Trump claimed he never liked Bannon’s idea of soliciting donations to build a chunk of the wall alongside the government-built barrier that Trump infamously claimed Mexico would pay for. “I never liked that project. I thought it was being done for showboating reasons,” Trump said.
Competitive showboating from the hired help was always gonna piss off the chief showboater, eh?
Bannon, who served in the Navy and worked as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs before becoming a Hollywood producer, has been hosting a pro-Trump podcast called “War Room” that began during the president’s impeachment proceedings and has continued during the pandemic.
Bannon led the conservative Breitbart News before being tapped to serve as chief executive officer of Trump’s campaign in its critical final months… After the election, he served as chief strategist during the turbulent early months of Trump’s administration.
Trump tweeted in July that he “disagreed with doing this very small (tiny) section of wall, in a tricky area, by a private group which raised money by ads.” “It was only done to make me look bad, and perhaps it now doesn’t even work. Should have been built like rest of Wall, 500 plus miles,” he said.
But hey, it's in the spirit of free enterprise! Why not crowd-source funding for lots of different teams of builders doing different sections? If you hire Mexicans to do that, you can even claim Mexico built the wall as predicted. The Don ain't thinking clearly.
No POTUS serves long enough to seriously impact the courts.
There may be an exception to that rule if Trump gets a second term to appoint two more to the Supreme Court, there are two aging Democrat appointments (and part of the reason is the GOP blocking Garland and thus launching an uncivil war).
You don't reckon 2 Supremes (and a third if RBG doesn't hang in there) isn't a serious impact? Let alone "Moscow Mitch" rushing through the enormous backlog of vacancies he'd built up through refusing to do his constitutional duty and progress any Obama appointments? Basically it's not one terms worth of impact, it'll be damn near two and a half terms worth of impact by January next year.
He only got one of those two appointees because Garland was blocked, which was indicative of the GOP itself launching an uncivil war (bigger than Trump himself) on women and beyond that – enabling Red States to hindering access to voting rights of minorities.
The claim that Politifact ruled false was " Justice Kennedy quit because he and his son helped Trump launder illegal Russian money through Deutsche Bank. ". The Politifact research confirmed a clear connection to large loans overseen by Kennedy's son at Deutsche Bank.
But Trump hasn't always been so sour on the project. The New York Times reported last summer that the president gave the group his "blessing," according to former Kansas gubernatorial candidate Kris Kobach, who sits on the board of "We Build the Wall."
Trump's son, Donald Trump, Jr., praised the private border wall effort last summer, saying the group "is what capitalism is all about."
Cheers for the links Andre much appreciated. I guess when it comes to capitalising on political parties there's greedy people everywhere.
Next week will be a stunner, with agent orange's mate from the US Postal Service having to explain to congress. And, the repug's convention which dodgy bannon is supposed to be speaking at.
I really like the Mother Jones site, btw. Thanks again.
Seymour's idea of isolating in BnBs is just stupid. His only method of control is that people have GPS on their phones and so they can be seen if they leave – ROTL – people can just leave their phones behind if they want to go out for a while.
But the bigger problem is that people only get noticed after they break-out which is already too late. We need people to not break-out at all.
I've read that some country is using BNBs overseas. So of course – overseas! – we can do that too. That's where most right-wing policy comes from. They are too tight-fisted and narrow-minded to put money into funding our own people to be informed, professional about systems, and serve NZ's interests in a timely and effective way.
The air bnb idea is bonkers! Why do they think that we have bought the army into these facilities. How many very stupid people have attempted to break out now/????? How many people have attempted to break in???????
the biggest question of it all, who will do a deep clean of said BnB site if one has a positive test? The people running the Air BnB and will that be checked over by the government?
edit: will they have to have a lisence, will they be checked up by the council staff like lisenced food premises? will they have to pay yearly registration fees, will they have to provide the same safeguards as hotels i.e. evac plan, house maintenance on site etc etc etc?
agree stuart . media attention on act is a good thing. really shows there foolishness . looking forward to act having 5 or so m.p.s after election. seymour will spend most of his time putting out fires. his dancing prowess could really be a plus.
Convicted credit card and share scam fraudster, Damien Grant, is having trouble passing a good character test. His application to operate as an insolvency practitioner has twice been rejected by his peers.
There's no specific detail on what grounds. Is it the 30 month prison sentence he received in the 90s? Having run an insolvency business for 15 years now (without going to prison) this historic conviction would likely have little bearing on a good character test today, were he of good character today…
So the new regulatory body, RITANZ, must see something else very wrong with Damien Grant. God knows, the rest of us do.
A requirement of the new licensing regime is that an applicant is a “fit and proper” person.
He has done himself no favours with these comments
An Auckland businessman says he claimed the Government's Covid-19 wage subsidy for his business despite believing it could survive without it, but he has no intention of paying it back.
It's to be hoped it is that as it shows an intention to bend rules as he chooses that in cases of evasion & fraud don't fit with that role, there are basic rules of behaviour not dissimilar to those of law enforcement or Justice of the Peace
Well, I'm not one for much buying into big organisational conspiracy theories, but…
Insolvency practitioners are the very definition of vulture capitalists. I doubt there's many people in that industry that most of us would consider "of good character".
Licensing and professional bodies are quite often used as an underhanded means of restricting access to a trade or profession, and thereby keeping prices high for those services.
So, adding A plus B, I find it plausible that this may be a case of other RITANZ members looking to feather their own nests by turfing out someone that's taking a chunk of their lunches.
Or maybe he really is such an asshole that's he's unfit to work in the industry. (That's saying something!!!!)
Farrar reckons it's because Grant undercuts and the rest don't like it. I think that is bullshit, but undercutting in an industry is a good way for everyone to get a worse product so I'd not be surprised if they have an issue with it.
One of Farrar's commenters made the important point that if you want to deal with other people's money you'd better not have been proven to have acted fraudulently with it in the past.
SPC made another good point above that Grant's recent statements on the wage subsidy point towards unethical behaviour both from himself and from some of his 'clients'.
so he's on strike two of the act law that he obviously supports . be a damn shame if he got caught up in someone elses phuckup, and got that third strike…..
Was Pootee's poisoning team just a bit bored and wanted something to do? A training exercise to keep their hand in? A new poison they wanted to check out?
What crap,. Mr 0.1 percent. No danger to Putin at all. Blown up by the West media as the main opposition leader, only in the immagination of the West. Navalny earlier announced that he would close his Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) after a series of scandals around its activities and a criminal probe into the suspected laundering of around 1 billion roubles ($15.3 million), obtained by the foundation via criminal means. Hardly an opposition leader at all when the second most popular party is the Russian Communist Party, Navalny's wannabe party is the equivalent of ACT, FA chance of winning an election and no threat to any of the many political parties in Russia, so why bother trying to bump off a non starter like him (a Yale fellow), sounds more likely a CIA job in the vain hope of regime change and to point the finger. If any party could bring down the Totalitarian regime of Putin it would be the Communists.
Ok, it's lockdown so a glimpse down the rabbit-hole might be some entertainment. So I'm curious what sources you use to come to those opinions. Mind linking?
In a kleptothug totalitarian state, do you think there might still be some benefit in having an officially tolerated puppet opposition? Y'know, to create a facade for suckers to buy into?
D'you reckon a totalitarian thug might still find some usefulness in having his apparatus hokey up charges to create a facade of due process, rather than just nakedly do whatever he wants? Y'know, for suckers to buy into?
It takes acres of hyperbole to get through the shroud hanging over reasonable speech that can be used in discussion. I could put a big comment about 'woke' superior authoritarianism and control but there are more important things to discuss, and it will be the same going forward till the end of the century or as long as we are given by the planet to try to rise above our inertia.
Jonathan Pie is great at expressing the feelings of progressives who can't because of blockades of some sort.
I don't think he said Shirley. I think it was 'surely', slightly squeezed. But I found something about a Dame Shirley, what an amazing woman.
..Having experienced sexism in her workplace, "being fondled, being pushed against the wall", she wanted to create job opportunities for women with dependents, and predominantly employed women, with only three male programmers in the first 300 staff, until the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 made that practice illegal.
She also adopted the name "Steve" to help her in the male-dominated business world, given that company letters signed using her real name were not responded to…
What do Kiwiblog commenters think of National's border plan? Not a lot, on the whole. This character got to post this, unchallenged, which says a lot on a blog where anyone other than a Farrar sycophant routinely gets blanked-out or piled-upon.
ObligatoryMarxist
Are you serious? This is the dumbest plan I’ve seen, and that includes ACTs plans to stick everyone in AirBnBs!
You wanna create a completely new agency, from scratch, fill it, and expect it to be the highest level of competence all in a matter of weeks if not days?
Require people to provide a negative covid test that tells us almost nothing given that a) the place they’re most likely to catch it is during travel and b) they’ll only show up if symptomatic, AND c) NZ cant require jack at the other end of the airports we can only control who comes in.
Thermal Imaging, again at other countries airports? Again how is that even remotely possible, and as for thermal imaging here, sure, but what does it accomplish that isolation and testing doesnt? Huge waste of time and resources
Contact tracing for all staff all the time, is casting a net the size of a rugby pitch to catch a whitebait. Massive amount of effort and resorces (which are limited) with almost no chance of actually catching what you want.
These ideas are just awful, and by defending them DPF I’m starting to wonder why. They’re pulling Trump moves and you’re one of those republicans nodding at every crazy thing they do and calling it gold!
[Re-formatted and used block-quotes to make it easier to see quoted text – Incognito]
When quoting a word or even part of a sentence, quotation marks work well, usually. However, when quoting a longer piece of text, the quotation marks tend to get lost and it can become unclear what is quoted and what’s not, although not in this particular case. In that case, it might help to use block quotes. I’ve re-formatted your comment to show you what I mean.
poor thing…..when the grift is good and you get so sloppy that you get indicted and even your bosses biggest cheerleaders might see the need to throw you quickly under a passing bus to save bossman
could not add this to the comment above, but yeah, a shit is a shit is a shit, no matter how much gold dust was added to make it sparkly.
The trump family, their enablers, their voters, and all those that still believe that the other option was worse are nothing more then gold dusted shit.
So you can see why he is a regular on Hosking Speak Radio.
The right wing black swan event coup programme now supposedly has top academics calling for an independent group to take over governments pandemic response.
It appears he is acting in concert with Murray Horn – former Treasury Secretary, former head of Business Roundtable, and Chair of a Chinese Bank's New Zealand subsidiary.
Top academics are calling for an independent body to take over New Zealand's Covid-19 response amid a damning assessment of the Government's management. In a letter published by the New Zealand Medical Journal today, authors say a group led by health and economic experts, free from bureaucracy and political interference,needed to be established immediately in order to undo the Government's failings.
If you want to know what Murray Horn's politics are
He believes that for a government to realise anything in the long term, they need to make it institutional in such a way a future government cannot undo. He was in Treasury in the 1984-90 period and was Sec 1993-1998.
Hood, C. (1998). Book Review: Murray Horn, The Political Economy of Public Administration: Institutional Choice in the Public Sector (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. ix, 263,
Gorman said the Minister of Health needed to focus on fixing the crippled health system, which was in significant distress, even before the pandemic struck.
Ministerial Review Group (MRG), chaired by Mr. Murray. Horn 2009
Health Minister, Tony Ryall says the Government has appointed Dr Murray Horn as the establishment chair of the new NHB Advisory Board (NHB).
Dr Horn led the Ministerial Review Group (MRG) on Health which reported mid-year on improving public health services.
The Government last week announced an administrative shake up aimed at improving patient services and driving better value for money in health.
The National Health Board is a unit within the Ministry of Health, and will provide a more focused national supervision of the $9.7 billion DHBs spend on hospital and primary health care.
The NHB Advisory Board will advise the Minister and Director General on the NHB's performance and activities. "Dr Horn will bring a depth of experience to the role. As chair of the MRG he has built up strong links across the health sector, and a firm appreciation of the challenges and potential of the public health service."
there is Des Gorman's own role in the crippled health system.
He worked with Horn (2009-2014) on the National Health Board.
Executive Chairman of Health Workforce New Zealand (2009-2019)
He's still involved with the Ministry of Health’s Capital Investment Committee.
As for their role in the crisis down in Canterbury
Sir John said the government had only just appointed him to the chair's job last December, when he heard the Capital Investment Committee had rejected the application for $438m.
Very interesting SPC – 11. It helps to lift the mask and peer under to see who is that under there, and where his past experience has been that seemed right to get him/her to their present prominence.
Transparency International always said we were honest and I thought good, but then I found out that they just asked people in the business and professional classes what they thought and if bribes were used. We have our own unique ways that only a place with a separation of three? can knit together! It is just a carousel and when you get on it, you can retreat from one place and pop up further along. It takes an eagle eye and a strong arm to pull the bigwig off the beltway.
FFS we have one of the best Covid responses in the world and Gorman and co want to change it?????? In the middle of the bloody pandemic?
I am pretty certain that every health professional (or nearly every health professional) in NZ will think this letter in the NZ Medical Journal is utter shite. They will know that very few colleagues have contracted Covid and none have died from it, unlike the majority of countries in the world. They will know that mostly their colleagues don't go to work terrified of what they will face, even if they are not working in the front line.
I hope health professionals find the time to respond to this disgraceful letter and show it the utter contempt it deserves. I really hope NZders can still see the incredibly great position we are in with the virus. Even if the border testing had of been rolled out the situation would not have been too much, if any different than what we have already. I.e nurse contracts covid at the border, one week shes tested and its picked up. It is already likely to have made it into the community…………..The latest cases were picked up extremely early. You can always tell whether its out there by hospital numbers. Approx one in 5 will need hospital treatment.
I am sick to death of the hysterical commentary around the border testing…..it was being implemented. These are very complex systems that are being implemented on the fly as the situation is happening now.
We are in extremely good hands with Labour, Bloomfield and many if not all of the nameless staff who everyday go to work in risky situations to keep us safe………
And lastly if Gorman et al and other complainers don't like the response here, piss off to somewhere else please.
White had also bought his own personal protection equipment from a hardware store after receiving an email on Tuesday from WellSouth, the region’s primary health organisation. The email said he would have to source his own, rather than ordering through the district health board (DHB) stockpile.
The email reads: “The current advice is that while we are in level 2, practices need to exhaust their commercial avenues of supply before accessing the DHB’s pandemic supplies”.
In April, White had made his own improvised face shield from laminating pouches and cable ties because adequate PPE was unavailable.
I don't like the sound of this. If anyone is out there with some agency can they improve on this toot sweet.
I wonder if this matter is under the control of this experienced medical man. /sarc
Practice Network Director: Paul Rowe leads our organisation’s practice support team and is responsible for managing our day to day relationship with general practices. This includes improving our performance against health targets and implementing projects such as Health Care Homes, National Enrollment Service, Patient Experience Survey and Foundation Standards.
Paul was appointed Practice Network Director in August 2016 and has been at WellSouth in a variety of roles since 2013. Prior to working at WellSouth Paul worked at consultants Ernst & Young in Auckland and at Jones Lang LaSalle and Deutsche Bank in London.
Paul holds a Bachelor of Business Studies in economics from Massey University and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Studies and Maori Studies from the University of Auckland.
The Senior Management Team has 8 personnel.
Personnel on the Wellsouth Board and Te Hauora Matua –
Wellsouth Board: 9 personnel
Te Hauora Matua: 7 personnel (includes one on Wellsouth Board)
That is a mighty weight of people meeting and sucking up finances, their is presumably meeting costs, transport etc even if not fees or salary. Yet this large entity with so much input from all points of the compass can't look after the GPs and others on the front line as a Primary Concern in the Primary Healthcare Industry Roundabout.
No wonder there isn't enough money to adequately treat citizens. Now is the time for change and some sharp changes to a few permanent employees under direct control of the Finance Director at the DHB perhaps. I don't know but something needs to be done. Let private enterprise at government services and you get as topheavy with people as before, only being paid more probably, with better-designed offices that are fully ergonomic and fung shei'd perhaps?
and to those that still want to peddle the mis'truth about kids not getting covid, or getting ill from it, or dying from it. Well i guess we could call it a blatant mis'truth to add some gusto to the term.
This little one was nine years old and according to the article it took her four month to die after her covid infection.
I had someone tell me that the death rate is too small for them to care about Covid. I asked her what she thought about those that survived and chances are will live with severe health issues for the rest of their life. Personally i believe that that is actually the bigger issue of covid, not that it kills some of hte population quickly, but that one can be infected again and again and the illness will take a year or three to finish the job.
But yes, dear Virginia, kids get it, and they die of it.
One of the more level-headed politicians we’ve had over the last while calls for a longer term perspective than just dealing with the virus.
Hopefully with the extra time before the election we start to see analysis on what the various parties are proposing, and have that publicly debated, instead of just short term thinking of 1 or 2 years ahead.
Dunne was never one for that in politics – having developed policy to advocate for would have got in the way of forming coalitions with National or Labour. Thus bland and middling muddled – bureaucrat speak cooomonsense jargon.
It was always left to those to the left and to the right to debate policy stuff.
FFS we have one of the best Covid responses in the world and Gorman and co want to change it?????? In the middle of the bloody pandemic?
I am pretty certain that every health professional (or nearly every health professional) in NZ will think this letter in the NZ Medical Journal is utter shite. They will know that very few colleagues have contracted Covid and none have died from it, unlike the majority of countries in the world. They will know that mostly their colleagues don't go to work terrified of what they will face, even if they are not working in the front line.
I hope health professionals find the time to respond to this disgraceful letter and show it the utter contempt it deserves. I really hope NZders can still see the incredibly great position we are in with the virus. Even if the border testing had of been rolled out the situation would not have been too much, if any different than what we have already. I.e nurse contracts covid at the border, one week shes tested and its picked up. It is already likely to have made it into the community…………..The latest cases were picked up extremely early. You can always tell whether its out there by hospital numbers. Approx one in 5 will need hospital treatment.
I am sick to death of the hysterical commentary around the border testing…..it was being implemented. These are very complex systems that are being implemented on the fly as the situation is happening now.
We are in extremely good hands with Labour, Bloomfield and many if not all of the nameless staff who everyday go to work in risky situations to keep us safe………
And lastly if Gorman et al and other complainers don't like the response here, piss off to somewhere else please.
This comment is in reference to AB’s article on suicide rates coming down….oh gosh that is encouraging……….I do hope it is a trend, not just a blip………..Some 30 lives or so not lost.
Bloody Seymour was scaremongering about suicides in Queenstown. The man is an arsehole
So deconstructing Collins border policy. Her stance is that operational health decisions in the face of a fast moving dynamic pandemic should be made at general elections.
The Bulletin: National changes philosophy behind border policy
All in all though, the policy represents a fairly firm commitment from National to an elimination strategy. As Justin Giovannetti writes, National’s policy also represents a quite important philosophical change in approach in recent weeks – “the opposition’s plan builds on the border system created by the Labour-led government and veers away from ideas that would allow businesses or universities to open private isolation facilities.
Hard to imagine, this reality in which every minute of last year, on average a million tonnes of ice from the Greenland ice-cap melted and headed for the ocean.
The Greenland ice sheet lost a record amount of ice in 2019, equivalent to a million tonnes per minute across the year, satellite data shows.
The satellite data has been collected since 2003. The 2019 loss was double the annual average since then of 255bn tonnes.
So hard to imagine, this reality, that Labour is campaigning on the basis of business as usual. Imagining a causal relation between the economy and climate change is too hard! Perhaps some kid like Greta Thunberg will have to explain it to them…
I thought it was National that intended to go back on some of the stuff Labour had done so far, and interests associated with that party that lobbied hard against radical change in the short term.
And some of the restraint on Labour came from requiring NZF to be in the coalition.
What I'm not seeing is open, direct & forthright acknowledgment from any party other the Greens that business as usual is untenable.
How many disasters have to hit the other-party dorks simultaneously to trigger it?? Many of us were exploring the progressive options onsite here last summer after the pandemic hit. I don't believe we're a different class of human – a class above politicians. I can't see why they feel unable to do likewise.
Nelson City Council was thinking of getting out of it's present large and apparently strong building, and go further along at the same level, on what was formerly swamp land, and on a tidal river fairly close to the sea and build an expensive building there. But a report from a firm that is pretty reliable suggested that it would be good for many decades. Yes, but, we are caught by unprecedented climate changes so some reckons must come in, mustn't they?
Well it seems that they did and the Council will stay where it is but be done up and gloomy prognostications abound as to that costing up to $32 million or something. I don't know all about it yet. To keep sane one has to not get too close to the maelstrom of ideas, warring countries and politicians, and bright young things seeing tech as the answer to all human and tech problems, provided you look at them with an old-fashioned Camera Obscura.
Imagining a causal relation between the economy and climate change is too hard!
Climate change is proof that our economic system is uneconomic and, for the majority of people, that will be hard to swallow. For the economists and politicians its even harder as they've based their entire careers and life on it.
As the saying goes: Its difficult to get a person to understand something when their job depends upon them not understanding it.
edit
I was being ironic. I hadn't read the whole thing. But it isn't new, far too common. And I have just read Mr Pip. So am feeling a bit drained. That one builds up some ennui isn't surprising unless it's you Sabine and others, always with extra outrage for the latest disaster. It would bring me out in psoriasis or at least exczema? – I don't know how you keep so sharp.
Suicide drops to a three-year low though it's not a particularly large drop and there's no evidence that it can be attributed to any particular single cause. So just some cautious observations.
It appears that the predictions we heard back in March and April about the adverse mental health effects of lockdowns were not accurate and were deliberately exaggerated for political and economic purposes (i.e. an attempt to limit the severity of lockdowns).
There are certain characteristics of the pandemic world that may have some positive effect on mental health:
Social bonds are important. The sense of having a relationship with everyone else, a duty of care for everyone else, and a common purpose rather than perpetual competition, is valuable
Working less and differently. People are happier if they are able to work less (as long as there is no loss of financial security), and have more autonomy over their work (e.g. working flexibly from home)
It could be that our habit of tinkering with the structure of mental health service delivery is much less effective than changing deeper ideological and economic factors.
AB Working from home produces mental stresses and further isolates 'screenies' – ie those whose eyes are fixed to devices. Separate them with a crowbar?
It could be that our habit of tinkering with the structure of mental health service delivery is much less effective than changing deeper ideological and economic factors.
More than likely. Of course, then the right-wing will come out with the belittling term of social engineering. Which, of course, would be exactly what it would be but they would also be ignoring all their own social engineering that they do when in power. All the beneficiary bashing and their sale of state assets to the wealthy to make them wealthier increasing inequality and other socially disastrous policies.
Their preference for opening the borders during a pandemic would also be social engineering as it would cause massive social displacement as the number of dead ramped up.
To be fair to Dementia Donnie, the US only had 1260 deaths yesterday, which is only around four per million. He might not be very clear on why that's not better than having 6 cases in a population of 5 million.
the hospitals are no longer reporting the death to the CDC but directly to some person at the white house. So no one has any idea what really happens and what not, other then there are a lot of refrigerated trucks stationed outside hospitals in Texas, Florida, Missoury, Georgia etc.
So like russia and china i would take the information with a lot of salt thrown over the shoulder.
They were trying to juke the stats from long before they got as blatant as cutting the CDC out of the reporting chain.
In the end, the best and most useful estimate is going to come from excess deaths data, because it will also include otherwise-preventable deaths that occurred due to the health system being overwhelmed. That's going to somewhat harder to spin.
No that is something that i have said as well, not just right wing nuts, unless i know qualify as rightwing nut.
Depression is on the rise, goes hand in hand with job loss, loss of income, no sense of stability and the dawning realisation that we have no longer any control of our live until we have a. gotten rid of the virus, b. have a working vaccine for all the strains currently running rampant and any of the future ones.
We are now 5 month in in what can and probably will a pandemic for another 15 month at the very least (globally). I am not the only one that says that either. So i really would not consider today as the hallmark of the future.
The worst of this covid mess is yet to come, and i am neither a negative person, nor a pessimist, but i don't subscribe to hope that shit will get better soon as a future prediction. Reality and a proper risk assessment suits me better.
with our death rate falling, and 3000 kiwis per week coming home, it will be interesting to see the population figures. all of those returnees need a house and a car. maybe thats one of the reasons that the economy HASNT hit the skids like many experts predicted-hoped. anecdotal evidence , new and second hand car sales very strong, house sales and prices have continued to rise, and builders in my provincial area still very busy.
We still have more outgoers than incomers. Even if they were on limited visa's they likely rented accommodation so the total number of people we are accommodating will be falling slowly
but yes incomers may be buying more than renting. ditto cars.
disagree redbaron. more people flying into the country than flying out.many of the P.I. seasonal fruit pickers in nelson area have chosen to stay and send a few dollars back to their islands ,rather than go home to ?
With this being the third rant by Trump about our situation in as many days, does he know something or expect something to happen here that we are unaware of. Surely he wouldn't know the source of the currently unidentifiable strain!
He doesn't know anything. He truly is a literal know-nothing.
He's just consumed by the idea that the only reason we might have had to achieve elimination was to make him look bad. So now we don't currently have elimination status, he's trying to puff it up so he doesn't look bad anymore, and to rub it in to us for making him look bad.
He's going to be pissed when we achieve elimination again, which he thinks we're only trying to do to make him look bad again, of course. The idea of doing it for the well-being of our citizens simply doesn't enter his universe.
He says what he says because it's what makes him feel better in the moment.
In this case, he's trying to slam a put-down on something (our covid response) that has been widely cited as something that's been done much better than what he's done. He's trying to belittle us to feel better about himself. Any effect that might have on his re-election prospects is a secondary consideration, if it even enters his impulse of the moment at all.
I doubt he knows we've got an election coming up, and I'm very certain he doesn't care.
I can't help but wonder if Trumps ridiculous references to NZ aren't helping Labour's chances right now. What he is saying is absurd in the extreme, but sometimes that helps people get perspective. Also helps feel a bit patriotic re NZs efforts. against the virus compared to US. BTW I regularly check the worldometer for covid stats and NZ case numbers continue to drop down c/p to others. I think currently was are 138.
Why did Bridges get rolled in the first place looks like his days numbered.
Theirs and old saying about Tory MP's being the left overs incompetants who can't do well in the real world they become MP's become mouth piece's in parliament.
When looking at the present line up including Silly Seymour most don't have a clue.
This (link below) is a damning evaluation of the effect of private enterprise on the Covid-19 response in Australia. It focuses on Victoria but could apply to many other places where neoliberalism has taken hold. Perhaps someone should point this article to David Seymour and his bonkers idea of using AirBnBs for quarantine.
I wouldn't have said Sir Brian Roche took Hosking to task.
Hosking: "Is there too much politics in this?"
Next question: Hosking: "As a New Zealander, just step back from you job for a minute, as a voter what have you observed this week?"
That's just an example of Hosking being unable to seperate politics from anything he wants to be political and he wants to use to political advantage. It's not Roche taking Hosking to task but Hosking taking on the task of making himself out to be pillock. And succeeding.
This one goes out to everyone who still has to travel in each day … where commuting is the only moment you have for daydreaming and processing, which is our vestigal time of utopian meanderings, the reconciliation of the pressure of home and relationships with the history that got you right there at that time …
…Richter is good at meditative pacing that evokes reflective thinking…
I finally went and read the Nact policy document for the border.
Basically it's a damp squib – they intend to set up an agency
"to provide professional coordination and comprehensive management of the potential entry of COVID-19"
so looks like everyone working there is going to get all tooled up and rush into an office to order other government agencies to comply with the policies it sets. "compliance focused". It's also a weird mix of high level policy and basic operational stuff about testing their workers weekly. Indeed it really doesn't specify how they will enforce compliance with their policy for the implementers.
But there is also this – a money grab
"The Agency will be responsible for managing co-payment for the costs of managed isolation"
Now I may be too suspicious but once people are out of the airport I see nothing in the policy that would prevent the letting of privately managed isolation contracts.
Has Judith actually denied that theywill use private contracts for isolation or is this something that is just being generally assumed by the media? Even if she does deny this should we believe the denial? The potential is certainly there to ramp that up.
Have the cops investigated running a covid convoy from Northland through Auckland to the south? Line them up every hour, photos of the licence plates and all passengers/ drivers and then with a cop car fore and aft , Lights and a run down the motorway.
Sounds sensible for those needing to move, especially trucks, business. There would be a charge I think, as it is a special deal and the police need to boost their funds for car chasing at night.
Prob'ly makes more sense than my pet theory he was smuggled out the chocolate factory as the product of miscegenation between an oompa-loompa and Mrs Gloop.
Seeing we are all going tech! And gaming is so big – why don't we make our dear leaders fight their battles out on computers like some high tech chess game. After a battle is over and the horrific outcomes fade into world memories though not of those involved you think was it worth it? For what was achieved.
My fish and chips suppliers are Vietnamese, small brown people with big smiles. I asked them if they were Thai and they replied, No Vietnamese. I said oh, that explains the hard cover book about the Vietnam War over with the magazines. They said Yes, we thought people might look at it and get to know about it. (It doesn't get mentioned much in NZ but sometimes here when one of the vets writes in, and tells how it seems forgotten.)
So let's go high tech and let the aggressives make their moves, after explaining their reasons quite clearly. I've just partially read Mr Pip about a Bougainville violation and found it chilling and yet hopeful. A tale with a twist.
OMG another reason to remove the layer of MoT from enabling direct Ministerial scrutiny of major projects.
The opening of Transmission Gully will be delayed until September 2021 after settlement negotiations concluded to the tune of $208.5 million.
Don't forget NZTA have already got a $1b loan facility from government to make up for an income deficit from Covid 19. So there's 20% of that gone already.
The 27-kilometre road was meant to be open by April 2020, then it was pushed back to before Christmas this year, and now it's another year away.
It's currently about 85 per cent complete.
NZTA announced the settlement money and new completion date this afternoon, which is solely related to the Covid-19 lockdown period.
And of course: does not improve public transport, has no cycle lane or footpath, is not tolled, and pushes a great fat jam of congestion into the Hutt Valley.
I don't get what you mean about cycle lanes and footpaths, particularly footpaths, being associated with this project. It's 30km motorway. Who the fuck is walking that and why?
Also not sure what you mean about congestion in the Hutt Valley. If TG has a bearing on Hutt Valley traffic then that is just another issue which needs to be solved regarding the complicated entry points into Wellington.
Transmission Gully was necessary, if not entirely for the benefit of the country as a whole, at least for the region. This concept does not apply to an Otaki to Levin extension which is ridiculous right now.
There will however be a lot of pain before it is operating as imagined with all the flaws fixed.
NZTA should not be building any road highway without cycleways or public transport capacity. SH16 up Auckland's northwestern, and SH20 tunnel in the southwest, shows it can be done. The era of transport assets solely for the privilege of combustion engine use is well due for consigning to the dustbin of history. NZTA is the one remaining direct instrument this government has to direct us away from fossil fuel use, and motorway design is a massive part of what they do.
All it takes is future-proofed multi-modal design – which is not that hard once you direct NZTA's Board, policy specification team, Capital Delivery, and Procurement staff the right way. Especially their Board.
People thought the same about SH16, 20 years ago. No-one argues for later patch-ups now, not even the AA. The same old resisters within NZTA said the same thing as well.
In 2010 similar people occupied Kiwirail, referring to commuters as 'self-loading freight'. Since then, Auckland rail use has surpassed that of Wellington. And Kiwirail and and NZTA are right now building cycleways along their corridor right into Wellington central. 30 years late, but it's happening.
In Transmission Gully all NZTA have is a mess, and no certainty that even combustion vehicles will use it at an appropriate volume for what we are all now paying for it.
No. The first section of cycle way from Te Atatu to Pt Chevalier was opened on December 6th 1992, nearly 30 years ago and 40 years after the completion of the causeway.
It was a gorgeous summer day, with Jonathan Hunt MP presiding over the ribbon-cutting, and a fleet of riders young and old awaiting the opening. The hairstyles, the Panama hats and jeans, the bright white T-shirts and fluoro stabs of colour from helmets: it couldn’t be any time but the early Nineties.
Cycling commuters drove this. There were actual people living in the region, unlike TG.
Proves my point even moreso. Cycling use peaked in the 1970s, then in the 1990s the fightback started such as Sir Bob and Mayor Mills opened up a disconnected mile or so, so cycle use troughed, then built up again along SH16 once we completed the SH16 cycle network in the last decade. You can pop over to Matt at GreaterAuckland and check that.
The same regret will occur over Transmission Gully, as it has over the Wellington network.
A few Wellingtonians have been fighting against cycle lanes over the last five years. They killed off the last Wellington Mayor. Who would have thought Aucklanders would get out of their cars and onto bikes? Same in Wellington. The latest demand is huge.
Thankfully the Government have announced they are putting much stronger oversight over this whole debacle.
Wellington used to be the public transport capital of New Zealand. Now, Auckland, oddly, is getting more cycle connected. But the Wellington region has big transport projects and plenty of good cycle projects. But cyclists in Wellington are getting all lies and resistance and grief.
The justification NZTA gives this is, back in the day, waaaay back in 2008, there was no policy framework for cycling. Nothing to defend or promote it….
… And here we are over a decade later, climate change accelerating, the Transmisison Gully blown out by $800 million and growing, all they are going to deliver in another two years is no connection other than by combustion engine, no effort to connect by any other means.
TINA is leading to nightmares in the UK. Neolib isn't working for them any more and they can't find their dummy and their teddy.
Britain is about to be sucked into a catastrophic economic doom loop Huge state spending is set to trap the UK in a vicious circle of higher taxes and permanently lower growth
Testing seems to be back down to 15k a day. Have any of the briefings looked at some of the factors around this? I would have thought they'd be pushing to test as many people in the geographic area as possible.
Been almost ten days since we raised the levels, in the next few days we'll hopefully see a consistent decline in case numbers.
I'd imagine simple exhaustion among the lab staff might have a bit to do with it. They've been pulling in anyone that might have the skilz – vet lab, university etc – but there's still enough actual work in every test it would be difficult to keep the pace up.
It's been much the same for as long as I remember. I wondered if the earthquake might shake up their ultra conservative very insular pretensions but maybe not. Ti me to remove some one’s visa?
Caught a TV programme some years back where the primary school history lesson showed the provincial history as starting with 6 ships arriving from England. Takes a while to move that sort of stuff along
Plus it's always for some reason had the dodgiest of the sex crimes.
I've brought this over from the right to the centre – that is from the feed on the right-hand of the page. Ex Treasury view on government doings re Covid-19. I feel that it is possible that any observations made about government being remote etc could also apply to The Treasury.
And on a quick reading with much being given the thumbs-down I wonder if these boffins divide the work they are responsible for, as much-criticised unions did eg jokes about 'I don't do the spanner work. That's for Fred from the Trade Tools and Waterwheels Union'. How come he can be employed at Treasury to supposedly make things efficient and effective and well-balanced and leave, still happily taking pot-shots at democracy and government in a patronising way. Sounds like a lot of narcissistic hoopla.
Tony Burton has also been Economic Advisor to the UK Dept of Health.
...When I was part of the government machine I was struck by how little understanding even those receiving the eye-watering fees to teach “Masters in Public Policy” have of the way government operates. (If you want an example, look up “policy cycle” in a textbook on government where you will find a hamster wheel schematic and text describing how, apparently, government is run by hamster bureaucrats scuttling round it.)…
This is a one-eyed interpretation:- At its most extreme, a former Chief Executive of MSD commanded “no problems without solutions” so only problems that had already been solved could be presented to senior managers…
…Ministers very rarely talk to people at the front line. Their decisions are largely informed by meetings with people at the upper end of the hierarchy who are equally ignorant of what is happening where services are delivered.
This article can be republished under a Creative CommonsCC BY-ND 4.0license. Attributions should include a link to the Democracy Project. With Bryce Edwards involvement.
The worms will live in every hostIt's hard to pick which one they eat the mostThe horrible people, the horrible peopleIt's as anatomic as the size of your steepleCapitalism has made it this wayOld-fashioned fascism will take it awaySongwriter: Twiggy Ramirez Read more ...
Hi,It’s almost Christmas Day which means it is almost my birthday, where you will find me whimpering in the corner clutching a warm bottle of Baileys.If you’re out of ideas for presents (and truly desperate) then it is possible to gift a full Webworm subscription to a friend (or enemy) ...
This morning’s six standouts for me at 6.30am include:Rachel Helyer Donaldson’s scoop via RNZ last night of cuts to maternity jobs in the health system;Maddy Croad’s scoop via The Press-$ this morning on funding cuts for Christchurch’s biggest food rescue charity;Benedict Collins’ scoop last night via 1News on a last-minute ...
A listing of 25 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, December 15, 2024 thru Sat, December 21, 2024. Based on feedback we received, this week's roundup is the first one published soleley by category. We are still interested in ...
Well, I've been there, sitting in that same chairWhispering that same prayer half a million timesIt's a lie, though buried in disciplesOne page of the Bible isn't worth a lifeThere's nothing wrong with youIt's true, it's trueThere's something wrong with the villageWith the villageSomething wrong with the villageSongwriters: Andrew Jackson ...
ACT would like to dictate what universities can and can’t say. We knew it was coming. It was outlined in the coalition agreement and has become part of Seymour’s strategy of “emphasising public funding” to prevent people from opposing him and his views—something he also uses to try and de-platform ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park from the Gigafact team in collaboration with members from our team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Are we heading ...
So the Solstice has arrived – Summer in this part of the world, Winter for the Northern Hemisphere. And with it, the publication my new Norse dark-fantasy piece, As Our Power Lessens at Eternal Haunted Summer: https://eternalhauntedsummer.com/issues/winter-solstice-2024/as-our-power-lessens/ As previously noted, this one is very ‘wyrd’, and Northern Theory of Courage. ...
The Natural Choice: As a starter for ten percent of the Party Vote, “saving the planet” is a very respectable objective. Young voters, in particular, raised on the dire (if unheeded) warnings of climate scientists, and the irrefutable evidence of devastating weather events linked to global warming, vote Green. After ...
The Government cancelled 60% of Kāinga Ora’s new builds next year, even though the land for them was already bought, the consents were consented and there are builders unemployed all over the place. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāMōrena. Long stories short, the six things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political ...
Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on UnsplashEvery morning I get up at 3am to go around the traps of news sites in Aotearoa and globally. I pick out the top ones from my point of view and have been putting them into my Dawn Chorus email, which goes out with a podcast. ...
Over on Kikorangi Newsroom's Marc Daalder has published his annual OIA stats. So I thought I'd do mine: 82 OIA requests sent in 2024 7 posts based on those requests 20 average working days to receive a response Ministry of Justice was my most-requested entity, ...
Welcome to the December 2024 Economic Bulletin. We have two monthly features in this edition. In the first, we discuss what the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update from Treasury and the Budget Policy Statement from the Minister of Finance tell us about the fiscal position and what to ...
The NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi have submitted against the controversial Treaty Principles Bill, slamming the Bill as a breach of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and an attack on tino rangatiratanga and the collective rights of Tangata Whenua. “This Bill seeks to legislate for Te Tiriti o Waitangi principles that are ...
I don't knowHow to say what's got to be saidI don't know if it's black or whiteThere's others see it redI don't get the answers rightI'll leave that to youIs this love out of fashionOr is it the time of yearAre these words distraction?To the words you want to hearSongwriters: ...
Our economy has experienced its worst recession since 1991. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāMōrena. Long stories short, the six things that matter in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Friday, December 20 in The Kākā’s Dawn Chorus podcast above and the daily Pick ‘n’ Mix below ...
Twas the Friday before Christmas and all through the week we’ve been collecting stories for our final roundup of the year. As we start to wind down for the year we hope you all have a safe and happy Christmas and new year. If you’re travelling please be safe on ...
The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night features co-hosts & talking about the year’s news with: on climate. Her book of the year was Tim Winton’s cli-fi novel Juice and she also mentioned Mike Joy’s memoir The Fight for Fresh Water. ...
The Government can head off to the holidays, entitled to assure itself that it has done more or less what it said it would do. The campaign last year promised to “get New Zealand back on track.” When you look at the basic promises—to trim back Government expenditure, toughen up ...
Open access notables An intensification of surface Earth’s energy imbalance since the late 20th century, Li et al., Communications Earth & Environment:Tracking the energy balance of the Earth system is a key method for studying the contribution of human activities to climate change. However, accurately estimating the surface energy balance ...
Photo by Mauricio Fanfa on UnsplashKia oraCome and join us for our weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm today.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream for our chat about the week’s news with myself , plus regular guests and , ...
“Like you said, I’m an unreconstructed socialist. Everybody deserves to get something for Christmas.”“ONE OF THOSE had better be for me!” Hannah grinned, fascinated, as Laurie made his way, gingerly, to the bar, his arms full of gift-wrapped packages.“Of course!”, beamed Laurie. Depositing his armful on the bar-top and selecting ...
Data released by Statistics New Zealand today showed a significant slowdown in the economy over the past six months, with GDP falling by 1% in September, and 1.1% in June said CTU Economist Craig Renney. “The data shows that the size of the economy in GDP terms is now smaller ...
One last thing before I quitI never wanted any moreThan I could fit into my headI still remember every single word you saidAnd all the shit that somehow came along with itStill, there's one thing that comforts meSince I was always caged and now I'm freeSongwriters: David Grohl / Georg ...
Sparse offerings outside a Te Kauwhata church. Meanwhile, the Government is cutting spending in ways that make thousands of hungry children even hungrier, while also cutting funding for the charities that help them. It’s also doing that while winding back new building of affordable housing that would allow parents to ...
It is difficult to make sense of the Luxon Coalition Government’s economic management.This end-of-year review about the state of economic management – the state of the economy was last week – is not going to cover the National Party contribution. Frankly, like every other careful observer, I cannot make up ...
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Remember those silent movies where the heroine is tied to the railway tracks or going over the waterfall in a barrel? Finance Minister Nicola Willis seems intent on portraying herself as that damsel in distress. According to Willis, this country’s current economic problems have all been caused by the spending ...
Similar to the cuts and the austerity drive imposed by Ruth Richardson in the 1990’s, an era which to all intents and purposes we’ve largely fiddled around the edges with fixing in the time since – over, to be fair, several administrations – whilst trying our best it seems to ...
String-Pulling in the Dark: For the democratic process to be meaningful it must also be public. WITH TRUST AND CONFIDENCE in New Zealand’s politicians and journalists steadily declining, restoring those virtues poses a daunting challenge. Just how daunting is made clear by comparing the way politicians and journalists treated New Zealanders ...
Dear Nicola Willis, thank you for letting us know in so many words that the swingeing austerity hasn't worked.By in so many words I mean the bit where you said, Here is a sea of red ink in which we are drowning after twelve months of savage cost cutting and ...
The Open Government Partnership is a multilateral organisation committed to advancing open government. Countries which join are supposed to co-create regular action plans with civil society, committing to making verifiable improvements in transparency, accountability, participation, or technology and innovation for the above. And they're held to account through an Independent ...
Today I tuned into something strange: a press conference that didn’t make my stomach churn or the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Which was strange, because it was about the torture of children. It was the announcement by Erica Stanford — on her own, unusually ...
This is a must watch, and puts on brilliant and practical display the implications and mechanics of fast-track law corruption and weakness.CLICK HERE: LINK TO WATCH VIDEOOur news media as it is set up is simply not equipped to deal with the brazen disinformation and corruption under this right wing ...
NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi Acting Secretary Erin Polaczuk is welcoming the announcement from Minister of Workplace Relations and Safety Brooke van Velden that she is opening consultation on engineered stone and is calling on her to listen to the evidence and implement a total ban of the product. “We need ...
The Government has announced a 1.5% increase in the minimum wage from 1 April 2025, well below forecast inflation of 2.5%. Unions have reacted strongly and denounced it as a real terms cut. PSA and the CTU are opposing a new round of staff cuts at WorkSafe, which they say ...
The decision to unilaterally repudiate the contract for new Cook Strait ferries is beginning to look like one of the stupidest decisions a New Zealand government ever made. While cancelling the ferries and their associated port infrastructure may have made this year's books look good, it means higher costs later, ...
Hi there! I’ve been overseas recently, looking after a situation with a family member. So apologies if there any less than focused posts! Vanuatu has just had a significant 7.3 earthquake. Two MFAT staff are unaccounted for with local fatalities.It’s always sad to hear of such things happening.I think of ...
Today is a special member's morning, scheduled to make up for the government's theft of member's days throughout the year. First up was the first reading of Greg Fleming's Crimes (Increased Penalties for Slavery Offences) Amendment Bill, which was passed unanimously. Currently the House is debating the third reading of ...
We're going backwardsIgnoring the realitiesGoing backwardsAre you counting all the casualties?We are not there yetWhere we need to beWe are still in debtTo our insanitiesSongwriter: Martin Gore Read more ...
Willis blamed Treasury for changing its productivity assumptions and Labour’s spending increases since Covid for the worsening Budget outlook. Photo: Getty ImagesMōrena. Long stories short, the six things that matter in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Wednesday, December 18 in The Kākā’s Dawn Chorus podcast above ...
Today the Auckland Transport board meet for the last time this year. For those interested (and with time to spare), you can follow along via this MS Teams link from 10am. I’ve taken a quick look through the agenda items to see what I think the most interesting aspects are. ...
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Probably about the only consolation available from yesterday’s unveiling of the Half-Yearly Economic and Fiscal Update (HYEFU) is that it could have been worse. Though Finance Minister Nicola Willis has tightened the screws on future government spending, she has resisted the calls from hard-line academics, fiscal purists and fiscal hawks ...
The right have a stupid saying that is only occasionally true:When is democracy not democracy? When it hasn’t been voted on.While not true in regards to branches of government such as the judiciary, it’s a philosophy that probably should apply to recently-elected local government councillors. Nevertheless, this concept seemed to ...
Long story short: the Government’s austerity policy has driven the economy into a deeper and longer recession that means it will have to borrow $20 billion more over the next four years than it expected just six months ago. Treasury’s latest forecasts show the National-ACT-NZ First Government’s fiscal strategy of ...
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In 1998, in the wake of the Paremoremo Prison riot, the Department of Corrections established the "Behaviour Management Regime". Prisoners were locked in their cells for 22 or 23 hours a day, with no fresh air, no exercise, no social contact, no entertainment, and in some cases no clothes and ...
New data released by the Treasury shows that the economic policies of this Government have made things worse in the year since they took office, said NZCTU Economist Craig Renney. “Our fiscal indicators are all heading in the wrong direction – with higher levels of debt, a higher deficit, and ...
At the 2023 election, National basically ran on a platform of being better economic managers. So how'd that turn out for us? In just one year, they've fucked us for two full political terms: The government's books are set to remain deeply in the red for the near term ...
AUSTERITYText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedMy spreadsheet insists This pain leads straight to glory (File not found) Read more ...
The NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi are saying that the Government should do the right thing and deliver minimum wage increases that don’t see workers fall further behind, in response to today’s announcement that the minimum wage will only be increased by 1.5%, well short of forecast inflation. “With inflation forecast ...
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This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Bob HensonIn this aerial view, fingers of meltwater flow from the melting Isunnguata Sermia glacier descending from the Greenland Ice Sheet on July 11, 2024, near Kangerlussuaq, Greenland. According to the Programme for Monitoring of the Greenland Ice Sheet (PROMICE), the ...
In August, I wrote an article about David Seymour1 with a video of his testimony, to warn that there were grave dangers to his Ministry of Regulation:David Seymour's Ministry of Slush Hides Far Greater RisksWhy Seymour's exorbitant waste of taxpayers' money could be the least of concernThe money for Seymour ...
Willis is expected to have to reveal the bitter fiscal fruits of her austerity strategy in the HYEFU later today. Photo: Lynn Grieveson/TheKakaMōrena. Long stories short, the six things that matter in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Tuesday, December 17 in The Kākā’s Dawn Chorus podcast ...
On Friday the government announced it would double the number of toll roads in New Zealand as well as make a few other changes to how toll roads are used in the country. The real issue though is not that tolling is being used but the suggestion it will make ...
The Prime Minister yesterday engaged in what looked like a pre-emptive strike designed to counter what is likely to be a series of depressing economic statistics expected before the end of the week. He opened his weekly post-Cabinet press conference with a recitation of the Government’s achievements. “It certainly has ...
This whooping cough story from south Auckland is a good example of the coalition government’s approach to social need – spend money on urging people to get vaccinated but only after you’ve cut the funding to where they could get vaccinated. This has been the case all year with public ...
And if there is a GodI know he likes to rockHe likes his loud guitarsHis spiders from MarsAnd if there is a GodI know he's watching meHe likes what he seesBut there's trouble on the breezeSongwriter: William Patrick Corgan Read more ...
Here’s a quick round up of today’s political news:1. MORE FOOD BANKS, CHARITIES, DOMESTIC VIOLENCE SHELTERS AND YOUTH SOCIAL SERVICES SET TO CLOSE OR SCALE BACK AROUND THE COUNTRY AS GOVT CUTS FUNDINGSome of Auckland's largest foodbanks are warning they may need to close or significantly reduce food parcels after ...
Iain Rennie, CNZMSecretary and Chief Executive to the TreasuryDear Secretary, Undue restrictions on restricted briefings This week, the Treasury barred representatives from four organisations, including the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions Te Kauae Kaimahi, from attending the restricted briefing for the Half-Year Economic and Fiscal Update. We had been ...
This is a guest post by Tim Adriaansen, a community, climate, and accessibility advocate.I won’t shut up about climate breakdown, and whenever possible I try to shift the focus of a climate conversation towards solutions. But you’ll almost never hear me give more than a passing nod to ...
A grassroots backlash has forced a backdown from Brown, but he is still eyeing up plenty of tolls for other new roads. And the pressure is on Willis to ramp up the Government’s austerity strategy. Photo: Getty ImagesMōrena. Long stories short, the six things that matter in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
Hi all,I'm pretty overwhelmed by all your messages and emails today; thank you so very much.As much as my newsletter this morning was about money, and we all need to earn money, it was mostly about world domination if I'm honest. 😉I really hate what’s happening to our country, and ...
A listing of 23 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, December 8, 2024 thru Sat, December 14, 2024. Listing by Category Like last week's summary this one contains the list of articles twice: based on categories and based on ...
I started writing this morning about Hobson’s Pledge, examining the claims they and their supporters make, basically ripping into them. But I kept getting notifications coming through, and not good ones.Each time I looked up, there was another un-subscription message, and I felt a bit sicker at the thought of ...
Once, long before there was Harry and Meghan and Dodi and all those episodes of The Crown, they came to spend some time with us, Charles and Diana. Was there anyone in the world more glamorous than the Princess of Wales?Dazzled as everyone was by their company, the leader of ...
The collective right have a problem.The entire foundation for their world view is antiscientific. Their preferred economic strategies have been disproven. Their whole neoliberal model faces accusations of corporate corruption and worsening inequality. Climate change not only definitely exists, its rapid progression demands an immediate and expensive response in order ...
Just ten days ago, South Korea's president attempted a self-coup, declaring martial law and attempting to have opposition MPs murdered or arrested in an effort to seize unconstrained power. The attempt was rapidly defeated by the national assembly voting it down and the people flooding the streets to defend democracy. ...
National has only been in power for a year, but everywhere you look, its choices are taking New Zealand a long way backwards. In no particular order, here are the National Government's Top 50 Greatest Misses of its first year in power. ...
The Government is quietly undertaking consultation on the dangerous Regulatory Standards Bill over the Christmas period to avoid too much attention. ...
The Government’s planned changes to the freedom of speech obligations of universities is little more than a front for stoking the political fires of disinformation and fear, placing teachers and students in the crosshairs. ...
The Ministry of Regulation’s report into Early Childhood Education (ECE) in Aotearoa raises serious concerns about the possibility of lowering qualification requirements, undermining quality and risking worse outcomes for tamariki, whānau, and kaiako. ...
A Bill to modernise the role of Justices of the Peace (JP), ensuring they remain active in their communities and connected with other JPs, has been put into the ballot. ...
Labour will continue to fight unsustainable and destructive projects that are able to leap-frog environment protection under National’s Fast-track Approvals Bill. ...
The Green Party has warned that a Green Government will revoke the consents of companies who override environmental protections as part of Fast-Track legislation being passed today. ...
The Green Party says the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update shows how the Government is failing to address the massive social and infrastructure deficits our country faces. ...
The Government’s latest move to reduce the earnings of migrant workers will not only hurt migrants but it will drive down the wages of Kiwi workers. ...
Te Pāti Māori has this morning issued a stern warning to Fast-Track applicants with interests in mining, pledging to hold them accountable through retrospective liability and to immediately revoke Fast-Track consents under a future Te Pāti Māori government. This warning comes ahead of today’s third reading of the Fast-Track Approvals ...
The Government’s announcement today of a 1.5 per cent increase to minimum wage is another blow for workers, with inflation projected to exceed the increase, meaning it’s a real terms pay reduction for many. ...
All the Government has achieved from its announcement today is to continue to push responsibility back on councils for its own lack of action to help bring down skyrocketing rates. ...
The Government has used its final post-Cabinet press conference of the year to punch down on local government without offering any credible solutions to the issues our councils are facing. ...
The Government has failed to keep its promise to ‘super charge’ the EV network, delivering just 292 chargers - less than half of the 670 chargers needed to meet its target. ...
The Green Party is calling for the Government to stop subsidising the largest user of the country’s gas supplies, Methanex, following a report highlighting the multi-national’s disproportionate influence on energy prices in Aotearoa. ...
The Green Party is appalled with the Government’s new child poverty targets that are based on a new ‘persistent poverty’ measure that could be met even with an increase in child poverty. ...
New independent analysis has revealed that the Government’s Emissions Reduction Plan (ERP) will reduce emissions by a measly 1 per cent by 2030, failing to set us up for the future and meeting upcoming targets. ...
The loss of 27 kaimahi at Whakaata Māori and the end of its daily news bulletin is a sad day for Māori media and another step backwards for Te Tiriti o Waitangi justice. ...
Yesterday the Government passed cruel legislation through first reading to establish a new beneficiary sanction regime that will ultimately mean more households cannot afford the basic essentials. ...
Today's passing of the Government's Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill–which allows landlords to end tenancies with no reason–ignores the voice of the people and leaves renters in limbo ahead of the festive season. ...
After wasting a year, Nicola Willis has delivered a worse deal for the Cook Strait ferries that will end up being more expensive and take longer to arrive. ...
Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick has today launched a Member’s Bill to sanction Israel for its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, as the All Out For Gaza rally reaches Parliament. ...
After years of advocacy, the Green Party is very happy to hear the Government has listened to our collective voices and announced the closure of the greyhound racing industry, by 1 August 2026. ...
In response to a new report from ERO, the Government has acknowledged the urgent need for consistency across the curriculum for Relationship and Sexuality Education (RSE) in schools. ...
The Green Party is appalled at the Government introducing legislation that will make it easier to penalise workers fighting for better pay and conditions. ...
Thank you for the invitation to speak with you tonight on behalf of the political party I belong to - which is New Zealand First. As we have heard before this evening the Kinleith Mill is proposing to reduce operations by focusing on pulp and discontinuing “lossmaking paper production”. They say that they are currently consulting on the plan to permanently shut ...
Auckland Central MP, Chlöe Swarbrick, has written to Mayor Wayne Brown requesting he stop the unnecessary delays on St James Theatre’s restoration. ...
Kiwis planning a swim or heading out on a boat this summer should remember to stop and think about water safety, Sport & Recreation Minister Chris Bishop and ACC and Associate Transport Minister Matt Doocey say. “New Zealand’s beaches, lakes and rivers are some of the most beautiful in the ...
The Government is urging Kiwis to drive safely this summer and reminding motorists that Police will be out in force to enforce the road rules, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“This time of year can be stressful and result in poor decision-making on our roads. Whether you are travelling to see ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says Health New Zealand will move swiftly to support dozens of internationally-trained doctors already in New Zealand on their journey to employment here, after a tripling of sought-after examination places. “The Medical Council has delivered great news for hardworking overseas doctors who want to contribute ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has appointed Sarah Ottrey to the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC). “At my first APEC Summit in Lima, I experienced firsthand the role that ABAC plays in guaranteeing political leaders hear the voice of business,” Mr Luxon says. “New Zealand’s ABAC representatives are very well respected and ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has announced four appointments to New Zealand’s intelligence oversight functions. The Honourable Robert Dobson KC has been appointed Chief Commissioner of Intelligence Warrants, and the Honourable Brendan Brown KC has been appointed as a Commissioner of Intelligence Warrants. The appointments of Hon Robert Dobson and Hon ...
Improvements in the average time it takes to process survey and title applications means housing developments can progress more quickly, Minister for Land Information Chris Penk says. “The government is resolutely focused on improving the building and construction pipeline,” Mr Penk says. “Applications to issue titles and subdivide land are ...
The Government’s measures to reduce airport wait times, and better transparency around flight disruptions is delivering encouraging early results for passengers ahead of the busy summer period, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Improving the efficiency of air travel is a priority for the Government to give passengers a smoother, more reliable ...
The Government today announced the intended closure of the Apollo Hotel as Contracted Emergency Housing (CEH) in Rotorua, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. This follows a 30 per cent reduction in the number of households in CEH in Rotorua since National came into Government. “Our focus is on ending CEH in the Whakarewarewa area starting ...
The Government will reshape vocational education and training to return decision making to regions and enable greater industry input into work-based learning Tertiary Education and Skills Minister, Penny Simmonds says. “The redesigned system will better meet the needs of learners, industry, and the economy. It includes re-establishing regional polytechnics that ...
The Government is taking action to better manage synthetic refrigerants and reduce emissions caused by greenhouse gases found in heating and cooling products, Environment Minister Penny Simmonds says. “Regulations will be drafted to support a product stewardship scheme for synthetic refrigerants, Ms. Simmonds says. “Synthetic refrigerants are found in a ...
People travelling on State Highway 1 north of Hamilton will be relieved that remedial works and safety improvements on the Ngāruawāhia section of the Waikato Expressway were finished today, with all lanes now open to traffic, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“I would like to acknowledge the patience of road users ...
Tertiary Education and Skills Minister, Penny Simmonds, has announced a new appointment to the board of Education New Zealand (ENZ). Dr Erik Lithander has been appointed as a new member of the ENZ board for a three-year term until 30 January 2028. “I would like to welcome Dr Erik Lithander to the ...
The Government will have senior representatives at Waitangi Day events around the country, including at the Waitangi Treaty Grounds, but next year Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has chosen to take part in celebrations elsewhere. “It has always been my intention to celebrate Waitangi Day around the country with different ...
Two more criminal gangs will be subject to the raft of laws passed by the Coalition Government that give Police more powers to disrupt gang activity, and the intimidation they impose in our communities, Police Minister Mark Mitchell says. Following an Order passed by Cabinet, from 3 February 2025 the ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Justice Christian Whata as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Whata’s appointment as a Judge of the Court of Appeal will take effect on 1 August 2025 and fill a vacancy created by the retirement of Hon Justice David Goddard on ...
The latest economic figures highlight the importance of the steps the Government has taken to restore respect for taxpayers’ money and drive economic growth, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. Data released today by Stats NZ shows Gross Domestic Product fell 1 per cent in the September quarter. “Treasury and most ...
Tertiary Education and Skills Minister Penny Simmonds and Associate Minister of Education David Seymour today announced legislation changes to strengthen freedom of speech obligations on universities. “Freedom of speech is fundamental to the concept of academic freedom and there is concern that universities seem to be taking a more risk-averse ...
Police Minister, Mark Mitchell, and Internal Affairs Minister, Brooke van Velden, today launched a further Public Safety Network cellular service that alongside last year’s Cellular Roaming roll-out, puts globally-leading cellular communications capability into the hands of our emergency responders. The Public Safety Network’s new Cellular Priority service means Police, Wellington ...
State Highway 1 through the Mangamuka Gorge has officially reopened today, providing a critical link for Northlanders and offering much-needed relief ahead of the busy summer period, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“The Mangamuka Gorge is a vital route for Northland, carrying around 1,300 vehicles per day and connecting the Far ...
The Government has welcomed decisions by the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) and Ashburton District Council confirming funding to boost resilience in the Canterbury region, with construction on a second Ashburton Bridge expected to begin in 2026, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Delivering a second Ashburton Bridge to improve resilience and ...
The Government is backing the response into high pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in Otago, Biosecurity Minister Andrew Hoggard says. “Cabinet has approved new funding of $20 million to enable MPI to meet unbudgeted ongoing expenses associated with the H7N6 response including rigorous scientific testing of samples at the enhanced PC3 ...
Legislation that will repeal all advertising restrictions for broadcasters on Sundays and public holidays has passed through first reading in Parliament today, Media Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “As a growing share of audiences get their news and entertainment from streaming services, these restrictions have become increasingly redundant. New Zealand on ...
Today the House agreed to Brendan Horsley being appointed Inspector-General of Defence, Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Mr Horsley’s experience will be invaluable in overseeing the establishment of the new office and its support networks. “He is currently Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, having held that role since June 2020. ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government has agreed to the final regulations for the levy on insurance contracts that will fund Fire and Emergency New Zealand from July 2026. “Earlier this year the Government agreed to a 2.2 percent increase to the rate of levy. Fire ...
The Government is delivering regulatory relief for New Zealand businesses through changes to the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act. “The Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Amendment Bill, which was introduced today, is the second Bill – the other being the Statutes Amendment Bill - that ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed further progress on the Hawke’s Bay Expressway Road of National Significance (RoNS), with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) Board approving funding for the detailed design of Stage 1, paving the way for main works construction to begin in late 2025.“The Government is moving at ...
The Government today released a request for information (RFI) to seeking interest in partnerships to plant trees on Crown-owned land with low farming and conservation value (excluding National Parks) Forestry Minister Todd McClay announced. “Planting trees on Crown-owned land will drive economic growth by creating more forestry jobs in our regions, providing more wood ...
Court timeliness, access to justice, and improving the quality of existing regulation are the focus of a series of law changes introduced to Parliament today by Associate Minister of Justice Nicole McKee. The three Bills in the Regulatory Systems (Justice) Amendment Bill package each improve a different part of the ...
A total of 41 appointments and reappointments have been made to the 12 community trusts around New Zealand that serve their regions, Associate Finance Minister Shane Jones says. “These trusts, and the communities they serve from the Far North to the deep south, will benefit from the rich experience, knowledge, ...
The Government has confirmed how it will provide redress to survivors who were tortured at the Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital Child and Adolescent Unit (the Lake Alice Unit). “The Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care found that many of the 362 children who went through the Lake Alice Unit between 1972 and ...
It has been a busy, productive year in the House as the coalition Government works hard to get New Zealand back on track, Leader of the House Chris Bishop says. “This Government promised to rebuild the economy, restore law and order and reduce the cost of living. Our record this ...
“Accelerated silicosis is an emerging occupational disease caused by unsafe work such as engineered stone benchtops. I am running a standalone consultation on engineered stone to understand what the industry is currently doing to manage the risks, and whether further regulatory intervention is needed,” says Workplace Relations and Safety Minister ...
Mehemea he pai mō te tangata, mahia – if it’s good for the people, get on with it. Enhanced reporting on the public sector’s delivery of Treaty settlement commitments will help improve outcomes for Māori and all New Zealanders, Māori Crown Relations Minister Tama Potaka says. Compiled together for the ...
Mr Roger Holmes Miller and Ms Tarita Hutchinson have been appointed to the Charities Registration Board, Community and Voluntary Sector Minister Louise Upston says. “I would like to welcome the new members joining the Charities Registration Board. “The appointment of Ms Hutchinson and Mr Miller will strengthen the Board’s capacity ...
More building consent and code compliance applications are being processed within the statutory timeframe since the Government required councils to submit quarterly data, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “In the midst of a housing shortage we need to look at every step of the build process for efficiencies ...
Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey is proud to announce the first three recipients of the Government’s $10 million Mental Health and Addiction Community Sector Innovation Fund which will enable more Kiwis faster access to mental health and addiction support. “This fund is part of the Government’s commitment to investing in ...
New Zealand is providing Vanuatu assistance following yesterday's devastating earthquake, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. "Vanuatu is a member of our Pacific family and we are supporting it in this time of acute need," Mr Peters says. "Our thoughts are with the people of Vanuatu, and we will be ...
The Government welcomes the Commerce Commission’s plan to reduce card fees for Kiwis by an estimated $260 million a year, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says.“The Government is relentlessly focused on reducing the cost of living, so Kiwis can keep more of their hard-earned income and live a ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour has welcomed the Early Childhood Education (ECE) regulatory review report, the first major report from the Ministry for Regulation. The report makes 15 recommendations to modernise and simplify regulations across ECE so services can get on with what they do best – providing safe, high-quality care ...
The Government‘s Offshore Renewable Energy Bill to create a new regulatory regime that will enable firms to construct offshore wind generation has passed its first reading in Parliament, Energy Minister Simeon Brown says.“New Zealand currently does not have a regulatory regime for offshore renewable energy as the previous government failed ...
By Emma Andrews, Henare te Ua Māori Journalism Intern at RNZ News The New Zealand fuel company Z Energy is swapping out street names for “correct” kupu on service stops around the country, with the help of local hapū. When Z took over 226 fuel sites from Shell in 2010, ...
Summer reissue: Was it a false measurement, a full-blown conspiracy or just some mild incompetence? Mad Chapman uncovers the truth of Maddi Wesche’s final throw. The Spinoff needs to double the number of paying members we have to continue telling these kinds of stories. Please read our open letter and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julie Old, Associate Professor, Biology, Zoology, Animal Science, Western Sydney University Dmitry Chulov, Shutterstock At this time of year, images of reindeer are everywhere. I’ve had a soft spot for reindeer ever since I was a little girl. Doesn’t everyone? ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Grozdana Manalo, Career Services Manager (Education), University of Sydney hedgehog94/Shutterstock Getting casual work over summer, or a part-time job that you might continue once your tertiary course starts, can be a great way to get workplace experience and earn some extra ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ty Ferguson, Research associate in exercise, nutrition and activity, University of South Australia Peera_Stockfoto/Shutterstock It’s never been easier to stay connected to work. Even when we’re on leave, our phones and laptops keep us tethered. Many of us promise ourselves we ...
The NZ Media Council upheld the complaint under principle four: comment and fact On 5 September 2024, The Spinoff published a brief article titled Made in Palestine, found in 1970s Hastings, which highlighted an upcoming art exhibition featuring photographs of vintage cosmetic products labelled “Made in Palestine.” The piece, described ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kasey Symons, Lecturer of Communication, Sports Media, Deakin University We are well and truly in cricket season. The Australian men’s cricket team is taking centre stage against India in the Border Gavaskar Trophy series while the Big Bash League is underway, as ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Woods, Lecturer, Nursing, Faculty of Health, Southern Cross University FTiare/Shutterstock Summer is here and for many that means going to the beach. You grab your swimmers, beach towel and sunscreen then maybe check the weather forecast. Did you think to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Saman Khalesi, Senior Lecturer and Discipline Lead in Nutrition, School of Health, Medical and Applied Sciences, CQUniversity Australia Dean Clarke/Shutterstock The holiday season can be a time of joy, celebration, and indulgence in delicious foods and meals. However, for many, it ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ari Mattes, Lecturer in Communications and Media, University of Notre Dame Australia Late Night With The Devil. Maslow Entertainment Marketing is critical to the success of commercial films, and companies will often spend half as much again on top of the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Francisco Jose Testa, Lecturer in Earth Sciences (Mineralogy, Petrology & Geochemistry), University of Tasmania The Conversation As a kid, it was tough for me to grasp the massive time scale of Earth’s history. Now, with nearly two decades of experience as ...
Te Pāti Māori has had to adopt a new way of debating, operating and even thinking in Parliament in response to the Government’s “onslaught” against te ao Māori, co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer says.In an end-of-year interview with Newsroom, the Te Tai Hauauru MP reflected on how 2024 has differed from her ...
Opinion: The latest Trends in International Mathematics and Science report was announced earlier this month, yet it didn’t get the flurry of media attention and political hand-wringing that typically accompanies these announcements. This might be because it presented good news, or you could argue, no news; the results paint a ...
NewsroomBy Dr Lisa Darragh, Dr Raewyn Eden and Dr David Pomeroy
At long last, The Spinoff shells out for a nut ranking. The Spinoff needs to double the number of paying members we have to continue telling these kinds of stories. Please read our open letter and sign up to be a member today.It recently came to The Spinoff’s attention ...
I was one of hundreds of people who lost my government job this week. Here’s exactly how it played out. The Spinoff needs to double the number of paying members we have to continue telling these kinds of stories. Please read our open letter and sign up to be a ...
Summer reissue: One anxiously attentive passenger pays attention to an in-flight safety video, and wonders ‘Why can’t I pick up my own phone?’ The Spinoff needs to double the number of paying members we have to continue telling these kinds of stories. Please read our open letter and sign up ...
Summer reissue: Why do those Lange-Douglas years cast such a long shadow 40 years on? The Spinoff needs to double the number of paying members we have to continue telling these kinds of stories. Please read our open letter and sign up to be a member today. First published June ...
Loading…(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k<ql.length;k++){ql[k].id='quiz-embed-'+k;ql[k].href="javascript:var i=document.getElementById('quiz-embed-"+k+"');try{qz.startQuiz(i)}catch(e){i.start=1;i.style.cursor='wait';i.style.opacity='0.5'};void(0);"}}};i['QP']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)})(window,document,'script','https://take.quiz-maker.com/3012/CDN/quiz-embed-v1.js','qp');Got a good quiz question?Send Newsroom your questions.The post Newsroom daily quiz, Monday 23 December appeared first on Newsroom. ...
The Government’s social housing agency has backed out of a billion-dollar infrastructure alliance that would have built about 6000 new homes in Auckland – less than 18 months after signing a five-year extension.Labour says the decision to rip up the contract and sell off existing state houses could lead to ...
An unrelenting faith in “swift transition” has driven Tauranga Whai to their first Tauihi Basketball Aotearoa championship. At a boisterous Queen Elizabeth Youth Centre, the visiting Tokomanawa Queens were blown away 90-71 in the final.Whai led by 20 points at halftime as their urgent movement and unflinching faith in three-point shooting from anywhere ...
ByKoroi Hawkins, RNZ Pacific editor New Zealand’s Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) says impending bad weather for Port Vila is now the most significant post-quake hazard. A tropical low in the Coral Sea is expected to move into Vanuatu waters, bringing heavy rainfall. Authorities have issued warnings to people ...
Cosmic CatastropheThe year draws to a close.King Luxon has grown tired of the long eveningsListening to the dreary squabbling of his Triumvirate.He strolls up to the top floor of the PalaceTo consult with his Astronomer Royal.The Royal Telescope scans the skies,And King Luxon stares up into the heavensFrom the terrestrial ...
Spinoff editor Mad Chapman and books editor Claire Mabey debate Carl Shuker’s new novel about… an editor. Claire: Hello Mad, you just finished The Royal Free – overall impressions? Mad: Hi Claire, I literally just put the book down and I would have to say my immediate impression is ...
Christmas and its buildup are often lonely, hard and full of unreasonable expectations. Here’s how to make it to Jesus’s birthday and find the little bit of joy we all deserve. Have you found this year relentless? Has the latest Apple update “fucked up your life”? Have you lost two ...
Despite overwhelming public and corporate support, the government has stalled progress on a modern day slavery law. That puts us behind other countries – and makes Christmas a time of tragedy rather than joy, argues Shanti Mathias. Picture the scene on Christmas Day. Everyone replete with nice things to eat, ...
Asia Pacific Report “It looks like Hiroshima. It looks like Germany at the end of World War Two,” says an Israeli-American historian and professor of holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University about the horrifying reality of Gaza. Professor Omer Bartov, has described Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza as an ...
The New Zealand government coalition is tweaking university regulations to curb what it says is an increasingly “risk-averse approach” to free speech. The proposed changes will set clear expectations on how universities should approach freedom of speech issues. Each university will then have to adopt a “freedom of speech statement” ...
Report by Dr David Robie – Café Pacific. – COMMENTARY: By Caitlin Johnstone New York prosecutors have charged Luigi Mangione with “murder as an act of terrorism” in his alleged shooting of health insurance CEO Brian Thompson earlier this month. This news comes out at the same time as ...
Pacific Media Watch The union for Australian journalists has welcomed the delivery by the federal government of more than $150 million to support the sustainability of public interest journalism over the next four years. Combined with the announcement of the revamped News Bargaining Initiative, this could result in up to ...
Piracy is a reality of modern life – but copyright law has struggled to play catch-up for as long as the entertainment industry has existed. As far back as 1988, the House of Lords criticised copyright law’s conflict with the reality of human behaviour in the context of burning cassette ...
MONDAY“Merry Xmas, and praise the Lord,” said Sheriff Luxon, and smiled for the camera. There was a flash of smoke when the shutter pressed down on the magnesium powder. The sheriff had arranged for a photographer from the Dodge Gazette to attend a ceremony where he handed out food parcels to ...
It’s a little under two months since the White Ferns shocked the cricketing world, deservedly taking home the T20 World Cup. Since then the trophy has had a tour around the country, five of the squad have played in the WBBL in Australia while most others have returned to domestic ...
Former White House political adviser & Trump campaign chief Steve Bannon is federally charged with defrauding a charity that raised money to build a wall along the border with Mexico: https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/ny-trump-bannon-wall-showboating-20200820-qi2xm3pfkbb7dbno4optwzsmfe-story.html
Competitive showboating from the hired help was always gonna piss off the chief showboater, eh?
But hey, it's in the spirit of free enterprise! Why not crowd-source funding for lots of different teams of builders doing different sections? If you hire Mexicans to do that, you can even claim Mexico built the wall as predicted. The Don ain't thinking clearly.
All the right wing nutjobs chooks are coming home to roost.
Putin poisoning
Trumps tax returns
Steve Bannon another Trump sycophantic far right nutjob.
One branch of government independent of POTUS and his Senate GOP flinkies, is still operating.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/world/2020/08/donald-trump-s-bid-to-keep-tax-returns-private-denied-by-judge.html
Only partially, after 3 1/2 years of appointments on criteria that don't include merit.
No POTUS serves long enough to seriously impact the courts.
There may be an exception to that rule if Trump gets a second term to appoint two more to the Supreme Court, there are two aging Democrat appointments (and part of the reason is the GOP blocking Garland and thus launching an uncivil war).
You don't reckon 2 Supremes (and a third if RBG doesn't hang in there) isn't a serious impact? Let alone "Moscow Mitch" rushing through the enormous backlog of vacancies he'd built up through refusing to do his constitutional duty and progress any Obama appointments? Basically it's not one terms worth of impact, it'll be damn near two and a half terms worth of impact by January next year.
He only got one of those two appointees because Garland was blocked, which was indicative of the GOP itself launching an uncivil war (bigger than Trump himself) on women and beyond that – enabling Red States to hindering access to voting rights of minorities.
Don't forget the family connection through Justice Kennedy's son at Deutsche Bank …
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/anthony-kennedy-son-loaned-president-trump-over-a-billion-dollars-2018-6?r=US&IR=T
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2018/jul/10/blog-posting/did-justice-kennedy-quit-due-family-ties-trump-and/
Politifact did conclude the claim to be false.
But the circumstances of Gorsuch for Garland and then Kavanaugh for Kennedy are quite unusual.
The claim that Politifact ruled false was " Justice Kennedy quit because he and his son helped Trump launder illegal Russian money through Deutsche Bank. ". The Politifact research confirmed a clear connection to large loans overseen by Kennedy's son at Deutsche Bank.
Sure between 1998 and 2009, when junior left the bank, they were a major lender to the Trump business.
But that's surely not the reason/no reason for Justice Kennedy to move on in 2018.
On its own, no. But it quite likely opened the door to the kind of weaseling detailed here:
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/06/donald-trump-justice-anthony-kennedy-retirement
Nothing Trump would not do himself.
https://www.npr.org/2019/11/07/777287610/judge-says-trump-must-pay-2-million-over-misuse-of-foundation-funds
https://news.yahoo.com/trump-distances-himself-bannon-arrest-160404305.html
Unusually perceptive of Donald Trump Jr, that.
Does that mean that Bannon and co ripped off the MAGA crowd, because they would have been the ones most likely to donate towards the wall?
The irony lololz
They're easy marks.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/06/republican-small-donors-easy-to-swindle-grifters.html
Unfortunately so are a lot of anti-Drumpfers
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/07/scott-dworkin-resistance/
… and fans of other grifters way too popular among convergence moonbats (including some here) …
https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/article210775574.html
Cheers for the links Andre much appreciated. I guess when it comes to capitalising on political parties there's greedy people everywhere.
Next week will be a stunner, with agent orange's mate from the US Postal Service having to explain to congress. And, the repug's convention which dodgy bannon is supposed to be speaking at.
I really like the Mother Jones site, btw. Thanks again.
Banonon and Trump the kluless klutz klan
Seymour is making stuff up on RNZ about quarantine .
A big gap in breaking in, other guests being safe and the guest sticking to the strict rule of staying isolated is too big a risk.
Seymour's idea of isolating in BnBs is just stupid. His only method of control is that people have GPS on their phones and so they can be seen if they leave – ROTL – people can just leave their phones behind if they want to go out for a while.
But the bigger problem is that people only get noticed after they break-out which is already too late. We need people to not break-out at all.
It's about delivering tenants and profits to the Air BnB landlord class he cares more about than the rest of us.
I've read that some country is using BNBs overseas. So of course – overseas! – we can do that too. That's where most right-wing policy comes from. They are too tight-fisted and narrow-minded to put money into funding our own people to be informed, professional about systems, and serve NZ's interests in a timely and effective way.
The air bnb idea is bonkers! Why do they think that we have bought the army into these facilities. How many very stupid people have attempted to break out now/????? How many people have attempted to break in???????
the biggest question of it all, who will do a deep clean of said BnB site if one has a positive test? The people running the Air BnB and will that be checked over by the government?
edit: will they have to have a lisence, will they be checked up by the council staff like lisenced food premises? will they have to pay yearly registration fees, will they have to provide the same safeguards as hotels i.e. evac plan, house maintenance on site etc etc etc?
Keep him talking – the more of this he spouts, the more votes he'll lose.
agree stuart . media attention on act is a good thing. really shows there foolishness . looking forward to act having 5 or so m.p.s after election. seymour will spend most of his time putting out fires. his dancing prowess could really be a plus.
And he gets away with it because its not illegal to lie. Immoral, yes. Illegal, no.
Convicted credit card and share scam fraudster, Damien Grant, is having trouble passing a good character test. His application to operate as an insolvency practitioner has twice been rejected by his peers.
There's no specific detail on what grounds. Is it the 30 month prison sentence he received in the 90s? Having run an insolvency business for 15 years now (without going to prison) this historic conviction would likely have little bearing on a good character test today, were he of good character today…
So the new regulatory body, RITANZ, must see something else very wrong with Damien Grant. God knows, the rest of us do.
Could it just be that he's an arsehole?
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/300087802/26yearold-convictions-could-end-insolvency-practitioner-damien-grants-career
That's quite the image they've used where he's making a strong run at Nigel Farage for the title of "World's Most Punchable Face".
He has done himself no favours with these comments
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/businessman-took-wage-subsidy-despite-believing-company-would-survive-without-wont-pay-back
He had a fair chance of winning in court before that point. It's so I'll do what I want current behaviour character.
A man won a case before the Supreme Court 3-2, of being accepted as a lawyer. – despite a historic drink driving conviction record
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12357153
It's to be hoped it is that as it shows an intention to bend rules as he chooses that in cases of evasion & fraud don't fit with that role, there are basic rules of behaviour not dissimilar to those of law enforcement or Justice of the Peace
Yep. I don't buy the line from Susan Edmunds that his application was rejected twice because of his convictions.
It seems clear he simply fails the good character test now.
Well, I'm not one for much buying into big organisational conspiracy theories, but…
Insolvency practitioners are the very definition of vulture capitalists. I doubt there's many people in that industry that most of us would consider "of good character".
Licensing and professional bodies are quite often used as an underhanded means of restricting access to a trade or profession, and thereby keeping prices high for those services.
So, adding A plus B, I find it plausible that this may be a case of other RITANZ members looking to feather their own nests by turfing out someone that's taking a chunk of their lunches.
Or maybe he really is such an asshole that's he's unfit to work in the industry. (That's saying something!!!!)
Ah, the old Who watches the watchers problem.
Farrar watch: David subscribes to your theory, @Andre.
Unlucky.
That Farrar subscribes to an idea isn't proof that it's wrong, it's merely a strong indication. So it could still be valid.
Or maybe Grant is a big enough asshole … come to think of it, both those things can be true at the same time.
Farrar reckons it's because Grant undercuts and the rest don't like it. I think that is bullshit, but undercutting in an industry is a good way for everyone to get a worse product so I'd not be surprised if they have an issue with it.
One of Farrar's commenters made the important point that if you want to deal with other people's money you'd better not have been proven to have acted fraudulently with it in the past.
SPC made another good point above that Grant's recent statements on the wage subsidy point towards unethical behaviour both from himself and from some of his 'clients'.
What I want to know is why the hell did someone like this get a to write columns for the Herald or wherever he was published????
And all indications are that he will always do so as he simply doesn't have good character:
And, as SPC points out, he almost inevitably chooses to do the wrong thing.
Regular Stuff columnist. Says it all really.
[Fixed typo is user name]
so he's on strike two of the act law that he obviously supports . be a damn shame if he got caught up in someone elses phuckup, and got that third strike…..
Was Pootee's poisoning team just a bit bored and wanted something to do? A training exercise to keep their hand in? A new poison they wanted to check out?
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53844958
Another Trump close aide heading to prison.
Rydges Auckland is a weird place. It's a very cramped hotel. When you go in there you feel like you are very close to other people.
On Putin Poison.
What crap,. Mr 0.1 percent. No danger to Putin at all. Blown up by the West media as the main opposition leader, only in the immagination of the West. Navalny earlier announced that he would close his Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) after a series of scandals around its activities and a criminal probe into the suspected laundering of around 1 billion roubles ($15.3 million), obtained by the foundation via criminal means. Hardly an opposition leader at all when the second most popular party is the Russian Communist Party, Navalny's wannabe party is the equivalent of ACT, FA chance of winning an election and no threat to any of the many political parties in Russia, so why bother trying to bump off a non starter like him (a Yale fellow), sounds more likely a CIA job in the vain hope of regime change and to point the finger. If any party could bring down the Totalitarian regime of Putin it would be the Communists.
Ok, it's lockdown so a glimpse down the rabbit-hole might be some entertainment. So I'm curious what sources you use to come to those opinions. Mind linking?
In a kleptothug totalitarian state, do you think there might still be some benefit in having an officially tolerated puppet opposition? Y'know, to create a facade for suckers to buy into?
D'you reckon a totalitarian thug might still find some usefulness in having his apparatus hokey up charges to create a facade of due process, rather than just nakedly do whatever he wants? Y'know, for suckers to buy into?
If any party could bring down the Totalitarian regime of Putin it would be the Communists.
Projection, much? Putin's running a kleptocracy, it's in no sense totalitarian. The Communists, however…
Pooters would never trump up charges against an enemy. Guy prolly poisoned himself just to make Pooters look bad.
This may have been posted already…
Jonathon Pie, getting things off his chest.
Issues that I struggle to convey, done with passion and conviction, acres of hyperbole too.
Who's the Shirley he's ranting at?
It takes acres of hyperbole to get through the shroud hanging over reasonable speech that can be used in discussion. I could put a big comment about 'woke' superior authoritarianism and control but there are more important things to discuss, and it will be the same going forward till the end of the century or as long as we are given by the planet to try to rise above our inertia.
Jonathan Pie is great at expressing the feelings of progressives who can't because of blockades of some sort.
I don't think he said Shirley. I think it was 'surely', slightly squeezed. But I found something about a Dame Shirley, what an amazing woman.
..Having experienced sexism in her workplace, "being fondled, being pushed against the wall", she wanted to create job opportunities for women with dependents, and predominantly employed women, with only three male programmers in the first 300 staff, until the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 made that practice illegal.
She also adopted the name "Steve" to help her in the male-dominated business world, given that company letters signed using her real name were not responded to…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Shirley
What do Kiwiblog commenters think of National's border plan? Not a lot, on the whole. This character got to post this, unchallenged, which says a lot on a blog where anyone other than a Farrar sycophant routinely gets blanked-out or piled-upon.
ObligatoryMarxist
[Re-formatted and used block-quotes to make it easier to see quoted text – Incognito]
Morning Robert,
When quoting a word or even part of a sentence, quotation marks work well, usually. However, when quoting a longer piece of text, the quotation marks tend to get lost and it can become unclear what is quoted and what’s not, although not in this particular case. In that case, it might help to use block quotes. I’ve re-formatted your comment to show you what I mean.
Elegant work, Incognito!
I could not have done it without you!
Well..
https://twitter.com/KiwiCraig74/status/1295545249922613251
Inter National rescue blunderbirds are go
Who's pulling the strings?
ROFL, I can't wait to show mum that one re muldoon/judith, she's going to laugh so hard. Much respect to the creator of the graphic tooo funny !!!
Is that Col Mul?
An excellent graphic indication of Nationals alternative border control.
History shows their previous Civil Emergengy Response strategies were outright failures.
Probably why they don't use them as examples of thier competency today.
Gerry is the Janos Slynt of border protection.
poor thing…..when the grift is good and you get so sloppy that you get indicted and even your bosses biggest cheerleaders might see the need to throw you quickly under a passing bus to save bossman
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/08/it-doesnt-look-good-for-him-fox-news-analyst-explains-why-steve-bannon-is-facing-20-years-in-jail/
and dad then throws the Jr. under the bus too, cause why not – its not as if he has any value to dear dad.
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/08/trump-says-hes-sad-about-steve-bannons-indictment-but-never-liked-the-project-his-son-endorsed/
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/08/trump-directed-homeland-security-to-give-400-million-to-firm-tied-to-bannons-we-build-the-wall-scheme-report/
could not add this to the comment above, but yeah, a shit is a shit is a shit, no matter how much gold dust was added to make it sparkly.
The trump family, their enablers, their voters, and all those that still believe that the other option was worse are nothing more then gold dusted shit.
https://www.rotarynewmarket.org.nz/Stories/professor-des-gorman
Des Gorman Posted on May 18, 2020
So you can see why he is a regular on Hosking Speak Radio.
The right wing black swan event coup programme now supposedly has top academics calling for an independent group to take over governments pandemic response.
It appears he is acting in concert with Murray Horn – former Treasury Secretary, former head of Business Roundtable, and Chair of a Chinese Bank's New Zealand subsidiary.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12357866
If you want to know what Murray Horn's politics are
He believes that for a government to realise anything in the long term, they need to make it institutional in such a way a future government cannot undo. He was in Treasury in the 1984-90 period and was Sec 1993-1998.
Hood, C. (1998). Book Review: Murray Horn, The Political Economy of Public Administration: Institutional Choice in the Public Sector (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. ix, 263,
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/003231879804900216?journalCode=pnzb
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12357866
Not much of a vote of confidence in Murray Horn then – who had a lot of involement in National's Health performance.
The Health System Funding Review was led by Dr Murray Horn 2015
https://www.health.govt.nz/about-ministry/what-we-do/new-zealand-health-strategy-update/funding-review
Ministerial Review Group (MRG), chaired by Mr. Murray. Horn 2009
https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/new-nhb-board-chair-appointed
Spectacular own goal.
there is Des Gorman's own role in the crippled health system.
He worked with Horn (2009-2014) on the National Health Board.
Executive Chairman of Health Workforce New Zealand (2009-2019)
He's still involved with the Ministry of Health’s Capital Investment Committee.
As for their role in the crisis down in Canterbury
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/417225/board-chair-says-dhb-was-forced-to-choose-cheaper-building-option
Being right wing means that you never have to say sorry (or admit your hand in any failure of the past).
Nice one. Saw the clickbait in granny and immediately wondered which nactiods are behind the latest distraction.
Thanks for that.
Yeah nah fuck off, the current team is world class & prove that everyday.
Very interesting SPC – 11. It helps to lift the mask and peer under to see who is that under there, and where his past experience has been that seemed right to get him/her to their present prominence.
Transparency International always said we were honest and I thought good, but then I found out that they just asked people in the business and professional classes what they thought and if bribes were used. We have our own unique ways that only a place with a separation of three? can knit together! It is just a carousel and when you get on it, you can retreat from one place and pop up further along. It takes an eagle eye and a strong arm to pull the bigwig off the beltway.
FFS we have one of the best Covid responses in the world and Gorman and co want to change it?????? In the middle of the bloody pandemic?
I am pretty certain that every health professional (or nearly every health professional) in NZ will think this letter in the NZ Medical Journal is utter shite. They will know that very few colleagues have contracted Covid and none have died from it, unlike the majority of countries in the world. They will know that mostly their colleagues don't go to work terrified of what they will face, even if they are not working in the front line.
I hope health professionals find the time to respond to this disgraceful letter and show it the utter contempt it deserves. I really hope NZders can still see the incredibly great position we are in with the virus. Even if the border testing had of been rolled out the situation would not have been too much, if any different than what we have already. I.e nurse contracts covid at the border, one week shes tested and its picked up. It is already likely to have made it into the community…………..The latest cases were picked up extremely early. You can always tell whether its out there by hospital numbers. Approx one in 5 will need hospital treatment.
I am sick to death of the hysterical commentary around the border testing…..it was being implemented. These are very complex systems that are being implemented on the fly as the situation is happening now.
We are in extremely good hands with Labour, Bloomfield and many if not all of the nameless staff who everyday go to work in risky situations to keep us safe………
And lastly if Gorman et al and other complainers don't like the response here, piss off to somewhere else please.
You can't expect Gormless not to make a play for all that lovely money the government is borrowing now can you.
edit
This from the Guardian April 2020.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/06/nhs-doctors-lacking-ppe-bullied-into-treating-covid-19-patients
This from nz stuff Aug.19/20
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/122492980/coronavirus-frontline-health-works-treated-like-cannon-fodder-gp-says
White had also bought his own personal protection equipment from a hardware store after receiving an email on Tuesday from WellSouth, the region’s primary health organisation. The email said he would have to source his own, rather than ordering through the district health board (DHB) stockpile.
The email reads: “The current advice is that while we are in level 2, practices need to exhaust their commercial avenues of supply before accessing the DHB’s pandemic supplies”.
In April, White had made his own improvised face shield from laminating pouches and cable ties because adequate PPE was unavailable.
I don't like the sound of this. If anyone is out there with some agency can they improve on this toot sweet.
I wonder if this matter is under the control of this experienced medical man. /sarc
Practice Network Director: Paul Rowe leads our organisation’s practice support team and is responsible for managing our day to day relationship with general practices. This includes improving our performance against health targets and implementing projects such as Health Care Homes, National Enrollment Service, Patient Experience Survey and Foundation Standards.
Paul was appointed Practice Network Director in August 2016 and has been at WellSouth in a variety of roles since 2013. Prior to working at WellSouth Paul worked at consultants Ernst & Young in Auckland and at Jones Lang LaSalle and Deutsche Bank in London.
Paul holds a Bachelor of Business Studies in economics from Massey University and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Studies and Maori Studies from the University of Auckland.
https://wellsouth.nz/community/about-us/senior-management-team/</i>
That is a mighty weight of people meeting and sucking up finances, their is presumably meeting costs, transport etc even if not fees or salary. Yet this large entity with so much input from all points of the compass can't look after the GPs and others on the front line as a Primary Concern in the Primary Healthcare
IndustryRoundabout.No wonder there isn't enough money to adequately treat citizens. Now is the time for change and some sharp changes to a few permanent employees under direct control of the Finance Director at the DHB perhaps. I don't know but something needs to be done. Let private enterprise at government services and you get as topheavy with people as before, only being paid more probably, with better-designed offices that are fully ergonomic and fung shei'd perhaps?
Yep. They're not making a profit from it so it obviously needs to be changed so that they can.
and to those that still want to peddle the mis'truth about kids not getting covid, or getting ill from it, or dying from it. Well i guess we could call it a blatant mis'truth to add some gusto to the term.
This little one was nine years old and according to the article it took her four month to die after her covid infection.
https://www.wcpo.com/news/local-news/butler-county/middletown/middletown-girl-9-diagnosed-with-coronavirus-has-died
I had someone tell me that the death rate is too small for them to care about Covid. I asked her what she thought about those that survived and chances are will live with severe health issues for the rest of their life. Personally i believe that that is actually the bigger issue of covid, not that it kills some of hte population quickly, but that one can be infected again and again and the illness will take a year or three to finish the job.
But yes, dear Virginia, kids get it, and they die of it.
For the parents to need to raise money to off set medical bills for the care of the 9 year old this needs to change. This article touched my heart.
Go Fund me, Health Care US stylez.
One of the more level-headed politicians we’ve had over the last while calls for a longer term perspective than just dealing with the virus.
Hopefully with the extra time before the election we start to see analysis on what the various parties are proposing, and have that publicly debated, instead of just short term thinking of 1 or 2 years ahead.
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/election-delay-gives-us-time-to-talk-long-term-plans?utm_source=Friends+of+the+Newsroom&utm_campaign=0d31de6b20-Daily+Briefing+21.8.20&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_71de5c4b35-0d31de6b20-97881763
It's Peter Dunne (Chess Player's post should have carried a warning and it's interesting to note that he/she didn't name that politician).
Ah, thank you. Saved me some time.
Me too
Ah, Mr Common Sense. Meh.
Dunne was never one for that in politics – having developed policy to advocate for would have got in the way of forming coalitions with National or Labour. Thus bland and middling muddled – bureaucrat speak cooomonsense jargon.
It was always left to those to the left and to the right to debate policy stuff.
Politician are held to account by the people who put them there every 3 yrs.
Govts who do a good job get longer but know they can't rest on their laurels!
FFS we have one of the best Covid responses in the world and Gorman and co want to change it?????? In the middle of the bloody pandemic?
I am pretty certain that every health professional (or nearly every health professional) in NZ will think this letter in the NZ Medical Journal is utter shite. They will know that very few colleagues have contracted Covid and none have died from it, unlike the majority of countries in the world. They will know that mostly their colleagues don't go to work terrified of what they will face, even if they are not working in the front line.
I hope health professionals find the time to respond to this disgraceful letter and show it the utter contempt it deserves. I really hope NZders can still see the incredibly great position we are in with the virus. Even if the border testing had of been rolled out the situation would not have been too much, if any different than what we have already. I.e nurse contracts covid at the border, one week shes tested and its picked up. It is already likely to have made it into the community…………..The latest cases were picked up extremely early. You can always tell whether its out there by hospital numbers. Approx one in 5 will need hospital treatment.
I am sick to death of the hysterical commentary around the border testing…..it was being implemented. These are very complex systems that are being implemented on the fly as the situation is happening now.
We are in extremely good hands with Labour, Bloomfield and many if not all of the nameless staff who everyday go to work in risky situations to keep us safe………
And lastly if Gorman et al and other complainers don't like the response here, piss off to somewhere else please.
This comment is in reference to AB’s article on suicide rates coming down….oh gosh that is encouraging……….I do hope it is a trend, not just a blip………..Some 30 lives or so not lost.
Bloody Seymour was scaremongering about suicides in Queenstown. The man is an arsehole
So deconstructing Collins border policy. Her stance is that operational health decisions in the face of a fast moving dynamic pandemic should be made at general elections.
What could possibly go wrong!
The Bulletin: National changes philosophy behind border policy
https://thespinoff.co.nz/the-bulletin/21-08-2020/the-bulletin-national-changes-philosophy-behind-border-policy/
[Re-formatted with block-quotes – Incognito]
Looks like Collins is reaching out to Winston's supporters to stop bleeding votes.
Global warming update: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/20/greenland-ice-sheet-lost-a-record-1m-tonnes-of-ice-per-minute-in-2019
Hard to imagine, this reality in which every minute of last year, on average a million tonnes of ice from the Greenland ice-cap melted and headed for the ocean.
So hard to imagine, this reality, that Labour is campaigning on the basis of business as usual. Imagining a causal relation between the economy and climate change is too hard! Perhaps some kid like Greta Thunberg will have to explain it to them…
I thought it was National that intended to go back on some of the stuff Labour had done so far, and interests associated with that party that lobbied hard against radical change in the short term.
And some of the restraint on Labour came from requiring NZF to be in the coalition.
What I'm not seeing is open, direct & forthright acknowledgment from any party other the Greens that business as usual is untenable.
How many disasters have to hit the other-party dorks simultaneously to trigger it?? Many of us were exploring the progressive options onsite here last summer after the pandemic hit. I don't believe we're a different class of human – a class above politicians. I can't see why they feel unable to do likewise.
Nelson City Council was thinking of getting out of it's present large and apparently strong building, and go further along at the same level, on what was formerly swamp land, and on a tidal river fairly close to the sea and build an expensive building there. But a report from a firm that is pretty reliable suggested that it would be good for many decades. Yes, but, we are caught by unprecedented climate changes so some reckons must come in, mustn't they?
Well it seems that they did and the Council will stay where it is but be done up and gloomy prognostications abound as to that costing up to $32 million or something. I don't know all about it yet. To keep sane one has to not get too close to the maelstrom of ideas, warring countries and politicians, and bright young things seeing tech as the answer to all human and tech problems, provided you look at them with an old-fashioned Camera Obscura.
Climate change is proof that our economic system is uneconomic and, for the majority of people, that will be hard to swallow. For the economists and politicians its even harder as they've based their entire careers and life on it.
As the saying goes: Its difficult to get a person to understand something when their job depends upon them not understanding it.
A drunk 16 year old, an Eilat hotel, 30 men and the pretty legal defence.
One positive, coalition partners Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz agree on something – charge them all.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-53851825
The issue of sexual consent and not while and with those who are drunk
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/maimonides
I think it was Peter Sellers that had the answer to coping with sexual interplay of the young – separate them with a crowbar.
sexual interplay?
intoxicated 16 year old on whom 30 men run a train?
you have a funny idea about 'sexual interplay'.
edit
I was being ironic. I hadn't read the whole thing. But it isn't new, far too common. And I have just read Mr Pip. So am feeling a bit drained. That one builds up some ennui isn't surprising unless it's you Sabine and others, always with extra outrage for the latest disaster. It would bring me out in psoriasis or at least exczema? – I don't know how you keep so sharp.
Suicide drops to a three-year low though it's not a particularly large drop and there's no evidence that it can be attributed to any particular single cause. So just some cautious observations.
It appears that the predictions we heard back in March and April about the adverse mental health effects of lockdowns were not accurate and were deliberately exaggerated for political and economic purposes (i.e. an attempt to limit the severity of lockdowns).
There are certain characteristics of the pandemic world that may have some positive effect on mental health:
It could be that our habit of tinkering with the structure of mental health service delivery is much less effective than changing deeper ideological and economic factors.
AB Working from home produces mental stresses and further isolates 'screenies' – ie those whose eyes are fixed to devices. Separate them with a crowbar?
More than likely. Of course, then the right-wing will come out with the belittling term of social engineering. Which, of course, would be exactly what it would be but they would also be ignoring all their own social engineering that they do when in power. All the beneficiary bashing and their sale of state assets to the wealthy to make them wealthier increasing inequality and other socially disastrous policies.
Their preference for opening the borders during a pandemic would also be social engineering as it would cause massive social displacement as the number of dead ramped up.
TRUMP again
yesterday nz recorded a MASSIVE outbreak of 6
we only had 46000 cases
if we had the massive outbreak like nz we would have 360 new cases
see how well we are doing
To be fair to Dementia Donnie, the US only had 1260 deaths yesterday, which is only around four per million. He might not be very clear on why that's not better than having 6 cases in a population of 5 million.
to be fair they only counted 1260 death then they stopped.
Someone else must have been counting. Tangerine Tantrump can't count past 1.
the hospitals are no longer reporting the death to the CDC but directly to some person at the white house. So no one has any idea what really happens and what not, other then there are a lot of refrigerated trucks stationed outside hospitals in Texas, Florida, Missoury, Georgia etc.
So like russia and china i would take the information with a lot of salt thrown over the shoulder.
https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/white-house-hospitals-bypass-cdc-report-covid-19-data-directly-hhs
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/us/politics/trump-cdc-coronavirus.html
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/07/15/891351706/white-house-strips-cdc-of-data-collection-role-for-covid-19-hospitalizations
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/coronavirus-deaths/
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-8518593/Florida-coronavirus-infections-eight-countries.html
it depends on who counts not on who votes or fills out the forms. I think Stalin said something to this extend.
They were trying to juke the stats from long before they got as blatant as cutting the CDC out of the reporting chain.
In the end, the best and most useful estimate is going to come from excess deaths data, because it will also include otherwise-preventable deaths that occurred due to the health system being overwhelmed. That's going to somewhat harder to spin.
The excess deaths were 200,000 when the total was 160,000.
Our deaths were lower than for the year before.
Including fewer suicides than usual. Which is what the RWNJ Nostradumbasses were saying were going to skyrocket in lockdown.
No that is something that i have said as well, not just right wing nuts, unless i know qualify as rightwing nut.
Depression is on the rise, goes hand in hand with job loss, loss of income, no sense of stability and the dawning realisation that we have no longer any control of our live until we have a. gotten rid of the virus, b. have a working vaccine for all the strains currently running rampant and any of the future ones.
We are now 5 month in in what can and probably will a pandemic for another 15 month at the very least (globally). I am not the only one that says that either. So i really would not consider today as the hallmark of the future.
The worst of this covid mess is yet to come, and i am neither a negative person, nor a pessimist, but i don't subscribe to hope that shit will get better soon as a future prediction. Reality and a proper risk assessment suits me better.
with our death rate falling, and 3000 kiwis per week coming home, it will be interesting to see the population figures. all of those returnees need a house and a car. maybe thats one of the reasons that the economy HASNT hit the skids like many experts predicted-hoped. anecdotal evidence , new and second hand car sales very strong, house sales and prices have continued to rise, and builders in my provincial area still very busy.
We still have more outgoers than incomers. Even if they were on limited visa's they likely rented accommodation so the total number of people we are accommodating will be falling slowly
but yes incomers may be buying more than renting. ditto cars.
disagree redbaron. more people flying into the country than flying out.many of the P.I. seasonal fruit pickers in nelson area have chosen to stay and send a few dollars back to their islands ,rather than go home to ?
With this being the third rant by Trump about our situation in as many days, does he know something or expect something to happen here that we are unaware of. Surely he wouldn't know the source of the currently unidentifiable strain!
He doesn't know anything. He truly is a literal know-nothing.
He's just consumed by the idea that the only reason we might have had to achieve elimination was to make him look bad. So now we don't currently have elimination status, he's trying to puff it up so he doesn't look bad anymore, and to rub it in to us for making him look bad.
He's going to be pissed when we achieve elimination again, which he thinks we're only trying to do to make him look bad again, of course. The idea of doing it for the well-being of our citizens simply doesn't enter his universe.
Is Trump rubbishing NZ because both the US and NZ are having an election?
If so Trump might be saying no one can eliminate Covid so vote for me and he does not feel so insecure.
He says what he says because it's what makes him feel better in the moment.
In this case, he's trying to slam a put-down on something (our covid response) that has been widely cited as something that's been done much better than what he's done. He's trying to belittle us to feel better about himself. Any effect that might have on his re-election prospects is a secondary consideration, if it even enters his impulse of the moment at all.
I doubt he knows we've got an election coming up, and I'm very certain he doesn't care.
To be fair to Dementia Donnie, the US only had 1260 deaths yesterday…
For those like me who struggle with comparing US figures to NZ, that's the equivalent of 19 people of dying of Covid-19 in NZ yesterday.
Left wing fascism is a thing too (apparently).
I can't help but wonder if Trumps ridiculous references to NZ aren't helping Labour's chances right now. What he is saying is absurd in the extreme, but sometimes that helps people get perspective. Also helps feel a bit patriotic re NZs efforts. against the virus compared to US. BTW I regularly check the worldometer for covid stats and NZ case numbers continue to drop down c/p to others. I think currently was are 138.
The worldometer is good for keeping up.
He literally makes my head hurt
Simon Bridges "man in the wilderness" wants chocolate fish for noticing lockdown was pretty unlawful.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/08/coronavirus-simon-bridges-had-a-chuckle-after-learning-he-was-right-to-challenge-lockdown-s-legality.html
Why did Bridges get rolled in the first place looks like his days numbered.
Theirs and old saying about Tory MP's being the left overs incompetants who can't do well in the real world they become MP's become mouth piece's in parliament.
When looking at the present line up including Silly Seymour most don't have a clue.
This (link below) is a damning evaluation of the effect of private enterprise on the Covid-19 response in Australia. It focuses on Victoria but could apply to many other places where neoliberalism has taken hold. Perhaps someone should point this article to David Seymour and his bonkers idea of using AirBnBs for quarantine.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/20/the-spread-of-coronavirus-is-not-the-fault-of-individuals-but-a-result-of-neoliberalism
Sir Brian Roche takes Hosking to task.
https://www.facebook.com/gerard.otto/videos/10159015068982033/UzpfSTY2MTA0MjAzMjoxMDE1OTAxNTA2OTkwNzAzMw/
I wouldn't have said Sir Brian Roche took Hosking to task.
Hosking: "Is there too much politics in this?"
Next question: Hosking: "As a New Zealander, just step back from you job for a minute, as a voter what have you observed this week?"
That's just an example of Hosking being unable to seperate politics from anything he wants to be political and he wants to use to political advantage. It's not Roche taking Hosking to task but Hosking taking on the task of making himself out to be pillock. And succeeding.
This one goes out to everyone who still has to travel in each day … where commuting is the only moment you have for daydreaming and processing, which is our vestigal time of utopian meanderings, the reconciliation of the pressure of home and relationships with the history that got you right there at that time …
…Richter is good at meditative pacing that evokes reflective thinking…
Good for slowing down when you're hyped.
I finally went and read the Nact policy document for the border.
Basically it's a damp squib – they intend to set up an agency
"to provide professional coordination and comprehensive management of the potential entry of COVID-19"
so looks like everyone working there is going to get all tooled up and rush into an office to order other government agencies to comply with the policies it sets. "compliance focused". It's also a weird mix of high level policy and basic operational stuff about testing their workers weekly. Indeed it really doesn't specify how they will enforce compliance with their policy for the implementers.
But there is also this – a money grab
"The Agency will be responsible for managing co-payment for the costs of managed isolation"
Now I may be too suspicious but once people are out of the airport I see nothing in the policy that would prevent the letting of privately managed isolation contracts.
Has Judith actually denied that theywill use private contracts for isolation or is this something that is just being generally assumed by the media? Even if she does deny this should we believe the denial? The potential is certainly there to ramp that up.
https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/nationalparty/pages/14711/attachments/original/1597878401/Securing_Our_Border_-_policy_document.pdf?1597878401
They've got some managerial hangers on they want to give jobs to.
or privatisation preparation
Jacinda's response to questions about the trial in Christchurch were elegant and reflective of her real self.
Have the cops investigated running a covid convoy from Northland through Auckland to the south? Line them up every hour, photos of the licence plates and all passengers/ drivers and then with a cop car fore and aft , Lights and a run down the motorway.
Sounds sensible for those needing to move, especially trucks, business. There would be a charge I think, as it is a special deal and the police need to boost their funds for car chasing at night.
Bunker Boy goes birther on Biden!
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-birther-conspiracy-joe-biden-pennsylvania_n_5f3f0e27c5b6305f32555891
Is tRump Dawood Ibrahim Khan and was he born in North Waziristan?
Prob'ly makes more sense than my pet theory he was smuggled out the chocolate factory as the product of miscegenation between an oompa-loompa and Mrs Gloop.
Seeing we are all going tech! And gaming is so big – why don't we make our dear leaders fight their battles out on computers like some high tech chess game. After a battle is over and the horrific outcomes fade into world memories though not of those involved you think was it worth it? For what was achieved.
My fish and chips suppliers are Vietnamese, small brown people with big smiles. I asked them if they were Thai and they replied, No Vietnamese. I said oh, that explains the hard cover book about the Vietnam War over with the magazines. They said Yes, we thought people might look at it and get to know about it. (It doesn't get mentioned much in NZ but sometimes here when one of the vets writes in, and tells how it seems forgotten.)
So let's go high tech and let the aggressives make their moves, after explaining their reasons quite clearly. I've just partially read Mr Pip about a Bougainville violation and found it chilling and yet hopeful. A tale with a twist.
Yeah, and if they don't agree, we should send the military in to make them.
Transmission Gully update.
OMG another reason to remove the layer of MoT from enabling direct Ministerial scrutiny of major projects.
The opening of Transmission Gully will be delayed until September 2021 after settlement negotiations concluded to the tune of $208.5 million.
Don't forget NZTA have already got a $1b loan facility from government to make up for an income deficit from Covid 19. So there's 20% of that gone already.
The 27-kilometre road was meant to be open by April 2020, then it was pushed back to before Christmas this year, and now it's another year away.
It's currently about 85 per cent complete.
NZTA announced the settlement money and new completion date this afternoon, which is solely related to the Covid-19 lockdown period.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12358387
And of course: does not improve public transport, has no cycle lane or footpath, is not tolled, and pushes a great fat jam of congestion into the Hutt Valley.
I don't get what you mean about cycle lanes and footpaths, particularly footpaths, being associated with this project. It's 30km motorway. Who the fuck is walking that and why?
Also not sure what you mean about congestion in the Hutt Valley. If TG has a bearing on Hutt Valley traffic then that is just another issue which needs to be solved regarding the complicated entry points into Wellington.
Transmission Gully was necessary, if not entirely for the benefit of the country as a whole, at least for the region. This concept does not apply to an Otaki to Levin extension which is ridiculous right now.
There will however be a lot of pain before it is operating as imagined with all the flaws fixed.
NZTA should not be building any road highway without cycleways or public transport capacity. SH16 up Auckland's northwestern, and SH20 tunnel in the southwest, shows it can be done. The era of transport assets solely for the privilege of combustion engine use is well due for consigning to the dustbin of history. NZTA is the one remaining direct instrument this government has to direct us away from fossil fuel use, and motorway design is a massive part of what they do.
All it takes is future-proofed multi-modal design – which is not that hard once you direct NZTA's Board, policy specification team, Capital Delivery, and Procurement staff the right way. Especially their Board.
So put it in later if everyone is e-biking from Paekakariki to Parliament twice a day. Somehow I doubt it.
SH16 devices a huge and fast growing population in Auckland’s North-West. Lots of potential bike commuters.
There is literally zero potential for bike traffic along TG.
People thought the same about SH16, 20 years ago. No-one argues for later patch-ups now, not even the AA. The same old resisters within NZTA said the same thing as well.
In 2010 similar people occupied Kiwirail, referring to commuters as 'self-loading freight'. Since then, Auckland rail use has surpassed that of Wellington. And Kiwirail and and NZTA are right now building cycleways along their corridor right into Wellington central. 30 years late, but it's happening.
In Transmission Gully all NZTA have is a mess, and no certainty that even combustion vehicles will use it at an appropriate volume for what we are all now paying for it.
No. The first section of cycle way from Te Atatu to Pt Chevalier was opened on December 6th 1992, nearly 30 years ago and 40 years after the completion of the causeway.
Cycling commuters drove this. There were actual people living in the region, unlike TG.
Proves my point even moreso. Cycling use peaked in the 1970s, then in the 1990s the fightback started such as Sir Bob and Mayor Mills opened up a disconnected mile or so, so cycle use troughed, then built up again along SH16 once we completed the SH16 cycle network in the last decade. You can pop over to Matt at GreaterAuckland and check that.
The same regret will occur over Transmission Gully, as it has over the Wellington network.
A few Wellingtonians have been fighting against cycle lanes over the last five years. They killed off the last Wellington Mayor. Who would have thought Aucklanders would get out of their cars and onto bikes? Same in Wellington. The latest demand is huge.
Thankfully the Government have announced they are putting much stronger oversight over this whole debacle.
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/transmission-gully-double-opening-for-125b-road
It doesn't prove your point at all. You are comparing two completely different pieces of road.
Nope. History is proving you wrong already. Thankfully.
Cycleways are under development on Wellington's coastline now …
https://www.nzta.govt.nz/projects/te-ara-tupua/
… connects to the Hutt City network right across the waterfront and into town…
http://www.huttcity.govt.nz/Your-Council/Projects/cycleways-and-shared-paths/beltway-cycleway/
… and over the other side of the ranges, NZTA is well on the way with the cycle network on the other side…
https://www.nzta.govt.nz/walking-cycling-and-public-transport/cycling/investing-in-cycling/urban-cycleways-programme/wellington-urban-cycleways-programme/kapiti-urban-cycleways-project/
…all the way up to Foxton and beyond.
https://www.horowhenua.govt.nz/Places-Events/Cycle-Tracks-Walking-Trails
Wellington used to be the public transport capital of New Zealand. Now, Auckland, oddly, is getting more cycle connected. But the Wellington region has big transport projects and plenty of good cycle projects. But cyclists in Wellington are getting all lies and resistance and grief.
The justification NZTA gives this is, back in the day, waaaay back in 2008, there was no policy framework for cycling. Nothing to defend or promote it….
https://www.nzta.govt.nz/assets/resources/urban-design/transmission-gully/docs/transmission-gully-technical-report-23-section-2.pdf
… And here we are over a decade later, climate change accelerating, the Transmisison Gully blown out by $800 million and growing, all they are going to deliver in another two years is no connection other than by combustion engine, no effort to connect by any other means.
We all deserved more.
TINA is leading to nightmares in the UK. Neolib isn't working for them any more and they can't find their dummy and their teddy.
Britain is about to be sucked into a catastrophic economic doom loop
Huge state spending is set to trap the UK in a vicious circle of higher taxes and permanently lower growth
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/19/britain-sucked-catastrophic-economic-doom-loop/
Testing seems to be back down to 15k a day. Have any of the briefings looked at some of the factors around this? I would have thought they'd be pushing to test as many people in the geographic area as possible.
Been almost ten days since we raised the levels, in the next few days we'll hopefully see a consistent decline in case numbers.
I'd imagine simple exhaustion among the lab staff might have a bit to do with it. They've been pulling in anyone that might have the skilz – vet lab, university etc – but there's still enough actual work in every test it would be difficult to keep the pace up.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2020/08/covid-19-exhausted-lab-workers-battling-to-keep-up-with-testing-demand.html
Fair call.
Why is Christchurch always on the wrong end of stuff like this?
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/122528271/university-of-canterbury-launches-investigation-into-lecturers-online-comments
It's been much the same for as long as I remember. I wondered if the earthquake might shake up their ultra conservative very insular pretensions but maybe not. Ti me to remove some one’s visa?
Caught a TV programme some years back where the primary school history lesson showed the provincial history as starting with 6 ships arriving from England. Takes a while to move that sort of stuff along
Plus it's always for some reason had the dodgiest of the sex crimes.
Unfortunately for the decent people of Christchurch, that city has had a terrible reputation for intolerance since its birth.
But it looks so orderly, nice, wide straight streets, trees everywhere. Any crime is probably a reaction to all that toffy-nosed pureness.
Fair call.
Hmm. Reply button doesn't seem to work in same window, but open link as new window goes ok.
Firefox 79 on windows.
Twitter, the enemy of debate and suppressor of democracy
https://twitter.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1296525232069578754
David Seymour should be all over this. Chavista's have the right to free speech too.
We should defeat the Maduro regime not with censorship, but with AirBnBs and Charter Schools alone!
I've brought this over from the right to the centre – that is from the feed on the right-hand of the page. Ex Treasury view on government doings re Covid-19. I feel that it is possible that any observations made about government being remote etc could also apply to The Treasury.
And on a quick reading with much being given the thumbs-down I wonder if these boffins divide the work they are responsible for, as much-criticised unions did eg jokes about 'I don't do the spanner work. That's for Fred from the Trade Tools and Waterwheels Union'. How come he can be employed at Treasury to supposedly make things efficient and effective and well-balanced and leave, still happily taking pot-shots at democracy and government in a patronising way. Sounds like a lot of narcissistic hoopla.
Tony Burton has also been Economic Advisor to the UK Dept of Health.
...When I was part of the government machine I was struck by how little understanding even those receiving the eye-watering fees to teach “Masters in Public Policy” have of the way government operates. (If you want an example, look up “policy cycle” in a textbook on government where you will find a hamster wheel schematic and text describing how, apparently, government is run by hamster bureaucrats scuttling round it.)…
This is a one-eyed interpretation:- At its most extreme, a former Chief Executive of MSD commanded “no problems without solutions” so only problems that had already been solved could be presented to senior managers…
…Ministers very rarely talk to people at the front line. Their decisions are largely informed by meetings with people at the upper end of the hierarchy who are equally ignorant of what is happening where services are delivered.
https://democracyproject.nz/2020/08/21/tony-burton-govt-depts-debacle/
This article can be republished under a Creative Commons CC BY-ND 4.0 license. Attributions should include a link to the Democracy Project. With Bryce Edwards involvement.
https://youtu.be/fKopy74weus
https://youtu.be/qQfetkoGrpU
Duncan Garner is a puppet spinning lies about my whanau
Yipee.
A small step in the right direction.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/122520689/calls-heard-for-speed-reduction-at-fatal-intersection
Meanwhile here is a captivating solution for freight on Railway Road.
Restored film from 1902 in Gemany, a flying train.