Global Day of Action for a Financial Transaction Tax (22 June)
The Tax Justice campaign supports today’s (22 June) Global Day of Action for a Financial Transaction Tax coordinated by Oxfam in Britain.
“Momentum is building worldwide for financial transaction taxes that target the banks, speculators and big corporates,” says Vaughan Gunson, New Zealand’s Tax Justice campaign coordinator.
“The international money men who caused the global financial crisis must be made to pay the bill,” says Gunson. “Financial transaction taxes are the best way to make that happen.”
It’s widely accepted that financial transaction taxes levied internationally could raise hundreds of billions of dollars, which could then be used to fund programmes that help the world’s poorest. (For more information on financial transaction taxes and the Global Day of Action click on HERE)
The Tax Justice campaign in New Zealand is calling on the government to seriously look at how a FTT could be applied here.
“There’s an urgent need to broaden the tax base in this country to maintain public services, protect our people from the effects of the economic crisis, and re-build Christchurch,” says Gunson,
“The beauty of an FTT is that would be not squeeze more tax out of people already paying their fair share.”
“It is a very progressive tax, because those who end up paying the most tax would be those involved in high frequency trading in New Zealand’s financial markets – these mostly overseas speculators are currently paying no tax to the government,” says Gunson.
Mr Gunson says a small percentage tax on the money flows of financial speculators operating in New Zealand markets would raise significant government revenue.
“Here’s a solution to the government’s debt problem that it would be irresponsible for politicians to ignore,” says Gunson.
Tax Justice supporters will be out on the streets continuing to collect signatures for a petition calling on Parliament to: 1. Remove GST from food; and 2. Tax financial speculation.
40,000 signatures have so far been collected for the Tax Justice petition, which will be presented to Parliament on Tuesday 16 August. Su’a William Sio, Labour MP for Mangere, will be receiving the petition and presenting it to the House.
Nothing much going on except the ground shifting around a lot. From about 19:30 onwards we had aftershocks about every ninety minutes. The strongest was 5.3 at just after 22:30 and then swarms of shakers ranging from 3.5 to 4.4 through the night. First there’d be a muffled roar like an old diesel starting up and then a strange rocking and floating sensation. It felt like spending the night on an old tugboat chugging across a harbour.
Christchurch announcement should be made today. It will be announced that 80-90% of land will not be able to be built upon. Not sure of the areas. Was signed off yesterday.
And why is the government still waiting for the enquiry before doing something about safety standards? Because it’s clear they don’t really care about the Royal Commission results. And if they’re not doing anything – and if we know safety standards are too lax – surely any further deaths in mines in the meantime should be treated as criminal?
hmmm…now wheres that video of Gerry the Hut, from a few years back, laughing and rarking up the National party faithful in parliament as they scoff at and bury the findings of a Labour commissioned safety report that shows our mining standards weren’t up to scratch ?
Can you see yourself, under a coconut tree
Wanting for nothing, or maybe a cooler breeze
Where all things romantic, in the south pacific ?
French Polynesia’s assembly is working on a resolution to formally demand the territory’s re-inscription on the UN list of territories to be decolonised.
After what was called an informal meeting last week, the assembly’s commission on international relation is today due to draw up the text.
Looks like Smile and Wave is putting his foot in it every time journos ask him questions.
Twice now he has kicked off the Christchurch land storm – first, weeks ago, stating that 10,000 homes would need to be abandoned.
After, last weeks quakes he started talking about whole suburbs being abandoned.
I bet there are people in CERA wishing the PM would STFU!
Now he is making comments to the Australian media that he has not made here (or to the Pike River families) and that prejudges the Commission findings.
Now he is blaming Labour for consenting the mine but fails to mention that it was a National government and their Neo-Lib economic thinking that decided in 1992 that mine owners should be in charge of determining the safety of the mine and so scrapped the mines inspectorate.
Will Joyce – Joky Hen (tm logie97 !) may have been making some off-the-cuff unscripted comments. His minders need to tighten the reins I think, but no the enlightening flow of thought should not be stopped.
prism – happy to see Joky Hen become part of the nomenclature for the PM. Acknowledgements not necessary. Just continue your thoughtful comments – good reads. (I think it was Vicky who pointed us towards an anagram generator site late one night and I am sure we could use it to find further apt names).
Ok logie97 thanks. I’ll continue with my current favourite Joky Hen. Interesting ones arise from that anagram generator. We shouldn’t forget some of the old ones though. I think it was Blip who came up with King John of Charmalot a while ago. Quite good, the film on Camelot had the song What do the common people do etc.
If Labour wants to frontfoot this, I say take the blame AND make a promise:
– take the blame for NOT having overturned National’s previous lowering of workers’ standards
– take the blame for having accommodated the right/centre right and NOT battling harder for workers
And:
– promise to go into urgency, at the soonest opportunity, to improve standards for workers, and
– promise, when they are next in the government, to review and reverse all of National’s policies that have attacked, undermined and chipped away at workers’ rights and progressive values.
Like you say, JM, there is much to be said for a “mea culpa” (or a “my bad”) and stressing that we have learned how the old policy doesn’t work and then going on to promise to do better.
If only Clinton had said, “Yep – I did it and I should not have”
Pollies always have the need to never admit a mistake or the need to do a rethink.
Fran O’Sullivan is reflecting concern for the process used against Mr Hubbard. She wonders if the powers of the SFO have bypassed the rights to natural justice.
Does seem a bit odd. Hope politics have not intruded to protect certain politicians?
“Such state force is seldom seen in New Zealand’s commercial history, writes Fran O’Sullivan.”
“How can Allan Hubbard fight 50 fraud charges when the state controls his personal funds, refuses to fully pay his lawyers, controls documents he needs for his defence and still won’t reveal who laid the complaint that ultimately led to him being slapped into a fiscal straitjacket?” http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10733654
Please, Hubbard will never see jail. The trial will take so long, and as we are seeing the process is going to be drawn out just to add to it. If Hubbard is smart he’ll welcome the opportunity of yet more appeals and delay.
“If Hone Harawira won the Te Tai Tokerau seat, Mr Goff says the Labour Party would be unable to work with him.
“In government – and we do plan to be in government – you need to have reliable allies, and he’s proven right through his political career to be anything but reliable,” he says.
“The distance between us on values and philosophy is just too great…I just don’t buy into that separatist philosophy.”
So all the talk about forgiving goff his sins from the past when he was part of the cabal that helped fuck the country is for naught, because reliability is the key – reliability – yes we can rely on goff – to what?
Is the distance too great between a politician of Mana and goff – the values too dissimilar?
I know who i’m voting for – the party that represents the disadvantaged and stands for social justice and equality and goff isn’t a member of that party – thank goodness.
Wouldn’t be the first time Goff has been in negotiations to join the ACT Party. Maybe he thought he could do more to further the right wing cause by staying put. It’s certainly turned out that way.
The right’s greatest weapon is Goff, not Key. If he wanted to further the interests of the left , or even a Labour election win, he would have resigned as leader long ago. He has consistently chosen not to.
NACTs second biggest weapon is the rest of the Labour caucus in refusing to dump him.
Key would be nothing by now, without this Labour “opposition”.
Sir Philip……
….services to the rich and powerful….
Personally I’d prefer if Labour didn’t out-right rule out Hone and Mana.
But it becomes a game of public perceptions, and by doing this, National can’t wave Hone around like the bogey man – “a vote for Labour is a vote for Hone” like they try to do with Winston Peters. So there’s a tactical reason for doing so.
At the same time, it is unlikely to blow back up in Labour’s face. In any parliament where Mana are the king-maker, they’re not going to side with National and Act. So Mana-held seats effectively shrink the size of parliament. There are cases where it could make a difference, like a complex arrangement where Mana + Greens vs MP & UF were together king-makers, eg MP & UF go with National unless Labour goes with Mana and Greens.
‘
I think that the accusation that Harawira is unreliable, bares closer examination.
The question is, Is this verbal attack by Goff aimed at Harawira, just political rhetoric to weaken a politician whose political views he is opposed to?
Is this attack even accurate?
“he’s proven right through his political career to be anything but reliable,”
Phil Goff
Yet not once during his term in government as a Maori Party MP, did Harawira break Maori Party caucus discipline and vote against the direction of the Maori Party.
Yes, Harawira bitterly complained, and publicly criticised, (as he claimed was his right to do,) some of the right wing legislation that the Maori Party supported in parliament.
Even on this site he, Harawira was condemned by Labour supporters for being a hypocrite for voting for legislation that he didn’t personally support.
Though he voted with the Maori Party on every occasion as a disciplined member of their caucus, it was his willingness to challenge and debate that political direction, which was cited as the reason for his expulsion from the Maori Party.
Harawira fought his expulsion from the Maori Party because he claimed, (and with some justification), that he had never broken party discipline and that therefore there were no grounds for his expulsion. Also, (with some justification), Harawira claimed that he had a right and even a duty to raise his misgivings about the direction of the Maori Party in private and in public.
My question is this;
Isn’t it a tad bit inconsistent for Labour Party members to condemn Harawira for maintaining party discipline even when he disagreed with it’s direction, and for Goff to then also condemn him for being unreliable?
Am I wrong in thinking that there is a contradiction here?
The name’s Ph’Goff. It’d be choice if he’d do just that.
Certainly I won’t be putting my name near a Labour ballot in November. Never NOT voted Labour in 40 years. He can Ph’Get it this time.
What finally unleashed the inexorable build up of my somewhat embarrassed “God……this ain’t Labour…..” senses was this; Harawira announces he’s gonna resign and precipitate a by-election……… “Oh no…..we won’t work with the (demon) Harawira……..! says Ph’Goff.
You could see him all glassy-eyed over the expectation that “Mr and Mrs Ignorant Honky Middle Class Who’re Shit Scared of The Meorries” would stand up and clap.
Wouldn’t it be great if by miraculous chance it came down to Hon-Aye having the casting vote on whether Ph’Goff got to be PM . That particular Meorrie would be a fine type then.
Stomping on Dissent at Yale
If you care about the question of Palestine, and indeed about democracy and free speech, you should click on the following links, in series. Each one builds on the next. You can see how one of the most compelling speakers and scholars in the United States is constantly hounded by the enemies of democracy and free speech.
While, in a way, this is a painfully funny example of a young student politician (Stephen Marsh) being browbeaten and bullied by a zealot (Yishai Schwarz) it’s also profoundly disturbing, when you reflect that this is what happens even at a supposedly liberal institution like Yale.
Dear “freedom”: Are you trying to be funny? Your comment is certainly obscure, but I suspect that’s because you don’t have a clue what this topic is about, rather than because of any complexity or nuance in your thinking. Perhaps you should click on those links, and educate yourself.
Yep, Finkelstein’s one of the most inspiring scholars I’ve ever come across. Discovered his work in 2002. The destruction of his academic career has been a bloody disgrace.
Not in the mind of Yishai Schwartz. Or Alan Dershowitz, or Anthony Weiner, or David Horror-wits, or [insert name of your favourite Israeli government shill here].
“It’s diets all round,” National Minister Gerry Brownlee’s advisor suggested after being stuck for 30 minutes with the minister and colleagues in a lift. Picture
But worrying? Whom to. All we need now is to re-establish our manufacturing industries, in particular clothing lined with possum fur so we can all remain warm and toasty.
After all, the last ice age peoples survived with fur coats and fire.
Oh, but we won’t be able to burn wood to keep warm will we? After all, it releases CO2 and thats bad.
Yep. Despite the many many things that his simple lines have wrong – I won’t bite.
It is too much like potting a possum with a light and a 0.22″. You keep firing the rounds and they keep bouncing off those bloody thick skulls. You have to either get a higher velocity weapon or drill them through the eye. However my preferred Oscar solution requires a blog equivalent of a machete…… I’m sure he will notice that (won’t he?)
So when winter finally comes in NZ from mid July – mid December, you’ll all sit around going, oh geez, that CO2 got’s a lot to answer for hasn’t it!
Nevermind the fact that Earths natural state of being is ICE. Not warmth, but COLD. Even the IPCC make note of the fact we’ve come through a geological warm period.
Humans can survive the cold much better than the heat. But if privatised power companies become a reality, we sure won’t be able to pay for the heating required 9 months of the year when it’s too darn cold.
I wonder who the ignoramus is DTB. You with your constant warmist cries. I sure won’t be sorry to see the back of the global con that the scientists have built up for themselves over the last 30 years and indoctrinated a whole generation into believing that CO2 is bad.
Lprent – tell me why greenhouse growers pump CO2 into their tunnels for plants? After all, you seem to take great delight in breaking down the CO2 is oxygen for plants. I’ve shown you many references to plant life existing much more beneficially at a CO2 level greater than 1000 ppm, but you (fail) to recognise the relevance of it. After all, Humans need around 25% O2, and with an atmospheric composition sitting around 14% – this is far more dangerous and deadly to mankind than CO2.
And the answers in your face when trying to investigate how to increase O2. Plants. But with a lack of CO2, it becomes a self perpetuating cycle. No CO2, fewer plants, less O2, goodbye mankind.
The reptiles will survive. After all, they don’t generally breath O2 in such vast quantities.
I think that maybe I viewed this before probably via the Standard but am still breathtaken or is that gobsmacked as they say, about the audacity of USA Bankers and Politicians and the strategy of the Chinese.
I expect the clued up here have already seen this but the last 10 minutes are compelling. – again.
“All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace (Ep. 1) – ”
Why is Radio NZ National using low-grade American reporters?
Priscilla Huff knows nothing about Afghanistan, yet she’s reporting on it. Why?
Wednesday 22 June 2011
National Radio Checkpoint, 5.45 p.m.
For about the 357th time, a news item on the plan to “draw down” U.S. troops in Afghanistan. With her customary crisp, efficient style, Checkpoint anchor Mary Wilson crosses to “Priscilla Huff in Washington.”
PRISCILLA HUFF?!?!?!???
This would have rung alarm bells with anybody who has any familiarity with that reporter’s work over the years. Her reporting has about as much authority as Andy Haden’s “source in the Crusaders organization”, as much integrity as Paul Holmes’ September 2003 apology to the Auckland Ghanaian community, and as much understanding of the political situation in Afghanistan as… well, as John Key’s understanding of the situation in Afghanistan. [1]
Huff begins her report with this remarkable statement: “President Karzai has continued to criticize America’s efforts to help his country.” [2]
After making it clear that the U.S. is occupying, terrorizing, imprisoning, bombing, shooting, kidnapping and torturing Afghanis to help Afghanistan, Huff decides to really extend herself and do some fieldwork. Naturally, that does not mean that she goes and interviews someone who actually knows about the situation, such as an academic, a military analyst, or (God forbid) an Afghani. [3]
No, what Priscilla Huff does is walk out onto the street and ask three passers-by what they think of “the plan to draw down U.S. troops”. The first two people know absolutely nothing; they blither about how “we need to finish the job we started.” In other words, they repeat what they’ve heard people like Priscilla Huff telling them on CNN and CBS and Fox News for the last decade. It’s a perfect example of the recycling of sound-bite propaganda in the echo-chamber of what Americans call “public debate”.
Hearteningly, though, the third (and last) person seems to have thought about things: “We need to get out immediately”, he says. “We hear lots of talk from politicians about how we can’t afford to pay for social programs in this country, but we never hear them say we can’t find money for war.”
And Priscilla Huff is by no means the only bad reporter, or even the worst, that appears on National Radio.
The question is: WHO CHOOSES THE LIKES OF PRISCILLA HUFF?
[1]Throughout her report, Huff repeatedly (and obediently) uses the Pentagon’s own insulting weasel expression “draw down” instead of “withdrawal”.
Questions and Answers 21 June 2011
‘Hon Phil Goff: If the Prime Minister is worried about youth unemployment, why has he allowed a consistent decline in the intake into apprenticeships since he became the Prime Minister, and why does he not do something about that, instead of looking at cutting the wages paid to young people?
Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I think the Leader of the Opposition is confused in his facts and incorrect.
Hon Phil Goff: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I could ask the permission of the House to table a series of documents from the news media, widely reporting the facts that I have just mentioned. You would not normally allow that to be done, but I ask you to consider allowing it on this occasion, as the Prime Minister’s standard answer is to reject the facts that he claims are wrong in what I have been saying to him.
Mr SPEAKER: One of the reasons why we do not do that is that the information is readily available to all members of the House. What is more, WHAT IS PRINTED IN THE MEDIA MAY BE NO MORE “FACT” THAN ANYTHING ELSE. In all my 27 years’ experience in this place, I have found that it is extremely unlikely to be “fact” if it has been printed in the media. That is one reason why we do not table recent newspaper clippings. I realise that the member could be frustrated by that kind of answer, but a Minister is entitled to dispute the information provided in a supplementary question. Ministers should be careful in doing so, and I am sure the Prime Minister will have been careful in doing that.
Hon Phil Goff: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Is it in order for the Prime Minister to dispute facts that are available to every member in this House in order to avoid answering a question?
Mr SPEAKER: If that was established to be correct, that would be a very serious issue…’
What more proof could we need than from the Speaker of New Zealand Parliament to stand up and say the media is a liar.
So, what with Huff now the guru on Radio New Zealand, last bastion of objectivity, a lying media, economic experts chosen from banks to tell us all about how to get ourselves further into debt, we look forward to a future full of Fox, and we’re one lot of stuffed chickens.
If you watched tonight’s TV3 News at six, you might have caught a glimpse of the world renowned Riot Dog. He’s been in regular attendance at riots and protests in Athens, Greece since 2008…
When I was in Athens a couple of years ago, I was intrigued at the number of largish dogs wandering or sleeping on the streets. They seemed to be placid but also seemed to be strays.
So now I know that the blighters were just resting ready for the next protest. Ta.
If the over-valuation, or the threat of it, persists for any length time, there is then a second-order range of consequences. Bright graduates cease to go into productive industry; they prefer to try their luck in asset speculation, finance and retailing – anywhere that is protected from foreign competition. People look to non-productive assets like housing as the place to make their fortune. Capital moves to wherever it is possible to make a quick buck. Our successful businesses move overseas or are sold to overseas buyers. Corporate headquarters move to Sydney or Shanghai. Does any of this sound familiar?
In the longer run – a generation or more – the culture itself changes. Borrowing – in the belief that the word owes us a living – becomes a way of life. We lose faith in saving, investing, and producing goods and services for sale as a way of providing for ourselves.
It was Einstein who said “Insanity is doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results”. Our results are not about to change any time soon.
Artificially high interest rates courtesy of the RBNZ and it’s focus on keeping inflation down is depressing our economy forcing people to look for other ways to make an income rather than being productive. If we want to actually become wealthier then we need to change what we’re doing and this government is doing everything it can to ensure we keep doing the same thing.
Courtesy of Mother Jones (US), a heartbreaking look at what might well happen here if NACT are allowed to carry out their welfare privatisation plans and foist ‘social services’ off on de/unregulated ‘child corrective facilities’ like the ones mentioned in Kathryn Royce’s chilling “Escape from Missouri” (July/Aug 2011: 52-57):
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When she was standing for office, Jacinda Ardern promised she would take abortion out of the Crimes Act. And to be fair, there was some early action on that, with an immediate referral of the issue to the Law Commission ...
When the government introduced the Zero Carbon Bill, people rightly asked what they planned to do to reduce transport emissions, which basicly had no policy at all other than the ETS. Today, they responded, announcing a "feebate" system which would ...
At almost every level, the problem with medicinal cannabis is a lack of good information. In the US, FDA regulations make it hard to research. Most doctors aren't familiar with what research there is and most patients don't know either. ...
Redline is critical of Corbyn for his political weaknesses, but he’s no anti-Semite. There is no substance to the McCarthyist witch-hunt being run by the right wing, and the pro-Israel lobby inside and outside the Labour Party in the UK. ...
The government's billion trees program is the sort of policy which could make a real difference to our emissions and the fight against climate change. But climate scientist Jim Salinger isn't convinced:The Forestry Minister Shane Jones' one billion trees won't ...
Last month the government was celebrating another surplus. Meanwhile, children are starving:One in five children are living in households where putting food on the table is a struggle, according to a new report from the Ministry of Health. It found ...
Show Me The Money! The alternative to state funding of infrastructure is, of course, to fund it by taking on massive amounts of private debt. On this issue, at least, Auckland mayoral challenger, Tamihere, has some solid points to make. ...
If we are to avoid making the earth uninhabitable, we need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to practically nothing over the next decade. But that will still leave us with the problem of the carbon we have already emitted, which ...
Former Waikato DHB CEO Nigel Murray allegedly misused public funds, spending more than $120,000 of public money on unjustified travel. He was forced to resign and the Serious Fraud Office began an investigation. But despite the SFO finding that the ...
Jeremy Corbyn, we are told, is being advised – not least by his deputy (as well as by some of his would-be successors) – that he must come “off the fence” on the Brexit issue if he wants to bolster ...
The End of Life bill has been read a second time and is now heading for the House for further debate. Personally, I support the proposal. I don't ever epect to take advantage of the Bill's provisions myself, but as ...
Before the substantive issue which this column is about – whether there has been a deterioration in the economic advice given to the government – a paragraph about the budget leaks.read more ...
Below is a translation of the editorial in the June 24 round of weekly workplace bulletins issued all over France by the revolutionary workers’ organisation Lutte Ouvriere. Last Saturday, 8,000 people took to the streets of Belfort (eastern France) to ...
Why hasn't Parliament followed the lead set by our local authorities and declared a climate emergency? The answer is the National Party:The Prime Minister’s admission that she is open to the idea of declaring a climate change emergency is nothing ...
Back in May the government released its Zero Carbon Bill. While much of the bill was welcome, there was one big exception: it contained a secrecy clause, requiring the Climate Change Commission to maintain secrecy over practically everything it does. ...
by Phil Duncan This past week has marked the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Stonewall Inn riots in Christopher Street, New York, the event generally regarded as kicking off the gay liberation movement. Quite a few articles have ...
Southland - land of coal-burning dairy farmers - has become the first region in the country to explicitly vote against declaring a climate emergency. Their reason? They didn't want to "devalue" the word "emergency". Its an argument addressed powerfully in ...
New Zealand has a problem with police chases: officers going after fleeing drivers like rabid dogs, without any consideration for proportionality or public safety, often with fatal results. And according to an in-depth article in the Guardian today, the UK ...
The first full week of the firearms buy-back and amnesty has produced a strong turnout as events roll out nationwide for the first time. “Momentum is slowly starting to build as community collection events are held across the entire country, ...
A new digital platform aims to make it easier for small businesses to access services from multiple government agencies, leaving them more time to focus on their own priorities. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Minister for Small Business Stuart Nash ...
Million-dollar start to gun collection eventsPolice Minister Stuart Nash says a solid start has been made to the gun buyback and amnesty after the first weekend of community collection events. “Gun owners will walk away with more than ...
Police Minister Stuart Nash has praised Police and gun owners after the first firearms collection event saw a busy turnout at Riccarton Racecourse in Christchurch. “Police officers and staff have put a tremendous effort into planning and logistics for the ...
Seventy-eight new Police constables are heading out to the regions following today’s graduation of a new recruit wing from the Royal New Zealand Police College. Police Minister Stuart Nash says the record high number of new Police officers being recruited, ...
Media statement on behalf of Sir Edward Taihākurei Durie and Donna Marie Tai Tokerau Hall: Māori Television has admitted publishing false allegations about former High Court justice, Sir Edward Taihākurei Durie, and his wife, Donna Hall, and it has ...
Announcement today by the Prime Minister of further gun law reform is being shrouded by fear, so that scrutiny of the law is seen as an affront to the victims of the horror attack in March. The Prime Minister acknowledged ...
Misgivings about the practicality and cost of a firearms register is likely to dominate feedback from rural areas on the second round of proposed Arms Act amendments, Federated Farmers says. ...
School Strike 4 Climate NZ organisers Sophie Handford and Raven Maeder delivered a clear message to over 600 local government mayors, chairs, chief executives and councillors at the recent LGNZ conference : make climate change a priority. ...
The Police Association, Te Aka Hāpai backs the government’s emphasis on public safety as the driver of its second tranche of amendments to New Zealand’s firearms law, announced today. ...
The growing housing shortage crisis about more than supply and demand- it is about inequity. Recently released analysis by Kiwibank shows that last year’s “severe” shortage of housing has worsened, with the shortfall growing from 100,000 to 130,0000 ...
One of the country’s largest district health boards has a severe shortage of hospital specialists, says the senior doctors’ union, the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (ASMS). ...
The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union is joining opposition to possible regulations on the strength of nicotine vaping liquid. Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke says, “The Government would certainly benefit from regulations on the strength ...
The Meat Industry Association (MIA) is calling for significant changes to the Zero Carbon Bill with a new analysis using the Government’s preferred modelling indicating that the proposed methane targets are excessive if all other gases go to net zero. ...
Victoria University Feminist Organisation and ALRANZ Abortion Rights Aotearoa, in conjunction with the VUW Feminist Law Students, Organise Aotearoa, Fem Force, and with the support of VUW Student Association announced they are sponsoring a march ...
With the Government's firearm buyback scheme starting to draw over 30,000 police man hours away from fighting crime, the safety of law abiding citizens is being compromised. ...
Social Credit Party leader Chris Leitch is calling on the sale of Westland Milk to Chinese company Yili to be put on hold pending an approach to the Government by Westland Milk for funding assistance. ...
Associate Health Minister Jenny Salesa seems intent on ensuring the Government’s vaping legislation will heavily target flavours and nicotine levels – a move that would be completely counterproductive to helping Kiwis quit smoking and achieving ...
A new website has launched in response to recent RNZ reporting about Police in Dunedin unlawfully entering people’s homes and breath-testing them. “I was disgusted when I saw what they cops were doing in Dunedin. Their behaviour undermines all of ...
The Head of the New Zealand Maori Council has called for the Government to hold an immediate investigation into the global cosmetics company Sephora after they were caught dumping waste hundreds and thousands of waste paper products embedded with ...
Hundreds of whanau and Maori leaders gathered at a hui in Mangere last weekend where they voted unanimously for an inquiry into Oranga Tamariki. The historic meeting called for a child welfare framework to be developed by Maori, for Maori. ...
Simon Shepherd: The government says its agreement with farmers, that they should pay for agricultural emissions, is historic. But there's no agreement on how. One proposal says farmers should pay a 5 per cent emissions tax. Another suggests farmers ...
The O’Brien Institute for Public Health at Calgary University has just released their report on fluoridation. This institute has, up to now, been staunchly in favour of fluoridation. However, yesterday, with regards to fluoride’s effect on the brain, ...
July 19 (BusinessDesk) - The government is looking to tighten control and impose harsher penalties after the Mycoplasma bovis outbreak revealed cracks in the country's stock management system. ...
Kia Anga Mua Ngā Hapū o Ngāpuhi (KAM) has reached a pivotal milestone following a hui yesterday at Waitangi with the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Andrew Little. ...
The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union can reveal that the Government spent $133,530 on producing its ‘Wellbeing Budget’ document, a cost blowout largely driven by spending on graphic design and photography. The $133,530 price tag compares to $86,268 ...
Kahungunu Māori Language Awards. Nominations closed on 5 July 2019, and were judged by the Senior Management Team of Ngāti Kahungunu Iwi Incorporated. The judges wish to acknowledge the very high calibre of all nominations received making it a very ...
High Court of Australia Judge, Justice Stephen Gageler, will address recent criticism of court judgment delays in Australia, at the University of Canterbury (UC) on 23 July at 6.15pm. ...
This summary is provided to assist in the understanding of the Inquiry’s proceedings but does not constitute the official record. The full Minute is available at the link below. ...
The Tertiary Education Commission is laying charges under section 292A of the Education Act 1989 against three individuals for making a false representation for the purpose of receiving, or continuing to receive, free tertiary education from a tertiary education ...
New Zealand food businesses today welcomed a trio of new food safety tools, designed to make it faster, easier and more affordable to follow the rules and keep consumers safe. ...
AUT research shows that Māori children are almost four times more likely than those of European descent to be placed out of home by child protection services ...
The Government announced today that grants of up to $2,500 for energy efficient heaters are now available as part of the Government’s Warmer Kiwi Homes programme. ...
Fonterra’s use of coal has been the target of numerous grassroots campaigns in recent years. Last year 350 Aotearoa affiliated groups, Fossil Free Aoraki and 350 Nelson launched a petition dismissing the dairy giant’s initial target of no new ...
Information sessions on proposals for The Medicinal Cannabis Scheme take place in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch over the next fortnight. The sessions are open to anyone with an interest in learning more about the proposed scheme. ...
“Our children are our most vulnerable, most innocent victims and we do not want to see any more children harmed by these ‘known sex offenders’. The safety of our community must be the paramount consideration.” ...
“The announcement that Fonterra will immediately stop installing any new coal boilers or increasing capacity to burn coal is the signal that the biomass fuel supply industry welcomes” said Brian Cox, Executive Officer of the Bioenergy Association. ...
18 July 2019-- Coal Action Network Aotearoa (CANA) today welcomed Fonterra’s commitment to build no new coal plants, a “no brainer” for the climate crisis the world faces. The group has been urging this transition for six years now and ...
The increase in demand for cage-free eggs is set to continue according to animal rights organisation SAFE, who says the egg industry should expect this and prepare. ...
Wellington, New Zealand – 350 Pacific made a formal submission to the New Zealand Government’s Environment Parliamentary Select Committee on the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill, led by the Pacific Climate Warriors (PCWs) based in ...
There used to be a school of thought on the centre right side of politics that the best way to neuter the Greens as a political force would be to let them have a spell in government. Then, according to ...
Today (18 July) is Nelson Mandela International Day when the United Nations highlights the importance of humane conditions of imprisonment. In New Zealand our prisons are overcrowded and understaffed. At 214 prisoners per 100,000 people, we have the fifth ...
NZEI Te Riu Roa will take legal action over the lengthy delay in implementing pay increases for teachers. Novopay announced yesterday that teachers would have to wait until 11 September to see pay increases that they won when they settled ...
EDS has filed its submission on the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill. The Bill sets targets for greenhouse gas reductions, provides for the government to set a series of carbon budgets, and sets up a new, independent, Climate ...
The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union has identified an absurd case of mission creep at Wellington City Council: the decision to spend $21,750 on two Consumer NZ investigations into different brands of bike lights. ...
The Motor Trade Association is welcoming the release of the Government’s new draft road safety strategy. MTA Chief Executive Craig Pomare says the association is pleased to see vehicle safety has been made a priority in the Road to Zero ...
The Department of Conservation continue to repeat the same old story about attacks on staff and how it is affecting their role in protecting our precious wildlife. NZ herald https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12249704 ...
The government's silence on the fact that the country's second-largest milk processor is on the brink of becoming 25% Chinese Government owned has been deafening. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Martin Parkinson, secretary of the Prime Minister’s department, has cleared Christopher Pyne and Julie Bishop of breaching the government’s code of ministerial standards with their ...
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.Today’s contentForeign affairs – Australia Sam Sachdeva (Newsroom): Ardern in ...
Sam Brooks reviews the second season of Big Little Lies, which generated as much social media conversation as its first season did critical acclaim, for better and worse.Light spoilers for the second season of Big Little Lies.Big Little Lies felt like the ...
ANALYSIS:By David Robie Indonesia recently hosted a bold public relations window-dressing expo in Auckland presenting itself as a “Pacific” nation while attempting to provide an unconvincing impression of normality in the two Melanesian provinces known collectively as West ...
Taxing vacant land would be too complex to implement and achieve little - it would be better for the Government to push local councils to implement rates based on land value rather than capital value. ...
The Māori Affairs Select Committee has recommended that anyone wanting to use the word 'Parihaka' for commercial purposes must get permission from the Parihaka Papakainga Trust. ...
European politics is a strange business. Where voters can choose candidates, who disappear after the elections. Where right-wing governments nominate left-sounding candidates. ...
Ruby Porter’s debut novel, Attraction, is a lucid, layered story of three young women on a road trip across the North Island. It’s one of the best books we’ve read this year. Here, Ruby writes about her grandmother – who ...
ByRNZ Pacific West Papuan fighters have killed an Indonesian soldier in a renewed threat to Jakarta’s road project there. State news agency Antara reported the hit-and-run attack on Saturday took place in Nduga regency, where pro-independence forces are ...
In 2003 the Silver Ferns won the Netball World Cup, breaking the Australian Diamonds’ 16-year winning streak. In 2019, they’ve just done the same thing. Leana de Bruin was a rookie in that 2003 team, and talked to The Spinoff ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anastasia Powell, Associate Professor, Criminology and Justice Studies, RMIT University A Perth man who pleaded guilty to distributing an intimate image of his ex-girlfriend without her consent has been sentenced to a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Piero Moraro, Lecturer in Criminal Justice, Charles Sturt University The Morrison government has introduced new legislation responding to recent protests by animal rights activists in Australia. The bill –named The Criminal Code ...
One of the many unspoken rules of British life is that when one is drinking at the pub with others, one buys rounds. For the naive New Zealander, it’s stressful AF, says Elle Hunt.At the pub one Friday night in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David King, Senior Lecturer, The University of Queensland Dry, moist, productive, hacking, chesty, whooping, barking, throaty. These are just some of the terms people use to describe their cough. While we’re deep ...
What if you could grow a house from seed or 3D print a new subdivision in a week? The housing sector is ripe for disruption – could technology be the magic bullet we need?Jo Aitken sounds like she’s pitching an ...
The architect of the incredible turnaround the Silver Ferns have enjoyed is now off-contract. So now that the World Cup has been won, how can Netball NZ keep Noeline Taurua on the books? Radio NZ’s Ravinder Hunia recounts the journey ...
By RNZ Pacific Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape wants Australia to close the detention centre it has been running on PNG’s Manus island for six years. According to Australian media, Marape has asked Canberra to give him ...
More must be done to tackle critical skill shortages in project management and leadership, the head of the Registered Master Builders Association says. ...
Fifteen tracks, 22 guests, one album. The Spinoff Music listens to Ed Sheeran’s No. 6 Collaborations Project and considers why each track really shouldn’t work – and the sometimes surprising reasons why they do.1. Beautiful People – KhalidKhalid and Ed ...
Emily Writes on her journey from reasonable trepidation to sweet love for the video game Minecraft.It was barely a week after I said to my sister “I don’t let the boys play any games” that my children’s Minecraft obsession began. ...
New Zealanders with life-shortening congenital conditions will have early access to their KiwiSavers after a man with Down Syndrome convinced the government to change the rules. ...
Sephora store employees may have swept some confetti down Auckland city’s drains on Saturday, and people got angry… at an entire generation. On Saturday, French cosmetics giant Sephora opened its first New Zealand store on Auckland’s Queen Street. Excited makeup enthusiasts ...
More than 20,000 Aucklanders don’t have access to regular showers or the ability to wash their clothing. Alice Webb-Liddall tags along on a shift with Orange Sky, who are giving homeless people back these basic needs.On an overcast Friday morning ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Kenny, Senior Fellow, Australian Studies Institute, Australian National University If the first week of the 46th Parliament was heavily ceremonial – dominated by the new governor-general, a raft of first-time MPs ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Walker, Adjunct Professor, School of Communications, La Trobe University In a world run ragged by multiple crises and an unravelling of American global leadership, military confrontation in the Gulf poses risks ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Craig Dalton, Conjoint Senior Lecturer School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Newcastle Over recent months, the news has been saturated with headlines claiming we’re experiencing a “killer flu season”. Researchers ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexander Richard Braczkowski, PhD Candidate – Wildlife Cameraman, The University of Queensland Last week saw the release of the rebooted The Lion King, an attempt to capitalise on the billion-dollar success of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Felicity Fenner, Associate Professor at UNSW Art & Design, UNSW Over the past few weeks, artists from around Australia have been creating small artworks depicting the endangered black-throated finch and sending them ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Craig Campbell, Associate Professor, University of Sydney New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian made a “captain’s call” in recent months that raised the ire of many parents, teachers and education groups. She ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Beer, Dean, Research and Innovation, University of South Australia Australia’s biggest city is abuzz with news of yet another housing development declared unsafe for human habitation. This time it is apartments ...
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Many claim leadership positions around farming emissions, concerns rise about deported gang members in small towns, and superyacht predictions panned.Now apologies if you feel like this is repetition – we did ...
Against all odds, the Silver Ferns have won netball's World Cup for the first time in 16 years. And fittingly, one of the legends of the game sealed their incredible victory. ...
What are you getting out of your daily commute? University of Auckland Associate Professor Kim Dirks considers the health implications for getting from A to B. ...
If Beijing’s actions have any bearing on what will happen when the agreement of ‘one country, two systems’ expires, the Hong Kong people are unlikely to succumb quietly. ...
Six things councils can do right now to make the ’emergency’ worth more than the paper it’s written on.Councils are declaring climate emergencies across the country, but with only a decade to cut carbon emissions in half, it’s time for ...
Newsroom literary editor Steve Braunias passes his verdict on the annual list of the 100 favourite books of New Zealanders who filled out a Whitcoulls form. ...
Orchestral music performance is an art form, but how do you engage with something you’ve never experienced before? Samiyah Alghamdi and Anna Knox attend NYO Celebrates in Wellington and unpack what they hear.The National Youth Orchestra and the National Youth ...
Open mike 22/06/2011 
In the wake of the March 15 mass-murder, the government moved swiftly to ban semi-automatic firearms, weapons for which there is really no case for being allowed to own in New Zealand. and now, it has announced phase two of ...10 hours ago
I have been unimpressed with Western corporate media coverage of the tensions involving Iran in the Straits of Hormuz. They repeat the line that Iran is the source of current tensions, that it is a major sponsor of terrorism, that ...2 days ago
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Much like Tuvalu, the manmade climate change Cult love to tell people the Maldives is almost totally underwater. In fact the dishonest Maldives Govt d on the same bandwagon, believing they would receive billions of dollars aid from other Countries ...2 days ago
As the entry on Wikipedia shows (and no, one doesn’t necessarily have to regard Wikipedia as the be-all and end-all of truth, because it isn’t on a great many things, to agree with the following): “…a fallacious argument that concludes ...2 days ago
by Daphna Whitmore The story of how the world awoke to a big injustice is starting to be told. The Pacific Games held this month in Samoa is another chapter. On the podium was Laurel Hubbard, the giant transgender weightlifter, ...3 days ago
Our conversations and push against specific supremacist and ultra-Nationalist groups, and the pseudo-intellectual underpinnings of them, need to mature at all levels. But in doing so, it’s going to have to include a more thorough and brutally honest self-examination ...3 days ago
Something I missed: not only did Youth MPs declare a climate emergency; they also launched a campaign to lower the voting age to 16:Youth Parliament week in Parliament has seen the establishment of Make it 16, a campaign to ...4 days ago
The proposed Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill treats biogenic methane emissions differently from all other carbon emissions. The latter are to be measured net so that emissions from fossil fuels can be offset by carbon stored in trees. ...5 days ago
by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh This article aims to answer a simple question, whether the conflict is only a rural one or whether it is also urban. The verb ‘to be’ is conjugated in the present tense as ,despite what some ...5 days ago
6 days ago
On Sunday July 7, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Associate Health Minister Julie Anne Genter announced their intention to review the Ministry of Health’s Funded Family Care policy and repeal Part 4Aof the 2000 NZ Public Health and Disability Act. These are festering injustices ...7 days ago
Belle is a lovely fifteen year-old border collie who belongs to our friends and neighbours at Bryan’s Beach, Michael and Judy Corboy. Belle, in her old age, can hardly see or hear, but – as a constant participant at social ...7 days ago
An occasional series where I will ponder allegations of anti-Semitism directed at the British Labour Party and its members.In this case, we are thinking about an allegedly anti-Semitic image shared by a Labour Party member. Its origins appear to be ...2 weeks ago
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The first full week of the firearms buy-back and amnesty has produced a strong turnout as events roll out nationwide for the first time. “Momentum is slowly starting to build as community collection events are held across the entire country, ...18 hours ago
Media statement on behalf of Sir Edward Taihākurei Durie and Donna Marie Tai Tokerau Hall: Māori Television has admitted publishing false allegations about former High Court justice, Sir Edward Taihākurei Durie, and his wife, Donna Hall, and it has ...7 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Martin Parkinson, secretary of the Prime Minister’s department, has cleared Christopher Pyne and Julie Bishop of breaching the government’s code of ministerial standards with their ...1 hour ago
Sam Brooks reviews the second season of Big Little Lies, which generated as much social media conversation as its first season did critical acclaim, for better and worse.Light spoilers for the second season of Big Little Lies.Big Little Lies felt like the ...6 hours ago
Cross-party consensus on gun law reform was a one-time wonder. ...7 hours ago
ANALYSIS: By David Robie Indonesia recently hosted a bold public relations window-dressing expo in Auckland presenting itself as a “Pacific” nation while attempting to provide an unconvincing impression of normality in the two Melanesian provinces known collectively as West ...7 hours ago
Taxing vacant land would be too complex to implement and achieve little - it would be better for the Government to push local councils to implement rates based on land value rather than capital value. ...7 hours ago
The Māori Affairs Select Committee has recommended that anyone wanting to use the word 'Parihaka' for commercial purposes must get permission from the Parihaka Papakainga Trust. ...8 hours ago
European politics is a strange business. Where voters can choose candidates, who disappear after the elections. Where right-wing governments nominate left-sounding candidates. ...9 hours ago
A decade on from his darkest hour, can the NZ First leader again defy the odds and keep his political career alive? ...9 hours ago
Ruby Porter’s debut novel, Attraction, is a lucid, layered story of three young women on a road trip across the North Island. It’s one of the best books we’ve read this year. Here, Ruby writes about her grandmother – who ...9 hours ago
By RNZ Pacific West Papuan fighters have killed an Indonesian soldier in a renewed threat to Jakarta’s road project there. State news agency Antara reported the hit-and-run attack on Saturday took place in Nduga regency, where pro-independence forces are ...10 hours ago
In 2003 the Silver Ferns won the Netball World Cup, breaking the Australian Diamonds’ 16-year winning streak. In 2019, they’ve just done the same thing. Leana de Bruin was a rookie in that 2003 team, and talked to The Spinoff ...10 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anastasia Powell, Associate Professor, Criminology and Justice Studies, RMIT University A Perth man who pleaded guilty to distributing an intimate image of his ex-girlfriend without her consent has been sentenced to a ...10 hours ago
The second tranche of proposed far-reaching changes includes a gun register, tighter licensing rules, and five-year licences. ...11 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Piero Moraro, Lecturer in Criminal Justice, Charles Sturt University The Morrison government has introduced new legislation responding to recent protests by animal rights activists in Australia. The bill –named The Criminal Code ...11 hours ago
One of the many unspoken rules of British life is that when one is drinking at the pub with others, one buys rounds. For the naive New Zealander, it’s stressful AF, says Elle Hunt.At the pub one Friday night in ...11 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David King, Senior Lecturer, The University of Queensland Dry, moist, productive, hacking, chesty, whooping, barking, throaty. These are just some of the terms people use to describe their cough. While we’re deep ...12 hours ago
The government is planning an overhaul of biosecurity funding, but a lack of detail is making farming sectors nervous. ...12 hours ago
What if you could grow a house from seed or 3D print a new subdivision in a week? The housing sector is ripe for disruption – could technology be the magic bullet we need?Jo Aitken sounds like she’s pitching an ...13 hours ago
The architect of the incredible turnaround the Silver Ferns have enjoyed is now off-contract. So now that the World Cup has been won, how can Netball NZ keep Noeline Taurua on the books? Radio NZ’s Ravinder Hunia recounts the journey ...13 hours ago
By RNZ Pacific Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape wants Australia to close the detention centre it has been running on PNG’s Manus island for six years. According to Australian media, Marape has asked Canberra to give him ...14 hours ago
More must be done to tackle critical skill shortages in project management and leadership, the head of the Registered Master Builders Association says. ...14 hours ago
Emily Writes on her journey from reasonable trepidation to sweet love for the video game Minecraft.It was barely a week after I said to my sister “I don’t let the boys play any games” that my children’s Minecraft obsession began. ...16 hours ago
Sephora store employees may have swept some confetti down Auckland city’s drains on Saturday, and people got angry… at an entire generation. On Saturday, French cosmetics giant Sephora opened its first New Zealand store on Auckland’s Queen Street. Excited makeup enthusiasts ...17 hours ago
More than 20,000 Aucklanders don’t have access to regular showers or the ability to wash their clothing. Alice Webb-Liddall tags along on a shift with Orange Sky, who are giving homeless people back these basic needs.On an overcast Friday morning ...18 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ashlee Curtis, Research Fellow, School of Psychology, Deakin University The Victorian government introduced 24-hour public transport on Friday and Saturday nights in Melbourne from January 1 2016. Services mostly run every hour ...18 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Kenny, Senior Fellow, Australian Studies Institute, Australian National University If the first week of the 46th Parliament was heavily ceremonial – dominated by the new governor-general, a raft of first-time MPs ...19 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexander Richard Braczkowski, PhD Candidate – Wildlife Cameraman, The University of Queensland Last week saw the release of the rebooted The Lion King, an attempt to capitalise on the billion-dollar success of ...19 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Felicity Fenner, Associate Professor at UNSW Art & Design, UNSW Over the past few weeks, artists from around Australia have been creating small artworks depicting the endangered black-throated finch and sending them ...19 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Craig Campbell, Associate Professor, University of Sydney New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian made a “captain’s call” in recent months that raised the ire of many parents, teachers and education groups. She ...19 hours ago
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Many claim leadership positions around farming emissions, concerns rise about deported gang members in small towns, and superyacht predictions panned.Now apologies if you feel like this is repetition – we did ...20 hours ago
Against all odds, the Silver Ferns have won netball's World Cup for the first time in 16 years. And fittingly, one of the legends of the game sealed their incredible victory. ...20 hours ago
Forestry NZ challenges several claims made in Dame Anne Salmond's commentary in Newsroom last week, ‘Billion Trees policy being rorted’. ...21 hours ago
What are you getting out of your daily commute? University of Auckland Associate Professor Kim Dirks considers the health implications for getting from A to B. ...21 hours ago
Democrats face a real conundrum in the candidate they pick to run against Donald Trump. Peter McKenzie explains why. ...21 hours ago
If Beijing’s actions have any bearing on what will happen when the agreement of ‘one country, two systems’ expires, the Hong Kong people are unlikely to succumb quietly. ...21 hours ago
Jerome Kaino deserves to sit alongside the greats who retired from test rugby at the 2015 World Cup. ...21 hours ago
Six things councils can do right now to make the ’emergency’ worth more than the paper it’s written on.Councils are declaring climate emergencies across the country, but with only a decade to cut carbon emissions in half, it’s time for ...22 hours ago
The construction industry has a multi-pronged attack plan to fill desperately needed gaps ...22 hours ago
Newsroom literary editor Steve Braunias passes his verdict on the annual list of the 100 favourite books of New Zealanders who filled out a Whitcoulls form. ...22 hours ago
Businesses of fewer than 20 employees make up 97 percent of NZ's enterprises. But on the flip side, 10 percent go into liquidation. ...22 hours ago
Orchestral music performance is an art form, but how do you engage with something you’ve never experienced before? Samiyah Alghamdi and Anna Knox attend NYO Celebrates in Wellington and unpack what they hear.The National Youth Orchestra and the National Youth ...1 day ago
Global Day of Action for a Financial Transaction Tax (22 June)
The Tax Justice campaign supports today’s (22 June) Global Day of Action for a Financial Transaction Tax coordinated by Oxfam in Britain.
“Momentum is building worldwide for financial transaction taxes that target the banks, speculators and big corporates,” says Vaughan Gunson, New Zealand’s Tax Justice campaign coordinator.
“The international money men who caused the global financial crisis must be made to pay the bill,” says Gunson. “Financial transaction taxes are the best way to make that happen.”
It’s widely accepted that financial transaction taxes levied internationally could raise hundreds of billions of dollars, which could then be used to fund programmes that help the world’s poorest. (For more information on financial transaction taxes and the Global Day of Action click on HERE)
The Tax Justice campaign in New Zealand is calling on the government to seriously look at how a FTT could be applied here.
“There’s an urgent need to broaden the tax base in this country to maintain public services, protect our people from the effects of the economic crisis, and re-build Christchurch,” says Gunson,
“The beauty of an FTT is that would be not squeeze more tax out of people already paying their fair share.”
“It is a very progressive tax, because those who end up paying the most tax would be those involved in high frequency trading in New Zealand’s financial markets – these mostly overseas speculators are currently paying no tax to the government,” says Gunson.
Mr Gunson says a small percentage tax on the money flows of financial speculators operating in New Zealand markets would raise significant government revenue.
“Here’s a solution to the government’s debt problem that it would be irresponsible for politicians to ignore,” says Gunson.
Tax Justice supporters will be out on the streets continuing to collect signatures for a petition calling on Parliament to: 1. Remove GST from food; and 2. Tax financial speculation.
40,000 signatures have so far been collected for the Tax Justice petition, which will be presented to Parliament on Tuesday 16 August. Su’a William Sio, Labour MP for Mangere, will be receiving the petition and presenting it to the House.
For more information on the campaign go to http://www.nogstonfood.org
For comment, contact:
Vaughan Gunson
Tax Justice campaign coordinator
021-0415 082
svpl@xtra.co.nz
Kay Murray
Tax Justice spokesperson and Alliance Party co-leader
021-1672 843
ksimmondsmurray@xtra.co.nz
Nothing much going on except the ground shifting around a lot. From about 19:30 onwards we had aftershocks about every ninety minutes. The strongest was 5.3 at just after 22:30 and then swarms of shakers ranging from 3.5 to 4.4 through the night. First there’d be a muffled roar like an old diesel starting up and then a strange rocking and floating sensation. It felt like spending the night on an old tugboat chugging across a harbour.
Christchurch announcement should be made today. It will be announced that 80-90% of land will not be able to be built upon. Not sure of the areas. Was signed off yesterday.
and how do you know this?
So when Key made comments about Pike River being illegal in Australia wasn’t he stepping all over the findings of the Royal Commission (in that, effectively he was saying the standards weren’t up to international quality?).
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/5174587/Come-clean-with-Pike-River-concerns-Key-urged
And why is the government still waiting for the enquiry before doing something about safety standards? Because it’s clear they don’t really care about the Royal Commission results. And if they’re not doing anything – and if we know safety standards are too lax – surely any further deaths in mines in the meantime should be treated as criminal?
Yes, John Key, now that you have admitted our standards are so lax, what are you doing to improve our standards ?
Chinese and Australian mines have higher standards!
“It’s absolutely clear already that the mine regulations are insufficient and the Government should be acting quickly.
“We know they can pass quick legislation to remove workers’ rights.
“We’d like to see them pass quick legislation to IMPROVE workers’ rights.”
– Helen Kelly from 2’57”
[audio src="http://podcast.radionz.co.nz/mnr/mnr-20110622-0728-pike_river_families_appalled_at_lax_nz_mining_standards-048.mp3" /]
hmmm…now wheres that video of Gerry the Hut, from a few years back, laughing and rarking up the National party faithful in parliament as they scoff at and bury the findings of a Labour commissioned safety report that shows our mining standards weren’t up to scratch ?
In here somewhere i believe… Blood on the Coal
I wonder if the Minster of fat useless fucks still think’s it’s funny ?.
Can you see yourself, under a coconut tree
Wanting for nothing, or maybe a cooler breeze
Where all things romantic, in the south pacific ?
French Polynesia’s assembly is working on a resolution to formally demand the territory’s re-inscription on the UN list of territories to be decolonised.
After what was called an informal meeting last week, the assembly’s commission on international relation is today due to draw up the text.
http://www.rnzi.com/pages/news.php?op=read&id=61332
Let me be more specific, get out of the pacific
Ki te la pacific, get out of the pacific !!!
Looks like Smile and Wave is putting his foot in it every time journos ask him questions.
Twice now he has kicked off the Christchurch land storm – first, weeks ago, stating that 10,000 homes would need to be abandoned.
After, last weeks quakes he started talking about whole suburbs being abandoned.
I bet there are people in CERA wishing the PM would STFU!
Now he is making comments to the Australian media that he has not made here (or to the Pike River families) and that prejudges the Commission findings.
Now he is blaming Labour for consenting the mine but fails to mention that it was a National government and their Neo-Lib economic thinking that decided in 1992 that mine owners should be in charge of determining the safety of the mine and so scrapped the mines inspectorate.
Will Joyce – Joky Hen (tm logie97 !) may have been making some off-the-cuff unscripted comments. His minders need to tighten the reins I think, but no the enlightening flow of thought should not be stopped.
prism – happy to see Joky Hen become part of the nomenclature for the PM. Acknowledgements not necessary. Just continue your thoughtful comments – good reads. (I think it was Vicky who pointed us towards an anagram generator site late one night and I am sure we could use it to find further apt names).
Ok logie97 thanks. I’ll continue with my current favourite Joky Hen. Interesting ones arise from that anagram generator. We shouldn’t forget some of the old ones though. I think it was Blip who came up with King John of Charmalot a while ago. Quite good, the film on Camelot had the song What do the common people do etc.
If Labour wants to frontfoot this, I say take the blame AND make a promise:
– take the blame for NOT having overturned National’s previous lowering of workers’ standards
– take the blame for having accommodated the right/centre right and NOT battling harder for workers
And:
– promise to go into urgency, at the soonest opportunity, to improve standards for workers, and
– promise, when they are next in the government, to review and reverse all of National’s policies that have attacked, undermined and chipped away at workers’ rights and progressive values.
Like you say, JM, there is much to be said for a “mea culpa” (or a “my bad”) and stressing that we have learned how the old policy doesn’t work and then going on to promise to do better.
If only Clinton had said, “Yep – I did it and I should not have”
Pollies always have the need to never admit a mistake or the need to do a rethink.
Fran O’Sullivan is reflecting concern for the process used against Mr Hubbard. She wonders if the powers of the SFO have bypassed the rights to natural justice.
Does seem a bit odd. Hope politics have not intruded to protect certain politicians?
“Such state force is seldom seen in New Zealand’s commercial history, writes Fran O’Sullivan.”
“How can Allan Hubbard fight 50 fraud charges when the state controls his personal funds, refuses to fully pay his lawyers, controls documents he needs for his defence and still won’t reveal who laid the complaint that ultimately led to him being slapped into a fiscal straitjacket?”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10733654
Please, Hubbard will never see jail. The trial will take so long, and as we are seeing the process is going to be drawn out just to add to it. If Hubbard is smart he’ll welcome the opportunity of yet more appeals and delay.
The Goff makes me ill.
His comments about Hone and Mana
“If Hone Harawira won the Te Tai Tokerau seat, Mr Goff says the Labour Party would be unable to work with him.
“In government – and we do plan to be in government – you need to have reliable allies, and he’s proven right through his political career to be anything but reliable,” he says.
“The distance between us on values and philosophy is just too great…I just don’t buy into that separatist philosophy.”
http://www.3news.co.nz/Davis-deserves-to-win—Goff/tabid/419/articleID/216012/Default.aspx
So all the talk about forgiving goff his sins from the past when he was part of the cabal that helped fuck the country is for naught, because reliability is the key – reliability – yes we can rely on goff – to what?
Is the distance too great between a politician of Mana and goff – the values too dissimilar?
I know who i’m voting for – the party that represents the disadvantaged and stands for social justice and equality and goff isn’t a member of that party – thank goodness.
Looks like Goff is lining himself for a post election takeover of the ACT party. Watch out Brash!
Wouldn’t be the first time Goff has been in negotiations to join the ACT Party. Maybe he thought he could do more to further the right wing cause by staying put. It’s certainly turned out that way.
The right’s greatest weapon is Goff, not Key. If he wanted to further the interests of the left , or even a Labour election win, he would have resigned as leader long ago. He has consistently chosen not to.
NACTs second biggest weapon is the rest of the Labour caucus in refusing to dump him.
Key would be nothing by now, without this Labour “opposition”.
Sir Philip……
….services to the rich and powerful….
Personally I’d prefer if Labour didn’t out-right rule out Hone and Mana.
But it becomes a game of public perceptions, and by doing this, National can’t wave Hone around like the bogey man – “a vote for Labour is a vote for Hone” like they try to do with Winston Peters. So there’s a tactical reason for doing so.
At the same time, it is unlikely to blow back up in Labour’s face. In any parliament where Mana are the king-maker, they’re not going to side with National and Act. So Mana-held seats effectively shrink the size of parliament. There are cases where it could make a difference, like a complex arrangement where Mana + Greens vs MP & UF were together king-makers, eg MP & UF go with National unless Labour goes with Mana and Greens.
‘
I think that the accusation that Harawira is unreliable, bares closer examination.
The question is, Is this verbal attack by Goff aimed at Harawira, just political rhetoric to weaken a politician whose political views he is opposed to?
Is this attack even accurate?
Yet not once during his term in government as a Maori Party MP, did Harawira break Maori Party caucus discipline and vote against the direction of the Maori Party.
Yes, Harawira bitterly complained, and publicly criticised, (as he claimed was his right to do,) some of the right wing legislation that the Maori Party supported in parliament.
Even on this site he, Harawira was condemned by Labour supporters for being a hypocrite for voting for legislation that he didn’t personally support.
Though he voted with the Maori Party on every occasion as a disciplined member of their caucus, it was his willingness to challenge and debate that political direction, which was cited as the reason for his expulsion from the Maori Party.
Harawira fought his expulsion from the Maori Party because he claimed, (and with some justification), that he had never broken party discipline and that therefore there were no grounds for his expulsion. Also, (with some justification), Harawira claimed that he had a right and even a duty to raise his misgivings about the direction of the Maori Party in private and in public.
My question is this;
Isn’t it a tad bit inconsistent for Labour Party members to condemn Harawira for maintaining party discipline even when he disagreed with it’s direction, and for Goff to then also condemn him for being unreliable?
Am I wrong in thinking that there is a contradiction here?
The name’s Ph’Goff. It’d be choice if he’d do just that.
Certainly I won’t be putting my name near a Labour ballot in November. Never NOT voted Labour in 40 years. He can Ph’Get it this time.
What finally unleashed the inexorable build up of my somewhat embarrassed “God……this ain’t Labour…..” senses was this; Harawira announces he’s gonna resign and precipitate a by-election……… “Oh no…..we won’t work with the (demon) Harawira……..! says Ph’Goff.
You could see him all glassy-eyed over the expectation that “Mr and Mrs Ignorant Honky Middle Class Who’re Shit Scared of The Meorries” would stand up and clap.
Wouldn’t it be great if by miraculous chance it came down to Hon-Aye having the casting vote on whether Ph’Goff got to be PM . That particular Meorrie would be a fine type then.
Sick sick sick !
Stomping on Dissent at Yale
If you care about the question of Palestine, and indeed about democracy and free speech, you should click on the following links, in series. Each one builds on the next. You can see how one of the most compelling speakers and scholars in the United States is constantly hounded by the enemies of democracy and free speech.
While, in a way, this is a painfully funny example of a young student politician (Stephen Marsh) being browbeaten and bullied by a zealot (Yishai Schwarz) it’s also profoundly disturbing, when you reflect that this is what happens even at a supposedly liberal institution like Yale.
NOW READ ON…
http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/pdf/yale/THE_MARKETPLACE_OF_IDEAS_AT_YALE.pdf
http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/marketplace-of-ideas-at-yale-update/
http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/marketplace-of-ideas-at-yale-update-2/
yup, those Yale boys sure know how to cook turkey
Dear “freedom”: Are you trying to be funny? Your comment is certainly obscure, but I suspect that’s because you don’t have a clue what this topic is about, rather than because of any complexity or nuance in your thinking. Perhaps you should click on those links, and educate yourself.
Yep, Finkelstein’s one of the most inspiring scholars I’ve ever come across. Discovered his work in 2002. The destruction of his academic career has been a bloody disgrace.
Freedom of speech works both ways.
“Freedom of speech works both ways.”
Not in the mind of Yishai Schwartz. Or Alan Dershowitz, or Anthony Weiner, or David Horror-wits, or [insert name of your favourite Israeli government shill here].
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/politics/5176964/Brownlee-stuck-in-lift-for-30-minutes
kind of feel for the other passengers,
not an experience that would have been on anyone’s bucket list
“It’s diets all round,” National Minister Gerry Brownlee’s advisor suggested after being stuck for 30 minutes with the minister and colleagues in a lift.
Picture
Time for a new ice age
And with the news the sun is now essentially devoid of sunspots makes for worrying reading.
But worrying? Whom to. All we need now is to re-establish our manufacturing industries, in particular clothing lined with possum fur so we can all remain warm and toasty.
After all, the last ice age peoples survived with fur coats and fire.
Oh, but we won’t be able to burn wood to keep warm will we? After all, it releases CO2 and thats bad.
Oh, look at that, it’s Oscar the Ignoramus showing off his ignorance – again.
Yep. Despite the many many things that his simple lines have wrong – I won’t bite.
It is too much like potting a possum with a light and a 0.22″. You keep firing the rounds and they keep bouncing off those bloody thick skulls. You have to either get a higher velocity weapon or drill them through the eye. However my preferred Oscar solution requires a blog equivalent of a machete…… I’m sure he will notice that (won’t he?)
So when winter finally comes in NZ from mid July – mid December, you’ll all sit around going, oh geez, that CO2 got’s a lot to answer for hasn’t it!
Nevermind the fact that Earths natural state of being is ICE. Not warmth, but COLD. Even the IPCC make note of the fact we’ve come through a geological warm period.
Humans can survive the cold much better than the heat. But if privatised power companies become a reality, we sure won’t be able to pay for the heating required 9 months of the year when it’s too darn cold.
I wonder who the ignoramus is DTB. You with your constant warmist cries. I sure won’t be sorry to see the back of the global con that the scientists have built up for themselves over the last 30 years and indoctrinated a whole generation into believing that CO2 is bad.
Lprent – tell me why greenhouse growers pump CO2 into their tunnels for plants? After all, you seem to take great delight in breaking down the CO2 is oxygen for plants. I’ve shown you many references to plant life existing much more beneficially at a CO2 level greater than 1000 ppm, but you (fail) to recognise the relevance of it. After all, Humans need around 25% O2, and with an atmospheric composition sitting around 14% – this is far more dangerous and deadly to mankind than CO2.
And the answers in your face when trying to investigate how to increase O2. Plants. But with a lack of CO2, it becomes a self perpetuating cycle. No CO2, fewer plants, less O2, goodbye mankind.
The reptiles will survive. After all, they don’t generally breath O2 in such vast quantities.
We’ve already had this discussion. It proves that you’re the ignoramus.
I think that maybe I viewed this before probably via the Standard but am still breathtaken or is that gobsmacked as they say, about the audacity of USA Bankers and Politicians and the strategy of the Chinese.
I expect the clued up here have already seen this but the last 10 minutes are compelling. – again.
“All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace (Ep. 1) – ”
Why is Radio NZ National using low-grade American reporters?
Priscilla Huff knows nothing about Afghanistan, yet she’s reporting on it. Why?
Wednesday 22 June 2011
National Radio Checkpoint, 5.45 p.m.
For about the 357th time, a news item on the plan to “draw down” U.S. troops in Afghanistan. With her customary crisp, efficient style, Checkpoint anchor Mary Wilson crosses to “Priscilla Huff in Washington.”
PRISCILLA HUFF?!?!?!???
This would have rung alarm bells with anybody who has any familiarity with that reporter’s work over the years. Her reporting has about as much authority as Andy Haden’s “source in the Crusaders organization”, as much integrity as Paul Holmes’ September 2003 apology to the Auckland Ghanaian community, and as much understanding of the political situation in Afghanistan as… well, as John Key’s understanding of the situation in Afghanistan. [1]
Huff begins her report with this remarkable statement: “President Karzai has continued to criticize America’s efforts to help his country.” [2]
After making it clear that the U.S. is occupying, terrorizing, imprisoning, bombing, shooting, kidnapping and torturing Afghanis to help Afghanistan, Huff decides to really extend herself and do some fieldwork. Naturally, that does not mean that she goes and interviews someone who actually knows about the situation, such as an academic, a military analyst, or (God forbid) an Afghani. [3]
No, what Priscilla Huff does is walk out onto the street and ask three passers-by what they think of “the plan to draw down U.S. troops”. The first two people know absolutely nothing; they blither about how “we need to finish the job we started.” In other words, they repeat what they’ve heard people like Priscilla Huff telling them on CNN and CBS and Fox News for the last decade. It’s a perfect example of the recycling of sound-bite propaganda in the echo-chamber of what Americans call “public debate”.
Hearteningly, though, the third (and last) person seems to have thought about things: “We need to get out immediately”, he says. “We hear lots of talk from politicians about how we can’t afford to pay for social programs in this country, but we never hear them say we can’t find money for war.”
And Priscilla Huff is by no means the only bad reporter, or even the worst, that appears on National Radio.
The question is: WHO CHOOSES THE LIKES OF PRISCILLA HUFF?
[1]Throughout her report, Huff repeatedly (and obediently) uses the Pentagon’s own insulting weasel expression “draw down” instead of “withdrawal”.
[2]American troops are there to “help” Afghanistan? That will be news to the people of Afghanistan, who overwhelmingly want the U.S. to withdraw (“draw down” in Pentagon-speak).
http://www.rawa.org/temp/runews/2011/05/09/poll-56-percent-want-u-s-troops-out-of-afghanistan.html
Americans want them out as well…
http://www.thewashingtoncurrent.com/2011/06/poll-majority-believes-us-should-leave.html
[3] It would of course be totally unacceptable to interview an Afghani like Malalai Joya…
Questions and Answers 21 June 2011
‘Hon Phil Goff: If the Prime Minister is worried about youth unemployment, why has he allowed a consistent decline in the intake into apprenticeships since he became the Prime Minister, and why does he not do something about that, instead of looking at cutting the wages paid to young people?
Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I think the Leader of the Opposition is confused in his facts and incorrect.
Hon Phil Goff: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I could ask the permission of the House to table a series of documents from the news media, widely reporting the facts that I have just mentioned. You would not normally allow that to be done, but I ask you to consider allowing it on this occasion, as the Prime Minister’s standard answer is to reject the facts that he claims are wrong in what I have been saying to him.
Mr SPEAKER: One of the reasons why we do not do that is that the information is readily available to all members of the House. What is more, WHAT IS PRINTED IN THE MEDIA MAY BE NO MORE “FACT” THAN ANYTHING ELSE. In all my 27 years’ experience in this place, I have found that it is extremely unlikely to be “fact” if it has been printed in the media. That is one reason why we do not table recent newspaper clippings. I realise that the member could be frustrated by that kind of answer, but a Minister is entitled to dispute the information provided in a supplementary question. Ministers should be careful in doing so, and I am sure the Prime Minister will have been careful in doing that.
Hon Phil Goff: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Is it in order for the Prime Minister to dispute facts that are available to every member in this House in order to avoid answering a question?
Mr SPEAKER: If that was established to be correct, that would be a very serious issue…’
What more proof could we need than from the Speaker of New Zealand Parliament to stand up and say the media is a liar.
So, what with Huff now the guru on Radio New Zealand, last bastion of objectivity, a lying media, economic experts chosen from banks to tell us all about how to get ourselves further into debt, we look forward to a future full of Fox, and we’re one lot of stuffed chickens.
Hero of the Week Award – Riot Dog
If you watched tonight’s TV3 News at six, you might have caught a glimpse of the world renowned Riot Dog. He’s been in regular attendance at riots and protests in Athens, Greece since 2008…
When I was in Athens a couple of years ago, I was intrigued at the number of largish dogs wandering or sleeping on the streets. They seemed to be placid but also seemed to be strays.
So now I know that the blighters were just resting ready for the next protest. Ta.
Don’t Be Wimps
Artificially high interest rates courtesy of the RBNZ and it’s focus on keeping inflation down is depressing our economy forcing people to look for other ways to make an income rather than being productive. If we want to actually become wealthier then we need to change what we’re doing and this government is doing everything it can to ensure we keep doing the same thing.
Courtesy of Mother Jones (US), a heartbreaking look at what might well happen here if NACT are allowed to carry out their welfare privatisation plans and foist ‘social services’ off on de/unregulated ‘child corrective facilities’ like the ones mentioned in Kathryn Royce’s chilling “Escape from Missouri” (July/Aug 2011: 52-57):
http://gaynz.com/blog/redqueen/archives/1083