Neoliberalism relies on globalisation and encourages immigration to weaken workers’ bargaining positions. This excerpt comes from a brilliant article by Martin Jacques.
“But the causes of this political crisis, glaringly evident on both sides of the Atlantic, are much deeper than simply the financial crisis and the virtually stillborn recovery of the last decade. They go to the heart of the neoliberal project that dates from the late 70s and the political rise of Reagan and Thatcher, and embraced at its core the idea of a global free market in goods, services and capital. The depression-era system of bank regulation was dismantled, in the US in the 1990s and in Britain in 1986, thereby creating the conditions for the 2008 crisis. Equality was scorned, the idea of trickle-down economics lauded, government condemned as a fetter on the market and duly downsized, immigration encouraged, regulation cut to a minimum, taxes reduced and a blind eye turned to corporate evasion.”
A geologist speculating on how water from the Tukituki might have gotten into the aquifer (drought created cracks in the clay, flooding spread the water to those areas). I’m still not seeing very good explanations though (is this surface clay? The 2 impervious layers?)
However, didn’t Labour and the Greens recently extend an open invitation to any party that wanted to join them in changing the Government? Or has that now been retracted?
It is difficult not to see the hand of Tuku Morgan behind most of what King Tuheitia says. Tuku appears to be making a strong political come back with his recent ascension to president of the Maori Party and a declared interest in bringing Hone Harawira in from the political wilderness.
Indeed, it is difficult not to see the hand of Tuku Morgan at play.
However, if Labour did change their position and have now ruled out working with the Māori Party, one could argue his position has some merit. Perhaps he was also unhappy with Labour’s unwillingness to work with Hone?
I presume Labour has ruled out working with the Maori Party because the M.P. has supported almost every bit of government legislation to which Labour is implacably opposed. In such circumstances, Labour is correct to side-step the M.P. If they can’t to what’s right by their own people, then what chance to trust them on anything else.
So that would be a no then. And all this speculation is based on a single sentence in an RNZ report that isn’t even a quote. And no-one bothering to define what ‘working with’ means in this context.
None of us yet know what either Labour or the Mp think or have done, nor really even what the Māori King said/meant.
The assertion that Labour won’t work with the MP was made by the King in the first link provided. Which is one of the reasons why he won’t be voting Labour. And which Little was later questioned on in the last link provided.
What I found interesting was Little never addressed the reason why the King won’t be voting Labour.
If the King was mistaken or incorrect, surely that would have been one of the first things Little would have addressed?
It was also somewhat supported by the report on TV3. Which I already highlighted above.
“The assertion that Labour won’t work with the MP was made by the King in the first link provided.”
Not quite. RNZ report that he said something like that. There is no quote or context.
The audio with Little was obviously edited and we don’t get to hear the original question. He wasn’t asked if Labour have ruled out working with the Mp, it doesn’t come up. He was asked about ruling out Harawira and answers that.
So, all we have is a single sentence in an RNZ report that no-one on the largest left wing blog in NZ is able to confirm.
Your overlooking it was also reported to be asserted by the King on TV3, which was a little more specific in their reporting. Directly naming Little and quoting the King as finding Little’s statement (Labour couldn’t work with the MP) “hurtful”
Nanaia Mahuta was also questioned on whether Little should retract and apologise, but wouldn’t be drawn.
Therefore, we have more than a single sentence in a RNZ report, but questions still remain.
As you point out, it’s interesting no-one on the largest left wing blog in NZ is able to confirm Labour’s alleged change of position, thus allowing us to fully ascertain whether the King and what has been reported is on the level.
Until someone can prove otherwise, I was assuming the Maori King’s contention that … he had changed his mind about the party [Labour] after its leadership said it would not work with the Māori Party is correct.
The party’s late leader, the now -person” David C certainly appeared to have done so when he was in power but it is almost impossible to find any definitive comment by the current party leader. He is a master of the “on the one hand… on the other hand ” approach of saying different things to different groups of course.
Cunliffe said
“The Labour leader says there will be a maximum of three parties in Government should the party take office after September 20 – Labour, the Green Party and New Zealand First.” and
“But he said Internet Mana and Maori Party “absolutely won’t be ministers”.” http://www.newshub.co.nz/politics/labour-wont-have-maori-party-in-govt-2014090822
Why on earth not?
You are making an assumption that he is talking about Andrew Little being the leader he meant.
The King didn’t say that however. He said, “He said he had changed his mind about the party after its leadership said it would not work with the Māori Party”.
He doesn’t say when that happened and it is only an assumption made by people on this blog that he meant the current leadership. He could have given up on Labour in 2014 for all we know.
That would make his statement perfectly understandable.
He is, after all, entitled to believe that statements of Labour Party policy stand until they are unequivocally reversed. Has Little ever said, about Cunliffe’s comment on working with Maori, that it no longer applies? He was very quick to announce that changing the age for Super was scrapped and that there would be no CGT.
Perhaps the Kings remark is merely an attempt to force Little to scrap the last remaining policy of Cunliffe’s reign?
“Neither Radio New Zealand, not TV3, claimed that Little had said that he would not work with the Maori Party, nor that the Maori King had claimed that Little had done so.”
That’s incorrect.
He blamed comments by leader Andrew Little that Labour couldn’t work with the Māori Party, calling the statements “hurtful”.
The homeless inquiry is run by Labour, the Greens and the Maori Party. So obviously the Labour and Green Coalition can and is working with the Maori Party.
As for the Maori Party they clearly state that they will work with whomever is in Power. Luckily for this country, everyone gets to have a vote an every one gets to vote by themselves.
In the end does it matter if the one publicly votes when everyone else is alone in the both making their choice?
I am not aware of any statement from Andrew Little saying Labour will not work with the Māori Party if there is a Labour led government. If he did can someone provide a citation?
I was initially surprised by this statement by Kīngi Tūheitia but not so much when I thought about the influence of Tuku Morgan. The only way the Māori Party can get more seats is by taking them off the Labour Party, so expect to hear more attacks on Labour now that Tuku Morgan is the president. He is far too right wing for my tastes but there is no question that he is a very astute politician.
As for Labour gifting seats to the Māori Party – what on earth for? There is no advantage to Labour in doing this. Even the Nats don’t stand aside in any electorate – including Epsom.
I don’t understand your response to my 3.1.1.1 Sabine. I didn’t say the M.P. has supported every bit of govt. legislation. I said “almost” which is true. Yes, there are areas where they can work reasonably well together but that’s the case between all political parties. I expect there are areas where Labour and ACT – or even the Greens and ACT – have something in common.
I reject the premise that a political party can be a part of “whomsoever is in power” It suggests they have no fundamental principles/values behind them – a sure-fire pathway to eventual failure. Would they have worked with an ACT govt. whose policies are counter to Maori aspiration? They would have been voting for their own swift demise.
i merely pointed out to the naysayer and those that want Labour to fail at any cost that irrespective of what one person says it actually means nothing.
my partner votes Green i don’t. I see the same thing happening elsewhere. One may state they will never ever do this or that, and its good and fine for them, and all the others will do this an that and its good and fine.
I don’t think that the majority of Maoris will base their vote on what the King says.
And for the naysayers that say that Labour can’t or won’t work with the Maori Party i merely pointed out that gasp, Labour and the Greens are already working with the Maori Party together in regards to our homeless crisis.
but then the spring is coming, and sleeping in a car maybe not be an issue anymore until next winter?
“I merely pointed out to the naysayer and those that want Labour to fail at any cost that irrespective of what one person says it actually means nothing”
One can’t deny that the opinion of one of such high notability doesn’t have some voter sway . Nevertheless, there is a good chance that anyone initially considering voting Labour, but are now swayed by the notion, may result in voting Mana instead.
“And for the naysayers that say that Labour can’t or won’t work with the Maori Party i merely pointed out that gasp, Labour and the Greens are already working with the Maori Party together in regards to our homeless crisis.”
The assertion is Little said Labour can’t or won’t work with the Maori Party. Which could be a new development (taking place after deciding to work together on the homeless crisis)?
you know what, it does not matter who people vote for in my opinion as long as they vote.
I have stated it some three years ago that the opposition parties need to learn to work and co-exists. In the long term that would include Mana or any other new party that will come along.
I don’t see how hard that is to understand?
MMP = coalitions. Labour/Mana/Greens/Maori/legalise Aotearoa etc etc etc.
MMP again. So for now the Labour Party is working with the Maori Party and the Greens on the homeless crisis. Kudos, they are doing it and all the others can get fucked in my books cause they are doing nothing.
As for your assertion that Little said this or that, please kindly provide a link. Thanks.
Cause the bibpartisan group to address homelessness in NZ has been on the books now for a few weeks/month.
re Chairman
so ‘your’ comment :The assertion is Little said Labour can’t or won’t work with the Maori Party.
is still without a link to any statement by Little.
I merely pointed out that Labour is already working with the Maori Party 🙂 Today they are already working together. Not next year after the election. Today.
Neither Radio New Zealand, not TV3, claimed that Little had said that he would not work with the Maori Party, nor that the Maori King had claimed that Little had done so..
What the Maori King said, and which I commented on a little further up this correspondence, was that
“He said he had changed his mind about the party after its leadership said it would not work with the Māori Party”.
This doesn’t put any particular time on when he did change his mind. It is simply a statement in the past tense about the “leadership”.
David Cunliffe DID say this. At the time he said it he was the leader of the Labour Party. Little has never said that the Labour Party no longer held this view. I suspect the Maori King is trying to put pressure on Little to come out and say that Labour would happily work with the M.P. This would put the cat among the pigeons for the Maori members of the Labour Party, and help the M.P in the next election..
Someone questioned our local MP on this tonight at our LEC meeting – Labour have not ruled out working with MP, and MP have not ruled out working with Labour. The Maori King believes Mana and MP should not be separate parties i.e. they should re-merge.
Mondayisation of Waitangi and ANZAC Day and the PPL bills are recent examples of bills from the member’s ballot being passed over the top of NAct, so there’s still room to work with them.
“I presume Labour has ruled out working with the Maori Party because the M.P. has supported almost every bit of government legislation to which Labour is implacably opposed.”
If your presumption is correct, it doesn’t explain why Labour initially extended an open invitation to work together.
Labour should have been working hard to reconcile with the Maori Party since Turia left.
However doing so would likely require Labour not contesting some seats. Which internally Labour would find unpalatable, especially as Labour views all the Maori Seats as naturally theirs. So the Maori Party get driven back into the arms of National.
Yep, maybe Labour might be wrong in the past, (in particular Hone Harawira) but the Maori party has made the situation much worse by propping up National for 8 years. And anyone who tries to justify that as being good for Maori, needs their head read. Maybe it is personally beneficial for the .1% Maori ‘at the table’ just like personally beneficial for the .1% elite Pakeha, Chinese, US etc as well, but what about the rest of Maori and the rest of the country?
Well when Labour shafted Maori over the forshore then maybe Maori remembered which party had actually done more to raise Maori up, not through words by through actions, Doug Graham anyone?
It is the worst kind of racist paternalism to expect/demand Maori vote for Labour without offering anything in return
And Tuku Morgan should have had the honesty to leave Labour with Douglas, Prebble, etc, and be part of the Act Party. He is indeed a 1%er, and is no doubt behind this statement by the so-called Maori king – whose monarchy a number of Maori reject.
Not sure Morgan was ever in Labour, though he may have been a member when he was younger, I suppose. He got elected as a NZF MP in the nineties and has proceeded further and further to the right from then on in.
Ulp! – I think you may be correct there. I associated him with Rogernomics and $90 taxpayer-funded undies, but it could well have been through NZF .. who are thereby equally tainted.
The comments of the Maori King are just the last throw of the dice by the dying Maori Party. Never forget the Maori Party represent brown privilege as expressed in the form of Iwi businesses that are busily proving capitalist greed is colour blind. At the top of the Iwi entitlement mythology tree is the Maori king.
These Brown Tories are poised to make an absolute fortune from National’s drive to privatise welfare and education through various shady Iwi organisations. If the Maori Party disappears, so does one of National’s support partners and if National loses power, all those fat, fat contracts featuring taxpayer money going to unaccountable private Maori providers goes with them.
Labour has a proud history of standing candidates in all seats, CV – to enable the Labour message to get out everywhere, including the Maori seats. Why should it deviate from this record now?
What is more, when Labour and Greens united, they both offered invitations to other Parties to join them. mpledger has it right. The Maori Party are close to National and the Maori King is being taken in by them.
Perhaps to help improve their wish of changing the Government?
For example, if Labour and the Greens stood down in Epsom (an electorate both would never win) and encouraged their supporters to vote for National, that would kill ACT.
Moreover, Labour and the Greens have indicated there is some potential for them to reach accommodations to support one anothers candidates in electoral seats, suggesting they may be considering deviating from this past record.
Hey, it’s an election, Adam. I been involved in plenty and nice is not a word I would usually associate with the process. Well, maybe if the Greens are involved 😉
I guess the point is that the WO spread meme that there was some cooperation between National and Labour still pops up from time to time. It’s bollocks, obviously, but for some people it’s easier to believe that rubbish than accept that Hone made a terrible tactical choice hooking up with a self absorbed millionaire. Ironically, the maori party have also hooked up with a self absorbed millionaire, but they’ve got away with it so far.
Not sure if he means the man or the position, but either way it’s easily the most racist comment in the thread so far :-/
FFS Ad, I know you’re doing this whole inflammatory style of politics now, but putting some context into that comment so it could be understood as anything other than outright offensive and supporting racism might have been a good idea.
You could be right AD but for once the guy is talking sense … Labour for years has taken Maori for granted whereas National has given more than crumbs during its stay in office. I hate to think of how many more lollies Maori would get if they had more seats.
I’d suggest that Maori have certainly done better then the first people in Australia, South Africa, Alaska or the USA (yeah yeah I know its the same country)
I mean if I had to choose from that selection I’d choose to be Maori everytime
Yup and if someone says something convinces me they’re right and I’m wrong I change or more likely someone points out something I hadn’t considered then I take that on board and that filters through to my postings
One of the reasons you don’t see me posting sexist stuff or how I’m likely to point to people that comments on someones physical appearance is not cool and that’s come directly from here
I’d post stuff that I didn’t realise was sexist or demeaning but once it was shown from others posts on the subject I immediately changed what I post
Fact, Germany grew up with a strong history of war the resulting lack of food and other goods.
Fact, when your stuff is re-possesed they can’t take 1 TV as the Government insists you need it for the news and to be informed of events such as terrorists attack and floods and other assorted shite that may have to keep you home or to be told where emergency assembly points, shelters and the likes are.
Fact, every now and then we have -25 – 30 degrees winter and in certain regions become un-reachables aka the Schwaebishe Alp and high mountain Farmers.
Fact, every now and then we have awesome floods that can make regions un-reachables for days on end.
Fact, also from Germany we are a transit country, goods come from the south, the east and the west and north to travel through Germany. Leaving us with lots of nice things in the shops. Should a war or terrorist attack happens stuff in the shops may run low. Thus a smart populace is prepared to some extend.
Fact, if the russians or the us fuckwits start playing war games, Germany France and the rest of europe is gone first and we know it.
Fact, we grew up with ABC alarms, Fact we have old people having lived through a lot of shit and some of them are awesome hoarders and makers.
Fact, you should really not start sprouting off about Germany, they are too sane for you. I hear Trump took a truck load of PlayDoh to Louisianna as disaster relieve – how is that for a brighter future.
AfD is going to gain more traction as economic and security conditions decline and Merkel insists on letting even more Middle Eastern refugees into the country.
As for facts how about this one – sales of pepper spray and requests for personal defence weapon permits appear to have reached record highs in Germany this year.
Fact, if the russians or the us fuckwits start playing war games, Germany France and the rest of europe is gone first and we know it.
Yes.
Which makes me somewhat surprised that Germany is willing to risk war via treaties with countries like Latvia and Bulgaria.
The Germans have also allowed the US to run a lot of Middle Eastern wars as well as CIA renditions out of German bases. And Germany has accepted US directions to put harsh sanctions on Russia.
Has it not occurred to the German people that many of the costs and risks of these actions – like economic damage to German industry, destabilising the long standing strategic balance with Russia and millions of refugees on the door step – are being borne by the German people and not by the US leaders in far away Washington DC.
i doubt, i have absolutely no use what so ever for CV. I put him in the same box as the other trolls. For what it concerns Germany i sincerely doubt that CV has any knowledge what so ever. Sometimes it behoofes him to keep it shut.
I am sure there is some Hillary is sick meme that he can peddle if he feels bored and needs attention.
But how can this be, I mean they’ve opened their borders so everyone that enters should be really thankful and thus safe from terrorist attacks. If anything it should be these countries that should be doing the prepping:
How much water do you have?
Have you got your sanitation sorted?
Medication?
Cause the killing will be done by infected cuts, broken bones and shit everywhere.
NZ is a good place to go foraging if you know what is edible and if you know how to cook it.
But a cut to your finger infected is what is going to kill you. Same as it was some 200 years ago,
Really good stuff on here, theres a lot to go through however its also conservatively American but the information in there means you just need to ignore the political side of it
From there I take the information and balance it against what I already know and go from there
“Claims of forced organ harvesting from thousands of Chinese prisoners of conscience are revealed in a new documentary being screened around Aotearoa in coming weeks.
The film is called Hard to Believe – and it alleges the Chinese government is behind an industrial scale programme of organ harvesting – mostly targeting members of the religious sect Falun Gong. The Chinese government maintains this is all a lie, and donors are all prisoners on death row. Ethan Gutmann, author of the book, The Slaughter, is one of the authors of a new 800-page report, ‘An Update,’ that says up to 100,000 transplants are taking place in China each year. Dr Angela Ballantyne is Senior Lecturer in Bioethics at the University of Otago and President of the International Assn of Bioethics.
Yes. This has been around for a while. I mentally shelved it in the ‘need more information’ category, because it really is hard to believe. But if it is true then we have a problem.
When they start branding people, forcing them to wear yellow starts, pink triangles and other assorted symbols to represent their transgressions in public and in prison, when they have charts for its citizens to check if they are ‘aryan’ enough etc etc then you may compare the Chinese and the treatment of their minority groups and the likes to Nazi Germany, when they openly work people to death in mines, factories, fields, when they openly shoot them in front of mass graves for hours on end, when they end up killing 6 million people of one religion and several other million of people who happen to be gay, socialists, communists, catholic, protestant, jehovas witnesses, blind, deaf, mute, otherwise physically handicapped, old or sick then you may start looking for a comparison with the German organised and executed Holocoust.
In the meantime i suggest you find a different term for it. And then you should also ask yourself who profits of the atrocities committed in China.
@Sabine…agree with you re the SCALE of WWII holocaust perpetrated …(and not just against non aryan Jews killed but also many German aryan dissenters eg Dietrich Bonhoeffer and others who we a hardly ever hear about eg almost the entire population of European Gypsies wiped out , Jehovah Witnesses, women who had abortions …all in all about 13 million murdered, of whom about 6 million were Jews)
…however the cold blooded mutilating/murdering people and taking their organs is particularly heinous imo
re your question : “are you aryan enough to survive?”
…one could well ask “are you Jewish or Israeli enough to survive?”….because if you are a Palestinian you could well be in mortal danger ( seems like nothing has been learned here)…water deprivation, apartheid checkpoints, bombing of refugee camps , Palestinian houses and homelands taken, killing of Palestinian children and women
What a weekend for sport, even the doom merchant no joy lefties on here would have to say its been a pretty decent run
The Olympics team doing us proud, the All Blacks showing exactly why they’re the standard (pardon the expression ;-)) the only blot being the Diaz v McGregor fight (of course a third fight means bigger box office) and the rain affected 1st test against SA
Not the establishment line. I just like watching sports and this weekend was a doozy, sports wise
I know that most of the left would prefer to be suck on a lemon then celebrate NZs sporting achievements but sometimes theres a good weekend and you’re just glad to have watched it 🙂
Well, PR, I think Gordon Campbell has blown your ‘decent run’ apart.
More cost per medal for the taxpayer to bear than ever before, and a shrinking TV audience because of Paywall. Actually the lowest value NZ taxpayers have had from any Olympics, if I remember rightly.
Maybe the end of the current system, which is sick. I refuse to pay for sport on TV. So do so many others.
Read his latest article on Werewolf, admit that he is right, and stop your blathering rubbish.
A spot of googling tracks it down to an Ernst Hemingway quote: ‘There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games.’
SportAccord uses the following criteria, determining that a sport should:
have an element of competition
be in no way harmful to any living creature
not rely on equipment provided by a single supplier (excluding proprietary games such as arena football)
not rely on any “luck” element specifically designed into the sport
They also recognise that sport can be primarily physical (such as rugby or athletics), primarily mind (such as chess or go), predominantly motorised (such as Formula 1 or powerboating), primarily co-ordination (such as billiard sports), or primarily animal-supported (such as equestrian sport).
Neither would I count bullfighting, which is probably why I’d mentally erased it from my first version.
But weka is spot on, while I’ve played football, a bit of rugby and some softball, I found climbing, tramping, kayaking … all activities that challenge your own limitations … far more engaging.
Beating other people is easy; overcoming your own fears isn’t.
and nothing wrong with that either but for me tramping is something I do for fun, I’m not really looking to challenge myself as such (except for when I haven’t done it in a while and it feels like a challenge even taking a step but I digress)
I guess the sports I’ve, mostly, gravitated to are the more team orientated ones
However the main point of the original post was what a great weekend it was for NZ sport…maybe I should have added whatever sport it is you choose to participate in 🙂
Sport for competition or sport for the sheer enjoyment, either way it’s been a pleasure to be a spectator and to share some wonderful moments this Olympics…..
to see people realise their childhood dreams and to show us and the next generation that sporting excellence is as much about the journey, the teamwork and how you participate, as it is about individual achievement.
All that and more, absolutely. To see people from small towns like Waimate or Timaru etc and, not just compete, but succeed has been really excellent as well and if that’s not motivating enough the sheer class shown by athletes like (but not limited to) Valarie Adams will hopefully convince more women (and men of course) to strive for higher honours in their chosen sports
Yes I forgot to mention the cricket this weekend as well, they’ve done well in the bowling but the batting was looking a bit wobbly but unfortunately it looks like rain will have the final say
Just to let you all know, in Spain bullfighting is covered on the same pages as the theatre reviews and ballet performances, not in the sports section.
Of course its the establishment line, just look how the ABs are used by politicians and the media, and how someone of your viewpoint uses the subject on a political blog. Anyway Noam Chomsky says it better: https://youtu.be/Vz1nIHv6P6Q
Puckish Rogue said:
“I know that most of the left would prefer to be suck on a lemon then celebrate NZs sporting achievements…”
Tell us, PR, why if you believe what you have written, do you visit a Left wing blog to trumpet your support for something you believe the readers here would “rather suck on a lemon” than listen to? You’re better suited to a Right wing blog where sports fans such as yourself are all a twitter with excitement at the Olympic medal tally and the All Black win over Australia.
Probably because while most of the left do suck on lemons (see Pauls comment) not all lefties are like that, some even have comments that’re worth reading
The worst thing you can do when holding a position is to not try to understand what other peoples points of views are
If hell is other people then only existing with other people that agree with you may not be hell but it’d certainly be very boring
Sorry Chooky, but I think PR was displaying his form of wit, and did that error deliberately. His other many errors are through misguided political slant, and not so deliberate.
“The worst thing you can do when holding a position is to not try to understand what other peoples points of views are ”
oh the irony
i dont have a problem with sportspeople succeeding – but i do have an issue with the way sport is overhyped, over corporatised and the pack mentality displayed by many non participants.
I would be willing to bet that many have a somewhat similar take – and one that comes across as “dont like sport” if the detail isnt there
that thing you were saying about not understanding others points of view? 🙂
i dont have a problem with sportspeople succeeding – but i do have an issue with the way sport is overhyped, over corporatised and the pack mentality displayed by many non participants
and that’s a fair point, I feel something has been lost from NZ rugby and it’ll never come back again
I recall drinking the Cook down in Dunedin (early to mid 90s) and having a look at the uni a rugby photos and just looking at all the provincial and all blacks in the photos and going to games at the ‘brook and having a great time but now…I don’t know its just not quite the same
However I’d also not want to begrudge a player making decent money from the game, they’re only a tackle away from retirement after all
But hasn’t some of the performances from the NZ Olympics team, especially the women, been impressive?
Yeah wasn’t she impressive, hitting a PB at the exact time she needed it. I personally think Natalie Rooney was one of the, many, highlights for me
I’m stoked when I hit two clay birds in a row so I was just sitting getting more and more excited about her prospects and her attitude to silver was equally as impressive, she’ll be a good bet for 2020
Not just WWE, McFlock. Plenty of athletes, cyclists, body builders and others have died early, Florence Griffith Joyner being probably the most famous. Lord knows how many from Eastern Europe have died over the last few decades because it’s always been easier to hide the stats there.
I suspect if there were two Olympics, one clean the other not so much, the public would prefer the clean one. But Sky TV would happily show both.
Hi TRP, I had hoped [Deleted. No referring to what you think is my real life identity, please. TRP] would have given you more respect for due process and natural justice.
Isinbayeva is a two time Olympic gold medalist and three times world champion. She has been pole vault champion at at least four other major international competitions. Each of these events had independent drug testing before and after. AFAIK she was found clean each and every time.
So for her to be banned as a drug cheat as part of the collective punishment of the Russian athletics team and not be given any chance for individual appeal based on her outstanding record to date is nothing short of political and malicious.
CV, the sad fact is that Russian athletics is horribly tainted. I’ve no issue with Isinbayeva or any individual. But all of them were trained and employed under a regime that routinely cheated. It’s unfortunate for her not to be able to go to Rio if she was genuinely clean, but the likelihood is that she wasn’t. Even if she was unaware of what was happening (again, unlikely) the damage is done. It’s not the Olympic gold medal that has been diminished, as she claims, it’s her own record that is now suspect. And that’s the fault of the people she trusted to administer her sport at home, not the IOC.
btw, she hasn’t been world champ for ages and coming back after a break of a few years suggests she probably would have struggled to make the grade at Rio. Unless she had, ahem, help 😉
Yes I can sense your “sadness”. Collective punishment and collective guilt without individual right of appeal then.
From wikipedia
At the 2012 Olympic Games, she easily qualified for the finals, where she came third with 4.70 m. She considered the bronze medal as success but mentioned that she would like to retire as acting Olympic champion.
And again, despite your ungenerous assertions, she tested clean in both the pre and post Olympic drug testing regime.
The sadness is genuine. I’d much prefer that the workers in that industry weren’t being abused by their employers. But we can’t change the past, only influence the future.
ps, you probably need to look up ‘collective punishment’. It’s not what you appear to think it is.
Collective punishment is a form of retaliation whereby a suspected perpetrator’s family members, friends, acquaintances, sect, neighbors or entire ethnic group is targeted. The punished group may often have no direct association with the other individuals or groups, or direct control over their actions.
Russia definitely has had a drug cheat problem amongst some of its athletes.
Having said that, 2/3 of its Olympic team (except the athletics section) was finally cleared to compete at Rio so I think that the Russian drug testing regime isn’t as porous as is sometimes made out in the MSM.
It would be malicious and arbitrary to not allow individual para-olympians with clean drug records to appeal the collective decision and submit to additional testing protocols.
Well, that depends on how long the drugs have a benefit after they’re out of the system, doesn’t it? For example, if they bulk up muscle mass during training and carry that through (now “drug free”) to rio. Or whether you need a verifiable baseline to detect sudden spikes invarious drugs or hormones. Or whatever.
Frankly, I have no idea. Nor do you. Maybe your suggestion would be fair, or maybe quite frankly the russian drug testing debacle has genuinely tainted the entire team and there’s no way to make a plausible determination that any of them are clean.
National sports bodies wanting their athletes to compete at international events need to abide by the rules to ensure a fair competition.
For any individual athlete to compete at a top-level international event, their participation is dependant on the competence and integrity of their support staff and organisations, from coaches and doctors to their national sports organisations.
If those national sports bodies systematically failed to do that, then those athletes should rightly blame the sports body that failed to stick to the rules. Just like if an athlete is given a performance enhancing drug by a doctor who failed to ensure they abided by the rules, the athlete should blame the doctor, not the international body.
Wasn’t there some fuckup last olympics or so when a NZ athlete almost didn’t get to compete because someone in our sports organisation fucked up some paperwork? Same deal with Russia, only they fucked up the process for an entire team.
and that’s a fair point, I feel something has been lost from NZ rugby and it’ll never come back again
It’s so robotic and structured it’s just become boring, used to enjoy watching Rugby but haven’t seen a game in years
Last game was the All black world cup final in 2011, god it was dull, no flair at all it’s like the players have chips in their heads and the coaches were controlling the players .
re; olympics . absolutely – i’m all for giving the athletes their moment, after all, they are the ones who actually did “thing x”
not an avid follower, which has made the surprise angle even better. What really ruins it is the idiot media – on the pole vault it only took a minute or two till some egg used rugby line outs as a means to visualise the height she vaulted over – gahh!
but good lord – whats happening – i keep agreeing with you – good thing the lemon tree is going strong aye 🙂
It only comes back for me after I’ve made a comment. But it only hangs around if I just click on comments. It disappears again if I do a page refresh, or go back to the front page.
The “Reply” button on the bottom of each comment is there, and has always worked for me – but the “Replies” has been intermittent for some time now and mostly nothing appears when clicked. Never mind – I’ll live with it :).
It does seem to be interrupting the conversations though, because it makes it harder to find what one was talking about. I’m guessing people are mostly going with the convo that is in front of them.
“Medicinal marijuana campaigner Rebecca Reider has a history of bringing the drug into NZ. She suffers from chronic pain and has successfully been able to bring more into the country – straight past customs. We speak with her.”
What surprised me most about that interview is the amount of time they gave her to speak. Usually they only allot a tiny amount of time for these topics, and Suzie Ferguson keeps interrupting trying to move it on, not letting them actually say anything worthwhile.
Phil Twyford at Te Puea Marae in first open meeting to discuss the impacts of homelessness in our Society. This inquiry into Homelessness is bipartisan and is conducted by the Labour Party, the Green Party NZ and of course the Maori Party.
Notable absent – the Party that supposedly runs the government but then it is a government for some and not for all. Surely we can find Mrs. Bennett, Mr. English and Mr. Smith sipping latte in Mount Eden or another equally nice place so as to not disturb their pretty minds.
…”The people in India are one of the first to experience a crisis which within 15 years will affect everyone on the planet, according to scientists’ warnings. And it might be the most devastating one humankind has ever faced.”
Watch the documentary “H2WOE” on RT and RTD, premiering on September 22.
The Herald have an interview with an American academic who is involved in a campaign to get a woman as UN Secretary General.
She appears to be living about 200 years in the past, when all communication would have been hand-written and carried for months in a sailing vessel. In those days Ambassadors really did have to make decisions on behalf of their country.
The reason Helen is not doing too well in the contest is, according to her, because 14 of the 15 “people” on the Security Council are men. Ignoring the fact that there are 15 countries rather than people on the Council I find it rather strange that she seems to think that is the people who head their countries delegation to the UN who decide who to vote for rather than the country they represent.
The Herald says
“She said on the Security Council itself, there were 14 men and the only woman was US Ambassador Samantha Power”
and then quote the woman, a Dr Jean Krasno, as saying
“They all know each other, they’ve all evolved over time with an old boys’ club. And that’s what always happens, they network, so they vote for them. It’s just old boy networking.”
I bet you didn’t know that it isn’t the New Zealand Government who decide who we are going to vote for but the head of our delegation to the UN. His name, for anyone who isn’t familiar with this seemingly very powerful individual, is Gerard van Bohemen. I wonder what he has been up to? Along with the representatives of Russia, China, Great Britain and so on. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11698804
I feel rather sorry for Krasno’s students if this is the sort of thing she seems to believe.
I fail to see what sort of flame war you are talking about.
I was merely pointing out how far from reality that US academic seems to be.
I also don’t really see what connection your article has to my original comment.
Surely you would accept that her opinions about the various countries representatives at the UN doing what they want to rather than what their Governments tell them to do is irrational?.
As The Vancouver Housing Market Implodes, The “Smart Money” Is Rushing To Get Out Now
Three weeks after we suggested that the Vancouver housing bubble had popped in the aftermath of the implementation of the July 25 15% property tax in British Columbia targeting the Chinese free for all in Vancouver real estate, we got confirmation of that last week when we reported that only one word could describe what has happened to Vancouver housing in the past month: implosion.
Zolo, a Canadian real estate brokerage, which keeps track of MLS home sales in real-time and reports prices as an average rather than the “benchmark price”, showed as of last week a major correction underway in most Metro Vancouver markets. According to the website, the City of Vancouver currently has an average home price of $1.1 million, down 20.7% over the last 28 days and down 24.5% over the last three months. The average detached home is $2.6 million, down 7% compared to three months ago.
It looks like sales have stalled at the top end, but the bubble continues to expand. That’s probably what will happen in Ak at some point; the rich will back out of the market, but the middle class will remain trapped in the cycle of debt and demand.
John Campbell is dealing now with water pollution in Hawke’s Bay.
Crikey!
Water quality, in for example Tuki Tuki River is awful!
Must get a replay.
Dreadful!
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 27 were:1. The Minister for Ford Rangers strikes againTransport Minister Simeon Brown was again the busiest of the Cabinet ministers this week, announcing an ...
You got a fast carAnd I want a ticket to anywhereMaybe we make a dealMaybe together we can get somewhereAny place is betterYesterday’s newsletter, Trust In Me, on the report of abuse in state care, and by religious organisations, between 1950 and 2019, coupled with the hypocrisy of Christopher Luxon ...
New Zealand is again having to reconcile conflicting pressures from its military and its trade interests. Should we join Pillar Two of AUKUS and risk compromising our markets in China? For a century after New Zealand was founded in 1840, its external security arrangements and external economics arrangements were aligned. ...
The ‘50 Shades of Green’ farmers’ protest in 2019 was heavy on climate change denial, but five years on, scepticism and criticism about the idea that pine forests can save us is growing across the board. File photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in climate ...
This morning the sky was bright.The birds, in their usual joyous bliss. Nature doesn’t seem to feel the heat of what might angst humans.Their calls are clear and beautiful.Just some random thoughts:MāoriPaul Goldsmith has announced his government will roll back the judiciary’s rulings on Māori Customary Marine Title, which recognises ...
In 2003, the Court of Appeal delivered its decision in Ngati Apa v Attorney-General, ruling that Māori customary title over the foreshore and seabed had not been universally extinguished, and that the Māori Land Court could determine claims and confirm title if the facts supported it. This kicked off the ...
Earlier this week at Parliament, Labour leader Chris Hipkins was applauded for saying that the response to the final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care had to be “bigger than politics.” True, but the fine words, apologies and “we hear you” messages will soon ring ...
TL;DR: In news breaking this morning:The Ministry of Education is cutting $2 billion from its school building programme so the National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government has enough money to deliver tax cuts; The Government has quietly lowered its child poverty reduction targets to make them easier to achieve;Te Whatu Ora-Health NZ’s ...
Kia ora. These are some stories that caught our eye this week – as always, feel free to share yours in the comments. Our header image this week (via Eke Panuku) shows the planned upgrade for the Karanga Plaza Tidal Swimming Steps. The week in Greater Auckland On ...
1. What's not to love about the way the Harris campaign is turning things around?a. Nothingb. Love all of itc. God what a reliefd. Not that it will be by any means easye. All of the above 2. Documents released by the Ministry of Health show Associate Health Minister Casey ...
Trust in me in all you doHave the faith I have in youLove will see us through, if only you trust in meWhy don't you, you trust me?In a week that saw the release of the 3,000 page Abuse in Care report Christopher Luxon was being asked about Boot Camps. ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking about the Royal Commission Inquiry into Abuse in Carereport released this week, and with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent on a UN push to not recognise carbon offset markets and ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 26, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Transport: Simeon Brown announced$802.9 million in funding for 18 new trains on the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines, which ...
The northern expressway extension from Warkworth to Whangarei is likely to require radical changes to legislation if it is going to be built within the foreseeable future. The Government’s powers to purchase land, the planning process and current restrictions on road tolling are all going to need to be changed ...
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedFirst they came for the doctors But I was confused by the numbers and costs So I didn't speak up Then they came for our police and nurses And I didn't think we could afford those costs anyway So I ...
Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on UnsplashWe’re back again after our mid-winter break. We’re still with the ‘new’ day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when we have our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream ...
Notes: This is a free article. Abuse in Care themes are mentioned. Video is at the bottom.BackgroundYesterday’s report into Abuse in Care revealed that at least 1 in 3 of all who went through state and faith based care were abused - often horrifically. At least, because not all survivors ...
Luxon speaks in Parliament yesterday about the Abuse in Care report. Photo: Hagen Hopkins/Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:PM Christopher Luxon said yesterday in tabling the Abuse in Carereport in Parliament he wanted to ‘do the ...
About a decade ago I worked with a bloke called Steve. He was the grizzled veteran coder, a few years older than me, who knew where the bodies were buried - code wise. Despite his best efforts to be approachable and friendly he could be kind of gruff, through to ...
Some of the recent announcements from the government have reminded us of posts we’ve written in the past. Here’s one from early 2020. There were plenty of reactions to the government’s infrastructure announcement a few weeks ago which saw them fund a bunch of big roading projects. One of ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Thursday, July 25 are:News: Why Electric Kiwi is closing to new customers - and why it matters RNZ’s Susan EdmundsScoop: Government drops ...
Hi,I felt a small wet tongue snaking through one of the holes in my Crocs. It explored my big toe, darting down one side, then the other. “He’s looking for some toe cheese,” said the woman next to me, words that still haunt me to this day.Growing up in New ...
Yesterday I happily quoted the Prime Minister without fact-checking him and sure enough, it turns out his numbers were all to hell. It’s not four kg of Royal Commission report, it’s fourteen.My friend and one-time colleague-in-comms Hazel Phillips gently alerted me to my error almost as soon as I’d hit ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Thursday, July 25, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day were:The Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquirypublished its final report yesterday.PM Christopher Luxon and The Minister responsible for ...
The Official Information Act has always been a battle between requesters seeking information, and governments seeking to control it. Information is power, so Ministers and government agencies want to manage what is released and when, for their own convenience, and legality and democracy be damned. Their most recent tactic for ...
TL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:Transport and Energy Minister Simeon Brown is accelerating plans to spend at least $10 billion through Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) to extend State Highway One as a four-lane ‘Expressway’ from Warkworth to Whangarei ...
I live my life (woo-ooh-ooh)With no control in my destinyYea-yeah, yea-yeah (woo-ooh-ooh)I can bleed when I want to bleedSo come on, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)You can bleed when you want to bleedYea-yeah, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)Everybody bleed when they want to bleedCome on and bleedGovernments face tough challenges. Selling unpopular decisions to ...
Please note:To skip directly to the- parliamentary footage in the video, scroll to 1:21 To skip to audio please click on the headphone iconon the left hand side of the screenThis video / audio section is under development. ...
Given the crackdown on wasteful government spending, it behooves me to point to a high profile example of spending by the Luxon government that looks like a big, fat waste of time and money. I’m talking about the deployment of NZDF personnel to support the US-led coalition in the Red ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:40 am on Wednesday, July 24 are:Deep Dive: Chipping away at the housing crisis, including my comments RNZ/Newsroom’s The DetailNews: Government softens on asset sales, ...
As I reported about the city centre, Auckland’s rail network is also going through a difficult and disruptive period which is rapidly approaching a culmination, this will result in a significant upgrade to the whole network. Hallelujah. Also like the city centre this is an upgrade predicated on the City ...
Today, a 4 kilogram report will be delivered to Parliament. We know this is what the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care weighs, because our Prime Minister told us so.Some reporter had blindsided him by asking a question about something done by ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Wednesday, July 24, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Beehive:Transport Minister Simeon Brownannounced plans to use PPPs to fund, build and run a four-lane expressway between Auckland ...
NewstalkZB host Mike Hosking, who can usually be relied on to give Prime Minister Christopher Luxon an easy run, did not do so yesterday when he interviewed him about the HealthNZ deficit. Luxon is trying to use a deficit reported last year by HealthNZ as yet another example of the ...
Back in January a StatsNZ employee gave a speech at Rātana on behalf of tangata whenua in which he insulted and criticised the government. The speech clearly violated the principle of a neutral public service, and StatsNZ started an investigation. Part of that was getting an external consultant to examine ...
Renting for life: Shared ownership initiatives are unlikely to slow the slide in home ownership by much. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:A Deloittereport for Westpac has projected Aotearoa’s home-ownership rate will ...
You're broken down and tiredOf living life on a merry go roundAnd you can't find the fighterBut I see it in you so we gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsWe gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsAnd I'll rise upI'll rise like the dayI'll rise upI'll rise unafraidI'll rise upAnd I'll ...
There’s been a change in Myers Park. Down the steps from St. Kevin’s Arcade, past the grassy slopes, the children’s playground, the benches and that goat statue, there has been a transformation. The underpass for Mayoral Drive has gone from a barren, grey, concrete tunnel, to a place that thrums ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Global society may have finally slammed on the brakes for climate-warming pollution released by human fossil fuel combustion. According to the Carbon Monitor Project, the total global climate pollution released between February and May 2024 declined slightly from the amount released during the same ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Tuesday, July 23 are:Deep Dive: Penlink: where tolling rhetoric meets reality BusinessDesk-$$$’sOliver LewisScoop:Te Pūkenga plans for regional polytechs leak out ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Tuesday, July 23, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Health: Shane Reti announcedthe Board of Te Whatu Ora-Health New Zealand was being replaced with Commissioner Lester Levy ...
Health NZ warned the Government at the end of March that it was running over Budget. But the reasons it gave were very different to those offered by the Prime Minister yesterday. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon blamed the “botched merger” of the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) to create Health ...
Long ReadKey Summary: Although National increased the health budget by $1.4 billion in May, they used an old funding model to project health system costs, and never bothered to update their pre-election numbers. They were told during the Health Select Committees earlier in the year their budget amount was deficient, ...
As a momentous, historic weekend in US politics unfolded, analysts and commentators grasped for precedents and comparisons to help explain the significance and power of the choice Joe Biden had made. The 46th president had swept the Democratic party’s primaries but just over 100 days from the election had chosen ...
TL;DR: I’m casting around for new ideas and ways of thinking about Aotearoa’s political economy to find a few solutions to our cascading and self-reinforcing housing, poverty and climate crises.Associate Professor runs an online masters degree in the economics of sustainability at Torrens University in Australia and is organising ...
The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back on National's Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. The bill sets up water for privatisation, and was introduced under urgency, then rammed through select committee with no time even for local councils to make a proper submission. Naturally, national's select committee ...
Some years ago, I bought a book at Dunedin’s Regent Booksale for $1.50. As one does. Vandrad the Viking (1898), by J. Storer Clouston, is an obscure book these days – I cannot find a proper online review – but soon it was sitting on my shelf, gathering dust alongside ...
History is not on the side of the centre-left, when Democratic presidents fall behind in the polls and choose not to run for re-election. On both previous occasions in the past 75 years (Harry Truman in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1968) the Democrats proceeded to then lose the White House ...
This is a free articleCoverageThis morning, US President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the Presidential race. And that is genuinely newsworthy. Thanks for your service, President Biden, and all the best to you and yours.However, the media in New Zealand, particularly the 1News nightly bulletin, has been breathlessly covering ...
A homeless person’s camp beside a blocked-off slipped damage walkway in Freeman’s Bay: we are chasing our tail on our worsening and inter-related housing, poverty and climate crises. Photo: Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
What has happened to it all?Crazy, some'd sayWhere is the life that I recognise?(Gone away)But I won't cry for yesterdayThere's an ordinary worldSomehow I have to findAnd as I try to make my wayTo the ordinary worldYesterday morning began as many others - what to write about today? I began ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Monday, July 22 are:Today’s Must Read: Father and son live in a tent, and have done for four years, in a million ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Orderimage, ...
Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
Te Rangi e tu nei (The sky above us) Te Papa e takoto nei (The land beneath us) Tatou katoa te hunga ora (To us all the living) Tena koutou katoa (Greetings) ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says a bill that has passed its first reading will improve parental leave settings and give non-biological parents more flexibility as primary carer for their child. The Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill (No3), passed its first reading this morning. “It includes a change ...
Two Bills designed to improve regulation and make it easier to do business have passed their first reading in Parliament, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill make key changes to legislation administered by the Ministry ...
New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says newly appointed Commissioner, Grant Illingworth KC, will help deliver the report for the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons, due on 28 November 2024. “I am pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will commence his appointment as ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters travels to Laos this week to participate in a series of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-led Ministerial meetings in Vientiane. “ASEAN plays an important role in supporting a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Mr Peters says. “This will be our third visit to ...
Construction of a new mental health facility at Te Nikau Grey Hospital in Greymouth is today one step closer, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says. “This $27 million facility shows this Government is delivering on its promise to boost mental health care and improve front line services,” Mr Doocey says. ...
New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says proposed changes to the Education and Training Amendment Bill will ensure charter schools have more flexibility to negotiate employment agreements and are equipped with the right teaching resources. “Cabinet has agreed to progress an amendment which means unions will not be able to initiate ...
In response to serious concerns around oversight, overspend and a significant deterioration in financial outlook, the Board of Health New Zealand will be replaced with a Commissioner, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti announced today. “The previous government’s botched health reforms have created significant financial challenges at Health NZ that, without ...
Minister for Space and Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins will travel to Adelaide tomorrow for space and science engagements, including speaking at the Australian Space Forum. While there she will also have meetings and visits with a focus on space, biotechnology and innovation. “New Zealand has a thriving space ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will travel to China on Saturday to attend the Ministerial on Climate Action meeting held in Wuhan. “Attending the Ministerial on Climate Action is an opportunity to advocate for New Zealand climate priorities and engage with our key partners on climate action,” Mr Watts says. ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is travelling to the Solomon Islands tomorrow for meetings with his counterparts from around the Pacific supporting collective management of the region’s fisheries. The 23rd Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Committee and the 5th Regional Fisheries Ministers’ Meeting in Honiara from 23 to 26 July ...
The Government today launched the Military Style Academy Pilot at Te Au rere a te Tonga Youth Justice residence in Palmerston North, an important part of the Government’s plan to crackdown on youth crime and getting youth offenders back on track, Minister for Children, Karen Chhour said today. “On the ...
The Government has welcomed news the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has begun work to replace nine priority bridges across the country to ensure our state highway network remains resilient, reliable, and efficient for road users, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“Increasing productivity and economic growth is a key priority for the ...
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour has been in contact throughout the evening with senior officials who have coordinated a whole of government response to the global IT outage and can provide an update. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has designated the National Emergency Management Agency as the ...
New Zealand and Japan will continue to step up their shared engagement with the Pacific, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand and Japan have a strong, shared interest in a free, open and stable Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “We are pleased to be finding more ways ...
New developments in the heart of North Island forestry country will reinvigorate their communities and boost economic development, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones visited Kaingaroa and Kawerau in Bay of Plenty today to open a landmark community centre in the former and a new connecting road in ...
President Adeang, fellow Ministers, honourable Diet Member Horii, Ambassadors, distinguished guests. Minasama, konnichiwa, and good afternoon, everyone. Distinguished guests, it’s a pleasure to be here with you today to talk about New Zealand’s foreign policy reset, the reasons for it, the values that underpin it, and how it ...
Last summer when Matairangi burned, Ginny and Tom stood at the window of their lounge, watching kākā shoot skyward from the burning trees. From the distance, they looked to Ginny like pages torn from books and thrown into a bonfire. It was Tom, voice tight, who told her it was ...
Opinion: The Canadian short story writer Alice Munro – winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013 – died in May at the age of 92. Her work was about “the damage people inflict on one another in the name of love”, Deborah Treisman wrote in the New Yorker. ...
This month marks two years since the most powerful telescope ever built sent its first pictures back to earth. From its lofty vantage point, beyond the moon in orbit around the sun, the James Webb Space Telescope was tuned to observe the first stars and galaxies being born soon after ...
Comment: After Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ preview several weeks ago, I had some optimism about the Government’s emissions reduction plan. Now I’ve read the discussion document, that hope has been dashed. How can the Government propose a plan that wants to take New Zealand taxpayers’ hard-earned money, and spend ...
Christopher Luxon: hurdles The little man from National jumps hurdles in his sleep. He’s quite good at it in his dreams and even though the reality doesn’t quite match up you have to give him credit for getting up every morning and crashing into the very first hurdle of the ...
Comment: It was a good two hours into the conversation when Tyrone Marks raised the most basic of questions when I first spoke to him in 2017. “They didn’t explain the things they did to me. They never told me why. And they still haven’t. There’s no explanation for it. ...
Madeleine Chapman rounds out Death Week on The Spinoff with a final recommendation. You can read all of our Death Week coverage here. Nothing forces you to reflect on your life and relationships quite like proximity to death. For those whose nearest and dearest have died, there are reasonably obvious ...
Whitney Greene takes us through her life in television, including the TV character she’d like to plan a funeral for and her cow lung catastrophe on The Traitors NZ. “If the phone rings, I have to answer it,” Whitney Greene from The Traitors NZ warns as we begin our My ...
Maddie Ballard reviews the debut essay collection of Pōneke writer Flora Feltham.In ‘The Raw Material’, the longest essay in Flora Feltham’s dazzling debut collection, the author heads out for a run after hours of weaving and sees the world turn to textile. “Pounding along the Parade, I saw the ...
Andy Christiansen, one half of the experimental rock-pop duo TRiPS, shares the tunes inspiring the band’s perfect weekend and new release. “Good speakers, good food, good music, no distractions”: that’s all you need to enjoy the psychedelic stylings of TRiPS, a new band formed by Fly My Pretties’ Barnaby Weir ...
Celebrating our quadrennial opportunity to become experts in a bunch of sports we never normally watch.The games of the XXXIII Olympiad are upon us. Paris will host this year’s showcase of sporting and athletic prowess, which means some late-night and early-morning viewing for us in Aotearoa.But what sports ...
The photograph is striking and beautiful, but also disturbing – a reminder that my love for John was often entangled in shame.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.In the spring of 1980, in Dunedin, shortly before his death, someone took a photograph ...
Get to know Babushka, our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Babu’s humans, Jo and Isabel, for their support. Dog name: Babushka (Babu for short) Age: 2Breed: Border Collie X poodleIf rescued, ...
Pacific Media Watch A Lebanese photojournalist who was severely wounded during an Israeli air strike in south Lebanon carried the Olympic torch in Paris this week in honour of her peers who have been wounded and killed in the field — especially in Gaza and Lebanon. Christina Assi of Agence ...
The first report in a five-part web series focused on the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women taking place in the Marshall Islands this week.SPECIAL REPORT:By Netani Rika in Majuro Women continue to fight for justice 70 years after the first nuclear tests by the United States caused ...
Christopher Luxon has joined with Australia and Canada's leaders in voicing support for US President Joe Biden's ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The 2022 election brought the “teal wave” into parliament. The next election will test whether teals, who occupy what were Liberal seats, and other independents can maintain their momentum. Joining us on the Podcast ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Musgrave, Senior lecturer in Pharmacology, University of Adelaide Pixavri/Shutterstock A major Federal Court class action has been dismissed this week after Justice Michael Lee ruled there was not enough evidence to prove the weedkiller Roundup causes cancer. Plaintiff Kelvin ...
In The Week in Politics: politicians have to decide what to do about child abuse, Health NZ is booked in for major surgery and Darleen Tana returns. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University Mainstream media are surprisingly muted at the prospect of the world’s most powerful nation being led for the first time by a woman – specifically a woman of colour, Vice President Kamala ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Bennett, PhD Student, Associate Research Fellow, Deakin University Last week, a drone delivery company called Wing (owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet) started operating in Melbourne. Some 250,000 residents in parts of the city’s eastern suburbs can now order food from ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Foo, Lecturer, Physiotherapy, Monash University pikselstock/Shutterstock In the next 40 years in Australia, it’s predicted the number of Australians aged 65 and over will more than double, while the number of people aged 85 and over will more than triple. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katrina Grant, Research Associate, Power Institute for Arts and Visual Culture, University of Sydney Jonas Åkerström’s 1790 work, Session of the Accademia dell’Arcadia on August 17 1788.Nationalmuseum/Cecilia Heisser Ever wondered whether you’d have a better chance at winning an Olympic gold ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexandra Jones, Program Lead, Food Governance, George Institute for Global Health wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock On Thursday, Australian and New Zealand food ministers at state, federal and national levels met to thrash out what’s next for health star ratings on packaged foods. Now, after ...
The Abuse in Care report found many Pacific survivors lost their connections to their culture and language, resulting in trauma that has been carried from generation to generation. ...
In the regulatory review, ECC intends to suggest that ERO focus on curriculum delivery reviews rather than the Ministry, because it’s not efficient or effective to have two agencies with radically different approaches climbing over each other. ...
Te Rūnanga Nui o Ngā Kura Kaupapa Māori invites the current government to work in partnership with them to develop a pathway forward, including the development of a parallel pathway and meaningful policy and strategy for Kura Kaupapa Māori ...
If you haven’t started watching yet, Tara Ward begs you to reconsider. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. In the world of New Zealand reality television, we have many gems in our crown. There’s the delicious second season of the Celebrity Treasure ...
A new poem by Fiona Kidman. The clothes of the dead I did not keep my mother’s furry red beret for long nor the stringy scarves that adorned the necks of my aunts, although I have kept tag ends of gold, the rings and trinkets they wore, the brooches no ...
The government’s announcement that it will re-open the foreshore and seabed controversy by changing the rules on recognising centuries-old Māori customary title for a third time goes against the rule of law and New Zealand values,” Mr Tipa says. ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Lioness by Emily Perkins (Bloomsbury, $25) Roarrrr! Perkins’ brilliant, award-winning, Marian-Keyes anointed, darkly funny, long ...
The 2004 Act vested ownership of the foreshore and seabed in the Crown, extinguishing any Māori claims to ownership and causing widespread outrage and protests among Māori communities. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Antje Deckert, Associate Professor (Criminology), Auckland University of Technology Getty Images Despite the connection between institutional harm and gang membership made clear in this week’s mammoth royal commission abuse-in care report, the government seems unlikely to soften its “get tough on ...
From Lewis Clareburt in the swimming to the start of the rowing – the first seven days of Paris 2024 promise to be big for New Zealand. There are few events that bring the country together quite like an Olympic Games. Nothing quite matches the excitement of getting up in ...
Groundbreaking local science just showed up in the most surprising of places: the season finale of The Kardashians. In the season five finale of The Kardashians last night, several members of the family gathered together in one of their signature empty, cream-coloured rooms to hear test results that had been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amin Saikal, Emeritus professor of Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies, Australian National University The Middle East is on the brink of a possibly devastating regional war, with hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah reaching an extremely dangerous level. Washington has engaged in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Elizabeth Eades, Rheumatologist, Monash University Lupus is an inflammatory autoimmune illness, where the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks itself. Lupus can affect virtually any part of the body, although it most commonly affects the skin, joints and kidneys. The symptoms ...
A law firm that specialises in working with survivors of abuse in State care is disappointed that the Government fails to recognise that its boot camps can be directly compared to previous boot camps from the 1990s and 2000s. ...
Dying is a natural part of life, like updating your Wof or seeing your hairdresser, but without the word-of-mouth recs that help guarantee a good service. What if we changed that? Dying Reviews received by The Spinoff have had the names of organisations redacted while Hospice NZ collects further data. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonti Horner, Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland Mike Lewinski/Flickr, CC BY On any clear night, if you gaze skywards long enough, chances are you’ll see a meteor streaking through the sky. Some nights, however, are better than others. At ...
Despite having no bars or other designated spaces for lesbians, Auckland boasts a small but mighty lesbian museum. So how did it get here? The past 18 months has brought increasing hostility towards the queer community across Aotearoa. Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull’s anti-trans rally in Tamaki Makaurau last March led to a ...
Poneke Antifascist Coalition has invited Wellingtonians to stand in solidarity with the Kanak people at 12pm today outside the French Embassy in Wellington. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Layton, Visiting Fellow, Strategic Studies, Griffith University Drones are the signature technology of the Ukraine war. A few miniature aircraft designs were used in the war’s early days, but an incredible array of drones have now evolved. There are different types, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Slee, Associate Professor, Clinical Academic Neurologist, Flinders University Francisco Gonzelez/Unsplash Migraine is many things, but one thing it’s not is “just a headache”. “Migraine” comes from the Greek word “hemicrania”, referring to the common experience of migraine being predominantly ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lee White, Senior Lecturer and Horizon Fellow, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Sydney Australia was slow to introduce minimum building standards for energy efficiency. The Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS) only came into force in 2003. Older homes ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steven Sherwood, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Climate Change Research Centre, UNSW Sydney The past century of human-induced warming has increased rainfall variability over 75% of the Earth’s land area – particularly over Australia, Europe and eastern North America, new research shows. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Heynen, Program Coordinator, Sustainable Energy, The University of Queensland A temporary stadium in the Champ-de-Mars, ParisEkaterina Pokrovsky/Shutterstock As Paris prepares to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the sustainability of the event is coming under scrutiny. The organisers have promoted ...
A night of karaoke and community in a pub that feels like a memory. You’d barely even notice it, unless you knew to look. Tucked away behind a liquor store on busy Constable Street is the capital’s last great pub. Newtown Sports Bar is an emblem of the pub culture ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Wright, Professor in Marine Geology, University of Canterbury Louise Corcoran/Getty Images The decline in the number of doctoral candidates at New Zealand universities is a worrying sign for the country’s effort to build a knowledge-based economy. Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laurie Berg, Associate Professor, University of Technology Sydney defotoberg/Shutterstock Migrant worker exploitation is entrenched in workplaces across Australia. Tragically, a deep fear of immigration consequences means most unlawful employer conduct goes unreported. On Wednesday, however, the government officially launched a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vaughan Cruickshank, Senior Lecturer in Health and Physical Education, University of Tasmania Paris is about to host its third summer Olympics. While we don’t yet know what the legacy of this year’s games will be, let’s take the opportunity to reflect on ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hugh Breakey, Deputy Director, Institute for Ethics, Governance & Law, Griffith University In the wake of the assassination attempt on former US President Donald Trump, there were calls from bothsides of US politics, as well as internationally, to reduce the brutal, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Keith Rathbone, Senior Lecturer, Modern European History and Sports History, Macquarie University Two high-profile assaults on Australians in Paris have raised concerns about security ahead of the Olympic Games. On Saturday evening, a young woman was allegedly sexually assaulted by a ...
Dying is inevitable and, so it seems, is it costing a lot, writes Stewart Sowman-Lund in today’s extract from The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here.The cost of dying ...
The government took Joyce Harris's first baby and sent her off to a girls' home. Half a century on - and out of oceans of hurt - it asked her to be a mother figure. ...
It’s the deadliest fictional town in the country, but which death has been the most bonkers? Alex Casey looks back at 10 seasons of The Brokenwood Mysteries to find out. Warning: The following ranking story contains famous New Zealand actors appearing to be dead (not alive). The Spinoff has been ...
Water cremation is the biggest thing to happen to the death industry in the last 100 years. Alex Casey meets the people trying to bring it to Aotearoa. Through a set of mirrored doors down the industrial end of Christchurch’s St Asaph Street, death is getting a new lease on ...
Opinion: New Health NZ commissioner Lester Levy is authorised to assume operational leadership – chief executive Margie Apa is effectively relegated to his operational deputy The post All-powerful Levy is feudal baron of a $28b fiefdom appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Looks like another surge of immigrants is arriving to put further pressure on our housing crisis.
http://i.stuff.co.nz/national/83406855/British-registrations-to-move-to-New-Zealand-double-after-Brexit-Immigration-NZ
Neoliberalism relies on globalisation and encourages immigration to weaken workers’ bargaining positions. This excerpt comes from a brilliant article by Martin Jacques.
“But the causes of this political crisis, glaringly evident on both sides of the Atlantic, are much deeper than simply the financial crisis and the virtually stillborn recovery of the last decade. They go to the heart of the neoliberal project that dates from the late 70s and the political rise of Reagan and Thatcher, and embraced at its core the idea of a global free market in goods, services and capital. The depression-era system of bank regulation was dismantled, in the US in the 1990s and in Britain in 1986, thereby creating the conditions for the 2008 crisis. Equality was scorned, the idea of trickle-down economics lauded, government condemned as a fetter on the market and duly downsized, immigration encouraged, regulation cut to a minimum, taxes reduced and a blind eye turned to corporate evasion.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/21/death-of-neoliberalism-crisis-in-western-politics
A geologist speculating on how water from the Tukituki might have gotten into the aquifer (drought created cracks in the clay, flooding spread the water to those areas). I’m still not seeing very good explanations though (is this surface clay? The 2 impervious layers?)
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/311529/river-water-may-have-contaminated-supply-scientist
The Māori King will not be voting for Labour again.
He said he had changed his mind about the party after its leadership said it would not work with the Māori Party.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/te-manu-korihi/311515/maori-king-rejects-labour-in-unscripted-speech-closing
However, didn’t Labour and the Greens recently extend an open invitation to any party that wanted to join them in changing the Government? Or has that now been retracted?
Thoughts?
It is difficult not to see the hand of Tuku Morgan behind most of what King Tuheitia says. Tuku appears to be making a strong political come back with his recent ascension to president of the Maori Party and a declared interest in bringing Hone Harawira in from the political wilderness.
Indeed, it is difficult not to see the hand of Tuku Morgan at play.
However, if Labour did change their position and have now ruled out working with the Māori Party, one could argue his position has some merit. Perhaps he was also unhappy with Labour’s unwillingness to work with Hone?
I presume Labour has ruled out working with the Maori Party because the M.P. has supported almost every bit of government legislation to which Labour is implacably opposed. In such circumstances, Labour is correct to side-step the M.P. If they can’t to what’s right by their own people, then what chance to trust them on anything else.
How many votes have labour mate with there mates in the gnats???
Talk about letting people down – A+ for labs.
Have Labour ruled out working with the Mp? Citation please.
“Have Labour ruled out working with the Mp?”
According to the Māori King.
However, as highlighted by Sabine, it seems the King is being somewhat disingenuous. Unless there is more to it and he knows something we don’t?
So that would be a no then. And all this speculation is based on a single sentence in an RNZ report that isn’t even a quote. And no-one bothering to define what ‘working with’ means in this context.
None of us yet know what either Labour or the Mp think or have done, nor really even what the Māori King said/meant.
“So that would be a no then. And all this speculation is based on a single sentence in an RNZ report that isn’t even a quote.”
No.
Little was also interviewed about it on RNZ. He didn’t dispute Labour no longer willing to work with them.
And there is this from TV3, the King blamed comments made by Little that Labour couldn’t work with the Māori Party.
Nanaia Mahutatold told Newshub the Māori King was as free to make political statements as anyone else, but that she has spoken to Mr Little about it.
“I’ve given him a brief of what was said and the context in which it was said. It’s up to Andrew in terms of how he chooses to respond.”
However, Ms Mahuta wouldn’t be drawn on whether Mr Little should retract and apologise for his comments, to heal divisions.
“There is no doubt Andrew will reflect on a whole lot of comments from a whole lot of people.”
Can you please link to where Little made this statement on RNZ?
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/201813022/labour-shrugs-off-criticisms-by-maori-king
Thanks.
So, there is nothing there that says that Labour won’t work with the Mp (he does say they won’t work with Harawira).
Which means this whole conversation is based on pretty much nothing.
The assertion that Labour won’t work with the MP was made by the King in the first link provided. Which is one of the reasons why he won’t be voting Labour. And which Little was later questioned on in the last link provided.
What I found interesting was Little never addressed the reason why the King won’t be voting Labour.
If the King was mistaken or incorrect, surely that would have been one of the first things Little would have addressed?
It was also somewhat supported by the report on TV3. Which I already highlighted above.
http://www.newshub.co.nz/politics/mori-king-dumps-labour-backs-mori-and-mana-2016082209
The whole thing raises a lot of questions, hence why I started the discussion.
“The assertion that Labour won’t work with the MP was made by the King in the first link provided.”
Not quite. RNZ report that he said something like that. There is no quote or context.
The audio with Little was obviously edited and we don’t get to hear the original question. He wasn’t asked if Labour have ruled out working with the Mp, it doesn’t come up. He was asked about ruling out Harawira and answers that.
So, all we have is a single sentence in an RNZ report that no-one on the largest left wing blog in NZ is able to confirm.
Your overlooking it was also reported to be asserted by the King on TV3, which was a little more specific in their reporting. Directly naming Little and quoting the King as finding Little’s statement (Labour couldn’t work with the MP) “hurtful”
Nanaia Mahuta was also questioned on whether Little should retract and apologise, but wouldn’t be drawn.
Therefore, we have more than a single sentence in a RNZ report, but questions still remain.
As you point out, it’s interesting no-one on the largest left wing blog in NZ is able to confirm Labour’s alleged change of position, thus allowing us to fully ascertain whether the King and what has been reported is on the level.
I was replying to TC @ 3 weka.
Until someone can prove otherwise, I was assuming the Maori King’s contention that … he had changed his mind about the party [Labour] after its leadership said it would not work with the Māori Party is correct.
The party’s late leader, the now -person” David C certainly appeared to have done so when he was in power but it is almost impossible to find any definitive comment by the current party leader. He is a master of the “on the one hand… on the other hand ” approach of saying different things to different groups of course.
Cunliffe said
“The Labour leader says there will be a maximum of three parties in Government should the party take office after September 20 – Labour, the Green Party and New Zealand First.” and
“But he said Internet Mana and Maori Party “absolutely won’t be ministers”.”
http://www.newshub.co.nz/politics/labour-wont-have-maori-party-in-govt-2014090822
Nothing to do with this conversation though.
Why on earth not?
You are making an assumption that he is talking about Andrew Little being the leader he meant.
The King didn’t say that however. He said, “He said he had changed his mind about the party after its leadership said it would not work with the Māori Party”.
He doesn’t say when that happened and it is only an assumption made by people on this blog that he meant the current leadership. He could have given up on Labour in 2014 for all we know.
That would make his statement perfectly understandable.
He is, after all, entitled to believe that statements of Labour Party policy stand until they are unequivocally reversed. Has Little ever said, about Cunliffe’s comment on working with Maori, that it no longer applies? He was very quick to announce that changing the age for Super was scrapped and that there would be no CGT.
Perhaps the Kings remark is merely an attempt to force Little to scrap the last remaining policy of Cunliffe’s reign?
“Neither Radio New Zealand, not TV3, claimed that Little had said that he would not work with the Maori Party, nor that the Maori King had claimed that Little had done so.”
That’s incorrect.
He blamed comments by leader Andrew Little that Labour couldn’t work with the Māori Party, calling the statements “hurtful”.
http://www.newshub.co.nz/politics/mori-king-dumps-labour-backs-mori-and-mana-2016082209
The homeless inquiry is run by Labour, the Greens and the Maori Party. So obviously the Labour and Green Coalition can and is working with the Maori Party.
As for the Maori Party they clearly state that they will work with whomever is in Power. Luckily for this country, everyone gets to have a vote an every one gets to vote by themselves.
In the end does it matter if the one publicly votes when everyone else is alone in the both making their choice?
Thanks Sabine. There is a large amount of misinformation being peddled in this thread.
Exactly, Sabine.
I am not aware of any statement from Andrew Little saying Labour will not work with the Māori Party if there is a Labour led government. If he did can someone provide a citation?
I was initially surprised by this statement by Kīngi Tūheitia but not so much when I thought about the influence of Tuku Morgan. The only way the Māori Party can get more seats is by taking them off the Labour Party, so expect to hear more attacks on Labour now that Tuku Morgan is the president. He is far too right wing for my tastes but there is no question that he is a very astute politician.
As for Labour gifting seats to the Māori Party – what on earth for? There is no advantage to Labour in doing this. Even the Nats don’t stand aside in any electorate – including Epsom.
I don’t understand your response to my 3.1.1.1 Sabine. I didn’t say the M.P. has supported every bit of govt. legislation. I said “almost” which is true. Yes, there are areas where they can work reasonably well together but that’s the case between all political parties. I expect there are areas where Labour and ACT – or even the Greens and ACT – have something in common.
I reject the premise that a political party can be a part of “whomsoever is in power” It suggests they have no fundamental principles/values behind them – a sure-fire pathway to eventual failure. Would they have worked with an ACT govt. whose policies are counter to Maori aspiration? They would have been voting for their own swift demise.
i merely pointed out to the naysayer and those that want Labour to fail at any cost that irrespective of what one person says it actually means nothing.
my partner votes Green i don’t. I see the same thing happening elsewhere. One may state they will never ever do this or that, and its good and fine for them, and all the others will do this an that and its good and fine.
I don’t think that the majority of Maoris will base their vote on what the King says.
And for the naysayers that say that Labour can’t or won’t work with the Maori Party i merely pointed out that gasp, Labour and the Greens are already working with the Maori Party together in regards to our homeless crisis.
but then the spring is coming, and sleeping in a car maybe not be an issue anymore until next winter?
“I merely pointed out to the naysayer and those that want Labour to fail at any cost that irrespective of what one person says it actually means nothing”
One can’t deny that the opinion of one of such high notability doesn’t have some voter sway . Nevertheless, there is a good chance that anyone initially considering voting Labour, but are now swayed by the notion, may result in voting Mana instead.
“And for the naysayers that say that Labour can’t or won’t work with the Maori Party i merely pointed out that gasp, Labour and the Greens are already working with the Maori Party together in regards to our homeless crisis.”
The assertion is Little said Labour can’t or won’t work with the Maori Party. Which could be a new development (taking place after deciding to work together on the homeless crisis)?
you know what, it does not matter who people vote for in my opinion as long as they vote.
I have stated it some three years ago that the opposition parties need to learn to work and co-exists. In the long term that would include Mana or any other new party that will come along.
I don’t see how hard that is to understand?
MMP = coalitions. Labour/Mana/Greens/Maori/legalise Aotearoa etc etc etc.
MMP again. So for now the Labour Party is working with the Maori Party and the Greens on the homeless crisis. Kudos, they are doing it and all the others can get fucked in my books cause they are doing nothing.
As for your assertion that Little said this or that, please kindly provide a link. Thanks.
Cause the bibpartisan group to address homelessness in NZ has been on the books now for a few weeks/month.
“As for your assertion that Little said this or that, please kindly provide a link. Thanks.”
It’s not my assertion. I was referring to the assertion reported – i.e. RNZ, TV3.
http://www.newshub.co.nz/politics/mori-king-dumps-labour-backs-mori-and-mana-2016082209
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/te-manu-korihi/311515/maori-king-rejects-labour-in-unscripted-speech-closing
re Chairman
so ‘your’ comment :The assertion is Little said Labour can’t or won’t work with the Maori Party.
is still without a link to any statement by Little.
I merely pointed out that Labour is already working with the Maori Party 🙂 Today they are already working together. Not next year after the election. Today.
“So ‘your’ comment :The assertion is Little said Labour can’t or won’t work with the Maori Party is still without a link to any statement by Little.”
That’s because the assertion was reportedly made by the King. As shown in the links.
“I merely pointed out that Labour is already working with the Maori Party”
Yes, which further brings into question what’s been reported.
Neither Radio New Zealand, not TV3, claimed that Little had said that he would not work with the Maori Party, nor that the Maori King had claimed that Little had done so..
What the Maori King said, and which I commented on a little further up this correspondence, was that
“He said he had changed his mind about the party after its leadership said it would not work with the Māori Party”.
This doesn’t put any particular time on when he did change his mind. It is simply a statement in the past tense about the “leadership”.
David Cunliffe DID say this. At the time he said it he was the leader of the Labour Party. Little has never said that the Labour Party no longer held this view. I suspect the Maori King is trying to put pressure on Little to come out and say that Labour would happily work with the M.P. This would put the cat among the pigeons for the Maori members of the Labour Party, and help the M.P in the next election..
Someone questioned our local MP on this tonight at our LEC meeting – Labour have not ruled out working with MP, and MP have not ruled out working with Labour. The Maori King believes Mana and MP should not be separate parties i.e. they should re-merge.
Mondayisation of Waitangi and ANZAC Day and the PPL bills are recent examples of bills from the member’s ballot being passed over the top of NAct, so there’s still room to work with them.
“I presume Labour has ruled out working with the Maori Party because the M.P. has supported almost every bit of government legislation to which Labour is implacably opposed.”
If your presumption is correct, it doesn’t explain why Labour initially extended an open invitation to work together.
I didn’t catch up with that TC. Was it a general invitation or just on some specific legislation? How long ago? Genuine questions.
Anne, have you seen something specific where Labour says they won’t work with the Mp?
“I didn’t catch up with that TC. Was it a general invitation or just on some specific legislation? How long ago?”
It was an open invitation, extended when they announced their MOU.
Labour should have been working hard to reconcile with the Maori Party since Turia left.
However doing so would likely require Labour not contesting some seats. Which internally Labour would find unpalatable, especially as Labour views all the Maori Seats as naturally theirs. So the Maori Party get driven back into the arms of National.
The Maori party choose to go back into the arms of National. But it seems their intent is to remain MPs at the expense of doing what’s best for Maori.
And what do you think of all the Maori roll voters who support them?
Yep, maybe Labour might be wrong in the past, (in particular Hone Harawira) but the Maori party has made the situation much worse by propping up National for 8 years. And anyone who tries to justify that as being good for Maori, needs their head read. Maybe it is personally beneficial for the .1% Maori ‘at the table’ just like personally beneficial for the .1% elite Pakeha, Chinese, US etc as well, but what about the rest of Maori and the rest of the country?
+100 save nz
Well when Labour shafted Maori over the forshore then maybe Maori remembered which party had actually done more to raise Maori up, not through words by through actions, Doug Graham anyone?
It is the worst kind of racist paternalism to expect/demand Maori vote for Labour without offering anything in return
yet they forgot why labour did what it did – after a certain party kicked the hornets nest
(thats not to excuse labours actions – just part of the mix at that time)
That’s also true
And Tuku Morgan should have had the honesty to leave Labour with Douglas, Prebble, etc, and be part of the Act Party. He is indeed a 1%er, and is no doubt behind this statement by the so-called Maori king – whose monarchy a number of Maori reject.
Not sure Morgan was ever in Labour, though he may have been a member when he was younger, I suppose. He got elected as a NZF MP in the nineties and has proceeded further and further to the right from then on in.
Ulp! – I think you may be correct there. I associated him with Rogernomics and $90 taxpayer-funded undies, but it could well have been through NZF .. who are thereby equally tainted.
Some Maori.
The comments of the Maori King are just the last throw of the dice by the dying Maori Party. Never forget the Maori Party represent brown privilege as expressed in the form of Iwi businesses that are busily proving capitalist greed is colour blind. At the top of the Iwi entitlement mythology tree is the Maori king.
These Brown Tories are poised to make an absolute fortune from National’s drive to privatise welfare and education through various shady Iwi organisations. If the Maori Party disappears, so does one of National’s support partners and if National loses power, all those fat, fat contracts featuring taxpayer money going to unaccountable private Maori providers goes with them.
Labour has a proud history of standing candidates in all seats, CV – to enable the Labour message to get out everywhere, including the Maori seats. Why should it deviate from this record now?
What is more, when Labour and Greens united, they both offered invitations to other Parties to join them. mpledger has it right. The Maori Party are close to National and the Maori King is being taken in by them.
What did the Labour and Greens leadership offer to the Maori Party in exchange for their support?
How is the strategy of alienating or eliminating potential MMP allies going for Labour so far?
You can’t really offer them anything substantial without alienating and pissing off the Maori sector of the Labour party.
That’s why the Maori party partners with National far more opportunity to get stuff done
That and Turia had a major major grudge against Helen Clark.
Or just to get stuff.
“Why should it deviate from this record now?”
Perhaps to help improve their wish of changing the Government?
For example, if Labour and the Greens stood down in Epsom (an electorate both would never win) and encouraged their supporters to vote for National, that would kill ACT.
Moreover, Labour and the Greens have indicated there is some potential for them to reach accommodations to support one anothers candidates in electoral seats, suggesting they may be considering deviating from this past record.
You are only allowed to work cross party to get rid of left wing MPs like Hone Harawira.
Except that never happened. They had an election and Hone came second.
Yeah mana shot themselves in the foot, but labour did the dirty too. It was not as nice as you’d like it to be te reo putake
Hey, it’s an election, Adam. I been involved in plenty and nice is not a word I would usually associate with the process. Well, maybe if the Greens are involved 😉
I guess the point is that the WO spread meme that there was some cooperation between National and Labour still pops up from time to time. It’s bollocks, obviously, but for some people it’s easier to believe that rubbish than accept that Hone made a terrible tactical choice hooking up with a self absorbed millionaire. Ironically, the maori party have also hooked up with a self absorbed millionaire, but they’ve got away with it so far.
“What is more, when Labour and Greens united, they both offered invitations to other Parties to join them”
Citation for that please Jenny.
The Maori King is a stupid piece of useless corrupt inbred fawning that holds Maori back.
You offensive creep – luckily your obnoxious opinion is worth nothing. What a foul arsehole you are.
Not sure if he means the man or the position, but either way it’s easily the most racist comment in the thread so far :-/
FFS Ad, I know you’re doing this whole inflammatory style of politics now, but putting some context into that comment so it could be understood as anything other than outright offensive and supporting racism might have been a good idea.
+1
The Maori King has been easily led I would say.
You could be right AD but for once the guy is talking sense … Labour for years has taken Maori for granted whereas National has given more than crumbs during its stay in office. I hate to think of how many more lollies Maori would get if they had more seats.
Tainui is also a real business power house in the Waikato now.
They have their fingers in lots of pies and are doing lots of developments, hardly surprising they see their future with National, not Labour.
Just as Maori showed during the early settlement period they can work the capitalism system as well as any whitey.
I suspect its one of the reasons that Maori have done relatively better then most other peoples that have been colonised
What??? How do all those stats look? Typical rubbish from a gnat – it’s all relative unless it’s them.
I’d suggest that Maori have certainly done better then the first people in Australia, South Africa, Alaska or the USA (yeah yeah I know its the same country)
I mean if I had to choose from that selection I’d choose to be Maori everytime
Bully for you and your stupid view not based an anything except your belly button lint.
Please accept this virtual hug from me to you, I feel like you could use one right now and I hope that whatever has you down is resolved soon 🙂
Wow, 3 minutes earlier you said, The worst thing you can do when holding a position is to not try to understand what other peoples points of views are
Yup and if someone says something convinces me they’re right and I’m wrong I change or more likely someone points out something I hadn’t considered then I take that on board and that filters through to my postings
One of the reasons you don’t see me posting sexist stuff or how I’m likely to point to people that comments on someones physical appearance is not cool and that’s come directly from here
I’d post stuff that I didn’t realise was sexist or demeaning but once it was shown from others posts on the subject I immediately changed what I post
Tell us what you really think, don’t hold anything back 🙂
Someone doesn’t know how to use fawning in a sentence.
The German government tells its people that they must hold 10 days worth of personal food and water in case of terrorist attack. Brighter future?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/europe/83406644/germany-to-tell-people-to-stockpile-food-and-water-in-case-of-attacks
Fact, Germany grew up with a strong history of war the resulting lack of food and other goods.
Fact, when your stuff is re-possesed they can’t take 1 TV as the Government insists you need it for the news and to be informed of events such as terrorists attack and floods and other assorted shite that may have to keep you home or to be told where emergency assembly points, shelters and the likes are.
Fact, every now and then we have -25 – 30 degrees winter and in certain regions become un-reachables aka the Schwaebishe Alp and high mountain Farmers.
Fact, every now and then we have awesome floods that can make regions un-reachables for days on end.
Fact, also from Germany we are a transit country, goods come from the south, the east and the west and north to travel through Germany. Leaving us with lots of nice things in the shops. Should a war or terrorist attack happens stuff in the shops may run low. Thus a smart populace is prepared to some extend.
Fact, if the russians or the us fuckwits start playing war games, Germany France and the rest of europe is gone first and we know it.
Fact, we grew up with ABC alarms, Fact we have old people having lived through a lot of shit and some of them are awesome hoarders and makers.
Fact, you should really not start sprouting off about Germany, they are too sane for you. I hear Trump took a truck load of PlayDoh to Louisianna as disaster relieve – how is that for a brighter future.
AfD is going to gain more traction as economic and security conditions decline and Merkel insists on letting even more Middle Eastern refugees into the country.
As for facts how about this one – sales of pepper spray and requests for personal defence weapon permits appear to have reached record highs in Germany this year.
Yes.
Which makes me somewhat surprised that Germany is willing to risk war via treaties with countries like Latvia and Bulgaria.
The Germans have also allowed the US to run a lot of Middle Eastern wars as well as CIA renditions out of German bases. And Germany has accepted US directions to put harsh sanctions on Russia.
Has it not occurred to the German people that many of the costs and risks of these actions – like economic damage to German industry, destabilising the long standing strategic balance with Russia and millions of refugees on the door step – are being borne by the German people and not by the US leaders in far away Washington DC.
Has it ever incurred to you that you know jack shit about Germany?
What about that Truckload of Playdoh? Anything to say about the brighter future?
C’mon CV and Sabine .From where I am sitting you are both correct.
i doubt, i have absolutely no use what so ever for CV. I put him in the same box as the other trolls. For what it concerns Germany i sincerely doubt that CV has any knowledge what so ever. Sometimes it behoofes him to keep it shut.
I am sure there is some Hillary is sick meme that he can peddle if he feels bored and needs attention.
But how can this be, I mean they’ve opened their borders so everyone that enters should be really thankful and thus safe from terrorist attacks. If anything it should be these countries that should be doing the prepping:
http://qz.com/635110/these-are-the-routes-being-closed-off-to-refugees-fleeing-into-europe/
But seriously everyone should be prepping anyway, I myself have just completed my three week preps and am now starting on three months
How much water do you have?
Have you got your sanitation sorted?
Medication?
Cause the killing will be done by infected cuts, broken bones and shit everywhere.
NZ is a good place to go foraging if you know what is edible and if you know how to cook it.
But a cut to your finger infected is what is going to kill you. Same as it was some 200 years ago,
The earthquakes showed me just how unprepared I was (complacent) so I started to some research and found some web sites that were very helpful
These in particular are very good:
http://thesurvivalmom.com/
Very good starting point, some American stuff of course but a mostly useful, common sense approach to prepping
http://www.americanpreppersnetwork.net/
Really good stuff on here, theres a lot to go through however its also conservatively American but the information in there means you just need to ignore the political side of it
From there I take the information and balance it against what I already know and go from there
Kiwis should do the same evidently – for when the real trickledown (bovine fecal matter into aquifers) becomes a flood.
(Song) Justin Bieber ft. Auckland Law Revue – Sorry to Māori
https://youtu.be/jpEzMKIO9UQ
Will this National’s new policy if they get a 4th term? Scary stuff. (Have they already started arresting people).
U.S. Marshals Are Arresting People in Texas Who Have Outstanding Student Loans
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/02/us-marshals-forcibly-collecting-student-debt.html
Debtors prisons, the way of the future.
The selling of student loans by a government seems to me like the use of debt to reintroduce slavery – a variation on private prisons.
China’s shame!…how does this compare with Nazi Germany?…the maiming and murder of dissidents and Tibetans and other minority ethnic groups
‘Ethan Gutmann and Angela Ballantyne – Forced Organ Harvesting’
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/sunday/audio/201812988/ethan-gutmann-and-angela-ballantyne-forced-organ-harvesting
“Claims of forced organ harvesting from thousands of Chinese prisoners of conscience are revealed in a new documentary being screened around Aotearoa in coming weeks.
The film is called Hard to Believe – and it alleges the Chinese government is behind an industrial scale programme of organ harvesting – mostly targeting members of the religious sect Falun Gong. The Chinese government maintains this is all a lie, and donors are all prisoners on death row. Ethan Gutmann, author of the book, The Slaughter, is one of the authors of a new 800-page report, ‘An Update,’ that says up to 100,000 transplants are taking place in China each year. Dr Angela Ballantyne is Senior Lecturer in Bioethics at the University of Otago and President of the International Assn of Bioethics.
https://youtu.be/_SAFxAcNmno
Yes. This has been around for a while. I mentally shelved it in the ‘need more information’ category, because it really is hard to believe. But if it is true then we have a problem.
Quite a big one.
…very BIG one…and agree it is so bad it is hard to believe! …it puts other human rights violations and crimes against humanity in the pale
When they start branding people, forcing them to wear yellow starts, pink triangles and other assorted symbols to represent their transgressions in public and in prison, when they have charts for its citizens to check if they are ‘aryan’ enough etc etc then you may compare the Chinese and the treatment of their minority groups and the likes to Nazi Germany, when they openly work people to death in mines, factories, fields, when they openly shoot them in front of mass graves for hours on end, when they end up killing 6 million people of one religion and several other million of people who happen to be gay, socialists, communists, catholic, protestant, jehovas witnesses, blind, deaf, mute, otherwise physically handicapped, old or sick then you may start looking for a comparison with the German organised and executed Holocoust.
In the meantime i suggest you find a different term for it. And then you should also ask yourself who profits of the atrocities committed in China.
are you aryan enough to survive?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Jewish_laws#/media/File:Nuremberg_laws.jpg
@Sabine…agree with you re the SCALE of WWII holocaust perpetrated …(and not just against non aryan Jews killed but also many German aryan dissenters eg Dietrich Bonhoeffer and others who we a hardly ever hear about eg almost the entire population of European Gypsies wiped out , Jehovah Witnesses, women who had abortions …all in all about 13 million murdered, of whom about 6 million were Jews)
…however the cold blooded mutilating/murdering people and taking their organs is particularly heinous imo
re your question : “are you aryan enough to survive?”
…one could well ask “are you Jewish or Israeli enough to survive?”….because if you are a Palestinian you could well be in mortal danger ( seems like nothing has been learned here)…water deprivation, apartheid checkpoints, bombing of refugee camps , Palestinian houses and homelands taken, killing of Palestinian children and women
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/06/israel-water-tool-dominate-palestinians-160619062531348.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabra_and_Shatila_massacre
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/the-forgotten-massacre-8139930.html
‘”A Hideous Atrocity”: Noam Chomsky on Israel’s Assault on Gaza & U.S. Support for the Occupation’
What a weekend for sport, even the doom merchant no joy lefties on here would have to say its been a pretty decent run
The Olympics team doing us proud, the All Blacks showing exactly why they’re the standard (pardon the expression ;-)) the only blot being the Diaz v McGregor fight (of course a third fight means bigger box office) and the rain affected 1st test against SA
Its all good 🙂
It is the brighter future JK has promised us PR 🙂
Surprising seeing you running the establishment line again PR..
Not the establishment line. I just like watching sports and this weekend was a doozy, sports wise
I know that most of the left would prefer to be suck on a lemon then celebrate NZs sporting achievements but sometimes theres a good weekend and you’re just glad to have watched it 🙂
If sport is t he most important thing to you.
Bet you’re real fun at parties
Yes I am because I am able to talk about a lot more than sport and real estate.
Folk whose repertoire is just sport tend to make parties dull.
Of course because how can anyone enjoy mere sport when there is so many more important things to worry about out there
Well, PR, I think Gordon Campbell has blown your ‘decent run’ apart.
More cost per medal for the taxpayer to bear than ever before, and a shrinking TV audience because of Paywall. Actually the lowest value NZ taxpayers have had from any Olympics, if I remember rightly.
Maybe the end of the current system, which is sick. I refuse to pay for sport on TV. So do so many others.
Read his latest article on Werewolf, admit that he is right, and stop your blathering rubbish.
Idiot – the left love sports, sportspeople often vote too and for many parties. The right don’t like sport they like competition.
http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/545/236/38d.jpg
Are you feeling all right this morning? You seem to be more irritable then usual, let it all out if it’ll make you feel better 🙂
I feel assaulted by ignorance and bigotry but yeah I’m good.
This isn’t a competition ☺
I like sports but winning is more enjoyable when theres decent competition and something on the line
For instance the All Blacks beating say Italy is nice but the All blacks beating Australia in the world cup final was something else entirely
What sports do you like that aren’t competitive?
Seriously? All sports require an element of competition unless you’re practicing of course
And then there is the old school of thinking that says the only true sports are motor racing and alpine climbing. All the rest are games.
I’m genuinely interested, whats their reasoning behind that and I’m assuming that motor racing includes various types of sailing as well?
“All sports require an element of competition unless you’re practicing of course”
What do you call kayaking done outside of competition and practice for competition?
Or rock climbing for the joy of it?
A spot of googling tracks it down to an Ernst Hemingway quote: ‘There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games.’
And more references here:
http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/auto_racing_bullfighting_and_mountain_climbing_are_the_only_real_sports_all
I’m not sure I’d call bull fighting any sort of sport
Well Weka practice is just that, practice but this is a pretty good definition I reckon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sport
SportAccord uses the following criteria, determining that a sport should:
have an element of competition
be in no way harmful to any living creature
not rely on equipment provided by a single supplier (excluding proprietary games such as arena football)
not rely on any “luck” element specifically designed into the sport
They also recognise that sport can be primarily physical (such as rugby or athletics), primarily mind (such as chess or go), predominantly motorised (such as Formula 1 or powerboating), primarily co-ordination (such as billiard sports), or primarily animal-supported (such as equestrian sport).
Neither would I count bullfighting, which is probably why I’d mentally erased it from my first version.
But weka is spot on, while I’ve played football, a bit of rugby and some softball, I found climbing, tramping, kayaking … all activities that challenge your own limitations … far more engaging.
Beating other people is easy; overcoming your own fears isn’t.
and nothing wrong with that either but for me tramping is something I do for fun, I’m not really looking to challenge myself as such (except for when I haven’t done it in a while and it feels like a challenge even taking a step but I digress)
I guess the sports I’ve, mostly, gravitated to are the more team orientated ones
However the main point of the original post was what a great weekend it was for NZ sport…maybe I should have added whatever sport it is you choose to participate in 🙂
Sport for competition or sport for the sheer enjoyment, either way it’s been a pleasure to be a spectator and to share some wonderful moments this Olympics…..
to see people realise their childhood dreams and to show us and the next generation that sporting excellence is as much about the journey, the teamwork and how you participate, as it is about individual achievement.
About the only sport that I don’t find boring is Cricket.
I don’t think there’s another game that requires as much mental toughness and skill as cricket.
It’s a real rooster one moment, feather duster next sort of game ….. or over.
All that and more, absolutely. To see people from small towns like Waimate or Timaru etc and, not just compete, but succeed has been really excellent as well and if that’s not motivating enough the sheer class shown by athletes like (but not limited to) Valarie Adams will hopefully convince more women (and men of course) to strive for higher honours in their chosen sports
Yes I forgot to mention the cricket this weekend as well, they’ve done well in the bowling but the batting was looking a bit wobbly but unfortunately it looks like rain will have the final say
Just to let you all know, in Spain bullfighting is covered on the same pages as the theatre reviews and ballet performances, not in the sports section.
Of course its the establishment line, just look how the ABs are used by politicians and the media, and how someone of your viewpoint uses the subject on a political blog. Anyway Noam Chomsky says it better:
https://youtu.be/Vz1nIHv6P6Q
So I don’t like watching sports?
$27 million for one silver medal in cycling…..or $54 million for one cycling silver and the same flag.
Money well spent indeed.
Puckish Rogue said:
“I know that most of the left would prefer to be suck on a lemon then celebrate NZs sporting achievements…”
Tell us, PR, why if you believe what you have written, do you visit a Left wing blog to trumpet your support for something you believe the readers here would “rather suck on a lemon” than listen to? You’re better suited to a Right wing blog where sports fans such as yourself are all a twitter with excitement at the Olympic medal tally and the All Black win over Australia.
Don’t forget UFC 202 🙂
Probably because while most of the left do suck on lemons (see Pauls comment) not all lefties are like that, some even have comments that’re worth reading
The worst thing you can do when holding a position is to not try to understand what other peoples points of views are
If hell is other people then only existing with other people that agree with you may not be hell but it’d certainly be very boring
PR with your incorrect use of ‘ then/than’, it makes your crap hard to read.
Sucks to be you than doesn’t it
Sucks is plural, PR, so it should be ‘doesn’t they’. ☺
…and how about “then” instead of “than”
Sorry Chooky, but I think PR was displaying his form of wit, and did that error deliberately. His other many errors are through misguided political slant, and not so deliberate.
damn went completely over my head…I thought I had smarty PR on the grammar…(and I am not too hot on grammar myself)
“The worst thing you can do when holding a position is to not try to understand what other peoples points of views are ”
oh the irony
i dont have a problem with sportspeople succeeding – but i do have an issue with the way sport is overhyped, over corporatised and the pack mentality displayed by many non participants.
I would be willing to bet that many have a somewhat similar take – and one that comes across as “dont like sport” if the detail isnt there
that thing you were saying about not understanding others points of view? 🙂
i dont have a problem with sportspeople succeeding – but i do have an issue with the way sport is overhyped, over corporatised and the pack mentality displayed by many non participants
and that’s a fair point, I feel something has been lost from NZ rugby and it’ll never come back again
I recall drinking the Cook down in Dunedin (early to mid 90s) and having a look at the uni a rugby photos and just looking at all the provincial and all blacks in the photos and going to games at the ‘brook and having a great time but now…I don’t know its just not quite the same
However I’d also not want to begrudge a player making decent money from the game, they’re only a tackle away from retirement after all
But hasn’t some of the performances from the NZ Olympics team, especially the women, been impressive?
The unexpected medal from the pole vaulter was the high light for me .
Nothing like peaking at the right time.
Yeah wasn’t she impressive, hitting a PB at the exact time she needed it. I personally think Natalie Rooney was one of the, many, highlights for me
I’m stoked when I hit two clay birds in a row so I was just sitting getting more and more excited about her prospects and her attitude to silver was equally as impressive, she’ll be a good bet for 2020
Very nice but the medal is not worth the same as Isinbayeva the world champion was not permitted to compete.
There’s an obvious answer: two Olympics, one drug free and one drugged up to the eyeballs.
Trouble with that is that we’ve seen the results with WWE wrestlers. Very high death rate in middle age.
Dunno if sports really deserve the “one crowded hour” attitude.
Not just WWE, McFlock. Plenty of athletes, cyclists, body builders and others have died early, Florence Griffith Joyner being probably the most famous. Lord knows how many from Eastern Europe have died over the last few decades because it’s always been easier to hide the stats there.
I suspect if there were two Olympics, one clean the other not so much, the public would prefer the clean one. But Sky TV would happily show both.
well, that’s capitalism for ya.
Hi TRP, I had hoped [Deleted. No referring to what you think is my real life identity, please. TRP] would have given you more respect for due process and natural justice.
Isinbayeva is a two time Olympic gold medalist and three times world champion. She has been pole vault champion at at least four other major international competitions. Each of these events had independent drug testing before and after. AFAIK she was found clean each and every time.
So for her to be banned as a drug cheat as part of the collective punishment of the Russian athletics team and not be given any chance for individual appeal based on her outstanding record to date is nothing short of political and malicious.
You shouldn’t excuse it.
CV, the sad fact is that Russian athletics is horribly tainted. I’ve no issue with Isinbayeva or any individual. But all of them were trained and employed under a regime that routinely cheated. It’s unfortunate for her not to be able to go to Rio if she was genuinely clean, but the likelihood is that she wasn’t. Even if she was unaware of what was happening (again, unlikely) the damage is done. It’s not the Olympic gold medal that has been diminished, as she claims, it’s her own record that is now suspect. And that’s the fault of the people she trusted to administer her sport at home, not the IOC.
btw, she hasn’t been world champ for ages and coming back after a break of a few years suggests she probably would have struggled to make the grade at Rio. Unless she had, ahem, help 😉
Yes I can sense your “sadness”. Collective punishment and collective guilt without individual right of appeal then.
From wikipedia
And again, despite your ungenerous assertions, she tested clean in both the pre and post Olympic drug testing regime.
The sadness is genuine. I’d much prefer that the workers in that industry weren’t being abused by their employers. But we can’t change the past, only influence the future.
ps, you probably need to look up ‘collective punishment’. It’s not what you appear to think it is.
Seems like an appropriate use of the term.
If you think that after reading the definition, you’re a goose.
Isinbayeva was let down by her country’s inability to demonstrate its athletes aren’t drug cheats.
Russia definitely has had a drug cheat problem amongst some of its athletes.
Having said that, 2/3 of its Olympic team (except the athletics section) was finally cleared to compete at Rio so I think that the Russian drug testing regime isn’t as porous as is sometimes made out in the MSM.
Sounds pretty evenhanded then – they only barred the section with the endemic cheating problem
And they’ve now banned the Russian para-olympians too. The Olympics finest hour.
well, maybe the Russians should have tried harder to prevent drug cheats.
It would be malicious and arbitrary to not allow individual para-olympians with clean drug records to appeal the collective decision and submit to additional testing protocols.
Well, that depends on how long the drugs have a benefit after they’re out of the system, doesn’t it? For example, if they bulk up muscle mass during training and carry that through (now “drug free”) to rio. Or whether you need a verifiable baseline to detect sudden spikes invarious drugs or hormones. Or whatever.
Frankly, I have no idea. Nor do you. Maybe your suggestion would be fair, or maybe quite frankly the russian drug testing debacle has genuinely tainted the entire team and there’s no way to make a plausible determination that any of them are clean.
So, its to be a judgement of collective guilt with zero right of appeal and no means of proving innocence then?
Sounds fair and square.
National sports bodies wanting their athletes to compete at international events need to abide by the rules to ensure a fair competition.
For any individual athlete to compete at a top-level international event, their participation is dependant on the competence and integrity of their support staff and organisations, from coaches and doctors to their national sports organisations.
If those national sports bodies systematically failed to do that, then those athletes should rightly blame the sports body that failed to stick to the rules. Just like if an athlete is given a performance enhancing drug by a doctor who failed to ensure they abided by the rules, the athlete should blame the doctor, not the international body.
Wasn’t there some fuckup last olympics or so when a NZ athlete almost didn’t get to compete because someone in our sports organisation fucked up some paperwork? Same deal with Russia, only they fucked up the process for an entire team.
Yet countries like Kenya and Jamaica have practices that allow for systemic doping and their athletes are given the all clear.
If that were true they should have been banned as well.
and that’s a fair point, I feel something has been lost from NZ rugby and it’ll never come back again
It’s so robotic and structured it’s just become boring, used to enjoy watching Rugby but haven’t seen a game in years
Last game was the All black world cup final in 2011, god it was dull, no flair at all it’s like the players have chips in their heads and the coaches were controlling the players .
I’m finding the rubgy played by the All Blacks to be “total” rugby but I’ve found the exposure of the Super teams a bit much
Having said that the evening out of the NPC competition has been a revelation with the re-emergence of the smaller centres being competitive
Just…somewhere its lost…something
re; olympics . absolutely – i’m all for giving the athletes their moment, after all, they are the ones who actually did “thing x”
not an avid follower, which has made the surprise angle even better. What really ruins it is the idiot media – on the pole vault it only took a minute or two till some egg used rugby line outs as a means to visualise the height she vaulted over – gahh!
but good lord – whats happening – i keep agreeing with you – good thing the lemon tree is going strong aye 🙂
I’ve long surmised that those on the left and those on the right that post on here probably have more things in common then not on here
Take all on the right and an approximate amount from the left, add a pub and I’m sure most would get on famously
As long as politics isn’t brought up 🙂
Odd you have not said much about our tax dollars funding the olympics, but it’s behind a pay wall…
Oh well the Swans are going well, and the Demons dropped the ball…
Sports, love what you love – personally I find the olympics dull as dish water – too much politics.
The “replies” tab is back – yay! Or…fck, I guess we get more of those interminable long streams of pointless ping-pong from ego 1 and ego 2 🙁
Maybe it’ll fall over again? 🙂
It only comes back for me after I’ve made a comment. But it only hangs around if I just click on comments. It disappears again if I do a page refresh, or go back to the front page.
I think I’m in the same boat. It just disappeared again 🙂
And should be back in a moment after I submit this comment?
edit. Yup. And then I refreshed the page and….gone again.
edit 2. And back again after editing the comment 🙂
The “Reply” button on the bottom of each comment is there, and has always worked for me – but the “Replies” has been intermittent for some time now and mostly nothing appears when clicked. Never mind – I’ll live with it :).
It does seem to be interrupting the conversations though, because it makes it harder to find what one was talking about. I’m guessing people are mostly going with the convo that is in front of them.
Yip, it’s still broken. Lynn hasn’t had any time to look at it.
Excellent interview on Morning Report …what a wonderful woman!
‘Medicial cannabis campaigner brings more into NZ – past Customs’
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/201813060/medicial-cannabis-campaigner-brings-more-into-nz-past-customs
“Medicinal marijuana campaigner Rebecca Reider has a history of bringing the drug into NZ. She suffers from chronic pain and has successfully been able to bring more into the country – straight past customs. We speak with her.”
What surprised me most about that interview is the amount of time they gave her to speak. Usually they only allot a tiny amount of time for these topics, and Suzie Ferguson keeps interrupting trying to move it on, not letting them actually say anything worthwhile.
Rebecca is also a very good poet
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11698404
A bit of a conundrum . Is it right to evict a tenant who is happy with their flat ,because the conversion of the garage is unpermitted .
Yep. Permits exist for a reason.
What isn’t right is that they were there in the first place, rather than a decent state house.
Wouldn’t it be better to work with the owner to get it permitted if possible.
Well, we don’t know if it’s possible. Maybe between everything else in the lot, the site isn’t zoned for that many residences.
Phil Twyford at Te Puea Marae in first open meeting to discuss the impacts of homelessness in our Society. This inquiry into Homelessness is bipartisan and is conducted by the Labour Party, the Green Party NZ and of course the Maori Party.
Notable absent – the Party that supposedly runs the government but then it is a government for some and not for all. Surely we can find Mrs. Bennett, Mr. English and Mr. Smith sipping latte in Mount Eden or another equally nice place so as to not disturb their pretty minds.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1182604225138444&set=a.112303772168500.13663.100001666321260&type=3&theater
On the topic of water:
‘India’s water crisis: 8 liters for 7 days, for drinking and all other needs (RT DOCUMENTARY)’
https://www.rt.com/news/356679-india-water-crisis-documentary/
…”The people in India are one of the first to experience a crisis which within 15 years will affect everyone on the planet, according to scientists’ warnings. And it might be the most devastating one humankind has ever faced.”
Watch the documentary “H2WOE” on RT and RTD, premiering on September 22.
https://youtu.be/uuUgIYtTtNc
This is really bad news.
And here in NZ we treat our fresh water with shit.
lol…yes very ironic…if you are not prone to despair
Trump statue removed.
“NYC Parks stands firmly against any unpermitted erection in city parks, no matter how small,” a spokesperson told AFP in an email.
Haha!
Something which cannot be unseen. (nsfw or sensitive souls)
http://i.imgur.com/i5kZoAU.jpg
my eyes! Oh god no!
Sag and stretch
lol…
communication is the art of breaking a few eggs for making an omelette,as opposed to the internecine squawks of the big and little endians.
https://medium.com/@nntaled/how-to-legally-own-another-person-4145a1802bf6#.ej7yhhr15
its a wow.
The Herald have an interview with an American academic who is involved in a campaign to get a woman as UN Secretary General.
She appears to be living about 200 years in the past, when all communication would have been hand-written and carried for months in a sailing vessel. In those days Ambassadors really did have to make decisions on behalf of their country.
The reason Helen is not doing too well in the contest is, according to her, because 14 of the 15 “people” on the Security Council are men. Ignoring the fact that there are 15 countries rather than people on the Council I find it rather strange that she seems to think that is the people who head their countries delegation to the UN who decide who to vote for rather than the country they represent.
The Herald says
“She said on the Security Council itself, there were 14 men and the only woman was US Ambassador Samantha Power”
and then quote the woman, a Dr Jean Krasno, as saying
“They all know each other, they’ve all evolved over time with an old boys’ club. And that’s what always happens, they network, so they vote for them. It’s just old boy networking.”
I bet you didn’t know that it isn’t the New Zealand Government who decide who we are going to vote for but the head of our delegation to the UN. His name, for anyone who isn’t familiar with this seemingly very powerful individual, is Gerard van Bohemen. I wonder what he has been up to? Along with the representatives of Russia, China, Great Britain and so on.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11698804
I feel rather sorry for Krasno’s students if this is the sort of thing she seems to believe.
A response to alwyn’s little flame war attempt:
http://i.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/83391128/Has-New-Zealand-held-back-on-the-Security-Council-because-of-Helen-Clark
I fail to see what sort of flame war you are talking about.
I was merely pointing out how far from reality that US academic seems to be.
I also don’t really see what connection your article has to my original comment.
Surely you would accept that her opinions about the various countries representatives at the UN doing what they want to rather than what their Governments tell them to do is irrational?.
Early indications that the Vancouver property bubble has popped and that investors local and foreign are running for the exits.
We’ll know more if this is truly the case over the next 4 to 8 weeks as more sales data comes out.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-08-21/vancouver-housing-market-implodes-smart-money-scrambles-get-out-now
24.5% price drop over 3 months is eye watering
Mind you only a slight dip year on year so if you bought in early 2015 you’re still in the black.
Heh! I see your 24.5% drop and raise you 24.6%:
https://www.biv.com/article/2016/7/Metro-Vancouver-housing-prices-continue-uptrend-in/
It looks like sales have stalled at the top end, but the bubble continues to expand. That’s probably what will happen in Ak at some point; the rich will back out of the market, but the middle class will remain trapped in the cycle of debt and demand.
Indeed, the median and average prices can move differently depending on which part of the market collapses first/more.
John Campbell is dealing now with water pollution in Hawke’s Bay.
Crikey!
Water quality, in for example Tuki Tuki River is awful!
Must get a replay.
Dreadful!
Good work Paul. How did you do that?
Just copy and paste the Youtube link for RNZ.
https://www.youtube.com/user/radionz/videos
Charter Schools: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver