(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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Hi,If you’ve been digging through the newly launched Webworm store (orders are being dispatched worldwide as I type!) you’ll have noticed the best model we had was Calvin.This is Calvin.Calvin.Calvin is 7, and is the son of my producer over on Flightless Bird, Rob — aka “Wobby Wob”. Rob also ...
This video includes conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Adam Levy. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). Climate change is everywhere. And when something's everywhere it can feel like it's nowhere. So how do we get our heads ...
Its a law like gravity: whenever a right-wing government is elected, they start attacking democracy. And now, after talking to their Republican and Tory and Fidesz chums at the International Democracy Union forum in Wellington, National is doing it here, announcing plans to remove election-day enrolment. Or, to put it ...
Yesterday Winston Peters focussed his attention on the important matter at hand. Tweeting. Like the former, and quite possibly next, orange POTUS, from whom he takes much of his political strategy, Winston is an avid X’er.His message didn’t resemble an historic address this time. In fact it was more reminiscent ...
Buzz from the Beehive A significant decline in natural gas production has given Resources Minister Shane Jones an opportunity to reiterate his enthusiasm for the mining and burning of coal. For good measure, he has praised an announcement from Genesis Energy that it will resume importing coal. He and Energy ...
“Follow the money” is the classic directive to journalists trying to understand where power and influence lie in society. In terms of uncovering who influences various New Zealand political parties and governments, it therefore pays to look at who is funding them. The political parties are legally obliged to make ...
Rob MacCullough writes – Here is my subjective ranking on a “most-left” to “most-right” scale of most of our major NZ Universities, with some anecdotal (and at times amusing) evidence to back up the claim.Extreme Left Auckland University of TechnologyEvidenceThe ...
Eric Crampton writes – I hadn’t thought about this one until a helpful email showed up in my inbox.It’s pretty obvious that income tax thresholds should automatically index with inflation – whether to anchor the thresholds in percentiles of the income distribution, or to anchor against a real ...
Jacqui Van Der Kaay writes – Parliament’s speaker had no option but to refer Green MP Julie Anne Genter to the Privileges Committee for her behaviour in the House last Wednesday evening. The incident, in which she crossed the floor to wave a book and yell at National ...
Gary Judd writes – The Dean of the law school at the Auckland University of Technology is someone called Khylee Quince. I have been sent her social media posting in which she has, over the LawNews headline “Senior King’s Counsel files complaint about compulsory tikanga Maori studies for ...
Cleo Paskal writes – WASHINGTON, D.C.: ‘Many of us have received phone calls from [the opposing camp] telling them if they join the camp they will be given projects for their wards and $300,000 [around US$35,000] each’, says former Malaita Premier Daniel Suidani. The elections in Solomon Islands aren’t ...
With hindsight, it was inevitable that (a) Hamas would agree to the ceasefire deal brokered by Egypt and Qatar and that ( b) Israel would then immediately launch attacks on Rafah, regardless. We might have hoped the concessions made by Hamas would cause Israel to desist from slaughtering thousands more ...
Placards and mourners outside the Kilbirnie Mosque following the Christchurch terror attack: MSD has terminated the Kaiwhakaoranga service, which has been used by 415 families since the attacks. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: The Government’s pledge to only cut ‘back office’ staff rather than ‘frontline’ services is on increasingly shaky ground, with ...
There’s been a few smaller public transport announcements over the last week or so that I thought I’d cover in a single post. Fareshare I’ve long called for Auckland Transport to offer a way to enable employer-subsidised public transport options. The need for this took on even more importance ...
Parliament’s speaker had no option but to refer Green MP Julie Anne Genter to the Privileges Committee for her behaviour in the House last Wednesday evening. The incident, in which she crossed the floor to wave a book and yell at National Minister Matt Doocey, reflects poorly on Genter and ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Who likes being sneered at? Nobody. Worse yet, when the sneerer has their facts all wrong, and might well be an idiot.The sneer in question is The adults are in charge now, and it is a sneer offered in retort to criticism of this new Government, no matter how well ...
When in government, Labour pushed to extend the Parliamentary term to four years, to reduce accountability and our ability to vote out a bad government. And now, they're trying to do it through the member's ballot, with a Four-Year Parliamentary Term Legislation Bill. The bill at least requires a referendum ...
A ballot for a single Member's Bill was held today, and the following bill was drawn: Public Works (Prohibition of Compulsory Acquisition of Māori Land) Amendment Bill (Hūhana Lyndon) The bill would prevent the government from stealing Māori land in breach of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. It ...
Simeon Brown, alongside Wayne Brown, is favouring a political figleaf now in exchange for loading up tens of millions in extra interest costs on Auckland ratepayers. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s is pushing back hard at suggestions from Local Government Minister Simeon Brown and Mayor Wayne Brown ...
Buzz from the Beehive One headline-grabber from the Beehive yesterday was the OECD’s advice that the government must bring the Budget deficit under control or face higher interest rates. Another was the announcement of a $1.9 billion “investment” in Corrections over the next four years. In the best interests of ...
Chris Trotter writes – Had Zheng He’s fleet sailed east, not west, in the early Fifteenth Century, how different our world would be. There is little reason to suppose that the sea-going junks of the Ming Dynasty, among the largest and most sophisticated sailing vessels ever constructed, would have failed ...
David Farrar writes – Two articles give a useful contrast in balance. Both seek to be neutral explainer articles. This one in the Herald on Social Investment covers the pros and cons nicely. It links to critical pieces and talks about aspects that failed and aspects that are more ...
The tikanga regulations will compel law students to be taught that a system which does not conform with the rule of law is nevertheless law which should be observed and applied…Gary Judd KC writes – I have made a complaint to Parliament’s Regulation ...
The future of Te Huia, the train between Hamilton and Auckland, has been getting a lot of attention recently as current funding for it is only in place till the end of June. The government initially agreed to a five year trial, through to April 2026, but that was subject ...
TL;DR: Hamas has just agreed to Israel’s ceasefire plan. Nelson hospital’s rebuild has been cut back to save money. The OECD suggests New Zealand break up network monopolies, including in electricity. PM Christopher Luxon’s news conference on a prison expansion announcement last night was his messiest yet.Here’s my top six ...
A homicide in Ponsonby, a manhunt with a killer on the run. The nation’s leader stands before a press conference reassuring a frightened nation that he’ll sort it out, he’ll keep them safe, he’ll build some new prison spaces.Sorry what? There’s a scary dude on the run with a gun ...
Hi,I know it’s been awhile since there’s been any Webworm merch — and today that all changes!Over the last four months, I’ve been working with New Zealand artist Jess Johnson to create a series of t-shirts, caps and stickers that are infused with Webworm DNA — and as of right ...
The OECD’s chief economist yesterday laid it on the line for the new Government: bring the deficit under control or face higher Reserve Bank interest rates for longer. And to bring the deficit under control, she meant not borrowing for tax cuts. But there was more. Without policy changes—introducing a ...
Te Pāti Māori is showing extreme concern over the Environment Select Committees adoption of a lucky dip draw to determine hearings for the Fast Track Approvals bill. Of the 27,000 submissions, 2,900 requested to present. All organisations will be heard; however, the remaining 2,350 submitters will be subject to a ...
Today New Zealand First will introduce a Member’s Bill that will protect women’s spaces. The ‘Fair Access to Bathrooms Bill’ will require, primarily in the interest and safety of women and girls, that all new non-domestic publicly accessible buildings provide separate, clearly demarcated, unisex and single sex bathrooms. This Bill ...
The Green Party is welcoming Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ continuation of Hon. James Shaw’s cross-party work on climate adaptation, now in the form of a Finance and Expenditure Committee Inquiry. ...
The National Government plans to cut 390 jobs at ACC, including roles in the areas of prevention of sexual violence, road safety and workplace safety. ...
The Government has been caught in opposition to evidence once again as it looks to usher in tried, tested and failed work seminar obligations for job-seeking beneficiaries. ...
The Green Party is welcoming the announcement by the Minister Responsible for RMA Reform Chris Bishop to approve most of the Wellington City Council’s District Plan recommendations. ...
David Seymour has failed to get the sweeping cuts he wanted to the free and healthy school lunch programme, Labour education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
Hon Willie Jackson has been invited by the Oxford Union to debate the motion “This House Believes British Museums are not Very British’ on May 23rd. ...
Green Party MP Hūhana Lyndon says her Public Works (Prohibition of Compulsory Acquisition of Māori Land) Amendment Bill is an opportunity to right some past wrongs around the alienation of Māori land. ...
A senior, highly respected King’s Counsel with decades of experience in our law courts, Gary Judd KC, has filed a complaint about compulsory tikanga Māori studies for law students - highlighting the utter depths of absurdity this woke cultural madness has taken our society. The tikanga regulations will compel law ...
The Government needs to be clear with the people of the Nelson Marlborough region about the changes it is considering for the Nelson Hospital rebuild, Labour health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said. ...
Ministers must front up about which projects it will push through under its Fast Track Approvals legislation, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
“The results of the public consultation on the terms of reference for the Royal Commission into COVID-19 Lessons has now been received, with results indicating over 13,000 submissions were made from members of the public,” Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden says. “We heard feedback about the extended lockdowns in ...
Foreign Minister, Defence Minister, other Members of Parliament Acting Chief of Defence Force, Secretary of Defence Distinguished Guests Defence and Diplomatic Colleagues Ladies and Gentlemen, Good afternoon, tēna koutou, apinun tru It’s a pleasure to be back in Port Moresby today, and to speak here at the Kumul Leadership ...
Health, infrastructure, renewable energy, and stability are among the themes of the current visit to Papua New Guinea by a New Zealand political delegation, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “Papua New Guinea carries serious weight in the Pacific, and New Zealand deeply values our relationship with it,” Mr Peters ...
The coalition Government is launching Roads of Regional Significance to sit alongside Roads of National Significance as part of its plan to deliver priority roading projects across the country, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The Roads of National Significance (RoNS) built by the previous National Government are some of New Zealand’s ...
A high-level New Zealand political delegation in Honiara today congratulated the new Government of Solomon Islands, led by Jeremiah Manele, on taking office. “We are privileged to meet the new Prime Minister and members of his Cabinet during his government’s first ten days in office,” Deputy Prime Minister and ...
New Zealand voted in favour of a resolution broadening Palestine’s participation at the United Nations General Assembly overnight, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The resolution enhances the rights of Palestine to participate in the work of the UN General Assembly while stopping short of admitting Palestine as a full ...
Introduction Good morning. It’s a great privilege to be here at the 2024 Infrastructure Symposium. I was extremely happy when the Prime Minister asked me to be his Minister for Infrastructure. It is one of the great barriers holding the New Zealand economy back from achieving its potential. Building high ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins today announced the upcoming Budget will include new funding of $571 million for Defence Force pay and projects. “Our servicemen and women do New Zealand proud throughout the world and this funding will help ensure we retain their services and expertise as we navigate an increasingly ...
New Zealand’s ability to cope with climate change will be strengthened as part of the Government’s focus to build resilience as we rebuild the economy, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “An enduring and long-term approach is needed to provide New Zealanders and the economy with certainty as the climate ...
Jobseeker beneficiaries who have work obligations must now meet with MSD within two weeks of their benefit starting to determine their next step towards finding a job, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “A key part of the coalition Government’s plan to have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker ...
A new standalone Social Investment Agency will power-up the social investment approach, driving positive change for our most vulnerable New Zealanders, Social Investment Minister Nicola Willis says. “Despite the Government currently investing more than $70 billion every year into social services, we are not seeing the outcomes we want for ...
Check against delivery Good morning. It is a pleasure to be with you to outline the Coalition Government’s approach to our first Budget. Thank you Mark Skelly, President of the Hutt Valley Chamber of Commerce, together with your Board and team, for hosting me. I’d like to acknowledge His Worship ...
Your Excellency Ambassador Meredith, Members of the Diplomatic Corps and Ambassadors from European Union Member States, Ministerial colleagues, Members of Parliament, and other distinguished guests, Thank you everyone for joining us. Ladies and gentlemen - In diplomacy, we often speak of ‘close’ and ‘long-standing’ relations. ...
The Therapeutic Products Act (TPA) will be repealed this year so that a better regime can be put in place to provide New Zealanders safe and timely access to medicines, medical devices and health products, Associate Health Minister Casey Costello announced today. “The medicines and products we are talking about ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop, today released his decision on twenty recommendations referred to him by the Wellington City Council relating to its Intensification Planning Instrument, after the Council rejected those recommendations of the Independent Hearings Panel and made alternative recommendations. “Wellington notified its District Plan on ...
Rape Awareness Week (6-10 May) is an important opportunity to acknowledge the continued effort required by government and communities to ensure that all New Zealanders can live free from violence, say Ministers Karen Chhour and Louise Upston. “With 1 in 3 women and 1 in 8 men experiencing sexual violence ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government will be delivering a more efficient Healthy School Lunches Programme, saving taxpayers approximately $107 million a year compared to how Labour funded it, by embracing innovation and commercial expertise. “We are delivering on our commitment to treat taxpayers’ money ...
New research on the impacts of extreme weather on coastal marine habitats in Tairāwhiti and Hawke’s Bay will help fishery managers plan for and respond to any future events, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. A report released today on research by Niwa on behalf of Fisheries New Zealand ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Winston Peters will lead a broad political delegation on a five-stop Pacific tour next week to strengthen New Zealand’s engagement with the region. The delegation will visit Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, and Tuvalu. “New Zealand has deep and ...
There has been a material decline in gas production according to figures released today by the Gas Industry Co. Figures released by the Gas Industry Company show that there was a 12.5 per cent reduction in gas production during 2023, and a 27.8 per cent reduction in gas production in the ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins tonight announced the recipients of the Minister of Defence Awards of Excellence for Industry, saying they all contribute to New Zealanders’ security and wellbeing. “Congratulations to this year’s recipients, whose innovative products and services play a critical role in the delivery of New Zealand’s defence capabilities, ...
Welcome to you all - it is a pleasure to be here this evening.I would like to start by thanking Greg Lowe, Chair of the New Zealand Defence Industry Advisory Council, for co-hosting this reception with me. This evening is about recognising businesses from across New Zealand and overseas who in ...
It is a pleasure to be speaking to you as the Minister for Digitising Government. I would like to thank Akolade for the invitation to address this Summit, and to acknowledge the great effort you are making to grow New Zealand’s digital future. Today, we stand at the cusp of ...
New Zealand is urging both Israel and Hamas to agree to an immediate ceasefire to avoid the further humanitarian catastrophe that military action in Rafah would unleash, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The immense suffering in Gaza cannot be allowed to worsen further. Both sides have a responsibility to ...
A new online data dashboard released today as part of the Government’s school attendance action plan makes more timely daily attendance data available to the public and parents, says Associate Education Minister David Seymour. The interactive dashboard will be updated once a week to show a national average of how ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced Rosemary Banks will be New Zealand’s next Ambassador to the United States of America. “Our relationship with the United States is crucial for New Zealand in strategic, security and economic terms,” Mr Peters says. “New Zealand and the United States have a ...
The Government is considering creating a new tier of minerals permitting that will make it easier for hobby miners to prospect for gold. “New Zealand was built on gold, it’s in our DNA. Our gold deposits, particularly in regions such as Otago and the West Coast have always attracted fortune-hunters. ...
Minister for Trade Todd McClay today announced that New Zealand and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will commence negotiations on a free trade agreement (FTA). Minister McClay met with his counterpart UAE Trade Minister Dr Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi in Dubai, where they announced the launch of negotiations on a ...
New Zealand Sign Language Week is an excellent opportunity for all Kiwis to give the language a go, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. This week (May 6 to 12) is New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) Week. The theme is “an Aotearoa where anyone can sign anywhere” and aims to ...
Six tertiary students have been selected to work on NASA projects in the US through a New Zealand Space Scholarship, Space Minister Judith Collins announced today. “This is a fantastic opportunity for these talented students. They will undertake internships at NASA’s Ames Research Center or its Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), where ...
New Zealanders will be safer because of a $1.9 billion investment in more frontline Corrections officers, more support for offenders to turn away from crime, and more prison capacity, Corrections Minister Mark Mitchell says. “Our Government said we would crack down on crime. We promised to restore law and order, ...
The OECD’s latest report on New Zealand reinforces the importance of bringing Government spending under control, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The OECD conducts country surveys every two years to review its members’ economic policies. The 2024 New Zealand survey was presented in Wellington today by OECD Chief Economist Clare Lombardelli. ...
The Government has delivered on its election promise to provide a financially sustainable model for Auckland under its Local Water Done Well plan. The plan, which has been unanimously endorsed by Auckland Council’s Governing Body, will see Aucklanders avoid the previously projected 25.8 per cent water rates increases while retaining ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters discussed the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and enhanced cooperation in the Pacific with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock during her first official visit to New Zealand today. "New Zealand and Germany enjoy shared interests and values, including the rule of law, democracy, respect for the international system ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
RNZ News A New Zealand pro-Palestinian protester who climbed onto the roof of the Christchurch City Council building has been handcuffed and taken away in a police car. About 20 protesters gathered near the Christchurch Art Gallery today. Officers were called to the scene near Worcester Boulevard about 11.20am, and ...
The Council for International Development (CID) presented a compelling case to the Finance and Expenditure Select Committees this week at Parliament, urging the New Zealand Government to significantly boost its Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Annette Greenhow, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, Bond University In recent years, a growing number of professional athletes are medically retiring from sport, particularly in some of Australia’s most popular football codes. In April, Collingwood player Nathan Murphy, 24, medically retired ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anthony Scott, Professor of Health Economics, Monash University David Fuentes Prieto/Shutterstock Deciding whether to wait and see if your health condition improves or go to a GP can be a difficult task. You might be unsure about where to go, whom ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jess Carniel, Associate professor in Humanities, University of Southern Queensland Every year claims to be the most controversial year in the Eurovision Song Contest’s history, but it will take a lot to beat the 68th contest. The 2024 Eurovision contest, which took ...
A provision in the proposed fast-track law allowing previous court rulings against consents to be put aside would be a 'travesty of justice', they say. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Timothy Schmidt, Professor of Chemistry, UNSW Sydney Last week, a huge solar flare sent a wave of energetic particles from the Sun surging out through space. Over the weekend, the wave reached Earth, and people around the world enjoyed the sight of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Catherine Ordway, Associate Professor Sport Management and Sport Integrity Lead, University of Canberra Sport has a role to play in creating a culture of respect, yet women in sport are often seen as “less than” on almost every measure: salaries, sponsorship, broadcasting, ...
The Waitangi Tribunal’s summons to sitting Minister Karen Chhour as part of its inquiry into the Government’s plans to amend the Oranga Tamariki Act was lawful, the Court of Appeal has found. The ruling runs counter to a judgment by the High Court three weeks ago, in which Justice Andru ...
The PSA is holding a snap protest at 8am, Tuesday 14 May outside the National Library in Wellington against the decision to not continue funding digitising the national archives. ...
Ahead of the final episode of Fair Go, some of the show’s former presenters look back at what the iconic consumer affairs series meant to them. Fair Go, as former presenter Haydn Jones puts it, was “the show nobody wanted to appear on”. You either had to be ripped off ...
Didn’t see the amazing and exquisite southern lights over the weekend? You’re not alone: Shanti Mathias has some tips on how to cope. Not to gloat, but I had a very lovely weekend. I went for a long bike ride in the sunshine. I read a magazine on the back ...
At the time of the offending, Mr Ape ran Hoop Star Basketball Academy and submitted fraudulent grant applications that represented over $75,000 in fictitious costs. ...
Local authority financial statistics provide information on the annual performance of core non-trading activities of all New Zealand's territorial and regional councils. ...
Kāinga Ora’s debt problem is serious – but so is the urgent need for more affordable homes, says poverty campaigner Alan Johnson. As Kāinga Ora cancels projects and sells land previously earmarked for development, it’s clear that two issues are set to dominate the public housing narrative over the next ...
By Caleb Fotheringham, RNZ Pacific journalist A National Union of Workers (NUW) official is hopeful Fiji Water employees who have been on strike for almost a week will return to work shortly. Last Tuesday, a group of workers for Fiji Water went on strike over pay disputes at the multi-million ...
True to form, Wellington City Council’s consultation has been a flop. If they’ve been recording residents’ answers incorrectly, then the only option is to go back to the drawing board and start public consultations again from scratch. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tracey Clement, Lecturer in Visual Art and McGlade Gallery Director, Australian Catholic University Tracey Clement, Impossible Numbers.Tracey Clement I slip the needle through a small loop of black thread, pull it tight and snip. Done. I have just tied off the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jochen Kaempf, Associate Professor of Natural Sciences (Oceanography), Flinders University Gonzalo Buzonni/Shutterstock From around 1996 to 2010, Australia was gripped by the millennium drought. As water shortages bit hard, most of Australia’s capital cities built large seawater desalination plants – Sydney, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Maria O’Sullivan, Associate Professor of Law, Deakin Law School, Deakin University Students have been protesting on university campuses across Australia for several weeks now, calling on their institutions to cut ties with weapons manufacturers supplying arms to Israel. Some have noted their ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steven Hail, Adjunct Associate Professor, Torrens University Australia Wolfilser/ShutterstockThis article is part one of The Conversation’s “Business Basics” series where we ask leading experts to discuss key concepts in business, economics and finance. For the most part, economists continue ...
Big business is pouring eye-watering sums into parties on the political right. Max Rashbrooke wonders what it’s getting in return. A couple of years ago, a National Party contact told me it had “never been easier” to get big donations from businesses. Anger about the Covid-era “fortress New Zealand” policy, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Erin O’Brien, Associate Professor, School of Government and International Relations, Griffith University University campuses around the world have become the site of tiny tent cities in recent weeks, with student activists protesting the ongoing conflict in Gaza. Though the protests on ...
In this extract from The Bulletin, Stewart Sowman-Lund looks at the proposed law and the ongoing concern about it. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. Where we’re at with the fast-track ...
The revamped school lunch programme is budgeting $3 per lunch, rather than the current $8. But is it really so simple to cut costs? Shanti Mathias investigates. Last week, associate education minister and Act Party leader David Seymour announced the government’s revamped school lunch programme, which will provide food to ...
Exactly 100 years ago, on the eve of another Paris Olympics, young Kiwi Gwitha Shand was the talk of the swimming world. The 19-year-old from Christchurch had broken the world record in the 440-yard freestyle multiple times leading up to the 1924 Olympics, and was described in newspapers as one ...
The New Zealand book trade is still reeling after the shock news that Penguin has axed its head of publishing. The redundancy comes just as the biggest week of the year in New Zealand literature is set to take place. The winners of the Ockham national book awards are announced ...
A rest home with a concierge, iced tea fountain, hybrid Jaguars to drive, and caviar on the menu. That’s not imaginary or from some far-flung country – it’s reality here in Aotearoa. Oceania Healthcare just officially opened ‘The Helier’ – a retirement apartment and aged-care complex in the Auckland suburb ...
The USA and China are beefing, Winston Peters is getting sued by some Australian guy, and Helen Clark and Don Brash are friends now? Here’s everything you need to know about Aukus but were too afraid to ask. What is Aukus?Aukus, which stands for Australia, the United Kingdom, and ...
Opinion: The cold weather and spikes in power demand have been well handled by the electricity system The post No need to shock with a fake crisis appeared first on Newsroom. ...
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Asia Pacific Report About 1000 people in Aotearoa New Zealand gathered for a two-hour rally in central Auckland today and marched down Queen Street and returned to Aotea Square to mark the Nakba three days early — and protest over Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. They called for an immediate ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra As it looks to an election next year when holding up Labor’s female vote will be vital, Treasurer Jim Chalmers has declared Tuesday will bring “a budget for mums and middle Australia”. “The primary ...
By Repeka Nasiko in Suva “Justice has won,” says Fiji’s acting Director of Public Prosecutions John Rabuku following the sentencing of former prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama and former police commissioner Sitiveni Qiliho. Speaking to The Fiji Times, Rabuku said that while they welcomed the judgment by acting Chief Justice Salesi ...
The foreign affairs minister has landed in Solomon Islands for the first leg of his Pacific tour, and an audience with the newly elected Prime Minister. ...
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“The Bill does not provide environmental protection, good quality decision making, certainty, public participation or speed. It should be withdrawn.” ...
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MARIAMENO KAPA-KINGI, TPM MP FOR TAI TOKERAU This Government will not waver in its mission to exterminate Māori. CHRISTOPHER LUXON Oh well look you know I don’t think that hard-working Kiwis want to hear language like that. It’s just really unhelpful rhetoric. My Government is genuinely committed to advancing outcomes ...
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(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.