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Open mike 21/05/2016

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, May 21st, 2016 - 137 comments
Categories: open mike - Tags:

openmikeOpen mike is your post.

For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).

Step up to the mike …

137 comments on “Open mike 21/05/2016 ”

  1. The Chairman 1

    New Zealand has entered a new debt-fuelled phase of economic growth, say Westpac.

    The bank is forecasting that “real” house prices will drop by 1.4 per cent in 2018.

    Westpac said Kiwis were in a “borrow and spend” cycle that could not be sustained and it expected economic growth would also slow from 2018.

    The report said the average household had debts equivalent to 162 per cent of their annual disposable income.

    That was higher than the peak of 159 per cent reached in 2009 during the “global financial crisis” and had “completely reversed the reduction in debt levels seen over the last few years.

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/80066702/NZ-house-prices-to-drop-in-real-terms-from-2018-as-borrow-and-spend-cycle-burns-out-Westpac

    Thoughts?

  2. Joy FL 2

    Budget coming up. My Nat contacts seem to be in the know and appear to be excited. No doubt the Budget will set the scene and strengthen campaigning that’ll start just under seven months. Last year, Labour didn’t put out an alternative Budget, maybe because Grant was still new and in his first year in the Finance portfolio. Hoping Labour will have a promising alternative Budget this year that’ll energise supporters.

  3. Colonial Viper 3

    i’d expect another solid increase in the minimum wage as well, as part of National’s early positioning. Them workers derserve their share of our successful economy you know.

    Meanwhile, Labour have not yet concretely backed a move to the living wage $19/hr, and National will soon move the minimum wage to $15.75/hr is my bet.

    • Ad 3.1

      I think they will just continue to cover the total Crown debt with a media headline of tax cuts to come.

      The counter-narrative isn’t easy but the collective Opposition has to stick to theme of housing bubble, dairy decline, and a directionless country led by the corrupt and the cruel.

      • Colonial Viper 3.1.1

        People have been sick of Labour’s negativity for years now.

        Labour needs to announce big positive plans for the nation, and it needs to stop daily referencing how shit National and John Key are.

        As for the housing bubble and unaffordable Auckland house prices, everyone remembers that was all in full swing during Labour years.

        • Ad 3.1.1.1

          If I were Labour I would announce nothing at all. No need, and has no effect.

          Key and English have set 2017 as theirs to lose and there’s very little this Opposition can do about it, other than let the pattern of NZ political history take over.

          • Colonial Viper 3.1.1.1.1

            Ahh yes, the old paradigm of the tide going out on the incumbent, and coming in for the opposition.

            That’s over with.

  4. weka 4

    Wtf is happening in Brazil?

    Temer has said he is prepared to make unpopular decisions because he does not intend to stand for re-election in 2018. He is barred from running due to previous electoral violations – and is so widely disliked that he would not stand a chance of winning even if he could.

    “I do not need to practice gestures or actions leading to a possible re-election. I can even be – shall we say – unpopular as long as it produces benefits for the country. For me, that would be enough,” he told a local news program.

    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/20/brazil-rightwing-government-michel-temer

    • Pat 4.1

      neolib coup d’etat

      • adam 4.1.1

        No Pat, a hard right turn.

        • Pat 4.1.1.1

          “· info)); French: blow of state; plural: coups d’état), also known simply as a coup, or an overthrow, is the sudden and forced seizure of a state, usually instigated by a small group of the existing government establishment to depose the established regime and replace it with a new ruling body.”

          think you will find that coup d’etat is exactly the correct description ….and are you seriously going to try to suggest the instigators are not neoliberal given the policy outlined immediately they seized power?

    • Colonial Viper 4.2

      Naom Chomsky explains on the Real News

      • ianmac 4.2.1

        Sobering isn’t it CV? Wonder why the Establishment doesn’t like Noam?
        Here of course Bill manipulates the figures to make the books look better. But here Bill gets praise not impeachment.

  5. weka 5

    NZ yearly GHG Emmission Inventory report. Some sober reading, esp the 25 yr perspective, but interesting too. It’s not just about the carbon, and bold pointers to where the most emissions are coming from (ag, transport)

    http://www.mfe.govt.nz/climate-change/reporting-greenhouse-gas-emissions/nzs-greenhouse-gas-inventory

    http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/304393/greenhouse-gases-hit-25-year-high

    • Colonial Viper 5.1

      So Ag is by far the biggest contributor of GHGs, more than 20% bigger than transport which is no. 2.

      You may not like some of the “vegan propaganda” in Cowspiracy but it appears that they have a point, does it not.

      • Bill 5.1.1

        Irrelevant tosh CV. New Zealand has a peculiar emissions foot-print among developed, high emitting nations, but seeing as how AGW is a global problem…

        If the principle focus is put on land use, then concentrations of CO2 (or CO2e if you prefer) are going to keep increasing with an increase in surface temperatures tacking along behind.

        Land use emissions need to be reduced – no argument from anyone there. Fossil emissions need to be eliminated altogether.

        Question. If coal and other fossil hadn’t been adopted as primary sources of energy back in the mid to late 1800s and carbon neutral energy sources adopted instead, and if modern, industrial agriculture had developed to be exactly as it is today under that scenario, then would we be facing anything like the level of AGW that we’re currently faced with?

        Answer. No.

        Question. If modern industrial agriculture had developed in a different direction – if it had trod lightly and mindfully with regards environmental impacts – but fossil was still the principle source of energy, then would we be facing anything like the level of AGW that we are today?

        Answer. Yes.

        • b waghorn 5.1.1.1

          Hear hear

        • Colonial Viper 5.1.1.2

          The two alternative scenarios you posit, they are not NZ-centric, right but global?

          They are scenarios around how the world as a whole has developed since the mid 1800s re: industrial ag and also fossil fuel use?

          • Bill 5.1.1.2.1

            The questions were posed with a global scenario in mind, yes.

            • Colonial Viper 5.1.1.2.1.1

              So why are we not designing a GHG emissions limitation programme for NZ which is a unique fit with where we as a nation are doing the most climate change damage, instead of implementing a generic emissions limitation programme which is generically suited to the rest of the developed, high emitting world, and which ignores our own special characteristics?

              • Bill

                Because it’s a global problem that will only be solved by eradicating the burning of fossil across the entire globe. It doesn’t matter what else NZ does with regards emissions (and yes, other stuff absolutely should be done) if the eradication of fossil is ignored.

                You think NZ sits on another planet from the rest of the world or should promote itself as a ‘special case’ with regards fossil?

                See, there are special cases, at least in the short term, with regards fossil CV – swathes of Asia and Africa. In the interests of the equity contained in all of the Accords or Agreements our government signed up to, those places that are developing nations get to use fossil for a little longer to lay in infrastructure (hospitals, energy systems etc) so that the people living in them can have reasonable lives in the future.

                Then they (the Annex 2 countries) must be fossil free by 2050 if we (the entire global population) want to afford ourselves even a slim chance of achieving anything like merely two degrees of warming.

        • Andre 5.1.1.3

          Bill, I’m not convinced that that No and Yes are quite as unequivocal as you’ve presented.

          Yes, the headline figure is the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, and the rise from 280ppm to 405ppm is almost entirely due to using fossil fuels, with a small contribution from burning forests, releasing carbon from soils and wetlands due to agriculture. But the important figure for warming on say a ten-year timescale is the CO2 equivalent. I’ve seen some credible estimates we’re as high as 700ppm CO2eq, driven primarily by methane. I haven’t seen credible breakdowns of how that rise in methane splits between domestic animals, land clearance, fracking/coal mining, warming arctic/seafloor releases, etc.

          The way I’d put it is that CO2 releases from (really stupid) burning of fossil fuels gives us a long-term warming problem that’s going to be really difficult to correct. The releases of methane and other GHGs from (really stupid) unsustainable agricultural practices gives us a short-term warming problem that will largely go away within a few decades of ceasing the stupid practices.

          • Bill 5.1.1.3.1

            You noted that in the “no fossil and same land use” scenario I didn’t suggest no AGW, but rather that the scale of AGW would not be the same, yes?

            The overall effects arising from basket of GHG isn’t something I profess to understanding. I think it’s fair to say that nobody quite gets it because of the convoluted interactions of positive and negative forcings involved.

            In one of Kevin Anderson’s presentations, he suggests that the positive and negative forcings are as close as damn it to cancelling one another out, and so that on current concentrations, if we want a workable picture of what the hell is going on, we can put them to one side and focus on CO2. I don’t know if that’s a reasonable way to view things but I’m not aware of that approach having been taken to task on the grounds it’s either unrealistic or irresponsible.

            Methane breaks down into CO2 btw. So after the 20 or 30 years of it having a x20 or x30 impact on warming, it doesn’t just stop, but breaks down to produce a given volume of CO2 that has a lesser but much longer impact.

            • Andre 5.1.1.3.1.1

              I took your two scenarios to be “fossil fuels burned, no increase in land-use emissions” which would be 400ppm CO2, wild guess 500ppm CO2eq including fracking/mining emissions, vs “no fossil fuels, changed agricultural land-use” which would be 280ppm CO2, wild guess 450ppm CO2eq from the added methane from domestic animals, draining wetlands etc. Not a huge difference between the two (but both nowhere near as bad as what we’re actually facing). But the “no fossil fuels” scenario has the potential to revert to 280ppm CO2/300ish CO2eq within a few decades if ag emissions stopped, whereas the 400ppm CO2 will take millennia to drop back.

              Yes, well aware that CH4 oxidises to CO2 in the atmosphere with a half-life of 8-ish years. And that a molecule of CH4 has a warming effect over a hundred times stronger than a molecule of CO2. The 80x stronger over 20 years or 20x stronger over 100 years figures are the integrated “warming strength x probability of survival” calculations. Which highlights that methane’s effects happen now but mostly tail off relatively quickly, whereas CO2 is effectively forever.

              • Colonial Viper

                Don’t forget about atmospheric pollution contributing between 1 deg C to 2 deg C worth of “global dimming” to the planet.

                A massive cut in the burning of fossil fuels leading to a big drop in atmospheric pollution will immediately send us into 2.5 deg C to 3.5 deg C of warming.

                Ahhhh, OK, so typing this, whoops it looks to me like we’re now officially fucked regardless of which way we turn, i.e. whether or not we cut fossil fuel emissions by 0%, by 50% or by 100%.

                This stage of the game is already over.

                • Bill

                  Immediately send us into 2.5 – 3 degrees of warming? Really? And you have some reliable citable reference or source to back that statement, yes?

                  • Colonial Viper

                    Global dimming due to atmospheric pollution is currently providing 1 deg C to 2 deg C of cooling to the world. AFAIK that is the state of the art understanding of the phenomenon.

                    • Bill

                      Oh, I know there’s a cooling effect offered by particulates from burning coal for example. (you stated it was 1 – 2 degrees C worth) Then you gleefully stated an immediate 2.5 – 3 degree C of warming would result from not burning fossil. I asked for a verifiable source that would echo or back those numbers.

                      Do you have one?

                    • Colonial Viper

                      1.3 deg C already + (1deg C or 2 deg C from loss of global dimming) = 2.3 deg C to 3.3 deg C.

                      Check it on a calculator if you like.

                    • Bill

                      Do you have a source that says all ‘dimming’ is the result of fossil fuel combustion…cause that’s what you’re claiming.

                      Alternatively, do you have a source that says all fossil related ‘dimming’ amounts to a one or two degrees Celsius suppression of temperatures?

                    • Colonial Viper

                      Do you have a source that says all ‘dimming’ is the result of fossil fuel combustion…cause that’s what you’re claiming.

                      The dimming observed over recent decades is due to atmospheric pollutants. Whether all those atmospheric pollutants are a result of fossil fuel combustion – I have no idea.

                      Alternatively, do you have a source that says all fossil related ‘dimming’ amounts to a one or two degrees Celsius suppression of temperatures?

                      All I know is that the best guess for total global dimming is that it sits between one degree and two degree Celsius.

                      You already know how I read all of this. We’re already well past 2 deg C warming, any way that we turn now.

              • Bill

                I can’t quite see why you reckon there would only be a difference of 50ppm CO2e in the two scenarios.

                I’d suggest that if we hadn’t burned fossil, but somehow arrived at the same land use pattern as today then yes, there’d be some signs of warming…. if anyone bothered to look for it. (ie, it would be more or inconsequential at this stage). And we’d have hundreds and hundreds of years in which to change our land use patterns and avert any noticeable climatic impact from any potential long term warming we were causing.

                • Andre

                  Because our agricultural land-use patterns of draining wetlands, clearing forests, growing shallow rooted annuals (instead of deep-rooted perennials), choosing ruminant species for livestock, all contribute to putting a lot of methane into the atmosphere. On an ongoing basis.

                  I’ve seen a few credible papers that suggest that without the global warming due to pre-industrial farming, the late 1800s climate we now take as a pre-industrial baseline would likely have been closer to the “little ice age” of the 1600s. (No, I’m not getting confused with the popular press misrepresentations of the 70s that “an ice age is coming, get prepared”).

                  • Bill

                    But even taking that as read for the sake of argument (that the climate of the 1800s was already warmer due to land use), how do you get the point whereby you more or less equate current land use emissions to fossil related emissions? (in your ppm CO2e numbers)

                    If today has an atmospheric CO2e of around 550ppm (I don’t think that’s too far off the mark, but haven’t looked it up), then to get a very rough estimate of land use contributions, we’d subtract the 80% of CO2 that comes from fossil and then we’d subtract all the other GHG that come from coal burning and what not to arrive at a figure for land use.

                    On the other side of the coin, we’d take the 550ppm CO2e and subtract some agreed portion of the 20% of CO2 that comes from land use (there would always be some GHG from land use no matter what) and we’d also subtract whatever proportion of the other GHGs that come from land use.

                    The first calculation might look something like 550 – 80 – 80 (is assuming similar proportions by source, and so up towards ~ 80% of GHG from fossil way too high?) = 410ppmCO2e

                    The second might run approximately somewhere like 550 – 20 – 20 = 510ppmCO2e.

                    So I’m getting somewhere in the region of a 100ppm difference to your 50ppm difference. Regardless, the claim that the interplay of the forcings from GHG – other than CO2 – more or less negate one another, if a reasonable claim, makes all these rough back of the envelope sums irrelevant. And we both pick fossil as the principle driver of AGW.

                    • Andre

                      Yeah, the argument’s getting a little involved over hand-wavy responses to hypothetical scenarios…

      • weka 5.1.2

        So Ag is by far the biggest contributor of GHGs, more than 20% bigger than transport which is no. 2.

        You may not like some of the “vegan propaganda” in Cowspiracy but it appears that they have a point, does it not.

        It’s an interesting question CV. I guess for me it rests on whether we consider propaganda to be a useful tool in addressing climate change. By propaganda I mean basing one’s argument on ideology but not being upfront about that, and using misleading facts and arguments that push that underlying ideology. At its worst, Cowspiracy looks like its using CC to try and convert society to being vegan. If this wasn’t about ideology, the message would be very different (eat less meat/dairy, eat local, support small growers etc. You can’t argue that if you are a fundamentalist, evangelical vegan though).

        I have no problem with someone being vegan. Nor with the idea that developped countries should be eating less meat and dairy because of AGW. But there is a huge difference between eating less meat/dairy and becoming vegan. I’m not convinced that proselytising veganism is a useful strategy. Most people aren’t going to do well on a vegan diet, so how would they be convinced to stay on it for any length of time? (plus all the other arguments I’m sure you’ve heard me make).

        I also think there are serious problems with using misleading facts and arguments to try and shift culture. When people find out, they’re going to be angry.

        In relation to the report, most of the increase in emissions in the last 25 years is from industrialised dairy (enteric gases, fertiliser use). I think we establised the other day that most milk grown in NZ is exported, so basically NZ is producing emissions to make money. Nothing to do with feeding ourselves. NZ doesn’t have to become vegan in order to reduce those emissions again.

        Pretty sure you know my base argument is that it’s not what you grow (or eat) it’s how you do it that matters. The problem with vegan proselytising is that it traps people into a path that isn’t necessarily going to help us in the long run. We need to be reducing food miles far more than becoming vegan. We need conversions to sustainable agriculture far more than we need conversions to veganism. In NZ a vegan diet is generally an industrially produced, imported one, and it relies on the Monsanto-ed monocropping nightmare that destroys soil and emits carbon. I’d prefer to encourage people to eat local, eat seasonal, reduce meat/dairy consumption, increase veges, and prioritise small growers esp regenag ones. All of those things bring multiple benefits that becoming vegan doesn’t. They’re much more achieveable for NZ too.

        • Colonial Viper 5.1.2.1

          I’m fascinated that you think that this is a discussion on becoming vegan.

          This is a discussion on addressing the fact that in NZ, agriculture generates a lot more GHGs than transport does, and it is the no 1 source of GHGs.

          As you noted, most dairy in NZ is exported. That wouldn’t change one whit even if all NZers stopped eating dairy.

          • weka 5.1.2.1.1

            “I’m fascinated that you think that this is a discussion on becoming vegan.”

            I don’t. You are the one that specifically asked me about a film made by vegans and promoting veganism as a way of reducing GHG emissions. I took your question in good faith.

            Here’s what you said in its entirety,

            So Ag is by far the biggest contributor of GHGs, more than 20% bigger than transport which is no. 2.

            You may not like some of the “vegan propaganda” in Cowspiracy but it appears that they have a point, does it not.

            “This is a discussion on addressing the fact that in NZ, agriculture generates a lot more GHGs than transport does, and it is the no 1 source of GHGs.”

            I posted a link to the NZ report, which is about a lot of things. You responded by asking me about a vegan film and NZ’s agricultural emissions. If you wanted to limit the conversation to NZ ag, then maybe you could have been clearer in your question.

            tbh, I have no idea what you are doing. If you look at my last comment, I talked about a lot more than veganism so you could easily just clarify that that’s not what you meant and then focussed on the other things. Instead you appear to be trying to have a go at me. Not in the mood for a fight today. Really happy to share my ideas on what NZ could or should do to reduce ag GHG emissions though.

            • Robert Guyton 5.1.2.1.1.1

              “Modern” agriculture and fossil fuel use go hand in hand because the adoption of those ‘cultures’ springs from the same source; producing more than the producer can eat at point source. Build a grain silo, Buzz, and you’re on your way to 400 ppm and beyond!

              • Pat

                ” Build a grain silo, Buzz, and you’re on your way to 400 ppm and beyond!”

                I guess that could be extrapolated to be accurate but note that the ancients had grain silos and farmed for excess (for the obvious reasons) and C ppm didn’t move until industrial revolution…along with population explosion.

                we could equally say develop speech and have an opposable thumb and your on your way to 400 ppm and beyond

                • Pat – speech and an opposable thumb don’t lead to the creation of silo-guards charged with the protection of stored wealth, nor the need to pay those guards to do their job. Many communities consisting humans that could talk and hold a feather to the light didn’t go down the agricultural path, but instead, trod more delicately on the bosom of their Mother. Farming for excess was not a necessity, it was a choice. The wrong choice, it turns out.’cause, fossil fuels.

                  • Pat

                    and which lifestyle choice became dominant , almost exclusive?

                    Humans are dominant as they are the most successful manipulators…we manipulate items, we manipulate the environment, we manipulate ourselves and each other….and those most skilled of us at this are deemed successful.

                    • The silo-builders won dominance and are still holding that position as we approach Farmergeddon. That doesn’t sound like a win to me. “The most skilled at this are deemed successful”, indeed, deemed as such by the members of their tribe but regarded as pariah by those who are outside of that culture.
                      Do you, Pat, believe the environment has been skillfully manipulated, given its present state and outlook?

                    • Bill

                      Well, when your ‘manipulation’ involves guns and visiting ‘total war’ on cultures and societies that may have neither guns nor an appetite for ‘total war’…then sure, ‘your’ way becomes successful 😉

                      When we cunningly manipulate materials to come up with stuff like diesel engines and then, in short order, re-design them to run on fossil fuel while knowing full well the physics behind fossil fuel combustion (the CO2)…is that even intelligent, never mind successful?

                      There’s smart stuff and cunning stuff, but wa-aa-a-y over there on the other hand, there’s intelligent stuff.

                    • Pat

                      @ Bill

                      My manipulation?…”our” manipulation surely?

                      As to intelligent (or wise) ..I imagine those of our ancestors who founded the worlds various religions were considered wise and intelligent in their time…..little did they know how that would turn out I suspect.

                    • Bill

                      Well, maybe I should have said ‘European civilisation’ instead of the collective ‘your’, seeing as how I was thinking of colonisation when making the comment.

                      As for religion…yes, I think you’re probably right to say that they were considered wise and what not. Whether the saw themselves that way, or laughed up their sleeves at the very thought of it as they got on with plotting and scheming over how to better accrue more privilege and wealth….

                  • Pat

                    do I believe the environment has been skillfully manipulated?

                    No…indeed the opposite….but then I have the benefit of hindsight.

                  • Pat

                    time for a new one, agreed….couple of problems however…the existing one will fight like hell and we may be too late

                    • We’re agreed on the need for a new one – good.
                      That “they’ll” fight is of no consequence, we have no choice but to put 100% of our energies into it. Ditto being maybe “too late”, that “maybe” is all the hope we need. That’s how great challenges are overcome, discounting the opposition and wasting no time.
                      I’m not preaching optimism here, just the pragmatism required to succeed.

                    • Bill

                      Imagine if…we simply stopped following people and followed ideas instead.

                      Overnight, this model we have, and all possible variations of this model we have, and all the people who head all the institutions that would defend this model we have, or justify this model we have, and all the people who would hope to exploit or manipulate this model we have – all of that would be gone.

                      Wouldn’t that be a fine thing?

                      No bad ideas or dodgy ideas getting forced by someone wielding the delightful instruments of persuasion, such as, the whip or the chain or the gun.

                      If we only followed ideas, then no-one could ever hope to be followed or ‘lifted up’ by associating themselves with an idea, or by forcing the adoption of an idea.

                    • Pat

                      “Imagine if…we simply stopped following people and followed ideas instead.”

                      I can Imagine Moses,Mohamed, Bhudda et al saying something similar back in the day….but we digress.

                  • Pat

                    “That’s how great challenges are overcome, discounting the opposition and wasting no time.
                    I’m not preaching optimism here, just the pragmatism required to succeed.”

                    that’s the plan….and hope springs eternal….except when it dosn’t

                    • The very nature of hope is that is does spring eternal.
                      When Pandora’s box emptied so spectacularly, there crouched hope, ready to spring into action.

                    • Bill

                      So if Hope was all that was left inside Pandora’s Box, then what, do you think, was it within Pandora’s Box that created all the despair in the first place…springing eternal an all an all 😉

                      It’s an old take on it, I know.

                    • Following ideas, Bill?
                      Which ones?
                      *edit – what was in the box, Bill. All sorts of opportunities, I imagine.

                    • Bill

                      There was nothing good in Pandora’s Box. Just all the evil (or despair) of the world.

                      Which ideas? Why, the good ones of course! Okay – very broad brush stroke…

                      …principally ideas that flourish and that are rooted deep within concepts of meaningful democracy. Ideas, sans illegitimate authority, tend to spread rhizomatically. And ideas that need to be forcibly transplanted or grafted are probably just bad ideas…

                      …and I’m over trying to work this on a nature angle

                      Good ideas are those ideas generated by you and your community, that affect you and your community, and that you and your community execute. (note: assume the community to be an elastic and ever changing social entity.)

                      Bad ideas are those that are imposed from the outside and that disempower those who will be affected.

                      Ideas that come with a person attached in a way that the person is then afforded authority, are bad ideas. Always. History keeps trying to teach us that lesson and we keep ‘just not getting it’ for some reason.

                      edit – when I say ‘authority’ I’m referring to permanent, institutional or entrenched authority, not the transient authority that the builder’s knowledge may give the builder on aspects of a building project.

                    • Nothing good in Pandora’s box, Bill?
                      There was hope for starters.
                      Those ills you list were already in the world. What was really in Pandora’s box were endless possibilities, some of which represented wise choices for Mankind, others which were disastrous. Once we opened the box and began choosing this and that, our future was determined by those choices. But always, there was hope. Good and bad doesn’t come into it. It’s difficult to converse without using those words, but attempting to is a worthwhile exercise when exploring this topic (the most important topic of all, in my view). There is a dichotomy that is useful though, and that’s life-giving (pro-biotic) and life-taking (anti-biotic). Addressing challenges probiotically gives different results from when antibiotic actions are applied. Adding.v.taking away. Racism in a bi-racial community? Remove one of the parties or bring in a multitude of races to diminish-to-zero the conflict. One dominant ideology creating imbalance and injustice in a community/country/world? Bring in a multitude of ideologies to occupy space being held by the Dominator. Other polarities that are useful models for our new way(s): multiplicity.v.singularity – keep it multitudinous, avoid over-simplification – polyculture.v.monoculture. There’s much more to this, naturally enough, but those starters might stimulate some interest. I apologise for not using the model you offered, I enjoyed reading your comment and agree with your view.

            • Colonial Viper 5.1.2.1.1.2

              weka, producing less meat and dairy is what I was aiming at in terms of significantly reducing both global and NZ ag GHG emissions, who knows what world you live in though where that necessarily means people becoming vegan.

              BTW if you can’t watch something like Cowspiracy or read something like the Bible and not get some value out of it without having to convert to whatever their proselytizing about, that’s not my issue its yours.

              For the record again, I’m never becoming vegan, good luck to those who do.

              edit – you are full of good ideas and insights that I often learn from, but having discussions with you nowadays is full of fucking minefields and who needs it, thanks.

              • weka

                I’ll just repeat, the only reason I’ve said anything about vegans is because you brought up Cowspiracy and asked me specifically if I thought the film had a point. I answered in good faith 🙂 Personally, I don’t think the vegan issue is particularly relevant to the discussion. It only comes up as a political issue when people use it as a reference point in CC discussions. The meme that is developping around the film is IMO dangerous, which is why I tend to respond in the way I do about it.

                “producing less meat and dairy is what I was aiming at in terms of significantly reducing both global and NZ ag GHG emissions,”

                I guess there’s an issue there about who is responsible for the dairying GHG emissions, us or the people buying and consuming the products (I think it’s us). My general approach to CC is think global, act local. So we need to think about CC in its global context (because of the obvious), but that we have pretty limited control over other nations and peoples. We can instead act locally, find the solutions that work here, share them with other people, learn from other people , do the politically responsible things (foreign aid, lobbying etc), but let other countries and peoples find their own solutions.

                Maybe as well as reducing our GHG emissions, reducing dairying is a service to the rest of the world, both in terms of limiting the supply of meat/dairy, and in demonstrating that a country this size can make a living without polluting. That’s at an ideas level obviously, it’s not like anyone in power is even considering lowering dairying (apart from the Greens). Mostly I think one job at the moment is to initiate discussion of other ways.

                That’s why for a number of years I’ve been making comments about regenag (and a post coming soon). It’s technically feasible for NZ to convert its farming to something sustainable right now, there are enough farmers here who have pioneered the techniques. I don’t believe the solution to NZ’s GHG emissions is BAU and GE ryegrass.

                As ever it’s the lack of political and public will that’s the problem. Nevertheless there are people who are continuing to do the right thing and if NZ does get it’s act together politically I can see agriculture here changing quite fast.

  6. Olwyn 6

    This article claims that Sandersism has won, whether Bernie wins the nomination or not. The writer might be a bit too optimistic, but the Sanders movement has at least exposed business-as-usual for what it is and is seriously aiming a stake at TINA’s vampire heart.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/seth-abramson/make-no-mistake-sanderism_b_10008136.html
    The point being this: the ideological revolution within the Democratic Party has already happened, and Sandersism won. The only question now is how long Democrats and the country will have to wait to see its gains in real-time.

    • ianmac 6.1

      Hopeful Olwyn?
      “The Democratic Party as the Clintons remade it in the 1990s is dead, and the most Clinton can do is steer her little ghost-ship a few more miles until it finally wrecks itself on an offshore sandbar.

      Clinton may win the battle in 2016, but only political neophytes — and a few Washington Post columnists, I suppose — fail to see that she’s already lost the war.”

      • Olwyn 6.1.1

        I am always a bit cautious in my optimism 🙂 – look at what is happening in Brazil, for instance. I am confident that the third-way left have lost whatever credibility they may have had, but am also aware of how well-resourced and determined the TINA gang are.

        • Draco T Bastard 6.1.1.1

          +1

          And I still can’t see NZ Labour shifting out of the neo-liberal paradigm.

          • Craig H 6.1.1.1.1

            Based on what I’ve heard from members, I can, but it might be a while.

            • Bill 6.1.1.1.1.1

              If the Labour Party operated on a ‘one person one vote’ basis, then I’d be inclined to suggest it would already have happened and that Cunliffe would likely still be the leader of the Labour Party. Just look at how UK Labour is changing under Corbyn with their ‘one person one vote’ system – caucus, for all their antipathy towards him and his politics, can’t touch him.

              Unfortunately for us in NZ, with a system that allows a caucus 40% of the vote and the unions 15% of the vote…okay, would Corbyn still be leading the UK Labour Party under NZs set up?

              I don’t know the numbers and I’m not about to go away and crunch them. But suffice to say I have my doubts.

            • Colonial Viper 6.1.1.1.1.2

              Based on what I’ve heard from members, I can, but it might be a while.

              The Labour caucus and the moderating committee is now largely under the control of the following factions:

              1) the “young” careerists, typically 45 and under
              2) the right wing, typically 45 plus

              The fucked/zero leverage factions are the pro-Cunliffe, formerly pro-Cunliffe, and left wing. I estimate that together they now represent around, or less than, 25% of caucus.

              Notice how Little has no faction in caucus to call his own, but he does have affiliate muscle behind him.

              Now, IMO Labour has two more General Elections left in it. If it loses both of them (2017 and 2020) it will permanently slide into minor party status (sub 20%).

              My call for 2017 is Labour 25% (=2014) +/-3%, with a negative outlook. Labour is unlikely to take the Treasury benches on those numbers.

              So the question is – does your comment “but it might be quite a while” suggest a time frame before 2020, or a timeframe after 2020.

              If it is after 2020, then Labour is history.

              • Draco T Bastard

                Labour needs to do a Corbyn/Sanders and go full Left wing rather than hanging on to the failed right-wing policies that they have.

                • Colonial Viper

                  Instead, they believe that appealing to the centrist middle class swing voter because they are the ones who decide election outcomes is what they need to do.

                  • Olwyn

                    @ CV: They need to remember that Key did not win any elections by dumping his core constituency and replacing it with a middle class one – instead he (or Brash before him) consolidated his wealthy, right wing constituency and worked to add the middle class to what he already had.

                    • Colonial Viper

                      Indeed, Labour have got the formula wrong. And it shows in their election results.

              • swordfish

                Interesting typology, CV.

                How accurate would you say my list is here ? …

                Right Faction
                1 Shearer
                2 Goff (retiring)
                3 King (possibly retiring)
                4 Davis
                5 Parker
                6 Nash
                7 Cosgrove (retiring)
                8 O’Connor
                9 Fa’afoi

                Young Careerists Faction
                1 Robertson
                2 Hipkins
                3 Ardern
                4 Twyford
                5 Curran
                6 Clark
                7 Mallard (or should he be in Right Faction ?)
                8 Woods (or Left ?)
                9 Dyson (or Left ?)

                Left/Cunliffe/Formerly Cunliffe Faction
                1 Cunliffe
                2 Mahuta
                3 Wall
                4 Moroney
                5 Sio
                6 Tirikatene
                7 Lees-Galloway

                8 Little (vaguely associated with Left Faction ?)

                Not Sure
                1 Sepuloni (Left ? / Young Careerist ?)
                2 Whaitiri
                3 Salesa
                4 Henare
                5 Williams (Left ? / Young Careerist ?)
                6 Rurawhe (Right ?)

                • Colonial Viper

                  Wow wow wow 😎

                  Approx 85% accurate. A very good job mate. A few of the line calls. Tirikatene and Fa’foi I would place in the careerist camp. Sepuloni former Cunliffe camp. Mallard definitely right. I have my suspicions on some of the newer MPs in the not sure camp but we will let them show their hand a bit more clearly first. Woods careerist, Dyson more left I think.

                  Oh, someone just mentioned to me that we could actually introduce one full additional category – the ‘hasbeens, never will be’s and incompetents’. A few names would instantly slide out of where they sit now into that new category.

                • Colonial Viper

                  Also swordfish, you may find it interesting to asterisk* the list MPs separately, and to reflect on how they are feeling about life and their political job security in general.

                • Anne

                  Sepuloni is Left. I wouldn’t describe Twyford , Woods or Dyson as “young careerists”. Especially Dyson. She’s in the twilight of her parliamentary career now.

                  King is on record as having said she’s definitely standing again but as a list MP. A nice way to hand over the seat to Little? Both Woods and Dyson are more centre Left than right. In the “not sure”category I think most would fall into the centre Left category too.

    • Dialey 6.2

      My goodness there are some lessons for Labour NZ to learn from this excellent Huff Post article, if only they would

  7. RTM 7

    As Crown Treaty negotiations with Moriori hit the mainstream media all sorts of old myths and prejudices are oozing out of the Kiwi public. Any Crown settlement with Moriori needs to include not only massive land transfers but a sustained public education campaign: http://readingthemaps.blogspot.co.nz/2016/05/moriori-history-and-treaty-politics.html

    • vto 7.1

      A sustained public education programme teaching what?

      There is a huge amount yet to be discovered, let alone be certain enough to begin an “education programme”.

      the blind leading the blind

      . . . .

      pre-maori (pre-1300’s approx.) New Zealand is fascinating in its mystic unknowns and old tales…..

      … which is all of course entirely separate from the contract the British Crown entered into with Maori some centuries later.

      • weka 7.1.1

        Pretty sure that Moriori know a hell of a lot more about themselves as a people than non-Moriori know. They’re hardly blind. That might be a good place to start.

        thanks for the link RTM.

    • weka 7.2

      Great read RTM, thanks.

      Who lives on Rekohu now? Is it Moriori, the two iwi, and Pākehā?

  8. dv 8

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/80234058/blessie-gotingcos-family-call-for-support-as-they-consider-suing-corrections

    More than $15,000 has been donated to murdered woman’s Blessie Gotingco’s family, only hours after they announced that they want to hold the Government accountable.

    The comment by Collins on the news re the killing that really struck me was
    “Oh well he was always going to kill again”

    What was implied was what the f**k could I/we do about.

    • vto 9.1

      There is so much pissing around today in Government..

      Just frikkin’ get on and build some housing.. stop talking about it and do it. Get some Crown land, design some low-cost housing, and build it. Should take 12 months maximum….

      ….. but oh no, can’t do that, must go through “process”, must write reports, must set up committee, must not make decision, must find Minister to make decision, Minister must not make decision without “process”, report, recommendation

      this lot are bloody useless

      public bodies today are bloody useless

      cut through the shit why don’t you. Engage an architect and builder on Monday and get into it…

      the incompetence would be funny were it not so serious

      and even more funny is that despite National parading themselves as an action government, the history shows (and would certainly be repeated) that it is Labour that would get something like this done much quicker and better

      National – useless conservatives since inception

    • Dialey 9.2

      I bet comments will be closed off pretty shortly on that bit of spin

  9. RTM 10

    ‘A sustained public education programme teaching what?’

    Moriori history. Follow the link. Michael King’s Moriori: a people rediscovered is a good lengthier introduction.

    ‘There is a huge amount yet to be discovered, let alone be certain enough to begin an “education programme”.

    Moriori and the scores of scholars who’ve investigated their history disagree.

    ‘pre-maori (pre-1300’s approx.) New Zealand’

    You think the ancestors of Maori got here in the fourteenth century? There are dozens of radiocarbon results for artefacts and sites older than that. Wairau Bar was inhabited in the twelfth century, at least.

    ‘mystic unknowns and old tales’

    I’d be wary about people telling tales of ancient lost civilisations in NZ. They tend to lack training in anything but conspiracy theories.
    http://books.scoop.co.nz/2008/11/18/no-to-nazi-pseudo-history-an-open-letter/
    http://readingthemaps.blogspot.co.nz/2012/08/new-zealand-old-lemuria.html

    • vto 10.1

      It will be interesting to see what history and archaeology discovers in the next 100 years.

      I am picking multiple peoples from much further back. I pick this for most of the last parts of the planet to supposedly be inhabited, not just our islands. I am picking several waves of human-type species migrating out of Africa (and/or Asia), yet to be discovered. Anthropology is a very young science, making new discoveries at a fast clip and accelerating. On the threshold of vast new human discoveries methinks …

      Assuming we have full and complete knowledge today in 2016 is, well, just silly. See previous history scholars and their past findings cf todays knowledge, in evidence.

      Unfortunately though this area of our history gets all tied up in today’s politics to see anything clearly. As you highlight.

  10. RTM 11

    ‘Assuming we have full and complete knowledge today in 2016 is, well, just silly’

    Nobody assumes that. What’s silly is to assert that because everything about the past isn’t known nothing can be said about the past. We know, thanks to the work of dozens of scholars, that Moriori were a Polynesian people closely related but distinct from Maori, that they lived in isolation for centuries on the Chathams, that they evolved, over time, an egalitarian and pacifist culture, that they were invaded in 1835, and that the stories created about them by nineteenth century Pakeha and still widely believed by Pakeha are false.

    ‘I am picking multiple peoples from much further back [settled NZ].’

    The trouble is that, despite the efforts of advocates of Celtic and Viking and Atlantean settlement conspiracy theories, evidence is rather thin on the ground. The absence of artefacts and skeletons under the tephra from the Taupo eruptions and the analysis of ancient pollen spores suggests that humans were not living in NZ in any numbers more than a thousand years ago. If the conspiracy theorists were right and an ancient civilisation existed here then we’d expect to find all sorts of stuff under the tephra, as well as evidence from pollen spores and other sources of the presence of rats and the clearance of forests in ancient times.

    • vto 11.1

      I think we are on the same page mostly RTM.

      Re your last paragraph, noted and aware. “conspiracy theorists” and “ancient civilisations” are terms not conducive to considered thought and debate, but merely rhetoric designed to denigrate. Let’s put those terms to one side..

      Sure, evidence is thin on the ground – but as I said, this is a very young science, especially in NZ. There is some evidence, as you note. As more time passes and more digs completed then more will become apparent.

      Tell me I am curious – what is your view of Maori history which itself tells of various and numerous people already living here when they arrived?

  11. Draco T Bastard 12

    Time to reassess phones in cars

    But a new transport strategy will consider whether mobile devices could actually help to make our roads safer.

    The Safer Journeys Strategy is calling for a review of legislation by the end of the year to identify “unnecessary barriers” to the use of technology, including accessing road safety information safely on mobile devices in vehicles.

    The strategy aims for increased use of emerging technology to enable smart and safe choices on the road, reduce unintended errors and increase compliance.

    Well, that’s the stated reason. It’s all bollocks of course. If you take people’s attention away from the road while they’re driving then the chances of them having an accident go up.

    The real reason is this:

    A 2009 law change made it illegal to use phones behind the wheel, and police have since raked in millions of dollars in fines.

    I assume some rich person somewhere got fined for breaking the law and complained to National about it. And now the attacks on it just being a revenue gatherer for police are coming out.

    • Colonial Viper 12.1

      Actually rich people have flash new cars, flash new cars tether to your smartphone via bluetooth, no problem with the cops there.

  12. RTM 13

    ‘“conspiracy theorists” and “ancient civilisations” are terms not conducive to considered thought and debate’

    In my experience the proponents of claims that non-Polynesians settled NZ thousands of years ago are all motivated at least in part by a far right political agenda, engage in conspiracy theories to try to account for the lack of evidence for their claims, and lack any training in a relevant discipline. In the piece for SRB I linked to earlier I tried to show the neo-Nazi connections of the most high profile proponents of ancient civilisations theory.

    ‘Sure, evidence is thin on the ground’

    Evidence is non-existent, which is why the likes of Martin Doutre and Kerry Bolton have to resort to claims that a vast conspiracy is suppressing evidence.

    ‘There is some evidence, as you note. As more time passes and more digs completed then more will become apparent.’

    There have been thousands of digs around NZ, extensive analysis of environmental evidence like spollen spores, tests of human and rat DNA, and no evidence at all has been found for a pre-Polynesian civilisation. There simply isn’t anything under the tephra left by even the most recent Taupo eruption, which means that humans simply couldn’t have been here thousands of years ago in any numbers.

    What’s interesting is the desire of so many Pakeha to believe in something for which we have no evidence.

    ‘what is your view of Maori history which itself tells of various and numerous people already living here when they arrived?’

    There is no single Maori oral history: each iwi has multiple versions of its past, and each is more akin to the oral epics of ancient Greece than to what we understand as history today. Just as we wouldn’t take Homer’s talk of sirens and a cyclops literally, so we shouldn’t take legends of taniwha, fairy folk, hairy men of the bush, kehua, and so on literally.

    In my own research I’ve found that even in the twentieth century memories of events got tangled and confused in just a few years.

    • vto 13.1

      I don’t get it – you suggest Maori history should be discounted yet use Moriori history in support of a view.. how does that work?

      Also this “What’s interesting is the desire of so many Pakeha to believe in something for which we have no evidence. ” – that is not interesting at all. That smacks of the “politics of today” confusing the picture, as mentioned before. Plays no part except in the minds of those with vested interests. Not interested.

      . . . . .

      Unfortunately I don’t have the time to bat back and forth today. However, when it comes to tales of “fairy folk, tall people, fair-skinned people etc” you do realise those same tales exist in other parts of the globe yes? You don’t think there might be something to them? Like perhaps there were other people around? An earlier species of human out of Africa perhaps? Such as the red deer cave people perhaps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Deer_Cave_people ?

      When do you imagine the last Neanderthal died RTM? Have we found the last one to die?

      When did the last mammoth die?

      The certainty in your points RTM is not accepted.

      This entire area of human history is so very far from certain. It is fascinating. It is also in the very very close past (last mammoth died about 3,000 years ago, and I would suggest the last Neanderthals were around that time too… like yesterday, leading to the legends of yetis and the like). Do you know if Neanderthals ever made it to NZ? Or those other species of human? You do realise we have the worst lands on the planet for preservation of early peoples, with our pluviality and flora growth rates, not to mention erosion and coastal retreat.

      • Sacha 13.1.1

        “Do you know if Neanderthals ever made it to NZ? ”

        Does the quality of thinking on our current right-wing blogs constitute evidence? Has it been established that Neanderthals were expert navigators and sailors like those other cultures who settled here?

  13. greywarshark 14

    Something to make you feel good today. Sign the petition to go to Ann Tolley calling for waiver of the cost of motel accommodation for people in dire straits. The gummint is expecting them to pay it back FGS.
    See – http://thestandard.org.nz/petition-to-forgive-emergency-accommodation-debt/

    This is an excerpt from the petition. I’m sure that all thoughtful people will agree with the statement. The petition is aiming for 6000 and nearly there so give it a push in the right direction.

    Why is this important?
    When people are in desperate need, Winz loan people money so they can rent out a motel room as emergency housing. [1] People then have to repay the debt, and many say that is just not possible.

    This is a ridiculous and inhumane policy in effect locking people who are already in such dire straits that they are homeless, into further debt.

    Furthermore, it does nothing to solve the housing crisis and is open to exploitation by the Motel owners, and the people themselves have little choice but to agree.

    • Treetop 14.1

      In some cases, providing the people travelling have a current passport, it maybe cheaper for them to go overseas to visit family or a travel package until a house is made available. Travel insurance would be required. At least a trip would be a stress braker.

      People have been financed by the government to travel to Australia for cancer treatment.

      It would not surprise me that people are so pushed over the edge that they may contemplate the unthinkable. (It is fine if this comment is removed).

  14. RTM 15

    I beg to differ, vto: I think the attitude you represent is interesting, because in my experience it is widespread amongst Pakeha.

    You haven’t spent much time thinking about the history of these islands’ Polynesian inhabitants and their ancestors in the tropical Pacific, but you have a very strong desire to believe in an ancient civilisation that is extremely unlikely to have existed here. You combine, in other words, a lack of interest in the real history of this part of the world with a fascination with a fantasy history. I think that this combination of incuriosity and fantastic yearning is a symptom of the fact that many Pakeha still don’t feel entirely at home down here in New Zealand. It reflects a sort of unease that I think some of our finest poets and artists diagnose.

    ‘you suggest Maori history should be discounted yet use Moriori history in support of a view’

    I’ve been talking about the understanding of the history of Moriori that has been built up out of hard evidence – artefacts excavated, words analysed, skeletons studied, old texts recovered and interpreted and so on – not about old legends taken at face value. Legends about ancient events have to be taken very carefully, especially when they are full of supernatural events.

    If you want to use the various legends of iwi as evidence for a pre-Maori civilisation, because some of these legends include stories of pale-skinned fairy folk and hairy men of the bush, then you’ve got to explain why you’re not also using the taniwha and so on. But even if you want to press the scattered traditions of fairy folk into service as evidence for ancient pale-skinned settlers of these islands, you run into the insurmountable obstacle of the complete absence of material evidence for such settlers. There’s nothing under the tephra.

    ‘perhaps there were other people around? An earlier species of human out of Africa perhaps?’

    So you think there was a wave of white-skinned people that came out of Africa tens of thousands of years ago and had the aquatechnology to spread all the way to NZ, when the Europeans couldn’t even get to the Azores until less than a thousand years ago, and that these ancient settlers left no trace of their coming except some Maori folk tales about fairies who hid in the bush and played flutes? I guess you could work taniwha into your theory, and claim that the fairies rode them across the ocean to these islands.

    ‘When do you imagine the last Neanderthal died RTM?’

    I’m not sure what this has to do with NZ history, but the last Neanderthals died out about thirty thousand years ago at the bottom of the Iberian peninsula.

    ‘When did the last mammoth die?’

    About four thousand years ago on Wrangel Island.

    Archaeology is a wonderful thing, isn’t it? We can know about Neanderthals and mammoths, and we can discard claims about ancient civilisations in NZ after digging and finding nothing to support them.

    ‘You do realise we have the worst lands on the planet for preservation of early peoples’

    How did you get this idea? We have a very good stratigraphic record, with the tephra laid down nicely in layers. We’re not like a tropical atoll, where stratigraphy is very hard to establish.

    ‘Do you know if Neanderthals ever made it to NZ?’

    With their sophisticated aquatechnology, who knows? Seriously, I think you’ve wandered down a pretty curious path here.

    • weka 15.1

      RTM, is there a reason you aren’t using the reply buttons and keeping this conversation in one thread? It would be easier to follow if you did.

    • vto 15.2

      Sorry RTM but your assumptions about me discount your otherwise known, though conservative and status quo, points. Example:

      “You haven’t spent much time thinking about the history of these islands’ Polynesian inhabitants and their ancestors in the tropical Pacific, but you have a very strong desire to believe in an ancient civilisation that is extremely unlikely to have existed here”……. is horseshit and you have no way of knowing what you claim there about what I have been looking into.. I have no desire to believe anything thanks. It is a curiousity borne of many seemingly illogical facts.

      The rest of your comment is similarly presumptive and emotive … for example, continual use of the words “ancient civilization” with all its underlying implications of great cities and fortifications and associated infrastructure. I have mentioned none of that. You do.

      I just love the certainty that some people have about the past and the future – they make me smile. You are right up there with that certainty RTM, evidenced by this comment “There’s nothing under the tephra.”

      If only humans in the past had been so certain about the future eh RTM… you are a ground-breaker with your certainty that the past is now known, … lol

      . .

      here is a question for you: how many tonnes of pounamu were found spread across Aotearoa when the Europeans arrived?

  15. arkie 16

    http://thespinoff.co.nz/media/20-05-2016/you-asked-where-are-the-women-in-nz-boardrooms-here-they-are/

    Interesting article on the Spinoff about the dearth of women in NZ business, though there is the odd inclusion of Paula Bennett in the list. Is it a joke/irony? Any thoughts?

  16. Bill 17

    Meanwhile, in India…what 51°C can look like.

    Shiv Prakash Chanda, who works as a nursing officer in the hospital, said: “It is incredibly hot. None of the air-conditioners or coolers are working. We have running water, but the water is stored in tanks on top the buildings, and when it comes out of the tap the water is so hot that you can’t even wash your hands with it. You can’t even go to the toilet.”

    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/20/indians-demand-government-action-after-temperatures-hit-51c

  17. Treetop 18

    Any thoughts?

    Good at wrecking, e.g. state housing.

    • Bill 19.1

      But it was a white man’s fish he stole marty!

      • mauī 19.1.1

        As an aside, it’s interesting they appear to be charged through the Conservation Act for removing fish that are an introduced apex predator (and are recognised as one of the biggest threats to native fish species) in the NZ environment. But who am I to question..

        • Gangnam Style 19.1.1.1

          “One law for all” !!! Man I feel for the poacher, his ‘crime’ is being brown, our justice system needs some work.

        • Bill 19.1.1.2

          Like I said “white man’s fish” 😉

    • weka 19.2

      That is appallingly bad. It’s like something out of the 19th century.

  18. Gangnam Style 20

    & congrats to Murdoch for winning Canon Media Award for Political Cartooning, she’s one of the more abrasive anti-right wing ones too, amazing recognition for a great political cartoonist in a field rich in brilliant biting political cartoonists.

  19. greywarshark 22

    While looking up a report referred to by Madtom on the Charter schools post, I found this analysis of the present financial situation in the world.
    http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/05/the-new-abnormal-disequilibrium-flirting-with-deflationary-depression.html
    20 May 2016 posted by Yves Smith

    But despite describing the current state of dislocation fairly well, he seems unable to grasp that we are close to the end of the 35 year neoliberal paradigm, which substituted asset price booms and increased consumer access to borrowing for policies that focused on increasing average worker wages. In the topsy-turvy world of the new orthodoxy, worker prosperity was bad because…gasp…it might create inflation!

    And economists and policymakers have done such a splendid job of fighting the last war long after the inflation threat was vanquished that they are now on the verge of creating deflation, which is far more destructive than inflation, particularly in debt-burdened economies….

    The very fact that these monetary innovations are unprecedented means that their impact is unpredictable. This necessarily increases the scope for policy errors and conflicts. Indeed, the lack of consensus on what needs or can be done is palpable. One sign that all is not well is the recent emergence of a vitriolic debate about helicopter money, whereby central banks create money to distribute to citizens directly or via the government.

    And on avoiding tax owing by USA corporates sending funds overseas.
    http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/05/bogus-defenses-of-tax-dodging-corporate-inversions.html
    Posted by Yves Smith 20 May 2016
    The crucial motive in transferring corporations’ “nationality” and official headquarters to low-tax nations is that inversions shield the “foreign” profits of U.S. corporations from federal taxation and ease access to these assets. This protects total U.S. corporate profits held outside the United States—a stunning $2.1 trillion—from any U.S. corporate taxes until they are “repatriated” back to the United States.

    Major corporations benefit hugely from the infinite deferral of taxes purportedly generated by their foreign subsidiaries. “If you are a multinational corporation, the federal government turns your tax bill into an interest-free loan,” wrote David Cay Johnston, Pulitzer-Prize winning writer and author of two books on corporate tax avoidance. Thanks to this deferral, he explained, “Apple and General Electric owe at least $36 billion in taxes on profits being held tax-free offshore, Microsoft nearly $27 billion, and Pfizer $24 billion.”

    Nonetheless, top CEOs and their political allies constantly reiterate the claim that the U.S. tax system “traps” U.S. corporate profits overseas and thereby block domestic investment of these funds. But these “offshore” corporate funds are anything but trapped outside the United States. “The [typical multinational] firm … chooses to keep the earnings offshore simply because it does not want to pay the U.S. income taxes it owes,” explains Thomas Hungerford of the Economic Policy Institute. “This is a very strange definition of ‘trapped’.”

  20. Incognito 24

    @ mickysavage

    You left an interesting note recently in a comment by Mike Bond on AL’s alleged visit to that overcrowded house.

    You may be interested that the NZ Herald blundered tonight and briefly posted on its website a piece by good old Rodney Hide that is to appear tomorrow I presume. It has since been removed from the NZH website but can still be found at http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:eS7z9Cj8BmYJ:www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm%3Fc_id%3D466%26objectid%3D11642642+&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=nz

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    This week’s UN IPCC report warned climate emissions will need to be cut by almost half by 2030, if warming is to be limited to 1.5°C. Bronwyn Hayward points out in The Hoon podcast how far behind NZ’s government and councils are now on climate action compared to the rest ...
    The KakaBy Peter Bale
    21 hours ago
  • The big question for Labour: Will Hipkins have any more success than Ardern did with the top priorit...
    Chris  Hipkins,  after  he became prime minister, committed  to defeating the  cost-of- living crisis. He  proceeded to make a  bonfire of policies  that were at  the  heart of Jacinda Ardern’s administration.  But, as   Richard Prebble pointed out this week, “the government has not just U-turned, it has repudiated the ...
    Point of OrderBy tutere44
    1 day ago
  • Reality check.
    There are some wellness, crystal-gazing, holistic spiritual guidance types in my disaster-hit coastal community who insist that the power of positive thinking will overcome the physical and material damages incurred by the community. They object to restrictions on road travel … Continue reading ...
    KiwipoliticoBy Pablo
    1 day ago
  • High Performance Instability in the Financial Sector
    Evaluating the recent crashes of Silicon Valley Bank in the US and Credit Suisse in Switzerland plus two other banks (perhaps more by the time you read this) needs to begin with a review of the inevitable instability in the financial sector. The financial sector is inherently unstable, like military ...
    PunditBy Brian Easton
    1 day ago
  • The week in review
    1. We see here new police minister Ginny Andersen. Which larger than life NZ political figure was her great-uncle?a. Rob Muldoonb. Bill Andersenc. Richard John Seddond. Norman Kirk2. We see here archival footage of Ginny Andersen coming out of her electorate office to ask ex-tobacco lobbyist Chris Bishop if he ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    2 days ago
  • Nash splashes out with a $900,000 investment in the blue economy (or is it more corporate welfare?)
    Buzz from the Beehive Stuart Nash, speaking as Minister of Oceans and Fisheries, one of his remaining portfolios after he was dropped down the Hipkins Government batting order, has drawn attention to the blue economy and its potential. Nash says the government is investing in the blue economy, or – ...
    Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
    2 days ago
  • Ask Me Anything about the week to March 24
    Photo by Josh Mills on UnsplashIt’s that time of the week for an ‘Ask Me Anything’ session for paying subscribers about the week that was for the next hour, including:The runs on Silicon Valley Bank and First Republic Bank on the west coast of the United States that forced the ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    2 days ago
  • Weekly Roundup 24-March-2023
    Roundup is back! We skipped last week’s Friday post due to a shortage of person-power – did you notice? Lots going on out there… Our header image this week shows a green street that just happens to be Queen St, by @chamfy from Twitter. This week (and last) in ...
    Greater AucklandBy Greater Auckland
    2 days ago
  • Gordon Campbell on the Keen-Minshull visit
    After threatening Prime Minister Chris Hipkins of consequences if he dared to bar her entry, Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull has been given her visa, regardless. This will enable her to hold rallies in Auckland and Wellington this weekend, and spread her messages of hostility against an already marginalised trans community. Neo-Nazis may, ...
    2 days ago
  • BRYCE EDWARDS’ Political Roundup:  NZ needs to distance itself from Australia’s anti-China nucl...
    * Bryce Edwards writes – The New Zealand Government has been silent about Australia’s decision to commit up to $400bn acquiring nuclear submarines, even though this is a significant threat to peace and stability in the Asia Pacific. The deal was struck by the Albanese Labor Government as ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    2 days ago
  • Wayne Brown's #Auxit moment
    Boomers voted him in, but Brown’s Trumpish moments might spook Aucklanders worried about what a change to National nationally might mean. Photo: Lynn Grieveson/Getty ImagesTL;DR: Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown has become our version of Donald Trump and Boris Johnson, except without any of the insatiable appetite for media appearances. He ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    2 days ago
  • Bryce Edwards: NZ needs to distance itself from Australia’s anti-China nuclear submarines
    The New Zealand Government has been silent about Australia’s decision to commit up to $400bn acquiring nuclear submarines, even though this is a significant threat to peace and stability in the Asia Pacific. The deal was struck by the Albanese Labor Government as part of its Aukus pact with the ...
    Democracy ProjectBy bryce.edwards
    2 days ago
  • Posie Parker vs Transgender Rights.
    Recently you might have heard of a person called Posie Parker and her visit to Aotearoa. Perhaps you’re not quite sure what it’s all about. So let’s start with who this person is, why their visit is controversial, and what on earth a TERF is.Posie Parker is the super villain ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    2 days ago
  • Select Committee told slow down; you’re moving too fast
    The chair of Parliament’s Select Committee looking at the Government’s resource management legislation wants the bills sent back for more public consultation. The proposal would effectively kill any chance of the bills making it into law before the election. Green MP, Eugenie Sage, stressing that she was speaking as ...
    PolitikBy Richard Harman
    2 days ago
  • Skeptical Science New Research for Week #12 2023
    Open access notables  The United States experienced some historical low temperature records during the just-concluded winter. It's a reminder that climate and weather are quite noisy; with regard to our warming climate,, as with a road ascending a mountain range we may steadily change our conditions but with lots of ...
    2 days ago
  • What becomes of the broken hearted? Nanny State will step in to comfort them
    Buzz from the Beehive The Nanny State has scored some wins (or claimed them) in the past day or two but it faltered when it came to protecting Kiwi citizens from being savaged by one woman armed with a sharp tongue. The wins are recorded by triumphant ministers on the ...
    Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
    2 days ago
  • Acceptance, decency, road food.
    Sometimes you see your friends making the case so well on social media you think: just copy and share.On acceptance and decency, from Michèle A’CourtA notable thing about anti-trans people is they way they talk about transgender women and men as though they are strangers “over there” when in fact ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    2 days ago
  • Climate Change: More Labour sabotage
    Not that long ago, things were looking pretty good for climate change policy in Aotearoa. We finally had an ETS, and while it was full of pork and subsidies, it was delivering high and ever-rising carbon prices, sending a clear message to polluters to clean up or shut down. And ...
    No Right TurnBy Idiot/Savant
    3 days ago
  • Is bundling restricting electricity competition?
    Comparing (and switching) electricity providers has become easier, but bundling power up with broadband and/or gas makes it more challenging. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The Kākā TL;DR: The new Consumer Advocacy Council set up as a result of the Labour Government’s Electricity Price Review in 2019 has called on either ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    3 days ago
  • Westland Milk puts heat on competitors as global dairy demand  remains softer for longer
    Hokitika-based Westland Milk Products  has  put the heat on dairy giant Fonterra with  a $120m profit turnaround in 2022, driven by record sales. Westland paid its suppliers a 10c premium above the forecast Fonterra price per kilo, contributing $535m to the West Coast and Canterbury economies. The dairy ...
    Point of OrderBy tutere44
    3 days ago
  • BRYCE EDWARDS’ Political Roundup:  The Beehive’s revolving door and corporate mateship
    * Bryce Edwards writes – New Zealanders are uncomfortable with the high level of influence corporate lobbyists have in New Zealand politics, and demands are growing for greater regulation. A recent poll shows 62 per cent of the public support having a two-year cooling off period between ministers leaving public ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    3 days ago
  • Bryce Edwards: The Beehive’s revolving door and corporate mateship
    New Zealanders are uncomfortable with the high level of influence corporate lobbyists have in New Zealand politics, and demands are growing for greater regulation. A recent poll shows 62 per cent of the public support having a two-year cooling off period between ministers leaving public office and becoming lobbyists and ...
    Democracy ProjectBy bryce.edwards
    3 days ago
  • A miracle pill for our transport ills
    This is a guest post by accessibility and sustainable transport advocate Tim Adriaansen It originally appeared here.   A friend calls you and asks for your help. They tell you that while out and about nearby, they slipped over and landed arms-first. Now their wrist is swollen, hurting like ...
    Greater AucklandBy Guest Post
    3 days ago
  • The Surprising Power of Floating Wind Turbines
    Floating offshore wind turbines offer incredible opportunities to capture powerful winds far out at sea. By unlocking this wind energy potential, they could be a key weapon in our arsenal in the fight against climate change. But how developed are these climate fighting clean energy giants? And why do I ...
    3 days ago
  • The next Maori challenge
    Over the past two or three weeks, a procession of Maori iwi and hapu in a series of little-noticed appearances before two Select Committees have been asking for more say for Maori over resource management decisions along the co-governance lines of Three Waters. Their submissions and appearances run counter ...
    PolitikBy Richard Harman
    3 days ago
  • Secret “war-crime” warrants by International Criminal Court is mischief-making
    The decision of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to issue war crimes arrest warrants for the Russian President and the Russia Children Ombudsman may have been welcomed by the ideologically committed but otherwise seems to have been greeted with widespread cynicism (see Situation in Ukraine: ICC judges issue arrest warrants ...
    3 days ago
  • How to answer Drunk Uncle Kevin's Climate Crisis reckons
    Let’s say you’re clasping your drink at a wedding, or a 40th, or a King’s Birthday Weekend family reunion and Drunk Uncle Kevin has just got going.He’s in an expansive frame of mind because we’re finally rid of that silly girl. But he wants to ask an honest question about ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    3 days ago
  • National’s Luxon may be glum about his poll ratings but has he found a winner in promising to rai...
    National Party leader Christopher Luxon may  be feeling glum about his poll ratings, but  he could be tapping  into  a rich political vein in  describing the current state of education as “alarming”. Luxon said educational achievement has been declining,  with a recent NCEA pilot exposing just how far it has ...
    Point of OrderBy tutere44
    4 days ago
  • Climate Change: More Labour foot-dragging
    Yesterday the IPCC released the final part of its Sixth Assessment Report, warning us that we have very little time left in which to act to prevent catastrophic climate change, but pointing out that it is a problem that we can solve, with existing technology, and that anything we do ...
    No Right TurnBy Idiot/Savant
    4 days ago
  • Te Pāti Māori Are Revolutionaries – Not Reformists.
    Way Beyond Reform: Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer have no more interest in remaining permanent members of “New Zealand’s” House of Representatives than did Lenin and Trotsky in remaining permanent members of Tsar Nicolas II’s “democratically-elected” Duma. Like the Bolsheviks, Te Pāti Māori is a party of revolutionaries – not reformists.THE CROWN ...
    4 days ago
  • When does history become “ancient”, on Tinetti’s watch as Minister of Education – and what o...
    Buzz from the Beehive Auckland was wiped off the map, when Education Minister Jan Tinetti delivered her speech of welcome as host of the inaugural Conference of Pacific Education Ministers “here in Tāmaki Makaurau”. But – fair to say – a reference was made later in the speech to a ...
    Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
    4 days ago
  • Climate Catastrophe, but first rugby.
    Morning mate, how you going?Well, I was watching the news last night and they announced this scientific report on Climate Change. But before they got to it they had a story about the new All Blacks coach.Sounds like important news. It’s a bit of a worry really.Yeah, they were talking ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    4 days ago
  • What the US and European bank rescues mean for us
    Always a bailout: US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the Government would fully guarantee all savers in all smaller US banks if needed. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: No wonder an entire generation of investors are used to ‘buying the dip’ and ‘holding on for dear life’. US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    4 days ago
  • Bryce Edwards: Who will drain Wellington’s lobbying swamp?
    Wealthy vested interests have an oversized influence on political decisions in New Zealand. Partly that’s due to their use of corporate lobbyists. Fortunately, the influence lobbyists can have on decisions made by politicians is currently under scrutiny in Guyon Espiner’s in-depth series published by RNZ. Two of Espiner’s research exposés ...
    Democracy ProjectBy bryce.edwards
    4 days ago
  • It’s Raining Congestion
    Yesterday afternoon it rained and traffic around the region ground to a halt, once again highlighting why it is so important that our city gets on with improving the alternatives to driving. For additional irony, this happened on the same day the IPCC synthesis report landed, putting the focus on ...
    4 days ago
  • Checking The Left: The Dreadful Logic Of Fascism.
    The Beginning: Anti-Co-Governance agitator, Julian Batchelor, addresses the Dargaville stop of his travelling roadshow across New Zealand . Fascism almost always starts small. Sadly, it doesn’t always stay that way. Especially when the Left helps it to grow.THERE IS A DREADFUL LOGIC to the growth of fascism. To begin with, it ...
    4 days ago
  • Good Friends and Terrible Food
    Hi,From an incredibly rainy day in Los Angeles, I just wanted to check in. I guess this is the day Trump may or may not end up in cuffs? I’m attempting a somewhat slower, less frenzied week. I’ve had Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s new record on non-stop, and it’s been a ...
    David FarrierBy David Farrier
    4 days ago
  • At a glance – What evidence is there for the hockey stick?
    On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
    4 days ago
  • Carry right on up there, Corporal Espiner
    RNZ has been shining their torch into corners where lobbyists lurk and asking such questions as: Do we like the look of this?and Is this as democratic as it could be?These are most certainly questions worth asking, and every bit as valid as, say:Are we shortchanged democratically by the way ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    4 days ago
  • This smells
    RNZ has continued its look at the role of lobbyists by taking a closer look at the Prime Minister's Chief of Staff Andrew Kirton. He used to work for liquor companies, opposing (among other things) a container refund scheme which would have required them to take responsibility for their own ...
    No Right TurnBy Idiot/Savant
    5 days ago
  • Major issues on the table in Mahuta’s  talks in Beijing with China’s new Foreign Minister
    Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta has left for Beijing for the first ministerial visit to China since 2019. Mahuta is  to  meet China’s new foreign minister Qin Gang  where she  might have to call on all the  diplomatic skills  at  her  command. Almost certainly she  will  face  questions  on what  role ...
    Point of OrderBy tutere44
    5 days ago
  • Inside TOP's Teal Card and political strategy
    TL;DR: The Opportunities Party’s Leader Raf Manji is hopeful the party’s new Teal Card, a type of Gold card for under 30s, will be popular with students, and not just in his Ilam electorate where students make up more than a quarter of the voters and where Manji is confident ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    5 days ago
  • Make Your Empties Go Another Round.
    When I was a kid New Zealand was actually pretty green. We didn’t really have plastic. The fruit and veges came in a cardboard box, the meat was wrapped in paper, milk came in a glass bottle, and even rubbish sacks were made of paper. Today if you sit down ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    5 days ago
  • Gordon Campbell on how similar Vladimir Putin is to George W. Bush
    Looking back through the names of our Police Ministers down the years, the job has either been done by once or future party Bigfoots – Syd Holland, Richard Prebble, Juduth Collins, Chris Hipkins – or by far lesser lights like Keith Allen, Frank Gill, Ben Couch, Allen McCready, Clem Simich, ...
    5 days ago
  • CHRIS TROTTER:  Te Pāti Māori’s uncompromising threat to the status quo
    Chris Trotter writes – The Crown is a fickle friend. Any political movement deemed to be colourful but inconsequential is generally permitted to go about its business unmolested. The Crown’s media, RNZ and TVNZ, may even “celebrate” its existence (presumably as proof of Democracy’s broad-minded acceptance of diversity). ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    5 days ago
  • Bryce Edwards: Shining a bright light on lobbyists in politics
    Four out of the five people who have held the top role of Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff since 2017 have been lobbyists. That’s a fact that should worry anyone who believes vested interests shouldn’t have a place at the centre of decision making. Chris Hipkins’ newly appointed Chief of ...
    Democracy ProjectBy bryce.edwards
    5 days ago
  • Auckland Council Draft Budget – an unnecessary backwards step
    Feedback on Auckland Council’s draft 2023/24 budget closes on March 28th. You can read the consultation document here, and provide feedback here. Auckland Council is currently consulting on what is one of its most important ever Annual Plans – the ‘budget’ of what it will spend money on between July ...
    5 days ago
  • Talking’ Posey Parker Blues
    by Molten Moira from Motueka If you want to be a woman let me tell you what to do Get a piece of paper and a biro tooWrite down your new identification And boom! You’re now a woman of this nationSpelled W O M A Na real trans woman that isAs opposed ...
    RedlineBy Admin
    5 days ago
  • More Māori words make it into the OED, and polytech boss (with rules on words like “students”) ...
    Buzz from the Beehive   New Zealand Education Minister Jan Tinetti is hosting the inaugural Conference of Pacific Education Ministers for three days from today, welcoming Education Ministers and senior officials from 18 Pacific Island countries and territories, and from Australia. Here’s hoping they have brought translators with them – or ...
    Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
    5 days ago
  • Social intercourse with haters and Nazis: an etiquette guide
    Let’s say you’ve come all the way from His Majesty’s United Kingdom to share with the folk of Australia and New Zealand your antipathy towards certain other human beings. And let’s say you call yourself a women’s rights activist.And let’s say 99 out of 100 people who listen to you ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    5 days ago
  • The Greens, Labour, and coalition enforcement
    James Shaw gave the Green party's annual "state of the planet" address over the weekend, in which he expressed frustration with Labour for not doing enough on climate change. His solution is to elect more Green MPs, so they have more power within any government arrangement, and can hold Labour ...
    No Right TurnBy Idiot/Savant
    6 days ago
  • This sounds familiar…
    RNZ this morning has the first story another investigative series by Guyon Espiner, this time into political lobbying. The first story focuses on lobbying by government agencies, specifically transpower, Pharmac, and assorted universities, and how they use lobbyists to manipulate public opinion and gather intelligence on the Ministers who oversee ...
    No Right TurnBy Idiot/Savant
    6 days ago
  • Letter to the NZ Herald: NCEA pseudoscience – “Mauri is present in all matter”
    Nick Matzke writes –   Dear NZ Herald, I am a Senior Lecturer in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Auckland. I teach evolutionary biology, but I also have long experience in science education and (especially) political attempts to insert pseudoscience into science curricula in ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    6 days ago
  • So what would be the point of a Green vote again?
    James Shaw has again said the Greens would be better ‘in the tent’ with Labour than out, despite Labour’s policy bonfire last week torching much of what the Government was doing to reduce emissions. File Photo: Lynn Grieveson/Getty ImagesTL;DR: The Green Party has never been more popular than in some ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    6 days ago
  • Gas stoves pose health risks. Are gas furnaces and other appliances safe to use?
    This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Sarah Wesseler Poor air quality is a long-standing problem in Los Angeles, where the first major outbreak of smog during World War II was so intense that some residents thought the city had been attacked by chemical weapons. Cars were eventually discovered ...
    6 days ago
  • Genetic Heritage and Co Governance
    Yesterday I was reading an excellent newsletter from David Slack, and I started writing a comment “Sounds like some excellent genetic heritage…” and then I stopped.There was something about the phrase genetic heritage that stopped me in tracks. Is that a phrase I want to be saying? It’s kind of ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    6 days ago
  • BRIAN EASTON: Radical Uncertainty
    Brian Easton writes – Two senior economists challenge some of the foundations of current economics. It is easy to criticise economic science by misrepresenting it, by selective quotations, and by ignoring that it progresses, like all sciences, by improving and abandoning old theories. The critics may go ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    6 days ago
  • Geoffrey Miller: New Zealand’s Middle East strategy, 20 years after the Iraq War
    This week marks the twentieth anniversary of the Iraq War. While it strongly opposed the US-led invasion, New Zealand’s then Labour-led government led by Prime Minister Helen Clark did deploy military engineers to try to help rebuild Iraq in mid-2003. With violence soaring, their 12-month deployment ended without being renewed ...
    Democracy ProjectBy Geoffrey Miller
    6 days ago
  • The motorways are finished
    After seventy years, Auckland’s motorway network is finally finished. In July 1953 the first section of motorway in Auckland was opened between Ellerslie-Panmure Highway and Mt Wellington Highway. The final stage opens to traffic this week with the completion of the motorway part of the Northern Corridor Improvements project. Aucklanders ...
    6 days ago
  • Kicking National’s tyres
    National’s appointment of Todd McClay as Agriculture spokesperson clearly signals that the party is in trouble with the farming vote. McClay was not an obvious choice, but he does have a record as a political scrapper. The party needs that because sources say it has been shedding farming votes ...
    PolitikBy Richard Harman
    6 days ago
  • As long as there is cricket, the world is somehow okay.
    Rays of white light come flooding into my lounge, into my face from over the top of my neighbour’s hedge. I have to look away as the window of the conservatory is awash in light, as if you were driving towards the sun after a rain shower and suddenly blinded. ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    7 days ago
  • So much of what was there remains
    The columnists in Private Eye take pen names, so I have not the least idea who any of them are. But I greatly appreciate their expert insight, especially MD, who writes the medical column, offering informed and often damning critique of the UK health system and the politicians who keep ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    7 days ago
  • 2023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #11
    A chronological listing of news articles posted on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Mar 12, 2023 thru Sat, Mar 18, 2023. Story of the Week Guest post: What 13,500 citations reveal about the IPCC’s climate science report   IPCC WG1 AR6 SPM Report Cover - Changing ...
    7 days ago
  • Financial capability services are being bucked up, but Stuart Nash shouldn’t have to see if they c...
    Buzz from the Beehive  The building of financial capability was brought into our considerations when Social Development and Employment Minister Carmel Sepuloni announced she had dipped into the government’s coffers for $3 million for “providers” to help people and families access community-based Building Financial Capability services. That wording suggests some ...
    Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
    1 week ago
  • Things that make you go Hmmmm.
    Do you ever come across something that makes you go Hmmmm?You mean like the song?No, I wasn’t thinking of the song, but I am now - thanks for that. I was thinking of things you read or hear that make you stop and go Hmmmm.Yeah, I know what you mean, ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    1 week ago
  • The hoon for the week that was to March 19
    By the end of the week, the dramas over Stuart Nash overshadowed Hipkins’ policy bonfire. File photo: Lynn GrieveasonTLDR: This week’s news in geopolitics and the political economy covered on The Kākā included:PM Chris Hipkins’ announcement of the rest of a policy bonfire to save a combined $1.7 billion, but ...
    The KakaBy Peter Bale
    1 week ago
  • Saving Stuart Nash: Explaining Chris Hipkins' unexpected political calculation
    When word went out that Prime Minister Chris Hipkins would be making an announcement about Stuart Nash on the tiles at parliament at 2:45pm yesterday, the assumption was that it was over. That we had reached tipping point for Nash’s time as minister. But by 3pm - when, coincidentally, the ...
    PunditBy Tim Watkin
    1 week ago
  • Radical Uncertainty
    Two senior economists challenge some of the foundations of current economics. It is easy to criticise economic science by misrepresenting it, by selective quotations, and by ignoring that it progresses, like all sciences, by improving and abandoning old theories. The critics may go on to attack physics by citing Newton.So ...
    PunditBy Brian Easton
    1 week ago
  • Jump onto the weekly hoon on Riverside at 5pm
    Photo by Walker Fenton on UnsplashIt’s that time of the week again when and I co-host our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kaka for an hour at 5 pm. Jump on this link on Riverside (we’ve moved from Zoom) for our chat about the week’s news with ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    1 week ago
  • The Dream of Florian Neame: Accepted
    In a nice bit of news, my 2550-word deindustrial science-fiction piece, The Dream of Florian Neame, has been accepted for publication at New Maps Magazine (https://www.new-maps.com/). I have published there before, of course, with Of Tin and Tintagel coming out last year. While I still await the ...
    1 week ago

  • Crown apology to Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa Tāmaki nui-a-Rua
    Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Minister Andrew Little has delivered the Crown apology to Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa Tāmaki nui-a-Rua for its historic breaches of Te Tiriti of Waitangi today. The ceremony was held at Queen Elizabeth Park in Masterton, hosted by Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa Tāmaki nui-a-Rua, with several hundred ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    15 hours ago
  • Minister of Foreign Affairs meets with Chinese counterpart
    Minister of Foreign Affairs Nanaia Mahuta has concluded her visit to China, the first by a New Zealand Foreign Minister since 2018. The Minister met her counterpart, newly appointed State Councilor and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Qin Gang, who also hosted a working dinner. This was the first engagement between the two ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    16 hours ago
  • Government delivering world-class satellite positioning services
    World-class satellite positioning services that will support much safer search and rescue, boost precision farming, and help safety on construction sites through greater accuracy are a significant step closer today, says Land Information Minister Damien O’Connor. Damien O’Connor marked the start of construction on New Zealand’s first uplink centre for ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 day ago
  • District Court Judges appointed
    Attorney-General David Parker has announced the appointment of Christopher John Dellabarca of Wellington, Dr Katie Jane Elkin of Wellington, Caroline Mary Hickman of Napier, Ngaroma Tahana of Rotorua, Tania Rose Williams Blyth of Hamilton and Nicola Jan Wills of Wellington as District Court Judges.  Chris Dellabarca Mr Dellabarca commenced his ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    2 days ago
  • New project set to supercharge ocean economy in Nelson Tasman
    A new Government-backed project will help ocean-related businesses in the Nelson Tasman region to accelerate their growth and boost jobs. “The Nelson Tasman region is home to more than 400 blue economy businesses, accounting for more than 30 percent of New Zealand’s economic activity in fishing, aquaculture, and seafood processing,” ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    3 days ago
  • National’s education policy: where’s the funding?
    After three years of COVID-19 disruptions schools are finally settling down and National want to throw that all in the air with major disruption to learning and underinvestment.  “National’s education policy lacks the very thing teachers, parents and students need after a tough couple of years, certainty and stability,” Education ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    3 days ago
  • Free programme to help older entrepreneurs and inventors
    People aged over 50 with innovative business ideas will now be able to receive support to advance their ideas to the next stage of development, Minister for Seniors Ginny Andersen said today. “Seniors have some great entrepreneurial ideas, and this programme will give them the support to take that next ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    3 days ago
  • Government target increased to keep powering up the Māori economy
    A cross government target for relevant government procurement contracts for goods and services to be awarded to Māori businesses annually will increase to 8%, after the initial 5% target was exceeded. The progressive procurement policy was introduced in 2020 to increase supplier diversity, starting with Māori businesses, for the estimated ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    3 days ago
  • Continued progress on reducing poverty in challenging times
    77,000 fewer children living in low income households on the after-housing-costs primary measure since Labour took office Eight of the nine child poverty measures have seen a statistically significant reduction since 2018. All nine have reduced 28,700 fewer children experiencing material hardship since 2018 Measures taken by the Government during ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    3 days ago
  • Speech at Fiji Investment and Trade Business Forum
    Deputy Prime Minister Kamikamica; distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen. Tēnā koutou katoa, ni sa bula vinaka saka, namaste. Deputy Prime Minister, a very warm welcome to Aotearoa. I trust you have been enjoying your time here and thank you for joining us here today. To all delegates who have travelled to be ...
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    3 days ago
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