(it’s always a good idea to start yr day with a belly-laff..and this one’ll do it for ya..)
..parker has had his thinking cap on…
..and he has come up with what really ails labour..
..and hold onto your seats..!..it’s the colour red…
(..and the fact that labour supporters are members of ‘a cult’..(!)..)
..no no..!..c’mon..!..hear him out..!
“..Like a cult and too red – Parker on Labour..(ed:..breaking news..!..parker has discovered what labours’ problems are..it’s the colour red..(!)..(who knew..?..)
(ed:..any reader-suggestions for a new colour from/for labour..?
..i reckon a pale-blue wd pretty much nail it..eh..?..
..and well done! to that parker ..eh.?
..for his keen analysis/solutions to all that ails labour..
Like, Labour is not National Lite already!!!
SMH in disbelief.
I hope he gets sucked into a black hole of political oblivion, or just switch on to leading ACT. That would suit his ideology I suppose.
Obviously Parker hasn’t any acquaintances who worship the colour blue. I had several conversations before the election with diehard National voters who constantly spoke of the importance of the colour blue *nudge, nudge, wink, wink*.
I can imagine your parties – a whole lot of slobs having a fart competition and boasting about the sexual conquests they’d have if feminism hadn’t turned women against them. Hmm, a bit like Sealord Jones and Back Pussy Tamihere mixed with Jamie Whyte Power and Simon Bridges. Yuck.
Anyone hear Suzie Ferguson’s interview of Len Brown on Morning Report?
The whole tine and content sounded like Cameron Slater provided her with the direction for the interview.
Dirty Politics alive and well.
And now on Morning Report.
Disgraceful.
Really rude interviewing. Gotcha stuff. Rather than any discussion about the need to extend rail. Why does she have to do it that way – she seems to have a particular hatred of mayors of the left because she does the same to Lianne Dalziel.
ALL of morning reports interviews are like this – gyon only looked good on the JK/dirty pol one because of the dumb answers the PM gave – not because the interview method changed
The problem I have framu, what does one listen to or see first thing in the morning for local news
You’ve got Gyon on Morning Report, That dick called Christy complete with simpering sidekick on TV One, and soon we will have prat Henry on Three.
Definitely a need for a completely independent news channel.
@ Paul
I noticed something in her interview on – Does NZ want elite universities? where she was hammering the bit about the salaries perhaps being too high as a way of bringing fees down. They do truly compete against overseas in this, unlike our many CEOs, economists and service providers to gummint who talk their own increments up and up.
Also MPs who are two a penny, and probably should be judged for salary increases from that level!
She let one question get away and that was the amount spent on advertising and promotion, which the speaker assured here was tiny compared to their overall budget, of which salaries amounted to 60%. I believe advertising can be around $2 million which if halved could provide $1m of discretionary money, a useful amount. And does that sum include PR also, which seems to have ballooned as a sapper of budgets in many government-related organisations.
A good point made was that the cpi measures certain household requirements and unis have disproportionate high labour costs so really aren’t so concerned about household matters. (For instance, the rise in the price of cabbages, which was quoted one year when the CPI had risen strongly in the vegetable ‘basket’).
The fact is the educators and researchers are underpaid, micro managed and controlled, while a new class of University “managers” are getting the dosh.
But hose organisations that do need them need competent ones, not managers who are merely competent at climbing the corporate ladder and empire-building.
No, I’m pretty sure that there’s no organisations that need managers. They may need some administration types, and good ones at that, but not managers.
During a debate in the House of Lords, [Lord Freud] appeared to describe the changing number of disabled people likely to receive the employment and support allowance as a “bulge of, effectively, stock”. After a furious response by the people he was talking about, this was transcribed by Hansard as “stopped”, rendering the sentence meaningless. I’ve listened to the word several times on the parliamentary video. Like others, I struggle to hear it as anything but “stock”.
If we’re right, he is not the only person at his department who uses this term. Its website describes disabled people entering the government’s work programme for between three and six months as “3/6Mth stock”. Perhaps this makes sense when you remember that they are a source of profit for the companies running the programme. The department’s delivery plan recommends using “credit reference agency data to cleanse the stock of fraud and error”. To cleanse the stock: remember that.
Is it reassuring or sinister that in the comments of this article by George Monbiot there are people who think this article is an over-reaction to computer language? It’s the programs that call people ‘stock’ and no problem that humans are just repeating it, they don’t really think like that, they say.
Sorry can’t agree with you on that one TRP
I worked for one particular company for over 20 years, The owner who was an officer and a gentleman and a war hero would refer to any member of his staff as a valued member of the company. I am sure he would have been horrified if they were referred as a “human resource.”
We know businesses need resources, but there is not the need to refer to staff as some form of stock item. to be used and abused and possibly sold off in end of year sales.
I have just noticed, I had another silly old sod (SOS) moment
That word creped should have been crept. Ah well, suppose you can’t win them all.
halfcrown- The best I heard in a corporate report and actually used by an HR relative of mine a few years ago was ‘human capital’ but the term doesn’t seem to have taken off.
Shame..I’d already prepared a response (more vehement than halfcrown’s) to the first person who referred to me as human capital but I think Key & co. consider NZ workers as human capital.
Don’t mind ‘Personnel’ as it seems to still regard employees (and employers) as persons.
So David Parker thinks that the colour red is Labour’s problem…..I would have thought it was the colour yellow.
If not the coward’s colour perhaps the white flag of surrender?
All our State houses are to be emptied and sold, NZ is to be plunged into a Middle East War and white collar fraud has been proven to be bleeding our society dry….and this doofus is on about colours and how passionate he can be.
Meanwhile, yesterday (I guess because I was signed up as a Green Party volunteer for the last election), I got an email from Metiria Turei saying the campaign for next election starts today. It asks for donations and lays out the principles for the next election:
We’ll be the best MPs we can be, pushing for our policies wherever we can. And we’ll re-engage young people and disenfranchised voters.
We’re aiming to make sure every New Zealander knows we care about developing a fairer, cleaner and smarter New Zealand all of the time, not just because there’s an election.
[…]
Each election becomes more important than the last. This National government keeps trashing our precious environment and increasing the gap between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’.
It’s up to us to think about our long term future and the planet’s survival. The Green Party’s future role depends on us starting the campaign for 2017 today!
That is pretty much what the Greens always do. their aim is to work with any party if it will further th GP agenda. The outcome last term highlighted the differences between Nats and the Greens’ policies, resulting in Nats rebuffing them.
I expect pretty much the same this time round – the Greens therefore highlight just how radically right wing Key’s government is.
Used carefully that refusal can be used to embarass JK as much as possible.
BTW what is it with Nact and others suggesting that the Greens stick only to enviroment policies. The Greens can do as they please, without Nact;’s loud controlling voice .
At the moment the Greens go for sustainable business practices, hardly anti growth, more like a rechannel of effort, and sharing what we have equally.
Some one a little scared perhaps?
I’d like to see Russell/Meretai front footing some of the ‘ we have better business idea’s than you lot because you pinch them”
BTW what is it with Nact and others suggesting that the Greens stick only to enviroment policies.
National are trying to kill off the Greens. They know as well as I do that single issue parties haven’t got snowball’s chance in a furnace of surviving.
A political party, to be relevant, needs to address all of a societies issues.
National’s mates are delusional if they think they can load all the costs of resource depletion and climate change, while they continue with profligate lifestyles, onto the “untermensch” without the pitchforks.
“Capitalism doesn’t work without socialism”.
Greens are hardly extreme, with policies that would have been considered mainstream by Holyoak’s National party.;
In the media coverage that followed, the conversation coalesced around a central idea: even if promised, is privacy truly achievable?
Personally, I still work on the idea that nothing I do on the internet is anonymous.
For the internet to work the computers need to track the data that is sent and received. Cannot get away from that. Even if geo-tagging is turned off the IP address will give the receivers of data packets from you a reasonable idea as to where you are. The telco will know precisely where you are.
The question isn’t whether the data will be recorded, it will be. The question is who gets to look at it afterwards and when.
And, the Flickr Vision team has been working for the last year or so to be able to recognize more than 1000 things in images using deep convolutional neural nets. Incidentally, one of the things we’re pretty good at recognizing is birds!
Interesting that Metiria Turei has been receiving calls from National voters urging the Greens to team up with the Nats because these Nat voters are feeling guilty about voting for Key etc.
well blow me down with a feather ….. expect more as this term goes on …. it will be like the vote for mmp – where later on nobody admits to their voting.
When it comes to provisions for retirement, super etc, I suspect the default perspective many slip into, focuses more on a masculine life trajectory.
In general, women on average earn less than men, and tend to have time out from participating in the paid workforce, in order to raise children, and tend to have smaller amounts in retirement funds or investments.
Stuff has an article today about the trend towards a higher percentage of women working past 65 years, and the problems for women in low paid jobs.
The percentage of women aged 65+ in the workforce has risen from 2 per cent 20 years ago to 15 per cent today. In 20 years, people aged over 65 could occupy 12 per cent of the workforce, up from 5 per cent in 2011. By then, 30 per cent of women this age will be in paid work. Only 10 per cent of women aged 65+ with no formal qualifications are employed, compared with 23 per cent of women with post-school qualifications. Women are now more educated than men in all age brackets except for those over 60.
Well, PI and Maori men, though given secondary consideration, do tend to get more focus in the debates, than do women generally.
Yes, Pakeha men are the dominant consideration with respect to assumptions about life trajectories of older people.
Maori and Pacific men are likely to be in a much more difficult situation as they get older, than Pakeha men, and than large numbers of Pakeha women
But the varying situations of women are generally given even less consideration in the debates.
Women on low pay, especially those with no formal education qualifications, and including a high proportion of Maori and Pacific women, are often in a very difficult position as they get older. They often need to keep working for the income. It’s harder for such women to find work as they get older. And on average they tend to live about 4-5 years longer than Maori or Pacific men.
Such women probably need both super at 65 years, plus at least some part time work, because they are unlikely to have any further savings or investments.
Also, people tend to talk of boomers as all being wealthy, owning their own homes, etc. Yet the stats in the article say that women over 60 overall have fewer formal educational qualifications than younger women.
Yep. Men consistently earn more than women in the same position, and also tend to get higher positions.
NB I was referring to the big difference between PI/Maori earning power vs Pakeha earning power. My sense is that being PI or Maori instead of Pakeha is actually a bigger factor in pay inequality than gender.
The biggest indicator of future earnings is the socio-economic status of your parents and grandparents. Which disproportionately effects Maori, and PI, and totally refutes the idea that New Zealand is a meritocracy where we have “equality of opportunity”.
(The other big indicator, for boys and girls, is the education level of their mother)
I wonder how much it is skewed by what I see around me. Young women in all the retail and service jobs. Young men, especially Maori, without jobs. If you are a young Maori male you would have to be very highly educated to get a job.
Of course it means that the only young Maori males with jobs are in the higher paid ones.
Sue Bradford’s bill advocating openness about pay would have identified whether the problem is gender, or something more complex. Then we could have argued from fact, not impressions.
There is a whole other discussion about how keeping pay rates secret suits employers, and those who discriminate.
With National awards a non-union shop assistant or office worker could point to what the Union members were getting, as a benchmark.
Many of those who reckon they do not need Unions are totally unaware of how much they benefited by the foundations set in wages and conditions by Unions.
There is a whole other discussion about how keeping pay rates secret suits employers, and those who discriminate.
There’s a lot of stuff that’s kept secret because of privacy that benefits the business class. Stuff that shouldn’t be kept private because it affects others thus making it public.
They also , thanks to our judge made laws, get very little out of marriage breakdown, shoulder the bulk of the $ costs of raising the kids, as well as providing the free childcare, and meet any costs for the over 18 crowd. Women should be able to attach the super of the male parent – why not?
A book just published by Bridget Williams here The Picketty Phenomenon- A NZ Perspective. On Radionz this morning there were three commenters Geoff Bertram, Donal Curtin, Susan Guthrie from the Morgan phenomenon! http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player/20154344
What I have taken from this is not necessarily right but this is how it seems. The idea is to reshape the tax system to reflect fairly where wealth is being produced – from investments etc. The Morgan study on tax is taking the view that all assets should be taxed and that would include the family home. But the tax would be on the individual’s own investment, so it would be a tax on unrealised income from that.
That may be fair on a macro level, but an income-poor person with a house shouldn’t have to sell the house so as to be able to pay for the tax on it, on top of all the other costs relating to house owning including rates, maintenance, repairs. Or sell it to someone else who can afford to pay the tax and outlay for the other costs, and rent it from them. The poor person would then change position from an asset holder to a less certain position as a renter. Which could happen.
It is hard on the poor trying for some social upward mobility and security to have a tax on even part of their house value, that would cause their small amount of discretionary money, available for their non-necessity needs and wants, to transfer to the disposable part from which they must pay for the fixed and other costs imposed by authorities, and service providers.
It is likely they will be stretched to pay their mortgage, which usually will be principal and interest from which banks make considerable income, which is really unearned income. Perhaps the banks should be paying the tax on the property. which is only the buyer’s by convention, and while the payments are made promptly. Under the mortgage the property can be claimed by the bank and sold for recovery in a very short time, a fortnight or month, after failure of the mortgagor to pay their required instalment owing on the required date.
Radionz Notes.
09:20 The Piketty Phenomenon
The global debate on taxing wealth, sparked by economist Thomas Piketty and his proposals for improving income equality. Piketty’s thesis is contained in his bestselling book Capital in the Twenty-First Century.
The new book, The Piketty Phenomenon collects New Zealand responses to Thomas Piketty’s argument that inherited wealth will always grow faster, on average, than earned wealth.
Three New Zealand economists discuss Piketty’s thesis in the New Zealand context – Geoff Bertram is a research associate at the Institute for Governance and Policy Studies at Victoria University; Susan Guthrie is the co-author of the 2011 book, The Big Kahuna with Gareth Morgan which argued for significant tax and welfare reform to redistribute wealth; and Donal Curtin is the former chief economist at the BNZ and now works as a consultant.
A wealth or capital gains tax, can be net. After interest.
Note that if I build a spec house, I have to pay tax on it, whereas the many people in Auckland whose house prices have risen hundreds of thousands, through no effort of theirs, pay nothing.
And that is why we get housing bubbles and why political parties have such difficulty implementing a CGT. Lazy people looking for the easy way to become rich rather than going out and working for it.
Yes its frakking annoying. Working for a living barely pays in comparison to speculating on bits of ticky tacky construction materials thrown together.
Youth are the new poor and the new underclass …Unless they have rich parents they will never be able to afford a house…let alone tertiary education debt and in particular postgraduate tertiary education …. both in Britain and in New Zealand… Youth have been sold out! …Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss and Prof Antal Fekete gives further background.
“In this episode of the Keiser Report, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss Johnny Rotten challenging Russell Brand and offer the show as a platform for a debate between the two. Max notes that quantitative easing is the central bank equivalent of punk rock gobbing. They highlight several of the many market distortions similar to the insanity leading up to the 1929 market crash – including $140,000 AUD cats.
In the second half, Max continues with his interview of Professor Antal Fekete of FeketeResearch.com about how the 1921 bond market collapse led the US Federal Reserve & Treasury conspiring to illegally introduce open market operation, leading to a situation in which profits in the bond market are risk free while profits in the commodity market are NOT risk free.
* Yet she says she did not consult with Cunliffe before making her decision.
Cunliffe had already given his endorsement to Andrew Little by then and did not change that after Mahuta entered. Mahuta said she had not asked him to.
*”Cunliffe’s decision around the leadership was his. I had no influence over that.”
However, she said he had faced “real challenges” in his year as leader and makes it clear they were from within Labour.
“His closest supporters understood the extent of those challenges, but he didn’t let it deter him from trying to do the best job he could do to get into Government in 2014. You do what you’ve got to do. He was focussed on looking in front of him, but it is hard if leaders are having to look behind them as well.”
* She insists she is not simply positioning for deputy. “People will be assessed on their merits and ability to contribute. If I’m not successful it’s up to the leader to decide.”
*When told she’s a gutsy woman, she replied “got to give it a whirl.”
Mahuta is mother to two young children responsibilities outside Parliament with Tainui. Asked whether she’ll cut some of her tribal work if she is leader, she said she is a woman “and women multitask”. “Women can do amazing things and still continue to be mums.” She said she would wind back some of the tribal work if she was leader.
* Little known fact: She has tattoos of her children’s names on her feet.
Well, since she has now said she is serious about being leader, and not just being deputy, then I am prepared to listen closely to what she has to say and to consider whether to rank her as #1.
Chris Bishop is a future Prime Minister after Sir John retires after a record six terms.
[lprent: I really don’t appreciate diversion trolls at the top of a post. Sure it referred to something in the post. However it had absolutely nothing to do with the actual topic of the post.
Moved to OpenMike and be warned that the next such comment will incur a harsh ban. ]
“Finally, there seem to be some who believe that within the Labour Party there is a small clique of Rogernomic moles who are waiting to regain control of the party. Last time round they supported David Cunliffe, this time they seem to be endorsing Andrew Little, who I am sure is far too sensible to want to be associated with such nonsense.”
That is an interesting way of saying the ABC club is a figment of our imagination! Grant has persuaded him that the core backers of Cunliffe are accusing the ABC of being Rogernomes. That is not the case IMO. Some, like Shearer and Nash, definitely are. I believe that the majority see the ABC club as a bunch of self serving pricks with an over-baked sense of entitlement and lacking in any serious philosophical point of view.
And I thought Cullen is an honourable man.
I have known him since he was an electorate MP.
He has been astute on many issues but, now as a retired senior statesman, having the mana of an elder within the Party, his latest piece really raises questions about him wading into the Primary, lobbying for a particular candidate and revealing the kind of judgment or wisdom that he still may have.
Does his latest move set an example or precedent for other retired senior Parliamentarians to follow?
Who is next in the line of august, esteemed retired Parliamentarians to step forward to lobby for his/her preferred candidate?
Cullen has shown poor communication skills when he talks about the Rogernomic group. He makes it sound like they supported Cunliffe, whereas I thought it was the opposite.
I think that what we need to remember is that Cunliffe was essentially a great conservative manager of the economy. He put in place a low wage, high cost economy and kept taxes slightly lower by the trick of having the state owned power companies charge very high prices. He subsidised employers and further marginalised beneficiaries with Working For Families. That he can support Robertson without mentioning the petulant anti-Cunliffe outbursts does not impress me at all.
Labour is the party that was built by working Kiwis for working Kiwis. We are still that party.
But we have to get our house in order. Because if we don’t then all we have is a bunch of good intentions gone to waste.
We need to fix the machine. We need to bring the pieces of the Labour movement back together and focus them on winning government and making changes we need to to build a fair society.
It’s a big task but it’s one we need to address one step at a time. First we need a caucus that communicates effectively within itself and with focus. Getting to that point will be the first job for the new Leader. Then the Leader and caucus need to reach out to the party and ensure they work well within themselves. Then we need to work alongside our affiliates.
We must find a common cause, within the movement, and with the many, many New Zealanders who want something better for themselves and for their families.
If we don’t find common cause as a movement we will never earn the trust of New Zealanders.
I can do this. I have done this before.
When I became the leader of the EPMU, one of New Zealand’s largest and most powerful unions, it was a house divided. I led the project to bring it together, to modernise it, to bring through new talent. I built a union which took our member’s issues out to the public, to the media, and won the argument again and again. We covered a lot of ground and during that time I dealt with organisations from small business to New Zealand’s biggest corporates on many different issues.
The one unifying thing, across all of these issues, was fairness. We got fair outcomes for our members and for New Zealand workers across the board because we worked together.
We are a party of immensely talented people. But right now we’re working as individuals, not as a collective movement.
We must fix this. We can.
We need to regain New Zealanders’ trust. We need them to know that when we make a promise, we can deliver. We need them to know we stand for them and their ambitions. Not just against what’s wrong but for what is right.
As part of that we must acknowledge the trust MÄori put in Labour in delivering us six of the the seven MÄori seats. They are our voters and we must make good on their return to us. We must ensure that MÄori are represented well within Labour and that advancing their aspirations is a cornerstone of our Party. That’s what being representative is about.
People have asked me why I’m standing. I’m standing because I believe in Labour’s values. I believe in fairness and justice for workers, for families, for all New Zealanders. People aren’t getting a fair go right now, and I won’t tolerate a society in which the very few at the top gain at the expense of the many.
I won’t tolerate a society in which good jobs are destroyed and replaced with insecure work, in which people in the middle are squeezed tighter and tighter by the cost of living and have no way to get ahead. A society in which those at the bottom fall off the edge of the cliff.
These are the principles I have stood for throughout my life and they have been at the core of how I have led. They are the principles that the Labour Party embodies.
But to stand up for those principles we must be a united Party with new ideas and a real plan to win back the trust of New Zealanders.
I can bring the party together. I have the track record to prove it.
Thus far, Andrew Little is saying best… all the things I’ve been thinking for many years. I’m coming more and more to the view he’s the one to lead Labour out of the wilderness. Strong, forthright, doesn’t suffer fools gladly. Just what the party needs.
Given his years with the EPMU he will be accustomed to sticking with the job at hand and not letting others set the narrative for him. Also, they have spent a lot of their vitriol on Cunliffe – it would be hard for them to repeat the same act convincingly. I am very sad about all David Cunliffe has been forced to endure.
@ Tracey
He’s big enough, strong enough to either ignore it or treat it with the contempt it deserves. He’s well known and been around a long time. In one way or another he has assisted thousands upon thousands of workers in the past 30 years, so I doubt that meme will have the kind of outcome his detractors will be hoping for.
I even suspect the media will not buy into it for the simple reason some of them probably have cause to be grateful for his ‘assistance’ in days gone by.
fair comment about media. hadnt thought of that aspect. didnt cunliffe ignore their antics too?
i was saddened to read that when murdochs papers went rabid on whitlam journos went on strike… saddened cos it was done and they are too self interested here to consider such a stance.
Agreed Anne. The EPMU represent journalists and so he will know most of them reasonably well in different circumstances – even those that did not join the union.
Most people can see through the fact this was written after the election, once Armstrong’s slavish support got the Tories in.
I have no respect for him as a journalist.
The CEO is working with board member Georgina Te Heu Heu to make Maori Television a propaganda channel for the Maori Party and the National Party. Mihi Forbes will be next on their list to be pushed out the door.
And what a tragedy that will be … she is delightful with her incisive brilliance. She and John Campbell are the last lights still burning through the fog.
Looks like Little made the best impression. Love this from him:
Tracy Watkins:
Now Little takes a real swipe at the party and the caucus and has a crack at them for “flailing and faffing about” while injustice occurs.
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One of the challenges of working on illegal wildlife markets, is you don’t really have scope to talk about your research into illegal wildlife markets. There is some stuff though that willbe coming out on Asiatic black bears in China, and before Covid19, I was delving more into rhinos. Which ...
Some are surprised at this sudden brain implosion on the part of both Michelle Boag, former National Party President, and the National Party in general, in exposing the private, confidential details of COVID patients. Others…? Let’s be blunt: not so much. Too many of that Party have long operated with ...
Michelle Boag - Former National Party PresidentWhen Todd Muller decided not to discipline Hamish Walker for his horribly racist press release last week, you had to wonder if his lack of proper leadership had something to do with a shared belief system? After all, the whiteness of the blue “team” ...
On Twitter today, lawyer Felix Geiringer asked a good question: why are MP's exempt from the Privacy Act? The Act imposes its obligations on "agencies", and s8 of the 2020 Act states that this term does not include... a member of Parliament in their official capacity The 1993 Act, ...
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nzWhat was the climate and sea level like at times ...
So now we know, beyond all doubt. The National party has no interest in joining the “team of five million” in our fight against the pandemic but its priority is to take every opportunity it can to damage the government. The cynicism is breathtaking. It was prepared to leak the ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters The massive dust storm that formed over the Sahara Desert in mid-June invaded the southeastern U.S. June 25-28, bringing dangerous levels of air pollution, low visibility, and colorful sunsets. The air pollution event over parts of Texas and the Gulf ...
In 1987, as a British Labour MP, I was elected to the Shadow Cabinet by my colleagues and was asked by the party leader to direct Labour’s campaign in the general election of that year. The election was to take place at the height of Mrs Thatcher’s dominance and we ...
National MP Nicola WillisHousing, which I would argue is a fundamental human right, has long been a problem in New Zealand. Not only do we have some of the most overpriced houses in the entire world, much of the housing stock is substandard and therefore affects not just people’s health ...
If the government has not lined up behind a "Yes" vote in this year's cannabis referendum the way some reformers would have liked, one entirely laudable thing it did do was commission some science around the public's choice.That science landed today, in the form of the report from an expert ...
Associate Professor Sara WaltonAt the heart of the discussion on opening up our borders is the dichotomy of health and the economy – both of which are actually intertwined, like many things with our economy, as this epidemic has shown.If we think about our country as a system, ...
This is a re-post from Carbon Brief by Josh Gabbatiss This year will see the largest ever drop globally in both investment and consumer spending on energy as the coronavirus pandemic hits every major sector, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). The crisis is accelerating the shutdown of older fossil-fuelled ...
A short opinion piece – Friday 26th June 2020 Whilst our Government has treated many financial victims of the current Covid-19 virus with appropriate generosity, the same cannot be said for those of the two earlier “epidemics” in NZ. The “Covid-84” virus (also called “Rogernomics”) spread systemic greed, with the ...
Everyone deserves a a decent life. We know this is possible with a fairer approach to income support and tax Read the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand’s Poverty Action Plan here ...
After a long break, the government is back inserting secrecy clauses in legislation. This time its the Overseas Investment Amendment Bill (No 3), which in its clause allowing Ministers to exempt purchasers of farm land from the usual rules also allows them to exempt an exemption from the publication requirement: ...
Over the past two years the government has repeatedly delayed a scheme to put cameras on boats to monitor Mew Zealand's pervasively criminal fishing industry. But it turns out that the industry actually wants cameras: Three of the country's biggest seafood companies have broken ranks with the rest of the ...
Louise Delany (public health lawyer)Health and emergency laws have played a critical role in this country’s successful elimination of community transmission of the COVID-19 pandemic. This blog details key aspects of the legislation and comments on issues around testing, payments by incoming travellers for quarantine costs, and mask use. ...
I like Andrew Curry’s succinct and insightful futures blog The Next Wave. His most recent post is about social change. In particular, the decadal-long periods usually required for changes in values. He highlights a 2016 paper by Inglehart and Norris, who examined whether economic insecurity or a “cultural backlash” ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... Story of the Week... Stop making sense: why it's time to get emotional about climate changeThe science has been settled to the highest degree, so now ...
MONDAY JULY 6Washington (History, Sky 073, 7.30pm). The brilliant Doris Kearns Goodwin is the executive producer of this six-part series about America's first president. It combines interviews with live action and is narrated by Jeff Daniels. It's engaging, said Salon.TUESDAY JULY 7The ABC Murders (Prime, 8.30pm). Sarah Phelps has done incredible things with ...
I think we can all agree that the mainstream media in New Zealand has a very different set of rules for the right wing compared to the left. While Labour and Green Party politicians don’t seem to be able to fart without it becoming a sackable offence, National and Act ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, June 28 through Sat, July 4, 2020Editor's Choice'2040': A funny, entertaining, upbeat climate documentaryA timely Australian documentary takes a 'solutions' approach, with the filmmaker inspired by visions of ...
Racist National MP Hamish WalkerEven before Todd Muller's coup ousted Simon Bridges by a single vote, it was patently obvious that the National Party promotes and stands for white privilege. In fact they’ve always worked to ensure the discriminatory status quo in New Zealand doesn’t change.So it’s no surprise that ...
Dave HeatleyZero community transmission. Just a handful of active cases, all in quarantine. New Zealand is in an attractive situation, at least compared to much of the world. The situation could be robust and enduring – or it might be fragile, just one border incursion away from a “second ...
Is the consequence of the Simpson Report proposals for restructuring the health system poorer accountability to people? When in doubt, centralise‘ has been a persistent theme in New Zealand public policy throughout our history. The current government is no exception. Here are some examples. - The regional polytechs have been ...
I wrote earlier in the week about the Scientology front organisations Drug Free World and Drug Free Ambassadors and their quite prominent role in anti-cannabis reform "coalition" assembled by Family First and a newloca branch of the American prohibitionist organisation SAM.It turns out Family First aren't the only ones helping ...
Nik GreenMuch of the public debate about the response to the COVID-19 pandemic has focused on the extent to which government regulations have restricted personal and business activity.Oxford University Blavatnik School of Government Here in New Zealand, the question of when to change Alert Levels dominated the ...
James Higham, University of OtagoUnprecedented border closures and the domestic lockdown have paralysed New Zealand’s $40.9 billion a year tourism industry. In the process, the vulnerability of the sector to external shocks and the tenuous nature of tourism employment have been exposed. While New Zealand’s handling of the pandemic ...
Raising The Bar: Would that the Prime Minister and her colleagues would listen as intently to what the people – as opposed to the power elites – are saying as the Greens. Were they so disposed, the popular clamour for a transformational post-Covid reset would be loud in their ears. ...
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nzDo you think the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown will slow or ...
A bit like a letter home. I have now been full-time at the University of Melbourne since 2019. Before that, I was 20 years at the University of Otago, Wellington. Indeed, I set up this very Public Health Expert Blog with Nick Wilson ten years ago. Now I am your ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections House Democrats have released a comprehensive report showing how – if they control the White House and both the Senate and the House of Representatives – they might move forward on climate change. Their “Climate Crisis Action Plan,” released June 30 by the ...
A ballot for three Member's Bills was held today, and the following bills were drawn: Electoral (Integrity Repeal) Amendment Bill (David Carter) Harmful Digital Communications (Unauthorised Posting of Intimate Visual Recording) Amendment Bill (Louisa wall) Unit Titles (Strengthening Body Corporate Governance and Other Matters) Amendment Bill (Judith ...
Not Ready: Todd Muller’s lack-lustre and self-contradictory performances offer conclusive proof that a political leader cannot be managed into competence. National’s new boss has Janet Wilson handling his media and Matthew Hooton writing his speeches. Both are highly professional political and public relations specialists, and Muller is lucky to have ...
Unfortunately, due to a medical emergency, I have landed in hospital so am not able to do a current update on the NZ blog statistics. Let’s hope I can get back to this in good time. ...
It started as a family story, about a step-father who went out one night to break into an embassy in Wadestown, Wellington. John Daniell wanted to understand what his family had been part of when his mother and then step-father work for New Zealand’s Security Intelligence. He wanted to know ...
The Greens have shaken up the election campaign with the announcement of their radical poverty and action plan to reform welfare provision and introduce a new wealth tax for millionaires. It’s a big-thinking, controversial policy and has generated a lot of disagreement over how radical it is, whether it could ...
My house is currently supplied electricity by Meridian. As soon as I can change I will because Meridian spilled water to hike electricity prices. They got consumers to spend an extra $80 million on power unnecessarily. Clever them. The Electricity Authority has called their behaviour an “undesirable trading situation”, or ...
When Jacinda Ardern unexpectedly became the Labour Party leader shortly before the 2017 general election, she promised to lead a government of transformation. After nearly three years occupying the Treasury benches, health professionals working in public hospitals have been keenly waiting for transformational progress, including in the capacity and quality ...
Last night, One News ran a follow-up story to its Colmar Brunton poll results on the cannabis referendum, headed here as Government accuses big American anti-cannabis group of interfering in NZ politics.In truth it wasn't just the government: Justice minister Andrew Little, National's Shane Reti and the Greens' Chloe Swarbrick ...
When the government refused to put cameras on fishing boats to ensure fishers obeyed the law, Fisheries Minister Stuart Nash claimed that coalition partner NZ First (which has received large donations from the fishing industry) was not responsible for the decision. He has repeated that claim repeatedly since then. But ...
Mark Patterson MP, Spokesperson for Primary Industry New Zealand First is supporting calls by hunters and the New Zealand Tahr Foundation (NZTF) to halt a large scale cull of Himalayan Tahr by the Department of Conservation in National Parks. The calls are supported by a 40,000 strong petition and the ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Leader of New Zealand First New Zealand First leader Winston Peters today scoffed at suggestions that a team of six political operatives have been dispatched to New Zealand to assist his campaign. ‘As President Ronald Reagan once said, ‘there they go again.’ ‘The clickbait journos can’t ...
New Zealand First is pleased to announce Jenny Marcroft as the party’s election 2020 candidate for the Auckland Central electorate. Jenny spent years working in Auckland Central, having spent a vast proportion of her broadcasting career there. She says she, "knows the place and knows the people." Ms Marcroft says ...
New Zealanders deserve healthy rivers and lakes that are safe to swim in - but they have been getting worse for decades. That's why, with our latest announcement, we're investing in projects that will help clean up our rivers and lakes and restore them to health, within a generation. ...
This week we moved into the second half of 2020 - and our Government delivered another week of big changes and major progress for New Zealanders. Read below for a wrap of the key things moments from the week - from extending paid parental leave, to making major investments in ...
The Green Party has opposed the COVID-19 Recovery Fast-track Consenting Bill which shortcuts normal consenting processes under the Resource Management Act (RMA), reduces public participation and narrows environmental considerations. ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister of Regional Economic Development A regional freight hub for the lower North Island will be built just northeast of Palmerston North, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones has announced. The Government is investing $40 million through the Provincial Growth Fund to designate and buy land and design ...
Green Party Co-leader Marama Davidson is calling for the introduction of a Guaranteed Minimum Income to lift hundreds of thousands of people out of poverty and prevent more families entering into further debt with the Ministry of Social Development. ...
There has been renewed focus on New Zealand First acting as a handbrake on the Government after our decision to not support Auckland light rail. We are a handbrake for bad ideas, that istrue, but our track record since 2017 has seen New Zealand First constructively also serve as an ...
Mark Patterson MP, New Zealand First List MP New Zealand First’s Fair Residency for Superannuation Bill passed its First Reading in Parliament today. The Bill makes a significant change to NZ Super by raising the minimum residency requirement from 10 to 20 years, after age 20. “Currently, a migrant of ...
Darroch Ball MP, Spokesperson for Law and Order A New Zealand First member’s bill in the name of Darroch Ball introducing a six-month minimum prison sentence for assaults on first responders has passed its second reading in Parliament. The new offence of "injuring a first responder or corrections officer with ...
Fletcher Tabuteau MP, Deputy Leader of New Zealand First New Zealand First welcomes the launch of the new Criminal Cases Review Commission, gifted with the name from Waikato-Tainui - Te Kāhui Tātari Ture, announced in Hamilton today by Justice Minister Andrew Little. “New Zealand First has long believed in and ...
The Green Party is celebrating over $800m in new funding for green projects, which will get people into jobs while solving New Zealand’s long-term challenges. ...
Mark Patterson MP, Spokesperson for Primary Industries New Zealand First is appalled that Meridian seems to have been unnecessarily spilling water from its dams to drive up its profits."While New Zealanders have been coming together in some of our darkest hours, we don’t expect power gentailers to waste water and ...
We wrapped up the first half of 2020 with a busy month, taking additional steps to support New Zealanders as we continue with our economic recovery. We rolled out targeted packages to support key industries like tourism and construction, helped create jobs in the environmental and agriculture sectors, and set ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Infrastructure Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones has welcomed the appointment of Maurice Davis and his deep infrastructure and construction experience to the board of the Infrastructure Commission. Mr Davis (Ngāti Maniapoto), is the seventh and final appointment to the board led by former Reserve Bank Governor ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Leader of New Zealand First New Zealand’s click bait journalism is taking a turn for the worse, with yet another example of sensationalist, wilful-misrepresentation of the facts. “New Zealand First has worked constructively with its Coalition partner on hundreds of pieces of legislation and policy, and ...
The Green Party is today unveiling its Poverty Action Plan, which includes a Guaranteed Minimum Income to ensure people have enough to live with dignity. ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister Fletcher Tabuteau MP, Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development The Rotorua Museum redevelopment and Whakarewarewa and Tokorangi Forest projects will be accelerated thanks to a $2.09 million Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) boost, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher ...
This week, we rolled out the next steps of our recovery plan, with new infrastructure investment, extra support for tourism operators, and a new programme to get Kiwis into agriculture careers. The global economic consequences of COVID-19 will continue to be a challenge, but we have a detailed plan to ...
Jenny Marcroft MP, Spokesperson for Health New Zealand First welcomes the passage of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission Bill through its final reading in Parliament today fulfilling a coalition agreement commitment. “This is an important step in saving the lives of New Zealanders and delivers a key coalition commitment ...
Whakatāne has been given a $2.5 million boost to speed up previously funded projects and create more than 450 jobs in the next decade. Of those, the equivalent of 160 full-time jobs could be delivered in the next six weeks. Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters is in town to make ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister Fletcher Tabuteau MP, Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) is investing $2.5 million to accelerate three infrastructure projects in Whakatāne, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau announced today. “This package is about ...
Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones is throwing his weight behind a bid by the Auckland Council to fast-track the more than doubling of the city's water allowance from the Waikato River. And he's coming out strongly against anyone who plans on getting in the way of this campaign. "It is my ...
The Green Party is thrilled to see changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that mean consents for large projects can be declined if they will have significant climate change implications that are inconsistent with the Zero Carbon Act and Aotearoa New Zealand’s Paris Agreement obligations. ...
Hon Ron Mark, Minister of Defence The Royal New Zealand Navy’s new ship, Aotearoa, set sail for New Zealand on 10 June from the Republic of Korea, and is due to arrive in Auckland tomorrow, announced Minister of Defence Ron Mark. “Aotearoa is the Royal New Zealand Navy’s new fleet ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Racing Racing Minister Winston Peters has today welcomed the Racing Industry Bill passing its third reading, creating the legislative framework for revitalising the racing industry while limiting the need for future government intervention. “For too long our domestic racing industry has ...
The Green Party has today put forward an amendment to the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill to ensure all people in prisons can vote in general elections. ...
The Green Party welcomes the decision to not proceed with Public Public Investment (PPI) delivery of Auckland’s light rail project and to instead run the process through the public service. ...
Hon Ron Mark, New Zealand First List MP based in the Wairarapa New Zealand First List MP Hon Ron Mark welcomes the announcement of Provincial Growth Funding investment of $1.4 million to help secure the Wairarapa’s water supply. The funding boost will allow the Greater Wellington Regional Council (GWRC), and ...
New Zealand First list MP Mark Patterson has been selected to represent the party in the newly formed Taieri electorate at the upcoming election. Mr Patterson, his wife Jude and two daughters farm sheep and beef at Lawrence and Waitahuna. He previously stood in the Clutha-Southland electorate however boundary changes ...
Hon Shane Jones, Associate Minister for State Owned Enterprises A new ‘super depot’ to be built for NZ Post in Wellington will create around 350 jobs during construction, Associate Minister for State Owned Enterprises Shane Jones says. Shane Jones today attended a ground-breaking and blessing ceremony for the parcel-processing depot ...
Our strong economic management prior to COVID-19 - with surpluses, low debt and near-record-low unemployment - put us in a good position to weather the impact of the virus and start to rebuild our economy much earlier than many other countries.Now we're putting our plan to recover and rebuild ...
Darroch Ball MP, New Zealand First Spokesperson for Law and Order Recently released Police fleeing driver statistics have shown yet another increase in incidents with another record-high in the latest quarter. “This new quarterly record-high is the latest in a string of record-high numbers since 2014. The data shows incidents ...
The Minister for Pacific Peoples, Aupito William Sio is pleased to announce the inaugural launch of Kiribati Language Week as part of the 2020 Pacific language Weeks programme. “I am so pleased that this year we are able to provide resourcing support to the Kiribati community in Aotearoa which will ...
Wildlife institutions affected by a loss of visitor revenue during the COVID-19 lockdown are set to receive government support with nearly $15 million of funding available announced Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage. “Eco-sanctuaries, zoos, aquariums, wildlife parks, and wildlife rescue, hospital and rehabilitation facilities provide crucial support for the recovery ...
The Government is expanding and accelerating frontline mental health and wellbeing services at tertiary education institutes (TEI) to help students manage ongoing stresses related to COVID-19. “The lockdown has been hugely disruptive for students. Many of them have had to relocate and move to online learning, isolating them from their ...
The Minister of Police says a major operation against the Mongrel Mob in Waikato will make a big dent in drug harm and violent offending linked to organised crime networks. “Senior leadership of the Waikato Mongrel Mob has been taken out as a result of Operation Kingsville, which resulted in ...
The Government is extending the border exception criteria to enable some offshore victims and support people of the Christchurch mosque attacks to attend the sentencing of the accused beginning on 24 August2020, says Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway. “We want to support our valued Muslim brothers and sisters who were directly ...
A project to support volunteer efforts to look after streams and rivers is getting a boost thanks to support from DOC’s Community Conservation Fund announced Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage today. “The government is backing efforts to look after waterways with $199,400 for the Mountains to Sea Conservation Trust from ...
Minister for Women Julie Anne Genter today announced that funding for the COVID-19 Community Fund for women and girls will be doubled, as the first successful funding applications for the initial $1million were revealed. “Women and girls across the country have suffered because of the effects of COVID-19, and I ...
The Government’s books were better than forecast with a higher GST take as the economy got moving again after lockdown, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. The Crown Accounts for the 11 months to the end of May indicate the year end results for tax revenue will be stronger than forecast. ...
A plan to revitalise New Zealand’s strong wool sector and set it on a new, more sustainable and profitable path was unveiled today by Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor. The newly-released report - Vision and Action for New Zealand’s Wool Sector - was developed by the Wool Industry Project Action Group ...
Community efforts to create a Predator Free Whangārei will receive a $6 million boost, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones and Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage announced today. The new funding, through Government company Predator Free 2050 Ltd, will create around 12 jobs while enabling the complete removal of possums over ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has announced that the New Zealand Government is reviewing the settings of its relationship with Hong Kong. “China’s decision to pass a new national security law for Hong Kong has fundamentally changed the environment for international engagement there,” Mr Peters said. “New Zealand remains deeply ...
Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has announced details of a multimillion-dollar investment in Whangārei for infrastructure projects that will help it recover from the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 200 jobs are expected to be created through the $26 million investment from the Government’s rejuvenation package ...
Following a second incident in which a person escaped from a managed isolation facility, security is being enhanced, including more police presence onsite, Minister Megan Woods said. “The actions of some individuals who choose to break the very clear rules to stay within the facilities means that more resourcing is ...
Waste reduction and recycling programmes in Kaipara are set to get a boost with Associate Environment Minister Eugenie Sage today announcing a $361,447 grant from the Ministry for the Environment’s Waste Minimisation Fund (WMF) Sustainable Kaipara. “The new funding will allow Sustainable Kaipara to partner with local schools, kura, community ...
The Government will support the Southland economy in the wake of multinational mining company Rio Tinto’s decision to follow through with its long signalled closure of the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter. “This day has unfortunately been on the cards for some time now, but nevertheless the final decision is a ...
New tools being developed to help boost Aotearoa’s Predator Free 2050 effort were unveiled today by Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage and Under Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau. A new rat poison, a camera with predator recognition software to detect and report predators, a new predator lure and a ...
The Coalition Government has approved the purchase of a fleet of Bushmaster vehicles to replace the New Zealand Army’s armoured Pinzgauers, Defence Minister Ron Mark has announced today. The new fleet of 43 Australian-designed and built Bushmaster NZ5.5 will provide better protection for personnel and improved carrying capacity. “The age ...
The Government’s three prevention frameworks to reduce family violence in Aotearoa were launched this week by Associate Minister for Social Development Poto Williams. The frameworks were developed in partnership with communities around New Zealand, and build on the work the Government has already begun with its new family violence prevention ...
The Government is pleased to confirm funding for improvements to radiology and surgical services at Hawke's Bay DHB, Health Minister Chris Hipkins says. "The Minister of Finance the Hon Grant Robertson and former Health Minister Dr David Clark approved funding for Hawke's Bay DHB’s redevelopment of their radiology facilities ...
• New funding for four beds at Napier’s Springhill Residential Addiction Centre • A new managed withdrawal home and community service, and peer support before and after residential care at Tairāwhiti DHB • A co-ordinated network of withdrawal management services throughout the South Island • Peer support in Rotorua and ...
Introduction, seafarers and POAL Good morning everyone, I am delighted to be online with you all today. Before I begin, I have to acknowledge that COVID-19 has disrupted the maritime sector on an unprecedented scale. The work of seafarers and the maritime industry is keeping many economies around the world ...
A $13 million investment from Government will create jobs and improve the resilience of the rail connection between Christchurch and the West Coast, Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones and Regional Economic Development Under-Secretary Fletcher Tabuteau say. The funding comes from the tagged contingency set aside in Budget 2020 for infrastructure projects ...
The Government is investing $761 million to assist local government upgrade under-pressure water services across the country, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta announced today. The announcement was made at the site of the water bore that was found to be the source of the fatal ...
Recognised Seasonal Employers and migrant seasonal workers stranded in New Zealand will be able to continue working and supporting themselves with more flexible hours and roles, says Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway. The time-limited visa changes are: Stranded RSE workers will be able to work part-time (a minimum of 15 hours ...
The Government is making immediate short-term changes to visa settings to support temporary migrants already onshore in New Zealand and their employers, while also ensuring New Zealanders needing work are prioritised, Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway says. We are: Extending temporary work visas due to expire by the end of 2020 ...
Professor Peter Skelton CNZM has been appointed as Chief Freshwater Commissioner and Alternate Environment Court Judge Craig James Thompson as Deputy Chief Freshwater Commissioner for the newly established Freshwater Planning Process (FPP). Environment Minister David Parker today also announced the appointment of Chief Environment Court Judge Laurie Newhook as the ...
Auckland Queen’s Counsel Neil Campbell has been appointed a Judge of the High Court, Attorney‑General David Parker announced today. Justice Campbell graduated with a BCom and LLB (Hons) from the University of Auckland in 1992. He spent two years with Bell Gully Buddle Weir in Auckland before travelling to the United ...
The Associate Minister for Greater Christchurch Regeneration, Poto Williams, is seeking feedback on a proposal to better enable the development and operation of commercial film and video facilities in Christchurch. The Proposal, developed by Regenerate Christchurch in response to a request from Christchurch City Council, asks that powers under section ...
The Government has launched a bold plan to boost primary sector export earnings by $44 billion over the next decade, while protecting the environment and growing jobs. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern today released Fit for a Better World – Accelerating our Economic Potential, a 10-year roadmap to unlock greater value ...
A new approach to prevent family harm that encourages greater collaboration across government and community groups is being celebrated at the opening of a new facility in Auckland. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern today opened the Multi-Disciplinary Family Harm Prevention Hub Te Taanga Manawa in Lambie Road in Manukau. The facility ...
The Government has released a major new report on the options for relocating the Port of Auckland’s freight operations while deferring any decision on the issue. “That decision needs to be informed by policy analysis that is still to be completed. As a result it will be up to a ...
The history of Rāpaki is being restored through the inclusion of te reo in thirteen official place names on Te Pātaka-o-Rākaihautū / Banks Peninsula and around Lyttelton Harbour/Whakaraupō, the Minister for Land Information, Eugenie Sage, announced today. “I am pleased to approve the proposals from Te Hapū o Ngāti ...
Bookings for seats on Air New Zealand flights into New Zealand will be managed in the short term to ensure the Government is able to safely place New Zealanders arriving home into a managed isolation or quarantine facility, says Housing Minister Megan Woods. “Last week Air Commodore Darryn Webb and I ...
Grant Robertson has today announced the first major release of funding from the $265 million Sport Recovery Package announced at Budget 2020. “Today we’re setting out how $80 million will be invested, with $54 million of that over the 2020/2021 financial year for organisations from community level through to elite ...
The Government is maintaining current levy rates for the next 2 years, as part of a set of changes to help ease the financial pressures of COVID-19 providing certainty for businesses and New Zealanders, ACC Minister Iain Lees-Galloway says. “New Zealanders and businesses are facing unprecedented financial pressures as a ...
Small businesses are getting greater certainty about access to finance with an extension to the interest-free cashflow loan scheme to the end of the year. The Small Business Cashflow Loan Scheme has already been extended once, to 24 July. Revenue and Small Business Minister Stuart Nash says it will be ...
A package of 23 projects across the country will clean up waterways and deliver over 2000 jobs Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Environment Minister David Parker announced today. The $162 million dollar package will see 22 water clean-up projects put forward by local councils receiving $62 million and the Kaipara ...
Tena koutou katoa Nga tangata whenua o tenei rohe o Pōneke, tena koutou Nau mai, haere mai ki te hui a tau mo te roopu reipa Ko tatou! Ko to tatou mana! Ko to tatou kaupapa kei te kokiri whakamua Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena tatou katoa Welcome. I ...
The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) is investing $1.5 million to ensure QE Health in Rotorua can proceed with its world class health service and save 75 existing jobs, Under Secretary for Regional Economic Development, Fletcher Tabuteau announced today. The PGF funding announced today is in addition to the $8 million ...
A new programme, which sets a firm course for the Building and Construction sector to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, has been announced by the Minister for Building and Construction Jenny Salesa. “A significant amount of New Zealand’s carbon emissions come from the building and construction sector. If we’re serious ...
People have called it for it be pulled from the service, but the escapist fantasy of 365 Days is nothing new, writes Alie Benge.To every generation, a bullish alpha-male psychopath is born, and is for someone reason considered a romantic hero. We’ve been through a lot this year, and instead ...
As Aucklanders reluctantly adjust to the inconvenient practice of water conservation, a drought-savvy Northlander shares the tips and temperament needed to get through the dry times.Auckland’s water shortage was recently reported on The Project, and viewers were earnestly exhorted to fill their dishwashers completely before turning them on. My husband ...
Pacific Media Watch Newsdesk A request by the Philippines’ biggest radio and TV network for a new franchise has been rejected by a congressional committee in a vote that will go down in history as a flagrant violation of the country’s constitution, says Reporters Without Borders (RSF). The Paris-based media ...
Hamish Walker's privacy leak debacle dominated the news this week, but it's not the first time a southern MP has hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons, writes Daisy Hudson. ...
Let’s not allow the focus on big-budget infrastructure projects to detract from the vital role public transport will play in revitalising our cities in a post-Covid world, says Greg Pollock.The recent match between the Blues and the Hurricanes was one of the world’s first major post-lockdown sporting fixtures. It was ...
For all The Spinoff’s latest coverage of Covid-19 see here. Read Siouxsie Wiles’s work here. New Zealand is currently in alert level one – read about what that means here. For official government advice, see here.The Spinoff’s coverage of the Covid-19 outbreak is made possible thanks to donations from Spinoff Members. To support this ...
In the heart of Christchurch is a Designated Character high school. What makes it unique? And should there be more like it? Frank Film visits Hagley College Paddy Grant was a 27-year-old truck driver when he rocked up to Christchurch’s Hagley High School, as it was then known. It was ...
Childcare centre closures have left families and staff out in the cold. In some cases, they were given just three days’ notice, Laura Walters reports Staff and families of Auckland’s Discoveries Educare branches feel blindsided by the sudden closure of the early childhood education centres. The Ministry of Education has ...
"After he calms down we share the pie and talk about how hard the years since the show have been for him": a short story by Wellington writer Jordan Hamel. Every morning it’s the same. Cling wrap on the toilet seat, a pop up snake in my can of breakfast ...
Controversy and the America's Cup go hand-in-hand and the latest edition is no different with Emirates Team New Zealand at the centre of financial mismanagement allegations. Extra Time unpicks the debate and ponders what does the latest Cup drama mean? And should we care? A study has revealed racial bias ...
Over the decades, Mike Fox has witnessed the housing market progressively tilt towards larger, more expensive homes. Without a major overhaul of the current regulatory processes, he says, things will never change.It’s one of the biggest problems our country faces – we cannot produce the affordable housing that’s so desperately ...
So-called dirty deals have been roundly denounced over the years. Hayden Donnell argues that they need to be normalised, and even embraced, in September’s election.Just before the 2011 general election, Patrick Gower was confronted with a political act so stomach-churning, it forced him to abandon his trademark reserve. John Key ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Esterman, Professor of Biostatistics, University of South Australia Victoria has recorded 288 new COVID-19 cases since yesterday, the largest daily increase we’ve seen so far. This big jump must have the Victorian government and health authorities very concerned, especially since nearly ...
The controversial 101 East episode Locked Up in Malaysia’s Lockdown on 3 July 2020. Video: Al JazeeraPacific Media Watch Newsdesk Malaysian police summoned six Al Jazeera media workers today for questioning relating to an investigation for defamation and violation of Malaysia’s Communications and Multimedia Act (CMA), reports IFJ Asia-Pacific. ...
Analysis - A National MP destroys his career, the government explains how someone with Covid-19 could walk around a supermarket and the closure of Tiwai Point aluminium smelter is announced. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Abrar Ahmad Chughtai, Epidemiologist, UNSW Australia’s chief medical officer Paul Kelly today recommended people in Melbourne and the Mitchell Shire wear masks when leaving the house: […] If people have symptoms and they need to go for a test, for example, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rochelle Wynne, Director, Western Sydney Nursing & Midwifery Research Centre, Western Sydney University Over the past week, we’ve seen a spike in the number of COVID-19 infections among health-care workers in Victoria. This includes a doctor at Melbourne’s St Vincent’s Hospital, one ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor and President Professor Paddy Nixon and Professorial Fellow Michelle Grattan discuss the week in politics including the return to lockdown in Victoria, National Cabinet setting to slow the flow of Australian’s ...
We prefer our heroes untarnished. And few match the heroism of Winston Churchill. But a recent report in the Times reminds us of the inevitability of human frailty and the consequences of keeping it under wraps.During the second world war, Britain’s greatest single loss of life at sea was the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ou Yang, Research Fellow, University of Melbourne Donald Trump has ordered US federal agencies to bypass environmental protection laws and fast-track pipeline, highway and other infrastructure projects. Signing the executive order last month, the US president declared regulatory delays would hinder “our ...
SAFE CEO Debra Ashton says "The NZDIA has done the right thing, and we’re glad to see Bertram has been held to account over his actions. He should take this as an opportunity to right his wrongs and show that he takes animal welfare seriously." ...
Takuta Ferris, Te Tai Tonga candidate for the Māori Party, is urging government to place whānau first in the wake of announcements around Tiwai Point. “The declaration that one of the region's major employers the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter is closing ...
Dietary Requirements is The Spinoff’s monthly podcast in which we eat, drink and talk about it too, with special thanks to Freedom Farms. This month, we’re joined by The Spinoff’s managing editor, mall rat and self-confessed food philistine Duncan Greive.On this month’s Dietary Requirements, the gang’s back in the studio, and ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Chart 1: United States and Australia rising. Chart by Keith Rankin. These charts look at Covid19 incidence in China (the most important first-wave country, with a limited second wave), Italy (the lead second-wave country), and USA and Australia (second-wave countries – drawing their caseload from Europe ...
The Government must listen to the Muslim community to rectify its failure to act in the past, says the Human Rights Commission. The Islamic Women’s Council of New Zealand (IWCNZ) submission to the Royal Commission of Inquiry was released this week. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hugh Breakey, President, Australian Association for Professional & Applied Ethics. Senior Research Fellow, Moral philosophy, Institute for Ethics, Governance & Law, Law Futures Centre., Griffith University Earlier this week, 150 high-profile authors, commentators and scholars signed an open letter in Harper’s magazine ...
You can’t keep a good woman down and Helen Clark is no exception. Her new appointment, as co-chair of a review of how the World Health Organisation handled the coronavirus pandemic, will test her formidable political skills. Sitting with her is Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, former Liberian president, who handled the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Connor, Lecturer, James Cook University While many people may enjoy a game of backyard cricket, only a few go on to become elite professional batsmen in Australia. Cricket batting is example of what human skills can achieve. The fastest bowling delivery ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lee Baumgartner, Professor of Fisheries and River Management, Institute for Land, Water, and Society, Charles Sturt University This article is a preview of Flora, Fauna, Fire, a multimedia project launching on Monday July 13. The project tracks the recovery of Australia’s native ...
CEAC review of pre-election National’s “outline plan” just sent to us by Todd Muller 9/7/20 was actually his speech about his plan and was described as ‘an outline’. So in our review of National Party response to A Greener, Smarter Future; climate ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Podger, Honorary Professor of Public Policy, Australian National University In Hidden Hand, China scholars Clive Hamilton and Marieke Ohlberg examine the Chinese Communist Party’s influence in Europe and North America in a similar way to how Hamilton dissected the CCP’s influence ...
“I can see why people are fed up, many are wondering how to clothe and feed their kids, or how they are going to pay their rent next week and still others are wondering what has happened to our beautiful Kiwi Way of Life. Well no party in parliament ...
Pacific Media Watch Newsdesk Sixty press freedom groups and civil society organisations, journalism institutions, filmmakers, and other supporters have formed a coalition in support of Maria Ressa and independent media in the Philippines, united around the call to #HoldTheLine. Today the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), the International Center for ...
National MP Michael Woodhouse also received Covid-19 patient emails from Michelle Boag, and deleted them when he realised she was implicated in a separate email scandal. National Party leader Todd Muller says no further MPs in his party received confidential information from Michelle Boag, after revelations today that Michael Woodhouse also ...
The government is extending border exceptions to allow overseas victims of the Christchurch mosque attacks and their support people to attend the shooter's sentencing. ...
Ever wanted to be Iron Man? Sam Brooks prefers Pepper Potts, but he had a great time stepping into the iron suit anyway.The first few moments of Iron Man VR are where it plays its hand, confidently and assuredly. You hold your palms out in front of you, and Iron ...
SAP has released to the public a policy paper, “Helping Kiwis get back to work: How data and technology can drive a bigger, better, faster economic recovery.” ...
A new poem by Jordan Hamel.Mermaids When you lose grip and start to drift.The first thing you’re supposed to do issteer into it or steer away? Not all mermaids are royaltysomeone needs to audit the oceanprovide cashflow projectionssome mermaids are actuallymiddle-aged accountants named Stephendreaming of a land-view holiday home. I saw a ...
Want to work for The Spinoff? We’re looking for someone to fill an exciting new role based in our Auckland office. We’re looking for a video and podcast content manager: an experienced writer or sub-editor with a strong understanding of social media to manage our video and podcast content across various channels. ...
National Party leader Todd Muller says no further MPs in his party received confidential information from Michelle Boag, after revelations today that Michael Woodhouse also received four unsolicited emails. ...
By RNZ News Opposition National list MP Dr Jian Yang has announced his retirement from New Zealand politics and says he will not stand in the 2020 general election after three terms in the party caucus. He said politics was “demanding” and he wanted to spend more time with his ...
Bayer-Monsanto's June 24 announcement of a US$10.9 billion pay out (1) to people who have been harmed by Glyphosate, is effectively an admission of guilt. Spokesperson for The People’s Inquiry 2020 Asha Andersen says, “The Ministry of Health, The ...
The Taxpayers’ Union has filed a complaint with the Electoral Commission and the Parliamentary Speaker’s Office over Lawrence Yule’s new taxpayer funded billboards promoting Mr Yule as the ‘Voice in Tukituki’. Union spokesman, Louis Houlbrooke ...
Ten points, two plans. Which points are whose? With an election within spitting distance, Aotearoa’s two biggest political parties are all about the plans. “You don’t have a plan!” says one party to the other. “Yes we have a plan, or certainly a plan to have a plan, or a plan ...
Four months after he announced his re-selection, a National Party MP whose links to Chinese spy agencies attracted the interest of New Zealand’s Security Intelligence Service has announced he will not stand in the next election A three-term National Party MP who studied at an elite Chinese spy school before moving to ...
National list MP Dr Jian Yang announced his retirement from politics and said he would not stand in the 2020 general election after three terms in the party caucus. ...
A new political party, the New Zealand TEA Party, with headquarters in Auckland, has been established. The party aims to contest the queen- or kingmaker position to form a coalition with the largest parliamentary party as part of the general elections ...
A review has determined fish oils are non-hazardous and no longer require oversight by the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA). We regulate pesticides, household chemicals and other dangerous goods and substances under the Hazardous Substances ...
New Conservative calls on the government to join with our Five Eyes allies and add New Zealand's signature to a joint statement condemning the continued removal of freedoms in Hong Kong. New Conservative also calls on the government to give safe-haven ...
Latest from the Beehive – Hard on the heels of the government promising help for the Southland economy in the wake of Rio Tinto’s decision to close the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter, it was announcing the delivery of more money to the North, at the other end of the country. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luciano Beheregaray, Professor in Biodiversity Genomics, Flinders University As the global climate shifts, it’s important to know which species have adaptations to survive. Our research published today in PNAS found it largely depends on where they evolved. We looked at the capacity ...
From eggplant emojis and twerking llamas to sweaty anthropomorphic butts, we present some of the most fascinating, hilarious and outrageous complaints dismissed by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) from 2019 to now.Avocadon’t (January 2019)The ad: In this ad from Specsavers, a man gets ready to join a cricket match, but ...
They might sound like the same thing, but light rail is quite different from light metro – the system that transport minister Phil Twyford now favours for Auckland. Katy Wakefield and Jessica Rose of Women in Urbanism explain why the metro option is a poor substitute for LRT. Transport is ...
Why isn't the Government spending $30m to extend Tiwai Point's 2,600 jobs until after the Covid-19 recession, after Manapouri's power can be transmitted elsewhere, and after there's a hydrogen plan for the smelter site, Bernard Hickey asks. The sense of shock and foreboding about the future was clear in Invercargill Mayor ...
An intensive care doctor is outraged health officials are giving helicopter rescue trusts a daily list of Covid-19 patients, saying it's completely unnecessary. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Seth Lazar, Professor, Australian National University In the US, tireless opposition to state use of facial recognition algorithms has recently won some victories. Some progressive cities have banned some uses of the technology. Threetechcompanies have pulled facial recognition products from ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rick Sarre, Adjunct Professor of Law and Criminal Justice, University of South Australia Facial recognition technology is increasingly being trialled and deployed around Australia. Queensland and Western Australia are reportedly already using real-time facial recognition through CCTV cameras. 7-Eleven Australia is also ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carol T Kulik, Research Professor of Human Resource Management, University of South Australia The coronavirus pandemic has forced many of us to work from home, often in less than ideal circumstances. Many employees had little choice in the decision, limited time to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katja Hogendoorn, University of Adelaide This article is a preview of Flora, Fauna, Fire, a multimedia project launching on Monday July 13. The project tracks the recovery of Australia’s native plants and animals after last summer’s bushfire tragedy. Sign up to The ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By SriPallavi Nadimpalli, PhD Candidate, University of Melbourne Women manage many overlapping responsibilities in both public and private spheres. Their busy routines leave them with just a little time to take a break or a pause in their activity. These pauses are a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Naoise McDonagh, Lecturer in Political Economy, University of Adelaide The pandemic has changed the way we think about supply chains, in particular the chains that feed our need for food, medical supplies, and defence equipment. It has led Prime Minister Scott Morrison ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Holden, Professor of Economics, UNSW As Victoria grapples with a second-wave outbreak of COVID-19, the importance of large-scale testing has again been highlighted. Without its “testing blitz” aiming at 10,000 tests a day, the extent of the outbreak would have been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jean Burgess, Professor and Director, Digital Media Research Centre, Queensland University of Technology Perhaps no single character has been as iconic a symbol of Twitter as the now-ubiquitous hashtag. The syntax of the hashtag has a few simple rules: it consists of ...
For all The Spinoff’s latest coverage of Covid-19 see here. Read Siouxsie Wiles’s work here. New Zealand is currently in alert level one – read about what that means here. For official government advice, see here.The Spinoff’s coverage of the Covid-19 outbreak is made possible thanks to donations from Spinoff Members. To support this ...
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Major implications from Tiwai Pt closure, diplomatic rift over Hong Kong deepens, and grim new approach to managed isolation.The story of Rio Tinto pulling out of the Tiwai Point smelter is one that shows the deep connections between regional stories ...
Open mike 22/10/2014 
Open mike is your post. 
Todd Muller - Dishonest National Party leaderIt seems that dishonest Todd Muller is, like many right-wing politicians, entirely morally bankrupt. I mean just look at the National Party’s leaking omni-shambles over the last week or so. They’ve imploded in a spectacular display of backfiring dirty politics, the likes of which ...27 mins ago
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Simon Bridges must be the unluckiest person in New Zealand politics. When he was elected as leader of the National party, he also became Leader of the Opposition – a position, he was entitled to assume, that would require him to “oppose”. But the government he set out to oppose ...2 hours ago
...14 hours ago
Check out Speak Up For Women’s new podcasts: Episode 3 In this episode Speak Up For Women spokeswoman Ani O’Brien (@aniobrien) is joined by Beth Johnson (@beth_nosnhoj) to discuss the proposal from Statistics NZ to change standard data collection policy to “gender by default” rather than sex. They discuss why the ...17 hours ago
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Everyone is paying attention today to the Supreme Court ruling that the President is not above the law and that Trump's tax returns can be given to a New York grand jury investigating him. But the Supreme Court decided another, far more important case yesterday, and effectively restored Native American ...1 day ago
Transcript: National Party policy announcement on roads – 8 July, 2020 Muller: Good afternoon everybody. Thank you for coming. Reporter 1: Is Hamish Walker a racist? Muller: Hang on… you haven’t even said good afternoon to me yet. Reporter 1: Good afternoon Mr Muller. Is Hamish Walker a racist? ...1 day ago
Today’s content Tiwai Point to close Hamish Rutherford (Herald): Government subsidising practically everything plays hardball with Rio Tinto (paywalled) Tom Pullar-Strecker (Stuff): Sudden closure of aluminium smelter worst outcome for jobs, consumers and the environment Brian Fallow (Herald): Tiwai closure sad news – and an opportunity for the environment (paywalled) Heather du Plessis-Allan (Newstalk ZB): Rio ...1 day ago
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Reprehensible: There is much that could be said about Michael Woodhouse, but what would be the point? Any man who willingly involves himself in a situation as reprehensible as the one depicted in the above photograph has already vouchsafed all that decent people need to know about his character. That there have ...1 day ago
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Mark Patterson MP, Spokesperson for Primary Industry New Zealand First is supporting calls by hunters and the New Zealand Tahr Foundation (NZTF) to halt a large scale cull of Himalayan Tahr by the Department of Conservation in National Parks. The calls are supported by a 40,000 strong petition and the ...4 days ago
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Latest from the Beehive – Hard on the heels of the government promising help for the Southland economy in the wake of Rio Tinto’s decision to close the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter, it was announcing the delivery of more money to the North, at the other end of the country. ...1 day ago
Why isn't the Government spending $30m to extend Tiwai Point's 2,600 jobs until after the Covid-19 recession, after Manapouri's power can be transmitted elsewhere, and after there's a hydrogen plan for the smelter site, Bernard Hickey asks. The sense of shock and foreboding about the future was clear in Invercargill Mayor ...1 day ago
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(it’s always a good idea to start yr day with a belly-laff..and this one’ll do it for ya..)
..parker has had his thinking cap on…
..and he has come up with what really ails labour..
..and hold onto your seats..!..it’s the colour red…
(..and the fact that labour supporters are members of ‘a cult’..(!)..)
..no no..!..c’mon..!..hear him out..!
“..Like a cult and too red – Parker on Labour..(ed:..breaking news..!..parker has discovered what labours’ problems are..it’s the colour red..(!)..(who knew..?..)
(ed:..any reader-suggestions for a new colour from/for labour..?
..i reckon a pale-blue wd pretty much nail it..eh..?..
..and well done! to that parker ..eh.?
..for his keen analysis/solutions to all that ails labour..
so..in summary:.(cont..)..”
http://whoar.co.nz/2014/like-a-cult-and-too-red-parker-on-labour-ed-breaking-news-parker-has-discovered-what-labours-problems-are-its-the-colour-red-who-knew/
you’re up early 🙂
@ barfly..
i’m always up early..i usually start hunting/gathering stories for whoar @ about 5.00a.m..
..i’ve already done two editorial pieces..
..here’s the other..(lamenting all the brokenwood-hate..)
http://whoar.co.nz/2014/comment-whoar-whats-with-all-the-hate-being-directed-brokenwood/
comment@ whoar:..what’s with all the hate being directed @ ‘brokenwood’..?
(excerpt:..)
‘..and/but i have been amazed at the amount of abuse being heaped on it..
..it seems to be the current ‘dotcom’ for the tv reviewers…let’s all gang up on ‘brokenwood’..whoar..!
..and this reached a nadir on national radio yesterday..with their reviewer phil wallington…
..wallington got quite steamed up..and seems to have taken it personally..
..but you really have to wonder just how much attention wallington paid to what he reviewed..
..as twice in his review he claimed the series was set back in the period of the age of the leads’ old holden car..(!)
..he reviewed this..but he didn’t notice it is set in the present day..(!)..
..(they have cellphones..phil..duh..!..didya notice..?)..’..(cont..)
Like, Labour is not National Lite already!!!
SMH in disbelief.
I hope he gets sucked into a black hole of political oblivion, or just switch on to leading ACT. That would suit his ideology I suppose.
or is the reality that …National is Labour Lite?
Nope…..there mainly just a bunch of sociopaths with good camoflage
@ lesThat was a neat thrust – didn’t see it coming. Ouch. New perspective when lying on the floor looking up your opponent’s baggy shorts!
“Like a cult and too red “
Jeez I’m pleased I haven’t voted yet
Obviously Parker hasn’t any acquaintances who worship the colour blue. I had several conversations before the election with diehard National voters who constantly spoke of the importance of the colour blue *nudge, nudge, wink, wink*.
parker..?..out of touch..?..much…?
..so..in his own words..he wants to become the leader of ‘a cult’..?
..parker has clearly not thought this one thru..
..and what new colour wd he like..?
..does he lean to a puce..?
..or more a turqoise..?
it is refreshing isn’t it pu
i think ‘refresh’ cd be a good new branding-name for labour..
..(you cd make all sort of clean-out/emetic-references in yr advertising..)
..and their new colour..whatever it is..should have some bubbles in it…
..those parker is targeting..like ‘bubbles’..
phillip u
Your mind and imagination about Labour is taking off like a jump jet.
but nowhere near as wild and crazy as they are doing themselves..
..and the basic fact is..that labour have got themselves into the position..
..where the only candidate with any ministerial experience..
..is wannabe cult-leader parker..
(and didn’t helen clark to such a good job of seeing off anyone who was a ‘threat’ during her time..eh..?
..and this is what you get left with..if you do that..)
no it was Shearer who got rid of Leanne Dalziel and Charles Chauvel
This is democracy in action, Phil
Slinging mud and raising these sort of important points publicly, is what a truly democratic party does.
@ bm..
..nah..!..this is just batshit-crazy stuff..
..if you made it up you’d be laffed out of the room..
..as he should be…
I disagree, I like this quote about what sort of party labour should be
A party where you feel comfortable enough to let one rip is the sort of party I’d want to vote for.
Good stuff David Parker.
and yr a rightwing trout..bm..
..so yr kiss of approval is just really ‘anti’-support..
..and as such worthless/meaningless..
I can imagine your parties – a whole lot of slobs having a fart competition and boasting about the sexual conquests they’d have if feminism hadn’t turned women against them. Hmm, a bit like Sealord Jones and Back Pussy Tamihere mixed with Jamie Whyte Power and Simon Bridges. Yuck.
You’ve gotta laugh.
Isn’t this just the middle class answer to everything? – a fresh coat of paint and a bit of titivating. Cos everything’s still alright for them.
I recommend something from Resene. Maybe executive navy blue.
Not yet but re-branding is the corporate answer to bad press.
PU – You missed out the bit where he said he didn’t want to over emphasise this point….
he didn’t need to..
..just saying it was brainfart enough..
..imagine key saying national are ‘too blue’..and are members of ‘a cult’..
..(but he doesn’t want to ‘over-emphasise’ it..)
..right ho..!
I think David Parker should start a new party…great idea!
…and fawn should be the colour
…and it should have a new name as well
….like….Wannabe Party ?
( no longer the Red Labour Party but the Fawn Wannabe Party !)
lol
Anyone hear Suzie Ferguson’s interview of Len Brown on Morning Report?
The whole tine and content sounded like Cameron Slater provided her with the direction for the interview.
Dirty Politics alive and well.
And now on Morning Report.
Disgraceful.
Really rude interviewing. Gotcha stuff. Rather than any discussion about the need to extend rail. Why does she have to do it that way – she seems to have a particular hatred of mayors of the left because she does the same to Lianne Dalziel.
She has really gone downhill since she got the post on MR.
Is she told the line to take or is she just inherently a Tory tool?
“Really rude interviewing. Gotcha stuff.”
ALL of morning reports interviews are like this – gyon only looked good on the JK/dirty pol one because of the dumb answers the PM gave – not because the interview method changed
morning report is a sad pathetic joke
The problem I have framu, what does one listen to or see first thing in the morning for local news
You’ve got Gyon on Morning Report, That dick called Christy complete with simpering sidekick on TV One, and soon we will have prat Henry on Three.
Definitely a need for a completely independent news channel.
i wd like to see brown interviewed ‘hard’..on three subjects/issues..
1)..the not small matter of auckland ratepayers having to fork out/piss down the toilet a million dollars a day..each and every day..
..in interest on the loans that have been wracked up by the council..
..cd he plse detail just what we got for that eyewatering debt..y’know..!..something concrete maybe..?
2)..cd he explain why the council needs p.r.-trouts/spin-doctors numbering in the hundreds..?
..and cd he tell us just what the fuck they all do all/each day..?
..how do they fill all those highly-paid-for hours..?..
(300 x 8= 2,400 hrs each working day..
..12,000 spin-doctor/p.r.-trout-hrs each working week..(!)
..that ratepayers are also forking out for..
..’cos..y’see..to the untrained eye..this number of the clearly un-necessary ..just points to/screams out.. a culture of excess..
..one that needs a serious clean/clear-out..
..how cd it not..?
3..)..i remember in his first campaign how brown harvested all those soft/do-gooder votes/ers..by promising to help house the homeless of auckland..
,.aside from passing legislation making it easier for authorities to ‘move them on’/herd/hide them out of sight..
..cd he plse detail just what he has done ..if anything..to fufill that clear campaign-promise..
..since he has been mayor..and in the position to do just that..?
@ Paul
I noticed something in her interview on – Does NZ want elite universities? where she was hammering the bit about the salaries perhaps being too high as a way of bringing fees down. They do truly compete against overseas in this, unlike our many CEOs, economists and service providers to gummint who talk their own increments up and up.
Also MPs who are two a penny, and probably should be judged for salary increases from that level!
She let one question get away and that was the amount spent on advertising and promotion, which the speaker assured here was tiny compared to their overall budget, of which salaries amounted to 60%. I believe advertising can be around $2 million which if halved could provide $1m of discretionary money, a useful amount. And does that sum include PR also, which seems to have ballooned as a sapper of budgets in many government-related organisations.
A good point made was that the cpi measures certain household requirements and unis have disproportionate high labour costs so really aren’t so concerned about household matters. (For instance, the rise in the price of cabbages, which was quoted one year when the CPI had risen strongly in the vegetable ‘basket’).
The fact is the educators and researchers are underpaid, micro managed and controlled, while a new class of University “managers” are getting the dosh.
Same with doctors/nurses and DHB “managers.”
And yet managers should be paid the least. They don’t produce anything and we don’t need them.
some organisations might not need them.
But hose organisations that do need them need competent ones, not managers who are merely competent at climbing the corporate ladder and empire-building.
No, I’m pretty sure that there’s no organisations that need managers. They may need some administration types, and good ones at that, but not managers.
Is it reassuring or sinister that in the comments of this article by George Monbiot there are people who think this article is an over-reaction to computer language? It’s the programs that call people ‘stock’ and no problem that humans are just repeating it, they don’t really think like that, they say.
Good old NZ’s ACC was criticised a few years back for referring to clients in its reports as “stock”. As in ways of reducing its stock.
Another saying that has creped in is the use of the term “human resource”
We no longer have Personnel Managers, they are Human Resource managers.
As I told some smart arse a few years ago I am not a resource that can be harvested or disregarded when they felt fit.
This type of language dehumanises people and I think it is done for that reason.
Nah, it’s just new words for the same old shit. They know it’s shit, that’s why they have to keep rebranding it.
Actually, it can be seen as a sign of respect for value of workers. Without resources, businesses are nothing.
Sorry can’t agree with you on that one TRP
I worked for one particular company for over 20 years, The owner who was an officer and a gentleman and a war hero would refer to any member of his staff as a valued member of the company. I am sure he would have been horrified if they were referred as a “human resource.”
We know businesses need resources, but there is not the need to refer to staff as some form of stock item. to be used and abused and possibly sold off in end of year sales.
I have just noticed, I had another silly old sod (SOS) moment
That word creped should have been crept. Ah well, suppose you can’t win them all.
halfcrown- The best I heard in a corporate report and actually used by an HR relative of mine a few years ago was ‘human capital’ but the term doesn’t seem to have taken off.
Shame..I’d already prepared a response (more vehement than halfcrown’s) to the first person who referred to me as human capital but I think Key & co. consider NZ workers as human capital.
Don’t mind ‘Personnel’ as it seems to still regard employees (and employers) as persons.
So David Parker thinks that the colour red is Labour’s problem…..I would have thought it was the colour yellow.
If not the coward’s colour perhaps the white flag of surrender?
All our State houses are to be emptied and sold, NZ is to be plunged into a Middle East War and white collar fraud has been proven to be bleeding our society dry….and this doofus is on about colours and how passionate he can be.
Aout what?
Nothing wrong with red.
It’s not knowing what colour you stand for that is Labour’s problem.
They have forgotten their roots since the 1980s.
It’s not knowing what colour you stand for that is Labour’s problem.
Bingo!
Bang on!
Spot on!
Jackpot!
parker is also showing a complete shearer level of idiocy by using such words publicly
exactly what word are the MSM going to use to beat labour over the head with for the next few weeks? cult perhaps?
fecking idiots
Ha Ha, democracy in action.
yep..and one of the downsides..
..is that idiots like you get to have voice too..
..but no system is perfect..
youve said it twice
so what?
Yes, we’re quite aware that you RWNJs don’t like democracy and much prefer being told what to do by someone in power over you.
Meanwhile, yesterday (I guess because I was signed up as a Green Party volunteer for the last election), I got an email from Metiria Turei saying the campaign for next election starts today. It asks for donations and lays out the principles for the next election:
Yet I read a report that the Greens have gone cap in hand to this rogue RW government for policy concessions. What a disgrace.
That is pretty much what the Greens always do. their aim is to work with any party if it will further th GP agenda. The outcome last term highlighted the differences between Nats and the Greens’ policies, resulting in Nats rebuffing them.
I expect pretty much the same this time round – the Greens therefore highlight just how radically right wing Key’s government is.
Used carefully that refusal can be used to embarass JK as much as possible.
BTW what is it with Nact and others suggesting that the Greens stick only to enviroment policies. The Greens can do as they please, without Nact;’s loud controlling voice .
At the moment the Greens go for sustainable business practices, hardly anti growth, more like a rechannel of effort, and sharing what we have equally.
Some one a little scared perhaps?
I’d like to see Russell/Meretai front footing some of the ‘ we have better business idea’s than you lot because you pinch them”
National are trying to kill off the Greens. They know as well as I do that single issue parties haven’t got snowball’s chance in a furnace of surviving.
A political party, to be relevant, needs to address all of a societies issues.
Yep, they are.
National’s mates are delusional if they think they can load all the costs of resource depletion and climate change, while they continue with profligate lifestyles, onto the “untermensch” without the pitchforks.
“Capitalism doesn’t work without socialism”.
Greens are hardly extreme, with policies that would have been considered mainstream by Holyoak’s National party.;
Whisper Controversy Questions the Promise of True Privacy
Personally, I still work on the idea that nothing I do on the internet is anonymous.
For the internet to work the computers need to track the data that is sent and received. Cannot get away from that. Even if geo-tagging is turned off the IP address will give the receivers of data packets from you a reasonable idea as to where you are. The telco will know precisely where you are.
The question isn’t whether the data will be recorded, it will be. The question is who gets to look at it afterwards and when.
Introducing: Flickr PARK or BIRD
Think about it.
Indeed.
Interesting that Metiria Turei has been receiving calls from National voters urging the Greens to team up with the Nats because these Nat voters are feeling guilty about voting for Key etc.
well blow me down with a feather ….. expect more as this term goes on …. it will be like the vote for mmp – where later on nobody admits to their voting.
silly voters
What a load of bollocks.
ok, except for you BM. You will admit to voting for Key wont you.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11345976
This today from Claire Trevett.
NM showing some smarts getting the interview with her and the selfie. As we know selfie’s help win elections.
Interesting NM comments about Cunliffe and what was going on in that Labour caucus!
thanks for this!
There is a voice of honesty and directness there, while still preserving dignity and mana.
I appreciate that and I am looking forward to hearing her speak at the hustings.
When it comes to provisions for retirement, super etc, I suspect the default perspective many slip into, focuses more on a masculine life trajectory.
In general, women on average earn less than men, and tend to have time out from participating in the paid workforce, in order to raise children, and tend to have smaller amounts in retirement funds or investments.
Stuff has an article today about the trend towards a higher percentage of women working past 65 years, and the problems for women in low paid jobs.
and not just a masculine earning trajectory, a pakeha one too. PI and Maori median income is many thousands less per annum than Pakeha.
Well, PI and Maori men, though given secondary consideration, do tend to get more focus in the debates, than do women generally.
Yes, Pakeha men are the dominant consideration with respect to assumptions about life trajectories of older people.
Maori and Pacific men are likely to be in a much more difficult situation as they get older, than Pakeha men, and than large numbers of Pakeha women
But the varying situations of women are generally given even less consideration in the debates.
Women on low pay, especially those with no formal education qualifications, and including a high proportion of Maori and Pacific women, are often in a very difficult position as they get older. They often need to keep working for the income. It’s harder for such women to find work as they get older. And on average they tend to live about 4-5 years longer than Maori or Pacific men.
Such women probably need both super at 65 years, plus at least some part time work, because they are unlikely to have any further savings or investments.
Also, people tend to talk of boomers as all being wealthy, owning their own homes, etc. Yet the stats in the article say that women over 60 overall have fewer formal educational qualifications than younger women.
Yep. Men consistently earn more than women in the same position, and also tend to get higher positions.
NB I was referring to the big difference between PI/Maori earning power vs Pakeha earning power. My sense is that being PI or Maori instead of Pakeha is actually a bigger factor in pay inequality than gender.
The biggest indicator of future earnings is the socio-economic status of your parents and grandparents. Which disproportionately effects Maori, and PI, and totally refutes the idea that New Zealand is a meritocracy where we have “equality of opportunity”.
(The other big indicator, for boys and girls, is the education level of their mother)
I wonder how much it is skewed by what I see around me. Young women in all the retail and service jobs. Young men, especially Maori, without jobs. If you are a young Maori male you would have to be very highly educated to get a job.
Of course it means that the only young Maori males with jobs are in the higher paid ones.
Sue Bradford’s bill advocating openness about pay would have identified whether the problem is gender, or something more complex. Then we could have argued from fact, not impressions.
There is a whole other discussion about how keeping pay rates secret suits employers, and those who discriminate.
With National awards a non-union shop assistant or office worker could point to what the Union members were getting, as a benchmark.
Many of those who reckon they do not need Unions are totally unaware of how much they benefited by the foundations set in wages and conditions by Unions.
There’s a lot of stuff that’s kept secret because of privacy that benefits the business class. Stuff that shouldn’t be kept private because it affects others thus making it public.
I think it is Norway where all tax returns are public.
Australia is busy embarrassing tax dodging corporates at present.
They also , thanks to our judge made laws, get very little out of marriage breakdown, shoulder the bulk of the $ costs of raising the kids, as well as providing the free childcare, and meet any costs for the over 18 crowd. Women should be able to attach the super of the male parent – why not?
A piece on economy and Picketty on Radionz right now Kathryn is going full on and it’s good stuff. Some opinions of worth to hear!
A book just published by Bridget Williams here The Picketty Phenomenon- A NZ Perspective. On Radionz this morning there were three commenters Geoff Bertram, Donal Curtin, Susan Guthrie from the Morgan phenomenon!
http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player/20154344
What I have taken from this is not necessarily right but this is how it seems. The idea is to reshape the tax system to reflect fairly where wealth is being produced – from investments etc. The Morgan study on tax is taking the view that all assets should be taxed and that would include the family home. But the tax would be on the individual’s own investment, so it would be a tax on unrealised income from that.
That may be fair on a macro level, but an income-poor person with a house shouldn’t have to sell the house so as to be able to pay for the tax on it, on top of all the other costs relating to house owning including rates, maintenance, repairs. Or sell it to someone else who can afford to pay the tax and outlay for the other costs, and rent it from them. The poor person would then change position from an asset holder to a less certain position as a renter. Which could happen.
It is hard on the poor trying for some social upward mobility and security to have a tax on even part of their house value, that would cause their small amount of discretionary money, available for their non-necessity needs and wants, to transfer to the disposable part from which they must pay for the fixed and other costs imposed by authorities, and service providers.
It is likely they will be stretched to pay their mortgage, which usually will be principal and interest from which banks make considerable income, which is really unearned income. Perhaps the banks should be paying the tax on the property. which is only the buyer’s by convention, and while the payments are made promptly. Under the mortgage the property can be claimed by the bank and sold for recovery in a very short time, a fortnight or month, after failure of the mortgagor to pay their required instalment owing on the required date.
Radionz Notes.
09:20 The Piketty Phenomenon
The global debate on taxing wealth, sparked by economist Thomas Piketty and his proposals for improving income equality. Piketty’s thesis is contained in his bestselling book Capital in the Twenty-First Century.
The new book, The Piketty Phenomenon collects New Zealand responses to Thomas Piketty’s argument that inherited wealth will always grow faster, on average, than earned wealth.
Three New Zealand economists discuss Piketty’s thesis in the New Zealand context – Geoff Bertram is a research associate at the Institute for Governance and Policy Studies at Victoria University; Susan Guthrie is the co-author of the 2011 book, The Big Kahuna with Gareth Morgan which argued for significant tax and welfare reform to redistribute wealth; and Donal Curtin is the former chief economist at the BNZ and now works as a consultant.
A wealth or capital gains tax, can be net. After interest.
Note that if I build a spec house, I have to pay tax on it, whereas the many people in Auckland whose house prices have risen hundreds of thousands, through no effort of theirs, pay nothing.
And that is why we get housing bubbles and why political parties have such difficulty implementing a CGT. Lazy people looking for the easy way to become rich rather than going out and working for it.
Well you can see why. I was silly enough to start a business.
If I had spent the same money on leveraging half a dozen rentals in Auckland I would be retired already.
Yes its frakking annoying. Working for a living barely pays in comparison to speculating on bits of ticky tacky construction materials thrown together.
Youth are the new poor and the new underclass …Unless they have rich parents they will never be able to afford a house…let alone tertiary education debt and in particular postgraduate tertiary education …. both in Britain and in New Zealand… Youth have been sold out! …Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss and Prof Antal Fekete gives further background.
http://rt.com/shows/keiser-report/196944-episode-max-keiser/
“In this episode of the Keiser Report, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss Johnny Rotten challenging Russell Brand and offer the show as a platform for a debate between the two. Max notes that quantitative easing is the central bank equivalent of punk rock gobbing. They highlight several of the many market distortions similar to the insanity leading up to the 1929 market crash – including $140,000 AUD cats.
In the second half, Max continues with his interview of Professor Antal Fekete of FeketeResearch.com about how the 1921 bond market collapse led the US Federal Reserve & Treasury conspiring to illegally introduce open market operation, leading to a situation in which profits in the bond market are risk free while profits in the commodity market are NOT risk free.
So chuffed you go to Max and Stacey for economics classes, Chooky. These guys taught me everything I know!!! 😀
Nanaia Mahuta: In it to win, not just to be Labour deputy leader
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11345976
Some points from the article:
* Yet she says she did not consult with Cunliffe before making her decision.
Cunliffe had already given his endorsement to Andrew Little by then and did not change that after Mahuta entered. Mahuta said she had not asked him to.
*”Cunliffe’s decision around the leadership was his. I had no influence over that.”
However, she said he had faced “real challenges” in his year as leader and makes it clear they were from within Labour.
“His closest supporters understood the extent of those challenges, but he didn’t let it deter him from trying to do the best job he could do to get into Government in 2014. You do what you’ve got to do. He was focussed on looking in front of him, but it is hard if leaders are having to look behind them as well.”
* She insists she is not simply positioning for deputy. “People will be assessed on their merits and ability to contribute. If I’m not successful it’s up to the leader to decide.”
*When told she’s a gutsy woman, she replied “got to give it a whirl.”
Mahuta is mother to two young children responsibilities outside Parliament with Tainui. Asked whether she’ll cut some of her tribal work if she is leader, she said she is a woman “and women multitask”. “Women can do amazing things and still continue to be mums.” She said she would wind back some of the tribal work if she was leader.
* Little known fact: She has tattoos of her children’s names on her feet.
Well, since she has now said she is serious about being leader, and not just being deputy, then I am prepared to listen closely to what she has to say and to consider whether to rank her as #1.
I already did 🙂
I like red. It is the colour of blood, sweat and tears……love, life and roses.
Chris Bishop is a future Prime Minister after Sir John retires after a record six terms.
[lprent: I really don’t appreciate diversion trolls at the top of a post. Sure it referred to something in the post. However it had absolutely nothing to do with the actual topic of the post.
Moved to OpenMike and be warned that the next such comment will incur a harsh ban. ]
Michael Cullen’s statement endorsing Grant Robertson
Thanks Ovid
The last para from Sir Michael
“Finally, there seem to be some who believe that within the Labour Party there is a small clique of Rogernomic moles who are waiting to regain control of the party. Last time round they supported David Cunliffe, this time they seem to be endorsing Andrew Little, who I am sure is far too sensible to want to be associated with such nonsense.”
That is an interesting way of saying the ABC club is a figment of our imagination! Grant has persuaded him that the core backers of Cunliffe are accusing the ABC of being Rogernomes. That is not the case IMO. Some, like Shearer and Nash, definitely are. I believe that the majority see the ABC club as a bunch of self serving pricks with an over-baked sense of entitlement and lacking in any serious philosophical point of view.
That helps Ovid. Michael Cullen can be trusted that his opinion is balanced. Thanks.
And I thought Cullen is an honourable man.
I have known him since he was an electorate MP.
He has been astute on many issues but, now as a retired senior statesman, having the mana of an elder within the Party, his latest piece really raises questions about him wading into the Primary, lobbying for a particular candidate and revealing the kind of judgment or wisdom that he still may have.
Does his latest move set an example or precedent for other retired senior Parliamentarians to follow?
Who is next in the line of august, esteemed retired Parliamentarians to step forward to lobby for his/her preferred candidate?
Cullen has shown poor communication skills when he talks about the Rogernomic group. He makes it sound like they supported Cunliffe, whereas I thought it was the opposite.
I think that what we need to remember is that Cunliffe was essentially a great conservative manager of the economy. He put in place a low wage, high cost economy and kept taxes slightly lower by the trick of having the state owned power companies charge very high prices. He subsidised employers and further marginalised beneficiaries with Working For Families. That he can support Robertson without mentioning the petulant anti-Cunliffe outbursts does not impress me at all.
…”we need to remember is that Cunliffe was essentially a great conservative”…typo?…you mean Cullen?
Yeah. Oops. Maybe someone can edit it for me?? Please.
Andrew Little’s letter:
Labour is the party that was built by working Kiwis for working Kiwis. We are still that party.
But we have to get our house in order. Because if we don’t then all we have is a bunch of good intentions gone to waste.
We need to fix the machine. We need to bring the pieces of the Labour movement back together and focus them on winning government and making changes we need to to build a fair society.
It’s a big task but it’s one we need to address one step at a time. First we need a caucus that communicates effectively within itself and with focus. Getting to that point will be the first job for the new Leader. Then the Leader and caucus need to reach out to the party and ensure they work well within themselves. Then we need to work alongside our affiliates.
We must find a common cause, within the movement, and with the many, many New Zealanders who want something better for themselves and for their families.
If we don’t find common cause as a movement we will never earn the trust of New Zealanders.
I can do this. I have done this before.
When I became the leader of the EPMU, one of New Zealand’s largest and most powerful unions, it was a house divided. I led the project to bring it together, to modernise it, to bring through new talent. I built a union which took our member’s issues out to the public, to the media, and won the argument again and again. We covered a lot of ground and during that time I dealt with organisations from small business to New Zealand’s biggest corporates on many different issues.
The one unifying thing, across all of these issues, was fairness. We got fair outcomes for our members and for New Zealand workers across the board because we worked together.
We are a party of immensely talented people. But right now we’re working as individuals, not as a collective movement.
We must fix this. We can.
We need to regain New Zealanders’ trust. We need them to know that when we make a promise, we can deliver. We need them to know we stand for them and their ambitions. Not just against what’s wrong but for what is right.
As part of that we must acknowledge the trust MÄori put in Labour in delivering us six of the the seven MÄori seats. They are our voters and we must make good on their return to us. We must ensure that MÄori are represented well within Labour and that advancing their aspirations is a cornerstone of our Party. That’s what being representative is about.
People have asked me why I’m standing. I’m standing because I believe in Labour’s values. I believe in fairness and justice for workers, for families, for all New Zealanders. People aren’t getting a fair go right now, and I won’t tolerate a society in which the very few at the top gain at the expense of the many.
I won’t tolerate a society in which good jobs are destroyed and replaced with insecure work, in which people in the middle are squeezed tighter and tighter by the cost of living and have no way to get ahead. A society in which those at the bottom fall off the edge of the cliff.
These are the principles I have stood for throughout my life and they have been at the core of how I have led. They are the principles that the Labour Party embodies.
But to stand up for those principles we must be a united Party with new ideas and a real plan to win back the trust of New Zealanders.
I can bring the party together. I have the track record to prove it.
Thanks Olwyn.
thanks
He speaks for me.
Thus far, Andrew Little is saying best… all the things I’ve been thinking for many years. I’m coming more and more to the view he’s the one to lead Labour out of the wilderness. Strong, forthright, doesn’t suffer fools gladly. Just what the party needs.
how do you think he can best deal with the certain meme of commie far left unionist
Given his years with the EPMU he will be accustomed to sticking with the job at hand and not letting others set the narrative for him. Also, they have spent a lot of their vitriol on Cunliffe – it would be hard for them to repeat the same act convincingly. I am very sad about all David Cunliffe has been forced to endure.
i am not reassured that they have been deterred. little would not have had the wealth and network against him like this govt has… or the media
i wonder if, whoever wins, they start using the word bully alot
i wont be bullied. nzers dont like bullies. key, bennett and collins are bullies…
@ Tracey
He’s big enough, strong enough to either ignore it or treat it with the contempt it deserves. He’s well known and been around a long time. In one way or another he has assisted thousands upon thousands of workers in the past 30 years, so I doubt that meme will have the kind of outcome his detractors will be hoping for.
I even suspect the media will not buy into it for the simple reason some of them probably have cause to be grateful for his ‘assistance’ in days gone by.
Good point Anne! The EPMU is their union.
🙂
fair comment about media. hadnt thought of that aspect. didnt cunliffe ignore their antics too?
i was saddened to read that when murdochs papers went rabid on whitlam journos went on strike… saddened cos it was done and they are too self interested here to consider such a stance.
Agreed Anne. The EPMU represent journalists and so he will know most of them reasonably well in different circumstances – even those that did not join the union.
john armstrong trying to be impartial, after the fact, on dirty politics. or perhaps he is giving key advice
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11346115
Most people can see through the fact this was written after the election, once Armstrong’s slavish support got the Tories in.
I have no respect for him as a journalist.
Question Time today: on the agenda, poverty, housing accords, Key’s communications with Slater, inquiry into Judith Collins dealings with SFO.
Another sound of silencing … the deconstruction of Maori TV now complete by forcing out Julian Wilcox following on from Carol Hirschfeld.
What a fool the new CEO must be to deliberately provoke the loss of these skilled and genius broadcasters.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11346609
The CEO is working with board member Georgina Te Heu Heu to make Maori Television a propaganda channel for the Maori Party and the National Party. Mihi Forbes will be next on their list to be pushed out the door.
I suggest a name change to Kupapa Television. That’s all it’ll be if we let them get away with it.
And what a tragedy that will be … she is delightful with her incisive brilliance. She and John Campbell are the last lights still burning through the fog.
Probably off topic. But please fix the RSS feed to have the full articles in it again. Having only the summaries makes it hard to read offline.
[Nothing is off topic in OM. LPrent? – MS]
OMG Robertson is resurrecting Helen’s Pledge card.
Not the way to move forward IMO
Stuff live on line (tweets) from Labour leadership meeting:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/beehive-live/10646919/Beehive-Live-And-now-to-work
Can’t edit.
Looks like Little made the best impression. Love this from him:
Hell, he’s brave. 😯
Not bad eh, let’s see if Little can hold his nerve over the next few weeks. BTW did you catch the link to my Radio 1 interview, Anne?
Yes I did CR. Great stuff. I couldn’t help wondering if a certain parliamentarian down your way heard it too. 🙂
😈
Maybe Little with Cunliffe as DP. I could maybe buy that.
I sort of like both of them.
Don’t want to vote for the others.