How many more elections under MMP? It has major flaws IMO that often lead to confusion rather than giving voters clarity and assurance and a real ‘choice’.
The agreements and ‘deals’ are flying Left, Right and Centre. They are not legally binding in any way or they would pervert the intended function and process of democratic elections; coalition deals can only be made afterwards, not beforehand, but they also don’t have legal status AFAIK.
We now have MOUs, coat tailing, overhang, waka jumping, strategic electorate deals, tea gate, etc., and least of all, the dual ballot. It’s a mess!
According to Sir Geoffrey Palmer:
… MPs spend far too much time in their electorates instead of scrutinising the Executive – no doubt, because they’re focused more on campaigning and popularity than the public good.
We would be better off with a truly proportional single vote system with a fixed number of MPs and a truly proportional minimum threshold for a seat (e.g. 0.83% for 120 MPs).
At the same time we need stronger local and grassroots government instead of centralised power and top-down hierarchy.
Whatever structures and institutions are in place, our society should not be managed like a (traditional) corporate business but more like a family, iwi or clan; people’s wellbeing in the short, medium, and long term should come before financial health & wealth and not the other way round.
As long as the economy, surpluses, and tax (cuts) dominate the political conversations, especially with upcoming elections, we’ll have a long way to go …
The real difficulty of MMP in my opinion is that it drags un-elected people into Parliament. Thereby betraying the one Person one Vote system.
It also confuses even intelligent everyday citizens who simply have not got time to pore over hundreds of biographies of would be candidates.
In First past the Post elections there is ultimate simplicity. Each candidate is either elected or fails to be elected. So if you want the Wealthy to be supported, you vote National, If you want the Constructive Technical Party (Labour) to rule you would vote accordingly.
It is interesting that the Nationals have absolutely no interest in the Environment. They positively encourage their wealthy members to pollute every river in our Nation. The Green Party tries to resist that, but with so few members they get rubbished.
First past the Post draws together like minded voters. Anything else is a schnozzle.
Exactly, Draco. Also, I look at the party list, and when I vote for a list I am electing those on it. It is called reading, OT. Try getting literate. Nobody in Parliament is ‘unelected’ as you wrongly put it.
What if he/she is illiterate? Or partially so.
What if he/she isn’t as gorgeous as you?
Snot Rock Soince – disenfranchoise NOW!
This is still a left wing site, yes? It’s that Broad Church left wing site – or so I’ve been told. One that doesn’t require the intellect of a Hillary Stace, or indeed a Lynne Prentice, OR the compassion of ……. take your pick
….. maybe not. The daylight visible whilst spending time up one’s own arse springs to mind, as well as various other platitudes – like we don’t know how lucky we are.
To that poster and contributor: GET LITERATE NOW!!!!! GET LITERATE NOW !!!!!
ya vol herr commandant!
Perhaps the deep and meaningful @ Weka would care to comment if you’re not too busy trying to understand underlying meaningfulness. I’ve got a set of crystals that might be able to assist.
!!!!!!! BAN !!!!! we do not allow people to call into question anyone who / READ THE !!!!!!!!!!!! (small print) / etc.
Rubbish. (Anyone as gorgeous as me is in a terrible condition.)
But I am tired of FFP simpletons claiming that MMP list members are ‘unelected’ because they did not stand in an FFP electorate vote. That is a nonsensical – a lot of the losing runner-ups in big FFP electorates are far superior to the donkeys that win FFP in a safe seat.
Your ‘daylight vision’ sentence has now given me an idea of where your own head might be, Once was.
Instead of opting for a hybrid system to replace FPP it would have been more courageous (politically speaking) to have adopted a truly proportional single vote system – no, I am not saying it is perfect.
Just consider for a moment how much (air)time and energy goes into the ‘idiosyncrasies’ of MMP and how much it pulls our focus away from much more important issues (and policies as somebody (?) pointed out somewhere here on TS).
I don’t have time to argue for or against FPP so I just provide a link(s) for your perusal:
OK so we want a change of Govt. So what does Labour do? It lies and obfuscates to shut down another Left party— Mana.
On RNZ this morning I heard Kelvin Davis coming across trying to be smart, but just being smarmy .I heard Andrew Little being disingenuous , if not deliberately lying, about the agreement between Mana/Maori. They know damned well the agreement only goes to 23/9, just like their MOU with the Greens( who, incidentally, Labour have been trying to shaft for years).
When is Labour going to grow up and fight the real fight against the real enemy of the Left?
I know the answer…. they won’t because they are still bogged down in their neolib /1984 mistaken policies.
We all pay tax Alan it’s called GST (except those who are in business or some scheme that they can wangle their way out of it.)
And being in paid work and taxed doesn’t mean they are better than someone working but not being paid and not paying wag tax, they are called volunteers. Or they may be working at something that harms fellow citizens, and pay tax on their earnings, or some of them. Or they might want more work so they can pay more tax, but the government has organised the economy and laws so that they can’t get guaranteed adequate working hours every week.
Or they may be people so damaged by life that they can’t work much but can do work if they can get help with it, and then there are parents and caregivers who look after others but don’t get paid for it. Then there are the real bludgers who don’t do anything like useful work and manage their tax to minimal, some around the lower middle class, and some big earners floating around doing very little that is useful to society but cleverly creaming of millions of dollars from their schemes.
So keep your one liners to yourself. You will just tire your brain out needlessly, telling us the rote learning of street yokels.
you are implying that I am disdainful of people not in paid employment,that is not the case.
My point is that referring to the “middle” as middle piddles etc. does your cause no good whatsoever – but suit yourself
1. What Marty said .
2. Yes, “the people who work and pay tax” are being “trickled” upon by those who can afford to avoid tax.
3. The people being hurt the most by this callous incompetence are as always, the poor.
Then there’s all the people who do unpaid work that is essential to the running of society – caring for people in their homes, voluntary organisations that provide support to those in need, etc. And such people still get taxed on their incomes, whether underpaid employment or state benefits.
John Waters is someone I respect: but what
the HELL was he doing on this horror show?
It’s pretty desperate when Piers Morgan is the smartest and most honest person in the room. The pathetic reiteration of DNC campaign lies starts with the woman guest at the 3:48 mark….
Anti republican, dismissive of Trump, atheist, supporter of equality, advocate for minorities and he doesn’t mind getting dirty for a cause.
What could Bill Maher possibly have done to be called less honest than Morgan on a left leaning website?
Did he say something that offended you in 1987? lol
Could I suggest you replace your open-mouthed viewing with some serious READING?
Great show, admirable left winger.
Well, if the word “left winger” has recently changed its meaning to “rabid supporter of U.S. terror and Israel’s right to exterminate the Palestinians”, you’re correct. In the real world, however, your statement is risible.
The only nonsense is predictably yours.
You are, yet again, my befuddled friend, way out of your depth. Again, I urge you to do some READING. Serious reading, that is.
I unfollowed TDB on twitter today, on the basis of – if I stop to throw stones (unpick the arguments) at every dog that barks, I’ll never get to my destination – got a lot of other things I need to do this week.
Who knew the real reason Paul got banned from TS? i.e content and viewpoints/arguments against fake news and for way forward for the left, and not process or breaching TS policy guide.
I stopped reading TDB and Chris Trotter a couple of years ago, and I haven’t read anything by Bryce Edwards for some months. Life is too short to read crap by ill-informed blokes who claim to represent the working class, but are really just white, middle-class, middle-aged men who feel threatened by anybody who isn’t the same as them.
Actual left wing people who I follow on twitter sometimes refer to stuff these guys have written and I know I made the right choice.
I stopped reading TDB and Chris Trotter a couple of years ago, and I haven’t read anything by Bryce Edwards for some months. Life is too short to read crap by ill-informed blokes who claim to represent the working class, but are really just white, middle-class, middle-aged men who feel threatened by anybody who isn’t the same as them.
Actual left wing people who I follow on twitter sometimes refer to (and mock) the stuff these guys have written and I know I made the right choice.
Bomber does come from a working class background. I guess he now has achieved middle class status through education. So, I still tend to see him as having a bit of a working class perspective.
Oh dear. There’s some much faction fighting going on. Us vs them in various ways.
And I also looked at a post there at TDB about “identity politics” and class. By a guy who the bio says he’s a postgrad sociologist and researcher. Been there done that – well partly sociology. I know about the theories he’s citing. And I could produce an argument to counter his post, but it’d take me a more time than I have right now.
Basically though, I am a bit confused about his use of (definition of?) “identity politics”. He rubbishes it while still seeing capitalism as patriarchal.
Many people use the term “identity politics” to refer to any feminist, anti-misogynist, anti-sexist, anti-racist, anti-patriarchy comments/posts/articles.
So I started the day confused about how the term “identity politics” is used.
I got distracted from the main topic (populism) by the way “identity politics” was being used. One of the panel described Trump’s politics as IP because of the way he divides people into “us” (one identity) and “them” (another identity): i.e. the left behind (us) and Muslims (them).
Other panelists talked about how economics and IP are interconnected.
I decided “identity politics” has become a useless term, like PC, that means whatever a person (or their political position) wants it to mean.
It’s how it’s used, which clearly means different things to different people. So saying it is what it says it is…. adds nothing to the discussion.
Language is only as good as the way it is used. Language is the result of a process where people in a society agree on the meaning of a word or term. these meanings change over time in relation to the way tehy are used.
I don’t like the term Identity politics, because it is used in ways that aren’t the sum total of the 2 words. I prefer to talk about social and economic justice.
Some people seem to assume “identity politics” is separate from social class issues. In fact they are intertwined – as defined by wikipedia:
Examples include social organizations based on age, social class, culture, dialect, disability, education, ethnicity, language, nationality, gender identity, generation, occupation, profession, race, religion, sexual orientation, settlement, urban and rural habitation, and veteran status.
In political debates it’s often used mainly to refer to and attack politics of race, gender and sexuality, And it is often used in oppositon to class politics.
But as the wikipedia page goes on to say:
Formally, it may even be found in Karl Marx’s earliest statements about a class becoming conscious of itself and developing a class identity.
i.e. in order to organise politically as a class, workers need to become conscious of their shared identity and exploitation as workers.
I have always found this style of particular trashing meme rather amusing, albeit rather tiresome.
We get it every few years from different groups. It typically happens when some group doesn’t like things being aired that they would prefer never got mentioned (because it would interfere with their wee games).
Over the last 9.5 years, we’d have had similar sustained attempts at denigrating TS about once every 1-2 years. Never works in terms of the site surviving or readership or anything else. We provide a relatively open source of debate which has a pretty active policy of tossing out pirates trying to board it to control the debate. Doesn’t matter if it is right trolls, left trolls, journalists, MPs, party whips, people who picked up bans, blogs that don’t like the site, ardent feminists, ardent dickheads, ardent anything or whatever. It is always pretty damn stupid and usually done by people who fail to understand the basic precept of this site. We agree to disagree, but are also willing to damn well argue about it.
I suspect that the underlying rationale for such attempts is something like they can drive away funders (because why else would they always try to push it into the public sphere?). What they don’t seem to understand is that over the last decade, the site has moved from not needing any money to run, to needing money, and in a determined effort – back to not needing any money to run. It makes it really hard to do anything about. So do our policies about moderating and protecting the privacy or authors and commenters.
The site currently requires about $200 per month which we get from donations and some time from people willing to be authors, moderators, or techs. The latter is usually me. The site is scaleable to at least 4 times the traffic from the last elections. And people are always free to comment here provided they follow our rules about bad behaviour.
Personally, I am looking forward getting over this last year’s project and back to the less time and attention consuming maintenance. That will give me more time for the site again.
Agreed Weka-Bryce Edwards never fails to attack the Left in his articles.
He is dangerous because he purports to be balanced and simply reporting the weeks’ political comings and goings when in fact he sticks it up the Left every time.
The PLA number is those who are full time in uniform, whereas the US DoD is nniform full time, uniform, part-time and civilians. If you added the civilians and reservists to the PLA, it would be bigger.
It is a petty point that does not outweigh the rest of what Garibaldi quoted.
If it really balanced things up, I would be grateful. I think he is quibbling disingenuously.
How to make bad law? Fail to recognise practice, fail to appreciate need, hear only senile voices speaking to their peculiar issues.
Grey power does not want kids to cycle on pavements. Kids do though, and parnt want them to stay on the pavement. And the earlier, and more experience kids get cycling the more they appriciate others needs. So its insane that grey power is against kids cycling.
But its worse. Ask any cyclist trapped at a red light, undected and now illegally cannot cycle on pavement, and so banned from using the utility of their cycle. And all because a few olds might have an accident?
Take the one way road, cant cycle up the wrong way, cant cycle on the pavement! Cycles effectively banned.
In any accident involving bikes and cars, cyclists come off worse, much like any pedestrian does. So why are we so down on cyclists? Where is their voice? nAtional radio think the only voice for cyclists is someone who cant teach kids to cycle on
pavements in their day job.Thats how lousy laws are.
Cyclists are pedestrians and have the same rights to cycle on pedestrian pavements alongside such wheeled vehicles, as motorized wheelchairs, mopeds deliverying mail, scateboarders, etc. They all use the pavements on wheels and Grey power accidents are not a crisis. Because people naturally do not want to engage with oldies because they are so boring and talk nonsense, kids need to learn this early.
Routinely cyclists ride on pavements, its illegal but its safer than sharing roads with trunks.
A cyclist is not on foot, and therefore cannot possibly be a pedestrian. Don’t mangle our language. (Directed at aerobubble: Cyclists are not motorists, but that does not make them pedestrians.)
I was walking along the Wellington waterfront a year ago and was passed from behind by a cyclist who went by within a meter until I heard the wind of his passing. I don’t have a rear vision mirror as a pedestrian. If I had moved to the right by one step he would have hit me. At his speed and the reaction times needed it could not have been otherwise.
As a former teacher, I once did an experiment with a class of year nine students to test their reaction times and the brakes on their bikes. They thought they were quick enough and safe with what they did, riding on footpaths as cars pulled unseen out of high fenced driveways. I had that day seen a boy ride into the side of a car doing just that.
Integrity would suggest the Grey council answer some simple questions. Like where are cyclist to go, its not illehal to ride a bike. As for the smear that Cyclists aren’t trustworthy because they cycle past people who have poor hearing, really, is that supposed to be an objection, are we banning joggers to?
Cyclist use feet power. Cyclists are pedestrians, then comeput just as badly when hit by cars and trucks. They are no different than other wheeled pedestrians, skakeboards, rollerskates, and joggers are fast too.
How utterly innane, Cyclist are not pedestrians because they are not road vehicles, listen to yourself a moment, your ignoring the fact that carless citizens use bikes and roads are dangerous places for them, and liberty beats out death anyday. Cyclists will continue to use pedestrian walkways.
But lets play a bit. Why do olds get free transit after 9. To keep them off the footpaths so employees can cycle to work, kids cycle to school out ofrush hour traffic. Ratepayers fund footpaths and free buses for olds. Olds aren’t using the footpaths as much during rushhour, they wait for free buses. So cyclists who are unfamiliar to non japenese who allow cyclists to use footpaths, should not be funding free old age bus trips. Its about sharing not banning. Most people are in school, at work during time olds are using footpaths, you lazy thinking senile old bats. It has nothing to do with accidents with old people and bikes, its to do with the age problem of old people with too much time on their hand and too senile to give a crap.
And then there is the reality, there is going to be no doubt when accidents do happen that stupid cyclists dont understand how utterly senile deaf old people are tt they ever thought they could cycle anywhere near them. And good on them, senile and stupid people meet. No doubt some old cyclist banned from using his car and whose Grey power, oldie council, have forgotten has rights to movement too. Olds hurting rights of other oldies.
Unfund free buses for olds if they continue to ban pedestrians using the footpath with their bikes, oh, but posties use mopeds, olds use motorised wheel chairs, yet kids aren’t to be trusted. No, its senility that is untrusted.
I’m moderately surprised that primary-school kids aren’t permitted to ride on the footpath.
That having been said, we’re still talking about a voluntary decision to cycle vs that fact that some people have to walk because they can’t drive or cycle, and they’re the ones being put at risk.
Maybe kids shouldn’t cycle unsupervised until they’re old enough to deal with obstacles and hazards, like cars or pedestrians? And if they’re supervised, they should be on the road.
The original premise was that “cyclists” should be allowed to ride on the footpath. If it’s revised down to “kids” (primary-school age, presumably) should be allowed to ride on the footpath, it’s less ridiculous.
There are many, many kids I would trust. But there are a certain number I would not trust with a wheel barrow, let alone a bicycle.
If we are going to do it properly, we do what I remember from Cologne 1979: footpath clearly demarcated into pedestrian and cyclist areas. That worked.
But NZ can never do what overseas countries do. I remember when Hamilton tried to introduce a parking system that I had seen work perfectly in Cambridge, UK. Hamilton gave up because it was ‘too difficult’ for our parkers.. Go figure.
In Vino
That thing about NZ never being able to replicate a successful system successfully is what I have noticed.
and JanM
That’s exactly the same difficulty I notice as I go round. I don’t want little kids on the road, but I don’t want older kids and adult men shooting past me at speed. And I find that family cyclists have a god complex, and will shoot down private lanes as throughways without a thought. Get on two wheels and the world is yours.
When I am on the footpath I don’t want to be as alert as if I was walking on the road. You need to be able to relax pm the footpath, that’s why we have them so you won’t be run into by machine, crazy children, excited dogs, scooting cats, scooting Mums. A fall for an older person can mean permanent disablement for the last of their years, you just don’t heal like a young person does.
Good gracious me – there are two major groups who are vulnerable in our society; the young and the elderly. Both deserve consideration. Some of your language around the elderly practically amounts to abuse – they are as entitled to safety as the children. While I agree that riding a bike on the road is very risky, so is being a pedestrian sharing a footpath with cyclists – especially the young and inexperienced. The faster cycle lanes can be placed everywhere the better – and that’s where all cyclists should go. Until then – a little civility and consideration would go a long way. If you’re really lucky you’ll get to be an ‘oldie’ yourself some day – then you can look back on this sort of language and feel a bit ashamed maybe
Abuse. Banning people who cannot us a oneway road, as they cant cycle on the pavement and risk fine accident goin against traffic! Sorry until you can understand outright banning is undemocratic and the real abuse since the stats are firmly against the harm your side suggests. People do not invite accidents, joggers dont, skateboards dont, posties on mopeds, all us the footpath, any increased harm is in the minds of fools. abuse yeah, stupidity should be called out.
Simple. Pedestrians, under their own power, forced to take side roads, invariable steep, would be a huge impediment to their using cycles. So, yeah its a rights issue, which would then justify asking the question, why ban something outright. Which in Japan they dont. Nobody has yet said why we need to ban cycles, that should tell you something about how bad the laws are. Kids dont learn good behaviour, people ignore the law, cyclists get held up at red lights that never change as they dont detect them. You dont see car drivers getting out and pushing their bikes over the line to behave legally because its a stupid law. Cyclists are no different to any personally power person. Ban moped, ban motorized wheelchairs, dont fund free public transport, all the arguments you will hear to justify no banning apply equally to cyclists. Sure, helmets and bike bells, sure thin typed racing bikes that need a minimum speed as they are unstable at low speed, sure keep them to the roads, but a mountain bike can stop on a ledge, it aint a threat. Any jogger, walker, can be unstable and knock a oldie over, any kid with a ball. Thats not a good enough reason to so restrict cyclists that it makes cyclying unusable. A kid died when run over by a truck on the way to school. Trucks cant see cyclists.
Burble on aerobubble
You really ranted a crock here. Think again about your mangey right of way even though its safer than sharing roads with trunks, and drunks, and funks.
Not one apology to kids for banning them from footpaths, like old people dont know when kid cycle to school, when workers are cycling to work. A kid was run over by a truck on the way to school. iTs shameful that kids aren’t learning early how to interact with pedestrians, and suffer a life of abuse from old people who think them a threat. Get a brain, oh wait, its senility the real problem.
aerobubble
Your abuse underlines the difficulties that we face when proper facilities that are needed by citizens aren’t provided. But $millions can be put into cycleways intended to appeal to tourism and the recreational rider.
Your attitude aerobubble is worrying, it sounds as if you have such a head of steam, that if I was involved in some sort of collision with a child, you would attack me in anger, perhaps give me a kinghit.
I think you had better restrain yourself, and write down your problem and a practical solution, like making a separated way along a certain bit of footpath that schoolkids use. That would be a positive start and you could campaign for more using your concern and your anger to fuel it. I am sure many people would support you but don’t give me your nastiness. I am only stating what you are stating from a different angle of concern. Leave me alone, stop attacking me on this subject.
Clearly you are incapable of accepting the greater harm, that pedestrians on or off cycles are seroiusly harmed when hit by road vehicles. Whereas a few bruises from a contrived one off accident where kids learn early by being allowed to rideon the pavement, does not cary much merit. And the fact that you’d admit you seeing an accident, involve said behaviour and not merit it worthy to phone police, indicates your a troll.
I was walking to school with my daughter and she got hit from behind by a young boy on a bike. He was riding with his older brother in tandem and his brother didn’t leave him enough room for them both to get around us and the younger one didn’t think to use his brakes and stop until he had room.
Primary age kids should only ride on the pavement if they are under arms length control of an adult.
Hmmmm… what we could do with the millions being wasted on this case on lawyers to ‘help’ poor multimillion dollar US corporations who love to stash their money away in tax havens, while our poor go hungry paying for all this overseas corporate welfare….
And there is that waiver that the NZ government were tricked into signing about if he is found not guilty about costs……
Kinda makes the yokel business agreements with Peter Thiel pale in comparison.
Agree Save NZ, and it’s crazy that this case is being dragged on, at NZ tax payer expense, like it is. National don’t care, they are not the ones having to fork out the money for this favour for their American mates.
Totally agree, the Mana party was talking about this after the last election.
If memory servers me rightly, via adds on trademe and seek. In Auckland alone, the Electoral Commission has gone through at least 2 complete replacements of management (returns officer) since the last election.
The EC should have listened. Interesting info there Adam.
“Speaking with many in my community, the poor fear debt collectors or state agencies using their enrolment details to hunt them down, and many of our domestic violence survivors don’t want their abusers using the electoral roll to find them.
Why can’t the Electoral Commission offer an easy box ticking process for those enrolling to not appear on the published roll to ease the fears of the poor and the abused?”
Cinny and I were discussing this very subject not that long ago. It is a pain for most to go through the process of trying to get on the unpublished roll, one can see why people wouldn’t even bother. There are a number of points that the EC need to get off their butts to do, and do it now, and this is one of them. Make it easy for voters, not harder.
Glen Innes former state house tenant Niki Rauti is challenging her eviction on the basis that the agency trying to evict her is not actually her landlord.
Photo / Greg Bowker
By Simon Collins
A Glen Innes tenant battling against eviction from her former state house has put a surprising argument to the Tenancy Tribunal – that the agency purporting to evict her isn’t actually her landlord.
Tenant Niki Rauti, 62, and her advocate, perennial campaigner Penny Bright, have also discovered that the 2700 former Housing NZ homes that were supposed to have been transferred last year to an entity jointly owned by the Government and Auckland Council have actually gone to another entity that is still almost 100 per cent owned by the Government.
A third entity, Tāmaki Housing Association Limited Partnership, has been set up to manage the houses, but will seek bids next month from other social housing agencies to take over managing the houses from early next year.
By next year the Tāmaki Redevelopment Company, the joint venture owned 59 per cent by the Government and 41 per cent by Auckland Council, will no longer predominantly either own or manage the properties.
Bright told the Tenancy Tribunal today that the complex structure looked like “a massive smoke and mirrors exercise” – with real consequences for Aucklanders.
“The 41 per cent shareholding of Auckland Council seems to have completely evaporated into nothing,” she said.
………
Penny Bright
2017 Independent candidate
Mt Albert by-election.
mickysavage
We are so important surely that you could extract yourself from something boring and tedious by saying that the show can’t go on here without you – sorry folks have to duck off and keep TS on the road. For all our ups and downs we have shown more stability and lasting power and usefulness than most nz political parties.
All you have is one line mindless slogans so sure if that turns you on or makes you feel better. Truth is if you go over your recent comments they are mostly just negative one line dismissals. You make no attempt to hear any voice except your own or those that you agree with. You disrespect other commenters with your content and style – reminds me of Paul but you seem worse to me. I wonder if you’ll even read all that or just knee-jerk back.
What rubbish. Actually Marty, if anything your rant describes you. And if memory serves, you have been accused of that by others on here, some time back. You have to get a grip with the fact that not everyone is willing to, or wants to support National’s Maori party, that do not speak for, or represent all Maori. A lot of people want to change the government, there are those that feel that the Maori party do not want that. “A vote for the Maori party is a vote for National” still holds relevance today, as it did back in 2014. No one is stopping you or anyone else from supporting the Maori party, that props up National, but we are entitled to our opinions on this, like you are, without getting personal and/or abusive.
Yep they will all learn – the musings of politically motivated spinners are irrelevant and obnoxious. Go and sit with English Little in the thick seats.
Your bigotry is showing – it isnt ALL Māori fault that some or one hurt you you know. It is wrong that you suffered and continue to suffer. It is the person or people that have responsibility not the whole ethnic group.
You are grasping at straws by concocting that story Marty. I thought that you were better than that. Don’t let your desperation re the Maori party get the better of you.
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Buzz from the Beehive The government’s official website – which Point of Order monitors daily – not for the first time has nothing much to say today about political happenings that are grabbing media headlines. It makes no mention of the latest 1News-Verian poll, for example. This shows National down ...
It Takes A Train To Cry:Surely, there is nothing lonelier in all this world than the long wail of a distant steam locomotive on a cold Winter’s night.AS A CHILD, I would lie awake in my grandfather’s house and listen to the traffic. The big wooden house was only a ...
Packing A Punch: The election of the present government, including in its ranks politicians dedicated to reasserting the rights of the legislature in shaping and determining the future of Māori and Pakeha in New Zealand, should have alerted the judiciary – including its anomalous appendage, the Waitangi Tribunal – that its ...
Dead Woman Walking: New Zealand’s media industry had been moving steadily towards disaster for all the years Melissa Lee had been National’s media and communications policy spokesperson, and yet, when the crisis finally broke, on her watch, she had nothing intelligent to offer. Christopher Luxon is a patient man - but he’s not ...
Chris Trotter writes – New Zealand politics is remarkably easy-going: dangerously so, one might even say. With the notable exception of John Key’s flat ruling-out of the NZ First Party in 2008, all parties capable of clearing MMP’s five-percent threshold, or winning one or more electorate seats, tend ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is ...
Luxon will no doubt put a brave face on it, but there is no escaping the pressure this latest poll will put on him and the government. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political ...
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler In the wake of any unusual weather event, someone inevitably asks, “Did climate change cause this?” In the most literal sense, that answer is almost always no. Climate change is never the sole cause of hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, or ...
Something odd happened yesterday, and I’d love to know if there’s more to it. If there was something which preempted what happened, or if it was simply a throwaway line in response to a journalist.Yesterday David Seymour was asked at a press conference what the process would be if the ...
Hi,From time to time, I want to bring Webworm into the real world. We did it last year with the Jurassic Park event in New Zealand — which was a lot of fun!And so on Saturday May 11th, in Los Angeles, I am hosting a lil’ Webworm pop-up! I’ve been ...
Education Minister Erica Standford yesterday unveiled a fundamental reform of the way our school pupils are taught. She would not exactly say so, but she is all but dismantling the so-called “inquiry” “feel good” method of teaching, which has ruled in our classrooms since a major review of the New ...
Exactly where are we seriously going with this government and its policies? That is, apart from following what may as well be a Truss-Lite approach on the purported economic “plan“, and Victorian-era regression when it comes to social policy.Oh it’ll work this time of course, we’re basically assured, “the ...
Hey Uncle Dave, When the Poms joined the EEC, I wasn't one of those defeatists who said, Well, that’s it for the dairy job. And I was right, eh? The Chinese can’t get enough of our milk powder and eventually, the Poms came to their senses and backed up the ute ...
Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is higher than for any other mayor ...
Buzz from the Beehive Pharmac has been given a financial transfusion and a new chair to oversee its spending in the pharmaceutical business. Associate Health Minister David Seymour described the funding for Pharmac as “its largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff”. ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its ...
TL;DR: Here’s my top 10 ‘pick ‘n’ mix of links to news, analysis and opinion articles as of 10:10am on Monday, April 29:Scoop: The children's ward at Rotorua Hospital will be missing a third of its beds as winter hits because Te Whatu Ora halted an upgrade partway through to ...
span class=”dropcap”>As hideous as David Seymour can be, it is worth keeping in mind occasionally that there are even worse political figures (and regimes) out there. Iran for instance, is about to execute the country’s leading hip hop musician Toomaj Salehi, for writing and performing raps that “corrupt” the nation’s ...
Yesterday marked 10 years since the first electric train carried passengers in Auckland so it’s a good time to look back at it and the impact it has had. A brief history The first proposals for rail electrification in Auckland came in the 1920’s alongside the plans for earlier ...
Right now, in Aotearoa-NZ, our ‘animal spirits’ are darkening towards a winter of discontent, thanks at least partly to a chorus of negative comments and actions from the Government Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on ...
You make people evil to punish the paststuck inside a sequel with a rotating castThe following photos haven’t been generated with AI, or modified in any way. They are flesh and blood, human beings. On the left is Galatea Young, a young mum, and her daughter Fiadh who has Angelman ...
April has been a quiet month at A Phuulish Fellow. I have had an exceptionally good reading month, and a decently productive writing month – for original fiction, anyway – but not much has caught my eye that suggested a blog article. It has been vaguely frustrating, to be honest. ...
A listing of 31 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 21, 2024 thru Sat, April 27, 2024. Story of the week Anthropogenic climate change may be the ultimate shaggy dog story— but with a twist, because here ...
Hi,I spent about a year on Webworm reporting on an abusive megachurch called Arise, and it made me want to stab my eyes out with a fork.I don’t regret that reporting in 2022 and 2023 — I am proud of it — but it made me angry.Over three main stories ...
The new Victoria University Vice-Chancellor decided to have a forum at the university about free speech and academic freedom as it is obviously a topical issue, and the Government is looking at legislating some carrots or sticks for universities to uphold their obligations under the Education and Training Act. They ...
Do you remember when Melania Trump got caught out using a speech that sounded awfully like one Michelle Obama had given? Uncannily so.Well it turns out that Abraham Lincoln is to Winston Peters as Michelle was to Melania. With the ANZAC speech Uncle Winston gave at Gallipoli having much in ...
She was born 25 years ago today in North Shore hospital. Her eyes were closed tightly shut, her mouth was silently moving. The whole theatre was all quiet intensity as they marked her a 2 on the APGAR test. A one-minute eternity later, she was an 8. The universe was ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park in collaboration with members from our Skeptical Science team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Is Antarctica gaining land ice? ...
Images of US students (and others) protesting and setting up tent cities on US university campuses have been broadcast world wide and clearly demonstrate the growing rifts in US society caused by US policy toward Israel and Israel’s prosecution of … Continue reading → ...
Barrie Saunders writes – Dear Paul As the new Minister of Media and Communications, you will be inundated with heaps of free advice and special pleading, all in the national interest of course. For what it’s worth here is my assessment: Traditional broadcasting free to air content through ...
Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its arguments for such a bold reform. ...
Peter Dunne writes – The great nineteenth British Prime Minister, William Gladstone, once observed that “the first essential for a Prime Minister is to be a good butcher.” When a later British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, sacked a third of his Cabinet in July 1962, in what became ...
Ele Ludemann writes – New Zealanders had the OECD’s second highest tax increase last year: New Zealanders faced the second-biggest tax raises in the developed world last year, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) says. The intergovernmental agency said the average change in personal income tax ...
We all know something’s not right with our elections. The spread of misinformation, people being targeted with soundbites and emotional triggers that ignore the facts, even the truth, and influence their votes.The use of technology to produce deep fakes. How can you tell if something is real or not? Can ...
This video includes conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Simon Clark. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). This year you will be lied to! Simon Clark helps prebunk some misleading statements you'll hear about climate. The video includes ...
It is all very well cutting the backrooms of public agencies but it may compromise the frontlines. One of the frustrations of the Productivity Commission’s 2017 review of universities is that while it observed that their non-academic staff were increasing faster than their academic staff, it did not bother to ...
Buzz from the Beehive Two speeches delivered by Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters at Anzac Day ceremonies in Turkey are the only new posts on the government’s official website since the PM announced his Cabinet shake-up. In one of the speeches, Peters stated the obvious: we live in a troubled ...
1. Which of these would you not expect to read in The Waikato Invader?a. Luxon is here to do business, don’t you worry about thatb. Mr KPI expects results, and you better believe itc. This decisive man of action is getting me all hot and excitedd. Melissa Lee is how ...
…it has a restricted jurisdiction which must not be abused: it is not an inquisitionNOTE – this article was published before the High Court ruled that Karen Chhour does not have to appear before the Waitangi Tribunal Gary Judd writes – The High Court ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – One of reasons Oranga Tamariki exists is to prevent child neglect. But could the organisation itself be guilty of the same?Oranga Tamariki’s statistics show a decrease in the number and age of children in care. “There are less children ...
David Farrar writes: Graeme Edgeler wrote in 2017: In the first five years after three strikes came into effect 5248 offenders received a ‘first strike’ (that is, a “stage-1 conviction” under the three strikes sentencing regime), and 68 offenders received a ‘second strike’. In the five years prior to ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has surprised everyone with his ruthlessness in sacking two of his ministers from their crucial portfolios. Removing ministers for poor performance after only five months in the job just doesn’t normally happen in politics. That’s refreshing and will be extremely ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the two days to 6:06am on Thursday, April 25:Politics: PM Christopher Luxon has set up a dual standard for ministerial competence by demoting two National Cabinet ministers while leaving also-struggling ...
Hi,Today I mainly want to share some of your thoughts about the recent piece I wrote about success and failure, and the forces that seemingly guide our lives. But first, a quick bit of housekeeping: I am doing a Webworm popup in Los Angeles on Saturday May 11 at 2pm. ...
It is hard to see what Melissa Lee might have done to “save” the media. National went into the election with no public media policy and appears not to have developed one subsequently. Lee claimed that she had prepared a policy paper before the election but it had been decided ...
Open access notablesIce acceleration and rotation in the Greenland Ice Sheet interior in recent decades, Løkkegaard et al., Communications Earth & Environment:In the past two decades, mass loss from the Greenland ice sheet has accelerated, partly due to the speedup of glaciers. However, uncertainty in speed derived from satellite products ...
Buzz from the Beehive A statement from Children’s Minister Karen Chhour – yet to be posted on the Government’s official website – arrived in Point of Order’s email in-tray last night. It welcomes the High Court ruling on whether the Waitangi Tribunal can demand she appear before it. It does ...
Mr Bombastic:Ironically, the media the academic experts wanted is, in many ways, the media they got. In place of the tyrannical editors of yesteryear, advancing without fear or favour the interests of the ruling class; the New Zealand news media of today boasts a troop of enlightened journalists dedicated to ...
It's hard times try to make a livingYou wake up every morning in the unforgivingOut there somewhere in the cityThere's people living lives without mercy or pityI feel good, yeah I'm feeling fineI feel better then I have for the longest timeI think these pills have been good for meI ...
In 1974, the US Supreme Court issued its decision in United States v. Nixon, finding that the President was not a King, but was subject to the law and was required to turn over the evidence of his wrongdoing to the courts. It was a landmark decision for the rule ...
Every day now just seems to bring in more fresh meat for the grinder.In their relentlessly ideological drive to cut back on the “excessive bloat” (as they see it) of the previous Labour-led government, on the mountains of evidence accumulated in such a short period of time do not ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Megan Valére SosouMarket gardening site of the Itchèléré de Itagui agricultural cooperative in Dassa-Zoumè (Image credit: Megan Valère Sossou) For the residents of Dassa-Zoumè, a city in the West African country of Benin, choosing between drinking water and having enough ...
Buzz from the Beehive Melissa Lee – as may be discerned from the screenshot above – has not been demoted for doing something seriously wrong as Minister of ...
Morning in London Mother hugs beloved daughter outside the converted shoe factory in which she is living.Afternoon in London Travelling writer takes himself and his wrist down to A&E, just to be sure. Read more ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – The recent announcement of the University Advisory Group, chaired by Sir Peter Gluckman, makes very clear where the Government’s focus and priorities lie. The remit of the Advisory Group is that Group members will consider challenges and opportunities for improvement in the university sector including: ...
Eric Crampton writes – The Reserve Bank of New Zealand desperately wants to find reasons to have workstreams in climate change. It makes little sense. They’ve run another stress test on the banks looking to see if they could find a prudential regulation case. They couldn’t. They ...
Rob MacCullough writes – Pundits from the left and the right are arguing that National’s Fast Track Bill that is designed to speed up infrastructure decisions could end up becoming mired in a cesspool of corruption. Political commentator ...
Looking at the headlines this morning it’s hard to feel anything other than pessimistic about the future of humanity.Note that I’m not speaking about the future of mankind, but the survival of our humanity. The values that we believe in seem to be ebbing away, by the day.Perhaps every generation ...
Swabbing mixed breed baby chicks to test for avian influenzaUh oh. Bird flu – often deadly to humans – is not only being transmitted from infected birds to dairy cows, but is now travelling between dairy cows. As of last Friday, Bloomberg News reports, there were 32 American dairy herds ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
What is it with the mining industry? Its not enough for them to pillage the earth - they apparently can't even be bothered getting resource consent to do so: The proponent behind a major mine near the Clutha River had already been undertaking activity in the area without a ...
Photo # 1 I am a huge fan of Singapore’s approach to housing, as described here two years ago by copying and pasting from The ConversationWhat Singapore has that Australia does not is a public housing developer, the Housing Development Board, which puts new dwellings on public and reclaimed land, ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi, and Mema Paremata mō Tāmaki-Makaurau, Takutai Tarsh Kemp, will travel to the Gold Coast to strengthen ties with Māori in Australia next week (15-21 April). The visit, in the lead-up to the 9th Australian National Kapa haka Festival, will be an opportunity for both ...
The Green Party has today launched a step-by-step guide to help New Zealanders make their voice heard on the Government’s democracy dodging and anti-environment fast track legislation. ...
The National Government’s proposed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act will mean tenants can be turfed from their homes by landlords with little notice, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson is calling on all parties to support a common-sense change that’s great for the planet and great for consumers after her member’s bill was drawn from the ballot today. ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is today travelling to Europe where he’ll update the United Nations Human Rights Council on the Government’s work to restore law and order. “Attending the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva provides us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while ...
Associate Agriculture Minister, Mark Patterson, formally reopened the world’s largest wool processing facility today in Awatoto, Napier, following a $50 million rebuild and refurbishment project. “The reopening of this facility will significantly lift the economic opportunities available to New Zealand’s wool sector, which already accounts for 20 per cent of ...
Hon Andrew Bayly, Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing At the Southland Otago Regional Engineering Collective (SOREC) Summit, 18 April, Dunedin Ngā mihi nui, Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Ko Whanganui aho Good Afternoon and thank you for inviting me to open your summit today. I am delighted ...
The Government is delivering on its commitment to bring back the Three Strikes legislation, Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee announced today. “Our Government is committed to restoring law and order and enforcing appropriate consequences on criminals. We are making it clear that repeat serious violent or sexual offending is not ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today announced four new diplomatic appointments for New Zealand’s overseas missions. “Our diplomats have a vital role in maintaining and protecting New Zealand’s interests around the world,” Mr Peters says. “I am pleased to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the ...
New Zealand is contributing NZ$7 million to support communities affected by severe food insecurity and other urgent humanitarian needs in Ethiopia and Somalia, Foreign Minister Rt Hon Winston Peters announced today. “Over 21 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance across Ethiopia, with a further 6.9 million people ...
Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Paul Goldsmith is congratulating Mataaho Collective for winning the Golden Lion for best participant in the main exhibition at the Venice Biennale. "Congratulations to the Mataaho Collective for winning one of the world's most prestigious art prizes at the Venice Biennale. “It is good ...
The Government is reforming financial services to improve access to home loans and other lending, and strengthen customer protections, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly and Housing Minister Chris Bishop announced today. “Our coalition Government is committed to rebuilding the economy and making life simpler by cutting red tape. We are ...
“China remains a strong commercial opportunity for Kiwi exporters as Chinese businesses and consumers continue to value our high-quality safe produce,” Trade and Agriculture Minister Todd McClay says. Mr McClay has returned to New Zealand following visits to Beijing, Harbin and Shanghai where he met ministers, governors and mayors and engaged in trade and agricultural events with the New ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has completed a successful trip to Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, deepening relationships and capitalising on opportunities. Mr Luxon was accompanied by a business delegation and says the choice of countries represents the priority the New Zealand Government places on South East Asia, and our relationships in ...
New Zealand is demonstrating its commitment to reducing global greenhouse emissions, and supporting clean energy transition in South East Asia, through a contribution of NZ$41 million (US$25 million) in climate finance to the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-led Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM). Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced ...
The Government is today releasing a list of organisations who received letters about the Fast-track applications process, says RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop. “Recently Ministers and agencies have received a series of OIA requests for a list of organisations to whom I wrote with information on applying to have a ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Wellington Barrister David Jonathan Boldt as a Judge of the High Court, and the Honourable Justice Matthew Palmer as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Boldt graduated with an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington in 1990, and also holds ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford will lead the New Zealand delegation at the 2024 International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP) held in Singapore. The delegation includes representatives from the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) Te Wehengarua and the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa. The summit is co-hosted ...
A stopbank upgrade project in Tairawhiti partly funded by the Government has increased flood resilience for around 7000ha of residential and horticultural land so far, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones today attended a dawn service in Gisborne to mark the end of the first stage of the ...
Asia Pacific Report A Pacific civil society alliance has condemned French neocolonial policies in Kanaky New Caledonia, saying Paris is set on “maintaining the status quo” and denying the indigenous Kanak people their inalienable right to self-determination. The Pacific Regional Non-Governmental Organisations (PRNGOs) Alliance, representing some 15 groups, said in ...
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How many more elections under MMP? It has major flaws IMO that often lead to confusion rather than giving voters clarity and assurance and a real ‘choice’.
The agreements and ‘deals’ are flying Left, Right and Centre. They are not legally binding in any way or they would pervert the intended function and process of democratic elections; coalition deals can only be made afterwards, not beforehand, but they also don’t have legal status AFAIK.
We now have MOUs, coat tailing, overhang, waka jumping, strategic electorate deals, tea gate, etc., and least of all, the dual ballot. It’s a mess!
According to Sir Geoffrey Palmer:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11802883
We would be better off with a truly proportional single vote system with a fixed number of MPs and a truly proportional minimum threshold for a seat (e.g. 0.83% for 120 MPs).
At the same time we need stronger local and grassroots government instead of centralised power and top-down hierarchy.
Whatever structures and institutions are in place, our society should not be managed like a (traditional) corporate business but more like a family, iwi or clan; people’s wellbeing in the short, medium, and long term should come before financial health & wealth and not the other way round.
As long as the economy, surpluses, and tax (cuts) dominate the political conversations, especially with upcoming elections, we’ll have a long way to go …
Hi Incognito
The real difficulty of MMP in my opinion is that it drags un-elected people into Parliament. Thereby betraying the one Person one Vote system.
It also confuses even intelligent everyday citizens who simply have not got time to pore over hundreds of biographies of would be candidates.
In First past the Post elections there is ultimate simplicity. Each candidate is either elected or fails to be elected. So if you want the Wealthy to be supported, you vote National, If you want the Constructive Technical Party (Labour) to rule you would vote accordingly.
It is interesting that the Nationals have absolutely no interest in the Environment. They positively encourage their wealthy members to pollute every river in our Nation. The Green Party tries to resist that, but with so few members they get rubbished.
First past the Post draws together like minded voters. Anything else is a schnozzle.
What a load of bollocks.
If everything you said was true then there wouldn’t have been such a groundswell to change out of the obviously failed system.
MMP may not be perfect but it’s a damn sight better than FPP.
Exactly, Draco. Also, I look at the party list, and when I vote for a list I am electing those on it. It is called reading, OT. Try getting literate. Nobody in Parliament is ‘unelected’ as you wrongly put it.
Observer Tokeroa is literate, and he is talking about coat tailing, which National refused to get rid of. In a sense OT is right.
For coat-tailing, fair enough. Otherwise, no.
That was what he was talking about In Vino.
Sorry. Leftie – ‘he’ makes no mention of coat-tailing. Re-read – ‘he’ wants FPP only, and appears to be totally against MMP party list vote system.
Didn’t think he had to explicitly state the words coat tailing. It’s certainly the impression I got when I read his post.
What if he/she is illiterate? Or partially so.
What if he/she isn’t as gorgeous as you?
Snot Rock Soince – disenfranchoise NOW!
This is still a left wing site, yes? It’s that Broad Church left wing site – or so I’ve been told. One that doesn’t require the intellect of a Hillary Stace, or indeed a Lynne Prentice, OR the compassion of ……. take your pick
….. maybe not. The daylight visible whilst spending time up one’s own arse springs to mind, as well as various other platitudes – like we don’t know how lucky we are.
To that poster and contributor: GET LITERATE NOW!!!!! GET LITERATE NOW !!!!!
ya vol herr commandant!
Perhaps the deep and meaningful @ Weka would care to comment if you’re not too busy trying to understand underlying meaningfulness. I’ve got a set of crystals that might be able to assist.
!!!!!!! BAN !!!!! we do not allow people to call into question anyone who / READ THE !!!!!!!!!!!! (small print) / etc.
+ 1.36 yottaplex
‘Jawohl’, thank you. I can only speculate on where your head is.
ROFL Once was and others etc!
Rubbish. (Anyone as gorgeous as me is in a terrible condition.)
But I am tired of FFP simpletons claiming that MMP list members are ‘unelected’ because they did not stand in an FFP electorate vote. That is a nonsensical – a lot of the losing runner-ups in big FFP electorates are far superior to the donkeys that win FFP in a safe seat.
Your ‘daylight vision’ sentence has now given me an idea of where your own head might be, Once was.
“Anyone as gorgeous as me is in a terrible condition.”
Lol
Thank you for your reply.
Instead of opting for a hybrid system to replace FPP it would have been more courageous (politically speaking) to have adopted a truly proportional single vote system – no, I am not saying it is perfect.
Just consider for a moment how much (air)time and energy goes into the ‘idiosyncrasies’ of MMP and how much it pulls our focus away from much more important issues (and policies as somebody (?) pointed out somewhere here on TS).
I don’t have time to argue for or against FPP so I just provide a link(s) for your perusal:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting#Benefits
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting#Criticisms
Repressed history: New Zealand’s role in the Pacific slave trade and slavery’s curious relationship with the first international rugby match played here: http://readingthemaps.blogspot.co.nz/2017/02/snatching-and-killing.html
NZ hosted centuries of slavery before Pakeha arrived if Edward Tregear is a reliable source.
http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-TreRace-t1-body-d9-d2.html
OK so we want a change of Govt. So what does Labour do? It lies and obfuscates to shut down another Left party— Mana.
On RNZ this morning I heard Kelvin Davis coming across trying to be smart, but just being smarmy .I heard Andrew Little being disingenuous , if not deliberately lying, about the agreement between Mana/Maori. They know damned well the agreement only goes to 23/9, just like their MOU with the Greens( who, incidentally, Labour have been trying to shaft for years).
When is Labour going to grow up and fight the real fight against the real enemy of the Left?
I know the answer…. they won’t because they are still bogged down in their neolib /1984 mistaken policies.
I wonder if the Maori Party want a change of Government?
Cinny, no, I don’t get the impression that the Maori party want a change of government.
Does Labour? (Sarc.)
Yes, of course Labour wants to change the government.
Yes and they won’t change – why? They like being smarmy bullshitters – why? The middle piddles like it.
The middle piddles? Is that where all the trickling down from the elites gathers and pools?
Ha yes could be muddle puddles too
what, the people who work and pay tax you mean?
A lot of people do that Alan – personally I think tax is okay to pay for the collective benefits reaped in society, don’t you?
We all pay tax Alan it’s called GST (except those who are in business or some scheme that they can wangle their way out of it.)
And being in paid work and taxed doesn’t mean they are better than someone working but not being paid and not paying wag tax, they are called volunteers. Or they may be working at something that harms fellow citizens, and pay tax on their earnings, or some of them. Or they might want more work so they can pay more tax, but the government has organised the economy and laws so that they can’t get guaranteed adequate working hours every week.
Or they may be people so damaged by life that they can’t work much but can do work if they can get help with it, and then there are parents and caregivers who look after others but don’t get paid for it. Then there are the real bludgers who don’t do anything like useful work and manage their tax to minimal, some around the lower middle class, and some big earners floating around doing very little that is useful to society but cleverly creaming of millions of dollars from their schemes.
So keep your one liners to yourself. You will just tire your brain out needlessly, telling us the rote learning of street yokels.
you are implying that I am disdainful of people not in paid employment,that is not the case.
My point is that referring to the “middle” as middle piddles etc. does your cause no good whatsoever – but suit yourself
thanks for your concern
1. What Marty said .
2. Yes, “the people who work and pay tax” are being “trickled” upon by those who can afford to avoid tax.
3. The people being hurt the most by this callous incompetence are as always, the poor.
Then there’s all the people who do unpaid work that is essential to the running of society – caring for people in their homes, voluntary organisations that provide support to those in need, etc. And such people still get taxed on their incomes, whether underpaid employment or state benefits.
I heard Hone playing the race card. Sooner’s better than later I guess.
Gabby
Good of you to join in, were you singing the same tune?
“When is Labour going to grow up and fight the real fight against the real enemy of the Left?”
National and their support clowns, Act, Dunne and the Maori party.
Spot on Peter Swift.
That’s politics, Garibaldi. Haven’t the Maori party been just as scathing?
John Waters is someone I respect: but what
the HELL was he doing on this horror show?
It’s pretty desperate when Piers Morgan is the smartest and most honest person in the room. The pathetic reiteration of DNC campaign lies starts with the woman guest at the 3:48 mark….
Anti republican, dismissive of Trump, atheist, supporter of equality, advocate for minorities and he doesn’t mind getting dirty for a cause.
What could Bill Maher possibly have done to be called less honest than Morgan on a left leaning website?
Did he say something that offended you in 1987? lol
You need to listen to the nonsense that Maher and that confused woman were spouting.
I did, watched it all, like I do regularly. Great show, admirable left winger.
The only nonsense is predictably yours.
I did, watched it all,
???? Really? Your comments indicate otherwise.
like I do regularly.
Could I suggest you replace your open-mouthed viewing with some serious READING?
Great show, admirable left winger.
Well, if the word “left winger” has recently changed its meaning to “rabid supporter of U.S. terror and Israel’s right to exterminate the Palestinians”, you’re correct. In the real world, however, your statement is risible.
The only nonsense is predictably yours.
You are, yet again, my befuddled friend, way out of your depth. Again, I urge you to do some READING. Serious reading, that is.
Is there a library nearby?
I unfollowed TDB on twitter today, on the basis of – if I stop to throw stones (unpick the arguments) at every dog that barks, I’ll never get to my destination – got a lot of other things I need to do this week.
Who knew the real reason Paul got banned from TS? i.e content and viewpoints/arguments against fake news and for way forward for the left, and not process or breaching TS policy guide.
Lots of lies being told about the standard at the moment, and Bryce Edwards is putting them out into the Msm. Looks like macho politics to me.
I stopped reading TDB and Chris Trotter a couple of years ago, and I haven’t read anything by Bryce Edwards for some months. Life is too short to read crap by ill-informed blokes who claim to represent the working class, but are really just white, middle-class, middle-aged men who feel threatened by anybody who isn’t the same as them.
Actual left wing people who I follow on twitter sometimes refer to stuff these guys have written and I know I made the right choice.
I stopped reading TDB and Chris Trotter a couple of years ago, and I haven’t read anything by Bryce Edwards for some months. Life is too short to read crap by ill-informed blokes who claim to represent the working class, but are really just white, middle-class, middle-aged men who feel threatened by anybody who isn’t the same as them.
Actual left wing people who I follow on twitter sometimes refer to (and mock) the stuff these guys have written and I know I made the right choice.
Bomber does come from a working class background. I guess he now has achieved middle class status through education. So, I still tend to see him as having a bit of a working class perspective.
Oh dear. There’s some much faction fighting going on. Us vs them in various ways.
And I also looked at a post there at TDB about “identity politics” and class. By a guy who the bio says he’s a postgrad sociologist and researcher. Been there done that – well partly sociology. I know about the theories he’s citing. And I could produce an argument to counter his post, but it’d take me a more time than I have right now.
Basically though, I am a bit confused about his use of (definition of?) “identity politics”. He rubbishes it while still seeing capitalism as patriarchal.
Many people use the term “identity politics” to refer to any feminist, anti-misogynist, anti-sexist, anti-racist, anti-patriarchy comments/posts/articles.
So I started the day confused about how the term “identity politics” is used.
Then I watched Al Jazerra’s latest up front ep.
I got distracted from the main topic (populism) by the way “identity politics” was being used. One of the panel described Trump’s politics as IP because of the way he divides people into “us” (one identity) and “them” (another identity): i.e. the left behind (us) and Muslims (them).
Other panelists talked about how economics and IP are interconnected.
I decided “identity politics” has become a useless term, like PC, that means whatever a person (or their political position) wants it to mean.
Or just possibly “identity politics” means exactly what it says!
It’s how it’s used, which clearly means different things to different people. So saying it is what it says it is…. adds nothing to the discussion.
Language is only as good as the way it is used. Language is the result of a process where people in a society agree on the meaning of a word or term. these meanings change over time in relation to the way tehy are used.
I don’t like the term Identity politics, because it is used in ways that aren’t the sum total of the 2 words. I prefer to talk about social and economic justice.
Some people seem to assume “identity politics” is separate from social class issues. In fact they are intertwined – as defined by wikipedia:
In political debates it’s often used mainly to refer to and attack politics of race, gender and sexuality, And it is often used in oppositon to class politics.
But as the wikipedia page goes on to say:
i.e. in order to organise politically as a class, workers need to become conscious of their shared identity and exploitation as workers.
Bryce Edwards is putting them out into the Msm. Looks like macho politics to me.
Perhaps its payback because some TS commenters (including me) have over the years pulled his epistles to pieces – usually deservedly so.
I have always found this style of particular trashing meme rather amusing, albeit rather tiresome.
We get it every few years from different groups. It typically happens when some group doesn’t like things being aired that they would prefer never got mentioned (because it would interfere with their wee games).
Over the last 9.5 years, we’d have had similar sustained attempts at denigrating TS about once every 1-2 years. Never works in terms of the site surviving or readership or anything else. We provide a relatively open source of debate which has a pretty active policy of tossing out pirates trying to board it to control the debate. Doesn’t matter if it is right trolls, left trolls, journalists, MPs, party whips, people who picked up bans, blogs that don’t like the site, ardent feminists, ardent dickheads, ardent anything or whatever. It is always pretty damn stupid and usually done by people who fail to understand the basic precept of this site. We agree to disagree, but are also willing to damn well argue about it.
I suspect that the underlying rationale for such attempts is something like they can drive away funders (because why else would they always try to push it into the public sphere?). What they don’t seem to understand is that over the last decade, the site has moved from not needing any money to run, to needing money, and in a determined effort – back to not needing any money to run. It makes it really hard to do anything about. So do our policies about moderating and protecting the privacy or authors and commenters.
The site currently requires about $200 per month which we get from donations and some time from people willing to be authors, moderators, or techs. The latter is usually me. The site is scaleable to at least 4 times the traffic from the last elections. And people are always free to comment here provided they follow our rules about bad behaviour.
Personally, I am looking forward getting over this last year’s project and back to the less time and attention consuming maintenance. That will give me more time for the site again.
Agreed Weka-Bryce Edwards never fails to attack the Left in his articles.
He is dangerous because he purports to be balanced and simply reporting the weeks’ political comings and goings when in fact he sticks it up the Left every time.
This is how god blesses the USA.
The Worlds biggest employers…….
1. US Dept of Defense( sorry that should really be Attack) —- 3,200,000
2. Peoples LIB. Army ( China) ———————————————2,300,000
3. Walmart ———————————————————————-2,100,000
4. Mc Donalds —————————————————————–1,900,000
The PLA number is those who are full time in uniform, whereas the US DoD is nniform full time, uniform, part-time and civilians. If you added the civilians and reservists to the PLA, it would be bigger.
Wow! How terrifying. Given that the USA is many years ahead in high-tech hardware, but Righties like Wayne prefer to mention only what suits them.
Hey he was just filling out the stats with what he does know. Everybody knows something In Vino and even if it is not pleasant to read we should.
It is a petty point that does not outweigh the rest of what Garibaldi quoted.
If it really balanced things up, I would be grateful. I think he is quibbling disingenuously.
How to make bad law? Fail to recognise practice, fail to appreciate need, hear only senile voices speaking to their peculiar issues.
Grey power does not want kids to cycle on pavements. Kids do though, and parnt want them to stay on the pavement. And the earlier, and more experience kids get cycling the more they appriciate others needs. So its insane that grey power is against kids cycling.
But its worse. Ask any cyclist trapped at a red light, undected and now illegally cannot cycle on pavement, and so banned from using the utility of their cycle. And all because a few olds might have an accident?
Take the one way road, cant cycle up the wrong way, cant cycle on the pavement! Cycles effectively banned.
In any accident involving bikes and cars, cyclists come off worse, much like any pedestrian does. So why are we so down on cyclists? Where is their voice? nAtional radio think the only voice for cyclists is someone who cant teach kids to cycle on
pavements in their day job.Thats how lousy laws are.
Cyclists are pedestrians and have the same rights to cycle on pedestrian pavements alongside such wheeled vehicles, as motorized wheelchairs, mopeds deliverying mail, scateboarders, etc. They all use the pavements on wheels and Grey power accidents are not a crisis. Because people naturally do not want to engage with oldies because they are so boring and talk nonsense, kids need to learn this early.
Routinely cyclists ride on pavements, its illegal but its safer than sharing roads with trunks.
Not for pedestrians, especially the elderly. Which is why Age Concern have an issue with cycling on the footpath.
you’ve never really explained why pedestrians should take on the risks of your recreation choice.
A cyclist is not on foot, and therefore cannot possibly be a pedestrian. Don’t mangle our language. (Directed at aerobubble: Cyclists are not motorists, but that does not make them pedestrians.)
I was walking along the Wellington waterfront a year ago and was passed from behind by a cyclist who went by within a meter until I heard the wind of his passing. I don’t have a rear vision mirror as a pedestrian. If I had moved to the right by one step he would have hit me. At his speed and the reaction times needed it could not have been otherwise.
As a former teacher, I once did an experiment with a class of year nine students to test their reaction times and the brakes on their bikes. They thought they were quick enough and safe with what they did, riding on footpaths as cars pulled unseen out of high fenced driveways. I had that day seen a boy ride into the side of a car doing just that.
I set up a similar situation as an experiment.
None passed.
Integrity would suggest the Grey council answer some simple questions. Like where are cyclist to go, its not illehal to ride a bike. As for the smear that Cyclists aren’t trustworthy because they cycle past people who have poor hearing, really, is that supposed to be an objection, are we banning joggers to?
Cyclist use feet power. Cyclists are pedestrians, then comeput just as badly when hit by cars and trucks. They are no different than other wheeled pedestrians, skakeboards, rollerskates, and joggers are fast too.
How utterly innane, Cyclist are not pedestrians because they are not road vehicles, listen to yourself a moment, your ignoring the fact that carless citizens use bikes and roads are dangerous places for them, and liberty beats out death anyday. Cyclists will continue to use pedestrian walkways.
But lets play a bit. Why do olds get free transit after 9. To keep them off the footpaths so employees can cycle to work, kids cycle to school out ofrush hour traffic. Ratepayers fund footpaths and free buses for olds. Olds aren’t using the footpaths as much during rushhour, they wait for free buses. So cyclists who are unfamiliar to non japenese who allow cyclists to use footpaths, should not be funding free old age bus trips. Its about sharing not banning. Most people are in school, at work during time olds are using footpaths, you lazy thinking senile old bats. It has nothing to do with accidents with old people and bikes, its to do with the age problem of old people with too much time on their hand and too senile to give a crap.
And then there is the reality, there is going to be no doubt when accidents do happen that stupid cyclists dont understand how utterly senile deaf old people are tt they ever thought they could cycle anywhere near them. And good on them, senile and stupid people meet. No doubt some old cyclist banned from using his car and whose Grey power, oldie council, have forgotten has rights to movement too. Olds hurting rights of other oldies.
Unfund free buses for olds if they continue to ban pedestrians using the footpath with their bikes, oh, but posties use mopeds, olds use motorised wheel chairs, yet kids aren’t to be trusted. No, its senility that is untrusted.
I don’t know what drugs you’re on, but I want some.
Sorry, I missed the bit where you explained why I, as an actual pedestrian, need to absorb some of the risks that come from your choice of vehicle.
Oh, and according to the Land Transport (Road User) rule 2004:
So yes, bicycles are vehicles, and pedestrians can be on a wheeled thingamagig that’s not a vehicle.
And all because a few olds might have an accident?
Er, yes – because a few olds might “have an accident,” ie be struck and injured by cyclists. On what planet isn’t that a good reason?
On the planet where kids might get struck by cars and trucks if they are on the road.
I’m moderately surprised that primary-school kids aren’t permitted to ride on the footpath.
That having been said, we’re still talking about a voluntary decision to cycle vs that fact that some people have to walk because they can’t drive or cycle, and they’re the ones being put at risk.
Maybe kids shouldn’t cycle unsupervised until they’re old enough to deal with obstacles and hazards, like cars or pedestrians? And if they’re supervised, they should be on the road.
The original premise was that “cyclists” should be allowed to ride on the footpath. If it’s revised down to “kids” (primary-school age, presumably) should be allowed to ride on the footpath, it’s less ridiculous.
There are many, many kids I would trust. But there are a certain number I would not trust with a wheel barrow, let alone a bicycle.
If we are going to do it properly, we do what I remember from Cologne 1979: footpath clearly demarcated into pedestrian and cyclist areas. That worked.
But NZ can never do what overseas countries do. I remember when Hamilton tried to introduce a parking system that I had seen work perfectly in Cambridge, UK. Hamilton gave up because it was ‘too difficult’ for our parkers.. Go figure.
In Vino
That thing about NZ never being able to replicate a successful system successfully is what I have noticed.
and JanM
That’s exactly the same difficulty I notice as I go round. I don’t want little kids on the road, but I don’t want older kids and adult men shooting past me at speed. And I find that family cyclists have a god complex, and will shoot down private lanes as throughways without a thought. Get on two wheels and the world is yours.
When I am on the footpath I don’t want to be as alert as if I was walking on the road. You need to be able to relax pm the footpath, that’s why we have them so you won’t be run into by machine, crazy children, excited dogs, scooting cats, scooting Mums. A fall for an older person can mean permanent disablement for the last of their years, you just don’t heal like a young person does.
Good gracious me – there are two major groups who are vulnerable in our society; the young and the elderly. Both deserve consideration. Some of your language around the elderly practically amounts to abuse – they are as entitled to safety as the children. While I agree that riding a bike on the road is very risky, so is being a pedestrian sharing a footpath with cyclists – especially the young and inexperienced. The faster cycle lanes can be placed everywhere the better – and that’s where all cyclists should go. Until then – a little civility and consideration would go a long way. If you’re really lucky you’ll get to be an ‘oldie’ yourself some day – then you can look back on this sort of language and feel a bit ashamed maybe
Abuse. Banning people who cannot us a oneway road, as they cant cycle on the pavement and risk fine accident goin against traffic! Sorry until you can understand outright banning is undemocratic and the real abuse since the stats are firmly against the harm your side suggests. People do not invite accidents, joggers dont, skateboards dont, posties on mopeds, all us the footpath, any increased harm is in the minds of fools. abuse yeah, stupidity should be called out.
Hang on, are you now arguing that one-way streets are violations of human rights?
Why can’t a cyclist use the same route as every car driver who is also barred from going the wrong way up the same road?
Simple. Pedestrians, under their own power, forced to take side roads, invariable steep, would be a huge impediment to their using cycles. So, yeah its a rights issue, which would then justify asking the question, why ban something outright. Which in Japan they dont. Nobody has yet said why we need to ban cycles, that should tell you something about how bad the laws are. Kids dont learn good behaviour, people ignore the law, cyclists get held up at red lights that never change as they dont detect them. You dont see car drivers getting out and pushing their bikes over the line to behave legally because its a stupid law. Cyclists are no different to any personally power person. Ban moped, ban motorized wheelchairs, dont fund free public transport, all the arguments you will hear to justify no banning apply equally to cyclists. Sure, helmets and bike bells, sure thin typed racing bikes that need a minimum speed as they are unstable at low speed, sure keep them to the roads, but a mountain bike can stop on a ledge, it aint a threat. Any jogger, walker, can be unstable and knock a oldie over, any kid with a ball. Thats not a good enough reason to so restrict cyclists that it makes cyclying unusable. A kid died when run over by a truck on the way to school. Trucks cant see cyclists.
Burble on aerobubble
You really ranted a crock here. Think again about your mangey right of way even though its safer than sharing roads with trunks, and drunks, and funks.
Not one apology to kids for banning them from footpaths, like old people dont know when kid cycle to school, when workers are cycling to work. A kid was run over by a truck on the way to school. iTs shameful that kids aren’t learning early how to interact with pedestrians, and suffer a life of abuse from old people who think them a threat. Get a brain, oh wait, its senility the real problem.
aerobubble
Your abuse underlines the difficulties that we face when proper facilities that are needed by citizens aren’t provided. But $millions can be put into cycleways intended to appeal to tourism and the recreational rider.
Your attitude aerobubble is worrying, it sounds as if you have such a head of steam, that if I was involved in some sort of collision with a child, you would attack me in anger, perhaps give me a kinghit.
I think you had better restrain yourself, and write down your problem and a practical solution, like making a separated way along a certain bit of footpath that schoolkids use. That would be a positive start and you could campaign for more using your concern and your anger to fuel it. I am sure many people would support you but don’t give me your nastiness. I am only stating what you are stating from a different angle of concern. Leave me alone, stop attacking me on this subject.
Clearly you are incapable of accepting the greater harm, that pedestrians on or off cycles are seroiusly harmed when hit by road vehicles. Whereas a few bruises from a contrived one off accident where kids learn early by being allowed to rideon the pavement, does not cary much merit. And the fact that you’d admit you seeing an accident, involve said behaviour and not merit it worthy to phone police, indicates your a troll.
I was walking to school with my daughter and she got hit from behind by a young boy on a bike. He was riding with his older brother in tandem and his brother didn’t leave him enough room for them both to get around us and the younger one didn’t think to use his brakes and stop until he had room.
Primary age kids should only ride on the pavement if they are under arms length control of an adult.
Turn’s out Dotcom is not guilty of copywrite infringement. surprise surprise.
But NZ Government still want to waste money fighting to extradite him….
http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2017/02/20/breaking-media-statement-from-dotcom-legal-team/?utm_content=buffer0fbde&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer
Hmmmm… what we could do with the millions being wasted on this case on lawyers to ‘help’ poor multimillion dollar US corporations who love to stash their money away in tax havens, while our poor go hungry paying for all this overseas corporate welfare….
And there is that waiver that the NZ government were tricked into signing about if he is found not guilty about costs……
Kinda makes the yokel business agreements with Peter Thiel pale in comparison.
Agree Save NZ, and it’s crazy that this case is being dragged on, at NZ tax payer expense, like it is. National don’t care, they are not the ones having to fork out the money for this favour for their American mates.
“Willie Jackson: The health of our democracy is at risk with the Electoral Commission failing voters”
<a href="http://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/local-news/manukau-courier/89580371/willie-jackson-the-health-of-our-democracy-is-at-risk
Totally agree, the Mana party was talking about this after the last election.
If memory servers me rightly, via adds on trademe and seek. In Auckland alone, the Electoral Commission has gone through at least 2 complete replacements of management (returns officer) since the last election.
The rest of the country is in a bad way as well.
The EC should have listened. Interesting info there Adam.
“Speaking with many in my community, the poor fear debt collectors or state agencies using their enrolment details to hunt them down, and many of our domestic violence survivors don’t want their abusers using the electoral roll to find them.
Why can’t the Electoral Commission offer an easy box ticking process for those enrolling to not appear on the published roll to ease the fears of the poor and the abused?”
Cinny and I were discussing this very subject not that long ago. It is a pain for most to go through the process of trying to get on the unpublished roll, one can see why people wouldn’t even bother. There are a number of points that the EC need to get off their butts to do, and do it now, and this is one of them. Make it easy for voters, not harder.
TALK IS CHEAP – ACTIVISTS GET THINGS DONE!
Fighting to STOP NIKI’S EVICTION!
Fighting to STOP THE PRIVATISATION of STATE HOUSING!
Well done Niki.
Well done Lisa Gibson.
Well done all of us who are actively supporting Niki and her brave stand!
http://m.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11804705
Glen Innes former state house tenant Niki Rauti is challenging her eviction on the basis that the agency trying to evict her is not actually her landlord.
Photo / Greg Bowker
By Simon Collins
A Glen Innes tenant battling against eviction from her former state house has put a surprising argument to the Tenancy Tribunal – that the agency purporting to evict her isn’t actually her landlord.
Tenant Niki Rauti, 62, and her advocate, perennial campaigner Penny Bright, have also discovered that the 2700 former Housing NZ homes that were supposed to have been transferred last year to an entity jointly owned by the Government and Auckland Council have actually gone to another entity that is still almost 100 per cent owned by the Government.
A third entity, Tāmaki Housing Association Limited Partnership, has been set up to manage the houses, but will seek bids next month from other social housing agencies to take over managing the houses from early next year.
By next year the Tāmaki Redevelopment Company, the joint venture owned 59 per cent by the Government and 41 per cent by Auckland Council, will no longer predominantly either own or manage the properties.
Bright told the Tenancy Tribunal today that the complex structure looked like “a massive smoke and mirrors exercise” – with real consequences for Aucklanders.
“The 41 per cent shareholding of Auckland Council seems to have completely evaporated into nothing,” she said.
………
Penny Bright
2017 Independent candidate
Mt Albert by-election.
Well done Penny and to all that have got involved!! And you beat me to it. I was just about to post that article on here.
Very interesting an enterprising. Looking forward to the tribunal adjudicator’s decision.
Great news. Surely they have to reapply with the correct documentation as it is a legal decision. They can’t ‘fudge’ it!
Apologies i got stuck in meetings and could not put up daily review in time …
mickysavage
We are so important surely that you could extract yourself from something boring and tedious by saying that the show can’t go on here without you – sorry folks have to duck off and keep TS on the road. For all our ups and downs we have shown more stability and lasting power and usefulness than most nz political parties.
Hmmm… wonder what this is about?
Twitter exchange between Hooton and Jodi Ihaka (ex journo now “spin doctor for the red team” according to her twitter profile.
Ends with this from Ihaka:
Labour intends to go to war against the Maori party?
That’s politics, BM.
Stupid ego driven politics from labour
Can say the same about the Maori party, Marty.
All you have is one line mindless slogans so sure if that turns you on or makes you feel better. Truth is if you go over your recent comments they are mostly just negative one line dismissals. You make no attempt to hear any voice except your own or those that you agree with. You disrespect other commenters with your content and style – reminds me of Paul but you seem worse to me. I wonder if you’ll even read all that or just knee-jerk back.
What rubbish. Actually Marty, if anything your rant describes you. And if memory serves, you have been accused of that by others on here, some time back. You have to get a grip with the fact that not everyone is willing to, or wants to support National’s Maori party, that do not speak for, or represent all Maori. A lot of people want to change the government, there are those that feel that the Maori party do not want that. “A vote for the Maori party is a vote for National” still holds relevance today, as it did back in 2014. No one is stopping you or anyone else from supporting the Maori party, that props up National, but we are entitled to our opinions on this, like you are, without getting personal and/or abusive.
At least it was more than 1line – onya
Lol hypocrite much Marty? And I haven’t been making one liners, and you know that.
You’ll love this.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/324976/maori-party-'not-kaupapa-maori'-andrew-little
Yep they will all learn – the musings of politically motivated spinners are irrelevant and obnoxious. Go and sit with English Little in the thick seats.
You can’t force those that want to change the government to support National’s Maori party.
Hmmm… interesting. I’m curious too Carolyn_nth.
follow the money would be my guess, if tuku and his type are around
Your bigotry is showing – it isnt ALL Māori fault that some or one hurt you you know. It is wrong that you suffered and continue to suffer. It is the person or people that have responsibility not the whole ethnic group.
You are grasping at straws by concocting that story Marty. I thought that you were better than that. Don’t let your desperation re the Maori party get the better of you.
Tuku Morgan is ex NZ First.
Winston Peters said Tuku Morgan and his brother in law Tau Henare were “greedy” and had been “disloyal to the people who had put them there.”
See link for newspaper clipping ” Peter’s “sorry” about coalition 14-9-98
<a href="https://fmacskasy2.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/peters-sorry-about-coalition-nzpa-14-september-1998.jpg