A more likely explanation is that he was shown the questions beforehand and didn’t like them.
Possibly, but the most likely answer is because the right-wing pollies think The Guardian is a left-wing commie newspaper and must be avoided. I doubt Simon has ever read it.
And from the Guardian article today, Prime Minister Ardern's response to one question is a good insight into the priorities of this government:
Q. What is one thing you want to accomplish in your second term if you get re-elected in 2020? Justin Lindsay
A. We haven’t set our policy agenda for the next election yet but the plan is to continue to build on the work we have done in the first term to deliver a better New Zealand for more people.
But as finance minister, Grant Robertson, said when releasing the budget policy statement foreshadowing the direction of travel for the government, we will continue our focus on tackling the long-term challenges facing New Zealand while also investing to future proof the economy.
The Budget 2020 priorities – which would carry work over into the next term – are:
Just Transition: Supporting New Zealanders in the transition to a climate-resilient, sustainable, and low-emissions economy
Future of Work: Enabling all New Zealanders to benefit from new technologies and lift productivity through innovation
Māori and Pacific: Lifting Māori and Pacific incomes, skills, and opportunities
Child Wellbeing: Reducing child poverty and improving child wellbeing
Physical and Mental Wellbeing: Supporting improved health outcomes for all New Zealanders
All power to you Prime Minister to achieve those goals.
Some benefits they (NZ1) have been able to increase by using a back door. The $50 energy payment to pensioners. If the pension was adequate then there was no need for this. If it wasn’t then increase it from 65% to 68% (my figures here maybe a little out)
Don’t use housing allowance to increase landlord wealth, provide adequate state housing and so those in need are provided directly by the state.
I hope/pray that those who I continually see each year are not there next year and this is due to their situation has improved, but with it being an election year promises will not solve what many face on a day to day basis.
Restoration of benefits to 1991 levels, adjusted for inflation, to take effect on July 1, 2021, would also motivate the poor to get out and vote Labour in 2020.
The great unwashed of South Auckland saved Labour back in 2005. They need to be given a reason to save Labour next year.
Guan said workers paying security for jobs was commonly practised by Chinese employers in New Zealand.
She denied the $45,000 payment was a bond, claiming it was basic living costs, and "security" for taking on the risk of employing three Chinese citizens.
"That amount was calculated to two years basic living costs. It's got nothing to do with the visa.
"In China it's not a bond, it is just a payment in advance to secure they will pay me. The law is different in China. Everything they signed was in China, the money they paid was in China."
Regulator says nope:
Labour Inspectorate national manager Stu Lumsden said since January 2018 the department had taken enforcement action against nine businesses for employment breaches that involved premiums being charged.
"The Wages Protection Act makes it illegal for employers to charge an employee a premium fee, or a bond for employment. This includes charging an employee money in exchange for giving them a job or keeping them in a job so they can work under a work visa," Lumsden said.
Good to know they're FINALLY taking the problem of exploitation/modern-day slavery/trafficking a little more seriously than they once did.
Not too long ago, Stuey was telling us there were enough Labour Inspectors. The sad thing is, they let it go on so long and they now expect victims to trust them enough to report instances .
It's going to take a while for people (like the victims of exploitation) to take them seriously – but they (LI) made their bed – let 'em lay in it.
Let's see if they actually manage to extract the money out of Guan
The only real problem I see with MMP as we have implemented it would be easily fixed by reducing the threshold to 0.83% (1/120 of the vote). Which would render that abominable coat-tailing provision moot.
The main fault I see with MMP is that the party that wins the most votes doesn't always get into power which just seems to be…wrong
Just seems that while FPP puts the most popular party in power it ignores everyones elses votes which isn't good, MMP is able to ignore the most popular party which isn't good so I'm wondering if theres a fairer way
But it's not like lining up before a battle (and more than one battle has had factions switch sides during the event).
A party can't commit if it doesn't know how much policy it's likely to win in a coalition. And that changes according to the electoral ratios. And as you say NZ1 can go either way, depending on what deal it gets – how could it possibly commit to a deal before an election?
Yes they did. Coalitions have been well-known features of MMP for decades. Sometimes the largest party is just the biggest loser.
Frankly, I figured we'd be down to the largest parties only being 20-30% by now. I suspect the main reason we still have monolith parties is because the media insist on portraying it as a two-horse race rather than a team sport.
I reckon the way the split between electorate and list mps has gone to 71 – 49 has a bit to do with keeping just two parties so dominant.
As I understand it, it was kinda envisaged the split would stay a bit closer to equal numbers of electorate and list mps, but that ball kinda got dropped and we ended up with the weird provisions that have made the situation what it is now.
@Andre: yeah, capping the House membership but increasing the electorate numbers with population was a bit of a booboo I reckon
@PR:
Act aren't a party. They should have died out ten years ago or more, but nats gift them epsom because they'd rather have supplicants than partners.
The Māori Party could have gone both ways, technically, as did United. Top and KDC seemed issues based: agree with them on one or two policies andthey'd be ok with that. So the number of non-monolith centrist parties is probably similar to the wing parties ("fringe" would imply trace-element support). ACT, cons, Alliance, Greens, maybe one or two others.
ISTR the Green line is that they would go with any party that had decent environmental policy, but sadly that doesn't include the current nats.
I reckon the way the split between electorate and list mps has gone to 71 – 49 has a bit to do with keeping just two parties so dominant
We're heading for a situation where a few high ranking list MPs miss out because too may plonker electorate MPs have been elected. At which point things will change.
With our population growth we should have 140 MPs anyway, or electorates go back to 60 and represent more people
I disagree, Act is a party and would,now, probably win Epsom in a proper election.
But the nats haven't risked it in ages, have they.
And even if Seymour can win the electorate, that just makes Act like the last days of United: not a "party", an electorate mp pretending nationwide support.
If it weren't for National throwing the epsom campaign in the last few elections, Act would be history.
Well they don’t need to risk it so why bother but 25 years for a political party isn't bad going by a NZ political party and Seymours visibility is only going to rise next year
As you say media do like to keep NZ politics as a two horse FPP type system, maybe smaller parties have been hamstrung by that lack of media exposure and now with a new generation of voters coming through things will change
ISTR the Green line is that they would go with any party that had decent environmental policy, but sadly that doesn't include the current nats.
Your recollection is correct. The Green Party is willing to work with any parties if there are gains in it for the environment or the lumpenproletariat. It's that "if" statement that tends to rule out joining a National-led coalition, rather than any inherent refusal of the Green Party to work with National.
The problem I see with "the most popular party" thing is if you've got a big monolith that's put together as a grouping of barely-holding-together factions, how do you sort out where to put the effort and priorities?
Take the current state of the National party. It looks like the religious nutter faction has the upper hand at the moment. But how many National voters really want a government headed up by religious nutters prioritising religious issues?
Whereas a coalition of parties with overlapping priorities and values have an obvious indication of what their voters think should be prioritised. A hypothetical government with say 18 Green MPs and 6 New Socialist MPs and 40 Labour MPs is going to govern very differently to one made up of 8 Green MPs, 9 WinstonFirst MPs and 46 Labour MPs.
I've been pondering bicameral, where one house is purely proportional party representation and the other is local MPs (because regional concerns matter as much as Auckland concerns).
Legislation goes through the, er, "party house", and gets ratified by the electorate house. If the electorate house rejects, kick it back to the party house and either majority larger than the total nay votes or a 2/3 majority (haven't decided which) overrules the veto and the legislation is passed.
Both houses should be roughly equal in size, with electorates being 1:10,000-20,000 eligible voters. So yeah, a lot more MPs, but if we knock down their salaries a bit (like, a premium to ditch a profession for three years is fine, but $200k?) I think it would be better.
Well the pressure is slowly mounting on ScoMo, especially after his run in with a little old lady manning the kitchen for the local firies yesterday and the various State Governments to give relief to us volunteers firies in particular to the poor buggers down, but is there is bugger all in it atm for those not the public service or us veterans who have to jump through the hoops IRT DVA. Anyway it’s a small step in the right direction.
young girl today told me she and her mum went to NZ for a week of holiday to get out of Sidney.
Had not seen a blue sky for weeks and had a really bad, very throaty cough. Girl : Everyone is coughing, the air is really bad, that is why we came here so we had some clean air to breathe.
to those that believe we can adjust to this, no we can't.
Merry Christmas. Travel safely so that the volunteer fire fighters don't have to scrape bodies of the road. Be careful with the bbq so that they don't have to try and save the house. Don't do stupid shit so that they don't have to look for a cut hand in the grass. (all these things happened today)
Take your time, you will get there. Rejoice that you have shelter, food, blue skys and still some decent air to breathe. Eat, laugh be merry. Don't abuse the alcohol or drugs.
It was always the 0700 sign-in that nuked me when I was on rotating rosters. Night shift I could handle easily. But 16hrs is hard no matter when it's done.
I switched over to 2degrees from Spark for my broadband because of extremely hideous service (wasn't like that when I was there!) and I didn't get the modem (because 15 bucks is 15 bucks) so the switch over happens yesterday and try as I might I can't get the damn information needed to get the modem working (excuse the technical jargon)
I ring up the help desk and funnily enough still no joy (because I was using the modem Spark had provided) so I bite the bullet and order the modem and was told it would take up to 5 working days and given the time of the year I was resigned to getting the modem next Monday (a week without the internet!)
When lo and behold this morning, yes this very morning, a courier dropped off the modem from 2degrees and Christmas, and the internet was saved…sure not a very Christmassy miracle but a miracle nevertheless
And there I was wondering where TF tRump got his windmills kill birds/destroy the environment claptrap.
Trump’s nuts rant about wind energy: “I never understood wind. You know, I know windmills very much… Gases are spewing into the atmosphere. You know we have a world, right? So the world is tiny compared to the universe. So tremendous, tremendous amount of fumes & everything.” pic.twitter.com/DvkJq9NbWg
“Windmills, which are so widespread in many European countries seem to be an environmentally friendly kind (of energy), but in fact they kill birds,” Putin told a conference of his United Russia party in the Far East.
“Vibration there is such that worms come out of the ground, not to mention moles. This is a real environmental problem,” he said, adding that solar energy was the only alternative source that was entirely harmless.
"You know we have a world, right?" Uh, yes, I had noticed that. Goddam staffers dropping acid into his cuppa tea again, eh?
Putin the environmentalist. Will he allow an ngo to form, to speak on behalf of the homeless worms & moles? In little old Aotearoa, there's only homeless people to worry about (as yet). Homeless creatures may be the next big thing…
Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.The recent leadership change in the governing Labour party resulted in a very strange response from National’s (current) leader, Christopher Luxon. Mr Luxon berated Labour for it’s change of leader, citing no actual change.As ...
A chronological listing of news articles posted on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Jan 22, 2023 thru Sat, Jan 28, 2023. Story of the Week New Study Reveals Arctic Ice, Tracked Both Above and Below, Is Freezing LaterClimate change is affecting the timing of both ...
Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.It was another ‘SHOCK! HORROR!’ headline from a media increasingly venturing into tabloid-style journalism:Andrea Vance’s article seemed to focus on the "million dollar sums from the Government as the country grapples with a housing ...
Dr Brian Easton writes: It’s the summer break. Everyone settles down with family, books, the sun and some fishing. But the Prime Minister has a pile of briefing papers prepared just before Christmas, which have to be worked through. I haven’t seen them. Here is my guess at some ...
What Was the Prime Minister Reading in the Runup to Election Year?It’s the summer break. Everyone settles down with family, books, the sun and some fishing. But the Prime Minister has a pile of briefing papers prepared just before Christmas, which have to be worked through. I haven’t seen them. ...
In case you hadn't noticed, FYI, the public OIA request site, has been used to conduct a significant excavation into New Zealand's intelligence agencies, with requests made for assorted policies and procedures. Yesterday in response to one of these requests the GCSB released its policy on New Zealand Purpose and ...
Farming leaders are watching closely whether Damien O’Connor keeps the key portfolios of Agriculture and Trade when Prime Minister Chris Hipkins restructures his Cabinet. O’Connor has been one of the few ministers during Labour’s term in office who has won broad support for what he has done ...
South Islands farmers are whining about another drought, the third in three years. If only we knew what was causing this! If only someone had warned them that they faced a drying climate! But we do know what is causing it: climate change. And they have been warned, repeatedly, for ...
Ok, there’s good news and bad news in this week’s inflation figures, but bad > good. Our inflation rate held steady but hey, at a level below the inflation rate in Australia. The main reason for the so/so result here? A fall in petrol prices of 7.2% offset the really ...
Dr Bryce Edwards writes: Since her shock resignation announcement, Jacinda Ardern has been at pains to point out that she isn’t leaving because of the toxicity directed at her on social media and elsewhere, rebutting journalists who suggested misogyny and hate may have driven her from office. Yet ...
Since her shock resignation announcement, Jacinda Ardern has been at pains to point out that she isn’t leaving because of the toxicity directed at her on social media and elsewhere, rebutting journalists who suggested misogyny and hate may have driven her from office. Yet there have been dozens of columns ...
The Clinical Magus: Of particular relevance to New Zealanders struggling to come to terms with the sudden departure of their prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, is Jung’s concept of the anima. Much more than what others have called the feminine principle, the anima is what the human male has made out ...
The Select Committee, considering the proposed RNZ-TVNZ merger, has come back with a report conceding many of the criticisms that were made of the original legislation. In what is one of the most comprehensive demolitions of a Bill submitted to a Select Committee, the Economic Development, Science and Innovation ...
Such are the 2020s, the age when no-one, it seems, actually respects the basic underpinnings of democracy. Even in New Zealand. This week, I stumbled across a pair of lengthy and genuinely serious articles, that basically argue that Something is Rotten in the state of New Zealand democracy. One ...
Buzz from the Beehive Hurrah. Today we found something fresh on the Beehive website, Beehive.govt.nz, which claims to be the best place to find Government initiatives, policies and Ministerial information. It wasn’t from Finance Minister Grant Robertson, whose reaction to the latest inflation figures would have been appreciated. So, too, ...
Smiling And Waiving A Golden Opportunity: Chris Hipkins knew that the day at Ratana would be Jacinda’s day – her final opportunity to bask in the unalloyed love and support of her followers. He simply could not afford to be seen to overshadow this last chance for his former boss ...
Extremism Consumes Itself: The plot of “Act of Oblivion” concerns the relentless pursuit of the “regicides” Edward Whalley and William Goffe – two of the fifty-nine signatories to King Charles I’s death warrant. As with his many other works of historical fiction, Robert Harris’s novel brings to life a period ...
To challenge the Government’s promotion of co-governance, to share power between Maori and public authorities and agencies, is to invite accusations of racism. An example: this article by Martyn Bradbury on The Daily Blog headed Luxon’s race baiting hypocrisy at Ratana. The article was triggered by National leader Christopher Luxon, ...
A very informative video discussion: Are we getting the whole story about Ukraine? | Robert Wright & Ivan Katchanovski Getting objective information on the situation in Ukraine and the cause of this current war is not easy. There is the current censorship and blatant mainstream media bias – which ...
Yesterday the Herald ran an op-ed from Mayor Wayne Brown titled “The case for light rail is lighter than ever” and a few things stood out. However, it’s getting more and more tricky to make a strong economic case for spending up to $29 billion on a single route of ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Samantha Harrington Imagine it’s a cold February night and your furnace breaks. You want to replace it with an electric heat pump because you’ve heard that tax credits will help pay for the switch. And you know that heat pumps can reduce ...
In 2005, then-National Party leader based his entire election campaign on racism, with his infamous racist Orewa speech and racist iwi/kiwi billboards. Now, Christopher Luxon seems to want to do it all again: Fresh off using his platform at this week's Rātana celebrations to criticise the government's approach to ...
Inflation is showing little sign of slowing down, posing a problem for freshly minted PM Chris Hipkins. According to that old campaigner Richard Prebble, Hipkins should call a snap election. If he waits till October, he risks being swept away. The dilemma for the new leader is that fighting an election ...
Buzz from the Beehive A great deal has happened since January 19. Among other things, a new Prime Minister and deputy have been sworn in and our leaders (past, present and aspiring) have delivered speeches at Ratana. Newshub reported that politicians of all stripes had descended upon Rātana for the ...
It’s a big day for New Zealand; our 41st Prime Minister has taken office and the new, “Chippy” era of politics is underway. Or, on the other hand, the Labour Party continues to govern with an overall majority and much the same leadership team in place. Life goes on and ...
New Zealand has another Prime Minister who does not have a basic grasp of the three articles of the Treaty of Waitangi. THOMAS CRANMER writes: It is simply astonishing that New Zealand’s next Prime Minister, Chris Hipkins, is unable to give even a brief explanation of the three articles ...
A statue of a semi-naked Nick Smith puts the misogyny debate into perspective. GRAHAM ADAMS writes … In the wake of Ardern’s abrupt resignation, the mainstream media are determined to convince us she was hounded from office mainly because she is a woman and had to fall on her sword ...
A Different Kind Of Vibe: In the days and weeks ahead, as the Hipkins ministry takes shape, the only question that matters is whether New Zealand’s new prime minister possesses both the wisdom and the courage to correct his party’s currently suicidal political course. If Chris “Chippy” Hipkins is ...
An editorial in the NZ Herald last week, titled “Nimbyism goes bananas as housing intensifies“, introduced Herald readers to a couple of acronyms that go along with the now-familiar NIMBY (Not in My Back Yard): “bananas” (build absolutely nothing anywhere near anyone) “cave” dwellers (citizens against virtually everything). The editorial ...
Back in the dark autumn of 2020, when the prospect of Covid was freaking the country out, Finance Minister Grant Robertson set himself and Treasury a series of questions about what a post-Covid economy might look like. Those were fearful days, and the questions in part reflected a series ...
Buzz from the Beehive Yet another day has passed without Ministers of the Crown posting something to show they are still working for us on the Beehive website. Nothing new has been posted since January 17. Perhaps the ministers are all engaged in the bemusing annual excursion ...
Incoming Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has already indicated he intends making the tax system “fairer”. That points to the route a government facing an election could take to tilt the odds towards winning in its favour, given Labour’s support in the last months of the Ardern era had been ...
NewsHub has a poll on the cost-of-living crisis, which has an interesting finding: the vast majority of kiwis prefer wage rises to tax cuts: When asked whether income has kept up with the cost of living, 54.8 percent of people surveyed said no and according to 58.6 percent of ...
Labour has begun 2023 with the centre-left bloc behind in the polls and losing ground. That being so, did his colleagues choose Chris Hipkins as the replacement for Jacinda Ardern because they think he has a realistic shot at leading them to victory this year, or because he‘s the best ...
Two Flags, Two Masters? Just as it required a full-scale military effort to destroy the first attempt at Māori self-government in the 1850s and 60s (an effort that divided Maoridom itself into supporters and opponents of the Crown) any second attempt to establish tino rangatiratanga, based on the confiscatory policies ...
The first of Kiwirail’s big network shutdowns to fix the foundations on our tracks is now well underway with the Southern Line closed between Otahuhu and Newmarket. This is following on from the network wide Christmas/New Year shutdown, during which Kiwirail say that nearly 1,300 people working across 69 different ...
This is a re-post from the Citizens' Climate Lobby blogIn last year’s passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), Congress included about $20 billion earmarked for natural climate solutions. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is responsible for deciding how those funds should be allocated to meet the climate ...
You’ve really got to wonder at the introspection, or lack thereof, from much of the mainstream media post Jacinda Ardern stepping down. Some so-called journalists haven’t even taken a breath before once again putting the boot in, which clearly shows their inherent bias and lack of any misgivings about fueling ...
Over the weekend I was interviewed by a media outlet about the threats that Jacinda Ardern and her family have received while she has been PM and what can be expected now that she has resigned. I noted that the level of threat she has been exposed to is unprecedented ...
Dr Bryce Edwards writes: The days of the Labour Government being associated with middle class social liberalism look to be numbered. Soon-to-be Prime Minister Chris Hipkins and Deputy Prime Minister Carmel Sepuloni are heralding a major shift in emphasis away from the constituencies and ideologies of liberal Grey ...
A Different Kind Of Vibe: In the days and weeks ahead, as the Hipkins ministry takes shape, the only question that matters is whether New Zealand’s new prime minister possesses both the wisdom and the courage to correct his party’s currently suicidal political course. If Chris “Chippy” Hipkins is able to steer ...
The days of the Labour Government being associated with middle class social liberalism look to be numbered. Soon-to-be Prime Minister Chris Hipkins and Deputy Prime Minister Carmel Sepuloni are heralding a major shift in emphasis away from the constituencies and ideologies of liberal Grey Lynn and Wellington Central towards the ...
Following the surprise resignation of Jacinda Ardern last week, her replacement, Chis Hipkins, has said: Over the coming week, Cabinet will be making decisions on reining in some programs and projects that aren’t essential right now That messaging is similar to what Jacinda Ardern said late last year and as ...
Much of what will mark the early days of Chris Hipkins’ Prime Ministership would have happened anyway. By December, the Prime Minister and Finance Minister were making it clear the summer break and early days of this year were going to be spent on a reset of government policy. ...
Going to try to get into the blogging thing again (ha!) what with an election coming up and all that. So today I thought I'd start small and simple, by merely tackling the world's (second) richest man.I'm no fan of Elon Musk. You don't want to know why, but I'll ...
A chronological listing of news articles posted on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Jan 15, 2023 thru Sat, Jan 21, 2023. Story of the Week State of the climate: How the world warmed in 2022With a new year underway, most of the climate data for ...
Well, that was a disappointment. As of today, the New Zealand Labour Caucus opted for Chris Hipkins as our new Prime Minister, and I cannot help but let loose a cynical cackle. ...
Get ready for a major political reset once Chris Hipkins is sworn in as Prime Minister this week. Labour’s new leader is likely to push the Government to the right economically, and do his best to jettison the damaging perceptions that Labour has become “too woke” on social issues. Overall, ...
Things have gone sideways… and it’s only the third week of January? It was political earthquake time. For some the Prime Minister made a truly significant announcement. For others – did you have this on your bingo card? – a body double did so (sit tight, you’ll understand later, ...
Buzz from the Beehive Because our hard-working Ministers of the Crown are engaged in Labour Party caucus stuff in Napier, no doubt jockeying to ensure they keep their jobs or get a better one, Point of Order was not surprised to find no fresh news on the Beehive website this ...
By the end of 2019, Jacinda Ardern was a political superstar heading towards an election defeat. She was an icon, internationally beloved, on track to be an ex-prime minister before the age of forty. It was the year of the Christchurch terror attack when Ardern’s response to the atrocity saw ...
People complain about their jobs being meaningless. Does it matter?David Graeber, author of Bullshit Jobs: The Rise of Pointless Work and What We Can Do About It, would have smiled at Elon Musk’s sacking half the Twitter workforce. Musk seems to be confirming the main thesis of the book, that ...
Dr Bryce Edwards writes: Should New Zealand have a snap election? That’s one of the questions arising out of the chaos of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s shock resignation. There’s an increased realisation that everything has changed, and the old plans and assumptions for election year have suddenly evaporated. ...
Should New Zealand have a snap election? That’s one of the questions arising out of the chaos of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s shock resignation. There’s an increased realisation that everything has changed, and the old plans and assumptions for election year have suddenly evaporated. So, although Ardern has named an ...
I warned about the trap of virtue signaling in my article Virtue signaling over Ukraine. This video is still relevant – but have we moved on since then? The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was universally condemned at the time. Or was it? Certainly, the political atmosphere ...
Earlier this week Point of Order carried a post by Geoffrey Miller on how Japan under a new security blueprint is doubling its defence spending. The plans see Japan buying up advanced weaponry – including long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles from the US – and spending more on ...
Anyone else suffering back-to-work-blues? We’re battling, but still upright. Haere tonu! Today’s cover image is of sunset over Tirohanga Whānui Bridge, sourced from Twitter. The week in Greater Auckland On Monday, Jolisa pondered the fate of AT’s ‘Statements of Imagination’. Tuesday’s post was a guest post by Grady ...
Open access notables Bad news delivered by an all-star cast of familiar researchers: Another Year of Record Heat for the Oceans. From the abstract: In 2022, the world’s oceans, as given by OHC, were again the hottest in the historical record and exceeded the previous 2021 record maximum. According to IAP/CAS data, ...
The resignation of Jacinda Ardern has already made more global headlines than you might expect for that of the PM of a small commonwealth nation like say Sierra Leone (population 6.5 million) or Singapore (population 5.5 million). But international observers might not be too surprised by Ardern’s announcement that ...
One of my earliest political memories is the resignation of Prime Minister David Lange in August 1989. I remember this because of a brown felt-tipped pen drawing I did of the Beehive, the building that houses the Executive of the New Zealand Government. More than thirty years later, we ...
Buzz from the Beehive Hard on the heels of our Buzz from the Beehive earlier today, the PM has made two announcements – the 2023 general election will be held on Saturday 14 October and she will not be campaigning to win a third term as Prime Minister. She will ...
Jacinda Ardern had an outsized impact on New Zealand’s international relations. While all Prime Ministers travel internationally, Ardern’s calendar was fuller than most. Ardern’s first major foreign trip came within weeks of her election in 2017, to the APEC summit in Vietnam. The meeting gave Ardern her first in-person encounter ...
She gave it her all. No New Zealand Prime Minister has ever dominated the political scene at home as she has done, or has established an international profile to match hers. No New Zealand Prime Minister has had to confront such a sequence of domestic and international catastrophes – from ...
The tools exist to help families with surging costs – and as costs continue to rise it is more urgent than ever that we use them, the Green Party says. ...
As the Mayor of Auckland has announced a state of emergency, the Government, through NEMA, is able to step up support for those affected by flooding in Auckland. “I’d urge people to follow the advice of authorities and check Auckland Emergency Management for the latest information. As always, the Government ...
Ka papā te whatitiri, Hikohiko ana te uira, wāhi rua mai ana rā runga mai o Huruiki maunga Kua hinga te māreikura o te Nota, a Titewhai Harawira Nā reira, e te kahurangi, takoto, e moe Ka mōwai koa a Whakapara, kua uhia te Tai Tokerau e te kapua pōuri ...
Carmel Sepuloni, Minister for Social Development and Employment, has activated Enhanced Taskforce Green (ETFG) in response to flooding and damaged caused by Cyclone Hale in the Tairāwhiti region. Up to $500,000 will be made available to employ job seekers to support the clean-up. We are still investigating whether other parts ...
The 2023 General Election will be held on Saturday 14 October 2023, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced today. “Announcing the election date early in the year provides New Zealanders with certainty and has become the practice of this Government and the previous one, and I believe is best practice,” Jacinda ...
Jacinda Ardern has announced she will step down as Prime Minister and Leader of the Labour Party. Her resignation will take effect on the appointment of a new Prime Minister. A caucus vote to elect a new Party Leader will occur in 3 days’ time on Sunday the 22nd of ...
The Government is maintaining its strong trade focus in 2023 with Trade and Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor visiting Europe this week to discuss the role of agricultural trade in climate change and food security, WTO reform and New Zealand agricultural innovation. Damien O’Connor will travel tomorrow to Switzerland to attend the ...
The Government has extended its medium-scale classification of Cyclone Hale to the Wairarapa after assessing storm damage to the eastern coastline of the region. “We’re making up to $80,000 available to the East Coast Rural Support Trust to help farmers and growers recover from the significant damage in the region,” ...
The Government is making an initial contribution of $150,000 to the Mayoral Relief Fund to help communities in Tairāwhiti following ex-Tropical Cyclone Hale, Minister for Emergency Management Kieran McAnulty announced. “While Cyclone Hale has caused widespread heavy rain, flooding and high winds across many parts of the North Island, Tairāwhiti ...
Rural Communities Minister Damien O’Connor has classified this week’s Cyclone Hale that caused significant flood damage across the Tairāwhiti/Gisborne District as a medium-scale adverse event, unlocking Government support for farmers and growers. “We’re making up to $100,000 available to help coordinate efforts as farmers and growers recover from the heavy ...
Auckland Emergency Management have issued an emergency mobile alert ahead of the potential for extremely heavy rain to hit the Auckland region. The alert warned Aucklanders of MetService’s orange heavy rain warning between now and Monday. The Met Service issued an orange heavy rain warning due to an active line of thunderstorms ...
By Barbara Dreaver, 1News Pacific correspondent The Moungavalu family in Aotearoa New Zealand are grateful to be alive. Their Māngere home in Auckland, along with others in their street, was hit hard by flooding with chest-deep water sweeping down the road. Mohe Mougavalu says the water went down their no ...
Auckland's mayor says lessons have been learned following the region's highest ever rainfall over 24 hours, which left four people dead and forced hundreds of people out of their homes. ...
Oceans are at their warmest state ever and that has consequences, Kevin Trenberth writes I am a climate scientist who has been around watching the climate crisis grow from one of little concern to one where enough extremes of weather have grabbed the attention of the public. It is now ...
The deputy prime minister, Carmel Sepuloni, and transport minister Michael Woods spoke Sunday afternoon and updated on the government’s response to the state of local emergency in Auckland. Today there will be 70-80 case managers supporting those calling the MSD helpline for assistance. Sepuloni encouraged anyone needing any assistance (food, ...
Deputy Prime Minister Carmel Sepuloni says it has been "incredibly heartening" to see the way Aucklanders had helped each other out over the past few days. Sepuloni and Transport Minister Michael Wood have provided today's government update on the ongoing state of emergency in Auckland. Sepuloni thanked the many organisations ...
The deputy prime minister says it has been "incredibly heartening" to see the way Aucklanders had helped each other out over the past few days. Watch the latest government update here. ...
The deputy prime minister and the transport minister are providing today's government update on the ongoing state of emergency in Auckland. Watch it live here. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Timothy Welch, Senior Lecturer in Urban Planning, University of Auckland Getty Images We’ve built our cities to be vulnerable to – and exacerbate – major weather events such as the one we saw in Auckland on Friday. While almost no ...
If you’ve managed to secure some eggs, here’s a tasty dish from the Parsi cuisine which essentially revolves around eggs… Even if they were an acquired taste for Perzen Patel. I’ve always been mentally allergic to eggs. I’ll eat cakes that have eggs and dishes where I can’t see or ...
PNG Post-Courier Papua New Guinea’s Service Improvement Programme worth more than K1 billion (NZ$440 million) has become a major cash cow for “irresponsible” leaders, says the monitoring agency. In the past decade, the Provincial and District Services Improvement Programme has delivered much but has not achieved what it set out ...
Twice a week, church bells ring out through Auckland’s CBD. Sam Brooks meets the people who make it happen.If you happen to be on the Victoria Park side of the CBD on a Tuesday night or a Sunday morning, you’ll hear the sound of eight bells ringing clear as, ...
An excerpt from a keynote speech delivered in November last year to mark Ben Brown’s time as Te Awhi Rito New Zealand Reading Ambassador.We imagine ourselves into existence and a universe comes with us. This is the first and most important function of language, revealed to us ideally ...
Or if he did, it might read something like thisVexed, defensive, shouty, Mayor Brown the Second wore the countenance of a man who had just discovered, to his irritation and horror, that he is, you know, the mayor of Auckland. At Saturday’s press conference in response to the record-breaking, ...
When you consider their remote location, perilous terrain and dark, sometimes ugly history, it seems incredible that anyone still lives on Pitcairn Island. But almost 50 people do and, as Graeme Lay discovers, they live very well. The supply ship Claymore II stands off the north coast of Pitcairn Island. ...
Heavy rain has hit Bay of Plenty and Coromandel overnight and there's more rain on the way for Auckland, but people are beginning to take stock of the damage. A home has collapsed in Tauranga and residents have been evacuated. There are a number of road closures mainly in the ...
In the second of a three-part series on Labour's leadership transition, Elliot Crossan focuses on how Labour's economic handling of the Covid crisis created an explosion in inequality. Read part one here.Opinion: In her emotional resignation speech, Jacinda Ardern described how she no longer had “enough in the tank to do ...
ANALYSIS:By James Renwick, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington The extraordinary flood event Auckland experienced on the night of January 27, the eve of the city’s anniversary weekend, was caused by rainfall that was literally off the chart. Over 24 hours, 249mm of rain fell — well ...
RNZ News Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has acknowledged the way Aucklanders have come together and opened their homes to those in need, with the New Zealand government focused on providing the resources needed to get the city back up and running. The new prime minister — just four days into ...
RNZ News Minister for Emergency Management Kieran McAnulty has asked for communication on support after the severe thunderstorm in Auckland to be stepped up. It comes after a Civil Defence warning text failed to be sent out, and Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown told RNZ they will be reviewing the response, ...
RNZ News Three people are dead and at least one person is missing following the flooding overnight in Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city. About 1000 people were still stranded today after Auckland Airport was closed last night because of flooding of the arrival and departure foyers. Flights were cancelled for ...
Wayne Brown has doubled down on his decision last night to shun the media until close to midnight and only order a state of emergency at 9.30pm. In a defensive display to the media this afternoon, the Auckland mayor was questioned on comments other councillors made last night, including some ...
Prime minister Chris Hipkins has confirmed there are three deaths linked to the extreme weather event in Auckland over the past 24 hours. There is also at least one person missing. Speaking at a press conference in Auckland, Hipkins said the priority was to make sure Aucklanders were safe, housed ...
*This story was first published on The Conversation and is republished with permission*Until New Zealand's stormwater drain system adapts to our rising climate, it will never be able to cope with the level of flooding seen in Auckland on Friday night, writes James Renwick The extraordinary flood event Auckland experienced ...
Chris Hipkins has experienced his first major event as prime minister, just days into his tenure. He’s spent the day in Auckland alongside emergency services, surveying the damage and assessing next steps. He’s due to speak at 3.15pm alongside Auckland mayor Wayne Brown. Thanks to Stuff, here is a livestream. ...
Due to the “unprecedented weather event” in Auckland, organisers have confirmed the “heartbreaking decision” to cancel this year’s Laneway Festival. “We were so excited to deliver this show to our biggest crowd ever in New Zealand, our team has been working around the clock to do everything they can to ...
With the rain easing for a moment, many will be beginning the arduous task of cleaning out their flooded property. Auckland council has release advice for cleaning up after a flood. Cleaning up after a flood It is important to clean and dry your house and everything in it. Floodwater ...
Air New Zealand Chief Operational Integrity and Safety Officer Captain David Morgan says the airline’s domestic flights in and out of Auckland resumed from 12pm today as Auckland Airport re-opens. But he said with a backlog of flights and customers, the priority is those who need to travel urgently. “Those ...
Festival-goers holding on hope for Laneway, set to take place at Western Springs on Monday, will have to wait a bit longer for an official update. A brief post on Facebook this afternoon stated: “Safety is Laneway Festival’s number one priority. With the large weather event Auckland is currently experiencing, ...
Wayne Brown has defended the timing of a declaration of a state of emergency last night following record rainfall in Auckland. “The state of emergency is a prescribed process, it’s quite formal, and I had to wait until I had the official request from the emergency management centre. The moment ...
After the 11th hour cancellation last night, Elton John has cancelled the second concert of his farewell tour at Mt Smart, which had been scheduled for this evening. In a statement, John said: “Following the instruction of the emergency services, we have no option but to cancel tonight’s show in ...
The member of parliament for Mt Albert, Jacinda Ardern, has posted a message on Facebook following the flooding in Auckland. “I’m very conscious that it’s been a while since I posted, and there have been a few big things happening. But today the most important thing is everyone’s wellbeing and ...
Flooding of the runway, the check-in and arrivals areas on the ground floor and surrounding roads has disrupted operations at Auckland International, halting all departures until at least 5pm today, with no arrivals before 4:30am tomorrow. “People are asked not to come to the International Terminal at this time for ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Renwick, Professor, Physical Geography (climate science), Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington Victoria Park near the Auckland CBD on January 27.Getty Images The extraordinary flood event Auckland experienced on the night of January 27, the eve of the ...
New Zealand’s largest insurance group, IAG, says it is on track to receive more than 1,100 claims from Aucklanders by lunchtime after the city was deluged in the wettest day on record. Those claims, said the group which includes AMI, State and NZI Insurance, span property damage to homes and ...
The rampant flooding in Auckland didn’t just detonate its provincial public holiday weekend – it coincided with the biggest weekend of the year to date for live events. A pair of Elton John concerts at Mt Smart stadium had a combined capacity of over 80,000, while both Laneway at Western ...
Auckland is beginning a clean-up after its wettest day since records began. “Auckland was clobbered on Friday,” said emergency management duty controller Andrew Clark. “We won’t start to get a good idea of numbers affected until later today and, even then, this will take time, with information still coming in ...
The prime minister, Chris Hipkins, is travelling to Auckland after devastating floods hit the city overnight. With the airport out of operation until at least midday, he is landing at Whenuapai air base on a New Zealand Defence Force Hercules aircraft from Wellington. ...
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has arrived in Auckland for a daylong visit to the city following its catastrophic flood on Friday night. Flying in an Air Force Hercules to Whenuapai, Hipkins will spend roughly three hours on the ground assessing flood damage in the city before returning. He will receive ...
A quirk of timing left all Auckland’s institutions on the back foot. But social media, particularly TikTok, graphically showed just how bad the situation was. Late afternoon on a Friday is known as time to quietly drop bad news. You have the plausible deniability of it happening during work hours, ...
It’s a common sight during summer. It’s also a recipe for disaster.I recently drove with my family from New Plymouth to Tāmaki Makaurau and, just like how I lost count of how many cows I saw on the way, I lost count of how many cars had a passenger ...
Opinion - Election year has begun with a bang, and already the punditry and speculation are ramping up, but Grant Duncan warns not to treat polls as gospel. ...
New Zealand’s new prime minister, Chris Hipkins, is formally facing down an emergency just a few days after being sworn in, summoning the National Crisis Management Centre to the Beehive. The Beehive Bunker is being stood up to help with coordination of the emergency response in Auckland. I’ve asked ...
Analysis - Jacinda Ardern is one of New Zealand's most historically significant leaders. But she did not achieve the grand vision for Aotearoa her outsized rhetoric promised. ...
Brits abroad can be an asset to Aotearoa - but only if we make an effort to engage with te ao Māori, writes Scottish expat Fran Barclay Earlier this week, the UK High Commissioner signalled a promising intention to address the barriers facing young Māori and Pasifika who aspire to ...
"They want the Māoris out": provincial life in NZShe hadn’t learned to shut her mouth. Howard was tired of Councillor Kemp harping on and on and on. He pushed himself deeper into the boardroom chair and leaned back as far as he could force it. This woman had ranted ...
Positive affirmation quotes often aren’t helpful for tāngata whai ora. But taking the piss out of them can be. Early in January, on the first day of what would be a week of staying in bed with the curtains pulled, I put a disappointingaffirmations Instagram post up on my stories. ...
Ellen Rykers visits Mahakirau Forest Estate, ‘a crown jewel in the Coromandel Range’, where pest control is serious business.This is an excerpt from our weekly environment newsletter Future Proof – sign up here. The Mahakirau Forest Estate is not your average subdivision. Enter through its tall ...
As Auckland tackles severe floods and the city’s airport emerges from a deluge on both the runway and in terminals, Air New Zealand has confirmed that no flights will leave or arrive before noon on Saturday at the earliest. In a statement, the airline said anyone booked for a flight ...
RNZ News Mayor Wayne Brown has shut down criticism that he was too slow in declaring a state of emergency after severe flooding in Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city. In a media stand-up late on Friday evening, Brown said he was following advice from experts and as soon as they ...
The Prime Minister has gone down to the Beehive bunker to help coordinate the emergency response, as the Insurance Council warns some Aucklanders whose homes and business are flooded face very hard times ahead. Jonathan Milne reports.Comment: Standing by the south-western motorway, I watched in dismay as hundreds of cars ...
A state of emergency has been declared in Auckland as severe weather causes major flooding across much of the city. It’s expected the rain will continue into the morning. This post will be updated as more information is shared.What does a state of emergency mean? A state of emergency ...
Auckland’s mayor Wayne Brown said he declared an emergency in Auckland as soon as he possibly could – and he made the decision without listening to the “clamour” of the public. There has been some criticism of the mayor for his relative silence today throughout the deadly flooding that’s hit ...
Welcome to a special late night edition of The Spinoff’s live updates as Auckland enters a state of emergency. Stewart Sowman-Lund is on deck, with help from our news team.The top linesAuckland is in a state of emergency. It will remain in place for seven ...
Prime minister Chris Hipkins is pleased the call was made to declare a state of emergency in Auckland. All government agencies were working “flat out” to help in what was an “extraordinary set of circumstances”, Hipkins said in a tweet. “The emergency response is underway and the government is ready ...
Auckland’s mayor Wayne Brown has released a statement following the decision to declare a state of emergency in Auckland. Brown has faced criticism this evening for his relative silence throughout today’s major flooding, with the first public pronouncement of the state of emergency coming from his deputy. Brown said the ...
Christopher Luxon has criticised the time it took for the state of emergency in Auckland to be declared. The National Party leader is currently in Southland, but told Today FM he intends to get back to Auckland as soon as possible. Earlier in the night, Luxon sent a tweet “urging” ...
Here is, verbatim, that latest information we have from Civil Defence on tonight’s state of emergency in Auckland: Auckland Emergency Management has opened a Civil Defence Centre to assist those that have been displaced or need assistance following today’s severe weather. The centre is open now and is based at ...
Severe flooding has ravaged Auckland today but the mayor of the city is barely visible. As I write, the airport has flooded, check-in areas looking like a public pool. Motorways are overflowing and cars have been seen floating down streets like a river. A person has died in floodwaters in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Treasurer Jim Chalmers has laid out an economic blueprint for pursuing “values-based capitalism”, involving public-private co-investment and collaboration and the renovation of key economic institutions and markets. In a 6000-word essay in The Monthly ...
This is live coverage of the developing situation in Auckland. We will continue to update this with photos and information as it comes to hand. After a day of torrential rain, and new reports of at least one death in the flood water, a state of emergency has been declared ...
Fans are describing Auckland Transport's plans to help them get to and from Elton John's concerts in the supercity this weekend as a fiasco with tonight's concert now cancelled due to the weather. Two concerts were due at Mt Smart Stadium before tonight's concert was called off in the face ...
A state of emergency has been declared in Auckland due to severe flooding that has caused people to evacuate their homes. It was officially declared at 9.54pm. Meanwhile, Auckland Airport has closed its international terminal check-in due to flooding inside the building. The airport says it is sincerely sorry to ...
RNZ News Residents in flood-prone areas of West Auckland are being asked to prepare to evacuate as bad weather causes power cuts and car crashes across Tāmaki Makaurau, with a severe thunderstorm watch in place for the north of Aotearoa New Zealand. Auckland Emergency Management said the severe weather across ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Ward, Postdoctoral research fellow, The University of Queensland Five years ago, bulldozers with chains cleared forests and woodlands almost triple the size of the Australian Capital Territory in a single year. Brazil? Indonesia? No – much closer: Queensland. In 2018-19, ...
Auckland Transport has apologised for confusing messaging that suggested attendees of tonight’s Elton John concert should drive. In a post on Facebook last night, AT said “driving to the concert is recommended” – a suggestion that prompted backlash due to the lack of parking options near the stadium. The announcement ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steven Tingay, John Curtin Distinguished Professor (Radio Astronomy), Curtin University Asteroid 20223 BU’s path in red, with green showing the orbit of geosynchronous satellites.NASA/JPL-Caltech There are hundreds of millions of asteroids in our Solar System, which means new asteroids are discovered ...
In his memoir Spare, Prince Harry revealed he attended the future King and Queen of England’s wedding with a frostbitten penis. A veteran of Antarctic expeditions says it’s not an issue that crops up often, if at all.Now that the avalanche of coverage about the Duke of Sussex’s memoir ...
A new poem by Wellington poet and publisher Ash Davida Jane. objects in the mirror are closer than they appear if a dog digs in the right spot and unearths a rib what do I care if a woman grows from that bone take her in and tend to her ...
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.AUCKLAND1Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan (Grove Press, $25) Everyone’s chowing down on fiction ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Susan Hazel, Associate Professor, School of Animal and Veterinary Science, University of Adelaide schankz/Shutterstock Have you ever worried if the play between your cats was getting too rough? A new study published in Scientific Reports has investigated play and fighting ...
More water than anything else, the cucumber is the perfect counter to intense and fiery flavours. Cucumber is without a doubt the most refreshing vegetable*, the antidote to hot summer days. At 95% water, a cucumber is basically an edible, crunchy, waste-free water bottle. Beside water, the cucumber has almost ...
REVIEW:By Rowan Callick Radio Australia was conceived at the beginning of the Second World War out of Canberra’s desire to counter Japanese propaganda in the Pacific. More than 70 years later its rebirth is being driven by a similarly urgent need to counter propaganda, this time from China. Set ...
In a recent Guardian article, our prime minister answered a series of questions posed by readers.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/23/jacinda-ardern-on-culture-wars-her-plan-for-2020-and-how-to-cook-snapper
More ominously, at the end of the article this cryptic note:
“Simon Bridges, the leader of the opposition, was invited to answer readers’ questions but declined.”
Now it’s not like Soimun to avoid publicity, so why didn’t he front?
There could, of course, be a simple explanation: for instance, he may be on holiday in Hawaii with his family and couldn’t be bothered.
A more likely explanation is that he was shown the questions beforehand and didn’t like them.
While Jacinda is happy to answer questions (and no doubt be accused to seeking the limelight) the right will attempt to control the narrative.
Possibly, but the most likely answer is because the right-wing pollies think The Guardian is a left-wing commie newspaper and must be avoided. I doubt Simon has ever read it.
Or his comms team advised there are no votes in it for their party, given the publication's reach.
The whole comms team is on holiday (although rust never sleeps) and Simon cannot unlock his Twitter account.
Needs help to tie his shoelaces.
The Guardian has, as far as I know, only ever done two stories on Bridges..
"New Zealand opposition leader criticised for 'alarming' stance on China"
"NZ opposition leader accused of concealing $100,000 political donation"
both by Eleanor Ainge Roy
I think not agreeing to answering questions from Guardian readers was one of the few..possibly only..smart thing Bridges has ever done.
And from the Guardian article today, Prime Minister Ardern's response to one question is a good insight into the priorities of this government:
Q. What is one thing you want to accomplish in your second term if you get re-elected in 2020? Justin Lindsay
A. We haven’t set our policy agenda for the next election yet but the plan is to continue to build on the work we have done in the first term to deliver a better New Zealand for more people.
But as finance minister, Grant Robertson, said when releasing the budget policy statement foreshadowing the direction of travel for the government, we will continue our focus on tackling the long-term challenges facing New Zealand while also investing to future proof the economy.
The Budget 2020 priorities – which would carry work over into the next term – are:
All power to you Prime Minister to achieve those goals.
You mean continual labour’s over arching policy of Roger Douglas.
After helping out distribute food packages at Christmas, it was for me so sad to see the same families struggle year after year return.
In a country like ours there will always be families in need, just not the large numbers that we continually have.
If you volunteered this Christmas you are a saint of the first order.
The failure to raise benefits at least in step with minimum wage rises – or indeed at all – amount to a social crime by this government.
Some benefits they (NZ1) have been able to increase by using a back door. The $50 energy payment to pensioners. If the pension was adequate then there was no need for this. If it wasn’t then increase it from 65% to 68% (my figures here maybe a little out)
Don’t use housing allowance to increase landlord wealth, provide adequate state housing and so those in need are provided directly by the state.
I hope/pray that those who I continually see each year are not there next year and this is due to their situation has improved, but with it being an election year promises will not solve what many face on a day to day basis.
Restoration of benefits to 1991 levels, adjusted for inflation, to take effect on July 1, 2021, would also motivate the poor to get out and vote Labour in 2020.
The great unwashed of South Auckland saved Labour back in 2005. They need to be given a reason to save Labour next year.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/406104/safe-as-houses-new-zealand-s-first-climate-safe-house-almost-finished
will be worth seeing how this performs over the next wee while.
Wage thief penalised $680k by Employment Court claims different customs apply: https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/118400906/nightmare-holiday-park-owner-refuses-to-pay-back-full-bond-to-workers
Regulator says nope:
This isn't China. You want to do business here, abide by the rules, you grasping vulture. Guan should be nailed to the wall.
You mean like Kiwi rail?
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/71462127/rmtu-case-against-kiwirails-use-of-chinese-workers-heads-to-era
Good to know they're FINALLY taking the problem of exploitation/modern-day slavery/trafficking a little more seriously than they once did.
Not too long ago, Stuey was telling us there were enough Labour Inspectors. The sad thing is, they let it go on so long and they now expect victims to trust them enough to report instances .
It's going to take a while for people (like the victims of exploitation) to take them seriously – but they (LI) made their bed – let 'em lay in it.
Let's see if they actually manage to extract the money out of Guan
https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/118432266/no-date-fixed-for-return-of-whaktane-fishing-charter-after-whakaari–white-island-eruption
Surely two weeks is long enough to appease tangaroa and any other deities.
Let the man go back to work
There appears to be a complete disconnect between the Australian govt and "Firies".
Happy holidays.
Allāhu akbar. As-salāmu ʿalaykum.
So FPP and MMP both have issues in the way it deals with votes , would STV be a better option or is there an even better option?
What do you think the faults are with MMP?
The only real problem I see with MMP as we have implemented it would be easily fixed by reducing the threshold to 0.83% (1/120 of the vote). Which would render that abominable coat-tailing provision moot.
The main fault I see with MMP is that the party that wins the most votes doesn't always get into power which just seems to be…wrong
Just seems that while FPP puts the most popular party in power it ignores everyones elses votes which isn't good, MMP is able to ignore the most popular party which isn't good so I'm wondering if theres a fairer way
If the most popular party doesn't get into power under MMP, then more people voted against it than for it.
Yet it was Winston on 7% that decided who runs the country, that doesn't seem right either
Spot on Janice, People like Pucky just don't understand MMP. He is just a sore loser. Merry Christmas to you all.Yes that includes you Pucky.
I understand MMP well enough. I just don't think MMP is the be all and end all of voting options.
Maybe an option would be for all parties to disclose who they would go into before the election.
Winston had it both ways but how many of his voters wanted to go with Labour ie Keeping National honest and all that
But it's not like lining up before a battle (and more than one battle has had factions switch sides during the event).
A party can't commit if it doesn't know how much policy it's likely to win in a coalition. And that changes according to the electoral ratios. And as you say NZ1 can go either way, depending on what deal it gets – how could it possibly commit to a deal before an election?
I just wonder if the people that developed MMP had in mind a party of 7% deciding which coalition gets to govern
Yes they did. Coalitions have been well-known features of MMP for decades. Sometimes the largest party is just the biggest loser.
Frankly, I figured we'd be down to the largest parties only being 20-30% by now. I suspect the main reason we still have monolith parties is because the media insist on portraying it as a two-horse race rather than a team sport.
I reckon the way the split between electorate and list mps has gone to 71 – 49 has a bit to do with keeping just two parties so dominant.
As I understand it, it was kinda envisaged the split would stay a bit closer to equal numbers of electorate and list mps, but that ball kinda got dropped and we ended up with the weird provisions that have made the situation what it is now.
I don't think Act and the Greens are helping this regard, in that its not likely Act will go with Labour and the Greens have ruled out National
@Andre: yeah, capping the House membership but increasing the electorate numbers with population was a bit of a booboo I reckon
@PR:
Act aren't a party. They should have died out ten years ago or more, but nats gift them epsom because they'd rather have supplicants than partners.
The Māori Party could have gone both ways, technically, as did United. Top and KDC seemed issues based: agree with them on one or two policies andthey'd be ok with that. So the number of non-monolith centrist parties is probably similar to the wing parties ("fringe" would imply trace-element support). ACT, cons, Alliance, Greens, maybe one or two others.
ISTR the Green line is that they would go with any party that had decent environmental policy, but sadly that doesn't include the current nats.
We're heading for a situation where a few high ranking list MPs miss out because too may plonker electorate MPs have been elected. At which point things will change.
With our population growth we should have 140 MPs anyway, or electorates go back to 60 and represent more people
I disagree, Act is a party and would,now, probably win Epsom in a proper election.
David Seymour has shown to be a capable MP (certainly more effective than most MPs) and I'm predicting a2, possibly 3 MPs for Act at the next election
But the nats haven't risked it in ages, have they.
And even if Seymour can win the electorate, that just makes Act like the last days of United: not a "party", an electorate mp pretending nationwide support.
If it weren't for National throwing the epsom campaign in the last few elections, Act would be history.
Well they don’t need to risk it so why bother but 25 years for a political party isn't bad going by a NZ political party and Seymours visibility is only going to rise next year
If it was a real party, it wouldn't be a risk.
And nobody says "they were on life support for half their life, but they had a good innings".
As you say media do like to keep NZ politics as a two horse FPP type system, maybe smaller parties have been hamstrung by that lack of media exposure and now with a new generation of voters coming through things will change
Media present it as a binary (two horse race) because they need a winner and a looser to fulfil the sales / advertising model, ie sell the soap.
ISTR the Green line is that they would go with any party that had decent environmental policy, but sadly that doesn't include the current nats.
Your recollection is correct. The Green Party is willing to work with any parties if there are gains in it for the environment or the lumpenproletariat. It's that "if" statement that tends to rule out joining a National-led coalition, rather than any inherent refusal of the Green Party to work with National.
The problem I see with "the most popular party" thing is if you've got a big monolith that's put together as a grouping of barely-holding-together factions, how do you sort out where to put the effort and priorities?
Take the current state of the National party. It looks like the religious nutter faction has the upper hand at the moment. But how many National voters really want a government headed up by religious nutters prioritising religious issues?
Whereas a coalition of parties with overlapping priorities and values have an obvious indication of what their voters think should be prioritised. A hypothetical government with say 18 Green MPs and 6 New Socialist MPs and 40 Labour MPs is going to govern very differently to one made up of 8 Green MPs, 9 WinstonFirst MPs and 46 Labour MPs.
Indeed so MMP beats FPP, does anything beat MMP?
I've been pondering bicameral, where one house is purely proportional party representation and the other is local MPs (because regional concerns matter as much as Auckland concerns).
Legislation goes through the, er, "party house", and gets ratified by the electorate house. If the electorate house rejects, kick it back to the party house and either majority larger than the total nay votes or a 2/3 majority (haven't decided which) overrules the veto and the legislation is passed.
Both houses should be roughly equal in size, with electorates being 1:10,000-20,000 eligible voters. So yeah, a lot more MPs, but if we knock down their salaries a bit (like, a premium to ditch a profession for three years is fine, but $200k?) I think it would be better.
Knocking down MPs salaries sounds pretty good to me
Your beloved might need to get a side job at the Papakura yacht club to get by.
I'm sure the minister for oravida affairs has plenty of little kick backs coming in.
Just dances for tips.
Why should geography get a veto over other dimensions of representation?
Because otherwise the government only serves the interests of the largest population concentrations.
And it's not a full veto – it's just a requirement that if the regions oppose it, the party house needs to look at it again.
What is so important about 'the regions' as opposed to other groupings like 'young people' or low-paid workers?
Well the pressure is slowly mounting on ScoMo, especially after his run in with a little old lady manning the kitchen for the local firies yesterday and the various State Governments to give relief to us volunteers firies in particular to the poor buggers down, but is there is bugger all in it atm for those not the public service or us veterans who have to jump through the hoops IRT DVA. Anyway it’s a small step in the right direction.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-24/firefighters-public-service-leave/11825416
young girl today told me she and her mum went to NZ for a week of holiday to get out of Sidney.
Had not seen a blue sky for weeks and had a really bad, very throaty cough. Girl : Everyone is coughing, the air is really bad, that is why we came here so we had some clean air to breathe.
to those that believe we can adjust to this, no we can't.
Merry Christmas. Travel safely so that the volunteer fire fighters don't have to scrape bodies of the road. Be careful with the bbq so that they don't have to try and save the house. Don't do stupid shit so that they don't have to look for a cut hand in the grass. (all these things happened today)
Take your time, you will get there. Rejoice that you have shelter, food, blue skys and still some decent air to breathe. Eat, laugh be merry. Don't abuse the alcohol or drugs.
Yeah, its been a day today.
Sure has, mine started at 1400hrs and will finish at 0600hrs tomorrow and then I have to face a family breakfast followed by family lunch
Red Bull for the win!
It was always the 0700 sign-in that nuked me when I was on rotating rosters. Night shift I could handle easily. But 16hrs is hard no matter when it's done.
Being completely honest its the overtime and the day in leiu I'm doing it for, not the sense of duty 🙂
So Christmas miracle time
I switched over to 2degrees from Spark for my broadband because of extremely hideous service (wasn't like that when I was there!) and I didn't get the modem (because 15 bucks is 15 bucks) so the switch over happens yesterday and try as I might I can't get the damn information needed to get the modem working (excuse the technical jargon)
I ring up the help desk and funnily enough still no joy (because I was using the modem Spark had provided) so I bite the bullet and order the modem and was told it would take up to 5 working days and given the time of the year I was resigned to getting the modem next Monday (a week without the internet!)
When lo and behold this morning, yes this very morning, a courier dropped off the modem from 2degrees and Christmas, and the internet was saved…sure not a very Christmassy miracle but a miracle nevertheless
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDbyYGrswtg
Happy for your win, Mr Rogue.
Its the little things that count 🙂
And there I was wondering where TF tRump got his windmills kill birds/destroy the environment claptrap.
“Windmills, which are so widespread in many European countries seem to be an environmentally friendly kind (of energy), but in fact they kill birds,” Putin told a conference of his United Russia party in the Far East.
“Vibration there is such that worms come out of the ground, not to mention moles. This is a real environmental problem,” he said, adding that solar energy was the only alternative source that was entirely harmless.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-putin-wind-idUSTRE6B52SV20101206
"You know we have a world, right?" Uh, yes, I had noticed that. Goddam staffers dropping acid into his cuppa tea again, eh?
Putin the environmentalist. Will he allow an ngo to form, to speak on behalf of the homeless worms & moles? In little old Aotearoa, there's only homeless people to worry about (as yet). Homeless creatures may be the next big thing…
Cannot be unseen.
Bad news: 2020 will be worse than 2019.
Good news: 2020 will be better than 2021.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all at The Standard, both posters and lurkers.
Who thinks Ad needs his own blog?
United we stand.
Divided we recline on a comfortable chaise.
"Who thinks Ad needs his own blog?"
Ad is one of a few honest lefties on this blog