ive always found it supprizing that campervans dont seem to be equiped with something as basic as a spade , perhaps there might need to be instructions on how to use one also ?
No, freeloader camping needs to be banned fullstop. The parks and reserves end up like a dirty person’s backyard.
Freeloader camping is not the freedom camping New Zealanders have enjoyed in the past – nothing like it. Freeloader camping is living (not camping) in public parks, which is against the law. Also makes the public parks unuseable.
where I live the pop increases at least 10 fold for summer – lots for fcampers, lots of cityfolk, and the locals make the tourism $ so they can relax over winter a bit.
and I also think this fcampng is out of control – I really struggle to see any benefits tbh
If you’re talking about people squatting in national parks, rather than shitting at the side of the road, that’d be more DOC than Tourism, wouldn’t it? Of course, they’re likely to have the same do-nothing response. But then again, there are quite a few homeless New Zealanders who live much of the year in parks too (and increasing numbers sleeping in cars and under bridges).
Have seen the same thing in Europe at the TdF a couple of years ago. Pop up tents on the road shoulder and shitting on the side of the road only 50m away. Should be banned. End of story. They are just doing what they do back home. They contribute next to nothing to the local economy other than the 2 minute noodle and alcohol department of the local supermarket.
Would love to see some controls around “freeloader” camping (I like that).
Here in Wellington they like to camp over night by the beaches or in parks. There was an article in the local paper about residents complaining about the mess the campers leave behind at Owhiro Bay. Some campers were interviewed and actually complained about the lack of free facilities for them to use. The audacity! The sense of entitlement!
I don’t really want to pay for other peoples holiday facilities through my rates when I haven’t been able to afford to go on a holiday myself since 2007. And not when our council are too mean to build public loo’s that local residents request for their beaches. We have a real public loo shortage as it is so summer is a bad time to get caught short as you’ll find the loo’s in an appalling state, blocked up and unable to be flushed.
I live close to a local tourist attraction, and even tour bus passengers have been known to take a dump in people’s gardens due to the lack of public toilets.
When I get onto the occasional rant about tourists, the response is sometimes “tourists bring $800million into the local economy annually”. So fair enough, put some bloody bogs in then.
Freedom camping is the same: they do local attractions, buy food from local shops. Toilets at the popular spots are hardly too much to ask.
Maybe instead of landing the responsibility for providing public loo’s on to local councils we should have Ministry of Tourism funded loo’s built the vicinity of tourist attractions – like the one near you. You don’t want your front yard to be next………..
We really do have Freudian level councils around the country, expecting us to keep it in, (I know this from my former life as a sales rep) so help from central government would be really useful.
When I get onto the occasional rant about tourists, the response is sometimes “tourists bring $800million into the local economy annually”. So fair enough, put some bloody bogs in then.
Yep. A few thousand to install and maintain decent facilities would be worth it then.
“Toilets at the popular spots are hardly too much to ask.”
In a city or town, sure. But not in the wilderness/undevelopped country. The problem isn’t people needing to poo, it’s the numbers. Build it and they will come. NZ has yet to have a decent conversation about how many tourists it can sustain without fucking everything up. Myself, I think we are past that point. If we want to make money from tourists we should be focussing on low number high return tourism, not selling our soul for the cheapest buck tourism we have now.
Wee spade. Dig hole. Bury shit. I know it’s not a perfect solution, but at least it’s not shit and bog-paper lying around. I’d venture that it’s a better option than the chemical laden ‘toilets’ in self contained vehicles.
No, he was saying that burying human waste was reasonable. Which it is if you don’t have too many people. That’s completely different than throwing raw sewerage in the street.
Full treatment or sending down long pipes to be ‘out of sight and out of mind’?
Plenty of places where ‘we’ still just pump raw sewerage a half mile or so off-shore. Plenty other places where more obvious solids are removed first. Some places where a bit of ulta-violet is used.
Not so common to use it as fertilser … a forestry option was explored in Dunedin – vetoed.
Plenty of places where ‘we’ still just pump raw sewerage a half mile or so off-shore. Plenty other places where more obvious solids are removed first. Some places where a bit of ulta-violet is used.
[citation needed]
Not so common to use it as fertilser … a forestry option was explored in Dunedin – vetoed.
Would still need to be treated first and we would also need enough forest to complete the transformation from simple shit to fertiliser.
I’m in favour of the idea but it needs to be done properly.
I dunno how long shit takes to decompose in given varieties of environment, therefore can’t really say anything about any ‘carrying capacity’ of a given area.
I do know that long-drops are no answer.
And I know that removing solids and pumping out to sea is no answer.
I admit to just being downright suspicious of those chemical fucking loos.
Bill, you don’t have to know much about decomposition rates, so much as imagining an area of land and how many holes you could dig in it. If you fill the whole area with holes and then have to start again you are now digging up someone else’s shit. Humanure, a system that composts excrement above ground, is left to sit for 12 months after the final addition. That’s a system that uses heat to kill pathogens, which you don’t have in a hole in the ground.
I agree that digging a hole is a good way to dispose of poo providing one isn’t near water, or somewhere that floods, and if there aren’t too many people using the same site. But there are too many tourists, no doubt about that any more.
i live in town, next to a cycleway and park, no public facilities. And as I don’t have a separate toilet in my business I can’t allow people to use my restroom.
So where do people go, especially those with kids? In the bushes. Yes thats where they go.
And yes there should be more public facilities, but I guess we don’t have money for that.
Maybe we should hand over adult depends to tourists arriving in our lovely green clean country? Or tell them to poops in the waterways like our cows do.
I’ve always seen this as much an infrastructure problem as a tourist one. There needs to be a lot more public toilets and waste disposal sites, especially at rest stops. Before we start going on about; “Stinky euro trash”, it might be wise to consider the behaviour of kiwi travelers overseas (and within the country for that matter).
Provision of toilets is basic and there should be enough toilets – sheesh, I thought we were a first world banana country…..
I was actually referring not to a lack of infrastructure to allow the inhabitants of these lands to go to the toilet, but to an excess of freeloader camping which is a different issue, though same smells.
Freeloader camping is a complete bludge and shitmess. It has to stop. Simple.
The great tourism industry 20 billion a year and nobody talks about the real cost to the country of ecological devastation from all these never before seen environmental diseases
Scaling back of the EPA
If you’re rich you can dump your shit anywhere in NZ
John ConKEYstadore our PM
We now have a chance to elect someone capable of fixing structural issues pertaining to Wall Street, foreign policy, and American politics.
There’s a reason Bernie Sanders voted against the Iraq War and “blasted” Alan Greenspan in 2003, five years before the Wall Street collapse.
There’s also a reason Hillary Clinton voted for the Iraq War and won’t disclose transcripts that earned her and her husband $153 million from Wall Street.
Finally, Clinton’s issues with transparency are highlighted by Carl Bernstein in this CNN interview. As for why 67% of voters distrust Clinton, nothing exemplifies this dilemma better than a Washington Post article titled Hillary Clinton’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad answer on whether she’s ever lied:
PELLEY: You talk about leveling with the American people. Have you always told the truth?
CLINTON: I’ve always tried to. Always. Always.
PELLEY: Some people are gonna call that wiggle room that you just gave yourself.
CLINTON: Well, no, I’ve always tried —
PELLEY: I mean, Jimmy Carter said, “I will never lie to you.”
CLINTON: Well, but, you know, you’re asking me to say, “Have I ever?” I don’t believe I ever have. I don’t believe I ever have. I don’t believe I ever will. I’m gonna do the best I can to level with the American people.
……..
_____________________________________
Penny Bright
2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate.
The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell 2.1
For those of us who are not US citizens, how do you suggest we use this chance to elect someone capable of fixing structural issues pertaining to Wall Street, foreign policy, and American politics?
We could start up an “adopt an American family” campaign and send them links to news items they might not have read, and helpful emails & facebook messages telling them who they should vote for because they may be too busy taking selfies and tweeting and stuff to actually know what the real issues are.
Americans like being told what’s good for them by other countries. They pay a lot of attention to world opinion from the UK PM.
Just like here a different colour of the same thing witha few tweaks but who can be bothered the blueprint the same for everyone now
Multinational corporate thuggery runs the world
Capitalism doesnt like democracy its awkward to get around with all those people voting and standing against our right to rule as we use to back at the turn of the last century
Really we only want to be left to run the world our way and keep the poor powerless and our dynasties intact ,you know we are all related us 1% of the richest somewhere and we want to keep it that way
Lets hope the genetic bomb explodes before theres nothing left of the planet
Do tell us the Gnat approved method of making corrupt cabinet members do their jobs PR. Napier was rebuilt in two years from a much worse quake – but they didn’t have crooks like Brownlee profiting from the delay. If it were really worth a couple of points to National you’d be flinging the shit yourself.
The real problem is this, first a dildo, then a glitter bomb now this then what happens next time some looney decides they’re justified in throwing something…a brick maybe or someone uses a bat possibly
All this does is tighten security around our politicians so we have even less access and makes the left look even more unelectable to swing or soft voters
the stretch has stretched and when it cannot stretch anymore it breaks – you’d blame it for breaking rather than blame those pulling and pulling and stretching it too much and that is a rightie way of thinking, so well done.
Actually I’d like to know why he acted the way he did, does he have a legit claim or just didn’t get the deal he wanted? who knows but doing what he did takes it from a legitimate form of protest to assault
Bollix I’m from Christchurch myself and I know that there are a lot of people that haven’t had the best time of it and I also know there are those that aren’t telling the whole story as well
Perhaps he should consult the mental health services provided by the health board.
No, wait a minute; haven’t they had their funding slashed leading to long delays in getting treatment? Who could have foreseen that such penny-pinching to grub up cash for an election year taxcut bribe would have negative consequences? I guess his chosen method of commemorating the dead differs from the government’s one of exploiting them.
“In this case there is no offending against any individuals within the New Zealand community.
“Therefore publicity in my view is not required to flush out any potential offenders or to enable members of the community to keep themselves safe from you.
[…]
He had also begun therapy to treat his paraphilia.
The court accepts a prominent professional with a fragile state of mind and convicted criminal deserves name suppression because he has no offending against any individuals within the New Zealand community and allows him to characterise his offending as paraphilia.
Doesn’t a sad sorry sack of shit like Howland deserve the same treatment?.
I happened to be in Parliament in the Gallery late last year when three protesters threw a bag of pamphlets over the side of the gallery all over the government benches. The only upshot that I can predict is that there will be a glass wall fronting the visitors’ galleries, large, very physical ushers, and increased security screening measures to detect non-metal objects of protest, or worse.
One thing is for sure. People are getting angrier and more frustrated with this government.
PR, the pity is, though, that MPs are not making enough moves to alleviate the concerns of these angrier and more frustrated citizens.
A citizenry generally contented with its MPs would act differently.
Inequality is growing. Our society is becoming polarised again. Political polls indicate a high level support for the government at 47%.
It also indicates an opposition of about the same level, representing some very discontented people. A million did not vote last election. Did they stay away because of contentment, or disenchantment.
Angry, frustrated, sick, desperate people don’t make for a harmonious society, and our MPs who need protection are being shielded from this reality, and either are in denial, don’t care, or think that it is acceptable.
Party politics and protectionism funded by Natcorps corporate buddies is the problem
How do you institute wartime powers when there is no war and don’t give me that looting crap and all the other BS reasons given by the govt if there’s one of those right wing justifiers out there
Really this is Natcorp screwing democracy and nothing more and protecting the US govt and the multinational interests and we haven’t even made TPPA law yet It appears to be working well without all that legal shit to answer to the voters or the sovereignty issues or Canterburys right to control there own problems
I’m liking unmarried women drove turnout in practically every demographic.
Single women are also becoming more and more powerful as a voting demographic. In 2012, unmarried women made up a remarkable 23 percent of the electorate. Almost a quarter of votes in the last presidential election were cast by women without spouses, up three points from just four years earlier. According to Page Gardner, founder of the Voter Participation Center, in the 2012 presidential election, unmarried women drove turnout in practically every demographic, making up “almost 40 percent of the African-American population, close to 30 percent of the Latino population, and about a third of all young voters.”
Perhaps more dramatically than any other voting block, unmarried women — comprising as they do other liberal-voting groups including young women and women of color — lean left. Way left. Single women voted for Barack Obama by a wide margin in 2012 — 67 to 31 percent — while married women (who tend to be older and whiter) voted for Romney. And unmarried women’s political leanings are not, as has been surmised in some quarters, attributable solely to racial diversity. According to polling firm Lake Research Partners, while white women as a whole voted for Romney over Obama, unmarried white women chose Obama over Romney by a margin of 49.4 percent to 38.9 percent. In 2013, columnist Jonathan Last wrote about a study of how women ages 25 to 30 voted in the 2000 election. “It turned out,” Last wrote in The Weekly Standard, “that the marriage rate for these women was a greater influence on vote choice than any other variable.”
reproductive rights.
that is what a lot of women compels to vote democratic rather then republican.
A women without reproductive rights, access to birth control and abortion, without access to gender specific health care (prenatal care is just one of these gender specific health care programme) is not in control of her life, unless she lives abstinence only or has a partner who is happy to control his fertility instead.
And in the states, reproductive rights for women are nothing to be taken granted.
That is to be expected. You say “young” voters.
Have you not heard the old quote which goes
“If you are not a Liberal at 25, you have no heart. If you are not a Conservative at 35 you have no brain”.
You, like the gentleman you are quoting, are probably dreaming if you think it will persist. After all, look at what happened to the 60’s generation.
Yep, … heard it … read it … kicked it to the curb.
This remarkably amusing little Right-friendly bon mot has emanated over the last couple of centuries from various Tories, crypto-Tories, debauched decadent dandies, devious dilettantes and sundry Swedish Royalty (King Oscar II for one).
They were talking of and to the wealthy elite – upper class youthful revolt (usually as much about wresting power from older elites than anything truly progressive/egalitarian/altruistic) followed by a rapid return to mater and pater’s staunch Conservatism by the age of 30 and a slap-up meal at Mrs Miggins’ Pie Shop.
You do realise that the bloke I’m quoting is the Republican Party pollster – not the sort usually associated with dreamy flower power idealism I’d suggest.
Budget cuts, so that Mr. Awesome Finance Man Double Dipper from Dipton Mr. English can enlarge or embiggen the surplus. Or maybe he is just aiming to privatise our Police Force, like state housing and hospital meals. 🙂
National Party, no money for public safety, but plenty for Dish Rags with the wrong colour.
Quote: “Thirty police stations have closed to the public as police struggle to balance the books.
The force has quietly been reviewing its 400 “public facing” properties – which includes stations and community policing centres – as a Budget freeze continues to bite. And with resources thinly-stretched, response times to 111 calls are rising.
Since 2009, the shutters have come down in 28 stations and another two are to be closed, which means the public must go elsewhere to report crime.” Quote End
the alarming facts of one section of mismanagement by this govt
Maybe the incidents of assault on the Natcorp ministers should sink in that people are getting sick of the PR BS
“Wonder what the Police could do with the 26 million …”.
You are going to join the back of a very, very long queue. I must have seen at least 20 variations of that plaintive cry. Everyone appears to forget that there is only one lot of money and it couldn’t have been spent 20 or more times.
The above post reminded me of something,
whenever a budget surplus is mentioned in the media,
Labour needs to ensure the media also includes the government borrowing and national debt.
There needs to be public education on New Zealand’s level of debt,
Labour needs to explain that a budget is arbitrary and any surplus is bullshit until you actual stop borrowing.
The govt in NZ can run a budget deficit indefinitely. This follows from the one and only institution able to create NZ $ being effectively a govt department (the RBNZ accounts are consolidated into the govt accounts). The only consideration is the economic consequences of running a budget deficit on unemployment, growth, inequality and inflation.
The opposition should explain this to the public while focusing on the actual consequences of the govt actions on the economy.
Treasury and the NZDMO do not lend directly to the government,
all borrowing is via issuing securities, bond etc.
Borrowing.
If the mechanism for currency expansion (based on GDP) was to introduce currency via financing government services that would be wonderful.
Then government debt would be directly tied to GDP and a balanced budget would be guarantied.
Alas new money printed is lent to banks at OCR -official cash rate
government borrows money from the selling of securities just above OCR
(transactions managed by the independent NZDMO, who also manage government accounts)
treasury issues new currency but only to non government entities, government borrows money from those same entities, remember the issued currency is required to circulate, the life blood of the economy,
once you understand the convoluted way it has been setup you’ll begin to see behind the curtain.
The big question about govt spending is can parliament instruct its central bank. In being able to do so its always possible to setup transactions where the central bank is lending as required for the govt to spend. In NZ i believe the RBNZ legislation already allows for this anyway. As long as this is feasible the deficit or govt debt becomes a non issue and parliament can spend as desired.
A system where the govt spends new currency directly will however behave in a similar way to the present day settlement system. The reason for this is when new currency is spent it becomes reserves for NZ banks to use as settlement. When a surplus of reserves is in the banking system then the inter bank rate can fall below the official cash rate as banks lend reserves to each other at a discount to the OCR. So the reserve bank or treasury need to borrow the surplus spending to keep the central bank in control. This has the same result as if the govt borrows first and then spends ultimately.
Cheers the astounding facts about how real accounting works not the PR BS show called the budget
Gareth Hughes said it in plain terms that even a problem gambler would grasp to his road to recovery
120 BILLION IN DEBT no ifs buts or maybes
Very true words from a UK Labor MP penned after a visit to Auschwitz and easy to see the same thing happening in NZ. (1st time I’ve submitted a partial article with link, apologies if I’ve included too much of the article)
‘Some people matter and some people don’t.
“The Selection” process is writ large at the memorial. A single decision made in seconds determined if you would turn left for hard labour or right for imminent death. It took years of drip drip drip feeding to convince nations of people to turn away and ignore the horror. Jewish people didn’t lose their identity as humans overnight. The people who turned away and did nothing, didn’t lose their sense of justice in a heartbeat or at the simple say so of a foolishly moustached maniac. Drip drip drip… whisper it quietly… some people matter some people don’t. Drip drip drip… they are getting something you can’t have. Drip drip drip they don’t like you, they think they are better than you… drip, drip, drip. They, they, they, us, us, us.
Working with victims of domestic violence and sexual exploitation, you learn pretty quick how grooming a person to your way of thinking is the most dangerous weapon, mankind possesses.
At Auschwitz we light a candle, we remember, this is past, this is in novels, films history books. This isn’t us anymore. Isn’t it? Everyday we receive our daily intravenous drip, of who matters and who doesn’t and recently someone increased the dosage.
Now a new row has broken out at Oxford University, where I’m ashamed to say that some in the Labour Party society appear to be tolerating the intolerable. Everyday we hear stories of otherness, Islamophobia and antisemitism, in full swing. People pitched one against the other, taxpayers pitched against benefit claimants, women against men. Refugees versus migrants. Everyday we receive our dose of “us” versus “them”. Drip, drip, drip.
For many the Holocaust is best summed up in numbers. Six million Jews murdered. Still today it’s all a numbers game. Hundreds of thousands of people washed up on beaches, fleeing for their lives. Thousands of women, raped and murdered all around the world. So many x thousands living on some benefit or other, while y thousands of people go out to work. There is safety in numbers, we can be shocked by all the big numbers and then go back to watching the Bake Off. In every number is a person just like you. While we can keep seeing people as “them” we have learned nothing from a gruesome past.’ http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/jess-phillips/lets-stop-drip-drip-drip-of-otherness_b_9274840.html?utm_hp_ref=uk
Your car broke down, and you are forced to push the car outf the way of traffic. Do you stop at the red amd lose all the momentum or push through when there is no traffic.
Yes, another day another reporter manufacturing hate speach against pedestrians on bikes. No, bike riders do not have to obey the road rules, any more than pedestrians.
Motorized vehicles obey the road rules, as cyclists cannot get to forty kms an hour duh, they are incapable of safety obey road rules in the second lane of a 100kmh dual carriageway. Road rules dont need the complication of regulating pedestrians, skate borders, moterized wheel chairs, etc, all of whuch could not reach seventy kmh.
So please stop the hate. Only motor vehicles obey road rules to regulate them.
Oh, and i see cars driving on foot paths (late night 2am paper deliever), i see car driver breaking road rules when its safe to do so and necessary i.e accidents. So whose the prig journalist making new laws up.
When a person can get off their bike and safely push their bike through a red light, i have no problem with a cyclists riding through one. Safely, since cyclists have much greater view. Now sure there are always idiots who ride like idiots and thats called jay walking, and should be covered under some nuisance law, as the idiot cyclist who cycles unsafely past a red and into hospital will always be punnished more than the state ever could. So near scrapes should be hauled before courts. But safe cyclling is just like a broke down car, momentum saving.
I’m really puzzled with what’s happening to some pages on this site for me, Lprent.
Yesterday I couldn’t open the General Lord Dannatt: UK should work with Assad in Syria page, and I reported that in Open Mike 22/02/16. (Much later on it did open ok.)
Pages showing a red flag icon (instead of the grey square one) in the chrome tab, but just not opening, has been an intermittent problem for me for a couple of months now. Most often it’s been Open Mike pages that don’t open for some reason.
I think at least one other person reported similar problems in a reply. You were going to look into it, and suggested it might perhaps have been a problem with my ISP’s (Spark) caching? I don’t have this problem on any other forums or websites.
Anywaaaay…I just went to the Open Mike 22/06/16 page to see if there was any update. But I can’t find out cos that page won’t bloody open for me today 🙂 . (You suggested I try shift+f5, or shift+refresh if it happened again, but no joy.)
I also couldn’t open today’s Open Mike about two hours ago, but I can now?? I’m using Win 7 & Chrome Version 48.0.2564.116 m, but firefox and IE have the same problem.
I dunno whether I’ll be able to open this page later to check for any reply but I’ll try.
“McCully not contesting East Coast Bays seat….Quite when that will be, and whether I seek election as a List Member of Parliament in 2017, are decisions for the Prime Minister in the first instance.”
Make way for a Conservative candidate?
Thieving employers should be prosectuted And as if that is not enough!
It seems to me that employers need to be licensed in order to be allowed to hire staff. If they cannot follow the rules for the fair employment of people, or if they rob or steal from them, then they should be subject to the full force of the law – as they would expect if the employees stole from them!
Furthermore some of these employers are repeat offenders, and have continuously shown that they cannot be trusted to treat employees fairly. In such cases they should never be given the responsibility of being allowed to hire people again and their license should be withdrawn.
Chris Darby has become the latest councillor to have second thoughts about dramatic housing density plans in Auckland suburbs.
The North Shore councillor told the Herald he was “undecided” and that natural justice and opportunity for public participation by those affected were key issues for him.
Mr Darby and Whau councillor, Ross Clow, have indicated in the past 24 hours that they could vote with 11 councillors who want to dump a proposal to rezone thousands of homes for more intensive housing without consulting affected property owners.
……….
_______________________________
FYI – don’t know about any of the other 2016 Auckland Mayoral candidates, but I have been given speaking rights at the Special Governing Body meeting to be held on the Auckland Council’s Unitary Plan Committee above-mentioned ‘out of scope’ changes to the Proposed Auckland Unitary Plan.
Wednesday 24 February 2016
2pm
Auckland Town Hall.
An analysis of Federal Election Commission records, by TIME, which was published on 23 October 2015, showed that the 2012 donors to Romney’s campaign were already donating more to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign than they had been donating to any one of the 2016 campaigns of (listed here in declining order below Clinton) Lindsey Graham, Rand Paul, Carly Fiorina, Chris Christie, Rick Perry, Mike Huckabee, Donald Trump, Bobby Jindal, Rick Santorum, George Pataki, or Jim Gilmore.
Those major Romney donors also gave a little to two Democrats (other than to Hillary — who, as mentioned, received a lot of donations from these Republican donors): Martin O’Malley, Jim Web, and Lawrence Lessig.
(Romney’s donors gave nothing to Bernie Sanders, and nothing to Elizabeth Warren. They don’t want either of those people to become President.)
Clinton is the only Democratic candidate who is even moderately attractive to big Republican donors.
…….
_______________________________
better the devil you know it would appear , Clinton, than one that is a socialist speaking to get accountability by the financiers -the new untouchables that never have to pay the billions they have swindled out of ordinary believers in the value of what they’ve worked for
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This is one of the (extra) weekly columns on music or movies. Plenty of solid analyses of Possession exist online and most of them – inevitably – contain spoilers. This column is more in the way of a first-timer’s aid to getting your initial bearings. You don’t need to have ...
I am painting in oil, a portrait of a manWho has taken all the heart aches,And all the pain he can stand.I am using all the colors of blue,I have here on my stand.I am painting in oil, a portrait of a man.This has been an interesting week for me. ...
Helen Clark joins the Hoon as a special guest talking whether Aotearoa should join Aukus II, and her views on the fast track legislation and how Luxon and the new Government are performing. File Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for subscribers features co-hosts ...
With an election due in less than nine months, Britain’s embattled PM, Rishi Sunak, gave a useful speech earlier this week. He made a substantial case for his government, perhaps as compelling as is possible in the current environment. Quite an achievement. His overall theme was security, first pulling ...
Open access notablesPublicly expressed climate scepticism is greatest in regions with high CO2 emissions, Pearson et al., Climatic Change:We analysed a recently released corpus of climate-related tweets to examine the macro-level factors associated with public declarations of climate change scepticism. Analyses of over 2 million geo-located tweets in the U.S. showed that climate ...
You can be all negative about these charter schools if you want, but I’m here to accentuate the positive. You can get all worked up, if you want to, by the contradiction of Luxon saying We’re going to make sure that every school in the country is teaching exactly the same ...
Losing The Room: One can only speculate about what has persuaded the Coalition Government that it will pay no electoral price for unreasonably pushing ahead with policies that are so clearly against the national interest. They seem quite oblivious to the risk that by doing so they will convince an increasing ...
Name suppression decisions can be tough sometimes. No matter your views on free speech, you have to be hard-hearted not to be torn by the tug of the competing arguments. I think you can feel the Supreme Court wrestling with that in M v The King. The case for ...
The Merchants of Menace: The Coalition Government has convinced itself that the “Brahmins’” emollient functions have become much too irksome and expensive. Those who see themselves as the best hope of rebuilding New Zealand’s ailing capitalist system, appear to have convinced themselves that a little bit of blunt trauma is what their mollycoddled ...
When National first proposed its Muldoonist "fast-track" law, they were warned that it would inevitably lead to corruption. And that is exactly what has happened, with Resources Minister Shane Jones taking secret meetings with potential applicants:On Tuesday, in a Newsroom story, questions were raised about a dinner Jones ...
Buzz from the Beehive One day – hopefully – we will push that Russian rascal, Vladimir Putin, beyond breaking point. Perhaps it will happen today, when he learns that Foreign Minister Winston Peters is again tightening the thumbscrews. Peters announced further sanctions, this time on 28 individuals and 14 entities ...
How Labour’s and National’s failure to move beyond neoliberalism has brought New Zealand to the brink of economic and cultural chaos.TO START LOSING, so soon after you won, requires a special kind of political incompetence. At the heart of this Coalition Government’s failure to retain, and build upon, the public ...
“Members of Parliament don’t work for us, they represent us, an entirely different thing. As with so much that has turned out badly, the re-organising of MPs’ responsibilities began with the Fourth Labour Government. That’s when they began to be treated like employees – public servants – whose diaries had ...
It’s becoming a classic case study for why lobbying deals with politicians need greater scrutiny. Former National Minister Steven Joyce runs a lobbying company with a major client – the University of Waikato. The University desperately wants $300m+ of taxpayer funding to establish a third medical school in New Zealand, ...
Time To Choose: Like it or not, the Kiwis are either going into AUKUS’s “Pillar 2” – or they are going to China.HAD ZHENG HE’S FLEET sailed east, not west, in the early Fifteenth Century, how different our world would be. There is little reason to suppose that the sea-going junks ...
Henry Ergas writes – When in Randall Jarrell’s Pictures from an Institution, a college president is accused of being a hypocrite, the novel’s narrator retorts that the description is grossly unfair. After all, the man is still far from the stage of moral development at which the charge ...
David Farrar writes – Radio NZ reports: The Education Review Office says too many new teachers feel poorly prepared for their jobs. In a report published on Monday, the review office said 60 percent of the principals it interviewed said their new teachers were not ready. ...
New Zealand’s economic performance and the PM’s vision Michael Reddell writes – When I wrote yesterday morning’s post, highlighting how poorly both New Zealand and its Anglo peer countries have been doing in respect of productivity in recent times (ie, in the case of New ...
Hi all,Firstly - thank you! You guys are awesome. The response I’ve received to last night’s mail has been quite overwhelming. It’s a ghastly day outside, but there are no clouds in here.In case you didn’t read my email and are wondering what on earth I’m talking about you can ...
If there was still any doubt as to who is actually running this government – and it isn’t the buffoon from Botany – then this week’s announcement of a huge spend up on charter schools has settled the matter. While jobs and public services continue to be cut in the ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Gaye Taylor As widespread drought raises expectations for a repeat of last year’s ferocious wildfire season, response teams across Canada are grappling with the rapidly changing face of fire in a warming climate. No longer quenched by winter, nor quelled by the ...
Half of Christchurch City Holdings Ltd’s directors and its chair resigned en masse last night in protest at Christchurch City Council’s demand to front-load dividends File Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The chair of Christchurch City Council’s investment company and four of its independent directors resigned in protest last ...
The University of Waikato has reworded an advertisement that begins the tender process for its new $300 million-plus medical school even though the Government still needs to approve it. However, even the reworded ad contains an architect’s visualisations of what the school might look like. ACT leader David Seymour told ...
As a follow-up to the Rings of Power trailer discussion, I thought I needed to add something. There has been some online mockery about the use of the same actor for both the Halbrand and Annatar incarnations of Sauron. The reasoning is that Halbrand with a shave and a new ...
This isn’t quite as dramatic as the title might suggest. I’m not going anywhere, but there is something I wanted to talk to you about.Let’s start with a typical day.Most days I send out a newsletter in the morning. If I’ve written a lot the previous evening it might be ...
Buzz from the Beehive The promise of tax relief loomed large in his considerations when the PM delivered a pre-Budget speech to the Auckland Business Chamber. The job back in Wellington is getting government spending back under control, he said, bandying figures which show that in per capita terms, the ...
Yesterday de facto Prime Minister David Seymour announced that his glove puppet government would be re-introducing charter schools, throwing $150 million at his pet quacks, donors and cronies and introducing an entire new government agency to oversee them (the existing Education Review Office, which actually knows how to review schools, ...
Seeing that, in order to discredit the figures and achieve moral superiority while attempting to deflect attention away from the military assault on Rafa, Israel supporters in NZ have seized on reports that casualty numbers in Gaza may be inflated … Continue reading → ...
David Farrar writes – Newstalk ZB report: The man responsible for a horror hit and run in central Wellington last year was on a suspended licence and was so drunk he later asked police, “Did I kill someone?” Jason Tuitama injured two women when he ran a red ...
Muriel Newman writes – Former US President Ronald Reagan once said, “Freedom is a fragile thing and it’s never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by way of inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation.” The fight for ...
Why Courts should have said Waitangi Tribunal could not summons Karen Chhour Gary Judd writes – In the High Court, Justice Isacs declined to uphold the witness summons issued by the Waitangi Tribunal to compel Minister for Children, Karen Chhour, to appear before it to be ...
Bryce Edwards writes – The number of voices raising concerns about the Government’s Fast-Track Approvals Bill is rapidly growing. This is especially apparent now that Parliament’s select committee is listening to submissions from the public to evaluate the proposed legislation. Twenty-seven thousand submissions have been made to Parliament ...
An average of 166 New Zealand citizens left the country every day during the March quarter, up 54% from a year ago.Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The economy and housing market is sinking into a longer recession through the winter after a slump in business and consumer confidence in ...
The government has made it abundantly clear they’re addicted to the smell of new asphalt. On Tuesday they introduced a new term to the country’s roading lexicon, the Roads of Regional Significance (RoRS), a little brother for the Roads of National (Party) Significance (RoNS). Driving ahead with Roads of Regional ...
School is outAnd I walk the empty hallwaysI walk aloneAlone as alwaysThere's so many lucky penniesLying on the floorBut where the hell are all the lucky peopleI can't see them any moreYesterday morning, I’d just sent out my newsletter on Tama Potaka, and I was struggling to make the coffee. ...
Hi,I wanted to check in and ask how you’re doing.This is perhaps a selfish act, of attempting to find others feeling a similar way to me — that is to say, a little hopeless at the moment.Misery loves company, that sort of deal.Some context.I wish I could say I got ...
I have hitherto been fairly quiet on the new season of Rings of Power, on the basis that the underwhelming first season did not exactly build excitement – and the rumours were fairly daft. The only real thing of substance to come out has been that they have re-cast Adar ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
“The thing is,” Chris Luxon says, leaning forward to make his point, “this has always been my thing.”“This goes all the way back to the first multinational I worked for. I was saying exactly the same thing back then. The name of our business needs to be more clear; people ...
Buzz from the Beehive It’s been a momentous few days for Children’s Minister Karen Chhour. The Court of Appeal has overturned a High Court decision which blocked a summons order from the Waitangi Tribunal for her. And today she has announced the Government is putting children first by introducing to ...
In 2014 former Australian army lawyer David McBride leaked classified military documents about Australian war crimes to the ABC. Dubbed "The Afghan Files", the documents led to an explosive report on Australian war crimes, the disbanding of an entire SAS unit, and multiple ongoing prosecutions. The journalist who wrote the ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – According to the respected Pew Research Centre, “In seven of eight [European] countries surveyed, the most trusted news outlet asked about is the public news organization in each country”. For example, “in Sweden, an overwhelming majority (90%) say they trust the public broadcaster SVT”. ...
David Farrar writes – Kata MacNamara reports: Details of Tony Blakely’s involvement in the New Zealand Government’s response to the pandemic raise serious questions about the work of the Covid-19 Royal Commission of Inquiry over which he presides. It has long been clear that Blakely, a ...
Chris Trotter writes – Are you a Brahmin or a Merchant? Or, are you merely one of those whose lives are profoundly influenced by the decisions of Brahmins and Merchants? Those are the questions that are currently shaping the politics of New Zealand and the entire West. ...
RNZ reports – It’s supposed to be a haven of healing and spiritual awakening but residents of the Kawai Purapura community say they’ve been hurt and deceived. It’s the successor to the former Centrepoint commune, and has been on the bush block opposite Albany shopping centre since 2008. It ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. Usually we have a video chat to go with this wrap, but were unable to do one this week. We’ll be back next week.Several reports ...
The Transport Minister has set a hard 'fiscal envelope' of $6.54 billion for transport capital spending. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The economy is settling into a state of suspended animation as the Government’s funding freezes and job cuts chill confidence and combine with stubbornly high interest rates to ...
To be precise, the term “anti- Zionism” refers to (a) criticism of the political movement that created a modern Jewish state on the historical land of Israel, and to (b)the subjugation of Palestinians by the Israeli state. By contrast, the term “anti-Semitism” means bigotry and racism directed at Jewish people, ...
This is a re-post from the Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler Because hurricanes are one of the big-ticket weather disasters that humanity has to face, climate misinformers spend a lot of effort muddying the waters on whether climate change is making hurricanes more damaging. With the official start to the hurricane ...
Yesterday the Mayor released what he calls his “plan to save public transport” which is part of his final proposal for the Council’s Long Term Plan (LTP). This comes following consultation on the draft version that occurred in March which showed, once again, that people want more done on transport, especially ...
And it's a pleasure that I have knownAnd it's a treasure that I have gainedAotearoa’s coalition government is fragile. It’s held together by the obsequious sycophancy of Christopher Luxon, who willingly contorts his party into the fringe positions of his junior coalition partners and is unwilling to contradict them. The ...
The Select Committee hearing submissions on the fast-track consenting legislation is starting to become a beat-up of regional councils. The inflexibility and slow workings of the Councils were prominent in two submissions yesterday. One, from the Coromandel Marine Farmers Association, simply said that the Waikato Regional Council’s planning decisions were ...
Back in April, the High Court surprised everyone by ruling that Ministers are above the law, at least as far as the Waitangi Tribunal is concerned. The reason for this ruling was "comity" - the idea that the different branches of government shouldn't interfere with each other's functions. Which makes ...
Buzz from the BeehiveTolling was mentioned when Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced the government was re-introducing the Roads of National Significance (RoNS) programme, with 15 “crucial” projects to support economic growth and regional development across New Zealand. All RoNS would be four-laned, grade-separated highways, and all funding, financing, and ...
or the past 14 years, ever since the Spanish government cheated on an autonomy deal, Catalonia has reliably given pro-independence parties a majority of seats in their regional parliament. But now that seems to be over. Catalans went to the polls yesterday, and stripped the Catalan parties of their majority. ...
David Farrar writes – Radio NZ report: Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins said the Electoral Commission should make sure the system ran smoothly and “taking away the right of thousands of people to vote” was not the answer. “Thousands of people enroled and voted on the day. If ...
Don Brash writes – There was a rather revealing headline in the Herald on Sunday today (12 May). It read “One in 8 Auckland homes on market were bought during boom, may now sell for loss”. The first line of text noted that “New data shows one in ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – At a time when universities are understandably nervous regarding the establishment of the University Advisory Group (UAG) and the Science System Advisory Group (SSAG) it may seem strange – or even fool-hardy – to state that there are long-standing issues in the tertiary sector ...
The Government’s introduction of legislation that would enable landlords to end tenancies with no reason marks a dark day for the 1.4 million people who rent their home in Aotearoa. ...
The Minister for Mental Health has found the Suicide Prevention Office and mental health support for 111 calls slipping through his fingers, says Labour spokesperson for Mental Health Ingrid Leary. ...
Today’s justification from the Minister for Children for scrapping protections for our tamariki was either a case of ignorance or deliberate deception. ...
The Green Party says the Government’s misguided policy on gangs will fail, following the announcement of the establishment of a national gang unit and district gang disruption units to target gang activities. ...
“With Police pay negotiations still unresolved after six months in Government, Mark Mitchell has today rolled the Commissioner out for a rebrand of their approach to gang crime,” Labour police spokesperson Ginny Andersen said. ...
The Government bringing back 50 charter schools will not increase achievement and is a distraction from the core mission of the education system, Labour education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
Te Pāti Māori is showing extreme concern over the Environment Select Committees adoption of a lucky dip draw to determine hearings for the Fast Track Approvals bill. Of the 27,000 submissions, 2,900 requested to present. All organisations will be heard; however, the remaining 2,350 submitters will be subject to a ...
Today New Zealand First will introduce a Member’s Bill that will protect women’s spaces. The ‘Fair Access to Bathrooms Bill’ will require, primarily in the interest and safety of women and girls, that all new non-domestic publicly accessible buildings provide separate, clearly demarcated, unisex and single sex bathrooms. This Bill ...
The Green Party is welcoming Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ continuation of Hon. James Shaw’s cross-party work on climate adaptation, now in the form of a Finance and Expenditure Committee Inquiry. ...
The National Government plans to cut 390 jobs at ACC, including roles in the areas of prevention of sexual violence, road safety and workplace safety. ...
The Government has been caught in opposition to evidence once again as it looks to usher in tried, tested and failed work seminar obligations for job-seeking beneficiaries. ...
The Green Party is welcoming the announcement by the Minister Responsible for RMA Reform Chris Bishop to approve most of the Wellington City Council’s District Plan recommendations. ...
David Seymour has failed to get the sweeping cuts he wanted to the free and healthy school lunch programme, Labour education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
Hon Willie Jackson has been invited by the Oxford Union to debate the motion “This House Believes British Museums are not Very British’ on May 23rd. ...
Green Party MP Hūhana Lyndon says her Public Works (Prohibition of Compulsory Acquisition of Māori Land) Amendment Bill is an opportunity to right some past wrongs around the alienation of Māori land. ...
A senior, highly respected King’s Counsel with decades of experience in our law courts, Gary Judd KC, has filed a complaint about compulsory tikanga Māori studies for law students - highlighting the utter depths of absurdity this woke cultural madness has taken our society. The tikanga regulations will compel law ...
The Government needs to be clear with the people of the Nelson Marlborough region about the changes it is considering for the Nelson Hospital rebuild, Labour health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said. ...
Ministers must front up about which projects it will push through under its Fast Track Approvals legislation, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced that the Government will make it easier for lines firms to take action to remove vegetation from obstructing local powerlines. The change will ensure greater security of electricity supply in local communities, particularly during severe weather events. “Trees or parts of trees falling on ...
Wairarapa Moana ki Pouakani were the top winners at this year’s Ahuwhenua Trophy awards recognising the best in Māori dairy farming. Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka announced the winners and congratulated runners-up, Whakatōhea Māori Trust Board, at an awards celebration also attended by Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Finance Minister ...
"On the 27th of March, I sought assurances from the Chief Executive, Department of Internal Affairs, that the Department’s correct processes and policies had been followed in regards to a passport application which received media attention,” says Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden. “I raised my concerns after being ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins has announced the appointment of three new District Court Judges, to replace Judges who have recently retired. Peter James Davey of Auckland has been appointed a District Court Judge with a jury jurisdiction to be based at Whangarei. Mr Davey initially started work as a law clerk/solicitor with ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour is calling on the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) to put ideology to the side and focus on students’ learning, in reaction to the union holding paid teacher meetings across New Zealand about charter schools. “The PPTA is disrupting schools up and down the ...
Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly today announced the appointment of Craig Stobo as the new chair of the Financial Markets Authority (FMA). Mr Stobo takes over from Mark Todd, whose term expired at the end of April. Mr Stobo’s appointment is for a five-year term. “The FMA plays ...
Surf Life Saving New Zealand and Coastguard New Zealand will continue to be able to keep people safe in, on, and around the water following a funding boost of $63.644 million over four years, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Associate Transport Minister Matt Doocey say. “Heading to the beach for ...
New Zealand and Tuvalu have reaffirmed their close relationship, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand is committed to working with Tuvalu on a shared vision of resilience, prosperity and security, in close concert with Australia,” says Mr Peters, who last visited Tuvalu in 2019. “It is my pleasure ...
New Zealand is gravely concerned about the situation in New Caledonia, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The escalating situation and violent protests in Nouméa are of serious concern across the Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “The immediate priority must be for all sides to take steps to de-escalate the ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon met today with Samoa’s O le Ao o le Malo, Afioga Tuimalealiifano Vaaletoa Sualauvi II, who is making a State Visit to New Zealand. “His Highness and I reflected on our two countries’ extensive community links, with Samoan–New Zealanders contributing to all areas of our national ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has announced that he has approved Waiheke Island ferry operator Island Direct to be eligible for SuperGold Card funding, paving the way for a commercial agreement to bring the operator into the scheme. “Island Direct started operating in November 2023, offering an additional option for people ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters today announced further sanctions on 28 individuals and 14 entities providing military and strategic support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “Russia is directly supported by its military-industrial complex in its illegal aggression against Ukraine, attacking its sovereignty and territorial integrity. New Zealand condemns all entities and ...
A year on from the tragedy at Loafers Lodge, the Government is working hard to improve building fire safety, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “I want to share my sincere condolences with the families and friends of the victims on the anniversary of the tragic fire at Loafers ...
Ka nui te mihi kia koutou. Kia ora and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you so much for having me here in the lead up to my Government’s first Budget. Before I get started can I acknowledge: Simon Bridges – Auckland Business Chamber CEO. Steve Jurkovich – Kiwibank CEO. Kids born ...
New Zealand and Vanuatu will enhance collaboration on issues of mutual interest, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “It is important to return to Port Vila this week with a broad, high-level political delegation which demonstrates our deep commitment to New Zealand’s relationship with Vanuatu,” Mr Peters says. “This ...
Minister for Land Information, Chris Penk will travel to Peru this week to represent New Zealand at a meeting of trade ministers from the Asia-Pacific region on behalf of Trade Minister Todd McClay. The annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Ministers Responsible for Trade meeting will be held on 17-18 May ...
Minister of Education Erica Stanford will head to the United Kingdom this week to participate in the 22nd Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers (CCEM) and the 2024 Education World Forum (EWF). “I am looking forward to sharing this Government’s education priorities, such as introducing a knowledge-rich curriculum, implementing an evidence-based ...
Minister of Education Erica Stanford has today thanked outgoing New Zealand Qualifications Authority Chair, Hon Tracey Martin. “Tracey Martin tendered her resignation late last month in order to take up a new role,” Ms Stanford says. Ms Martin will relinquish the role of Chair on 10 May and current Deputy ...
New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and President Emmanuel Macron of France today announced a new non-governmental organisation, the Christchurch Call Foundation, to coordinate the Christchurch Call’s work to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online. This change gives effect to the outcomes of the November 2023 Call Leaders’ Summit, ...
Distinguished public servant and former diplomat Sir Maarten Wevers will lead the independent review into the disability support services administered by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. The review was announced by Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston a fortnight ago to examine what could be done to strengthen the ...
Today’s announcement by Police Commissioner Andrew Coster of a National Gang Unit and district Gang Disruption Units will help deliver on the coalition Government’s pledge to restore law and order and crack down on criminal gangs, Police Minister Mark Mitchell says. “The National Gang Unit and Gang Disruption Units will ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today expressed regret at North Korea’s aggressive rhetoric towards New Zealand and its international partners. “New Zealand proudly stands with the international community in upholding the rules-based order through its monitoring and surveillance deployments, which it has been regularly doing alongside partners since 2018,” Mr ...
Air Vice-Marshal Tony Davies MNZM is the new Chief of Defence Force, Defence Minister Judith Collins announced today. The Chief of Defence Force commands the Navy, Army and Air Force and is the principal military advisor to the Defence Minister and other Ministers with relevant portfolio responsibilities in the defence ...
Legislation to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act has been introduced to Parliament. The Bill’s introduction reaffirms the Coalition Government’s commitment to the safety of children in care, says Minister for Children, Karen Chhour. “While section 7AA was introduced with good intentions, it creates a conflict for Oranga ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins will this week travel to the UK and Italy to meet with her defence counterparts, and to attend Battles of Cassino commemorations. “I am humbled to be able to represent the New Zealand Government in Italy at the commemorations for the 80th anniversary of what was ...
The upcoming Budget will include funding for up to 50 charter schools to help lift declining educational performance, Associate Education Minister David Seymour announced today. $153 million in new funding will be provided over four years to establish and operate up to 15 new charter schools and convert 35 state ...
“The results of the public consultation on the terms of reference for the Royal Commission into COVID-19 Lessons has now been received, with results indicating over 13,000 submissions were made from members of the public,” Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden says. “We heard feedback about the extended lockdowns in ...
Foreign Minister, Defence Minister, other Members of Parliament Acting Chief of Defence Force, Secretary of Defence Distinguished Guests Defence and Diplomatic Colleagues Ladies and Gentlemen, Good afternoon, tēna koutou, apinun tru It’s a pleasure to be back in Port Moresby today, and to speak here at the Kumul Leadership ...
Health, infrastructure, renewable energy, and stability are among the themes of the current visit to Papua New Guinea by a New Zealand political delegation, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “Papua New Guinea carries serious weight in the Pacific, and New Zealand deeply values our relationship with it,” Mr Peters ...
The coalition Government is launching Roads of Regional Significance to sit alongside Roads of National Significance as part of its plan to deliver priority roading projects across the country, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The Roads of National Significance (RoNS) built by the previous National Government are some of New Zealand’s ...
A high-level New Zealand political delegation in Honiara today congratulated the new Government of Solomon Islands, led by Jeremiah Manele, on taking office. “We are privileged to meet the new Prime Minister and members of his Cabinet during his government’s first ten days in office,” Deputy Prime Minister and ...
New Zealand voted in favour of a resolution broadening Palestine’s participation at the United Nations General Assembly overnight, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The resolution enhances the rights of Palestine to participate in the work of the UN General Assembly while stopping short of admitting Palestine as a full ...
Introduction Good morning. It’s a great privilege to be here at the 2024 Infrastructure Symposium. I was extremely happy when the Prime Minister asked me to be his Minister for Infrastructure. It is one of the great barriers holding the New Zealand economy back from achieving its potential. Building high ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins today announced the upcoming Budget will include new funding of $571 million for Defence Force pay and projects. “Our servicemen and women do New Zealand proud throughout the world and this funding will help ensure we retain their services and expertise as we navigate an increasingly ...
New Zealand’s ability to cope with climate change will be strengthened as part of the Government’s focus to build resilience as we rebuild the economy, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “An enduring and long-term approach is needed to provide New Zealanders and the economy with certainty as the climate ...
Jobseeker beneficiaries who have work obligations must now meet with MSD within two weeks of their benefit starting to determine their next step towards finding a job, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “A key part of the coalition Government’s plan to have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker ...
A new standalone Social Investment Agency will power-up the social investment approach, driving positive change for our most vulnerable New Zealanders, Social Investment Minister Nicola Willis says. “Despite the Government currently investing more than $70 billion every year into social services, we are not seeing the outcomes we want for ...
Check against delivery Good morning. It is a pleasure to be with you to outline the Coalition Government’s approach to our first Budget. Thank you Mark Skelly, President of the Hutt Valley Chamber of Commerce, together with your Board and team, for hosting me. I’d like to acknowledge His Worship ...
Your Excellency Ambassador Meredith, Members of the Diplomatic Corps and Ambassadors from European Union Member States, Ministerial colleagues, Members of Parliament, and other distinguished guests, Thank you everyone for joining us. Ladies and gentlemen - In diplomacy, we often speak of ‘close’ and ‘long-standing’ relations. ...
The Therapeutic Products Act (TPA) will be repealed this year so that a better regime can be put in place to provide New Zealanders safe and timely access to medicines, medical devices and health products, Associate Health Minister Casey Costello announced today. “The medicines and products we are talking about ...
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist and Kelvin Anthony, RNZ Pacific digital journalist Police have used tear gas and stun grenades on rioters at an airport near Nouméa as the chaos in New Caledonia stretched into its sixth day. Five people, including two police officers, have died and hundreds of ...
Asia Pacific ReportThe global human rights watchdog Amnesty International has called on France to not “misuse” a crackdown in the ongoing unrest in the non-self-governing French Pacific territory of Kanaky New Caledonia in the wake of a controversial vote by the French Parliament to adopt a bill changing the territory’s ...
A major provider of school lunches fears the government's new $3 limit for most students will see them eating more pre-packaged and processed food. ...
The star of Dark City: The Cleaner takes us through his life in TV, including the VHS revolution and the John Campbell impression that started it all. Best known for his comedic roles, Cohen Holloway says he struggled at times to maintain the stone cold facade of serial killer on ...
David Hill remembers an old friend, who you’ve probably never heard of. My friend Doug never travelled; he had little interest in the world beyond his own tiny rural town. I’ve rarely known anyone who radiated such contentment. Doug (I’ll call him that) died in March. You won’t know him. ...
Some of the earliest photos of life in Aotearoa are on display at Auckland Museum right now – but the identities of some of the people in them are a mystery.What was it like to be one of the first people in New Zealand to have their photo taken? ...
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Not only do we in the south island have to put up with extreme dangerous life-threatening driving by tourists…
… we also have to put up with freeloader camping all over the place.
What a complete waste of space these bludgers are. They ruin our local parks and reserves. Stinky euro trash.
You think you have it bad!
The permanent population of of the Coromandel is around 30,000. Over summer that swells to 130,000.
ive always found it supprizing that campervans dont seem to be equiped with something as basic as a spade , perhaps there might need to be instructions on how to use one also ?
No, freeloader camping needs to be banned fullstop. The parks and reserves end up like a dirty person’s backyard.
Freeloader camping is not the freedom camping New Zealanders have enjoyed in the past – nothing like it. Freeloader camping is living (not camping) in public parks, which is against the law. Also makes the public parks unuseable.
It is all going to end in tears
where I live the pop increases at least 10 fold for summer – lots for fcampers, lots of cityfolk, and the locals make the tourism $ so they can relax over winter a bit.
and I also think this fcampng is out of control – I really struggle to see any benefits tbh
Maybe our Minister of Tourism could do something about it ……..
yeah right
If you’re talking about people squatting in national parks, rather than shitting at the side of the road, that’d be more DOC than Tourism, wouldn’t it? Of course, they’re likely to have the same do-nothing response. But then again, there are quite a few homeless New Zealanders who live much of the year in parks too (and increasing numbers sleeping in cars and under bridges).
I agree
Have seen the same thing in Europe at the TdF a couple of years ago. Pop up tents on the road shoulder and shitting on the side of the road only 50m away. Should be banned. End of story. They are just doing what they do back home. They contribute next to nothing to the local economy other than the 2 minute noodle and alcohol department of the local supermarket.
Would love to see some controls around “freeloader” camping (I like that).
Here in Wellington they like to camp over night by the beaches or in parks. There was an article in the local paper about residents complaining about the mess the campers leave behind at Owhiro Bay. Some campers were interviewed and actually complained about the lack of free facilities for them to use. The audacity! The sense of entitlement!
I don’t really want to pay for other peoples holiday facilities through my rates when I haven’t been able to afford to go on a holiday myself since 2007. And not when our council are too mean to build public loo’s that local residents request for their beaches. We have a real public loo shortage as it is so summer is a bad time to get caught short as you’ll find the loo’s in an appalling state, blocked up and unable to be flushed.
WCC won’t pay for public toilets, but won’t ban freedom campers, won’t pay for bus shelters http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/76977054/wellington-short-of-162-covered-bus-stops-report-finds but will find the money to build a convention centre nobody wants.
I live close to a local tourist attraction, and even tour bus passengers have been known to take a dump in people’s gardens due to the lack of public toilets.
When I get onto the occasional rant about tourists, the response is sometimes “tourists bring $800million into the local economy annually”. So fair enough, put some bloody bogs in then.
Freedom camping is the same: they do local attractions, buy food from local shops. Toilets at the popular spots are hardly too much to ask.
I thought those tour buses had loo’s on board?
Maybe instead of landing the responsibility for providing public loo’s on to local councils we should have Ministry of Tourism funded loo’s built the vicinity of tourist attractions – like the one near you. You don’t want your front yard to be next………..
We really do have Freudian level councils around the country, expecting us to keep it in, (I know this from my former life as a sales rep) so help from central government would be really useful.
Yep. A few thousand to install and maintain decent facilities would be worth it then.
“Toilets at the popular spots are hardly too much to ask.”
In a city or town, sure. But not in the wilderness/undevelopped country. The problem isn’t people needing to poo, it’s the numbers. Build it and they will come. NZ has yet to have a decent conversation about how many tourists it can sustain without fucking everything up. Myself, I think we are past that point. If we want to make money from tourists we should be focussing on low number high return tourism, not selling our soul for the cheapest buck tourism we have now.
I avoid the wilderness, so can’t comment on that.
I think Dunedin’s water supply comes from the wildnerness, you’re not that far away 😉
lol
so the occasional whiff of chlorine is due to tourists?
Wee spade. Dig hole. Bury shit. I know it’s not a perfect solution, but at least it’s not shit and bog-paper lying around. I’d venture that it’s a better option than the chemical laden ‘toilets’ in self contained vehicles.
Seems like NZ has chosen its biggest industries based on shitting all over our environment.
It’s not. There’s a very good reason why we changed to full treatment of human waste over the centuries.
Yeah, because citified Europeans used to throw their shit in the street and create epidemics.
And that is what Bill was saying was better than chemical toilets.
No, he was saying that burying human waste was reasonable. Which it is if you don’t have too many people. That’s completely different than throwing raw sewerage in the street.
Full treatment or sending down long pipes to be ‘out of sight and out of mind’?
Plenty of places where ‘we’ still just pump raw sewerage a half mile or so off-shore. Plenty other places where more obvious solids are removed first. Some places where a bit of ulta-violet is used.
Not so common to use it as fertilser … a forestry option was explored in Dunedin – vetoed.
[citation needed]
Would still need to be treated first and we would also need enough forest to complete the transformation from simple shit to fertiliser.
I’m in favour of the idea but it needs to be done properly.
“Wee spade. Dig hole. Bury shit. I know it’s not a perfect solution, but at least it’s not shit and bog-paper lying around”
10 people a night, 150 nights a year, in an area the size of a small supermarket car park.
I dunno how long shit takes to decompose in given varieties of environment, therefore can’t really say anything about any ‘carrying capacity’ of a given area.
I do know that long-drops are no answer.
And I know that removing solids and pumping out to sea is no answer.
I admit to just being downright suspicious of those chemical fucking loos.
“Chemical Fucking Loo”
hmmm not much of a nickname that
lol @ CV.
Bill, you don’t have to know much about decomposition rates, so much as imagining an area of land and how many holes you could dig in it. If you fill the whole area with holes and then have to start again you are now digging up someone else’s shit. Humanure, a system that composts excrement above ground, is left to sit for 12 months after the final addition. That’s a system that uses heat to kill pathogens, which you don’t have in a hole in the ground.
I agree that digging a hole is a good way to dispose of poo providing one isn’t near water, or somewhere that floods, and if there aren’t too many people using the same site. But there are too many tourists, no doubt about that any more.
i live in town, next to a cycleway and park, no public facilities. And as I don’t have a separate toilet in my business I can’t allow people to use my restroom.
So where do people go, especially those with kids? In the bushes. Yes thats where they go.
And yes there should be more public facilities, but I guess we don’t have money for that.
Maybe we should hand over adult depends to tourists arriving in our lovely green clean country? Or tell them to poops in the waterways like our cows do.
“but will find the money to build a convention centre nobody wants.”
How are you going to have conferences to talk about all the big problems if you don’t have a new convention centre?
Damn straight. Can’t use the Cake Tin for everything.
I was being sarcastic.
vto
I take it you mean this story?
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/374063/tourists-defecating-tekapo-church
I’ve always seen this as much an infrastructure problem as a tourist one. There needs to be a lot more public toilets and waste disposal sites, especially at rest stops. Before we start going on about; “Stinky euro trash”, it might be wise to consider the behaviour of kiwi travelers overseas (and within the country for that matter).
yup totally agree, this is something the minister of tourism needs to address, don’t hold your breath though
Too busy in Hawaii to worry about here.
Not on his radar – there are no toilets on Planet Key.
Pasupial, no I wasn’t referring to that one.
Provision of toilets is basic and there should be enough toilets – sheesh, I thought we were a first world banana country…..
I was actually referring not to a lack of infrastructure to allow the inhabitants of these lands to go to the toilet, but to an excess of freeloader camping which is a different issue, though same smells.
Freeloader camping is a complete bludge and shitmess. It has to stop. Simple.
The great tourism industry 20 billion a year and nobody talks about the real cost to the country of ecological devastation from all these never before seen environmental diseases
Scaling back of the EPA
If you’re rich you can dump your shit anywhere in NZ
John ConKEYstadore our PM
Still less crap than cows.
Tourism is predicted to overtake dairy as export number 1.
Easier to get upside value-add in tourism than dairy, with the Fonterra dominance.
Hillary Clinton is not my ‘sister’.
http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/bernie-sanders-will-becom_b_9289066.html
We now have a chance to elect someone capable of fixing structural issues pertaining to Wall Street, foreign policy, and American politics.
There’s a reason Bernie Sanders voted against the Iraq War and “blasted” Alan Greenspan in 2003, five years before the Wall Street collapse.
There’s also a reason Hillary Clinton voted for the Iraq War and won’t disclose transcripts that earned her and her husband $153 million from Wall Street.
Finally, Clinton’s issues with transparency are highlighted by Carl Bernstein in this CNN interview. As for why 67% of voters distrust Clinton, nothing exemplifies this dilemma better than a Washington Post article titled Hillary Clinton’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad answer on whether she’s ever lied:
PELLEY: You talk about leveling with the American people. Have you always told the truth?
CLINTON: I’ve always tried to. Always. Always.
PELLEY: Some people are gonna call that wiggle room that you just gave yourself.
CLINTON: Well, no, I’ve always tried —
PELLEY: I mean, Jimmy Carter said, “I will never lie to you.”
CLINTON: Well, but, you know, you’re asking me to say, “Have I ever?” I don’t believe I ever have. I don’t believe I ever have. I don’t believe I ever will. I’m gonna do the best I can to level with the American people.
……..
_____________________________________
Penny Bright
2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate.
For those of us who are not US citizens, how do you suggest we use this chance to elect someone capable of fixing structural issues pertaining to Wall Street, foreign policy, and American politics?
Having a good rant on here helps
I am going to refuse to pay my rates until the US elects Bernie Sanders.
Foolish troll!!!
Venting ones spleen is good for your health.
We could start up an “adopt an American family” campaign and send them links to news items they might not have read, and helpful emails & facebook messages telling them who they should vote for because they may be too busy taking selfies and tweeting and stuff to actually know what the real issues are.
Americans like being told what’s good for them by other countries. They pay a lot of attention to world opinion from the UK PM.
Just like here a different colour of the same thing witha few tweaks but who can be bothered the blueprint the same for everyone now
Multinational corporate thuggery runs the world
Capitalism doesnt like democracy its awkward to get around with all those people voting and standing against our right to rule as we use to back at the turn of the last century
Really we only want to be left to run the world our way and keep the poor powerless and our dynasties intact ,you know we are all related us 1% of the richest somewhere and we want to keep it that way
Lets hope the genetic bomb explodes before theres nothing left of the planet
Hilary Clinton is my sister.
Who’s yours?
equipping campervans with spades and instructions on how to use one might help maybe
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/77147819/arrest-after-brown-substance-poured-on-gerry-brownlee-at-service
Hope it made the guy happy because its probably worth a point or two to National
Do tell us the Gnat approved method of making corrupt cabinet members do their jobs PR. Napier was rebuilt in two years from a much worse quake – but they didn’t have crooks like Brownlee profiting from the delay. If it were really worth a couple of points to National you’d be flinging the shit yourself.
The real problem is this, first a dildo, then a glitter bomb now this then what happens next time some looney decides they’re justified in throwing something…a brick maybe or someone uses a bat possibly
All this does is tighten security around our politicians so we have even less access and makes the left look even more unelectable to swing or soft voters
the stretch has stretched and when it cannot stretch anymore it breaks – you’d blame it for breaking rather than blame those pulling and pulling and stretching it too much and that is a rightie way of thinking, so well done.
Actually I’d like to know why he acted the way he did, does he have a legit claim or just didn’t get the deal he wanted? who knows but doing what he did takes it from a legitimate form of protest to assault
I find our concern for this person illusory – I’d say you just want more sticks to hit him with.
Bollix I’m from Christchurch myself and I know that there are a lot of people that haven’t had the best time of it and I also know there are those that aren’t telling the whole story as well
you may have “been” from ChCH but your comments show you know F all about whats going on here
His son died in the earthquake. His protest, as naive as it was, is pretty widely supported in the East of Christchurch.
I think he needs to speak to someone because its not healthy carrying that around for so long
PR
Perhaps he should consult the mental health services provided by the health board.
No, wait a minute; haven’t they had their funding slashed leading to long delays in getting treatment? Who could have foreseen that such penny-pinching to grub up cash for an election year taxcut bribe would have negative consequences? I guess his chosen method of commemorating the dead differs from the government’s one of exploiting them.
I agree. He should just get over his son, and be resilient. Otherwise he’s just another moaner, standing in the way of reconstruction. (sarc).
Yeah, he sounds like a great guy.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/8192821/Child-sex-acts-were-on-computer
Yeah, dude wasn’t prominent enough to maintain his anonymity.
Kinda hard to remain anonymous when you’re a paedophile with a criminal record who attacks a Minister of the Crown at a memorial service.
But not if you’re prominent professional with a fragile state of mind.
or a “prominent new zealander”…
special peeps
The court accepts a prominent professional with a fragile state of mind and convicted criminal deserves name suppression because he has no offending against any individuals within the New Zealand community and allows him to characterise his offending as paraphilia.
Doesn’t a sad sorry sack of shit like Howland deserve the same treatment?.
So you agree, Howland is a paedophile with a criminal record.
Has he been convicted for offences against children?.
.
Jesus, are you really going there? Have you no shame?
Escalation. A bit like this pyramid of violence?
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10101566814489992&set=a.553686228192.2122674.199104866&type=3&theater
I happened to be in Parliament in the Gallery late last year when three protesters threw a bag of pamphlets over the side of the gallery all over the government benches. The only upshot that I can predict is that there will be a glass wall fronting the visitors’ galleries, large, very physical ushers, and increased security screening measures to detect non-metal objects of protest, or worse.
One thing is for sure. People are getting angrier and more frustrated with this government.
One thing is for sure. People are getting angrier and more frustrated with this government.
Which means we can expect an increase in security around MPs
PR, the pity is, though, that MPs are not making enough moves to alleviate the concerns of these angrier and more frustrated citizens.
A citizenry generally contented with its MPs would act differently.
Inequality is growing. Our society is becoming polarised again. Political polls indicate a high level support for the government at 47%.
It also indicates an opposition of about the same level, representing some very discontented people. A million did not vote last election. Did they stay away because of contentment, or disenchantment.
Angry, frustrated, sick, desperate people don’t make for a harmonious society, and our MPs who need protection are being shielded from this reality, and either are in denial, don’t care, or think that it is acceptable.
Well, well with 28 Police Station closed since 2009 and two more scheduled to be closed soon, there is a surplus of Cops in need of work. 🙂
They can all be security guards (private company of course) to the guys that got them unemployed 🙂
Feeling safer yet?
Party politics and protectionism funded by Natcorps corporate buddies is the problem
How do you institute wartime powers when there is no war and don’t give me that looting crap and all the other BS reasons given by the govt if there’s one of those right wing justifiers out there
Really this is Natcorp screwing democracy and nothing more and protecting the US govt and the multinational interests and we haven’t even made TPPA law yet It appears to be working well without all that legal shit to answer to the voters or the sovereignty issues or Canterburys right to control there own problems
How is Brownlee profiting from the delay?
They didn’t have an RMA either.
Basically they had two dictators who had no real constraint on what they could do.
There was very little red tape at that time and no legal challenges to anything they decided.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/4811992/What-Napier-can-teach-Christchurch-about-earthquake-recovery
That puts it all into perspective doesn’t it
and a population of 18,000 people, versus 370,000 in Christchurch. It’s basic lunacy to compare the rebuild of Napier with Christchurch.
Utter bullshit – Dictator Brownlee didn’t have to abide by any of that
Yeah well said and thanks for the reminder about how real work was done
Hah! Inside job…!!! 🙂
I’m liking unmarried women drove turnout in practically every demographic.
http://nymag.com/thecut/2016/02/political-power-single-women-c-v-r.html
reproductive rights.
that is what a lot of women compels to vote democratic rather then republican.
A women without reproductive rights, access to birth control and abortion, without access to gender specific health care (prenatal care is just one of these gender specific health care programme) is not in control of her life, unless she lives abstinence only or has a partner who is happy to control his fertility instead.
And in the states, reproductive rights for women are nothing to be taken granted.
The Times They are a-Changing
http://normanfinkelstein.com/2016/02/20/the-times-they-are-a-changing-2/
Survey of young American voters by Republican pollster, Frank Luntz, finds:
Most compassionate system
Socialism 58%
Capitalism 33%
Corporate America embodies …
Everything Wrong with US 66%
Everything Right with US 34%
Presidential Election
Sanders 45%
Clinton 19%
Trump 10%
(all others sub-10%)
Broad Political Alignment
Democrats 44%
Independents 42%
Republicans 15%
“Make no mistake”, Luntz said in a memo to reporters, “This is the stuff of serious sea change for America”
Similar generational divide in UK over Corbyn and Labour.
That is to be expected. You say “young” voters.
Have you not heard the old quote which goes
“If you are not a Liberal at 25, you have no heart. If you are not a Conservative at 35 you have no brain”.
You, like the gentleman you are quoting, are probably dreaming if you think it will persist. After all, look at what happened to the 60’s generation.
Yep, … heard it … read it … kicked it to the curb.
This remarkably amusing little Right-friendly bon mot has emanated over the last couple of centuries from various Tories, crypto-Tories, debauched decadent dandies, devious dilettantes and sundry Swedish Royalty (King Oscar II for one).
They were talking of and to the wealthy elite – upper class youthful revolt (usually as much about wresting power from older elites than anything truly progressive/egalitarian/altruistic) followed by a rapid return to mater and pater’s staunch Conservatism by the age of 30 and a slap-up meal at Mrs Miggins’ Pie Shop.
You do realise that the bloke I’m quoting is the Republican Party pollster – not the sort usually associated with dreamy flower power idealism I’d suggest.
Wonder what the Police could do with the 26 million spend on the Flag referendum. ?
One could aks Mrs. Judith Collins, MP National Party, who holds the Police Portfolio in the National led Government.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/67617030/police-shut-30-stations-in-effort-to-combat-budget-cuts
Budget cuts, so that Mr. Awesome Finance Man Double Dipper from Dipton Mr. English can enlarge or embiggen the surplus. Or maybe he is just aiming to privatise our Police Force, like state housing and hospital meals. 🙂
National Party, no money for public safety, but plenty for Dish Rags with the wrong colour.
Quote: “Thirty police stations have closed to the public as police struggle to balance the books.
The force has quietly been reviewing its 400 “public facing” properties – which includes stations and community policing centres – as a Budget freeze continues to bite. And with resources thinly-stretched, response times to 111 calls are rising.
Since 2009, the shutters have come down in 28 stations and another two are to be closed, which means the public must go elsewhere to report crime.” Quote End
God Help !!!
the alarming facts of one section of mismanagement by this govt
Maybe the incidents of assault on the Natcorp ministers should sink in that people are getting sick of the PR BS
National: Tough on crime – as long as doing so is cheap and doesn’t cut in to anticipated tax cuts for the rich.
“Wonder what the Police could do with the 26 million …”.
You are going to join the back of a very, very long queue. I must have seen at least 20 variations of that plaintive cry. Everyone appears to forget that there is only one lot of money and it couldn’t have been spent 20 or more times.
The above post reminded me of something,
whenever a budget surplus is mentioned in the media,
Labour needs to ensure the media also includes the government borrowing and national debt.
There needs to be public education on New Zealand’s level of debt,
Labour needs to explain that a budget is arbitrary and any surplus is bullshit until you actual stop borrowing.
QFT
The govt in NZ can run a budget deficit indefinitely. This follows from the one and only institution able to create NZ $ being effectively a govt department (the RBNZ accounts are consolidated into the govt accounts). The only consideration is the economic consequences of running a budget deficit on unemployment, growth, inequality and inflation.
The opposition should explain this to the public while focusing on the actual consequences of the govt actions on the economy.
sorry only just saw this reply,
http://www.budget.govt.nz/budget/pdfs/pit/pit-ch6.pdf
Treasury and the NZDMO do not lend directly to the government,
all borrowing is via issuing securities, bond etc.
Borrowing.
If the mechanism for currency expansion (based on GDP) was to introduce currency via financing government services that would be wonderful.
Then government debt would be directly tied to GDP and a balanced budget would be guarantied.
Alas new money printed is lent to banks at OCR -official cash rate
government borrows money from the selling of securities just above OCR
(transactions managed by the independent NZDMO, who also manage government accounts)
treasury issues new currency but only to non government entities, government borrows money from those same entities, remember the issued currency is required to circulate, the life blood of the economy,
once you understand the convoluted way it has been setup you’ll begin to see behind the curtain.
The big question about govt spending is can parliament instruct its central bank. In being able to do so its always possible to setup transactions where the central bank is lending as required for the govt to spend. In NZ i believe the RBNZ legislation already allows for this anyway. As long as this is feasible the deficit or govt debt becomes a non issue and parliament can spend as desired.
A system where the govt spends new currency directly will however behave in a similar way to the present day settlement system. The reason for this is when new currency is spent it becomes reserves for NZ banks to use as settlement. When a surplus of reserves is in the banking system then the inter bank rate can fall below the official cash rate as banks lend reserves to each other at a discount to the OCR. So the reserve bank or treasury need to borrow the surplus spending to keep the central bank in control. This has the same result as if the govt borrows first and then spends ultimately.
Cheers the astounding facts about how real accounting works not the PR BS show called the budget
Gareth Hughes said it in plain terms that even a problem gambler would grasp to his road to recovery
120 BILLION IN DEBT no ifs buts or maybes
Very true words from a UK Labor MP penned after a visit to Auschwitz and easy to see the same thing happening in NZ. (1st time I’ve submitted a partial article with link, apologies if I’ve included too much of the article)
‘Some people matter and some people don’t.
“The Selection” process is writ large at the memorial. A single decision made in seconds determined if you would turn left for hard labour or right for imminent death. It took years of drip drip drip feeding to convince nations of people to turn away and ignore the horror. Jewish people didn’t lose their identity as humans overnight. The people who turned away and did nothing, didn’t lose their sense of justice in a heartbeat or at the simple say so of a foolishly moustached maniac. Drip drip drip… whisper it quietly… some people matter some people don’t. Drip drip drip… they are getting something you can’t have. Drip drip drip they don’t like you, they think they are better than you… drip, drip, drip. They, they, they, us, us, us.
Working with victims of domestic violence and sexual exploitation, you learn pretty quick how grooming a person to your way of thinking is the most dangerous weapon, mankind possesses.
At Auschwitz we light a candle, we remember, this is past, this is in novels, films history books. This isn’t us anymore. Isn’t it? Everyday we receive our daily intravenous drip, of who matters and who doesn’t and recently someone increased the dosage.
Now a new row has broken out at Oxford University, where I’m ashamed to say that some in the Labour Party society appear to be tolerating the intolerable. Everyday we hear stories of otherness, Islamophobia and antisemitism, in full swing. People pitched one against the other, taxpayers pitched against benefit claimants, women against men. Refugees versus migrants. Everyday we receive our dose of “us” versus “them”. Drip, drip, drip.
For many the Holocaust is best summed up in numbers. Six million Jews murdered. Still today it’s all a numbers game. Hundreds of thousands of people washed up on beaches, fleeing for their lives. Thousands of women, raped and murdered all around the world. So many x thousands living on some benefit or other, while y thousands of people go out to work. There is safety in numbers, we can be shocked by all the big numbers and then go back to watching the Bake Off. In every number is a person just like you. While we can keep seeing people as “them” we have learned nothing from a gruesome past.’
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/jess-phillips/lets-stop-drip-drip-drip-of-otherness_b_9274840.html?utm_hp_ref=uk
+1
In bed with the media.
(Scroll down – 21:25 Found Objects: are Joe & Mika tilted toward Trump?)
http://harryshearer.com/le-shows/february-21-2016/
Your car broke down, and you are forced to push the car outf the way of traffic. Do you stop at the red amd lose all the momentum or push through when there is no traffic.
Yes, another day another reporter manufacturing hate speach against pedestrians on bikes. No, bike riders do not have to obey the road rules, any more than pedestrians.
Motorized vehicles obey the road rules, as cyclists cannot get to forty kms an hour duh, they are incapable of safety obey road rules in the second lane of a 100kmh dual carriageway. Road rules dont need the complication of regulating pedestrians, skate borders, moterized wheel chairs, etc, all of whuch could not reach seventy kmh.
So please stop the hate. Only motor vehicles obey road rules to regulate them.
Oh, and i see cars driving on foot paths (late night 2am paper deliever), i see car driver breaking road rules when its safe to do so and necessary i.e accidents. So whose the prig journalist making new laws up.
When a person can get off their bike and safely push their bike through a red light, i have no problem with a cyclists riding through one. Safely, since cyclists have much greater view. Now sure there are always idiots who ride like idiots and thats called jay walking, and should be covered under some nuisance law, as the idiot cyclist who cycles unsafely past a red and into hospital will always be punnished more than the state ever could. So near scrapes should be hauled before courts. But safe cyclling is just like a broke down car, momentum saving.
I’m really puzzled with what’s happening to some pages on this site for me, Lprent.
Yesterday I couldn’t open the General Lord Dannatt: UK should work with Assad in Syria page, and I reported that in Open Mike 22/02/16. (Much later on it did open ok.)
Pages showing a red flag icon (instead of the grey square one) in the chrome tab, but just not opening, has been an intermittent problem for me for a couple of months now. Most often it’s been Open Mike pages that don’t open for some reason.
I think at least one other person reported similar problems in a reply. You were going to look into it, and suggested it might perhaps have been a problem with my ISP’s (Spark) caching? I don’t have this problem on any other forums or websites.
Anywaaaay…I just went to the Open Mike 22/06/16 page to see if there was any update. But I can’t find out cos that page won’t bloody open for me today 🙂 . (You suggested I try shift+f5, or shift+refresh if it happened again, but no joy.)
I also couldn’t open today’s Open Mike about two hours ago, but I can now?? I’m using Win 7 & Chrome Version 48.0.2564.116 m, but firefox and IE have the same problem.
I dunno whether I’ll be able to open this page later to check for any reply but I’ll try.
Update: Now, suddenly, yesterday’s Open Mike page is opening!!
William yesterday provided more info on the some problem he’s been having on various different machines. Don’t know it this helps isolate what my problem is?
http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-22022016/#comment-1137481
I’m using a Compaq Presario CQ61 32 bit OS.
May need to clear the browsers cache through settings.
I have been experiencing this too for a number of weeks now. It is sporadic but quite inconvenient nevertheless.
“McCully not contesting East Coast Bays seat….Quite when that will be, and whether I seek election as a List Member of Parliament in 2017, are decisions for the Prime Minister in the first instance.”
Make way for a Conservative candidate?
Thieving employers should be prosectuted
And as if that is not enough!
It seems to me that employers need to be licensed in order to be allowed to hire staff. If they cannot follow the rules for the fair employment of people, or if they rob or steal from them, then they should be subject to the full force of the law – as they would expect if the employees stole from them!
Furthermore some of these employers are repeat offenders, and have continuously shown that they cannot be trusted to treat employees fairly. In such cases they should never be given the responsibility of being allowed to hire people again and their license should be withdrawn.
I hold that if a business breaks the law consistently then it needs to be nationalised and all the debts held to the previous owners.
And, yes, licensing of the managers and business owners would probably help as well.
Going Interstellar
The full version is here.
Seen this?
http://m.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11593820
Chris Darby has become the latest councillor to have second thoughts about dramatic housing density plans in Auckland suburbs.
The North Shore councillor told the Herald he was “undecided” and that natural justice and opportunity for public participation by those affected were key issues for him.
Mr Darby and Whau councillor, Ross Clow, have indicated in the past 24 hours that they could vote with 11 councillors who want to dump a proposal to rezone thousands of homes for more intensive housing without consulting affected property owners.
……….
_______________________________
FYI – don’t know about any of the other 2016 Auckland Mayoral candidates, but I have been given speaking rights at the Special Governing Body meeting to be held on the Auckland Council’s Unitary Plan Committee above-mentioned ‘out of scope’ changes to the Proposed Auckland Unitary Plan.
Wednesday 24 February 2016
2pm
Auckland Town Hall.
Penny Bright
Another angle on tomrrow’s special meeting about the future shape of Auckland:
http://www.metromag.co.nz/city-life/simon-wilsons-auckland/an-open-letter-to-the-auckland-council/
and a really clear explanation of the whole messy Ak Unitary Plan process so far by Metro’s Simon Wilson: http://www.metromag.co.nz/current-affairs/revolt-of-the-nimbys/
The councillor in charge of the process thinks it will turn to custard tomorrow – and she is astute: https://twitter.com/PennyHulseWest/status/702051964675162113
“Councillors plan to remove council submissions from UnitaryPanel hearings on zonings. Good move guys, leave it to Govt to rezone. # owngoal”
Major stouch in Democrat land. Mainstream economic models appear to favour the Sanders proposals over the Clinton proposals.
http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2016/02/krugman-gang-4-need-apologize-smearing-gerald-friedman.html
If big Republican donors support Hillary Clinton – should ‘everyday’ Americans?
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-02-22/hillary-clinton-backed-major-republican-donors
Authored by Eric Zuesse,
An analysis of Federal Election Commission records, by TIME, which was published on 23 October 2015, showed that the 2012 donors to Romney’s campaign were already donating more to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign than they had been donating to any one of the 2016 campaigns of (listed here in declining order below Clinton) Lindsey Graham, Rand Paul, Carly Fiorina, Chris Christie, Rick Perry, Mike Huckabee, Donald Trump, Bobby Jindal, Rick Santorum, George Pataki, or Jim Gilmore.
Those major Romney donors also gave a little to two Democrats (other than to Hillary — who, as mentioned, received a lot of donations from these Republican donors): Martin O’Malley, Jim Web, and Lawrence Lessig.
(Romney’s donors gave nothing to Bernie Sanders, and nothing to Elizabeth Warren. They don’t want either of those people to become President.)
Clinton is the only Democratic candidate who is even moderately attractive to big Republican donors.
…….
_______________________________
Penny Bright
2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate.
better the devil you know it would appear , Clinton, than one that is a socialist speaking to get accountability by the financiers -the new untouchables that never have to pay the billions they have swindled out of ordinary believers in the value of what they’ve worked for
NZ 1984 16 BILLION IN DEBT 2016 120 BILLION
Same here as in the states
“Natcorp pullin the wool since 1936”