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.
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’
Buzz from the Beehive Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters was bound to win headlines when he set out his thinking about AUKUS in his speech to the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. The headlines became bigger when – during an interview on RNZ’s Morning Report today – he criticised ...
The Post reports on how the government is refusing to release its advice on its corrupt Muldoonist fast-track law, instead using the "soon to be publicly available" refusal ground to hide it until after select committee submissions on the bill have closed. Fast-track Minister Chris Bishop's excuse? “It's not ...
As pressure on it grows, the livestock industry’s approach to the transition to Net Zero is increasingly being compared to that of fossil fuel interests. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty ImagesTL;DR: Here’s the top five news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above ...
The New Zealand Herald reports – Stats NZ has offered a voluntary redundancy scheme to all of its workers as a way to give staff some control over their “future” amidst widespread job losses in the public sector. In an update to staff this morning, seen by the Herald, Statistics New Zealand ...
On Werewolf/Scoop, I usually do two long form political columns a week. From now on, there will be an extra column each week about music and movies. But first, some late-breaking political events:The rise in unemployment numbers for the March quarter was bigger than expected – and especially sharp ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: TVNZ says it is dealing with about 50 formal complaints over its coverage of the latest 1News-Verian political poll, with some viewers – as well as the Prime Minister and a former senior Labour MP – critical of the tone of the 6pm report. ...
Muriel Newman writes – When Meridian Energy was seeking resource consents for a West Coast hydro dam proposal in 2010, local Maori “strenuously” objected, claiming their mana was inextricably linked to ‘their’ river and could be damaged. After receiving a financial payment from the company, however, the Ngai Tahu ...
Alwyn Poole writes – “An SEP,’ he said, ‘is something that we can’t see, or don’t see, or our brain doesn’t let us see, because we think that it’s somebody else’s problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it’s like a ...
Our trust in our political institutions is fast eroding, according to a Maxim Institute discussion paper, Shaky Foundations: Why our democracy needs trust. The paper – released today – raises concerns about declining trust in New Zealand’s political institutions and democratic processes, and the role that the overuse of Parliamentary urgency ...
This article was prepared for publication yesterday. More ministerial announcements have been posted on the government’s official website since it was written. We will report on these later today …. Buzz from the BeehiveThere we were, thinking the environment is in trouble, when along came Jones. Shane Jones. ...
New Zealand now has the fourth most depressed construction sector in the world behind China, Qatar and Hong Kong. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 8:46am on Thursday, May 2:The Lead: ...
Hi,I am just going to state something very obvious: American police are fucking crazy.That was a photo gracing the New York Times this morning, showing New York City police “entering Columbia University last night after receiving a request from the school.”Apparently in America, protesting the deaths of tens of thousands ...
Winston Peters’ much anticipated foreign policy speech last night was a work of two halves. Much of it was a standard “boilerplate” Foreign Ministry overview of the state of the world. There was some hardening up of rhetoric with talk of “benign” becoming “malign” and old truths giving way to ...
Graham Adams assesses the fallout of the Cass Review — The press release last Thursday from the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls didn’t make the mainstream news in New Zealand but it really should have. The startling title of Reem Alsalem’s statement — “Implementation of ‘Cass ...
This open-for-business, under-new-management cliché-pockmarked government of Christopher Luxon is not the thing of beauty he imagines it to be. It is not the powerful expression of the will of the people that he asserts it to be. It is not a soaring eagle, it is a malodorous vulture. This newest poll should make ...
The latest labour market statistics, showing a rise in unemployment. There are now 134,000 unemployed - 14,000 more than when the National government took office. Which is I guess what happens when the Reserve Bank causes a recession in an effort to Keep Wages Low. The previous government saw a ...
Three opinion polls have been released in the last two days, all showing that the new government is failing to hold their popular support. The usual honeymoon experienced during the first year of a first term government is entirely absent. The political mood is still gloomy and discontented, mainly due ...
National's Finance Minister once met a poor person.A scornful interview with National's finance guru who knows next to nothing about economics or people.There might have been something a bit familiar if that was the headline I’d gone with today. It would of course have been in tribute to the article ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Throughout the pandemic, the new Vice-Chancellor-of-Otago-University-on-$629,000 per annum-Can-you-believe-it-and-Former-Finance-Minister Grant Robertson repeated the mantra over and over that he saved “lives and livelihoods”.As we update how this claim is faring over the course of time, the facts are increasingly speaking differently. NZ ...
Chris Trotter writes – IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in acknowledgement of electoral victory: “We’ll govern for all New Zealanders.” On the face of it, the pledge is a strange one. Why would any political leader govern in ways that advantaged the huge ...
Bryce Edwards writes – The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill ...
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Over the past 36 hours, Christopher Luxon has been dong his best to portray the centre-right’s plummeting poll numbers as a mark of virtue. Allegedly, the negative verdicts are the result of hard economic times, and of a government bravely set out on a perilous rescue mission from which not ...
Auckland Transport have started rolling out new HOP card readers around the network and over the next three months, all of them on buses, at train stations and ferry wharves will be replaced. The change itself is not that remarkable, with the new readers looking similar to what is already ...
Completed reads for April: The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling Carnival of Saints, by George Herman The Snow Spider, by Jenny Nimmo Emlyn’s Moon, by Jenny Nimmo The Chestnut Soldier, by Jenny Nimmo Death Comes As the End, by Agatha Christie Lord of the Flies, by ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Have a story to share about St Paul’s, but today just picturesPopular novels written at this desk by a young man who managed to bootstrap himself out of father’s imprisonment and his own young life in a workhouse Read more ...
The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill English, Simon Bridges, Steven Joyce, Roger Sowry, ...
Newsroom has a story today about National's (fortunately failed) effort to disestablish the newly-created Inspector-General of Defence. The creation of this agency was the key recommendation of the Inquiry into Operation Burnham, and a vital means of restoring credibility and social licence to an agency which had been caught lying ...
Holding On To The Present:The moment a political movement arises that attacks the whole idea of social progress, and announces its intention to wind back the hands of History’s clock, then democracy, along with its unwritten rules, is in mortal danger.IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in ...
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The unpopular coalition government is currently rushing to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The clause is Oranga Tamariki's Treaty clause, and was inserted after its systematic stealing of Māori children became a public scandal and resulted in physical resistance to further abductions. The clause created clear obligations ...
Buzz from the Beehive The government’s official website – which Point of Order monitors daily – not for the first time has nothing much to say today about political happenings that are grabbing media headlines. It makes no mention of the latest 1News-Verian poll, for example. This shows National down ...
It Takes A Train To Cry:Surely, there is nothing lonelier in all this world than the long wail of a distant steam locomotive on a cold Winter’s night.AS A CHILD, I would lie awake in my grandfather’s house and listen to the traffic. The big wooden house was only a ...
Packing A Punch: The election of the present government, including in its ranks politicians dedicated to reasserting the rights of the legislature in shaping and determining the future of Māori and Pakeha in New Zealand, should have alerted the judiciary – including its anomalous appendage, the Waitangi Tribunal – that its ...
Dead Woman Walking: New Zealand’s media industry had been moving steadily towards disaster for all the years Melissa Lee had been National’s media and communications policy spokesperson, and yet, when the crisis finally broke, on her watch, she had nothing intelligent to offer. Christopher Luxon is a patient man - but he’s not ...
Chris Trotter writes – New Zealand politics is remarkably easy-going: dangerously so, one might even say. With the notable exception of John Key’s flat ruling-out of the NZ First Party in 2008, all parties capable of clearing MMP’s five-percent threshold, or winning one or more electorate seats, tend ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is ...
Luxon will no doubt put a brave face on it, but there is no escaping the pressure this latest poll will put on him and the government. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political ...
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler In the wake of any unusual weather event, someone inevitably asks, “Did climate change cause this?” In the most literal sense, that answer is almost always no. Climate change is never the sole cause of hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, or ...
Something odd happened yesterday, and I’d love to know if there’s more to it. If there was something which preempted what happened, or if it was simply a throwaway line in response to a journalist.Yesterday David Seymour was asked at a press conference what the process would be if the ...
Hi,From time to time, I want to bring Webworm into the real world. We did it last year with the Jurassic Park event in New Zealand — which was a lot of fun!And so on Saturday May 11th, in Los Angeles, I am hosting a lil’ Webworm pop-up! I’ve been ...
Education Minister Erica Standford yesterday unveiled a fundamental reform of the way our school pupils are taught. She would not exactly say so, but she is all but dismantling the so-called “inquiry” “feel good” method of teaching, which has ruled in our classrooms since a major review of the New ...
Exactly where are we seriously going with this government and its policies? That is, apart from following what may as well be a Truss-Lite approach on the purported economic “plan“, and Victorian-era regression when it comes to social policy.Oh it’ll work this time of course, we’re basically assured, “the ...
Hey Uncle Dave, When the Poms joined the EEC, I wasn't one of those defeatists who said, Well, that’s it for the dairy job. And I was right, eh? The Chinese can’t get enough of our milk powder and eventually, the Poms came to their senses and backed up the ute ...
Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is higher than for any other mayor ...
Buzz from the Beehive Pharmac has been given a financial transfusion and a new chair to oversee its spending in the pharmaceutical business. Associate Health Minister David Seymour described the funding for Pharmac as “its largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff”. ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its ...
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span class=”dropcap”>As hideous as David Seymour can be, it is worth keeping in mind occasionally that there are even worse political figures (and regimes) out there. Iran for instance, is about to execute the country’s leading hip hop musician Toomaj Salehi, for writing and performing raps that “corrupt” the nation’s ...
Yesterday marked 10 years since the first electric train carried passengers in Auckland so it’s a good time to look back at it and the impact it has had. A brief history The first proposals for rail electrification in Auckland came in the 1920’s alongside the plans for earlier ...
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April has been a quiet month at A Phuulish Fellow. I have had an exceptionally good reading month, and a decently productive writing month – for original fiction, anyway – but not much has caught my eye that suggested a blog article. It has been vaguely frustrating, to be honest. ...
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Hi,I spent about a year on Webworm reporting on an abusive megachurch called Arise, and it made me want to stab my eyes out with a fork.I don’t regret that reporting in 2022 and 2023 — I am proud of it — but it made me angry.Over three main stories ...
The new Victoria University Vice-Chancellor decided to have a forum at the university about free speech and academic freedom as it is obviously a topical issue, and the Government is looking at legislating some carrots or sticks for universities to uphold their obligations under the Education and Training Act. They ...
Do you remember when Melania Trump got caught out using a speech that sounded awfully like one Michelle Obama had given? Uncannily so.Well it turns out that Abraham Lincoln is to Winston Peters as Michelle was to Melania. With the ANZAC speech Uncle Winston gave at Gallipoli having much in ...
She was born 25 years ago today in North Shore hospital. Her eyes were closed tightly shut, her mouth was silently moving. The whole theatre was all quiet intensity as they marked her a 2 on the APGAR test. A one-minute eternity later, she was an 8. The universe was ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park in collaboration with members from our Skeptical Science team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Is Antarctica gaining land ice? ...
Images of US students (and others) protesting and setting up tent cities on US university campuses have been broadcast world wide and clearly demonstrate the growing rifts in US society caused by US policy toward Israel and Israel’s prosecution of … Continue reading → ...
Barrie Saunders writes – Dear Paul As the new Minister of Media and Communications, you will be inundated with heaps of free advice and special pleading, all in the national interest of course. For what it’s worth here is my assessment: Traditional broadcasting free to air content through ...
Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its arguments for such a bold reform. ...
Peter Dunne writes – The great nineteenth British Prime Minister, William Gladstone, once observed that “the first essential for a Prime Minister is to be a good butcher.” When a later British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, sacked a third of his Cabinet in July 1962, in what became ...
Ele Ludemann writes – New Zealanders had the OECD’s second highest tax increase last year: New Zealanders faced the second-biggest tax raises in the developed world last year, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) says. The intergovernmental agency said the average change in personal income tax ...
We all know something’s not right with our elections. The spread of misinformation, people being targeted with soundbites and emotional triggers that ignore the facts, even the truth, and influence their votes.The use of technology to produce deep fakes. How can you tell if something is real or not? Can ...
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It is all very well cutting the backrooms of public agencies but it may compromise the frontlines. One of the frustrations of the Productivity Commission’s 2017 review of universities is that while it observed that their non-academic staff were increasing faster than their academic staff, it did not bother to ...
Buzz from the Beehive Two speeches delivered by Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters at Anzac Day ceremonies in Turkey are the only new posts on the government’s official website since the PM announced his Cabinet shake-up. In one of the speeches, Peters stated the obvious: we live in a troubled ...
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The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi, and Mema Paremata mō Tāmaki-Makaurau, Takutai Tarsh Kemp, will travel to the Gold Coast to strengthen ties with Māori in Australia next week (15-21 April). The visit, in the lead-up to the 9th Australian National Kapa haka Festival, will be an opportunity for both ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
The Government and Rotorua Lakes Council are committed to working closely together to end the use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing) Tama Potaka says the Government remains committed to ending the long-term use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua by the ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is today travelling to Europe where he’ll update the United Nations Human Rights Council on the Government’s work to restore law and order. “Attending the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva provides us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while ...
Associate Agriculture Minister, Mark Patterson, formally reopened the world’s largest wool processing facility today in Awatoto, Napier, following a $50 million rebuild and refurbishment project. “The reopening of this facility will significantly lift the economic opportunities available to New Zealand’s wool sector, which already accounts for 20 per cent of ...
Asia Pacific Report A West Papuan resistance leader has condemned the United Nations role in allowing Indonesia to “integrate” the Melanesian Pacific region in what is claimed to be an “egregious act of inhumanity” on 1 May 1963. In an open letter to UN Secretary-General António Guterres, Organisasi Papua Merdeka-OPM ...
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Recent extreme weather events showed the importance of a well-functioning insurance system, says Commerce and Consumer Affairs minister Andrew Bayly. ...
By Jo Moir, RNZ News political editor, and Craig McCulloch, deputy political editor New Zealand’s Labour Party is demanding Winston Peters be stood down as Foreign Minister for opening up the government to legal action over his “totally unacceptable” attack on a prominent AUKUS critic. In an interview on RNZ’s ...
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The Wellington-based Reserve Force soldier is now almost three years into his New Zealand Army career with 5th/7th Battalion, Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment. ...
"The Government needs to release the review immediately as this reckless approach to change risks disjointed decision making and creates more distress and uncertainty for staff," Fitzsimons said. ...
By Koroi Hawkins, RNZ Pacific editor Jeremiah Manele has been elected Prime Minister of Solomon Islands, polling 31 votes to 18 over rival candidate and former opposition leader Mathew Wale with one abstention. The final result of the election by secret ballot was announced by the Governor-General, Sir David Vunagi, ...
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The NZQA proposal released to staff today would involve a net loss of 35 roles. There are 66 roles being disestablished with 13 of those currently vacant, and 31 new roles proposed, said Fleur Fitzsimons Public Service Association Te Pūkenga Here Tikanga ...
Alex Casey talks to Loren Taylor, the writer, director and star of new film The Moon is Upside Down, about assembling her dream ensemble cast, toilet paper pads and turning literal dreams into reality. There’s a moment in The Moon is Upside Down where frazzled anaesthetist Briar (Loren Taylor) gets ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cassy Dittman, Senior Lecturer/Head of Course (Undergraduate Psychology), Research Fellow, Manna Institute, CQUniversity Australia With winter sports swinging into action, adults around the country have volunteered or been volunteered by others (humorously known as being “volun-told”) to coach junior sports teams. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Karleen Gribble, Adjunct Associate Professor, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Western Sydney University richardernestyap/Shutterstock Parents are often advised to burp their babies after feeding them. Some people think burping after feeding is important to reduce or prevent discomfort crying, or to ...
Workers at a major ASB contact centre in Auckland have voted to take strike action and withdraw their labour following disappointing pay negotiations with the employer and an "offer" to workers that would leave them worse off than the previous year. ...
As the government tries to get the country back on track with a school phone ban, Tara Ward has an idea for where they should turn their attention to next.New Zealand students returned to school on Monday morning, but their cellphones did not. The government’s new phone ban began ...
The Labour Party is demanding Peters be stood down, saying "he's embarrassed the country" with a "totally unacceptable" attack on a prominent AUKUS critic. ...
The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance, whose members were victims of a China-backed cyber attack, is discussing forming a standing committee to deal with foreign influence. ...
The PSA is concerned that the voluntary redundancies being offered to staff by Stats NZ will impact on the agency’s ability to deliver on its core functions. ...
Results ranged from surprisingly yum to soul-destroying. I love cooking. The kitchen is a hearth of culinary creation, of sensory delights, of gastronomic poetry. I also can’t afford anything nice. Why does a pack of instant noodles and some milk cost ten bucks? I love you, Aotearoa, but I miss ...
By Koroi Hawkins, RNZ Pacific editor Police in Solomon Islands are on high alert ahead of the election of the prime minister today. The two candidates for the top job are former foreign affairs minister Jeremiah Manele at the head of the Coalition for National Unity and Transformation, which is ...
He’s fine but it feels like I’m losing a friend and it’s making me bitter. How do I say ‘enough is enough’? Want Hera’s help? Email your problem to helpme@thespinoff.co.nzHey Hera,I’ve recently moved in with a girlfriend, her partner Steve, and his friend. We all live in a lovely little house. ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jessica Balanzategui, Senior Lecturer in Media, RMIT University ABC “Bluey mania” shows no sign of abating. Bluey’s season finale, The Sign, was the most viewed ABC program of all time on iView. A “hidden” follow-up episode, aptly named The Surprise, created ...
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The campaign will engage the community and encourage submissions on the bill to the New Zealand government by the closing submission deadline of Friday 31st of May 2024 4pm. ...
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Loading…(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A,DIV,A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k<ql.length;k++){ql[k].id='quiz-embed-'+k;ql[k].href="javascript:var i=document.getElementById('quiz-embed-"+k+"');try{qz.startQuiz(i)}catch(e){i.start=1;i.style.cursor='wait';i.style.opacity='0.5'};void(0);"}}};i['QP']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)})(window,document,'script','https://take.quiz-maker.com/3012/CDN/quiz-embed-v1.js','qp'); Got a good quiz question?Send Newsroom your questions. The post Newsroom daily quiz, Thursday 2 May appeared first on Newsroom. ...
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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.
https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-24-01-2019/#comment-1575986
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.
https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-24-01-2019/#comment-1575986
“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?
https://twitter.com/ZekeJMiller/status/1088193014889992192?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1088193014889992192&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rawstory.com%2F2019%2F01%2Frepublican-party-passes-resolution-cancel-gop-primary-due-trumps-effective-presidency%2F
Решение было принято единогласно ЦК.
Keiner traute sich dem Fuehrer nein zu sagen, alle haven zugestimmt.
Dude walked into that one.
https://twitter.com/markmobility/status/1088197844257902593
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