Hey Fisiani, now that I’ve stuck up for you (see yesterday’s comments) can you tell the truth on:
A. whether you’re a collaborative effort – i.e., actually more than one person.
B. whether your average age is under 25.
at the risk of causing the odd reader to spray coffee all over their keyboards and halfway up their monitors, it seems to me like you have some native wit that you’d be better off employing in straight pieces. puerile gets old, funnily enough.
Just one person with razor sharp insight and approaching 60.
I come here for the hysterical parallel universe comedy where the fantastic progress of the last seven years is seen as failure. Where Chicken Little would seem an optimist. Where the evidence of distorted thinking is so evident. i want to guide people to the light, the Force, the brighter side of life.
I’m afraid not @Paul. He might even lay claim to once even having voted Labour – especially in an FPP environment.
Rest assured though – he’s alright Jack. No doubt he pulled himself up by his bootstraps and is a self-made man (Get that? a M A N!) One with a ‘noble African’ handle (all trademarked, commodified and paid up in full)
Do a straight piece. too much pisstaking rots the brain. if you wrote a decent “positives of the last seven years” that was, you know, grounded in fact rather than posturing, I’m sure the guys here would consider throwing it up as a discussion piece…
Ho Ho Ho – looks like its turning to custard for the Government. 6.13 this morning on RNZ Morning Report everything in the economic department is failing – export figures you name it. Wonder why its now relegated to the summer break for news like this to emerge.
@ Hami Shearlie (2.1) – I think the distraction in the early new year will still be the flag (second referendum in March). It will hot up as the final vote gets closer, with FJK’s choice in our faces all day, every day.
But then after that one is all done and dusted, watch the panda issue become the main focus of msm acting on FJK’s instruction next April, when one very “prominent NZer” faces trial! Could even be a “choose the cutest panda” competition, just to distract from what will be going on in the court!
Wouldn’t mind betting there could well be a media blackout of the court case! Can’t have dear leader being embarrassed through some factual reporting, can we?
The first quarter of 20016 should be very interesting indeed, with the economy going down the toilet quick smart, the (rigged) flag result and then a “prominent NZer” facing his accusers!
Espiner made an ineffectual attempt to shut her up.Not easy with the Boags of this world.
Her strategy when asked what she thought of Andrew Little was dripping with fake condescendence and tried to make the interview about John Key. Viz.:’Well…Andrew Little …He’s doing quite well .. ..(insert patronizing tone here)..even though he hasn’t got John Key’s charisma or people skills…. Now John Key, this….and John Key. that…’.. ad nauseum. Must get people talking and thinking about John Key.
The other interviewee, Rob, when asked about Andrew Little, actually talked about Andrew Little as a serious person who hasn’t got time to talk about Key’s triviality .
I think the Left’s new year’s resolution should be to ignore Key’s banal clowning.
Oscar Wilde-“There is only one thing worse than being talked about and that is NOT being talked about.”.
He did not even try to call her on the blatant spin she was delivering.
Espiner is not an independent journalist; he is just another embedded corporate plant.
Michelle Boag should be removed from TV and the Radio, she is an assault on the senses, especially the ears – a true nightmare and heart failure material if you met her on a dark night. As for Espiner he is just a lap dog for Key and his Government – it couldn’t get any worse for this country.
Am off to do some lovely things like get a cake finished for a dear old lady I visit and get some soothing Baroque Christmas music on and just forget about the creeps who invade our lives by TV and Radio. Even the Listener is a load of hog wash. Whatever did NZ ever do to deserve this useless and corrupted lot dictating to us.
yea but nah ….. neither are the sharpest knAves in the drawer intellectually-woise. That’s why she has to play dress-ups all the time.
Two generations back she’d be putting a blue rinse through her hair, living in Karori and talking about what hubby got up to
I think the Left’s new year’s resolution should be to ignore Key’s banal clowning.
On the basis that I’m really slack at putting posts up (It was [may still be if it happens] going to titled ‘Jobby on a Stick’). Anyway, I’ll just say, I’ve had similar thoughts of late. I wouldn’t say ‘ignore’, though. Depersonalise – talk past the image.
There has been a huge and well crafted project devoted to creating an image of the current Prime Minister that many find appealing. As such, it’s flogging a dead horse to pivot any issue around that image or media personality.
Essentially people are being asked to take two psychological steps to address any issue at hand. The first step is to go beyond the knee jerk defensiveness (and immediate rejection of substantial matters) that comes from the positive relationship people have towards the image that’s been generated.
Refusing to name the fucker is a step towards undermining the…hmm…’cult of personality’. “The current Prime Minister” (of New Zealand?) is suitably depersonalised term. The PM…the leader of the Nats etc – they all work to degrees.
Did I say I’d love to see no more images of New Zealand’s current Prime Minister used as post images here on ‘ts’?
Bill.I agree. In he last two elections it seemed to me that those on the left
talked about Key most of the time.i.e. provided him with heaps of free publicity and not enough about their own policies.
The media is partly to blame as exasperation with Key’s antics makes better copy than dull old policies, sells more papers and gets people listening even if they then go ,”tut-tut” but give up on voting.
Yes Bill , ‘ignore ‘ is not the right word..maybe it should be dismiss with disdain.
dismiss= deliberately cease to think about.. (disdain = to regard something as unworthy of consideration).
Yes I’ll do that.
Why wait for Kauri dieback disease to decimate our heritage, we can just cut down or ring bark our ancient trees instead?
Thanks Auckland Council planners and “independent commissioners’ for not noticing the ancient Kauri’s in the 70 page report prepared by the applicants that failed to mention that. Instead burying within the document ‘high value vegetation’ is to be cut down. Deception?
Not to mention the developers also told the public they would not cut down the trees but since seemed to have changed their minds.
This story never ceases to amaze. I’m not sure why the developer didn’t change their mind at the start of this though, obviously not worried about their reputation.
Ironically, if it’s purely about money, anyone buying into that spot would likely pay more with the tree still standing and sensitively designed and built around. Certainly for me (and my neighbours, about 150m away from the site), large trees right around our houses was a major value-add.
A couple of other points: in this area the “permitted activity” for clearing bush for a building site is up to 150 sq m or 10% of the section area. There are two houses to be built on two sites of about 1000sq m each, so up to 300sq m allowed to be cleared. Eyeballing what’s already been cleared, it’s about 30m by 30m, so around 900 sq m. Plus a fair few more trees marked with “X” still for the chop. How the f*** did that get consented? Doing a drive past Lenihan and Greensmith’s listed home address elsewhere in Titirangi, it looks they’ve also cleared building sites there way in excess of what is a “permitted activity”.
So I can’t help wondering if they’ve got a corrupt relationship going on someone (or some people) in council. Also can’t help wondering what the other principals of RCG think of Lenihan’s activities.
The problem is developers moving into an area, getting a cheap site because they need a make a sensitive design and then undermining the atmosphere and ethos of the area to make money and not bothering with a sensitive design, all while profiting from the reputation of the area of being a bush green belt. These guys just got too greedy, but also exposes the role of the council. Are they just getting fees for plans and virtually rubber-stamping anything not adhering to the rules of district plan.
So the blame is the developers and planning consultants who have put together reports to hide what they are doing, and then the council for not bothering to do due diligence and then just doing some dubious activities to hide their role and let the trees be chopped further setting a precedent against the plan, public and community by allowing the travesty to continue.
From what I remember from earlier in the year they had back door access to council because they’re architects (?). So possibly not outright corrupt but certainly part of the old neoliberals network.
I hope they get pariahed. Good on the tree surgeons who downed tools last week, and shame on the ‘security’ company who wielded chainsaws this morning, hope they get named and shamed too.
“The United States is scarier than the Islamic State
Even our closest allies fear that we are a menace militarily and environmentally. The threat is lethal and real”
PHIL TORRES
Carpet bombing sorts out all the problems. It was chemical weapons in Vietnam!
Also I heard ISIS were being trained by the Israelis and ISIS were selling oil to Israel, also told ISIS are selling oil to Turkey for US weapon supplies- fact or fiction?
Thanks Red, compliments of the season. I have read his book Debunking Economic’s. Heavy going and I will have to read again to absorb all the facts. I can recommend that one if you have not already read it.
Morning Report this morning. Boag says it is only the Left who are opposing the change of flag.
Salmond says that 66% oppose the change of flag so Michelle, this is good news for the Left. Touche!
It’s a new 169 kilometre road from Tapawera to Karamea.
In the Stuff poll with 11,000 votes attached to the article, 57% supported it and 26% opposed.
Buller Mayor Garry Howard and Tasman Mayor Richard Kempthorne love it.
Their point is that 87% of Buller District and much of Tasman District is DOC estate and not open to any other kind of economic activity except tourism.
So the question of what their people do for jobs other than making life convenient for tourists is a real question.
Forest and Bird hate the idea. It’s (consultants’ thumbsuck) $100m, or about $2m per kilometre. The Treasury question that Cabinet will have to face is: if you had $100m to spend on the West Coast, would a road be the most beneficial thing for that taxpayer money?
Pretty similar to the Haast to Hollyford road that Minister Smith killed last year. With Joyce open to the idea and in need of a West Coast plan, looks like a major Parliamentary and Cabinet debate for 2016.
Minister Joyce and the Buller Mayor could possibly pop over to Ruby Bay and Collingwood and consider the high-value, high-capital and job-intensive horticulture and viticulture already going on in Tasman and get a few clues as to answer the question: if you had a spare hundred million for the West Coast ………..
+100 Ad
Yep, love the two main points in particular..
“So the question of what their people do for jobs other than making life convenient for tourists is a real question.”
and
“if you had $100m to spend on the West Coast, would a road be the most beneficial thing for that taxpayer money?”
It is about time that NZ has some sort of economic strategy that relies more on utilising what we already have here, making that better, instead of more roads, convention centres and falsifying our data to keep the illusion that NZ is clean and green (I feel after Key was laughed out of Paris the international community might be cottoning on…)
Instead the government is cancelling any innovation initiatives and giving our science grants and NIWA boats to polluting oil companies….
The tramping community has been aware of this one for a while.
Roads and cars are rapidly becoming a liability while undisturbed wilderness is regarded as increasingly valuable. Most people are still locked into thinking nothing has changed and that life is going to carry on a usual.
It isn’t.
Besides the capital and maintenance costs are absurdly poor value. Roads in this part of the country, especially in tight valleys, are subject to high rainfall and massive slips.
+100 Redlogix…part of the charm of that north end of the West Coast including Karamea is that it is at the end of the road and then there is untouched wilderness …just as Glenorchy is at the end of the road…and then untouched wilderness
People dont come to New Zealand to see roads
Wilderness and untouched nature is a draw card in itself
If I had $100m of taxpayer funds in my pocket (and as Minister I wanted to build some big stuff so I could open it), I’d look to what happened to Queenstown and Wanaka when they upgraded the nearest airport. Huge volumes of rich international people visiting longer, hotels springing up in town, and it becomes a real global destination, capital values through the roof. And for little mayors balancing little budgets, that means rates takes going through the roof.
“Pretty similar to the Haast to Hollyford road that Minister Smith killed last year”
I wish he had killed it but from what I remember he’s just said no to that proposal at that time rather than a blanket no.
It’s a collossal waste of resources to have to keep fighting these projects again and again. Both those roading projects (and the Queenstown/Milford transport one) have been repeatedly put forward in various forms for 3 decades or more. Time to put a moratorium on new roads in National Parks unless there is a conservation reason for the road, in which case it can go through the normal consent processes.
Time to put a moratorium on new roads in National Parks unless there is a conservation reason for the road,
Bloody good idea.
What’s even more aggravating is watching DoC complicitly downgrading the existing tracks in order reduce the number of people using the area. In fact there was always a great case for upgrading the Whangapeka to the same standard as the Heaphy, making for a fabulous world-class six-day round trip.
Instead they’re deliberately letting the tracks in area run down so as to discourage it’s use.
That idea should be a good starting postion for Labour and the Greens next election
Time to put a moratorium on new roads in National Parks unless there is a conservation reason for the road, in which case it can go through the normal consent processes.
Somewhat frustrating since Golden Bay, Collingwood and Ruby Bay (over in the Tasman region) all show what really intensive and productive use of land looks like. Granted, you’re not going to grow hops in Buller.
But then until the mid-1980s, no one thought you could make a wine industry out of central Otago, let alone right on the shores of alpine Lake Wanaka. But they did. And it didn’t take a new highway punching through the nearest national park to make happen.
“Probably no one-lane bridges left…”
There are quite a lot still there actually.
There is even one where the road and rail share the same bridge.
I hope that the train, whatever it is, goes slowly when they come to the bridge.
Mind you, I don’t know how many rail trips are still there on the coast.
Pity it rains so much though.
I hadn’t thought of it in quite that way. More Aucklanders?
Rain, damn it. More rain! More rain! More rain!
Send it down Hughie. Save the coast from the alien invasion.
Yeah, it’s a hangover from the pioneer culture on the coast. Mr Explorer Douglas still lives on.
There’s 1661.8 km of sealed State HIghway and rural road on the coast linking all the centres of economic importance as of 2009 http://www.nzta.govt.nz/assets/resources/land-transport-statistics/docs/2008-2009.pdf ( I doubt it will have grown much) which isn’t perceived to be bringing economic nirvana. How will a further 56km between two very minor townships change this? It doesn’t shorten the Nelson – Westport distance any, it’s the same, or longer.
So what’s the point, jobs for the consultants? Create a “concept” they can sell to an “investor”? It’ll probably come to an end once they discover their “thumb suck” is light by an order of magnitude, like Haast – Hollyford
For women with low-risk pregnancies, babies delivered at home with a midwife are at no greater risk of harm than those born in hospital with a midwife’s assistance, an Ontario study has found.
The three-year study of almost 23,000 pregnancies found the risk of adverse birth outcomes was low for both planned home and hospital deliveries and differed little between the two groups, said lead researcher Eileen Hutton of the midwifery education program at McMaster University in Hamilton.
But researchers found that women who delivered in hospital were more likely to have interventions such as pain relief, labour augmentation, assisted vaginal births or caesarean births, compared to those who delivered at home. There was also a higher rate of episiotomy among women who gave birth in hospital. An episiotomy is a surgical cut made at the opening of the vagina during childbirth to ease delivery and prevent tissues from rupturing.
Hutton suspects the differences may arise because women who intend to give birth at home may be “more intervention-adverse. For example, in terms of pain relief, they’re more inclined to think ‘I can manage without this and I trust my body and I’m going to do it.’
“There’s also probably the fact that you are at home, and in your home environment the physiological process of labour may work better,” she said.
hmm…well as a stoical person who tried to have a home birth( didnt like the idea of medical intervention,particularly male intervention, thought birth was a natural miraculous process etc) and ended up with an emergency cesarean at 3.00 am …after several days of labour…and getting the consultant out of bed
(and and one disappointed lovely home birthing midwife and another older home birther who was positively hostile after the event when I got home … I let the side down…should have tried harder )
….all i can say is thank God ( the Goddess) for medical specialists and monitoring…by the time I got to hospital the baby was under stress ( per moniters) and I was exhausted, couldnt take much more
…and I was later cheerfully told by my male obstetrics GP who turned up at the hospital ( and who also believed in home births or at least women’s choice)… that the baby and I would have died without medical intervention…I believed him!
at least I had the choice ( low tech/high tech)….and they were all wonderful( except the older midwife)…but for my daughter i would recommend a high tech birth and take everything that is going in a hospital …especially monitoring and epidurals
( cesareans are absolutely fabulous when you need them)
It’s the hostile politics between the two sides that is so damned futile and disappointing. My two kids were both home births so I’ve a little exposure to it all myself.
All I ever expected was that everyone involved should work together in the best interests of the babies and mothers.
well the “hostile politics” are not surprising given the stakes when things go wrong…birth always was potentially dramatic and dangerous for some women…just look at history and the plight of women in the third world
i was lucky in that I had a midwife who moved very fast when I said i wanted to go to hospital…lucky also that the high tech hospital was only 10 minutes away…lucky I had a GP /obstetrician trained in home births who met us at the hospital… and lucky he had a consultant mate who didnt mind getting up in the early hours and quickly pronouncing emergency cesarean …most lucky I had a healthy robust baby!
from what I can gather women these days are not so lucky for choice …it is either home birth with a midwife making all the judgment calls and when to go to hospital, with not necessarily immediate full support when they get there…(GP doctors have opted out)…or opting for hospital birth from the beginning with all the high tech ( and risk feeling alienated by the process)
From my experience , it is not worth the risk… I opted for hospital next time around and an elective cesarean…great for women who can have a home birth and great for women who can breast feed …but women who cant should be celebrated as well ( those babies on bottles look lovely and the mothers look lovely)….My Mother always said she envied women who had cesareans….their babies were so beautiful! ( not scrunched and red)
“That bitch is a ‘mother’ only in the technical sense.”
RETURN OF THE GRAVE-ROBBER: A REAL LIFE HORROR STORY
Five mental health doctors, all in white coats, gather round a computer screen to consider a particularly grievous case. Professor MORRISSEY BREEN leads the convocation….
DOCTOR No. 1: Oh Jesus, do we HAVE to look at this?
PROF. BREEN: Come on now. You guys work with mental health cases. This is your job.
DOCTOR No. 2: Yes, but these right wing fellows are, if not simply bewildered, then certainly depraved. They ARE all guys, aren’t they?
PROF. BREEN: Well, there’s one Catholic woman who writes crackpot stuff about religion and Russia occasionally, but, yes, I think they’re mostly male contributors.
YOUNG FEMALE DOCTOR:[grimly] Very SAD males.
PROF. BREEN: Indeed. We’ll start with this comment from someone calling himself “dime”. He writes “what a piece of human garbage”.
DOCTOR No. 4: To be honest, that’s pretty tame. Lame, but tame.
PROF. BREEN: Granted. Unfortunately, however, our friend “dime” is the intellectual heavyweight in this forum. It only gets worse from here on. For instance, a sad git called “mara” writes: “This Kahui ought to have fallen down the stairs in prison years ago.”
….Disbelieving silence for several seconds….
DOCTOR No. 1: Fuck me! These MORONS are in institutional care, I take it? PROF. BREEN: Sorry, but please bear with me if you can. A bit later a genius named “cmm” writes: “These people are always so keen to dis the white man that brings him the legal system that keeps him alive, gives him money for food, accommodation etc.”
ALL: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!… Jesus H. CHRIST, these people are D – U – M, DUMB!
PROF. BREEN: A bewildered soul called nasska writes: “Urban ferals never have & never will benefit from the millions thrown into the black hole that is the Maori grievance industry.” One “PhilP” writes learnedly that Chris Kahui is a “useless piece of shit.”
DOCTOR No. 4: Good Lord! This is like listening to a morning of Leighton Smith!
DOCTOR No. 5: Or Michael Laws. Or Sean Plunket. Or Larry “Lackwit” Williams.
PROF. BREEN: Yes, that’s right. Obviously these people get their talking points from the likes of Smith and Laws.
DOCTOR No. 3: And the ACT Party.
PROF. BREEN: Actually, No. 3, you’re close to the truth there. But we’ll get onto that in a minute. Let’s just consider the last couple of examples. Another fellow, “deadrightkev”, writes: “Kahui is a product of trash upbringing and fertilised by a social welfare state dependency problem out of control.” He then manages to top that with this gem: “Treaty settlements are fraud. They should be staying exactly where they should be – in the hands of the taxpayer.”
YOUNG FEMALE DOCTOR: More like “Deadweight” Kev, methinks.
ALL: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
PROF. BREEN: This one is my favorite, though, because he’s honest. Stupid, but honest. One “flash2846” writes learnedly: “Yet another good reason why I and others are racist! Just imagine a murderer of any other race in New zealand saying that shit. Filthy CUNT! needs castrating!!!!”
….A stunned silence ensues for several seconds…..
DOCTOR No. 1:[grimly] Farrar certainly seems to attract the intellectuals.
DOCTOR No. 3: You know what the most frightening thing about these guys is? They can breed and they can vote.
ALL: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
PROF. BREEN: Okay. Now some of you might remember this bloke. [He scrolls down the page] Sorry, fellas, before I reveal who it is, I know that like the rest of the country, you thought you’d never have to look at his ugly mug again or listen to one of his ill-informed, hate-filled rants, but he’s back—at least on Kiwiblog.
DOCTOR No. 1: Who? Murray Deaker?
DOCTOR No. 4: Not that fucking criminal JOHN BANKS?
PROF. BREEN: Now, No. 3, remember how you suggested these halfwits could be channeling the ACT Party. Well, get a load of THIS: “Of course he’s fucking unemployable… But of the two, his former “missus” is the worst in my view…male scum who couldn’t give a fuck about or abuse their progeny are a dime a dozen…somehow we expect more of mothers…That bitch is a “mother” only in the technical sense…and she is probably a killer…she certainly knows who did kill the poor little buggers… the useless mongrel – and I say that even if he didn’t kill his sons – has almost certainly sired a couple more by now….and you can bet your arse those children have “come to the attention of the authorities”
GENERAL HUBBUB: Jesus! …. What the HELL?… You can virtually feel the spittle!… Was that a quote from the late Paul Holmes?…. Sounds like Cameron Slater… Or John Ansell?… It’s hard to say which part of this is more offensive: the militant display of ignorance or the hatred. …. Are these people in care, and if not, why not? … They can vote, and they can breed…. So tell us, Prof. Breen: who was it? PROF. BREEN: I’ll give you three clues. Clue number one: he’s a disgraced ACT M.P.
DOCTOR No. 2: Doctor Muriel Newman, the dimmest medical practitioner in the world until the advent of Dr Ben Carson!
PROF. BREEN: All reasonable choices. But not the answer I’m looking for. Clue number two: he was convicted of assaulting a doctor in Tonga.
ALL: Oh Jesus, no!… I know who it is now. …. I’d blocked that person out of my memory, I’d thought…. No, no, no! Not him!… It’s that monster from the S.S. Trust!
PROF. BREEN: Clue number three: he stole the identity of a dead baby and was convicted for it, but it still didn’t stop ACT selecting him as a candidate!
GENERAL HUBBUB: The right dishonorable David fucking Garrett! … He’s the lowest of the low!… Thanks, Prof. Breen, I had banished that zombie into my mental trash can, and now you bring him back from the dead!… Absolutely reprehensible!… Compared to David Garrett, Chris Kahui is Albert fucking Schweitzer.
PROF. BREEN: Say, I LIKE that comment. I might just modify it a bit and post it up on Kiwiblog….
Unless you are privy to all the details of the case, from what was published – there does not seem to be enough evidence to make that decisive judgement call.
One of my relatives worked in the ICU at that time, and it had been noted by staff that the (somewhat regular) lack of bonding with the mother had occurred, and that substantial at home visits and supports would be necessary to address this. This did not occur after discharge.
It is by no means uncommon for parents of very premature births to have a resistance to forming bonds with their child. The children are often physically different from expectations of a healthy birth – very skinny, with loose and hairy skin, and it is a form of unconscious mental self-preservation to not invest emotionally if outcomes are uncertain.
Whether Chris Kahui was responsible for the injuries or not, seemed hard to define given the conflicting evidence that I can recall.
What is true however, is that a vulnerability was identified and a strategy defined which was not followed up on.
This is tragedy was indicative of a support system failure as well.
You could well be right, Tim. However, the discredited National Party hitman Cameron Slater is not fit to comment on him or anyone else.
The point of my post was not to defend Chris Kahui, but to show the hypocrisy of the ignorant and bloody-minded lynch-mob that were denouncing him on the right wing blogs. It’s perhaps no surprise to learn that the most foul-mouthed, crudest commenter of all on that particular thread was the disgraced ex-ACT felon David Garrett….
I enjoyed your post (as usual) and I’m glad you let those guys know how it is. It just prompted me to think about the case again and left me with a sense of anger – probably at the family as well as Macsyna and Chris, for the way in which all seemed complicit in preventing the truth coming to light at the time… Or at least that is what the media has it seem like.
…”The monument in Wiltshire has long been thought of as a place of magic used by the ancient druids, with mystery surrounding how it was built and its exact use. It is believed to have been built between 2000 and 3000 BC…
Following a monumental win against the controversial ‘Monsanto law’ in Guatemala last year, the notorious biotech firm took another big hit after Mexico’s Supreme Court suspended a permit to grow genetically modified soybeans across 250,000 hectares on the Yucatán peninsula.
The judgement stemmed from a constitutional law in Mexico that requires the consideration of indigenous communities affected by development projects. According to the Supreme Court, Monsanto failed to consult the region’s famous Maya beekeepers who filed the case against Monsanto. The beekeepers warned early on that Monsanto’s plan would require the use of “glyphosate, a herbicide classified as probably carcinogenic.” Given that bees are extremely sensitive to their environment, the beekeepers explained that Monsanto’s project jeopardize their communities, their livelihoods and the environment.
The judge commented in the ruling that co-existence between honey production and GM soybeans is simply not possible.
And yet many places in the world had thriving ecosystems before the arrival of the honey bee, which included plants that needed pollination. I’ve been following the bee problem for a long time but lately I’ve been wondering if the issue of the demise of hive bees is about global economics more than humans being able to feed themselves. We should be going back to eating local anyway. The issue isn’t that the almond orchards in California will fail when all the colonies collapse, and how that affects the global food supply, but the fact that that kind of orcharding created the collapse in the first place and is just wrong on all levels.
Yes, we should be concerned about any species decline, but if we focus on the honey bee/global cropping connections instead of the ecosystem that includes all pollinators then we will just keep shitting in our own nest (and everyone else’s).
Oh I agree – however the demise of the honey bee by wide spread applications of pesticide also includes the demise of all the other local pollinators, and that is what makes the Mexican Supreme Court decision so important.
This is why Douglas, Prebble and co should be hung by their fucking heals.
Most recently, the privatisation of the timber industry in the 1980s caused “massive job losses and severe poverty” in the west of the district, which had previously been relatively wealthy.
While the Crown did provide some support to communities in Te Urewera, they were “never near enough to counter the massive disadvantages holding back those communities”.
I remember reading an insider industry report in the early 80’s sometime, projecting that with the amount of timber potentially coming online NZ could support something like 16 world scale timber/pulp/paper mills.
We never built any of them. Most of the wood got shipped overseas as logs for other people to make money from.
Despite the injustice and deprivation of the past, which at the time I was only vaguely aware of, the people I knew and worked with in Galatea – Murupara in the 1970’s had found some measure of prosperity.
And then the 4th Labour Government, their party, my party, didn’t just sell their livelihoods out from underneath them, they did that to lots of us, they abandoned them and their communities became the poverty stricken gang dominated shit holes of the 1990’s.
+1 yep they sold us all out and so many of us are still paying the cost – while they get taxpayer funded travel and invitations to conferences – sickening.
A fucken disgrace, and I still hear of D Cagill. Did the dogs get their beach trip. 😉
Oh, and just too wind you up again, down here in Dunedin, the council have employed two Lawyers to save some money, have come up with the idea of getting rid of the word Bitch and heat from the dog control act, they don’t like blurred meaning.
The former will be replaced with, “female dog in season” I kid you not.
Or, A back handed complement to the Dog ‘male’ for always being in season, or at least in unison with the said ‘Bitch’.
But in all seriousness, that nonsense has got to stop, it’s a waste of money etc etc.
PS: leave those whitebait alone, alwyn…At lest till the first of September
Sorry, but I can’t read past the first line of Māori living in caves and eatint rotten potatoes. I love NZ but there are some shames that we will never get past.
If it was your job to ensure the people being allowed into the country did not pose a significant security risk do you think it would be easy? Would you be happy if people judged you and your entire society as sick because of a specific decision that was made which we have not heard the justification for? Do you think it is reasonable for someone to join ISIS because they were not allowed to go to Disneyland for reasons that have not yet been made clear?
“Would you be happy if people judged you and your entire society as sick because of a specific decision that was made which we have not heard the justification for?”
Isn’t that what happened to these people?
This is how they felt after, “The family were escorted from the airport but were first obliged to return every item they had bought from the airport’s duty-free shops”
“I have never been more embarrassed in my life. I work here, I have a business here. But we were alienated.”
disgusting – I hope their relatives in Southern California don’t find the spooks hanging around their kids now but I’m not hopeful.
Hey – when a kid gets arrested for bringing a home made clock to school. http://techcrunch.com/2015/09/16/14-year-old-boy-arrested-for-bringing-homemade-clock-to-school/
A female politican sends out a christmas card of her and her family packing guns http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3347927/Nevada-politician-arms-family-guns-controversial-holiday-portrait-support-Second-Amendment.html
And the number of mass killings is increasing and more deadly http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/02/mass-shootings-in-america-numbers-more-frequent-more-deadly
and people who are obviously not criminals are denied entry for no other reason than they are Muslim, you have to conclude that the states is now a highly paranoid society. Having witnessed first hand the paranoia of the USA, fostered by their main stream media, their politicians, right wing “think” tanks, and the NRA, amongst others, one can only conclude that the states is not a pleasant place to be. Frankly I couldn’t wait to leave and never wish to return, despite the fact that I met many good people and the countryside in the fall was simply stunning.
I’m sorry if you are fearful, I take it from your tone that you are a part of that society and wish to uphold it. Well take it from an outsider – its time to rethink USA foreign policy so that The US is seen not as the terrorist that it has become, but as a decent Country like it was many many years ago.
the poor and middle classes have been divided by race/ income/ religion and set against one another, and kept in perpetual fear, keeping the real gangsters in the Wall St Washington establishment safe from criticism
Not sure how that judge’s ruling makes NZ a puppet state of the US.
Best you read the judge’s full decision before forming opinion, many of those on the political right would have been well advised to do the same regarding the recent decision regarding the illegality of the police search of Nicky Hagar’s home before spouting uninformed opinion.
Dotcom looses the case but: “Dotcom’s lawyer Ron Mansfield confirmed there would be an appeal lodged over the extradition this afternoon.” Might take years to resolve.
Here it is folks, what you have all been waiting for. It’s about to begin. Episode one of the KEYdashian’s Hawaiian holiday! The fruit of FJK’s loins, begins by missing his girlfriend already! Ahhhh poor baby!
Yuk! Enough to make one have to dash rather hastily to the toilet!
…a family party of 11, about to embark on a dream holiday for which they had saved for months, were approached by officials from US homeland security (at Gatwick…in the UK ffs!) as they queued in the departure lounge and told their authorisation to travel had been cancelled, without further explanation.
“Every presidential contender says they want to destroy Islamic State, but John McAfee is the only one predicting a war involving cyberattacks, not conventional weapons. “We have to prepare ourselves” for an enemy that is “far more clever,” McAfee told RT.
Not many people know John McAfee is running for president, but possibly even fewer understand the scope of the war against Islamic State (IS, formely ISIS/ISIL) the way he does.
When asked if Republican frontrunner Donald Trump’s strategy against IS was reasonable, McAfee answered, “No, absolutely not.” That’s an answer most other rivals would agree with, but to McAfee, it’s not about where and how to use the military. To defeat ISIS, America must face its own “cyber illiteracy” and other faults before engaging in what he purports to be the next World War – a cyber war…
Cyber wars are going on already. Involving nuclear reactors, airlines etc. Worth doing a Google search on the subject. I read a few blogs on the subject which linked to all sorts of instances reported in the mainstream media.
But there are some scary parallels between the Nazi Empire of the 1940’s and the Washington Empire and conquests today that revolve around the Petrodollar system that has maintained the dollar reserve currency status since the end of World War Two. This dollar world reserve currency model required that oil was only priced and sold in dollars forced all foreign nations buying and importing oil to keep major dollar reserves to pay for their oil imports guaranteed a permanent and expanding demand for dollars around the world.
Three Middle East countries first broke the oil/dollar requirement and threatened the petrodollar system including Iraq, Libya and Iran hence the US military attempts to violently overthrow these governments to maintain Washington hegemony and the dollar.
‘It has been said that figures rule the world. Maybe. I am quite sure that it is figures which show us whether it is being ruled well or badly.’ GoetheI was struck at a recent conference on equity for the elderly, how many presenters implicitly relied upon Statistics New Zealand. ...
Buzz from the BeehiveReporting on defence spending late last year, RNZ said the coalition government will have to make some tough calls this term to help the force address staff shortages and ageing infrastructure. “These are huge, huge amounts of government spending. It’s a significant proportion of the government’s ...
Peter Dunne writes – I am always wary when I hear that the Controller and Auditor-General has commented on or made recommendations to the government about an issue of public policy that does not relate strictly to public expenditure. According to the legislation, the role of the Controller ...
How Labour’s and National’s failure to move beyond neoliberalism has brought NZ to the brink of economic and cultural chaos Chris Trotter writes – TO START LOSING, so soon after you won, requires a special kind of political incompetence. At the heart of this Coalition ...
And why did the Crown not challenge the Tribunal’s jurisdiction? Gary Judd writes – Retired District Court Judge, David Harvey, has posted on his A Halflings View Substack an excellent summary of Justice Isacs’ judgment declining to uphold the witness summons issued by the Waitangi Tribunal ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Do you believe New Zealand runs its general elections fairly and competently? As a voter, can you be confident that the votes on your ballot will be counted towards the final result?As a political scientist, I’ve been asked these questions many times and ...
Macklemore isn’t someone I’d usually think about. Sure I liked his big hit from a few years back, everybody did it was catchy and cool with some memorable lines. But if I was going to think of artists who might speak out on political matters or world events, he wouldn’t ...
Another week goes by in the Luxon government’s efforts to roll back the past 70 years of social progress. The school lunches programme is to be downgraded by $107 million, and women need bother their heads no longer about pay equity, let alone expect ACC to provide adequate sexual violence ...
Brrr, the first cold snap of the year. Hope you’re rugged up nice and warm. Here are some stories that caught our eye this week… This Week on Greater Auckland On Monday, we had a post from a new contributor, Connor Sharp, who dug into the public feedback ...
Almost all of the Wellington City Council’s recommended zoning changes to allow many more apartments and townhouses in its inner-suburbs have been approved.Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for subscribers features co-hosts and , along with regular guest on geopolitics, ...
Open access notablesA Global Increase in Nearshore Tropical Cyclone Intensification, Balaguru et al., Earth's Future:Tropical Cyclones (TCs) inflict substantial coastal damages, making it pertinent to understand changing storm characteristics in the important nearshore region. Past work examined several aspects of TCs relevant for impacts in coastal regions. However, ...
Do you believe New Zealand runs its general elections fairly and competently? As a voter, can you be confident that the votes on your ballot will be counted towards the final result? As a political scientist, I’ve been asked these questions many times and always answered “yes”, with very few ...
Thus far May has followed on from a quiet April in the blogging department, but in fairness, it has been another case of doing what I am supposed to be doing, namely writing original fiction. Plus reading. So don’t worry – I have been productive. But in order to reassure ...
Buzz from the Beehive A new government agency will open for business on July 1 – the Social Investment Agency. As a new standalone central agency effective from 1 July, it will lead the development of social investment across Government, helping ministers understand who they need to invest in, what ...
Bryce Edwards writes – “Follow the money” is the classic directive to journalists trying to understand where power and influence lie in society. In terms of uncovering who influences various New Zealand political parties and governments, it therefore pays to look at who is funding them. The ...
Alwyn Poole writes – After being elected to Parliament in 2008 the maiden speech of Hipkins was substantially around education policy. He was Labour’s spokesperson for education 2011 – 2017. He was Minister for Education from 2017 until February 2023. This is approximately 88% of the time Labour ...
Eric Crampton writes – A fashion industry group is lobbying for protections. They make the usual arguments and a newer one. None of it makes sense. An industry group says it pumped $7.8 billion into the economy last year – that’s 1.9 percent of New Zealand’s GDP. ...
In December 2006, Fiji's military leader Voreqe Bainimarama overthrew the elected government in a coup. He ruled Fiji for the next 16 years, first as dictator, then as "elected" Prime Minister. But now, he's finally been sent to jail where he belongs. Sadly, this isn't for his real crime of ...
Don't like National's corrupt Muldoonist "fast-track" law? Aotearoa's environmental NGO's - Greenpeace, Forest & Bird, WWF, Coromandel Watchdog, Coal Action Network Aotearoa, Kiwis Against Seabed Mining, and others - have announced a joint march against it in Auckland in June: When: 13:00, 8 June, 2024 Where: Aotea Square, Auckland You ...
Seymour describes sushi as too woke for school meals. There are no fish sushi meals recommended by the School Lunches programme. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty ImagesTL;DR: The Government will swap out hot meals for packaged sandwiches to save $107 million on school lunches for poor kids. MSD has pulled ...
I don't mind stealin' bread from the mouths of decadenceBut I can't feed on the powerless when my cup's already overfilled, yeahBut it's on the table, the fire's cookin'And they're farmin' babies, while slaves are workin'The blood is on the table and the mouths are chokin'But I'm goin' hungry, yeahSome ...
The Ardern Government’s chickens came home to roost yesterday with the news that the country is short of natural gas. In 2018, Labour banned offshore petroleum exploration, and industry executives say that the attendant loss of confidence by the industry impacted overall investment in onshore gas fields. Energy Resources Minister ...
Hi,If you’ve been digging through the newly launched Webworm store (orders are being dispatched worldwide as I type!) you’ll have noticed the best model we had was Calvin.This is Calvin.Calvin.Calvin is 7, and is the son of my producer over on Flightless Bird, Rob — aka “Wobby Wob”. Rob also ...
This video includes conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Adam Levy. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). Climate change is everywhere. And when something's everywhere it can feel like it's nowhere. So how do we get our heads ...
Its a law like gravity: whenever a right-wing government is elected, they start attacking democracy. And now, after talking to their Republican and Tory and Fidesz chums at the International Democracy Union forum in Wellington, National is doing it here, announcing plans to remove election-day enrolment. Or, to put it ...
Yesterday Winston Peters focussed his attention on the important matter at hand. Tweeting. Like the former, and quite possibly next, orange POTUS, from whom he takes much of his political strategy, Winston is an avid X’er.His message didn’t resemble an historic address this time. In fact it was more reminiscent ...
Buzz from the Beehive A significant decline in natural gas production has given Resources Minister Shane Jones an opportunity to reiterate his enthusiasm for the mining and burning of coal. For good measure, he has praised an announcement from Genesis Energy that it will resume importing coal. He and Energy ...
“Follow the money” is the classic directive to journalists trying to understand where power and influence lie in society. In terms of uncovering who influences various New Zealand political parties and governments, it therefore pays to look at who is funding them. The political parties are legally obliged to make ...
Rob MacCullough writes – Here is my subjective ranking on a “most-left” to “most-right” scale of most of our major NZ Universities, with some anecdotal (and at times amusing) evidence to back up the claim.Extreme Left Auckland University of TechnologyEvidenceThe ...
Eric Crampton writes – I hadn’t thought about this one until a helpful email showed up in my inbox.It’s pretty obvious that income tax thresholds should automatically index with inflation – whether to anchor the thresholds in percentiles of the income distribution, or to anchor against a real ...
Jacqui Van Der Kaay writes – Parliament’s speaker had no option but to refer Green MP Julie Anne Genter to the Privileges Committee for her behaviour in the House last Wednesday evening. The incident, in which she crossed the floor to wave a book and yell at National ...
Gary Judd writes – The Dean of the law school at the Auckland University of Technology is someone called Khylee Quince. I have been sent her social media posting in which she has, over the LawNews headline “Senior King’s Counsel files complaint about compulsory tikanga Maori studies for ...
Cleo Paskal writes – WASHINGTON, D.C.: ‘Many of us have received phone calls from [the opposing camp] telling them if they join the camp they will be given projects for their wards and $300,000 [around US$35,000] each’, says former Malaita Premier Daniel Suidani. The elections in Solomon Islands aren’t ...
With hindsight, it was inevitable that (a) Hamas would agree to the ceasefire deal brokered by Egypt and Qatar and that ( b) Israel would then immediately launch attacks on Rafah, regardless. We might have hoped the concessions made by Hamas would cause Israel to desist from slaughtering thousands more ...
Placards and mourners outside the Kilbirnie Mosque following the Christchurch terror attack: MSD has terminated the Kaiwhakaoranga service, which has been used by 415 families since the attacks. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: The Government’s pledge to only cut ‘back office’ staff rather than ‘frontline’ services is on increasingly shaky ground, with ...
There’s been a few smaller public transport announcements over the last week or so that I thought I’d cover in a single post. Fareshare I’ve long called for Auckland Transport to offer a way to enable employer-subsidised public transport options. The need for this took on even more importance ...
Parliament’s speaker had no option but to refer Green MP Julie Anne Genter to the Privileges Committee for her behaviour in the House last Wednesday evening. The incident, in which she crossed the floor to wave a book and yell at National Minister Matt Doocey, reflects poorly on Genter and ...
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 ...
Who likes being sneered at? Nobody. Worse yet, when the sneerer has their facts all wrong, and might well be an idiot.The sneer in question is The adults are in charge now, and it is a sneer offered in retort to criticism of this new Government, no matter how well ...
When in government, Labour pushed to extend the Parliamentary term to four years, to reduce accountability and our ability to vote out a bad government. And now, they're trying to do it through the member's ballot, with a Four-Year Parliamentary Term Legislation Bill. The bill at least requires a referendum ...
A ballot for a single Member's Bill was held today, and the following bill was drawn: Public Works (Prohibition of Compulsory Acquisition of Māori Land) Amendment Bill (Hūhana Lyndon) The bill would prevent the government from stealing Māori land in breach of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. It ...
Simeon Brown, alongside Wayne Brown, is favouring a political figleaf now in exchange for loading up tens of millions in extra interest costs on Auckland ratepayers. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s is pushing back hard at suggestions from Local Government Minister Simeon Brown and Mayor Wayne Brown ...
Buzz from the Beehive One headline-grabber from the Beehive yesterday was the OECD’s advice that the government must bring the Budget deficit under control or face higher interest rates. Another was the announcement of a $1.9 billion “investment” in Corrections over the next four years. In the best interests of ...
Chris Trotter writes – Had Zheng He’s fleet sailed east, not west, in the early Fifteenth Century, how different our world would be. There is little reason to suppose that the sea-going junks of the Ming Dynasty, among the largest and most sophisticated sailing vessels ever constructed, would have failed ...
David Farrar writes – Two articles give a useful contrast in balance. Both seek to be neutral explainer articles. This one in the Herald on Social Investment covers the pros and cons nicely. It links to critical pieces and talks about aspects that failed and aspects that are more ...
The tikanga regulations will compel law students to be taught that a system which does not conform with the rule of law is nevertheless law which should be observed and applied…Gary Judd KC writes – I have made a complaint to Parliament’s Regulation ...
The future of Te Huia, the train between Hamilton and Auckland, has been getting a lot of attention recently as current funding for it is only in place till the end of June. The government initially agreed to a five year trial, through to April 2026, but that was subject ...
TL;DR: Hamas has just agreed to Israel’s ceasefire plan. Nelson hospital’s rebuild has been cut back to save money. The OECD suggests New Zealand break up network monopolies, including in electricity. PM Christopher Luxon’s news conference on a prison expansion announcement last night was his messiest yet.Here’s my top six ...
A homicide in Ponsonby, a manhunt with a killer on the run. The nation’s leader stands before a press conference reassuring a frightened nation that he’ll sort it out, he’ll keep them safe, he’ll build some new prison spaces.Sorry what? There’s a scary dude on the run with a gun ...
Hi,I know it’s been awhile since there’s been any Webworm merch — and today that all changes!Over the last four months, I’ve been working with New Zealand artist Jess Johnson to create a series of t-shirts, caps and stickers that are infused with Webworm DNA — and as of right ...
The OECD’s chief economist yesterday laid it on the line for the new Government: bring the deficit under control or face higher Reserve Bank interest rates for longer. And to bring the deficit under control, she meant not borrowing for tax cuts. But there was more. Without policy changes—introducing a ...
After a hiatus of over four months Selwyn Manning and I finally got it together to re-start the “A View from Afar” podcast series. We shall see how we go but aim to do 2 episodes per month if possible. … Continue reading → ...
In 2008, the UK Parliament passed the Climate Change Act 2008. The law established a system of targets, budgets, and plans, with inbuilt accountability mechanisms; the aim was to break the cycle of empty promises and replace it with actual progress towards emissions reduction. The law was passed with near-universal ...
Buzz from the Beehive Local Water Done Well – let’s be blunt – is a silly name, but the first big initiative to put it into practice has gone done well. This success is reflected in the headline on an RNZ report:District mayors welcome Auckland’s new water deal with ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate ConnectionsA farmworker cleans the solar panels of a solar water pump in the village of Jagadhri, Haryana Country, India. (Photo credit: Prashanth Vishwanathan/ IWMI) Decisions made in India over the next few years will play a key role in global ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – The Children’s Minister, Karen Chhour, intends to repeal Section 7AA from the Oranga Tamariki Act 1989 because it creates conflict between claimed Crown Treaty obligations and the child’s best interests. In her words, “Oranga Tamariki’s governing principles and its act should be colour ...
Geoffrey Miller writes – The gloves are off. That might seem to be the undertone of surprisingly tough talk from New Zealand’s foreign and trade ministers. Winston Peters, the foreign minister, may be facing legal action after making allegations about former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr on Radio New Zealand. ...
Brian Easton writes – This is about the time that the Treasury will be locking up its economic forecasts to be published in the 2024 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) on budget day, 30 May. I am not privy to what they will be (I will report on them ...
TL;DR:Winston Peters is reported to have won a budget increase for MFAT. David Seymour wanted his Ministry of Regulation to be three times bigger than the Productivity Commission. Simeon Brown is appointing a Crown Monitor to Watercare to protect the Claytons Crown Guarantee he had to give ratings agencies ...
The gloves are off. That might seem to be the undertone of surprisingly tough talk from New Zealand’s foreign and trade ministers. Winston Peters, the foreign minister, may be facing legal action after making allegations about former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr on Radio New Zealand. Carr had made highly ...
I could be a florist'Round the corner from Rye LaneI'll be giving daisies to craziesBut, baby, I'll wrap you up real safe Oh, I can give you flowers At the end of every dayFor the center of your table, a rainbowIn case you have people 'round to stay Depending on ...
TL;DR: The six key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to May 12 include:PM Christopher Luxon is scheduled to hold a post-Cabinet news conference at 4 pm today. Finance Minister Nicola Willis will give a pre-budget speech on Thursday.Parliament sits from Question Time at 2pm on ...
The price of the foreign affairs “reset” is now becoming apparent, with Defence set to get a funding boost in the Budget. Finance Minister Nicola Willis has confirmed that it will be one of the few votes, apart from Health and Education and possibly Police, which will get an increase ...
A listing of 26 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 28, 2024 thru Sat, May 4, 2024. Story of the week "It’s straight out of Big Tobacco’s playbook. In fact, research by John Cook and his colleagues ...
Yesterday I received come lovely feedback following my Star Wars themed newsletter. A few people mentioned they’d enjoyed reading the personal part at the beginning.I often begin newsletters with some memories, or general thoughts, before commencing the main topic. This hopefully sets the mood and provides some context in which ...
April 30 was going to be the day we’d be calling Mum from London to wish her a happy birthday. Then it became the day we would be going to St. Paul's at Evensong to remember her. The aim of the cathedral builders was to find a way to make their ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Can’t remember the last book by a Kiwi author you read? Think the NZ government should spend less on the arts in favor of helping the homeless? If so, as far as Newsroom is concerned, you probably deserve to be called a cultural ignoramus ...
Today New Zealand First will introduce a Member’s Bill that will protect women’s spaces. The ‘Fair Access to Bathrooms Bill’ will require, primarily in the interest and safety of women and girls, that all new non-domestic publicly accessible buildings provide separate, clearly demarcated, unisex and single sex bathrooms. This Bill ...
The Green Party is welcoming Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ continuation of Hon. James Shaw’s cross-party work on climate adaptation, now in the form of a Finance and Expenditure Committee Inquiry. ...
The National Government plans to cut 390 jobs at ACC, including roles in the areas of prevention of sexual violence, road safety and workplace safety. ...
The Government has been caught in opposition to evidence once again as it looks to usher in tried, tested and failed work seminar obligations for job-seeking beneficiaries. ...
The Green Party is welcoming the announcement by the Minister Responsible for RMA Reform Chris Bishop to approve most of the Wellington City Council’s District Plan recommendations. ...
David Seymour has failed to get the sweeping cuts he wanted to the free and healthy school lunch programme, Labour education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
Hon Willie Jackson has been invited by the Oxford Union to debate the motion “This House Believes British Museums are not Very British’ on May 23rd. ...
Green Party MP Hūhana Lyndon says her Public Works (Prohibition of Compulsory Acquisition of Māori Land) Amendment Bill is an opportunity to right some past wrongs around the alienation of Māori land. ...
A senior, highly respected King’s Counsel with decades of experience in our law courts, Gary Judd KC, has filed a complaint about compulsory tikanga Māori studies for law students - highlighting the utter depths of absurdity this woke cultural madness has taken our society. The tikanga regulations will compel law ...
The Government needs to be clear with the people of the Nelson Marlborough region about the changes it is considering for the Nelson Hospital rebuild, Labour health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said. ...
Ministers must front up about which projects it will push through under its Fast Track Approvals legislation, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
Introduction Good morning. It’s a great privilege to be here at the 2024 Infrastructure Symposium. I was extremely happy when the Prime Minister asked me to be his Minister for Infrastructure. It is one of the great barriers holding the New Zealand economy back from achieving its potential. Building high ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins today announced the upcoming Budget will include new funding of $571 million for Defence Force pay and projects. “Our servicemen and women do New Zealand proud throughout the world and this funding will help ensure we retain their services and expertise as we navigate an increasingly ...
New Zealand’s ability to cope with climate change will be strengthened as part of the Government’s focus to build resilience as we rebuild the economy, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “An enduring and long-term approach is needed to provide New Zealanders and the economy with certainty as the climate ...
Jobseeker beneficiaries who have work obligations must now meet with MSD within two weeks of their benefit starting to determine their next step towards finding a job, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “A key part of the coalition Government’s plan to have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker ...
A new standalone Social Investment Agency will power-up the social investment approach, driving positive change for our most vulnerable New Zealanders, Social Investment Minister Nicola Willis says. “Despite the Government currently investing more than $70 billion every year into social services, we are not seeing the outcomes we want for ...
Check against delivery Good morning. It is a pleasure to be with you to outline the Coalition Government’s approach to our first Budget. Thank you Mark Skelly, President of the Hutt Valley Chamber of Commerce, together with your Board and team, for hosting me. I’d like to acknowledge His Worship ...
Your Excellency Ambassador Meredith, Members of the Diplomatic Corps and Ambassadors from European Union Member States, Ministerial colleagues, Members of Parliament, and other distinguished guests, Thank you everyone for joining us. Ladies and gentlemen - In diplomacy, we often speak of ‘close’ and ‘long-standing’ relations. ...
The Therapeutic Products Act (TPA) will be repealed this year so that a better regime can be put in place to provide New Zealanders safe and timely access to medicines, medical devices and health products, Associate Health Minister Casey Costello announced today. “The medicines and products we are talking about ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop, today released his decision on twenty recommendations referred to him by the Wellington City Council relating to its Intensification Planning Instrument, after the Council rejected those recommendations of the Independent Hearings Panel and made alternative recommendations. “Wellington notified its District Plan on ...
Rape Awareness Week (6-10 May) is an important opportunity to acknowledge the continued effort required by government and communities to ensure that all New Zealanders can live free from violence, say Ministers Karen Chhour and Louise Upston. “With 1 in 3 women and 1 in 8 men experiencing sexual violence ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government will be delivering a more efficient Healthy School Lunches Programme, saving taxpayers approximately $107 million a year compared to how Labour funded it, by embracing innovation and commercial expertise. “We are delivering on our commitment to treat taxpayers’ money ...
New research on the impacts of extreme weather on coastal marine habitats in Tairāwhiti and Hawke’s Bay will help fishery managers plan for and respond to any future events, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. A report released today on research by Niwa on behalf of Fisheries New Zealand ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Winston Peters will lead a broad political delegation on a five-stop Pacific tour next week to strengthen New Zealand’s engagement with the region. The delegation will visit Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, and Tuvalu. “New Zealand has deep and ...
There has been a material decline in gas production according to figures released today by the Gas Industry Co. Figures released by the Gas Industry Company show that there was a 12.5 per cent reduction in gas production during 2023, and a 27.8 per cent reduction in gas production in the ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins tonight announced the recipients of the Minister of Defence Awards of Excellence for Industry, saying they all contribute to New Zealanders’ security and wellbeing. “Congratulations to this year’s recipients, whose innovative products and services play a critical role in the delivery of New Zealand’s defence capabilities, ...
Welcome to you all - it is a pleasure to be here this evening.I would like to start by thanking Greg Lowe, Chair of the New Zealand Defence Industry Advisory Council, for co-hosting this reception with me. This evening is about recognising businesses from across New Zealand and overseas who in ...
It is a pleasure to be speaking to you as the Minister for Digitising Government. I would like to thank Akolade for the invitation to address this Summit, and to acknowledge the great effort you are making to grow New Zealand’s digital future. Today, we stand at the cusp of ...
New Zealand is urging both Israel and Hamas to agree to an immediate ceasefire to avoid the further humanitarian catastrophe that military action in Rafah would unleash, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The immense suffering in Gaza cannot be allowed to worsen further. Both sides have a responsibility to ...
A new online data dashboard released today as part of the Government’s school attendance action plan makes more timely daily attendance data available to the public and parents, says Associate Education Minister David Seymour. The interactive dashboard will be updated once a week to show a national average of how ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced Rosemary Banks will be New Zealand’s next Ambassador to the United States of America. “Our relationship with the United States is crucial for New Zealand in strategic, security and economic terms,” Mr Peters says. “New Zealand and the United States have a ...
The Government is considering creating a new tier of minerals permitting that will make it easier for hobby miners to prospect for gold. “New Zealand was built on gold, it’s in our DNA. Our gold deposits, particularly in regions such as Otago and the West Coast have always attracted fortune-hunters. ...
Minister for Trade Todd McClay today announced that New Zealand and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will commence negotiations on a free trade agreement (FTA). Minister McClay met with his counterpart UAE Trade Minister Dr Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi in Dubai, where they announced the launch of negotiations on a ...
New Zealand Sign Language Week is an excellent opportunity for all Kiwis to give the language a go, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. This week (May 6 to 12) is New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) Week. The theme is “an Aotearoa where anyone can sign anywhere” and aims to ...
Six tertiary students have been selected to work on NASA projects in the US through a New Zealand Space Scholarship, Space Minister Judith Collins announced today. “This is a fantastic opportunity for these talented students. They will undertake internships at NASA’s Ames Research Center or its Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), where ...
New Zealanders will be safer because of a $1.9 billion investment in more frontline Corrections officers, more support for offenders to turn away from crime, and more prison capacity, Corrections Minister Mark Mitchell says. “Our Government said we would crack down on crime. We promised to restore law and order, ...
The OECD’s latest report on New Zealand reinforces the importance of bringing Government spending under control, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The OECD conducts country surveys every two years to review its members’ economic policies. The 2024 New Zealand survey was presented in Wellington today by OECD Chief Economist Clare Lombardelli. ...
The Government has delivered on its election promise to provide a financially sustainable model for Auckland under its Local Water Done Well plan. The plan, which has been unanimously endorsed by Auckland Council’s Governing Body, will see Aucklanders avoid the previously projected 25.8 per cent water rates increases while retaining ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters discussed the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and enhanced cooperation in the Pacific with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock during her first official visit to New Zealand today. "New Zealand and Germany enjoy shared interests and values, including the rule of law, democracy, respect for the international system ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
By Kaneta Naimatu in Suva Journalists in the Pacific region play an important role as the “eyes and ears on the ground” when it comes to reporting the climate crisis, says the European Union’s Pacific Ambassador Barbara Plinkert. Speaking at The University of the South Pacific (USP) on World Press ...
Aldora Itunu is back in the Black Ferns squad after a three-year absence. The last of her 24 internationals was an underwhelming loss to France (7-29) in Castres to conclude the disastrous 2021 Northern Tour. The powerhouse prop won a Rugby World Cup in 2017 and thought she was done. ...
The fight to control major transport policy and projects in Auckland has burst into the open again, with councillors rejecting Mayor Wayne Brown’s latest attempt to steer things more under his influence. Councillors from the left and right broke ranks on the mayor’s bid to control Auckland Transport more directly ...
Exhausted by the general election campaign, horrified by the twilight zone of coalition negotiations, distracted by the silly season and waiting for the honeymoon to begin, Raw Politics has been in hibernation since October. From today, we’re back. Our weekly political video show and podcast returns for ...
By Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific desk Authorities in the small town of Boulouparis have commemorated Armistice Day on May 8 with a new memorial honouring New Zealand soldiers who were stationed in New Caledonia during World War II. The ceremony took place in the township on the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sara Dehm, Senior lecturer, international migration and refugee law, University of Technology Sydney The High Court unanimously ruled today that the Australian government can keep asylum seekers in immigration detention indefinitely in cases where they do not “voluntarily” cooperate with their own ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kim Munro, Lecturer, Creative Industries and Digital Media, University of South Australia Twenty-four hours after the release of Macklemore’s pro-Palestine protest song Hind’s Hall on social media on May 7, the video had already notched up over 24 million views. In ...
Failing to anticipate the complexity of the consenting system is being cited as the the current builder's shortcomings, an Infrastructure Commission review says. ...
350 Aotearoa is calling the Environment Select Committee’s decision to allow oral submissions from just 40% of individual, unique submitters who asked to speak to the committee ‘a disgraceful blight to democracy’. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Helal, Assistant Dean (Sustainability), The University of Melbourne Dubai skylineAleksandarPasaric/Pexels Since ancient times, people have built structures that reach for the skies – from the steep spires of medieval towers to the grand domes of ancient cathedrals and mosques. Today ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Edward Musole, PhD Law Student, University of New England Girts Ragelis/ShutterstockRecent trends show Australians are increasingly buying wearables such as smartwatches and fitness trackers. These electronics track our body movements or vital signs to provide data throughout the day, with ...
Papua New Guinea experienced a significant earthquake on 24 March in East Sepik and there has also been recent flooding there and in surrounding provinces. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Yousuf Mohammed, Dermatology researcher, The University of Queensland Maridav/Shutterstock You wake up, stagger to the bathroom and gaze into the mirror. No, you’re not imagining it. You’ve developed face wrinkles overnight. They’re sleep wrinkles. Sleep wrinkles are temporary. But as your ...
The Environment Select Committee has just announced that 60 percent of individuals who asked to speak at the hearings will not be heard. This equates to almost 700 people who made individual submissions and more than 1000 more who made a form submission. ...
The Royal New Zealand Ballet is performing Swan Lake around the country. What kind of dream does the ballet sell?Before going to see the Royal New Zealand Ballet perform Swan Lake, I had about as much familiarity with the plot of this ballet as could be expected from having ...
A new poem by Auckland poet Eamonn Tee. High Tide at Local Maxima It is only going to get worse. The streams will be narrow and fickle. The week will bend and buckle like a pot-bellied waist. You will make it to the weekend with one ...
The New Zealand entrepreneur behind beauty business Ethique is gearing up to launch a new eco-venture. This is an excerpt from our weekly environmental newsletter Future Proof. Sign up here. Our thirst for a tasty bevvy is insatiable, but it comes with a hefty plastic price for the planet: 580 billion ...
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 James by Percival Everett (Mantle, $38) A retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from ...
By Kamna Kumar in Suva Pacific Islands Forum Secretary-General Henry Puna stressed the importance of media freedom and its link to the climate and environmental crisis at the 2024 World Press Freedom Day event organised by the University of the South Pacific’s journalism programme. Under the theme “A Planet for ...
Tara Ward previews a new local TV series offering alternative visions of motherhood. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. A woman is clambering up the side of her two-story house, clinging desperately to a drainpipe. Nearby, her child is perched on the ...
Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) is supportive of the cross-party approach to climate adaptation announced by the Minister of Climate Change today. ...
The Sustainable Business Council (SBC) and Climate Leaders Coalition (CLC) welcome today’s announcement from Government around a bipartisan inquiry into an enduring climate adaptation framework for New Zealand. ...
The Free Speech Union welcomes the decision by the Department of Internal Affairs, and Minister Brooke Van Velden, to abandon proposals to further regulate online speech. ...
Its new building in Wellington will not be nearly big enough for all its records, and it has also run out of money to build its new storage facility in Levin. ...
BusinessNZ is congratulating the Minister of Climate Change for his work in achieving cross-party consensus for a way forward on climate adaptation. ...
Recent research reveals the repeal of smokefree measures is not only bad for our health, but also the economy. The Government has repealed various smokefree measures to ensure it keeps collecting $1.2 billion a year in tobacco taxes, in order to pay for tax cuts already being delivered to ...
The club’s surprisingly good season is built on the desire to prove a random A-League YouTuber wrong… and a few other factors.“There’s no way that Wellington Phoenix play finals this year. I can’t see it happening at all.” Those are the words of Lachlan Raeside, an Australian football content ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By César Albarrán-Torres, Senior Lecturer, Department of Media and Communication, Swinburne University of Technology Apple TV+ As one of billions of bilingual individuals in the world, it disappoints me when a film or TV show with characters of a non-English-speaking background is ...
The under-utilised course is a waste of space, and with a little political will, it could be turned into something better. For the duration of her stay in Wellington, my long-suffering cousin listened to me rant about golf courses. They’re bad for the environment: water intensive and pesticide heavy. They ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Leah Ruppanner, Professor of Sociology and Founding Director of The Future of Work Lab, Podcast at MissPerceived, The University of Melbourne Shutterstock A recent report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows US fertility rates dropped 2% in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amy Corderoy, Medical doctor and PhD candidate studying involuntary psychiatric treatment, School of Psychiatry, UNSW Sydney shop_py/Shutterstock Picture two people, both suffering from a serious mental illness requiring hospital admission. One was born in Australia, the other in Asia. Hopefully, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Treby, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, RMIT University P.j.Hickox, Shutterstock Peatlands store more carbon per square metre than any other ecosystem on Earth. These waterlogged, mossy bogs beat even dense rainforests for their ability to act as carbon reservoirs. Under the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Goss, Adjunct Associate Professor, Health Research Institute, University of Canberra Government spending on health has been growing so rapidly that a decade ago the then health minister Peter Dutton called it “unmanageable” and “unsustainable”. Health spending grew in real terms by ...
New Zealand's largest electricity distributor is warning the country to hurry up with controls around charging electric vehicles or face unnecessary bills running into the billions. ...
New Zealanders have been asked to conserve energy this morning to combat a possible electricity shortfall, writes Stewart Sowman-Lund in this extract from The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. A call to conserve power New Zealand is facing a possible electricity shortfall, with people up ...
Writer Rebecca K Reilly breaks down the national book awards. What are the Ockhams?The Ockham New Zealand Book Awards are our annual national awards for books published for adults, and have existed in this form since 2016. There are four categories: Fiction, Poetry, General Non-fiction and Illustrated Non-fiction. There ...
Wellington City Council should keep its 34% ownership share in Wellington International Airport, argue Unions Wellington spokespeople Finn Cordwell and Ashok Jacob. Insanity, as the saying goes, is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Wellington City Council (WCC) is yet again proposing to dispose ...
New Zealand’s largest book publisher has undergone drastic changes this week, leaving its future role in local publishing uncertain. Two of the most recognisable local publishers in New Zealand are among those restructured out of Penguin Random House, it was announced this week. Head of publishing Claire Murdoch will leave ...
In 2021 the Public Interest Journalism Fund launched the Te Rito Journalism project, a $2.4 million initiative to boost diversity in New Zealand’s newsrooms. The initiative was in response to the decades-long shortage of Māori and Pacific journalists in the media industry. It was billed as New Zealand’s ...
The Black Ferns Sevens appeared to be a mile behind Australia at the halfway point of the 2023-24 SVNS international circuit. Winless in three tournaments, a cup quarter-final exit in Perth was one of their worst results. To add insult to injury, talismanic skipper Sarah Hirini had been ruled out ...
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Successive governments have tried, and failed, to count Māori. But with the return of social investment, it’s more important than ever to get good data. The post Government looks for a better way to count Māori appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Experts in financing social investment initiatives say New Zealand is in a prime position to tackle social issues via a social investment approach The post What will Willis’ social investment fund look like? appeared first on Newsroom. ...
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist A former Tuvalu prime minister says while the New Zealand government’s oil and gas plans show it is concerned about its economy, he is more concerned about the livelihoods and survival of the Tuvalu people. Enele Sopoaga — who still serves as an MP ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Many people who follow federal budgets know about the magnificent “budget tree” in a parliamentary courtyard, which turns a glorious red in time for the May event. This week Treasurer Jim Chalmers posed by ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Samantha Bennett, Professor of Music, Australian National University Richard P J Lambert/flickr, CC BY The future belongs to the analogue loyalists. Fuck digital. As a tsunami of CDs, DAT tapes and samplers swept the recording industry in the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Catherine Strong, Associate professor, Music Industry, RMIT University This week American rapper Macklemore released a new track, Hind’s Hall, which has gained a lot of attention because of its explicitly political nature. The track is unapologetically pro-Palestine. It declares the artist’s ...
Explainer - The government from 2025 is mandating how state schools teach children to read. But what is structured literacy and how does it compare to other teaching methods? ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Danica Jenkins, Lecturer in European Studies, University of Sydney On a freezing spring night in March, Georgia’s national soccer team beat Greece in a nail-biter penalty shootout to qualify for the Euro 2024 championships. The atmosphere on the streets of the capital ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adam G. Arian, Lecturer (Accounting & Finance), Australian Catholic University Loic Manegarium/Pexels Imagine every ton of carbon dioxide a company emits is slowly inflating its costs — not just in terms of potential fines or fees but in the capital it ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Somwrita Sarkar, Senior Lecturer in Design and Computation, University of Sydney The “latte line” is the infamous, invisible boundary that divides Sydney between the more affluent north-east and the south-west. Historically, people north of the line enjoy better access to jobs and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Dowdy, Principal Research Scientist in Extreme Weather, The University of Melbourne Nomad_Soul/Shutterstock In media articles about unprecedented flooding, you’ll often come across the statement that for every 1°C of warming, the atmosphere can hold about 7% more moisture. This ...
RNZ Pacific Former Fiji Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama has been sentenced to one year in prison, Fiji media are reporting. Bainimarama, alongside suspended Fiji Police Commissioner Sitiveni Qiliho appeared in the High Court in Suva today for their sentencing hearing for a case involving their roles in blocking a police ...
Open letter to Fisiani.
Hey Fisiani, now that I’ve stuck up for you (see yesterday’s comments) can you tell the truth on:
A. whether you’re a collaborative effort – i.e., actually more than one person.
B. whether your average age is under 25.
at the risk of causing the odd reader to spray coffee all over their keyboards and halfway up their monitors, it seems to me like you have some native wit that you’d be better off employing in straight pieces. puerile gets old, funnily enough.
Just one person with razor sharp insight and approaching 60.
I come here for the hysterical parallel universe comedy where the fantastic progress of the last seven years is seen as failure. Where Chicken Little would seem an optimist. Where the evidence of distorted thinking is so evident. i want to guide people to the light, the Force, the brighter side of life.
That’s irony, right?
No, just a typo. Should have been … guide people to the light, the Farce, …
I’m afraid not @Paul. He might even lay claim to once even having voted Labour – especially in an FPP environment.
Rest assured though – he’s alright Jack. No doubt he pulled himself up by his bootstraps and is a self-made man (Get that? a M A N!) One with a ‘noble African’ handle (all trademarked, commodified and paid up in full)
‘Razor-sharp insight” ??????????????????????? Ha,ha,ha to the power of 1000.
That’s GOT to be irony.
To the power of 1000.
“When you are dead, you do not know you are dead. It’s only painful & difficult for others. The same applies when you are stupid.”
Do a straight piece. too much pisstaking rots the brain. if you wrote a decent “positives of the last seven years” that was, you know, grounded in fact rather than posturing, I’m sure the guys here would consider throwing it up as a discussion piece…
fisi
You couldn’t guide a moth to a bright light in the dark, mate.
Ho Ho Ho – looks like its turning to custard for the Government. 6.13 this morning on RNZ Morning Report everything in the economic department is failing – export figures you name it. Wonder why its now relegated to the summer break for news like this to emerge.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/201783928/time-for-a-rethink-of-the-export-target
If this starts getting more widely reported I can see pandas on the horizon!
@ Hami Shearlie (2.1) – I think the distraction in the early new year will still be the flag (second referendum in March). It will hot up as the final vote gets closer, with FJK’s choice in our faces all day, every day.
But then after that one is all done and dusted, watch the panda issue become the main focus of msm acting on FJK’s instruction next April, when one very “prominent NZer” faces trial! Could even be a “choose the cutest panda” competition, just to distract from what will be going on in the court!
Wouldn’t mind betting there could well be a media blackout of the court case! Can’t have dear leader being embarrassed through some factual reporting, can we?
The first quarter of 20016 should be very interesting indeed, with the economy going down the toilet quick smart, the (rigged) flag result and then a “prominent NZer” facing his accusers!
Then it will be stroking pussy cats in Parnell, nice photo of Sir John and Lady Key in the Herald with the Xmas Message.
Then Espiner hosts a whitewash of the government’s performance by allowing Boag to propagandise without any intervention.
That was an appalling effort by Espiner. While political journalist Jane Patterson sat there silently.
Espiner made an ineffectual attempt to shut her up.Not easy with the Boags of this world.
Her strategy when asked what she thought of Andrew Little was dripping with fake condescendence and tried to make the interview about John Key. Viz.:’Well…Andrew Little …He’s doing quite well .. ..(insert patronizing tone here)..even though he hasn’t got John Key’s charisma or people skills…. Now John Key, this….and John Key. that…’.. ad nauseum. Must get people talking and thinking about John Key.
The other interviewee, Rob, when asked about Andrew Little, actually talked about Andrew Little as a serious person who hasn’t got time to talk about Key’s triviality .
I think the Left’s new year’s resolution should be to ignore Key’s banal clowning.
Oscar Wilde-“There is only one thing worse than being talked about and that is NOT being talked about.”.
He did not even try to call her on the blatant spin she was delivering.
Espiner is not an independent journalist; he is just another embedded corporate plant.
Morgan Godfery and the Labour Party man, Mr Salmond, also sat there mute while Boag raved.
They only invite ‘Fox Democrats’ on.
Tamed Labour spokespeople only on the airwaves.
Michelle Boag should be removed from TV and the Radio, she is an assault on the senses, especially the ears – a true nightmare and heart failure material if you met her on a dark night. As for Espiner he is just a lap dog for Key and his Government – it couldn’t get any worse for this country.
Am off to do some lovely things like get a cake finished for a dear old lady I visit and get some soothing Baroque Christmas music on and just forget about the creeps who invade our lives by TV and Radio. Even the Listener is a load of hog wash. Whatever did NZ ever do to deserve this useless and corrupted lot dictating to us.
Boag is the pretentious, sanctimonious Queen of the superficial, emotive, and bullying bee-arches of the right wing B.S machine.
JK and Boag actually believe their own BS.
yea but nah ….. neither are the sharpest knAves in the drawer intellectually-woise. That’s why she has to play dress-ups all the time.
Two generations back she’d be putting a blue rinse through her hair, living in Karori and talking about what hubby got up to
“JK and Boag actually believe their own BS.”
Problem is so does half of NZ.
Very true +1 Rodel
On the basis that I’m really slack at putting posts up (It was [may still be if it happens] going to titled ‘Jobby on a Stick’). Anyway, I’ll just say, I’ve had similar thoughts of late. I wouldn’t say ‘ignore’, though. Depersonalise – talk past the image.
There has been a huge and well crafted project devoted to creating an image of the current Prime Minister that many find appealing. As such, it’s flogging a dead horse to pivot any issue around that image or media personality.
Essentially people are being asked to take two psychological steps to address any issue at hand. The first step is to go beyond the knee jerk defensiveness (and immediate rejection of substantial matters) that comes from the positive relationship people have towards the image that’s been generated.
Refusing to name the fucker is a step towards undermining the…hmm…’cult of personality’. “The current Prime Minister” (of New Zealand?) is suitably depersonalised term. The PM…the leader of the Nats etc – they all work to degrees.
Did I say I’d love to see no more images of New Zealand’s current Prime Minister used as post images here on ‘ts’?
Bill.I agree. In he last two elections it seemed to me that those on the left
talked about Key most of the time.i.e. provided him with heaps of free publicity and not enough about their own policies.
The media is partly to blame as exasperation with Key’s antics makes better copy than dull old policies, sells more papers and gets people listening even if they then go ,”tut-tut” but give up on voting.
Yes Bill , ‘ignore ‘ is not the right word..maybe it should be dismiss with disdain.
dismiss= deliberately cease to think about.. (disdain = to regard something as unworthy of consideration).
Yes I’ll do that.
haven’t timed it, but with 4 guests it appeared Boag had about 50% of the floor
In my opinion he can always be relied upon to live up to his family name of eSPINer.
Colin is often not too far behind.
I doubt whether Michelle Boag would understand much about economic performance?
Why wait for Kauri dieback disease to decimate our heritage, we can just cut down or ring bark our ancient trees instead?
Thanks Auckland Council planners and “independent commissioners’ for not noticing the ancient Kauri’s in the 70 page report prepared by the applicants that failed to mention that. Instead burying within the document ‘high value vegetation’ is to be cut down. Deception?
Not to mention the developers also told the public they would not cut down the trees but since seemed to have changed their minds.
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/controversial-titirangi-kauri-viciously-attacked-ring-barked
This story never ceases to amaze. I’m not sure why the developer didn’t change their mind at the start of this though, obviously not worried about their reputation.
That would be Jane Greensmith and John Lenihan, who I suspect are more concerned about how much money they stand to lose.
Ironically, if it’s purely about money, anyone buying into that spot would likely pay more with the tree still standing and sensitively designed and built around. Certainly for me (and my neighbours, about 150m away from the site), large trees right around our houses was a major value-add.
A couple of other points: in this area the “permitted activity” for clearing bush for a building site is up to 150 sq m or 10% of the section area. There are two houses to be built on two sites of about 1000sq m each, so up to 300sq m allowed to be cleared. Eyeballing what’s already been cleared, it’s about 30m by 30m, so around 900 sq m. Plus a fair few more trees marked with “X” still for the chop. How the f*** did that get consented? Doing a drive past Lenihan and Greensmith’s listed home address elsewhere in Titirangi, it looks they’ve also cleared building sites there way in excess of what is a “permitted activity”.
So I can’t help wondering if they’ve got a corrupt relationship going on someone (or some people) in council. Also can’t help wondering what the other principals of RCG think of Lenihan’s activities.
The problem is developers moving into an area, getting a cheap site because they need a make a sensitive design and then undermining the atmosphere and ethos of the area to make money and not bothering with a sensitive design, all while profiting from the reputation of the area of being a bush green belt. These guys just got too greedy, but also exposes the role of the council. Are they just getting fees for plans and virtually rubber-stamping anything not adhering to the rules of district plan.
So the blame is the developers and planning consultants who have put together reports to hide what they are doing, and then the council for not bothering to do due diligence and then just doing some dubious activities to hide their role and let the trees be chopped further setting a precedent against the plan, public and community by allowing the travesty to continue.
From what I remember from earlier in the year they had back door access to council because they’re architects (?). So possibly not outright corrupt but certainly part of the old neoliberals network.
I hope they get pariahed. Good on the tree surgeons who downed tools last week, and shame on the ‘security’ company who wielded chainsaws this morning, hope they get named and shamed too.
Environmental terrorists?
From Salon… interesting perspective, Left wing Lite… too close to Right?
“Hillary Clinton is just Republican lite: Sorry, boomers, but this millennial is still only voting Bernie Sanders”
http://www.salon.com/2015/12/22/hillary_clinton_is_just_republican_lite_sorry_boomers_but_this_millennial_is_still_only_voting_bernie_sanders/
“The United States is scarier than the Islamic State
Even our closest allies fear that we are a menace militarily and environmentally. The threat is lethal and real”
PHIL TORRES
http://www.salon.com/2015/12/20/the_united_states_is_scarier_than_the_islamic_state/
Carpet bombing sorts out all the problems. It was chemical weapons in Vietnam!
Also I heard ISIS were being trained by the Israelis and ISIS were selling oil to Israel, also told ISIS are selling oil to Turkey for US weapon supplies- fact or fiction?
Interesting interview with Steve Keen author of “Debunking Economic’s”
Thanks for the linky halfcrown. I always find Steve thought provoking. Since moving to London he’s been doing well.
Thanks Red, compliments of the season. I have read his book Debunking Economic’s. Heavy going and I will have to read again to absorb all the facts. I can recommend that one if you have not already read it.
Cheers Halfcrown. 🙂
Morning Report this morning. Boag says it is only the Left who are opposing the change of flag.
Salmond says that 66% oppose the change of flag so Michelle, this is good news for the Left. Touche!
Those RSA folk are rabid commies, I tells you.
So Michelle Boag is predicting the next Government will be a Left NZF Coalition, probably 95% right the way the Natzi’s are going at present.
So Michelle Boag is predicting the next Government will be a Left NZF Coalition, probably 95% right the way the Natzi’s are going at present.
There’s a big push to punch a highway through Kahurangi National Park.
https://nz.news.yahoo.com/local/a/30362464/major-study-to-evaluate-new-road-linking-nelson-and-westport/
It’s a new 169 kilometre road from Tapawera to Karamea.
In the Stuff poll with 11,000 votes attached to the article, 57% supported it and 26% opposed.
Buller Mayor Garry Howard and Tasman Mayor Richard Kempthorne love it.
Their point is that 87% of Buller District and much of Tasman District is DOC estate and not open to any other kind of economic activity except tourism.
So the question of what their people do for jobs other than making life convenient for tourists is a real question.
Forest and Bird hate the idea. It’s (consultants’ thumbsuck) $100m, or about $2m per kilometre. The Treasury question that Cabinet will have to face is: if you had $100m to spend on the West Coast, would a road be the most beneficial thing for that taxpayer money?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/west-coast/75126825/forest–bird-attacks-new-national-park-road-plan
Pretty similar to the Haast to Hollyford road that Minister Smith killed last year. With Joyce open to the idea and in need of a West Coast plan, looks like a major Parliamentary and Cabinet debate for 2016.
Minister Joyce and the Buller Mayor could possibly pop over to Ruby Bay and Collingwood and consider the high-value, high-capital and job-intensive horticulture and viticulture already going on in Tasman and get a few clues as to answer the question: if you had a spare hundred million for the West Coast ………..
+100 Ad
Yep, love the two main points in particular..
“So the question of what their people do for jobs other than making life convenient for tourists is a real question.”
and
“if you had $100m to spend on the West Coast, would a road be the most beneficial thing for that taxpayer money?”
It is about time that NZ has some sort of economic strategy that relies more on utilising what we already have here, making that better, instead of more roads, convention centres and falsifying our data to keep the illusion that NZ is clean and green (I feel after Key was laughed out of Paris the international community might be cottoning on…)
Instead the government is cancelling any innovation initiatives and giving our science grants and NIWA boats to polluting oil companies….
The tramping community has been aware of this one for a while.
Roads and cars are rapidly becoming a liability while undisturbed wilderness is regarded as increasingly valuable. Most people are still locked into thinking nothing has changed and that life is going to carry on a usual.
It isn’t.
Besides the capital and maintenance costs are absurdly poor value. Roads in this part of the country, especially in tight valleys, are subject to high rainfall and massive slips.
yep – this is a non starter as it always is for anyone that knows that country.
+100 Redlogix…part of the charm of that north end of the West Coast including Karamea is that it is at the end of the road and then there is untouched wilderness …just as Glenorchy is at the end of the road…and then untouched wilderness
People dont come to New Zealand to see roads
Wilderness and untouched nature is a draw card in itself
…which people can tramp through if they wish
There’s nothing better in the world than getting to the point on a tramp when you can no longer hear cars.
“if you had $100m to spend on the West Coast, would a road be the most beneficial thing”
and the same for Northland – is a duplicate highway that doesn’t even reach the region the best way to invest $700m+ ?
If I had $100m of taxpayer funds in my pocket (and as Minister I wanted to build some big stuff so I could open it), I’d look to what happened to Queenstown and Wanaka when they upgraded the nearest airport. Huge volumes of rich international people visiting longer, hotels springing up in town, and it becomes a real global destination, capital values through the roof. And for little mayors balancing little budgets, that means rates takes going through the roof.
Yeah but the snow’s crap in Westport. 🙂
Those things haven’t improved queens town and Wanaka Ad.
“Pretty similar to the Haast to Hollyford road that Minister Smith killed last year”
I wish he had killed it but from what I remember he’s just said no to that proposal at that time rather than a blanket no.
It’s a collossal waste of resources to have to keep fighting these projects again and again. Both those roading projects (and the Queenstown/Milford transport one) have been repeatedly put forward in various forms for 3 decades or more. Time to put a moratorium on new roads in National Parks unless there is a conservation reason for the road, in which case it can go through the normal consent processes.
Plus, FFS, climate change (and Peak Oil).
Time to put a moratorium on new roads in National Parks unless there is a conservation reason for the road,
Bloody good idea.
What’s even more aggravating is watching DoC complicitly downgrading the existing tracks in order reduce the number of people using the area. In fact there was always a great case for upgrading the Whangapeka to the same standard as the Heaphy, making for a fabulous world-class six-day round trip.
Instead they’re deliberately letting the tracks in area run down so as to discourage it’s use.
That idea should be a good starting postion for Labour and the Greens next election
Rod Donald once said there would be a road from Karamea to Golden Bay over his dead body 😉
Good man was Rod. Peace to his family
In other words, we have no fucking idea on what we can do to revitalise the west coast economy, so we will build a road.
Probably no one-lane bridges left…
Somewhat frustrating since Golden Bay, Collingwood and Ruby Bay (over in the Tasman region) all show what really intensive and productive use of land looks like. Granted, you’re not going to grow hops in Buller.
But then until the mid-1980s, no one thought you could make a wine industry out of central Otago, let alone right on the shores of alpine Lake Wanaka. But they did. And it didn’t take a new highway punching through the nearest national park to make happen.
“all show what really intensive and productive use of land looks like”
what actually are you talking about? dairy farms?
You’re clearly not familiar with the area I describe.
It’s intensive horticulture and vineyards.
lol – I live in Golden Bay mate, what about you?
So, clearly I’m not talking about dairy farms then am I?
I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about in regards to The Bay – which is why I asked – and clearly you don’t know either.
“Probably no one-lane bridges left…”
There are quite a lot still there actually.
There is even one where the road and rail share the same bridge.
I hope that the train, whatever it is, goes slowly when they come to the bridge.
Mind you, I don’t know how many rail trips are still there on the coast.
Pity it rains so much though.
If it didn’t rain so much there would be no rain forest and the place would be full of aucklanders 😉
I hadn’t thought of it in quite that way. More Aucklanders?
Rain, damn it. More rain! More rain! More rain!
Send it down Hughie. Save the coast from the alien invasion.
Yeah, it’s a hangover from the pioneer culture on the coast. Mr Explorer Douglas still lives on.
There’s 1661.8 km of sealed State HIghway and rural road on the coast linking all the centres of economic importance as of 2009 http://www.nzta.govt.nz/assets/resources/land-transport-statistics/docs/2008-2009.pdf ( I doubt it will have grown much) which isn’t perceived to be bringing economic nirvana. How will a further 56km between two very minor townships change this? It doesn’t shorten the Nelson – Westport distance any, it’s the same, or longer.
So what’s the point, jobs for the consultants? Create a “concept” they can sell to an “investor”? It’ll probably come to an end once they discover their “thumb suck” is light by an order of magnitude, like Haast – Hollyford
It would be another “Road of National Significance”.
Not the first time research has shown this,
http://www.thespec.com/news-story/6203430-home-birth-with-midwife-no-riskier-than-hospital-birth-mac-study
Sighs … are we STILL fighting this battle?
I always thought it was blindlingly obvious most women will do better in the environment of their own choosing and familiarity.
Birth politics are still pretty fraught as far as I can tell.
hmm…well as a stoical person who tried to have a home birth( didnt like the idea of medical intervention,particularly male intervention, thought birth was a natural miraculous process etc) and ended up with an emergency cesarean at 3.00 am …after several days of labour…and getting the consultant out of bed
(and and one disappointed lovely home birthing midwife and another older home birther who was positively hostile after the event when I got home … I let the side down…should have tried harder )
….all i can say is thank God ( the Goddess) for medical specialists and monitoring…by the time I got to hospital the baby was under stress ( per moniters) and I was exhausted, couldnt take much more
…and I was later cheerfully told by my male obstetrics GP who turned up at the hospital ( and who also believed in home births or at least women’s choice)… that the baby and I would have died without medical intervention…I believed him!
at least I had the choice ( low tech/high tech)….and they were all wonderful( except the older midwife)…but for my daughter i would recommend a high tech birth and take everything that is going in a hospital …especially monitoring and epidurals
( cesareans are absolutely fabulous when you need them)
It’s the hostile politics between the two sides that is so damned futile and disappointing. My two kids were both home births so I’ve a little exposure to it all myself.
All I ever expected was that everyone involved should work together in the best interests of the babies and mothers.
well the “hostile politics” are not surprising given the stakes when things go wrong…birth always was potentially dramatic and dangerous for some women…just look at history and the plight of women in the third world
i was lucky in that I had a midwife who moved very fast when I said i wanted to go to hospital…lucky also that the high tech hospital was only 10 minutes away…lucky I had a GP /obstetrician trained in home births who met us at the hospital… and lucky he had a consultant mate who didnt mind getting up in the early hours and quickly pronouncing emergency cesarean …most lucky I had a healthy robust baby!
from what I can gather women these days are not so lucky for choice …it is either home birth with a midwife making all the judgment calls and when to go to hospital, with not necessarily immediate full support when they get there…(GP doctors have opted out)…or opting for hospital birth from the beginning with all the high tech ( and risk feeling alienated by the process)
From my experience , it is not worth the risk… I opted for hospital next time around and an elective cesarean…great for women who can have a home birth and great for women who can breast feed …but women who cant should be celebrated as well ( those babies on bottles look lovely and the mothers look lovely)….My Mother always said she envied women who had cesareans….their babies were so beautiful! ( not scrunched and red)
I was cut out of the womb, wasn’t I? You guys were excited when I was born……
Now Ian has to solve this BIG CASE.
Mike Hoskings christmas message:
http://www.watchme.co.nz/like-mike/mikes-christmas-message/
“That bitch is a ‘mother’ only in the technical sense.”
RETURN OF THE GRAVE-ROBBER: A REAL LIFE HORROR STORY
Five mental health doctors, all in white coats, gather round a computer screen to consider a particularly grievous case. Professor MORRISSEY BREEN leads the convocation….
PROF. BREEN: This is something that came to our attention late yesterday. It’s a blog post about Chris Kahui, so you can imagine some of the Paul Holmes-type comments that ensue.
http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2015/12/chris_kahui_attacks_key_and_bennett.html/comment-page-1#comment-1639989
DOCTOR No. 1: Oh Jesus, do we HAVE to look at this?
PROF. BREEN: Come on now. You guys work with mental health cases. This is your job.
DOCTOR No. 2: Yes, but these right wing fellows are, if not simply bewildered, then certainly depraved. They ARE all guys, aren’t they?
PROF. BREEN: Well, there’s one Catholic woman who writes crackpot stuff about religion and Russia occasionally, but, yes, I think they’re mostly male contributors.
YOUNG FEMALE DOCTOR: [grimly] Very SAD males.
PROF. BREEN: Indeed. We’ll start with this comment from someone calling himself “dime”. He writes “what a piece of human garbage”.
DOCTOR No. 4: To be honest, that’s pretty tame. Lame, but tame.
PROF. BREEN: Granted. Unfortunately, however, our friend “dime” is the intellectual heavyweight in this forum. It only gets worse from here on. For instance, a sad git called “mara” writes: “This Kahui ought to have fallen down the stairs in prison years ago.”
….Disbelieving silence for several seconds….
DOCTOR No. 1: Fuck me! These MORONS are in institutional care, I take it?
PROF. BREEN: Sorry, but please bear with me if you can. A bit later a genius named “cmm” writes: “These people are always so keen to dis the white man that brings him the legal system that keeps him alive, gives him money for food, accommodation etc.”
ALL: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!… Jesus H. CHRIST, these people are D – U – M, DUMB!
PROF. BREEN: A bewildered soul called nasska writes: “Urban ferals never have & never will benefit from the millions thrown into the black hole that is the Maori grievance industry.” One “PhilP” writes learnedly that Chris Kahui is a “useless piece of shit.”
DOCTOR No. 4: Good Lord! This is like listening to a morning of Leighton Smith!
DOCTOR No. 5: Or Michael Laws. Or Sean Plunket. Or Larry “Lackwit” Williams.
PROF. BREEN: Yes, that’s right. Obviously these people get their talking points from the likes of Smith and Laws.
DOCTOR No. 3: And the ACT Party.
PROF. BREEN: Actually, No. 3, you’re close to the truth there. But we’ll get onto that in a minute. Let’s just consider the last couple of examples. Another fellow, “deadrightkev”, writes: “Kahui is a product of trash upbringing and fertilised by a social welfare state dependency problem out of control.” He then manages to top that with this gem: “Treaty settlements are fraud. They should be staying exactly where they should be – in the hands of the taxpayer.”
YOUNG FEMALE DOCTOR: More like “Deadweight” Kev, methinks.
ALL: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
PROF. BREEN: This one is my favorite, though, because he’s honest. Stupid, but honest. One “flash2846” writes learnedly: “Yet another good reason why I and others are racist! Just imagine a murderer of any other race in New zealand saying that shit. Filthy CUNT! needs castrating!!!!”
….A stunned silence ensues for several seconds…..
DOCTOR No. 1: [grimly] Farrar certainly seems to attract the intellectuals.
DOCTOR No. 3: You know what the most frightening thing about these guys is? They can breed and they can vote.
ALL: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
PROF. BREEN: Okay. Now some of you might remember this bloke. [He scrolls down the page] Sorry, fellas, before I reveal who it is, I know that like the rest of the country, you thought you’d never have to look at his ugly mug again or listen to one of his ill-informed, hate-filled rants, but he’s back—at least on Kiwiblog.
DOCTOR No. 1: Who? Murray Deaker?
DOCTOR No. 4: Not that fucking criminal JOHN BANKS?
DOCTOR No. 2: Not that dancing fool Rodney “The Perk Taker” Hide?
http://www.recipeapart.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/55ffd0ef0f2a4f2f0375.jpeg
PROF. BREEN: Now, No. 3, remember how you suggested these halfwits could be channeling the ACT Party. Well, get a load of THIS: “Of course he’s fucking unemployable… But of the two, his former “missus” is the worst in my view…male scum who couldn’t give a fuck about or abuse their progeny are a dime a dozen…somehow we expect more of mothers…That bitch is a “mother” only in the technical sense…and she is probably a killer…she certainly knows who did kill the poor little buggers… the useless mongrel – and I say that even if he didn’t kill his sons – has almost certainly sired a couple more by now….and you can bet your arse those children have “come to the attention of the authorities”
GENERAL HUBBUB: Jesus! …. What the HELL?… You can virtually feel the spittle!… Was that a quote from the late Paul Holmes?…. Sounds like Cameron Slater… Or John Ansell?… It’s hard to say which part of this is more offensive: the militant display of ignorance or the hatred. …. Are these people in care, and if not, why not? … They can vote, and they can breed…. So tell us, Prof. Breen: who was it?
PROF. BREEN: I’ll give you three clues. Clue number one: he’s a disgraced ACT M.P.
DOCTOR No. 4: Jamie “Lock Up His Sisters” Whyte!
DOCTOR No. 1: Rodney “The Perk Taker” Hide!
http://www.recipeapart.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/55ffd0ef0f2a4f2f0375.jpeg
DOCTOR No. 3: Heather Roy!
DOCTOR No. 2: Doctor Muriel Newman, the dimmest medical practitioner in the world until the advent of Dr Ben Carson!
PROF. BREEN: All reasonable choices. But not the answer I’m looking for. Clue number two: he was convicted of assaulting a doctor in Tonga.
ALL: Oh Jesus, no!… I know who it is now. …. I’d blocked that person out of my memory, I’d thought…. No, no, no! Not him!… It’s that monster from the S.S. Trust!
PROF. BREEN: Clue number three: he stole the identity of a dead baby and was convicted for it, but it still didn’t stop ACT selecting him as a candidate!
GENERAL HUBBUB: The right dishonorable David fucking Garrett! … He’s the lowest of the low!… Thanks, Prof. Breen, I had banished that zombie into my mental trash can, and now you bring him back from the dead!… Absolutely reprehensible!… Compared to David Garrett, Chris Kahui is Albert fucking Schweitzer.
PROF. BREEN: Say, I LIKE that comment. I might just modify it a bit and post it up on Kiwiblog….
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/4124887/Garrett-gives-details-of-Tonga-brawl-conviction
Chris Kahui does deserve to be in prison though. Or do you have some other plausible theory for how those injuries happened?
Unless you are privy to all the details of the case, from what was published – there does not seem to be enough evidence to make that decisive judgement call.
One of my relatives worked in the ICU at that time, and it had been noted by staff that the (somewhat regular) lack of bonding with the mother had occurred, and that substantial at home visits and supports would be necessary to address this. This did not occur after discharge.
It is by no means uncommon for parents of very premature births to have a resistance to forming bonds with their child. The children are often physically different from expectations of a healthy birth – very skinny, with loose and hairy skin, and it is a form of unconscious mental self-preservation to not invest emotionally if outcomes are uncertain.
Whether Chris Kahui was responsible for the injuries or not, seemed hard to define given the conflicting evidence that I can recall.
What is true however, is that a vulnerability was identified and a strategy defined which was not followed up on.
This is tragedy was indicative of a support system failure as well.
You could well be right, Tim. However, the discredited National Party hitman Cameron Slater is not fit to comment on him or anyone else.
The point of my post was not to defend Chris Kahui, but to show the hypocrisy of the ignorant and bloody-minded lynch-mob that were denouncing him on the right wing blogs. It’s perhaps no surprise to learn that the most foul-mouthed, crudest commenter of all on that particular thread was the disgraced ex-ACT felon David Garrett….
http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2015/12/chris_kahui_attacks_key_and_bennett.html#comment-1639747
I enjoyed your post (as usual) and I’m glad you let those guys know how it is. It just prompted me to think about the case again and left me with a sense of anger – probably at the family as well as Macsyna and Chris, for the way in which all seemed complicit in preventing the truth coming to light at the time… Or at least that is what the media has it seem like.
‘Druids and pagans gather at Stonehenge for solstice (PHOTOS, VIDEO)’
https://www.rt.com/uk/326806-stonehenge-winter-solstice-celebrate/
…”The monument in Wiltshire has long been thought of as a place of magic used by the ancient druids, with mystery surrounding how it was built and its exact use. It is believed to have been built between 2000 and 3000 BC…
Worth a read to catch up on these victories
https://intercontinentalcry.org/15-indigenous-rights-victories-didnt-hear-2015/
Great News. A good decision based upon a fair perception of reality. If bees go we as a species will find our diet greatly reduced. ie we will never again live in a land of milk and honey ( or food produced by pollination)
http://www.ent.uga.edu/bees/OnEinsteinBeesandSurvivaloftheHumanRaceHoneyBeeProgramCAESEntomologyUGA.html
70-80% of the world food supply rely on bees for pollination and food production
Yes!
So we would have a very limited diet
fish and chips – if your lucky…
🙂
And yet many places in the world had thriving ecosystems before the arrival of the honey bee, which included plants that needed pollination. I’ve been following the bee problem for a long time but lately I’ve been wondering if the issue of the demise of hive bees is about global economics more than humans being able to feed themselves. We should be going back to eating local anyway. The issue isn’t that the almond orchards in California will fail when all the colonies collapse, and how that affects the global food supply, but the fact that that kind of orcharding created the collapse in the first place and is just wrong on all levels.
Yes, we should be concerned about any species decline, but if we focus on the honey bee/global cropping connections instead of the ecosystem that includes all pollinators then we will just keep shitting in our own nest (and everyone else’s).
Oh I agree – however the demise of the honey bee by wide spread applications of pesticide also includes the demise of all the other local pollinators, and that is what makes the Mexican Supreme Court decision so important.
This is why Douglas, Prebble and co should be hung by their fucking heals.
Most recently, the privatisation of the timber industry in the 1980s caused “massive job losses and severe poverty” in the west of the district, which had previously been relatively wealthy.
While the Crown did provide some support to communities in Te Urewera, they were “never near enough to counter the massive disadvantages holding back those communities”.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/75402505/crown-slammed-for-treaty-of-waitangi-breaches-in-te-urewera
(incandescent, taking dogs to beach)
I remember reading an insider industry report in the early 80’s sometime, projecting that with the amount of timber potentially coming online NZ could support something like 16 world scale timber/pulp/paper mills.
We never built any of them. Most of the wood got shipped overseas as logs for other people to make money from.
Yep! Douglas and Prebble et al did really well – for themselves.
Despite the injustice and deprivation of the past, which at the time I was only vaguely aware of, the people I knew and worked with in Galatea – Murupara in the 1970’s had found some measure of prosperity.
And then the 4th Labour Government, their party, my party, didn’t just sell their livelihoods out from underneath them, they did that to lots of us, they abandoned them and their communities became the poverty stricken gang dominated shit holes of the 1990’s.
That’s what pisses me off RL.
+1 yep they sold us all out and so many of us are still paying the cost – while they get taxpayer funded travel and invitations to conferences – sickening.
A fucken disgrace, and I still hear of D Cagill. Did the dogs get their beach trip. 😉
Oh, and just too wind you up again, down here in Dunedin, the council have employed two Lawyers to save some money, have come up with the idea of getting rid of the word Bitch and heat from the dog control act, they don’t like blurred meaning.
The former will be replaced with, “female dog in season” I kid you not.
👿
“female dog in season”
Is that like catching whitebait in season?
On the West Coast it means 1 September to 14 November.
Or, A back handed complement to the Dog ‘male’ for always being in season, or at least in unison with the said ‘Bitch’.
But in all seriousness, that nonsense has got to stop, it’s a waste of money etc etc.
PS: leave those whitebait alone, alwyn…At lest till the first of September
Privatised the forests.
Sorry, but I can’t read past the first line of Māori living in caves and eatint rotten potatoes. I love NZ but there are some shames that we will never get past.
How to win friends and influence people – to join ISIS.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/dec/22/david-cameron-us-america-refuses-british-muslim-family-disneyland
What sort of sick sick society is USA now.
If it was your job to ensure the people being allowed into the country did not pose a significant security risk do you think it would be easy? Would you be happy if people judged you and your entire society as sick because of a specific decision that was made which we have not heard the justification for? Do you think it is reasonable for someone to join ISIS because they were not allowed to go to Disneyland for reasons that have not yet been made clear?
“Would you be happy if people judged you and your entire society as sick because of a specific decision that was made which we have not heard the justification for?”
Isn’t that what happened to these people?
This is how they felt after, “The family were escorted from the airport but were first obliged to return every item they had bought from the airport’s duty-free shops”
disgusting – I hope their relatives in Southern California don’t find the spooks hanging around their kids now but I’m not hopeful.
Hey – when a kid gets arrested for bringing a home made clock to school. http://techcrunch.com/2015/09/16/14-year-old-boy-arrested-for-bringing-homemade-clock-to-school/
A female politican sends out a christmas card of her and her family packing guns
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3347927/Nevada-politician-arms-family-guns-controversial-holiday-portrait-support-Second-Amendment.html
And the number of mass killings is increasing and more deadly
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/02/mass-shootings-in-america-numbers-more-frequent-more-deadly
and people who are obviously not criminals are denied entry for no other reason than they are Muslim, you have to conclude that the states is now a highly paranoid society. Having witnessed first hand the paranoia of the USA, fostered by their main stream media, their politicians, right wing “think” tanks, and the NRA, amongst others, one can only conclude that the states is not a pleasant place to be. Frankly I couldn’t wait to leave and never wish to return, despite the fact that I met many good people and the countryside in the fall was simply stunning.
I’m sorry if you are fearful, I take it from your tone that you are a part of that society and wish to uphold it. Well take it from an outsider – its time to rethink USA foreign policy so that The US is seen not as the terrorist that it has become, but as a decent Country like it was many many years ago.
Not forgetting the militarization of the police!
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/09/us/war-gear-flows-to-police-departments.html?_r=0
You really have to wonder just what the people are so afraid of!
the poor and middle classes have been divided by race/ income/ religion and set against one another, and kept in perpetual fear, keeping the real gangsters in the Wall St Washington establishment safe from criticism
Sikh!
I hear North America was quite a nice place to live for its 60 million inhabitants before Christopher Columbus arrived.
Officially a puppet state of the U.S.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11565399
Not sure how that judge’s ruling makes NZ a puppet state of the US.
Best you read the judge’s full decision before forming opinion, many of those on the political right would have been well advised to do the same regarding the recent decision regarding the illegality of the police search of Nicky Hagar’s home before spouting uninformed opinion.
Just wait and see.
Nuclear ships next.
Og God – I hate to agree with you – but I do, on both counts.
Its a Christmas miracle.
That is a hateful comment.
Dotcom looses the case but: “Dotcom’s lawyer Ron Mansfield confirmed there would be an appeal lodged over the extradition this afternoon.” Might take years to resolve.
Here it is folks, what you have all been waiting for. It’s about to begin. Episode one of the KEYdashian’s Hawaiian holiday! The fruit of FJK’s loins, begins by missing his girlfriend already! Ahhhh poor baby!
Yuk! Enough to make one have to dash rather hastily to the toilet!
http://spy.nzherald.co.nz/spy-news/max-key-pines-away-in-hawaii/
I’ll resist the (almost overwhelming) temptation to click that link.
son of the biggest narcissist in the land:
the apple does not fall far from the tree.
lol…mary_a…seems like a trashy magazine story …from one of those magazines that you find at the hairdressers
Some good news – we need it.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11565476
The Greens on the ball.
Welcome to the Empire
…a family party of 11, about to embark on a dream holiday for which they had saved for months, were approached by officials from US homeland security (at Gatwick…in the UK ffs!) as they queued in the departure lounge and told their authorisation to travel had been cancelled, without further explanation.
[the bracketed italic added]
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/dec/22/david-cameron-us-america-refuses-british-muslim-family-disneyland
Obviously the Immigration Department is so badly understaffed that it continues to make horrendous decisions….
the two latest stuff ups:
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/regional/292617/brothers-cleared-of-human-trafficking-charges
http://gordoncampbell.scoop.co.nz/2015/12/23/gordon-campbell-on-the-rejection-of-a-pakistani-polio-worker/
NZ: once was a caring society, becoming cruel and heartless under the NatCorp regime
Great picture of where NZ society is at
‘ ‘More devastating than any nuclear war’: John McAfee on the coming cyber war with ISIS’
https://www.rt.com/usa/326181-world-war-cyber-attacks-mcafee/
“Every presidential contender says they want to destroy Islamic State, but John McAfee is the only one predicting a war involving cyberattacks, not conventional weapons. “We have to prepare ourselves” for an enemy that is “far more clever,” McAfee told RT.
Not many people know John McAfee is running for president, but possibly even fewer understand the scope of the war against Islamic State (IS, formely ISIS/ISIL) the way he does.
When asked if Republican frontrunner Donald Trump’s strategy against IS was reasonable, McAfee answered, “No, absolutely not.” That’s an answer most other rivals would agree with, but to McAfee, it’s not about where and how to use the military. To defeat ISIS, America must face its own “cyber illiteracy” and other faults before engaging in what he purports to be the next World War – a cyber war…
Cyber wars are going on already. Involving nuclear reactors, airlines etc. Worth doing a Google search on the subject. I read a few blogs on the subject which linked to all sorts of instances reported in the mainstream media.
Will Syria & Iraq become Washington’s Stalingrad?
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-12-22/christmas-2015-will-syria-iraq-become-washingtons-stalingrad
If this Stalingrad metaphor is true then New Zealand is Bulgaria.
Is that a cucku coo clock I here