“I’ve simply had no response from ANZ to my reasonable requests for information about the loan and its terms.
“To be clear: in no way do I dispute the loan or my responsibility to pay off my share of the debt as one of four personal guarantors for the facility.
“What’s perhaps most alarming is the revelation that ANZ has been unable to locate a signed copy of the original facility to NZ Girl in its files. To my mind, that credit contract is vital to outline the terms that were agreed to by NZ Girl at the origin of the loan, and the basis of which any fees and penalties are charged. I’m deeply concerned that as a customer of ANZ, I am experiencing such difficulty, or indeed a stone wall of silence, from my bank when I have asked for reasonable information to determine what I owe. I’ve had to employ a lawyer to help me navigate this, at significant personal cost.”
TSB is a good bank. I bet they would have documentation.
“Crossan said her former husband, Grant Nicholls, who is now part of the ANZ executive team, had also offered a personal guarantee, along with two other people. He held a similar shareholding in the business.
I'm surprised they said they could throw away documents after seven years. I would have thought it was 7 years after completion of the contract, not seven years from the time the contract was started.
TSB? Fuck off. TSB fucked *everything* up we had with them.
They can't even email statements, they have to print them off and scan them. And before this, you had to go into a branch to get them as they refused to do it.
Getting out of TSB was one of the best things I ever did.
Mike McRoberts will return to Syria, as he calls for more NZ Government aid
Glenn McConnell05:00, Aug 18 2019
…….The journalist has travelled to Syria and its neighbouring countries, and was last there in 2017 and says he saw destruction at a level he'd never witnessed before.
McRoberts is no stranger to carnage. He was known as New Zealand's "war correspondent", having completed assignments in Gaza, Afghanistan and Iraq. He's also reported on the aftermath of natural disasters, such as the 2011 Japan tsunami and earthquakes in Haiti and Christchurch.
But the destruction in Syria is a new level of horrible, and he's worried New Zealanders don't comprehend how bad it is.
"It's mind blowing," he says. "Entire cities have been destroyed, in a way I've never seen before. The number of places I've been, I've never before seen kilometre after kilometre of destruction. All the homes, the entire town, destroyed."
I see that Mike McRoberts will be reporting from Idlib.
Maybe if he gets the chance, and is not killed, Mike McRoberts could visit the town of Saraqib,
If any of them are still alive, he could interview Osama al-Hossein, or Ibrahim Bareesh, or a lawyer named Muthanna al-Muhammad, or even the local singer Ahmed al-Tellawi, or Manhal Bareesh, or the peace activist Iyad Jarrod, or Mousab al-Azzo the soccer coach.
Maybe Mike McRobers might be able to get hold of local journalist journalist Samar Yazbek and ask her for her account of the Syrian conflict.
Your jihadi friends have control of Saraqib Jenny. You really have no shame. You have never condemned these brutal murderers but whitter on about the Syrian Government. I can only conclude that you would be quite happy to have ISIS, Al queda et al overun Syria and turn it into a bastion of Sharia Law carrying out it's public floggings and beheadings.
"From the early start of the war on Syria, Saraqib was one of the centers of jihadi terrorist activities. In March/April 2011 it was one of the first towns that saw violent attacks on government forces and institutions. In December 2011 the notorious terrorist group Ahrar al-Sham, headed by the long time al-Qaeda member Abu Khalid al-Suri, was founded there. In 2014 the BBCreported how al-Qaeda/Nusra/HTS ruled the town:
Abu-Qedama, al-Qaida's envoy in Saraqib, North-Eastern Syria, is Jordanian. His task is to ensure that Sharia Law is enforced.
This BBC Arabic film follows him and his fellow Islamists in Saraqib, showing how they are taking control of the city. The film-makers get inside the courts and reveal how Sharia Law is applied. We see the judge at work in the Court and issuing his judgment on the public square. For the first time, we see a public flogging before a large crowd of people, as a deterrent to others.
At some point the locals in Saraqib may have hold some sham elections. But that does not change the fact that their town was and is solidly controlled by an internationally banned terrorist group. Saraqib is only a 'bastion of freedom' when one ignores everything that happened and still happens there.
This brings up a serious question. How did the author of the New Yorker piece, Anand Gopal, manage to travel through Nusra/HTS/al-Qaeda controlled Idleb governorate, visited the jihadi infested town, and avoided to be thrown into the "notorious al-Iqab Prison in Saraqib area"?"
Oh and Osama al-Hossein, Muslim Brotherhood 'activist' has fled to Turkey. Please do keep up.
Wow, that is either a very ignorant view or you are friends with headchoppers of Idlib. Mr McRoberts needs to use his intelligence and visit Damascus before venturing off to the frontlines of Idlib. Maybe you actually believe the white helmet and al Qaeda propaganda, if so you are very mistaken in your judgment. You have no reason to trust me but I have done a great deal of independent and indepth research as well as visited the Middle East.
To date The Standard has not allowed a single post that strays from the pro-regime narrative.
Will we see the Standard authors willfully ignore McRoberts commentary?
Will The Standard authors choose instead to get their views shaped by Pepe Escobar of RT and notorious batshit crazy conspiracy website Globalresearch.
You should know that attributing ulterior motives to the site, as if it has a mind of its own, or to its Authors is a bannable offense (https://thestandard.org.nz/policy/#banning).
You should know that telling Authors what to write or not write about, what views to express of not express and how is a bannable offense too.
Attacking the site for things that may never even happen is stupid behaviour and amounts to telling us what we can and cannot write about.
Stomping and ranting over everything and anything to do with Syria makes it impossible to have a rational discussion on this.
These are just the main offenses – there are too many minor ones to list here that have been wasting Moderator time.
I have checked your history here and you have been warned and banned many times before for the same offenses.
I was tossing between a permanent ban and a short educational ban. The former one may be too harsh and the latter one obviously won’t work. Therefore, I decided to hand you medium-long ban as a warning to you and others and to give us all a break from your recidivist behaviour.
Impossible Foods, a leading producer of plant-based "meat-like" patties, has launched its Impossible Burger 2.0 in more than 7,000 restaurants worldwide. The product will be sold in all Burger King locations across the US (not to mention your local grocery store) by September.
Beyond Meat, another meat-free burger company, saw similar success: The company netted $40.2 million during its first quarter as a public company (between January and April), a 215% jump from the same period in 2018.
Global consultancy firm AT Kearney projects that by 2040, 60% of the "meat" products humans consume will either be plant-based replacements or lab-grown meats.'
In the natural world, herbivores eat plant-parts and omnivores/carnivores eat herbivore-parts, along with selected plant-parts. It's for reasons other than "natural" that some present-day humans choose not to eat herbivore-parts.
I didn't mean it to be a conversation stopper, more a basis on which to build a rational discussion. Without the heat, a measured debate on diet would be enjoyable and very interesting, in my view.
I thought it was that it is natural to eat. The choice of what to eat is not related to the word 'natural', it is a choice for (most) humans. I wish more people would accept their choice and stop trying to justify it – the climate disaster we are facing isn't a practice run!
Now there's a debatable idea; choosing; do television-watching children choose to eat the sugar-infused foods they see advertised on their beloved goggle-box, or is that choice made for them by the cunning advertisers?
yeah nah – the choice to eat industrialised farmed flesh (and accept that subsequent contribution to our climate emergency) or veges and grains and fruits. Sure some may like ‘happy meat’ – good on them. I'd like people to raise their pigs and sheep and then kill and gut them, chop them up, put them in the freezer and chomp away – but easier to just buy the plastic wrapped stuff I spose.
The main impediment to people eating local meat is food safety laws that prohibits us from buying direct from farmers and small growers. That's not too hard a fix technically, but the people in government are not on board yet with the need.
This is one reason why I push back hard on the veganism will save us from climate change idea. Instead of making it easier for people to eat the least impactful foods (whether that be veg, meat, dairy, nuts), people are being actively encouraged and pressured to eat industrial soy that still has a large carbon footprint and a terrible eco footprint.
I'll never be in a position to raise my own meat, but I'm not in a position to grow my own veges either, so I tend to focus on the systems and how they can be changed.
So then there're children in families where an omnivorous diet is the norm, who find choosing not to eat farmed-animal meat very difficult, if not impossible. As well, there are those children who haven't given a thought to eating differently from their family and who, as adults, choose to continue, not having had to address the issue at any point. Demanding that they do is…interesting and needing explanation. It's a complex question, choosing what and what not to eat. The sugar story is similar.
"This is one reason why I push back hard on the veganism will save us from climate change idea."
Yes. Any single-issue campaign that claims "save us from climate-change/annihilation" falls over immediately, imo; coal, oil, meat, air-travel, stock-farming, because it's clear immediate and total change as the result of one action cannot happen, given our civilised state. I'm convinced though, that there is a pathway aside from wrack & ruin and am always hopeful that a discussion here will ignite the lamp that guides that path
"This is one reason why I push back hard on the veganism will save us from climate change idea. Instead of making it easier for people to eat the least impactful foods "
Not sure why both ideas can't be entertained – they aren't mutually exclusive.
@Robert – good you're thinking of the children.
It's not a single issue – it is among a range of issues to try to reduce the misery just around the corner. It is evidence based like the rest of them. This anti reduce meat consumption (for those that make that argument – not you R ok) is really another climate denial argument imo.
"Not sure why both ideas can't be entertained – they aren't mutually exclusive."
I don't know why either, but these are my guesses. I see a lot of resistance from the vegan movement and fundamentalist vegans to instead of telling people to eat vegan, telling people to eat vegan or omni but either way to eat from relocalised food systems where they can.
I understand this to be because not eating animals is paramount, and it's better to prioritise that than it is to let people eat local, happy meat or dairy or eggs if that is a better choice in climate terms. That ideology is a problem where it blocks locavorism, and imo this is what is happening (it's being blocked).
The vegan movement isn't championing relocalising food, but instead is pushing industrial vegan vs industrial meat/dairy. I see a kind of blindness here, and I feel an immense frustration at the amount of time spent addressing the 'go vegan and save us from climate change' (which is a nonsense, because they're really saying eat industrial soy instead of CAFO meat/dairy), and the conversation getting stuck there instead of moving on to the systems that might give all of live a chance.
Reducing global GHG emissions by x % won't save us. We have to move to zero-ish carbon at the same time as doing all the natural sequestration processes to mitigate, not to buy more carbon usage.
In all that is the issue of the industrialised wealthy nations eating way more than their fare share, so of course people that eat large amounts of meat and dairy need to rethink that. But asking people to reduce the amount of meat/dairy is very different than asking them to be vegan.
"This anti reduce meat consumption (for those that make that argument – not you R ok) is really another climate denial argument imo."
When I was vegetarian in the 80s, the common theme amongst vegetarians was that NZers ate too much protein. This was probably true for a good number of people, but for vegetarians who were eating largely plant based diets it was dangerous, because we ended up protein deficient.
Telling people to reduce meat only works for people that are eating a lot. No way in hell am I going to tell poor people who don't have enough nutrients in their diet and subsist on white carbs that they should eat less meat and dairy. Likewise chronically ill people who don't have the health resources to manage a vegetarian diet.
So when people say eat less meat/dairy to save the planet, because the Guardian is telling them that *globally* humans are eating too much, of course I am going to say hang on, there is a real problem with this approach and messaging.
@ weka I think you have a blind spot in relation to vegans and that stuff therefore this is my last comment to you on it (today that is 🙂 )
there was no protein crisis afaik
Maybe we can get the wealthy middle class western countries and citizens to reduce their meat intake first and then start on the poor people.
There are a small number of vegans pushing their position yet somehow that means they want global soy (industrial vegan) instead of rain forests – come on.
Often people don't like the message when they don't agree with it. Bit all or nothing for me.
Marty – "Extinction rebellion", are they rebelling to prevent the extinction of rhino, dolphin, butterfly, bee, etc, or are they referring to the extinction of humans, do you know?
I reckon, also, that talking to individuals, as we do here on TS, is very different to talking to corporations. It's fair to demand that soul-less, heart-less, socio/psychopathic corporate pretend-bodies, are addressed in absolute terms, but not individuals, imo. People are easily hurt and almost always compromised, so absolute claims and demands just harm, not help. Sometimes we mix the two without realising it.
"@ weka I think you have a blind spot in relation to vegans and that stuff therefore this is my last comment to you on it (today that is )"
People can and do think whatever they want, but in a political forum in the absence of explaining their thinking it doesn't really mean much. eg I have no idea what my blind spot might be. What I'm getting is there is something you don't like about my argument, and so you will stop talking to me today. All good. I hope next time you can say more.
"there was no protein crisis afaik"
No idea what that means.
"Maybe we can get the wealthy middle class western countries and citizens to reduce their meat intake first and then start on the poor people."
Sure, those wealthy people that are eating a lot of meat/dairy. Those that aren't need a different message.
"There are a small number of vegans pushing their position yet somehow that means they want global soy (industrial vegan) instead of rain forests – come on."
The vegan movement is large, well funded, and being adopted by people in positions of power.
I didn't make the comparison with rain forests, so please don't put words into my argument. I suspect you are still largely missing what I am arguing for, but to be clear, I don't support NZers to fell our rain forests to grow meat or legumes.
"Often people don't like the message when they don't agree with it. Bit all or nothing for me."
If you can't see the nuances in my arguments (and there are plenty) I think that's for you to sort out
ER's main demands are around GHGs and preventing mass species extinction so I think it's reasonable to assume the extinction rebellion applies to all of life. It’s one of the things that separates them out from some other climate activists, they saw the need to do both together.
@ Robert yes we are individuals and that is where we must start imo. Once again, why people get so defensive I'll never know – just do what you can and what you want, with knowledge – and that's the same for all eaters of food. ffs I've had enough of this bullshit – argue with yourselves on this 'political forum'.
Mmmm…I appreciate your view, weka. I'm not sure though; the 6th Great Extinction Event was, I thought, attributed to more prosaic habitat destruction by humans; city-building, forest-felling, over-fishing, pesticide-use etc. I'd always thought that was the background to Extinction Rebellion. But you may be right, in which case, I'm somewhat disappointed.
Are we talking at cross-purposes there Robert? Afaik ER want to address all the things you name, and see humans as the progenitor of mass extinction. Hence the demand to protect biodiversity. I took that to mean by humans changing their errant ways.
right. So getting humans to eat industrial soy instead of eating cows that industrial soy looks like a good thing ecologically and re CC, but only in a lesser evil way. Better to get humans to eat local (legumes, veges, animals, nuts) and regeneratively, and avoid the massive issues associated with all industrial farming.
Yes. I'd been so pleased that a global movement to protect all non-human life had come into being; learning that there was human self-interest involved is a bit disappointing.
I took it as being all of life (including humans). I don't see us as outside of nature, so can't imagine protecting biodiversity in ways that don't also protect us. There are compelling reasons to protect humans too eg so we deal with the nuclear and other high pollution issues.
solkta Now you produce another conversation stopper.
There is something wrong with the heads of a number of you. Can you concentrate on other matters when people want to discuss them. It is a virtual OCD to be in a sex default position when there are so many human bad behaviour traits.
Plastic particles falling out of sky with snow in the Arctic
Roger Harrabin BBC Wed, 14 Aug 2019 08:29 UTC
A German-Swiss team of researchers has published the work in the journal Science Advances. The scientists also found rubber particles and fibres in the snow. How did the researchers carry out the study? Researchers collected snow samples from the Svalbard islands using a low-tech method – a dessert spoon and a flask. In the laboratory at Germany’s Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven they discovered far more contaminating particles than they’d expected.
Many were so small that it was hard to ascertain where they had come from.
In an ideal world, you would have made your comment slightly more relevant to this discussion thread and more on-topic if you had said something about tyre dust in lab-grown meat patties.
hahaha . You mean the factory making the protein isnt a middle man ? It may say 'plant based' but the reality is some sort of by product of an industrial process.
Plants themselves are far better than 'plant based' falsehood
Did you not read about Impossible Burgers plant based means a genetically modified version of heme to 'give it a meaty favour'
"So the researchers engineered ( notice the lack of the word genetic)yeast to mimic a plant-based heme source, as well as the flavor profile of beef "to generate the same
and then
"Impossible chose textured wheat and potato protein instead since that gives the burger a more realistic texture"
TVP, texture vegetable protein, a vegetarian staple from back in the day. Terrible stuff born from the desire to make vegetarian mince. If people want to not eat meat, then don’t eat meat. Plenty of other things to eat that don’t require a lab to make them pretend to be meat.
"Textured vegetable protein, or TVP, is made from soy and is the same thing as textured soy protein. Textured wheat protein is made from a similar process, but from wheat. They are all highly processed plant-based alternatives to meat.
Factory food processing using a lot of other stuff that would be far from those weasel words 'plant based'
Global consultancy firm AT Kearney projects that by 2040, 60% of the "meat" products humans consume will either be plant-based replacements or lab-grown meats.'
By pillaging the world's diminishing resources. Show us the ecological footprint, or it's all just BAU.
Below is the ingredients list, have a think about where those ingredients come from, how they're grown and processed, how far they travel to get to the plate, what extractive and polluting industry (incl fossil fuels) is needed in that whole process.
Then stop and think about how this might not be a good solution to climate change, and why relocalising food supplies might be.
The first part of the article is based on US populations, so very different than what people in the NZ or even somewhere like the UK are eating. It's comparing soy with meat and dairy, but that doesn't take into account things like the evolutionary human need for fats. It looks at EFAs but doesn't address two issues: one is that CAFO meats have a munted EFA ratio to start with, and two, EFAs from plants are harder for humans to utilise in their bodies.
I doubt that the GHG emission figures are true, because of what is being chosen to be counted (please, someone do the mahi to correct me), but it doesn't address the ecological footprint.
But the second part of the article is looking at fake meat, not in the context of the research in the first part of the article. The research looked at soy, green peppers, squash, buckwheat, and asparagus, not that list of ingredients above.
I could go on, lots of ways to critique this, but for me it's not a vegan vs omnivore debate, it's an industrial monsanto model of eating vs relocalising food, and how that matters in terms of climate mitigation.
Additive-laden foods designed to sit on shelves for days or weeks will always suffer by comparison with whole foods in climate terms. Be great if our food system incentivised local whole products.
All fresh fruit and veg in the supermarket have to have ecofootprint, GHG footprint, country of origin, how they were grown (organic/conventional etc), that kind of thing? That would be a total game changer.
I'm tired of their interests taking precedent too, and I suspect there would be a lot of resistance. What happened to the Greens' country of origin labelling thing?
Once frankin foods get a market share (and they will ) it is going to become fertile ground for the big companies to hollow out any nutritional goodness in pursuit low cost high profit garbage.
Yep. Looking at the list in that burger, why the need to add in all those vitamins? And how where they produced? Some people think that our bodies are machines and we can just add this component and that component and still function well. That one will come back and bite us.
i am more worried about the waste produced by this stuff.
We have become a seriously ill society. We want to feel good at all cost. We want to elevate some life more important as other life and often time that comes with the 'cute' label attached. We don't want to pay the honest price of everything, cause that would cut into the pursuit of 'lifestyle' and by gosh and golly we are owed a lifestyle. We want to continue to drive our cars, our boats, our bikes, heat in winter to 30 and cool in summer to 22, we want our booze and our frocks and our frid/sat entertainment and we want it cheap. And the rubbish of all that we consume is for another generation to care of. But at least we could pretend we are still eating meat. Right?
give me a rat burger/possum burger/ stoat burger/rabbit burger any day of the week before i would buy and eat that rubbish.
That can't have been Marie Curie as she has been dead for some time! But the male attitudes of primacy that she encountered (but always overcame) still continue their repeat – like a belch or fart.
This was interesting – an honest, objective appraisal by Pierre Curie on why it was hard for him to fine a life companion and wife:
"Women, much more than men, love life for life’s sake. Women of genius are rare. And when, pushed by some mystic love, we wish to enter into a life opposed to nature, when we give all our thoughts to some work which removes us from those immediately about us, it is with women that we have to struggle, and the struggle is nearly always an unequal one. For in the name of life and of nature they seek to lead us back." http://womenineuropeanhistory.org/index.php?title=Marie_Curie
Though Marie changed the mould still the old attitude apparently prevails.
Looks like a split at the top in the National party camp over the new Topham Guerin approach, David Farrar is publically disagreeing with Simon Bridges over his opposition to the establishment of a Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO).
Extraordinary thing to do, given how hard Simon is running with this line.
"National are putting themselves right next to the anti-vax clowns with this kind of caper. Time to grow up and fight elections on policy rather than Steven Joyce's cheap sloganeering. "
While that may be true in terms of NZ democracy, there is no future for National if they fight elections on a rational basis. They need to lie, to smear, to accuse and to distract like an abusive partner, because at the end of the day they are corrupt and the policies they will actually implement are either ineffectual or disastrous.
Simon is doing the smart thing for National – but not the smart thing for New Zealand, which would be infinitely better off without them.
Maybe hard to appoint people that everyone sees as independent though. They could appoint both Michael Cullen and Steven Joyce…that would be interesting.
Chris Trotter's piece on Fascists (sidebar) is fascinating! I was immediately reminded of Incognito's suggestion of the need for a Philosopher-king to guide us all through the coming troubles with the weather
“[R]ealising the present serious National emergency, and the necessity for all good citizens to subordinate private and political interests and to make any necessary personal sacrifice for the sake of the country, [I] agree to become a member of the New Zealand Legion and to further loyally, by every means in my power, by vote, example and personal influence, the objects of the Legion."
"Politics, however, was what ultimately killed the Legion. Its leaders and members simply couldn’t agree on what it was, exactly, that patriotic New Zealanders needed to do. Unlike a genuine fascist movement, it lacked a charismatic leader capable of preventing such crippling internal debates by reserving all policy-making powers to himself."
It is a good piece though its central theme is obvious upon reflection…..the history connecting the Legion with the National Party was a revelation for me.
Was that a response though?.New Zealand being a communist country at the time,as George Bernard Shaw related in his famous radio broadcast to NZ /Aus.(4 million listeners)
"You are to some extent, thanks to your admirable communist institutions, now actually leading the world's institutions. You are second only to Russia, and there is a curious joke about it that Russia, partly by following New Zealand's example, has got a good lead, the Russians are very proud of their Communism. They know they are Communists and are proud of it…while New Zealand, which leads the world in communism, does not know it is Communist. It naturally thinks Communism is a terrible thing. Let me ask you to put that idea out of your heads… I am a Communist, I studied Karl Marx four years before Lenin did, and you see that I am a very sensible and well-meaning person."
Hard to say. Dr Woods has been completely invisible where KiwiBuild is concerned. The Property Institute even had to cancel a webinar that she’d agreed to present at on the basis that she was a no-show, so that would be a NO in relation to being on side with industry players.
I generally think that the importance of accountability is also key for Ministerial positions where responsibility for flagship Government policy lies.
I don't believe that kindness trumps accountability, which is why the current Government is falling so far short of the electorate's expectations.
In the interests of even-handedness, Sam, where are you on this:
"Mr Key signalled a National-led government would improve housing affordability by embarking on a programme of personal tax cuts, changing the building regulatory regime, keeping interest rates lower, reforming development rules to free up land, and allowing state house dwellers to buy their homes."
A three-letter word is proving sensitive today. That is 'out' when talking about cities and more building.
The government release from Twyford and Parker is headed: 'https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/helping-our-cities-grow-and-out' Helping our cities grow up and out “We need a new approach to planning that allows our cities to grow up, especially in city centres and around transport connections. We also have to allow cities to expand in a way that protects our special heritage areas, the natural environment and highly productive land.
“When overly restrictive planning creates an artificial scarcity of land, or floor space in the case of density limits, you simply drive up the price of housing and deny people housing options.
(This sounded like a repeat of the property speculators mantra to me.)
Links on google keywords:phil twyford on housing and land
It has released a document for consultation that proposes what the new NPS, set to replace the existing 2016 one, should look like.
The Ministry for the Environment (MfE) and Ministry of Housing and Urban Development (MHUD) suggest the NPS includes new policies to specifically direct councils to provide for intensification
Sam C is right. There needs to be more accountability for ministers. This current lot are terrible but having said that, the previous government had their issues too.
She was an interim CEO on a six month contract after the previous CEO was forced to resign. She departed a month early to take up a new permanent position.
Not much of a scandal in that is there Master Sam.
Gil Scott Heron – IMO someone with great insight, articulate and a pioneer in regard to music. who very few know about but many should (Similar to Robert Johnson), great documentary from the BBC on him.
National MPs embroiled in the legal case with Winston Peters are staying tight-lipped about a reported offer to settle for the scalp of Paula Bennett…..
Newstalk ZB political editor Barry Soper said that lawyers from both sides met in Auckland last week in an effort to settle the case before it goes to the Auckland High Court on November 4.
This may explain soimon going off the reservation around the PBO as discussed in 5 above.
National wanting to settle out of court is getting pretty close to an admission. And these delicious ironies (the leak this time) every time the nats end up in court is getting a bit much
Well, either Winston demanded $400k or Bennett's sacking to settle (which doesn't seem to indicate a particular desire to settle vs taking it to court), or the nats offered up Bennett of their own accord (which indicates the nats really want the case to go away).
Odds are that the meeting was a mere formality, or the nats want to settle more than Winston does.
There is another possibility – that they want Paula to go away. The imaginary threat of legal action has been used before, to bribe the Saudi sheep fellow. If the Gnats have a plan so cunning they imagine you could put a tail on it and call it a weasel, chances are that Paula isn't part of it.
There is that thing that an elbowed electorate MP lingers furiously while a list MP is not wont to stay carping in the house. Gnats are accustomed to sacking people, and disestablishing Paula's position in favour of a Topham Guerin rep. would not cause them much in the way of cognitive dissonance.
The Whale is retailing the same speculation apparently: “Bennett probably hasn’t realised yet that by giving up a safe seat for a list place she has made herself expendable. Especially if her campaign is as awful as everything else Paula Bennett does.” I won’t link it.
I think we can all agree that the mainstream media in New Zealand has a very different set of rules for the right wing compared to the left. While Labour and Green Party politicians don’t seem to be able to fart without it becoming a sackable offence, National and Act ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, June 28 through Sat, July 4, 2020Editor's Choice'2040': A funny, entertaining, upbeat climate documentaryA timely Australian documentary takes a 'solutions' approach, with the filmmaker inspired by visions of ...
Racist National MP Hamish WalkerEven before Todd Muller's coup ousted Simon Bridges by a single vote, it was patently obvious that the National Party promotes and stands for white privilege. In fact they’ve always worked to ensure the discriminatory status quo in New Zealand doesn’t change.So it’s no surprise that ...
Dave HeatleyZero community transmission. Just a handful of active cases, all in quarantine. New Zealand is in an attractive situation, at least compared to much of the world. The situation could be robust and enduring – or it might be fragile, just one border incursion away from a “second ...
Is the consequence of the Simpson Report proposals for restructuring the health system poorer accountability to people? When in doubt, centralise‘ has been a persistent theme in New Zealand public policy throughout our history. The current government is no exception. Here are some examples. - The regional polytechs have been ...
I wrote earlier in the week about the Scientology front organisations Drug Free World and Drug Free Ambassadors and their quite prominent role in anti-cannabis reform "coalition" assembled by Family First and a newloca branch of the American prohibitionist organisation SAM.It turns out Family First aren't the only ones helping ...
Nik GreenMuch of the public debate about the response to the COVID-19 pandemic has focused on the extent to which government regulations have restricted personal and business activity.Oxford University Blavatnik School of Government Here in New Zealand, the question of when to change Alert Levels dominated the ...
Raising The Bar: Would that the Prime Minister and her colleagues would listen as intently to what the people – as opposed to the power elites – are saying as the Greens. Were they so disposed, the popular clamour for a transformational post-Covid reset would be loud in their ears. ...
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nzDo you think the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown will slow or ...
A bit like a letter home. I have now been full-time at the University of Melbourne since 2019. Before that, I was 20 years at the University of Otago, Wellington. Indeed, I set up this very Public Health Expert Blog with Nick Wilson ten years ago. Now I am your ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections House Democrats have released a comprehensive report showing how – if they control the White House and both the Senate and the House of Representatives – they might move forward on climate change. Their “Climate Crisis Action Plan,” released June 30 by the ...
Not Ready: Todd Muller’s lack-lustre and self-contradictory performances offer conclusive proof that a political leader cannot be managed into competence. National’s new boss has Janet Wilson handling his media and Matthew Hooton writing his speeches. Both are highly professional political and public relations specialists, and Muller is lucky to have ...
Unfortunately, due to a medical emergency, I have landed in hospital so am not able to do a current update on the NZ blog statistics. Let’s hope I can get back to this in good time. ...
It started as a family story, about a step-father who went out one night to break into an embassy in Wadestown, Wellington. John Daniell wanted to understand what his family had been part of when his mother and then step-father work for New Zealand’s Security Intelligence. He wanted to know ...
The Greens have shaken up the election campaign with the announcement of their radical poverty and action plan to reform welfare provision and introduce a new wealth tax for millionaires. It’s a big-thinking, controversial policy and has generated a lot of disagreement over how radical it is, whether it could ...
My house is currently supplied electricity by Meridian. As soon as I can change I will because Meridian spilled water to hike electricity prices. They got consumers to spend an extra $80 million on power unnecessarily. Clever them. The Electricity Authority has called their behaviour an “undesirable trading situation”, or ...
When Jacinda Ardern unexpectedly became the Labour Party leader shortly before the 2017 general election, she promised to lead a government of transformation. After nearly three years occupying the Treasury benches, health professionals working in public hospitals have been keenly waiting for transformational progress, including in the capacity and quality ...
Last night, One News ran a follow-up story to its Colmar Brunton poll results on the cannabis referendum, headed here as Government accuses big American anti-cannabis group of interfering in NZ politics.In truth it wasn't just the government: Justice minister Andrew Little, National's Shane Reti and the Greens' Chloe Swarbrick ...
When the government refused to put cameras on fishing boats to ensure fishers obeyed the law, Fisheries Minister Stuart Nash claimed that coalition partner NZ First (which has received large donations from the fishing industry) was not responsible for the decision. He has repeated that claim repeatedly since then. But ...
Heroic Evasions: Labour needs to be unequivocal in its communications with the electorate. Either it has a plan to prevent their fellow New Zealanders from falling off the economic cliff, or it doesn’t. Either it has a fiscal policy equal to the task of funding that plan, or it hasn’t. ...
Prof John Potter*Elimination has been an effective strategy for New Zealand in the management of the COVID-19 pandemic virus (SARS-CoV-2). Most other countries have not pursued this goal and are ignoring the opportunity even now. SARS-CoV-2 is not manageable by the influenza playbook; its longer incubation period makes tracing ...
This is a re-post from Weather Underground by Bob HensonAbove: This rainbow appears unusually low in the sky because it has formed early in the afternoon, rather than toward sunset. For a rainbow to form, water droplets must be present in the air in front of an observer ...
On Monday, Todd Muller gave an important speech to the Wellington Chamber of Commerce, He spoke firmly about his belief in the need for foreign investment, for the public sector to partner with the private sector rather than boss it around and, crucially, demanded the government deliver a clear strategy ...
Todd Muller's first act on become party leader was to appoint an all-white front bench. This understandably raised eyebrows, so he is now apparently reconsidering caucus and list rankings. Which is obviously necessary, but there's still the underlying problem: National doesn't have a lot of Māori MP's. And the reason ...
Meridian energy has been caught manipulating the electricity market for fun and profit: Meridian Energy pushed up power prices by unnecessary spilling water from its south dams in December that could have been used for generation, the Electricity Authority has ruled in a preliminary decision. The authority said the ...
When the Christchurch murderer pleaded guilty to 51 counts of murder and a number of other violent assault charges a few months ago, he effectively closed the door on what the public will know about the lead up to and commission of the event. His plea means that no evidence ...
Daphna Whitmore The Philippines is enduring one of the longest lockdowns in the world. For President Duterte the lockdown provides an opportunity to garner more powers and to push through a brazen assault on human rights. A new law called the Anti-Terror Bill has been passed under urgency and it ...
Hearing the Prime Minister castigate the Warehouse for laying off 1,000 workers after receiving $52 million in wage subsidies reminds me of the fabled frog who agreed to carry a scorpion across a river. The scorpion stings the frog halfway across, dooming both to drown. The frog cries “Why on ...
Prof Nick Wilson, Dr Amanda Kvalsvig, Prof Michael BakerCompared with other OECD countries NZ is a stand-out success story by ending community transmission of COVID-19. While there have been some well-publicised recent deficiencies (eg, quarantine organisation), there has still been no evidence of community transmission for many weeks. Nevertheless, ...
It’s June 30th, marked as Asteroid Day by many people of an astronomical bent around the globe. On this date in 1908, early in the morning in a remote part of central Siberia, the sky fell in. Well, not literally. What happened is a substantially-sized lump of cosmic detritus ...
There really is not much about Paula Bennett concerning her career trajectory, the policies she promoted, and most importantly, the socio-economic effect this had upon New Zealand (and particularly the most vulnerable in this, our oft-cited “egalitarian” society of this country) that can be said now that hasn’t already been ...
Don Franks Poverty, inequality – really – aren’t politicians paid to sort that stuff ? Why can’t they just get it together and come up with something fair and sensible? A cold rainy 2020 morning, a headline showed promise. “Green Party’s $8b plan would guarantee an income of $325 a ...
A guest repost by Climate Science Legal Defense Fund (CSLDF) staff attorney Augusta Wilson. Fundraising is not the objective of this article but readers may wish to know that CSLDF is currently conducting a summer fundraiser to support defense of research scientists and research integrity from anti-science interference by politicians and industrial interests. The COVID-19 pandemic ...
Helloy… My name is Todd Muller and I am the leader of the National Party of New Zealand. Many people come up to me on the street and ask me who I am. I’m often walking through Tauranga, or in a mall in suburban Auckland, or maybe even a farmers’ ...
The US state of Mississippi has finally voted to remove the Confederate emblem from its state flag. Good. Its appalling that it was put there in the first place, but even more appalling that it took so long to remove it. Its basicly as if a German Länder still had ...
No one could have predicted when David Seymour’s End of Life Choice Bill was passed by Parliament last November that the referendum required to bring the legislation into force would be held against the backdrop of a deadly global pandemic. Since then, the mounting tally of casualties around the world ...
Paul GoldsmithYou can often tell just how effective a progressive policy proposal will be by how much the right wing criticise it. The more socially beneficial, the more vitriolic and unhinged they seem to become.That was the case when the Green Party announced their Poverty Action Plan yesterday. The response ...
Back at the beginning of April, when we had much else on our minds, I wrote this post urging some caution in interpreting the results of the latest Horizon poll, conducted in February, on voting intentions in this year's cannabis referendum, which was paid for by Helius Therapeutics.I wrote that ...
Over the weekend the Greens made their first election policy announcement, and promised transformational change: a more progressive tax system, with new rates applying to incomes of $100,000 and $150,000; a new wealth tax on net wealth over $1 million; and a guaranteed minimum income to eliminate poverty. Its bold, ...
Story of the Week... El Niño/La Niña Update... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... Story of the Week... Global Warming Is Melting Our Sense of Time Satellite image of smoke from active fires burning near the ...
. . Plague town? There are two things right now in Aotearoa New Zealand that are guaranteed to piss people off. Firstly, it’s National playing silly-bugger politics with the covid-19 pandemic. This cost Simon Bridges his job as National’s Leader. Lately, Michael Woodhouse has been playing fast and loose with ...
Tertiary fees in New Zealand versus Australia: Fees Are Important, but not as Important as Financing In Australia, the Education Minister Dan Tehan has proposed an overhaul of the existing higher education funding system to offer 39,000 additional study places by 2023 and 100,000 by 2030. The proposal has been ...
The latest opinion poll forecasts a landslide win by Jacinda Ardern’s Labour Party, but when taken alongside other polling, it illustrates New Zealand politics remains volatile and the contest is still very open. According to the Colmar Brunton poll published by TVNZ last night, Labour would easily romp back ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, June 21 through Sat, June 27, 2020Editor's ChoiceFacebook creates fact-checking exemption for climate deniers Facebook is "aiding and abetting the spread of climate misinformation,” said Robert Brulle, an ...
The images and reports delivered to us by the world’s media leave us in no doubt that the rest of the world is still in the grip of a coronavirus pandemic that shows no signs of slackening, but is actually uncontrolled and picking up pace in many countries; and even ...
Minister of Health - David ClarkIf you follow politics at all in New Zealand, David Clark is likely a name you’re a bit familiar with. The current Minister of Health is perhaps the most disliked Member of Parliament at the moment, which amongst very stiff competition is really saying something. ...
SATURDAY JUNE 27Banksy and the Rise of Outlaw Art (Sky Arts, Sky 017, 8.00pm). There was graffiti before Banksy, but perhaps his pungent political messages hit home a bit harder. Anyways, a doco about his influence on street art featuring a bunch of cool people.SUNDAY JUNE 28Beat the Chasers (TVNZ 1, ...
SUNDAY JUNE 28Beat the Chasers (TVNZ 1, 8.30pm). Judging by the tweets, which is probably a bad idea, over lockdown, all of New Zealand found itself in front of The Chase every night at 5pm. It is a brilliant fomat: hardly anyone wins any money ...
We have been assailed by Fox News-style headlines, lurid stories of “a breach!”. An almost nuclear level disaster on the horizon scream, “Fiasco!” here, “Hero to Zero!” there… Oh quick, panic everyone!This has fueled an unbelievably stupid environment of panic among some, and spurred useless, counterproductive political ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters A massive dust storm formed over the Sahara Desert last week and invaded the Caribbean over the June 20-21 weekend, bringing dangerous levels of air pollution and low visibility to the islands. The dust is accompanied by a large amount ...
Will the Covid Crisis lead to a dramatic redirection for New Zealand and the World? A hinge in history occurs where the past and present are connected but they point in different directions. Big hinges are rare but crucial in the development of humankind. Not in Narrow Seas identifies six. ...
RNZ reports that Refining NZ is considering shutting down Marsden Point and effectively turning itself into a fuel distribution service. The problem they're immediately trying to address is that running a refinery is expensive, and it is cheaper just to import processed fuel. But there's a longer-term problem too: climate ...
We all know that the COVID-19 virus is a terrible infectious disease that has already caused untold misery and numerous deaths around the world. Nearly half a million people have already died, and those are just the cases we know about.But how bad could things actually get exactly?Today, the NZ ...
This essay by Alex Hochuli examines the global phenomena of BLM protests . He is a freelance writer and research consultant based in São Paulo, Brazil. He is the co-host of the global politics podcast, Aufhebunga Bunga, and co-author of the forthcoming Politics at the End of the End of History (Zero ...
Are You Still Here? Just like his colleague, Phil Twyford – of KiwiBuild fame – David Clark juts out his chin and shamelessly apportions blame to everybody but himself. Even worse, he has turned viciously on Ashley Bloomfield, the nearest approximation to a competent, decent, humble and accountable public servant ...
. . 20 June The bad news: Aotearoa New Zealand has two new cases of covid-19. The good news: the two cases were picked up at an Auckland quarantine facility. The terrifying news: had the story of the two women leaving quarantine without testing not broken four days ...
Willing Victims: What would all those Americans in MAGA hats be left with if they abandoned Trump? Just the sick feeling of having been cheated. Just the knowledge that the man in the White House is nothing more than a shape-shifting New York grifter; and that they have always been ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Like an earthquake rumbling down the San Andreas Fault, Jeff Gibbs’ and Michael Moore’s controversial film “Planet of the Humans” tore a rift through the environmental movement, a rift its leaders would not yearn for in an election year. After activists have spent ...
There have been a number of articles written about the voting in the final statges of the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill, during which National MPs voted alongside the Green Party to force a change that would prevent the removal of sentenced prisoners from the Electoral Roll. You can ...
Last night should have been a cause for muted celebration in Parliament. The Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Bill’s final passage through the House partially erases a stain on New Zealand’s democratic system. It’s a drum I’ve been beatingfor thepast decade, but denying all sentenced prisoners the right to vote is a ...
Jordan WilliamsIt’s pretty obvious to all and sundry that the Taxpayers Union, run by Jordan Williams, isn’t really a union at all. Instead it’s a small lobby group for privileged white folk, namely the old fools behind the scenes of the corrupt and largely defunct Act Party.With an incorrectly attributed ...
Last year, I highlighted a secrecy problem with the government's Infrastructure Funding and Financing Bill. The Bill would establish a new class of public entity, "special purpose vehicles", to hide debt from local government balance sheets fund infrastructure such as roads and sewers in "high-growth" councils. The SPVs would collect ...
Both the leader of the opposition Todd Muller and University of Auckland Professor Des Gorman have gone on the record as saying they suspect Covid-19 is spreading in the community in New Zealand once again. Let me explain why I don’t agree with them. As best I can tell there ...
By Geoffrey Miller A former MP and Associate Minister of Defence says that New Zealand’s Covid-19 border and quarantine issues illustrate why a new dedicated national security agency is needed. Heather Roy, a former deputy leader of the Act Party who held the associate defence portfolio from 2008-10, told the ...
Annual fishing report It's been about a year since we swapped out the Research News deckhand. It seems longer— particularly the past 4 months— and not because of this particular work. Over the course of the year somewhere in the neighborhood of 17,500 articles have been caught in our net, ...
This article on Feminist Current by Meghan Murphy looks at the Karen/Becky meme and argues it has officially gone too far The male centered progressive left has successfully made woman-hating trendy. Today, yet another “Karen” video went viral online. This time, it seems a woman flipped off a male driver, ...
New Zealanders deserve healthy rivers and lakes that are safe to swim in - but they have been getting worse for decades. That's why, with our latest announcement, we're investing in projects that will help clean up our rivers and lakes and restore them to health, within a generation. ...
This week we moved into the second half of 2020 - and our Government delivered another week of big changes and major progress for New Zealanders. Read below for a wrap of the key things moments from the week - from extending paid parental leave, to making major investments in ...
The Green Party has opposed the COVID-19 Recovery Fast-track Consenting Bill which shortcuts normal consenting processes under the Resource Management Act (RMA), reduces public participation and narrows environmental considerations. ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister of Regional Economic Development A regional freight hub for the lower North Island will be built just northeast of Palmerston North, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones has announced. The Government is investing $40 million through the Provincial Growth Fund to designate and buy land and design ...
Green Party Co-leader Marama Davidson is calling for the introduction of a Guaranteed Minimum Income to lift hundreds of thousands of people out of poverty and prevent more families entering into further debt with the Ministry of Social Development. ...
There has been renewed focus on New Zealand First acting as a handbrake on the Government after our decision to not support Auckland light rail. We are a handbrake for bad ideas, that istrue, but our track record since 2017 has seen New Zealand First constructively also serve as an ...
Mark Patterson MP, New Zealand First List MP New Zealand First’s Fair Residency for Superannuation Bill passed its First Reading in Parliament today. The Bill makes a significant change to NZ Super by raising the minimum residency requirement from 10 to 20 years, after age 20. “Currently, a migrant of ...
Darroch Ball MP, Spokesperson for Law and Order A New Zealand First member’s bill in the name of Darroch Ball introducing a six-month minimum prison sentence for assaults on first responders has passed its second reading in Parliament. The new offence of "injuring a first responder or corrections officer with ...
Fletcher Tabuteau MP, Deputy Leader of New Zealand First New Zealand First welcomes the launch of the new Criminal Cases Review Commission, gifted with the name from Waikato-Tainui - Te Kāhui Tātari Ture, announced in Hamilton today by Justice Minister Andrew Little. “New Zealand First has long believed in and ...
The Green Party is celebrating over $800m in new funding for green projects, which will get people into jobs while solving New Zealand’s long-term challenges. ...
Mark Patterson MP, Spokesperson for Primary Industries New Zealand First is appalled that Meridian seems to have been unnecessarily spilling water from its dams to drive up its profits."While New Zealanders have been coming together in some of our darkest hours, we don’t expect power gentailers to waste water and ...
We wrapped up the first half of 2020 with a busy month, taking additional steps to support New Zealanders as we continue with our economic recovery. We rolled out targeted packages to support key industries like tourism and construction, helped create jobs in the environmental and agriculture sectors, and set ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Infrastructure Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones has welcomed the appointment of Maurice Davis and his deep infrastructure and construction experience to the board of the Infrastructure Commission. Mr Davis (Ngāti Maniapoto), is the seventh and final appointment to the board led by former Reserve Bank Governor ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Leader of New Zealand First New Zealand’s click bait journalism is taking a turn for the worse, with yet another example of sensationalist, wilful-misrepresentation of the facts. “New Zealand First has worked constructively with its Coalition partner on hundreds of pieces of legislation and policy, and ...
The Green Party is today unveiling its Poverty Action Plan, which includes a Guaranteed Minimum Income to ensure people have enough to live with dignity. ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister Fletcher Tabuteau MP, Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development The Rotorua Museum redevelopment and Whakarewarewa and Tokorangi Forest projects will be accelerated thanks to a $2.09 million Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) boost, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher ...
This week, we rolled out the next steps of our recovery plan, with new infrastructure investment, extra support for tourism operators, and a new programme to get Kiwis into agriculture careers. The global economic consequences of COVID-19 will continue to be a challenge, but we have a detailed plan to ...
Jenny Marcroft MP, Spokesperson for Health New Zealand First welcomes the passage of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission Bill through its final reading in Parliament today fulfilling a coalition agreement commitment. “This is an important step in saving the lives of New Zealanders and delivers a key coalition commitment ...
Whakatāne has been given a $2.5 million boost to speed up previously funded projects and create more than 450 jobs in the next decade. Of those, the equivalent of 160 full-time jobs could be delivered in the next six weeks. Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters is in town to make ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister Fletcher Tabuteau MP, Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) is investing $2.5 million to accelerate three infrastructure projects in Whakatāne, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau announced today. “This package is about ...
Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones is throwing his weight behind a bid by the Auckland Council to fast-track the more than doubling of the city's water allowance from the Waikato River. And he's coming out strongly against anyone who plans on getting in the way of this campaign. "It is my ...
The Green Party is thrilled to see changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that mean consents for large projects can be declined if they will have significant climate change implications that are inconsistent with the Zero Carbon Act and Aotearoa New Zealand’s Paris Agreement obligations. ...
Hon Ron Mark, Minister of Defence The Royal New Zealand Navy’s new ship, Aotearoa, set sail for New Zealand on 10 June from the Republic of Korea, and is due to arrive in Auckland tomorrow, announced Minister of Defence Ron Mark. “Aotearoa is the Royal New Zealand Navy’s new fleet ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Racing Racing Minister Winston Peters has today welcomed the Racing Industry Bill passing its third reading, creating the legislative framework for revitalising the racing industry while limiting the need for future government intervention. “For too long our domestic racing industry has ...
The Green Party has today put forward an amendment to the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill to ensure all people in prisons can vote in general elections. ...
The Green Party welcomes the decision to not proceed with Public Public Investment (PPI) delivery of Auckland’s light rail project and to instead run the process through the public service. ...
Hon Ron Mark, New Zealand First List MP based in the Wairarapa New Zealand First List MP Hon Ron Mark welcomes the announcement of Provincial Growth Funding investment of $1.4 million to help secure the Wairarapa’s water supply. The funding boost will allow the Greater Wellington Regional Council (GWRC), and ...
New Zealand First list MP Mark Patterson has been selected to represent the party in the newly formed Taieri electorate at the upcoming election. Mr Patterson, his wife Jude and two daughters farm sheep and beef at Lawrence and Waitahuna. He previously stood in the Clutha-Southland electorate however boundary changes ...
Hon Shane Jones, Associate Minister for State Owned Enterprises A new ‘super depot’ to be built for NZ Post in Wellington will create around 350 jobs during construction, Associate Minister for State Owned Enterprises Shane Jones says. Shane Jones today attended a ground-breaking and blessing ceremony for the parcel-processing depot ...
Our strong economic management prior to COVID-19 - with surpluses, low debt and near-record-low unemployment - put us in a good position to weather the impact of the virus and start to rebuild our economy much earlier than many other countries.Now we're putting our plan to recover and rebuild ...
Darroch Ball MP, New Zealand First Spokesperson for Law and Order Recently released Police fleeing driver statistics have shown yet another increase in incidents with another record-high in the latest quarter. “This new quarterly record-high is the latest in a string of record-high numbers since 2014. The data shows incidents ...
New Zealand First MP Fletcher Tabuteau is pleased to be confirmed today as the party’s candidate for the Rotorua electorate. Speaking at the Rotorua AGM for New Zealand First, Mr Tabuteau said this is an election that is incredibly important for the people of Rotorua. “The founding principles of New ...
The Human Rights Commission’s PRISM report on the issues impacting people based on their sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and sex characteristics (SOGIESC) provides an excellent programme of work for future governments to follow, say the Greens. ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters said the trans-Tasman bubble had not been jeopardised after aborder botch-upresulted in New Zealand having two active cases of COVID-19. On Friday, Mr Peters told RNZ's Morning Report he had heard from Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison that borders for trans-Tasman travel would open by ...
Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters said today he was pleased the army was now running the quarantine and isolation process - up until now it has been the Ministry of Health. Peters told Newstalk ZB's Mike Hosking that the army knew how to introduce and follow protocols and instil discipline. ...
Hon Ron Mark, New Zealand First List MP based in the Wairarapa New Zealand First MP and Minister for Defence and Veteran’s Affairs Ron Mark has confirmed his bid for the Wairarapa seat.“The Coalition Government has done a lot of good work throughout the Wairarapa, but many constituents have told ...
New Zealand First is pleased to release the names of its next tranche of candidates for the 2020 election. We’re proud to announce these hardworking New Zealanders that have put their hand up to fight for a commonsense and resilient future.Jamie Arbuckle – Kaikoura Mark Arneil – Christchurch Central Jackie ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs Hon Ron Mark, Minister of Defence A massive joint effort between New Zealand Government agencies, employers, and the Vanuatu Government is underway to repatriate over 1000 Vanuatu nationals stranded in New Zealand, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Ron ...
Small businesses are getting greater certainty about access to finance with an extension to the interest-free cashflow loan scheme to the end of the year. The Small Business Cashflow Loan Scheme has already been extended once, to 24 July. Revenue and Small Business Minister Stuart Nash says it will be ...
A package of 23 projects across the country will clean up waterways and deliver over 2000 jobs Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Environment Minister David Parker announced today. The $162 million dollar package will see 22 water clean-up projects put forward by local councils receiving $62 million and the Kaipara ...
Tena koutou katoa Nga tangata whenua o tenei rohe o Pōneke, tena koutou Nau mai, haere mai ki te hui a tau mo te roopu reipa Ko tatou! Ko to tatou mana! Ko to tatou kaupapa kei te kokiri whakamua Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena tatou katoa Welcome. I ...
A new programme, which sets a firm course for the Building and Construction sector to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, has been announced by the Minister for Building and Construction Jenny Salesa. “A significant amount of New Zealand’s carbon emissions come from the building and construction sector. If we’re serious ...
The Provincial Growth Fund is investing more than $7.5 million in Northland ventures to combat the economic impact of the COVID-19 virus, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones have announced. The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) investment is going to the Northern Adventure Experience and ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Education Minister Chris Hipkins today announced significant funding for Auckland’s Northcote College as part of the first wave of a new nationwide school redevelopment programme to upgrade schools over the next 10 years. The $48.5 million project brings the total investment in Northcote College to ...
The Government has opened an urgent response fund to support schools and early learning services to get children and young people back on track after the Covid-19 lockdown. “While we are seeing improvements in attendance under Alert Level 1 Ministry of Education data shows that attendance rates in our schools ...
The law to boost the economic recovery from the impact of COVID-19 by speeding up resource consenting on selected projects has passed its second and third readings in the House today. “Accelerating nationwide projects and activities by government, iwi and the private sector will help deliver faster economic recovery and ...
Five port-related projects in Whanganui will receive a $26.75 million Provincial Growth Fund investment to support local economic recovery and create new opportunities for growth, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This is a significant investment that will support the redevelopment of the Whanganui Port, a project governed ...
Whanganui’s Sarjeant Gallery will receive an investment of up to $12 million administered by the Provincial Growth Fund to support its redevelopment, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today. The project is included in a $3 billion infrastructure pipeline announced by Finance Minister Grant Robertson and Shane Jones yesterday. ...
The Provincial Growth Fund is investing nearly $2.5 million into three Te Ara Mahi programmes to support Manawatū-Whanganui jobseekers and employees to quickly train and upskill, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today. “Up to 154 local people will be supported into employment within the first year by these ...
This morning I have formally tendered my resignation as Minister of Health, which was accepted by the Prime Minister. Serving as Minister of Health has been an absolute privilege – particularly through these extraordinary last few months. It’s no secret that Health is a challenging portfolio. I have given ...
Scholarships for 57 early-career agricultural emissions scientists from 20 developing countries is another example of New Zealand’s international leadership in primary sector sustainability, says Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor. Mr O’Connor, announcing the scholarships today, says hundreds of applications were received for this fourth round of the CLIFF-GRADS programme (Climate, Food ...
A project to help rejuvenate the Horowhenua town of Foxton will receive a Provincial Growth Fund investment of $3.86 million, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This funding for the Foxton Regeneration project will be used to make the well-known holiday town even more attractive for visitors and ...
Moa bones and other sub-fossil remains of extinct species are set to have improved protection with proposals to prevent the trade in extinct species announced the Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage today. “We have lost too many of our native species, but these lost species, such as moa, remain an ...
The Government’s free and healthy school lunches programme moves south for the first time creating jobs for around 30 people in Otago and Southland. “Eighteen schools with 3000 students are joining the programme – 11 have already begun serving lunches, and seven are preparing to start during Term 3. This is ...
Thousands of Kiwi jobs and investment in New Zealand productions will be protected through a screen sector support package announced today by Associate Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage Carmel Sepuloni, Minister for Economic Development Phil Twyford and Minister for Broadcasting Kris Faafoi. The package also includes investment in broadcasting ...
The Government has established a new $10 million fund for the domestic events sector to help save jobs and protect incomes as it recovers from the impacts of COVID-19, Minister of Economic Development Phil Twyford announced today. This funding from Budget 2020 follows talks with the event sector designed to ...
The Government has taken another step in its commitment to making sure New Zealanders get a fairer deal at the petrol pump with the introduction of legislation to improve competition in the retail fuel market, says Energy and Resources Minister Megan Woods. “The fuel market study that this Government ordered ...
New Zealand has joined a global initiative that aims to enable all countries to access a safe and effective Covid-19 vaccine, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters announced today. The COVAX Facility was recently launched by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. The Alliance includes the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the World Bank ...
From today new legislation takes effect to both restore the right to legal representation at the start of a Care of Children (CoCA) dispute in the Family Court, and allow parties to those proceedings to access legal aid where eligible. During a visit to the Family Court in Auckland today, ...
Home-based early childhood education (ECE) subsidised by the government will transition to a fully qualified workforce by 2025 to ensure better and more consistent quality, Education Minister Chris Hipkins announced today. “Quality early learning helps provide children with a strong foundation for their future,” Chris Hipkins said. From 1 January ...
The new Criminal Cases Review Commission | Te Kāhui Tātari Ture (CCRC) has started work and can now independently investigate claimed miscarriages of justice. “Even though we have appeal rights and safeguards against unsafe convictions, from time to time our justice system does get things wrong. The design of the ...
E ngā mana, e ngā reo, e ngā karangatanga maha, tēnā koutou Ki a koutou Te Āti Awa, Taranaki Whānui, Ngāti Toa Rangatira, ngā mana whenua o te rohe nei, tēnā koutou Ko Te Whare Wānanga o Aotearoa ki ngā take o te Ao (NZIIA), Ko te Rōpū Tohu Tono ...
The Government’s increase to paid parental leave kicks in today with another 4 weeks taking New Zealand up to a full 6 months (26 weeks, up from 22 weeks) leave for new parents, and the maximum weekly payment will increase by $20pw, Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Iain Lees-Galloway says. ...
A new package of infrastructure investments will help kick-start the post-COVID rebuild by creating more than 20,000 jobs and unlocking more than $5 billion of projects up and down New Zealand. Finance Minister Grant Robertson and Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones today outlined how the $3 billion infrastructure fund in the ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters today expressed the New Zealand Government’s deep disappointment at the passage by China’s National People’s Congress Standing Committee of a national security law for Hong Kong. “New Zealand has consistently emphasised its serious concern about the imposition of this legislation on Hong Kong without inclusive ...
More jobs and more family time with newborns are the centrepiece of a suite of Government initiatives coming into effect today. July 1 is a milestone day for the Government as a host of key policies take effect, demonstrating the critical areas where progress has been made. “The Coalition Government ...
Environment Minister David Parker has today “called in” Auckland’s application to the Waikato Regional Council to take an extra 200 million litres of water a day from the lower reaches of the Waikato River for Auckland drinking water and other municipal uses. The call-in means the application has been referred ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters and Trade and Export Growth Minister David Parker announced today that New Zealand’s hosting of APEC in 2021 will go ahead using virtual digital platforms. Mr Peters said the global disruption caused by COVID-19, including resultant border restrictions, had been the major factor in the ...
The start of construction on a new link road between Matakana Road and State Highway 1 will create jobs and support the significant population growth expected in the Warkworth area, Transport Minister Phil Twyford and Mayor Phil Goff announced today. Transport Minister Phil Twyford said construction of the Matakana Link ...
The Government is prioritising its latest investment in PPE for frontline health workers, including staff at managed isolation and quarantine facilities, Health Minister David Clark says. “With no community transmission of COVID-19 our response now has a firm focus on keeping our border safe and secure. “We must ensure that ...
The Parihaka Papakāinga Trust in Taranaki will receive up to $14 million for a new visitor centre and other improvements at the historic settlement that will boost the local economy and provide much-needed jobs, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones and Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Andrew Little have ...
Protections for workers who are employees of one employer but working under the direction of another business or organisation have come into force, closing a gap in legislation that made the personal grievance process inaccessible for some workers, says Workplace Relations Minister Iain Lees-Galloway. “This Government is working hard to ...
A range of improvements are already underway to address issues identified in the rapid review of the Managed Isolation and Quarantine system released today, Housing Minister Megan Woods said. The review was commissioned just over a week ago to identify and understand current and emerging risks to ensure the end-to-end ...
The important brown kiwi habitat around Whakatāne will receive added protection through an Iwi-led predator free project announced by Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage and Under Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau. “The Government is investing nearly $5 million into Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Awa’s environmental projects with $2.5 ...
An extra 4,000 tonnes of offcuts and scraps of untreated wood per year will soon be able to be recycled into useful products such as horticultural and garden mulch, playground safety surfacing and animal bedding as a result of a $660,000 investment from the Waste Minimisation Fund, Associate Environment Minister ...
The Governor-General has referred Scott Watson’s convictions for murder back to the Court of Appeal, Justice Minister Andrew Little announced today. Mr Watson was convicted in 1999 of the murders of Ben Smart and Olivia Hope. His appeal to the Court of Appeal in 2000 was unsuccessful, as was his ...
A new five-year funding agreement for the Reserve Bank will mean it can boost its work to protect New Zealanders’ finances, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. “New Zealand has a strong and stable financial system. Financial stability is an area that we are not prepared to cut corners for, particularly ...
A law change has been introduced to make it easier for forgotten funds in institutional accounts to be returned more easily to their rightful owners. Revenue Minister Stuart Nash has introduced an amendment to the Unclaimed Money Act 1971. It will update the rules controlling forgotten sums of money held ...
By Grace Auka-Salmang in Port Moresby Key findings from the 2016 to 2018 Papua New Guinea Demographic and Health Survey reveals that 56 percent of women aged 15 to 49 in PNG have experienced physical violence around the age of 15. And 28 percent have experienced sexual violence. Also 18 ...
The New Zealand Herald recently published a column which criticises its own record on race. Teuila Fuatai explains why she felt she had to call out the paper that commissioned her. In the column, freelance journalist Teuila Fuatai detailed her concerns about the Herald’s record on race and her efforts to ...
Dunedin writer Victor Billot farewells retiring National MP Paula Bennett.Working Class Hero I came up the hard way in Taupo, you see, surviving off Weetbix (just occasionally.) I waited tables then knocked off a degree, perhaps with the help of a state subsidy. Then a man with a ...
Three of the country's biggest seafood companies have broken ranks with the rest of the sector and declared their support for cameras on fishing boats. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Melbourne This article was updated July 5. With 77% of enrolled voters counted at Saturday’s Eden-Monaro byelection, Labor’s Kristy McBain currently leads the Liberals’ Fiona Kotvojs by a 50.8-49.2 projected ...
The family of pioneering New Zealand suffragist Kate Sheppard kept an important secret – one that possibly explains a lot about her life, her beliefs and her motivation.Kate Sheppard’s secret involved her father, Andrew Wilson Malcolm, and what happened to him after she was born. An extensive and painstaking quest ...
Covid-19 or not, renewable energy is the future. That’s why one grassroots business is taking a leap of faith and trusting that the current downturn will eventually yield to an ecotourism boom.To launch an ecotourism business in rural Otago right now, you’d need to be either a visionary or just ...
Sam Brooks reviews Auckland writer Lil O’Brien’s memoir Not That I’d Kiss A Girl, and finds it a valuable yet unclear story of the author’s struggle with her own acceptance.As queer people, we can be unnecessarily harsh on media that is about us, and by us. I think of the ...
For all The Spinoff’s latest coverage of Covid-19 see here. Read Siouxsie Wiles’s work here. New Zealand is currently in alert level one – read about what that means here. For official government advice, see here.The Spinoff’s coverage of the Covid-19 outbreak is made possible thanks to donations from Spinoff Members. To support this ...
In the wake of lockdown, Volunteering New Zealand is calling on people to reshape the way they think about volunteering. To unite with whānau, friends and workmates to make a group commitment to a community or cause that matters to them. Covid-19 ...
Mahesh Bindra has been a loyal member of NZ First for almost 15 years. But as an Indian-New Zealander, what does he make of members of his party attacking his community? Multicultural Times editor Gaurav Sharma reports.Winston Peters, deputy prime minister and leader of New Zealand First, likes to say ...
As Auckland suffers its worst drought in 27 years, many of the city’s self-service car washes are doing a roaring trade. Michael Andrew finds out how these businesses are getting around the strict water restrictions.Car washing may seem like a wasteful luxury in the middle of a drought, but take ...
Call it last, call it the foundation: Georgie Dansey is 84th on the Labour Party list for the 2020 election. Here she explains how she got there.What does it take to come last on the Labour list? It’s a bit of a story, so if you’re feeling tl;dr then just ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Melbourne At Saturday’s Eden-Monaro byelection, Labor’s Kristy McBain currently leads the Liberals’ Fiona Kotvojs by a 50.7-49.3 projected margin in The Poll Bludger’s Eden-Monaro election page. This page has all the ...
The controversial MP says his former party put a target on the minister’s back, but Melissa Lee insists there was no concerted campaign.The MP who exited the National Party in a tailspin attack on former leader Simon Bridges has publicly apologised to Clare Curran for his role in the treatment ...
By Jane Patterson, political editor of RNZ News The State Services Minister says the government will do everything it can to track down who is responsible for a massive privacy breach relating to New Zealand’s active covid cases, and is not ruling out pursuing criminal charges. An investigation has been ...
The National editorial Hundreds walked the Sir John Guise drive on Thursday calling for justice for the brutal death of 19-year-old mother-of-two – Jenelyn Kennedy last week. Jenelyn’s battered lifeless body was taken into the Port Moresby General Hospital last Tuesday by four men (one believed to be the father ...
*Watch the full video in the player below*In the first 48 hours of life, blood from newborn New Zealand babies is taken and tested. Most parents will never hear back. For others, it’s life-changing, and life-saving. Frank Film investigates. Performed 48 hours after birth, it’s a medical procedure ...
Latest from the Beehive Shane Jones, the Minister of Munificence, in a joint statement with fellow Northlander and Deputy PM Winston Peters, wrapped up a week of handout investment announcements with news of more millions for the people of his patch in the Far North. This time it was a ...
By Rebecca Kuku in Port Moresby A passionate plea by men, women and children has echoed around the Papua New Guinean capital of Port Moresby – that it is time to turn the corner on addressing gender-based violence in the country. Gatherings, a peaceful march and a vigil were staged ...
Former Race Relations Commissioner Gregory Fortuin has called out National MP Hamish Walker for his racist comments towards people of colour. This follows Walker's press release objecting to people from Pakistan, India and Korea potentially being quarantined ...
Khruangbin have established their live reputation with spacious instrumentals, but the band’s third album, Mordechai, features prominent vocals and disco-funk jams. Andrew Drever interviews the Texas-based trio upon its release.While the Covid-19 pandemic continues to rage in the US, the situation has actually been a blessing in disguise for Khruangbin ...
The State Services Minister says the government will do everything it can to track down who is responsible for a massive privacy breach relating to New Zealand's active Covid cases, and is not ruling out pursuing criminal charges. ...
For all The Spinoff’s latest coverage of Covid-19 see here. Read Siouxsie Wiles’s work here. New Zealand is currently in alert level one – read about what that means here. For official government advice, see here.The Spinoff’s coverage of the Covid-19 outbreak is made possible thanks to donations from Spinoff Members. To support this ...
With the collapse of Bauer NZ resulting in Australian magazines flooding our shelves, Wendyl Nissen looks back at her battle to get homegrown content given the star billing it deserved.Thanks to some hard-fought battles 30 years ago, New Zealand women have been enjoying their own version of Woman’s Day and ...
Extending the franchise to prisoners is the latest in a series of contentious electoral reforms enacted by this government, but history suggests the ‘convention’ for consensual election reform is more imagined than real.The Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Act, passed last week and corrected this week, extends the franchise ...
Since publication of Newsroom’s extensive investigation into serious issues at Oranga Tamariki, our inbox has been flooded with stories from more current and former employees. In less than 48 hours after Newsroom’s in-depth inquiry into the children's ministry was published we received a high volume of correspondence from current and former ...
“She’d come into town on the bus. The photographer, so her mother had told her, was famous”: a short story by Wellington writer Elspeth Sandys. It was to be a present for her father who was dying. A photograph of her in her first ball gown. When she reached for ...
Those who can’t afford to travel will “attend” the terror sentencing via video link, the Immigration Minister says. David Williams reports The Immigration Minister is demanding officials give urgent help to overseas victims of the Christchurch terror attack and their families. Yesterday, High Court Justice Cameron Mander announced the terrorist, ...
Controversy over Wellington's Shelly Bay has ensnared iwi, the council and politicians for years. Investigative journalist Nicky Hager uses official documents to lay out the roles of money, power and wheels-within-wheels on this most contentious of developments. Any time I am asked whether we have corruption in New Zealand, I ...
Is the answer to saving New Zealand's professional sports teams creating super-franchises? The Extra Time podcast asks sports leaders. Professional sport is slowly emerging from the grip of the pandemic but its financial future is far from certain. Covid-19 highlighted a weakness in the structure of professional sport in New ...
Before Covid-19, it’d take a long flight and half a grand to see Hamilton in the flesh. Now, the biggest musical of the past two decades is available to watch on Disney+. Sam Brooks takes stock of this extraordinary move. Right now, Broadway is a sleeping dragon. New York theatres ...
Sacked cabinet minister Clare Curran speaks for the first time about the brutal end to her political career – and what she calls the toxicity and bullying that marked her years in parliament. By Donna Chisholm.Of all the humiliations – often self-inflicted – that Clare Curran endured during her 12-year ...
On 03 July Children’s Commissioner was given additional responsibility by the Minister of Justice which extended its role as the independent monitor of the conditions and treatment of children and young people in secure detention centres. The Children’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick, ARC Future Fellow, UNSW The term “heatwave” is no stranger to Australians. Defined as when conditions are excessively hot for at least three days in a row, these extreme temperature events have always punctuated our climate. With many of us ...
Pacific Media Watch A senior Indonesian government official and a New Zealand journalism professor have clashed over differing perspectives on access for journalists and media to the West Papua region. Speaking on a webinar organised by the Jubi newspaper in Jayapura, Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ director of the European affairs ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Barbara Mintzes, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Sydney To beat the coronavirus pandemic, countries need to collaborate. We need the best possible science to develop vaccines and drugs, and to test, track and contain the virus. If we’ve learned anything ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Russell Dean Christopher Bicknell, Post-doctoral researcher in Palaeobiology , University of New England Let’s turn back the hands of time. Before extinction knocked dinosaurs off their pillar, before the “Great Dying” extinction wiped out 95% of all organisms – we had the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jane Williams, Researcher at the Centre for Values, Ethics and the Law in Medicine (VELiM), University of Sydney Last week, outgoing chief medical officer Brendan Murphy announced all returned travellers would be tested for COVID-19 before and after quarantine. Some were surprised ...
A new package to help foreign nationals stuck in New Zealand due to Covid-19 is inadequate and needs to be supplemented with the emergency benefit, say Community Law Centres O Aotearoa (CLCA) and the Human Rights Commission (HRC). The assistance ...
With Shortland Street’s 7,000th episode screening tonight, Tara Ward salutes the soap for keeping calm and carrying on through level three lockdown. It’s been one heck of a week on Shortland Street. Leanne lost her winning $8 million Lotto ticket, Louis slipped over in a pile of vomit, and Desi tried ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brendan Clift, Teaching Fellow and PhD candidate, University of Melbourne In recent days, the prime ministers of the UK and Australia each declared they are working toward providing safe haven visas for Hong Kong residents. In the US, lawmakers passed a bill ...
How two multi-millionaires, two pandemic futurists, Air NZ’s former boss, a dairy executive on a break, a retired anaesthetist (and a few others) nearly saved NZ. ...
A commitment from Labour to protect productive farmland from blanket afforestation if re-elected is a step in the right direction, Federated Farmers Meat & Wool Chairperson William Beetham says. "We’re really pleased there is now ...
Tomorrow, 4 July, will see protests in at least nine centres around New Zealand against Israeli plans to steal more Palestinian land (Details are at the end of this media release) “Virtually the entire international community is standing together ...
Pacific Media Watch Australia’s ABC has revealed the Australian Federal Police (AFP) recommendation regarding the Afghan Files investigative journalism report is for the Commonwealth DPP to consider charging journalist Dan Oakes for his role in the leak. The revelation has prompted a renewed call by the Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom ...
While we’re growing in confidence that we are in the enviable position of basically eliminating Covid-19, our trading nation at the bottom of the world is also in the unenviable position of locking off our economy to the world. “No is not an answer ...
Netflix’s new adaptations of The Baby-Sitters Club makes long-time fan Tara Ward fall in love with the series all over again. When I was 12 years old, my class had to write a letter to a famous person. Some of my classmates wrote to an All Black, Tom Cruise or ...
The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union is questioning the scale and value of the Government’s $230m screen industry recovery package. Union spokesperson Jordan Williams says: “The official justification for this ‘recovery package’ is the impact of COVID-19 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Kemish, Former Ambassador and Adjunct Professor, School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, The University of Queensland Chinese activity in Papua New Guinea was not the only factor behind Australia’s Pacific “Step-Up”. As a former high commissioner to PNG, I know it ...
Pacific Media Centre Newsdesk A Papuan church leader and advocate for social justice has penned an open letter to the Indonesian government calling for justice and an end to racism to enable a genuine self-determination process for the Melanesian region. “The problem of Papua has become increasingly complex and severe ...
Latest from the Beehive – Nine press releases (when we checked this morning) had flowed from the Beehive since we last reported. Eight of them brayed about the money Ministers have been spending and (as they prefer to put it) investing. The sole exception came from Environment Minister David ...
CEAC pre-election review of National Party ‘climate change policy’, is lacking in substance without any clear policy, that will leave voters with no idea of what National Party plans for saving our climate, and glancing at their ‘Transport plans’, ...
Film crews can get exemptions to enter New Zealand, so why not the families and supporters of terror victims, David Williams asks. OPINION: If the public needs a sign last year’s terrorist attack has slipped off the Government’s radar, this is it. A sentencing date has been set for the ...
A new poem by Michaela Keeble.Only the ocean only the oceanturns me overlike this only the oceanturns meon like this only the oceangives warning: what will changeand when so it doesn’t comeacrosslike violence white capsdrift inon the rising tide i feel likeopening my legs i don’t wantto do anything elsetoday i don’t wantto goto work i want to lie downwith ...
As the Covid-19 pandemic rages round the world, New Zealanders are re-discovering food production is the fundamental engine of the economy. And farming is not a sunset industry. Instead of being rubbished by lobby groups for so-called “dirty dairying”, the country’s core export industry has the chance to transform itself ...
The world-famous best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman (Bloomsbury, $34)This is the one that kicks off with the essay about the Tongan ...
The New Zealand Down syndrome community is urging the Government to ignore the recommendations in the recent Health and Disability Sector Review. “New Zealand has made terrific progress to enhance the quality of life for people with Down syndrome and other disabilities ...
The Covid Plan B group says New Zealand can minimise the economic consequences of Covid-19 if it opens its borders following the rest of the world. The group, which has critiqued the Government's lockdown response since March, has today added its ...
Auckland will soon be receiving an additional 75 million litres of water per day from the Waikato River as an interim measure to help ease the worst water shortage in 25 years. A Ngāti Whātua historian says this sharing of resources between Tāmaki Makaurau and Waikato goes back a very ...
Athletes from the Papua New Guinea’s national team joined the peaceful “cry for justice” march in the nation’s capital of Port Moresby. Video: EMTV NewsBy EMTV News Many wore black yesterday in rallies against gender-based violence in Papua New Guinea in a day chosen to remember the young mother ...
The government will remain "cautious" when it comes to the border as despite calls for a pragmatic strategy for reopening, new Health Minister Chris Hipkins says. ...
A new report measuring New Zealanders’ financial wellbeing highlights how key sectors of our population are feeling stressed over money, and how Covid-19 has made that worse.Money can’t buy happiness, but it sure can help. After all, it’s what puts food on the table, a roof over our heads, and ...
The Tahr Foundation is asking the Conservation Authority to represent all New Zealanders and their recreational pursuits in National Parks, including the tens of thousands of hunters who flock to them every year. The Foundation’s plea is in response to ...
Councils can now borrow money equivalent to 300% of annual revenue, and the Public Service Association says this will allow them to maintain operational expenditure, invest in important community services and proceed with long-overdue infrastructure ...
Open mike 21/08/2019 
3 hours ago
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, June 28 through Sat, July 4, 2020 Editor's Choice '2040': A funny, entertaining, upbeat climate documentary A timely Australian documentary takes a 'solutions' approach, with the filmmaker inspired by visions of ...12 hours ago
Dave Heatley Zero community transmission. Just a handful of active cases, all in quarantine. New Zealand is in an attractive situation, at least compared to much of the world. The situation could be robust and enduring – or it might be fragile, just one border incursion away from a “second ...1 day ago
Is the consequence of the Simpson Report proposals for restructuring the health system poorer accountability to people? When in doubt, centralise‘ has been a persistent theme in New Zealand public policy throughout our history. The current government is no exception. Here are some examples. - The regional polytechs have been ...2 days ago
I wrote earlier in the week about the Scientology front organisations Drug Free World and Drug Free Ambassadors and their quite prominent role in anti-cannabis reform "coalition" assembled by Family First and a newloca branch of the American prohibitionist organisation SAM.It turns out Family First aren't the only ones helping ...2 days ago
Three years ago the ABC used leaked information to expose war crimes by Australian troops in Afghanistan. Since then the chief of Australia's special forces has admitted that his troops committed war crimes. But guess who the Australian government is prosecuting? Police have referred allegations against an ABC journalist relating ...2 days ago
2 days ago
Unfortunately, due to a medical emergency, I have landed in hospital so am not able to do a current update on the NZ blog statistics. Let’s hope I can get back to this in good time. ...3 days ago
The Greens have shaken up the election campaign with the announcement of their radical poverty and action plan to reform welfare provision and introduce a new wealth tax for millionaires. It’s a big-thinking, controversial policy and has generated a lot of disagreement over how radical it is, whether it could ...4 days ago
When the Christchurch murderer pleaded guilty to 51 counts of murder and a number of other violent assault charges a few months ago, he effectively closed the door on what the public will know about the lead up to and commission of the event. His plea means that no evidence ...5 days ago
Daphna Whitmore The Philippines is enduring one of the longest lockdowns in the world. For President Duterte the lockdown provides an opportunity to garner more powers and to push through a brazen assault on human rights. A new law called the Anti-Terror Bill has been passed under urgency and it ...5 days ago
There really is not much about Paula Bennett concerning her career trajectory, the policies she promoted, and most importantly, the socio-economic effect this had upon New Zealand (and particularly the most vulnerable in this, our oft-cited “egalitarian” society of this country) that can be said now that hasn’t already been ...6 days ago
Helloy… My name is Todd Muller and I am the leader of the National Party of New Zealand. Many people come up to me on the street and ask me who I am. I’m often walking through Tauranga, or in a mall in suburban Auckland, or maybe even a farmers’ ...6 days ago
. . Plague town? There are two things right now in Aotearoa New Zealand that are guaranteed to piss people off. Firstly, it’s National playing silly-bugger politics with the covid-19 pandemic. This cost Simon Bridges his job as National’s Leader. Lately, Michael Woodhouse has been playing fast and loose with ...6 days ago
Tertiary fees in New Zealand versus Australia: Fees Are Important, but not as Important as Financing In Australia, the Education Minister Dan Tehan has proposed an overhaul of the existing higher education funding system to offer 39,000 additional study places by 2023 and 100,000 by 2030. The proposal has been ...6 days ago
The images and reports delivered to us by the world’s media leave us in no doubt that the rest of the world is still in the grip of a coronavirus pandemic that shows no signs of slackening, but is actually uncontrolled and picking up pace in many countries; and even ...1 week ago
We have been assailed by Fox News-style headlines, lurid stories of “a breach!”. An almost nuclear level disaster on the horizon scream, “Fiasco!” here, “Hero to Zero!” there… Oh quick, panic everyone! This has fueled an unbelievably stupid environment of panic among some, and spurred useless, counterproductive political ...1 week ago
New Zealanders deserve healthy rivers and lakes that are safe to swim in - but they have been getting worse for decades. That's why, with our latest announcement, we're investing in projects that will help clean up our rivers and lakes and restore them to health, within a generation. ...2 hours ago
The Green Party has opposed the COVID-19 Recovery Fast-track Consenting Bill which shortcuts normal consenting processes under the Resource Management Act (RMA), reduces public participation and narrows environmental considerations. ...3 days ago
Hon Shane Jones, Minister of Regional Economic Development A regional freight hub for the lower North Island will be built just northeast of Palmerston North, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones has announced. The Government is investing $40 million through the Provincial Growth Fund to designate and buy land and design ...3 days ago
Small businesses are getting greater certainty about access to finance with an extension to the interest-free cashflow loan scheme to the end of the year. The Small Business Cashflow Loan Scheme has already been extended once, to 24 July. Revenue and Small Business Minister Stuart Nash says it will be ...23 mins ago
By Grace Auka-Salmang in Port Moresby Key findings from the 2016 to 2018 Papua New Guinea Demographic and Health Survey reveals that 56 percent of women aged 15 to 49 in PNG have experienced physical violence around the age of 15. And 28 percent have experienced sexual violence. Also 18 ...2 hours ago
Labour has announced its plans to extend the Small Business Loan Cashflow Scheme and spend $162 million on a waterway clean-up package. ...2 hours ago
Dunedin writer Victor Billot farewells retiring National MP Paula Bennett. Working Class Hero I came up the hard way in Taupo, you see, surviving off Weetbix (just occasionally.) I waited tables then knocked off a degree, perhaps with the help of a state subsidy. Then a man with a ...4 hours ago
The family of pioneering New Zealand suffragist Kate Sheppard kept an important secret – one that possibly explains a lot about her life, her beliefs and her motivation.Kate Sheppard’s secret involved her father, Andrew Wilson Malcolm, and what happened to him after she was born. An extensive and painstaking quest ...4 hours ago
In the wake of lockdown, Volunteering New Zealand is calling on people to reshape the way they think about volunteering. To unite with whānau, friends and workmates to make a group commitment to a community or cause that matters to them. Covid-19 ...5 hours ago
*Watch the full video in the player below* In the first 48 hours of life, blood from newborn New Zealand babies is taken and tested. Most parents will never hear back. For others, it’s life-changing, and life-saving. Frank Film investigates. Performed 48 hours after birth, it’s a medical procedure ...1 day ago
Latest from the Beehive Shane Jones, the Minister of Munificence, in a joint statement with fellow Northlander and Deputy PM Winston Peters, wrapped up a week of handout investment announcements with news of more millions for the people of his patch in the Far North. This time it was a ...1 day ago
Since publication of Newsroom’s extensive investigation into serious issues at Oranga Tamariki, our inbox has been flooded with stories from more current and former employees. In less than 48 hours after Newsroom’s in-depth inquiry into the children's ministry was published we received a high volume of correspondence from current and former ...1 day ago
“She’d come into town on the bus. The photographer, so her mother had told her, was famous”: a short story by Wellington writer Elspeth Sandys. It was to be a present for her father who was dying. A photograph of her in her first ball gown. When she reached for ...1 day ago
Those who can’t afford to travel will “attend” the terror sentencing via video link, the Immigration Minister says. David Williams reports The Immigration Minister is demanding officials give urgent help to overseas victims of the Christchurch terror attack and their families. Yesterday, High Court Justice Cameron Mander announced the terrorist, ...1 day ago
Controversy over Wellington's Shelly Bay has ensnared iwi, the council and politicians for years. Investigative journalist Nicky Hager uses official documents to lay out the roles of money, power and wheels-within-wheels on this most contentious of developments. Any time I am asked whether we have corruption in New Zealand, I ...1 day ago
Is the answer to saving New Zealand's professional sports teams creating super-franchises? The Extra Time podcast asks sports leaders. Professional sport is slowly emerging from the grip of the pandemic but its financial future is far from certain. Covid-19 highlighted a weakness in the structure of professional sport in New ...1 day ago
How two multi-millionaires, two pandemic futurists, Air NZ’s former boss, a dairy executive on a break, a retired anaesthetist (and a few others) nearly saved NZ. ...2 days ago
Latest from the Beehive – Nine press releases (when we checked this morning) had flowed from the Beehive since we last reported. Eight of them brayed about the money Ministers have been spending and (as they prefer to put it) investing. The sole exception came from Environment Minister David ...2 days ago
Film crews can get exemptions to enter New Zealand, so why not the families and supporters of terror victims, David Williams asks. OPINION: If the public needs a sign last year’s terrorist attack has slipped off the Government’s radar, this is it. A sentencing date has been set for the ...2 days ago
As the Covid-19 pandemic rages round the world, New Zealanders are re-discovering food production is the fundamental engine of the economy. And farming is not a sunset industry. Instead of being rubbished by lobby groups for so-called “dirty dairying”, the country’s core export industry has the chance to transform itself ...2 days ago
ANZ in the news again…this time over missing loan documents.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/115108932/crossan-anz-needs-to-front-to-prove-no-conflict-of-interest
“I’ve simply had no response from ANZ to my reasonable requests for information about the loan and its terms.
“To be clear: in no way do I dispute the loan or my responsibility to pay off my share of the debt as one of four personal guarantors for the facility.
“What’s perhaps most alarming is the revelation that ANZ has been unable to locate a signed copy of the original facility to NZ Girl in its files. To my mind, that credit contract is vital to outline the terms that were agreed to by NZ Girl at the origin of the loan, and the basis of which any fees and penalties are charged. I’m deeply concerned that as a customer of ANZ, I am experiencing such difficulty, or indeed a stone wall of silence, from my bank when I have asked for reasonable information to determine what I owe. I’ve had to employ a lawyer to help me navigate this, at significant personal cost.”
TSB is a good bank. I bet they would have documentation.
This was telling too
“Crossan said her former husband, Grant Nicholls, who is now part of the ANZ executive team, had also offered a personal guarantee, along with two other people. He held a similar shareholding in the business.
as well as a 26% interest!!!!
I'm surprised they said they could throw away documents after seven years. I would have thought it was 7 years after completion of the contract, not seven years from the time the contract was started.
… doesn't that mean that if someone took out a 20 year mortgage, there might be no evidence that they should even be making any payments?
TSB? Fuck off. TSB fucked *everything* up we had with them.
They can't even email statements, they have to print them off and scan them. And before this, you had to go into a branch to get them as they refused to do it.
Getting out of TSB was one of the best things I ever did.
Yes agreed TSB is the best bank in NZ today.
Transferring my day-to-day and investment banking to TSB ~17 years ago worked out well for me – never regretted moving to this 100% NZ-owned bank.
Your jihadi friends have control of Saraqib Jenny. You really have no shame. You have never condemned these brutal murderers but whitter on about the Syrian Government. I can only conclude that you would be quite happy to have ISIS, Al queda et al overun Syria and turn it into a bastion of Sharia Law carrying out it's public floggings and beheadings.
What the hell is wrong with you?
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/12/whitewash-the-bastion-of-freedom-is-an-al-qaeda-infested-town.html
"From the early start of the war on Syria, Saraqib was one of the centers of jihadi terrorist activities. In March/April 2011 it was one of the first towns that saw violent attacks on government forces and institutions. In December 2011 the notorious terrorist group Ahrar al-Sham, headed by the long time al-Qaeda member Abu Khalid al-Suri, was founded there. In 2014 the BBC reported how al-Qaeda/Nusra/HTS ruled the town:
At some point the locals in Saraqib may have hold some sham elections. But that does not change the fact that their town was and is solidly controlled by an internationally banned terrorist group. Saraqib is only a 'bastion of freedom' when one ignores everything that happened and still happens there.
This brings up a serious question. How did the author of the New Yorker piece, Anand Gopal, manage to travel through Nusra/HTS/al-Qaeda controlled Idleb governorate, visited the jihadi infested town, and avoided to be thrown into the "notorious al-Iqab Prison in Saraqib area"?"
Oh and Osama al-Hossein, Muslim Brotherhood 'activist' has fled to Turkey. Please do keep up.
Wow, that is either a very ignorant view or you are friends with headchoppers of Idlib. Mr McRoberts needs to use his intelligence and visit Damascus before venturing off to the frontlines of Idlib. Maybe you actually believe the white helmet and al Qaeda propaganda, if so you are very mistaken in your judgment. You have no reason to trust me but I have done a great deal of independent and indepth research as well as visited the Middle East.
To date The Standard has not allowed a single post that strays from the pro-regime narrative.
Will we see the Standard authors willfully ignore McRoberts commentary?
Will The Standard authors choose instead to get their views shaped by Pepe Escobar of RT and notorious batshit crazy conspiracy website Globalresearch.
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Globalresearch
“”In an era of media disinformation, our focus has essentially been to center on the "unspoken truth".
—True only if "unspoken" means "so embarassingly false that nobody else will say it"[2]
Pepe Escobar Author Globalresearch
https://www.globalresearch.ca/author/pepe-escobar
[As a long-time commenter here, you should be familiar with the https://thestandard.org.nz/about/ and the https://thestandard.org.nz/policy/.
You should know that Authors write in their own spare time for free about topics they want to write about (https://thestandard.org.nz/about/#you_must).
You should know that attributing ulterior motives to the site, as if it has a mind of its own, or to its Authors is a bannable offense (https://thestandard.org.nz/policy/#banning).
You should know that telling Authors what to write or not write about, what views to express of not express and how is a bannable offense too.
Attacking the site for things that may never even happen is stupid behaviour and amounts to telling us what we can and cannot write about.
Stomping and ranting over everything and anything to do with Syria makes it impossible to have a rational discussion on this.
These are just the main offenses – there are too many minor ones to list here that have been wasting Moderator time.
I have checked your history here and you have been warned and banned many times before for the same offenses.
I was tossing between a permanent ban and a short educational ban. The former one may be too harsh and the latter one obviously won’t work. Therefore, I decided to hand you medium-long ban as a warning to you and others and to give us all a break from your recidivist behaviour.
Banned for three months – Incognito]
See my Moderation note @ 9:01 PM.
'business insider' has done a what if..?
https://amp.businessinsider.com/switch-from-meat-to-meatless-diet-environmental-benefits-2019-8
(excerpt..)
Impossible Foods, a leading producer of plant-based "meat-like" patties, has launched its Impossible Burger 2.0 in more than 7,000 restaurants worldwide. The product will be sold in all Burger King locations across the US (not to mention your local grocery store) by September.
Beyond Meat, another meat-free burger company, saw similar success: The company netted $40.2 million during its first quarter as a public company (between January and April), a 215% jump from the same period in 2018.
Global consultancy firm AT Kearney projects that by 2040, 60% of the "meat" products humans consume will either be plant-based replacements or lab-grown meats.'
All meat products are plant-based
there is just no need for the middle-man..
In the natural world, herbivores eat plant-parts and omnivores/carnivores eat herbivore-parts, along with selected plant-parts. It's for reasons other than "natural" that some present-day humans choose not to eat herbivore-parts.
Elegantly stated, thank you – no need for further comment from me now.
Nice one Robert.
I didn't mean it to be a conversation stopper, more a basis on which to build a rational discussion. Without the heat, a measured debate on diet would be enjoyable and very interesting, in my view.
Yeh there are lots of things that might be 'natural' that get overridden at a cultural level. Rape is probably natural but we no do that.
Yes, culture's the issue. Rape's a plant, btw; no need to confuse the issue, solkta; in fact, let's leave that out of any discussion on diet
I completely agree Robert. I will try and find a different way to engage when I start seeing red over the climate change aspect.
@ pm + weka..
are you both sure you know what robert actually said..?
Is anyone?
I thought it was that it is natural to eat. The choice of what to eat is not related to the word 'natural', it is a choice for (most) humans. I wish more people would accept their choice and stop trying to justify it – the climate disaster we are facing isn't a practice run!
"Choice", marty mars?
Now there's a debatable idea; choosing; do television-watching children choose to eat the sugar-infused foods they see advertised on their beloved goggle-box, or is that choice made for them by the cunning advertisers?
yeah nah – the choice to eat industrialised farmed flesh (and accept that subsequent contribution to our climate emergency) or veges and grains and fruits. Sure some may like ‘happy meat’ – good on them. I'd like people to raise their pigs and sheep and then kill and gut them, chop them up, put them in the freezer and chomp away – but easier to just buy the plastic wrapped stuff I spose.
The main impediment to people eating local meat is food safety laws that prohibits us from buying direct from farmers and small growers. That's not too hard a fix technically, but the people in government are not on board yet with the need.
This is one reason why I push back hard on the veganism will save us from climate change idea. Instead of making it easier for people to eat the least impactful foods (whether that be veg, meat, dairy, nuts), people are being actively encouraged and pressured to eat industrial soy that still has a large carbon footprint and a terrible eco footprint.
I'll never be in a position to raise my own meat, but I'm not in a position to grow my own veges either, so I tend to focus on the systems and how they can be changed.
So then there're children in families where an omnivorous diet is the norm, who find choosing not to eat farmed-animal meat very difficult, if not impossible. As well, there are those children who haven't given a thought to eating differently from their family and who, as adults, choose to continue, not having had to address the issue at any point. Demanding that they do is…interesting and needing explanation. It's a complex question, choosing what and what not to eat. The sugar story is similar.
"This is one reason why I push back hard on the veganism will save us from climate change idea."
Yes. Any single-issue campaign that claims "save us from climate-change/annihilation" falls over immediately, imo; coal, oil, meat, air-travel, stock-farming, because it's clear immediate and total change as the result of one action cannot happen, given our civilised state. I'm convinced though, that there is a pathway aside from wrack & ruin and am always hopeful that a discussion here will ignite the lamp that guides that path
@ weka yep I'm a locavore.
"This is one reason why I push back hard on the veganism will save us from climate change idea. Instead of making it easier for people to eat the least impactful foods "
Not sure why both ideas can't be entertained – they aren't mutually exclusive.
@Robert – good you're thinking of the children.
It's not a single issue – it is among a range of issues to try to reduce the misery just around the corner. It is evidence based like the rest of them. This anti reduce meat consumption (for those that make that argument – not you R ok) is really another climate denial argument imo.
EXTINCTION rebellion have it framed correctly
"Not sure why both ideas can't be entertained – they aren't mutually exclusive."
I don't know why either, but these are my guesses. I see a lot of resistance from the vegan movement and fundamentalist vegans to instead of telling people to eat vegan, telling people to eat vegan or omni but either way to eat from relocalised food systems where they can.
I understand this to be because not eating animals is paramount, and it's better to prioritise that than it is to let people eat local, happy meat or dairy or eggs if that is a better choice in climate terms. That ideology is a problem where it blocks locavorism, and imo this is what is happening (it's being blocked).
The vegan movement isn't championing relocalising food, but instead is pushing industrial vegan vs industrial meat/dairy. I see a kind of blindness here, and I feel an immense frustration at the amount of time spent addressing the 'go vegan and save us from climate change' (which is a nonsense, because they're really saying eat industrial soy instead of CAFO meat/dairy), and the conversation getting stuck there instead of moving on to the systems that might give all of live a chance.
Reducing global GHG emissions by x % won't save us. We have to move to zero-ish carbon at the same time as doing all the natural sequestration processes to mitigate, not to buy more carbon usage.
In all that is the issue of the industrialised wealthy nations eating way more than their fare share, so of course people that eat large amounts of meat and dairy need to rethink that. But asking people to reduce the amount of meat/dairy is very different than asking them to be vegan.
"This anti reduce meat consumption (for those that make that argument – not you R ok) is really another climate denial argument imo."
When I was vegetarian in the 80s, the common theme amongst vegetarians was that NZers ate too much protein. This was probably true for a good number of people, but for vegetarians who were eating largely plant based diets it was dangerous, because we ended up protein deficient.
Telling people to reduce meat only works for people that are eating a lot. No way in hell am I going to tell poor people who don't have enough nutrients in their diet and subsist on white carbs that they should eat less meat and dairy. Likewise chronically ill people who don't have the health resources to manage a vegetarian diet.
So when people say eat less meat/dairy to save the planet, because the Guardian is telling them that *globally* humans are eating too much, of course I am going to say hang on, there is a real problem with this approach and messaging.
@ weka I think you have a blind spot in relation to vegans and that stuff therefore this is my last comment to you on it (today that is 🙂 )
there was no protein crisis afaik
Maybe we can get the wealthy middle class western countries and citizens to reduce their meat intake first and then start on the poor people.
There are a small number of vegans pushing their position yet somehow that means they want global soy (industrial vegan) instead of rain forests – come on.
Often people don't like the message when they don't agree with it. Bit all or nothing for me.
Marty – "Extinction rebellion", are they rebelling to prevent the extinction of rhino, dolphin, butterfly, bee, etc, or are they referring to the extinction of humans, do you know?
I don't.
I reckon, also, that talking to individuals, as we do here on TS, is very different to talking to corporations. It's fair to demand that soul-less, heart-less, socio/psychopathic corporate pretend-bodies, are addressed in absolute terms, but not individuals, imo. People are easily hurt and almost always compromised, so absolute claims and demands just harm, not help. Sometimes we mix the two without realising it.
"@ weka I think you have a blind spot in relation to vegans and that stuff therefore this is my last comment to you on it (today that is )"
People can and do think whatever they want, but in a political forum in the absence of explaining their thinking it doesn't really mean much. eg I have no idea what my blind spot might be. What I'm getting is there is something you don't like about my argument, and so you will stop talking to me today. All good. I hope next time you can say more.
"there was no protein crisis afaik"
No idea what that means.
"Maybe we can get the wealthy middle class western countries and citizens to reduce their meat intake first and then start on the poor people."
Sure, those wealthy people that are eating a lot of meat/dairy. Those that aren't need a different message.
"There are a small number of vegans pushing their position yet somehow that means they want global soy (industrial vegan) instead of rain forests – come on."
The vegan movement is large, well funded, and being adopted by people in positions of power.
I didn't make the comparison with rain forests, so please don't put words into my argument. I suspect you are still largely missing what I am arguing for, but to be clear, I don't support NZers to fell our rain forests to grow meat or legumes.
"Often people don't like the message when they don't agree with it. Bit all or nothing for me."
If you can't see the nuances in my arguments (and there are plenty) I think that's for you to sort out
ER's main demands are around GHGs and preventing mass species extinction so I think it's reasonable to assume the extinction rebellion applies to all of life. It’s one of the things that separates them out from some other climate activists, they saw the need to do both together.
@ Robert yes we are individuals and that is where we must start imo. Once again, why people get so defensive I'll never know – just do what you can and what you want, with knowledge – and that's the same for all eaters of food. ffs I've had enough of this bullshit – argue with yourselves on this 'political forum'.
Mmmm…I appreciate your view, weka. I'm not sure though; the 6th Great Extinction Event was, I thought, attributed to more prosaic habitat destruction by humans; city-building, forest-felling, over-fishing, pesticide-use etc. I'd always thought that was the background to Extinction Rebellion. But you may be right, in which case, I'm somewhat disappointed.
@ weka..re soy..
most of the soy grown is to feed animals..
"most of the soy grown is to feed animals.."
Which is largely unnecessary. Not sure what your point it phil.
Are we talking at cross-purposes there Robert? Afaik ER want to address all the things you name, and see humans as the progenitor of mass extinction. Hence the demand to protect biodiversity. I took that to mean by humans changing their errant ways.
I see you are correct, weka. Originally, I thought the "E" in ER referred to other-than-human living things.
Are you still disappointed?
@ weka..
u said: 'which is a nonsense, because they're really saying eat industrial soy instead of CAFO meat/dairy)'..
i was replying to that..
i thought it was/is relevant to the/any discussion on soy..
right. So getting humans to eat industrial soy instead of eating cows that industrial soy looks like a good thing ecologically and re CC, but only in a lesser evil way. Better to get humans to eat local (legumes, veges, animals, nuts) and regeneratively, and avoid the massive issues associated with all industrial farming.
Yes. I'd been so pleased that a global movement to protect all non-human life had come into being; learning that there was human self-interest involved is a bit disappointing.
How does one do a wan-smiley-face emoticon?
🙁
I took it as being all of life (including humans). I don't see us as outside of nature, so can't imagine protecting biodiversity in ways that don't also protect us. There are compelling reasons to protect humans too eg so we deal with the nuclear and other high pollution issues.
that’s : -( without the gaps. I use :-/ a bit.
Interesting positioning but on this occasion I suspect you have been trumped by the greywarshark….
20 August 2019 at 9:36 pm
solkta Now you produce another conversation stopper.
There is something wrong with the heads of a number of you. Can you concentrate on other matters when people want to discuss them. It is a virtual OCD to be in a sex default position when there are so many human bad behaviour traits.
With you there Greywarshark;
Sollka has tunnel vision and mind.
Remember when Solka jioned others and said tyre dust has not been found on Arctic ice/snow?
‘Raining plastic’ – fragments of rubber tyres, found by lead scientist, Dr Melanie Bergmann – QUOTE; "Can we come up with differently designed car tyres? These are important issues."
https://www.sott.net/article/418585-Plastic-particles-falling-out-of-sky-with-snow-in-the-Arctic
Plastic particles falling out of sky with snow in the Arctic
Roger Harrabin BBC Wed, 14 Aug 2019 08:29 UTC
A German-Swiss team of researchers has published the work in the journal Science Advances. The scientists also found rubber particles and fibres in the snow. How did the researchers carry out the study? Researchers collected snow samples from the Svalbard islands using a low-tech method – a dessert spoon and a flask. In the laboratory at Germany’s Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven they discovered far more contaminating particles than they’d expected.
Many were so small that it was hard to ascertain where they had come from.
In an ideal world, you would have made your comment slightly more relevant to this discussion thread and more on-topic if you had said something about tyre dust in lab-grown meat patties.
It would have been even more fun to have said something about meat-dust in lab-grown tyre patties.
My car failed its WOF because the front right tyre patty was worn because the dog had been chewing on it. The bun and slice of tomato were still o.k.
The dog denies everything and blames the cat.
https://cleantechnica.com/2019/08/19/burger-king-dared-me-my-cat-to-taste-test-the-impossible-whopper/
It’s a dog’s life!
https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/food-wine/115032523/why-dogfriendly-cafes-are-on-the-rise-around-nz-and-the-globe
Oh you guys!
Ridiculous to fail you your WOOf because of a dog!
That’s what I told the mechanic but he didn’t want to have a bark of it 🙁
He's probably sick and tyred of the whole thing.
"there is just no need for the middle-man.."
hahaha . You mean the factory making the protein isnt a middle man ? It may say 'plant based' but the reality is some sort of by product of an industrial process.
Plants themselves are far better than 'plant based' falsehood
@ duke – unsure of what you are saying..
and plant-based – by definition – covers a myriad of versions of that..
not necessarily 'industrial process bye-product'..(!)
It is . And it gets worse
Did you not read about Impossible Burgers plant based means a genetically modified version of heme to 'give it a meaty favour'
"So the researchers engineered ( notice the lack of the word genetic) yeast to mimic a plant-based heme source, as well as the flavor profile of beef "to generate the same
and then
"Impossible chose textured wheat and potato protein instead since that gives the burger a more realistic texture"
Go knows what textured wheat even is
https://curiosity.com/topics/how-do-they-make-meat-like-burgers-from-plants-curiosity/
TVP, texture vegetable protein, a vegetarian staple from back in the day. Terrible stuff born from the desire to make vegetarian mince. If people want to not eat meat, then don’t eat meat. Plenty of other things to eat that don’t require a lab to make them pretend to be meat.
Extruded vegetable protein might be a better description, or solvent extracted vegetable protein, but not with the same marketing appeal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textured_vegetable_protein
"Textured vegetable protein, or TVP, is made from soy and is the same thing as textured soy protein. Textured wheat protein is made from a similar process, but from wheat. They are all highly processed plant-based alternatives to meat.
Factory food processing using a lot of other stuff that would be far from those weasel words 'plant based'
https://support.brightlineeating.com/what-is-the-difference-between-textured-wheat-protein-textured-vegetable-protein-and-textured-soy-protein/
Lol, I think they're weasel words too. Just be honest.
By pillaging the world's diminishing resources. Show us the ecological footprint, or it's all just BAU.
Below is the ingredients list, have a think about where those ingredients come from, how they're grown and processed, how far they travel to get to the plate, what extractive and polluting industry (incl fossil fuels) is needed in that whole process.
Then stop and think about how this might not be a good solution to climate change, and why relocalising food supplies might be.
Impossible “meat” also contains 2% or less of:
@ weka…
um..!..if you actually read the link – the/your footprint question is answered there..and as stated there – the difference is significant..
(and lotsa good stuff in that recipie…eh..?..all those vitamins/niacin/oils etc…
gotta be good for ya..!..)
It doesn't work.
The first part of the article is based on US populations, so very different than what people in the NZ or even somewhere like the UK are eating. It's comparing soy with meat and dairy, but that doesn't take into account things like the evolutionary human need for fats. It looks at EFAs but doesn't address two issues: one is that CAFO meats have a munted EFA ratio to start with, and two, EFAs from plants are harder for humans to utilise in their bodies.
I doubt that the GHG emission figures are true, because of what is being chosen to be counted (please, someone do the mahi to correct me), but it doesn't address the ecological footprint.
But the second part of the article is looking at fake meat, not in the context of the research in the first part of the article. The research looked at soy, green peppers, squash, buckwheat, and asparagus, not that list of ingredients above.
I could go on, lots of ways to critique this, but for me it's not a vegan vs omnivore debate, it's an industrial monsanto model of eating vs relocalising food, and how that matters in terms of climate mitigation.
Additive-laden foods designed to sit on shelves for days or weeks will always suffer by comparison with whole foods in climate terms. Be great if our food system incentivised local whole products.
It would. And people could still choose, by and large, what kind of diet to eat within that. For now at least.
Wonder if clarifying impacts/options within whole foods could sidestep the processed food industry resisting even the most basic labelling.
how do you mean?
If whole foods had good information for purchasers, including the climate impacts. Local venison, out-of-season veges, imported lentils, etc.
Processed purveyors might not resist us doing that as much and I'm tired of their interests taking precedent.
All fresh fruit and veg in the supermarket have to have ecofootprint, GHG footprint, country of origin, how they were grown (organic/conventional etc), that kind of thing? That would be a total game changer.
I'm tired of their interests taking precedent too, and I suspect there would be a lot of resistance. What happened to the Greens' country of origin labelling thing?
Winston happened, I'd guess.
I think earlier than that. I'll look it up.
Once frankin foods get a market share (and they will ) it is going to become fertile ground for the big companies to hollow out any nutritional goodness in pursuit low cost high profit garbage.
Yep. Looking at the list in that burger, why the need to add in all those vitamins? And how where they produced? Some people think that our bodies are machines and we can just add this component and that component and still function well. That one will come back and bite us.
i am more worried about the waste produced by this stuff.
We have become a seriously ill society. We want to feel good at all cost. We want to elevate some life more important as other life and often time that comes with the 'cute' label attached. We don't want to pay the honest price of everything, cause that would cut into the pursuit of 'lifestyle' and by gosh and golly we are owed a lifestyle. We want to continue to drive our cars, our boats, our bikes, heat in winter to 30 and cool in summer to 22, we want our booze and our frocks and our frid/sat entertainment and we want it cheap. And the rubbish of all that we consume is for another generation to care of. But at least we could pretend we are still eating meat. Right?
give me a rat burger/possum burger/ stoat burger/rabbit burger any day of the week before i would buy and eat that rubbish.
all of this ^
The waste produced (rubbish) and the wasted resources, time, energy, life.
Please eat weeds.
Chickweed
Chickory
Burdock
Dandelion
Fat hen
Fennel
Plantain
Wild onion
and so on, and so on.
You’ll be the healthier for it.
@ sabine..
the predictions are that the burger/pizza etc chains will be the first to take it up in a big way..
in part 'cos it will be much cheaper than animal-based meat..
they will be able to offer plant-based kobe-beef burgers..any meat type at all..indistinguishable from the animal-based product..
and they will be able to market it as eco-meat..cruelty-free-meat..
these are powerful advertising messages..
and of course in the supermarkets these products will be much cheaper than the animal-based – this is a price-war the animal product will lose..
so it will be difficult to avoid – and what seems now unthinkable to many..will soon enough become the norm..
(and Oim peshnut about it too)
Impossible Burger
"enjoy the "Impossible Whopper." It has no meat and a mere 1080 mg. of sodium
Thats a sign no flavour so fill with salt ( remember to double the sodium to get NaCl so thats 2 g)
1500mg is really the most an adult should consume
Massey University after a sexual assault complaint:
During a meeting with Fuller, Marie says he expressed sympathy but told her quitting her PhD might be the best option
What year is this?!
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/115029105/massey-university-accused-of-mishandling-allegations-of-a-violent-sexual-assault
That can't have been Marie Curie as she has been dead for some time! But the male attitudes of primacy that she encountered (but always overcame) still continue their repeat – like a belch or fart.
This was interesting – an honest, objective appraisal by Pierre Curie on why it was hard for him to fine a life companion and wife:
"Women, much more than men, love life for life’s sake. Women of genius are rare. And when, pushed by some mystic love, we wish to enter into a life opposed to nature, when we give all our thoughts to some work which removes us from those immediately about us, it is with women that we have to struggle, and the struggle is nearly always an unequal one. For in the name of life and of nature they seek to lead us back." http://womenineuropeanhistory.org/index.php?title=Marie_Curie
Though Marie changed the mould still the old attitude apparently prevails.
Looks like they have a 'schedule of penalties' for breaches including being kicked out and yet say Student has a right to study ?
http://www.massey.ac.nz/massey/about-massey/calendar/studying-at-massey-university/student-disciplinary-regulations.cfm
Its terrible that she was offered even an option of ending her studies to fix his problem.
Looks like a split at the top in the National party camp over the new Topham Guerin approach, David Farrar is publically disagreeing with Simon Bridges over his opposition to the establishment of a Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO).
Extraordinary thing to do, given how hard Simon is running with this line.
I guess more spend on TG might mean less on Curia?
Excellent point.
"National are putting themselves right next to the anti-vax clowns with this kind of caper. Time to grow up and fight elections on policy rather than Steven Joyce's cheap sloganeering. "
Comment below the article on Stuff.
While that may be true in terms of NZ democracy, there is no future for National if they fight elections on a rational basis. They need to lie, to smear, to accuse and to distract like an abusive partner, because at the end of the day they are corrupt and the policies they will actually implement are either ineffectual or disastrous.
Simon is doing the smart thing for National – but not the smart thing for New Zealand, which would be infinitely better off without them.
PBO sounds like a good idea as long as its implemented correctly, Bridges is wrong about this
Just add it to his growing list.
Maybe hard to appoint people that everyone sees as independent though. They could appoint both Michael Cullen and Steven Joyce…that would be interesting.
Heck no. Keep anyone with party political involvement out.
Yes – the risk is that it's captured by whatever 'orthodox' economic ideas have hegemonic status at the time.
"Bridges digs himself deeper over policy costing plans." by Sam Sachdeva on Newsroom.
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2019/08/21/765029/bridges-digs-himself-deeper-over-policy-costing-plans
Again Bridges shouting National Radio this morning was incoherent. Paranoia creeping in? A trick to trap the Opposition?
Chris Trotter's piece on Fascists (sidebar) is fascinating! I was immediately reminded of Incognito's suggestion of the need for a Philosopher-king to guide us all through the coming troubles with the weather
“[R]ealising the present serious National emergency, and the necessity for all good citizens to subordinate private and political interests and to make any necessary personal sacrifice for the sake of the country, [I] agree to become a member of the New Zealand Legion and to further loyally, by every means in my power, by vote, example and personal influence, the objects of the Legion."
"Politics, however, was what ultimately killed the Legion. Its leaders and members simply couldn’t agree on what it was, exactly, that patriotic New Zealanders needed to do. Unlike a genuine fascist movement, it lacked a charismatic leader capable of preventing such crippling internal debates by reserving all policy-making powers to himself."
(My bold).
It is a good piece though its central theme is obvious upon reflection…..the history connecting the Legion with the National Party was a revelation for me.
Was that a response though?.New Zealand being a communist country at the time,as George Bernard Shaw related in his famous radio broadcast to NZ /Aus.(4 million listeners)
"You are to some extent, thanks to your admirable communist institutions, now actually leading the world's institutions. You are second only to Russia, and there is a curious joke about it that Russia, partly by following New Zealand's example, has got a good lead, the Russians are very proud of their Communism. They know they are Communists and are proud of it…while New Zealand, which leads the world in communism, does not know it is Communist. It naturally thinks Communism is a terrible thing. Let me ask you to put that idea out of your heads… I am a Communist, I studied Karl Marx four years before Lenin did, and you see that I am a very sensible and well-meaning person."
https://www.stuff.co.nz/nelson-mail/106049955/literary-goliath-was-ahead-of-his-time
lol…difficult (with any credibility) to describe NZ as a communist country at any time with the proportion of assets held in private ownership
Well, George said we were…
i think he was talking about our social polices – at the time…
another quote of his i luv from his visit was when he was asked if nz should focus on tourism for our future –
his long answer was that we are uniquely placed to become self-sufficient..
his short answer was: 'why..?..do you want to become a nation of servants..?'
(and so it came to pass…)
and Ive spent a month in France…
Commies, the French?
lol…some undoubtably, much like everywhere else….even NZ in 1934
this popped up on my twitter-feed – it's a great read..
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/20/magazine/neil-young-streaming-music.html
(i didn't know that neil young and joni mitchell both had polio as children – and at the same time…)
Subtitle:
“Old man with hearing loss yells at cloud”
no – that's me…most days..
Lots of John Tamihere for AKL mayor billboards around. 1/2 red and 1/2 blue. Does this mean that he is pro national and pro Labour or what?
Red-washing.
It means Tamihere has no original ideas.
https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_banners/245243839/1552174107/600×200
So the word around Wellington is that Helen O'Sullivan finishes up as Head of KiwiBuild at the end of August. She only started the role in February!
What has happened to the re-set? This is turning into an unmitigated shambles. Twyford's arrogance is really starting to shine through.
It is with Megan Woods now. Please keep up.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/building-construction/news/article.cfm?c_id=24&objectid=12260342&ref=rss
Apologies. You are of course correct.
So many people circulating through this department that it is really difficult to keep up. I wonder how long Megan Woods will be in the chair.
Do you think she’ll do a good job? Have you seen early signs of improvement? Is she on side with industry players?
Hard to say. Dr Woods has been completely invisible where KiwiBuild is concerned. The Property Institute even had to cancel a webinar that she’d agreed to present at on the basis that she was a no-show, so that would be a NO in relation to being on side with industry players.
One swallow does not a summer make.
Is the Property Institute the only industry player? I hope Dr Woods sent an apology and she rescheduled for another time.
Government pushes out the unveiling of the KiwiBuild reset until late August (https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12251969).
Bryan Gould on The importance of kindness.
A very good and encouraging read. You'd benefit from it, Sam C.
http://www.bryangould.com/the-importance-of-kindness/
Nice article, Robert.
I generally think that the importance of accountability is also key for Ministerial positions where responsibility for flagship Government policy lies.
I don't believe that kindness trumps accountability, which is why the current Government is falling so far short of the electorate's expectations.
Sticking to it, Sam C! Good man! Fight the good Blue fight!
If expecting Ministers to remain accountable for the election promises they made is "fighting the good Blue fight", then I'm certainly guilty.
how do you feel about john key promising not to raise g.s.t..?..and not to raise any other taxes..?
whereas the reality was – that he lied thru his teeth…
what about… what about… whereas… what about… KiwiBuild???!
In the interests of even-handedness, Sam, where are you on this:
"Mr Key signalled a National-led government would improve housing affordability by embarking on a programme of personal tax cuts, changing the building regulatory regime, keeping interest rates lower, reforming development rules to free up land, and allowing state house dwellers to buy their homes."
https://otago.nzpif.org.nz/news/view/53030
It seems National made big promises on housing that didn't come to fruition also. A critique of kiwibuild is qualified by this.
A three-letter word is proving sensitive today. That is 'out' when talking about cities and more building.
The government release from Twyford and Parker is headed: 'https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/helping-our-cities-grow-and-out'
Helping our cities grow up and out
“We need a new approach to planning that allows our cities to grow up, especially in city centres and around transport connections. We also have to allow cities to expand in a way that protects our special heritage areas, the natural environment and highly productive land.
“When overly restrictive planning creates an artificial scarcity of land, or floor space in the case of density limits, you simply drive up the price of housing and deny people housing options.
(This sounded like a repeat of the property speculators mantra to me.)
Links on google keywords:phil twyford on housing and land
Scoop follows the same heading: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1908/S00209/helping-our-cities-grow-up-and-out.htm
TVNZ: New urban growth plan touted as game changer that will fix NZ's 'dysfunctional' housing market
The NZ Herald phrases it more carefully:
The Government wants councils to focus on building up, not out, to fix the housing crisis
.
https://www.interest.co.nz/property/101304/government-proposes-new-policies-specifically-require-local-councils-leapfrog-nimbys
The Government wants to direct local councils to prioritise building up, rather than out through a new National Policy Statement (NPS) on Urban Development.
It has released a document for consultation that proposes what the new NPS, set to replace the existing 2016 one, should look like.
The Ministry for the Environment (MfE) and Ministry of Housing and Urban Development (MHUD) suggest the NPS includes new policies to specifically direct councils to provide for intensification
Phil Twyford, Labour (present roles)
Economic Development Minister 28/06/2019
Urban Development Minister 28/06/2019
Transport Minister 26/10/2017
It's not the "expecting”, Sam C, it's the harping.
Now who's not being kind, Robert?
It's tough-love, Sam.
Sam C is right. There needs to be more accountability for ministers. This current lot are terrible but having said that, the previous government had their issues too.
Sure, Sam C is Right.
As, I’m guessing, are you 🙂
Remember when Nick Smith resigned from Cabinet because he wrote something on ministerial letterhead that he shouldn't have?
Remember when Smith corruptly misused his ministerial position to advance his friend's interests?
Television advertising has a huge impact on our lives. Even if we don’t recognise that, we know it has to be true
Tune in next time for more things that Boomers believe
She was an interim CEO on a six month contract after the previous CEO was forced to resign. She departed a month early to take up a new permanent position.
Not much of a scandal in that is there Master Sam.
Gil Scott Heron – IMO someone with great insight, articulate and a pioneer in regard to music. who very few know about but many should (Similar to Robert Johnson), great documentary from the BBC on him.
BBC Documentary for anyone interested, and less than 10 people have viewed this 🙁
Oh dear. Not my friend Paula!
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12260505
Demanding her scalp is a bit much IMHO and a decent haircut would do just fine.
Bennett in the witness box and under oath during cross examination may not be a tidy sight.
Balance of Probabilities and all that.
After all the most a Judge could decide is someone is lying when they claim “Im innocent”
She’s pretty good at performing in the House, especially when the Prosecutor is on his feet.
This may explain soimon going off the reservation around the PBO as discussed in 5 above.
National wanting to settle out of court is getting pretty close to an admission. And these delicious ironies (the leak this time) every time the nats end up in court is getting a bit much
"National wanting to settle".
How do you come to that conclusion? From the story it could equally well be Winston who wants to settle out of Court.
Well, either Winston demanded $400k or Bennett's sacking to settle (which doesn't seem to indicate a particular desire to settle vs taking it to court), or the nats offered up Bennett of their own accord (which indicates the nats really want the case to go away).
Odds are that the meeting was a mere formality, or the nats want to settle more than Winston does.
There is another possibility – that they want Paula to go away. The imaginary threat of legal action has been used before, to bribe the Saudi sheep fellow. If the Gnats have a plan so cunning they imagine you could put a tail on it and call it a weasel, chances are that Paula isn't part of it.
Would they be dumb enough to knife her and give her the campaign manager job as a payoff? Seriously. They might be, lol.
There is that thing that an elbowed electorate MP lingers furiously while a list MP is not wont to stay carping in the house. Gnats are accustomed to sacking people, and disestablishing Paula's position in favour of a Topham Guerin rep. would not cause them much in the way of cognitive dissonance.
The Whale is retailing the same speculation apparently: “Bennett probably hasn’t realised yet that by giving up a safe seat for a list place she has made herself expendable. Especially if her campaign is as awful as everything else Paula Bennett does.” I won’t link it.
When it says Nationals lawyers wanting to settle
quote 1: "where the National side expressed their interest in settling the case before .."
quote 2: "National's lawyers, Bruce Gray QC and Peter Kiely expressed their wish for the case to be settled out of court."
2 sentences where the words are 'national' and 'settle'.
national wanted to settle the Eminem case , but he wanted too much money
Surely Bennett prostrating herslef and saying I repent, and hers $50K would do nicely
Is there some other story other than the one in the Herald that was linked to by the comment by ianmac at 11 and which justifies your story?
The words you give as a quote appear nowhere in that story.
Who’s raining love here?
Better then this;
‘Raining plastic’ – fragments of rubber tyres, found by lead scientist, Dr Melanie Bergmann –
QUOTE; “Can we come up with differently designed car tyres? These are important issues.”
https://www.sott.net/article/418585-Plastic-particles-falling-out-of-sky-with-snow-in-the-Arctic
Plastic particles falling out of sky with snow in the Arctic
Roger Harrabin
BBC
Wed, 14 Aug 2019 08:29 UTC
A German-Swiss team of researchers has published the work in the journal Science Advances.
The scientists also found rubber particles and fibres in the snow.
Some apparently good moves for the Manus Island refugee group.
But a new name to beware of – Bomona. When will this Australian expensive incarceration policy end?
https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/397171/moresby-move-positive-for-manus-island-refugees