No I don't think so,Looking at the results from the election at the bottom of each electorate their is a count party informal/candidate informal, it seems if you google that it states invlaid.
Just looking at a couple of electorates from this time around, no the numbers don't look high. An informal vote might be where they haven't voted for a party and/or electorate candidate, or the voting intent was otherwise unclear, such as voting for two candidates or parties.
For instance, in Whangarei 2017, there were 348 informals in the ordinary votes (advance and on the day), this time 504. Sure, that's a lot more than the current winning margin, but the variation from 2017 to 2020 doesn't look suspicious to me.
For the purposes of subsection (2), the following votes must be set aside as informal:
(a) any party votes that do not clearly indicate the party for which the voter desired to vote:
(b) any electorate votes that do not clearly indicate the candidate for whom the voter desired to vote.
For those who remember the 2000 US presidential election and "hanging chads", NZ law gives the Returning Officer some leeway in ascertaining the voter's intention.
Rewrote the election authorisation footer and shoved into the theme functions. Something that I have to dust off every three years. I really need to make that into a plugin – it seems to come around ever faster these days. In this case I was late putting it up and slow to remember to take it down.
I guess it is just that I seem to be ever more busy. I really just need to put in the date of the election. Then the notice can go up on the site automatically at the appropriate number of weeks before, the comments can lock down automatically on the day, and everything can turn off at the correct time.
The site has been running since August 2007 – more than 13 years ago. This was its 5th election.
Oh well – time to shower and get ready for doing a days work, get on the e-bike, avoid the homicidal drivers of cars, and then try to bring some order to code.
Indeed. Especially since today's particular bit of code started life in the 1990s and is on its 4th major iteration. I'm slowly removing some of its inherent 1990s assumptions.
Lots of credit to the three firms in the article. Joined three lots of seasonal work around vineyards into year long permanent job – instead of moaning
Peter Davis has some clear valuable ideas on sorting out the Health system. His final point has merit:
Finally, your support partner. The Green Party has proposed an extension of ACC into the area of illness.
The year 2023 will be the 50th anniversary of ACC, and yet, after half a century, it remains unmodified and fixated on injury. Extending levies beyond injury to other illness-causing commercial activities in the areas of tobacco, alcohol, sugar, saturated fats and other harmful consumption products would not only extend health cover for New Zealanders beyond injury, but also reduce harmful consumption and improve health outcomes such as cancer, obesity, diabetes, particularly for our most vulnerable populations.
I'm glad to see the media are using [Professor] Peter Davis more often. I think he may be retired now but his knowledge and experience in both the health and social policy areas are enormous. He is also a well rounded, down to earth individual – qualities that are lacking in some of our noisier media commentators.
ACC required an overhaul after 3 terms of national as far too many people get ejected with 'pre-existing' conditions, many from DHB ineptitude in initial diagnosis.
Like missing broken bones in feet because only 1 x-ray was deemed required, (hope you got a good radiographer !) then months later, hey presto it's 'pre-existing' so not claimable under ACC.
Many fall between these cracks national opened up which started with their BS scaremongering about the fund back in 2008 being in 'crisis' etc etc
There is mention in the Labour manifesto of investigating inequities in ACC vs health/welfare systems:
As part of the welfare overhaul, Labour will examine
inequities between support through ACC and the
welfare and health system for disabled people and
people with health conditions.
The policy platform also has expanding ACC to include illness. Although that didn't make it into the manifesto this election, it might still be picked up by a new minister.
Side note – both of those items were my policy remits in 2018 which successfully made it into the policy platform, so it's gratifying to see one of the two has made it into the manifesto for further work.
Well it seems Russians … if it is fishing . Funny that, I thought Sealords was half owned by Maori now , who were delighted with that because it would bring work to their people. Should I be confused ?
@Janet I can't find the link but there was a Morning Report interview asking this exact question. The gist of the reply was it takes an awful lot of training to get the qualifications these guys have and will take a very long time to train up NZers.
But yes, we should be confused, given just how long Sealords has been in said ownership.
Sealords are part owned by another company – Japanese. I should think they are managed to the same business practices that other leading fishing companies in NZ are. One Maori fishing company in the early days of quota failed. Sealord Maori business interests would not want this happening to them.
Additionally when there was a program to train Maori to be fisher-people, Sanford management threatened to take them to court for racism or something. No wonder Janet is confused. People don't realise how hard it is for Maori to make their way in the harsh neolib environment.
Established in 1961, in Nelson, Sealord is half owned by the Maori people of New Zealand, through Moana New Zealand (Aotearoa Fisheries Ltd), and half owned by global seafood company Nippon Suisan Kaisha, Ltd (Nissui).
Yes it does take some time to train to be an officer on a fishing vessel, a person has to have enough sea time clocked up as well as having the relevant qualifications.
You're right about that Draco, it sure doesn't take decades.
When I was in the industry, we would regularly contact the fishing school for cadets to come and do a trip. Then if they liked it and the skipper was happy we would offer them a job at the end of their course.
If any employee who worked on our trawlers, wanted to get a ticket, we would bond them for 2 years and pay for the required courses. And when they were studying they would still get their retainer. Sometimes we would even co-ordinate vessel survey or major repair/up grade work to coincide with relevant ticket exams and courses.
It is always valuable to have extra ticket holders onboard a vessel should a crew member need to be airlifted off due to injury v's a massive cost to cease fishing, head to port and pick up another crew member with the correct ticket.
With unticketed crew, like factory crew etc, those were the ones who would do two trips on one trip off,for them it wouldn't take long before they would clock up the necessary sea time to upskill and gain a ticket.
Sealord has been using foreign crew for years decades, rather than up-skilling kiwi's for the same roles.
In the end it's absolutely all about the money for Sealord.
As a past Director of Training for the RNZN I can confirm that it does take a year or two to train up for a Bridge Watchkeeping Ticket, but it is not decades, and most of these new arrivals will not be watchkeeping they are the filleters and gutters engineers cooks and deckhands etc. It doesn't take 200+ watchkeepers to drive a ship. This wholesale importation of labour is an absolute disgrace when we have able bodied unemployed who could easily adapt to the task with a little on-job-training.
The same goes for the bleating I heard this morning WRT the forthcoming harvesting season. Farmers are bleating that there is no one available to drive the headers! FFS! I worked on headers during my university hols for my bro-in-law in what was then (and still is) one of the largest agri contracting businesses in the southern hemisphere. Admittedly, the headers then were not as sophisticated as they are now – but now the task is more about monitoring the on board computers than actual driving. Any reasonably competent person could manage that, with a little guidance and tuition.
The NZ business sector have never wanted to accept the responsibility for training the people they employ, and this lack of investment in personnel is coming back to bite them big time. Its always been far cheaper to hire someone – even from overseas – and not take the time and effort to invest in training – which is why we have such an back log of unemployed. It's about time they were made to face up to their responsibilities in this regard and stop the free loading off others.
The same goes for the bleating I heard this morning WRT
…and most of these new arrivals will not be watchkeeping they are the filleters and gutters engineers cooks and deckhands etc. It doesn't take 200+ watchkeepers to drive a ship.
Thank you Macro. Along with "Bullshit!!!" this is along the lines of what I was yelling at the wireless this morning.
Yet that guy they were interviewing sounded soooo plausible.
Developing the economy costs and, it seems, neither business nor government want to cover those costs. They seem to think that people with no money can pay for them instead and thus produce a profit for shareholders as well.
It's not just the training – you have to get past the racist poms in MSA. I spent half my working life trying to get tickets that folk in Hong Kong could get without hassles by the age of 19.
That NZ doesn't fully staff its fishing fleet with locals is down to corporate and government dysfunction – plenty of keen young kiwis out there, but the companies don't want them, and periodically go broke through incompetence.
NZ has no aquaculture comparable with Australian silver & yellow perch or barramundi either – it's like we're not even trying.
They will never want NZ crew while they have cheaper foreigners on tap. I worked all those 116 hour weeks for nothing – successive governments pissed away my career, and plenty of my former colleagues, having nothing to fall back on, topped themselves.
Corrupt ministers like Fafoi and Nash before him, who rubber stamp the work permits for these slave fishermen, live in infamy.
“It shows that we are serious about the fair treatment of fishing crews, the safety of vessels and New Zealand’s international reputation for ethical and sustainable fishing practices.”
The new law will give government agencies full jurisdiction over areas including employment and labour conditions on fishing vessels.
“It will help ensure fair standards for all fishing crews working in our waters,” Guy said.
The bill was partially opposed by the Maori Party and several iwi, who use FCVs to fish their Treaty of Waitangi quotas.
This was just a PR exercise – the boats are registered in NZ, and, as any lawyer can tell you, thereby subject to NZ law in its entirety. Never enforced of course.
More than likely but the laws are there and we have, supposedly, a government that has some concern for the workers and so they should be looking to enforce it better – especially now that the handbrake has left the building.
We've had a few positions for the boats advertised locally in Nelson/Tasman, but bugger all compared to the volume of crew being flown in. Wonder if they even asked the fishing school if they knew of any potential crew?
I was under the understanding that if vessel is foreign owned (half of Sealord is) and crew is foreign, then NZ employment law does not apply. Would have to double check to be certain.
Pity they didn,t also require all fish caught in NZ waters be processed in NZ too. So we have Russians catching it and Thais and other Asian countries packing it into tins then sending some of it back for us to eat. Once I could not find NZ caught and processed tinned fish I stopped buying it. Some years ago now. These are the kind of practises that are killing NZ, slowly.
Iwi upset why? Was it because NZ waters only applied to those within our 12 mile limit?
New Zealand's territorial sea is the area extending from the coast to the 12 nautical mile limit. However, we have rights and responsibilities for a much larger marine area, extending from 12 to 200 nautical miles from the coast, referred to as the exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
As 'punishments' go, that's both infantile and vindictive. So, business as usual for the IDF then. Between burning olive groves and running interference for rampaging settlers, they're really busy these days.
An 80-year-old retired humanitarian worker and a presbyterian minister have had their homes raided by police over a donation used to purchase personal protective equipment (PPE) in North Korea.
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The GCSB provides world-class intelligence, information assurance, and cyber security services to the New Zealand Government.
We employ New Zealand's top talent and many of our people are recognised as world leaders in their field of expertise. Our team is intelligent, curious and tech-savvy. We find ways to do things better, faster and smarter, and we have fun along the way. We have a strong team spirit, a sense of unity towards a common goal, and huge pride to know we work for a world-class organisation at the heart of national security.
The DPRK Friendship Society are obviously a bunch of idiots. The DPRK are obviously going to be capable of making their own PPE gear and so don't need donations for them.
Not sure we'd want to cut the vacancy rate. They're still at ~60% occupancy, which isn't too bad. Gives wriggle room if they want to standardise business/labour immigration (the russian sailor counter-example notwithstanding).
1 day ago — Hawa Abdi, who has died aged 73, was a pioneering Somali doctor whose one-room clinic grew into a 400-bed hospital; she provided sanctuary to 90,000 …
As it licks its wounds, let’s hope the National Party can still find time to look back with some pride at what it has achieved in Epsom. The Act Party’s nationwide success on Saturday night has been a tribute to National’s foresight, and to its ability to pick winners. Others would have looked at the dying remnants of the old Act Party and written it off. Yet National needed an MMP partner and it saw the potential where no-one else did. And so it re-grew the Act Party in a petri dish in Epsom, and carefully nurtured it back to life…
expect nat strategists to want to do the same with nzfirst. labour strategists should be getting there first. one owner political party, huge potential for growth, all assets for sale.
Among a lot of things that annoy me about importing Russian sailors is that the health conditions for the sailors coming here were obviously not met.
All the sailors that tested positive for covid-19 should be sent home at the end of their quarantine period – there have to be consequences for not following the health protocols or else what's the point.
If not, then all that will happen is that more and more of them will try to get around the rules and that puts all of us at risk.
But is it their fault? Or their recruiting agency?
Seems to me it's the basic flaw in the system that ISTR the nat's wanted for everyone: test before leaving country of origin. 5% positive rate in this batch suggests pre-departure testing is of little value to NZ immigration.
I think the urgency for getting these guys, and the large number of them to be transported quickly and effectively meant that the tourist and returning protocols were too difficult to meet. We can't be dogmatic about this, but the fishing company/s should be paying a large part of the costs involved.
Uh huh. But the government passed the regulations, and in neolib land the gummint mainly serves business interests, and the country pays for the privilege.
Last night (Tuesday,Oct.20/20) about 10 pm – part moon, starry sky, and then from a westerly direction, a line of lights at regular spaces, might have been 20. I ran inside for family and came straight out again but gone. Seemed to be going east-south-east.
You saw one of the Starlink chains.There's more than 800 individual Starlink satellites in orbit now with thousands to come.
They are released in batches. A batch of 60 odd were launched 3 days ago, the 18th launch of 2020. Once released in space they are then unpredictable in where their orbits may eventuate but can be tracked.
SpaceX has permission to launch as many as 12,000 satellites so far but the company has indicated it will see approval to launch as many as 30,000.
This site below tracks the potential path of the visible chains that you saw. So eg. starlink ( chain) 12 has been in a visible orbit this week in parts of NZ.
They're amazing to watch but this Space X tracker site is a bit like a schmoozing, buy-in for the public to make Musk's unregulated space takeover acceptable. He estimates they will bring him $30billion a year once all operational.
Can you see that starving kid under a night sky grateful for Musk's internet to remote regions ?
Co-author of the study, Professor John Boland, at Trinity College in Ireland, told Morning Report the team were surprised by the large quantities found while preparing new bottles of formula using WHO guidelines.
"What we found is you have at least a million microplastics and in fact many trillion nano-plastics actually."
Particle shedding accelerated at higher temperatures, and shaking bottles also increased their release, he said
"But even if you reduce the temperature of the water down to room temperature, it turns out you get at least a hundred thousand or several hundred thousand microplastics."
The return of the Napier-Wairoa line was promised as a saviour for Hawke's Bay and the forestry industry. Now KiwiRail is keeping quiet about when exactly it will restart again.
Following a $6.2 million investment from the provincial growth fund, the line was reopened by the then regional economic development minister Shane Jones in June last year. But logging trains only began running on 26 January 2020.
A week later, and after just six return trips, the trains were brought to a halt. KiwiRail said it shut because of Covid-19's impact on the forestry industry.
Federated Farmers Wairoa branch chairman Allan Newton said some in rural communities were concerned at the taxpayer spending. "When they work out that their hard-earned tax dollars have gone into such a project that has achieved so little at this stage, they are concerned," he said.
One wonders if those farmers even went to primary school. What is spent out of taxation is for the benefit of the country, or should be. This is strategic spending, not gifts to the country from generous farmers. And do they take out insurance? When they don't ever claim, do they ask for their money back? It goes into a pool for the use of others if you don't have a call on it yourself. The rail line is appropriate expenditure for now, and there will be logs to put on it even if there aren't any farmers in that area. That's how things are these days, you have to think in the round, to the future, not in straight lines to your personal pocket now.
I think we have to give signals by raising money from road users, all of us. And the heavy trucks will have a special price on what shows up on their odometers. The payments should be checked against their trips every now and then to prevent the habit of understating which if it starts with one bad apple will be adopted by them all.
"When they work out that their hard-earned tax dollars have gone into such a project that has achieved so little at this stage, they are concerned," he said.
Their hard earned tax dollars had nothing to do with it. Taxes simply don't work that way.
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 27 were:1. The Minister for Ford Rangers strikes againTransport Minister Simeon Brown was again the busiest of the Cabinet ministers this week, announcing an ...
You got a fast carAnd I want a ticket to anywhereMaybe we make a dealMaybe together we can get somewhereAny place is betterYesterday’s newsletter, Trust In Me, on the report of abuse in state care, and by religious organisations, between 1950 and 2019, coupled with the hypocrisy of Christopher Luxon ...
New Zealand is again having to reconcile conflicting pressures from its military and its trade interests. Should we join Pillar Two of AUKUS and risk compromising our markets in China? For a century after New Zealand was founded in 1840, its external security arrangements and external economics arrangements were aligned. ...
The ‘50 Shades of Green’ farmers’ protest in 2019 was heavy on climate change denial, but five years on, scepticism and criticism about the idea that pine forests can save us is growing across the board. File photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in climate ...
This morning the sky was bright.The birds, in their usual joyous bliss. Nature doesn’t seem to feel the heat of what might angst humans.Their calls are clear and beautiful.Just some random thoughts:MāoriPaul Goldsmith has announced his government will roll back the judiciary’s rulings on Māori Customary Marine Title, which recognises ...
In 2003, the Court of Appeal delivered its decision in Ngati Apa v Attorney-General, ruling that Māori customary title over the foreshore and seabed had not been universally extinguished, and that the Māori Land Court could determine claims and confirm title if the facts supported it. This kicked off the ...
Earlier this week at Parliament, Labour leader Chris Hipkins was applauded for saying that the response to the final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care had to be “bigger than politics.” True, but the fine words, apologies and “we hear you” messages will soon ring ...
TL;DR: In news breaking this morning:The Ministry of Education is cutting $2 billion from its school building programme so the National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government has enough money to deliver tax cuts; The Government has quietly lowered its child poverty reduction targets to make them easier to achieve;Te Whatu Ora-Health NZ’s ...
Kia ora. These are some stories that caught our eye this week – as always, feel free to share yours in the comments. Our header image this week (via Eke Panuku) shows the planned upgrade for the Karanga Plaza Tidal Swimming Steps. The week in Greater Auckland On ...
1. What's not to love about the way the Harris campaign is turning things around?a. Nothingb. Love all of itc. God what a reliefd. Not that it will be by any means easye. All of the above 2. Documents released by the Ministry of Health show Associate Health Minister Casey ...
Trust in me in all you doHave the faith I have in youLove will see us through, if only you trust in meWhy don't you, you trust me?In a week that saw the release of the 3,000 page Abuse in Care report Christopher Luxon was being asked about Boot Camps. ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking about the Royal Commission Inquiry into Abuse in Carereport released this week, and with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent on a UN push to not recognise carbon offset markets and ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 26, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Transport: Simeon Brown announced$802.9 million in funding for 18 new trains on the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines, which ...
The northern expressway extension from Warkworth to Whangarei is likely to require radical changes to legislation if it is going to be built within the foreseeable future. The Government’s powers to purchase land, the planning process and current restrictions on road tolling are all going to need to be changed ...
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedFirst they came for the doctors But I was confused by the numbers and costs So I didn't speak up Then they came for our police and nurses And I didn't think we could afford those costs anyway So I ...
Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on UnsplashWe’re back again after our mid-winter break. We’re still with the ‘new’ day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when we have our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream ...
Notes: This is a free article. Abuse in Care themes are mentioned. Video is at the bottom.BackgroundYesterday’s report into Abuse in Care revealed that at least 1 in 3 of all who went through state and faith based care were abused - often horrifically. At least, because not all survivors ...
Luxon speaks in Parliament yesterday about the Abuse in Care report. Photo: Hagen Hopkins/Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:PM Christopher Luxon said yesterday in tabling the Abuse in Carereport in Parliament he wanted to ‘do the ...
About a decade ago I worked with a bloke called Steve. He was the grizzled veteran coder, a few years older than me, who knew where the bodies were buried - code wise. Despite his best efforts to be approachable and friendly he could be kind of gruff, through to ...
Some of the recent announcements from the government have reminded us of posts we’ve written in the past. Here’s one from early 2020. There were plenty of reactions to the government’s infrastructure announcement a few weeks ago which saw them fund a bunch of big roading projects. One of ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Thursday, July 25 are:News: Why Electric Kiwi is closing to new customers - and why it matters RNZ’s Susan EdmundsScoop: Government drops ...
Hi,I felt a small wet tongue snaking through one of the holes in my Crocs. It explored my big toe, darting down one side, then the other. “He’s looking for some toe cheese,” said the woman next to me, words that still haunt me to this day.Growing up in New ...
Yesterday I happily quoted the Prime Minister without fact-checking him and sure enough, it turns out his numbers were all to hell. It’s not four kg of Royal Commission report, it’s fourteen.My friend and one-time colleague-in-comms Hazel Phillips gently alerted me to my error almost as soon as I’d hit ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Thursday, July 25, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day were:The Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquirypublished its final report yesterday.PM Christopher Luxon and The Minister responsible for ...
The Official Information Act has always been a battle between requesters seeking information, and governments seeking to control it. Information is power, so Ministers and government agencies want to manage what is released and when, for their own convenience, and legality and democracy be damned. Their most recent tactic for ...
TL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:Transport and Energy Minister Simeon Brown is accelerating plans to spend at least $10 billion through Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) to extend State Highway One as a four-lane ‘Expressway’ from Warkworth to Whangarei ...
I live my life (woo-ooh-ooh)With no control in my destinyYea-yeah, yea-yeah (woo-ooh-ooh)I can bleed when I want to bleedSo come on, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)You can bleed when you want to bleedYea-yeah, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)Everybody bleed when they want to bleedCome on and bleedGovernments face tough challenges. Selling unpopular decisions to ...
Please note:To skip directly to the- parliamentary footage in the video, scroll to 1:21 To skip to audio please click on the headphone iconon the left hand side of the screenThis video / audio section is under development. ...
Given the crackdown on wasteful government spending, it behooves me to point to a high profile example of spending by the Luxon government that looks like a big, fat waste of time and money. I’m talking about the deployment of NZDF personnel to support the US-led coalition in the Red ...
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As I reported about the city centre, Auckland’s rail network is also going through a difficult and disruptive period which is rapidly approaching a culmination, this will result in a significant upgrade to the whole network. Hallelujah. Also like the city centre this is an upgrade predicated on the City ...
Today, a 4 kilogram report will be delivered to Parliament. We know this is what the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care weighs, because our Prime Minister told us so.Some reporter had blindsided him by asking a question about something done by ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Wednesday, July 24, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Beehive:Transport Minister Simeon Brownannounced plans to use PPPs to fund, build and run a four-lane expressway between Auckland ...
NewstalkZB host Mike Hosking, who can usually be relied on to give Prime Minister Christopher Luxon an easy run, did not do so yesterday when he interviewed him about the HealthNZ deficit. Luxon is trying to use a deficit reported last year by HealthNZ as yet another example of the ...
Back in January a StatsNZ employee gave a speech at Rātana on behalf of tangata whenua in which he insulted and criticised the government. The speech clearly violated the principle of a neutral public service, and StatsNZ started an investigation. Part of that was getting an external consultant to examine ...
Renting for life: Shared ownership initiatives are unlikely to slow the slide in home ownership by much. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:A Deloittereport for Westpac has projected Aotearoa’s home-ownership rate will ...
You're broken down and tiredOf living life on a merry go roundAnd you can't find the fighterBut I see it in you so we gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsWe gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsAnd I'll rise upI'll rise like the dayI'll rise upI'll rise unafraidI'll rise upAnd I'll ...
There’s been a change in Myers Park. Down the steps from St. Kevin’s Arcade, past the grassy slopes, the children’s playground, the benches and that goat statue, there has been a transformation. The underpass for Mayoral Drive has gone from a barren, grey, concrete tunnel, to a place that thrums ...
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TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Tuesday, July 23, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Health: Shane Reti announcedthe Board of Te Whatu Ora-Health New Zealand was being replaced with Commissioner Lester Levy ...
Health NZ warned the Government at the end of March that it was running over Budget. But the reasons it gave were very different to those offered by the Prime Minister yesterday. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon blamed the “botched merger” of the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) to create Health ...
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TL;DR: I’m casting around for new ideas and ways of thinking about Aotearoa’s political economy to find a few solutions to our cascading and self-reinforcing housing, poverty and climate crises.Associate Professor runs an online masters degree in the economics of sustainability at Torrens University in Australia and is organising ...
The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back on National's Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. The bill sets up water for privatisation, and was introduced under urgency, then rammed through select committee with no time even for local councils to make a proper submission. Naturally, national's select committee ...
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History is not on the side of the centre-left, when Democratic presidents fall behind in the polls and choose not to run for re-election. On both previous occasions in the past 75 years (Harry Truman in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1968) the Democrats proceeded to then lose the White House ...
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A homeless person’s camp beside a blocked-off slipped damage walkway in Freeman’s Bay: we are chasing our tail on our worsening and inter-related housing, poverty and climate crises. Photo: Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
What has happened to it all?Crazy, some'd sayWhere is the life that I recognise?(Gone away)But I won't cry for yesterdayThere's an ordinary worldSomehow I have to findAnd as I try to make my wayTo the ordinary worldYesterday morning began as many others - what to write about today? I began ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Monday, July 22 are:Today’s Must Read: Father and son live in a tent, and have done for four years, in a million ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Orderimage, ...
Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
Te Rangi e tu nei (The sky above us) Te Papa e takoto nei (The land beneath us) Tatou katoa te hunga ora (To us all the living) Tena koutou katoa (Greetings) ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says a bill that has passed its first reading will improve parental leave settings and give non-biological parents more flexibility as primary carer for their child. The Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill (No3), passed its first reading this morning. “It includes a change ...
Two Bills designed to improve regulation and make it easier to do business have passed their first reading in Parliament, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill make key changes to legislation administered by the Ministry ...
New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says newly appointed Commissioner, Grant Illingworth KC, will help deliver the report for the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons, due on 28 November 2024. “I am pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will commence his appointment as ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters travels to Laos this week to participate in a series of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-led Ministerial meetings in Vientiane. “ASEAN plays an important role in supporting a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Mr Peters says. “This will be our third visit to ...
Construction of a new mental health facility at Te Nikau Grey Hospital in Greymouth is today one step closer, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says. “This $27 million facility shows this Government is delivering on its promise to boost mental health care and improve front line services,” Mr Doocey says. ...
New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says proposed changes to the Education and Training Amendment Bill will ensure charter schools have more flexibility to negotiate employment agreements and are equipped with the right teaching resources. “Cabinet has agreed to progress an amendment which means unions will not be able to initiate ...
In response to serious concerns around oversight, overspend and a significant deterioration in financial outlook, the Board of Health New Zealand will be replaced with a Commissioner, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti announced today. “The previous government’s botched health reforms have created significant financial challenges at Health NZ that, without ...
Minister for Space and Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins will travel to Adelaide tomorrow for space and science engagements, including speaking at the Australian Space Forum. While there she will also have meetings and visits with a focus on space, biotechnology and innovation. “New Zealand has a thriving space ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will travel to China on Saturday to attend the Ministerial on Climate Action meeting held in Wuhan. “Attending the Ministerial on Climate Action is an opportunity to advocate for New Zealand climate priorities and engage with our key partners on climate action,” Mr Watts says. ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is travelling to the Solomon Islands tomorrow for meetings with his counterparts from around the Pacific supporting collective management of the region’s fisheries. The 23rd Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Committee and the 5th Regional Fisheries Ministers’ Meeting in Honiara from 23 to 26 July ...
The Government today launched the Military Style Academy Pilot at Te Au rere a te Tonga Youth Justice residence in Palmerston North, an important part of the Government’s plan to crackdown on youth crime and getting youth offenders back on track, Minister for Children, Karen Chhour said today. “On the ...
The Government has welcomed news the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has begun work to replace nine priority bridges across the country to ensure our state highway network remains resilient, reliable, and efficient for road users, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“Increasing productivity and economic growth is a key priority for the ...
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour has been in contact throughout the evening with senior officials who have coordinated a whole of government response to the global IT outage and can provide an update. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has designated the National Emergency Management Agency as the ...
New Zealand and Japan will continue to step up their shared engagement with the Pacific, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand and Japan have a strong, shared interest in a free, open and stable Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “We are pleased to be finding more ways ...
New developments in the heart of North Island forestry country will reinvigorate their communities and boost economic development, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones visited Kaingaroa and Kawerau in Bay of Plenty today to open a landmark community centre in the former and a new connecting road in ...
President Adeang, fellow Ministers, honourable Diet Member Horii, Ambassadors, distinguished guests. Minasama, konnichiwa, and good afternoon, everyone. Distinguished guests, it’s a pleasure to be here with you today to talk about New Zealand’s foreign policy reset, the reasons for it, the values that underpin it, and how it ...
Last summer when Matairangi burned, Ginny and Tom stood at the window of their lounge, watching kākā shoot skyward from the burning trees. From the distance, they looked to Ginny like pages torn from books and thrown into a bonfire. It was Tom, voice tight, who told her it was ...
Opinion: The Canadian short story writer Alice Munro – winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013 – died in May at the age of 92. Her work was about “the damage people inflict on one another in the name of love”, Deborah Treisman wrote in the New Yorker. ...
This month marks two years since the most powerful telescope ever built sent its first pictures back to earth. From its lofty vantage point, beyond the moon in orbit around the sun, the James Webb Space Telescope was tuned to observe the first stars and galaxies being born soon after ...
Comment: After Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ preview several weeks ago, I had some optimism about the Government’s emissions reduction plan. Now I’ve read the discussion document, that hope has been dashed. How can the Government propose a plan that wants to take New Zealand taxpayers’ hard-earned money, and spend ...
Christopher Luxon: hurdles The little man from National jumps hurdles in his sleep. He’s quite good at it in his dreams and even though the reality doesn’t quite match up you have to give him credit for getting up every morning and crashing into the very first hurdle of the ...
Comment: It was a good two hours into the conversation when Tyrone Marks raised the most basic of questions when I first spoke to him in 2017. “They didn’t explain the things they did to me. They never told me why. And they still haven’t. There’s no explanation for it. ...
Madeleine Chapman rounds out Death Week on The Spinoff with a final recommendation. You can read all of our Death Week coverage here. Nothing forces you to reflect on your life and relationships quite like proximity to death. For those whose nearest and dearest have died, there are reasonably obvious ...
Whitney Greene takes us through her life in television, including the TV character she’d like to plan a funeral for and her cow lung catastrophe on The Traitors NZ. “If the phone rings, I have to answer it,” Whitney Greene from The Traitors NZ warns as we begin our My ...
Maddie Ballard reviews the debut essay collection of Pōneke writer Flora Feltham.In ‘The Raw Material’, the longest essay in Flora Feltham’s dazzling debut collection, the author heads out for a run after hours of weaving and sees the world turn to textile. “Pounding along the Parade, I saw the ...
Andy Christiansen, one half of the experimental rock-pop duo TRiPS, shares the tunes inspiring the band’s perfect weekend and new release. “Good speakers, good food, good music, no distractions”: that’s all you need to enjoy the psychedelic stylings of TRiPS, a new band formed by Fly My Pretties’ Barnaby Weir ...
Celebrating our quadrennial opportunity to become experts in a bunch of sports we never normally watch.The games of the XXXIII Olympiad are upon us. Paris will host this year’s showcase of sporting and athletic prowess, which means some late-night and early-morning viewing for us in Aotearoa.But what sports ...
The photograph is striking and beautiful, but also disturbing – a reminder that my love for John was often entangled in shame.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.In the spring of 1980, in Dunedin, shortly before his death, someone took a photograph ...
Get to know Babushka, our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Babu’s humans, Jo and Isabel, for their support. Dog name: Babushka (Babu for short) Age: 2Breed: Border Collie X poodleIf rescued, ...
Pacific Media Watch A Lebanese photojournalist who was severely wounded during an Israeli air strike in south Lebanon carried the Olympic torch in Paris this week in honour of her peers who have been wounded and killed in the field — especially in Gaza and Lebanon. Christina Assi of Agence ...
The first report in a five-part web series focused on the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women taking place in the Marshall Islands this week.SPECIAL REPORT:By Netani Rika in Majuro Women continue to fight for justice 70 years after the first nuclear tests by the United States caused ...
Christopher Luxon has joined with Australia and Canada's leaders in voicing support for US President Joe Biden's ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The 2022 election brought the “teal wave” into parliament. The next election will test whether teals, who occupy what were Liberal seats, and other independents can maintain their momentum. Joining us on the Podcast ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Musgrave, Senior lecturer in Pharmacology, University of Adelaide Pixavri/Shutterstock A major Federal Court class action has been dismissed this week after Justice Michael Lee ruled there was not enough evidence to prove the weedkiller Roundup causes cancer. Plaintiff Kelvin ...
In The Week in Politics: politicians have to decide what to do about child abuse, Health NZ is booked in for major surgery and Darleen Tana returns. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University Mainstream media are surprisingly muted at the prospect of the world’s most powerful nation being led for the first time by a woman – specifically a woman of colour, Vice President Kamala ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Bennett, PhD Student, Associate Research Fellow, Deakin University Last week, a drone delivery company called Wing (owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet) started operating in Melbourne. Some 250,000 residents in parts of the city’s eastern suburbs can now order food from ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Foo, Lecturer, Physiotherapy, Monash University pikselstock/Shutterstock In the next 40 years in Australia, it’s predicted the number of Australians aged 65 and over will more than double, while the number of people aged 85 and over will more than triple. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katrina Grant, Research Associate, Power Institute for Arts and Visual Culture, University of Sydney Jonas Åkerström’s 1790 work, Session of the Accademia dell’Arcadia on August 17 1788.Nationalmuseum/Cecilia Heisser Ever wondered whether you’d have a better chance at winning an Olympic gold ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexandra Jones, Program Lead, Food Governance, George Institute for Global Health wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock On Thursday, Australian and New Zealand food ministers at state, federal and national levels met to thrash out what’s next for health star ratings on packaged foods. Now, after ...
The Abuse in Care report found many Pacific survivors lost their connections to their culture and language, resulting in trauma that has been carried from generation to generation. ...
In the regulatory review, ECC intends to suggest that ERO focus on curriculum delivery reviews rather than the Ministry, because it’s not efficient or effective to have two agencies with radically different approaches climbing over each other. ...
Te Rūnanga Nui o Ngā Kura Kaupapa Māori invites the current government to work in partnership with them to develop a pathway forward, including the development of a parallel pathway and meaningful policy and strategy for Kura Kaupapa Māori ...
If you haven’t started watching yet, Tara Ward begs you to reconsider. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. In the world of New Zealand reality television, we have many gems in our crown. There’s the delicious second season of the Celebrity Treasure ...
A new poem by Fiona Kidman. The clothes of the dead I did not keep my mother’s furry red beret for long nor the stringy scarves that adorned the necks of my aunts, although I have kept tag ends of gold, the rings and trinkets they wore, the brooches no ...
The government’s announcement that it will re-open the foreshore and seabed controversy by changing the rules on recognising centuries-old Māori customary title for a third time goes against the rule of law and New Zealand values,” Mr Tipa says. ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Lioness by Emily Perkins (Bloomsbury, $25) Roarrrr! Perkins’ brilliant, award-winning, Marian-Keyes anointed, darkly funny, long ...
The 2004 Act vested ownership of the foreshore and seabed in the Crown, extinguishing any Māori claims to ownership and causing widespread outrage and protests among Māori communities. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Antje Deckert, Associate Professor (Criminology), Auckland University of Technology Getty Images Despite the connection between institutional harm and gang membership made clear in this week’s mammoth royal commission abuse-in care report, the government seems unlikely to soften its “get tough on ...
From Lewis Clareburt in the swimming to the start of the rowing – the first seven days of Paris 2024 promise to be big for New Zealand. There are few events that bring the country together quite like an Olympic Games. Nothing quite matches the excitement of getting up in ...
Groundbreaking local science just showed up in the most surprising of places: the season finale of The Kardashians. In the season five finale of The Kardashians last night, several members of the family gathered together in one of their signature empty, cream-coloured rooms to hear test results that had been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amin Saikal, Emeritus professor of Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies, Australian National University The Middle East is on the brink of a possibly devastating regional war, with hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah reaching an extremely dangerous level. Washington has engaged in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Elizabeth Eades, Rheumatologist, Monash University Lupus is an inflammatory autoimmune illness, where the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks itself. Lupus can affect virtually any part of the body, although it most commonly affects the skin, joints and kidneys. The symptoms ...
A law firm that specialises in working with survivors of abuse in State care is disappointed that the Government fails to recognise that its boot camps can be directly compared to previous boot camps from the 1990s and 2000s. ...
Dying is a natural part of life, like updating your Wof or seeing your hairdresser, but without the word-of-mouth recs that help guarantee a good service. What if we changed that? Dying Reviews received by The Spinoff have had the names of organisations redacted while Hospice NZ collects further data. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonti Horner, Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland Mike Lewinski/Flickr, CC BY On any clear night, if you gaze skywards long enough, chances are you’ll see a meteor streaking through the sky. Some nights, however, are better than others. At ...
Despite having no bars or other designated spaces for lesbians, Auckland boasts a small but mighty lesbian museum. So how did it get here? The past 18 months has brought increasing hostility towards the queer community across Aotearoa. Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull’s anti-trans rally in Tamaki Makaurau last March led to a ...
Poneke Antifascist Coalition has invited Wellingtonians to stand in solidarity with the Kanak people at 12pm today outside the French Embassy in Wellington. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Layton, Visiting Fellow, Strategic Studies, Griffith University Drones are the signature technology of the Ukraine war. A few miniature aircraft designs were used in the war’s early days, but an incredible array of drones have now evolved. There are different types, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Slee, Associate Professor, Clinical Academic Neurologist, Flinders University Francisco Gonzelez/Unsplash Migraine is many things, but one thing it’s not is “just a headache”. “Migraine” comes from the Greek word “hemicrania”, referring to the common experience of migraine being predominantly ...
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Who is going to do the work?
Those who are paid sufficiently?
how is that determined?
Living wage with an annual COLA. Cost of living adjustment.
While we are at it, have the living wage be at level that a family can be raised on one income at 30 hours a week.
But that's not how it works.
Its mostly about people being forced to work for others through poverty so that those others don't have to work at all.
That is the heart of capitalism.
Good morning folks,
Can somebody school me with regards to informal votes from the weekend, are those numbers high and/or is it a result of monkey wrenching.
Do you mean the special votes Left for dead? I think they were around 500,000 which is in my opinion, on the high side.
No I don't think so,Looking at the results from the election at the bottom of each electorate their is a count party informal/candidate informal, it seems if you google that it states invlaid.
Note to weka, still no spellcheak.
Just looking at a couple of electorates from this time around, no the numbers don't look high. An informal vote might be where they haven't voted for a party and/or electorate candidate, or the voting intent was otherwise unclear, such as voting for two candidates or parties.
For instance, in Whangarei 2017, there were 348 informals in the ordinary votes (advance and on the day), this time 504. Sure, that's a lot more than the current winning margin, but the variation from 2017 to 2020 doesn't look suspicious to me.
Here's the numbers for 2017:
https://archive.electionresults.govt.nz/electionresults_2017/statistics/candidate-votes-and-turnout-by-electorate.html
I haven't found a summary for 2020 yet, so you need to pull up each electorate individually:
https://www.electionresults.govt.nz/electionresults_2020_preliminary/electorate-details-64.html
Thanks, an ODT special has a break down,though all the electorates but not sure if it's online.
through that should be and with out ,
Informal votes are ones that can't be counted for some reason including but not limited to:
Thanks Draco, I've learnt something today, excellent 🙂
From Section 174 of the Electoral Act:
For the purposes of subsection (2), the following votes must be set aside as informal:
(a) any party votes that do not clearly indicate the party for which the voter desired to vote:
(b) any electorate votes that do not clearly indicate the candidate for whom the voter desired to vote.
For those who remember the 2000 US presidential election and "hanging chads", NZ law gives the Returning Officer some leeway in ascertaining the voter's intention.
Cheers folks, as I thought,a shame though that the people can't get it right their are a few there.
Rewrote the election authorisation footer and shoved into the theme functions. Something that I have to dust off every three years. I really need to make that into a plugin – it seems to come around ever faster these days. In this case I was late putting it up and slow to remember to take it down.
I guess it is just that I seem to be ever more busy. I really just need to put in the date of the election. Then the notice can go up on the site automatically at the appropriate number of weeks before, the comments can lock down automatically on the day, and everything can turn off at the correct time.
The site has been running since August 2007 – more than 13 years ago. This was its 5th election.
Oh well – time to shower and get ready for doing a days work, get on the e-bike, avoid the homicidal drivers of cars, and then try to bring some order to code.
then try to bring some order to code.
Hah … a whimsical fantasy to fill your days with.
Indeed. Especially since today's particular bit of code started life in the 1990s and is on its 4th major iteration. I'm slowly removing some of its inherent 1990s assumptions.
13 years – a lucky number for all, and we run to keep up. Great going lprent.
Lots of credit to the three firms in the article. Joined three lots of seasonal work around vineyards into year long permanent job – instead of moaning
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/123103444/vine-to-wine-turning-seasonal-work-into-full-time-employment
Yes, good thinking.
+100
Eradicate foreign cheap labour.
Ah, so they've finally figured out how true economies of scale work.
Peter Davis has some clear valuable ideas on sorting out the Health system. His final point has merit:
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/peter-davis-advice-to-the-incoming-minister-of-health/UDA3OBRW4WKS6VWE7PPIQW45DQ/
I'm glad to see the media are using [Professor] Peter Davis more often. I think he may be retired now but his knowledge and experience in both the health and social policy areas are enormous. He is also a well rounded, down to earth individual – qualities that are lacking in some of our noisier media commentators.
Yes. Peter has a measured way of writing and the ideas quoted from others he has distilled into sane reasonable looking directions.
I heard Grant R mention the ACC/insurance idea for people with illness during the campaign.
ACC required an overhaul after 3 terms of national as far too many people get ejected with 'pre-existing' conditions, many from DHB ineptitude in initial diagnosis.
Like missing broken bones in feet because only 1 x-ray was deemed required, (hope you got a good radiographer !) then months later, hey presto it's 'pre-existing' so not claimable under ACC.
Many fall between these cracks national opened up which started with their BS scaremongering about the fund back in 2008 being in 'crisis' etc etc
There is mention in the Labour manifesto of investigating inequities in ACC vs health/welfare systems:
The policy platform also has expanding ACC to include illness. Although that didn't make it into the manifesto this election, it might still be picked up by a new minister.
Side note – both of those items were my policy remits in 2018 which successfully made it into the policy platform, so it's gratifying to see one of the two has made it into the manifesto for further work.
Thanks Craig H for your work in keeping these matters before the government.
Pat asked above "Who is going to do the work?"
Well it seems Russians … if it is fishing . Funny that, I thought Sealords was half owned by Maori now , who were delighted with that because it would bring work to their people. Should I be confused ?
@Janet I can't find the link but there was a Morning Report interview asking this exact question. The gist of the reply was it takes an awful lot of training to get the qualifications these guys have and will take a very long time to train up NZers.
But yes, we should be confused, given just how long Sealords has been in said ownership.
Actually, I think it may have been on Checkpoint last night. I'll have to look for the link later.
Sealords are part owned by another company – Japanese. I should think they are managed to the same business practices that other leading fishing companies in NZ are. One Maori fishing company in the early days of quota failed. Sealord Maori business interests would not want this happening to them.
Additionally when there was a program to train Maori to be fisher-people, Sanford management threatened to take them to court for racism or something. No wonder Janet is confused. People don't realise how hard it is for Maori to make their way in the harsh neolib environment.
Established in 1961, in Nelson, Sealord is half owned by the Maori people of New Zealand, through Moana New Zealand (Aotearoa Fisheries Ltd), and half owned by global seafood company Nippon Suisan Kaisha, Ltd (Nissui).
Our Business – Sealord International
Yes it does take some time to train to be an officer on a fishing vessel, a person has to have enough sea time clocked up as well as having the relevant qualifications.
Yes, but it doesn't take decades to so.
You're right about that Draco, it sure doesn't take decades.
When I was in the industry, we would regularly contact the fishing school for cadets to come and do a trip. Then if they liked it and the skipper was happy we would offer them a job at the end of their course.
If any employee who worked on our trawlers, wanted to get a ticket, we would bond them for 2 years and pay for the required courses. And when they were studying they would still get their retainer. Sometimes we would even co-ordinate vessel survey or major repair/up grade work to coincide with relevant ticket exams and courses.
It is always valuable to have extra ticket holders onboard a vessel should a crew member need to be airlifted off due to injury v's a massive cost to cease fishing, head to port and pick up another crew member with the correct ticket.
With unticketed crew, like factory crew etc, those were the ones who would do two trips on one trip off,for them it wouldn't take long before they would clock up the necessary sea time to upskill and gain a ticket.
Sealord has been using foreign crew for
yearsdecades, rather than up-skilling kiwi's for the same roles.In the end it's absolutely all about the money for Sealord.
As a past Director of Training for the RNZN I can confirm that it does take a year or two to train up for a Bridge Watchkeeping Ticket, but it is not decades, and most of these new arrivals will not be watchkeeping they are the filleters and gutters engineers cooks and deckhands etc. It doesn't take 200+ watchkeepers to drive a ship. This wholesale importation of labour is an absolute disgrace when we have able bodied unemployed who could easily adapt to the task with a little on-job-training.
The same goes for the bleating I heard this morning WRT the forthcoming harvesting season. Farmers are bleating that there is no one available to drive the headers! FFS! I worked on headers during my university hols for my bro-in-law in what was then (and still is) one of the largest agri contracting businesses in the southern hemisphere. Admittedly, the headers then were not as sophisticated as they are now – but now the task is more about monitoring the on board computers than actual driving. Any reasonably competent person could manage that, with a little guidance and tuition.
The NZ business sector have never wanted to accept the responsibility for training the people they employ, and this lack of investment in personnel is coming back to bite them big time. Its always been far cheaper to hire someone – even from overseas – and not take the time and effort to invest in training – which is why we have such an back log of unemployed. It's about time they were made to face up to their responsibilities in this regard and stop the free loading off others.
The same goes for the bleating I heard this morning WRT
…and most of these new arrivals will not be watchkeeping they are the filleters and gutters engineers cooks and deckhands etc. It doesn't take 200+ watchkeepers to drive a ship.
Thank you Macro. Along with "Bullshit!!!" this is along the lines of what I was yelling at the wireless this morning.
Yet that guy they were interviewing sounded soooo plausible.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018769309/covid-19-eleven-fishermen-test-positive-in-christchurch-14-more-under-investigation
Developing the economy costs and, it seems, neither business nor government want to cover those costs. They seem to think that people with no money can pay for them instead and thus produce a profit for shareholders as well.
It's not just the training – you have to get past the racist poms in MSA. I spent half my working life trying to get tickets that folk in Hong Kong could get without hassles by the age of 19.
That NZ doesn't fully staff its fishing fleet with locals is down to corporate and government dysfunction – plenty of keen young kiwis out there, but the companies don't want them, and periodically go broke through incompetence.
NZ has no aquaculture comparable with Australian silver & yellow perch or barramundi either – it's like we're not even trying.
They will never want NZ crew while they have cheaper foreigners on tap. I worked all those 116 hour weeks for nothing – successive governments pissed away my career, and plenty of my former colleagues, having nothing to fall back on, topped themselves.
Corrupt ministers like Fafoi and Nash before him, who rubber stamp the work permits for these slave fishermen, live in infamy.
No. It's all about profit after all:
This was just a PR exercise – the boats are registered in NZ, and, as any lawyer can tell you, thereby subject to NZ law in its entirety. Never enforced of course.
More than likely but the laws are there and we have, supposedly, a government that has some concern for the workers and so they should be looking to enforce it better – especially now that the handbrake has left the building.
I got a legal opinion on it, back in the day.
We've had a few positions for the boats advertised locally in Nelson/Tasman, but bugger all compared to the volume of crew being flown in. Wonder if they even asked the fishing school if they knew of any potential crew?
I was under the understanding that if vessel is foreign owned (half of Sealord is) and crew is foreign, then NZ employment law does not apply. Would have to double check to be certain.
The last National government changed the law so that all ships operating in NZ waters are operating under NZ law. Many iwi were upset about it.
Pity they didn,t also require all fish caught in NZ waters be processed in NZ too. So we have Russians catching it and Thais and other Asian countries packing it into tins then sending some of it back for us to eat. Once I could not find NZ caught and processed tinned fish I stopped buying it. Some years ago now. These are the kind of practises that are killing NZ, slowly.
Iwi upset why? Was it because NZ waters only applied to those within our 12 mile limit?
New Zealand's territorial sea is the area extending from the coast to the 12 nautical mile limit. However, we have rights and responsibilities for a much larger marine area, extending from 12 to 200 nautical miles from the coast, referred to as the exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
https://www.mfe.govt.nz/publications/marine-environmental-reporting/our-marine-environment-2016-introduction-our-marine
Seemingly, because they would make less profit.
DTB Prejudiced and simplistic.
In what way?
They really did complain and, IIRC, it was about costs.
Lol
Israeli Defence Forces were stopped from demolishing a Palestinian home. Now they want to pour cement into his room instead.
When is Jacinda Ardern going to speak about this illegal and brutal occupation?
https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/israeli-military-to-pour-concrete-into-a-palestinian-s-room-as-punishment-40631
As 'punishments' go, that's both infantile and vindictive. So, business as usual for the IDF then. Between burning olive groves and running interference for rampaging settlers, they're really busy these days.
Norman Finkelstein describes the IDF as the most cowardly army in the world.
How does never sound Morrissey?
Palestinians are invisible to most centrist Politicians.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/428836/new-zealand-north-korea-friendship-society-raided-over-donations
GCSB – Great Concern Spy Brouhaha?
An 80-year-old retired humanitarian worker and a presbyterian minister have had their homes raided by police over a donation used to purchase personal protective equipment (PPE) in North Korea.
.
https://www.gcsb.govt.nz/working-for-us/
The GCSB provides world-class intelligence, information assurance, and cyber security services to the New Zealand Government.
We employ New Zealand's top talent and many of our people are recognised as world leaders in their field of expertise. Our team is intelligent, curious and tech-savvy. We find ways to do things better, faster and smarter, and we have fun along the way. We have a strong team spirit, a sense of unity towards a common goal, and huge pride to know we work for a world-class organisation at the heart of national security.
The DPRK Friendship Society are obviously a bunch of idiots. The DPRK are obviously going to be capable of making their own PPE gear and so don't need donations for them.
Can we improve on this without spoiling our present good system?
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/428832/thousands-of-managed-isolation-vacancies-every-week-since-july
Not sure we'd want to cut the vacancy rate. They're still at ~60% occupancy, which isn't too bad. Gives wriggle room if they want to standardise business/labour immigration (the russian sailor counter-example notwithstanding).
Yes, we need capacity available and to keep good isolation and
lowno fraternisation!This is the sort of woman that old-time feminists praised and honoured.
https://www.pressreader.com/new-zealand/the-press/20201020/282209423339146
1 day ago — Hawa Abdi, who has died aged 73, was a pioneering Somali doctor whose one-room clinic grew into a 400-bed hospital; she provided sanctuary to 90,000 …
This is so dry from Gordon Campbell – Werewolf at Scoop – that it would curl the lips of hardened Gnats as they sucked in the content.
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2010/S00128/on-national-being-shafted-by-its-own-creation.htm
As it licks its wounds, let’s hope the National Party can still find time to look back with some pride at what it has achieved in Epsom. The Act Party’s nationwide success on Saturday night has been a tribute to National’s foresight, and to its ability to pick winners. Others would have looked at the dying remnants of the old Act Party and written it off. Yet National needed an MMP partner and it saw the potential where no-one else did. And so it re-grew the Act Party in a petri dish in Epsom, and carefully nurtured it back to life…
expect nat strategists to want to do the same with nzfirst. labour strategists should be getting there first. one owner political party, huge potential for growth, all assets for sale.
lol woodart
Being sold as is, where is due to some issues with the foundation.
Among a lot of things that annoy me about importing Russian sailors is that the health conditions for the sailors coming here were obviously not met.
All the sailors that tested positive for covid-19 should be sent home at the end of their quarantine period – there have to be consequences for not following the health protocols or else what's the point.
If not, then all that will happen is that more and more of them will try to get around the rules and that puts all of us at risk.
But is it their fault? Or their recruiting agency?
Seems to me it's the basic flaw in the system that ISTR the nat's wanted for everyone: test before leaving country of origin. 5% positive rate in this batch suggests pre-departure testing is of little value to NZ immigration.
I think the urgency for getting these guys, and the large number of them to be transported quickly and effectively meant that the tourist and returning protocols were too difficult to meet. We can't be dogmatic about this, but the fishing company/s should be paying a large part of the costs involved.
Yes, the isolation is paid for by the company.
But given the arseholery of international maritime labour, that probably just means the workers are in heavy debt to a Russian intermediary.
As for the protocols, everything seems to have been followed okay at this end. One queries the testing in Russia, though.
'But given the arseholery of international
maritime labour'… you name it.BAU then. It's the story of our time – we have reached our potential level on the Peter's Principle rule.
We can't be dogmatic about this, but the fishing company/s should be paying ALL of the costs involved.
Uh huh. But the government passed the regulations, and in neolib land the gummint mainly serves business interests, and the country pays for the privilege.
Granny, as usual, has shonky John pimping it up on behalf of the banks who are soooo hard done by wanting capital requirements delayed….diddums.
Last night (Tuesday,Oct.20/20) about 10 pm – part moon, starry sky, and then from a westerly direction, a line of lights at regular spaces, might have been 20. I ran inside for family and came straight out again but gone. Seemed to be going east-south-east.
Explanation? Eion Musk or whom or what?
Yeah, Musk. The tool is screwing up astronomy good and proper.
You saw one of the Starlink chains.There's more than 800 individual Starlink satellites in orbit now with thousands to come.
They are released in batches. A batch of 60 odd were launched 3 days ago, the 18th launch of 2020. Once released in space they are then unpredictable in where their orbits may eventuate but can be tracked.
SpaceX has permission to launch as many as 12,000 satellites so far but the company has indicated it will see approval to launch as many as 30,000.
This site below tracks the potential path of the visible chains that you saw. So eg. starlink ( chain) 12 has been in a visible orbit this week in parts of NZ.
They're amazing to watch but this Space X tracker site is a bit like a schmoozing, buy-in for the public to make Musk's unregulated space takeover acceptable. He estimates they will bring him $30 billion a year once all operational.
Can you see that starving kid under a night sky grateful for Musk's internet to remote regions ?
https://findstarlink.com/#1036;3
Oh noooos.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/428848/babies-ingesting-microplastics-from-bottles-study-shows
Co-author of the study, Professor John Boland, at Trinity College in Ireland, told Morning Report the team were surprised by the large quantities found while preparing new bottles of formula using WHO guidelines.
"What we found is you have at least a million microplastics and in fact many trillion nano-plastics actually."
Particle shedding accelerated at higher temperatures, and shaking bottles also increased their release, he said
"But even if you reduce the temperature of the water down to room temperature, it turns out you get at least a hundred thousand or several hundred thousand microplastics."
edit
Different oh nooos.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/428838/much-lauded-restart-of-napier-wairoa-railway-line-only-ran-for-a-week
The return of the Napier-Wairoa line was promised as a saviour for Hawke's Bay and the forestry industry.
Now KiwiRail is keeping quiet about when exactly it will restart again.
Following a $6.2 million investment from the provincial growth fund, the line was reopened by the then regional economic development minister Shane Jones in June last year.
But logging trains only began running on 26 January 2020.
A week later, and after just six return trips, the trains were brought to a halt.
KiwiRail said it shut because of Covid-19's impact on the forestry industry.
Federated Farmers Wairoa branch chairman Allan Newton said some in rural communities were concerned at the taxpayer spending.
"When they work out that their hard-earned tax dollars have gone into such a project that has achieved so little at this stage, they are concerned," he said.
One wonders if those farmers even went to primary school. What is spent out of taxation is for the benefit of the country, or should be. This is strategic spending, not gifts to the country from generous farmers. And do they take out insurance? When they don't ever claim, do they ask for their money back? It goes into a pool for the use of others if you don't have a call on it yourself. The rail line is appropriate expenditure for now, and there will be logs to put on it even if there aren't any farmers in that area. That's how things are these days, you have to think in the round, to the future, not in straight lines to your personal pocket now.
I think we have to give signals by raising money from road users, all of us. And the heavy trucks will have a special price on what shows up on their odometers. The payments should be checked against their trips every now and then to prevent the habit of understating which if it starts with one bad apple will be adopted by them all.
Their hard earned tax dollars had nothing to do with it. Taxes simply don't work that way.
And $6.2 million is nothing.