Reports are coming in saying, “the siege of Gaza, which Israel has fought so bitterly and for so long to maintain has ended.”
“The [Israeli-Hamas ceasefire] agreement signed on Wednesday states that all crossings into Gaza – presumably not just the Rafah border with Egypt but the ones on the Israeli side as well – will be open to the movement of people and goods.
Isreal and Palestine merge to form one singluar bicultural/multicultural state, where Arabs, Jews, and everyone else are treated as equal in a democratic secular state. Jerusalem to be internationalised as a free city for all peoples and faiths, under UN control. Will require both sides to make consessions, but people actually want to go out without worrying being blown to pieces by some fanatics.
It is reported that the Palistinians are moving new arms through their tunnels from Egypt, although 143 were destroyed, they still have many more which are being used.
In addition at the start of this skirmish they had 15,000 rockets of which only 15% were fired.
Cannot see Kumbaya yet.
It’s being reported? Er, no. It’s being alleged by an Israeli Government shill that the defenders of the Gaza ghetto had 15000 rockets. And these rockets are low tech; unguided and ineffective. On the other side, the invaders have the latest tech and overwhelming strength of numbers. Hardly a fair fight.
And just for fun, can I point out that only a couple of the Gaza rockets have ever landed on Israeli soil. Most are aimed at Palestinian land, stolen by the oppressor.
Except you’d never get either side to agree to a secular state, and demographically Israelis would be quickly outnumbered – so no. I do like the idea of Jerusalem being a free city.
Wow. This is world shaking news. This is almost as momentous as the collapse of the Berlin Wall.
Surely the Separation Wall will fall next. We are seeing a complete reshaping of the whole Palestinian Israeli question.
Will these developments see a negotiated peace, where the Israelis have to organise an evacuation of the illegal settlements in the West Bank?
With the borders open can the refugees in Gaza return to their former lands and houses at least in the current occupied territories especially if they are freed up by the evacuation of the settlers?
This is unbelievable and a cause for great celebration and no doubt for the Palestians particularly.
Will there be a formal announcement of the two state solution?
Will Abbass bid to the UN for observer status, be upgraded to a request for full membership?
You, (and the Guardian editorialist), are reading a hell of a lot into a few lines of text.
the borders have been open to the movement of goods and people throughout the seige. It’s how stuff gets in and out, it’s tightly controlled, but not ‘closed’. Presumably during the last week they have been sealed.
Some would claim, and perhaps with good reason, that the All Blacks are probably the best (only) export promotion bill board we have.
Yet, watching a snippet of the Italian – New Zealand game, I could not help noticing the socks of both teams. The Italians were wearing the Canterbury clothing brand and the All Blacks, the Adidas motif …
Yes, proves the point , Canterbury capability and cred came off the back of many successful AB seasons. Now they are one of the premier international suppliers of tech gear for a range of sporting codes.
I was listening to the Secretary for Education on National Radio this a.m. and the ongoing bleating of how complex the payroll system is. The Secretary patiently explained how the gargantuan task of paying our Teachers would cripple Hercules, immobilize Job and probably break DangerMouse , even if Penfold and all the Argonauts popped in to lend a hand.
I began wondering how our Health workers manage to get paid then?
Home help, OT’s, Physios, Nurses, Locums, GP’s, even the Surgeons seem to get paid without weekly drama and that Industry has exactly the same parameters of complex issues the Secretary ascribed to Education.
If the Secretary of Education finds getting the teachers paid all too much then how on earth can we have any confidence that the Secretary is even remotely capable of doing the far more complex and important job of actually educating our kids?
I have a close friend in the senior government IT echelons, while it seems obvious to anyone with half a brain that one could and should replicate well operating IT (and other) systems throughout government and the public service this is not the way the aparatchiks operate as theirs is a system based on troughing, incompetence and reinvention of the wheel – often in non circular form.
And of course those hugely complex teacher payrolls with over 90,000 employees managed in the past, so not really a sudden revelation. Why such a surprise?
Don’t worry freedom, the health sector will be next (and I seem to remember some hooha in the 90s when they changed to a new computing system in hospitals)
I worked as a relief teacher for 10 years and not once did I have a problem with Datacom (the previous payroll company). Also they answered the phone instantly.
Teachers etc got paid ok under the old system without any problems, the old saying, if it ain’t broke, dont fix it.
My thoughts go out to those poor teachers etc that featured on Campbell Live, it’s a terrible
situation.
But the Ministry is still saying that if one has not been paid, then the school should write a cheque out of school funds. More paper work then a payback from someone to someone else. Hell of a way to run a business.
There appears to be a problem with accessing akismet this morning. Comments are lagging through the spam checks and I have this message showing.
Akismet has detected a problem. Some comments have not yet been checked for spam by Akismet. They have been temporarily held for moderation. Please check your Akismet configuration and contact your web host if problems persist.
They are getting through, but there can be a few minutes lag. The peak I have seen has been 8 comments queued and with a delay of a less than 2 minutes (displays comment time only to the minute).
We get these on the odd occasion. They usually only persist for 10 minutes or so. But this one has been running for somewhat longer.
Local NZ connection to root name servers are down ….
Nothing resolves , using hosts file for thestandard at the mo.
Someone should tell Telecom / sprint net
They need to switch their “Local” root server to “Cached-Only” mode 🙂
Been seeing a lot of high numbered port, DOS attacks last 3 – 4 months.
Mainly around the address translation ports, Turkey and southern north american origins.
Attacking “apple” ports as well.
I’d have expected it wouldn’t make a difference. The name -> IP would normally be cached in the server’s client DNS rather than having to resolve all of the time. And we are talking about comments being entered which is something that this site several times per minute during the peaks, and several minutes between for the rest of the NZ day.
Depends on what they set the TTL’s to I guess. If it was extremely short, then we might get DNS resolution lags. If there was a man in the middle attack on the DNS, then they’d set the TTL way up anyway.
More likely there is just maintenance or a DDOS. But this isn’t an area that I focus on that much. More jbc’s than mine.
DNS is a fundamental, slow it down and every spam engine in the world slows down.
And the TTL is meaningless unless u r in “cached-only” mode, it’ll still check the root server, it may time out, but slow is the end result.
It’s a last resort response to DNS DOS, which is what I think is happening , maintenance is not “down time” with revolving dns names etc.
In Peter Watkins’ remarkable BBC film, The War Game,which foresaw the aftermath of an attack on London with a one-megaton nuclear bomb, the narrator says: “On almost the entire subject of thermo-clear weapons, there is now practically total silence in the press, official publications and on TV. Is there hope to be found in this silence?”
The truth of this statement was equal to its irony. On 24 November, 1965, the BBC banned The War Game as “too horrifying for the medium of broadcasting”. This was false. The real reason was spelt out by the chairman of the BBC Board of Governors, Lord Normanbrook, in a secret letter to the Secretary to the Cabinet, Sir Burke Trend.
“[The War Game] is not designed as propaganda,” he wrote, “it is intended as a purely factual statement and is based on careful research into official material… But the showing of the film on television might have a significant effect on public attitudes towards the policy of the nuclear deterrent.” Following a screening attended by senior Whitehall officials, the film was banned because it told an intolerable truth. Sixteen years later, the then BBC director-general, Sir Ian Trethowan, renewed the ban, saying that he feared for the film’s effect on people of “limited mental intelligence”. Watkins’ brilliant work was eventually shown in 1985 to a late-night minority audience. It was introduced by Ludovic Kennedy who repeated the official lie.
What happened to The War Game is the function of the state broadcaster as a cornerstone of Britain’s ruling elite. With its outstanding production values, often fine popular drama, natural history and sporting coverage, the BBC enjoys wide appeal and, according to its managers and beneficiaries, “trust”. This “trust” may well apply to Springwatch and Sir David Attenborough, but there is no demonstrable basis for it in much of the news and so-called current affairs that claim to make sense of the world, especially the machinations of rampant power. There are honourable individual exceptions, but watch how these are tamed the longer they remain in the institution: a “defenestration”, as one senior BBC journalist describes it.
This is notably true in the Middle East where the Israeli state has successfully intimidated the BBC into presenting the theft of Palestinian land and the caging, torturing and killing of its people as an intractable “conflict” between equals. Standing in the rubble from an Israeli attack, one BBC journalist went further and referred to “Gaza’s strong culture of martyrdom”. So great is this distortion that young viewers of BBC News have told Glasgow University researchers they are left with the impression that Palestinians are the illegal colonisers of their own country. ….
The Government will build 10,000 new houses a year. Now let’s break that down.
10,000 houses a year is 192 houses a week. Now if you take the working week of 40 hours, that is 4.8 houses per hour. That is a new house every 13 minutes of the working week.
Hands up those who think the Government can build a new house every 13 minutes? If your hand is up, please keep it up and please join the queue for free trips to the North Pole to see Santa Claus.
So can anyone tell me who put forward this obviously unworkable shonky promise and were they on Team Cunliffe trying to discredit Shearer
Still not nearly enough. If by some miracle you can build a house in 500 hours that equates to just 8 houses a week. Still not near one every 13 minutes.
Someone is having a laugh that they allowed Shearer to make a claim that will be forever ridiculed. That was sabotage.
No perhaps fisiani and farrar and all the other pesimists and naysayers are right. The whole thing should be called off. It is just too hard. Everybody go home, the policy has been cancelled as it is impossible to provide less expensive housing in New Zealand……… ffs
The RWNJ logic (if we want to call it that) goes like this:
That’s a house every 13 minutes and nobody can build a house in 13 minutes thus the Labour party must be lying.
Yes, the RWNJs like Fisiani really are that stupid. They’re actually incapable of the basic maths to work out what it would take to build 10000 houses as they’ve just proven.
Care to actually point out the maths of how an EXTRA 10,000 homes can be built in the 40 hours of a 48 week effective working year, bad weather not included. (PS Modular house erection erection does not equate to having a house fit for habitation.)
Virtual Chocolate fish to the first delusionist to prove how it is possible.
I will not accept answers such as ” The Hogwarts school of carpentry” or “300,000 migrant Oompaloompas” or ” there are 170,000 ‘builders’ unemployed”
The only explanation of this mathematical brain fade is that someone has tried and succeeded in making Shearer look utterly incompetent. Perhaps it was just a decimal point in the wrong place.
1000 houses would only take 130 minutes each to construct.
100 would take 1300 minutes or 21.6 hours
Don’t even get me started on the shonky cost calculations………..
It takes two builders 8 weeks to build a 90m2 house (and that’s being generous). That’s two guys building 6 houses per year and we want 10,000 of them in one year. That means we need 1667 teams or 3334 builders.
Now, we actually already have several thousand builders already and many are presently under-employed or unemployed (there’s a reason why builders rates have gone from $34/hour plus to $25/hour) so we will have some spare capacity and possibly even enough without training up more builders and there is that 170k people unemployed some of which would be more than happy to become builders. Remember, the plan is 100k over ten years but it doesn’t have to start out at 10,000 in the first year (it would be nice but probably impractical).
As for the “shonky cost” well, personally, I think their being a little over generous myself especially if they go for medium or high density housing which they should do.
Really, the only things that are shonky are the RWNJs and their attempts at maths.
Two magical superworkers who can do the foundations, framing, plastering plumbing electrics, roofing and painting decorating in eight weeks. Oompa Loompa Land
I was hoping one of you would make a serious attempt .
Come on guys. You cannot defend the indefensible.
Look Fisiani it’s obvious you’ve got a bone too grind with bloggs.
But 10,000 completed homes is a goal, give it a few years.
We are currently building 10,000+- homes a year, if it takes two years then so be it consents means “started”.
Labour want to increase this number by a few hundred to a thousand per month
I.E. GROWTH IN THE BUILDING INDUSTRY.
Instantaneous gratification only exists in the drug addicts mind.
Not to big a stretch considering a basic custom built 90 m sq. house can be done in 12 weeks with two men.
We would always say 16 weeks, and usually take 14, not because the individual house took that long, but because we would have several on the go at once at different stages.
Cookie cutter houses would be even faster once the builders had some practice.
4 of us got a house for a TV show from foundations to roof in 10 days. Despite having to do a lot of demolition and working around bits of an old house.
And your ‘obviously’ means that a house really can be built every 13 minutes??????? Are you ‘aving a larf?
Please please make it the centerpiece of housing policy in 2014.
People may not be able to get to the polls due to laughing.
You cannot win an election without credibility.
Another “show me the money” moment.
I’ll spell it out really simply: Yes, we can as a matter of fact build a house every 13 minutes in NZ over and above the ones being built now (which is probably more than 1 every 13 minutes).
Fisi is the genius who thinks unemployment can’t be going up because ‘more people are employed than ever!’
It’s hard for most us to believe that he’s actually imagining two builders starting a house and 13 minutes later having it completed and moving on to the next one, but he has just admitted that he can’t grasp the concept of percentages so it’s not out of the question.
A skyscraper which could fit what…500 apartments? Built in 2 weeks…35 apartments per day say…WOW amazing what you can achieve when you put your mind and your brains to a problem. Instead of moaning that everything is just too hard.
Yep. amazing alright! The company’s next project is to construct the world’s tallest building. 220 floors, 838 metres, housing for 31,000 people. Ok, it’ll take a wee bit longer than the one in the video to put up …. a mere 90 days.
Even if we had to double the number of needed builders we could still do it. Really, building that number of extra houses every year is easy – barely even touching upon the total resources we have available as a country but you, and the other RWNJs, don’t want to hear that as it goes against the myth that’s been built up over the decades and centuries that we can’t afford to. It’s proof positive that the National Party and the economists that support them have NFI WTF they’re talking about or that they’re lying.
Generally speaking, if we’ve got the builders then we’ve got the rest. The builders will be the ones on site full time from the moment building starts to it’s completion. In other words, you’ll need significantly less of the other workers and they will be in proportion to the number of builders.
That said, there always seems to be a shortage of plumbers…
Builders and I mean qualified shouldn’t pick up a hammer for less than $45, pay peanuts you get monkeys, monkeys build leaky houses, all these extra builders are going to come from where ? 8000 hrs to train a carpenter, 4 years, or are they going to come flooding back for $25 an hr yeah right.
I hope Labour have the numbers to back this up and even if they do Shearer will never be able to remember then unless he writes them on the back of his hand.
Builders and I mean qualified shouldn’t pick up a hammer for less than $45
Considering how much legal work my nephew has been doing in regards to his building (You’d be amazed at the number of building contractors who don’t know the building code) I keep telling him he should be charging out at $120/hour. Nobody seems to want to pay that though and the most he’s got since 2k8 is $32/hour and that was on a single job. All the other times he’s either been unemployed or paid in the mid 20s and Chch actually pays less.
Ah, sorry you’re right, Labour is talking roughly 300k. So that’s $415 per week. Same criticism applies.
Fortunately I can now afford a mortgage, but with the arrival of my second child on a low income and a 160k mortgage, we could barely eat. Turned me into a decent vege gardener, but…
Is the intention for the Govt rather than private sector banks to do the lending?
Don’t want to assume / comment because it may be in their econ policy, just printed to read. But I’d like to see LVR’s, LVT as well as CGT and some re zoning to free up all the land banks, like Giltrap’s down Great North Rd, a lot of apartments could come onto the market if that land was developed, right in the middle of the city within walking distance of jobs, and the local retail / entertainment economy.
I gather work is being done, pressure applied to RBNZ to address the capital flow which is chasing yield from our interest rates.
$550.00 a week? Thats more than I get a week to feed me my partner a 17 year old and a 18 month-er. Buy a house ? Tui Time. And this is why I say Shearer is just way out of touch with the real people.
It’s $300 k, less deposit. So, say, 270k. Weekly payments of around $400. About what you’d pay for rent for a modest family home in that Auckland. And with land being cheaper in the provinces, that $270k might be $240k. Mortgage of $350 pw? That’s realistic for many young couples starting out, I would have thought.
Well, yeah, but then you’d be hard pressed to find a single income working class family on $35K. WFF would lift the household income substantially. But, realistically, both parents need to be working, at least initially, to afford a mortgage. A big ask in the current economy and with a government opposed to a living wage. Hell, opposed to full employment altogether.
Saving for the deposit does take years, but it is also evidence of the ability to budget that banks take into account when granting the mortgage. The banks will only lend to a point where the mortgage payment is the highest proportion of household expenditure. Can’t remember the exact cutoff, but I think the household is likely to need to bring in $800 pw to be granted a mortgage of around half that. So, maybe 40- 50k income and it becomes a runner at $350 – 400 pw payments. Any bankers out there? Can you shine a light on the actual percentages?
The point is increasing the supply of houses in the $300k range is also going to help the availability of rentals and houses in the cheaper ranges. Simple supply and demand.
We tried that Weka, they are now called leacky homes and are now costing you and me mill/bill….of $$ and lets not forget earthquakes, so houses now will have to be stronger than ever and water tight, for a while, till we all forget, and start building cheap houses again in about 10 years, maybe 15 this time.
Well, those houses weren’t actually “cheaper” to the buyer, they were just cheaper to the property developers because of corners cut, and it was the developers who walked away with the difference as profits.
I really think property developers get a bad rap CV , the problems start with the the drawing of plans and what the council will and won’t allow. Some developers will get away with whatever the council lets them get away with and so they all start cheating to keep up, you could liken it to cycling.
“Developing is akin to playing Russian roulette. You can pull the trigger and draw a blank, although why you would want to I can’t imagine, but, because of the addiction factor, developers keep on doing so until sooner or later inevitably they draw the bullet.”
Bob Jones:
Who lobbied for the council changes? Who lobbied for deregulation of the building industry (“self-regulation”)? Who manufactured, sold and profited from the fashionable new building materials which turned out to be rubbish?
Egypt’s President Mohammed Mursi has issued a declaration banning challenges to his decrees, laws and decisions.
The declaration also says no court can dissolve the constituent assembly, which is drawing up a new constitution.
President Mursi also sacked the chief prosecutor and ordered the retrial of people accused of attacking protesters when ex-President Mubarak held office.
Egyptian opposition leader Mohammed ElBaradei accused Mr Mursi of acting like a “new pharaoh”.
In a joint news conference held late on Thursday, Mr ElBaradai and other opposition figures described the declaration as a “coup against legitimacy” and called on Egyptians to take to the streets in protest.
I hear Jane Clifton was on the Panel today and discussing the Labour Party conference last weekend.
Did Jim Moira challenge her about a potential conflict of interest?
I tuned in briefly, recognised her voice, so tuned out. To my knowledge she wasn’t there – at least not on the conference floor. She wouldn’t have been far away though… waiting for yet more tid-bits from her new beau that she could then leak (on new beau’s behalf) to her journo pals.
Can YOU help collect signatures on the SIGNATHON for a couple of hours over this weekend?
Have YOU ‘switched off Mercury Energy’?
____________________________________________________________________________
PRESS RELEASE: “The Switch Off Mercury Energy community group urges New Zealanders opposed to asset sales to support the nation-wide SIGNATHON this weekend!” Switch Off Mercury Energy Spokesperson, Penny Bright.
This weekend, 24 -25 November 2012, there is a huge push all over New Zealand by the Keep Our Assets coalition to get the final 80,000 signatures required to help force a Citizens Initiated Referendum on the government’s proposed state asset sales.
At 300 places, from the top of the North Island to the bottom of the South Island, New Zealanders will have an opportunity to sign this petition, which asks the House of Representatives to hold an ‘indicative referendum’ on the following question:
“Do you support the Government selling up to 49% of Meridian Energy, Mighty River Power, Genesis Power, Solid Energy and Air New Zealand?”
This Signathon site has over 300 collection points .
Those who can help collect signatures at any of these 300 collection points are encouraged to sign on to the one that’s most convenient, and turn up at the location on the day.
Those who can’t make it to one of the Signathon collection points but still have a bit of time to collect signatures on the weekend are being encouraged to download and print some petition forms for themselves.
“National – who campaigned in the 2011 election on asset sales – has only 59 out of 121 MPs – which is not a majority. No majority = no mandate for asset sales,” says a Switch Off Mercury Energy Spokesperson, Penny Bright.
“National were dependent on the votes of ACT Leader John Banks, MP for Epsom and United Future Leader Peter Dunne, MP for Ohariu for the passing of the Mixed Ownership Model Act – which scraped through the House 61 votes to 60.”
“The Switch Off Mercury Energy community group calls on New Zealanders to consider backing up your signatures for this referendum against asset sales, with further ‘people power’ action that will help stop the proposed sale of the first State-Owned electricity asset under the Mixed Ownership Act – Mighty River Power – by ‘switching off’ Mercury Energy.”
Mercury Energy is 100% owned by Mighty River Power, which is the first publicly owned state asset the current National Government is trying to privatise. Originally intended to start in September this year, due to public pressure the Government has delayed the sale until March 2013.
While delayed, asset sales have not stopped. This Switch Off Mercury Energy campaign aims to stop the Government’s first asset sale plans by making Mighty River Power and unattractive investment.
“Remember, ‘People power’ campaigns DO work!
In 2008, Contact Energy (already privatised), increased electricity prices 12% and doubled their Directors’ fees. After public outrage they lost over 40,000 customers within six months and their profit was cut in half!
For more information, on how to ‘Switch Off Mercury Energy’ and recommendations for where to ‘switch’ :
“…a far more frightening work than any of the nightmare novels of George Orwell.With the logic(oooh)
which is the great instrument of French thought, (Ellul) explores and attempts to prove the thesis that
propaganda, whether the ends are demonstrably good or bad, is not only destructive to democracy, it is
perhaps the most serious threat to humanity operating in the modern world.”-L.A Times
“The theme of Propaganda (sans italicisezation) Achtung ma cherie, I digress, is quite simply
that when our new technology encompasses any culture or society, the result is propaganda
(don’t quote me on that.score)
-Marshall McLuhan
oh well, wheels have rolled on since then…
Reading this article about data-centres and how much power they use when I noticed this passage:
Companies also guard their technology for competitive reasons, said Michael Manos, a longtime industry executive. “All of those things play into each other to foster this closed, members-only kind of group,” he said.
Yep, competition, keeping inefficiency high because people are chasing the almighty profit.
A group of CEOs led by Macy’s Terry Lundgren calling itself the Fix the Debt coalition is hoping for a deficit-busting austerity budget this holiday season—not a program to create American jobs.
Why? Because high unemployment “keeps their workers in check” by driving up competition for jobs, writes Lynn Stuart Parramore at AlterNet.
And the party of business in NZ is?
And their leader said?
Grr. The only positive out of this is getting rid of Garner.
Media and both sides of the political spectrum having a great time pissing up together.
Just having a fucking laugh really eh?
No wonder all of them are covertly against the democratisation of the labour party, their cosy little lifestyles would be completely fucked if the idea were to take hold across the political spectrum.
Leadership vote, on that note it isn’t over; first shot back me thinks. I’m thinking of joining the party again.
“a health sector source who worked closely with Cunliffe. He is the right type to lead New Zealand, she told the Herald , having character, brains, heart and being in “politics for all the right reasons”.
TL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above that was recorded yesterday afternoon above between and The Kākā’s climate correspondent : An independent review panel into the emergency response to Cyclone Gabrielle in Hawkes Bayconcluded “that ...
There are now only a few days left to give feedback on the Draft Government Policy Statement (GPS) on Land Transport 2024-34 (see our earlier post this week on GPS submission guides). As we’ve reported, the GPS is a disaster for Local Government, so we were particularly interested to hear ...
Willis has pledged to go ahead with the debt-funded tax cuts, despite growing opposition from her own supporters worried about appearing fiscally irresponsible. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for ...
Open access notables A survey of interventions to actively conserve the frozen North, van Wijngaarden et al., Climatic Change:The frozen elements of the high North are thawing as the region warms much faster than the global mean. The dangers of sea level rise due to melting glacier ice, increased ...
Bryce Edwards writes – New Zealand’s biggest-ever political donations scandal is finally at an end. But what is the conclusion? No one can really be sure. The Court of Appeal released its judgement on Tuesday about the Serious Fraud Office case against the NZ First Foundation. On ...
In 2015, then-Prime Minister John Key announced plans for a huge ocean sanctuary around the Kermadec Islands, banning fishing and mining from 15% of Aotearoa's EEZ. It was bold, it was ambitious, and it suggested that National might actually care about the environment. Except they fucked it up: Key failed ...
1. Who has just been given the accolade New Zealander of the Year?a. The Kokakob. The Cook Strait Ferryc. Fair God. Dr Jim Salinger 2. Which of these is an affront to decent society?a. Dame Edna Everageb. Mrs Doubtfire c. Dr. Frank-N-Furterd. Brian 3. Who is Penny Simmonds?a. The aspiring actress in Big ...
New Zealand’s biggest-ever political donations scandal is finally at an end. But what is the conclusion? No one can really be sure.The Court of Appeal released its judgement on Tuesday about the Serious Fraud Office case against the NZ First Foundation. On the face of it, the court found ...
Buzz from the Beehive Waves of rain are set to lash much of the North Island during Easter Weekend as a low-pressure system forms east of New Zealand, according to a weather forecast published in the past day or so. Niwa was warning of a “moisture-laden” long weekend, with rain expected ...
Look around us…Nicola Willis’ promises of balancing the books, of cutting spending without reducing services, and of delivering game changing tax cuts are disappearing before her eyes.Everyday we see stories of violent crime ending in horrific injuries, or worse. The cost of living worsens, whereas the PM claimed renters would ...
TL;DR: My top six news of note on the morning of Thursday, March 28 include:The Government will have to borrow between $10 billion to $15 billion more than previously expected in order to make up for a slowing economy and to pay for $14.9 billion of tax cuts, according to ...
This story by Naveena Sadasivam and Kate Yoder was originally published by Grist and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. The long-awaited jobs board for the American Climate Corps, promised early in the Biden administration, will open next month, according to details shared exclusively ...
Should landlords be able to deduct the interest on the loans they take out to bankroll their property speculation? The US Senate Budget Committee and Bloomberg News don’t think this is a good idea, for reasons set out below. Regardless, our coalition government has been burning through a ton of ...
Treasury’s first report on the economy since the change of government presents a damning indictment of Labour’s economic management. The problem for National is that it is so damning that logically, coupled with a rapidly slowing economy, Finance Minister Nicola Willis should respond to it by postponing or even cancelling ...
Budget tensions are becoming evident within the Coalition Government. Winston Peters made numerous political points in his speech to the NZF annual conference. But the attack on his own government’s fiscal policies raised issues of substance. ‘Today in the Sunday Star Times, journalist and former advisor to the Labour ...
Buzz from the Beehive The media – sure enough – have been binging on Finance Minister Nicola Willis’ release of the Budget Policy Statement and a statement headed Government announces Budget priorities This assures us – or rather, this parrots the Luxon team mantra – that the Budget “will deliver ...
The Ides of March brought me COVID followed by a bereavement. No wonder they tell you to be careful of them.I’m home now and have resumed the interrupted recuperation. Very much looking forward to getting back to regular things. Meanwhile, some thoughts…OneThis new Prime Minister guy just keeps getting more dire. ...
News that the Chinese ATP 40 cyber-hacking unit penetrated parliamentary internet networks in 2021 has renewed concerns about the PRC’s malign intentions in Aotearoa. But is the hack that significant given the length of time that has passed since its … Continue reading → ...
When Parliament passed the Intelligence and security Act in 2017, they assured us all that it was full of safeguards. Any intrusive surveillance of New Zealanders would be subject to a "triple lock", requiring the approval of the Minister and (supposedly independent) Commissioner of Intelligence Warrants, as well as post-facto ...
Eric Crampton writes – Richard Harman’s Politik newsletter provides a bit of the context that ought to have been showing up in other media reports on potential reductions in public service staffing. Media has been reporting on staffing cuts on the order of about 7%. Is that ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – It’s becoming increasingly apparent that many perceive free speech to have become the preserve of the politically right wing, the religiously conservative, the libertarian fringe, the anti-trans, the anti-Māori and…. well, just fill in with whatever groups or individuals you don’t like and don’t ...
Don Brash writes – As everybody who is not blind and deaf is aware, there is a huge political preoccupation with climate change at the moment, a widespread (though by no means unanimous) belief that global temperatures are rising mainly as a result of the greenhouse gases created ...
TL;DR: My six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy on Wednesday, March 27 include:Chris Bishop laid out his vision for filling Aotearoa-NZ’s $100 billion infrastructure deficit in a speech yesterday, emphasising user pays and private funding, but failed to say how to achieve bipartisanship on population, public borrowing and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Former Finance Minister Grant Robertson and former Prime Minister Chris Hipkins have been conveying how unhappy they are with the tax system. Last week in his valedictory speech, Robertson called for the introduction of a wealth or capital gains tax. And this week Hipkins ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Buzz from the Beehive China has loomed large in Beehive considerations over the past 24 hours, largely because of that country’s mischief-making in the cyber espionage department. Two media statements emerged on that subject hard on the heels of the PM baulking at questions put to him on RNZ’s Morning ...
Chris Trotter writes – WHY IS THE NATIONAL PARTY doing so much for landlords, property developers, trucking, and construction companies, and so little for everybody who isn’t already pretty well-off? It’s as if protecting landlords’ investments and building apartments and roads now constitute the whole of National’s ...
Bryce Edwards writes – When she was campaigning to be Minister of Finance last year, Nicola Willis pledged that she would resign from the job if she failed to deliver tax cuts in her first Budget. Now, it’s that pledge, along with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s ...
Robert MacCulloch writes – The Reserve Bank has doubled staff numbers in five years to 510, with personnel costs rising to $80 million in 2023 from $32 million in 2018 – up by a whopping 150%. I guess when you print $50 billion and flood markets with liquidity, ...
The furore. In case you didn’t notice there was a controversy in the weekend involving dolphins in a little town off the South Island. Don’t panic, they haven’t declared independence and resumed whaling, this was simply a sailing event.The problem began when racing was cancelled on the opening day of ...
For 20 years or more, the case for a meaningful capital tax gains has been mulled over and analysed to death, including by the tax working group chaired by Sir Michael Cullen. More than once, the International Monetary Fund has said a CGT would be a good idea for New ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: The Public Health Communications Centre (PHCC) call for urgent preventive action and a risk assessment survey of long covid in this briefing noteLocal scoop: NZ road deaths surpass OECD rates, so why is the govt reversing safety plans? ...
This story was originally published by Grist and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. This story is part of a collaboration with Grist and WABE to demystify the Georgia Public Service Commission, the small but powerful state-elected board that makes critical decisions about everything from raising ...
This is a guest post from Robert McLachlan Global warming is accelerating; 2023 was off the charts. We need to stop burning fossil fuels. In New Zealand, transport accounts for half of all fossil fuels burnt. In the Emissions Reduction Plan, transport emissions fall 41% by 2035. As the ...
Labour productivity has been receding rapidly over the past two years, reversing a post-lockdown rise. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy as at 6:26am on Tuesday, March 26 include:Workers have been treading water in output per hour worked for 12 years, ...
TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to April 2 include:Today, Parliament resumes sitting at 2pm for the second week of a two-week session. Officials for SIS and GCSB report their annual reviews in public to the Intelligence and Security Select Committee from 5.10pm.Tomorrow, ...
Faced with a barrage of criticism over the promised tax cuts from usually supportive commentators, Finance Minister Nicola Willis yesterday reaffirmed her intention to include them in this year’s Budget. The Government is up against it over the cuts just about every way it turns. Commentators like Fran O’Sullivan, Matthew ...
Here’s my pick of today’s substack posts as of 6:26pm on Monday, March 25: writes via his substack that Market-rate housing will make your city cheaper writes via his substack about the problems talking to double-cab ute (truck) drivers about their vehicles. today about moments of radicalisation in ...
Buzz from the Beehive Just before Christmas, Finance Minister Nicola Willis delivered something that was pitched as a mini-budget and brayed about the decisive action being taken to repair the Government books and support income tax relief in Budget 2024. In a statement headed Fiscal repair job underway. she introduced ...
My sister Belinda asked Dad yesterday what one word would describe Mum best. He said: vivacious.If you only knew her from the photos on the slideshow we've made for today,you might wonder about that, because the camera tended to lie with Mum.If ever she saw a camera pointed at her, she ...
There are two major public consultations closing in the next week, Auckland Council’s Long Term Plan (LTP), and the draft Government Policy Statement on Land Transport (GPS). Closing dates and times: LTP closes Thursday 28 February, at 11.59pm – a minute to midnight! GPS closes Tuesday 2 April, at 12pm noon – note that’s ...
From Kiwiblog’s David Farrar – Bryce Wilkinson writes: Senior Fellow Bryce Wilkinson’s analysis reveals that since March 2009, New Zealand has spent $158 billion more overseas than it has earned, but its NIIP has only fallen by $32 billion.Statistics New Zealand shows that receipts from overseas reinsurers have ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition? Brian Easton writes – The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could ...
Dear Nicola Willis,Right now you’ve probably got lots of competing demands coming at you. Ministers who’ve inherited quite a mess, or so you’ve told us, looking for money in the budget to improve things. I imagine that’s why they came to parliament - to make things better.You’ll have to make ...
The Local Government, Transport and Auckland Minister hasthreatened councils with intervention if they don’t merge water assets to take them off balance sheet, just as the now-repealed Three Waters plan directed. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things of note this morning for Monday, March 25 include:Simeon ...
A listing of 36 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 17, 2024 thru Sat, March 23, 2024. Story of the week Thanks to John Mason having the stamina to sit down to watch "Climate - the Movie" ...
This morning the Q&A programme had Simeon Brown on to talk about National’s replacement for Three Waters. In case anyone’s forgotten the three are - drinking water, waste water, and sewerage. It’s quite important not to get them mixed up. In much the same way that you wouldn’t want to ...
Today’s newsletter comes with a mini-podcast conversation between me and my buddy Liv Tennet, talking about her time as a child actor in Lord of the Rings. It’s a conversation with a lot of giggles as she talks about falling off a horse, and becoming a meme. Read ...
The Desmog Climate Disinformation Database documents, "individuals and organisations that have helped to delay and distract the public and our elected leaders from taking needed action to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and fight global warming." It's a who's who of the organised climate change denial movement, in other words. In ...
Bob Edlin writes – A High Court judge has decided miscreants who have mana – or who claim to have mana – should be treated differently from miscreants who have none. It’s a ruling that suggests indigenous law-breakers have a better chance of securing a discharge without conviction ...
Welcome to the first, and possibly last, edition of Brickbats, Bouquets and Bull’s Wool. In which I’ll take a look at the events of the last week or so, and rate them.In such ratings the numbers usually have more to do with the opinions of the reviewer, than the actual ...
Roger Partridge writes – My earlier column this month, New Zealand’s highest court could be facing a turning point, prompted a flood of feedback from business readers and lawyers alike. A common query was what Parliament can do to restrain an overreaching judiciary. This week I discuss two steps Parliament ...
TL;DR: In today’s ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.16pm on Friday, March 22: writes about New Zealand's Building Boom—And What the World Must Learn From It over at his substack. challenges the Auckland Council’s use of a 3.8 degrees of warming forecast to oppose a wave-park and data centre project ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition?The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could deliver her promised income tax cuts. Appointed minister, she ...
Buzz from the Beehive Ministers of the Crown have drawn attention to one sector of the science sector which is unlikely to be subjected to heavy spending cuts, a state-funded broadcaster which is doing nicely, thank you, and a sporting event that had $5.4 million from the public purse puffed ...
Abbott’s Freestyle Libre sensors allow continuous glucose monitoring (CGM). The sensor is applied to the back of the patient’s arm, with a thin filament under the skin measuring glucose levels constantly. But it costs around $100 per sensor and must be replaced once every 14 days. Photo by BSIP/Universal Images ...
The Inspector General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) recently released a report in which he exposes the existence of a foreign intelligence partner-controlled technological “capability” inside the headquarters of the GCSB, NZ’s 5 Eyes-affiliated signals intelligence collection and analysis agency. … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – Nearly three decades after the introduction of MMP and multiparty governments there should be a greater level of understanding about their finer points than often appears to be the case. The reaction to the despicable outburst from the Deputy Prime Minister at the weekend highlights ...
The sweet kisses from fruit of summerHave slowly been turning dullerYou say, "those times"And "remember the daysWhen we went outside and there still was the shade?"Taking no reason into play…Autumn. Clear, blue days shortening to longer nights, growing colder. Aotearoa.That’s us. The temperature dropping, the looming car crash - so ...
Bryce Edwards writes – “It is often said that behind every great man is a great woman”. This is the pitch by the National Party Botany electorate branch to attend their “Ladies Afternoon Tea with Amanda Luxon”. For $110 including GST, you can turn up on Saturday 20 April ...
David Farrar writes – The Electoral Commission has published the expense returns for political parties for the 2023 election. I’ve put them in a table with how many votes a party got so we can see the spend per vote. National only spent $3.34 for every vote they got, almost ...
Winston Peters’ headline-making actions over the past week may have been a show of political power intended to strengthen his hand in Budget negotiations. It was no accident that his State of the Nation speech was as it was. He made it as New Zealand First Leader, not as Deputy ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:Former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson bowed out of politics this week, giving a series of exit ...
Graham Adams writes — If you love the law or sausages, as the saying goes, best not to look too closely at how they are made. And after watching the orgy of self-pity when Newshub’s closure was announced on February 28, television journalism should definitely be added to the list of those ...
Venerable New Zealand political commentator, Chris Trotter (https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/), is a sad creature these days. Once one of the most reliable Leftist writers out there – Economic Left at that – Trotter seems to have absorbed the worldview of Auckland culture-war obsessives. It is not for me to categorise what he ...
The cruelty of short-term memory loss is that each time you ask where she is, you get the fresh shock and grief of the news. That was Dad's day yesterday.Comfortingly, it seems to be less so today. Last night he looked crumpled, today he seems more settled. There's a card ...
Photo by Alvan Nee on UnsplashIt’s that new day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when and I co-host our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm. Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream for our chat about the week’s news ...
Buzz from the Beehive One minister is talking tough while a colleague – whose ministry had acted tough and drawn a barrage of flak – has shown an official softening. Some ministers are doing what Labour was good at, which is distributing public funds to causes regarded as worthy or ...
The Coalition Government’s plan to ‘get Auckland moving’ is a cuts cover-up that will ultimately cost Aucklanders more to move around the city, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Slashing the Ministry of Pacific Peoples by 40% will have a devastating impact on pacific communities and further highlights how little this government cares about anything other than cutting taxes for the wealthiest few. ...
Labour has proposed an urgent inquiry to investigate the ever-increasing profits of supermarkets, aiming to lower costs for shoppers and food producers alike, says Labour Spokesperson for Commerce and Consumer Affairs Arena Williams and Primary Production Spokesperson Cushla Tangaere-Manuel. ...
With 14% of jobs on the line at the Ministry for Ethnic Communities, the responsible Minister Melissa Lee is failing to stand up for the very communities she’s meant to be representing. ...
COURT OF APPEAL: TRIFECTA OF VICTORY FOR NZ FIRST, TRIFECTA OF FAILURE FOR OPPONENTS For the third time since April 2020, New Zealand First has defeated the Serious Fraud Office and all those complicit in a malicious attack against a political party going about its lawful business in a lawful ...
The Green Party stands with people who live in public housing, people in dire housing need, experts and advocates in demanding better than the Government’s archaic approach to housing those who need our support the most. ...
New Zealand has recently lost the hosting rights of some major international sporting events including the America’s Cup, the Rugby Championship, Netball World Cup, and the Wellington Sevens. We are now at a huge risk of losing SailGP as well. And it won’t stop there. The recent issues with SailGP ...
A Member’s Bill drawn this week would modernise insurance law and make things fairer and more transparent for consumers, Christchurch Central MP Duncan Webb said. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues has confirmed she was aware of funding issues in mid-December and did nothing to stop it. On 14 March, she signed off on changes that were announced and implemented on 18 March without any consultation with disability communities. ...
Green Party MP Julie Anne Genter says her members' bill is an opportunity for the coalition government to plug the gap in electric vehicle incentives. ...
The National Government continues to talk about irresponsible tax cuts that will only drive up inflation, despite the country entering a technical recession. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues must act urgently to reinstate flexibility around the funding for disability support and apologise to disabled carers. ...
This story has been initiated by a leftie shill reporter who proactively sought to call a member of a former band, which disbanded twelve years ago, give their biased appraisal of what was said in my speech, and concocted a ham-fisted attempt at a story that does nothing but show ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Many in the mainstream media have taken what was said in New Zealand First’s State of the Nation Speech in Palmerston North on Sunday and deliberately, deceitfully, and ignorantly misrepresented what I said and why I said it. The headlines and commentary on the news stated that I compared ‘co-governance ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
Good afternoon. Thank you for, in your very busy lives, turning up to this meeting today. On October 14th last year New Zealanders overwhelmingly voted for change. That is exactly what this new government is bringing. New Zealand First campaigned to ‘take back our country’ and stop the disastrous economic ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed the passing of legislation to move light electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) into the road user charges system from 1 April. “It was always intended that EVs and PHEVs would be exempt from road user charges until they reached two ...
New Zealand is strengthening its ability to combat illegal fishing outside its domestic waters and beef up regulation for its own commercial fishers in international waters through a Bill which had its first reading in Parliament today. The Fisheries (International Fishing and Other Matters) Amendment Bill 2023 sets out stronger ...
Economists Carl Hansen and Professor Prasanna Gai have been appointed to the Reserve Bank Monetary Policy Committee, Finance Minister Nicola Willis announced today. The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is the independent decision-making body that sets the Official Cash Rate which determines interest rates. Carl Hansen, the executive director of Capital ...
Apartment owners and buyers will soon have greater protections as further changes to the law on unit titles come into effect, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “The Unit Titles (Strengthening Body Corporate Governance and Other Matters) Amendment Act had already introduced some changes in December 2022 and May 2023, and ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters will travel to Egypt and Europe from this weekend. “This travel will focus on a range of New Zealand’s traditional diplomatic and security partnerships while enabling broad engagement on the urgent situation in Gaza,” Mr Peters says. Mr Peters will attend the NATO Foreign ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown is encouraging all road users to stay safe, plan their journeys ahead of time, and be patient with other drivers while travelling around this Easter long weekend. “Road safety is a responsibility we all share, and with increased traffic on our roads expected this Easter we ...
About 1.4 million New Zealanders will receive cost of living relief through increased government assistance from April 1 909,000 pensioners get a boost to Superannuation, including 5000 veterans 371,000 working-age beneficiaries will get higher payments 45,000 students will see an increase in their allowance Over a quarter of New Zealanders ...
Ensuring social housing is being provided to those with the greatest needs is front of mind as the Government restarts social housing tenancy reviews, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. “Our relentless focus on building a strong economy is to ensure we can deliver better public services such as social ...
The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary will not go ahead, with Cabinet deciding to stop work on the proposed reserve and remove the Bill that would have established it from Parliament’s order paper. “The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary Bill would have created a 620,000 sq km economic no-go zone,” Oceans and Fisheries Minister ...
Dam safety regulations are being amended so that smaller dams won’t be subject to excessive compliance costs, Minister for Building and Construction Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on reducing costs and removing unnecessary red tape so we can get the economy back on track. “Dam safety regulations ...
The coalition Government is expanding the medium-scale adverse event classification to parts of the North Island as dry weather conditions persist, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced today. “I have made the decision to expand the medium-scale adverse event classification already in place for parts of the South Island to also cover the ...
The passing of legislation giving effect to coalition Government tax commitments has been welcomed by Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “The Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill will help place New Zealand on a more secure economic footing, improve outcomes for New Zealanders, and make our tax system ...
Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins and Tertiary Education and Skills Minister Penny Simmonds today announced plans to transform our science and university sectors to boost the economy. Two advisory groups, chaired by Professor Sir Peter Gluckman, will advise the Government on how these sectors can play a greater ...
The Budget will deliver urgently-needed tax relief to hard-working New Zealanders while putting the government’s finances back on a sustainable track, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The Finance Minister made the comments at the release of the Budget Policy Statement setting out the Government’s Budget objectives. “The coalition Government intends ...
The coalition Government will look at options to address a zoning issue that limits how much financial support Queenstown residents can get for accommodation. Cabinet has agreed on a response to the Petitions Committee, which had recommended the geographic information MSD uses to determine how much accommodation supplement can be ...
Cabinet has agreed to a short extension to the final reporting timeframe for the Royal Commission into Abuse in Care from 28 March 2024 to 26 June 2024, Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden says. “The Royal Commission wrote to me on 16 February 2024, requesting that I consider an ...
The coalition Government is delivering an $18 million boost to New Zealanders needing to travel for specialist health treatment, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says. “These changes are long overdue – the National Travel Assistance (NTA) scheme saw its last increase to mileage and accommodation rates way back in 2009. ...
The Government is recognising the innovative and rising talent in New Zealand’s growing space sector, with the Prime Minister and Space Minister Judith Collins announcing the new Prime Minister’s Prizes for Space today. “New Zealand has a growing reputation as a high-value partner for space missions and research. I am ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed New Zealand’s concerns about cyber activity have been conveyed directly to the Chinese Government. “The Prime Minister and Minister Collins have expressed concerns today about malicious cyber activity, attributed to groups sponsored by the Chinese Government, targeting democratic institutions in both New ...
Independent Reviewers appointed for School Property Inquiry Education Minister Erica Stanford today announced the appointment of three independent reviewers to lead the Ministerial Inquiry into the Ministry of Education’s School Property Function. The Inquiry will be led by former Minister of Foreign Affairs Murray McCully. “There is a clear need ...
State Highway 1 across the Brynderwyns will be open for Easter weekend, with work currently underway to ensure the resilience of this critical route being paused for Easter Weekend to allow holiday makers to travel north, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Today I visited the Brynderwyn Hills construction site, where ...
Introduction Good morning to you all, and thanks for having me bright and early today. I am absolutely delighted to be the Minister for Infrastructure alongside the Minister of Housing and Resource Management Reform. I know the Prime Minister sees the three roles as closely connected and he wants me ...
New Zealand stands with the United Kingdom in its condemnation of People’s Republic of China (PRC) state-backed malicious cyber activity impacting its Electoral Commission and targeting Members of the UK Parliament. “The use of cyber-enabled espionage operations to interfere with democratic institutions and processes anywhere is unacceptable,” Minister Responsible for ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Judith Collins today announced New Zealand will provide logistics support for the upcoming Solomon Islands election. “We’re sending a team of New Zealand Defence Force personnel and two NH90 helicopters to provide logistics support for the election on 17 April, at the request ...
The European Union Free Trade Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill received Royal Assent today, completing the process for New Zealand’s ratification of its free trade agreement with the European Union. “I am pleased to announce that today, in a small ceremony at the Beehive, New Zealand notified the European Union ...
Public consultation on the terms of reference for the Royal Commission into COVID-19 Lessons has concluded, Internal Affairs Minister Hon Brooke van Velden says. “I have been advised that there were over 11,000 submissions made through the Royal Commission’s online consultation portal.” Expanding the scope of the Royal Commission of ...
Hardworking families are set to benefit from a new credit to help them meet their early childcare education (ECE) costs, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. From 1 July, parents and caregivers of young children will be supported to manage the rising cost of living with a partial reimbursement of their ...
A specialised Independent Technical Advisory Group (ITAG) tasked with preparing and publishing independent non-binding advice on the design of a "green" (sustainable finance) taxonomy rulebook is being established, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “Comprising experts and market participants, the ITAG's primary goal is to deliver comprehensive recommendations to the ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins has thanked the Chief of Army, Major General John Boswell, DSD, for his service as he leaves the Army after 40 years. “I would like to thank Major General Boswell for his contribution to the Army and the wider New Zealand Defence Force, undertaking many different ...
25 March 2024 Minister to meet Australian counterparts and Manufacturing Industry Leaders Small Business, Manufacturing, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly will travel to Australia for a series of bi-lateral meetings and manufacturing visits. During the visit, Minister Bayly will meet with his Australian counterparts, Senator Tim Ayres, Ed ...
Government commits almost $3 million for period products in schools The Coalition Government has committed $2.9 million to ensure intermediate and secondary schools continue providing period products to those who need them, Minister of Education Erica Stanford announced today. “This is an issue of dignity and ensuring young women don’t ...
Good morning, it’s great to be here. First, I would like to acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of Building Surveyors and thank you for the opportunity to be here this morning. I would like to use this opportunity to outline the Government’s ambitious plan and what we hope to ...
Minister for Pacific Peoples Dr Shane Reti has announced the Government’s commitment to the Auckland Secondary Schools Māori and Pacific Islands Cultural Festival, more commonly known as Polyfest. “The Ministry for Pacific Peoples is a longtime supporter of Polyfest and, as it celebrates 49 years in 2024, I’m proud to ...
Before moving onto the substance of today’s address, I want to recognise the very significant and ongoing contribution the Breast Cancer Foundation makes to support the lives of New Zealand women and their families living with breast cancer. I very much enjoy working with you. I also want to recognise ...
New Zealand has notched up a first with the launch of University of Canterbury research to the International Space Station, Science, Innovation and Technology and Space Minister Judith Collins says. The hardware, developed by Dr Sarah Kessans, is designed to operate autonomously in orbit, allowing scientists on Earth to study ...
Introduction Thank you for inviting me to speak with you today and I’m sorry I can’t be there in person. Yesterday I started in Wellington for Breakfast TV, spoke to a property conference in Auckland, and finished the day speaking to local government in Christchurch, so it would have been ...
The Coalition Government is contributing more than $1 million to support the establishment of an emergency multi-agency coordination centre in Northland. Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell announced the contribution today during a visit of the Whangārei site where the facility will be constructed. “Northland has faced a number ...
New Zealanders have enjoyed a broader range of voices telling the story of Aotearoa thanks to the creation of Whakaata Māori 20 years ago, says Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka. The minister spoke at a celebration marking the national indigenous media organisation’s 20th anniversary at their studio in Auckland on ...
Commercial catch limits for some fisheries have been increased following a review showing stocks are healthy and abundant, Ocean and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The changes, along with some other catch limit changes and management settings, begin coming into effect from 1 April 2024. "Regular biannual reviews of fish ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Keith Rankin, trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand. My earlier article – Can ‘Good’ be the Greater Evil? – looked at the issue of how wars should end, and how Good versus Evil ...
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 AMMA by Saraid de Silva (Moa Press, $38)A stunning debut novel reviewed by Brannavan ...
From Steve Martin to Ricky Stanicky, a pick’n’mix of things worth watching and listening to this long weekend. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. If you’re at a loss for something to occupy yourself with this Easter, don’t panic: The Spinoff’s got ...
Jesus had dinner with his 12 disciples right before he died. Noted historian Madeleine Chapman finds out who really deserved to be there.First published in 2018 but let’s be honest, the subject is timeless. As you sit on your couch this Easter Sunday, eating a chocolate egg you know ...
The newly-promoted Northern League club is on a mission to return to the National League for the first time in two decades. Plenty about domestic football in New Zealand has changed in that time – but the sense that this amateur competition is not an entirely level playing field remains. ...
Comment: Every year on February 2, a dozen men in tuxedos and top hats approach the burrow of a groundhog in Gobbler’s Knob, Pennsylvania and entice the beaver-like rodent to emerge and predict the weather. If the groundhog, named Punxsutawney Phil, sees its own shadow when it is summoned, legend ...
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Auckland Council has put a deadline on new weather-impacted property owners applying for categorisation as government funding looks set to run out. Councillors have voted to support a deadline of September 30 for property owners who haven’t accessed support to come forward and engage with the council’s recovery office. It ...
NONFICTION 1 BBQ Economics by Liam Dann (Penguin Random House, $40) “It’s official,” wrote Dann nine days ago in the Herald, where he works as business editor at large, “we’re in recession.” Yeah, great. He delivered the bad stats: “GDP fell 0.1 percent in the December 2023 quarter, compared with ...
By Anneke Smith, RNZ News political reporter A petition urging the New Zealand government to provide urgent humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people has been tabled in the House. More than 200 people gathered on Parliament’s forecourt today and they were met by MPs from Labour, the Greens and Te ...
Pacific Media Watch The Paris-based global media freedom watchdog RSF (Reporters Without Borders) has appealed for information about the “disappearance” of Palestinian journalist Bayan Abusultan. She was reportedly last seen on March 19 among people “sequestered” in this week’s raid and siege of Al Shifa hospital by Israeli troops in ...
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Reports are coming in saying, “the siege of Gaza, which Israel has fought so bitterly and for so long to maintain has ended.”
http://kiaoragaza.wordpress.com/2012/11/22/gaza-shows-limits-of-force/
My solution:
Isreal and Palestine merge to form one singluar bicultural/multicultural state, where Arabs, Jews, and everyone else are treated as equal in a democratic secular state. Jerusalem to be internationalised as a free city for all peoples and faiths, under UN control. Will require both sides to make consessions, but people actually want to go out without worrying being blown to pieces by some fanatics.
It is reported that the Palistinians are moving new arms through their tunnels from Egypt, although 143 were destroyed, they still have many more which are being used.
In addition at the start of this skirmish they had 15,000 rockets of which only 15% were fired.
Cannot see Kumbaya yet.
It’s being reported? Er, no. It’s being alleged by an Israeli Government shill that the defenders of the Gaza ghetto had 15000 rockets. And these rockets are low tech; unguided and ineffective. On the other side, the invaders have the latest tech and overwhelming strength of numbers. Hardly a fair fight.
And just for fun, can I point out that only a couple of the Gaza rockets have ever landed on Israeli soil. Most are aimed at Palestinian land, stolen by the oppressor.
The Archdruid report says that Israel’s time is going to get harder as the USA declines further
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.co.nz/2012/11/in-twilight-of-empires.html
Good luck policing that,,,
Nice sentiment millsy,
Israel appropriated land because Palistinians didn’t believe in Fencing ?
Communal grazing versus “Fenced” farming ?
Israel is the bigoted “Right Wing Authority” in the conflict M8!
No respect for another culture is the underlying cause.
Not disimilar from this interesting plan for the Palestinians..
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-24/why-palestinians-have-time-on-their-side.html
Except you’d never get either side to agree to a secular state, and demographically Israelis would be quickly outnumbered – so no. I do like the idea of Jerusalem being a free city.
Wow. This is world shaking news. This is almost as momentous as the collapse of the Berlin Wall.
Surely the Separation Wall will fall next. We are seeing a complete reshaping of the whole Palestinian Israeli question.
Will these developments see a negotiated peace, where the Israelis have to organise an evacuation of the illegal settlements in the West Bank?
With the borders open can the refugees in Gaza return to their former lands and houses at least in the current occupied territories especially if they are freed up by the evacuation of the settlers?
This is unbelievable and a cause for great celebration and no doubt for the Palestians particularly.
Will there be a formal announcement of the two state solution?
Will Abbass bid to the UN for observer status, be upgraded to a request for full membership?
Good lord, steady on.
You, (and the Guardian editorialist), are reading a hell of a lot into a few lines of text.
the borders have been open to the movement of goods and people throughout the seige. It’s how stuff gets in and out, it’s tightly controlled, but not ‘closed’. Presumably during the last week they have been sealed.
Give it a week or two and it will be business as usual. The Israelis talk the talk but still haven’t learnt how to walk.
“Give it a week or two and it will be business as usual.”
That’s a pretty safe bet.
Some would claim, and perhaps with good reason, that the All Blacks are probably the best (only) export promotion bill board we have.
Yet, watching a snippet of the Italian – New Zealand game, I could not help noticing the socks of both teams. The Italians were wearing the Canterbury clothing brand and the All Blacks, the Adidas motif …
Yes, proves the point , Canterbury capability and cred came off the back of many successful AB seasons. Now they are one of the premier international suppliers of tech gear for a range of sporting codes.
Canterbury is majority owned by an English company now anyway
Wonder if our IRD is on to this.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/11/22/uk-australia-google-tax-idUKBRE8AL04Y20121122
Or is it too much for Finance, Revenue to cope with.
I was listening to the Secretary for Education on National Radio this a.m. and the ongoing bleating of how complex the payroll system is. The Secretary patiently explained how the gargantuan task of paying our Teachers would cripple Hercules, immobilize Job and probably break DangerMouse , even if Penfold and all the Argonauts popped in to lend a hand.
I began wondering how our Health workers manage to get paid then?
Home help, OT’s, Physios, Nurses, Locums, GP’s, even the Surgeons seem to get paid without weekly drama and that Industry has exactly the same parameters of complex issues the Secretary ascribed to Education.
If the Secretary of Education finds getting the teachers paid all too much then how on earth can we have any confidence that the Secretary is even remotely capable of doing the far more complex and important job of actually educating our kids?
For fucks sake what a bloody moron
Another worry is that some teachers are finding out that although their Kiwisaver and PAYE deductions have been made, they haven’t made it to the IRD.
I have a close friend in the senior government IT echelons, while it seems obvious to anyone with half a brain that one could and should replicate well operating IT (and other) systems throughout government and the public service this is not the way the aparatchiks operate as theirs is a system based on troughing, incompetence and reinvention of the wheel – often in non circular form.
And of course those hugely complex teacher payrolls with over 90,000 employees managed in the past, so not really a sudden revelation. Why such a surprise?
And what more
Levy reckons it will take ONE year to get it right!!!!
AND
Talent 0.5 have started to blame to schools for incorrect data entry.
Don’t worry freedom, the health sector will be next (and I seem to remember some hooha in the 90s when they changed to a new computing system in hospitals)
I worked as a relief teacher for 10 years and not once did I have a problem with Datacom (the previous payroll company). Also they answered the phone instantly.
Yes, but Cabinet Ministers didn’t have shares in Datacom, so they had to be axed.
Datacom…a NZ company.
Datacom seemed to manage fine.
Obvious that they had no cronies in National, though.
Teachers etc got paid ok under the old system without any problems, the old saying, if it ain’t broke, dont fix it.
My thoughts go out to those poor teachers etc that featured on Campbell Live, it’s a terrible
situation.
But the Ministry is still saying that if one has not been paid, then the school should write a cheque out of school funds. More paper work then a payback from someone to someone else. Hell of a way to run a business.
There appears to be a problem with accessing akismet this morning. Comments are lagging through the spam checks and I have this message showing.
They are getting through, but there can be a few minutes lag. The peak I have seen has been 8 comments queued and with a delay of a less than 2 minutes (displays comment time only to the minute).
We get these on the odd occasion. They usually only persist for 10 minutes or so. But this one has been running for somewhat longer.
Local NZ connection to root name servers are down ….
Nothing resolves , using hosts file for thestandard at the mo.
Someone should tell Telecom / sprint net
They need to switch their “Local” root server to “Cached-Only” mode 🙂
Been seeing a lot of high numbered port, DOS attacks last 3 – 4 months.
Mainly around the address translation ports, Turkey and southern north american origins.
Attacking “apple” ports as well.
clever
I’d have expected it wouldn’t make a difference. The name -> IP would normally be cached in the server’s client DNS rather than having to resolve all of the time. And we are talking about comments being entered which is something that this site several times per minute during the peaks, and several minutes between for the rest of the NZ day.
Depends on what they set the TTL’s to I guess. If it was extremely short, then we might get DNS resolution lags. If there was a man in the middle attack on the DNS, then they’d set the TTL way up anyway.
More likely there is just maintenance or a DDOS. But this isn’t an area that I focus on that much. More jbc’s than mine.
DNS is a fundamental, slow it down and every spam engine in the world slows down.
And the TTL is meaningless unless u r in “cached-only” mode, it’ll still check the root server, it may time out, but slow is the end result.
It’s a last resort response to DNS DOS, which is what I think is happening , maintenance is not “down time” with revolving dns names etc.
Been seeing a bit of it at work. Seems to have cleared up now.
RAM 🙂
oops, forgot
Spin. Support your local Red, or black.
“She’s mighty mighty, lettin it all hang out”
Masters of War meet Masters of Reality
some rollin radical people (such is plurality)
http://www.google.co.nz/search?q=christian+anarchism&hl=en&tbo=u&tbm=isch&source=univ&sa=X&ei=8rWuUOPtK6nYigeT6oDYAw&sqi=2&ved=0CE0QsAQ&biw=1003&bih=499
-Dredd
As Gaza is Savaged Again, Understanding the BBC’s Role Requires More Than Sentiment
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article33126.htm
by JOHN PILGER November 22, 2012
In Peter Watkins’ remarkable BBC film, The War Game,which foresaw the aftermath of an attack on London with a one-megaton nuclear bomb, the narrator says: “On almost the entire subject of thermo-clear weapons, there is now practically total silence in the press, official publications and on TV. Is there hope to be found in this silence?”
The truth of this statement was equal to its irony. On 24 November, 1965, the BBC banned The War Game as “too horrifying for the medium of broadcasting”. This was false. The real reason was spelt out by the chairman of the BBC Board of Governors, Lord Normanbrook, in a secret letter to the Secretary to the Cabinet, Sir Burke Trend.
“[The War Game] is not designed as propaganda,” he wrote, “it is intended as a purely factual statement and is based on careful research into official material… But the showing of the film on television might have a significant effect on public attitudes towards the policy of the nuclear deterrent.” Following a screening attended by senior Whitehall officials, the film was banned because it told an intolerable truth. Sixteen years later, the then BBC director-general, Sir Ian Trethowan, renewed the ban, saying that he feared for the film’s effect on people of “limited mental intelligence”. Watkins’ brilliant work was eventually shown in 1985 to a late-night minority audience. It was introduced by Ludovic Kennedy who repeated the official lie.
What happened to The War Game is the function of the state broadcaster as a cornerstone of Britain’s ruling elite. With its outstanding production values, often fine popular drama, natural history and sporting coverage, the BBC enjoys wide appeal and, according to its managers and beneficiaries, “trust”. This “trust” may well apply to Springwatch and Sir David Attenborough, but there is no demonstrable basis for it in much of the news and so-called current affairs that claim to make sense of the world, especially the machinations of rampant power. There are honourable individual exceptions, but watch how these are tamed the longer they remain in the institution: a “defenestration”, as one senior BBC journalist describes it.
This is notably true in the Middle East where the Israeli state has successfully intimidated the BBC into presenting the theft of Palestinian land and the caging, torturing and killing of its people as an intractable “conflict” between equals. Standing in the rubble from an Israeli attack, one BBC journalist went further and referred to “Gaza’s strong culture of martyrdom”. So great is this distortion that young viewers of BBC News have told Glasgow University researchers they are left with the impression that Palestinians are the illegal colonisers of their own country. ….
Read more…
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article33126.htm
Posted from Kiwiblog
The Government will build 10,000 new houses a year. Now let’s break that down.
10,000 houses a year is 192 houses a week. Now if you take the working week of 40 hours, that is 4.8 houses per hour. That is a new house every 13 minutes of the working week.
Hands up those who think the Government can build a new house every 13 minutes? If your hand is up, please keep it up and please join the queue for free trips to the North Pole to see Santa Claus.
So can anyone tell me who put forward this obviously unworkable shonky promise and were they on Team Cunliffe trying to discredit Shearer
yep, and I see farrar gets panned by many kiwiblog punters for the clear silliness and empty-headedness of his post ha ha ha ha ha
Flailing around………. walking in circles ………. trying ever so hard to polish the Nats turds ……..
40 hours times 100 workers = 4000 hours per week.
Still not nearly enough. If by some miracle you can build a house in 500 hours that equates to just 8 houses a week. Still not near one every 13 minutes.
Someone is having a laugh that they allowed Shearer to make a claim that will be forever ridiculed. That was sabotage.
There are 170,000 unemployed …. even if you get 50,000 employed thats ….
5 workers per house per week, a modular house can be erected in 5 days.
How many houses in one week Fisiani ?
Of course we might want to take our time and get it right though.
No perhaps fisiani and farrar and all the other pesimists and naysayers are right. The whole thing should be called off. It is just too hard. Everybody go home, the policy has been cancelled as it is impossible to provide less expensive housing in New Zealand……… ffs
They’ve even “Invented Maths” that prove it!
Quantify the variable, don’t invent it out of thin air M8!
The RWNJ logic (if we want to call it that) goes like this:
That’s a house every 13 minutes and nobody can build a house in 13 minutes thus the Labour party must be lying.
Yes, the RWNJs like Fisiani really are that stupid. They’re actually incapable of the basic maths to work out what it would take to build 10000 houses as they’ve just proven.
Care to actually point out the maths of how an EXTRA 10,000 homes can be built in the 40 hours of a 48 week effective working year, bad weather not included. (PS Modular house erection erection does not equate to having a house fit for habitation.)
Virtual Chocolate fish to the first delusionist to prove how it is possible.
I will not accept answers such as ” The Hogwarts school of carpentry” or “300,000 migrant Oompaloompas” or ” there are 170,000 ‘builders’ unemployed”
The only explanation of this mathematical brain fade is that someone has tried and succeeded in making Shearer look utterly incompetent. Perhaps it was just a decimal point in the wrong place.
1000 houses would only take 130 minutes each to construct.
100 would take 1300 minutes or 21.6 hours
Don’t even get me started on the shonky cost calculations………..
There’s a lot more than 10,000 construction workers in New Zealand Fisiani.
157,000 at the moment.
http://www.careers.govt.nz/default.aspx?id0=10104&id1=6684D868-9D45-4202-8265-027A28B38DEE
Thanks, was looking but couldn’t find it.
boldly going where no man has gone before
Sweet, a breakdown of 2009 here …
http://www.dol.govt.nz/publications/lmr/construction-sector/summary.asp
It takes two builders 8 weeks to build a 90m2 house (and that’s being generous). That’s two guys building 6 houses per year and we want 10,000 of them in one year. That means we need 1667 teams or 3334 builders.
Now, we actually already have several thousand builders already and many are presently under-employed or unemployed (there’s a reason why builders rates have gone from $34/hour plus to $25/hour) so we will have some spare capacity and possibly even enough without training up more builders and there is that 170k people unemployed some of which would be more than happy to become builders. Remember, the plan is 100k over ten years but it doesn’t have to start out at 10,000 in the first year (it would be nice but probably impractical).
As for the “shonky cost” well, personally, I think their being a little over generous myself especially if they go for medium or high density housing which they should do.
Really, the only things that are shonky are the RWNJs and their attempts at maths.
Two magical superworkers who can do the foundations, framing, plastering plumbing electrics, roofing and painting decorating in eight weeks. Oompa Loompa Land
I was hoping one of you would make a serious attempt .
Come on guys. You cannot defend the indefensible.
Explain 3,500 building consents per month in 2004 Fisiani….
http://www.dbh.govt.nz/UserFiles/File/Sector%20info/key-indicator-reports/kir-construction.pdf
(Page 2)
The aim of KiwiBuilder is obviously to increase these numbers.
And why oh why are the numbers of workers declining under Nationals Governance Fisiani?
Explain 10,000 EXTRA completed homes and stop wasting time with the number of CONSENTS.
Oh and your other canard.
There are more people employed in New Zealand than at any time in history.
More people = more employed. There also happens to be the most people unemployed.
There’s a reason why such figures are stated a percentage – it’s because nominal counts are inaccurate.
Look Fisiani it’s obvious you’ve got a bone too grind with bloggs.
But 10,000 completed homes is a goal, give it a few years.
We are currently building 10,000+- homes a year, if it takes two years then so be it consents means “started”.
Labour want to increase this number by a few hundred to a thousand per month
I.E. GROWTH IN THE BUILDING INDUSTRY.
Instantaneous gratification only exists in the drug addicts mind.
Not to big a stretch considering a basic custom built 90 m sq. house can be done in 12 weeks with two men.
We would always say 16 weeks, and usually take 14, not because the individual house took that long, but because we would have several on the go at once at different stages.
Cookie cutter houses would be even faster once the builders had some practice.
4 of us got a house for a TV show from foundations to roof in 10 days. Despite having to do a lot of demolition and working around bits of an old house.
5 minutes ago the SUPER builders could knock it up in 8 weeks now its 16. You need to get your lines right. That doubles the number of Oompa Loompas
Obviously you cannot read Fizzer. Or have any knowledge at all of building.
It is 14 to 16 weeks because we are working on several houses at once.
The average for one house is obviously much less.
And that is for bigger than 90 sq m custom builds.
The guys who put up the same design all the time are faster even than us “super builders”.
And your ‘obviously’ means that a house really can be built every 13 minutes??????? Are you ‘aving a larf?
Please please make it the centerpiece of housing policy in 2014.
People may not be able to get to the polls due to laughing.
You cannot win an election without credibility.
Another “show me the money” moment.
I’ll spell it out really simply: Yes, we can as a matter of fact build a house every 13 minutes in NZ over and above the ones being built now (which is probably more than 1 every 13 minutes).
Fisi is the genius who thinks unemployment can’t be going up because ‘more people are employed than ever!’
It’s hard for most us to believe that he’s actually imagining two builders starting a house and 13 minutes later having it completed and moving on to the next one, but he has just admitted that he can’t grasp the concept of percentages so it’s not out of the question.
Poor old Fisi. Here’s an entire skyscraper being built in two weeks.
A skyscraper which could fit what…500 apartments? Built in 2 weeks…35 apartments per day say…WOW amazing what you can achieve when you put your mind and your brains to a problem. Instead of moaning that everything is just too hard.
Yep. amazing alright! The company’s next project is to construct the world’s tallest building. 220 floors, 838 metres, housing for 31,000 people. Ok, it’ll take a wee bit longer than the one in the video to put up …. a mere 90 days.
NZ is currently building 10,000+- homes a year Fisiani,
by your screwed up maths that is indeed one home every 13 minutes.
Even if we had to double the number of needed builders we could still do it. Really, building that number of extra houses every year is easy – barely even touching upon the total resources we have available as a country but you, and the other RWNJs, don’t want to hear that as it goes against the myth that’s been built up over the decades and centuries that we can’t afford to. It’s proof positive that the National Party and the economists that support them have NFI WTF they’re talking about or that they’re lying.
Generally speaking, if we’ve got the builders then we’ve got the rest. The builders will be the ones on site full time from the moment building starts to it’s completion. In other words, you’ll need significantly less of the other workers and they will be in proportion to the number of builders.
That said, there always seems to be a shortage of plumbers…
Builders and I mean qualified shouldn’t pick up a hammer for less than $45, pay peanuts you get monkeys, monkeys build leaky houses, all these extra builders are going to come from where ? 8000 hrs to train a carpenter, 4 years, or are they going to come flooding back for $25 an hr yeah right.
I hope Labour have the numbers to back this up and even if they do Shearer will never be able to remember then unless he writes them on the back of his hand.
“8000 hrs to train a carpenter, 4 years…”
Yeah. Imagine how many we could’ve trained in the last four years if National gave a fuck about unemployment.
Considering how much legal work my nephew has been doing in regards to his building (You’d be amazed at the number of building contractors who don’t know the building code) I keep telling him he should be charging out at $120/hour. Nobody seems to want to pay that though and the most he’s got since 2k8 is $32/hour and that was on a single job. All the other times he’s either been unemployed or paid in the mid 20s and Chch actually pays less.
A quick calculation on a bank calculator to look at the affordability of these *cheap* houses.
$400,000 @ 5.25% for 25 years = $550.00 per week.
This is not low income housing.
Yes, you are right. But who’s talking about $400k being low income housing? I recall the nats saying $380k was ‘affordable’. Is that what you mean?
Ah, sorry you’re right, Labour is talking roughly 300k. So that’s $415 per week. Same criticism applies.
Fortunately I can now afford a mortgage, but with the arrival of my second child on a low income and a 160k mortgage, we could barely eat. Turned me into a decent vege gardener, but…
Government should be able to do mortgages at 2.5% pa.
Is the intention for the Govt rather than private sector banks to do the lending?
Don’t want to assume / comment because it may be in their econ policy, just printed to read. But I’d like to see LVR’s, LVT as well as CGT and some re zoning to free up all the land banks, like Giltrap’s down Great North Rd, a lot of apartments could come onto the market if that land was developed, right in the middle of the city within walking distance of jobs, and the local retail / entertainment economy.
I gather work is being done, pressure applied to RBNZ to address the capital flow which is chasing yield from our interest rates.
Hmmmm that would be a break from neoliberalism and banksterism so I doubt it.
$550.00 a week? Thats more than I get a week to feed me my partner a 17 year old and a 18 month-er. Buy a house ? Tui Time. And this is why I say Shearer is just way out of touch with the real people.
Except it’s not $550 a week, David.
It’s $300 k, less deposit. So, say, 270k. Weekly payments of around $400. About what you’d pay for rent for a modest family home in that Auckland. And with land being cheaper in the provinces, that $270k might be $240k. Mortgage of $350 pw? That’s realistic for many young couples starting out, I would have thought.
Govt could offer zero deposit terms.
You’ll be hard pressed to find a single income working class family on $35K pa who has a $30K deposit.
Maybe a double income working class family on $60K can manage it
Well, yeah, but then you’d be hard pressed to find a single income working class family on $35K. WFF would lift the household income substantially. But, realistically, both parents need to be working, at least initially, to afford a mortgage. A big ask in the current economy and with a government opposed to a living wage. Hell, opposed to full employment altogether.
Saving for the deposit does take years, but it is also evidence of the ability to budget that banks take into account when granting the mortgage. The banks will only lend to a point where the mortgage payment is the highest proportion of household expenditure. Can’t remember the exact cutoff, but I think the household is likely to need to bring in $800 pw to be granted a mortgage of around half that. So, maybe 40- 50k income and it becomes a runner at $350 – 400 pw payments. Any bankers out there? Can you shine a light on the actual percentages?
The point is increasing the supply of houses in the $300k range is also going to help the availability of rentals and houses in the cheaper ranges. Simple supply and demand.
Helping anyone looking for a house.
why not just build cheaper houses?
We tried that Weka, they are now called leacky homes and are now costing you and me mill/bill….of $$ and lets not forget earthquakes, so houses now will have to be stronger than ever and water tight, for a while, till we all forget, and start building cheap houses again in about 10 years, maybe 15 this time.
Well, those houses weren’t actually “cheaper” to the buyer, they were just cheaper to the property developers because of corners cut, and it was the developers who walked away with the difference as profits.
I really think property developers get a bad rap CV , the problems start with the the drawing of plans and what the council will and won’t allow. Some developers will get away with whatever the council lets them get away with and so they all start cheating to keep up, you could liken it to cycling.
“Developing is akin to playing Russian roulette. You can pull the trigger and draw a blank, although why you would want to I can’t imagine, but, because of the addiction factor, developers keep on doing so until sooner or later inevitably they draw the bullet.”
Bob Jones:
Who lobbied for the council changes? Who lobbied for deregulation of the building industry (“self-regulation”)? Who manufactured, sold and profited from the fashionable new building materials which turned out to be rubbish?
sigh…
السيد مانكي
@Sandmonkey
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20451208
Egypt’s President Mohammed Mursi has issued a declaration banning challenges to his decrees, laws and decisions.
The declaration also says no court can dissolve the constituent assembly, which is drawing up a new constitution.
President Mursi also sacked the chief prosecutor and ordered the retrial of people accused of attacking protesters when ex-President Mubarak held office.
Egyptian opposition leader Mohammed ElBaradei accused Mr Mursi of acting like a “new pharaoh”.
In a joint news conference held late on Thursday, Mr ElBaradai and other opposition figures described the declaration as a “coup against legitimacy” and called on Egyptians to take to the streets in protest.
an interesting few lines of text
I hear Jane Clifton was on the Panel today and discussing the Labour Party conference last weekend.
Did Jim Moira challenge her about a potential conflict of interest?
I tuned in briefly, recognised her voice, so tuned out. To my knowledge she wasn’t there – at least not on the conference floor. She wouldn’t have been far away though… waiting for yet more tid-bits from her new beau that she could then leak (on new beau’s behalf) to her journo pals.
Key and Shearer are on Q & A this Sunday, TV One 9am …
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/CU1211/S00502/qa-this-sunday.htm
Can YOU help collect signatures on the SIGNATHON for a couple of hours over this weekend?
Have YOU ‘switched off Mercury Energy’?
____________________________________________________________________________
PRESS RELEASE: “The Switch Off Mercury Energy community group urges New Zealanders opposed to asset sales to support the nation-wide SIGNATHON this weekend!” Switch Off Mercury Energy Spokesperson, Penny Bright.
Those who can help collect signatures at any of these 300 collection points are encouraged to sign on to the one that’s most convenient, and turn up at the location on the day.
Those who can’t make it to one of the Signathon collection points but still have a bit of time to collect signatures on the weekend are being encouraged to download and print some petition forms for themselves.
http://switchoffmercuryenergy.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/SOME-11-September-2012-Switch-off-leaflet6g.pdf ” concludes Ms Bright.
from the back of the hard copy from the fishpond
“…a far more frightening work than any of the nightmare novels of George Orwell.With the logic(oooh)
which is the great instrument of French thought, (Ellul) explores and attempts to prove the thesis that
propaganda, whether the ends are demonstrably good or bad, is not only destructive to democracy, it is
perhaps the most serious threat to humanity operating in the modern world.”-L.A Times
“The theme of Propaganda (sans italicisezation) Achtung ma cherie, I digress, is quite simply
that when our new technology encompasses any culture or society, the result is propaganda
(don’t quote me on that.score)
-Marshall McLuhan
oh well, wheels have rolled on since then…
-Pierrepoint
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierrepoint_(film).Tim,or was it pete? one of The Usual Suspects
go figure
pg.1
It was a dark and stormy night, all through the house…”I’m Bored…zzzzzzzzzz.
btw, lots of little bees carved or sculptered, here and there at St Matthews.boing
Reading this article about data-centres and how much power they use when I noticed this passage:
Yep, competition, keeping inefficiency high because people are chasing the almighty profit.
Holy Schemozzle Batman.To the IBM cave….
What Capitalists Want for Christmas
And the party of business in NZ is?
And their leader said?
Check this out:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10849297
Grr. The only positive out of this is getting rid of Garner.
Media and both sides of the political spectrum having a great time pissing up together.
Just having a fucking laugh really eh?
No wonder all of them are covertly against the democratisation of the labour party, their cosy little lifestyles would be completely fucked if the idea were to take hold across the political spectrum.
Gawd I hope the leadership vote happens in Feb.
Leadership vote, on that note it isn’t over; first shot back me thinks. I’m thinking of joining the party again.
“a health sector source who worked closely with Cunliffe. He is the right type to lead New Zealand, she told the Herald , having character, brains, heart and being in “politics for all the right reasons”.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10849606
How may polls due between now and Feb? Lets face it Shearer is going to sink back into obscurity, any media opportunities he gets he will fluff.