“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.
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Bryce Edwards writes – “Follow the money” is the classic directive to journalists trying to understand where power and influence lie in society. In terms of uncovering who influences various New Zealand political parties and governments, it therefore pays to look at who is funding them. The ...
Alwyn Poole writes – After being elected to Parliament in 2008 the maiden speech of Hipkins was substantially around education policy. He was Labour’s spokesperson for education 2011 – 2017. He was Minister for Education from 2017 until February 2023. This is approximately 88% of the time Labour ...
Eric Crampton writes – A fashion industry group is lobbying for protections. They make the usual arguments and a newer one. None of it makes sense. An industry group says it pumped $7.8 billion into the economy last year – that’s 1.9 percent of New Zealand’s GDP. ...
In December 2006, Fiji's military leader Voreqe Bainimarama overthrew the elected government in a coup. He ruled Fiji for the next 16 years, first as dictator, then as "elected" Prime Minister. But now, he's finally been sent to jail where he belongs. Sadly, this isn't for his real crime of ...
Don't like National's corrupt Muldoonist "fast-track" law? Aotearoa's environmental NGO's - Greenpeace, Forest & Bird, WWF, Coromandel Watchdog, Coal Action Network Aotearoa, Kiwis Against Seabed Mining, and others - have announced a joint march against it in Auckland in June: When: 13:00, 8 June, 2024 Where: Aotea Square, Auckland You ...
Seymour describes sushi as too woke for school meals. There are no fish sushi meals recommended by the School Lunches programme. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty ImagesTL;DR: The Government will swap out hot meals for packaged sandwiches to save $107 million on school lunches for poor kids. MSD has pulled ...
I don't mind stealin' bread from the mouths of decadenceBut I can't feed on the powerless when my cup's already overfilled, yeahBut it's on the table, the fire's cookin'And they're farmin' babies, while slaves are workin'The blood is on the table and the mouths are chokin'But I'm goin' hungry, yeahSome ...
The Ardern Government’s chickens came home to roost yesterday with the news that the country is short of natural gas. In 2018, Labour banned offshore petroleum exploration, and industry executives say that the attendant loss of confidence by the industry impacted overall investment in onshore gas fields. Energy Resources Minister ...
Hi,If you’ve been digging through the newly launched Webworm store (orders are being dispatched worldwide as I type!) you’ll have noticed the best model we had was Calvin.This is Calvin.Calvin.Calvin is 7, and is the son of my producer over on Flightless Bird, Rob — aka “Wobby Wob”. Rob also ...
This video includes conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Adam Levy. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). Climate change is everywhere. And when something's everywhere it can feel like it's nowhere. So how do we get our heads ...
Its a law like gravity: whenever a right-wing government is elected, they start attacking democracy. And now, after talking to their Republican and Tory and Fidesz chums at the International Democracy Union forum in Wellington, National is doing it here, announcing plans to remove election-day enrolment. Or, to put it ...
Yesterday Winston Peters focussed his attention on the important matter at hand. Tweeting. Like the former, and quite possibly next, orange POTUS, from whom he takes much of his political strategy, Winston is an avid X’er.His message didn’t resemble an historic address this time. In fact it was more reminiscent ...
Buzz from the Beehive A significant decline in natural gas production has given Resources Minister Shane Jones an opportunity to reiterate his enthusiasm for the mining and burning of coal. For good measure, he has praised an announcement from Genesis Energy that it will resume importing coal. He and Energy ...
“Follow the money” is the classic directive to journalists trying to understand where power and influence lie in society. In terms of uncovering who influences various New Zealand political parties and governments, it therefore pays to look at who is funding them. The political parties are legally obliged to make ...
Rob MacCullough writes – Here is my subjective ranking on a “most-left” to “most-right” scale of most of our major NZ Universities, with some anecdotal (and at times amusing) evidence to back up the claim.Extreme Left Auckland University of TechnologyEvidenceThe ...
Eric Crampton writes – I hadn’t thought about this one until a helpful email showed up in my inbox.It’s pretty obvious that income tax thresholds should automatically index with inflation – whether to anchor the thresholds in percentiles of the income distribution, or to anchor against a real ...
Jacqui Van Der Kaay writes – Parliament’s speaker had no option but to refer Green MP Julie Anne Genter to the Privileges Committee for her behaviour in the House last Wednesday evening. The incident, in which she crossed the floor to wave a book and yell at National ...
Gary Judd writes – The Dean of the law school at the Auckland University of Technology is someone called Khylee Quince. I have been sent her social media posting in which she has, over the LawNews headline “Senior King’s Counsel files complaint about compulsory tikanga Maori studies for ...
Cleo Paskal writes – WASHINGTON, D.C.: ‘Many of us have received phone calls from [the opposing camp] telling them if they join the camp they will be given projects for their wards and $300,000 [around US$35,000] each’, says former Malaita Premier Daniel Suidani. The elections in Solomon Islands aren’t ...
With hindsight, it was inevitable that (a) Hamas would agree to the ceasefire deal brokered by Egypt and Qatar and that ( b) Israel would then immediately launch attacks on Rafah, regardless. We might have hoped the concessions made by Hamas would cause Israel to desist from slaughtering thousands more ...
Placards and mourners outside the Kilbirnie Mosque following the Christchurch terror attack: MSD has terminated the Kaiwhakaoranga service, which has been used by 415 families since the attacks. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: The Government’s pledge to only cut ‘back office’ staff rather than ‘frontline’ services is on increasingly shaky ground, with ...
There’s been a few smaller public transport announcements over the last week or so that I thought I’d cover in a single post. Fareshare I’ve long called for Auckland Transport to offer a way to enable employer-subsidised public transport options. The need for this took on even more importance ...
Parliament’s speaker had no option but to refer Green MP Julie Anne Genter to the Privileges Committee for her behaviour in the House last Wednesday evening. The incident, in which she crossed the floor to wave a book and yell at National Minister Matt Doocey, reflects poorly on Genter and ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Who likes being sneered at? Nobody. Worse yet, when the sneerer has their facts all wrong, and might well be an idiot.The sneer in question is The adults are in charge now, and it is a sneer offered in retort to criticism of this new Government, no matter how well ...
When in government, Labour pushed to extend the Parliamentary term to four years, to reduce accountability and our ability to vote out a bad government. And now, they're trying to do it through the member's ballot, with a Four-Year Parliamentary Term Legislation Bill. The bill at least requires a referendum ...
A ballot for a single Member's Bill was held today, and the following bill was drawn: Public Works (Prohibition of Compulsory Acquisition of Māori Land) Amendment Bill (Hūhana Lyndon) The bill would prevent the government from stealing Māori land in breach of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. It ...
Simeon Brown, alongside Wayne Brown, is favouring a political figleaf now in exchange for loading up tens of millions in extra interest costs on Auckland ratepayers. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s is pushing back hard at suggestions from Local Government Minister Simeon Brown and Mayor Wayne Brown ...
Buzz from the Beehive One headline-grabber from the Beehive yesterday was the OECD’s advice that the government must bring the Budget deficit under control or face higher interest rates. Another was the announcement of a $1.9 billion “investment” in Corrections over the next four years. In the best interests of ...
Chris Trotter writes – Had Zheng He’s fleet sailed east, not west, in the early Fifteenth Century, how different our world would be. There is little reason to suppose that the sea-going junks of the Ming Dynasty, among the largest and most sophisticated sailing vessels ever constructed, would have failed ...
David Farrar writes – Two articles give a useful contrast in balance. Both seek to be neutral explainer articles. This one in the Herald on Social Investment covers the pros and cons nicely. It links to critical pieces and talks about aspects that failed and aspects that are more ...
The tikanga regulations will compel law students to be taught that a system which does not conform with the rule of law is nevertheless law which should be observed and applied…Gary Judd KC writes – I have made a complaint to Parliament’s Regulation ...
The future of Te Huia, the train between Hamilton and Auckland, has been getting a lot of attention recently as current funding for it is only in place till the end of June. The government initially agreed to a five year trial, through to April 2026, but that was subject ...
TL;DR: Hamas has just agreed to Israel’s ceasefire plan. Nelson hospital’s rebuild has been cut back to save money. The OECD suggests New Zealand break up network monopolies, including in electricity. PM Christopher Luxon’s news conference on a prison expansion announcement last night was his messiest yet.Here’s my top six ...
A homicide in Ponsonby, a manhunt with a killer on the run. The nation’s leader stands before a press conference reassuring a frightened nation that he’ll sort it out, he’ll keep them safe, he’ll build some new prison spaces.Sorry what? There’s a scary dude on the run with a gun ...
Hi,I know it’s been awhile since there’s been any Webworm merch — and today that all changes!Over the last four months, I’ve been working with New Zealand artist Jess Johnson to create a series of t-shirts, caps and stickers that are infused with Webworm DNA — and as of right ...
The OECD’s chief economist yesterday laid it on the line for the new Government: bring the deficit under control or face higher Reserve Bank interest rates for longer. And to bring the deficit under control, she meant not borrowing for tax cuts. But there was more. Without policy changes—introducing a ...
After a hiatus of over four months Selwyn Manning and I finally got it together to re-start the “A View from Afar” podcast series. We shall see how we go but aim to do 2 episodes per month if possible. … Continue reading → ...
In 2008, the UK Parliament passed the Climate Change Act 2008. The law established a system of targets, budgets, and plans, with inbuilt accountability mechanisms; the aim was to break the cycle of empty promises and replace it with actual progress towards emissions reduction. The law was passed with near-universal ...
Buzz from the Beehive Local Water Done Well – let’s be blunt – is a silly name, but the first big initiative to put it into practice has gone done well. This success is reflected in the headline on an RNZ report:District mayors welcome Auckland’s new water deal with ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate ConnectionsA farmworker cleans the solar panels of a solar water pump in the village of Jagadhri, Haryana Country, India. (Photo credit: Prashanth Vishwanathan/ IWMI) Decisions made in India over the next few years will play a key role in global ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – The Children’s Minister, Karen Chhour, intends to repeal Section 7AA from the Oranga Tamariki Act 1989 because it creates conflict between claimed Crown Treaty obligations and the child’s best interests. In her words, “Oranga Tamariki’s governing principles and its act should be colour ...
Geoffrey Miller writes – The gloves are off. That might seem to be the undertone of surprisingly tough talk from New Zealand’s foreign and trade ministers. Winston Peters, the foreign minister, may be facing legal action after making allegations about former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr on Radio New Zealand. ...
Brian Easton writes – This is about the time that the Treasury will be locking up its economic forecasts to be published in the 2024 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) on budget day, 30 May. I am not privy to what they will be (I will report on them ...
TL;DR:Winston Peters is reported to have won a budget increase for MFAT. David Seymour wanted his Ministry of Regulation to be three times bigger than the Productivity Commission. Simeon Brown is appointing a Crown Monitor to Watercare to protect the Claytons Crown Guarantee he had to give ratings agencies ...
The gloves are off. That might seem to be the undertone of surprisingly tough talk from New Zealand’s foreign and trade ministers. Winston Peters, the foreign minister, may be facing legal action after making allegations about former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr on Radio New Zealand. Carr had made highly ...
I could be a florist'Round the corner from Rye LaneI'll be giving daisies to craziesBut, baby, I'll wrap you up real safe Oh, I can give you flowers At the end of every dayFor the center of your table, a rainbowIn case you have people 'round to stay Depending on ...
TL;DR: The six key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to May 12 include:PM Christopher Luxon is scheduled to hold a post-Cabinet news conference at 4 pm today. Finance Minister Nicola Willis will give a pre-budget speech on Thursday.Parliament sits from Question Time at 2pm on ...
The price of the foreign affairs “reset” is now becoming apparent, with Defence set to get a funding boost in the Budget. Finance Minister Nicola Willis has confirmed that it will be one of the few votes, apart from Health and Education and possibly Police, which will get an increase ...
A listing of 26 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 28, 2024 thru Sat, May 4, 2024. Story of the week "It’s straight out of Big Tobacco’s playbook. In fact, research by John Cook and his colleagues ...
Yesterday I received come lovely feedback following my Star Wars themed newsletter. A few people mentioned they’d enjoyed reading the personal part at the beginning.I often begin newsletters with some memories, or general thoughts, before commencing the main topic. This hopefully sets the mood and provides some context in which ...
April 30 was going to be the day we’d be calling Mum from London to wish her a happy birthday. Then it became the day we would be going to St. Paul's at Evensong to remember her. The aim of the cathedral builders was to find a way to make their ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Can’t remember the last book by a Kiwi author you read? Think the NZ government should spend less on the arts in favor of helping the homeless? If so, as far as Newsroom is concerned, you probably deserve to be called a cultural ignoramus ...
Eric Crampton writes – Grudges are bad. Better to move on. But it can be fun to keep a couple of really trivial ones, so you’re not tempted to have other ones. For example, because of the rootkit fiasco of 2005, no Sony products in our household. ...
A new report warns an estimated third of the adult population have unmet need for health care.Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāHere’s the six key things I learned about Aotaroa’s political economy this week around housing, climate and poverty:Politics - Three opinion polls confirmed support for PM Christopher Luxon ...
Today is May the fourth. Which was just a regular day when my mother took me to see the newly released Star Wars at the Odeon in Rotorua. The queue was right around the corner. Some years later this day became known as Star Wars Day, the date being a ...
Buzz from the Beehive Much more media attention is being paid to something Winston Peters said about former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr than to a speech he delivered to the New Zealand China Council. One word is missing from the speech: AUKUS. But AUKUS loomed large in his considerations ...
Is the economy in another long stagnation? If so, why?This is about the time that the Treasury will be locking up its economic forecasts to be published in the 2024 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) on budget day, 30 May. I am not privy to what they will be ...
The annual list of who's been bribing our politicians is out, and journalists will no doubt be poring over it to find the juiciest and dirtiest bribes. The government's fast-track invite list is likely to be a particular focus, and we already know of one company on the list which ...
In the weeks after the October 7 Hamas attacks on Southern Israel I wrote about the possible 2nd, 3rd and even 4th order effects of the conflict. These included new fronts being opened in the West Bank (with Hamas), Golan … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – It is one of the oldest truisms that there is never a good time for MPs to get a pay rise. This week’s announcement of pay raises of around 2.8% backdated to last October could hardly have come at a worse time, with the ...
The National Government plans to cut 390 jobs at ACC, including roles in the areas of prevention of sexual violence, road safety and workplace safety. ...
The Government has been caught in opposition to evidence once again as it looks to usher in tried, tested and failed work seminar obligations for job-seeking beneficiaries. ...
The Green Party is welcoming the announcement by the Minister Responsible for RMA Reform Chris Bishop to approve most of the Wellington City Council’s District Plan recommendations. ...
David Seymour has failed to get the sweeping cuts he wanted to the free and healthy school lunch programme, Labour education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
Hon Willie Jackson has been invited by the Oxford Union to debate the motion “This House Believes British Museums are not Very British’ on May 23rd. ...
Green Party MP Hūhana Lyndon says her Public Works (Prohibition of Compulsory Acquisition of Māori Land) Amendment Bill is an opportunity to right some past wrongs around the alienation of Māori land. ...
A senior, highly respected King’s Counsel with decades of experience in our law courts, Gary Judd KC, has filed a complaint about compulsory tikanga Māori studies for law students - highlighting the utter depths of absurdity this woke cultural madness has taken our society. The tikanga regulations will compel law ...
The Government needs to be clear with the people of the Nelson Marlborough region about the changes it is considering for the Nelson Hospital rebuild, Labour health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said. ...
Ministers must front up about which projects it will push through under its Fast Track Approvals legislation, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Jobseeker beneficiaries who have work obligations must now meet with MSD within two weeks of their benefit starting to determine their next step towards finding a job, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “A key part of the coalition Government’s plan to have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker ...
A new standalone Social Investment Agency will power-up the social investment approach, driving positive change for our most vulnerable New Zealanders, Social Investment Minister Nicola Willis says. “Despite the Government currently investing more than $70 billion every year into social services, we are not seeing the outcomes we want for ...
Check against delivery Good morning. It is a pleasure to be with you to outline the Coalition Government’s approach to our first Budget. Thank you Mark Skelly, President of the Hutt Valley Chamber of Commerce, together with your Board and team, for hosting me. I’d like to acknowledge His Worship ...
Your Excellency Ambassador Meredith, Members of the Diplomatic Corps and Ambassadors from European Union Member States, Ministerial colleagues, Members of Parliament, and other distinguished guests, Thank you everyone for joining us. Ladies and gentlemen - In diplomacy, we often speak of ‘close’ and ‘long-standing’ relations. ...
The Therapeutic Products Act (TPA) will be repealed this year so that a better regime can be put in place to provide New Zealanders safe and timely access to medicines, medical devices and health products, Associate Health Minister Casey Costello announced today. “The medicines and products we are talking about ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop, today released his decision on twenty recommendations referred to him by the Wellington City Council relating to its Intensification Planning Instrument, after the Council rejected those recommendations of the Independent Hearings Panel and made alternative recommendations. “Wellington notified its District Plan on ...
Rape Awareness Week (6-10 May) is an important opportunity to acknowledge the continued effort required by government and communities to ensure that all New Zealanders can live free from violence, say Ministers Karen Chhour and Louise Upston. “With 1 in 3 women and 1 in 8 men experiencing sexual violence ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government will be delivering a more efficient Healthy School Lunches Programme, saving taxpayers approximately $107 million a year compared to how Labour funded it, by embracing innovation and commercial expertise. “We are delivering on our commitment to treat taxpayers’ money ...
New research on the impacts of extreme weather on coastal marine habitats in Tairāwhiti and Hawke’s Bay will help fishery managers plan for and respond to any future events, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. A report released today on research by Niwa on behalf of Fisheries New Zealand ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Winston Peters will lead a broad political delegation on a five-stop Pacific tour next week to strengthen New Zealand’s engagement with the region. The delegation will visit Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, and Tuvalu. “New Zealand has deep and ...
There has been a material decline in gas production according to figures released today by the Gas Industry Co. Figures released by the Gas Industry Company show that there was a 12.5 per cent reduction in gas production during 2023, and a 27.8 per cent reduction in gas production in the ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins tonight announced the recipients of the Minister of Defence Awards of Excellence for Industry, saying they all contribute to New Zealanders’ security and wellbeing. “Congratulations to this year’s recipients, whose innovative products and services play a critical role in the delivery of New Zealand’s defence capabilities, ...
Welcome to you all - it is a pleasure to be here this evening.I would like to start by thanking Greg Lowe, Chair of the New Zealand Defence Industry Advisory Council, for co-hosting this reception with me. This evening is about recognising businesses from across New Zealand and overseas who in ...
It is a pleasure to be speaking to you as the Minister for Digitising Government. I would like to thank Akolade for the invitation to address this Summit, and to acknowledge the great effort you are making to grow New Zealand’s digital future. Today, we stand at the cusp of ...
New Zealand is urging both Israel and Hamas to agree to an immediate ceasefire to avoid the further humanitarian catastrophe that military action in Rafah would unleash, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The immense suffering in Gaza cannot be allowed to worsen further. Both sides have a responsibility to ...
A new online data dashboard released today as part of the Government’s school attendance action plan makes more timely daily attendance data available to the public and parents, says Associate Education Minister David Seymour. The interactive dashboard will be updated once a week to show a national average of how ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced Rosemary Banks will be New Zealand’s next Ambassador to the United States of America. “Our relationship with the United States is crucial for New Zealand in strategic, security and economic terms,” Mr Peters says. “New Zealand and the United States have a ...
The Government is considering creating a new tier of minerals permitting that will make it easier for hobby miners to prospect for gold. “New Zealand was built on gold, it’s in our DNA. Our gold deposits, particularly in regions such as Otago and the West Coast have always attracted fortune-hunters. ...
Minister for Trade Todd McClay today announced that New Zealand and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will commence negotiations on a free trade agreement (FTA). Minister McClay met with his counterpart UAE Trade Minister Dr Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi in Dubai, where they announced the launch of negotiations on a ...
New Zealand Sign Language Week is an excellent opportunity for all Kiwis to give the language a go, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. This week (May 6 to 12) is New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) Week. The theme is “an Aotearoa where anyone can sign anywhere” and aims to ...
Six tertiary students have been selected to work on NASA projects in the US through a New Zealand Space Scholarship, Space Minister Judith Collins announced today. “This is a fantastic opportunity for these talented students. They will undertake internships at NASA’s Ames Research Center or its Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), where ...
New Zealanders will be safer because of a $1.9 billion investment in more frontline Corrections officers, more support for offenders to turn away from crime, and more prison capacity, Corrections Minister Mark Mitchell says. “Our Government said we would crack down on crime. We promised to restore law and order, ...
The OECD’s latest report on New Zealand reinforces the importance of bringing Government spending under control, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The OECD conducts country surveys every two years to review its members’ economic policies. The 2024 New Zealand survey was presented in Wellington today by OECD Chief Economist Clare Lombardelli. ...
The Government has delivered on its election promise to provide a financially sustainable model for Auckland under its Local Water Done Well plan. The plan, which has been unanimously endorsed by Auckland Council’s Governing Body, will see Aucklanders avoid the previously projected 25.8 per cent water rates increases while retaining ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters discussed the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and enhanced cooperation in the Pacific with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock during her first official visit to New Zealand today. "New Zealand and Germany enjoy shared interests and values, including the rule of law, democracy, respect for the international system ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By César Albarrán-Torres, Senior Lecturer, Department of Media and Communication, Swinburne University of Technology Apple TV+ As one of billions of bilingual individuals in the world, it disappoints me when a film or TV show with characters of a non-English-speaking background is ...
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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