I've kinda got an issue with their just brushing aside and minimising population growth as a contributing issue.
Like many other things, that's an area where New Zealand's only significant contribution can come from leading by example. We could choose to say we reject the idea of continual growth (including population growth) and choose to find ways to make steady state and circular economics work.
We could choose to reject the hand-wringing and bedwetting about the fact that the native birth rate is below replacement. And embrace the idea that that gives us more opportunity to welcome some from parts of the world that will get hammered by the changes coming.
Explicitly embracing the idea of below-replacement birth rates and falling populations could set a highly visible example to the rest of the world. In a similar way to our nuclear-free stance.
It's the kind of change that can only happen by shifting general social attitudes.
One way to help shift general social attitudes with respect to populations is pieces like the one wags linked start talking about the good aspects of lower populations and fewer kids per family, rather than just brushing the issue aside.
Yet leaders are significantly products of their formative environments.
AOC was late teens/early twenties going through the GFC, watching the flaws of lightly regulated free-market rapaciousness while the social environment around her was filled with disgust at their "leaders" inadequate response. Would she have become the leader she is now if the environment around hadn't had the senseof there being a better way?
Similarly Greta Thunberg is coming of age at a time when the general social environment is demanding climate change action. Yet there have been high profile serious people having a damn good go at leading on this topic for decades and getting very little traction.
Leadership is a synergy of the leader's personal qualities and the environment they are in.
and where was the social environment that determined that growth come what may was desirable?….the demand for that was promoted by a narrow section of society that captured the 'leadership'. The synergy argument dosnt hold water when that fact is examined
Growth is clearly and self-evidently desirable when your environment is one where the best strategy for the success of your own group is to overwhelm the"other" by sheer force of numbers, and there's also significant vacant or underused territory your group can expand into to grab more resource to support the expansion of your group.
Both those factors have been true for the vast majority of people for the vast majority of human history. But they stopped being true sometime in the last few generations. That's a helluva lot of cultural inertia and memory to try to turn around.
Going from survival of the fitest to we are all one is most likely beyond what evolution made us . But there is hope i guess. I see glimmers of hope in the younger generations .
We have been able to benefit from how: oil based products, pesticides, water management, the improvement of medicine and more that have allowed the pop. to increase to 7.7b.
What is the cost of these ? and for how long can this continue for
IMO to manage what we are facing a large portion of the solution is our pop. and what is the viable carrying capacity of the earth with changes that need to be implemented ASAP, but that is only one persons observations 🤔
But Gaia may have a natural solution with the visit of the 4 horseman
I was looking at the stuff website and a strange woman started to talk so I tracked down which image appeared to be live and when I found it I couldn't get an image or stop the sound. Strange.
(Everything's up to date in Kansas [insert chosen location here] city, They've gone about as far as they can go. What next!)
I saw a Newshub update on this but when I went to their website it wasn't there. Happened once before too – slack editing, or evidence that TV3 liaison is somewhat haphazard.
"Brazilian beetles, first released in 2011, haven’t wasted any time getting stuck into the swathes of tradescantia (Tradescantia fluminensis) that are infesting gardens, reserves and conservation land. Three beetle species have been released − a leaf beetle (Neolema ogloblini), a stem beetle (Lema basicostata), and a tip beetle (Neolema abbreviata) − which were selected to attack different parts of the plant." https://www.landcareresearch.co.nz/publications/newsletters/biological-control-of-weeds/issue-84/tradescantia-be-gone
Traditionally known as wandering jew, the Newshub reporter called it wandering willy. Not the first media reporter I've seen do this, so I suspect some moron, or group of morons, decided that the traditional name is disrespectful to jews so deemed it politically incorrect. The basic idea behind this type of thinking is that media consumers are morons, so any other moron or group of morons can get away with telling them what to do.
Anyway, gardeners have tried various methods of eliminating the plant, and I can verify from many years of personal experience on different properties that success is only achieved where infestations are fairly small and localised, and even then it takes diligence and time. Just a single broken piece an inch long will grow roots and become an inch long. If it lies exposed on the ground through summer, even continuous sun-baking will not dry it out. It is resilient, will bide it's time, and root when the rains come.
The Newshub report showed that large swathes of the plant have been consumed by the beetles, so the control design seems effective. That's taken eight years though, so it ain't fast. No adverse effects reported, so I hope the govt decides on general release soon.
I recall it in the '60s as being called "Wandering Willie" then too, never really saw it spelled out in full so whether with a Kwiw accent it was also "jew" or "dew" is another one of the things people are finding to fret over whereas, as always, there are much bigger issues that need the focus.
My father was chatting with our Jewish next door neighbour over the back fence one weekend afternoon, and idly pointed to the mass of green weed that had colonised our compost heap, the fence and progressing onward over everything it could reach.
Dad was saying how "he was going to get stuck in and eradicate this wandering …" and our neighbour smiled and said "yeah we call it Wandering Christian actually :-)"
Hey Red, your comment box now has these new smiley options available at a click. I've just seen my lapse in proof-reading, so must apologise to all for this:
"Just a single broken piece an inch long will grow roots and become an inch long." I thought I was writing "become a new plant". However my subconscious decided to replace it with a re-run of what I had typed a few moments earlier.
This is a new type of senior moment! Unless other elderly commentators can prove earlier versions of same, I will claim inventor's rights…
Calm down! I only ever knew it as wandering wiĺlie as a kid in the 50s. We thought it was hilarious because it was our dad's name. Maybe it's a regional thing.
Oh, how interesting. Thanks Jan – and also Rapunzel – for corroboration that it did indeed predate the pc era. I can park the grumpy old man syndrome for a while.
Good thinking. I recall as a kid in the fifties when almost all suburban families had a chicken run out back. No supermarkets in Aotearoa till the seventies.
My ex-partner installed one three years ago. Built herself a multi-level shelter at one end with laying straw in roosts & trapdoors above for easy extraction of eggs, has four hens. Observing them on visits reminded me that hen-pecking is a form of bullying. Given that all birds are residual dinosaurs, one wonders if T Rex also did hen-pecking. That would have been awesome to watch.
You must have lived South of the Bombay Hills. Apparently the first supermarkets were in Auckland as early as 1957. There was one with a large car park no less in 1958. Ah civilization had reached our shores.
I grew up in Napier in the 1950's. I can only remember one of the neighbours who had chickens at that time. They were fairly common for people who lived on rather bigger bits of land out in Greenmeadows, Taradale and Clive though.
Maybe regional variations applied then, which we didn't know about. My childhood was in New Plymouth, then college in Wanganui, didn't arrive in Auckland till early '68. I didn't know about that one in Devonport. Students never went to such remote places – poor people still packed buses & trains then (cars were not an option for students).
I had chickens in my Napier state house in 1957, as on Napier's main Emerson Street at 'Woolworths' they sold 'day old' chicks every august, – that we would fatten them up for Xmas dinner.
Yes cleangreen, my Dad had chickens, Rhode Island Reds and Black Orpingtons. In 1951 Mum used to buy 24 day old chicks, twice a year from her cousin who had a hatchery. They used to come by train from Hamilton to Te Kuiiti. The worst part of the trip was the 26 miles of rough metal road to Benneydale in Dad's T Ford!! The good old days,
We don't all live in the bush (I wish). Management varies and varied solutions are useful.
NZ originally had vast numbers of birds that browsed at various trophic levels of the forest. Now Moa are extinct, and the people trying to make things 'like they were' – what time-point was ideal? Can we bring the Moa back with genetics labs, PR and capital?
Obviously, we want functional ecology. Conservation is a lofty but confused goal. Whereever invasives can be turned to human use their control becomes a lot easier (but eradication nigh on impossible).
No more pesticides, no excuses. The impending loss of insects will cost us everything. It is as urgent an issue as climate change.
Auckland council use(d?) early season rust fungi (from Tradescantia) to spray on Tradescantia and reduce its rampancy (to varying extent) in the region. A new bio-control is obviously welcome it's efficacy remains to be seen.
Animals perform a number of ecosystem functions and when these are understood and managed correctly, they might (gladly) do a lot of work for you while creating animal products e.g. weeding, tilling, fertilising, insect control, turn unpalatable materials to palatable materials.
Our Farmers understand the pulses of seasons, and how this ties in with production. As their ecological understanding grows (some are exemplars in their field) biodiversity will become synonymous with production where many more seasonal pulses can be used to obtain yields. Slowly, balance might be restored as trees (and all they bring) repopulate the landscape.
In urban areas, we can create habitat for bugs. And of course stop using insecticides.
If you have chickens and Tradescantia/Oxalis, well, you know what to do.
I'm not going to recommend this piece by Jane Bowron to read except if you are interested to find how many mixed metaphors can be jumbled together to say very little in a column. Here's an example.
"Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern dropped the controversial policy like a hot spud and pledged that while she's at the helm that dog will never hunt again.
Result. Peters' fan base is deliriously happy that he's finally manned up to show who calls the shots; Simon Bridges has lost any bit of skin he has left in the game; and St Jacinda looks like a cynical politician unable to stick to her guns and exact core Labour Party policy."
The writer, Jane Bowron, takes four opening paragraphs to start even before the topic of the headline is introduced. It's fluff, an opinion piece written to fill a space. I wonderd when reading it if she's actually spoofing bad writing. She succeeded if that was her aim.
There’s a lot of talk about reform and leadership at the United Nations’ podium and a lot of working against it in the UN corridors. And it’s not simply sabotage – member states have always guarded against the system being hijacked by others. What will it take for the UN to change, given that its very structure cements a status quo as a means of ensuring neutrality? To discuss this, Oksana is joined by Helen Clark, former prime minister of New Zealand and former administrator of the UN Development Program. This interview took place at the Horasis Global Meeting in Cascais, Portugal.
It has always seemed to me that examining the words of Helen Clark to discern signs of intelligence is a waste of time. But I've got an open mind. If you found any evidence of such, I'd consider the potential merit of it…
Let's put it this way, HC's views, whether you regard them as intellectual or not, are informed by an accumulated experience several orders of magnitude greater than all of us regulars here put together
Edit: If you really thirst for intellectual, can I recommend this guy?
Indeed. One cannot deny the extent of her operational experience. It's the learning therefrom that is in question. I'm curious to see if she has any helpful analysis of the problem, but not enough to overcome the distaste based on prior experience of her (non-)contributions. If she actually produced a solution to the problem there's a very real danger of folks dropping dead from astonishment…
Nifty presentation, which I managed to endure due to exercise of willpower to overcome dislike of maths. Incorporating physics into the design was clever, and lack of real-world application acknowledged, but it ended with a teaser: the pi-implied circle, invisible in the presentation, would only be revealed to viewers who choose to watch the next thrilling installment of maths-by-graphic. Not me.
Engineering math was my stumbling block too; I could follow it as long as I could map it onto something physical. But the point where it became totally abstract I struggled. Fourier transforms yes, Laplace transforms no.
3Blue1Brown does a brilliant job of breaking this barrier down with visuals and modern interpretations that I only wish was around 40 years earlier .
Mathematicians are the princes of the modern world, and despite my limitations I always wished to be fully admitted to their ranks. Ah well we all have our failed dreams.
I take your point despite never viewing mathematicians with respect. I always discounted them due to their propensity for abstractions being even worse than that of physicists (hard to believe). But I ought to acknowledge that maths is used to validate and empower physics, and certainly forms the basis of computing. I wonder if our service provider (LPrent) will volunteer a personal take on this interface between imaginal and real.
A mathematician is having problems with a leaky sink, so he calls a plumber. The plumber comes over and quickly fixes the sink. The professor is happy until he gets the bill. He tells the plumber, "This is outrageous! You charge more for an hour than I make in a whole day!"
The plumber tells him, "You know, we are always looking for more plumbers. You could become a plumber and triple your salary. Just make sure you say you only made it to 6th grade, they don't like educated people."
The professor takes him up on the offer and becomes a plumber. His salary triples and he doesn't have to work nearly as hard. But after a few years, a law gets passed that all licensed plumbers must have at least an 8th grade education…Not wanting to admit he lied on his application, he signs up for night classes.
On the first day of night School they all attend math class. The teacher wants to gauge the class so he asks the former mathematician, "What is the formula for the area of a circle?"
He walks up to the board and realizes he has forgotten the formula. So he begins to attempt to derive the formula, filling the board with complicated mathematics. He ends up figuring out it is negative pi times radius squared, but he knows that's incorrect, so he starts over, but again he comes up with the same equation.
After staring at the board for a minute he hears one of the plumbers in the class behind him whisper, "Switch the limits on the integral, dummy!"
Mathematics is a part of physics. Physics is an experimental science, a part of natural science. Mathematics is the part of physics where experiments are cheap.
Good grief Dennis Frank, you obviously never knew Helen Clark. She is extremely intelligent – way ahead of the vast majority of people. However what she did try to do with varying success was to speak publicly in a manner those of average intelligence would better understand. It was not a case of dropping to their level, but rather to get her points across. I fear you mistook her intentions to be that of a person of average intelligence.
I met Helen Clark on many occasions, and I'm with you. I didn't share her politics, but there was no doubting her sharp intellect. There was a certain derangement about her from some on the right, which we saw again with the lefts attitude towards John Key, but IMHO Clark was amongst the most competent of PM's this county has seen.
But having it and using it are two different things, eh? I tend to judge on the basis of performance – don't you? Why not take a look at the interview RL posted and report back here if she proposes a solution to the UN problem that seems viable?
I know you ain't no leftist, so that puts you in a credible position to evaluate her performance objectively. If she merely circles around the problem, discussing dimension of it without advancing the situation one iota, I trust you'll be honest enough to report that back to us too.
Hi Dennis. My comments were specifically about her time as PM. I also have no time for the UN. IMHO it is a largely corrupt and essentially useless organisation that has lost it's way entirely. So no sorry, I won't be listening to the interview.
Despite your heroic efforts to peddle this false equivalence, Clark was not given to outrageous manifestations of dishonesty like Key's "I don't recall".
Clark burnt herself on efforts like the anti-smacking bill, Key destroyed his reputation by insider trading and self serving actions like constraining the brightline to two years so his own investments would make the cut.
Like Trump he was and is a self-serving piece of shite with no business pretending to act for a democratic polity. Morally crippled rightwingers look on him with envy rather than contempt, but this defeats their arguments with the Left before they even begin.
Look I understand you have this deep abiding need to lie your worthless ass off to defend the thoroughly unsavoury reputation of the worst PM NZ has ever seen, but my objections to this lying self-serving ineffectual ambulant cesspool of corruption are entirely rational.
So don't be accusing me of KDS – that's not a thing – unless it applies to scoundrels like yourself, for whom, judging by your comments, lying and stealing are public virtues.
He’s not dead yet – the convention on eulogies does not apply.
Despite claims to the contrary, she was a woman of substance and integrity, but one possible fault (which I tend to share with her), she did not suffer fools gladly. And woe betide anyone who played silly buggers with her. Very early on in her parliamentary career, I decided to play the devil's advocate at a meeting. No prizes for guessing who came off second best by a long shot. 🙁
I've often hoped to meet her again one day and ask her if she remembered that incident.
“And woe betide anyone who played silly buggers with her”
At the risk of blowing my cover totally I can retell this tale about HC.
In 2001 I was working with a good friend in the Beehive on a technical contract relating to the building power system. The only time we were allowed to do full black start testing was after midnight on a Sunday evening. Most of the work was located in the basement, but we also had reason to access the '10th floor' where much of the HVAC equipment is located. The only way to get there is by lift to the 9th floor and then stairs up.
My mate is a madman I should add.
So there we are sometime late at night, the lift doors open on the foyer of the 9th floor and there is HC striding with he back to us, paperwork under one arm, from one office to another and as we step out my friend bursts into his best Muldoon imitation (which is very damn good) and says "Heh, heh, heh …. so that's the little girlie that got the job".
HC freezes to a halt, pauses ominously just long enough for my bowels to turn to water, swivels malevolently on her heels and imperiously announces "Fucking uppity tradesmen. Use the back entrance!" And with a wicked grin vanishes into her office.
What a cool story! Your friend sounds like a rare breed. McPhail's version of Muldoon was okay, but he couldn't ever seem to reproduce the genuine menace element of the Muldoon style. You know, the bit that always had his cabinet cowering like underdogs.
And who would have thought she actually had a sense of humour! All them smiley interviews didn't hint at it. Just showed her as well-trained.
To give her credit for street cred, her pulling the academic put-down of the working class in your story was convincing. Spinning on a dime to deliver that line demonstrates true expertise. Gutsy giving the fingers to politically correct supporters while exhibiting classic intelligentsia elitism. Only two observers, nobody would ever believe them, so she could reveal her true self in that moment. That's real authenticity!
Helen and a great sense of humour Dennis. But for some reason she rarely showed it in public. I can only assume someone advised her to stick with the serious persona – perhaps because as a woman any show of humour would lead to ridicule of her further down the track. Just guessing mind you.
I would have liked her more if she had, Anne. And ridicule damages only if you let it – an adept operator can usually turn it to advantage. Lange was exemplary in that respect and I valued him for being a refreshing new style of kiwi politician. Too bad he proved inept in the exercise of power.
Now the new leader of Ukraine is reminding us how potent humour can be in politics. The sooner we get that element back into our political mix, the better. Mind you, the necessity is considerably more dire in the USA…
Hi Anne. Apart form the times I met her, there was one event that enhanced my view of Helen Clark enormously. It was an interview she gave in 2002 with John Campbell (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dET78Z5b5s). It was a dirty piece of journalism by Campbell, and Clark handled herself with considerable professionalism. I have never rated Campbell since, and never will.
With a little chill down my neck, I agree with John Roughan (!) that the Prime Minister is wasting her massive political capital by not using it, and delivering a timid government:
Yeah, likewise. "If last Wednesday she had announced a capital gains tax limited to investment property, excluding farms, business, shares, all productive investment, it would have been greeted with relief."
That's hitting the nail on the head. He goes on to make the point that this group of professional investors are largely responsible for making homes unaffordable to young kiwi home-buyers. So hitting the guilty would be popular.
Yes, but. Excessive immigration produced by National and Labour govts is even more responsible for creating the real-estate bubble. Maintenance of that trend by the coalition has merely stabilised the bubble. Collapsing the bubble to provide equity for young kiwi families is deemed too hard by the coalition: they are being held to ransome by older generations playing the market. Investors win again.
Inflows of capital are the problem, not of people. And no govt will fix housing being treated as an investment asset class without tackling the economic settings that enable it.
Fair point. I spent so many years in Ak watching immigrant Chinese inflate the bubble I'm probably biased. Just because I profited from their input enough to get wealthy doesn't mean I stopped feeling disgusted by the trend. Empathy with those made into losers by govt policy seems to come naturally, then there's the deliberate repudiation of intergenerational equity on top of that, so unprincipled as to fill me with intense contempt for whichever govt is currently doing it. Currently, a govt I've been supporting…
Or not. Depends how neoliberal they want to be seen as. Most of the expert analysis on the gfc, since the gfc, asserts that the regulations implemented were intended to create public impressions – not to change the way the market operates. Sham regulation has been a thing since Clinton.
As well as dealing with the stuff of government like drought, Christchurch rebuild, Kaikoura rebuild, Pike River, and Wellington earthquake, he also had a crack at changing the flag.
So far under this government:
– Poverty is the same
– Wealth disparity is the same
– Homelessness is the same
– Environmental damage is the same
– Tax levels are the same
It's about time Ardern did something more ethan emote well.
But in the main your points cannot be denied. And Robertson has a vision I think of following in Douglas', Cullen's footsteps – Sir Grant Robertson awarded to him for holding off the simple citizens of Nz massing to attack the citadel of wealth and power.
I have been disabled for 27 years and always been left without “quality support and having a valued life in the community,” as Tish rightly suggests.
It seems that we disabled are considered not worth saving or caring about any more over the last thirty years.
I was severely chemically expose in 1992 and have suffered from brain injuries, nervous system damage, and immune system dysfunction ever since. It is now far harder to stay alive.
These injuries all occurred after exposure at my workplace and since after a seven year Workers Compensation claim no-one has ever been blamed, so I have fallen right through the social safety net.
The most insulting part was when I reached the retirement age (65) my disability payment funding support was cut out and I was thrown straight onto the lower payment system on the general pension, so now I cannot get good disability treatments because no funding is available for them on the pension for the disabled.
You're sounding like the chairman now – you're a member of the party aren't you? If so you don't know the results your party have achieved? They've just done a year in office haven't they?
Two context-absent, graph-absent, analysis-absent propaganda lists. Awesome.
None of their policies have been shown to alleviate the previous government's issues of poverty, homelessness, environmental damage, economic productivity, or wealth disparity.
Don't worry if they existed, the Salvation Army would have picked them up.
Time this government was held to account from all sides.
When you look through those propaganda lists, keep in mind that none of those things would have happened without a change of government.
The question is, why do all their policy efforts look like they're hamstrung by a bunch of provincial conservatives and corrupt influence-peddlers? Well, we do know the answer to that question, don't we? If you want a left-wing agenda implemented, vote for left-wing parties, not right-wing ones or corrupt populists. A left-wing agenda necessitates a left-wing majority and right now there isn't one.
Here (the following below) is how Max Rashbrooke sums it up:
In short, today's announcement is likely to load pressure onto the debate about public debt, and push the government into a pretty sub- optimal position. We can also now understand the intensity of the opposition to a capital gains tax, or indeed any tax increase. Opposition parties now no longer need fight every single one of the government's plans – because to the extent that those plans rely on revenue that a capital gains tax would have raised, they have all just been shut down in one go.
Government accounting methods are largely based on forecasting. Thus, the added revenue stream from a CGT would improve the economic outlook, meaning the Government would be able to increase the capital and operating allowances in the next Budget.
Regards the terrible bombing massacre in Sri Lanka, the 'will to power' indeed often seeks to disposses innocence in one way or another, as i saw recently intimated in a relatively rarified clarity of reason headline relating to English perspective lately; but as we recently demonstrated we also know here in NZ, and of which there is no better day than Easter Sunday as symbolism of, the 'will to power' is also an instrument to the creation of innocence, depending on choice in how it is used.
I think information is helpful for discussion Pat.
Creative destruction: Will technology create or kill jobs? 22 Apr, 2019 5:00am
New Zealanders are being asked to share their views on whether technological changes will cost jobs or create them as the Government looks to formulate a policy on the future of work. The Productivity Commission has published an issues paper which explores the possible impacts of new technology on the labour market. It has been tasked with producing a full report by March 2020.
"While technological change brings significant overall benefits, it also creates frictions and costs for particular groups in society," the issues paper notes.
"Sustained economic growth requires innovation, and innovation cannot be decoupled from creative destruction. "This 'replacement of the old' involves the devaluation of prior investments in machinery and skills, leaving the owners of older equipment and workers who used it worse off. For some, these costs can be severe."
However on the positive side the paper acknowledges significant job creation due to new technology.
For example, since 1999, the number of jobs classified as 'Computer systems design and related services' has increased from 8700 to 32,600, it notes.
Bare facts background here. Who are doing these jobs – have NZs had every chance to train and move into them. And why have jobs not expanded in the trades in a parallel way? Isn't this a very unbalanced society, full of dreams, visions for the future, and limited connection with their own vulnerable humanity and even less of that of others?
yes GWS…I would have copied and pasted some of the relevant information but with the changes i havnt yet worked out how to….however my point is why is this work being redone?..didnt Labour have a Future of Work working party only a couple of years ago?…do they think our attention spans are so short?…when are they going to come to some conclussions and make decisions?….this is getting a little absurd
Any way that you can persuade James Shaw to follow your prescription? He seems to think the only reason he is in Government is to give him an opportunity to skive off overseas while ignoring the complete shambles that is the Census.
"Mr Twyford's defence is that promises made by Jacinda Ardern as Labour leader are completely different from promises made by Jacinda Ardern as Prime Minister."
other than keeping those precious Uni Students happy
This is a false meme from the right wing. The fees free policy encourages all tertiary education both academic and vocational. It encourages young people into post secondary training who were most likely to forego that training due to cost other class barriers.
"This is a false meme from the right wing" really !!! tell that to those students at ECE/Primary/Secondary that are in need of assistance, that there is inadequate funding. Try asking about students/parents regarding RTL or dyslexia, support for those with learning needs, Leaky school buildings that there is no funding to remediate, inadequate remuneration, etc That thanks to shortfalls will struggle to be able to benefit from tertiary education funding and extra funding for accomodation.
I would suggest, Muttonbird, try talking to teachers and find out how in need the sector is.
Up late last night watching how-to renovation videos on Youtube, and came across this new series by Grand Designs – The Street.
How did Grand Designs: The Street come about?
'I went to The Netherlands on a trip with a bunch of leaders of local councils and politicians in 2010 to look at a large self-build town there, Almere, built on reclaimed land near Amsterdam. The Dutch have always stolen a march on us in terms of housing initiatives. Now, Almere is full of self-built homes, but nine years ago it was already advancing, and I got so excited I had to go and see Channel 4, simply to say ‘it’s amazing what’s happening there, let’s film it’. It was a sort of self-build heaven.
Meanwhile, a small local authority at Bicester, Cherwell District Council, had also been bitten by the Almere bug. In fact, they wanted to replicate Almere and facilitate Britain's first self-build and custom-build site on a grand scale. They were negotiating with the MOD to buy an old military site as they wanted to see what it would be like if they invited the general public to build their own homes. It’s this experiment that we’ve been following for the last 5 years. In the process, we’ve witnessed the first 10 pioneering households build a street of very different homes. But it’s just the start. Ultimately there will be thousands of homes, some social housing, some custom-build as well as self-build. I believe it’s a model that could be copied by local authorities up and down the land.'
A better solution – I think – then selling off crown or local government land to developers to provide housing. Another not mentioned benefit is that you end up with a long-term community, made up of a variety of people from all walks of life, instead of what we have now in many areas – segregation by economics.
Her thesis is that Syria was a differently formatted WW, and the constellations have shifted post US defeat(or failure to gain a victory…regime change)
Counting in the Ukrainian presidential election is indicating a rout: comedian Volodymyr Zelensky is currently at 73%, incumbent Poroshenko is at less than 25%.
Life imitates art: "Zelensky starred in the long-running satirical drama Servant of the People in which his character accidentally becomes Ukraine's president."
"He plays a teacher who is elected after his expletive-laden rant about corruption goes viral on social media. He ran under a political party with the same name as his show."
The traditional path to political success in democracies is to be all things to all people. He could signal that he will be that traditionalist by continually recycling the name of his show/party, for instance by ending all his speeches with "your servant, Volodymyr".
Equally, he ought to sign off on his emails to his patron, the oligarch, "your servant, Volodymyr". When he issues a polite request to the Ukrainian media, same sign-off. That way everyone ends up on the same page and all can acknowledge that he is indeed a classic democratic politician.
Humour is the best strategy when conducting foreign relations, as the ongoing UN dysfunction continues to prove. So his relations with Russia will improve immensely as soon as he suggests to Putin that they team up in the Vlad & Volod Show, a weekly current affairs review which will feature laughter as the best medicine.
Putin needs to loosen up more, and presenting as more human than Russians knew he could be would be a clever move for him. Entertaining the populace of both countries simultaneously would be tremendously therapeutic. Even more vodka could get sold.
Latest update: "Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Petro Poroshenko have gained 73.17 percent and 24.5 percent of the vote, respectively, the country’s Central Election Commission (CEC) has said after it processed 90.1 percent of the voting protocols. Zelenskiy is leading in all regions, except Lviv region."
Are all the people who are convinced that Trump only made it to the Presidency going to start in on the story that Zelensky only got the votes reported here because the Russians rigged the result?
Clearly it must all be due to Putin's machinations.
Collusion? Depends on the angle you view it from, eh? View it from the left, you may be able to discern puppet strings…
"Zelensky, whose only previous political role was playing the president in a TV show, trounced incumbent Petro Poroshenko by taking 73 percent of the vote, according to partial official results. Poroshenko garnered just 24 percent, losing to the 41-year-old comedian and actor across the country, with 42 percent of ballots counted."
"Exit polls showed Zelensky took 87 percent of the vote in eastern Ukraine and defeated Poroshenko even in the west, where the incumbent traditionally enjoyed strong support. Poroshenko, 53, said the results were clear and enough reason to "call my opponent and congratulate him". "I will leave office but I want to firmly stress — I will not quit politics," Poroshenko said in a speech at his campaign headquarters… "We realise that the Kremlin might be enjoying the election result," he said."
"The outgoing leader came to power after a 2014 pro-Western uprising ousted a Kremlin-backed regime, triggering Moscow's annexation of Crimea. His supporters credited him with rebuilding the army and securing an Orthodox Church independent of Russia. But many feel the country's ruling elite have forgotten the promises of the revolution."
"The comic shunned traditional campaign rallies and instead performed comedy gigs and used social media to appeal to voters." Way to go, dude! Don't bore voters to death at those old robotic rallies, entertain them instead. Politics as fun! Enchant those voters!
My idea of European clowns is often they are politically savvy. Also they understand people's norms and how to tickle their humour, so understands people. This man could do a very good job compared to someone who has just sold himself for a whim or campaign money and is taking on a task above his level of competence. USA!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katie_Hopkins#Personal_life – Katie Hopkins bounces off walls from one job to another. There is money to be made in the UK from being foul apparently – and our forebears came here with such high-flown notions in their head. Every advancement for the people had to be fought long and hard for – now they come here to gobble up what we managed to create.
We know that London in the UK has fatbergs in its sewers, is Katie Hopkins something that got washed up onto the street after one of the blockages that can be about 3.5m high? They require daily work as they emerge under the city. Or perhaps noxious gases have affected her memory – our noses are very sensitive and closely situated to the brain. There must be some explanation for the poor quality journalism and the media's acceptance of this attacking, harrowing method of soapboxing, but without the soap.
Perhaps it is that she has some big health issues – borderline healthy – and she takes it out on her unfortunate prey.
Of course D'Felon has to get in on the fuckwittery.
Notice two words missing here: 1. Christians (victims) 2. Muslims (perpetrators). Seems like the sleazy folks at NPR are trying to cover something up! https://t.co/gLXA2FtPZD
The Sri Lanka death toll is now over 200 and involves multiple churches. A far worse terrorist attack than the one in New Zealand! Yet this is a terrorist attack against Christians. Where is the unceasing wall to wall coverage that we got on the New Zealand attacks?
Winston Peters again in the gun and I’d have to agree that this government is being held back by him and his party.
When you have the entire country ready for some sort of CGT and Nat MPs wanting to return to Maori seats yet Peters is the fly in the ointment you have to wonder what kind of damage he is now doing to the country.
Besides which, the difference between paying income tax at ones marginal rate based on a bright line test of 10 years, and a CGT at 15% is basically nil. (I’m aware the current test is 5 years, but am leaving some room to extend)
Robertson said it was “unlikely” to be a further extension of the bright-line test as they've taken a CGT off the table and the bright-line test represents a form of that.
Not me – the TWG showed the biggest capital freeloaders were Ag,Forestry, & Fishing. The Gnats cannot in any case be trusted to do what they promise – Key campaigned on fixing housing – he fixed it so kiwis couldn't buy it anymore.
If the Gnats rolled out a fully costed set of economic policies that actually addressed declining outcomes, productivity and sustainability, which is well beyond them – they still could not be trusted to implement them.
A chapter of accidents. He had some hospital care and was sent home in a taxi although his parnter would have picked him up. He didn't arrive home. Then she phoned the hospital but they had nothing to tell her, and not knowing where he was she phoned the police. Some time after the hospital advised that he had been admitted after a fall, and she could come and get him after treatment. Then she found he had a gash across his forehead and was in intensive care.
The taxi should be instructed to take a patient to his or her home not drop them off at the shops. The instructions from the hospital should be quite clear. Better still phone the family.
The supershitty is too busy being grand to listen to the wants of ratepayers and the holes round ornamental trees should have been filled in as they say has been requested for a long time. When you think of the constant conniptions by Health and Safety on small business and private people, the authorities are playing us for suckers, local and national government.
"But hey hold on, the Statistics Department concludes: “Inflation was low in the March 2019 quarter because of falls in the prices of petrol and international airfares.” Right. So, apparently, the people struggling to pay for their smokes at the supermarket can take comfort from the fact that the price of getting to the Amalfi Coast for their winter holidays just got cheaper. So, maybe we’re not measuring the price fluctuations in any basket of goods that’s relevant to most New Zealanders. By the way, the cost of non–tradeable goods and services rose by 3% in the past year. So much for inflation being low to non-existent. In the real world, prices are going up."
Cheers . Im having problems with being unable to right comments some times due to the cursor being in the name section and not being able to get ot to shift to the comment box .
I’m afraid I won’t be of much help to you, but hopefully somebody else might shed some light upon this.
I assume you use a mobile phone.
I never use a mobile phone and always type on a keyboard and in Word first. Thanks to this, many a stupid comment of mine got deleted before it even made it into the TS comment box …
It also avoids the strain on eyes, neck, and fingers using a device that’s euphemistically called a smart-phone
That happens to me on the computer where I select all in the name box, cut and paste it into where I want it to be. Then put my name back in the right place. Then I haven't lost the bits of comment that have got into the name box while I have merrily been typing away. I admire you people who are doing it all from a phone. Marvels.
The iwi owners of Shelly Bay argue Sir Peter Jackson has long lost the right to have any say over what happens at the Wellington site…
… But to Port Nicholson Block Settlement Trust (PNBST) trustee Neville Baker, the whole argument missed one crucial point – the land in question belonged to iwi and it was up to them to do with it what they wanted.
Taranaki Whānui – of which PNBST is part of – settled its Treaty of Waitangi case with the Crown in 2009 and, almost to the day of settlement, used money it got to buy the Shelly Bay land.
Baker said the land was bought because it was historically used by iwi and "we felt we should buy it back".
Baker, on Monday, said Jackson then gave up his rights to influence what happened there.
"The point really is, we have the right to develop what we own and it is no-one else's decision."
I agree Jackson should but out. It's just sad that the Trust appears wedded to capitalism and has partnered with Cassel's "The Wellington Company"… kind of ironic.
It's a shame that Jackson and Maori cannot come to a mutually satisfactory conclusion. Opportunities for suitable Maori to have apprenticeships with him. People need to see him as having something to offer instead of going all sour because he didn't play their game.
No-one else in NZ could have done the job with LOR and we now have another string to our bow, big film making and model making. With so many people willing to spit on entrepreneurs it isn't surprising that we languish in a jobless low wage environment – you don't kick a possible employer in the teeth because you want more money, you keep talking and thinking. He is here, and could be worked with to build up an apprenticeship, get some ongoing advantages.
They don't come often – cunning minds work at how to get opportunities, not march in the streets complaining. But the leaders of the march might as well have said 'Let them eat grass' – nothing could have been the outcome.
MOSCOW — Jewish officials say an arson fire was set at the largest yeshiva in Russia as the faithful were gathered there for a Passover meal.
No one was reported injured in the Friday fire at the Torat Chaim school in an eastern Moscow suburb.
Olga Esaulova, a spokeswoman for Moscow's chief rabbi, was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying the fire was set in a storage area for kosher meat and that swastikas were drawn at the yeshiva's entrance.
Yet Volodymyr Zelensky will be the first Jewish president of Ukraine (and the second Jewish head of a European nation) and Poland's resurrected their oldbeat the Jew ritual, too. Funny old world, eh.
Born in Napier and educated at Wellington's Victoria University, Peach was a Kiwi teacher killed by a British policemen during an anti-fascist protest in 1979. April 23 marks the 40th anniversary of his death. He was just 33 years old.
National Party leader - Judith CollinsElections often bring out the best and worst in politicians. Some rise to the occasion and provide us with a clear vision for the future. While others wallow in resentment and controversy, over-relying on attack politics to try to attain the interest of voters.That’s been ...
The attempts to sabotage Corbyn's leadership seems likely to do more damage than Corbyn supposedly ever could have done, even if all the stories about him were true:I was reluctant to say anything but this is too important, the full story needs to be told.Don’t let anyone ever tell ...
Good day to everyone. I’ve been asked by Mr Thinks to come here and talk to you all about my concerns regarding the government response to Covid-19. We’ve been living through this pandemic for, what seems like, years. Years and years and years. Why else would the National Party have ...
‘Good Economics for Hard Times’ should be on your reading list. New Zealand does not have a Minister of Labour. It has Ministers of Immigration and Workplace Relations and Safety but there is no minister with responsibility for the labour market. That responsibility was abolished in 2012 when ...
Back in the Kyoto era, the international climate change regime included a Clean Development Mechanism to fund emissions reduction projects in developing nations. Essentially someone would certify that a project - e.g. building a windfarm, or installing energy-efficient lightbulbs - would reduce emissions over and above "business-as-usual". The project would ...
As the classic MMP cartoon goes, just look at who is against it. Yesterday, the Hamilton City Council voted to use STV for its next two local body elections. The move was initially opposed by deputy mayor Geoff Taylor. The reason? Because a voting system which provided accurate representation and ...
On Wednesday evening (which in Parliament’s weird world technically was still Tuesday because urgency had been taken and so time stood still), MPs united to remove a pretty terrible piece of law from our statute books. No real fanfare or fireworks accompanied this action. Indeed, I didn’t even know about it ...
By Geoffrey Miller Prominent refugee advocate Murdoch Stephens says he is disappointed by Judith Collins’ reaction to Immigration New Zealand’s decision to grant refugee status to Kurdish-Iranian writer Behrouz Boochani. Judith Collins told media last month that “there’s a lot of concern in New Zealand about what they see as ...
Hello all. Judith here to talk about how National are going to take the election in September. The National Party prides itself its unity and cohesion. We are working together to deliver for New Zealanders. First of all, ee are a strong team. We are a very strong team. Our ...
Parliament has just begun the adjournment debate, signalling the effective end of this Parliament. So it seems like an appropriate time to assess Labour's term in office. Unfortunately, its a pretty dismal assessment. Labour campaigned on one thing: change. Not just a change in who got the top jobs and ...
Our climate change policies are insufficient to achieve our goal of carbon neutrality by 2050, according to independent assessor Climate Action Tracker: New Zealand won’t be carbon neutral by 2050 without much stronger policies, says an independent analysis by Climate Action Tracker. The non-profit highlighted a lack of active ...
That was clearly a huge explosion. Just after the explosion, we see a cloud of ‘fog’ moving outwards at high speed. This is a shockwave, rather similar to that which causes a sonic boom. The ‘fog’ is caused by water condensing from the atmosphere in areas of intense low pressure ...
Can we postpone this year’s election? Quite frankly, the political parties don’t seem ready for it, and aren’t about to offer voters the necessary policy choices for the unprecedented times we’re in. We’ve ended up with a campaign focused on scandal, personality and leadership, with a policy void that’s worse ...
It is the last sitting day of Parliament, and the last question time before the House is dissolved. So, are there any questions about the damning findings of the Hit and Run inquiry, and how the government plans to bring the military back under democratic control? Of course not. ...
Property speculator - John KeyThe National Party must be in dire straits to have to rely on John Key to campaign on their behalf. Not only has the former PM been in the news claiming the recently released unemployment figures aren’t accurate, the fool has also been promoting the opening ...
Nothing Too Drastic: Few would dispute that the Left, today, are few in number. Is their failure to make the public aware of and act upon the manifest failures of the present system attributable to their lack of active energy and intelligence? Or, is it simply because the Left’s ideas ...
by Don Franks This talk was given to the Wellington Anti Capitalist Alliance, fifteen years ago. The ultimate weapons of mass destruction so far seen on this planet have been used just twice, 60 years ago this month. August 6 and August 9 1945 witnessed the US atomic bombing ...
After I noticed that my name had been taken yet again in vain by my friendly antagonist Tom Hunter over at No Minister, I went over to see what the fuss was about. Nothing much, but then I discovered a post about the Operation Burnham Inquiry by Psycho Milt. I ...
The COVID-19 Public Health Response Act 2020 was extended today, until December 1st or the tenth sitting day following the resumption of Parliament after the election. It seems like a necessary extension. While we currently have eradicated the virus in New Zealand, it is still banging at the door, and ...
One of the government's key policies - extracted by NZ First as part of its coalition agreement - is the "Provincial Growth Fund": $1 billion a year spent on creating jobs in rural New Zealand. Yesterday the Auditor-General issued a report on the fund, finding that it lacks transparency, and ...
The Warehouse, one of New Zealand's biggest retailers, has decided to stop selling coal. Good. Coal is a dirty, polluting fossil fuel, and the less of it we have out there, the better. Retailers choosing not to sell it sends a clear message that this is not a fuel we ...
The labour market statistics have been released, and they show that unemployment actually dropped last quarter. All told, there are 111,000 unemployed - 15,000 fewer than when the government took office. But before anyone thinks that the pandemic hasn't put people out of work, remember that this is for ...
Judy KavanaghI’m OK with wearing a CovidCard. But are you? There’s no point me doing it alone.The author modelling a (fake) CovidCard. I didn’t know much about the CovidCard proposal until I read Dave’s latest blog post. You would wear the card visibly on your person. It ...
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nzWhy can’t I use the battery from my electric car ...
As many good things come in threes (as the saying goes), we are happy to announce a third partnership between Skeptical Science and other websites. Fakebook.eco in Brazil is joining Klimafakten.de in Germany and Nauka o Klimacie in Poland to leverage translated rebuttal material and to make the information readily available in other ...
This interview on RNZ with Ross Tucker, the scientist who headed a review of transgender athletes playing in women’s rugby, discusses the findings of the review and what it means for women in sports. The review that World Rugby undertook had a broad range of independent experts and included a ...
Siouxsie WilesThe restrictions in place for metropolitan Melbourne now are in some ways stricter than those that were in force during New Zealand’s COVID-19 lockdown. A curfew is in place and most people have to wear masks when they leave their home – neither of which happened in New ...
On Friday the Hit and Run inquiry delivered a devastating report which found that NZDF had systematically misled Ministers over civilian deaths. The report called into question civilian control of the military (and indeed, military control of the military), a fundamental principle of our democracy. So you'd expect our politicians ...
Let's Do This Again: What else can Jacinda do in a political environment so bereft of imagination and courage but seek a continuance? If she trades upon the extraordinary personal qualities that she has, miraculously, carried with her into the office of Prime Minister, then I, for one, will offer ...
How corrupt are the New Zealand Police? This corrupt: On 10 February 2019, Police attended a family harm incident. The suspect attempted to run the attending officers over in a driveway with his car, narrowly missing them, before fleeing the scene. A short pursuit followed, ending when the suspect stopped ...
Parliament's triennial Review of Standing Orders was released today, and it contains a number of welcome, if minor, improvements. The ones that caught my are: A move to encourage "pre-legislative engagement" - the government consulting widely on legislation before it is introduced - by promising easier passage (e.g. with ...
Lauren Vargo, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of WellingtonGlaciers around the world are melting — and for the first time, we can now directly attribute annual ice loss to climate change. We analysed two years in which glaciers in New Zealand melted the most in at least four ...
Caroline Shaw, Anja MizdrakE-bikes are everywhere. Sales are booming and predicted to overtake sales of new cars in a few years. There were three times as many e-bikes and e-scooters imported into NZ in 2019 alone as there are e-cars in the entire country. You can’t go out in ...
New Zealand First is facing a difficult struggle to get re-elected, but Josh Van Veen, who was once a researcher for Winston Peters, argues that there is still a very significant section of cultural conservatives who oppose mass immigration and political correctness and might yet be won back over to ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Karin Kirk Many Americans these days seem unable to avoid controversy on practically any topic, so why not embrace the discord and wade into the especially volatile arena of nuclear energy? Advocates claim it’s the only way to meet global climate goals, ...
Can we trust New Zealand’s military? There must now be serious doubt, given the landmark report released on Friday concluding the investigation into allegations made in the book Hit and Run by Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson about a 2010 SAS killing raid in Afghanistan. The most recent Colmar Brunton ...
In New Zealand, we've just had the report of the Hit and Run inquiry, which found that a New Zealand led raid had accidentally killed civilians, including a child. meanwhile, around the same time, the British SAS was conducting its own raids in Afghanistan, and theirs were a hell of ...
In addition to establishing a process for setting emissions reductions plans, the Zero Carbon Act established a process for managing the risks of climate change. The first part of this is the preparation of regular risk assessments, looking at the risks to our economy, society, environment, and ecology. The first ...
Over on The spinoff, Amnesty International's Meg de Ronde has a response to Friday's release of the Hit and Run report. And in response to Attorney-General David Parker's claim that the government was being "transparent" by releasing the report, its titled "we shouldn’t have to work this hard to get ...
Story of the Week... Opinion of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... Story of the Week... Rising Seas Could Menace Millions Beyond Shorelines, Study FindsAs climate change raises sea levels, storm surges and high tides will ...
There's an election next month, so you'd be expecting political parties to be telling us what they stand for and what they'd do if they'd win. But while the Greens have given us a detailed policy platform, and National has talked about roads and austerity, Labour, currently leading the polls ...
"Who's youse accusin' of innference?" Without the timely intervention of a team of top American political consultants and campaign experts, Boris Yeltsin would never have won his second term as President of the Russian Federation. The Russians waited 20 years to return the favour.WHEN IT COMES to the disinformation game, ...
As polling day in the American presidential election draws closer, things are looking bad for Donald Trump. The polls show that he is tracking well behind his Democrat rival. Most people assume that the President will be striving might and main to avoid what looks increasingly likely to be a ...
Our health professionals do an amazing job. Image credit: Wikipedia – Cardiac surgery. Finally, I have got back to these rankings. A long period in hospital and computer problems meant the June 2020 rankings were abandoned. Now, with a new personal defibrillator implanted in my chest and a new hard ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, July 26 through Sat, Aug 1, 2020Editor's ChoiceThe four types of climate denier, and why you should ignore them allThe shill, the grifter, the egomaniac and the ideological ...
Over the last few days, reports have emerged of people travelling from New Zealand and testing positive for Covid-19 upon arrival at their destination. First in South Korea and now in Australia. What might these positive tests mean?They’re false-positives As Toby Morris and I have explained before, there are ...
Former National Minister - Wayne MappYou could tell that the Hit and Run book by investigative journalists Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson was right on the money by the way former National Party Minister of Defence, Wayne Mapp, reacted to its now largely vindicated claims.Even though the recent inquiry into ...
So, the Hit and Run inquiry has reported back, and found some appalling shit at NZDF and NZSIS. And while they quibble a few of the details - the name of a dead child - they basicly uphold Hager and Stephenson's version of events. The SAS went to those villages. ...
We are failing to think though the interdependencies in an economy. We miss economist Bryan Philpott (1921-2000). I miss him personally – we used to have such great discussions – but this column is about how the nation misses his economic experience and wisdom. We tend to ...
Michelle Boag - LeakerThe Heron report (PDF) was released yesterday, and it was a bit disappointing to say the least. It correctly found that former National Party president Michelle Boag and National Party MP Hamish Walker were politically motivated in leaking peoples private medical information, but didn’t look further into ...
Adam Smith, Massey UniversityA recent global assessment of shark populations at 371 coral reefs in 58 countries found no sharks at almost 20% of reefs and alarmingly low numbers at many others. The study, which involved over 100 scientists under the Global FinPrint project, gave New Zealand a good ...
On different trajectories and from different ends of the political spectrum, last night’s One News/Colmar Brunton poll has the Green Party and ACT converging around the five percent mark. And, as odd as it may sound, they head into the election campaign with a lot in common.Putting the Greens and ...
Janet Stephenson, University of OtagoA proposed multibillion-dollar project to build a pumped hydro storage plant could make New Zealand’s electricity grid 100% renewable, but expensive new infrastructure may not be the best way to achieve this. New Zealand’s electricity generation is already around 80% renewable, with just over half ...
Truth In Advertising: Labour, it would seem, is the party that knows nothing about running the economy right up until the moment that it does. HOW DID LABOUR acquire its reputation for being a poor economic manager? As with most things political and historical, it’s a long story.In the beginning, the ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Government rulemakers looking to decide how much money to spend to avoid adding more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere need a good estimate of what a warming climate will cost in social damages, for example through more extreme weather events. That point makes ...
Below is the list of gender-critical material which appeared on Redline from October 1, 2019 to October 31, 2019. Rainbow Tick threatens to pull Massey’s tick if lesbians are allowed to speak Freer Lives – a gender-critical Marxist site Freer Lives on Violence, debate and Britain’s Gender Recognition Act British ...
Fact Check: New Zealand’s own relationship with China might, however, be salvageable if our own Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade was willing to equip its minister, Winston Peters, with a few facts. Legislating for the protection of national security – the very action our Foreign Minister is decrying – ...
I hope we can all agree that charging only certain returning expats for isolation costs is the right call. Instead of a blanket fee, which may have resulted in a small number of Kiwis deciding not to return home because of financial reasons, the Government has chosen to implement a ...
Back at the beginning of this government, the Greens made a foolish decision to support the Electoral Integrity Act - demanded by Winston Peters to keep his own backbench in line as part of his coalition deal with Labour - as an act of good faith within the coalition. It ...
SATURDAY AUGUST 1Artefact (Prime, 7.30pm). The series presented by Dame Anne Salmond screened on Māori Television, but is totally worth revisiting if you saw it the first time. Dame Anne tells the stories of taonga that highlight the history of Aotearoa. Further reading: this 2013 interview with Dame Anne by the lovely ...
Have unions and the Government sold workers short with their attempt at fixing the so-called “Hobbit Law”? Unionist Ian Powell argues that the union movement has been outmanoeuvered, and the Government has agreed to a new piece of anti-worker legislation that retains the principles of the previous National Government’s hated ...
Most of the claims made by anti-fluoride propagandists are simply wrong. Image source:Fluoridation and the ‘sciency’ facts of critics Anti-fluoride propagandists continually cite studies from areas of endemic fluorosis in their arguments against ...
An article in the EETimes suggests that advances in autonomous vehicles are not moving as quickly as expected because those working on them have confused complicated problems with complex ones. Engineering can only take you so far in complex worlds. Complicated systems tend to have fairly predictable inputs, processes and outputs. Complex systems (like ...
Last week, after Judith Collins announced that National would be cruel and vicious to kiwis caught overseas by the pandemic, and rob them at the border if they returned home, Labour looked like it was falling all over itself to cry "me too". But now, it looks like kindness has ...
If entry into New Zealand from abroad is safe, it should be allowed. People arriving from places that are Covid-free, or no more risky than New Zealand, and who get here on flights that do not intersect with risky places, should return to normal travel arrangements. Currently, the Cook ...
Liz SlootenScientists from the University of Otago, working with colleagues from around the world, have found that New Zealand right whales are doing much better than right whales in other parts of the world. The research was published as the feature article in the journal Marine Ecology Progress ...
Back in 2019, the government asked for a comprehensive, independent review of the Resource Management Act and associated legislation. That review has now reported back and recommended a complete repeal and re-enactment. Despite the headlines, this is not a "scrapping" - we're still going to have a resource management law, ...
By Associate Professor Mik Black, Department of Biochemistry, University of OtagoThe increased availability of complex biological data sets means that analysis and computation are becoming critically important skills for New Zealand’s future scientists. Because of this, we need to be doing everything we can to help our students develop ...
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nzIs humanity doomed? If in 2030 we have not reduced ...
Britain's spy agencies are supposedly overseen by various watchdogs, including the investigatory powers tribunal. But it turns out that MI6 at least has contempt for those watchdogs, and attempted to interfere with the operations of the tribunal by concealing evidence from its judges: MI6 has been accused of “inappropriate interference” ...
This week was the last of the 52nd Parliament: a major milestone for our Government and a great opportunity to look back at all the progress we've made for New Zealanders. This week, we increased support for businesses to take on apprentices, improved access to hospital care in Northland, and ...
Kia orana and kia ora koutou katoa. It is a privilege to be able to speak in this adjournment debate and to mark and acknowledge the fact that we are now two years and 10 months into the conclusion of a parliamentary term that has been extraordinary in so many ...
On 1 August, we marked the anniversary of Jacinda Ardern becoming the Leader of the Labour Party. On that day in 2017, Leader Andrew Little nominated Jacinda Ardern to succeed him and lead the party to victory.Now, three years on, we look back at some of the key moments ...
With the June 2020 quarter showing underemployment increasing, the Green Party is calling for a Guaranteed Minimum Income and an increase to the abatement threshold to ensure everyone has a dignified income. ...
We went hard and we went early in our health response to COVID-19, and we did everything we could to cushion the economic impact too. In fact, we can fill every letter of the alphabet with the steps we took to fight COVID-19 and ensure we were in a position ...
Investing in our people, backing businesses, and upgrading infrastructure and housing throughout the country - it's been another week of progress for New Zealanders as we deliver our plan to recover and rebuild. ...
July was another busy month, packed with key investments aimed at progressing our economic recovery as we rebuild New Zealand. We extended support for businesses, helped create jobs through local infrastructure projects, and kept working to clean up our waterways so Kiwis can access safe clean water. Check out the ...
The Green Party is calling for the Defence Force Chiefs in place between 2010-2017 to front up and explain how dishonesty, process and policy failures within the Defence Force led to ‘a series of incorrect statements in briefings to ministers and public releases’ regarding alleged breaches of international torture prevention ...
Thanks to our strong health response, New Zealand’s economy is more open than many other countries. But as COVID continues to surge around the world, the economic consequences of the virus will continue to be a challenge, which is why we have a detailed plan to help New Zealand bounce ...
Thanks to our strong health response, New Zealand’s economy is more open than many other countries. But as COVID continues to surge around the world, the economic consequences of the virus will continue to be a challenge, which is why we have a detailed plan to help New Zealand bounce ...
The Green Party are ensuring that New Zealanders who were overseas when COVID-19 hit will not be charged for the cost of isolation or quarantine if they return home to live. ...
It's been another week of creating jobs, supporting local businesses, and investing in infrastructure up and down the country - all of which are helping to keep our economy moving post-COVID-19. ...
Law changes to end tenure review and provide for better management of Crown pastoral lands in the South Island high country were considered by Parliament today with the first reading of the Crown Pastoral Land Reform Bill says Minister for Land Information, Eugenie Sage. ...
The Green Party have secured legislative amendments in a bill expected to pass third reading this week, to ensure better rules for school teachers and staff, so they can de-escalate children with diverse needs and cognitive differences, such as autism, rather than using unnecessary and often traumatising force. ...
New Zealand needs to be more aggressive in pursuing economic opportunities and resist the short-term thinking affecting some of its major industry, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters says.Mr Peters told Wellington Chamber of Commerce members this morning that the planned closure of the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter will have ...
Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters has ridiculed the National Party "circus", with the politician saying it was in "chaos" after the resignation of another MP.Rangitata MP Andrew Falloon announced on Monday he would retire from politics after he allegedly sent inappropriate pornographic images to a young woman. Following a ...
Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters today outlined what he saw as the requirements to re-open New Zealand's borders for tourists and travellers. If New Zealand was dealing solely with an Australian state such as Tasmania, we wouldn't need a vaccine, said Mr Peters, but these moves were complicated by the ...
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters appears to have prompted last-minute alterations to proposed legislation for commercial landlords and their tenants. Mr Peters told reporters on Wednesday said that he was making sure the proposed bill was in step with what the parties had actually agreed to. He said he ...
Associate Minister for State Owned Enterprise and New Zealand First List MP Shane Jones attended the groundbreaking ceremony for the new NZ Post "super depot" in Wellington. The state-owned postal service, which got $280 million from the Coalition Government last month, is expanding its operations to handle surging parcel volumes. ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Leader of New Zealand First CHECK AGAINST DELIVERYIntroduction Good afternoon. Welcome to you all here today and party supporters watching from around the country. We appreciate your hard work keeping New Zealand First strong; thank you for keeping the faith. Sixty-three days out from Election Day, ...
The diversity of conservation boards around Aotearoa is increasing with 47 appointments to 14 of the 15 conservation boards across New Zealand announced today by the Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage. ...
The Green Party is honoured to be remembering former co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons today at a public memorial service in the heart of Wellington at the Cathedral of St. Paul’s. Following her passing in March, this celebration of her life brings together her friends, family and colleagues to honour her life ...
Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage has announced a $2.5 million boost for South Westland to help a regional alliance of local businesses and government agencies provide nature based jobs. ...
Cyclists and walkers will now have a safer way to get around Taupō, Tūrangi, and between Hamilton and Cambridge, with funding for shared paths and Te Awa River Ride, Associate Minister of Transport Julie Anne Genter announced today. “The Te Awa River Ride is the latest part of massive growth ...
Six major cycle routes will be completed in Christchurch thanks to funding from the Government’s investment in shovel-ready infrastructure as part of the COVID-19 recovery Associate Minister of Transport Julie Anne Genter announced today. $125 million will be invested to kick-start construction and fund the completion of the following cycleway ...
Plans are underway for a brand new state-of-the-art hub for Whanganui’s justice and social agencies, following confirmation the ageing Whanganui Central Police Station is to be replaced. Police Minister Stuart Nash has announced $25 million in new infrastructure spending to improve facilities for the wider community, and for staff who ...
An adjustment payment has been made to Waikato-Tainui and Ngāi Tahu under the relativity mechanisms in their 1995 and 1997 Treaty of Waitangi settlements, Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Andrew Little announced today. The latest payments to Waikato-Tainui and Ngāi Tahu are $2,700,000 and $2,600,000 respectively to ensure the ...
Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and Transport Minister Phil Twyford today kicked off the start of the Auckland NZ Upgrade Programme rail projects which will support over 400 jobs and help unlock our biggest city. Both ministers marked the start of enabling works on the third main rail line project ...
The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) investment of $3.78 million in Wairoa will create much needed economic stimulus and jobs, Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau announced today. PGF projects announced today include: $200,000 loan to Nuhaka Kiwifruit Holdings Ltd (operated by Pine Valley Orchard Ltd) to increase the productivity ...
Tenants in public and Māori housing may be benefiting from their own affordable renewable energy in future – a fund to trial renewable energy technology for public and Māori housing has today been announced by Energy and Resources Minister Megan Woods and Associate Minister for Housing (Māori Housing) Nanaia Mahuta. ...
Hokianga will receive $2.7 million to redevelop four of its wharves and upgrade its water supply, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has announced. Far North District Council will receive $1.8 million from the Provincial Growth Fund for the work on the wharves. “The work will include the construction of ...
A $350 million Residential Development Response Fund is being established to support the residential construction sector and to minimise the economic impact from COVID-19, the Housing Minister Dr Megan Woods has announced. “The Residential Development Response Fund will help to progress stalled or at-risk developments that support our broader housing ...
As part of a broader plan to divert waste from landfill, the Government today announced $10.67 million for new infrastructure as part of the Resource Recovery Network across the Auckland region. “This key investment in Auckland’s community recycling network is part of the Government’s Infrastructure Reference Group ‘shovel ready’ projects ...
The Government is investing $45 million in the first stage of an ambitious urban development project for Tauranga that will employ up to 250 people and help the region grow, Urban Development Minister Phil Twyford announced today. Phil Twyford says the funding has been allocated out of the $3 billion ...
Getting low-emission trucks on the road is a step closer with investment in infrastructure to support hydrogen vehicles, the Energy and Resources Minister Megan Woods has announced. The Infrastructure Reference Group has provisionally approved $20 million for New Plymouth company Hiringa Energy to establish a nationwide network of hydrogen-fuelling stations. ...
A new trades training centre to upskill the local workforce will be built in the South Waikato town of Tokoroa through funding from the Government’s COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund, Education Minister Chris Hipkins and Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones have announced. The Government will contribute $10.84 million from ...
The Government has agreed to repeal part of the Oranga Tamariki Act subsequent children provisions, Minister for Children Tracey Martin announced today. “There are times when children need to go into care for their safety – the safety and care of children must always be paramount,” Minister Martin said. “But ...
A $1.5 million boost to grow primary mental health and addiction services for Pacific peoples in Auckland, Hamilton and Canterbury will lead to better outcomes for Pacific communities, Associate Health Minister Jenny Salesa says. Pasifika Futures has received funding to expand services through The Fono, Aotearoa New Zealand’s largest by ...
Twenty-two projects to boost the sustainability and climate resilience of New Zealand’s food and fibres sector have been announced today by Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor. The $18m funding will deliver practical knowledge to help farmers and growers use their land more sustainably, meet environmental targets, remain prosperous, and better understand ...
Employment Minister Willie Jackson welcomes an initiative that assists employers to get mature workers into New Zealand small businesses. The disadvantages that older people face in the workplace was highlighted in the whole of Government Employment Strategy. In order to address this, a Mature Workers Toolkit has been developed and ...
New Zealand and Australia reaffirmed today the need for the closest possible collaboration as they tackle a global environment shaped by COVID-19, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters said. “In these challenging times, our close collaboration with Australia is more vital than ever,” said Mr Peters. Mr Peters and his Australian ...
The recovery and forensic examination of the loader driven by survivor Russell Smith means the underground team are now moving into an area of the Pike River Mine that has not been seen since the explosion, Minister Responsible for Pike River Re-entry Andrew Little said. “The fifth and last robot ...
The Government has confirmed a community-wide trial of CovidCard technology as it explores options for COVID-19 contact tracing. “Effective contact tracing is a vital part of the COVID-19 response,” Minister of Health Chris Hipkins said. “While manual processes remain the critical component for contact tracing, we know digital solutions can ...
The government is proposing changes to aquaculture legislation to improve the process for allocating and transferring aquaculture assets to iwi. Fisheries Minister Stuart Nash has introduced the Maori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Amendment Bill to Parliament. It proposes a limited new discretionary power for Te Ohu Kaimoana Trustee Limited (ToKM). ...
The Minister of Justice has today introduced the Family Court (Supporting Children in Court) Legislation Bill – the next step in the ongoing programme of work to fix the failed 2014 Family Court reforms led by then Justice Minister Judith Collins. The Bill arises from the report of the Independent ...
A new Department of Conservation (DOC) action plan tackles the impacts of climate change on New Zealand’s biodiversity and DOC managed infrastructure including tracks, huts and cultural heritage. Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage says extreme weather events around the country have really brought home our vulnerability to changing weather patterns. ...
A heavily scaled back international Antarctic season will commence this week, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters and Research, Science and Innovation Minister Megan Woods have confirmed. “Antarctica is the only continent that is COVID-19 free,” Mr Peters said. “Throughout the global pandemic, essential operations and long-term science have continued at ...
The Government is providing up to $30 million to help fund the NZ Campus of Innovation and Sport in Upper Hutt - an investment that will create 244 jobs. “The sports hub is designed to be a world-leading shared service for a range of sports, offering the level of facilities ...
Transport Minister Phil Twyford announced today transport projects currently in construction will continue at pace due to extra Government support for transport projects to mitigate the impact of COVID-19. To keep the $16.9 billion 2018-21 National Land Transport Programme going the Government has allocated funding from the COVID Response and ...
$50 million for further rural broadband digital connectivity has been allocated from the $3 billion infrastructure fund in the COVID Response and Recovery Fund has been announced by Shane Jones, Minister for Infrastructure and Kris Faafoi, Minister for Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media. The investment will go to boosting broadband ...
The Minister for Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media has congratulated the Ultra-fast Broadband (UFB) programme on its major milestone of connecting more than 1 million New Zealand households and businesses to UFB. “This milestone has been 10 years in the making and demonstrates the popularity of the UFB network. “Uptake ...
Landmark legislation passed today puts New Zealand on track to saving thousands of lives and having a smokefree generation sooner rather than later, Associate Health Minister, Jenny Salesa says. The Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Vaping) Amendment Bill regulates vaping products and heated tobacco devices. “There has long been concern ...
A discriminatory law that has been a symbol of frustration for many people needing and providing care and support, has been scrapped by the Government. “Part 4A of the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Amendment Bill (No 2) was introduced under urgency in 2013 by a National Government,” Associate ...
Kiwi motorists are set to reap the benefits of a more competitive fuel market following the passing of the Fuel Industry Bill tonight, Energy and Resources Minister Megan Woods says. “This Act is where the rubber meets the road in terms of our response to the recommendations made in the ...
The Government has delivered on its promise to New Zealanders to modernise tenancy laws with the passing of the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill 2020 today, says Associate Minister of Housing (Public Housing), Kris Faafoi. “The Residential Tenancies Act 1986 was out-dated and the reforms in the RTA modernise our ...
New rules to protect and restore New Zealand’s freshwater passed into law today. Environment Minister David Parker and Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor welcomed the gazetting of the new national direction on freshwater management. “These regulations deliver on the Government’s commitment to stop further degradation, show material improvements within five years and ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has announced the appointment of Jeremy Clarke-Watson as New Zealand’s new Consul-General in Los Angeles. “New Zealand and the United States share a close and dynamic partnership, based on a long history of shared values and democratic traditions,” Mr Peters said. “Mr Clarke-Watson is a ...
Victims of family violence can end a tenancy with two days’ notice Landlords can terminate tenancies with 14 days’ notice if tenants assault them Timeframe brought forward for limiting rent increases to once every 12 months Extension of time Tenancy Tribunal can hear cases via phone/video conference Reform of New ...
Two employment schemes – one new and one expanded – going live today will help tens of thousands of people continue training on the job and support thousands more into work, the Government has announced. Apprenticeship Boost, a subsidy of up to $12,000 per annum for first year apprentices and ...
The Government is funding a significant infrastructure package at Omokoroa which will create 150 new jobs and help transform the Western Bay of Plenty peninsula, Urban Development Minister Phil Twyford announced today. Phil Twyford says the Government is investing $14 million towards the $28 million roading and water package. This ...
The Bill allowing the Government to recover some costs for managed isolation and quarantine passed its third reading today, with charges coming into force as soon as regulations are finalised. Putting regulations into force is the next step. “The COVID-19 Public Health Response Amendment Bill and its supporting regulations will ...
Today’s unemployment data shows the Government’s plan to protect jobs and cushion the blow for businesses and households against the economic impact of COVID-19 was the right decision, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. Stats NZ said today that New Zealand’s unemployment rate in the June quarter – which includes the ...
A new role of New Zealand Reading Ambassador for children and young people is being established, Prime Minister and Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Jacinda Ardern and Minister for Internal Affairs and for Children, Tracey Martin announced today. The Reading Ambassador, announced at a Celebration of Reading event at ...
The introduction of a $3,100 fee for returning New Zealanders will disadvantage Māori disproportionately, Phoebe Carr (Ngāti Awa, Ngāi Tūhoe)and Max Harris argue.The government has once again failed to honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi by rushing through legislation to introduce exorbitant managed isolation fees for returning New Zealanders. This ...
7 August 2020: The Team of Six Million, a campaign group established to oppose the imposition of quarantine fees by the New Zealand Government, has expressed disappointment at the Government's urgent passing of the Public Health Response Amendment Bill to ...
In July support for Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s Labour Party was at 53.5% down 1% since June, but still more than double the support for National on 26.5%, down 0.5%, with just over a month to go before the election in mid-September. If ...
Welcome to Election Live for August 7, bringing you the latest on election 2020 and other breaking news. For key dates in the election season click here. For all you need to know about the cannabis referendum click here. For the assisted dying referendum click here. Policy launching soon. Get in touch ...
After initial concerns about low testing rates in South Auckland, Counties Manukau DHB has the second-highest testing rate in the country. Ōtara Health chief executive Sosefina Paletaoga explains her organisation’s role in achieving this. Covid-19 has affected us all in different ways, and for us in Ōtara, it has highlighted existing ...
Oranga Tamariki's Chief Executive appeared before the Waitangi Tribunal a day after a report from the Chief Ombudsman found the agency had used its draconian powers to uplift babies too readily in many cases A Waitangi Tribunal hearing has seen Oranga Tamariki chief executive Gráinne Moss concede her organisation harmed families during ...
"A resident of the boarding house disappeared the same day Mrs Bethany’s body was discovered": provincial gothic, with astrology, by Auckland writer Mandy McMullin. I moved into the tearooms the day I turned sixteen, 23 December 2006. The same day I met Garth. It was Saturday, a lucky day for ...
The resignation of Westland Milk Products chief executive Tony Brendish almost a year to the day the company was sold to Chinese conglomerate Yili makes a mockery of assurances that there was no conflict of interest in top management preparing ...
*Watch the video in the player below*The wheels of progress turn frustratingly slow in Christchurch’s Red Zone. Frank Film asks, is anything going to happen? Hayley Guglietta is honest about her group’s activities on vacant land bordering Christchurch’s Avon River. She admits the groundwork was commenced without official ...
On this week's Extra Time podcast: After significant investigations into cycling, football and hockey in New Zealand, now gymnastics is in the spotlight around their athletes' welfare. Allegations of multiple New Zealand gymnasts suffering from verbal and physical abuse, bullying and unsafe training methods have surfaced over the past week. And ...
She’s a lone wolf, a team player, a rebel, a leader and the nicest lady around. But what combination of those do you need to survive in government?On a cold July morning, I found myself driving around Totara Park in Manurewa in the dark. I had been invited to a ...
All around the country, people are asking ‘what’s going to happen in the 2020 general election campaign?’ That’s because they haven’t read this guide, which reveals exactly what will happen in the 2020 general election campaign.Someone has finally put this term of parliament out of its misery. We’ve had three ...
The UK car industry has run a good race in the post-Brexit lobbying stakes. But Britain’s chemical industry looks to be making a late run, if recent coverage in the Financial Times is accurate.The issue for the industry is the post-Brexit regulatory regime and how this is to be ...
Latest from the Beehive – We had just finished digesting an outpouring of announcements from the Beehive over the previous 24 hours or so when the Point of Order Trough Monitor shrieked an alert. A new trough had been established. While we were inspecting the contents of this new trough, ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Chart 1, Historical: Australian much lower than Spain, Belgium and Sweden. Chart by Keith Rankin. The known incidences of Covid19 in Spain, Belgium and Sweden are similar, although Sweden lagged for a while before overtaking the other two. In deaths, Sweden is slightly lower than ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University The good news in the Reserve Bank’s latest quarterly set of forecasts is that the recession won’t be as steep as it thought last time. The bad news is it ...
Analysis: National entices voters with big infrastructure projects, Judith Collins rips into Jacinda Ardern and Parliament passes a bill that could affect every tenant in the country. ...
By RNZ Pacific France’s new overseas minister Sebastien Lecornu says New Caledonia’s restrictions over the covid-19 pandemic will not affect the preparations for the October referendum on independence. Lecornu gave the assessment during a visit to New Caledonia House in Paris. Paris is expected to send dozens of officials and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julian Meyrick, Professor of Creative Arts, Griffith University National crises, like the pandemics that can provoke them, come in stages. Each stage presents leaders with unique problems that require mental, moral and emotional agility to manage. Change is the only constant, as ...
How is New Zealand faring in during the Covid-19 pandemic? Newsroom is taking a weekly look at the latest numbers related to the virus and the impact on the economy.Excess deaths Overseas the death toll in some countries has risen sharply, with the ...
Justice campaign organisation JustSpeak has outlined a vision for a society without prisons in its 2020 election campaign ‘ Our Justice Our Future ’. The campaign was launched last night in Wellington, to a sold out audience of supporters and volunteers. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vasso Apostolopoulos, Pro Vice-Chancellor, Research Partnerships, Victoria University During the COVID-19 pandemic we’re constantly being reminded to practise good hygiene by frequently washing our hands and regularly cleaning the spaces where we live and work. These practices aim to remove or kill ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra University of Canberra Professorial Fellow Michelle Grattan and University of Canberra Assistant Professor Caroline Fisher discuss the week in politics. This week Michelle and Caroline discuss the closure of ‘non-essential’ businesses in Melbourne under stage ...
Labour's campaign slogan "Let's Keep Moving" is hardly the most inspirational but reflects the conservative game plan - trade on the Covid response and stay on track. ...
By granting a permit to OceanaGold to mine under DOC land in the Coromandel, the government is not only threatening an endangered species, says Catherine Delahunty – it’s threatening future generations.I woke up angry. The government has given a 40-year permit to OceanaGold to mine under DOC land behind Whangamatā. ...
How come, after numerous condemnatory reports, Oranga Tamariki chief executive Grainne Moss holds on to her job? Aaron Smale wonders if those harmed by her tenure aren't a big enough voting bloc So, what happens when a government department breaks the law and breaches its own policies? Nothing, apparently. The latest ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ari Mattes, Lecturer in Communications and Media, University of Notre Dame Australia Review: The Meddler, screening at the Melbourne International Film Festival For movie scholars and enthusiasts, one of the worst things about the COVID-19 pandemic has been the shutting down of ...
The combination of solar panels, electricity storage batteries, smart household gadgets, and a boring looking black box is set to change forever how our electricity system works. But do we need subsidies? ...
The New Zealand Bar Assocation says misinformed criticism of a South Island judge’s sentencing of a sex offender has the potential for disturbing consequences for the justice system and society generally. The Bar Association’s President Kate Davenport ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The Royal Commission into Aged-Care Quality and Safety delivered it’s interim report in October 2019. Titled ‘Neglect’, it provided a scathing insight into the aged care industry – finding it centred around transactions not care. ...
By Tom Peters, Socialist Equality Group More than one year after the March 15, 2019 terrorist attack, an official inquiry into the mass shooting that killed 51 people and injured 49 in two Christchurch mosques has still not released any information ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Damien Manuel, Director, Centre for Cyber Security Research & Innovation (CSRI), Deakin University Australia’s long-awaited cybersecurity strategy, released yesterday, pledges to spend A$1.67 billion over the next ten years to improve online protection for businesses, individuals and the country as a whole. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Roxana Diamond, PhD Candidate, Flinders University This article has links that contain graphic content Many industries and employees have been hurt by COVID-19. But sex workers, who face stigma and discrimination at the best of times, have been hit particularly hard by ...
By Lulu Mark in Port Moresby Port Moresby may need to expand its covid-19 isolation facilities quickly and effectively in case a big spike in cases occurs, a doctor says. Rita Flynn isolation facility manager Dr Gary Nou said it would be a disaster if the spread of covid-19 in ...
Paige Tapara is a fast-rising young singer-songwriter whose debut EP explores themes of sexuality, coming of age, mental health and relationships. We asked her how it came together, and why she thinks it’s so important for NZ music to include voices like hers.Paige swoops into the room, a cream doughnut in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cathy Foley, Chief Scientist, CSIRO Universities and other research organisations in Australia have been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. In May, a group led by Australia’s Chief Scientist Alan Finkel forecasted severe impacts for our research workforce. These included the loss ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicole Carnt, Scientia Senior Lecturer, School of Optometry and Vision Science, UNSW, Sydney, UNSW You’re rushing and accidentally drop a contact lens on the bathroom floor. Should you: a) run it under the tap and pop it in? b) spit on it ...
The Māori Party is celebrating World Indigenous Day the Māori way, surrounded by friends and whānau at a Meet-the-Candidates at the Third Place Café in Rotorua this weekend. To mark World Indigenous Day, the Māori Party wants to remind Aotearoa ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Wayland, Lecturer, University of Sydney As part of new research into missing persons in Australia, I have been asking people who return after disappearing what they needed or wanted. Mary, who has gone missing four times in the last few years, ...
Forest & Bird is calling for all political parties to back an end to mining conservation land, after a permit was issued to mine the home of a critically-endangered native animal. This week Oceana Gold was granted a 40-year mining permit from the ...
Here’s a snapshot of a single day in parliament. A day where changes were made to laws that govern everything from the milk in your refrigerator to the speed you can drive your car, and to Netflix, and war crimes, and who tests your water. It was a big day.The ...
*This article was first published on RNZ and is republished with permission* Māori leaders say they have no faith in Oranga Tamariki and the chief executive needs to go after the latest report into the organisation found it was routinely taking newborns without whānau consultation. The Chief Ombudsman's report He Take Kōhukihuki, ...
So is the government succeeding in steering the country through the Covid-19 crisis and what it calls a “one-in-100-year shock”. And just what is it costing? These are questions which will be uppermost in the minds of voters when they cast their ballots in next month’s general election. Finance Minister ...
Peddlethorp calls on other businesses that cancelled events due to Covid to donate now when need is greatest Peddlethorp Architects is calling on businesses that cancelled events due to Covid-19 to donate event catering or funding to those in need, if circumstances ...
A poem by Rhian Gallagher from her new collection Far-Flung.At the Boatshedfor Sonja MitchellWe carried the day through the door the harbour had earned its keep light laid its hands on each contourthe shed held abreast with the shore spreading the waves in pleats we carried the day through the ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man by Mary L. Trump ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alistair Sisson, Postdoctoral Research Associate, City Futures Research Centre, UNSW Social and public housing is intensely stigmatised in Australia and has been for several decades. Estates in particular are often labelled “ghettos”, framed as places of danger, drugs and vice. This stigma ...
National is promising to spend $20 million over four years on increasing testing rates and accessibility to clinical trials for gynaecological cancer if elected. ...
The National Party is criticising the government's list of "shovel-ready projects", meant to kickstart the economy, for not generating enough jobs for women. ...
Wedged between punitive commercial law and an ineffective government, a once-thriving business is dying a slow and expensive death.It was one of the most acclaimed backpackers in New Zealand.Perched at the top of the Elliot Stables building in central Auckland, it was voted by Hostelworld as the city’s most popular ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Holden, Professor of Economics, UNSW One of the many things COVID-19 has had a dramatic impact on is the way many of us work. Those fortunate enough to be able to work from home have been able to adapt to this ...
When Covid-19 forced New Zealanders to live most of their lives online it exacerbated the effects of digital exclusion. Jean Teng spoke to the organisations that kept vulnerable communities connected during the pandemic. From job hunting and banking to watching TV and scrolling through the news, there is hardly a ...
Bernard Hickey writes this election's argument over who will repay Government debt faster is a dangerous and pointless replay of a 30-year old debate rendered obsolete by today's financial facts Often the myths and legends of the past are more powerful in the minds of politicians, bureaucrats and voters than the reality. Just the fear ...
Coromandel Watchdog of Hauraki says the Government has utterly betrayed the public by allowing MBIE to grant a 40 year mining permit to Oceana Gold on Dept of Conservation land at Wharekirauponga near Whangamata this week. " It is appalling that this ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Moffat, ARC DECRA Senior Research Fellow in Archaeological Science, Flinders University How did the first person evolve? Mabel, age 7, Anglesea, Victoria. Hi Mabel, what a great question! We know humans haven’t always been around. After all, we ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Baker, Professor of Public Health, University of Otago On Sunda Your heading here , New Zealand will mark 100 days without community transmission of COVID-19. From the first known case imported into New Zealand on February 26 to the last case ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deanne Gannaway, Senior Lecturer in Higher Education, The University of Queensland The federal government’s proposed increase in the cost of studying humanities and communications degrees at Australian universities has stirred much debate. One aspect that should not be overlooked is that these ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alistair Sisson, Postdoctoral Research Associate, City Futures Research Centre, UNSW Social and public housing is intensely stigmatised in Australia and has been for several decades. Estates in particular are often labelled “ghettos”, framed as places of danger, drugs and vice. This stigma ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Holden, Professor of Economics, UNSW One of the many things COVID-19 has had a dramatic impact on is the way many of us work. Those fortunate enough to be able to work from home have been able to adapt to this ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brendan Coates, Program Director, Household Finances, Grattan Institute A big part of the Morrison government’s response to COVID-19 has been allowing people early access to their superannuation. Australians who have claimed hardship have applied for A$30.7 billion to date. This has been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert Phiddian, Professor of English, Flinders University For a long time, the answer has been yes. When Saturday Night Live, John Oliver and the satirical establishment railed at him, the president’s supporters were only strengthened in their belief there was a highbrow ...
Welcome to Election Live for August 7, bringing you the latest on election 2020 and other breaking news. For key dates in the election season click here. For all you need to know about the cannabis referendum click here. For the assisted dying referendum click here. Policy launching soon. Get in touch ...
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Preparing for a possible return of the pandemic, SFO prevents JLR document release, and stoush over National candidate selection deepens.I say possible in the headline there, because we can’t know for sure that community transmission of Covid-19 absolutely will come ...
Attention spans were low and hijinks high on Parliament's last sitting day before the September 19 election, as Sam Sachdeva writes “Welcome to the last day of school.” Chris Hipkins’ opening line at his last Covid-19 press conference before the dissolution of Parliament was remarkably fitting - not just because ...
An aspiring National MP has used a QC threatening urgent legal action to warn off those she believes launched a dirty tricks campaign against her within the party The fight to replace Nikki Kaye as National’s Auckland Central candidate has taken another turn for the worse, with one aspirant threatening ...
Lockdown highlighted and exacerbated difficulties for young Māori students on the wrong side of the digital divide A lack of access to suitable digital devices, internet connectivity and quality learning resources during the eight weeks of lockdown hindered the learning of rangatahi and tamariki and negatively impacted their mental health and ...
Transport Minister Phil Twyford says he's asked NZTA to strike a deal that will reset the clock and give Transmission Gully a clear path to completion. ...
Open mike 22/04/2019 
National Party leader - Judith CollinsElections often bring out the best and worst in politicians. Some rise to the occasion and provide us with a clear vision for the future. While others wallow in resentment and controversy, over-relying on attack politics to try to attain the interest of voters.That’s been ...1 hour ago
The attempts to sabotage Corbyn's leadership seems likely to do more damage than Corbyn supposedly ever could have done, even if all the stories about him were true: I was reluctant to say anything but this is too important, the full story needs to be told.Don’t let anyone ever tell ...3 hours ago
Good day to everyone. I’ve been asked by Mr Thinks to come here and talk to you all about my concerns regarding the government response to Covid-19. We’ve been living through this pandemic for, what seems like, years. Years and years and years. Why else would the National Party have ...4 hours ago
‘Good Economics for Hard Times’ should be on your reading list. New Zealand does not have a Minister of Labour. It has Ministers of Immigration and Workplace Relations and Safety but there is no minister with responsibility for the labour market. That responsibility was abolished in 2012 when ...18 hours ago
Back in the Kyoto era, the international climate change regime included a Clean Development Mechanism to fund emissions reduction projects in developing nations. Essentially someone would certify that a project - e.g. building a windfarm, or installing energy-efficient lightbulbs - would reduce emissions over and above "business-as-usual". The project would ...24 hours ago
By Geoffrey Miller Prominent refugee advocate Murdoch Stephens says he is disappointed by Judith Collins’ reaction to Immigration New Zealand’s decision to grant refugee status to Kurdish-Iranian writer Behrouz Boochani. Judith Collins told media last month that “there’s a lot of concern in New Zealand about what they see as ...1 day ago
That was clearly a huge explosion. Just after the explosion, we see a cloud of ‘fog’ moving outwards at high speed. This is a shockwave, rather similar to that which causes a sonic boom. The ‘fog’ is caused by water condensing from the atmosphere in areas of intense low pressure ...2 days ago
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by Don Franks This talk was given to the Wellington Anti Capitalist Alliance, fifteen years ago. The ultimate weapons of mass destruction so far seen on this planet have been used just twice, 60 years ago this month. August 6 and August 9 1945 witnessed the US atomic bombing ...2 days ago
100 Articles Physical science of global warming & effects Analyzing the Arctic Feedback Mechanism between Sea Ice and Low-Level Clouds Using 34 Years of Satellite Observations Observations of global warming & effects Sea‐Level Rise Driving Increasingly Predictable Coastal Inundation in Sydney, Australia (open access) The recent state and variability ...2 days ago
After I noticed that my name had been taken yet again in vain by my friendly antagonist Tom Hunter over at No Minister, I went over to see what the fuss was about. Nothing much, but then I discovered a post about the Operation Burnham Inquiry by Psycho Milt. I ...3 days ago
As polling day in the American presidential election draws closer, things are looking bad for Donald Trump. The polls show that he is tracking well behind his Democrat rival. Most people assume that the President will be striving might and main to avoid what looks increasingly likely to be a ...5 days ago
Our health professionals do an amazing job. Image credit: Wikipedia – Cardiac surgery. Finally, I have got back to these rankings. A long period in hospital and computer problems meant the June 2020 rankings were abandoned. Now, with a new personal defibrillator implanted in my chest and a new hard ...6 days ago
Below is the list of gender-critical material which appeared on Redline from October 1, 2019 to October 31, 2019. Rainbow Tick threatens to pull Massey’s tick if lesbians are allowed to speak Freer Lives – a gender-critical Marxist site Freer Lives on Violence, debate and Britain’s Gender Recognition Act British ...1 week ago
SATURDAY AUGUST 1Artefact (Prime, 7.30pm). The series presented by Dame Anne Salmond screened on Māori Television, but is totally worth revisiting if you saw it the first time. Dame Anne tells the stories of taonga that highlight the history of Aotearoa. Further reading: this 2013 interview with Dame Anne by the lovely ...1 week ago
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This week was the last of the 52nd Parliament: a major milestone for our Government and a great opportunity to look back at all the progress we've made for New Zealanders. This week, we increased support for businesses to take on apprentices, improved access to hospital care in Northland, and ...16 hours ago
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Cyclists and walkers will now have a safer way to get around Taupō, Tūrangi, and between Hamilton and Cambridge, with funding for shared paths and Te Awa River Ride, Associate Minister of Transport Julie Anne Genter announced today. “The Te Awa River Ride is the latest part of massive growth ...2 hours ago
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The introduction of a $3,100 fee for returning New Zealanders will disadvantage Māori disproportionately, Phoebe Carr (Ngāti Awa, Ngāi Tūhoe) and Max Harris argue.The government has once again failed to honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi by rushing through legislation to introduce exorbitant managed isolation fees for returning New Zealanders. This ...1 hour ago
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https://i.stuff.co.nz/environment/climate-news/112123654/climate-change-a-reply-to-the-five-most-common-comments-from-readers
Busting bullshit memes for dummies.
I've kinda got an issue with their just brushing aside and minimising population growth as a contributing issue.
Like many other things, that's an area where New Zealand's only significant contribution can come from leading by example. We could choose to say we reject the idea of continual growth (including population growth) and choose to find ways to make steady state and circular economics work.
We could choose to reject the hand-wringing and bedwetting about the fact that the native birth rate is below replacement. And embrace the idea that that gives us more opportunity to welcome some from parts of the world that will get hammered by the changes coming.
Explicitly embracing the idea of below-replacement birth rates and falling populations could set a highly visible example to the rest of the world. In a similar way to our nuclear-free stance.
We could be leading by example as you say…except none in the positions to implement it have either the ability or the desire to accomplish it
It's the kind of change that can only happen by shifting general social attitudes.
One way to help shift general social attitudes with respect to populations is pieces like the one wags linked start talking about the good aspects of lower populations and fewer kids per family, rather than just brushing the issue aside.
Not necessarily…it can be accomplished that way if you are unconcerned about the length of time it will take to achieve….and then theres leadership
Yet leaders are significantly products of their formative environments.
AOC was late teens/early twenties going through the GFC, watching the flaws of lightly regulated free-market rapaciousness while the social environment around her was filled with disgust at their "leaders" inadequate response. Would she have become the leader she is now if the environment around hadn't had the senseof there being a better way?
Similarly Greta Thunberg is coming of age at a time when the general social environment is demanding climate change action. Yet there have been high profile serious people having a damn good go at leading on this topic for decades and getting very little traction.
Leadership is a synergy of the leader's personal qualities and the environment they are in.
and where was the social environment that determined that growth come what may was desirable?….the demand for that was promoted by a narrow section of society that captured the 'leadership'. The synergy argument dosnt hold water when that fact is examined
Growth is clearly and self-evidently desirable when your environment is one where the best strategy for the success of your own group is to overwhelm the"other" by sheer force of numbers, and there's also significant vacant or underused territory your group can expand into to grab more resource to support the expansion of your group.
Both those factors have been true for the vast majority of people for the vast majority of human history. But they stopped being true sometime in the last few generations. That's a helluva lot of cultural inertia and memory to try to turn around.
again , it was only ever true for a segment of society….the dissenters were always disregarded….synergy be buggered
Going from survival of the fitest to we are all one is most likely beyond what evolution made us . But there is hope i guess. I see glimmers of hope in the younger generations .
We have been able to benefit from how: oil based products, pesticides, water management, the improvement of medicine and more that have allowed the pop. to increase to 7.7b.
What is the cost of these ? and for how long can this continue for
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12224127
IMO to manage what we are facing a large portion of the solution is our pop. and what is the viable carrying capacity of the earth with changes that need to be implemented ASAP, but that is only one persons observations 🤔
But Gaia may have a natural solution with the visit of the 4 horseman
I was looking at the stuff website and a strange woman started to talk so I tracked down which image appeared to be live and when I found it I couldn't get an image or stop the sound. Strange.
(Everything's up to date in Kansas [insert chosen location here] city, They've gone about as far as they can go. What next!)
I saw a Newshub update on this but when I went to their website it wasn't there. Happened once before too – slack editing, or evidence that TV3 liaison is somewhat haphazard.
"Brazilian beetles, first released in 2011, haven’t wasted any time getting stuck into the swathes of tradescantia (Tradescantia fluminensis) that are infesting gardens, reserves and conservation land. Three beetle species have been released − a leaf beetle (Neolema ogloblini), a stem beetle (Lema basicostata), and a tip beetle (Neolema abbreviata) − which were selected to attack different parts of the plant." https://www.landcareresearch.co.nz/publications/newsletters/biological-control-of-weeds/issue-84/tradescantia-be-gone
Traditionally known as wandering jew, the Newshub reporter called it wandering willy. Not the first media reporter I've seen do this, so I suspect some moron, or group of morons, decided that the traditional name is disrespectful to jews so deemed it politically incorrect. The basic idea behind this type of thinking is that media consumers are morons, so any other moron or group of morons can get away with telling them what to do.
Anyway, gardeners have tried various methods of eliminating the plant, and I can verify from many years of personal experience on different properties that success is only achieved where infestations are fairly small and localised, and even then it takes diligence and time. Just a single broken piece an inch long will grow roots and become an inch long. If it lies exposed on the ground through summer, even continuous sun-baking will not dry it out. It is resilient, will bide it's time, and root when the rains come.
The Newshub report showed that large swathes of the plant have been consumed by the beetles, so the control design seems effective. That's taken eight years though, so it ain't fast. No adverse effects reported, so I hope the govt decides on general release soon.
Update: Looks like Newshub got around to posting it late last night: https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2019/04/kiwi-teenagers-take-experimental-biological-weed-buster-to-the-world.html
I recall it in the '60s as being called "Wandering Willie" then too, never really saw it spelled out in full so whether with a Kwiw accent it was also "jew" or "dew" is another one of the things people are finding to fret over whereas, as always, there are much bigger issues that need the focus.
My father was chatting with our Jewish next door neighbour over the back fence one weekend afternoon, and idly pointed to the mass of green weed that had colonised our compost heap, the fence and progressing onward over everything it could reach.
Dad was saying how "he was going to get stuck in and eradicate this wandering …" and our neighbour smiled and said "yeah we call it Wandering Christian actually :-)"
"Just a single broken piece an inch long will grow roots and become an inch long." I thought I was writing "become a new plant". However my subconscious decided to replace it with a re-run of what I had typed a few moments earlier.
This is a new type of senior moment! Unless other elderly commentators can prove earlier versions of same, I will claim inventor's rights…
Calm down! I only ever knew it as wandering wiĺlie as a kid in the 50s. We thought it was hilarious because it was our dad's name. Maybe it's a regional thing.
Oh, how interesting. Thanks Jan – and also Rapunzel – for corroboration that it did indeed predate the pc era. I can park the grumpy old man syndrome for a while.
So many unobservant observers out there.
Tradescantia, oxalis…. run chickens on the 'problem'. Watch the problem converted to eggs and meat.
To be thorough – add the biocontrol which will now actively seek out any remainder.
Also, taking early occurring rust fungi from either plant and spreading it around on 'healthy' patches of weed to weaken it considerably.
Great idea for weed eradication – chickens – wonderful weeders – and you get eggs – yeah!
Good thinking. I recall as a kid in the fifties when almost all suburban families had a chicken run out back. No supermarkets in Aotearoa till the seventies.
My ex-partner installed one three years ago. Built herself a multi-level shelter at one end with laying straw in roosts & trapdoors above for easy extraction of eggs, has four hens. Observing them on visits reminded me that hen-pecking is a form of bullying. Given that all birds are residual dinosaurs, one wonders if T Rex also did hen-pecking. That would have been awesome to watch.
You must have lived South of the Bombay Hills. Apparently the first supermarkets were in Auckland as early as 1957. There was one with a large car park no less in 1958. Ah civilization had reached our shores.
https://nzhistory.govt.nz/media/photo/grocery-shopping-canned-food
I grew up in Napier in the 1950's. I can only remember one of the neighbours who had chickens at that time. They were fairly common for people who lived on rather bigger bits of land out in Greenmeadows, Taradale and Clive though.
Maybe regional variations applied then, which we didn't know about. My childhood was in New Plymouth, then college in Wanganui, didn't arrive in Auckland till early '68. I didn't know about that one in Devonport. Students never went to such remote places – poor people still packed buses & trains then (cars were not an option for students).
Alwwn,
I had chickens in my Napier state house in 1957, as on Napier's main Emerson Street at 'Woolworths' they sold 'day old' chicks every august, – that we would fatten them up for Xmas dinner.
Yes cleangreen, my Dad had chickens, Rhode Island Reds and Black Orpingtons. In 1951 Mum used to buy 24 day old chicks, twice a year from her cousin who had a hatchery. They used to come by train from Hamilton to Te Kuiiti. The worst part of the trip was the 26 miles of rough metal road to Benneydale in Dad's T Ford!! The good old days,
I had relatives in Napier in the fifties, and spent many a school holiday there. They had chooks. This was in Thackeray Street.
That'll save our forests bleepy.
We don't all live in the bush (I wish). Management varies and varied solutions are useful.
NZ originally had vast numbers of birds that browsed at various trophic levels of the forest. Now Moa are extinct, and the people trying to make things 'like they were' – what time-point was ideal? Can we bring the Moa back with genetics labs, PR and capital?
Obviously, we want functional ecology. Conservation is a lofty but confused goal. Whereever invasives can be turned to human use their control becomes a lot easier (but eradication nigh on impossible).
No more pesticides, no excuses. The impending loss of insects will cost us everything. It is as urgent an issue as climate change.
Auckland council use(d?) early season rust fungi (from Tradescantia) to spray on Tradescantia and reduce its rampancy (to varying extent) in the region. A new bio-control is obviously welcome it's efficacy remains to be seen.
Animals perform a number of ecosystem functions and when these are understood and managed correctly, they might (gladly) do a lot of work for you while creating animal products e.g. weeding, tilling, fertilising, insect control, turn unpalatable materials to palatable materials.
Our Farmers understand the pulses of seasons, and how this ties in with production. As their ecological understanding grows (some are exemplars in their field) biodiversity will become synonymous with production where many more seasonal pulses can be used to obtain yields. Slowly, balance might be restored as trees (and all they bring) repopulate the landscape.
In urban areas, we can create habitat for bugs. And of course stop using insecticides.
If you have chickens and Tradescantia/Oxalis, well, you know what to do.
Guinea Pigs like it as well.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/112157454/you-need-popularity-to-become-a-leader-but-it-can-be-bad-for-leadership
I'm not going to recommend this piece by Jane Bowron to read except if you are interested to find how many mixed metaphors can be jumbled together to say very little in a column. Here's an example.
"Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern dropped the controversial policy like a hot spud and pledged that while she's at the helm that dog will never hunt again.
Result. Peters' fan base is deliriously happy that he's finally manned up to show who calls the shots; Simon Bridges has lost any bit of skin he has left in the game; and St Jacinda looks like a cynical politician unable to stick to her guns and exact core Labour Party policy."
The writer, Jane Bowron, takes four opening paragraphs to start even before the topic of the headline is introduced. It's fluff, an opinion piece written to fill a space. I wonderd when reading it if she's actually spoofing bad writing. She succeeded if that was her aim.
"If we can hit that bullseye, the rest of the dominos will fall like a house of cards. Checkmate."
Agree, terrible article wish I'd never read it…but I did and it raised a question in my mind
Did the MSM ever see any negatives in the 'popularity" of Teflon John? Not that I recall.
An interesting interview with Helen Clark.
https://soundcloud.com/rttv/worlds-apart-neutered-for-neutrality-helen-clark-former-prime-minister-of-new-zealand
It has always seemed to me that examining the words of Helen Clark to discern signs of intelligence is a waste of time. But I've got an open mind. If you found any evidence of such, I'd consider the potential merit of it…
Let's put it this way, HC's views, whether you regard them as intellectual or not, are informed by an accumulated experience several orders of magnitude greater than all of us regulars here put together
Edit: If you really thirst for intellectual, can I recommend this guy?
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYO_jab_esuFRV4b17AJtAw
Indeed. One cannot deny the extent of her operational experience. It's the learning therefrom that is in question. I'm curious to see if she has any helpful analysis of the problem, but not enough to overcome the distaste based on prior experience of her (non-)contributions. If she actually produced a solution to the problem there's a very real danger of folks dropping dead from astonishment…
“prior experience of [his/]her (non-)contributions”
People do look at all of us for that.
They've as much chance of making any sense of her after they've dropped dead, not because of her limitations but because of their own.
That is quite some site.
Nifty presentation, which I managed to endure due to exercise of willpower to overcome dislike of maths. Incorporating physics into the design was clever, and lack of real-world application acknowledged, but it ended with a teaser: the pi-implied circle, invisible in the presentation, would only be revealed to viewers who choose to watch the next thrilling installment of maths-by-graphic. Not me.
Engineering math was my stumbling block too; I could follow it as long as I could map it onto something physical. But the point where it became totally abstract I struggled. Fourier transforms yes, Laplace transforms no.
3Blue1Brown does a brilliant job of breaking this barrier down with visuals and modern interpretations that I only wish was around 40 years earlier
.
Mathematicians are the princes of the modern world, and despite my limitations I always wished to be fully admitted to their ranks. Ah well we all have our failed dreams.
I take your point despite never viewing mathematicians with respect. I always discounted them due to their propensity for abstractions being even worse than that of physicists (hard to believe). But I ought to acknowledge that maths is used to validate and empower physics, and certainly forms the basis of computing. I wonder if our service provider (LPrent) will volunteer a personal take on this interface between imaginal and real.
A mathematician is having problems with a leaky sink, so he calls a plumber. The plumber comes over and quickly fixes the sink. The professor is happy until he gets the bill. He tells the plumber, "This is outrageous! You charge more for an hour than I make in a whole day!"
The plumber tells him, "You know, we are always looking for more plumbers. You could become a plumber and triple your salary. Just make sure you say you only made it to 6th grade, they don't like educated people."
The professor takes him up on the offer and becomes a plumber. His salary triples and he doesn't have to work nearly as hard. But after a few years, a law gets passed that all licensed plumbers must have at least an 8th grade education…Not wanting to admit he lied on his application, he signs up for night classes.
On the first day of night School they all attend math class. The teacher wants to gauge the class so he asks the former mathematician, "What is the formula for the area of a circle?"
He walks up to the board and realizes he has forgotten the formula. So he begins to attempt to derive the formula, filling the board with complicated mathematics. He ends up figuring out it is negative pi times radius squared, but he knows that's incorrect, so he starts over, but again he comes up with the same equation.
After staring at the board for a minute he hears one of the plumbers in the class behind him whisper, "Switch the limits on the integral, dummy!"
PS. I cribbed this from some forum ages back 🙂
Mathematics is a part of physics. Physics is an experimental science, a part of natural science. Mathematics is the part of physics where experiments are cheap.
Vladimir Arnold.
Good grief Dennis Frank, you obviously never knew Helen Clark. She is extremely intelligent – way ahead of the vast majority of people. However what she did try to do with varying success was to speak publicly in a manner those of average intelligence would better understand. It was not a case of dropping to their level, but rather to get her points across. I fear you mistook her intentions to be that of a person of average intelligence.
Anne I agree with your take on Helen Clark as she was the real true caring PM we ever had since Michael Joseph Savage..
Not even Norm Kirk?
I met Helen Clark on many occasions, and I'm with you. I didn't share her politics, but there was no doubting her sharp intellect. There was a certain derangement about her from some on the right, which we saw again with the lefts attitude towards John Key, but IMHO Clark was amongst the most competent of PM's this county has seen.
But having it and using it are two different things, eh? I tend to judge on the basis of performance – don't you? Why not take a look at the interview RL posted and report back here if she proposes a solution to the UN problem that seems viable?
I know you ain't no leftist, so that puts you in a credible position to evaluate her performance objectively. If she merely circles around the problem, discussing dimension of it without advancing the situation one iota, I trust you'll be honest enough to report that back to us too.
Hi Dennis. My comments were specifically about her time as PM. I also have no time for the UN. IMHO it is a largely corrupt and essentially useless organisation that has lost it's way entirely. So no sorry, I won't be listening to the interview.
Very different things.
Key was not an honest man. Most people are annoyed by liars.
There it is … KDS in evidence again.
Despite your heroic efforts to peddle this false equivalence, Clark was not given to outrageous manifestations of dishonesty like Key's "I don't recall".
Clark burnt herself on efforts like the anti-smacking bill, Key destroyed his reputation by insider trading and self serving actions like constraining the brightline to two years so his own investments would make the cut.
Like Trump he was and is a self-serving piece of shite with no business pretending to act for a democratic polity. Morally crippled rightwingers look on him with envy rather than contempt, but this defeats their arguments with the Left before they even begin.
You have one of the worst cases of KDS I have seen. In fact I’d say it’s incurable. I’d argue the toss, but you’re beyond rational debate.
Look I understand you have this deep abiding need to lie your worthless ass off to defend the thoroughly unsavoury reputation of the worst PM NZ has ever seen, but my objections to this lying self-serving ineffectual ambulant cesspool of corruption are entirely rational.
So don't be accusing me of KDS – that's not a thing – unless it applies to scoundrels like yourself, for whom, judging by your comments, lying and stealing are public virtues.
He’s not dead yet – the convention on eulogies does not apply.
Yep, you've got it bad.
The only thing I've got bad is a troll who won't stop apologizing for the worthless son of a bitch.
Come up with some facts to dispute my characterization Shadrach – if you've got anything better to offer than your usual ersatz wildebeests.
Liars make me MAD shatrack.
They don't help your spelling either.
Despite claims to the contrary, she was a woman of substance and integrity, but one possible fault (which I tend to share with her), she did not suffer fools gladly. And woe betide anyone who played silly buggers with her. Very early on in her parliamentary career, I decided to play the devil's advocate at a meeting. No prizes for guessing who came off second best by a long shot. 🙁
I've often hoped to meet her again one day and ask her if she remembered that incident.
“And woe betide anyone who played silly buggers with her”
At the risk of blowing my cover totally I can retell this tale about HC.
In 2001 I was working with a good friend in the Beehive on a technical contract relating to the building power system. The only time we were allowed to do full black start testing was after midnight on a Sunday evening. Most of the work was located in the basement, but we also had reason to access the '10th floor' where much of the HVAC equipment is located. The only way to get there is by lift to the 9th floor and then stairs up.
My mate is a madman I should add.
So there we are sometime late at night, the lift doors open on the foyer of the 9th floor and there is HC striding with he back to us, paperwork under one arm, from one office to another and as we step out my friend bursts into his best Muldoon imitation (which is very damn good) and says "Heh, heh, heh …. so that's the little girlie that got the job".
HC freezes to a halt, pauses ominously just long enough for my bowels to turn to water, swivels malevolently on her heels and imperiously announces "Fucking uppity tradesmen. Use the back entrance!" And with a wicked grin vanishes into her office.
What a cool story!
Your friend sounds like a rare breed. McPhail's version of Muldoon was okay, but he couldn't ever seem to reproduce the genuine menace element of the Muldoon style. You know, the bit that always had his cabinet cowering like underdogs.
And who would have thought she actually had a sense of humour! All them smiley interviews didn't hint at it. Just showed her as well-trained.
To give her credit for street cred, her pulling the academic put-down of the working class in your story was convincing. Spinning on a dime to deliver that line demonstrates true expertise. Gutsy giving the fingers to politically correct supporters while exhibiting classic intelligentsia elitism. Only two observers, nobody would ever believe them, so she could reveal her true self in that moment. That's real authenticity!
Helen and a great sense of humour Dennis. But for some reason she rarely showed it in public. I can only assume someone advised her to stick with the serious persona – perhaps because as a woman any show of humour would lead to ridicule of her further down the track. Just guessing mind you.
I would have liked her more if she had, Anne. And ridicule damages only if you let it – an adept operator can usually turn it to advantage. Lange was exemplary in that respect and I valued him for being a refreshing new style of kiwi politician. Too bad he proved inept in the exercise of power.
Now the new leader of Ukraine is reminding us how potent humour can be in politics. The sooner we get that element back into our political mix, the better. Mind you, the necessity is considerably more dire in the USA…
Hi Anne. Apart form the times I met her, there was one event that enhanced my view of Helen Clark enormously. It was an interview she gave in 2002 with John Campbell (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dET78Z5b5s). It was a dirty piece of journalism by Campbell, and Clark handled herself with considerable professionalism. I have never rated Campbell since, and never will.
That's down to your examining skills franko, more praxis needed.
But he's praxis to the maxis as it is.
Don't I gnosis.
🙂
Nah, I know that folks will oblige me by gleefully reporting any genuine pearls of wisdom. So far, zilch, so commentators are busy proving me right…
Crikey!
RT
IKR?!
How did that link get past the dragons and the shark infested moat that protect The Standard
McFlock and the gang will be having conniptions
I think they'll be fine.
But what they don't know won't hurt them.
With a little chill down my neck, I agree with John Roughan (!) that the Prime Minister is wasting her massive political capital by not using it, and delivering a timid government:
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12223853
Yeah, likewise. "If last Wednesday she had announced a capital gains tax limited to investment property, excluding farms, business, shares, all productive investment, it would have been greeted with relief."
That's hitting the nail on the head. He goes on to make the point that this group of professional investors are largely responsible for making homes unaffordable to young kiwi home-buyers. So hitting the guilty would be popular.
Yes, but. Excessive immigration produced by National and Labour govts is even more responsible for creating the real-estate bubble. Maintenance of that trend by the coalition has merely stabilised the bubble. Collapsing the bubble to provide equity for young kiwi families is deemed too hard by the coalition: they are being held to ransome by older generations playing the market. Investors win again.
Inflows of capital are the problem, not of people. And no govt will fix housing being treated as an investment asset class without tackling the economic settings that enable it.
Fair point. I spent so many years in Ak watching immigrant Chinese inflate the bubble I'm probably biased. Just because I profited from their input enough to get wealthy doesn't mean I stopped feeling disgusted by the trend. Empathy with those made into losers by govt policy seems to come naturally, then there's the deliberate repudiation of intergenerational equity on top of that, so unprincipled as to fill me with intense contempt for whichever govt is currently doing it. Currently, a govt I've been supporting…
The visible Chinese buyers were just fronting the capital flows from China, same as the Americans, Australians and Brits were doing.
Contempt for the people who made you rich franko? You're a peach aren't you.
You really believe the govt did it?? What part of market forces don't you get?
Govts regulate markets.
Or not. Depends how neoliberal they want to be seen as. Most of the expert analysis on the gfc, since the gfc, asserts that the regulations implemented were intended to create public impressions – not to change the way the market operates. Sham regulation has been a thing since Clinton.
I guess its possible shes saving it to spend on far more pressing things like cc .
if her interview yesterday is any indication it wont be used on that either
https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/sunday/audio/2018691820/the-search-for-a-political-solution-to-climate-change
Thank you for the link. I swear Noelle McCarthy’s accent is getting less understandable with time.
I remember saying similar about John Key.
As well as dealing with the stuff of government like drought, Christchurch rebuild, Kaikoura rebuild, Pike River, and Wellington earthquake, he also had a crack at changing the flag.
So far under this government:
– Poverty is the same
– Wealth disparity is the same
– Homelessness is the same
– Environmental damage is the same
– Tax levels are the same
It's about time Ardern did something more ethan emote well.
Key “dealing with” Pike River? pffft
Resulted in the most comprehensive industrial safety legislation ever in this country.
Let’s ask the Pike families who they credit for that, shall we.
Go right ahead.
The Christchurch rebuild hasn't been good either.
There have been small changes though Ad.
But in the main your points cannot be denied. And Robertson has a vision I think of following in Douglas', Cullen's footsteps – Sir Grant Robertson awarded to him for holding off the simple citizens of Nz massing to attack the citadel of wealth and power.
I have a hunch your paygrade is beyond this: the incremental raising of minimum wage to living wage is lifting the income of some wage slaves.
Any evidence for this?
Union for example?
You're coming down with a case of the IRekons
Just my experience.
Last two performances reviews (roughly annually), I have gone up $1 an hour at each.
The first one, the poor manager said "because the minimum wage is going up, your wage is going up".
Silly bugger didn't try and say it was linked to performance.
To be fair I am in hospitality, so not far away from the minimum wage.
Nice baiting though Ad.
I struggle to point to anything else I would shout from the rooftops about this regime.
Me too.
I have been disabled for 27 years and always been left without “quality support and having a valued life in the community,” as Tish rightly suggests.
It seems that we disabled are considered not worth saving or caring about any more over the last thirty years.
I was severely chemically expose in 1992 and have suffered from brain injuries, nervous system damage, and immune system dysfunction ever since. It is now far harder to stay alive.
These injuries all occurred after exposure at my workplace and since after a seven year Workers Compensation claim no-one has ever been blamed, so I have fallen right through the social safety net.
The most insulting part was when I reached the retirement age (65) my disability payment funding support was cut out and I was thrown straight onto the lower payment system on the general pension, so now I cannot get good disability treatments because no funding is available for them on the pension for the disabled.
Cleangreen, I am so sorry about all you have experienced.
I don't know what to say other than apologise to you.
Life must be incredibly tough for you.
Thanks ankerawshark.
Yes, it is tough but my time in the NZ army taught me to keep on fighting to stay alive.
I am very sorry about the Chill down the back of your neck. So strange how you trolls blame Jacinda for everything.
So childish. Probably because you suck off the Herald rubbish.
Point to their results.
You're sounding like the chairman now – you're a member of the party aren't you? If so you don't know the results your party have achieved? They've just done a year in office haven't they?
https://www.labour.org.nz/year_in_review_2018
https://www.interest.co.nz/news/91882/government-completes-its-100-day-plan-here-what-it-has-done
Two context-absent, graph-absent, analysis-absent propaganda lists. Awesome.
None of their policies have been shown to alleviate the previous government's issues of poverty, homelessness, environmental damage, economic productivity, or wealth disparity.
Don't worry if they existed, the Salvation Army would have picked them up.
Time this government was held to account from all sides.
Ardern and Robertson are coasting.
lol What did they say when you emailed them your concerns?
Wait.
Just wait.
When you look through those propaganda lists, keep in mind that none of those things would have happened without a change of government.
The question is, why do all their policy efforts look like they're hamstrung by a bunch of provincial conservatives and corrupt influence-peddlers? Well, we do know the answer to that question, don't we? If you want a left-wing agenda implemented, vote for left-wing parties, not right-wing ones or corrupt populists. A left-wing agenda necessitates a left-wing majority and right now there isn't one.
That's right, Marty. He has a valid point.
In fact, some things have exacerbated.
And the future isn't looking much better.
Here (the following below) is how Max Rashbrooke sums it up:
In short, today's announcement is likely to load pressure onto the debate about public debt, and push the government into a pretty sub- optimal position. We can also now understand the intensity of the opposition to a capital gains tax, or indeed any tax increase. Opposition parties now no longer need fight every single one of the government's plans – because to the extent that those plans rely on revenue that a capital gains tax would have raised, they have all just been shut down in one go.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/on-the-inside/387291/capital-gains-tax-shutdown-threatens-govt-s-other-plans
In theory at least, any tax changes from the TWG were tax neutral, so I don't understand how a CGT could have funded more stuff than current settings.
Only tax neutral for the first five years. Then the tax revenue projections start to vastly outweigh the proposed tax cuts.
That's a long way into the future for a government – even if they got 9 years, they would barely see the start of that by the time it was implemented.
Carbon taxes and other options seem like a better bet.
Government accounting methods are largely based on forecasting. Thus, the added revenue stream from a CGT would improve the economic outlook, meaning the Government would be able to increase the capital and operating allowances in the next Budget.
Carbon taxes don't address tax free capital gains, thus the unfairness in our tax system.
Moreover, I would require far more detail to agree carbon taxes and other options are a better bet.
Regards the terrible bombing massacre in Sri Lanka, the 'will to power' indeed often seeks to disposses innocence in one way or another, as i saw recently intimated in a relatively rarified clarity of reason headline relating to English perspective lately; but as we recently demonstrated we also know here in NZ, and of which there is no better day than Easter Sunday as symbolism of, the 'will to power' is also an instrument to the creation of innocence, depending on choice in how it is used.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12223646
Good grief…Groundhog Day
I think information is helpful for discussion Pat.
Creative destruction: Will technology create or kill jobs? 22 Apr, 2019 5:00am
New Zealanders are being asked to share their views on whether technological changes will cost jobs or create them as the Government looks to formulate a policy on the future of work. The Productivity Commission has published an issues paper which explores the possible impacts of new technology on the labour market. It has been tasked with producing a full report by March 2020.
"While technological change brings significant overall benefits, it also creates frictions and costs for particular groups in society," the issues paper notes.
"Sustained economic growth requires innovation, and innovation cannot be decoupled from creative destruction. "This 'replacement of the old' involves the devaluation of prior investments in machinery and skills, leaving the owners of older equipment and workers who used it worse off. For some, these costs can be severe."
However on the positive side the paper acknowledges significant job creation due to new technology.
For example, since 1999, the number of jobs classified as 'Computer systems design and related services' has increased from 8700 to 32,600, it notes.
Bare facts background here. Who are doing these jobs – have NZs had every chance to train and move into them. And why have jobs not expanded in the trades in a parallel way? Isn't this a very unbalanced society, full of dreams, visions for the future, and limited connection with their own vulnerable humanity and even less of that of others?
yes GWS…I would have copied and pasted some of the relevant information but with the changes i havnt yet worked out how to….however my point is why is this work being redone?..didnt Labour have a Future of Work working party only a couple of years ago?…do they think our attention spans are so short?…when are they going to come to some conclussions and make decisions?….this is getting a little absurd
"Climate change is our generation's nuclear moment."
What are they doing about it?
Wringing their hands. And young people are sick of it.
+++++++++++++++++Yes Sasha
Labour’s Climate Change policies = all talk no do.
You mean the Green/Labor/NZFirst Government policies.
Plenty of talk from all of them so far.
I think its up to us Cleangreen
Boycott overseas travel, stop consuming in the extreme way we do , be happy doing it
Any way that you can persuade James Shaw to follow your prescription? He seems to think the only reason he is in Government is to give him an opportunity to skive off overseas while ignoring the complete shambles that is the Census.
James Shaw with Climate Change = Minister Robertson with tax reform.
Shaw has bigger things in mind than yours can cope with .
Frantically mouth rinsing, to get rid of the halitosis, although it doesn’t smell like uranium this time …
Labour needs to do what they promised to do.
"Mr Twyford's defence is that promises made by Jacinda Ardern as Labour leader are completely different from promises made by Jacinda Ardern as Prime Minister."
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2019/02/jacinda-ardern-breaks-the-first-promise-she-made-as-labour-leader.html
Hopefully our Govt. will be able to keep a few important commitments to those in real need – other than keeping those precious Uni Students happy 🤫
This is a false meme from the right wing. The fees free policy encourages all tertiary education both academic and vocational. It encourages young people into post secondary training who were most likely to forego that training due to cost other class barriers.
"This is a false meme from the right wing" really !!! tell that to those students at ECE/Primary/Secondary that are in need of assistance, that there is inadequate funding. Try asking about students/parents regarding RTL or dyslexia, support for those with learning needs, Leaky school buildings that there is no funding to remediate, inadequate remuneration, etc That thanks to shortfalls will struggle to be able to benefit from tertiary education funding and extra funding for accomodation.
I would suggest, Muttonbird, try talking to teachers and find out how in need the sector is.
Up late last night watching how-to renovation videos on Youtube, and came across this new series by Grand Designs – The Street.
A better solution – I think – then selling off crown or local government land to developers to provide housing. Another not mentioned benefit is that you end up with a long-term community, made up of a variety of people from all walks of life, instead of what we have now in many areas – segregation by economics.
First episode currently on Youtube:
Grand Designs – The Street – Episode 1
Just letting you know Molly that i have copied and put in How to get here as this sounds interesting and may show us the way.
Pretty interesting
https://www.salon.com/2019/04/21/reporter-sharmine-narwani-on-the-secret-history-of-americas-defeat-in-syria/
A long read but a good one.
Her thesis is that Syria was a differently formatted WW, and the constellations have shifted post US defeat(or failure to gain a victory…regime change)
Yes, I've just read that. Sharmine Narwani is no slouch and certainly no government's patsy
I read an account she wrote of the Palestinian/Syrian relationship. Its a very complex relationship.
There's no two paragraph sound bite with Sharmine's articles. They're
very informative.
Like to read that
Here ya go
https://mideastshuffle.com/2014/11/17/stealing-palestine-who-dragged-palestinians-into-syrias-conflict/
Ta
Much appreciated
Counting in the Ukrainian presidential election is indicating a rout: comedian Volodymyr Zelensky is currently at 73%, incumbent Poroshenko is at less than 25%.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48007487
One can imagine the eyes of comedians all over the world lighting up as the possibilities of this trend occur to them…
Life imitates art: "Zelensky starred in the long-running satirical drama Servant of the People in which his character accidentally becomes Ukraine's president."
"He plays a teacher who is elected after his expletive-laden rant about corruption goes viral on social media. He ran under a political party with the same name as his show."
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48007487
He talks of ending the war in the east with a massive infowar program, and also intends to re start the Minsk process.
Apparently the various embassies are scrambling, they don't know what to make of him .How much he's under Kolomoisky's thumb no one knows.
Pretty hard to avoid the influence of oligarchs in Ukraine.
The traditional path to political success in democracies is to be all things to all people. He could signal that he will be that traditionalist by continually recycling the name of his show/party, for instance by ending all his speeches with "your servant, Volodymyr".
Equally, he ought to sign off on his emails to his patron, the oligarch, "your servant, Volodymyr". When he issues a polite request to the Ukrainian media, same sign-off. That way everyone ends up on the same page and all can acknowledge that he is indeed a classic democratic politician.
Humour is the best strategy when conducting foreign relations, as the ongoing UN dysfunction continues to prove. So his relations with Russia will improve immensely as soon as he suggests to Putin that they team up in the Vlad & Volod Show, a weekly current affairs review which will feature laughter as the best medicine.
Putin needs to loosen up more, and presenting as more human than Russians knew he could be would be a clever move for him. Entertaining the populace of both countries simultaneously would be tremendously therapeutic. Even more vodka could get sold.
Latest update: "Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Petro Poroshenko have gained 73.17 percent and 24.5 percent of the vote, respectively, the country’s Central Election Commission (CEC) has said after it processed 90.1 percent of the voting protocols. Zelenskiy is leading in all regions, except Lviv region."
https://www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politics/zelenskiy-leading-with-73-17-percent-followed-by-poroshenko-with-24-5-percent.html
Are all the people who are convinced that Trump only made it to the Presidency going to start in on the story that Zelensky only got the votes reported here because the Russians rigged the result?
Clearly it must all be due to Putin's machinations.
Collusion? Depends on the angle you view it from, eh? View it from the left, you may be able to discern puppet strings…
"Zelensky, whose only previous political role was playing the president in a TV show, trounced incumbent Petro Poroshenko by taking 73 percent of the vote, according to partial official results. Poroshenko garnered just 24 percent, losing to the 41-year-old comedian and actor across the country, with 42 percent of ballots counted."
https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/ukraine-comedian-volodymyr-zelensky-wins-presidency-in-landslide-2026466
"Exit polls showed Zelensky took 87 percent of the vote in eastern Ukraine and defeated Poroshenko even in the west, where the incumbent traditionally enjoyed strong support. Poroshenko, 53, said the results were clear and enough reason to "call my opponent and congratulate him". "I will leave office but I want to firmly stress — I will not quit politics," Poroshenko said in a speech at his campaign headquarters… "We realise that the Kremlin might be enjoying the election result," he said."
"The outgoing leader came to power after a 2014 pro-Western uprising ousted a Kremlin-backed regime, triggering Moscow's annexation of Crimea. His supporters credited him with rebuilding the army and securing an Orthodox Church independent of Russia. But many feel the country's ruling elite have forgotten the promises of the revolution."
"The comic shunned traditional campaign rallies and instead performed comedy gigs and used social media to appeal to voters." Way to go, dude! Don't bore voters to death at those old robotic rallies, entertain them instead. Politics as fun! Enchant those voters!
The Ukranians got sick and tired of the clowns running their country so they put in a real clown instead.
My idea of European clowns is often they are politically savvy. Also they understand people's norms and how to tickle their humour, so understands people. This man could do a very good job compared to someone who has just sold himself for a whim or campaign money and is taking on a task above his level of competence. USA!
Te radar for Governor General.
Ursula Carlson for the Attorney General.
Hadn't heard Urzila Carlson. She exaggerates how sweet we are in NZ! Acshually a bit like PM Jacinda.
Britain. How do they produce such filth?
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12224324
The rise of the extreme right in Britain makes me think it's a once great nation on a steep decline.
Hopkins is living proof that racism and hate can take years off people’s lives.
Ugly person
Imagine if Piers Morgan and Hopkins had a child together.
Would definitely be a candidate for anti christ superstar.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katie_Hopkins#Personal_life – Katie Hopkins bounces off walls from one job to another. There is money to be made in the UK from being foul apparently – and our forebears came here with such high-flown notions in their head. Every advancement for the people had to be fought long and hard for – now they come here to gobble up what we managed to create.
We know that London in the UK has fatbergs in its sewers, is Katie Hopkins something that got washed up onto the street after one of the blockages that can be about 3.5m high? They require daily work as they emerge under the city. Or perhaps noxious gases have affected her memory – our noses are very sensitive and closely situated to the brain. There must be some explanation for the poor quality journalism and the media's acceptance of this attacking, harrowing method of soapboxing, but without the soap.
Perhaps it is that she has some big health issues – borderline healthy – and she takes it out on her unfortunate prey.
Probably the same way this country makes a whaleoil, a Henry or a Hoskins.
Of course D'Felon has to get in on the fuckwittery.
Disha Doucha must have inside knowledge on the perpetrators.
Well you won't find out reading The Standard.
Further signs the Nats are being dragged to the left (Labour also being dragged to the right for other reasons).
After NZ's most racist man, Don Brash, banned Nat MPs from standing in Maori seats, Jo Hayes considers 'going home'.
https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/112087438/national-mp-jo-hayes-keen-to-stand-in-mori-electorate
Winston Peters again in the gun and I’d have to agree that this government is being held back by him and his party.
When you have the entire country ready for some sort of CGT and Nat MPs wanting to return to Maori seats yet Peters is the fly in the ointment you have to wonder what kind of damage he is now doing to the country.
The sooner he fucks off the better.
Question:
Who here would party vote National if they campaigned for CGT on rental properties?
Given that Labour are now unable to do so…I would.
Not a chance, the rest of the damage is too high.
Besides which, the difference between paying income tax at ones marginal rate based on a bright line test of 10 years, and a CGT at 15% is basically nil. (I’m aware the current test is 5 years, but am leaving some room to extend)
I suggested the other day that JA could extend the bright line test to 25 years but Wayne told me she doesn't rule by decree.
I don't know for sure but I imagine Peters owes a great deal to Labour right now.
It would require legislative change, but will probably be part of the 2020 election policy suite.
Robertson said it was “unlikely” to be a further extension of the bright-line test as they've taken a CGT off the table and the bright-line test represents a form of that.
https://www.interest.co.nz/news/99226/finance-minister-grant-robertson-effectiveness-taxing-land-bankers-why-bright-line-test
CGT is just a tax, but a good political party really smokes.
Not me – the TWG showed the biggest capital freeloaders were Ag,Forestry, & Fishing. The Gnats cannot in any case be trusted to do what they promise – Key campaigned on fixing housing – he fixed it so kiwis couldn't buy it anymore.
If the Gnats rolled out a fully costed set of economic policies that actually addressed declining outcomes, productivity and sustainability, which is well beyond them – they still could not be trusted to implement them.
A man of 89 in Auckland falls because of a large gap in the pavement and dies. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12224015
A chapter of accidents. He had some hospital care and was sent home in a taxi although his parnter would have picked him up. He didn't arrive home. Then she phoned the hospital but they had nothing to tell her, and not knowing where he was she phoned the police. Some time after the hospital advised that he had been admitted after a fall, and she could come and get him after treatment. Then she found he had a gash across his forehead and was in intensive care.
The taxi should be instructed to take a patient to his or her home not drop them off at the shops. The instructions from the hospital should be quite clear. Better still phone the family.
The supershitty is too busy being grand to listen to the wants of ratepayers and the holes round ornamental trees should have been filled in as they say has been requested for a long time. When you think of the constant conniptions by Health and Safety on small business and private people, the authorities are playing us for suckers, local and national government.
"But hey hold on, the Statistics Department concludes: “Inflation was low in the March 2019 quarter because of falls in the prices of petrol and international airfares.” Right. So, apparently, the people struggling to pay for their smokes at the supermarket can take comfort from the fact that the price of getting to the Amalfi Coast for their winter holidays just got cheaper. So, maybe we’re not measuring the price fluctuations in any basket of goods that’s relevant to most New Zealanders. By the way, the cost of non–tradeable goods and services rose by 3% in the past year. So much for inflation being low to non-existent. In the real world, prices are going up."
http://werewolf.co.nz/2019/04/gordon-campbell-on-scrapping-the-capital-gains-tax/
Ah…theres that convenient CPI in operation again
How the fuck have i become waghorni.
That bloody cursor is still in the name bit ever time i go to comment
No sure, I think that’s why one of your comments ended up in moderation, briefly.
Cheers . Im having problems with being unable to right comments some times due to the cursor being in the name section and not being able to get ot to shift to the comment box .
I’m afraid I won’t be of much help to you, but hopefully somebody else might shed some light upon this.
I assume you use a mobile phone.
I never use a mobile phone and always type on a keyboard and in Word first. Thanks to this, many a stupid comment of mine got deleted before it even made it into the TS comment box …
It also avoids the strain on eyes, neck, and fingers using a device that’s euphemistically called a smart-phone
That happens to me on the computer where I select all in the name box, cut and paste it into where I want it to be. Then put my name back in the right place. Then I haven't lost the bits of comment that have got into the name box while I have merrily been typing away. I admire you people who are doing it all from a phone. Marvels.
Maybe a hyphen is the way to go,
like wag-horni
bit suspect but probably true 🤔
Hint for jackson – stfu
https://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/112188523/wellington-mayor-wont-take-legal-action-over-sir-peter-jacksons-shelly-bay-serve
I agree Jackson should but out. It's just sad that the Trust appears wedded to capitalism and has partnered with Cassel's "The Wellington Company"… kind of ironic.
It's a shame that Jackson and Maori cannot come to a mutually satisfactory conclusion. Opportunities for suitable Maori to have apprenticeships with him. People need to see him as having something to offer instead of going all sour because he didn't play their game.
No-one else in NZ could have done the job with LOR and we now have another string to our bow, big film making and model making. With so many people willing to spit on entrepreneurs it isn't surprising that we languish in a jobless low wage environment – you don't kick a possible employer in the teeth because you want more money, you keep talking and thinking. He is here, and could be worked with to build up an apprenticeship, get some ongoing advantages.
They don't come often – cunning minds work at how to get opportunities, not march in the streets complaining. But the leaders of the march might as well have said 'Let them eat grass' – nothing could have been the outcome.
But but… the Nazis are in Ukraine.
/
https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/arson-disrupts-passover-meal-at-russia-s-largest-yeshiva-in-eastern-moscow-suburb-1.7142895
But but ..the Nazis are in Ukraine
You're bang on there Joe
Not often we agree
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/11/ultranationalism-in-ukraine-a-photo-essay
Yet Volodymyr Zelensky will be the first Jewish president of Ukraine (and the second Jewish head of a European nation) and Poland's resurrected their old beat the Jew ritual, too. Funny old world, eh.
Duuuh!
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/business/387548/airbnb-likely-cause-of-high-rents-in-queenstown-researcher
RIP Blair Peach. Not forgotten.