Someone in Labour is trying to make mischief in an election year, according to Garner. If that’s true, they should be kicked out of the Party. Actually, the big mistake Cunliffe has made since getting leadership is that he kept the useless neolib clutter in the Party instead of chucking them all out.
Cunliffe is very popular with his team. He may have had one of two issues this year with delivery of key messages but the team is in behind him 100%.
Don’t believe what you hear from Farrar, Garner, Whale or Gower. They are all part of the National Party propoganda machine trying to hide the true state of the nation from its workers.
I am hard core Green supporter, but from my close range observation there is no sign of any unrest. Think back to when Shearer was in charge. We are miles away from that scenario
Everyone in Labour has to make do with what they’ve got: Cunliffe has to make do with a caucus full of under-performing deadwood, and the deadwood has to make do with Cunliffe as leader.
we-ell that’s one perspective, I guess.
To me it simply looks like a shifting of the blame by people who thought it was Shearer’s fault and that cunliffe would at least see some improvement in the polls. Well, they were wrong, so it must be “deadwood” (i.e. “people who don’t do/say exactly what I want”).
The fact is that things aren’t going great for labour, but that just means they’re doing things that piss off the corporates (the fmr business rort-table complaining about jones criticising supermarkets in parliament is typical, and looked like jones quotes were cherry-picked to fit a narrative). But more often than not the only regular poll says nats will be out come the election – and I reckon the opposition (especially the greens) will campaign well this year.
I was interested by someone’s theory yesterday that greens vs labour booth returns seem to mirror lab v liberals back in the 1920s. Intriguing if true, but unlike the libs I think under MMP minor parties will have a place rather than moving to extinction.
i think i have synthesised/rendered-down labours’ perception-problems into one sentence:..
“..us punters/voters look at all the labour faces..and just see the clark govt..lightly warmed-over/stirred..and a certain weariness sets in..”
(..and save for a wholesale clearout of those faces..which i don’t see labour doing..
..their only other option as i see it..
..is a wholesale mea culpa/repudiation of those neo-lib policies..
..and a brace of new game/sea-changing/poverty-ending/environment-cleaning policies..to offer as appeasement..
..without either of those ..labour will continue to slump in the polls..
..and i don’t think the greens should be too worried about dotcom starting a party..
..it is labour who should be licking their lips in nervousness..
..as much of that soft/over-them vote that can’t stomach voting national..
..could well flock to dotcom..if only for freshness/newness/new-ideas reasons..
..and a heads-up! to labour/greens/mana..!
..if dotcom follows his libertarian-leanings..i am expecting a full legalisation of cannabis (the colorado-model)..policy from dotcom..
..and there is at least 5% just there..for him..for that..(in fact..i think a reasoned/coherent-policy could well draw more than 5%..and especially from that group labour claims to be targeting (?)..the young/politically-uninvolved..
..they will queue around the block to vote for that one..
..and another heads-up..now that obama has authorised the banking industry to handle the legal-states’ pot-money..with no fear of federal prosecution..
..i am picking that just after his mid-term congressional-elections this year..
..that obama will end prohibition at the federal level..
..and leave it to individual states to decide their own policies..
..so..given that timing..we will have our ‘progressive’ lab/grn/mana parties going into the campaign proper..all dancing nervously around the idea of medical-marijuana..
..and dotom going for full legalisation..able to point at america..and go..’see!’..
..he will hoover up all of that vote for himself..
..and irony of ironies..should the greens still pussy-foot around the issue..(and not plump for that colorado-model..)
..those votes they will lose..will be those people who got them over the top/into parliament for the first time..the end-cannabis-prohibition voters..
..now it seems those voters will now do that same favour for dotcom..
..is this really what lab/grns/mana really want..?
I think you’ll find that because of the ridiculous writing style you persist in using, that most people can’t be bothered trying to read what you write, most of the time.
Think how many it could be if people didn’t have to be stoned to read it…
edit: when you say “subscribers”, do you mean site visits, registered users, commenters, RSS/email subscribers, or what?
Because you have very few comments from people other than yourself on the site linked to your pseudonym. You seem to be averaging about one comment a day from someone other than yourself.
@ McFlock: “I was interested by someone’s theory yesterday that greens vs labour booth returns seem to mirror lab vs liberals back in the 1920s. Intriguing if true, but unlike the libs I think under MMP minor parties will have a place rather than moving to extinction.”
I was that very “someone”.
I should clarify, though, that I wasn’t suggesting the Greens 2005-2011 electoral rise occurred in precisely the same polling booths as the fledgling Labour Party’s rise through the 20s. It wasn’t about a specific parallel polling booth pattern, but rather the broader point that Labour slowly but surely superseded the Liberals (and their successor parties, National (1925 Election) and United (1928-1931 Elections) ) as the party of progressive politics in big city and provincial city New Zealand through the 20s and that Labour’s decline and the Greens advance in so many metropolitan and provincial city booths 2005-2011 reminded me very much of that inter-war dynamic.
In 2011, the Green party-vote nationally represented little more than 40% of Labour’s party-vote, but there were plenty of urban booths where the Green vote comprised more than two-thirds and, in some cases (especially in Wellington and Dunedin Cities) actually superseded, Labour support. Very rare to find that in 2005 or before (the utterly unique Aro Valley being a conspicuous exception that proves the rule).
And I was also arguing that it was a generational thing. Just as the young Labour Party derived disproportionate support from younger voters (particularly the young single male working-class – although the Party certainly expanded well beyond that core base through the 20s), so today’s Greens are, of course, especially strong among the under 35s (more broadly, the under 45s), raising at least the possibility that there may be some sort of inevitability about their on-going rise, albeit – as with Labour in the 20s – a somewhat faltering rise: two steps forward, one step back.
I should also say the Libs didn’t so much “move to extinction” as merge with the right-wing Reform Party to create a Party we all know and love to this very day – The Dear Old Fucking Tories.
Yep Labour always has to be relevant and forward looking and there is a tension with the Greens although I think there is a lot in common and in an MMP environment the considerations are different in that there is room to cooperate. To see what Labour is and should be capable of have a look at this …
Cheers for that, swordfish – it’s interesting how parties evolve and change, almost like a garden. The Liberals were the ones who gave women suffrage, and as you point out a hundred years later were part of the legacy of the tory government of the day.
And the old “conservatives” (independent opponents to the liberals) created a party named the “Reform Party”, eventually to be the other partner in the formation of the national party.
I sometimes wonder if the Greens and Mana and maybe another left party not yet formed or prominent will grow, and the last <10% remnant of “Labour” ends up in coalition with the tories. Not as an “ABC/splitter” sort of thing, just in a few decades as the political landscape changes like an unkempt garden with different plants sprouting up over the same sort of ground, a few become trees then eventually fall.
Interesting how Garner phrases and pronounces the words at the start of his speech at 00:13. Is it just has mangled speech or is he trying to tell us who the member of the party is that spoke to him?
I know I am getting paranoid but could be
Someone in Labour is trying to make mischief in an election year, according to Garner. If that’s true, they should be kicked out of the Party. Actually, the big mistake Cunliffe has made since getting leadership is that he kept the useless neolib clutter in the Party instead of chucking them all out.
Someone in Labour is trying to make mischief in an election year, according to Garner. If that’s true, they should be kicked out of the Party.
Typical of the ABC club – they’d rather spend another three years stuffing themselves at Bellamy’s rather than do real work. They’d rather have the rest of New Zealand suffer the NACT mob than lose their meal tickets. Let’s name them: Goff, King, Mallard, Hipkins, Robertson, Curran…
They’ve got to go. They’re vainglorious parasites that are putting themselves above not only the party, but the people of the country.
Investors may start seeing profit growth outstrip dividend growth, as listed firms start to gear up to invest during a stellar year for the economy.
Analysts say New Zealand stocks have been paying strong dividends in the last two years, in an effort to reward shareholders at a time of low interest rates.
That has been reflected in a golden period for the NZX top 50 index, which grew 44.6 per cent over 2012 and 2013
Otago Chamber of Commerce president Peter McIntyre said there was a general consensus of 2014 being a ”boom year” driven by three things: growth in Auckland, the Christchurch rebuild and the prosperity of the rural sector.
The GST is essential because it is such an efficient tax. Can you name the countries in the world with no GST, VAT, or broad based consumption tax? Qatar, Bhutan?
It is efficient, it can’t be evaded. There is no alternative.
Just because you are incapable of conceiving of an alternative, doesn’t mean there aren’t any. GST/VAT is not impossible to evade if you buy online, or can chalk it up to company &/or trust expenses.
GST/ VAT free Counties/ Territories:
USA (though “Most states charge a sales tax on products. The US Federal government doesn’t.”) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_added_tax#Countries_and_territories_VAT_free
Saudi Arabia
Qatar
United Arab Emirates
Kuwait
Bahrain
Oman
Libya
Brunei
Bahamas
Maldives
Hong Kong
Macao
San Marino
Vatican City
British Virgin Islands
Bermuda
Cayman Islands
Anguilla
Gibraltar
Turks and Caicos Islands
Jersey
Guernsey
The prevalence of tax havens in the list demonstrates how easy it is for the wealthy to structure their finances to avoid GST thus reinforcing my point that; “GST/VAT is not impossible to evade”. As far as; “New Zealand become a tax haven for the wealthy to use”, we’re well on the way to that already.
I see this rather as an argument for a Tobin (/ Hone Heke/ Robin Hood) tax on financial transactions. Alongside a more progressive income tax system; this will balance the reduction of GST, and eventually the institution of a UBI.
Just some of the alternatives that Slands is incapable of recognising through his zealous genuflections to TINA; the phantasmal deity of monetarism.
The Tobin Tax and the Financial Transaction Tax are two different things. The Tobin Tax is a tax set on the movement of money out of the country while the FTT applies to every transaction.
For starters, very few captains of industry pay retail for any of their consumables.
They purchase their goods from their mates’ warehouses – a whole lot of quid pro quo – so they get items on a cost plus basis.
So in figures that you might understand. Item costs 100 at the factory and 150 in the shop.
15% of 100 is $15.
15% of 150 is $22.5
And the self employed.? Yeah well the “company” purchases most of
their stuff and they claim any GST back.
So, “It is inefficient, it can be evaded. There are alternatives.”
FIFY.
Agreed. Come on Labour, have courage and stand alongside Hone. Mana is the only party supporting a FTT and the scrapping of GST. Time you went large on this Labour!!!
Rosie
Your positive ideas are the sort of thinking that will win Labour votes. Keep the comments up, I look for something positive and lately haven’t found much.
I am getting pissed off with the growing numbers of people blogging here that are spreading ideas of loss causing apathy about Labour in the next election. Too many rw ‘gremlins’ and I think they are putting off commentators here, you blog watchers.
Pete George is an apprentice compared to them. It was a case of pushing a party affiliated to then, now its a negative idea to a style of political and economic thinking and advocating and envisaging a death spiral approach like kamikaze trainers expecting their students to go down in the water.
Labour’s never going to scrap GST. Just like Labour is never going to bring back penalty rates for working overtime.
Be pro-Labour by all means, but don’t rationalise your support for the party with ideas which are disconnected from the reality of what the party is and what the party is actually capable of doing.
Rob
Do you know what you are talking about? Or care?
CV
I see you are being pragmatic. I can’t see why Labour should scrap GST but I do see why it should be reduced. It’s a flat tax T\to be used to roger us all,. and okay it does ensure that most people are paying tax where they should. Few wiggle their way out.
And people who go on about tax being theft are just stupidly repeating a chance remark by someone from a past century which of all the things that have ever been said, is remembered because it’s a great moan about personally having to cough up towards something. I think originally it was when royalty kept wanting to go to war to bolster their own interests rather than the country’s, and requested all the landed gentry to come up with the army and materiels.
Of course governments need the money they get from taxes to run. And as people get more of it, they should pay more taxes to maintain and improve the various projects that have assisted the country progress to achieve their incomes.
Of course governments need the money they get from taxes to run.
No that is merely current monetary convention. After all, the government is the only issuer of NZ Dollars; why should it need taxes to get supplies of the very thing that it itself issues?
Sticking with the current tax system however, GST raises a massive amount of money. It is very difficult to get that money from somewhere else without radical change – eg a FTT, asset/land tax, radically higher corporate and income tax, etc.
One that introduces workable taxes under the present one. Less GST say 10%
etc, CGT, FTT .
Then perhaps a crawling peg or something that settles our exchange rate a little less than the high points of the market. Then leaves it there.
Next time takes it a bit lower.
And then makes it hard for foreign owners to buy NZ land.
Then perhaps look at borrowing money internally for things. Government raises whatever, creates the rest. Hires in NZ mostly, and then pays back the borrowed stuff. Would everyone be happy then?
Crikey Warbly. I feel a little sheepish. There are many commenters with far more well thought through, intellectual, based- in- theory idea’s than I can ever have! I am just a mere shop girl, well have reverted back to the reality that is my fall back career option after finding out no one is interested in my health psyche diploma.
I can whinge and moan with the best of them too!
Re the GST. I am super hot about GST, because it is a problem for many of us. I supported a group back in ’08 who wanted to see GST removed from food. I think it was at this point that Hone Harawira took up the idea. But the idea faded, sadly.
You would also be surprised at the lack of support and in fact, derision from supposedly Left leaders (both inside and outside of party politics)in regard to the idea of removing GST. I won’t name them but I do hope those individuals have had a chance to reconsider their previous positions knowing what they know now about our shameful rates of poverty and inequality.
Removing GST off ALL products and services would alleviate the burden it creates for households. It’s only one part of solving the problem of poverty but it would a step in the right direction.
(Your own personal budget may be freed up to the point where you could have a treat, such as a coffee out! How exciting! And it would be $3.40 instead of $4!)
Are we too scared to tax the rich? To introduce a FTT? Would the sky really fall in if we did?
And positivity – it’s essential for winning. We have far too much at stake to indulge in despair. The time for naval gazing is over just imo.
That does appear to be the case and it’s a fear that we don’t need to have. If the government was the sole creator of money then capital flight would never be a threat that the rich could hold over us (Which would be a major reason why they get all antsy when it’s suggested – they know how much power they would lose overnight if that became reality).
Rosie. Bah! Nothing wrong with being sheepish as long as we don’t get the wool pulled over our eyes.
But GST is useful at a lowered level, it helps more than burdens. It brings in constant money from everybody – harder to arrange your personal spending to avoid tax than income.
And I have other ideas for GST as a measure for distribution that would help regional areas to get jobs, employment, less poverty. In my government! I would have it area coded, and areas trying to up their financials, enterprise and infrastructure would receive a percentage of GST arising from their area back from government. The level would be open to negotiation, but it would ensure that if an area worked hard to get business, say to get a lift in a regional or tourist area, they would get back some of those extra $ earned in GST tax. They could then upkeep amenities better, create more, and add some to other grants they managed to get.
The regions get starved of spending look at Gisborne. I remember the beach area of Whangamata so popular with holiday makers. It complained how small it was and yet these visitors descended on it from other areas bringing their needs for public infrastructure that the locals were expected to pay for.
There is a known dynamic in development studies – that the larger areas that are developing faster tend to drag finance from the quieter ones. They get run down and the money gets sucked out of them to the bigger towns and cities, and to other countries as well. It’s the dynamic that supermarkets, Walmart and any big box store a few kms from town utilise. People flock for the advantages the bigger outfit can provide. And the smaller locals get by-passed and can’t compete, eventually closing down and lose their investment in the store.
Scotland is an example of this dynamic, they noticed it with London growing increasingly as the financial centre in the UK. One reason why they are trying to get more autonomy.
SSLands, if English promoted a Tobin tax tomorrow, you’d be all for it, and probably using the same words. In your mind, there is no alternative to living on your knees and worshipping your Tory dogs. You are a perfect little puppet for an authoritarian government. Why don’t you take up trainspotting instead?
Higher education is for the rich only, despite being essential for a decent standard of living. Both daughters have tried to juggle appalling work conditions, ridiculous transport costs, ever increasing food/rental costs AND study under what seem to be power style corporate style universities.
We have years ahead of supporting them through a masters aswell, educational inflation means if want any chance of getting a job to pay back student loan, you need one.
The only way I can cheer them up is saying that it’s only while these disgusting people are running the country, and once they are gone, decency will return.
And when you factor in no student allowances for post grad so the students are borrowing! to finance the productive research that they undertake and that other’s benefit off for free – gives a whole new meaning to R & D funding doesn’t it.
And the degree in Auckland that sacked all the top level teachers so that they could bring in industry tutors with no particular skill at all – we now have students borrowing to fund corporate training.
Make sure your kids vote and get them to get their friends to vote too or there will interest on the loans or no loans. Scare them otherwise it will be a Nact reality. They have not promised to leave them interest free you know.
Has anyone else noticed how high gas and power bills are this year? I am sure I am paying $100 more this year than I was this time last year, if this carries on into winter our power/gas bill could be in the vicinity of $500 a month.
I just got my power bill yesterday $126.78 for the month, that is for 2 adults. What are you doing wrong to have a big power bill? I rented my house out for a couple of years and the tenants put energy efficient light bulbs in and the showers have a fine spray that does not waste a lot of water.
It is very easy to reduce you power bill if you want, I know what it is like to have teen age girls that sit in the shower until the hot water cylinder is empty. A flow restrictor before the shower rose fixes that problem and they don’t even notice the difference. I know I fitted one for a friend.
Yes true CV, the likes of the commenter above who you address leapt about screaming blue murder, ”Nanny State”, ”Nanny State” when the last Labour Government in a nod to the Greens proposed banning everything but energy efficient light-bulbs and new builds would have to have energy efficient shower heads,
Fools all of them, the ‘wing-nuts’ folly is encapsulated in Naki’s comment above…
Hot water doesn’t use that much power, as network companies turn it on and off remotely.
It is heating (dryer/heater) that is a large part of your power bill.
That is what I have noticed anyway. Before I got a smart meter put in I used to manage my consumption based on how fast the disk on my meter was spinning when I had something on.
Gives a whole new meaning to living off the tenants. Trust they charged you for the bulbs since they were kind enough to leave them not put your cheap ones back in and give theirs to Granny.
“Has anyone else noticed how high gas and power bills are this year? I am sure I am paying $100 more this year than I was this time last year, if this carries on into winter our power/gas bill could be in the vicinity of $500 a month.”
Well you are lucky that we have such cheap electricity generated by our efficient market. If you lived in Australia you would be worse off. Plus you would need to power those pesky air conditioners. If you moved to Denmark, Germany, Italy, Japan, Ireland, Hungary, the United Kingdom, or Norway, you would also be paying much more for your electricity.
You could of course move to France. They have cheap power generated by those awesome nuclear plants.
“Our “market” system has delivered us close to the most expensive electricity in the developed world.”
How so?
Looks like NZ prices are in the second quartile. All the countries I listed have more expensive residential power, including most of the Australian states.
That’s a comparison of energy prices in NZ dollars. Now show us how much residential electricity in NZ and elsewhere costs in terms of a proportion of people’s incomes. (actually, DTB has already done that.)
hint: NZ is a relatively low wage economy compared with the likes of Aussie, Germany, etc.
To be fair, it’s not the electricity generators fault we’re poor. If they can produce it at a globally comparable unit cost, they’re doing OK. It’s someone (everyone) else’s fault we’re poor.
Globally comparable price? A completely irrelevant criteria.. How do you export electricity from a country so far away from other markets.
NZ has large amounts of capacity to produce cheap power and that is what we are doing. Even with the costs of maintaining a long grid in a sparsely populated country, it is also power that is cheap to deliver.
The cost of sales, bloated fat in the sales bodies, and profit of a pseudo-market semi-monopoly is what makes it “comparable” to somewhere that has expensive to generate power. That is the problem.
Effectively over the past 20 years having rentiers in the government demanding grossly excessive dividends so that it makes the privatised companies have less of a problem with their dividends has pushed us from having cheap power to having “globally comparable unit costs”. Trying to produce a “competitive” market structure has just added a whole layer of extra costs to make sales, and made essentially no customer side efficiencies compared to prior to the change to the electricity system back in the 90s.
The nett effect has been to stifle most of the rest of the NZ economy to pay for a pointless uncompetitive sales model and a rentiers profit margin.
I simply can’t see any point in trying to run the electricity sector in NZ as anything other than a simple infrastructure system. Perhaps you can tell what you think is one? All I see is extra bloat and a distinct lack of innovation (like the decades delayed grid upgrades) on a relatively simple system.
Exactly. All profits extracted from our electricity system and shipped offshore is, to the dollar, exactly how much the citizens of this nation have been overcharged for power by the rentier capitalists.
Yep 100% Iprent. Costing electricity at the cost of the highest marginal producer is absolute bullshit. Its not a free market in electricity…Labour/Greens have decided to stop pretending that it is. NZ Power makes perfect sense.
I simply can’t see any point in trying to run the electricity sector in NZ as anything other than a simple infrastructure system
The best way to run the system is to hand it over to a bunch of engineering nerds who want nothing more than a big toy to play with. That way they’ll spend all their energies and talents delivering the most renewable, reliable and cost-effective system in the world.
And they’ll do it just for the sheer fun and pleasure of it – as long as you keep the managerial suits and marketing spivs out of their faces.
Uses a 2010 NZ dollar comparison. The information is influenced by the comparative economies of the countries and does not really show how affordable or sustainable it is for people in those countries. I’d think the EA could provide better.
I’d like to see other analysis and comparisons before concluding that our power prices are reasonable. eg What percentage of peoples income goes on power in each of the countries. That could produce quite different results.
Who cares what they pay overseas. If we can generate cheap power that should be to the benefit of all here and a comparative & competative advantage to our whole economy. Thought the right understood that – they are always bleating on about cheaper off shore sourcing.
Straight out lies, SSlands. In Brisbane, we run the airconditioning quite often and have never got to $140/month. In winter, out bills are generally less than $70/month, and they went up by about 20% once your mates took over the state government. My daughter in Wellington pays much more for power than I do.
Well you are lucky that we have such cheap electricity generated by our efficient market. If you lived in Australia you would be worse off. Plus you would need to power those pesky air conditioners. If you moved to Denmark, Germany, Italy, Japan, Ireland, Hungary, the United Kingdom, or Norway, you would also be paying much more for your electricity.
I wasn’t comparing the price we are paying for power now to what they pay in other countries, I was comparing the price we’re paying now to what we were paying this time last year. We are not doing anything different yet our bill is nearly 50% more, which is why I was wondering if anyone has noticed a similar extortionate rise in what they are paying for their power/gas.
Even with a slanted Right wing poll, with NZ First support National is guaranteed to remain in power.
The Left need to face this reality and plan their strategy accordingly. There is no point in burying our head in the sand and carrying on BAU electoral politics. Some real soul searching needs to be done, and done urgently, if we are to get National out.
with [highly unreliable condition] National is guaranteed to remain in power.
If ACT were on 5%, I’d be concerned. But NZ1? It’s up to the fates and the whims of winston.
And who knows where labgrn will be at the start of the campaign, let alone the finish? As soon as the media sense blood, they’ll skew the vote that way. Just like with Shearer. They want to support the nats, but when the disconnect gets too great they’ll put the bite in like everyone else.
Labour will win with the help of the Greens and Winnie and Mana
( NACT is on the ropes and DESPERATELY SPINNING!!!!!)
…their only partner ACT is a “dead horse”….and Colin is trying to be a “Man for all Seasons” …but looks like ” Road Runner ” on a treadmill….His legs are spinning in all directions but he aint going anywhere fast…
Horror. There are 2,500 Buy orders for PM Labour in Ipredict. Someone from the Left with a spare $1,500 is manipulating the market. It is vast left wing conspiracy to manipulate ipredict. I demand an inquiry.
New Zealand isn’t a free market economy. It’s a mixed market economy. The market isn’t the only factor. There’s employment laws and so on that do factor in on what would be left solely to the market to determine in a free market economy.
So your salary isn’t dictated by just the market if you work in New Zealand.
I jolly well hope you’re not an economist or you are overpaid.
Ausryland 5 eyed f/wit.
Maybe if you could make up your mind.
Like you make up your serial lies .
I could stop laughing .
Australia relies on coal for 80% of its electricity way more expensive than rain and prepaid dams that NZ taxpayers have already paid for and are Now paying again under the market model where cartels are Now forcing prices up like in banking groceries fuel etc.
Antitrust laws need to be brought in like teddy Roosevelt a republican did in the US.
Huh? You really are clueless. Here is the order book:
Current Top 10 Buy Orders
Quantity (Stocks) Price Per Share
27 $0.3606
30 $0.3605
2 $0.3601
2,477 $0.3600
7 $0.3576
25 $0.3575
1 $0.3553
1 $0.3552
1 $0.3548
1 $0.3547
Current Top 10 Sell Orders
Quantity (Stocks) Price Per Share
10 $0.3854
25 $0.4000
7 $0.4011
10 $0.4012
10 $0.4013
10 $0.4172
10 $0.4173
10 $0.4173
10 $0.4174
10 $0.4333
Yes, it’s pretty obvious that a single trader with $2500 to spare is trying to fix the price of the Labour PM stock at $0.36. This single trader is buying a volume of shares far in excess of any other traders, and therefore could easily dominant all trades for that stock. It pretty much shows the ipredict price is a joke – even if you believe that ‘rational traders’ can predict the likely result of the general election, the volumes traded are so low that the price can be determined by a single person with a bit of money to spare (rather than a collective ‘prediction’).
Whether or not it is a ‘left wing conspiracy’ or more likely some RWNJ like srylands himself trying to set a low price for the ipredict stock is left as an exercise for the reader. (A trader trying to push a left-wing conspiracy would of course be buying at a much higher price to push the stock price up).
I hope they stick with it, because it is the only significant policy that is on the correct track. The next National PM will make sure it happens anyway.
Try cutting back on ‘corporate welfare’ to make more money available for ‘social welfare’ .
Open the books!
Cut out the consultants and private sector contractors, unless a ‘cost-benefit’ analysis proves that services cannot be provided more cheaply and effectively ‘in-house’.
I for one, am TOTALLY opposed to the age for superannuation eligibility being raised.
My recollection is they had reversed their policy from 2011 and will now keep the elegibility age at 65.
The policy to increase the age was daft (notwithstanding the fact some on here like r0b supported it).
A workers party should never support silly austerity polcies like this. If affordability is an issue then we look to the increase income. We do not look to cut costs.
It is critical that KiwiSaver is made universal as soon as possible. That is Labour policy, along with steadily increasing the retirement age to 67 to make it more affordable.
You have to wonder who gets paid for this crap. Fortunately it would appear to be private money being used in this case.
I am sure that the process is that a spark causes an explosion and then that’s about it.
One big bang before it’s gone forever. Unless things have been getting a bit damp, then there is a whole lot of smoke and you’re left with a fizzer.
SM ‘ geez those numbers aren’t flash, the auditors/shareholders will be onto us if we spin them and we still haven’t addressed any of our core problems like archaic systems, processes and of course our overpaid managers who add no value…Amy’s all sweet though ‘
KR’ leave it with me, something sparkly and bright to draw attention away, those are very serious concerns mouto’
SM ‘ sheesh Kev I was joking, nobody here gives a F I wasn’t brought back to actually do anything but hey that sounds great, how much do you need…’
“…Yep stoners and even medical use advocates get ranked beneath beneficiaries, disabilities, and special needs kids in most political parties priorities…?
why doesn’t everyone support some sanity around our cannabis laws..?
I suspect that most people do. It’s the politicians and probably business interests getting in the way. I understand from a documentary that I watched a while back that linen made from the cannabis plant is softer, finer more durable, and cheaper than that made from cotton. With that in mind it would take very little to bring clothing manufacture from growing to final product back to NZ.
As you say, better laws for growing cannabis are needed ASAP.
Hemps a super fibre it has huge applications im sure I read somewhere in times long past that its demonisation was driven by the cotton industry.
You can legally crop it here as the fibre strains aren’t psychoactive but you get subjected to battery of tests for thc content and regular police visits just in case you’re growing a mixed crop. Makes it to much hassle when compared with maize etc
With the 50 week no foul sacking period, making it easier to sack new hires, you would think that the employers would be satisfied, apparently not.
It seems that more brutality and humiliation is to be visited on job seekers.
Lie detector tests for job applicants
Telling the odd fib may be OK but would you lie to your potential boss to get a job?
Polygraph, or lie detector, tests are now being offered to New Zealand companies and recruitment agencies for use in pre-employment checks. The test is part of a growing industry in background checking of new staff, as employers become more aware of the need to make sure they are hiring the correct person.
But critics claim the data collection – which can include checks into a person’s ACC history, with their permission – are excessive and take advantage of desperate job seekers.
Resume Check owner James Sutherland, whose company offers comprehensive background check packages – including research into a person’s ACC history, immigration status and credit rating – said most candidates were accepting of the process. Well they would be wouldn’t they, being completely at the employer’s mercy.
James Adonis describes the reason that many job seekers may want to hide their past employment record from their new employer, being fired for instance:
Being fired automatically implies you’ve done something wrong – you failed to meet targets, ripped the company off, harassed a colleague – that kind of thing.
There’s little acknowledgement that sometimes people are fired for other reasons that have little to do with the person whose employment has been terminated such as personality clashes, poor leadership, or retaliation for whistle blowing.
The reason for the sacking often matters less than the simple reality the employee was sacked. And while that stain lingers on an employee’s job history, the chances of being rehired significantly drop. Very quickly, the stain turns into a scar, one that’s increasingly difficult to hide.
One option is to keep the sacking a secret by leaving it off the résumé, extending the duration of your previous employment, and desperately hoping no one finds out.
Or you can try the honest route and hope the recruiter will care to listen without premature bias as you explain why you were fired, what you’ve learned, and how you’ve changed for the better. Neither option is risk free.
Because of recent law changes employers can demand that workers give a urine sample before a job interview, and there are vultures who make a living collecting urine and peering at people’s genitals while they piss.
One person I know, unemployed for months and denied a benefit because their partner is working, was required to give a urine test before her job interview. Arriving at the prospective employer adress she saw in the forbidding looking test van in the company carpark. On entering the van and showing her ID she was given a breathalyser test, and then was asked for a urine sample. With the van sliding door open and very little privacy and with the piss collector staring at her genitals to make sure she was not palming a false sample, and a queue of other job seekers in the carpark, she understandably found it very hard to give a sample no matter how hard she strained. The piss police officer suggested that she go in to the company cafetaria and drink some water and come back. “I will be here for 1 hour, you have 1 hour to perform this test” After three quarters of an hour drinking glass after glass of water in the workers canteen while employees came and went, the piss police officer came into the lunch room demanding that she stop. “You must stop that, or you will water down the sample, you must give a sample right now.”
Again entering the van in the carpark she again strained to give a sample till she felt ill trying, and still nothing. “You can’t do the job interview” said the piss police officer. “I have to leave now, to go to my next job”.
“Where are you going? Can I follow you there in my car and try again?”
“No” said the Piss police.
Jenny, the lie detector test for prospective employee’s is an appalling new low. I thought polygraphs were unreliable as a person can, with practice, control their heart rate and on the other hand completely innocent people can feel anxious and their heart rate can increase.
A job interview now days can be like an interrogation process,guilty until proven innocent – that’s without the piss test! What your acquaintance went through was degrading and for some that whole process could have been frightening. There is no dignity in what she had to endure. Shame on employers who force prospective employer’s to undergo such a belittling experience.
and potential employees cannot find out how many people the boss gropes, that the boss has convictions for assault, major traffic offences and is the subject of protection orders from several women plus has had to settle a number of employment court grievances, oh and has a poor credit history so your chances of getting paid are not great.
Good for the Greens to step up. Of course we know Labour will start on the rail loop the next day after taking office. Catch 22 really, first you need the votes and too much talking up the rail loop allows National to spin too much shit. Plenty of car dependent Jaffa’s are rattled their rates will ballon. Best not to cause Labour vote leakage.
Boring old Whylands with his questions setting the agenda for discussion. Pity the RWNJs seem to be filling up the screen with their moving belt of faces to which we fire mudballs.
Shane Jones is sounding good. He is making good points and showing how he can be really useful to Labour, and vice versa.
These are his positions in the shadow cabinet –
Shane Jones Labour List MP
Spokesperson for Economic Development
Spokesperson for Māori Affairs
Spokesperson for Forestry
Spokesperson for Building & Construction
Associate Spokesperson on Fisheries
Associate Finance Spokesperson
I think he should be put into Associate Spokesperson for Trade with Phil Goff.
And Associate Spokesperson for Small Business with David Clark, Dunedin.
He can add spice to Labour’s stew, keep it bubbling. He’s got the sound of a person who has worked in the real job, hands-on, cleaning up-the dusty, dirty or gritty sector, and not just chair- bound direct from university.
a comic about free trade & the tppa , some very interesting ideas, especially about the bs trickle down theory that we were bombasted with in the 80s. (‘trickle up’ more like)
Trouble is phillip your writing style tends to lead me to skip over it. Sometimes convention is worthwhile when it comes to reading. About 30 years ago there was a move to do away with all punctuation and to eliminate all capital letters. Guess how long that lasted.
So guess why your having it “up” was missed by many?
phillip. It might have been perhaps 50 years ago that a few books were published promising a new age of punctuation-free print. After all this time I have no idea which and what but we found it hard to read and the publications ceased. At about that time I started learning Esperanto as a new age of the world having a common language but that faded as well. Bonan Targon Senoro phillip.
I agree ianmac – must be the education background, but some comments are very hard to read. Apart from the rule that ellipses should be three dots, phillip appears to have a lot of constructive comments but they are not easy to read/scan and lead to being skimmed over.
However chacun a son gout.
Pretty scarey stuff idlegus! But well worth the time. Especially in regard to the implications TPPA which our Government Leaders say that there is nothing to worry about as they know best.
I do hope everyone gets the time to read your link.
Nutella is actually quite solid when in the jar, you’d probably need to put some decent effort to get it in. I suppose the worst bit is when you put the jar back in the pantry.
I don’t think anyone has mentioned the latest Roy Morgan Poll (unusual since the writers here at the Standard often hold this poll up as one to recognise. So just to remind your loyal readers,
Gary Morgan says:
“Today’s New Zealand Roy Morgan Poll shows National (48%, up 1%) with its largest lead over a potential Labour/ Greens alliance (42%, down 2%) since July 2013. The rise in support for National comes after Prime Minister John Key enjoyed the festivities at Auckland’s ‘Big Gay Out’, a traditional left-wing constituency, even playing a game of beer pong.
“The additional good news for Key this week is that New Zealand Government Confidence has increased to 140pts (up 1pt) – the highest it has been since July 2010 while today’s ANZ-Roy Morgan New Zealand Consumer Confidence Rating of 133.0 is only just below its highest level since 2007 – prior to the Global Financial Crisis.
“In recent weeks Key has also refused to outline whether National will enter coalition with smaller right-wing parties including Act NZ and the Conservatives, leaving that decision until closer to the election. If the trend of the past few weeks continue, National may win enough seats to govern in its own right.”
The issue Labour has is that the thin veneer of polish that Labour had with the appointment of Cunliffe has tarnished and dulled very quickly. Quite simply he is not a likeable person and New Zealand have not warmed to him in any way. Labour support is at its baseline levels. Labour continue to be incessantly negative when the majority do not feel such negativity is warranted.
Here is a summary of what Middle NZ feel (Lefties wont like this so feel free to look away)
1. John Key and National are doing a great job
2. John Key is a likeable person who the country does trust
3. Labour is still split by negativity and infighting (although generally suppressed)
4. Labour have not articulated what they will do for NZ except offer more welfare
5. Labour will need to form a government with the Greens and the Greens cannot be trusted in terms of economic management
6. Why put all the hard effort and gains of the two National Terms at risk
7. Labour Leader Cunliffe is not a nice person and we don’t trust him.
8. Labour have no vision except more welfare, higher taxes, and subsidised jobs. Labour are unable to articulate how they will actually give industry the confidence to create jobs as Government do not create jobs)
It is going to be a very hard road for Labour to win the 2014 election. They are saddled with MPs that should have resigned / retired (King Goff Mallard Fenton come immediately to mind) years ago.
The Roy Morgan poll was commented briefly on OM 20/Feb at 19.
You make a good set of points that Labour should look at and digest Monty. If they just turned all that positive stuff on themselves spoken confidently, happily and with a follow us, we know whether we are going, it would change the trend that may be plateauing to sharper upwards.
If you are right with your points and you very possibly are, then no amount of facts and discussion will change the ingrained bias. The river will go back to its old course even if diverted temporarily.
But positivity and addressing the welfare problem through opening up education, child care assistance, and courses for parents as priority before progressing NCEA levels, help with small business, co-operative enterprises, volunteer projects and work for beneficiaries.
And assistance in growing small business, encouragement, ideas, etc. The country is ready to be ‘sparked’ to go off like fireworks in creative enterprises, enthusiasm, what can be imagined and sold. That would dry up much of the unemployment, and it would become assistance before getting into the next project. Busy, busy NZ, catering and excitement for tourists, and spending outlets for the fatneck, fatwallets.
We want the voters to be arguing that good things aren’t going to work, and then others can step in and question their motives and challenge them to meet the ideas with other positive ones. And make the point that the current approach is to allow the country to slip away into permanent depression, both economic and mental and NZs who love their country want a better future.
The problem for Labour is that all I ever hear from them is whining. No matter the suggestion from National its bad. TPP for example and the demand by the left to release the transcripts when Goff whe was involved in the negotiations knows that release is impossible. Labour have not really come out loud and clear saying we support the TPP because it will lead to more jobs. Instead they try to create some sort of conspiracy.
On any effort to free up the Labour Market, (such as removing barriers of cost ) Labour oppose such measures rather than say well maybe an unskilled 17 year old is going to struggle to get a job because of price.
In the 2008 election, John Key consistently talked about how he would implement his vision for a better New Zealand. He ignored Labour, and starved them of Oxygen. He did barely engaged in the negative politics that Labour constantly indulge in.
Labour moan, but offer no solutions. They promote policies which are ill-conceived and then open themselves up to strong criticism.
Labour do not have an MP (or prospective MP) who can match John Key in any way. To Beat John Key Labour Need a politician that NZ can love. Norman Kirk, and David Lange were the last PM who had that ability. Clark was good, extremely smart, but never loved or admired right across the political spectrum.
As a staunch right wing supporter long may that continue. I love watching the lefties cry into their miserable gruel as National support is close to 50% after two terms and the third terms looks a distinct reality. but saying that I would like to see what Labour can actually offer, more than a whining slogan that puts off side the middle classes who one person called on this blog a bunch of leeches. That is just the wrong bitter attitude for a group that wants the treasury benches.
Monty
So you’re one of these time-wasting RW gremlins?
I made a mistake thinking that you appeared to be thinking on lines that supported Labour.
Or cared about the good of all NZs.
Attutude is everything. It has long been a problem to name call anyone from the right as you have done here (gremlins) just pathetic that the left seem incapable of engaging in issues rather that actually being able to engage in constructive debate.
And for the record I care deeply about New Zealand and its future. I had other options of where to live 25 years ago. I came back to New Zealand and have built by life here and raised (raising) my family. I work bloody hard as does my wife and as a result of that hard work I am one of the 12% paying the 75% of the income tax. I don’t take any welfare bar the odd visit to the doctor and the education for my three children.
And therein lies for the problem for the left. You hate the middle class such as I represent. You hate us because we are happy and successful and we criticise the Labour and the Green economic policy which would hurt NZ more than it will ever help it. Break away from your warped view of John Key and National and try and understand what the right are doing so well and then try and improve upon that rather that the constant negativity and your lives might be better for it.
We made you happy and successful. Do you think you would have had a decent education without the Left? Or A health service?
All you right wingers ever do is pull the ladder up behind you.
For the record, the historical record that is, not your propagandised fantasies, the New Zealand economy consistently performs better when the Left is in government and has done so since there was a Labour Party.
Just quietly, the reason people don’t like you is that you tell lies.
There is a question of whether it was “sustainable growth” though.
You can make an economy grow easy. It’s a case of whether it’s sustainable.
Note: I actually think that on the whole, most growth achieved by left-wing NZ governments has been sustainable. But to simply say “the economy consistently performs better” is a simplification.
Wow – that was a 100% pure Key sandwich: indicate doubt about the reliability of the statement n question, indicate that it’s probably true in your opinion, though, then reinforce the original doubt.
You’ve now managed to appear to say something intelligent, while all the time actually saying nothing.
Oh, and as for your children, it wasn’t the left that shat in all the rivers you swam in at their age, nor was it the left that wrecked the weather. Dream on.
And therein lies for the problem for the left. You hate the middle class such as I represent. You hate us because we are happy and successful and we criticise the Labour and the Green economic policy which would hurt NZ more than it will ever help it.
You appear to have made the classic mistake of assuming that everyone on “the left” is unemployed or otherwise poor. This is not the case.
You’ve also left a rather large question going begging, but that’s hardly surprising given the apparently willful ignorance you’ve already displayed.
I note also that you decry “name-calling” but you have no trouble in ascribing some quite nasty motives to people that you otherwise have no clue about. Your sentence “I love watching the lefties cry into their miserable gruel” says more about you than you might have cared to admit.
Montykins is back. Do you feel the need for some Standard readers love?
Poor people pay taxes too. One is known as GST. It is time to retire the “small numbers of higher income people pay the most income tax” stuck record. High earners are the biggest users of trusts and accountants that siphon off estimated billions per year that should be going into social spending.
A larf a minute Monty, your Roy Morgan is simply the same old lies of the last election cycle where ”National have the numbers to Govern alone was the ‘wing-nuts’ mantra”,
In terms of the current far right wing agenda being pushed by National it is far from the Govern alone of the pre-election polls of the last cycle, and in fact is lucky in terms of the slow moving wheels of justice in relation to John Banks to have a Governable majority at all,
Had Banks got His just deserts earlier in the piece and Dunne been sacked from the Cabinet then National would have been left to Govern at the whim of it’s lapdog the Maori Party which would then have bared the fangs of a rabid pit-bull,
Slippery the Prime Minister is in fact the only plus that National have going into this election and the past two, without the master used car salesman National would be back to being a 20% Party again, at some point in time the shyster will lose the power to bullshit His way out of any corner just as Prime Ministers have done befor Him,
If you do not like the taxes you pay why not fuck off to a place like Vanuatu, they charge little in the way of taxes…
Instead of slinging at the right perhaps it would be better to address the elephant in the room. Support for Labour under Cunliffe has dropped nearly 20% – from 37% after Cunliffe became leader to 30%.
Surely this is something that is far worthier of discussion – i.e. how to fix it. Or does everyone prefer a snap election instead. Can only imagine that the poll TVNZ is conducting this week is not going to be much better.
Well, a snap election would see all labour and green policy announced in a very short period and they’ll hit the ground running.
Not a bad idea.
Boredom will hurt the left, imo. The nats have been plinking away on individual character assassinations, the left have been plinking away on policy. I reckon the left have a firmer ground than the nats for the campaign.
Cunliffe is where he is because of the activists, who defied the prevailing media narrative. Did you think they’d just roll over?
Elections can be won by grass roots effort. If you expect the prevailing mainstream media narrative to go along with that, in this place, in this time, I have bad news for you.
The Left can win this election comfortably, but we won’t. We’ll squabble and barely scrape through if we’re lucky, and despite that, govern this country a damn sight better than the best the bought party can muster, like we always do.
I work bloody hard as does my wife
and as a result of that hard work
I am one of the 12% paying the 75% of the income tax.
I don’t take any welfare
bar the odd visit to the doctor
and the education for my three children.
Could anyone set these lines of RWNJ cliche and truism to music?
It would be a classic for today. We have had There is no Depression in New Zealand.
Call it Lullaby for the Smug.
I work bloody hard as does my wife
and as a result of that hard work
I am one of the 12% paying the 75% of the income tax.
I don’t take any welfare
bar the odd visit to the doctor
and the education for my three children.
And the roads.
And the hospitals
And the rule of law.
The parliament that gives me tax cuts
and the libraries
And the fire brigade
and the ACC
and the low-waged workers who deliver everything I require to survive.
I find their trends somewhat interesting, but my blood pressure couldn’t stand it if they were the emotional roller-coaster for me that they seem to be for some folk.
Let’s take a couple of Monty Burns’ 8 Iron-Laws of Public Opinion (10:19 am comment):
“2. John Key is a likeable person who the country does trust.”
and
“7. Labour leader Cunliffe is not a nice person and we don’t trust him.”
Monty Burns clearly bases this on the detailed findings of the latest Fairfax Poll. Problem is: he’s got it wrong. In terms, for instance, of the public’s dislike and distrust of the two main leaders, the difference is a statistically insignificant 4-7 percentage points. The proportion disliking / distrusting Key is in the late 30s, while for Cunliffe it’s in the early-mid 40s. For Monty, this means we all love Key and hate Cunliffe. Go figure.
Spark for Telecom. Right from the start Tcom were insensitive and profit-focussed in every way.
Now Spark. What bright spark thought that up. Bloody stupid name and insensitive to today’s realities.
I think in this era of droughts, gale winds and fires destroying countryside, houses, animals and people and irreplaceable damage, it is not a good word. It wouldn’t go down well in Australia for instance. A spark from a grass cutter working on the roadsides starts off a fire that can rage over 100 hectares and houses. Recently someone with a leaking gas bottle in his vehicle was blown up, and why? Probably from a small spark from the automatic light from the car’s electricity. A word full of foreboding. And feared all round.
From the same wine-soaked brainstorming session that brought you Wheedle FFS!
phillip ure
You cetainly have been sparked off on much creative thinking that will no doubt be resource material for future PR efforts with name changes.
This National/ACT Government is VERY vulnerable, in my considered opinion, on matters relating to corrupt corporate cronyism, particularly involving Sky City.
So much for getting into surplus and the Rockstar economy, NZ govt deficit exceeds forecast.
But you won’t hear Garner or the Goblin yelling about it today all over the media.
Yes true the Rock-Bottom economy races toward the wall and the engineer is not around to apply the brakes having leapt off mouthing f** this s**t,
Current massive bleeding hole in the National Governments books= 1.79 billion dollars, that 2009 tax switch sure as hell was fiscally neutral right,(psst lets just push that ‘surplus’ out another year and prime the organizations of propaganda to repeat over and over ‘rock-star economy’),
Gross Government debt 82.95 Billion bucks, shhhh, do not whatever you do say those numbers in public, it might wake more than a few of the punters from their dreams,(psst, i have a plan, lets prime the organizations of propaganda to repeat over and over rock-star economy),
PAYE and GST take off those who have no means of avoidance and evasion up 5%, Rock-star economy, Rock-star economy,
$179 Million dollar shortfall in the business tax payments for the 6 month period, Shhhh, bury this really deep in the business pages, don’t want the peasants paying all the tax to click on to the fact that ‘Biz’ has just avoided and/or evaded another couple of hundred million bucks of their responsibilities,
Best to keep up the mantra, spread by the organizations of propoganda, Rock-Bottom economy, Rock-bottom economy, and, for gods sake don’t let them think what the tax losses and the debt is going to look like after another 3 if National get another term,
100 billion bucks of Government debt anyone???, now what was the IMF’s number again…
The IMF is totally relaxed about Crown debt and the deficit reduction path. So I suggest you relax and give away the moonbat act. Indeed I’d bet they will be way more relaxed in the next consultation. Or is there a right wing neoliberal conspiracy to manipulate the IMF?
You are being hyperbolic and dishonest. Low income earners (or peasants as you call them – what is up with that?) do not pay all the tax (or any in most cases).
SSLands, i see you do not deny that Government debt will hit 100 billion dollars if Slippery’s National Government is given a third term in office,
What ”deficit reduction path” is this you speak of SSLands, the same old Lies year after year and still the Government books bleed red ink to the tune of hundreds of millions every six months,
Of course the IMF are supremely ”relaxed” about the Government heading toward a 100 billion dollars of Government debt in a little over 3 years time while the current inability for the IRD, through staff cutback by the same Government, has left the States revenue gatherer unable to police its own tax laws allowing evasion/avoidance to run rampant in a sea of red ink for the Government,
After all the IMF were supremely relaxed as the World Banking industry pulled off the crime of the century in 07/08/09, also known as the Global Financial Crisis,
Such relaxation among the IMF also resulted in the likes of Ireland and Greece both with Swiss cheese tax systems akin to our own to face bankruptcy only solved by taking even more off of those with the least, even their pensions,
The simple fact is SSLands that the IMF is simply akin to a firm of company receivers only having an impact ”after” the s**t has hit the fan big time and it is then that IMF moves in on behalf of the creditors to asset strip whatever is left of value belonging to the Government,(in other words, the people), so, you bet the IMF is relaxed about a Government that will not or cannot balance its books, and, relaxed about a Government living on the sugar rush of credit,
After all the only fun the IMF ever get is when they are able to, on behalf of a countries creditors, don the Jackboots under the suits and loot a debt ridden country unable to cough up to those creditors…
SSLands,please do not ask me questions about a lie you have formulated having not comprehended what is in plain black and white right in front of your eyes,
The ”peasants” as i have used the term in my comment above refers to ALL those who are paying GST and PAYE with no means of evading/avoiding such taxation as opposed to those who choose through trusts and business operations to practice that evasion and avoidance of the responsibility to pay tax,
i see low income earners did not get mentioned in that particular comment, you obviously have bad eyes, stop wanking that might improve the situation…
Frozen foods with best before September 2015. This is the sort of queer extension of keeping times into long life product that must mean adulteration of food, or require high energy requirements if its frozen. Kiwi and Mellow products are being recalled with this date on.
The rich and corrupt that ran Venezuela for years (with Uncle Sam’s endorsement) want it back. The gains (for the poor and impoverished) of the Chavez era need to be rolled back and if that means civil war so be it.
Pretty much how I see it, GR. The people who are so worried about democracy since Chavez got into power had never thought to mention it in the previous 500 years when they were at the top of the pyramid. Now that the pyramid is being levelled out a bit, they’re screaming. Maduro’s government is being very lenient and civilised in its treatment of them.
Lenient is certainly the word! Maduro needs to immediately parade the CIA plant Lopez and squash him like the slug he is, as a very public message to the neoliberal cabal. That fate should also befall all those who have been agitating on behalf of the USA and the 1%. If he can do that, then you never know, the 99% may well wake up globally, and rid the world of the cancer of the 1%.
Anyone ever think of emulating Peter J. and getting into the movie bizz, need to find someone quick for that role of shady, sleazy character, you know the one, hangs about the public toilets or the kids playground wearing a long dirty overcoat stained down the front with drivel barely able to be suppressed,
No need to puff up the cushions on the casting couch, lock up the liquor cabinet, you wont have to ply those you wish to shoehorn into such a despised role with strong drinks in order to gain their assent,
Found on Campbell live last night was one who could in the blink of an eye fill the role admirably, yes Steven Joyce putting on a show of the tongue flicking drool that would be Oscar winning as the dirty pervert outside the local public toilets,
Barely able to express His lip licking drool Joyce, with the compliance, the enablement if you will,of a barely questioning Campbell, with only the filthy trench-coat absent gave us all a perverse display worthy of any toilet loitering pervert acting the part befor Him,
According to the barely able to suppress that drool Joyce it is the teachers fault that No-No-Pay is such a f**ked example of computer technology used to provide the wages for the nations teachers,
Hardly a millimeter above a cardiac arrest brought about by the sheer unadulterated joy Joyce was obviously feeling at having Campbell sit there and smile as the slime slid from His lips Joyce went on to explain that if the teachers would only simply let Him strip them of any and all allowances contained in their collective agreement No-No-Pay would work perfectly,
Begs a couple of questions don’t it, is the current round of No-No as far as Pay goes from No-No-Pay simply more of the same from such a service that has been faulty from the get go, or, is the current round of mistakes in the teachers pay the result of politics,
The other question, did someone with a spare one of those rubber rings they apply to the balls of male lambs so as to make them drop off, their balls that is, apply it to Campbell’s set one night when He was comatose with the piss…
No Lanthanide. When I worked on an Air Force base (civilian on base) I was told by an Air Force officer about the ability of intelligence gathering groups to be able to remotely log in to someone’s computer and set up ongoing coverage of everything the owner of the computer was doing. They could also manipulate the same computer from a remote location in any way they chose. It was gobsmacking stuff.
That was the early 1990s too and I’m sure modern technology has made them capable of doing even more nowadays. Bullying and harassing someone by ‘interfering’ with their PC activities is likely to become more and more frequently the norm…
To take over ones computer it requires one of two things, Either someone has to physically access the PC by entering the building where it is located and leave either a hardware or software bug on the computer
Alternatively they need to force software onto the computer remotely which then allows them to watch everything you do at the PC and even take over your keyboard, camera or whatever. This is usually done by sending someone an email that users click onto something in the email and it will then secretly download the software to allow takeover.
Of course if you are the NSA there are other alternatives by making use of software already embedded in PC by the so called reliable computer manufacturers. I dobt if such access would be available to people outside of USA intelligence.
If you want to play safe and defeat that kind of bugging, then just disconnect your PC from the Internet.
If people want to listen to all your private conversations there are ways. Look up Infinity Transmitter. Lovely device easily obtained and works wonders
That was the early 1990s too and I’m sure modern technology has made them capable of doing even more nowadays. Bullying and harassing someone by ‘interfering’ with their PC activities is likely to become more and more frequently the norm…
Thanks Ron. Interesting stuff. It fits in with what I was told 20 years ago. I’m not concerned for myself. Couldn’t care less because I know nothing. 🙂
I was replying to Lanthanide who seemed to doubt the present day ability of agencies/groups with the right equipment to spy on people through their PCs, and to use the same equipment to covertly harass them. I think you might find that the five eyes grouping would also have access to this sophisticated equipment. After all it would be in the NSA’s interest for them to be able to access PCs of interest within their respective borders. Dotcom knows all about it!
Lanth didn’t strike me as questioning the ability, more the paranoia factor.
For the record, I’m half and half on it – doubt all of them are intelligence surveillance, one or two might be.
Hi McFlock.
Yes, I realised Lanth was talking about the paranoia factor.
Agree re-intelligence agencies. They sometimes get suspected when they were probably not responsible. For instance, during the Cold War years (up until the 1980s) the police were doing some of it. In their case, I suspect there were political connotations. Another story which might come out one day.
… and sometimes it’s a hotel burglar, and sometimes it’s just a guy at the next table playing Angry Birds, or a chap trying to pick up another chap in Rio, or some random teen hacker.
This guy had more of a plausible reason than many do for maybe being a target of surveillance, but who knows?
Nope, but it makes me wonder, why she is getting so much hate from aussies on twitter? She is the victim here, also the media shouldnt down play sexual assault and call it boob grabbing.
Fender, Im not your pa, type in sarah hyland in Twitter and you will get a ton
of news outlets calling it boob grabbing, and groping, and not what it is, sexual assault.
The whale oil has just put up a topic in relation to the supermarket saga, inferring that government supermarkets are in the pipeline. To me, if that IS true, then it IS good news!
I made the following post there:
Well, if that does happen, it can only be very good news! It will increase competition and bring some prices down and give some power back to the people. Free market, remember?…And oh, you don’t HAVE to shop there, if you don’t want to! If your report is correct, at last, some sanity, fairness and REAL competition coming to fight the crooked capitalists and the price gauging powerful mafia style monopolies and duopolies! Kiwi Bank, Kiwi Super, Kiwi Assure, Kiwi Market, Kiwi Power, Kiwi Fair Deal, Kiwi Way! Bring it on, I say!
OMG there is now a 2,000 BUY order for “PM Labour” One of you rich pricks is manipulating the market to force the price up. After all a fuckwit with a few dollars to spare in one trade is all it takes.
To all those contributors here who sully your minds/screens/hard drives/caches and cookies by visiting the sewers for the rest of us – a big heart felt thank you. You risk damage to yourselves for the benefit of others of us who do not wish to read the squalid muck that masquerades as serious comment. It is such a shame that one of them gets recognition as worthy by making frequent guest visits to The Panel.
Cheers again
ps. has anyone established why Bomber was really banned – you know just asking because we have an investigation currently trying to establish editorial bias in the public broadcasting arena?
this is a good question, from this comic http://economixcomix.com/home/tpp/ its asks why can’t americans buy medication from canada, where its cheaper?, the ‘freedom of trade’.
How many supporters of The Standard, will show consistency in opposition to corrupt corporate cronyism, particularly when it involves Sky City?
How many will join the LEN BROWN – STAND DOWN march, tomorrow, Saturday 22 February 2014?
Assemble 11.30am Britomart
March starts 12 noon from Britomart
March ends at Airedale Street
I’ll be one of the speakers at the end of the march, focusing on how I think Auckland Mayor Len Brown crossed the line when he accepted undisclosed gifts from Sky City during a time that Sky City was an ‘item of business’ before Auckland Council, and Len Brown was supporting Sky City.
Also I’ll be exposing how the Ernst and Young Report, did NOT follow the ‘due process’ as outlined in the Auckland Council Code of Conduct, s8 – Compliance:
The governing body shall constitute a Conduct Review Independent Panel. The members of the Panel will be selected from a list of persons with appropriate skills and knowledge, to be recommended by the Chief Executive. The Independent Panel is not a Committee of the governing body and its sole function is to investigate those matters referred to it and to make recommendations on those matters to the governing body/local board. Up to three members on the list will be deemed to be ‘convenors’ who will be the Council’s primary contact in relation to convening a panel when required. ‘Convening’ a panel includes chairing that panel. A convenor may appoint other convenors to a panel.
8.6. Procedures of the Conduct Review Independent Panel
The Independent Panel will establish and notify standard procedures, fair to both complainants and respondents, which it will apply to the investigation and consideration of all complaints referred to it.
8.7. Governing Body/Local Board Consideration
In considering the Panel’s recommendation, the matter shall be considered with neither the complainant nor the respondent being entitled to participate in that item.
8.8. Responses to Breaches of the Code
To avoid doubt, a breach of the Code of Conduct does not constitute an offence under the Local Government Act 2002. The exact nature of the action the governing body/local boardmay take depends on the nature of the breach and whether there are statutory provisions dealing with the breach.
Where there are statutory provisions:breaches relating to members’ interests may render members liable for prosecution by the Auditor-General under the Local Authority (Members’ Interests) Act 1968;
breaches which result in the Council suffering financial loss or damage may be reported on by the Auditor-General under the Local Government Act 2002, which may result in the member having to make good the loss or damage;
breaches relating to the commission of a criminal offence may leave the elected member liable for criminal prosecution.
In these cases the governing body or local board may refer an issue to the relevant body, any member of the public may make a complaint to that body, or the Auditor-General or Police may take action of their own initiative.
Where there are no statutory provisions, the governing body or local board may take the following action:censure;
removal of the elected member from representative type bodies;dismissal of the elected member from a position as Chair or Deputy Chair of a committee.
A decision to apply one or more of these actions requires a resolution to that effect.
……………..”
Why did (former) Auckland Council CEO Doug McKay, not follow this process?
Upon what lawful authority did (former) Auckland Council CEO Doug McKay, effectively make up his own process, and appoint his own people?
(His statutory duties are enshrined in the Local Government Act 2002, s42
(1)A local authority must, in accordance with clauses 33 and 34 of Schedule 7, appoint a chief executive.
(2)A chief executive appointed under subsection (1) is responsible to his or her local authority for—
(a)implementing the decisions of the local authority; and
(b)providing advice to members of the local authority and to its community boards, if any; and
(c)ensuring that all responsibilities, duties, and powers delegated to him or her or to any person employed by the local
authority, or imposed or conferred by an Act, regulation, or bylaw, are properly performed or exercised; and
...........................
That’s why I have made a formal complaint to Auckland Police, alleging ‘Contravention of Statute’, (s107 Crimes Act 1961), against (former) Auckland Council CEO Doug McKay.
This complaint is currently being assessed by an Inspector attached to Auckland CIB.
There will be more (but not much time – only got 4 minutes! 🙂
But – will be making time to include this little gem – that the Auditor-General, Lyn Provost is a SHAREHOLDER in Sky City!
Yep – could only happen here in ‘clean, green, corruption-free’ New Zealand ……..
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 ...
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 7:40 am on Wednesday, July 24 are:Deep Dive: Chipping away at the housing crisis, including my comments RNZ/Newsroom’s The DetailNews: Government softens on asset sales, ...
As I reported about the city centre, Auckland’s rail network is also going through a difficult and disruptive period which is rapidly approaching a culmination, this will result in a significant upgrade to the whole network. Hallelujah. Also like the city centre this is an upgrade predicated on the City ...
Today, a 4 kilogram report will be delivered to Parliament. We know this is what the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care weighs, because our Prime Minister told us so.Some reporter had blindsided him by asking a question about something done by ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Wednesday, July 24, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Beehive:Transport Minister Simeon Brownannounced plans to use PPPs to fund, build and run a four-lane expressway between Auckland ...
NewstalkZB host Mike Hosking, who can usually be relied on to give Prime Minister Christopher Luxon an easy run, did not do so yesterday when he interviewed him about the HealthNZ deficit. Luxon is trying to use a deficit reported last year by HealthNZ as yet another example of the ...
Back in January a StatsNZ employee gave a speech at Rātana on behalf of tangata whenua in which he insulted and criticised the government. The speech clearly violated the principle of a neutral public service, and StatsNZ started an investigation. Part of that was getting an external consultant to examine ...
Renting for life: Shared ownership initiatives are unlikely to slow the slide in home ownership by much. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:A Deloittereport for Westpac has projected Aotearoa’s home-ownership rate will ...
You're broken down and tiredOf living life on a merry go roundAnd you can't find the fighterBut I see it in you so we gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsWe gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsAnd I'll rise upI'll rise like the dayI'll rise upI'll rise unafraidI'll rise upAnd I'll ...
There’s been a change in Myers Park. Down the steps from St. Kevin’s Arcade, past the grassy slopes, the children’s playground, the benches and that goat statue, there has been a transformation. The underpass for Mayoral Drive has gone from a barren, grey, concrete tunnel, to a place that thrums ...
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 ...
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 Tuesday, July 23 are:Deep Dive: Penlink: where tolling rhetoric meets reality BusinessDesk-$$$’sOliver LewisScoop:Te Pūkenga plans for regional polytechs leak out ...
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 ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent talking about the National-ACT-NZ First Government’s release of its first Emissions Reduction Plan;University of Otago Foreign Relations Professor and special guest Dr Karin von ...
Open access notablesImproving global temperature datasets to better account for non-uniform warming, Calvert, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society:To better account for spatial non-uniform trends in warming, a new GITD [global instrumental temperature dataset] was created that used maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) to combine the land surface ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says a bill that has passed its first reading will improve parental leave settings and give non-biological parents more flexibility as primary carer for their child. The Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill (No3), passed its first reading this morning. “It includes a change ...
Two Bills designed to improve regulation and make it easier to do business have passed their first reading in Parliament, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill make key changes to legislation administered by the Ministry ...
New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says newly appointed Commissioner, Grant Illingworth KC, will help deliver the report for the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons, due on 28 November 2024. “I am pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will commence his appointment as ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters travels to Laos this week to participate in a series of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-led Ministerial meetings in Vientiane. “ASEAN plays an important role in supporting a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Mr Peters says. “This will be our third visit to ...
Construction of a new mental health facility at Te Nikau Grey Hospital in Greymouth is today one step closer, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says. “This $27 million facility shows this Government is delivering on its promise to boost mental health care and improve front line services,” Mr Doocey says. ...
New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says proposed changes to the Education and Training Amendment Bill will ensure charter schools have more flexibility to negotiate employment agreements and are equipped with the right teaching resources. “Cabinet has agreed to progress an amendment which means unions will not be able to initiate ...
In response to serious concerns around oversight, overspend and a significant deterioration in financial outlook, the Board of Health New Zealand will be replaced with a Commissioner, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti announced today. “The previous government’s botched health reforms have created significant financial challenges at Health NZ that, without ...
Minister for Space and Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins will travel to Adelaide tomorrow for space and science engagements, including speaking at the Australian Space Forum. While there she will also have meetings and visits with a focus on space, biotechnology and innovation. “New Zealand has a thriving space ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will travel to China on Saturday to attend the Ministerial on Climate Action meeting held in Wuhan. “Attending the Ministerial on Climate Action is an opportunity to advocate for New Zealand climate priorities and engage with our key partners on climate action,” Mr Watts says. ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is travelling to the Solomon Islands tomorrow for meetings with his counterparts from around the Pacific supporting collective management of the region’s fisheries. The 23rd Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Committee and the 5th Regional Fisheries Ministers’ Meeting in Honiara from 23 to 26 July ...
The Government today launched the Military Style Academy Pilot at Te Au rere a te Tonga Youth Justice residence in Palmerston North, an important part of the Government’s plan to crackdown on youth crime and getting youth offenders back on track, Minister for Children, Karen Chhour said today. “On the ...
The Government has welcomed news the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has begun work to replace nine priority bridges across the country to ensure our state highway network remains resilient, reliable, and efficient for road users, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“Increasing productivity and economic growth is a key priority for the ...
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour has been in contact throughout the evening with senior officials who have coordinated a whole of government response to the global IT outage and can provide an update. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has designated the National Emergency Management Agency as the ...
New Zealand and Japan will continue to step up their shared engagement with the Pacific, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand and Japan have a strong, shared interest in a free, open and stable Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “We are pleased to be finding more ways ...
New developments in the heart of North Island forestry country will reinvigorate their communities and boost economic development, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones visited Kaingaroa and Kawerau in Bay of Plenty today to open a landmark community centre in the former and a new connecting road in ...
President Adeang, fellow Ministers, honourable Diet Member Horii, Ambassadors, distinguished guests. Minasama, konnichiwa, and good afternoon, everyone. Distinguished guests, it’s a pleasure to be here with you today to talk about New Zealand’s foreign policy reset, the reasons for it, the values that underpin it, and how it ...
Last summer when Matairangi burned, Ginny and Tom stood at the window of their lounge, watching kākā shoot skyward from the burning trees. From the distance, they looked to Ginny like pages torn from books and thrown into a bonfire. It was Tom, voice tight, who told her it was ...
Opinion: The Canadian short story writer Alice Munro – winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013 – died in May at the age of 92. Her work was about “the damage people inflict on one another in the name of love”, Deborah Treisman wrote in the New Yorker. ...
This month marks two years since the most powerful telescope ever built sent its first pictures back to earth. From its lofty vantage point, beyond the moon in orbit around the sun, the James Webb Space Telescope was tuned to observe the first stars and galaxies being born soon after ...
Comment: After Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ preview several weeks ago, I had some optimism about the Government’s emissions reduction plan. Now I’ve read the discussion document, that hope has been dashed. How can the Government propose a plan that wants to take New Zealand taxpayers’ hard-earned money, and spend ...
Christopher Luxon: hurdles The little man from National jumps hurdles in his sleep. He’s quite good at it in his dreams and even though the reality doesn’t quite match up you have to give him credit for getting up every morning and crashing into the very first hurdle of the ...
Comment: It was a good two hours into the conversation when Tyrone Marks raised the most basic of questions when I first spoke to him in 2017. “They didn’t explain the things they did to me. They never told me why. And they still haven’t. There’s no explanation for it. ...
Madeleine Chapman rounds out Death Week on The Spinoff with a final recommendation. You can read all of our Death Week coverage here. Nothing forces you to reflect on your life and relationships quite like proximity to death. For those whose nearest and dearest have died, there are reasonably obvious ...
Whitney Greene takes us through her life in television, including the TV character she’d like to plan a funeral for and her cow lung catastrophe on The Traitors NZ. “If the phone rings, I have to answer it,” Whitney Greene from The Traitors NZ warns as we begin our My ...
Maddie Ballard reviews the debut essay collection of Pōneke writer Flora Feltham.In ‘The Raw Material’, the longest essay in Flora Feltham’s dazzling debut collection, the author heads out for a run after hours of weaving and sees the world turn to textile. “Pounding along the Parade, I saw the ...
Andy Christiansen, one half of the experimental rock-pop duo TRiPS, shares the tunes inspiring the band’s perfect weekend and new release. “Good speakers, good food, good music, no distractions”: that’s all you need to enjoy the psychedelic stylings of TRiPS, a new band formed by Fly My Pretties’ Barnaby Weir ...
Celebrating our quadrennial opportunity to become experts in a bunch of sports we never normally watch.The games of the XXXIII Olympiad are upon us. Paris will host this year’s showcase of sporting and athletic prowess, which means some late-night and early-morning viewing for us in Aotearoa.But what sports ...
The photograph is striking and beautiful, but also disturbing – a reminder that my love for John was often entangled in shame.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.In the spring of 1980, in Dunedin, shortly before his death, someone took a photograph ...
Get to know Babushka, our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Babu’s humans, Jo and Isabel, for their support. Dog name: Babushka (Babu for short) Age: 2Breed: Border Collie X poodleIf rescued, ...
Pacific Media Watch A Lebanese photojournalist who was severely wounded during an Israeli air strike in south Lebanon carried the Olympic torch in Paris this week in honour of her peers who have been wounded and killed in the field — especially in Gaza and Lebanon. Christina Assi of Agence ...
The first report in a five-part web series focused on the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women taking place in the Marshall Islands this week.SPECIAL REPORT:By Netani Rika in Majuro Women continue to fight for justice 70 years after the first nuclear tests by the United States caused ...
Christopher Luxon has joined with Australia and Canada's leaders in voicing support for US President Joe Biden's ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The 2022 election brought the “teal wave” into parliament. The next election will test whether teals, who occupy what were Liberal seats, and other independents can maintain their momentum. Joining us on the Podcast ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Musgrave, Senior lecturer in Pharmacology, University of Adelaide Pixavri/Shutterstock A major Federal Court class action has been dismissed this week after Justice Michael Lee ruled there was not enough evidence to prove the weedkiller Roundup causes cancer. Plaintiff Kelvin ...
In The Week in Politics: politicians have to decide what to do about child abuse, Health NZ is booked in for major surgery and Darleen Tana returns. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University Mainstream media are surprisingly muted at the prospect of the world’s most powerful nation being led for the first time by a woman – specifically a woman of colour, Vice President Kamala ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Bennett, PhD Student, Associate Research Fellow, Deakin University Last week, a drone delivery company called Wing (owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet) started operating in Melbourne. Some 250,000 residents in parts of the city’s eastern suburbs can now order food from ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Foo, Lecturer, Physiotherapy, Monash University pikselstock/Shutterstock In the next 40 years in Australia, it’s predicted the number of Australians aged 65 and over will more than double, while the number of people aged 85 and over will more than triple. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katrina Grant, Research Associate, Power Institute for Arts and Visual Culture, University of Sydney Jonas Åkerström’s 1790 work, Session of the Accademia dell’Arcadia on August 17 1788.Nationalmuseum/Cecilia Heisser Ever wondered whether you’d have a better chance at winning an Olympic gold ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexandra Jones, Program Lead, Food Governance, George Institute for Global Health wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock On Thursday, Australian and New Zealand food ministers at state, federal and national levels met to thrash out what’s next for health star ratings on packaged foods. Now, after ...
The Abuse in Care report found many Pacific survivors lost their connections to their culture and language, resulting in trauma that has been carried from generation to generation. ...
In the regulatory review, ECC intends to suggest that ERO focus on curriculum delivery reviews rather than the Ministry, because it’s not efficient or effective to have two agencies with radically different approaches climbing over each other. ...
Te Rūnanga Nui o Ngā Kura Kaupapa Māori invites the current government to work in partnership with them to develop a pathway forward, including the development of a parallel pathway and meaningful policy and strategy for Kura Kaupapa Māori ...
If you haven’t started watching yet, Tara Ward begs you to reconsider. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. In the world of New Zealand reality television, we have many gems in our crown. There’s the delicious second season of the Celebrity Treasure ...
A new poem by Fiona Kidman. The clothes of the dead I did not keep my mother’s furry red beret for long nor the stringy scarves that adorned the necks of my aunts, although I have kept tag ends of gold, the rings and trinkets they wore, the brooches no ...
The government’s announcement that it will re-open the foreshore and seabed controversy by changing the rules on recognising centuries-old Māori customary title for a third time goes against the rule of law and New Zealand values,” Mr Tipa says. ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Lioness by Emily Perkins (Bloomsbury, $25) Roarrrr! Perkins’ brilliant, award-winning, Marian-Keyes anointed, darkly funny, long ...
The 2004 Act vested ownership of the foreshore and seabed in the Crown, extinguishing any Māori claims to ownership and causing widespread outrage and protests among Māori communities. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Antje Deckert, Associate Professor (Criminology), Auckland University of Technology Getty Images Despite the connection between institutional harm and gang membership made clear in this week’s mammoth royal commission abuse-in care report, the government seems unlikely to soften its “get tough on ...
From Lewis Clareburt in the swimming to the start of the rowing – the first seven days of Paris 2024 promise to be big for New Zealand. There are few events that bring the country together quite like an Olympic Games. Nothing quite matches the excitement of getting up in ...
Groundbreaking local science just showed up in the most surprising of places: the season finale of The Kardashians. In the season five finale of The Kardashians last night, several members of the family gathered together in one of their signature empty, cream-coloured rooms to hear test results that had been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amin Saikal, Emeritus professor of Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies, Australian National University The Middle East is on the brink of a possibly devastating regional war, with hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah reaching an extremely dangerous level. Washington has engaged in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Elizabeth Eades, Rheumatologist, Monash University Lupus is an inflammatory autoimmune illness, where the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks itself. Lupus can affect virtually any part of the body, although it most commonly affects the skin, joints and kidneys. The symptoms ...
A law firm that specialises in working with survivors of abuse in State care is disappointed that the Government fails to recognise that its boot camps can be directly compared to previous boot camps from the 1990s and 2000s. ...
Dying is a natural part of life, like updating your Wof or seeing your hairdresser, but without the word-of-mouth recs that help guarantee a good service. What if we changed that? Dying Reviews received by The Spinoff have had the names of organisations redacted while Hospice NZ collects further data. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonti Horner, Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland Mike Lewinski/Flickr, CC BY On any clear night, if you gaze skywards long enough, chances are you’ll see a meteor streaking through the sky. Some nights, however, are better than others. At ...
Despite having no bars or other designated spaces for lesbians, Auckland boasts a small but mighty lesbian museum. So how did it get here? The past 18 months has brought increasing hostility towards the queer community across Aotearoa. Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull’s anti-trans rally in Tamaki Makaurau last March led to a ...
Poneke Antifascist Coalition has invited Wellingtonians to stand in solidarity with the Kanak people at 12pm today outside the French Embassy in Wellington. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Layton, Visiting Fellow, Strategic Studies, Griffith University Drones are the signature technology of the Ukraine war. A few miniature aircraft designs were used in the war’s early days, but an incredible array of drones have now evolved. There are different types, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Slee, Associate Professor, Clinical Academic Neurologist, Flinders University Francisco Gonzelez/Unsplash Migraine is many things, but one thing it’s not is “just a headache”. “Migraine” comes from the Greek word “hemicrania”, referring to the common experience of migraine being predominantly ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lee White, Senior Lecturer and Horizon Fellow, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Sydney Australia was slow to introduce minimum building standards for energy efficiency. The Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS) only came into force in 2003. Older homes ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steven Sherwood, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Climate Change Research Centre, UNSW Sydney The past century of human-induced warming has increased rainfall variability over 75% of the Earth’s land area – particularly over Australia, Europe and eastern North America, new research shows. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Heynen, Program Coordinator, Sustainable Energy, The University of Queensland A temporary stadium in the Champ-de-Mars, ParisEkaterina Pokrovsky/Shutterstock As Paris prepares to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the sustainability of the event is coming under scrutiny. The organisers have promoted ...
A night of karaoke and community in a pub that feels like a memory. You’d barely even notice it, unless you knew to look. Tucked away behind a liquor store on busy Constable Street is the capital’s last great pub. Newtown Sports Bar is an emblem of the pub culture ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Wright, Professor in Marine Geology, University of Canterbury Louise Corcoran/Getty Images The decline in the number of doctoral candidates at New Zealand universities is a worrying sign for the country’s effort to build a knowledge-based economy. Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laurie Berg, Associate Professor, University of Technology Sydney defotoberg/Shutterstock Migrant worker exploitation is entrenched in workplaces across Australia. Tragically, a deep fear of immigration consequences means most unlawful employer conduct goes unreported. On Wednesday, however, the government officially launched a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vaughan Cruickshank, Senior Lecturer in Health and Physical Education, University of Tasmania Paris is about to host its third summer Olympics. While we don’t yet know what the legacy of this year’s games will be, let’s take the opportunity to reflect on ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hugh Breakey, Deputy Director, Institute for Ethics, Governance & Law, Griffith University In the wake of the assassination attempt on former US President Donald Trump, there were calls from bothsides of US politics, as well as internationally, to reduce the brutal, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Keith Rathbone, Senior Lecturer, Modern European History and Sports History, Macquarie University Two high-profile assaults on Australians in Paris have raised concerns about security ahead of the Olympic Games. On Saturday evening, a young woman was allegedly sexually assaulted by a ...
Dying is inevitable and, so it seems, is it costing a lot, writes Stewart Sowman-Lund in today’s extract from The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here.The cost of dying ...
The government took Joyce Harris's first baby and sent her off to a girls' home. Half a century on - and out of oceans of hurt - it asked her to be a mother figure. ...
It’s the deadliest fictional town in the country, but which death has been the most bonkers? Alex Casey looks back at 10 seasons of The Brokenwood Mysteries to find out. Warning: The following ranking story contains famous New Zealand actors appearing to be dead (not alive). The Spinoff has been ...
Water cremation is the biggest thing to happen to the death industry in the last 100 years. Alex Casey meets the people trying to bring it to Aotearoa. Through a set of mirrored doors down the industrial end of Christchurch’s St Asaph Street, death is getting a new lease on ...
If sprinter Zoe Hobbs lines up in the 100m final in Paris this year, her Olympic campaign will have been a success. Even if she doesn’t climb the podium, her presence will be as good as gold. But if Dame Lisa Carrington comes fourth, the country will record it as ...
Someone in Labour is trying to make mischief in an election year, according to Garner. If that’s true, they should be kicked out of the Party. Actually, the big mistake Cunliffe has made since getting leadership is that he kept the useless neolib clutter in the Party instead of chucking them all out.
http://www.radiolive.co.nz/GARNER-Labour-MPs-are-worried-about-David-Cunliffes-performance/tabid/506/articleID/40741/Default.aspx
In another news WhaleSpew won a Netguide award for best blog. Great to see racism, mysoginy, class hate and psychopathy awarded.
Gee Cunliffes not popular with his own team, well theres a surprise.
Cunliffe is very popular with his team. He may have had one of two issues this year with delivery of key messages but the team is in behind him 100%.
Don’t believe what you hear from Farrar, Garner, Whale or Gower. They are all part of the National Party propoganda machine trying to hide the true state of the nation from its workers.
“but the team is in behind him 100%”
Even the most hard-core labour supporter would have to be laughing at that
I am hard core Green supporter, but from my close range observation there is no sign of any unrest. Think back to when Shearer was in charge. We are miles away from that scenario
agreed.
There might still be divisions, but I don’t think anybody wants rid of cunliffe
It’s too late to change from Cunliffe.
Everyone in Labour has to make do with what they’ve got: Cunliffe has to make do with a caucus full of under-performing deadwood, and the deadwood has to make do with Cunliffe as leader.
Beautiful phrasing, Lanth.
we-ell that’s one perspective, I guess.
To me it simply looks like a shifting of the blame by people who thought it was Shearer’s fault and that cunliffe would at least see some improvement in the polls. Well, they were wrong, so it must be “deadwood” (i.e. “people who don’t do/say exactly what I want”).
The fact is that things aren’t going great for labour, but that just means they’re doing things that piss off the corporates (the fmr business rort-table complaining about jones criticising supermarkets in parliament is typical, and looked like jones quotes were cherry-picked to fit a narrative). But more often than not the only regular poll says nats will be out come the election – and I reckon the opposition (especially the greens) will campaign well this year.
I was interested by someone’s theory yesterday that greens vs labour booth returns seem to mirror lab v liberals back in the 1920s. Intriguing if true, but unlike the libs I think under MMP minor parties will have a place rather than moving to extinction.
i think i have synthesised/rendered-down labours’ perception-problems into one sentence:..
“..us punters/voters look at all the labour faces..and just see the clark govt..lightly warmed-over/stirred..and a certain weariness sets in..”
(..and save for a wholesale clearout of those faces..which i don’t see labour doing..
..their only other option as i see it..
..is a wholesale mea culpa/repudiation of those neo-lib policies..
..and a brace of new game/sea-changing/poverty-ending/environment-cleaning policies..to offer as appeasement..
..without either of those ..labour will continue to slump in the polls..
..and i don’t think the greens should be too worried about dotcom starting a party..
..it is labour who should be licking their lips in nervousness..
..as much of that soft/over-them vote that can’t stomach voting national..
..could well flock to dotcom..if only for freshness/newness/new-ideas reasons..
..and a heads-up! to labour/greens/mana..!
..if dotcom follows his libertarian-leanings..i am expecting a full legalisation of cannabis (the colorado-model)..policy from dotcom..
..and there is at least 5% just there..for him..for that..(in fact..i think a reasoned/coherent-policy could well draw more than 5%..and especially from that group labour claims to be targeting (?)..the young/politically-uninvolved..
..they will queue around the block to vote for that one..
..and another heads-up..now that obama has authorised the banking industry to handle the legal-states’ pot-money..with no fear of federal prosecution..
..i am picking that just after his mid-term congressional-elections this year..
..that obama will end prohibition at the federal level..
..and leave it to individual states to decide their own policies..
..so..given that timing..we will have our ‘progressive’ lab/grn/mana parties going into the campaign proper..all dancing nervously around the idea of medical-marijuana..
..and dotom going for full legalisation..able to point at america..and go..’see!’..
..he will hoover up all of that vote for himself..
..and irony of ironies..should the greens still pussy-foot around the issue..(and not plump for that colorado-model..)
..those votes they will lose..will be those people who got them over the top/into parliament for the first time..the end-cannabis-prohibition voters..
..now it seems those voters will now do that same favour for dotcom..
..is this really what lab/grns/mana really want..?
..have they really thought this one thru..?
..’cos from where i’m sitting..
..they are all on the wrong side of history..
..and this is going to ‘hurt’ them..
..all three of them..
..phillip ure..
That would be why the ALCP was the kingmaker in the last few elections – oh, wait…
sneer away..mcflock..sneer away..
..one of us will be correct..eh..?
..phillip ure..
you haven’t made a claim that can be “correct” yet.
Are you picking 6% for the internet party? But only if they go for legalisation?
i said what i said mcflock..
..go read it again if unsure..
phillip ure..
I think you’ll find that because of the ridiculous writing style you persist in using, that most people can’t be bothered trying to read what you write, most of the time.
really..?
(can i console myself after yr attack on my creative/word-using skills..
..by thinking about my 21,000 subscribers @ whoar..?
..d’ya reckon..?
..so..it’s yr unsubstantiated claim..vs..those subscribers..
..i reckon i’ll go with the latter..
..eh..?
phillip ure..
Think how many it could be if people didn’t have to be stoned to read it…
edit: when you say “subscribers”, do you mean site visits, registered users, commenters, RSS/email subscribers, or what?
Because you have very few comments from people other than yourself on the site linked to your pseudonym. You seem to be averaging about one comment a day from someone other than yourself.
rss..(source:..zeald website audit..)
phillip ure..
actually surprised.
..as was i..
..pleasantly..tho’..
..and they have to like it..
..if not it would be like a spam-attack every day..
(..seeing as i usually post/link/point to 40-50 stories each/every day..)
..and they would unsubscribe..toot suite..!
..they also told me that 20,000+ other websites around the world point at me/have whoar on their favoured-website lists..
..double-surprise..
..eh..?
..phillip ure..
takes all sorts, I guess.
and i am certain yr grace and charm..
..is only outdone by yr vibrant good-looks..
..eh..?.
phillip ure..
@ McFlock: “I was interested by someone’s theory yesterday that greens vs labour booth returns seem to mirror lab vs liberals back in the 1920s. Intriguing if true, but unlike the libs I think under MMP minor parties will have a place rather than moving to extinction.”
I was that very “someone”.
I should clarify, though, that I wasn’t suggesting the Greens 2005-2011 electoral rise occurred in precisely the same polling booths as the fledgling Labour Party’s rise through the 20s. It wasn’t about a specific parallel polling booth pattern, but rather the broader point that Labour slowly but surely superseded the Liberals (and their successor parties, National (1925 Election) and United (1928-1931 Elections) ) as the party of progressive politics in big city and provincial city New Zealand through the 20s and that Labour’s decline and the Greens advance in so many metropolitan and provincial city booths 2005-2011 reminded me very much of that inter-war dynamic.
In 2011, the Green party-vote nationally represented little more than 40% of Labour’s party-vote, but there were plenty of urban booths where the Green vote comprised more than two-thirds and, in some cases (especially in Wellington and Dunedin Cities) actually superseded, Labour support. Very rare to find that in 2005 or before (the utterly unique Aro Valley being a conspicuous exception that proves the rule).
And I was also arguing that it was a generational thing. Just as the young Labour Party derived disproportionate support from younger voters (particularly the young single male working-class – although the Party certainly expanded well beyond that core base through the 20s), so today’s Greens are, of course, especially strong among the under 35s (more broadly, the under 45s), raising at least the possibility that there may be some sort of inevitability about their on-going rise, albeit – as with Labour in the 20s – a somewhat faltering rise: two steps forward, one step back.
I should also say the Libs didn’t so much “move to extinction” as merge with the right-wing Reform Party to create a Party we all know and love to this very day – The Dear Old Fucking Tories.
Yep Labour always has to be relevant and forward looking and there is a tension with the Greens although I think there is a lot in common and in an MMP environment the considerations are different in that there is room to cooperate. To see what Labour is and should be capable of have a look at this …
Cheers for that, swordfish – it’s interesting how parties evolve and change, almost like a garden. The Liberals were the ones who gave women suffrage, and as you point out a hundred years later were part of the legacy of the tory government of the day.
And the old “conservatives” (independent opponents to the liberals) created a party named the “Reform Party”, eventually to be the other partner in the formation of the national party.
I sometimes wonder if the Greens and Mana and maybe another left party not yet formed or prominent will grow, and the last <10% remnant of “Labour” ends up in coalition with the tories. Not as an “ABC/splitter” sort of thing, just in a few decades as the political landscape changes like an unkempt garden with different plants sprouting up over the same sort of ground, a few become trees then eventually fall.
Interesting how Garner phrases and pronounces the words at the start of his speech at 00:13. Is it just has mangled speech or is he trying to tell us who the member of the party is that spoke to him?
I know I am getting paranoid but could be
Someone in Labour is trying to make mischief in an election year, according to Garner. If that’s true, they should be kicked out of the Party.
Typical of the ABC club – they’d rather spend another three years stuffing themselves at Bellamy’s rather than do real work. They’d rather have the rest of New Zealand suffer the NACT mob than lose their meal tickets. Let’s name them: Goff, King, Mallard, Hipkins, Robertson, Curran…
They’ve got to go. They’re vainglorious parasites that are putting themselves above not only the party, but the people of the country.
What!
Excuse me?
And the good news, just keeps on coming. (For some)
ASB drives NZ profits up – 3 News
Westpac NZ profits up 9% – Yahoo
ANZ NZ profits up 40% – NZ Herald
Anyone for a Financial Transactions Tax?
Anyone?
Anyone at all
Harawira calls for 1% financial transaction tax to replace GST
“The rich need to pay their fair share” – Harawira
The GST is essential because it is such an efficient tax. Can you name the countries in the world with no GST, VAT, or broad based consumption tax? Qatar, Bhutan?
It is efficient, it can’t be evaded. There is no alternative.
And if you were in india you would have no electricity bill at all. Dont you know how lucky you are?
Of course in India you would not have an electricity bill – you would not have any electricity.
Yup.
srylands is a neoliberal zealot – you can tell by its absolute certainty in rubbish, nonsense statements.
Ignorant, racist comment. India’s economy is booming, it’s literally the next China. Educate yourself mate.
GST efficiently takes the tax burden off of the rich and puts it on the poor.
Exactly Draco
It should be one of the key planks in Labour’s tax policy this year that English’s GST reform will be reversed from 1 April 2015.
I would say GST should be scrapped and replaced with a truly porgressve tax system but I doubt Labour would ever have the balls to do that.
E is E and Drax: + a gazillion
GST is an injustice against the majority of us.
DTB
That seems to be what Slands means by “efficient”.
Efficient beats fair or deserved in srylands world of imaginary jobs and colleagues who think he is hilarious.
Slands
Just because you are incapable of conceiving of an alternative, doesn’t mean there aren’t any. GST/VAT is not impossible to evade if you buy online, or can chalk it up to company &/or trust expenses.
GST/ VAT free Counties/ Territories:
USA (though “Most states charge a sales tax on products. The US Federal government doesn’t.”)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_added_tax#Countries_and_territories_VAT_free
Saudi Arabia
Qatar
United Arab Emirates
Kuwait
Bahrain
Oman
Libya
Brunei
Bahamas
Maldives
Hong Kong
Macao
San Marino
Vatican City
British Virgin Islands
Bermuda
Cayman Islands
Anguilla
Gibraltar
Turks and Caicos Islands
Jersey
Guernsey
That list isn’t that great at proving your point.
I mean a good 40% of the list are tax havens. Are you suggesting that New Zealand become a tax haven for the wealthy to use?
You know we already have Tax Haven Status, right?
+1
DG
The prevalence of tax havens in the list demonstrates how easy it is for the wealthy to structure their finances to avoid GST thus reinforcing my point that; “GST/VAT is not impossible to evade”. As far as; “New Zealand become a tax haven for the wealthy to use”, we’re well on the way to that already.
I see this rather as an argument for a Tobin (/ Hone Heke/ Robin Hood) tax on financial transactions. Alongside a more progressive income tax system; this will balance the reduction of GST, and eventually the institution of a UBI.
Just some of the alternatives that Slands is incapable of recognising through his zealous genuflections to TINA; the phantasmal deity of monetarism.
The Tobin Tax and the Financial Transaction Tax are two different things. The Tobin Tax is a tax set on the movement of money out of the country while the FTT applies to every transaction.
Actually Rylands, you are deluded.
For starters, very few captains of industry pay retail for any of their consumables.
They purchase their goods from their mates’ warehouses – a whole lot of quid pro quo – so they get items on a cost plus basis.
So in figures that you might understand. Item costs 100 at the factory and 150 in the shop.
15% of 100 is $15.
15% of 150 is $22.5
And the self employed.? Yeah well the “company” purchases most of
their stuff and they claim any GST back.
So, “It is inefficient, it can be evaded. There are alternatives.”
FIFY.
@ logie..
1..
it is a total rort..
..the rich evade/play the system..
..the poor have to pay every cent..
..and if labour came out with a coherent financial transaction tax on the banksters..
..that would enable the scrapping of g.s.t..
..(and thus be a major poverty-relieving tool..not the only one needed..but on the way..)
..their support would go thru the roof..
..but i fear they lack both the intelligence and the courage..
..to so thoroughly renounce their deep/enduring neo-lib roots/recent behaviour..
..phillip ure..
GST =-
Def: Government Sanctioned Theft and it needs to go…..
Agreed. Come on Labour, have courage and stand alongside Hone. Mana is the only party supporting a FTT and the scrapping of GST. Time you went large on this Labour!!!
The relief to NZ households would be immense!
+100 Rosie and phillip ure …et al
+1
Yes less tax, we are all in agreement.
Less taxes on the bottom 80%, more taxes on the top 5% especially corporations
Nope. More appropriately targeted tax and a highly progressive income tax is what we need.
Rosie
Your positive ideas are the sort of thinking that will win Labour votes. Keep the comments up, I look for something positive and lately haven’t found much.
I am getting pissed off with the growing numbers of people blogging here that are spreading ideas of loss causing apathy about Labour in the next election. Too many rw ‘gremlins’ and I think they are putting off commentators here, you blog watchers.
Pete George is an apprentice compared to them. It was a case of pushing a party affiliated to then, now its a negative idea to a style of political and economic thinking and advocating and envisaging a death spiral approach like kamikaze trainers expecting their students to go down in the water.
Labour’s never going to scrap GST. Just like Labour is never going to bring back penalty rates for working overtime.
Be pro-Labour by all means, but don’t rationalise your support for the party with ideas which are disconnected from the reality of what the party is and what the party is actually capable of doing.
So you mean that the Labour you think you are supporting is actually very diferent in reality to the Labour you are actually supporting?
Rob
Do you know what you are talking about? Or care?
CV
I see you are being pragmatic. I can’t see why Labour should scrap GST but I do see why it should be reduced. It’s a flat tax T\to be used to roger us all,. and okay it does ensure that most people are paying tax where they should. Few wiggle their way out.
And people who go on about tax being theft are just stupidly repeating a chance remark by someone from a past century which of all the things that have ever been said, is remembered because it’s a great moan about personally having to cough up towards something. I think originally it was when royalty kept wanting to go to war to bolster their own interests rather than the country’s, and requested all the landed gentry to come up with the army and materiels.
Of course governments need the money they get from taxes to run. And as people get more of it, they should pay more taxes to maintain and improve the various projects that have assisted the country progress to achieve their incomes.
No that is merely current monetary convention. After all, the government is the only issuer of NZ Dollars; why should it need taxes to get supplies of the very thing that it itself issues?
Sticking with the current tax system however, GST raises a massive amount of money. It is very difficult to get that money from somewhere else without radical change – eg a FTT, asset/land tax, radically higher corporate and income tax, etc.
Well CV
So a 2-stage recovery.
One that introduces workable taxes under the present one. Less GST say 10%
etc, CGT, FTT .
Then perhaps a crawling peg or something that settles our exchange rate a little less than the high points of the market. Then leaves it there.
Next time takes it a bit lower.
And then makes it hard for foreign owners to buy NZ land.
Then perhaps look at borrowing money internally for things. Government raises whatever, creates the rest. Hires in NZ mostly, and then pays back the borrowed stuff. Would everyone be happy then?
Yup. Just like National.
Crikey Warbly. I feel a little sheepish. There are many commenters with far more well thought through, intellectual, based- in- theory idea’s than I can ever have! I am just a mere shop girl, well have reverted back to the reality that is my fall back career option after finding out no one is interested in my health psyche diploma.
I can whinge and moan with the best of them too!
Re the GST. I am super hot about GST, because it is a problem for many of us. I supported a group back in ’08 who wanted to see GST removed from food. I think it was at this point that Hone Harawira took up the idea. But the idea faded, sadly.
You would also be surprised at the lack of support and in fact, derision from supposedly Left leaders (both inside and outside of party politics)in regard to the idea of removing GST. I won’t name them but I do hope those individuals have had a chance to reconsider their previous positions knowing what they know now about our shameful rates of poverty and inequality.
Removing GST off ALL products and services would alleviate the burden it creates for households. It’s only one part of solving the problem of poverty but it would a step in the right direction.
(Your own personal budget may be freed up to the point where you could have a treat, such as a coffee out! How exciting! And it would be $3.40 instead of $4!)
Are we too scared to tax the rich? To introduce a FTT? Would the sky really fall in if we did?
And positivity – it’s essential for winning. We have far too much at stake to indulge in despair. The time for naval gazing is over just imo.
That does appear to be the case and it’s a fear that we don’t need to have. If the government was the sole creator of money then capital flight would never be a threat that the rich could hold over us (Which would be a major reason why they get all antsy when it’s suggested – they know how much power they would lose overnight if that became reality).
Rosie. Bah! Nothing wrong with being sheepish as long as we don’t get the wool pulled over our eyes.
But GST is useful at a lowered level, it helps more than burdens. It brings in constant money from everybody – harder to arrange your personal spending to avoid tax than income.
And I have other ideas for GST as a measure for distribution that would help regional areas to get jobs, employment, less poverty. In my government! I would have it area coded, and areas trying to up their financials, enterprise and infrastructure would receive a percentage of GST arising from their area back from government. The level would be open to negotiation, but it would ensure that if an area worked hard to get business, say to get a lift in a regional or tourist area, they would get back some of those extra $ earned in GST tax. They could then upkeep amenities better, create more, and add some to other grants they managed to get.
The regions get starved of spending look at Gisborne. I remember the beach area of Whangamata so popular with holiday makers. It complained how small it was and yet these visitors descended on it from other areas bringing their needs for public infrastructure that the locals were expected to pay for.
There is a known dynamic in development studies – that the larger areas that are developing faster tend to drag finance from the quieter ones. They get run down and the money gets sucked out of them to the bigger towns and cities, and to other countries as well. It’s the dynamic that supermarkets, Walmart and any big box store a few kms from town utilise. People flock for the advantages the bigger outfit can provide. And the smaller locals get by-passed and can’t compete, eventually closing down and lose their investment in the store.
Scotland is an example of this dynamic, they noticed it with London growing increasingly as the financial centre in the UK. One reason why they are trying to get more autonomy.
Yep – Labour, if you have any belief in the name of your party, you have to jump on board here.
Mickey or any other insiders – any chance of this happening?
SSLands, if English promoted a Tobin tax tomorrow, you’d be all for it, and probably using the same words. In your mind, there is no alternative to living on your knees and worshipping your Tory dogs. You are a perfect little puppet for an authoritarian government. Why don’t you take up trainspotting instead?
Higher education is for the rich only, despite being essential for a decent standard of living. Both daughters have tried to juggle appalling work conditions, ridiculous transport costs, ever increasing food/rental costs AND study under what seem to be power style corporate style universities.
We have years ahead of supporting them through a masters aswell, educational inflation means if want any chance of getting a job to pay back student loan, you need one.
The only way I can cheer them up is saying that it’s only while these disgusting people are running the country, and once they are gone, decency will return.
And when you factor in no student allowances for post grad so the students are borrowing! to finance the productive research that they undertake and that other’s benefit off for free – gives a whole new meaning to R & D funding doesn’t it.
And the degree in Auckland that sacked all the top level teachers so that they could bring in industry tutors with no particular skill at all – we now have students borrowing to fund corporate training.
Make sure your kids vote and get them to get their friends to vote too or there will interest on the loans or no loans. Scare them otherwise it will be a Nact reality. They have not promised to leave them interest free you know.
Has anyone else noticed how high gas and power bills are this year? I am sure I am paying $100 more this year than I was this time last year, if this carries on into winter our power/gas bill could be in the vicinity of $500 a month.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/manawatu-standard/news/9747954/Councils-solar-farm-ready-to-feed-grid
Solar power is the way to go alright…….
I just got my power bill yesterday $126.78 for the month, that is for 2 adults. What are you doing wrong to have a big power bill? I rented my house out for a couple of years and the tenants put energy efficient light bulbs in and the showers have a fine spray that does not waste a lot of water.
It is very easy to reduce you power bill if you want, I know what it is like to have teen age girls that sit in the shower until the hot water cylinder is empty. A flow restrictor before the shower rose fixes that problem and they don’t even notice the difference. I know I fitted one for a friend.
Shower flow restricters? Commie nana state sympathiser!!!
Yes true CV, the likes of the commenter above who you address leapt about screaming blue murder, ”Nanny State”, ”Nanny State” when the last Labour Government in a nod to the Greens proposed banning everything but energy efficient light-bulbs and new builds would have to have energy efficient shower heads,
Fools all of them, the ‘wing-nuts’ folly is encapsulated in Naki’s comment above…
“that is for 2 adults….”
Oh c’mon, since when have we been able to dignify you with the descriptor ‘adult’?
Hot water doesn’t use that much power, as network companies turn it on and off remotely.
It is heating (dryer/heater) that is a large part of your power bill.
That is what I have noticed anyway. Before I got a smart meter put in I used to manage my consumption based on how fast the disk on my meter was spinning when I had something on.
Gives a whole new meaning to living off the tenants. Trust they charged you for the bulbs since they were kind enough to leave them not put your cheap ones back in and give theirs to Granny.
“Has anyone else noticed how high gas and power bills are this year? I am sure I am paying $100 more this year than I was this time last year, if this carries on into winter our power/gas bill could be in the vicinity of $500 a month.”
Well you are lucky that we have such cheap electricity generated by our efficient market. If you lived in Australia you would be worse off. Plus you would need to power those pesky air conditioners. If you moved to Denmark, Germany, Italy, Japan, Ireland, Hungary, the United Kingdom, or Norway, you would also be paying much more for your electricity.
You could of course move to France. They have cheap power generated by those awesome nuclear plants.
Ah, more lies from SSLands. Our “market” system has delivered us close to the most expensive electricity in the developed world.
“Our “market” system has delivered us close to the most expensive electricity in the developed world.”
How so?
Looks like NZ prices are in the second quartile. All the countries I listed have more expensive residential power, including most of the Australian states.
http://tinyurl.com/pf9xv5n
Ha! Neat trick, ryland.
That’s a comparison of energy prices in NZ dollars. Now show us how much residential electricity in NZ and elsewhere costs in terms of a proportion of people’s incomes. (actually, DTB has already done that.)
hint: NZ is a relatively low wage economy compared with the likes of Aussie, Germany, etc.
To be fair, it’s not the electricity generators fault we’re poor. If they can produce it at a globally comparable unit cost, they’re doing OK. It’s someone (everyone) else’s fault we’re poor.
Globally comparable price? A completely irrelevant criteria.. How do you export electricity from a country so far away from other markets.
NZ has large amounts of capacity to produce cheap power and that is what we are doing. Even with the costs of maintaining a long grid in a sparsely populated country, it is also power that is cheap to deliver.
The cost of sales, bloated fat in the sales bodies, and profit of a pseudo-market semi-monopoly is what makes it “comparable” to somewhere that has expensive to generate power. That is the problem.
Effectively over the past 20 years having rentiers in the government demanding grossly excessive dividends so that it makes the privatised companies have less of a problem with their dividends has pushed us from having cheap power to having “globally comparable unit costs”. Trying to produce a “competitive” market structure has just added a whole layer of extra costs to make sales, and made essentially no customer side efficiencies compared to prior to the change to the electricity system back in the 90s.
The nett effect has been to stifle most of the rest of the NZ economy to pay for a pointless uncompetitive sales model and a rentiers profit margin.
I simply can’t see any point in trying to run the electricity sector in NZ as anything other than a simple infrastructure system. Perhaps you can tell what you think is one? All I see is extra bloat and a distinct lack of innovation (like the decades delayed grid upgrades) on a relatively simple system.
Exactly. All profits extracted from our electricity system and shipped offshore is, to the dollar, exactly how much the citizens of this nation have been overcharged for power by the rentier capitalists.
+11111
Damn well said.
Yep 100% Iprent. Costing electricity at the cost of the highest marginal producer is absolute bullshit. Its not a free market in electricity…Labour/Greens have decided to stop pretending that it is. NZ Power makes perfect sense.
I simply can’t see any point in trying to run the electricity sector in NZ as anything other than a simple infrastructure system
The best way to run the system is to hand it over to a bunch of engineering nerds who want nothing more than a big toy to play with. That way they’ll spend all their energies and talents delivering the most renewable, reliable and cost-effective system in the world.
And they’ll do it just for the sheer fun and pleasure of it – as long as you keep the managerial suits and marketing spivs out of their faces.
Uses a 2010 NZ dollar comparison. The information is influenced by the comparative economies of the countries and does not really show how affordable or sustainable it is for people in those countries. I’d think the EA could provide better.
I’d like to see other analysis and comparisons before concluding that our power prices are reasonable. eg What percentage of peoples income goes on power in each of the countries. That could produce quite different results.
Edit: SNAP Karol
The question now, S Rylands, is:
When you compared apples with oranges, were do you doing so out of error or duplicity?
Which is it, a mistake, or a deliberate lie?
The EA is a right wing haunt creating a market nightmare.
Who cares what they pay overseas. If we can generate cheap power that should be to the benefit of all here and a comparative & competative advantage to our whole economy. Thought the right understood that – they are always bleating on about cheaper off shore sourcing.
Straight out lies, SSlands. In Brisbane, we run the airconditioning quite often and have never got to $140/month. In winter, out bills are generally less than $70/month, and they went up by about 20% once your mates took over the state government. My daughter in Wellington pays much more for power than I do.
srylands
21 February 2014 at 8:02 am
I wasn’t comparing the price we are paying for power now to what they pay in other countries, I was comparing the price we’re paying now to what we were paying this time last year. We are not doing anything different yet our bill is nearly 50% more, which is why I was wondering if anyone has noticed a similar extortionate rise in what they are paying for their power/gas.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/9746336/National-continues-poll-lead
I do wish the MSM would stop publishing polls from right-leaning pollsters 🙂
Even with a slanted Right wing poll, with NZ First support National is guaranteed to remain in power.
The Left need to face this reality and plan their strategy accordingly. There is no point in burying our head in the sand and carrying on BAU electoral politics. Some real soul searching needs to be done, and done urgently, if we are to get National out.
If ACT were on 5%, I’d be concerned. But NZ1? It’s up to the fates and the whims of winston.
And who knows where labgrn will be at the start of the campaign, let alone the finish? As soon as the media sense blood, they’ll skew the vote that way. Just like with Shearer. They want to support the nats, but when the disconnect gets too great they’ll put the bite in like everyone else.
It’s probably an accurate poll. It’s been pretty obvious for about a year that National will win the election by a few seats. The dumbos strike again.
Sosoo?!….nup ( you are being sarcastic I hope)
Labour will win with the help of the Greens and Winnie and Mana
( NACT is on the ropes and DESPERATELY SPINNING!!!!!)
…their only partner ACT is a “dead horse”….and Colin is trying to be a “Man for all Seasons” …but looks like ” Road Runner ” on a treadmill….His legs are spinning in all directions but he aint going anywhere fast…
I don’t think so.
The people who matter in NZ have decided otherwise and will make it so. Have you watched the news lately?
Horror. There are 2,500 Buy orders for PM Labour in Ipredict. Someone from the Left with a spare $1,500 is manipulating the market. It is vast left wing conspiracy to manipulate ipredict. I demand an inquiry.
https://www.ipredict.co.nz/app.php?do=contract_detail&contract=PM.2014.LABOUR
Or the alternative explanation for sane people:
Someone has decided that PM Labour is underpriced at 0.36 and is looking to profit.
Whatever job you do in real life you are overpaid.
“Whatever job you do in real life you are overpaid.”
No I am not. Whatever I am paid is determined by the market. So by definition it is the efficient price. Good for me. Good for New Zealand.
Straight up pal – You’re a Dick!
Nz comes last in your answer of course. Srylands of the “me first” party.
I’m sorry, but you don’t understand basic economics. It’s a shame really.
Actually, no.
New Zealand isn’t a free market economy. It’s a mixed market economy. The market isn’t the only factor. There’s employment laws and so on that do factor in on what would be left solely to the market to determine in a free market economy.
So your salary isn’t dictated by just the market if you work in New Zealand.
I jolly well hope you’re not an economist or you are overpaid.
Now you’ve done it!
It’s worse than that. He doesn’t understand the Second Best Theorem.
It’s even worse than that – he’s an Australian.
Its worse than that… he measures stuff by efficiency.
But mrs srylands what are you complaining about, I was “efficient”
Mrs s ” oh? Are we done?”
Ausryland 5 eyed f/wit.
Maybe if you could make up your mind.
Like you make up your serial lies .
I could stop laughing .
Australia relies on coal for 80% of its electricity way more expensive than rain and prepaid dams that NZ taxpayers have already paid for and are Now paying again under the market model where cartels are Now forcing prices up like in banking groceries fuel etc.
Antitrust laws need to be brought in like teddy Roosevelt a republican did in the US.
Still praying that the temple of Market Utopia?
The market deems it so, therefore we know that the dictats of the market are blessed!
LOL
and i am so simple
Huh? You really are clueless. Here is the order book:
Current Top 10 Buy Orders
Quantity (Stocks) Price Per Share
27 $0.3606
30 $0.3605
2 $0.3601
2,477 $0.3600
7 $0.3576
25 $0.3575
1 $0.3553
1 $0.3552
1 $0.3548
1 $0.3547
Current Top 10 Sell Orders
Quantity (Stocks) Price Per Share
10 $0.3854
25 $0.4000
7 $0.4011
10 $0.4012
10 $0.4013
10 $0.4172
10 $0.4173
10 $0.4173
10 $0.4174
10 $0.4333
Yes, it’s pretty obvious that a single trader with $2500 to spare is trying to fix the price of the Labour PM stock at $0.36. This single trader is buying a volume of shares far in excess of any other traders, and therefore could easily dominant all trades for that stock. It pretty much shows the ipredict price is a joke – even if you believe that ‘rational traders’ can predict the likely result of the general election, the volumes traded are so low that the price can be determined by a single person with a bit of money to spare (rather than a collective ‘prediction’).
Whether or not it is a ‘left wing conspiracy’ or more likely some RWNJ like srylands himself trying to set a low price for the ipredict stock is left as an exercise for the reader. (A trader trying to push a left-wing conspiracy would of course be buying at a much higher price to push the stock price up).
Any updates on Labour’s position about the super age? Is the Labour caucus still keen to increase the super age? How might that be a vote winner?
I hope they stick with it, because it is the only significant policy that is on the correct track. The next National PM will make sure it happens anyway.
Bollocks.
Try cutting back on ‘corporate welfare’ to make more money available for ‘social welfare’ .
Open the books!
Cut out the consultants and private sector contractors, unless a ‘cost-benefit’ analysis proves that services cannot be provided more cheaply and effectively ‘in-house’.
I for one, am TOTALLY opposed to the age for superannuation eligibility being raised.
Penny Bright
‘Anti-corruption / anti-privatisation’ campaigner.
I am looking but cant seem to find it.
My recollection is they had reversed their policy from 2011 and will now keep the elegibility age at 65.
The policy to increase the age was daft (notwithstanding the fact some on here like r0b supported it).
A workers party should never support silly austerity polcies like this. If affordability is an issue then we look to the increase income. We do not look to cut costs.
Nope:
Still shafting workers.
Straight up pal – You’re a dick!
I know the years seem shorter as you get older, but it’s hard to believe it’s April 1 already.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/9748213/Telecom-to-change-name-to-Spark
Isn’t Kevin Roberts still on the board……. looks like the kind of hair brained waste of money he’d come up with to line his own pockets.
Apparently so: https://www.telecom.co.nz/content/0,8748,200652-1548,00.html
You have to wonder who gets paid for this crap. Fortunately it would appear to be private money being used in this case.
I am sure that the process is that a spark causes an explosion and then that’s about it.
One big bang before it’s gone forever. Unless things have been getting a bit damp, then there is a whole lot of smoke and you’re left with a fizzer.
SM ‘ geez those numbers aren’t flash, the auditors/shareholders will be onto us if we spin them and we still haven’t addressed any of our core problems like archaic systems, processes and of course our overpaid managers who add no value…Amy’s all sweet though ‘
KR’ leave it with me, something sparkly and bright to draw attention away, those are very serious concerns mouto’
SM ‘ sheesh Kev I was joking, nobody here gives a F I wasn’t brought back to actually do anything but hey that sounds great, how much do you need…’
Heard that on the radio this morning and was thinking well, that’s another reason why I won’t be buying services from Telecom.
how to save the economies of northland/east cape etc etc..
“..Colorado’s Legal Pot Market – Far Exceeds Tax Revenue Expectations!..”
“..Tax proceeds from pot sales of $98 million –
have crushed the initial estimation given to voters..”
http://www.alternet.org/drugs/colorados-legal-pot-market-far-exceeds-tax-revenue-expectations
this is such a no-brainer..
..why doesn’t everyone support some sanity around our cannabis laws..?
..why aren’t political parties queuing up to promote/trumpet this policy..?
..phillip ure..
“….why aren’t political parties queuing up to promote/trumpet this policy..?”
……….because it’s political suicide ?
…eh….. ?
“…Yep stoners and even medical use advocates get ranked beneath beneficiaries, disabilities, and special needs kids in most political parties priorities…?
@ tiger..i didn’t realise it was an either/or..
..and could one (or more)of those prohibition-advocates please list for us..(bullet-points will be fine..)
..the actual factual/rational-reasons cannabis prohibition should remain in force..
..(aside from that (false) ‘political-suicide’ meme..)
.this is a serious question/request..
.i think it would be a worthwhile exercise to list the reasons ‘for’ prohibition..
..and/against those ‘for’ full-legalisation..(the ‘colorado-model’..for want of a better-term..)
..to clear all the ‘smoke’ away from the issue..eh..?
..a calm/rational look at all the issues/arguments surrounding this issue..
..all in one place..
..as i said..i think this would be a useful exercise to undertake..
..so if a/the prohibitionists could kick it off..?
..that would be much appreciated..
..chrs..
.phillip ure..
philip…i so love your comments….btw….how is your vegan Sausage?
@.chooky..
..surely that is too much information 4 punters..?
..phillip ure..
Phillip I think you need to tell us ASAP as apparently they are truing to serve us sausages that are not very appealing !!
http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/food-wine/food-news/9749225/Poo-sausage-Its-a-thing#comments
perhaps i should also shield you from the acceptable levels of various shudder-inducing nasties..
..in yr pre-packaged etc meaty/dairy-food etc..eh..?
..i have the grisly details @ whoar..
..and it is certainly not for the squeamish flesh/fat-eater to consider..
..y’know..!..those people who are far too sensitive/caring to catch fish/hunt and kill animals..
..but who are ‘quite relaxed’ about eating the butchered final product..
..it could well turn them off meat/dairy altogether..
..and we couldn’t have that..
..could we..?
..phillip ure..
I suspect that most people do. It’s the politicians and probably business interests getting in the way. I understand from a documentary that I watched a while back that linen made from the cannabis plant is softer, finer more durable, and cheaper than that made from cotton. With that in mind it would take very little to bring clothing manufacture from growing to final product back to NZ.
As you say, better laws for growing cannabis are needed ASAP.
Hemps a super fibre it has huge applications im sure I read somewhere in times long past that its demonisation was driven by the cotton industry.
You can legally crop it here as the fibre strains aren’t psychoactive but you get subjected to battery of tests for thc content and regular police visits just in case you’re growing a mixed crop. Makes it to much hassle when compared with maize etc
With the 50 week no foul sacking period, making it easier to sack new hires, you would think that the employers would be satisfied, apparently not.
It seems that more brutality and humiliation is to be visited on job seekers.
This sort of practice needs to be made illegal.
Resume Check owner James Sutherland, whose company offers comprehensive background check packages – including research into a person’s ACC history, immigration status and credit rating – said most candidates were accepting of the process. Well they would be wouldn’t they, being completely at the employer’s mercy.
James Adonis describes the reason that many job seekers may want to hide their past employment record from their new employer, being fired for instance:
Nothing to fear?
Because of recent law changes employers can demand that workers give a urine sample before a job interview, and there are vultures who make a living collecting urine and peering at people’s genitals while they piss.
One person I know, unemployed for months and denied a benefit because their partner is working, was required to give a urine test before her job interview. Arriving at the prospective employer adress she saw in the forbidding looking test van in the company carpark. On entering the van and showing her ID she was given a breathalyser test, and then was asked for a urine sample. With the van sliding door open and very little privacy and with the piss collector staring at her genitals to make sure she was not palming a false sample, and a queue of other job seekers in the carpark, she understandably found it very hard to give a sample no matter how hard she strained. The piss police officer suggested that she go in to the company cafetaria and drink some water and come back. “I will be here for 1 hour, you have 1 hour to perform this test” After three quarters of an hour drinking glass after glass of water in the workers canteen while employees came and went, the piss police officer came into the lunch room demanding that she stop. “You must stop that, or you will water down the sample, you must give a sample right now.”
Again entering the van in the carpark she again strained to give a sample till she felt ill trying, and still nothing. “You can’t do the job interview” said the piss police officer. “I have to leave now, to go to my next job”.
“Where are you going? Can I follow you there in my car and try again?”
“No” said the Piss police.
Jenny, the lie detector test for prospective employee’s is an appalling new low. I thought polygraphs were unreliable as a person can, with practice, control their heart rate and on the other hand completely innocent people can feel anxious and their heart rate can increase.
A job interview now days can be like an interrogation process,guilty until proven innocent – that’s without the piss test! What your acquaintance went through was degrading and for some that whole process could have been frightening. There is no dignity in what she had to endure. Shame on employers who force prospective employer’s to undergo such a belittling experience.
More and more NZ becomes a fascist state.
and potential employees cannot find out how many people the boss gropes, that the boss has convictions for assault, major traffic offences and is the subject of protection orders from several women plus has had to settle a number of employment court grievances, oh and has a poor credit history so your chances of getting paid are not great.
+1
The field is tilted in favour of the dictators.
Good article by Brian Rudman on Auckland transport needs here from today’s Herald.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=11206593
It looks like if you want to have a sensible public transport policy for Akl the only option is to vote Green.
Good for the Greens to step up. Of course we know Labour will start on the rail loop the next day after taking office. Catch 22 really, first you need the votes and too much talking up the rail loop allows National to spin too much shit. Plenty of car dependent Jaffa’s are rattled their rates will ballon. Best not to cause Labour vote leakage.
Boring old Whylands with his questions setting the agenda for discussion. Pity the RWNJs seem to be filling up the screen with their moving belt of faces to which we fire mudballs.
Shane Jones is sounding good. He is making good points and showing how he can be really useful to Labour, and vice versa.
These are his positions in the shadow cabinet –
Shane Jones Labour List MP
Spokesperson for Economic Development
Spokesperson for Māori Affairs
Spokesperson for Forestry
Spokesperson for Building & Construction
Associate Spokesperson on Fisheries
Associate Finance Spokesperson
I think he should be put into Associate Spokesperson for Trade with Phil Goff.
And Associate Spokesperson for Small Business with David Clark, Dunedin.
He can add spice to Labour’s stew, keep it bubbling. He’s got the sound of a person who has worked in the real job, hands-on, cleaning up-the dusty, dirty or gritty sector, and not just chair- bound direct from university.
Greywarbler +100…Shane Jones is doing well!!!!….Cosgrove also gets good sound bites and sounds really good!
There need to be other changes in Labour ‘s front shock troops however….some are just not performing at all
Chooky
Yay!
http://economixcomix.com/home/tpp/
a comic about free trade & the tppa , some very interesting ideas, especially about the bs trickle down theory that we were bombasted with in the 80s. (‘trickle up’ more like)
aye !..idlegus..
..’tis a good comic..
(ahem..!..)..and if i could just have a shane-jones-moment..and dickwave for a bit..
….um..!..i had that up @ whoar way back on the 20th..
..eh..?
..so often first with the best..eh..?
..that whoar..
..21,000+ subscribers/20,000+ other websites ‘pointing’..
.. can’t be wrong..
..eh..?
..phillip ure..
Trouble is phillip your writing style tends to lead me to skip over it. Sometimes convention is worthwhile when it comes to reading. About 30 years ago there was a move to do away with all punctuation and to eliminate all capital letters. Guess how long that lasted.
So guess why your having it “up” was missed by many?
ah yes..ianmac..i am not for all tastes..
..your call..
..eh..?
..and i don’t recall that ‘move’ from 30yrs ago..do you have a link..?
..and punctuation/word-use is surely an ever-evolving process..?
..if not..at which point in time would you ‘freeze’ it..?
..just yesterday i noted to myself how the writing styles of most have evolved here @ the standard in recent times..
..remember when everyone used to write in paper-shortage-style..?..in blocks..?
..but now most give each sentence/idea it’s due..with a double-space between sentences/ideas..
..i wonder who started doing that..?
..and that … — thing..?
..who started doing that..?
..and seriously..there..ianmac..having eschewed them for some time..i now find the capital letter both brutish in architecture..
..and shouting in nature..
…all in all..an ugly/unlovable-beast..
..phillip ure..
ure invented the em-dash?
…One lives and learns… /sarc
go and find someone using it before me..
..i am presuming some of the 21,000 suscribers i have..over 96 countries..are media people..
..and i’m not that certain..
..but i haven’t seen anyone else using it/them as i do..
..and now it is becoming widespread/more common..
..go figure..!
..and going way way back..it used to drive so many kiwiblogswamp denizens spare..
..my ‘dots’…trailing off at the end of sentences..
..as i said..now quite common..even found in headlines now…
..eh..?
..phillip ure..
Wow, how did you get them to include it in unicode for your exclusive use?
phillip. It might have been perhaps 50 years ago that a few books were published promising a new age of punctuation-free print. After all this time I have no idea which and what but we found it hard to read and the publications ceased. At about that time I started learning Esperanto as a new age of the world having a common language but that faded as well. Bonan Targon Senoro phillip.
nah..!..i never saw esperanto running..
..and that was then..this is now..
..for one thing..
..we no longer write in bricks/blocks of words..
..phillip ure..
His style is act quite easy to follow, well to me.
Dont change 😛
chrs..no danger of that..
phillip ure..
I agree ianmac – must be the education background, but some comments are very hard to read. Apart from the rule that ellipses should be three dots, phillip appears to have a lot of constructive comments but they are not easy to read/scan and lead to being skimmed over.
However chacun a son gout.
“..must be the education background..”
i’ve passed yr comment onto auckland university..
..phillip ure..
+1
Pretty scarey stuff idlegus! But well worth the time. Especially in regard to the implications TPPA which our Government Leaders say that there is nothing to worry about as they know best.
I do hope everyone gets the time to read your link.
it’s friday..
you probably need a good laff..
..this’ll do it..
“..18 Hilariously Bad Sex Tips for Men..”
“..Pop your chap in a jar of Nutella –
then present it to your lady..”
http://www.alternet.org/sex-amp-relationships/18-hilariously-bad-sex-tips-men
phillip ure..
Nutella is actually quite solid when in the jar, you’d probably need to put some decent effort to get it in. I suppose the worst bit is when you put the jar back in the pantry.
surely you’d buy two jars..?
..keep one next to the bed..?
..and of course warming the nutella to the correct temperature..
..would be an art/science in itself..
..one fraught with obvious dangers for the careless..
..phillip ure..
So, not 10 minutes on “High” then?
give it a go..and let us know..
phillip ure..
I don’t think anyone has mentioned the latest Roy Morgan Poll (unusual since the writers here at the Standard often hold this poll up as one to recognise. So just to remind your loyal readers,
Gary Morgan says:
“Today’s New Zealand Roy Morgan Poll shows National (48%, up 1%) with its largest lead over a potential Labour/ Greens alliance (42%, down 2%) since July 2013. The rise in support for National comes after Prime Minister John Key enjoyed the festivities at Auckland’s ‘Big Gay Out’, a traditional left-wing constituency, even playing a game of beer pong.
“The additional good news for Key this week is that New Zealand Government Confidence has increased to 140pts (up 1pt) – the highest it has been since July 2010 while today’s ANZ-Roy Morgan New Zealand Consumer Confidence Rating of 133.0 is only just below its highest level since 2007 – prior to the Global Financial Crisis.
“In recent weeks Key has also refused to outline whether National will enter coalition with smaller right-wing parties including Act NZ and the Conservatives, leaving that decision until closer to the election. If the trend of the past few weeks continue, National may win enough seats to govern in its own right.”
The issue Labour has is that the thin veneer of polish that Labour had with the appointment of Cunliffe has tarnished and dulled very quickly. Quite simply he is not a likeable person and New Zealand have not warmed to him in any way. Labour support is at its baseline levels. Labour continue to be incessantly negative when the majority do not feel such negativity is warranted.
Here is a summary of what Middle NZ feel (Lefties wont like this so feel free to look away)
1. John Key and National are doing a great job
2. John Key is a likeable person who the country does trust
3. Labour is still split by negativity and infighting (although generally suppressed)
4. Labour have not articulated what they will do for NZ except offer more welfare
5. Labour will need to form a government with the Greens and the Greens cannot be trusted in terms of economic management
6. Why put all the hard effort and gains of the two National Terms at risk
7. Labour Leader Cunliffe is not a nice person and we don’t trust him.
8. Labour have no vision except more welfare, higher taxes, and subsidised jobs. Labour are unable to articulate how they will actually give industry the confidence to create jobs as Government do not create jobs)
It is going to be a very hard road for Labour to win the 2014 election. They are saddled with MPs that should have resigned / retired (King Goff Mallard Fenton come immediately to mind) years ago.
The Roy Morgan poll was commented briefly on OM 20/Feb at 19.
You make a good set of points that Labour should look at and digest Monty. If they just turned all that positive stuff on themselves spoken confidently, happily and with a follow us, we know whether we are going, it would change the trend that may be plateauing to sharper upwards.
If you are right with your points and you very possibly are, then no amount of facts and discussion will change the ingrained bias. The river will go back to its old course even if diverted temporarily.
But positivity and addressing the welfare problem through opening up education, child care assistance, and courses for parents as priority before progressing NCEA levels, help with small business, co-operative enterprises, volunteer projects and work for beneficiaries.
And assistance in growing small business, encouragement, ideas, etc. The country is ready to be ‘sparked’ to go off like fireworks in creative enterprises, enthusiasm, what can be imagined and sold. That would dry up much of the unemployment, and it would become assistance before getting into the next project. Busy, busy NZ, catering and excitement for tourists, and spending outlets for the fatneck, fatwallets.
We want the voters to be arguing that good things aren’t going to work, and then others can step in and question their motives and challenge them to meet the ideas with other positive ones. And make the point that the current approach is to allow the country to slip away into permanent depression, both economic and mental and NZs who love their country want a better future.
The problem for Labour is that all I ever hear from them is whining. No matter the suggestion from National its bad. TPP for example and the demand by the left to release the transcripts when Goff whe was involved in the negotiations knows that release is impossible. Labour have not really come out loud and clear saying we support the TPP because it will lead to more jobs. Instead they try to create some sort of conspiracy.
On any effort to free up the Labour Market, (such as removing barriers of cost ) Labour oppose such measures rather than say well maybe an unskilled 17 year old is going to struggle to get a job because of price.
In the 2008 election, John Key consistently talked about how he would implement his vision for a better New Zealand. He ignored Labour, and starved them of Oxygen. He did barely engaged in the negative politics that Labour constantly indulge in.
Labour moan, but offer no solutions. They promote policies which are ill-conceived and then open themselves up to strong criticism.
Labour do not have an MP (or prospective MP) who can match John Key in any way. To Beat John Key Labour Need a politician that NZ can love. Norman Kirk, and David Lange were the last PM who had that ability. Clark was good, extremely smart, but never loved or admired right across the political spectrum.
As a staunch right wing supporter long may that continue. I love watching the lefties cry into their miserable gruel as National support is close to 50% after two terms and the third terms looks a distinct reality. but saying that I would like to see what Labour can actually offer, more than a whining slogan that puts off side the middle classes who one person called on this blog a bunch of leeches. That is just the wrong bitter attitude for a group that wants the treasury benches.
I suspect that that’s more your problem than theirs.
Here you go
The problem is with the “Here you go”. It is not working.
Odd, it works for me, although I’m not sure why it’s https.
The URL is https://www.labour.org.nz/issues/
The problem is with here you go SSLands is that you havn’t…
Did you see you are still famous today?
Did you see that your still a totally anonymous wanker today…
Monty
So you’re one of these time-wasting RW gremlins?
I made a mistake thinking that you appeared to be thinking on lines that supported Labour.
Or cared about the good of all NZs.
Attutude is everything. It has long been a problem to name call anyone from the right as you have done here (gremlins) just pathetic that the left seem incapable of engaging in issues rather that actually being able to engage in constructive debate.
And for the record I care deeply about New Zealand and its future. I had other options of where to live 25 years ago. I came back to New Zealand and have built by life here and raised (raising) my family. I work bloody hard as does my wife and as a result of that hard work I am one of the 12% paying the 75% of the income tax. I don’t take any welfare bar the odd visit to the doctor and the education for my three children.
And therein lies for the problem for the left. You hate the middle class such as I represent. You hate us because we are happy and successful and we criticise the Labour and the Green economic policy which would hurt NZ more than it will ever help it. Break away from your warped view of John Key and National and try and understand what the right are doing so well and then try and improve upon that rather that the constant negativity and your lives might be better for it.
We made you happy and successful. Do you think you would have had a decent education without the Left? Or A health service?
All you right wingers ever do is pull the ladder up behind you.
For the record, the historical record that is, not your propagandised fantasies, the New Zealand economy consistently performs better when the Left is in government and has done so since there was a Labour Party.
Just quietly, the reason people don’t like you is that you tell lies.
There is a question of whether it was “sustainable growth” though.
You can make an economy grow easy. It’s a case of whether it’s sustainable.
Note: I actually think that on the whole, most growth achieved by left-wing NZ governments has been sustainable. But to simply say “the economy consistently performs better” is a simplification.
Boom and bust and all that jazz.
Wow – that was a 100% pure Key sandwich: indicate doubt about the reliability of the statement n question, indicate that it’s probably true in your opinion, though, then reinforce the original doubt.
You’ve now managed to appear to say something intelligent, while all the time actually saying nothing.
Congratulations.
Oh, and as for your children, it wasn’t the left that shat in all the rivers you swam in at their age, nor was it the left that wrecked the weather. Dream on.
You appear to have made the classic mistake of assuming that everyone on “the left” is unemployed or otherwise poor. This is not the case.
You’ve also left a rather large question going begging, but that’s hardly surprising given the apparently willful ignorance you’ve already displayed.
I note also that you decry “name-calling” but you have no trouble in ascribing some quite nasty motives to people that you otherwise have no clue about. Your sentence “I love watching the lefties cry into their miserable gruel” says more about you than you might have cared to admit.
Short version: Fucking. Bullshit.
Oh, and don’t fall for Bill English’s voodoo maths, it makes you look ignorant.
Even if the figures were true (and they aren’t), all it would show is that monty and his pals pay most of the tax because they have most of the money.
Whoop-de-fuck.
Montykins is back. Do you feel the need for some Standard readers love?
Poor people pay taxes too. One is known as GST. It is time to retire the “small numbers of higher income people pay the most income tax” stuck record. High earners are the biggest users of trusts and accountants that siphon off estimated billions per year that should be going into social spending.
A larf a minute Monty, your Roy Morgan is simply the same old lies of the last election cycle where ”National have the numbers to Govern alone was the ‘wing-nuts’ mantra”,
In terms of the current far right wing agenda being pushed by National it is far from the Govern alone of the pre-election polls of the last cycle, and in fact is lucky in terms of the slow moving wheels of justice in relation to John Banks to have a Governable majority at all,
Had Banks got His just deserts earlier in the piece and Dunne been sacked from the Cabinet then National would have been left to Govern at the whim of it’s lapdog the Maori Party which would then have bared the fangs of a rabid pit-bull,
Slippery the Prime Minister is in fact the only plus that National have going into this election and the past two, without the master used car salesman National would be back to being a 20% Party again, at some point in time the shyster will lose the power to bullshit His way out of any corner just as Prime Ministers have done befor Him,
If you do not like the taxes you pay why not fuck off to a place like Vanuatu, they charge little in the way of taxes…
Instead of slinging at the right perhaps it would be better to address the elephant in the room. Support for Labour under Cunliffe has dropped nearly 20% – from 37% after Cunliffe became leader to 30%.
Surely this is something that is far worthier of discussion – i.e. how to fix it. Or does everyone prefer a snap election instead. Can only imagine that the poll TVNZ is conducting this week is not going to be much better.
Well, a snap election would see all labour and green policy announced in a very short period and they’ll hit the ground running.
Not a bad idea.
Boredom will hurt the left, imo. The nats have been plinking away on individual character assassinations, the left have been plinking away on policy. I reckon the left have a firmer ground than the nats for the campaign.
Cunliffe is where he is because of the activists, who defied the prevailing media narrative. Did you think they’d just roll over?
Elections can be won by grass roots effort. If you expect the prevailing mainstream media narrative to go along with that, in this place, in this time, I have bad news for you.
The Left can win this election comfortably, but we won’t. We’ll squabble and barely scrape through if we’re lucky, and despite that, govern this country a damn sight better than the best the bought party can muster, like we always do.
+1
Could anyone set these lines of RWNJ cliche and truism to music?
It would be a classic for today. We have had There is no Depression in New Zealand.
Call it Lullaby for the Smug.
It needs more lines:
I work bloody hard as does my wife
and as a result of that hard work
I am one of the 12% paying the 75% of the income tax.
I don’t take any welfare
bar the odd visit to the doctor
and the education for my three children.
And the roads.
And the hospitals
And the rule of law.
The parliament that gives me tax cuts
and the libraries
And the fire brigade
and the ACC
and the low-waged workers who deliver everything I require to survive.
Catchy.
FIFM Thanx OAB
Oh Monty wants to see what Labour can actually offer ‘Him’,in other words the self centered greedy little toe rag wants Labour to buy His vote…
Well, actually, being reasonably intelligent, I just ignore the polls.
I find their trends somewhat interesting, but my blood pressure couldn’t stand it if they were the emotional roller-coaster for me that they seem to be for some folk.
Let’s take a couple of Monty Burns’ 8 Iron-Laws of Public Opinion (10:19 am comment):
“2. John Key is a likeable person who the country does trust.”
and
“7. Labour leader Cunliffe is not a nice person and we don’t trust him.”
Monty Burns clearly bases this on the detailed findings of the latest Fairfax Poll. Problem is: he’s got it wrong. In terms, for instance, of the public’s dislike and distrust of the two main leaders, the difference is a statistically insignificant 4-7 percentage points. The proportion disliking / distrusting Key is in the late 30s, while for Cunliffe it’s in the early-mid 40s. For Monty, this means we all love Key and hate Cunliffe. Go figure.
Spark for Telecom. Right from the start Tcom were insensitive and profit-focussed in every way.
Now Spark. What bright spark thought that up. Bloody stupid name and insensitive to today’s realities.
I think in this era of droughts, gale winds and fires destroying countryside, houses, animals and people and irreplaceable damage, it is not a good word. It wouldn’t go down well in Australia for instance. A spark from a grass cutter working on the roadsides starts off a fire that can rage over 100 hectares and houses. Recently someone with a leaking gas bottle in his vehicle was blown up, and why? Probably from a small spark from the automatic light from the car’s electricity. A word full of foreboding. And feared all round.
From the same wine-soaked brainstorming session that brought you Wheedle FFS!
Radar quotes twitter idea – all corporate PR now to be dubbed Spark Plugs.
this telecom-to-spark thing is brilliant..
..and i think this meme deserves it’s own thread..
..’i’ll kick it off…
amp life insurance co..becomes..’death!’
..tax dept becomes ‘gotcha!’..
..winz becomes..’kick poor!’..
..medical-centre chain re-brands to ‘sick!’..
..dominion finance ..becomes..’vulture!’..
..treasury could become..’we guess!’..
..and the gcsb/spooks..become ‘boo!’..( or ‘doh!’..)
..kfc..becomes ‘fat!’..
..and fonterra..?..
..’cancer!’ will do for them..
..phillip ure..
and of course..’sparking’-up means to take a hit of drugs…
..i don’t think they have thought this one through..eh..?
..this is a ‘wheeze’ someone has successfully run..
..as always..follow the money..
..see who gets to earn from doing this..
..and what role they played in this decision..
..who is the big-earner from this $23 million ‘wheeze’..?
..and the braying-fools who approved this..
..should be shown to the door..
..phillip ure..
phillip ure
You cetainly have been sparked off on much creative thinking that will no doubt be resource material for future PR efforts with name changes.
chrs..
..and of course all public-relations companies/spin-doctors –
should just take on the generic-name..’bullshit’..
..we could then just number them..to differentiate..
..that’s a re-branding i could get behind..
..hooten could become ‘bullshit’- number 23..
..phillip ure..
moderation..?
phillip ure..
Well I threw up in my mouth – you just may too.
https://www.tytnetwork.com/2014/02/20/disturbing-video-pussy-riot-viciously-beaten/
this is bad
this is just as bad
https://www.tytnetwork.com/2014/02/20/cop-kills-teen-holding-wii-controller/
Oh and if you think the 1% are not a pack of b*&^tards – think again
Racist pseudo-history seems alive and well at Kiwiblog: http://readingthemaps.blogspot.co.nz/2014/02/pseudo-history-at-zoo.html
That was a good read
I think you can find racist pseudo-anything at Kiwiblog.
The RWNJs are always trying to re-write history as the truth usually doesn’t conform to their delusions.
DTB
That should go into a collection of aphorisms on TS, which could at some time be featured.
This National/ACT Government is VERY vulnerable, in my considered opinion, on matters relating to corrupt corporate cronyism, particularly involving Sky City.
So is Auckland Mayor Len Brown.
Penny Bright
So much for getting into surplus and the Rockstar economy, NZ govt deficit exceeds forecast.
But you won’t hear Garner or the Goblin yelling about it today all over the media.
http://money.msn.co.nz/businessnews/8803173/nz-govt-budget-deficit-exceeds-forecast
the corporates seem to be getting away with paying much less tax than expected.
Yes true the Rock-Bottom economy races toward the wall and the engineer is not around to apply the brakes having leapt off mouthing f** this s**t,
Current massive bleeding hole in the National Governments books= 1.79 billion dollars, that 2009 tax switch sure as hell was fiscally neutral right,(psst lets just push that ‘surplus’ out another year and prime the organizations of propaganda to repeat over and over ‘rock-star economy’),
Gross Government debt 82.95 Billion bucks, shhhh, do not whatever you do say those numbers in public, it might wake more than a few of the punters from their dreams,(psst, i have a plan, lets prime the organizations of propaganda to repeat over and over rock-star economy),
PAYE and GST take off those who have no means of avoidance and evasion up 5%, Rock-star economy, Rock-star economy,
$179 Million dollar shortfall in the business tax payments for the 6 month period, Shhhh, bury this really deep in the business pages, don’t want the peasants paying all the tax to click on to the fact that ‘Biz’ has just avoided and/or evaded another couple of hundred million bucks of their responsibilities,
Best to keep up the mantra, spread by the organizations of propoganda, Rock-Bottom economy, Rock-bottom economy, and, for gods sake don’t let them think what the tax losses and the debt is going to look like after another 3 if National get another term,
100 billion bucks of Government debt anyone???, now what was the IMF’s number again…
“now what was the IMF’s number again…”
The IMF is totally relaxed about Crown debt and the deficit reduction path. So I suggest you relax and give away the moonbat act. Indeed I’d bet they will be way more relaxed in the next consultation. Or is there a right wing neoliberal conspiracy to manipulate the IMF?
http://tinyurl.com/oc2zlkb
You are being hyperbolic and dishonest. Low income earners (or peasants as you call them – what is up with that?) do not pay all the tax (or any in most cases).
Of course they are as they’re part of the structure setup to gift the world to the capitalists and return us to feudalism.
SSLands, i see you do not deny that Government debt will hit 100 billion dollars if Slippery’s National Government is given a third term in office,
What ”deficit reduction path” is this you speak of SSLands, the same old Lies year after year and still the Government books bleed red ink to the tune of hundreds of millions every six months,
Of course the IMF are supremely ”relaxed” about the Government heading toward a 100 billion dollars of Government debt in a little over 3 years time while the current inability for the IRD, through staff cutback by the same Government, has left the States revenue gatherer unable to police its own tax laws allowing evasion/avoidance to run rampant in a sea of red ink for the Government,
After all the IMF were supremely relaxed as the World Banking industry pulled off the crime of the century in 07/08/09, also known as the Global Financial Crisis,
Such relaxation among the IMF also resulted in the likes of Ireland and Greece both with Swiss cheese tax systems akin to our own to face bankruptcy only solved by taking even more off of those with the least, even their pensions,
The simple fact is SSLands that the IMF is simply akin to a firm of company receivers only having an impact ”after” the s**t has hit the fan big time and it is then that IMF moves in on behalf of the creditors to asset strip whatever is left of value belonging to the Government,(in other words, the people), so, you bet the IMF is relaxed about a Government that will not or cannot balance its books, and, relaxed about a Government living on the sugar rush of credit,
After all the only fun the IMF ever get is when they are able to, on behalf of a countries creditors, don the Jackboots under the suits and loot a debt ridden country unable to cough up to those creditors…
SSLands,please do not ask me questions about a lie you have formulated having not comprehended what is in plain black and white right in front of your eyes,
The ”peasants” as i have used the term in my comment above refers to ALL those who are paying GST and PAYE with no means of evading/avoiding such taxation as opposed to those who choose through trusts and business operations to practice that evasion and avoidance of the responsibility to pay tax,
i see low income earners did not get mentioned in that particular comment, you obviously have bad eyes, stop wanking that might improve the situation…
Also, New Zealand Herald Making Shit Up Since Always
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11206710
Japanese consulate has been trying since yesterday afternoon to clarify to the Herald there has been no Len Brown threat.
Frozen foods with best before September 2015. This is the sort of queer extension of keeping times into long life product that must mean adulteration of food, or require high energy requirements if its frozen. Kiwi and Mellow products are being recalled with this date on.
Do they make that ice-cream that isn’t? As in, it’s made from Palm Oil.
I learnt a harsh lesson that day: don’t buy ice-cream that’s labelled “Frozen Dessert”, because it’s not made of milk. I still ate it though.
While the world focuses on Ukraine, Venezuela is burning…
http://caracaschronicles.com/2014/02/20/the-game-changed/
The rich and corrupt that ran Venezuela for years (with Uncle Sam’s endorsement) want it back. The gains (for the poor and impoverished) of the Chavez era need to be rolled back and if that means civil war so be it.
Pretty much how I see it, GR. The people who are so worried about democracy since Chavez got into power had never thought to mention it in the previous 500 years when they were at the top of the pyramid. Now that the pyramid is being levelled out a bit, they’re screaming. Maduro’s government is being very lenient and civilised in its treatment of them.
Lenient is certainly the word! Maduro needs to immediately parade the CIA plant Lopez and squash him like the slug he is, as a very public message to the neoliberal cabal. That fate should also befall all those who have been agitating on behalf of the USA and the 1%. If he can do that, then you never know, the 99% may well wake up globally, and rid the world of the cancer of the 1%.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/20/us-venezuela-protests-idUSBREA1J1BX20140220
and
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/19/venezuela-leopoldo-lopez-court
and
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/20/venezuelas-poor-protests-chavez-revolution
Anyone ever think of emulating Peter J. and getting into the movie bizz, need to find someone quick for that role of shady, sleazy character, you know the one, hangs about the public toilets or the kids playground wearing a long dirty overcoat stained down the front with drivel barely able to be suppressed,
No need to puff up the cushions on the casting couch, lock up the liquor cabinet, you wont have to ply those you wish to shoehorn into such a despised role with strong drinks in order to gain their assent,
Found on Campbell live last night was one who could in the blink of an eye fill the role admirably, yes Steven Joyce putting on a show of the tongue flicking drool that would be Oscar winning as the dirty pervert outside the local public toilets,
Barely able to express His lip licking drool Joyce, with the compliance, the enablement if you will,of a barely questioning Campbell, with only the filthy trench-coat absent gave us all a perverse display worthy of any toilet loitering pervert acting the part befor Him,
According to the barely able to suppress that drool Joyce it is the teachers fault that No-No-Pay is such a f**ked example of computer technology used to provide the wages for the nations teachers,
Hardly a millimeter above a cardiac arrest brought about by the sheer unadulterated joy Joyce was obviously feeling at having Campbell sit there and smile as the slime slid from His lips Joyce went on to explain that if the teachers would only simply let Him strip them of any and all allowances contained in their collective agreement No-No-Pay would work perfectly,
Begs a couple of questions don’t it, is the current round of No-No as far as Pay goes from No-No-Pay simply more of the same from such a service that has been faulty from the get go, or, is the current round of mistakes in the teachers pay the result of politics,
The other question, did someone with a spare one of those rubber rings they apply to the balls of male lambs so as to make them drop off, their balls that is, apply it to Campbell’s set one night when He was comatose with the piss…
Snowden author finds paragraphs in his PC manuscript “self deleting”
Just a few hints of what living in a totalitarian surveillance state looks like.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/feb/20/edward-snowden-files-nsa-gchq-luke-harding
Sounds like paranoia to me.
No Lanthanide. When I worked on an Air Force base (civilian on base) I was told by an Air Force officer about the ability of intelligence gathering groups to be able to remotely log in to someone’s computer and set up ongoing coverage of everything the owner of the computer was doing. They could also manipulate the same computer from a remote location in any way they chose. It was gobsmacking stuff.
That was the early 1990s too and I’m sure modern technology has made them capable of doing even more nowadays. Bullying and harassing someone by ‘interfering’ with their PC activities is likely to become more and more frequently the norm…
To take over ones computer it requires one of two things, Either someone has to physically access the PC by entering the building where it is located and leave either a hardware or software bug on the computer
Alternatively they need to force software onto the computer remotely which then allows them to watch everything you do at the PC and even take over your keyboard, camera or whatever. This is usually done by sending someone an email that users click onto something in the email and it will then secretly download the software to allow takeover.
Of course if you are the NSA there are other alternatives by making use of software already embedded in PC by the so called reliable computer manufacturers. I dobt if such access would be available to people outside of USA intelligence.
If you want to play safe and defeat that kind of bugging, then just disconnect your PC from the Internet.
If people want to listen to all your private conversations there are ways. Look up Infinity Transmitter. Lovely device easily obtained and works wonders
Thanks Ron. Interesting stuff. It fits in with what I was told 20 years ago. I’m not concerned for myself. Couldn’t care less because I know nothing. 🙂
I was replying to Lanthanide who seemed to doubt the present day ability of agencies/groups with the right equipment to spy on people through their PCs, and to use the same equipment to covertly harass them. I think you might find that the five eyes grouping would also have access to this sophisticated equipment. After all it would be in the NSA’s interest for them to be able to access PCs of interest within their respective borders. Dotcom knows all about it!
Lanth didn’t strike me as questioning the ability, more the paranoia factor.
For the record, I’m half and half on it – doubt all of them are intelligence surveillance, one or two might be.
Hi McFlock.
Yes, I realised Lanth was talking about the paranoia factor.
Agree re-intelligence agencies. They sometimes get suspected when they were probably not responsible. For instance, during the Cold War years (up until the 1980s) the police were doing some of it. In their case, I suspect there were political connotations. Another story which might come out one day.
… and sometimes it’s a hotel burglar, and sometimes it’s just a guy at the next table playing Angry Birds, or a chap trying to pick up another chap in Rio, or some random teen hacker.
This guy had more of a plausible reason than many do for maybe being a target of surveillance, but who knows?
Thoughts with the great Sarah Hyland.
Shame on the fuckin media for making light of the incident, and calling it Just Boob Grabbing.
Guess that makes you a sensitive man Brett Dale.
Mary:
Nope, but it makes me wonder, why she is getting so much hate from aussies on twitter? She is the victim here, also the media shouldnt down play sexual assault and call it boob grabbing.
It’s accurately called assault at The Sydney Morning Herald
Can you link to the media calling it “boob grabbing” Brett, and not a wail-boil one..
Incidentally, regulars may notice the unfortunate similarity with the name Sarah Hyland and the appalling Srylands character.
go to news.google.com, type in sarah hyland.
Go to twitter type in sarah hyland and news organizations links have called it
boob grabbing.
You may be incompetent Brett, but at least you’re consistent.
Fender, Im not your pa, type in sarah hyland in Twitter and you will get a ton
of news outlets calling it boob grabbing, and groping, and not what it is, sexual assault.
After several attempts, I found this one. TMZ.com. I’m amazed that they let their journalistic standards fa- nah, can’t finish that sentence.
Brett, attributing TMZ comments to the entire media is just stupid.
mcFlock
If you had of been on twitter earlier today a today of media outlets were calling it this.
well, maybe you should have saved a fecking permalink then, rather than expecting everyone to take your word as gospel.
I totally got it on with this super hot girl in the holidays. Nah you don’t know her she goes to another school.
Brett Dale.
Or maybe it’s because you just like typing the words sexual and boob Brett Dale?
that had me chuckling 🙂
The whale oil has just put up a topic in relation to the supermarket saga, inferring that government supermarkets are in the pipeline. To me, if that IS true, then it IS good news!
I made the following post there:
Well, if that does happen, it can only be very good news! It will increase competition and bring some prices down and give some power back to the people. Free market, remember?…And oh, you don’t HAVE to shop there, if you don’t want to! If your report is correct, at last, some sanity, fairness and REAL competition coming to fight the crooked capitalists and the price gauging powerful mafia style monopolies and duopolies! Kiwi Bank, Kiwi Super, Kiwi Assure, Kiwi Market, Kiwi Power, Kiwi Fair Deal, Kiwi Way! Bring it on, I say!
https://www.ipredict.co.nz/app.php?do=contract_detail&contract=PM.2014.LABOUR
OMG there is now a 2,000 BUY order for “PM Labour” One of you rich pricks is manipulating the market to force the price up. After all a fuckwit with a few dollars to spare in one trade is all it takes.
Why do you hate the rich so much?
😈
Sad wanker probably raided the kids piggy banks and blew their money on the gamble so He had something slightly original to wail on about,
At least the Liar has stopped using that particular gamble as the wankers guide to the 2014 election result…
To all those contributors here who sully your minds/screens/hard drives/caches and cookies by visiting the sewers for the rest of us – a big heart felt thank you. You risk damage to yourselves for the benefit of others of us who do not wish to read the squalid muck that masquerades as serious comment. It is such a shame that one of them gets recognition as worthy by making frequent guest visits to The Panel.
Cheers again
ps. has anyone established why Bomber was really banned – you know just asking because we have an investigation currently trying to establish editorial bias in the public broadcasting arena?
this is a good question, from this comic http://economixcomix.com/home/tpp/ its asks why can’t americans buy medication from canada, where its cheaper?, the ‘freedom of trade’.
How many supporters of The Standard, will show consistency in opposition to corrupt corporate cronyism, particularly when it involves Sky City?
How many will join the LEN BROWN – STAND DOWN march, tomorrow, Saturday 22 February 2014?
Assemble 11.30am Britomart
March starts 12 noon from Britomart
March ends at Airedale Street
I’ll be one of the speakers at the end of the march, focusing on how I think Auckland Mayor Len Brown crossed the line when he accepted undisclosed gifts from Sky City during a time that Sky City was an ‘item of business’ before Auckland Council, and Len Brown was supporting Sky City.
Also I’ll be exposing how the Ernst and Young Report, did NOT follow the ‘due process’ as outlined in the Auckland Council Code of Conduct, s8 – Compliance:
http://www.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/SiteCollectionDocuments/aboutcouncil/governingbody/codeofconductelectedmembers.pdf
8.5. Conduct Review Independent Panel
The governing body shall constitute a Conduct Review Independent Panel. The members of the Panel will be selected from a list of persons with appropriate skills and knowledge, to be recommended by the Chief Executive. The Independent Panel is not a Committee of the governing body and its sole function is to investigate those matters referred to it and to make recommendations on those matters to the governing body/local board. Up to three members on the list will be deemed to be ‘convenors’ who will be the Council’s primary contact in relation to convening a panel when required. ‘Convening’ a panel includes chairing that panel. A convenor may appoint other convenors to a panel.
8.6. Procedures of the Conduct Review Independent Panel
The Independent Panel will establish and notify standard procedures, fair to both complainants and respondents, which it will apply to the investigation and consideration of all complaints referred to it.
8.7. Governing Body/Local Board Consideration
In considering the Panel’s recommendation, the matter shall be considered with neither the complainant nor the respondent being entitled to participate in that item.
8.8. Responses to Breaches of the Code
To avoid doubt, a breach of the Code of Conduct does not constitute an offence under the Local Government Act 2002. The exact nature of the action the governing body/local boardmay take depends on the nature of the breach and whether there are statutory provisions dealing with the breach.
Where there are statutory provisions:breaches relating to members’ interests may render members liable for prosecution by the Auditor-General under the Local Authority (Members’ Interests) Act 1968;
breaches which result in the Council suffering financial loss or damage may be reported on by the Auditor-General under the Local Government Act 2002, which may result in the member having to make good the loss or damage;
breaches relating to the commission of a criminal offence may leave the elected member liable for criminal prosecution.
In these cases the governing body or local board may refer an issue to the relevant body, any member of the public may make a complaint to that body, or the Auditor-General or Police may take action of their own initiative.
Where there are no statutory provisions, the governing body or local board may take the following action:censure;
removal of the elected member from representative type bodies;dismissal of the elected member from a position as Chair or Deputy Chair of a committee.
A decision to apply one or more of these actions requires a resolution to that effect.
……………..”
Why did (former) Auckland Council CEO Doug McKay, not follow this process?
Upon what lawful authority did (former) Auckland Council CEO Doug McKay, effectively make up his own process, and appoint his own people?
(His statutory duties are enshrined in the Local Government Act 2002, s42
http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2002/0084/latest/DLM171859.html
42 Chief executive
(1)A local authority must, in accordance with clauses 33 and 34 of Schedule 7, appoint a chief executive.
(2)A chief executive appointed under subsection (1) is responsible to his or her local authority for—
(a)implementing the decisions of the local authority; and
(b)providing advice to members of the local authority and to its community boards, if any; and
(c)ensuring that all responsibilities, duties, and powers delegated to him or her or to any person employed by the local
authority, or imposed or conferred by an Act, regulation, or bylaw, are properly performed or exercised; and
...........................
That’s why I have made a formal complaint to Auckland Police, alleging ‘Contravention of Statute’, (s107 Crimes Act 1961), against (former) Auckland Council CEO Doug McKay.
This complaint is currently being assessed by an Inspector attached to Auckland CIB.
There will be more (but not much time – only got 4 minutes! 🙂
But – will be making time to include this little gem – that the Auditor-General, Lyn Provost is a SHAREHOLDER in Sky City!
Yep – could only happen here in ‘clean, green, corruption-free’ New Zealand ……..
Kind regards,
Penny Bright
‘Anti-corruption / anti-privatisation’ campaigner.
2013 Auckland Mayoral candidate
(More background on this, and related issues can be found on http://www.pennybright4mayor.org.nz )
Just when I thought you had figured out less is more penny not so bright.
Boring people to death again.