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’
National has a problem. And it’s time they said it out loud. It can’t be dismissed as a one-off anymore or excused because ‘everyone does it’. No, it cuts deeper than that. National has an ethics problem. Especially when it comes to privacy and using ordinary people as pawns in ...
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On Twitter today, lawyer Felix Geiringer asked a good question: why are MP's exempt from the Privacy Act? The Act imposes its obligations on "agencies", and s8 of the 2020 Act states that this term does not include... a member of Parliament in their official capacity The 1993 Act, ...
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This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections House Democrats have released a comprehensive report showing how – if they control the White House and both the Senate and the House of Representatives – they might move forward on climate change. Their “Climate Crisis Action Plan,” released June 30 by the ...
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Hon Ron Mark, New Zealand First List MP based in the Wairarapa New Zealand First List MP Hon Ron Mark welcomes the announcement of Provincial Growth Funding investment of $1.4 million to help secure the Wairarapa’s water supply. The funding boost will allow the Greater Wellington Regional Council (GWRC), and ...
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The Government is expanding and accelerating frontline mental health and wellbeing services at tertiary education institutes (TEI) to help students manage ongoing stresses related to COVID-19. “The lockdown has been hugely disruptive for students. Many of them have had to relocate and move to online learning, isolating them from their ...
The Minister of Police says a major operation against the Mongrel Mob in Waikato will make a big dent in drug harm and violent offending linked to organised crime networks. “Senior leadership of the Waikato Mongrel Mob has been taken out as a result of Operation Kingsville, which resulted in ...
The Government is extending the border exception criteria to enable some offshore victims and support people of the Christchurch mosque attacks to attend the sentencing of the accused beginning on 24 August2020, says Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway. “We want to support our valued Muslim brothers and sisters who were directly ...
A project to support volunteer efforts to look after streams and rivers is getting a boost thanks to support from DOC’s Community Conservation Fund announced Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage today. “The government is backing efforts to look after waterways with $199,400 for the Mountains to Sea Conservation Trust from ...
Minister for Women Julie Anne Genter today announced that funding for the COVID-19 Community Fund for women and girls will be doubled, as the first successful funding applications for the initial $1million were revealed. “Women and girls across the country have suffered because of the effects of COVID-19, and I ...
The Government’s books were better than forecast with a higher GST take as the economy got moving again after lockdown, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. The Crown Accounts for the 11 months to the end of May indicate the year end results for tax revenue will be stronger than forecast. ...
A plan to revitalise New Zealand’s strong wool sector and set it on a new, more sustainable and profitable path was unveiled today by Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor. The newly-released report - Vision and Action for New Zealand’s Wool Sector - was developed by the Wool Industry Project Action Group ...
Community efforts to create a Predator Free Whangārei will receive a $6 million boost, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones and Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage announced today. The new funding, through Government company Predator Free 2050 Ltd, will create around 12 jobs while enabling the complete removal of possums over ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has announced that the New Zealand Government is reviewing the settings of its relationship with Hong Kong. “China’s decision to pass a new national security law for Hong Kong has fundamentally changed the environment for international engagement there,” Mr Peters said. “New Zealand remains deeply ...
Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has announced details of a multimillion-dollar investment in Whangārei for infrastructure projects that will help it recover from the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 200 jobs are expected to be created through the $26 million investment from the Government’s rejuvenation package ...
Following a second incident in which a person escaped from a managed isolation facility, security is being enhanced, including more police presence onsite, Minister Megan Woods said. “The actions of some individuals who choose to break the very clear rules to stay within the facilities means that more resourcing is ...
Waste reduction and recycling programmes in Kaipara are set to get a boost with Associate Environment Minister Eugenie Sage today announcing a $361,447 grant from the Ministry for the Environment’s Waste Minimisation Fund (WMF) Sustainable Kaipara. “The new funding will allow Sustainable Kaipara to partner with local schools, kura, community ...
The Government will support the Southland economy in the wake of multinational mining company Rio Tinto’s decision to follow through with its long signalled closure of the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter. “This day has unfortunately been on the cards for some time now, but nevertheless the final decision is a ...
New tools being developed to help boost Aotearoa’s Predator Free 2050 effort were unveiled today by Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage and Under Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau. A new rat poison, a camera with predator recognition software to detect and report predators, a new predator lure and a ...
The Coalition Government has approved the purchase of a fleet of Bushmaster vehicles to replace the New Zealand Army’s armoured Pinzgauers, Defence Minister Ron Mark has announced today. The new fleet of 43 Australian-designed and built Bushmaster NZ5.5 will provide better protection for personnel and improved carrying capacity. “The age ...
The Government’s three prevention frameworks to reduce family violence in Aotearoa were launched this week by Associate Minister for Social Development Poto Williams. The frameworks were developed in partnership with communities around New Zealand, and build on the work the Government has already begun with its new family violence prevention ...
The Government is pleased to confirm funding for improvements to radiology and surgical services at Hawke's Bay DHB, Health Minister Chris Hipkins says. "The Minister of Finance the Hon Grant Robertson and former Health Minister Dr David Clark approved funding for Hawke's Bay DHB’s redevelopment of their radiology facilities ...
• New funding for four beds at Napier’s Springhill Residential Addiction Centre • A new managed withdrawal home and community service, and peer support before and after residential care at Tairāwhiti DHB • A co-ordinated network of withdrawal management services throughout the South Island • Peer support in Rotorua and ...
Introduction, seafarers and POAL Good morning everyone, I am delighted to be online with you all today. Before I begin, I have to acknowledge that COVID-19 has disrupted the maritime sector on an unprecedented scale. The work of seafarers and the maritime industry is keeping many economies around the world ...
A $13 million investment from Government will create jobs and improve the resilience of the rail connection between Christchurch and the West Coast, Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones and Regional Economic Development Under-Secretary Fletcher Tabuteau say. The funding comes from the tagged contingency set aside in Budget 2020 for infrastructure projects ...
The Government is investing $761 million to assist local government upgrade under-pressure water services across the country, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta announced today. The announcement was made at the site of the water bore that was found to be the source of the fatal ...
Recognised Seasonal Employers and migrant seasonal workers stranded in New Zealand will be able to continue working and supporting themselves with more flexible hours and roles, says Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway. The time-limited visa changes are: Stranded RSE workers will be able to work part-time (a minimum of 15 hours ...
The Government is making immediate short-term changes to visa settings to support temporary migrants already onshore in New Zealand and their employers, while also ensuring New Zealanders needing work are prioritised, Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway says. We are: Extending temporary work visas due to expire by the end of 2020 ...
Professor Peter Skelton CNZM has been appointed as Chief Freshwater Commissioner and Alternate Environment Court Judge Craig James Thompson as Deputy Chief Freshwater Commissioner for the newly established Freshwater Planning Process (FPP). Environment Minister David Parker today also announced the appointment of Chief Environment Court Judge Laurie Newhook as the ...
Auckland Queen’s Counsel Neil Campbell has been appointed a Judge of the High Court, Attorney‑General David Parker announced today. Justice Campbell graduated with a BCom and LLB (Hons) from the University of Auckland in 1992. He spent two years with Bell Gully Buddle Weir in Auckland before travelling to the United ...
The Associate Minister for Greater Christchurch Regeneration, Poto Williams, is seeking feedback on a proposal to better enable the development and operation of commercial film and video facilities in Christchurch. The Proposal, developed by Regenerate Christchurch in response to a request from Christchurch City Council, asks that powers under section ...
The Government has launched a bold plan to boost primary sector export earnings by $44 billion over the next decade, while protecting the environment and growing jobs. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern today released Fit for a Better World – Accelerating our Economic Potential, a 10-year roadmap to unlock greater value ...
A new approach to prevent family harm that encourages greater collaboration across government and community groups is being celebrated at the opening of a new facility in Auckland. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern today opened the Multi-Disciplinary Family Harm Prevention Hub Te Taanga Manawa in Lambie Road in Manukau. The facility ...
The Government has released a major new report on the options for relocating the Port of Auckland’s freight operations while deferring any decision on the issue. “That decision needs to be informed by policy analysis that is still to be completed. As a result it will be up to a ...
The history of Rāpaki is being restored through the inclusion of te reo in thirteen official place names on Te Pātaka-o-Rākaihautū / Banks Peninsula and around Lyttelton Harbour/Whakaraupō, the Minister for Land Information, Eugenie Sage, announced today. “I am pleased to approve the proposals from Te Hapū o Ngāti ...
Bookings for seats on Air New Zealand flights into New Zealand will be managed in the short term to ensure the Government is able to safely place New Zealanders arriving home into a managed isolation or quarantine facility, says Housing Minister Megan Woods. “Last week Air Commodore Darryn Webb and I ...
Grant Robertson has today announced the first major release of funding from the $265 million Sport Recovery Package announced at Budget 2020. “Today we’re setting out how $80 million will be invested, with $54 million of that over the 2020/2021 financial year for organisations from community level through to elite ...
The Government is maintaining current levy rates for the next 2 years, as part of a set of changes to help ease the financial pressures of COVID-19 providing certainty for businesses and New Zealanders, ACC Minister Iain Lees-Galloway says. “New Zealanders and businesses are facing unprecedented financial pressures as a ...
Small businesses are getting greater certainty about access to finance with an extension to the interest-free cashflow loan scheme to the end of the year. The Small Business Cashflow Loan Scheme has already been extended once, to 24 July. Revenue and Small Business Minister Stuart Nash says it will be ...
A package of 23 projects across the country will clean up waterways and deliver over 2000 jobs Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Environment Minister David Parker announced today. The $162 million dollar package will see 22 water clean-up projects put forward by local councils receiving $62 million and the Kaipara ...
Tena koutou katoa Nga tangata whenua o tenei rohe o Pōneke, tena koutou Nau mai, haere mai ki te hui a tau mo te roopu reipa Ko tatou! Ko to tatou mana! Ko to tatou kaupapa kei te kokiri whakamua Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena tatou katoa Welcome. I ...
The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) is investing $1.5 million to ensure QE Health in Rotorua can proceed with its world class health service and save 75 existing jobs, Under Secretary for Regional Economic Development, Fletcher Tabuteau announced today. The PGF funding announced today is in addition to the $8 million ...
A new programme, which sets a firm course for the Building and Construction sector to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, has been announced by the Minister for Building and Construction Jenny Salesa. “A significant amount of New Zealand’s carbon emissions come from the building and construction sector. If we’re serious ...
From RNZ Mediawatch New Zealand children use a lot less Kiwi media than they used to. New research shows its Netflix, YouTube and TikTok engaging their eyeballs big time these days. If our kids screen out our local media, what does the future hold for them? The news media seized ...
The Tahr Foundation has released a short video that shows just what Himalayan tahr mean to Kiwis and why so many people are fighting so hard to maintain them in New Zealand. The video is a powerful reminder of the extent that tahr are now woven into ...
Introduction Thank you very much. Elections in New Zealand – like everywhere - are a very special tradition, because they are driven by you. They’re an opportunity to change your future. If you think about it, the Government doesn’t do much. It ...
“This election and Covid-19 present New Zealanders with an opportunity to change their future and create a fair, modern employment insurance scheme,” says ACT’s Employment Spokesperson, and third-ranked candidate, Nicole McKee. “Covid-19 has ...
“A new approach to mental health and addiction will reduce bureaucracy, improve patient choice, and empower New Zealanders,” says ACT’s Deputy Leader and Health Spokesperson Brooke van Velden. “Each year, the government spends about $2 billion ...
"Working people have signaled their commitment to do more to address the most pressing issue of our time; climate change. The energy policies that the Green Party have launched today provide a meaningful contribution to addressing climate change," ...
Climate justice organisation 350 Aotearoa welcomes the Greens' plan to transform Aotearoa’s energy system and set Aotearoa on course towards a fossil-fuel free future in which workers are supported into new jobs, and communities have the power ...
The Old Guard, new to Netflix, is a resounding success because it doesn’t focus on what makes these heroes great, it focuses on what makes them human, writes Sam Brooks.The climax of Netflix’s new movie The Old Guard shouldn’t be anything new, but it feels exhilarating. The titular old guard, ...
A new Green Party announcement heralds a fast-exit out of fossil fuels through a massive state housing solar panel installation programme, a ban on new coal boilers, and the shifting of a target for renewable energy Solar panels and batteries would be installed in 30,000 State homes to create a "virtual power plant" if ...
As yet more male-led festival lineups are announced, Shaquille Wasasala, aka halfqueen, writes an open letter to the industry.To those whose career it is booking talent for music festivals, punters, and people who listen to music.As a DJ and artist who exists at many intersections that directly inform my lens ...
For all The Spinoff’s latest coverage of Covid-19 see here. Read Siouxsie Wiles’s work here. New Zealand is currently in alert level one – read about what that means here. For official government advice, see here.The Spinoff’s coverage of the Covid-19 outbreak is made possible thanks to donations from Spinoff Members. To support this ...
Dunedin writer Victor Billot pens topical verse every Sunday. This week: disgraced MP Hamish Walker.Showing promise The MP for Clutha-Southland did, it is true, post on Facebook that he had been door knocking in Mataura when he hadn’t. He lied. The MP for Clutha-Southland did, it is ...
It’s one of the most commonly used weedkillers in the world, but pressure to phase out use of the herbicide glyphosate could force us to come up with alternatives quickly. Listen to the full episode of Two Cents Worth below. Subscribe to Two Cents' Worth for free on Apple ...
The Covid-19 crisis has exposed gaps in the funding of early education that we should be bold in responding to, writes Sue Cherrington of Victoria University of Wellington Early childhood education has been in the media a great deal over recent weeks, initially with positive but increasingly with negative news reports. ...
It’s an economic theory that advocates tout as a solution to governments’ debt crises, but critics warn is a recipe for hyperinflation. Either way, modern monetary theory is getting a lot more attention in the era of Covid-19.Two big economic ideas have captured the popular imagination during the Covid-19 pandemic: ...
For one hour a week the supermarket lights are dimmed and the music stops. And it’s a kind of triumph, writes Michelle Langstone.I thought there’d been a power cut. The lights were out at the entrance, so you arrived into a kind of gloom. There was no music, and no ...
It’s no secret that New Zealand’s Covid-19 response was one of the world’s most effective. But to get an idea of how eagerly parts of our economy have rebounded post lockdown, take a look at our electricity demand data.Despite an impending wave of unemployment and looming fiscal challenges down the ...
In the second in the Spnioff’s Last on the list series, Dave King explains what inspired him to stand for the Act Party in Manurewa. At 20th spot on the list, if David Seymour’s party can win around 16% of the party vote, King is parliament bound.It wasn’t that long ...
Basketball is growing massively in popularity around the country, led by thousands of youngsters picking up the game every day. To The Line looks at what it’s like for New Zealand high school kids with hoop dreams.If there’s been a narrative rumbling away in the sports pages, it’s that of ...
Unbelievable. A first-rank world leader picks a needless fight with blameless allies, thus imperiling their unity. But that’s General de Gaulle for you.Impressive work, even by his standards. In 1967, Canada was to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge (their Gallipoli – except that they ...
From RNZ Saturday Morning Described by a Guardian reviewer as “superb hate-reading”, writer and columnist Anand Giridharadas‘s latest book Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World investigates the hypocrisy of billionaire “do-gooders”. He questions how and why we have become reliant on the philanthropy of the super-rich ...
The Professional Hunting Guides Association is welcoming the High Court decision on DoC’s controversial tahr campaign. The High Court in Wellington was asked on Wednesday by the Tahr Foundation for a judicial review of DoC’s plan to kill thousands ...
With the 2020 general election nearly three months away, a new campaign is asking voters to vote in line with the future. Vote Climate 2020 aims to highlight the opportunity to build momentum behind climate change, ensuring climate justice is a key election ...
“ACT will target the gangs by hitting them where it hurts – their pockets,” according to ACT Leader David Seymour and Firearms Spokesperson Nicole McKee. “New Zealanders deserve to be safe and secure, but violent gangs are a scourge on our ...
Waffles don’t need to be sweet – these cheese and onion numbers make an excellent savoury breakfast with an egg, or an equally tasty dinner with leftover mince.It’s easy to default to sweet breakfasts without thinking. At least that’s the case in our household, as porridge or bircher muesli is ...
The government is revitalising the wool sector, splashing out on freshwater restoration projects, relieving student stress and showing kindness to Muslims by extending the border exception criteria. It is also increasing its support (in announcements from two separate Green Party Ministers) for women and for wildlife institutions. And it is ...
People have called it for it be pulled from the service, but the escapist fantasy of 365 Days is nothing new, writes Alie Benge.To every generation, a bullish alpha-male psychopath is born, and is for someone reason considered a romantic hero. We’ve been through a lot this year, and instead ...
As Aucklanders reluctantly adjust to the inconvenient practice of water conservation, a drought-savvy Northlander shares the tips and temperament needed to get through the dry times.Auckland’s water shortage was recently reported on The Project, and viewers were earnestly exhorted to fill their dishwashers completely before turning them on. My husband ...
Pacific Media Watch Newsdesk A request by the Philippines’ biggest radio and TV network for a new franchise has been rejected by a congressional committee in a vote that will go down in history as a flagrant violation of the country’s constitution, says Reporters Without Borders (RSF). The Paris-based media ...
Hamish Walker's privacy leak debacle dominated the news this week, but it's not the first time a southern MP has hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons, writes Daisy Hudson. ...
Let’s not allow the focus on big-budget infrastructure projects to detract from the vital role public transport will play in revitalising our cities in a post-Covid world, says Greg Pollock.The recent match between the Blues and the Hurricanes was one of the world’s first major post-lockdown sporting fixtures. It was ...
For all The Spinoff’s latest coverage of Covid-19 see here. Read Siouxsie Wiles’s work here. New Zealand is currently in alert level one – read about what that means here. For official government advice, see here.The Spinoff’s coverage of the Covid-19 outbreak is made possible thanks to donations from Spinoff Members. To support this ...
In the heart of Christchurch is a Designated Character high school. What makes it unique? And should there be more like it? Frank Film visits Hagley College Paddy Grant was a 27-year-old truck driver when he rocked up to Christchurch’s Hagley High School, as it was then known. It was ...
"After he calms down we share the pie and talk about how hard the years since the show have been for him": a short story by Wellington writer Jordan Hamel. Every morning it’s the same. Cling wrap on the toilet seat, a pop up snake in my can of breakfast ...
Childcare centre closures have left families and staff out in the cold. In some cases, they were given just three days’ notice, Laura Walters reports Staff and families of Auckland’s Discoveries Educare branches feel blindsided by the sudden closure of the early childhood education centres. The Ministry of Education has ...
Controversy and the America's Cup go hand-in-hand and the latest edition is no different with Emirates Team New Zealand at the centre of financial mismanagement allegations. Extra Time unpicks the debate and ponders what does the latest Cup drama mean? And should we care? A study has revealed racial bias ...
Over the decades, Mike Fox has witnessed the housing market progressively tilt towards larger, more expensive homes. Without a major overhaul of the current regulatory processes, he says, things will never change.It’s one of the biggest problems our country faces – we cannot produce the affordable housing that’s so desperately ...
So-called dirty deals have been roundly denounced over the years. Hayden Donnell argues that they need to be normalised, and even embraced, in September’s election.Just before the 2011 general election, Patrick Gower was confronted with a political act so stomach-churning, it forced him to abandon his trademark reserve. John Key ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Esterman, Professor of Biostatistics, University of South Australia Victoria has recorded 288 new COVID-19 cases since yesterday, the largest daily increase we’ve seen so far. This big jump must have the Victorian government and health authorities very concerned, especially since nearly ...
The controversial 101 East episode Locked Up in Malaysia’s Lockdown on 3 July 2020. Video: Al JazeeraPacific Media Watch Newsdesk Malaysian police summoned six Al Jazeera media workers today for questioning relating to an investigation for defamation and violation of Malaysia’s Communications and Multimedia Act (CMA), reports IFJ Asia-Pacific. ...
Analysis - A National MP destroys his career, the government explains how someone with Covid-19 could walk around a supermarket and the closure of Tiwai Point aluminium smelter is announced. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Abrar Ahmad Chughtai, Epidemiologist, UNSW Australia’s chief medical officer Paul Kelly today recommended people in Melbourne and the Mitchell Shire wear masks when leaving the house: […] If people have symptoms and they need to go for a test, for example, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rochelle Wynne, Director, Western Sydney Nursing & Midwifery Research Centre, Western Sydney University Over the past week, we’ve seen a spike in the number of COVID-19 infections among health-care workers in Victoria. This includes a doctor at Melbourne’s St Vincent’s Hospital, one ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor and President Professor Paddy Nixon and Professorial Fellow Michelle Grattan discuss the week in politics including the return to lockdown in Victoria, National Cabinet setting to slow the flow of Australian’s ...
We prefer our heroes untarnished. And few match the heroism of Winston Churchill. But a recent report in the Times reminds us of the inevitability of human frailty and the consequences of keeping it under wraps.During the second world war, Britain’s greatest single loss of life at sea was the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ou Yang, Research Fellow, University of Melbourne Donald Trump has ordered US federal agencies to bypass environmental protection laws and fast-track pipeline, highway and other infrastructure projects. Signing the executive order last month, the US president declared regulatory delays would hinder “our ...
SAFE CEO Debra Ashton says "The NZDIA has done the right thing, and we’re glad to see Bertram has been held to account over his actions. He should take this as an opportunity to right his wrongs and show that he takes animal welfare seriously." ...
Takuta Ferris, Te Tai Tonga candidate for the Māori Party, is urging government to place whānau first in the wake of announcements around Tiwai Point. “The declaration that one of the region's major employers the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter is closing ...
Dietary Requirements is The Spinoff’s monthly podcast in which we eat, drink and talk about it too, with special thanks to Freedom Farms. This month, we’re joined by The Spinoff’s managing editor, mall rat and self-confessed food philistine Duncan Greive.On this month’s Dietary Requirements, the gang’s back in the studio, and ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Chart 1: United States and Australia rising. Chart by Keith Rankin. These charts look at Covid19 incidence in China (the most important first-wave country, with a limited second wave), Italy (the lead second-wave country), and USA and Australia (second-wave countries – drawing their caseload from Europe ...
The Government must listen to the Muslim community to rectify its failure to act in the past, says the Human Rights Commission. The Islamic Women’s Council of New Zealand (IWCNZ) submission to the Royal Commission of Inquiry was released this week. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hugh Breakey, President, Australian Association for Professional & Applied Ethics. Senior Research Fellow, Moral philosophy, Institute for Ethics, Governance & Law, Law Futures Centre., Griffith University Earlier this week, 150 high-profile authors, commentators and scholars signed an open letter in Harper’s magazine ...
You can’t keep a good woman down and Helen Clark is no exception. Her new appointment, as co-chair of a review of how the World Health Organisation handled the coronavirus pandemic, will test her formidable political skills. Sitting with her is Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, former Liberian president, who handled the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Connor, Lecturer, James Cook University While many people may enjoy a game of backyard cricket, only a few go on to become elite professional batsmen in Australia. Cricket batting is example of what human skills can achieve. The fastest bowling delivery ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lee Baumgartner, Professor of Fisheries and River Management, Institute for Land, Water, and Society, Charles Sturt University This article is a preview of Flora, Fauna, Fire, a multimedia project launching on Monday July 13. The project tracks the recovery of Australia’s native ...
CEAC review of pre-election National’s “outline plan” just sent to us by Todd Muller 9/7/20 was actually his speech about his plan and was described as ‘an outline’. So in our review of National Party response to A Greener, Smarter Future; climate ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Podger, Honorary Professor of Public Policy, Australian National University In Hidden Hand, China scholars Clive Hamilton and Marieke Ohlberg examine the Chinese Communist Party’s influence in Europe and North America in a similar way to how Hamilton dissected the CCP’s influence ...
“I can see why people are fed up, many are wondering how to clothe and feed their kids, or how they are going to pay their rent next week and still others are wondering what has happened to our beautiful Kiwi Way of Life. Well no party in parliament ...
Pacific Media Watch Newsdesk Sixty press freedom groups and civil society organisations, journalism institutions, filmmakers, and other supporters have formed a coalition in support of Maria Ressa and independent media in the Philippines, united around the call to #HoldTheLine. Today the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), the International Center for ...
National MP Michael Woodhouse also received Covid-19 patient emails from Michelle Boag, and deleted them when he realised she was implicated in a separate email scandal. National Party leader Todd Muller says no further MPs in his party received confidential information from Michelle Boag, after revelations today that Michael Woodhouse also ...
The government is extending border exceptions to allow overseas victims of the Christchurch mosque attacks and their support people to attend the shooter's sentencing. ...
Ever wanted to be Iron Man? Sam Brooks prefers Pepper Potts, but he had a great time stepping into the iron suit anyway.The first few moments of Iron Man VR are where it plays its hand, confidently and assuredly. You hold your palms out in front of you, and Iron ...
SAP has released to the public a policy paper, “Helping Kiwis get back to work: How data and technology can drive a bigger, better, faster economic recovery.” ...
A new poem by Jordan Hamel.Mermaids When you lose grip and start to drift.The first thing you’re supposed to do issteer into it or steer away? Not all mermaids are royaltysomeone needs to audit the oceanprovide cashflow projectionssome mermaids are actuallymiddle-aged accountants named Stephendreaming of a land-view holiday home. I saw a ...
Want to work for The Spinoff? We’re looking for someone to fill an exciting new role based in our Auckland office. We’re looking for a video and podcast content manager: an experienced writer or sub-editor with a strong understanding of social media to manage our video and podcast content across various channels. ...
National Party leader Todd Muller says no further MPs in his party received confidential information from Michelle Boag, after revelations today that Michael Woodhouse also received four unsolicited emails. ...
By RNZ News Opposition National list MP Dr Jian Yang has announced his retirement from New Zealand politics and says he will not stand in the 2020 general election after three terms in the party caucus. He said politics was “demanding” and he wanted to spend more time with his ...
Open Mike 24/01/2019 
National has a problem. And it’s time they said it out loud. It can’t be dismissed as a one-off anymore or excused because ‘everyone does it’. No, it cuts deeper than that. National has an ethics problem. Especially when it comes to privacy and using ordinary people as pawns in ...12 hours ago
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, July 5 through Sat, July 11, 2020 Editor's Choice Think Covid-19 Disrupted the Food Chain? Wait and See What Climate Change Will Do The pandemic has revealed deep flaws in the ...20 hours ago
The Council of Disobedient Women There is a regular segment in the Speak Up For Women podcasts called “Absolutely Blasted Mad Moment of the Week”. Each podcast the speaker and the host discuss a recent event that is the most insane thing they have seen in the gender critical space ...1 day ago
Todd Muller - Dishonest National Party leaderIt seems that dishonest Todd Muller is, like many right-wing politicians, entirely morally bankrupt. I mean just look at the National Party’s leaking omni-shambles over the last week or so. They’ve imploded in a spectacular display of backfiring dirty politics, the likes of which ...2 days ago
MONDAY JULY 13Bodyguard (TVNZ 1, 8.30pm). It's the final; if you haven't seen this already on Netflix, get ready, the ending is batshit.Unforgotten (Vibe, Sky 006, 8.30pm). I wonder if Sanjeev Bhasksar's character has got rid of that damn backpack in the third season of this cold case drama? Although, come ...2 days ago
Simon Bridges must be the unluckiest person in New Zealand politics. When he was elected as leader of the National party, he also became Leader of the Opposition – a position, he was entitled to assume, that would require him to “oppose”. But the government he set out to oppose ...2 days ago
Check out Speak Up For Women’s new podcasts: Episode 3 In this episode Speak Up For Women spokeswoman Ani O’Brien (@aniobrien) is joined by Beth Johnson (@beth_nosnhoj) to discuss the proposal from Statistics NZ to change standard data collection policy to “gender by default” rather than sex. They discuss why the ...2 days ago
Everyone is paying attention today to the Supreme Court ruling that the President is not above the law and that Trump's tax returns can be given to a New York grand jury investigating him. But the Supreme Court decided another, far more important case yesterday, and effectively restored Native American ...3 days ago
Transcript: National Party policy announcement on roads – 8 July, 2020 Muller: Good afternoon everybody. Thank you for coming. Reporter 1: Is Hamish Walker a racist? Muller: Hang on… you haven’t even said good afternoon to me yet. Reporter 1: Good afternoon Mr Muller. Is Hamish Walker a racist? ...3 days ago
Today’s content Tiwai Point to close Hamish Rutherford (Herald): Government subsidising practically everything plays hardball with Rio Tinto (paywalled) Tom Pullar-Strecker (Stuff): Sudden closure of aluminium smelter worst outcome for jobs, consumers and the environment Brian Fallow (Herald): Tiwai closure sad news – and an opportunity for the environment (paywalled) Heather du Plessis-Allan (Newstalk ZB): Rio ...3 days ago
Prof Nick Wilson, Dr Anja Mizdrak, Dr Jennifer Summers, Prof Michael Baker The pandemic-related lockdown is possibly the most dramatic public health intervention in NZ history. It helped achieve the elimination of community transmission of the COVID-19 virus in NZ. But it was also associated with 548 fewer total ...3 days ago
Reprehensible: There is much that could be said about Michael Woodhouse, but what would be the point? Any man who willingly involves himself in a situation as reprehensible as the one depicted in the above photograph has already vouchsafed all that decent people need to know about his character. That there have ...3 days ago
Some are surprised at this sudden brain implosion on the part of both Michelle Boag, former National Party President, and the National Party in general, in exposing the private, confidential details of COVID patients. Others…? Let’s be blunt: not so much. Too many of that Party have long operated with ...5 days ago
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Unfortunately, due to a medical emergency, I have landed in hospital so am not able to do a current update on the NZ blog statistics. Let’s hope I can get back to this in good time. ...2 weeks ago
The Green Party is today unveiling part one of its plan for a fossil-fuel free Aotearoa, including an immediate ban on new industrial coal boilers. ...17 hours ago
Mark Patterson MP, Spokesperson for Primary Industry New Zealand First is supporting calls by hunters and the New Zealand Tahr Foundation (NZTF) to halt a large scale cull of Himalayan Tahr by the Department of Conservation in National Parks. The calls are supported by a 40,000 strong petition and the ...6 days ago
New Zealanders deserve healthy rivers and lakes that are safe to swim in - but they have been getting worse for decades. That's why, with our latest announcement, we're investing in projects that will help clean up our rivers and lakes and restore them to health, within a generation. ...1 week ago
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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