Who knew oppugnant is a real word?? “Moffett, 71, burst onto the political scene late last year, raging on Twitter at “traitorous” Jacinda Ardern, and calling German Chancellor Angela Merkel “a thoroughly detestable excuse for a human being.” He’s been trolling both sides of the discourse – baiting ACT leader David Seymour and left wing blogger Martyn Bradbury.”
Attacking both left & right is an excellent strategy. Lots of kiwi voters want something less banal – but I can’t see him providing anything better. He’s the right age to be politically successful: geriatrics are the latest trend in politics.
“He is primarily concerned with migration, climate change and gender politics. They are all touchstones of the populist right-wing movement sweeping the Western world, a backlash to political establishment thinking.” Alienated mainstreamers can be equated with conservatives, and we know Labour are handicapped by gender politics as much as National are handicapped by immigration-addiction. So he’s onto a viable constituency, no doubt about that.
She asks “is David Moffett, once a referee, the man to kick it off?” A referee succeeds via the ability to judge the errors of both sides accurately. If he applies that self-discipline, he will succeed. “But, ask him to flesh out his ideas, and he is ill-prepared, his ideology both thin and confused: at one point he claims to be “a centrist”. Journalists have considerable difficulty comprehending centrism. Vance is not claiming to be any smarter than the pack. The notion that folks are reluctant to identify with morons on the left and morons on the right is too sophisticated for journalists to grasp.
‘…geriatrics are the latest trend in politics.’. If so there is a problem here as more and more are not dying till they are 90+. The young need to come to the fore, with elders to give them wisdom and background, but not lay on them their lifetime of unthinking prejudices which seem to crystallise into a hard mass in old age. Mix that with the onset of senile dementia bringing paranoia and confused emotions and the ability to plan for a viable future for now struggling young people is on the road to derailment.
A thought comes to mind of a recent report on one of Monarch Butterfly farmers’plight. They had a tunnel house with about 300 advanced in their development or ready to fly. Next morning he found half of them on the floor and one paper wasp as he said ‘ stinging in a frenzy’. He killed that wasp but only about half of them recovered. If we let old diehards kill off the humane policies and change the direction for our society and culture in their narrow, wilful ignorance, then our young ones can’t and won’t have the means to cope with climate and world corrupt economic direction, so they can thrive to full development of their lives.
“When National’s newly minted spokeswoman of drug reform Paula Bennett was asked if she had partaken of marijuana, Bennett said she had but it did not agree with her.
It made her fall asleep.
This is valuable intel for her colleagues and rivals alike, should there be an occasion they would prefer her to be out of action. The pro-pot brigade must be tempted.
Recipes for marijuana cookies can be found online.”
The historical histrionics of one individual (MP) should not be conflated with those of a rudderless ruthless party that has thrown its moral compass overboard long time ago. Parties comprise a number (sometimes just one) individuals but they are not these individuals; the whole is always different from the sum of its parts.
The woman’s an idiot . She reckons shes never meet anyone successful that smokes regularly.
There is so many answers to that shit .
It illegal so they probably keep it on the down low
In my experience uptight people don’t like weed as it spins there cogs to fast .
Her definition of success is people who are cunts who have back stabbed and shit on people while amassing power and money .who aren’t typically pot smokers.
Twyford spills a revelation: “The reason the KiwiBuild was so far behind schedule was because the buying the plans scheme had hit a snag, he said.”
This notion that governments can be derailed by a snag is probably new to people, I suspect. I don’t recall it being advanced previously, so I suppose I must congratulate Twyford on his ingenuity. “Twyford’s admission comes after a report from the NZ Initiative which called KiwiBuild a “massive political and bureaucratic distraction”. It also comes just a week after the head of KiwiBuild, Stephen Barclay, resigned from the role after an employment dispute. A spokesman for Barclay said the decision to leave KiwiBuild “was not his decision”.”
Right, so he got pushed. Notice Twyford isn’t explaining why. “Asked about the resignation, Twyford again said it was an employment dispute and “there were lawyers involved”. “The reason I have been unwilling and unable to comment over the last couple of months is because it would be unwise of me to wade publically into a legal dispute where my comments would risk prejudicing the interests of either, or both parties.”
I’ve voted Green ten general elections consecutively, starting in 1990 when the Green Party was formed (I became part of the Green movement in 1968). 👍
The problem with Kiwibuild is simple. Twyford – and Labour – simply did not realise how much down the path Bill English had gotten in his rigid ideological agenda to drown government in the bathtub in a relentless pursuit of smaller government, less regulation and a surplus on top of tax cuts for the rich.
So not only had National completely abandoned housing to the charitable sector in an attempt to turn the clock back to the 1920s, it had systematically defunded and crippled the governments capacity to do anything constructive even if it wanted to, and willfully and deliberately not even collected any data on the problem so it could engage in a crass and stupid game of political denialism rather than debate the crisis it had created.
To make things worse, this is a mangerialist neloiberal Labour government that simply doesn’t have the guts to do what has to be done when confronted with the housing catastrophe bequeathed it by National – that his, a massive housing program funded and built by the state using a state organisation to offer cheap morgages to new home buyers.
So Twyford has been left frantically pulling levers that were disconnected ages ago, for a problem whose size he didn’t realise, and relying on a grotesquely inefficient and self-serving private building and banking sector to do him a favour.
20 years? Won’t the boomer population being busting or downsizing, inevitably rebalancing some of the short fall. Labour just needs to force greater up rather than out and create a much more diverse housing market, greater choice, in the 20+ timeframe.
That would be unfair. If at first you don’t succeed, try again. But what irritates me is the failure to account, to explain. Twyford’s deployment of the ole mushroom strategy of public relations (keep ’em in the dark & feed ’em horseshit) will only be swallowed by the Labour base.
Everyone else will know he’s trying to get away with insulting their intelligence. That’s no way to win friends and impress people. It’s no way to build market share – grow the Labour vote. Just dumb.
Instead of trying to hide what’s gone wrong, he ought to explain it fully. If the problem lies in his instructions to the public servants, admit that. People would respect his honesty. More likely the problem lies in public service advice. Why, then, assume that he ought to cover that up? What is so hard about the notion of accountability, that Labour folk just can’t ever seem to get??
Is it is true the government spent 2 billion on building 33 houses?
Even a fraction of that spend on such a few houses is pathetic.
As usual the money is going on disputes and politics and slush funds rather than building houses for people who genuinely need them…
No wonder construction is such a big issue in NZ now, some people are getting extremely wealthy from Kiwibuild but I don’t think it is the homeless or the taxpayers.
Also how can they justify $500,000 for 40m2 as being reported for the 1 bedroom apartments?
That is mansion prices of $12,500 m2 build price when low cost builders are charging $2,500m2..
So they spend 2 billion of tax payers money on subsidies, have swapped land and have also somehow got one of the highest build prices too???
A royal fuck up that no amount of justification can really explain. The screw up is well beyound Twyford, Labour are lazy on this issue and using Rogernomics with woke left thinking to create a massive fuck up that serves nobody.
This is what you can get for a build price of $344,000 – aka a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom beautiful property that is built within months and relocated to a a site… so no wonder they can’t tempt first home buyers with over priced offerings that are up to 6 times higher than open market prices.
The government have also not worked out that part of the problem is that people in NZ are now so poor, in particular those working aka the working poor that after living expenses there is little chance they could save for a property…
Not only that they are now competing with 100,000’s of new residents from everything to jobs and wages, to rental properties and the 100,000’s of new residents have a lot more money to begin with in many cases after paying $40k to people traffickers to get visas to get here while the government actually is actually like construction, listening to the lobbyists who are profiting from the fuck up, and then making things worse, aka the new loosening of visas and giving the people traffickers more options to attract more people here to profit from…
now please show us what you can find in AKL for that money, a town in which you at least have a fighting chance to a full time job.
Because you can find cheaper elsewhere, to be honest. I found my retirment property for 100.000 grand in the middle of nowhere where you only live when you don’t have to work for a living anymore.
1. Labour made promises they knew they couldn’t keep, which means they are dishonest.
2. Labour made promises they thought they could keep, despite evidence and advice to the contrary, which means they are incompetent.
Providing middle class couples with high earning potential with housing is not fixing anything.
So you couldn’t prove it was a promise, thought so. An aim or target is not a promise. I guess you believe everything you see on that right wing outfit newshub. You are just another boring tory troll. You should get out more.
Only for impatient lazy thickheaded dickheads like you.
By way of comparison, perhaps you’d like to dig out John Key’s statements about a crisis in housing from 2008, and the amount of houses that his government would build using market forces. Then compare it with what actually got built compared to nett population increases. Look at the rise in housing prices, mainly due to massive increases in nett inwards migration compared to a nett deficit in housing builds against just the natural increases.
Labour is actually trying to do something – which is more than the lazy incompetents from National even tried to do over 9 years.
The construction industry in NZ is a mess. It will take a few years to fix.
Wow, I have touched a nerve. There is nothing lazy about my post. It is a summary of commitments made by Labour that they have flip flopped over. Did you seriously expect kiwibuild Houses to be sold to my dale class professionals? To be so expensive? To fail so miserably at selling off the ballot?
Kiwibuild is an expensive flop. And the passage of time will not turn this pigs ear into a sows purse.
I am on record criticising Nationals record. My view is the primary responsibility for Aucklands housing problems rests with Auckland Council, but National day on their hands for 9 years when they should have done a lot more.
Ha Ha Shady, Nice try. Obviously you don’t know what Citation Needed means. Just YOU show a how Twyford promised . Perhaps you should Google Citation Needed, you may learn something. waiting waiting. Have a nice day.
[lprent: Yes – try researching national party policy from 2008 on housing compared to actual results on accommodation vs population during their term against population. I’m sure that you will be fascinated by the results.
Simply put, your link comments look like simple plagiarizing of someone else’s links without any obvious ability to think or expression of your own thoughts. So if you can’t show that it is your own work by demonstrating some research techniques, then I will give you a astroturfing troll ban – maybe permanent if I look back and find that we’ve pulled you up on this before. ]
Plagiarising? Here’s how I ‘researched’ the post. I googled ‘kiwibuild, labour party’. The link I quoted is in the public domain. I then googled each item and found evidence of broken promises, the point of my discussion with Rod. Not that complicated, because the governments performance in this is shite.
No promises have been broken as they weren’t promises in the first place. They were aims and targets. Unless you can give me a speech by Twyford actually saying I Promise all these targets will be met, your argument is worthless. Your so called Citations in headlines by Zane Small and Jenna Lynch from Newshub are laughable. So you didn’t Google Citations Needed? perhaps you did but didn’t like what you read. Teacher says You really should try harder Shadrach.
the scam of purposely encouraging global based speculation in the national property market to the known detriment of a huge swath of the population they were nominally representing, compounded by the ongoing obfuscation.
when it it is to the detriment of the local population (and obfuscated) it is a scam…and the main mechanism is also foreign owned….that and the scale would be difficult to find replicated elsewhere….its amazing they managed to avoid the fallout for as long as they did.
A ‘scam’ is a fraudulent or deceptive act or operation. Permitting foreign ownership of property is neither fraudulent nor deceptive, and is policy that has been followed by successive governments, including the current one.
“A ‘scam’ is a fraudulent or deceptive act or operation”
Isnt it just…and the fact you wish to paint what has occurred as simply ‘common typical foreign investment’ is disingenuous in the extreme….what was perpetrated was anything but …..and sold exactly as you attempt.
There has been nothing fraudulent or deceptive. Foreign ownership is common for property. And continues to be so. Which part of that do you not understand?
“…something you may note i never mentioned.“
You said ‘global based speculation’. What on earth did you mean if not foreign ownership? You seem to have a problem with ‘others’ owning property in NZ. That’s both myopic and marginally xenophobic.
National continued that oath that labour was transversing, to be so simplistic as to blame only national makes one wonder ….
Many in the industry can see the problems that are now starting to surface.
Remember it was kiwi BUILD and the govt was to save money with its volume in building houses, not being a middle man for buyers and developers.
Building for young rich wasn’t the solution – building state houses imo is.
As Kenny Rogers is well out it “you’ve got to know when to hold’em
Know when to fold ‘em”
Kiwibuild as it exists falls into the latter as a solution
National don’t have my support in all this. They sat on their hands and did too little too late. But so did their Labour predecessors. However the main fault rests with Auckland Council.
Funny enough builders and consultants and god knows how many other people have taken the 2 billion, but at the end of the day the actual builders sounds like they were recruited with low wage tenders with massive subcontracting of various other tradies, combined with poor planning and a lot of political interference!
The government housing goals seems to be around MSM photo opportunities for local and central government and hiding all the problems.
Like the Natz, Labour is learning that you can’t just hoodwink the population for ever because people can work out that there aint any houses coming out of the process and they cost a fortune are grossly overpriced when they are sold on.
But actually that is not the main problem. The problem is that increasing demand from lazy immigration.. which is getting lower and lower quality people into NZ who need housing and assistance and more and more sophisticated scams of profit from that goal from middle men and immigration lawyers.
Even if Kiwibuild had gone smoothly and they got the 1000 houses, how is that even going to house 129,000 new permanent resident/citizens last year plus 150,000 new residents on work permits and 4 million tourists?
Construction is not the only issue that is proving difficult.
For example new resident teachers are complaining they can’t find work, while there is a shortage….
The lack of cohesive approach from government is concerning and like building, they fail to grasp the nuances of the situation from both the teachers and the schools what they are looking for and the general dysfunctional situation in NZ when we have people who can’t find work in shortages but the government is reluctant to address the systematic issues facing NZ employment and instead thinks they will recruit more and more fresh bodies from overseas while our jobseekers go up and up?
He doesn’t need to hire anyone. The private sector is perfectly capable of building the houses (eg Pokeno). The problem is the Auckland Council, who have failed to allow the city to sprawl, hence the rising cost of land and shortage of supply.
Spawl leads to investment in new infrastructure. Intensification leads to the breakdown of old infrastructure.
Sprawl leads to properly planned communities, with modern community facilities. Intensification leads to overcrowded schools and children locked in match box houses.
Sprawl reduces land costs, making housing more affordable on a comparative psm basis.
Auckland is ideally placed to sprawl. This has not been allowed to happen to the extent it feasibly could because of the incompetence of Auckland City.
Well I hear that Auckland university closed the planning and architecture specialists library, so they clearly don’t value that course. Luckily the Law library was saved for the lawyers of which NZ has already a 25% surplus of lawyers beyond countries like the UK, because lawyers are such a productive lot in NZ moving the country forwards!!! sarcasm
@ Gosman, Good idea, (sarcasm) I hear there is little public transport that is usable there and takes hours from the housing estates through the one road, but there is plenty of spec houses costing around 1 million which isn’t exactly affordable for the people that the housing crisis is actually effecting… lucky (sarcasm) it seems aimed at richer new residents families who don’t need to work in NZ and just costing those who are working and poorer who need to commute to work even more to get by and pay for the folly.
Then spend some money improving the public transport infrastructure there. Perhaps by getting access to some of the funds from all the development that will be taking place. And if you allow lots of houses to be built then the average price of them will likely come down. It is called the law of supply and demand. Increase supply and the price tends to drop if demand stays the same.
I’ve noticed that the foreigners are trying to warn NZ the most about what is going on, while the woke lefties kiwi middle class political and media types flagellate the white male of whom they generally are themselves in some sort of irony. Maybe helps in the talk fest sessions to gain credibility??? Aka I’m white male and I know I’m the problem.
You hardly even see the foreigners thinking white pakeha are the scorge of all sins, in fact they seem to be coming to NZ in droves because their country has been destroyed by pollution and corruption or bad choices … sadly among them are the people and events they are trying to warn the Kiwi’s about… aka dowry scams or housing Ponzi schemes that Kiwi politicians and commentators seem oblivious to what is before their own eyes, aka plenty of empty houses but at a price point or in a location that does not suit working people of NZ.
Mayor Bob Harvey was always clear he wanted a coupe of thousand hectares in the north west zoned for residential. The Regional Council stopped it. That decision prevented thousands of houses being built over the last 15 years.
It was great when it took the Auckland councillors 4 hours to get in and out of west Auckland for a short journey. What a bonus to the country when we have no new infrastructure and no old infrastructure either and are borrowing more and more money in some sort of Ponzi to lower productivity and increase those on jobseeker benefits! Go NZ!!!
@Shadrach, that right wing argument strikes again. Problem is you can’t get around Auckland due to the congestion from this urban sprawl, the developers are not paying or the money is disappearing to pay for the new roads and public transport and it will take decades to sort out while productivity and living standards in Auckland plummet, our beaches are being closed because they are full of dog, human poop and diesel run off from development, air pollution increasing, and taxes like petrol and more rates are hitting the poorest the most.
The point is supposed to be that central and local government should be committed to improving living standards and business productivity not running pronzis to benefit the chosen few. Everything being promoted by MSM and government (mostly immigration and urban sprawl) is causing the opposite and increased poverty and homelessness, which at the current massive population growth figures (with Jobseekers rising at the same time aka the idea that everyone is employed seems to be false) showing what is really the issue.
The government and councils need to plan the infrastructure and get it rolled out before the put in the people or you get a train wreck like Auckland has become. (And now Wellington, with high rentals, more people and dysfunctional public transport and soon they will create an exodus out of Wellington of local working people just like Auckland and Queenstown.
Actually you can get around Auckland. Any congestion is caused by intensification, not sprawl. In Pokeno the infrastructure was all included by the development partners, who sensibly built adjacent to a main arterial between Auckland and Hamilton.
I am sick to death of people trashing Twyford and kiwibuild. I want those house built for the middle class (that doesn’t mean I don’t want social housing too, I think it is an even greater priority). But I want those young kids who likely have some sort of student loan to be able to get their own house. The principle is that these young kids have had to compete with mum and dad investors and speculators and didn’t stand a chance. The scheme is great. National are throwing everything they can at it , the media have jumped on the bandwagon and so the narrative forms that kiwi build is a dog.
THE HOUSING SITUATION.—The number of new houses and flats constructed each year has, approximately doubled since the pre-war period. A peak of 19,200 was reached in each of the years ended 31 March 1956 and 31 March 1957. The total dropped back a little to 18,600 in the year ended 31 March 1958. This rate of house building in relation to population is higher than in most countries. Over 80 per cent of the houses built at present are for private home ownership.
There was a fairly rapid expansion in house building from 1945 to 1951, when there was a noticeable levelling-off at just over 16,000 houses each year. In August 1953 the Government convened a National Housing Conference for the purpose of surveying the general housing situation in New Zealand and investigating ways and means of implementing the Government’s housing policy of promoting the building of more houses at a reasonable cost. The conference was attended by builders and others directly associated with the building industry, and also by employers, workers, welfare organizations, local bodies, organizations interested in housing finance, and other sections of the public. Every aspect of housing was discussed, and action taken on the resolutions adopted by the conference helped to effect a further expansion in house building to the present level. The conference assessed the extent of the housing shortage and set a number of 206,000 houses in ten years as a target to overcome the shortage and provide for the increase in population expected from both natural increase and immigration. This target represented an increase of 25 per cent in the building rate. A National Housing Council was also set up.
The most noteworthy development in house building which has resulted has been the group building scheme. This scheme has been designed to give builders continuity of work, to reduce non-productive time between the finishing of one house and the starting of the next, and to assist builders in administration and supervision by enabling them to build houses for sale in groups. Plans and specifications are checked by the State Advances Corporation, which also inspects the work and, on behalf of the Government, gives an undertaking to take over at approved prices a specified number of any unsold houses. At 31 December 1958 there were 490 builders participating in the scheme, and 12,415 houses had been programmed; of these 9,785 had been completed and sold, and 675 were under construction.
Twyford has been truthful. so Gnats bring out the knives. Funny that.
Social housing is happening, but as the Minister said ”It will take time to ramp up”
Twyford has all the resources of the state behind him.
He set the target, starting 1 July 2018 and going through to 30 June 2019. The start date was nearly 8 months after the government was formed. No-one expected 10,000 houses in year one, but 1,000 seemed reasonable. Presumably he had advice on the target, he didn’t just pluck it out of thin air. He has failed on that, not just by a little, but by a lot.
So yes, he will be called to account by the media and the opposition on his failure. Frankly, I am surprised that the miss is going to be so big. I would have expected at least 800 houses. Northcote and Tamaki have been ready to go for quite a while. But progress on both sites seems pretty slow.
Following that logic Kiwibuild would be a great success if but one house was built under the programme. Unfortunately for you that is not how people usually decide the success of failure of something. It is usually done off what was planned not what was happening before.
Wayne, for gnat you are usually reasonable,
”All the resources of the State behind him”
That is not true, he had some resources, the programme isn’t on a war footing.
National had spent 9 years working towards small government. (underfunding)
That meant, the private builders were undercutting each other, bringing in migrant labour, not investing in training , not keeping sites from polluting, and building for overseas buyers who wanted Mc Mansions, which they left empty as investments.
Now Phil has built ‘First owner homes.’ Modest but modern. Banned overseas nonresident buyers, and the market has slowed by 20%, but not lost value.
2 problems for Kiwibuild. An employment dispute, and ramping up selling off the plan which wasn’t popular.
So he fronts up. WOW!! A Minister fronts up and tells of delays. He is honest.
We are so used to lies and Ministers throwing others under the bus. So National with Judith as Housing spokesperson. will try to gain the moral high ground… very difficult with her China links and past demotion by Key.
But this time, you really need to pull your head out of your own ass this time!
Who bugged up all the trade training and farm Cadetship in the 90’s?
Who flog off MoW, Railways and shut down the Railway Workshops IOT to flog it off?
Who made trainees take out student loans, while the same destroyed working conditions, workers safety through the ECA?
Who reduce building standards and made it easy for employers/ companies to hire overseas tradies instead of investing in the NZers?
Yes Wayne the rot started with you muppets in the “No Mates Party” with those stupid decisions that you lot did in the 90’s, are the result of the current shit fight we have atm across all sectors of NZ’s economy.
To undo the massive damage you lot did is going to take yrs to do, but unless someone takes ownership of it. It going to keep on happening because of you dickheads and just take for example the recovery of CHCH earthquakes and the recovery of Napier or similar areas.
Ok, but why do you want young people in debt to get their own house that they’ll most likely be vacating in a few years as their careers evolve or their relationships fall apart? Wouldn’t they be better served by cheap rentals?
Democracy, Trust and Legitimacy by Simon Longstaff. A very good paper on (Australian) Parliament that equally applies to NZ or many other countries for that matter.
He makes a few nice comments about the machinery of politics (and power) and how political parties are now obsessed with this and have lost sight of their ethical foundations. Lately, I’ve also been wondering (pondering rather) whether parties have become more of a hinder to progress than we realise, i.e. if you can’t see or solve the problem you may well be the problem …
Also: “This cabinet official, when challenged about this, said, ‘oh well, actually there is no problem with this; we can do whatever we like because we have a democratic mandate. We were actually elected by the people’. Well this is nonsense. There are boundaries set by our Constitution that limit what you can do despite what you think might be your democratic mandate.”
This idea that the mandate of an election is merely a matter of perception, not a democratic reality, is postmodern. We’ve seen how the Democrats are using it to prevent Trump implementing his. They’ve been carefully not to do so honestly, by admitting or declaring their intent. They know voters still believe in it, so they must be covert in their subversive strategy. Closet-stalinism is deep-rooted in the tacit psychology of leftist political endeavour…
If National had left such a mess, then Labour should have understood the nature of that mess and developed policies to address it well before now. After all Twyford was banging for years about housing when in opposition. That he didn’t appear to understand the issues and the complexities of the housing market then, as well as now, has to be a serious concern.
Clearly Labour didn’t, and doesn’t, understand the housing market; clearly they over promised on what they could deliver; clearly they’re attracting little interest from the so called first home buyers target group (no demand from them for one of Twyford’s houses – they’re getting better deals in the general housing market).
Blaming National for Labour’s own incompetence, is stretching it a bit thin now. Labour needs to take responsibility for how things are.
Canada, At War For 13 Years, Shocked
That ‘A Terrorist’ Attacked Its Soldiers
by GLENN GREENWALD, The Intercept, Oct. 23, 2014
TORONTO – In Quebec on Monday, two Canadian soldiers were hit by a car driven by Martin Couture-Rouleau, a 25-year-old Canadian who, as The Globe and Mail reported, “converted to Islam recently and called himself Ahmad Rouleau.” One of the soldiers died, as did Couture-Rouleau when he was shot by police upon apprehension after allegedly brandishing a large knife. Police speculated that the incident was deliberate, alleging the driver waited for two hours before hitting the soldiers, one of whom was wearing a uniform. The incident took place in the parking lot of a shopping mall 30 miles southeast of Montreal, “a few kilometres from the Collège militaire royal de Saint-Jean, the military academy operated by the Department of National Defence.”
The right-wing Canadian government wasted no time in seizing on the incident to promote its fear-mongering agenda over terrorism, which includes pending legislation to vest its intelligence agency, CSIS, with more spying and secrecy powers in the name of fighting ISIS. A government spokesperson asserted “clear indications” that the driver “had become radicalized.”
In a “clearly prearranged exchange,” a conservative MP, during parliamentary question time, asked Prime Minister Stephen Harper (pictured above) whether this was considered a “terrorist attack”; in reply, the prime minister gravely opined that the incident was “obviously extremely troubling.” Canada’s Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney pronounced the incident “clearly linked to terrorist ideology,” while newspapers predictably followed suit, calling it a “suspected terrorist attack” and “homegrown terrorism.” CSIS spokesperson Tahera Mufti said “the event was the violent expression of an extremist ideology promoted by terrorist groups with global followings” and added: “That something like this would happen in a peaceable Canadian community like Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu shows the long reach of these ideologies.”
In sum, the national mood and discourse in Canada is virtually identical to what prevails in every Western country whenever an incident like this happens: shock and bewilderment that someone would want to bring violence to such a good and innocent country (“a peaceable Canadian community like Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu”), followed by claims that the incident shows how primitive and savage is the “terrorist ideology” of extremist Muslims, followed by rage and demand for still more actions of militarism and freedom-deprivation. There are two points worth making about this….
A national bank, the TSB, situated in the main street of Nelson was closed after
Christmas when expected to be open. A notice apologised. Apparently staff shortage was the reason. This seems a very strange occurrence, and where and when does national support come in? Wouldn’t you think that staff from other centres could be sourced to keep the show going and the bank profile positive?
Is this something we will have to contend with in a few decades after our period of dodgy materials through poor reliability of standards documentation for steel and cheap contract labour?
The Tappan Zee Bridge, which opened in 1955, became a poster child for America’s crumbling infrastructure.
Governor Andrew Cuomo, the son of the new bridge’s namesake, recalled in 2017 an experience familiar to many Tappan Zee drivers, steel plates that shifted beneath traffic, providing unnerving glimpses through road cracks of the chasm below.
The Democrat said he’d envisioned escape scenarios in case he ended up in the water: “‘Do I take off the seat belt? Do I open the window?’ I had one of those special tools with the hammer and the seat belt cutter.”
But OTOH it lasted till say 2015, 60 years, until the cracks showed the water below in 2017. Who knows what NZ will be doing after 60 years of eventful happenings. Any ideas for 2079 NZ way of life?
There is of course a detail threshold for most citizens – after all how many really took notice of the last EECA funding round for electric vehicles this week?
But the NZTA National Land Transport Fund has very high visibility, a reasonable degree of democratic feedback, and can demonstrate visible results.
The clear message from the Prime Minister in this budget will apply: show how it is reducing inequality in New Zealand over the long term, or this and any other proposal is not going to fly .
I’m inclined to agree with JF: “If a policy is to be durable and supported it has to create the conviction that we are all in this together – everyone pays; everyone benefits from the revenue created; and everyone has the opportunity to reduce their carbon burn by thinking smarter. What we need is a policy that delivers an equal monetary return to all citizens, bearing in mind that $20 to a beneficiary or low income worker is worth enormously more than $20 to a corporate chief.”
“It needs to be communicated clearly that those paying the most in the carbon price will be those using more than their “share” of our carbon budget. Those getting the most benefit will be those who reduce their carbon burn. There are two ways to do this. The simple way is to reduce tax on the bottom band of income – probably by making the first dollars earned tax free. The second is by paying a “citizen’s dividend” to every citizen, or resident, or other qualifying descriptor.”
She goes on to explain why she prefers the second option – while acknowledging it will cost more to operate. I agree, because citizens can see the tangible benefit they get from the policy, as well as the intangible benefit of sustainable economics.
The timber needed for kiwibuild. There has been concern expressed for years at the government’s inability to provide for this country’s needs under neo liberal and freemarket economic controls. Seeing that the Right believed in their right to sell the country’s storehouse of needed items for the future, leaving us with remainders, leftovers and crusts, now we want to make a game-changing surge from a regressive, do-little policy, we find that the cupboard is virtually bare of resource.
Like the Old Woman who Lived in a Shoe we don’t know what to do. Any very large shoes in NZ?
Wood Processors & Manufacturers Association of New Zealand chief executive Jon Tanner said last year’s record exports underscored concerns of local manufacturers that the country was sending too many unprocessed logs overseas.
At present it was a “free-for-all” market driving the high prices and domestic processors could not compete against the “fly-in fly-out” traders, Dr Tanner said in an interview.
He acknowledged the situation was “open competition”, but it was on a “tilted playing field”, given industry subsidies existed in other countries.
The scenario was posing a threat for future local timber supply and was undermining goals to add more value to exports, Dr Tanner said.
“New Zealand is experiencing strong demand for logs from China, which has clamped down on harvesting its own forests and reduced tariffs on imported logs to meet demand in its local market,” he said.
Reduced exports from Canada and Russia meant China would increasingly be looking to New Zealand and Australia to fill the void.
“I’d expect [Chinese] demand to keep increasing and to see more exports out of New Zealand and Australia,” he said.
Dr Tanner said the increased raw log shipments went against the aim of successive governments to add more value to commodities. The wood processing sector wanted more manufacturing done in New Zealand to sustain local industries.
“It says an uptick in demand for wooden housing could see supply having to be met from overseas if the current situation prevails,” Dr Tanner said.
He noted the high level of Auckland consents and requirements to achieve the KiwiBuild programme.
When pressed, he was adamant the scenario of importing sawn lumber to meet demand could become a reality….
(And there has been a big drop in shipping rates which has made exporting logs more profitable. Why would the shipping rates drop so much I wonder? Is there a subsidy from somewhere skewing the market?)
…Not only had Chinese demand driven prices up during the past two years, a trifecta was created with generally favourable foreign exchange alongside very low shipping rates.
The price to move a cubic metre of wood from Dunedin to Asian destinations had averaged about $US45 during the past decade, but early last year that cost was in a range of $US13 to $US25 per metre during the preceding 18 months.
Port Otago’s last financial year moved a record 957,000 tonnes of export logs across its wharves.
Many kiwis are happy to use imported timber products or specify imported timber for their floors, walls, ceilings, joinery or cladding without a thought as to the quality of forest management back at the source or the benefits of using NZ-grown wood.
In effect, New Zealanders have effectively exported the environmental impacts of their special-purpose timber consumption to other countries and failed to recognise the impacts of their actions on the sustainability of their own forests or the viability of their own special-purpose and indigenous timber manufacturing industries.
There is an obvious need to increase the public’s awareness of how their timber consumption patterns are at odds with the clean green conservation image we all cherish. New Zealander’s are unwitting partners in a double standard that requires high standards for their home-grown timbers but expect little in the way of sustainable credentials for special-purpose timber imported from overseas.
this apparently is to cancel the GOP Primary in the upcoming Selection 🙂
can we call him King Shitstain of Shitstainia First Turd of his name?
RNC Resolutions Committee just voted unanimously to “undivided support” for Trump and his “effective presidency," clearing way for passage before full GOP governing body on Friday.
Billionaire @MichaelDell on @AOC's 70% marginal tax rate on millionaires: "Name a country where that's worked — ever." Co-panelist and MIT professor Erik Brynjolfsson: "The United States!"#Davos2019https://t.co/fVgrFI73wO
Big tobacco company outs itself as donor to NZ Taxpayers Onion. Onion spokesparrot says conflicts of interest do not apply because they are not publicly-funded.
Not sure how the situation is in other regions, but in Richmond area near Nelson, around five entities own the majority of available land. What those entities do is drip feed the land out for sale, thereby increasing the land value. Council asks for land, but noooooo money first for the entities and the drip feeding continues.
Found that out from a former Tasman District Councillor yesterday who said they were very frustrated with people laying blame on the council re the availability of land.
Does anyone know if it’s a similar situation in other regions please?
What those entities do is drip feed the land out for sale, thereby increasing the land value.
It’s what any rational economic actor will do.
A manufacturer of widgets will only make as many as there is a profitable market for; any more than this and the value of the product drops. (Before DtB leaps down my throat, yes I know this is a simplification.)
But land is tricky. It’s not ‘manufactured’ as such, the supply is both enduring and finite. This puts it into a different category of ‘ownership’ than most other goods.
My approach to this problem is to make all land ‘ownership’ to be held by public entities, while the ‘right to occupy’ is held privately. This distinction would go a long way toward allowing to solve land problems like this; it would give the public domain some control over the long-term supply and use of land, while at the same time preserving the private right to occupy and gain immediate benefit from it.
you will find the same all over the regions.
some towns where whole streets are owned by one person who is also on the council 🙂
so when you drive through the ‘real NZ’ and you wonder why everything is boarded up, chances are no one will pay the 10 – 25.000 anual lease 🙂 cause everything is Akl now.
and that is the biggest issue that i have with kiwi build and all tht jazz, it is literally just a project for middle / upper class people like Phil Twyford who have realized that their own children in AKL / WLGTN – despite working good jobs – can’t afford a house anywhere near them.
But, it would work, if they would also employ other methods to cool the housing market. One would be to establish some sort of rental mirror. I.e. the rent should cover the value of the flat/house (i.e. ammeneties near by, age of building, state of building, heating sources, new modern vs old rotting ), rather then cover a mortgage on which was added a boat, a suv for the missus and the mister, a overseas holiday or several etc etc etc etc. If you could rent for a reasonable rate you might not be so keen on buying a house.
And kiwi build should go hand in hand with government investment into the region that will attract jobs to the region rather then just another business in akl. And with jobs i also include jobs for women. Cause that is an issue in the region is decent paying jobs for women.
Air quality on cruise ship deck ‘worse than world’s most polluted cities’, investigation finds
‘Each day a cruise ship emits as much particulate matter as a million cars’
Thanks to a report from the Acting Inspector General of Intelligence and Security following a complaint by Nicky Hager, we have come to find out that the SIS illegally spied on Mr. Hager on behalf of the NZDF after publication of Hager’s 2011 book, Other People’s Wars. The NZDF justified ...
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For the past week, Extinction Rebellion has been peacefully protesting in London to demand action on climate change. The British government's response? Ban their protests:Police have banned Extinction Rebellion protests from continuing anywhere in London, as they moved in almost without warning to clear protesters who remained at the movement’s ...
When they were running for election, Labour promised to overhaul the Employment Relations Act and introduce fair pay agreements to set basic pay and conditions on an industry level, preventing bad employers from undercutting good ones. They followed this up by establishing a working group, which reported back in January ...
A list of indicators of bad science – many of these are found in articles promoted by anti-fluoride activists. Anti-fluoride activists have been pouring money into a scaremongering campaign warning pregnant women not to drink fluoridated water. They claim fluoride will lower the IQ of their future child. Fluoride ...
Nothing Left To Say: Labour's pollster, Stephen Mills, remains swaddled-up in the comforting myths of the 1980s. As if the experience of Roger Douglas’s genuinely radical post-Muldoon policy agenda was literally a once-in-a-lifetime thing – as much as the party could possibly absorb for at least the next 50 years.MEMO ...
The Royal Commission on abuse in care is very significant for the disability community. For many decades last century, thousands of disabled children, and adults who managed to survive, were locked away from families and communities. This was not for anything they had done, but for the perceived threat their ...
With an unfair voting system, uneven electorates and an un-elected upper house, the UK's "democracy" is barely worthy of the name. But now the government wants to make it worse:The government has been accused of suppressing voters’ rights with the potential disenfranchisement of tens of thousands of people after plans ...
Back in the 90's and early 2000's, the building industry was building leaky homes which should never have been granted consent. Now it turns out they've been building dodgy office blocks as well:New imaging technology has revealed hundreds of major buildings nationwide have defective or missing concrete or reinforcing steel. ...
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Overruled: The joint decision of Finance Minister, Grant Robertson (Labour) and his Associate Minister, David Parker (Labour) arguably the two most powerful ministers in Jacinda Ardern’s government, to grant OceanaGold the consents which Land Information Minister, Eugenie Sage (Greens) had earlier denied them, offers bitter proof of how hard fighting ...
More than double the number of people who will vote in this year’s local body elections have tried marijuana or urinated somewhere they shouldn’t have. As local elections look set for the lowest turnout in decades, with many regions falling well short of 40%, the Government is exploring a number ...
A Statement on Abortion Law Reform by the Council of Disobedient Women On the eve of bringing an end to antiquated, anti-women abortion laws Green MP Jan Logie intends to write women out of the Bill. With a stroke of the pen, the woke are aiming for total erasure ...
Musings continue apace about “the experienced businessman!” soon to be taking up a National Party MP position. Or to be more accurate, being parachuted into a seat to shut down their former MP Jamie-Lee Ross, who despite his own shortcomings shed at least some more light on the inner workings ...
The Ugandan government wants to murder gay people:Uganda has announced plans to impose the death penalty on homosexuals. The bill, colloquially known as “Kill the Gays” in Uganda, was nullified five years ago on a technicality, but the government said on Thursday it plans to resurrect it within weeks. The ...
Freedom Of Speech? The Säuberung (cleansing by fire) was the work of the German Student Union which, on 10 May 1933, under the watchful eye of the Nazi Reichminister for Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, consigned 25,000 books to the flames in a ritual exorcism of “un-German thought”. According to the logic of the ...
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New Zealand’s media is doing its part in Japan, reassuring those in the path of the storm that they won’t miss any rugby while away from their flooded homes. New Zealand sports reporters stationed in Japan for the Rugby World Cup have had the rare and heartwarming opportunity to inform ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones is the only Cabinet member in favour of putting it all on green. As Finance Minister Grant Robertson finds himself with an enormous $7.5 billion surplus, the Government has begun intense, at times contentious conversations about whether to put the money on red or black at ...
by Susanne Kemp At the start of September close to 100,000 school teachers went on strike in Jordan. They demanded a 50% pay rise. A pay rise actually agreed to by the regime back in 2014. In early October, however, in the face of government repression and threats, the teachers’ ...
Back in 2011, journalist Nicky Hager published Other People's Wars, an expose on NZDF's activities over the previous decade of the "war on terror". NZDF didn't like this, and especially didn't like the fact that it was base don leaks from their own. So, they had the SIS investigate him ...
The Zero Carbon Bill is due back from select committee in two weeks, and will likely pass its final stages in November. So naturally, farmers are planning a hate-march against it. But they're not just demanding lower methane targets so they can keep on destroying the planet; they're also demanding ...
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The Best Way: Missing from the on-line voting debate is any reference to the voting system that produces turn-out figures ranging from 77 to 93 percent of registered voters. The voting system used to collect and count the votes cast in our parliamentary elections. The system that involves citizens making ...
Among the great new bunch of political friends we have been making recently is the excellent Australian-based Marxist gender-critical site, Freer Lives. So we asked the comrade who set up that blog to write something for Redline on the blog, himself, his analysis of the rise of gender politics and ...
by Don Franks The Auckland City Mission is struggling with a 40 percent increase in demand for food parcels this year. A total of 23,020 were needed by June. Last month Missioner Chris Farrelly told the Herald the “cupboards are bare” and without an emergency food drive, he can’t see ...
by The Council of Disobedient Women Massey Wellington Student Association had a sit-in today. Imagine a sit-in. On a campus. Against a women’s rights meeting. Did the ’60s really happen or did we fucking dream it? They gathered in the student square, an echo chamber. Sitting on soft pillows ...
For some reasons, my post about the mystery message from inside the Downing Street bunker seemed to catch people's attention. Quite a lot of hits from NZ (unsurprisingly) and the USA (a bit more puzzlingly, but hi there, USAians!!) and 76 views from the Ukraine.I've celebrated my Ukrainian readers in ...
First, almost a score of Labour MPs seem to have sent a letter to the EU basically begging them to accept a deal - any deal - just so Britain can get the Heck on with Brexiting instead of being trapped in limbo:
by Phil Duncan In 2016 the National-led government suspended the Parent Visa Category, through which migrants were able to bring their parents into New Zealand. Since then over 5,700 people have been in immigration limbo, stuck on the visa wait list. Labour is now bringing back the scheme. Well, sort ...
The following was released yesterday (Tues, October 8) by the women’s liberation organisation Speak Up for Women. On 23 September Speak Up For Women announced that we would be holding an event at the Massey University Theaterette in Wellington. The event is called Feminism 2020. The intention of the event ...
The government is currently consulting on plans to improve freshwater quality. So naturally, farmers oppose it:South Taranaki farmers are preparing to fight proposed national freshwater changes that some fear will bankrupt them. The Government's proposed National Environment Standard on Freshwater Management, released in September, rated the Waingongoro River as one ...
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This essay, on the political legacy of the eugenics movement, by Kenan Malik was originally published in the Observer on 6 October 2019, under the headline ‘The spirit of eugenics is still with us, as immigrants know to their cost’. Birth control. Intelligence tests. Town planning. Immigration controls. It’s striking how ...
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by Nick Rogers The debate around the meaning of sex and gender made an appearance at this year’s British Labour Party conference in Brighton. Women’s Place UK – an organisation that questions the demand that biological males who self-identify as woman should have access to women’s spaces, to all-women shortlists, ...
Yesterday I went down to Wellington to participate in the Extinction Rebellion protest. Its part of the latest global wave of XR actions, with actions happening all over the world. Some of those protests are massively disruptive: in Canada, XR is blocking major bridges, stopping people from getting to work. ...
The Workshop is a charitable trust for public good. The Workshop undertake research to find ways of communicating that will build support for the solutions that work to solve complex social and environmental problems. See their Report on Talking about Poverty and Welfare Reform below. ...
Being and Being Bought (Spinifex Press, 2013) by Kajsa Ekis Ekman A synopsis and commentary of Chapters 1-2 by Daphna Whitmore Ekman, a Swedish journalist and critic, brings together a Marxist and feminist analysis of prostitution and surrogacy in this groundbreaking book She opens the discussion with a definition of ...
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Ivory Folly? The University of Auckland’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Stuart McCutcheon, upheld the right of the radical nationalist group, Action Zealandia to exercise their freedom of speech – not matter how distasteful that speech might be. A wiser community of students and scholars would have nodded their agreement and moved on. ...
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New Zealand likes to think of itself as not a racist country (despite being founded on the racist dispossession and subjugation of Maori). But for years, we've had a racist refugee policy, which basicly excludes refugees from Africa and the Middle East unless they already have relatives here. Now, the ...
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The attempts of anti-democratic transactivists to (often violently) disrupt women’s rights organising is largely ignored by those sections of the left most prone to misogyny and authoritarianism in New Zealand. In Britain, however, scores of trade union and left activists added their names to a letter in July, defending ...
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by The Spark On September 14, a total of 22 drones and cruise missiles struck two oil installations in Saudi Arabia, the Abqaiq processing facility and the Khurais oil field. Abqaiq is the largest oil production facility in the world. For a few days afterwards, Saudi Aramco, the Saudi national ...
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Its the usual story: a police officer beats a handcuffed suspect so hard they break one of their own fingers. The IPCA investigates and concludes that the use of force was unlawful. And the police refuse to do anything about it:A man punched repeatedly in the face by a police ...
From time to time we add links to our blogroll. The latest blog we have added is Freer Lives. This is a Marxist gender-critical blog, based in Melbourne, Australia. On it you will find a bunch of excellent articles which use the tools of Marxist analysis to critique the rise ...
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Press release by Speak Up For Women Lesbians from women’s rights group Speak Up For Women are furious at reports that Rainbow Tick are threatening Massey University with the removal of their ‘tick’ if they let the group’s event go ahead. The group has been under attack from trans ...
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We want every New Zealander to be happy, safe, and healthy. To do this, we need to support strong, safe communities, and a robust and efficient health system. ...
Defence Minister Ron Mark has used his powers to overrule a noise complaint ruling against Whenuapai airbase on the grounds of "national security". The Environment Court last month released a ruling in favour of a private developer, declaring the Auckland airbase had to comply with noise restrictions when it performs ...
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New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has hit back at National Party leader Simon Bridges who criticized the Coalition Government’s approach to crime, and said that the latter isn't credible in his attack on the Government over gang recruitment. "We've got as massive drug problem in this country. It is ...
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Political commentator Mike Hosking has labelled New Zealand First leader Winston Peters as “the voice of reason in a government soft on drugs”, for the Party’s stance on drug testing at music festivals. “If common sense is worth a vote, Winston Peters is quids in,” Mr Hosking said. The Labour ...
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Official Information Act figures released to NZME show there were 350 assaults on officers in the year to the end of June, 79 more than the year before. The increase in attacks have sparked calls for more legal protection for first responders to be enacted. The assaults included officers being ...
“Nobody wants to see babies uplifted”, this was the pronouncement of Minister for Children Hon. Tracey Martin as her department, Oranga Tamariki, faces multiple inquiries into the number of babies being taken from their families. “But a baby can die with a single punch, “the Minister continued. “So sometimes, Oranga ...
We're making progress on tackling the long-term challenges: from homelessness, to strengthening border security, to bringing banking back New Zealand's small towns. ...
Associate Transport Minister Shane Jones has backed the ambitious plan to move Auckland’s port to Northport, at Whangarei harbour, which he says will be the “King Kong of infrastructure”. The plan is part of the recommendations of a six-person independent working group, which has recommended the Ports of Auckland be ...
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Fletcher Tabuteau, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF)through its skills and employment programme, Te Ara Mahi,will invest nearly $600,000 to ensure work opportunities for locals in Turangia and Whanganui, Parliamentary Under Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau announced today. “I’m pleased to announce the PGF ...
An export-led economy is one of New Zealand First’s key principles, and our commitment to achieving this is shown by the continuing skyrocketing demand for our beef and sheep meat exports. Beef + Lamb New Zealand's New Season Outlook 2019-20 report forecasts beef, lamb and mutton prices to lift from ...
Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today in Gisborne an investment of $17.27m into bringing “world-leading” food-growing technology and the creation of more than 100 new jobs in the East Coast city. The funding comes from the Provincial Growth Fund, and included a $15 million loan to LeaderBrand, a ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development More than 100 people in Tairāwhiti’s Tolaga Bay will benefit from two employment initiatives supported by the Provincial Growth Fund, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones and Employment Minister Willie Jackson announced today. “Tolaga Bay is an incredibly tight-knit community, but one in ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) is supporting Gisborne business Leaderbrand to produce salad vegetables year round and create more jobs in the Tairāwhiti region, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today. “Our support for Leaderbrand will help them build large greenhouses ...
“Nobody wants to see babies uplifted”, this was the pronouncement of Minister for Children Hon. Tracey Martin as her department, Oranga Tamariki, faces multiple inquiries into the number of babies being taken from their families. “But a baby can die with a single punch, “the Minister continued. “So sometimes, Oranga ...
Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has praised the promise by New Zealand’s biggest banks not to close any provincial branches while the Coalition Government trials regional banking hubs across the country. The Minister said the announce was the “first sign of hope for regional communities”, many of which have ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, New Zealand First Leader New Zealand First is proud to have delivered an upgrade of the SuperGold Card website and a new smartphone app, which will help unlock the full benefits of the SuperGold Card for 750,000 New Zealand seniors.Party Leader Rt Hon Winston Peters, ...
Delivering a key election campaign promise, New Zealand First is proud to have accomplished a long overdue upgrade of the SuperGold Card today. At an event in Auckland, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters joined Minister for Seniors Hon. Tracey Martin in unveiling the new website and smartphone app which ...
Another busy week, from speaking with world leaders on the world stage about climate change, to equipping our school leavers with everything they need to get ahead in life. ...
New Zealand First MP Shane Jones says Air New Zealand has "an obligation to look after Kiwis", and urged the national carrier not to hike up their prices after Jetstar airline announced their withdrawal from regional flights this week. The Provincial Champion also expressed his disappointment at Jetstar’s decision on ...
Fletcher Tabuteau, Under Secretary for Regional Economic Development The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) will help fund a new dredge for the Port of Greymouth to ensure the regional fishing fleet have a reliable and productive harbour, Parliamentary Undersecretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau announced today “Last year the movements of ...
Ladies and gentlemen, NZCTU President Richard Wagstaff, members of respective unions – thank you for the invitation to speak to you today. This might be preaching to the choir, but the importance of trade unions in New Zealand’s historical arch is difficult to understate. And it is my belief that ...
"Let’s start by acknowledging that it has been a huge year. " Police Association Annual Conference James Cook Grand Chancellor Hotel Wellington Nau mai, haere mai. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, ka nui te mihi, ki a koutou katoa. President of the Police Association, Chris Cahill; Members of the Association and ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters and Minister of Defence Ron Mark have announced the New Zealand Government’s decision to again deploy a Royal New Zealand Air Force P-3K2 (P-3) maritime patrol aircraft to support the implementation of United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions imposing sanctions against North Korea. New ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters says New Zealand continues to have serious concerns for peace and stability in north-east Syria. “Recent reports that hundreds of ISIS-affiliated families have fled from a camp are deeply concerning from a humanitarian and security perspective”, Mr Peters says. “While we acknowledge Turkey’s domestic security ...
Biosecurity Minister Damien O’Connor is warning travelling Kiwis to be vigilant as the high-season for the crop-eating brown marmorated stink bug (BMSB) is under way. “We’re on high alert to stop BMSB arriving in NZ. The high season runs until April 30 and we’ve strengthened our measures to stop stink ...
The Government is moving swiftly to change the law to improve the welfare and pastoral care of students living in university halls of residence and other tertiary hostels. Cabinet has agreed to several changes, including creating a new mandatory Code of Practice that sets out the duty of pastoral care ...
The Minister for Conservation Eugenie Sage has launched a new comprehensive trapping guide for community trappers to help them protect our native birds, plants and other wildlife, at Zealandia in Wellington today. ‘A practical guide to trapping’, has been developed by the Department of Conservation (DOC), and was launched during ...
Associate Health Minister Julie Anne Genter welcomes PHARMAC’s move to improve access to long-acting reversible contraception (LARCs). PHARMAC has today announced it will fund the full cost of Mirena and Jaydess for anyone seeking long term contraception, lifting previous restrictions on access to Mirena. “I welcome women having greater choices ...
The Government has approved the next stage of a major redevelopment of Taranaki Base Hospital, which will deliver new and improved facilities for patients. Health Minister Dr David Clark has announced details of a $300 million dollar project to build a new East Wing at the New Plymouth hospital. It ...
Extra funding will allow Rural Support Trusts to help farming families, says Minister for Rural Communities and Agriculture Damien O’Connor. “I know that rural families are worried about some of the challenges facing them, including the ongoing uncertainty created by the Mycoplasma bovis outbreak. “Those concerns sit alongside ongoing worries ...
Thank you for the opportunity to be here to present certificates to the 16 graduates who have completed a beekeeping course delivered by the Howard League. Let us start by acknowledging Auckland Prison’s Deputy Prison Director Tom Sherlock, and Acting Assistant Regional Commissioner of Corrections Northern Region Scott Walker - ...
Finance Minister Grant Robertson leaves this weekend to attend the APEC Finance Ministers meeting in Santiago, Chile. Discussions between APEC Finance Ministers at the meeting will include the effects of the current global economic uncertainty, risks for APEC economies and sustainable development of the region. While at APEC Grant Robertson ...
The Minister for Pacific Peoples Aupito William Sio says for Pacific people, language can be a source of strength. It can help ground us and give us confidence. When we speak them, our languages provide us with an immediate and intimate access to our identity and our story - and ...
The Coalition Government has announced an action plan to improve the wellbeing of disabled New Zealanders by addressing inequalities in play, active recreation and sport. The initiative includes training to develop a workforce that understands the needs of children and young people with a range of impairments, advocacy for fit ...
The construction sector is being freed up to allow more homes to be built more quickly as the Government cuts through some of the red tape of the Building Act. “Every New Zealander deserves a warm, dry, safe home and old inefficiencies in the Building Act make building slow and ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has welcomed further details on the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall’s visit to New Zealand next month. Their Royal Highnesses will visit New Zealand from 17-23 November – their third joint visit to New Zealand and first in four years. They arrive in Auckland ...
Minister of State for Trade and Export Growth and Minister of Agriculture, Damien O’Connor, heads to Thailand today to attend the final Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) Ministerial meeting, as negotiations enter their final stages. “The RCEP Agreement would anchor New Zealand in a regional agreement that covers 16 countries, ...
Pacific young people living in the Hawke’s Bay, Southland and Otago regions will have access to support services that have proved successful in helping young people find new earning and learning opportunities. “Tupu Aotearoa is about changing Pacific young peoples’ lives. Our young people are talented, they are smart, they ...
Introduction As the Minister for ACC I thank you all for the work that you do supporting New Zealanders in their literally most vulnerable moments. From those who hold people’s lives in their hands, to the people who research technique, technology and trends, your work is highly valued. A special ...
Notes prepared for speeches in Christchurch – Wednesday 9 October 2019 Today’s topic, “trends and opportunities for the New Zealand economy,” is certainly one getting a great deal of commentary at the moment. Looking across the media landscape lately you’ll notice we aren’t the only ones having this discussion. There ...
Minister of Health Dr David Clark and Associate Minister of Health Peeni Henare say this year’s World Mental Health Day theme is a reminder of why the Government’s work on mental health is so important. “This year the World Federation for Mental Health has made suicide prevention the main theme ...
Associate Arts, Culture and Heritage Minister Carmel Sepuloni will represent the government at Australia’s Meeting of Cultural Ministers in Adelaide this week. “This year’s meeting is special because New Zealand is expected to become an International Member of the Meeting of Cultural Ministers at this Australian forum,” Carmel Sepuloni said. “The meeting is an opportunity to ...
The Greater Christchurch Claims Resolution Service has resolved 608 insurance and EQC claims in its first year in operation, Minister Megan Woods has announced. The government service, which celebrates its first birthday today, provides a one stop shop to help Cantabrians still battling to get their homes repaired or rebuilt ...
Today’s topic, “trends and opportunities for the New Zealand economy,” is certainly one getting a great deal of commentary at the moment. Looking across the media landscape lately you’ll notice we aren’t the only ones having this discussion. There has been an increasing amount of attention paid to the outlook ...
The Government is acting swiftly to strengthen NZTA’s regulatory role following a review into the Transport Agency, and Ministry of Transport’s performance as its monitor, Transport Minister Phil Twyford said today. An independent review by Martin Jenkins has found NZTA failed to properly regulate the transport sector under the previous ...
The Netherlands and New Zealand have a long-standing and close relationship based on many shared interests and values. We value the rule of law, our democracies, and multilateralism. And we value our environment – at home and globally. Right now there are major global challenges in all of these areas – ...
The Government is putting right a decade’s worth of underpayment to nurses, doctors and other health workers, says Health Minister Dr David Clark. Initial sampling of District Health Boards payroll records has found that around $550-$650 million is owed to DHB staff to comply with the Holidays Act. It’s expected ...
A strong surplus and low debt show the economy is performing well, and means the Government is in a good position to meet the challenges of global economic uncertainty. “The surplus and low levels of debt show the economy is in good shape. This allows the Government to spend more ...
New applications from mining company OceanaGold to purchase land in Waihi for new tailings ponds associated with its gold mines have been approved. Minister of Finance Grant Robertson and Associate Minister of Finance David Parker considered the applications under the Overseas Investment Act. Earlier this year, applications from OceanaGold to ...
New Zealanders in Tūranganui-a-Kiwa / Poverty Bay will witness Māori, Pākehā and Pacific voyaging traditions come together today as the Tuia 250 Voyage flotilla assembles for the first time, Māori Crown Relations: Te Arawhiti Minister Kelvin Davis says. “Tuia 250 is a national commemoration and an opportunity for honest conversations ...
Minister for Trade and Export Growth David Parker leaves tomorrow for Dubai, London and Berlin for a series of meetings to advance New Zealand’s trade interests. In Dubai he will visit New Zealand’s Pavilion at Expo 2020 where construction is underway. There he will meet Minister of State for International Cooperation, Her ...
Confirmation that PHARMAC will fund two new cancer drugs is further evidence of the good progress the Government is making to improve the treatment of New Zealand’s leading cause of death, Health Minister David Clark says. From 1 December PHARMAC will fund alectinib (Alecensa) for ALK positive advanced non-small cell ...
An additional $2.7 million has been announced for the Government Strategy for Women and Girls in Sport and Active Recreation on the first anniversary of the strategy’s launch. Sport and Recreation Minister Grant Robertson gave the opening address to the first Sport NZ Women + Girls Summit in Wellington today, ...
As part of its work to ensure businesses can get the skilled workers they need, the Coalition Government is re-opening and re-setting the Parent Category visa programme, Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway says. The move will: support skilled migrants who help fill New Zealand’s skills gaps by providing a pathway for ...
Minister of Defence Ron Mark has today announced Major General Evan Williams of the New Zealand Defence Force has been selected as the commander of a significant, longstanding peacekeeping mission in the Middle East. In December, Major General Williams takes over as Force Commander for the Multinational Force and Observers ...
A record number of nurses are now working to deliver health services to New Zealanders as the Government’s increased funding and new initiatives rebuild key workforces start to show results, Health Minister Dr David Clark says. • 1458 more DHB nurses since the Government took office • 106 more midwives ...
Farmer and former Nuffield scholar Mel Poulton has been appointed New Zealand’s Special Agricultural Trade Envoy, Minister for Trade and Export Growth, David Parker, and Minister of Agriculture, Damien O’Connor, announced today. The position supports key Government objectives, including raising the value of New Zealand agricultural goods and services. Mel is ...
New Zealand’s Pacific and Māori voyaging heritage is acknowledged and celebrated today as waka of the Tuia 250 voyage flotilla arrive in Tūranga / Gisborne. “Today we celebrate Tangata Whenua, the first people of Aotearoa, and the triumphs of the voyaging tradition that brought our ancestors here from Polynesia 1000 ...
“Fijian Language Week starts on Sunday and the theme reminds us how important it is that we each have something to anchor ourselves to, something that can help us pause and feel in control in a rapidly changing world,” says Minister for Pacific Peoples Aupito William Sio. “Family, culture, faith, ...
The Government is establishing an Airspace Integration Trials Programme to support the safe testing and development of advanced unmanned aircraft and accelerate their integration into the aviation system, Research, Science and Innovation Minister Megan Woods announced today. The Government will work with leading, innovative aviation industry partners to test and ...
It’s the end of an era at Three as MAFS NZ and Guy Williams’ new show canceled and 7 Days cut to bone, writes Duncan Greive.A trio of shows which have been amongst Three’s most important local productions are either being canceled or severely cut back, as the channel’s agonising ...
'Joker' expects viewers not only to understand its cruelty, but to understand the justified violence of a white man when the protests of black men and women in the US are regularly met with condemnation, vilification and exclusion. ...
She runs the women's Aussie Rules and netball programmes at one of Australia's oldest sports clubs, so why is Jane Woodlands-Thompson sitting on the Silver Ferns bench? ...
As someone with a severe chronic illness, Hannah McGowan has a vested interest in getting to the bottom of what cannabis can and can’t do for her health. The reality, she discovers, is complicated.Woo [colloq.]: Mystical, supernatural or pseudo-scientific beliefs not backed up by evidence. I crave a well informed, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The last PM shock jock Alan Jones slapped down was Jacinda Ardern. His language was particularly offensive, advertisers deserted his program and he apologised to New Zealand’s leader. But at least Ardern didn’t have to ...
By Michael Andrew and Sri Krishnamurthi The true story of one of the Pacific’s great waka builders and sailor has been captured in a stirring and visually gripping documentary. Loimata: The Sweetest Tears follows the final years of Ema Siope, a Samoan born kiwi who endured a tumultuous past ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Benjamin Cowie, Director, WHO Collaborating Centre for Viral Hepatitis, The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity Around one-third of Australians living with hepatitis C have been cured in the last four years. Hepatitis means inflammation of the liver. Hepatitis C is ...
New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern. Image AsiaPacificReport.nz/RNZ.Commentators across the political spectrum seem to agree – the Labour-led Government’s popularity is being damaged by its failure to deliver in Jacinda Ardern’s self-proclaimed “Year of Delivery”. Instead, the delivery of bad news to Labour and the Government has come in ...
Internet Service Providers have cautiously greeted the news that the Government is exploring an internet filter for violent extremist and terrorist content. ...
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.Today’s content by Dr Bryce Edwards.Polls Richard Harman (Politik): Ardern now dependent on Peters Sam Sachdeva (Newsroom): Ardern still standing, but ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Greg Austin, Professor UNSW Canberra Cyber, UNSW This is part of a new series looking at the national security challenges facing Australia, how our leaders are responding to them and how these measures are impacting society. Read other stories in the series ...
Researchers from Lincoln University are investigating how to use nanotechnology in agriculture to increase productivity and reduce environmental impact. ...
The increased presence of anti-trans and white supremacist stickers around the University of Auckland campus is proof that inaction is enabling hate groups, write Anisha Sankar and Max Whitehurst.Anisha Sankar is a Chennai-born, Te Awakairangi-raised, South Indian Tamil studying at the University of Auckland. Max Whitehurst is a transgender Pākehā ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexander Gillespie, Professor of Law, University of Waikato Following the Christchurch mosque shootings, the New Zealand government’s first response was to ban the firearms the alleged gunman had used to murder 51 people. Seven months later, the second tranche of this process ...
The nine members for the next three year term of the Independent Māori Statutory Board (IMSB) for Auckland have been appointed by the statutory Selection Body. Their appointments begin on 1 November 2019 and continue to 31 October 2022. Mana Whenua ...
“If we are truly to solve the challenge of poverty within the Te Ao Maori world we must lift our people from the low wage and low skills growth side of the economy. At the same time we must continue to ensure our people, no matter where they are, ...
Alex Casey asks Rose Stewart from Family Planning every single question she can think of about New Zealand’s new free IUDs. Listen up, womb-owners who love free shit and long-term contraceptive options: Pharmac announced that they will be fully funding two new long-lasting, reversible contraceptives in New Zealand from November 1, ...
Patients are increasingly being turned away for treatment and there can be no more excuses from the Government over properly funding district health boards to boost specialist numbers in public hospitals, says Ian Powell, Executive Director of the ...
Today’s Council of Trade Unions’ report, Fair Pay Agreements: A Framework for Fairness , provides a much-needed pathway to fair wages and conditions across several major industries, and the Government must deliver on its promise to introduce FPAs ...
The Speaker has limited the number of questions Simon Bridges can ask in the House as a punishment for the National Party defying Trevor Mallard by not pulling down their attack ads. ...
Sunshine capital? Check. Rich artisan tradition? Check. Incredible sausages? That’s a big check. We’ve put together a list of all you need to know before you explore the truly gorgeous Nelson region this summer. If you’ve got friends or relatives visiting Aotearoa, top of their list should be sorting out their ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Frank Jotzo, Director, Centre for Climate and Energy Policy, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University In the four years since the Paris climate agreement was adopted, countries have debated the fine print of how emissions reduction should be tracked and ...
The flight drink company 1Above, partly-owned by the high profile, venture capital fund Movac and businessman Gareth Morgan, is in liquidation owing almost $10 million. ...
In recent weeks Responsible Campers Association Incorporated (RCAi) has become involved in some high level discussions about our right to camp. This began out of discussion about the disabled who which to participate in Sport and Recreation activities. ...
In their quest for a cashless society the Japanese have beaten New Zealand to its own next-gen shopping experience.New Zealanders are missing out to the Japanese on a Kiwi technology that is set to eliminate supermarket queues.The first store to implement the SmartCart cashierless shopping system will be in Osaka, ...
If you don’t like Shortland Street, or you’re unconvinced that Michael Galvin actually is a doctor, does that mean all New Zealand television is rubbish? Some say yes. Tara Ward says an emphatic no. The world is our TV oyster, but lately it seems not everyone in Godzone is feeling the ...
The National Party is accusing the Immigration Minister of a "Sroubek 2.0" after revelations he granted residence to a man with multiple drink-driving convictions. ...
Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu urges the Crown to ensure that the Establishment Board of the newly formed Institute of Skills and Technology meets its Treaty obligations and addresses the statutory role of iwi as Treaty partners in redesigning the education ...
The top-selling food magazine in New Zealand is closing its print operation. Niki Bezzant, Healthy Food Guide‘s former editor, reflects on the challenges the title faced.The news that after 14 years and 176 issues Healthy Food Guide magazine is closing its print operation came as a shock to some. It ...
A unique deal saw Sky buy the rugby rights and sell some of itself to NZ Rugby. Trevor McKewen breaks down what it all means.The news came thick and fast over a remarkable five-day corporate slugfest, starting last Thursday. First, Spark Sport struck, gobbling up New Zealand Cricket’s domestic broadcasting ...
In what’s thought to be the last piece of writing Peter Wells completed before he died, he wonders about his great-grandfather, and the locket he wore all his life. ‘The Story of a Locket’ is published in part here, and features in the extraordinary collection of essays Queer Objects, released this ...
Relationship expert Holly Dixon explains why the entire Married at First Sight franchise is based on bunk science.As the third MAFS NZ season has come to an end, I thought it relevant to answer the question upon which the entire MAFS enterprise is built: Is it possible to predict attraction and ...
SkyCity Casino workers will be on strike and picketing today as Rob Campbell, the Chair of SkyCity Casino talks to other employers about making pay fair at a “Wellbeing at Work” conference today. ...
He was the prototypical high school nerd, hanging on Don Brash’s every word. Then the financial world turned upside down. This is the story of how Kiwibank’s Jarrod Kerr became a most unconventional economist.In 2008, Jarrod Kerr was working at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia when the global financial crisis ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gabriela D’Souza, Affiliate, Monash department of business statistics and econometrics, Monash University For most people the second week in October probably doesn’t hold much promise. Longer days for some, perhaps. But for those is us in the economics profession, come the second ...
One of the important parameters of the agreement’s aims was to ensure there was no threat to food production from the ability to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change. ...
A monument to Winston Peters and Think Big projects would both boost the economy, but Argentina learned the hard way they can also impoverish a nation, writes Tony Burton.Everyone who loves New Zealand should visit Argentina. There are more similarities than you might think – large areas of wild natural ...
The Salvation Army foodbank in Waitakere ran out of food last week; an indication of the strain many New Zealand whanau are under as they struggle to afford the cost of living. Wednesday, October 16 is World Food Day, and as demand for services offered ...
Phil Goff was re-elected by a huge margin on Saturday. How will he put that mandate to use this term? Hayden Donnell asks the questions.Phil Goff is once again Auckland’s mayor. Preliminary local election results show him with a lead of nearly 100,000 votes over his nearest challenger, John Tamihere. ...
Catherine Bindon from Ban the Boom has created these colourful and positive posters for you to use to show you don't support the use of fireworks in your neighbourhood over the next few weeks distressing our animals and birds. ...
On Tuesday morning the Operation Burnham inquiry hearing resumed after it was suspended three weeks ago. The hearing is being held at Royal Society of New Zealand, 11 Turnbull St, Thorndon, Wellington on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Ellerton, Lecturer in Critical Thinking; Curriculum Director, UQ Critical Thinking Project, The University of Queensland It’s not uncommon for science and religion to be framed as two opposing forces. The Catholic church has famously struggled to accommodate scientific research in its ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cat Pausé, Senior Lecturer in Human Development, Massey University The British Psychological Society is calling for changes for how we talk about fatness, suggesting we should no longer use the phrase “obese people”, but instead, “people with obesity” or “people living with ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bruce Mountain, Director, Victoria Energy Policy Centre, Victoria University The federal government’s much-vaunted Snowy Hydro expansion is supposed to smooth out the bumps in electricity supply as Australia transitions to renewables. But not only is the project a bad deal for taxpayers, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By María Yanotti, Lecturer of Economics and Finance Tasmanian School of Business & Economics, University of Tasmania The housing market is moving again. In the past month, national prices have climbed 0.9%. What matters most to buyers (and especially to investors), along with ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joanna Mendelssohn, Principal Fellow (Hon), Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, University of Melbourne It seems appropriate that a painting titled Feng Shui dominates the new exhibition of Guan Wei’s work ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Justin Matthews, Lecturer in Digital Media and Popular Culture Researcher, Auckland University of Technology According to a recent study, the sixth leading cause of death for young men in the United States is the warranted and unwarranted use of police force. With ...
The Council of Trade Unions has today released its report - Fair Pay Agreements: A Framework for Fairness . The report details the six key principles needed for Fair Pay Agreements to deliver real change for working people, and democratic agreements ...
Too many New Zealanders endure poor working conditions in jobs that don’t pay enough and offer few opportunities for career progression, and the union movement is calling for change. ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says the latest polls which show a drop in support for Labour are not a concern when it comes to forming a government. ...
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: A pair of polls put pressure on the Labour Party, a wild night of weather in the North Island, and Shane Jones snapped brandishing a semi-automatic.Parliament resumes today after a fortnight recess, and MPs were given a welcome-back present in ...
Mandy Hager, the newly elected head of the New Zealand Society of Authors, is lobbying the government to improve the lot of writers - to no avail, despite the Prime Minister's championing of the arts. ...
Given the vast impacts that poor diet have had on global health, a deficit in nutrition education in medicine represents a big problem, writes Dr Jennifer Crowley. ...
Any time Olympian Luuka Jones needs advice or encouragement in her pursuit of more canoe slalom success, she doesn’t have to look far. Jones’ coach, Campbell Walsh, is also her partner. ...
Competition for the rights to broadcast sports matches involving NZ’s top teams has produced a bonanza for the sporting bodies, forcing media companies to be a lot more innovative. ...
The Wellington suburb’s successful opposition to a proposed Bottle-O shows how the system is biased towards communities with the organisation, capacity and resources to protest effectively, says Jenesa Jeram.For those unfamiliar with Wellington geography, Khandallah is a Very Nice place to live (Aucklanders: think Remuera). So when it was reported ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Humphery-Jenner, Associate Professor of Finance, UNSW The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission conducted an inquiry into mortgage pricing as recently as last year. Now Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has asked it to do another, broader one, in order to ensure the banks’ ...
Dr Bryce EdwardsThe results of the local government elections appear to show that New Zealanders are generally supportive of a more diverse range of representatives, having voted in greater numbers for candidates from traditionally under-represented groups. The elections have therefore modernised our councils in a small but very significant ...
Open Mike 24/01/2019 
Thanks to a report from the Acting Inspector General of Intelligence and Security following a complaint by Nicky Hager, we have come to find out that the SIS illegally spied on Mr. Hager on behalf of the NZDF after publication of Hager’s 2011 book, Other People’s Wars. The NZDF justified ...13 hours ago
COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING MYTH 1: Global temperatures are rising at a rapid, unprecedented rate. FACT: The HadCRUT3 surface temperature index, produced by the Hadley Centre of the UK Met Office and the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia, shows warming to 1878, cooling to 1911, ...15 hours ago
For the past week, Extinction Rebellion has been peacefully protesting in London to demand action on climate change. The British government's response? Ban their protests:Police have banned Extinction Rebellion protests from continuing anywhere in London, as they moved in almost without warning to clear protesters who remained at the movement’s ...15 hours ago
The Royal Commission on abuse in care is very significant for the disability community. For many decades last century, thousands of disabled children, and adults who managed to survive, were locked away from families and communities. This was not for anything they had done, but for the perceived threat their ...20 hours ago
More than double the number of people who will vote in this year’s local body elections have tried marijuana or urinated somewhere they shouldn’t have. As local elections look set for the lowest turnout in decades, with many regions falling well short of 40%, the Government is exploring a number ...4 days ago
“There can be no such thing as kaupapa Māori political parties or politics in Aotearoa” (Willie Jackson, Labour Party (2017). Māori TV, General/List Election Special) I begin with that claim because at the time, I was confounded at first that it fell out of Willie Jackson’s mouth, and then ...5 days ago
https://mailchi.mp/7d9133add053/closing-the-gap-october-2019-newsletter ...6 days ago
For some reasons, my post about the mystery message from inside the Downing Street bunker seemed to catch people's attention. Quite a lot of hits from NZ (unsurprisingly) and the USA (a bit more puzzlingly, but hi there, USAians!!) and 76 views from the Ukraine.I've celebrated my Ukrainian readers in ...6 days ago
Local government elections are upon us again. It is a fair bet that, when they are over, we will have all the usual complaints that, despite their undoubted importance, the turnout was depressingly low. So, why do local elections attract so little attention and involvement from the general public? I ...2 weeks ago
We want every New Zealander to be happy, safe, and healthy. To do this, we need to support strong, safe communities, and a robust and efficient health system. ...15 hours ago
Defence Minister Ron Mark has used his powers to overrule a noise complaint ruling against Whenuapai airbase on the grounds of "national security". The Environment Court last month released a ruling in favour of a private developer, declaring the Auckland airbase had to comply with noise restrictions when it performs ...16 hours ago
Ladies and gentlemen, NZCTU President Richard Wagstaff, members of respective unions – thank you for the invitation to speak to you today. This might be preaching to the choir, but the importance of trade unions in New Zealand’s historical arch is difficult to understate. And it is my belief that ...17 hours ago
It’s the end of an era at Three as MAFS NZ and Guy Williams’ new show canceled and 7 Days cut to bone, writes Duncan Greive.A trio of shows which have been amongst Three’s most important local productions are either being canceled or severely cut back, as the channel’s agonising ...21 mins ago
Zhang Jun looks at how China can move beyond imitating its more developed counterparts to leading the world in innovation. ...45 mins ago
After two bad polls, Jacinda Ardern was greeted by a friendly crowd of unionists - but one eager for faster and greater progress. ...45 mins ago
'Joker' expects viewers not only to understand its cruelty, but to understand the justified violence of a white man when the protests of black men and women in the US are regularly met with condemnation, vilification and exclusion. ...45 mins ago
She runs the women's Aussie Rules and netball programmes at one of Australia's oldest sports clubs, so why is Jane Woodlands-Thompson sitting on the Silver Ferns bench? ...45 mins ago
Is the Government going soft on its so-called Electric Vehicles pledge? The University of Auckland's Basil Sharp doesn't think so. ...45 mins ago
Volunteer drug testers must tip-toe around a legal grey area to be able to spell out the risks of drug-taking to festival-goers. ...1 hour ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The last PM shock jock Alan Jones slapped down was Jacinda Ardern. His language was particularly offensive, advertisers deserted his program and he apologised to New Zealand’s leader. But at least Ardern didn’t have to ...8 hours ago
Internet Service Providers have cautiously greeted the news that the Government is exploring an internet filter for violent extremist and terrorist content. ...11 hours ago
The proceeds from the sale of Trump-style "Make Ardern Go Away" hats are being used to promote far right Facebook pages. ...13 hours ago
Support has risen for the general arming of police officers in the wake of March 15, but the police minister is opposed. ...13 hours ago
Researchers from Lincoln University are investigating how to use nanotechnology in agriculture to increase productivity and reduce environmental impact. ...13 hours ago
Information spread by the Coalition of Licenced Firearms Owners (COLFO) and picked up by ACT’s David Seymour is incorrect. ...14 hours ago
The Speaker has limited the number of questions Simon Bridges can ask in the House as a punishment for the National Party defying Trevor Mallard by not pulling down their attack ads. ...15 hours ago
The real estate market has sprung back into life, but national sales volumes were flat. ...16 hours ago
The flight drink company 1Above, partly-owned by the high profile, venture capital fund Movac and businessman Gareth Morgan, is in liquidation owing almost $10 million. ...16 hours ago
Mandy Hager, the newly elected head of the New Zealand Society of Authors, is lobbying the government to improve the lot of writers - to no avail, despite the Prime Minister's championing of the arts. ...23 hours ago
An ancient Polynesian form of resource management is helping rejuvenate areas in the Cook Islands. ...1 day ago
Competition for the rights to broadcast sports matches involving NZ’s top teams has produced a bonanza for the sporting bodies, forcing media companies to be a lot more innovative. ...1 day ago
Ongoing drama surrounds the Māui and Hector's dolphin threat management plan, with worries key information is not being made public promptly. ...1 day ago
Is Jacindamania dead and buried? Not quite yet, but the Prime Minister has good cause for concern. ...1 day ago
Well Andrea Vance wasn’t taking any prisoners…
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/110099964/former-nz-rugby-boss-david-moffett-now-tackling-populist-politics
And Moffett wasn’t doing himself any favours.
Who knew oppugnant is a real word?? “Moffett, 71, burst onto the political scene late last year, raging on Twitter at “traitorous” Jacinda Ardern, and calling German Chancellor Angela Merkel “a thoroughly detestable excuse for a human being.” He’s been trolling both sides of the discourse – baiting ACT leader David Seymour and left wing blogger Martyn Bradbury.”
Attacking both left & right is an excellent strategy. Lots of kiwi voters want something less banal – but I can’t see him providing anything better. He’s the right age to be politically successful: geriatrics are the latest trend in politics.
“He is primarily concerned with migration, climate change and gender politics. They are all touchstones of the populist right-wing movement sweeping the Western world, a backlash to political establishment thinking.” Alienated mainstreamers can be equated with conservatives, and we know Labour are handicapped by gender politics as much as National are handicapped by immigration-addiction. So he’s onto a viable constituency, no doubt about that.
She asks “is David Moffett, once a referee, the man to kick it off?” A referee succeeds via the ability to judge the errors of both sides accurately. If he applies that self-discipline, he will succeed. “But, ask him to flesh out his ideas, and he is ill-prepared, his ideology both thin and confused: at one point he claims to be “a centrist”. Journalists have considerable difficulty comprehending centrism. Vance is not claiming to be any smarter than the pack. The notion that folks are reluctant to identify with morons on the left and morons on the right is too sophisticated for journalists to grasp.
Cool story bro.
‘…geriatrics are the latest trend in politics.’. If so there is a problem here as more and more are not dying till they are 90+. The young need to come to the fore, with elders to give them wisdom and background, but not lay on them their lifetime of unthinking prejudices which seem to crystallise into a hard mass in old age. Mix that with the onset of senile dementia bringing paranoia and confused emotions and the ability to plan for a viable future for now struggling young people is on the road to derailment.
A thought comes to mind of a recent report on one of Monarch Butterfly farmers’plight. They had a tunnel house with about 300 advanced in their development or ready to fly. Next morning he found half of them on the floor and one paper wasp as he said ‘ stinging in a frenzy’. He killed that wasp but only about half of them recovered. If we let old diehards kill off the humane policies and change the direction for our society and culture in their narrow, wilful ignorance, then our young ones can’t and won’t have the means to cope with climate and world corrupt economic direction, so they can thrive to full development of their lives.
All this time we’ve been waiting for a moron in the muddle franky.
Bennett’s being panned as well.
“When National’s newly minted spokeswoman of drug reform Paula Bennett was asked if she had partaken of marijuana, Bennett said she had but it did not agree with her.
It made her fall asleep.
This is valuable intel for her colleagues and rivals alike, should there be an occasion they would prefer her to be out of action. The pro-pot brigade must be tempted.
Recipes for marijuana cookies can be found online.”
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=12194937
Bennett’s nonsense has pushed Pete George over the edge:
” I for one am moving further from voting National than I have been for a decade.”
A whiter shade of beige?
The historical histrionics of one individual (MP) should not be conflated with those of a rudderless ruthless party that has thrown its moral compass overboard long time ago. Parties comprise a number (sometimes just one) individuals but they are not these individuals; the whole is always different from the sum of its parts.
Robert G
Marijuana cookies are to be the new panacea, the cure for all our ills? Bring them on.
On the plus side, it helped her forget her past.
I’d expect ‘she’ gets regular reminders…
The woman’s an idiot . She reckons shes never meet anyone successful that smokes regularly.
There is so many answers to that shit .
It illegal so they probably keep it on the down low
In my experience uptight people don’t like weed as it spins there cogs to fast .
Her definition of success is people who are cunts who have back stabbed and shit on people while amassing power and money .who aren’t typically pot smokers.
When you need to cite a discredited report on the legalising of marijuana, as Bennett did, you can see where this will be going with National.
Twyford spills a revelation: “The reason the KiwiBuild was so far behind schedule was because the buying the plans scheme had hit a snag, he said.”
This notion that governments can be derailed by a snag is probably new to people, I suspect. I don’t recall it being advanced previously, so I suppose I must congratulate Twyford on his ingenuity. “Twyford’s admission comes after a report from the NZ Initiative which called KiwiBuild a “massive political and bureaucratic distraction”. It also comes just a week after the head of KiwiBuild, Stephen Barclay, resigned from the role after an employment dispute. A spokesman for Barclay said the decision to leave KiwiBuild “was not his decision”.”
Right, so he got pushed. Notice Twyford isn’t explaining why. “Asked about the resignation, Twyford again said it was an employment dispute and “there were lawyers involved”. “The reason I have been unwilling and unable to comment over the last couple of months is because it would be unwise of me to wade publically into a legal dispute where my comments would risk prejudicing the interests of either, or both parties.”
But hey, that’s just an evasion. He knows the resignation has made his excuse invalid. He’s assuming the reporter is too stupid to figure this out. His gamble paid off: the reporter did fail to figure it out. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=12195042
He’s already built more homes that National ever or would of. So vote Green,they’d build more that both main parties, and nzf.
I’ve voted Green ten general elections consecutively, starting in 1990 when the Green Party was formed (I became part of the Green movement in 1968). 👍
The problem with Kiwibuild is simple. Twyford – and Labour – simply did not realise how much down the path Bill English had gotten in his rigid ideological agenda to drown government in the bathtub in a relentless pursuit of smaller government, less regulation and a surplus on top of tax cuts for the rich.
So not only had National completely abandoned housing to the charitable sector in an attempt to turn the clock back to the 1920s, it had systematically defunded and crippled the governments capacity to do anything constructive even if it wanted to, and willfully and deliberately not even collected any data on the problem so it could engage in a crass and stupid game of political denialism rather than debate the crisis it had created.
To make things worse, this is a mangerialist neloiberal Labour government that simply doesn’t have the guts to do what has to be done when confronted with the housing catastrophe bequeathed it by National – that his, a massive housing program funded and built by the state using a state organisation to offer cheap morgages to new home buyers.
So Twyford has been left frantically pulling levers that were disconnected ages ago, for a problem whose size he didn’t realise, and relying on a grotesquely inefficient and self-serving private building and banking sector to do him a favour.
Twford is using all levers he’s got and inventing others.
No lack of guts. But the big HNZ builds under HLC take a couple of years.
No othet Minister has tried to face the housing market in 20+years.
He won’t fail.
He already has.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2019/01/kiwibuild-houses-might-not-end-up-with-first-home-buyers.html
20 years? Won’t the boomer population being busting or downsizing, inevitably rebalancing some of the short fall. Labour just needs to force greater up rather than out and create a much more diverse housing market, greater choice, in the 20+ timeframe.
Labour new exactly what the situation was, and if they didn’t they are incompetent. They simply over promised to win votes. Now chickens are roosting.
So they should be condemned because they are not fixing National’s mess as quickly as they thought they could?
That would be unfair. If at first you don’t succeed, try again. But what irritates me is the failure to account, to explain. Twyford’s deployment of the ole mushroom strategy of public relations (keep ’em in the dark & feed ’em horseshit) will only be swallowed by the Labour base.
Everyone else will know he’s trying to get away with insulting their intelligence. That’s no way to win friends and impress people. It’s no way to build market share – grow the Labour vote. Just dumb.
Instead of trying to hide what’s gone wrong, he ought to explain it fully. If the problem lies in his instructions to the public servants, admit that. People would respect his honesty. More likely the problem lies in public service advice. Why, then, assume that he ought to cover that up? What is so hard about the notion of accountability, that Labour folk just can’t ever seem to get??
Is it is true the government spent 2 billion on building 33 houses?
Even a fraction of that spend on such a few houses is pathetic.
As usual the money is going on disputes and politics and slush funds rather than building houses for people who genuinely need them…
No wonder construction is such a big issue in NZ now, some people are getting extremely wealthy from Kiwibuild but I don’t think it is the homeless or the taxpayers.
Also how can they justify $500,000 for 40m2 as being reported for the 1 bedroom apartments?
That is mansion prices of $12,500 m2 build price when low cost builders are charging $2,500m2..
So they spend 2 billion of tax payers money on subsidies, have swapped land and have also somehow got one of the highest build prices too???
A royal fuck up that no amount of justification can really explain. The screw up is well beyound Twyford, Labour are lazy on this issue and using Rogernomics with woke left thinking to create a massive fuck up that serves nobody.
This is what you can get for a build price of $344,000 – aka a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom beautiful property that is built within months and relocated to a a site… so no wonder they can’t tempt first home buyers with over priced offerings that are up to 6 times higher than open market prices.
This is an example of $2,646m2…
https://www.trademe.co.nz/property/residential-property-for-sale/auction-1859514224.htm?rsqid=5044875d4d5042a0999727b85de9fec2
The government have also not worked out that part of the problem is that people in NZ are now so poor, in particular those working aka the working poor that after living expenses there is little chance they could save for a property…
Not only that they are now competing with 100,000’s of new residents from everything to jobs and wages, to rental properties and the 100,000’s of new residents have a lot more money to begin with in many cases after paying $40k to people traffickers to get visas to get here while the government actually is actually like construction, listening to the lobbyists who are profiting from the fuck up, and then making things worse, aka the new loosening of visas and giving the people traffickers more options to attract more people here to profit from…
very misleading dear SaveNZ>
this is what you can find for 344.000 $ in
221 Hannon Road, Cambridge, Waipa, Waikato
Cambridge, that bastion of jobs.
now please show us what you can find in AKL for that money, a town in which you at least have a fighting chance to a full time job.
Because you can find cheaper elsewhere, to be honest. I found my retirment property for 100.000 grand in the middle of nowhere where you only live when you don’t have to work for a living anymore.
Now, all you need is the piece of dirt.
Here’s one out west in Kumeu
Offers from $495,000 ~ NO Covenants!
[…]
637m2
https://www.trademe.co.nz/property/residential/sections-for-sale/auction-1872190664.htm?rsqid=2d39cd9e7f494abd97bf4269581dbcc7
What about the vineyard sprays. Do they have fosts there – suppose not.
There are two possibilities:
1. Labour made promises they knew they couldn’t keep, which means they are dishonest.
2. Labour made promises they thought they could keep, despite evidence and advice to the contrary, which means they are incompetent.
Providing middle class couples with high earning potential with housing is not fixing anything.
When did they actually ( promise ) Shady ? citation needed.
Announcing you are going to do something is now not a promise?
Does this mean Key is off the hook for Pike river?
It’s a very silly question, but I’ll indulge you.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2019/01/housing-minister-phil-twyford-admits-he-can-t-deliver-on-kiwibuild-promise.html
So you couldn’t prove it was a promise, thought so. An aim or target is not a promise. I guess you believe everything you see on that right wing outfit newshub. You are just another boring tory troll. You should get out more.
So you missed the bit that said ‘Phil Twyford admits he can’t deliver on Kiwibuild PROMISE’?
How about this:
“The promise was to build 100,000 affordable homes, but the word ‘build’ has gone by the wayside.”
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2018/05/will-kiwibuild-be-another-broken-promise-by-the-government.html
Houses failing to sell on the ballot.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/108834461/only-seven-wanaka-kiwibuild-homes-sell-from-ballot
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12171924
House prices being unaffordable for first home buyers.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/357524/kiwibuild-homes-now-unobtainable-for-many
Houses being sold to non first home buyers.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2019/01/kiwibuild-houses-might-not-end-up-with-first-home-buyers.html
Houses being sold to high income earners.
Houses being purchased off the plans.
Houses not being built at all.
Kiwibuild is a Clusterf^&k of huge proportions.
Only for impatient lazy thickheaded dickheads like you.
By way of comparison, perhaps you’d like to dig out John Key’s statements about a crisis in housing from 2008, and the amount of houses that his government would build using market forces. Then compare it with what actually got built compared to nett population increases. Look at the rise in housing prices, mainly due to massive increases in nett inwards migration compared to a nett deficit in housing builds against just the natural increases.
Labour is actually trying to do something – which is more than the lazy incompetents from National even tried to do over 9 years.
The construction industry in NZ is a mess. It will take a few years to fix.
Wow, I have touched a nerve. There is nothing lazy about my post. It is a summary of commitments made by Labour that they have flip flopped over. Did you seriously expect kiwibuild Houses to be sold to my dale class professionals? To be so expensive? To fail so miserably at selling off the ballot?
Kiwibuild is an expensive flop. And the passage of time will not turn this pigs ear into a sows purse.
Btw
I am on record criticising Nationals record. My view is the primary responsibility for Aucklands housing problems rests with Auckland Council, but National day on their hands for 9 years when they should have done a lot more.
Ha Ha Shady, Nice try. Obviously you don’t know what Citation Needed means. Just YOU show a how Twyford promised . Perhaps you should Google Citation Needed, you may learn something. waiting waiting. Have a nice day.
I gave you citations. Promises were made. Promises that have been broken.
All promises. All broken.
Here’s more for you Rod, direct from the Labour Party Website:
https://www.labour.org.nz/kiwibuild
“KiwiBuild homes will only be sold to first home buyers.”
Really? https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2019/01/kiwibuild-houses-might-not-end-up-with-first-home-buyers.html
“To avoid buyers reaping windfall gains, a condition of sale will require them to hand back any capital gain if sold on within 5 years.”
Really? https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12156833
“The stand-alone KiwiBuild homes in Auckland will be priced at $500,000-$600,000 with apartments and terraced houses under $500,000. ”
Really? https://www.interest.co.nz/property/96240/even-kiwibuild-homes-are-likely-be-beyond-reach-many-first-homes-buyers-if-they-dont
Shall I continue?
[lprent: Yes – try researching national party policy from 2008 on housing compared to actual results on accommodation vs population during their term against population. I’m sure that you will be fascinated by the results.
Simply put, your link comments look like simple plagiarizing of someone else’s links without any obvious ability to think or expression of your own thoughts. So if you can’t show that it is your own work by demonstrating some research techniques, then I will give you a astroturfing troll ban – maybe permanent if I look back and find that we’ve pulled you up on this before. ]
Plagiarising? Here’s how I ‘researched’ the post. I googled ‘kiwibuild, labour party’. The link I quoted is in the public domain. I then googled each item and found evidence of broken promises, the point of my discussion with Rod. Not that complicated, because the governments performance in this is shite.
No promises have been broken as they weren’t promises in the first place. They were aims and targets. Unless you can give me a speech by Twyford actually saying I Promise all these targets will be met, your argument is worthless. Your so called Citations in headlines by Zane Small and Jenna Lynch from Newshub are laughable. So you didn’t Google Citations Needed? perhaps you did but didn’t like what you read. Teacher says You really should try harder Shadrach.
“KiwiBuild homes will only be sold to first home buyers”
“The stand-alone KiwiBuild homes in Auckland will be priced at $500,000-$600,000 with apartments and terraced houses under $500,000. ”
“To avoid buyers reaping windfall gains, a condition of sale will require them to hand back any capital gain if sold on within 5 years.”
Will be…
Will be…
Will only be…
These are all promises. You clearly need a lesson in comprehension.
Enabling the scam that shuts working/middle class out of the realistic possibility of home ownership is worse.
What scam?
the scam of purposely encouraging global based speculation in the national property market to the known detriment of a huge swath of the population they were nominally representing, compounded by the ongoing obfuscation.
Foreign ownership is not a scam. It is common internationally, and many NZ’ers own land in other countries.
when it it is to the detriment of the local population (and obfuscated) it is a scam…and the main mechanism is also foreign owned….that and the scale would be difficult to find replicated elsewhere….its amazing they managed to avoid the fallout for as long as they did.
A ‘scam’ is a fraudulent or deceptive act or operation. Permitting foreign ownership of property is neither fraudulent nor deceptive, and is policy that has been followed by successive governments, including the current one.
“A ‘scam’ is a fraudulent or deceptive act or operation”
Isnt it just…and the fact you wish to paint what has occurred as simply ‘common typical foreign investment’ is disingenuous in the extreme….what was perpetrated was anything but …..and sold exactly as you attempt.
There has been nothing fraudulent or deceptive. Foreign ownership is common for property. And continues to be so. Which part of that do you not understand?
You appear to be the one incapable of understanding, and myopically obsessed about foreign ownership….something you may note i never mentioned.
Things may become a little clearer to you if you actually read what I wrote rather than continuing with your own obsession
“…something you may note i never mentioned.“
You said ‘global based speculation’. What on earth did you mean if not foreign ownership? You seem to have a problem with ‘others’ owning property in NZ. That’s both myopic and marginally xenophobic.
National continued that oath that labour was transversing, to be so simplistic as to blame only national makes one wonder ….
Many in the industry can see the problems that are now starting to surface.
Remember it was kiwi BUILD and the govt was to save money with its volume in building houses, not being a middle man for buyers and developers.
Building for young rich wasn’t the solution – building state houses imo is.
As Kenny Rogers is well out it “you’ve got to know when to hold’em
Know when to fold ‘em”
Kiwibuild as it exists falls into the latter as a solution
They should be held accountable for making promises that were unrealistic to begin with.
Like others were held accountable when they said ‘We will not raise GST’ and then raised GST
https://www.newshub.co.nz/general/key-denies-flip-flop-over-gst-increase–2010021017
National’ tax cuts were the biggest scam out, cut the taxes for the welthy then raise GST for the poor ?
Key said he’d resign if it could be proved that New Zealand spy agencies had spied on New Zealand citizens.
Did you hold him to account for that?
Yes he should resign immediately from Parliament.
You really are the most appalling hypocrite.
Go and watch Fox and Friends, you dope.
What does that make National then Shardrach
National don’t have my support in all this. They sat on their hands and did too little too late. But so did their Labour predecessors. However the main fault rests with Auckland Council.
Labour hands are somewhat tiedby being in coalition. National had no such excuse, it was stacking people in hotels.
He seems willing to try absolutely anything apart from hiring actual builders to build actual houses.
Funny enough builders and consultants and god knows how many other people have taken the 2 billion, but at the end of the day the actual builders sounds like they were recruited with low wage tenders with massive subcontracting of various other tradies, combined with poor planning and a lot of political interference!
The government housing goals seems to be around MSM photo opportunities for local and central government and hiding all the problems.
Like the Natz, Labour is learning that you can’t just hoodwink the population for ever because people can work out that there aint any houses coming out of the process and they cost a fortune are grossly overpriced when they are sold on.
But actually that is not the main problem. The problem is that increasing demand from lazy immigration.. which is getting lower and lower quality people into NZ who need housing and assistance and more and more sophisticated scams of profit from that goal from middle men and immigration lawyers.
Even if Kiwibuild had gone smoothly and they got the 1000 houses, how is that even going to house 129,000 new permanent resident/citizens last year plus 150,000 new residents on work permits and 4 million tourists?
The maths doesn’t work, and never did.
Well hopefully the whole 2 bill isn’t gone yet savey. Unless Stevey Barclay’s severance package was a doozy.
Construction is not the only issue that is proving difficult.
For example new resident teachers are complaining they can’t find work, while there is a shortage….
The lack of cohesive approach from government is concerning and like building, they fail to grasp the nuances of the situation from both the teachers and the schools what they are looking for and the general dysfunctional situation in NZ when we have people who can’t find work in shortages but the government is reluctant to address the systematic issues facing NZ employment and instead thinks they will recruit more and more fresh bodies from overseas while our jobseekers go up and up?
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/109441817/teacher-shortage-or-not–i-still-cant-get-work
He doesn’t need to hire anyone. The private sector is perfectly capable of building the houses (eg Pokeno). The problem is the Auckland Council, who have failed to allow the city to sprawl, hence the rising cost of land and shortage of supply.
Only time I’ve seen someone bold enough to claim that sprawl is a good thing.
Sprawl is a good thing.
Spawl leads to investment in new infrastructure. Intensification leads to the breakdown of old infrastructure.
Sprawl leads to properly planned communities, with modern community facilities. Intensification leads to overcrowded schools and children locked in match box houses.
Sprawl reduces land costs, making housing more affordable on a comparative psm basis.
Auckland is ideally placed to sprawl. This has not been allowed to happen to the extent it feasibly could because of the incompetence of Auckland City.
yep, lets build future slums on prime agricultural land.
makes perfect sense……more sprawl needs the world, more roads, more car, more pollution, more more more
What would all those urban planning professionals know anyway, right.
Well I hear that Auckland university closed the planning and architecture specialists library, so they clearly don’t value that course. Luckily the Law library was saved for the lawyers of which NZ has already a 25% surplus of lawyers beyond countries like the UK, because lawyers are such a productive lot in NZ moving the country forwards!!! sarcasm
If you focus the growth of Auckland to the North and North West you will avoid any prime agricultural land.
@ Gosman, Good idea, (sarcasm) I hear there is little public transport that is usable there and takes hours from the housing estates through the one road, but there is plenty of spec houses costing around 1 million which isn’t exactly affordable for the people that the housing crisis is actually effecting… lucky (sarcasm) it seems aimed at richer new residents families who don’t need to work in NZ and just costing those who are working and poorer who need to commute to work even more to get by and pay for the folly.
Then spend some money improving the public transport infrastructure there. Perhaps by getting access to some of the funds from all the development that will be taking place. And if you allow lots of houses to be built then the average price of them will likely come down. It is called the law of supply and demand. Increase supply and the price tends to drop if demand stays the same.
Public Transport Planning under both National & Labour over the past 30-40 years has been a big joke IMHO.
Ironic that the guy narrating that video is a foreigner.
I’ve noticed that the foreigners are trying to warn NZ the most about what is going on, while the woke lefties kiwi middle class political and media types flagellate the white male of whom they generally are themselves in some sort of irony. Maybe helps in the talk fest sessions to gain credibility??? Aka I’m white male and I know I’m the problem.
You hardly even see the foreigners thinking white pakeha are the scorge of all sins, in fact they seem to be coming to NZ in droves because their country has been destroyed by pollution and corruption or bad choices … sadly among them are the people and events they are trying to warn the Kiwi’s about… aka dowry scams or housing Ponzi schemes that Kiwi politicians and commentators seem oblivious to what is before their own eyes, aka plenty of empty houses but at a price point or in a location that does not suit working people of NZ.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12123831
Mayor Bob Harvey was always clear he wanted a coupe of thousand hectares in the north west zoned for residential. The Regional Council stopped it. That decision prevented thousands of houses being built over the last 15 years.
Do you really think Pokeno is a ‘future slum’? The only future slums are Auckland’s inner suburb high density projects.
On the surface shaddy, what you claim looks like crap. Dig down deeper, and it’s steaming crap.
Which is why you can not contribute a single point of rebuttal.
It was great when it took the Auckland councillors 4 hours to get in and out of west Auckland for a short journey. What a bonus to the country when we have no new infrastructure and no old infrastructure either and are borrowing more and more money in some sort of Ponzi to lower productivity and increase those on jobseeker benefits! Go NZ!!!
@Shadrach, that right wing argument strikes again. Problem is you can’t get around Auckland due to the congestion from this urban sprawl, the developers are not paying or the money is disappearing to pay for the new roads and public transport and it will take decades to sort out while productivity and living standards in Auckland plummet, our beaches are being closed because they are full of dog, human poop and diesel run off from development, air pollution increasing, and taxes like petrol and more rates are hitting the poorest the most.
The point is supposed to be that central and local government should be committed to improving living standards and business productivity not running pronzis to benefit the chosen few. Everything being promoted by MSM and government (mostly immigration and urban sprawl) is causing the opposite and increased poverty and homelessness, which at the current massive population growth figures (with Jobseekers rising at the same time aka the idea that everyone is employed seems to be false) showing what is really the issue.
The government and councils need to plan the infrastructure and get it rolled out before the put in the people or you get a train wreck like Auckland has become. (And now Wellington, with high rentals, more people and dysfunctional public transport and soon they will create an exodus out of Wellington of local working people just like Auckland and Queenstown.
Actually you can get around Auckland. Any congestion is caused by intensification, not sprawl. In Pokeno the infrastructure was all included by the development partners, who sensibly built adjacent to a main arterial between Auckland and Hamilton.
Yep. We need the Labour Party of the 1930s. Strong enough to do what needs to be done using new ideas.
Instead we’ve got the weak version of the 1980s Labour government.
Encouraging to hear from Davos how hard the PM is driving 2019 budget bids according to demonstrable anti-poverty long term outcomes.
“what gets measured gets done” -Ardern
Looks like a fascinating budget framework to come.
I am sick to death of people trashing Twyford and kiwibuild. I want those house built for the middle class (that doesn’t mean I don’t want social housing too, I think it is an even greater priority). But I want those young kids who likely have some sort of student loan to be able to get their own house. The principle is that these young kids have had to compete with mum and dad investors and speculators and didn’t stand a chance. The scheme is great. National are throwing everything they can at it , the media have jumped on the bandwagon and so the narrative forms that kiwi build is a dog.
Rome wasn’t built in a day ffs……
And no other Minister has tried to tilt real estate like this in 20+ years.
60 years ago it was a different story.
THE HOUSING SITUATION.—The number of new houses and flats constructed each year has, approximately doubled since the pre-war period. A peak of 19,200 was reached in each of the years ended 31 March 1956 and 31 March 1957. The total dropped back a little to 18,600 in the year ended 31 March 1958. This rate of house building in relation to population is higher than in most countries. Over 80 per cent of the houses built at present are for private home ownership.
There was a fairly rapid expansion in house building from 1945 to 1951, when there was a noticeable levelling-off at just over 16,000 houses each year. In August 1953 the Government convened a National Housing Conference for the purpose of surveying the general housing situation in New Zealand and investigating ways and means of implementing the Government’s housing policy of promoting the building of more houses at a reasonable cost. The conference was attended by builders and others directly associated with the building industry, and also by employers, workers, welfare organizations, local bodies, organizations interested in housing finance, and other sections of the public. Every aspect of housing was discussed, and action taken on the resolutions adopted by the conference helped to effect a further expansion in house building to the present level. The conference assessed the extent of the housing shortage and set a number of 206,000 houses in ten years as a target to overcome the shortage and provide for the increase in population expected from both natural increase and immigration. This target represented an increase of 25 per cent in the building rate. A National Housing Council was also set up.
The most noteworthy development in house building which has resulted has been the group building scheme. This scheme has been designed to give builders continuity of work, to reduce non-productive time between the finishing of one house and the starting of the next, and to assist builders in administration and supervision by enabling them to build houses for sale in groups. Plans and specifications are checked by the State Advances Corporation, which also inspects the work and, on behalf of the Government, gives an undertaking to take over at approved prices a specified number of any unsold houses. At 31 December 1958 there were 490 builders participating in the scheme, and 12,415 houses had been programmed; of these 9,785 had been completed and sold, and 675 were under construction.
https://www3.stats.govt.nz/New_Zealand_Official_Yearbooks/1959/Images/fig650_1.jpg
https://www3.stats.govt.nz/New_Zealand_Official_Yearbooks/1959/NZOYB_1959.html?_ga=2.49151718.1350318812.1548243308-443778311.1515815050#idchapter_1_211608
We’ll never go back to that.
It’s gone.
The ability to do more with less is always open.
Twyford has been truthful. so Gnats bring out the knives. Funny that.
Social housing is happening, but as the Minister said ”It will take time to ramp up”
Twyford has all the resources of the state behind him.
He set the target, starting 1 July 2018 and going through to 30 June 2019. The start date was nearly 8 months after the government was formed. No-one expected 10,000 houses in year one, but 1,000 seemed reasonable. Presumably he had advice on the target, he didn’t just pluck it out of thin air. He has failed on that, not just by a little, but by a lot.
So yes, he will be called to account by the media and the opposition on his failure. Frankly, I am surprised that the miss is going to be so big. I would have expected at least 800 houses. Northcote and Tamaki have been ready to go for quite a while. But progress on both sites seems pretty slow.
300 houses is a huge win Wayne, compared to the minus zero houses that National built in 9 years.
Following that logic Kiwibuild would be a great success if but one house was built under the programme. Unfortunately for you that is not how people usually decide the success of failure of something. It is usually done off what was planned not what was happening before.
Wayne, for gnat you are usually reasonable,
”All the resources of the State behind him”
That is not true, he had some resources, the programme isn’t on a war footing.
National had spent 9 years working towards small government. (underfunding)
That meant, the private builders were undercutting each other, bringing in migrant labour, not investing in training , not keeping sites from polluting, and building for overseas buyers who wanted Mc Mansions, which they left empty as investments.
Now Phil has built ‘First owner homes.’ Modest but modern. Banned overseas nonresident buyers, and the market has slowed by 20%, but not lost value.
2 problems for Kiwibuild. An employment dispute, and ramping up selling off the plan which wasn’t popular.
So he fronts up. WOW!! A Minister fronts up and tells of delays. He is honest.
We are so used to lies and Ministers throwing others under the bus. So National with Judith as Housing spokesperson. will try to gain the moral high ground… very difficult with her China links and past demotion by Key.
Sorry Wayn’o,
But this time, you really need to pull your head out of your own ass this time!
Who bugged up all the trade training and farm Cadetship in the 90’s?
Who flog off MoW, Railways and shut down the Railway Workshops IOT to flog it off?
Who made trainees take out student loans, while the same destroyed working conditions, workers safety through the ECA?
Who reduce building standards and made it easy for employers/ companies to hire overseas tradies instead of investing in the NZers?
Yes Wayne the rot started with you muppets in the “No Mates Party” with those stupid decisions that you lot did in the 90’s, are the result of the current shit fight we have atm across all sectors of NZ’s economy.
To undo the massive damage you lot did is going to take yrs to do, but unless someone takes ownership of it. It going to keep on happening because of you dickheads and just take for example the recovery of CHCH earthquakes and the recovery of Napier or similar areas.
Ok, but why do you want young people in debt to get their own house that they’ll most likely be vacating in a few years as their careers evolve or their relationships fall apart? Wouldn’t they be better served by cheap rentals?
+1 Gabby
Democracy, Trust and Legitimacy by Simon Longstaff. A very good paper on (Australian) Parliament that equally applies to NZ or many other countries for that matter.
He makes a few nice comments about the machinery of politics (and power) and how political parties are now obsessed with this and have lost sight of their ethical foundations. Lately, I’ve also been wondering (pondering rather) whether parties have become more of a hinder to progress than we realise, i.e. if you can’t see or solve the problem you may well be the problem …
https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Senate/Powers_practice_n_procedures/pops/pop63/c05 (it’s a long read)
Also: “This cabinet official, when challenged about this, said, ‘oh well, actually there is no problem with this; we can do whatever we like because we have a democratic mandate. We were actually elected by the people’. Well this is nonsense. There are boundaries set by our Constitution that limit what you can do despite what you think might be your democratic mandate.”
This idea that the mandate of an election is merely a matter of perception, not a democratic reality, is postmodern. We’ve seen how the Democrats are using it to prevent Trump implementing his. They’ve been carefully not to do so honestly, by admitting or declaring their intent. They know voters still believe in it, so they must be covert in their subversive strategy. Closet-stalinism is deep-rooted in the tacit psychology of leftist political endeavour…
Cos chump can do what he likes cos he was elected franky.
Yes Micky.
If National had left such a mess, then Labour should have understood the nature of that mess and developed policies to address it well before now. After all Twyford was banging for years about housing when in opposition. That he didn’t appear to understand the issues and the complexities of the housing market then, as well as now, has to be a serious concern.
Clearly Labour didn’t, and doesn’t, understand the housing market; clearly they over promised on what they could deliver; clearly they’re attracting little interest from the so called first home buyers target group (no demand from them for one of Twyford’s houses – they’re getting better deals in the general housing market).
Blaming National for Labour’s own incompetence, is stretching it a bit thin now. Labour needs to take responsibility for how things are.
Canada, At War For 13 Years, Shocked
That ‘A Terrorist’ Attacked Its Soldiers
by GLENN GREENWALD, The Intercept, Oct. 23, 2014
TORONTO – In Quebec on Monday, two Canadian soldiers were hit by a car driven by Martin Couture-Rouleau, a 25-year-old Canadian who, as The Globe and Mail reported, “converted to Islam recently and called himself Ahmad Rouleau.” One of the soldiers died, as did Couture-Rouleau when he was shot by police upon apprehension after allegedly brandishing a large knife. Police speculated that the incident was deliberate, alleging the driver waited for two hours before hitting the soldiers, one of whom was wearing a uniform. The incident took place in the parking lot of a shopping mall 30 miles southeast of Montreal, “a few kilometres from the Collège militaire royal de Saint-Jean, the military academy operated by the Department of National Defence.”
The right-wing Canadian government wasted no time in seizing on the incident to promote its fear-mongering agenda over terrorism, which includes pending legislation to vest its intelligence agency, CSIS, with more spying and secrecy powers in the name of fighting ISIS. A government spokesperson asserted “clear indications” that the driver “had become radicalized.”
In a “clearly prearranged exchange,” a conservative MP, during parliamentary question time, asked Prime Minister Stephen Harper (pictured above) whether this was considered a “terrorist attack”; in reply, the prime minister gravely opined that the incident was “obviously extremely troubling.” Canada’s Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney pronounced the incident “clearly linked to terrorist ideology,” while newspapers predictably followed suit, calling it a “suspected terrorist attack” and “homegrown terrorism.” CSIS spokesperson Tahera Mufti said “the event was the violent expression of an extremist ideology promoted by terrorist groups with global followings” and added: “That something like this would happen in a peaceable Canadian community like Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu shows the long reach of these ideologies.”
In sum, the national mood and discourse in Canada is virtually identical to what prevails in every Western country whenever an incident like this happens: shock and bewilderment that someone would want to bring violence to such a good and innocent country (“a peaceable Canadian community like Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu”), followed by claims that the incident shows how primitive and savage is the “terrorist ideology” of extremist Muslims, followed by rage and demand for still more actions of militarism and freedom-deprivation. There are two points worth making about this….
Read more….
https://theintercept.com/2014/10/22/canada-proclaiming-war-12-years-shocked-someone-attacked-soldiers/
A national bank, the TSB, situated in the main street of Nelson was closed after
Christmas when expected to be open. A notice apologised. Apparently staff shortage was the reason. This seems a very strange occurrence, and where and when does national support come in? Wouldn’t you think that staff from other centres could be sourced to keep the show going and the bank profile positive?
Nelson branch of TSB Bank closed due to staff shortage
https://www.stuff.co.nz/nelson-mail/news/109771807/nelson-branch-of-tsb-bank-closed-due-to-staff-shortage
Is this something we will have to contend with in a few decades after our period of dodgy materials through poor reliability of standards documentation for steel and cheap contract labour?
https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/americas/109978639/new-yorks-old-tappan-zee-bridge-come-tumbling-down
The Tappan Zee Bridge, which opened in 1955, became a poster child for America’s crumbling infrastructure.
Governor Andrew Cuomo, the son of the new bridge’s namesake, recalled in 2017 an experience familiar to many Tappan Zee drivers, steel plates that shifted beneath traffic, providing unnerving glimpses through road cracks of the chasm below.
The Democrat said he’d envisioned escape scenarios in case he ended up in the water: “‘Do I take off the seat belt? Do I open the window?’ I had one of those special tools with the hammer and the seat belt cutter.”
But OTOH it lasted till say 2015, 60 years, until the cracks showed the water below in 2017. Who knows what NZ will be doing after 60 years of eventful happenings. Any ideas for 2079 NZ way of life?
An important pointer from Jeanette Fitzsimmons on the need to show how and where carbon taxes will be spent:
https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/23-01-2019/the-tax-grab-trap-why-politicians-need-to-tell-us-where-carbon-revenue-will-go/
There is of course a detail threshold for most citizens – after all how many really took notice of the last EECA funding round for electric vehicles this week?
But the NZTA National Land Transport Fund has very high visibility, a reasonable degree of democratic feedback, and can demonstrate visible results.
The clear message from the Prime Minister in this budget will apply: show how it is reducing inequality in New Zealand over the long term, or this and any other proposal is not going to fly .
I’m inclined to agree with JF: “If a policy is to be durable and supported it has to create the conviction that we are all in this together – everyone pays; everyone benefits from the revenue created; and everyone has the opportunity to reduce their carbon burn by thinking smarter. What we need is a policy that delivers an equal monetary return to all citizens, bearing in mind that $20 to a beneficiary or low income worker is worth enormously more than $20 to a corporate chief.”
“It needs to be communicated clearly that those paying the most in the carbon price will be those using more than their “share” of our carbon budget. Those getting the most benefit will be those who reduce their carbon burn. There are two ways to do this. The simple way is to reduce tax on the bottom band of income – probably by making the first dollars earned tax free. The second is by paying a “citizen’s dividend” to every citizen, or resident, or other qualifying descriptor.”
She goes on to explain why she prefers the second option – while acknowledging it will cost more to operate. I agree, because citizens can see the tangible benefit they get from the policy, as well as the intangible benefit of sustainable economics.
The timber needed for kiwibuild. There has been concern expressed for years at the government’s inability to provide for this country’s needs under neo liberal and freemarket economic controls. Seeing that the Right believed in their right to sell the country’s storehouse of needed items for the future, leaving us with remainders, leftovers and crusts, now we want to make a game-changing surge from a regressive, do-little policy, we find that the cupboard is virtually bare of resource.
Like the Old Woman who Lived in a Shoe we don’t know what to do. Any very large shoes in NZ?
Here’s a few write-ups on it.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/the-country/news/article.cfm?c_id=16&objectid=11979686
22 January 2018 Record log exports concern NZ housing processors
Wood Processors & Manufacturers Association of New Zealand chief executive Jon Tanner said last year’s record exports underscored concerns of local manufacturers that the country was sending too many unprocessed logs overseas.
At present it was a “free-for-all” market driving the high prices and domestic processors could not compete against the “fly-in fly-out” traders, Dr Tanner said in an interview.
He acknowledged the situation was “open competition”, but it was on a “tilted playing field”, given industry subsidies existed in other countries.
The scenario was posing a threat for future local timber supply and was undermining goals to add more value to exports, Dr Tanner said.
“New Zealand is experiencing strong demand for logs from China, which has clamped down on harvesting its own forests and reduced tariffs on imported logs to meet demand in its local market,” he said.
Reduced exports from Canada and Russia meant China would increasingly be looking to New Zealand and Australia to fill the void.
“I’d expect [Chinese] demand to keep increasing and to see more exports out of New Zealand and Australia,” he said.
Dr Tanner said the increased raw log shipments went against the aim of successive governments to add more value to commodities. The wood processing sector wanted more manufacturing done in New Zealand to sustain local industries.
“It says an uptick in demand for wooden housing could see supply having to be met from overseas if the current situation prevails,” Dr Tanner said.
He noted the high level of Auckland consents and requirements to achieve the KiwiBuild programme.
When pressed, he was adamant the scenario of importing sawn lumber to meet demand could become a reality….
(And there has been a big drop in shipping rates which has made exporting logs more profitable. Why would the shipping rates drop so much I wonder? Is there a subsidy from somewhere skewing the market?)
…Not only had Chinese demand driven prices up during the past two years, a trifecta was created with generally favourable foreign exchange alongside very low shipping rates.
The price to move a cubic metre of wood from Dunedin to Asian destinations had averaged about $US45 during the past decade, but early last year that cost was in a range of $US13 to $US25 per metre during the preceding 18 months.
Port Otago’s last financial year moved a record 957,000 tonnes of export logs across its wharves.
**************************
Another report from 2017.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11973307
NZ softwood log exports hit new record in 2017
This one from the NZ tree grower’s perspective.
http://www.nzffa.org.nz/specialty-timber-market/headlines/timber-imports-mean-export-of-environmental-impacts/
from Specialty Timbers NZ May 2015
In simple terms, indigenous and special-purpose timber production in New Zealand continues to decline while imports of special-purpose timber products continue to escalate.
Many kiwis are happy to use imported timber products or specify imported timber for their floors, walls, ceilings, joinery or cladding without a thought as to the quality of forest management back at the source or the benefits of using NZ-grown wood.
In effect, New Zealanders have effectively exported the environmental impacts of their special-purpose timber consumption to other countries and failed to recognise the impacts of their actions on the sustainability of their own forests or the viability of their own special-purpose and indigenous timber manufacturing industries.
There is an obvious need to increase the public’s awareness of how their timber consumption patterns are at odds with the clean green conservation image we all cherish. New Zealander’s are unwitting partners in a double standard that requires high standards for their home-grown timbers but expect little in the way of sustainable credentials for special-purpose timber imported from overseas.
this apparently is to cancel the GOP Primary in the upcoming Selection 🙂
can we call him King Shitstain of Shitstainia First Turd of his name?
Решение было принято единогласно ЦК.
Keiner traute sich dem Fuehrer nein zu sagen, alle haven zugestimmt.
Dude walked into that one.
Big tobacco company outs itself as donor to NZ Taxpayers Onion. Onion spokesparrot says conflicts of interest do not apply because they are not publicly-funded.
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2019/01/24/412747/taxpayers-union-backed-by-tobacco-giant
Re kiwibuild…..
Not sure how the situation is in other regions, but in Richmond area near Nelson, around five entities own the majority of available land. What those entities do is drip feed the land out for sale, thereby increasing the land value. Council asks for land, but noooooo money first for the entities and the drip feeding continues.
Found that out from a former Tasman District Councillor yesterday who said they were very frustrated with people laying blame on the council re the availability of land.
Does anyone know if it’s a similar situation in other regions please?
Seems odd they’d stay quiet about that.
What those entities do is drip feed the land out for sale, thereby increasing the land value.
It’s what any rational economic actor will do.
A manufacturer of widgets will only make as many as there is a profitable market for; any more than this and the value of the product drops. (Before DtB leaps down my throat, yes I know this is a simplification.)
But land is tricky. It’s not ‘manufactured’ as such, the supply is both enduring and finite. This puts it into a different category of ‘ownership’ than most other goods.
My approach to this problem is to make all land ‘ownership’ to be held by public entities, while the ‘right to occupy’ is held privately. This distinction would go a long way toward allowing to solve land problems like this; it would give the public domain some control over the long-term supply and use of land, while at the same time preserving the private right to occupy and gain immediate benefit from it.
you will find the same all over the regions.
some towns where whole streets are owned by one person who is also on the council 🙂
so when you drive through the ‘real NZ’ and you wonder why everything is boarded up, chances are no one will pay the 10 – 25.000 anual lease 🙂 cause everything is Akl now.
and that is the biggest issue that i have with kiwi build and all tht jazz, it is literally just a project for middle / upper class people like Phil Twyford who have realized that their own children in AKL / WLGTN – despite working good jobs – can’t afford a house anywhere near them.
But, it would work, if they would also employ other methods to cool the housing market. One would be to establish some sort of rental mirror. I.e. the rent should cover the value of the flat/house (i.e. ammeneties near by, age of building, state of building, heating sources, new modern vs old rotting ), rather then cover a mortgage on which was added a boat, a suv for the missus and the mister, a overseas holiday or several etc etc etc etc. If you could rent for a reasonable rate you might not be so keen on buying a house.
And kiwi build should go hand in hand with government investment into the region that will attract jobs to the region rather then just another business in akl. And with jobs i also include jobs for women. Cause that is an issue in the region is decent paying jobs for women.
Thanks for that insight Sabine much appreciated.
Don’t build Queens Wharf extension for giant cruise ships, says planner
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12195069&fbclid=IwAR3gpr-0SWwgsrOYY5FUIGWXbYrkVdyuoVyuEVdsqS5vllLCjStlxJSBymU
Air quality on cruise ship deck ‘worse than world’s most polluted cities’, investigation finds
‘Each day a cruise ship emits as much particulate matter as a million cars’
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/pollution-cruise-ships-po-oceana-higher-piccadilly-circus-channel-4-dispatches-a7821911.html