At last Rosemary, success and i hope life will be easier and more settled for you.
Then you can carry on getting the other improvements you see are needed with a chance of succeeding with those too.
Rosemary, this may not be all you and we hoped, but at least you and your partner can enjoy this holiday free of anxiety about a court appearance, or did you prefer one to get ‘information out there?’ We will never know with a confidentiality agreement.
Anyway, all the very best to you both. Enjoy some well earned peace and rest.
By the way, my situation has improved, as I’ve had all the pre-op hospital visits for my hip and am on the urgent list. LOL (Bay of Plenty still short of surgeons .)
“…am on the urgent list. LOL ” Yes, definitely a relative term, “urgent”. OTOH…you don’t want that overworked surgeon to rush the job. 😉 😉 Being in pain is a bastard, and floating around are a few research papers which address the issue of sometimes permanent disability caused by significant delays in treatment of what are often fixable problems. The cost of managing long term debility is usually greater than the cost of early intervention. The shortage of surgeons? Perhaps if we had not put the cost of tertiary education onto our children a few more might have trained to be surgeons happy to work in the public sector rather than follow their privileged ancestors into the private sector. All the best with your op…and for goodness’ sake mobilize after but TAKE IT EASY. (Over doing it post- hip op is an actual ‘thing’.)
As for our news. You’re right. Confidentiality. BUT…if you and anyone else is interested, this issue and other disability discussions are conveniently archived here…
Some here on TS have written the Herald off as a Right Wing Trumpet. I see it as a venue for some very good journos to strut their stuff and tell the stories that need telling, for those who most need their stories told.
Belinda Feek who did the piece in the Herald today is following up on the good work done by Kirsty Johnston on this family carers issue and the abuse and neglect of people with disabilities in MOH funded residential facilities.
“So while it takes a long time to write, Stuart eventually comes up with a sentence for me which is wry and funny and sums up five long weeks in his wheelchair watching the goings-on in a courtroom.
He’s typing his sentence on his talking computer in the Glenfield house where he lives with Jean, who takes care of all his needs.
So far he’s written “everything in the garden … ”
I’d asked what he had made of Ministry of Health officials at a hearing in Auckland of the Human Rights Review Tribunal, officials who had used words such as “frameworks” and “initiatives” and who had talked about the strategies and supports in place which benefit the lives of disabled people.
Jean and I moved on to talk about other things in the time it took him to finish. I guess he’s used to people’s attention wandering, though this 42-year-old with severe cerebral palsy is a computer programmer and sharp as a tack.
Stuart understood every word at the Tribunal hearing. To him and Jean, the health officials on the stand seemed to live in a world tangled with jargon and policy.
Part of his reason for turning up every single day was to remind them that this landmark case is actually about real people, like Stuart, and the dedicated mother who has cared for him for so long.
Stuart gave evidence at the hearing one day, using his portable communication device, but mostly he sat at the back, head sometimes drooping and at times jerking because, unlike his intellect, he has little control over his body.
Stuart’s full sentence to me in his bedroom went like this: “Everything in the garden is p [perfect]. Yeah, right.” “
Ata marie marty mars, and the same to you. I know I bang on a bit ( 🙂 ) and some may wonder why her and not many others? Simple reason is that unlike so many others Peter (and by default myself) has nothing to lose by speaking out.
When one has managed to extract funding from MOH DSS (by fair means or foul) it is well known in the ‘community’ that such funding can be just as easily withdrawn. Peter cannot be pigeonholed into any appropriate funding stream so we have been blissfully unfettered by fear of punitive action. 🙂 😉
Stuart understood every word at the Tribunal hearing. To him and Jean, the health
officials on the stand seemed to live in a world tangled with jargon and policy.
That’s well put. The framework of the policy instead of supporting the building of a policy that meets needs in the required manner, becomes twisted into a maze with considerations of semi-corporate PPP matters, budgeting constraints resulting in unsatisfactory outcomes, inadequate staffing, impractical locations and transport etc.
National seem to be losing every skirmish lately; it would pay to keep in mind the image of a cornered rat and remember the importance of leaving somewhere for it to run. Could we let them have, at least the appearance of, a win with some little thing?
Pertinent quote there, well done. Although I must disagree with Robert inasmuch as National seems more like a cornered mouse than rat currently! Call me old-fashioned, but wins ought to be earned rather than awarded, and I see no sign that they are even trying. Just going thro the motions.
Brownlee, for instance, mouthing off about that turkey who felt obliged to resign – instead of acknowledging performance failure. What parts of leadership doesn’t he understand? Setting an example, obviously. Providing an appropriate role model. Doing what the situation requires. Ethical conduct. Moral guidance.
Instead, Brownlee postured. Who did he think that would impress? 🙄 As for the other non-leaders in National, not a whimper emanated. Too scared to take responsibility for their poor performance in government. Do they think voters won’t notice this?? People are meant to learn from their mistakes. Refusal and denial are likely to make things worse for National.
“Refusal and denial are likely to make things worse for National.”
Only at the margins…..most of this was common knowledge for many years (think John Campbell reports) and it didnt have much effect….those voting for the status quo were either happy with or happy to ignore what was occuring
It would be great if he did. Although, it would look better for the Government (PR wise) if they stepped up. Key doing it would further show up Labour’s inaction.
It’s pretty hard going for some at Christmas, a friend was in tears yesterday as she has to choose between food and a present for her 3 year old; who is just switching on to Christmas due to all the decorations etc around the place.
So much pressure on parents due to consumerism and in your face advertising.
The girls made up a box of toys, linen, books etc they don’t use anymore. Takes a village and all that.
Is it time for the Government to step up and do more to help?
Would be great if some of the population were taught how to be more resourceful.
For example, state housing comes with a food growing zone and food growing education etc etc
Free how to repair stuff community education etc etc.
Does my head in how much is thrown away, Miss 14 received a freedom furniture office chair for her bday, worth around $300. I picked it up for $5 at the recycling centre, had a few stitches that needed replacing. After a few weeks of her feeling flash with a fancy chair I came clean 🙂
Part of the new school education policy maybe? How to be resourceful and How to grow/prepare food.
You are doing well Cinny. A good Mum. What about a group setting up working together with things they want to save, repair, and have a chinwag. Sort of like a Menzshed atmosphere.
Someone could bring glue and gloves to mend china, someone else sewing thread, lots of sewing needles with big eyes plus some of those guiders to help get the thread through, knitting needles, someone paper and pencil to write down haikus thought up on the spot, favourite recipes for the in-season produce, and together you would have good tools and good times and spread the skills.
You make a quiet point – “Would be great if some of the population were taught how to be more resourceful.”
A 3 year old doesn’t need much to make him or her happy.
Once i was helping out with a community Christmas dinner. As we cleared the tables a little boy said to me hopefulluy
“Do you think that anyone wants that?” as he looked at a little model car left on the table. He really wanted it, but didn’t just snatch it and take it, and I told him i was sure that it would be okay for him to have it. Poor little boy, it is so hard when money is t.ght, but he was trying to be good and fair.
Group name – Load Menders, Magic Menders, Skill-saws ?
Skill Saws 🙂 Love it, you could be on to something Grey.
The fellas down at the local Menz Shed are a crack up, they told me part of the reason for the Menz Shed is an escape from their wives. Geez I laughed hard, they said you don’t have to be a man to join their group, but not to tell anyone least the wives join up and foil their plan.
Menz Shed do amazing work for NZ Communities.
Thanks for the link of the Vege Orchestra, that is super awesome.
What are you going to do Sabine? I am really upset at the plight of those in Auckland, it seems that they are getting squeezed beyond hope up there, even though times are hard everywhere. And so many people chirp on the media about how good things are – they are so hard, both men and women.
Anyway I am now going to give $50, which I’ll have to borrow, that’s all i can do at present. Though I am doing little things all the time, but just now it’s got to be more focussed.
Destructive trawling is more intense inside official marine sanctuaries, while endangered fish are more common outside them, a startling analysis of Europe’s seas has revealed.
It shows that far from conserving sealife, legal marine protection areas (MPAs) are in fact the places most damaged by industrial fishing. The work has exposed “the big lie” behind European marine conservation, experts say, with most MPAs completely open to trawling.
It was that which allowed the scientists to figure out that the fishing industry was doing so much damage.
I’ve been saying for years that NZ needs its own satellite network with a high definition satellite capable of tracking all sea born traffic for years. Now we have another reason to have such.
A newly obtained letter has revealed US President Donald Trump signed a letter of intent to build a Trump Tower in Russia…
… This is important because during the 2016 presidential campaign trail — and since then — Trump has repeatedly insisted he had no business interests in Russia, and had “nothing to do” with the country.
The letter was dated October 28, 2015 — five months after Trump launched his Republican candidate campaign, and around a time he was heaping praise on Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has accused the UK and US political classes of “disrespecting” the public by questioning the Brexit referendum and Donald Trump’s election.
“They don’t want to recognise [Mr Trump’s] victory. That’s disrespect of voters,” he said.
Brilliant. A lot these arguments abounded on TS and led to meltdowns and exits. For emphasis…
Propane Jane™
@docrocktex26
Dec 18
More Propane Jane™ Retweeted Propane Jane™
You don’t get to act surprised by the fallout when we told you the shit was happening in real time but you labeled our warnings “identity politics” and went right back to doing Putin’s work for him.
Of course he would have had that ID, it would have helped him immensely in his work to root our ‘dissidents’ and ‘rioters’ and ‘freethinkers’ and the like.
But its all good now, now he is the bested with only our interests at heart. So as long as our interest align with his.
Actually the UK voted for Brexit, and US for Trump.
Some voter groups IE the losers, are disrespecting the voting outcome. Putin is correct.
The people voted for Trump and he had the Wall top of the list of things he wanted. The people voted for the wall. It is disrespectful to the voters for the Dems to use it as a political football.
Spite, revenge, and acting in contempt of the voter is the politics the 15 year old girl was talking about.
I still can’t get out of my mind Putin and the Prince shaking hands. Full of surprises that stale pale old white male.
DJ Ward yeah no collusion how many of Trumps cronies lied about contact with Russia all in jail and heading their. Fox news is now distancing itself from treasonous Trump openly criticising him. May is another Pootin puppet look at pootin taking over the Ukraine after meddling in the UK’s Brexit referendum. Now Putin is worried the UK staying in while he invades the Ukraine. Stasi /KGB tactics your obviously are Pootin puppet parroting on treasonist DJ Ward.
Thanks for all the good posts yesterday relating to Pike river and Uber.
..,. there was good rebutting of the ugly blood stained finger pointing from dishonest National supporters …
Pike River is a national party Dirty Politics story , literally, containing all their trademark governance…. Attacks on workers rights and conditions,,,,,,, lowering of regulations and standards, then allowing blatant non-compliance of their lowered standards … All followed by a putrid dishonesty which Alwyn and Co carry on with.
John Keys contempt for the dead workers …. and his true face… was on show when he said ” they can sue us “, a comment, he made after his government received a multi million insurance payout….. Going from a caring prime minister .. into a sneering assassin
The National Government actually had the power to shut the mine down for being illegally unsafe.,,, but they gave it their uber consent…. regulations were just red tape to be cut or ignored.
” Pike River – How could this happen in this day and age ” – YouTube “, provides far more information than all of our ‘ News media before it.
We hear, see and learn the ‘steps to disaster’ …. it’s a disturbing tragic picture of corner cutting and criminal disregard for NZ workers lives….. and much much worse than most of us would have believed or realized.
A small sample of the things the video taught me ….
Deregulation of mining legislation was done by the 1992 National party .. with complementary starving of resources and an understaffed capacity to enforce the watered down regulations…
Methane gas properties, management and regulations …. with regulations specifying 1.5% methane levels require work to stop, at 2% the workers must leave the mine …. Pike river had workers in the mine at over 2.96% for the last two weeks before the workers were killed.
Only 5 of the 29 workers killed for going to work at the Pike death trap were classified as experienced .. A scant two years qulifies one as experienced
The Pike river mine is internationally used as a ‘worst case / worst practice ‘ example for mining engineer students around the world
There is a huge amount more information in the Video and it puts a real human face on the victims and their families …. at the end it discusses responsibility and accountability.
As its presented by a decent honest New Zealander …. not once does it even mention Andrew Little.
Here’s a Video tribute to other NZ workers killed for the crime of turning up at work …
“US officials say two Chinese citizens acting on behalf of their country’s main intelligence agency carried out an extensive hacking campaign to steal data from government agencies and companies in the United States and nearly a dozen other countries.”
Are you saying Trump is the only sane one. ISIS is screwed, job done.
“There is no instance of a nation benefitting from prolonged warfare.” – Sun Tzu
I always saw Afganistan as a strategic asset vs Russia. Any sane Leader would otherwise have bailed long ago. Actually probably never been so stupid to invade in the first place. Syria has nothing the US wants.
Arms sales DJ Ward Russia is making in road’s on arms sales.
The only Reason Trump announced the withdrawal of Troops claiming falsely that ISIS had been defeated was because Flynn has been found guilty of lying to the FBI about his collusion with Pootin. Dead Cat syndrome your tiring attempt to bounce the dead cat is laughable. Trumps own supporters are attacking him over the Stupid idea ISIS is defeated.
It was after Erdogan’s phone call to Trump asking him to get US troops out of the way, so he can kill the Kurds who have been and still are fighting IS.
Trump could have said interfere with the war on IS and risk being cited as an ally of IS, a terrorist group Turkey have never fought.
Trump could also have offered to mediate a deal between the Kurds and Arabs with them and Damascus forafter the end of IS, but na he abandons the only reliable allies the US had in the war against IS in Syria.
Now everyone, but the echelon occupied nations, will seek to walk all over him.
Nonsense Tricledown
He risks losing Turkey, a major NATO power, if he continues to arm and aid the Kurds.Turkey would move even closer to Iran and Russia if the war got down to the US backing the Kurds vs Turkey.
Who is surprised that the US abandoned the Kurds , its the story of their life
Fed up with the lack of Trumpian macho bluster in Aotearoa, an aussie has warned our PM & deputy that “we are coming to get you.” Presumably to reinforce the notion that nobody can do macho bluster better than an aussie.
A typo from the anonymous Herald writer? Googling NewConservative gets nothing but links to the New Conservative Party – hardly an outfit likely to terrify govt leaders. But if they emerge as contenders for Nat support party it will have to be by attracting conservative voters away from National.
Which raises the interesting question of how many conservatives are rednecks partial to macho bluster. I’d like to see a political reporter interview Simon Lusk with this question. Then ask him “Well, wouldn’t they get more Nat voters by pointing out that all the National leadership contenders are useless wimps?” I bet he’d agree that attacking the govt leaders was poor strategy. Wrong target.
I suspect that Moffett, the NC member mentioned, has his eyes on attracting more of 2017 NZF voters some of whom are hugely opposed to the recent issues of immigration and the UN, as the NZF website shows in its recent commenting, and are threatening going to National in protest.
Good point. Winston will need to watch that space. Currently just a perception thing, but could become more of a reality if framed properly. There’s an evident problem with employers in some regions according to recent news stories. Nobody going for the jobs available.
So the people who constitute the 4% unemployment are too lazy to travel to where the jobs are. Dole is a better option for them. You can see why the right get pissed off with the bludgers, eh? So employers have to import foreigners to get the job done. For a govt elected on the basis of a regional development policy, not a good look. Winston is vulnerable. His mate Shane even more so!
Denise Frankenstien. Many areas have only 2% unemployment. But that has its downside no accommodation.
ie Queenstown no workers available why no accommodation. Ashburton no accommodation bringing in more workers where are you going to put them, do people want to move from Auckland to be paid nothing after accommodation and transport costs
Housing was identified as the single biggest issue by Don Brashes productivity commission. National talked a lot but did f/all about it. So now we have reached capacity no chance of any quick fix.
Yes but immigrants need accommodation too, don’t they? So ain’t really a valid excuse. For seasonal work tent cities could suffice but you need sufficient toilets, showers, etc. I agree that National went missing in action.
Moving to where there is seasonal work only really applies to those living at home with their parents (they can come and go the most easily and are generally with the fitness required).
And given the ambition of not having anyone under 20 on the dole – all being in work training, education or employment, it’s where any action starts. Though there will be some over 20 as well.
In the provinces its about the availability of travel to the out of town work (not all youth will have transport and older ones who do, would find it costly for MW work unles their is transport or organised pooling).
” For seasonal work tent cities could suffice”.
Please tell me you are joking?
Next I suppose you will be telling us that people living in their cars should be grateful that they have a dry place to sleep.
The All Blacks havn’t been in the national interest for some time, quite the opposite, NZ use to be admired winners in the game of rugby despite all the stuff ups by the high honchos on the board.
A bunch of clowns loose on the world stage, in uncertain times, generating ill feeling toward the NZ society – the neo liberal winners, making an art form of losing even when you win.
If that is any indication, there will be nothing ‘new’ about these neoConservatives.
Dis-connected fruit loops outraged that privilege alone has little default value in the national interest does not conservative make.
These rorters are scared they are going to be replaced by genuine local lobbyists, and the quicker the better i’d say.
You’re right. I just tried it again to check. Interesting that they have taken it down – maybe the reporter got something wrong and a corrected version will show up later. The Newshub report has a little more from “Mr Moffett, who called Mr Peters and Ms Ardern “leftards”. I had to google that. Interesting that the definitions call it derogatory without explaining why. Presumably the kind of people who use it don’t like explanations!
And I see that he has now mentioned the disappearance of the Herald article and suggested that this is because it was in the Sports section and not in the Politics section. He is also claiming it has been taken down as it has had the opposite effect by giving him a 100 new followers on Twitter …
Why not just try the Urban Dictionary? https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Leftard
I’m sure that you will recognize quite a lot of the commenters on this blog.
Yourself in fact seems quite a good representative.
Trying to insult me? Didn’t work. That’s actually a considerably more satisfying definition than the others that google presented me with. They were quite anaemic by comparison. The writer captured the key syndromes very effectively. Reminded me of some of my own past critiques of leftism. When I first participated here I was quite trenchant due to the harmful effects of group-think but there’s been a culture change for the better since.
Rightards would likewise benefit from the more balanced view of things that centrists can provide. Collective brain death need not be terminal!
I’ve just been slammed spammed or something by some crowd called Weber Barbecues that have taken over the site I thought I chosen on google with some bloody advertisement and continual downloading of some offer to win something.
When I tried to backtrack away, I couldn’t. When I went to go back to original site the whole dropdown was full of their offers, and informed it was loading more.
We are having trouble with Chinese hacking of the 5 Eyes, with the 5 Eyes hacking of traffic through backdoors that Microsoft had (and I read that other companies have been requested to do by the USA authorities and suppose they complied). Then there are the megalomaniacs who have the techno companies and are developing new stuff who are in the public eye. Then there are the reclusives who are dreaming up some other possibilities that are likely to give us nightmares.
Let us have no more talk of getting rid of our monetary system and just doing everything digitally, electronically or whatever. Hold onto the basics that have enabled human life so we have got to now; don’t give up all autonomy to the machine and those that think like machines. There be dragons!
It looks like some malvertising has sneaked into some of the advertising streams on some websites.
The msn.com website, for instance, the last couple of weeks has been randomly serving up a lot of full-screen adverts I never clicked on with an annoying double beep and I cannot backtrack to the original article I was reading. A popover claiming I have won a prize that from time to time changes also pops up over the screen. Even though the adverts all look very similar and some are 100% identical the website URL keeps changing. I just had one less than half an hour ago when I went to read an MSN story and barely got through the first paragraph when it was replaced by the fishing scam. I had to close the tab and go back to the main site.
I was just wondering how many people on here have had articles they are reading on websites such as MSN.com hijacked and replaced by full-screen web pages from random websites that claim you are a winner and to enter your details?
It seems in the last few weeks for me the MSN website has been hijacked by Malvertising hijacking me away from the story I am trying to read to their scams.
All these scams use big name brands such as Apple iPhones, Samsung Galaxy, and I guess Weber Barbecues from what you are saying GWS.
Where can we report these kinds of things to get these big companies to fix these backdoor scams happening on their websites due to adverts with hijacking code inserted into them?
Oh fuck. Mad Dog is out at the end of February. Is it too late to get started on that fallout shelter? Coz you know whatever the dayglo swampzilla gets to replace him won’t just be nicknamed Mad Dog, it’ll actually be rabid.
Yeah, losing Mattis so soon after Kelly looks like incompetence. Will be interesting to see the calibre of both replacements, whether military or not. If the military hierarchs have agreed amongst themselves that Trump is too flaky, he can’t fish in that pool again. More flakes on Wall St, so try there next…
I vote for Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity. Add in Laura Ingraham and Trump has all the arsekissers and bootlickers he needs to keep his frail little ego erect.
Coulter said mean things about poopydiaper Don not being able to build a simple wall so he’s thrown a tanty and unfollowed her on twitter. I doubt we’re through with the tears and screaming yet, so the hugs and makeup kisses are a while away.
The most common route to authoritarianism runs through the military, so if Don of the Deadbrains has alienated them, the US is slightly more likely to remain a republic.
IKEA tax dodgers on their way..and my, doesn’t Stephen tindall love their model..
“The thing I really love about them is that they are putting sustainability at the front and centre,” said Sir Stephen, whose Tindall Foundation has invested heavily in environmental projects – including the planting of more than 22 million trees.
“So they’re a great example of what can be done in retail.”
Plant a tree, dodge your tax..nice Green wash, and stuff the workers.
No. If you shop there it will give you something to do on the long winter nights.
You can probably get at least 3 months of amusement trying to assemble a small bookcase, before they take you away in a straitjacket.
At least that is what my friends have told me. I never did buy anything there. Getting started on that lark leads to madness.
That sort of thing is easy to put together. Hire a working man to do it . Then you’ll understand that we all have value . Something you right wingers struggle with.
Capitalism alone is not sustainable, banning stuff is inefficient, the efficient system acknowledges it’s weakness. Neolibs never do, never do detail, never get their hands dirty, it was always nonsense.
No. Capitalism is not sustainable. I see no way that a system based upon greed and everyone having ever more but especially the few rich ever could be.
Don’t please brush off Shane Jones because he has said words in favour of W Haumaha. I think it is a situation of a flawed person who should be kicked out of a good job but not be discarded.
National has called for New Zealand First to say whether it still backs under-fire Deputy Police Commissioner Wally Haumaha.
And New Zealand First MP Shane Jones has, saying Haumaha’s previous good work among Māori was being ignored.
“Yesterday’s damning IPCA report into Mr Haumaha found that he belittled and humiliated staff, aggressively asserted his authority, and inappropriately approached staff to support him after allegations were made. It also shows that he circulated information which would discredit a complainant which was improper,” National’s police spokesman Chris Bishop
said today.
“These latest revelations about a whole raft of Government agencies contracting Thompson & Clark to spy on New Zealanders on their behalf are just the latest in a long, sordid history of the State spying on the people. Go back a decade and you’ll find:
Thompson & Clark exposed as spying on environmental activists on behalf of the since gone bust Solid Energy
Thompson & Clark exposed as spying on animal rights activists on behalf of the State
Police spy/infiltrator/agent provocateur Rob Gilchrist exposed as having spied, for money, on a whole raft of activist groups for a decade
The release of Security Intelligence Service files on many people (including me) that revealed a long history of obsessive spying on activists. In the case of the only organisation to receive its file – the Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa – the file revealed that the SIS had spied on CAFCA for a quarter of a century.”
“He denies it’s open season for fraudsters, saying the Labour Inspectorate and Immigration NZ are “incredibly vigilant”. But when they do catch scammers, only rarely are custodial sentences handed out. Former immigration minister Tuariki Delamere says only harsher penalties – including deportation – can have any impact.
If two journalists, without the investigatory powers or resource of a government department, can unearth and expose a string of such schemes – and we heard of many, many more we didn’t have the time to pursue – it’s clear that they are everywhere, and not hard to find.
The remote prospect of prosecution has made men like Gurpreet Singh brazen.”
However alongside those pressures to turn a blind eye must also be pressure from competing businesses to remove this illegal advantage….never mind the immorality of exploitation
James Mattis, “Mad Dog Mattis”, has quit as Donald Trump’s military officers criticize his unilateral decision to pull out of Syria.
Meanwhile Trump’s decision has received a Putin-esque seal of approval from the Kremlin.
It is messy and everything, but one of the few rational groups in the Middle East, the Kurds are now going to be exposed to whatever Turkey turns on them. I know Turkey has been the subject of PKK attacks but at the same time in a region full of despots and well known for dodgy deals, if there is any combatant group deserving of some kind of reward for their efforts, it would be the Kurds.
Heard rumours just before I out about the possibility of Blackwater replacing US Combat troops in the Gan. One detailed report I seen was cost analysis from Combats Troop, along everything in between to AirPower/ Close Air Support and training the Afghan troops. Training the Afghan troops by Blackwater is real scary and wrong on so many levels and I don’t really know where to start.
It’s no wonder that old Mad Dog has called it quits when old Trump wants to pull this type of shit on the world and it shows that Trump, Bolton and Co have no morals or any principles, but make a quick buck.
Interestingly, Mattis once revealed what would lead him to resign in protest during an April 2014 talk in San Francisco, and he made it clear that he would only do so under the most dire of circumstances, since his subordinates would not be able to do the same.
Top articles
1/5
Mattis’ 2017 Message To
Troops Is Worth Remembering: ‘Just Hold The Line’
“The lance corporals can’t retire. They’re going. That’s all there is to it,” he said.
[…]
Later, during his April 2014 talk in San Francisco, he was asked specifically about whether there was a scenario in which he may have retired in protest. Mattis allowed some unethical orders and other scenarios that would lead him to do so, but he said, “you have to be very careful about doing that. The lance corporals can’t retire. They’re going. That’s all there is to it.”
He added: “You abandon him only under the most dire circumstances, where the message you have to send can be sent no other way. I never confronted that situation.”
“AN “AFFRONT TO DEMOCRACY”, was the State Services Commissioner’s characterisation of the state bureaucracy’s decision to spy on political activists. Few would disagree. That multiple state agencies felt entitled to contract-out the gathering of political intelligence to the privately owned and operated Thompson & Clark Investigations Ltd reveals a widespread antidemocratic disdain for citizens’ rights within the New Zealand public service. The alarming revelations of the State Services’ inquiry raise two very important questions: How did this disdain for democratic norms become so entrenched? And what, if anything, can Jacinda Ardern’s government do to eradicate it?
The dangerous truth, in relation to the first question, is also painfully relevant to the second. The effective abrogation of democratic norms in New Zealand dates back to 1984 and the events which the former CTU economist and ministerial adviser, Peter Harris, characterised as a “bureaucratic coup d’état”. In was in July 1984 that elements within the NZ Treasury and the Reserve Bank, taking full advantage of the relationships they had been cultivating for at least a year with the parliamentary leadership of the NZ Labour Party, initiated the detailed and extremely radical economic policy programme which came to be known as “Rogernomics”.
This programme, set forth in “Economic Management” – the book-length briefing paper for the incoming Minister of Finance, Roger Douglas – had received no mandate from the electorate. Indeed, the ordinary voter had no inkling whatsoever that the Labour Party of Mickey Savage and Norman Kirk was about to unleash a programme considerably to the right of Margaret Thatcher’s and Ronald Reagan’s. The authors of “Economic Management” were not, however, interested in obtaining a democratic mandate for their proposed reforms. In fact, they strongly suspected that submitting their ideas to the voters was just about the surest way of securing their emphatic rejection.
Since the mid-1970s the conviction had been growing among big-business leaders and high-ranking civil servants living in the wealthiest capitalist nations, that democracy had gotten out of hand; and that unless the scope for democratic intervention in the economy was radically reduced, then the future of capitalism could not be guaranteed. Free Market Economics, as it was called then, or Neoliberalism, as we know it today, was, from the outset, incompatible with the social-democratic principles that had underpinned western policy-making in the post-war world. It could only be imposed, and kept in place, by a political class sealed-off from all manner of pressures from below. If that meant gutting the major parties of the centre-left and right; purging the civil service, academia and the news media of dissenters; and crushing the trade unions – then so be it.
Once it became clear that the free-market “revolution” was not about to be halted in its tracks, all those with an ambition to rise within the new order made haste to learn its rules and spared no effort in enforcing them. This phenomenon: of absorbing and implementing an antidemocratic regime’s imperatives was described by British historian of the Third Reich, Ian Kershaw, as “Working Towards The Fuhrer”.
cause that was what made the Stasi so ‘everywhere’ and omnipotent. all the east germans that in order to keep their apartment, jobs, schools, places for university, etc spied on all the other east germans.
OK that was neutral journalism at its best. If I wasn’t aware of other subjects I would think Helen was faultless or the author was blind and trained under the new academia. Anyway Ed thanks for the point of view, everything helps, even the cringeworthy and funny.
Had a car crash at home today. A young male around 20 failed a high speed sweeping left hand bend. Took out about 40m of our fence including the stainer post. Ended up facing the other way nearly tipped over on a bank. Lucky the power poles are on the opposite road side. Had to pull him out into the paddock with the tractor. Then across a soaked paddock to a race then to dry ground before we could replace his tire. Yes he needed help changing his tire. Yes he asked where he could wash the mud off his shoes. Anyway he had insurance, so off he went unharmed from his experience, car trashed, to inform mummy and daddy up in Auckland how he has crashed his second car out in the wilderness.
What address so you can get the money for your fence? Oh I suppose they will expect that to come out of the insurance you have paid for. And that would wipe your no-claims bonus.
I have learnt since posting the comment that we can’t get insurance payments for fences. So all on us. It’s probably just a days work and just $200 in materials as most will be recycled. More of a pain at this time of year as we try and fit in some holiday time.
The important part is he walked away unharmed. We had a fatality a few years ago a few hundred meters from the same spot. Helping motorists is a regular event for us.
Probably because they had to find money to fix more serious problems left behind by National, like collapsing hospitals and a growing Teacher shortage.
Chris t
Don’t have a poke at Labour because they are more far-seeing than you. Stay schtum and think and learn. Having a licence is a big advantage for being able to legally get to work, obtain work, showing that the person is responsible.
It takes time, study, practice; it’s enormously expensive for a poor person scraping along. It’s a measure of success and would give a feeling of self-satisfaction.
Many of the young haven’t got good reading skills, and so it gives an opportunity for helpers and supporters of the young to bring their reading skills to a better level. It brings them into a circle of people who are desiring to help them get a better life, and they might not have had contact with such people in a one-to-one working relationship before.
Probably at school there would have been over-worked teachers, and if the young person isn’t motivated to learn all this general stuff (where is it going to be useful?), and they might be action-oriented not desk or inert, passive-oriented, so school might have just washed over them. And in the end washed their hands of such impossible-to-teach students.
This is stuff that I know, plus stuff that i have learned. You could write long-form comments like this, if you tried to learn and understand, and wanted to spend the time on explaining background to whatever problem you know about!
“Auckland victims’ advocate RUTH MONEY is on the program…”
The final episode of The Panel is as obscene and irony-free as ever
RNZ National, Friday 21 December 2018
Jim Mora, Jock Anderson, Ruth Money, Caitlin Cherry
As a special kick in the teeth to listeners, Jim Mora’s producer Caitlin Cherry (herself a nasty piece of work) [1] has procured two nasty right wing guests for the very last show under Mora’s hosting. Ruth Money we’ve looked at already: she’s a protégée of Garth the Knife McSticker and, bizarrely, calls herself a “victims’ advocate.” [2] The other guest is the stridently anti-union, anti-teacher, anti-liberal Jock Anderson. [3] At least Anderson has one saving grace: he’s a genuinely witty fellow, who can make people laugh. And right at this moment (4:41 p.m.) he is delivering a very well thought out Soapbox item about local democracy.
Today featured some of the recurring themes of Mora’s thirteen year tenure:
There was his glib and complacent conservatism: “Jesus is the reason for the season!” he burbled just before the 4 o’clock news, and returned to the topic at 4:45. On innumerable past occasions he has quoted, in high seriousness, the likes of David Brooks and David Farrar.
There was the consultation of a marginally competent “expert”—today, yet again, one Ken Grace, apparently from a “Department of Writing” somewhere, who chuntered on for several minutes about the meaning of “impeccable.”
There was the choice of consciously lightweight and trivial topics, made even more irritating by Mora’s inane parroting of words and phrases that have just been said. This clearly irritated his past producers—especially Noelle McCarthy, Susan Baldacci and Julie Moffett. Today it was Caitlin Cherry who tried, and failed, to hide her exasperation as they brought their intellects to bear on the vital topic of Baby Names.
MORA: Caitlin Cherry, Story of the Day. CAITLIN CHERRY: So there’s a website called Nameberry, it’s quite a popular one, and it’s predicted the top baby name TRENDS for next year. This is for America, I must note, but, ahhhhmmm, they’re actually starting to adopt names from around the world, nicking names from other cultures, ahhhhmmm, they’ve picked that the Maori name Aroha— MORA: Ahhhhhh! CAITLIN CHERRY: —will become popular next year, along with names from Korea, and South America, Indian names, things like Acayshus— MORA: Acayshus? CAITLIN CHERRY:[clipped tone] Yes. [significant pause] And um, there’s also going to be, ummm, apparently more three-letter names. They’re very, very popular. Hal, Ida, Jem, I always like the name Jem because it’s the brother in um– MORA: Gem? CAITLIN CHERRY:[significant pause] Why am I having a mind blank? MORA: Would you call your daughter Gem? CAITLIN CHERRY: Harper Lee’s book, um— MORA: Oh. CAITLIN CHERRY: It’s the brother in Harper Lee’s book, Scout after her big brother— MORA: Oh, J – E – M? CAITLIN CHERRY: Jem. MORA: Gotcha! CAITLIN CHERRY: Yeah. …[clearly rattled, she pauses]…. Um, celebrity surname names are also growing in popularity, so what would YOU suggest that the famous, like if you were going to name your children after people after the surname of a celebrity? MORA: Paltrow. RUTH MONEY: Trump. CAITLIN CHERRY:[mirthlessly] Ah ha! No-o-o-o-o-oo. MORA: Trump, yeah. CAITLIN CHERRY: Ah, Beckham— MORA: Oh, Beckham. CAITLIN CHERRY: Bowie, Hendrix, Lennon, Monroe MORA: Oh yeah. CAITLIN CHERRY: Yeah. MORA: So they’re all going to come into vo-o-o-o-ogue? CAITLIN CHERRY: Yep. …
ad nauseam….
Just before the 4:30 news Ruth Money took the opportunity to embark on a rant about the fact that “prison is the last resort… especially for these hideous offences…. It’s MADNESS.” Later she averred: “I think we need to get back to HUMANITY…”
“Until recently, the study of tipping points was controversial, but it is increasingly accepted as an explanation for climate changes that are happening with more speed and ferocity than earlier computer models predicted. The loss of coral reefs and Arctic sea ice may already be past the point of no return. There are signs the Antarctic is heading the same way faster than thought.”
“Only 19% were entirely isolated. Another 36% shared a common cause, but were not likely to interact. The remaining 45% had the potential to create either a one-way domino effect or mutually reinforcing feedbacks.”
So the science of complexity has been applied. That’s good. The application informs us of the extent to which environmental systems interlock: considerable! That’s bad. So it’s an academic study that isn’t a waste of time. That’s rare.
“The fourth most downloaded academic research of 2018 was the Hothouse Earth paper, which considered how tipping points could combine to push the global climate into an uninhabitable state.”
So the prospect of everyone dying from climate change has become so concerning that it’s the fourth most urgent topic of academic consideration. Hard to say if that’s good or bad, eh?
“Rocha has spent 10 years building a database of tipping points, or “regime shifts” as he calls them. He urges policymakers to adopt a similar interdisciplinary approach so they can better grasp what is happening.” Policymakers would have to grow extremely different brains to achieve that grasp.
“Policies need to match the scale of the problem.” I’d prefer policies that actually solved the problem. “Every action counts.” Helpful actions count in favour of the solution, irrevelant actions count against. Democracy selects the latter.
When 84% want our Government to take at least some action on anthropogenic global warming, and the Government still only pays lip service, it is lack of democracy, that is the problem.
Older but not at all wiser: Rosemary McLeod returns. The Panel, RNZ National, Tuesday 18 December 2018
Megan Whelan, Gary McCormick, Rosemary McLeod, Emil Donovan
A few years ago, as the blood-soaked Sisi military regime was killing and arresting Egyptians, Jim Mora’s light chat show gave it the once-over-lightly. One of the panelists, Rosemary McLeod had obviously not done much or indeed any reading about the situation, but that did not stop her from sniffing contemptuously and proclaiming: “Those people don’t WANT democracy!”
McLeod has largely been absent from The Panel since then. She now sounds like she is on death’s door, but it hasn’t made her a whit more thoughtful.
At 4:20 p.m. today (Dec. 18, 2018) it wasn’t the mass killing of Egyptian civilians but Brexit that received the once-over-lightly treatment. To be fair, one person in the discussion, Gary McCormick ,seemed to have actually read something about this topic and had obviously thought about it; he said something worth listening to.
On the other hand, this was Rosemary McLeod’s contribution:
“…but I do admire Theresa May. She’s an extraordinary woman, with nice legs.”
Fifteen minutes later, her “Soapbox” contribution was a long chat about Melania Trump changing her hair colour.
The chirpy-cheep-cheep are always on about how wonderful cycleways are and talking down the naysayers, not willing to admit there are problems; winners and losers.
Scooters and hoverboards add to Dutch cycle lane hell
Police union chief says it is impossible to keep lanes safe due to variety of vehicles and rules Amsterdam, The Hague, Utrecht and Rotterdam are rushing through different rules about the sort of vehicles allowed on their increasingly crowded lanes, leaving everyone confused, it is claimed.
On Tuesday Amsterdam announced that slower mopeds, known as a snorfiets, would be banned from the bike paths from April. Utrecht is introducing a similar ban at the end of the next year.
But Birò cars, four-wheeled electric vehicles with two seats side by side and a top speed of 34 mph, can still be driven on cycle lanes anywhere in the country.
so the issue is not with the cycle ways but rather with the humans who use them.
Or am i mis-understanding this?
I have lived for a bit in the Netherlands, in Hilversum 15 kms of Utrecht and i loved the cycle ways. All of them. Easy to navigate, going everywhere, with a nice road surface good for cycling. And yes the mopeds – 28 km per hour if not trafficed used these too, however i have not seen the Biro Cars at the time i lived there.
I think that the problem is that the cycleways are becoming so crowded that they no longer provide the good answer to non-auto travel they once did. And to complicate that, the variety of vehicles, and unregulated speed. There is a saying about a good idea being killed by its popularity
I remember that at early times of car use, it was required that someone walked in front carrying a red flag. In NZ I think that cyclists will need to be registered, like drivers, and pay ACC. Many travel fast on the footpaths. Because they are not large and cumbersome like a car they can ride on the footpath and then go as fast as a car on the road. Then at night they forget they have a small profile and don’t realise how invisible they can be even with all their lights.
The age of simplicity cycling is over, and there need to be more restraints ie licences, training, registration, ACC. Some simple souls want to eliminate helmets. I don’t agree with that. NZs in general, don’t behave as sensibly as Europeans. The trace of the wild west is still in us.
And still I have not mentioned pedestrians, the ability to walk in a stress free atmosphere, and the growing numbers of old people, and computer users who are putting on weight and need to exercise, not build up into a blood pressure, cholestorol problem. Both need to walk, and relax and breathe the air, and look at the green world around. Instead the in-thing is to use them as markers for cyclists to weave in and out amongst. I may yet attack someone some day if I am run into. I can only take so much aggravation and usurpation of the space I need to walk in and keep healthy.
Why don’t you have the guts to directly accuse me so I can sue you for defamation and prove that you’re lying. Coward!— Alan Dershowitz (@AlanDersh) December 4, 2017
I accuse you directly. You had sex repeatedly with minor victims provided to you by Jeffrey Epstein. https://t.co/xPatwTaXZB— Claude Taylor (@TrueFactsStated) December 21, 2018
Kai ora R&R yes we do have a lot of good men who do there duty of looking after there whano. The problem for Maori is the media focous on all the bad this about our socioty
and the stats tell us there are a lot good things maori men do.
Toxic maculinity is how this socioty shapes men with the movies and media all portraying this as the norm is all part of some suppresion of wahine .
Yes Ngatai Porou respect wahine and most of our Marae are named after Wahine.
Ka kite ano .
Some people are to blinded the can not see the writing in on the wall or is something else blinding them
Corbyn faces furious Labour backlash over backing Brexit
Labour leader accused of betrayal on second poll and ‘in danger of losing young backers’
Jeremy Corbyn is facing a storm of criticism from Labour activists and MPs after suggesting he would press ahead with Brexit if the party won a snap general election.
In a sign that he is losing backing among overwhelmingly pro-Remain Labour supporters, Corbyn was also accused of betraying the party membership by appearing reluctant to back the idea of supporting Remain in a second referendum.
The first signs of a serious internal revolt from party members on the left, who helped propel him to the leadership, came after Corbyn gave an interview to the Guardian in which he suggested he thought Brexit should go ahead and said EU state-aid rules would prevent a Labour government intervening to support UK industries.
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His anti-EU tone drew immediate criticism from party supporters and members who had successfully persuaded the leadership to back the possibility of a second referendum at Labour’s annual conference in Liverpool in September. Ka kite ano links below
You see people we are mere bacteria on the back side of the great blue whale .
If we stuff up OUR worlds enviroment and cause mass extinction life will continue with out humans .
We are a intelligent race in the year 2018 we need to take the lead on climate change and change the way we live to drop carbon out of our lives to combate climate change
Ka kite ano links below Indonesia tsunami: at least 20 dead as beaches around Sunda Strait hit
National disaster management agency says at least 165 injured after tsunami, which could be linked to volcanic eruption
Here you go solar energy is now cheaper than dirty coal carbon and nuclear energy I first watched this story 2 years ago its hard to find now. ???????????? don’t let the carbon trolls trick you into thinking that its cheaper to burn your grandchildren’s future for cheaper energy
In countries like Brazil, Australia, Chile and parts of the United States people consider renewable energy because of financial reasons. The price of solar and wind energy will continue to drop and in more countries renewable energy will occur.
A surprising newcomer on the market is Morocco, where the government expects that in 2020 more than 40 percent of the energy could come from solar energy. Ka kite ano
Kai ora Newshub Condolences to all the people who lost love ones in Indonesia I did use the story to hightlight how small we are to Papatuanuku .
Well that’s a good problem to have all the film studios to booked out to film any new films. These are the people who have a hold of the 1080 debate The Far Out Right link here from a great man’s view on these fools https://edition.cnn.com/2018/12/22/europe/george-soros-profile-lister-intl/index.html
Josphe should be counting his lucky stars I have seen footage in work safe videos with much smaller electric explosions kill people instantly
People have to respect tangaroa creatures as they are just doing what it takes to survive in the wild most people would perish in the wild bush .
Its cool that more home less people are getting houseing ka pai its good having a humane goverment in power who put’s people wellbeing berfore profts.The NZ soccer is looking bright Niki
Mike that was a cool view of the Pohutukawa tree in full bloom .
Ka kite ano
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 ...
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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 ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Global society may have finally slammed on the brakes for climate-warming pollution released by human fossil fuel combustion. According to the Carbon Monitor Project, the total global climate pollution released between February and May 2024 declined slightly from the amount released during the same ...
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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 ...
Long ReadKey Summary: Although National increased the health budget by $1.4 billion in May, they used an old funding model to project health system costs, and never bothered to update their pre-election numbers. They were told during the Health Select Committees earlier in the year their budget amount was deficient, ...
As a momentous, historic weekend in US politics unfolded, analysts and commentators grasped for precedents and comparisons to help explain the significance and power of the choice Joe Biden had made. The 46th president had swept the Democratic party’s primaries but just over 100 days from the election had chosen ...
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 ...
Some years ago, I bought a book at Dunedin’s Regent Booksale for $1.50. As one does. Vandrad the Viking (1898), by J. Storer Clouston, is an obscure book these days – I cannot find a proper online review – but soon it was sitting on my shelf, gathering dust alongside ...
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 ...
This is a free articleCoverageThis morning, US President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the Presidential race. And that is genuinely newsworthy. Thanks for your service, President Biden, and all the best to you and yours.However, the media in New Zealand, particularly the 1News nightly bulletin, has been breathlessly covering ...
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, ...
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Congratulations Rosemary McDonald. I can’t imagine how hard it has been to fight for so long. I’m happy you’ve had some resolution at last.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12180346
+ infinity.
Much love to you Rosemary and to your man.
At last Rosemary, success and i hope life will be easier and more settled for you.
Then you can carry on getting the other improvements you see are needed with a chance of succeeding with those too.
Rosemary, this may not be all you and we hoped, but at least you and your partner can enjoy this holiday free of anxiety about a court appearance, or did you prefer one to get ‘information out there?’ We will never know with a confidentiality agreement.
Anyway, all the very best to you both. Enjoy some well earned peace and rest.
By the way, my situation has improved, as I’ve had all the pre-op hospital visits for my hip and am on the urgent list. LOL (Bay of Plenty still short of surgeons .)
“…am on the urgent list. LOL ” Yes, definitely a relative term, “urgent”. OTOH…you don’t want that overworked surgeon to rush the job. 😉 😉 Being in pain is a bastard, and floating around are a few research papers which address the issue of sometimes permanent disability caused by significant delays in treatment of what are often fixable problems. The cost of managing long term debility is usually greater than the cost of early intervention. The shortage of surgeons? Perhaps if we had not put the cost of tertiary education onto our children a few more might have trained to be surgeons happy to work in the public sector rather than follow their privileged ancestors into the private sector. All the best with your op…and for goodness’ sake mobilize after but TAKE IT EASY. (Over doing it post- hip op is an actual ‘thing’.)
As for our news. You’re right. Confidentiality. BUT…if you and anyone else is interested, this issue and other disability discussions are conveniently archived here…
https://publicaddress.net/access/archive/
I hopped into the time machine and re- read the post I did in 2014. https://publicaddress.net/access/paying-family-carers-what-was-all-the-fuss/
Some here on TS have written the Herald off as a Right Wing Trumpet. I see it as a venue for some very good journos to strut their stuff and tell the stories that need telling, for those who most need their stories told.
Belinda Feek who did the piece in the Herald today is following up on the good work done by Kirsty Johnston on this family carers issue and the abuse and neglect of people with disabilities in MOH funded residential facilities.
before Kirsty, there was Catherine Masters…https://www.nzherald.co.nz/catherine-masters/news/article.cfm?a_id=49&objectid=10536859 who took the time to get to know some of the Atkinson pioneers.
“So while it takes a long time to write, Stuart eventually comes up with a sentence for me which is wry and funny and sums up five long weeks in his wheelchair watching the goings-on in a courtroom.
He’s typing his sentence on his talking computer in the Glenfield house where he lives with Jean, who takes care of all his needs.
So far he’s written “everything in the garden … ”
I’d asked what he had made of Ministry of Health officials at a hearing in Auckland of the Human Rights Review Tribunal, officials who had used words such as “frameworks” and “initiatives” and who had talked about the strategies and supports in place which benefit the lives of disabled people.
Jean and I moved on to talk about other things in the time it took him to finish. I guess he’s used to people’s attention wandering, though this 42-year-old with severe cerebral palsy is a computer programmer and sharp as a tack.
Stuart understood every word at the Tribunal hearing. To him and Jean, the health officials on the stand seemed to live in a world tangled with jargon and policy.
Part of his reason for turning up every single day was to remind them that this landmark case is actually about real people, like Stuart, and the dedicated mother who has cared for him for so long.
Stuart gave evidence at the hearing one day, using his portable communication device, but mostly he sat at the back, head sometimes drooping and at times jerking because, unlike his intellect, he has little control over his body.
Stuart’s full sentence to me in his bedroom went like this: “Everything in the garden is p [perfect]. Yeah, right.” “
Kia kaha Rosemary and all the very best to you and your loved ones over the festive season. Thank you for your voice.
Ata marie marty mars, and the same to you. I know I bang on a bit ( 🙂 ) and some may wonder why her and not many others? Simple reason is that unlike so many others Peter (and by default myself) has nothing to lose by speaking out.
When one has managed to extract funding from MOH DSS (by fair means or foul) it is well known in the ‘community’ that such funding can be just as easily withdrawn. Peter cannot be pigeonholed into any appropriate funding stream so we have been blissfully unfettered by fear of punitive action. 🙂 😉
Thanks Rosemary. Sadly there still is a lot to do. Thanks for the Links.
Stuart understood every word at the Tribunal hearing. To him and Jean, the health
That’s well put. The framework of the policy instead of supporting the building of a policy that meets needs in the required manner, becomes twisted into a maze with considerations of semi-corporate PPP matters, budgeting constraints resulting in unsatisfactory outcomes, inadequate staffing, impractical locations and transport etc.
National seem to be losing every skirmish lately; it would pay to keep in mind the image of a cornered rat and remember the importance of leaving somewhere for it to run. Could we let them have, at least the appearance of, a win with some little thing?
Good bit of philosophy with your comment.
“When you surround an army, leave an outlet free. Do not press a desperate foe too hard.” – Sun Tzu
That’s to stop them all going suicidle on you. Like lifting the bedsheets, or telling common secrets.
Pertinent quote there, well done. Although I must disagree with Robert inasmuch as National seems more like a cornered mouse than rat currently! Call me old-fashioned, but wins ought to be earned rather than awarded, and I see no sign that they are even trying. Just going thro the motions.
Brownlee, for instance, mouthing off about that turkey who felt obliged to resign – instead of acknowledging performance failure. What parts of leadership doesn’t he understand? Setting an example, obviously. Providing an appropriate role model. Doing what the situation requires. Ethical conduct. Moral guidance.
Instead, Brownlee postured. Who did he think that would impress? 🙄 As for the other non-leaders in National, not a whimper emanated. Too scared to take responsibility for their poor performance in government. Do they think voters won’t notice this?? People are meant to learn from their mistakes. Refusal and denial are likely to make things worse for National.
“Refusal and denial are likely to make things worse for National.”
Only at the margins…..most of this was common knowledge for many years (think John Campbell reports) and it didnt have much effect….those voting for the status quo were either happy with or happy to ignore what was occuring
Very good point. That Sun Tzu comes up with wisdom.
Thats where a pet mink comes in handy Robert.
Oh I thought Jacinda did that with her Bill they rightly supported, while Act showed a distinct lack of heart.
No. Crush them.
Bring on the common secret telling I say jocks.
I’m doing my best. Did you notice the innuendo, and sarcasm.
The Auckland City Missioner says unless there is a miracle, more families lining up for Christmas food parcels will leave empty-handed
https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/checkpoint/audio/2018676517/huge-demand-for-christmas-food-parcels-across-nz
Is it time for the Government to step up and do more to help?
Maybe John Key could help out
It would be great if he did. Although, it would look better for the Government (PR wise) if they stepped up. Key doing it would further show up Labour’s inaction.
It’s actually an easy win for Key to do that, if he cared about that sort of thing anymore.
It’s pretty hard going for some at Christmas, a friend was in tears yesterday as she has to choose between food and a present for her 3 year old; who is just switching on to Christmas due to all the decorations etc around the place.
So much pressure on parents due to consumerism and in your face advertising.
The girls made up a box of toys, linen, books etc they don’t use anymore. Takes a village and all that.
Is it time for the Government to step up and do more to help?
Would be great if some of the population were taught how to be more resourceful.
For example, state housing comes with a food growing zone and food growing education etc etc
Free how to repair stuff community education etc etc.
Does my head in how much is thrown away, Miss 14 received a freedom furniture office chair for her bday, worth around $300. I picked it up for $5 at the recycling centre, had a few stitches that needed replacing. After a few weeks of her feeling flash with a fancy chair I came clean 🙂
Part of the new school education policy maybe? How to be resourceful and How to grow/prepare food.
You are doing well Cinny. A good Mum. What about a group setting up working together with things they want to save, repair, and have a chinwag. Sort of like a Menzshed atmosphere.
Someone could bring glue and gloves to mend china, someone else sewing thread, lots of sewing needles with big eyes plus some of those guiders to help get the thread through, knitting needles, someone paper and pencil to write down haikus thought up on the spot, favourite recipes for the in-season produce, and together you would have good tools and good times and spread the skills.
You make a quiet point – “Would be great if some of the population were taught how to be more resourceful.”
A 3 year old doesn’t need much to make him or her happy.
Once i was helping out with a community Christmas dinner. As we cleared the tables a little boy said to me hopefulluy
“Do you think that anyone wants that?” as he looked at a little model car left on the table. He really wanted it, but didn’t just snatch it and take it, and I told him i was sure that it would be okay for him to have it. Poor little boy, it is so hard when money is t.ght, but he was trying to be good and fair.
Group name – Load Menders, Magic Menders, Skill-saws ?
Symbol – The vegetable Orchestra?
Skill Saws 🙂 Love it, you could be on to something Grey.
The fellas down at the local Menz Shed are a crack up, they told me part of the reason for the Menz Shed is an escape from their wives. Geez I laughed hard, they said you don’t have to be a man to join their group, but not to tell anyone least the wives join up and foil their plan.
Menz Shed do amazing work for NZ Communities.
Thanks for the link of the Vege Orchestra, that is super awesome.
You’re onto it Cinny. Happy Christmas and make us all happy by continuing to add your input in 2019. Great.
how bout you are you gonna help?
just asking you know, not opinionating, just asking.
What are you going to do Sabine? I am really upset at the plight of those in Auckland, it seems that they are getting squeezed beyond hope up there, even though times are hard everywhere. And so many people chirp on the media about how good things are – they are so hard, both men and women.
Anyway I am now going to give $50, which I’ll have to borrow, that’s all i can do at present. Though I am doing little things all the time, but just now it’s got to be more focussed.
Time expired Air NZ peanuts for the poor?
I’m sure we think we are okay.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/20/marine-life-worse-off-inside-protected-areas-analysis-reveals
Not sure how you fence the ocean.
Satellite tracking.
It was that which allowed the scientists to figure out that the fishing industry was doing so much damage.
I’ve been saying for years that NZ needs its own satellite network with a high definition satellite capable of tracking all sea born traffic for years. Now we have another reason to have such.
I’d maybe support it if you guaranteed no one would use it to fire satellite lasers at boatloads of refugees trying to get here.
We cannot support the boatloads of refugees coming here.
Far better to make the place that they’re trying to leave better but even that comes down to those who are trying to leave really.
And then climate change is going to hit which is going to make many of those places uninhabitable.
The liars lie and the lies tangle…
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12180582
Didn’t see that coming. No, really.
Could be the concrete slippers to drag him down.
The white night
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-46630723
Lol said with a straight face apparently.
Propane Jane documenting the con.
https://twitter.com/docrocktex26/status/1075048384015335424
https://twitter.com/docrocktex26
Brilliant. A lot these arguments abounded on TS and led to meltdowns and exits. For emphasis…
The lady certainly speaks truth to power, and everybody else.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/9/25/1572889/-Becoming-Propane-Jane
https://wakelet.com/@propanejane
Yep, Pooty’s understanding of western politics is on point.
He spent years getting up to speed
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-46525543
Of course he would have had that ID, it would have helped him immensely in his work to root our ‘dissidents’ and ‘rioters’ and ‘freethinkers’ and the like.
But its all good now, now he is the bested with only our interests at heart. So as long as our interest align with his.
Which one is Putin.
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=White%20Knight
Actually the UK voted for Brexit, and US for Trump.
Some voter groups IE the losers, are disrespecting the voting outcome. Putin is correct.
The people voted for Trump and he had the Wall top of the list of things he wanted. The people voted for the wall. It is disrespectful to the voters for the Dems to use it as a political football.
Spite, revenge, and acting in contempt of the voter is the politics the 15 year old girl was talking about.
I still can’t get out of my mind Putin and the Prince shaking hands. Full of surprises that stale pale old white male.
The spelling was intentional.
DJ Ward yeah no collusion how many of Trumps cronies lied about contact with Russia all in jail and heading their. Fox news is now distancing itself from treasonous Trump openly criticising him. May is another Pootin puppet look at pootin taking over the Ukraine after meddling in the UK’s Brexit referendum. Now Putin is worried the UK staying in while he invades the Ukraine. Stasi /KGB tactics your obviously are Pootin puppet parroting on treasonist DJ Ward.
I’m trying to overthrow the Queen?
Diagnosis, TDS.
Treatment. 1 hour watching Pelosi, Schumer, and Clinton hypocracy videos.
Thanks for all the good posts yesterday relating to Pike river and Uber.
..,. there was good rebutting of the ugly blood stained finger pointing from dishonest National supporters …
Pike River is a national party Dirty Politics story , literally, containing all their trademark governance…. Attacks on workers rights and conditions,,,,,,, lowering of regulations and standards, then allowing blatant non-compliance of their lowered standards … All followed by a putrid dishonesty which Alwyn and Co carry on with.
John Keys contempt for the dead workers …. and his true face… was on show when he said ” they can sue us “, a comment, he made after his government received a multi million insurance payout….. Going from a caring prime minister .. into a sneering assassin
The National Government actually had the power to shut the mine down for being illegally unsafe.,,, but they gave it their uber consent…. regulations were just red tape to be cut or ignored.
” Pike River – How could this happen in this day and age ” – YouTube “, provides far more information than all of our ‘ News media before it.
We hear, see and learn the ‘steps to disaster’ …. it’s a disturbing tragic picture of corner cutting and criminal disregard for NZ workers lives….. and much much worse than most of us would have believed or realized.
A small sample of the things the video taught me ….
Deregulation of mining legislation was done by the 1992 National party .. with complementary starving of resources and an understaffed capacity to enforce the watered down regulations…
Methane gas properties, management and regulations …. with regulations specifying 1.5% methane levels require work to stop, at 2% the workers must leave the mine …. Pike river had workers in the mine at over 2.96% for the last two weeks before the workers were killed.
Only 5 of the 29 workers killed for going to work at the Pike death trap were classified as experienced .. A scant two years qulifies one as experienced
The Pike river mine is internationally used as a ‘worst case / worst practice ‘ example for mining engineer students around the world
There is a huge amount more information in the Video and it puts a real human face on the victims and their families …. at the end it discusses responsibility and accountability.
As its presented by a decent honest New Zealander …. not once does it even mention Andrew Little.
Here’s a Video tribute to other NZ workers killed for the crime of turning up at work …
That video brought the memories back almost wanted to strap my chaps on again .
Didn’t you describe your former employer in that industry as a pustule on the devil’s sphincter?
Fletcher were my bosses employer . At one point . And yes they were .
But the rough jobs is where I belong and i wouldn’t have it any other way .
How many were union members as a matter of interest?
All eyes on China…..
“US officials say two Chinese citizens acting on behalf of their country’s main intelligence agency carried out an extensive hacking campaign to steal data from government agencies and companies in the United States and nearly a dozen other countries.”
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/12/indicts-hackers-working-chinese-spy-agency-181220160858487.html
RNZ report and Stuff article on the matter…
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/109527357/chinese-government-responsible-for-global-cyber-campaign–gcsb
Both the left and the neocon right are united in their opposition to troop withdrawal from Syria…a sad indictment on current day political discourse.
Are you saying Trump is the only sane one. ISIS is screwed, job done.
“There is no instance of a nation benefitting from prolonged warfare.” – Sun Tzu
I always saw Afganistan as a strategic asset vs Russia. Any sane Leader would otherwise have bailed long ago. Actually probably never been so stupid to invade in the first place. Syria has nothing the US wants.
Arms sales DJ Ward Russia is making in road’s on arms sales.
The only Reason Trump announced the withdrawal of Troops claiming falsely that ISIS had been defeated was because Flynn has been found guilty of lying to the FBI about his collusion with Pootin. Dead Cat syndrome your tiring attempt to bounce the dead cat is laughable. Trumps own supporters are attacking him over the Stupid idea ISIS is defeated.
Absolutely agree with you Tricledrown.
It was after Erdogan’s phone call to Trump asking him to get US troops out of the way, so he can kill the Kurds who have been and still are fighting IS.
Trump could have said interfere with the war on IS and risk being cited as an ally of IS, a terrorist group Turkey have never fought.
Trump could also have offered to mediate a deal between the Kurds and Arabs with them and Damascus forafter the end of IS, but na he abandons the only reliable allies the US had in the war against IS in Syria.
Now everyone, but the echelon occupied nations, will seek to walk all over him.
Nonsense Tricledown
He risks losing Turkey, a major NATO power, if he continues to arm and aid the Kurds.Turkey would move even closer to Iran and Russia if the war got down to the US backing the Kurds vs Turkey.
Who is surprised that the US abandoned the Kurds , its the story of their life
Someone needs to tell the Kurds that their ISIS prisoners are not Isis anymore 🙂
Oh hang on……….
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/20/world/middleeast/isis-syria-prisoner-release-trump.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
Fed up with the lack of Trumpian macho bluster in Aotearoa, an aussie has warned our PM & deputy that “we are coming to get you.” Presumably to reinforce the notion that nobody can do macho bluster better than an aussie.
Apparently `we’ means the NewConservative party! https://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=12180474
A typo from the anonymous Herald writer? Googling NewConservative gets nothing but links to the New Conservative Party – hardly an outfit likely to terrify govt leaders. But if they emerge as contenders for Nat support party it will have to be by attracting conservative voters away from National.
Which raises the interesting question of how many conservatives are rednecks partial to macho bluster. I’d like to see a political reporter interview Simon Lusk with this question. Then ask him “Well, wouldn’t they get more Nat voters by pointing out that all the National leadership contenders are useless wimps?” I bet he’d agree that attacking the govt leaders was poor strategy. Wrong target.
I suspect that Moffett, the NC member mentioned, has his eyes on attracting more of 2017 NZF voters some of whom are hugely opposed to the recent issues of immigration and the UN, as the NZF website shows in its recent commenting, and are threatening going to National in protest.
Good point. Winston will need to watch that space. Currently just a perception thing, but could become more of a reality if framed properly. There’s an evident problem with employers in some regions according to recent news stories. Nobody going for the jobs available.
So the people who constitute the 4% unemployment are too lazy to travel to where the jobs are. Dole is a better option for them. You can see why the right get pissed off with the bludgers, eh? So employers have to import foreigners to get the job done. For a govt elected on the basis of a regional development policy, not a good look. Winston is vulnerable. His mate Shane even more so!
Denise Frankenstien. Many areas have only 2% unemployment. But that has its downside no accommodation.
ie Queenstown no workers available why no accommodation. Ashburton no accommodation bringing in more workers where are you going to put them, do people want to move from Auckland to be paid nothing after accommodation and transport costs
Housing was identified as the single biggest issue by Don Brashes productivity commission. National talked a lot but did f/all about it. So now we have reached capacity no chance of any quick fix.
Yes but immigrants need accommodation too, don’t they? So ain’t really a valid excuse. For seasonal work tent cities could suffice but you need sufficient toilets, showers, etc. I agree that National went missing in action.
Moving to where there is seasonal work only really applies to those living at home with their parents (they can come and go the most easily and are generally with the fitness required).
And given the ambition of not having anyone under 20 on the dole – all being in work training, education or employment, it’s where any action starts. Though there will be some over 20 as well.
In the provinces its about the availability of travel to the out of town work (not all youth will have transport and older ones who do, would find it costly for MW work unles their is transport or organised pooling).
” For seasonal work tent cities could suffice”.
Please tell me you are joking?
Next I suppose you will be telling us that people living in their cars should be grateful that they have a dry place to sleep.
The All Blacks havn’t been in the national interest for some time, quite the opposite, NZ use to be admired winners in the game of rugby despite all the stuff ups by the high honchos on the board.
A bunch of clowns loose on the world stage, in uncertain times, generating ill feeling toward the NZ society – the neo liberal winners, making an art form of losing even when you win.
If that is any indication, there will be nothing ‘new’ about these neoConservatives.
Dis-connected fruit loops outraged that privilege alone has little default value in the national interest does not conservative make.
These rorters are scared they are going to be replaced by genuine local lobbyists, and the quicker the better i’d say.
NZ1st!
Dennis your Herald link comes up with “Sorry, it seems that this page doesn’t exist.” Checked all links on Google and same result including the cache.
However, Newshub has a similar (same?) article here
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2018/12/former-rugby-boss-david-moffett-threatens-traitor-jacinda-ardern.html
You’re right. I just tried it again to check. Interesting that they have taken it down – maybe the reporter got something wrong and a corrected version will show up later. The Newshub report has a little more from “Mr Moffett, who called Mr Peters and Ms Ardern “leftards”. I had to google that. Interesting that the definitions call it derogatory without explaining why. Presumably the kind of people who use it don’t like explanations!
Moffett’s Twitter account is an ‘interesting’ read. An insight into the New Conservative party mind, perhaps.
https://twitter.com/DavidMoffett47
And I see that he has now mentioned the disappearance of the Herald article and suggested that this is because it was in the Sports section and not in the Politics section. He is also claiming it has been taken down as it has had the opposite effect by giving him a 100 new followers on Twitter …
The thread is worth a read, LOL
.
https://twitter.com/DavidMoffett47/status/1075882720771723264
I cannot seem to find any mention of him on the New Conservative Party website etc. but only gave it a quick look as definitely not my scene.
https://www.newconservative.org.nz/
Why not just try the Urban Dictionary?
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Leftard
I’m sure that you will recognize quite a lot of the commenters on this blog.
Yourself in fact seems quite a good representative.
So Rightard means someone on Kiwiblog or whaleoil?
Well looking at the same source it would certainly seem so.
Quite fun reading the Urban Dictionary, isn’t it?
Trying to insult me? Didn’t work. That’s actually a considerably more satisfying definition than the others that google presented me with. They were quite anaemic by comparison. The writer captured the key syndromes very effectively. Reminded me of some of my own past critiques of leftism. When I first participated here I was quite trenchant due to the harmful effects of group-think but there’s been a culture change for the better since.
Rightards would likewise benefit from the more balanced view of things that centrists can provide. Collective brain death need not be terminal!
Finlayson did suggest we ban foreigners from being members of and funding our political parties.
Challenging the North Korean style “Thank You for your service” bullshit
I’ve just been slammed spammed or something by some crowd called Weber Barbecues that have taken over the site I thought I chosen on google with some bloody advertisement and continual downloading of some offer to win something.
When I tried to backtrack away, I couldn’t. When I went to go back to original site the whole dropdown was full of their offers, and informed it was loading more.
We are having trouble with Chinese hacking of the 5 Eyes, with the 5 Eyes hacking of traffic through backdoors that Microsoft had (and I read that other companies have been requested to do by the USA authorities and suppose they complied). Then there are the megalomaniacs who have the techno companies and are developing new stuff who are in the public eye. Then there are the reclusives who are dreaming up some other possibilities that are likely to give us nightmares.
Let us have no more talk of getting rid of our monetary system and just doing everything digitally, electronically or whatever. Hold onto the basics that have enabled human life so we have got to now; don’t give up all autonomy to the machine and those that think like machines. There be dragons!
Barbecues you say GreyWS……. it’s a sign my friend… it’s a sign 🙂
Hahaha. Very good
It looks like some malvertising has sneaked into some of the advertising streams on some websites.
The msn.com website, for instance, the last couple of weeks has been randomly serving up a lot of full-screen adverts I never clicked on with an annoying double beep and I cannot backtrack to the original article I was reading. A popover claiming I have won a prize that from time to time changes also pops up over the screen. Even though the adverts all look very similar and some are 100% identical the website URL keeps changing. I just had one less than half an hour ago when I went to read an MSN story and barely got through the first paragraph when it was replaced by the fishing scam. I had to close the tab and go back to the main site.
I was just wondering how many people on here have had articles they are reading on websites such as MSN.com hijacked and replaced by full-screen web pages from random websites that claim you are a winner and to enter your details?
It seems in the last few weeks for me the MSN website has been hijacked by Malvertising hijacking me away from the story I am trying to read to their scams.
All these scams use big name brands such as Apple iPhones, Samsung Galaxy, and I guess Weber Barbecues from what you are saying GWS.
Where can we report these kinds of things to get these big companies to fix these backdoor scams happening on their websites due to adverts with hijacking code inserted into them?
No point. Those advertisers pay companies such as Google and Microsoft to insert ads.
It is paid advertising, not backdoors. And it has got much more in your face lately.
Get Firefox with adblockers, and most of them go away.
Oh fuck. Mad Dog is out at the end of February. Is it too late to get started on that fallout shelter? Coz you know whatever the dayglo swampzilla gets to replace him won’t just be nicknamed Mad Dog, it’ll actually be rabid.
https://edition.cnn.com/2018/12/20/politics/donald-trump-james-mattis-out/index.html?adkey=bn
Yeah, losing Mattis so soon after Kelly looks like incompetence. Will be interesting to see the calibre of both replacements, whether military or not. If the military hierarchs have agreed amongst themselves that Trump is too flaky, he can’t fish in that pool again. More flakes on Wall St, so try there next…
I vote for Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity. Add in Laura Ingraham and Trump has all the arsekissers and bootlickers he needs to keep his frail little ego erect.
Coulter said mean things about poopydiaper Don not being able to build a simple wall so he’s thrown a tanty and unfollowed her on twitter. I doubt we’re through with the tears and screaming yet, so the hugs and makeup kisses are a while away.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-ann-coulter-twitter-criticism_us_5c1b533de4b08aaf7a85149a
The most common route to authoritarianism runs through the military, so if Don of the Deadbrains has alienated them, the US is slightly more likely to remain a republic.
Not if Trump just outsources military activities to the private sector.
IKEA tax dodgers on their way..and my, doesn’t Stephen tindall love their model..
“The thing I really love about them is that they are putting sustainability at the front and centre,” said Sir Stephen, whose Tindall Foundation has invested heavily in environmental projects – including the planting of more than 22 million trees.
“So they’re a great example of what can be done in retail.”
Plant a tree, dodge your tax..nice Green wash, and stuff the workers.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12180880
https://europeangreens.eu/news/ikea-report-ikea-avoided-1-billion-taxes-using-european-taxation-system-its-own-benefit
don’t shop there.
done.
No. If you shop there it will give you something to do on the long winter nights.
You can probably get at least 3 months of amusement trying to assemble a small bookcase, before they take you away in a straitjacket.
At least that is what my friends have told me. I never did buy anything there. Getting started on that lark leads to madness.
That sort of thing is easy to put together. Hire a working man to do it . Then you’ll understand that we all have value . Something you right wingers struggle with.
He’s wrong.
Capitalism is not sustainable.
Capitalism alone is not sustainable, banning stuff is inefficient, the efficient system acknowledges it’s weakness. Neolibs never do, never do detail, never get their hands dirty, it was always nonsense.
No. Capitalism is not sustainable. I see no way that a system based upon greed and everyone having ever more but especially the few rich ever could be.
That’s a surprise, never new you thought that way
It’s logic.
Maybe you should try using it sometime.
Don’t please brush off Shane Jones because he has said words in favour of W Haumaha. I think it is a situation of a flawed person who should be kicked out of a good job but not be discarded.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12180900
National has called for New Zealand First to say whether it still backs under-fire Deputy Police Commissioner Wally Haumaha.
And New Zealand First MP Shane Jones has, saying Haumaha’s previous good work among Māori was being ignored.
“Yesterday’s damning IPCA report into Mr Haumaha found that he belittled and humiliated staff, aggressively asserted his authority, and inappropriately approached staff to support him after allegations were made. It also shows that he circulated information which would discredit a complainant which was improper,” National’s police spokesman Chris Bishop
said today.
We live in Stasi land.
Murray Horton writes…
“These latest revelations about a whole raft of Government agencies contracting Thompson & Clark to spy on New Zealanders on their behalf are just the latest in a long, sordid history of the State spying on the people. Go back a decade and you’ll find:
Thompson & Clark exposed as spying on environmental activists on behalf of the since gone bust Solid Energy
Thompson & Clark exposed as spying on animal rights activists on behalf of the State
Police spy/infiltrator/agent provocateur Rob Gilchrist exposed as having spied, for money, on a whole raft of activist groups for a decade
The release of Security Intelligence Service files on many people (including me) that revealed a long history of obsessive spying on activists. In the case of the only organisation to receive its file – the Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa – the file revealed that the SIS had spied on CAFCA for a quarter of a century.”
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2018/12/21/guest-blog-murray-horton-thompson-clark-just-tip-of-spyberg-lets-have-an-inquiry-into-whole-covert-world-of-state-spying/
you really do not have any idea what you are talking about, do you.
I suggest you read up on the Staatssicherheitsdients – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi – before making such ill informed comments.
Ed is one for hyperbole
“He denies it’s open season for fraudsters, saying the Labour Inspectorate and Immigration NZ are “incredibly vigilant”. But when they do catch scammers, only rarely are custodial sentences handed out. Former immigration minister Tuariki Delamere says only harsher penalties – including deportation – can have any impact.
If two journalists, without the investigatory powers or resource of a government department, can unearth and expose a string of such schemes – and we heard of many, many more we didn’t have the time to pursue – it’s clear that they are everywhere, and not hard to find.
The remote prospect of prosecution has made men like Gurpreet Singh brazen.”
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/108921008/the-big-scam-our-immigration-system-is-broken
More window dressing?
Employers, and suppliers of education of dodgy value, are making a fortune out of this scam.
Don’t see it being stopped anytime soon.
However alongside those pressures to turn a blind eye must also be pressure from competing businesses to remove this illegal advantage….never mind the immorality of exploitation
You would think so.
But, I suspect they are all doing it.
Judging by all the backpackers waitering, in our local coffee shops.
Andrew Little’s Doppelgänger.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2018/12/andrew-little-s-doppelg-nger-a-gay-uk-fitness-model.html
James Mattis, “Mad Dog Mattis”, has quit as Donald Trump’s military officers criticize his unilateral decision to pull out of Syria.
Meanwhile Trump’s decision has received a Putin-esque seal of approval from the Kremlin.
It is messy and everything, but one of the few rational groups in the Middle East, the Kurds are now going to be exposed to whatever Turkey turns on them. I know Turkey has been the subject of PKK attacks but at the same time in a region full of despots and well known for dodgy deals, if there is any combatant group deserving of some kind of reward for their efforts, it would be the Kurds.
Heard rumours just before I out about the possibility of Blackwater replacing US Combat troops in the Gan. One detailed report I seen was cost analysis from Combats Troop, along everything in between to AirPower/ Close Air Support and training the Afghan troops. Training the Afghan troops by Blackwater is real scary and wrong on so many levels and I don’t really know where to start.
It’s no wonder that old Mad Dog has called it quits when old Trump wants to pull this type of shit on the world and it shows that Trump, Bolton and Co have no morals or any principles, but make a quick buck.
Neo Con/ Lib economic theory at its bloody worst.
https://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/military/ominous-blackwater-is-coming-advert-raises-prospect-trump-has-privatised-war/news-story/784ce81fc6ebdd9113edba2e2da17044
The amoral pricks finally drove Mattis out.
Interestingly, Mattis once revealed what would lead him to resign in protest during an April 2014 talk in San Francisco, and he made it clear that he would only do so under the most dire of circumstances, since his subordinates would not be able to do the same.
Top articles
1/5
Mattis’ 2017 Message To
Troops Is Worth Remembering: ‘Just Hold The Line’
“The lance corporals can’t retire. They’re going. That’s all there is to it,” he said.
[…]
Later, during his April 2014 talk in San Francisco, he was asked specifically about whether there was a scenario in which he may have retired in protest. Mattis allowed some unethical orders and other scenarios that would lead him to do so, but he said, “you have to be very careful about doing that. The lance corporals can’t retire. They’re going. That’s all there is to it.”
He added: “You abandon him only under the most dire circumstances, where the message you have to send can be sent no other way. I never confronted that situation.”
In Dec. 2018, it looks like he finally did.
https://taskandpurpose.com/mattis-resign-protest/
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2018/08/17/will-mattis-allow-trump-to-start-privatizing-the-military/
Why is the university being painted as in the wrong? They have said they may not have the necessary support for someone with a mental illness. She has to help them by ensuring that she can get the help needed if required.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/378784/canadian-student-loses-out-due-to-lack-of-mental-health-help-at-victoria-university
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24032052-900-time-to-break-academic-publishings-stranglehold-on-research/
Are we going to, finally, get publicly funded research out from behind the stranglehold of pay walled, journals?
One of the most blatant examples of excessive private profit, from tax payer funded services.
We live in Stasi land.
Christ Trotter writes…
“AN “AFFRONT TO DEMOCRACY”, was the State Services Commissioner’s characterisation of the state bureaucracy’s decision to spy on political activists. Few would disagree. That multiple state agencies felt entitled to contract-out the gathering of political intelligence to the privately owned and operated Thompson & Clark Investigations Ltd reveals a widespread antidemocratic disdain for citizens’ rights within the New Zealand public service. The alarming revelations of the State Services’ inquiry raise two very important questions: How did this disdain for democratic norms become so entrenched? And what, if anything, can Jacinda Ardern’s government do to eradicate it?
The dangerous truth, in relation to the first question, is also painfully relevant to the second. The effective abrogation of democratic norms in New Zealand dates back to 1984 and the events which the former CTU economist and ministerial adviser, Peter Harris, characterised as a “bureaucratic coup d’état”. In was in July 1984 that elements within the NZ Treasury and the Reserve Bank, taking full advantage of the relationships they had been cultivating for at least a year with the parliamentary leadership of the NZ Labour Party, initiated the detailed and extremely radical economic policy programme which came to be known as “Rogernomics”.
This programme, set forth in “Economic Management” – the book-length briefing paper for the incoming Minister of Finance, Roger Douglas – had received no mandate from the electorate. Indeed, the ordinary voter had no inkling whatsoever that the Labour Party of Mickey Savage and Norman Kirk was about to unleash a programme considerably to the right of Margaret Thatcher’s and Ronald Reagan’s. The authors of “Economic Management” were not, however, interested in obtaining a democratic mandate for their proposed reforms. In fact, they strongly suspected that submitting their ideas to the voters was just about the surest way of securing their emphatic rejection.
Since the mid-1970s the conviction had been growing among big-business leaders and high-ranking civil servants living in the wealthiest capitalist nations, that democracy had gotten out of hand; and that unless the scope for democratic intervention in the economy was radically reduced, then the future of capitalism could not be guaranteed. Free Market Economics, as it was called then, or Neoliberalism, as we know it today, was, from the outset, incompatible with the social-democratic principles that had underpinned western policy-making in the post-war world. It could only be imposed, and kept in place, by a political class sealed-off from all manner of pressures from below. If that meant gutting the major parties of the centre-left and right; purging the civil service, academia and the news media of dissenters; and crushing the trade unions – then so be it.
Once it became clear that the free-market “revolution” was not about to be halted in its tracks, all those with an ambition to rise within the new order made haste to learn its rules and spared no effort in enforcing them. This phenomenon: of absorbing and implementing an antidemocratic regime’s imperatives was described by British historian of the Third Reich, Ian Kershaw, as “Working Towards The Fuhrer”.
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2018/12/21/must-read-working-towards-the-fuhrer/
Christ Trotter? It’s the Xmas miracle we’d all hoped for!
East Germany 1948 – 1989
New Zealand 1984 – today
Stasilands
In your mind, Ed. I’ve actually been to the DDR and the Soviet Union and all I can say is …
That complacency explains how Douglas and his cronies’ coup d’etat succeeded.
She’ll be right, mate…..
In your song, I note that millionaires like Fitzpatrick, Ellis sing how lucky they are.
I’m sure the nobles of France thought the same in 1785.
Does anyone know all the faces in that vid? Did I see Richard Prebble?
Fitzpatrick
Ellis, Marc
I was going to vote for legalising drugs in the upcoming referendum, but seeing the damage it clearly does, maybe not 🙄
Of course, hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders have been arrested, interrogated, beaten, tortured and drugged.
/
Get a fucking grip, man.
Love your work .
Not just that, but all of NZ are these guys https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unofficial_collaborator
cause that was what made the Stasi so ‘everywhere’ and omnipotent. all the east germans that in order to keep their apartment, jobs, schools, places for university, etc spied on all the other east germans.
East Germany was one big Panopticon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon
Christ Trotter, Ed?
I’d happily tow him out to the middle of Lake Taupo and see if he can walk into town.
Oops -just saw my typo…
😉
That’s interesting, I’ve been thinking about round 2 with Helen and Cullen. Was going to do a post on what they did re the housing market.
Remember how the Business Roundtable threatened Clark’s government in 2000.
And they buckled.
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2017/11/04/58244/rod-oram-another-winter-of-discontent
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12115940
OK that was neutral journalism at its best. If I wasn’t aware of other subjects I would think Helen was faultless or the author was blind and trained under the new academia. Anyway Ed thanks for the point of view, everything helps, even the cringeworthy and funny.
Had a car crash at home today. A young male around 20 failed a high speed sweeping left hand bend. Took out about 40m of our fence including the stainer post. Ended up facing the other way nearly tipped over on a bank. Lucky the power poles are on the opposite road side. Had to pull him out into the paddock with the tractor. Then across a soaked paddock to a race then to dry ground before we could replace his tire. Yes he needed help changing his tire. Yes he asked where he could wash the mud off his shoes. Anyway he had insurance, so off he went unharmed from his experience, car trashed, to inform mummy and daddy up in Auckland how he has crashed his second car out in the wilderness.
What address so you can get the money for your fence? Oh I suppose they will expect that to come out of the insurance you have paid for. And that would wipe your no-claims bonus.
I have learnt since posting the comment that we can’t get insurance payments for fences. So all on us. It’s probably just a days work and just $200 in materials as most will be recycled. More of a pain at this time of year as we try and fit in some holiday time.
The important part is he walked away unharmed. We had a fatality a few years ago a few hundred meters from the same spot. Helping motorists is a regular event for us.
Don’t the left get accused of “wealth envy”? Et tu Brute?
Unlucky re the fence, but
Never fear. Labour promised to give school leavers free driving lessons in their lolly scramble at the election!…..
…. Oh. They flip flopped
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/108362391/vision-zero-brakes-applied-to-government-pledge-to-provide-students-free-driving-lessons-and-defensive-driving-courses
Probably because they had to find money to fix more serious problems left behind by National, like collapsing hospitals and a growing Teacher shortage.
Chris t
Don’t have a poke at Labour because they are more far-seeing than you. Stay schtum and think and learn. Having a licence is a big advantage for being able to legally get to work, obtain work, showing that the person is responsible.
It takes time, study, practice; it’s enormously expensive for a poor person scraping along. It’s a measure of success and would give a feeling of self-satisfaction.
Many of the young haven’t got good reading skills, and so it gives an opportunity for helpers and supporters of the young to bring their reading skills to a better level. It brings them into a circle of people who are desiring to help them get a better life, and they might not have had contact with such people in a one-to-one working relationship before.
Probably at school there would have been over-worked teachers, and if the young person isn’t motivated to learn all this general stuff (where is it going to be useful?), and they might be action-oriented not desk or inert, passive-oriented, so school might have just washed over them. And in the end washed their hands of such impossible-to-teach students.
This is stuff that I know, plus stuff that i have learned. You could write long-form comments like this, if you tried to learn and understand, and wanted to spend the time on explaining background to whatever problem you know about!
“Auckland victims’ advocate RUTH MONEY is on the program…”
The final episode of The Panel is as obscene and irony-free as ever
RNZ National, Friday 21 December 2018
Jim Mora, Jock Anderson, Ruth Money, Caitlin Cherry
As a special kick in the teeth to listeners, Jim Mora’s producer Caitlin Cherry (herself a nasty piece of work) [1] has procured two nasty right wing guests for the very last show under Mora’s hosting. Ruth Money we’ve looked at already: she’s a protégée of Garth the Knife McSticker and, bizarrely, calls herself a “victims’ advocate.” [2] The other guest is the stridently anti-union, anti-teacher, anti-liberal Jock Anderson. [3] At least Anderson has one saving grace: he’s a genuinely witty fellow, who can make people laugh. And right at this moment (4:41 p.m.) he is delivering a very well thought out Soapbox item about local democracy.
Today featured some of the recurring themes of Mora’s thirteen year tenure:
There was his glib and complacent conservatism: “Jesus is the reason for the season!” he burbled just before the 4 o’clock news, and returned to the topic at 4:45. On innumerable past occasions he has quoted, in high seriousness, the likes of David Brooks and David Farrar.
There was the consultation of a marginally competent “expert”—today, yet again, one Ken Grace, apparently from a “Department of Writing” somewhere, who chuntered on for several minutes about the meaning of “impeccable.”
There was the choice of consciously lightweight and trivial topics, made even more irritating by Mora’s inane parroting of words and phrases that have just been said. This clearly irritated his past producers—especially Noelle McCarthy, Susan Baldacci and Julie Moffett. Today it was Caitlin Cherry who tried, and failed, to hide her exasperation as they brought their intellects to bear on the vital topic of Baby Names.
Just before the 4:30 news Ruth Money took the opportunity to embark on a rant about the fact that “prison is the last resort… especially for these hideous offences…. It’s MADNESS.” Later she averred: “I think we need to get back to HUMANITY…”
[1] https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2018/10/jim-moras-light-chat-gets-ugly-and.html
[2] https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2018/12/ngrid-hipkiss-grinned-vacuously-and.html
[3] https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2018/12/irony-free-newstalkzb-do-you-see-this.html
Not the j word morry! You’ll start melting around the edges if he keeps up that carry on.
I start melting round the edges every time I see your byline, Baggers.
(Cripes, will that get me banned again?)
“Until recently, the study of tipping points was controversial, but it is increasingly accepted as an explanation for climate changes that are happening with more speed and ferocity than earlier computer models predicted. The loss of coral reefs and Arctic sea ice may already be past the point of no return. There are signs the Antarctic is heading the same way faster than thought.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/20/risks-of-domino-effect-of-tipping-points-greater-than-thought-study-says
….and a happy new year.
“Only 19% were entirely isolated. Another 36% shared a common cause, but were not likely to interact. The remaining 45% had the potential to create either a one-way domino effect or mutually reinforcing feedbacks.”
So the science of complexity has been applied. That’s good. The application informs us of the extent to which environmental systems interlock: considerable! That’s bad. So it’s an academic study that isn’t a waste of time. That’s rare.
“The fourth most downloaded academic research of 2018 was the Hothouse Earth paper, which considered how tipping points could combine to push the global climate into an uninhabitable state.”
So the prospect of everyone dying from climate change has become so concerning that it’s the fourth most urgent topic of academic consideration. Hard to say if that’s good or bad, eh?
“Rocha has spent 10 years building a database of tipping points, or “regime shifts” as he calls them. He urges policymakers to adopt a similar interdisciplinary approach so they can better grasp what is happening.” Policymakers would have to grow extremely different brains to achieve that grasp.
“Policies need to match the scale of the problem.” I’d prefer policies that actually solved the problem. “Every action counts.” Helpful actions count in favour of the solution, irrevelant actions count against. Democracy selects the latter.
Id suggest democracies are failing to select at all….but then democracies only account for around 10% of countries….the problem is deeper.
When 84% want our Government to take at least some action on anthropogenic global warming, and the Government still only pays lip service, it is lack of democracy, that is the problem.
thats ‘a’ problem
Older but not at all wiser: Rosemary McLeod returns.
The Panel, RNZ National, Tuesday 18 December 2018
Megan Whelan, Gary McCormick, Rosemary McLeod, Emil Donovan
A few years ago, as the blood-soaked Sisi military regime was killing and arresting Egyptians, Jim Mora’s light chat show gave it the once-over-lightly. One of the panelists, Rosemary McLeod had obviously not done much or indeed any reading about the situation, but that did not stop her from sniffing contemptuously and proclaiming: “Those people don’t WANT democracy!”
McLeod has largely been absent from The Panel since then. She now sounds like she is on death’s door, but it hasn’t made her a whit more thoughtful.
At 4:20 p.m. today (Dec. 18, 2018) it wasn’t the mass killing of Egyptian civilians but Brexit that received the once-over-lightly treatment. To be fair, one person in the discussion, Gary McCormick ,seemed to have actually read something about this topic and had obviously thought about it; he said something worth listening to.
On the other hand, this was Rosemary McLeod’s contribution:
Fifteen minutes later, her “Soapbox” contribution was a long chat about Melania Trump changing her hair colour.
https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-18122015/#comment-1110502
Worth a look
https://youtu.be/WRQv9xMQ3E0
Why not give us a clue you great tease. The Chairman
Mike Moore’s new film.
Thanks, Ed.
Here’s the extended trailer for those who are interested.
The chirpy-cheep-cheep are always on about how wonderful cycleways are and talking down the naysayers, not willing to admit there are problems; winners and losers.
This link is from a comment on Scoop so thanks for that Jonny Utzone.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/20/scooters-and-hoverboards-add-to-dutch-cycle-lane-hell
Scooters and hoverboards add to Dutch cycle lane hell
Police union chief says it is impossible to keep lanes safe due to variety of vehicles and rules
Amsterdam, The Hague, Utrecht and Rotterdam are rushing through different rules about the sort of vehicles allowed on their increasingly crowded lanes, leaving everyone confused, it is claimed.
On Tuesday Amsterdam announced that slower mopeds, known as a snorfiets, would be banned from the bike paths from April. Utrecht is introducing a similar ban at the end of the next year.
But Birò cars, four-wheeled electric vehicles with two seats side by side and a top speed of 34 mph, can still be driven on cycle lanes anywhere in the country.
so the issue is not with the cycle ways but rather with the humans who use them.
Or am i mis-understanding this?
I have lived for a bit in the Netherlands, in Hilversum 15 kms of Utrecht and i loved the cycle ways. All of them. Easy to navigate, going everywhere, with a nice road surface good for cycling. And yes the mopeds – 28 km per hour if not trafficed used these too, however i have not seen the Biro Cars at the time i lived there.
I think that the problem is that the cycleways are becoming so crowded that they no longer provide the good answer to non-auto travel they once did. And to complicate that, the variety of vehicles, and unregulated speed. There is a saying about a good idea being killed by its popularity
I remember that at early times of car use, it was required that someone walked in front carrying a red flag. In NZ I think that cyclists will need to be registered, like drivers, and pay ACC. Many travel fast on the footpaths. Because they are not large and cumbersome like a car they can ride on the footpath and then go as fast as a car on the road. Then at night they forget they have a small profile and don’t realise how invisible they can be even with all their lights.
The age of simplicity cycling is over, and there need to be more restraints ie licences, training, registration, ACC. Some simple souls want to eliminate helmets. I don’t agree with that. NZs in general, don’t behave as sensibly as Europeans. The trace of the wild west is still in us.
And still I have not mentioned pedestrians, the ability to walk in a stress free atmosphere, and the growing numbers of old people, and computer users who are putting on weight and need to exercise, not build up into a blood pressure, cholestorol problem. Both need to walk, and relax and breathe the air, and look at the green world around. Instead the in-thing is to use them as markers for cyclists to weave in and out amongst. I may yet attack someone some day if I am run into. I can only take so much aggravation and usurpation of the space I need to walk in and keep healthy.
When you things things couldn’t get any weirder, up pops nonagenarian crack-pot Lyndon LaRouche.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/12/lyndon-larouche-roger-stone-russia-robert-mueller/
Did someone mention Roger Stone?
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/alex-jones-roger-stone-steak_us_5c1d805ce4b0407e907b072a
Party on comrades
2019 is gonna be fun.
Kai ora R&R yes we do have a lot of good men who do there duty of looking after there whano. The problem for Maori is the media focous on all the bad this about our socioty
and the stats tell us there are a lot good things maori men do.
Toxic maculinity is how this socioty shapes men with the movies and media all portraying this as the norm is all part of some suppresion of wahine .
Yes Ngatai Porou respect wahine and most of our Marae are named after Wahine.
Ka kite ano .
Ka pai to Miley Cyrus for showing that she supports Equal pay for Wahine and points out the flaws of the Santa baby song
Some Eco Maori Music for the minute
Some people are to blinded the can not see the writing in on the wall or is something else blinding them
Corbyn faces furious Labour backlash over backing Brexit
Labour leader accused of betrayal on second poll and ‘in danger of losing young backers’
Jeremy Corbyn is facing a storm of criticism from Labour activists and MPs after suggesting he would press ahead with Brexit if the party won a snap general election.
In a sign that he is losing backing among overwhelmingly pro-Remain Labour supporters, Corbyn was also accused of betraying the party membership by appearing reluctant to back the idea of supporting Remain in a second referendum.
The first signs of a serious internal revolt from party members on the left, who helped propel him to the leadership, came after Corbyn gave an interview to the Guardian in which he suggested he thought Brexit should go ahead and said EU state-aid rules would prevent a Labour government intervening to support UK industries.
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His anti-EU tone drew immediate criticism from party supporters and members who had successfully persuaded the leadership to back the possibility of a second referendum at Labour’s annual conference in Liverpool in September. Ka kite ano links below
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/dec/22/corbyn-faces-furious-backlash-over-backing-brexit
You see people we are mere bacteria on the back side of the great blue whale .
If we stuff up OUR worlds enviroment and cause mass extinction life will continue with out humans .
We are a intelligent race in the year 2018 we need to take the lead on climate change and change the way we live to drop carbon out of our lives to combate climate change
Ka kite ano links below Indonesia tsunami: at least 20 dead as beaches around Sunda Strait hit
National disaster management agency says at least 165 injured after tsunami, which could be linked to volcanic eruption
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/22/multiple-fatalities-as-tsunami-hits-beaches-in-indonesia
Here you go solar energy is now cheaper than dirty coal carbon and nuclear energy I first watched this story 2 years ago its hard to find now. ???????????? don’t let the carbon trolls trick you into thinking that its cheaper to burn your grandchildren’s future for cheaper energy
In countries like Brazil, Australia, Chile and parts of the United States people consider renewable energy because of financial reasons. The price of solar and wind energy will continue to drop and in more countries renewable energy will occur.
A surprising newcomer on the market is Morocco, where the government expects that in 2020 more than 40 percent of the energy could come from solar energy. Ka kite ano
Kai ora Newshub Condolences to all the people who lost love ones in Indonesia I did use the story to hightlight how small we are to Papatuanuku .
Well that’s a good problem to have all the film studios to booked out to film any new films. These are the people who have a hold of the 1080 debate The Far Out Right link here from a great man’s view on these fools https://edition.cnn.com/2018/12/22/europe/george-soros-profile-lister-intl/index.html
Josphe should be counting his lucky stars I have seen footage in work safe videos with much smaller electric explosions kill people instantly
People have to respect tangaroa creatures as they are just doing what it takes to survive in the wild most people would perish in the wild bush .
Its cool that more home less people are getting houseing ka pai its good having a humane goverment in power who put’s people wellbeing berfore profts.The NZ soccer is looking bright Niki
Mike that was a cool view of the Pohutukawa tree in full bloom .
Ka kite ano
Some Eco Maori Music for the minute.
Eco Maori I have been busy chasing two of my mokopunas around.