Something that needs fixing in NZ it seems to me, possibly even more than the "voices" who spend hours venting about "freedom of speech" and "gun control" on line are the warped perceptions of some "everyday" NZers.
It all reminds me of a similar campaign when a Maori emersion school was planned for Bethlehem, where I live, that opened in 2012, sadly to exactly the same sort of negative pre-judgement and quite along local campaign to stop it's construction.
Emergency housing, much needed in Tauranga, has some locals still determined to be NIMBY's till the bitter end, possibly due to having nothing better to do. The attached link shows the news story where their "fears" and angst continue despite the story stating that conditions of conduct are applied to residents and are to be increased to sooth the "concerns" of, some – but not all – local residents.
Sadly the scrutiny being placed on the residents of the emergency housing also sees some of them uncomfortable and wanting to leave, that would be fine if it was not due to the pitchfork mentality of some of those in the surrounding area and they had other better reasons and options to leave. Police have stated that there are no more events of any criminal nature or disturbance than there are elsewhere in the area.
The fact is that since the local school here opened after long and concerted efforts by the "locals", who predicted a massive wave of crime and vandalism, the school has operated for the past seven years as a seamless part of the community with absolutely none of the mayhem predicted.
The on-line screeching about "rights", probably by those who would be the first to abuse them, is bad enough but people taking petty fears and perceived problems into the community does nothing to better the lives of NZersor themselves.
Of course, it never registers with said NIMBYs that they themselves are only one major health or financial (or both) disaster away from needing emergency accommodation themselves…
Ae! Or when, if they're ever forced to 'cash up', they could be in serious shit. The banks, their employers no longer their friends. In some cases the ignominy of bankruptcy and the realisation their phallus ain't quite so grand as first thought.
It's at that point they usually start screaming for MUMMY or gummint intervention.
I so wish that the local paper who are peddling this story were made to go back and interview all the naysayers of the school predicting mayhem pre-2012. The funny thing is I know some of them by name, 3rd-hand, their children were sort of pre-teen then and things have, I hear, not been particularly easy or straighforward with them "growing up", the very typical "people in glass houses" that you speak of.
Hi PR, speaking of underpaid workers, just having a chat with my significant other after a shift at ED.
One of the people she dealt with was a profoundly deaf man with mental health issues. After a family harm incident, he has been forbidden from entering a local town. While this town is where the alleged harm occurred, it is also where his only other support (parents) is.
After two nights in the cells he is 'released', no money, transport, food or winter clothing. He was treated for an old injury and then went and sat outside the hospital in light cotton clothing. At 1am, he comes back in, shivering, hungry and depressed.
Long story short, he sleeps on the floor of ED under a blanket until the mental health social worker can sort something out.
The solutions are not cheap nor simple and I feel that things are getting more severe especially in the realm of mental ill-health.
BTW, big ups to you and your colleagues for doing the job you do in what must be under more and more trying circumstances.
Hi PR. I fear you're right about salaries not covering the horrific jobs that need to be done, let's hope one day we achieve salaries befitting the work involved. In the mean time I hope they have meaningful assistance for staff confronting these issues and that you avail yourself of them. Rest up well before your next shift.
My night was a very cushy number, thanks. However, my first thought on reading your comment wasn't "Oh we aren't paying prison guards enough," but "Why are we using prisons as storage facilities for people with serious mental health issues?"
My observation is it comes down to mostly because there's not enough spaces for the prisoners in wards so they get sent to corrections and, through the grapevine, sometimes they won't be taken because the prisoners are to violent
Indeed, the two are not mutually exclusive – and they'd certainly have to pay me a lot of money to work in Corrections, for which they wouldn't get value for money because I'd almost certainly be hopeless at it (unless prisoners are easily swayed by people who use a lot of big words in convoluted sentences, but that feels somewhat unlikely).
Well you better hope national and in particular collins or mitchell never get near power or prisons will get stuffed fuller and staffed cheaper. Serco on steroids is where those nut jobs would take us.
Probably so – and what you and the prisoner experienced sounds terrible. I would note though, that you are able to form the thought that "correction officers don't get paid enough" only because you have some underlying notion of 'value' that is not the same as the exchange (dollar) value that is obtained in the market. i.e. the money you get does not accurately represent the value of what you do. And this is true in general and in both directions – markets actually reward people rather perversely from the standpoint of the 'real' value they produce. We will make a lefty out of you yet PR.
Um – does that mean you are going to do a ballet dance for us, PR? Or did you mean bolshy? If that is why the smiley face is there, nice one, and please post the video.
re: Govt. Gun Registration plans, good idea, but keep an eye on the opponents perhaps.
NZ gun lobby group COLFO (Council of Licensed Firearms Owners) has been making early noise about the Govt. plans. COLFO is a member of the World Forum for the Future of Sport Shooting, which in turn is linked to the NSSF (National Shooting Sports Foundation) US, which is linked to The Firearms Industry Trade Association, US, and the NRA (National Rifle Association) US.
The NSSF has a policy of not linking to third parties such as NRA but it is clear that there is a connection. One site I looked at offered discounted membership to NRA.
When I recently renewed my license I was given the option to voluntarily register my rifles which I did . So it should be easy to know who to go find .
h ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qr17fMPT0Xg&t=2745s
I learnt a lot of new things.When listening to the most comprehensive history of tRump I'd found on the web … delivered with mocking humor
One was that Rump always stiffed small businesses and sub-contractors who worked for him …
Starting right at the beginning, on his first construction site … he kept $100,000 due to already underpaid non-union polish workers … and he's done it to everyone since.
He apparently gets mad when any of his managers … pay out the agreed upon price to contract workers… paying the quoted and accepted price… gives the don the shits..
His method was / is to retain the last payment …and tell them to sue, … they would be told it would take years of expensive legal battling … and if they lost or pulled out, they would be bankrupted. by having to pay trumps expensive lawyers fees …
It's a mugs game for Small businesses or individuals taking on a corporation with multi-million funds … rich bullies know litigation is a rich mans game.. and so rich wankers use this against the 'lesser' people that they effectively steal from.
A recent comparable example in NZ …. was the Nact government telling Pike River families "they could sue" ,,, in response to pathetic compensation from the Nact Govt ,,, despite the Govts part in regulatory failure leading to the disaster ,,, and the Govt receiving millions in Insurance payouts for the mass killing 'accident'. http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/west-coast/9399690/PM-avoiding-Pike-River-payout
In a final grubby insult,, Nact trolls tried to smear / blame Andrew Little for the neo-lib, non-compliant, non-regulated, free-market death trap that was Pike River….a lie that shows total disregard for the safety of mine workers … as it seeks to hide the failures / lessons that need to be corrected.
Its the sort of shameful thing Rump would say …. It got a brief airing here at TS ,,,, but I wonder how often this dog whistle got posted up in Kiwiblog or Whalestain ….
Rump plays to an audience …. the NZ 'right' share an awful lot of the same things.
That's why so many see Trump as God and saw Key as God. Those two fine specimens had a grasp of the real world and are / were about showing what the real world is about, or should be about. The thing that should be the weirdest bit it is the Trump thing about 'draining the swamp' still being chanted by his cheerleaders. Like Shylock to Oliver and co., "Welcome after your trip out of the swamp my dears, to a mire of neck high shit."
You will know when we have a real Left wing transformative politician who is anywhere near the levers of power in New Zealand, because this is what happens when a real one shows up and threatens the power status quo….
" The greatest fear of those holding the most power and wealth is that they will lose their exalted position in the world. They will resist any changes to the grossly unequal and unjust class structure that causes grievous damage to so many people; and to the planet itself. Even the threat of real change must be crushed. This, in a nutshell, underpins the astonishing and relentless campaign to stop Jeremy Corbyn, a moderate leftist, from ever becoming Prime Minister."
Yeah I would go along with that, although I would also have to say that the Greens PR department (if they indeed have one) should have all been fired immediately after that episode had exposed their complete ineptness.
+100 … how Metiria Turei was forced to resign … but double dipper english and his rich mans crime of greed was allowed to remain … was a disgrace …. mainly to our media but also the greens PR.
Corbyn smears are also media enabled to a very large degree …. partly because we are kept in the dark about how bad Israel is … and what sort of other sneaky stuff is being done.
Who knew that BDS has been falsely framed and ruled anti-semetic ?
Israel – and now the German parliament – have claimed that the boycott is Nazi-like in its methods. “‘Don’t buy’ stickers of the BDS movement on Israeli products,Israel – and now the German parliament – have claimed that the boycott is Nazi-like in its methods. “‘Don’t buy’ stickers of the BDS movement on Israeli products, ” the non-binding German resolution stated, “remind one [sic] of inevitable associations with the Nazi call ‘Don’t buy from the Jews’,
Or how about the links and admirers of right wing Apartheid Israel
it has certainly facilitated the U.S. wars in the Middle East against its regional enemies and now it is nurturing the Islamophobic far right in the West hostile to the flood of displaced refugees fleeing them.
Netanyahu has also courted Poland’s far-right prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki, even as the latter has fuelled Holocaust revisionism with legislation to outlaw criticism of Poland for its involvement in the Nazi death camps. Millions of Jews were exterminated in such camps.
He has been engaged in a similar bromance with Viktor Orban, the ultra-nationalist prime minister of Hungary, who barely veils his Jew-baiting and has eulogised Miklos Horthy, a Hungarian leader who collaborated with the Nazis.
Israel is cultivating alliances with other ultra-nationalists – in and out of power – in the Czech Republic, Italy, Switzerland, Germany and Austria.
The conclusion drawn by Jewish communities abroad is that their well being – even their safety – is now a much lower priority than bolstering Israel’s diplomatic influence.
And our media never comments on things like what has been written in UN reports about Israel … a country Wayne mapp said shared our NZ values … he can count me out …of his values
UN: In the best traditions of fascism, this policy and these racist practices are designed to terrorize the Arab population so that they either give up or simply leave the occupied territories for ever. In our 1988 report, we cited numerous statements by Israeli officials which bore out this assessment.
Israel is violating international and humanitarian law throughout the occupied Arab territories more and more systematically. Its barbarous racist policies have caused the Security Council to adopt many resolutions on the subject, including resolutions 605 (1987), 607 (1988) and 608 (1988). The policy of terror adopted by Israel in the occupied Arab territories is exemplified by, among other things, beatings designed to break detainees' bones, the use of toxic gas, toughening of the iron fist policy, demolition of homes, destruction of villages, banishment, administrative detention, house arrest, detention of children, minors and the elderly, curfews, sealing off of camps, suppression of the freedoms of opinion, expression and assembly, and news blackouts. This policy has exceeded all bounds since the general uprising began throughout the occupied Arab territories, including the Golan: some residents have even been buried alive and children massacred.
In the detention camps, detainees are constantly subjected to the most barbarous torture: long interrogations late into the night, beatings until they become unconscious, hot and cold showers, being forced to crawl on their knees or to stand for long periods with their arms up, having lighted cigarettes applied to the most sensitive parts of their bodies, electric shocks, being deprived of food and having blood samples taken weekly, the aim being to so weaken detainees that they have been reduced to invalids,
,,,,,,,,,its almost like Sadam The Butcher of Baghdad ,,, didn't die …
I think the massive effort to stymie drug law reform is another example of this, the powerful see it as a threat because they may lose some control to the new generation. And of course they are above the law so it has no impact on their day to day recreational activities.
Chomsky says….no but seriously he always had a pretty good take on drugs/drug control/class war etc…although not sure his lottery analogy here works that well anymore, maybe times have changed a bit since them?
It has been by me. Tomorrow's council meeting will be very interesting. The formal discussion, however, has been shunted into the "public excluded" chamber, as so often is the case.
Great advocate for transparency, me; are we banned? Well, there are consequences if one does, but if the information should be in the public arena…
it's the age-old argument; there are different ways to hide information; what goes on tour, stays on tour, etc. but there's also the Hager Effect. It depends. The runaka has been asked for the position paper they sent to us, but have declined to provide it to the media. I'd like to talk with them first. I reckon it's in the public arena now, having been reported upon by the media.
The RAF carried out some 216 airstrikes in and around the city ( Raqqa ) during the offensive, but the Ministry of Defence has denied that any civilians were harmed as a result.
And they get worse in defending their lies …
“Rather than focusing on the devastating impacts of this joint bombing operation, the MoD has sought to undermine the credibility of Amnesty when we’ve published evidence detailing coalition airstrikes that killed civilians,
Our SAS and Key / mapp look like baby step fibbers with only two villages we know they've lied about…. The Big boys tell Huge ones …..
In the entire air campaign against Isis in both Syria and Iraq, the UK has conceded responsibility for just one civilian casualty,… despite more than 1,700 RAF air strikes.
Fisk: Almost as distressing as this palpably ridiculous figure was that the BBC reported this on 7 March as a straightforward news story,……….
statistics of this kind are not just unbelievable, incredible and insulting to anyone who reads or studies them. They are obviously miraculous, nonsensical, irresponsible, preposterous, bizarre, weird, out-of-this-world, dreamlike and – for anyone who has covered wars for the past four decades – totally untrue.
Yet the British Ministry of Defence got away with it.
Which brings me to Idlib … and the problem of radicalized overseas fighters ,,,, I doubt our media will inform us of this problem…. Where the brits and co send killers ,,, but do not want them back.
British Isis fighters should be hunted down and killed, says defence secretary
‘A dead terrorist can’t cause any harm to Britain,’ says Gavin Williamson, arguing jihadists should not be allowed back into UK
More than 800 UK citizens are thought to have gone to fight for Isis in Iraq and Syria
France, too, is working to eradicate its jihadis overseas.,,,
“And the French — well, I think their position is clear. They want all their guys killed here so they don’t have to bring them back and deal with them at home.”
Personally I think a lot could be de-radicalized as many were tricked into a) the warped twisted cult version of isis / al nusras Muslim preaching … and b) their 'good war' .
And there is the ongoing injustice in our blind eye to our criminals ….behind and involved in their crimes.
In 2003, Australian-British journalist John Pilger conducted research and concluded, “More than 100,000 Islamic militants were trained in Pakistan between 1986 and 1992, in camps overseen by the CIA and MI6, with the SAS training future al Qaeda and Taliban fighters in bomb-making and other black arts. Their leaders were trained at a CIA camp in Virginia.”
That Western interference in Afghanistan actually precedes the Soviet invasion by several months is rarely acknowledged.
it is worth tracing the motives and methods employed by foreign powers to further their own ends in that territory, as these have been repeated and modified in Iraq and Syria.
Idlib is a small ugly problem …. compared to what the west cooked up … and Libyans now face with their NATO destroyed society
I suspect that similar strategies have been used with the Uyghur Muslims in China. Thetre are several Sunni sects living in China, but the Uyghurs tend to be the most inclined to violent jihad and separatism.
The Turkestan Islamic Party(Xinjiang) is designated a terrorist organisation by the EU, the UK, Turkey, the US , Russia and others.
They've shown up in Idlib, Syria where the fear is they'll return to China as hardened fighters.They have a fearsome reputation for cruelty and barbarity.
Radical Uyghurs have also been involved in terrorist acts against other Muslim minorities within China, notably the Hui muslims who are the most numerous in China
It needs to be also remembered that the Chinese also were the first ones that trained and funded the Afghan Mujahideen before the CIA started it. Using training camps in Xinjiang. A little blowback maybe?
I know the Chinese backed Pol Pot … long with the usa.
But training Afghan Mujahideen is a new one … the training camps were located in Pakistan… and before the cia sponsored operation cyclone and the destruction of Afghanistan kicked of in 1979 the country was at peace.
Operation Cyclone was one of the longest and most expensive CIA operations of all time.
From 1979 to 1989 and thereafter, the CIA armed and financed the mujahideen in Afghanistan in support of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. This funding began before the USSR’s military intervention and continued throughout the entire period.
it was part of the Hippy trail … and safe up until 1979 …and been rooted ever since.
But in the late 1970s came the end of the road for the overlanders. 1979 was the year Russia invaded Afghanistan,
Its also why I felt very sad for the Afghan man who was among the first killed by the christchurch racist terror killer …. Afghanistan has been preyed upon and been in a constant state of destruction ….. since 1979.
Apparently approx 20 Afghans a day are still being killed … in 2019
We backed the bad buggers over there … and let good ones die here.
Cheers for the very interesting Link francesca …. I'd read of 40,000 plus numbers of foreign fighters … So with only 800 odd english, and similar numbers from france, germany, europe … there were some big recruiting countries missing.
And bingo … there were a large number of them
there are an estimated 5000-18,000 Uyghurs fighting as Islamic Jihadists in Syria, and reportedly being groomed to return to China to wage Jihad against the government in the region which is the heart of China’s oil and gas pipeline networks
Thanks for the interesting read and missing information … that you would almost think our media censors …
A “Holy War” Against China
“The policy of guiding the evolution of Islam and of helping them against our adversaries worked marvelously well in Afghanistan against the Russians. The same doctrines can still be used to destabilize what remains of Russian power, and especially to counter the Chinese influence in Central Asia.”1
—Graham E. Fuller, 1999, key CIA architect of US Islam strategy
Greenpeace activists are climbing Wellington's tallest building to attempt to reach the OMV Austrian oil giant's HQ to deliver a "go home, you are not welcome here" message.
You can watch the live action here and sign their petition at the same time:
"Somebody's going to get something out of it, and it isn't going to be you."
The last line of the video. Thanks, McFlock. A great litmus test. Even if I do something good altruistically, that's true- apart from the feeling of virtue which of course being a Lefty, I get much joy from signalling.
The Pentagon believes using nuclear weapons could “create conditions for decisive results and the restoration of strategic stability”, according to a new nuclear doctrine adopted by the US joint chiefs of staff last week.
The document, entitled Nuclear Operations, was published on 11 June, and was the first such doctrine paper for 14 years. Arms control experts say it marks a shift in US military thinking towards the idea of fighting and winning a nuclear war – which they believe is a highly dangerous mindset.
“Using nuclear weapons could create conditions for decisive results and the restoration of strategic stability,” the joint chiefs’ document says. “Specifically, the use of a nuclear weapon will fundamentally change the scope of a battle and create conditions that affect how commanders will prevail in conflict.”
Seems to be one of these eternal things that some sectors of US military really want to use nukes. ISTR GWB regime was trying a "nuclear bunker buster" and/or some sort of mini-nuke that would be bigger than the MOAB but not so large as to be diplomatically reckless if it's used.
Constantly trying to have a continuum of nuke use, rather than armageddon or nothing.
Bismarck etc probably told themselves the same thing in the decades before WW1: that it wouldn't all blow up in their faces.
Fair point, yeah I fucked that one up lol. Wilhelm II is the chappy.
Bismarck called it (although he did start the network of alliances that ended up in W2 flailing about and tangling the net).
But the wider point stands, I think – I believe many of the diplomats thought they could advance their interests with complex alliances, believing that their main opponents would blink in the face of a europe-wide (kinda global) conflagration.
He unified a confederation of smaller states into a great power in the middle of Europe, with few if any buffer states between that and other great powers. He then initiated a series of alliances and diplomatic moves based on indirectly achieving strategic goals, turning the entire thing into a game of 3d chess with little margin for error.
Sure, he was a chess master and kept things at a nice stalemate to keep the game going, but he was succeeded by lesser diplomats.
I have often wondered about the "benefits" of our privatised electricity industry, where the use of theoretical "capital values" that may well be vastly inflated over anything paid to the original owners of the system, are used to justify companies taking turns at increasing prices ahead of inflation. Now attention is being paid to water:
Ardern said that National's ghost roads, planned for but not funded, had been costed at $12 billion. Bridges was critical of levying fuel taxes for funding roads and for these ghost roads not being built. Ardern pointed out the hypocrisy of this.
I wonder whether we will ever hear anything about Kiwibuild again?
In January the then figurehead, Twyford, told us there would be a reset "in a few weeks".
That then slipped and he promised it would be out in April. That then slipped back to June. The in June he promised that the reset details would be announced in early July.
Then he got dumped and Woods became the Conductor of the Housing Minister Quintet. She has been no more successful in keeping things in tune and now it has slipped until "late August".
Are we ever going to hear another word out of what has been the greatest stuff-up by a Government that I have ever seen? Probably not I suspect. The CoL are desperately hoping that it will all be forgotten.
A wedding to look forward to. That might distract the public attention. Look a squirrel!
So, Julie Anne Genter participates in the Grand Announcement of the Coalition's intention to honour their promise to repeal the Part 4A amendment to the Public Health and Disability Act and to end the continued discrimination against family members provide the supports a MOH DSS client has been assessed as needing….
….then quits the role and hands it over to Jenny Salesa. ( I wondered why she was in the frame.)
I'd link to something but this was an email from the office saying my correspondence to JAG (about the continued discrimination against family carers heralded by the announcement is simply not acceptable) has been passed to Salesa's office.
Genter never gave any real appearance of any interest in being an Associate Health Minister. She seems to really be only interested in spending the NZTA budget on anything except better roads.
I think that Salesa will actually take some interest in your topic.
2002 (in Telegraph newspaper column): “It is said that the Queen has come
to love the Commonwealth, partly because it supplies her with regular
cheering crowds of flag-waving piccaninnies.” “They say [Tony Blair] is
shortly off to the Congo. No doubt the AK47s will fall silent, and the pangas
will stop their hacking of human flesh, and the tribal warriors will all break
out in watermelon smiles to see the big white chief touch down in his big
white British taxpayer-funded bird.” [NOTE: he eventually apologised for
the comments in 2008.]
I would like amnesty international to check out my human rights being breached by the sandflys.
simon just got marmalade on his chin
I say that a complete overhaul of the resources management act is needed.
I think it's stupid people trying to change a person's personality by gay conversion therapy brain washing leave them alone muppets
Its cool to see 79 % of KIWIs have conserns about climate change that Show KIWIs have a above average IQ awesome.
Eco Maori is doing his bit to save our mokopuna environment. We cook mostly on a fire renewable firewood and some gas to heat water a composting TOILET system and today a small solar power system watching Te News on telly. Its good not having a noisy generator going
Condolences to Mrs Biddles whanau its sad but te whanau will be able to gather for her tangi
Its good to see the protesters in Auckland protesting about their sacred whenua are behaving peacefully ka pai.
I agree the resources management act is a great hindrance for tangata whenua building on our own whenua. One has to have heaps of putea of be a great administrator to get a whare built on tangata whenua Whenua hence the numbers of Maori owned whare has dropped sharply since the installation of the resources management act.
We will see if boris has the skills not to make a big
It must be quite hard for the people leaving Glory vale to adjust to a new life having to do everything themselves and learn the way our society works.
I do agree with the Wahine about the berkini incident at the pools that the attendants did unconsciously target Wahine this happens all the time in our society .Wahine need to be given more respect in our society EQUALITY is needed.
It is very hard to save a deposit for a whare in Aotearoa all the help our rangitahi can get to save for a house deposit is cool .
A lot of people are scared of natural gas in Aotearoa at the minute.
Those Republican are just protecting their own ass.
With the Wellington bus service if it ain't broke don't try and fix it they made a big mess of the bus service in Wellington to try and save money.???????
The cost of living in Aotearoa has gone to the Matariki before shonky got in power Aotearoa food prices were cheaper than Australia Britain Canada America not now shonky rolled out the Golden carpet for his wealthy businesses M8. The rent in our last house went up 4 times in 2 and 1/2 years the sandflys were trying to get me out of that house for all of that time in the end they got to the landlord who lied and said it was sold muppets.
That is a great way to look at climate change treat climate change as a positive phenomenon to transform our society's into a entrepreneurial enviomently friendly society that cares about other people's wellbeing no matter who they are . Eco Maori does that all the time it works to turning a negative into a positive.
I strongly agree with that Carly Aotearoa has to OWN Our boozing culture we need to teach te Rangatahi that Alcohol is a substance that should be taken with caution but you have some people who promote.
Its cool that everyone knows how little Tangata Whenua O Aotearoa has been compensated by the Crown.
Yes Simon Pound the baby boomers are stuck in their pasts reality that was manipulated by the few. they made them believe that alcohol is good and weed is bad. It's was all about the money they could harvest from the people.
Peter Ma te wa.
Ka kite ano Don’t worry Simon Eco Maori can see the Oil Barons money sloshing around the Shows studio paying for their words
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Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on UnsplashWe’re back again after our mid-winter break. We’re still with the ‘new’ day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when we have our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream ...
Notes: This is a free article. Abuse in Care themes are mentioned. Video is at the bottom.BackgroundYesterday’s report into Abuse in Care revealed that at least 1 in 3 of all who went through state and faith based care were abused - often horrifically. At least, because not all survivors ...
Luxon speaks in Parliament yesterday about the Abuse in Care report. Photo: Hagen Hopkins/Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:PM Christopher Luxon said yesterday in tabling the Abuse in Carereport in Parliament he wanted to ‘do the ...
About a decade ago I worked with a bloke called Steve. He was the grizzled veteran coder, a few years older than me, who knew where the bodies were buried - code wise. Despite his best efforts to be approachable and friendly he could be kind of gruff, through to ...
Some of the recent announcements from the government have reminded us of posts we’ve written in the past. Here’s one from early 2020. There were plenty of reactions to the government’s infrastructure announcement a few weeks ago which saw them fund a bunch of big roading projects. One of ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Thursday, July 25 are:News: Why Electric Kiwi is closing to new customers - and why it matters RNZ’s Susan EdmundsScoop: Government drops ...
Hi,I felt a small wet tongue snaking through one of the holes in my Crocs. It explored my big toe, darting down one side, then the other. “He’s looking for some toe cheese,” said the woman next to me, words that still haunt me to this day.Growing up in New ...
Yesterday I happily quoted the Prime Minister without fact-checking him and sure enough, it turns out his numbers were all to hell. It’s not four kg of Royal Commission report, it’s fourteen.My friend and one-time colleague-in-comms Hazel Phillips gently alerted me to my error almost as soon as I’d hit ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Thursday, July 25, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day were:The Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquirypublished its final report yesterday.PM Christopher Luxon and The Minister responsible for ...
The Official Information Act has always been a battle between requesters seeking information, and governments seeking to control it. Information is power, so Ministers and government agencies want to manage what is released and when, for their own convenience, and legality and democracy be damned. Their most recent tactic for ...
TL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:Transport and Energy Minister Simeon Brown is accelerating plans to spend at least $10 billion through Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) to extend State Highway One as a four-lane ‘Expressway’ from Warkworth to Whangarei ...
I live my life (woo-ooh-ooh)With no control in my destinyYea-yeah, yea-yeah (woo-ooh-ooh)I can bleed when I want to bleedSo come on, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)You can bleed when you want to bleedYea-yeah, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)Everybody bleed when they want to bleedCome on and bleedGovernments face tough challenges. Selling unpopular decisions to ...
Please note:To skip directly to the- parliamentary footage in the video, scroll to 1:21 To skip to audio please click on the headphone iconon the left hand side of the screenThis video / audio section is under development. ...
Given the crackdown on wasteful government spending, it behooves me to point to a high profile example of spending by the Luxon government that looks like a big, fat waste of time and money. I’m talking about the deployment of NZDF personnel to support the US-led coalition in the Red ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:40 am on Wednesday, July 24 are:Deep Dive: Chipping away at the housing crisis, including my comments RNZ/Newsroom’s The DetailNews: Government softens on asset sales, ...
As I reported about the city centre, Auckland’s rail network is also going through a difficult and disruptive period which is rapidly approaching a culmination, this will result in a significant upgrade to the whole network. Hallelujah. Also like the city centre this is an upgrade predicated on the City ...
Today, a 4 kilogram report will be delivered to Parliament. We know this is what the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care weighs, because our Prime Minister told us so.Some reporter had blindsided him by asking a question about something done by ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Wednesday, July 24, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Beehive:Transport Minister Simeon Brownannounced plans to use PPPs to fund, build and run a four-lane expressway between Auckland ...
NewstalkZB host Mike Hosking, who can usually be relied on to give Prime Minister Christopher Luxon an easy run, did not do so yesterday when he interviewed him about the HealthNZ deficit. Luxon is trying to use a deficit reported last year by HealthNZ as yet another example of the ...
Back in January a StatsNZ employee gave a speech at Rātana on behalf of tangata whenua in which he insulted and criticised the government. The speech clearly violated the principle of a neutral public service, and StatsNZ started an investigation. Part of that was getting an external consultant to examine ...
Renting for life: Shared ownership initiatives are unlikely to slow the slide in home ownership by much. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:A Deloittereport for Westpac has projected Aotearoa’s home-ownership rate will ...
You're broken down and tiredOf living life on a merry go roundAnd you can't find the fighterBut I see it in you so we gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsWe gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsAnd I'll rise upI'll rise like the dayI'll rise upI'll rise unafraidI'll rise upAnd I'll ...
There’s been a change in Myers Park. Down the steps from St. Kevin’s Arcade, past the grassy slopes, the children’s playground, the benches and that goat statue, there has been a transformation. The underpass for Mayoral Drive has gone from a barren, grey, concrete tunnel, to a place that thrums ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Global society may have finally slammed on the brakes for climate-warming pollution released by human fossil fuel combustion. According to the Carbon Monitor Project, the total global climate pollution released between February and May 2024 declined slightly from the amount released during the same ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Tuesday, July 23 are:Deep Dive: Penlink: where tolling rhetoric meets reality BusinessDesk-$$$’sOliver LewisScoop:Te Pūkenga plans for regional polytechs leak out ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Tuesday, July 23, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Health: Shane Reti announcedthe Board of Te Whatu Ora-Health New Zealand was being replaced with Commissioner Lester Levy ...
Health NZ warned the Government at the end of March that it was running over Budget. But the reasons it gave were very different to those offered by the Prime Minister yesterday. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon blamed the “botched merger” of the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) to create Health ...
Long ReadKey Summary: Although National increased the health budget by $1.4 billion in May, they used an old funding model to project health system costs, and never bothered to update their pre-election numbers. They were told during the Health Select Committees earlier in the year their budget amount was deficient, ...
As a momentous, historic weekend in US politics unfolded, analysts and commentators grasped for precedents and comparisons to help explain the significance and power of the choice Joe Biden had made. The 46th president had swept the Democratic party’s primaries but just over 100 days from the election had chosen ...
TL;DR: I’m casting around for new ideas and ways of thinking about Aotearoa’s political economy to find a few solutions to our cascading and self-reinforcing housing, poverty and climate crises.Associate Professor runs an online masters degree in the economics of sustainability at Torrens University in Australia and is organising ...
The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back on National's Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. The bill sets up water for privatisation, and was introduced under urgency, then rammed through select committee with no time even for local councils to make a proper submission. Naturally, national's select committee ...
Some years ago, I bought a book at Dunedin’s Regent Booksale for $1.50. As one does. Vandrad the Viking (1898), by J. Storer Clouston, is an obscure book these days – I cannot find a proper online review – but soon it was sitting on my shelf, gathering dust alongside ...
History is not on the side of the centre-left, when Democratic presidents fall behind in the polls and choose not to run for re-election. On both previous occasions in the past 75 years (Harry Truman in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1968) the Democrats proceeded to then lose the White House ...
This is a free articleCoverageThis morning, US President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the Presidential race. And that is genuinely newsworthy. Thanks for your service, President Biden, and all the best to you and yours.However, the media in New Zealand, particularly the 1News nightly bulletin, has been breathlessly covering ...
A homeless person’s camp beside a blocked-off slipped damage walkway in Freeman’s Bay: we are chasing our tail on our worsening and inter-related housing, poverty and climate crises. Photo: Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
What has happened to it all?Crazy, some'd sayWhere is the life that I recognise?(Gone away)But I won't cry for yesterdayThere's an ordinary worldSomehow I have to findAnd as I try to make my wayTo the ordinary worldYesterday morning began as many others - what to write about today? I began ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Monday, July 22 are:Today’s Must Read: Father and son live in a tent, and have done for four years, in a million ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Orderimage, ...
Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
Te Rangi e tu nei (The sky above us) Te Papa e takoto nei (The land beneath us) Tatou katoa te hunga ora (To us all the living) Tena koutou katoa (Greetings) ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says a bill that has passed its first reading will improve parental leave settings and give non-biological parents more flexibility as primary carer for their child. The Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill (No3), passed its first reading this morning. “It includes a change ...
Two Bills designed to improve regulation and make it easier to do business have passed their first reading in Parliament, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill make key changes to legislation administered by the Ministry ...
New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says newly appointed Commissioner, Grant Illingworth KC, will help deliver the report for the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons, due on 28 November 2024. “I am pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will commence his appointment as ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters travels to Laos this week to participate in a series of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-led Ministerial meetings in Vientiane. “ASEAN plays an important role in supporting a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Mr Peters says. “This will be our third visit to ...
Construction of a new mental health facility at Te Nikau Grey Hospital in Greymouth is today one step closer, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says. “This $27 million facility shows this Government is delivering on its promise to boost mental health care and improve front line services,” Mr Doocey says. ...
New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says proposed changes to the Education and Training Amendment Bill will ensure charter schools have more flexibility to negotiate employment agreements and are equipped with the right teaching resources. “Cabinet has agreed to progress an amendment which means unions will not be able to initiate ...
In response to serious concerns around oversight, overspend and a significant deterioration in financial outlook, the Board of Health New Zealand will be replaced with a Commissioner, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti announced today. “The previous government’s botched health reforms have created significant financial challenges at Health NZ that, without ...
Minister for Space and Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins will travel to Adelaide tomorrow for space and science engagements, including speaking at the Australian Space Forum. While there she will also have meetings and visits with a focus on space, biotechnology and innovation. “New Zealand has a thriving space ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will travel to China on Saturday to attend the Ministerial on Climate Action meeting held in Wuhan. “Attending the Ministerial on Climate Action is an opportunity to advocate for New Zealand climate priorities and engage with our key partners on climate action,” Mr Watts says. ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is travelling to the Solomon Islands tomorrow for meetings with his counterparts from around the Pacific supporting collective management of the region’s fisheries. The 23rd Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Committee and the 5th Regional Fisheries Ministers’ Meeting in Honiara from 23 to 26 July ...
The Government today launched the Military Style Academy Pilot at Te Au rere a te Tonga Youth Justice residence in Palmerston North, an important part of the Government’s plan to crackdown on youth crime and getting youth offenders back on track, Minister for Children, Karen Chhour said today. “On the ...
The Government has welcomed news the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has begun work to replace nine priority bridges across the country to ensure our state highway network remains resilient, reliable, and efficient for road users, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“Increasing productivity and economic growth is a key priority for the ...
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour has been in contact throughout the evening with senior officials who have coordinated a whole of government response to the global IT outage and can provide an update. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has designated the National Emergency Management Agency as the ...
New Zealand and Japan will continue to step up their shared engagement with the Pacific, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand and Japan have a strong, shared interest in a free, open and stable Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “We are pleased to be finding more ways ...
New developments in the heart of North Island forestry country will reinvigorate their communities and boost economic development, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones visited Kaingaroa and Kawerau in Bay of Plenty today to open a landmark community centre in the former and a new connecting road in ...
President Adeang, fellow Ministers, honourable Diet Member Horii, Ambassadors, distinguished guests. Minasama, konnichiwa, and good afternoon, everyone. Distinguished guests, it’s a pleasure to be here with you today to talk about New Zealand’s foreign policy reset, the reasons for it, the values that underpin it, and how it ...
Last summer when Matairangi burned, Ginny and Tom stood at the window of their lounge, watching kākā shoot skyward from the burning trees. From the distance, they looked to Ginny like pages torn from books and thrown into a bonfire. It was Tom, voice tight, who told her it was ...
Opinion: The Canadian short story writer Alice Munro – winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013 – died in May at the age of 92. Her work was about “the damage people inflict on one another in the name of love”, Deborah Treisman wrote in the New Yorker. ...
This month marks two years since the most powerful telescope ever built sent its first pictures back to earth. From its lofty vantage point, beyond the moon in orbit around the sun, the James Webb Space Telescope was tuned to observe the first stars and galaxies being born soon after ...
Comment: After Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ preview several weeks ago, I had some optimism about the Government’s emissions reduction plan. Now I’ve read the discussion document, that hope has been dashed. How can the Government propose a plan that wants to take New Zealand taxpayers’ hard-earned money, and spend ...
Christopher Luxon: hurdles The little man from National jumps hurdles in his sleep. He’s quite good at it in his dreams and even though the reality doesn’t quite match up you have to give him credit for getting up every morning and crashing into the very first hurdle of the ...
Comment: It was a good two hours into the conversation when Tyrone Marks raised the most basic of questions when I first spoke to him in 2017. “They didn’t explain the things they did to me. They never told me why. And they still haven’t. There’s no explanation for it. ...
Madeleine Chapman rounds out Death Week on The Spinoff with a final recommendation. You can read all of our Death Week coverage here. Nothing forces you to reflect on your life and relationships quite like proximity to death. For those whose nearest and dearest have died, there are reasonably obvious ...
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Something that needs fixing in NZ it seems to me, possibly even more than the "voices" who spend hours venting about "freedom of speech" and "gun control" on line are the warped perceptions of some "everyday" NZers.
It all reminds me of a similar campaign when a Maori emersion school was planned for Bethlehem, where I live, that opened in 2012, sadly to exactly the same sort of negative pre-judgement and quite along local campaign to stop it's construction.
Emergency housing, much needed in Tauranga, has some locals still determined to be NIMBY's till the bitter end, possibly due to having nothing better to do. The attached link shows the news story where their "fears" and angst continue despite the story stating that conditions of conduct are applied to residents and are to be increased to sooth the "concerns" of, some – but not all – local residents.
Sadly the scrutiny being placed on the residents of the emergency housing also sees some of them uncomfortable and wanting to leave, that would be fine if it was not due to the pitchfork mentality of some of those in the surrounding area and they had other better reasons and options to leave. Police have stated that there are no more events of any criminal nature or disturbance than there are elsewhere in the area.
The fact is that since the local school here opened after long and concerted efforts by the "locals", who predicted a massive wave of crime and vandalism, the school has operated for the past seven years as a seamless part of the community with absolutely none of the mayhem predicted.
The on-line screeching about "rights", probably by those who would be the first to abuse them, is bad enough but people taking petty fears and perceived problems into the community does nothing to better the lives of NZersor themselves.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12250431
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12006558
Of course, it never registers with said NIMBYs that they themselves are only one major health or financial (or both) disaster away from needing emergency accommodation themselves…
Ae! Or when, if they're ever forced to 'cash up', they could be in serious shit. The banks, their employers no longer their friends. In some cases the ignominy of bankruptcy and the realisation their phallus ain't quite so grand as first thought.
It's at that point they usually start screaming for MUMMY or gummint intervention.
Sounds like an excellent place to build a prison, what with all that public spiritedness.
Nothing quite like watching a prisoner almost bleed out to make you appreciate not having serious mental health issues
I and, by extension, all correction officers don't get paid enough…mind you neither do EMTs either
But how was everyone elses night 😉
Hi PR, speaking of underpaid workers, just having a chat with my significant other after a shift at ED.
One of the people she dealt with was a profoundly deaf man with mental health issues. After a family harm incident, he has been forbidden from entering a local town. While this town is where the alleged harm occurred, it is also where his only other support (parents) is.
After two nights in the cells he is 'released', no money, transport, food or winter clothing. He was treated for an old injury and then went and sat outside the hospital in light cotton clothing. At 1am, he comes back in, shivering, hungry and depressed.
Long story short, he sleeps on the floor of ED under a blanket until the mental health social worker can sort something out.
The solutions are not cheap nor simple and I feel that things are getting more severe especially in the realm of mental ill-health.
BTW, big ups to you and your colleagues for doing the job you do in what must be under more and more trying circumstances.
National and Labour have both dropped the ball on this and should be ashamed of themselves over this
It'd be…educational for an MP or two to spend sometime on the sharp end and actually see for themselves what a self harm incident looks like
Bet that'd get things moving in a hurry 🙂
Yep some tough jobs out there looking after the most vulnerable. Good that prison guards feel stuff too as too easy to be desensitised and cruel.
Hi PR. I fear you're right about salaries not covering the horrific jobs that need to be done, let's hope one day we achieve salaries befitting the work involved. In the mean time I hope they have meaningful assistance for staff confronting these issues and that you avail yourself of them. Rest up well before your next shift.
My night was a very cushy number, thanks. However, my first thought on reading your comment wasn't "Oh we aren't paying prison guards enough," but "Why are we using prisons as storage facilities for people with serious mental health issues?"
Because our management team gets paid more than enough, pretty much regardless of results.
Why not both? 🙂
My observation is it comes down to mostly because there's not enough spaces for the prisoners in wards so they get sent to corrections and, through the grapevine, sometimes they won't be taken because the prisoners are to violent
Why not both?
Indeed, the two are not mutually exclusive – and they'd certainly have to pay me a lot of money to work in Corrections, for which they wouldn't get value for money because I'd almost certainly be hopeless at it (unless prisoners are easily swayed by people who use a lot of big words in convoluted sentences, but that feels somewhat unlikely).
Well you better hope national and in particular collins or mitchell never get near power or prisons will get stuffed fuller and staffed cheaper. Serco on steroids is where those nut jobs would take us.
Its nothing to do with Serco and all to do with National gutting mental health, Labour continuing it and neither parties doing what needs to be done.
Which is building more psychiatric wards so instead of winding up prisoners because there's no spaces for them anywhere else.
Serco is a red herring or at the very least it's an issue can be looked at later
National gutting mental health, Labour continuing it and neither parties doing what needs to be done.
SSDD
Yup
This all goes back to deinstitutionalization back in the 1980's and 90's.
You a Union member PR?
Not sure what that has to do with it yes but yes I'm a member of CANZ
"correction officers don't get paid enough"
Probably so – and what you and the prisoner experienced sounds terrible. I would note though, that you are able to form the thought that "correction officers don't get paid enough" only because you have some underlying notion of 'value' that is not the same as the exchange (dollar) value that is obtained in the market. i.e. the money you get does not accurately represent the value of what you do. And this is true in general and in both directions – markets actually reward people rather perversely from the standpoint of the 'real' value they produce. We will make a lefty out of you yet PR.
Well it's in the middle contract negotiations now so we better get a decent offer or we might start getting a bit bolshei 🙂
Um – does that mean you are going to do a ballet dance for us, PR? Or did you mean bolshy? If that is why the smiley face is there, nice one, and please post the video.
I do look good in tights…
Looking forward then, old boy.
Wait a minute – you think JC looks good, don't you?
I think I might reserve judgement.
"Bleed out" Yes terrifying. My husband is on blood thinners and tore a gash in his calf.
The bleeding continued for 5 days of Dr and Hospital visits. Last night was our first with no bleeding and we slept with exhaustion.
No Puckish Rogue, you are not paid enough!! And I had only one person to care for. Cheers!!.
re: Govt. Gun Registration plans, good idea, but keep an eye on the opponents perhaps.
NZ gun lobby group COLFO (Council of Licensed Firearms Owners) has been making early noise about the Govt. plans. COLFO is a member of the World Forum for the Future of Sport Shooting, which in turn is linked to the NSSF (National Shooting Sports Foundation) US, which is linked to The Firearms Industry Trade Association, US, and the NRA (National Rifle Association) US.
The NSSF has a policy of not linking to third parties such as NRA but it is clear that there is a connection. One site I looked at offered discounted membership to NRA.
So the NZ COLFO fronted by Nicole Mckee
https://fss.nz/nicole-mckee/ is linked to the gun manufacturers and retailers
https://www.nssf.org/manufacturers/
When I recently renewed my license I was given the option to voluntarily register my rifles which I did . So it should be easy to know who to go find .
h ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qr17fMPT0Xg&t=2745s
I learnt a lot of new things.When listening to the most comprehensive history of tRump I'd found on the web … delivered with mocking humor
One was that Rump always stiffed small businesses and sub-contractors who worked for him …
Starting right at the beginning, on his first construction site … he kept $100,000 due to already underpaid non-union polish workers … and he's done it to everyone since.
He apparently gets mad when any of his managers … pay out the agreed upon price to contract workers… paying the quoted and accepted price… gives the don the shits..
His method was / is to retain the last payment …and tell them to sue, … they would be told it would take years of expensive legal battling … and if they lost or pulled out, they would be bankrupted. by having to pay trumps expensive lawyers fees …
It's a mugs game for Small businesses or individuals taking on a corporation with multi-million funds … rich bullies know litigation is a rich mans game.. and so rich wankers use this against the 'lesser' people that they effectively steal from.
A recent comparable example in NZ …. was the Nact government telling Pike River families "they could sue" ,,, in response to pathetic compensation from the Nact Govt ,,, despite the Govts part in regulatory failure leading to the disaster ,,, and the Govt receiving millions in Insurance payouts for the mass killing 'accident'. http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/west-coast/9399690/PM-avoiding-Pike-River-payout
In a final grubby insult,, Nact trolls tried to smear / blame Andrew Little for the neo-lib, non-compliant, non-regulated, free-market death trap that was Pike River….a lie that shows total disregard for the safety of mine workers … as it seeks to hide the failures / lessons that need to be corrected.
Its the sort of shameful thing Rump would say …. It got a brief airing here at TS ,,,, but I wonder how often this dog whistle got posted up in Kiwiblog or Whalestain ….
Rump plays to an audience …. the NZ 'right' share an awful lot of the same things.
That's why so many see Trump as God and saw Key as God. Those two fine specimens had a grasp of the real world and are / were about showing what the real world is about, or should be about. The thing that should be the weirdest bit it is the Trump thing about 'draining the swamp' still being chanted by his cheerleaders. Like Shylock to Oliver and co., "Welcome after your trip out of the swamp my dears, to a mire of neck high shit."
You will know when we have a real Left wing transformative politician who is anywhere near the levers of power in New Zealand, because this is what happens when a real one shows up and threatens the power status quo….
" The greatest fear of those holding the most power and wealth is that they will lose their exalted position in the world. They will resist any changes to the grossly unequal and unjust class structure that causes grievous damage to so many people; and to the planet itself. Even the threat of real change must be crushed. This, in a nutshell, underpins the astonishing and relentless campaign to stop Jeremy Corbyn, a moderate leftist, from ever becoming Prime Minister."
The Campaign To Stop Corbyn – Smears, Racism And Censorship
http://medialens.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=910:the-campaign-to-stop-corbyn-smears-racism-censorship&catid=57:alerts-2019&Itemid=252
Hi Adrian, as a local example; witness Metiria Turei in the last election.
Our media, almost in concert, got stuck in and made sure 'that sort of voice' isn't heard in the corridors of power.
Yeah I would go along with that, although I would also have to say that the Greens PR department (if they indeed have one) should have all been fired immediately after that episode had exposed their complete ineptness.
+100 … how Metiria Turei was forced to resign … but double dipper english and his rich mans crime of greed was allowed to remain … was a disgrace …. mainly to our media but also the greens PR.
Corbyn smears are also media enabled to a very large degree …. partly because we are kept in the dark about how bad Israel is … and what sort of other sneaky stuff is being done.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aitqHMmIjFs
Who knew that BDS has been falsely framed and ruled anti-semetic ?
Or how about the links and admirers of right wing Apartheid Israel
And our media never comments on things like what has been written in UN reports about Israel … a country Wayne mapp said shared our NZ values … he can count me out …of his values
,,,,,,,,,its almost like Sadam The Butcher of Baghdad ,,, didn't die …
he's alive and running iron fist israel
I think the massive effort to stymie drug law reform is another example of this, the powerful see it as a threat because they may lose some control to the new generation. And of course they are above the law so it has no impact on their day to day recreational activities.
Chomsky says….no but seriously he always had a pretty good take on drugs/drug control/class war etc…although not sure his lottery analogy here works that well anymore, maybe times have changed a bit since them?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pp8gNT1wzX4
Read what our brave Oraka/Aparima runagna have done!
https://www.stuff.co.nz/southland-times/114210124/southland-kaumtua-draws-says-no-more-to-dairy-farming-in-southland
(mention of our council's bad decision not to declare a climate emergency in there too)
Good bloke and leadership – hope this is followed up and supported.
It has been by me. Tomorrow's council meeting will be very interesting. The formal discussion, however, has been shunted into the "public excluded" chamber, as so often is the case.
Hi Robert,
Are you able to speak about the closed door sessions, or are councillors barred from doing so?
Great advocate for transparency, me; are we banned? Well, there are consequences if one does, but if the information should be in the public arena…
it's the age-old argument; there are different ways to hide information; what goes on tour, stays on tour, etc. but there's also the Hager Effect. It depends. The runaka has been asked for the position paper they sent to us, but have declined to provide it to the media. I'd like to talk with them first. I reckon it's in the public arena now, having been reported upon by the media.
Thanks Robert.
Censorship takes many forms, each and every one of them are insidious and contribute to further decline and degradation.
Leads to, playing the system … out of necessity…
Cheers Robert.
Why is this man not thinking about the money, private interests, or the slapdash development of Southland. Heresy!
Outrageous propaganda …
And they get worse in defending their lies …
Our SAS and Key / mapp look like baby step fibbers with only two villages we know they've lied about…. The Big boys tell Huge ones …..
Which brings me to Idlib … and the problem of radicalized overseas fighters ,,,, I doubt our media will inform us of this problem…. Where the brits and co send killers ,,, but do not want them back.
France, too, is working to eradicate its jihadis overseas.,,,
Personally I think a lot could be de-radicalized as many were tricked into a) the warped twisted cult version of isis / al nusras Muslim preaching … and b) their 'good war' .
And there is the ongoing injustice in our blind eye to our criminals ….behind and involved in their crimes.
Idlib is a small ugly problem …. compared to what the west cooked up … and Libyans now face with their NATO destroyed society
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcDEc7gDYGk
I suspect that similar strategies have been used with the Uyghur Muslims in China. Thetre are several Sunni sects living in China, but the Uyghurs tend to be the most inclined to violent jihad and separatism.
The Turkestan Islamic Party(Xinjiang) is designated a terrorist organisation by the EU, the UK, Turkey, the US , Russia and others.
They've shown up in Idlib, Syria where the fear is they'll return to China as hardened fighters.They have a fearsome reputation for cruelty and barbarity.
Radical Uyghurs have also been involved in terrorist acts against other Muslim minorities within China, notably the Hui muslims who are the most numerous in China
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkistan_Islamic_Party
https://www.greanvillepost.com/2019/04/19/a-holy-war-against-china-beijing-and-the-turkic-uyghur-threat/
There's more to all this recent internment camp hullaballoo than first meets the eye …as always
It needs to be also remembered that the Chinese also were the first ones that trained and funded the Afghan Mujahideen before the CIA started it. Using training camps in Xinjiang. A little blowback maybe?
I know the Chinese backed Pol Pot … long with the usa.
But training Afghan Mujahideen is a new one … the training camps were located in Pakistan… and before the cia sponsored operation cyclone and the destruction of Afghanistan kicked of in 1979 the country was at peace.
it was part of the Hippy trail … and safe up until 1979 …and been rooted ever since.
https://www.messynessychic.com/2014/03/11/road-trip-to-afghanistan-snapshots-from-the-lost-hippie-trail/
https://dangerousminds.net/comments/on_the_hippie_trail_through_afghanistan_to_india_1967-1979
Its also why I felt very sad for the Afghan man who was among the first killed by the christchurch racist terror killer …. Afghanistan has been preyed upon and been in a constant state of destruction ….. since 1979.
Apparently approx 20 Afghans a day are still being killed … in 2019
We backed the bad buggers over there … and let good ones die here.
Our Govts are still doing it
I'm beyond words at the shame of it all …
https://twitter.com/i/status/1110170205748187136
Cheers for the very interesting Link francesca …. I'd read of 40,000 plus numbers of foreign fighters … So with only 800 odd english, and similar numbers from france, germany, europe … there were some big recruiting countries missing.
And bingo … there were a large number of them
Thanks for the interesting read and missing information … that you would almost think our media censors …
Greenpeace activists are climbing Wellington's tallest building to attempt to reach the OMV Austrian oil giant's HQ to deliver a "go home, you are not welcome here" message.
You can watch the live action here and sign their petition at the same time:
[https://www.e-activist.com/ea-action/enclick?ea.url.id=3868846&ea.campaigner.email=l90SPJxQ20Cbb8aNHp7glXkPNSv3SSNb&ea.campaigner.id=HeGs%2FfM2IGMUHgIT5m4sfA==]
Thanks Robert
Loving it !
Brilliant Robert Have signed!!
https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/114435232/government-extends-tax-break-for-oil-rigs-despite-promise-not-to-subsidise-fossil-fuel-industry
Before people get their knickers in to much of a twist read the lk ast sentence!
Probably been posted before, but should be posted regularly as a reminder that we've been here before:
Short US WW2 clip about fascist rhetoric.
Divide and conquer. Bastards1
"Somebody's going to get something out of it, and it isn't going to be you."
The last line of the video. Thanks, McFlock. A great litmus test. Even if I do something good altruistically, that's true- apart from the feeling of virtue which of course being a Lefty, I get much joy from signalling.
Parp!
Somebody's going to get something out of it, and it isn't going to be you.
That would have made a far more accurate Trump 2016 campaign slogan than "Make America Great Again," but I guess accuracy wasn't the point.
10 points PM
tRump indulges in his nuclear fantasies, again.
https://twitter.com/AtomicAnalyst/status/1153353619527405574
The Pentagon believes using nuclear weapons could “create conditions for decisive results and the restoration of strategic stability”, according to a new nuclear doctrine adopted by the US joint chiefs of staff last week.
The document, entitled Nuclear Operations, was published on 11 June, and was the first such doctrine paper for 14 years. Arms control experts say it marks a shift in US military thinking towards the idea of fighting and winning a nuclear war – which they believe is a highly dangerous mindset.
“Using nuclear weapons could create conditions for decisive results and the restoration of strategic stability,” the joint chiefs’ document says. “Specifically, the use of a nuclear weapon will fundamentally change the scope of a battle and create conditions that affect how commanders will prevail in conflict.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/19/nuclear-weapons-pentagon-us-military-doctrine
Seems to be one of these eternal things that some sectors of US military really want to use nukes. ISTR GWB regime was trying a "nuclear bunker buster" and/or some sort of mini-nuke that would be bigger than the MOAB but not so large as to be diplomatically reckless if it's used.
Constantly trying to have a continuum of nuke use, rather than armageddon or nothing.
Bismarck etc probably told themselves the same thing in the decades before WW1: that it wouldn't all blow up in their faces.
Bismark would've run a mile in the opposite direction of WWI.
Fair point, yeah I fucked that one up lol. Wilhelm II is the chappy.
Bismarck called it (although he did start the network of alliances that ended up in W2 flailing about and tangling the net).
But the wider point stands, I think – I believe many of the diplomats thought they could advance their interests with complex alliances, believing that their main opponents would blink in the face of a europe-wide (kinda global) conflagration.
WTF, for a generation the only thing holding Europe together peacefully was Bismarck.
Or was he just lining up the fall?
He unified a confederation of smaller states into a great power in the middle of Europe, with few if any buffer states between that and other great powers. He then initiated a series of alliances and diplomatic moves based on indirectly achieving strategic goals, turning the entire thing into a game of 3d chess with little margin for error.
Sure, he was a chess master and kept things at a nice stalemate to keep the game going, but he was succeeded by lesser diplomats.
this is the end, my only friend, the end…
Ignorant liar inserts himself into one of the most volatile conflicts on the planet.
https://twitter.com/nktpnd/status/1153370404418981888
https://twitter.com/MEAIndia/status/1153371327371173895
The Red Button Boner. Such an aphrodisiac.
"Why are we using prisons as storage facilities for people with serious mental health issues?"
Because those people are overwhelmingly men. See: homeless people. Almost all men. See: suicide deaths. Almost all men.
Solutions to the problems faced by men aren't sexy right now.
Live feed, still watching![smiley smiley](https://cdn.ckeditor.com/4.11.3/full-all/plugins/smiley/images/regular_smile.png)
https://youtu.be/mAdC0z7AsRQ
I have often wondered about the "benefits" of our privatised electricity industry, where the use of theoretical "capital values" that may well be vastly inflated over anything paid to the original owners of the system, are used to justify companies taking turns at increasing prices ahead of inflation. Now attention is being paid to water:
https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/specialseries/2018/04/drop-secret-water-war-europe-180402084125467.html
Could a future New Zealand government or councils sell off water reticulation and treatment, or stormwater and sewage systems to private companies?
Given half a chance. (and a seat on the board)
Simon's a bumbling idiot. Show me the money for your ghost roads Simon!
Ardern said that National's ghost roads, planned for but not funded, had been costed at $12 billion. Bridges was critical of levying fuel taxes for funding roads and for these ghost roads not being built. Ardern pointed out the hypocrisy of this.
What's the fellow from The Badge doing behind Slick?
He's wondering if really really has to get himself a troll-doll toupee to properly look the part and get on the front bench.
I wonder whether we will ever hear anything about Kiwibuild again?
In January the then figurehead, Twyford, told us there would be a reset "in a few weeks".
That then slipped and he promised it would be out in April. That then slipped back to June. The in June he promised that the reset details would be announced in early July.
Then he got dumped and Woods became the Conductor of the Housing Minister Quintet. She has been no more successful in keeping things in tune and now it has slipped until "late August".
Are we ever going to hear another word out of what has been the greatest stuff-up by a Government that I have ever seen? Probably not I suspect. The CoL are desperately hoping that it will all be forgotten.
A wedding to look forward to. That might distract the public attention. Look a squirrel!
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=12251969
"… ever hear anything about Kiwibuild again? "
We will. Oh yes we will. From you.
So, Julie Anne Genter participates in the Grand Announcement of the Coalition's intention to honour their promise to repeal the Part 4A amendment to the Public Health and Disability Act and to end the continued discrimination against family members provide the supports a MOH DSS client has been assessed as needing….
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12247412
….then quits the role and hands it over to Jenny Salesa. ( I wondered why she was in the frame.)
I'd link to something but this was an email from the office saying my correspondence to JAG (about the continued discrimination against family carers heralded by the announcement is simply not acceptable) has been passed to Salesa's office.
Oh dear.
I think you may be a great deal better off.
Genter never gave any real appearance of any interest in being an Associate Health Minister. She seems to really be only interested in spending the NZTA budget on anything except better roads.
I think that Salesa will actually take some interest in your topic.
Evict OMV
The third and latest banner from Greenpeace on Wellington's tallest building; 2 storeys from the OMV HQ. Very brave people indeed; watch live!
https://youtu.be/mAdC0z7AsRQ
OMG
OMG Indeed.
I did watch for a while….but found myself in a literal cold sweat.
BTW..what on earth are those folks inside the building doing at 3:50:30 ?
That Boris is a bit of a dag.
/
https://twitter.com/uk_domain_names/status/1138754140895682560
2002 (in Telegraph newspaper column): “It is said that the Queen has come
to love the Commonwealth, partly because it supplies her with regular
cheering crowds of flag-waving piccaninnies.” “They say [Tony Blair] is
shortly off to the Congo. No doubt the AK47s will fall silent, and the pangas
will stop their hacking of human flesh, and the tribal warriors will all break
out in watermelon smiles to see the big white chief touch down in his big
white British taxpayer-funded bird.” [NOTE: he eventually apologised for
the comments in 2008.]
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XzAujyzN9JxpUl9rN7EIIX0AlgaXL8rE/view
The buffoon or the empty suit.
Eight out of ten refugees trying to get into the U.S. are from Honduras. Why?
Kia Ora Newshub.
I would like amnesty international to check out my human rights being breached by the sandflys.
simon just got marmalade on his chin
I say that a complete overhaul of the resources management act is needed.
I think it's stupid people trying to change a person's personality by gay conversion therapy brain washing leave them alone muppets
Its cool to see 79 % of KIWIs have conserns about climate change that Show KIWIs have a above average IQ awesome.
Eco Maori is doing his bit to save our mokopuna environment. We cook mostly on a fire renewable firewood and some gas to heat water a composting TOILET system and today a small solar power system watching Te News on telly. Its good not having a noisy generator going
Ka kite ano
Kia Ora Te Ao Maori News.
Condolences to Mrs Biddles whanau its sad but te whanau will be able to gather for her tangi
Its good to see the protesters in Auckland protesting about their sacred whenua are behaving peacefully ka pai.
I agree the resources management act is a great hindrance for tangata whenua building on our own whenua. One has to have heaps of putea of be a great administrator to get a whare built on tangata whenua Whenua hence the numbers of Maori owned whare has dropped sharply since the installation of the resources management act.
Ka kite ano
Kia Ora The Am Show.
We will see if boris has the skills not to make a big
It must be quite hard for the people leaving Glory vale to adjust to a new life having to do everything themselves and learn the way our society works.
I do agree with the Wahine about the berkini incident at the pools that the attendants did unconsciously target Wahine this happens all the time in our society .Wahine need to be given more respect in our society EQUALITY is needed.
It is very hard to save a deposit for a whare in Aotearoa all the help our rangitahi can get to save for a house deposit is cool .
Ka kite ano
Some Eco Maori music for the minute.
https://youtu.be/94dBVPpymac
Kia ora Newshub.
Lloyd how long before it turns to a big mess.
A lot of people are scared of natural gas in Aotearoa at the minute.
Those Republican are just protecting their own ass.
With the Wellington bus service if it ain't broke don't try and fix it they made a big mess of the bus service in Wellington to try and save money.???????
The cost of living in Aotearoa has gone to the Matariki before shonky got in power Aotearoa food prices were cheaper than Australia Britain Canada America not now shonky rolled out the Golden carpet for his wealthy businesses M8. The rent in our last house went up 4 times in 2 and 1/2 years the sandflys were trying to get me out of that house for all of that time in the end they got to the landlord who lied and said it was sold muppets.
Ka kite ano
Kia ora Te Ao Maori News.
Tangata whenua have Sailing in there iwi sailing waka is the same. Eco Maori has a love of Tangaroa from my years of fishing around Aotearoa.
People who disrespect tangata whenua O Aotearoa artifacts do so with out knowing the consequences.
Ka kite ano P.S my ###### just wiped out my post
Its good to see more Maori prison officers being hired by our government.
Kia ora The Am Show.
Climate change Turning a negative into A positive
That is a great way to look at climate change treat climate change as a positive phenomenon to transform our society's into a entrepreneurial enviomently friendly society that cares about other people's wellbeing no matter who they are . Eco Maori does that all the time it works to turning a negative into a positive.
I strongly agree with that Carly Aotearoa has to OWN Our boozing culture we need to teach te Rangatahi that Alcohol is a substance that should be taken with caution but you have some people who promote.
Its cool that everyone knows how little Tangata Whenua O Aotearoa has been compensated by the Crown.
Yes Simon Pound the baby boomers are stuck in their pasts reality that was manipulated by the few. they made them believe that alcohol is good and weed is bad. It's was all about the money they could harvest from the people.
Peter Ma te wa.
Ka kite ano Don’t worry Simon Eco Maori can see the Oil Barons money sloshing around the Shows studio paying for their words
Some Eco Maori music for the minute.
https://youtu.be/h4DFXUndvbw