I wonder if misleading the cabinet office will make Wood liable for prosecution. What are the rules around that? Is it merely parliamentary protocol?
The Herald can reveal today Wood had 16 interactions with the Cabinet Office over his Auckland Airport shares, including one in March 2021 in which the Cabinet Office sent Wood a draft review of Ministers’ interests intended for then-Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern confirming the shares had been sold.
Neither the Cabinet Office nor Wood could confirm whether the minister or his office ever responded to that email confirming the statement or correcting the record to say the shares had not in fact been sold.
It appears the Cabinet Office continued to think the shares had been.
On June 30, 2021, Wood’s office told the Cabinet Office his sharebroker had been instructed to sell the shares. The Cabinet Office appeared to believe the shares had been sold because days later, on July 5, 2021, the office sent Wood a letter relating to its annual review including a line which read, “Mr Wood has divested himself of shares in Auckland Airport”.
The elementary concept of checking whether the shares had or had not been sold seems never to have entered the (air)heads of either Wood or the officials.
It's not a specified crime although Parliament can hold people in contempt of Parliament which presumably could include that sort of behaviour if it was egregious enough.
Thanks Craig. Seems clear he did mislead the cabinet office – the evidence says so, but maybe inadvertently as a result of believing his sharebroker followed his instruction. What if Luxon asked in parliament this question: What evidence has Wood provided that he did actually issue that instruction?
If the result was none, can Wood be challenged to provide that evidence? If he then failed to do so, would the Speaker declare him in contempt of parliament?
The cabinet manual is not legally enforceable although obviously the Governor-General can remove a minister on advice of the PM, but there are not really any other consequences in that area.
There are also no Parliamentary consequences although he might get voted out by the electorate or deselected by his party.
A false or misleading pecuniary interests return is grounds for contempt of Parliament as is misleading Parliament (Jan Tinetti has been appearing in front of the Privileges Committee for misleading Parliament).
Having said all that, the maximum penalty for contempt of Parliament is a fine of $1,000. Vacancies can only occur as outlined by s55 of the Electoral Act 1993 and contempt isn't on that list.
Excellent. We await Luxie taking the initiative on the situation. He gets it – I saw a clip yesterday of him saying something that made me realise the opportunity had actually penetrated the concrete in his head. But follow-through action is required.
I don't blame Wood for ignoring the pesky officials for all those 931 days, since there's no actual requirement to do what they wanted. However actually deceiving them is a different kettle of fish. The published evidence that he lied to them seems compelling enough to trigger accountability and punishment.
If Luxie fails to grab this golden opportunity to enforce it by asking the Speaker to do so, it will be a classic leadership failure on his part – he won't look like a viable PM. Maybe Seymour will grab it instead. Maybe Peters will go "Huh, what? Somebody do something?" then head back to sleep…
TOP’s Teal Card is a Gold Card for under 30s. It offers fully funded public transport and healthcare for under 30s,plus a $5,000 mini-UBI boost for everyone.
Manji said to an Ilam electorate meeting last night: “Why would you want to tax wealth production?” Interesting.
The merit of a wealth tax seems to me to lie in the principle of taxing accumulated wealth rather than its production – but he's an economist. He could get lucky if National put out the word quietly to their Ilam supporters. If they feel the need.
Why would you want to tax wealth production?” Interesting.
If he thinks high incomes are a marker of wealth production then he is confusing money with value. Value is created collectively but money is accumulated individually by having market power. Very high incomes (and very low ones) are therefore disproportionate.
Value is a concept, not a "thing" which is created collectively or otherwise. Goods and services are things that are created, and the imputed value of these is reflected in monetary terms, otherwise we wouldn't be able to to tax them – tax has to be paid in cash.
Manji's question is a legitimate one – I don't think he is at all confused; however, I suspect The reason for taxing income is that the state, in order to pay for the services it provides, needs to divert a portion of the country's production to state use. Therefor the state chooses to tax income because income reflects the value of the country's productive activity, and that activity is paid for in cash. The main justification for wealth tax, it would seem, is that it reduces the burden being placed on income tax – a feature which is particularly beneficial for those least able to afford taxes. It also tends to reduce inequality, equality being considered a value in its own right.
Why would you want to tax wealth production?” Interesting.
Interesting all right. Actually a good argument for taxing unearned income such as speculation on existing assets, and "boom across the river" type, rents, instead of income from productive labour. Or, as Adam Smith said, "tax rentiers not workers".
"The reason why Xi Jinping got very upset in terms of when I shot that balloon down with two box cars full of spy equipment in it was he didn't know it was there," Biden said.
A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said Biden's remarks were "extremely absurd" and "irresponsible".
Expressing China's strong dissatisfaction, foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said Biden's comments seriously violated facts, diplomatic protocol and China's political dignity.
"They're an open political provocation," she told a news conference.
But it's best for political provocations to be open rather than closed, so everyone can see what's happening. Biden pokes bear: bear gets affronted by that threat to its dignity. But notice that she didn't specify those facts that got seriously violated by Biden.
She knows the devil's in that detail, and therefore it must not be engaged with. Then there's the alarming fact of Biden personally shooting down Xi's balloon. Not nice.
Readers may feel that the US president was lying about this. Trump may say so – vulnerable to any attempt by Biden to out-macho him. The media may do its research, and determine that a junior staffer actually pushed the button. Top democrats may nervously watch the proximity of Biden's hand to the nuclear red button.
Mayor Brown is now proposing to sell the Port of Auckland.
This is what happens when the Labour/Green/City Vision councillors fail to vote together to overturn Mayor Brown's budget and sell the first major public asset:
He goes for more.
Wouldn't it be great if we had a Labour government or even a Labour Minister for Auckland that hadn't fatally compromised themselves on share ownership.
Mike Lee is one of the few to have a proper ideological grasp of this, he dates back to the Bruce Jesson/Alliance era.
There were a few brave ones from South Auckland, and some abject failures like Labour’s Shane Henderson. As I said here, “if Brown doesn’t go down” on Airport shares the Councillors will have waved the white flag to a hostile Mayor and they may as well all go surfing or on gardening leave for the remainder of their terms.
I was surprised and saddened by Shane Henderson's vote – though, I am sure I read that he had consulted widely with his constituents who were largely in favour of selling the shares and he voted accordingly. I used to live in Shane's 'hood before retiring to the Waikato and met him on more than one occasion – he's a good bloke.
Just bullshit. We were on the ground fundraising, delivering, putting up hoardings, going to his meetings. Any time you want to join in with the next one let us know, right?
No, not for all the tea in China. Better party to support.
You see, my garage is full of signs and signage to go up when election starts. Some of the wood is from the local body elections when all but one of our candidates got in. Got fund raisers next week and had meetings tonight.
So if you need people, how about you offer some hope, direction and a way to stop corporate greed. Rather than what your offering.
Sheesh dude I put my money where my mouth is. I 'ant no keyboard warrior – hence why I like you. Even if I disagree with you.
We were on the ground fundraising, delivering, putting up hoardings, going to his meetings. Any time you want to join in with the next one let us know, right?
This is a key quote from Prime Minister Hipkins at his media interview yesterday:
“I still don’t understand how after all of this period of time, over two years with the Cabinet Office asking him to attend to these cases, we’re still in this position now in the last few weeks, even the fact that more information has come to light as the weeks have unfolded, is still something that I do not understand.”
“There are people who have made mistakes in the past who have gone on to have great political careers and a future. What Michael chooses to do is a question for him.”
But then he said that Wood “clearly needed” to tidy up that part of his life that had caused his present predicament.
Hipkins appeared to suggest that this might be a challenge. “I think one of the things that Michael will need to reflect on, particularly as he thinks about what his own future is, is that he will need to have a better explanation than the one he’s produced so far,” he said.
You can read an awful lot into what is unsaid there.
Thanks to Richard Harman for being on to this pretty important exchange.
Okay then, back up your claim with evidence and show me that you’re not just trolling again.
For example, has Sharma apologised to the PM and the NZ public? Did Sharma express feeling sorry for letting down his Party? Has Sharma taken any responsibility for his own demise?
Has Sharma done any of those things? Well not to my knowledge and I would be surprised if he had. However I have never claimed that he has.
On the other hand when Mr Wood says things like "In some respects my de-prioritisation of my personal financial affairs has led to this situation." he really isn't taking responsibility is he?
Then he says "it is incumbent on Ministers to manage not just the reality, but also the perception of any conflicts. I have not managed this effectively, I take responsibility for it, and as such have submitted my resignation to the Prime Minister. I apologise to him and the public for this situation." appears to be a claim that he did nothing wrong in fact but he hasn't managed to persuade people of that. That certainly seems to be the only thing he is apologising for.
Mr Wood then says that "At all times I have provided information about shares in the Trust to the Cabinet Office that I have believed was correct, but in this case my understanding was incorrect."
I certainly get the impression from the PMs statement that this really isn't accurate. After all the PM said
"Despite repeated requests from the Cabinet Office and myself for Michael to manage his shareholdings, he has repeatedly failed to identify, disclose and appropriately manage conflicts of interest.
When I stood Michael down as Transport Minister, I asked him if there was any other relevant information I should know about and he indicated there was not."
It certainly seems to be the case, given that Wood went from a rank of 7 in the caucus a few weeks ago to somewhere in the low 30's today that he has self destructed doesn't it?
Newshub also seems to agree with the view that Wood doesn't really accept his full quota of blame.
"And in his statement following his resignation Wood still hadn’t quite clocked on to the fact that he was solely responsible for the mess he had found himself in, saying “in some respects my de-prioritisation of my personal financial affairs has led to this situation”.
There’s no “some” about it, Wood’s inability to sort out his conflicting shares is completely to blame.
It’s no longer fathomable that Wood is a victim of his own forgetfulness, not even Hipkins believes that anymore."
Actually, you did make a claim, about my comment equally applying to Sharma and Wood.
So, I request again that you back up your claim.
FYI, Wood sold the airport shares and donated the proceeds to charity, he resigned, and he apologised.
Back to you and your claim; you’re deflecting & diverting, as usual when I pull you up on some nonsense comment of yours – I’m starting to ‘lose control’ again
"Yup, he self-destructed his political career in a spectacular ball of bull dust and blamed everyone & anyone but himself."
I would say that that is a pretty reasonable description of what is happening to Mr Wood, just as it is one about Dr Sharma. If you had put all the additional comments you are making into your original remark I might have been able to distinguish them but not just from this comment that I asked about.
If you are member of the right wing elites then you can brazen this sort of thing out because the use of the law for political violence is, in this country, pretty much the preserve of the rich. Everyone knows what the law is is, to some extent, defined by what you can get away with and if you are rich and/or well connected to the right wing elites you can get away with a lot more. John Key got away unharmed from similar shares scandals simply because the corporate media had his back.
But the left cannot. It will be held to the highest standards. And Michael Wood should know that. He is among the more left wing in this government and his piushing of fair pay agreements painted a giant target on his back. He was never going to get any slack. There is no point whining about the hypocrisy, it is what it is. To me, his behaviour is inexplicably arrogant and/or stupid, and that combined with his wife voting in favour of the sale of airport shares makes me wonder about how clever the pair of them actually are when it comes to doing politics. As it is, both are now staring at a premature exit from politics.
Hipkins is going to try to change the Cabinet reporting rules for all governments no matter what party … in one of the worst cases of horse bolted I've ever seen here:
"In Australia, the Code of Conduct for Ministers requires that they divest themselves of investments and other interests in any public or private company or business.
That is, other than public superannuation funds or publicly listed managed funds or trust arrangements where the Minister has no visibility or control of decision-making.
Adopting this approach would be a significant change in the New Zealand position and requires further consultations, but it is my personal view it’s appropriate to take this step."
So, Sanctuary, with Wood now pretty likely to withdraw his name as an Epsom Labour candidate after this colossal own-goal, if you're in the Epsom electorate you could always put your name up for Labour 🙂
Also pretty hard to see Julie Fairey staying on as Councillor with her family trust essentially tanking her husband's career. So you could always prepare to stand in the Albert-Eden ward 🙂
Another left wing councilor voted for the sale of the shares.
Two other councilors had to correct information on shareholding in the week before the budget.
All that was said came down to, Jacinda Ardern asked if the shares were sold, and Wood said they were. That was the beginning of his end.imo
The ferrets are out there again, so Labour have to be more honest than Key, as the black ops and media ghouls will collect scalps and gleefully display them.
It's much, much deeper than that, as noted by the Prime Minister: it is in how both Wood and his wife Fairey have held and operated as beneficiaries of a Trust for a very long time. This point is cited by the PM yesterday in his release on the matter:
An investment trust like this would be tracking its holdings and the performance of those holdings every month, and as Trustees they had full visibility of it.
It's like he's never heard of a blind trust before.
The could be 5 cents and he'd still have to declare them.
We can have no tolerance for this shit, this is the crap that is destroying faith in democracies all around the world.
He's been an MP for 7 years, he's been a minister for 5 and a political nerd his entire life.
He misled cabinet and multiple prime ministers AND LIED TO THE PUBLIC last week (as well as the prime minister) when he said dozens of times there was nothing else to see here.
As far as I'm concerned, he should just resign from parliament and so should his wife from council (as her abstention made her compromised as Ad stated)
This is unacceptable.
And a few months back we all wanted him to be the leader of Labour, thank goodness that didn't happen or we'd be looking at a 1990 style wipe out.
"You can read an awful lot into what is unsaid there."
Therein lie two problems. One, people will read into it what they are disposed to. Two, allowing that to happen is fraught politically as misinformation will abound.
true but both those things would happen anyway. There's obviously something going on that we don't know, and presumably Hipkins doesn't either or isn't able to say. I guess his other option was to not say so much and try and move on, but people and MSM would still be going after it.
It would be a good idea to require that cabinet ministers have achieved a pass grade in metacognition 1.01 – it could be taught to them quite simply by reference to this source:
Readers with a yen for the deep Green view of life ought to focus on what the wikipedians have listed under the heading Components. Three triads!
Metacognition is classified into three components:
Metacognitive knowledge
Metacognitive regulation
Metacognitive experiences
That's just the first of the three. The other two are
three different types of metacognitive awareness when considering metacognitive knowledge
three skills that are essential
Everyone will clamour that it's totally unreasonable to expect Labour cabinet ministers to cerebrate at this level – but anyone is capable of self-improvement.
Well, Michael Wood had several years as a Union Organiser with FINSEC, and a couple of terms as a Local Government elected member. Both these things should have built a good foundation for work as an MP.
You have to be organised and people focused.
You have also to be aware that you have political opponents and are being watched.
They have quite a few of those around Parliament. Even ignoring the union officials, there are soldiers, lawyers, accountants, farmers, businesspeople, teachers/principals, police officers, lecturers, public servants, managers, doctors, broadcasters…
"…“Yeah, we copped a bit of backlash originally when we put this into the kids’ section, at the time we didn’t realise it was going to go around the world as it did,” said Bailey…"
I think that the hunters are heroes, but then I catch feral cats on my property in traps, and shoot them while listening to the Bellbirds and Tui's singing.
And every one of those cats is there because of a failure on the part of a human. A failure to look after the cat, a failure to get the cat speyed or neutered, and a failure to provide a safe home for the cat.
I should have mentioned I hate killing the cats…. but they are non-native and they slaughtering millions of native birds (and skinks etc) annually.
The alternative that a good friend of mine supports….catching them and neutering them and then either housing them with families or letting them free again just doesnt work.
In Oz they are moving towards rules that stipulate that cats are not allowed out of a house unless on a lead.
If they have a bell and collar that says "Tibbles" I shoot them.
But seriously if they have neither of the above and look like the average NZ feral cat which all seem to have the same colouring (see the front picture on the link below), and are in my trap then they are hunting and killing native birds on my land so I shoot them.
I don’t have many neighbours but talking to one a few weeks ago I warned him I shoot cats. He said he had two ginger cats-I said I would look out for those and let them go.
The moggies of Mt Iron are probably doing more harm to the Mt Iron rabbit population than the Mt Iron human population is capable. Likewise the ferrets, if you've got a decent population.
Around me they had a huge purge on the ferrets and cats because TB, and the rabbits have gone from way too many, to fucking insane.
This reply to both Ad and Graeme above….if you know anyone who lives in the houses on the slopes of Mt Iron ask them to put traps in their garden. (The friends I have who live up there have 2 cats and would never do this.)
It is only by a massive network of backyard trapping across NZ that we will make any impact on feral cats, ferrets, stoats, possums, hedgehogs, etc.
Maddening to see Radio New Zealand's headline – Luxon says Chris Hipkins is weak for not managing his team's culture. Given the PM has been in that role only after these Nash/Wood problems were occurring, perhaps RNZ could improve their accuracy.
Perhaps they could pin Luxon down on his Tesla purchase/subsidy and demand a straight answer. What a hypocrite.
Given the ongoing share issues with Michael Wood, the PM has handled it all extremely well and explained his dilemma over the whole saga. He has certainly been hugely more open than Luxon was in downplaying Uffindell's bullying and nastiness.
You could argue that the difference between Michael Wood and Kuriger and Uffendell is that they are not cabinet members.
However, given Luxon's "high moral stand" it must be disheartening for both those members of the Natz party, and a few others too, to realise they will never make it into a Natz cabinet!
Luxon has too high a moral position to ever consider them! /s
The problem Hipkins has isn't that the rules wrong. The rules are just fine. His problem is that his some of his Cabinet Ministers considered themselves above such trivial things as obeying them.
He has to come up with a way of herding cats when the cats don't se why they should be obliged to follow the path that has been set. Well good luck mate.
I bet he won't Patricia – I suggested some time ago that Alwyn comes in to spray and walk away. He got a bit tetchy about that comment, but that's how I react to his pretty much trolling.
From the link scotty provided Ms Kuriger would appear to be a most unpleasant person. She would seem, however, to have been removed from he Agriculture spokespersons role when the exchange was brought to Luxon's attention.
"She stepped down from the role after someone claiming to be an MPI employee notified National leader Christopher Luxon of the long history of correspondence."
A little later she was apparently dropped from number 10 in the party rankings into the pool of under 20 ranking backbenchers. Luxon would appear to have been lied to by Kuriger and when he discovered it he dropped her way down the list to the point where she will be unlikely to get into Cabinet if she hangs around. That seems pretty similar to what Hipkins has done to date, although he still seems to be rather more accepting of Wood coming back than does Luxon about Kuriger.
Uffindell was the one who behaved like a ratbag when he was about 15 at Boarding School wasn't he? I'd say, given his apparently unblemished behaviour since then he deserves another chance.
Except that Uffendell terrorised a female flatmate when he was at university, presumably in his early 20s, to the extent that she climbed out a window and fled to a safe haven!
Woodlouse is the scumbag that put Claire Curren's photo on a toilet seat, and boasted of doing so (at least showed a picture of himself admiring the said toilet seat)!
Alwyn… His homeless man in MIQ. Cost thousands looking for that lie. Then the bullying pictures of Clare Curran's photo(L) on a toilet seat lid. Receiving personal details of patients from Michelle Boag. Does that jog your memory?
I remember a university student, here in New Zealand, who ended up along with a bunch of other students being arrested for having raided a number of girls hostels, tossing the girls out of bed (carefully) and tipping their belongings on the floor. He later became a very, very senior Labour MP
Just a capping prank of course was the way it was seen at the time.
I'm not going to say when, where or who though. It was a pretty normal part of Capping celebrations at the time. Why name the person today? They have long got over it. It did happen though when he was young.
Uffindell was the one who behaved like a ratbag when he was about 15 at Boarding School wasn't he?
Was he, alwyn, was he – or wasn't he? It's a tricky name – unblemished since a wooden performance at Boarding School, apparently.
I know nothing about Woodhouse.
Wasn't he homeless? I googled 'Woodhouse' + 'homeless' and got a few 'hits' – seems like a good boy; must be tough being homeless during a pandemic. We need more with his sort of personal experience in our house of representatives.
Dr Bryce, on how symmetry induces team herding in our democracy:
Labour thinks National is corrupt and unethical, and vice versa. The fact that politicians appear to have an unwavering trust in themselves and their own side, means that they think the rules about corruption are actually there for their opponents rather than their own team.
There's something about the nature of the game that induces players to believe that the rules only apply to the other team. Imagine if team sports worked like that.
He runs the line that Wood was the victim of culture (the legendary kiwi complacency).
He simply didn’t take integrity rules meant to protect the New Zealand political system from corruption seriously. That’s rightly led to his downfall.
I prefer the covert rebel theory. Rebels ignore rules. Wood would probably argue that the 931 days he maintained his rebellion displays the virtue of consistency. Fair point.
I've never seen any evidence that he does, Patricia. Academics are generally known to be notoriously leftist in outlook. I'm aware that some commentators here routinely claim he's biased but that doesn't make it so. I suspect that his reluctance to toe the leftist academic line & be scrupulously non-partisan instead is what offends them.
Bryce comes up with a hypothesis, then looks for all sources to support that. Original thinking is rather light on the ground. His summaries…. enough said.
You haven't been reading Bryce Edwards closely enough if you haven't noticed he supports National (or at least The Right), Frank. Don't be fooled by the "Democracy Project" label.
I have little respect for the man. For instance when quizzed on an RNZ programme over the recent electoral reform proposals he said the proposed 3.5% was too high and that it should be 1% to get a party into government. Hasn't he seen the coalition chaos in Israel because they have a low limit (actually 1.5% not 1%) for parties to get into parliament which means that many parties get in.
he said the proposed 3.5% was too high and that it should be 1% to get a party into government
Firstly, I suspect you may have meant parliament rather than government. Parties only get into government here if a leader can assure the GG that he has the numbers to rule. Usually that means he has secured a formal agreement with any minor parties he needs – like a contract.
Secondly, any genuine Green believes in the principle of biodiversity, which produces the complexity of interactions in an ecosystem stabilising species survival. Going for a 1% threshold optimises the biodiversity of parliament as a social ecosystem. That's to his credit.
Thirdly, I agree the situation in Israel is sufficient cause to be cautious around this for the reason you mention (chaotic tendency). However I suspect Israel could be a special case & comparative analysis ought to therefore incorporate all countries using western-style democracies, to examine how each has operated so as to enable diverse representation.
Sorry Dennis, yes I did mean parliament not government.
I don't accept your argument re Israel as a special case. I think in NZ we could easily have 10 or more parties (some of them anti-vax nutters etc) vying to be part of "coalitions of chaos" if the threshold was 1%. I'd be happy to see it reduced from 5% to 4% or even 3.5% though.
I think I declared my preference for 3% onsite here years ago. To clarify re Israel, I vaguely recall checking out their parliamentary configuration a while back & noticing considerable biodiversity. I think that was relative to major parties not being as influential as here.
Sort of like a spectrum effect. If major parties subside below 30% they lose relativity leverage & coalition-forming becomes a multiplicity scenario rather than a partnership binary.
Political stability then hinges on how robust the contractual design is in each case – whether events precipitate rats jumping the ship. If a minor party can be the tail wagging the dog (as with NZF) it will do that and hold the govt to ransom. A creative challenge to the lawyers designing the contracts. Ought to be possible to prevent minor party finagling though – humans have always done contingency planning.
I suspect that his reluctance to toe the leftist academic line & be scrupulously non-partisan instead is what offends them.
I'm not offended. Only amazed. Why would anyone take Bryce seriously? He has a track record of being hilariously wrong.
2020 election? National have every chance, Todd Muller is the man! You might think that is bad satire, but it's not. It's Bryce Edwards … totally out of touch, detached from reality. That's why his commentary is dismissed.
Yeah I've seen him get analyses wrong in the past & vaguely recall that was one such example. Doesn't mean right-wing bias to me though. Ivory tower syndrome has been well-known an awful long time. The disconnect from the real world is often hilarious. Perhaps he tries to compensate for this handicap by canvassing the opinion of folks he knows, such as family relations. That would explain the situation – via a randomised warping effect…
a really good article by a senior clinical psychologist outlining why despite spending over a billion dollars on mental health, this govt has failed to improve outcomes.
This is a smart move by the Greens. Get out in front of the tax issue. Often in the past both Labour and the Greens have been too passive, releasing their tax plans and then letting the opposition/media control the narrative (usually reduced to "Tax? Boo!").
The Greens' tax calculator is an effective rebuttal …
The issue of course is that any government that institutes this will find that tax revenue will dry up overnight – the exodus of international businesses, successful local businesses, individuals with wealth etc. will be swift and devastating. Our economy will shrink drastically.
Job losses will be massive, Government revenue from PAYE and company profits will plummet. There will be sweet FA in the coffers.
Have the Greens factored that pesky little issue into their clever calculator?
In The Myth of Millionaire Tax Flight, Young examines a trove of data on millionaires and billionaires—confidential tax returns, Forbes lists, and census records—and distills down surprising insights. While economic elites have the resources and capacity to flee high-tax places, their actual migration is surprisingly limited. For the rich, ongoing economic potential is tied to the place where they become successful—often where they are powerful insiders—and that success ultimately diminishes both the incentive and desire to migrate.
This important book debunks a powerful idea that has driven fiscal policy for years, and in doing so it clears the way for a new era. Millionaire taxes, Young argues, could give states the funds to pay for infrastructure, education, and other social programs to attract a group of people who are much more mobile—the younger generation.
Selling up and changing your sources of business income is not an easy or inexpensive task.
A “successful local business” is not going to give up an income stream simply because they have to pay a little more tax. Especially when it contributes to the stable, educated and healthy workforce, infrastructure and social stability that business depends on.
As for those who are destroying our economy by speculatively and non-productively bidding up the prices of existing assets, such as land to the detriment of our economy and actual productive business, Capital gains farmers, we are better off without.
Customer base, built up goodwill, cost of moving plant, to name just a few things.
We have seen the obstacles to simply upping stakes and going to a new market, with businesses. An example is Dick Smiths attempt too set up in NZ.
One of the reasons I stopped running my business, is that you are so much tied to locality and your established customer base.
Large ones, if they are actual productive businesses are even harder to shift. Of course, if they are simply in the business of extracting economic rents without adding any real value, then we are actually much better off without them.
I said, although it may not be that clear that the holder of the business moved, not the whole business. This would just make it a foreign owned company. The comment about it being a large one is that you could have it run without the owner in NZ. It wouldn't work for a panel beating and painting firm for example.
I am used to seeing doom and gloom about achievement levels in our schools so an article in the Washington Post caught the eye. The final sentence is similar to what I see here.
"National test scores plunge, with still no sign of pandemic recovery
National test scores plummeted for 13-year-olds, according to new data that shows the single largest drop in math in 50 years and no signs of academic recovery following the disruptions of the pandemic.
Student scores plunged nine points in math and four points in reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), often regarded as the nation’s report card. The release Wednesday reflected testing in fall 2022, comparing it to the same period in 2019, before the pandemic began.
… The average math score is now the same as it was in 1990, while the average reading score is the same as it was in 2004.
I wonder whether the geophysics Institute relied a lot on adjunct lecturers from GNS. For example, Auckland University's Plant and Food postgraduate studies are mostly staffed with adjunct lecturers from the Plant&Food CRI in Mt Albert. The research expertise comes mainly from the CRI, not the university.
Therefore disassembling geophysics courses at Vic would not involve significant staff redundancies for the university, but might put some staff positions at GNS on shaky ground.
In terms of NZ earthquake expertise, the greater critical mass will be at GNS.
Remember when everyone thought Wood could replace Ardern a few months back? Gosh we dodged a bullet with that not happening.
What is going on with the Labour party caucus? Arrogance. It's arrogance.
I blame Ardern for a lot of this, she allowed a culture of arrogant ministers playing fast and loose to take hold because she was very hands off, she didn't micromanage she trusted too much.
she ruled by consensus kindness and empathy and faith in her team, which sounds good, but doesn't work, she'd still be hear if that leadership style was effective in governing.
you need to be bit of a bastard, and put the fear of god into these careerists that you will throw any and all of them under a bus at the drop of a hat, like one Helen Clark, Labours only three term PM.
Poor Hipkins. I actually feel sorry for him. He's probably wondering which of these bastards is lying to me and is going to be busted next. Luckily he's more of a Clark than an Ardern.
Every Labour and Green Mp and minister is on notice, get your houses and lives in order, yesterday!
the nats and act are spending their unprecedented election warchests on armies of sleuths going over labour/green mp's and activists lives with a fine tooth comb, and any conflicts or indiscretions will be found.
Yep, the wheelie bin riflers and underwear sniffers are in full Dirty Politics mode at the moment!
The Natzos do seem to be way better at hiding the dosh–and being proud of it.
For 40 years the middle class and other aspirationals have been encouraged to buy into the dog eat dog monetarist scene–Shares! Venture Capital! Property! so it is understandable why some went there–but still not excusable for any political rep seeking credibility with working class people.
Michael Wood–FPAs, huge pay rises and new contracting regime for bus drivers, rejuvenation of NZ run Coastal Shipping…his legacy will live on…what a shame.
"Yep, the wheelie bin riflers and underwear sniffers are in full Dirty Politics mode at the moment!"
I take it you mean the people who staked out Luxon's home, watched for his wife to go out in her car, made a note of the number plate and then checked whether there had been any attempt to claim the rebate? They certainly sound like the people you are talking about.
Geophysics is one of the subjects to go under the knife at Victoria Uni of Wellington (Latin, Italian and secondary teaching are others).
I get their thinking; all the necessary research must be complete now after the Christchurch earthquakes, so no need for geophysics any more. Or rely on some overseas institution?
New Zealand is again having to reconcile conflicting pressures from its military and its trade interests. Should we join Pillar Two of AUKUS and risk compromising our markets in China? For a century after New Zealand was founded in 1840, its external security arrangements and external economics arrangements were aligned. ...
The ‘50 Shades of Green’ farmers’ protest in 2019 was heavy on climate change denial, but five years on, scepticism and criticism about the idea that pine forests can save us is growing across the board. File photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in climate ...
This morning the sky was bright.The birds, in their usual joyous bliss. Nature doesn’t seem to feel the heat of what might angst humans.Their calls are clear and beautiful.Just some random thoughts:MāoriPaul Goldsmith has announced his government will roll back the judiciary’s rulings on Māori Customary Marine Title, which recognises ...
In 2003, the Court of Appeal delivered its decision in Ngati Apa v Attorney-General, ruling that Māori customary title over the foreshore and seabed had not been universally extinguished, and that the Māori Land Court could determine claims and confirm title if the facts supported it. This kicked off the ...
Earlier this week at Parliament, Labour leader Chris Hipkins was applauded for saying that the response to the final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care had to be “bigger than politics.” True, but the fine words, apologies and “we hear you” messages will soon ring ...
TL;DR: In news breaking this morning:The Ministry of Education is cutting $2 billion from its school building programme so the National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government has enough money to deliver tax cuts; The Government has quietly lowered its child poverty reduction targets to make them easier to achieve;Te Whatu Ora-Health NZ’s ...
Kia ora. These are some stories that caught our eye this week – as always, feel free to share yours in the comments. Our header image this week (via Eke Panuku) shows the planned upgrade for the Karanga Plaza Tidal Swimming Steps. The week in Greater Auckland On ...
1. What's not to love about the way the Harris campaign is turning things around?a. Nothingb. Love all of itc. God what a reliefd. Not that it will be by any means easye. All of the above 2. Documents released by the Ministry of Health show Associate Health Minister Casey ...
Trust in me in all you doHave the faith I have in youLove will see us through, if only you trust in meWhy don't you, you trust me?In a week that saw the release of the 3,000 page Abuse in Care report Christopher Luxon was being asked about Boot Camps. ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking about the Royal Commission Inquiry into Abuse in Carereport released this week, and with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent on a UN push to not recognise carbon offset markets and ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 26, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Transport: Simeon Brown announced$802.9 million in funding for 18 new trains on the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines, which ...
The northern expressway extension from Warkworth to Whangarei is likely to require radical changes to legislation if it is going to be built within the foreseeable future. The Government’s powers to purchase land, the planning process and current restrictions on road tolling are all going to need to be changed ...
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedFirst they came for the doctors But I was confused by the numbers and costs So I didn't speak up Then they came for our police and nurses And I didn't think we could afford those costs anyway So I ...
Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on UnsplashWe’re back again after our mid-winter break. We’re still with the ‘new’ day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when we have our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream ...
Notes: This is a free article. Abuse in Care themes are mentioned. Video is at the bottom.BackgroundYesterday’s report into Abuse in Care revealed that at least 1 in 3 of all who went through state and faith based care were abused - often horrifically. At least, because not all survivors ...
Luxon speaks in Parliament yesterday about the Abuse in Care report. Photo: Hagen Hopkins/Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:PM Christopher Luxon said yesterday in tabling the Abuse in Carereport in Parliament he wanted to ‘do the ...
About a decade ago I worked with a bloke called Steve. He was the grizzled veteran coder, a few years older than me, who knew where the bodies were buried - code wise. Despite his best efforts to be approachable and friendly he could be kind of gruff, through to ...
Some of the recent announcements from the government have reminded us of posts we’ve written in the past. Here’s one from early 2020. There were plenty of reactions to the government’s infrastructure announcement a few weeks ago which saw them fund a bunch of big roading projects. One of ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Thursday, July 25 are:News: Why Electric Kiwi is closing to new customers - and why it matters RNZ’s Susan EdmundsScoop: Government drops ...
Hi,I felt a small wet tongue snaking through one of the holes in my Crocs. It explored my big toe, darting down one side, then the other. “He’s looking for some toe cheese,” said the woman next to me, words that still haunt me to this day.Growing up in New ...
Yesterday I happily quoted the Prime Minister without fact-checking him and sure enough, it turns out his numbers were all to hell. It’s not four kg of Royal Commission report, it’s fourteen.My friend and one-time colleague-in-comms Hazel Phillips gently alerted me to my error almost as soon as I’d hit ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Thursday, July 25, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day were:The Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquirypublished its final report yesterday.PM Christopher Luxon and The Minister responsible for ...
The Official Information Act has always been a battle between requesters seeking information, and governments seeking to control it. Information is power, so Ministers and government agencies want to manage what is released and when, for their own convenience, and legality and democracy be damned. Their most recent tactic for ...
TL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:Transport and Energy Minister Simeon Brown is accelerating plans to spend at least $10 billion through Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) to extend State Highway One as a four-lane ‘Expressway’ from Warkworth to Whangarei ...
I live my life (woo-ooh-ooh)With no control in my destinyYea-yeah, yea-yeah (woo-ooh-ooh)I can bleed when I want to bleedSo come on, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)You can bleed when you want to bleedYea-yeah, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)Everybody bleed when they want to bleedCome on and bleedGovernments face tough challenges. Selling unpopular decisions to ...
Please note:To skip directly to the- parliamentary footage in the video, scroll to 1:21 To skip to audio please click on the headphone iconon the left hand side of the screenThis video / audio section is under development. ...
Given the crackdown on wasteful government spending, it behooves me to point to a high profile example of spending by the Luxon government that looks like a big, fat waste of time and money. I’m talking about the deployment of NZDF personnel to support the US-led coalition in the Red ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:40 am on Wednesday, July 24 are:Deep Dive: Chipping away at the housing crisis, including my comments RNZ/Newsroom’s The DetailNews: Government softens on asset sales, ...
As I reported about the city centre, Auckland’s rail network is also going through a difficult and disruptive period which is rapidly approaching a culmination, this will result in a significant upgrade to the whole network. Hallelujah. Also like the city centre this is an upgrade predicated on the City ...
Today, a 4 kilogram report will be delivered to Parliament. We know this is what the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care weighs, because our Prime Minister told us so.Some reporter had blindsided him by asking a question about something done by ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Wednesday, July 24, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Beehive:Transport Minister Simeon Brownannounced plans to use PPPs to fund, build and run a four-lane expressway between Auckland ...
NewstalkZB host Mike Hosking, who can usually be relied on to give Prime Minister Christopher Luxon an easy run, did not do so yesterday when he interviewed him about the HealthNZ deficit. Luxon is trying to use a deficit reported last year by HealthNZ as yet another example of the ...
Back in January a StatsNZ employee gave a speech at Rātana on behalf of tangata whenua in which he insulted and criticised the government. The speech clearly violated the principle of a neutral public service, and StatsNZ started an investigation. Part of that was getting an external consultant to examine ...
Renting for life: Shared ownership initiatives are unlikely to slow the slide in home ownership by much. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:A Deloittereport for Westpac has projected Aotearoa’s home-ownership rate will ...
You're broken down and tiredOf living life on a merry go roundAnd you can't find the fighterBut I see it in you so we gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsWe gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsAnd I'll rise upI'll rise like the dayI'll rise upI'll rise unafraidI'll rise upAnd I'll ...
There’s been a change in Myers Park. Down the steps from St. Kevin’s Arcade, past the grassy slopes, the children’s playground, the benches and that goat statue, there has been a transformation. The underpass for Mayoral Drive has gone from a barren, grey, concrete tunnel, to a place that thrums ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Global society may have finally slammed on the brakes for climate-warming pollution released by human fossil fuel combustion. According to the Carbon Monitor Project, the total global climate pollution released between February and May 2024 declined slightly from the amount released during the same ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Tuesday, July 23 are:Deep Dive: Penlink: where tolling rhetoric meets reality BusinessDesk-$$$’sOliver LewisScoop:Te Pūkenga plans for regional polytechs leak out ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Tuesday, July 23, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Health: Shane Reti announcedthe Board of Te Whatu Ora-Health New Zealand was being replaced with Commissioner Lester Levy ...
Health NZ warned the Government at the end of March that it was running over Budget. But the reasons it gave were very different to those offered by the Prime Minister yesterday. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon blamed the “botched merger” of the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) to create Health ...
Long ReadKey Summary: Although National increased the health budget by $1.4 billion in May, they used an old funding model to project health system costs, and never bothered to update their pre-election numbers. They were told during the Health Select Committees earlier in the year their budget amount was deficient, ...
As a momentous, historic weekend in US politics unfolded, analysts and commentators grasped for precedents and comparisons to help explain the significance and power of the choice Joe Biden had made. The 46th president had swept the Democratic party’s primaries but just over 100 days from the election had chosen ...
TL;DR: I’m casting around for new ideas and ways of thinking about Aotearoa’s political economy to find a few solutions to our cascading and self-reinforcing housing, poverty and climate crises.Associate Professor runs an online masters degree in the economics of sustainability at Torrens University in Australia and is organising ...
The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back on National's Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. The bill sets up water for privatisation, and was introduced under urgency, then rammed through select committee with no time even for local councils to make a proper submission. Naturally, national's select committee ...
Some years ago, I bought a book at Dunedin’s Regent Booksale for $1.50. As one does. Vandrad the Viking (1898), by J. Storer Clouston, is an obscure book these days – I cannot find a proper online review – but soon it was sitting on my shelf, gathering dust alongside ...
History is not on the side of the centre-left, when Democratic presidents fall behind in the polls and choose not to run for re-election. On both previous occasions in the past 75 years (Harry Truman in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1968) the Democrats proceeded to then lose the White House ...
This is a free articleCoverageThis morning, US President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the Presidential race. And that is genuinely newsworthy. Thanks for your service, President Biden, and all the best to you and yours.However, the media in New Zealand, particularly the 1News nightly bulletin, has been breathlessly covering ...
A homeless person’s camp beside a blocked-off slipped damage walkway in Freeman’s Bay: we are chasing our tail on our worsening and inter-related housing, poverty and climate crises. Photo: Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
What has happened to it all?Crazy, some'd sayWhere is the life that I recognise?(Gone away)But I won't cry for yesterdayThere's an ordinary worldSomehow I have to findAnd as I try to make my wayTo the ordinary worldYesterday morning began as many others - what to write about today? I began ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Monday, July 22 are:Today’s Must Read: Father and son live in a tent, and have done for four years, in a million ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Orderimage, ...
Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent talking about the National-ACT-NZ First Government’s release of its first Emissions Reduction Plan;University of Otago Foreign Relations Professor and special guest Dr Karin von ...
Open access notablesImproving global temperature datasets to better account for non-uniform warming, Calvert, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society:To better account for spatial non-uniform trends in warming, a new GITD [global instrumental temperature dataset] was created that used maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) to combine the land surface ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says a bill that has passed its first reading will improve parental leave settings and give non-biological parents more flexibility as primary carer for their child. The Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill (No3), passed its first reading this morning. “It includes a change ...
Two Bills designed to improve regulation and make it easier to do business have passed their first reading in Parliament, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill make key changes to legislation administered by the Ministry ...
New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
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I wonder if misleading the cabinet office will make Wood liable for prosecution. What are the rules around that? Is it merely parliamentary protocol?
The elementary concept of checking whether the shares had or had not been sold seems never to have entered the (air)heads of either Wood or the officials.
Wood really has set a new benchmark in shooting oneself in the foot..
In his case…in both feet…
Hard to see anyone topping that..
And no other players in view…all his own handiwork..
It's not a specified crime although Parliament can hold people in contempt of Parliament which presumably could include that sort of behaviour if it was egregious enough.
Thanks Craig. Seems clear he did mislead the cabinet office – the evidence says so, but maybe inadvertently as a result of believing his sharebroker followed his instruction. What if Luxon asked in parliament this question: What evidence has Wood provided that he did actually issue that instruction?
If the result was none, can Wood be challenged to provide that evidence? If he then failed to do so, would the Speaker declare him in contempt of parliament?
https://www.parliament.nz/mi/visit-and-learn/how-parliament-works/parliamentary-practice-in-new-zealand/chapter-4-members-conditions-of-service/
The cabinet manual is not legally enforceable although obviously the Governor-General can remove a minister on advice of the PM, but there are not really any other consequences in that area.
There are also no Parliamentary consequences although he might get voted out by the electorate or deselected by his party.
A false or misleading pecuniary interests return is grounds for contempt of Parliament as is misleading Parliament (Jan Tinetti has been appearing in front of the Privileges Committee for misleading Parliament).
Having said all that, the maximum penalty for contempt of Parliament is a fine of $1,000. Vacancies can only occur as outlined by s55 of the Electoral Act 1993 and contempt isn't on that list.
Excellent. We await Luxie taking the initiative on the situation. He gets it – I saw a clip yesterday of him saying something that made me realise the opportunity had actually penetrated the concrete in his head. But follow-through action is required.
I don't blame Wood for ignoring the pesky officials for all those 931 days, since there's no actual requirement to do what they wanted. However actually deceiving them is a different kettle of fish. The published evidence that he lied to them seems compelling enough to trigger accountability and punishment.
If Luxie fails to grab this golden opportunity to enforce it by asking the Speaker to do so, it will be a classic leadership failure on his part – he won't look like a viable PM. Maybe Seymour will grab it instead. Maybe Peters will go "Huh, what? Somebody do something?" then head back to sleep…
Something to lighten the day .
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/politics/an-ode-for-whiney-luxon.
And on a hopeful note – link from yesterdays review (ht observer ) Mr Luxon's popularity continues to slide.
tps://www.horizonpoll.co.nz/page/670/new-zealand
That is a very useful poll..
And I like that it is non-denominational/agnostic…in that it is commissioned by nobody…there is no paymaster..
Gordon Campbell examines the prospects in the campaign for Ilam: http://werewolf.co.nz/2023/06/gordon-campbell-on-top-and-the-bank-inquiry/
The merit of a wealth tax seems to me to lie in the principle of taxing accumulated wealth rather than its production – but he's an economist. He could get lucky if National put out the word quietly to their Ilam supporters. If they feel the need.
If he thinks high incomes are a marker of wealth production then he is confusing money with value. Value is created collectively but money is accumulated individually by having market power. Very high incomes (and very low ones) are therefore disproportionate.
Value is a concept, not a "thing" which is created collectively or otherwise. Goods and services are things that are created, and the imputed value of these is reflected in monetary terms, otherwise we wouldn't be able to to tax them – tax has to be paid in cash.
Manji's question is a legitimate one – I don't think he is at all confused; however, I suspect The reason for taxing income is that the state, in order to pay for the services it provides, needs to divert a portion of the country's production to state use. Therefor the state chooses to tax income because income reflects the value of the country's productive activity, and that activity is paid for in cash. The main justification for wealth tax, it would seem, is that it reduces the burden being placed on income tax – a feature which is particularly beneficial for those least able to afford taxes. It also tends to reduce inequality, equality being considered a value in its own right.
Interesting all right. Actually a good argument for taxing unearned income such as speculation on existing assets, and "boom across the river" type, rents, instead of income from productive labour. Or, as Adam Smith said, "tax rentiers not workers".
Like dunne..'flexible..to a fault'..pretty much nails it..
See how top world leaders do geopolitics:
But it's best for political provocations to be open rather than closed, so everyone can see what's happening. Biden pokes bear: bear gets affronted by that threat to its dignity. But notice that she didn't specify those facts that got seriously violated by Biden.
She knows the devil's in that detail, and therefore it must not be engaged with. Then there's the alarming fact of Biden personally shooting down Xi's balloon. Not nice.
Readers may feel that the US president was lying about this. Trump may say so – vulnerable to any attempt by Biden to out-macho him. The media may do its research, and determine that a junior staffer actually pushed the button. Top democrats may nervously watch the proximity of Biden's hand to the nuclear red button.
Mayor Brown is now proposing to sell the Port of Auckland.
This is what happens when the Labour/Green/City Vision councillors fail to vote together to overturn Mayor Brown's budget and sell the first major public asset:
He goes for more.
Wouldn't it be great if we had a Labour government or even a Labour Minister for Auckland that hadn't fatally compromised themselves on share ownership.
Mike Lee is one of the few to have a proper ideological grasp of this, he dates back to the Bruce Jesson/Alliance era.
There were a few brave ones from South Auckland, and some abject failures like Labour’s Shane Henderson. As I said here, “if Brown doesn’t go down” on Airport shares the Councillors will have waved the white flag to a hostile Mayor and they may as well all go surfing or on gardening leave for the remainder of their terms.
I was surprised and saddened by Shane Henderson's vote – though, I am sure I read that he had consulted widely with his constituents who were largely in favour of selling the shares and he voted accordingly. I used to live in Shane's 'hood before retiring to the Waikato and met him on more than one occasion – he's a good bloke.
Well if we had supported the Labour candidate for Mayor?
"If" is a small but mighty word AD.
We did. It didn't work.
Very late and without real conviction.
Not true and stop re-writing history.
He was winning until 4 weeks out when the right withdrew all its candidates except one, and corralled all votes against him.
So no white-anting went on at all. no sir. Not one bit of it. Labour was a pure as snow…
Just bullshit. We were on the ground fundraising, delivering, putting up hoardings, going to his meetings. Any time you want to join in with the next one let us know, right?
No, not for all the tea in China. Better party to support.
You see, my garage is full of signs and signage to go up when election starts. Some of the wood is from the local body elections when all but one of our candidates got in. Got fund raisers next week and had meetings tonight.
So if you need people, how about you offer some hope, direction and a way to stop corporate greed. Rather than what your offering.
Sheesh dude I put my money where my mouth is. I 'ant no keyboard warrior – hence why I like you. Even if I disagree with you.
The same guy who lost for Labour is now 11 on the Greens list.
Green and Labour tend to buddy up in Auckland as City Vision (other than the cranky ones).
Yeap know the deal in Auckland well. Works most of the time, but.
You might want to have a chat to some of those on the North Shore and Rodney about how it works though.
Ok … why did the affirmation take the time it did?
It's like you've never heard of a primary before.
We were on the ground fundraising, delivering, putting up hoardings, going to his meetings. Any time you want to join in with the next one let us know, right?
This is a key quote from Prime Minister Hipkins at his media interview yesterday:
“I still don’t understand how after all of this period of time, over two years with the Cabinet Office asking him to attend to these cases, we’re still in this position now in the last few weeks, even the fact that more information has come to light as the weeks have unfolded, is still something that I do not understand.”
“There are people who have made mistakes in the past who have gone on to have great political careers and a future. What Michael chooses to do is a question for him.”
But then he said that Wood “clearly needed” to tidy up that part of his life that had caused his present predicament.
Hipkins appeared to suggest that this might be a challenge. “I think one of the things that Michael will need to reflect on, particularly as he thinks about what his own future is, is that he will need to have a better explanation than the one he’s produced so far,” he said.
You can read an awful lot into what is unsaid there.
Thanks to Richard Harman for being on to this pretty important exchange.
https://www.politik.co.nz/did-wood-lie/ | Politik
Maybe the dude Gaurav Sharma had a few things correct?
Yup, he self-destructed his political career in a spectacular ball of bull dust and blamed everyone & anyone but himself.
Are you talking about Sharma or Wood? Your comment would seem to fit both of them.
Okay then, back up your claim with evidence and show me that you’re not just trolling again.
For example, has Sharma apologised to the PM and the NZ public? Did Sharma express feeling sorry for letting down his Party? Has Sharma taken any responsibility for his own demise?
Has Sharma done any of those things? Well not to my knowledge and I would be surprised if he had. However I have never claimed that he has.
On the other hand when Mr Wood says things like "In some respects my de-prioritisation of my personal financial affairs has led to this situation." he really isn't taking responsibility is he?
Then he says "it is incumbent on Ministers to manage not just the reality, but also the perception of any conflicts. I have not managed this effectively, I take responsibility for it, and as such have submitted my resignation to the Prime Minister. I apologise to him and the public for this situation." appears to be a claim that he did nothing wrong in fact but he hasn't managed to persuade people of that. That certainly seems to be the only thing he is apologising for.
Mr Wood then says that "At all times I have provided information about shares in the Trust to the Cabinet Office that I have believed was correct, but in this case my understanding was incorrect."
I certainly get the impression from the PMs statement that this really isn't accurate. After all the PM said
"Despite repeated requests from the Cabinet Office and myself for Michael to manage his shareholdings, he has repeatedly failed to identify, disclose and appropriately manage conflicts of interest.
When I stood Michael down as Transport Minister, I asked him if there was any other relevant information I should know about and he indicated there was not."
It certainly seems to be the case, given that Wood went from a rank of 7 in the caucus a few weeks ago to somewhere in the low 30's today that he has self destructed doesn't it?
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2023/06/chris-hipkins-michael-wood-s-full-statements-after-he-resigns-over-share-scandal.html
Newshub also seems to agree with the view that Wood doesn't really accept his full quota of blame.
"And in his statement following his resignation Wood still hadn’t quite clocked on to the fact that he was solely responsible for the mess he had found himself in, saying “in some respects my de-prioritisation of my personal financial affairs has led to this situation”.
There’s no “some” about it, Wood’s inability to sort out his conflicting shares is completely to blame.
It’s no longer fathomable that Wood is a victim of his own forgetfulness, not even Hipkins believes that anymore."
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/even-in-resigning-wood-doesnt-accept-full-blame
Actually, you did make a claim, about my comment equally applying to Sharma and Wood.
So, I request again that you back up your claim.
FYI, Wood sold the airport shares and donated the proceeds to charity, he resigned, and he apologised.
Back to you and your claim; you’re deflecting & diverting, as usual when I pull you up on some nonsense comment of yours – I’m starting to ‘lose control’ again![wink wink](https://cdn2.thestandard.org.nz/wp-content/plugins/ark-wysiwyg-comment-editor/ckeditor/plugins/smiley/images/wink_smile.png?x42494)
Your comment in full was
"Yup, he self-destructed his political career in a spectacular ball of bull dust and blamed everyone & anyone but himself."
I would say that that is a pretty reasonable description of what is happening to Mr Wood, just as it is one about Dr Sharma. If you had put all the additional comments you are making into your original remark I might have been able to distinguish them but not just from this comment that I asked about.
Alwyn is absolutely right. You comment could refer to either.
Since Wood has apologised this contradicts that he blamed everyone & anyone but himself.
My comment can therefore only refer to Sharma and Alwyn’s comment is a false equivalence and thus a false & misleading claim.
In addition, my comment @ 6.1.1. was a reply to 6.1 in which only Gaurav Sharma was mentioned.
Why are Alwyn and you trolling?
If you are member of the right wing elites then you can brazen this sort of thing out because the use of the law for political violence is, in this country, pretty much the preserve of the rich. Everyone knows what the law is is, to some extent, defined by what you can get away with and if you are rich and/or well connected to the right wing elites you can get away with a lot more. John Key got away unharmed from similar shares scandals simply because the corporate media had his back.
But the left cannot. It will be held to the highest standards. And Michael Wood should know that. He is among the more left wing in this government and his piushing of fair pay agreements painted a giant target on his back. He was never going to get any slack. There is no point whining about the hypocrisy, it is what it is. To me, his behaviour is inexplicably arrogant and/or stupid, and that combined with his wife voting in favour of the sale of airport shares makes me wonder about how clever the pair of them actually are when it comes to doing politics. As it is, both are now staring at a premature exit from politics.
Hipkins is going to try to change the Cabinet reporting rules for all governments no matter what party … in one of the worst cases of horse bolted I've ever seen here:
"In Australia, the Code of Conduct for Ministers requires that they divest themselves of investments and other interests in any public or private company or business.
That is, other than public superannuation funds or publicly listed managed funds or trust arrangements where the Minister has no visibility or control of decision-making.
Adopting this approach would be a significant change in the New Zealand position and requires further consultations, but it is my personal view it’s appropriate to take this step."
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA2306/S00141/statement-on-michael-wood.htm
So, Sanctuary, with Wood now pretty likely to withdraw his name as an Epsom Labour candidate after this colossal own-goal, if you're in the Epsom electorate you could always put your name up for Labour 🙂
Also pretty hard to see Julie Fairey staying on as Councillor with her family trust essentially tanking her husband's career. So you could always prepare to stand in the Albert-Eden ward 🙂
"with Wood now pretty likely to withdraw his name as an Epsom Labour candidate".
Can you elucidate on this? At the moment he is the MP for Mt Roskill isn't he?
Surely he isn't going to march into the valley of death and try and beat Seymour in Epsom?
Thanks for the correction.
If you open my closet it's a Halloween party in there, no chance I'll be running for any sort of public office!
I'm pretty sure Julie Fairey abstained.
Exactly.
Ineffectual when the critical budget vote mattered because she was compromised.
How do you know that Ad?
Another left wing councilor voted for the sale of the shares.
Two other councilors had to correct information on shareholding in the week before the budget.
Or just making things up again?
Julie Fairey, and her husband Michael Wood, are two of the key Trustees and beneficiaries in the Fairey Family Trust.
She was a commercial beneficiary of Auckland Airport shares at the time the budget vote occurred. That was why she couldn't vote: direct conflict.
Also this is the same reason her husband Michael Wood was fired.
Both chose to keep the Auckland Auckland shares for private gain rather protect the public interest in Auckland Airport.
She was also abstaining rather than give effect to City Vision manifesto policy that she stood on.
All that was said came down to, Jacinda Ardern asked if the shares were sold, and Wood said they were. That was the beginning of his end.imo
The ferrets are out there again, so Labour have to be more honest than Key, as the black ops and media ghouls will collect scalps and gleefully display them.
It's much, much deeper than that, as noted by the Prime Minister: it is in how both Wood and his wife Fairey have held and operated as beneficiaries of a Trust for a very long time. This point is cited by the PM yesterday in his release on the matter:
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA2306/S00141/statement-on-michael-wood.htm
An investment trust like this would be tracking its holdings and the performance of those holdings every month, and as Trustees they had full visibility of it.
It's like he's never heard of a blind trust before.
Nobody, from what I have seen, has reported the value of Wood's Chorus, Spark and NAB holdings held in the trust that he is a beneficiary of.
They may be worth $30 in total. Does anybody out there know?
The could be 5 cents and he'd still have to declare them.
We can have no tolerance for this shit, this is the crap that is destroying faith in democracies all around the world.
He's been an MP for 7 years, he's been a minister for 5 and a political nerd his entire life.
He misled cabinet and multiple prime ministers AND LIED TO THE PUBLIC last week (as well as the prime minister) when he said dozens of times there was nothing else to see here.
As far as I'm concerned, he should just resign from parliament and so should his wife from council (as her abstention made her compromised as Ad stated)
This is unacceptable.
And a few months back we all wanted him to be the leader of Labour, thank goodness that didn't happen or we'd be looking at a 1990 style wipe out.
That’s a false claim unless you can back it up.
Thanks for that, Ad.
"You can read an awful lot into what is unsaid there."
Therein lie two problems. One, people will read into it what they are disposed to. Two, allowing that to happen is fraught politically as misinformation will abound.
Unsay is the wrong verb, I guess.
true but both those things would happen anyway. There's obviously something going on that we don't know, and presumably Hipkins doesn't either or isn't able to say. I guess his other option was to not say so much and try and move on, but people and MSM would still be going after it.
It would be a good idea to require that cabinet ministers have achieved a pass grade in metacognition 1.01 – it could be taught to them quite simply by reference to this source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metacognition
Readers with a yen for the deep Green view of life ought to focus on what the wikipedians have listed under the heading Components. Three triads!
That's just the first of the three. The other two are
Everyone will clamour that it's totally unreasonable to expect Labour cabinet ministers to cerebrate at this level – but anyone is capable of self-improvement.
can we just have a few that actually had a real physical job outside university and student assembly?
Well, Michael Wood had several years as a Union Organiser with FINSEC, and a couple of terms as a Local Government elected member. Both these things should have built a good foundation for work as an MP.
You have to be organised and people focused.
You have also to be aware that you have political opponents and are being watched.
According to Harry Day, the Royal Flying Corps First World War fighter ace, “rules are for the obeyance of fools, and the guidance of wise men.”
Wood should have heeded such advice and got his affairs in order in line with the Cabinet Manual.
There may be some exculpatory thing in the background of which we are not aware, but it's hard to think what.
Uffindell is a forensic accountant, perhaps that's why he's there. To dig for dirt.
No kidding?? I wouldn't trust that guy to find his arse if the principle of accountability came up behind him & bit it.
Sabine,he should have worked in a chocolate shop?
They have quite a few of those around Parliament. Even ignoring the union officials, there are soldiers, lawyers, accountants, farmers, businesspeople, teachers/principals, police officers, lecturers, public servants, managers, doctors, broadcasters…
Say this in a Fred Dagg voice and it's hilarious:
"…“Yeah, we copped a bit of backlash originally when we put this into the kids’ section, at the time we didn’t realise it was going to go around the world as it did,” said Bailey…"
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/the-country/news/its-back-cat-hunting-tournament-returns-to-canterbury-after-public-backlash/STADET3LVRHBBJXKVQUURMMXNU/
That is superb sanc.
I think that the hunters are heroes, but then I catch feral cats on my property in traps, and shoot them while listening to the Bellbirds and Tui's singing.
And then you go and eat some other animal..?
A chook..?..maybe..?
Right ho..!..(said in fred dagg voice..)
I think it is called cognitive dissonance..
90% of my meals are veggie, except when travelling when it is often trickier..
But what's your point?
I'm saying that there are many more birds around my acre (4000m2) because the cats aren't around.
My point is I tire of cats being portrayed as apex predators…by the apex predators…
Cats are doing what comes natural to them…humans kill for fun/pleasure..or to eat their victims..
My 'point' also is that you support a kids competition to kill the most cats..supporting mindless cruelty ..
And you seem to celebrate/enjoy that cruelty/killing that you do..
Cats haven't destroyed all the species we have lost..humans have..
Like I said..I think it is called cognitive dissonance..
A road is excellent predator control, every night.
Aim for them.
Great for the native hawks.
And every one of those cats is there because of a failure on the part of a human. A failure to look after the cat, a failure to get the cat speyed or neutered, and a failure to provide a safe home for the cat.
I should have mentioned I hate killing the cats…. but they are non-native and they slaughtering millions of native birds (and skinks etc) annually.
The alternative that a good friend of mine supports….catching them and neutering them and then either housing them with families or letting them free again just doesnt work.
In Oz they are moving towards rules that stipulate that cats are not allowed out of a house unless on a lead.
WA and NSW are the only states/territories without restrictions.
https://www.wellington.vic.gov.au/community/cat-curfew
how are you deciding which cats are feral and which aren't?
If they have a bell and collar that says "Tibbles" I shoot them.
But seriously if they have neither of the above and look like the average NZ feral cat which all seem to have the same colouring (see the front picture on the link below), and are in my trap then they are hunting and killing native birds on my land so I shoot them.
https://www.doc.govt.nz/nature/pests-and-threats/animal-pests/feral-cats/
I don’t have many neighbours but talking to one a few weeks ago I warned him I shoot cats. He said he had two ginger cats-I said I would look out for those and let them go.
My cats are both 18 chipped and collars and tags and bells.
Otherwise take the fuckers out and while you're at it could you take out the rabbits on Mt Iron please.
The moggies of Mt Iron are probably doing more harm to the Mt Iron rabbit population than the Mt Iron human population is capable. Likewise the ferrets, if you've got a decent population.
Around me they had a huge purge on the ferrets and cats because TB, and the rabbits have gone from way too many, to fucking insane.
This reply to both Ad and Graeme above….if you know anyone who lives in the houses on the slopes of Mt Iron ask them to put traps in their garden. (The friends I have who live up there have 2 cats and would never do this.)
It is only by a massive network of backyard trapping across NZ that we will make any impact on feral cats, ferrets, stoats, possums, hedgehogs, etc.
DOC simply do not have the resources.
Maddening to see Radio New Zealand's headline – Luxon says Chris Hipkins is weak for not managing his team's culture. Given the PM has been in that role only after these Nash/Wood problems were occurring, perhaps RNZ could improve their accuracy.
Perhaps they could pin Luxon down on his Tesla purchase/subsidy and demand a straight answer. What a hypocrite.
Given the ongoing share issues with Michael Wood, the PM has handled it all extremely well and explained his dilemma over the whole saga. He has certainly been hugely more open than Luxon was in downplaying Uffindell's bullying and nastiness.
Better taxes for a better future
NZ unions, social service organisations and advocacy services have just set up a balance to the oxymoronic Taxpayers Union.
Better taxes for a Better Future
That feels like RW branding![laugh laugh](https://cdn2.thestandard.org.nz/wp-content/plugins/ark-wysiwyg-comment-editor/ckeditor/plugins/smiley/images/teeth_smile.png?x42494)
Luxon showed his true colours. He is a bully, and is happy to personalise and blame. imo
Meantime Chris Hipkins is devising a system to avoid a repeat.
You could argue that the difference between Michael Wood and Kuriger and Uffendell is that they are not cabinet members.
However, given Luxon's "high moral stand" it must be disheartening for both those members of the Natz party, and a few others too, to realise they will never make it into a Natz cabinet!
Luxon has too high a moral position to ever consider them! /s
The problem Hipkins has isn't that the rules wrong. The rules are just fine. His problem is that his some of his Cabinet Ministers considered themselves above such trivial things as obeying them.
He has to come up with a way of herding cats when the cats don't se why they should be obliged to follow the path that has been set. Well good luck mate.
Alwyn, explain Woodhouse, Uffindell and Kruriger's behaviour while you are busy.
This Newsroom piece shows the extent of Kuriger’s nastiness .
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/mps-emails-show-pattern-of-personal-attacks-on-ministry.
I bet he won't Patricia – I suggested some time ago that Alwyn comes in to spray and walk away. He got a bit tetchy about that comment, but that's how I react to his pretty much trolling.
From the link scotty provided Ms Kuriger would appear to be a most unpleasant person. She would seem, however, to have been removed from he Agriculture spokespersons role when the exchange was brought to Luxon's attention.
"She stepped down from the role after someone claiming to be an MPI employee notified National leader Christopher Luxon of the long history of correspondence."
A little later she was apparently dropped from number 10 in the party rankings into the pool of under 20 ranking backbenchers. Luxon would appear to have been lied to by Kuriger and when he discovered it he dropped her way down the list to the point where she will be unlikely to get into Cabinet if she hangs around. That seems pretty similar to what Hipkins has done to date, although he still seems to be rather more accepting of Wood coming back than does Luxon about Kuriger.
Uffindell was the one who behaved like a ratbag when he was about 15 at Boarding School wasn't he? I'd say, given his apparently unblemished behaviour since then he deserves another chance.
I know nothing about Woodhouse.
Except that Uffendell terrorised a female flatmate when he was at university, presumably in his early 20s, to the extent that she climbed out a window and fled to a safe haven!
Woodlouse is the scumbag that put Claire Curren's photo on a toilet seat, and boasted of doing so (at least showed a picture of himself admiring the said toilet seat)!
Alwyn… His homeless man in MIQ. Cost thousands looking for that lie. Then the bullying pictures of Clare Curran's photo(L) on a toilet seat lid. Receiving personal details of patients from Michelle Boag. Does that jog your memory?
I remember a university student, here in New Zealand, who ended up along with a bunch of other students being arrested for having raided a number of girls hostels, tossing the girls out of bed (carefully) and tipping their belongings on the floor. He later became a very, very senior Labour MP
Just a capping prank of course was the way it was seen at the time.
I'm not going to say when, where or who though. It was a pretty normal part of Capping celebrations at the time. Why name the person today? They have long got over it. It did happen though when he was young.
You’re a genuine diversion troll with false equivalences as your tool and MO.
Was he, alwyn, was he – or wasn't he? It's a tricky name – unblemished since a wooden performance at Boarding School, apparently.
Wasn't he homeless? I googled 'Woodhouse' + 'homeless' and got a few 'hits' – seems like a good boy; must be tough being homeless during a pandemic. We need more with his sort of personal experience in our house of representatives.
Dr Bryce, on how symmetry induces team herding in our democracy:
There's something about the nature of the game that induces players to believe that the rules only apply to the other team. Imagine if team sports worked like that.
He runs the line that Wood was the victim of culture (the legendary kiwi complacency).
I prefer the covert rebel theory. Rebels ignore rules. Wood would probably argue that the 931 days he maintained his rebellion displays the virtue of consistency. Fair point.
Bryce Edwards favours National Fullstop.!! Get better sources Dennis.
I've never seen any evidence that he does, Patricia. Academics are generally known to be notoriously leftist in outlook. I'm aware that some commentators here routinely claim he's biased but that doesn't make it so. I suspect that his reluctance to toe the leftist academic line & be scrupulously non-partisan instead is what offends them.
Bryce comes up with a hypothesis, then looks for all sources to support that. Original thinking is rather light on the ground. His summaries…. enough said.
You haven't been reading Bryce Edwards closely enough if you haven't noticed he supports National (or at least The Right), Frank. Don't be fooled by the "Democracy Project" label.
I have little respect for the man. For instance when quizzed on an RNZ programme over the recent electoral reform proposals he said the proposed 3.5% was too high and that it should be 1% to get a party into government. Hasn't he seen the coalition chaos in Israel because they have a low limit (actually 1.5% not 1%) for parties to get into parliament which means that many parties get in.
he said the proposed 3.5% was too high and that it should be 1% to get a party into government
Firstly, I suspect you may have meant parliament rather than government. Parties only get into government here if a leader can assure the GG that he has the numbers to rule. Usually that means he has secured a formal agreement with any minor parties he needs – like a contract.
Secondly, any genuine Green believes in the principle of biodiversity, which produces the complexity of interactions in an ecosystem stabilising species survival. Going for a 1% threshold optimises the biodiversity of parliament as a social ecosystem. That's to his credit.
Thirdly, I agree the situation in Israel is sufficient cause to be cautious around this for the reason you mention (chaotic tendency). However I suspect Israel could be a special case & comparative analysis ought to therefore incorporate all countries using western-style democracies, to examine how each has operated so as to enable diverse representation.
Sorry Dennis, yes I did mean parliament not government.
I don't accept your argument re Israel as a special case. I think in NZ we could easily have 10 or more parties (some of them anti-vax nutters etc) vying to be part of "coalitions of chaos" if the threshold was 1%. I'd be happy to see it reduced from 5% to 4% or even 3.5% though.
I think I declared my preference for 3% onsite here years ago. To clarify re Israel, I vaguely recall checking out their parliamentary configuration a while back & noticing considerable biodiversity. I think that was relative to major parties not being as influential as here.
Sort of like a spectrum effect. If major parties subside below 30% they lose relativity leverage & coalition-forming becomes a multiplicity scenario rather than a partnership binary.
Political stability then hinges on how robust the contractual design is in each case – whether events precipitate rats jumping the ship. If a minor party can be the tail wagging the dog (as with NZF) it will do that and hold the govt to ransom. A creative challenge to the lawyers designing the contracts. Ought to be possible to prevent minor party finagling though – humans have always done contingency planning.
I agree with Bryce Edwards on the threshold being too high.
I suspect that his reluctance to toe the leftist academic line & be scrupulously non-partisan instead is what offends them.
I'm not offended. Only amazed. Why would anyone take Bryce seriously? He has a track record of being hilariously wrong.
2020 election? National have every chance, Todd Muller is the man! You might think that is bad satire, but it's not. It's Bryce Edwards … totally out of touch, detached from reality. That's why his commentary is dismissed.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/26/we-are-in-a-period-of-great-political-volatility-the-new-zealand-election-is-far-from-decided
Yeah I've seen him get analyses wrong in the past & vaguely recall that was one such example. Doesn't mean right-wing bias to me though. Ivory tower syndrome has been well-known an awful long time. The disconnect from the real world is often hilarious. Perhaps he tries to compensate for this handicap by canvassing the opinion of folks he knows, such as family relations. That would explain the situation – via a randomised warping effect…
Wood was unable to rebel due to fatal over-application of hair gel.
And plain old greed.
I read it as more a case of hubris..
And yes….any man..over a certain age..who persists with pomades…
Should be viewed with deep suspicion..
https://www.stuff.co.nz/opinion/132386989/19b-and-four-years-later-mental-health-needs-are-still-not-properly-addressed
a really good article by a senior clinical psychologist outlining why despite spending over a billion dollars on mental health, this govt has failed to improve outcomes.
This is a smart move by the Greens. Get out in front of the tax issue. Often in the past both Labour and the Greens have been too passive, releasing their tax plans and then letting the opposition/media control the narrative (usually reduced to "Tax? Boo!").
The Greens' tax calculator is an effective rebuttal …
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2023/06/greens-release-tax-calculator-showing-if-kiwis-will-better-off-or-have-to-pay-more-under-new-policy.html
Here’s the calculator. It’s actually a GMI and tax calculator
https://www.greens.org.nz/taxcalculator
Its great…I get $18 a week more and am not affected by the WT….well only 0.7% are.
Fuck me , it rekons I'll be over $300 a week better off,!!!! !!!!!!!!
The issue of course is that any government that institutes this will find that tax revenue will dry up overnight – the exodus of international businesses, successful local businesses, individuals with wealth etc. will be swift and devastating. Our economy will shrink drastically.
Job losses will be massive, Government revenue from PAYE and company profits will plummet. There will be sweet FA in the coffers.
Have the Greens factored that pesky little issue into their clever calculator?
Such wailing and gnashing of teeth!
https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=27987
Obviously you have never been in business.
Selling up and changing your sources of business income is not an easy or inexpensive task.
A “successful local business” is not going to give up an income stream simply because they have to pay a little more tax. Especially when it contributes to the stable, educated and healthy workforce, infrastructure and social stability that business depends on.
As for those who are destroying our economy by speculatively and non-productively bidding up the prices of existing assets, such as land to the detriment of our economy and actual productive business, Capital gains farmers, we are better off without.
Just what is going to prevent the holder of the business, and I am assuming that it is a large one, from shifting to Australia?
Customer base, built up goodwill, cost of moving plant, to name just a few things.
We have seen the obstacles to simply upping stakes and going to a new market, with businesses. An example is Dick Smiths attempt too set up in NZ.
One of the reasons I stopped running my business, is that you are so much tied to locality and your established customer base.
Large ones, if they are actual productive businesses are even harder to shift. Of course, if they are simply in the business of extracting economic rents without adding any real value, then we are actually much better off without them.
I said, although it may not be that clear that the holder of the business moved, not the whole business. This would just make it a foreign owned company. The comment about it being a large one is that you could have it run without the owner in NZ. It wouldn't work for a panel beating and painting firm for example.
shifting to Australia
So let's introduce Australia's top income tax rate (45%) and property taxes to NZ.
If that's what business wants, give it to them. Everybody happy.
I am used to seeing doom and gloom about achievement levels in our schools so an article in the Washington Post caught the eye. The final sentence is similar to what I see here.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/06/21/national-student-test-scores-drop-naep/
I wonder whether the geophysics Institute relied a lot on adjunct lecturers from GNS. For example, Auckland University's Plant and Food postgraduate studies are mostly staffed with adjunct lecturers from the Plant&Food CRI in Mt Albert. The research expertise comes mainly from the CRI, not the university.
Therefore disassembling geophysics courses at Vic would not involve significant staff redundancies for the university, but might put some staff positions at GNS on shaky ground.
In terms of NZ earthquake expertise, the greater critical mass will be at GNS.
Sorry, misplaced comment, meant for HTII at the bottom.
Remember when everyone thought Wood could replace Ardern a few months back? Gosh we dodged a bullet with that not happening.
What is going on with the Labour party caucus? Arrogance. It's arrogance.
I blame Ardern for a lot of this, she allowed a culture of arrogant ministers playing fast and loose to take hold because she was very hands off, she didn't micromanage she trusted too much.
she ruled by consensus kindness and empathy and faith in her team, which sounds good, but doesn't work, she'd still be hear if that leadership style was effective in governing.
you need to be bit of a bastard, and put the fear of god into these careerists that you will throw any and all of them under a bus at the drop of a hat, like one Helen Clark, Labours only three term PM.
Poor Hipkins. I actually feel sorry for him. He's probably wondering which of these bastards is lying to me and is going to be busted next. Luckily he's more of a Clark than an Ardern.
Every Labour and Green Mp and minister is on notice, get your houses and lives in order, yesterday!
the nats and act are spending their unprecedented election warchests on armies of sleuths going over labour/green mp's and activists lives with a fine tooth comb, and any conflicts or indiscretions will be found.
Yep, the wheelie bin riflers and underwear sniffers are in full Dirty Politics mode at the moment!
The Natzos do seem to be way better at hiding the dosh–and being proud of it.
For 40 years the middle class and other aspirationals have been encouraged to buy into the dog eat dog monetarist scene–Shares! Venture Capital! Property! so it is understandable why some went there–but still not excusable for any political rep seeking credibility with working class people.
Michael Wood–FPAs, huge pay rises and new contracting regime for bus drivers, rejuvenation of NZ run Coastal Shipping…his legacy will live on…what a shame.
"Yep, the wheelie bin riflers and underwear sniffers are in full Dirty Politics mode at the moment!"
I take it you mean the people who staked out Luxon's home, watched for his wife to go out in her car, made a note of the number plate and then checked whether there had been any attempt to claim the rebate? They certainly sound like the people you are talking about.
I was under the impression that 'reporters' from Newshub did the background work on Luxon's wife's (or otherwise) Teslar.
Hardly a leftie news source.
Ardern has no blame at all for Wood.
Wood and wife+Councillor Fairey have operated and been beneficiary of that trust for many years and this is all on them.
Yes, it was her Trust from her family before they married. Put her through University.
Values in politics, 2023:
Incompetence (Michael Wood) means you resign.
Corruption (National) is just fine.
Simple test … imagine the headlines if Michael Wood had accepted this donation and said "nothing to see here".
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/132368451/national-party-donation-from-ccplinked-newspaper-publisher-by-the-book
Geophysics is one of the subjects to go under the knife at Victoria Uni of Wellington (Latin, Italian and secondary teaching are others).
I get their thinking; all the necessary research must be complete now after the Christchurch earthquakes, so no need for geophysics any more. Or rely on some overseas institution?