Last year, just weeks after the British state had forcibly removed journalist Julian Assange from his place of asylum, the British High Commission staged an Orwellian event in honour of World Press Freedom Day.
OK so he explicitly links poverty and climate change, revolts against billionaires and 2020 capitalism, and joins the 20th century in supporting legal support for gay people.
At some point this Pope is going to gain the majority of Cardinals needed to give women freedom within the Church. Slowly he will catch up with many western Anglicans, and our local Presbyterians.
Until then, he's leading a billion moral conservatives out in front far better than 99% of the US evangelicals on display right now.
Still wont support gay marriage, and in 2020, hoping papa will soon give 50% of the congregation the freedoms the other half have always taken for granted is at best a poor attempt at hiding how out of touch and inconsequential the catholics really are.
But great they're on their way. Ladies, set 2060 in your diaries and, oh yeah, prey.
I was told recently that the reason priests became celibate is because some 1000-2000 years ago, the 'church' found the upkeep of wives and children as well as the priests too much of a financial burden so they decided to ban relationships between priest and their flock. Naturally they enforced it by claiming it was decree from God.
If there is any truth to that story then I say drop the celibate nonsense and let priests marry and have partners just like the rest of us. Could solve a lot of problems.
Any normal person would feel some kind of need to square what they claim now to what they have previously said, but Giuliani has shameless lying down to an art. (A necessary skill for hanging out with the Quid Pro Quovidiot.)
Giuliani told Page Six that in the midst of the interview, which was being conducted by a female interviewer “with a professional set-up of lights and camera,” a man came storming in wearing an outrageous outfit. The former mayor told the publication, “This guy comes running in, wearing a crazy, what I would say was a pink transgender outfit. It was a pink bikini, with lace, underneath a translucent mesh top, it looked absurd. He had the beard, bare legs, and wasn’t what I would call distractingly attractive.”
While Giuliani would later identify the interview-crasher as Cohen, he told Page Six he did not realize it at first and reported the incident to the police. “This person comes in yelling and screaming, and I thought this must be a scam or a shake-down,” he said. “So I reported it to the police. He then ran away.”
“I only later realized it must have been Sacha Baron Cohen,” Giuliani added. “I thought about all the people he previously fooled and I felt good about myself because he didn’t get me.”
In an hotel room with what he thought was a 15 year old with his hands down his strides. A new perspective on Giuliani's sleazy insinuations about Hunter Biden.
He added that he had believed the interview with Bakalova was entirely legitimate. “At one point she explained to me some problems she had. I actually prayed with her,” he said. “And then I had to leave. I had my jacket on. I was fully clothed at all times
To be fair, I really don't think age issues ever entered Nosferatu's mind.
Hmmm, p'raps I should explain that further. The lady in question is 24, and I haven't seen anywhere any reports saying a younger age was claimed for her (until Cohen entered the room), nor that she is unusually youthful in appearance.
yes, grant supports a political party that pushes three strikes law, grant is on strike two? one more shoplifted loaf of bread and he's looking at striped sunlight. be a bugger if he was set up by someone he had put through the financial wringer!! perhaps for his own good, they may tell him to get a lawnmowing run. plenty of time to smirk while pushing a masport.
It's written by a guy from a right-wing Australian think-tank who quotes Dr Oliver Hartwich, executive director of the New Zealand Initiative like this.
“The next few years will be extremely tough. If we do not get our economic house in order, New Zealand could end up a failed state."
Sounds a bit over the top and people reacted strongly to that on social media. But Oliver Hartwich is quoted as saying the same thing on Sunday by Stuff’s political editor – and he said the same thing back in May in an Institute newsletter.
Two days before the election, The Australian's foreign editor Greg Sheridan said:
"No international halo is so shabby, or so fraudulent, as that worn by New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern.”
It’s no surprise because Murdoch’s press takes sides in Australia supporting the right and his papers’ editors and columnists follow suit.
Colin Peacock then paints left leaning media with the same brush
In the UK, The Guardian leans left and hammers Boris Johnson’s Tories every chance it gets – sometimes damaging its own credibility in the process.
Colin, perhaps some politicians deserve to be hammered.
Thanks for that enlightening comment aj – what a bloody disgrace to have to report. We've got The NZ Snuffitive and Oliver Hartwich from Germany? come like bugs imported to eat holes in the fabric of our NZ society, and being used as a fifth-columist in the main page columns of overseas newspapers as well as our own. Lies, damn lies, and the hyper-wealthy and their flatulent servants! What a lovely 21st century we have managed to build in the world.
Stuff's political editor – is that Luke Malpass? Just appointed, and that shows an insensitivity by stuff to what is fair comment and what is right wing weighted – the flying in circles syndrome that so many journos display. Is this bird worthy of veterinary care or should it be put out of its misery?
The anti Jacida rubbish poured out by Gideon Rozner, who isthe head of policy at Australia’s powerful right wing think tank, the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), and the NZ connections are two New Zealand members of the Atlas Network: The New Zealand Initiative and the NZ Taxpayers Union. The Atlas Network claims Williams’ campaign was instrumental in getting Ardern to dump the idea of a capital gains tax. etc etc
The linked article is incredibly important for NZers to read, IMHO. The likes of the Koch brothers and Gina Rinehart are using their money to influence the NZ media and politics.
Yes the 'dark forces' are at work and won't relent. Watched a doco on Al Jazeera yesterday 'The Unfair Game' Big data politics and how the American public were tricked into opening the doors of the White House to Donald Trump (2018) and a companion piece to The Great Hack (2019). Both highly recommended. The right fight to win and use any means available.
Rudd's started a petition over “the abuse of media monopoly in Australia” and “to make recommendations to maximise media diversity ownership for the future lifeblood of our democratic system”across the ditch.
In the video circulating via Facebook and Twitter, Rudd describes the Murdoch corporation, which owns 70 per cent of newspapers in Australia, as a “cancer on our democracy”.
Nothings binding in terms of # signatures etc on scomo to do anything and a royal commissions will be the last thing Liberals want looking at their fav media mogul.
In Australia they used to have an idea of separation of media system but the drongoes didn't maintain that and now look at their media situation. And note how influential Labour were in loosening up controls, just like here.
Apart from a period during colonial times, the ownership of newspapers was free of government regulation until the 1980s, when Labor governments under Bob Hawke and Paul Keating introduced changes that continue to define the media landscape 30 years later….
For Andrew Dodd, the program director of journalism at Swinburne University of Technology, 1987 [Labour's Hawke in power and neolib changes under way] was a watershed year.*
'Rupert Murdoch bought into The Herald and Weekly Times, and in doing that he acquired the company that his father had built up. He already had assets but then he came in and bought six metropolitan newspapers as well as a raft of community papers around the country. So here he was sitting on an absolute mountain of printed publications. In the same year, the Trade Practices Commission said that this really didn't create market dominance, which was an extraordinary finding.
(No wonder Julia Gillard got run out of town.)
In 2011, with Julia Gillard as prime minister, the Labor government attempted a root and branch rethinking of regulation to try to take into account a media environment that now included the internet. The Convergence Review attempted to come up with a way to address powerful emerging media while also creating some commonality in regulation, so that the same standards would be applied, for example, to a print newspaper story and the online version of that story….
'I do think that the interaction between media proprietors in Australia with politicians is different to other countries because of one very important difference, and that is that we have very high levels of media concentration in Australia compared to other countries,' adds Carson.
'If we are looking particularly at print, the two largest proprietors, or even if you take the top three, have a 98 per cent reach of audience across Australia. That is tremendously influential.
…These policies [neoliberal economic recipe] needed a fresh government prepared to defy vested economic interests. Such a government would win much support for its boldness.
These ideas came from the top down. The public wanted change – but it was not protesting in the streets for a floating dollar, free trade and low inflation. The intellectual momentum for the 1980s reforms was elite-driven.
Coincidence – after finding these reports referring to Australia and Bob Hawke I have come onto this piece about Yes Minister and the enthusiasm with which Bob Hawke embraced Paul Eddington, sort of.
See at 9 mins where the director? says that the UK Yes Minister aims to show everyone warts and all unlike the USA West Wing where all have to he perfect, more like The Truman Show I suppose, just a total sham. However they, go for all the UK institutions with words like shoddy and sleazy. 'You aren't JC, you are just a naughty boy' sort of thing.
The NZInstitute and Murdoch are just trying to ensure that the rich remain in power by raising people's fears.
Of course, once people truly realise that government spending is what actually funds the economy and that profits are just a tax by another name then we might start changing our society for the better.
Be interesting to know what agency was responsible for testing those Russukrainian fishers, and who approved the deal. Is it Mfat or Mbie does this stuff? Is Gnashie in the mix anywhere?
I find it all a bit worrying. Doesn't look like there was any effort to stop covid transfer on the plane or pre boarding? did the companies bother to have any importing controls over this- and the more cases on shore the greater chance that it leaks into the community.
Hopefully though it can be used to deter to much other private importing of labour forces based on this. I'd also like to see the plan for the sharp reduction in offshore labour in favour of training locals.
The Movement For Socialism (MAS) scored an impressive victory in Bolivia this Sunday. Overturning the bullshit US inspired coup against the legitimate Morales election victory. Lets hope the people of Venezuela can take heart from this with their ongoing struggle against the Yankee facist interference.
Is it just me or are the left more happier in defeat. We could have woken up on Sunday to a Nat/act govt wanting to do australian style task force raptor police reforms, tax cuts , allowing people to with draw from their kiwi saver, zero investment in health reforms and a program of austerity, welfare education and social cuts and ruthanasia on steroids.
Instead we have the biggest left wing mandate in our lifetimes to work on climate, education, health transport reforms a govt that wants to feed kids in schools free trades and wants to do more but will have to be pushed like all great left wing govts have to be pushed.
Anyone would thing Nat / act had a super majority.
I've criticized this govt a lot but it never had the numbers for rapid transformation and our expectations of a three way coalition were incredibly high. Ardern is now talking about accelerating change , it's million miles better than the alternative and if we push this govt I believe it will be more progressive. It actually did do a lot of good in the first term but this term it needs to be 3x faster and 3x more transformational.
I hope labour and greens can work out a confidence agreement that gives the greens experience policy reforms and the ministerial portfolios outside of cabinet to see those reforms happen, I was hoping labour would get 60 seats and the greens about what they got so we could blame all the left wing stuff we need to do on the greens (even though we mostly wanna do it) but now we have a mandate. The left are either saying we can't do it because swing voters voted labour (when was that a bad thing, I think they wanted that transformational change that Ardern spoke of throughout the last period) or that nothing can ever change because the labour party, the party of reforms has a mandate to do nothing, with covid still unfolding and the economic crisis it brings on and labour being elected to do the recovery both economically and socially Labour can say that anything they do is a part of the covid recovery.
We won the party vote in nearly every Electorate, every city except Auckland, Tauranga are seas of red, Ilam, rangitata hell even whangerei may be red after specials, the greens increased their vote and the Maori party have been reelected on a left wing mandate and the labour party just wow… Let's not write this govt off before the votes even been counted and if lab and the greens can't use this historic mandate on climate change reform to work together then something is seriously wrong with us.
Victory is so rare in the left. So rare, we lose globally. Let's savior this victory and yes organize to push the govt to be more active but some of us have been given great hope by this win and some of us feel really happy that this country is not a divided mess and that instead of voting for me this country voted for we, we can make this country a better place, let the chips fall before we right this govt off.
Sorry for the rant but you'd literally think we lost and sometimes I wonder, do left wingers prefer nights like 2014 to nights like Saturday?
I too am grateful that we don't have Judith and struggle to believe that 35% of the country were willing to take a chance on catching covid.
I'm not sure if it is the media presentation or labour itself that is coming over as so risk adverse. I do feel though that the electorate at large – will still wanting to be employed but not in a dead end seasonal minimum rate if you are lucky job- has a lot of concern about bigger issues both economic and social and would like some progress on those.
Victory is so rare for the left that we have to keep our heads while we unwrap what the gift is made of. No good getting a lovely toy if the key isn't with it. That's why everyone is thinking through implications – Mum we aren't there yet are we!
But good news. All wasp haters will be pleased. And look how well we collaborated for the common good. Why can't we get this mode of behaviour rippling across the world?
In a world first, New Zealand researchers have sequenced the genome of three wasps, two of which are invasive wasps in New Zealand, paving the way for new methods of control for these significant pests.
Genomics Aotearoa researchers working at the University of Otago and Te Herenga Waka-Victoria University of Wellington, alongside colleagues from the UK, Australia and California have successfully completed a three-year project to sequence and interpret the genomes of the common wasp (Vespula vulgaris), German wasp (Vespula germanica), and the western yellowjacket (Vespula pensylvanica).
Now another insect that could invade our borders as we have the right climate for it. Perhaps we could work with the Chinese and other Asian laboratories on the dreaded Chinese hornet – that would be a good collaboration also.
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[multiple links get caught in the filter, no explanation or the links and mods are likely to treat them as spam – weka]
We should start applying the kindness we want to this Government. I hear many critical voices here, and small support for what they have managed.
Voters understood, Winston wanted too much status quo and the Greens think of this Government in terms of past iterations, and tokenism.
Jacinda Ardern is such a breath of fresh air she has made a mark internationally, and that has attracted enemies in the oil coal and right wing think tanks.
She has made New Zealanders proud of our country, prepared to help each other and listen to the scientists. This Labour Party has attracted high calibre representatives who will be able to take more of the load.
We want this Government to right all the wrongs, during a pandemic, which is still raging, and to govern for all.
The bitterness some feel with real reason will take many a balm to still the pain, and prejudging is unhelpful to the sensitive negotiations taking place right now.
We hope to have a combination of parties, and the real shape of Government will show after the special votes are counted. 'Till then be glad we are not waking up to Judith and that lot.
Labour are very much at the point where they're going to let the present crisis go to waste as they try to maintain BAU – especially as the crisis proves BAU to be contrary to a resilient economy and society.
They really do need to use the crisis to move away from BAU.
See Stuff has another think piece -without much think- on possible seasonal worker shortage.
However I had found a piece from 2019 in Stuff – not sure why they published it!- that if I read it correctly stated that gold kiwifruit returned about $95000 per hectare and cost about $2000 to pick.
Now I know there are other costs but it would be very interesting to see the per hectare returns of a lot of other fruits. Cherries at about $20 retail per kg so say $10 cost – so a worker needs to pick some 2.5kg per hour plus more for other overheads ?
This doesn't seem to be part of any of the media stories.
I think you might find that cost to a producer of agri and hort crops is closer to 80 to 90% of return. Viticulture, depending on the season is lucky to average 7% before tax.
Fuck knows why we do it.
That retail cherry price in a supermarket is at least twice the growers return, picking is one week in 52, they don’t look after themselves for the other 51.
Urban ignorance of how food happens is staggering, except for those few who have attempted to grow $50 lettuces and $80 a kilo tomatoes.
"For the 2016/17 harvest, the average forecast return ("OGR" or Orchard Gate Return) for Green Kiwifruit is just over $53k per hectare and for Gold Kiwifruit it is just over $95k. With average on orchard costs sitting at about $30k per hectare, the maths is pretty simple and compelling. Remember, this is the average. When growers put in the time and effort, the rewards are generally, better."
Um I'm not that urban. I do realise that the local veggie market is not super profitable to put it mildly – on the other hand AFAIK they also don't employ RSE and backpackers to any great extent. On the other hand there was a time when tomato paste fetched huge prices – although that is now gone?
I'm more interested in the seasonal vines and fruit picking that use RSE labour and backpackers and keep muttering about labour shortages. Is it that the stuff is not profitable unless the wage rates are rock bottom or could the wages go up? For the export markets I guess it makes sense to concentrate on the more profitable crops bearing in mind that the production life can be 10 ++ years for the tree or vine and retruns can vary over that life.
So I do think it is a valid question that the MSM could be asking along with queries about the extent of foreign ownership of the sector.
Frankly for me I would far rather help a local owner than some business where the profit is being siphoned off by overseas ownership or a wad of local intermediaries.
Otherwise did I touch a nerve there? Something best not discussed?
Markets determine the price and the vast majority are supermarket chains and they are arseholes, constantly driving down the return so they can claim to be the "cheapest food "in town.
The kiwifruit returns are a bit of bullshit, because Zespri etc have propietry rights to the cultivars, "'Use of " charges for the plants are astronomical , in the 100s of thousands of dollars per hectare but these are not counted as "orchard "costs, but as start up expenses.
"Sweden has now seen a doubling in cases in three weeks, hitting more than 1000 new cases in one day for the first time since June,"
"Sweden's cumulative death total from infections is 10 times higher than neighbouring Norway and Finland and five times higher than Denmark."
This is crucial for kea because DoC, who are ostensibly concerned to protect them, will keep poisoning in any event. For the keas, it's a bit like having Harold Shipman as one's GP.
In my young days I worked as a possum trapper for a while and witnessed first hand the utter devastation that possums can wreak upon the bush – 1080 is by far the lesser evil.
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Hi,I just got back from a short trip to Japan, mostly spending time in Tokyo.I haven’t been there since we shot Dark Tourist back in 2017 — and that landed us in a bit of hot water with the Japanese government.I am glad to report I was not thrown into ...
I’ve been on Substack for almost 8 months now.It’s been good in terms of the many great individuals that populate its space. So much variety and intelligence and humour and depth.I joined because someone suggested I should ‘start a Substack,’ whatever that meant.So I did.Turning on payments seemed like the ...
Open access notables Would Adding the Anthropocene to the Geologic Time Scale Matter?, McCarthy et al., AGU Advances:The extraordinary fossil fuel-driven outburst of consumption and production since the mid-twentieth century has fundamentally altered the way the Earth System works. Although humans have impacted their environment for millennia, justification for ...
Australia should buy equipment to cheaply and temporarily convert military transport aircraft into waterbombers. On current planning, the Australian Defence Force will have a total of 34 Chinook helicopters and Hercules airlifters. They should be ...
Indonesia’s government has slashed its counterterrorism (CT) budgets, despite the persistent and evolving threat of violent extremism. Australia can support regional CT efforts by filling this funding void. Reducing funding to the National Counterterrorism Agency ...
A ballot for a single Member's Bill was held today, and the following bill was drawn: Resource Management (Prohibition on Extraction of Freshwater for On-selling) Amendment Bill (Debbie Ngarewa-Packer) The bill does exactly what it says on the label, and would effectively end the rapacious water-bottling industry ...
Twilight Time Lighthouse Cuba, Wigan Street, Wellington, Sunday 6 April, 5:30pm for 6pm start. Twilight Time looks at the life and work of Desmond Ball, (1947-2016), a barefooted academic from ‘down under’ who was hailed by Jimmy Carter as “the man who saved the world”, as he proved the fallacy ...
Foreign aid is being slashed across the Global North, nowhere more so than in the United States. Within his first month back in the White House, President Donald Trump dismantled the US Agency for International ...
Nicola Willis has proposed new procurement rules that unions say will lead to pay cuts for already low-paid workers in cleaning, catering and security services that are contracted by government. The Crimes (Theft by Employer) Amendment Bill passed its third reading with support from all the opposition parties and NZ ...
Most KP readers will not know that I was a jazz DJ in Chicago and Washington DC while in grad school in the early and mid 1980s. In DC I joined WPFW as a grave shift host, then a morning drive show host (a show called Sui Generis, both for ...
Long stories shortest: The IMF says a capital gains tax or land tax would improve real economic growth and fix the budget. GDP is set to be smaller by 2026 than it was in 2023. Compass is flying in school lunches from Australia. 53% of National voters say the new ...
Last year in October I wrote “Where’s The Opposition?”. I was exasperated at the relative quiet of the Green Party, Labour and Te Pati Māori (TPM), as the National led Coalition ticked off a full bingo card of the Atlas Network playbook.1To be fair, TPM helped to energise one of ...
This is a re-post from The Climate BrinkGood data visualizations can help make climate change more visceral and understandable. Back in 2016 Ed Hawkins published a “climate spiral” graph that ended up being pretty iconic – it was shown at the opening ceremony of the Olympics that year – and ...
An agreement to end the war in Ukraine could transform Russia’s relations with North Korea. Moscow is unlikely to reduce its cooperation with Pyongyang to pre-2022 levels, but it may become more selective about areas ...
This week, the Government is hosting a grand event aimed at trying to interest big foreign capital players in financing capital works in New Zealand, particularly its big rural motorway programme. Financing vs funding: a quick explainer The key word in the sentence above is financing. It is important ...
In a month’s time, the Right Honourable Winston Peters will be celebrating his 80th birthday. Good for him. On the evidence though, his current war on “wokeness” looks like an old man’s cranky complaint that the ancient virtues of grit and know-how are sadly lacking in the youth of today. ...
As noted, early March has been about moving house, and I have had little chance to partake in all things internet. But now that everything is more or less sorted, I can finally give a belated report on my visit to the annual Regent Booksale (28th February and 1st March). ...
Information operations Australia has banned cybersecurity software Kaspersky from government use because of risks of espionage, foreign interference and sabotage. The Department of Home Affairs said use of Kaspersky products posed an unacceptable security ...
The StrategistBy Linus Cohen, Astrid Young and Alice Wai
One of the best understood tropes of screen drama is the scene where the beloved family dog is barking incessantly and cannot be calmed. Finally, somebody asks: What is it, girl? Has someone fallen down a well? Is there trouble at the old John Key place?One is reminded of this ...
The ’ndrangheta, the Calabrian mafia, plays a significant role in the global cocaine trade and is deeply entrenched in Australia, influencing the cocaine trade and engaging in a variety of illicit activities. A range of ...
The Green Party stands in support of volunteer firefighters petitioning the Government to step up and change legislation to provide volunteers the same ACC coverage and benefits as their paid counterparts. ...
Living Strong, Aging Well There is much discussion around the health of our older New Zealanders and how we can age well. In reality, the delivery of health services accounts for only a relatively small percentage of health outcomes as we age. Significantly, dry warm housing, nutrition, exercise, social connection, ...
Shane Jones’ display on Q&A showed how out of touch he and this Government are with our communities and how in sync they are with companies with little concern for people and planet. ...
Labour does not support the private ownership of core infrastructure like schools, hospitals and prisons, which will only see worse outcomes for Kiwis. ...
The Green Party is disappointed the Government voted down Hūhana Lyndon’s member’s Bill, which would have prevented further alienation of Māori land through the Public Works Act. ...
The Labour Party will support Chloe Swarbrick’s member’s bill which would allow sanctions against Israel for its illegal occupation of the Palestinian Territories. ...
The Government’s new procurement rules are a blatant attack on workers and the environment, showing once again that National’s priorities are completely out of touch with everyday Kiwis. ...
With Labour and Te Pāti Māori’s official support, Opposition parties are officially aligned to progress Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick’s Member’s Bill to sanction Israel for its unlawful presence in Palestine. ...
Te Pāti Māori extends our deepest aroha to the 500 plus Whānau Ora workers who have been advised today that the govt will be dismantling their contracts. For twenty years , Whānau Ora has been helping families, delivering life-changing support through a kaupapa Māori approach. It has built trust where ...
Labour welcomes Simeon Brown’s move to reinstate a board at Health New Zealand, bringing the destructive and secretive tenure of commissioner Lester Levy to an end. ...
This morning’s announcement by the Health Minister regarding a major overhaul of the public health sector levels yet another blow to the country’s essential services. ...
New Zealand First has introduced a Member’s Bill that will ensure employment decisions in the public service are based on merit and not on forced woke ‘Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion’ targets. “This Bill would put an end to the woke left-wing social engineering and diversity targets in the public sector. ...
Police have referred 20 offenders to Destiny Church-affiliated programmes Man Up and Legacy as ‘wellness providers’ in the last year, raising concerns that those seeking help are being recruited into a harmful organisation. ...
Te Pāti Māori welcomes the resignation of Richard Prebble from the Waitangi Tribunal. His appointment in October 2024 was a disgrace- another example of this government undermining Te Tiriti o Waitangi by appointing a former ACT leader who has spent his career attacking Māori rights. “Regardless of the reason for ...
Police Minister Mark Mitchell is avoiding accountability by refusing to answer key questions in the House as his Government faces criticism over their dangerous citizen’s arrest policy, firearm reform, and broken promises to recruit more police. ...
The number of building consents issued under this Government continues to spiral, taking a toll on the infrastructure sector, tradies, and future generations of Kiwi homeowners. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Prime Minister to rule out joining the AUKUS military pact in any capacity following the scenes in the White House over the weekend. ...
The Green Party is appalled by the Government’s plan to disestablish Resource Teachers of Māori (RTM) roles, a move that takes another swing at kaupapa Māori education. ...
The Government’s levies announcement is a step in the right direction, but they must be upfront about who will pay its new infrastructure levies and ensure that first-home buyers are protected from hidden costs. ...
The Government’s levies announcement is a step in the right direction, but they must be upfront about who will pay its new infrastructure levies and ensure that first-home buyers are protected from hidden costs. ...
After months of mana whenua protecting their wāhi tapu, the Green Party welcomes the pause of works at Lake Rotokākahi and calls for the Rotorua Lakes Council to work constructively with Tūhourangi and Ngāti Tumatawera on the pathway forward. ...
New Zealand First continues to bring balance, experience, and commonsense to Government. This week we've made progress on many of our promises to New Zealand.Winston representing New ZealandWinston Peters is overseas this week, with stops across the Middle East and North Asia. Winston's stops include Saudi Arabia, the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Peter Dutton, when he gets on his favoured ground of security, too often goes for the quick hit, and frequently over-reaches. His suggestion of running a possible referendum to facilitate the removal of bad ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marika Sosnowski, Postdoctoral research fellow, The University of Melbourne When a ceasefire in the war between Hamas and Israel finally came into effect on January 19, the world breathed a collective sigh of relief. However, that ceasefire agreement, and its associated ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marika Sosnowski, Postdoctoral research fellow, The University of Melbourne When a ceasefire in the war between Hamas and Israel finally came into effect on January 19, the world breathed a collective sigh of relief. However, that ceasefire agreement, and its associated ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marika Sosnowski, Postdoctoral research fellow, The University of Melbourne When a ceasefire in the war between Hamas and Israel finally came into effect on January 19, the world breathed a collective sigh of relief. However, that ceasefire agreement, and its associated ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Next week’s budget will have cost-of-living assistance that will be meaningful and substantial but “responsible”, Treasurer Jim Chalmers has said. In a Tuesday speech framing the budget Chalmers said, “it will be a responsible ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The Greens have heaped a lot of pressure on the government during this term, from issues of the environment, housing, and Medicare, to the war in the Middle East. With the polls close to a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gabrielle Meagher, Professor Emerita, School of Society, Communication and Culture, Macquarie University On Monday, an ABC’s Four Corners investigation reported shocking cases of abuse and neglect in Australian childcare centres. This included examples of children being sexually abused, restrained for hours in ...
By Caleb Fotheringham, RNZ Pacific journalist Papua New Guinea being declared a Christian nation may offer the impression that the country will improve, but it is only “an illusion”, according to a Catholic priest in the country. Last week, the PNG Parliament amended the nation’s constitution, introducing a declaration in ...
Asia Pacific Report A national Palestinian advocacy group has called on the Aotearoa New Zealand government to immediately condemn Israel for its resumption today of “genocidal attacks” on the almost 2 million Palestinians trapped in the besieged Gaza enclave. Media reports said that more than 230 people had been killed ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nial Wheate, Professor, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University areeya_ann/Shutterstock From May 1, the oral contraceptive Slinda (drospirerone) will be listed on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS). This means the price will drop for the more than 100,000 Australian women who ...
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Analysis by Keith Rankin. Keith Rankin, trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand. As most of us appreciate, there is a whole geopolitical world that overlays the formal political world of about 200 ‘nation states’ (aka ‘polities’). Geopolitical ...
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Whether by choice or circumstance, a growing number of people are leaving ‘real jobs’ for more flexible modes of employment. Frances Cook spoke to one such self-employed slashie about how she’s made it work for her. Beth Vickers never planned to run her own business. She had a solid, stable career, ...
Corey Hebberd, Kaiwhakahaere Matua of Rangitāne o Wairau, presented to the Finance and Expenditure Select Committee today, outlining the Bill’s serious failings and the devastating impact it will have on iwi, councils, and communities, with a particular ...
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ANALYSIS:By Matthew Sussex, Australian National University Has any nation squandered its diplomatic capital, plundered its own political system, attacked its partners and supplicated itself before its far weaker enemies as rapidly and brazenly as Donald Trump’s America? The fiery Oval Office meeting between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky ...
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Blisters, sunburn and tinnitus be damned, Wellington needs Homegrown Festival – or at least something to replace it.The mood of the day at Homegrown was set early and forcefully: “local heroes” Dartz had a message for the afternoon early birds wasting no time in getting thrash punk through the ...
Columbia Journalism School Freedom of the press — a bedrock principle of American democracy — is under threat in the United States. Here at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism we are witnessing and experiencing an alarming chill. We write to affirm our commitment to supporting and exercising First Amendment ...
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More breathtaking hypocrisy from the U.K. state
Last year, just weeks after the British state had forcibly removed journalist Julian Assange from his place of asylum, the British High Commission staged an Orwellian event in honour of World Press Freedom Day.
https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2019/05/these-people-are-representative-of-new.html
Now, the Johnson regime is at it again….
https://twitter.com/FCDOGovUK/status/1318537453234520064
A new headache for the U.S. and its client regimes: democracy in Bolivia will not die
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/55741.htm
OK so he explicitly links poverty and climate change, revolts against billionaires and 2020 capitalism, and joins the 20th century in supporting legal support for gay people.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/21/europe/pope-gay-couples-civil-union-intl/index.html
At some point this Pope is going to gain the majority of Cardinals needed to give women freedom within the Church. Slowly he will catch up with many western Anglicans, and our local Presbyterians.
Until then, he's leading a billion moral conservatives out in front far better than 99% of the US evangelicals on display right now.
Hang in there man.
Still wont support gay marriage, and in 2020, hoping papa will soon give 50% of the congregation the freedoms the other half have always taken for granted is at best a poor attempt at hiding how out of touch and inconsequential the catholics really are.
But great they're on their way. Ladies, set 2060 in your diaries and, oh yeah, prey.
I was told recently that the reason priests became celibate is because some 1000-2000 years ago, the 'church' found the upkeep of wives and children as well as the priests too much of a financial burden so they decided to ban relationships between priest and their flock. Naturally they enforced it by claiming it was decree from God.
If there is any truth to that story then I say drop the celibate nonsense and let priests marry and have partners just like the rest of us. Could solve a lot of problems.
The Dotard of Doltistan's personal Nosferatu might have a new bit of distraction from trying to sell his hokey'd up Hunter Biden laptop story …
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8864821/Giuliani-caught-Borats-daughter-hand-pants.html
Will Rudi claim he was in on the joke all along?
He might.
Any normal person would feel some kind of need to square what they claim now to what they have previously said, but Giuliani has shameless lying down to an art. (A necessary skill for hanging out with the Quid Pro Quovidiot.)
In an hotel room with what he thought was a 15 year old with his hands down his strides. A new perspective on Giuliani's sleazy insinuations about Hunter Biden.
So he was going for the crucifix in his pants.
He added that he had believed the interview with Bakalova was entirely legitimate. “At one point she explained to me some problems she had. I actually prayed with her,” he said. “And then I had to leave. I had my jacket on. I was fully clothed at all times
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/oct/21/rudy-giuliani-faces-questions-after-compromising-scene-in-new-borat-film
To be fair, I really don't think age issues ever entered Nosferatu's mind.
Hmmm, p'raps I should explain that further. The lady in question is 24, and I haven't seen anywhere any reports saying a younger age was claimed for her (until Cohen entered the room), nor that she is unusually youthful in appearance.
Quick poll, does anyone here lay down to tuck their shirt into their pants?
I don't know about you, but I stand up to do that.
It's been so long since I last did that I'm not sure anymore.
Lmfao !!!
Perhaps Grant might show remorse for his imprisonable actions of 25 years ago and repay the victims of his fraud.
People might then view his character in a different light.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/damien-grant-fights-for-insolvency-career-in-court-after-license-rejected-over-criminal-history/FCBD5TMQLFF7CGSIHUSHPLXF7U/
yes, grant supports a political party that pushes three strikes law, grant is on strike two? one more shoplifted loaf of bread and he's looking at striped sunlight. be a bugger if he was set up by someone he had put through the financial wringer!! perhaps for his own good, they may tell him to get a lawnmowing run. plenty of time to smirk while pushing a masport.
MediaWatch on RNZ last night featured an segment on media bias in reporting the New Zealand's election in Murdoch-owned media overseas.
Colin Peacock then paints left leaning media with the same brush
Colin, perhaps some politicians deserve to be hammered.
Along with Don Brash and others, Dr Oliver Hartwich is a major backer of Damien Grant referenced in the comment @5 above.
Thanks for that enlightening comment aj – what a bloody disgrace to have to report. We've got The NZ Snuffitive and Oliver Hartwich from Germany? come like bugs imported to eat holes in the fabric of our NZ society, and being used as a fifth-columist in the main page columns of overseas newspapers as well as our own. Lies, damn lies, and the hyper-wealthy and their flatulent servants! What a lovely 21st century we have managed to build in the world.
Stuff's political editor – is that Luke Malpass? Just appointed, and that shows an insensitivity by stuff to what is fair comment and what is right wing weighted – the flying in circles syndrome that so many journos display. Is this bird worthy of veterinary care or should it be put out of its misery?
Could the dark forces intrude in NZ? Yes.
The anti Jacida rubbish poured out by Gideon Rozner, who is the head of policy at Australia’s powerful right wing think tank, the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), and the NZ connections are two New Zealand members of the Atlas Network: The New Zealand Initiative and the NZ Taxpayers Union. The Atlas Network claims Williams’ campaign was instrumental in getting Ardern to dump the idea of a capital gains tax. etc etc
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/who-the-hell-is-gideon-rozner-anyway
The linked article is incredibly important for NZers to read, IMHO. The likes of the Koch brothers and Gina Rinehart are using their money to influence the NZ media and politics.
+100
Easy solution. Turn TVNZ/RNZ into proper public broadcasters so people can tune in when they want the truth.
Or we can leave them alone to continue using the hootons, pagani's etc being asked patsy questions by the Espiners/Ferguson/Ryan etc.
Yes the 'dark forces' are at work and won't relent. Watched a doco on Al Jazeera yesterday 'The Unfair Game' Big data politics and how the American public were tricked into opening the doors of the White House to Donald Trump (2018) and a companion piece to The Great Hack (2019). Both highly recommended. The right fight to win and use any means available.
Boris, getting hammered by Jonathan Pie.
https://youtu.be/CYmn76Y50Us
Boris' incompetency rivals tRump's.
https://twitter.com/RussInCheshire/status/1318525199940308992
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1318525199940308992.html
Did he give an example of the pommedia damaging their credibility attacking Johnson? Maybe 'Johnson' was a slip of the tongue and he meant 'Corbyn'.
Crossed my mind that too
Rudd's started a petition over “the abuse of media monopoly in Australia” and “to make recommendations to maximise media diversity ownership for the future lifeblood of our democratic system”across the ditch.
In the video circulating via Facebook and Twitter, Rudd describes the Murdoch corporation, which owns 70 per cent of newspapers in Australia, as a “cancer on our democracy”.
Nothings binding in terms of # signatures etc on scomo to do anything and a royal commissions will be the last thing Liberals want looking at their fav media mogul.
In Australia they used to have an idea of separation of media system but the drongoes didn't maintain that and now look at their media situation. And note how influential Labour were in loosening up controls, just like here.
Apart from a period during colonial times, the ownership of newspapers was free of government regulation until the 1980s, when Labor governments under Bob Hawke and Paul Keating introduced changes that continue to define the media landscape 30 years later….
For Andrew Dodd, the program director of journalism at Swinburne University of Technology, 1987 [Labour's Hawke in power and neolib changes under way] was a watershed year.*
'Rupert Murdoch bought into The Herald and Weekly Times, and in doing that he acquired the company that his father had built up. He already had assets but then he came in and bought six metropolitan newspapers as well as a raft of community papers around the country. So here he was sitting on an absolute mountain of printed publications. In the same year, the Trade Practices Commission said that this really didn't create market dominance, which was an extraordinary finding.
(No wonder Julia Gillard got run out of town.)
In 2011, with Julia Gillard as prime minister, the Labor government attempted a root and branch rethinking of regulation to try to take into account a media environment that now included the internet. The Convergence Review attempted to come up with a way to address powerful emerging media while also creating some commonality in regulation, so that the same standards would be applied, for example, to a print newspaper story and the online version of that story….
'I do think that the interaction between media proprietors in Australia with politicians is different to other countries because of one very important difference, and that is that we have very high levels of media concentration in Australia compared to other countries,' adds Carson.
'If we are looking particularly at print, the two largest proprietors, or even if you take the top three, have a 98 per cent reach of audience across Australia. That is tremendously influential.
*Background on why 1987 was an important year:
https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/confs/2000/kelly-address.html
…These policies [neoliberal economic recipe] needed a fresh government prepared to defy vested economic interests. Such a government would win much support for its boldness.
These ideas came from the top down. The public wanted change – but it was not protesting in the streets for a floating dollar, free trade and low inflation. The intellectual momentum for the 1980s reforms was elite-driven.
Coincidence – after finding these reports referring to Australia and Bob Hawke I have come onto this piece about Yes Minister and the enthusiasm with which Bob Hawke embraced Paul Eddington, sort of.
See at 9 mins where the director? says that the UK Yes Minister aims to show everyone warts and all unlike the USA West Wing where all have to he perfect, more like The Truman Show I suppose, just a total sham. However they, go for all the UK institutions with words like shoddy and sleazy. 'You aren't JC, you are just a naughty boy' sort of thing.
ScoMoFo kno what side his bread buttered.
The NZInstitute and Murdoch are just trying to ensure that the rich remain in power by raising people's fears.
Of course, once people truly realise that government spending is what actually funds the economy and that profits are just a tax by another name then we might start changing our society for the better.
Be interesting to know what agency was responsible for testing those Russukrainian fishers, and who approved the deal. Is it Mfat or Mbie does this stuff? Is Gnashie in the mix anywhere?
I find it all a bit worrying. Doesn't look like there was any effort to stop covid transfer on the plane or pre boarding? did the companies bother to have any importing controls over this- and the more cases on shore the greater chance that it leaks into the community.
Hopefully though it can be used to deter to much other private importing of labour forces based on this. I'd also like to see the plan for the sharp reduction in offshore labour in favour of training locals.
The Movement For Socialism (MAS) scored an impressive victory in Bolivia this Sunday. Overturning the bullshit US inspired coup against the legitimate Morales election victory. Lets hope the people of Venezuela can take heart from this with their ongoing struggle against the Yankee facist interference.
Agreed Gabby…and Morales can come back home from exile in Argentina….he should get some reception. (Maybe he is already back?)
Bugger.
https://twitter.com/pennjillette/status/1319014935544750080
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Randi
The Amazing Randi did some very important work, a great sceptic, and very, very funny.
Is it just me or are the left more happier in defeat. We could have woken up on Sunday to a Nat/act govt wanting to do australian style task force raptor police reforms, tax cuts , allowing people to with draw from their kiwi saver, zero investment in health reforms and a program of austerity, welfare education and social cuts and ruthanasia on steroids.
Instead we have the biggest left wing mandate in our lifetimes to work on climate, education, health transport reforms a govt that wants to feed kids in schools free trades and wants to do more but will have to be pushed like all great left wing govts have to be pushed.
Anyone would thing Nat / act had a super majority.
I've criticized this govt a lot but it never had the numbers for rapid transformation and our expectations of a three way coalition were incredibly high. Ardern is now talking about accelerating change , it's million miles better than the alternative and if we push this govt I believe it will be more progressive. It actually did do a lot of good in the first term but this term it needs to be 3x faster and 3x more transformational.
I hope labour and greens can work out a confidence agreement that gives the greens experience policy reforms and the ministerial portfolios outside of cabinet to see those reforms happen, I was hoping labour would get 60 seats and the greens about what they got so we could blame all the left wing stuff we need to do on the greens (even though we mostly wanna do it) but now we have a mandate. The left are either saying we can't do it because swing voters voted labour (when was that a bad thing, I think they wanted that transformational change that Ardern spoke of throughout the last period) or that nothing can ever change because the labour party, the party of reforms has a mandate to do nothing, with covid still unfolding and the economic crisis it brings on and labour being elected to do the recovery both economically and socially Labour can say that anything they do is a part of the covid recovery.
We won the party vote in nearly every Electorate, every city except Auckland, Tauranga are seas of red, Ilam, rangitata hell even whangerei may be red after specials, the greens increased their vote and the Maori party have been reelected on a left wing mandate and the labour party just wow… Let's not write this govt off before the votes even been counted and if lab and the greens can't use this historic mandate on climate change reform to work together then something is seriously wrong with us.
Victory is so rare in the left. So rare, we lose globally. Let's savior this victory and yes organize to push the govt to be more active but some of us have been given great hope by this win and some of us feel really happy that this country is not a divided mess and that instead of voting for me this country voted for we, we can make this country a better place, let the chips fall before we right this govt off.
Sorry for the rant but you'd literally think we lost and sometimes I wonder, do left wingers prefer nights like 2014 to nights like Saturday?
I too am grateful that we don't have Judith and struggle to believe that 35% of the country were willing to take a chance on catching covid.
I'm not sure if it is the media presentation or labour itself that is coming over as so risk adverse. I do feel though that the electorate at large – will still wanting to be employed but not in a dead end seasonal minimum rate if you are lucky job- has a lot of concern about bigger issues both economic and social and would like some progress on those.
Victory is so rare for the left that we have to keep our heads while we unwrap what the gift is made of. No good getting a lovely toy if the key isn't with it. That's why everyone is thinking through implications – Mum we aren't there yet are we!
But good news. All wasp haters will be pleased. And look how well we collaborated for the common good. Why can't we get this mode of behaviour rippling across the world?
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/SC2010/S00038/world-first-wasp-genome-completed.htm
In a world first, New Zealand researchers have sequenced the genome of three wasps, two of which are invasive wasps in New Zealand, paving the way for new methods of control for these significant pests.
Genomics Aotearoa researchers working at the University of Otago and Te Herenga Waka-Victoria University of Wellington, alongside colleagues from the UK, Australia and California have successfully completed a three-year project to sequence and interpret the genomes of the common wasp (Vespula vulgaris), German wasp (Vespula germanica), and the western yellowjacket (Vespula pensylvanica).
Now another insect that could invade our borders as we have the right climate for it. Perhaps we could work with the Chinese and other Asian laboratories on the dreaded Chinese hornet – that would be a good collaboration also.
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[multiple links get caught in the filter, no explanation or the links and mods are likely to treat them as spam – weka]
OK got too fascinated by the stuff.
We should start applying the kindness we want to this Government. I hear many critical voices here, and small support for what they have managed.
Voters understood, Winston wanted too much status quo and the Greens think of this Government in terms of past iterations, and tokenism.
Jacinda Ardern is such a breath of fresh air she has made a mark internationally, and that has attracted enemies in the oil coal and right wing think tanks.
She has made New Zealanders proud of our country, prepared to help each other and listen to the scientists. This Labour Party has attracted high calibre representatives who will be able to take more of the load.
We want this Government to right all the wrongs, during a pandemic, which is still raging, and to govern for all.
The bitterness some feel with real reason will take many a balm to still the pain, and prejudging is unhelpful to the sensitive negotiations taking place right now.
We hope to have a combination of parties, and the real shape of Government will show after the special votes are counted. 'Till then be glad we are not waking up to Judith and that lot.
+100
As the saying, apparently wrongly attributed to pretty much everybody, says:
Labour are very much at the point where they're going to let the present crisis go to waste as they try to maintain BAU – especially as the crisis proves BAU to be contrary to a resilient economy and society.
They really do need to use the crisis to move away from BAU.
Could this @ 12 be removed? I corrected some spacing and it worked but repeated the whole thing lol sorry everyone… once @ 11 is enough.
Draco, Jacinda has said she wants to "build back better"
I don't think she listens to JK, as he meant "make money in the fire sale" when he said “never let a good crises go to waste".
Doesn't have to be used to make things worse. The crisis can be used to make things better and so the Labour party should be doing so.
And its not even unscrupulous as it really does need to be done.
See Stuff has another think piece -without much think- on possible seasonal worker shortage.
However I had found a piece from 2019 in Stuff – not sure why they published it!- that if I read it correctly stated that gold kiwifruit returned about $95000 per hectare and cost about $2000 to pick.
Now I know there are other costs but it would be very interesting to see the per hectare returns of a lot of other fruits. Cherries at about $20 retail per kg so say $10 cost – so a worker needs to pick some 2.5kg per hour plus more for other overheads ?
This doesn't seem to be part of any of the media stories.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/113257301/kiwifruit-picking-hot-hard-work-that-nobody-wants-to-do
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/opinion-analysis/300138256/fruitpicking-jobs-going-begging-who-is-really-to-blame
I think you might find that cost to a producer of agri and hort crops is closer to 80 to 90% of return. Viticulture, depending on the season is lucky to average 7% before tax.
Fuck knows why we do it.
That retail cherry price in a supermarket is at least twice the growers return, picking is one week in 52, they don’t look after themselves for the other 51.
Urban ignorance of how food happens is staggering, except for those few who have attempted to grow $50 lettuces and $80 a kilo tomatoes.
That's simply not true. Returns are lucrative which is why every man and his dog jumped on the bandwagon.
https://www.apata.co.nz/orchard-buyers-guide
"For the 2016/17 harvest, the average forecast return ("OGR" or Orchard Gate Return) for Green Kiwifruit is just over $53k per hectare and for Gold Kiwifruit it is just over $95k. With average on orchard costs sitting at about $30k per hectare, the maths is pretty simple and compelling. Remember, this is the average. When growers put in the time and effort, the rewards are generally, better."
Um I'm not that urban. I do realise that the local veggie market is not super profitable to put it mildly – on the other hand AFAIK they also don't employ RSE and backpackers to any great extent. On the other hand there was a time when tomato paste fetched huge prices – although that is now gone?
I'm more interested in the seasonal vines and fruit picking that use RSE labour and backpackers and keep muttering about labour shortages. Is it that the stuff is not profitable unless the wage rates are rock bottom or could the wages go up? For the export markets I guess it makes sense to concentrate on the more profitable crops bearing in mind that the production life can be 10 ++ years for the tree or vine and retruns can vary over that life.
So I do think it is a valid question that the MSM could be asking along with queries about the extent of foreign ownership of the sector.
Frankly for me I would far rather help a local owner than some business where the profit is being siphoned off by overseas ownership or a wad of local intermediaries.
Otherwise did I touch a nerve there? Something best not discussed?
Markets determine the price and the vast majority are supermarket chains and they are arseholes, constantly driving down the return so they can claim to be the "cheapest food "in town.
The kiwifruit returns are a bit of bullshit, because Zespri etc have propietry rights to the cultivars, "'Use of " charges for the plants are astronomical , in the 100s of thousands of dollars per hectare but these are not counted as "orchard "costs, but as start up expenses.
Ooops Sweden?
"Sweden has now seen a doubling in cases in three weeks, hitting more than 1000 new cases in one day for the first time since June,"
"Sweden's cumulative death total from infections is 10 times higher than neighbouring Norway and Finland and five times higher than Denmark."
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/covid-19-coronavirus-swedens-strategy-takes-a-turn-as-cases-spike/KP3SUPMIC7YZ5NQXEPTSIL63B4/
It seems that kea may be able to learn to recognise 1080 baits.
This is crucial for kea because DoC, who are ostensibly concerned to protect them, will keep poisoning in any event. For the keas, it's a bit like having Harold Shipman as one's GP.
The 1080 is better than having the possums eating their eggs/chicks.
In my young days I worked as a possum trapper for a while and witnessed first hand the utter devastation that possums can wreak upon the bush – 1080 is by far the lesser evil.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/425343/councils-push-central-government-for-four-year-terms'
I don't know if this has been discussed here.
And put forward your thoughts on NZ democracy on this site:
https://thedig.nz/transitional-democracy/we-need-to-reset-democracy-tedx-talk/
Twitter and facebook are censoring Biden articles now. Is Democracy dead in the usa?
What has become of journalism?
Thank you