Entrepreneurs will indeed diversify! “One thing we can be certain of: the referendum will pass comfortably. That’s because the government is organising and running it, and will not propose a question that would fail. Politically it needs at least 65% support, and ideally even more. On current polling that would stack the odds against a fully commercial market and perhaps more in favour of non-profit Cannabis Social Clubs, run along the lines of liquor licensing trusts with profits returned to the community, and who re-sell cannabis products grown and made by licensed producers.”
Opinion there from one of them. “Chris Fowlie is the CEO of Zeacann Limited, a medicinal cannabis producer; co-founder of the New Zealand Medical Cannabis Council; president of the National Organisation for the Reform of Marijuana Laws NZ Inc; co-founder of The Hempstore Aotearoa; co-host of Marijuana Media on 95bFM; and court-recognised expert witness for cannabis.” https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2019/01/22/cannabis-predictions-and-crystal-ball-gazing/
Totally not suprised about Ohairu being light fawn – such a tough seat full of old skool conservatives and red necks of a blue persuasion. It’s an anti progressive area. We were lucky we scraped through.
Ha ha ha. Grey – I got frightened off last time I tried to come back. Instead of finding some good craic I found a seething pit of misogynists defending Brett Kavanagh – It was hideous. I felt things had changed with the nature of dialogue in these parts.
We have our bad days Rosie. The sun usually shines through after a while and we have some good thinkers with background to support their ideas and theories which are usually either helpful for understanding, or helpful and positive.
Eeek. Grey, those bad days you speak of, when I have visited and not commented have really been rather dire. Hanging out with misogynists is something I’d rather not do – I can see your point, there are good thinkers too, but yeah, a bit too much of the yucky stuff going on for my tastes.
The trouble is Rosie it’s a bit of a polluted stream. Trying to put in some fresh water that is not tainted with BS is a bit of a task. But people like you and Veutoviper are needed, not just because you are women for some sort of balance, but because you are thinking people and interested in NZrs and the world, and can articulate your thoughts in a way that others can respond to.
I think there is an important kaupapa here that allows people to be drawn in, to put their ideas down and see them printed out where they will be taken seriously enough to be read and replied to. A political discourse that is fairly immediate and more continuous than is possible through newspaper and magazine letters, and is not as open and easy through other platforms. Radio talkback can come up with some good stuff, but it is not captured in print and it is hard to build a decent discussion and there is no archived information that can be personally referred to or built onto.
And reasoned discussion that is open to the public easily is rare in NZ.
And any sort of sensible, searching political discussion is rare in NZ. That is why it is important for people to not just push off in disgust as I have attempted to do a few times. Take a breather by all means you past commenters but please lets keep the stream going,; okay never pure, never quite to your satisfaction but join in the swim when the water isn’t too murky, that is my plea.
It is very affirming to know that people are thinking and trying to find a pathway to follow to the future, it stops me getting depressed and I think many others also. Where there is a lively, intelligent discussion there is hope!
Thank you for your comments and for making some points – I hadn’t thought about. I certianly agree with you on this point you make:
“reasoned discussion that is open to the public easily is rare in NZ.”
I guess for me, in the past i just ignored some off the more off commenters on here, and generally there would be a pile on anyway that I stayed out of most times, but what I experienced a few weeks ago, put me in an unsafe space, as a woman. I felt vulnerable and re traumatised by these misogynists.
It was compouned by regular TS commenters then having a petty argument about the fiidly points of the Brett Kavanagh case, who had avoided my whole point entirely. Initially I had responded to some one who had started off the Open Mike thread with “Oh, blah blah blah, bad Herlad newspaper, there’s far more important things than the Brett Kavanagh story”
For any person reading that, who has been affected by rape and sexual assault it would have felt like someone had minimised the reality of what they had been through. It was selfish and thoughtless thing for that person to say.
I pointed this out and it turned into an open forum for MRA’s and gendered violence deniers. It was really horrific. It never would have happened on this site previously without just one person, me, to argue against. It was like a verbal assault but the most vile people imaginable to me.
I am quite tough and I do get into scrapes in real life with jerks like that but I don’t feel I should have to be defending the abused in what used to be a safe place. I just thought “well f*ck this you know. I’m not coming back”
And Grey don’t feel despondant as there are some wonderful things happening in our country and around the world. Really good advancements and achievements, from thinking to doing. The young people are fantastic. It sounds corny but our future is their thinking, now. Leaders are getting younger and solving the problems that the generations above them caused for them. If you want to feel hopeful, talk to a young person with a vision. We even managed to get some into Parliament! So that is progress 🙂
Finally back to a point you made earlier, about the lack of reasoned discourse in NZ. I’ve found it really quite refreshing looking at what other countries are talking about. Just one example might be a site called Bella Caledonia: A left wing Scottish prespective on world and local affairs from an Indepedence veiwpoint.
Sorry to hear that Rosie. I feel that if you can’t educate them, and they resist any points of view, you shouldn’t argue or attempt to reason or explain with such a group of men. They will find justification in the most unlikely places.
Yesterday there were amazing arguments about whether it was okay for a young man to stand in front of some Omaha Indian people who wanted to walk up some steps to make some protest or announcement. The number who argued about rights when it was a matter of lack of courtesy to someone different and older than himself, and a lack of respect for the other, was amazing. I felt bad about that response and its vehemence. So I realise that was peanuts to what you felt.
I think there is nothing you can do except to make a statement about how we should treat each other, and how taking advantage of others can affect them badly lifelong. Also the point should be made that you would never think of treating anyone in a bad way and expect that respect should be a two-way thing. After that you should withdraw to preserve your own peace and stability, hopefully more in sorrow than in anger. But that sort of discord makes you aware that behind apparently trustworthy and honest faces, there can be traces of something deeply unpleasant, more than just the light and dark side that we all have controlled by the brain in one of its functions.
And you too, super Rongotai trooper! Hope you are well.
Please see reply to Grewarshark above, as to my absence.
I did come back for a sniff around and found sword fishs’ interesting graph and info. That was the kind of analysis I used to enjoy, and it was good to see he was still contributing.
Swordfish is only an intermittent these days unfortunately, Last time a month or so ago, I did my best to encourage more frequency!
I thought I had done the same when you came for your ‘sniff around’ because I was thrilled to see you and then you disappeared again; but I was also thinking at that time of disappearing myself.
TS certainly goes through changes from time to time!
It’s probably a good thing that the site goes through changes with commenters, but there are voices I miss. I have noticed there are less women, which I find disappointing. I can imagine there are good reasons for that.
Are you on any social/political faceblba pages? I occasionally get involved with some discussions on that platform, but not often.
I don’t have a Twitter account which means I can read lots without having to befriend the owner of the accounts I read (LOL). I do have a (ghost) Facebook page but in my real name so will not disclose that here. If there is a Facebook political site you are on, we could perhaps meet up there and then use Facebook Messenger/chat for private chat?
There’s just few faceblab sites that I follow, but I have zero political friends on faceblab, with the exception of one person actually, come to think of it. I find it hard to find people willing to discuss politics and social issues that are just ordinary people.
Not suggesting that you are any old ordinary person 🙂
Please feel free to send me a facebook message to pacific rosie.
I also have a petition you may or may not be interested in!
Pretty clear that the Nat vote is based on the urban upper class and farmers – class divisions are highlighted with the strong red preferences in working class suburbs, and deep blue in wealthy areas. Good to see some of the lighter blue areas that could flip to red in the next election.
But the left should take nothing for granted – NZF support has collapsed and the Greens could implode at any minute.
I wonder if we’ll find out who the MP that sent the ‘you deserve to die’ text to JLR is? Or will they be quietly shuffled off stage? It’s hard to imagine a parliamentary career surviving such an unpleasant incident.
I know who the MP is alleged to be Cinny. What I don’t know yet is how National is going to deal with the situation. A potential crime has allegedly been committed that’s punishable with up to 3 years jail time.
The party comes first with the nat’s and they will bury any and everything that could damage their brand.
People have never been a priority, neither is accountability.
I’d like to see action taken by the police, the way I see it is a person in a position of responsibility/public office sent such a vile text it near on caused a suicide.
If that is the way a person treats their exlover one can only imagine how they would treat strangers/voters. Freaking disgusting behaviour no matter which party a person supports,
So we should hold National to account for their hypocrisy. Why isn’t this happening? After all they they were very keen for Ardern to act in respect of Meka Whaitiri before any facts of that matter had been established.
With regard to “A potential crime has been committed”, JLR’s facebook post and media reports are that this text is now being investigated by NZ Police and is out of the hands of both JLR and National.
However, it remains to be seen whether NZ Police will decide to prosecute etc. Personally, on NZ Police’s form in usually not taking such political related issues further, I personally am not holding my breath that we will see anything other than “we have investigated and do not deem it appropriate to take the matter further”, insignificant evidence etc etc .
Looks like one of his advisors alerted him a while back to the `pale stale male’ meme trending on social media, and it’s been percolating away in the back of his mind ever since. So he’s made Nick Smith the spokesperson for Crown-Maori relations.
If the brilliance of this master-stroke is not immediately apparent, think about it. It reassures those in the Nat hinterland that colonialism is not yet dead. It reassures his Chinese overlords that the upstart natives will be kept in check. It shows his gratitude that his Chinese caucus colleagues are still refraining from pointing out that the Treaty gives Maori a permanent privileged status. It must be galling that the colonial aristocracy have been joined by the Maori aristocracy in solidarity, but the asian influx can compete via wealth-accumulation as consolation for being unable to gain parity in law.
You’d think it would have been sensible to give Shane Reti that job – someone who can see both sides and has proven competent. But being sensible would send the wrong signal. Reti now has the tertiary education, skills and employment portfolio. If he’s an ideas man, an excellent basis on which to build a political career.
I would have preferred Mr Reti in health.
Eminently qualified.
Question to me is who is competent to take the attack to Labour on tax; carbon tax, income tax, capital tax. Sure the hell ain’t their finance spokesperson.
Tax should be the principle attack line from National in 2020.
Competitive, with artistry: “Paul is an enthusiastic pianist and has a broad interest in the arts; he is a 2nd dan black belt in Tae Kwon Do and plays on the right wing for the Parliamentary Rugby team.” https://paulgoldsmith.national.org.nz/about_paul
“Cavusoglu said in a speech that some Western countries were trying to cover up Mr Khashoggi’s murder”. C’mon dude, point the finger! Which ones? “There are Western countries trying to cover this case up. I know the reasons.” “We know and see what sorts of deals are made. We see how those who spoke of freedom of press are now covering this up after seeing money.”
“Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has said Mr Khashoggi’s killing was ordered by the highest level of Saudi leadership”. So does Cavusoglu mean “the US, its closest ally, whose Senate has voted for a resolution blaming the prince for the murder”?? Trump, then, resisting the Senate? Or does he mean Britain & Europe?
Governance is trending towards unfashionable in the anglo-saxon world, observes Gordon Campbell on the PM’s visit to Downing St: “New Zealand is useful only insofar as we can contribute to the illusion that Number 10 is open for something that looks like business as usual. It isn’t, of course. On both sides of the Atlantic, the practices of normal government are in virtual shutdown.”
The “Marpol Treaty is a set of UN-mandated regulations (devised by the International Maritime Organisation) that among other things, is aimed at cracking down on the pollution emitted by ships, and the crucial bits are in Annex VI. As Bloomberg News recently reported, the global shipping fleets currently consume about 3.8 million barrels a day of fuel oil — in the main, this is heavy, lower-value stuff from a refining process that contains about 1 to 3.5 percent sulphur. That content level is about to change: from January 2020, new rules from the International Maritime Organization will limit sulphur-dioxide emissions from ships. All else equal, a ship would need to burn fuel with only 0.5 percent sulphur content or less to comply.”
This pollution-reduction of 50-90% is terrific news for Greens globally! It implements the principle of true-cost accounting, and seems the first major step in international law that signals a global trajectory beyond neoliberalism. It tilts the economic balance back towards regional economies, and resilience.
This, alongside of increasing storms making shipping harder to insure, means countries need to start putting local manufacturing back in place.
It just wont be WORTH it to ship nonsense around the globe anymore. Yesterday I observed the garden ties a friend got me were imported from Spain. We don’t need Spain to make material strips WTF are we useless?
When it comes to looking after ourselves. Can we?
We used to make all manner of things. As a lad off to church in Te Aroha it was not uncommon for me to sit in church and dream sinfully of the factory full of girls making bras down the road (Bendon).
But that factories gone.
We can’t even can food without needing several countries involved.
Now we’ve got useless Kardashian c**** selling us bras. Global economy – global shutdown of local independence is what it is. Pro american corporate everything.
Wait for the climate change derivatives. AAA rated insurance bundles. Buy now to save the planet.
Britain can be bought to a halt by a truck driver strike in a few days when food and resources are curbed. In a strike there is chaos, the supermarkets and petrol stations are empty within 3 days.
Who needs military when you rely on about 5 third parties for the basics of life, and seem to have no contingency plans for disasters, strikes or soft power approaches and your country bought to their knees by old fashioned methods like a siege.
NZ as a food and commodities producer like wood/steel seems to has lost our way. So busy putting up speculative houses which 40% (or more) of people can’t even afford on their incomes for the world’s middle classes to get residency here as a Ponzi that the government is scared to stop.
Still the mantra is, build more of these speculative houses. Wonder how many of the 1000 Kiwibuild houses that are supposed to be built shortly are for the state houses and the poor? Then deduct off the state houses that were demolished to create the new houses to work out the final tally of increased state housing.
Normally don’t bother watching the MSM news but saw an article about housing the other day. Nice (sarcasm) to see they are still beating the same drums about the causes of housing un affordability. One commentator said we needed to make land more available (a common right wing approach) and the other that tax treatment was the answer.
Nobody mentioned the effect of the third highest immigration in the world per capita in NZ for the past decade or our low wages. Then the media people fail to understand why nobody trusts them anymore or tunes in with that tripe and propaganda being fed out to the masses, which the masses don’t actually consume anymore.
Weird how inspite of the Natz ideas of putting unitary plan zoning in place and throwing out democracy and basic planning measures the land prices in creased and that the last decade of increased taxes on property have actually also increased the shortages in particular of rental properties as landlords bail out and with hundreds of thousands of new residents also competing who often have $40k and more up their sleeve to outcompete those who are in debt in NZ.
It’s a further irony that the houses are being built that increase the cost of food and petrol taxes but are just or even more unaffordable than the existing houses and we are bringing in more unemployed (aka the unemployed Chinese workers holed up with no work after paying third parties $40k to get them work in NZ) and low cost people who need to be housed in competition to make the houses which are generally more unaffordable than before!
Where is the diversification strategy. Like the UK and their ‘favourite industries to support, like finance and nuclear’ they are left out in the cold when they realise that those industries are gone in a flash and industries that used to prop up Britain are non existent anymore after going out of business with the government uninterested in helping new fledging businesses or even most British based ones.
If there was a world shortage would NZ own many of our resources anymore (after our current records of giving them away virtually for free like water and sand), and would we be like the UK that failed to diversify and was in the pockets of Thatcherism for decades and after screwing up socially with their bad decisions are now about to lose their Ponzi businesses like finance and global headquarters bases for global business with Brexit uncertainty.
A return to local manufacturing is not part of the global plan to make us bitches of the riches.
But the rich are too stupid to see their grand schemes are as flimsy as their arguments for austerity.
It’s entirely possible to have a global village scenario, AND local economies… We’re all hooked up via the internet but the status quo learned to use it to forge greater divides, to allow the rampant spread of hate and disinformation. Religious memes, class memes, fuck the plebs divide and conquer.
Global tech and information sharing, and trade in materials not locally available… this is sensible. Everything we can do ourselves, we should bloody well do. Is it really worth it to buy cheap crap and enrich foreign sociopathic entities rather than our own people.
There’s a reason tomatoes get picked in Australia, packed in South America and sold in NZ – so we all get used to the idea we’re so useless we can’t even can our own tomatoes – so we NEED the global economy, these corporate ticket clippers/subsidy scramblers embedded every step of the way.
Criminally negligent companies being bailed out by governments rather than sanctioned/governed show they are not only onside with each other, they’re in bed together and they’re cheating on you.
When the seas become uninsurable some common sense must prevail and local manufacture might return. More likely the eejits will try air freight tomatoes from aus to brasil to nz. Cos the economy!
I can only suggest to buy local. To grow local. And where you might be in a position to do so, to make local stuff. This is not xenophobic nonsense, it it corporate-phobic common sense.
I realise the housing market was a ponzi scheme (use one house as collateral for the next), but fail to see the current govt playing into that, rather, they’re trying to get us out of it.
Some speculators might suffer, those money for nothing types, I’m not weeping for them personally.
And those tomatoes taste like water and are utterly overpriced. They also come in dainty little plastic containers – all so that a series of ticket clippers engaged in nothing more productive than exercising their egos can get an earn.
(Very efficient and effective – NOT)
NZ as a food and commodities producer like wood/steel seems to has lost our way. So busy putting up speculative houses which 40% (or more) of people can’t even afford on their incomes for the world’s middle classes to get residency here as a Ponzi that the government is scared to stop.
That is what I have been banging on about for years. Concern for the people of NZ is not fscken xenophobia. It’s hatred of injustice. I hate the idea of Kiwis coming last in a greedy scramble for profit, competing against half the world, rather than just building houses for people to live in.
Criminally negligent companies being bailed out by governments rather than sanctioned/governed show they are not only onside with each other, they’re in bed together and they’re cheating on you.
save nz has been thinking again. And deeply. Thanks for presenting us with what we should know and projecting into the likely future, another thing that should be going through our brains but isn’t. You can’t be right always, but what you do is transfixing us on the problems and you get through the trashy glamour life projected onto us.
The word you were looking for is brought which is to bring.
NZ as a food and commodities producer like wood/steel seems to has lost our way.
Back in the 19th century, under the influence of free-market economics, NZ decided that we specialised in producing food and selling it to Britain. This was based upon the idea of specialisation advanced by Adam Smith. Of course, Adam Smith was only talking about specialist jobs in a factory that made an entire product. He would have been horrified at the idea of a country specialising as a country has vast and diverse resources available to it and a lot of people most of whom aren’t going to be interested in doing the same thing as their neighbour.
We seem to have held on to that delusional idea despite everyone;s insistence that everyone is different and has different skills and interests. National tends to be the loudest about these differences and that one size doesn’t fit all and they’re also the loudest about NZ being a bloody farm.
It’s this continued delusional thinking that keeps getting us into trouble as the free-market system continuously fails to work as advertised.
This was the beginning of the mania for public declarations of impotence by democratically elected leaders. Globalization became their excuse for not dealing with difficult issues, for not using their levers of power and large budgets to effect. They made the forces of inevitability credible.
Globalization had brilliant proponents–Mrs. Thatcher first among them, and economists like Milton Friedman… Government after government, as if in a fit of moralism, legislated away its right to take on debt or collect new taxes, even though both of these were fundamental governmental powers, central to the construction and maintenance of democracies…
From the early 1970s to late in the century, multiple binding international economic treaties were put in place, while almost no counterbalancing binding treaties were negotiated for work conditions, taxation, the environment, or legal obligations. For 250 years the painful job of building the modern nation-state had depended on a continual rebalancing of binding rules for both the public good and self-interest. Now this balance was tipped violently one way by simply shifting much of our economic power out into the global marketplace.
Perhaps development of forward progress maximised for all the people in this country, should develop in such a way that there is a replacement economy just humming along below the surface that will serve the sort of a simpler society here similar to that in the quote from Joseph Cederwall in Scoop.
Okay, try to keep us afloat in the present asset-stripping money culture, but encourage community enterprise wherever it occurs. Often people just need funding for facilities and travel, they volunteer their time and expertise. We could make NZ more resilient and greater than it ever was. We will need to so we can attempt to cope with our looming future.
I love the Gili Islands, they are like stepping back in time as no petrol vehicles or generators are allowed on the islands. They are Isles with no dogs but many stray cats, no petrol cars or scooters but coconut palm oil powered scooters, E-bikes and electric mopeds, and even horse and carts.
The Sasak of the Gilis are a friendly, resilient, devoutly Muslim and community-focused people. They have made the best of a difficult task of rebuilding and welcoming back the tourists and I saw evidence of a highly community oriented and cooperative rebuild. I encourage people to consider going there and helping out with getting the economy back on track…
Note the highly community oriented and co-operative rebuild. We don’t have this sort of pulling together in our country, we are still locked into an individualistic go-getter capital-accreting type that seems to have been present from the colonialists.
Perhaps we should institute sister islands and states as a way of making friends, and joining with, and showing solidarity with places like this who still have a system that works for them and can all pull their weight in running small business at a humble level that works both for the individual and for the greater good. I think a lot of our problems started with aspirational people who wanted to live a richer lifestyle in NZ than the country could afford.
They had to change the system and get more moneyed people here at the cost of losing our simpler lifestyle.
So right, Greywarshark, those who wished to turn us into another Switzerland with the likes of dodgy law firms looking after dodgy trusts dodging taxes… those people?
Going from what is practical for shipping businesses to make a profit on their present routes and contracts to 0.5% sulphur content in that short of a time will definitely ’tilt the economic balance’. Full stop! The rest of the sentence “towards regional economies and resilience” may never get to apply as quick effects drive us in quick time to recession and the appalling conflation of all the problems we already are facing in so-called good times. Huh.
A low limit, a low limit of time, a low level of achievability. Ships aren’t cramped together cardboard cartons. (Now is there a market for a new idea? “I have one word to say to you young man plastics [cardboard]: The Graduate.) Turn a bad situation into profitable ones, with a greenwash too!)
There is the cost of perhaps a year of our nation’s income goes into the really big ships. (Go on correct me about this and ignore all my other points you nutty nitpickers.) Definitely a ‘He’s also warning us of an imminent structural adjustment to global trade.’
What is the matter with these supposed wise businessmen and world advisors?
They do nothing for decades, and then apparently panic, and set impossible targets to achieve from the height of their elevated tables and padded chairs having a Picard Star Trek moment “MAKE IT SO”.
Think Green. 😊 Rotorua emissions are just nature doing it’s thing. It’s the artificial additives that are creating run-away global warming. If a Nat tells you we ought to stop all emissions, natural as well, tell him to email Bridges asking him to hold a press-conference and announce that National in govt will award a knighthood to the first person who successfully plugs an erupting volcano.
With Auckland house sales dropping 20%, but prices merely flat, looks like the desired outcome of killing the commodification of housing is heading to being achieved.
The day I can go to an Auckland barbeque and people aren’t wanking on about whether one kind of landscaping increases their capital value over another, will be a welcome day indeed.
Agreed – but the horse has bolted.
Unless we see an ideally slow and graceful deflation by about 50%, the next generation will face lifelong debt serfdom in order to buy a home.
And all it takes to restart the lunacy, is another National government deliberately cranking up demand via immigration and tax policy – to the point that demand overwhelms supply again.
Not just the next generation. At present there are people on working incomes that had no chance of buying a home, and have been trapped into renting. Unless you have access to low-paid/free accommodation, are able to fund the deposit outside of the banking system, or have an exceptionally high wage/income compared to others – you are already locked out of home ownership.
The issue regarding overseas ownership of residential homes still requires attention, and effective management. (Along with many other issues, housing affordability is a problem that has been created by the failure to address many factors.)
Since I moved back up north from the South Island Ad, I’ve noticed that Aucklanders spend a lot of their time engaged in rather vulgar talk about the value of their houses.
Saw Ritchie McCaw and John Key on Seven Sharp last night. What I picked up from it (coming from a point of ignorance on the subject) is that that there is a rich foreign benefactor who wanted to help Christchurch after the earthquakes and set up some sort of organisation to use sport to boost morale. Now McCaw and Key are onboard with him and want to do some more sporty help stuff. However, no specific projects were talked about it, and all we learned was that it wasn’t Key’s fault there was a three way handshake at the Rugby World Cup.
John Key’s deals with billionaires somehow seem to enrich the world’s billionaires at the expense of opportunities for locals to get wealthier and have access to the same tax payer funded ‘sweetheart’ deals as his billionaire mates….
Billionaire Peter Thiel makes fortune after ‘sweetheart’ deal with Government
No doubt will be entered around a ‘sports stadium’, marina or convention centre for elite sports that already have funding and support at the exclusion of everyone else…
meanwhile obesity levels for most Kiwis are increasing partly because there are little opportunities and government schemes at grass roots level as our schools swimming pools and sports fields are eroded like our public spaces, full of tourists and rubbish….
And our footpaths and walkways (both applying to feet and people movement) being hijacked by the machine-mad younger people and businesses. Just another way of putting some manufactured item or practice as a barrier to natural and simple ways that should be available to all without cost.
And don’t forget apparently not many questions asked when one of China’s most wanted gambled in excess of $500 million through Sky City – but apparently the penalty for money laundering was 5 months in his pent house in Auckland and giving back millions to China and NZ?????
It looks like Yong Ming Yan alias Yang Liu alias William Yan’s alias Bill Liu’s only came to governments attention even though he used multiple identities and was money laundering because he did a business deal with Dot Com… if he had not done that it is debatable whether NZ government would have worried about the 500 million + money laundering and multiple identities because they prefer to turn a blind eye to Chinese big money and the activities in NZ…
I’ll hop straight to Godwin. If only Hitler had not dropped the ball and taken his own and Eva’s life, he too might have apologised and ‘moved on with his life and work’, or until the Nuremburg trials anyway. As there would have been for him along with his compatriots. But perhaps they should all have been let off on diversion so they could make recompense for their bad behaviour. The apology system and looking and saying sorry in Court which Judges seem to think is meaningful, may lead to less harsh sentences and offer a lot of savings for the justice system in NZ.
/sarc
If apologies are splashed all over the media are they just PR exercises? If apologies aren’t splashed all over the media does that mean they’re not genuine? Or if apologies aren’t splashed all over the media does that mean they weren’t given?
If someone says an apology sounds like a PR exercise and someone says of the same apology it doesn’t sound like a PR exercise who is right?
IMO, yet’ another case of ‘right’ in such situations being “in the eye of the beholder”.
Or rather, there is no ‘right’ – it is purely a matter of personal opinion. Debating who is ‘right’ just becomes a circular (pointless?) argument with no absolute answer.
The way in which an apology is given speaks volumes to me.
In which instance jlr appeared more genuine than the spotlight longing roastbuster rapist.
That ego driven roastbuster should be charged and chucked into the big house. Maybe he could learn a bit more about rape there. Yeah I’m majorly pissed about his recent actions.
Great to see Minister Woods providing more funding for low emission transport of $11 million.
Foodstuffs, Meridian, Ngai Tahu Tourism, Taraua District Council and others are co-funders.
“This funding is made up of $4.3 million of government co-funding and $7.3 million of funds from the private sector. That’s a smart investment that means the maximum benefit for the taxpayers spend.
She notes:
“From 100% electric campervans for tourists to hydrogen fuel cell powered buses at the Ports of Auckland to solar panel charged electric vehicles and trial of smart chargers in people’s homes, we’re backing new technologies that will make a difference.
“We’re also funding a further 34 new public charging spaces for electric vehicles right around New Zealand, including several at South Island tourism hot-spots. This is about creating a truly national infrastructure of EV charging so that all major trips around our country are available to EV users.
Does anyone mind if I’m a little underwhelmed?
Surely it’s time to look at what EECA is actually doing with itself as part of Shaw’s Carbon Zero thing?
EECA are lovely people trying hard, but they are one of those little funds that pisses itself into tiny teensy weenie little pools and you really have to work hard to get wet.
Please can we have something more muscular and believable for 2019 in transport energy?
Noelle McCarthy is not the worst thing to slither out of the Emerald Isle, it seems. Meet Sorcha Ryder, and try not to grind your teeth or smash a window. This spineless scoundrel rejoices in the splendid title of “President of the Trinity University Philosophical Society, Dublin.” Read the following and you’ll weep for Ireland, for the fate of academia, and for humanity….
Looks like the shortfall is actually explained by their reliance on builders: “It’s been more difficult than we expected to really shift developers off their existing business model”. Lame excuse, but what we expect from Labour.
Come July, we’ll be able to award Twyford three out of ten for his performance. Will Ardern be able to replace him with someone competent? Probably not. Relying on builders to learn a new business model is like expecting old dogs to learn new tricks.
So how did the first Labour govt succeed? Did they provide the designs and let competition between builders drive the output? If so, is the current govt copying that strategy?
Sir James Fletcher snr, perhaps fearing the Fletcher Construction Co Ltd would be nationalised, took up the invitation of the new Labour Government in 1935 to prepare a scheme to build state rental houses. This was opposed by his brothers as too risky, and they were initially right. The houses proved much more expensive to build than first thought. This was because of the high building and design standards insisted on by the enthusiastic parliamentary undersecretary to the minister of finance, John A. Lee, who had no experience of building.
His scheme provided for most houses to be individual units and to be built from New Zealand-produced materials wherever possible. No two houses in an area were to be of the same design, and construction was to be of a high order. Lee also insisted that interior planning of all houses should conform to modern civilised standards. The New Zealand Institute of Architects’ president considered the scheme expensive and inefficient and Fletcher himself claimed that civil servants had provided house designs and demanded standards of construction on “too lavish a scale”.
The first house was built in 1937 and by March 1939 more than 5000 state houses were built or were under construction, and contracts had been let for 700 more. Residential Construction lost between £200 and £300 a house and survived only by virtue of a £200,000 government-guaranteed overdraft. It was one of several contractors, and by 1939 it had virtually withdrawn from the business.
So they got 5000 built in two years. We need the media to explain why this success isn’t being replicated. Market failure, or poor govt design, or both? I’d like to hear from any experts who reckon they can account for the difference!
I thought everyone had decided that there was not enough available timber in NZ and that we would have to buy it back from Australian entities which had bought it from us originally.
Interesting – I haven’t seen that story. You mean not enough dry cut pine? If so, does that mean nobody checked the resource stocks before designing the construction plan??
Yes, just a question of whether that is all the explanation or just part. It wasn’t there in the 1930s, so time was required to find or create usable land. But they knew that! Labour’s poll rating will slide unless they can explain themselves.
Said houses, thanks to JA Lee’s insistence on high standards, saved New Zealand millions in building replacement houses, and still provide value, even today.
Fifties and sixties State houses attract a premium on the market.
Doesn’t sound anywhere like the National parties expensive theft/fuckup, with selling them off.
Kiwibuild is nothing like the First Labour Government’s State house building programme. Then again that wasn’t entirely earth shattering either. Only 30,000 houses were built between 1937 and 1950. That works out to be less than 2500 per year. Also most of them were still built by the private sector.
Sure, the government via it’s agencies financed, designed, and clerked residential construction but AFAIK the work was always done by the private sector.
@ Gosman, The difference then, was that NZ immigration was not the third highest in the world per capita in the 1930’s to 1950’s, at the same time as they were constructing the state houses… hard to keep up with that sort of impact on population growth with housing, especially when NZ is not exactly choosy on who we are importing into NZ to reside here, with aged people, criminals, 11 day marriage and retail/hospitality workers being popular by immigration as new citizens and residents… many are not actually working but retiring or just living here and able to claim benefits within very short time frames…
some are unemployed before they even get here aka the Chinese workers holed up recently after paying $40k and having no work or money to pay rent.
Let alone all the alias that are being discovered by many coming and going from NZ…
no wonder jobseekers benefits are up. Unlike Kiwi’s who have their benefit cut when they leave NZ, many on multiple passports under different names can come and go as they please and therefore their benefits are not cut, when they leave…
Not sure how motivated the govt was during 1939-45 to build houses and if there was a workforce available at the time.
From memory there was some other event that captured the attention of the world at that time (though I must admit not recorded as part of my writings 😉) ??
So the govt IMO had a valid reason of averaging 2,500/year Though I think you are being a little mischievous in how you have framed your point ??
@ Dennis Frank What are they talking about, it’s the same business model the government uses as the construction industry approach.
That’s the problems as is relying on very poorly trained, low waged imports to build our houses who many are sitting around unemployed after paying $40k to lawyers and third party recruiters, when what we needed was building and planning skills at a higher local level….
As they say, from wiki
“The infinite monkey theorem states that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type any given text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare.”
In terms of NZ building it seems that allowing hundreds of thousands of low skilled people into NZ will some how create a master piece of engineering and construction over the age of the universe as they all seem to use the infinite monkey theorem in construction here…
could have been a better bet to give free trades training to NZ citizens already here which would take 2 -4 years and be on the ground now instead of the import strategy from National from 2010, (aka in that 8 years we could have had two rounds of new trainees who are NZ born and trained and likely to stay in NZ if the wage and conditions are high enough), or import in quality international people on $100k+ , use habitat for humanity man power for the rest, have people who speak and read English fluently to follow the plans and communicate on site so we don’t have remedial work and it taking forever to get a building completed, and with tradies with decades of experience (aka not likely to respond to $NZ 20 – 40 p/h jobs)….
Even easier go back to the immigration levels that the new government planned for aka 15,000 max, stop the temporary work permits that are a massive burden on infrastructure, stamp on poor tourism and aged parents actually being in NZ and ‘working’ looking after kids on a tourism visa that use our hospitals etc, and actually look at people who want to live here and have something great to offer the country… and the appropriate level of insurance for people who are actually living here, but not qualified to do so, using a tourist or student visa but without means to properly support themselves in NZ…
Build a wall, sounds less complex. Across the Bombay hills.
I agree with the 15,000 figure. Some non partisan think tank looked at the issue. I would include more temporary work visa programmes for the pacific islands. Better than strait handouts to there governments.
It won’t happen as our GDP growth and housing price stability is tied to immigration. No way Labour could survive a house price fall as its doing next to nothing to stimulate other parts of the economy.
In terms of election margin a debate could exist about a few percent that Labour presently gets from poorer immigrants who are still by any method trying to get the extended family into NZ. They will vote against such a control on immigration. Hence since it’s the margin that wins or looses the election Labour can’t act.
It was clear at the point that they announced it that he wouldn’t hit 1000 houses per year for a while and certainly ramping up to 3000 plus a year is pie in the sky dreaming at the moment.
They successfully avoided addressing their unrealistic targets in the first year in office as they could use the excuse that they were putting in place the framework for the programme. No such excuses exist now although I am sure they will attempt variations on this theme.
What a lovely duet Gosman and Puckish Rogue make. Each feeding into the others negative warblings. I prefer Bjorling and Merrill in In the Depths of the Temple myself.
The thing about opera singers is that they can’t usually do pop for anything worth a damn. Their breath control is too deliberate and it screws the natural sound. But opera is totally my thing, some days. Just awesome.
On the other hand, Mercury had an amazing range (with no gaps) and style that is rare in pop music. It’s funny to try to follow his style in karaoke – most of the songs sound simple to sing, but then the note increments keep going up or down so far that one’s throat really gets into difficulty. I mean, you can sing them all in your own range, but they sound so much more flat.
There’s something special about that song – it’s like three different songs with some lyrics being oscure to the point of nonsensical, and the lyrics with obvious meaning are very loosely related if at all, but it just connects with people.
I doubt they could spin any such line but I don’t expect them to try. They need to take responsibility. All they need blame National for is creating the problem in the first place. If National had been responsible and only imported as many foreigners as the infrastructure could provide for, the problem would not exist, right? No need to point out that Helen Clark made the same stupid mistake. I know that already. 🙄
Eventually. Depends if they can produce a feasible excuse from the logistics. Twyford ought to be demanding an explanation from the public servants responsible for implementing the policy. We still haven’t had any explanation at all.
Twyford could tell a press conference that it was lack of leadership: “Well, we contracted a CEO for Kiwibuild, then we had to shift his goalposts, which he decided was a breach of contract. But privacy law prevents me saying so. You know, the same lame excuse National always used to evade accountability. We always copy National!” 😎
Key highlighted NZ’s housing crisis in 2007. Like Chris T, I can’t remember what the National-led government promised either; how did they avoid criticism for failing to provide more affordable housing while ramping up immigation?
Simple, really – National had no housing targets, homelessness isn’t their problem, and they have (blind) faith that the market will provide (never mind Mainzeal (Shipley) and Fletcher Building failures).
If the number of KiwiBuild homes built so far is disappointing (and it is), then how best to describe National’s housing ‘achievements’ over nine years in office, and do we really want a repeat of those achievements?
Looking forward to comparing the numbers after the coalition’s first nine years.
Homelessness doesn’t appear to be Labour’s problem either given their 2 billion in last years budget looks like it will produce 300 houses that no one seems to want and will probably end up on the open market, while 2 billion could have housed the homeless.
4 members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus — Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ro Khanna, Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Tlaib — have reportedly been named to the House Oversight Committee. https://t.co/M0FspIgB9s
Two Republicans on the House Oversight Committee are urging Michael Cohen’s attorney to prove that his client’s upcoming February 7 public testimony before the committee won’t just be a “media stunt.”
In a Tuesday letter, House Freedom Caucus Members Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Mark Meadows (R-NC) asked Guy Petrillo for firm answers on the scope of Cohen’s testimony, claiming that Cohen’s public relations representative in the probe, Lanny Davis, cautioned that much of what Cohen can say will be restricted by his cooperation with multiple ongoing investigations.
The congressmen write that Davis told GOP committee staff that he “pushed” Cohen to testify, saying “this was my idea; nobody’s else.”
The irony of a Brexit Leave supporter, now leaving Britain… also what happens with globalism it is a race to the bottom and company headquarters can come and go as they please, with few incentives of old like redundancy payments, or tax treatment to stop them…. more like encourage corporations to leave western countries and manufacture else where, while bringing in cheap products and selling them to the consumers of the western world… how free trade really works.
And how thoughtful all those Leave people were… they are the first to leave the sinking May ship
“Dyson will move its headquarters from the UK to Singapore ahead of Brexit
Founder James Dyson is in favor of the UK exiting the EU. But even with Brexit going ahead, his company is now leaving for Singapore.”
His company is leaving as Singapore has signed a free trade agreement with Europe and he now has the same access if not better to the european market then he is going to have by staying in Britain.
And that is the crux of the matter, capital will always find a way to get out. Its just the ordinary workers that will stay behind. 🙂 Oh well, as some said, they voted for it, and all those that did not vote for it, sucks to be them, right?
The scum trolls led by hedonist non empathetic nationals, are delighted that the Coalition cannot meet the present extreme demand of housing and rentals.
They are drunk with the success of their massive destruction of the low waged Kiwi family and their own rise and rise of ostentatious dirty Greed.
Thanks to John Key and Billy English – and a number of other slobs Their success has been so Rapid. And Rabid.
Knighted by a pleasant but unkowing Monarch. Who has not an inkling of Democracy – or Equity. The same Monarch appears to have no idea of a Treaty struck by a simple Queen Victoria, which has failed to keep the Maori peoples and individuals, in the same luxury as the wealthy of Auckland or Tauranga.
The Coalition of NZ – will soon have to discuss with every Wealthy person in Aotearoa a meaningful reduction in their wealth.
For, there will be many means of humiliating wealthy persons who have failed Democracy. The wealthy know that. It will not take many matches to burn off Greed.
Housing was not just a National issue. The ramping up in prices, debt, rents, immigration began with Clarke and Cullen. National just did nothing to change as it was the haves that got more wealthy as a result.
I don’t think saying that the few wealthy should have assets confiscated will solve anything. Such a move would cause a flight of wealth resulting in economic collapse. Then you will have a meaningful reduction of wealth. Our tax rates are already high. So any of the Moari that get educated and able to command high pay will just leave to work in the long list of low tax nations. Buisiness confidence would collapse, as the owners flee with whatever assets they can recover and unemployment would increase. Harming Moari the most.
I am a bit more occupied with a place called New Zealand. Have you heard of New Zealand ?
You wealthy guys and girls have been buying up houses and selling them off at some of the highest prices on the planet. Just dumpy old three bedroom stuff. at that.
Heaps of them you turn into Rentals at outrageous weekly amounts. Most of them mouldy cold rat ridden slums. And then you run off to Simon and Paula (the one in the Leopard skin) and cry on his shoulder about how the poor wretches are complaining about low wages and poverty.
Simon says in his unique obscure way, well we must tread on the throats of the Poor until they get used to their Poverty and become grateful. Children, Women and Men.
Simon says the National Party exists to get rid of all people who have no wealth. It is what National People expect and you expect D J Ward. National stands for getting rid of the decent people of New Zealand.
But you already know that. That’s why a lot of you pay hardly any Tax. Scummy eh .
Kia ora Newshub Inflation is low in NZ that is only the case because the price of oil has come back from the highs of last year.
Tawhirirmate is a powerful force and these strong winds are part of human caused Global Warming and climate change that’s a fact. Its good to see that the #metoo movement has given the young people the courage to call out the powerful in the movie making world who abuse their staff.
Lloyd I say that Davos is going to make good changes they are taking about climate change and unequal income distribution finally . I also say that if national was still in power there will have been thousands of broken people under the bridge and on the bread line. The the Coalition Government has made a positive changes to Aotearoa.
Its not on that people leave any living thing in a car on a hot day. duncan at least the Coalition Government is trying to fix the homeless people problems in Aotearoa national just denied it rubbing there hands together hogging the tax free capital gains they are getting from their housing market short.
The digital language gives people a consciences one cannot just tell porkies or do bad things just because someone is filling there hip pockets with $$$$$$$$$$. Shamubeel the way the world is at the minute is a very good reason not to load the government with DEPT. Like I have stated before if programs are targeted at Maori that will give national a tool to hit the Coalition Government on the head with anyway its best to lift all poor minority culture up with policy’s not just one sector of OUR society.
Good on Hinewehi Mohi for singing the Maori only national anthem at Twickenham All blacks England game 20 years ago. Its cool that most Kiwis are giving Maori culture respect .
The provincial growth fund has helped Maori and rural communities all over Aotearoa. duncan their are hundreds of people who are not locked up in jail now collecting the dole that is better than pay paying A $100.000 a year to keep them in the farcical jail system just to keep you happy. No wonder Winston stayed away from the am show you are a disrespectful person. That $400 is a pack of porkies duncan that’s is what the contractor gets if a worker plants 10 bags a day the worker will get $200 gross a day from that a reasonable fit person will only hit that if they are good hard workers at the end of the season most people will only make $100 a day YOUR MEDIA mates telling bullshit again I seen that story $400 planting trees and know one wants the job YEA RIGHT to I no this for a Fact. Ka kite ano. P.S duncan I would like to see you on a spade you would break in half a day
Americans’ concerns about climate change have surged to record levels, new polling shows, following a year marked by devastating storms, wildfires and increasingly dire warnings from scientists.
A total of 72% of polled Americans now say global warming is personally important to them, according to the Yale program on climate change communication. This is the highest level of concern since Yale starting polling the question in 2008.
Overall, 73% of Americans accept that global warming is happening, outnumbering those who don’t by five to one. This acceptance has strengthened in recent years, rising by 10% since March 2015. The proportion that grasps that humans are the primary cause of warming is smaller, with 62% understanding this to be the case.
About two-thirds of Americans believe that global warming is influencing the weather, in the wake of a string of deadly extreme events in the US. About half say the disastrous wildfires in California and Hurricanes Florence and Michael, which flattened parts of North Carolina and Florida, were worsened because of rising global temperatures.
“Global warming used to be viewed as a problem distant in time and space,” said report co-lead researcher Ed Maibach, a climate change and public health communications expert at George Mason University.
“But Americans increasingly understand that global warming is here and now and are growing concerned about the threat to themselves, their communities and the nation.” Ka kite ano links below.
Giving money to the oil barons who are poising the enviroment that has to stop. I wonder how much Aotearoa gives to the carbon barons will check that out a put a post up about that.
The UK leads the European Union in giving subsidies to fossil fuels, according to a report from the European commission. It found €12bn (£10.5bn) a year in support for fossil fuels in the UK, significantly more than the €8.3bn spent on renewable energy.
The commission report warned that the total subsidies for coal, oil and gas across the EU remained at the same level as 2008. This is despite both the EU and G20 having long pledged to phase out the subsidies, which hamper the rapid transition to clean energy needed to fight climate change.
Fossil fuels subsidised by $10m a minute, says IMF
Read more
Germany provided the biggest energy subsidies, with €27bn for renewable energy, almost three times the €9.5bn given to fossil fuels. Spain and Italy also gave more subsidies to renewable energy than fossil fuels.
But along with the UK, France, the Netherlands, Sweden and Ireland all gave more to fossil fuels. The report is based on 2016 Eurostat data, the latest available, and found that across the EU renewable energy received 45% of subsidies and fossil fuels 33%.
The commission report said policies were being pursued to cut carbon emissions and meet the Paris climate agreement goals of limiting global warming to well below 2C above pre-industrial levels. “However, despite this and the international commitments made in the context of G20 and G7, fossil fuel subsidies in the EU have not decreased,” it said. “EU and national policies might need to be reinforced to phase out such subsidies.”
The total fossil fuel subsidies in the EU were €55bn in 2016, the report concluded. “This is a very high number, given we are reaching the deadline for some of their [phase out] promises,” said Ipek Gencsu, subsidies expert at the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) Ka kite ano links below
Kia ora Newshub That’s is Tawhirirmate and Tangaroa. Tawhirirmate gets a lot of Mana from a warning Tangaroa.
That looked like a big slip at Cape Kidnappers small compared to the Tarndale slip in Te tairawhiti that one is the biggest in Australaysa.
I bet if that suburbia rubbish dump in Auckland was in a affluent suburb it would have been cleaned up by the council.
ECO MAORI will do more research before I comment on Foreign topics.
Go on Winston for defending Jacinda not being present at the Ratana the biggest threat to US is Climate change and the faster we get on top of global warming the better Papatuanukue we will leave te Mokopunas. Its a big mess that national has left OUR Coalition Government with the Housing crisis to clean up it will be cleaned up. Mike Australia has just started there summer not so long ago Global warming record hot temperature are what some priditived that phenomenon here on thestandard but they we saying later on in about 5 to 10 years not 2019?????? Milisa shonky is a climate change denier he was just rednosing at Davos. Kate I seen the Movie AquaMan it was excellent watching especially with the sean of all the waste that we POUR into The Ocean being washed back on LAND a very Clean and Green MOVIE.KA PAI Ka kite ano
Kia ora Newshub It’s a good business idea for a gondola zip line on Rangitoto Island championed By Ngai tai tamariki so long as the project does not indanger our beautiful wildlife. Ua te reira I teie ona ringihia I runga I reira parade whakawhiti I. national that is with there TX problems Ana to kai. Some say how did the tsunami of working poor people phenomenon eventuate well its quite clear for me to see that if the country is run in favour of one small sector of society business and all other sectors ills are ignored well there it is. I did said that the tsunami of boke poor people was just starting last year. It’s s so harlious that someone is trying to pin this massive transfer of wealth from the many to the few 00.1% on the Coalition Government YEA RIGHT. Only fools and horses Flogging the same
Horses Kiwi build and the unjustice system and POOR people bashing Mitchell your complexion is going red because you no your party is losing and you are lying .
Good on Hannah for swimming the Koveaux strait raising money for mental health awareness Kia kaha Hannah.
AM Show your polls are rigged mark mitchell as leader of national for one he was closely linked to the whale oil bullshit how he got out of that crap is a wonder O that’s correct he is a ex Cop they look after there OWN I have Alot of reservations about this person possibly running the country on the ideals of a crooked cop mentality lock em up first and any bad facts getting covered up like the cops do it’s well known that the cops serve the wealthy first they give the biggest kick back and lock up the poor common people to show the world that they are doing there job and that they need more cops. Big know to mark Ana to kai. Ka kite ano P.S wasn’t mark’s family part of the Air force his parents would have known about the Gropper case.
I’m looking after my Mokopunas to puppets trying to float marks toilet I will point the facts out on that you two look so sad that national is were they deserve to be and the only reason they stayed in power for so long is of the spinning the media put on shonky.
The whole world needs to action a sharp reduction in OUR use of carbon that is poisning OUR GRANDCHILDRENS FUTURES.
Removing coal from the global energy mix is taking too long, too many forests are still being destroyed, and fossil fuel subsidies are ongoing despite their distorting effect on the market, a study has found.
There has also been insufficient progress in agriculture to stop harmful practices that increase carbon dioxide production, and heavy industry is not doing enough to use energy more efficiently, according to analysis carried out by the World Resources Institute thinktank.
Without progress on all these fronts, the world is unlikely to see global greenhouse gas emissions peak in 2020, which is likely to be necessary to stay within the 1.5C or 2C warming thresholds that scientists have identified as key to the future safety of the planet.
But the analysis also found important steps forward, on renewable energy, curtailing greenhouse gas emissions from shipping, and public sector investment in reducing emissions. These suggest progress in other aspects of tackling climate change is also possible, with greater effort from the public and private sectors.
The WIR looked at six key goals that have been pegged as necessary to cause emissions to peak in 2020 and achieve the targets of the 2015 Paris agreement. They include goals on energy, transport, land use, industry, infrastructure and finance.
The report found that renewable energy accounted for about a quarter of global electricity generation in 2017, and more than two-thirds of new power generation capacity. By 2020, electricity from renewables is likely to be consistently cheaper than fossil fuel energy, making it possible that 30% of electricity could come from renewable sources by 2030, one of the Mission2020 milestones.
But coal-fired generation is still increasing, with coal-fired power plants continuing to be built in some areas, while existing plants are not being removed from service fast enough. Electric vehicles, meanwhile, comprise 1.4% of overall sales, making a 2020 milestone of 15% of new car sales hard to reach.
The goals are the work of Mission 2020, a global coalition of several climate analysis organisations, headed by Christiana Figueres, the former UN climate chief who negotiated the Paris accord. Mission 2020 has calculated that if these milestones are achieved by 2020, it will make the longer-term Paris goals possible – because progress now on reducing emissions will make it easier and cheaper to reduce them in the longer term – and wants to spur sufficient progress on climate change to bring that about. Ka kite ano links below P.S The people that shonky put in power running our industrys in Aotearoa will throw a spanner in the works on our Coalition Goverments goals of a sharp reduction in OUR carbon emmision’s they need to be weeded out and given a short sharp shift .
How to solve the world’s plastics problem: Bring back the milk man
It’s the early 1960s. Girls are fainting over the Beatles, Sean Connery is James Bond and a revolutionary trend is sweeping the United States: Plastic.
Plastic is about to have its breakthrough moment in the food industry. The plastic milk jug, specifically, is on the brink of taking off: the “market potential is huge,” the New York Times correctly notes.
To American families, a third of which are still getting their milk from a milk man, plastic is a wonder package. It’s lighter than glass. It doesn’t break. Unlike paper cartons, it’s translucent. You can see how much liquid is left in the jug. With a plastic container, everybody wins.
Except for the milk man. And, as it would turn out, the planet.
Fast forward to now. Plastics are expected to outweigh fish in the ocean by 2050. Marine life is choking on the debris: Microplastics are in our soil, our water, our air, getting into our bodies with potential consequences that we don’t fully understand yet. Massive amounts of plastic have piled up in landfills, some emitting greenhouse gases and contributing to global warming over the seeming eternity they take to degrade. Plastics are threatening the health of the planet and its inhabitants, and they’re not going away.
Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Nestlé, PepsiCo, Danone, Mars Petcare, Mondelēz International and others — some of the world’s largest consumer goods companies — are partnering on a potential solution to limit future waste. They’re working together on a project known as Loop, announced at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Thursday. It offers consumers an
alternative to recycling — a system that isn’t working well these days.
At this point, the partners are testing the waters. It’s an experiment they’ll roll out to several thousand consumers in New York and Paris this May, with plans to expand to London later in 2019 and Toronto, Tokyo and San Francisco in 2020.
The Loop tote bag (Mark Kauzlarich for CNN)
Loop is a new way to shop, offering about 300 items — from Tide detergent to Pantene shampoo, Häagen-Dazs ice cream to Crest mouthwash — all in reusable packaging. After using the products, customers put the empty containers in a Loop tote on their doorstep. The containers are then picked up by a delivery service, cleaned and refilled, and shipped out to consumers again. Ka kite ano links below P.S The movie AquaMan high lights the waste we are pour into our Oceans Tangaroa Also it a exelent move to watch
Here you go humans are the intelligent the most intelligent being’s but we can not come to a agreement to stop Burning Carbon we can see the effects of green house warming now . We let the media be brought by oil baron’s and let them manipulate the systems and the people to steal power from the many 99.9 %. We are letting them steal our grandchildrens future for there greed of power and money. IF we don’t stop them and stop burning carbon humanity will go extint .Life will carry on on Papatuanuku but with out most animal’s that we know of we will have to stop burning carbon or go BUST.
Global Warming: News, Facts, Causes & Effects
Global warming is the term used to describe a gradual increase in the average temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere and its oceans, a change that is believed to be permanently changing the Earth’s climate. There is great debate among many people, and sometimes in the news, on whether global warming is real (some call it a hoax). But climate scientists looking at the data and facts agree the planet is warming. While many view the effects of global warming to be more substantial and more rapidly occurring than others do, the scientific consensus on climatic changes related to global warming is that the average temperature of the Earth has risen between 0.4 and 0.8 °C over the past 100 years. The increased volumes of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases released by the burning of fossil fuels, land clearing, agriculture, and other human activities, are believed to be the primary
sources of the global warming that has occurred over the past 50 years. Scientists from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate carrying out global warming research have recently predicted that average global temperatures could increase between 1.4 and 5.8 °C by the year 2100. Changes resulting from global warming may include rising sea levels due to the melting of the polar ice caps, as well as an increase in occurrence and severity of storms and other severe weather events.
Healthy corals grow in the shallows fringing a mangrove forest in Raja Ampat, Indonesia. This area is known as the “heart of the Coral Triangle” due to its incredible marine biodiversity.
Credit: Shutterstock
David Steen received his Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from Auburn University and is now a Research Ecologist at the Georgia Sea Turtle Center on Jekyll Island. Steen has published dozens of scientific papers about wildlife ecology and conservation biology and is also an award-winning science communicator known for his wide-ranging outreach efforts (find him on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Finally, Steen is Executive Director of The Alongside Wildlife Foundation, a nonprofit he founded to promote science-based solutions to living alongside wildlife in perpetuity. Steen contributed this article to Live Science’s Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.
Species are rapidly disappearing all around us; indeed, you and I are living through Earth’s sixth great extinction. Most reasonable people agree that losing species is a problem. However, as a conservation biologist and a science communicator, I am used to hearing the occasional argument from radicals about why we need not be especially concerned about that loss. Imagine my horror to see these arguments compiled into a Perspectives piece published in The Washington Post, and written by a professor of biology no less! I cannot believe that it is 2018 and I have to explain why extinction is actually a bad thing, but here we are.
The piece works hard to make the case that we need not be particularly distressed about the loss of biodiversity by arguing, if you will humor me some loose paraphrasing, that we are going to lose species no matter what and extinction does not make much of a difference anyway because new species might evolve in the future. But for this line of reasoning to make sense one must ignore decades of conservation science and centuries of art, literature and philosophy, not to mention millions of years of evolution. Although there have already been many responses to the article — nearly unanimous in their disapproval — I feel compelled to go on record as well and explain why the article was so aggravating to me, as someone who puts a lot of time and effort into helping people appreciate and value biodiversity.
Ka kite ano links below P.S I say that all climate change spinning denier’s are open for Eco Maori’s warth as they are indangering our Grandchildrens future.
There you go the sandflys were playing heaps of silly bugger games on the road on my to and from Tokoroa TO DROP MY MOKOPUNAS OFF they even had some gturms puppet actor’s in their game playing to. They must have smoke coming out of there ass,s from my post on Mark the neo redneck national mp there were marked cop cars in their play to Ana to kai Ka kite ano P.S they love shonky as well they need big boxes of tissue LOL
Todd Muller - National Party MPTodd Muller’s shock resignation today really only points to one possible conclusion; there’s further damning evidence linking him directly to National’s latest dirty political episode that will likely be unearthed during an official inquiry.Obviously Muller being directly involved in the leaking of COVID-19 patient’s private ...
In the months following the Christchurch massacre, the police acquired a sudden interest in nazis and gun "enthusiasts" (both of which they had previously been ignoring because they were white), and started kicking in doors around Christchurch and seizing firearms, using warrantless search provisions in the Search and Surveillance Act ...
. . The last 24 hours in Aotearoa’s New Zealand’s politics has provided more drama than a week’s worth of “Shortie Street” episodes combined and binge-watched. It began approximately around 5.30 last night (7 July) with a disclosure by Clutha-Southland MP, Hamish Walker that he had leaked a list of ...
The Serious Fraud Office has announced that it is investigating the Labour Party over donations it received in 2017. Which means the three largest parties in Parliament are all now either being investigated or prosecuted for donation fraud. The only parties who aren't are the Greens and ACT. As ...
Dr Kim Handley, University of AucklandJust how do cyanobacteria live in their natural habitat, and how do they coexist with other bacteria and microbial life forms? And what difference will knowledge on this bacteria have on maintaining New Zealand’s water quality? One of the consequences of declining water quality ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Climate Feedback Article Review... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Claim Review... SkS Week in Review... Poster of the Week... Story of the Week... Global temperatures could exceed crucial 1.5 C target in the next five years In this aerial view ...
Three months on, and looking at the state of the world - 13 million cases, 560,000 dead, and both rising - it is clear that New Zealand's lockdown saved lives. But it didn't just save us from the pandemic and prevent future deaths - it also significantly reduced our background ...
Yesterday the Greens released their second big election policy - on energy. The short version is "more solar, less coal". They'd stick solar panels and batteries in every state house, and network them together to form a virtual power plant. They'd use grants to fund rooftop solar installations just as ...
National has a problem. And it’s time they said it out loud. It can’t be dismissed as a one-off anymore or excused because ‘everyone does it’. No, it cuts deeper than that. National has an ethics problem. Especially when it comes to privacy and using ordinary people as pawns in ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, July 5 through Sat, July 11, 2020Editor's ChoiceThink Covid-19 Disrupted the Food Chain? Wait and See What Climate Change Will DoThe pandemic has revealed deep flaws in the ...
The Council of Disobedient Women There is a regular segment in the Speak Up For Women podcasts called “Absolutely Blasted Mad Moment of the Week”. Each podcast the speaker and the host discuss a recent event that is the most insane thing they have seen in the gender critical space ...
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 ...
MONDAY JULY 13Bodyguard (TVNZ 1, 8.30pm). It's the final; if you haven't seen this already on Netflix, get ready, the ending is batshit.Unforgotten (Vibe, Sky 006, 8.30pm). I wonder if Sanjeev Bhasksar's character has got rid of that damn backpack in the third season of this cold case drama? Although, come ...
TUESDAY JULY 14Yorkshire Airport (Prime, 7.30pm). Bloomin’ ’eck, behind the scenes at Leeds Bradford Airport. Apparently, there is plenty of “northern charm”, although reaction in the UK ranged from “brilliant” to “patronising”. It is narrated by Hugh Dennis, whose middle name might be “Arch”.WEDNESDAY JULY 15Queen: Live at Wembley (Prime, ...
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 ...
This is a re-post from The Guardian by Damian Carrington Spreading rock dust on farmland could suck billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide from the air every year, according to the first detailed global analysis of the technique. The chemical reactions that degrade the rock particles lock the greenhouse gas into ...
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 ...
During a recent public consultation on the future of Archives New Zealand, a key report was suppressed. The Ombudsman has ruled that the refusal was unjustified. Sadly, the consultation was over by the time of the the decision has been made. However, the law on the use of the ...
National MP - Michael WoodhouseUnbelievable! Michelle Boag also sent National’s Michael Woodhouse confidential emails about COVD-19 patients, and he continued to publicly attack the Government over these very same breaches of privacy.This is the biggest political self-own since the Act Party’s David Garrett admitted in Parliament that he used a ...
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? ...
Back in April, I wrote about trials in Iran of a fixed-dose combination of two existing anti-viral drugs used to treat hepatitis C – sofosbuvir and daclatasvir – that could point to an effective treatment for Covid-19 symptoms.At the time, data from those trials was not available outside the hospitals ...
Prof Nick Wilson, Dr Anja Mizdrak, Dr Jennifer Summers, Prof Michael BakerThe pandemic-related lockdown is possibly the most dramatic public health intervention in NZ history. It helped achieve the elimination of community transmission of the COVID-19 virus in NZ. But it was also associated with 548 fewer total ...
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 ...
As the debate over assisted dying rages in the run-up to the referendum at the election on September 19, a persistent problem continues to dog the discussions. That is to say, a prominent spokesperson for a particular group takes a strong public stand in opposition without acknowledging that they don’t ...
No Other Suspects? The mainstream news media was willing to print and broadcast harsh Opposition criticism of the Government, even though they knew that the source of the leaked information was a National Party MP. Even though, by pushing the story up towards the top of every news bulletin they were ...
Sacrificial Lamb: If the stories about Mr Taogaga and the unauthorised release of confidential medical data had been deliberately orchestrated by Labour’s political opponents, their deflection of the news media’s attention away from the Prime Minister’s address to the Labour Party Congress could hardly have been more successful.THE LABOUR PARTY ...
The East is Rent: The consequences of unleashing the young against the old; of elevating ideological rigor above reasoned debate; and of setting the present against the past; was a decade of unprecedented social stress and tension, interspersed with explosions of murderous mob violence and tragic material destruction. More than ...
The Green Party of Aotearoa-New Zealand could go from helping Jacinda Ardern run the country, to being turfed out of Parliament altogether in ten weeks. And that could see the end of Labour in government. Without them, Labour would likely have to do what no party has done since the ...
Remember the government's tyrannicalTerrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Bill? Remember how it was rammed through Parliament, with a four-day submission period and a select committee process that was a democratic fraud? At the time, the government gave the impression that there was an urgent need for this legislation, that a ...
Attack journalist - Tova O'BrienWe all know that much of the mainstream media in New Zealand is terribly biased. They are in effect another branch of the National Party, and can often be even more prejudiced than their right wing bosses.In fact many right wing politicians moonlight as journalists and ...
Former National Party President - Michelle BoagAfter the complete botch job Hamish Walker made of leaking the private details of COVID-19 patients to the mainstream media last week, the best-case scenario for Todd Muller and the National Party would be if the news cycle went quiet about their involvement.But unfortunately ...
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. ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Leader of New Zealand First New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters acknowledged today the heavy price of trying to lead the National Party today. ‘One’s sympathy goes out to Todd Muller and his family. Todd is a good man, unlike most of his colleagues he does ...
We're keeping New Zealand moving, one progress-packed week at a time. Read below to find out how we're creating jobs, protecting the environment, looking out for the health of New Zealanders', and upgrading our critical infrastructure - and that's only this week. ...
We're keeping New Zealand moving, one progress-packed week at a time. Read below to find out how we're creating jobs, protecting the environment, looking out for the health of New Zealanders', and upgrading our critical infrastructure - and that's only this week. ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development The Provincial Growth Fund is providing up to $19.5 million to boost innovative primary sector businesses and create training and job opportunities for Northland locals through the construction of an innovation and enterprise park at Ngawha, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones ...
The Green Party is today unveiling part one of its plan for a fossil-fuel free Aotearoa, including an immediate ban on new industrial coal boilers. ...
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. ...
A package of wellbeing infrastructure investments in Kaipara which focuses on improving the lives of the elderly and upgrading the iconic Kauri Museum has been announced by Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones today. “These shovel-ready projects will have significant benefits for their respective communities and I’m pleased this funding ...
More support is rolling out for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) from the COVID Response and Recovery Fund, to help them adapt and innovate to deal with the impact of the virus. The Ministers for Economic Development and Small Business have announced a further $40 million for the Regional Business ...
Stephen Clark, Māori Land Court Judge of Hamilton has been appointed as a District Court Judge with jury jurisdiction to be based in Hamilton, Attorney-General David Parker announced today. Judge Clark graduated with an LLB from Auckland University in 1988 and was admitted to the Bar in the same year. ...
The Crown will provide a loan to Hawke’s Bay Airport to ensure it can trade through COVID-19 economic impacts, support the region’s recovery and protect up to 200 jobs. The Crown has a 50 percent shareholding in Hawke’s Bay Airport Limited (HBAL), with Napier City Council holding 26 percent and ...
Four celebrated Māori and Pasifika events will receive up to $100,000 each in funding from the new Creative and Cultural Events Incubator fund, Economic Development Minister Phil Twyford announced today. The four events that were successful in the inaugural funding round are: Kia Mau Festival, Wellington Māoriland Film Festival, Otaki ...
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 ...
Todd Muller's resignation now puts Jacinda Ardern in the awkward position of having to say what she really, really wants to do with her second term. Bernard Hickey analyses her choices. Jacinda Ardern is reputed to have played a few Spice Girls tracks as a DJ at the Morrinsville College after-ball ...
Latest from the Beehive – While National’s Todd Muller was thinking hard about his future as leader, the government was getting on with the job of governing and redistributing taxpayers’ money. At least, we presume that’s what Muller was doing . He was also giving a highly instructive lesson in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Shaw, Professor of Politics, Massey University And then there was none. Early this morning the National Party caucus awoke to a nightmare. Todd Muller, their newly minted leader of some 53 days, had resigned his position. This is not just another ...
After Todd Muller’s shock resignation, a crushing electoral defeat for National looks all but assured. But is a historically weak opposition really something for the left to celebrate, asks Danyl Mclauchlan. It probably doesn’t matter who takes over as leader of the National Party. Todd Muller’s sudden resignation ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Audrey Courty, PhD candidate, School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science, Griffith University Amid claims of social media platforms stifling free speech, a new challenger called Parler is drawingattention for its anti-censorship stance. Last week, Harper’s Magazine published an open letter ...
So is the election now a foregone conclusion? With Jacindamania still raging, and the National Party shattered by its own shambolic performance, it looks like a walk in the park for the Labour Party and its coalition partners. Certainly NZ First leader Winston Peters wasn’t slow to rub salt into ...
Toby Manhire, Annabelle Lee-Mather and Ben Thomas reel at the announcement that Todd Muller has resigned as leader of the opposition. At 7.30am, just 53 days after he replaced Simon Bridges as leader of the National Party, Todd Muller announced his immediate resignation from the job.How did it come to this, ...
The Minister of Immigration has dropped another bombshell today relating to temporary visa holders and their families, says Ms June Ranson, chair of the New Zealand Association of Migration and Investment (NZAMI). Having granted an automatic six-month extension ...
A success story of the New Zealand Made Products Facebook page, this Christchurch start-up has grown from a backyard workshop to a centre for sustainable architecture and building all in the space of a few months.Two Christchurch guys needed a table for their flat. So they built one out of ...
Power Play - Who will seize the day now National is a party looking for a leader? RNZ political editor Jane Patterson takes a look at a party that was supposed to be settling in to fight its election campaign. ...
An announcement today that three Police raids of firearm licence holders following the Christchurch Mosque shootings were illegal, raises questions about Police over-reacting to what people say on social media, according to the Council of Licenced Firearms ...
Just over seven weeks after he rolled Simon Bridges to become leader of the opposition, and with under 10 weeks to go to the election, Todd Muller has quit. Here’s a reminder of how it unfurled – and unravelled.May 21A Colmar Brunton poll for TVNZ puts National at 29%. It’s ...
Todd Muller's stint as National leader has been cut short by a commendable decision to put his own wellbeing first - but now the party must try to find a path forward to September 19 For all that National’s critics claimed to predict it, the news was a shock. Just ...
The Independent Police Conduct Authority has found three searches conducted by Police following the 15 March Mosque attacks were unlawful. Following the attacks, Police identified people of interest to national security and set up an operation aimed ...
CEAC want Gov’t to protect communities using ‘OECD/WHO/EU standards traffic noise for residential traffic noise Confirmation of reports to urban residents both from NZTA/Transit-NZ acoustical consultants have since 2001 warned residents that ...
“What a mess” said Hannah Tamaki. “Todd Muller’s resignation this morning is a further indication of the insidious problems hidden in the belly of New Zealand politics. With all three major political parties under investigation by the Serious ...
A recent media story highlighting the fact that a convicted paedophile has worked on a popular New Zealand children’s tv show reveals the serious inadequacies of current legislation which is supposed to protect our children, according to Safeguarding ...
The country's electoral donation laws are being questioned with a third major political party now the subject of a Serious Fraud Office investigation. ...
Mistrust in the government and generational trauma mean Māori communities are more at risk of falling victim to conspiracies relating to the 5G spectrum. Alice Webb-Liddall finds out what needs to be done to combat this dangerous misinformation.The real danger of conspiracy theories can sometimes be hard to grasp. When ...
Nearly two months ago Todd Muller stepped up to wrestle the leadership of the National Party from Simon Bridges, he won. But after just 53 days, he has resigned. Here's a quick look at his background. ...
Greenpeace NZ is challenging Coca Cola to face up to its embarrassing contribution to ocean pollution for Plastic Free July. Coca Cola Amatil floods NZ with hundreds of millions of plastic bottles annually - the majority of which end up in landfill ...
With just over two months to go before the election, National suddenly, shockingly finds itself in need of a new leader. Who are the potential candidates?Late leadership changes before an election aren’t unheard of in politics. The current prime minister is living proof of that, taking over from Andrew Little ...
Source: Statement by Todd Muller – New Zealand National Party I have taken time over the weekend to reflect on my experience over the last several weeks as Leader of the Opposition. It has become clear to me that I am not the best person to be Leader of the Opposition ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Audrey Courty, PhD candidate, School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science, Griffith University Amid claims of social media platforms stifling free speech, a new challenger called Parler is drawingattention for its anti-censorship stance. Last week, Harper’s Magazine published an open letter ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jenny Hocking, Emeritus Professor, Monash University Forty-five years after they were written, hundreds of previously secret letters between the queen and the governor-general of Australia, Sir John Kerr, relating to the dismissal of the Whitlam government in 1975 will be released in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Thea van de Mortel, Professor, Nursing and Deputy Head (Learn & Teaching), School of Nursing and Midwifery, Griffith University The recent lockdown of nine social housing towers in Melbourne’s north to contain the spread of COVID-19 led to widespread concerns for residents’ ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Francesco Paolucci, Associate Professor of Health Economics, University of Bologna, and Professor of Health Economics, University of Newcastle Australia has fared better than most countries in reducing its COVID-19 cases to very low numbers. However, on June 15, new clusters of infection ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Burke, Associate Professor, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Putting a price on carbon should reduce emissions, because it makes dirty production processes more expensive than clean ones, right? That’s the economic theory. Stated baldly, it’s obvious, but there ...
Politics editor Justin Giovannetti reports from Wellington.National Party leader Todd Muller has resigned citing health reasons, only 53 days after he rolled Simon Bridges to take over the largest party in New Zealand’s parliament. The next general election is in 66 days.Muller’s short leadership was marked by disarray within the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Fiona David, Visiting Fellow, University of Western Australia In previous recessions in Australia, far larger numbers of men than women lost their jobs. This reflected realities at that time. Men had higher levels of workforce participation than women, and the construction and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brendon O’Connor, Associate Professor in American Politics at the United States Studies Centre, University of Sydney Curtis Sittenfeld has a knack of putting her readers in uncomfortable places in her fiction. In her short story Gender Studies she puts you in the ...
After just over a month in the job, National leader Todd Muller has stepped aside National leader Todd Muller has resigned from the role a little over a month after deposing Simon Bridges, citing the heavy toll the job has taken on him and his family. In a brief statement, ...
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: Serious Fraud Office announces investigation into donations made to Labour, deportations from Australia to resume, and retail businesses up against it on rent.In a short statement released yesterday afternoon, the Serious Fraud Office made it clear that donations to the ...
The 2020 longlist for the APRA Silver Scroll Awards – New Zealand’s premiere songwriting awards – have just been announced. Here’s the full list of the 20 finalists, with the songs themselves to listen to.This morning saw the announcement of the longlist for the APRA Silver Scroll, New Zealand’s most ...
It was claimed as a win but last week’s court decision on tahr control was mostly legal shots thumping harmlessly into a wall. David Williams reports ANALYSIS: Last Friday, hunting groups welcomed a “landmark” High Court decision, “halting” a controversial plan to “exterminate” all tahr in national parks and sharply ...
The closure of the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter has left the door open for another electricity-intensive project to take its place at the south tip of the South Island. ...
A complaint has been made to the Department of Internal Affairs against a book of short stories How do you know you’ve “made it” as a writer? Is it, as one friend recently commented on a photo of me holding my new book, when Facebook refuses to allow you to ...
Terminally ill man Stuart Armstrong responds to a first-person piece on assisted dying Newsroom ran last week, arguing people should have the option to choose a death that reflects their life and beliefs This week Serena Jones wrote an article describing her position on the upcoming referendum on the End ...
What New Zealand must do to play virtual host to APEC next year is something perhaps never attempted before. The rewards could be big. Virtual hosting of 2021 APEC: a rewarding challenge for NZ New Zealand’s confirmation that it will proceed with hosting APEC in 2021, using virtual digital platforms, ...
A major infrastructure announcement by the National Party slated to take place today needs to defy stereotypes about what they are all about. COMMENT: It didn't take a genius to realise that a major infrastructure announcement down south by the National Party would turn out to be a road of ...
LISTEN: In our podcast, A Neesh Audience, Black Cap Jimmy Neesham talks to playmakers who'll be part of the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup 2021 in New Zealand. In this episode, he chats with White Ferns captain Sophie Devine. Sophie Devine has been on a roll of late. Whether it be ...
There’s concern the Department of Conservation’s assessment of proposed changes to a yet-to-be-constructed hydro scheme underestimates their potential impact A West Coast small hydro scheme’s proposed new pipeline path could require over 1000 native trees be felled on public conservation land. What was supposed to be a thin pipe lying on top ...
Dr Neal Curtis explains why we shouldn't simply dismiss people trying to resist discrimination by calling them anti-democratic You may have heard a lot about ‘cancel culture’ recently, not least because of the 150 signatories to the Harper’s Magazine letter last week that supposedly cancelled cancel culture. ‘Cancelling’ is a ...
If there’s any time for ambitious, agenda-setting policy ideas, it’s now, write Max Harris and Laura O’Connell Rapira. Here are seven suggestions that might just transform New Zealand for the better.In a pre-budget speech, finance minister Grant Robertson said it was time to “address long-term issues”, but then when the ...
The SpinoffBy Max Harris and Laura O'Connell Rapira
St John Ambulance is paying wages on borrowed money - and that can't keep happening. Most people would say there are three branches of emergency services in New Zealand: police, fire, and ambulance. Police are fully funded by the government. Fire and Emergency New Zealand is funded through an ...
By Jimmy Kalebe in Port Moresby Papua New Guinea police have intercepted and confiscated almost K200,000 (about NZ$90,000) in K2 and K5 notes hidden in a container on a ship which arrived at the Lae wharf in a suspected money laundering case. The cash, packed into three boxes inside the ...
National MP Amy Adams has apologised for wrongly claiming one of her party's candidates is Chinese. Catherine Chu was born and raised in Christchurch and her parents are from South Korea. ...
National MP Amy Adams has apologised for wrongly claiming one of her party's candidates is Chinese. Catherine Chu was born and raised in Christchurch and her parents are from South Korea. ...
Pacific Media Watch Host Oscar Perress talked to contributing editor of Pacific Media Watch Sri Krishnamurthi today about Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s government rejecting a licence for the country’s biggest radio and TV network ABS-CBN. Its 25-year-old franchise expired in May but the majority of legislators refused to renew in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Jensen, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Governance and Policy Analysis, University of Canberra “Fake news” is not just a problem of misleading or false claims on fringe websites, it is increasingly filtering into the mainstream and has the potential to be ...
Around the world, western governments are re-calibrating their foreign policy, strategic and economic settings to China. Tomorrow the British Cabinet will review and probably revoke an earlier decision to allow Huawei Technologies Co into the next 5G network over security concerns. NZ and Australia have already taken this step. Over ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Becky Freeman, Senior Research Fellow, University of Sydney From next year, access to e-cigarettes and related products containing liquid nicotine will require a doctor’s prescription. This is to ensure liquid nicotine is handled like the poisonous, addictive substance it is and not ...
The new TVNZ On Demand political comedy relies on great performances to paper over a wafer-thin story, writes Jean Sergent.The set-up is simple: Darren Bellows (Tom Sainsbury), a Colin Craig-esque political loser, is being blackmailed by his dominatrix (Kathleen Burns). The stakes are high for Darren as the leader of ...
One in eight retail businesses are struggling to negotiate rent relief and want government-assisted arbitration to help them resolve their plight, a survey shows. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kris Gledhill, Professor of Law, Auckland University of Technology The sentencing of the Christchurch mosque killer was always going to be tense. Having admitted his guilt in March, his declaration that he would now represent himself at the hearing on August 24 ...
The Serious Fraud Office is investigating donations made to the Labour Party in 2017 Donations to the Labour Party in 2017 are now under the microscope of the Serious Fraud Office, the corruption watchdog said in a statement. The SFO declined to release any further details about the investigation. This ...
National Party stalwart Michelle Boag gave officials her private email address when asked where best to send a daily list of Covid-19 patients, the Director General of Health says. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kerrie Davies, Lecturer, School of the Arts & Media, UNSW Review: A Room Made of Leaves, Text Publishing Some time ago, during the renovation of a historic house in Sydney, a tin box, sealed with wax and wrapped in oiled canvas, ...
Whakamā refers to a state of personal or collective embarrassment and shame. Unabated shame can corrode the soul. Tikanga can fix and prevent it, writes Tainui Stephens.This story contains descriptions of racism and racist language.It seems to me some radio talkback hosts suffer from an empathy bypass: a quixotic condition ...
Today’s news that the mosque shooter will represent himself at his sentencing next month has raised fears he plans to use it as a platform for his hateful views. But the judge may have other ideas, write Otago University professors Danica McGovern and Andrew GeddisIn March of this year, the ...
Open Mike 23/01/2019 
Todd Muller - National Party MPTodd Muller’s shock resignation today really only points to one possible conclusion; there’s further damning evidence linking him directly to National’s latest dirty political episode that will likely be unearthed during an official inquiry.Obviously Muller being directly involved in the leaking of COVID-19 patient’s private ...44 mins ago
Ten days ago we learned that the Australian government was attempting to prosecute Australian journalists for exposing Australian war crimes in Afghanisatan. Meanwhile, today we have news of another war crime - a massacre of civilians by Australian special forces: Australian special forces killed up to 10 unarmed Afghan civilians ...2 hours ago
. . The last 24 hours in Aotearoa’s New Zealand’s politics has provided more drama than a week’s worth of “Shortie Street” episodes combined and binge-watched. It began approximately around 5.30 last night (7 July) with a disclosure by Clutha-Southland MP, Hamish Walker that he had leaked a list of ...6 hours ago
Read our latest newsletter here ...22 hours ago
Dr Kim Handley, University of Auckland Just how do cyanobacteria live in their natural habitat, and how do they coexist with other bacteria and microbial life forms? And what difference will knowledge on this bacteria have on maintaining New Zealand’s water quality? One of the consequences of declining water quality ...1 day ago
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Climate Feedback Article Review... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Claim Review... SkS Week in Review... Poster of the Week... Story of the Week... Global temperatures could exceed crucial 1.5 C target in the next five years In this aerial view ...1 day ago
National has a problem. And it’s time they said it out loud. It can’t be dismissed as a one-off anymore or excused because ‘everyone does it’. No, it cuts deeper than that. National has an ethics problem. Especially when it comes to privacy and using ordinary people as pawns in ...2 days ago
The Council of Disobedient Women There is a regular segment in the Speak Up For Women podcasts called “Absolutely Blasted Mad Moment of the Week”. Each podcast the speaker and the host discuss a recent event that is the most insane thing they have seen in the gender critical space ...3 days ago
MONDAY JULY 13Bodyguard (TVNZ 1, 8.30pm). It's the final; if you haven't seen this already on Netflix, get ready, the ending is batshit.Unforgotten (Vibe, Sky 006, 8.30pm). I wonder if Sanjeev Bhasksar's character has got rid of that damn backpack in the third season of this cold case drama? Although, come ...3 days ago
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 ...3 days 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 ...4 days 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? ...4 days 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 ...4 days ago
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 ...4 days ago
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 ...6 days ago
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Leader of New Zealand First New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters acknowledged today the heavy price of trying to lead the National Party today. ‘One’s sympathy goes out to Todd Muller and his family. Todd is a good man, unlike most of his colleagues he does ...5 hours ago
We're keeping New Zealand moving, one progress-packed week at a time. Read below to find out how we're creating jobs, protecting the environment, looking out for the health of New Zealanders', and upgrading our critical infrastructure - and that's only this week. ...23 hours ago
The Green Party is today unveiling part one of its plan for a fossil-fuel free Aotearoa, including an immediate ban on new industrial coal boilers. ...2 days ago
A package of wellbeing infrastructure investments in Kaipara which focuses on improving the lives of the elderly and upgrading the iconic Kauri Museum has been announced by Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones today. “These shovel-ready projects will have significant benefits for their respective communities and I’m pleased this funding ...3 hours ago
Todd Muller's resignation now puts Jacinda Ardern in the awkward position of having to say what she really, really wants to do with her second term. Bernard Hickey analyses her choices. Jacinda Ardern is reputed to have played a few Spice Girls tracks as a DJ at the Morrinsville College after-ball ...45 mins ago
Latest from the Beehive – While National’s Todd Muller was thinking hard about his future as leader, the government was getting on with the job of governing and redistributing taxpayers’ money. At least, we presume that’s what Muller was doing . He was also giving a highly instructive lesson in ...1 hour ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Shaw, Professor of Politics, Massey University And then there was none. Early this morning the National Party caucus awoke to a nightmare. Todd Muller, their newly minted leader of some 53 days, had resigned his position. This is not just another ...1 hour ago
After Todd Muller’s shock resignation, a crushing electoral defeat for National looks all but assured. But is a historically weak opposition really something for the left to celebrate, asks Danyl Mclauchlan. It probably doesn’t matter who takes over as leader of the National Party. Todd Muller’s sudden resignation ...1 hour ago
So is the election now a foregone conclusion? With Jacindamania still raging, and the National Party shattered by its own shambolic performance, it looks like a walk in the park for the Labour Party and its coalition partners. Certainly NZ First leader Winston Peters wasn’t slow to rub salt into ...2 hours ago
The Minister of Immigration has dropped another bombshell today relating to temporary visa holders and their families, says Ms June Ranson, chair of the New Zealand Association of Migration and Investment (NZAMI). Having granted an automatic six-month extension ...2 hours ago
The Race Relations Commissioner says people must not assume someone's race by lumping them into one ethnicity group. ...2 hours ago
Todd Muller's stint as National leader has been cut short by a commendable decision to put his own wellbeing first - but now the party must try to find a path forward to September 19 For all that National’s critics claimed to predict it, the news was a shock. Just ...3 hours ago
Queenstown rents fall at double digit rates in May and June. Nasdaq hits fresh record high as Tesla surges. UK set to ban Huawei from 5G rollout ...6 hours ago
After just over a month in the job, National leader Todd Muller has stepped aside National leader Todd Muller has resigned from the role a little over a month after deposing Simon Bridges, citing the heavy toll the job has taken on him and his family. In a brief statement, ...6 hours ago
It was claimed as a win but last week’s court decision on tahr control was mostly legal shots thumping harmlessly into a wall. David Williams reports ANALYSIS: Last Friday, hunting groups welcomed a “landmark” High Court decision, “halting” a controversial plan to “exterminate” all tahr in national parks and sharply ...8 hours ago
The closure of the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter has left the door open for another electricity-intensive project to take its place at the south tip of the South Island. ...8 hours ago
A complaint has been made to the Department of Internal Affairs against a book of short stories How do you know you’ve “made it” as a writer? Is it, as one friend recently commented on a photo of me holding my new book, when Facebook refuses to allow you to ...8 hours ago
Terminally ill man Stuart Armstrong responds to a first-person piece on assisted dying Newsroom ran last week, arguing people should have the option to choose a death that reflects their life and beliefs This week Serena Jones wrote an article describing her position on the upcoming referendum on the End ...8 hours ago
What New Zealand must do to play virtual host to APEC next year is something perhaps never attempted before. The rewards could be big. Virtual hosting of 2021 APEC: a rewarding challenge for NZ New Zealand’s confirmation that it will proceed with hosting APEC in 2021, using virtual digital platforms, ...8 hours ago
A major infrastructure announcement by the National Party slated to take place today needs to defy stereotypes about what they are all about. COMMENT: It didn't take a genius to realise that a major infrastructure announcement down south by the National Party would turn out to be a road of ...8 hours ago
LISTEN: In our podcast, A Neesh Audience, Black Cap Jimmy Neesham talks to playmakers who'll be part of the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup 2021 in New Zealand. In this episode, he chats with White Ferns captain Sophie Devine. Sophie Devine has been on a roll of late. Whether it be ...8 hours ago
There’s concern the Department of Conservation’s assessment of proposed changes to a yet-to-be-constructed hydro scheme underestimates their potential impact A West Coast small hydro scheme’s proposed new pipeline path could require over 1000 native trees be felled on public conservation land. What was supposed to be a thin pipe lying on top ...8 hours ago
NZ should be "in lockstep" with Five Eyes partners over national security law, Simon Bridges says. ...8 hours ago
Dr Neal Curtis explains why we shouldn't simply dismiss people trying to resist discrimination by calling them anti-democratic You may have heard a lot about ‘cancel culture’ recently, not least because of the 150 signatories to the Harper’s Magazine letter last week that supposedly cancelled cancel culture. ‘Cancelling’ is a ...8 hours ago
St John Ambulance is paying wages on borrowed money - and that can't keep happening. Most people would say there are three branches of emergency services in New Zealand: police, fire, and ambulance. Police are fully funded by the government. Fire and Emergency New Zealand is funded through an ...9 hours ago
The election of Ireland's ‘Prudent Paschal’ to head the Eurogroup is the worst possible start for Germany’s turn at the presidency of the EU. ...19 hours ago
The Serious Fraud Office is investigating donations made to the Labour Party in 2017 Donations to the Labour Party in 2017 are now under the microscope of the Serious Fraud Office, the corruption watchdog said in a statement. The SFO declined to release any further details about the investigation. This ...21 hours ago
How Red was my Valley
Maps of the 2017 Party-Vote
(admittedly somewhat low-tech … but still …)
https://sub-zero-politics.blogspot.com/2019/01/how-red-was-my-valley.html
If the cannabis law goes through it might be
how green and blue is my valley 🙂
Entrepreneurs will indeed diversify! “One thing we can be certain of: the referendum will pass comfortably. That’s because the government is organising and running it, and will not propose a question that would fail. Politically it needs at least 65% support, and ideally even more. On current polling that would stack the odds against a fully commercial market and perhaps more in favour of non-profit Cannabis Social Clubs, run along the lines of liquor licensing trusts with profits returned to the community, and who re-sell cannabis products grown and made by licensed producers.”
Opinion there from one of them. “Chris Fowlie is the CEO of Zeacann Limited, a medicinal cannabis producer; co-founder of the New Zealand Medical Cannabis Council; president of the National Organisation for the Reform of Marijuana Laws NZ Inc; co-founder of The Hempstore Aotearoa; co-host of Marijuana Media on 95bFM; and court-recognised expert witness for cannabis.” https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2019/01/22/cannabis-predictions-and-crystal-ball-gazing/
Thank you swordfish.
That was an interesting gander.
Totally not suprised about Ohairu being light fawn – such a tough seat full of old skool conservatives and red necks of a blue persuasion. It’s an anti progressive area. We were lucky we scraped through.
But Rongotai – you rock.
Oh Rosie so good to see you. Going to be a regular are you, eh eh?
Ha ha ha. Grey – I got frightened off last time I tried to come back. Instead of finding some good craic I found a seething pit of misogynists defending Brett Kavanagh – It was hideous. I felt things had changed with the nature of dialogue in these parts.
Stay well Grey 🙂
We have our bad days Rosie. The sun usually shines through after a while and we have some good thinkers with background to support their ideas and theories which are usually either helpful for understanding, or helpful and positive.
Eeek. Grey, those bad days you speak of, when I have visited and not commented have really been rather dire. Hanging out with misogynists is something I’d rather not do – I can see your point, there are good thinkers too, but yeah, a bit too much of the yucky stuff going on for my tastes.
The trouble is Rosie it’s a bit of a polluted stream. Trying to put in some fresh water that is not tainted with BS is a bit of a task. But people like you and Veutoviper are needed, not just because you are women for some sort of balance, but because you are thinking people and interested in NZrs and the world, and can articulate your thoughts in a way that others can respond to.
I think there is an important kaupapa here that allows people to be drawn in, to put their ideas down and see them printed out where they will be taken seriously enough to be read and replied to. A political discourse that is fairly immediate and more continuous than is possible through newspaper and magazine letters, and is not as open and easy through other platforms. Radio talkback can come up with some good stuff, but it is not captured in print and it is hard to build a decent discussion and there is no archived information that can be personally referred to or built onto.
And reasoned discussion that is open to the public easily is rare in NZ.
And any sort of sensible, searching political discussion is rare in NZ. That is why it is important for people to not just push off in disgust as I have attempted to do a few times. Take a breather by all means you past commenters but please lets keep the stream going,; okay never pure, never quite to your satisfaction but join in the swim when the water isn’t too murky, that is my plea.
It is very affirming to know that people are thinking and trying to find a pathway to follow to the future, it stops me getting depressed and I think many others also. Where there is a lively, intelligent discussion there is hope!
Thank you for your comments and for making some points – I hadn’t thought about. I certianly agree with you on this point you make:
“reasoned discussion that is open to the public easily is rare in NZ.”
I guess for me, in the past i just ignored some off the more off commenters on here, and generally there would be a pile on anyway that I stayed out of most times, but what I experienced a few weeks ago, put me in an unsafe space, as a woman. I felt vulnerable and re traumatised by these misogynists.
It was compouned by regular TS commenters then having a petty argument about the fiidly points of the Brett Kavanagh case, who had avoided my whole point entirely. Initially I had responded to some one who had started off the Open Mike thread with “Oh, blah blah blah, bad Herlad newspaper, there’s far more important things than the Brett Kavanagh story”
For any person reading that, who has been affected by rape and sexual assault it would have felt like someone had minimised the reality of what they had been through. It was selfish and thoughtless thing for that person to say.
I pointed this out and it turned into an open forum for MRA’s and gendered violence deniers. It was really horrific. It never would have happened on this site previously without just one person, me, to argue against. It was like a verbal assault but the most vile people imaginable to me.
I am quite tough and I do get into scrapes in real life with jerks like that but I don’t feel I should have to be defending the abused in what used to be a safe place. I just thought “well f*ck this you know. I’m not coming back”
And Grey don’t feel despondant as there are some wonderful things happening in our country and around the world. Really good advancements and achievements, from thinking to doing. The young people are fantastic. It sounds corny but our future is their thinking, now. Leaders are getting younger and solving the problems that the generations above them caused for them. If you want to feel hopeful, talk to a young person with a vision. We even managed to get some into Parliament! So that is progress 🙂
Finally back to a point you made earlier, about the lack of reasoned discourse in NZ. I’ve found it really quite refreshing looking at what other countries are talking about. Just one example might be a site called Bella Caledonia: A left wing Scottish prespective on world and local affairs from an Indepedence veiwpoint.
Kia Ora Grey.
Sorry to hear that Rosie. I feel that if you can’t educate them, and they resist any points of view, you shouldn’t argue or attempt to reason or explain with such a group of men. They will find justification in the most unlikely places.
Yesterday there were amazing arguments about whether it was okay for a young man to stand in front of some Omaha Indian people who wanted to walk up some steps to make some protest or announcement. The number who argued about rights when it was a matter of lack of courtesy to someone different and older than himself, and a lack of respect for the other, was amazing. I felt bad about that response and its vehemence. So I realise that was peanuts to what you felt.
I think there is nothing you can do except to make a statement about how we should treat each other, and how taking advantage of others can affect them badly lifelong. Also the point should be made that you would never think of treating anyone in a bad way and expect that respect should be a two-way thing. After that you should withdraw to preserve your own peace and stability, hopefully more in sorrow than in anger. But that sort of discord makes you aware that behind apparently trustworthy and honest faces, there can be traces of something deeply unpleasant, more than just the light and dark side that we all have controlled by the brain in one of its functions.
Thank you Grey – and yes, people can find justification in the most unlikely places. Well said. Take care.
Great to see you.
Of course Rongotai rocks! I live there, LOL. Come back Rosie. We Rongotains miss you.
And you too, super Rongotai trooper! Hope you are well.
Please see reply to Grewarshark above, as to my absence.
I did come back for a sniff around and found sword fishs’ interesting graph and info. That was the kind of analysis I used to enjoy, and it was good to see he was still contributing.
Swordfish is only an intermittent these days unfortunately, Last time a month or so ago, I did my best to encourage more frequency!
I thought I had done the same when you came for your ‘sniff around’ because I was thrilled to see you and then you disappeared again; but I was also thinking at that time of disappearing myself.
TS certainly goes through changes from time to time!
Kind words veutoviper 🙂
It’s probably a good thing that the site goes through changes with commenters, but there are voices I miss. I have noticed there are less women, which I find disappointing. I can imagine there are good reasons for that.
Are you on any social/political faceblba pages? I occasionally get involved with some discussions on that platform, but not often.
I don’t have a Twitter account which means I can read lots without having to befriend the owner of the accounts I read (LOL). I do have a (ghost) Facebook page but in my real name so will not disclose that here. If there is a Facebook political site you are on, we could perhaps meet up there and then use Facebook Messenger/chat for private chat?
Ha.
There’s just few faceblab sites that I follow, but I have zero political friends on faceblab, with the exception of one person actually, come to think of it. I find it hard to find people willing to discuss politics and social issues that are just ordinary people.
Not suggesting that you are any old ordinary person 🙂
Please feel free to send me a facebook message to pacific rosie.
I also have a petition you may or may not be interested in!
Pretty clear that the Nat vote is based on the urban upper class and farmers – class divisions are highlighted with the strong red preferences in working class suburbs, and deep blue in wealthy areas. Good to see some of the lighter blue areas that could flip to red in the next election.
But the left should take nothing for granted – NZF support has collapsed and the Greens could implode at any minute.
interesting.
Probably a more useful visual than simply colouring the map, as population density varies so much.
what a nifty little map.
thanks for that.
I wonder if we’ll find out who the MP that sent the ‘you deserve to die’ text to JLR is? Or will they be quietly shuffled off stage? It’s hard to imagine a parliamentary career surviving such an unpleasant incident.
common knowledge Scott,or is this your idea of humour.
Humour? No. National is trying hard to sweep this one under the carpet.
Ask the google Scott, it is common knowledge.
Same party, female, southern NZ. And that’s all I’ll say about that on here.
I know who the MP is alleged to be Cinny. What I don’t know yet is how National is going to deal with the situation. A potential crime has allegedly been committed that’s punishable with up to 3 years jail time.
The party comes first with the nat’s and they will bury any and everything that could damage their brand.
People have never been a priority, neither is accountability.
I’d like to see action taken by the police, the way I see it is a person in a position of responsibility/public office sent such a vile text it near on caused a suicide.
If that is the way a person treats their exlover one can only imagine how they would treat strangers/voters. Freaking disgusting behaviour no matter which party a person supports,
So we should hold National to account for their hypocrisy. Why isn’t this happening? After all they they were very keen for Ardern to act in respect of Meka Whaitiri before any facts of that matter had been established.
Absolutely, and if neither the party, the media or the police hold the person to account, then that too needs to be discussed.
It’s up to all of us who care to initiate such conversation topics with others, least that’s how I see it.
With regard to “A potential crime has been committed”, JLR’s facebook post and media reports are that this text is now being investigated by NZ Police and is out of the hands of both JLR and National.
However, it remains to be seen whether NZ Police will decide to prosecute etc. Personally, on NZ Police’s form in usually not taking such political related issues further, I personally am not holding my breath that we will see anything other than “we have investigated and do not deem it appropriate to take the matter further”, insignificant evidence etc etc .
VV, am with you on not holding my breath re police.
Dirty ole roastbusters is prime example.
“Bridges has begun the year with a small reshuffle of his shadow cabinet”: https://www.newsroom.co.nz/@politics/2019/01/22/409336/bridges-begins-year-with-a-reshuffle
Looks like one of his advisors alerted him a while back to the `pale stale male’ meme trending on social media, and it’s been percolating away in the back of his mind ever since. So he’s made Nick Smith the spokesperson for Crown-Maori relations.
If the brilliance of this master-stroke is not immediately apparent, think about it. It reassures those in the Nat hinterland that colonialism is not yet dead. It reassures his Chinese overlords that the upstart natives will be kept in check. It shows his gratitude that his Chinese caucus colleagues are still refraining from pointing out that the Treaty gives Maori a permanent privileged status. It must be galling that the colonial aristocracy have been joined by the Maori aristocracy in solidarity, but the asian influx can compete via wealth-accumulation as consolation for being unable to gain parity in law.
You’d think it would have been sensible to give Shane Reti that job – someone who can see both sides and has proven competent. But being sensible would send the wrong signal. Reti now has the tertiary education, skills and employment portfolio. If he’s an ideas man, an excellent basis on which to build a political career.
I would have preferred Mr Reti in health.
Eminently qualified.
Question to me is who is competent to take the attack to Labour on tax; carbon tax, income tax, capital tax. Sure the hell ain’t their finance spokesperson.
Tax should be the principle attack line from National in 2020.
How about their revenue spokesman? “Goldsmith, Paul (2008). We Won, You Lost, Eat That!: A Political History of Tax in New Zealand Since 1840. David Ling Publishing.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Goldsmith_(politician)
https://www.interest.co.nz/category/people/paul-goldsmith
Competitive, with artistry: “Paul is an enthusiastic pianist and has a broad interest in the arts; he is a 2nd dan black belt in Tae Kwon Do and plays on the right wing for the Parliamentary Rugby team.” https://paulgoldsmith.national.org.nz/about_paul
“Turkey is planning to launch an international investigation into the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and will take further steps in coming days, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu says.” https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/world/380690/turkey-calls-for-international-investigation-into-khashoggi-murder
“Cavusoglu said in a speech that some Western countries were trying to cover up Mr Khashoggi’s murder”. C’mon dude, point the finger! Which ones? “There are Western countries trying to cover this case up. I know the reasons.” “We know and see what sorts of deals are made. We see how those who spoke of freedom of press are now covering this up after seeing money.”
“Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has said Mr Khashoggi’s killing was ordered by the highest level of Saudi leadership”. So does Cavusoglu mean “the US, its closest ally, whose Senate has voted for a resolution blaming the prince for the murder”?? Trump, then, resisting the Senate? Or does he mean Britain & Europe?
It seems like some lives matter, some not so much,
http://www.khaosodenglish.com/news/crimecourtscalamity/crime-crime/2019/01/22/police-say-2nd-mutilated-body-belongs-to-anti-monarchist-aide/?fbclid=IwAR00fjgeSUDqJ55hN49u52VecXJ8cT2uUQbJDD6HQfWCeDASxS1cSoKURKE
so it goes
Governance is trending towards unfashionable in the anglo-saxon world, observes Gordon Campbell on the PM’s visit to Downing St: “New Zealand is useful only insofar as we can contribute to the illusion that Number 10 is open for something that looks like business as usual. It isn’t, of course. On both sides of the Atlantic, the practices of normal government are in virtual shutdown.”
He’s also warning us of an imminent structural adjustment to global trade. “In 2019 though, a new and different kind of fuel price Godzilla is coming over the horizon, and it is likely to boost the prices of everything going in and out of the country.” http://werewolf.co.nz/2019/01/gordon-campbell-on-why-shipping-is-new-zealands-big-new-trade-problem/
The “Marpol Treaty is a set of UN-mandated regulations (devised by the International Maritime Organisation) that among other things, is aimed at cracking down on the pollution emitted by ships, and the crucial bits are in Annex VI. As Bloomberg News recently reported, the global shipping fleets currently consume about 3.8 million barrels a day of fuel oil — in the main, this is heavy, lower-value stuff from a refining process that contains about 1 to 3.5 percent sulphur. That content level is about to change: from January 2020, new rules from the International Maritime Organization will limit sulphur-dioxide emissions from ships. All else equal, a ship would need to burn fuel with only 0.5 percent sulphur content or less to comply.”
This pollution-reduction of 50-90% is terrific news for Greens globally! It implements the principle of true-cost accounting, and seems the first major step in international law that signals a global trajectory beyond neoliberalism. It tilts the economic balance back towards regional economies, and resilience.
This, alongside of increasing storms making shipping harder to insure, means countries need to start putting local manufacturing back in place.
It just wont be WORTH it to ship nonsense around the globe anymore. Yesterday I observed the garden ties a friend got me were imported from Spain. We don’t need Spain to make material strips WTF are we useless?
When it comes to looking after ourselves. Can we?
We used to make all manner of things. As a lad off to church in Te Aroha it was not uncommon for me to sit in church and dream sinfully of the factory full of girls making bras down the road (Bendon).
But that factories gone.
We can’t even can food without needing several countries involved.
Now we’ve got useless Kardashian c**** selling us bras. Global economy – global shutdown of local independence is what it is. Pro american corporate everything.
Wait for the climate change derivatives. AAA rated insurance bundles. Buy now to save the planet.
Britain can be bought to a halt by a truck driver strike in a few days when food and resources are curbed. In a strike there is chaos, the supermarkets and petrol stations are empty within 3 days.
Who needs military when you rely on about 5 third parties for the basics of life, and seem to have no contingency plans for disasters, strikes or soft power approaches and your country bought to their knees by old fashioned methods like a siege.
NZ as a food and commodities producer like wood/steel seems to has lost our way. So busy putting up speculative houses which 40% (or more) of people can’t even afford on their incomes for the world’s middle classes to get residency here as a Ponzi that the government is scared to stop.
Still the mantra is, build more of these speculative houses. Wonder how many of the 1000 Kiwibuild houses that are supposed to be built shortly are for the state houses and the poor? Then deduct off the state houses that were demolished to create the new houses to work out the final tally of increased state housing.
Normally don’t bother watching the MSM news but saw an article about housing the other day. Nice (sarcasm) to see they are still beating the same drums about the causes of housing un affordability. One commentator said we needed to make land more available (a common right wing approach) and the other that tax treatment was the answer.
Nobody mentioned the effect of the third highest immigration in the world per capita in NZ for the past decade or our low wages. Then the media people fail to understand why nobody trusts them anymore or tunes in with that tripe and propaganda being fed out to the masses, which the masses don’t actually consume anymore.
Weird how inspite of the Natz ideas of putting unitary plan zoning in place and throwing out democracy and basic planning measures the land prices in creased and that the last decade of increased taxes on property have actually also increased the shortages in particular of rental properties as landlords bail out and with hundreds of thousands of new residents also competing who often have $40k and more up their sleeve to outcompete those who are in debt in NZ.
It’s a further irony that the houses are being built that increase the cost of food and petrol taxes but are just or even more unaffordable than the existing houses and we are bringing in more unemployed (aka the unemployed Chinese workers holed up with no work after paying third parties $40k to get them work in NZ) and low cost people who need to be housed in competition to make the houses which are generally more unaffordable than before!
Where is the diversification strategy. Like the UK and their ‘favourite industries to support, like finance and nuclear’ they are left out in the cold when they realise that those industries are gone in a flash and industries that used to prop up Britain are non existent anymore after going out of business with the government uninterested in helping new fledging businesses or even most British based ones.
If there was a world shortage would NZ own many of our resources anymore (after our current records of giving them away virtually for free like water and sand), and would we be like the UK that failed to diversify and was in the pockets of Thatcherism for decades and after screwing up socially with their bad decisions are now about to lose their Ponzi businesses like finance and global headquarters bases for global business with Brexit uncertainty.
Yep.
A return to local manufacturing is not part of the global plan to make us bitches of the riches.
But the rich are too stupid to see their grand schemes are as flimsy as their arguments for austerity.
It’s entirely possible to have a global village scenario, AND local economies… We’re all hooked up via the internet but the status quo learned to use it to forge greater divides, to allow the rampant spread of hate and disinformation. Religious memes, class memes, fuck the plebs divide and conquer.
Global tech and information sharing, and trade in materials not locally available… this is sensible. Everything we can do ourselves, we should bloody well do. Is it really worth it to buy cheap crap and enrich foreign sociopathic entities rather than our own people.
There’s a reason tomatoes get picked in Australia, packed in South America and sold in NZ – so we all get used to the idea we’re so useless we can’t even can our own tomatoes – so we NEED the global economy, these corporate ticket clippers/subsidy scramblers embedded every step of the way.
Criminally negligent companies being bailed out by governments rather than sanctioned/governed show they are not only onside with each other, they’re in bed together and they’re cheating on you.
When the seas become uninsurable some common sense must prevail and local manufacture might return. More likely the eejits will try air freight tomatoes from aus to brasil to nz. Cos the economy!
I can only suggest to buy local. To grow local. And where you might be in a position to do so, to make local stuff. This is not xenophobic nonsense, it it corporate-phobic common sense.
I realise the housing market was a ponzi scheme (use one house as collateral for the next), but fail to see the current govt playing into that, rather, they’re trying to get us out of it.
Some speculators might suffer, those money for nothing types, I’m not weeping for them personally.
And those tomatoes taste like water and are utterly overpriced. They also come in dainty little plastic containers – all so that a series of ticket clippers engaged in nothing more productive than exercising their egos can get an earn.
(Very efficient and effective – NOT)
100% savenz:
That is what I have been banging on about for years. Concern for the people of NZ is not fscken xenophobia. It’s hatred of injustice. I hate the idea of Kiwis coming last in a greedy scramble for profit, competing against half the world, rather than just building houses for people to live in.
Corporatism.
I suggest people start saving glass jars for bottling again. It tastes better anyway, doesn’t have the leached baddies or the additives.
save nz has been thinking again. And deeply. Thanks for presenting us with what we should know and projecting into the likely future, another thing that should be going through our brains but isn’t. You can’t be right always, but what you do is transfixing us on the problems and you get through the trashy glamour life projected onto us.
Bought is to buy.
The word you were looking for is brought which is to bring.
Back in the 19th century, under the influence of free-market economics, NZ decided that we specialised in producing food and selling it to Britain. This was based upon the idea of specialisation advanced by Adam Smith. Of course, Adam Smith was only talking about specialist jobs in a factory that made an entire product. He would have been horrified at the idea of a country specialising as a country has vast and diverse resources available to it and a lot of people most of whom aren’t going to be interested in doing the same thing as their neighbour.
We seem to have held on to that delusional idea despite everyone;s insistence that everyone is different and has different skills and interests. National tends to be the loudest about these differences and that one size doesn’t fit all and they’re also the loudest about NZ being a bloody farm.
It’s this continued delusional thinking that keeps getting us into trouble as the free-market system continuously fails to work as advertised.
From Poission’s brilliant link in the other thread:-
Perhaps development of forward progress maximised for all the people in this country, should develop in such a way that there is a replacement economy just humming along below the surface that will serve the sort of a simpler society here similar to that in the quote from Joseph Cederwall in Scoop.
Okay, try to keep us afloat in the present asset-stripping money culture, but encourage community enterprise wherever it occurs. Often people just need funding for facilities and travel, they volunteer their time and expertise. We could make NZ more resilient and greater than it ever was. We will need to so we can attempt to cope with our looming future.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1901/S00052/the-gili-islands-a-community-earthquake-recovery-effort.htm
Note the highly community oriented and co-operative rebuild. We don’t have this sort of pulling together in our country, we are still locked into an individualistic go-getter capital-accreting type that seems to have been present from the colonialists.
Perhaps we should institute sister islands and states as a way of making friends, and joining with, and showing solidarity with places like this who still have a system that works for them and can all pull their weight in running small business at a humble level that works both for the individual and for the greater good. I think a lot of our problems started with aspirational people who wanted to live a richer lifestyle in NZ than the country could afford.
They had to change the system and get more moneyed people here at the cost of losing our simpler lifestyle.
So right, Greywarshark, those who wished to turn us into another Switzerland with the likes of dodgy law firms looking after dodgy trusts dodging taxes… those people?
Going from what is practical for shipping businesses to make a profit on their present routes and contracts to 0.5% sulphur content in that short of a time will definitely ’tilt the economic balance’. Full stop! The rest of the sentence “towards regional economies and resilience” may never get to apply as quick effects drive us in quick time to recession and the appalling conflation of all the problems we already are facing in so-called good times. Huh.
A low limit, a low limit of time, a low level of achievability. Ships aren’t cramped together cardboard cartons. (Now is there a market for a new idea? “I have one word to say to you young man plastics [cardboard]: The Graduate.) Turn a bad situation into profitable ones, with a greenwash too!)
There is the cost of perhaps a year of our nation’s income goes into the really big ships. (Go on correct me about this and ignore all my other points you nutty nitpickers.) Definitely a ‘He’s also warning us of an imminent structural adjustment to global trade.’
What is the matter with these supposed wise businessmen and world advisors?
They do nothing for decades, and then apparently panic, and set impossible targets to achieve from the height of their elevated tables and padded chairs having a Picard Star Trek moment “MAKE IT SO”.
Shit ! Does this sulphur thing mean we’ve got to shut down Rotorua and bury it under 200 metres of dirt ?
Think Green. 😊 Rotorua emissions are just nature doing it’s thing. It’s the artificial additives that are creating run-away global warming. If a Nat tells you we ought to stop all emissions, natural as well, tell him to email Bridges asking him to hold a press-conference and announce that National in govt will award a knighthood to the first person who successfully plugs an erupting volcano.
With Auckland house sales dropping 20%, but prices merely flat, looks like the desired outcome of killing the commodification of housing is heading to being achieved.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12194306
The day I can go to an Auckland barbeque and people aren’t wanking on about whether one kind of landscaping increases their capital value over another, will be a welcome day indeed.
But you were branded a racist if you suggested foreigners were pushing up house prices!
I wonder if the all the righties will start conceding they were wrong…
Somehow I suspect they won’t.
No they won’t:
https://disqus.com/home/discussion/channel-thebullring/thats_odd/#comment-4302140311
Agreed – but the horse has bolted.
Unless we see an ideally slow and graceful deflation by about 50%, the next generation will face lifelong debt serfdom in order to buy a home.
And all it takes to restart the lunacy, is another National government deliberately cranking up demand via immigration and tax policy – to the point that demand overwhelms supply again.
Not just the next generation. At present there are people on working incomes that had no chance of buying a home, and have been trapped into renting. Unless you have access to low-paid/free accommodation, are able to fund the deposit outside of the banking system, or have an exceptionally high wage/income compared to others – you are already locked out of home ownership.
The issue regarding overseas ownership of residential homes still requires attention, and effective management. (Along with many other issues, housing affordability is a problem that has been created by the failure to address many factors.)
See working people selling up in Auckland, and even losing their jobs, because Auckland rates, costs of housing are now beyound their reach.
Pushing up towns like Whangarei. 25% in two years.
Since I moved back up north from the South Island Ad, I’ve noticed that Aucklanders spend a lot of their time engaged in rather vulgar talk about the value of their houses.
Now they just need to find away to bring farms and orchards back into reach of young kiwis that don’t have family backing.
This looks interesting and Jacinda is there in the spotlight.
https://twitter.com/KensingtonRoyal?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
Saw Ritchie McCaw and John Key on Seven Sharp last night. What I picked up from it (coming from a point of ignorance on the subject) is that that there is a rich foreign benefactor who wanted to help Christchurch after the earthquakes and set up some sort of organisation to use sport to boost morale. Now McCaw and Key are onboard with him and want to do some more sporty help stuff. However, no specific projects were talked about it, and all we learned was that it wasn’t Key’s fault there was a three way handshake at the Rugby World Cup.
John Key’s deals with billionaires somehow seem to enrich the world’s billionaires at the expense of opportunities for locals to get wealthier and have access to the same tax payer funded ‘sweetheart’ deals as his billionaire mates….
Billionaire Peter Thiel makes fortune after ‘sweetheart’ deal with Government
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11794020
No doubt will be entered around a ‘sports stadium’, marina or convention centre for elite sports that already have funding and support at the exclusion of everyone else…
meanwhile obesity levels for most Kiwis are increasing partly because there are little opportunities and government schemes at grass roots level as our schools swimming pools and sports fields are eroded like our public spaces, full of tourists and rubbish….
And our footpaths and walkways (both applying to feet and people movement) being hijacked by the machine-mad younger people and businesses. Just another way of putting some manufactured item or practice as a barrier to natural and simple ways that should be available to all without cost.
Even the NBR had this to say about the Sky city deal John Key championed…
Analysis: Close to corruption
https://www.nbr.co.nz/opinion/skycity-debacle-offers-morbid-fascination
they did not even get into the moral catastrophe ….
http://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/local-news/6715420/Critics-slam-Sky-City-pokie-deal
And don’t forget apparently not many questions asked when one of China’s most wanted gambled in excess of $500 million through Sky City – but apparently the penalty for money laundering was 5 months in his pent house in Auckland and giving back millions to China and NZ?????
It looks like Yong Ming Yan alias Yang Liu alias William Yan’s alias Bill Liu’s only came to governments attention even though he used multiple identities and was money laundering because he did a business deal with Dot Com… if he had not done that it is debatable whether NZ government would have worried about the 500 million + money laundering and multiple identities because they prefer to turn a blind eye to Chinese big money and the activities in NZ…
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11837117
All statutory holidays should be scrapped.
They are all plain silly and unnecessary.
lmao, just like your comment.
Give workers 6 weeks holidays a year and I reckon you could be onto something.
Yep that’s my point.
Take em when you want to.
yes and weekends
hell lets abolish days of the week
and night time.. its really unproductive
Simple, rata – just don’t take ’em.
Every day’s a holiday isn’t it ratty.
rata
Stupid flame war starter.
+1 Greywarshark. Absolute nonsense statment.
Another fizzer
https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/americas/110097837/model-who-claimed-to-have-evidence-of-usrussia-collusion-freed-from-jail
along with the rest
https://theintercept.com/2019/01/20/beyond-buzzfeed-the-10-worst-most-embarrassing-u-s-media-failures-on-the-trumprussia-story/
The dems would be better off listening to the people , getting back to their roots and putting up a halfway decent candidate
Bravo re the headline….. “ Sorry is not a PR exercise “
‘This week New Zealand saw two men – known for their mistreatment of women – address the nation, to tell their side of the story.
Both men said they wanted to make amends by apologising and moving on with their lives, and their work.
But in both cases, these so-called apologies felt more like PR exercises than a genuine effort to atone.’
Good work Laura Walters via Newsroom
Sounds interesting, Cinny.
Found it and here is the link; have yet to read it.
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2019/01/22/411114/sorry-is-not-a-pr-exercise
Thanks beautiful, much appreciated, forgot to post the link lmao.
Schools back soon, yay, a week to reclaim my sanity before work starts 🙂
I’ll hop straight to Godwin. If only Hitler had not dropped the ball and taken his own and Eva’s life, he too might have apologised and ‘moved on with his life and work’, or until the Nuremburg trials anyway. As there would have been for him along with his compatriots. But perhaps they should all have been let off on diversion so they could make recompense for their bad behaviour. The apology system and looking and saying sorry in Court which Judges seem to think is meaningful, may lead to less harsh sentences and offer a lot of savings for the justice system in NZ.
/sarc
If apologies are splashed all over the media are they just PR exercises? If apologies aren’t splashed all over the media does that mean they’re not genuine? Or if apologies aren’t splashed all over the media does that mean they weren’t given?
If someone says an apology sounds like a PR exercise and someone says of the same apology it doesn’t sound like a PR exercise who is right?
Good points, Peter.
IMO, yet’ another case of ‘right’ in such situations being “in the eye of the beholder”.
Or rather, there is no ‘right’ – it is purely a matter of personal opinion. Debating who is ‘right’ just becomes a circular (pointless?) argument with no absolute answer.
The way in which an apology is given speaks volumes to me.
In which instance jlr appeared more genuine than the spotlight longing roastbuster rapist.
That ego driven roastbuster should be charged and chucked into the big house. Maybe he could learn a bit more about rape there. Yeah I’m majorly pissed about his recent actions.
I wonder if stuff paid for the privilege of promoting his shit music.
Cindy making prison rape jokes. Classy.
Actions speak louder than words petie,
The exclusions from JLR’s apology are worth reflection.
A certain chinese gentleman ,100000.00 and the comparative worth of some races.
Great to see Minister Woods providing more funding for low emission transport of $11 million.
Foodstuffs, Meridian, Ngai Tahu Tourism, Taraua District Council and others are co-funders.
“This funding is made up of $4.3 million of government co-funding and $7.3 million of funds from the private sector. That’s a smart investment that means the maximum benefit for the taxpayers spend.
She notes:
“From 100% electric campervans for tourists to hydrogen fuel cell powered buses at the Ports of Auckland to solar panel charged electric vehicles and trial of smart chargers in people’s homes, we’re backing new technologies that will make a difference.
“We’re also funding a further 34 new public charging spaces for electric vehicles right around New Zealand, including several at South Island tourism hot-spots. This is about creating a truly national infrastructure of EV charging so that all major trips around our country are available to EV users.
https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/record-investment-low-emissions-vehicles-announced
Does anyone mind if I’m a little underwhelmed?
Surely it’s time to look at what EECA is actually doing with itself as part of Shaw’s Carbon Zero thing?
EECA are lovely people trying hard, but they are one of those little funds that pisses itself into tiny teensy weenie little pools and you really have to work hard to get wet.
Please can we have something more muscular and believable for 2019 in transport energy?
Animals Without Backbones
No. 2: Sorcha Ryder
Noelle McCarthy is not the worst thing to slither out of the Emerald Isle, it seems. Meet Sorcha Ryder, and try not to grind your teeth or smash a window. This spineless scoundrel rejoices in the splendid title of “President of the Trinity University Philosophical Society, Dublin.” Read the following and you’ll weep for Ireland, for the fate of academia, and for humanity….
http://normanfinkelstein.com/2019/01/22/hello-darkness-my-old-friend-how-the-president-of-trinity-university-philosophical-society-rectified-an-error/
Animals Without Backbones is an occasional series compiled and presented by RALPH BUCHSBAUM, for Daisycutter Sports Inc.
No. 1: Bill English
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/110100100/phil-twyford-cant-guarantee-kiwibuild-will-meet-its-target
Oh dear, never mind. Over promised and under delivered. Wasn’t it meant to be the other way around?
Phil’s discovered that builders would rather build big pricey houses. He’s on the ball our Phil.
Yes how terribly unsurprising.
He has missed his targets by a whopping 70% though. What a muppet.
Admission: “Phil Twyford says only 300 KiwiBuild homes are due to be finished by July” https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/110113848/phil-twyford-says-only-300-kiwibuild-homes-are-due-to-be-finished-by-july
Yes, as I have pointed out it is a serious clusterf#ck. Twyford needs to realise his limitations as a Minister and revise his plans.
Looks like the shortfall is actually explained by their reliance on builders: “It’s been more difficult than we expected to really shift developers off their existing business model”. Lame excuse, but what we expect from Labour.
Come July, we’ll be able to award Twyford three out of ten for his performance. Will Ardern be able to replace him with someone competent? Probably not. Relying on builders to learn a new business model is like expecting old dogs to learn new tricks.
So how did the first Labour govt succeed? Did they provide the designs and let competition between builders drive the output? If so, is the current govt copying that strategy?
By muddling their way through.
Sir James Fletcher snr, perhaps fearing the Fletcher Construction Co Ltd would be nationalised, took up the invitation of the new Labour Government in 1935 to prepare a scheme to build state rental houses. This was opposed by his brothers as too risky, and they were initially right. The houses proved much more expensive to build than first thought. This was because of the high building and design standards insisted on by the enthusiastic parliamentary undersecretary to the minister of finance, John A. Lee, who had no experience of building.
His scheme provided for most houses to be individual units and to be built from New Zealand-produced materials wherever possible. No two houses in an area were to be of the same design, and construction was to be of a high order. Lee also insisted that interior planning of all houses should conform to modern civilised standards. The New Zealand Institute of Architects’ president considered the scheme expensive and inefficient and Fletcher himself claimed that civil servants had provided house designs and demanded standards of construction on “too lavish a scale”.
The first house was built in 1937 and by March 1939 more than 5000 state houses were built or were under construction, and contracts had been let for 700 more. Residential Construction lost between £200 and £300 a house and survived only by virtue of a £200,000 government-guaranteed overdraft. It was one of several contractors, and by 1939 it had virtually withdrawn from the business.
http://www.businesshistory.auckland.ac.nz/fletchers/key_events.html
So they got 5000 built in two years. We need the media to explain why this success isn’t being replicated. Market failure, or poor govt design, or both? I’d like to hear from any experts who reckon they can account for the difference!
I thought everyone had decided that there was not enough available timber in NZ and that we would have to buy it back from Australian entities which had bought it from us originally.
I know not that was a story Dennis,
Interesting – I haven’t seen that story. You mean not enough dry cut pine? If so, does that mean nobody checked the resource stocks before designing the construction plan??
4 letters
Really expensive. Screwed by the RMA
Starts with “L” and ends in “d”
Yes, just a question of whether that is all the explanation or just part. It wasn’t there in the 1930s, so time was required to find or create usable land. But they knew that! Labour’s poll rating will slide unless they can explain themselves.
Just a part I think, but a incredibly massive one.
Said houses, thanks to JA Lee’s insistence on high standards, saved New Zealand millions in building replacement houses, and still provide value, even today.
Fifties and sixties State houses attract a premium on the market.
Doesn’t sound anywhere like the National parties expensive theft/fuckup, with selling them off.
Kiwibuild is nothing like the First Labour Government’s State house building programme. Then again that wasn’t entirely earth shattering either. Only 30,000 houses were built between 1937 and 1950. That works out to be less than 2500 per year. Also most of them were still built by the private sector.
Sure, the government via it’s agencies financed, designed, and clerked residential construction but AFAIK the work was always done by the private sector.
@ Gosman, The difference then, was that NZ immigration was not the third highest in the world per capita in the 1930’s to 1950’s, at the same time as they were constructing the state houses… hard to keep up with that sort of impact on population growth with housing, especially when NZ is not exactly choosy on who we are importing into NZ to reside here, with aged people, criminals, 11 day marriage and retail/hospitality workers being popular by immigration as new citizens and residents… many are not actually working but retiring or just living here and able to claim benefits within very short time frames…
some are unemployed before they even get here aka the Chinese workers holed up recently after paying $40k and having no work or money to pay rent.
Let alone all the alias that are being discovered by many coming and going from NZ…
no wonder jobseekers benefits are up. Unlike Kiwi’s who have their benefit cut when they leave NZ, many on multiple passports under different names can come and go as they please and therefore their benefits are not cut, when they leave…
Not sure how motivated the govt was during 1939-45 to build houses and if there was a workforce available at the time.
From memory there was some other event that captured the attention of the world at that time (though I must admit not recorded as part of my writings 😉) ??
So the govt IMO had a valid reason of averaging 2,500/year Though I think you are being a little mischievous in how you have framed your point ??
@ Dennis Frank What are they talking about, it’s the same business model the government uses as the construction industry approach.
That’s the problems as is relying on very poorly trained, low waged imports to build our houses who many are sitting around unemployed after paying $40k to lawyers and third party recruiters, when what we needed was building and planning skills at a higher local level….
As they say, from wiki
“The infinite monkey theorem states that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type any given text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare.”
In terms of NZ building it seems that allowing hundreds of thousands of low skilled people into NZ will some how create a master piece of engineering and construction over the age of the universe as they all seem to use the infinite monkey theorem in construction here…
could have been a better bet to give free trades training to NZ citizens already here which would take 2 -4 years and be on the ground now instead of the import strategy from National from 2010, (aka in that 8 years we could have had two rounds of new trainees who are NZ born and trained and likely to stay in NZ if the wage and conditions are high enough), or import in quality international people on $100k+ , use habitat for humanity man power for the rest, have people who speak and read English fluently to follow the plans and communicate on site so we don’t have remedial work and it taking forever to get a building completed, and with tradies with decades of experience (aka not likely to respond to $NZ 20 – 40 p/h jobs)….
Even easier go back to the immigration levels that the new government planned for aka 15,000 max, stop the temporary work permits that are a massive burden on infrastructure, stamp on poor tourism and aged parents actually being in NZ and ‘working’ looking after kids on a tourism visa that use our hospitals etc, and actually look at people who want to live here and have something great to offer the country… and the appropriate level of insurance for people who are actually living here, but not qualified to do so, using a tourist or student visa but without means to properly support themselves in NZ…
Build a wall, sounds less complex. Across the Bombay hills.
I agree with the 15,000 figure. Some non partisan think tank looked at the issue. I would include more temporary work visa programmes for the pacific islands. Better than strait handouts to there governments.
It won’t happen as our GDP growth and housing price stability is tied to immigration. No way Labour could survive a house price fall as its doing next to nothing to stimulate other parts of the economy.
In terms of election margin a debate could exist about a few percent that Labour presently gets from poorer immigrants who are still by any method trying to get the extended family into NZ. They will vote against such a control on immigration. Hence since it’s the margin that wins or looses the election Labour can’t act.
“It’s clear now that we won’t meet our first year target, and that’s a really disappointment to me,” Twyford said.
Well its been clear to a lot of people for a very long time that those targets weren’t going to be met
It was clear at the point that they announced it that he wouldn’t hit 1000 houses per year for a while and certainly ramping up to 3000 plus a year is pie in the sky dreaming at the moment.
Over promising wins you an election but under delivering might may well lose you one
They successfully avoided addressing their unrealistic targets in the first year in office as they could use the excuse that they were putting in place the framework for the programme. No such excuses exist now although I am sure they will attempt variations on this theme.
I’m pretty sure it’ll be Nationals fault some how
What a lovely duet Gosman and Puckish Rogue make. Each feeding into the others negative warblings. I prefer Bjorling and Merrill in In the Depths of the Temple myself.
I think this is more accurate 🙂
I’ve always liked that one.
Always lends itself to a gentle sway, like the rocking of a boat on calm water.
I thought how do modern singers of The Depths compare to Queen’s style. Here are two with appeal and power.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2MwnHpLV48
The thing about opera singers is that they can’t usually do pop for anything worth a damn. Their breath control is too deliberate and it screws the natural sound. But opera is totally my thing, some days. Just awesome.
On the other hand, Mercury had an amazing range (with no gaps) and style that is rare in pop music. It’s funny to try to follow his style in karaoke – most of the songs sound simple to sing, but then the note increments keep going up or down so far that one’s throat really gets into difficulty. I mean, you can sing them all in your own range, but they sound so much more flat.
Singer and voice coach on Freddie Mercury and his voice.
This is pretty damn special, too.
http://www.openculture.com/2013/06/listen_to_freddie_mercury_and_david_bowie_on_the_isolated_vocal_track_for_the_queen_hit_under_pressure_1981.html
Freddy Mercury still teaching people how to sing in 2017…
There’s something special about that song – it’s like three different songs with some lyrics being oscure to the point of nonsensical, and the lyrics with obvious meaning are very loosely related if at all, but it just connects with people.
Great way to keep a bored crowd occupied, too 🙂
@ greywarshark
It’s hard to better this version of the Pearl Fishers duet though with Luciano Pavarotti and Nicolai Ghiarov:
An old recording but straight from the heavens.
Very nice work Grey.
Hope you’ve seen this duet live; it’s pretty magic.
I doubt they could spin any such line but I don’t expect them to try. They need to take responsibility. All they need blame National for is creating the problem in the first place. If National had been responsible and only imported as many foreigners as the infrastructure could provide for, the problem would not exist, right? No need to point out that Helen Clark made the same stupid mistake. I know that already. 🙄
“They need to take responsibility.”
Can you see them doing that though
Eventually. Depends if they can produce a feasible excuse from the logistics. Twyford ought to be demanding an explanation from the public servants responsible for implementing the policy. We still haven’t had any explanation at all.
Twyford could tell a press conference that it was lack of leadership: “Well, we contracted a CEO for Kiwibuild, then we had to shift his goalposts, which he decided was a breach of contract. But privacy law prevents me saying so. You know, the same lame excuse National always used to evade accountability. We always copy National!” 😎
Some better then none which is what the nothing to see here nats would have built
Yes but when you were in Parliament how many houses did you get built
I don’t remember National promising 100,000 in 10 years
That would be Ardern and her buddy Twyford
Key highlighted NZ’s housing crisis in 2007. Like Chris T, I can’t remember what the National-led government promised either; how did they avoid criticism for failing to provide more affordable housing while ramping up immigation?
Simple, really – National had no housing targets, homelessness isn’t their problem, and they have (blind) faith that the market will provide (never mind Mainzeal (Shipley) and Fletcher Building failures).
If the number of KiwiBuild homes built so far is disappointing (and it is), then how best to describe National’s housing ‘achievements’ over nine years in office, and do we really want a repeat of those achievements?
Looking forward to comparing the numbers after the coalition’s first nine years.
Homelessness doesn’t appear to be Labour’s problem either given their 2 billion in last years budget looks like it will produce 300 houses that no one seems to want and will probably end up on the open market, while 2 billion could have housed the homeless.
Actual accountability is a bugger, eh.
We’ll see how far he misses by, and if it’s a fair effort I’m sure he’ll survive. If it turns into novopay he’ll be stuffed.
Oh boy, popcorn time.
Totally.
Hypocrisy on stilts.
https://twitter.com/Ned_Newhouse/status/1087803082522746882
Two Republicans on the House Oversight Committee are urging Michael Cohen’s attorney to prove that his client’s upcoming February 7 public testimony before the committee won’t just be a “media stunt.”
In a Tuesday letter, House Freedom Caucus Members Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Mark Meadows (R-NC) asked Guy Petrillo for firm answers on the scope of Cohen’s testimony, claiming that Cohen’s public relations representative in the probe, Lanny Davis, cautioned that much of what Cohen can say will be restricted by his cooperation with multiple ongoing investigations.
The congressmen write that Davis told GOP committee staff that he “pushed” Cohen to testify, saying “this was my idea; nobody’s else.”
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/house-oversight-republicans-want-answers-cohen-testimony
The irony of a Brexit Leave supporter, now leaving Britain… also what happens with globalism it is a race to the bottom and company headquarters can come and go as they please, with few incentives of old like redundancy payments, or tax treatment to stop them…. more like encourage corporations to leave western countries and manufacture else where, while bringing in cheap products and selling them to the consumers of the western world… how free trade really works.
And how thoughtful all those Leave people were… they are the first to leave the sinking May ship
“Dyson will move its headquarters from the UK to Singapore ahead of Brexit
Founder James Dyson is in favor of the UK exiting the EU. But even with Brexit going ahead, his company is now leaving for Singapore.”
https://www.cnet.com/news/dyson-moves-hq-to-singapore-from-the-uk-ahead-of-brexit/
Bet BlobbyJobby and Moggy move their dosh offshore well in advance of the deluge too.
His company is leaving as Singapore has signed a free trade agreement with Europe and he now has the same access if not better to the european market then he is going to have by staying in Britain.
And that is the crux of the matter, capital will always find a way to get out. Its just the ordinary workers that will stay behind. 🙂 Oh well, as some said, they voted for it, and all those that did not vote for it, sucks to be them, right?
Time they redo the referendum before Britain loses more of their industry headquarters based there.
It sucks to live in the UK.
It rains every day and even millionaires live in tiny houses.
Yeah the houses of rich people are tiny.
https://goo.gl/images/HA6Qcm
Lucky there are so many billionaires that like to own a house there even if they only live in it for a few weeks a year.
Being a millionaire is small fry these days.
It’s easier to be tax resident in a tax haven and just own houses and assets around the world as gold bricks.
The Scourge of the Wealthy
The scum trolls led by hedonist non empathetic nationals, are delighted that the Coalition cannot meet the present extreme demand of housing and rentals.
They are drunk with the success of their massive destruction of the low waged Kiwi family and their own rise and rise of ostentatious dirty Greed.
Thanks to John Key and Billy English – and a number of other slobs Their success has been so Rapid. And Rabid.
Knighted by a pleasant but unkowing Monarch. Who has not an inkling of Democracy – or Equity. The same Monarch appears to have no idea of a Treaty struck by a simple Queen Victoria, which has failed to keep the Maori peoples and individuals, in the same luxury as the wealthy of Auckland or Tauranga.
The Coalition of NZ – will soon have to discuss with every Wealthy person in Aotearoa a meaningful reduction in their wealth.
For, there will be many means of humiliating wealthy persons who have failed Democracy. The wealthy know that. It will not take many matches to burn off Greed.
Housing was not just a National issue. The ramping up in prices, debt, rents, immigration began with Clarke and Cullen. National just did nothing to change as it was the haves that got more wealthy as a result.
I don’t think saying that the few wealthy should have assets confiscated will solve anything. Such a move would cause a flight of wealth resulting in economic collapse. Then you will have a meaningful reduction of wealth. Our tax rates are already high. So any of the Moari that get educated and able to command high pay will just leave to work in the long list of low tax nations. Buisiness confidence would collapse, as the owners flee with whatever assets they can recover and unemployment would increase. Harming Moari the most.
Have you heard of Venezuela.
You want there stuff. Isn’t that greed.
Hi – D J Ward.
Whitewash
I am a bit more occupied with a place called New Zealand. Have you heard of New Zealand ?
You wealthy guys and girls have been buying up houses and selling them off at some of the highest prices on the planet. Just dumpy old three bedroom stuff. at that.
Heaps of them you turn into Rentals at outrageous weekly amounts. Most of them mouldy cold rat ridden slums. And then you run off to Simon and Paula (the one in the Leopard skin) and cry on his shoulder about how the poor wretches are complaining about low wages and poverty.
Simon says in his unique obscure way, well we must tread on the throats of the Poor until they get used to their Poverty and become grateful. Children, Women and Men.
Simon says the National Party exists to get rid of all people who have no wealth. It is what National People expect and you expect D J Ward. National stands for getting rid of the decent people of New Zealand.
But you already know that. That’s why a lot of you pay hardly any Tax. Scummy eh .
Kia ora Newshub Inflation is low in NZ that is only the case because the price of oil has come back from the highs of last year.
Tawhirirmate is a powerful force and these strong winds are part of human caused Global Warming and climate change that’s a fact. Its good to see that the #metoo movement has given the young people the courage to call out the powerful in the movie making world who abuse their staff.
Lloyd I say that Davos is going to make good changes they are taking about climate change and unequal income distribution finally . I also say that if national was still in power there will have been thousands of broken people under the bridge and on the bread line. The the Coalition Government has made a positive changes to Aotearoa.
Its not on that people leave any living thing in a car on a hot day. duncan at least the Coalition Government is trying to fix the homeless people problems in Aotearoa national just denied it rubbing there hands together hogging the tax free capital gains they are getting from their housing market short.
The digital language gives people a consciences one cannot just tell porkies or do bad things just because someone is filling there hip pockets with $$$$$$$$$$. Shamubeel the way the world is at the minute is a very good reason not to load the government with DEPT. Like I have stated before if programs are targeted at Maori that will give national a tool to hit the Coalition Government on the head with anyway its best to lift all poor minority culture up with policy’s not just one sector of OUR society.
Good on Hinewehi Mohi for singing the Maori only national anthem at Twickenham All blacks England game 20 years ago. Its cool that most Kiwis are giving Maori culture respect .
The provincial growth fund has helped Maori and rural communities all over Aotearoa. duncan their are hundreds of people who are not locked up in jail now collecting the dole that is better than pay paying A $100.000 a year to keep them in the farcical jail system just to keep you happy. No wonder Winston stayed away from the am show you are a disrespectful person. That $400 is a pack of porkies duncan that’s is what the contractor gets if a worker plants 10 bags a day the worker will get $200 gross a day from that a reasonable fit person will only hit that if they are good hard workers at the end of the season most people will only make $100 a day YOUR MEDIA mates telling bullshit again I seen that story $400 planting trees and know one wants the job YEA RIGHT to I no this for a Fact. Ka kite ano. P.S duncan I would like to see you on a spade you would break in half a day
Americans’ concerns about climate change have surged to record levels, new polling shows, following a year marked by devastating storms, wildfires and increasingly dire warnings from scientists.
A total of 72% of polled Americans now say global warming is personally important to them, according to the Yale program on climate change communication. This is the highest level of concern since Yale starting polling the question in 2008.
Overall, 73% of Americans accept that global warming is happening, outnumbering those who don’t by five to one. This acceptance has strengthened in recent years, rising by 10% since March 2015. The proportion that grasps that humans are the primary cause of warming is smaller, with 62% understanding this to be the case.
About two-thirds of Americans believe that global warming is influencing the weather, in the wake of a string of deadly extreme events in the US. About half say the disastrous wildfires in California and Hurricanes Florence and Michael, which flattened parts of North Carolina and Florida, were worsened because of rising global temperatures.
“Global warming used to be viewed as a problem distant in time and space,” said report co-lead researcher Ed Maibach, a climate change and public health communications expert at George Mason University.
“But Americans increasingly understand that global warming is here and now and are growing concerned about the threat to themselves, their communities and the nation.” Ka kite ano links below.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/22/climate-change-concern-americans-poll
Giving money to the oil barons who are poising the enviroment that has to stop. I wonder how much Aotearoa gives to the carbon barons will check that out a put a post up about that.
The UK leads the European Union in giving subsidies to fossil fuels, according to a report from the European commission. It found €12bn (£10.5bn) a year in support for fossil fuels in the UK, significantly more than the €8.3bn spent on renewable energy.
The commission report warned that the total subsidies for coal, oil and gas across the EU remained at the same level as 2008. This is despite both the EU and G20 having long pledged to phase out the subsidies, which hamper the rapid transition to clean energy needed to fight climate change.
Fossil fuels subsidised by $10m a minute, says IMF
Read more
Germany provided the biggest energy subsidies, with €27bn for renewable energy, almost three times the €9.5bn given to fossil fuels. Spain and Italy also gave more subsidies to renewable energy than fossil fuels.
But along with the UK, France, the Netherlands, Sweden and Ireland all gave more to fossil fuels. The report is based on 2016 Eurostat data, the latest available, and found that across the EU renewable energy received 45% of subsidies and fossil fuels 33%.
The commission report said policies were being pursued to cut carbon emissions and meet the Paris climate agreement goals of limiting global warming to well below 2C above pre-industrial levels. “However, despite this and the international commitments made in the context of G20 and G7, fossil fuel subsidies in the EU have not decreased,” it said. “EU and national policies might need to be reinforced to phase out such subsidies.”
The total fossil fuel subsidies in the EU were €55bn in 2016, the report concluded. “This is a very high number, given we are reaching the deadline for some of their [phase out] promises,” said Ipek Gencsu, subsidies expert at the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) Ka kite ano links below
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/23/uk-has-biggest-fossil-fuel-subsidies-in-the-eu-finds-commission
Here is a good video for our muso’s
Kia ora Newshub That’s is Tawhirirmate and Tangaroa. Tawhirirmate gets a lot of Mana from a warning Tangaroa.
That looked like a big slip at Cape Kidnappers small compared to the Tarndale slip in Te tairawhiti that one is the biggest in Australaysa.
I bet if that suburbia rubbish dump in Auckland was in a affluent suburb it would have been cleaned up by the council.
ECO MAORI will do more research before I comment on Foreign topics.
Go on Winston for defending Jacinda not being present at the Ratana the biggest threat to US is Climate change and the faster we get on top of global warming the better Papatuanukue we will leave te Mokopunas. Its a big mess that national has left OUR Coalition Government with the Housing crisis to clean up it will be cleaned up. Mike Australia has just started there summer not so long ago Global warming record hot temperature are what some priditived that phenomenon here on thestandard but they we saying later on in about 5 to 10 years not 2019?????? Milisa shonky is a climate change denier he was just rednosing at Davos. Kate I seen the Movie AquaMan it was excellent watching especially with the sean of all the waste that we POUR into The Ocean being washed back on LAND a very Clean and Green MOVIE.KA PAI Ka kite ano
Kia ora Newshub It’s a good business idea for a gondola zip line on Rangitoto Island championed By Ngai tai tamariki so long as the project does not indanger our beautiful wildlife. Ua te reira I teie ona ringihia I runga I reira parade whakawhiti I. national that is with there TX problems Ana to kai. Some say how did the tsunami of working poor people phenomenon eventuate well its quite clear for me to see that if the country is run in favour of one small sector of society business and all other sectors ills are ignored well there it is. I did said that the tsunami of boke poor people was just starting last year. It’s s so harlious that someone is trying to pin this massive transfer of wealth from the many to the few 00.1% on the Coalition Government YEA RIGHT. Only fools and horses Flogging the same
Horses Kiwi build and the unjustice system and POOR people bashing Mitchell your complexion is going red because you no your party is losing and you are lying .
Good on Hannah for swimming the Koveaux strait raising money for mental health awareness Kia kaha Hannah.
AM Show your polls are rigged mark mitchell as leader of national for one he was closely linked to the whale oil bullshit how he got out of that crap is a wonder O that’s correct he is a ex Cop they look after there OWN I have Alot of reservations about this person possibly running the country on the ideals of a crooked cop mentality lock em up first and any bad facts getting covered up like the cops do it’s well known that the cops serve the wealthy first they give the biggest kick back and lock up the poor common people to show the world that they are doing there job and that they need more cops. Big know to mark Ana to kai. Ka kite ano P.S wasn’t mark’s family part of the Air force his parents would have known about the Gropper case.
I’m looking after my Mokopunas to puppets trying to float marks toilet I will point the facts out on that you two look so sad that national is were they deserve to be and the only reason they stayed in power for so long is of the spinning the media put on shonky.
The whole world needs to action a sharp reduction in OUR use of carbon that is poisning OUR GRANDCHILDRENS FUTURES.
Removing coal from the global energy mix is taking too long, too many forests are still being destroyed, and fossil fuel subsidies are ongoing despite their distorting effect on the market, a study has found.
There has also been insufficient progress in agriculture to stop harmful practices that increase carbon dioxide production, and heavy industry is not doing enough to use energy more efficiently, according to analysis carried out by the World Resources Institute thinktank.
Without progress on all these fronts, the world is unlikely to see global greenhouse gas emissions peak in 2020, which is likely to be necessary to stay within the 1.5C or 2C warming thresholds that scientists have identified as key to the future safety of the planet.
But the analysis also found important steps forward, on renewable energy, curtailing greenhouse gas emissions from shipping, and public sector investment in reducing emissions. These suggest progress in other aspects of tackling climate change is also possible, with greater effort from the public and private sectors.
The WIR looked at six key goals that have been pegged as necessary to cause emissions to peak in 2020 and achieve the targets of the 2015 Paris agreement. They include goals on energy, transport, land use, industry, infrastructure and finance.
The report found that renewable energy accounted for about a quarter of global electricity generation in 2017, and more than two-thirds of new power generation capacity. By 2020, electricity from renewables is likely to be consistently cheaper than fossil fuel energy, making it possible that 30% of electricity could come from renewable sources by 2030, one of the Mission2020 milestones.
But coal-fired generation is still increasing, with coal-fired power plants continuing to be built in some areas, while existing plants are not being removed from service fast enough. Electric vehicles, meanwhile, comprise 1.4% of overall sales, making a 2020 milestone of 15% of new car sales hard to reach.
The goals are the work of Mission 2020, a global coalition of several climate analysis organisations, headed by Christiana Figueres, the former UN climate chief who negotiated the Paris accord. Mission 2020 has calculated that if these milestones are achieved by 2020, it will make the longer-term Paris goals possible – because progress now on reducing emissions will make it easier and cheaper to reduce them in the longer term – and wants to spur sufficient progress on climate change to bring that about. Ka kite ano links below P.S The people that shonky put in power running our industrys in Aotearoa will throw a spanner in the works on our Coalition Goverments goals of a sharp reduction in OUR carbon emmision’s they need to be weeded out and given a short sharp shift .
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/22/analysis-warns-lack-progress-2020-global-emissions-target
Video for above post.
How to solve the world’s plastics problem: Bring back the milk man
It’s the early 1960s. Girls are fainting over the Beatles, Sean Connery is James Bond and a revolutionary trend is sweeping the United States: Plastic.
Plastic is about to have its breakthrough moment in the food industry. The plastic milk jug, specifically, is on the brink of taking off: the “market potential is huge,” the New York Times correctly notes.
To American families, a third of which are still getting their milk from a milk man, plastic is a wonder package. It’s lighter than glass. It doesn’t break. Unlike paper cartons, it’s translucent. You can see how much liquid is left in the jug. With a plastic container, everybody wins.
Except for the milk man. And, as it would turn out, the planet.
Fast forward to now. Plastics are expected to outweigh fish in the ocean by 2050. Marine life is choking on the debris: Microplastics are in our soil, our water, our air, getting into our bodies with potential consequences that we don’t fully understand yet. Massive amounts of plastic have piled up in landfills, some emitting greenhouse gases and contributing to global warming over the seeming eternity they take to degrade. Plastics are threatening the health of the planet and its inhabitants, and they’re not going away.
Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Nestlé, PepsiCo, Danone, Mars Petcare, Mondelēz International and others — some of the world’s largest consumer goods companies — are partnering on a potential solution to limit future waste. They’re working together on a project known as Loop, announced at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Thursday. It offers consumers an
alternative to recycling — a system that isn’t working well these days.
At this point, the partners are testing the waters. It’s an experiment they’ll roll out to several thousand consumers in New York and Paris this May, with plans to expand to London later in 2019 and Toronto, Tokyo and San Francisco in 2020.
The Loop tote bag (Mark Kauzlarich for CNN)
Loop is a new way to shop, offering about 300 items — from Tide detergent to Pantene shampoo, Häagen-Dazs ice cream to Crest mouthwash — all in reusable packaging. After using the products, customers put the empty containers in a Loop tote on their doorstep. The containers are then picked up by a delivery service, cleaned and refilled, and shipped out to consumers again. Ka kite ano links below P.S The movie AquaMan high lights the waste we are pour into our Oceans Tangaroa Also it a exelent move to watch
https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2019/01/business/loop-reusable-packaging-mission-ahead/index.html
Some Eco Maori Music for the minute
Some Eco Maori Music for the minute.
Here you go humans are the intelligent the most intelligent being’s but we can not come to a agreement to stop Burning Carbon we can see the effects of green house warming now . We let the media be brought by oil baron’s and let them manipulate the systems and the people to steal power from the many 99.9 %. We are letting them steal our grandchildrens future for there greed of power and money. IF we don’t stop them and stop burning carbon humanity will go extint .Life will carry on on Papatuanuku but with out most animal’s that we know of we will have to stop burning carbon or go BUST.
Global Warming: News, Facts, Causes & Effects
Global warming is the term used to describe a gradual increase in the average temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere and its oceans, a change that is believed to be permanently changing the Earth’s climate. There is great debate among many people, and sometimes in the news, on whether global warming is real (some call it a hoax). But climate scientists looking at the data and facts agree the planet is warming. While many view the effects of global warming to be more substantial and more rapidly occurring than others do, the scientific consensus on climatic changes related to global warming is that the average temperature of the Earth has risen between 0.4 and 0.8 °C over the past 100 years. The increased volumes of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases released by the burning of fossil fuels, land clearing, agriculture, and other human activities, are believed to be the primary
sources of the global warming that has occurred over the past 50 years. Scientists from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate carrying out global warming research have recently predicted that average global temperatures could increase between 1.4 and 5.8 °C by the year 2100. Changes resulting from global warming may include rising sea levels due to the melting of the polar ice caps, as well as an increase in occurrence and severity of storms and other severe weather events.
https://www.livescience.com/topics/global-warming
Healthy corals grow in the shallows fringing a mangrove forest in Raja Ampat, Indonesia. This area is known as the “heart of the Coral Triangle” due to its incredible marine biodiversity.
Credit: Shutterstock
David Steen received his Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from Auburn University and is now a Research Ecologist at the Georgia Sea Turtle Center on Jekyll Island. Steen has published dozens of scientific papers about wildlife ecology and conservation biology and is also an award-winning science communicator known for his wide-ranging outreach efforts (find him on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Finally, Steen is Executive Director of The Alongside Wildlife Foundation, a nonprofit he founded to promote science-based solutions to living alongside wildlife in perpetuity. Steen contributed this article to Live Science’s Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.
Species are rapidly disappearing all around us; indeed, you and I are living through Earth’s sixth great extinction. Most reasonable people agree that losing species is a problem. However, as a conservation biologist and a science communicator, I am used to hearing the occasional argument from radicals about why we need not be especially concerned about that loss. Imagine my horror to see these arguments compiled into a Perspectives piece published in The Washington Post, and written by a professor of biology no less! I cannot believe that it is 2018 and I have to explain why extinction is actually a bad thing, but here we are.
The piece works hard to make the case that we need not be particularly distressed about the loss of biodiversity by arguing, if you will humor me some loose paraphrasing, that we are going to lose species no matter what and extinction does not make much of a difference anyway because new species might evolve in the future. But for this line of reasoning to make sense one must ignore decades of conservation science and centuries of art, literature and philosophy, not to mention millions of years of evolution. Although there have already been many responses to the article — nearly unanimous in their disapproval — I feel compelled to go on record as well and explain why the article was so aggravating to me, as someone who puts a lot of time and effort into helping people appreciate and value biodiversity.
Ka kite ano links below P.S I say that all climate change spinning denier’s are open for Eco Maori’s warth as they are indangering our Grandchildrens future.
https://www.livescience.com/61548-saving-imperiled-species-op-ed.html
There you go the sandflys were playing heaps of silly bugger games on the road on my to and from Tokoroa TO DROP MY MOKOPUNAS OFF they even had some gturms puppet actor’s in their game playing to. They must have smoke coming out of there ass,s from my post on Mark the neo redneck national mp there were marked cop cars in their play to Ana to kai Ka kite ano P.S they love shonky as well they need big boxes of tissue LOL