There is a problem with the cron jobs for scheduled posts on wordpress at present after the upgrade to 2.9 (not something I test for when looking at new versions *sigh*).
Ok. It looks like an issue with the timeout on the cron job being too tight at 0.01 seconds. This is an old problem, but seems to be a lot worse on 2.9
Lynn quite often the capta doesn’t appear or it shows up as ***invalid***.. It was like that all yesterday for me and this AM as well
Obviously it is fine now it is “completely” not that that is relevant
[lprent: Damn – another site issue. Oh well I’m on holiday so I have time to deal with it. Last time it was a buildup of the generated graphics in the tmp directory.
There is a work-around. Login and you’ll find that you don’t have a captcha. The only restrictions are that you have to get past the captcha on the registration and have a valid e-mail address. ]
The other workaround is to right click where the image should be (whether you can see this or not depends on your browser) and open the image itself, perhaps in a new tab.
Has worked for me when I’ve had this problem in the past anyway.
Laura Dekker was born at sea and presumably has been at sea ever since. Fourteen years and being encouraged by her father to sail round the world? She has only just started on her life and is being encouraged to put herself at such risk. And if she needs rescue and receives it who pays?It would be unreasonable to make a whimsical decision to be at one with the sea, a water nomad, a free being and then want someone else to pay for it.
One of the saddest stories is the one of the Brit who was in a lone-hand race and was so far out of it he started fibbing about his location and got so far from the truth as well as his goal port and the other competitors that I think he drowned himself.
These people who live on boats sailing around all the time can’t have much connection with any country and any giving relationship with a community or their own country. Their children are separated from real-life relationships with other children outside their tight little closed community. Sort of like a sea-cult.
Unbelievable. There has been a massive breakdown in the Channel tunnel and will probably be no Eurostar trains going through before Christmas with thousands of people probably unable to make alternative travel bookings in France and Britain. Eurostar have a 50 year contract to run the thing. Those pressing for public-private or completely private operations need to bear this type of thing in mind when thinking about provision of quality services needed by the general public.
Trains broke down in the Chunnel one after another apparently. There was a reference to change from cold air outside the tunnel to warm air inside – as if that might have been a reason for the breakdowns. 2,000 got stuck in the Chunnel overnight. There was little communication with passengers. It must have been hell for the workers too trying to deal with an obviously inadequate emergency plan. Passengers in one carriage had to wait half an hour to get half a litre of water to share between a large number. No mention has been made of the toilet facilities. The airconditioning broke down. The passengers opened the emergency doors manually and walked along lines to get to another train.
The pride of modern technology and modern management techniques – most useful would have been golf carts for ferrying passengers with perhaps some horses pulling carts that could run along the rail lines.
heh! Reminds me of a few years ago when the private company running BritRail, can’t remember the name, had a series of massive failures due to a build up of leaves on he tracks. At the time, the company said the failures occurred because Autumn took them by surprise!!
Interesting point on TV report today about the Chunnel problem and Heathrow down too. There is no bus service to ferry these hapless people (and their children) to where they are supposed to go for getting transport.
Where is the co-ordination? Whose responsibility? Where private companies operate they are likely to go into a silo mode. It’s not their responsibility to be concerned about ease of transport and providing needed services for the public. If there is government oversight over transport it knits the systems together.
The TV showed a long line of resigned people trudging along the street dragging their luggage and pushing their children’s pushchairs. They have been waiting for four days to get away. It’s an indictment on both private and public lack of planning for emergencies.
Interesting but enigmatic comments. I remember the madeira but don’t remember the others PB and Ian. Must listen to the tape or I think its vinyl, again. Haven’t played LPs for a long time. Think everything still works.
Just got 63 cents interest on my bank account and 12 cents taxation off it. I am sure that one of our problems with lack of savings is the way that fees and taxes eat into them. Once I had $100 in a credit union. I didn’t do anything it just sat there. They charged $25 yearly to handle a/c. Why not spend it when it would have disappeared in 4 years and earned $6 a year.
Inflation is always diminishing savings even though it is lower than it used to be but then the interest paid is lower as well. Its time the government bit the bullet and cut the taxation on ordinary savings way back, and stopped taking it out in cents, pay nothing till you earn $100 I say. Taxmen leave my cents alone!
Appointing a homophobic bigot like Brian Neeson to the Human Rights Tribunal is like appointing Paul Henry to the Broadcasting Standards Authority! John Key may as well appoint hood wearing, cross burning Klansmen to the Human Rights Review Tribunal if Neeson is the new benchmark. This hateful bigot who has a well tracked history of attempting to DENY human rights is now on the fucking tribunal reviewing human rights? Tell me this is some sort of sick, sick Joke. The Human Rights Review Tribunal has no moral authority whatsoever with a bigot like Neeson on it.
For the love of Christ, Neeson has intellectually argued AGAINST giving certain groups human rights, he is a human rights vandal NOT a human rights defender!
Why are you just regurgitating the stuff you posted on your blog here Mr Bradbury? Is that because you’re worried noone will bother reading it there? I suppose you have a point then.
So is the position of the liberal left now that the only people who get to be appointed to various Government agencies have to be liberal lefties?
If so then I look forward to the Stalinist purges of the Public sector when next Labour gets back into power. I’ll be an old man mind you. 😉
Just watch the religious nuts take over Bomber! .I thought this sort of welfare went out with the first Labour Government here and the UK. The people that will suffer most under this type of sytem will be the Solo mums and gay people .Who according
to these religious bigots will look down their beaks and lecture on morals ? Then decide whether they “deserve” payment .
The whole thing makes me sick . Robert Tressell wrote all about it in the Ragged Trousered Philanthropist way back in the 1930s . English should be sent a copy.
I don’t have any time for Mr Neeson, but it seems he has a perspective that is shared by many. I don’t see why his views should excuse him from serving on the tribunal.
Chavez was accused in some media of being responsible for torpedoing Copenhagen ( along with China, Bolivia and Brazil et al) and of referring to Obama as the great satan and so on
It seems they all blame each other. Ed Miliband blames Venezuela in part – he said it himself on BBC, but it only mentions his aides in this article:
Only China is mentioned specifically in Miliband’s article but aides tonight made it clear that he included Sudan, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Cuba, which also tried to resist a deal being signed.
And Chavez should have little to say considering fully half his government’s revenue comes from oil and gas.
Probably more, but no more than any other government’s revenue. Everything runs on oil QtR and so almost all revenue depends on it.
I’m talking direct revenue and it’s a huge amount more than other governments. It’s comparable to middle eastern oil nations. See Energy policy of Venezuela
@Tim Ellis.
Yes, bigots have human rights as well, but I wonder if people who argue that consider the flip side of that coin- responsibilities. I know the Right is very big on personal responsibiity. A bigot has the responsibility to change his/her thinking if they understand that they are wrong. But isn’t that the definition of a bigot- one who knows she/he is wrong but won’t change? The COD says that a bigot is one who “irrespective of reason attaches disproportionate weight to a creed or view.”
Too many people nowadays are proffering the line that they are entitled to have their opinions even if they are wrong. Since a lot of people hold opinions based on emotion rather than logic or experience, it has similar characteristics to new age philosophy.
I was taught that wrong opinions get changed to suit the new facts or experience.
I have noticed, Tim, that you very rarely respond to a contrary opinion with a further exchange of ideas. The idea of debate is to enable change where error can be proven.
Yes, bigots can have human rights but their responsibility is also to be human- admit error and change when shown to be wrong.
To do otherwise is cant, fixed ideological positions, bigotry, personal regression, backwardness. In my world, bigotry can’t be excused. A confirmed bigot will not make good decisions for human rights. A person who admits to having been a bigot and has changed would be eminently suitable, since they would at least understand something of the well-springs and continuance systems involved in being a bigot.
The scene in the film “Amazing Grace” where the writer of the hymn having been a murdering slaver repents and makes atonement was very powerful. “Was blind, but now I see.”
To have a bigot pronounce on Human Rights is, in a metaphor for this time of year, allowing Christmas dinner cooks to determine the right to life of turkeys.
A bigot has the responsibility to change his/her thinking
Really? Don’t people have the human right to think what they like?
Human rights enforcement should govern behaviour, not thought. When you start telling people what they should and shouldn’t believe, their right to free thought and free speech has gone out the window. You start discriminating against people for holding conservative points of view.
A legitimate question should be asked of Mr Neeson, if an employee were dismissed because of sexual orientation, would he uphold human rights legislation making such actions illegal, or would he not?
As long as Mr Neeson can uphold the law and defend the human rights of people who are discriminated against, I don’t think it matters at all what his view on homosexuality or anything else is.
Do you think whether or not people who have been discriminated against may feel a bit apprehensive about dealing with Neeson has any bearing, or should they just form a group?
Was there a point in there hiding behind your strange belief that the average bloke is intimidated by feminism?
What does a radical feminist think any way Timmsy? Got an example of what you have in mind, and the position they’ve been appointed to that you think I’d approve of?
No, PB, I can’t point to a single case. But it is not me who is making the case that somebody should be excluded from membership of the HRRT just because of their personal beliefs.
PB, can you point to a single case where the HRRT has made a ruling on discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation, where had Mr Neeson been a member of the tribunal, the outcome would have been different?
So you brought up the radical feminism why exactly?
As to your latest question, which again adds nothing, according to the mans own stated thoughts on the tribunal, I know that if Neeson had his wish all such cases would be rejected.
So again,
Do you think that whether or not people who have been discriminated against may feel a bit apprehensive about dealing with Neeson, should have any bearing on whether or not he is suitable?
The answer is fairly obvious Tim, if you think the trib’s role is important.
I brought it up because it is the very opposite of Mr Neeson’s views. If some parties might feel intimidated by Mr Neeson, then equally other parties might feel intimidated by a radical feminist.
So you can’t name a single case where a judgement on discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation would have been different if Mr Neeson had been a member of the tribunal. Thought so.
Have a look at the HRRT’s cases PB. There’s a full list of all the cases going back to 2002 before the tribunal. Name a single one where Mr Neeson’s supposed prejudice would have changed a decision.
I brought it up because it is the very opposite of Mr Neeson’s views.
No it isn’t. Unless there is some Tribunal for Keeping the Bitches in their Place that I am unawre of.
Perhaps you can explain why you think radical feminists, whatever they are, would be opposed to the HRRT ? Seeing it’s your example, and it makes no sense, I think you should explain.
Name a single one where Mr Neeson’s supposed prejudice would have changed a decision.
Any one of those cases could have been different Tim. The complainant might not have come forward. And asking me to provide an appropriate counterfactual, is exactly the type of thing we were discussing the other day, re good faith debating and your failure to be any good at it.
So again, and I’ve responded to everything you’ve put me Tim, so I think you could at least try to stay on the topic, or answer the question you’ve so far ignored.
Do you think that whether or not people who have been discriminated against may feel a bit apprehensive about dealing with Neeson, should have any bearing on whether or not he is suitable?
The answer is fairly obvious Tim, if you think the trib’s role is important.
Conceivably, PB, a feminist radical could reach a different conclusion that a complainant was dismissed due to discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation than Mr Neeson.
But since you can’t point to a single case where Mr Neeson’s judgement in such a matter might have been persuasive, your argument falls flat PB.
Any one of which cases could have been different? Point to one. Show me where Mr Neeson’s views on a person’s sexual orientation could have swayed the outcome.
Neeson opposes some cases even being heard, it’s not about legitimate interpretation. he thinks people should be allowed to discriminate.
So what’s a radical feminist, and how does it matter?
and do you think that whether or not people who have been discriminated against may feel a bit apprehensive about dealing with Neeson, should have any bearing on whether or not he is suitable?
With rights come responsibilities. If I know that I am wrong, and I have changed my mind over significant issues, then my humanity and my desire for intellectual honesty say that I have to revise my point of view. Part of my humanity is my ability to reason and also part of my humanity is to live as good a life as I can, as a social being and as an individual.
If a person has a conservative view, arrived at by experience and knowledge, than that’s fine. I would hope that further knowledge and experience would at least refine such views.
But you instanced bigots- and bigots know they are wrong but through laziness, or self-interest, or plain meanness continue to be bigotted.
I think there might be a gap between Mr Neeson asked your question and supporting the law, actively promoting the law or even advancing the law towards greater human rights for people discriminated against by sexual discrimination.
It is asking for great things to expect that a self-confessed homophobe would equitably uphold gay rights, as it is for a militarist to respect pacifist beliefs or a religious fundamentalist of what ever persuasion to uphold other opinion.
it is difficult to act, (your reference to behaviour), against your own beliefs.
Unless of course tolerance is one of the fundamentals of our own beliefs, and therefore affects behaviour. I am not sure that a bigot has tolerance in abundance. Not if he chooses to be a bigot, “irrespective of reason”, as the COD states.
I immediately think of the old adage about dying for your right to hold your opinion, but would Mr Neeson go start a war to continue the analogy? You brought in Mr Neeson, by the way, but I had wanted to engage on more general terms as to whether a bigot has rights and also responsibilities to consider.
If you talk about rights and disregard responsibilities, then that is soft argument. The spam word is “granting” which is what we do with rights and what we do when we are tolerant. Even of other people’s rights to be wrong. One can be wrong, but not be bigotted. There is an important distinction.
You say that my way of thinking will lead to criticising thought rather than behaviour. They are linked, but I never said that people should be made to believe one way or the other. Never said that. What I believe is that bigotry is a shameful place to be intellectually, humanly and socially and that criticism should be made of bigotted practice, that bigots should be encouraged towards honesty and tolerance.
We have free speech and thought. So we should have. With free speech and thought is a responsibility to be moderate, tolerant, and exercising that most precious and free gift of reason. Free speech and thought is not an excuse for laziness, protection of self-interest and meanness. It is a right exercised with responsibility.
Having said all that, I acknowledge too that I am human and imperfect, still needing to exercise more tolerance and work on prejudice. That is a life’s work.
So the summary page on the economic experience of average Americans under the past two presidents would look like this:
Under Clinton, the median income increased 14 per cent. Under Bush it declined 4.2 per cent.
Under Clinton the total number of Americans in poverty declined 16.9 per cent; under Bush it increased 26.1 per cent.
Under Clinton the number of children in poverty declined 24.2 per cent; under Bush it increased by 21.4 per cent.
Under Clinton, the number of Americans without health insurance, remained essentially even (down six-tenths of one per cent); under Bush it increased by 20.6 per cent.
Adding Ronald Reagan’s record to the comparison fills in the picture from another angle.
Under Reagan, the median income grew, in contrast to both Bush the younger and Bush the elder. (The median income declined 3.2 per cent during the elder Bush’s single term.) When Reagan was done, the median income stood at $47, 614 (again in constant 2008 dollars), 8.1 per cent higher than when Jimmy Carter left office in 1980.
But despite that income growth, both overall and childhood poverty were higher when Reagan rode off into the sunset than when he arrived. The number of poor Americans increased from 29.3 million in 1980 to 31.7 million in 1988, an increase of 8.4 per cent. The number of children in poverty trended up from 11.5 million when Carter left to 12.5 million when Reagan stepped down, a comparable increase of 7.9 per cent. The total share of Americans in poverty didn’t change over Reagan’s eight years (at 13 per cent), but the share of children in poverty actually increased (from 18.3 to 19.5 per cent) despite the median income gains.
The past rarely settles debates about the future.
The fact that the economy performed significantly better for average families under Clinton than under the elder or younger Bush or Ronald Reagan doesn’t conclusively answer how the country should proceed now. Obama isn’t replicating the Clinton economic strategy (which increased federal spending in areas like education and research much more modestly, and placed greater emphasis on deficit reduction-to the point of increasing taxes in his first term). Nor has anyone suggested that it would make sense to reprise that approach in today’s conditions. But at the least, the wretched two-term record compiled by the younger Bush on income, poverty and access to health care should compel Republicans to answer a straightforward question: if tax cuts are truly the best means to stimulate broadly shared prosperity, why did the Bush years yield such disastrous results for American families on these core measures of economic well being?
And no, the big worldwide crash isn’t what made his record look bad. It already looked bad in 07.
Tim Ellis: ‘A legitimate question should be asked of Mr Neeson, if an employee were dismissed because of sexual orientation, would he uphold human rights legislation making such actions illegal, or would he not?’
And the answer is not, Tim. Neeson is happy to sack workers if they are openly gay.
‘But at a time when someone behaves in an extreme way it is up to me to have the right to tell that person that that is not the way to behave, and it does not matter whether he or she is homosexual or anything else. I think that everybody would agree with that. When it comes to that particular point an employer should have the right to be able to turn around and say to someone: “Enough is enough; that’s not the way that you are going to behave in my premises or in my employ, whoever you are.”’
That’s him speaking on the Human Rights Bill when it was introduced back in ’93. There is, er, bugger all chance his bigotry has diminished over the years. In fact, norightturn has more of this braindead and heartless twat here: http://norightturn.blogspot.com/2009/12/brian-neesons-greatest-hits.html
Now, Tim, I know you’re a decent, hail fellow well met sort of guy. Are you still going to back his appointment or are you going to recognise he is a bigot and completely unsuitable to be helping the commision perform its role in our open, liberal society?
TVOR, I invite you to point out which of the HRRT’s rulings on discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation might have been different if Mr Neeson had been a member of the tribunal.
And, given Neeson’s record of homophobia, I invite you to point out why a gay person should feel more comfortable approaching the HRRT now that Neeson is to sit in judgement.
What quacks me up is how utterly unprincipled these clowns are.
If they believe in the role of the trib, they’d be more careful about who the posted to it.
It’s a transparent wingnut welfare scheme, paying back various people the party has shat on.
If the don’t give a shit about the trib, or think it should be undermined by appointing people to it that oppose it’s legislatively designed role, then the principled thing to do is change the legislation.
If they do support it, and think Neeson can serve anyway, just fulfilling the law impartially, (The Timmy Ellis gambit) they are asking him to do something which he is morally opposed to and that if he had a spine he’d resign before doing.
But instead it’s paybacks and snouts in troughs and jabbering about the radical feminines or whatever the hell they are sweaty about this week.
Political philosophy my arse. Conservatism is neurosis.
BLiP, give me a single example where Mr Neeson’s role as a member of a three person panel would have been persuasive in a case relating to discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation.
PB and TVOR haven’t managed to find one yet, except to protest about jobs for the boys (just as they were very vocal with Labour appointing Mr Williams and others to every government job under the sun).
You can’t prove a counter factual Tim. You should know this. Both TVoR and I answered your silly question.
Please answer mine:
Do you think that whether or not people who have been discriminated against may feel a bit apprehensive about dealing with Neeson, should have any bearing on whether or not he is suitable?
It’s easy. I’m asking you your opinion, I’m not asking you to imagine an alternate universe and prove that something would definitely happen there. Just asking you what your opinion on the topic is. You do have an opinion on that particular question don’t you? Or is discrimination, like racism, just something you aren’t all that concerned about?
Jeez, Tim, can’t you just answer a simple question without dissembling? Do you support having an anti gay bigot on the HRC or not? And if you do, are you also in favour of paedophiles on school boards, atheists on the Vatican council and god forbid, Michael Laws on the Geographic Board?
The point is simple, Tim; Neeson is not fit to do the job he has just been gifted. He will take the money anyway, of course, because he is a typical tory bludger, sucking on the public teat. But it ain’t right just coz it’s right wing.
I see Farrar’s got his knickers in a twist about Hipkins and Mallard pumping out “shotgun” questions via written PQs. The consensus of the drooling mob over there is that Labour should be told to get knicked. Mallard comes in for a particularly hard time because, shock of shock, it seems he’s using a mail merge to produce his questions. Wow.
You know it’s the cut and paste oppositionism that I think the sewer dwellers are reacting too. It’s wasteful and inane. I mean questions like:
What is the cost of [INSERT REGION] schooling improvement project in 2008/09 and which appropriation line or lines from Vote Education does the funding for this project come from?
Are wasteful, I guess. Oh, wait, that’s Anne Tolley when she was in opposition asking one of her “inane” scattershot mail merge type questions.
I guess it’s an outrage when Labour does it but when the Tories do it, it’s just good politics. What a friggin’ hypocrite.
For my money, a pox on both their houses for such lazy efforts. But let’s not let Farrar get away with painting this as some sort of Labour low trick.
If Farar is correct then Helen Clark was only asked a total of just over 150 questions on her ministerial responsibilities during the last parliament. Wouldn’t you agree that it is a bit much for Labour to be asking John Key a similar number of questions just for a single month?
I suspect that it is the way that he tends to disappear and leave gerry or bill to answer his questions when question time comes up. Makes him look like a target.
Helen usually preferred to front up. But I guess that John isn’t as comfortable on his feet. Eventually he’ll get enough experience. After all the opposition are trying to give him the practice. Quite generous of them I thought…
The Key apologists seem to have forgotten that National MPs used to routinely ask tricky questions of the then Labour government. One of their favourites was to ask about staff Christmas parties and presents. Most government departments do some sort of end of year function for their staff, so National’s questions were basically intended to find examples of where they’d gone a bit over the top so that they could shout from the rooftops about “waste’.
Interestingly, they aren’t so keen to answer now that the shoe is on the other foot. I asked a written question of each Minister that’s almost identical to one Brownlee, McCully etc used to ask and they have all come back with the same answer: “The question the member asks relates to an operational matter which is the responsibility of the Chief Executive.’
Interesting to note that when Labour was the government and National was the opposition the questions were OK, but now that National is in government they seem to think a lower standard of accountability should apply. In 2005 Annette King even went so far as to compile all of the answers into a handy little table for the Nats, so why are they suddenly ducking for cover?
Anyway, I’m off to get a haircut. Get rid of the intense coding ‘mad scientist’ look and revert back to the military
….is this because the opposition is so cak, I can’t see any other reason as the Nats ain’t really doing a whole lot, perhaps that’s how NZ likes their politicians ?
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New Zealand now has the fourth most depressed construction sector in the world behind China, Qatar and Hong Kong. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 8:46am on Thursday, May 2:The Lead: ...
Hi,I am just going to state something very obvious: American police are fucking crazy.That was a photo gracing the New York Times this morning, showing New York City police “entering Columbia University last night after receiving a request from the school.”Apparently in America, protesting the deaths of tens of thousands ...
Winston Peters’ much anticipated foreign policy speech last night was a work of two halves. Much of it was a standard “boilerplate” Foreign Ministry overview of the state of the world. There was some hardening up of rhetoric with talk of “benign” becoming “malign” and old truths giving way to ...
Graham Adams assesses the fallout of the Cass Review — The press release last Thursday from the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls didn’t make the mainstream news in New Zealand but it really should have. The startling title of Reem Alsalem’s statement — “Implementation of ‘Cass ...
This open-for-business, under-new-management cliché-pockmarked government of Christopher Luxon is not the thing of beauty he imagines it to be. It is not the powerful expression of the will of the people that he asserts it to be. It is not a soaring eagle, it is a malodorous vulture. This newest poll should make ...
The latest labour market statistics, showing a rise in unemployment. There are now 134,000 unemployed - 14,000 more than when the National government took office. Which is I guess what happens when the Reserve Bank causes a recession in an effort to Keep Wages Low. The previous government saw a ...
Three opinion polls have been released in the last two days, all showing that the new government is failing to hold their popular support. The usual honeymoon experienced during the first year of a first term government is entirely absent. The political mood is still gloomy and discontented, mainly due ...
National's Finance Minister once met a poor person.A scornful interview with National's finance guru who knows next to nothing about economics or people.There might have been something a bit familiar if that was the headline I’d gone with today. It would of course have been in tribute to the article ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Throughout the pandemic, the new Vice-Chancellor-of-Otago-University-on-$629,000 per annum-Can-you-believe-it-and-Former-Finance-Minister Grant Robertson repeated the mantra over and over that he saved “lives and livelihoods”.As we update how this claim is faring over the course of time, the facts are increasingly speaking differently. NZ ...
Chris Trotter writes – IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in acknowledgement of electoral victory: “We’ll govern for all New Zealanders.” On the face of it, the pledge is a strange one. Why would any political leader govern in ways that advantaged the huge ...
Bryce Edwards writes – The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 10:06am on Wednesday, May 1:The Lead: Business confidence fell across the board in April, falling in some areas to levels last seen during the lockdowns because of a collapse in ...
Over the past 36 hours, Christopher Luxon has been dong his best to portray the centre-right’s plummeting poll numbers as a mark of virtue. Allegedly, the negative verdicts are the result of hard economic times, and of a government bravely set out on a perilous rescue mission from which not ...
Auckland Transport have started rolling out new HOP card readers around the network and over the next three months, all of them on buses, at train stations and ferry wharves will be replaced. The change itself is not that remarkable, with the new readers looking similar to what is already ...
Completed reads for April: The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling Carnival of Saints, by George Herman The Snow Spider, by Jenny Nimmo Emlyn’s Moon, by Jenny Nimmo The Chestnut Soldier, by Jenny Nimmo Death Comes As the End, by Agatha Christie Lord of the Flies, by ...
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 ...
Have a story to share about St Paul’s, but today just picturesPopular novels written at this desk by a young man who managed to bootstrap himself out of father’s imprisonment and his own young life in a workhouse Read more ...
The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill English, Simon Bridges, Steven Joyce, Roger Sowry, ...
Newsroom has a story today about National's (fortunately failed) effort to disestablish the newly-created Inspector-General of Defence. The creation of this agency was the key recommendation of the Inquiry into Operation Burnham, and a vital means of restoring credibility and social licence to an agency which had been caught lying ...
Holding On To The Present:The moment a political movement arises that attacks the whole idea of social progress, and announces its intention to wind back the hands of History’s clock, then democracy, along with its unwritten rules, is in mortal danger.IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in ...
Stuck In The Middle With You:As Christopher Luxon feels the hot breath of Act’s and NZ First’s extremists on the back of his neck and, as he reckons with the damage their policies are already inflicting upon a country he’s described as “fragile”, is there not some merit in reaching out ...
The unpopular coalition government is currently rushing to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The clause is Oranga Tamariki's Treaty clause, and was inserted after its systematic stealing of Māori children became a public scandal and resulted in physical resistance to further abductions. The clause created clear obligations ...
Buzz from the Beehive The government’s official website – which Point of Order monitors daily – not for the first time has nothing much to say today about political happenings that are grabbing media headlines. It makes no mention of the latest 1News-Verian poll, for example. This shows National down ...
It Takes A Train To Cry:Surely, there is nothing lonelier in all this world than the long wail of a distant steam locomotive on a cold Winter’s night.AS A CHILD, I would lie awake in my grandfather’s house and listen to the traffic. The big wooden house was only a ...
Packing A Punch: The election of the present government, including in its ranks politicians dedicated to reasserting the rights of the legislature in shaping and determining the future of Māori and Pakeha in New Zealand, should have alerted the judiciary – including its anomalous appendage, the Waitangi Tribunal – that its ...
Dead Woman Walking: New Zealand’s media industry had been moving steadily towards disaster for all the years Melissa Lee had been National’s media and communications policy spokesperson, and yet, when the crisis finally broke, on her watch, she had nothing intelligent to offer. Christopher Luxon is a patient man - but he’s not ...
Chris Trotter writes – New Zealand politics is remarkably easy-going: dangerously so, one might even say. With the notable exception of John Key’s flat ruling-out of the NZ First Party in 2008, all parties capable of clearing MMP’s five-percent threshold, or winning one or more electorate seats, tend ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is ...
Luxon will no doubt put a brave face on it, but there is no escaping the pressure this latest poll will put on him and the government. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political ...
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler In the wake of any unusual weather event, someone inevitably asks, “Did climate change cause this?” In the most literal sense, that answer is almost always no. Climate change is never the sole cause of hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, or ...
Something odd happened yesterday, and I’d love to know if there’s more to it. If there was something which preempted what happened, or if it was simply a throwaway line in response to a journalist.Yesterday David Seymour was asked at a press conference what the process would be if the ...
Hi,From time to time, I want to bring Webworm into the real world. We did it last year with the Jurassic Park event in New Zealand — which was a lot of fun!And so on Saturday May 11th, in Los Angeles, I am hosting a lil’ Webworm pop-up! I’ve been ...
Education Minister Erica Standford yesterday unveiled a fundamental reform of the way our school pupils are taught. She would not exactly say so, but she is all but dismantling the so-called “inquiry” “feel good” method of teaching, which has ruled in our classrooms since a major review of the New ...
Exactly where are we seriously going with this government and its policies? That is, apart from following what may as well be a Truss-Lite approach on the purported economic “plan“, and Victorian-era regression when it comes to social policy.Oh it’ll work this time of course, we’re basically assured, “the ...
Hey Uncle Dave, When the Poms joined the EEC, I wasn't one of those defeatists who said, Well, that’s it for the dairy job. And I was right, eh? The Chinese can’t get enough of our milk powder and eventually, the Poms came to their senses and backed up the ute ...
Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is higher than for any other mayor ...
Buzz from the Beehive Pharmac has been given a financial transfusion and a new chair to oversee its spending in the pharmaceutical business. Associate Health Minister David Seymour described the funding for Pharmac as “its largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff”. ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its ...
TL;DR: Here’s my top 10 ‘pick ‘n’ mix of links to news, analysis and opinion articles as of 10:10am on Monday, April 29:Scoop: The children's ward at Rotorua Hospital will be missing a third of its beds as winter hits because Te Whatu Ora halted an upgrade partway through to ...
span class=”dropcap”>As hideous as David Seymour can be, it is worth keeping in mind occasionally that there are even worse political figures (and regimes) out there. Iran for instance, is about to execute the country’s leading hip hop musician Toomaj Salehi, for writing and performing raps that “corrupt” the nation’s ...
Yesterday marked 10 years since the first electric train carried passengers in Auckland so it’s a good time to look back at it and the impact it has had. A brief history The first proposals for rail electrification in Auckland came in the 1920’s alongside the plans for earlier ...
Right now, in Aotearoa-NZ, our ‘animal spirits’ are darkening towards a winter of discontent, thanks at least partly to a chorus of negative comments and actions from the Government Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on ...
You make people evil to punish the paststuck inside a sequel with a rotating castThe following photos haven’t been generated with AI, or modified in any way. They are flesh and blood, human beings. On the left is Galatea Young, a young mum, and her daughter Fiadh who has Angelman ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
The Government and Rotorua Lakes Council are committed to working closely together to end the use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing) Tama Potaka says the Government remains committed to ending the long-term use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua by the ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
By Stephen Wright and Stefan Armbruster of BenarNews Fiji’s ranking in a global press freedom index has jumped into the top tier of countries with free or mostly free media after its government last year repealed a draconian law that threatened journalists with prison for doing their jobs. Fiji’s improvement ...
We might be in Invercargill but all anyone can talk about is Gore. Specifically, Salford Street. That’s where three-year-old Lachlan Jones lived, south of the centre of town, between the A&P Showgrounds and the Mataura River. Roughly 1.2 km away from the single level home he lived in with his ...
MONDAY I lined up the latest round of civil servants from city hall against the wall, and signalled for the firing squad to drop their rifles. I stepped up onto a wooden crate to look at the office workers in the eye. But that didn’t feel right, so I found ...
Keen hiker and second-year MSc student Liam Hewson wears two hats when he’s in the great outdoors. “The scientist in me appreciates nature and goes, ‘Oh, there’s that thing and there’s another thing,’ but then the tramper and the outdoorsy person in me thinks, ‘Cool bush.’” Born and bred in ...
After a long and illustrious career as a goal kicker, Dan Carter’s favourite way to unwind is… kicking goals. Why can’t he get enough of it? And what it’s like to watch him do it for an hour straight? A semicircle of people wielding cameras and phones has formed in ...
Dame Susan Devoy takes us through her life in television, including late night ER debriefs, her proudest CTI moment and the show she watches in secret. Quite aside from her four world champion squash titles, Dame Susan Devoy will likely go down in history as one of the best Celebrity ...
Hera Lindsay Bird reveals the best places in Ōtepoti to score more for your apocalypse-prep book hoard.Sometimes I get the feeling I’ve been killed in a car crash, and this second half of my life is just the brain unspooling itself, like one of those episodes of a hospital ...
ThreeNow’s new murder mystery series takes us on a dark, damp journey into the Australian wilderness.This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. High Country is ThreeNow’s new Australian eight-part crime drama, set in a remote part of the Victorian highlands. It tells ...
Introducing a new way to read The Spinoff every weekend. After nearly 10 years of being an online magazine, we’re finally embracing the weekend liftout. Despite our best efforts to convince you otherwise, writers and editors at The Spinoff don’t work weekend. It is through the sheer power of technology ...
Tip one: let yourself be nurtured by this big old man. Tip two: don’t ask him to adopt you. So, you’ve arrived at your first session with a new therapist. He tells you to make yourself comfortable and you opt for the tweed armchair, hoping it makes you look like ...
I didn’t know books could open you back up; that there were books that stayed with you, where reading was like a chemical event. I knew nothing.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.Not too long ago, I was listening to the American ...
Former Olympic swimmer James Magnussen has already started training for the Enhanced games, though says he won’t start taking performance enhancing substances until about nine months out from the competition. The Australian world champion was the first athlete to be announced by Enhanced, but he says the organisation has had ...
Everyone thinks he’s dead. Every day they expect his body to be washed up along the coast. Most likely up Karitane way, the way the tide’s running. But nobody’ll be too surprised if his body’s never found. Even in death he wouldn’t have wished for such attention. He would have ...
Council members voted 21 to 4 in favour of Ahluwalia returning to the Laucala campus following a much-awaited meeting in Vanuatu this week. It comes as USP and its two unions — the Association of the University of the South Pacific Staff (AUSPS) and the Administration and Support Staff Union ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicola Henry, Professor & Australian Research Council Future Fellow, Social and Global Studies Centre, RMIT University Shutterstock Following an emergency meeting of the National Cabinet this week, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced a raft of measures to tackle the problem ...
Analysis - A poll showing the opposition is more popular than the government raises questions, politicians go through their 'trial by pay rise' and a Green MP loses her cool in the debating chamber. ...
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There is a problem with the cron jobs for scheduled posts on wordpress at present after the upgrade to 2.9 (not something I test for when looking at new versions *sigh*).
I will be your cron job for today
Ok. It looks like an issue with the timeout on the cron job being too tight at 0.01 seconds. This is an old problem, but seems to be a lot worse on 2.9
http://lists.automattic.com/pipermail/wp-trac/2009-January/038071.html
I’ve hacked it to 5.00 seconds in wp-includes/cron.php
Now I’ll have to write a post to check if that gets the scheduling right.
Incidentally, the workaround is to go into Quick Edit on the Edit Posts. Change the status from Scheduled to Published
Now to look at cron settings
There is a plugin that people have reported does the job better than wordpress builtin cron.
http://blog.5ubliminal.com/posts/missed-schedule-future-posts-scheduled-mias-wordpress-plugin/
You have to login to get the short bit of code.
I’ve tested it and it works ok. Putting it into the main site.
As a side benefit, I suspect that it will reduce the CPU use slightly as well.
Lynn quite often the capta doesn’t appear or it shows up as ***invalid***.. It was like that all yesterday for me and this AM as well
Obviously it is fine now it is “completely” not that that is relevant
[lprent: Damn – another site issue. Oh well I’m on holiday so I have time to deal with it. Last time it was a buildup of the generated graphics in the tmp directory.
There is a work-around. Login and you’ll find that you don’t have a captcha. The only restrictions are that you have to get past the captcha on the registration and have a valid e-mail address. ]
The other workaround is to right click where the image should be (whether you can see this or not depends on your browser) and open the image itself, perhaps in a new tab.
Has worked for me when I’ve had this problem in the past anyway.
Any particular browser and operating system? I’ve tried 5 so far in windows and linux.
The tmp directory it uses doesn’t seem to have much in there.
Edit: Umm while I’m out of login, I should have a look at fixing the layout of the re-edit as well.
Laura Dekker was born at sea and presumably has been at sea ever since. Fourteen years and being encouraged by her father to sail round the world? She has only just started on her life and is being encouraged to put herself at such risk. And if she needs rescue and receives it who pays?It would be unreasonable to make a whimsical decision to be at one with the sea, a water nomad, a free being and then want someone else to pay for it.
One of the saddest stories is the one of the Brit who was in a lone-hand race and was so far out of it he started fibbing about his location and got so far from the truth as well as his goal port and the other competitors that I think he drowned himself.
These people who live on boats sailing around all the time can’t have much connection with any country and any giving relationship with a community or their own country. Their children are separated from real-life relationships with other children outside their tight little closed community. Sort of like a sea-cult.
Unbelievable. There has been a massive breakdown in the Channel tunnel and will probably be no Eurostar trains going through before Christmas with thousands of people probably unable to make alternative travel bookings in France and Britain. Eurostar have a 50 year contract to run the thing. Those pressing for public-private or completely private operations need to bear this type of thing in mind when thinking about provision of quality services needed by the general public.
Trains broke down in the Chunnel one after another apparently. There was a reference to change from cold air outside the tunnel to warm air inside – as if that might have been a reason for the breakdowns. 2,000 got stuck in the Chunnel overnight. There was little communication with passengers. It must have been hell for the workers too trying to deal with an obviously inadequate emergency plan. Passengers in one carriage had to wait half an hour to get half a litre of water to share between a large number. No mention has been made of the toilet facilities. The airconditioning broke down. The passengers opened the emergency doors manually and walked along lines to get to another train.
The pride of modern technology and modern management techniques – most useful would have been golf carts for ferrying passengers with perhaps some horses pulling carts that could run along the rail lines.
heh! Reminds me of a few years ago when the private company running BritRail, can’t remember the name, had a series of massive failures due to a build up of leaves on he tracks. At the time, the company said the failures occurred because Autumn took them by surprise!!
Must have caused a blip on their radar. I think Flanders & Swann did a skit on this sort of thing. I’m a fan, (oldies but goodies).
In July, the sun is hot. Is it shining? No. Its not
Interesting point on TV report today about the Chunnel problem and Heathrow down too. There is no bus service to ferry these hapless people (and their children) to where they are supposed to go for getting transport.
Where is the co-ordination? Whose responsibility? Where private companies operate they are likely to go into a silo mode. It’s not their responsibility to be concerned about ease of transport and providing needed services for the public. If there is government oversight over transport it knits the systems together.
The TV showed a long line of resigned people trudging along the street dragging their luggage and pushing their children’s pushchairs. They have been waiting for four days to get away. It’s an indictment on both private and public lack of planning for emergencies.
Just like the banks, they’ll be waiting for the government to bail them out.
Prism: The immortal lines “Have a madiera m’dear!” hold true forever. Blocked lines? New girlfriend?
Interesting but enigmatic comments. I remember the madeira but don’t remember the others PB and Ian. Must listen to the tape or I think its vinyl, again. Haven’t played LPs for a long time. Think everything still works.
Just got 63 cents interest on my bank account and 12 cents taxation off it. I am sure that one of our problems with lack of savings is the way that fees and taxes eat into them. Once I had $100 in a credit union. I didn’t do anything it just sat there. They charged $25 yearly to handle a/c. Why not spend it when it would have disappeared in 4 years and earned $6 a year.
Inflation is always diminishing savings even though it is lower than it used to be but then the interest paid is lower as well. Its time the government bit the bullet and cut the taxation on ordinary savings way back, and stopped taking it out in cents, pay nothing till you earn $100 I say. Taxmen leave my cents alone!
Appointing a homophobic bigot like Brian Neeson to the Human Rights Tribunal is like appointing Paul Henry to the Broadcasting Standards Authority! John Key may as well appoint hood wearing, cross burning Klansmen to the Human Rights Review Tribunal if Neeson is the new benchmark. This hateful bigot who has a well tracked history of attempting to DENY human rights is now on the fucking tribunal reviewing human rights? Tell me this is some sort of sick, sick Joke. The Human Rights Review Tribunal has no moral authority whatsoever with a bigot like Neeson on it.
For the love of Christ, Neeson has intellectually argued AGAINST giving certain groups human rights, he is a human rights vandal NOT a human rights defender!
Disgusting decision National, disgusting decision.
Why are you just regurgitating the stuff you posted on your blog here Mr Bradbury? Is that because you’re worried noone will bother reading it there? I suppose you have a point then.
So is the position of the liberal left now that the only people who get to be appointed to various Government agencies have to be liberal lefties?
If so then I look forward to the Stalinist purges of the Public sector when next Labour gets back into power. I’ll be an old man mind you. 😉
Just watch the religious nuts take over Bomber! .I thought this sort of welfare went out with the first Labour Government here and the UK. The people that will suffer most under this type of sytem will be the Solo mums and gay people .Who according
to these religious bigots will look down their beaks and lecture on morals ? Then decide whether they “deserve” payment .
The whole thing makes me sick . Robert Tressell wrote all about it in the Ragged Trousered Philanthropist way back in the 1930s . English should be sent a copy.
We are discussing a single appointment to a Government agency with limited powers not a complete re-prioritisation of social welfare here.
The agency in question would have, I suspect, a number of people with far more liberal viewpoints than Mr Neeson.
It isn’t as if Mr neeson can use his new posituion to role back the entire pro-gay legislation that has been enacted since the mid 1980’s is it?
Don’t bigots have human rights as well?
I don’t have any time for Mr Neeson, but it seems he has a perspective that is shared by many. I don’t see why his views should excuse him from serving on the tribunal.
Chavez was accused in some media of being responsible for torpedoing Copenhagen ( along with China, Bolivia and Brazil et al) and of referring to Obama as the great satan and so on
Here’s his speech in full.
http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/23421
It seems they all blame each other. Ed Miliband blames Venezuela in part – he said it himself on BBC, but it only mentions his aides in this article:
And Chavez should have little to say considering fully half his government’s revenue comes from oil and gas.
And Chavez should have little to say considering fully half his government’s revenue comes from oil.
Probably more, but no more than any other government’s revenue. Everything runs on oil QtR and so almost all revenue depends on it.
Chavez has as much right to say whatever as any other head of state. Fact is, his speech was more realistic and truthful.
BTW Brown finger pointed Chavez, not Milliband.
Probably more, but no more than any other government’s revenue. Everything runs on oil QtR and so almost all revenue depends on it.
I’m talking direct revenue and it’s a huge amount more than other governments. It’s comparable to middle eastern oil nations. See Energy policy of Venezuela
BTW Brown finger pointed Chavez, not Milliband.
No it was Miliband I saw him on television.
@Tim Ellis.
Yes, bigots have human rights as well, but I wonder if people who argue that consider the flip side of that coin- responsibilities. I know the Right is very big on personal responsibiity. A bigot has the responsibility to change his/her thinking if they understand that they are wrong. But isn’t that the definition of a bigot- one who knows she/he is wrong but won’t change? The COD says that a bigot is one who “irrespective of reason attaches disproportionate weight to a creed or view.”
Too many people nowadays are proffering the line that they are entitled to have their opinions even if they are wrong. Since a lot of people hold opinions based on emotion rather than logic or experience, it has similar characteristics to new age philosophy.
I was taught that wrong opinions get changed to suit the new facts or experience.
I have noticed, Tim, that you very rarely respond to a contrary opinion with a further exchange of ideas. The idea of debate is to enable change where error can be proven.
Yes, bigots can have human rights but their responsibility is also to be human- admit error and change when shown to be wrong.
To do otherwise is cant, fixed ideological positions, bigotry, personal regression, backwardness. In my world, bigotry can’t be excused. A confirmed bigot will not make good decisions for human rights. A person who admits to having been a bigot and has changed would be eminently suitable, since they would at least understand something of the well-springs and continuance systems involved in being a bigot.
The scene in the film “Amazing Grace” where the writer of the hymn having been a murdering slaver repents and makes atonement was very powerful. “Was blind, but now I see.”
To have a bigot pronounce on Human Rights is, in a metaphor for this time of year, allowing Christmas dinner cooks to determine the right to life of turkeys.
Spam word “considerable”- how apposite.
A bigot has the responsibility to change his/her thinking
Really? Don’t people have the human right to think what they like?
Human rights enforcement should govern behaviour, not thought. When you start telling people what they should and shouldn’t believe, their right to free thought and free speech has gone out the window. You start discriminating against people for holding conservative points of view.
A legitimate question should be asked of Mr Neeson, if an employee were dismissed because of sexual orientation, would he uphold human rights legislation making such actions illegal, or would he not?
As long as Mr Neeson can uphold the law and defend the human rights of people who are discriminated against, I don’t think it matters at all what his view on homosexuality or anything else is.
Do you think whether or not people who have been discriminated against may feel a bit apprehensive about dealing with Neeson has any bearing, or should they just form a group?
No more so than an average bloke might feel apprehensive about a hearing presided over by a radical feminist PB.
So does it or doesn’t it?
Was there a point in there hiding behind your strange belief that the average bloke is intimidated by feminism?
What does a radical feminist think any way Timmsy? Got an example of what you have in mind, and the position they’ve been appointed to that you think I’d approve of?
I’m betting you’ve got nothing.
No, PB, I can’t point to a single case. But it is not me who is making the case that somebody should be excluded from membership of the HRRT just because of their personal beliefs.
PB, can you point to a single case where the HRRT has made a ruling on discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation, where had Mr Neeson been a member of the tribunal, the outcome would have been different?
So you brought up the radical feminism why exactly?
As to your latest question, which again adds nothing, according to the mans own stated thoughts on the tribunal, I know that if Neeson had his wish all such cases would be rejected.
So again,
Do you think that whether or not people who have been discriminated against may feel a bit apprehensive about dealing with Neeson, should have any bearing on whether or not he is suitable?
The answer is fairly obvious Tim, if you think the trib’s role is important.
I brought it up because it is the very opposite of Mr Neeson’s views. If some parties might feel intimidated by Mr Neeson, then equally other parties might feel intimidated by a radical feminist.
So you can’t name a single case where a judgement on discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation would have been different if Mr Neeson had been a member of the tribunal. Thought so.
Have a look at the HRRT’s cases PB. There’s a full list of all the cases going back to 2002 before the tribunal. Name a single one where Mr Neeson’s supposed prejudice would have changed a decision.
I brought it up because it is the very opposite of Mr Neeson’s views.
No it isn’t. Unless there is some Tribunal for Keeping the Bitches in their Place that I am unawre of.
Perhaps you can explain why you think radical feminists, whatever they are, would be opposed to the HRRT ? Seeing it’s your example, and it makes no sense, I think you should explain.
Name a single one where Mr Neeson’s supposed prejudice would have changed a decision.
Any one of those cases could have been different Tim. The complainant might not have come forward. And asking me to provide an appropriate counterfactual, is exactly the type of thing we were discussing the other day, re good faith debating and your failure to be any good at it.
So again, and I’ve responded to everything you’ve put me Tim, so I think you could at least try to stay on the topic, or answer the question you’ve so far ignored.
Do you think that whether or not people who have been discriminated against may feel a bit apprehensive about dealing with Neeson, should have any bearing on whether or not he is suitable?
The answer is fairly obvious Tim, if you think the trib’s role is important.
Conceivably, PB, a feminist radical could reach a different conclusion that a complainant was dismissed due to discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation than Mr Neeson.
But since you can’t point to a single case where Mr Neeson’s judgement in such a matter might have been persuasive, your argument falls flat PB.
Any one of which cases could have been different? Point to one. Show me where Mr Neeson’s views on a person’s sexual orientation could have swayed the outcome.
Got logic Tim?
Neeson opposes some cases even being heard, it’s not about legitimate interpretation. he thinks people should be allowed to discriminate.
So what’s a radical feminist, and how does it matter?
and do you think that whether or not people who have been discriminated against may feel a bit apprehensive about dealing with Neeson, should have any bearing on whether or not he is suitable?
With rights come responsibilities. If I know that I am wrong, and I have changed my mind over significant issues, then my humanity and my desire for intellectual honesty say that I have to revise my point of view. Part of my humanity is my ability to reason and also part of my humanity is to live as good a life as I can, as a social being and as an individual.
If a person has a conservative view, arrived at by experience and knowledge, than that’s fine. I would hope that further knowledge and experience would at least refine such views.
But you instanced bigots- and bigots know they are wrong but through laziness, or self-interest, or plain meanness continue to be bigotted.
I think there might be a gap between Mr Neeson asked your question and supporting the law, actively promoting the law or even advancing the law towards greater human rights for people discriminated against by sexual discrimination.
It is asking for great things to expect that a self-confessed homophobe would equitably uphold gay rights, as it is for a militarist to respect pacifist beliefs or a religious fundamentalist of what ever persuasion to uphold other opinion.
it is difficult to act, (your reference to behaviour), against your own beliefs.
Unless of course tolerance is one of the fundamentals of our own beliefs, and therefore affects behaviour. I am not sure that a bigot has tolerance in abundance. Not if he chooses to be a bigot, “irrespective of reason”, as the COD states.
I immediately think of the old adage about dying for your right to hold your opinion, but would Mr Neeson go start a war to continue the analogy? You brought in Mr Neeson, by the way, but I had wanted to engage on more general terms as to whether a bigot has rights and also responsibilities to consider.
If you talk about rights and disregard responsibilities, then that is soft argument. The spam word is “granting” which is what we do with rights and what we do when we are tolerant. Even of other people’s rights to be wrong. One can be wrong, but not be bigotted. There is an important distinction.
You say that my way of thinking will lead to criticising thought rather than behaviour. They are linked, but I never said that people should be made to believe one way or the other. Never said that. What I believe is that bigotry is a shameful place to be intellectually, humanly and socially and that criticism should be made of bigotted practice, that bigots should be encouraged towards honesty and tolerance.
We have free speech and thought. So we should have. With free speech and thought is a responsibility to be moderate, tolerant, and exercising that most precious and free gift of reason. Free speech and thought is not an excuse for laziness, protection of self-interest and meanness. It is a right exercised with responsibility.
Having said all that, I acknowledge too that I am human and imperfect, still needing to exercise more tolerance and work on prejudice. That is a life’s work.
Everyone knows ol’ gwb sucked pretty hard at the presidenting gig, but geez wayne:
http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/09/closing_the_book_on_the_bush_legacy.php
And no, the big worldwide crash isn’t what made his record look bad. It already looked bad in 07.
…
Tim Ellis: ‘A legitimate question should be asked of Mr Neeson, if an employee were dismissed because of sexual orientation, would he uphold human rights legislation making such actions illegal, or would he not?’
And the answer is not, Tim. Neeson is happy to sack workers if they are openly gay.
‘But at a time when someone behaves in an extreme way it is up to me to have the right to tell that person that that is not the way to behave, and it does not matter whether he or she is homosexual or anything else. I think that everybody would agree with that. When it comes to that particular point an employer should have the right to be able to turn around and say to someone: “Enough is enough; that’s not the way that you are going to behave in my premises or in my employ, whoever you are.”’
That’s him speaking on the Human Rights Bill when it was introduced back in ’93. There is, er, bugger all chance his bigotry has diminished over the years. In fact, norightturn has more of this braindead and heartless twat here: http://norightturn.blogspot.com/2009/12/brian-neesons-greatest-hits.html
Now, Tim, I know you’re a decent, hail fellow well met sort of guy. Are you still going to back his appointment or are you going to recognise he is a bigot and completely unsuitable to be helping the commision perform its role in our open, liberal society?
TVOR, I invite you to point out which of the HRRT’s rulings on discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation might have been different if Mr Neeson had been a member of the tribunal.
And, given Neeson’s record of homophobia, I invite you to point out why a gay person should feel more comfortable approaching the HRRT now that Neeson is to sit in judgement.
What quacks me up is how utterly unprincipled these clowns are.
If they believe in the role of the trib, they’d be more careful about who the posted to it.
It’s a transparent wingnut welfare scheme, paying back various people the party has shat on.
If the don’t give a shit about the trib, or think it should be undermined by appointing people to it that oppose it’s legislatively designed role, then the principled thing to do is change the legislation.
If they do support it, and think Neeson can serve anyway, just fulfilling the law impartially, (The Timmy Ellis gambit) they are asking him to do something which he is morally opposed to and that if he had a spine he’d resign before doing.
But instead it’s paybacks and snouts in troughs and jabbering about the radical feminines or whatever the hell they are sweaty about this week.
Political philosophy my arse. Conservatism is neurosis.
BLiP, give me a single example where Mr Neeson’s role as a member of a three person panel would have been persuasive in a case relating to discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation.
PB and TVOR haven’t managed to find one yet, except to protest about jobs for the boys (just as they were very vocal with Labour appointing Mr Williams and others to every government job under the sun).
You can’t prove a counter factual Tim. You should know this. Both TVoR and I answered your silly question.
Please answer mine:
Do you think that whether or not people who have been discriminated against may feel a bit apprehensive about dealing with Neeson, should have any bearing on whether or not he is suitable?
It’s easy. I’m asking you your opinion, I’m not asking you to imagine an alternate universe and prove that something would definitely happen there. Just asking you what your opinion on the topic is. You do have an opinion on that particular question don’t you? Or is discrimination, like racism, just something you aren’t all that concerned about?
Timmy, what a thought!
All of them, Tim, all of them.
Name a single one, TVOR. It shouldn’t be that hard to name just one.
Jeez, Tim, can’t you just answer a simple question without dissembling? Do you support having an anti gay bigot on the HRC or not? And if you do, are you also in favour of paedophiles on school boards, atheists on the Vatican council and god forbid, Michael Laws on the Geographic Board?
The point is simple, Tim; Neeson is not fit to do the job he has just been gifted. He will take the money anyway, of course, because he is a typical tory bludger, sucking on the public teat. But it ain’t right just coz it’s right wing.
I see Farrar’s got his knickers in a twist about Hipkins and Mallard pumping out “shotgun” questions via written PQs. The consensus of the drooling mob over there is that Labour should be told to get knicked. Mallard comes in for a particularly hard time because, shock of shock, it seems he’s using a mail merge to produce his questions. Wow.
You know it’s the cut and paste oppositionism that I think the sewer dwellers are reacting too. It’s wasteful and inane. I mean questions like:
What is the cost of [INSERT REGION] schooling improvement project in 2008/09 and which appropriation line or lines from Vote Education does the funding for this project come from?
Are wasteful, I guess. Oh, wait, that’s Anne Tolley when she was in opposition asking one of her “inane” scattershot mail merge type questions.
I guess it’s an outrage when Labour does it but when the Tories do it, it’s just good politics. What a friggin’ hypocrite.
For my money, a pox on both their houses for such lazy efforts. But let’s not let Farrar get away with painting this as some sort of Labour low trick.
If Farar is correct then Helen Clark was only asked a total of just over 150 questions on her ministerial responsibilities during the last parliament. Wouldn’t you agree that it is a bit much for Labour to be asking John Key a similar number of questions just for a single month?
No, that just shows National are lazy bastards.
I suspect that it is the way that he tends to disappear and leave gerry or bill to answer his questions when question time comes up. Makes him look like a target.
Helen usually preferred to front up. But I guess that John isn’t as comfortable on his feet. Eventually he’ll get enough experience. After all the opposition are trying to give him the practice. Quite generous of them I thought…
The questions relate to written questions of ministerial services, not oral questions LP.
Ok. But didn’t the NACTs do that every year around xmas?
Something about finding out what each ministry was doing for the end of year bashup from the minister responsible?
It was almost a ritual… Ummm… link
Anyway, I’m off to get a haircut. Get rid of the intense coding ‘mad scientist’ look and revert back to the military
Odd
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/3187537/Nats-John-Key-popular-throughout-year-poll
….is this because the opposition is so cak, I can’t see any other reason as the Nats ain’t really doing a whole lot, perhaps that’s how NZ likes their politicians ?
Fucked if I know, but this
is funny cause on both sides it reflects their bases souring on them I suspect, rather than the squishy middlings.
squishy middlings – Oh those lovely Christmas chocolates. droool
Merry Xmas and happy new year to everybody.
I’m off to the beach till midJanurary
I have faith that Obama is going to do the world proud in 2010!
Have fun…