(I found I had posted this where no-one would see it, but I was so amazed by it, I had to repost it…
It just shows the screening process for candidates/future MPs doesn't always go deep enough to weed out people who will happily exploit others, either as pimps or (in the past) as school bullies of the worst kind. No system is perfect but I do think the Nats have more than their fair share of this kind of person warming seats in the debating chamber.
"Sapphire Blue"… Is that the same shade as in the National Party logo?
Where do the community leaders National appoints as its MPs go after a career in politics?
He's an odious individual with delusions of grandeur and a thirst for power. Hardly surprising given he was a Slater/Lusk acolyte… apples never fall far from the tree…
So, is there some sort of tinfoil hat global conspiracy to reduce the world population, or is it just that there is no co-ordinated response to managing food supply for the world while we simultaneously seek ways to reduce our emissions?
I think it's that most people and systems are just not equipped to think in systems yet. But yeah, there will be leaders who are not so much thinking about how to starve people to death as how to weigh up the increasingly narrowing options. And there will be a smaller number who are thinking that if lots of people starve then we have more chance. This is why the Green Party ties social justice and ecological wisdom together. Anyone who thinks we can starve millions of people to get out of this mess is insane.
Linear thinking says we have to drop GHGs and increase biodiversity, therefore we need to get rid of the problems. Systems thinking says that all the things are connected and humans are a part of that, so instead of shutting down farms, convert them to regenerative systems (some food and resource production, some nature reserves).
This is what some of us have been banging on about all this time.
Here's what's happened in NZ. The Greens and other system thinkers promoted the idea of planting millions of trees. The system thinking bit is that you do all the things: plant natives, plant shelter, plant trees in regenag, provide jobs, boost local economies, increase biodiversity, reduce GHGs etc.
Capitalist thinkers went 'cool, let's plant lots of monocropped plantation timber so we can sell carbon credits and make money from forestry, never mind about the food production'. It's insane and the sooner we empower system thinkers and stop giving power to people who can't think in whole systems, the more chance we have of averting utter catastrophe.
The good news is that all over NZ there are people getting on with doing regenerative systems anyway. So the tech is being developed (including how to adapt to changing climate), and the models are in place and getting better all the time. When the mainstream is ready to jump we won't have to start from scratch. But we are running out of time.
Re the Netherlands, I still haven't found a good explanation of what is happening and why. But I suspect part of it is that it's a heavily developed land base and they've realised the writing is on the wall. We cannot survive without biodiversity, because humans are dependent upon functioning ecosystems. If you remove all the habitat for insects for instance, what pollinates the food we need to eat?
Basically, the Dutch government plans to potentially shut thousands of farms in order to reduce harmful nitrogen emissions by half by 2030, since the country is failing to meet safety and environmental standards. That means in some areas up to 95% of some farming activities – particularly dairy – will need to stop almost immediately.
A group called the "Farmer-Citizen Movement" (BBB in Dutch) and analogous to Groundswell was created to oppose this with direct action like the now familiar convoys, road blockades etc.
Because farming occupies a mythical and exceptionalist position in most societies nationalistic identity this opposition has been hijacked by far-right organisations like the radical Farmers Defense Force and online conspiracy theorists everywhere who see in this utterly mundane piece of Dutch domestic squabbling evidence of all the usual nonsense – the "great reset", a globalist secret agenda for the "great replacement" of stolid, upstanding, white Dutch burghers with mass immigration.
So that is it. Another environmental discussion derailed by online lunatics and grifters and their far right fellow travelers in politics.
George Monbiot sums it up & debunks grifter idiots like Russell Brand.
yeah, I understood that side of it already. What I don't get is what they are intending to do with the land, why they're not converting some of it to regenag (or maybe they are), whether they are using systems thinking or doing the plan in a daft way etc. I suspect there's a language barrier in these things being obvious to English speaking countries.
I agree we need to be thinking in systems, and that implies looking at the whole rather than the individual parts.
It is non controversial that climate change will affect food production world-wide. For example, China is facing massive droughts. So, in some parts of the world, it will likely require much more use of fertilizers, and release of higher emissions to maintain levels of food production, thus resulting in more pollution, and more emissions overall.
And if food prices increase due to reduced world supply, then there will be an increasing incentive for more rain forest in the likes of the Amazon to be cleared for farming. So, I think the way we are trying to solve the problem at the moment will cause lots of unintended consequences.
And, while it is good to find alternatives to chemical fertilizer use, a problem is that production rates are not as high with other methods. Otherwise, they would already be used in scale. Hence, it may mean more farming is required to keep food production constant with less productive fertilizers. So, the unintended effect could be that emissions go up overall. So, it isn't an easy problem to solve.
Again, the whole picture needs to be looked at. Instead of looking at the emissions and pollution from a given alternative fertilizer on its own, what needs to be considered is the overall effect on emissions, including the increased amount of farming that would be required using methods that yeild less.
So, it seems to me that it makes sense from the perspective of overall global emissions to focus food production in the areas of the world where that can be done most efficiently in terms of emissions, and fertilizer use. That may mean a world emission regime that penalises countries that produce food inefficiently compared to those that do it well.
And it may be that the climate bell tolls for us, and that we become inefficient for producing food due to climate change.
In the end, I think the world population does need to be lower. And, mass starvation might be an unavoidable consequence that leads to that. Not so good for the poor buggers on the receiving end though.
If we look at how the systems interconnect, we can see that while regenag produces less off the same amount of land. One of the reasons for that is because it allocates space for biodiversity. So immediately we have two things essential things happening: less GHGs, more biodiversity.
But the less food isn't a problem if we are selling it locally, because we waste less food that way. That's the increased efficiency.
Regenag also doesn't need to bring in a lot of inputs like fertiliser, so that solves at least four problems (emissions from transport, destruction of other ecosystems, degradation of soil from artificial fertiliser, peak phosphorus).
See how regenag itself is a metasystem that solves multiple problems because that is what it is designed to do. The system is inherently regenerative.
Your premise that we have to keep using art fert and chopping down the Amazon is not based in necessity, it's based in the system we currently use and that is a choice.
We don't have to starve people to get out of this mess.
The issue is not production. Distribution is the problem (my bold):
The world population doubled over the last 50 years to 7.5 billion people, while the share of the population suffering from food and nutrition insecurity fell from 15% in 2000 to around 11% today. While an unacceptably high 820 million people are still food insecure, it is not because food is not available. The root cause of hunger and malnutrition today is poverty – often exacerbated by conflict – that inhibits access to food.
that's true, and we waste a huge amount of food. But there is no doubt that the global food supply chain and production will be badly affected by climate change, directly via droughts, floods and increasing temperatures, and indirectly by war, displacement, and panic.
Absolutely, however we produce roughly 1.5x the amount needed to feed 7.5 billion people, if food was distributed by need rather than for profit. That means there's enough excess production to ride the oncoming stressors brought on by climate change if we choose to. It absolutely is not some global plan to reduce population sizes via starvation; other than the currently existing one; people being too poor to afford food; artificial scarcity; also known as capitalism.
I don't believe it's a global plan either (but I do think that there will be people that make the choice to let others starve. Think the UK Tory govt response to covid early on).
Also agree about the distribution and how capitalism already lets people starve and throws out a huge amount of food in the process. They're the same thing right? The system that does that and the system that doesn't know how to respond to climate/ecology are the same.
That excess production is useful in the short term, but we produce that much food off the back of fossil fuels and degenerative ag. We can't sustain that. We also ship food around the world in insane distances, again using FFs. Regenag and relocalising food production while scaling back but retaining the essential global supply would give us a pretty good chance. But again, the current system (and tbh, people's attachment to it).
There are many varied ways to solve poverty and hunger, but all of them involve systemic change.
The latest reports from the IPCC reiterate that:
Climate, ecosystems and society are interconnected. Effective and equitable conservation of approximately 30-50% of the Earth’s land, freshwater and ocean will help ensure a healthy planet. Urban areas offer a global scale opportunity for ambitious climate action that contributes to sustainable development.
Changes in the food sector, electricity, transport, industry, buildings and land-use can reduce greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time, they can make it easier for people to lead low-carbon lifestyles, which will also improve health and wellbeing. A better understanding of the consequences of overconsumption can help people make more informed choices.
“Transformational changes are more likely to succeed where there is trust, where everyone works together to prioritise risk reduction, and where benefits and burdens are shared equitably,” Lee said. “We live in a diverse world in which everyone has different responsibilities and different opportunities to bring about change. Some can do a lot while others will need support to help them manage the change.”
I think that is a valid point. A problem is that increasing distribution will in itself increase emissions.
It may be that the world needs to consider establishing food hubs that provide food for the immediate areas. So, in that model, we may be supplying food for Asia, but not so much for Europe and Great Britain.
Excess produce shipped within a province or watershed or bioregion (bearing in mind they all have their own versions of the above)
Excess produce shipped between nearby regions
Excess produce shipped to nearby countries
Excess produce shipped within similar part of the globe
Excess produce shipped globally.
Within that also consider not centralising distribution where possible. No more shipping potatoes from Southland to Chch and back to Otago.
Also consider that if everyone in the right climate is growing kumara then the impact of Gabrielle is less. The system I am pointing to is more resilient than what we have now.
Those concentric circles are how we massive reduce food transport GHGs. There are details within that eg you run a truck out to neighbourhoods rather than everyone driving to the supermarket. Works rurally too, see the Longwood Loop system.
The main problem with what I am describing is the lack of imagination in how people can make a living doing that. And how to transition from our current growth/extraction/pollution economy to a regenerative one.
I can't see where they were grown, but there's a good chance they were grown in the North Island, shipped to a packing house, shipped to a wholesaler, shipped to Otago.
Whereas I've been harvesting cherry tomatoes from my garden all year with minimal work and inputs (fertiliser is mostly from food scraps and other local biomass) and they're still going. They don't produce the plastic waste either, which probably has to be transported overseas for recycling.
Most people I know who grow food at home (which is a lot of people I know), produce excess and could easily scale up to produce more if required, so it's not like everyone has to grow their own.
Re the excess produce theme, permaculture, one of the knowledge bases of regenag, has three ethics: earth care, people care, fair share. The latter is also known as return the surplus. Inherent in this is that good permaculture design inherently produces a surplus, and this can be shared.
This is in contrast to conventional ag which looks at squeezing the most it can out of any landbase, and then wastes huge amounts of produce and resources.
The Netherlands is slightly smaller than Canterbury and carries twice the dairy herd and >seventy times the number of pigs.They're drowning themselves and their neighbours in run off, refuse to clean up their act by reducing stock levels and when someone threatens to step in and do it for them, they have a cry.
I'm guessing there's not a lot of nature around. Once you socialise people out of nature, it's hard to get them to understand its importance. We are incredibly fortunate in NZ, although our nature literacy is in decline.
I have been to the Netherlands recently. We stayed in a house boat next to a farm area. Probably a 20 minute train ride from Amsterdam. We also went by train around some of the country.
What surprised me is that there is a lot of rural land over there, compared to cities. However, their population is over three times that of NZ for a much smaller land area. Hence why housing is a major issue for them over there.
They are a major food exporter. That is an interesting article, well worth reading. The fact that they are able to get that much production from such a small area is truly impressive.
It feeds into my argument that most productive food growing areas should be maximised and unproductive growing areas minimised in order to have the best net effect on emissions.
Another of our warriors has fallen fighting the fascist beast in Ukraine. May he rest in peace – If there is some sort of afterlife for soldiers, I hope Charles Upham is on hand to buy him a beer in the hall of the fallen.
Compared to Afghanistan, where 10 died over 20 years, we are losing fighters at six times the rate.
"We" you ask – count me as one of their supporters of these braver, younger, skilled people who have the courage to defend others against tyranny. Glory to the heroes!
It was interesting that we are finally seeing some organised opposition to Evangelical white supremacism of which Julian Batchelor's odious little Christo-Fascist roadshow is but the latest example.
What I found fascinating is the opposition isn't coming from an enfeebled liberal middle class, which would rather spend it's time debating on twitter whether or not it is OK to punch a far right protester doing a Sieg Heil salute (plot spoiler: yes it is OK, always. In fact, it is OK to give them a second bop on the nose as well if they look inclined to carry on the dispute), but from Maori who actually got off their couches and went along to a drafty hall to give Mr. Batchelor's miserable, aged deitritis of Rob's mob a cold drenching of 21st century reality.
Accusations she was associated with neo-Nazis were “preposterous”, and she had no time for the men in black who disrupted her Melbourne rally on Saturday.
“Men have tried to silence me since I started talking and the latest silencing weapon is to accuse me of being a Nazi to distract me,” said Ms Keen, also known as Posie Parker.
“Once you accuse someone of being a Nazi that’s it – you forever have to address the question. It’s not true. Nazis are predominantly sad, pathetic men who aren’t going very far in their lives.
And so they should. This failure has no excuses. Plenty of money, lots of lessons from the last failed one and tons of time to prepare. This is shaping up to be a complete failure to deliver a critical administrative function.
What should happen is first some highly paid people need to take responsibility for where the buck stops – stats NZ head Mark Sowden should be fired, Deborah Russell ought to resign and the resulting enormous scandal should make sure the next census with it’s nonsensical obsession with identity questions (was it actually intentionally designed to put people off?) is done with more common sense and less bureaucratic capture. You can just imagine the meetings.
“We must be inclusive and tick the all the right boxes, so remember to ask about all the self identification stuff because that is what inclusion actually is, oh and make sure it is a hard online form that about 25% of the population has no access to or won’t or can’t be bothered filling out because the ability to be counted isn’t really inclusion is it”.
Rather than going with a middle class solution that involves completing a reasonably difficult online process and that requires a reasonable degree of technological literacy and effort, maybe next time they could use the money they wasted on Wellington bureaucrats dreaming up this cockamamie online census on funding community groups like Kapa Haka or scouts or Grey Power – people who know their communities in other words – to actually distribute and collect a paper census pack.
You know, like how we used to back when the census was actually a success.
I agree that the process was fucked and we should just do what works. Do you know what the rationale was for changing to online?
Not sure about no excuses, whatever other poor decisions were made there's also the pandemic. Most systems I engage with now have staffing issues or residual failures from previous staffing issues.
At the end of the day there can be no excuses for a failure of this type.
These head bureaucrats are paid top dollar, Sowden will be on at least 400-500K. If you get paid that much and you fuck up the one thing you had five years to prepare to do then you resign/get sacked. Period.
And the relevant minister(s) should resign or be demoted as well, if there was any accountability. You don't sit in the beehive polishing your arse on a seat collecting a ministerial salary just so the only thing you bother having any oversight of is the lunch menu. The buck stop with the minister also. That failure demands a hefty price be paid is exactly the risk factor that is used to justify the huge salaries these people are paid in the first place. If you can screw up in high office and not be held accountable, then you should get paid commensurate to that level of skill, responsibility and competency – which in my book is about the minimum wage.
The people who are not counted by taking it online are the ones we most need to know about. It's their lives that might show that we have systemic economic failure that cannot be reduced to individual pathology.
my local electricty retailer has regular trustee elections. for yrs, it was mailed out and was easy to vote and send back. two yrs ago they went to online voting. its complicated , and I and others have stopped bothering to wade through the stupid code needed. . I emailed them and pointed out it was probably designed by a computer expert, and was very complicated for older less experienced computer users. no reply. the firm engaged has banked the $$$ ,and dont care.in a couple of yrs, electra will suddenly report that trustee election returns have shrunk…..
If I was reviewing the Census response rate I would probably start challenging the belief that online brings it up. Even if its easier online I think there is something about it which results in less responses online to on paper.
A couple of things that may have altered compliance to the census.
A further loss of faith in institutions since Covid. An unintended consequence of the state's response.
Also, speaking from an elderly biddy's point of view, two forms sent out, both mentioning computer/internet. This caused her to dismiss and close off from the whole process.
We did go through the questionnaire ( ignoring the 'gendered soul' malarky) and posted it off. Didn't help matters when someone with a foreign accent knocked on her door chasing the process up.
Sanctuary has it right, get local groups to service their communities. Not a lot of money for consultants, high level officials and their swathes of mandarins though.
The form was so poorly designed. It was bad, bad, bad, let alone the two letter thing. There was no explanation of rights (to privacy of your information) or obligation ($2k fine) up front. The benefits of filling in the census for your community and your interest group was not explained. There should have been a max of 10 simple sentences in double spaced 14pt font on page 1.
The first thing on the form should have been: if you don't understand or can't fill it in online, we will help you, ring this 0800 number.
EMERGING DYNAMICS [page 68]
SOCIETAL: DISILLUSIONED, INFORMED, AND DIVIDED
Key Takeaways
Slowing economic growth and gains in human development, coupled with rapid societal changes, have left large segments of the global population feeling insecure, uncertain about the future, and distrustful of institutions and governments they view as corrupt or ineffective.
Many people are gravitating toward familiar and like-minded groups for community and security, including ethnic, religious, and cultural identities as well as groupings around interests and causes. These groups are more prominent and in conflict, creating a cacophony of competing visions, goals, and beliefs.
The combination of newly prominent transnational identities, the resurgence of established allegiances, and a siloed information environment is creating and exposing fault lines within states, undermining civic nationalism, and increasing volatility.
Populations in every region are becoming better equipped with the tools, capacity, and incentive to agitate for social and political change and to demand resources, services, and recognition from their governments.
Don't worry someone will always propose a final 'Final Solution' ……
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
[You have been recently warned for climate denial and lying about it and you’ve been banned from weka’s posts about climate. You’ve been warned about trolling. Yet, you seem disrespect those warnings. Obviously, it is time for a short educational ban to see if this leads to improvement. If not, expect the bans to rapidly escalate in length. Take a week off – Incognito]
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Catching you up on the morning’s global news and a quick look at the parallels -GLOBALTariffs are backSharemarkets in the US, UK and Europe have “plunged” in response to Trump’s tariffs. And while Mexico has won a one month reprieve, Canada and China will see their respective 25% and 10% ...
This post by Nicolas Reid was originally published on Linked in. It is republished here with permission. Gondolas are often in the news, with manufacturers of ropeway systems proposing them as a modern option for mass transit systems in New Zealand. However, like every next big thing in transport, it’s hard ...
This is a re-post from The Climate BrinkBoth 2023 and 2024 were exceptionally warm years, at just below and above 1.5C relative to preindustrial in the WMO composite of surface temperature records, respectively. While we are still working to assess the full set of drivers of this warmth, it is clear that ...
Hi,I woke up feeling nervous this morning, realising that this weekend Flightless Bird is going to do it’s first ever live show. We’re heading to a sold out (!) show in Seattle to test the format out in front of an audience. If it works, we’ll do more. I want ...
From the United-For-Now States of America comes the thrilling news that a New Zealander may be at the very heart of the current coup. Punching above our weight on the world stage once more! Wait, you may be asking, what New Zealander? I speak of Peter Thiel, made street legal ...
Even Stevens: Over the 33 years between 1990 and 2023 (and allowing for the aberrant 2020 result) the average level of support enjoyed by the Left and Right blocs, at roughly 44.5 percent each, turns out to be, as near as dammit, identical.WORLDWIDE, THE PARTIES of the Left are presented ...
Back in 2023, a "prominent political figure" went on trial for historic sex offences. But we weren't allowed to know who they were or what political party they were "prominent" in, because it might affect the way we voted. At the time, I said that this was untenable; it was ...
I'm going, I'm goingWhere the water tastes like wineI'm going where the water tastes like wineWe can jump in the waterStay drunk all the timeI'm gonna leave this city, got to get awayI'm gonna leave this city, got to get awayAll this fussing and fighting, man, you know I sure ...
Waitangi Day is a time to honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi and stand together for a just and fair Aotearoa. Across the motu, communities are gathering to reflect, kōrero, and take action for a future built on equity and tino rangatiratanga. From dawn ceremonies to whānau-friendly events, there are ...
Subscribe to Mountain Tūī ! Where you too can learn about exciting things from a flying bird! Tweet.Yes - I absolutely suck at marketing. It’s a fact.But first -My question to all readers is:How should I set up the Substack model?It’s been something I’ve been meaning to ask since November ...
Here’s the key news, commentary, reports and debate around Aotearoa’s political economy on politics and in the week to Feb 3:PM Christopher Luxon began 2025’s first day of Parliament last Tuesday by carrying on where left off in 2024, letting National’s junior coalition partner set the political agenda and dragging ...
The PSA have released a survey of 4000 public service workers showing that budget cuts are taking a toll on the wellbeing of public servants and risking the delivery of essential services to New Zealanders. Economists predict that figures released this week will show continued increases in unemployment, potentially reaching ...
The Prime Minister’s speech 10 days or so ago kicked off a flurry of commentary. No one much anywhere near the mainstream (ie excluding Greens supporters) questioned the rhetoric. New Zealand has done woefully poorly on productivity for a long time and we really need better outcomes, and the sorts ...
President Trump on the day he announced tariffs against Mexico, Canada and China, unleashing a shock to supply chains globally that is expected to slow economic growth and increase inflation for most large economies. Photo: Getty ImagesLong stories short, the top six things in our political economy around housing, climate ...
Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on UnsplashHere’s what we’re watching in the week to February 9 and beyond in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty:Monday, February 3Politics: New Zealand Government cabinet meeting usually held early afternoon with post-cabinet news conference possible at 4 pm, although they have not been ...
Trump being Trump, it won’t come as a shock to find that he regards a strong US currency (bolstered by high tariffs on everything made by foreigners) as a sign of America’s virility, and its ability to kick sand in the face of the world. Reality is a tad more ...
A listing of 24 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, January 26, 2025 thru Sat, February 1, 2025. This week's roundup is again published soleley by category. We are still interested in feedback to hone the categorization, so if ...
What seems to be the common theme in the US, NZ, Argentina and places like Italy under their respective rightwing governments is what I think of as “the politics of cruelty.” Hate-mongering, callous indifference in social policy-making, corporate toadying, political bullying, intimidation and punching down on the most vulnerable with ...
If you are confused, check with the sunCarry a compass to help you alongYour feet are going to be on the groundYour head is there to move you aroundSo, stand in the place where you liveSongwriters: Bill Berry / Michael Mills / Michael Stipe / Peter Buck.Hot in the CityYesterday, ...
Shane Jones announced today he would be contracting out his thinking to a smarter younger person.Reclining on his chaise longue with a mouth full of oysters and Kina he told reporters:Clearly I have become a has-been, a palimpsest, an epigone, a bloviating fossil. I find myself saying such things as: ...
Warning: This post contains references to sexual assaultOn Saturday, I spent far too long editing a video on Tim Jago, the ACT Party President and criminal, who has given up his fight for name suppression after 2 years. He voluntarily gave up just in time for what will be a ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park from the Gigafact team in collaboration with members from our team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Is global warming ...
Our low-investment, low-wage, migration-led and housing-market-driven political economy has delivered poorer productivity growth than the rest of the OECD, and our performance since Covid has been particularly poor. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in our political economy around housing, climate and poverty this ...
..Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.As far as major government announcements go, a Three Ministers Event is Big. It can signify a major policy development or something has gone Very Well, or an absolute Clusterf**k. When Three Ministers assemble ...
One of those blasts from the past. Peter Dunne – originally neoliberal Labour, then leader of various parties that sought to work with both big parties (generally National) – has taken to calling ...
Completed reads for January: I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson The Black Spider, by Jeremias Gotthelf The Spider and the Fly (poem), by Mary Howitt A Noiseless Patient Spider (poem), by Walt Whitman August Heat, by W.F. Harvey Charlotte’s Web, by E.B. White The Shrinking Man, by Richard Matheson ...
Do its Property Right Provisions Make Sense?Last week I pointed out that it is uninformed to argue that the New Zealand’s apparently poor economic performance can be traced only to poor regulations. Even were there evidence they had some impact, there are other factors. Of course, we should seek to ...
Richard Wagstaff It was incredibly jarring to hear the hubris from the Prime Minister during his recent state of the nation address. I had just spent close to a week working though the stories and thoughts shared with us by nearly 2000 working people as part of our annual Mood ...
Odd fact about the Broadcasting Standards Authority: for the last few years, they’ve only been upholding about 5% of complaints. Why? I think there’s a range of reasons. Generally responsible broadcasters. Dumb complaints. Complaints brought under the wrong standard. Greater adherence to broadcasters’ rights to freedom of expression in the ...
And I said, "Mama, mama, mama, why am I so alone"'Cause I can't go outside, I'm scared I might not make it homeWell I'm alive, I'm alive, but I'm sinking inIf there's anyone at home at your place, darlingWhy don't you invite me in?Don't try to feed me'Cause I've been ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ star is on the rise, having just added the Energy, Local Government and Revenue portfolios to his responsibilities - but there is nothing ambitious about the Government’s new climate targets. Photo: SuppliedLong stories short, the top six things in our political economy around housing, climate ...
New Zealand First has introduced a Member’s Bill aimed at preventing banks from refusing their services to businesses because of the current “Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Framework”. “This Bill ensures fairness and prevents ESG standards from perpetuating woke ideology in the banking sector being driven by unelected, globalist, climate ...
Erica Stanford has reached peak shortsightedness if today’s announcement is anything to go by, picking apart immigration settings piece by piece to the detriment of the New Zealand economy. ...
Our originating document, theTreaty of Waitangi, was signed on February 6, 1840. An agreement between Māori and the British Crown. Initially inked by Ngā Puhi in Waitangi, further signatures were added as it travelled south. The intention was to establish a colony with the cession of sovereignty to the Crown, ...
Te Whatu Ora Chief Executive Margie Apa leaving her job four months early is another symptom of this government’s failure to deliver healthcare for New Zealanders. ...
The Green Party is calling for the Prime Minister to show leadership and be unequivocal about Aotearoa New Zealand’s opposition to a proposal by the US President to remove Palestinians from Gaza. ...
The latest unemployment figures reveal that job losses are hitting Māori and Pacific people especially hard, with Māori unemployment reaching a staggering 9.7% for the December 2024 quarter and Pasifika unemployment reaching 10.5%. ...
Waitangi 2025: Waitangi Day must be community and not politically driven - Shane Jones Our originating document, theTreaty of Waitangi, was signed on February 6, 1840. An agreement between Māori and the British Crown. Initially inked by Ngā Puhi in Waitangi, further signatures were added as it travelled south. ...
Despite being confronted every day with people in genuine need being stopped from accessing emergency housing – National still won’t commit to building more public houses. ...
The Green Party says the Government is giving up on growing the country’s public housing stock, despite overwhelming evidence that we need more affordable houses to solve the housing crisis. ...
Before any thoughts of the New Year and what lies ahead could even be contemplated, New Zealand reeled with the tragedy of Senior Sergeant Lyn Fleming losing her life. For over 38 years she had faithfully served as a front-line Police officer. Working alongside her was Senior Sergeant Adam Ramsay ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson will return to politics at Waitangi on Monday the 3rd of February where she will hold a stand up with fellow co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick. ...
Te Pāti Māori is appalled by the government's blatant mishandling of the school lunch programme. David Seymour’s ‘cost-saving’ measures have left tamariki across Aotearoa with unidentifiable meals, causing distress and outrage among parents and communities alike. “What’s the difference between providing inedible food, and providing no food at all?” Said ...
The Government is doubling down on outdated and volatile fossil fuels, showing how shortsighted and destructive their policies are for working New Zealanders. ...
Green Party MP Steve Abel this morning joined Coromandel locals in Waihi to condemn new mining plans announced by Shane Jones in the pit of the town’s Australian-owned Gold mine. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to strengthen its just-announced 2030-2035 Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) under the Paris Agreement and address its woeful lack of commitment to climate security. ...
Today marks a historic moment for Taranaki iwi with the passing of the Te Pire Whakatupua mō Te Kāhui Tupua/Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bill in Parliament. "Today, we stand together as descendants of Taranaki, and our tūpuna, Taranaki Maunga, is now formally acknowledged by the law as a living tūpuna. ...
Labour is relieved to see Children’s Minister Karen Chhour has woken up to reality and reversed her government’s terrible decisions to cut funding from frontline service providers – temporarily. ...
It is the first week of David Seymour’s school lunch programme and already social media reports are circulating of revolting meals, late deliveries, and mislabelled packaging. ...
The Green Party says that with no-cause evictions returning from today, the move to allow landlords to end tenancies without reason plunges renters, and particularly families who rent, into insecurity and stress. ...
The Government’s move to increase speed limits substantially on dozens of stretches of rural and often undivided highways will result in more serious harm. ...
In her first announcement as Economic Growth Minister, Nicola Willis chose to loosen restrictions for digital nomads from other countries, rather than focus on everyday Kiwis. ...
The Government’s commitment to get New Zealand’s roads back on track is delivering strong results, with around 98 per cent of potholes on state highways repaired within 24 hours of identification every month since targets were introduced, Transport Minister Chris Bishop says. “Increasing productivity to help rebuild our economy is ...
The former Cadbury factory will be the site of the Inpatient Building for the new Dunedin Hospital and Health Minister Simeon Brown says actions have been taken to get the cost overruns under control. “Today I am giving the people of Dunedin certainty that we will build the new Dunedin ...
From today, Plunket in Whāngarei will be offering childhood immunisations – the first of up to 27 sites nationwide, Health Minister Simeon Brown says. The investment of $1 million into the pilot, announced in October 2024, was made possible due to the Government’s record $16.68 billion investment in health. It ...
New Zealand’s strong commitment to the rights of disabled people has continued with the response to an important United Nations report, Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston has announced. Of the 63 concluding observations of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), 47 will be progressed ...
Resources Minister Shane Jones has launched New Zealand’s national Minerals Strategy and Critical Minerals List, documents that lay a strategic and enduring path for the mineral sector, with the aim of doubling exports to $3 billion by 2035. Mr Jones released the documents, which present the Coalition Government’s transformative vision ...
Firstly I want to thank OceanaGold for hosting our event today. Your operation at Waihi is impressive. I want to acknowledge local MP Scott Simpson, local government dignitaries, community stakeholders and all of you who have gathered here today. It’s a privilege to welcome you to the launch of the ...
Racing Minister, Winston Peters has announced the Government is preparing public consultation on GST policy proposals which would make the New Zealand racing industry more competitive. “The racing industry makes an important economic contribution. New Zealand thoroughbreds are in demand overseas as racehorses and for breeding. The domestic thoroughbred industry ...
Business confidence remains very high and shows the economy is on track to improve, Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis says. “The latest ANZ Business Outlook survey, released yesterday, shows business confidence and expected own activity are ‘still both very high’.” The survey reports business confidence fell eight points to +54 ...
Enabling works have begun this week on an expanded radiology unit at Hawke’s Bay Fallen Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital which will double CT scanning capacity in Hawke’s Bay to ensure more locals can benefit from access to timely, quality healthcare, Health Minister Simeon Brown says. This investment of $29.3m in the ...
The Government has today announced New Zealand’s second international climate target under the Paris Agreement, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand will reduce emissions by 51 to 55 per cent compared to 2005 levels, by 2035. “We have worked hard to set a target that is both ambitious ...
Nine years of negotiations between the Crown and iwi of Taranaki have concluded following Te Pire Whakatupua mō Te Kāhui Tupua/the Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bill passing its third reading in Parliament today, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “This Bill addresses the historical grievances endured by the eight iwi ...
As schools start back for 2025, there will be a relentless focus on teaching the basics brilliantly so all Kiwi kids grow up with the knowledge, skills and competencies needed to grow the New Zealand of the future, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “A world-leading education system is a key ...
Housing Minister Chris Bishop and Associate Agriculture Minister Mark Patterson have welcomed Kāinga Ora’s decision to re-open its tender for carpets to allow wool carpet suppliers to bid. “In 2024 Kāinga Ora issued requests for tender (RFTs) seeking bids from suppliers to carpet their properties,” Mr Bishop says. “As part ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour has today visited Otahuhu College where the new school lunch programme has served up healthy lunches to students in the first days of the school year. “As schools open in 2025, the programme will deliver nutritious meals to around 242,000 students, every school day. On ...
Minister for Children Karen Chhour has intervened in Oranga Tamariki’s review of social service provider contracts to ensure Barnardos can continue to deliver its 0800 What’s Up hotline. “When I found out about the potential impact to this service, I asked Oranga Tamariki for an explanation. Based on the information ...
A bill to make revenue collection on imported and exported goods fairer and more effective had its first reading in Parliament, Customs Minister Casey Costello said today. “The Customs (Levies and Other Matters) Amendment Bill modernises the way in which Customs can recover the costs of services that are needed ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Department of Internal Affairs [the Department] has achieved significant progress in completing applications for New Zealand citizenship. “December 2024 saw the Department complete 5,661 citizenship applications, the most for any month in 2024. This is a 54 per cent increase compared ...
Reversals to Labour’s blanket speed limit reductions begin tonight and will be in place by 1 July, says Minister of Transport Chris Bishop. “The previous government was obsessed with slowing New Zealanders down by imposing illogical and untargeted speed limit reductions on state highways and local roads. “National campaigned on ...
Finance Minister Nicola Willis has announced Budget 2025 – the Growth Budget - will be delivered on Thursday 22 May. “This year’s Budget will drive forward the Government’s plan to grow our economy to improve the incomes of New Zealanders now and in the years ahead. “Budget 2025 will build ...
For the Government, 2025 will bring a relentless focus on unleashing the growth we need to lift incomes, strengthen local businesses and create opportunity. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon today laid out the Government’s growth agenda in his Statement to Parliament. “Just over a year ago this Government was elected by ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour welcomes students back to school with a call to raise attendance from last year. “The Government encourages all students to attend school every day because there is a clear connection between being present at school and setting yourself up for a bright future,” says Mr ...
The Government is relaxing visitor visa requirements to allow tourists to work remotely while visiting New Zealand, Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis, Immigration Minister Erica Stanford and Tourism Minister Louise Upston say. “The change is part of the Government’s plan to unlock New Zealand’s potential by shifting the country onto ...
The opening of Kāinga Ora’s development of 134 homes in Epuni, Lower Hutt will provide much-needed social housing for Hutt families, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I’ve been a strong advocate for social housing on Kāinga Ora’s Epuni site ever since the old earthquake-prone housing was demolished in 2015. I ...
Trade and Investment Minister Todd McClay will travel to Australia today for meetings with Australian Trade Minister, Senator Don Farrell, and the Australia New Zealand Leadership Forum (ANZLF). Mr McClay recently hosted Minister Farrell in Rotorua for the annual Closer Economic Relations (CER) Trade Ministers’ meeting, where ANZLF presented on ...
A new monthly podiatry clinic has been launched today in Wairoa and will bring a much-needed service closer to home for the Wairoa community, Health Minister Simeon Brown says.“Health New Zealand has been successful in securing a podiatrist until the end of June this year to meet the needs of ...
The Judicial Conduct Commissioner has recommended a Judicial Conduct Panel be established to inquire into and report on the alleged conduct of acting District Court Judge Ema Aitken in an incident last November, Attorney-General Judith Collins said today. “I referred the matter of Judge Aitken’s alleged conduct during an incident ...
Students who need extra help with maths are set to benefit from a targeted acceleration programme that will give them more confidence in the classroom, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Last year, significant numbers of students did not meet the foundational literacy and numeracy level required to gain NCEA. To ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has announced three new diplomatic appointments. “Our diplomats play an important role in ensuring New Zealand’s interests are maintained and enhanced across the world,” Mr Peters says. “It is a pleasure to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and ...
Ki te kahore he whakakitenga, ka ngaro te Iwi – without a vision, the people will perish. The Government has achieved its target to reduce the number of households in emergency housing motels by 75 per cent five years early, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. The number of households ...
The opening of Palmerston North’s biggest social housing development will have a significant impact for whānau in need of safe, warm, dry housing, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. The minister visited the development today at North Street where a total of 50 two, three, and four-bedroom homes plus a ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced the new membership of the Public Advisory Committee on Disarmament and Arms Control (PACDAC), who will serve for a three-year term. “The Committee brings together wide-ranging expertise relevant to disarmament. We have made six new appointments to the Committee and reappointed two existing members ...
Ka nui te mihi kia koutou. Kia ora, good morning, talofa, malo e lelei, bula vinaka, da jia hao, namaste, sat sri akal, assalamu alaikum. It’s so great to be here and I’m ready and pumped for 2025. Can I start by acknowledging: Simon Bridges – CEO of the Auckland ...
The Government has unveiled a bold new initiative to position New Zealand as a premier destination for foreign direct investment (FDI) that will create higher paying jobs and grow the economy. “Invest New Zealand will streamline the investment process and provide tailored support to foreign investors, to increase capital investment ...
Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins today announced the largest reset of the New Zealand science system in more than 30 years with reforms which will boost the economy and benefit the sector. “The reforms will maximise the value of the $1.2 billion in government funding that goes into ...
Turbocharging New Zealand’s economic growth is the key to brighter days ahead for all Kiwis, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says. In the Prime Minister’s State of the Nation Speech in Auckland today, Christopher Luxon laid out the path to the prosperity that will affect all aspects of New Zealanders’ lives. ...
The latest set of accounts show the Government has successfully checked the runaway growth of public spending, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. “In the previous government’s final five months in office, public spending was almost 10 per cent higher than for the same period the previous year. “That is completely ...
The Government’s welfare reforms are delivering results with the number of people moving off benefits into work increasing year-on-year for six straight months. “There are positive signs that our welfare reset and the return consequences for job seekers who don't fulfil their obligations to prepare for or find a job ...
Jon Kroll and Aimee McCammon have been appointed to the New Zealand Film Commission Board, Arts Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “I am delighted to appoint these two new board members who will bring a wealth of industry, governance, and commercial experience to the Film Commission. “Jon Kroll has been an ...
Finance Minister Nicola Willis has hailed a drop in the domestic component of inflation, saying it increases the prospect of mortgage rate reductions and a lower cost of living for Kiwi households. Stats NZ reported today that inflation was 2.2 per cent in the year to December, the second consecutive ...
Two new appointed members and one reappointed member of the Employment Relations Authority have been announced by Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden today. “I’m pleased to announce the new appointed members Helen van Druten and Matthew Piper to the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) and welcome them to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Flavio Macau, Associate Dean – School of Business and Law, Edith Cowan University Hitra/Shutterstock Coles is reducing its product range by at least 10%, a move that has sparked public backlash and renewed discussions about the role of supermarkets in the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jacinta Humphrey, Research Fellow in Urban Ecology, RMIT University Golf courses are sometimes seen as harmful to the environment. According to the popular notion, the grass soaks up too much water, is cut too short and sprayed with dangerous chemicals. But in ...
New Zealand has long championed a fair, stable, and resilient global order. As a nation with deep ties to the Pacific and beyond, we cannot afford to be passive in the face of these shifts. ...
Things are going to look a little different this year. Here’s what to expect.Good news, Shortland Street fans: after a well-earned summer holiday, New Zealand’s longest running drama returns to TVNZ2 and TVNZ+ tonight. Ahead of us is a fresh year of living, loving and laughing in the nation’s ...
The poll, conducted between 02 and 04 February, shows National up 2.3 points to 31.9 percent, while Labour has risen 0.4 points from last month to 31.3 percent. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katrina McFerran, Professor and Head of Creative Arts and Music Therapy Research Unit; Director of Researcher Development Unit, The University of Melbourne New York Public Library Many of us take pleasure in listening to music. Music accompanies important life events and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katrina McFerran, Professor and Head of Creative Arts and Music Therapy Research Unit; Director of Researcher Development Unit, The University of Melbourne New York Public Library Many of us take pleasure in listening to music. Music accompanies important life events and ...
The Cook Islands finds itself in a precarious dance — one between the promises of foreign investments and the integrity of our own sovereignty. As the country sways between partners China and Aotearoa New Zealand, the Cook Islands News asks: “Do we continue to haka with the Taniwha, our constitutional ...
A diplomatic scuffle with the Cook Islands. Plus: What went down at Waitangi. The Cook Islands prime minister, Mark Brown, has provoked the wrath of the New Zealand foreign minister with his decision to head to China to sign a new strategic deal. By failing to consult on the ...
The deputy chairperson of the Australasian College of Emergency Medicine, Dr Michael Connelly, said simply setting targets without "resourcing" them was a pointless exercise, as the number of patients - and their acuity - continuing to grow. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Suvradip Maitra, PhD Student, Australian National University Tero Vesalainen/Shutterstock Late last year, ChatGPT was used by a Victorian child protection worker to draft documents. In a glaring error, ChatGPT referred to a “doll” used for sexual purposes as an “age-appropriate toy”. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Niven Winchester, Professor of Economics, Auckland University of Technology Getty Images Donald Trump has already made good on his threat to impose an additional 10% tax on Chinese goods, and is due to announce a 25% tariff on all steel and ...
Diplomatic tension between the Cook Islands and New Zealand is growing. Here's what it's about about, what China has to do with it, and why it matters. ...
Sick of human reality TV? Alex Casey has found a perfect solution in David Attenborough’s latest. I’m know I’m not alone when I say this: humans are bleaking me out at the moment. Turn on the news for the bleakest updates imaginable. Try to numb the pain with Married at ...
The Director of Public Health is a statutory role providing public health leadership across the Public Health Agency, within the Ministry of Health, and the National Public Health Service within Health NZ. ...
Zachary Forbes, a maths teacher from Whanganui, has started an unusual initiative on videogame streaming service Twitch. Shanti Mathias interviews him. “The people want First Samuel,” says the man who calls himself Brother Zac. Brown hair, headphones on, a wall behind him, he pauses and reflects on the comments he’s ...
Endless New Zealand politicians, including the present government, have pointed to our support for a rules-based international system, says PSNA National Chair John Minto. ...
In January, the reversals to speed limit reductions on the state highway network began. Councils have been asked to reverse all reduced speed limits since 2020 by July. A retired rural healthcare worker found something missing from the conversation – a maths equation she learned in high school. As told ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Natarsha McPherson, PhD Candidate in Spatial Ecology, University of Adelaide Rob D / Shutterstock On the vast expanse of the Nullarbor Plain in South Australia, two very different creatures live side by side – but not always peacefully. One is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John White, Associate Professor in Wildlife and Conservation Biology, Deakin University Fire broke out in the Grampians National Park (Gariwerd) in December and raged for weeks. Then lightning strikes ignited fresh blazes late last month, which merged to form a mega-fire that’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Karley Beckman, Senior Lecturer in Digital Technologies for Learning, University of Wollongong If you are a parent of a school student, you may have received a form seeking permission to use your child’s image on school social media accounts. It’s very ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Garritt C. Van Dyk, Senior Lecturer in History, University of Waikato The day he took office for his second term, United States President Donald J. Trump unveiled his “America First” trade policy, including tariffs on imported goods from Mexico, Canada (both of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jack McGrath, Lecturer in Animation, University of Newcastle Netflix The 2025 Academy Awards could shape up to be a big one for stop-motion animation. Australian director Adam Eliott’s Memoir of a Snail (2024) has raked in a nomination for Best Animated ...
Mark Brown’s trip to China risks damaging the close bond between the Cook Islands and NZ, explains Stewart Sowman-Lund for The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. ‘Significant concern’ New Zealand’s tight knit relationship with the Cook Islands is at risk after the nation’s prime ...
.Advisers warned the Minister for Resources that his plans to limit industry liability for the clean-up costs of was more lenient that Australia and the UK. ...
A snub by the Cook Islands prime minister will be watched by any nations keen to see how deep New Zealand's partnerships in the region really are, an expert on geopolitics in the Pacific says. ...
The union for public service workers has taken the "unprecedented" step of asking the Privacy Commissioner to urgently investigate Health NZ's plan to cut nearly half its IT staff as part of the government's cost-cutting drive. ...
(I found I had posted this where no-one would see it, but I was so amazed by it, I had to repost it…
It just shows the screening process for candidates/future MPs doesn't always go deep enough to weed out people who will happily exploit others, either as pimps or (in the past) as school bullies of the worst kind. No system is perfect but I do think the Nats have more than their fair share of this kind of person warming seats in the debating chamber.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/ex-national-mp-jami-lee-ross-running-escort-agency-accused-of-not-providing-women-safe-working-environment/QFVMVSI2WJAVFJWWJMNE35GOIY/?dicbo=v2-2QusuUY&ref=nzmenewstalkZB
He's an odious individual with delusions of grandeur and a thirst for power. Hardly surprising given he was a Slater/Lusk acolyte… apples never fall far from the tree…
So was Mark Mitchell a Slater/Lusk acolyte and I believe there are a few others still there.
@ anne..
Given mitchell's previous career as a mercenary soldier .
I prefer to use his full title .
Mark (the mercenary) mitchell..
Lest we forget..and all that…
There are major world issues food production and we need to be ramping up food production not cutting back to help avoid a world famine.
Putting my tinfoil hat on, is there a secret agenda to solve climate change by starving a lot of people to death thus reducing the world population?
For instance, the Netherlands appears to be shutting down 3000 farms. And a lot of our productive land is being turned into forests. All at a time when there are major issues with food production worldwide.
So, is there some sort of tinfoil hat global conspiracy to reduce the world population, or is it just that there is no co-ordinated response to managing food supply for the world while we simultaneously seek ways to reduce our emissions?
I think it's that most people and systems are just not equipped to think in systems yet. But yeah, there will be leaders who are not so much thinking about how to starve people to death as how to weigh up the increasingly narrowing options. And there will be a smaller number who are thinking that if lots of people starve then we have more chance. This is why the Green Party ties social justice and ecological wisdom together. Anyone who thinks we can starve millions of people to get out of this mess is insane.
Linear thinking says we have to drop GHGs and increase biodiversity, therefore we need to get rid of the problems. Systems thinking says that all the things are connected and humans are a part of that, so instead of shutting down farms, convert them to regenerative systems (some food and resource production, some nature reserves).
This is what some of us have been banging on about all this time.
Here's what's happened in NZ. The Greens and other system thinkers promoted the idea of planting millions of trees. The system thinking bit is that you do all the things: plant natives, plant shelter, plant trees in regenag, provide jobs, boost local economies, increase biodiversity, reduce GHGs etc.
Capitalist thinkers went 'cool, let's plant lots of monocropped plantation timber so we can sell carbon credits and make money from forestry, never mind about the food production'. It's insane and the sooner we empower system thinkers and stop giving power to people who can't think in whole systems, the more chance we have of averting utter catastrophe.
The good news is that all over NZ there are people getting on with doing regenerative systems anyway. So the tech is being developed (including how to adapt to changing climate), and the models are in place and getting better all the time. When the mainstream is ready to jump we won't have to start from scratch. But we are running out of time.
Re the Netherlands, I still haven't found a good explanation of what is happening and why. But I suspect part of it is that it's a heavily developed land base and they've realised the writing is on the wall. We cannot survive without biodiversity, because humans are dependent upon functioning ecosystems. If you remove all the habitat for insects for instance, what pollinates the food we need to eat?
Basically, the Dutch government plans to potentially shut thousands of farms in order to reduce harmful nitrogen emissions by half by 2030, since the country is failing to meet safety and environmental standards. That means in some areas up to 95% of some farming activities – particularly dairy – will need to stop almost immediately.
A group called the "Farmer-Citizen Movement" (BBB in Dutch) and analogous to Groundswell was created to oppose this with direct action like the now familiar convoys, road blockades etc.
Because farming occupies a mythical and exceptionalist position in most societies nationalistic identity this opposition has been hijacked by far-right organisations like the radical Farmers Defense Force and online conspiracy theorists everywhere who see in this utterly mundane piece of Dutch domestic squabbling evidence of all the usual nonsense – the "great reset", a globalist secret agenda for the "great replacement" of stolid, upstanding, white Dutch burghers with mass immigration.
So that is it. Another environmental discussion derailed by online lunatics and grifters and their far right fellow travelers in politics.
George Monbiot sums it up & debunks grifter idiots like Russell Brand.
yeah, I understood that side of it already. What I don't get is what they are intending to do with the land, why they're not converting some of it to regenag (or maybe they are), whether they are using systems thinking or doing the plan in a daft way etc. I suspect there's a language barrier in these things being obvious to English speaking countries.
One of the problem I see is what to do with the crops you could grow if ypu switched from mammal farming to cropping.
Take the ohakune area I'm in , it grows fantastic spuds and carrots , the richest people here are the people who grow spuds etc.
So why isn't everyone doing it. ?
Only a small area is grown each year and huge piles of seconds, that appear perfectly edable ar feed to cattle, (carrots) .
Starvation isn't a population problem it's a can't get it to the people problem .
Bit muddled sorry but 2 birds could be knocked of with one stone if the global supply chain worked
Hi Weka,
I agree we need to be thinking in systems, and that implies looking at the whole rather than the individual parts.
It is non controversial that climate change will affect food production world-wide. For example, China is facing massive droughts. So, in some parts of the world, it will likely require much more use of fertilizers, and release of higher emissions to maintain levels of food production, thus resulting in more pollution, and more emissions overall.
And if food prices increase due to reduced world supply, then there will be an increasing incentive for more rain forest in the likes of the Amazon to be cleared for farming. So, I think the way we are trying to solve the problem at the moment will cause lots of unintended consequences.
And, while it is good to find alternatives to chemical fertilizer use, a problem is that production rates are not as high with other methods. Otherwise, they would already be used in scale. Hence, it may mean more farming is required to keep food production constant with less productive fertilizers. So, the unintended effect could be that emissions go up overall. So, it isn't an easy problem to solve.
Again, the whole picture needs to be looked at. Instead of looking at the emissions and pollution from a given alternative fertilizer on its own, what needs to be considered is the overall effect on emissions, including the increased amount of farming that would be required using methods that yeild less.
So, it seems to me that it makes sense from the perspective of overall global emissions to focus food production in the areas of the world where that can be done most efficiently in terms of emissions, and fertilizer use. That may mean a world emission regime that penalises countries that produce food inefficiently compared to those that do it well.
And it may be that the climate bell tolls for us, and that we become inefficient for producing food due to climate change.
In the end, I think the world population does need to be lower. And, mass starvation might be an unavoidable consequence that leads to that. Not so good for the poor buggers on the receiving end though.
If we look at how the systems interconnect, we can see that while regenag produces less off the same amount of land. One of the reasons for that is because it allocates space for biodiversity. So immediately we have two things essential things happening: less GHGs, more biodiversity.
But the less food isn't a problem if we are selling it locally, because we waste less food that way. That's the increased efficiency.
Regenag also doesn't need to bring in a lot of inputs like fertiliser, so that solves at least four problems (emissions from transport, destruction of other ecosystems, degradation of soil from artificial fertiliser, peak phosphorus).
See how regenag itself is a metasystem that solves multiple problems because that is what it is designed to do. The system is inherently regenerative.
Your premise that we have to keep using art fert and chopping down the Amazon is not based in necessity, it's based in the system we currently use and that is a choice.
We don't have to starve people to get out of this mess.
The issue is not production. Distribution is the problem (my bold):
https://www.oecd.org/agriculture/understanding-the-global-food-system/how-we-feed-the-world-today/
that's true, and we waste a huge amount of food. But there is no doubt that the global food supply chain and production will be badly affected by climate change, directly via droughts, floods and increasing temperatures, and indirectly by war, displacement, and panic.
Absolutely, however we produce roughly 1.5x the amount needed to feed 7.5 billion people, if food was distributed by need rather than for profit. That means there's enough excess production to ride the oncoming stressors brought on by climate change if we choose to. It absolutely is not some global plan to reduce population sizes via starvation; other than the currently existing one; people being too poor to afford food; artificial scarcity; also known as capitalism.
I don't believe it's a global plan either (but I do think that there will be people that make the choice to let others starve. Think the UK Tory govt response to covid early on).
Also agree about the distribution and how capitalism already lets people starve and throws out a huge amount of food in the process. They're the same thing right? The system that does that and the system that doesn't know how to respond to climate/ecology are the same.
That excess production is useful in the short term, but we produce that much food off the back of fossil fuels and degenerative ag. We can't sustain that. We also ship food around the world in insane distances, again using FFs. Regenag and relocalising food production while scaling back but retaining the essential global supply would give us a pretty good chance. But again, the current system (and tbh, people's attachment to it).
100%.
There are many varied ways to solve poverty and hunger, but all of them involve systemic change.
The latest reports from the IPCC reiterate that:
https://www.ipcc.ch/2023/03/20/press-release-ar6-synthesis-report/
wow, that's a really good quote and framing.
I think that is a valid point. A problem is that increasing distribution will in itself increase emissions.
It may be that the world needs to consider establishing food hubs that provide food for the immediate areas. So, in that model, we may be supplying food for Asia, but not so much for Europe and Great Britain.
think of concentric circles from where you live.
Home garden
Neighbours' gardens
Community garden
Urban farms
Regenag surrounding cities
Regenag out in the plains
Excess produce shipped within a province or watershed or bioregion (bearing in mind they all have their own versions of the above)
Excess produce shipped between nearby regions
Excess produce shipped to nearby countries
Excess produce shipped within similar part of the globe
Excess produce shipped globally.
Within that also consider not centralising distribution where possible. No more shipping potatoes from Southland to Chch and back to Otago.
Also consider that if everyone in the right climate is growing kumara then the impact of Gabrielle is less. The system I am pointing to is more resilient than what we have now.
Those concentric circles are how we massive reduce food transport GHGs. There are details within that eg you run a truck out to neighbourhoods rather than everyone driving to the supermarket. Works rurally too, see the Longwood Loop system.
The main problem with what I am describing is the lack of imagination in how people can make a living doing that. And how to transition from our current growth/extraction/pollution economy to a regenerative one.
as a practical example, look at this pack of cherry tomatoes at New World.
https://www.newworld.co.nz/shop/product/5039973_ea_000nw?name=cherry-tomatoes
I can't see where they were grown, but there's a good chance they were grown in the North Island, shipped to a packing house, shipped to a wholesaler, shipped to Otago.
Whereas I've been harvesting cherry tomatoes from my garden all year with minimal work and inputs (fertiliser is mostly from food scraps and other local biomass) and they're still going. They don't produce the plastic waste either, which probably has to be transported overseas for recycling.
Most people I know who grow food at home (which is a lot of people I know), produce excess and could easily scale up to produce more if required, so it's not like everyone has to grow their own.
Victory gardens of WW2 in the UK.
yes! Another outcome from such a system: a feeling of pride and engagement and empowerment in the face of climate change.
Re the excess produce theme, permaculture, one of the knowledge bases of regenag, has three ethics: earth care, people care, fair share. The latter is also known as return the surplus. Inherent in this is that good permaculture design inherently produces a surplus, and this can be shared.
This is in contrast to conventional ag which looks at squeezing the most it can out of any landbase, and then wastes huge amounts of produce and resources.
The Netherlands is slightly smaller than Canterbury and carries twice the dairy herd and >seventy times the number of pigs.They're drowning themselves and their neighbours in run off, refuse to clean up their act by reducing stock levels and when someone threatens to step in and do it for them, they have a cry.
I'm guessing there's not a lot of nature around. Once you socialise people out of nature, it's hard to get them to understand its importance. We are incredibly fortunate in NZ, although our nature literacy is in decline.
I have been to the Netherlands recently. We stayed in a house boat next to a farm area. Probably a 20 minute train ride from Amsterdam. We also went by train around some of the country.
What surprised me is that there is a lot of rural land over there, compared to cities. However, their population is over three times that of NZ for a much smaller land area. Hence why housing is a major issue for them over there.
They are a major food exporter. That is an interesting article, well worth reading. The fact that they are able to get that much production from such a small area is truly impressive.
It feeds into my argument that most productive food growing areas should be maximised and unproductive growing areas minimised in order to have the best net effect on emissions.
@ smithfield..
The netherlands is doing what we need to do…must do..to stop being a major planet-polluter
Another of our warriors has fallen fighting the fascist beast in Ukraine. May he rest in peace – If there is some sort of afterlife for soldiers, I hope Charles Upham is on hand to buy him a beer in the hall of the fallen.
Compared to Afghanistan, where 10 died over 20 years, we are losing fighters at six times the rate.
Who is this 'we' you speak of?
"We" you ask – count me as one of their supporters of these braver, younger, skilled people who have the courage to defend others against tyranny. Glory to the heroes!
He certainly has my respect and admiration.
Because Ukraine is getting such slow and limited support from the West, a very high price is falling onto a small number of principled people.
It was interesting that we are finally seeing some organised opposition to Evangelical white supremacism of which Julian Batchelor's odious little Christo-Fascist roadshow is but the latest example.
What I found fascinating is the opposition isn't coming from an enfeebled liberal middle class, which would rather spend it's time debating on twitter whether or not it is OK to punch a far right protester doing a Sieg Heil salute (plot spoiler: yes it is OK, always. In fact, it is OK to give them a second bop on the nose as well if they look inclined to carry on the dispute), but from Maori who actually got off their couches and went along to a drafty hall to give Mr. Batchelor's miserable, aged deitritis of Rob's mob a cold drenching of 21st century reality.
Balanced article on the front page of the Australian, after Hobart's #LetWomenSpeak event yesterday:
‘I’m no Nazi; just public enemy No. 1’, says transgender law critic Kellie-Jay Keen
https://www.census.govt.nz/
Two full weeks after Census Day this is a poor response rate.
Five years ago, the response rate was only 83.3% and it looks we’re currently more than 10% below this.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/485439/census-officials-confident-they-ll-get-almost-everyone-this-time-including-harry-styles
What could this mean for the General Election on 14 October?
National using it a stick to beat Labour with?
And so they should. This failure has no excuses. Plenty of money, lots of lessons from the last failed one and tons of time to prepare. This is shaping up to be a complete failure to deliver a critical administrative function.
What should happen is first some highly paid people need to take responsibility for where the buck stops – stats NZ head Mark Sowden should be fired, Deborah Russell ought to resign and the resulting enormous scandal should make sure the next census with it’s nonsensical obsession with identity questions (was it actually intentionally designed to put people off?) is done with more common sense and less bureaucratic capture. You can just imagine the meetings.
“We must be inclusive and tick the all the right boxes, so remember to ask about all the self identification stuff because that is what inclusion actually is, oh and make sure it is a hard online form that about 25% of the population has no access to or won’t or can’t be bothered filling out because the ability to be counted isn’t really inclusion is it”.
Rather than going with a middle class solution that involves completing a reasonably difficult online process and that requires a reasonable degree of technological literacy and effort, maybe next time they could use the money they wasted on Wellington bureaucrats dreaming up this cockamamie online census on funding community groups like Kapa Haka or scouts or Grey Power – people who know their communities in other words – to actually distribute and collect a paper census pack.
You know, like how we used to back when the census was actually a success.
I agree that the process was fucked and we should just do what works. Do you know what the rationale was for changing to online?
Not sure about no excuses, whatever other poor decisions were made there's also the pandemic. Most systems I engage with now have staffing issues or residual failures from previous staffing issues.
At the end of the day there can be no excuses for a failure of this type.
These head bureaucrats are paid top dollar, Sowden will be on at least 400-500K. If you get paid that much and you fuck up the one thing you had five years to prepare to do then you resign/get sacked. Period.
And the relevant minister(s) should resign or be demoted as well, if there was any accountability. You don't sit in the beehive polishing your arse on a seat collecting a ministerial salary just so the only thing you bother having any oversight of is the lunch menu. The buck stop with the minister also. That failure demands a hefty price be paid is exactly the risk factor that is used to justify the huge salaries these people are paid in the first place. If you can screw up in high office and not be held accountable, then you should get paid commensurate to that level of skill, responsibility and competency – which in my book is about the minimum wage.
I couldn't believe they persisted with trying to use a clearly failed online model for the census.
Talk about a bureaucratic bubble of technocratic assumptions.
The people who are not counted by taking it online are the ones we most need to know about. It's their lives that might show that we have systemic economic failure that cannot be reduced to individual pathology.
my local electricty retailer has regular trustee elections. for yrs, it was mailed out and was easy to vote and send back. two yrs ago they went to online voting. its complicated , and I and others have stopped bothering to wade through the stupid code needed. . I emailed them and pointed out it was probably designed by a computer expert, and was very complicated for older less experienced computer users. no reply. the firm engaged has banked the $$$ ,and dont care.in a couple of yrs, electra will suddenly report that trustee election returns have shrunk…..
If I was reviewing the Census response rate I would probably start challenging the belief that online brings it up. Even if its easier online I think there is something about it which results in less responses online to on paper.
A couple of things that may have altered compliance to the census.
A further loss of faith in institutions since Covid. An unintended consequence of the state's response.
Also, speaking from an elderly biddy's point of view, two forms sent out, both mentioning computer/internet. This caused her to dismiss and close off from the whole process.
We did go through the questionnaire ( ignoring the 'gendered soul' malarky) and posted it off. Didn't help matters when someone with a foreign accent knocked on her door chasing the process up.
Sanctuary has it right, get local groups to service their communities. Not a lot of money for consultants, high level officials and their swathes of mandarins though.
The form was so poorly designed. It was bad, bad, bad, let alone the two letter thing. There was no explanation of rights (to privacy of your information) or obligation ($2k fine) up front. The benefits of filling in the census for your community and your interest group was not explained. There should have been a max of 10 simple sentences in double spaced 14pt font on page 1.
The first thing on the form should have been: if you don't understand or can't fill it in online, we will help you, ring this 0800 number.
Where I work all the paranoid refused to co-operate, 25% of the population being paranoid would be about right.
The thing that struck me most about the Census was the morbid facination with whether I still have the same bits I was born with.
That’s a projection.
It only asks birth sex and gender ID.
That is done to identify the extent of cisgender to other.
A lot more people climbed down the big state is after us after covid, bet that's a good few % of the non complient
The poor response is a symptom – from govts to individuals, we reap what we sow. "Fight Fight!"
Around here many who answered the silly questions just gave spoof answers that will provide little information.
A lot of "Don't knows" for sex on birth certificate and at least one saying the sex was 9 months BEFORE my birth.
Lots of fun comparing answers.
The 10 year old in me (South Park), can't help but think there is a lot of fun to be had with "spoof answers" and gender fluidity
Don't worry someone will always propose a final 'Final Solution' ……
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
[You have been recently warned for climate denial and lying about it and you’ve been banned from weka’s posts about climate. You’ve been warned about trolling. Yet, you seem disrespect those warnings. Obviously, it is time for a short educational ban to see if this leads to improvement. If not, expect the bans to rapidly escalate in length. Take a week off – Incognito]
Sounds like Chippie to Nash.
Mod note
Is anyone taking Luxon's announcements on education seriously? Is it just a way of avoiding having to talk about the IPCC report, or a stealth plan to breathe life into charter schools by discrediting pubic education, or the business sector demanding that publicly-funded education be a free gift to them that provides the sort of people they want? Or does he want to scapegoat teachers for not fixing all the social ills created by market economies? And when he cites successful education systems, why does Finland never get mentioned? His vacuity is exhausting.
Well in the spirit of TLDR I regard Luxon and all things related to him as Too Stupid Don't Bother
@ab..
That would be a good tagline for luxon..
'luxon: his vacuity is exhausting'..
It sort of captures the man…
Mr Miyagi say: Luxon, Luxoff.
Meh 2 years 5 months and sixteen days without a drink …but dam I would love a few beers right now.
good on you. keep it up. time to change yr username to something up-to-date.
Ex-barfly would work..
And isn't it a truism that the only people amused/entertained by the ramblings of the intoxicated…are others equally intoxicated…
Drunks are so effing boring..
As funny as a fart in an elevator ..
I switched to 0% alcohol beers a few months ago, and found several that taste as good if not better than the selected beers I used to drink.
So, alcohol free not really from conviction but preference.