Grow a hedgerow. Criss-cross the Canterbury Plains with them!
"The Government has just introduced its Agriculture Bill which will govern farming in England after Brexit, shifting away from the current EU subsidy system to one which rewards farmers for providing public goods such as carbon storage."
I trust your hedges will use Gorse. It was, after all, brought to New Zealand precisely for that purpose.
It even has its fans apparently. Here is a most laudatory article on the stuff. They even say, about Canterbury.
"Larry W. Price noted in a 1993 field study, in Canterbury gorse hedges “give the area much of its distinctive character”. As a consequence of the wholesale removal of hedges on the Canterbury plains between 1962 and 1989, gorse hedges are now viewed as features of historical significance. Some landscape architects even recommend their retention."
Imagine if Brexit brought some good changes. Just working my way through the new UK ag Bill to see if it's actually good or going to tie everyone up in regulations.
If they can manage the initial switchover without a logistical catastrophe, there will be occasional good things. But fewer and further between than things like degradation of worker and immigrant rights.
My question several comments above was more about whether the issues of Brexit are largely because of how RW governments will use it. So a left wing government could do more of the good things.
Then there's the transition phase, especially around border checks and how they will affect industries based on "just in time" logistics and inventory control. Especially on highly-perishable items (think live shrimp sitting on a wharf for days). Maybe that's a bit like Y2K, where the problems were so perilous that everyone worked for years to stop it happening. Maybe England shuts down. Who knows?
Then there's whether the EU was overall positive or negative on the UK economy. That will be longer term, viewable (and eternally debatable) as the years progress.
Whether a left wing government will be better for the UK if the UK is not part of the EU depends on whether the EU was stopping the UK from doing anything good. The only thing that comes to mind is preferential import/immigration controls that give a local advantage to UK producers. Environmental standards, heritage measures, AFAIK the EU mandates a required minimum effort, but no maximum on such issues. Like I'm not sure that the EU prevents any of its members going zero carbon, or boosting workers rights or living wages. So in that case, the benefit of a left wing government is the same regardles of brexit, but the harms of a tory government are increased.
Labour might get it's shit together (these leadership issues as tip of the factional fighting have been going on since Gordon Brown), then it just has to win an election in an FPP environment with a hard-tory press.
"But an independent Scotland might be much better off".
I don't think the people of Scotland, even in their most delusional moments would even consider it.
What do you think they will do? Apply to join the EU? I think that Spain would veto any such idea. Live off North Sea oil in what they would claim as Scottish waters? There isn't very much of it left. Trade with the EU when they they would have to transport all the goods through England? That would be fun wouldn't it, particularly if England insisted on inspection of every vehicle. Have all the Scottish Banks pack up and head South? They would because the Scottish economy isn't big enough to guarantee them. Do you really expect England to guarantee Scottish based Banks? Live of their own tax revenues? At the moment they get far more from Great Britain than they pay in taxes. Do you think that would continue?
Those are only a very few of the problems that an independent Scotland would face. I think they wouldn't ever vote to split. They would be far worse off than they are now.
Trump is aggressively rejecting the basic premise of American governance: that separate branches of government exist for the purpose of preventing abuses of power. By refusing to cooperate with the impeachment inquiry, the president is obviously engaging in obstruction of Congress. By bragging about this refusal to cooperate, however, he is doing something more. He is effectively shooting the Constitution in the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue.
An unconstitutional verdict of acquittal would present Americans with something far worse than a constitutional crisis. The nation will have blundered its way into creating an accidental autocracy governed by a president who, even if not reelected, would remain in office until January 20, 2021, beyond the reach of the rule of law.
“Wherever law ends, tyranny begins,” John Locke cautioned in his Two Treatises of Government. This is how autocracy comes to America: not with a declaration of martial law and tanks in the street, but by a roll-call vote in the Senate whipped by the leader of the Senate in violation of the Constitution.
If on the day the Senate returns its verdict, history records the failure to convict the president following a trial without witnesses, that will be the day the rule of law dies in America. The courts will remain open for business. Congress will be in session. Citizens will still be able to vote. And a free press will continue to launch withering attacks on President Trump. But the American people will no longer be living in a constitutional democracy.
I dunno whether to think it's because he's oblivious that obstruction of congress is a serious crime in itself and is one of the articles of impeachment, or because he's trying to show off to his cultists and rub it in to the Repug senators how complete the craven spineless subservience he now has from them really is.
He's perfectly entitled to shoot the Constitution in the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue or anywhere he wants. He's the boss. It's just a piece of paper to be used to do deals.
The collected hopes and ideals of hundreds of millions over a couple of hundred years? The Electoral College system, meets narcissism meets the world of 2020.
No doubt you would have thrown the constitution at Roosevelt too, the massive changes he implemented in the 1930's was power completely out of control.
Cold snap induces public health warning in Florida: falling iguanas! "The males can grow to at least 5 feet (1.5 meters) long and weigh nearly 20 pounds (9 kilograms)."
It's the `Labour set themselves up theory' of the Oz election: "The ALP had outlined – in quite incredible detail – its plans to massively ramp up government spending; jack up taxes, including on rental properties and capital gains; empower the unions and – shock horror – bring in some form of emissions trading scheme. It also at times adopted a sneering tone towards more traditional conservative Labor voters."
So looks like they've been brainstorming how to deal with the Nats replicating the Lib strategy. Moral: don't hand them the ammunition. Better to go further though: devise an effective response framing to each likely attack, well in advance.
The Labour party affiliated writers on this site can't stop explaining how proud they are of every surplus sequestered when Labour is in office either.
It astounds me how some people who claim to be from the left measure this government by the same framework as David Farrarr. A surplus is not the measure of a good government,
BEIJING (REUTERS, NYTIMES, AFP) – China put a second city on lockdown on Thursday (Jan 23) and imposed tough travel restrictions on three others amid fears over the spread of a new coronavirus that has killed 17 people and infected nearly 600.
The restrictions on train and other forms of travel will apply to tens of millions of people and come just days before the Lunar New Year holiday, when hundreds of millions of people travel around and out of the country.
The Chinese authorities on Thursday morning closed off Wuhan — a major port city of more than 11 million people and the centre of a pneumonia-like virus that has spread halfway around the world — by cancelling flights and trains leaving the city, and suspending buses, subways and ferries within it.
By evening, officials planned to close off Huanggang, a city of seven million about 70kmeast of Wuhan, shut rail stations in the nearby city of Ezhou, which has about one million residents, and impose travel restrictions on the smaller cities of Chibi and Xiantao as well.
The train station in Huanggang, which has a population of 7.5 million and is 70km from Wuhan – the first city that was put on lockdown – will be suspended until further notice from midnight. All vehicles will be checked, and bars and cinemas closed, said city authorities.
The railway station in a third nearby city, Ezhou, which has a population of over one million, will also close from tonight, though no other measures were announced.
Even reading about the population sizes of those cities is mind blowing, for a virus out break, how could you contain something like that, all the students will be turning up soon, holy fuck.
Years ago NZ ran a health exercise where a random plane had "infected" passengers, and the authorities had to track down and isolate the passengers and their contacts.
My uni found the students and their lecture buddies almost immediately.
It's the non-package-tourists/freedom campers who would be difficult to find – no local contacts and no set itinerary.
And don't forget, the Nigerians whacked freaking ebola on the head in Lagos.
The ones that are difficult to catch are the ones with either a longer incubation time or, like measles, the ones that can hang about for a couple of hours without a host (so you need to find the people who walked through the same space as your infected party, not the people who met them face to face).
Yeah that would be a "contact", prioritising the closest seated of course.
This is the early "prevention" stage of a pandemic. If it works, there will be no pandemic. If if fails, the worst case scenario is hundreds of millions get infected, maybe millions are directly killed by it, others die from other things because health systems are overloaded, and there's a huge economic impact that is more lethal than the direct infection rate.
The level of prevention is based on a number of factors from how infectious it is to how prone the virus is to mutation into something more lethal (or the pandemic sweet spot of "pretty lethal, but not immediately so there's a good period of undetected contagiousness"). There's probably a WHO flowchart of public health options somewhere.
So I suspect "worried" is a word that implies more concern than "following predetermined response pathways from a well-prepared plan". And some countries are more open to going full-restriction than others. North Korea seals its borders to tourists if the clouds are a funny shape.
But don't forget there's also the opportunity for good old-fashioned racism/immigration fearmongering of people "bringing in diseases". E.g. funnelling Wuhan-origin travellers through specific ports of entry.
If my memory serves me well SARS was able to be contained because it's fatality rate was linked to being spiky and burying itself deep in lungs. This made it more deadly to those who got it, but more difficult to spread because it was harder to cough and sneeze out being so deep.
It's always a problem for a virus if it kills too quickly.
Movies generally portray high spread rates + high fatality which when you think about it makes little sense. I guess the perfect virus would have a long incubation period then kill you slowly.
Must go and watch the TV adaptation of The Stand now. Yay for Max Headroom.
Movies vary greatly in accuracy, but it's a limitation of the medium that makes it difficult to portray a realistic passage of time (not to mention it's a fullt team effort, not one guy making the prediction, identifying the organism, and distributing the vaccine). They also tend to succumb to the temptation of "if these trends continue" drama.
ISTR Contagion wasn't too bad, though Outbreak was pretty funny in places, like when Dustin Hoffman got pissy at his boss because he wasn't allowed to deal with the specific outbreak of haemorrhagic fever he was obsessing over, but instead was directed to look at an outbreak of some lesser haemorrhagic fever.
"He’ll be witnessing to evangelicals at a mega-church, or addressing conservative supporters at a rally, and when the moment comes for him to pass along the president’s well-wishes, the words are invariably accompanied by an amused little chuckle that prompts knowing laughter from the attendees. It’s almost as if, in that brief, barely perceptible moment, Pence is sending a message to those with ears to hear—that he recognizes the absurdity of his situation; that he knows just what sort of man he’s working for; that while things may look bad now, there is a grand purpose at work here, a plan that will manifest itself in due time. Let not your hearts be troubled, he seems to be saying. I’ve got this."
All he had to do to implement the plan was to get the Democrats on board. There was a sure-fire way to achieve that: keep nudging the Donald to provoke their moral outrage, push the transition from bleating about impeachment to actually doing it. No problem: the suckers fell for it, hook, line & sinker.
If the topic is weird conspiracy ideas about getting the genital-grabbing golem out of the oval office, I've often mused what it would take to get the Nobel committee to offer him a prize in return for his resignation.
I don't think it would take that much, after all the reasons for giving one to Obama don't seem to be much more than he was "not Bush".
The Current Mob piles Insult onto Injury to family carers of MOH disabled clients.
Can't link from my phone parked in our 7m Bus…but on the MOH:DSS website they lay out the New Funded Family Care rules.
Pay rates for family carers will be based on experience…but only in a PAID capacity.
Those family carers who have done the work for years unpaid because of found discriminatory policy will not be considered "experienced" and will be paid at the lowest rate.
So.
Someone like myself who provides 24/7 support and "Advanced Personal Cares" (which are vital for the person's survival but are not funded by the MOH) will be told by some jumped up petty minded officious twerp of a bureacrat that what I've done for two decades is worthy of the lowest rate of pay.
To quote an earlier commentator on this issue…fuck this fucking bullshit.
For those not following the care worker pay rate settlement, the difference between the top bracket and the one Rosemary will be allocated is $5/hr ($20.50 – $25.50).
Is the budget blowout the issue here? Or is it a more general inability to create fair systems? I don't think it's that hard to create a process where unpaid work experience is accounted for, but I can see that some people would lack the imagination and/or ethical system to do that.
The amount of money is trivial in the context of their budgets. Why would you even need to have multiple pay rates for a non-professional workforce?
No, this is more about a risk averse culture (especially Legal team influence) and refusing to see that new ways of doing things might be more appropriate. Also possibly resentment at having their nose bloodied repeatedly by the courts. Minister should be aware of all this by now.
I’d like to hear more about how ACC has managed exactly the same issue for years.
In short…ACC clients are ENTITLED to the supports they are assessed as needing. Squadrons of wrgglely-arsed lawyers fuelled up and ready to swoop down on ACC to protect these rights.
The HRRT in 2008 heard that over 50% of funding for attendant care was paid to family.
Might account for the fact that research showed the household income for ACC spinal injured was twice that as for MOH funded unfortunates.
The pricks really, really hate disabled people.
Hark!
Is that the sound of the railway carriages clanking in the sidings?
also fucking bullshit is that someone in your situation going into paid work caring for other highly disabled people will likewise be paid the lowest rate despite the need for experienced carers.
I've got a post brewing about the inability of centre left neoliberal governments to manage fair pay and their health budget within neoliberal economics. Would it be ok to use your example here?
See also recent publicity about over-65 home help being affected by pay rises through DHB-hired staff opening up a gap with NGO-funded ones. Govt seems to deliberately create friction, perhaps to assuage punitive voters.
Note that support services for over-65s are managed through DHBs rather than national MoH contracts for (stupid) historic reasons. These are more liiely to be budget pressures than institutionalised bloody-mindedness.
I hope you do and you'll come to realise that the biggest obstacle to reform actually lays in the senior ranks of our public service – over a number of issues.
That "Pretty Communist" (which would be the VERY LAST thing she is) hasn't yet got what the problem is, and I wish her the very best of luck on the next used car she tries to buy. I don't really hold out much hope though because the latest I've heard is:
Jacinda didn't realise how long it takes in making reform. (Well that's not the first time she's said that)
AND then her expression of utmost confidence in our public service. (Let's be very clear tho' – I'm talking about those in the senior ranks rather than those at the coal face – frustrated and willing as they may be)
I'm on the turn @ Weka. There is NO WAY I could vote for the "right's" bugger's muddle of gNatz and it's partners and pretenders.
But there's also no way I can ever vote for an alternative anymore that (over a glass of Chardonnay don't you know), thinks that the poorest amongst our globalised community resort to hunger strikes, planned suicides and a load of other shit.
Can't be done under whatever the excuses our current Labour Party have to offer up. They seem to have the distinction and inability to see what and who their worst enemas are. Thank (whatever your GOD is) there are a few months left to get their shit together and to show otherwise.
Currently, that interview she did with some muppett/cadet trying to prove his creds called Henry Cooke left me wondering whether she does actually get it – or whether ………..
Right now, I'm wondering whether she is onto it, or whether in that interview with Henry Cooke, she was just trying to be diplomatic maybe.
I've decided to give up on voting for the least worst option – especially when many in the political class know what they need to do
Just got off the phone from the inimitable Toni Atkinson who said I can 'do a course ' to gain the appropriate qualifications to qualify for the higher pay rates.
As for who does what I do for Peter while I am being trained how to do it???
We get someone else to provide the care….
"But, but, Toni, the last couple of times we were forced to ' get someone in' those someone's couldn't actually do the tasks required…."
'Well, you use your IF to train some to do the tasks….'
Astute and sensitive readers will see where this is going…and as I just said to the nice lady from Natrad…I will get more satisfaction from emptying the effluent tanks on the Bus than I will from continuing to talk about this.
At the moment…the smell of the local Dump Station is sweet perfume in comparison to the crap be presented as well thought out policy.
Considering MOH:DSS has for years purported to be 'flexible' and to 'treat each client as an individual' they continue to present themselves as incapable of actually doing this.
Is the IF issue there that you don't have enough allocation to pay to train someone and pay them to do the hours? Or is it more that the work is specialised and specific to your situation?
What were the training hoops they were suggesting? Am curiuus what they think is reasonable.
Successive governments have spent mega millions on various programmes (through, of course, a contracted provider) dedicated to upskilling the carer workforce.
I understand high spinal injury care is Level 4.
Does is not strike you as even the slightest bit ironic that I, an unpaid and unqualified family carer, is expected to preform a role that the government is already funding through a contracted provider?
Since we now have it on the Highest Authority that what I do is not even to the same standard as Level 1.
This is rabbit hole stuff in the extreme and it is doing my head in.
I can imagine (by which I mean I totally understand the dynamics you are describing from other situations). The ability to institutionally insult along with injury is stunning.
This problem goes way back to the notion that privatisation would give 40% savings.
It's a large part of how people were sold Roger Douglas (and Thatcher, etc) reforms. The private sector could do it cheaper and more efficiently.
Geriatric wards were closed, public servants were laid off, people like cleaners, builders, etc had to become self-employed and meet their own responsibilities for annual and sick leave, or work for lower wages for private firms or NGO's.
Initially the cost structure equalled the cost of the public service providing the service with companies making their profit from reducing wages. Overtime inflation reduced the adequacy of the funding as did budget reductions to gain the savings.
Health, welfare, childcare, water, cleaning, building maintenance, roading all went the same way.
Now that we have had some years of experience of privatisation the obvious question is were those savings of 40% gleaned. Apart from rubbish collection the answer is nope.
"Hart, Shleifer, and Vishny (1997) apply the theory of incomplete contracts and property rights to the choice between public and private production of public services. Their study suggests that under private production, incentives exist to reduce costs at the expense of quality. Under this framework, incentives work as follows:
1. With private ownership, the manager has incentives to reduce costs through quality deterioration. The manager does not need authorization from the government, which will bear the political costs of quality reduction. To give the manager incentives to innovate to increase quality, the manager would need to negotiate price increases with the government to ensure compensation for his investment. Most likely, this negotiation will not result in a full appropriation of benefits from the innovation, which reduces the manager’s incentives to innovate.
2. Under government ownership, incentives work in the opposite direction. Because the manager is government-employed, he will take into account potential quality erosion when considering the implementation of cost-reducing innovations. In addition, the public manager will need government permission for any innovation he wants to undertake (either quality improvement or cost reduction). In the absence of a pay-for-performance scheme, the public manager will not fully benefit from the results of innovation."
The problem that has been occurring is that as private sector trained managers and bean counters have moved into the public service quality has also taken a back seat. I'm not sure now there is that much difference between management in the two sectors – hence the quality drop off in both.
I'd like to think that putting these services back into the public service, improving pay rates and working conditions for staff, providing vehicles and equipment to do their job and re-instilling a sense of public service would improve things. I'm just not sure that existing public service leaders are up to the task.
I remember being at a DHB meeting in the 90's where the old public service type accountant raised his concerns about the free labour that the DHB was getting after cutting hours for caregivers (contracted out). Many of them were providing extra hours for free as the clients needed this. He estimated this cost saving as several million dollars per year. Management clearly knew that they were getting this extra work for free. No changes or extra hours were put in place. The accountant resigned soon after.
My wife was one of those caregivers. I know how many extra hours she did without pay, how hard she lobbied for client's hours to be increased, how much what hours you got depended upon which DHB you were under, and so on.
A few relevant articles – though I can't find the meta-analysis I was looking for.
@Rosemary, I was thinking of you when this story broke. I nearly broke a few things listening to it… you'll excuse me not adding any more to this thread, but not a good idea to get me started on the MOH, Minister, or just our wonderful system in general at the moment. Our battle is still going on too.
So, if the Democrats get their way, here's who they have lined up as next POTUS: "The Pences were devout Irish-Catholic Democrats, and Mike and his brothers served as altar boys at St. Columba Catholic Church." Yep, a catholic democrat.
"Pence agonized over his “calling.” He talked about entering the priesthood, but ultimately felt drawn instead to politics, a realm where he believed he could harness God’s power to do good." The Democrats will get their man in, God willing. Trojan horse strategy.
"But President Ronald Reagan won Pence over—instilling in him an appreciation for both movement conservatism and the leadership potential of vacuous entertainers". Ah, I get it. The Trump as vacuous entertainer thesis.
"Pence had called Kellyanne Conway, a top Trump adviser, whom he’d known for years, and asked for her advice on how to handle the meeting. Conway had told him to talk about “stuff outside of politics,” and suggested he show his eagerness to learn from the billionaire. “I knew they would enjoy each other’s company,” Conway told me, adding, “Mike Pence is someone whose faith allows him to subvert his ego to the greater good.”"
"Marc Short, a longtime adviser to Pence and a fellow Christian, told me that the vice president believes strongly in a scriptural concept evangelicals call “servant leadership.”" The idea that the best leaders serve the public has been widely held for a long time. Never under-rate it.
Then, in response to pussygate, Pence took the initiative. "October 7, 2016, The Washington Post published the Access Hollywood tape that showed Trump gloating about his penchant for grabbing women “by the pussy,” … Within hours of The Post’s bombshell, Pence made it clear to the Republican National Committee that he was ready to take Trump’s place as the party’s nominee. Such a move just four weeks before Election Day would have been unprecedented—but the situation seemed dire enough to call for radical action."
"Meanwhile, a small group of billionaires was trying to put together money for a “buyout”—even going so far as to ask a Trump associate how much money the candidate would require to walk away from the race. According to someone with knowledge of the talks, they were given an answer of $800 million. (It’s unclear whether Trump was aware of this discussion or whether the offer was actually made.) Republican donors and party leaders began buzzing about making Pence the nominee and drafting Condoleezza Rice as his running mate."
But Trump never took the bait, and all this hidden history reveals is that Republican powers that be know they've got the perfect fall-back position should Trump fail; their own tame Democrat.
In the US the number of Christian political activist groups eclipses the number of hard left activists by several zeroes. It's a really interesting crowd to run with particularly in Chicago-Illonois politics.
Far less so in New Zealand, where religious influence is in freefall across society.
The USA is one more Trump term away from a theocracy. And if you think that the Supreme Court and the Constitution will stop the Evangicals, I suggest you Google 'Prohibition'.
Story within the story..check out the pic in this article which has an estimated anger level (eg11%) of people viewed by facial recognition as they walk unsuspectingly down a street. Next they will be detaining people under the guise of prevention due to their anger score.
So will the slogan be `let's do this again' or `let's do more'? Toby does point to what the campaign will hinge on this far out – unless something new displaces it.
"Labour will be gearing up for the inevitable from the Greens and, especially, New Zealand First. Labour’s leadership will strive to dish out plenty of “wins” for both smaller parties in the next few months. And then do what they can to ensure that efforts to assert “brand” independence don’t blow the house down."
Walk & chew gum simultanously. Brand differentiation, while concurrently framing their three campaigns as a collaboration. This imposes a tight operation constraint, and Toby spells it out. "So a year out from the election, I’ll give you three words. Discipline, discipline, discipline.”
At next year's Budget, announce a 25% increase in benefits, to take effect on 1 April 2021. I guarantee that will mobilise the poor, unemployed and sick to outflank the tradies and soccer moms in the mortgage belt. In 2005 South Auckland held up Labour's vote in the face of a wipeout in the provinces. They need to do the same thing again.
This coat design isn't just saving lives. It's launching new careers for homeless people
Detroit (CNN)In the shadows of Detroit's tallest skyscrapers, dozens of homeless people shiver in the 17-degree cold.
Ferocious wind gusts of 15 mph feel like cold knives stabbing the face.
Such conditions claim the lives of countless homeless people every winter — especially those without warm coats.
Now, a nonprofit aimed at solving that problem has accidentally led to one of the most successful homeless employment programs as the country's homeless crisis keeps growing.
"This is so much bigger than anything I could have imagined," said Veronika Scott, the 30-year-old CEO and founder of the Empowerment Plan.
The plan hires homeless people and teaches them how to make coats for the destitute suffering on the streets.
I've been working with a group here in my town where there are around 30 rough sleepers a night. When one of them goes missing for a day or so there is always the worry – are they alright? And while the temperatures here, are not as severe as the winter in Mid West America, a wet and windy night can be something of an endurance. So on seeing this amazing programme I'm wondering if something like it could be carried out here. Of course, what all these people say is that they would really like to have a home they could call their own – and that is what what they really want . Their independence.
An inspiring, and heart filling story. Well worth the 10 mins watch and read.
New Zealand is again having to reconcile conflicting pressures from its military and its trade interests. Should we join Pillar Two of AUKUS and risk compromising our markets in China? For a century after New Zealand was founded in 1840, its external security arrangements and external economics arrangements were aligned. ...
The ‘50 Shades of Green’ farmers’ protest in 2019 was heavy on climate change denial, but five years on, scepticism and criticism about the idea that pine forests can save us is growing across the board. File photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in climate ...
This morning the sky was bright.The birds, in their usual joyous bliss. Nature doesn’t seem to feel the heat of what might angst humans.Their calls are clear and beautiful.Just some random thoughts:MāoriPaul Goldsmith has announced his government will roll back the judiciary’s rulings on Māori Customary Marine Title, which recognises ...
In 2003, the Court of Appeal delivered its decision in Ngati Apa v Attorney-General, ruling that Māori customary title over the foreshore and seabed had not been universally extinguished, and that the Māori Land Court could determine claims and confirm title if the facts supported it. This kicked off the ...
Earlier this week at Parliament, Labour leader Chris Hipkins was applauded for saying that the response to the final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care had to be “bigger than politics.” True, but the fine words, apologies and “we hear you” messages will soon ring ...
TL;DR: In news breaking this morning:The Ministry of Education is cutting $2 billion from its school building programme so the National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government has enough money to deliver tax cuts; The Government has quietly lowered its child poverty reduction targets to make them easier to achieve;Te Whatu Ora-Health NZ’s ...
Kia ora. These are some stories that caught our eye this week – as always, feel free to share yours in the comments. Our header image this week (via Eke Panuku) shows the planned upgrade for the Karanga Plaza Tidal Swimming Steps. The week in Greater Auckland On ...
1. What's not to love about the way the Harris campaign is turning things around?a. Nothingb. Love all of itc. God what a reliefd. Not that it will be by any means easye. All of the above 2. Documents released by the Ministry of Health show Associate Health Minister Casey ...
Trust in me in all you doHave the faith I have in youLove will see us through, if only you trust in meWhy don't you, you trust me?In a week that saw the release of the 3,000 page Abuse in Care report Christopher Luxon was being asked about Boot Camps. ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking about the Royal Commission Inquiry into Abuse in Carereport released this week, and with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent on a UN push to not recognise carbon offset markets and ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 26, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Transport: Simeon Brown announced$802.9 million in funding for 18 new trains on the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines, which ...
The northern expressway extension from Warkworth to Whangarei is likely to require radical changes to legislation if it is going to be built within the foreseeable future. The Government’s powers to purchase land, the planning process and current restrictions on road tolling are all going to need to be changed ...
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedFirst they came for the doctors But I was confused by the numbers and costs So I didn't speak up Then they came for our police and nurses And I didn't think we could afford those costs anyway So I ...
Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on UnsplashWe’re back again after our mid-winter break. We’re still with the ‘new’ day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when we have our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream ...
Notes: This is a free article. Abuse in Care themes are mentioned. Video is at the bottom.BackgroundYesterday’s report into Abuse in Care revealed that at least 1 in 3 of all who went through state and faith based care were abused - often horrifically. At least, because not all survivors ...
Luxon speaks in Parliament yesterday about the Abuse in Care report. Photo: Hagen Hopkins/Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:PM Christopher Luxon said yesterday in tabling the Abuse in Carereport in Parliament he wanted to ‘do the ...
About a decade ago I worked with a bloke called Steve. He was the grizzled veteran coder, a few years older than me, who knew where the bodies were buried - code wise. Despite his best efforts to be approachable and friendly he could be kind of gruff, through to ...
Some of the recent announcements from the government have reminded us of posts we’ve written in the past. Here’s one from early 2020. There were plenty of reactions to the government’s infrastructure announcement a few weeks ago which saw them fund a bunch of big roading projects. One of ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Thursday, July 25 are:News: Why Electric Kiwi is closing to new customers - and why it matters RNZ’s Susan EdmundsScoop: Government drops ...
Hi,I felt a small wet tongue snaking through one of the holes in my Crocs. It explored my big toe, darting down one side, then the other. “He’s looking for some toe cheese,” said the woman next to me, words that still haunt me to this day.Growing up in New ...
Yesterday I happily quoted the Prime Minister without fact-checking him and sure enough, it turns out his numbers were all to hell. It’s not four kg of Royal Commission report, it’s fourteen.My friend and one-time colleague-in-comms Hazel Phillips gently alerted me to my error almost as soon as I’d hit ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Thursday, July 25, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day were:The Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquirypublished its final report yesterday.PM Christopher Luxon and The Minister responsible for ...
The Official Information Act has always been a battle between requesters seeking information, and governments seeking to control it. Information is power, so Ministers and government agencies want to manage what is released and when, for their own convenience, and legality and democracy be damned. Their most recent tactic for ...
TL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:Transport and Energy Minister Simeon Brown is accelerating plans to spend at least $10 billion through Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) to extend State Highway One as a four-lane ‘Expressway’ from Warkworth to Whangarei ...
I live my life (woo-ooh-ooh)With no control in my destinyYea-yeah, yea-yeah (woo-ooh-ooh)I can bleed when I want to bleedSo come on, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)You can bleed when you want to bleedYea-yeah, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)Everybody bleed when they want to bleedCome on and bleedGovernments face tough challenges. Selling unpopular decisions to ...
Please note:To skip directly to the- parliamentary footage in the video, scroll to 1:21 To skip to audio please click on the headphone iconon the left hand side of the screenThis video / audio section is under development. ...
Given the crackdown on wasteful government spending, it behooves me to point to a high profile example of spending by the Luxon government that looks like a big, fat waste of time and money. I’m talking about the deployment of NZDF personnel to support the US-led coalition in the Red ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:40 am on Wednesday, July 24 are:Deep Dive: Chipping away at the housing crisis, including my comments RNZ/Newsroom’s The DetailNews: Government softens on asset sales, ...
As I reported about the city centre, Auckland’s rail network is also going through a difficult and disruptive period which is rapidly approaching a culmination, this will result in a significant upgrade to the whole network. Hallelujah. Also like the city centre this is an upgrade predicated on the City ...
Today, a 4 kilogram report will be delivered to Parliament. We know this is what the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care weighs, because our Prime Minister told us so.Some reporter had blindsided him by asking a question about something done by ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Wednesday, July 24, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Beehive:Transport Minister Simeon Brownannounced plans to use PPPs to fund, build and run a four-lane expressway between Auckland ...
NewstalkZB host Mike Hosking, who can usually be relied on to give Prime Minister Christopher Luxon an easy run, did not do so yesterday when he interviewed him about the HealthNZ deficit. Luxon is trying to use a deficit reported last year by HealthNZ as yet another example of the ...
Back in January a StatsNZ employee gave a speech at Rātana on behalf of tangata whenua in which he insulted and criticised the government. The speech clearly violated the principle of a neutral public service, and StatsNZ started an investigation. Part of that was getting an external consultant to examine ...
Renting for life: Shared ownership initiatives are unlikely to slow the slide in home ownership by much. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:A Deloittereport for Westpac has projected Aotearoa’s home-ownership rate will ...
You're broken down and tiredOf living life on a merry go roundAnd you can't find the fighterBut I see it in you so we gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsWe gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsAnd I'll rise upI'll rise like the dayI'll rise upI'll rise unafraidI'll rise upAnd I'll ...
There’s been a change in Myers Park. Down the steps from St. Kevin’s Arcade, past the grassy slopes, the children’s playground, the benches and that goat statue, there has been a transformation. The underpass for Mayoral Drive has gone from a barren, grey, concrete tunnel, to a place that thrums ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Global society may have finally slammed on the brakes for climate-warming pollution released by human fossil fuel combustion. According to the Carbon Monitor Project, the total global climate pollution released between February and May 2024 declined slightly from the amount released during the same ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Tuesday, July 23 are:Deep Dive: Penlink: where tolling rhetoric meets reality BusinessDesk-$$$’sOliver LewisScoop:Te Pūkenga plans for regional polytechs leak out ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Tuesday, July 23, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Health: Shane Reti announcedthe Board of Te Whatu Ora-Health New Zealand was being replaced with Commissioner Lester Levy ...
Health NZ warned the Government at the end of March that it was running over Budget. But the reasons it gave were very different to those offered by the Prime Minister yesterday. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon blamed the “botched merger” of the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) to create Health ...
Long ReadKey Summary: Although National increased the health budget by $1.4 billion in May, they used an old funding model to project health system costs, and never bothered to update their pre-election numbers. They were told during the Health Select Committees earlier in the year their budget amount was deficient, ...
As a momentous, historic weekend in US politics unfolded, analysts and commentators grasped for precedents and comparisons to help explain the significance and power of the choice Joe Biden had made. The 46th president had swept the Democratic party’s primaries but just over 100 days from the election had chosen ...
TL;DR: I’m casting around for new ideas and ways of thinking about Aotearoa’s political economy to find a few solutions to our cascading and self-reinforcing housing, poverty and climate crises.Associate Professor runs an online masters degree in the economics of sustainability at Torrens University in Australia and is organising ...
The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back on National's Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. The bill sets up water for privatisation, and was introduced under urgency, then rammed through select committee with no time even for local councils to make a proper submission. Naturally, national's select committee ...
Some years ago, I bought a book at Dunedin’s Regent Booksale for $1.50. As one does. Vandrad the Viking (1898), by J. Storer Clouston, is an obscure book these days – I cannot find a proper online review – but soon it was sitting on my shelf, gathering dust alongside ...
History is not on the side of the centre-left, when Democratic presidents fall behind in the polls and choose not to run for re-election. On both previous occasions in the past 75 years (Harry Truman in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1968) the Democrats proceeded to then lose the White House ...
This is a free articleCoverageThis morning, US President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the Presidential race. And that is genuinely newsworthy. Thanks for your service, President Biden, and all the best to you and yours.However, the media in New Zealand, particularly the 1News nightly bulletin, has been breathlessly covering ...
A homeless person’s camp beside a blocked-off slipped damage walkway in Freeman’s Bay: we are chasing our tail on our worsening and inter-related housing, poverty and climate crises. Photo: Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
What has happened to it all?Crazy, some'd sayWhere is the life that I recognise?(Gone away)But I won't cry for yesterdayThere's an ordinary worldSomehow I have to findAnd as I try to make my wayTo the ordinary worldYesterday morning began as many others - what to write about today? I began ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Monday, July 22 are:Today’s Must Read: Father and son live in a tent, and have done for four years, in a million ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Orderimage, ...
Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent talking about the National-ACT-NZ First Government’s release of its first Emissions Reduction Plan;University of Otago Foreign Relations Professor and special guest Dr Karin von ...
Open access notablesImproving global temperature datasets to better account for non-uniform warming, Calvert, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society:To better account for spatial non-uniform trends in warming, a new GITD [global instrumental temperature dataset] was created that used maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) to combine the land surface ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says a bill that has passed its first reading will improve parental leave settings and give non-biological parents more flexibility as primary carer for their child. The Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill (No3), passed its first reading this morning. “It includes a change ...
Two Bills designed to improve regulation and make it easier to do business have passed their first reading in Parliament, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill make key changes to legislation administered by the Ministry ...
New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says newly appointed Commissioner, Grant Illingworth KC, will help deliver the report for the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons, due on 28 November 2024. “I am pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will commence his appointment as ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters travels to Laos this week to participate in a series of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-led Ministerial meetings in Vientiane. “ASEAN plays an important role in supporting a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Mr Peters says. “This will be our third visit to ...
Construction of a new mental health facility at Te Nikau Grey Hospital in Greymouth is today one step closer, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says. “This $27 million facility shows this Government is delivering on its promise to boost mental health care and improve front line services,” Mr Doocey says. ...
New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says proposed changes to the Education and Training Amendment Bill will ensure charter schools have more flexibility to negotiate employment agreements and are equipped with the right teaching resources. “Cabinet has agreed to progress an amendment which means unions will not be able to initiate ...
In response to serious concerns around oversight, overspend and a significant deterioration in financial outlook, the Board of Health New Zealand will be replaced with a Commissioner, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti announced today. “The previous government’s botched health reforms have created significant financial challenges at Health NZ that, without ...
Minister for Space and Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins will travel to Adelaide tomorrow for space and science engagements, including speaking at the Australian Space Forum. While there she will also have meetings and visits with a focus on space, biotechnology and innovation. “New Zealand has a thriving space ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will travel to China on Saturday to attend the Ministerial on Climate Action meeting held in Wuhan. “Attending the Ministerial on Climate Action is an opportunity to advocate for New Zealand climate priorities and engage with our key partners on climate action,” Mr Watts says. ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is travelling to the Solomon Islands tomorrow for meetings with his counterparts from around the Pacific supporting collective management of the region’s fisheries. The 23rd Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Committee and the 5th Regional Fisheries Ministers’ Meeting in Honiara from 23 to 26 July ...
The Government today launched the Military Style Academy Pilot at Te Au rere a te Tonga Youth Justice residence in Palmerston North, an important part of the Government’s plan to crackdown on youth crime and getting youth offenders back on track, Minister for Children, Karen Chhour said today. “On the ...
The Government has welcomed news the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has begun work to replace nine priority bridges across the country to ensure our state highway network remains resilient, reliable, and efficient for road users, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“Increasing productivity and economic growth is a key priority for the ...
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour has been in contact throughout the evening with senior officials who have coordinated a whole of government response to the global IT outage and can provide an update. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has designated the National Emergency Management Agency as the ...
New Zealand and Japan will continue to step up their shared engagement with the Pacific, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand and Japan have a strong, shared interest in a free, open and stable Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “We are pleased to be finding more ways ...
New developments in the heart of North Island forestry country will reinvigorate their communities and boost economic development, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones visited Kaingaroa and Kawerau in Bay of Plenty today to open a landmark community centre in the former and a new connecting road in ...
President Adeang, fellow Ministers, honourable Diet Member Horii, Ambassadors, distinguished guests. Minasama, konnichiwa, and good afternoon, everyone. Distinguished guests, it’s a pleasure to be here with you today to talk about New Zealand’s foreign policy reset, the reasons for it, the values that underpin it, and how it ...
Last summer when Matairangi burned, Ginny and Tom stood at the window of their lounge, watching kākā shoot skyward from the burning trees. From the distance, they looked to Ginny like pages torn from books and thrown into a bonfire. It was Tom, voice tight, who told her it was ...
Opinion: The Canadian short story writer Alice Munro – winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013 – died in May at the age of 92. Her work was about “the damage people inflict on one another in the name of love”, Deborah Treisman wrote in the New Yorker. ...
This month marks two years since the most powerful telescope ever built sent its first pictures back to earth. From its lofty vantage point, beyond the moon in orbit around the sun, the James Webb Space Telescope was tuned to observe the first stars and galaxies being born soon after ...
Comment: After Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ preview several weeks ago, I had some optimism about the Government’s emissions reduction plan. Now I’ve read the discussion document, that hope has been dashed. How can the Government propose a plan that wants to take New Zealand taxpayers’ hard-earned money, and spend ...
Christopher Luxon: hurdles The little man from National jumps hurdles in his sleep. He’s quite good at it in his dreams and even though the reality doesn’t quite match up you have to give him credit for getting up every morning and crashing into the very first hurdle of the ...
Comment: It was a good two hours into the conversation when Tyrone Marks raised the most basic of questions when I first spoke to him in 2017. “They didn’t explain the things they did to me. They never told me why. And they still haven’t. There’s no explanation for it. ...
Madeleine Chapman rounds out Death Week on The Spinoff with a final recommendation. You can read all of our Death Week coverage here. Nothing forces you to reflect on your life and relationships quite like proximity to death. For those whose nearest and dearest have died, there are reasonably obvious ...
Whitney Greene takes us through her life in television, including the TV character she’d like to plan a funeral for and her cow lung catastrophe on The Traitors NZ. “If the phone rings, I have to answer it,” Whitney Greene from The Traitors NZ warns as we begin our My ...
Maddie Ballard reviews the debut essay collection of Pōneke writer Flora Feltham.In ‘The Raw Material’, the longest essay in Flora Feltham’s dazzling debut collection, the author heads out for a run after hours of weaving and sees the world turn to textile. “Pounding along the Parade, I saw the ...
Andy Christiansen, one half of the experimental rock-pop duo TRiPS, shares the tunes inspiring the band’s perfect weekend and new release. “Good speakers, good food, good music, no distractions”: that’s all you need to enjoy the psychedelic stylings of TRiPS, a new band formed by Fly My Pretties’ Barnaby Weir ...
Celebrating our quadrennial opportunity to become experts in a bunch of sports we never normally watch.The games of the XXXIII Olympiad are upon us. Paris will host this year’s showcase of sporting and athletic prowess, which means some late-night and early-morning viewing for us in Aotearoa.But what sports ...
The photograph is striking and beautiful, but also disturbing – a reminder that my love for John was often entangled in shame.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.In the spring of 1980, in Dunedin, shortly before his death, someone took a photograph ...
Get to know Babushka, our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Babu’s humans, Jo and Isabel, for their support. Dog name: Babushka (Babu for short) Age: 2Breed: Border Collie X poodleIf rescued, ...
Pacific Media Watch A Lebanese photojournalist who was severely wounded during an Israeli air strike in south Lebanon carried the Olympic torch in Paris this week in honour of her peers who have been wounded and killed in the field — especially in Gaza and Lebanon. Christina Assi of Agence ...
The first report in a five-part web series focused on the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women taking place in the Marshall Islands this week.SPECIAL REPORT:By Netani Rika in Majuro Women continue to fight for justice 70 years after the first nuclear tests by the United States caused ...
Christopher Luxon has joined with Australia and Canada's leaders in voicing support for US President Joe Biden's ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The 2022 election brought the “teal wave” into parliament. The next election will test whether teals, who occupy what were Liberal seats, and other independents can maintain their momentum. Joining us on the Podcast ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Musgrave, Senior lecturer in Pharmacology, University of Adelaide Pixavri/Shutterstock A major Federal Court class action has been dismissed this week after Justice Michael Lee ruled there was not enough evidence to prove the weedkiller Roundup causes cancer. Plaintiff Kelvin ...
In The Week in Politics: politicians have to decide what to do about child abuse, Health NZ is booked in for major surgery and Darleen Tana returns. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University Mainstream media are surprisingly muted at the prospect of the world’s most powerful nation being led for the first time by a woman – specifically a woman of colour, Vice President Kamala ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Bennett, PhD Student, Associate Research Fellow, Deakin University Last week, a drone delivery company called Wing (owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet) started operating in Melbourne. Some 250,000 residents in parts of the city’s eastern suburbs can now order food from ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Foo, Lecturer, Physiotherapy, Monash University pikselstock/Shutterstock In the next 40 years in Australia, it’s predicted the number of Australians aged 65 and over will more than double, while the number of people aged 85 and over will more than triple. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katrina Grant, Research Associate, Power Institute for Arts and Visual Culture, University of Sydney Jonas Åkerström’s 1790 work, Session of the Accademia dell’Arcadia on August 17 1788.Nationalmuseum/Cecilia Heisser Ever wondered whether you’d have a better chance at winning an Olympic gold ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexandra Jones, Program Lead, Food Governance, George Institute for Global Health wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock On Thursday, Australian and New Zealand food ministers at state, federal and national levels met to thrash out what’s next for health star ratings on packaged foods. Now, after ...
The Abuse in Care report found many Pacific survivors lost their connections to their culture and language, resulting in trauma that has been carried from generation to generation. ...
In the regulatory review, ECC intends to suggest that ERO focus on curriculum delivery reviews rather than the Ministry, because it’s not efficient or effective to have two agencies with radically different approaches climbing over each other. ...
Te Rūnanga Nui o Ngā Kura Kaupapa Māori invites the current government to work in partnership with them to develop a pathway forward, including the development of a parallel pathway and meaningful policy and strategy for Kura Kaupapa Māori ...
If you haven’t started watching yet, Tara Ward begs you to reconsider. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. In the world of New Zealand reality television, we have many gems in our crown. There’s the delicious second season of the Celebrity Treasure ...
A new poem by Fiona Kidman. The clothes of the dead I did not keep my mother’s furry red beret for long nor the stringy scarves that adorned the necks of my aunts, although I have kept tag ends of gold, the rings and trinkets they wore, the brooches no ...
The government’s announcement that it will re-open the foreshore and seabed controversy by changing the rules on recognising centuries-old Māori customary title for a third time goes against the rule of law and New Zealand values,” Mr Tipa says. ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Lioness by Emily Perkins (Bloomsbury, $25) Roarrrr! Perkins’ brilliant, award-winning, Marian-Keyes anointed, darkly funny, long ...
The 2004 Act vested ownership of the foreshore and seabed in the Crown, extinguishing any Māori claims to ownership and causing widespread outrage and protests among Māori communities. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Antje Deckert, Associate Professor (Criminology), Auckland University of Technology Getty Images Despite the connection between institutional harm and gang membership made clear in this week’s mammoth royal commission abuse-in care report, the government seems unlikely to soften its “get tough on ...
From Lewis Clareburt in the swimming to the start of the rowing – the first seven days of Paris 2024 promise to be big for New Zealand. There are few events that bring the country together quite like an Olympic Games. Nothing quite matches the excitement of getting up in ...
Groundbreaking local science just showed up in the most surprising of places: the season finale of The Kardashians. In the season five finale of The Kardashians last night, several members of the family gathered together in one of their signature empty, cream-coloured rooms to hear test results that had been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amin Saikal, Emeritus professor of Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies, Australian National University The Middle East is on the brink of a possibly devastating regional war, with hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah reaching an extremely dangerous level. Washington has engaged in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Elizabeth Eades, Rheumatologist, Monash University Lupus is an inflammatory autoimmune illness, where the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks itself. Lupus can affect virtually any part of the body, although it most commonly affects the skin, joints and kidneys. The symptoms ...
A law firm that specialises in working with survivors of abuse in State care is disappointed that the Government fails to recognise that its boot camps can be directly compared to previous boot camps from the 1990s and 2000s. ...
Dying is a natural part of life, like updating your Wof or seeing your hairdresser, but without the word-of-mouth recs that help guarantee a good service. What if we changed that? Dying Reviews received by The Spinoff have had the names of organisations redacted while Hospice NZ collects further data. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonti Horner, Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland Mike Lewinski/Flickr, CC BY On any clear night, if you gaze skywards long enough, chances are you’ll see a meteor streaking through the sky. Some nights, however, are better than others. At ...
Despite having no bars or other designated spaces for lesbians, Auckland boasts a small but mighty lesbian museum. So how did it get here? The past 18 months has brought increasing hostility towards the queer community across Aotearoa. Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull’s anti-trans rally in Tamaki Makaurau last March led to a ...
Poneke Antifascist Coalition has invited Wellingtonians to stand in solidarity with the Kanak people at 12pm today outside the French Embassy in Wellington. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Layton, Visiting Fellow, Strategic Studies, Griffith University Drones are the signature technology of the Ukraine war. A few miniature aircraft designs were used in the war’s early days, but an incredible array of drones have now evolved. There are different types, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Slee, Associate Professor, Clinical Academic Neurologist, Flinders University Francisco Gonzelez/Unsplash Migraine is many things, but one thing it’s not is “just a headache”. “Migraine” comes from the Greek word “hemicrania”, referring to the common experience of migraine being predominantly ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lee White, Senior Lecturer and Horizon Fellow, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Sydney Australia was slow to introduce minimum building standards for energy efficiency. The Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS) only came into force in 2003. Older homes ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steven Sherwood, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Climate Change Research Centre, UNSW Sydney The past century of human-induced warming has increased rainfall variability over 75% of the Earth’s land area – particularly over Australia, Europe and eastern North America, new research shows. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Heynen, Program Coordinator, Sustainable Energy, The University of Queensland A temporary stadium in the Champ-de-Mars, ParisEkaterina Pokrovsky/Shutterstock As Paris prepares to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the sustainability of the event is coming under scrutiny. The organisers have promoted ...
A night of karaoke and community in a pub that feels like a memory. You’d barely even notice it, unless you knew to look. Tucked away behind a liquor store on busy Constable Street is the capital’s last great pub. Newtown Sports Bar is an emblem of the pub culture ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Wright, Professor in Marine Geology, University of Canterbury Louise Corcoran/Getty Images The decline in the number of doctoral candidates at New Zealand universities is a worrying sign for the country’s effort to build a knowledge-based economy. Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laurie Berg, Associate Professor, University of Technology Sydney defotoberg/Shutterstock Migrant worker exploitation is entrenched in workplaces across Australia. Tragically, a deep fear of immigration consequences means most unlawful employer conduct goes unreported. On Wednesday, however, the government officially launched a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vaughan Cruickshank, Senior Lecturer in Health and Physical Education, University of Tasmania Paris is about to host its third summer Olympics. While we don’t yet know what the legacy of this year’s games will be, let’s take the opportunity to reflect on ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hugh Breakey, Deputy Director, Institute for Ethics, Governance & Law, Griffith University In the wake of the assassination attempt on former US President Donald Trump, there were calls from bothsides of US politics, as well as internationally, to reduce the brutal, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Keith Rathbone, Senior Lecturer, Modern European History and Sports History, Macquarie University Two high-profile assaults on Australians in Paris have raised concerns about security ahead of the Olympic Games. On Saturday evening, a young woman was allegedly sexually assaulted by a ...
Dying is inevitable and, so it seems, is it costing a lot, writes Stewart Sowman-Lund in today’s extract from The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here.The cost of dying ...
The government took Joyce Harris's first baby and sent her off to a girls' home. Half a century on - and out of oceans of hurt - it asked her to be a mother figure. ...
It’s the deadliest fictional town in the country, but which death has been the most bonkers? Alex Casey looks back at 10 seasons of The Brokenwood Mysteries to find out. Warning: The following ranking story contains famous New Zealand actors appearing to be dead (not alive). The Spinoff has been ...
Water cremation is the biggest thing to happen to the death industry in the last 100 years. Alex Casey meets the people trying to bring it to Aotearoa. Through a set of mirrored doors down the industrial end of Christchurch’s St Asaph Street, death is getting a new lease on ...
NONFICTION 1 The Last Secret Agent by Pippa Latour & Jude Dobson (Allen & Unwin, $37.99) 2 The Life of Dai by Dai Henwood and Jaquie Brown (HarperCollins, $39.99) 3 A Life Less Punishing by Matt Heath (Allen & Unwin, $37.99) 4 Waitohu by Hinemoa Elder (Penguin Random House, $35) ...
Grow a hedgerow. Criss-cross the Canterbury Plains with them!
"The Government has just introduced its Agriculture Bill which will govern farming in England after Brexit, shifting away from the current EU subsidy system to one which rewards farmers for providing public goods such as carbon storage."
https://www.itv.com/news/2020-01-22/bringing-back-bigger-bushier-hedgerows-will-help-wildlife-and-store-carbon/
I trust your hedges will use Gorse. It was, after all, brought to New Zealand precisely for that purpose.
It even has its fans apparently. Here is a most laudatory article on the stuff. They even say, about Canterbury.
"Larry W. Price noted in a 1993 field study, in Canterbury gorse hedges “give the area much of its distinctive character”. As a consequence of the wholesale removal of hedges on the Canterbury plains between 1962 and 1989, gorse hedges are now viewed as features of historical significance. Some landscape architects even recommend their retention."
https://www.hedgecutter.co.nz/tips-advice/facts-about-gorse-in-new-zealand/
Trouble with gorse is that it does too well here, like rabbits.
" Trouble with gorse is that it does too well here, like rabbits
And neo liberal policies.
meh, boxthorn, or go home
Lovely hedgerows!
Imagine if Brexit brought some good changes. Just working my way through the new UK ag Bill to see if it's actually good or going to tie everyone up in regulations.
If they can manage the initial switchover without a logistical catastrophe, there will be occasional good things. But fewer and further between than things like degradation of worker and immigrant rights.
And if there is a change of govt next time?
I think we've seen that such a proposal is a bold call.
But an independent Scotland might be much better off.
Do you mean you think the left can't win the next election?
An independent Scotland will be much better off, but then England will be truly fucked.
My question several comments above was more about whether the issues of Brexit are largely because of how RW governments will use it. So a left wing government could do more of the good things.
The issue of how tories will use it is one thing.
Then there's the transition phase, especially around border checks and how they will affect industries based on "just in time" logistics and inventory control. Especially on highly-perishable items (think live shrimp sitting on a wharf for days). Maybe that's a bit like Y2K, where the problems were so perilous that everyone worked for years to stop it happening. Maybe England shuts down. Who knows?
Then there's whether the EU was overall positive or negative on the UK economy. That will be longer term, viewable (and eternally debatable) as the years progress.
Whether a left wing government will be better for the UK if the UK is not part of the EU depends on whether the EU was stopping the UK from doing anything good. The only thing that comes to mind is preferential import/immigration controls that give a local advantage to UK producers. Environmental standards, heritage measures, AFAIK the EU mandates a required minimum effort, but no maximum on such issues. Like I'm not sure that the EU prevents any of its members going zero carbon, or boosting workers rights or living wages. So in that case, the benefit of a left wing government is the same regardles of brexit, but the harms of a tory government are increased.
Labour might get it's shit together (these leadership issues as tip of the factional fighting have been going on since Gordon Brown), then it just has to win an election in an FPP environment with a hard-tory press.
So I think the odds are against it.
"But an independent Scotland might be much better off".
I don't think the people of Scotland, even in their most delusional moments would even consider it.
What do you think they will do? Apply to join the EU? I think that Spain would veto any such idea. Live off North Sea oil in what they would claim as Scottish waters? There isn't very much of it left. Trade with the EU when they they would have to transport all the goods through England? That would be fun wouldn't it, particularly if England insisted on inspection of every vehicle. Have all the Scottish Banks pack up and head South? They would because the Scottish economy isn't big enough to guarantee them. Do you really expect England to guarantee Scottish based Banks? Live of their own tax revenues? At the moment they get far more from Great Britain than they pay in taxes. Do you think that would continue?
Those are only a very few of the problems that an independent Scotland would face. I think they wouldn't ever vote to split. They would be far worse off than they are now.
That's the conservative party line. Worked last time.
It'll be interesting to see what happens if Brexit is a Breaks-it, though.
The Labour party is presently lecturing the Tories on the dangers of fiscal stimulus (e.g public expenditure). This is not promising at all.
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=44094
The election of a Foot era Labour party would probably see the UK prosper under brexit.
For an independent Scotland it depends how they position themselves regarding the EU.
Would be great to see hedges recognised as ecosystems in UK law. Here's a glimpse of habitat participants: https://ypte.org.uk/factsheets/hedges/animals-in-a-hedge?hide_donation_prompt=1
Also https://ptes.org/hedgerow/hedgerow-wildlife/
This one says 11 mammal species in hedges but fails to list them! http://www.hedgelink.org.uk/index.php?page=21
Chump-in-chief boasts about obstructing constitutional accountability. https://www.thenation.com/article/trump-constitution-pennsylvania-avenue/
The impending acquittal will be a much stronger Constitutional challenge.
The ability of the Congress+Senate to remove a wayward President will be obliterated.
Only remaining check is the election.
That is a proper Constitutional breakdown.
Exactly as intended.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/01/impeachment-trial-without-witnesses-would-be-unconstitutional/605332/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share
I dunno whether to think it's because he's oblivious that obstruction of congress is a serious crime in itself and is one of the articles of impeachment, or because he's trying to show off to his cultists and rub it in to the Repug senators how complete the craven spineless subservience he now has from them really is.
He's perfectly entitled to shoot the Constitution in the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue or anywhere he wants. He's the boss. It's just a piece of paper to be used to do deals.
The collected hopes and ideals of hundreds of millions over a couple of hundred years? The Electoral College system, meets narcissism meets the world of 2020.
He would like to be 'the boss'. Whole point of their Constitution was always to make sure he can't be, unfettered.
No doubt you would have thrown the constitution at Roosevelt too, the massive changes he implemented in the 1930's was power completely out of control.
If you have anything about Roosevelt overpowering Congress, please do share.
https://twitter.com/ManlnTheHoody/status/1220190924291969024
Cold snap induces public health warning in Florida: falling iguanas! "The males can grow to at least 5 feet (1.5 meters) long and weigh nearly 20 pounds (9 kilograms)."
So if you're walking underneath at the time it drops, you'll know all about it. https://www.itv.com/news/2020-01-23/iguanas-stunned-by-chilly-temperatures-in-florida-fall-from-trees/
"They have been in South Florida since the 1960s, but their numbers have increased dramatically in recent years." Global warming.
It's the `Labour set themselves up theory' of the Oz election: "The ALP had outlined – in quite incredible detail – its plans to massively ramp up government spending; jack up taxes, including on rental properties and capital gains; empower the unions and – shock horror – bring in some form of emissions trading scheme. It also at times adopted a sneering tone towards more traditional conservative Labor voters."
"The Libs used this wide target and added some rhetorical contortions to suggest that Labour might introduce a retiree tax, a death tax, a car tax, and so on. These claims were then spurted out on social media. It took hold, and was effective." https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/118997353/jacinda-ardern-bets-big-on-election-year-positivity
So looks like they've been brainstorming how to deal with the Nats replicating the Lib strategy. Moral: don't hand them the ammunition. Better to go further though: devise an effective response framing to each likely attack, well in advance.
Its the self imposed neo-liberal framing of the debate which causes this.
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=44139
The Labour party affiliated writers on this site can't stop explaining how proud they are of every surplus sequestered when Labour is in office either.
Exactly
It astounds me how some people who claim to be from the left measure this government by the same framework as David Farrarr. A surplus is not the measure of a good government,
Which they have shown no sign of having the skills or discipline to do for over a decade now. Still, never too late..
Blockbuster writes itself.
https://twitter.com/adam_ni/status/1220231118907043840
BEIJING (REUTERS, NYTIMES, AFP) – China put a second city on lockdown on Thursday (Jan 23) and imposed tough travel restrictions on three others amid fears over the spread of a new coronavirus that has killed 17 people and infected nearly 600.
The restrictions on train and other forms of travel will apply to tens of millions of people and come just days before the Lunar New Year holiday, when hundreds of millions of people travel around and out of the country.
The Chinese authorities on Thursday morning closed off Wuhan — a major port city of more than 11 million people and the centre of a pneumonia-like virus that has spread halfway around the world — by cancelling flights and trains leaving the city, and suspending buses, subways and ferries within it.
By evening, officials planned to close off Huanggang, a city of seven million about 70kmeast of Wuhan, shut rail stations in the nearby city of Ezhou, which has about one million residents, and impose travel restrictions on the smaller cities of Chibi and Xiantao as well.
The train station in Huanggang, which has a population of 7.5 million and is 70km from Wuhan – the first city that was put on lockdown – will be suspended until further notice from midnight. All vehicles will be checked, and bars and cinemas closed, said city authorities.
The railway station in a third nearby city, Ezhou, which has a population of over one million, will also close from tonight, though no other measures were announced.
https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/china-locks-down-two-more-cities-huanggang-and-ezhou-after-wuhan
Even reading about the population sizes of those cities is mind blowing, for a virus out break, how could you contain something like that, all the students will be turning up soon, holy fuck.
Years ago NZ ran a health exercise where a random plane had "infected" passengers, and the authorities had to track down and isolate the passengers and their contacts.
My uni found the students and their lecture buddies almost immediately.
It's the non-package-tourists/freedom campers who would be difficult to find – no local contacts and no set itinerary.
And don't forget, the Nigerians whacked freaking ebola on the head in Lagos.
The ones that are difficult to catch are the ones with either a longer incubation time or, like measles, the ones that can hang about for a couple of hours without a host (so you need to find the people who walked through the same space as your infected party, not the people who met them face to face).
With the WCV won't it be anyone you shared an enclosed space with air? eg bus from the airport.
Does the Chinese closing transport in such massive cities when there have been relatively few deaths mean that they're more worried than normal?
Yeah that would be a "contact", prioritising the closest seated of course.
This is the early "prevention" stage of a pandemic. If it works, there will be no pandemic. If if fails, the worst case scenario is hundreds of millions get infected, maybe millions are directly killed by it, others die from other things because health systems are overloaded, and there's a huge economic impact that is more lethal than the direct infection rate.
The level of prevention is based on a number of factors from how infectious it is to how prone the virus is to mutation into something more lethal (or the pandemic sweet spot of "pretty lethal, but not immediately so there's a good period of undetected contagiousness"). There's probably a WHO flowchart of public health options somewhere.
So I suspect "worried" is a word that implies more concern than "following predetermined response pathways from a well-prepared plan". And some countries are more open to going full-restriction than others. North Korea seals its borders to tourists if the clouds are a funny shape.
But don't forget there's also the opportunity for good old-fashioned racism/immigration fearmongering of people "bringing in diseases". E.g. funnelling Wuhan-origin travellers through specific ports of entry.
If my memory serves me well SARS was able to be contained because it's fatality rate was linked to being spiky and burying itself deep in lungs. This made it more deadly to those who got it, but more difficult to spread because it was harder to cough and sneeze out being so deep.
It's always a problem for a virus if it kills too quickly.
Movies generally portray high spread rates + high fatality which when you think about it makes little sense. I guess the perfect virus would have a long incubation period then kill you slowly.
Must go and watch the TV adaptation of The Stand now. Yay for Max Headroom.
Movies vary greatly in accuracy, but it's a limitation of the medium that makes it difficult to portray a realistic passage of time (not to mention it's a fullt team effort, not one guy making the prediction, identifying the organism, and distributing the vaccine). They also tend to succumb to the temptation of "if these trends continue" drama.
ISTR Contagion wasn't too bad, though Outbreak was pretty funny in places, like when Dustin Hoffman got pissy at his boss because he wasn't allowed to deal with the specific outbreak of haemorrhagic fever he was obsessing over, but instead was directed to look at an outbreak of some lesser haemorrhagic fever.
MAGA: Mike's Alright Given Alternative
Never-Trump Repugs are getting more vocal …
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/gop-group-president-pence-ad_n_5e293ad1c5b67d8874acb7fa
God’s Plan for Mike Pence was revealed a couple of years ago: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/01/gods-plan-for-mike-pence/546569/
"He’ll be witnessing to evangelicals at a mega-church, or addressing conservative supporters at a rally, and when the moment comes for him to pass along the president’s well-wishes, the words are invariably accompanied by an amused little chuckle that prompts knowing laughter from the attendees. It’s almost as if, in that brief, barely perceptible moment, Pence is sending a message to those with ears to hear—that he recognizes the absurdity of his situation; that he knows just what sort of man he’s working for; that while things may look bad now, there is a grand purpose at work here, a plan that will manifest itself in due time. Let not your hearts be troubled, he seems to be saying. I’ve got this."
All he had to do to implement the plan was to get the Democrats on board. There was a sure-fire way to achieve that: keep nudging the Donald to provoke their moral outrage, push the transition from bleating about impeachment to actually doing it. No problem: the suckers fell for it, hook, line & sinker.
It may or may not be useful to their electoral chances, but the Congress Democrats did the job that the Constitution demanded of them.
Neither Pence nor anyone around him has the wit to orchestrate Trump into impeachable behaviour.
If the topic is weird conspiracy ideas about getting the genital-grabbing golem out of the oval office, I've often mused what it would take to get the Nobel committee to offer him a prize in return for his resignation.
I don't think it would take that much, after all the reasons for giving one to Obama don't seem to be much more than he was "not Bush".
The Current Mob piles Insult onto Injury to family carers of MOH disabled clients.
Can't link from my phone parked in our 7m Bus…but on the MOH:DSS website they lay out the New Funded Family Care rules.
Pay rates for family carers will be based on experience…but only in a PAID capacity.
Those family carers who have done the work for years unpaid because of found discriminatory policy will not be considered "experienced" and will be paid at the lowest rate.
So.
Someone like myself who provides 24/7 support and "Advanced Personal Cares" (which are vital for the person's survival but are not funded by the MOH) will be told by some jumped up petty minded officious twerp of a bureacrat that what I've done for two decades is worthy of the lowest rate of pay.
To quote an earlier commentator on this issue…fuck this fucking bullshit.
SSDD
Bastards.
This one? https://www.health.govt.nz/funded-family-care-2020
For those not following the care worker pay rate settlement, the difference between the top bracket and the one Rosemary will be allocated is $5/hr ($20.50 – $25.50).
Snap. The attitude behind those details has not improved at all. Some firings are really in order.
Is the budget blowout the issue here? Or is it a more general inability to create fair systems? I don't think it's that hard to create a process where unpaid work experience is accounted for, but I can see that some people would lack the imagination and/or ethical system to do that.
The amount of money is trivial in the context of their budgets. Why would you even need to have multiple pay rates for a non-professional workforce?
No, this is more about a risk averse culture (especially Legal team influence) and refusing to see that new ways of doing things might be more appropriate. Also possibly resentment at having their nose bloodied repeatedly by the courts. Minister should be aware of all this by now.
I’d like to hear more about how ACC has managed exactly the same issue for years.
In short…ACC clients are ENTITLED to the supports they are assessed as needing. Squadrons of wrgglely-arsed lawyers fuelled up and ready to swoop down on ACC to protect these rights.
The HRRT in 2008 heard that over 50% of funding for attendant care was paid to family.
Might account for the fact that research showed the household income for ACC spinal injured was twice that as for MOH funded unfortunates.
The pricks really, really hate disabled people.
Hark!
Is that the sound of the railway carriages clanking in the sidings?
also fucking bullshit is that someone in your situation going into paid work caring for other highly disabled people will likewise be paid the lowest rate despite the need for experienced carers.
I've got a post brewing about the inability of centre left neoliberal governments to manage fair pay and their health budget within neoliberal economics. Would it be ok to use your example here?
Use whatever…if I've posted it's with the knowledge that it us public.
I've just got of the phone with Natrad…mayhap they'll pick this up.
A very elderly lady the other day commented that God (her capital) must love arseholes since He made so many.
Thanks for picking this up and doing the link thing.
See also recent publicity about over-65 home help being affected by pay rises through DHB-hired staff opening up a gap with NGO-funded ones. Govt seems to deliberately create friction, perhaps to assuage punitive voters.
What's this? Do you mean the recent attempts to remove home help for elderly were because of budget pressures from the pay increase?
"through DHB-hired staff opening up a gap with NGO-funded ones."
What's this?
Day job intervenes, sorry. Can pick up later.
Sacha is more than on to it Weka.
I have 'work' to do also…but I'd reccomend checking out the NZDSN.
FFearless guardians of what they perceive is THEIR Trough.
Remove the profit incentive/ requirement and the system would be affordable.
MOH:DSS …the incubator of neo liberalism in the NZ Public Health service.
Here's one of the recent stories: https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/118654829/no-time-to-care-is-there-a-crisis-in-caring-for-the-elderly
Note that support services for over-65s are managed through DHBs rather than national MoH contracts for (stupid) historic reasons. These are more liiely to be budget pressures than institutionalised bloody-mindedness.
thanks to you both, I'll do a bit more research and reading.
"I'll do a bit more research and reading."
I hope you do and you'll come to realise that the biggest obstacle to reform actually lays in the senior ranks of our public service – over a number of issues.
That "Pretty Communist" (which would be the VERY LAST thing she is) hasn't yet got what the problem is, and I wish her the very best of luck on the next used car she tries to buy. I don't really hold out much hope though because the latest I've heard is:
Jacinda didn't realise how long it takes in making reform. (Well that's not the first time she's said that)
AND then her expression of utmost confidence in our public service. (Let's be very clear tho' – I'm talking about those in the senior ranks rather than those at the coal face – frustrated and willing as they may be)
I'm on the turn @ Weka. There is NO WAY I could vote for the "right's" bugger's muddle of gNatz and it's partners and pretenders.
But there's also no way I can ever vote for an alternative anymore that (over a glass of Chardonnay don't you know), thinks that the poorest amongst our globalised community resort to hunger strikes, planned suicides and a load of other shit.
Can't be done under whatever the excuses our current Labour Party have to offer up. They seem to have the distinction and inability to see what and who their worst enemas are. Thank (whatever your GOD is) there are a few months left to get their shit together and to show otherwise.
Currently, that interview she did with some muppett/cadet trying to prove his creds called Henry Cooke left me wondering whether she does actually get it – or whether ………..
Right now, I'm wondering whether she is onto it, or whether in that interview with Henry Cooke, she was just trying to be diplomatic maybe.
I've decided to give up on voting for the least worst option – especially when many in the political class know what they need to do
It's all sorted!!!
YAY!!!
Just got off the phone from the inimitable Toni Atkinson who said I can 'do a course ' to gain the appropriate qualifications to qualify for the higher pay rates.
As for who does what I do for Peter while I am being trained how to do it???
We get someone else to provide the care….
"But, but, Toni, the last couple of times we were forced to ' get someone in' those someone's couldn't actually do the tasks required…."
'Well, you use your IF to train some to do the tasks….'
Astute and sensitive readers will see where this is going…and as I just said to the nice lady from Natrad…I will get more satisfaction from emptying the effluent tanks on the Bus than I will from continuing to talk about this.
At the moment…the smell of the local Dump Station is sweet perfume in comparison to the crap be presented as well thought out policy.
Considering MOH:DSS has for years purported to be 'flexible' and to 'treat each client as an individual' they continue to present themselves as incapable of actually doing this.
SSDD
Is the IF issue there that you don't have enough allocation to pay to train someone and pay them to do the hours? Or is it more that the work is specialised and specific to your situation?
What were the training hoops they were suggesting? Am curiuus what they think is reasonable.
Successive governments have spent mega millions on various programmes (through, of course, a contracted provider) dedicated to upskilling the carer workforce.
I understand high spinal injury care is Level 4.
Does is not strike you as even the slightest bit ironic that I, an unpaid and unqualified family carer, is expected to preform a role that the government is already funding through a contracted provider?
Since we now have it on the Highest Authority that what I do is not even to the same standard as Level 1.
This is rabbit hole stuff in the extreme and it is doing my head in.
I can imagine (by which I mean I totally understand the dynamics you are describing from other situations). The ability to institutionally insult along with injury is stunning.
This is a great thread weka and some hugely enlightening details from Rosemary, Sacha, and yourself.
It is shameful that our govt cannot bring themselves to:
a. Increase the basic benefit to a liveable level, and
b. Ensure caregivers and home helpers are properly funded and supported.
I'm looking forward to reading the post you say you are working on.
kia kaha kia maia kia manawanui to you all.
This problem goes way back to the notion that privatisation would give 40% savings.
It's a large part of how people were sold Roger Douglas (and Thatcher, etc) reforms. The private sector could do it cheaper and more efficiently.
Geriatric wards were closed, public servants were laid off, people like cleaners, builders, etc had to become self-employed and meet their own responsibilities for annual and sick leave, or work for lower wages for private firms or NGO's.
Initially the cost structure equalled the cost of the public service providing the service with companies making their profit from reducing wages. Overtime inflation reduced the adequacy of the funding as did budget reductions to gain the savings.
Health, welfare, childcare, water, cleaning, building maintenance, roading all went the same way.
Now that we have had some years of experience of privatisation the obvious question is were those savings of 40% gleaned. Apart from rubbish collection the answer is nope.
"Hart, Shleifer, and Vishny (1997) apply the theory of incomplete contracts and property rights to the choice between public and private production of public services. Their study suggests that under private production, incentives exist to reduce costs at the expense of quality. Under this framework, incentives work as follows:
1. With private ownership, the manager has incentives to reduce costs through quality deterioration. The manager does not need authorization from the government, which will bear the political costs of quality reduction. To give the manager incentives to innovate to increase quality, the manager would need to negotiate price increases with the government to ensure compensation for his investment. Most likely, this negotiation will not result in a full appropriation of benefits from the innovation, which reduces the manager’s incentives to innovate.
2. Under government ownership, incentives work in the opposite direction. Because the manager is government-employed, he will take into account potential quality erosion when considering the implementation of cost-reducing innovations. In addition, the public manager will need government permission for any innovation he wants to undertake (either quality improvement or cost reduction). In the absence of a pay-for-performance scheme, the public manager will not fully benefit from the results of innovation."
http://www.ub.edu/graap/JPAM_BFW.pdf
The problem that has been occurring is that as private sector trained managers and bean counters have moved into the public service quality has also taken a back seat. I'm not sure now there is that much difference between management in the two sectors – hence the quality drop off in both.
I'd like to think that putting these services back into the public service, improving pay rates and working conditions for staff, providing vehicles and equipment to do their job and re-instilling a sense of public service would improve things. I'm just not sure that existing public service leaders are up to the task.
I remember being at a DHB meeting in the 90's where the old public service type accountant raised his concerns about the free labour that the DHB was getting after cutting hours for caregivers (contracted out). Many of them were providing extra hours for free as the clients needed this. He estimated this cost saving as several million dollars per year. Management clearly knew that they were getting this extra work for free. No changes or extra hours were put in place. The accountant resigned soon after.
My wife was one of those caregivers. I know how many extra hours she did without pay, how hard she lobbied for client's hours to be increased, how much what hours you got depended upon which DHB you were under, and so on.
A few relevant articles – though I can't find the meta-analysis I was looking for.
https://chpi.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/CHPI-SocialCare-Oct16-Proof01a.pdf
https://www.ciwem.org/the-environment/how-should-water-and-environmental-management-firms-tap,-retain-and-promote-female-talent
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/privatisation-very-british-disease/
Unimpressed that the Minister has meekly let this through. Scroll down to 'Increased Pay Rates'. https://www.health.govt.nz/funded-family-care-2020
Has the stench of entrenched bureaucracy all over it.
Ugh.
Scared grey creatures.
@Rosemary, I was thinking of you when this story broke. I nearly broke a few things listening to it… you'll excuse me not adding any more to this thread, but not a good idea to get me started on the MOH, Minister, or just our wonderful system in general at the moment. Our battle is still going on too.
Thanks Kay.
Sincerely.
So, if the Democrats get their way, here's who they have lined up as next POTUS: "The Pences were devout Irish-Catholic Democrats, and Mike and his brothers served as altar boys at St. Columba Catholic Church." Yep, a catholic democrat.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/01/gods-plan-for-mike-pence/546569/
"Pence agonized over his “calling.” He talked about entering the priesthood, but ultimately felt drawn instead to politics, a realm where he believed he could harness God’s power to do good." The Democrats will get their man in, God willing. Trojan horse strategy.
"But President Ronald Reagan won Pence over—instilling in him an appreciation for both movement conservatism and the leadership potential of vacuous entertainers". Ah, I get it. The Trump as vacuous entertainer thesis.
"Pence had called Kellyanne Conway, a top Trump adviser, whom he’d known for years, and asked for her advice on how to handle the meeting. Conway had told him to talk about “stuff outside of politics,” and suggested he show his eagerness to learn from the billionaire. “I knew they would enjoy each other’s company,” Conway told me, adding, “Mike Pence is someone whose faith allows him to subvert his ego to the greater good.”"
"Marc Short, a longtime adviser to Pence and a fellow Christian, told me that the vice president believes strongly in a scriptural concept evangelicals call “servant leadership.”" The idea that the best leaders serve the public has been widely held for a long time. Never under-rate it.
Then, in response to pussygate, Pence took the initiative. "October 7, 2016, The Washington Post published the Access Hollywood tape that showed Trump gloating about his penchant for grabbing women “by the pussy,” … Within hours of The Post’s bombshell, Pence made it clear to the Republican National Committee that he was ready to take Trump’s place as the party’s nominee. Such a move just four weeks before Election Day would have been unprecedented—but the situation seemed dire enough to call for radical action."
"Meanwhile, a small group of billionaires was trying to put together money for a “buyout”—even going so far as to ask a Trump associate how much money the candidate would require to walk away from the race. According to someone with knowledge of the talks, they were given an answer of $800 million. (It’s unclear whether Trump was aware of this discussion or whether the offer was actually made.) Republican donors and party leaders began buzzing about making Pence the nominee and drafting Condoleezza Rice as his running mate."
But Trump never took the bait, and all this hidden history reveals is that Republican powers that be know they've got the perfect fall-back position should Trump fail; their own tame Democrat.
In the US the number of Christian political activist groups eclipses the number of hard left activists by several zeroes. It's a really interesting crowd to run with particularly in Chicago-Illonois politics.
Far less so in New Zealand, where religious influence is in freefall across society.
The USA is one more Trump term away from a theocracy. And if you think that the Supreme Court and the Constitution will stop the Evangicals, I suggest you Google 'Prohibition'.
Story within the story..check out the pic in this article which has an estimated anger level (eg11%) of people viewed by facial recognition as they walk unsuspectingly down a street. Next they will be detaining people under the guise of prevention due to their anger score.
Toby Manhire previews Labour's election year strategy but offers no revelation: https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/23-01-2020/lets-do-this-again-whats-on-the-whiteboard-for-jacinda-ardern-and-labour/
So will the slogan be `let's do this again' or `let's do more'? Toby does point to what the campaign will hinge on this far out – unless something new displaces it.
"Labour will be gearing up for the inevitable from the Greens and, especially, New Zealand First. Labour’s leadership will strive to dish out plenty of “wins” for both smaller parties in the next few months. And then do what they can to ensure that efforts to assert “brand” independence don’t blow the house down."
Walk & chew gum simultanously. Brand differentiation, while concurrently framing their three campaigns as a collaboration. This imposes a tight operation constraint, and Toby spells it out. "So a year out from the election, I’ll give you three words. Discipline, discipline, discipline.”
There is one way to win.
At next year's Budget, announce a 25% increase in benefits, to take effect on 1 April 2021. I guarantee that will mobilise the poor, unemployed and sick to outflank the tradies and soccer moms in the mortgage belt. In 2005 South Auckland held up Labour's vote in the face of a wipeout in the provinces. They need to do the same thing again.
in 2005 wasn't South Auckland offered Working For Families, not benefit increases? You may be stereotyping a bit.
2005 was about keeping Brash out, who was set to launch the greatest ever assault on this country's living standards
Yep I'd support that.
Buy votes of the poor.
Good leftie stuff.
Unfortunately, Sepuloni is just shit.
you guarantee?,,,,are you even sure that the 30 odd percent that dont vote are predominantly in that cohort?
I came across this programme in Detroit the other day
I've been working with a group here in my town where there are around 30 rough sleepers a night. When one of them goes missing for a day or so there is always the worry – are they alright? And while the temperatures here, are not as severe as the winter in Mid West America, a wet and windy night can be something of an endurance. So on seeing this amazing programme I'm wondering if something like it could be carried out here. Of course, what all these people say is that they would really like to have a home they could call their own – and that is what what they really want . Their independence.
An inspiring, and heart filling story. Well worth the 10 mins watch and read.