“Mobil’s response to a Lyttelton Harbour fuel spill is being investigated as the regional council’s harbour master voices concerns about how the oil giant reacted.”
As long as he don’t use it to show how good we are at mopping up other peoples screw ups.
Mobil didn’t even have a tank to pump the shit into, it was pumped into another companies tank.
“Dilley said other tank farm operators from NZ Oil Services Ltd helped at the site.
They, not Mobil, provided a tank to hold the fuel being pumped from outside and inside the bund,”
Chalmers Organics was one of the first small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) to adopt the living wage, which pays a minimum of $18.80 an hour for all staff, in response to Living Wage Aotearoa’s campaign launched in March last year.
One year after the living wage was phased in staff turnover was non-existent, morale was up and the workforce is proud to work for the company. “Employees are more engaged and point out inefficiencies, which is vital for a small venture, because we can’t afford to invest in bigger systems. We rely on staff,” she said.
Good on this company. So a business can do well fine and pay the living wage. Amazing what a motivated staff can do.
It would be great if massive companies like supermarkets, retirement homes, cleaning companies and fast food corporations also paid the living wage.
They could lose just a tiny bit of their enormous profits.
And it would be great to have a PM who cared for our most vulnerable workers.
But then what to do you expect from a money trader?
This, predictably.
“Prime Minister John Key has defended wages paid to Parliament’s cleaners – and says there is no reason they should be paid more than other cleaners.”
The Beast bares its fangs!!!, from the Herald online comes the story of an Easter egg ‘drop’ sponsored by a Church and a major choclate manufacturer,
3 helicopter ‘drops’ of Easter eggs in the Auckland area, advertised beforhand as an Easter egg hunt for kids resulted in 1000’s turning out for the occasion,
Not shy it appears that a large number of adults joined in the ‘fun’ snatching Easter eggs from the hands of children,scratching some in the frenzy and in one case stomping on the hand of one child who was taken to an A and E,
i can only imagine the uglyness that would have been exhibited had the ‘prize’ been of more value than a simple Easter egg…
Great story. Pity the likes of JK can’t see the downstream effects of low wages
. Look at some of the bills and debates before parliament, everything from food in schools to warrants for rental housing. Large amounts of this would not be needed if incomes were spread more evenly so people would have enough funds to upgrade their own lives. And this is without going near the arguements about welfare subsidising employers.
Why do the NACTs promote and enable welfare dependency to such an extent?
Money. They have a price.
In return for their comfortable houses and baches, their overseas holidays and private school fees, they get the chance to sell the country to overseas corporate interests.
Why do the NACTs promote and enable welfare dependency to such an extent?
I call bull on that. In other threads National are accused on beneficiary bashing, they can’t be opposites at the same time. I don’t see any evidence that any party promotes low wages. Higher wages and fewer benefits are better for business.
A single parents’ group says “a complete change of mindset” has helped reduce the number of people on the sole parent benefit to the lowest level in more than 20 years.
Numbers on sole parent support have plunged by 8600, or 10 per cent, in the year to March.
It is the biggest drop in a single year since the benefit – previously known as the domestic purposes benefit, or DPB – was created in 1974.
Sole parent support is now being paid to 75,844 sole parents, fewer than in any year in the DPB’s history since 1988.
About 22,000 people with no children under 14 were moved to other benefits when the DPB was abolished last July, but even if they were added back in, the total number of sole parents on any kind of benefit is the lowest since 1993.
Auckland Single Parents Trust founder Julie Whitehouse said tighter rules, which require sole parents to look for part-time work when their youngest child turns 5 and fulltime work when that child turns 14, had completely changed attitudes.
“It’s amazing,” she said. “It’s so good that I can’t even get them to volunteer time. The whole mindset has changed.”
Asked how many of her 580 members now had jobs, she said: “The shift is incredible, I’m almost tempted to say 100 per cent – it really is big. All the attitudes changed. Everybody knew that when your child is 5 you have to go to work.”
More people working and more people earning more benefits everyone.
National, Labour and Greens all understand this, they just have different ideas on how to try and achieve it.
John Hayes, National MP, 5 June 2013
“ I think we should celebrate because a rise in the minimum wage in Australia makes our labour force more competitive and will be helpful in attracting investment and jobs to New Zealand. A driver from the Australian perspective is that the New Zealand labour force is well educated, more productive and less unionised than their Australian counterparts.”
That’s not promoting low wages, it’s comparing our bottom end wages to Australia’s and points out some advantages in that.
We do have to be careful about pushing wages up too high and pricing ourselves out of international markets.
I haven’t seen anything suggesting National wants to keep wages low or push them lower. The minimum wage has been increased year by year. The rate of rise can be debated, but I don’t think there’s a valid claim that National want to keep people poor and on benefits.
Pete George stop being so logical and correct in saying that National are constantly raising the minimum wage whilst sustaining employment growth. Stop pointing out that thousands of mothers are getting off benefits and into work, stop pointing out that wages are rising more than inflation. Such logic goes against the fingers in the ears, hear no good news nihilism of those still on the Left. The good news is that they are diminishing in number. It’s encouraging that so many ex-Labour voters are changing to National especially in South Auckland. It’s encouraging when Tariana Turia says that Labour do not deserve Maori votes. I sense a turning point in NZ political history.
Even if the comment was 6 or 7 years ago (link in the article if you want to count months), an exlicit statement would, for most people, count as “suggesting” that fuckwits might have a specific fuckwit objective.
“I haven’t seen anything suggesting National wants to keep wages low or push them lower. The minimum wage has been increased year by year. The rate of rise can be debated, but I don’t think there’s a valid claim that National want to keep people poor and on benefits.”
If the increase in wages doesn’t at least keep up with the cost of living, then that is equivalent to wages not increasing or decreasing. What you have just said is vacuous.
btw, WINZ benefits are deliberately set at below the poverty line. Any govt that maintains that is keeping people poor.
Not sure how it can be avoided setting benefit levels statistically lower then people who are employed. I’m not sure than any of the larger parties are suggesting that should be substantially changed.
The aim is to raise people’s income by getting them into employment .
I presume you know that if the minimum wage was raised by 50% and work was provided for anyone who wants it then we’d still have the same number of people under the statistical poverty line.
Yep. At least, that’s the one used internationally. NZ doesn’t have an official poverty line. The OEDC uses it. And now PG seems to be repeating WO or KB spin. The number of people, or rather proportion of people, under the poverty line does change over time. Depends on how wages are spread around the median.
they represent a federal government estimate of the point below which a household of a given size has pre-tax cash income insufficient to meet minimal food and other basic needs.
Minimum wage = $14.25/hr
Half of that is $7 and change.
If everyone on minimum wage got increased to $21/hr, they’d be >60% median
Give the currently unemployed 40 hours a week, and they’d be above 60% median.
The median would increase to $21/hr, but the number of people under the poverty line would decrease as the wadge of currently poor people get closer to the average income (although those relying on benefits due to sickness, or kicked off benefits because WINZ suck, would still be in poverty).
“Not sure how it can be avoided setting benefit levels statistically lower then people who are employed.”
Benefits were cut by $20/wk in 1990. In the mid 80s the unemployment benefit was around the same rate as what school leavers were earning going into office jobs. We used to have relatively higher benefit rates then, why can’t we now?
“I’m not sure than any of the larger parties are suggesting that should be substantially changed.”
The GP want a UBI.
“The aim is to raise people’s income by getting them into employment.”
That disqualifies you from having any opinion on beneficiaries until you answer the question: how many beneficiaries are not required to seek/gain employment?
Then you will have to answer how many people are now required to see work, despite previously being exempt.
Then come back and explain how those people are supposed to live. And why those people aren’t entitled to a livable income.
Then explain why you think that beneficiaries are all unemployed.
And then explain how unemployed beneficiaries are supposed to raise their income via employment when there aren’t enough jobs.
Then, when youve done all that, retract your statement that NACT don’t keep people poor.
“I presume you know that if the minimum wage was raised by 50% and work was provided for anyone who wants it then we’d still have the same number of people under the statistical poverty line.”
What everyone else just said. Plus, you’re a dick. If the people at the bottom end of the scale have enough to live on, then poverty stops being an issue irrespective of the statistics.
I said I don’t think National want to keep people poor. But you’re right claiming National keep people poor. Labour have and would keep people poor. Greens would keep people poor. Some people keep themselves poor.
I agree with giving some poor people more to live on. That’s not easy, but it’s made substantially easier if a lot more people are encouraged and assisted off benefits.
If the benefit budget is significantly reduced that makes it easier to provide for those who need it.This excludes Government created and paid for jobs which increases Government expenditure.
My questioning of statements like “Why do the NACTs promote and enable welfare dependency to such an extent?” stand.
I don’t believe they promote welfare dependency. Neither do Labour.
How’s that weekly budget for poor people coming along Pete ?
I realise it is a complex thing to engineer without looking like a $2 shop tool but you are Pete George, the man with the plan! Where is the budget Pete?
You are Editor in Chief at the fact checking site called Politicheck.
Are facts not an essential item for your researchers to have on hand?
How do you plan to check the veracity of Government statements about poverty, incomes and expenditure if you do not have a clear understanding of the weekly budgets required of people who inhabit the lowest levels of our economy?
‘In other threads National are accused on beneficiary bashing, they can’t be opposites at the same time.’
Of course they can. They stir up hate and prejudice against beneficiaries in order to reinforce rightwing ideas about individualism, and at the same time in practice they encourage economic conditions which favour short-term profiteering by businesses – keeping wages down through attacks on workers’ rights, maintaining a large pool of desperate unemployed people, and diverting government funding to subsidies on business such as Working for Families and wage subsidies paid to companies like McDonald’s.
It’s all completely consistent, and not exactly difficult to observe.
“They stir up hate and prejudice against beneficiaries”
I don’t think they do that, and I don’t think there’s any evidence that there’s any intent to do that. In other words, I think that’s a nonsense claim.
Some opponents try to talk up “hate and prejudice against beneficiaries”, which arguably is more damaging for beneficiaries. It’s worse than claiming Greens are anti-growth (which I don’t wholly agree with), and is dishonest or ignorant.
“I don’t think they do that, and I don’t think there’s any evidence that there’s any intent to do that. In other words, I think that’s a nonsense claim.”
In other words, “I think, therefore the world is the way I think it is” 🙄
I think it’s reasonable to suggest that such comments do stir up hate and prejudice against beneficiaries by echoing back derogatory remarks towards beneficiaries (i.e., ‘breeding for a business’) commonly used by some New Zealanders.
Obviously, that comment was used by someone in the National Party – their current leader.
Pete George, you don’t think, full stop. What do you think about all the beneficiaries jetsetting to luxury resorts on the taxpayers’ dollar? What did you think of this grave problem the day before Paula Benefat started talking about it?
If I were feeling charitable, I’d label you a gormless fool. I’m not. You have one or two gorms after all, but the most dishonest PM of all time is your role model. This is not really a step up from Dunne worship.
are you still pretending you dont know who you are going to vote for?
That disqualifies you from having any opinion on beneficiaries until you answer the question: how many beneficiaries are not required to seek/gain employment?
Then you will have to answer how many people are now required to see work, despite previously being exempt.
Then come back and explain how those people are supposed to live. And why those people aren’t entitled to a livable income.
Then explain why you think that beneficiaries are all unemployed.
And then explain how unemployed beneficiaries are supposed to raise their income via employment when there aren’t enough jobs.
Then, when youve done all that, retract your statement that NACT don’t keep people poor.
“I presume you know that if the minimum wage was raised by 50% and work was provided for anyone who wants it then we’d still have the same number of people under the statistical poverty line.”
What everyone else just said. Plus, you’re a dick. If the people at the bottom end of the scale have enough to live on, then poverty stops being an issue irrespective of the statistics.
Why do the NACTs promote and enable welfare dependency to such an extent?
“I call bull on that. In other threads National are accused on beneficiary bashing, they can’t be opposites at the same time.”
They’re not opposites, they’re complementary. It’s not hard to see the advantages for National of having people on benefits and having a culture of hating people on benefits.
Poor response from you Anne. I’m not the one trying to talk up misery for beneficiaries, many of them have enough hardship to deal without being labeled and used dishonestly as political footballs.
“I’m not the one trying to talk up misery for beneficiaries, many of them have enough hardship to deal without being labeled and used dishonestly as political footballs.”
No, you’re the one trying to talk down the shit that beneficiaries are subjected to because it doesn’t suit your world view or privileged position in the world. Try listening to the experiences of beneficiaries and see how markedly that differs from what you perceive.
Nope. Several people here have claimed things and so far they’ve failed to back up those claims. They haven’t even tried to back up the claims, instead trying standard diversions.
Plenty of people have given you responses that back up the claim that National create hostility toward those in the most unfortunate circumstances in this country.
Others have realised it is simply a waste of time to do so because you appear to be trolling.
To give you a chance to be a decent human being on this matter and apologise for the idiocy you have been putting forward I provide you this link:
“Every day we hear stories of how people cannot live on the benefit. Today you’re hearing that literally thousands can not only live on it but can afford to travel overseas as well.”
As Minister of Social Development she knows full well that NOONE can save up for overseas travel on a welfare benefit
She knows full well how much savings a person can have while still qualifying for a benefit (I don’t the amount but know some savings still allow one to qualify).
She may also know, like a lot of us do, that people are sometimes given tickets by family members for various reasons.
If she doesn’t know at least the first two points then she is not doing her job properly and what the hell is she making statement like the above for?
She is deceiving the public by making such a statement and she is creating hostility toward those without jobs by misinforming the public
So please no more of this ‘the Nats don’t Bene Bash’ crap. It is a poor reflection on you if you don’t know this is the case already and an extremely poor reflection on you if you do, yet attempt to promote such utter horseshit.
“Nope. Several people here have claimed things and so far they’ve failed to back up those claims. They haven’t even tried to back up the claims, instead trying standard diversions.”
That’s because everyone else here knows what we are talking about, and we also know that supplying back up to you just means another round of mindfucking inanity. The standard is full of examples of how the right in particular promote bashing of beneficiaries. That you can’t see that is about you and how your world view works, nothing to do with us.
In other words, no-one here believes that proving something to you is necessary, because your main role here is that of concern tr*ll and shit stirrer (in the nicest, centrist kind of way of course).
Now, you can disagree with the perceptions of most of the other people here, no problem with that, but don’t trying to frame this as ‘there is no proof’, because there is proof, we’re just not going to do your homework for you. You demanding proof is just another example of your disingenuous approach.
Beneficiary bashing has been the subject of many comments and posts in the past on TS. It’d be very time consuming to repeat it all every time it’s commented on.
But I would expect anyone into fact checking, would have a wide general knowledge of current issues. bennie bashing and prejudices against people on benefits, or unemployed or poor, is one that has got some news coverage lately. I would expect anyone who was interested in such things would do a bit of their own research,and not expect others to do the research for them.
It wasn’t me who made the claims. Should any claims pass go unchallenged here?
It’s easy to claim ‘bennie bashing’, but that’s diverting from the original claims.
“Why do the NACTs promote and enable welfare dependency to such an extent?”
“They stir up hate and prejudice against beneficiaries”
“It’s not hard to see the advantages for National of having people on benefits and having a culture of hating people on benefits.”
There are advantages in having some people on benefits, but I don’t see these claims anywhere near justified.
Instead I see deliberate stirring up of hate and prejudice against National.
I think emotive overstating and making claims that most people would see as ridiculous are counterproductive. It would be far better to make good arguments for providing better support for those who need to be on benefits, and support initiatives to assist and encourage people off benefits as both Labour and National governments have done.
Labeling, name calling and making questionable claims don’t help beneficiaries at all.
“They stir up hate and prejudice against beneficiaries”
I don’t think they do that, and I don’t think there’s any evidence that there’s any intent to do that. In other words, I think that’s a nonsense claim.
“Instead I see deliberate stirring up of hate and prejudice against National.”
Yeah that’s right Pete. There is no bene bashing culture in NZ* that is promoted by National, but there is a terrible National bashing culture on the standard. Poor National of course have done nothing to deserve this.
*There is no depression in NZ either.
Keep it up mate, the more we see your values and perceptions of the world the better. You are dangerous, so making that apparent is a good thing.
I think emotive overstating and making claims that most people would see as ridiculous are counterproductive. It would be far better to make good arguments for providing better support for those who need to be on benefits, and support initiatives to assist and encourage people off benefits as both Labour and National governments have done.
Labeling, name calling and making questionable claims don’t help beneficiaries at all.
All I can say to that is go fuck yourself you rabid, blind, self-serving, egotistical, leftist-hating, conformist, sanctimonious prick.
You are the last person on this forum to have any idea about what is helpful to beneficiaries. The more I see of what you write and do here, and the more you insist on peddling your centrist, holier than thou hypocrisy to the detriment of this forum and the left in general, when so many people want you to just fuck off, the more I think your actual role here is to destablise left wing discourse. Whether you are conscious that that is what you do, I don’t know. But it is what you do.
If you don’t feel emotion in response to what is happening in NZ, then fuck off.
If you don’t bother to read karol’s links and see what we are actually talking about, then fuck off.
And if you want to tell us how we should be discussing politics in NZ when you still have no idea what we are on about, then you can fuck off in triplicate.
[Except for the bit about destabilizing left wing discourse. He’s been distracting people but I wouldn’t give him any credit for destabilizing discourse – he is, however, severely destabilizing his own and Politicheck’s reputation if my shift in view is anything to go by.]
Agree about his own reputation (silver linings and all that).
I think the distracting is destabilising, but it’s worse than that. He’s a trll, and the function of the trll is to disrupt in anyway he can. Going into an election… can you imagine what it will be like if he is still here a month or a week before the election? How much time and energy will be wasted between now and then countering his bullshit? Not an ordinary tr*ll, because they don’t tend to last, they get banned (and unfortunately for us PG might just manage to be smart enough to not get banned again).
And not an ordinary right winger, because at least even though their views might be daft or repugnant, they’re reasonably competent at having an argument. PG is a clusterfuck of communication, just about every time.
If you think that exaggerated attacks and dumping on anyone who suggests being so negative mightn’t be the best of looks will appeal to disillusioned and non-voters and will get you the election result you want good luck with that.
No wonder the Greens are frustrated that when they have their best chance ever to make a significant difference the allies they need look like bitter old loners.
“If you think that exaggerated attacks and dumping on anyone who suggests being so negative mightn’t be the best of looks will appeal to disillusioned and non-voters and will get you the election result you want good luck with that.”
You’re not being dumped on because you made a suggestion. You’re being dumped on because you are tr*ll and insist on taking up so much space with so much inanity.
I really think you quite misunderstand what this forum is for, lolz.
“No wonder the Greens are frustrated that when they have their best chance ever to make a significant difference the allies they need look like bitter old loners.”
Oooh, PG, friend of the GP now. Or concern tr*ll 🙄
The underlying values are as important as the evidence.
And the evidence is often detailed and requires time to digest – and can’t fully be captured in some quick sound bites, or easily quotable stats.
[Edit]
PG doesn’t seem interested in any in depth research like that of Dr Marriott, who compared the treatment of tax fraud with that of beneficiary fraud.
The research finds that tax offences are perceived as less serious when compared to other similar offences, such as benefit fraud, when measured by the likelihood of receiving a custodial sentence. Tax offences are significantly less likely to receive a custodial sentence than blue-collar offending and more likely to be given community work by way ofpunishment. The research also finds tax prosecutions are unlikely to act as a significant deterrent for non
-compliant taxpayers,with few custodial sentences and minimal reparation via the prosecution process.
He doesn’t respond to citing such evidence, then just comes back the next day with more questions to use up people’s time. Puts more time into his comments – lacking very much evidence from him, but keeps asking us to put our time into finding evidence than he ever does.
“The underlying values are as important as the evidence.”
+1 (in triplicate 😉 ) karol.
“And the evidence is often detailed and requires time to digest – and can’t fully be captured in some quick sound bites, or easily quotable stats.”
Very true. It’s not like Pete hasn’t seen all the discussion already about things like bene bashing. Now he uses the fact check thing as a shield for his own bullshit, which beggars belief given his role at Politicheck. Sometimes I think he is genuinely ignorant (cannabis), and other times I think he is just disingenuous in the extreme (bene bashing) and instead of stating up front his own ideas, he expects other people to provide evidence of proof for anything he doesn’t agree with.
Look what happens when I go out for the day!! Thank you to a large number supportive commentators, Nacts promoting welfare dependancy appears to hit a right wing nerve..
As for the second bit about the DPB, Pete may be being a bit shallow here too, as demographics look like the answer here. As the baby boomers age and smaller generations come along the figure will drop just anyway. Like to fact check that Pete??
The mind set change, one person is quoted, the rest probably too despeartely overworked to have time to think. Second fact check for Pete, -have you bought up children as a single parent?
Once a group calling itself single parents trust would have been supporting single parents, helping them with their lives, not reducing them to numbers in paid work.
It sounds as if its dedicated to getting them into some sort of job. Parents don’t talk to it much about anything else because it’s not their kaupapa.
Claire Trevett has written an article about a simple question asked by Dr Prasad about the ruling allowing Nigella to visit NZ. The heading implies that this is a big issue with the Labour Party. This is all part of the plan to paint Labour as focussing on the irrelevant. The article in itself is trivial and the headline misleading. This is yet another example of poor and biased journalism.
On the flipside I really don’t understand why he has bothered to comment on it. Imho its a trivial matter and immigration has made the right decision. He could have said as much rather than add his concerns about drug users et al.
Its easy to moan about the herald bias but there comes a point where you shouldn’t give them the stick to hit you with.
Um, I’m not sure you understand how this works: right wing hack phones Labour MP and asks a question on some trivial matter of policy that happens to be their portfolio: reports comment as though it were unsolicited.
Compare and contrast with the subjects of press-releases actually issued by the Labour Party: it’s not hard: you can find them over there to the right.
My point been if a right wing hack rings you for comment on a trivial matter like this you say im sure immigration officials have made a considered decision and leave it at that. No need for the worried about drug users et al that gets misconstrued and spun into a story.
The Heralds reporting is bias and sensationalist better to not fall into the trap and give them a bone so to speak…
Agreed. Another very clumsy PR effort! For heavens sake don’t they get any coaching? Media bias doesn’t cut it. Some Labour politicians have been very good with the media.
At the moment from Cunliffe down the performance has been very mediocre. Shane Jones has at least generated positive headlines even if he did get a rebuke for his efforts on the Greens!
Time to dust off Brian Edwards retainer!
Did Cameron send you with instructions on what to say? Honestly you guys are so predictable. You are like the borg. Can’t at least you think for yourself before you comment?
Claire Trevett is one of the worst offenders IMO. Fabulous National Party publicity hack. Picks up on trivialities all aimed at making Labour look bad. It’s all well and good saying Labour shouldn’t give them opportunities, but that would be impossible. Everyone gets it “wrong” at some point. Its inevitable. But there’s getting it wrong in a serious way and getting it wrong in a trivial way.
CT brought us such fabulous pieces of journalism such as Key cracks a joke (in Hong Kong), dont we all love the Royals and who cares what they cost!
The former NSW Premier Neville Wran has died. I guess he wasn’t that well known this side of the Tasman, but he was a significant figure in the rebuilding of Labor after the constitutional coup in ’73. He was able to combine environmentalism and practicality in his approach to the job of growing the NSW economy and infrastructure in a way that should probably be replicated in NZ.
None of that is true, Phil, particularly the implication that he was responsible for the endemic corruption in NSW.
For a start, the nickname was given to him by a fellow lawyer, decades before he entered politics (employment law, not criminal law, btw).
As a polly he was accused of dodgy dealing with the Balmain league club, but cleared.
Now, you don’t get to run the NSW Labor party without being a headkicker (to use his phrase), but he did a hell of a lot of good. The SMH has a good summary of his achievements:
“However, he counted among his achievements the introduction of democratic elections to the upper house; ending systematic destruction of rainforests and giving them World Heritage protection; a $2 billion integrated transport system including the Eastern Suburbs rail line and electrification of the Newcastle and Wollongong lines; finishing what Mr Whitlam had started by ”creating a multicultural society in which all people are equal”; and revolutionising government administration.
His government also claimed credit for extending parliamentary terms to four years; disclosure of MPs’ pecuniary interests and public funding of election campaigns; establishing a ministry of Aboriginal affairs; introducing anti-discrimination laws and the Equal Opportunities Tribunal; commissioning the Richmond report into mental health; introducing random breath testing; establishing an internal unit to investigate police corruption; liquor laws allowing Sunday trading.”
Everyone knew him as Nifty. It was his nickname. Now provide the evidence that he was responsible for the corruption. Or just quit while you’re behind.
..that wran headed a totally corrupt administration for twelve years..
..yet himself was corruption-free..?”
I didn’t make that claim, but I did point out that the one time he was accused of corrup behaviour he was exonerated. Now would be a good time for you to put up the evidence that he was corrupt.
In my modest observation the Aussies are a lot more honest about the way they do politics than we are. At least in Aus you know politics is a hard-ball, in your face business.
NZ likes to pretend we’re lily-white when it comes to corruption – but I’m beginning to think that behind closed doors and out of sight from the public we’re in many ways worse than Aus.
This is what happens when you privatise energy companies. Short term profits for the shareholders come first.
Power prices are soaring “out of control” on the eve of winter, with some companies hiking prices up a “staggering” 9 per cent in one month, Labour says.
Shearer based his assertions on data from the PowerSwitch website, which tracks national power prices.
The latest PowerSwitch figures show significant price rises from March to April across the country.
Christchurch appears to have been hit the hardest, with two companies, Nova and Powershop, recording price increases of more than 9 per cent for the month.”
I guess Simon Bridges will pretend the problem doesn’t exist.
Predictably, yes.
“However, Bridges discredited Shearer’s claims as “scaremongering”.
The majority of New Zealand’s power retailers increased their prices on April 1 every year and the Powerswitch data “captures that increase”, Bridges said.
The inflation economy, every year the power companies, Generators, Lines, and Retailers increase the value of their assets in a little book keeping exercise,
All three arms of electricity generation and supply then base the ‘price’ of electricity on the increased value of their assets,( 3% increased ‘value’ of assets across the 3 arms of generation and supply leads to a 9% increase in cost to the end user),
i cannot though fathom how the proposed single desk buyer of wholesale electricity will stop either the lines companies or the retailers from continuing with this ‘abusive practice,
My view is that the ‘single desk’ buyer model ‘assumes’ that there is ‘competition’ in either the lines companies and the retailers of electricity,
This assumption is patently untrue as the whole system is being operated as a Cartel where ‘paper savings’ by the consumer are really only imaginary as the retailers play their little game of ‘leap-frog’ with pricing…
You have to question why, when electricity companies put their not insubstantial mark up on the variable rates, why they have to mark up the daily rate as well.
The Daily Rate is supposed to be the fixed rate cost that is levied by the local lines network company. In Wellington for most people this should be $.90 per day. Most retailers are charging around the $2/day mark. Before the line charges went up on 1 April, retailers were charging around $1.15, and the line network only charged $0.15c p/day. This will be the same story around most of the country – one of the few exceptions I can think of are those on a low user plan. People with a standard plan (with no fixed rates) will be the most impacted.
The Variable Rate is a bit different as retailers claim this rate includes their own costs – and where they should add on their charges. In Wellington the variable rate from the lines company is .0875. Retailers charge anywhere between .22 – 29c
Why then are retailers allowed to add on hefty amounts to the daily rates when theoretically this charge is levied for the exclusive benefit of lines companies. If the fixed daily rate was passed on at cost this would save consumers around $300 – $400 per year.
Note: for simplicity I refer only to those charges for consumers on a standard user plan that isn’t a fixed deal.
And if you look at the Wellington Regional council’s annual plan they look like they want to aggregate water assets. So here comes the next one. submissions still open.
Don’t limit such activities to only those within the power industry, have a look at other utility providers such as water . Eg waterways or before that manukau water with water increasing by 100% when the billing period was compressed from twice yearly to quarterly , and then again doubled when watercare then reverted to monthly billing. All legit and based on revaluation of the asset base.
No longer fully owned by the state, so now beholden to corporate interests.
When 100% owned by the state! shareholders were the government so long term planning possible.
Now minority shareholders want good dividends.
Let’s try debating mr naki without resorting to personal insults.
No say at all apart from certain legal obligations that the company must meet. I’m sure Naki Man was just about to mention those, weren’t you Naki Man?
”US taxpayers would need to pay and average of $1259 more a year to make up for Federal and State taxes lost to Corporations and Individuals sheltering money in overseas tax havens according to a report”,
”Tax haven abusers benefit from America’s markets, public infrastructure, educated workforce, security and rule of law– all supported in onme way or another by tax dollars– but they avoid paying for these benefits”, Us public interest research group said in a report released today, the deadline for filing 2013 taxes,
Who would have thunk it, the total amount of tax fraud is estimated to be nearly $200 million dollars annually which is around 5% of the total US tax take,
Sounds remarkably like the New Zealand tax rort, not surprising as we operate our businesses in a mimic of the US system to a certain extent and with the latest figures showing a ”slow” tax take here in New Zealand for the current financial year of around a billion dollars i would suggest tx fraud here mirrors the US experience of 5% of the total tax take being fraudulently withheld by those with the ability to defraud the system…
Someone please explain to him that he’s just said he wants to punish a woman who hasn’t got any convictions but has had the misfortune of having her past private life dragged through the media by a vindictive ex-husband who was abusing her.
Honestly if Labour were a person this repeated self-harming would be seen as a cry for help.
Have you actually read the article properly? Because I agree with every word Prasad says. It seems to be different treatment by the state services according to one’s wealth or celebrity status, we already see a lot of it in courts and now with immigration too.
Actually, Prasad essentially says “it is terrible that celebrities are given different preferential status, which I’m sure didn’t happen here, but when it does, and it didn’t here, it is terrible.”
Actually I’m pretty sure that anyone regardless of weath or status can have their situation reviewed by NZ officials. Seems? Do you work for Customs? Immigration? What makes you the expert?
Basically Nigella has obviously been red flagged because the Yanks are puritan hypocrites, she has asked for a review of her case, and an exemption has been granted because she doesn’t have any criminal convictions (unlike, say, Dotcom, who has convictions but effectively bribed the feckless National government). Labour getting involved at all is counterproductive and really not a good look in the final approach to an election.
The Herald acts as a shill for the ACT Party.
No investigative skills shown by journalist Sophie Ryan, no questions posed of a crime policy that has already failed the west. Just an appeal to redneck opinion. Repeating ACT policy is not journalism
What a rag.
Did you know that the NZ Auditor-General Lyn Provost is a shareholder in Sky City, but she failed to disclose this when I asked her do an inquiry into why the Organised and Financial Crime Agency of NZ (OFCANZ) had failed to do any due diligence on the increased risk of money-laundering arising from the NZ International Convention Centre Bill?
That the House conduct an urgent inquiry into why New Zealand Auditor-General Lyn Provost did not disclose that she was a shareholder in Sky City Entertainment Group Ltd at the time she declined to conduct an urgent investigation into the failure of the Organised and Financial Crime Agency of New Zealand to carry out ‘due diligence’ on the increased risk of money-laundering arising from the New Zealand International Convention Centre (Bill) 2013.
Petition number: 2011/101
Presented by: Denis O’Rourke
Date presented: 12 March 2014
Referred to: Finance and Expenditure Committee
Quite a BIGGIE don’t you think?
Particularly when the Office of the Auditor General is the ‘Platinum’ sponsor of Transparency International New Zealand?
New Zealand’s national integrity system remains fundamentally strong, and New Zealand is
rated highly against a broad range of cross-country transparency and good governance
indicators. Since the first NIS assessment of New Zealand in 2003, a welcome strengthening
of transparency and accountability has occurred in some areas.
The assessment found that the strongest pillars in the NIS are the Office of the Auditor General, the judiciary, the Electoral Commission, and the Ombudsman. …..”
Oh dear ….
Have yet to see any public comment from Transparency International NZ (TINZ) on this
above-mentioned petition for an Inquiry into the NZ Auditor General – their “CORNERSTONE PLATINUM SPONSOR” …..
Finance and Expenditure Chairperson Goldsmith, Paul National Party, List
Finance and Expenditure Deputy-Chairperson Barry,Maggie National Party, North Shore
Finance and Expenditure Member Bennett, David National Party, Hamilton East
Finance and Expenditure Member Clark, David Labour Party, Dunedin North
Finance and Expenditure Member Hayes, John National Party, Wairarapa
Finance and Expenditure Member Jones, Shane Labour Party, List
Finance and Expenditure Member Norman, Russel Green Party, List
Finance and Expenditure Member Parker, David Labour Party, List
Finance and Expenditure Member Peters, Winston NZ First, List
Finance and Expenditure Member Ross, Jami-Lee National Party, Botany
Finance and Expenditure Member Wilkinson, Kate National Party, Waimakariri
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Image Credit: Wild Rose College A new study reporting the ranges of values for kidney and liver parameters in a healthy population is being actively misrepresented by anti-fluoride campaigners. The Fluoride Action Network’s (FAN) latest ...
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by Don Franks Way back when British guitar virtuoso Joe Brown was a beginning session guy he got to back a visiting American artist. Young Joe was an able technician but had yet to learn some points of professionalism. Part way through “Five foot high and rising” Joe tired of ...
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The excuses about a reportedly unwanted $57,000 payrise for Dunedin City Council CEO Sue Bidrose are laughable, says the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union. ...
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This Saturday, Pakuranga Hunt Day at the Ellerslie Racecourse will see anti-horse racing protesters demonstrating at the corner of Ascot Avenue and Greenlane East. ...
Mayoral candidate John Tamihere will meet with Pacific Island leaders and community elders today at Puhunui Reserve in South Auckland to commit to a Pasefika Cultural Centre. ...
Cruel and invalid Forced Swim Tests carried out at Victoria University of Wellington, will be exposed at the University Open Day today, so prospective students can be warned about the flawed and unethical research being conducted at the institute. ...
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The Council of Licenced Firearm Owners (COLFO) is urging firearms owners to pass on information to the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Attack on Christchurch Mosques now that the period for submissions has been extended to 27 September. ...
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The AA is calling on the Government to bring forward critical highway projects while time is spent properly developing the plans for a rapid transit system in Auckland. ...
Between 2015/16 and 2017/18, DHBs spent $280 million treating patients due to adverse drug reactions, reveals the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union in its latest briefing paper on health productivity . ...
The Pay Equity Coalition Auckland (PECA) is pleased the gender pay gap has decreased slightly. Statistics released today show the gap is now 11.9%, nearly 2 percent less than last year. ...
The Council of Licenced Firearm Owners (COLFO) is urging firearms owners to make sure they pass on any information they have to the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Attack on Christchurch Mosques before submissions close tomorrow (Friday). ...
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The Earthquake Commission and Shine Lawyers are delighted to announce that EQC has reached an agreement with the Gibling family, agreeing to cover the cost of repairs of remaining earthquake damage on their property. ...
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While Fish & Game New Zealand is pleased to see Federated Farmers Environment Spokesperson Chris Allen say that 'we all want good, fresh water', he conveniently overlooks some key facts. ...
What: Wellington demo “Save the Amazon Forest/Salve a Amazônia!” When: Friday, 6 September 2019 from 12:30-13:30 Where: Embassy of Brazil in Wellingtona ...
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Jordan Williams, a spokesman for the Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance and its nationwide sister group the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union is slamming Auckland Mayor Phil Goff for his comments today that John Tamihere would need the Government’s support to ...
A ‘one size fits all’, inflexible and punitive regulatory regime for water quality just gets backs - and costs - up and most importantly will not work, Federated Farmers says. ...
Mediation yesterday between secondary principals and the government has resulted in a deal that the principals' negotiating team is recommending to its members. ...
Clubs New Zealand welcomes the decision of Justice Minister Andrew Little to put forward a bill amending the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act to allow all licensed premises to remain open for Rugby World Cup matches. ...
The Australia and New Zealand Ministerial Forum on Food Regulation has ordered a review looking at labelling of added sugars in food and drinks. An option under investigation is ‘a pictorial approach applied to sugary beverages / sugar-sweetened beverages’ ...
Labour market data released by Statistics New Zealand today indicates that a gender pay gap persists in New Zealand, despite improvement in some areas. ...
In the midst of the 6th Great Extinction Event the coalition, STOP Trashing Our Planet is urging voters to take full responsibility for the legacy we are leaving our children. ...
LGNZ will carefully consider the proposed National Policy Statement on Urban Development (NPS-UD) to assess if it meets the Government’s aim of enabling urban development or simply adds more red tape to the planning process. ...
Statistics out today from the Government show that the gender wage imbalance, or gap, in the average wage is 11.9%, a strong 2 percentage point improvement from 13.9% last year. The gender pay imbalance in the median wage is 9.3%. ...
Newstalk ZB Drive host and Herald on Sunday columnist Heather du Plessis-Allan is taking on the challenge of keeping 2019 Auckland Mayoral contenders Phil Goff and John Tamihere in line and on point in tonight’s live NZ Herald Newstalk ZB debate. ...
After twenty years Napier residents have endured heavy sleep and health disruptive noise and air pollution from freight trucks gridlock operations to and from the Napier port and other regions. ...
The EMA says much is riding on the board and chief executive of the new National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) announced by Infrastructure Minister Hon Shane Jones today, with a difficult task ahead to deliver on its purpose. ...
The Public Service Association welcomes the introduction of workplace standards by the State Services Commission that make it clear public services should expect positive and safe workplaces. ...
The Financial Services Federation (FSF) - the voice of responsible lenders and leasing companies - and FinCap - working with consumers facing financial hardship - are signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) this Thursday 22 August in Auckland. It will ...
Wellington, 20 August 2019 — Lawyers for Vulnerable New Zealanders (LVNZ) has lent its support to the amendments proposed by MP Chris Penk to better protect vulnerable people from being coerced to end their lives under the End of Life Choice Bill, currently ...
The Government’s decision to establish and independent Parliamentary Budget Office, outside of Treasury, is a taxpayer victory and will improve democracy, says the New Zealand Taxpayers' Union . Taxpayers' Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke says, “It's ...
The Taxpayers’ Union can reveal that the cost-benefit analysis prepared by Ministry of Transport and used to advise Ministers on the Government’s Clean Car Standard and ‘Feebate’ policies has serious flaws which undermine justifications for the ...
The Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Social Workers (ANZASW) welcomes new proposals for prison reform put forward by the Minister of Corrections and non-government organisations recently. ...
The New Zealand Maori Council has called on the nation to address all forms of racism and not to shy away from an honest conversation about where it’s taking hold. The call comes after the Nelson Club decided to keep a member after his comments became ...
Wellington (20 August 2019): The New Zealand Initiative enthusiastically welcomes the Coalition Government’s announcement of an Independent Parliamentary Budget Office. Finance Minister Grant Robertson and Associate Finance Minister James Shaw ...
Drs Say No agree with Chris Penk’s amendment to protect vulnerable patients from coercion, although the organisation still maintains that no safe euthanasia legislation can ever be drafted and continues to urge MPs to defeat the End of Life Choice Bill. ...
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Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.Today’s content by Dr Bryce Edwards.Ihumātao Delphine Herbert and Dan Satherley (Newshub): Tainui to buy Ihumātao land – sources Danielle ...
Extinction Rebellion takes a tour of downtown Wellington to point out the coal industry stalwarts and ask why they’re still there in the face of a climate emergency. “There are coal companies in Wellington??”That’s the incredulous response every single time we mention taking the public on a tour of the biggest ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachel A. Ankeny, Professor of History and Philosophy, and Deputy Dean Research (Faculty of Arts), University of Adelaide The South Australian government recently announced its intention to lift the long-standing statewide moratorium on genetically modified (GM) crops, following a statutory six-week consultation ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vicki Sentas, Senior Lecturer, UNSW Law, UNSW Being strip searched by the police can be intrusive, humiliating and harmful. Typically, strip searches involve being required to strip naked in front of police officers, who often give the direction to “squat and cough”, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Louise Remond, Clinical Psychologist, University of Technology Sydney Hi, I was just wondering if something’s wrong with me because I’m never happy and never want to do anything and I’m getting really lazy and I really hate school. Thanks – Anonymous ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luke Zaphir, Researcher for the University of Queensland Critical Thinking Project; and Online Teacher at Education Queensland’s IMPACT Centre, The University of Queensland From as early as Grade 3 teachers start teaching children how to put across their own points of view. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Holden, Professor of Economics, UNSW It’s four years since then Prime Minister Tony Abbott warned Australia had been heading to “a Greek-style economic future”. He was referring to what he said had been happening under the previous Labor government. When Labor ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Samia Khatun, Senior Lecturer, SOAS, University of London Some 1,000 kilometres inland from Sydney, over the Blue Mountains, past the trees that drink the tributaries of the Darling River, there stands a little, red mosque. It marks where the desert begins. The ...
Online gambling is growing fast in New Zealand, but critics say new government ideas for regulating websites focus on what's good for the industry, rather than protecting people from harm. ...
An "extreme pro-Beijing" writer has caused controversy in the Chinese community and awkwardness for the Labour Party by standing for political office in Auckland. ...
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Concern about slow progress for major transport projects, smoking researcher under pressure over funding, and hikoi marches from Ihumātao to Ardern’s office.NZTA is struggling to get spending out the door, so the money isn’t flowing through the economy, reports Thomas Coughlan ...
Speaker of the House Trevor Mallard will look at whether people making submissions on proposed law changes should be forced to disclose conflicts of interest. ...
Rugby and league legend Honey Hireme has put all her careers on hold - including her Warriors debut - to take care of her mum, who has terminal cancer. ...
In the ongoing battle to prevent 480 houses being built on ancestral land, a petition with more than 26,000 signatures was delivered to the Prime Minister’s Mt Albert office yesterday. Leonie Hayden was there.Lead by the inimitable Pania Newton, about 100 kaitiaki set off from Ihumātao near Māngere yesterday morning ...
Every scholarship exam and approximately every two external assessments are wrapped in their own single-use plastic bag. We’re asking the NZQA to cut it out, writes year-13 student Sophia HoneyEvery year after an exam, I see the same conversation happen. Friends turn to each other, talk about how difficult that ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Even Scott Morrison, with his abundant self-belief, couldn’t have imagined that on Saturday’s first anniversary of his seizing the prime ministership, he’d be winging his way to France for a G7 meeting, where Australia has ...
A group of students, including some Youth MPs, have been banned from Parliament for a year, after singing a waiata in the public gallery in support of the Ihumātao hīkoi. ...
National MP Nick Smith has lodged a serious accusation against Parliament's Speaker calling him "biased" after once again being booted out of the debating chamber. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sunanda Creagh, Head of Digital Storytelling Last weekend, hundreds of thousands of people again took to the streets in Hong Kong to protest against the government – the 11th straight weekend of demonstrations that began in June over a proposed extradition bill. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Scott Hamilton, Strategic Advisory Panel Member, Australian-German Energy Transition Hub, University of Melbourne Australia’s primary federal renewable energy target – to have 33 terawatts of renewable energy by 2020 – has essentially been achieved. There is much uncertainty as to what is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lewis Mitchell, Senior Lecturer in Applied Mathematics, University of Adelaide I swear by Hypatia, by Lovelace, by Turing, by Fisher (and/or Bayes), and by all the statisticians and data scientists, making them my witnesses, that I will carry out, according to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Blaxland, Professor, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University Just when we thought Australia was getting serious about shifting priorities away from the Middle East to its own neighbourhood, the prime minister has announced another Middle East step up. Australia ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brendan Keogh, ARC DECRA Fellow, Queensland University of Technology In the last three months, the Australian Classification Board has “refused classification” for at least four video games – effectively banning them in Australia. The latest is zombie-survival shooter DayZ. Despite being previously ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Collins, Professor in Nutrition and Dietetics, University of Newcastle The Heart Foundation now recommends full-fat milk, cheese and yoghurt or reduced-fat options as part of its updated dietary advice released yesterday. This moves away from earlier advice that recommended only reduced-fat ...
Business is Boring is a weekly podcast series presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Host Simon Pound speaks with innovators and commentators focused on the future of New Zealand. This week he talks to Paris Georgia co-founders Paris Mitchell Temple and Georgia Cherrie.This week’s podcast features a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Former deputy prime minister Tim Fischer, who has died aged 73 of cancer, leaves a political and personal legacy as a man of courage, conviction and congeniality. The support that Fischer as National Party leader ...
One part telenovela, one part family drama, one part addictive love story. Sam Brooks reviews Jane the Virgin, the great show with an unfortunate name that should be your next Netflix binge.The following piece contains very mild spoilers for Jane the Virgin.While watching the last season of Jane the Virgin, ...
Before Zumba, before Just Dance, before it was cool again to move in public group settings, there was Jump Jam. Madeleine Chapman reflects.Jump Jam entered the lives of New Zealand kids in 2001, a year filled with historic cultural movements. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was released in 2001; ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Felicity Jensz, Research associate professor, University of Münster Donald Trump is not the first US President to make an offer of buying Greenland from Denmark – but he might be the last. Home of some 56,000 people and around 80% covered by ...
We review the entire country and culture of New Zealand, one thing at a time. Today, Tara Ward taste-tests the best hot chips in the country. Everyone loves a hot chip because they’re a) hot, and b) a chip, but there’s nothing more disappointing than a bad chip experience. A ...
Sky Network Television has written down the value of large parts of its business and scrapped paying a dividend as it changes direction to counter falling pay TV subscribers. ...
Open mike 21/04/2014 
Open mike is your post.
Nothing from me tody - I'm off to Christchurch to pretend to be other people for a weekend. Normal bloggage should resume on Tuesday. ...25 mins ago
Spark is bracing for a customer backlash as rugby fans all across the country struggle to get a picture on their wireless router. With the Rugby World Cup fast approaching, an elderly Taranaki couple are furious after being told that they still won’t be able to watch the tournament, even ...13 hours ago
Several explosions have been reported across Auckland, as well-meaning environmentalists have already begun purchasing too much petrol Starting from next week, customers will no longer need a car to purchase petrol directly from the pump, a development that two major fuel providers are billing as an opportunity to help fight ...14 hours ago
A new study claims to find that a mother’s exposure to fluoridated water during pregnancy may decrease the IQ of male children – but is it correct? (Photo: Getty Images) Anti-fluoride campaigners are promoting ... 16 hours ago
Television advertising has a huge impact on our lives. Even if we don’t recognise that, we know it has to be true, since otherwise why would advertisers spend so much on it? Its significance, however, is greater than simply the influence it has on what we purchase and consume. It ...2 days ago
by Jan Rivers More than 30 years ago a Commission of Inquiry was held in New Zealand to investigate, amongst other things, whether women with cervical cancer were aware that they had been part of a research project and whether they were properly informed of the treatment options ...3 days ago
Everyone Wants To Be Fuhrer: When fascist groups are discussed, the image conjured-up in the minds of most New Zealanders is one of pathetic misfits. This negative impression is reinforced by the latter’s idiotic embrace of the swastika. Even in the second decade of the twenty-first century, the baleful legacy ...3 days ago
In the previous two posts, I laid out the context and set the theoretical framework to answer a question: whether indigenous economies should take the LEAP. This final part outlines ways to conceive of practicing mana motuhake within the existing legal system by carving out special jurisdictions that enable Indigenous ...5 days ago
Fully Informed? Labour’s 2017 promises raised expectations that were little short of revolutionary. Unfortunately, they were never adequately shaken through the fiscal sieve. The hard economic work was not done – and it shows. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s critics have long complained that her grasp of the way the New ...5 days ago
You cannot expect to pound communities into the ground day after day, year after year, decade after decade and just expect them to take it lying down. There’s a point at which the place will explode. And we’re faced with some very big ructions on both sides of the Atlantic ...7 days ago
7 days ago
Going Down? Once truth and propaganda become fused in the minds of one’s followers, debate and discussion become redundant. If one’s opponents are all outrageous liars, then engaging with them in any way is pointless. Rather than waste its time, a political party should, instead, target all its messages at ...7 days ago
We need to fundamentally reframe our systems settings to address the drivers causing and underpinning inequality; structural change in systems especially financial. The Equality Network Hui was held in Wellington on 27 June 2019. The hui covered important topics such as child poverty; a living wage; taxation; public health; mental ...1 week ago
The views-per-page for some of my recent postings:Depressing, isn't it? Provide thoughtful and wise commentary on the mainstream of British politics and no-one notices. Make a passing reference to Tommy DICKHEAD Robinson in a thread title and you get hundreds of views. Write something about anti-Semitism and you get another ...1 week ago
The government has announced plans to move the Treaty of Waitangi and other taonga to a new site. Great news! So where are they going? Right next to the old one:The new plan will see a new 22,000-square-metre archive built on the former site of Defence House - the former ...1 week ago
Back in June, StatsNZ went public about a project to track population data on an hourly level by using people's cellphones. It wasn't as bad as it initially looked - they were receiving no individual data, only counts by suburb - but there was still a huge consent problem, so ...1 week ago
I did an interview on the TVNZ Breakfast Show about the situation in Hong Kong. I tried to frame the issue as a collective action problem between two sides with very different end games. The video is here. Because of time constraints we could not discuss the fact that the ...1 week ago
Image Credit: Wild Rose College A new study reporting the ranges of values for kidney and liver parameters in a healthy population is being actively misrepresented by anti-fluoride campaigners. The Fluoride Action Network’s (FAN) latest ... 1 week ago
Alone, Alone. All, All Alone: Will it be a good or a bad thing, when humanity’s bright blue spacecraft is stricken by the civilisation-destroying problem of Climate Change, that no Huston Control will be standing-by to rescue the crew?“WE HAVE A PROBLEM, HUSTON.” These were the words used by the ...1 week ago
Divided Loyalties: Can the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, be relied upon? That’s what the boys and girls at Foggy Bottom and the Pentagon needed to be reassured about. Because, from the perspective of Washington, it’s looking more and more like Jacinda Ardern and her Labour Party comrades are getting ready ...2 weeks ago
This handy Queer Theory Glossary is from thetranswidow.com In case you’ve had trouble keeping up with the spate of new queer theory terms, here’s a handy glossary for your reference. Queer – A straight person with an interesting haircut. Non-binary/genderqueer – A chubby young female, typically 16-28, who has ...2 weeks ago
The winter grazing issue is becoming a highly sensitised one that I hope will not become so politicised that it delays solutions and results in the suicides of some very stressed farmers.Winter grazing has hit the headlines after a determined campaign, including the release of a video of some very ...2 weeks ago
The Green Part has been accused of lack of transparency in two recent situations. The first was the claimed media lockdown during Green's annual conference and the second was Julie Ann Genter's refusal to release a letter she had sent to Phil Twyford.I do get frustrated when journalist's succumb to ...2 weeks ago
Opportunities to dodge tax are shrinking with the completion of a new tax agreement with Switzerland, Revenue Minister Stuart Nash announced today. Mr Nash and the Swiss Ambassador David Vogelsanger have today signed documents to update the double tax agreement (DTA). The previous DTA was signed in 1980. “Double tax ...2 weeks ago
The excuses about a reportedly unwanted $57,000 payrise for Dunedin City Council CEO Sue Bidrose are laughable, says the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union. ...29 mins ago
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.
A community representative in Auckland says she's been sidelined by her peers after posting photos online with Green and Labour party MPs. ...44 mins ago
Extinction Rebellion takes a tour of downtown Wellington to point out the coal industry stalwarts and ask why they’re still there in the face of a climate emergency. “There are coal companies in Wellington??”That’s the incredulous response every single time we mention taking the public on a tour of the biggest ...50 mins ago
Dairy's huge role earning export dollars for New Zealand is facing a threat some say could bring it to its knees. ...2 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vicki Sentas, Senior Lecturer, UNSW Law, UNSW Being strip searched by the police can be intrusive, humiliating and harmful. Typically, strip searches involve being required to strip naked in front of police officers, who often give the direction to “squat and cough”, ...3 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Louise Remond, Clinical Psychologist, University of Technology Sydney Hi, I was just wondering if something’s wrong with me because I’m never happy and never want to do anything and I’m getting really lazy and I really hate school. Thanks – Anonymous ...3 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luke Zaphir, Researcher for the University of Queensland Critical Thinking Project; and Online Teacher at Education Queensland’s IMPACT Centre, The University of Queensland From as early as Grade 3 teachers start teaching children how to put across their own points of view. ...3 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Holden, Professor of Economics, UNSW It’s four years since then Prime Minister Tony Abbott warned Australia had been heading to “a Greek-style economic future”. He was referring to what he said had been happening under the previous Labor government. When Labor ...3 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Samia Khatun, Senior Lecturer, SOAS, University of London Some 1,000 kilometres inland from Sydney, over the Blue Mountains, past the trees that drink the tributaries of the Darling River, there stands a little, red mosque. It marks where the desert begins. The ...3 hours ago
Online gambling is growing fast in New Zealand, but critics say new government ideas for regulating websites focus on what's good for the industry, rather than protecting people from harm. ...3 hours ago
More than 100,000 Chinese citizens have studied in New Zealand in the past 20 years. ...3 hours ago
An "extreme pro-Beijing" writer has caused controversy in the Chinese community and awkwardness for the Labour Party by standing for political office in Auckland. ...4 hours ago
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Concern about slow progress for major transport projects, smoking researcher under pressure over funding, and hikoi marches from Ihumātao to Ardern’s office.NZTA is struggling to get spending out the door, so the money isn’t flowing through the economy, reports Thomas Coughlan ...4 hours ago
New Zealand's only national book sales chart, as recorded by Nielsen BookScan New Zealand and described by Steve Braunias. ...5 hours ago
A ban on fossil fuel vehicle imports from 2035 was set to go to Cabinet, before a change of heart. ...5 hours ago
Rugby and league legend Honey Hireme has put all her careers on hold - including her Warriors debut - to take care of her mum, who has terminal cancer. ...5 hours ago
The IPCC's Mark Howden speaks to Eloise Gibson about Aussie farmers' growing acceptance of climate change and his take on NZ’s methane debate. ...5 hours ago
NZ can't spare naval ships to help a US-led mission near Iran - but there's a good chance we don't need them at all. ...5 hours ago
In the ongoing battle to prevent 480 houses being built on ancestral land, a petition with more than 26,000 signatures was delivered to the Prime Minister’s Mt Albert office yesterday. Leonie Hayden was there.Lead by the inimitable Pania Newton, about 100 kaitiaki set off from Ihumātao near Māngere yesterday morning ...6 hours ago
Every scholarship exam and approximately every two external assessments are wrapped in their own single-use plastic bag. We’re asking the NZQA to cut it out, writes year-13 student Sophia HoneyEvery year after an exam, I see the same conversation happen. Friends turn to each other, talk about how difficult that ...6 hours ago
Polls world wide suggest the Holocaust is being forgotten. A NZ survivor is working to make sure it isn't. ...6 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Even Scott Morrison, with his abundant self-belief, couldn’t have imagined that on Saturday’s first anniversary of his seizing the prime ministership, he’d be winging his way to France for a G7 meeting, where Australia has ...12 hours ago
By distorting the climate truth Federated Farmers is making its members complacent about their performance and blind to the threats they face. ...13 hours ago
ANALYSIS: By Camellia Webb-Gannon of the University of Wollongong Last weekend, the Indonesian police took 43 West Papuan students into custody for allegedly disrespecting the Indonesian flag during an independence day celebration (an allegation the students deny). Police stormed the students’ dorm and used teargas to force them out, ...14 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Scott Hamilton, Strategic Advisory Panel Member, Australian-German Energy Transition Hub, University of Melbourne Australia’s primary federal renewable energy target – to have 33 terawatts of renewable energy by 2020 – has essentially been achieved. There is much uncertainty as to what is ...17 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brendan Keogh, ARC DECRA Fellow, Queensland University of Technology In the last three months, the Australian Classification Board has “refused classification” for at least four video games – effectively banning them in Australia. The latest is zombie-survival shooter DayZ. Despite being previously ...18 hours ago
Government agencies are taking an unconventional approach to family violence solutions. ...18 hours ago
Sky Network Television has bought the rights to put its name on Wellington's Westpac Stadium. ...20 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Collins, Professor in Nutrition and Dietetics, University of Newcastle The Heart Foundation now recommends full-fat milk, cheese and yoghurt or reduced-fat options as part of its updated dietary advice released yesterday. This moves away from earlier advice that recommended only reduced-fat ...20 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Libby Porter, Professor of Urban Planning, Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University The Victorian government has announced it is seeking heritage listing for parts of the Eastern Freeway in Melbourne. We heard this news on Wednesday as we sat under a grandfather ...20 hours ago
A flood and a botched insurance job has left a Howick couple out of their home for almost two years. But it's a story with some strange twists. ...20 hours ago
One part telenovela, one part family drama, one part addictive love story. Sam Brooks reviews Jane the Virgin, the great show with an unfortunate name that should be your next Netflix binge.The following piece contains very mild spoilers for Jane the Virgin.While watching the last season of Jane the Virgin, ...21 hours ago
Before Zumba, before Just Dance, before it was cool again to move in public group settings, there was Jump Jam. Madeleine Chapman reflects.Jump Jam entered the lives of New Zealand kids in 2001, a year filled with historic cultural movements. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was released in 2001; ...22 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Felicity Jensz, Research associate professor, University of Münster Donald Trump is not the first US President to make an offer of buying Greenland from Denmark – but he might be the last. Home of some 56,000 people and around 80% covered by ...22 hours ago
Live updates: Around 150 are taking part in the hīkoi to the PM's electorate office from Ihumātao in a bid to get her to visit the site. ...22 hours ago
We review the entire country and culture of New Zealand, one thing at a time. Today, Tara Ward taste-tests the best hot chips in the country. Everyone loves a hot chip because they’re a) hot, and b) a chip, but there’s nothing more disappointing than a bad chip experience. A ...23 hours ago
Sky Network Television has written down the value of large parts of its business and scrapped paying a dividend as it changes direction to counter falling pay TV subscribers. ...23 hours ago
“Mobil’s response to a Lyttelton Harbour fuel spill is being investigated as the regional council’s harbour master voices concerns about how the oil giant reacted.”
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/9961953/Mobil-in-port-oil-spill-inquiry
No doubt Simon Bridges will be either ignorant of the issue or blithely unconcerned.
As long as he don’t use it to show how good we are at mopping up other peoples screw ups.
Mobil didn’t even have a tank to pump the shit into, it was pumped into another companies tank.
“Dilley said other tank farm operators from NZ Oil Services Ltd helped at the site.
They, not Mobil, provided a tank to hold the fuel being pumped from outside and inside the bund,”
He probably doesn’t even know where Lyttelton Harbour is.
Living wage pays off for business
Chalmers Organics was one of the first small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) to adopt the living wage, which pays a minimum of $18.80 an hour for all staff, in response to Living Wage Aotearoa’s campaign launched in March last year.
One year after the living wage was phased in staff turnover was non-existent, morale was up and the workforce is proud to work for the company. “Employees are more engaged and point out inefficiencies, which is vital for a small venture, because we can’t afford to invest in bigger systems. We rely on staff,” she said.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/9961603/Living-wage-pays-off-for-business
Good on this company. So a business can do well fine and pay the living wage. Amazing what a motivated staff can do.
It would be great if massive companies like supermarkets, retirement homes, cleaning companies and fast food corporations also paid the living wage.
They could lose just a tiny bit of their enormous profits.
And it would be great to have a PM who cared for our most vulnerable workers.
But then what to do you expect from a money trader?
This, predictably.
“Prime Minister John Key has defended wages paid to Parliament’s cleaners – and says there is no reason they should be paid more than other cleaners.”
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/9117450/Living-wage-promise-could-cost-2-5b-Key
Good on Chalmers Organics!
Am keeping an eye out for their products which will be a priority on the shopping list:
http://www.commonsenseorganics.co.nz/suppliers/fridge-goods-dairy-alternatives/chalmers-organics
Agreed, Jim. Good on them.
Here is the direct link to Chalmers organics – TONZU ltd.as your link is to Commonsense Organics (another great company).
http://www.tonzu.co.nz
The Tonzu link also has a full list of their stockists, as well as recipes for their products.
The Beast bares its fangs!!!, from the Herald online comes the story of an Easter egg ‘drop’ sponsored by a Church and a major choclate manufacturer,
3 helicopter ‘drops’ of Easter eggs in the Auckland area, advertised beforhand as an Easter egg hunt for kids resulted in 1000’s turning out for the occasion,
Not shy it appears that a large number of adults joined in the ‘fun’ snatching Easter eggs from the hands of children,scratching some in the frenzy and in one case stomping on the hand of one child who was taken to an A and E,
i can only imagine the uglyness that would have been exhibited had the ‘prize’ been of more value than a simple Easter egg…
Great story. Pity the likes of JK can’t see the downstream effects of low wages
. Look at some of the bills and debates before parliament, everything from food in schools to warrants for rental housing. Large amounts of this would not be needed if incomes were spread more evenly so people would have enough funds to upgrade their own lives. And this is without going near the arguements about welfare subsidising employers.
Why do the NACTs promote and enable welfare dependency to such an extent?
Money. They have a price.
In return for their comfortable houses and baches, their overseas holidays and private school fees, they get the chance to sell the country to overseas corporate interests.
Why do the NACTs promote and enable welfare dependency to such an extent?
I call bull on that. In other threads National are accused on beneficiary bashing, they can’t be opposites at the same time. I don’t see any evidence that any party promotes low wages. Higher wages and fewer benefits are better for business.
This from NZH on Saturday: ‘Mindset change’ cuts benefit roll
More people working and more people earning more benefits everyone.
National, Labour and Greens all understand this, they just have different ideas on how to try and achieve it.
They just have different levels of competence, and no-one expects you to understand that.
“I don’t see any evidence that any party promotes low wages.”
You aren’t looking very hard, then….
Bill English
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/4869938/Low-wages-advantage-for-NZ-English
John Hayes, National MP, 5 June 2013
“ I think we should celebrate because a rise in the minimum wage in Australia makes our labour force more competitive and will be helpful in attracting investment and jobs to New Zealand. A driver from the Australian perspective is that the New Zealand labour force is well educated, more productive and less unionised than their Australian counterparts.”
That’s not promoting low wages, it’s comparing our bottom end wages to Australia’s and points out some advantages in that.
We do have to be careful about pushing wages up too high and pricing ourselves out of international markets.
I haven’t seen anything suggesting National wants to keep wages low or push them lower. The minimum wage has been increased year by year. The rate of rise can be debated, but I don’t think there’s a valid claim that National want to keep people poor and on benefits.
Wilful ignorance.
+1
..+ 1..
..and every word a lie/rightwing spin..
In the words of the Tui Billboard add Pete…………..”Yeah right”
Pete George stop being so logical and correct in saying that National are constantly raising the minimum wage whilst sustaining employment growth. Stop pointing out that thousands of mothers are getting off benefits and into work, stop pointing out that wages are rising more than inflation. Such logic goes against the fingers in the ears, hear no good news nihilism of those still on the Left. The good news is that they are diminishing in number. It’s encouraging that so many ex-Labour voters are changing to National especially in South Auckland. It’s encouraging when Tariana Turia says that Labour do not deserve Maori votes. I sense a turning point in NZ political history.
Fisi, if you’re going to ride to Petty George’s rescue, is a barrel of red herrings the best noble steed you can muster?
Your lady will more likely turn up her nose than take your proffered assistance.
So are you fine with us being a sweatshop economy?
Do you think we should ban unions?
Strawman argument . Try again.
Have you stopped beating your wife?……..
“Have you stopped beating your wife?……..”
Fishy Fishy Have you???
Keep up the good work Pete. These fools from the left can’t stand the truth.
The good work of obfuscating, you mean.
You and the rest of the RWNJs are the only ones who hide from it and deny it’s reality.
So you want to bring back slavery then. Bet you would fire all your workers if they tried to join a union.
Really? open your fucking eyes
Even if the comment was 6 or 7 years ago (link in the article if you want to count months), an exlicit statement would, for most people, count as “suggesting” that fuckwits might have a specific fuckwit objective.
Crikey, not fact-checking PG again are you McFlock ;-p
just in passing. 🙂
“I haven’t seen anything suggesting National wants to keep wages low or push them lower. The minimum wage has been increased year by year. The rate of rise can be debated, but I don’t think there’s a valid claim that National want to keep people poor and on benefits.”
If the increase in wages doesn’t at least keep up with the cost of living, then that is equivalent to wages not increasing or decreasing. What you have just said is vacuous.
btw, WINZ benefits are deliberately set at below the poverty line. Any govt that maintains that is keeping people poor.
Not sure how it can be avoided setting benefit levels statistically lower then people who are employed. I’m not sure than any of the larger parties are suggesting that should be substantially changed.
The aim is to raise people’s income by getting them into employment .
I presume you know that if the minimum wage was raised by 50% and work was provided for anyone who wants it then we’d still have the same number of people under the statistical poverty line.
Nope.
The poverty line you refer to is 60% of the median wage.
Yep. At least, that’s the one used internationally. NZ doesn’t have an official poverty line. The OEDC uses it. And now PG seems to be repeating WO or KB spin. The number of people, or rather proportion of people, under the poverty line does change over time. Depends on how wages are spread around the median.
The US also measures poverty threshold:
And the percentage of people deemed to be living in poverty in the US; has been increasing in the last couple of decades. In 2012 it was at the highest level since 1993.
60% median household income.
2013 median annual household income = $69,249
Weekly median = $799.03
Hourly = $20.
Minimum wage = $14.25/hr
Half of that is $7 and change.
If everyone on minimum wage got increased to $21/hr, they’d be >60% median
Give the currently unemployed 40 hours a week, and they’d be above 60% median.
The median would increase to $21/hr, but the number of people under the poverty line would decrease as the wadge of currently poor people get closer to the average income (although those relying on benefits due to sickness, or kicked off benefits because WINZ suck, would still be in poverty).
Be fair McF. You know the spin doesn’t work if you apply facts.
“Not sure how it can be avoided setting benefit levels statistically lower then people who are employed.”
Benefits were cut by $20/wk in 1990. In the mid 80s the unemployment benefit was around the same rate as what school leavers were earning going into office jobs. We used to have relatively higher benefit rates then, why can’t we now?
“I’m not sure than any of the larger parties are suggesting that should be substantially changed.”
The GP want a UBI.
“The aim is to raise people’s income by getting them into employment.”
That disqualifies you from having any opinion on beneficiaries until you answer the question: how many beneficiaries are not required to seek/gain employment?
Then you will have to answer how many people are now required to see work, despite previously being exempt.
Then come back and explain how those people are supposed to live. And why those people aren’t entitled to a livable income.
Then explain why you think that beneficiaries are all unemployed.
And then explain how unemployed beneficiaries are supposed to raise their income via employment when there aren’t enough jobs.
Then, when youve done all that, retract your statement that NACT don’t keep people poor.
“I presume you know that if the minimum wage was raised by 50% and work was provided for anyone who wants it then we’d still have the same number of people under the statistical poverty line.”
What everyone else just said. Plus, you’re a dick. If the people at the bottom end of the scale have enough to live on, then poverty stops being an issue irrespective of the statistics.
+a zillion weka
Excellent.
I said I don’t think National want to keep people poor. But you’re right claiming National keep people poor. Labour have and would keep people poor. Greens would keep people poor. Some people keep themselves poor.
I agree with giving some poor people more to live on. That’s not easy, but it’s made substantially easier if a lot more people are encouraged and assisted off benefits.
If the benefit budget is significantly reduced that makes it easier to provide for those who need it.This excludes Government created and paid for jobs which increases Government expenditure.
My questioning of statements like “Why do the NACTs promote and enable welfare dependency to such an extent?” stand.
I don’t believe they promote welfare dependency. Neither do Labour.
🙄
🙄
You’re completely ignoring reality but that’s to be expected of RWNJs.
🙄 🙄 🙄
How’s that weekly budget for poor people coming along Pete ?
I realise it is a complex thing to engineer without looking like a $2 shop tool but you are Pete George, the man with the plan! Where is the budget Pete?
You are Editor in Chief at the fact checking site called Politicheck.
Are facts not an essential item for your researchers to have on hand?
How do you plan to check the veracity of Government statements about poverty, incomes and expenditure if you do not have a clear understanding of the weekly budgets required of people who inhabit the lowest levels of our economy?
‘In other threads National are accused on beneficiary bashing, they can’t be opposites at the same time.’
Of course they can. They stir up hate and prejudice against beneficiaries in order to reinforce rightwing ideas about individualism, and at the same time in practice they encourage economic conditions which favour short-term profiteering by businesses – keeping wages down through attacks on workers’ rights, maintaining a large pool of desperate unemployed people, and diverting government funding to subsidies on business such as Working for Families and wage subsidies paid to companies like McDonald’s.
It’s all completely consistent, and not exactly difficult to observe.
“They stir up hate and prejudice against beneficiaries”
I don’t think they do that, and I don’t think there’s any evidence that there’s any intent to do that. In other words, I think that’s a nonsense claim.
Some opponents try to talk up “hate and prejudice against beneficiaries”, which arguably is more damaging for beneficiaries. It’s worse than claiming Greens are anti-growth (which I don’t wholly agree with), and is dishonest or ignorant.
🙄
“Opponents” like that communist Guyon Espiner, for example.
Cite?
April 13th 2014, Fairfax media.
That says nothing. Can’t you cite your claim?
Guyon Espiner, April 13th, Fairfax media:
“…beneficiaries can’t afford defamation lawyers. And they probably don’t vote National.”
“…In one of the more gratuitous examples of this, Social Development Minister Paula Bennett recently trumpeted…”
“… the dog-whistle to the small-minded…”
As for a link, find your own, Petty George, and please please ignore what Bill told you.
Ha 😆 it was his brother Colin. That communist.
“I don’t think they do that, and I don’t think there’s any evidence that there’s any intent to do that. In other words, I think that’s a nonsense claim.”
In other words, “I think, therefore the world is the way I think it is” 🙄
Hi Pete George,
John Key described some on the DPB as “breeding for a business” in 2002.
I think it’s reasonable to suggest that such comments do stir up hate and prejudice against beneficiaries by echoing back derogatory remarks towards beneficiaries (i.e., ‘breeding for a business’) commonly used by some New Zealanders.
Obviously, that comment was used by someone in the National Party – their current leader.
Pete George, you don’t think, full stop. What do you think about all the beneficiaries jetsetting to luxury resorts on the taxpayers’ dollar? What did you think of this grave problem the day before Paula Benefat started talking about it?
If I were feeling charitable, I’d label you a gormless fool. I’m not. You have one or two gorms after all, but the most dishonest PM of all time is your role model. This is not really a step up from Dunne worship.
are you still pretending you dont know who you are going to vote for?
That disqualifies you from having any opinion on beneficiaries until you answer the question: how many beneficiaries are not required to seek/gain employment?
Then you will have to answer how many people are now required to see work, despite previously being exempt.
Then come back and explain how those people are supposed to live. And why those people aren’t entitled to a livable income.
Then explain why you think that beneficiaries are all unemployed.
And then explain how unemployed beneficiaries are supposed to raise their income via employment when there aren’t enough jobs.
Then, when youve done all that, retract your statement that NACT don’t keep people poor.
“I presume you know that if the minimum wage was raised by 50% and work was provided for anyone who wants it then we’d still have the same number of people under the statistical poverty line.”
What everyone else just said. Plus, you’re a dick. If the people at the bottom end of the scale have enough to live on, then poverty stops being an issue irrespective of the statistics.
to the last line, yep, and, nope.
Why do the NACTs promote and enable welfare dependency to such an extent?
“I call bull on that. In other threads National are accused on beneficiary bashing, they can’t be opposites at the same time.”
They’re not opposites, they’re complementary. It’s not hard to see the advantages for National of having people on benefits and having a culture of hating people on benefits.
What are “the advantages for National of having people on benefits and having a culture of hating people on benefits”?
🙄
Don’t answer anyone cos he knows the answer.
What a miserable life PG must lead if this is the way he has to get his kicks…
..+1..
Poor response from you Anne. I’m not the one trying to talk up misery for beneficiaries, many of them have enough hardship to deal without being labeled and used dishonestly as political footballs.
Here’s a little message from a beneficiary George, 🙄 then, 🙄 along with 🙄 …
“I’m not the one trying to talk up misery for beneficiaries, many of them have enough hardship to deal without being labeled and used dishonestly as political footballs.”
No, you’re the one trying to talk down the shit that beneficiaries are subjected to because it doesn’t suit your world view or privileged position in the world. Try listening to the experiences of beneficiaries and see how markedly that differs from what you perceive.
Nope. Several people here have claimed things and so far they’ve failed to back up those claims. They haven’t even tried to back up the claims, instead trying standard diversions.
see what i meant by ‘a tap left running’..?
🙄 🙄 🙄 …
Petty George “Opponents are making it up”.
OAB: cites Guyon Espiner
Petty George: “No-one cites anything”.
OAB: 🙄
Pete George,
Plenty of people have given you responses that back up the claim that National create hostility toward those in the most unfortunate circumstances in this country.
Others have realised it is simply a waste of time to do so because you appear to be trolling.
To give you a chance to be a decent human being on this matter and apologise for the idiocy you have been putting forward I provide you this link:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11231545
Please note this comment of Paula Bennett’s:
“Every day we hear stories of how people cannot live on the benefit. Today you’re hearing that literally thousands can not only live on it but can afford to travel overseas as well.”
As Minister of Social Development she knows full well that NOONE can save up for overseas travel on a welfare benefit
She knows full well how much savings a person can have while still qualifying for a benefit (I don’t the amount but know some savings still allow one to qualify).
She may also know, like a lot of us do, that people are sometimes given tickets by family members for various reasons.
If she doesn’t know at least the first two points then she is not doing her job properly and what the hell is she making statement like the above for?
She is deceiving the public by making such a statement and she is creating hostility toward those without jobs by misinforming the public
So please no more of this ‘the Nats don’t Bene Bash’ crap. It is a poor reflection on you if you don’t know this is the case already and an extremely poor reflection on you if you do, yet attempt to promote such utter horseshit.
“Nope. Several people here have claimed things and so far they’ve failed to back up those claims. They haven’t even tried to back up the claims, instead trying standard diversions.”
That’s because everyone else here knows what we are talking about, and we also know that supplying back up to you just means another round of mindfucking inanity. The standard is full of examples of how the right in particular promote bashing of beneficiaries. That you can’t see that is about you and how your world view works, nothing to do with us.
In other words, no-one here believes that proving something to you is necessary, because your main role here is that of concern tr*ll and shit stirrer (in the nicest, centrist kind of way of course).
Now, you can disagree with the perceptions of most of the other people here, no problem with that, but don’t trying to frame this as ‘there is no proof’, because there is proof, we’re just not going to do your homework for you. You demanding proof is just another example of your disingenuous approach.
Beneficiary bashing has been the subject of many comments and posts in the past on TS. It’d be very time consuming to repeat it all every time it’s commented on.
Colin Espiner on Bennie bashing beign too easy.
It amounts to a prejudice, so it’s about the way its expressed in a range of contexts, publications and discourses.
Kyle MacDonald, psychotherapist on the psychology of beneficiary bashing.
Kyle MacDonald was a guest on Radio Live this weekend.
He cites research in the US which shows levels of prejudice against the poor and the homeless in the US are stronger now than the levels of racism.
And let’s not forget Sarah Wilson, whose blog post on her experiences with WINZ went viral.
But I would expect anyone into fact checking, would have a wide general knowledge of current issues. bennie bashing and prejudices against people on benefits, or unemployed or poor, is one that has got some news coverage lately. I would expect anyone who was interested in such things would do a bit of their own research,and not expect others to do the research for them.
It wasn’t me who made the claims. Should any claims pass go unchallenged here?
It’s easy to claim ‘bennie bashing’, but that’s diverting from the original claims.
“Why do the NACTs promote and enable welfare dependency to such an extent?”
“They stir up hate and prejudice against beneficiaries”
“It’s not hard to see the advantages for National of having people on benefits and having a culture of hating people on benefits.”
There are advantages in having some people on benefits, but I don’t see these claims anywhere near justified.
Instead I see deliberate stirring up of hate and prejudice against National.
I think emotive overstating and making claims that most people would see as ridiculous are counterproductive. It would be far better to make good arguments for providing better support for those who need to be on benefits, and support initiatives to assist and encourage people off benefits as both Labour and National governments have done.
Labeling, name calling and making questionable claims don’t help beneficiaries at all.
@ Pete George
Yes you did
🙄
Questions claims, demands citations. Is provided with examples and citations. Fails to acknowledge examples and citations. Makes accusations.
Petty George is the embodiment of dishonesty and bad faith. No wonder he’s unelectable and everything he touches turns to bland failure.
“Instead I see deliberate stirring up of hate and prejudice against National.”
Yeah that’s right Pete. There is no bene bashing culture in NZ* that is promoted by National, but there is a terrible National bashing culture on the standard. Poor National of course have done nothing to deserve this.
*There is no depression in NZ either.
Keep it up mate, the more we see your values and perceptions of the world the better. You are dangerous, so making that apparent is a good thing.
I think emotive overstating and making claims that most people would see as ridiculous are counterproductive. It would be far better to make good arguments for providing better support for those who need to be on benefits, and support initiatives to assist and encourage people off benefits as both Labour and National governments have done.
Labeling, name calling and making questionable claims don’t help beneficiaries at all.
All I can say to that is go fuck yourself you rabid, blind, self-serving, egotistical, leftist-hating, conformist, sanctimonious prick.
You are the last person on this forum to have any idea about what is helpful to beneficiaries. The more I see of what you write and do here, and the more you insist on peddling your centrist, holier than thou hypocrisy to the detriment of this forum and the left in general, when so many people want you to just fuck off, the more I think your actual role here is to destablise left wing discourse. Whether you are conscious that that is what you do, I don’t know. But it is what you do.
If you don’t feel emotion in response to what is happening in NZ, then fuck off.
If you don’t bother to read karol’s links and see what we are actually talking about, then fuck off.
And if you want to tell us how we should be discussing politics in NZ when you still have no idea what we are on about, then you can fuck off in triplicate.
@ Weka,
I second that
[Except for the bit about destabilizing left wing discourse. He’s been distracting people but I wouldn’t give him any credit for destabilizing discourse – he is, however, severely destabilizing his own and Politicheck’s reputation if my shift in view is anything to go by.]
Agree about his own reputation (silver linings and all that).
I think the distracting is destabilising, but it’s worse than that. He’s a trll, and the function of the trll is to disrupt in anyway he can. Going into an election… can you imagine what it will be like if he is still here a month or a week before the election? How much time and energy will be wasted between now and then countering his bullshit? Not an ordinary tr*ll, because they don’t tend to last, they get banned (and unfortunately for us PG might just manage to be smart enough to not get banned again).
And not an ordinary right winger, because at least even though their views might be daft or repugnant, they’re reasonably competent at having an argument. PG is a clusterfuck of communication, just about every time.
“..All I can say to that is go fuck yourself you rabid, blind, self-serving, egotistical, leftist-hating, conformist, sanctimonious prick…”
plus many more than one…
..pete george..
..putting the ‘con’ into contrived…
If you think that exaggerated attacks and dumping on anyone who suggests being so negative mightn’t be the best of looks will appeal to disillusioned and non-voters and will get you the election result you want good luck with that.
No wonder the Greens are frustrated that when they have their best chance ever to make a significant difference the allies they need look like bitter old loners.
“If you think that exaggerated attacks and dumping on anyone who suggests being so negative mightn’t be the best of looks will appeal to disillusioned and non-voters and will get you the election result you want good luck with that.”
You’re not being dumped on because you made a suggestion. You’re being dumped on because you are tr*ll and insist on taking up so much space with so much inanity.
I really think you quite misunderstand what this forum is for, lolz.
“No wonder the Greens are frustrated that when they have their best chance ever to make a significant difference the allies they need look like bitter old loners.”
Oooh, PG, friend of the GP now. Or concern tr*ll 🙄
PG asks a lot of questions, but he still hasn’t answered this one.
The underlying values are as important as the evidence.
And the evidence is often detailed and requires time to digest – and can’t fully be captured in some quick sound bites, or easily quotable stats.
[Edit]
PG doesn’t seem interested in any in depth research like that of Dr Marriott, who compared the treatment of tax fraud with that of beneficiary fraud.
He doesn’t respond to citing such evidence, then just comes back the next day with more questions to use up people’s time. Puts more time into his comments – lacking very much evidence from him, but keeps asking us to put our time into finding evidence than he ever does.
“The underlying values are as important as the evidence.”
+1 (in triplicate 😉 ) karol.
“And the evidence is often detailed and requires time to digest – and can’t fully be captured in some quick sound bites, or easily quotable stats.”
Very true. It’s not like Pete hasn’t seen all the discussion already about things like bene bashing. Now he uses the fact check thing as a shield for his own bullshit, which beggars belief given his role at Politicheck. Sometimes I think he is genuinely ignorant (cannabis), and other times I think he is just disingenuous in the extreme (bene bashing) and instead of stating up front his own ideas, he expects other people to provide evidence of proof for anything he doesn’t agree with.
And he’ll still disagree with it anyway. I suppose it comes with being a Sensible Centrist.
That is a funny cartoon you linked to there DTB!
…he completely ignores any evidence provided and changes the subject….
well what are you going to do about it then besides wasting yours and our time waffling on here. when are you going to do something pet e geroge?
It is when promoting trivial drivel as though it were substantive comment.
I gave him evidence 6 and a half hours ago. He ignored it.
Just got back and see he’s still wasting people’s time on this.
Look what happens when I go out for the day!! Thank you to a large number supportive commentators, Nacts promoting welfare dependancy appears to hit a right wing nerve..
As for the second bit about the DPB, Pete may be being a bit shallow here too, as demographics look like the answer here. As the baby boomers age and smaller generations come along the figure will drop just anyway. Like to fact check that Pete??
The mind set change, one person is quoted, the rest probably too despeartely overworked to have time to think. Second fact check for Pete, -have you bought up children as a single parent?
Once a group calling itself single parents trust would have been supporting single parents, helping them with their lives, not reducing them to numbers in paid work.
It sounds as if its dedicated to getting them into some sort of job. Parents don’t talk to it much about anything else because it’s not their kaupapa.
Claire Trevett has written an article about a simple question asked by Dr Prasad about the ruling allowing Nigella to visit NZ. The heading implies that this is a big issue with the Labour Party. This is all part of the plan to paint Labour as focussing on the irrelevant. The article in itself is trivial and the headline misleading. This is yet another example of poor and biased journalism.
The Herald is a rag which acts as a propaganda outlet for the corporate elite.
Claire Trevett is a puppet for the 1%.
The article has been updated and from what I can tell included this paragraph:
The headline says:
The reality would appear to be the opposite.
On the flipside I really don’t understand why he has bothered to comment on it. Imho its a trivial matter and immigration has made the right decision. He could have said as much rather than add his concerns about drug users et al.
Its easy to moan about the herald bias but there comes a point where you shouldn’t give them the stick to hit you with.
..+ 1..
Um, I’m not sure you understand how this works: right wing hack phones Labour MP and asks a question on some trivial matter of policy that happens to be their portfolio: reports comment as though it were unsolicited.
Compare and contrast with the subjects of press-releases actually issued by the Labour Party: it’s not hard: you can find them over there to the right.
Unless Prasad somehow holds portfolios of drug policy and comparative morality, he should have shut his trap. What a fool.
My point been if a right wing hack rings you for comment on a trivial matter like this you say im sure immigration officials have made a considered decision and leave it at that. No need for the worried about drug users et al that gets misconstrued and spun into a story.
The Heralds reporting is bias and sensationalist better to not fall into the trap and give them a bone so to speak…
Sorry, I’m way off beam: Prasad said it in general debate.
Thats even worse I had assumed he had been called for comment.
Agreed. Another very clumsy PR effort! For heavens sake don’t they get any coaching? Media bias doesn’t cut it. Some Labour politicians have been very good with the media.
At the moment from Cunliffe down the performance has been very mediocre. Shane Jones has at least generated positive headlines even if he did get a rebuke for his efforts on the Greens!
Time to dust off Brian Edwards retainer!
Did Cameron send you with instructions on what to say? Honestly you guys are so predictable. You are like the borg. Can’t at least you think for yourself before you comment?
Claire Trevett is one of the worst offenders IMO. Fabulous National Party publicity hack. Picks up on trivialities all aimed at making Labour look bad. It’s all well and good saying Labour shouldn’t give them opportunities, but that would be impossible. Everyone gets it “wrong” at some point. Its inevitable. But there’s getting it wrong in a serious way and getting it wrong in a trivial way.
CT brought us such fabulous pieces of journalism such as Key cracks a joke (in Hong Kong), dont we all love the Royals and who cares what they cost!
The left parties must name and shame the bias in live interviews so the media’s put on the back foot.
The former NSW Premier Neville Wran has died. I guess he wasn’t that well known this side of the Tasman, but he was a significant figure in the rebuilding of Labor after the constitutional coup in ’73. He was able to combine environmentalism and practicality in his approach to the job of growing the NSW economy and infrastructure in a way that should probably be replicated in NZ.
http://www.theage.com.au/nsw/neville-wran-dead-aged-87-20140420-36ywh.html
And, in the religious news, an Easter miracle for Mike Smith and the other Standard Kopites:
um..!..wran was as bent/corrupt as..
..his time in power was a time of endemic-corruption..
..his nickname in the criminal fraternity was ‘nifty neville’…
..as in ‘nifty’ll fix it!’…
..most things in wrans time could be ‘fixed’..
None of that is true, Phil, particularly the implication that he was responsible for the endemic corruption in NSW.
For a start, the nickname was given to him by a fellow lawyer, decades before he entered politics (employment law, not criminal law, btw).
As a polly he was accused of dodgy dealing with the Balmain league club, but cleared.
Now, you don’t get to run the NSW Labor party without being a headkicker (to use his phrase), but he did a hell of a lot of good. The SMH has a good summary of his achievements:
“However, he counted among his achievements the introduction of democratic elections to the upper house; ending systematic destruction of rainforests and giving them World Heritage protection; a $2 billion integrated transport system including the Eastern Suburbs rail line and electrification of the Newcastle and Wollongong lines; finishing what Mr Whitlam had started by ”creating a multicultural society in which all people are equal”; and revolutionising government administration.
His government also claimed credit for extending parliamentary terms to four years; disclosure of MPs’ pecuniary interests and public funding of election campaigns; establishing a ministry of Aboriginal affairs; introducing anti-discrimination laws and the Equal Opportunities Tribunal; commissioning the Richmond report into mental health; introducing random breath testing; establishing an internal unit to investigate police corruption; liquor laws allowing Sunday trading.”
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/obituaries/neville-wran-praise-controversy-and-balmain-boys-dont-cry-quote-marked-time-in-office-20140420-zqx46.html#ixzz2zTg6skR5
“..particularly the implication that he was responsible for the endemic corruption in NSW..”..
..so..let me see if i’ve got this right..
..you admit the ‘endemic-corruption’ of those 12 yrs wran was in power..
..but he sat perched at the top..snowy-white and corruption-free…eh..?
..(psstt..!!..wanna buy a bridge..?..it’s still in good nick..!)
..i was in australia for some of those wran years..
..and knew people who knew just how corrupt the place was..
..(at one stage i lived opposite a drive-in liquor-store that was owned by one of sydneys’ most notorious gangsters..
..and every friday i used to watch the top police/politicians rolling in and out of there.
…(police in full-uniform..top-ranking..).
..and it came out later that that was where the envelopes of cash were handed over..
..and yes..a lawyer gave him that nickname..’cos he played straight..?..d’yareckon..?
..and all the crims knew him as nifty..
..and i’m sure i cd dig up some corruption-quotes for you..
..(and established ‘an internal unit’ to check corruption..?..eh..?..
..heh..!..that’s funny..!..)
Everyone knew him as Nifty. It was his nickname. Now provide the evidence that he was responsible for the corruption. Or just quit while you’re behind.
ok..he was snowy-white…
..so..just confirming yr claim..
..that wran headed a totally corrupt administration for twelve years..
..yet himself was corruption-free..?
….carry on..!
“.so..just confirming yr claim..
..that wran headed a totally corrupt administration for twelve years..
..yet himself was corruption-free..?”
I didn’t make that claim, but I did point out that the one time he was accused of corrup behaviour he was exonerated. Now would be a good time for you to put up the evidence that he was corrupt.
Oh dear, can’t do it?
I smell a Phail Ure.
Isn’t being corrupt a prerequisite to being the Premier of an Australian state?
pretty much..
😆
In my modest observation the Aussies are a lot more honest about the way they do politics than we are. At least in Aus you know politics is a hard-ball, in your face business.
NZ likes to pretend we’re lily-white when it comes to corruption – but I’m beginning to think that behind closed doors and out of sight from the public we’re in many ways worse than Aus.
This is what happens when you privatise energy companies. Short term profits for the shareholders come first.
Power prices are soaring “out of control” on the eve of winter, with some companies hiking prices up a “staggering” 9 per cent in one month, Labour says.
Shearer based his assertions on data from the PowerSwitch website, which tracks national power prices.
The latest PowerSwitch figures show significant price rises from March to April across the country.
Christchurch appears to have been hit the hardest, with two companies, Nova and Powershop, recording price increases of more than 9 per cent for the month.”
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/9961956/Shearer-slates-soaring-power-prices
I guess Simon Bridges will pretend the problem doesn’t exist.
Predictably, yes.
“However, Bridges discredited Shearer’s claims as “scaremongering”.
The majority of New Zealand’s power retailers increased their prices on April 1 every year and the Powerswitch data “captures that increase”, Bridges said.
The inflation economy, every year the power companies, Generators, Lines, and Retailers increase the value of their assets in a little book keeping exercise,
All three arms of electricity generation and supply then base the ‘price’ of electricity on the increased value of their assets,( 3% increased ‘value’ of assets across the 3 arms of generation and supply leads to a 9% increase in cost to the end user),
i cannot though fathom how the proposed single desk buyer of wholesale electricity will stop either the lines companies or the retailers from continuing with this ‘abusive practice,
My view is that the ‘single desk’ buyer model ‘assumes’ that there is ‘competition’ in either the lines companies and the retailers of electricity,
This assumption is patently untrue as the whole system is being operated as a Cartel where ‘paper savings’ by the consumer are really only imaginary as the retailers play their little game of ‘leap-frog’ with pricing…
You have to question why, when electricity companies put their not insubstantial mark up on the variable rates, why they have to mark up the daily rate as well.
The Daily Rate is supposed to be the fixed rate cost that is levied by the local lines network company. In Wellington for most people this should be $.90 per day. Most retailers are charging around the $2/day mark. Before the line charges went up on 1 April, retailers were charging around $1.15, and the line network only charged $0.15c p/day. This will be the same story around most of the country – one of the few exceptions I can think of are those on a low user plan. People with a standard plan (with no fixed rates) will be the most impacted.
The Variable Rate is a bit different as retailers claim this rate includes their own costs – and where they should add on their charges. In Wellington the variable rate from the lines company is .0875. Retailers charge anywhere between .22 – 29c
Why then are retailers allowed to add on hefty amounts to the daily rates when theoretically this charge is levied for the exclusive benefit of lines companies. If the fixed daily rate was passed on at cost this would save consumers around $300 – $400 per year.
Note: for simplicity I refer only to those charges for consumers on a standard user plan that isn’t a fixed deal.
And if you look at the Wellington Regional council’s annual plan they look like they want to aggregate water assets. So here comes the next one. submissions still open.
Don’t limit such activities to only those within the power industry, have a look at other utility providers such as water . Eg waterways or before that manukau water with water increasing by 100% when the billing period was compressed from twice yearly to quarterly , and then again doubled when watercare then reverted to monthly billing. All legit and based on revaluation of the asset base.
“This is what happens when you privatise energy companies. Short term profits for the shareholders come first.”
The government is the majority share holder you idiot,
you are either deliberately telling lies or you are more stupid than I thought.
No longer fully owned by the state, so now beholden to corporate interests.
When 100% owned by the state! shareholders were the government so long term planning possible.
Now minority shareholders want good dividends.
Let’s try debating mr naki without resorting to personal insults.
Have you ever been a minority shareholder ?
They have no say at all,
you are talking rubbish
Let’s agree to disagree then Naki Man.
And let’s try to keep some courtesy in the conversation.
No say at all apart from certain legal obligations that the company must meet. I’m sure Naki Man was just about to mention those, weren’t you Naki Man?
From the ‘economics’ pages of the Herald online:
”US taxpayers would need to pay and average of $1259 more a year to make up for Federal and State taxes lost to Corporations and Individuals sheltering money in overseas tax havens according to a report”,
”Tax haven abusers benefit from America’s markets, public infrastructure, educated workforce, security and rule of law– all supported in onme way or another by tax dollars– but they avoid paying for these benefits”, Us public interest research group said in a report released today, the deadline for filing 2013 taxes,
Who would have thunk it, the total amount of tax fraud is estimated to be nearly $200 million dollars annually which is around 5% of the total US tax take,
Sounds remarkably like the New Zealand tax rort, not surprising as we operate our businesses in a mimic of the US system to a certain extent and with the latest figures showing a ”slow” tax take here in New Zealand for the current financial year of around a billion dollars i would suggest tx fraud here mirrors the US experience of 5% of the total tax take being fraudulently withheld by those with the ability to defraud the system…
Love this – this is so classic. Also have a look at the link from this great artical. https://www.tytnetwork.com/2014/04/17/exposed-right-wing-radio-big-trouble/
On earthday there will be a release of evidence collected by the CTBTO’s infrasound network on the risk of large asteroids hitting earth.
The scale of Chelyabinsk type meteors since 2001 is 26,3-10 times what is thought to be expected.
http://phys.org/news/2014-04-astronauts-reveal-sobering-asteroid-impacts.html
Will someone please remove Prasad’s foot from his mouth:
http://www.3news.co.nz/Labour-questions-Lawson-visa/tabid/1607/articleID/340858/Default.aspx
Someone please explain to him that he’s just said he wants to punish a woman who hasn’t got any convictions but has had the misfortune of having her past private life dragged through the media by a vindictive ex-husband who was abusing her.
Honestly if Labour were a person this repeated self-harming would be seen as a cry for help.
Have you actually read the article properly? Because I agree with every word Prasad says. It seems to be different treatment by the state services according to one’s wealth or celebrity status, we already see a lot of it in courts and now with immigration too.
Actually, Prasad essentially says “it is terrible that celebrities are given different preferential status, which I’m sure didn’t happen here, but when it does, and it didn’t here, it is terrible.”
Cheers for that, Prasad.
Actually I’m pretty sure that anyone regardless of weath or status can have their situation reviewed by NZ officials. Seems? Do you work for Customs? Immigration? What makes you the expert?
Basically Nigella has obviously been red flagged because the Yanks are puritan hypocrites, she has asked for a review of her case, and an exemption has been granted because she doesn’t have any criminal convictions (unlike, say, Dotcom, who has convictions but effectively bribed the feckless National government). Labour getting involved at all is counterproductive and really not a good look in the final approach to an election.
The Herald acts as a shill for the ACT Party.
No investigative skills shown by journalist Sophie Ryan, no questions posed of a crime policy that has already failed the west. Just an appeal to redneck opinion. Repeating ACT policy is not journalism
What a rag.
HOW CORRUPT IS NEW ZEALAND?
Try this for size ……..
Did you know that the NZ Auditor-General Lyn Provost is a shareholder in Sky City, but she failed to disclose this when I asked her do an inquiry into why the Organised and Financial Crime Agency of NZ (OFCANZ) had failed to do any due diligence on the increased risk of money-laundering arising from the NZ International Convention Centre Bill?
I’ve petitioned Parliament for an inquiry:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1404/S00334/select-committees-for-14-april-to-17-april-2014.htm
Finance and Expenditure
The committee met on 16 April when it further considered the 2012/13 financial review of the Earthquake Commission, and the petitions of Deidre Kent and 877 others and of Penelope Bright and 13 others.
………………………………..
http://www.parliament.nz/en-nz/pb/presented/petitions/50DBHOH_PET3196_1/petition-of-penelope-mary-bright-and-13-others-that-the
Petition of Penelope Mary Bright and 13 others
That the House conduct an urgent inquiry into why New Zealand Auditor-General Lyn Provost did not disclose that she was a shareholder in Sky City Entertainment Group Ltd at the time she declined to conduct an urgent investigation into the failure of the Organised and Financial Crime Agency of New Zealand to carry out ‘due diligence’ on the increased risk of money-laundering arising from the New Zealand International Convention Centre (Bill) 2013.
Petition number: 2011/101
Presented by: Denis O’Rourke
Date presented: 12 March 2014
Referred to: Finance and Expenditure Committee
Quite a BIGGIE don’t you think?
Particularly when the Office of the Auditor General is the ‘Platinum’ sponsor of Transparency International New Zealand?
http://www.transparency.org.nz/Partners-and-Sponsors
“Partners and Sponsors
Cornerstone Platinum
The Office of the Auditor General ”
http://www.transparency.org.nz/docs/2013/Integrity-Plus-2013-New-Zealand-National-Integrity-System-Assessment-Executive-Summary.pdf
“Overall conclusions of the report
New Zealand’s national integrity system remains fundamentally strong, and New Zealand is
rated highly against a broad range of cross-country transparency and good governance
indicators. Since the first NIS assessment of New Zealand in 2003, a welcome strengthening
of transparency and accountability has occurred in some areas.
The assessment found that the strongest pillars in the NIS are the Office of the Auditor General, the judiciary, the Electoral Commission, and the Ombudsman. …..”
Oh dear ….
Have yet to see any public comment from Transparency International NZ (TINZ) on this
above-mentioned petition for an Inquiry into the NZ Auditor General – their “CORNERSTONE PLATINUM SPONSOR” …..
Penny Bright
Who is on the Finance and Expenditure Select Committee?
http://www.parliament.nz/en-nz/mpp/mps/current/?pf=committeeshortname&sf=finance+and+expenditure&lgc=0
Finance and Expenditure Chairperson Goldsmith, Paul National Party, List
Finance and Expenditure Deputy-Chairperson Barry,Maggie National Party, North Shore
Finance and Expenditure Member Bennett, David National Party, Hamilton East
Finance and Expenditure Member Clark, David Labour Party, Dunedin North
Finance and Expenditure Member Hayes, John National Party, Wairarapa
Finance and Expenditure Member Jones, Shane Labour Party, List
Finance and Expenditure Member Norman, Russel Green Party, List
Finance and Expenditure Member Parker, David Labour Party, List
Finance and Expenditure Member Peters, Winston NZ First, List
Finance and Expenditure Member Ross, Jami-Lee National Party, Botany
Finance and Expenditure Member Wilkinson, Kate National Party, Waimakariri
Penny Bright