impact on the financial system as a whole. Fortunately there was barely a ripple, probably because it ...
Anybody following the situation in Ukraine and Russia would probably have been amused by a recent Tweet on X NATO seems to be putting in an awful lot of effort to influence what is, at least according to them, a sham election in an autocracy.When do the Ukrainians go to ...
TL;DR:Shaun Baker on Wynyard Quarter's transformation. Magdalene Taylor on the problem with smart phones. How private equity are now all over reinsurance. Dylan Cleaver on rugby and CTE. Emily Atkin on ‘Big Meat’ looking like ‘Big Oil’.Bernard’s six-stack of substacks at 6pm on March 15Photo by Jeppe Hove Jensen ...
Buzz from the Beehive Finance Minister Nicola Willis had plenty to say when addressing the Auckland Business Chamber on the economic growth that (she tells us) is flagging more than we thought. But the government intends to put new life into it: We want our country to be a ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee has reported back on the Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) Amendment Bill, basicly rubberstamping it. While there was widespread support among submitters for the principle that EV and PHEV drivers should pay their fair share for the roads, they also overwhelmingly disagreed with ...
Peter Dunne writes – This week’s government bailout – the fifth in the last eighteen months – of the financially troubled Ruapehu Alpine Lifts company would have pleased many in the central North Island ski industry. The government’s stated rationale for the $7 million funding was that it ...
See if you can spot the difference. An Iranian born female MP from a progressive party is accused of serial shoplifting. Her name is leaked to the media, which goes into a pack frenzy even before the Police launch an … Continue reading → ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The government is omitting general Treaty references from legislation : The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last Government in a bid to get greater coherence in the public service on Treaty ...
What was that judge thinking?Peter Williams writes – That Golriz Ghahraman and District Court Judge Maria Pecotic were once lawyer colleagues is incontrovertible. There is published evidence that they took at least one case to the Court of Appeal together. There was a report on ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Climate Scorpion – the sting is in the tail. Introducing planetary solvency. A paper via the University of Exeter’s Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.Local scoop:Kāinga Ora starts pulling out of its Auckland projects and selling land RNZ ...
Wellington’s massively upzoned District Plan adds the opportunity for tens of thousands of new homes not just in the central city (such as these Webb St new builds) but also close to the CBD and public transport links. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Wellington gave itself the chance of ...
It’s Friday and we’re halfway through March Madness. Here’s some of the things that caught our attention this week. This Week in Greater Auckland On Monday Matt asked how we can get better event trains and an option for grade separating Morningside Dr. On Tuesday Matt looked into ...
Something you might not know about me is that I’m quite a stubborn person. No, really. I don’t much care for criticism I think’s unfair or that I disagree with. Few of us do I suppose.Back when I was a drinker I’d sometimes respond defensively, even angrily. There are things ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:PM Christopher Luxon said the reversal of interest deductibility for landlords was done to help renters, who ...
It was not so much the Labour Party but really the Chris Hipkins party yesterday at Labour’s caucus retreat in Martinborough. The former Prime Minister was more or less consistent on wealth tax, which he was at best equivocal about, and social insurance, which he was not willing to revisit. ...
Buzz from the BeehiveThe text reproduced above appears on a page which records all the media statements and speeches posted on the government’s official website by Melissa Lee as Minister of Media and Communications and/or by Jenny Marcroft, her Parliamentary Under-secretary. It can be quickly analysed ...
For forty years, Robert Muldoon has been a dirty word in our politics. His style of government was so repulsive and authoritarian that the backlash to it helped set and entrench our constitutional norms. His pig-headedness over forcing through Think Big eventually gave us the RMA, with its participation and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is the new government reducing tax on rental properties to benefit landlords or to cut the cost of rents? That’s the big question this week, after Associate Finance Minister David Seymour announced on Sunday that the Government would be reversing the Labour Government’s removal ...
Saudi Arabia is rarely far from the international spotlight. The war in Gaza has brought new scrutiny to Saudi plans to normalise relations with Israel, while the fifth anniversary of the controversial killing of Jamal Khashoggi was marked shortly before the war began on October 7. And as the home ...
Questions need to be asked on both sides of the worldPeter Williams writes – The NRL Judiciary hands down an eight week suspension to Sydney Roosters forward Spencer Leniu , an Auckland-born Samoan, after he calls Ezra Mam, Sydney-orn but of Aboriginal and Torres Strait ...
Ele Ludemann writes – Contrary to what many headlines and news stories are saying, residential landlords are not getting a tax break. The government is simply restoring to them the tax deductibility of interest they had until the previous government removed it. There is no logical reason ...
I can't remember when it was goodMoments of happiness in bloomMaybe I just misunderstoodAll of the love we left behindWatching our flashbacks intertwineMemories I will never findIn spite of whatever you becomeForget that reckless thing turned onI think our lives have just begunI think our lives have just begunDoes anyone ...
Michael Bassett writes – At first reading, a front-page story in the New Zealand Herald on 13 March was bizarre. A group of severely intellectually limited teenagers, with little understanding of the law, have been pleading to the Justice Select Committee not to pass a bill dealing with ram ...
How much political capital is Christopher Luxon willing to burn through in order to deliver his $2.9 billion gift to landlords? Evidently, Luxon is: (a) unable to cost the policy accurately. As Anna Burns-Francis pointed out to him on Breakfast TV, the original ”rock solid” $2.1 billion cost he was ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Jonathon Porritt calling bullshit in his own blog post on mainstream climate science as ‘The New Denialism’.Local scoop:The Wellington City Council’s list of proposed changes to the IHP recommendations to be debated later today was leaked this ...
TL;DR:Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said yesterday tenants should be grateful for the reinstatement of interest deductibility because landlords would pass on their lower tax costs in the form of lower rents. That would be true if landlords were regulated monopolies such as Transpower or Auckland Airport1, but they’re not, ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Tom Toro Tom Toro is a cartoonist and author. He has published over 200 cartoons in The New Yorker since 2010. His cartoons appear in Playboy, the Paris Review, the New York Times, American Bystander, and elsewhere. Related: What 10 EV lovers ...
The business section of the NZ Herald is full of opinion. Among the more opinionated of all is the ex-Minister of Transport, ex-Minister of Railways, ex MP for Auckland Central (1975-93, Labour), Wellington Central (1996-99, ACT, then list-2005), ex-leader of the ACT Party, uncle to actor Antonia, the veritable granddaddy ...
Hi,Just quickly — I’m blown away by the stories you’ve shared with me over the last week since I put out the ‘Gary’ podcast, where I told you about the time my friend’s flatmate killed the neighbour.And you keep telling me stories — in the comments section, and in my ...
The first season of Rings of Power was not awful. It was thoroughly underwhelming, yes, and left a lingering sense of disappointment, but it was more expensive mediocrity than catastrophe. I wrote at length about the series as it came out (see the Review section of the blog, and go ...
Buzz from the Beehive Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden told Auckland Business Chamber members they were the first audience to hear her priorities as a minister in a government committed to cutting red tape and regulations. She brandished her liberalising credentials, saying Flexible labour markets are the ...
Chris Trotter writes – TO UNDERSTAND WHY NEWSHUB FAILED, it is necessary to understand how TVNZ changed. Up until 1989, the state broadcaster had been funded by a broadcasting licence fee, collected from every citizen in possession of a television set, supplemented by a relatively modest (compared ...
Bob Edlin writes – The Māori Party has been busy issuing a mix of warnings and threats as its expresses its opposition to interest deductibility for landlords and the plans of seabed miners. It remains to be seen whether they follow the example of indigenous litigants in Australia, ...
Every year, in the Budget, Parliament forks out money to government agencies to do certain things. And every year, as part of the annual review cycle, those agencies are meant to report on whether they have done the things Parliament gave them that money for. Agencies which consistently fail to ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – Recent events in American universities point to an underlying crisis of coherent thinking, an issue that increasingly affects the progressive left across the Western world. This of course is nothing new as anyone who can either remember or has read of the late ...
The thing about life’s little victories is that they can be followed by a defeat.Reader Darryl told me on Monday night:Test again Dave. My “head cold” last week became COVID within 24 hours, and is still with me. I hear the new variants take a bit longer to show up ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Angus Deaton on rethinking his economics IMFLocal scoop: The people behind Tamarind, the firm that left a $500m cleanup bill for taxpayers at Taranaki’s Tui oil well, are back operating in Taranaki under a different company name. Jonathan ...
Normally when we talk about accessing public transport it’s about improving how easy it is to get to, such as how easy is it to cross roads in a station/stop’s walking catchment, is it possible to cycle to safely, do bus connections work, or even if are there new routes/connections ...
Politicians are not renowned for telling the truth. Some tell us things that are verifiably not true. They offer statements that omit critical pieces of information. Gloss over risks, preferring to offer the best case scenario.Some not truths are quite small, others amusing in their transparency. There are those repeated ...
The pressure is mounting on the Government as it finalises its Budget Policy Statement, but yet more predicted revenue ‘goes missing’. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The Climate Commission has delivered another funding blow to the National-ACT-NZ First coalition Government’s tax-cutting plans, potentially carving $1.4 billion off the ‘climate ...
The Government now faces the prospect of having to watch another tax raise the price of petrol when, only six days ago, it abolished the Auckland Regional Fuel tax. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon argued that the regional fuel tax imposed costs on lower-income people with less fuel-efficient vehicles and that ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
The New Zealand public voted for a change in direction at the 2023 general election and that is exactly what this coalition government has been delivering in its first 100 days. There was an immediate focus on the economy, easing the cost of living, cracking down on law and order ...
The Government has left the health system as an afterthought, announcing half-baked targets at the last minute of their 100-day plan, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
Kiwis are still waiting for their promised cost of living support after 100 days of a National Government that is taking us backwards, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
100 days of National taking NZ backwardsThe National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
The Government must commit to funding free and healthy school lunches, as thousands of people sign the petition to keep them, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti says. ...
If the Government was serious about moving families into public housing, they would build more houses so there is actually somewhere for people to go. ...
The free and healthy school lunches programme feeds our kids, helps them to learn, and saves families money – but it is at risk under this Government, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
The Government’s proposed changes to Firearms Prohibition Orders (FPO) add almost nothing new and are merely an attempt to distract from its plans to loosen gun laws, police spokesperson Ginny Andersen and justice spokesperson Dr Duncan Webb said. ...
The great Victorian era English politician Lord Macauley stood in the British House of Parliament and said, "The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm".He understood and outlined even way back then, the significant role and influence media have in a democracy. ...
The government’s attack on Māori health this week is committing tangata-whenua to a premature death, says Te Pāti Māori. “The government have begun their onslaught on Māori health with the abolishment of the Māori Health Authority and smokefree laws in the same day” said health spokesperson and co-leader, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. ...
Today marks a tragic milestone for New Zealanders as the Coalition Government side with big tobacco to repeal the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Act 2022, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins and Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said. ...
New Zealand’s social workers are qualified, experienced, and more representative of the communities they serve, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “I want to acknowledge and applaud New Zealand’s social workers for the hard work they do, providing invaluable support for our most vulnerable. “To coincide with World ...
Cabinet has agreed to a reduced road user charge (RUC) rate for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. Owners of PHEVs will be eligible for a reduced rate of $38 per 1,000km once all light electric vehicles (EVs) move into the RUC system from 1 April. ...
Minister of Agriculture and Trade, Todd McClay, says that today’s opening of Riverland Foods manufacturing plant in Christchurch is a great example of how trade access to overseas markets creates jobs in New Zealand. Speaking at the official opening of this state-of-the-art pet food factory the Minister noted that exports ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Wellington today. “It was a pleasure to host Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his first official visit to New Zealand since 2017. Our discussions were wide-ranging and enabled engagement on many facets of New Zealand’s relationship with China, including trade, ...
Kāinga Ora – Homes & Communities has been instructed to end the Sustaining Tenancies Framework and take stronger measures against persistent antisocial behaviour by tenants, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Earlier today Finance Minister Nicola Willis and I sent an interim Letter of Expectations to the Board of Kāinga Ora. ...
Tēna koutou katoa. Greetings everyone. Thank you to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and the Honourable Simon Bridges for hosting this address today. I acknowledge the business leaders in this room, the leaders and governors, the employers, the entrepreneurs, the investors, and the wealth creators. The coalition Government shares your ...
Minister Winston Peters completed the final leg of his visit to South and South East Asia in Singapore today, where he focused on enhancing one of New Zealand’s indispensable strategic partnerships. “Singapore is our most important defence partner in South East Asia, our fourth-largest trading partner and a ...
Minister of Internal Affairs and Workplace Relations and Safety, Hon. Brooke van Velden, will travel to the Republic of Korea to represent New Zealand at the Third Summit for Democracy on 18 March. The summit, hosted by the Republic of Korea, was first convened by the United States in 2021, ...
ICNZ Speech 7 March 2024, Auckland Acknowledgements and opening Mōrena, ngā mihi nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Good morning, it’s a privilege to be here to open the ICNZ annual conference, thank you to Mark for the Mihi Whakatau My thanks to Tim Grafton for inviting me ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Lead Coordination Minister Judith Collins have expressed their deepest sympathy on the five-year anniversary of the Christchurch terror attacks. “March 15, 2019, was a day when families, communities and the country came together both in sorrow and solidarity,” Mr Luxon says. “Today we pay our respects to the 51 shuhada ...
Speech for Financial Advice NZ Conference 5 March 2024 Acknowledgements and opening Morena, Nga Mihi Nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Thanks Nate for your Mihi Whakatau Good morning. It’s a pleasure to formally open your conference this morning. What a lovely day in Wellington, What a great ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters held discussions in Jakarta today about the future of relations between New Zealand and South East Asia’s most populous country. “We are in Jakarta so early in our new government’s term to reflect the huge importance we place on our relationship with Indonesia and South ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters has announced that the Foreign Minister of China, Wang Yi, will visit New Zealand next week. “We look forward to re-engaging with Foreign Minister Wang Yi and discussing the full breadth of the bilateral relationship, which is one of New Zealand’s ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has today opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre, which will bring together KiwiRail, Auckland Transport, and Auckland One Rail to improve service reliability for Aucklanders. “The recent train disruptions in Auckland have highlighted how important it is KiwiRail and Auckland’s rail agencies work together to ...
The Government is proud to support the 10th edition of Crankworx Rotorua as the Crankworx World Tour returns to Rotorua from 16-24 March 2024, says Minister for Economic Development Melissa Lee. “Over the past 10 years as Crankworx Rotorua has grown, so too have the economic and social benefits that ...
Legislation implementing coalition Government tax commitments and addressing long-standing tax anomalies will be progressed in Parliament next week, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The legislation is contained in an Amendment Paper to the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill issued today. “The Amendment Paper represents ...
Associate Environment Minister Andrew Hoggard has today announced that the Government has agreed to suspend the requirement for councils to comply with the Significant Natural Areas (SNA) provisions of the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity for three years, while it replaces the Resource Management Act (RMA).“As it stands, SNAs ...
Agriculture Minister Todd McClay has classified the drought conditions in the Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts as a medium-scale adverse event, acknowledging the challenging conditions facing farmers and growers in the district. “Parts of Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts are in the grip of an intense dry spell. I know ...
The Government is helping farmers eradicate the significant impact of facial eczema (FE) in pastoral animals, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “A $20 million partnership jointly funded by Beef + Lamb NZ, the Government, and the primary sector will save farmers an estimated NZD$332 million per year, and aims to ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has completed a successful visit to India, saying it was an important step in taking the relationship between the two countries to the next level. “We have laid a strong foundation for the Coalition Government’s priority of enhancing New Zealand-India relations to generate significant future benefit for both countries,” says Mr Peters, ...
Cabinet has agreed to provide $7 million to ensure the 2024 ski season can go ahead on the Whakapapa ski field in the central North Island but has told the operator Ruapehu Alpine Lifts it is the last financial support it will receive from taxpayers. Cabinet also agreed to provide ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Lower fruit and vegetable prices are welcome news for New Zealanders who have been doing it tough at the supermarket, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. Stats NZ reported today the price of fruit and vegetables has dropped 9.3 percent in the 12 months to February 2024. “Lower fruit and vege ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the sixty-eighth session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
The coalition Government is supporting farmers to enhance land management practices by investing $3.3 million in locally led catchment groups, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “Farmers and growers deliver significant prosperity for New Zealand and it’s vital their ongoing efforts to improve land management practices and water quality are supported,” ...
Good evening everyone and thank you for that lovely introduction. Thank you also to the Honourable Simon Bridges for the invitation to address your members. Since being sworn in, this coalition Government has hit the ground running with our 100-day plan, delivering the changes that New Zealanders expect of us. ...
Recommendations from the Climate Change Commission for New Zealand on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) auction and unit limit settings for the next five years have been tabled in Parliament, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “The Commission provides advice on the ETS annually. This is the third time the ...
The coalition Government is beginning its fight to lower building costs and reduce red tape by exempting minor building work from paying the building levy, says Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk. “Currently, any building project worth $20,444 including GST or more is subject to the building levy which is ...
Proposed changes to tax legislation to prevent the over-taxation of low-earning trusts are welcome, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The changes have been recommended by Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure Committee following consideration of submissions on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill. “One of the ...
Assalaamu alaikum. السَّلَام عليكم In light of the holy month of Ramadan, I want to extend my warmest wishes to our Muslim community in New Zealand. Ramadan is a time for spiritual reflection, renewed devotion, perseverance, generosity, and forgiveness. It’s a time to strengthen our bonds and appreciate the diversity ...
Former Transport Minister and CEO of the Auckland Business Chamber Hon Simon Bridges has been appointed as the new Board Chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) for a three-year term, Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced today. “Simon brings extensive experience and knowledge in transport policy and governance to the role. He will ...
Good morning all, it is a pleasure to be here as Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology. It is fantastic to see how connected and collaborative the life science and biotechnology industry is here in New Zealand. I would like to thank BioTechNZ and NZTech for the invitation to address ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says he is looking forward to the day when three key water projects in Northland are up and running, unlocking the full potential of land in the region. Mr Jones attended a community event at the site of the Otawere reservoir near Kerikeri on Friday. ...
Associate Finance Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government has agreed to restore deductibility for mortgage interest on residential investment properties. “Help is on the way for landlords and renters alike. The Government’s restoration of interest deductibility will ease pressure on rents and simplify the tax code,” says ...
Sport and Recreation Minister Chris Bishop will travel to Switzerland today to attend an Executive Committee meeting and Symposium of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Mr Bishop will then travel on to London where he will attend a series of meetings in his capacity as Infrastructure Minister. “New Zealanders believe ...
This year’s Pacific Language Weeks celebrate regional unity and the contribution of Pacific communities to New Zealand culture, says Minister for Pacific Peoples Dr Shane Reti. Dr Reti announced dates for the 2024 Pacific Language Weeks during a visit to the Pasifika festival in Auckland today and says there’s so ...
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist Food rationing is underway in remote areas in Papua New Guinea’s Highlands following torrential rain and flash flooding. More than 20 people have been reported dead in Chimbu Province. In nearby Enga Province, the centre of last month’s massacre, a 15-year-old boy has been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Hughes, Lecturer, Research School of Management, Australian National University After months of debate and intrigue, the AFL’s 19th and newest team, the Tasmania Devils, finally launched its jumper, logo and colours in Devonport this week. The Devils will wear green, ...
Brannavan Gnanalingam reviews the debut novel by Saraid de Silva.One of the most baffling things for children who move to a new country is what their parents’ (or grandparents’) lives were like prior to moving – for kids in particular, they’re too busy trying to fit in in their ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Gaunson, Associate Professor in Cinema Studies, RMIT University Narelle Portanier/Binge “If you don’t know who your mob are, you don’t know who you are,” Detective Andrea “Andie” Whitford (played by Leah Purcell) is told early into the new crime ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elise Klein, Associate professor, Australian National University It’s commonly accepted that women do the vast majority of caregiving in Australian society. But less appreciated is that Indigenous women do larger amounts of unpaid care than any other group. Working with the Aboriginal ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne Joe Biden and Donald Trump have both secured their parties’ nominations for the November 5 United States general election by winning a ...
Comment: There has been a striking contrast in trans-Tasman interest about Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi’s visit to New Zealand and Australia. While the Australian press has been full of articles about the visit – including his curious decision to meet with former prime minister and China booster Paul Keating ...
After years of pressuring banks and other institutions to stop investing in fossil fuels, climate campaigners are making some progress. So how does divestment work?For years, climate activists have been pushing banks and other big institutions to divest from fossil fuels. New research from climate advocacy group 350 Aotearoa ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. The three young Polynesians are part of a K-pop fan community in Tāmaki Makaurau. It’s one of many that have sprung up worldwide as K-pop has gone ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. This one-off documentary presents three intimate portraits of young Polynesians who are pulled into a Korean cultural phenomenon. K-POLYS is directed by Litia Tuiburelevu, Produced by Hex ...
There’s ample evidence demonstrating free school lunch programmes provide wide benefits across schools, households and communities according to public health researchers. ACT Minister David Seymour wants to reduce the spending on Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
By Wata Shaw in Suva Fiji is facing an exodus of Fijians as many are leaving for overseas seeking employment and education and others are migrating, says Opposition MP Viliame Naupoto. Speaking in Parliament, he said: “His Excellency’s speech (Ratu Wiliame Katonivere) comes after a little over one year of ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming comments from Christopher Luxon this morning recommitting to ‘no new taxes’ as part of Budget 2024. “Mr Luxon’s refusal at the Post-Cabinet press conference yesterday to repeat the ‘no new taxes’ promise ...
SAFE is urgently calling on the Environment Committee to reject the Government’s Fast-Track Approvals Bill, and is urging New Zealanders to rally behind the call. The proposed Bill, currently under consideration with the Environment select committee, ...
Teammates who spend all their time picking fights with spectators are only helpful for the other team, writes Madeleine Chapman. Anyone who has ever played a team sport competitively, particularly as a child and particularly, for some reason, basketball, will know that there’s a lot of politics involved. While there ...
The long-running Wellington music festival is too focused on the Jim Beam-ness and not enough on the Homegrown-ness.There is something about Homegrown that’s difficult to place. A barely perceptible-ness. Like feeling a ghost is watching you from the corner of the room but when you look, there’s nothing there. ...
The latest Ipsos New Zealand Issues Monitor reveals that fewer New Zealanders believe crime / law and order is one of the top issues facing our country. In 2018, Ipsos New Zealand started tracking the key issues facing New Zealand. In this wave ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Griffiths, Deputy Program Director, Budgets and Government, Grattan Institute Australia’s political donations rules are woefully inadequate, but donations reform is finally on the agenda. The federal government has signalled its interest in reform and will soon begin briefing MPs on its ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Patrick Taylor, Chief Environmental Scientist, EPA Victoria; Honorary Professor, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University Naiyana Somchitkaeo/Shutterstock A recent study published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine has linked microplastics with risk to human health. The study ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Albert Van Dijk, Professor, Water and Landscape Dynamics, Fenner School of Environment & Society, Australian National University Global climate records were shattered in 2023, from air and sea temperatures to sea-level rise and sea-ice extent. Scores of countries recorded their hottest year ...
As part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, a teacher explains why he and his partner are in frugal mode – and how they’re making it work. Gender: Male Age: 35Ethnicity: Pākehā Role: I am an intermediate school teacher and my partner is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Bendall, Senior Lecturer, Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, Australian Catholic University Binge Mary & George, the new British television drama series, depicts the real-life story of Mary Villiers and her son George, and their social climbing at the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jason Nassios, Associate Professor, Centre of Policy Studies, Victoria University This article is part of The Conversation’s series examining the housing crisis. Read the other articles in the series here. Australian state and federal governments spend money in many ways to ...
The finance minister is denying that there’s a $5.6b shortfall in paying for the government’s campaign promises, including tax cuts. At his post-cabinet press conference yesterday, the PM refused to rule out new taxes to pay for the cuts, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s ...
Kāinga Ora tenants abused by their neighbours are doubting the government's crackdown on disruptive tenants will make a difference on their behaviour. ...
Kāinga Ora is New Zealand’s biggest residential landlord, housing more than 180,000 vulnerable people in more than 67,000 properties. Yesterday the government announced a crackdown on its tenants who fall behind on rent. One longtime Kāinga Ora tenant shares her experience.For 18 years I lived in a 1960s standalone ...
Why does this myth persist, and what’s the real reason our skin is suffering?It’s one of the biggest international grievances New Zealanders hold, up there with the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior and 1981’s underarm incident. We’re quick to tell international travellers that the world’s pollution led to the ...
Opinion: In a move that has shocked road safety advocates across the country, the new Minister of Transport, Simeon Brown, is poised to abandon the previous government’s speed limit reduction policy, particularly around schools. Even more alarmingly, he wants school speed limits to be variable rather than full-time, arguing ...
Auckland Council is opposing a fast-track development backed by Sir John Kirwan and Spark NZ, because it doesn’t meet stringent new climate adaptation requirements The post Surf-data centre faces new 3.8C climate warming rules appeared first on Newsroom. ...
When the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act was introduced in 2009 it was firmly targeted at gangs and drugs. The legislation means police no longer need a conviction to seize assets that criminals can’t prove were paid for legitimately, as long as their alleged offences are punishable by more than a ...
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Bob’s relationship with certain members of Lincoln’s academic staff continued to deteriorate in the 1990s. Others supported him publicly, though articles such as Roland Clark’s 1993 piece in Growing Today cannot have pleased the university management. Clark wrote that Bob was selling onions from the Biological Husbandry Unit to a ...
SailGP’s races feature in-your-face action, with agile, hydro-foiling catamarans tacking and jibing for the title over several days. However, public comments ahead of the global series’ return to New Zealand have left this past year’s controversy in the shadows, as a key appointment attracts criticism from dolphin advocates. A year ...
Opinion: We are fast approaching a fundamental change in prisons. As the number of people on custodial remand looks set to overtake the number of sentenced prisoners, the main function of prisons in New Zealand may become incarcerating un-sentenced people who may not be guilty of offending. We have already ...
A huge seven months lies in store for the White Ferns, beginning this week with the visit of England and culminating with the T20 World Cup in Bangladesh in September and October. Starting on Tuesday in Dunedin, the world ranked No. 2 visitors will play five T20s and three ODIs, ...
The letters, which were published last week, were addressed to Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) Chairperson Megawati Sukarnoputri, National Democrat Party (NasDem) Chairperson Surya Paloh, National Awakening Party (PKB) Chairperson Muhaimin Iskandar, Justice and Prosperity Party (PKS) President Ahmad Syaikhu and United Development Party (PPP) Chairperson Muhammad Mardiono. In ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emerald L King, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania IMDB Between Netflix’s 2023 live-action version of One Piece, and its latest take on Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans are once again asking: why are live-action anime adaptations so tricky to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emerald L King, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania IMDB Between Netflix’s 2023 live-action version of One Piece, and its latest take on Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans are once again asking: why are live-action anime adaptations so tricky to ...
The government says it still intends to deliver tax cuts by July, but will not lock them in until they have got them past their coalition partners. ...
Kiingi Tuheitia Pootatau Te Wherowhero VII has hosted members of the Green Party Caucus at Tuurangawaewae Marae in Ngaaruawahia. The audience follows the King’s Hui-aa-Motu on 20 January, where more than 10,000 people gathered to discuss national ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dr Rachael Potter, Research Associate and Lecturer in Work and Organisational Psychology, University of South Australia Ground Picture/Shutterstock Pregnant women and workers with children are often unfairly treated by their bosses and colleagues, despite laws to protect against workplace discrimination ...
Reacting to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s refusal to rule out introducing new taxes at the budget, Taxpayers’ Union Campaigns Manager, Connor Molloy, said: “Today’s refusal to rule out new taxes suggests the Government is nothing more ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Duckett, Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne Aila Images/Shutterstock Aged-care workers will receive a significant pay increase after the Fair Work Commission ruled they ...
He’s bringing ‘Sophie’ back, yeah. Goodshirt’s ‘Sophie’ music video is one of the most instantly recognisable New Zealand music videos of all time. Featuring a woman listening to the song on headphones while her entire house is burgled behind her, the video won the New Zealand music award for Best ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Blaxland, Professor, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University A year ago, the AUKUS agreement was formally announced between Australian and UK Prime Ministers Anthony Albanese and Rishi Sunak and US President Joe Biden. The agreement mapped out the “optimal ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andreas Helwig, Associate Professor, Electro-Mechanical Engineering, University of Southern Queensland SmartS/Shutterstock Steam locomotives clattering along railway tracks. Paddle steamers churning down the Murray. Dreadnought battleships powered by steam engines. Many of us think the age of steam has ended. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carrie Leonetti, Associate Professor of Law, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau Victims who experience family violence in Aotearoa New Zealand are treated differently, depending on which part of the justice system they turn to for help. But a new member’s bill ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Tesch, Visiting Fellow at the ANU Centre for European Studies, Australian National University In perhaps the least surprising news of the year, Vladimir Putin has triumphed at the Russian ballot box and been enthroned for the fifth time as president. He ...
The Papua New Guinea Supreme Court has stopped a byelection for the Madang Open seat being held until an appeal filed by former MP Bryan Kramer is concluded. Kramer had appealed to the Supreme Court over a National Court decision not to review his application of the Leadership Tribunal decision ...
By Miriam Zarriga in Port Moresby Despite a “historic” ceasefire agreement in Papua New Guinea between Enga authorities and tribal leaders after months of bitter warfare, a young woman has been found brutally killed near Kaekin village, Wapenamanda. Despite the peace agreement and signing concluded in Port Moresby last Thursday ...
The second season of Ryan Murphy’s Feud is a sadder and slower entry into his canon of true story-telling, leaning heavily on a verdict about the cost of a single work of art. Hollywood heavyweight Ryan Murphy has had a bit of “ick” about him in the last few years. ...
Are you deeply passionate about sharing Māori stories? We’re on the hunt for an experienced writer/editor to lead coverage in our Ātea section.Ātea is a deeply valued section of The Spinoff site, offering Māori perspectives and insights across politics, current affairs and culture. We are thrilled to be looking ...
By Aisha Azeemah in Suva With the lights on one of his sneakers blinking as he ran through the gallery, a little boy looked up at several works of art. One of them was a sculpture of his grandfather: the man who changed how we see the Pacific — Epeli ...
WHAT: Uber drivers are holding a rally outside the Court of Appeal in Wellington tomorrow, as the company begins its appeal against 2022’s Employment Court verdict (in a case taken jointly by FIRST Union and E tū) that four drivers were permanent ...
RNZ Pacific The Fiji Meteorological Service has a heavy rain warning still in place for the whole of the country after a weekend of flooding, although some floodwaters have receded. Flood and flash flood warnings and alerts are also in place, including a warning for all flash flood-prone areas, small ...
Responding to Grant Robertson’s recent admission on a Q+A with Jack Tame that his only regret from his time in office was that he didn’t take on more debt, Taxpayers’ Union spokesperson, Alex Murphy, said: “Grant Robertson has now admitted that he ...
I've been wondering if Pence will run against Trump next time. A youngster compared to Biden & Trump (he's 62), his solid fundamentalist credentials would pull plenty of votes away from the top flake – who mysteriously held up a Bible for the tv cameras during last year's campaign without explaining why.
In response to a reporter Trump said "It's a Bible." There was no poll of how many viewers knew he was lying. Anyway, this report suggests Pence has a huge hill to climb before he seems sufficiently competitive: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/07/19/pence-flatlines-2024-499919
“There are some Trump supporters who think he’s the Antichrist,” said one Iowa GOP official. Obviously not protestants (who traditionally believe that's the Pope).
"“He’s got to justify to the Trumpistas why he isn’t Judas Iscariot, and then he’s got to demonstrate to a bunch of other Republicans why he hung out with someone they perceive to be a nutjob,” said Sean Walsh, a Republican strategist who worked in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush White Houses and on several presidential campaigns."
"Many Iowa Republicans had seen the results of the most recent Conservative Political Action Conference straw poll, released just days earlier, in which Pence flatlined, drawing no more than 1 percent support."
That would be due to the charisma deficit. The rabble do like a rouser & Trump gets them fired up. So looks like the Bible reader won't stand a chance against the Bible place-holder.
De Santis is odds on (once the courts are finished with Trump), with a Senate Democratic majority to leaven him.
Can anyone see a decent Democratic nominee contender against Biden yet?
If De Santis wins the Presidential election in 2024, there is unlikely to be a Democratic majority in the Senate.
Naturally I'm ever hopeful that the United States electorate will, state by state, start to reward the Democrats. Here's my quick reasons:
– Ohio. Retirement of Republican Senator Rob Portman puts that fully in play for the Dems
– North Carolina. Republican Bill Burr not standing again. My bet is Jeff Jackson takes it.
– Wisconsin. Republican Ron Johnson will either not stand, or he will lose to a Democrat.
– Pennsylvania. Republican Pat Toomey is retiring. Plenty of good Democratic contenders there including Fetterman
– Ohio is such a Republican political mess maybe the Democrats will find a good contender
– And they have a good shot against Rubio in Florida this time with Val Demings who is a female black police captain and solid Blue Dog Dem
Democrats also have a good shot at defending their marginals in:
– Arizona
– Georgia
– Nevada, and
– New Hampshire
I'm not even going to bother with Missouri or the rest.
If anyone complains that this is simply managing the decline in US democracy, well of course that's true. But you deal with what you're dealt.
2022 will be telling (2016 reprise). The Democratic Party did well in 2018 (so might lose ground if the de Santis wins in 2024).
The unknown is the impact of GOP state voter suppression and whether this will get more extreme if they lose races in 2022.
Agree.
Yeah.
Hopefully they say the quiet bit out loud one too many times and even a particularly conservative SCOTUS kicks the effort out.
The US democratic system is going through one of it's periodic re-arrangements. While the nature of their voting system will ensure that the two big brand vehicles (Dem and Rep) will endure – their support factions and what they stand for, every now and then undergoes a dramatic reshuffle. It's happened before, and we're roughly in the middle of another one.
Reports of a democratic US in terminal decline are premature.
They so need preferential voting – within party candidate selection and to allow a third party Independent candidate to beat extremists who cannot get to 50%.
Yes. I'm on record here has regarding the democratic West and the US in particular being flawed but still better than all the proven alternatives.
What I do expect from the US is a capacity to change and evolve in response to an always shifting world. And in particular it needs to find a path to unshackling it's electoral system from 19th century. The US Constitution has largely served that nation well for a very long time, but nothing can stand untouched forever. Electoral reform has to be at the front of the queue.
The big challenge is that once the door is cracked to changing the electoral system, a flood of competing self-interests inevitably barge into the room. I'm not sure how to have such a discourse in the present circumstances. Maybe the reform we need runs deeper than an electoral system.
Reducing the risk of swings to the extreme helps lower the social media temperature a notch.
The problem in their system is that GOP use the Senate filibuster to block federal government while they assert their power at state level – gerrymander, voter suppression, conservative social regimes, low MW, minimal public health in their states (which just expands the old southern order nationwide into other GOP regions). This is leading to a fracture as distinct as the one of the 1850's and one now under protection of a GOP controlled SCOTUS (and likely to be so for a generation).
Pence hasn't a hope. Reason? So many Republican/Trump supporters see him as evil for doing what they think he should've done on January 6th. No, not be slain, (although that would have been acceptable), but stopped Biden being declared President.
Which he couldn't do, but who cares about trivialities?
This is a good result of the EV feebate scheme.
Feebate: Huge uptick in electric vehicle and plug-in hybrid sales in early weeks of new scheme | Stuff.co.nz
Yes, but for me more middle class incentive than rewards for those that were early adopters and current users.
I would have preferred to see RUC deferred as long as possible. All EV owners would have had equal benefit, and we would not be subsidising those that could have afforded it already, but just couldn't be arsed.
How many of these vehicles are bought on tick, based on housing equity and such? Anyways the floodwaters of the future will not care one bit.
I am just "hoping" that there will be some government largesse trickling down to public transport users maybe in a rebate at the end of the tax year? 🙂
Only those with no choice will continue to take public transport under a global pandemic. We are heading for the lowest public transport use since the early 1990s.
This is the magic to the privacy, security and autonomy of your own car.
Public transport improvement and affordability should be the number one priority for transport.
I see the narrative around this being morphed into alternative transport systems that often benefit recrational middle class users. The focus should primarily be on commuter traffic – for all.
Molly half the folk I know including both our sons and most of their friends work from home. They avoid Public transport because of the virus, they find it hard to believe a piece of cloth will help. They shop by click and collect as a rule.
For the remaining aspirant middle class that we have, Mercedes have finally decided to step into the higher-end market that they had ceded for 6 years to Tesla.
https://www.mercedes-benz.co.nz/passengercars/mercedes-benz-cars/models/eqa/charging-and-range/overseas-disclaimer.module.html
The XPeng seems to be taking too long to get here. Otherwise it looks pretty shiny.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qd0PeHZt4lU
The rest can go for the Toyota Camry hybrid once all those taxi drivers have run them into the ground.
Jeff the Gray leaves People of the Earth, then returns to his Amazonian (reptilian) sidekick.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-57849364
The obvious problem with all these billionaires heading off into outer space is that they keep coming back.
Jimmy Buffet sang about a Beach House on the Moon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beach_House_on_the_Moon) a while back, so the billionaires ought to acquire real estate as per usual. Sailing on the lunar seas requires novel technology, of course. No water, so wheels. No wind, so Tesla batteries…
It's interesting that our Jeff thinks that in the future we can do dirty industrial stuff and mining in space – an all we can eat Warren Space Buffet – and keep the Earth green.
Indeed an interesting scenario. Long been a staple of sci-fi. Asteroid mining ought to be a goer. Residential hotels on hollowed-out & honeycombed asteroids would then become the next step (developed from initial miner habitat).
If there is a sci-fi comparison to be made. It seems less to the a cyberpunk Schismatrix, than to Elton's dark comedy; StArk.
If you feel like some intelligent goofiness thought up by clever collegians and profs, you can't go beyond Tom Lehrer's lucidity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxFCQplZgKI
Except it's utter bollocks. We can barely keep the astronauts in the space station up there and that's an international effort using vast resources.
Space tourism is utter BS both now, and in the forseeable future.
Yes, your view has been mine since the tide went out on the promethean stance in the '70s. The Russian/American collaboration on the space station was excellent but you did always have that sense that they were fighting a losing battle to maintain momentum.
My positive comment earlier was due to seeing a resurgence of promethean endeavour into space. First from Musk, now with the other two megadudes.
The difference is primarily due to the shift from public funding of space exploration to private funding. Think of it as x zillion dollars with nowhere to go since the megadudes already have all the toys they want. The scenario opening up is capitalists co-creating a new market. The bandwagon effect then takes over and drives the enterprise forward.
That said, I'm just as sceptical as I ever was re tech `perfection'. To keep people alive in a vacuum requires it. Shit always happens eventually…
The nice thing about the first few seasons of the Expanse TV show was that no society had a particularly good life – Belters had it tough, Mars was totalitarian, and Earth was a shithole. And this applied to everyone except the privileged few.
Space mining will not keep the Earth green, because we've already fucked it. The overlap is too long – 20-30 years at the earliest for scaled-up space mining, and we're already getting severe climate conditions.
Al Gillespie (Professor of Law @ University of Waikato) points to the crux of the problem: "most cybercrime originates overseas, and global solutions don’t really exist."
https://theconversation.com/calling-out-china-for-cyberattacks-is-risky-but-a-lawless-digital-world-is-even-riskier-164771
"In theory, the attacks can be divided into two types — those by criminals and those by foreign governments. In reality, the line between the two is blurred. Dealing with foreign criminals is slightly easier than combating attacks by other governments, and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has recognised the need for a global effort to fight this kind of cybercrime."
"To that end, the government recently announced New Zealand was joining the Council of Europe’s Convention on Cybercrime, a global regime signed by 66 countries based on shared basic legal standards, mutual assistance and extradition rules."
"Unfortunately, some of the countries most often suspected of allowing international cybercrime to be committed from within their borders have not signed, meaning they are not bound by its obligations. That includes Russia, China and North Korea. Along with several other countries not known for their tolerance of an open, free and secure internet, they are trying to create an alternative international cybercrime regime, now entering a drafting process through the United Nations."
So we're part of a global network of 66 nations operating independently of the UN, and the baddies are using the UN to compete with us. Shows how low the UN has now sunk in international esteem.
Along with several other countries not known for their tolerance of an open, free and secure internet…
Those "several other countries" include, of course, the notorious regimes in Washington and London. Any principled analyst or commentator would make that clear—but this is Professor Al Gillespie, who after the Key government had sustained serious and prolonged criticism for secretly negotiating the TPPA in 2015, expressed his faith that they would "not be as secretive in the future. … I think they will learn from this, and negotiations will not be as secretive in the future.”
https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-17082015/#comment-1059852
As a critic of the US/UK establishment my entire adult life I'm happy to acknowledge that the goodies vs baddies framing is simplistic at best and serves to mask the truth at worst. However, it does persist as our cultural norm. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Thus nuance gets sacrificed on the altar of convention.
However, it does persist as our cultural norm.
Rhetorically, it persists. In reality, as evidenced by the state persecution of (to name just a few) Daniel Ellsberg, Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden and Julian Assange, and the destruction of (to cite just a few) Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, the reality is something else entirely.
By the way, I forgot to add this damning statement from that little homily by Professor Gillespie: “To a degree we have to trust the government.”
And yet here you are free to voice your opinion. Amazing this is tolerated considering how evil the regime is according to you.
Ha! To a degree! Which degree??
Edward Snowden, President, Freedom of the Press Foundation. "I used to work for the government. Now I work for the public." https://foundation.app/@Snowden/stay-free-edward-snowden-2021-24437
"New Zealand’s version of quantitative easing will die on Friday" https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/125769412/quantitative-easing-an-obituary
"Quantitative easing spent its life buying up government and local government debt with the Reserve Bank’s money, effectively keeping the price of this debt low by moving around a couple of numbers on a spreadsheet. However, this is not how most people will remember it. They will instead fondly look back on it the way they imagined it: an inkjet printer in Orr’s office spitting out banknotes with an audible “brrrr”, and assistant governor Christian Hawkesby running the printouts down to Finance Minister Grant Robertson".
Our qe was gifted a lengthy name: "So the Large-Scale Asset Purchase (LSAP) programme was born. It started out capped at $30b with the Reserve Bank only able to hold a maximum of 50 per cent of all government bonds, but later expanded to $100b with a limit of 60 per cent. Its spending would never get anywhere near this last total; when its death was announced just $53b had been spent."
"Buying up so many of these bonds forced investors to put money into riskier assets. In New Zealand the word ‘’asset’’ is pretty much synonymous with the word “house”, which is one reason why property prices soared. Kerr said everyone was a little awkward about this very much intended side-effect now". No shit! Some are even a lot awkward. “We’ve found ourselves with this gaping hole and councils which are insufficiently funded. That is the New Zealand problem right there,” Kerr said. “That is the reason why we have a housing market which is up 30 per cent."
Given that qe was created in the US to save the capitalist system with imaginary money, the learning seems to be that usage of magical thinking in government policy produces big holes in other parts of the economy.
Not really buying that QE was a cause of house price increases.
The lockdowns definitely took the smashed avocado away from potential buyers causing savings (also due to the wage subsidy providing lockdown income). Once the lockdowns ended this enabled house buying to continue apace, with buyers being even more willing to push out fully paying off their mortgage. Also some long meaningful zoom calls with the parents (and future co-owners) were involved.
QE reduced what interest rate the govt pays on its debt and gets it paid to itself (RBNZ profits are rebated anyway). But it should be pretty obvious that if the govt paid more stiff interest rates but still had a lockdown and wage subsidy similar house price rises would have occurred.
The OCR rate drop, the greater availability of money to banks, and the suspension of the deposit requirements were the more direct reasons for the house price increase.
Banks don't need deposits to make additional loans, at last resort the funds to complete the transaction can always be borrowed at the OCR from the RBNZ.
The most important criteria for borrowing will be ability to repay the loan and having a deposit to complete the house purchase.
I was referring to the lack of need for a 20% deposit to buy a house, a requirement suspended by the RBG in 2020.
I agree that likely had some effect.
So as Robertson and yourself don’t believe yet we have had massive property increases (just as the experts predicted) what now? The last 9 months increases will take 10years of wage growth at 2% before we are in the same position as late last year and that is with a stagnant property market for 10 years 🤬
So when warned, Robertson did nothing but play his fiddle, he had options open. Yet have we not been told how this government is to implement policies to improve the situation, the actions suggest otherwise. Over promised to act and deliver nothing but dissappointment.
The Treasury advise Robertson and they forecast a fall in the property market.
It was because of Treasury advice that Orr of the RB decided to lower the OCR, expand money available to banks and suspend the equity/deposit requirement for bank lending.
But from about Oct 2020, it was becoming obvious Treasury was wrong and Orr did nothing for months.
How about this warning – and Robertson was …. Doing nothing, I know is is not normal to expect to ignore advice that holds true that Robertson and con are accountable for the balls up , unless the govt want property to dramatically increase in value. I am sure the promise regarding housing was made in the previous election but was it intended to be acted on ?
https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300223358/reserve-bank-repeatedly-warned-government-money-printing-would-lead-to-house-price-inflation
The article says
Since then
Experts or no, I really just don't think a lot the stories projecting where the economy (and particularly inflation) is heading in response to govt economic policy are credible. For this case we are told by Mr Kerr that the 30% increases only happened because of QE. But whats his counterfactual, because there were a bunch of policies around the lockdown not just QE.
And yet the QE program didn't do much for several recent months while further price increases continued and its hardly like house price increases were unprecedented before QE started either.
If you look further into QE you will find its just a permitted (e.g market inclusive) way for the RBNZ to fund the govt at low interest rates. Notice the RBNZ holds 53% of govt debt presently. Once you have that understanding the idea that the govt owning its own debt influences house prices seems a bit weird.
The minimum standard for claiming QE is causing a 30% house price appreciation should be, explain how these transactions influence people to buy into housing at 30% higher prices.
Also keeping amo spare is not a thing, the RBNZ can at any time repeat its QE policy to fund the govt further. It can do that while being in negative equity because the only institution it answers to is parliament and their not going to do anything if the RBNZ is in this state. This means (if it mattered) that govt debt held by the RBNZ could just be written off by mutual agreement.
53 billion not 53%. (Think its about 35%).
Shock jocks who ran interference about vaccinations in USA such as Hannity are asking their audience to basically forget what they said and get the jab.
Interesting times…..Tucker’s unmoved as expected as Dominic Cummins keeps giving it up.
https://www.greaterauckland.org.nz/2021/07/21/is-there-a-case-for-an-overnight-sleeper-train-between-auckland-and-wellington/
Lots to recommend it. Especially the low carbon footprint.
My wife and I would use it.
The Milan to Paris overnight is not too bad; 7.5 hours.
Kiwirail would need to assure us that our carriage would still be attached.
There was one back in the 1970's. I used it the following day to journey north on annual holidays.
I travelled from Wellington to Auckland a return trip with a 12 month old in the mid 1980s on the over nighter. I shared both ways in a single bunk bed. The bed was to narrow for an infant and a skinny adult. I ended up sleeping on the floor so the infant got a good sleep.
Whack a car carrying bogey on the back so you can take you wheels with you.
I recently drove to gaore fron picton if a coulda out the wagon on a train and had a few cold ones then woken up down there it would be ace.
Now we're talking!
I'd use it as I dislike flying and long drives.
We had one of the 1970's Auckland/Wellington silver star carriages here in a paddock behind A&G Price for years. Gone now – probably to a tramcar Bay 🙂
I used to have to travel on it frequently when I was on the Naval Staff in Def HQ and had to visit the Auckland Naval Base as part of my duties. It was either that or spend a day travelling on the Air Force Shuttle. (If you have time to spare – go by Air!). It wasn't the most comfortable of conveyances and although it was supposedly a sleeper – sleeping was pretty hard to do. The following day was pretty much a write-off.
For those who like to keep tabs on how corrupted Donald Trump was by foreign agents and foreign countries, we have a new addition to the current list of his indicted and convicted White House staff:
– Paul Manafort, his Campaign Chairman, acting for Ukrainian interests
– Rick Gates, another senior Trump campaign official, country name redacted as part of FBI deal
– Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, Trump's National Security Adviser, for Russian interests
– Michael Cohen Trump's commercial lawyer for years, for Russian interests
– Ken Kurson, President Trump's speechwriter, cyberstalking, country name redacted
– Roger Stone, Trump and Republican Party senior operative, for Russian interests
– George Papadopoulos, another Trump campaign aide, acting for Russian interests
– Elliott Broidy, senior Trump campaign fundraiser, operating for Chinese and Malaysian interests
– George Nader, for the United Arab Emirates. And child pornography.
– Imaaz Zuberi, major Trump donor, country redacted as part of deal
– Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, major Trump donors, for Ukrainian interests
– Sam Patten, senior Republican lobbyist, for Ukrainian interests
https://www.thedailybeast.com/all-of-the-trumpworld-figures-whove-been-arrested-indicted-or-jailed
Today we can now add:
– Tom Barrack, Chair of Trump's Inaugural Committee, charged with supporting the United Arab Emirates
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/07/20/politics/tom-barrack-arrested/index.html
I don't need to bother with Steve Bannon, Brad Parscale, Elliott Broidy, George Nader, and all the rest about to come out in the wash.
Trump's government was totally corrupted by multiple foreign governments.
Wasn't Paul Manafort supposed to be a Russian intelligence asset, rather than Ukranian?
The Ukrainians were after Manafort because of his assistance to a Russian backed Ukrainian politician (a former President of Ukraine).
What policy position did Trump pursue that was not what you would have expected him to do prior to him getting elected?
Actively seeking to be corrupted by foreign governments.
Actually Ad that is precisely what I thought he would do, and hoped he would resist the temptation. He was already compromised by foreign powers prior to his election having been bailed out financially through backhand deals through Deutsche Bank and money laundering for Russian billionaires through his property deals and casinos.
I'm not convinced that Deutsche Bank dirt will ever properly see the light of day with Trump and the house Democrats likely to "resolve issues" surrounding congressional subpoenas of his financial records from that bank.
"The parties are “continuing to engage in negotiations intended to narrow or resolve their disputes and believe they are close to an agreement,” the filing said. They asked a federal judge in New York for another 30 days to continue negotiations.
The House Financial Services Committee and the House Intelligence Committee subpoenaed Deutsche Bank in 2019, seeking years of the president’s personal and business records. Trump challenged the subpoenas as an intrusion on his powers as president.“:
https://fortune.com/2021/05/17/donald-trump-house-democrats-deutsche-bank-2019-subpoenas-financial-records/
Also:
https://www.reuters.com/legal/transactional/trump-house-democrats-working-resolve-dispute-deutsche-bank-subpoenas-2021-06-18/
Maybe if the New York indictments are successful, the broader team will go the next stage.
That may well be true – but the stench will continue to linger. What other explanation can there be for the many millions in "loans" to a bankrupt when almost every other major bank in the US wouldn't touch him again with a barge pole.
https://www.npr.org/2017/06/20/533552769/trump-may-have-a-lot-of-money-but-documents-show-he-owes-a-lot-too
Agree generally, though I think Trump Org will just trade their bank debt into lower-tier banks i.e. even below Deutsche Bank who are pretty scummy already. That's a pretty useful escape route.
Problem is those lower-order banks tend to co-operate when squeezed, apropos the Cyprus bank that became a co-operating witness in the 2018 Manafort trial.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-paul-manaforts-trial-a-cyprus-bank-is-a-cooperating-witness-1533643200
My instinct is that he will go to a very friendly Gulf State bank to re-set himself.
Trump is doing remarkably well to survive all of this since 2016, and while it would be great for some moment of high hubris to descend, I'm not counting on it.
Stuff has an article calling for the end of the Olympics on grounds of cost.
I suspect the same person who wrote it gets jobs writing music for the Jackson movies made here on the taxpayer dime.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/olympics/125806596/why-the-olympic-games-should-be-scrapped-forever#comments
Cost and relevance as it's neither amateur or the pinnacle of (insert sport/activity here) anymore in the 21st century which were almost a quarter through.
But then cost is all relative as Tokyo whined about the fine they'll cop if it doesn't go ahead. So on we go, fingers crossed for our competitors and support crews.
The IOC passes on TV rights money to the Japanese Games host only if the Games are held.
https://playthegame.org/news/comments/2020/1002_a-leaked-list-discloses-how-much-cash-the-ioc-paid-for-the-2016-olympics-in-rio-de-janeiro/
The current ambition is to have hosts who can cover their costs with TV and other revenues. Paris 2024 and LA 2028 will tell. If that is not possible, the option is either a permanent venue (Athens is favoured), or a small number of alternate venues (quick rotation would allow re-use of facilities).
Brisbane will host in 2032.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/brisbane-wins-bid-to-host-2032-olympics/Q3COQLL4KXHBU2OTLFTKFLVOV4/
It is written by a sports journalist.
Yup. While I think we can all hold some nostaglic regard for the original Olympic ideal, the ever advancing professionalisation and multiplying diversity of sports themselves has rather overtaken it.
Worse has been the exploitation of the Olympics for nationalistic purposes. The prospect of the 2022 Winter Olympics looking like a re-run of 1936 brings no-one any joy either.
It occurs to me that several thousand years ago, some Greeks and Romans were probably holding exactly this same conversation.
The Greeks were indeed having this conversation Isocrates in the Panegyricus argued strongly for wisdom over athletics.
Greek thought,outlasting the memory of who one the Javelin at marathon.
Brilliant Poission
A fit man is no burden, but the indolent man behind the keyboard eating junk food, while gaming or blogging, is only a decade from consequences for the taxpayer.
No “one” venturing forth, nothing “won”
A fit man constantly in physio through overexertion is a bit of a burden.
"the end of the Olympics on grounds of cost".
Wouldn't it have been wonderful if the New Zealand Government had said this a couple of years ago before we blew hundreds of millions on the fiasco that was the America's Cup?
Could even have been able to pay the nurses a bit more and have kept those heading off to the greener fields in Australia here in New Zealand where we need them.
I guess you have never worked in finance.
One does not afford an annual expense by pruning capital spending (and the assets that remain in Auckland are real assets and are worth more than the net cost of the event).
This is kinda nice. Lots of businesses jump on the Pride bandwagon for marketing, only to send their ad money elsewhere on the first of July. So it's good to see a small gesture of inclusion actually progresses outside the month of June.
It's more shutting off the road for the paint to dry that would be difficult. A few litres of paint don't cost much on DCC scale of expenses.
https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/rainbow-crossing-supported
How can that be anything other than distracting? Surely a safety issue. We have the Carmen lights in Cuba street. Maybe something like that.
"A few litres of paint don't cost much".
That is what our last, unlamented, Mayor Justin Lester claimed in Wellington. Then the Wellington ratepayers found out that Lester had managed to blow $40,000 on the stupid thing!
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1803/S00375/the-40000-price-tag-for-justin-lesters-rainbow-crossing.htm
Funny how it came in well below budget, and ended up costing about the same as a regular crossing.
But I wouldn't expect you to let reality get in the way of parroting whatever the state-funded taxpayer's "union" complains about.
Gosh. The Council come up with a claimed $27,000 and you think that is an acceptable number?
Where did you ever work? It sounds as if you never worked at anything outside of the Public Sector. Only people there would think that painting a few coloured stripes on a road was worth spending that sort of money. You certainly wouldn't think so if it was your own money, that is for sure.
$4k for a few coats of what I'm assuming is something more substantial than timbacryl and applied by people earning a living wage.
As for where I've worked, you seem to be confusing "spending your own money" with actually knowing the cost of doing the job.
You'd want to spend the minimum amount on inadequate paint and less on the people to do the job. I've definitely worked for arses like that before, generally in hospo. They looked a lot like the ones now bitching about a "skills shortage" because they don't have enough unemployed people to exploit.
AD
Why is it you totally missed out the immense influence Israel had and has on the US govt?
Under Trump , even more so
Because there has been no official investigation of any such influence by any branch of the American government – so he cannot refer to it.
Which means it's a conspiracy theory … unlike UFO's (the cover up created by the US Air Force in 1947 to suppress public reference in media to sightings of spy craft in test flight development), esp since Space Force …
In a globalised world it's quite unrealistic to imagine every nation can politically stand in isolation. Influence will always be sought and wielded to some degree. In the absence of a formal, function global scale governance – all the more so.
The real question I would ask – how transparent is this influence? Right now the answer everywhere seems to be 'very opaque'.
Digging down in steps:
So it's official from the government that these cyber attacks emanate from a threat located in China (APT40) and this entity consists of "Chinese state-sponsored actors" which have been producing similar organised attacks against diverse targets in various countries for 12 years. Other western govts accept this reality also. Forensic computer analysis seems to have confirmed the identity of the source.
Assumption of Chinese state sponsoring the organisation derive, presumably, from the expectation that the state would eliminate the organisation if it were not operating in accord with state policy. Makes sense, but a sceptic would point out there's no proof and the authorities are basing foreign policy on blind faith in their spooks…
Plenty of nut jobs here still support the Chinese Communist Party, headed by the Chinese Head of State XI Jinping.
This sustained attack is but one of their gifts to the world.
So wer,re expected to believe now that china is behind the latest cyber attacks in this country really ??what could they possibly gain from the somewhat seedy takedown of a hospitals network system ?Call me a CT if you wish but i seem to remember amongst the very large disclosure of documents released by wikileaks a few years ago called vault 7 there was evidence of american abilities to falsely attribute hacks and computer intrusions to another party .Personally given their past record for fabricating untruths i wouldnt trust any american intelligence source to tell me the time of day !
That's the spirit. It's Something Else. And Russiagate OMG.
"Personally given their past record for fabricating untruths i wouldnt trust any american intelligence source to tell me the time of day !"
Obviously plenty of nut job propagandists here would.
Your opinion isn't worth much unless you can do better than the evidence released yesterday.
Yesterday, the collected governments heading respective intelligence communities from the United States, NATO, EU, UK, Canada, Japan, Australia, and little old New Zealand came out simultaneously with the same message, and this is just New Zealand's bit of it:
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA2107/S00143/new-zealand-condemns-malicious-cyber-activity-by-chinese-state-sponsored-actors.htm
What China has done is manage to unify the entire developed world against them in this kind of cyber war.
It’s now much more likely that you will see global cybersecurity enforcement formed into multilateral security agreements far, far larger than Five Eyes.
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA2107/S00143/new-zealand-condemns-malicious-cyber-activity-by-chinese-state-sponsored-actors.htm
China issued the usual denials. They are lying.
But at least they are bringing the world together again.
Is it a matter of trust, or competence? Most of them could be misled by colleagues and not realise it.
Most of the Senate did not know the difference between Sunni and Shia when voting on regime change in Iraq – that sort of advanced knowledge was to be found only on the Foreign Relations Committee.
And then again if you rang up Foggy Bottom or Langley and asked for the time and they got it right, you would have to suspect they were using NSA tracking sources to know your location.
Yeah they would know the time where you lived.
Elderly native gets restless, issues policy critique: https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2021/07/21/open-letter-blueprint-to-megan-woods-to-solve-housing-crisis/
Seymour frames PM: "One has to ask, is the real reason we do not have a plan to get our way of life back is that the Government is still focus-grouping it?"
Flawed premise right there! We don't plan to get our way of life back while in the midst of a pandemic, so why expect the govt to do it for us??
"It's time to start treating New Zealanders like adults. Let us know what's going on in a timely way. Be up-front with us as issues arise instead of relying on polls and focus groups. Our COVID response is more important than Jacinda Ardern's popularity."
She doesn't need to worry about that – it's already right up there! Haven't you noticed?? She's crowd-sourcing feedback, obviously. Only people who volunteer it are those with a chip on their shoulder, eh? So making an organised effort to evaluate how folks see the thing going is sensible. You could even call it adult.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2021/07/prime-minister-jacinda-ardern-under-fire-for-spending-250-000-on-covid-19-polls.html
Seymour's childish need to get the govt to return his privileged way of life is just nanny-state thinking. Yet he can't see that he's just complaining about the pandemic tugging his security blanket away. A mental age of two years…
It's behind a paywall … so I have not read it.
Apparently hate speech can be managed by ending online anonymity.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/ben-goodale-why-the-hate-speech-law-change-could-be-meaningless/NQDTAECXUBJDFEZTYCIQPEH34M/
For mine that would mean the independently rich and publicly involved (as group leaders or associates) would retain freedom of speech, the rest would risk consequence – in employment, elsewhere online on other platforms and harrassment where they lived.
SPC you nail it – Free speech can never be truly free, but especially when you fix your moniker to it, it can be like punching yourself somewhere vital.
I sat on a board of trustees and we needed to do some recruitment. Most of the trustees wanted to scan the applicants social media accounts before shortlisting. I put my foot down and said that if they thought that was the right thing to do then w needed to be upfront about it with the applicants, tell them what we had found and how we used that information in our decision-making.
In the end they didn't want to be held accountable for their desire to be nosy. Trolling peoples social media as part of the recruitment of staff is the refuge of cowards for the most part.
Israel & the Saudis have been collaborating: "NSO Group had been given explicit permission by the Israeli government to try to sell the homegrown hacking tools to the Saudis. It was a classified arrangement and resulted in the sale later being sealed in Riyadh in a deal reportedly worth at least $55m." https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/20/pegasus-project-turns-spotlight-on-spyware-firm-nso-ties-to-israeli-state
“In Israel there is a strong political movement to make diplomacy through business,” said the person, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “Business first, diplomacy later. When you make a deal together, it opens a lot of doors to diplomacy.” It is common for governments to help companies export their products. NSO, after all, employs former Israeli cyber-intelligence officials and retains links to the defence ministry."
"In the case of Saudi Arabia, sources familiar with the matter said the kingdom was temporarily cut off from using Pegasus in 2018, for several months, following the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, but was allowed to begin using the spyware again in 2019 following the intervention of the Israeli government. It is unclear why the Israeli government urged NSO to reconnect the surveillance tool for Riyadh."
"NSO's founders are ex-members of Unit 8200, the Israeli Intelligence Corps unit responsible for collecting signals intelligence." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSO_Group
Benjamin Netanyahu once said that "Talpiot" was better than Five Eyes. His meaning would not be an elite unit within the IDF (10 year service and training in maths, physics IT), but the areas where they dispersed to – Shin Bet, Mossad, military intelligence and various tech firms like NSO.
Kushner and co – play nice with Israel and we'll flog you suites of nifty, purpose built tech to surveille and repress any and all domestic opposition.
Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, Turkey, Morocco, Saudi Arabia- righto!
Bibi and the Donald – we'll call it the Peace to Prosperity: A Vision to Improve the Lives of the Palestinian and Israeli People plan.
Qatar as well? Despite the Kushner family business not getting the loan …
Israel and Qatar have been besties for years so they probably got the extended warranty, too.
The Greens want a WOF for rental property, rather than require tenants to complain about the property meeting the standard (often renters are being offered dubious property and take it rather than miss out).
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2021/07/rental-property-wofs-greens-chl-e-swarbrick-says-rental-property-wofs-would-protect-good-landlords-as-well-as-tenants.html
For mine what is needed is a random check policy between now and 2024 (covering all properties by July 2024), with a short period of notice to the landlord (tenants being able to "anonymously" notify the agency concerned about properties of concern, so the problem ones are sorted out more quickly).
Sounds like good thinking SPC. And on why everything is SNAFU on housing and everything:
Here is some more – a Ted talk on capitalism by someone who says he is at the top level of the 1% wweeaalltthhyy – people who have multiples of everything!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th3KE_H27bs&t=555s
The point of course being to provide free checks, rather than charge for a WOF, and cover the cost by fining those landlords whose properties were not up to standard.
Right on SPC. Make it easy to be gooder, until the whole lot go up on a rising tide. Carrots needed more with sticks available to be used, that do get used.
And what about if you're renting a sound place at a really reasonable rental – and you can't afford any more. It has full spec insulation and an extractor fan over the oven. I keep it clean and well ventilated, there is no mould and it doesn't need a heat pump or extractor fans in the bathroom. Why should my landlord be forced to do unnecessary stuff – resulting in me paying more rent? Where is the common sense?
You do not need to heat or cool the place?
Poto Williams – You need to up your game. You need to represent all NZ'ers not just Maori and Pacific communities. What a train wreck of an interview – luckily it wasn't Mike Hosking.
https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/mike-hosking-breakfast/audio/poto-williams-public-and-cops-react-as-police-minister-says-she-is-not-in-favour-of-general-arming-of-police/
There are all sorts of people around New Zealand who no more want the police armed than those of south Auckland.
Yes, as an elected member from Christchurch and a Minister of the Crown you would think she represents (1) the people of her electorate and (2) all New Zealanders. Clearly the Minister thinks otherwise. Doh!
And it took only one John (Birch) to take Jim (Crow) nationwide.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/07/16/the-john-birch-society-is-alive-and-well-in-the-lone-star-state-215377/
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/01/11/a-view-from-the-fringe
Very droll, but overlooks some important history.
It's only when you step back and take a longer view of US politics that you begin to see just how much the support factions for each of the two major Parties (the two big brand vehicles) has changed over time in adaptation to the changing social ground. And will continue to change into the future.
Energy wind, solar, nuclear? 2019 Ted talks
Questions about our green accepted wisdoms.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciStnd9Y2ak
Why I changed my mind about nuclear power | Michael Shellenberger
…………………..
Why renewables can’t save the planet | Michael Shellenberger
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-yALPEpV4w
Sure wind/solar being intermittent require a spare capacity such as gas (better than coal). Even our hydro based system needs back up in dry years (battery dam maybe) or we use Huntly (at some point only gas and no longer any coal).
He seems to be arguing for 100% nuclear as per France as better for AGW and the local environment. But how does anyone go from zero to 100% nuclear quickly?
There are all sorts of combinations possible 33%+- nuclear, 33%+- hydro and or dry year battery and 33%+- solar/wind with gas back up.
The local gas is drying up.
From memory there hasn’t been a decent sized field found since Kupe in about 1986. That is despite significiant searches for new fields from the 2000s until recently. A couple of onshore small oil fields with a small gas compenent..
The large Kapuni was discovered when I was born (1959) and the massive Maui was when I listening to the moon landing (1969).
Our geology around the Zealandia continental area doesn’t really make it likely that we’ll find large cheap viable fields. Kupe has only recently started being exploited simply because it was far more expensive than Maui to exploit.
The plan is still to shut down the coal or gas fired units and only use the gas fired turbines (it seems we made a mistake exporting methanol to Japan etc) … importing gas from Oz?
That's only the plan if you follow the government's climate agenda, not its energy agenda.
In the same year the government declared a climate emergency, imports of an especially dirty type of coal from Indonesia topped a million tonnes for the first time since 2006.
New Zealand’s totally addicted to coal until there are huge new reliable wind farms all over the place. After the Lammermoor disaster and the Blueskin Bay nightmare, new projects large and small have been very slow to market – and who can blame them?
https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/climate-news/300356959/new-zealand-imported-more-than-a-million-tonnes-of-dirty-coal-last-year
Yes, because clearly we have nothing to worry about with regards to nature destroying reactors.
It's come down to the wire now, and the wire is consciousness/spirituality; that's where our only chance lies 🙂
Nothing could possibly go wrong!
But.
Fukushima nuclear disaster haunts Japan’s climate change debate
Ten years after the tsunami struck, most citizens are vehemently opposed to restarting the reactors
Fukushima is widely regarded as the second worst nuclear power incident ever. It should however teach us two important lessons.
One is the inherent vulnerability of large reactor designs that use water as their coolant/moderator. The critical necessity of needing to maintain both high pressure and high flow of this water through these reactor types even after the reaction has been shut down, was always their Archilles Heel. This is why all new Gen 4 designs eliminate this requirement in one manner or another, directly leading to substantial improvements in both innate safety and costs at the same time.
Lesson 1: Plan to replace the existing fleet of Gen 3 PWR type reactors as they reach the end of their life with better designs with innately lower risk profiles and costs.
The second idea to be learned is this, that the second worst nuclear power accident of all time has directly caused zero deaths and zero demonstrable harm to anyone. (This sets aside the 1600 odd deaths indirectly attributed to authorities panicking and evacuating many vulnerable people, completely unnecessarily, in sub-optimal circumstances.)
The reality is that we evolved and live on a planet bathed in a certain low level of ionising radiation. Below a certain level (probably about 100mSv) there is no possible harm, because the body repairs DNA damage much faster than the radiation causes it. In fact the data suggests that people living in areas with elevated background levels have somewhat lower rates of cancer. A fuller explanation here.
Lesson 2 : Not understanding that modest levels of ionising radiation is a normal and natural aspect of our world has led to irrational fearmongering that closed off decades ago the best path we had to avoiding climate change. This has been an incalculably high opportunity cost we have to address before any real progress in reducing CO2 levels (ie getting the atmospheric CO2 number back down under 350ppm) can be made.