Yes about time the opposition warned the buyers as to expectations and buy back at their purchase price, our state housing stock is far too low for a developed nation for this transfer to occur.
The creep of councils flogging public housing is off the radar on this issue.
Labour and every other left party needs to come out and say that they will be rebuilding social housing stock levels. They also need to put in place a law that prevents sales of state assets.
They need to make it clear to the National Party’s owners that Parliament will not be bound by bribes, and that every single time they buy legislation that socialises losses or privatises profits they will lose their shirts.
Assets will be repatriated and there will be no compensation.
There is no alternative.
Then this group report says it takes a pro-market rather than a free-market tack! And refers to the Rachman scandal (1960’s) which will be important to note when thinking about the downward path that the present UNACT NZ government is following. http://www.smf.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Publication-The-Politics-of-Housing.pdfThe affordability problem dominates England’s housing market: an … total annual completions since the 1970s, and the private sector alone has not built this level …. provided by housing associations which are heavily dependent on benefit ….. exploitation of unscrupulous landlords – epitomised by the Rachman scandal.37.
Very disappointed Phil Twyford as Labours Transport spokesperson was missing in action. You would think Labour (Phil) would back up Peters who is championing this issue, a lost opportunity to get some runs on the board over the importance of stopping further RMA changes by National.
Yes as was wannabe Mayor Phil Goff, however Twyford is transport is he not. The Northland Line and the rail link to Marsden Point is something Labour need to keep the acid right on National, rail does not fit where their roading plans and they are quietly under funding rail to the point where they can close the line.
The other thing is creating a bit of solidarity with NZF/Peters who is doing all the heavry lifting on the issue. Therefore a bit of action from Twyford is not too much
too ask surely.
I think you’re putting the cart before the horse Skinny. It seems to me Sunday’s protest was less about politics and all about a gut reaction from Aucklanders to what they see as a threat to their harbour. For Labour to have rolled out Twyford with a baldfaced political attack on the government and their transport policies would have been a mistake. It’s enough at the moment for Labour to be lining up alongside the views of Aucklanders (National will be trying to do this too of course). The politics can come later.
Aucklanders fighting the council over the loss of their harbour is 100% political. It is a perfect opportunity for Twyford to mention Marsden Point and rail as a solution to the problem. To not do so is dereliction of duty.
Is it churlish to suspect that this harbour protest will get an excellent level of media coverage, on the score that $40,000,000 worth of motor/sail vessels turned out……and yeah, quite alot of people ?
For the avoidance of doubt I am with the people and I thank the vessels.
Mike the Peg, with his extra leg … a Northland children’s delight. I think Osborne is lying anyway. Standing behind NAct ministers doesn’t wear the shoe leather much at all.
The claim from Osborne that he has worn out one and a half pairs of shoes is a preposterous claim.
Those roads of Northland must really be atrocious!
His candidacy was announced on 1st March. So, in about 20 days, he has worn out 1.5 pairs. i.e, 3 shoes! At this unbelievable rate, by election day this coming Saturday, he would have worn out about 2.5 pairs=5 shoes!…in just 30 days! The shoe companies would be thrilled and won’t believe their luck!
But somehow I think Osborne has been a bullshitter about the shoes and quite untrustworthy.
Having a rather weird sense of humour, I have been wondering why he only seems to have two casual shirts – both blue checks although slightly different.
Osborne’s political hero – JOHN KEY ! That’s right……Mr “Anything Is Possible” according to Osborne.
Osborne a sincere, fearless representative of the people of Northland ? Up against the dons Key and Joyce ? No. This is not an “anything”. Can you see Steven Joyce if Osborne wins ? – “Listen boy…….we turned you from Mr Laughing-Stock to Mr Limp-In so get outa my office. And in future……breath through your nose !”
Good God. Northlanders roped into “ShonKey Python’s Flying-Jerk-Us”. Expect a breach of copyright claim additional to Eminem’s.
…and further notes on the tabloid Herald’s bias, the collapse of the government’s social housing policy is (online) listed below articles on Netflix’s charges, McCaw’s girlfriend and a bloke hassling drivers outside a school.
Winston just has to win — apart from obvious reason, but how unbearable will be the increased boasting and OTT arrogance of Key and Joyce in self congratulation … ugh.
The really funny thing to happen would be if Peters were to win the seat in the by-election.
He then resigns his list seat to get another NZF MP into the house.
There is an electoral petition which Winston loses.
He is out of the house until at least 2017.
And no, it wouldn’t help to have another NZF MP being coerced into resigning to open up another vacancy. Winston would not be eligible to take it.
Actually, I think that if Winston was to win in the by-election, and I don’t think it will happen, he won’t resign his list seat. He wouldn’t even consider allowing the above scenario to occur. He doesn’t really give a damn about his party or about Parliament. His sole interest is Winston the 1st.
I think you misunderstand the process.
A recount, if called for, takes place before the final result is declared. This would be the confirmed result. It appears that Winston would have to have resigned his list seat prior to this happening if he was going to be replaced on the list.
An electoral petition is a later thing and normally takes place after the new MP has taken their seat in Parliament. This is what happened when Winston got into Parliament way back in the dark ages. He came out on the right side of an electoral petition against Malcolm Douglas who had won the seat.
So no, although it is not very likely it could happen if Winston hopes to be replaced by another NZF list MP.
Hate to say it, but to a degree Alwyn is possibly correct – but the scenario he paints is highly unlikely but not impossible.
The situation re resignation etc to get in another NZF member is apparently not set in stone in the electoral rules. The Electoral Commission have a view as to what the procedures should be; as do other electoral law experts such as Graeme Edgeler. Don’t have time to find links, but there was considerable Twitter discussion (Edgeler and others) a few weeks ago when Winston Peters first declared he would run in Northland.
National have been pushing the line a win for Winston would benefit Southland with another seat as the next person on the NZF is an Invercargill hairdresser, Ria Bond.
But according to the Herald article by Claire Trevett on Saturday, Ria Bond is no longer living in Invercargill but has bee in Wellington working for NZF since August 2014.
Thank you.
You’ll note that I never said it was likely. I only said it would be funny if it should happen.
I’m sure that Winston would find it equally hilarious.
ScottGN, a little bit further down. quotes an opinion from Pundit about ACT possibly taking up an Electoral Petition on the grounds that Winston winning would disturb the proportionality of the house. Like Pundit, I don’t think he has any grounds at all.
Somebody living in the electorate, or a losing candidate in the by-election could however bring one on the grounds, (and this is hypothetical), that Winston had spent more than he is legally allowed to on his campaign, or something of that ilk.
Hilarious would be if Osborne won and had to resign to deal with the same type of family problems as Sabin. A vote for Winnie is a vote for a guy with no secrets, we know he’ll stay on.
But according to the Herald article by Claire Trevett on Saturday, Ria Bond is no longer living in Invercargill but has bee in Wellington working for NZF since August 2014.
And the National Party would know that very well as their staffers would see Ria frequently…
Exactly! The Parliamentary Precinct is a rather small place in reality, where people working there or visiting frequently (eg government officials) know one another and who they are.
Jon Reeves is the most likely person the come through on the NZF list. Very solid chap promoting public transport, be good to add the term silver/green voter.
Reeves may be a solid chap etc, but he is at No 15 on the NZF list.
Ria Bond is at No12, and even if she decided not to come in as a list MP, there is Mataroa Paroro at No 13 (who seems keen according to the Herald article) and Romuald Rudzki at No 14, before Reeves.
Reeves has been very good with NZF’s transport policy. He may leap frog the others since Peters is advocating a port & rail strategy in Northland. He goes alright with media and public speaking too. I maybe a little bias he is a mate.
The rules relating to the filling of a list MP position do not allow leap-frogging – in principle anyway.
The party concerned does not get to pick and choose who they put in the position. The Electoral Commission goes to each person on that Party’s list as set prior to the last General Election in the sequence set in the list and asks them if they want to take up the vacancy. As I noted, there are three people ahead of Reeves – one of whom has apparently expressed interest according to the Herald article.
I can’t see much boasting in the event National holds on to what was a very safe seat with a narrow win. I imagine they’ll just be relieved to have avoided disaster and will be happy to move forward with their numbers restored in the parliament.
Yeah……I’m taking the precaution of travelling to Auckland Friday afternoon……having early voted for the only man in New Zealand right now who can prick the fetid-air balloon of the supreme heister of this entire nation, bar none. Whatever the outcome I need to be in the company of my closest.
If Peters wins it is decidedly the start of the end of TheGodKey. Even if not…..still it is underway. Increasingly we have an entilted little PonceKey in our faces. It will not go beyond 2017. Indeed my appreciation is that significantly before 2017, seeing the writing on the wall, and rather than take electoral defeat, this gutless, narcissistic one will take his baubles, his honorofic, unblind his trusts, and slide off somewhere else.
Wasn’t there some “New Zealander” of some importance (apparently) meant to be having their name suppression lifted around about now, and aren’t the eyes of speculation glancing in the direction of a certain former……………..
If it is to do with Mike Sabin and it all comes out after the by-election instead of before then it will go down very very badly with the electorate…..
…. simply reinforces the lack of honesty and integrity associated with John Key
BG – I am going to be a pedant and say that :having had a request for name suppression refused” does not seem to be the actual situation from the little we know.
Name suppression appears to have been in place prior to 30 January, when a total suppression order was put on by the judge on all details of the case – including the actual location of the court! Then in mid-February some details of the case were released; and the defendant was given four weeks to appeal a lifting of name suppression on 19 March.
As I understand it, this procedure is not the same legally as having had a request for name suppression refused.
I find it hard to imagine that the thing in question would not have asked for a continuation of suppression in February. If they hadn’t, it would have just lapsed and we would have seen it all over the tv. Hence a request was refused, but time was given to appeal the decision. This time has been abused as badly as the innocent children involved.
I don’t necessarily disagree, MR. But we do not know whether that was the case/ But being a pendant, I could not allow a bald statement that name suppression had been refused to go – when we do not know that that was actually the case.
I actually think that the procedures followed by the judge/court which are apparently in accordance with the law is actually in the best interests of justice in the longer term – by not allowing this to be used as a technicality to close the case down.
The by election is therefore a fraud, details surrounding the reasons why it is being called should be made public. Non disclosure has corrupted democracy, I have no doubts that people who have or are going to vote in the Northland electorate will not have/will vote/d for National.
Not when we are hearing of people already casting a vote for Osbourne and then hearing the reason Sabin resigned and the fact Osbourne was a key member of the National Northland electorate executive team. Tarred by association as they say. I am referring to some elderly church folk. People have the right to know the truth surrounding the murky resignation and cast their vote making an informed decision, especially when the timeline of who knew what is being disputed so widely in the media and so publicly.
Another thing insulting is Osbourne claiming he still knows nothing, which then becomes a matter of trust. If he came out and admitted he has heard the rumour’s but doesn’t operate on rumours, instead of blatantly saying ” he still doesn’t know anything regarding Sabin’s resignation”.
So this guy professes to have his finger on the pulse of Northland and is totally blind to what is going on right under his nose. Incredibly insulting to the electorate there are no other words for it.
Yeah – Skinny is right, James. And if the Nats don’t win, then Shon Key’s stuff-up in not replacing Sabin with a proper candidate in the 2014 election will be humiliating for them. Maybe a Winston win will be the end of the Key government ? ? ? hopefully ……
There was no court order in place either before the last election, or even maybe the 2011 election, or on the morning when Sabin resigned. Key has had plenty of chances to be honest with us. He has never taken a single one.
“Another thing insulting is Osbourne claiming he still knows nothing, which then becomes a matter of trust”
Both Key and Osborne have claimed that they knew nothing about Sabin’s stuff at all!
If you believe that, I think there are lots and lots of three way bridges in Northland which this government is happily giving away for voters to take away on Trade-me with absolutely No Reserve!
A couple of weeks ago I linked to a news article which described how the death rate for white women in the USA was exploding because of the use of prescribed pharmaceutical drugs. We are talking around a million excess White female deaths in the last few years and climbing. Such an upward shift in mortality is seen by experts as “historic.”
Now here is research which shows that White lower educated women in the USA are experiencing a massive explosion in out of wedlock births. (While Black university educated womens’ out of wedlock birth figures fall dramatically). In other words, while upper class women enjoy traditional family structures more than ever, lower class women are getting smashed with increased family instability and poorer outcomes.
Among the educated elite the traditional family is thriving: fewer than 10% of births to female college graduates are outside marriage—a figure that is barely higher than it was in 1970…However the non-marital birth proportion among high-school-educated whites has quadrupled, to 50%, and the same figure for college-educated blacks has fallen by a third, to 25%. Thus the class divide is growing even as the racial gap is shrinking.
Apparently there was such a thing as the “First Seige” of Sevastapol and over a 120,000 Russians died there defending Crimea from the West and Turkey. I’d only known about the “Second Siege” where the defenders of Sevastapol were eventually ground into dust by the Wehrmacht.
There was a whole war going on at the time. If you’ve ever heard references to Florence Nightingale, or the Charge of the Light Brigade – “Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die: Into the valley of Death, Rode the six hundred” – they’re references to that war.
There have probably been more than two over the years, but the other famous one was of course during the Crimean War, which gave us poetry about senseless death, a lady with a lamp, cardigans, and maybe even sandwiches. The senseless death of British cavalrymen was blamed on inferior Turkish infantry rather than English upper class imbecility and the Victoria Cross came into being for excessive zeal in the killing of wogs. Willie Apiata got one for the same thing not long ago and the English lies about Turkish infantry saw our young men die stupidly on the cliffs of Gallipoli. Key will be going this year to show he has guts. It was not gutlessness that made him keep Sabin on, not at all.
Yemen falls into sectarian chaos as yet another US project loses the plot in the ME
The Americans have been conducting regular drone strilkes in Yemen since 2002 in support of the US friendly government there.
Since the fall of that government, hundreds of millions of dollars of modern American made military equipment has now gone to new unapproved owners. ISIS and Al Qaeda recruitment is surging.
US diplomats and US troops have abandoned Yemen as the security situation has gone down the toilet over the last couple of years.
Another great Middle East project “Made in the USA.”
http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player/20171978
Beverley Forrester – Vocal champion of Wool ( 30′ 41″ )
10:06 Beverley Forrester is a farmer, sheep breeder, fashion designer, yarn manufacturer, tourism operator and a vocal champion of wool. She says a generation of consumers have been bombarded with cheap, mass produced, synthetic alternatives, but she believes there’s a resurgence in demand for the living fibre, and for knitting, which she describes as “the new yoga”. After the sudden death of her farmer husband Jim Forrester just before his 54th birthday, Beverley found herself running their Hurunui farm and sheep stud. She’s developed a successful brand of natural coloured, undyed yarns, which are now sold internationally, as well as her own fashion label. Beverley Forrester talks with Kathryn Ryan about her love of what she believes is New Zealand’s best primary product.
Wools one of the best products in the world: renewable , fire proof , biodegadible any self respecting greeny wouldn’t be caught dead in poly prop clothing or on a synthetic carpet.!!
hi b waghorn, i couldnt agree more, i have been a vocal enthusiast (?) for wool for many a year.
go to the local saleyards in feilding and you would be lucky to get 10% of sheep farmers wearing their own product. most of them are wandering round in recycled milk bottles.
makes me blood boil.
I have noticed that plenty myself. I think the problems is lack of r’n d around making wool products that can compete with plastic clothes . but our government s aren’t big on backing there own.
mmm.. yes, and primary producers not putting their money where their mouth is.
i read on stephanies blog (boots theory) about the rich man who bought expensive shoes while the poorer man bought cheap shoes.
in the lifetime of the better quality footwear the poor man had spent twice as much on his shoes.
while r n d is part of it, the whole economy around wool is screwed up. when it costs the farmer more to remove the wool from the sheep than what the wool is worth, something is rotten.
i was talking to a farmer who says back in the ’50s he was getting a pound for a pound of wool.
The Korean war caused the great wool boom in 1950-51.
And most farmers will tell you there’s no money in wool but the wool clip on the property I work on pays our fertilizer bill which is in the 150k range.
to me wool is a panacea for our times, it grows on less than ideal land, labour intensive to harvest and process (jobs), and as you have mentioned earlier, heaps of uses, clothing, insulation, mulch/fertilizer…
the foxton feltex factory is closed. with a simple stroke of a legislators pen, making wool carpets mandatory in state housing and government offices, it can be reopend and we reinvest in a kiwi town and kiwi resources, win win.
A majority of Auckland councillors are now opposed or want a rethink on port expansion.
The majority was achieved this afternoon when councillor Denise Krum joined councillors Cameron Brewer and Sharon Stewart in calling for the issue to be re-examined.
Auckland’s mayor, Len Brown, who does not want to stop Ports of Auckland plans to build two massive wharf extensions next month, is now in the minority.
………………………………..
A core of eight councillors – Chris Darby, Cathy Casey, Ross Clow, Chris Fletcher, Mike Lee, Wayne Walker, John Walker and George Wood – directly oppose the port expansion into the Waitemata Harbour.
Mr Brown has ignored the message from yesterday’s protest of about 2000 people and 300 boats in the city who want an immediate stop to the extensions to Bledisloe Wharf.
However, he said today he would set up a study of the economic, social and environmental impact of the port on wider Auckland, which he promised in August 2013.
Ms Krum said she was unclear about the council’s position on the wharf extensions and whether legally the council can get back into the trenches on planning provisions for the port precinct in the Unitary Plan.
She said things had changed over the past three weeks and the council would be negligent to bury its head in the sand.
“We need some leadership with this issue. There is no singular leadership driven, ‘let’s take councillors on a journey here’. Let’s have all the information,” she said.
“I’m also really quite miffed. I have heard nothing from the ports themselves. As someone who wants to back their business because I see the contribution they need to make to Auckland. As a shareholder, where are they in this foray?”
The Ports of Auckland board is meeting today but it is unclear if the the board, chaired by Graeme Hawkins, will make a public statement in response to the public outcry over the plans.
Mr Brewer has today written to Mr Brown asking him to convene a meeting of the governing body to reconsider the council’s position on reclamation rules in the Unitary Plan for mediation.
In August 2013, the council voted for tough “non-complying” rules for reclamation in the Unitary Plan, but twice in the past five weeks it has voted to ease these rules to “discretionary” status requiring public notification.
The council has argued it has not voted for more lenient rules on reclamation, saying the new “discretionary” status and other regulations are tougher than the current rules in the regional coastal plan.
“I have yet to change my vote,” Mr Brewer says in the letter. “But like others, I am calling for these matters to be formally revisited by the governing body in a calm and collected way with all the information new and old presented without fear of favour.
“Given the significant level of public interest, we at least owe that to Aucklanders.”
Earlier today, Mr Brewer reversed his support for the expansion, saying he now wanted a rethink on the issue.
“I invite the mayor to bring this back to the council table and give this another go,” he told the Herald.
The Orakei councillor took part in a secret vote last month on the side of Mr Brown and his deputy Penny Hulse to ease the August 2013 rules for port expansion.
“I thought I was doing the right thing by supporting tightening the old reclamation rules that were in existence from 1987 to 2013, but it’s clear that’s still not going far enough to appease the Auckland community.
“If Aucklanders want no reclamation whatsoever, then lets at least have the debate again with the public sentiment now clearly known.
“It is massive public sentiment. Len Brown needs to look it again,” Mr Brewer said.
______________________________________________________________________________________
The actual article in the Herald had an invite to email them your views on the subject. I sent the following :-
I am totally opposed to any extensions until a full and independent assessment is completed with full and open discussion.
The arrogant attitude by those involved directly in the Ports of Auckland has happened because of the way the governance of this vital infrastructure was set up by the Key Government through their delegated front man , Rodney Hide, who threw out a carefully considered scheme for Auckland City prepared over several years by three knowledgable and experienced Commissioners and replaced it with his hastily prepared alternative devised in about 6 months.
Largely ignored by the citizens of Auckland was the dispute between Ports Of Auckland (POA) and the Maritime Union which has recently been settled after several years of negotiation. The Mayor & the Council that is the elected Councillors refused to get involved in that problem because they were effectively 3 times removed from the POA because of the way that the lines of authority had been set up when the Auckland City plan was devised..
The Mayor of Auckland and the Auckland City Councillors were Democratically elected by the citizens of Auckland to manage the affairs of the City, all the other people in the chains of command of POA including the CEO of POA ( and there are quite a few) are appointed, not elected.
The elected representatives of the citizens of Auckland need to manage this matter effectively NOW or resign and let us elect some new faces who are prepared to sort out this problem.
In the meantime there needs to be an embargo on any expansion whatsoever in my opinion
Well said, John Shears. Hope it gets read, and considered.
And the really stupid part about all of this is that Whangarei – Marsden Point – has the best deep water harbour in NZ, is little used, because both Auckland and Tauranga Ports have not only competing interests in Marsden Port, but their own interests which keeps their ports operating and Marsden lingering at the edges …….. Auckland Port needs to revise their thinking, and make use of Marsden for the bigger vessels coming – instead of trying to squeeze them into what has become a relatively narrow Waitemata harbour and Hauraki Gulf.
Press Release Sue Henry Spokesperson for the Housing Lobby:
“Stop the privatisation of State Housing!”
“The wheels are finally falling off the Government’s scheme to use charity and Iwi groups as a trojan horse to privatise the $18 billion worth of State Housing assets,” says Sue Henry, Spokesperson for the Housing Lobby:
“If it was ‘untenable’ for the Salvation Army to use existing State Housing stock for the failed ‘social housing’ experiment, other NGOs and consortiums will never have the capacity as providers, unless they are bankrolled by foreign property development companies, for speculative gain, which still equates to privatisation.”
“The public were told prior to the 2014 election there would be no further asset sales.”
“There is no electoral mandate for the privatisation of State Housing.”
“The Housing Lobby are calling on the Government to scrap the charity housing model and repeal the 2013 Social Housing, Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters Act.”
“Housing New Zealand must be reinstated as the ‘one stop shop’ State Housing provider, under the ‘public service’ model,” Sue Henry concluded.
The war on workers continues – an Aussie compnay in auckland wants to remove tea breaks from an industrial site. This is why we need tea breaks abd corporate homicide charges. Forklifts and fatigue don’t mix in a happy way.
“The Prime Minister reassured New Zealanders that ‘post the passing of this law, will you all of a sudden find thousands of workers who are denied having a tea break? The answer is absolutely not’. We now know the Prime Minister’s assurance was misleading,” Mr Reid said today.
Of course, Key and National knew that this would happen. It’s why they changed the law.
hi draco, hate to do this but i have to point out our dear leader was right.
the laws was passed (like a bowel motion) in october, its now march, so that is not sudden.
also this effects dozens not thousands of workers.
all good on planet key. carry on.
Legal action “not taken lightly” indeed ! Well no, but of course the daddies had the 8-10 grand it would have cost. The considerations were constitutional and justice based were they ? Nothing to do with their wedged-up daddies’ determination to pass on down to their offspring the privilege they themselves enjoy. Nah, course not !
If they were a couple of little Maori boys in Kaikohe, one’d be appearing in the Youth Court, one’d be in the District Court……and the 17 year old particularly would be on bail terms so oppressive that he’d be bound to breach……and then who knows ? Night in the cells in Whangarei before he’s ‘let off’ with a formally recorded bail warning ? Another meaningless breach. Oh God, not custody……then on down to UK investor owned/profiting, Serco/Mt Eden/”The Jungle”.
In our justice system you’re sweet if you’re white with a wedged up daddy. I know that to be a freakish and disgusting truth. During 40 years with the opportunity to observe it I’ve seen it countless times. It’s this; the actors in the justice system ‘sign-up’, not consciously or wittingly, but it’s ‘sign-up’ nevertheless.
Just when you think New Zealand has a monopoly on greedy/ignorant/criminally insane politicians, get a load of Mike Baird…
It starts off rather light-hearted, but gets grimmer and grimmer as it goes along. Anyone who cares at all about the environment will be vomiting blood by the end.
Of course this was always going to happen. Greed, like rust, never sleeps. The wicked thing is that its promoters don’t even see it is as greed, it is no-brainer rationality. Of course one will operate one’s undertaking to the outer edge of what is lawful. Why would one not ? And under ThePonceKey greed is increasingly encouraged never to sleep. Apologies for any mixed metaphors there. Like ThePonceKey ‘m not verrr lit-rit, ecksshilly !
It looks as though we are getting closer and closer to a situation where the victims must take a serious stand. Strikes, pickets, appealing to the souls of would-be-scabs, defiance of legal process proscribing the standing up for essential rights……a network of moral and financial support for those on PlanetPonceKey with the ‘temerity’ to say “No – Enough !” Hit them in the very place from which prances forth the lusty greed…….the pocket. Hopefully that will have them (an unintended consequence of course) the financial pariahs they are in moral terms.
The more the people do nothing the harder they’ll go. There are no moral questions come into play with these people. Greed (sorry, ‘maximisation of profit”) just never sleeps !
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I must say that it’s at loggerheads with the inclusive and free society we want to create in New Zealand that one of our largest media outlets, MediaWorks, would allow Hannah Tamaki to perform on their show, Dancing With The Stars.Hannah Tamaki and her husband Brian are after all well-known ...
The media is reporting that an Auckland man has been charged with terrorism. Unfortunately, that's all we know, because all details have been suppressed. Who are they? What are they alleged to have done? Its all secret. There may be good reason for some of this (e.g. protection of the ...
Dr David ChagnéNew Zealand is involved in a US$12.8 million USDA grant to improve the quality of blueberry and cranberry. The four-year project, led by North Carolina State University, is part of the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture Specialty Crop Research Initiative, which funds multi-year, multi-institutional collaborative ...
The Cranky Uncle vs. Climate Change book is now available! The book uses cartoons, humor, and critical thinking to expose how and why some people reject climate science. It's now available for sale on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other book outlets. If you're near the DC area, you're very welcome to ...
by the Council of Disobedient Women When Moana Maniapoto recently lamented that Rachel Stewart was no longer writing for the Herald, political commentator Morgan Godfery was quick to brag on Twitter, like a schoolyard bully, how proud he was of “driving Rachel Stewart from the Herald”. What a contrast Morgan ...
You’re probably aware that the Achievement Standards used to assess senior school students’ learning are being reviewed. Science is one of the ‘pilot’ subjects in this process, where a ‘Subject Expert Group’ has developed 4 draft Science standards¹ (a significant step away from the current 30+, and a response to ...
John MacCormickTo succeed in an unpredictable and changing world, adaptability is the key. Let’s be chameleons. Technology continues to change people’s jobs and work environments. But change so far is not as fast and extensive as some pundits claim. Nor is it as fast and extensive as it needs ...
It seems we can’t even get through a week these days without the National Party's leader, Simon Bridges, making some sort of silly announcement about a policy that doesn’t actually exist.Usually concerning Bridges’ gut instinct and the undoing of whatever the Government has recently announced, National’s reactionary opinions and uncosted ...
Oh look! NZ First's secret slush fund was laundering donations from Talley's:One of the country's biggest fishing companies, Talley's, and its managing director donated nearly $27,000 to the New Zealand First Foundation, which has been bankrolling the New Zealand First Party. The foundation received $26,950 from seafood giant Talley's and ...
Janet Hoek, Richard Edwards, Andrew Waa, Nick Wilson, George ThomsonMinister Jenny Salesa announced the Government’s long-awaited Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Vaping) Amendment Bill on Sunday 23 February. The Bill contains some important provisions as it works to strike a balance between ensuring regulated products are available to ...
Surprisingly enough, one could argue (as I often do) that the day inserted into a leap year is not that we label 29th February, but actually the 24th of February. Here I explain why, briefly. Almost everyone assumes that the day added into February in a leap year is the ...
If you haven’t watched Newsroom’s video showing Oranga Tamariki staff attempting to uplift a newborn baby yet you should do so. Although it's not the worst case as far as interventions go, it’s certainly not a good look for the Government. Because of this controversy there’s been a plethora of ...
Genesis Energy is planning to build the country's biggest PV solar farm:Power generator and retailer Genesis Energy says it is in advanced discussions to build New Zealand's biggest solar farm in northern Waikato. The company, which earlier reported a 15 per cent decline in operating earnings to $167.2 million, said ...
Transport is our second largest source of greenhouse gas emissions. Any credible effort to reduce emissions to net-zero has to target it. So what is the government doing? Subsidising some of the dirtiest, most inefficient vehicles on the roads:New Zealand's favourite cars - double cab utes - are largely exempt ...
You’ve really got to wonder what the NZ First Party was thinking and drinking last Friday? Not only did they hamstring the Greens by halting one of their main environmental policies, the electric vehicle fee-bate scheme, a policy that the public was led to believe was a done deal…but they ...
High Risk Call: Insensitive though it may seem to even pose the question: how will the electorate respond to what the Prime Minister’s opponents will undoubtedly characterise as an attack on New Zealanders’ freedom of speech? At more than twelve month’s remove from the terrible events of 15 March 2019, ...
Story of the Week... Opinion of the Week... El Niño/La Niña Update... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... SkS Week in Review... Poster of the Week... Story of the Week... Climate change leads to more violence against women, girlsRape, domestic violence, forced marriages: A new ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week, i.e., Sun, Feb 16, 2020 through Sat, Feb 22, 2020 Editor's Pick JP Morgan economists warn climate crisis is threat to human raceLeaked report for world’s major fossil fuel financier says ...
Last week the Wall Street Journal published an article ‘The Dangerous Denial of Sex by two scientists Colin Wright and Emma Hilton. Write is an evolutionary biologist at Penn State and Hilton is a developmental biologist at the University of Manchester. It is well worth reading the article in full. Here ...
I am about to mail my overseas ballot to Florida so that it can be counted in the Democratic primary on March 17. In Florida you have closed as opposed to open primaries, which means that one must declare a party preference in order to vote in a party primary. ...
Winston Peters - Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the NZ First PartyWe all know that politics can be pretty messy at times. Just look at the Dirty Politics saga in New Zealand, the misgovernment of the Australian bushfires or the recent Trump impeachment debacle in the US. In a ...
Last Monday SpaceX launched another clutch of Starlink satellites into low-Earth orbit, bringing up to 300 the number of these units intended to bring 5G internet to the whole globe. In this post I present a movie showing how all 300 such satellites will be zipping around our planet over ...
The recent floods in Southland have highlighted the issue of Rio Tinto's illegal toxic waste dump in Mataura. But according to Newsroom, there's an even worse mess in Ruakaka near Whangarei:A Northland property stockpiled one million litres of flammable and toxic chemicals. Almost two years since the situation came to ...
It’s amazing just how many attack ads $100,000 buys you these days. The National Party has really been going to town lately, with their latest Twitter campaign making a number of questionable and blatantly false assertions, one being that poverty has worsened under the Labour led Government.The National Party's claim ...
OMV's exploratory drilling in the Great South Basin has failed to find oil. Good. Firstly, because we can't afford to burn the oil and gas we've already found, so there's just no point looking for more. And secondly, because offshore, deep-water drilling poses a risk of an environmental catastrophe, which ...
The government has announced it will strengthen whistleblower protections. The major change is "allowing people to report serious wrongdoing direct to an external authority if they wish", which fixes one of the big flaws in the Act. At present, whistleblowers must generally make their disclosure direct to the body they ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Bruce Lieberman CARLSBAD, CA. – When it comes to paying the electric bill, most people don’t give it a second thought – it’s something that in effect is “baked in.” But across California and several other states, local governments increasingly are ...
Excerpts from Being and Being Bought, by Kajsa Ekis Ekman, Spinifex Press, 2013. Part 4 Ekman, a Swedish journalist and critic, brings together a Marxist and feminist analysis of prostitution and surrogacy in this groundbreaking book. This is the fourth part of a synopsis and brief commentary of the book by Daphna ...
The Democracy Virus: China’s authoritarian political system enables a level of social surveillance and control that liberal democratic societies cannot match. The Chinese Government makes full use of the latest digital technology to both punish – and reward – its citizens. The plans it formulates cannot be challenged, or hindered. Where ...
Another day, another IPCA report on criminal conduct by policy. This time they kicked a child in the head when he was handcuffed:Police chased him and yelled out for him to stop. When he turned to face the police, he threatened them with a hammer. That's when the officers tasered ...
The investigation of two of the five parties in Parliament for fraud around their election donations has pushed the issue of party funding back into the spotlight. And while there are obvious things we can do to tighten up the donations regime - a much lower declaration threshold, realtime disclosure ...
While the south of New Zealand has been struggling with too much rain in recent days, here in the north we are so very short of it (though Saturday’s forecast looks promising). Basically, we have had almost none since Christmas.As someone who relies on rain to wash the car, ...
Former National Party MP Jami-Lee RossIt comes as no surprise that Jami-Lee Ross has been named as one of the defendants in the X2 $100,000 National Party donations case currently before the courts. Click bait journalists who were chaffing at the bit to discredit the former senior whip had already ...
Stand Clear! Winston Peters is encouraging voters to think of RNZ as belonging to “The Media Party”. He wants them to see it as a politically partisan institution with its own, vicious attack-dogs in the electoral fight. If he succeeds, it will be, and probably should be, the end of ...
"You're going to need a longer runway" Gratton et al explore the ongoing effects of upward-creeping temperatures on aviation in Greece in the period since 1955 at a range of airports in that country. For longer runways impacts are measurable but with little impact on operations. For airports with shorter runways, ...
In mid-December the Israeli secret police, the Shin Beit, revealed it had arrested dozens of Palestinian left-wing activists, including members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), in the previous few months. Among those arrested was one of the central leaders of the PFLP, Khalida Jarrar. As ...
Former National Party chief whip Jami-Lee Ross is one of the four people charged over National's multiple fraudulent donations. How unsurprising. Meanwhile, just days ago National leader Simon Bridges was trying to pretend the charges were nothing to do with his party. Yeah, right. When your chief whip effectively publicly ...
If you've been watching FYI for a while, you'll have noticed that the police have a bad habit of demanding ID from requesters. They have apparently been repeatedly told to stop doing this by the Ombudsman, but we all know what law enforcement thinks of the law, so thye keep ...
Collateral Damage: For the Green Phoenix to be reborn, the funeral pyre so patiently assembled by its identity politicians over the course of many fractious years – but with growing intensity over the past three – first has to be ignited. The terrible probability, of course, is that, in setting ...
If you follow politics in New Zealand you've likely noticed that the right wing have been going on and on about the Coalition Government failing to reduce poverty. In fact they’ve been incessantly claiming, in the absence of any conclusive data, that poverty has been getting worse.Yesterday, NewstalkZB reported:Mike Hosking: ...
The Herald reported over the weekend that an Auckland business owner is being targeted with asset forfeiture laws over a workplace death:A workplace fatality has seen police use a law usually associated with drugs and organised crime to seize millions of dollars in assets from a business owner because of ...
Just days after talking about how people feel "squeezed" and promising tax and service cuts as a "solution", National is talking about cancelling a rise in the minimum wage if elected: National is considering scrapping the Government's planned minimum wage increase if it wins this year's election, the party's finance ...
Nobody thinks about the next century anymore. That at least is Sci-Fi writer William Gibson’s observation (in this BBC 4 short interview, starting at 1:43:50 ). He calls it “Futures Fatigue”, but isn’t judgemental about it. Gibson notes that in the 20th century speculation about the 21st (and beyond) was common. Now ...
A Labour government desperate for the numbers crawls into bed with Winston Peters. Winston ignores the law and secretly takes money under the table from someone. When it is exposed just months out from an election, he is investigated by the Serious Fraud Office. That's what happened back in 2008. ...
So the Serious Fraud Office has another secret $100,050 National Party donation before the Courts in a major scandal that looks set to quash any chances Simon Bridges had of winning the 2020 election.Yesterday, Newsroom reported:The Serious Fraud Office prosecution of four people over donations to the National Party involves ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Claim Review... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... Story of the Week... Iceberg twice the size of Washington, D.C., breaks off Pine Island glacier in Antarctica Story Highlights: The Pine Island ...
Prof Philippa Howden-ChapmanHousing policy is building up to be the key election issue again. In this blog I reflect on the importance of the role of the New Zealand Government in improving access to affordable housing. I look at what the Government has been doing to increase quality public housing ...
Writing on The Spinoff, Danyl Mclauchlan argues that we have a vacuum in our political system, in that there is no longer an anti-establishment party anymore:I think there’s a vacuum in our political system. There are obvious problems with the status quo but no real critics offering reform. It’s a ...
Stuff today has a piece about the government discovering it has been oversubsidising polluters for a decade under the Emissions Trading scheme:The Government is pledging to urgently fix an issue within the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), after it emerged some polluters are likely being over-compensated with taxpayer-funded carbon credits. [...] ...
The Marlborough District Council, tired of public scrutiny, wants to increase the amount it charges for LGOIMA requests:The cost of requesting official information from Marlborough's government agency could almost double after a jump in "fishing expeditions". Charges could be raised from $60 to $100 an hour for information supplied by ...
When Winston Peters was caught money laundering donations and stalking journalists, the Greens were conspicuous by their silence. It was another example of how getting along with their government partners was eroding their values and their own reputation. It was obviously unsustainable, and so now James Shaw has finally spoken ...
I am among the most pro-free speech people I know. I don’t doubt there are others more strident than me, but I’m certainly up there. And my support for freedom of expression isn’t limited to opposition to government-imposed restrictions. It extends to a belief that employers should have limited powers ...
With over 69,000 confirmed cases and 1,600 deaths, here’s your round-up of the latest coronavirus news. New disease and virus have now officially been named On the 11th February, the WHO Director General announced a new name for the disease: COVID-19 which is short for coronavirus disease 2019. The naming ...
The eastern Bay of Plenty town of Ōpōtiki is getting a new harbour, which will create 1,850 new jobs in the region, in a new round of regional services funding announced by Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones. Ōpōtiki's harbour is currently unusable by most ships, but it will receive ...
Darroch Ball MP, New Zealand First Spokesperson for Law and Order New Zealand First Law and Order spokesman Darroch Ball has submitted the ‘Sentencing (Priority of Interests in Sentencing) Amendment Bill’ – a Members Bill which introduces a new overarching ‘priority and weighting provision’ that courts must follow when sentencing ...
Fletcher Tabuteau MP, New Zealand First Deputy Leader A total delivery of 2,000 new Police Officers has been achieved. New Zealand First Deputy Leader, Fletcher Tabuteau attended the latest police graduation of Recruit Wing 335 in Porirua today. Mr Tabuteau said, “Increasing police numbers and boosting their resources was one of ...
Taupō District mayor David Trewavas has welcomed today’s announcement from regional economic development minister Shane Jones outlining $5.87m of funding for the re-development of the Taupō Airport. The bulk of the investment ($5 million) will come from the Provincial Growth Fund, while the rest will be from the New Zealand ...
Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters has defended multi-million dollar provincial growth fund money for Northland water storage. The New Zealand First leader, along with Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones, were recently in Dargaville to announce up to $12.745 million PGF funding top-up for water storage initiatives in the ...
One of our most immediate priorities upon forming Government was to get people out of sleeping in cars, garages, or on the street and into safe and warm housing. Since then, we've made major progress towards breaking the cycle of homelessness, including expanding Housing First, building more state houses, and ...
Kids learn better with a full stomach. That's why we launched our Lunches in Schools programme, which is already providing free and healthy school lunches to thousands of children so they can focus on what's important - learning. ...
Mark Patterson MP, New Zealand First List MP based in Clutha-Southland This afternoon to a crowd of over 100 people in Mataura -- Mark Patterson, New Zealand First List MP based in Clutha-Southland launched a parliamentary petition regarding the aluminium dross issue in Mataura, Southland. The petition asks that the ...
Fletcher Tabuteau MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development New Zealand First Deputy Leader and Spokesperson for Finance, Fletcher Tabuteau has welcomed Statistics New Zealand’s latest report as a timely reminder of the value that this Coalition Government brings to every day New Zealanders: “This Coalition Government has meant a ...
Today New Zealand First made a pledge to campaign at the election to fund St John Ambulance the 90 per cent it has asked for. Government funding would allow St. John’s to achieve fully funded status. Leader of New Zealand First, Rt Hon Winston Peters publicly declared his determination to deliver ...
Darroch Ball MP, Spokesperson for Law and Order Newly released Police data shows once again the number of fleeing drivers have continued to skyrocket with a record 512 incidents occurring in December – almost tripling the number of incidents occurring just ten years ago, says New Zealand First Law and ...
While the Provincial Growth Fund has provided $2 million to set up temporary water supplies in Kaikohe and Kaitaia, Regional Economic Minister Shane Jones said he is greatly concerned that there are “issues” in implementing the projects. The Minister said the immediate solution was to pipe water from a bore ...
Mark Patterson MP, New Zealand First List MP for Clutha-Southland NZ First is calling on Rio Tinto to accept its responsibilities to the Southland community and enable the immediate removal of the toxic Aluminium Dross from the Mataura Paper Mill site. New Zealand First List MP for Clutha-Southland, Mark Patterson ...
The Coalition Government has announced that a further $500,000 will be given to help residents in Southland and Otago to speed up recovery efforts from the floods. It follows prior government assistance of $200,000 earlier this month where the Southland Mayoral Relief Fund received $100,000 to support communities impacted by ...
Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones was on RNZ’s Morning Report talking about the recent droughts in the Northland region and what the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) is doing to alleviate its impact. The PGF recently announced a funding of $2 million for temporary water supplies to Kaikohe and Kaitaia, ...
Speaking to The Country’s Jamie Mackay, New Zealand First MP and Cabinet Minister Shane Jones talks water storage, plant-based meat imitation, and superstar Hollywood director James Cameron. While water storage may have its critics, Minister Jones defended the scheme by saying: “unless we invest and continue to invest” in this ...
Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones is accusing northern iwi leaders of selling out Māori by voting for ideologically-driven court cases rather than practical steps to increase water supply. “I just think that iwi leaders who think that water issues are going to be solved by perpetually fighting in the ...
A dairy owner in St Kilda, Dunedin was delighted to hear that an attempted robbery of his establishment was foiled by a government-funded security system. Sean Lee was delighted at how well the anti-theft smoke system worked. When a knife-wielding man entered the store, the shop assistant immediately pressed a ...
Customs says it stopped more than three tonnes of illegal drugs coming into New Zealand last year. This includes 1,180kg of methamphetamine, 329kg of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine precursors, which could have been converted into 246kg of methamphetamine, 739kg and 6469 pills of MDMA or Ecstasy and 60kg of cocaine. Offshore, ...
Hon. Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development Up to $2 million will be allocated from the Provincial Growth Fund to set up temporary water supplies in Kaikohe and Kaitaia where drought is biting hard, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has announced. Drought conditions in Northland have led to ...
Darroch Ball, Spokesperson for Law and Order New Zealand First welcomes the deployment of an Eagle Police helicopter in Christchurch in what is a step towards fulfilling its long-standing goal to increase the use of police helicopters for the front line, particularly in addressing the scourge of fleeing drivers. Christchurch leads ...
It may have been the first sitting week of 2020, but our Government is already in full-swing - managing a strong economy, investing in infrastructure, and working to break the cycle of homelessness. Read below for all that, and more... ...
In a heated debate in Parliament, National's Deputy Leader Paula Bennett claimed that “nearly 1600 patched gang members have been added” since the Coalition Government took power. To illustrate her point, she altered a chart used by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to show her government’s progress in housing to instead ...
Speech by the Rt Hon Winston Peters at Parliament’s Opening 2020 "We all need insurance" This year New Zealanders are going to have a clear choice to make That choice is between: Optimism versus pessimism; More progress versus back to the future; Investment versus divestment; Unity versus division. New Zealand ...
Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones has slammed the Board of Auckland Airport following the airport's runway closing twice within two weeks due to maintenance. Around 2,000 passengers were affected by last week’s runway closures, according to 1NEWS. Another maintenance closure on January 24 saw two international flights and three domestic flights ...
It’s my pleasure to be in Sydney today for our annual meeting, Prime Minister. It’s fair to say that since we last met, tragedy and disaster have befallen our two countries. They say that in moments of that nature, the true character of an individual comes to the fore. I ...
Travel restrictions introduced for Iran from today No exemptions for students from China to enter the country Increased health staff presence at international airports The Government has announced a suite of new actions as it steps up its response to the rapidly changing global spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus. This ...
Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor has today classified the drought conditions in Waikato and South Auckland as an adverse event for the primary sector, unlocking $80,000 in Government support for farmers and growers. “This is recognition that the extreme and prolonged nature of this dry spell is taking its toll on ...
The Crown accounts are in a strong position to weather any economic uncertainty as a result of coronavirus, with the books in surplus and expenses close to forecast, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. The Treasury today released the Crown accounts for the seven months to January. The operating balance before ...
Supporting New Zealand to make most of digital and data driven technologies will be the focus of a new Digital Council that begins its work today. Minister for Government Digital Services, Kris Faafoi, and Minister of Statistics, James Shaw, have confirmed the group of experts chosen to advise the Government ...
Safety and climate change resilience are behind South Island regional roading projects that are being brought forward as part of the New Zealand Upgrade Programme, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has announced. As part of the NZ Upgrade, $300 million was allocated for regional investment opportunities. “I’m pleased to ...
Digital and air connectivity in Fiordland are getting a big boost, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has announced. As part of the $12 billion New Zealand Upgrade Programme announced in January, $300 million was allocated for regional investment opportunities, to be administered by the Provincial Development Unit. “I’m pleased ...
West Coast ports and roads will benefit from an investment of $18.6 million to improve safety and resilience and enable future economic growth, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today. The $12 billion NZ Upgrade Programme announced last month allocated $300 million for regional investment opportunities, to be administered ...
Regional roading projects that will improve safety and resilience are being brought forward as part of the New Zealand Upgrade Programme, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has announced. As part of the NZ Upgrade, $300 million was allocated for regional investment opportunities. “I spend a lot of time in ...
The Eastern Bay of Plenty will finally get the harbour development it has wanted for decades, thanks to a $79.4 million central Government investment, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today. This game-changing project will revitalise the township of Ōpōtiki and the wider Eastern Bay of Plenty, creating hundreds ...
Regional New Zealand will be a hive of activity in the coming months as the New Zealand Upgrade Programme delivers on its promise to modernise our infrastructure, prepare for climate change and help grow our economy. As part of the $12 billion NZ Upgrade Programme announced by the Government last ...
A milestone has been reached with the graduation of more than 2,000 new Police officers since the Coalition Government took office in October 2017. Police Minister Stuart Nash says the graduation today of Wing 335 marks a surge of 2,023 new officers, and coincides with some significant breakthroughs against organised ...
Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media Minister, Kris Faafoi, and the Minister of Education, Chris Hipkins, have welcomed a new cyber security qualification as a step towards countering cyber threats and keeping New Zealanders safe. Attending the launch of the new Level 6 Diploma of Cyber Security at Auckland’s Unitec Institute ...
Government Ministers today celebrated 20 years of the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park/ Ko te Pataka kai o Tikapa Moana/ Te Moananui a Toi, and recognise there is much to celebrate and so much more to do to give nature a helping hand. Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage said “New Zealanders care deeply about nature.I want to ...
Prepared remarks on coronavirus by Finance Minister Grant Robertson to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and Massey University. Good morning ladies and gentlemen, The topic of this speech is the Budget 2020 priorities. But, given the considerable interest that I imagine is in the room about COVID-19 coronavirus, I do ...
E ngā mana, e ngā reo, e ngā iwi, e ngā rau rangatira ma. Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa. Ni sa bula vinaka. Namaste Thank you Shamima, Hon. Minister Vuniwaqa, community leaders and Women’s Crisis Centre staff for your warm welcome. It’s an honour and privilege to officially ...
The Government has released a comprehensive response to ensuring New Zealanders get a fairer deal at the petrol pump. This follows the Commerce Commission fuel market study which found motorists were paying more than they should for petrol and includes: Fuel Market Bill drafting, to pass mid-year Industry consultation in ...
E ngā mana, e ngā reo, e ngā iwi, e ngā rau rangatira ma Tēnā koutou katoa Ni sa bula vinaka As-salaam alaikum It is a privilege to be here today. Thank you for welcoming us to your house of prayer. Thank you for your warmth. Thank you for greeting ...
Taupō Airport is to be upgraded and expanded through a $5.9 million Government funding boost, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has announced. “Taupō Airport is the gateway to the Central North Island. It is essential for both keeping local people and businesses connected, but also to bring more people ...
The Minister of Housing Megan Woods has confirmed the Government is working with Rotorua Lakes District Council and Te Arawa for the second place-based assessment to better understand the housing and urban issues affecting the city. “Every New Zealander has a right to a warm, safe and secure place to ...
19 new community homes (in addition to 14 opened in December) delivered in Takanini, Auckland 500 people housed by CORT Housing Trust by end of March 2,290 new public housing homes delivered in Auckland (November 2017 – December 2019). Another nineteen new public housing homes are being delivered in Auckland, ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Minister for Trade and Export Growth David Parker met today with Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar to discuss ways to strengthen ties between New Zealand and India. “India is a priority relationship for New Zealand. We share common democratic traditions, growing two-way trade, extensive people-to-people links, ...
Speech to the Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA) Delhi, India Wednesday 26 February 2020 [CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY] The Indo-Pacific: from principles to partnerships Distinguished guests, good afternoon and thank you for your invitation. It is good to be here at a time where New Zealand needs less of an introduction than ...
Tihei mauri ora Te Whare e tu nei Te Papa e takoto Tēnā korua No reira tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa Ni sa bula Vinaka It is a real pleasure to be here today, and to have the honour of addressing you all. If you’ll indulge me I’m ...
Improved air quality to support better health and environmental wellbeing is the focus of proposed amendments to air quality regulations, says the Associate Minister for the Environment, Hon Nanaia Mahuta. “Although our air quality is good in most places, during winter certain places have spikes in air pollution, mainly from ...
The remote eastern Bay of Plenty community of Raukokere will receive a Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) investment of $10.6 million for a water storage facility, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones says. “This is great news for the rural community. The landowner, Te Whānau a Maruhaeremuri Hapū Trust, will use ...
The Lake Ōkaro lakebed has transferred to Te Arawa Lakes Trust, Minister for Māori Crown Relations: Te Arawhiti Kelvin Davis announced today. Kelvin Davis joined Te Arawa at Te Papaiōuru Marae in Rotorua to celebrate the reinstatement of Te Arawa Lakes Trust as a key decision maker over the bed ...
New legislation is being proposed which aims to reduce the stress and financial hardship caused by late payments to small businesses. The Minister for Small Business Stuart Nash is considering stricter rules around payment practices between businesses. “Late payments from large organisations to smaller suppliers can be crippling for these ...
A new partnership programme between the New Zealand Police and Fiji Police will focus on combatting transnational organised crime and enhancing investigative skills, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced on the first day of her visit to Fiji. The programme will see: · New Zealand Institute of Environmental Science and Research ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Prime Minister Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama met today in Suva, and renewed their commitment to continue to strengthen Fiji-New Zealand relations on a foundation of shared values and equal partnership. The Prime Ministers acknowledged the kinship between Fijians and New Zealanders, one that has endured over ...
A $19.9 million investment from the Provincial Growth Fund will help develop essential infrastructure for an industrial hub in the Bay of Plenty town of Kawerau, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones says. “The funding will go to three projects to further develop the Putauaki Trust Industrial Hub, an industrial ...
The Provincial Growth Fund is investing $8.3 million on a roading package for Mahia that will lead to greater and wider economic benefits for the region and beyond, Under Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau announced at an event in Mahia today. The $8.3 million announced consists of: $7 ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has welcomed new reporting showing the Coalition Government is on track to meet its child poverty targets, with 18,400 children lifted out of poverty as a result of the Families Package. Stats NZ has released the first set of comprehensive child poverty statistics since the Government ...
Associate Minister of Transport Julie Anne Genter today announced that Bikes in Schools facilities have been rolled out to 20,000 more kiwi kids under this Government. She made the announcement at the opening of a new bike track at Henderson North School in Auckland. “Bikes in Schools facilities give kids ...
Benefit settings rise in line with wages as of 1 April Main benefits will increase by over 3 percent, instead of 1.66 percent, on 1 April with the Government’s decision to annually adjust benefit rates to increases in the average wage. The Minister for Social Development, Carmel Sepuloni, said ...
Strengthening New Zealand’s political and business ties with India will be the focus of Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters’ and Trade and Export Growth Minister David Parker’s visit to India this week. The Ministers are co-leading a high level business delegation to India to support increased people and economic engagement ...
The Minister for Pacific Peoples, Aupito William Sio continues to champion for greater Pacific participation in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) careers with the announcement of the Toloa Awards, with 8 recipients of the Toloa Community Fund and 13 Toloa Tertiary Scholarships. “The Toloa Programme encourages more Pacific peoples ...
Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage has extended the date for people to have their say on proposed changes to improve management of whitebait across New Zealand. Submissions were due to close on 2 March 2020 but will now remain open until 9am on Monday 16 March 2020. “I have ...
The endangered toroa/Antipodean albatross has new international protection for its 100,000km annual migration, thanks to collaborative efforts led by New Zealand, Australia and Chile. Today, 130 countries agreed to strictly protect Antipodean albatross at the Conference of Parties on the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild ...
No sales to under-18-year-olds No advertising and sponsorship of vaping products and e-cigarettes No vaping or smokeless tobacco in smokefree areas Regulates vaping product safety comprehensively, - including devices, flavours and ingredients Ensure vaping products are available for those who want to quit smoking Vaping regulation that balances ...
By RNZ News Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern confirmed today that a suspected case of Covid-19 coronavirus has tested positive in New Zealand. Ardern said the person was in their 60s, and was a citizen of New Zealand who had recently travelled from Iran via Bali. The person had previously ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonti Horner, Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland Happy February 29! It doesn’t come round very often, so make sure you enjoy it. But why do we have these extra days? Well, if we didn’t, the seasons would gradually move around the ...
New Zealand Pompe Network Allyson Lock, MNZM An open letter to New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern “Know us by our deeds”. This was the headline next to your picture on the cover of Time Magazine, for all the world to see. I saw it. I’m ...
Analysis: The government faces economic strife and uncertainty as the coronavirus continues to spread, four men charged in National's donations case plead not guilty, and more revelations about NZ First's "slush fund". ...
New Zealand’s first case of COVID-19 has just been confirmed. Here’s what we know so far.What’s the latest?Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has confirmed New Zealand’s first case of COVID-19 coronavirus. New Zealand is the 48th country to have a confirmed case of the virus. What do we know about the patient?The ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Leah Mercer, Associate Professor of Theatre Arts, Curtin University Review: Leviathan, directed by Yaron Lifschitz. Circa in collaboration with Co:3 Australia, MAXIMA Circus and CircusWA for Perth Festival. As the audience takes their seats, two feet poke out from beneath the curtain. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tom Bailey, Research Fellow, The University of Queensland If you’re hot and sticky even before your daily commute, you might ask why you sweat so much. Sweating is usually the body’s way of stopping you overheating. But for some people, sweating becomes ...
At a tense press conference in Sydney, the New Zealand prime minister has just issued a stark challenge to Australia over its treatment of NZ citizens. Here’s what she said. We appreciate that many Kiwis have taken up the opportunity to live and work in Australia – many more than has ...
New Zealand has widened, not narrowed, its coronavirus travel ban despite universities pleading for an exemption for international students The Government has extended its coronavirus-related travel restrictions to include Iran, while resisting calls from universities to provide an exemption for international students from China. Health officials will also monitor an ...
The Serious Fraud Office has today received a referral from NZ Police in relation to Phil Goff’s election expenses. The SFO will be assessing the matter and has no further comment at this time. ...
The series, a collaboration between Spinoff Members and Verb Wellington, kicks off with a discussion on politics and the media. As all right thinking people know, there are a mere 204 days until the general election. To get in the mood, we’re launching a new series of live events. And not ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi (Picador, $20)What are you even up to, Auckland.2 Eleanor ...
Finance Minister Grant Robertson insists NZ is in a strong position to weather the fallout from coronavirus, even though Australia has declared it a pandemic. He underlines the Crown accounts are buoyant, the fundamentals of the economy are strong and careful management has seen the economy continue to grow in ...
On the heels of the arrival of The Outsider on NEON, Jean Sergent explores how screen adaptations of Stephen King’s work are able to take on a life of their own. Stephen King, the 72 year old horror author from Portland, has a better work ethic than you or I and ...
Iwi are too reliant on investments in property and primary industries, restricting returns for their members, according to a new report. The annual Iwi Investment Report by consulting firm TDB Advisory, showed the country's eight largest iwi with a collective $9 billion worth of assets, had weak growth in the ...
Announcing a package of regional capital projects worth about $190 million, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones mentioned climate change. He said Regional New Zealand “will be a hive of activity in the coming months as the New Zealand Upgrade Programme delivers on its promise to modernise our infrastructure, prepare ...
The people of India have been holding mass protests all over India ever since the anti Muslim and anti working class Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) was enacted into law on 12 December 2019. The state has made many attempts to suppress the rising ...
New Zealand consumer confidence remains high, according to the ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence Index. The index was down just one point on last month to 122. "Consumers are feeling pretty happy with their lot at the moment - the lifting housing market is making homeowners feel richer, job opportunities are ...
Jacinda Ardern has described difficult conversations with Australia as being "gnarly'' - but says the trans-Tasman relationship is strong enough to get through them. ...
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.Today’s contentPolitical donations Yvette McCullough (RNZ): Transparency International warns need for political funding reform is urgent Gordon Campbell: On where the ...
Continued strong demand for chicken, burgers and tacos has resulted in another strong year for Restaurant Brands. The fast food operator's net profit for the year ended December fell nearly 16 percent to $30.1m, but that was for a 44-week period, versus the year earlier's 52-week period. That company changed ...
The New Zealand share market opened lower on Friday, following a sixth day of world market losses as investors respond to the economic threat of coronavirus. The NZX benchmark top 50 index opened down 1.5 percent, after last night's 0.9 percent fall. The benchmark top 50 Index has fallen more ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Maggie Tonkin, Senior Lecturer, English and Creative Writing, University of Adelaide Review: Dance Nation, directed by Imara Savage. State Theatre Company South Australia and Belvoir for the Adelaide Festival Dance is at the heart of playwright Clare Barron’s Dance Nation, from the ...
The Government’s response to new revelations that one of the country’s biggest fishing companies, Talley’s, and its managing director has donated tens of thousands of undisclosed dollars to the New Zealand First Foundation is unacceptable. “The ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Michelle Grattan talks with Assistant Professor Caroline Fisher about the week in politics, including the implementation of an emergency plan to tackle the spread of coronavirus, the major parties’ policies on climate change, national security ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Euan Ritchie, Associate Professor in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, Centre for Integrative Ecology, School of Life & Environmental Sciences, Deakin University On Churchill Island, southeast of Melbourne, small cone-shaped, shallow holes (digs) puncture the grass. They’re widespread, and reveal moist soil below ...
The University of Auckland's Tim Dare examines what SkyCity's 'de-platforming' of controversial speaker Peter Singer might mean for free speech In work first appearing in the late 1970s, Princeton Philosophy Professor Peter Singer argued that in a limited range of circumstances parents ought to be able to ask doctors to end ...
By Stefan Armbruster of SBS News in Brisbane Thousands of New Zealanders who are denied disability support are hoping Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will take the issue up with her counterpart Scott Morrison when they meet today. Despite paying taxes and the NDIS levy, New Zealanders who have come ...
The Maori Development Minister Nanaia Mahuta and her Australian counterpart have met in Sydney and formally agreed to share ideas on how to better support each country's indegineous people ...
Apparently you have a vacancy on your programme after Kanoa Lloyd decided she didn’t “need to see a homophobic Pasodoble or a xenophobic Cha Cha.” Now, we have to admit we don’t know what a Pasodoble is. But we do know xenophobia when we see ...
Public services are increasingly migrating to the internet, but as the government prioritises digital interaction many of the people who need those services the most are left behind, according to a new report. Pita, an elderly gentleman, received a letter from the IRD that claimed he hadn’t paid his tax obligations ...
By Felipe F. Salvosa II in Manila Philippines Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon has dismissed comments by Senator Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Go that “politics” is behind the filing of a proposed concurrent resolution calling on regulators to temporarily allow television giant ABS-CBN to operate as Congress deliberates on its ...
The Serious Fraud Office has received a referral from NZ Police in relation to Lianne Dalziel’s election expenses. The SFO will be assessing the matter and has no further comment at this time. ...
Employers are encouraged to sign up for Road Safety Week 2020 (4-10 May), and join hundreds of communities, schools and organisations running activities to raise awareness of road safety issues. Brake, the road safety charity, which coordinates the event, ...
A poem by US National Youth Poet Laureate Kara Jackson.i woke up and the day caught me in its mouth like a strand of yarni am usefulthe motivation for a scarf, maybe some stitch started to be finishedi will make up someone’sheat i will be a fireso intricate it can be worn i ...
The euthanasia debate took an unusual turn this week when Vision NZ, the political party associated with the Destiny Church, made an unexpected policy announcement. It appeared that Vision NZ supported voluntary euthanasia, but just for one person, co-host of TV3’s The Project, Kanoa Lloyd. The now former campaign manager ...
State Services Commissioner Peter Hughes has today announced the findings of an inquiry into how Budget-sensitive material was accessed at the Treasury. The inquiry, led by Ms Jenn Bestwick, was launched by the Commission at the request of the Treasury ...
A scathing report into the accidental release of sensitive Budget 2019 information by the Treasury has found poor procurement processes and governance failures by senior leadership were to blame for security flaws in its website not being identified earlier The inquiry into the accidental release of Budget 2019 information prior ...
The Port of Tauranga's first half result is flat, despite a drop in cargo handled through the country's biggest port. The port company's net profit dropped 1.4 percent to $48.3 million in the six months to December, but was otherwise flat after accounting for a tax adjustment of $0.6m. Revenue ...
For those mothers who gave birth by non-elective Caesarean section, feelings of sadness – even of failure – can be overwhelming, writes Janice Sharan.I’m sitting next to my 15-month-old. He’s sleeping peacefully, his mop of dark hair damp with sweat, lips pursed and his chest rising and falling as he ...
Today is the last day Kiwibank will accept cheques, and its customers will no longer be able to make a payment by cheque. Inland Revenue and ACC will also follow suit on 1 March. The number of cheques has been going down by about 20 percent year-on-year and last year ...
Television New Zealand has reported a strong increase in first half profit, driven up by an increase in advertising revenue. The state-owned broadcaster made a net profit of $15.8 million in the six months to December, beating the year earlier by $5m or 47 percent. "Strong ratings performance for our ...
Air New Zealand has launched its latest safety video that moves away from celebrity appearances to push an environmental message on New Zealand's endangered native birds. The video A Journey to Safety takes a different approach from the widely criticised video of two years ago - called a 'weird mish-mash' ...
A report into how sensitive documents were accessed by the National Party before last year's Budget has found Treasury governance, oversight and risk management processes fell short. ...
In the lead up to Children’s Day in New Zealand on Sunday 1 March, The Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP) Aotearoa NZ President Dr Jeff Brown says the wellbeing of children and their whānau must remain a priority for all of society, not only ...
A Kiwi firm is trialling a mobile device and app that could test for Covid-19 in hospitals, schools, factories and homes anywhere in the world within 40 minutes No-one wishes harm on anyone, but sometimes a crisis is also an opportunity to quickly develop new technologies and systems to solve ...
Ahead of the forthcoming public meeting on Monday 2 March regarding the Newlands Volunteer Fire Brigade former Ohariu MP Hon Peter Dunne is extending his best wishes to all those involved in the current campaign to keep the station open. "Although ...
Sure, the new wave of RTDs might have cool labels and no carbs or whatever, but for Sam Brooks, none come close to the perfection held within that little yellow can.RTDs are coming back, if they were ever really gone. I remember the halcyon days of getting drunk off Purple ...
The ongoing strike by NorthTec tutors steps up a notch today with a public rally. For two weeks the members of Te Hautū Kahurangi | New Zealand Tertiary Education Union have been on strike. The action has meant not completing attendance registers; ...
The cut price fuel retailer, Waitomo says the Government’s proposed changes to the fuel market will mean customers will be able to see if they are getting fleeced. ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will use today’s meeting with counterpart Scott Morrison in Sydney to tell him his Government is deporting Australian criminals to New Zealand. ...
Coronavirus: Finance Minister Grant Robertson - NZ in shadow of the biggest economic uncertainty in recent times; and A2 Milk result: Net profit leaps 21% on China sales. ...
Thousands of Kiwis are expected to attend the March for Life in Auckland this Saturday (29 February). With Parliament just days away from voting on a Bill to liberalise abortion-up-to-birth in New Zealand those marching will be making a public stand ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Simon Tormey, Professor of Politics, University of Bristol Of the many issues thrown up by Brexit, one of the most pressing is the territorial integrity of the United Kingdom. Brexit was in large measure a revolt by a certain section of English ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katherine Gibney, NHMRC early career fellow, The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity While countries around the globe have been taking precautions to prevent the spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, it has now been reported in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lee Baumgartner, Professor of Fisheries and River Management, Institute for Land, Water, and Society, Charles Sturt University As this summer draws to a close, it marks just over a year since successive fish death events at Menindee in Lower Darling River made ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Holden, Professor of Economics, UNSW Every January Larry Fink, the head of the world’s largest funds manager, BlackRock, sends a letter to the chief executives of major public companies. This year’s letter focused on climate risk. “Climate change has become a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kevin Davis, Professor of Finance, University of Melbourne The government’s financial system inquiry, on which I sat, reported five years ago. It recommended that the creators of financial products be subject to a design and distribution obligation (DDO), which would mean the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andy Simionato, Lecturer, RMIT University Books are always transforming. The book we hold today has arrived through a number of materials (clay, papyrus, parchment, paper, pixels) and forms (tablet, scroll, codex, kindle). The book can be a tool for communication, reading, entertainment, ...
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Ardern gets diplomatic, fuel market legislation released, and police pinged over employment records breach.There hasn’t really been much coverage of it in The Bulletin, but it’s worth looking back at quite an important diplomatic week for the PM. She has been ...
This week's biggest-selling New Zealand books, as recorded by the Nielsen BookScan New Zealand bestseller list and described by Steve Braunias.Fiction 1 The Absolute Book by Elizabeth Knox (Victoria University Press, $35) ReadingRoom broke the storydetailing how Knox’s novel was fought over by US publishers in a ...
Sky Sport News presenters Kate King and Goran Paladin deliver the latest news of Kiwi sporting women at home and around the globe. *WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE* Hurdler Portia Bing has reinvented herself in a bid to make the Tokyo Olympics and take another step towards putting last year's disqualification at ...
Embarrassingly for the Department of Conservation, a scheduled ministerial announcement last year was postponed. David Williams reports A much-delayed project to better protect the Mackenzie Basin’s stunning landscapes and bolster biodiversity has a new boss. In the 2018 Budget, Conservation and Lands Minister Eugenie Sage announced $2.6 million to find ...
Trying to reduce drownings - and bring on a new generation of surfers - the Wave Warriors teach kids from low-decile schools water safety wrapped in a surf lesson. Eight-year-old Athena Talavai is less than half the height of the surfboard she’s expected to stand on, and probably only a quarter of the weight. She ...
The decision to give Ihumātao the highest heritage listing available sends a strong signal to the Government and Auckland Council, write Dr Frances Hancock and Nicola Short Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga (HNZPT) has upgraded the heritage listing of the Ōtuataua Stonefields Reserve and included adjacent and long-contested land at ...
If Simon Bridges manages to pull off an election victory, his next headache will be choosing his Cabinet from a somewhat uninspiring line-up, writes Peter Dunne Every election year there is a call to use the election as a chance to refresh Parliament and get rid of at least some ...
An anonymous Department of Conservation staff member, who wishes to be known only as the Carefree Vigilante, provides a handy guide to dealing with menstruation, and menstrual products, in the wild.This post was first published on the Department of Conservation blog.I’ve got six or seven rational fears and about 900 ...
There is a surge of cases of the virus outside China. Australia says it expects Covid-19 to turn into a global pandemic. We cannot afford to panic in New Zealand. But we must prepare, writes Dr Siouxsie Wiles.It’s now clear to me that the new coronavirus responsible for Covid-19 is ...
Open mike 23/03/2015 
Open mike is your post.
What can we make of where National’s current leader Simon Bridges and the Party’s reliable water carrier Paula Bennett are taking their campaign to “win back the Treasury benches”? Going by the often petulant tone he has adopted, and the frequent histrionics of the most ardent supporters: going nowhere, and ...4 hours ago
by Daphna Whitmore It is surprising how rarely the authorities take an evolutionary perspective when dealing with health crises, such as the latest coronavirus spread. They talk about viruses mutating but that is a frequent occurrence, and they treat mutation as though it were equivalent to evolution. A mutation is ...4 hours ago
With sincere apologies to Martin Niemöller ...6 hours ago
For over a decade, Heathrow airport has been wanting to add a third runway, to increase air traffic. Its been vigorously opposed by people concerned about the environmental impact. And now, its been ruled illegal on climate change grounds:Plans for a third runway at Heathrow airport have been ruled illegal ...8 hours ago
Many readers will probably have read this RNZ article (or heard the related interview), or seen calls for consultation on the Ministry of Education’s suggested changes to the number of subjects – and achievement standards – on offer to year 11 students. I’ve been following (& participating, where I ...12 hours ago
Method In Our Madness? When a liberal-democratic society encounters racism its first impulse is to shut it down – not interrogate it. But, is this wise? Is it reasonable to assume that a phenomenon as powerful, pernicious and persistent as racism is entirely without purpose? Surely, there must be, as Shakespeare puts it: ...14 hours ago
A New Hope from the National Party leader ...1 day ago
1 day ago
BAMS survey of 2018 extreme weather The Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society has published a collection of articles examining unusually extreme weather events of 2018 and connections of those to climate change. These investigations are listed separately below but thanks to the generosity of AMS appear free for ...2 days ago
Fans are outraged at the prospect of Destiny Church pastor Hannah Tamaki joining the Black Caps ...2 days ago
I am about to mail my overseas ballot to Florida so that it can be counted in the Democratic primary on March 17. In Florida you have closed as opposed to open primaries, which means that one must declare a party preference in order to vote in a party primary. ...6 days ago
In mid-December the Israeli secret police, the Shin Beit, revealed it had arrested dozens of Palestinian left-wing activists, including members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), in the previous few months. Among those arrested was one of the central leaders of the PFLP, Khalida Jarrar. As ...1 week ago
I am among the most pro-free speech people I know. I don’t doubt there are others more strident than me, but I’m certainly up there. And my support for freedom of expression isn’t limited to opposition to government-imposed restrictions. It extends to a belief that employers should have limited powers ...2 weeks ago
The eastern Bay of Plenty town of Ōpōtiki is getting a new harbour, which will create 1,850 new jobs in the region, in a new round of regional services funding announced by Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones. Ōpōtiki's harbour is currently unusable by most ships, but it will receive ...11 hours ago
One of our most immediate priorities upon forming Government was to get people out of sleeping in cars, garages, or on the street and into safe and warm housing. Since then, we've made major progress towards breaking the cycle of homelessness, including expanding Housing First, building more state houses, and ...3 days ago
It’s my pleasure to be in Sydney today for our annual meeting, Prime Minister. It’s fair to say that since we last met, tragedy and disaster have befallen our two countries. They say that in moments of that nature, the true character of an individual comes to the fore. I ...6 hours ago
By RNZ News Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern confirmed today that a suspected case of Covid-19 coronavirus has tested positive in New Zealand. Ardern said the person was in their 60s, and was a citizen of New Zealand who had recently travelled from Iran via Bali. The person had previously ...2 hours ago
New Zealand Pompe Network Allyson Lock, MNZM An open letter to New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern “Know us by our deeds”. This was the headline next to your picture on the cover of Time Magazine, for all the world to see. I saw it. I’m ...3 hours ago
Analysis: The government faces economic strife and uncertainty as the coronavirus continues to spread, four men charged in National's donations case plead not guilty, and more revelations about NZ First's "slush fund". ...4 hours ago
New Zealand’s first case of COVID-19 has just been confirmed. Here’s what we know so far.What’s the latest?Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has confirmed New Zealand’s first case of COVID-19 coronavirus. New Zealand is the 48th country to have a confirmed case of the virus. What do we know about the patient?The ...4 hours ago
A gun safety expert says a firearm registry is the most important gun control measure NZ does not yet have. ...6 hours ago
New Zealand has widened, not narrowed, its coronavirus travel ban despite universities pleading for an exemption for international students The Government has extended its coronavirus-related travel restrictions to include Iran, while resisting calls from universities to provide an exemption for international students from China. Health officials will also monitor an ...6 hours ago
How clever technology that gives people access to their wages every day might help keep people from out-of-control debt. ...7 hours ago
Finance Minister Grant Robertson insists NZ is in a strong position to weather the fallout from coronavirus, even though Australia has declared it a pandemic. He underlines the Crown accounts are buoyant, the fundamentals of the economy are strong and careful management has seen the economy continue to grow in ...8 hours ago
Iwi are too reliant on investments in property and primary industries, restricting returns for their members, according to a new report. The annual Iwi Investment Report by consulting firm TDB Advisory, showed the country's eight largest iwi with a collective $9 billion worth of assets, had weak growth in the ...8 hours ago
Announcing a package of regional capital projects worth about $190 million, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones mentioned climate change. He said Regional New Zealand “will be a hive of activity in the coming months as the New Zealand Upgrade Programme delivers on its promise to modernise our infrastructure, prepare ...8 hours ago
New Zealand consumer confidence remains high, according to the ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence Index. The index was down just one point on last month to 122. "Consumers are feeling pretty happy with their lot at the moment - the lifting housing market is making homeowners feel richer, job opportunities are ...8 hours ago
Continued strong demand for chicken, burgers and tacos has resulted in another strong year for Restaurant Brands. The fast food operator's net profit for the year ended December fell nearly 16 percent to $30.1m, but that was for a 44-week period, versus the year earlier's 52-week period. That company changed ...8 hours ago
The New Zealand share market opened lower on Friday, following a sixth day of world market losses as investors respond to the economic threat of coronavirus. The NZX benchmark top 50 index opened down 1.5 percent, after last night's 0.9 percent fall. The benchmark top 50 Index has fallen more ...8 hours ago
The University of Auckland's Tim Dare examines what SkyCity's 'de-platforming' of controversial speaker Peter Singer might mean for free speech In work first appearing in the late 1970s, Princeton Philosophy Professor Peter Singer argued that in a limited range of circumstances parents ought to be able to ask doctors to end ...9 hours ago
Dr Eric Crampton worries we may be thinking about the coronavirus outbreak as a one-off when it could be a new normal. ...10 hours ago
The Maori Development Minister Nanaia Mahuta and her Australian counterpart have met in Sydney and formally agreed to share ideas on how to better support each country's indegineous people ...10 hours ago
The euthanasia debate took an unusual turn this week when Vision NZ, the political party associated with the Destiny Church, made an unexpected policy announcement. It appeared that Vision NZ supported voluntary euthanasia, but just for one person, co-host of TV3’s The Project, Kanoa Lloyd. The now former campaign manager ...11 hours ago
A scathing report into the accidental release of sensitive Budget 2019 information by the Treasury has found poor procurement processes and governance failures by senior leadership were to blame for security flaws in its website not being identified earlier The inquiry into the accidental release of Budget 2019 information prior ...11 hours ago
The Port of Tauranga's first half result is flat, despite a drop in cargo handled through the country's biggest port. The port company's net profit dropped 1.4 percent to $48.3 million in the six months to December, but was otherwise flat after accounting for a tax adjustment of $0.6m. Revenue ...11 hours ago
Today is the last day Kiwibank will accept cheques, and its customers will no longer be able to make a payment by cheque. Inland Revenue and ACC will also follow suit on 1 March. The number of cheques has been going down by about 20 percent year-on-year and last year ...11 hours ago
Television New Zealand has reported a strong increase in first half profit, driven up by an increase in advertising revenue. The state-owned broadcaster made a net profit of $15.8 million in the six months to December, beating the year earlier by $5m or 47 percent. "Strong ratings performance for our ...11 hours ago
Air New Zealand has launched its latest safety video that moves away from celebrity appearances to push an environmental message on New Zealand's endangered native birds. The video A Journey to Safety takes a different approach from the widely criticised video of two years ago - called a 'weird mish-mash' ...11 hours ago
A Kiwi firm is trialling a mobile device and app that could test for Covid-19 in hospitals, schools, factories and homes anywhere in the world within 40 minutes No-one wishes harm on anyone, but sometimes a crisis is also an opportunity to quickly develop new technologies and systems to solve ...12 hours ago
The cut price fuel retailer, Waitomo says the Government’s proposed changes to the fuel market will mean customers will be able to see if they are getting fleeced. ...14 hours ago
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will use today’s meeting with counterpart Scott Morrison in Sydney to tell him his Government is deporting Australian criminals to New Zealand. ...14 hours ago
Coronavirus: Finance Minister Grant Robertson - NZ in shadow of the biggest economic uncertainty in recent times; and A2 Milk result: Net profit leaps 21% on China sales. ...14 hours ago
Cycling the length of NZ has got Rod Oram thinking about farming in the climate change era ...15 hours ago
This week's biggest-selling New Zealand books, as recorded by the Nielsen BookScan New Zealand bestseller list and described by Steve Braunias. Fiction 1 The Absolute Book by Elizabeth Knox (Victoria University Press, $35) ReadingRoom broke the story detailing how Knox’s novel was fought over by US publishers in a ...16 hours ago
Sky Sport News presenters Kate King and Goran Paladin deliver the latest news of Kiwi sporting women at home and around the globe. *WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE* Hurdler Portia Bing has reinvented herself in a bid to make the Tokyo Olympics and take another step towards putting last year's disqualification at ...17 hours ago
Embarrassingly for the Department of Conservation, a scheduled ministerial announcement last year was postponed. David Williams reports A much-delayed project to better protect the Mackenzie Basin’s stunning landscapes and bolster biodiversity has a new boss. In the 2018 Budget, Conservation and Lands Minister Eugenie Sage announced $2.6 million to find ...17 hours ago
Trying to reduce drownings - and bring on a new generation of surfers - the Wave Warriors teach kids from low-decile schools water safety wrapped in a surf lesson. Eight-year-old Athena Talavai is less than half the height of the surfboard she’s expected to stand on, and probably only a quarter of the weight. She ...17 hours ago
The decision to give Ihumātao the highest heritage listing available sends a strong signal to the Government and Auckland Council, write Dr Frances Hancock and Nicola Short Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga (HNZPT) has upgraded the heritage listing of the Ōtuataua Stonefields Reserve and included adjacent and long-contested land at ...17 hours ago
If Simon Bridges manages to pull off an election victory, his next headache will be choosing his Cabinet from a somewhat uninspiring line-up, writes Peter Dunne Every election year there is a call to use the election as a chance to refresh Parliament and get rid of at least some ...17 hours ago
Snowden files: GCSB spies monitored diplomats in line for World Trade Organisation job http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11421371
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11421371
This is outrageous!
Yep post coming up.
On a side note-
Noticed the NZH managed to supply a link to the document, a link they failed to offer re the RoastBusters’ report last week 🙁
Salvation Army derail Key’s plan to sell off state houses.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11421462
They’ll be flogged off to his developer mates..
Was always the plan
Yes about time the opposition warned the buyers as to expectations and buy back at their purchase price, our state housing stock is far too low for a developed nation for this transfer to occur.
The creep of councils flogging public housing is off the radar on this issue.
+1
Labour and every other left party needs to come out and say that they will be rebuilding social housing stock levels. They also need to put in place a law that prevents sales of state assets.
Not exactly.
They need to make it clear to the National Party’s owners that Parliament will not be bound by bribes, and that every single time they buy legislation that socialises losses or privatises profits they will lose their shirts.
Assets will be repatriated and there will be no compensation.
There is no alternative.
Good idea but just as with the Genesis and MRP sell off, Labour is never going to alienate its upper middle class supporters in that way.
They get to look “reasonable” by suggesting a compromise then: no jailtime for anyone found to have a conflict of interest.
Umm no Paul, salvos do as expected allowing key to flog them to financiers and developers as was always the intention.
Here are keywords which will bring up a number of headings on google which look as if they would give worthwhile background to the social housing subject.
Here is a link to a study on what the Dutch did which is different to the Britisgh course of public housing which declined from the 1970’s largely because of their right-to-buy policy.
Why Dutch social housing did not follow the British path … dropped off from the 1970s onwards, whereas Dutch construction levels during the 1980s …. controlled by private non-profit housing associations rather than public organisations, and (2) ….. his predecessor succumbed to the massive financial scandal, and social …
Then this group report says it takes a pro-market rather than a free-market tack! And refers to the Rachman scandal (1960’s) which will be important to note when thinking about the downward path that the present UNACT NZ government is following.
http://www.smf.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Publication-The-Politics-of-Housing.pdfThe affordability problem dominates England’s housing market: an … total annual completions since the 1970s, and the private sector alone has not built this level …. provided by housing associations which are heavily dependent on benefit ….. exploitation of unscrupulous landlords – epitomised by the Rachman scandal.37.
And this discusses the private landlord in Britain and gives part of a document on the time from post WW2 till now.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781444329414.fmatter/pdf
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Rachman
Politicians from all spectrum attend protest against environmental vandalism, arrogance and greed of the Ports of Auckland.
We need our RMA.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11421470
Very disappointed Phil Twyford as Labours Transport spokesperson was missing in action. You would think Labour (Phil) would back up Peters who is championing this issue, a lost opportunity to get some runs on the board over the importance of stopping further RMA changes by National.
Labour was represented pretty well by the local List MP for Auckland Central Jacinda Adern.
Yes as was wannabe Mayor Phil Goff, however Twyford is transport is he not. The Northland Line and the rail link to Marsden Point is something Labour need to keep the acid right on National, rail does not fit where their roading plans and they are quietly under funding rail to the point where they can close the line.
The other thing is creating a bit of solidarity with NZF/Peters who is doing all the heavry lifting on the issue. Therefore a bit of action from Twyford is not too much
too ask surely.
I think you’re putting the cart before the horse Skinny. It seems to me Sunday’s protest was less about politics and all about a gut reaction from Aucklanders to what they see as a threat to their harbour. For Labour to have rolled out Twyford with a baldfaced political attack on the government and their transport policies would have been a mistake. It’s enough at the moment for Labour to be lining up alongside the views of Aucklanders (National will be trying to do this too of course). The politics can come later.
Aucklanders fighting the council over the loss of their harbour is 100% political. It is a perfect opportunity for Twyford to mention Marsden Point and rail as a solution to the problem. To not do so is dereliction of duty.
Is it churlish to suspect that this harbour protest will get an excellent level of media coverage, on the score that $40,000,000 worth of motor/sail vessels turned out……and yeah, quite alot of people ?
For the avoidance of doubt I am with the people and I thank the vessels.
If that was well represented, I’d hate to see what a poor job was.
Osborne from Northland said that he has worn out one and a half pairs of shoes. Is that three shoes?
Does that mean he’s “Jake the Peg”?
Mike the Peg, with his extra leg … a Northland children’s delight. I think Osborne is lying anyway. Standing behind NAct ministers doesn’t wear the shoe leather much at all.
As ever Jane Bowron is quite funny on this
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/opinion/67473983/Sideways-glances-from-an-off-course-Osborne
@Scott
Interesting that Focus NZ (1,700 votes at the Gen Election) have been advised to vote for Peters. That could swing it.
The claim from Osborne that he has worn out one and a half pairs of shoes is a preposterous claim.
Those roads of Northland must really be atrocious!
His candidacy was announced on 1st March. So, in about 20 days, he has worn out 1.5 pairs. i.e, 3 shoes! At this unbelievable rate, by election day this coming Saturday, he would have worn out about 2.5 pairs=5 shoes!…in just 30 days! The shoe companies would be thrilled and won’t believe their luck!
But somehow I think Osborne has been a bullshitter about the shoes and quite untrustworthy.
Having a rather weird sense of humour, I have been wondering why he only seems to have two casual shirts – both blue checks although slightly different.
And would Osborne walk as much as he is driven by Joyce?
And it was no surprise to see Claire Trevett doing her bit for Osborne’s campaign in this morning’s Herald.
This article in the Herald precedes Trev’s pumping up of Osborne this morning. It’s bloody hilarious but very, very sadly, true.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11421110
Peters’ political hero – Churchill
Prime’s political hero – Michael Joseph Savage
Osborne’s political hero – JOHN KEY ! That’s right……Mr “Anything Is Possible” according to Osborne.
Osborne a sincere, fearless representative of the people of Northland ? Up against the dons Key and Joyce ? No. This is not an “anything”. Can you see Steven Joyce if Osborne wins ? – “Listen boy…….we turned you from Mr Laughing-Stock to Mr Limp-In so get outa my office. And in future……breath through your nose !”
Good God. Northlanders roped into “ShonKey Python’s Flying-Jerk-Us”. Expect a breach of copyright claim additional to Eminem’s.
@North
This article is a attempt by the Herald to promote the race as a 3-way affair and so split the anti-National vote.
A vote for Prime is a wasted vote.
…and further notes on the tabloid Herald’s bias, the collapse of the government’s social housing policy is (online) listed below articles on Netflix’s charges, McCaw’s girlfriend and a bloke hassling drivers outside a school.
Winston just has to win — apart from obvious reason, but how unbearable will be the increased boasting and OTT arrogance of Key and Joyce in self congratulation … ugh.
What da ya rekon
Peters will repeat history, and win on a judicial recount.
The really funny thing to happen would be if Peters were to win the seat in the by-election.
He then resigns his list seat to get another NZF MP into the house.
There is an electoral petition which Winston loses.
He is out of the house until at least 2017.
And no, it wouldn’t help to have another NZF MP being coerced into resigning to open up another vacancy. Winston would not be eligible to take it.
Actually, I think that if Winston was to win in the by-election, and I don’t think it will happen, he won’t resign his list seat. He wouldn’t even consider allowing the above scenario to occur. He doesn’t really give a damn about his party or about Parliament. His sole interest is Winston the 1st.
You sad hopeful scenario will not happen because the result has to be confirmed before anyone changes seat.
I think you misunderstand the process.
A recount, if called for, takes place before the final result is declared. This would be the confirmed result. It appears that Winston would have to have resigned his list seat prior to this happening if he was going to be replaced on the list.
An electoral petition is a later thing and normally takes place after the new MP has taken their seat in Parliament. This is what happened when Winston got into Parliament way back in the dark ages. He came out on the right side of an electoral petition against Malcolm Douglas who had won the seat.
So no, although it is not very likely it could happen if Winston hopes to be replaced by another NZF list MP.
Hate to say it, but to a degree Alwyn is possibly correct – but the scenario he paints is highly unlikely but not impossible.
The situation re resignation etc to get in another NZF member is apparently not set in stone in the electoral rules. The Electoral Commission have a view as to what the procedures should be; as do other electoral law experts such as Graeme Edgeler. Don’t have time to find links, but there was considerable Twitter discussion (Edgeler and others) a few weeks ago when Winston Peters first declared he would run in Northland.
National have been pushing the line a win for Winston would benefit Southland with another seat as the next person on the NZF is an Invercargill hairdresser, Ria Bond.
But according to the Herald article by Claire Trevett on Saturday, Ria Bond is no longer living in Invercargill but has bee in Wellington working for NZF since August 2014.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11420760
Thank you.
You’ll note that I never said it was likely. I only said it would be funny if it should happen.
I’m sure that Winston would find it equally hilarious.
ScottGN, a little bit further down. quotes an opinion from Pundit about ACT possibly taking up an Electoral Petition on the grounds that Winston winning would disturb the proportionality of the house. Like Pundit, I don’t think he has any grounds at all.
Somebody living in the electorate, or a losing candidate in the by-election could however bring one on the grounds, (and this is hypothetical), that Winston had spent more than he is legally allowed to on his campaign, or something of that ilk.
Hilarious would be if Osborne won and had to resign to deal with the same type of family problems as Sabin. A vote for Winnie is a vote for a guy with no secrets, we know he’ll stay on.
And the National Party would know that very well as their staffers would see Ria frequently…
Exactly! The Parliamentary Precinct is a rather small place in reality, where people working there or visiting frequently (eg government officials) know one another and who they are.
Jon Reeves is the most likely person the come through on the NZF list. Very solid chap promoting public transport, be good to add the term silver/green voter.
Reeves may be a solid chap etc, but he is at No 15 on the NZF list.
Ria Bond is at No12, and even if she decided not to come in as a list MP, there is Mataroa Paroro at No 13 (who seems keen according to the Herald article) and Romuald Rudzki at No 14, before Reeves.
Reeves has been very good with NZF’s transport policy. He may leap frog the others since Peters is advocating a port & rail strategy in Northland. He goes alright with media and public speaking too. I maybe a little bias he is a mate.
The rules relating to the filling of a list MP position do not allow leap-frogging – in principle anyway.
The party concerned does not get to pick and choose who they put in the position. The Electoral Commission goes to each person on that Party’s list as set prior to the last General Election in the sequence set in the list and asks them if they want to take up the vacancy. As I noted, there are three people ahead of Reeves – one of whom has apparently expressed interest according to the Herald article.
http://www.elections.org.nz/voting-system/mmp-voting-system/filling-vacancy-list-seat
Agree that Reeves sounds as though he would make a good choice, but it would take the three ahead to all decide not to take the position.
With ‘ I do things my way Peters’ it easy seeing a game of leap frog developing. Winston First does ring true from time to time.
Alwynger
Stop crying in your beersies
You couldn’t be grosser
Spying and lying PorKeys a poser
Winnie will win
And all the S..in will be exposed.
I think I’ll stick with Messrs Edgeler and Geddis on this actually:
http://publicaddress.net/legalbeagle/the-northland-by-election-or-the-so-called/
http://pundit.co.nz/content/if-were-gonna-go-that-way-youre-gonna-need-a-bigger-knife
I can’t see much boasting in the event National holds on to what was a very safe seat with a narrow win. I imagine they’ll just be relieved to have avoided disaster and will be happy to move forward with their numbers restored in the parliament.
Yeah……I’m taking the precaution of travelling to Auckland Friday afternoon……having early voted for the only man in New Zealand right now who can prick the fetid-air balloon of the supreme heister of this entire nation, bar none. Whatever the outcome I need to be in the company of my closest.
If Peters wins it is decidedly the start of the end of TheGodKey. Even if not…..still it is underway. Increasingly we have an entilted little PonceKey in our faces. It will not go beyond 2017. Indeed my appreciation is that significantly before 2017, seeing the writing on the wall, and rather than take electoral defeat, this gutless, narcissistic one will take his baubles, his honorofic, unblind his trusts, and slide off somewhere else.
Ka Ki Te !
Wasn’t there some “New Zealander” of some importance (apparently) meant to be having their name suppression lifted around about now, and aren’t the eyes of speculation glancing in the direction of a certain former……………..
yeah, what’s going on?
Usual authoritarian dirty tricks.
If it is to do with Mike Sabin and it all comes out after the by-election instead of before then it will go down very very badly with the electorate…..
…. simply reinforces the lack of honesty and integrity associated with John Key
Anything to do with palms being greased and astonishing powers of persuasion coming into effect among the elites and certain professions?
It feels we’re so corrupt now nothing would be beyond belief.
Dirt and slime is the New Black.
Eleventh hour filing of an appeal against the lifting of name suppression filed on Thursday afternoon before 5pm deadline.
A number of media have filed for an urgent hearing of the appeal – otherwise it is unlikely to be heard for at least 3 – 4 weeks.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?objectid=11419961
Thank you VV……………
There really is some heavy duty identity protection going on there. It has the whiff of desperation around it.
@Rosie But surely the “whiff” is drifting over the Northland electorate?
And having had a request for name supression refused what possible new grounds could there be?
BG – I am going to be a pedant and say that :having had a request for name suppression refused” does not seem to be the actual situation from the little we know.
Name suppression appears to have been in place prior to 30 January, when a total suppression order was put on by the judge on all details of the case – including the actual location of the court! Then in mid-February some details of the case were released; and the defendant was given four weeks to appeal a lifting of name suppression on 19 March.
As I understand it, this procedure is not the same legally as having had a request for name suppression refused.
@veuto Thanks for that, nicely clarified
I find it hard to imagine that the thing in question would not have asked for a continuation of suppression in February. If they hadn’t, it would have just lapsed and we would have seen it all over the tv. Hence a request was refused, but time was given to appeal the decision. This time has been abused as badly as the innocent children involved.
I don’t necessarily disagree, MR. But we do not know whether that was the case/ But being a pendant, I could not allow a bald statement that name suppression had been refused to go – when we do not know that that was actually the case.
I actually think that the procedures followed by the judge/court which are apparently in accordance with the law is actually in the best interests of justice in the longer term – by not allowing this to be used as a technicality to close the case down.
You pendants are all the same…
LOL! Some of us just cannot help ourselves!
The by election is therefore a fraud, details surrounding the reasons why it is being called should be made public. Non disclosure has corrupted democracy, I have no doubts that people who have or are going to vote in the Northland electorate will not have/will vote/d for National.
How can it be fraud?
He resigned – and now there is a by election.
Its pretty simple.
Not when we are hearing of people already casting a vote for Osbourne and then hearing the reason Sabin resigned and the fact Osbourne was a key member of the National Northland electorate executive team. Tarred by association as they say. I am referring to some elderly church folk. People have the right to know the truth surrounding the murky resignation and cast their vote making an informed decision, especially when the timeline of who knew what is being disputed so widely in the media and so publicly.
Another thing insulting is Osbourne claiming he still knows nothing, which then becomes a matter of trust. If he came out and admitted he has heard the rumour’s but doesn’t operate on rumours, instead of blatantly saying ” he still doesn’t know anything regarding Sabin’s resignation”.
So this guy professes to have his finger on the pulse of Northland and is totally blind to what is going on right under his nose. Incredibly insulting to the electorate there are no other words for it.
Yeah – Skinny is right, James. And if the Nats don’t win, then Shon Key’s stuff-up in not replacing Sabin with a proper candidate in the 2014 election will be humiliating for them. Maybe a Winston win will be the end of the Key government ? ? ? hopefully ……
how can it be fraud when the information was subject to a court order????
aresholes
deceivers
manipulators
but not illegal to not tell folks when it is in a suppression order, surely.
There was no court order in place either before the last election, or even maybe the 2011 election, or on the morning when Sabin resigned. Key has had plenty of chances to be honest with us. He has never taken a single one.
well said, murray, thank you …
“Another thing insulting is Osbourne claiming he still knows nothing, which then becomes a matter of trust”
Both Key and Osborne have claimed that they knew nothing about Sabin’s stuff at all!
If you believe that, I think there are lots and lots of three way bridges in Northland which this government is happily giving away for voters to take away on Trade-me with absolutely No Reserve!
Cool bananas!
https://www.ipredict.co.nz/app.php?do=browse&cat=740
Good article on beer from Dom Post here by Dave Armstrong. Particularly like the last paragraph.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/comment/67473832/Dave-Armstron-Craft-beers-doing-very-nicely
A couple of weeks ago I linked to a news article which described how the death rate for white women in the USA was exploding because of the use of prescribed pharmaceutical drugs. We are talking around a million excess White female deaths in the last few years and climbing. Such an upward shift in mortality is seen by experts as “historic.”
Now here is research which shows that White lower educated women in the USA are experiencing a massive explosion in out of wedlock births. (While Black university educated womens’ out of wedlock birth figures fall dramatically). In other words, while upper class women enjoy traditional family structures more than ever, lower class women are getting smashed with increased family instability and poorer outcomes.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-22/after-fed-crushed-middle-class-it-targeting-american-family
The Economist has a stark conclusion:
National Party Northland candidate plonker.
http://tvnz.co.nz/q-and-a-news/northland-debate-mark-vs-winston-part-1-video-6260167
Russian propaganda doco on the history of Crimea
Apparently there was such a thing as the “First Seige” of Sevastapol and over a 120,000 Russians died there defending Crimea from the West and Turkey. I’d only known about the “Second Siege” where the defenders of Sevastapol were eventually ground into dust by the Wehrmacht.
There was a whole war going on at the time. If you’ve ever heard references to Florence Nightingale, or the Charge of the Light Brigade – “Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die: Into the valley of Death, Rode the six hundred” – they’re references to that war.
There have probably been more than two over the years, but the other famous one was of course during the Crimean War, which gave us poetry about senseless death, a lady with a lamp, cardigans, and maybe even sandwiches. The senseless death of British cavalrymen was blamed on inferior Turkish infantry rather than English upper class imbecility and the Victoria Cross came into being for excessive zeal in the killing of wogs. Willie Apiata got one for the same thing not long ago and the English lies about Turkish infantry saw our young men die stupidly on the cliffs of Gallipoli. Key will be going this year to show he has guts. It was not gutlessness that made him keep Sabin on, not at all.
Yemen falls into sectarian chaos as yet another US project loses the plot in the ME
The Americans have been conducting regular drone strilkes in Yemen since 2002 in support of the US friendly government there.
Since the fall of that government, hundreds of millions of dollars of modern American made military equipment has now gone to new unapproved owners. ISIS and Al Qaeda recruitment is surging.
US diplomats and US troops have abandoned Yemen as the security situation has gone down the toilet over the last couple of years.
Another great Middle East project “Made in the USA.”
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/22/yemen-sunnis-al-qaida-isis-islamic-state-shia-houthis-sanaa
NZs of current Note:
http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player/20171978
Beverley Forrester – Vocal champion of Wool ( 30′ 41″ )
10:06 Beverley Forrester is a farmer, sheep breeder, fashion designer, yarn manufacturer, tourism operator and a vocal champion of wool. She says a generation of consumers have been bombarded with cheap, mass produced, synthetic alternatives, but she believes there’s a resurgence in demand for the living fibre, and for knitting, which she describes as “the new yoga”. After the sudden death of her farmer husband Jim Forrester just before his 54th birthday, Beverley found herself running their Hurunui farm and sheep stud. She’s developed a successful brand of natural coloured, undyed yarns, which are now sold internationally, as well as her own fashion label. Beverley Forrester talks with Kathryn Ryan about her love of what she believes is New Zealand’s best primary product.
Wools one of the best products in the world: renewable , fire proof , biodegadible any self respecting greeny wouldn’t be caught dead in poly prop clothing or on a synthetic carpet.!!
hi b waghorn, i couldnt agree more, i have been a vocal enthusiast (?) for wool for many a year.
go to the local saleyards in feilding and you would be lucky to get 10% of sheep farmers wearing their own product. most of them are wandering round in recycled milk bottles.
makes me blood boil.
I have noticed that plenty myself. I think the problems is lack of r’n d around making wool products that can compete with plastic clothes . but our government s aren’t big on backing there own.
mmm.. yes, and primary producers not putting their money where their mouth is.
i read on stephanies blog (boots theory) about the rich man who bought expensive shoes while the poorer man bought cheap shoes.
in the lifetime of the better quality footwear the poor man had spent twice as much on his shoes.
while r n d is part of it, the whole economy around wool is screwed up. when it costs the farmer more to remove the wool from the sheep than what the wool is worth, something is rotten.
i was talking to a farmer who says back in the ’50s he was getting a pound for a pound of wool.
The Korean war caused the great wool boom in 1950-51.
And most farmers will tell you there’s no money in wool but the wool clip on the property I work on pays our fertilizer bill which is in the 150k range.
ahh! thats right, wool for uniforms.
to me wool is a panacea for our times, it grows on less than ideal land, labour intensive to harvest and process (jobs), and as you have mentioned earlier, heaps of uses, clothing, insulation, mulch/fertilizer…
the foxton feltex factory is closed. with a simple stroke of a legislators pen, making wool carpets mandatory in state housing and government offices, it can be reopend and we reinvest in a kiwi town and kiwi resources, win win.
What a government legislate for the good of small town NZ wash you’re mouth out 🙂
Knitting – also known as “Scottish Valium”. Relaxing and cheap.
‘Where the people lead – the politicians will follow’?
“Earlier today, Mr Brewer reversed his support for the expansion, saying he now wanted a rethink on the issue.”
Bernard Orsman Bernard Orsman is Super City reporter for the NZ Herald.
Len Brown loses support on Auckland port expansion
2:38 PM Monday Mar 23, 2015
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11421603
A majority of Auckland councillors are now opposed or want a rethink on port expansion.
The majority was achieved this afternoon when councillor Denise Krum joined councillors Cameron Brewer and Sharon Stewart in calling for the issue to be re-examined.
Auckland’s mayor, Len Brown, who does not want to stop Ports of Auckland plans to build two massive wharf extensions next month, is now in the minority.
………………………………..
A core of eight councillors – Chris Darby, Cathy Casey, Ross Clow, Chris Fletcher, Mike Lee, Wayne Walker, John Walker and George Wood – directly oppose the port expansion into the Waitemata Harbour.
Mr Brown has ignored the message from yesterday’s protest of about 2000 people and 300 boats in the city who want an immediate stop to the extensions to Bledisloe Wharf.
However, he said today he would set up a study of the economic, social and environmental impact of the port on wider Auckland, which he promised in August 2013.
Ms Krum said she was unclear about the council’s position on the wharf extensions and whether legally the council can get back into the trenches on planning provisions for the port precinct in the Unitary Plan.
She said things had changed over the past three weeks and the council would be negligent to bury its head in the sand.
“We need some leadership with this issue. There is no singular leadership driven, ‘let’s take councillors on a journey here’. Let’s have all the information,” she said.
“I’m also really quite miffed. I have heard nothing from the ports themselves. As someone who wants to back their business because I see the contribution they need to make to Auckland. As a shareholder, where are they in this foray?”
The Ports of Auckland board is meeting today but it is unclear if the the board, chaired by Graeme Hawkins, will make a public statement in response to the public outcry over the plans.
Mr Brewer has today written to Mr Brown asking him to convene a meeting of the governing body to reconsider the council’s position on reclamation rules in the Unitary Plan for mediation.
In August 2013, the council voted for tough “non-complying” rules for reclamation in the Unitary Plan, but twice in the past five weeks it has voted to ease these rules to “discretionary” status requiring public notification.
The council has argued it has not voted for more lenient rules on reclamation, saying the new “discretionary” status and other regulations are tougher than the current rules in the regional coastal plan.
“I have yet to change my vote,” Mr Brewer says in the letter. “But like others, I am calling for these matters to be formally revisited by the governing body in a calm and collected way with all the information new and old presented without fear of favour.
“Given the significant level of public interest, we at least owe that to Aucklanders.”
Earlier today, Mr Brewer reversed his support for the expansion, saying he now wanted a rethink on the issue.
“I invite the mayor to bring this back to the council table and give this another go,” he told the Herald.
The Orakei councillor took part in a secret vote last month on the side of Mr Brown and his deputy Penny Hulse to ease the August 2013 rules for port expansion.
“I thought I was doing the right thing by supporting tightening the old reclamation rules that were in existence from 1987 to 2013, but it’s clear that’s still not going far enough to appease the Auckland community.
“If Aucklanders want no reclamation whatsoever, then lets at least have the debate again with the public sentiment now clearly known.
“It is massive public sentiment. Len Brown needs to look it again,” Mr Brewer said.
______________________________________________________________________________________
Gosh!
That didn’t take long!
Excellent! 🙂
Penny Bright
http://www.pennybright4mayor.org.nz
The actual article in the Herald had an invite to email them your views on the subject. I sent the following :-
I am totally opposed to any extensions until a full and independent assessment is completed with full and open discussion.
The arrogant attitude by those involved directly in the Ports of Auckland has happened because of the way the governance of this vital infrastructure was set up by the Key Government through their delegated front man , Rodney Hide, who threw out a carefully considered scheme for Auckland City prepared over several years by three knowledgable and experienced Commissioners and replaced it with his hastily prepared alternative devised in about 6 months.
Largely ignored by the citizens of Auckland was the dispute between Ports Of Auckland (POA) and the Maritime Union which has recently been settled after several years of negotiation. The Mayor & the Council that is the elected Councillors refused to get involved in that problem because they were effectively 3 times removed from the POA because of the way that the lines of authority had been set up when the Auckland City plan was devised..
The Mayor of Auckland and the Auckland City Councillors were Democratically elected by the citizens of Auckland to manage the affairs of the City, all the other people in the chains of command of POA including the CEO of POA ( and there are quite a few) are appointed, not elected.
The elected representatives of the citizens of Auckland need to manage this matter effectively NOW or resign and let us elect some new faces who are prepared to sort out this problem.
In the meantime there needs to be an embargo on any expansion whatsoever in my opinion
Well said, John Shears. Hope it gets read, and considered.
And the really stupid part about all of this is that Whangarei – Marsden Point – has the best deep water harbour in NZ, is little used, because both Auckland and Tauranga Ports have not only competing interests in Marsden Port, but their own interests which keeps their ports operating and Marsden lingering at the edges …….. Auckland Port needs to revise their thinking, and make use of Marsden for the bigger vessels coming – instead of trying to squeeze them into what has become a relatively narrow Waitemata harbour and Hauraki Gulf.
ps John S – I’ve lost your email address ? ??
shears82@gmail.com
FYI folks!
______________________________________________________________________________________
23 March 2015
Press Release Sue Henry Spokesperson for the Housing Lobby:
“Stop the privatisation of State Housing!”
“The wheels are finally falling off the Government’s scheme to use charity and Iwi groups as a trojan horse to privatise the $18 billion worth of State Housing assets,” says Sue Henry, Spokesperson for the Housing Lobby:
“If it was ‘untenable’ for the Salvation Army to use existing State Housing stock for the failed ‘social housing’ experiment, other NGOs and consortiums will never have the capacity as providers, unless they are bankrolled by foreign property development companies, for speculative gain, which still equates to privatisation.”
“The public were told prior to the 2014 election there would be no further asset sales.”
“There is no electoral mandate for the privatisation of State Housing.”
“The Housing Lobby are calling on the Government to scrap the charity housing model and repeal the 2013 Social Housing, Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters Act.”
“Housing New Zealand must be reinstated as the ‘one stop shop’ State Housing provider, under the ‘public service’ model,” Sue Henry concluded.
Sue Henry
Spokesperson,
Housing Lobby
…………………….
______________________________________________________________________________________
Kind regards
Penny Bright
The war on workers continues – an Aussie compnay in auckland wants to remove tea breaks from an industrial site. This is why we need tea breaks abd corporate homicide charges. Forklifts and fatigue don’t mix in a happy way.
That can’t be right.
John Key and every other right winger said no employer would ever want to take away smokos even if they could.
Must be a misprint. I’ll expect a retraction with the hour.
Yep, exactly as anticipated by the Left and denied by the RWNJs:
Of course, Key and National knew that this would happen. It’s why they changed the law.
hi draco, hate to do this but i have to point out our dear leader was right.
the laws was passed (like a bowel motion) in october, its now march, so that is not sudden.
also this effects dozens not thousands of workers.
all good on planet key. carry on.
Syriza, Podemos….
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/23/spanish-anti-austerity-party-podemos-wins-15-seats-andalusia
This would would explain the reluctance to do anything at all.
http://www.realclimate.org/images/climatesensitivity.001.jpg
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2015/03/climate-sensitivity-week/
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11421666
Legal action “not taken lightly” indeed ! Well no, but of course the daddies had the 8-10 grand it would have cost. The considerations were constitutional and justice based were they ? Nothing to do with their wedged-up daddies’ determination to pass on down to their offspring the privilege they themselves enjoy. Nah, course not !
If they were a couple of little Maori boys in Kaikohe, one’d be appearing in the Youth Court, one’d be in the District Court……and the 17 year old particularly would be on bail terms so oppressive that he’d be bound to breach……and then who knows ? Night in the cells in Whangarei before he’s ‘let off’ with a formally recorded bail warning ? Another meaningless breach. Oh God, not custody……then on down to UK investor owned/profiting, Serco/Mt Eden/”The Jungle”.
In our justice system you’re sweet if you’re white with a wedged up daddy. I know that to be a freakish and disgusting truth. During 40 years with the opportunity to observe it I’ve seen it countless times. It’s this; the actors in the justice system ‘sign-up’, not consciously or wittingly, but it’s ‘sign-up’ nevertheless.
Just when you think New Zealand has a monopoly on greedy/ignorant/criminally insane politicians, get a load of Mike Baird…
It starts off rather light-hearted, but gets grimmer and grimmer as it goes along. Anyone who cares at all about the environment will be vomiting blood by the end.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11421805
Of course this was always going to happen. Greed, like rust, never sleeps. The wicked thing is that its promoters don’t even see it is as greed, it is no-brainer rationality. Of course one will operate one’s undertaking to the outer edge of what is lawful. Why would one not ? And under ThePonceKey greed is increasingly encouraged never to sleep. Apologies for any mixed metaphors there. Like ThePonceKey ‘m not verrr lit-rit, ecksshilly !
It looks as though we are getting closer and closer to a situation where the victims must take a serious stand. Strikes, pickets, appealing to the souls of would-be-scabs, defiance of legal process proscribing the standing up for essential rights……a network of moral and financial support for those on PlanetPonceKey with the ‘temerity’ to say “No – Enough !” Hit them in the very place from which prances forth the lusty greed…….the pocket. Hopefully that will have them (an unintended consequence of course) the financial pariahs they are in moral terms.
The more the people do nothing the harder they’ll go. There are no moral questions come into play with these people. Greed (sorry, ‘maximisation of profit”) just never sleeps !
Woohoo. I’ve just heard Andrew Little on Morning Report about Northland. He did well, referring to the polls and being realistic.