Would as many people have voted for National if they knew the MOM Bill would pass? It was clearly campaigned on by National and prominently opposed by Labour and voters should have been clear about the chances of it proceeding, so it would be odd if there are defections of support from National because the part asset sales are going ahead.
If you assume that most people pay attention to the issues being discussed in election campaigns and don’t just vote for “more of the same” or “time for someone new”, then yep.
“… so it would be odd if there are defections of support from National because the part asset sales are going ahead.”
And yet all those polls say people are going off your Tory masters. The waffle ain’t working for some reason. Could it be that the voters of your NZ just aren’t copping your wisdom, Pete, and are making their own minds up?
amo6: “I voted for them thinking it would happen-not that I wanted it but that’s what I had to accept voting for them”
bligh: “I knew, before i voted.”
merrijg:
So you are asking people who voted national if they would have voted for them if they were going to partially privatise.
Didn’t they make it clear that this is what they were going to do?
So now they are saying National should have been clear that they were going to partially privatise.
How thick are these people.
dezzie: “I knew about it before I voted for them, I think you’d have to be living under a rock to have not known.”
rasman_nz:
Given the mixed ownsership model was a, if not the, major platform to which National sought re-election anyone who voted for them hoping that the legislation may not pass should not have been allowed to vote, last year or ever again…
Sheesh the stupidity of some to think a major platform policy could possibly be defeated therefore it is safe to vote for the party as they might not be able to do it….
Nats said it was policy I fully expect them to carry out their policies…
mp3539: “people werent thick…there was no one else to vote for……..”
lana92: “We had a fantastic choice, bankruptcy under Labour or selling the family silver under National … great choices … not.”
charles.j: “National campaigned on it and received a lot of votes. In fact, it was one of the highest ever recorded under MMP. Labour shot themselves in the foot multiple times, and Asset sales are now set to pass”
Congratulations. You now have nine people who might sign a greeting card stating anything about anything. What you do with it is up to you. Isn’t democracy great?
I didn’t know your plans for improving the responsiveness and effectiveness of the CIR system were so, umm, advanced. “I asked some randoms on trademe”
A lot of kiwis on /b/. You should ask around over there too.
That was nothing to do with CIR. But I woukld check out views there, or anywhere peoplewere interested in commenting.
For your sort of democracy who would you exclude from having a say, apart from peop,e using Trade Me forums? Anyone else you don’t think is up to your standard?
I imagine those who voted for National but may now be thinking again over giving that party their support over asset sales may be doing so because information that has come to light since the election casts doubt on either the competence or veracity of National’s claims about the ownership and economic consequences of implementing the MOM.
There are now significant doubts about the economic benefits of selling (and selling now) and also doubts about whether 51% control is manageable or that NZ ownership of shares can be guaranteed to the extent that National reassured people that it could.
I remember that before 2008, supporters of John Key were quick to claim the virtues of him ‘changing his mind’ over various policies. They claimed this showed he was responsive to new information or some such, and his changing his mind showed just how reasonable he was.
Maybe people thinking of removing their support for National over asset sales, despite voting for them in 2011, are similarly just being responsive to new information and showing that they are reasonable people.
PG if the election result had been different you would be groveling to a different master.
Labour were going to raise taxes on the well off and make those who are paying no tax capital gaingters.
Your a really Pathetic Grovelar
Would anyone have voted for National if truth in advertising applied to politicians.
National’s real manifesto. If they told the truth..
“We will cut incomes across the board except for a few at the top.
We will remove your civil rights, privacy, freedom from unreasonable search, surveillance and seizure, rights to withdraw your Labour and rights to protest even more.
We will respond to police breaking the law by changing it.
We will deliberately put the Government in deficit with unaffordable tax cuts.
We will steal more income earning assets to make our funders rich at your expense.
We will happily continue to kill NZ productive industries to chase illusory trade advantages for cow cockies.
We will leave strategic planning, to, “the market”. (Something for which we would sack any business manager).””
We will leave most New Zealanders noticeably poorer, after three years.
Notice how shifty Key looked in the “show me the money” debate. He knew his costings were a lot more dodgy than Labour’s.
Puerile git Tremains cartoon in the ODT on saturday explains everthing.
The media were all on Conmankeys side before the Election.
Now they are Questioning everything poor we johnny and his yes men don,t like it.
after the next election you will be bagging ever body on the right as your laeder will be in govt with any body so long as he gets his boubles!
ACC’S policy of ridding itself of thousands of long-term clients is laid bare in agreements the corporation signed with the Government revealing that a far tougher quota system was adopted two years ago.
Senior ACC managers have since spoken of their success at cutting long-term clients from the books at a conference in Australia, saying the “low-hanging fruit” was gone but the job would get harder.
[…]
In June 2010, then ACC minister Nick Smith and outgoing ACC chairman John Judge signed a three-year agreement that stated as a “priority” that the corporation would get rid of 1150 long-term clients a year. It had 13,157 such clients when the service and purchase agreement was signed.
[…]
Ms Cosgrove told the group of insurers and actuaries in Brisbane that ACC had “an absolute strategy … and we’re not reporting it as a public measure yet”. Its focus was now on high-cost claims because the “actuarial release” would be stronger.
So glad this government is very concerned about injured Kiwis, and is doing everything they can to help, care for, rehabilitate and support them/us!/sarc.
From a young age I never really understood the mania for everyone owning their own home.
As I’ve got older I got to understand the logic in the current economic environment, as home ownership can boost your financial value in the long term (if you can afford the long term mortgage), and keep you out of the control of ruthless landlords/ladies.
But it still seems to me a bit of a con to push for as many people as possible owning their own homes. It benefits those at the top of the housing hierarchy and leaves those at the bottom struggling in insecure circumstances. It also feeds property bubbles that are damaging to the whole society.
I’ve been happy as a lifetime renter, and have found most landlord/ladies to be OK (the worst are estate agent managers, usually managing property for an unknown landlord). Now there is evidence that owning your own home probably won’t make you happier. It’s usually the reverse, that happier and healthier people are more likely theycan afford to buy:
The study was led by the University of Adelaide and involved more than 10,000 people over a six-year period.
Baker cautioned against government policies that might encourage people to buy houses they could not afford.
[…]
“Renting your home doesn’t seem to affect your happiness, whereas owning a home that you can’t afford clearly does.'”
Baker said renting was far more common in Europe so there was less stigma attached to renting there. She said the socio-economic mix of renters there was more diverse.
“A professor or business person can be living next door to a student or shop worker, whereas that is not as common in Australia.”
Well, for myself, I also have some money in pension schemes and some savings. The pensions were largely the default position when I was working in London and Sydney, so payments were automatically taken out of my pay without me really paying much attention to it. I also pay into Kiwisaver.
But needing to own your own home and/or pension investments beyond super, are all based on the dominant economic assumptions that have been in place for decades. And these investments all have knock-on impacts on society and future generations.
Housing should be cheap, affordable to all, and shouldn’t be part of a market economy. Savings should be savings, and shouldn’t keep diminishing in value over time if not invested somewhere.
I am afraid that the whole concept of interest on savings is the other side of the financial ponzi scheme that makes unsustainable growth an economic necessity.
Savings are likely to disappear into the insatiable maw of the finance industry. When they next stuff up.
For all the West’s private pension schemes to keep paying out compounding interest means a hockey stick growth in money supply is required.
Without a corresponding increase in productivity, which the earth is not big enough to sustain, all these financial products must fail at some stage.
We are better of investing in things that the banks cannot take away.
Investing taxes in 100% sustainable energy, for example, would do more to ensure we can afford to support our old, and young, in future than any investment in financial speculation.
New Zealanders subconsciously know that, hence the over investment in land. Though I wonder how many mortgages, like mine, were investment in a business. A mortgage is the only way normal people can get any financial leverage.
Investing taxes in 100% sustainable energy, for example, would do more to ensure we can afford to support our old, and young, in future than any investment in financial speculation.
QFT
A mortgage is the only way normal people can get any financial leverage.
Yep, the only way to to truly participate in our society is to beg the bank manager and, of course, to pay.
Labour (Cosgrove) and Greens (Norman) have said that Winston Peters’ asset buy back suggestions are fiscally irresponsible.
That could make for interesting coalition negotiations, unless Peters changes from YES to NO by then. Or if Labour and Greens change to YES.
Peters suggests Kiwisaver funds and the Super Fund should buy back the shares, but that’s bizarre. What if they already own many of the shares? They would end up having them taken off them so that they could be given them back.
Three parties who may or may not be in a position to form a govt in two-and-a-half-years and who happen to agree on the most desirable outcome of a particular given situation also disagree on the details of the best way to achieve it.
If only Peter Dunne were in the mix. At least he knows how to do as he’s told.
Indeed, felix. Whats the point in MMP, and shifting fro m2 party dominance of government, if the smaller parties always agree with the other parties with policies closest to theirs? If several parties agreed on everything, they might as well just amalgamate into one party.
MMP…. sets up the system for on-going consultation, discussion and negotiation.
There’s strong points for small parties to retain independence, they add diversity of MP and policies, and they break up the party whipped voting.
Otherwise why don’t Labour and National amalgamate? Most of what they do is very similar anyway, far more overlap than differences. But it would not be good for our democracy if we had a single party government.
“why don’t Labour and National amalgamate?” well, some people like red more than blue, while others think it’s time for a change every now and then…. which is your favourite colour? red or blue? samaris or venezilos? Blair or Thatcher? Obama or Obama? Key or that other guy from labour, I think it’s Goff or have they changed?
Oh how sad of me not to already know that it wouldn’t be good for our democracy to have a one party government. I feel quite embarrassed that I didn’t already know that. Thanks for letting me know that Pete George.
Tell me what planet you’re on you facile, boring, boring, boring old tory. I’ll make sure I avoid it in my astral travel.
That doesn’t mean Labour and the Greens won’t buy them back, just that they think Winston’s model won’t work in the way Winston thinks it will. There are no obstacles to coalition forming, as all 3 parties are committed to looking at the possibility of a buy back once National and it’s limpets are defeated. The big question is how buggered you and your mates will have left our economy and whether a buy back is immediately affordable.
Sorry to let you down, Pete, but there’s no escape route there for UF or National.
The big question is how buggered you and your mates will have left our economy
Norman said something similar – ” the books are getting into a terrible mess because of National”.
But in fact National probably won the election – despite opposition to assets sales – because voters thought they were the most fiscally responsible option, and Labour/Green spending would have been too risky in the current economic climate.
That’s right, Pete. The voters were lied to, or even worse, not told the truth, and now we all have to wait for Labour to bring back the good times. Again. Oh, for the days of balanced budgets, eh? Just think, it was only 4 years ago we had a fiscally responsible Government and only two years till the next one.
I love this fiscally irresponsible meme, from those who left a big hole in our accounts, by borrowing for tax cuts, for Hawaii holidays, for them and their mates.
In fact real fiscal responsibility would be tax and spend, now, on stimulus, with spending on sustainable energy, local production, housing and education, to keep the country viable in future. When AGW, peak oil and peak water start to hit.
Peters suggests Kiwisaver funds and the Super Fund should buy back the shares, but that’s bizarre. What if they already own many of the shares? They would end up having them taken off them so that they could be given them back.
What is Bizarre is selling the shares to those that own them already!
Taken = buy
given = sold
fiscally irresponsible ‘= selling the share is the first place
@ BillODrees
It wasn’t a prepared speech as such. He had no notes. He was speaking largely to the converted – members/supporters. It was part of the… getting to meet the locals and giving them a chance to get to know him campaign. After all he hasn’t been on the NZ political scene very long and he’s going to need their full support.
@ ad.
That’s an unfair description. He was ‘chatting’ about his vision for NZ society and where he thinks it should be going and how a Labour-led govt. would get it there. He made no apologies for being short on detail because the actual policies are still being hammered out. But he gave a more than adequate outline of the general direction. In my opinion, most of the ‘flabby shit’ came from a few people in the audience who saw fit to make full blown speeches of their own during the question time.
That’s excelent Anne and delighted to hear others were wrong – Shearer is definitely growing on me, particilarly with polls so heartwarming in a cold winter.
God I can’t stand speechifying from “questioners” – it’s boorish.
On asset sales I see Steven Joyce has come out and said “the most important thing is strengthening the capital markets”.
So lets examine this — the capital markets in NZ consist primarily of the NZX. The NZX is privately owned. The NZX has consistently failed to provide sufficient capital markets. Even Joyce himself states clearly that the NZX has failed.
The NZX is the peak of many capitalists dreams. Get a business, grow it, list on the exchange and voila – captain of industry.
Except that businesses don’t want to list. I have come across many perfect candidates in my times and they consistently do not want to list. The reasons are immaterial but they basically turn on the fact that the NZX is not worth the money or effort and does not assist their business.
The NZX has failed over the last century and decades. And that is just those listing. What about investors? ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, poll mums and dads about the trustworthiness of the stock exchange and its participants. I don’t think much more needs to be said.
So if the NZX has failed, as Joyce states, then why is he giving them welfare? Why is he pouring more money down a proven failed system?
And if the captains of industry are so magnificent at creating business, as they always claim, then why has it failed? Why don’t the masters of private enterprise create their own businesses to list on the NZX?
Because they can’t that’s why. The masters of capitalism cannot create their own businesses. They have to take ones that the taxpayers have built and paid for over the decades. For yet further evidence of this, check out some of the largest companies on the NZX – high proportion of businesses created by the taxpayer, not businessmen.
Failures.
Bludging off the taxpayer tit.
Joyce and Key need to be questioned in detail over this. It would also be worth finding out what NZX is willing to pay to have our assets listed in their directory. And how much more revenue the NZX will receive.
they and others certainly need ot be questioned, and questioned in a simple single part methodology. I am sick to my back teeth of important subjects being raised in the House and no suitable answer supplied because the question has three parts is covered in similie and toasted under the 20w grill of self protection. Politicians need to remember why they are (supposedly) sitting in the House in the first place.
Ask a direct single question, get a direct answer. Of late, even the Speaker appears to be tiring of the banality and the well orchestrated auto-rhetoric from the opposition.
Not sure if Key or Joyce would have the answers to any exhaustive questioning because they are merely henchmen for the funders of the National and Act parties.
The spurious concept presented of needing more market capitalisation ion NZ lays bare the whole edifice of investment in NZ. I contend that the NZX cannot grow because there is nothing left we can turn production which we can “capitalise” that has not already been capitalised. The logic of “globalization” is that you send capital to places where the costs are minimised, and the major factor here is wage costs. Because we wont “allow” sweat shops a la Nike in Honduras etc we cannot attract capital…so instead we attempt to create markets in existing infrastructure and sell them off. Sick really.
Of all the Nats justifications for selling the SOEs this is the only one that adds up to me; that it’s a taxpayer bailout of the NZX. Weldon of the NZX was far too close to the Nats, seemed to have the key to the back door of the beehive in the Nats first term his name was always cropping up. The NZX will clip the ticket on every share sold, it must profit from the SOE floats over the longer term and it will be interesting to watch its share price which I expect to perform better than the SOE shares.
I agree on the NZX being a dog. I don’t buy shares and I know how to read a balance sheet. Look at any business listed on the NZX and it’s loaded up with debt with shareholder capital all pledged as security to the banks, small shareholders are treated with contempt. The SOEs will go down the same track; borrow up large to pay big dividends & push the share price up while hollowing them out from the inside.
It is the worse reason to sell of a strategic rare asset like Hydro Dams.
The absence of Capital Gains Tax and some weaknesses in Taxion legislative/administrative regimes encourages some to remain in the unlisted sector. There are other reasons the NZX has been unsuccessful!
And Joyce is agreeing that the NZX is unsuccessful. And Joyce is telling mum and pops to invest through that unsuccessful medium! Did Joyce list his business on the NZX?
Greece, Spain, Portugal , Ireland……watching Keiser and some other commentaries over the week since the Greek election points at one conclusion: default is inevitable! Merely delayed by how long?
The big picture is somewhat worrying in terms of how the default is presented to the rank and file taxpayers worldwide who have had their “leaders” conveniently underwrite bank debt. The basic theme is, “Wow we bankers took punts that were too risky, bundled up the losses as derivatives, sold them to generate more interest, became insolvent and then demanded the taxpayer world wide bail us out as too big to fail, and you MUST do as we say or you are roadkill.”. And because the bankers “own” the politicians (along with their 1%er mates) we the rank and file do as they demand. We should be asking who is roadkill?
Amongst that gloomy prognosis is a real ray of hope: economic contagion will result in bank failures if the taxpayer does not allow more “bail outs”…if the bail outs happen there will be defaults anyway. The financial status quo will become an emperor without clothes, illegitimate. The hope bit is that nature abhors a vacuum, real power and control can be sized via the democratic process. Which is why Labour need to grow some balls and be prepared to tell the bankster regimes to fuck off. What hope of that?
Which is why Labour need to grow some balls and be prepared to tell the bankster regimes to fuck off. What hope of that?
Implement a super profit tax on any entity making over $100M pa.
Implement an asset tax and FTT.
Greatly strengthen the community and small business presence of Kiwibank.
Arm the Reserve Bank with a broad range of capital and currency control tools, and task it with putting in place settings to support employment and the tradeable sector.
And crucially, take charge of the issuance of debt free, interest free money into the economy.
“Which is why Labour need to grow some balls and be prepared to tell the bankster regimes to fuck off. What hope of that”
–Nada!
Bored, people underestimate the power of the banking industry, and what else it controls, because they like to use names such as “conspiracy theorists”, to hide behind. Most are unable to accept the real conspiracy which is happening in front of them, is not happening in isolation!
The out of control situation around contagion, is interesting, as it will expose the corruption more and more, as long as the attempts to keep the status quo on life support continue.
If it collapses, how will NZ fear….
I suspect not very well, with all those off balance sheet derivitives, waiting to show their worth!
You may be right that hope is slim: banks and finance are best dealt with when they are weak (and insolvent which requires the letter of the law to be imposed i.e the Commerce Acts insolvency clauses). We need to get them when they cant pay their tame politicians and media (and after that it is a case of keeping the genie in the bottle) otherwise they will win.
“This is the first in a series of posts that address the phenomenon seen over the past few years of the proliferation of articles arguing that peak oil is dead and that we are in a new era of liquid fuel abundance. I have already addressed this issue in general with my previous post Seven Myths Deniers Use To ‘Debunk’ Peak Oil, Debunked. But with more articles coming out like this weekly I have decided to take on the authors of these overly optimistic puff pieces and explain paragraph by paragraph exactly why these people are so wrong.
First up in this series is Roger Harrabin. Harrabin is certainly no slouch broadcasting on environmental and energy issues since the 1980s and winning a number of broadcasting awards. He currently works as the BBC’s environmental analyst and is one of their senior journalists on environmental and energy issues. So it came as a surprise when I came across Harrabin’s article this week entitled Shortages: Is ‘peak oil’ idea dead?. He managed to invoke a number of straw man arguments and bizzare claims and concludes that the end of the Oil Age is so far off that it’s not worth worrying about. Let’s take a look at the specifics below.”
Being absolutely no expert in this field I found your conclusion helpful and provoking, because I can stop waiting for a single eschatological moment:
“We are not going to run out of oil cold turkey. Instead we are facing a long descent that will see times of relative prosperity followed by depressions and recessions as the world economy adjusts to its new low energy diet.”
Would love to hear more on this. Seems a little more nuanced than that big show from Rick Boven which seemed to portend the end of the world.
“The Long Descent examines the basis of such fear through three core themes:
– Industrial society is following the same well-worn path that has led other civilizations into decline, a path involving a much slower and more complex transformation than the sudden catastrophes imagined by so many social critics today.
– The roots of the crisis lie in the cultural stories that shape the way we understand the world. Since problems cannot be solved with the same thinking that created thyem, these ways of thinking need to be replaced with others better suited to the needs of our time.
– It is too late for massive programs for top-down change; the change must come from individuals.
Hope exists in actions that range from taking up a handicraft or adopting an “obsolete” technology, through planting an organic vegetable garden, taking charge of your own health care or spirituality, and building community.
Focusing eloquently on constructive adaptation to massive change, this book will have wide appeal.”
“John Michael Greer has officially established himself as an institution within the peak oil community. Truly one of the finest minds working on the predicament of modern-day industrial civilization, he is so well-read in so many fields that he regularly gains access to insights that utterly elude his contemporaries. For this he is treasured by a growing number of loyal readers—and, I suspect, hated by equally many fellow bloggers who wish that they could be half as good.
Greer is also perhaps peak oil’s most cherishable contrarian, always pointing out the various ways in which people on all sides of the debate are woefully off-base. For example, his previous book on peak oil, The Long Descent, showed how believers in perpetual progress and prophets of imminent doom alike are sadly off the mark in their notions about the future. That book’s central thesis is that while our modern “developed” world can’t possibly be sustained into the indefinite future, we’re hardly in for the sort of sudden, utter collapse of civilization that typically forms the basis of a Roland Emmerich movie. Instead, our society will likely decline slowly and unevenly over many decades, the way that the Maya, the Roman Empire and other past civilizations have done before ours. The take-home point is that it’s a waste of time to start preparing now for either a survivalist future of mass death and marauding hordes, or whatever sustainable utopia happens to be your particular ideal, because neither one of these reflects the future that we’re actually liable to end up with—and, in any case, no one living today will still be around to see what that future might resemble.”
There are ideas of getting together and supporting each other when other systems have broken down. Paul Krugman explains some economic problems that crop up in his piece on the Babysitting Club.
SL These links point up some interesting problems. You may have come across this babysitting club example before – I hadn’t. But I have been in Green Dollars trading and found its path developed potholes, into which we fell and the local one is I think defunct.
I came to the conclusion that no organisation, community or not, can be run effectively by a group of opinionated ignorant idealistic amateurs (at running groups and systems), and particularly weakening is the situation when one committee stands down and new people come in . The end of the organisation can be when they immediately bring in new bright ideas and throw out old practices, ignoring all the decisions, and not reading the reasons for them, as recorded in the notes taken at numerous meetings and discussions of past committees.
And there is always some utopian system somewhere to aim for, without any understanding of the particular problems and positives of the circumstances of that one.. Even Rod Donald I found to be so idealistic and set in his beliefs that when I stated that green dollars weren’t as good as real money he immediately negated my statement, which was based on experience. So it’s not easy doing things communally and when trying to run a parallel ‘tokens’ system.
The babysitting example was new to me and I’ve never read Krugman’s actual work before, only seen him mentioned so thanks for that.
I think the moral to take from you experience and one that I try to live by is avoid dogma at all costs. That’s why I find it bizarre when people are lifetime Labour or National supporters and say they’ll never change. For me it’s about what’s said, not who’s saying it.
Also try reading what Nicole Foss says on TheAutomaticEarth.com She makes the solid point that finance and capital availability makes the downside very rocky (because demand requires capital investment that may not be available), with lots of ups and downs.
Today it was announced that soldiers coming back from Afghanistan would have to undergo a test to see if they had been exposed to Depleted Uranium. The test was mad with a urine sample but the same article states that the Army is unwilling to pay for a more comprehensive test. This indicates to me that they are using a similar test as the US army.
One that will guarantee that nothing will show up as it is a test which is designed to pick up radioactivity emitted during Nuclear accidents or bomb explosions and not the low radiation emitting nano particles which lodge themselves in vulnerable areas causing damage over a long period of time.
Here is a video called Beyond Treason. It is an excellent Documentary which features amongst others Doug Rokke. He is the guy who wrote the book on DU for the US army and now that he is dying of cancer caused by DU the most ardent anti DU activist I have had the privilege of speaking with on the subject.
The politics of pop! I learned a fair bit about socialism, anarchy and post modernism from the late seventies/early eighties NME. Parsons, Burchill, Kent, Morley, Penman, SWells et al. The Clash, Gang of Four, Redskins, Slits. Mint! The tide turned a bit when corporate music companies co-opted punk and new wave (The Knack, anyone?) and the death of one particular singer in 1980 really ended that chapter for me, but there is no denying the brilliance of those 5 or 6 shining years.
The legacy lives on, however, and its nice to see that the NME is still classy after all these years, putting the greatest song ever written at the top of their list of er, the greatest songs ever written. Debuted at No 1 in NZ, fact fans.
Well, for other odd conversion routes to the progressive cause, mine was reading Gustavo Gutierrez’ Liberation theology when I was 16.
Back when post-Vatican II South and Middle Americans were full of Base Communities and all that hopey-changey stuff. And of course the death of Archbishop Romero while saying mass, by military assassins, together with Cardinal Ratzinger’s witch-hunts, kind of put a bracket around that for me.
The Skids, Public Image, Joes Garage album by Frank Zappa, The Clash (Sandinista gave me a new area to explore), Paul Weller whether in The Jam or The Style Council, The Ramones, Buzzcocks, Nina Hagen, Lena Lovich, Steve Harley and somewhere in amongst that with a touch of humour Jilted John.
Those were great times and particularly as I was being bullied at school at the time resonated and no doubt helped develop my inclination to speak out against violence and oppression. I’m sure not popular in some of my circles at present for speaking out.
David Cameron is to set out plans to scrap housing benefit for the under-25s, in a speech that will make clear pensioners are to be protected from a second wave of welfare reform.
Here’s one for Vicky 32, who I’m sure will join me in a hearty laugh at a particularly stoopid mangling of the English language on the Stuff website:
“Karen Klein, the 68-year-old bus monitor who was verbally abused by a group of 12-to-15-year-old students, has received more than US$630,000 (NZ$800,000) for a well-earned vacation from internet users”
“Karen Klein, the 68-year-old bus monitor who was verbally abused by a group of 12-to-15-year-old students, has received more than US$630,000 (NZ$800,000) for a well-earned vacation from internet users”
Doctors and Nurses anyone???, from the Herald today is a call from various groups of Doctors and Nurses for the Government to cut another 2 percentage points from it’s 2014 election total by (a) abolishing travelers ability to buy duty free tobacco products claiming that such duty free items are fueling the ‘tobacco black-market’,
The view here is that the rack-raising of excise taxes on tobacco products is what is fueling a growing tobacco black market where any ‘cost’ to the Government of tobacco products use has been more than met by the present tax regime and Government is now reliant on at least 1 billion dollars of over-taxation of tobacco products to pay for other budget items other than the costs related to the products usage,
The Doctors and Nurses have taken the opportunity to call for a harsher regime of revenue gathering from those addicted to tobacco perhaps seeing in this the only means of getting a pay rise in the next few years,
SAVING LIVES do you think, tobacco product usage has fallen an un-remarkable 6% over the course of the last 2 rack-raisings of tobacco taxes and such means in no way that 6% of addicts have quit,
The 6% drop in usage simply means that the addicted have managed to cut down slightly on their daily use and/or 6% of tobacco use in New Zealand is now being supplied via one means of black-market supply or another,
I am a firm favorite of this National Government taking to the users of tobacco via the rack-raising of taxation if only for the inherent laughter generated by those in the Health Sector believing that such tax raising is in aid of saving lives where-as the imperative for Government doing so is obviously, as the Treasury pointed out in its briefing to the Government, a simple exercise in revenue gathering from a section of the community demonized by society and in no way able to avoid the tax as they are ADDICTED to the product being taxed,
If they havn’t already the 600,000 or so who do use and are addicted to tobacco products will turn upon any Government rack-raising the taxes to fill holes in its general budgetary requirements and vote against any Government or it’s support party’s who favor such taxation,
Any Government serious about stopping the use of tobacco products in this country would simply make the product a prescription poison allow the present generation of addicts its use via Doctors prescription and not allow anyone presently 16 or 17 the products use at all….
I am sure the tax rate on tobacco will shortly get to the point where the enforcement cost comparison to cannabis will make them think “Oh wait tobacco tax was so good, let’s legalise marijuana as well”.
Meanwhile I treat myself to just one cigar per year, at Christmas, from the Havana Shop downtown, probably out of some sad implanted gangster fantasy or more probably Wylie Coyote’s opposition or indeed Daffy Duck’s ones.
Pretty hard to prize the programming out, even at one a year.
Surprisingly there has yet to be a move by the users of tobacco products to form an association that will advance their ‘right’ to use a legal product without fear of being unduly discriminated against by overt Government policy,
With 600,000+ users of tobacco products, many of whom reside electorally in the ‘registered but didn’t vote’ such a voting bloc would give any Government pause to consider it’s agenda where taxes from the users of tobacco are funding the general spending of Government…
Ah getting a flogging over asset sales,education, and, ACC all at the same time, seeing the internal polling tumbling like a rock and yes it’s time for Slippery to get all ‘aspirational’ again,
The Prime Minister has announced plans to give the Bene’s a kicking or in the ‘new speak’ of the political discourse get them OFF benefits,
Slippery didn’t mention actually creating some EMPLOYMENT so the assumption can only be that bonus’s will again be offered to WINZ staff who find creative ways of giving the most vulnerable in society the kick…
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10815417
The NZ Herald National Party Press Office swings into action to declare the Prime Minister wants something to happen, somewhere, sometime and then goes on to explain how Mr Key really really believes in the quantum affectation of positive thinking. Perhaps he also believes he can fly if he clicks his heels hard 3 times and wriggles his nose.
Slippery must have detected a little intransigence within the corridors of WINZ offices to His ‘aspirational ideals’,
The Prime Minister is now saying that not only will His Government offer bonus’s to WINZ staff who fill their quota as far as kicking Bene’s off of the dole and various other benefits,
The Slippery one is also threatening to cut the pay of those WINZ staffers who aint quite ruthless enough to fulfill such quota requirements…
Brilliant Key/Bennett/National Party logic……..you “can” work and therefore by certain date you and 19,999 others who “can” work will no longer be on WINZ books……..because you “can” work.
Ummmmmh…….just the small question of 20,000 jobs which those who “can” work need in order “to” work.
This grossness, this redefinition of benefit entitlement, will be disguised with a vile, calculated demonisation of beneficiaries as an underclass. The underclass at its extremities will commit crime………lo, we have the raw material for the new private prisons. There is cynical evilness here.
There’s a photograph I saw on the net somewhere which defines “News” in these terms something like this – “News…….rich people telling middle class people to blame poor people” – I may have paraphrased somewhat but that’s the thrust.
That’s gonna be our news sadly. Would you blame the underclass for rising up ? And that ponce still smiles and waves.
This along with the announcement that if the Public Service dont achieve the targets in this and other areas they will suffer paycuts….quite possibly the stupidest policy announcement ever by the stupidest government ever….the $60 million man again shows his complete contempt for everybody else.
TV3 reports on the latest brainwave from the government which gives the public service (itself having already lost 2500 jobs) 10 targets, one of which includes slashing the number of long term beneficieries by 2017or their pay will be docked.
Bill English says a leaner service could find these targets more difficult, but ever cheerful, loopy Key said and I quote:
“A highly efficient public service, one that is performing well for New Zealand isn’t a question of head count it’s about results.” (Obviously one charismatic dictator called Slash will do.)
In my world, no brains (which are in heads Mr. Key) no results.
The reporter said these are aspirational targets, but the government still expects the targets met!
No wonder Chris Hipkins said this is all just nonsense to distract from asset sales tomorrow. But what nonsense. Key seems to be totally unaware of the crass, idiotic utterances he contaminates our airspace with. He is so embarrassing; too embarassing to lead a great country like New Zealand, a country thet he seems to be intent on destroying.
What’s going on here? Why is it that Conservatives are so good at winning and Progressives produce a lackluster resistance at best? The answer comes from a fundamental insight from evolutionary biology. Stated simply, it goes like this:
When two groups compete, the one with the most social cohesion wins in the long run.
This insight arises from research on group selection that reveals how social animals capable of working as a team readily out compete those individuals who must struggle on their own. The astute observer will already note the profound irony here — a political group whose ideology elevates the individual over the group (Conservatives) has managed to cultivate more group cohesion than the political group whose ideology blends community well-being with that of the individual.
/rant/ This was mentioned the other day, but it really is a shocker.
All governments give cronies jobs. Every single one. Some governments are worse than others though, and I reckon this lot are fucking shockers.
It’s not just that they are giving jobs to mates, or that the process, (as I?S has demonstrated in numerous OIA based postings) has been bloody woeful; it’s the flat out inapropriateness of some of the gigs for the people they give them to.
That Neeson bugger on the Human Rights Review Tribunal*; never gave a damn about human rights as far as I can tell. And there was some other little nobody thrown on to that one as well. Interestingly enough, if you look at how they fared in National Party candidate selection dust ups, and who they lost to. Well, yeah. Understood.
But this one from the other day. How is this in any way justifiable?
She is going to be, at the same time, a lobbyist for an industry sector, and sitting in a govt gig that will be promoting issues within that sector, and spending money trying to convince people how to behave in that sector.
How is that not flat out fucked up?
/rant/
* how are they getting on with that Bennett case BTW, it’s been coming on what 3 years? 4 years? Doesn’t seem to be that complicated a case. The Minister defended her actions on an “implied consent” to disclose the data. There is no such thing in the Privacy Act. It’s just something she made up, and I’m not a lawyer, but I reckon there’s a pretty good chance that legislation trumps shit you just make up. I’m sure enough of that that I reckon I’d rule on that basis and take me chances with judicial review.
It’s seriously bizarre, from a health promotion perspective. How do these people get these jobs? Do they just go ‘Hey John, that’s for me. Make it happen.’ She’s CEO and on the board of the agency that has a massive conflict with the organisation she’s lobbying for!
We’re going to see lots of voluntary agreements (that never work) and increasing obesity rates, and don’t expect to see any cuts on selling alcohol in supermarket. 5+ per day, because supermarkets can profit from sales of fruit & veg, will go to 7+ and MPs can rattle on about personal responsibility when parents can’t pay for it. School tuck-shops coming to your area courtesy of Progressive Enterprises.
The rumor is vis a vis Paula Benefit and privacy breaches is that Paula coughed a middling sized pile of used twenty’s to the aggrieved,
On the understanding that all and sundry will keep ALL the details strictly private including what is said to be a private withdrawal of the breach of privacy complaint to the Commissioner,
Keep being the operative word here, Benefit gets to keep Her portfolio, the complainant gets to keep her benefit, and, the Commissioner gets to keep being just that,
That is all conjecture and un-proven rumor and i am being naughty for repeating it…
Well, it seems that family wasn’t such an important factor in her stepping aside after all. She was one of the few people in National who actually seemed to have a conscience and didn’t fit with the way that National have gone.
Key’s response is certainly interesting…
“I’m comfortable that she’ll be able to manage any conflict….
He obviously recognises that there is conflict there and yet he’s still putting her in place.
Katherine Rich is completely inappropriate for a position on the HPA board, given the HPA has taken over the functions of ALAC, and she is also the CE of the Food and Grocery Council, representing commercial operations who rely on selling alcohol for their profitability. It astounds me that National did not find someone else; we are not that short of talent in NZ.
Sheesh, often when staying up late working and other things, and it is quiet and still, I hear feel gigantic deep and muffled booms from deep down below and I think again that the Great Earth Monster below Otautahi is turning once more in its recently disturbed slumber, not yet ready to settle into another long 15,000 year stretch of deep sleep …….
This is a post about the Mountain Tui substack, and small tweaks - further to the poll and request post the other day. Please don’t read if you aren’t interested in my personal matters. Thank you all.After oohing-and-aahing about how to structure the Substack model since November, including obtaining ...
This transcript of a recent conversation between the Prime Minister and his chief economic adviser has not been verified.We’ve announced we are the ‘Yes Government’. Do you like it?Yes, Prime Minister.Dreamed up by the PR team. It’s about being committed to growth. Not that the PR team know anything about ...
The other day, Australian Senator Nick McKim issued a warning in the Australian Parliement about the US’s descent into fascim.And of course it’s true, but I lament - that was true as soon as Trump won.What we see is now simply the reification of the intention, planning, and forces behind ...
Among the many other problems associated with Musk/DOGE sending a fleet of teenage and twenty-something cultists to remove, copy and appropriate federal records like social security, medicaid and other supposedly protected data is the fact that the youngsters doing the data-removal, copying and security protocol and filter code over-writing have ...
Jokerman dance to the nightingale tuneBird fly high by the light of the moonOh, oh, oh, JokermanSong by Bob Dylan.Morena folks, I hope this fine morning of the 7th of February finds you well. We're still close to Paihia, just a short drive out of town. Below is the view ...
It’s been an eventful week as always, so here’s a few things that we have found interesting. We also hope everyone had a happy and relaxing Waitangi Day! This week in Greater Auckland We’re still running on summer time, but provided two chewy posts: On Tuesday, a guest ...
Queuing on Queen St: the Government is set to announce another apparently splashy growth policy on Sunday of offering residence visas to wealthy migrants. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in our political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Friday, February 7:PM Christopher ...
The fact that Waitangi ended up being such a low-key affair may mark it out as one of the most significant Waitangi Days in recent years. A group of women draped in “Toitu Te Tiriti” banners who turned their backs on the politicians’ powhiri was about as rough as it ...
Hi,This week’s Flightless Bird episode was about “fake seizure guy” — a Melbourne man who fakes seizures in order to get members of the public to sit on him.The audio documentary (which I have included in this newsletter in case you don’t listen to Flightless Bird) built on reporting first ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Karin Kirk The 119th Congress comes with a price tag. The oil and gas industry gave about $24 million in campaign contributions to the members of the U.S. House and Senate expected to be sworn in January 3, 2025, according to a ...
Early morning, the shadows still long, but you can already feel the warmth building. Our motel was across the road from the historic homestead where Henry Williams' family lived. The evening before, we wandered around the gardens, reading the plaques and enjoying the close proximity to the history of the ...
Thanks folks for your feedback, votes and comments this week. I’ll be making the changes soon. Appreciate all your emails, comments and subscriptions too. I know your time is valuable - muchas gracias.A lot is happening both here and around the world - so I want to provide a snippets ...
Data released today by Statistics NZ shows that unemployment rose to 5.1%, with 33,000 more people out of work than last year said NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi Economist Craig Renney. “The latest data shows that employment fell in Aotearoa at its fastest rate since the GFC. Unemployment rose in 8 ...
The December labour market statistics have been released, showing yet another increase in unemployment. There are now 156,000 unemployed - 34,000 more than when National took office. And having thrown all these people out of work, National is doubling down on cruelty. Because being vicious will somehow magically create the ...
Boarded up homes in Kilbirnie, where work on a planned development was halted. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in our political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Wednesday, February 5 are;Housing Minister Chris Bishop yesterday announcedKāinga Ora would be stripped of ...
This week Kiwirail and Auckland Transport were celebrating the completion of the summer rail works that had the network shut or for over a month and the start of electric trains to Pukekohe. First up, here’s parts of the press release about the shutdown works. Passengers boarding trains in Auckland ...
Through its austerity measures, the coalition government has engineered a rise in unemployment in order to reduce inflation while – simultaneously – cracking down harder and harder on the people thrown out of work by its own policies. To that end, Social Development Minister Louise Upston this week added two ...
This year, we've seen a radical, white supremacist government ignoring its Tiriti obligations, refusing to consult with Māori, and even trying to legislatively abrogate te Tiriti o Waitangi. When it was criticised by the Waitangi Tribunal, the government sabotaged that body, replacing its legal and historical experts with corporate shills, ...
Poor old democracy, it really is in a sorry state. It would be easy to put all the blame on the vandals and tyrants presently trashing the White House, but this has been years in the making. It begins with Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan and the spirit of Gordon ...
The new school lunches came in this week, and they were absolutely scrumptious.I had some, and even though Connor said his tasted like “stodge” and gave him a sore tummy, I myself loved it!Look at the photos - I knew Mr Seymour wouldn’t lie when he told us last year:"It ...
The tighter sanctions are modelled on ones used in Britain, which did push people off ‘the dole’, but didn’t increase the number of workers, and which evidence has repeatedly shown don’t work. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in our political economy around housing, ...
Catching you up on the morning’s global news and a quick look at the parallels -GLOBALTariffs are backSharemarkets in the US, UK and Europe have “plunged” in response to Trump’s tariffs. And while Mexico has won a one month reprieve, Canada and China will see their respective 25% and 10% ...
This post by Nicolas Reid was originally published on Linked in. It is republished here with permission. Gondolas are often in the news, with manufacturers of ropeway systems proposing them as a modern option for mass transit systems in New Zealand. However, like every next big thing in transport, it’s hard ...
This is a re-post from The Climate BrinkBoth 2023 and 2024 were exceptionally warm years, at just below and above 1.5C relative to preindustrial in the WMO composite of surface temperature records, respectively. While we are still working to assess the full set of drivers of this warmth, it is clear that ...
Hi,I woke up feeling nervous this morning, realising that this weekend Flightless Bird is going to do it’s first ever live show. We’re heading to a sold out (!) show in Seattle to test the format out in front of an audience. If it works, we’ll do more. I want ...
From the United-For-Now States of America comes the thrilling news that a New Zealander may be at the very heart of the current coup. Punching above our weight on the world stage once more! Wait, you may be asking, what New Zealander? I speak of Peter Thiel, made street legal ...
Even Stevens: Over the 33 years between 1990 and 2023 (and allowing for the aberrant 2020 result) the average level of support enjoyed by the Left and Right blocs, at roughly 44.5 percent each, turns out to be, as near as dammit, identical.WORLDWIDE, THE PARTIES of the Left are presented ...
Back in 2023, a "prominent political figure" went on trial for historic sex offences. But we weren't allowed to know who they were or what political party they were "prominent" in, because it might affect the way we voted. At the time, I said that this was untenable; it was ...
I'm going, I'm goingWhere the water tastes like wineI'm going where the water tastes like wineWe can jump in the waterStay drunk all the timeI'm gonna leave this city, got to get awayI'm gonna leave this city, got to get awayAll this fussing and fighting, man, you know I sure ...
Waitangi Day is a time to honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi and stand together for a just and fair Aotearoa. Across the motu, communities are gathering to reflect, kōrero, and take action for a future built on equity and tino rangatiratanga. From dawn ceremonies to whānau-friendly events, there are ...
Subscribe to Mountain Tūī ! Where you too can learn about exciting things from a flying bird! Tweet.Yes - I absolutely suck at marketing. It’s a fact.But first -My question to all readers is:How should I set up the Substack model?It’s been something I’ve been meaning to ask since November ...
Here’s the key news, commentary, reports and debate around Aotearoa’s political economy on politics and in the week to Feb 3:PM Christopher Luxon began 2025’s first day of Parliament last Tuesday by carrying on where left off in 2024, letting National’s junior coalition partner set the political agenda and dragging ...
The PSA have released a survey of 4000 public service workers showing that budget cuts are taking a toll on the wellbeing of public servants and risking the delivery of essential services to New Zealanders. Economists predict that figures released this week will show continued increases in unemployment, potentially reaching ...
The Prime Minister’s speech 10 days or so ago kicked off a flurry of commentary. No one much anywhere near the mainstream (ie excluding Greens supporters) questioned the rhetoric. New Zealand has done woefully poorly on productivity for a long time and we really need better outcomes, and the sorts ...
President Trump on the day he announced tariffs against Mexico, Canada and China, unleashing a shock to supply chains globally that is expected to slow economic growth and increase inflation for most large economies. Photo: Getty ImagesLong stories short, the top six things in our political economy around housing, climate ...
Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on UnsplashHere’s what we’re watching in the week to February 9 and beyond in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty:Monday, February 3Politics: New Zealand Government cabinet meeting usually held early afternoon with post-cabinet news conference possible at 4 pm, although they have not been ...
Trump being Trump, it won’t come as a shock to find that he regards a strong US currency (bolstered by high tariffs on everything made by foreigners) as a sign of America’s virility, and its ability to kick sand in the face of the world. Reality is a tad more ...
A listing of 24 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, January 26, 2025 thru Sat, February 1, 2025. This week's roundup is again published soleley by category. We are still interested in feedback to hone the categorization, so if ...
What seems to be the common theme in the US, NZ, Argentina and places like Italy under their respective rightwing governments is what I think of as “the politics of cruelty.” Hate-mongering, callous indifference in social policy-making, corporate toadying, political bullying, intimidation and punching down on the most vulnerable with ...
If you are confused, check with the sunCarry a compass to help you alongYour feet are going to be on the groundYour head is there to move you aroundSo, stand in the place where you liveSongwriters: Bill Berry / Michael Mills / Michael Stipe / Peter Buck.Hot in the CityYesterday, ...
Shane Jones announced today he would be contracting out his thinking to a smarter younger person.Reclining on his chaise longue with a mouth full of oysters and Kina he told reporters:Clearly I have become a has-been, a palimpsest, an epigone, a bloviating fossil. I find myself saying such things as: ...
Warning: This post contains references to sexual assaultOn Saturday, I spent far too long editing a video on Tim Jago, the ACT Party President and criminal, who has given up his fight for name suppression after 2 years. He voluntarily gave up just in time for what will be a ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park from the Gigafact team in collaboration with members from our team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Is global warming ...
Our low-investment, low-wage, migration-led and housing-market-driven political economy has delivered poorer productivity growth than the rest of the OECD, and our performance since Covid has been particularly poor. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in our political economy around housing, climate and poverty this ...
..Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.As far as major government announcements go, a Three Ministers Event is Big. It can signify a major policy development or something has gone Very Well, or an absolute Clusterf**k. When Three Ministers assemble ...
One of those blasts from the past. Peter Dunne – originally neoliberal Labour, then leader of various parties that sought to work with both big parties (generally National) – has taken to calling ...
Completed reads for January: I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson The Black Spider, by Jeremias Gotthelf The Spider and the Fly (poem), by Mary Howitt A Noiseless Patient Spider (poem), by Walt Whitman August Heat, by W.F. Harvey Charlotte’s Web, by E.B. White The Shrinking Man, by Richard Matheson ...
Do its Property Right Provisions Make Sense?Last week I pointed out that it is uninformed to argue that the New Zealand’s apparently poor economic performance can be traced only to poor regulations. Even were there evidence they had some impact, there are other factors. Of course, we should seek to ...
Richard Wagstaff It was incredibly jarring to hear the hubris from the Prime Minister during his recent state of the nation address. I had just spent close to a week working though the stories and thoughts shared with us by nearly 2000 working people as part of our annual Mood ...
Odd fact about the Broadcasting Standards Authority: for the last few years, they’ve only been upholding about 5% of complaints. Why? I think there’s a range of reasons. Generally responsible broadcasters. Dumb complaints. Complaints brought under the wrong standard. Greater adherence to broadcasters’ rights to freedom of expression in the ...
And I said, "Mama, mama, mama, why am I so alone"'Cause I can't go outside, I'm scared I might not make it homeWell I'm alive, I'm alive, but I'm sinking inIf there's anyone at home at your place, darlingWhy don't you invite me in?Don't try to feed me'Cause I've been ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ star is on the rise, having just added the Energy, Local Government and Revenue portfolios to his responsibilities - but there is nothing ambitious about the Government’s new climate targets. Photo: SuppliedLong stories short, the top six things in our political economy around housing, climate ...
It may have been a short week but there’s been no shortage of things that caught our attention. Here is some of the most interesting. This week in Greater Auckland On Tuesday Matt took a look at public transport ridership in 2024 On Thursday Connor asked some questions ...
The East Is Red: Journalists and commentators are referring to the sudden and disruptive arrival of DeepSeek as a second “Sputnik moment”. (Sputnik being the name given by the godless communists of the Soviet Union to the world’s first artificial satellite which, to the consternation and dismay of the Americans, ...
Hi,Back on inauguration day we launched a ridiculous RFK Jr. “brain worms” tee on the Webworm store, and I told you I’d be throwing my profits over to Mutual Aid LA and Rainbow Youth New Zealand. Just to show I am not full of shit, here are the receipts. I ...
The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night features co-hosts & talking about the week’s news with regular and special guests, including: on the week in geopolitics, including the latest from Donald Trump over Gaza and Ukraine.Health expert and author David Galler ...
In an uncompromising paper Treasury has basically told the Government that its plan for a third medical school at Waikato University is a waste of money. Furthermore, the country cannot afford it. That advice was released this week by the Treasury under the Official Information Act. And it comes as ...
Back in November, He Pou a Rangi provided the government with formal advice on the domestic contribution to our next Paris target. Not what the target should be, but what we could realistically achieve, by domestic action alone, without resorting to offshore mitigation. Their answer was startling: depending on exactly ...
Photo by Mauricio Fanfa on UnsplashKia oraCome and join us for our weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm today.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream for our chat about the week’s news with myself , plus regular guest David Patman and ...
I don't like to spend all my time complaining about our government, so let me complain about the media first.Senior journalistic Herald person Thomas Coughlan reported that Treasury replied yeah nah, wrong bro to Luxon's claim that our benighted little country has been in recession for three years.His excitement rose ...
Back in 2022, when the government was consulting internally about proactive release of cabinet papers, the SIS opposed it. The basis of their opposition was the "mosaic effect" - people being able to piece together individual pieces of innocuous public information in a way which supposedly harms "national security" (effectively: ...
With The Stroke Of A Pen:Populism, especially right-wing populism, invests all the power of an electoral/parliamentary majority in a single political leader because it no longer trusts the bona fides of the sprawling political class among whom power is traditionally dispersed. Populism eschews traditional politics, because, among populists, traditional politics ...
I’ve spent the last week writing a fairly substantial review of a recent book (“Australia’s Pandemic Exceptionalism: How we crushed the curve but lost the race”) by a couple of Australian academic economists on Australia’s pandemic policies and experiences. For all its limitations, there isn’t anything similar in New Zealand. ...
Mr Mojo Rising: Economic growth is possible, Christopher Luxon reassures us, but only under a government that is willing to get out of the way and let those with drive and ambition get on with it.ABOUT TWELVE KILOMETRES from the farm on the North Otago coast where I grew up stands ...
You're nearly a good laughAlmost a jokerWith your head down in the pig binSaying, 'Keep on digging.'Pig stain on your fat chinWhat do you hope to findDown in the pig mine?You're nearly a laughYou're nearly a laughBut you're really a crySongwriter: Roger Waters.NZ First - Kiwi Battlers.Say what you like ...
This is a re-post from the Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler Climate denial is dead. Renewable energy denial is here. As “alternative facts” become the norm, it’s worth looking at what actual facts tell us about how renewable energy sources like solar and wind are lowering the price of electricity. As ...
SIR GEOFFREY PALMER is worried about democracy. In his Newsroom website post of 27 January 2025 he asserts that “the future of democracy across the world now seems to be in question.” Following a year of important electoral contests across the world, culminating in Donald Trump’s emphatic recapture of the ...
The Government hasn’t stopped talking about growth since the Prime Minister made his “yes” speech at the Auckland Chamber of Commerce last week. But so far, the measures announced would seem hardly likely to suddenly pitch New Zealand into the fast-growth East Asian league. The digital nomad announcement hardly deserved ...
Our originating document, theTreaty of Waitangi, was signed on February 6, 1840. An agreement between Māori and the British Crown. Initially inked by Ngā Puhi in Waitangi, further signatures were added as it travelled south. The intention was to establish a colony with the cession of sovereignty to the Crown, ...
Te Whatu Ora Chief Executive Margie Apa leaving her job four months early is another symptom of this government’s failure to deliver healthcare for New Zealanders. ...
The Green Party is calling for the Prime Minister to show leadership and be unequivocal about Aotearoa New Zealand’s opposition to a proposal by the US President to remove Palestinians from Gaza. ...
The latest unemployment figures reveal that job losses are hitting Māori and Pacific people especially hard, with Māori unemployment reaching a staggering 9.7% for the December 2024 quarter and Pasifika unemployment reaching 10.5%. ...
Waitangi 2025: Waitangi Day must be community and not politically driven - Shane Jones Our originating document, theTreaty of Waitangi, was signed on February 6, 1840. An agreement between Māori and the British Crown. Initially inked by Ngā Puhi in Waitangi, further signatures were added as it travelled south. ...
Despite being confronted every day with people in genuine need being stopped from accessing emergency housing – National still won’t commit to building more public houses. ...
The Green Party says the Government is giving up on growing the country’s public housing stock, despite overwhelming evidence that we need more affordable houses to solve the housing crisis. ...
Before any thoughts of the New Year and what lies ahead could even be contemplated, New Zealand reeled with the tragedy of Senior Sergeant Lyn Fleming losing her life. For over 38 years she had faithfully served as a front-line Police officer. Working alongside her was Senior Sergeant Adam Ramsay ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson will return to politics at Waitangi on Monday the 3rd of February where she will hold a stand up with fellow co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick. ...
Te Pāti Māori is appalled by the government's blatant mishandling of the school lunch programme. David Seymour’s ‘cost-saving’ measures have left tamariki across Aotearoa with unidentifiable meals, causing distress and outrage among parents and communities alike. “What’s the difference between providing inedible food, and providing no food at all?” Said ...
The Government is doubling down on outdated and volatile fossil fuels, showing how shortsighted and destructive their policies are for working New Zealanders. ...
Green Party MP Steve Abel this morning joined Coromandel locals in Waihi to condemn new mining plans announced by Shane Jones in the pit of the town’s Australian-owned Gold mine. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to strengthen its just-announced 2030-2035 Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) under the Paris Agreement and address its woeful lack of commitment to climate security. ...
Today marks a historic moment for Taranaki iwi with the passing of the Te Pire Whakatupua mō Te Kāhui Tupua/Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bill in Parliament. "Today, we stand together as descendants of Taranaki, and our tūpuna, Taranaki Maunga, is now formally acknowledged by the law as a living tūpuna. ...
Labour is relieved to see Children’s Minister Karen Chhour has woken up to reality and reversed her government’s terrible decisions to cut funding from frontline service providers – temporarily. ...
It is the first week of David Seymour’s school lunch programme and already social media reports are circulating of revolting meals, late deliveries, and mislabelled packaging. ...
The Green Party says that with no-cause evictions returning from today, the move to allow landlords to end tenancies without reason plunges renters, and particularly families who rent, into insecurity and stress. ...
The Government’s move to increase speed limits substantially on dozens of stretches of rural and often undivided highways will result in more serious harm. ...
In her first announcement as Economic Growth Minister, Nicola Willis chose to loosen restrictions for digital nomads from other countries, rather than focus on everyday Kiwis. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to stand firm and work with allies to progress climate action as Donald Trump signals his intent to pull out of the Paris Climate Accords once again. ...
The Government’s commitment to get New Zealand’s roads back on track is delivering strong results, with around 98 per cent of potholes on state highways repaired within 24 hours of identification every month since targets were introduced, Transport Minister Chris Bishop says. “Increasing productivity to help rebuild our economy is ...
The former Cadbury factory will be the site of the Inpatient Building for the new Dunedin Hospital and Health Minister Simeon Brown says actions have been taken to get the cost overruns under control. “Today I am giving the people of Dunedin certainty that we will build the new Dunedin ...
From today, Plunket in Whāngarei will be offering childhood immunisations – the first of up to 27 sites nationwide, Health Minister Simeon Brown says. The investment of $1 million into the pilot, announced in October 2024, was made possible due to the Government’s record $16.68 billion investment in health. It ...
New Zealand’s strong commitment to the rights of disabled people has continued with the response to an important United Nations report, Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston has announced. Of the 63 concluding observations of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), 47 will be progressed ...
Resources Minister Shane Jones has launched New Zealand’s national Minerals Strategy and Critical Minerals List, documents that lay a strategic and enduring path for the mineral sector, with the aim of doubling exports to $3 billion by 2035. Mr Jones released the documents, which present the Coalition Government’s transformative vision ...
Firstly I want to thank OceanaGold for hosting our event today. Your operation at Waihi is impressive. I want to acknowledge local MP Scott Simpson, local government dignitaries, community stakeholders and all of you who have gathered here today. It’s a privilege to welcome you to the launch of the ...
Racing Minister, Winston Peters has announced the Government is preparing public consultation on GST policy proposals which would make the New Zealand racing industry more competitive. “The racing industry makes an important economic contribution. New Zealand thoroughbreds are in demand overseas as racehorses and for breeding. The domestic thoroughbred industry ...
Business confidence remains very high and shows the economy is on track to improve, Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis says. “The latest ANZ Business Outlook survey, released yesterday, shows business confidence and expected own activity are ‘still both very high’.” The survey reports business confidence fell eight points to +54 ...
Enabling works have begun this week on an expanded radiology unit at Hawke’s Bay Fallen Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital which will double CT scanning capacity in Hawke’s Bay to ensure more locals can benefit from access to timely, quality healthcare, Health Minister Simeon Brown says. This investment of $29.3m in the ...
The Government has today announced New Zealand’s second international climate target under the Paris Agreement, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand will reduce emissions by 51 to 55 per cent compared to 2005 levels, by 2035. “We have worked hard to set a target that is both ambitious ...
Nine years of negotiations between the Crown and iwi of Taranaki have concluded following Te Pire Whakatupua mō Te Kāhui Tupua/the Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bill passing its third reading in Parliament today, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “This Bill addresses the historical grievances endured by the eight iwi ...
As schools start back for 2025, there will be a relentless focus on teaching the basics brilliantly so all Kiwi kids grow up with the knowledge, skills and competencies needed to grow the New Zealand of the future, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “A world-leading education system is a key ...
Housing Minister Chris Bishop and Associate Agriculture Minister Mark Patterson have welcomed Kāinga Ora’s decision to re-open its tender for carpets to allow wool carpet suppliers to bid. “In 2024 Kāinga Ora issued requests for tender (RFTs) seeking bids from suppliers to carpet their properties,” Mr Bishop says. “As part ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour has today visited Otahuhu College where the new school lunch programme has served up healthy lunches to students in the first days of the school year. “As schools open in 2025, the programme will deliver nutritious meals to around 242,000 students, every school day. On ...
Minister for Children Karen Chhour has intervened in Oranga Tamariki’s review of social service provider contracts to ensure Barnardos can continue to deliver its 0800 What’s Up hotline. “When I found out about the potential impact to this service, I asked Oranga Tamariki for an explanation. Based on the information ...
A bill to make revenue collection on imported and exported goods fairer and more effective had its first reading in Parliament, Customs Minister Casey Costello said today. “The Customs (Levies and Other Matters) Amendment Bill modernises the way in which Customs can recover the costs of services that are needed ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Department of Internal Affairs [the Department] has achieved significant progress in completing applications for New Zealand citizenship. “December 2024 saw the Department complete 5,661 citizenship applications, the most for any month in 2024. This is a 54 per cent increase compared ...
Reversals to Labour’s blanket speed limit reductions begin tonight and will be in place by 1 July, says Minister of Transport Chris Bishop. “The previous government was obsessed with slowing New Zealanders down by imposing illogical and untargeted speed limit reductions on state highways and local roads. “National campaigned on ...
Finance Minister Nicola Willis has announced Budget 2025 – the Growth Budget - will be delivered on Thursday 22 May. “This year’s Budget will drive forward the Government’s plan to grow our economy to improve the incomes of New Zealanders now and in the years ahead. “Budget 2025 will build ...
For the Government, 2025 will bring a relentless focus on unleashing the growth we need to lift incomes, strengthen local businesses and create opportunity. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon today laid out the Government’s growth agenda in his Statement to Parliament. “Just over a year ago this Government was elected by ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour welcomes students back to school with a call to raise attendance from last year. “The Government encourages all students to attend school every day because there is a clear connection between being present at school and setting yourself up for a bright future,” says Mr ...
The Government is relaxing visitor visa requirements to allow tourists to work remotely while visiting New Zealand, Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis, Immigration Minister Erica Stanford and Tourism Minister Louise Upston say. “The change is part of the Government’s plan to unlock New Zealand’s potential by shifting the country onto ...
The opening of Kāinga Ora’s development of 134 homes in Epuni, Lower Hutt will provide much-needed social housing for Hutt families, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I’ve been a strong advocate for social housing on Kāinga Ora’s Epuni site ever since the old earthquake-prone housing was demolished in 2015. I ...
Trade and Investment Minister Todd McClay will travel to Australia today for meetings with Australian Trade Minister, Senator Don Farrell, and the Australia New Zealand Leadership Forum (ANZLF). Mr McClay recently hosted Minister Farrell in Rotorua for the annual Closer Economic Relations (CER) Trade Ministers’ meeting, where ANZLF presented on ...
A new monthly podiatry clinic has been launched today in Wairoa and will bring a much-needed service closer to home for the Wairoa community, Health Minister Simeon Brown says.“Health New Zealand has been successful in securing a podiatrist until the end of June this year to meet the needs of ...
The Judicial Conduct Commissioner has recommended a Judicial Conduct Panel be established to inquire into and report on the alleged conduct of acting District Court Judge Ema Aitken in an incident last November, Attorney-General Judith Collins said today. “I referred the matter of Judge Aitken’s alleged conduct during an incident ...
Students who need extra help with maths are set to benefit from a targeted acceleration programme that will give them more confidence in the classroom, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Last year, significant numbers of students did not meet the foundational literacy and numeracy level required to gain NCEA. To ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has announced three new diplomatic appointments. “Our diplomats play an important role in ensuring New Zealand’s interests are maintained and enhanced across the world,” Mr Peters says. “It is a pleasure to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and ...
Ki te kahore he whakakitenga, ka ngaro te Iwi – without a vision, the people will perish. The Government has achieved its target to reduce the number of households in emergency housing motels by 75 per cent five years early, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. The number of households ...
The opening of Palmerston North’s biggest social housing development will have a significant impact for whānau in need of safe, warm, dry housing, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. The minister visited the development today at North Street where a total of 50 two, three, and four-bedroom homes plus a ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced the new membership of the Public Advisory Committee on Disarmament and Arms Control (PACDAC), who will serve for a three-year term. “The Committee brings together wide-ranging expertise relevant to disarmament. We have made six new appointments to the Committee and reappointed two existing members ...
Ka nui te mihi kia koutou. Kia ora, good morning, talofa, malo e lelei, bula vinaka, da jia hao, namaste, sat sri akal, assalamu alaikum. It’s so great to be here and I’m ready and pumped for 2025. Can I start by acknowledging: Simon Bridges – CEO of the Auckland ...
The Government has unveiled a bold new initiative to position New Zealand as a premier destination for foreign direct investment (FDI) that will create higher paying jobs and grow the economy. “Invest New Zealand will streamline the investment process and provide tailored support to foreign investors, to increase capital investment ...
Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins today announced the largest reset of the New Zealand science system in more than 30 years with reforms which will boost the economy and benefit the sector. “The reforms will maximise the value of the $1.2 billion in government funding that goes into ...
Turbocharging New Zealand’s economic growth is the key to brighter days ahead for all Kiwis, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says. In the Prime Minister’s State of the Nation Speech in Auckland today, Christopher Luxon laid out the path to the prosperity that will affect all aspects of New Zealanders’ lives. ...
The latest set of accounts show the Government has successfully checked the runaway growth of public spending, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. “In the previous government’s final five months in office, public spending was almost 10 per cent higher than for the same period the previous year. “That is completely ...
The Government’s welfare reforms are delivering results with the number of people moving off benefits into work increasing year-on-year for six straight months. “There are positive signs that our welfare reset and the return consequences for job seekers who don't fulfil their obligations to prepare for or find a job ...
Jon Kroll and Aimee McCammon have been appointed to the New Zealand Film Commission Board, Arts Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “I am delighted to appoint these two new board members who will bring a wealth of industry, governance, and commercial experience to the Film Commission. “Jon Kroll has been an ...
Finance Minister Nicola Willis has hailed a drop in the domestic component of inflation, saying it increases the prospect of mortgage rate reductions and a lower cost of living for Kiwi households. Stats NZ reported today that inflation was 2.2 per cent in the year to December, the second consecutive ...
Two new appointed members and one reappointed member of the Employment Relations Authority have been announced by Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden today. “I’m pleased to announce the new appointed members Helen van Druten and Matthew Piper to the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) and welcome them to ...
Officially, they’re called ‘memecoins,’ but Kōura Wealth founder Rupert Carlyon says the crypto world has another name for them: ‘shitcoins’.In digital finance, that phrase is used for tokens that have no true value – in essence, a money-grab.A few days before his inauguration, US President Donald Trump launched his own ...
Madeleine Chapman reflects on the week that was. Guy Williams has made a whole show off the joke that he is a “volunteer” journalist. So getting publicly owned by David Seymour while trying to act as a journalist is a good and timely reminder not to underestimate the nuance and ...
Many of Sāmoa’s beloved dishes are the result of cultural collaboration, writes Madeleine Chapman. All photos by Jin FelletIf you ever find yourself at a barbecue in a Sāmoan home, there’s 99% chance that sapasui (chop suey) will be on the table. For the past century, sapasui has ...
The funnyman takes us through his life in television, including Jono and Ben mayhem, live Telethon flubs, and funnelling all those experiences into his new comedy Vince. There’s an inciting incident in Three’s new comedy Vince where morning television presenter Vince Walters (Jono Pryor) is visiting sick kids in hospital ...
People often claim they just want Waitangi Day to be a celebration. At Waitangi, away from the headlined political acrimony and the marae ātea, celebrating is what most people are doing. The Spinoff Essay showcases the best essayists in Aotearoa, on topics big and small. Made possible by the generous ...
Is there anything more fashionable than a Māori get together? One of the best things about Northland is that nobody cares what they look like — probably because they’re all naturally more stylish than the rest of us, famously. Māori from the Far North, especially. In 27 degree heat, wearing ...
Books of Mana: 180 Māori-Authored Books of Significance, edited by Jacinta Ruru, Angela Wanhalla and Jeanette Wikaira has just been released by Otago University Press. In this essay, Books are Taonga, Jeanette Wikaira explores her personal relationship to books and their value.For me, books are taonga. The knowledge ...
I’ve been in love with him since last July, but it’s only now in this tepid hotel room that I find myself wondering why. The first thing he does when we arrive is smoke a cone in the bathroom – he emerges, hacking up a lung, fists thrust into his ...
MONDAY“Name,” barked a representative of the lower orders.I regarded him with a look of stern disapproval, and told him from up high, “May I remind you that I have name suppression. I shall also thank you to ask with more respect as befits a former president of the Act Party, ...
Get to know Tara, our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Tara’s human for their support! Dog name: Tara Age: Two Breed: Mostly Border Collie and a little bit Catahoula Leopard dog If dog ...
Health NZ's CEO has resigned, but frontline healthworkers are sceptical that installing new leadership will make any difference to a system grappling with problems. ...
Gail Duncan, Chairperson of the St Peter’s on Willis Social Justice Group, one of the organisations invited to submit on the Bill, says the Government’s actions are unprecedented. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amani Kasherwa, School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work, The University of Queensland In late January, a rebel group that has long caused mayhem in the sprawling African nation of Democratic Republic of Congo took control of Goma, a major city of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Yee-Fui Ng, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, Monash University An ad falsely depicting independent candidate Alex Dyson as a Greens member.ABC News/Supplied The highly pertinent case of a little-known independent candidate in the Victorian seat of Wannon has exposed a gaping ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lauren Ball, Professor of Community Health and Wellbeing, The University of Queensland Nik/Unsplash You might have heard that eating too many eggs will cause high cholesterol levels, leading to poor health. Researchers have examined the science behind this myth again, and ...
Everything you missed from the third day of the Treaty principles bill hearings, when the Justice Committee heard four hours of oral submission. Read our recaps of day one of the hearings here, and day two here. Parliament was quiet on Friday for the third day of hearings on the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Thomas Jeffries, Senior Lecturer in Microbiology, Western Sydney University Tijana Simic/Shutterstock The news last week that three people in Sydney were hospitalised with botulism after receiving botox injections has raised questions about the regulation of the cosmetic injectables industry. The ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jens Blotevogel, Principal Research Scientist and Team Leader for Remediation Technologies, CSIRO Mino Surkala, Shutterstock Lithium-ion batteries are part of everyday life. They power small rechargeable devices such as mobile phones and laptops. They enable electric vehicles. And larger versions store ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Edith Jennifer Hill, Associate Lecturer, Learning & Teaching Innovation, Flinders University Netflix Netflix’s new limited series, Apple Cider Vinegar, tells the story of the elaborate cancer con orchestrated by Australian blogger Annabelle (Belle) Gibson. The first episode opens with Gibson’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dee Ninis, Earthquake Scientist, Monash University Greece’s government has just declared a state of emergency on the island of Santorini, as earthquakes shake the island multiple times a day and sometimes only minutes apart. The “earthquake swarm” is also affecting other ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne The Western Australian state election will be held on March 8. A Newspoll, conducted January 29 to February 4 from a sample ...
She’s back behind the wheel, and this time, she wants to find out what it is that makes us tick. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. After a prolific career on stage and screen, 83-year-old Miriam Margolyes is on the road again. ...
A new poem by Jordan Hamel. Real Poet Every word earned its place and so did he, so should you. Real poet lives in the capital but writes himself into the Mackenzie country golden hour, man of the paper land, he neglects to mention his pollen ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Understanding Te Tiriti by Roimata Smail (Wai Ako Press, $25) No better time to get ...
The committee has published this list to inform the public about its work, and to give clarity to submitters who have contacted the committee asking if they will be invited to make an oral submission. ...
Alex Casey and Gabi Lardies dissect their Laneway 2025 experience. Gabi Lardies: Hi Alex :))))))) Congratulations on not getting sunburnt. Everyone I talked to at Laneway yesterday was braving the sun for one thing. Charli XCX. How was your brat experience?Alex Casey: We will talk about the rest of ...
The US President's suggestion, which sparked enormous debate globally, has been labelled as a threat, not a proposal, by the Federation of Islamic Associations. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christine McCarthy, Senior Lecturer in Interior Architecture, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington Interior of Auckland South Men’s Prison.Getty Images Prisons are not colourful places. Typically, they are grey or some variation of a monochrome colour scheme. But increasingly, ...
FICTION1Tree of Nourishment (Kāwai 2) by Monty Soutar (David Bateman, $39.99)Interesting to note that the author of the biggest-selling New Zealand novel in Waitangi Week is Māori (Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Awa, Ngāi Tai, and Ngāti Kahungunu).2 Kāwai: For Such a Time as This (Kāwai 1) by Monty Soutar (David ...
Remembering the renowned New Zealand writer, who died on February 5, 2025. The Stopover When the trout rise like compassion It is worth watching when the hinds come down from the hills with a new message it will be as well to listen. – Brian Turner Poet, environmentalist, sportsman, journalist, ...
Survivors can choose to have former High Court judge Paul Davison assess their individual claims to tailor payments to their personal circumstances. ...
Are we too modest when it comes to celebrating our putrid plant life?She’s beauty. She’s grace. She smells like a decaying corpse and lurks in the backrooms of Auckland Zoo, wallowing tragically in a bucket. In recent weeks an Australian corpse plant named Putricia has captured the noses and ...
Politicians from the coalition government received a frosty reception at Waitangi this year, but Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka says the pōwhiri that received so much attention was just one part of many events throughout the week. ...
Would they have voted National if they knew this?
Would as many people have voted for National if they knew the MOM Bill would pass? It was clearly campaigned on by National and prominently opposed by Labour and voters should have been clear about the chances of it proceeding, so it would be odd if there are defections of support from National because the part asset sales are going ahead.
If you assume that most people pay attention to the issues being discussed in election campaigns and don’t just vote for “more of the same” or “time for someone new”, then yep.
So no.
“… so it would be odd if there are defections of support from National because the part asset sales are going ahead.”
And yet all those polls say people are going off your Tory masters. The waffle ain’t working for some reason. Could it be that the voters of your NZ just aren’t copping your wisdom, Pete, and are making their own minds up?
Hey Pete, I’ve got an idea: Let’s ASK them.
I did. Some of them are SAYING:
amo6: “I voted for them thinking it would happen-not that I wanted it but that’s what I had to accept voting for them”
bligh: “I knew, before i voted.”
merrijg:
dezzie: “I knew about it before I voted for them, I think you’d have to be living under a rock to have not known.”
rasman_nz:
mp3539: “people werent thick…there was no one else to vote for……..”
lana92: “We had a fantastic choice, bankruptcy under Labour or selling the family silver under National … great choices … not.”
charles.j: “National campaigned on it and received a lot of votes. In fact, it was one of the highest ever recorded under MMP. Labour shot themselves in the foot multiple times, and Asset sales are now set to pass”
I see your imaginary friends have been at it again, one for each of your personalities.
Congratulations. You now have nine people who might sign a greeting card stating anything about anything. What you do with it is up to you. Isn’t democracy great?
Trade Me forums.
hahahaha.
I didn’t know your plans for improving the responsiveness and effectiveness of the CIR system were so, umm, advanced. “I asked some randoms on trademe”
A lot of kiwis on /b/. You should ask around over there too.
That was nothing to do with CIR. But I woukld check out views there, or anywhere peoplewere interested in commenting.
For your sort of democracy who would you exclude from having a say, apart from peop,e using Trade Me forums? Anyone else you don’t think is up to your standard?
No one Pete. And I never said otherwise. You really are a dishonest and hypocrtical sack of shit aren’t you?
I just don’t think Trade me forums are any sort of useful tool for working out what the people think. Call me unserious if you like.
Hi Pete George,
I imagine those who voted for National but may now be thinking again over giving that party their support over asset sales may be doing so because information that has come to light since the election casts doubt on either the competence or veracity of National’s claims about the ownership and economic consequences of implementing the MOM.
There are now significant doubts about the economic benefits of selling (and selling now) and also doubts about whether 51% control is manageable or that NZ ownership of shares can be guaranteed to the extent that National reassured people that it could.
I remember that before 2008, supporters of John Key were quick to claim the virtues of him ‘changing his mind’ over various policies. They claimed this showed he was responsive to new information or some such, and his changing his mind showed just how reasonable he was.
Maybe people thinking of removing their support for National over asset sales, despite voting for them in 2011, are similarly just being responsive to new information and showing that they are reasonable people.
Your totally unscientific asking is totally irrelevant – just like you and your Hair God.
PG if the election result had been different you would be groveling to a different master.
Labour were going to raise taxes on the well off and make those who are paying no tax capital gaingters.
Your a really Pathetic Grovelar
I think Nats kept pretty quiet about asset sales during the election campaign.
I am pretty sure that they did, yes.
People who voted for them voted on other grounds, and were pretty oblivious to asset sales as far as I know…
Would anyone have voted for National if truth in advertising applied to politicians.
National’s real manifesto. If they told the truth..
“We will cut incomes across the board except for a few at the top.
We will remove your civil rights, privacy, freedom from unreasonable search, surveillance and seizure, rights to withdraw your Labour and rights to protest even more.
We will respond to police breaking the law by changing it.
We will deliberately put the Government in deficit with unaffordable tax cuts.
We will steal more income earning assets to make our funders rich at your expense.
We will happily continue to kill NZ productive industries to chase illusory trade advantages for cow cockies.
We will leave strategic planning, to, “the market”. (Something for which we would sack any business manager).””
We will leave most New Zealanders noticeably poorer, after three years.
Notice how shifty Key looked in the “show me the money” debate. He knew his costings were a lot more dodgy than Labour’s.
Puerile git Tremains cartoon in the ODT on saturday explains everthing.
The media were all on Conmankeys side before the Election.
Now they are Questioning everything poor we johnny and his yes men don,t like it.
after the next election you will be bagging ever body on the right as your laeder will be in govt with any body so long as he gets his boubles!
And there you have it….!
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/7162536/ACCs-quota-deal-with-Smith-revealed
So glad this government is very concerned about injured Kiwis, and is doing everything they can to help, care for, rehabilitate and support them/us!/sarc.
Oh dear, it’s almost as if there were a “secret agenda” all along.
If only someone had said so at the time! /more_sarc
From a young age I never really understood the mania for everyone owning their own home.
As I’ve got older I got to understand the logic in the current economic environment, as home ownership can boost your financial value in the long term (if you can afford the long term mortgage), and keep you out of the control of ruthless landlords/ladies.
But it still seems to me a bit of a con to push for as many people as possible owning their own homes. It benefits those at the top of the housing hierarchy and leaves those at the bottom struggling in insecure circumstances. It also feeds property bubbles that are damaging to the whole society.
I’ve been happy as a lifetime renter, and have found most landlord/ladies to be OK (the worst are estate agent managers, usually managing property for an unknown landlord). Now there is evidence that owning your own home probably won’t make you happier. It’s usually the reverse, that happier and healthier people are more likely theycan afford to buy:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/7147916/Home-ownership-not-best-for-everyone
Unfortunately super is not enough to live on unless you own a home mortgage free.
As for affordability. I am researching an article on that now to follow up from my previous one on housing costs.
The obvious short answer is sufficient state housing. Preferably rent to buy at affordable rates.
Well, for myself, I also have some money in pension schemes and some savings. The pensions were largely the default position when I was working in London and Sydney, so payments were automatically taken out of my pay without me really paying much attention to it. I also pay into Kiwisaver.
But needing to own your own home and/or pension investments beyond super, are all based on the dominant economic assumptions that have been in place for decades. And these investments all have knock-on impacts on society and future generations.
Housing should be cheap, affordable to all, and shouldn’t be part of a market economy. Savings should be savings, and shouldn’t keep diminishing in value over time if not invested somewhere.
I am afraid that the whole concept of interest on savings is the other side of the financial ponzi scheme that makes unsustainable growth an economic necessity.
Savings are likely to disappear into the insatiable maw of the finance industry. When they next stuff up.
For all the West’s private pension schemes to keep paying out compounding interest means a hockey stick growth in money supply is required.
Without a corresponding increase in productivity, which the earth is not big enough to sustain, all these financial products must fail at some stage.
We are better of investing in things that the banks cannot take away.
Investing taxes in 100% sustainable energy, for example, would do more to ensure we can afford to support our old, and young, in future than any investment in financial speculation.
New Zealanders subconsciously know that, hence the over investment in land. Though I wonder how many mortgages, like mine, were investment in a business. A mortgage is the only way normal people can get any financial leverage.
Indeed. But I was thinking to get beyond they way savings are treated now, so that if you have savings, they don’t rely on interest to maintain value.
Why should your savings retain value? The work done to receive that money doesn’t retain value – it depreciates over time.
You want chapter two of this book but the whole thing is worth reading. It’s not what I’m thinking of above but it embodies the same idea.
QFT
Yep, the only way to to truly participate in our society is to beg the bank manager and, of course, to pay.
Labour (Cosgrove) and Greens (Norman) have said that Winston Peters’ asset buy back suggestions are fiscally irresponsible.
That could make for interesting coalition negotiations, unless Peters changes from YES to NO by then. Or if Labour and Greens change to YES.
Peters suggests Kiwisaver funds and the Super Fund should buy back the shares, but that’s bizarre. What if they already own many of the shares? They would end up having them taken off them so that they could be given them back.
Oh my lord.
Three parties who may or may not be in a position to form a govt in two-and-a-half-years and who happen to agree on the most desirable outcome of a particular given situation also disagree on the details of the best way to achieve it.
If only Peter Dunne were in the mix. At least he knows how to do as he’s told.
Indeed, felix. Whats the point in MMP, and shifting fro m2 party dominance of government, if the smaller parties always agree with the other parties with policies closest to theirs? If several parties agreed on everything, they might as well just amalgamate into one party.
MMP…. sets up the system for on-going consultation, discussion and negotiation.
There’s strong points for small parties to retain independence, they add diversity of MP and policies, and they break up the party whipped voting.
Otherwise why don’t Labour and National amalgamate? Most of what they do is very similar anyway, far more overlap than differences. But it would not be good for our democracy if we had a single party government.
“why don’t Labour and National amalgamate?”
well, some people like red more than blue, while others think it’s time for a change every now and then…. which is your favourite colour? red or blue? samaris or venezilos? Blair or Thatcher? Obama or Obama? Key or that other guy from labour, I think it’s Goff or have they changed?
Oh how sad of me not to already know that it wouldn’t be good for our democracy to have a one party government. I feel quite embarrassed that I didn’t already know that. Thanks for letting me know that Pete George.
Tell me what planet you’re on you facile, boring, boring, boring old tory. I’ll make sure I avoid it in my astral travel.
That doesn’t mean Labour and the Greens won’t buy them back, just that they think Winston’s model won’t work in the way Winston thinks it will. There are no obstacles to coalition forming, as all 3 parties are committed to looking at the possibility of a buy back once National and it’s limpets are defeated. The big question is how buggered you and your mates will have left our economy and whether a buy back is immediately affordable.
Sorry to let you down, Pete, but there’s no escape route there for UF or National.
Disagreeing with WinstonFirst is a good start
The big question is how buggered you and your mates will have left our economy
Norman said something similar – ” the books are getting into a terrible mess because of National”.
But in fact National probably won the election – despite opposition to assets sales – because voters thought they were the most fiscally responsible option, and Labour/Green spending would have been too risky in the current economic climate.
That’s right, Pete. The voters were lied to, or even worse, not told the truth, and now we all have to wait for Labour to bring back the good times. Again. Oh, for the days of balanced budgets, eh? Just think, it was only 4 years ago we had a fiscally responsible Government and only two years till the next one.
I love this fiscally irresponsible meme, from those who left a big hole in our accounts, by borrowing for tax cuts, for Hawaii holidays, for them and their mates.
In fact real fiscal responsibility would be tax and spend, now, on stimulus, with spending on sustainable energy, local production, housing and education, to keep the country viable in future. When AGW, peak oil and peak water start to hit.
National are squandering our future.
Peters suggests Kiwisaver funds and the Super Fund should buy back the shares, but that’s bizarre. What if they already own many of the shares? They would end up having them taken off them so that they could be given them back.
What is Bizarre is selling the shares to those that own them already!
Taken = buy
given = sold
fiscally irresponsible ‘= selling the share is the first place
Is that the new lexicon
Pg that is a BIZARRE response.
I heard that David Shearer made a good speech in the North Shore on Saturday. Can anyone point me to a web site where I can read it?
I heard from guys who went that it was the usual flabby shit. Love to be corrected.
@ BillODrees
It wasn’t a prepared speech as such. He had no notes. He was speaking largely to the converted – members/supporters. It was part of the… getting to meet the locals and giving them a chance to get to know him campaign. After all he hasn’t been on the NZ political scene very long and he’s going to need their full support.
@ ad.
That’s an unfair description. He was ‘chatting’ about his vision for NZ society and where he thinks it should be going and how a Labour-led govt. would get it there. He made no apologies for being short on detail because the actual policies are still being hammered out. But he gave a more than adequate outline of the general direction. In my opinion, most of the ‘flabby shit’ came from a few people in the audience who saw fit to make full blown speeches of their own during the question time.
That’s excelent Anne and delighted to hear others were wrong – Shearer is definitely growing on me, particilarly with polls so heartwarming in a cold winter.
God I can’t stand speechifying from “questioners” – it’s boorish.
On asset sales I see Steven Joyce has come out and said “the most important thing is strengthening the capital markets”.
So lets examine this — the capital markets in NZ consist primarily of the NZX. The NZX is privately owned. The NZX has consistently failed to provide sufficient capital markets. Even Joyce himself states clearly that the NZX has failed.
The NZX is the peak of many capitalists dreams. Get a business, grow it, list on the exchange and voila – captain of industry.
Except that businesses don’t want to list. I have come across many perfect candidates in my times and they consistently do not want to list. The reasons are immaterial but they basically turn on the fact that the NZX is not worth the money or effort and does not assist their business.
The NZX has failed over the last century and decades. And that is just those listing. What about investors? ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, poll mums and dads about the trustworthiness of the stock exchange and its participants. I don’t think much more needs to be said.
So if the NZX has failed, as Joyce states, then why is he giving them welfare? Why is he pouring more money down a proven failed system?
And if the captains of industry are so magnificent at creating business, as they always claim, then why has it failed? Why don’t the masters of private enterprise create their own businesses to list on the NZX?
Because they can’t that’s why. The masters of capitalism cannot create their own businesses. They have to take ones that the taxpayers have built and paid for over the decades. For yet further evidence of this, check out some of the largest companies on the NZX – high proportion of businesses created by the taxpayer, not businessmen.
Failures.
Bludging off the taxpayer tit.
Joyce and Key need to be questioned in detail over this. It would also be worth finding out what NZX is willing to pay to have our assets listed in their directory. And how much more revenue the NZX will receive.
they and others certainly need ot be questioned, and questioned in a simple single part methodology. I am sick to my back teeth of important subjects being raised in the House and no suitable answer supplied because the question has three parts is covered in similie and toasted under the 20w grill of self protection. Politicians need to remember why they are (supposedly) sitting in the House in the first place.
Ask a direct single question, get a direct answer. Of late, even the Speaker appears to be tiring of the banality and the well orchestrated auto-rhetoric from the opposition.
+1
Not sure if Key or Joyce would have the answers to any exhaustive questioning because they are merely henchmen for the funders of the National and Act parties.
The spurious concept presented of needing more market capitalisation ion NZ lays bare the whole edifice of investment in NZ. I contend that the NZX cannot grow because there is nothing left we can turn production which we can “capitalise” that has not already been capitalised. The logic of “globalization” is that you send capital to places where the costs are minimised, and the major factor here is wage costs. Because we wont “allow” sweat shops a la Nike in Honduras etc we cannot attract capital…so instead we attempt to create markets in existing infrastructure and sell them off. Sick really.
Of all the Nats justifications for selling the SOEs this is the only one that adds up to me; that it’s a taxpayer bailout of the NZX. Weldon of the NZX was far too close to the Nats, seemed to have the key to the back door of the beehive in the Nats first term his name was always cropping up. The NZX will clip the ticket on every share sold, it must profit from the SOE floats over the longer term and it will be interesting to watch its share price which I expect to perform better than the SOE shares.
I agree on the NZX being a dog. I don’t buy shares and I know how to read a balance sheet. Look at any business listed on the NZX and it’s loaded up with debt with shareholder capital all pledged as security to the banks, small shareholders are treated with contempt. The SOEs will go down the same track; borrow up large to pay big dividends & push the share price up while hollowing them out from the inside.
+1. Vto
It is the worse reason to sell of a strategic rare asset like Hydro Dams.
The absence of Capital Gains Tax and some weaknesses in Taxion legislative/administrative regimes encourages some to remain in the unlisted sector. There are other reasons the NZX has been unsuccessful!
And Joyce is agreeing that the NZX is unsuccessful. And Joyce is telling mum and pops to invest through that unsuccessful medium! Did Joyce list his business on the NZX?
Greece, Spain, Portugal , Ireland……watching Keiser and some other commentaries over the week since the Greek election points at one conclusion: default is inevitable! Merely delayed by how long?
The big picture is somewhat worrying in terms of how the default is presented to the rank and file taxpayers worldwide who have had their “leaders” conveniently underwrite bank debt. The basic theme is, “Wow we bankers took punts that were too risky, bundled up the losses as derivatives, sold them to generate more interest, became insolvent and then demanded the taxpayer world wide bail us out as too big to fail, and you MUST do as we say or you are roadkill.”. And because the bankers “own” the politicians (along with their 1%er mates) we the rank and file do as they demand. We should be asking who is roadkill?
Amongst that gloomy prognosis is a real ray of hope: economic contagion will result in bank failures if the taxpayer does not allow more “bail outs”…if the bail outs happen there will be defaults anyway. The financial status quo will become an emperor without clothes, illegitimate. The hope bit is that nature abhors a vacuum, real power and control can be sized via the democratic process. Which is why Labour need to grow some balls and be prepared to tell the bankster regimes to fuck off. What hope of that?
The PIGS will fly no doubt about it. The big question is if they leave the monetary union will they also leave the free trade union?
Implement a super profit tax on any entity making over $100M pa.
Implement an asset tax and FTT.
Greatly strengthen the community and small business presence of Kiwibank.
Arm the Reserve Bank with a broad range of capital and currency control tools, and task it with putting in place settings to support employment and the tradeable sector.
And crucially, take charge of the issuance of debt free, interest free money into the economy.
“Which is why Labour need to grow some balls and be prepared to tell the bankster regimes to fuck off. What hope of that”
–Nada!
Bored, people underestimate the power of the banking industry, and what else it controls, because they like to use names such as “conspiracy theorists”, to hide behind. Most are unable to accept the real conspiracy which is happening in front of them, is not happening in isolation!
The out of control situation around contagion, is interesting, as it will expose the corruption more and more, as long as the attempts to keep the status quo on life support continue.
If it collapses, how will NZ fear….
I suspect not very well, with all those off balance sheet derivitives, waiting to show their worth!
You may be right that hope is slim: banks and finance are best dealt with when they are weak (and insolvent which requires the letter of the law to be imposed i.e the Commerce Acts insolvency clauses). We need to get them when they cant pay their tame politicians and media (and after that it is a case of keeping the genie in the bottle) otherwise they will win.
Those of you interested in energy issues and peak oil may be interested in my latest blog post here: http://www.southernlimitsnz.com/2012/06/myth-busting-polyannas-1-roger-harrabin.html
“This is the first in a series of posts that address the phenomenon seen over the past few years of the proliferation of articles arguing that peak oil is dead and that we are in a new era of liquid fuel abundance. I have already addressed this issue in general with my previous post Seven Myths Deniers Use To ‘Debunk’ Peak Oil, Debunked. But with more articles coming out like this weekly I have decided to take on the authors of these overly optimistic puff pieces and explain paragraph by paragraph exactly why these people are so wrong.
First up in this series is Roger Harrabin. Harrabin is certainly no slouch broadcasting on environmental and energy issues since the 1980s and winning a number of broadcasting awards. He currently works as the BBC’s environmental analyst and is one of their senior journalists on environmental and energy issues. So it came as a surprise when I came across Harrabin’s article this week entitled Shortages: Is ‘peak oil’ idea dead?. He managed to invoke a number of straw man arguments and bizzare claims and concludes that the end of the Oil Age is so far off that it’s not worth worrying about. Let’s take a look at the specifics below.”
Being absolutely no expert in this field I found your conclusion helpful and provoking, because I can stop waiting for a single eschatological moment:
“We are not going to run out of oil cold turkey. Instead we are facing a long descent that will see times of relative prosperity followed by depressions and recessions as the world economy adjusts to its new low energy diet.”
Would love to hear more on this. Seems a little more nuanced than that big show from Rick Boven which seemed to portend the end of the world.
I can do no better than point you towards John Michael Greer who coined the term ‘the long descent’ in his book of the same name. http://www.newsociety.com/Books/L/The-Long-Descent
“The Long Descent examines the basis of such fear through three core themes:
– Industrial society is following the same well-worn path that has led other civilizations into decline, a path involving a much slower and more complex transformation than the sudden catastrophes imagined by so many social critics today.
– The roots of the crisis lie in the cultural stories that shape the way we understand the world. Since problems cannot be solved with the same thinking that created thyem, these ways of thinking need to be replaced with others better suited to the needs of our time.
– It is too late for massive programs for top-down change; the change must come from individuals.
Hope exists in actions that range from taking up a handicraft or adopting an “obsolete” technology, through planting an organic vegetable garden, taking charge of your own health care or spirituality, and building community.
Focusing eloquently on constructive adaptation to massive change, this book will have wide appeal.”
Also check out JMGs essays here for more in depth discussion: http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.co.nz/search?q=long+descent
This gives a really good overview of JMGs work: http://www.energybulletin.net/50751
“John Michael Greer has officially established himself as an institution within the peak oil community. Truly one of the finest minds working on the predicament of modern-day industrial civilization, he is so well-read in so many fields that he regularly gains access to insights that utterly elude his contemporaries. For this he is treasured by a growing number of loyal readers—and, I suspect, hated by equally many fellow bloggers who wish that they could be half as good.
Greer is also perhaps peak oil’s most cherishable contrarian, always pointing out the various ways in which people on all sides of the debate are woefully off-base. For example, his previous book on peak oil, The Long Descent, showed how believers in perpetual progress and prophets of imminent doom alike are sadly off the mark in their notions about the future. That book’s central thesis is that while our modern “developed” world can’t possibly be sustained into the indefinite future, we’re hardly in for the sort of sudden, utter collapse of civilization that typically forms the basis of a Roland Emmerich movie. Instead, our society will likely decline slowly and unevenly over many decades, the way that the Maya, the Roman Empire and other past civilizations have done before ours. The take-home point is that it’s a waste of time to start preparing now for either a survivalist future of mass death and marauding hordes, or whatever sustainable utopia happens to be your particular ideal, because neither one of these reflects the future that we’re actually liable to end up with—and, in any case, no one living today will still be around to see what that future might resemble.”
There are ideas of getting together and supporting each other when other systems have broken down. Paul Krugman explains some economic problems that crop up in his piece on the Babysitting Club.
http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_dismal_science/1998/08/babysitting_the_economy.html
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timothylee/2011/09/07/money-and-paul-krugmans-babysitters/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Hill_Babysitting_Co-op
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/279-82/11772-paul-krugman-im-sick-of-being-cassandra
Thanks Prism
SL These links point up some interesting problems. You may have come across this babysitting club example before – I hadn’t. But I have been in Green Dollars trading and found its path developed potholes, into which we fell and the local one is I think defunct.
I came to the conclusion that no organisation, community or not, can be run effectively by a group of opinionated ignorant idealistic amateurs (at running groups and systems), and particularly weakening is the situation when one committee stands down and new people come in . The end of the organisation can be when they immediately bring in new bright ideas and throw out old practices, ignoring all the decisions, and not reading the reasons for them, as recorded in the notes taken at numerous meetings and discussions of past committees.
And there is always some utopian system somewhere to aim for, without any understanding of the particular problems and positives of the circumstances of that one.. Even Rod Donald I found to be so idealistic and set in his beliefs that when I stated that green dollars weren’t as good as real money he immediately negated my statement, which was based on experience. So it’s not easy doing things communally and when trying to run a parallel ‘tokens’ system.
The babysitting example was new to me and I’ve never read Krugman’s actual work before, only seen him mentioned so thanks for that.
I think the moral to take from you experience and one that I try to live by is avoid dogma at all costs. That’s why I find it bizarre when people are lifetime Labour or National supporters and say they’ll never change. For me it’s about what’s said, not who’s saying it.
Don’t forget Greer’s Catabolic Collapse which is a good article explaining it.
Also try reading what Nicole Foss says on TheAutomaticEarth.com She makes the solid point that finance and capital availability makes the downside very rocky (because demand requires capital investment that may not be available), with lots of ups and downs.
Or go to Youtube and search Richard Heinberg.
Yup all worthwhile reading/viewing.
Ad , Thanks for expanding my vocab!
The Oxford English Dictionary defines eschatology as “The department of theological science concerned with ‘the four last things: death, judgement, heaven, and hell’.
I was sure James Joyce would have been well familiar.
Ah well.
Today it was announced that soldiers coming back from Afghanistan would have to undergo a test to see if they had been exposed to Depleted Uranium. The test was mad with a urine sample but the same article states that the Army is unwilling to pay for a more comprehensive test. This indicates to me that they are using a similar test as the US army.
One that will guarantee that nothing will show up as it is a test which is designed to pick up radioactivity emitted during Nuclear accidents or bomb explosions and not the low radiation emitting nano particles which lodge themselves in vulnerable areas causing damage over a long period of time.
Here is a video called Beyond Treason. It is an excellent Documentary which features amongst others Doug Rokke. He is the guy who wrote the book on DU for the US army and now that he is dying of cancer caused by DU the most ardent anti DU activist I have had the privilege of speaking with on the subject.
I wonder if Afghan villagers and farmers are being offered the test as well.
“Collateral damage”
Neh, Little brown people with a funny religion? Who cares!
About as much chance as Iraqi citizens being offered cancer screening or the US cleaning up uranium contamination throughout Iraq.
Crisis in Local Govt and ACC? Both crises invented by Nick Smith. He really must keep taking those pills.
TEDx: David Roberts – Climate Change is Simple
Also, David Roberts: The brutal logic of climate change.
The politics of pop! I learned a fair bit about socialism, anarchy and post modernism from the late seventies/early eighties NME. Parsons, Burchill, Kent, Morley, Penman, SWells et al. The Clash, Gang of Four, Redskins, Slits. Mint! The tide turned a bit when corporate music companies co-opted punk and new wave (The Knack, anyone?) and the death of one particular singer in 1980 really ended that chapter for me, but there is no denying the brilliance of those 5 or 6 shining years.
The legacy lives on, however, and its nice to see that the NME is still classy after all these years, putting the greatest song ever written at the top of their list of er, the greatest songs ever written. Debuted at No 1 in NZ, fact fans.
Well, for other odd conversion routes to the progressive cause, mine was reading Gustavo Gutierrez’ Liberation theology when I was 16.
Back when post-Vatican II South and Middle Americans were full of Base Communities and all that hopey-changey stuff. And of course the death of Archbishop Romero while saying mass, by military assassins, together with Cardinal Ratzinger’s witch-hunts, kind of put a bracket around that for me.
Odd list overall to my mind.
The Skids, Public Image, Joes Garage album by Frank Zappa, The Clash (Sandinista gave me a new area to explore), Paul Weller whether in The Jam or The Style Council, The Ramones, Buzzcocks, Nina Hagen, Lena Lovich, Steve Harley and somewhere in amongst that with a touch of humour Jilted John.
Those were great times and particularly as I was being bullied at school at the time resonated and no doubt helped develop my inclination to speak out against violence and oppression. I’m sure not popular in some of my circles at present for speaking out.
Singing from the same song sheet?.
David Cameron is to set out plans to scrap housing benefit for the under-25s, in a speech that will make clear pensioners are to be protected from a second wave of welfare reform.
And on a related matter:
“Key policy ‘comes across as waffle’, says archbishop of Canterbury in valedictory bombshell”
No, not that Key. He’s ripping David Cameron a new one for promoting aspirational piffle.
Here’s one for Vicky 32, who I’m sure will join me in a hearty laugh at a particularly stoopid mangling of the English language on the Stuff website:
“Karen Klein, the 68-year-old bus monitor who was verbally abused by a group of 12-to-15-year-old students, has received more than US$630,000 (NZ$800,000) for a well-earned vacation from internet users”
Yes indeed! 🙂 It’s a good one, all right!
Doctors and Nurses anyone???, from the Herald today is a call from various groups of Doctors and Nurses for the Government to cut another 2 percentage points from it’s 2014 election total by (a) abolishing travelers ability to buy duty free tobacco products claiming that such duty free items are fueling the ‘tobacco black-market’,
The view here is that the rack-raising of excise taxes on tobacco products is what is fueling a growing tobacco black market where any ‘cost’ to the Government of tobacco products use has been more than met by the present tax regime and Government is now reliant on at least 1 billion dollars of over-taxation of tobacco products to pay for other budget items other than the costs related to the products usage,
The Doctors and Nurses have taken the opportunity to call for a harsher regime of revenue gathering from those addicted to tobacco perhaps seeing in this the only means of getting a pay rise in the next few years,
SAVING LIVES do you think, tobacco product usage has fallen an un-remarkable 6% over the course of the last 2 rack-raisings of tobacco taxes and such means in no way that 6% of addicts have quit,
The 6% drop in usage simply means that the addicted have managed to cut down slightly on their daily use and/or 6% of tobacco use in New Zealand is now being supplied via one means of black-market supply or another,
I am a firm favorite of this National Government taking to the users of tobacco via the rack-raising of taxation if only for the inherent laughter generated by those in the Health Sector believing that such tax raising is in aid of saving lives where-as the imperative for Government doing so is obviously, as the Treasury pointed out in its briefing to the Government, a simple exercise in revenue gathering from a section of the community demonized by society and in no way able to avoid the tax as they are ADDICTED to the product being taxed,
If they havn’t already the 600,000 or so who do use and are addicted to tobacco products will turn upon any Government rack-raising the taxes to fill holes in its general budgetary requirements and vote against any Government or it’s support party’s who favor such taxation,
Any Government serious about stopping the use of tobacco products in this country would simply make the product a prescription poison allow the present generation of addicts its use via Doctors prescription and not allow anyone presently 16 or 17 the products use at all….
I am sure the tax rate on tobacco will shortly get to the point where the enforcement cost comparison to cannabis will make them think “Oh wait tobacco tax was so good, let’s legalise marijuana as well”.
Meanwhile I treat myself to just one cigar per year, at Christmas, from the Havana Shop downtown, probably out of some sad implanted gangster fantasy or more probably Wylie Coyote’s opposition or indeed Daffy Duck’s ones.
Pretty hard to prize the programming out, even at one a year.
Surprisingly there has yet to be a move by the users of tobacco products to form an association that will advance their ‘right’ to use a legal product without fear of being unduly discriminated against by overt Government policy,
With 600,000+ users of tobacco products, many of whom reside electorally in the ‘registered but didn’t vote’ such a voting bloc would give any Government pause to consider it’s agenda where taxes from the users of tobacco are funding the general spending of Government…
Ah getting a flogging over asset sales,education, and, ACC all at the same time, seeing the internal polling tumbling like a rock and yes it’s time for Slippery to get all ‘aspirational’ again,
The Prime Minister has announced plans to give the Bene’s a kicking or in the ‘new speak’ of the political discourse get them OFF benefits,
Slippery didn’t mention actually creating some EMPLOYMENT so the assumption can only be that bonus’s will again be offered to WINZ staff who find creative ways of giving the most vulnerable in society the kick…
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10815417
The NZ Herald National Party Press Office swings into action to declare the Prime Minister wants something to happen, somewhere, sometime and then goes on to explain how Mr Key really really believes in the quantum affectation of positive thinking. Perhaps he also believes he can fly if he clicks his heels hard 3 times and wriggles his nose.
Slippery must have detected a little intransigence within the corridors of WINZ offices to His ‘aspirational ideals’,
The Prime Minister is now saying that not only will His Government offer bonus’s to WINZ staff who fill their quota as far as kicking Bene’s off of the dole and various other benefits,
The Slippery one is also threatening to cut the pay of those WINZ staffers who aint quite ruthless enough to fulfill such quota requirements…
New Zealand signs NATO partnership deal
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/jun2012/nzna-j22.shtml
wsws seems to be down, here is a cache copy of the article
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:j109Zru-viwJ:www.wsws.org/articles/2012/jun2012/nzna-j22.shtml+www.wsws.org/articles/2012/jun2012/nzna-j22.shtml&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&client=ubuntu
Brilliant Key/Bennett/National Party logic……..you “can” work and therefore by certain date you and 19,999 others who “can” work will no longer be on WINZ books……..because you “can” work.
Ummmmmh…….just the small question of 20,000 jobs which those who “can” work need in order “to” work.
This grossness, this redefinition of benefit entitlement, will be disguised with a vile, calculated demonisation of beneficiaries as an underclass. The underclass at its extremities will commit crime………lo, we have the raw material for the new private prisons. There is cynical evilness here.
There’s a photograph I saw on the net somewhere which defines “News” in these terms something like this – “News…….rich people telling middle class people to blame poor people” – I may have paraphrased somewhat but that’s the thrust.
That’s gonna be our news sadly. Would you blame the underclass for rising up ? And that ponce still smiles and waves.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/7167235/Govt-targets-unemployed
This along with the announcement that if the Public Service dont achieve the targets in this and other areas they will suffer paycuts….quite possibly the stupidest policy announcement ever by the stupidest government ever….the $60 million man again shows his complete contempt for everybody else.
Scumbags, liars, cheats.
TV3 reports on the latest brainwave from the government which gives the public service (itself having already lost 2500 jobs) 10 targets, one of which includes slashing the number of long term beneficieries by 2017or their pay will be docked.
Bill English says a leaner service could find these targets more difficult, but ever cheerful, loopy Key said and I quote:
“A highly efficient public service, one that is performing well for New Zealand isn’t a question of head count it’s about results.” (Obviously one charismatic dictator called Slash will do.)
In my world, no brains (which are in heads Mr. Key) no results.
The reporter said these are aspirational targets, but the government still expects the targets met!
No wonder Chris Hipkins said this is all just nonsense to distract from asset sales tomorrow. But what nonsense. Key seems to be totally unaware of the crass, idiotic utterances he contaminates our airspace with. He is so embarrassing; too embarassing to lead a great country like New Zealand, a country thet he seems to be intent on destroying.
Concise Oxford English Dictionary:
asp – a small viper with an upturned snout – a large predatory fish of the carp family
irrational – not logical or reasonable
???
Why Conservatives always beat Progressives
Read and weep, ladies and gentlemen.
http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2012-06-24/real-reason-conservatives-always-win
/rant/ This was mentioned the other day, but it really is a shocker.
All governments give cronies jobs. Every single one. Some governments are worse than others though, and I reckon this lot are fucking shockers.
It’s not just that they are giving jobs to mates, or that the process, (as I?S has demonstrated in numerous OIA based postings) has been bloody woeful; it’s the flat out inapropriateness of some of the gigs for the people they give them to.
That Neeson bugger on the Human Rights Review Tribunal*; never gave a damn about human rights as far as I can tell. And there was some other little nobody thrown on to that one as well. Interestingly enough, if you look at how they fared in National Party candidate selection dust ups, and who they lost to. Well, yeah. Understood.
But this one from the other day. How is this in any way justifiable?
http://m.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10815422&ref=rss
She is going to be, at the same time, a lobbyist for an industry sector, and sitting in a govt gig that will be promoting issues within that sector, and spending money trying to convince people how to behave in that sector.
How is that not flat out fucked up?
/rant/
* how are they getting on with that Bennett case BTW, it’s been coming on what 3 years? 4 years? Doesn’t seem to be that complicated a case. The Minister defended her actions on an “implied consent” to disclose the data. There is no such thing in the Privacy Act. It’s just something she made up, and I’m not a lawyer, but I reckon there’s a pretty good chance that legislation trumps shit you just make up. I’m sure enough of that that I reckon I’d rule on that basis and take me chances with judicial review.
It’s seriously bizarre, from a health promotion perspective. How do these people get these jobs? Do they just go ‘Hey John, that’s for me. Make it happen.’ She’s CEO and on the board of the agency that has a massive conflict with the organisation she’s lobbying for!
We’re going to see lots of voluntary agreements (that never work) and increasing obesity rates, and don’t expect to see any cuts on selling alcohol in supermarket. 5+ per day, because supermarkets can profit from sales of fruit & veg, will go to 7+ and MPs can rattle on about personal responsibility when parents can’t pay for it. School tuck-shops coming to your area courtesy of Progressive Enterprises.
The rumor is vis a vis Paula Benefit and privacy breaches is that Paula coughed a middling sized pile of used twenty’s to the aggrieved,
On the understanding that all and sundry will keep ALL the details strictly private including what is said to be a private withdrawal of the breach of privacy complaint to the Commissioner,
Keep being the operative word here, Benefit gets to keep Her portfolio, the complainant gets to keep her benefit, and, the Commissioner gets to keep being just that,
That is all conjecture and un-proven rumor and i am being naughty for repeating it…
Well, it seems that family wasn’t such an important factor in her stepping aside after all. She was one of the few people in National who actually seemed to have a conscience and didn’t fit with the way that National have gone.
Key’s response is certainly interesting…
He obviously recognises that there is conflict there and yet he’s still putting her in place.
Katherine Rich is completely inappropriate for a position on the HPA board, given the HPA has taken over the functions of ALAC, and she is also the CE of the Food and Grocery Council, representing commercial operations who rely on selling alcohol for their profitability. It astounds me that National did not find someone else; we are not that short of talent in NZ.
“any conflict”? the conflict, more like. And no, it can’t be ‘managed’ away.
Sheesh, often when staying up late working and other things, and it is quiet and still, I hear feel gigantic deep and muffled booms from deep down below and I think again that the Great Earth Monster below Otautahi is turning once more in its recently disturbed slumber, not yet ready to settle into another long 15,000 year stretch of deep sleep …….