But he was the minister back in 2018. The reverse Midas touch often has a delayed reaction. There is also a rumor that the 10,000 Kiwi Build houses he promised will not happen.
just saying. And for what its worth, houses got build. And that makes him pretty much the only Labour suit that actually tried to deliver on an idea he had, compare this to any other Labour suit and National for that matter.
And NZTA is a department of ‘do nothing, only do if people are likely to get killed, and only do it then if people were to complain about people getting killed.
And to build these houses, houses also got demolished which are never accounted for when we hear how many have been constructed.
interesting that you state that he is the ONLY labour suit to try to deliver. Your comment doesn’t give confidence to the others . Perhaps Sabine you should review that phrasing 😉
…has run into "significant and complex engineering issues". The Herald understands the current design will be scrapped.
Other options are being considered but these are likely to involve substantial delays.
The problem appears to relate to the capacity of the piers to take the extra load. A replacement plan may be announced at some time in the future.
Must be some very heavy cyclists in Auckland. Or they realised when they fixed the damage from the wind powered truck incident that the bridge has probably already reached/exceeded its maximum load.
Hardly a surprise, it seemed unlikely that bolting another structure to the bridge that we have been told for years is pretty much at load capacity would be a goer…
Im sure the various parties have been well paid for their 'work ' though…
I see that the current plan was up to $360 million.
What ever happened to the $33 million scheme that was consented in 2015 and was supposed to be possible to implement by 2016? On July 3, 2015 Stuff said.
"It means the $33m public-private partnership can go ahead, and could be built as early as 2016."
NZTA's roading luddites were never going to allow a cycle crossing of "their" bridge. The $360 million scheme was proposed in the hope such a grotesquely gold plated obvious jobs for the boys scheme would be cancelled. When that didn't work they seem to have just given up on that approach and they are just going to refuse to it because they don't want to… errr, I mean because they can't design for shit…. err I mean the private sector gave them the answers there ongoing access to consultancy fees depend on.
NZTA over-engineered their solution, and I think the costs included some of the connecting cyclepath.
However I'd say they are genuinely confronting the structural limitations of the bridge that the truck crash highlighted. It may have adjusted their appetite for risk.
A cynical person would say that its NZTA sabotaging a temporary job so their second harbour crossing (in development since at least 2015) has to get accelerated.
The bridge pathway was part of the $360 million Northern Pathway, an ambitious plan revealed in May 2019 by Waka Kotahi, the NZ Transport Agency.
Of the total cost, $240m is for the bridge and $120m is to extend the pathway to the Akoranga bus station near Northcote.
At the time, Waka Kotahi's general manager of system design and delivery, Brett Gliddon, said the plans were complete and he expected construction would begin the next year, 2020.
Waka Kotahi's own surveys suggest there is 78 per cent support for a pathway for cycling and walking over the bridge.
The other one that I had asked about was behind the paywall. This one is not. Perhaps they decided that anyone who rides a bike doesn't pay to read the Herald?
You have to wonder how the long the government is prepared to tolerate such a systemic campaign of insubordination as the one the NZTA wages against it.
One would suspect the NZTA's roading mafia would not be unhappy to see the PT friendlt parts of the governments transport policy credibility subverted with private sector industry players.
One also doesn't need a degree in Kremlinology to read between the lines of the article to see the role played by Brett Gliddon in all this either.
You need to drive over the bridge south morning and post 3:00 going either direction in the afternoon, the bridge currently is not coping with the current traffic volumes. And what would the utilisation of this cycle lane be and at what cost to the commute travel times ?
honestly no idea, but consider that every bike travelling is a car not used.
Bikes should have a place in daily commuting. But the best now is to integrate bike and walkways on any new road being build. And then as BWaghorn said upthread, build a new crossing, and integrate walking and bicyling into the design and then build them.
Every bike on the road is one less car – and it does not matter if it is kids cycling to games/school etc or people to the supermarket, a night out, or to work.
Cars are built to be multi person transport. Bikes can be built to take two lengthwise usually – inefficient road space. Cars should be charged for only transporting one, credited for three or more. Hit drivers in the pocket. Bikes cannot do what cars do. The caption under rows of bikes that parked cars don't shop (sic) is seen in Nelson and considered clever, but that's stretching a point. Public transport and taxi circles should be promoted more with season tickets, or weekly tickets even, being low priced.
Have you heard of Holland? Germany? Sweden? Norway? etc?
they all have something in common.
High bicycle use to transport anything from oneself, to crates of beer – 24 0.5 l bottles a crate, to several children and even to go all the way from Germany to Italy for a holiday.
The point is not to replace cars totally – unless one really don't see a reason for them, like me – but to complement the 'public' transport and the 'environmentally friendly' option currently available.
So for example i might take the train to Britomart with my bicycle, and then i commute on my bike to where ever in town i work, and in the evenings when i am less time conscious i might cycle home on a safe and secure bicycle lane. Oh, look it, i have reduced the commute by a car in the morning, in the evenings and any other time i used my bike.
And the more bikes are on the road the less space we as a country will waste
on wasted carparks (who are the most inefficient land use anywhere on this planet), less pollution, lesser accidents, etc etc etc.
And then if one needs to transport their whole family of two or four, they can still use a car, or use a bike each.
also you might really want to rethink bicycle.
Ridiculous. Outrageous. Hopeless. These are words used by housing advocates to describe a one-bedroom property in Wellington that was on the market seeking offers over $745,000.
The 42-square metre Miramar house was described as “perfect for busy singles, or couples” in the listing by real estate group Ray White. One housing advocate instead described the house as like a “more respectable version” of the converted shipping container recently listed for $390 per week in Johnsonville.
I would click the link just to have look at the 745.000$ single wide container home, well three of them, on a standard section, with no privacy, and the deck ain't private either.
Well maybe she will find some new words to describe how she don't want to see housprices increasing any further cause the old words used sound as hollow as they were.
How about a regulation here and there and maybe a stipulation as to what is a house and what is a single wide, removable trailer.
In February alone, the median house price across the county increased by $50,000 – in Auckland, it was $100,000, or $25,000 a week.
"I'm not going to ever say or concede that what's happening in the housing market is okay; It is not," Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said last week.
She went further: "We don't want to continue to see the exorbitant house price growth that we have seen across the country in the last few months."
She made similar comments in mid-November last year: "It [house prices] just cannot keep increasing at the rate that it is".
It has to be a government housing program – everything else has been tried and failed -and any pretending that the market will do anything other than exploit the crisis needs to be rejected for the neoliberal lie that it is.
Grief of gods – well I guess we have to see. But it's not her that would need to resign if meaningful housing policy is blocked, but the the senior civil service. They're much too comfortable with the status quo. In most jobs, if you don't do 'em, you lose 'em.
Resigning and running a snap re-election to get a mandate for substantial govt action seems possible. Could also help neutralise the grey mandarins of Thorndon.
Firstly, the PM has an unprecedented mandate for change – not need to look for another, which would likely fall short of her present support level.
And secondly, if she stood down, which must be tempting as a newish mum, who in Labour could be trusted to prioritize significant action, and enjoys comparable support? No-one springs to my mind.
I'm suggesting Colonel Trotter or his sources may have confused resignation with dissolving government. I'd say the whole thing is wishful rubbish from bored Thorndonites.
But it can easily be argued that Labour has a mandate for doing nothing to scare the horses, given that’s what they campaigned on.
the big she could do is the big she ruled out last year, 'no increases in benefits', and i can't see her walk this back.
What ever she does now, in the eyes of some like me it will be band aids. They had this awesome chance last year to re-think government and they spend it doing fuck all, and they are now spending the last of the capital pissing of various industries that are in the process of dying by telling them that government is not hear to help, and that if they expect help they better be humble. That is disaster capitalism nothing more and nothing less. For lack of better words, her governments 'not coming to help' bullshit is trickling down.
I don't see her or anyone else resign, i don't see anything exiting of this PR exercise today, and above all i don't see a thing changing in regards to poverty, homelessness and the housing obscenity that is currently playing out for all to see.
The big she ruled out last year is likely to return in disguise as part of the BIG big she and her political mates are rumoured to be planning in the near future.
Btw, last year was Covid, Covid, Covid. Everything else was pushed aside. I'm glad though. It means the country can galvanise again… so much sooner than most of the rest of the world.
Labour long ago drunk the cool aid of Free market neoliberalism, and once under the spell of that obscene ideology (along with National) have done nothing but adhere too, administer, and promote the principles of this ponzi scheme ideology in NZ…these people, Grant Robertson Ardern, Grant Robertson and NZ Labour are nothing more than free market fundamentalists…just look at what they have allowed to happen to our homes..,and all the while we have to listen to Robertson trying to use the tools of the 'market' to control the market that is only operating as it was designed by them to do…and remember it was Labour who unleashed this ideology that has turned our homes into the tradable commodities they are today, and Ardern has proved she is no different.
Have a relative working for one of the big Australian banks down in Wellington. Grant Robertson meets weekly with the head honcho to talk with them about how they think the housing market and economy is going. (I'm making a presumption here, that if he is meeting with one on a weekly basis, he is meeting with most – if not all).
I suspect this relationship has been built on continued ineffective policy and strategies. I believe that this Labour government has disdained any notion of building a trusting relationship with the public, particularly those who suffer from lack of affordable housing, otherwise they would do better. And they need to do better.
I know it is like RNZ, who only ever seem to talk to banking economists about our economy, you know banks whose sole purpose is to create debt FFS!
I regularly email RNZ and politely ask them why they don't interview economists who would have a more neutral and nuanced outlook…it is just bizarre.
" And they need to do better " sorry to be a bummer here, but they won't do better, well not the kind of better we really need at this moment, the best we can hope for from Labour is their usual 'fixing around the edges' they are not and never will be transformational while they are lead by their liberal free marker ideology…a sad fact.
Meanwhile, the Marlborough District Council is building 12 one bedroom flats for seniors on 800 sq.m. for $3.7m. The rent will be set at 80% of market rents and are projected to be about $220 to #230 p.w. The rent is expected to pay for the cost of construction over time- so is self-funding.
This is what should be build more, and even up to 4 – 5 stories high, but with mixed bedroom sizes. So that young/old and families live in mixed housing.
I can't even see how anyone would want to share a standard property with three others and no privacy as the one featured in the article i linked to. And yeah, the government could rule and regulate and promote the building of these apartments as per your article. The one is gonna be a slum, the other is going to be functional housing.
Well the elitists bike riders should be rich enough to afford it, its the poor cyclists – the one that ride a bike cause cheaper – that would be shit outta luck. As always.
neither one of them is the solution of what ails the world.
And anyone thinking that POutin did not his share of unsavory shit during the time he was stationed in East Germany as the headhoncho of the USSR is deluding himself.
He is unsavory, he is deadly, and he ain't give a shit about anything, no more then the dude on the other side does. However, at least in the US the head honcho changes every now and then, meanwhile while in Russia ………………………………..
Putin is, as you correctly point out, unsavoury and deadly. However, he is a model of stability and integrity versus any of the horror shows—Bush, Obomber, Trump, Biden—that have occupied the Oval Office this century.
oh boy, and good grief, and well finally they admit that covid really has not been that good to women, but that is not because they are women, it is because they work in jobs that 'dominated' by women, and these jobs that traditionally are womens jobs – such as cleaning hotel rooms – are now industries that have been impacted by Covid.
What a phrase.
Although women have been affected worse by this pandemic, and job-creation moves in infrastructure and building have largely benefited men, that's to do with workforce composition and over time there may end up being more women in those jobs – but that could be a long, slow structural shift away.
For now, women are hurting not because they are women but because they tend to be in the workforce affected by Covid.
"So much depends on the starting point and it so happens the service sector is heavily dominated by women," says Toplis. "By definition – and I think you have to be very careful with the debate – it's not an anti-women downturn but an anti-service downturn and women are disproportionately represented."
But at least an article that admits what has been admitted elsewhere already, that Covid was not good for women, for womens income, for womens employment options, and for womens mental health. (#notallwomensomemadegoodmoneyduringcovid)
So Ardern is currently making an announcement, announcing that there will be a further announcement on the 6th of April on the possible travel bubble with Australia.
Fixed window from a given situation seems to be the criteria for the bubble to happen, so given the most recent instance of that situation the bubble is not going to happen at least for a couple of weeks.
It's not like fingers can be snapped and suddenly it's safe to have a bubble. Quite the opposite – when it finally happens, at any time there could be a loud bang over the Tasman as the bubble suddenly pops and collapses into two smaller bubbles, one isolating each nation.
Well, we are as isolated atm as can be. Short of closing borders to returning kiwis, dancers, sports dudes/ettes, and the wiggles this is as isolated as isolation gets.
shall we wager what the government is gonna do on the 6th of April?
what both governments decide will be based on conditions on the ground in April.
If we have another outbreak, Aussies could decide to put it off.
If they have another outbreak, we might put it off.
If everything's fine, they might make an announcement of the bubble happening x days later, to give hotels and airlines time to get up and running to a higher level, including their online booking.
We won't be betting on a decision, we'll be betting on whether conditions are better then than they are now.
Australia managed to turn quarantine free travel on and off. which is essentially what this is, not a bubble. State by state too. that's 7 juridisctions able to put into place what Jacinda can only make an announcement about being able to confirm when it will be in place.
A: Because the conditions won't suit it until April 6 at the earliest.
It's just like L1-L4. There will be criteria, somehwere, that will be a compromise between whatever Michael Baker wants and whatever the business lobbyists and the nats want. I cbf'd looking for that criteria, because I think the entire complaint about people not knowing what's going on is BS.
We've had a year of this – if people haven't figured out by now that loosened restrictions depend on things like the extent of community transition in an area (rather than the whims of the PM), they'll need some extensive 1:1 contact time with professional educators to actually figure it out.
Why simply not announce that then? We don't want a bubble now, too dangerous. We want one under the these conditions and to get there we will do this that such. Announce a date for the vaccine rollout ( a very conservative, smallest amount of risk type announcement – say vaccine roll out happening for the larger public starting July – ish, finished by End of year / mid next year). Give it a time frame. Be done with it. Atm, no one can plan, no one knows anything, and lockdowns can happen any day. This is just painful, no purpose served stringing along a public because you can.
Today was another wasted PR opportunity, with nothing that could not have been said via a press statement either. “No changes to the current bubble rules.” done.
On a brighter note, we have returned from a thoroughly enjoyable sojourn around West Coast/Buller/Tasman/Malborough.
The highlights: the friendly folk and hospitality esp Hokitika, Reefton and Takaka, the great quality beer – Eddyline, West Coast Brewery, Townsend and Mussell Inn, the scenery of Buller Gorge, the Glaciers and Golden Bay.
Personal highlight @ Lyell was two parent Weka mooching amongst our feet before moving away and 'booming' to the 4 chicks that followed.
Despite thinking the swing bridge across the Buller Gorge would be easy, it was a different thing in 'the flesh'. Border-line code brown.
Finished it all off with a great day at the Nelson Beer and Music Festival.
Hot tip, I thoroughly recommend getting a cabin for the return ferry crossing. Being able to nap before driving was a master stroke.
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TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Orderimage, ...
Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent talking about the National-ACT-NZ First Government’s release of its first Emissions Reduction Plan;University of Otago Foreign Relations Professor and special guest Dr Karin von ...
Open access notablesImproving global temperature datasets to better account for non-uniform warming, Calvert, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society:To better account for spatial non-uniform trends in warming, a new GITD [global instrumental temperature dataset] was created that used maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) to combine the land surface ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says a bill that has passed its first reading will improve parental leave settings and give non-biological parents more flexibility as primary carer for their child. The Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill (No3), passed its first reading this morning. “It includes a change ...
Two Bills designed to improve regulation and make it easier to do business have passed their first reading in Parliament, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill make key changes to legislation administered by the Ministry ...
New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says newly appointed Commissioner, Grant Illingworth KC, will help deliver the report for the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons, due on 28 November 2024. “I am pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will commence his appointment as ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters travels to Laos this week to participate in a series of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-led Ministerial meetings in Vientiane. “ASEAN plays an important role in supporting a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Mr Peters says. “This will be our third visit to ...
Construction of a new mental health facility at Te Nikau Grey Hospital in Greymouth is today one step closer, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says. “This $27 million facility shows this Government is delivering on its promise to boost mental health care and improve front line services,” Mr Doocey says. ...
New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says proposed changes to the Education and Training Amendment Bill will ensure charter schools have more flexibility to negotiate employment agreements and are equipped with the right teaching resources. “Cabinet has agreed to progress an amendment which means unions will not be able to initiate ...
In response to serious concerns around oversight, overspend and a significant deterioration in financial outlook, the Board of Health New Zealand will be replaced with a Commissioner, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti announced today. “The previous government’s botched health reforms have created significant financial challenges at Health NZ that, without ...
Minister for Space and Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins will travel to Adelaide tomorrow for space and science engagements, including speaking at the Australian Space Forum. While there she will also have meetings and visits with a focus on space, biotechnology and innovation. “New Zealand has a thriving space ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will travel to China on Saturday to attend the Ministerial on Climate Action meeting held in Wuhan. “Attending the Ministerial on Climate Action is an opportunity to advocate for New Zealand climate priorities and engage with our key partners on climate action,” Mr Watts says. ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is travelling to the Solomon Islands tomorrow for meetings with his counterparts from around the Pacific supporting collective management of the region’s fisheries. The 23rd Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Committee and the 5th Regional Fisheries Ministers’ Meeting in Honiara from 23 to 26 July ...
The Government today launched the Military Style Academy Pilot at Te Au rere a te Tonga Youth Justice residence in Palmerston North, an important part of the Government’s plan to crackdown on youth crime and getting youth offenders back on track, Minister for Children, Karen Chhour said today. “On the ...
The Government has welcomed news the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has begun work to replace nine priority bridges across the country to ensure our state highway network remains resilient, reliable, and efficient for road users, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“Increasing productivity and economic growth is a key priority for the ...
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour has been in contact throughout the evening with senior officials who have coordinated a whole of government response to the global IT outage and can provide an update. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has designated the National Emergency Management Agency as the ...
New Zealand and Japan will continue to step up their shared engagement with the Pacific, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand and Japan have a strong, shared interest in a free, open and stable Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “We are pleased to be finding more ways ...
New developments in the heart of North Island forestry country will reinvigorate their communities and boost economic development, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones visited Kaingaroa and Kawerau in Bay of Plenty today to open a landmark community centre in the former and a new connecting road in ...
President Adeang, fellow Ministers, honourable Diet Member Horii, Ambassadors, distinguished guests. Minasama, konnichiwa, and good afternoon, everyone. Distinguished guests, it’s a pleasure to be here with you today to talk about New Zealand’s foreign policy reset, the reasons for it, the values that underpin it, and how it ...
Last summer when Matairangi burned, Ginny and Tom stood at the window of their lounge, watching kākā shoot skyward from the burning trees. From the distance, they looked to Ginny like pages torn from books and thrown into a bonfire. It was Tom, voice tight, who told her it was ...
Opinion: The Canadian short story writer Alice Munro – winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013 – died in May at the age of 92. Her work was about “the damage people inflict on one another in the name of love”, Deborah Treisman wrote in the New Yorker. ...
This month marks two years since the most powerful telescope ever built sent its first pictures back to earth. From its lofty vantage point, beyond the moon in orbit around the sun, the James Webb Space Telescope was tuned to observe the first stars and galaxies being born soon after ...
Comment: After Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ preview several weeks ago, I had some optimism about the Government’s emissions reduction plan. Now I’ve read the discussion document, that hope has been dashed. How can the Government propose a plan that wants to take New Zealand taxpayers’ hard-earned money, and spend ...
Christopher Luxon: hurdles The little man from National jumps hurdles in his sleep. He’s quite good at it in his dreams and even though the reality doesn’t quite match up you have to give him credit for getting up every morning and crashing into the very first hurdle of the ...
Comment: It was a good two hours into the conversation when Tyrone Marks raised the most basic of questions when I first spoke to him in 2017. “They didn’t explain the things they did to me. They never told me why. And they still haven’t. There’s no explanation for it. ...
Madeleine Chapman rounds out Death Week on The Spinoff with a final recommendation. You can read all of our Death Week coverage here. Nothing forces you to reflect on your life and relationships quite like proximity to death. For those whose nearest and dearest have died, there are reasonably obvious ...
Whitney Greene takes us through her life in television, including the TV character she’d like to plan a funeral for and her cow lung catastrophe on The Traitors NZ. “If the phone rings, I have to answer it,” Whitney Greene from The Traitors NZ warns as we begin our My ...
Maddie Ballard reviews the debut essay collection of Pōneke writer Flora Feltham.In ‘The Raw Material’, the longest essay in Flora Feltham’s dazzling debut collection, the author heads out for a run after hours of weaving and sees the world turn to textile. “Pounding along the Parade, I saw the ...
Andy Christiansen, one half of the experimental rock-pop duo TRiPS, shares the tunes inspiring the band’s perfect weekend and new release. “Good speakers, good food, good music, no distractions”: that’s all you need to enjoy the psychedelic stylings of TRiPS, a new band formed by Fly My Pretties’ Barnaby Weir ...
Celebrating our quadrennial opportunity to become experts in a bunch of sports we never normally watch.The games of the XXXIII Olympiad are upon us. Paris will host this year’s showcase of sporting and athletic prowess, which means some late-night and early-morning viewing for us in Aotearoa.But what sports ...
The photograph is striking and beautiful, but also disturbing – a reminder that my love for John was often entangled in shame.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.In the spring of 1980, in Dunedin, shortly before his death, someone took a photograph ...
Get to know Babushka, our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Babu’s humans, Jo and Isabel, for their support. Dog name: Babushka (Babu for short) Age: 2Breed: Border Collie X poodleIf rescued, ...
Pacific Media Watch A Lebanese photojournalist who was severely wounded during an Israeli air strike in south Lebanon carried the Olympic torch in Paris this week in honour of her peers who have been wounded and killed in the field — especially in Gaza and Lebanon. Christina Assi of Agence ...
The first report in a five-part web series focused on the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women taking place in the Marshall Islands this week.SPECIAL REPORT:By Netani Rika in Majuro Women continue to fight for justice 70 years after the first nuclear tests by the United States caused ...
Christopher Luxon has joined with Australia and Canada's leaders in voicing support for US President Joe Biden's ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The 2022 election brought the “teal wave” into parliament. The next election will test whether teals, who occupy what were Liberal seats, and other independents can maintain their momentum. Joining us on the Podcast ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Musgrave, Senior lecturer in Pharmacology, University of Adelaide Pixavri/Shutterstock A major Federal Court class action has been dismissed this week after Justice Michael Lee ruled there was not enough evidence to prove the weedkiller Roundup causes cancer. Plaintiff Kelvin ...
In The Week in Politics: politicians have to decide what to do about child abuse, Health NZ is booked in for major surgery and Darleen Tana returns. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University Mainstream media are surprisingly muted at the prospect of the world’s most powerful nation being led for the first time by a woman – specifically a woman of colour, Vice President Kamala ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Bennett, PhD Student, Associate Research Fellow, Deakin University Last week, a drone delivery company called Wing (owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet) started operating in Melbourne. Some 250,000 residents in parts of the city’s eastern suburbs can now order food from ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Foo, Lecturer, Physiotherapy, Monash University pikselstock/Shutterstock In the next 40 years in Australia, it’s predicted the number of Australians aged 65 and over will more than double, while the number of people aged 85 and over will more than triple. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katrina Grant, Research Associate, Power Institute for Arts and Visual Culture, University of Sydney Jonas Åkerström’s 1790 work, Session of the Accademia dell’Arcadia on August 17 1788.Nationalmuseum/Cecilia Heisser Ever wondered whether you’d have a better chance at winning an Olympic gold ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexandra Jones, Program Lead, Food Governance, George Institute for Global Health wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock On Thursday, Australian and New Zealand food ministers at state, federal and national levels met to thrash out what’s next for health star ratings on packaged foods. Now, after ...
The Abuse in Care report found many Pacific survivors lost their connections to their culture and language, resulting in trauma that has been carried from generation to generation. ...
In the regulatory review, ECC intends to suggest that ERO focus on curriculum delivery reviews rather than the Ministry, because it’s not efficient or effective to have two agencies with radically different approaches climbing over each other. ...
Te Rūnanga Nui o Ngā Kura Kaupapa Māori invites the current government to work in partnership with them to develop a pathway forward, including the development of a parallel pathway and meaningful policy and strategy for Kura Kaupapa Māori ...
If you haven’t started watching yet, Tara Ward begs you to reconsider. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. In the world of New Zealand reality television, we have many gems in our crown. There’s the delicious second season of the Celebrity Treasure ...
A new poem by Fiona Kidman. The clothes of the dead I did not keep my mother’s furry red beret for long nor the stringy scarves that adorned the necks of my aunts, although I have kept tag ends of gold, the rings and trinkets they wore, the brooches no ...
The government’s announcement that it will re-open the foreshore and seabed controversy by changing the rules on recognising centuries-old Māori customary title for a third time goes against the rule of law and New Zealand values,” Mr Tipa says. ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Lioness by Emily Perkins (Bloomsbury, $25) Roarrrr! Perkins’ brilliant, award-winning, Marian-Keyes anointed, darkly funny, long ...
The 2004 Act vested ownership of the foreshore and seabed in the Crown, extinguishing any Māori claims to ownership and causing widespread outrage and protests among Māori communities. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Antje Deckert, Associate Professor (Criminology), Auckland University of Technology Getty Images Despite the connection between institutional harm and gang membership made clear in this week’s mammoth royal commission abuse-in care report, the government seems unlikely to soften its “get tough on ...
From Lewis Clareburt in the swimming to the start of the rowing – the first seven days of Paris 2024 promise to be big for New Zealand. There are few events that bring the country together quite like an Olympic Games. Nothing quite matches the excitement of getting up in ...
Groundbreaking local science just showed up in the most surprising of places: the season finale of The Kardashians. In the season five finale of The Kardashians last night, several members of the family gathered together in one of their signature empty, cream-coloured rooms to hear test results that had been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amin Saikal, Emeritus professor of Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies, Australian National University The Middle East is on the brink of a possibly devastating regional war, with hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah reaching an extremely dangerous level. Washington has engaged in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Elizabeth Eades, Rheumatologist, Monash University Lupus is an inflammatory autoimmune illness, where the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks itself. Lupus can affect virtually any part of the body, although it most commonly affects the skin, joints and kidneys. The symptoms ...
A law firm that specialises in working with survivors of abuse in State care is disappointed that the Government fails to recognise that its boot camps can be directly compared to previous boot camps from the 1990s and 2000s. ...
Dying is a natural part of life, like updating your Wof or seeing your hairdresser, but without the word-of-mouth recs that help guarantee a good service. What if we changed that? Dying Reviews received by The Spinoff have had the names of organisations redacted while Hospice NZ collects further data. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonti Horner, Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland Mike Lewinski/Flickr, CC BY On any clear night, if you gaze skywards long enough, chances are you’ll see a meteor streaking through the sky. Some nights, however, are better than others. At ...
Despite having no bars or other designated spaces for lesbians, Auckland boasts a small but mighty lesbian museum. So how did it get here? The past 18 months has brought increasing hostility towards the queer community across Aotearoa. Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull’s anti-trans rally in Tamaki Makaurau last March led to a ...
Poneke Antifascist Coalition has invited Wellingtonians to stand in solidarity with the Kanak people at 12pm today outside the French Embassy in Wellington. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Layton, Visiting Fellow, Strategic Studies, Griffith University Drones are the signature technology of the Ukraine war. A few miniature aircraft designs were used in the war’s early days, but an incredible array of drones have now evolved. There are different types, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Slee, Associate Professor, Clinical Academic Neurologist, Flinders University Francisco Gonzelez/Unsplash Migraine is many things, but one thing it’s not is “just a headache”. “Migraine” comes from the Greek word “hemicrania”, referring to the common experience of migraine being predominantly ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lee White, Senior Lecturer and Horizon Fellow, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Sydney Australia was slow to introduce minimum building standards for energy efficiency. The Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS) only came into force in 2003. Older homes ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steven Sherwood, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Climate Change Research Centre, UNSW Sydney The past century of human-induced warming has increased rainfall variability over 75% of the Earth’s land area – particularly over Australia, Europe and eastern North America, new research shows. ...
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Skypath is dead.
That is a massive govt and Council setback.
Also an industry setback.
And for cyclists.
Twyford strikes again? Anything he touches seems to have the reverse Midas touch.
Rail down Dominion Road anyone?
https://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/106505418/government-announces-it-will-fund-and-build-skypath-along-auckland-harbour-bridge
He's not the minister.
No this is on NZTA and its design team.
But he was the minister back in 2018. The reverse Midas touch often has a delayed reaction. There is also a rumor that the 10,000 Kiwi Build houses he promised will not happen.
it is 2021.
just saying. And for what its worth, houses got build. And that makes him pretty much the only Labour suit that actually tried to deliver on an idea he had, compare this to any other Labour suit and National for that matter.
And NZTA is a department of ‘do nothing, only do if people are likely to get killed, and only do it then if people were to complain about people getting killed.
And to build these houses, houses also got demolished which are never accounted for when we hear how many have been constructed.
interesting that you state that he is the ONLY labour suit to try to deliver. Your comment doesn’t give confidence to the others . Perhaps Sabine you should review that phrasing 😉
nope, my comment stands. I have no confidence what so ever in any of the current lot.
Agreed Sabine. The truck inspections spring to mind.
Here is a link to the RNZ story.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/438875/truck-engineers-group-backs-fiery-complaint-to-transport-minister
Good, it's bloody stupid to spend on that when Auckland needs a new crossing
+1
Is this not a party close to Gfoffloffl's heart?
If there is anyone out there who still reads the Herald? If there is are they willing to just give the bare bones of the story in todays edition.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/skypath-grounded-auckland-harbour-bridge-may-never-get-a-cycleway/C6YNBOCVXA3SWZPAIIMRJ4BM6Q/
Edit, for Ad. Snap
…has run into "significant and complex engineering issues". The Herald understands the current design will be scrapped.
Other options are being considered but these are likely to involve substantial delays.
The problem appears to relate to the capacity of the piers to take the extra load. A replacement plan may be announced at some time in the future.
Must be some very heavy cyclists in Auckland. Or they realised when they fixed the damage from the wind powered truck incident that the bridge has probably already reached/exceeded its maximum load.
Might have to build another bridge. Or a tunnel.
Thank you. If it is the basic structure and strength of the bridge it won't be easy to fix.
Hardly a surprise, it seemed unlikely that bolting another structure to the bridge that we have been told for years is pretty much at load capacity would be a goer…
Im sure the various parties have been well paid for their 'work ' though…
I see that the current plan was up to $360 million.
What ever happened to the $33 million scheme that was consented in 2015 and was supposed to be possible to implement by 2016? On July 3, 2015 Stuff said.
"It means the $33m public-private partnership can go ahead, and could be built as early as 2016."
https://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/69928915/auckland-harbour-bridge-skypath-approved
NZTA's roading luddites were never going to allow a cycle crossing of "their" bridge. The $360 million scheme was proposed in the hope such a grotesquely gold plated obvious jobs for the boys scheme would be cancelled. When that didn't work they seem to have just given up on that approach and they are just going to refuse to it because they don't want to… errr, I mean because they can't design for shit…. err I mean the private sector gave them the answers there ongoing access to consultancy fees depend on.
NZTA over-engineered their solution, and I think the costs included some of the connecting cyclepath.
However I'd say they are genuinely confronting the structural limitations of the bridge that the truck crash highlighted. It may have adjusted their appetite for risk.
A cynical person would say that its NZTA sabotaging a temporary job so their second harbour crossing (in development since at least 2015) has to get accelerated.
I'm not that cynical yet.
[wrong e-mail address entered 😀 ]
Thanks Sacha for an opinion that presents possible causes.
A follow-up story in the Herald – which includes the cost allocation: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/skypath-cycling-community-gutted-auckland-harbour-bridge-may-never-get-a-cycleway/YKKTN6NK6B5DUM7D3J4X5WOYAI/
Perspective
https://twitter.com/Trabaq/status/1373719912087052294
Thank you for posting that story.
The other one that I had asked about was behind the paywall. This one is not. Perhaps they decided that anyone who rides a bike doesn't pay to read the Herald?
You have to wonder how the long the government is prepared to tolerate such a systemic campaign of insubordination as the one the NZTA wages against it.
Skypath loss will make it very difficult for the industry to believe the Transport Minister's upcoming announcements on light rail.
One would suspect the NZTA's roading mafia would not be unhappy to see the PT friendlt parts of the governments transport policy credibility subverted with private sector industry players.
One also doesn't need a degree in Kremlinology to read between the lines of the article to see the role played by Brett Gliddon in all this either.
Perhaps a reform of NZTA could start there.
Just “transform” the outer lanes of the harbour bridge into a shared path for cyclists and pedestrians until there’s an alternative solution.
Like they did no optioneering?
There's about 7 years of thinking and options already done.
Jesus wept, seven years of over paid consultants laughing all the way to the bank.
It's a politely restrained chuckle I'll have you know.
You need to drive over the bridge south morning and post 3:00 going either direction in the afternoon, the bridge currently is not coping with the current traffic volumes. And what would the utilisation of this cycle lane be and at what cost to the commute travel times ?
honestly no idea, but consider that every bike travelling is a car not used.
Bikes should have a place in daily commuting. But the best now is to integrate bike and walkways on any new road being build. And then as BWaghorn said upthread, build a new crossing, and integrate walking and bicyling into the design and then build them.
Every bike on the road is one less car – and it does not matter if it is kids cycling to games/school etc or people to the supermarket, a night out, or to work.
Every bike on the road is one less car.
Cars are built to be multi person transport. Bikes can be built to take two lengthwise usually – inefficient road space. Cars should be charged for only transporting one, credited for three or more. Hit drivers in the pocket. Bikes cannot do what cars do. The caption under rows of bikes that parked cars don't shop (sic) is seen in Nelson and considered clever, but that's stretching a point. Public transport and taxi circles should be promoted more with season tickets, or weekly tickets even, being low priced.
Have you heard of Holland? Germany? Sweden? Norway? etc?
they all have something in common.
High bicycle use to transport anything from oneself, to crates of beer – 24 0.5 l bottles a crate, to several children and even to go all the way from Germany to Italy for a holiday.
The point is not to replace cars totally – unless one really don't see a reason for them, like me – but to complement the 'public' transport and the 'environmentally friendly' option currently available.
So for example i might take the train to Britomart with my bicycle, and then i commute on my bike to where ever in town i work, and in the evenings when i am less time conscious i might cycle home on a safe and secure bicycle lane. Oh, look it, i have reduced the commute by a car in the morning, in the evenings and any other time i used my bike.
And the more bikes are on the road the less space we as a country will waste
on wasted carparks (who are the most inefficient land use anywhere on this planet), less pollution, lesser accidents, etc etc etc.
And then if one needs to transport their whole family of two or four, they can still use a car, or use a bike each.
also you might really want to rethink bicycle.
transporting your children
https://www.acv.de/ratgeber/fahrrad/sicherheit/lastenrad-kind
transporting loads
https://www.thestar.com.my/lifestyle/living/2020/12/15/transport-anything-with-a-long-john-cargo-bike
moving lots of people having a beer
https://www.pissup.com/munich-stag-do/activities/beer-bike-munich/
Ambassador Robert Ford on the US role in Syria's 10-year war
Interesting interview with Robert Ford, retired US diplomat who served as US Ambassador to Syria from 2011 to 2014.
surely something will be done about this…..soon……so very soon….any month now, or maybe year….something……
https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/homed/housing-affordability/124581254/is-745k-reasonable-for-a-onebedroom-house-wellington-property-draws-ire-of-housing-advocates
I would click the link just to have look at the 745.000$ single wide container home, well three of them, on a standard section, with no privacy, and the deck ain't private either.
Well maybe she will find some new words to describe how she don't want to see housprices increasing any further cause the old words used sound as hollow as they were.
How about a regulation here and there and maybe a stipulation as to what is a house and what is a single wide, removable trailer.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/remedies-for-the-hot-housing-market-what-does-grant-robertson-have-up-his-sleeve/TYV4SLL5Q6BASVN6YH2ZBEXWZY/
It has to be a government housing program – everything else has been tried and failed -and any pretending that the market will do anything other than exploit the crisis needs to be rejected for the neoliberal lie that it is.
Interesting – waiting keenly!. https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/2021/03/something-big.html
Grief of gods – well I guess we have to see. But it's not her that would need to resign if meaningful housing policy is blocked, but the the senior civil service. They're much too comfortable with the status quo. In most jobs, if you don't do 'em, you lose 'em.
Resigning and running a snap re-election to get a mandate for substantial govt action seems possible. Could also help neutralise the grey mandarins of Thorndon.
I'm not fond of that scenario for two reasons.
Firstly, the PM has an unprecedented mandate for change – not need to look for another, which would likely fall short of her present support level.
And secondly, if she stood down, which must be tempting as a newish mum, who in Labour could be trusted to prioritize significant action, and enjoys comparable support? No-one springs to my mind.
I'm suggesting Colonel Trotter or his sources may have confused resignation with dissolving government. I'd say the whole thing is wishful rubbish from bored Thorndonites.
But it can easily be argued that Labour has a mandate for doing nothing to scare the horses, given that’s what they campaigned on.
well i am not getting any hopes of.
the big she could do is the big she ruled out last year, 'no increases in benefits', and i can't see her walk this back.
What ever she does now, in the eyes of some like me it will be band aids. They had this awesome chance last year to re-think government and they spend it doing fuck all, and they are now spending the last of the capital pissing of various industries that are in the process of dying by telling them that government is not hear to help, and that if they expect help they better be humble. That is disaster capitalism nothing more and nothing less. For lack of better words, her governments 'not coming to help' bullshit is trickling down.
I don't see her or anyone else resign, i don't see anything exiting of this PR exercise today, and above all i don't see a thing changing in regards to poverty, homelessness and the housing obscenity that is currently playing out for all to see.
The big she ruled out last year is likely to return in disguise as part of the BIG big she and her political mates are rumoured to be planning in the near future.
Btw, last year was Covid, Covid, Covid. Everything else was pushed aside. I'm glad though. It means the country can galvanise again… so much sooner than most of the rest of the world.
at the moment it looks rather we are falling behind. So frankly, i have no hope.
Labour long ago drunk the cool aid of Free market neoliberalism, and once under the spell of that obscene ideology (along with National) have done nothing but adhere too, administer, and promote the principles of this ponzi scheme ideology in NZ…these people, Grant Robertson Ardern, Grant Robertson and NZ Labour are nothing more than free market fundamentalists…just look at what they have allowed to happen to our homes..,and all the while we have to listen to Robertson trying to use the tools of the 'market' to control the market that is only operating as it was designed by them to do…and remember it was Labour who unleashed this ideology that has turned our homes into the tradable commodities they are today, and Ardern has proved she is no different.
Turn Labour Left!
Have a relative working for one of the big Australian banks down in Wellington. Grant Robertson meets weekly with the head honcho to talk with them about how they think the housing market and economy is going. (I'm making a presumption here, that if he is meeting with one on a weekly basis, he is meeting with most – if not all).
I suspect this relationship has been built on continued ineffective policy and strategies. I believe that this Labour government has disdained any notion of building a trusting relationship with the public, particularly those who suffer from lack of affordable housing, otherwise they would do better. And they need to do better.
I know it is like RNZ, who only ever seem to talk to banking economists about our economy, you know banks whose sole purpose is to create debt FFS!
I regularly email RNZ and politely ask them why they don't interview economists who would have a more neutral and nuanced outlook…it is just bizarre.
" And they need to do better " sorry to be a bummer here, but they won't do better, well not the kind of better we really need at this moment, the best we can hope for from Labour is their usual 'fixing around the edges' they are not and never will be transformational while they are lead by their liberal free marker ideology…a sad fact.
Turn Labour Left!
Meanwhile, the Marlborough District Council is building 12 one bedroom flats for seniors on 800 sq.m. for $3.7m. The rent will be set at 80% of market rents and are projected to be about $220 to #230 p.w. The rent is expected to pay for the cost of construction over time- so is self-funding.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/homed/retirement/124582021/the-squeeze-council-flats-for-seniors-prompt-rent-review-amid-housing-shortage
The individual cost is just over $300,000 per unit.
Put that figure against the Miramar glorified container at $745,000!
This is what should be build more, and even up to 4 – 5 stories high, but with mixed bedroom sizes. So that young/old and families live in mixed housing.
I can't even see how anyone would want to share a standard property with three others and no privacy as the one featured in the article i linked to. And yeah, the government could rule and regulate and promote the building of these apartments as per your article. The one is gonna be a slum, the other is going to be functional housing.
What is the land that it sits on worth?
it is a standard section, so i doubt it would be 3* 745.000 dollar a tick, but then people in NZ buy stupid properties any day now.
Also, the Landlord would not answer, and the fancy container builders are really proud for the double glazing.
its a standard section dude.
walk your bike over the bridge, or take it on the ferry. A bridge cycleway is elitist and unnecessary
Ferry $8 one way to Bayswater, could be more with a bike.
Well the elitists bike riders should be rich enough to afford it, its the poor cyclists – the one that ride a bike cause cheaper – that would be shit outta luck. As always.
'a bridge carway is elitist and unnecessary'
Putin challenges Biden to live debate after president calls him a 'killer'https://abc7.com/putin-challenges-biden-to-debate-killer-russia-us/10432148/
Now there is a debate I would stay up for..
[Image resized]
neither one of them is the solution of what ails the world.
And anyone thinking that POutin did not his share of unsavory shit during the time he was stationed in East Germany as the headhoncho of the USSR is deluding himself.
He is unsavory, he is deadly, and he ain't give a shit about anything, no more then the dude on the other side does. However, at least in the US the head honcho changes every now and then, meanwhile while in Russia ………………………………..
Putin is, as you correctly point out, unsavoury and deadly. However, he is a model of stability and integrity versus any of the horror shows—Bush, Obomber, Trump, Biden—that have occupied the Oval Office this century.
stability ey?
How much did you enjoy the last four years of instability in Washington?
Absolutely, but I doubt that the Americans want to hear their own sins.
oh boy, and good grief, and well finally they admit that covid really has not been that good to women, but that is not because they are women, it is because they work in jobs that 'dominated' by women, and these jobs that traditionally are womens jobs – such as cleaning hotel rooms – are now industries that have been impacted by Covid.
What a phrase.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/divided-we-fall-the-scary-trends-in-new-zealands-two-speed-economy/YVISWHWYQOV5ZPOICRMGU3QHUM/
But at least an article that admits what has been admitted elsewhere already, that Covid was not good for women, for womens income, for womens employment options, and for womens mental health. (#notallwomensomemadegoodmoneyduringcovid)
So Ardern is currently making an announcement, announcing that there will be a further announcement on the 6th of April on the possible travel bubble with Australia.
The wheels do turn slowly.
soon, sooooooon, so sooon, i will be any day now……sooon.
Seems reasonable.
Fixed window from a given situation seems to be the criteria for the bubble to happen, so given the most recent instance of that situation the bubble is not going to happen at least for a couple of weeks.
It's not like fingers can be snapped and suddenly it's safe to have a bubble. Quite the opposite – when it finally happens, at any time there could be a loud bang over the Tasman as the bubble suddenly pops and collapses into two smaller bubbles, one isolating each nation.
Well, we are as isolated atm as can be. Short of closing borders to returning kiwis, dancers, sports dudes/ettes, and the wiggles this is as isolated as isolation gets.
shall we wager what the government is gonna do on the 6th of April?
short we lose
long we pay.
what both governments decide will be based on conditions on the ground in April.
If we have another outbreak, Aussies could decide to put it off.
If they have another outbreak, we might put it off.
If everything's fine, they might make an announcement of the bubble happening x days later, to give hotels and airlines time to get up and running to a higher level, including their online booking.
We won't be betting on a decision, we'll be betting on whether conditions are better then than they are now.
Australia managed to turn quarantine free travel on and off. which is essentially what this is, not a bubble. State by state too. that's 7 juridisctions able to put into place what Jacinda can only make an announcement about being able to confirm when it will be in place.
It's hard to stomach the constant double speak
Ok.
Q: So when will it get turned on Aus-NZ?
A:Not until April 6 at the earliest.
Q: Why april 6 at the earliest?
A: Because the conditions won't suit it until April 6 at the earliest.
It's just like L1-L4. There will be criteria, somehwere, that will be a compromise between whatever Michael Baker wants and whatever the business lobbyists and the nats want. I cbf'd looking for that criteria, because I think the entire complaint about people not knowing what's going on is BS.
We've had a year of this – if people haven't figured out by now that loosened restrictions depend on things like the extent of community transition in an area (rather than the whims of the PM), they'll need some extensive 1:1 contact time with professional educators to actually figure it out.
The linger she can delay it the better imho. Getting those vaccines in arms before the next outbreak suits me
Why simply not announce that then? We don't want a bubble now, too dangerous. We want one under the these conditions and to get there we will do this that such. Announce a date for the vaccine rollout ( a very conservative, smallest amount of risk type announcement – say vaccine roll out happening for the larger public starting July – ish, finished by End of year / mid next year). Give it a time frame. Be done with it. Atm, no one can plan, no one knows anything, and lockdowns can happen any day. This is just painful, no purpose served stringing along a public because you can.
Today was another wasted PR opportunity, with nothing that could not have been said via a press statement either. “No changes to the current bubble rules.” done.
so, was there something big happening today?
did Grant came out to say something of substance?
did J.A said something of substance?
Or was that all pushed out to April too?
On a brighter note, we have returned from a thoroughly enjoyable sojourn around West Coast/Buller/Tasman/Malborough.
The highlights: the friendly folk and hospitality esp Hokitika, Reefton and Takaka, the great quality beer – Eddyline, West Coast Brewery, Townsend and Mussell Inn, the scenery of Buller Gorge, the Glaciers and Golden Bay.
Personal highlight @ Lyell was two parent Weka mooching amongst our feet before moving away and 'booming' to the 4 chicks that followed.
Despite thinking the swing bridge across the Buller Gorge would be easy, it was a different thing in 'the flesh'. Border-line code brown.
Finished it all off with a great day at the Nelson Beer and Music Festival.
Hot tip, I thoroughly recommend getting a cabin for the return ferry crossing. Being able to nap before driving was a master stroke.