Each election campaign has its own theory. Its own account of who New Zealanders are and what they want and what issues they will prioritise. Parties then come up with policies accordingly.
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Labour now has at least one theory: that New Zealanders are a positive bunch and that running an overly negative campaign carries real risks, particularly for National, which, as the Opposition, is trying to find things wrong with the Government and the country.
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The fact remains that, at the moment, the only credible path into government for National involves NZ First being knocked out.
While it would be foolish to rule anything out with NZ First, it seems highly unlikely that, if given the option, it won't simply continue in a government that looks similar, even if the proportions are slightly changed.
New Zealanders are a positive bunch and that running an overly negative campaign carries real risks, particularly for National, which, as the Opposition, is trying to find things wrong with the Government and the country.
It would be nice to think so, but don't wholly agree it is true. Yes, there is plenty of positivity in NZ but there is a lot of negativity too and sometimes the latter wins.
Take the 2008 election. The campaign waged by National was negative without precedence in this country and it worked a treat. Yes, they had a new charismatic leader who also pulled in votes but it was the negativity that won the day for them.
By all means run a positive campaign. It is what we would expect of them. But when the fake news, the lies and the misinformation starts flying (and it already has but can only increase in frequency) be ready to return the fire because if Labour doesn't, they risk a repeat performance of 2008.
I don't mean stooping to National's level. Far from it. But I do remember Helen Clark and Labour ignoring the lies, falsehoods emanating from National. I think they assumed the voters would see it for what it was…. misinformation. Many of them didn't. It was Crosby/Textor stuff – cleverly presented and needed to be swiftly rebuffed. It wasn't.
We can expect to see an updated version – with a degree of Trumpism thrown in.
Edit: and they need to be supported by the Greens when it is appropriate. There will be a concerted effort to discredit them as well.
There is no need for 'enemas' of Labour to generate fake news or promulgate misinformation or tell lies.
Allowing a bureaucrat with a decade long history of mismanaging MOH:DSS a front and centre position in the midst of major reform (as a result of long running Human Rights cases) is messaging of the most honest in nature.
This is Labour and its partners in crime giving a loud and emphatic Fuck You to those of us in the disability community who have fought long and hard for justice and a modicum of parity with our entitled ACC cousins.
Ditto allowing Pharmac unfettered authority to ignore international protocols and put the lives of Kiwis at risk.
Ditto largely ignoring the strong advice of the WEAG and CPAG to remove sanctions and significantly raise benefits.
Oh yes…Labour doesn't need its enemies to lose votes in the upcoming election…those of us who were hoping that there was the collective will in the Coalition for real transformation and hard reform of what is falsely called 'the Publc Service ' have only ourselves to blame for almost buying into their shit.
Labour just might capture the vote of the Muddles, the Woman's Weekly readership beguiled by cutesy family outing shots, and they may even seduce a few wavering National voters (unless That Mob comes up with more palatable spokespeople) but bet my bottom dollar they have well and truly shat in the pond of traditional Labour supporters.
Problem is that many bureaucrats do get ‘recycled’ and NZ just happens to be a tiny little fish bowl, which aggravates the problem with the small ‘talent pool’. In many ways, NZ still is a colonial outpost.
We’ll have to get through the euthanasia debate first.
It’ll be a busy year for the Moderators here 😉
Just one word of friendly advice, be careful what you say about specific persons, here or elsewhere in public.
Always happy to receive advice ,friendly or otherwise.
"My mate" has been more than happy to put her name and face out there trumpeting the Good Works of MOH:DSS for the past decade in their Newsletter.
ROFLMAO
I even have a letter signed by her in 2012 declaring that they were working on a 'non-discriminatory family carer policy'….you will no doubt remember the reaction from those who actually give a shit about NZBORA and sound legislative practise in 2013?
I have no fear of being accused of defamation…I don't lie…the truth is damning enough.
The only other risk is being punished by having MOH:DSS supports cut.
Already happened in 2012…we get nothing from them so have nothing to lose.
As a general point of information, i.e. not specifically addressed to you, if somebody defames another person on this site, it is the site or Trust(ees) rather that is liable.
Sorry, I cannot remember; my memory leaks like a sieve on a landfill.
Whoever is in that ‘boss of Disability Support Services’ role also has at least Legal and their Director-General to convince before something becomes policy. Likewise the DG is susceptible to whatever signals are coming from the Minister's office – which is why whoever is in there is critical, unfortunately.
However it is easy for it to become personalised when, as you note, you see the same person fronting decisions with direct and unescapable personal impacts over a long period of time.
All well and good in principle, but then we end up with an American-style bureaucracy where every change in government results in thousands of political appointees of varying professional competence and knowledge.
At the end of the day, you're criticising the bureaucracy for political decisions made because ministers don't have the guts to just take the budgetary impact of doing the right thing.
"At the end of the day, you're criticising the bureaucracy for political decisions made because ministers don't have the guts to just take the budgetary impact of doing the right thing."
In Pharmac's case they have well and truly brought all criticism upon themselves, and continue to do so persisting in attempting to defend their now indefendable actions.
I was under the impression you were capable of examining all the available material on an issue and forming your own opinion.
A tad sad that despite evidence available from a variety of sources you seem committed to the narrative that Pharmac's decisions are all justified under For The Good Of All rule and any criticism can be traced back to Big Pharma lobbying.
The key piece of data in whether an action is killing people via a specific cause is whether the death rate from that cause actually increased while or after the action was taken.
That’s the only way of looking at it. Each case has to be first investigated individually and then as a (population) statistic. One cannot ignore the deaths as ‘within the normal range of statistical probabilities’ or whatever because that doesn’t explain anything.
The most probable conclusion is that one can't prove a negative.
There's always the possibility that in ten or twenty years some level-5 bureaucrat will run the numbers and discover that this decision, statistically speaking, was associated with the deaths of three people more than would have been expected.
But that's the peril of every healthcare funding decision. You take funding away from some area, even if it looks like it will have no negative impact on the population, maybe you're wrong. And maybe the area you divert that funding to will not save more lives than covered by your miscalculated downside.
But you will never be able to convince someone that your decision had nothing to do with their loved one's death, even if there's zero actual evidence you had anything to do with it at all.
Understandably, people are upset and angry and they want to know what happened. They may also want some kind of justice if a preventable mistake was made and someone was found culpable.
I fear these people will be disappointed, disillusioned, and remain angry for quite some time because it is highly unlikely that the investigation into the brand switch will find that kind of information and identify culpability in a legal sense.
As you know, SUDEP is poorly understood and will remain so for the foreseeable future IMO.
This is not to say that it will be a whitewash. Hopefully, some lessons will be learned from this and avoided in future. Again, I believe they will in lowering the risk threshold and a stricter adherence to the first precautionary principle of healthcare: first, do no harm. In other words, if it ain’t broken, don’t try to fix it.
"For the lamotrigine brand change we identified the need for additional support for consumers and health professionals. A five-month transition period was put in place to allow people time to change brands."
The spokesperson said a "range of resources" for patients and pharmacists were circulated widely and information was put on the Pharmac website.
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Pharmac said patients should not stop using lamotrigine, and if they had concerns they should contact their healthcare professional. [my italics]
Patients are no ordinary consumers.
I know that a few people shove all blame onto PHARMAC because they went against international best evidence and Medsafe’s advice, which is within their rights.
However, PHARMAC is a funding agency and there are (at least) three other parties directly involved in a patient’s prescriptions: the healthcare professional (usually the GP), the pharmacy, and the patient him or herself.
It seems to me that at least one issue is the uncertainty about who takes responsibility for what, i.e. it might have fallen in between the cracks.
It could be a while before we find out if the brand switch has contributed to any of the five reported deaths and other reported adverse events.
In NZ health jargon they are pretty interchangeable. Hence the Health & Disability Commission having a Code Of Consumers Rights. Part of a broader attempt at the time to redefine people's relationship with health practitioners and services in the process of being neoliberalised, but not properly addressed since. Influences from the US.
Yes, it is unfortunate that the lines between these two concepts are blurred because there really is a fundamental difference between patients and consumers.
You mention the US and together with NZ, these are the only two countries that allow direct-to-consumer-advertising of prescription drugs (DTCA).
Personally, I don’t believe this is in the best interests of patients.
“American-style bureaucracy where every change in government results in thousands of political appointees”
There aren't actually that many of them, when you compare the number to either the total number of employees of the US Government or the population of the US.
There are approximately 4,000 political appointments in the Executive Branch, at least according to Wiki. That covers just about all of the Government except the Post Office and the Military.
The population of the US is about 70 times that of New Zealand. If we had the same sort of ratio that would mean around 55-60 political appointees here. I don't know but I would be willing to wager that there are far more than that in the Minister's Offices in the Beehive who serve at the Minister's discretion rather than being seconded by a Department.
After all, that is only a couple of people per Minister.
Except that they're mostly higher-level roles, so to argue a relative proportion it's the number of different functions and services rather than the number of employees. Even if population difference corresponded to difference in size of bureaucracy.
An, of course, there's the entire distinction between ministers and departments, which they don't seem to have in the US: their cabinet members have direct operational control over their departments, rather than a governance role.
Minister comes up with a goal, the department come up with the plan (including costs), minister signs off on it as a decision, department implements the plan.
Sometimes ministers want a plan, but it costs too much so they kick it back to the department to find savings (or the department doesn't understand that cost is less of a factor so automatically slips in ways of saving cash, like refusing to recognise previous experience of family carers).
that doesn't quite explain how someone could be fired or moved on though.
I think it does explain that much of what we see in welfare and health is on Labour (and NZF) rather the public servants (although I'm sure there are plenty of ways to undermine a new Minister's plan).
Someone would need to be actually held accountable for their previous decisions and actions while a public servant, which will never happen. It would also make them even more risk-averse.
As long as they competently do the job they are instructed to do, why would you fire them?
If they don't do their job properly, that's internal through the department or SSC.
If their job requires them to commit crimes, they and their superiors should be arrested.
If the incoming minister doesn't like the job the previous minister ordered the department to do, that's not the fault of the department.
That having been said, there is some fudging at senior levels where part of the role might be to have a good working relationship with the minister, but the responsibility for what jobs ministers are instructed to do rests with the minister. And ministers are constrained by Cabinet priorities, as well.
Arseholes who want to be arseholes when they are instructed to be fair and reasonable fail to competently perform their duties. The intractable arseholes fail to change and go through standard performance management. A purge would just flood the department with inexperienced staff who have poor job security because there will be another purge in three years.
It's bad enough already with restructurings to align with ministerial wishes and areas of responsibility. Basic stuff like differentiating researcher data requests from OIA requests, or knowing who is responsible for what subject area at the moment all fall through a myriad of little cracks because there's FA institutional memory or knowledge. Whacking a purge on top of that is just piling dysfunction upon dysfunction.
Despite doing a largish amount of physical work in an average day I still experience episodes of insomnia.
I am a ridiculously fast reader…but I admit to finding it increasingly difficult to read stuff on screen…my days of dilligence/ self flagellation may be seriously numbered.
Still..the BIMs are certainly a go to document if one has a couple of 'wtf!' moments and need to find the source of a new Minister's blunders.
I've been known to read the odd Treasury Report as well.
"It would be nice to think so, but don't wholly agree it is true. Yes, there is plenty of positivity in NZ but there is a lot of negativity too and sometimes the latter wins."
I tend to agree with you (Mathew) to SOME (and a growing) extent.
The 4 P's play an increasingly role too – from a sliding scale between apathy and desperation through to hope, and "positivity"
Pot, 'P', Piss and Prozac.
For the first time in my life, I'm about to change my vote from Labour to Green.
And it's not because the Adhern government isn't the best of a load of bad alternatives. It's because time is actually running out before populism become entrenched.
When I heard JA say (in a Henry Cooke interview), she didn't realise how long things take, AND THEN praised our public service (admitedly I assumed she was referring to the senior ranks), I thought – naivety maybe?
I'm not sure some in Labour have yet developed adequate bullshit detectors even if some will only ever have to face a used-car salesman (in this space going forward)
When I heard JA say (in a Henry Cooke interview), she didn't realise how long things take, AND THEN praised our public service (admitedly I assumed she was referring to the senior ranks), I thought – naivety maybe?
Yes, I think there is a bit of naivety and not just on JA's part. To my knowledge, she was never a P.S. employee – not in NZ anyway – and there are politicians on all sides who fall into that category.
As you know OWT, the P.S. was very much a dog eat dog place but whether that is still the case I don't know. In my day, "seniority" usually depended on how far up 'you know where' a person was prepared to go. Individuality was frowned upon, and anyone who dared to stick their neck above the parapet had it chopped off and thrown into the moat.
A period of P.S. employment should be a requirement for all senior politicians. 😉
Yep, well – Just can't do it anymore. I'm afraid JA may well have signed up to superficiality over substance.
Second time this week concerning an immigration issue ( and that's only 2 that've been made public after just watching 1 news ).
The good thing is that it won't just be me that does the big switch – there are now 3 generations of family that are in agreement.
Apparently, I seem to have misjudged Iain Lees-Galloway too. Nice bloke though he may be, he's obviously not as bright as I thought he was – or maybe its more to do with expediency over principle. Either way, cudda shudda wudda.
….All over the world, corporate lobbyists seek to brand opponents of their industries as extremists and terrorists, and some governments and police forces are prepared to listen. A recent article in the Intercept seeks to discover why the US Justice Department and the FBI had put much more effort into chasing mythical “ecoterrorists” than pursuing real, far-right terrorism. A former official explained, “You don’t have a bunch of companies coming forward saying ‘I wish you’d do something about these rightwing extremists’.” By contrast, there is constant corporate pressure to “do something” about environmental campaigners and animal rights activists…..
While I agree with Monbiot's main point. Personally I think that his notion that we should own the label of ‘extremist’ is wrong.
James Hanson, Naomi Klein and in particular Bill McKibben, are of the opinion that the polluters that we are protesting against are the ‘extremists’ and should be made to own this label. These corporate 'extremists' are out of control, recklessly conducting an experiment with the climate which will impact us all.
…Our government is helping propel us towards a catastrophe on a scale humankind has never encountered before: the collapse of our life-support systems. It does so in support of certain ideologies – consumerism, neoliberalism, capitalism – and on behalf of powerful industries. This, apparently, meets the definition of moderation. Seeking to prevent this catastrophe is extremism.
Let’s be clear the supporters BAU are not moderate but extreme
You can be sure that the label of 'terrorist' attached to Greenpeace by British Intelligence is the same label that the French Intelligence service the DGSE also attach to Greenpeace.
You can also be sure that the British Intelligence consider French Intelligence the DGSE, just like themselves, to be counter terrorists.
The French secret intelligence agency that murdered Nando Pereira and bombed Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior will not be on any establishment organisation terrorist watch list.
….Tarring environmental campaigners and terrorist organisations with the same brush is not going to help fight terrorism,” said John Sauven, the executive director of Greenpeace UK. “It will only harm the reputation of hard-working police officers … How can we possibly teach children about the devastation caused by the climate emergency while at the same implying that those trying to stop it are extremists?”
Peta’s director, Elisa Allen, said: “This appears to be a sinister attempt to quash legitimate campaigning organisations – something that is as dangerous as it is undemocratic.”
The bombing and murder carried out by the DGSE may be the most egregious act by an establishment Intelligence agency but it underlines what Elisa Allen said, that these views held by secret intelligence agencies and the police are dangerous and undemocratic.
Tens of millions form human chain in India's Bihar State in climate protest
Tens of millions of people have reportedly formed an long human chain in the northern Indian state of Bihar to raise awareness about the environment and social justice…..
……The official Twitter account of the United Nations Environment Programme tweeted: "An estimated 50 million people in India's Bihar State made a massive human chain stretching over 18,000 km yesterday. Why? To raise awareness that we are in a #ClimateCrisis and to show resolve to protect our planet."
The state has organised similar events for such causes in the last three years.
Stretching? 18,000 km is 18 million metres. If they squeezed 50 million people into 18 million metres, that's 0.36 metres per person. Even the rudest budget airlines give you a lot more than that in their stingiest seats.
The numbers (online) are all over the place but it seems to me that a major event did take place. Quibbling about the actual numbers is just semantics IMO. Maybe satellite images can verify the claims 😉
The problem with distinguishing between fake and fact is that things are never that simple and black & white (binary).
Professor Ann Marie Brady takes New Zealand's government to task for its lax attitude towards Chinese state and donor influence within New Zealand politics.
You do realise that it's racist to say anything critical of the CCP. Our very own wumao 'Mark' assured us of this repeatedly. 🙂
However my own personal Chinese sources tell me Xi's 'Presidency for Life' gambit is an act of desperation. China has four long standing problems:
1. At present they remain highly dependent on imported resources that only arrive because ships are still free to move across oceans. But to get to China they must pass through several choke points all of which are contested and highly deniable.
2. The four or five thousand years of civilisation is largely a myth. Just as modern Germany has only existed for a relatively short period, and prior to this it was an endless sequence of warlords, imperial expansions, invasions and collapses, the same with China. One of the most stable Chinese periods was when the Mongols invaded and ruled for 200 years or so. At least two major languages divide the nation, and numerous others remain. There is no particular reason why China’s current borders should be considered stable, and you only have to look at the intense resistance from the Taiwanese and HongKongers to the idea of reunification to get a taste of this.
3. Their demographics are terrible. Contrary to what I imagined a few years back, China is running out of young people. This will put an enormous handbrake on their internal expansion. They remain a very low trust society; inner circle/out circle is very much a thing. Together these factors makes it very hard for China to continue expanding on internal growth only
4. And to date most of that 'miraculous' expansion has been very much the result of China's entry into the global world trade order … mostly sponsored by the American Bretton Woods system. The USA tolerated the rise of Germany, Europe and Japan as competitors, because these nations largely played by the rules. China has not, it's policies of hypersubsidisation, and rampant IP theft have gone well past merely annoying. With the USA defaulting back to it's natural isolationism it's no longer interested in maintaining a trade system that largely benefits a nation that is posturing itself as an enemy.
So far the CCP has been able to maintain social order because everyone was getting richer. The raising of 800m people into the middle class is indeed a remarkable achievement, but the ground on which it was achieved is shifting from under them. Hence Xi Xinping's rampant authoritarianism and projection of influence beyond it's borders. Australia and New Zealand are notionally linked into the "Third Island Chain" , ultimately our geography makes us a clear target to be subsumed into the CCP's long term goals to create a New Middle Earth.
The primary reason China will continue to do great is: the United States.
The United States is the gift that keeps on giving in terms of talent pool for innovations, financial capital for expansion, right kind of customer base for all their kinds of products and services, innovations to copy cheaply, and because they have acted so badly for four decades that they are making China look reasonably OK as an alternative ally.
The United States has a fair number of problems which benefit China's place in the world for the remainder of the century.
1. It has squandered the massive moral authority it gained across much of the world after helping Europe defeat Nazi Germany and defeat global communism (I'm sure the very young and the last remaining commies will deny they ever had it but they're the ones who didn't fight).
China is on the other hand building a purely mercantilist and instrumental mode of transacting in the world. Trade deals are replacing the moral pacts built after World World 2 through the United Nations.
2. Its constitutional innovations from the Revolution have worn out, so it no longer functions as a set of ideals to aspire to. In particular its Constitutional checks and balances of executive power have stopped working.
China on the other hand has coherent government which is growing in precision and authority. Sure, I don't like it. But their Chinese social credit system may well turn into a more powerful system of corrective behaviours than the entire US judicial framework of law and prison. Imagine a world where the use of courts was less and less necessary, on China's scale.
3. The USA is about as addicted to oil-based products as one could think, despite having invented and promulgated the digital economy which has significantly decarbonised parts of it.
China is certainly addicted to oil, but it's making many of the right transformative moves, and if you want a 300km/h train to get you somewhere rather than a plane, look not to the USA.
4. The USA used to be ambitious for the rest of the world and could roll out truly massive nation-building programmes through massive instruments including the US armed forces, the CIA, the World Bank, and the IMF. It’s also proven incapable of winning or at least completing a war in 50 years.
China is now the world leader on nation-building systems, and only China has the instruments to roll them out now. Who knows if they will really come off – as in Pakistan – but they don't lack for will or ambit. China's the one that forges the really big trade deals.
There's a really good chance that China is now better positioned for the future due to the systems of governance and control it has rolling, its capacity to decarbonise compared to other major countries, and its diplomatic force stripped of non-mercantile idealism.
In the Year of the Rat, it's China that behaves like one.
And that's a compliment to both China and to rats.
All interesting and valid responses. Still I have to add some qualifiers.
Post WW2 the USA allowed competitors to flourish as long as they stayed on their side ideologically and didn't challenge them militarily. China has broken both of those rules and the USA is now rapidly disengaging with China. The past few years have seen an increasing return of US business back to North America.
The other big one that people keep missing is this; the USA never really needed the global trade order it established. It's imports/exports as a percentage of GDP are something in the order of 6%. They are now oil and gas independent. They simply don't need the rest of the world anymore and are certainly no longer interested in expending American lives in wars they have no interest in. As far as they're concerned they did their best to get the world on a more peaceful orderly basis but the effort has been largely spat upon. No US President since GW Bush has shown any real interest in global affairs and Trump is merely the clown show giving the middle finger to the rest of the planet.
China is now the world leader on nation-building systems
Which has to explain why it's nearest and most intimate neighbors, from Hong Kong to the Philippines are all anxious and unhappy about China's overt military expansion in the region. South China Sea pops into mind. The idea that China is a pacifist, merchantile power with only benign non-military intent is laughable to anyone in the region. Wherever they have the opportunity the Chinese are expanding and exerting their military muscle.
its capacity to decarbonise compared to other major countries,
What kind of travesty is this that pretty much allows us to be a satellite of US military power? …and a target..under the guise of plucky Kiwi ingenuity
The binary thinking is strong in this one. The third option, which we appear to be following, with the recent visit of a Chinese warship, is: both. Option 4 obviously is neutrality; 4(b) or 5, to suit those of us with a benevolent and inclusive nature being a foreign policy which is both neutral and pacifist.
Small nations like NZ that are utterly dependent of freedom of the seas and open trade will ultimately be forced to pick a side. Just to be clear, I've advocated for many years that the age of empires is going to end, but in the meantime we have to deal with the realities in front of us.
Wishful thinking about 'neutral and pacifist' will cut no mustard with the great powers.
"Wishful thinking"…How very dare I! As co-creators of our world, what we humans need collectively is a shitload more "wishful thinking" and way less of the fossilized acceptance of "the realities in front of us."
The problem with having typed out in excess of maybe 8,000 comments here over the past 13 years is that I tend to assume everyone has read all of them. Which is a terrible conceit of course.
But yes I've outlined in many comments a vision for a post-empire political world, based on a global form of federal govt. Not dissimilar in nature to the UN, but in which the nations give up the aspects of their sovereignty that relate to international matters, such as trade agreements, freedom of navigation, communications, diplomacy and most especially war. I've repeatedly argued that all of the big problems we face are global in nature therefore demand political responses and authority at the same scale.
However I've been a lonely voice on this for a long time now, and I'm assuming that none of this is going to come about for at least another generation. It may well take another catastrophic war to bring it about, who knows.
We don't need to make any decisions for a while yet.
Our security and military establishment will be independent in name only with Australia making almost all of our hard choices for us (no need for thinking there)…
… along with 90% of our banking (still no need for thinking)…
…whereas as a society New Zealand cares only cares if your Visa is good rather than where you are from (in all our guest nights, student nights, and exports) …
… and those three defaults enable China's rise in New Zealand and in Australia (and still not a fresh thought needed for any of the above to continue 🙂 )
Kiwibank aren't even 10% of our banking after 19 years of operation, and have needed massive bailouts so big they had to be hocked off to ACC and NZSuperfund.
Nor does it have the business and farm lending profits.
Which is all good until those sectors go down the tubes. Which may be why there's suddenly rumours that BNZ is on the block. This could easily be another Hanover / Allied Farmers situation, in which case Kiwi Bank and backers would be keeping well clear, or should be.
I've seen the evidence of US power (going back at least as far as Hiroshima and Korea , Vietnam, Cambodia ,Guatemala etc ad infinitum)and I'm not impressed….except in a fearful way.
China's military impact on the world?
Bases globally?
I know you put a case that American hegemony has resulted in less death, and widespread peace and prosperity, but I don't buy it
There may be fewer battle deaths, but economic sanctions are the new way of doing business..and war..and the deaths and ongoing misery are undeniable
Battle deaths also don't take into account the lingering and longlasting death count asscociated with land mines,depleted uranium exposure … disability, birth defects ,cancer,and denial of access to medicines and food, general poverty from sanctions,destruction of cultures and societies.The US has steadily retreated from international treaties intended to make the world safer
Peace and prosperity for the few, not the many
I'm not choosing China either , I guess I have more optimism (or stupid hope) that we humans can be better..and need to be
Compared to what? Short of trying to argue historic counter factuals in which we imagine that the USSR had become the dominant world power post-WW2, or whatever, we can only really compare with the past. The data clearly shows that the past was nowhere near as peaceful as you imagine, and that war between the 'great powers of the day' has steadily declined, especially since WW2.
Lol. Your solid data rich reference starts with the words "draft version".
There is an obvious reason for a cessation of direct conflict between the major powers, nuclear weapons.There is nothing in your link to suggest that there would have been more conflict overall if US foreign policy had been less aggressive. You are welcome to hold an opinion that there would have been based on conjecture, but "hard data" to support that there is not.
Obviously you didn't even get as far as reading the first paragraph, before you found a petty distraction to amuse yourself with. Well there is another version here that's highly visual, doesn't require a lot of reading and isn't a draft. Unless you care to refute this, then merely pretending it doesn’t exist is irrational.
There is an obvious reason for a cessation of direct conflict between the major powers, nuclear weapons.
Yes indeed. So now can we drop that idiotic 'nuclear free' policy?
As for American foreign policy being so 'aggressive' by exactly what measure are you judging this? For 70 years since then end of WW2 the US military has ensured freedom of trade and movement of peoples between all nations resulting in a huge reduction in warfare, the end of overt colonisation, the growth of democracy, and an immense improvement in living standards … as long as you were on their side. That was not an unreasonable demand.
At various points they've fucked up, the invasion of Iraq being an obvious one. Covert actions in Latin America having little to commend them either. Since the end of the Cold War their interest and competency in maintaining the global peace has become increasingly erratic and ill-directed.
No-one is arguing that Pax-Americana did not have it's ugly moments, but if you imagine that reverting to a pre-WW2 era in which multiple competing great power empires constantly vied and battled with each other over controlling territory and trade routes is going to be somehow an improvement … well the data I've presented suggests you're dreaming.
Which at the same time doesn't say this dominant US role in world affairs is going to be sustainable either; at some point we need to have some tough conversations about what will replace it.
The Green Party have been consistent in opposing genocide and helping its victims.
Syrian protesters: 'Nobody can deny this anymore
RNZ, 17 December 2016
…..The Green Party and Amnesty International have urged the government to consider another emergency intake of refugees from Syria, in light of the humanitarian crisis.
The Syrian Solidarity group said that needed to go further, and said the government needed to demand the Assad regime, Russia, Iranian and Iraq militias stop killing civilians.
Spokesperson Ali Akil said its rally in central Auckland this afternoon was a push for action.
One of the protesters, Fareeda Kassem, said she wanted New Zealand to take a stand against the violence.
"The innocent people, the children, the newborn, who are being bombed in hospitals and schools. And this is just so crazy to see the whole world is being so silent about it. We're seeing this live, it's like nobody can deny this anymore."….
……Green Party immigration spokesperson Denise Roche said New Zealand had the capacity to take more refugees.
"I do think it should be considered right now because of the conflict that's happening there, and there's some people who are seeking a safe haven."
Ms Roche said the Green Party was also calling for a permanent increase to the refugee quota, to 1500.
Does sound from that article like a straightforward failure to declare local body election campaign donations over $1500. Dalziel subsequently listing them on 18 December does not change that.
The wriggleroom in the law is only over whether a breach was 'intentional' or not. ('Ignorance not being a defence' somehow does not apply to candidates seeking local power, only to plebs).
Thus here is the defence argument:
Dalziel said she had acted on her [lawyer] husband's advice that none of the donors [at an auction organised by him] paid over $1500 for the auctioned items, so could remain anonymous.
Davidson later advised her to include the details of the donors "after taking additional advice" about the law.
There's a big difference in a few donations of $1800 ($300 over the limit) which was slap-happily overlooked in a local body campaign, and a donation of $100.000 from a single donor carved up into packages of $14,999 in a general election campaign.
OK. I hadn't seen that update. The last link I read was some time ago. There was "a few of them" but I thought they were all around the $1800 mark. That makes a difference I concede but (imo) still doesn't put it on a par with Nationals misdemeanor.
I'm with you over the need to be scrupulous about the rules being followed. No point in having them otherwise. It sounds like it was carelessness, but it should not have happened. Hopefully there will be less "carelessness" on both sides in the future.
I'd personally like to see private money completely removed from politics.
If we want truly democratic elections there's no other alternative but it will never happen cos… you know "we're not gonna fund politicians out of our money. Let em fund their own campaigns. It's bad enough we have to pay for em sittin around in parliament all day doin nothing. 🙄
Anne wasn't making this “shit” up though, was she James.
"a donation of $100.000 from a single donor carved up into packages of $14,999 in a general election campaign"
"In March [2019] National's Jami-Lee Ross nightmare back to haunt the party when the police handed its election donation inquiry to the Serious Fraud Office. Ross had claimed a $100,000 donation from a Chinese businessman had been split into smaller amounts so the donor's identity did not have to be revealed. The investigation is ongoing." https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/384516/sfo-to-investigate-jami-lee-ross-complaint-on-national-party-donations
…..There is something very telling about the fact that the election of Donald Trump in late 2016 — a great victory for incoherence — took place at the exact time that Russia and Bashar al-Assad were bombing Aleppo to smithereens, shamelessly breaking humanitarian norms established since World War II. For those paying attention to both stories, a sickening montage played out between Trump’s television debates, with their breakdown of discourse as we knew it, and the nonstop video evidence of barrel bombs bringing down hospitals and apartment blocks, with babies found in the rubble. Of course humanitarian principles have been broken many times before, but in the past there was usually some attempt to deny, to cover things up, to be ashamed, to pretend ignorance. Here it was done with the shrug of the Sovereign Murderer. We have never had more evidence, more facts, to prove that atrocities are taking place. And never has it mattered less. In 2019, we see this all again: as Idlib is obliterated and Trump talks word-salad.
This is the great paradox of the end of the Cold War: the future, or rather the future-less present, arrived first in Russia. We are only now catching up. Though maybe there’s a simple cultural logic at work here. If our own ideological coherence was based on opposition to the Soviet Union’s, when it collapsed we would invariably follow.
The Russian regime finds itself at ease in this environment because it has been acting in it for longer. There’s nothing mystical at work in its success: it simply has a head start. Matching its messages to different audiences, constantly capturing attention and conjuring the illusion of strength through spectacle, lying for fun, throwing truth to the wind, and reducing facts to feelings — this is all familiar territory for the Kremlin. Some politicians in the West have joined in, but most institutions and bureaucracies are still playing by yesterday’s rules.
In a final twist, a nostalgia can arise for “normalnost,” for a time of stable meaning, which for many, especially among media and intellectual elites in the United States, was the end of the Cold War. Perhaps this yearning for a time that still made sense explains the attention Russia now receives in the “liberal press” and in conversations among those “resisting” Trump. I don’t mean the quest for policies to deter the Kremlin’s invasions and information operations — which I consider a matter of urgency — but the language and iconography that is sometimes used in this debate: motifs from Soviet posters to advertise books and articles on the subject; Cold War secret service terminology to describe Russia’s behavior today. The Kremlin’s actual strength lies in having arrived at our future first, in how contemporary and similar it is to the thing once known as the West, but by describing it in ways reminiscent of the Soviet Union there seems a longing to recover a narrative and system of interpretation where we knew who we were. The more our reality becomes like the new Russia, the more we pine for the old Soviet Union.
The victory for incoherence.
‘There is something very telling’ about the rise of incoherence in the West that culminated in Trump's election victory, and the misinformation war against the Syrian revolution.
Colonial Viper a Trump supporter and apologist for the Assad regime, right from the earliest months of the protests for democratic rights in Syria, openly advocated in these very pages for the slaughter of anti regime protesters as CIA agents.
That for his efforts CV was then later elevated to ‘Author’ marked a victory for incoherence and the end of normalnost where facts don’t matter and opinion is everything.
[Colonial Viper authored his first post here at end of 2013. He authored his first post on Assad and Syria at the end of 2015. You can check for yourself using the search function. AFAIK, he was not a Trump supporter in those days.
CV’s comments and posts were highly controversial at times and he became somewhat unhinged later on and went off reserve. He no longer has Author status here and has not commented here for a long time AFAIK.
I don’t know if CV has openly advocated for mass violence as you allege and I doubt it would have been condoned if this were indeed the case. However, you seem to suggest that TS ‘rewarded’ CV for calling for mass violence and slaughter and that is a pertinent lie and utterly uncalled for.
Your latest insinuations fly in the face of the hard work that Authors and Moderators (and SYSOP) as well as most commenters put into TS to distinguish between facts and opinions; there is a place for both, but they are not the same.
I am done with your lies and falsehoods and the continuing snide remarks aimed at TS, which are a stab in the back given that you have been a commenter on this site for 11 years with thousands of comments.
Don’t bother with e-mail or any other attempt to communicate regarding this Moderation note; the only opinions I’ll take into account are those of the other Moderators and SYSOP. You can pray that they see your case differently and in your favour.
He has certainly red-pilled himself in recent years if you look at his Twitter feed. His latest pet peeve is drag queens reading to a few middle class kids at a public library.
Never mind the thousands of kids who have to live in boarding houses and hotel rooms along side all sorts of nutters each and every day in this country.
Abortion today, then sex before marriage, then same sex relation shops, then dress codes, then no more evolution in schools.
It's happening here as well. We all like seeing footage of the brass bands at Ratana church and Neve frolicking on the paepae, but Ratanaism is very conversative and reactionary. They are anti choice, anti women, anti gay, anti evolution and live in the dark ages. They are more or less brownwashed alt right.
Trump has proven that he won't defend U.S. troops in Iraq.
34 U.S. troops suffered traumatic brain injuries after Iran's missile strike. Iran now knows that the orange commander-in-chief has a big mouth and tiny balls.
“And one day we must ask the question, ‘Why are there forty million poor people in America? And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising questions about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth.’ When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy. And I’m simply saying that more and more, we’ve got to begin to ask questions about the whole society…”
–Speech to Southern Christian Leadership Conference Atlanta, Georgia, August 16, 1967.
You know that "I have a Dream" guy.
Did you know there was a trial that said he was assassinated by the US government?
Labours die hard neo liberal aligned members of whom D. Parker is a stirling example, seem to believe that “out fiscal scrooging” the Nats is a vote winner. The logic re sidelining Capital Gains given the holy war National was generating on CGT, and Coalition dynamics, was somewhat understandable as a one off tactical move, and may well have salvaged 2020 for them regardless of the negative messages it sent to many Labour Green supporters.
Likewise the Cannabis Referendum may play a part in the return of the Govt. But touching Super is a no no for many working class Kiwis as much as it is for the double dipping middle class who are happy to accept their super while they disparage beneficiaries.
National Superannuation at 65 is a de facto UBI for that age group, and despite the generational issues and calls from bureaucrats (often with their own personal retirement schemes) for change-Labour do so at their peril.
Not so sure this is a vote loser. It removes quite a lot of discrimination which I suspect skewed more towards women because of common life experiences. .
The partner with an overseas pension removing eligibility has been an issue for a long time- good to see it sorted.
A bit more thought needs to go into the rates of married couple, single person and two superannuitants sharing living space.
There is also other financial discrimination in this space- if a couple's adult children come to live with them there is no financial penalty , if they return to live with a single parent superannuitant then $50 a week is lost.
With respect to the partner age differences – if the qualifying partner dies – then the younger partner loses payment and has to depend on other welfare benefits.
I see that all current arrangements have been grandfathered. Personally I would have thought that there should have been a transitional period (shorter for youngest partners ) so that over a period of 2-5 years they transit onto the same rules as the newly eligible.Booting any under 50's off shoudn't be a hardship – I don't see why they should remain eligible for a better benefit. Conversely applying the reverse of these rules would ease the transition for couples with narrow age spreads close to retirement.
A weibo video posted by a person claiming to be a nurse in #Wuhan Red Cross Hospital. She said medical workers and patients were stuck with three deceased in a packed hospital corridor. No one is here to take care of the bodies. #WuhanPneumoniapic.twitter.com/MKumfLDPki
The blanket over one of the bodies and a plastic bag both read "Wuhan". So this video was taken in one of the city's hospitals. pic.twitter.com/8u1mjzcFwj
Hundreds of patients in Wuhan who have yet to be confirmed as carrying the new strain of coronavirus are becoming increasingly desperate as the city struggles to cope with the numbers reporting pneumonia symptoms.
One 36-year-old, speaking by phone outside a major hospital in the city, said she had spent the past week taking her sick husband from hospital to hospital in a vain attempt to get him tested for the virus, which has already killed 41 people and infected hundreds more.
“I have nothing. No protective clothing, only a raincoat, and I am standing outside the hospital in the rain,” said the woman, who gave her name as Xiaoxi.
“I am desperate, I have lost count of time and days. I don’t know if we will both live to see the new year.”
The internet and incompetence did not protect samoa from measles.
Dr Helen Petousis-Harris said given New Zealand's responsibility for the 1918 flu epidemic reaching Samoa and wiping out 22 percent of the population, the country should have done more to protect Samoa from this outbreak.
As measles reduces the immune response,there are significant risks for an outbreak in both the pacific islands and south auckland.The problem is it is already here.
Cohen, Omarosa and Parnas have all secretly recorded tRump.
Anyone think the mobster oligarchs don't have him on tape?
A recording obtained by ABC News appears to capture President Donald Trump telling associates he wanted the then-U.S. ambassador to UkraineMarie Yovanovitch fired while speaking at a small gathering that included Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman — two former business associates of Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani who have since been indicted in New York.
The recording appears to contradict statements by Trump and support the narrative that has been offered by Parnas during broadcast interviews in recent days. Sources familiar with the recording said the recording was made during an intimate April 30, 2018, dinner at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C.
Trump has said repeatedly he does not know Parnas, a Soviet-born American who has emerged as a wild card in Trump’s impeachment trial, especially in the days since Trump was impeached.
"Get rid of her!" is what the voice that appears to be Trump’s is heard saying. "Get her out tomorrow. I don't care. Get her out tomorrow. Take her out. OK? Do it.
Check out Speak Up For Women’s new podcasts: Episode 3 In this episode Speak Up For Women spokeswoman Ani O’Brien (@aniobrien) is joined by Beth Johnson (@beth_nosnhoj) to discuss the proposal from Statistics NZ to change standard data collection policy to “gender by default” rather than sex. They discuss why the ...
During a recent public consultation on the future of Archives New Zealand, a key report was suppressed. The Ombudsman has ruled that the refusal was unjustified. Sadly, the consultation was over by the time of the the decision has been made. However, the law on the use of the ...
National MP - Michael WoodhouseUnbelievable! Michelle Boag also sent National’s Michael Woodhouse confidential emails about COVD-19 patients, and he continued to publicly attack the Government over these very same breaches of privacy.This is the biggest political self-own since the Act Party’s David Garrett admitted in Parliament that he used a ...
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Reprehensible: There is much that could be said about Michael Woodhouse, but what would be the point? Any man who willingly involves himself in a situation as reprehensible as the one depicted in the above photograph has already vouchsafed all that decent people need to know about his character. That there have ...
As the debate over assisted dying rages in the run-up to the referendum at the election on September 19, a persistent problem continues to dog the discussions. That is to say, a prominent spokesperson for a particular group takes a strong public stand in opposition without acknowledging that they don’t ...
No Other Suspects? The mainstream news media was willing to print and broadcast harsh Opposition criticism of the Government, even though they knew that the source of the leaked information was a National Party MP. Even though, by pushing the story up towards the top of every news bulletin they were ...
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The East is Rent: The consequences of unleashing the young against the old; of elevating ideological rigor above reasoned debate; and of setting the present against the past; was a decade of unprecedented social stress and tension, interspersed with explosions of murderous mob violence and tragic material destruction. More than ...
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Michelle Boag - Former National Party PresidentWhen Todd Muller decided not to discipline Hamish Walker for his horribly racist press release last week, you had to wonder if his lack of proper leadership had something to do with a shared belief system? After all, the whiteness of the blue “team” ...
On Twitter today, lawyer Felix Geiringer asked a good question: why are MP's exempt from the Privacy Act? The Act imposes its obligations on "agencies", and s8 of the 2020 Act states that this term does not include... a member of Parliament in their official capacity The 1993 Act, ...
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In 1987, as a British Labour MP, I was elected to the Shadow Cabinet by my colleagues and was asked by the party leader to direct Labour’s campaign in the general election of that year. The election was to take place at the height of Mrs Thatcher’s dominance and we ...
National MP Nicola WillisHousing, which I would argue is a fundamental human right, has long been a problem in New Zealand. Not only do we have some of the most overpriced houses in the entire world, much of the housing stock is substandard and therefore affects not just people’s health ...
If the government has not lined up behind a "Yes" vote in this year's cannabis referendum the way some reformers would have liked, one entirely laudable thing it did do was commission some science around the public's choice.That science landed today, in the form of the report from an expert ...
Associate Professor Sara WaltonAt the heart of the discussion on opening up our borders is the dichotomy of health and the economy – both of which are actually intertwined, like many things with our economy, as this epidemic has shown.If we think about our country as a system, ...
This is a re-post from Carbon Brief by Josh Gabbatiss This year will see the largest ever drop globally in both investment and consumer spending on energy as the coronavirus pandemic hits every major sector, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). The crisis is accelerating the shutdown of older fossil-fuelled ...
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After a long break, the government is back inserting secrecy clauses in legislation. This time its the Overseas Investment Amendment Bill (No 3), which in its clause allowing Ministers to exempt purchasers of farm land from the usual rules also allows them to exempt an exemption from the publication requirement: ...
Over the past two years the government has repeatedly delayed a scheme to put cameras on boats to monitor Mew Zealand's pervasively criminal fishing industry. But it turns out that the industry actually wants cameras: Three of the country's biggest seafood companies have broken ranks with the rest of the ...
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Mark Patterson MP, Spokesperson for Primary Industries New Zealand First is appalled that Meridian seems to have been unnecessarily spilling water from its dams to drive up its profits."While New Zealanders have been coming together in some of our darkest hours, we don’t expect power gentailers to waste water and ...
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Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Infrastructure Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones has welcomed the appointment of Maurice Davis and his deep infrastructure and construction experience to the board of the Infrastructure Commission. Mr Davis (Ngāti Maniapoto), is the seventh and final appointment to the board led by former Reserve Bank Governor ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Leader of New Zealand First New Zealand’s click bait journalism is taking a turn for the worse, with yet another example of sensationalist, wilful-misrepresentation of the facts. “New Zealand First has worked constructively with its Coalition partner on hundreds of pieces of legislation and policy, and ...
The Green Party is today unveiling its Poverty Action Plan, which includes a Guaranteed Minimum Income to ensure people have enough to live with dignity. ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister Fletcher Tabuteau MP, Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development The Rotorua Museum redevelopment and Whakarewarewa and Tokorangi Forest projects will be accelerated thanks to a $2.09 million Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) boost, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher ...
This week, we rolled out the next steps of our recovery plan, with new infrastructure investment, extra support for tourism operators, and a new programme to get Kiwis into agriculture careers. The global economic consequences of COVID-19 will continue to be a challenge, but we have a detailed plan to ...
Jenny Marcroft MP, Spokesperson for Health New Zealand First welcomes the passage of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission Bill through its final reading in Parliament today fulfilling a coalition agreement commitment. “This is an important step in saving the lives of New Zealanders and delivers a key coalition commitment ...
Whakatāne has been given a $2.5 million boost to speed up previously funded projects and create more than 450 jobs in the next decade. Of those, the equivalent of 160 full-time jobs could be delivered in the next six weeks. Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters is in town to make ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister Fletcher Tabuteau MP, Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) is investing $2.5 million to accelerate three infrastructure projects in Whakatāne, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau announced today. “This package is about ...
Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones is throwing his weight behind a bid by the Auckland Council to fast-track the more than doubling of the city's water allowance from the Waikato River. And he's coming out strongly against anyone who plans on getting in the way of this campaign. "It is my ...
The Green Party is thrilled to see changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that mean consents for large projects can be declined if they will have significant climate change implications that are inconsistent with the Zero Carbon Act and Aotearoa New Zealand’s Paris Agreement obligations. ...
Hon Ron Mark, Minister of Defence The Royal New Zealand Navy’s new ship, Aotearoa, set sail for New Zealand on 10 June from the Republic of Korea, and is due to arrive in Auckland tomorrow, announced Minister of Defence Ron Mark. “Aotearoa is the Royal New Zealand Navy’s new fleet ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Racing Racing Minister Winston Peters has today welcomed the Racing Industry Bill passing its third reading, creating the legislative framework for revitalising the racing industry while limiting the need for future government intervention. “For too long our domestic racing industry has ...
The Green Party has today put forward an amendment to the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill to ensure all people in prisons can vote in general elections. ...
The Green Party welcomes the decision to not proceed with Public Public Investment (PPI) delivery of Auckland’s light rail project and to instead run the process through the public service. ...
Hon Ron Mark, New Zealand First List MP based in the Wairarapa New Zealand First List MP Hon Ron Mark welcomes the announcement of Provincial Growth Funding investment of $1.4 million to help secure the Wairarapa’s water supply. The funding boost will allow the Greater Wellington Regional Council (GWRC), and ...
New Zealand First list MP Mark Patterson has been selected to represent the party in the newly formed Taieri electorate at the upcoming election. Mr Patterson, his wife Jude and two daughters farm sheep and beef at Lawrence and Waitahuna. He previously stood in the Clutha-Southland electorate however boundary changes ...
Hon Shane Jones, Associate Minister for State Owned Enterprises A new ‘super depot’ to be built for NZ Post in Wellington will create around 350 jobs during construction, Associate Minister for State Owned Enterprises Shane Jones says. Shane Jones today attended a ground-breaking and blessing ceremony for the parcel-processing depot ...
Our strong economic management prior to COVID-19 - with surpluses, low debt and near-record-low unemployment - put us in a good position to weather the impact of the virus and start to rebuild our economy much earlier than many other countries.Now we're putting our plan to recover and rebuild ...
Darroch Ball MP, New Zealand First Spokesperson for Law and Order Recently released Police fleeing driver statistics have shown yet another increase in incidents with another record-high in the latest quarter. “This new quarterly record-high is the latest in a string of record-high numbers since 2014. The data shows incidents ...
The Minister of Police says a major operation against the Mongrel Mob in Waikato will make a big dent in drug harm and violent offending linked to organised crime networks. “Senior leadership of the Waikato Mongrel Mob has been taken out as a result of Operation Kingsville, which resulted in ...
The Government is extending the border exception criteria to enable some offshore victims and support people of the Christchurch mosque attacks to attend the sentencing of the accused beginning on 24 August2020, says Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway. “We want to support our valued Muslim brothers and sisters who were directly ...
A project to support volunteer efforts to look after streams and rivers is getting a boost thanks to support from DOC’s Community Conservation Fund announced Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage today. “The government is backing efforts to look after waterways with $199,400 for the Mountains to Sea Conservation Trust from ...
Minister for Women Julie Anne Genter today announced that funding for the COVID-19 Community Fund for women and girls will be doubled, as the first successful funding applications for the initial $1million were revealed. “Women and girls across the country have suffered because of the effects of COVID-19, and I ...
The Government’s books were better than forecast with a higher GST take as the economy got moving again after lockdown, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. The Crown Accounts for the 11 months to the end of May indicate the year end results for tax revenue will be stronger than forecast. ...
A plan to revitalise New Zealand’s strong wool sector and set it on a new, more sustainable and profitable path was unveiled today by Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor. The newly-released report - Vision and Action for New Zealand’s Wool Sector - was developed by the Wool Industry Project Action Group ...
Community efforts to create a Predator Free Whangārei will receive a $6 million boost, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones and Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage announced today. The new funding, through Government company Predator Free 2050 Ltd, will create around 12 jobs while enabling the complete removal of possums over ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has announced that the New Zealand Government is reviewing the settings of its relationship with Hong Kong. “China’s decision to pass a new national security law for Hong Kong has fundamentally changed the environment for international engagement there,” Mr Peters said. “New Zealand remains deeply ...
Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has announced details of a multimillion-dollar investment in Whangārei for infrastructure projects that will help it recover from the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 200 jobs are expected to be created through the $26 million investment from the Government’s rejuvenation package ...
Following a second incident in which a person escaped from a managed isolation facility, security is being enhanced, including more police presence onsite, Minister Megan Woods said. “The actions of some individuals who choose to break the very clear rules to stay within the facilities means that more resourcing is ...
Waste reduction and recycling programmes in Kaipara are set to get a boost with Associate Environment Minister Eugenie Sage today announcing a $361,447 grant from the Ministry for the Environment’s Waste Minimisation Fund (WMF) Sustainable Kaipara. “The new funding will allow Sustainable Kaipara to partner with local schools, kura, community ...
The Government will support the Southland economy in the wake of multinational mining company Rio Tinto’s decision to follow through with its long signalled closure of the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter. “This day has unfortunately been on the cards for some time now, but nevertheless the final decision is a ...
New tools being developed to help boost Aotearoa’s Predator Free 2050 effort were unveiled today by Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage and Under Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau. A new rat poison, a camera with predator recognition software to detect and report predators, a new predator lure and a ...
The Coalition Government has approved the purchase of a fleet of Bushmaster vehicles to replace the New Zealand Army’s armoured Pinzgauers, Defence Minister Ron Mark has announced today. The new fleet of 43 Australian-designed and built Bushmaster NZ5.5 will provide better protection for personnel and improved carrying capacity. “The age ...
The Government’s three prevention frameworks to reduce family violence in Aotearoa were launched this week by Associate Minister for Social Development Poto Williams. The frameworks were developed in partnership with communities around New Zealand, and build on the work the Government has already begun with its new family violence prevention ...
The Government is pleased to confirm funding for improvements to radiology and surgical services at Hawke's Bay DHB, Health Minister Chris Hipkins says. "The Minister of Finance the Hon Grant Robertson and former Health Minister Dr David Clark approved funding for Hawke's Bay DHB’s redevelopment of their radiology facilities ...
• New funding for four beds at Napier’s Springhill Residential Addiction Centre • A new managed withdrawal home and community service, and peer support before and after residential care at Tairāwhiti DHB • A co-ordinated network of withdrawal management services throughout the South Island • Peer support in Rotorua and ...
Introduction, seafarers and POAL Good morning everyone, I am delighted to be online with you all today. Before I begin, I have to acknowledge that COVID-19 has disrupted the maritime sector on an unprecedented scale. The work of seafarers and the maritime industry is keeping many economies around the world ...
A $13 million investment from Government will create jobs and improve the resilience of the rail connection between Christchurch and the West Coast, Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones and Regional Economic Development Under-Secretary Fletcher Tabuteau say. The funding comes from the tagged contingency set aside in Budget 2020 for infrastructure projects ...
The Government is investing $761 million to assist local government upgrade under-pressure water services across the country, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta announced today. The announcement was made at the site of the water bore that was found to be the source of the fatal ...
Recognised Seasonal Employers and migrant seasonal workers stranded in New Zealand will be able to continue working and supporting themselves with more flexible hours and roles, says Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway. The time-limited visa changes are: Stranded RSE workers will be able to work part-time (a minimum of 15 hours ...
The Government is making immediate short-term changes to visa settings to support temporary migrants already onshore in New Zealand and their employers, while also ensuring New Zealanders needing work are prioritised, Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway says. We are: Extending temporary work visas due to expire by the end of 2020 ...
Professor Peter Skelton CNZM has been appointed as Chief Freshwater Commissioner and Alternate Environment Court Judge Craig James Thompson as Deputy Chief Freshwater Commissioner for the newly established Freshwater Planning Process (FPP). Environment Minister David Parker today also announced the appointment of Chief Environment Court Judge Laurie Newhook as the ...
Auckland Queen’s Counsel Neil Campbell has been appointed a Judge of the High Court, Attorney‑General David Parker announced today. Justice Campbell graduated with a BCom and LLB (Hons) from the University of Auckland in 1992. He spent two years with Bell Gully Buddle Weir in Auckland before travelling to the United ...
The Associate Minister for Greater Christchurch Regeneration, Poto Williams, is seeking feedback on a proposal to better enable the development and operation of commercial film and video facilities in Christchurch. The Proposal, developed by Regenerate Christchurch in response to a request from Christchurch City Council, asks that powers under section ...
The Government has launched a bold plan to boost primary sector export earnings by $44 billion over the next decade, while protecting the environment and growing jobs. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern today released Fit for a Better World – Accelerating our Economic Potential, a 10-year roadmap to unlock greater value ...
A new approach to prevent family harm that encourages greater collaboration across government and community groups is being celebrated at the opening of a new facility in Auckland. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern today opened the Multi-Disciplinary Family Harm Prevention Hub Te Taanga Manawa in Lambie Road in Manukau. The facility ...
The Government has released a major new report on the options for relocating the Port of Auckland’s freight operations while deferring any decision on the issue. “That decision needs to be informed by policy analysis that is still to be completed. As a result it will be up to a ...
The history of Rāpaki is being restored through the inclusion of te reo in thirteen official place names on Te Pātaka-o-Rākaihautū / Banks Peninsula and around Lyttelton Harbour/Whakaraupō, the Minister for Land Information, Eugenie Sage, announced today. “I am pleased to approve the proposals from Te Hapū o Ngāti ...
Bookings for seats on Air New Zealand flights into New Zealand will be managed in the short term to ensure the Government is able to safely place New Zealanders arriving home into a managed isolation or quarantine facility, says Housing Minister Megan Woods. “Last week Air Commodore Darryn Webb and I ...
Grant Robertson has today announced the first major release of funding from the $265 million Sport Recovery Package announced at Budget 2020. “Today we’re setting out how $80 million will be invested, with $54 million of that over the 2020/2021 financial year for organisations from community level through to elite ...
The Government is maintaining current levy rates for the next 2 years, as part of a set of changes to help ease the financial pressures of COVID-19 providing certainty for businesses and New Zealanders, ACC Minister Iain Lees-Galloway says. “New Zealanders and businesses are facing unprecedented financial pressures as a ...
Small businesses are getting greater certainty about access to finance with an extension to the interest-free cashflow loan scheme to the end of the year. The Small Business Cashflow Loan Scheme has already been extended once, to 24 July. Revenue and Small Business Minister Stuart Nash says it will be ...
A package of 23 projects across the country will clean up waterways and deliver over 2000 jobs Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Environment Minister David Parker announced today. The $162 million dollar package will see 22 water clean-up projects put forward by local councils receiving $62 million and the Kaipara ...
Tena koutou katoa Nga tangata whenua o tenei rohe o Pōneke, tena koutou Nau mai, haere mai ki te hui a tau mo te roopu reipa Ko tatou! Ko to tatou mana! Ko to tatou kaupapa kei te kokiri whakamua Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena tatou katoa Welcome. I ...
The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) is investing $1.5 million to ensure QE Health in Rotorua can proceed with its world class health service and save 75 existing jobs, Under Secretary for Regional Economic Development, Fletcher Tabuteau announced today. The PGF funding announced today is in addition to the $8 million ...
A new programme, which sets a firm course for the Building and Construction sector to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, has been announced by the Minister for Building and Construction Jenny Salesa. “A significant amount of New Zealand’s carbon emissions come from the building and construction sector. If we’re serious ...
The Provincial Growth Fund is investing more than $7.5 million in Northland ventures to combat the economic impact of the COVID-19 virus, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones have announced. The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) investment is going to the Northern Adventure Experience and ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Education Minister Chris Hipkins today announced significant funding for Auckland’s Northcote College as part of the first wave of a new nationwide school redevelopment programme to upgrade schools over the next 10 years. The $48.5 million project brings the total investment in Northcote College to ...
The Government has opened an urgent response fund to support schools and early learning services to get children and young people back on track after the Covid-19 lockdown. “While we are seeing improvements in attendance under Alert Level 1 Ministry of Education data shows that attendance rates in our schools ...
"After he calms down we share the pie and talk about how hard the years since the show have been for him": a short story by Wellington writer Jordan Hamel. Every morning it’s the same. Cling wrap on the toilet seat, a pop up snake in my can of breakfast ...
Controversy and the America's Cup go hand-in-hand and the latest edition is no different with Emirates Team New Zealand at the centre of financial mismanagement allegations. Extra Time unpicks the debate and ponders what does the latest Cup drama mean? And should we care? A study has revealed racial bias ...
Over the decades, Mike Fox has witnessed the housing market progressively tilt towards larger, more expensive homes. Without a major overhaul of the current regulatory processes, he says, things will never change.It’s one of the biggest problems our country faces – we cannot produce the affordable housing that’s so desperately ...
So-called dirty deals have been roundly denounced over the years. Hayden Donnell argues that they need to be normalised, and even embraced, in September’s election.Just before the 2011 general election, Patrick Gower was confronted with a political act so stomach-churning, it forced him to abandon his trademark reserve. John Key ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Esterman, Professor of Biostatistics, University of South Australia Victoria has recorded 288 new COVID-19 cases since yesterday, the largest daily increase we’ve seen so far. This big jump must have the Victorian government and health authorities very concerned, especially since nearly ...
The controversial 101 East episode Locked Up in Malaysia’s Lockdown on 3 July 2020. Video: Al JazeeraPacific Media Watch Newsdesk Malaysian police summoned six Al Jazeera media workers today for questioning relating to an investigation for defamation and violation of Malaysia’s Communications and Multimedia Act (CMA), reports IFJ Asia-Pacific. ...
Analysis - A National MP destroys his career, the government explains how someone with Covid-19 could walk around a supermarket and the closure of Tiwai Point aluminium smelter is announced. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Abrar Ahmad Chughtai, Epidemiologist, UNSW Australia’s chief medical officer Paul Kelly today recommended people in Melbourne and the Mitchell Shire wear masks when leaving the house: […] If people have symptoms and they need to go for a test, for example, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rochelle Wynne, Director, Western Sydney Nursing & Midwifery Research Centre, Western Sydney University Over the past week, we’ve seen a spike in the number of COVID-19 infections among health-care workers in Victoria. This includes a doctor at Melbourne’s St Vincent’s Hospital, one ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor and President Professor Paddy Nixon and Professorial Fellow Michelle Grattan discuss the week in politics including the return to lockdown in Victoria, National Cabinet setting to slow the flow of Australian’s ...
We prefer our heroes untarnished. And few match the heroism of Winston Churchill. But a recent report in the Times reminds us of the inevitability of human frailty and the consequences of keeping it under wraps.During the second world war, Britain’s greatest single loss of life at sea was the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ou Yang, Research Fellow, University of Melbourne Donald Trump has ordered US federal agencies to bypass environmental protection laws and fast-track pipeline, highway and other infrastructure projects. Signing the executive order last month, the US president declared regulatory delays would hinder “our ...
SAFE CEO Debra Ashton says "The NZDIA has done the right thing, and we’re glad to see Bertram has been held to account over his actions. He should take this as an opportunity to right his wrongs and show that he takes animal welfare seriously." ...
Takuta Ferris, Te Tai Tonga candidate for the Māori Party, is urging government to place whānau first in the wake of announcements around Tiwai Point. “The declaration that one of the region's major employers the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter is closing ...
Dietary Requirements is The Spinoff’s monthly podcast in which we eat, drink and talk about it too, with special thanks to Freedom Farms. This month, we’re joined by The Spinoff’s managing editor, mall rat and self-confessed food philistine Duncan Greive.On this month’s Dietary Requirements, the gang’s back in the studio, and ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Chart 1: United States and Australia rising. Chart by Keith Rankin. These charts look at Covid19 incidence in China (the most important first-wave country, with a limited second wave), Italy (the lead second-wave country), and USA and Australia (second-wave countries – drawing their caseload from Europe ...
The Government must listen to the Muslim community to rectify its failure to act in the past, says the Human Rights Commission. The Islamic Women’s Council of New Zealand (IWCNZ) submission to the Royal Commission of Inquiry was released this week. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hugh Breakey, President, Australian Association for Professional & Applied Ethics. Senior Research Fellow, Moral philosophy, Institute for Ethics, Governance & Law, Law Futures Centre., Griffith University Earlier this week, 150 high-profile authors, commentators and scholars signed an open letter in Harper’s magazine ...
You can’t keep a good woman down and Helen Clark is no exception. Her new appointment, as co-chair of a review of how the World Health Organisation handled the coronavirus pandemic, will test her formidable political skills. Sitting with her is Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, former Liberian president, who handled the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Connor, Lecturer, James Cook University While many people may enjoy a game of backyard cricket, only a few go on to become elite professional batsmen in Australia. Cricket batting is example of what human skills can achieve. The fastest bowling delivery ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lee Baumgartner, Professor of Fisheries and River Management, Institute for Land, Water, and Society, Charles Sturt University This article is a preview of Flora, Fauna, Fire, a multimedia project launching on Monday July 13. The project tracks the recovery of Australia’s native ...
CEAC review of pre-election National’s “outline plan” just sent to us by Todd Muller 9/7/20 was actually his speech about his plan and was described as ‘an outline’. So in our review of National Party response to A Greener, Smarter Future; climate ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Podger, Honorary Professor of Public Policy, Australian National University In Hidden Hand, China scholars Clive Hamilton and Marieke Ohlberg examine the Chinese Communist Party’s influence in Europe and North America in a similar way to how Hamilton dissected the CCP’s influence ...
“I can see why people are fed up, many are wondering how to clothe and feed their kids, or how they are going to pay their rent next week and still others are wondering what has happened to our beautiful Kiwi Way of Life. Well no party in parliament ...
Pacific Media Watch Newsdesk Sixty press freedom groups and civil society organisations, journalism institutions, filmmakers, and other supporters have formed a coalition in support of Maria Ressa and independent media in the Philippines, united around the call to #HoldTheLine. Today the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), the International Center for ...
National MP Michael Woodhouse also received Covid-19 patient emails from Michelle Boag, and deleted them when he realised she was implicated in a separate email scandal. National Party leader Todd Muller says no further MPs in his party received confidential information from Michelle Boag, after revelations today that Michael Woodhouse also ...
The government is extending border exceptions to allow overseas victims of the Christchurch mosque attacks and their support people to attend the shooter's sentencing. ...
Ever wanted to be Iron Man? Sam Brooks prefers Pepper Potts, but he had a great time stepping into the iron suit anyway.The first few moments of Iron Man VR are where it plays its hand, confidently and assuredly. You hold your palms out in front of you, and Iron ...
SAP has released to the public a policy paper, “Helping Kiwis get back to work: How data and technology can drive a bigger, better, faster economic recovery.” ...
A new poem by Jordan Hamel.Mermaids When you lose grip and start to drift.The first thing you’re supposed to do issteer into it or steer away? Not all mermaids are royaltysomeone needs to audit the oceanprovide cashflow projectionssome mermaids are actuallymiddle-aged accountants named Stephendreaming of a land-view holiday home. I saw a ...
Want to work for The Spinoff? We’re looking for someone to fill an exciting new role based in our Auckland office. We’re looking for a video and podcast content manager: an experienced writer or sub-editor with a strong understanding of social media to manage our video and podcast content across various channels. ...
National Party leader Todd Muller says no further MPs in his party received confidential information from Michelle Boag, after revelations today that Michael Woodhouse also received four unsolicited emails. ...
By RNZ News Opposition National list MP Dr Jian Yang has announced his retirement from New Zealand politics and says he will not stand in the 2020 general election after three terms in the party caucus. He said politics was “demanding” and he wanted to spend more time with his ...
Bayer-Monsanto's June 24 announcement of a US$10.9 billion pay out (1) to people who have been harmed by Glyphosate, is effectively an admission of guilt. Spokesperson for The People’s Inquiry 2020 Asha Andersen says, “The Ministry of Health, The ...
The Taxpayers’ Union has filed a complaint with the Electoral Commission and the Parliamentary Speaker’s Office over Lawrence Yule’s new taxpayer funded billboards promoting Mr Yule as the ‘Voice in Tukituki’. Union spokesman, Louis Houlbrooke ...
Ten points, two plans. Which points are whose? With an election within spitting distance, Aotearoa’s two biggest political parties are all about the plans. “You don’t have a plan!” says one party to the other. “Yes we have a plan, or certainly a plan to have a plan, or a plan ...
Four months after he announced his re-selection, a National Party MP whose links to Chinese spy agencies attracted the interest of New Zealand’s Security Intelligence Service has announced he will not stand in the next election A three-term National Party MP who studied at an elite Chinese spy school before moving to ...
National list MP Dr Jian Yang announced his retirement from politics and said he would not stand in the 2020 general election after three terms in the party caucus. ...
A new political party, the New Zealand TEA Party, with headquarters in Auckland, has been established. The party aims to contest the queen- or kingmaker position to form a coalition with the largest parliamentary party as part of the general elections ...
A review has determined fish oils are non-hazardous and no longer require oversight by the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA). We regulate pesticides, household chemicals and other dangerous goods and substances under the Hazardous Substances ...
New Conservative calls on the government to join with our Five Eyes allies and add New Zealand's signature to a joint statement condemning the continued removal of freedoms in Hong Kong. New Conservative also calls on the government to give safe-haven ...
Latest from the Beehive – Hard on the heels of the government promising help for the Southland economy in the wake of Rio Tinto’s decision to close the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter, it was announcing the delivery of more money to the North, at the other end of the country. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luciano Beheregaray, Professor in Biodiversity Genomics, Flinders University As the global climate shifts, it’s important to know which species have adaptations to survive. Our research published today in PNAS found it largely depends on where they evolved. We looked at the capacity ...
From eggplant emojis and twerking llamas to sweaty anthropomorphic butts, we present some of the most fascinating, hilarious and outrageous complaints dismissed by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) from 2019 to now.Avocadon’t (January 2019)The ad: In this ad from Specsavers, a man gets ready to join a cricket match, but ...
They might sound like the same thing, but light rail is quite different from light metro – the system that transport minister Phil Twyford now favours for Auckland. Katy Wakefield and Jessica Rose of Women in Urbanism explain why the metro option is a poor substitute for LRT. Transport is ...
Why isn't the Government spending $30m to extend Tiwai Point's 2,600 jobs until after the Covid-19 recession, after Manapouri's power can be transmitted elsewhere, and after there's a hydrogen plan for the smelter site, Bernard Hickey asks. The sense of shock and foreboding about the future was clear in Invercargill Mayor ...
An intensive care doctor is outraged health officials are giving helicopter rescue trusts a daily list of Covid-19 patients, saying it's completely unnecessary. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Seth Lazar, Professor, Australian National University In the US, tireless opposition to state use of facial recognition algorithms has recently won some victories. Some progressive cities have banned some uses of the technology. Threetechcompanies have pulled facial recognition products from ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rick Sarre, Adjunct Professor of Law and Criminal Justice, University of South Australia Facial recognition technology is increasingly being trialled and deployed around Australia. Queensland and Western Australia are reportedly already using real-time facial recognition through CCTV cameras. 7-Eleven Australia is also ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carol T Kulik, Research Professor of Human Resource Management, University of South Australia The coronavirus pandemic has forced many of us to work from home, often in less than ideal circumstances. Many employees had little choice in the decision, limited time to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katja Hogendoorn, University of Adelaide This article is a preview of Flora, Fauna, Fire, a multimedia project launching on Monday July 13. The project tracks the recovery of Australia’s native plants and animals after last summer’s bushfire tragedy. Sign up to The ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By SriPallavi Nadimpalli, PhD Candidate, University of Melbourne Women manage many overlapping responsibilities in both public and private spheres. Their busy routines leave them with just a little time to take a break or a pause in their activity. These pauses are a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Naoise McDonagh, Lecturer in Political Economy, University of Adelaide The pandemic has changed the way we think about supply chains, in particular the chains that feed our need for food, medical supplies, and defence equipment. It has led Prime Minister Scott Morrison ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Holden, Professor of Economics, UNSW As Victoria grapples with a second-wave outbreak of COVID-19, the importance of large-scale testing has again been highlighted. Without its “testing blitz” aiming at 10,000 tests a day, the extent of the outbreak would have been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jean Burgess, Professor and Director, Digital Media Research Centre, Queensland University of Technology Perhaps no single character has been as iconic a symbol of Twitter as the now-ubiquitous hashtag. The syntax of the hashtag has a few simple rules: it consists of ...
For all The Spinoff’s latest coverage of Covid-19 see here. Read Siouxsie Wiles’s work here. New Zealand is currently in alert level one – read about what that means here. For official government advice, see here.The Spinoff’s coverage of the Covid-19 outbreak is made possible thanks to donations from Spinoff Members. To support this ...
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Major implications from Tiwai Pt closure, diplomatic rift over Hong Kong deepens, and grim new approach to managed isolation.The story of Rio Tinto pulling out of the Tiwai Point smelter is one that shows the deep connections between regional stories ...
How can Southland cope without its engine and biggest employer, the Tiwai Point smelter? Invercargill's deputy mayor Toni Biddle and Dee St businesswoman Anne Marie Thomas on what happens nowToni Biddle: "We've always known this could potentially happen. So, therefore, there has been a huge amount of work done in the background ...
This week's biggest-selling New Zealand books, as recorded by the Nielsen BookScan New Zealand bestseller list and described by Steve Braunias.NON-FICTION 1 Pull No Punches by Judith Collins (Allen & Unwin, $36.99) Junk. 2 Vegful by Nadia Lim (Nude Food, $55) 3 The Book of Overthinking by Gwendoline ...
Most Kiwis aren't aware that the end of life choice act is not a concept they'll be voting for, but specific, unmovable legislation. And if we make a mistake, death is a heavy penalty, writes Caralise Trayes. A new Colmar Brunton poll revealed last weekend doesn’t do any favours in helping people ...
Talented teenage shooter Khiarna Williams is committed to travelling 18 hours a week - after school - to realise her netball dreams. Three times a week, 17-year-old Khiarna Williams gets picked up from school to make a six-hour round trip, from Whakatāne to Hamilton, to train with the Magic. Her designated driver ...
Dr Michael SW Lee uses an Easter egg hunt analogy to explain wealth distribution and our innate sense of fairness Ten kids are at an Easter egg hunt searching for 100 eggs. Donald was fortunate, he inherited an Easter egg detector. He spends four hours looking and collects 40 eggs. Steve is a ...
In theory, the closure of Tiwai Point aluminium smelter should bring down electricity prices and help get New Zealand closer to its Carbon Zero 2050 goal. In practice, that isn’t so easy. The announcement Tiwai Point aluminium smelter will close by August next year is a massive blow for the ...
Today The Beths release Jump Rope Gazers, the follow-up to their beloved and acclaimed debut album Future Me Hates Me. Back in December, Side Eye cartoonist Toby Morris joined the band in the studio while they recorded ‘Just Shy of Sure’, which you can listen to here: ...
Three big announcements this week heralded our healthy and profitable future. Those standing in the way, argues Rod Oram, are as out of step as the Think Big world from which they hail. ...
Open mike 25/01/2020 
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It would be nice to think so, but don't wholly agree it is true. Yes, there is plenty of positivity in NZ but there is a lot of negativity too and sometimes the latter wins.
Take the 2008 election. The campaign waged by National was negative without precedence in this country and it worked a treat. Yes, they had a new charismatic leader who also pulled in votes but it was the negativity that won the day for them.
By all means run a positive campaign. It is what we would expect of them. But when the fake news, the lies and the misinformation starts flying (and it already has but can only increase in frequency) be ready to return the fire because if Labour doesn't, they risk a repeat performance of 2008.
'A Brighter Future'
for them and their enablers.
the rest are darn near hopeless, bludgers and lazy people whom the no mates party has no use for.
Also, we have become tenants.
Nope. We have had this discussion repeatedly in recent weeks.
I don't mean stooping to National's level. Far from it. But I do remember Helen Clark and Labour ignoring the lies, falsehoods emanating from National. I think they assumed the voters would see it for what it was…. misinformation. Many of them didn't. It was Crosby/Textor stuff – cleverly presented and needed to be swiftly rebuffed. It wasn't.
We can expect to see an updated version – with a degree of Trumpism thrown in.
Edit: and they need to be supported by the Greens when it is appropriate. There will be a concerted effort to discredit them as well.
Again, nope. Plan and deliver your own messages rather than reacting to and amplifying the reach of theirs.
There is no need for 'enemas' of Labour to generate fake news or promulgate misinformation or tell lies.
Allowing a bureaucrat with a decade long history of mismanaging MOH:DSS a front and centre position in the midst of major reform (as a result of long running Human Rights cases) is messaging of the most honest in nature.
This is Labour and its partners in crime giving a loud and emphatic Fuck You to those of us in the disability community who have fought long and hard for justice and a modicum of parity with our entitled ACC cousins.
Ditto allowing Pharmac unfettered authority to ignore international protocols and put the lives of Kiwis at risk.
Ditto largely ignoring the strong advice of the WEAG and CPAG to remove sanctions and significantly raise benefits.
Oh yes…Labour doesn't need its enemies to lose votes in the upcoming election…those of us who were hoping that there was the collective will in the Coalition for real transformation and hard reform of what is falsely called 'the Publc Service ' have only ourselves to blame for almost buying into their shit.
Labour just might capture the vote of the Muddles, the Woman's Weekly readership beguiled by cutesy family outing shots, and they may even seduce a few wavering National voters (unless That Mob comes up with more palatable spokespeople) but bet my bottom dollar they have well and truly shat in the pond of traditional Labour supporters.
Vote Greens, I guess. Stronger hand in next govt will depend on Winston being weaker in relation to them.
The bureaucrats will be mostly the same regardless of who’s in Government.
This is true.
But it is not right.
The buggers should be purged…unless they have performed outstandingly and according to the expectations of the Gummint.
Actually, that's very possibly the case with my mate Toni Atkinson.
Bring on the EOLC Bill!!!
Problem is that many bureaucrats do get ‘recycled’ and NZ just happens to be a tiny little fish bowl, which aggravates the problem with the small ‘talent pool’. In many ways, NZ still is a colonial outpost.
We’ll have to get through the euthanasia debate first.
It’ll be a busy year for the Moderators here 😉
Just one word of friendly advice, be careful what you say about specific persons, here or elsewhere in public.
Always happy to receive advice ,friendly or otherwise.
"My mate" has been more than happy to put her name and face out there trumpeting the Good Works of MOH:DSS for the past decade in their Newsletter.
ROFLMAO
I even have a letter signed by her in 2012 declaring that they were working on a 'non-discriminatory family carer policy'….you will no doubt remember the reaction from those who actually give a shit about NZBORA and sound legislative practise in 2013?
I have no fear of being accused of defamation…I don't lie…the truth is damning enough.
The only other risk is being punished by having MOH:DSS supports cut.
Already happened in 2012…we get nothing from them so have nothing to lose.
All good then 🙂
As a general point of information, i.e. not specifically addressed to you, if somebody defames another person on this site, it is the site or Trust(ees) rather that is liable.
Sorry, I cannot remember; my memory leaks like a sieve on a landfill.
Whoever is in that ‘boss of Disability Support Services’ role also has at least Legal and their Director-General to convince before something becomes policy. Likewise the DG is susceptible to whatever signals are coming from the Minister's office – which is why whoever is in there is critical, unfortunately.
However it is easy for it to become personalised when, as you note, you see the same person fronting decisions with direct and unescapable personal impacts over a long period of time.
All well and good in principle, but then we end up with an American-style bureaucracy where every change in government results in thousands of political appointees of varying professional competence and knowledge.
At the end of the day, you're criticising the bureaucracy for political decisions made because ministers don't have the guts to just take the budgetary impact of doing the right thing.
@McFlock
"At the end of the day, you're criticising the bureaucracy for political decisions made because ministers don't have the guts to just take the budgetary impact of doing the right thing."
In Pharmac's case they have well and truly brought all criticism upon themselves, and continue to do so persisting in attempting to defend their now indefendable actions.
The actions that seem to have resulted in no change in the rate of death while freeing up funds to help other patients?
Seriously, McFlock?
I was under the impression you were capable of examining all the available material on an issue and forming your own opinion.
A tad sad that despite evidence available from a variety of sources you seem committed to the narrative that Pharmac's decisions are all justified under For The Good Of All rule and any criticism can be traced back to Big Pharma lobbying.
Sigh.
The key piece of data in whether an action is killing people via a specific cause is whether the death rate from that cause actually increased while or after the action was taken.
That’s the only way of looking at it. Each case has to be first investigated individually and then as a (population) statistic. One cannot ignore the deaths as ‘within the normal range of statistical probabilities’ or whatever because that doesn’t explain anything.
SUDEP by its nature tells us nothing, like most "SU" deaths.
A person who was alive is now dead, with no obvious cause and only a condition or time of life as a common factor with other unexplained deaths.
At least a change in the rate of unexplained deaths would indicate that something has changed.
True, but given that the numbers are small and ‘soft’ I believe this will not lead to conclusions. https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-15-11-2019/#comment-1666718
The most probable conclusion is that one can't prove a negative.
There's always the possibility that in ten or twenty years some level-5 bureaucrat will run the numbers and discover that this decision, statistically speaking, was associated with the deaths of three people more than would have been expected.
But that's the peril of every healthcare funding decision. You take funding away from some area, even if it looks like it will have no negative impact on the population, maybe you're wrong. And maybe the area you divert that funding to will not save more lives than covered by your miscalculated downside.
But you will never be able to convince someone that your decision had nothing to do with their loved one's death, even if there's zero actual evidence you had anything to do with it at all.
Understandably, people are upset and angry and they want to know what happened. They may also want some kind of justice if a preventable mistake was made and someone was found culpable.
I fear these people will be disappointed, disillusioned, and remain angry for quite some time because it is highly unlikely that the investigation into the brand switch will find that kind of information and identify culpability in a legal sense.
As you know, SUDEP is poorly understood and will remain so for the foreseeable future IMO.
This is not to say that it will be a whitewash. Hopefully, some lessons will be learned from this and avoided in future. Again, I believe they will in lowering the risk threshold and a stricter adherence to the first precautionary principle of healthcare: first, do no harm. In other words, if it ain’t broken, don’t try to fix it.
If money in the health system is being spent inefficiently, harm is already being done.
There was another article on the brand switch on Stuff today: https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/118814341/bipolar-disorder-patients-suffer-terrible-side-effects-after-pharmac-drug-brand-switch
Patients are no ordinary consumers.
I know that a few people shove all blame onto PHARMAC because they went against international best evidence and Medsafe’s advice, which is within their rights.
However, PHARMAC is a funding agency and there are (at least) three other parties directly involved in a patient’s prescriptions: the healthcare professional (usually the GP), the pharmacy, and the patient him or herself.
It seems to me that at least one issue is the uncertainty about who takes responsibility for what, i.e. it might have fallen in between the cracks.
It could be a while before we find out if the brand switch has contributed to any of the five reported deaths and other reported adverse events.
" It could be a while before we find out…."
By which time most of the unaffected Muddles will have forgotten what the fuss was all about.
Convenient, and just what they are relying on.
SSDD
In NZ health jargon they are pretty interchangeable. Hence the Health & Disability Commission having a Code Of Consumers Rights. Part of a broader attempt at the time to redefine people's relationship with health practitioners and services in the process of being neoliberalised, but not properly addressed since. Influences from the US.
Yes, it is unfortunate that the lines between these two concepts are blurred because there really is a fundamental difference between patients and consumers.
You mention the US and together with NZ, these are the only two countries that allow direct-to-consumer-advertising of prescription drugs (DTCA).
Personally, I don’t believe this is in the best interests of patients.
“American-style bureaucracy where every change in government results in thousands of political appointees”
There aren't actually that many of them, when you compare the number to either the total number of employees of the US Government or the population of the US.
There are approximately 4,000 political appointments in the Executive Branch, at least according to Wiki. That covers just about all of the Government except the Post Office and the Military.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_appointments_by_Donald_Trump
The population of the US is about 70 times that of New Zealand. If we had the same sort of ratio that would mean around 55-60 political appointees here. I don't know but I would be willing to wager that there are far more than that in the Minister's Offices in the Beehive who serve at the Minister's discretion rather than being seconded by a Department.
After all, that is only a couple of people per Minister.
Except that they're mostly higher-level roles, so to argue a relative proportion it's the number of different functions and services rather than the number of employees. Even if population difference corresponded to difference in size of bureaucracy.
An, of course, there's the entire distinction between ministers and departments, which they don't seem to have in the US: their cabinet members have direct operational control over their departments, rather than a governance role.
Set new objectives and ask senior staff to leave if they cannot meet them? Not sure what kind of employment agreements they have.
Basically, that's the routine.
Minister comes up with a goal, the department come up with the plan (including costs), minister signs off on it as a decision, department implements the plan.
Sometimes ministers want a plan, but it costs too much so they kick it back to the department to find savings (or the department doesn't understand that cost is less of a factor so automatically slips in ways of saving cash, like refusing to recognise previous experience of family carers).
that doesn't quite explain how someone could be fired or moved on though.
I think it does explain that much of what we see in welfare and health is on Labour (and NZF) rather the public servants (although I'm sure there are plenty of ways to undermine a new Minister's plan).
Someone would need to be actually held accountable for their previous decisions and actions while a public servant, which will never happen. It would also make them even more risk-averse.
As long as they competently do the job they are instructed to do, why would you fire them?
If they don't do their job properly, that's internal through the department or SSC.
If their job requires them to commit crimes, they and their superiors should be arrested.
If the incoming minister doesn't like the job the previous minister ordered the department to do, that's not the fault of the department.
That having been said, there is some fudging at senior levels where part of the role might be to have a good working relationship with the minister, but the responsibility for what jobs ministers are instructed to do rests with the minister. And ministers are constrained by Cabinet priorities, as well.
What if their job asks them to be an arsehole and they turn out to be a little too good at it and keen for more?
Yes Minister gives a nice summary of both sides of the discussion.
Arseholes who want to be arseholes when they are instructed to be fair and reasonable fail to competently perform their duties. The intractable arseholes fail to change and go through standard performance management. A purge would just flood the department with inexperienced staff who have poor job security because there will be another purge in three years.
It's bad enough already with restructurings to align with ministerial wishes and areas of responsibility. Basic stuff like differentiating researcher data requests from OIA requests, or knowing who is responsible for what subject area at the moment all fall through a myriad of little cracks because there's FA institutional memory or knowledge. Whacking a purge on top of that is just piling dysfunction upon dysfunction.
For a number of years now I have been reading the post election Briefings to the Incomming Ministers.
Fascinating.
Quite plain that these documents are pitched at the level of the 'in control but mostly ignorant…let's baffle them with bullshit.'
Helps to read a few Yes Minister scripts for some grounding.
ooh, are those available to the public?
Not wanting to pre-empt Rosemary’s reply, yes, they are publically available – they are known as BIMs.
https://dpmc.govt.nz/our-business-units/cabinet-office/ministers-and-their-portfolios/ministerial-portfolios/briefings
https://www.beehive.govt.nz/feature/briefings-incoming-ministers-2019
Yes: https://www.beehive.govt.nz/feature/bims
Your diligence amazes me Rosemary. There are hundreds of them and they can be anything up to a hundred pages or so.
I have read a few of them on occasion but only a very few. The thought of reading any significant number gave me nightmares.
There’s a Moderation note for you.
Haven't watched telly for more than a decade.
Despite doing a largish amount of physical work in an average day I still experience episodes of insomnia.
I am a ridiculously fast reader…but I admit to finding it increasingly difficult to read stuff on screen…my days of dilligence/ self flagellation may be seriously numbered.
Still..the BIMs are certainly a go to document if one has a couple of 'wtf!' moments and need to find the source of a new Minister's blunders.
I've been known to read the odd Treasury Report as well.
Just for fun.
"It would be nice to think so, but don't wholly agree it is true. Yes, there is plenty of positivity in NZ but there is a lot of negativity too and sometimes the latter wins."
I tend to agree with you (Mathew) to SOME (and a growing) extent.
The 4 P's play an increasingly role too – from a sliding scale between apathy and desperation through to hope, and "positivity"
Pot, 'P', Piss and Prozac.
For the first time in my life, I'm about to change my vote from Labour to Green.
And it's not because the Adhern government isn't the best of a load of bad alternatives. It's because time is actually running out before populism become entrenched.
When I heard JA say (in a Henry Cooke interview), she didn't realise how long things take, AND THEN praised our public service (admitedly I assumed she was referring to the senior ranks), I thought – naivety maybe?
I'm not sure some in Labour have yet developed adequate bullshit detectors even if some will only ever have to face a used-car salesman (in this space going forward)
Yes, I think there is a bit of naivety and not just on JA's part. To my knowledge, she was never a P.S. employee – not in NZ anyway – and there are politicians on all sides who fall into that category.
As you know OWT, the P.S. was very much a dog eat dog place but whether that is still the case I don't know. In my day, "seniority" usually depended on how far up 'you know where' a person was prepared to go. Individuality was frowned upon, and anyone who dared to stick their neck above the parapet had it chopped off and thrown into the moat.
A period of P.S. employment should be a requirement for all senior politicians. 😉
Yep, well – Just can't do it anymore. I'm afraid JA may well have signed up to superficiality over substance.
Second time this week concerning an immigration issue ( and that's only 2 that've been made public after just watching 1 news ).
The good thing is that it won't just be me that does the big switch – there are now 3 generations of family that are in agreement.
Apparently, I seem to have misjudged Iain Lees-Galloway too. Nice bloke though he may be, he's obviously not as bright as I thought he was – or maybe its more to do with expediency over principle. Either way, cudda shudda wudda.
The right to protest defines democracy, but for some protesting is terrorism.
While I agree with Monbiot's main point. Personally I think that his notion that we should own the label of ‘extremist’ is wrong.
James Hanson, Naomi Klein and in particular Bill McKibben, are of the opinion that the polluters that we are protesting against are the ‘extremists’ and should be made to own this label. These corporate 'extremists' are out of control, recklessly conducting an experiment with the climate which will impact us all.
Let’s be clear the supporters BAU are not moderate but extreme
British tax payer funded state oganisations define environmentalists and peace activists as 'terrorist'
You can be sure that the label of 'terrorist' attached to Greenpeace by British Intelligence is the same label that the French Intelligence service the DGSE also attach to Greenpeace.
You can also be sure that the British Intelligence consider French Intelligence the DGSE, just like themselves, to be counter terrorists.
The French secret intelligence agency that murdered Nando Pereira and bombed Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior will not be on any establishment organisation terrorist watch list.
The bombing and murder carried out by the DGSE may be the most egregious act by an establishment Intelligence agency but it underlines what Elisa Allen said, that these views held by secret intelligence agencies and the police are dangerous and undemocratic.
The chicken-loving cousin of Fernando the photographer. 🙂
This is what democracy looks like.
No, that is simply fake news. 18,000km is more than the distance from London to Sydney.
The total length of your digestive system is quite a lot longer than the straight-line distance from your mouth to your ass.
Did you miss the word “stretching”?
Stretching? 18,000 km is 18 million metres. If they squeezed 50 million people into 18 million metres, that's 0.36 metres per person. Even the rudest budget airlines give you a lot more than that in their stingiest seats.
Yeah, I did the same and even tried to make some comparisons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_chain_(politics)
The numbers (online) are all over the place but it seems to me that a major event did take place. Quibbling about the actual numbers is just semantics IMO. Maybe satellite images can verify the claims 😉
The problem with distinguishing between fake and fact is that things are never that simple and black & white (binary).
Professor Ann Marie Brady takes New Zealand's government to task for its lax attitude towards Chinese state and donor influence within New Zealand politics.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2020/jan/24/new-zealand-needs-to-show-its-serious-about-addressing-chinese-interference
A couple of good links in there.
You do realise that it's racist to say anything critical of the CCP. Our very own wumao 'Mark' assured us of this repeatedly. 🙂
However my own personal Chinese sources tell me Xi's 'Presidency for Life' gambit is an act of desperation. China has four long standing problems:
1. At present they remain highly dependent on imported resources that only arrive because ships are still free to move across oceans. But to get to China they must pass through several choke points all of which are contested and highly deniable.
2. The four or five thousand years of civilisation is largely a myth. Just as modern Germany has only existed for a relatively short period, and prior to this it was an endless sequence of warlords, imperial expansions, invasions and collapses, the same with China. One of the most stable Chinese periods was when the Mongols invaded and ruled for 200 years or so. At least two major languages divide the nation, and numerous others remain. There is no particular reason why China’s current borders should be considered stable, and you only have to look at the intense resistance from the Taiwanese and HongKongers to the idea of reunification to get a taste of this.
3. Their demographics are terrible. Contrary to what I imagined a few years back, China is running out of young people. This will put an enormous handbrake on their internal expansion. They remain a very low trust society; inner circle/out circle is very much a thing. Together these factors makes it very hard for China to continue expanding on internal growth only
4. And to date most of that 'miraculous' expansion has been very much the result of China's entry into the global world trade order … mostly sponsored by the American Bretton Woods system. The USA tolerated the rise of Germany, Europe and Japan as competitors, because these nations largely played by the rules. China has not, it's policies of hypersubsidisation, and rampant IP theft have gone well past merely annoying. With the USA defaulting back to it's natural isolationism it's no longer interested in maintaining a trade system that largely benefits a nation that is posturing itself as an enemy.
So far the CCP has been able to maintain social order because everyone was getting richer. The raising of 800m people into the middle class is indeed a remarkable achievement, but the ground on which it was achieved is shifting from under them. Hence Xi Xinping's rampant authoritarianism and projection of influence beyond it's borders. Australia and New Zealand are notionally linked into the "Third Island Chain" , ultimately our geography makes us a clear target to be subsumed into the CCP's long term goals to create a New Middle Earth.
Great response thankyou.
I'm painting the roof this weekend so I won't respond until the evening.
Sorry to butt in….but isn't it too damn hot for roof painting?
Or are you perchance at Ross Base?
Sent from my phone with our Bus jammed into the only available shade north of Kataia.
I stop at 10 and reconvene at 4.
It's over a couple of weekends.
The primary reason China will continue to do great is: the United States.
The United States is the gift that keeps on giving in terms of talent pool for innovations, financial capital for expansion, right kind of customer base for all their kinds of products and services, innovations to copy cheaply, and because they have acted so badly for four decades that they are making China look reasonably OK as an alternative ally.
The United States has a fair number of problems which benefit China's place in the world for the remainder of the century.
1. It has squandered the massive moral authority it gained across much of the world after helping Europe defeat Nazi Germany and defeat global communism (I'm sure the very young and the last remaining commies will deny they ever had it but they're the ones who didn't fight).
China is on the other hand building a purely mercantilist and instrumental mode of transacting in the world. Trade deals are replacing the moral pacts built after World World 2 through the United Nations.
2. Its constitutional innovations from the Revolution have worn out, so it no longer functions as a set of ideals to aspire to. In particular its Constitutional checks and balances of executive power have stopped working.
China on the other hand has coherent government which is growing in precision and authority. Sure, I don't like it. But their Chinese social credit system may well turn into a more powerful system of corrective behaviours than the entire US judicial framework of law and prison. Imagine a world where the use of courts was less and less necessary, on China's scale.
3. The USA is about as addicted to oil-based products as one could think, despite having invented and promulgated the digital economy which has significantly decarbonised parts of it.
China is certainly addicted to oil, but it's making many of the right transformative moves, and if you want a 300km/h train to get you somewhere rather than a plane, look not to the USA.
4. The USA used to be ambitious for the rest of the world and could roll out truly massive nation-building programmes through massive instruments including the US armed forces, the CIA, the World Bank, and the IMF. It’s also proven incapable of winning or at least completing a war in 50 years.
China is now the world leader on nation-building systems, and only China has the instruments to roll them out now. Who knows if they will really come off – as in Pakistan – but they don't lack for will or ambit. China's the one that forges the really big trade deals.
There's a really good chance that China is now better positioned for the future due to the systems of governance and control it has rolling, its capacity to decarbonise compared to other major countries, and its diplomatic force stripped of non-mercantile idealism.
In the Year of the Rat, it's China that behaves like one.
And that's a compliment to both China and to rats.
All interesting and valid responses. Still I have to add some qualifiers.
Post WW2 the USA allowed competitors to flourish as long as they stayed on their side ideologically and didn't challenge them militarily. China has broken both of those rules and the USA is now rapidly disengaging with China. The past few years have seen an increasing return of US business back to North America.
The other big one that people keep missing is this; the USA never really needed the global trade order it established. It's imports/exports as a percentage of GDP are something in the order of 6%. They are now oil and gas independent. They simply don't need the rest of the world anymore and are certainly no longer interested in expending American lives in wars they have no interest in. As far as they're concerned they did their best to get the world on a more peaceful orderly basis but the effort has been largely spat upon. No US President since GW Bush has shown any real interest in global affairs and Trump is merely the clown show giving the middle finger to the rest of the planet.
China is now the world leader on nation-building systems
Which has to explain why it's nearest and most intimate neighbors, from Hong Kong to the Philippines are all anxious and unhappy about China's overt military expansion in the region. South China Sea pops into mind. The idea that China is a pacifist, merchantile power with only benign non-military intent is laughable to anyone in the region. Wherever they have the opportunity the Chinese are expanding and exerting their military muscle.
its capacity to decarbonise compared to other major countries,
Which has to explain why it's the largest emitter by far and growing faster than any other nation. Right? They have one hell of a trajectory to turn around.
I'm with the Greens on this
What kind of travesty is this that pretty much allows us to be a satellite of US military power? …and a target..under the guise of plucky Kiwi ingenuity
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/118957475/greens-concerned-about-rocket-lab-launch-for-us-spy-agency
The Greens are the only party to say it how it is when it comes to the US and its war mongering
That we happily collude with Trump…a street corner drunk in the international sphere…truly exposes us as the lackeys we are
Pick a lane … a satellite of US or CCP military power. There is no third option.
The binary thinking is strong in this one. The third option, which we appear to be following, with the recent visit of a Chinese warship, is: both. Option 4 obviously is neutrality; 4(b) or 5, to suit those of us with a benevolent and inclusive nature being a foreign policy which is both neutral and pacifist.
Small nations like NZ that are utterly dependent of freedom of the seas and open trade will ultimately be forced to pick a side. Just to be clear, I've advocated for many years that the age of empires is going to end, but in the meantime we have to deal with the realities in front of us.
Wishful thinking about 'neutral and pacifist' will cut no mustard with the great powers.
"Wishful thinking"…How very dare I! As co-creators of our world, what we humans need collectively is a shitload more "wishful thinking" and way less of the fossilized acceptance of "the realities in front of us."
The problem with having typed out in excess of maybe 8,000 comments here over the past 13 years is that I tend to assume everyone has read all of them. Which is a terrible conceit of course.
But yes I've outlined in many comments a vision for a post-empire political world, based on a global form of federal govt. Not dissimilar in nature to the UN, but in which the nations give up the aspects of their sovereignty that relate to international matters, such as trade agreements, freedom of navigation, communications, diplomacy and most especially war. I've repeatedly argued that all of the big problems we face are global in nature therefore demand political responses and authority at the same scale.
However I've been a lonely voice on this for a long time now, and I'm assuming that none of this is going to come about for at least another generation. It may well take another catastrophic war to bring it about, who knows.
In the meantime NZ has some hard choices to make.
The art of diplomacy for small nations isn't so much which side to pick, but when.
When still dodges the question … which side do you pick McF?
We don't need to make any decisions for a while yet.
Our security and military establishment will be independent in name only with Australia making almost all of our hard choices for us (no need for thinking there)…
… along with 90% of our banking (still no need for thinking)…
…whereas as a society New Zealand cares only cares if your Visa is good rather than where you are from (in all our guest nights, student nights, and exports) …
… and those three defaults enable China's rise in New Zealand and in Australia (and still not a fresh thought needed for any of the above to continue 🙂 )
So far so good.
… along with 90% of our banking (still no need for thinking)…
Not in the loop .
Kiwibank might need to fork out about $12 billion if it is to buy BNZ, industry sources say.
It is believed that negotiations are under way for the Government-backed bank to buy BNZ from Australian owners NAB.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/118989116/bnz-sale-price-likely-to-top-10b-experts-predict
That would be an interesting state-funded long-term infrastructure investment, I'm guessing through the NZ Super Fund.
i would suppose the NZSF would be the best vehicle.As a spend it would improve the sustainability of the nz current account faster then export growth.
Not going to happen and you know it.
Kiwibank aren't even 10% of our banking after 19 years of operation, and have needed massive bailouts so big they had to be hocked off to ACC and NZSuperfund.
Imagine if they had been capitalised enough a decade ago to take on the Aussie mortgage-floggers?
Kiwibank does not have business or farm lending portfolio risks either.
Nor does it have the business and farm lending profits.
Which is all good until those sectors go down the tubes. Which may be why there's suddenly rumours that BNZ is on the block. This could easily be another Hanover / Allied Farmers situation, in which case Kiwi Bank and backers would be keeping well clear, or should be.
no thanks Red
I've seen the evidence of US power (going back at least as far as Hiroshima and Korea , Vietnam, Cambodia ,Guatemala etc ad infinitum)and I'm not impressed….except in a fearful way.
China's military impact on the world?
Bases globally?
I know you put a case that American hegemony has resulted in less death, and widespread peace and prosperity, but I don't buy it
There may be fewer battle deaths, but economic sanctions are the new way of doing business..and war..and the deaths and ongoing misery are undeniable
Battle deaths also don't take into account the lingering and longlasting death count asscociated with land mines,depleted uranium exposure … disability, birth defects ,cancer,and denial of access to medicines and food, general poverty from sanctions,destruction of cultures and societies.The US has steadily retreated from international treaties intended to make the world safer
Peace and prosperity for the few, not the many
I'm not choosing China either , I guess I have more optimism (or stupid hope) that we humans can be better..and need to be
I know you put a case that American hegemony has resulted in less death, and widespread peace and prosperity, but I don't buy it
The hard data I've produced over and over is a bitch, but then you have your own pre-conceptions to look after. I've never argued the Americans have produced a perfect world, but it's a fallacy to condemn the good by comparison with an ideal of perfection that has never been achieved.
I guess I have more optimism (or stupid hope) that we humans can be better..and need to be
Indeed, yet oddly enough whenever I give concrete expression to that exact hope … everyone around here goes quiet.
The hard data I've produced
You are very clever to have created a control planet where the US has not been so aggressive.
US has not been so aggressive.
Compared to what? Short of trying to argue historic counter factuals in which we imagine that the USSR had become the dominant world power post-WW2, or whatever, we can only really compare with the past. The data clearly shows that the past was nowhere near as peaceful as you imagine, and that war between the 'great powers of the day' has steadily declined, especially since WW2.
I never said the past was peaceful. "Hard data", what a knob.
"Hard data", what a knob.
I produced a solid data rich reference you demonstrably failed to counter. Then you resort to name calling. Is that really the best you can do?
Lol. Your solid data rich reference starts with the words "draft version".
There is an obvious reason for a cessation of direct conflict between the major powers, nuclear weapons.There is nothing in your link to suggest that there would have been more conflict overall if US foreign policy had been less aggressive. You are welcome to hold an opinion that there would have been based on conjecture, but "hard data" to support that there is not.
Obviously you didn't even get as far as reading the first paragraph, before you found a petty distraction to amuse yourself with. Well there is another version here that's highly visual, doesn't require a lot of reading and isn't a draft. Unless you care to refute this, then merely pretending it doesn’t exist is irrational.
There is an obvious reason for a cessation of direct conflict between the major powers, nuclear weapons.
Yes indeed. So now can we drop that idiotic 'nuclear free' policy?
As for American foreign policy being so 'aggressive' by exactly what measure are you judging this? For 70 years since then end of WW2 the US military has ensured freedom of trade and movement of peoples between all nations resulting in a huge reduction in warfare, the end of overt colonisation, the growth of democracy, and an immense improvement in living standards … as long as you were on their side. That was not an unreasonable demand.
At various points they've fucked up, the invasion of Iraq being an obvious one. Covert actions in Latin America having little to commend them either. Since the end of the Cold War their interest and competency in maintaining the global peace has become increasingly erratic and ill-directed.
No-one is arguing that Pax-Americana did not have it's ugly moments, but if you imagine that reverting to a pre-WW2 era in which multiple competing great power empires constantly vied and battled with each other over controlling territory and trade routes is going to be somehow an improvement … well the data I've presented suggests you're dreaming.
Which at the same time doesn't say this dominant US role in world affairs is going to be sustainable either; at some point we need to have some tough conversations about what will replace it.
TBH, I'm starting to lean towards the Chinese.
Never saw a President for Life you couldn't love eh ….
The Green Party have been consistent in opposing genocide and helping its victims.
They should campaign on it and make it a public bottom line of supporting labour.
Best chance they will have of getting labour to agree to it.
Lol. I'd forgotten the joys of right wing advice for the left in election year.
You give him too much ‘credit’; he’s a stirrer.
I was being sarcastic 🙂
What can I say – I’m here to help.
Your concern is always appreciated.
And often repudiated. 😉
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/119036650/complaint-about-christchurch-mayors-election-expenses-taken-to-police
Complaint about Lianne Dalziel and her election expenses (naming doners) referred to police.
Great news.
Hiding donations from people with strong links to china or are china based. Here is hoping that justice prevails.
"If a candidate is found to have knowingly filed a false electoral return, the maximum penalty is up to two years in prison or a $10,000 fine."
That would do the trick !
My doner’s name is kebab.
Lol. Very witty.
Does sound from that article like a straightforward failure to declare local body election campaign donations over $1500. Dalziel subsequently listing them on 18 December does not change that.
The wriggleroom in the law is only over whether a breach was 'intentional' or not. ('Ignorance not being a defence' somehow does not apply to candidates seeking local power, only to plebs).
Thus here is the defence argument:
I was just following poor advice, your honour.
"I was just following poor advice, your honour."
Or perhaps she could try an earlier excuse.
"I'm just a housewife Your Honour. I always do what my husband tells me to do".
No call for that.
There's a big difference in a few donations of $1800 ($300 over the limit) which was slap-happily overlooked in a local body campaign, and a donation of $100.000 from a single donor carved up into packages of $14,999 in a general election campaign.
From the Stuff article that James linked to:
Not small money. What's a valid excuse for not following the few rules we have to minimise influence in elections?
OK. I hadn't seen that update. The last link I read was some time ago. There was "a few of them" but I thought they were all around the $1800 mark. That makes a difference I concede but (imo) still doesn't put it on a par with Nationals misdemeanor.
I'm with you over the need to be scrupulous about the rules being followed. No point in having them otherwise. It sounds like it was carelessness, but it should not have happened. Hopefully there will be less "carelessness" on both sides in the future.
I'd personally like to see private money completely removed from politics.
Looks like the SFO may finally be ready to say something about the Nat investigation: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/407687/serious-fraud-office-announcement-over-national-donations-expected-in-coming-weeks
Ah, I see that story has already been posted below too.
If we want truly democratic elections there's no other alternative but it will never happen cos… you know "we're not gonna fund politicians out of our money. Let em fund their own campaigns. It's bad enough we have to pay for em sittin around in parliament all day doin nothing. 🙄
And where in t link did it say that it was just a few donations $300 over.
either you are very lousy at reading or simply making shit up (I’m going with the later).
to help you out one donation – as clearly listed was over $17k.
Anne wasn't making this “shit” up though, was she James.
"a donation of $100.000 from a single donor carved up into packages of $14,999 in a general election campaign"
Who knew that Russians used to refer to the West as a place of 'Normalnost' . (But don't anymore).
The victory for incoherence.
‘There is something very telling’ about the rise of incoherence in the West that culminated in Trump's election victory, and the misinformation war against the Syrian revolution.
Colonial Viper a Trump supporter and apologist for the Assad regime, right from the earliest months of the protests for democratic rights in Syria, openly advocated in these very pages for the slaughter of anti regime protesters as CIA agents.
That for his efforts CV was then later elevated to ‘Author’ marked a victory for incoherence and the end of normalnost where facts don’t matter and opinion is everything.
[Colonial Viper authored his first post here at end of 2013. He authored his first post on Assad and Syria at the end of 2015. You can check for yourself using the search function. AFAIK, he was not a Trump supporter in those days.
CV’s comments and posts were highly controversial at times and he became somewhat unhinged later on and went off reserve. He no longer has Author status here and has not commented here for a long time AFAIK.
I don’t know if CV has openly advocated for mass violence as you allege and I doubt it would have been condoned if this were indeed the case. However, you seem to suggest that TS ‘rewarded’ CV for calling for mass violence and slaughter and that is a pertinent lie and utterly uncalled for.
Your latest insinuations fly in the face of the hard work that Authors and Moderators (and SYSOP) as well as most commenters put into TS to distinguish between facts and opinions; there is a place for both, but they are not the same.
I am done with your lies and falsehoods and the continuing snide remarks aimed at TS, which are a stab in the back given that you have been a commenter on this site for 11 years with thousands of comments.
Don’t bother with e-mail or any other attempt to communicate regarding this Moderation note; the only opinions I’ll take into account are those of the other Moderators and SYSOP. You can pray that they see your case differently and in your favour.
Take the rest of the year off – Incognito]
See my Moderation note @ 11:12 AM.
Our old mate CV.
He has certainly red-pilled himself in recent years if you look at his Twitter feed. His latest pet peeve is drag queens reading to a few middle class kids at a public library.
Never mind the thousands of kids who have to live in boarding houses and hotel rooms along side all sorts of nutters each and every day in this country.
I can never remember which damned pill was supposed to do what. I just know I'm up to half a dozen a day lol
edit: oh wait, I remember what the little blue pills are supposed to do…
Just never take the black pill!
https://pando.com/2015/05/17/neocons-2-0-the-problem-with-peter-pomerantsev/
He's an old time propagandist, a real master
Somewhere I read he was described as "ex-reality TV producer turned journalist and academic"
Hilarious I thought.
Paul and Pascale Hennessey established Park Homes five years ago.
This is the kind of business the government could be encouraging given our situation with unaffordable housing and lack of supply.
It is sad that the acts of evil people can destroy a business that can help with what many are desperate for but can’t get.
A home.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/118973205/couples-heartbreaking-loss-of-tiny-house-business-after-burglaries
Barrelling toward theocracy, and no one is lifting a finger.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/24/march-for-life-anti-abortion-rally-washington
Abortion today, then sex before marriage, then same sex relation shops, then dress codes, then no more evolution in schools.
It's happening here as well. We all like seeing footage of the brass bands at Ratana church and Neve frolicking on the paepae, but Ratanaism is very conversative and reactionary. They are anti choice, anti women, anti gay, anti evolution and live in the dark ages. They are more or less brownwashed alt right.
Trump has proven that he won't defend U.S. troops in Iraq.
34 U.S. troops suffered traumatic brain injuries after Iran's missile strike. Iran now knows that the orange commander-in-chief has a big mouth and tiny balls.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/01/34-troops-suffered-traumatic-brain-injury-iran-strike-200124173832457.html
“And one day we must ask the question, ‘Why are there forty million poor people in America? And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising questions about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth.’ When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy. And I’m simply saying that more and more, we’ve got to begin to ask questions about the whole society…”
–Speech to Southern Christian Leadership Conference Atlanta, Georgia, August 16, 1967.
You know that "I have a Dream" guy.
Did you know there was a trial that said he was assassinated by the US government?
https://www.globalresearch.ca/court-decision-u-s-government-agencies-found-guilty-in-martin-luther-kings-assassination-2/5320024
Oh well – feel free to keep dreaming and doing jack.
How to lose the 2020 General election…a continuing series from the NZ Labour Party Caucus.
The law change being discussed re changing superannuation payments for non qualifying partners is a blunder as sure as trumpeting “increase the age to 67” for two elections was. https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/118933472/pension-changes-remove-extra-payments-for-nonworking-younger-partners
Labours die hard neo liberal aligned members of whom D. Parker is a stirling example, seem to believe that “out fiscal scrooging” the Nats is a vote winner. The logic re sidelining Capital Gains given the holy war National was generating on CGT, and Coalition dynamics, was somewhat understandable as a one off tactical move, and may well have salvaged 2020 for them regardless of the negative messages it sent to many Labour Green supporters.
Likewise the Cannabis Referendum may play a part in the return of the Govt. But touching Super is a no no for many working class Kiwis as much as it is for the double dipping middle class who are happy to accept their super while they disparage beneficiaries.
National Superannuation at 65 is a de facto UBI for that age group, and despite the generational issues and calls from bureaucrats (often with their own personal retirement schemes) for change-Labour do so at their peril.
Not so sure this is a vote loser. It removes quite a lot of discrimination which I suspect skewed more towards women because of common life experiences. .
The partner with an overseas pension removing eligibility has been an issue for a long time- good to see it sorted.
A bit more thought needs to go into the rates of married couple, single person and two superannuitants sharing living space.
There is also other financial discrimination in this space- if a couple's adult children come to live with them there is no financial penalty , if they return to live with a single parent superannuitant then $50 a week is lost.
With respect to the partner age differences – if the qualifying partner dies – then the younger partner loses payment and has to depend on other welfare benefits.
I see that all current arrangements have been grandfathered. Personally I would have thought that there should have been a transitional period (shorter for youngest partners ) so that over a period of 2-5 years they transit onto the same rules as the newly eligible.Booting any under 50's off shoudn't be a hardship – I don't see why they should remain eligible for a better benefit. Conversely applying the reverse of these rules would ease the transition for couples with narrow age spreads close to retirement.
1918, again, or Stephen King writes nonfiction.
Hundreds of patients in Wuhan who have yet to be confirmed as carrying the new strain of coronavirus are becoming increasingly desperate as the city struggles to cope with the numbers reporting pneumonia symptoms.
One 36-year-old, speaking by phone outside a major hospital in the city, said she had spent the past week taking her sick husband from hospital to hospital in a vain attempt to get him tested for the virus, which has already killed 41 people and infected hundreds more.
“I have nothing. No protective clothing, only a raincoat, and I am standing outside the hospital in the rain,” said the woman, who gave her name as Xiaoxi.
“I am desperate, I have lost count of time and days. I don’t know if we will both live to see the new year.”
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3047613/china-coronavirus-wuhan-residents-describe-doomsday-scenes
In 1918 most people didn't really know what was happening. Today we have the internet and what you've posted.
Social cohesion could get tricky
We're in interesting times
The internet and incompetence did not protect samoa from measles.
Dr Helen Petousis-Harris said given New Zealand's responsibility for the 1918 flu epidemic reaching Samoa and wiping out 22 percent of the population, the country should have done more to protect Samoa from this outbreak.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/402251/samoa-measles-epidemic-immunologist-furious-at-nz
As measles reduces the immune response,there are significant risks for an outbreak in both the pacific islands and south auckland.The problem is it is already here.
The land of the free is now censoring Iranian media.
Cadet Bonespurs' Space Farce gets their logo.
https://www.vox.com/2020/1/24/21080813/space-force-star-trek-starfleet-logo-trump
Sure looks like a probable copyright violation to me. Even if it's just derivative of a previous copyright violation.
Cohen, Omarosa and Parnas have all secretly recorded tRump.
Anyone think the mobster oligarchs don't have him on tape?
A recording obtained by ABC News appears to capture President Donald Trump telling associates he wanted the then-U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch fired while speaking at a small gathering that included Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman — two former business associates of Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani who have since been indicted in New York.
The recording appears to contradict statements by Trump and support the narrative that has been offered by Parnas during broadcast interviews in recent days. Sources familiar with the recording said the recording was made during an intimate April 30, 2018, dinner at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C.
Trump has said repeatedly he does not know Parnas, a Soviet-born American who has emerged as a wild card in Trump’s impeachment trial, especially in the days since Trump was impeached.
"Get rid of her!" is what the voice that appears to be Trump’s is heard saying. "Get her out tomorrow. I don't care. Get her out tomorrow. Take her out. OK? Do it.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/recording-appears-capture-trump-private-dinner-ukraine-ambassador/story?id=68506437