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.
Yesterday Winston Peters focussed his attention on the important matter at hand. Tweeting. Like the former, and quite possibly next, orange POTUS, from whom he takes much of his political strategy, Winston is an avid X’er.His message didn’t resemble an historic address this time. In fact it was more reminiscent ...
Buzz from the Beehive A significant decline in natural gas production has given Resources Minister Shane Jones an opportunity to reiterate his enthusiasm for the mining and burning of coal. For good measure, he has praised an announcement from Genesis Energy that it will resume importing coal. He and Energy ...
“Follow the money” is the classic directive to journalists trying to understand where power and influence lie in society. In terms of uncovering who influences various New Zealand political parties and governments, it therefore pays to look at who is funding them. The political parties are legally obliged to make ...
Rob MacCullough writes – Here is my subjective ranking on a “most-left” to “most-right” scale of most of our major NZ Universities, with some anecdotal (and at times amusing) evidence to back up the claim.Extreme Left Auckland University of TechnologyEvidenceThe ...
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Gary Judd writes – The Dean of the law school at the Auckland University of Technology is someone called Khylee Quince. I have been sent her social media posting in which she has, over the LawNews headline “Senior King’s Counsel files complaint about compulsory tikanga Maori studies for ...
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Parliament’s speaker had no option but to refer Green MP Julie Anne Genter to the Privileges Committee for her behaviour in the House last Wednesday evening. The incident, in which she crossed the floor to wave a book and yell at National Minister Matt Doocey, reflects poorly on Genter and ...
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Who likes being sneered at? Nobody. Worse yet, when the sneerer has their facts all wrong, and might well be an idiot.The sneer in question is The adults are in charge now, and it is a sneer offered in retort to criticism of this new Government, no matter how well ...
When in government, Labour pushed to extend the Parliamentary term to four years, to reduce accountability and our ability to vote out a bad government. And now, they're trying to do it through the member's ballot, with a Four-Year Parliamentary Term Legislation Bill. The bill at least requires a referendum ...
A ballot for a single Member's Bill was held today, and the following bill was drawn: Public Works (Prohibition of Compulsory Acquisition of Māori Land) Amendment Bill (Hūhana Lyndon) The bill would prevent the government from stealing Māori land in breach of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. It ...
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Buzz from the Beehive One headline-grabber from the Beehive yesterday was the OECD’s advice that the government must bring the Budget deficit under control or face higher interest rates. Another was the announcement of a $1.9 billion “investment” in Corrections over the next four years. In the best interests of ...
Chris Trotter writes – Had Zheng He’s fleet sailed east, not west, in the early Fifteenth Century, how different our world would be. There is little reason to suppose that the sea-going junks of the Ming Dynasty, among the largest and most sophisticated sailing vessels ever constructed, would have failed ...
David Farrar writes – Two articles give a useful contrast in balance. Both seek to be neutral explainer articles. This one in the Herald on Social Investment covers the pros and cons nicely. It links to critical pieces and talks about aspects that failed and aspects that are more ...
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The future of Te Huia, the train between Hamilton and Auckland, has been getting a lot of attention recently as current funding for it is only in place till the end of June. The government initially agreed to a five year trial, through to April 2026, but that was subject ...
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A homicide in Ponsonby, a manhunt with a killer on the run. The nation’s leader stands before a press conference reassuring a frightened nation that he’ll sort it out, he’ll keep them safe, he’ll build some new prison spaces.Sorry what? There’s a scary dude on the run with a gun ...
Hi,I know it’s been awhile since there’s been any Webworm merch — and today that all changes!Over the last four months, I’ve been working with New Zealand artist Jess Johnson to create a series of t-shirts, caps and stickers that are infused with Webworm DNA — and as of right ...
The OECD’s chief economist yesterday laid it on the line for the new Government: bring the deficit under control or face higher Reserve Bank interest rates for longer. And to bring the deficit under control, she meant not borrowing for tax cuts. But there was more. Without policy changes—introducing a ...
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In 2008, the UK Parliament passed the Climate Change Act 2008. The law established a system of targets, budgets, and plans, with inbuilt accountability mechanisms; the aim was to break the cycle of empty promises and replace it with actual progress towards emissions reduction. The law was passed with near-universal ...
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The gloves are off. That might seem to be the undertone of surprisingly tough talk from New Zealand’s foreign and trade ministers. Winston Peters, the foreign minister, may be facing legal action after making allegations about former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr on Radio New Zealand. Carr had made highly ...
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These puppet strings don't pull themselvesYou're thinking thoughts from someone elseHow much time do you think you have?Are you prepared for what comes next?The debating chamber can be a trying place for an opposition MP. What with the person in charge, the speaker, typically being an MP from the governing ...
The land around Lyme Regis, where Meryl Streep once stood, in a hood, on the Cobb, is falling into the sea.MerylThe land around Lyme Regis, around the Cobb that made it rich, has always been falling slowly but surely into the sea. Read more ...
Buzz from the Beehive Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters was bound to win headlines when he set out his thinking about AUKUS in his speech to the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. The headlines became bigger when – during an interview on RNZ’s Morning Report today – he criticised ...
The Post reports on how the government is refusing to release its advice on its corrupt Muldoonist fast-track law, instead using the "soon to be publicly available" refusal ground to hide it until after select committee submissions on the bill have closed. Fast-track Minister Chris Bishop's excuse? “It's not ...
As pressure on it grows, the livestock industry’s approach to the transition to Net Zero is increasingly being compared to that of fossil fuel interests. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty ImagesTL;DR: Here’s the top five news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above ...
The New Zealand Herald reports – Stats NZ has offered a voluntary redundancy scheme to all of its workers as a way to give staff some control over their “future” amidst widespread job losses in the public sector. In an update to staff this morning, seen by the Herald, Statistics New Zealand ...
On Werewolf/Scoop, I usually do two long form political columns a week. From now on, there will be an extra column each week about music and movies. But first, some late-breaking political events:The rise in unemployment numbers for the March quarter was bigger than expected – and especially sharp ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: TVNZ says it is dealing with about 50 formal complaints over its coverage of the latest 1News-Verian political poll, with some viewers – as well as the Prime Minister and a former senior Labour MP – critical of the tone of the 6pm report. ...
Muriel Newman writes – When Meridian Energy was seeking resource consents for a West Coast hydro dam proposal in 2010, local Maori “strenuously” objected, claiming their mana was inextricably linked to ‘their’ river and could be damaged. After receiving a financial payment from the company, however, the Ngai Tahu ...
Alwyn Poole writes – “An SEP,’ he said, ‘is something that we can’t see, or don’t see, or our brain doesn’t let us see, because we think that it’s somebody else’s problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it’s like a ...
Our trust in our political institutions is fast eroding, according to a Maxim Institute discussion paper, Shaky Foundations: Why our democracy needs trust. The paper – released today – raises concerns about declining trust in New Zealand’s political institutions and democratic processes, and the role that the overuse of Parliamentary urgency ...
This article was prepared for publication yesterday. More ministerial announcements have been posted on the government’s official website since it was written. We will report on these later today …. Buzz from the BeehiveThere we were, thinking the environment is in trouble, when along came Jones. Shane Jones. ...
David Seymour has failed to get the sweeping cuts he wanted to the free and healthy school lunch programme, Labour education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
Hon Willie Jackson has been invited by the Oxford Union to debate the motion “This House Believes British Museums are not Very British’ on May 23rd. ...
Green Party MP Hūhana Lyndon says her Public Works (Prohibition of Compulsory Acquisition of Māori Land) Amendment Bill is an opportunity to right some past wrongs around the alienation of Māori land. ...
A senior, highly respected King’s Counsel with decades of experience in our law courts, Gary Judd KC, has filed a complaint about compulsory tikanga Māori studies for law students - highlighting the utter depths of absurdity this woke cultural madness has taken our society. The tikanga regulations will compel law ...
The Government needs to be clear with the people of the Nelson Marlborough region about the changes it is considering for the Nelson Hospital rebuild, Labour health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said. ...
Ministers must front up about which projects it will push through under its Fast Track Approvals legislation, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop, today released his decision on twenty recommendations referred to him by the Wellington City Council relating to its Intensification Planning Instrument, after the Council rejected those recommendations of the Independent Hearings Panel and made alternative recommendations. “Wellington notified its District Plan on ...
Rape Awareness Week (6-10 May) is an important opportunity to acknowledge the continued effort required by government and communities to ensure that all New Zealanders can live free from violence, say Ministers Karen Chhour and Louise Upston. “With 1 in 3 women and 1 in 8 men experiencing sexual violence ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government will be delivering a more efficient Healthy School Lunches Programme, saving taxpayers approximately $107 million a year compared to how Labour funded it, by embracing innovation and commercial expertise. “We are delivering on our commitment to treat taxpayers’ money ...
New research on the impacts of extreme weather on coastal marine habitats in Tairāwhiti and Hawke’s Bay will help fishery managers plan for and respond to any future events, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. A report released today on research by Niwa on behalf of Fisheries New Zealand ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Winston Peters will lead a broad political delegation on a five-stop Pacific tour next week to strengthen New Zealand’s engagement with the region. The delegation will visit Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, and Tuvalu. “New Zealand has deep and ...
There has been a material decline in gas production according to figures released today by the Gas Industry Co. Figures released by the Gas Industry Company show that there was a 12.5 per cent reduction in gas production during 2023, and a 27.8 per cent reduction in gas production in the ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins tonight announced the recipients of the Minister of Defence Awards of Excellence for Industry, saying they all contribute to New Zealanders’ security and wellbeing. “Congratulations to this year’s recipients, whose innovative products and services play a critical role in the delivery of New Zealand’s defence capabilities, ...
Welcome to you all - it is a pleasure to be here this evening.I would like to start by thanking Greg Lowe, Chair of the New Zealand Defence Industry Advisory Council, for co-hosting this reception with me. This evening is about recognising businesses from across New Zealand and overseas who in ...
It is a pleasure to be speaking to you as the Minister for Digitising Government. I would like to thank Akolade for the invitation to address this Summit, and to acknowledge the great effort you are making to grow New Zealand’s digital future. Today, we stand at the cusp of ...
New Zealand is urging both Israel and Hamas to agree to an immediate ceasefire to avoid the further humanitarian catastrophe that military action in Rafah would unleash, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The immense suffering in Gaza cannot be allowed to worsen further. Both sides have a responsibility to ...
A new online data dashboard released today as part of the Government’s school attendance action plan makes more timely daily attendance data available to the public and parents, says Associate Education Minister David Seymour. The interactive dashboard will be updated once a week to show a national average of how ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced Rosemary Banks will be New Zealand’s next Ambassador to the United States of America. “Our relationship with the United States is crucial for New Zealand in strategic, security and economic terms,” Mr Peters says. “New Zealand and the United States have a ...
The Government is considering creating a new tier of minerals permitting that will make it easier for hobby miners to prospect for gold. “New Zealand was built on gold, it’s in our DNA. Our gold deposits, particularly in regions such as Otago and the West Coast have always attracted fortune-hunters. ...
Minister for Trade Todd McClay today announced that New Zealand and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will commence negotiations on a free trade agreement (FTA). Minister McClay met with his counterpart UAE Trade Minister Dr Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi in Dubai, where they announced the launch of negotiations on a ...
New Zealand Sign Language Week is an excellent opportunity for all Kiwis to give the language a go, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. This week (May 6 to 12) is New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) Week. The theme is “an Aotearoa where anyone can sign anywhere” and aims to ...
Six tertiary students have been selected to work on NASA projects in the US through a New Zealand Space Scholarship, Space Minister Judith Collins announced today. “This is a fantastic opportunity for these talented students. They will undertake internships at NASA’s Ames Research Center or its Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), where ...
New Zealanders will be safer because of a $1.9 billion investment in more frontline Corrections officers, more support for offenders to turn away from crime, and more prison capacity, Corrections Minister Mark Mitchell says. “Our Government said we would crack down on crime. We promised to restore law and order, ...
The OECD’s latest report on New Zealand reinforces the importance of bringing Government spending under control, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The OECD conducts country surveys every two years to review its members’ economic policies. The 2024 New Zealand survey was presented in Wellington today by OECD Chief Economist Clare Lombardelli. ...
The Government has delivered on its election promise to provide a financially sustainable model for Auckland under its Local Water Done Well plan. The plan, which has been unanimously endorsed by Auckland Council’s Governing Body, will see Aucklanders avoid the previously projected 25.8 per cent water rates increases while retaining ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters discussed the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and enhanced cooperation in the Pacific with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock during her first official visit to New Zealand today. "New Zealand and Germany enjoy shared interests and values, including the rule of law, democracy, respect for the international system ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
The Government and Rotorua Lakes Council are committed to working closely together to end the use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing) Tama Potaka says the Government remains committed to ending the long-term use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua by the ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards – Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)Political scientist, Dr Bryce Edwards. “Follow the money” is the classic directive to journalists trying to understand where power and influence lie in society. In terms of uncovering who influences various New Zealand political parties and governments, it therefore pays to ...
RNZ News As Israel presses ahead with strikes in Rafah and seizing the Rafah crossing from Egypt, aid agencies are sounding the alarm of a “catastrophic humanitarian situation”. Rafah was “significant” because it was the only part in Gaza that had not been terribly damaged by the conflict, United Nations ...
With funding set to be scrapped for the Hamilton-Auckland commuter train, Te Huia enthusiast Georgie Dansey argues for it to be thrown a lifeline. It’s 5.45am and the chain of my crappy old bike falls off slugging up the one hill in Hamilton. I contemplate yeeting the bike into the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anna Cooke, Honorary Fellow, School of the Environment, The University of Queensland We feel ecological grief when we lose places, species or ecosystems we value and love. These losses are a growing threat to mental health and wellbeing globally. We all see ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Shauna Brail, Associate Professor, Institute for Management & Innovation, University of Toronto A shift to hybrid and remote work continues to affect worker presence in Toronto’s downtown.(Shutterstock) Downtown Toronto, the core of Canada’s largest city, continues to reel from the lingering ...
Responding to an Auditor-General's report slamming failures in the administration of the 2023 General Election, Taxpayers’ Union Policy and Public Affairs Manager, James Ross, said: ...
Productivity apps now make up a big chunk of the software market. But do they work? And why do they all have AI integrations?Despite being firmly on the record as a physical planner fan, I sometimes dream of something better than my pretty diary and its scrawled, ugly, interior ...
The Taxpayers’ Union says the Beehive need to lead by example, following reports of more than $50,000 spent upgrading video conferencing equipment and furniture in the Prime Minister’s office. Taxpayers’ Union Campaign Manager, Connor Molloy, ...
An objective list of the 50 most powerful people in New Zealand, as judged by the Spinoff Editorial Board. It’s power list season, baby, and we want in on the action. Sure, there’s the rich list and the powerful “c-suite” list and the young people with power (hmmm) but here, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Thalia Anthony, Professor of Law, University of Technology Sydney ShutterstockThis article contains information on deaths in custody and the names of deceased people, and describes ongoing colonial violence towards Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. First Nations people in Australia ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alex Simpson, Senior Lecturer in Criminology, Macquarie University Netflix Baby Reindeer’s phenomenal success has much to do with its writer and lead, Richard Gadd, who plays Donny in a tender semi-autobiographical account of sexual abuse, harassment and stalking. Gadd’s story has ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Collins, Laureate Professor in Nutrition and Dietetics, University of Newcastle KarolinaGrabowska/Pexels If you didn’t have food allergies as a child, is it possible to develop them as an adult? The short answer is yes. But the reasons why are much ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Moon, Professor of History, Auckland University of Technology Ans Westra, self-portrait, c. 1963. National Library ref AWM-0705-F They try but invariably fail – those writers who believe they are capable of encapsulating in prose or verse the essence of ...
Stewart Sowman-Lund looks at the growing concern around the world in this extract from The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. What’s all this? When Covid-19 arrived on our shores in early 2020, some argued we were too slow, or crucially, ill-prepared for a pandemic. So ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Franco Montalto, Professor of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering and Director, Sustainable Water Resource Engineering Laboratory, Drexel University Water runs into a storm drain in a Los Angeles alley on Aug. 19, 2023, during Tropical Storm Hilary.Citizen of the Planet/Universal Images ...
The inquest into the death of Gore toddler Lachlan Jones has turned up a new witness who says he saw two teenagers and a small child in a high vis vest in the area where the boy’s body was found the day he died. Lachie’s body was discovered face up ...
Stories from the tenancy trenches, featuring spider infestations, cupboard rats and same-sex discrimination. Lucy’s brother was living in a damp 1930s building in Mt Eden where “he had to tie the cupboard doors closed so the rats didn’t get in”. Although he shared custody of his six-year-old son, his property ...
Simeon Brown, Chris Luxon, and Wayne Brown climbed into a hole and announced a plan to solve Auckland’s water woes. This is how it’ll work. New Zealand’s pipes are munted. They’re cracked and leaking, and struggling to handle all the extra poos excreted by our rising population. It’s a big, ...
I knew Taika Waititi quite well when he was a kid. His mother lived in a tall narrow house in Aro St, and my youngest sister had a similar house two doors along. They were both single mums, they each had a son aged seven. Taika and my nephew Stepan ...
Opinion: “As time passes, knowledge of the circumstances of the August 2016 outbreak will fade and its immediate impact will be lost.” This statement is from the 2017 report of the Official Inquiry into the Havelock North campylobacteriosis outbreak. The then National-led government established the inquiry after the outbreak left ...
Opinion: Nicholas Khoo looks at two key points in the high-stakes foreign policy pact debate – and asks if NZ can engage with as little drama as possible. The post Where to next for the Aukus ruckus? appeared first on Newsroom. ...
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Opinion: ‘Reference-class forecasting’ is at the heart of improving pricing a project and identifying the expected timeframe but it doesn’t appear to be in use here The post ‘Think fast and act slowly’ is failing big projects appeared first on Newsroom. ...
What do a sombrero in Argentina and cognitive driving tests have in common? Don’t worry, we’re not setting up a bad joke. Hinengaro Clinic dementia clinician Gregory Winkelman has the answer on today’s episode of The Detail. “We ask a patient’s spouse or son or daughter: If you went to ...
Wellington long jumper Phoebe Edwards is back and she’s having fun again. Until this year, Edwards, a top athlete in her teens, had never competed as a senior athlete in New Zealand. In March, the 26-year-old won a national long jump title in a lifetime best of 6.28m after ...
After replacing a fifth of their caucus in just four months, the Greens’ opportunity to reset, reshuffle and refocus on the Government is quickly slipping away The post Persistent Green Party scandals delay caucus reset appeared first on Newsroom. ...
ANALYSIS:By Olli Hellmann, University of Waikato When New Zealanders commemorate Anzac Day today on April 25, it’s not only to honour the soldiers who lost their lives in World War I and subsequent conflicts, but also to mark a defining event for national identity. The battle of Gallipoli against ...
By Robin Martin, RNZ News reporter A New Zealand local authority, Whanganui District Council, has passed a motion calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, condemnation of all acts of violence and terror against civilians on both sides of the conflict and the immediate return of hostages. It comes as ...
Asia Pacific Report The Aotearoa chapter of the Women’s International league for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) has appealed to the New Zealand government to call out Israel over the “cruel and barbaric use of force” in Gaza and demand a permanent ceasefire. The league’s open letter was sent to Prime ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The Albanese government will invest $566 million over a decade on data, maps and other tools to promote exploration and development in Australia’s resources industry. The project will fund “the first comprehensive map of what’s ...
Asia Pacific Report Following an open letter by Auckland University academics speaking out in support of their students’ right to protest against the genocidal Israeli war on Gaza, a group of academics at Otago University have today also called on New Zealand academic institutions to “repair colonial violence” and end ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Linda J. Graham, Professor and Director of the Centre for Inclusive Education, Queensland University of Technology Ryan Tauss/ Unsplash, CC BY Two male students have been expelled from a Melbourne private school for their involvement in a list ranking female students. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University The Reserve Bank is now assuming Australians will see no interest rate cuts this year – and quite possibly none before the next federal election, due next May. That’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Hayward, Emeritus Professor of Public Policy, RMIT University The Victorian budget offered more of the same on Tuesday, with the only change being how the budget papers were packaged. The usual shrink wrap was gone, hinting at savings in the pages ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The Coalition is demanding extensive amendments to the government’s legislation targeting non-citizens who refuse to co-operate with their removal. In a dissenting report to the senate inquiry into the legislation, the Coalition says it ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vanita Yadav, Senior Research Fellow, Urban Transformations Research Centre, Western Sydney University Brett Boardman/Belvoir The complex and grappling issue of violence against women takes centre stage in the soul-stirring solo dance drama Nayika: A Dancing Girl. During a dinner conversation ...
Disruption to patient care from a nationwide junior doctors strike is bordering on unsafe, a senior doctor claims, despite what health officials say. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Diepstraten, Senior Research Officer, Blood Cells and Blood Cancer Division, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute Ground Picture/Shutterstock The anti-cancer drug abemaciclib (also known as Vernezio) has this month been added to the Australian Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) to treat certain ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dominic McAfee, Postdoctoral researcher, marine ecology, University of Adelaide Robbie Porter, OzFish Unlimited Around Australia, hundreds of people are coming together to help a once-prized, but decimated and largely forgotten marine ecosystem. They’re busy restoring Australia’s native oyster and mussel reefs. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sara Webb, Lecturer, Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, Swinburne University of Technology Austin Human/Unsplash How does Earth stop meteors from hitting Earth and hurting people? –Asher, 6 years 11 months, New South Wales Alright, let’s embark on a meteor ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rory Mulcahy, Associate Professor of Marketing, University of the Sunshine Coast Professional sports organisations regularly promote and develop initiatives to support diversity, equity and inclusion. While sport has the power to change attitudes by sparking conversations about political issues and social ...
Comment: The weekly Monday post-Cabinet press conference is a useful forum for observing Christopher Luxon and how he is developing into the job of Prime Minister. He attempts to convey the impression of a man of action, speaking fast, delivering memorised National Party strategies in a connect-the-slogans kind of way, ...
Double votes, missing ballot boxes, tired tech and stressed staff: how tick-tallying went astray at last year’s election. Cast your mind back to November 2023, that bleary-eyed post-election period duringwhichwewaited, andwaited, for a coalition deal to be hammered out. A distraction from the hotel-hopping of our ...
International audiences are starting to discover what New Zealand already knew about After the Party.When After the Party aired in New Zealand last year, the response was fast and furious. In his preview for Rec Room, Duncan Greive said it was a “gritty, wrenching and highly confronting” series. By ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Shahram Akbarzadeh, Convenor of the Middle East Studies Forum (MESF), and Acting Director the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University Iran’s leadership has been a direct beneficiary of the months-long war in Gaza. With every missile that Israel fires ...
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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.
100% Anne.
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.