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.
Its a law like gravity: whenever a right-wing government is elected, they start attacking democracy. And now, after talking to their Republican and Tory and Fidesz chums at the International Democracy Union forum in Wellington, National is doing it here, announcing plans to remove election-day enrolment. Or, to put it ...
Yesterday Winston Peters focussed his attention on the important matter at hand. Tweeting. Like the former, and quite possibly next, orange POTUS, from whom he takes much of his political strategy, Winston is an avid X’er.His message didn’t resemble an historic address this time. In fact it was more reminiscent ...
Buzz from the Beehive A significant decline in natural gas production has given Resources Minister Shane Jones an opportunity to reiterate his enthusiasm for the mining and burning of coal. For good measure, he has praised an announcement from Genesis Energy that it will resume importing coal. He and Energy ...
“Follow the money” is the classic directive to journalists trying to understand where power and influence lie in society. In terms of uncovering who influences various New Zealand political parties and governments, it therefore pays to look at who is funding them. The political parties are legally obliged to make ...
Rob MacCullough writes – Here is my subjective ranking on a “most-left” to “most-right” scale of most of our major NZ Universities, with some anecdotal (and at times amusing) evidence to back up the claim.Extreme Left Auckland University of TechnologyEvidenceThe ...
Eric Crampton writes – I hadn’t thought about this one until a helpful email showed up in my inbox.It’s pretty obvious that income tax thresholds should automatically index with inflation – whether to anchor the thresholds in percentiles of the income distribution, or to anchor against a real ...
Jacqui Van Der Kaay writes – Parliament’s speaker had no option but to refer Green MP Julie Anne Genter to the Privileges Committee for her behaviour in the House last Wednesday evening. The incident, in which she crossed the floor to wave a book and yell at National ...
Gary Judd writes – The Dean of the law school at the Auckland University of Technology is someone called Khylee Quince. I have been sent her social media posting in which she has, over the LawNews headline “Senior King’s Counsel files complaint about compulsory tikanga Maori studies for ...
Cleo Paskal writes – WASHINGTON, D.C.: ‘Many of us have received phone calls from [the opposing camp] telling them if they join the camp they will be given projects for their wards and $300,000 [around US$35,000] each’, says former Malaita Premier Daniel Suidani. The elections in Solomon Islands aren’t ...
With hindsight, it was inevitable that (a) Hamas would agree to the ceasefire deal brokered by Egypt and Qatar and that ( b) Israel would then immediately launch attacks on Rafah, regardless. We might have hoped the concessions made by Hamas would cause Israel to desist from slaughtering thousands more ...
Placards and mourners outside the Kilbirnie Mosque following the Christchurch terror attack: MSD has terminated the Kaiwhakaoranga service, which has been used by 415 families since the attacks. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: The Government’s pledge to only cut ‘back office’ staff rather than ‘frontline’ services is on increasingly shaky ground, with ...
There’s been a few smaller public transport announcements over the last week or so that I thought I’d cover in a single post. Fareshare I’ve long called for Auckland Transport to offer a way to enable employer-subsidised public transport options. The need for this took on even more importance ...
Parliament’s speaker had no option but to refer Green MP Julie Anne Genter to the Privileges Committee for her behaviour in the House last Wednesday evening. The incident, in which she crossed the floor to wave a book and yell at National Minister Matt Doocey, reflects poorly on Genter and ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Who likes being sneered at? Nobody. Worse yet, when the sneerer has their facts all wrong, and might well be an idiot.The sneer in question is The adults are in charge now, and it is a sneer offered in retort to criticism of this new Government, no matter how well ...
When in government, Labour pushed to extend the Parliamentary term to four years, to reduce accountability and our ability to vote out a bad government. And now, they're trying to do it through the member's ballot, with a Four-Year Parliamentary Term Legislation Bill. The bill at least requires a referendum ...
A ballot for a single Member's Bill was held today, and the following bill was drawn: Public Works (Prohibition of Compulsory Acquisition of Māori Land) Amendment Bill (Hūhana Lyndon) The bill would prevent the government from stealing Māori land in breach of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. It ...
Simeon Brown, alongside Wayne Brown, is favouring a political figleaf now in exchange for loading up tens of millions in extra interest costs on Auckland ratepayers. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s is pushing back hard at suggestions from Local Government Minister Simeon Brown and Mayor Wayne Brown ...
Buzz from the Beehive One headline-grabber from the Beehive yesterday was the OECD’s advice that the government must bring the Budget deficit under control or face higher interest rates. Another was the announcement of a $1.9 billion “investment” in Corrections over the next four years. In the best interests of ...
Chris Trotter writes – Had Zheng He’s fleet sailed east, not west, in the early Fifteenth Century, how different our world would be. There is little reason to suppose that the sea-going junks of the Ming Dynasty, among the largest and most sophisticated sailing vessels ever constructed, would have failed ...
David Farrar writes – Two articles give a useful contrast in balance. Both seek to be neutral explainer articles. This one in the Herald on Social Investment covers the pros and cons nicely. It links to critical pieces and talks about aspects that failed and aspects that are more ...
The tikanga regulations will compel law students to be taught that a system which does not conform with the rule of law is nevertheless law which should be observed and applied…Gary Judd KC writes – I have made a complaint to Parliament’s Regulation ...
The future of Te Huia, the train between Hamilton and Auckland, has been getting a lot of attention recently as current funding for it is only in place till the end of June. The government initially agreed to a five year trial, through to April 2026, but that was subject ...
TL;DR: Hamas has just agreed to Israel’s ceasefire plan. Nelson hospital’s rebuild has been cut back to save money. The OECD suggests New Zealand break up network monopolies, including in electricity. PM Christopher Luxon’s news conference on a prison expansion announcement last night was his messiest yet.Here’s my top six ...
A homicide in Ponsonby, a manhunt with a killer on the run. The nation’s leader stands before a press conference reassuring a frightened nation that he’ll sort it out, he’ll keep them safe, he’ll build some new prison spaces.Sorry what? There’s a scary dude on the run with a gun ...
Hi,I know it’s been awhile since there’s been any Webworm merch — and today that all changes!Over the last four months, I’ve been working with New Zealand artist Jess Johnson to create a series of t-shirts, caps and stickers that are infused with Webworm DNA — and as of right ...
The OECD’s chief economist yesterday laid it on the line for the new Government: bring the deficit under control or face higher Reserve Bank interest rates for longer. And to bring the deficit under control, she meant not borrowing for tax cuts. But there was more. Without policy changes—introducing a ...
After a hiatus of over four months Selwyn Manning and I finally got it together to re-start the “A View from Afar” podcast series. We shall see how we go but aim to do 2 episodes per month if possible. … Continue reading → ...
In 2008, the UK Parliament passed the Climate Change Act 2008. The law established a system of targets, budgets, and plans, with inbuilt accountability mechanisms; the aim was to break the cycle of empty promises and replace it with actual progress towards emissions reduction. The law was passed with near-universal ...
Buzz from the Beehive Local Water Done Well – let’s be blunt – is a silly name, but the first big initiative to put it into practice has gone done well. This success is reflected in the headline on an RNZ report:District mayors welcome Auckland’s new water deal with ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate ConnectionsA farmworker cleans the solar panels of a solar water pump in the village of Jagadhri, Haryana Country, India. (Photo credit: Prashanth Vishwanathan/ IWMI) Decisions made in India over the next few years will play a key role in global ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – The Children’s Minister, Karen Chhour, intends to repeal Section 7AA from the Oranga Tamariki Act 1989 because it creates conflict between claimed Crown Treaty obligations and the child’s best interests. In her words, “Oranga Tamariki’s governing principles and its act should be colour ...
Geoffrey Miller writes – The gloves are off. That might seem to be the undertone of surprisingly tough talk from New Zealand’s foreign and trade ministers. Winston Peters, the foreign minister, may be facing legal action after making allegations about former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr on Radio New Zealand. ...
Brian Easton writes – This is about the time that the Treasury will be locking up its economic forecasts to be published in the 2024 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) on budget day, 30 May. I am not privy to what they will be (I will report on them ...
TL;DR:Winston Peters is reported to have won a budget increase for MFAT. David Seymour wanted his Ministry of Regulation to be three times bigger than the Productivity Commission. Simeon Brown is appointing a Crown Monitor to Watercare to protect the Claytons Crown Guarantee he had to give ratings agencies ...
The gloves are off. That might seem to be the undertone of surprisingly tough talk from New Zealand’s foreign and trade ministers. Winston Peters, the foreign minister, may be facing legal action after making allegations about former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr on Radio New Zealand. Carr had made highly ...
I could be a florist'Round the corner from Rye LaneI'll be giving daisies to craziesBut, baby, I'll wrap you up real safe Oh, I can give you flowers At the end of every dayFor the center of your table, a rainbowIn case you have people 'round to stay Depending on ...
TL;DR: The six key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to May 12 include:PM Christopher Luxon is scheduled to hold a post-Cabinet news conference at 4 pm today. Finance Minister Nicola Willis will give a pre-budget speech on Thursday.Parliament sits from Question Time at 2pm on ...
The price of the foreign affairs “reset” is now becoming apparent, with Defence set to get a funding boost in the Budget. Finance Minister Nicola Willis has confirmed that it will be one of the few votes, apart from Health and Education and possibly Police, which will get an increase ...
A listing of 26 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 28, 2024 thru Sat, May 4, 2024. Story of the week "It’s straight out of Big Tobacco’s playbook. In fact, research by John Cook and his colleagues ...
Yesterday I received come lovely feedback following my Star Wars themed newsletter. A few people mentioned they’d enjoyed reading the personal part at the beginning.I often begin newsletters with some memories, or general thoughts, before commencing the main topic. This hopefully sets the mood and provides some context in which ...
April 30 was going to be the day we’d be calling Mum from London to wish her a happy birthday. Then it became the day we would be going to St. Paul's at Evensong to remember her. The aim of the cathedral builders was to find a way to make their ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Can’t remember the last book by a Kiwi author you read? Think the NZ government should spend less on the arts in favor of helping the homeless? If so, as far as Newsroom is concerned, you probably deserve to be called a cultural ignoramus ...
Eric Crampton writes – Grudges are bad. Better to move on. But it can be fun to keep a couple of really trivial ones, so you’re not tempted to have other ones. For example, because of the rootkit fiasco of 2005, no Sony products in our household. ...
A new report warns an estimated third of the adult population have unmet need for health care.Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāHere’s the six key things I learned about Aotaroa’s political economy this week around housing, climate and poverty:Politics - Three opinion polls confirmed support for PM Christopher Luxon ...
Today is May the fourth. Which was just a regular day when my mother took me to see the newly released Star Wars at the Odeon in Rotorua. The queue was right around the corner. Some years later this day became known as Star Wars Day, the date being a ...
Buzz from the Beehive Much more media attention is being paid to something Winston Peters said about former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr than to a speech he delivered to the New Zealand China Council. One word is missing from the speech: AUKUS. But AUKUS loomed large in his considerations ...
Is the economy in another long stagnation? If so, why?This is about the time that the Treasury will be locking up its economic forecasts to be published in the 2024 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) on budget day, 30 May. I am not privy to what they will be ...
The annual list of who's been bribing our politicians is out, and journalists will no doubt be poring over it to find the juiciest and dirtiest bribes. The government's fast-track invite list is likely to be a particular focus, and we already know of one company on the list which ...
In the weeks after the October 7 Hamas attacks on Southern Israel I wrote about the possible 2nd, 3rd and even 4th order effects of the conflict. These included new fronts being opened in the West Bank (with Hamas), Golan … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – It is one of the oldest truisms that there is never a good time for MPs to get a pay rise. This week’s announcement of pay raises of around 2.8% backdated to last October could hardly have come at a worse time, with the ...
David Farrar writes – Newshub reports: Newshub can reveal a fresh allegation of intimidation against Green MP Julie-Anne Genter. Genter is subject to a disciplinary process for aggressively waving a book in the face of National Minister Matt Doocey in the House – but it’s not the first time ...
The Treasury has published a paper today on the global productivity slowdown and how it is playing out in New Zealand: The productivity slowdown: implications for the Treasury’s forecasts and projections. The Treasury Paper examines recent trends in productivity and the potential drivers of the slowdown. Productivity for the whole economy ...
Winston Peters’ comments about former Australian foreign minister look set to be an ongoing headache for both him and Luxon. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for subscribers features co-hosts and , along with regular guests on Gaza and ...
These puppet strings don't pull themselvesYou're thinking thoughts from someone elseHow much time do you think you have?Are you prepared for what comes next?The debating chamber can be a trying place for an opposition MP. What with the person in charge, the speaker, typically being an MP from the governing ...
The land around Lyme Regis, where Meryl Streep once stood, in a hood, on the Cobb, is falling into the sea.MerylThe land around Lyme Regis, around the Cobb that made it rich, has always been falling slowly but surely into the sea. Read more ...
Buzz from the Beehive Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters was bound to win headlines when he set out his thinking about AUKUS in his speech to the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. The headlines became bigger when – during an interview on RNZ’s Morning Report today – he criticised ...
The Post reports on how the government is refusing to release its advice on its corrupt Muldoonist fast-track law, instead using the "soon to be publicly available" refusal ground to hide it until after select committee submissions on the bill have closed. Fast-track Minister Chris Bishop's excuse? “It's not ...
As pressure on it grows, the livestock industry’s approach to the transition to Net Zero is increasingly being compared to that of fossil fuel interests. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty ImagesTL;DR: Here’s the top five news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above ...
The New Zealand Herald reports – Stats NZ has offered a voluntary redundancy scheme to all of its workers as a way to give staff some control over their “future” amidst widespread job losses in the public sector. In an update to staff this morning, seen by the Herald, Statistics New Zealand ...
On Werewolf/Scoop, I usually do two long form political columns a week. From now on, there will be an extra column each week about music and movies. But first, some late-breaking political events:The rise in unemployment numbers for the March quarter was bigger than expected – and especially sharp ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: TVNZ says it is dealing with about 50 formal complaints over its coverage of the latest 1News-Verian political poll, with some viewers – as well as the Prime Minister and a former senior Labour MP – critical of the tone of the 6pm report. ...
Muriel Newman writes – When Meridian Energy was seeking resource consents for a West Coast hydro dam proposal in 2010, local Maori “strenuously” objected, claiming their mana was inextricably linked to ‘their’ river and could be damaged. After receiving a financial payment from the company, however, the Ngai Tahu ...
Alwyn Poole writes – “An SEP,’ he said, ‘is something that we can’t see, or don’t see, or our brain doesn’t let us see, because we think that it’s somebody else’s problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it’s like a ...
The Green Party is welcoming the announcement by the Minister Responsible for RMA Reform Chris Bishop to approve most of the Wellington City Council’s District Plan recommendations. ...
David Seymour has failed to get the sweeping cuts he wanted to the free and healthy school lunch programme, Labour education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
Hon Willie Jackson has been invited by the Oxford Union to debate the motion “This House Believes British Museums are not Very British’ on May 23rd. ...
Green Party MP Hūhana Lyndon says her Public Works (Prohibition of Compulsory Acquisition of Māori Land) Amendment Bill is an opportunity to right some past wrongs around the alienation of Māori land. ...
A senior, highly respected King’s Counsel with decades of experience in our law courts, Gary Judd KC, has filed a complaint about compulsory tikanga Māori studies for law students - highlighting the utter depths of absurdity this woke cultural madness has taken our society. The tikanga regulations will compel law ...
The Government needs to be clear with the people of the Nelson Marlborough region about the changes it is considering for the Nelson Hospital rebuild, Labour health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said. ...
Ministers must front up about which projects it will push through under its Fast Track Approvals legislation, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
The Therapeutic Products Act (TPA) will be repealed this year so that a better regime can be put in place to provide New Zealanders safe and timely access to medicines, medical devices and health products, Associate Health Minister Casey Costello announced today. “The medicines and products we are talking about ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop, today released his decision on twenty recommendations referred to him by the Wellington City Council relating to its Intensification Planning Instrument, after the Council rejected those recommendations of the Independent Hearings Panel and made alternative recommendations. “Wellington notified its District Plan on ...
Rape Awareness Week (6-10 May) is an important opportunity to acknowledge the continued effort required by government and communities to ensure that all New Zealanders can live free from violence, say Ministers Karen Chhour and Louise Upston. “With 1 in 3 women and 1 in 8 men experiencing sexual violence ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government will be delivering a more efficient Healthy School Lunches Programme, saving taxpayers approximately $107 million a year compared to how Labour funded it, by embracing innovation and commercial expertise. “We are delivering on our commitment to treat taxpayers’ money ...
New research on the impacts of extreme weather on coastal marine habitats in Tairāwhiti and Hawke’s Bay will help fishery managers plan for and respond to any future events, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. A report released today on research by Niwa on behalf of Fisheries New Zealand ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Winston Peters will lead a broad political delegation on a five-stop Pacific tour next week to strengthen New Zealand’s engagement with the region. The delegation will visit Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, and Tuvalu. “New Zealand has deep and ...
There has been a material decline in gas production according to figures released today by the Gas Industry Co. Figures released by the Gas Industry Company show that there was a 12.5 per cent reduction in gas production during 2023, and a 27.8 per cent reduction in gas production in the ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins tonight announced the recipients of the Minister of Defence Awards of Excellence for Industry, saying they all contribute to New Zealanders’ security and wellbeing. “Congratulations to this year’s recipients, whose innovative products and services play a critical role in the delivery of New Zealand’s defence capabilities, ...
Welcome to you all - it is a pleasure to be here this evening.I would like to start by thanking Greg Lowe, Chair of the New Zealand Defence Industry Advisory Council, for co-hosting this reception with me. This evening is about recognising businesses from across New Zealand and overseas who in ...
It is a pleasure to be speaking to you as the Minister for Digitising Government. I would like to thank Akolade for the invitation to address this Summit, and to acknowledge the great effort you are making to grow New Zealand’s digital future. Today, we stand at the cusp of ...
New Zealand is urging both Israel and Hamas to agree to an immediate ceasefire to avoid the further humanitarian catastrophe that military action in Rafah would unleash, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The immense suffering in Gaza cannot be allowed to worsen further. Both sides have a responsibility to ...
A new online data dashboard released today as part of the Government’s school attendance action plan makes more timely daily attendance data available to the public and parents, says Associate Education Minister David Seymour. The interactive dashboard will be updated once a week to show a national average of how ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced Rosemary Banks will be New Zealand’s next Ambassador to the United States of America. “Our relationship with the United States is crucial for New Zealand in strategic, security and economic terms,” Mr Peters says. “New Zealand and the United States have a ...
The Government is considering creating a new tier of minerals permitting that will make it easier for hobby miners to prospect for gold. “New Zealand was built on gold, it’s in our DNA. Our gold deposits, particularly in regions such as Otago and the West Coast have always attracted fortune-hunters. ...
Minister for Trade Todd McClay today announced that New Zealand and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will commence negotiations on a free trade agreement (FTA). Minister McClay met with his counterpart UAE Trade Minister Dr Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi in Dubai, where they announced the launch of negotiations on a ...
New Zealand Sign Language Week is an excellent opportunity for all Kiwis to give the language a go, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. This week (May 6 to 12) is New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) Week. The theme is “an Aotearoa where anyone can sign anywhere” and aims to ...
Six tertiary students have been selected to work on NASA projects in the US through a New Zealand Space Scholarship, Space Minister Judith Collins announced today. “This is a fantastic opportunity for these talented students. They will undertake internships at NASA’s Ames Research Center or its Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), where ...
New Zealanders will be safer because of a $1.9 billion investment in more frontline Corrections officers, more support for offenders to turn away from crime, and more prison capacity, Corrections Minister Mark Mitchell says. “Our Government said we would crack down on crime. We promised to restore law and order, ...
The OECD’s latest report on New Zealand reinforces the importance of bringing Government spending under control, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The OECD conducts country surveys every two years to review its members’ economic policies. The 2024 New Zealand survey was presented in Wellington today by OECD Chief Economist Clare Lombardelli. ...
The Government has delivered on its election promise to provide a financially sustainable model for Auckland under its Local Water Done Well plan. The plan, which has been unanimously endorsed by Auckland Council’s Governing Body, will see Aucklanders avoid the previously projected 25.8 per cent water rates increases while retaining ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters discussed the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and enhanced cooperation in the Pacific with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock during her first official visit to New Zealand today. "New Zealand and Germany enjoy shared interests and values, including the rule of law, democracy, respect for the international system ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Myfany Turpin, Associate Professor, Ethnomusicology, Linguistics and Ethnobiology, University of Sydney The act representing Australia at this year’s Eurovision contest has sadly not qualified for the grand final. Yet for Zaachariaha Fielding and Michael Ross, the duo that makes up Electric Fields, ...
In announcing changes to the school lunches programme, David Seymour said kids would no longer be served ‘woke’ foods. To clear up any confusion, The Spinoff has compiled a guide to the wokeness levels of some common food items. Apple = NOT WOKE Avocado = WOKE Avocado, smashed = EVEN ...
The Minister Responsible for GCSB and the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security have been notified of this review, and have been provided a finalised Terms of Reference. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Minglu Chen, Senior Lecturer, Government and International Relations, University of Sydney Robert Way/Shutterstock As the past few years have illustrated so clearly, the Australia-China relationship is complicated. As such, it is crucial for Australians to develop a more nuanced understanding of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mariana Campbell, Research Lecturer, Conservation, Charles Darwin University Marilyn Connell Australian freshwater turtles are facing an alarming trend. Almost half of these species are listed as vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered. The Mary River turtle (Elusor macrurus) is one of Australia’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Debbie Passey, Digital Health Research Fellow, The University of Melbourne Algorithms have become integral to our lives. From social media apps to Netflix, algorithms learn your preferences and prioritise the content you are shown. Google Maps and artificial intelligence are nothing without ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Josephine Barbaro, Associate Professor, Principal Research Fellow, Psychologist, La Trobe University Unsplash We’ve come a long way in terms of understanding that everyone thinks, interacts and experiences the world differently. In the past, autistic people, people with attention deficit hyperactive disorder ...
PNG Post-Courier Papua New Guinea’s deputy opposition leader James Nomane has accused the government of “reckless economic management” that has forced devaluation to manage loan repayments in foreign currency and placate the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Prime Minister James Marape “must stop lying to the people of Papua New Guinea”, ...
Welcome to The Spinoff Bookseller Confessional, in which we get to know Aotearoa’s booksellers. This week: Jane Arthur, author of Brown Bird, and former bookseller at Good Books.The book I wish I’d writtenI have been working on not comparing myself to others. On accepting that what I can ...
The final decision on the Wellington District Plan makes it official: High-density housing is legal across most of Wellington. Housing minister Chris Bishop has announced his decision on the Wellington District Plan, approving a series of amendments to radically upzone most of Wellington, allowing tens of thousands of new townhouses ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards – Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)Political scientist, Dr Bryce Edwards. “Follow the money” is the classic directive to journalists trying to understand where power and influence lie in society. In terms of uncovering who influences various New Zealand political parties and governments, it therefore pays to ...
RNZ News As Israel presses ahead with strikes in Rafah and seizing the Rafah crossing from Egypt, aid agencies are sounding the alarm of a “catastrophic humanitarian situation”. Rafah was “significant” because it was the only part in Gaza that had not been terribly damaged by the conflict, United Nations ...
With funding set to be scrapped for the Hamilton-Auckland commuter train, Te Huia enthusiast Georgie Dansey argues for it to be thrown a lifeline. It’s 5.45am and the chain of my crappy old bike falls off slugging up the one hill in Hamilton. I contemplate yeeting the bike into the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anna Cooke, Honorary Fellow, School of the Environment, The University of Queensland We feel ecological grief when we lose places, species or ecosystems we value and love. These losses are a growing threat to mental health and wellbeing globally. We all see ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Shauna Brail, Associate Professor, Institute for Management & Innovation, University of Toronto A shift to hybrid and remote work continues to affect worker presence in Toronto’s downtown.(Shutterstock) Downtown Toronto, the core of Canada’s largest city, continues to reel from the lingering ...
Responding to an Auditor-General's report slamming failures in the administration of the 2023 General Election, Taxpayers’ Union Policy and Public Affairs Manager, James Ross, said: ...
Productivity apps now make up a big chunk of the software market. But do they work? And why do they all have AI integrations?Despite being firmly on the record as a physical planner fan, I sometimes dream of something better than my pretty diary and its scrawled, ugly, interior ...
The Taxpayers’ Union says the Beehive need to lead by example, following reports of more than $50,000 spent upgrading video conferencing equipment and furniture in the Prime Minister’s office. Taxpayers’ Union Campaign Manager, Connor Molloy, ...
An objective list of the 50 most powerful people in New Zealand, as judged by the Spinoff Editorial Board. It’s power list season, baby, and we want in on the action. Sure, there’s the rich list and the powerful “c-suite” list and the young people with power (hmmm) but here, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Thalia Anthony, Professor of Law, University of Technology Sydney ShutterstockThis article contains information on deaths in custody and the names of deceased people, and describes ongoing colonial violence towards Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. First Nations people in Australia ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alex Simpson, Senior Lecturer in Criminology, Macquarie University Netflix Baby Reindeer’s phenomenal success has much to do with its writer and lead, Richard Gadd, who plays Donny in a tender semi-autobiographical account of sexual abuse, harassment and stalking. Gadd’s story has ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Collins, Laureate Professor in Nutrition and Dietetics, University of Newcastle KarolinaGrabowska/Pexels If you didn’t have food allergies as a child, is it possible to develop them as an adult? The short answer is yes. But the reasons why are much ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Moon, Professor of History, Auckland University of Technology Ans Westra, self-portrait, c. 1963. National Library ref AWM-0705-F They try but invariably fail – those writers who believe they are capable of encapsulating in prose or verse the essence of ...
Stewart Sowman-Lund looks at the growing concern around the world in this extract from The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. What’s all this? When Covid-19 arrived on our shores in early 2020, some argued we were too slow, or crucially, ill-prepared for a pandemic. So ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Franco Montalto, Professor of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering and Director, Sustainable Water Resource Engineering Laboratory, Drexel University Water runs into a storm drain in a Los Angeles alley on Aug. 19, 2023, during Tropical Storm Hilary.Citizen of the Planet/Universal Images ...
The inquest into the death of Gore toddler Lachlan Jones has turned up a new witness who says he saw two teenagers and a small child in a high vis vest in the area where the boy’s body was found the day he died. Lachie’s body was discovered face up ...
Stories from the tenancy trenches, featuring spider infestations, cupboard rats and same-sex discrimination. Lucy’s brother was living in a damp 1930s building in Mt Eden where “he had to tie the cupboard doors closed so the rats didn’t get in”. Although he shared custody of his six-year-old son, his property ...
Simeon Brown, Chris Luxon, and Wayne Brown climbed into a hole and announced a plan to solve Auckland’s water woes. This is how it’ll work. New Zealand’s pipes are munted. They’re cracked and leaking, and struggling to handle all the extra poos excreted by our rising population. It’s a big, ...
After replacing a fifth of their caucus in just four months, the Greens’ opportunity to reset, reshuffle and refocus on the Government is quickly slipping away The post Persistent Green Party scandals delay caucus reset appeared first on Newsroom. ...
I knew Taika Waititi quite well when he was a kid. His mother lived in a tall narrow house in Aro St, and my youngest sister had a similar house two doors along. They were both single mums, they each had a son aged seven. Taika and my nephew Stepan ...
Opinion: “As time passes, knowledge of the circumstances of the August 2016 outbreak will fade and its immediate impact will be lost.” This statement is from the 2017 report of the Official Inquiry into the Havelock North campylobacteriosis outbreak. The then National-led government established the inquiry after the outbreak left ...
Opinion: Nicholas Khoo looks at two key points in the high-stakes foreign policy pact debate – and asks if NZ can engage with as little drama as possible. The post Where to next for the Aukus ruckus? appeared first on Newsroom. ...
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Opinion: ‘Reference-class forecasting’ is at the heart of improving pricing a project and identifying the expected timeframe but it doesn’t appear to be in use here The post ‘Think fast and act slowly’ is failing big projects appeared first on Newsroom. ...
What do a sombrero in Argentina and cognitive driving tests have in common? Don’t worry, we’re not setting up a bad joke. Hinengaro Clinic dementia clinician Gregory Winkelman has the answer on today’s episode of The Detail. “We ask a patient’s spouse or son or daughter: If you went to ...
Wellington long jumper Phoebe Edwards is back and she’s having fun again. Until this year, Edwards, a top athlete in her teens, had never competed as a senior athlete in New Zealand. In March, the 26-year-old won a national long jump title in a lifetime best of 6.28m after ...
ANALYSIS:By Olli Hellmann, University of Waikato When New Zealanders commemorate Anzac Day today on April 25, it’s not only to honour the soldiers who lost their lives in World War I and subsequent conflicts, but also to mark a defining event for national identity. The battle of Gallipoli against ...
By Robin Martin, RNZ News reporter A New Zealand local authority, Whanganui District Council, has passed a motion calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, condemnation of all acts of violence and terror against civilians on both sides of the conflict and the immediate return of hostages. It comes as ...
Asia Pacific Report The Aotearoa chapter of the Women’s International league for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) has appealed to the New Zealand government to call out Israel over the “cruel and barbaric use of force” in Gaza and demand a permanent ceasefire. The league’s open letter was sent to Prime ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The Albanese government will invest $566 million over a decade on data, maps and other tools to promote exploration and development in Australia’s resources industry. The project will fund “the first comprehensive map of what’s ...
Asia Pacific Report Following an open letter by Auckland University academics speaking out in support of their students’ right to protest against the genocidal Israeli war on Gaza, a group of academics at Otago University have today also called on New Zealand academic institutions to “repair colonial violence” and end ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Linda J. Graham, Professor and Director of the Centre for Inclusive Education, Queensland University of Technology Ryan Tauss/ Unsplash, CC BY Two male students have been expelled from a Melbourne private school for their involvement in a list ranking female students. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University The Reserve Bank is now assuming Australians will see no interest rate cuts this year – and quite possibly none before the next federal election, due next May. That’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Hayward, Emeritus Professor of Public Policy, RMIT University The Victorian budget offered more of the same on Tuesday, with the only change being how the budget papers were packaged. The usual shrink wrap was gone, hinting at savings in the pages ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The Coalition is demanding extensive amendments to the government’s legislation targeting non-citizens who refuse to co-operate with their removal. In a dissenting report to the senate inquiry into the legislation, the Coalition says it ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vanita Yadav, Senior Research Fellow, Urban Transformations Research Centre, Western Sydney University Brett Boardman/Belvoir The complex and grappling issue of violence against women takes centre stage in the soul-stirring solo dance drama Nayika: A Dancing Girl. During a dinner conversation ...
Disruption to patient care from a nationwide junior doctors strike is bordering on unsafe, a senior doctor claims, despite what health officials say. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Diepstraten, Senior Research Officer, Blood Cells and Blood Cancer Division, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute Ground Picture/Shutterstock The anti-cancer drug abemaciclib (also known as Vernezio) has this month been added to the Australian Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) to treat certain ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dominic McAfee, Postdoctoral researcher, marine ecology, University of Adelaide Robbie Porter, OzFish Unlimited Around Australia, hundreds of people are coming together to help a once-prized, but decimated and largely forgotten marine ecosystem. They’re busy restoring Australia’s native oyster and mussel reefs. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sara Webb, Lecturer, Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, Swinburne University of Technology Austin Human/Unsplash How does Earth stop meteors from hitting Earth and hurting people? –Asher, 6 years 11 months, New South Wales Alright, let’s embark on a meteor ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rory Mulcahy, Associate Professor of Marketing, University of the Sunshine Coast Professional sports organisations regularly promote and develop initiatives to support diversity, equity and inclusion. While sport has the power to change attitudes by sparking conversations about political issues and social ...
Comment: The weekly Monday post-Cabinet press conference is a useful forum for observing Christopher Luxon and how he is developing into the job of Prime Minister. He attempts to convey the impression of a man of action, speaking fast, delivering memorised National Party strategies in a connect-the-slogans kind of way, ...
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.
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.
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!
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
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.