Hijinks and hilarity in Epsom yesterday. The Herald reports:
“ Mr Peters told the crowd that he knew one Beijing-based property investor who owned 55 houses in Auckland. “Don’t blame the Chinese. They are renowned for not being stupid. They are renowned for being bright academically. They are renowned for long-term planning. “Don’t blame them, when they see a bunch of fools running the country, saying, ‘Come over here, you can make a fortune’.” ”
So Peters told his audience that they shouldn’t harbour dumb cultural stereotypes and (maybe even racist) attitudes toward the Chinese… they can’t help being subject to greedy instinctual predatory urges… because they’re Chinese!
Meanwhile, Cliff Lyon said Labour had lost touch with their working class roots:
“If you have a look at their supporters they are really gays, lesbians, the unemployed who they throw heaps of money at, and what I might call the loony intelligent left who sit up in Auckland University.”
Someone needs to ask Cliff which year it is now. I want to hear him say 1995. Hmm, let’s see if we can find out who was in the audience of NZ First supporters yesterday by inventing cultural opposites for those “demographics”.
NZ First supporters in Epsom are really Hetero men, spinsters of unproved sexual orientation, people who gift all their income to the taxman, and the stupid unintelligent right who never went to school and now sit in the vacant basements of old office buildings. The place must have been packed out.
Sometimes the ignorant venal malicious stupid goes so far into noise without intended effect that it becomes hilarious. By eclipsing National’s bizarre definition of low-income first home buyers and Labour’s almost honest but cute admission of support for “modest” incomes, NZ First have won the hilarity prize today – they will probably hold it for the rest of the week.
He was saying that some party’s spending plans were not acceptable to NZ First. Susan Wood repeatedly asked him if he was referring to the Greens. As always he would not answer the question but it was clear that is indeed who he was referring to.
If Winston holds the balance of power he will do one of two things.
Go with the Nats.
Go with Labour on the condition the Greens are locked out.
But, hang on BM. I thought that the whole point of voting National (with its huge support) was to ensure that any coalition partners it needed would have little ‘clout’.
But now you say that NZ First would have a lot of ‘clout’. Which is it?
@crocodill…actually I thought Winston Peters was rather good…anyone who has spent any time really travelling in China would agree with him!
ie “ Mr Peters told the crowd that he knew one Beijing-based property investor who owned 55 houses in Auckland. “Don’t blame the Chinese. They are renowned for not being stupid. They are renowned for being bright academically. They are renowned for long-term planning. “Don’t blame them, when they see a bunch of fools running the country, saying, ‘Come over here, you can make a fortune’.” ”
From doorknocking the last few weekends, I can see that the only European men over 45 voting Labour are all on this site. Because there’s fuck-all of them anywhere else.
“If you have a look at their supporters they are really gays, lesbians, the unemployed who they throw heaps of money at, and what I might call the loony intelligent left who sit up in Auckland University.”
Bigoted, ignorant and thinks everyone else is too. Ugh.
our dirty/filthy/polluting dairy-industry is a sunset-industry..
..(and in the long run..for us..and for the planet..this is a good thing..)
..the twofer of a forseeable global-gut in that white-death for the next five years..
..plus the soon-to-be-introduced ‘milk’ made from yeast..(of all things!)..that will taste/be the same..
..be able to do everything milk from cows does..(cheeses..etc..)..
..that does not need to be chilled..and will cost a fraction of the costs of cows-milk to produce/needs no land/dirty-waterways..will be ‘clean’..environmentally..
..but just on price..it will kill the global marketthe/our dirty cow-milk industry..
..it’s gonna be a financial bloodbath..the transition…
..it will be britain joins e.u/stops buying our farm product redux..but worse..)
..(and of all people..james cameron is showing the way forward..with his purchases of big dairy-holdings..and his conversion of them back into farms growing real food..
..i guess that cameron is a vegan is at least a part-driver of that..)
..and the aspect of all this that really concerns me at the moment..
..is how so many iwi are pouring their treaty-settlement monies into what will be/end up a total financial disaster..
no definately NOT….i actually thought Lyon was talking about you!
Peters is a poker player ….but imho he will join a coalition with Labour ….all his policies agree with Labour ….all his criticisms have been directed against National…and he cant stand John key or NACT!
@ PU….nyb… the GREENS will probably get my vote this time …but I am sorely tempted by MANA/INT ….and Winnie is wonderful…and so is David Cunliffe!…so I am happy …i have plenty of choice
…you dont seem happy …..who are you voting for? ….are you a closet NACT?…or just disillusioned Labour?…you attack Labour at every opportunity and Winnie…..the NACTs absolutely hate Peters….this could explain your attitude to him!
“@ allen – It is IMP not mip – not that hard to get the name correct”
You mean like Al1en, not al1en?
But no and somewhat incredulous having to answer such a weak whine, to me it’s always been mip ‘mana internet party’, but if you want to get all arseholey about it, all the better 😉
“maybe the big letters are confusing you.”
You’ll have to remind me why you’re acting butt hurt, again, but if it’s going to be a long list, which it probably might well be, you’re better off saving the poison from your pen for someone willing to play the victim, rather than waste it on me.
You and your utu (the seeking of revenge) 🙄
You’re still raging, yet I shat you out ages ago.
The mirth of it all. 😆
@phillip ure
I think Chooky is assessing Winston’s likely choice of coalition if he gets that far, while you are arguing that he doesn’t deserve to be there because of low integrity and commitment to the people, only to himself. Both are relevant separate points which can’t be argued against each other.
I’d vote for Peters in a contest on fashion style on the catwalk. But in politics his style changes with the wind. Labour would have to do an Alamein Kopu with him, and have a chat with him each morning to gauge his direction for the day.
Voting IMP, Green, Lab means little chance of a wasted vote. They all grow the left bloc.
Winston First is a major chance of a wasted vote if you want not just a change of government but a left as possible one. He is so likely to go with the GodKey.
ACT, Colon, MP and Hairdo are definitely wasted votes in any event and moreso if Epsom, Ohariu and Māori electorate left voters get strategic.
Don’t vote Winston. Let someone else get him to 4.9%.
It’s the delusional rubbish pumped out by National saying that John Key has theistic qualities, that he’s a god. Whereas the truth is he’s a flakey wee rich man liar who’s produced not a thing in his entire life save immense wealth for himself. It’s all part of the dark stuff we see in Dirty Politics.
Don’t overlook the fact that we have it on no less an authority than St. Lloyd Blankfein of that well-known altruistic institution the Church of the Holy Goldman Sachs.
“We’re very important,” Blankfein said in an interview with The Times of London. “We help companies to grow by helping them to raise capital. Companies that grow create wealth. This, in turn, allows people to have jobs that create more growth and more wealth. It’s a virtuous cycle. We have a social purpose.”
St. Blankfein said that he understood, however, that people were angry with bankers’ actions: “I know I could slit my wrists and people would cheer.” But he is, he told The Times, just a banker “doing God’s work.”
Yes well strictly speaking in my view Blankfein is somewhat correct.
The nature of god and all that. A man-made one. He’s also right that most of us would be happy if he slit his wrist. But of course he is completely and utterly wrong about his social purpose (which is to create more wealth for the bankers). But he would lie about that. He’s also putting the cart before the horse when he talks of capital. Which probably means that he’s thick.
Wish I was thick enough to earn US$23 million as Blankfein did last year – and that was a bad year for him.
If he did slit his wrists he’d only be replaced by another parasite (of the genus common shameless money-grubbing pestis), so what would there be to be happy about?
For a complete demolition of Blankfein’s claim to Divine sanction I recommend:
Ha ha. Sorry I don’t use the heads any more, so we will leave it as a gentleman’s bet.
I will vote Green, but it’s tricky as there are elements of Labour and IMP policies that I would prefer. For instance Labour’s using Kiwisaver to control interest rates and exchange rates, and IMP’s focus on poverty.
it is the internet/mana focuses on the seemingly so different/disparate areas of ending poverty and economic-innovation/transition that draw me to them..
..and for those of a progressive bent it must be clear that the better the result for both internet/mana and the greens..
..the more the chances of them being able to demonstrate to labour..
..the mandate for those poverty-ending etc policies..
..and a ‘left’-coalition containing peters..i see more and more as being a trainwreck..
..especially in the area of getting any real progressive polices enacted..
..it will likely just limp along..doing not very much..
..and liable to be thrown out of office after just one term..
And yet I’d argue that the only chance of there actually being a Left Government after this Election is with Winnie’s support. Unfortunate – deeply unfortunate – but true. The Left Bloc just aint gonna make it by itself. And no amount of Pollyanna wishful thinking will change that fact.
I agree, though, that on balance he’s a little more likely to go with Key. But nothing cut and dried as yet.
BG +100 “I think he will go with Labour”….. Winnie worked very well with Helen Clark….and once upon a time he was way to the Left of both Labour and National….Winnie would destroy himself for posterity if he went with the NACTS this time
and that awful time he went with National and we all got so mad at him ( what year ?) ? Turns out, and it’s verified, that Jim Anderton refused to work with him in any coalition deal — Winston had absolutely no option but to turn to National or leave us with no government at all.
this was supposed to a reply to Chooky .. can’t work out what;s happening today and LPrent said he maybe couldn’t fix it from his laptop … Sudoku on The Standard !!
@ yeshe ……no Jim Anderton refused to work with Labour in any coalition deal
( remember Anderton was mad with Rogernomics and Labour…the Alliance was out to destroy Labour , even although his friend Helen Clark was leading Labour at the time?)
…and Winnie had no choice but to go with National because a Labour coalition govt without the Alliance in just didnt have the numbers. ..
Winnie was faced with the option of a new Election being called , where he may have had a backlash, or of going into coalition with National and seeing what he could get out of it…his bottom line was no asset sales
…In the end Winnie (despite choosing to go with National) brought down the National govt over more proposed privitisation of state assets
the NACTS have never for given him….and still want him destroyed …they also succeeded when they conducted a year long vendetta over the funding by Owen Glen
Thx Chooky fr your corrections .. and I can’t see him going to Nats this time … unless it is to pull them asunder from inside.
I trust Winston’s integrity .. many will laugh at that, but I have supported and believed him ( not voted necessarily) since the Winebox. He has always put NZ first, as far as I’m concerned.
Speaking of which .. where has Ms Boag disappeared to in all this ?? I did read one scurrilous line about her in the whaledump, but she was quiet before that .. not been heard or seen since Dirty Politics was published !
and I see the independent candidate in Epsom, Grace Haden, is doing some good private eye work on the money laundering capacities of NZ … the intro is so badly written along with the headline at first I thought she was in trouble. Kudos to her for this.
Here is an analysis from Selwyn Manning on John Key’s credibility and state of play in the NACTIONAL Party:
“A Matter of Whether John Key is Credible’
By Selwyn Manning / August 23, 2014
“In reality, John Key is the last man standing, he speaks directly to the reasonably minded New Zealand voter. From this platform they will be asked to judge for themselves whether their Prime Minister is credible… or not. Game on, or game over, they will be the judge…
This is the problem uncommitted voters such as myself face. I don’t trust either ‘main’ party with a majority in Parliament. “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
I’ve a lot of time for Winnie going right back to the Winebox, and IMHO a Labour or a National Government forced to deal with NZF as a strong coalition partner is probably going to be the most honest Government we could hope for at the present time. I was even considering giving my party vote to NZF on this occasion but unless Peters comes right out and declares that NZF would not go into Government with a National Party still including proven sleaze-balls like Key, Collins, Brownlee et all I can’t risk voting for it.
unless Peters comes right out and declares that NZF would not go into Government with a National Party still including proven sleaze-balls like Key, Collins, Brownlee et all I can’t risk voting for it
I heard on rnz this morning that he wanted to join the Maori Party as they are only party working with Government to benefit Maori. (my paraphrasing). I was quite surprised to hear it as his world view doesn’t align with the Right.
I recall that when the Maori Party have been criticised for being sell outs they have said in their defence that is was “better to be at the table, than on the floor getting the crumbs”, meaning they were willing to compromise their own values in order to progress their agenda. For them it was purely a matter of practicalities. I wonder if this is simply how Tame Iti see’s it too.
The goal of the Maori Party is to create a new aristocratic layer of tribal bearaucrats who will have their “people” under their control through iwi-owned state housing and charter schools.
Apologies if this has already been discussed. No surprises but horrifying all the same, it happens that Patrick Gower is in Slater’s contacts in his phone. (Dirty Politics, Nicky Hager) Is this not a real worry that a “journalist” is happy to compromise his credibility by being connected with such a despicable person?
As we know, (and several Standardista’s have made formal complaints about it) Gower has been on a mission to destroy Cunliffe for a long time. Are tv3 willing puppets for Slater’s agenda? How can the connections and influences be investigated?
Come Rosie you should know by now that Patrick (I make shit up) Gower is a right wing stooge. That became very clear, when he attacked Cunliffe at the Labour Conference about mounting a challenge to Shearer. Hence I take everything he says with a huge pinch of salt.
Exactly David, that’s why he needs to be called out on it – and all the others in the contacts in Slaters phone.
They need to do the decent thing, it’s not too late, and say they will disassociate themselves from him, but they never will because such an admission of association shows them up as having a questionable moral compass all along.
It looks to me as if, for political journalists, Slater has for some time been the prime source of information – I wouldn’t be surprised if most of them have his number. Basically, to get copy you have to be in the information loop, and the inner circle around Slater appear to largely control that loop.
Gower fancies himself as a bit of a master of the universe……SlaterPorn is psychotically into the same notion. Not surprising that they would circle one another warily and trade phone numbers.
David Cunliffe:
Labour believes in a clean, transparent political system. The revelations in Mr Hager’s book raise serious and disturbing questions about how the National Party has been conducting politics. The way to clean up the system is to change the government. Party vote Labour.
On Stuff live chat.
What a rubbish answer. No Royal Commission of Inquiry? No Serious Fraud Office probe?
‘Why the Secret Intelligence Service feeding Cameron Slater information is so very, very, very serious’
By Martyn Bradbury / August 25, 2014
“Folks, it doesn’t matter if you are Right or Left, the issue of the Secret Intelligence Service being forced to feed a far right hate speech merchant like Cameron Slater with sensitive information is an ‘us’ issue…
The SIS are ‘deep State’. We ‘trust’ in them to use the vast powers they have for the protection of NZ. I think we can all see, regardless of how we vote, that getting them to release information to a blogger with the ethical standards of a drug cartel are well outside what is acceptable.
We know that the guidelines for the release of such information from the SIS requires consultation between Key, Ede and Eagleson for several days. The PM has stated in his video answer that he was briefed, he has since claimed that when he said “I was briefed’ he means something completely different, and that when public servants Tucker and Wakem both said he was briefed, they also meant something completely different.
So that’s 3 people saying the same thing but all meaning something completely different, and this is the tissue thin defence being erected to shrug off handing Cameron Slater of all people information sensitive within one of our spy agencies?
This just isn’t fucking good enough. This defence of “when I say me and I, I actually mean some faceless and anonymous ‘office’ where blame and responsibility can’t actually be established” isn’t a defence, it’s a declaration of incompetence that if true simply means all of them, the whole office, needs to go.
The Prime Minister is either incompetent or lying through his front teeth. Neither of which helps explain why someone as toxic as Slater was given access to SIS information.
Using the state spy apparatus to embarrass and smear political opponents is a dark and frighteningly dangerous moment in our political history, it can’t just be shrugged off with ‘my office was briefed’ as an answer.
The Prime Minister is neither incompetent nor lying through his teeth. He is brazenly corrupt and openly challenging us to prove it, confident that we cannot.
Thanks anker. We do have people from outside the electorate leafleting, as it’s in everyone’s interests that Dunne goes! We welcome anyone who can help out in any way 🙂
And yes, baby Eliza is adorbz. It seems Ginny has put a lot of effort into meeting parents and women, very family focused, which is entirely appropriate for such a family orientated area. She would be a huge asset to Ohariu if she were the MP.
Whether or not it is a “rubbish answer” depends upon what follows from a “change in government” that will lead to cleaning up the system.
A prerequisite to the implementation of any processes to ‘clean things up’ may well be a change in government because the present government (a) is compromised and has a conflict of interest in investigating the allegations and (b) the PM has already shown a distinct lack of interest in following any of this up.
I’m reposting this so it gets ‘noticed’. Put it on late last night and have to resurrect it I think. This Nicky Hager event is this Thursday if you are in Auckland and have time.
PUBLIC NOTICE
Nicky Hagar [Hager] – Auckland Public Meeting
A public meeting meeting with Jesson Prize winner Nicky Hagar will be held
Wednesday 27th August, 7.30pm,
at the Mt Eden War Memorial Hall (Cnr Dominion Rd & Balmoral Rd).
Chaired by Sir Edmund Thomas
Hosted by the Human Rights Foundation & Equal Justice Project.
Dotcom denies he’s the hacker behind Dirty Politics, but at the party’s campaign launch today said this.
“I hacked our German credit rating system and put our Prime Minister’s credit rating to zero because I didn’t like the guy,” said Dotcom. “You have all figured by now there’s another Prime Minister I don’t like.”
But he didn’t want to talk about his comments afterwards.
Heres the thing, I’m ok with National in power with anyone (Conservatives last) I’m also ok with Labour in power as long the GIMPs are out so basically Labour/NZFirst in power is ok by me (not my first choice of course but the best of a bad situation)
PR he is just baiting you guys winding you up !
Giving you something to hold onto!
Whaledump is playing with the Corruptors of our democracy letting them think they have got away with their treasonous crime and exposing the lengths these corrupt cronies will go to to usurp democratic processes in our country!
The more Key Collins and Slater Deny the Worse they look!
They were told before hand that KDC wouldn’t be giving interviews so WTF did they go in there pestering for interviews? The whole thing comes across as the MSM looking for a distraction from the IMP campaign launch. Trying hard not to cover the news.
I no longer respect John Key. Not even a bit. And that’s why John Key’s problem is Waikato voters’ dilemma.
National’s election strategy has long depended on Key’s immense popularity. That’s why his face is on every billboard just as big as your local candidate’s. The visual message is compelling. You’re voting for Key, you see. The nice man. The smiler. The good bloke, the one you’d drink a beer with, and all the usual banalities that I’m so sick of and which should be, by now, unmasked as the untruths they’ve always been..
A strong economy the envy of many, crime down, employment up, navigating the country through very trying times and more kiwis coming home from Australia is something many kiwis consider a good thing
The economy is crashing despite what National and their sycophants want to believe, poverty is worse and the reason why people are returning from Australia is because their economy is crashing as well.
If we get a National government after this election then we are going to be well and truly fucked because they really haven’t got a clue as to what to do under such circumstances which means that they’ll fall back on their default position of tax cuts and corruption.
Who says workers are thick, unable to organise and need to be led?
An old IWW cartoon came to mind when reading the link where there are workers gathered outside two doors. One is marked “union” and the other marked “boss”. The question the workers are asking among themselves is “Which one do we negotiate with first?”
And how about this brand new gem! DJ Pups with “At the end of the day”, Guyon Espiners legendary interview with John Key last Monday sampled into a dance track. Ha! Didn’t I say someone needed to do that!
Both songs getting airplay on Radio Active, one of the stations that was sent a warning from the electoral commission about playing Planet Key by Darren Watson.
A COPY OF THE DRAFT LETTER I HAVE WRITTEN TO TVNZ BELOW…………….OTHERS MAY WANT TO DO THE SAME. HO
RE: Mike Hoskings moderating the Leaders Debates.
I wrote to you about this issue on 24 July. To date I have received no response. This is unacceptable.
This needs a bit of editing, but below is my draft letter to TVNZ re Mike Hosking moderating.
Would encourage others to do same
“Mike Hoskings moderating the leaders debates is unacceptable and frankly a disgraceful display of our tax payer funded broadcaster showing unacceptable levels of bias.
You will be aware of the recent disclosures in Nicky Hager’s book, Dirty Politics, clearly illustrating the links between Cameron Slater and the National Party, that goes to the highest level, the Prime Minister in running on-going smears against the past Labour Leader, Phill Goff. Hager also produces strong evidence of Slater being involved in the attempt to smear David Cunliffe over the Dong Liu letter
Mike Hoskings recently hosted an item on 7 Sharpe about Cameron Slater. This item is mentioned in Dirty Politics (refer page 134 – 5). To quote from the book “the item ended with the host Mike Hoskings saying (about Slater) “Love it”. Hosking adds,” I do note he (Slater) quotes from my editorials quite a lot, so clearly a man of taste”. Clearly Mike Hoskings, Cameron Slater and the Prime Minister (who is in contact with Slater regularly, are aligned in their (right wing) political beliefs.
I am requesting that you replace Mr Hoskings as mediator on the Leaders debate, if you havenot already done so given the relevations in Dirty Politics. I suggest someone who appears less biased (possibly Rachel Smalley). Please advise me as soon as you have done this.”
@ anker +100….That is a very good letter.!..i would like to protest and use it too…Kim Hill would be far better than the shallow , NACT biased , Slater friend, ‘fruit and vege reporter’ Mike Hoskings….a choice for political chair which is a disgrace to TVNZ editorial and management! ( there must be a review and cleanout after Labour/Left wins the Election)
Is there any way it could be a petition /form letter ?…(so i just have to sign it and press a button)?
…if not , what is the address to write to ….and I will use your letter as a basis
LPrent …problems ? have tried six or seven times to post re TPPA … will not let me post. It defaults to this #17 and the replies below do not belong to my post which I have deleted and replaced with the test#117 above. Thx !
It happens after a reply is posted to a comment that is deleted. If I give people long edit times and include an ability to delete, then there is a structural issue if they delete as someone is adding.
There is a process that runs about every 20 minutes to clean them up the unparented comments that get left over. Obviously not running at present.
I don’t think that I have the tools to fix this remotely on this laptop. Umm I downloading them.
Pam Corkery popping her cork at the IMP launch deserves a gold star. Sure it wasn’t helpful, but at least it was honest. Good to see she has mellowed with age. Can’t say the same for KDC, though. He gets Worst Timing Ever Award for getting up on stage and admitting to personal hacking vendettas. In the absence of IMP leadership making sure he never speaks publicly again until after the election, they could track down Jamie McDonald, Senior Press Officer (The Crossest Man in Scotland) and have him discuss the basics with him.
. But when I started writing stories on issues which went against Slater’s interests, I became someone he wanted to “smash”. At that point, I was away from the tent and out in the wilderness.
He launched a personal assault with what I believed were threats of violence and created an atmosphere in which I was personally and professionally denigrated. Those who post comments on his website made awful slurs. It is as horrible an online environment as you will find anywhere.
Among the slurs were claims my behaviour showed I was suffering withdrawal symptoms associated with alcohol and drug addiction. On one occasion, when I rang a minister’s spouse for comment on an issue he was involved in, he ranted at me that I was “a drug addict” and would not talk to me. The only place such an idea had been floated was on Slater’s Twitter feed.
In almost two years, he has published about 120 posts in which I am featured. Some are extremely unpleasant. I am called a “shill” in the context of being a corrupt reporter.
Slater has invented nicknames for me. He called me “Gurnard”, then sent me pictures of dead “Gurnard”. He called me “Tainted” in relation to my coverage of the Kim Dotcom affair.
This article by David Fisher is very enlightening and hopefully will appear in the print section of the Herald and not just online. Interesting that Fisher says that John Key kept Slater at arms length until April 2012. Did Key just get careless or had he realised he needed Slater’s support and that would only happen if he fed Slater’s ego with much closer contact?
@ joe90 …that article by David Fisher is REALLY SHOCKING!
…and Slater won the Canon journalist award?…given to Slater by the judge Deborah Cone-Hill?( who was winner for a BNZ creative fiction writing award) …and Slater has the support of the Israeli Embassy (Slater is a “spiritual person”?)…. and Slater was invited to Israel? ( for what?)…and Slater was a good friend of John Key’s ?( see the lovely smiling photos, along with David Farrer’s smiling visage)…and Slater had many friends including Cactus Kate ( who is also a shocker)
David Fisher stands above many journalists. He is fair and evenhanded and reports facts rather than wild Paddy type fantasies. Sent an email to David last week telling him of my respect for his work. (He replied to acknowledge.)
Interesting listening to Michele Vogue attack David Fisher on Radionz this afternoon, Michele and Co won’t be very happy with ‘their paper’ at the moment going with the whaledump scoop etc and basically doing their job, Michele may be a little disappointed at finding her friends are only fair weather ones I guess, get over it Shell it’s only business baby!
Yes, she just couldn’t resist engaging in a bit of dirty politics herself. She’s basically implied Fisher’s involvement in the book on no evidence other than a comment apparently on The Nation to the effect of “as we said in the Hager book”.
I haven’t found the clip but can imagine it may have been a bit of ‘mishearing’ on Boag’s part. Less a Freudian slip from Fisher than a case of hearing what she wanted to hear from Boag. (e.g., perhaps mishearing “as was said in the Hager book”.)
Turned it off as soon as I heard Lady Boag was on the show. Guessed what was coming. It’s part of the panic reaction to [Hager’s] book. We can expect all manner of wild accusations from the “hard right” through to election day.
Btw, interesting that she and Brian Edwards are no longer appearing together on that programme.
Although some of the material has been covered in Dirty Politics, significant chunks refer to matters yet to be reported. Hager concluded a nexus existed between Slater, Graham and Food and Grocery Council chief executive Katherine Rich, that was used to surreptitiously attack opponents of corporate members of the council. New evidence shows:
An email from Slater in January 2014 in which the blogger wrote “December hits coin” and invoiced Facilitate Communication $6555.
A series of emails the same month from Graham to Slater, headed “Hit” and sometimes including “KR,” including draft posts savagely critical of council members’ commercial rivals or political opponents. Shortly afterwards Slater posted articles – nearly identical to Graham’s draft – on Whale Oil.
An unreported email exchange between Graham, Slater and Rich discussing the political leanings of the Generation Zero climate-change lobby group, concluding with Graham saying: “That’s our job. They’re on the target list.”
Countdown,the subject of more than a dozen critical blog postsin the months following the hack, was concerned but guarded when approached for comment. Following a wave of negative publicity earlier this year, the supermarket giant is now the subject of a Commerce Commission investigation into its business practices.
Countdown managing director Dave Chambers said of the hacked emails: “If these claims are correct this is not only disappointing but very disturbing given the subsequent impact on our business.”
(Been trying to post this all day .. apologies in advance if it intrudes somewhere by accident !)
The TPPA is one of the biggest battles we will ever need to win imho. Please take some moments to read this and follow through if you can .. we are literally done for otherwise; we will be 100% owned by US corporates ( well, more than we are now even!) This is the dirtiest of politics.
Laila Harre has committed to the Good Cause as she promised yesterday, saying:
“I tell you that after Sep 20, your work will not stop because everyone in this hall, led by Internet Mana, and with communities around the country, will be launching a campaign on the 21st of Sep to stop the TPPA”
“Join It’s Our Future at the ‘March against the Government” in Auckland, 30 August, 1pm, Aotea Square. Bring your placards and voices to tell the government: No TPPA – No Way!”
TPPA Trans Pacific Partnership is not a free trade agreement.
It is a signing over of part of our sovereignty to large corporations.
We cannot allow this to happen.
I want to hear the Labour party saying that they will not commit to any agreement which includes an investor-state dispute settlement system. ISDS
Read the following- it will make your hair stand on end. http://www.itsourfuture.org.nz/th_gallery/investor-state-dispute-settlement-isds/
ISDS stands for INSIDIOUS!!
on nat-rad there was a discussion about our national anthem..
..and a txtr has suggested ‘anchor me’ at as a new anthem..
..i think that is a great idea..
..if only bcause how cool wd it be to have a national anthem that citizens of other countries wd like to sing/grove along to..?
..instead of the neo-militaristic/pompous bullshit most are..
.and if not ‘anchor me’..(which would be perfectly adequate..)..how about an online ballot to draw up a shortlist of contenders..and then a final vote..?..
..i wd like to nominate the underdogs:..’sitting in the rain’..
..(i know john mayall wrote it..but i’m sure a deal cd be done with him..)
imagine footage of our sports-people/officials etc..at international forums/w.h.y..
..grooving along to what wd be the coolest-national-anthem-in-the-world..
(f.y.i…moderator..i attempted to post this at the end of the thread..it ended up here..)
Just heard that delightful Michele Boag attack David Fisher on the Panel. She said that he was a left wing non journalist who only looked at the faults in the Right wing.
The she made a huge leap. She says that on the Nation David said in relation to Nicky Hager’s book that “We wrote…!” Aha. She reckons David was involved in the writing of the book. “We.”
There was no one to balance her spite. Not Jim. Not Duncan ??
Smear anyone?
I think Michelle claimed David Fisher used the words “What we said in the Hager book…” and then goes onto to infer that because Fisher has written about Dotcom then that means Dotcom is involved in the material in Hager’s book. Crazy stuff.
I haven’t had time to review the Nation interview but my suspicion is that Fisher said “What we see…”
I suspect Boag is trying to blacken David Fisher’s name after his piece today in the Herald today. Hopefully he will take this up with Radio NZ.
Where’s Ms Boag ? She’s on Mora’s panel on RNZ now and the unctuous Mora has made it a benefit for her and the National Party the whole last hour. Including shutting down a guy from Demographia ready to give some solid stuff about the puffery of National’s housing policy. Sickmaking.
Yet the whack jobs insist that generating electricity using nuclear fission is a safe and viable alternative.
.
Three and a half years after the most devastating nuclear accident in a generation, Fukushima Daiichi is still in crisis. Some 6,000 workers, somehow going about their jobs despite the suffocating gear they must wear for hours at a time, struggle to contain the damage. So much radiation still pulses inside the crippled reactor cores that no one has been able to get close enough to survey the full extent of the destruction. Every 2½ days, workers deploy a new giant storage tank to house radioactive water contaminated after passing through the damaged reactors. We wander past a forest of some 1,300 of these tanks, each filled with 1,000 tons of toxic water, some of which was used to cool the reactors.
Six years of mismanagement ….. ‘Rock star no more?’
This is what happens when you don’t have a plan.
‘NZ economy could hit the rocks – economists
Westpac chief economist Dominick Stephens said New Zealand’s recent growth had been fuelled by the Canterbury earthquake rebuild, low interest rates and a surge in net migration, which hit a 10-year high in the year to June.
”When the Canterbury rebuild ends people will be quite surprised by the size of the downturn,” he said.
Stephens said the strong net migration, which has been largely due to fewer New Zealanders moving to Australia and greater numbers returning from across the Tasman, is unlikely to continue at current levels for long.
”Australia will one day make a comeback. We are forecasting zero net migration for 2018. And one day interest rates will get big enough to crush the housing market,” he said.
”My fear is all three of those things will happen at the same time.”’
The NZ Herald asked its readers their views on the Nats housing policy.
Seems like the only people who like it are the Nat MPs and their media puppets…..
Here’s a sample of the most popular comments…
“So, after years of telling us that there is no housing crisis, here comes National at election time telling us how they can fix the ‘problems’ that exist in the housing market.
Their solution is laughable. Making a little more credit available will just increase prices. And besides, the top amount you can get – if you meet all their criteria – is $550K. That gets you two-thirds of sod all in the Auckland housing market.
New ‘starter’ homes at the much-heralded Hobsonville Point development start at $770K.
Why don’t they just promise to do what Labour is promising – to actually build affordable new homes.
This policy is a lot of noise with no promise of real results. Fail.”
“It wont address the issue. It will just push the house prices up, and still be a haven for property speculators. Once again, this government is just tinkering around pretending to do something to address the real issue.”
“It is a typical answer from a market/growth driven Government. This solution is still avoiding the market driven problem of overvaluation that has caused finance collapse all around the world – of course it is good for banks and merchant bankers – another boost to ponzi economics.”
Interesting stuff about Cactus Kate — who sounds about as pleasant an individual as Slater — and her motivation for wanting Hager to feel some serious heat from a few Chinese she knows:
Nah, not brave, simply a man of integrity who refuses to back down to Whaleoil’s threats. Lots of people will stand by him just as they will stand by Hager.
Somewhat surprisingly, it’s Rodney Hide who has supplied by far the best description of Cameron Slater I’ve read so far (and he should know). Hide says Slater is “like a pig in mud”. Damn, that’s spot on.
I think that’s very unkind to pigs. They are quite intelligent and can be trained. One of my friends had a Captain Cooker that he’d raised from a piglet after shooting its mum 🙁 It would do anything most dogs do, except for not being very good at jumping or climbing over things. It guarded his section, often bailing up the poaka at the gate. He went off it a bit after it moved a concrete slab and ate the pound of heads he’d hidden underneath it, but it survived that. In the end it started killing his neighbour’s chooks and he turned it into roast pork 🙁
The latest attack on John Key by a contemporary musician is what he deserves, any one in public office who has been found to have spent the country’s money and time promoting the shite that has turned up in Hager’s book has laid himself open for all that comes his way and he is not entitled to any more legal protection than the rest of us
He, who thinks he can do what hes done over the years he has been in politics in this country deserves to be held up in public by whatever the public feel individually or collectively that is democracy
Cameron Slater was roundly condemned by his hateful comments about a youth being “feral”, and the world was better off him,. “Dirty Politics” reveals Slater’s description of a call you made referring to the dead boy’s mother as being a woman who screamed at you at Pike meetings. You told the public today you rang Slater at this time just to say ‘” recognised her”.
Yeah fucking right. You total bare faced liar! Do you think for one moment ANYONE would believe you rang Slater at this time just to say ‘I know here” that and nothing else.
What sort of PM rings Slater at any time let alone this time. There’s no reason to believe Slater’s reporting of the essence of your call was anything but accurate.
What a deceitful horrid man you are John Key. My god what you must be like behind the bullshit image scares me.
You told the public today you rang Slater at this time just to say ‘” recognised her”.
Does anyone have a link or reference to Key making this statement today?
I’m strongly in agreement with the sentiments above; that this incident alone – regardless of what Key actually said to Slater in that conversation – should be the cause of Key’s resignation at 8:30am tommorrow morning.
He’s previously confirmed the call, including that he told Slater Jo Hall was at Pike meetings. It’s the one issue on which he’s been citing Hager for support from the day after the story broke, because Hager did not agree with Slater’s characterisation of the phone call.
I don’t know why it hasn’t had more attention. He’s abused his position in order to give Slater context about the family who had been attacked on the WO blog.
The next commenter threw me off the thread a little because I’m not living in NZ at the moment and I’m not up to speed with things. But now it’s clear Key did have a conversation with Slater to support and validate what he had done – it’s game over.
Think about it. There is absolutely no context in which Key can have made that call and remain Prime Minister. None.
And yet our media and commentators remain compliant lapdogs, perhaps going so far as to say that it’s “not a great look” but missing the point that Key remaining as PM finally turns NZ into the South Pacific equivalent of a banana republic.
The only thing John Key could have legitimately done over Slater’s actions – was to publicly condemn him and privately insist that his Office, staff and all National Party figures cease all contact with him immediately. Anything less would have been an unacceptable validation and support.
But what Key actually did was phone Slater personally (remarkable in any context) and pass on more details about Slater’s victim.
Is the New Zealand media ALL so compromised that they cannot see what is wrong here?
Before Jacingrant There Was Gracinda: Grant Robertson and his 2014 running mate, Jacinda Ardern. She stood at his side: loyal and obliging, as she had ever been. The media dubbed this duo “Gracinda” – a sort of political “Brangelina”. The other young people who worked alongside Robertson were also ambitious ...
. . Just when you thought Simon Bridges couldn’t sink any lower – he has. After the March 15th Christchurch terror attack, the (current) Leader of the National Party issued strong committments to support urgently needed gun law reform; “We will be ready and prepared to be constructive and to ...
We all know that bad parents simply don’t care about their children’s education. Most truants have loser parents, and grow up to be involved with crime, or in low paid employment usually like their parents. The nonsense so-called “climate strike” coming up will be attended mostly by the least intelligent ...
Is the terrorist Organisation Greenpeace and the loony Green parties around the World hiring professional internet trolls? I have noticed a trend lately where if you post research, news articles or even comments that show the manmade climate change scam to be just that, you are immediately attacked, often within ...
Today is the first day of the global climate strike. Led by schoolkids, people all around the world are going to protest to demand action on climate change. New Zealand isn't doing it till next Friday (join us!), but if you want to get active early, there's plenty to do ...
The Herald has a story today about the 400 MW of wind power currently under construction. Good news, right? Except that none of it is being driven by policy (instead, its about replacing Contact Energy's Taranaki Combined Cycle gas-fired power plant, due to shut down in 2022), and most of ...
To Protect and Serve: When the Prime Minister finds herself enmeshed in the coils of a full-blown political scandal, her colleagues and party comrades have only one priority: to release her as swiftly – and with as little lasting injury – as possible. Is this what Jacinda Ardern’s colleagues and ...
When military leaders cover up and lie to elected civilian authorities, the foundation of democratic civil-military relations is undermined because it is those authorities who are entrusted to hold the military accountable to the public that they mutually serve. But this is only true if civilian political authorities take their ...
The Make It 16 campaign to lower the voting age is launching this afternoon, and they have already announced plans to challenge the law in court:The campaign, named "Make it 16" will launch at Parliament on Friday, with plans to take their case to the High Court, testing the rights ...
by Daphna Whitmore The long years of Netanyahu’s reign are drawing to an end. For years he has epitomized reactionary zionism as he oversaw hundreds of thousands of Jewish settlers seize land in the West Bank. There are now 700,000 settlers, putting an end to the myth that Israel was ...
BP, Z and Mobil all insist that petrol price hikes are temporary, “in a very literal sense.” The nation’s major petrol providers are trying to allay customer fears over prices, promising that they’ll move to lower them again “immediately” when the Middle East is returned to its formerly peaceful state. ...
South African coach Rassie Erasmus says he has no idea what they’re going to do about the boat. In a highly anticipated press conference this afternoon, All Blacks coach Steve Hansen has finally unveiled the team’s boat for its Rugby World Cup 2019 campaign. In a press conference that went ...
The Operation Burnham inquiry continued to question senior NZDF staff today, and their shoddy coverup over their knowledge of civilian casualties continue to fall apart. If you recall, first, we were asked to believe that it was all a series of "mistakes and errors": a senior officer with multiple degrees ...
The Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 2) had part of its committee stage yesterday. its a generally tedious bill about the nitty-gritty of local government reorganisation. But it includes a clause making the Local Government Commission subject to the Ombudsmen Act, and hence the OIA. Great! Except of ...
Yesterday Ihumātao's mana whenua reached a consensus that they would like their land back, and asked the government to negotiate with Fletcher's for its return. The government's response? Try and undermine that consensus, while talking about how doing anything would undermine existing Treaty settlements. The first is just more bad ...
Its Suffrage Day, the 126th anniversary of women winning the right to vote (but not stand in elections) in New Zealand. And to celebrate, the government has bought Kate Sheppard's house in Christchurch:The government has bought Kate Sheppard's former home in Christchurch for more than $4 million. The Ilam villa ...
The UN climate summit is happening in new York next week, and unlike previous years, coal-burners and denier-states are not being invited to speak:Leading economies such as Japan and Australia will not be invited to speak at next week’s crunch UN climate change summit, as their continued support for coal ...
Get Back Jojo! The elation in Mayor Phil Goff’s camp may be easily imagined as they watched social media light up in indignation at challenger John Tamihere’s "Sieg Heil to that" quip. Just when JT’s notoriously right-wing, sexist and homophobic stains were beginning to fade back into his ‘colourful’ past, ...
Patrick Gower is good value when he's high. Not that I've ever, you know, got stoned with him. But in the second part of his documentary Patrick Gower on Weed, he does what you'd expect in a modern weed documentary and immerses himself – first with a doctor, then a ...
We surveyed candidates on their attitudes to issues facing the Western Bay Region, find out what they think: “Closing the Gap” Tauranga, one of the area groups of Income Equality Aotearoa NZ Inc., has surveyed all candidates in the three local body elections to discover attitudes to some basic issues ...
Please spread widely, and sign, to support science and rationalism over the new irrationalism sweeping universities and institutions. PROJECT NETTIE Sexual reproduction, the generation of offspring by fusion of genetic material from two different individuals, evolved over 1 billion years ago. It is the reproductive strategy of all higher animals ...
Just when I was thinking that Palmerston North's mayoral race (which includes a convicted child molester / public wanker and a convicted child beater) was the worst in the country, Auckland mayoral candidate John Tamihere opened his mouth:Auckland mayoral candidate John Tamihere is being slammed for using the words "sieg ...
We reprint below an article from the excellent website the Economics of Imperialism by Tony Norfield This is an update of the statistics for my Index of Power, using data for 2018-19 and discussing what a country’s ranking reflects. The major change is that China’s rank has shifted up and ...
The All Blacks have been, for more than a century, arguably the most successful International sports team in the world. But they are more than that; even for those Kiwis who are immune to the charms of rugby (and there are more than a few), the All Blacks are ambassadors ...
Alone, Alone, All, All, Alone: To argue that the Prime Minister is the victim of her advisers’ failure to keep her informed may offer Jacinda some measure of exoneration – but only at the cost of casting her as a hopeless political ingénue. A star-dusted muppet, whose only purpose is to ...
In times of hysteria about the “World coming to an end” and “rising sea levels” so-called ‘Journalists’ who can barely spell words longer than four letters are having a ball! Though the majority of the Public have worked out that manmade climate change is nothing short of pseudo-science, and the ...
I don't want to give pblicity to certain parts of the internet that are better left to fester in their own irrelevance (I know, a bit like this place) but the listing of Chris Trotter as a 'author' on Cameron Slater's spinoff website, the BFD requires some explanation.Now, I don't ...
The text below is a Twitter thread by Heather Heying that explains the essence of sexual reproduction and it long evolutionary history. She is an evolutionary biologist and a “professor-in-exile” after she and her husband, Bret Weinstein, stood up to supporters of an enforced “Day of Absence” for white staff and teachers ...
With crunch time for new Zealand climate policy approaching, most of the New Zealand media have got on board with a global reporting effort to cover the issue. There's one strand of stories today about polling and what it shows about changing public attitudes to the crisis, but the strand ...
Dangerous Foes: For those readers of Bowalley Road who feel disposed to dismiss any prospect of an Israeli destabilisation of New Zealand politics, the example of the United Kingdom repays close attention. Ever since the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the British Labour Party, the Israelis have sanctioned, funded and ...
Make It 16, the youth-led campaign to lower New Zealand's voting age, is holding an official campaign launch at Parliament this Friday from 16:30. If you'd like to attend, you can register using EventBrite here. ...
by Don Franks It was a lovely sunny Wellington afternoon with blue skies above the beaches. In Courtenay Place, political activists packed out a stuffy upstairs room for an important meeting. The assembled pacifists, anarchists, communists and independent young radicals of Peace Action Wellington felt the need for a mission ...
Current and former NZDF top brass are being publicly grilled this week by the hit and run inquiry over their public responses to allegations of civilian casualties. Previously, they've claimed there were no casualties, a position which led them to lie to Ministers and to the public. Now, they're saying ...
by Rafael D. Quiles (gender-critical gay man from Puerto Rico) The writing on the wall is right in people’s faces and people just don’t see it or don’t want to. What could actually possess a heterosexual male to want to feminize himself and claim that he is a lesbian? Because ...
From the Wall Street Journal:Inside a room of the ornately decorated Hotel du Palais during last month’s Group of Seven summit in Biarritz, France, President Trump awaited a meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi. Mr. Trump looked over a gathering of American and Egyptian officials and called out in ...
by the Redline blog collective At Redline we are very saddened to hear of the death of Magdalen Burns who passed away on the morning of Friday, September 13 (British time). Magdalen was a great fighter for the rights of women in general and lesbian women in particular, a defender ...
The Brexit issue has certainly brought with it a series of apparently difficult constitutional issues, many of them concerning the respective roles of the executive and parliament. Most of them arise because of the unwillingness of MPs, despite their professions to the contrary, to be bound by a constitutional rarity ...
. . This blogpost is different to my usual format of reporting on issues… Since July 1011, I have blogged on a variety of political issues; near always political and/or environmental; mostly highly critical of the previous National Government. Other issues included Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands and repression of ...
Those close to the Police Minister believe the initiative may be the result of Nash “seeing a great deal” on AliExpress. In a move that comes seemingly out of nowhere, Police Minister Stuart Nash announced this afternoon that he expects all frontline staff to don bearskin hats, famously worn by ...
The government has released its Arms Legislation Bill, containing the second tranche of changes to gun laws following the March 15 massacre. And it all looks quite sensible: a national gun register, higher penalties for illegal possession and dealing, tighter restrictions on arms dealers and shooting clubs, and a shorter ...
Private prisons are a stain on humanity. Prison operators explicitly profit from human misery, then lobby for longer prisons terms so they can keep on profiting. And in the US, prison companies run not only local and state prisons, but also Donald Trump's immigration concentration camps. Faced with this moral ...
When National was in power, they were very keen on Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) - basicly, using private companies to finance public infrastructure as a way of hiding debt from the public. They were keen on using them for everything - roads, schools, hospitals. But as the UK shows, that "service" ...
Moving And Shaking: There was a time when people spoke matter-of-factly about the “labour movement” – a political phenomenon understood to embrace much more than the Labour Party. Included within the term’s definition was the whole trade union movement – many of whose members looked upon the Labour Party as ...
by Philip Ferguson Much of the left, even people who formally identify as marxists, have collapsed politically in the face of postmodern gender theory of the sort pioneered by American philosopher Judith Butler. For Butler even biological sex is socially constructed. “If the immutable character of sex is contested, perhaps ...
The media is reporting that the (alleged) Labour party sexual assaulter has resigned from their job at Parliament, which means hopefully he won't be turning up there making people feel unsafe in future. Good. But as with everything about this scandal, it just raises other questions. Most significantly: why the ...
By Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern I am every bit as angry as you are. I am every bit as disappointed as you must be. The people with power, oversight and the ability to do something about these processes within the Labour Party should be ashamed. Whoever those people are, I ...
Property developers think there is an "oversupply" of houses in Auckland:High turnover rates and falling prices may be a sign that there are too many new houses going in to some parts of Auckland, commentators say. [...] Property developer David Whitburn said there was a "bit of an oversupply" in ...
Labour Party president Nigel Haworth resigned yesterday over the party's sexual assault scandal. But while that's good news, its unlikely to take away the stench of a coverup. Because according to Paula Bennett in Parliament yesterday, pretty much everyone in the Prime Minister's office was involved as well:I have been ...
Two-Faced? Labour insiders' commitment to the neoliberal status quo puts them at odds with their party’s membership; its trade union affiliates; and a majority of Labour voters, but this only serves to strengthen the perception they have of themselves as a special elite. Among the lesser breeds, they’ll talk up a ...
There has been a lot of talk about Boris Johnson wanting an election, and he has blustered with great gusto about 'chicken' Jeremy Corbyn refusing one, but I think there are many reasons why he is secretly glad he has been refused the opportunity:The Tories are an utter rabble,tearing themselves ...
Scottish appeal court judges have declared that Boris Johnson’s decision to suspend parliament in the run-up to the October Brexit deadline is unlawful. The three judges, chaired by Lord Carloway, Scotland’s most senior judge, overturned an earlier ruling that the courts did not have the powers to interfere in the prime ...
By Simon Bridges. The following is a press release from the office of Simon Bridges, leader of The National Party. Key ora, New Zealand. Happy Maori Language Week. Look, I’m writing to you today because I want to clear something up. There’s been a lot of kerfuffle around some things ...
I understand there's some stuff going round about how the SIS "was removed from the list of public offices covered by the Public Records Act in 2017". The context of course being their records derived from US torture, which will be disposed of or sealed. The good news is that ...
Dr. Christopher Labos and Jonathan Jarry discuss the recent Canadian fluoride/IQ research. They provide an expert analysis of the paper and its problems. Click on image to go to podcast. The critical debate about the recent ...
Australia is burning down again, and meanwhile its natural disaster minister is denying climate change:Australia’s minister responsible for drought and natural disasters, David Littleproud, has said that he doesn’t “know if climate change is manmade”. Clarifying earlier comments that the question is “irrelevant” when considering the Coalition government’s response to ...
Auckland Philippines Solidarity is excited to host Professor Judy Taguiwalo for a speaking tour of NZ in September. She is a well-known activist in the Philippines and was a political prisoner under the Marcos dictatorship. Professor Taguiwalo briefly served as a Cabinet member under President Duterte but was forced from ...
This open letter to the Green Party was penned after an opinion piece by Jill Abigail, a feminist and founding member of the party, was censored by the Greens’ leadership. (Redline has reprinted her article here).The intolerance of the Green Party leaders and their acceptance of the misogyny of gender ...
Today is a Member's day, and David Seymour's End of Life Choice Bill continues its slow crawl through its committee stage. They're spending the whole day on it today, though the first hour is likely to be spent on voting left over from last time. After that they'll move on ...
An ambitious plan to fly to Los Angeles petered out into a brief sight-seeing trip and a desire to return home and get some sleep before work tomorrow. Air New Zealand has confirmed a flight to Los Angeles last night was turned back about a quarter of the way into ...
There appears to be consensus – by omission – that the concept of indigenous futures should be accepted at face value. So I scavenged the internet to see if I could locate an academic descriptor or a framework around how we think about it as a concept, and whether it ...
Here’s another novelty chocolate to shove in your gob, New Zealand Cadbury could be seeking to make itself great again with a rumoured new release: Pineapple Trumps, a spin on its classic chocolate-encased pineapple treat and do-it-yourself tooth remover. The global confectionery manufacturer and bumbling “before” character in an infomercial, ...
During my time in the Pentagon I had the privilege of sitting down with military leaders and defence and security officials from a variety of Latin American nations. Sometimes I was present as a subordinate assistant to a senior US defence department official, sometimes as part of a delegation that ...
Kia ora, Aotearoa. It’s that magical time of year. Te Wiki o te Reo Māori. In English, the week that frightens talk radio. As you probably know by now, all your favourite media outlets are participating, some more successfully than others. Stuff has changed its name to Puna for the ...
Eighteen months ago, the government promised to strengthen the Bill of Rights Act, by explicitly affirming the power of the courts to issue declarations of inconsistency and requiring Parliament to formally respond to them. So how's that going? I was curious, so I asked for all advice about the proposal. ...
As the Brexit saga staggers on, the focus is naturally enough on the Prime Minister and his attempts to achieve Brexit “do or die”. But the role played by the Leader of the Opposition is of almost equal interest and complexity. The first problem for Jeremy Corbyn is that he ...
Last week, English Prime Minister Boris Johnson boldly declared that he would rather die be dead in a ditch than delay Brexit. Unfortunately for him, the UK parliament accepted the challenge, and promptly dug one for him. The "rebellion bill" requires him to ask for and secure yet another temporary ...
It has been two years since Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern called climate change her generation's nuclear free moment. And on Monday, against a backdrop of global climate protest, she will give the opening speech at the United Nation's climate ...
Finance Minister Grant Robertson is under intense scrutiny. New figures show economic growth has slowed to levels not seen for six years. And he has chosen not to answer questions about when he heard about serious allegations of a sexual assault cover-up ...
NZDF Attends Commemorations to Mark International Mission in East Timor A New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) contingent participated today in the 20th anniversary commemorations of the International Force East Timor (INTERFET) mission in Dili. The commemoration ...
They’ve only been up and running for a few months, but a New Zealand not-for-profit has already made a big impact on period poverty in New Zealand. ...
The allocation of money for publicly funded broadcasting for election campaigns should be turned on it's head according to Massey University professor of communication design Claire Robinson. ...
Disappointment expressed by Fletcher Building CEO, Ross Taylor, reflects the increasing frustration held by many with this Government’s failure to protect private property rights.[1] ...
The independent Interim Climate Change Committee today launched an eight-week, nationwide call for evidence on options available to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. ...
Social Credit has lodged a complaint with the Ombudsman over the way the Overseas Investment Office is handling its official information request for disclosure of documents on the sale of Westland Milk Products to Chinese company Inner Mongolian ...
This Friday in Solidarity with the Global Climate Strike All of the SodaStream’s e-commerce platforms and head office operations will be closed to kick-off the week-long event, and employees will march the #CLIMATESTRIKE in Auckland on 27 September. ...
Federated Farmers congratulates the Auditor-General’s office on its release today of its report Managing Freshwater Quality: Challenges and Opportunities. ...
Growth has now slowed to a 6-year low, and downside risks are dominating. June quarter GDP growth came in at 0.5%qoq, in line with our expectation, and slightly above consensus. Although there were a few sensational reports of the chance of a negative print. ...
Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) is calling the release of the National Climate Change Risk Assessment (NCCRA) framework a good first step in balancing New Zealand’s response to climate change. ...
Family First NZ says that a new Colorado report compiled by the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area finds marijuana-positive traffic fatalities, hospitalisations, marijuana use, and illegal market activity have exploded since marijuana legalization. ...
This year’s Ratepayers’ Report , local government league tables released yesterday, reveals which local councils owe the most and which owe the least. ...
Rachel MacGregor welcomes the decision released today by Justice Hinton. The key issue on which all the various litigation has been based is the question, did Colin Craig sexually harass Rachel. That question has been answered – he did. Justice ...
The Rail and Maritime Transport Union (RMTU) has today ratified a ground breaking pay deal with Dunedin Railways which will see all union members being paid a living wage and the lowest paid receiving an 18% wage increase. Higher paid RMTU members ...
Inclusion for trans women/men and non-binary peoples has today been announced as the cornerstone of a new resolution for the National Council of Women New Zealand (NCWNZ). ...
It took a testy Morning Report interview this week to remind me that Simon Bridges was still the Leader of the Opposition. Until then, he had been largely invisible as the events of recent weeks unfolded. ...
The National Council of Women NZ has today welcomed the news that the Government has purchased Kate Sheppard’s house in Christchurch, the base for the NZ suffrage campaign. ...
The Māori Party supports mana whenua of Ihumātao and acknowledges their coming together to reach consensus on the future of their whenua. “We also acknowledge the leadership of the Kīngitanga who have played an important role in supporting ...
The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union is questioning why, for the second time, Jacinda Ardern has appointed a Crown-owned company Chief Executive to Chair her “Business Advisory Council”, following her announcement that Mercury CEO Fraser Whineray ...
Responding to the Government’s decision to give around $300 million to Amazon as a sweetener for filming a TV series in New Zealand, New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke says: “As a matter of simple waste, this is striking, ...
I am very pleased with Air New Zealand’s Decision to backdown and withdraw their application to trademark into a logo Kia Ora. I said at the time that it was an ill conceived idea and poorly thought out – more importantly it should never have been ...
NZEI Te Riu Roa members will be joining with others across the union movement by wearing black and white in support of pay equity on Suffrage Day tomorrow, and urging the Government to commit to a settlement for teacher aides this year. ...
Yesterday’s announcement from the Minister for Immigration, to improve temporary work visas for migrant workers, provides some positive changes but more detail is needed. The Council of Trade Unions fundamentally supports the principle of making ...
FIRST Union today welcomed Westpac’s public admission of the significant gender pay gap in its workforce and reiterated its call for employers to work with unions to close this disparity, arguing that this work must begin at the bottom of the pay ...
Changes to the work visa system announced by the Minister of Immigration are not all positive for employers or migrants, comments Ms June Ranson, chair of the New Zealand Association for Migration and Investment (NZAMI) , a leading voice in the ...
The Dairy Workers Union (DWU) has welcomed the announcement from dairy company, Synlait, that they will be boosting parental leave entitlements significantly for working parents. ...
In June, the Children’s Commissioner announced a thematic review into Oranga Tamariki’s policies, processes and practice relating to care and protection issues for tamariki Māori aged 0-3 months. Today the Children’s Commissioner has released the full ...
“Closing the Gap” Tauranga, one of the area groups of Income Equality Aotearoa NZ Inc., has surveyed all candidates in the three local body elections to discover attitudes to some basic issues of the Western Bay region. We believe that this is ...
In response to DairyNZ's attempt to dismiss an economic report that highlighted dairy's role in the New Zealand economy is only three per cent of GDP, Fish & Game New Zealand Chief Executive Martin Taylor says: "If DairyNZ wishes to reject a report ...
Kiingi Tuuheitia Pootatau Te Wherowhero VII has successfully guided the mana whenua of lhumaatao to reach a consensus on the future of their whenua. ...
Two activists disguised as shareholders interrupted the AGM of a gold mining company in central Auckland this morning to inform shareholders their plans to mine for gold in conservation estate in the Karangahake Gorge were unwelcome. ...
The Capital and Coast District Health Board (CCDHB) has been labelled ‘NATO’ (no action, talk only) when it comes to child mental health, with just 0.6 full time staff (24 hours per week) for inpatient child psychology and just 0.8 full time staff ...
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL has awarded three New Zealand climate youth groups with its Ambassador of Conscience award, its highest recognition for human rights work, previously given to the likes of Nelson Mandela, Ai Weiwei and Malala Yousafzai. ...
The New Zealand Taxpayers' Union , in partnership with the Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance , has today published this year's Ratepayers' Report – online local government league tables – at www.ratepayersreport.nz . ...
NZUS Council executive director Jordan Small welcomes the news New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will meet with US President Donald Trump in New York next week. ...
The recent NZIER report trivialises the significant role the dairy sector plays in New Zealand’s economy – and fails to look at the specifics of the Government’s freshwater package, according to DairyNZ. DairyNZ chief executive Dr Tim Mackle said ...
This week, the New Zealand Parliament and the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) will jointly host a seminar on tackling the global spread of illicit weapons. ...
By Michael Andrew Social media and tech industries have been replicating the ugliest aspects of capitalism from the 1800s, according to an AUT computer science lecturer. Associate Professor Tony Clear says that social media and tech executives are taking advantage of unregulated markets in a similar way as wealthy ...
Covering Climate Now: There’s a range of dairy-free ice creams available these days, but it’s a fair bet none will be as delicious – or satisfying – as making your own. The Spinoff’s participation in Covering Climate Now is made possible thanks to Spinoff Members. Join us here!If the latest stats ...
Covering Climate Action: Ahead of the UN’s Climate Action Summit, artist Joseph Michael and composer Rhian Sheehan teamed up to create Voices For The Future, a 30-minute installation projected onto the UN buildings.The Spinoff’s participation in Covering Climate Now is made possible thanks to Spinoff Members. Join us here!Joseph Michael is ...
New Zealand banning Huawei’s 5G network equipment won’t impact you nearly as much as the US’s recent moves against Huawei phones, writes Henry Burrell. Twenty years ago, you would have shown off your flash new Ericsson or Nokia. How times change. Now, those two entities exist only to provide mobile network ...
Op-Ed by Kaveh Zahedi, Deputy Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)Kaveh Zahedi is Deputy Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).In less than ten days world leaders will be ...
Grant McDougall reviews Kilgour’s new solo album, Bobbie’s A Girl, which sees him reflecting on the deaths of his friend and former bandmate, Peter Gutteridge and his own mother, Helen Kilgour. There is a passage in Shayne Carter’s excellent recent autobiography, Dead People I Have Known, in which he describes ...
New Zealand painter-poet Gregory O’Brien has just published a new collection of essays and art; pitched as a “field notebook … my whale survey”, Always Song in the Water drifts from his own front lawn in Hataitai, up to Northland and way, way across the Pacific. It’s the sort of ...
Ruby Porterlooks into New Zealand’s future when the sea level rises 10, 25 and 80 metres, and finds out how much of Auckland will be left.I grew up in Ponsonby, but the only bay I knew around here was Cox’s. It’s fed by a creek which was once a mahinga ...
Opening up a skid pad, create more housing for single people and make the central city dog friendly: policies from Christchurch's lesser-known mayoral candidates. ...
Josie Adams, Hayden Donnell, and Alice Webb-Liddall read thousands of policy statements to find the climate change deniers, fudgers, prevaricators (and believers) running in our local elections.The Spinoff local election coverage is made possible thanks to The SpinoffMembers. For more about becoming a member and supporting The Spinoff’s journalism click here.One of the problems ...
The paintings of Colin McCahon convey dissonance and uncertainty, writes Shannon Te Ao. So what does this say about us? And why are we maintaining this Pākehā male narrative at the expense of more inclusive representation?Colin McCahon would have turned 100 on August the 1st. If you keep one eye ...
Amanda Thompson spends a day with the New Zealand men’s roller derby squad as they prepare for next year’s world champs in the US.Let’s play a word game. Let’s list some contact sports and the top teams in those codes.Say rugby. Are you thinking about the All Blacks yet? What ...
Covering Climate Now:Dietary Requirements is The Spinoff’s monthly podcast in which we eat, drink and talk about it too, with special thanks to Freedom Farms. This month, we go crazy for crickets in a climate week special.The Spinoff’s participation in Covering Climate Now is made possible thanks to Spinoff Members. ...
To mark International Day of Peace, Dr Rebecca Dudley of the New Zealand Red Cross explores the role that New Zealanders play in the global story of war and peace. Personal stories about war almost always begin with a memory.A humid afternoon in South Sudan.A calm Wednesday evening in Beirut.A bustling ...
The history of tattoo art in Japan is deep-rooted and complex – and so is the cultural aversion to tattooed bodies, explains Brian Ashcraft, the author of a book on subject.Tonight, when the All Blacks take the field, they’ll be covering up. In order not to run afoul of Japanese ...
Covering Climate Now: Saying climate change is important is one thing. So why are we so incapable of having a real conversation about what actually addressing it will mean? Sam McGlennon investigates. The Spinoff’s participation in Covering Climate Now is made possible thanks to Spinoff Members. Join us here!Up until a week ago, ...
"This is what Wellington boy said, after he finished his quick and bloody deed. You know what your problem is? Once a slut, always a slut": a short story by Auckland writer Eileen Merriman. ...
Michael Mann, a climatologist and famous press critic, talks to the Columbia Journalism Review about the dangers of both understating and overstating the dangers of climate change. ...
Ahead of the All Blacks first game Trevor McKewen makes some his fanciful, fraught and some hopefully on-point predictions for the Rugby World Cup.Can you take one for the team? Could you cope with the All Blacks coming up short in achieving an unprecedented third straight World Cup if it ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra [embedded content]University of Canberra Deputy Vice-Chancellor Leigh Sullivan discusses Scott Morrison’s new family law inquiry with Michelle Grattan. They also speak of the developments in the Tamil family from Biloela’s case, and the UN barring ...
Analysis - Jacinda Ardern heads for the UN as the sexual assault scandal rumbles on at home, and Simon Bridges says he isn't going to ease off his personal attacks on the PM. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dries Verstraete, Senior Lecturer in Aerospace Design and Propulsion, University of Sydney CC BY-NDClimate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.If you have a question you’d ...
In this episode of our new tarot reading show Wild Card, The Spinoff’s resident psychic divines the outcome of the All Blacks’ opening match against the Springboks on Saturday.In the first and potentially only episode of Wild Card, we have a focus on sport. The Spinoff’s psychic-in-residence, Jo Sees, specialises ...
Recently-retired Sky TV chief executive John Fellet talks to Newsroom business editor Nikki Mandow about baseball, media, goldfish, accountancy - and more baseball. ...
The Real Pod assembles to dissect the week in reality television and real life, with special thanks to Nando’s.With Duncan enjoying a MAFS-style beach holiday in Bali, Alex and Jane are left to cover another crazy week in reality television. Shannon Ryan has gone full beast-mode in Celebrity Treasure Island, Married ...
Dr Bryce Edwards“Diversity” is a central theme of the current local government elections – with the common criticism that incumbent politicians are generally too “stale, male, and pale” (or variations on that). Numerous commentators and candidates have lamented the lack of women, ethnic minorities, and youth in local government. ...
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.Today’s content by Dr Bryce Edwards.Climate change, environment Paul Gorman (Stuff): How would you spend an unlimited war chest for ...
A review into the Ministry for Culture and Heritage will look into the relationship between a staffer and the external developer responsible for a massive data breach. ...
Covering Climate Now: The Spinoff crew who took on climate change with a vegan diet for the week reflect on the highs, the lows, the pies and the fries. The Spinoff’s participation in Covering Climate Now is made possible thanks to Spinoff Members. Join us here!As I write, I’m tucking into ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Roger Crisp, Professorial Fellow, Dianoia Institute of Philosophy, Australian Catholic University As world chiefs and youth leaders gather in New York at the United Nations Climate Action Summit, many of us as individuals are feeling powerless and overwhelmed. Making big personal changes ...
The head of one of the country's biggest news media firms is the latest subject of criticism for darkening his face at a staff party he attended dressed as US basketballer Lamar Odom. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Coral Gartner, Associate Professor, School of Public Health, The University of Queensland Health authorities in the United States are investigating 530 cases of lung illness, including seven deaths, reportedly connected to vaping. Some of these patients have been diagnosed with lung inflammation ...
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 The Testaments by Margaret Atwood (Chatto & Windus, $48)Obvs. (Read our review by Pip Adam here)2 Three ...
When comedy documentary Funny As was made, a lot of interviews got left on the cutting room floor which NZ On Screen quickly picked up. Here are some of our favourites.We’re a pretty funny bunch us Kiwis. Trapped on a tiny island at the end of the earth it appears ...
Auckland rapper JessB has just released a new EP and wraps up a national mini-tour tonight in her home town. Jogai Bhatt talked to her about her world travels, performing at Ihumātao, and how her community and her music intersect.It’s only been two years since JessB entered the public radar ...
A new poem by Waiheke poet Rata Gordon.PacingA deep bow to NerudaIt so happens I am sick of being a woman. It happens that I walk into BP stations and supermarkets greasy, swollen, like a cow made of soap, losing my way in a field of placentas and pesticides.The smell ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amanda Gardiner, Lecturer, Edith Cowan University In August, a 24-year-old woman appeared before the Western Australian District Court after pleading guilty to concealing the birth of her newborn baby in 2018. The charge of concealment of birth refers to hiding the dead ...
Voting papers are being sent out today, and lots of people say they won’t fill them out because they don’t know anything about the candidates. Respected website ‘The Spinoff’ is trying to fix that through its Policy Local tool. But it’s not the only one. Catherine Jeffcoat talks to the ...
This week's biggest-selling New Zealand books, as recorded by the Nielsen BookScan New Zealand bestseller list and described by literary editor Steve Braunias ...
Writer and cannabis legalisation expert Russell Brown watched episode two of Patrick Gower on Weed, and found it highly entertaining but dangerously light on facts. Patrick Gower is good value when he’s high. In the second part of his documentary Patrick Gower on Weed, he does what you’d expect in a ...
Sydney shock-jock Alan Jones has written to Jacinda Ardern saying he didn't intend any violence towards her when he said on air that Australia's Prime Minister should "shove a sock down [her] throat". ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Caio Seguin, PhD candidate, University of Melbourne Brain regions exchange information by sending and receiving signals through a network of nerve connections. This exchange is crucial to all aspects of the brain’s functioning, including how we experience the world, form and retrieve ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Miranda Kaye, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law, University of Technology Sydney Over the next 12 months, a joint parliamentary committee will examine Australia’s family law system. It will be led by conservative Liberal MP Kevin Andrews and One Nation leader Pauline Hanson. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Barbara Allen, Senior Lecturer in Public Management, Victoria University of Wellington This story is part of Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of more than 250 news outlets to strengthen coverage of the climate story. For three years in a row, the ...
Open mike 25/08/2014 
Open mike is your post.
Before Jacingrant There Was Gracinda: Grant Robertson and his 2014 running mate, Jacinda Ardern. She stood at his side: loyal and obliging, as she had ever been. The media dubbed this duo “Gracinda” – a sort of political “Brangelina”. The other young people who worked alongside Robertson were also ambitious ...3 hours ago
. . Just when you thought Simon Bridges couldn’t sink any lower – he has. After the March 15th Christchurch terror attack, the (current) Leader of the National Party issued strong committments to support urgently needed gun law reform; “We will be ready and prepared to be constructive and to ...1 day ago
We all know that bad parents simply don’t care about their children’s education. Most truants have loser parents, and grow up to be involved with crime, or in low paid employment usually like their parents. The nonsense so-called “climate strike” coming up will be attended mostly by the least intelligent ...2 days ago
Today is the first day of the global climate strike. Led by schoolkids, people all around the world are going to protest to demand action on climate change. New Zealand isn't doing it till next Friday (join us!), but if you want to get active early, there's plenty to do ...2 days ago
To Protect and Serve: When the Prime Minister finds herself enmeshed in the coils of a full-blown political scandal, her colleagues and party comrades have only one priority: to release her as swiftly – and with as little lasting injury – as possible. Is this what Jacinda Ardern’s colleagues and ...2 days ago
When military leaders cover up and lie to elected civilian authorities, the foundation of democratic civil-military relations is undermined because it is those authorities who are entrusted to hold the military accountable to the public that they mutually serve. But this is only true if civilian political authorities take their ...2 days ago
by Daphna Whitmore The long years of Netanyahu’s reign are drawing to an end. For years he has epitomized reactionary zionism as he oversaw hundreds of thousands of Jewish settlers seize land in the West Bank. There are now 700,000 settlers, putting an end to the myth that Israel was ...2 days ago
BP, Z and Mobil all insist that petrol price hikes are temporary, “in a very literal sense.” The nation’s major petrol providers are trying to allay customer fears over prices, promising that they’ll move to lower them again “immediately” when the Middle East is returned to its formerly peaceful state. ...3 days ago
South African coach Rassie Erasmus says he has no idea what they’re going to do about the boat. In a highly anticipated press conference this afternoon, All Blacks coach Steve Hansen has finally unveiled the team’s boat for its Rugby World Cup 2019 campaign. In a press conference that went ...3 days ago
Get Back Jojo! The elation in Mayor Phil Goff’s camp may be easily imagined as they watched social media light up in indignation at challenger John Tamihere’s "Sieg Heil to that" quip. Just when JT’s notoriously right-wing, sexist and homophobic stains were beginning to fade back into his ‘colourful’ past, ...3 days ago
Patrick Gower is good value when he's high. Not that I've ever, you know, got stoned with him. But in the second part of his documentary Patrick Gower on Weed, he does what you'd expect in a modern weed documentary and immerses himself – first with a doctor, then a ...4 days ago
We surveyed candidates on their attitudes to issues facing the Western Bay Region, find out what they think: “Closing the Gap” Tauranga, one of the area groups of Income Equality Aotearoa NZ Inc., has surveyed all candidates in the three local body elections to discover attitudes to some basic issues ...4 days ago
Why is New Zealand climate change policy so crap? The Herald this morning has a long article on the twists and turns of climate change policy in New Zealand [paywalled / depaywall script], which shows where we've been. The short version is that the government first began worrying about this ...4 days ago
The All Blacks have been, for more than a century, arguably the most successful International sports team in the world. But they are more than that; even for those Kiwis who are immune to the charms of rugby (and there are more than a few), the All Blacks are ambassadors ...4 days ago
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Dangerous Foes: For those readers of Bowalley Road who feel disposed to dismiss any prospect of an Israeli destabilisation of New Zealand politics, the example of the United Kingdom repays close attention. Ever since the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the British Labour Party, the Israelis have sanctioned, funded and ...6 days ago
Make It 16, the youth-led campaign to lower New Zealand's voting age, is holding an official campaign launch at Parliament this Friday from 16:30. If you'd like to attend, you can register using EventBrite here. ...6 days ago
by Don Franks It was a lovely sunny Wellington afternoon with blue skies above the beaches. In Courtenay Place, political activists packed out a stuffy upstairs room for an important meeting. The assembled pacifists, anarchists, communists and independent young radicals of Peace Action Wellington felt the need for a mission ...6 days ago
From the Wall Street Journal:Inside a room of the ornately decorated Hotel du Palais during last month’s Group of Seven summit in Biarritz, France, President Trump awaited a meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi. Mr. Trump looked over a gathering of American and Egyptian officials and called out in ...1 week ago
Those close to the Police Minister believe the initiative may be the result of Nash “seeing a great deal” on AliExpress. In a move that comes seemingly out of nowhere, Police Minister Stuart Nash announced this afternoon that he expects all frontline staff to don bearskin hats, famously worn by ...1 week ago
Moving And Shaking: There was a time when people spoke matter-of-factly about the “labour movement” – a political phenomenon understood to embrace much more than the Labour Party. Included within the term’s definition was the whole trade union movement – many of whose members looked upon the Labour Party as ...1 week ago
By Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern I am every bit as angry as you are. I am every bit as disappointed as you must be. The people with power, oversight and the ability to do something about these processes within the Labour Party should be ashamed. Whoever those people are, I ...1 week ago
Two-Faced? Labour insiders' commitment to the neoliberal status quo puts them at odds with their party’s membership; its trade union affiliates; and a majority of Labour voters, but this only serves to strengthen the perception they have of themselves as a special elite. Among the lesser breeds, they’ll talk up a ...1 week ago
By Simon Bridges. The following is a press release from the office of Simon Bridges, leader of The National Party. Key ora, New Zealand. Happy Maori Language Week. Look, I’m writing to you today because I want to clear something up. There’s been a lot of kerfuffle around some things ...2 weeks ago
Dr. Christopher Labos and Jonathan Jarry discuss the recent Canadian fluoride/IQ research. They provide an expert analysis of the paper and its problems. Click on image to go to podcast. The critical debate about the recent ... 2 weeks ago
An ambitious plan to fly to Los Angeles petered out into a brief sight-seeing trip and a desire to return home and get some sleep before work tomorrow. Air New Zealand has confirmed a flight to Los Angeles last night was turned back about a quarter of the way into ...2 weeks ago
There appears to be consensus – by omission – that the concept of indigenous futures should be accepted at face value. So I scavenged the internet to see if I could locate an academic descriptor or a framework around how we think about it as a concept, and whether it ...2 weeks ago
Here’s another novelty chocolate to shove in your gob, New Zealand Cadbury could be seeking to make itself great again with a rumoured new release: Pineapple Trumps, a spin on its classic chocolate-encased pineapple treat and do-it-yourself tooth remover. The global confectionery manufacturer and bumbling “before” character in an infomercial, ...2 weeks ago
Kia ora, Aotearoa. It’s that magical time of year. Te Wiki o te Reo Māori. In English, the week that frightens talk radio. As you probably know by now, all your favourite media outlets are participating, some more successfully than others. Stuff has changed its name to Puna for the ...2 weeks ago
On Newshub Nation: Simon Shepherd Interviews The New Zealand Initiative's Executive Director Oliver Hartwich ...1 day ago
By Michael Andrew Social media and tech industries have been replicating the ugliest aspects of capitalism from the 1800s, according to an AUT computer science lecturer. Associate Professor Tony Clear says that social media and tech executives are taking advantage of unregulated markets in a similar way as wealthy ...3 hours ago
Covering Climate Now: There’s a range of dairy-free ice creams available these days, but it’s a fair bet none will be as delicious – or satisfying – as making your own. The Spinoff’s participation in Covering Climate Now is made possible thanks to Spinoff Members. Join us here!If the latest stats ...4 hours ago
Covering Climate Action: Ahead of the UN’s Climate Action Summit, artist Joseph Michael and composer Rhian Sheehan teamed up to create Voices For The Future, a 30-minute installation projected onto the UN buildings.The Spinoff’s participation in Covering Climate Now is made possible thanks to Spinoff Members. Join us here!Joseph Michael is ...4 hours ago
New Zealand banning Huawei’s 5G network equipment won’t impact you nearly as much as the US’s recent moves against Huawei phones, writes Henry Burrell. Twenty years ago, you would have shown off your flash new Ericsson or Nokia. How times change. Now, those two entities exist only to provide mobile network ...5 hours ago
Op-Ed by Kaveh Zahedi, Deputy Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)
Grant McDougall reviews Kilgour’s new solo album, Bobbie’s A Girl, which sees him reflecting on the deaths of his friend and former bandmate, Peter Gutteridge and his own mother, Helen Kilgour. There is a passage in Shayne Carter’s excellent recent autobiography, Dead People I Have Known, in which he describes ...7 hours ago
New Zealand painter-poet Gregory O’Brien has just published a new collection of essays and art; pitched as a “field notebook … my whale survey”, Always Song in the Water drifts from his own front lawn in Hataitai, up to Northland and way, way across the Pacific. It’s the sort of ...7 hours ago
Ruby Porter looks into New Zealand’s future when the sea level rises 10, 25 and 80 metres, and finds out how much of Auckland will be left.I grew up in Ponsonby, but the only bay I knew around here was Cox’s. It’s fed by a creek which was once a mahinga ...8 hours ago
Opening up a skid pad, create more housing for single people and make the central city dog friendly: policies from Christchurch's lesser-known mayoral candidates. ...15 hours ago
The paintings of Colin McCahon convey dissonance and uncertainty, writes Shannon Te Ao. So what does this say about us? And why are we maintaining this Pākehā male narrative at the expense of more inclusive representation?Colin McCahon would have turned 100 on August the 1st. If you keep one eye ...1 day ago
Amanda Thompson spends a day with the New Zealand men’s roller derby squad as they prepare for next year’s world champs in the US.Let’s play a word game. Let’s list some contact sports and the top teams in those codes.Say rugby. Are you thinking about the All Blacks yet? What ...1 day ago
To mark International Day of Peace, Dr Rebecca Dudley of the New Zealand Red Cross explores the role that New Zealanders play in the global story of war and peace. Personal stories about war almost always begin with a memory.A humid afternoon in South Sudan.A calm Wednesday evening in Beirut.A bustling ...1 day ago
The history of tattoo art in Japan is deep-rooted and complex – and so is the cultural aversion to tattooed bodies, explains Brian Ashcraft, the author of a book on subject.Tonight, when the All Blacks take the field, they’ll be covering up. In order not to run afoul of Japanese ...1 day ago
Covering Climate Now: Saying climate change is important is one thing. So why are we so incapable of having a real conversation about what actually addressing it will mean? Sam McGlennon investigates. The Spinoff’s participation in Covering Climate Now is made possible thanks to Spinoff Members. Join us here!Up until a week ago, ...1 day ago
Ahead of the All Blacks first game Trevor McKewen makes some his fanciful, fraught and some hopefully on-point predictions for the Rugby World Cup.Can you take one for the team? Could you cope with the All Blacks coming up short in achieving an unprecedented third straight World Cup if it ...1 day ago
To tackle the crises of climate and unsustainability we need great cultural changes in civil society, business and politics. ...2 days ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra [embedded content]University of Canberra Deputy Vice-Chancellor Leigh Sullivan discusses Scott Morrison’s new family law inquiry with Michelle Grattan. They also speak of the developments in the Tamil family from Biloela’s case, and the UN barring ...2 days ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dries Verstraete, Senior Lecturer in Aerospace Design and Propulsion, University of Sydney CC BY-NDClimate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change. If you have a question you’d ...2 days ago
Recently-retired Sky TV chief executive John Fellet talks to Newsroom business editor Nikki Mandow about baseball, media, goldfish, accountancy - and more baseball. ...2 days ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Roger Crisp, Professorial Fellow, Dianoia Institute of Philosophy, Australian Catholic University As world chiefs and youth leaders gather in New York at the United Nations Climate Action Summit, many of us as individuals are feeling powerless and overwhelmed. Making big personal changes ...2 days ago
The head of one of the country's biggest news media firms is the latest subject of criticism for darkening his face at a staff party he attended dressed as US basketballer Lamar Odom. ...2 days ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Coral Gartner, Associate Professor, School of Public Health, The University of Queensland Health authorities in the United States are investigating 530 cases of lung illness, including seven deaths, reportedly connected to vaping. Some of these patients have been diagnosed with lung inflammation ...2 days ago
A congestion charge is needed to deter motorists from clogging central city districts at peak times, according to an economics consultancy. ...2 days ago
Jacinda Ardern confuses Japan with China - and she's not the only one with a case of political foot-in-mouth. ...2 days ago
Voting papers are being sent out today, and lots of people say they won’t fill them out because they don’t know anything about the candidates. Respected website ‘The Spinoff’ is trying to fix that through its Policy Local tool. But it’s not the only one. Catherine Jeffcoat talks to the ...2 days ago
This week's biggest-selling New Zealand books, as recorded by the Nielsen BookScan New Zealand bestseller list and described by literary editor Steve Braunias ...2 days ago
Writer and cannabis legalisation expert Russell Brown watched episode two of Patrick Gower on Weed, and found it highly entertaining but dangerously light on facts. Patrick Gower is good value when he’s high. In the second part of his documentary Patrick Gower on Weed, he does what you’d expect in a ...2 days ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Caio Seguin, PhD candidate, University of Melbourne Brain regions exchange information by sending and receiving signals through a network of nerve connections. This exchange is crucial to all aspects of the brain’s functioning, including how we experience the world, form and retrieve ...2 days ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Miranda Kaye, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law, University of Technology Sydney Over the next 12 months, a joint parliamentary committee will examine Australia’s family law system. It will be led by conservative Liberal MP Kevin Andrews and One Nation leader Pauline Hanson. ...2 days ago
Hijinks and hilarity in Epsom yesterday. The Herald reports:
“ Mr Peters told the crowd that he knew one Beijing-based property investor who owned 55 houses in Auckland. “Don’t blame the Chinese. They are renowned for not being stupid. They are renowned for being bright academically. They are renowned for long-term planning. “Don’t blame them, when they see a bunch of fools running the country, saying, ‘Come over here, you can make a fortune’.” ”
So Peters told his audience that they shouldn’t harbour dumb cultural stereotypes and (maybe even racist) attitudes toward the Chinese… they can’t help being subject to greedy instinctual predatory urges… because they’re Chinese!
Meanwhile, Cliff Lyon said Labour had lost touch with their working class roots:
“If you have a look at their supporters they are really gays, lesbians, the unemployed who they throw heaps of money at, and what I might call the loony intelligent left who sit up in Auckland University.”
Someone needs to ask Cliff which year it is now. I want to hear him say 1995. Hmm, let’s see if we can find out who was in the audience of NZ First supporters yesterday by inventing cultural opposites for those “demographics”.
NZ First supporters in Epsom are really Hetero men, spinsters of unproved sexual orientation, people who gift all their income to the taxman, and the stupid unintelligent right who never went to school and now sit in the vacant basements of old office buildings. The place must have been packed out.
Sometimes the ignorant venal malicious stupid goes so far into noise without intended effect that it becomes hilarious. By eclipsing National’s bizarre definition of low-income first home buyers and Labour’s almost honest but cute admission of support for “modest” incomes, NZ First have won the hilarity prize today – they will probably hold it for the rest of the week.
and on a more serious note..
..those on the ‘left’ considering voting for peters should note he also said this at that epsom meeting:
“..NZ First would hold the balance of power after the election – Mr Peters said.
When one man asked him to not support National –
‘It’s not going to be an easy decision..”
..are you clear on that..?..
..peters will decide who he will support..after the election..and could well go with national/key..
..wd it be too strong to call those on the left who consider peters a ‘safe’ vote for them..
..to call them totally-in-denial-dumbarses..?
..i don’t think so..
Peters will go National, it’s not a tough choice
It’s ether making up the numbers with labour and the greens or having quite a bit of clout with National.
It’s also works with his “Keeping the buggers honest” theme he likes to push.
for once..bm..i agree with you..
Yeah he almost said as much on Q & A yesterday.
He was saying that some party’s spending plans were not acceptable to NZ First. Susan Wood repeatedly asked him if he was referring to the Greens. As always he would not answer the question but it was clear that is indeed who he was referring to.
If Winston holds the balance of power he will do one of two things.
Both options are a disaster.
Acksully if he goes with Labour and the Greens are locked then thats quite acceptable
Labour and the Green’s could go with InternetMana and not need Winston.
But, hang on BM. I thought that the whole point of voting National (with its huge support) was to ensure that any coalition partners it needed would have little ‘clout’.
But now you say that NZ First would have a lot of ‘clout’. Which is it?
If Key can’t get over the line with Act,Dunne, Maori party but he could with only Peters, I’d say Peters has a lot of clout.
Peters can then say, no Act,no Maori party, no Dunne, you want the numbers you deal with me and me alone.
@crocodill…actually I thought Winston Peters was rather good…anyone who has spent any time really travelling in China would agree with him!
ie “ Mr Peters told the crowd that he knew one Beijing-based property investor who owned 55 houses in Auckland. “Don’t blame the Chinese. They are renowned for not being stupid. They are renowned for being bright academically. They are renowned for long-term planning. “Don’t blame them, when they see a bunch of fools running the country, saying, ‘Come over here, you can make a fortune’.” ”
…however Cliff Lyon is way off the mark
From doorknocking the last few weekends, I can see that the only European men over 45 voting Labour are all on this site. Because there’s fuck-all of them anywhere else.
And even the ones on this site are dodgy 🙂
“If you have a look at their supporters they are really gays, lesbians, the unemployed who they throw heaps of money at, and what I might call the loony intelligent left who sit up in Auckland University.”
Bigoted, ignorant and thinks everyone else is too. Ugh.
Milk prices due to plummet because of Russian sanctions and massive increases in production world
wide!
Russian sanctions ( either against Russia or from Russia) do not apply to NZ….the smart solution is to make Russia our number one trading partner !
our dirty/filthy/polluting dairy-industry is a sunset-industry..
..(and in the long run..for us..and for the planet..this is a good thing..)
..the twofer of a forseeable global-gut in that white-death for the next five years..
..plus the soon-to-be-introduced ‘milk’ made from yeast..(of all things!)..that will taste/be the same..
..be able to do everything milk from cows does..(cheeses..etc..)..
..that does not need to be chilled..and will cost a fraction of the costs of cows-milk to produce/needs no land/dirty-waterways..will be ‘clean’..environmentally..
..but just on price..it will kill the global marketthe/our dirty cow-milk industry..
..it’s gonna be a financial bloodbath..the transition…
..it will be britain joins e.u/stops buying our farm product redux..but worse..)
..(and of all people..james cameron is showing the way forward..with his purchases of big dairy-holdings..and his conversion of them back into farms growing real food..
..i guess that cameron is a vegan is at least a part-driver of that..)
..and the aspect of all this that really concerns me at the moment..
..is how so many iwi are pouring their treaty-settlement monies into what will be/end up a total financial disaster..
..i see all that only ending in tears..
o hell
http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/americas/10419124/State-of-emergency-after-Californias-6-0-quake
no definately NOT….i actually thought Lyon was talking about you!
Peters is a poker player ….but imho he will join a coalition with Labour ….all his policies agree with Labour ….all his criticisms have been directed against National…and he cant stand John key or NACT!
how..?..you are the resident peters-booster..
..would you vote for him..?..have you voted for him in the past..?
@ PU….nyb… the GREENS will probably get my vote this time …but I am sorely tempted by MANA/INT ….and Winnie is wonderful…and so is David Cunliffe!…so I am happy …i have plenty of choice
…you dont seem happy …..who are you voting for? ….are you a closet NACT?…or just disillusioned Labour?…you attack Labour at every opportunity and Winnie…..the NACTs absolutely hate Peters….this could explain your attitude to him!
internet/mana..greens..labour..
..are my parties of choice..in descending order..
..i thought i couldn’t have been more clear about that..
..and you are in la-la land with yr ‘winnies’ wonderful’…
..no he’s not..he’s a con-man..
..just running his schtick for the final time..
..doing a classic ‘bait and switch’..
..(and the reply-function has had another meltdown..)
They keep giving you oxygen and you keep wasting it. More fool them.
Peter’s won’t go with national unless the left vote splitting mip are somehow in the frame post election.
To be sure you get a red/green government, you have to vote red/green. Don’t mess about with the minimal munters.
@ the Allen…you have to say who yu are addressing your comments to because the order of the threads are not working
@Chooky… I see that now, ta.
@ allen – It is IMP not mip – not that hard to get the name correct although maybe the big letters are confusing you.
I agree that people should vote for the party they want but relying on winnie – nah too risky.
“@ allen – It is IMP not mip – not that hard to get the name correct”
You mean like Al1en, not al1en?
But no and somewhat incredulous having to answer such a weak whine, to me it’s always been mip ‘mana internet party’, but if you want to get all arseholey about it, all the better 😉
“maybe the big letters are confusing you.”
You’ll have to remind me why you’re acting butt hurt, again, but if it’s going to be a long list, which it probably might well be, you’re better off saving the poison from your pen for someone willing to play the victim, rather than waste it on me.
You and your utu (the seeking of revenge) 🙄
You’re still raging, yet I shat you out ages ago.
The mirth of it all. 😆
@phillip ure
I think Chooky is assessing Winston’s likely choice of coalition if he gets that far, while you are arguing that he doesn’t deserve to be there because of low integrity and commitment to the people, only to himself. Both are relevant separate points which can’t be argued against each other.
I’d vote for Peters in a contest on fashion style on the catwalk. But in politics his style changes with the wind. Labour would have to do an Alamein Kopu with him, and have a chat with him each morning to gauge his direction for the day.
no warbler..i am saying a vote for peters is not a ‘safe’ vote..
..for anyone wanting a change of govt..
..it’s as simple as that…
(wow..!..reply-function really has gone sth..this is reply to 8.1.2.1…)
Voting IMP, Green, Lab means little chance of a wasted vote. They all grow the left bloc.
Winston First is a major chance of a wasted vote if you want not just a change of government but a left as possible one. He is so likely to go with the GodKey.
ACT, Colon, MP and Hairdo are definitely wasted votes in any event and moreso if Epsom, Ohariu and Māori electorate left voters get strategic.
Don’t vote Winston. Let someone else get him to 4.9%.
What’s this GodKey stuff?
It’s the delusional rubbish pumped out by National saying that John Key has theistic qualities, that he’s a god. Whereas the truth is he’s a flakey wee rich man liar who’s produced not a thing in his entire life save immense wealth for himself. It’s all part of the dark stuff we see in Dirty Politics.
…
Don’t overlook the fact that we have it on no less an authority than St. Lloyd Blankfein of that well-known altruistic institution the Church of the Holy Goldman Sachs.
“We’re very important,” Blankfein said in an interview with The Times of London. “We help companies to grow by helping them to raise capital. Companies that grow create wealth. This, in turn, allows people to have jobs that create more growth and more wealth. It’s a virtuous cycle. We have a social purpose.”
St. Blankfein said that he understood, however, that people were angry with bankers’ actions: “I know I could slit my wrists and people would cheer.” But he is, he told The Times, just a banker “doing God’s work.”
As is the Holier-than-thou John Key.
Mugabe was lucky to have such forward-looking people to bankroll the beautiful new Zimbabwe.
/
http://mg.co.za/article/2012-08-10-00-the-investor-who-saved-mugabe
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-08-21/mugabes-bailout-och-ziff-investment-linked-to-zimbabwe-despot#p1
Yes well strictly speaking in my view Blankfein is somewhat correct.
The nature of god and all that. A man-made one. He’s also right that most of us would be happy if he slit his wrist. But of course he is completely and utterly wrong about his social purpose (which is to create more wealth for the bankers). But he would lie about that. He’s also putting the cart before the horse when he talks of capital. Which probably means that he’s thick.
…
Wish I was thick enough to earn US$23 million as Blankfein did last year – and that was a bad year for him.
If he did slit his wrists he’d only be replaced by another parasite (of the genus common shameless money-grubbing pestis), so what would there be to be happy about?
For a complete demolition of Blankfein’s claim to Divine sanction I recommend:
http://www.voxeu.org/article/what-contribution-financial-sector
from the Bank of England’s Andrew Haldane, no less.
Posted before – but I’m posting again.
To have a look at how entrenched Goldman Sachs is in NZ, have a look at the size of NZ in this OpenCorporates Map.
Kiln is the company that did the graphics for the article in the Guardian last year, Which companies caused global warming?
(Edit: Reply to ManInABarrel 11.24am)
Thanks Molly. You wouldn’t know the timeframe for this interest in NZ would you?
Yes I’ve always wondered where he got his money from, a week on here and I figure that I’ve worked it out. He stole it.
Why that’s the Nats election campaign right there.
I’m dreaming of NZF 4.8, Colonservatives 4.8, ACT 1.5 with Goldsmith taking Epsom.
Not such a bad dream.
Keep on dreaming then
“I’m dreaming of NZF 4.8, Colonservatives 4.8, ACT 1.5 with Goldsmith taking Epsom.”
You do know that would mean that the Nats would only need around 44% to govern alone ?
yep..he’s got u well and truly suckered in…eh..?
..have you forgotten how the last time that peers went with national..
..polling afterwards showed some 70% of those who had voted for him..
..had done so..because of their fervent belief..going on his attacks on national etc.. that he wd go with labour..
..were you one of them then..?
..peters has run this con before..he knows how well it works..and what to say to make it work..
..how to suck in the gullible..
..fool you twice..more fool you…eh..?
Anyone from the Left who votes for Peters needs their head examined.
But Phillip you say Peters will go with Key. I think he will go with Cunliffe.
A small wager,say a bottle of our fine Central Otago Pinot Noir, on this?
i don’t use alcohol b.g…
..but a bag of stinking-heads vs. a bottle of plonk..
..i’d be up for that bet..
..(if you don’t know where/how to get it..just ask the next teenager you see..
..they’ll be able to point you in the right direction..eh..?..)
Ha ha. Sorry I don’t use the heads any more, so we will leave it as a gentleman’s bet.
I will vote Green, but it’s tricky as there are elements of Labour and IMP policies that I would prefer. For instance Labour’s using Kiwisaver to control interest rates and exchange rates, and IMP’s focus on poverty.
it is the internet/mana focuses on the seemingly so different/disparate areas of ending poverty and economic-innovation/transition that draw me to them..
..and for those of a progressive bent it must be clear that the better the result for both internet/mana and the greens..
..the more the chances of them being able to demonstrate to labour..
..the mandate for those poverty-ending etc policies..
..and a ‘left’-coalition containing peters..i see more and more as being a trainwreck..
..especially in the area of getting any real progressive polices enacted..
..it will likely just limp along..doing not very much..
..and liable to be thrown out of office after just one term..
..whereas a lab/grn/int/mana govt..
..wd see some real ‘progress’ being made..
..to me..all that couldn’t be clearer..
@ Phillip Ure (9:36am comment) (damn reply button’s gone AWOL)
And yet I’d argue that the only chance of there actually being a Left Government after this Election is with Winnie’s support. Unfortunate – deeply unfortunate – but true. The Left Bloc just aint gonna make it by itself. And no amount of Pollyanna wishful thinking will change that fact.
I agree, though, that on balance he’s a little more likely to go with Key. But nothing cut and dried as yet.
@ swordfish..
..at the launch yesterday..and i presume going on internal-polling as he was so precise..dotcom said 7.8% wd be the election-outcome..
..(i have for some time picked just sth of 10%..that from more reading runes/straw-in-the-wind than internal-polling..)
..so my ideal is lab 25-27%..grns 15%..int/mana just sub-ten..
..and there you have it..
..home and hosed…
..and eminently do-able..
@ swordfish..
..and don’t forget we still have the greenwald/dotcom spook-dump five days before polling day to look forward to..
..and the fallout for key/national..and to a certain/lesser degree labour..is hard to predict from here..
..but the conclusion can be that it will be good for neither of them..
..and as that shitstorm goes down..there stand int/mana..and the greens..
..promising to clean up all that..and presenting a new future..
..instead of just more of what we have got here..from national..(and to a certain/lesser degree labour..)
..and i can’t see that spook-dump hurting the int.mana and green vote-outcomes..can you..?
BG +100 “I think he will go with Labour”….. Winnie worked very well with Helen Clark….and once upon a time he was way to the Left of both Labour and National….Winnie would destroy himself for posterity if he went with the NACTS this time
and that awful time he went with National and we all got so mad at him ( what year ?) ? Turns out, and it’s verified, that Jim Anderton refused to work with him in any coalition deal — Winston had absolutely no option but to turn to National or leave us with no government at all.
Just my two cents worth ..
this was supposed to a reply to Chooky .. can’t work out what;s happening today and LPrent said he maybe couldn’t fix it from his laptop … Sudoku on The Standard !!
Interesting.
I’d be keen to read a link to that.
@ yeshe ……no Jim Anderton refused to work with Labour in any coalition deal
( remember Anderton was mad with Rogernomics and Labour…the Alliance was out to destroy Labour , even although his friend Helen Clark was leading Labour at the time?)
…and Winnie had no choice but to go with National because a Labour coalition govt without the Alliance in just didnt have the numbers. ..
Winnie was faced with the option of a new Election being called , where he may have had a backlash, or of going into coalition with National and seeing what he could get out of it…his bottom line was no asset sales
…In the end Winnie (despite choosing to go with National) brought down the National govt over more proposed privitisation of state assets
the NACTS have never for given him….and still want him destroyed …they also succeeded when they conducted a year long vendetta over the funding by Owen Glen
@ yeshe ( edit) ….should read Nats “almost” succeeded in destroying Winnie over Owen Glenn
@ kiwiri….the documentary on Helen Clark has all this in it
http://documentaryedge.org.nz/2014/wgtn/film/helen
http://www.3news.co.nz/politics/doco-gives-rare-insight-into-helen-clark-2013072408
if we can ever get these numbers sorted out !
Thx Chooky fr your corrections .. and I can’t see him going to Nats this time … unless it is to pull them asunder from inside.
I trust Winston’s integrity .. many will laugh at that, but I have supported and believed him ( not voted necessarily) since the Winebox. He has always put NZ first, as far as I’m concerned.
Speaking of which .. where has Ms Boag disappeared to in all this ?? I did read one scurrilous line about her in the whaledump, but she was quiet before that .. not been heard or seen since Dirty Politics was published !
lol…maybe she is sunning herself in the Bahamas or some other tax free haven….Cook Islands?
😀
and I see the independent candidate in Epsom, Grace Haden, is doing some good private eye work on the money laundering capacities of NZ … the intro is so badly written along with the headline at first I thought she was in trouble. Kudos to her for this.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/small-business/10416451/Fake-reception-prompts-probe
+100 yeshe ….and good work by Grace Haden!
Here is an analysis from Selwyn Manning on John Key’s credibility and state of play in the NACTIONAL Party:
“A Matter of Whether John Key is Credible’
By Selwyn Manning / August 23, 2014
“In reality, John Key is the last man standing, he speaks directly to the reasonably minded New Zealand voter. From this platform they will be asked to judge for themselves whether their Prime Minister is credible… or not. Game on, or game over, they will be the judge…
http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player/20147007
oh no, @Cnr Joe .. thought we had managed to lose her !! Did you listen and care to summarise ? thx
…
This is the problem uncommitted voters such as myself face. I don’t trust either ‘main’ party with a majority in Parliament. “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
I’ve a lot of time for Winnie going right back to the Winebox, and IMHO a Labour or a National Government forced to deal with NZF as a strong coalition partner is probably going to be the most honest Government we could hope for at the present time. I was even considering giving my party vote to NZF on this occasion but unless Peters comes right out and declares that NZF would not go into Government with a National Party still including proven sleaze-balls like Key, Collins, Brownlee et all I can’t risk voting for it.
+100 man in barrel….and for your previous comments on 13.1.2.3
(btw… there is something wrong with the reply functions and also if one wants to start a new topic)
unless Peters comes right out and declares that NZF would not go into Government with a National Party still including proven sleaze-balls like Key, Collins, Brownlee et all I can’t risk voting for it
+1
for moderator..f.y.i..
..the reply-function is not working..
Working now Phillip
Tama Iti standing for The Maori Party. Could be quite the vote winner
It’s Tame.
And yes, he’s very influential, carries a huge amount of mana and might just revive a dying coalition partner. Damn.
Not sure where he’s standing as yet.
His influence however might swing the Maori Party away from the Nat’s however. I can’t see Iti working with National
I heard on rnz this morning that he wanted to join the Maori Party as they are only party working with Government to benefit Maori. (my paraphrasing). I was quite surprised to hear it as his world view doesn’t align with the Right.
I recall that when the Maori Party have been criticised for being sell outs they have said in their defence that is was “better to be at the table, than on the floor getting the crumbs”, meaning they were willing to compromise their own values in order to progress their agenda. For them it was purely a matter of practicalities. I wonder if this is simply how Tame Iti see’s it too.
Huh? Iti has been working closely with Chris Finlayson, and with National.
Not standing in an electorate – just the List.
ta ianmac.
that is a great pity …Tama Iti should be standing for Mana…the Maori Party are sellouts and have no mana
Would he convince anyone new to vote Maori rather than Mana? I doubt it.
The goal of the Maori Party is to create a new aristocratic layer of tribal bearaucrats who will have their “people” under their control through iwi-owned state housing and charter schools.
Key was interesting on Morning Report today. One mention of Judith Collins and he GTFO. That’s going to be a festering wound for a while.
Apologies if this has already been discussed. No surprises but horrifying all the same, it happens that Patrick Gower is in Slater’s contacts in his phone. (Dirty Politics, Nicky Hager) Is this not a real worry that a “journalist” is happy to compromise his credibility by being connected with such a despicable person?
As we know, (and several Standardista’s have made formal complaints about it) Gower has been on a mission to destroy Cunliffe for a long time. Are tv3 willing puppets for Slater’s agenda? How can the connections and influences be investigated?
Come Rosie you should know by now that Patrick (I make shit up) Gower is a right wing stooge. That became very clear, when he attacked Cunliffe at the Labour Conference about mounting a challenge to Shearer. Hence I take everything he says with a huge pinch of salt.
Exactly David, that’s why he needs to be called out on it – and all the others in the contacts in Slaters phone.
They need to do the decent thing, it’s not too late, and say they will disassociate themselves from him, but they never will because such an admission of association shows them up as having a questionable moral compass all along.
It looks to me as if, for political journalists, Slater has for some time been the prime source of information – I wouldn’t be surprised if most of them have his number. Basically, to get copy you have to be in the information loop, and the inner circle around Slater appear to largely control that loop.
Do the decent thing? Why that concept is totally alien to them.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Whale Oil had a whole load of journalists telephone numbers
Indeed, presumably because they were well aware that he was getting leaks and considerable ‘help’ from inside the PM’s office and from Judith Collins.
One of the things you learn from the Whaledump is that there are plenty of MSM people circling Slater likes flies around shit.
None of them seem to have any scruples about it.
@ blue..+ 1..
Gower fancies himself as a bit of a master of the universe……SlaterPorn is psychotically into the same notion. Not surprising that they would circle one another warily and trade phone numbers.
On Stuff live chat.
What a rubbish answer. No Royal Commission of Inquiry? No Serious Fraud Office probe?
‘Why the Secret Intelligence Service feeding Cameron Slater information is so very, very, very serious’
By Martyn Bradbury / August 25, 2014
“Folks, it doesn’t matter if you are Right or Left, the issue of the Secret Intelligence Service being forced to feed a far right hate speech merchant like Cameron Slater with sensitive information is an ‘us’ issue…
The SIS are ‘deep State’. We ‘trust’ in them to use the vast powers they have for the protection of NZ. I think we can all see, regardless of how we vote, that getting them to release information to a blogger with the ethical standards of a drug cartel are well outside what is acceptable.
We know that the guidelines for the release of such information from the SIS requires consultation between Key, Ede and Eagleson for several days. The PM has stated in his video answer that he was briefed, he has since claimed that when he said “I was briefed’ he means something completely different, and that when public servants Tucker and Wakem both said he was briefed, they also meant something completely different.
So that’s 3 people saying the same thing but all meaning something completely different, and this is the tissue thin defence being erected to shrug off handing Cameron Slater of all people information sensitive within one of our spy agencies?
This just isn’t fucking good enough. This defence of “when I say me and I, I actually mean some faceless and anonymous ‘office’ where blame and responsibility can’t actually be established” isn’t a defence, it’s a declaration of incompetence that if true simply means all of them, the whole office, needs to go.
The Prime Minister is either incompetent or lying through his front teeth. Neither of which helps explain why someone as toxic as Slater was given access to SIS information.
Using the state spy apparatus to embarrass and smear political opponents is a dark and frighteningly dangerous moment in our political history, it can’t just be shrugged off with ‘my office was briefed’ as an answer.
Such casual fascism must be challenged.
The Prime Minister is neither incompetent nor lying through his teeth. He is brazenly corrupt and openly challenging us to prove it, confident that we cannot.
+1 to this
He strikes me like a successful mugger..
and now hes giving the county a big fat
“F**k you New Zealand, Ive all ready beaten you senseless, now im going to rifle you pockets and take all your shit”
I have to agree OAB. I think there needs to be a Royal Commission of Enquiry.
After Election as a Labour Party member, I will be in touch with him/them once he is (hopefully) PM.
There needs to be something. If Blip is correct Cheryl Gwen and Ben Keith have serious conflicts of interest.
OAB………..I have a great deal of confidence if Cunliffe is PM there will be a Royal Commission.
Oh hi anker. Reply to your helpful and kind offer on Yesterdays Open Mike. Sorry for the lateness.
Rosie @8.2.2
Thanks I will check it out. We are not in your electorate, doing work for Central, but husband has some time now and particularly dislikes Dunne!
BTW I would vote for that cute baby if he or she was standing. Showing pics of the baby must increase Ginny’s chances.
Thanks anker. We do have people from outside the electorate leafleting, as it’s in everyone’s interests that Dunne goes! We welcome anyone who can help out in any way 🙂
And yes, baby Eliza is adorbz. It seems Ginny has put a lot of effort into meeting parents and women, very family focused, which is entirely appropriate for such a family orientated area. She would be a huge asset to Ohariu if she were the MP.
And heads need to roll.
Winston is calling for a communion of enquiry.
He makes a good point insofar as that his ministerial role cannot be delegated to members of the national party (his parliamentery office)
Hooton on 9-12 said that his questioning of senior officials in both the Bolger and Clark administration had never seen that occur.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1408/S00367/the-words-mean-what-i-say-they-mean.htm
Whether or not it is a “rubbish answer” depends upon what follows from a “change in government” that will lead to cleaning up the system.
A prerequisite to the implementation of any processes to ‘clean things up’ may well be a change in government because the present government (a) is compromised and has a conflict of interest in investigating the allegations and (b) the PM has already shown a distinct lack of interest in following any of this up.
I’m sure it requires a change of government to clean things up. If that is the only thing that changes it won’t be enough.
Agreed.
I’m reposting this so it gets ‘noticed’. Put it on late last night and have to resurrect it I think. This Nicky Hager event is this Thursday if you are in Auckland and have time.
PUBLIC NOTICE
Nicky Hagar [Hager] – Auckland Public Meeting
A public meeting meeting with Jesson Prize winner Nicky Hagar will be held
Wednesday 27th August, 7.30pm,
at the Mt Eden War Memorial Hall (Cnr Dominion Rd & Balmoral Rd).
Chaired by Sir Edmund Thomas
Hosted by the Human Rights Foundation & Equal Justice Project.
Also here is link to Nicky Hager’s 2012 text http://www.brucejesson.com/?p=394#comment-305
for his lecture to Bruce Jesson Foundation audience
and Sir Edmund Thomas 2013 lecture http://www.brucejesson.com/?p=475.
I’ve got something on moderation 9.31am. Could it be released please.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/10418392/Tame-Iti-to-stand-for-Maori-Party
Dotcom denies he’s the hacker behind Dirty Politics, but at the party’s campaign launch today said this.
“I hacked our German credit rating system and put our Prime Minister’s credit rating to zero because I didn’t like the guy,” said Dotcom. “You have all figured by now there’s another Prime Minister I don’t like.”
But he didn’t want to talk about his comments afterwards.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11313619
morning talking-points/briefing a bit late this morn..there..p.r..?
..and do try a bit harder to ‘keep up’..eh..?
..you are so far off the mark..you aren’t even in the stadium..
John Key will do another 3 way hand shake with the Maori Party!
Heres the thing, I’m ok with National in power with anyone (Conservatives last) I’m also ok with Labour in power as long the GIMPs are out so basically Labour/NZFirst in power is ok by me (not my first choice of course but the best of a bad situation)
PR he is just baiting you guys winding you up !
Giving you something to hold onto!
Whaledump is playing with the Corruptors of our democracy letting them think they have got away with their treasonous crime and exposing the lengths these corrupt cronies will go to to usurp democratic processes in our country!
The more Key Collins and Slater Deny the Worse they look!
They were told before hand that KDC wouldn’t be giving interviews so WTF did they go in there pestering for interviews? The whole thing comes across as the MSM looking for a distraction from the IMP campaign launch. Trying hard not to cover the news.
The facade is cracking.
I no longer respect John Key. Not even a bit. And that’s why John Key’s problem is Waikato voters’ dilemma.
National’s election strategy has long depended on Key’s immense popularity. That’s why his face is on every billboard just as big as your local candidate’s. The visual message is compelling. You’re voting for Key, you see. The nice man. The smiler. The good bloke, the one you’d drink a beer with, and all the usual banalities that I’m so sick of and which should be, by now, unmasked as the untruths they’ve always been..
http://www.stuff.co.nz/waikato-times/opinion/10420033/PMs-nice-guy-image-gone-forever
What the fuck is wrong with New Zealanders?
This is scary how many people turned out yesterday in Manukau after the last 2 weeks…
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/10418981/Washing-away-the-grime
A strong economy the envy of many, crime down, employment up, navigating the country through very trying times and more kiwis coming home from Australia is something many kiwis consider a good thing
The economy is crashing despite what National and their sycophants want to believe, poverty is worse and the reason why people are returning from Australia is because their economy is crashing as well.
If we get a National government after this election then we are going to be well and truly fucked because they really haven’t got a clue as to what to do under such circumstances which means that they’ll fall back on their default position of tax cuts and corruption.
“A strong economy the
Current debt clock
NZ$ 85,468,689,394
P R You, Key, English, and all your minders wouldn’t know what an economy was if you fell over it!
And while we are are at – answer this simple question.
“Just what do you think the economy is for anyway?”
Wow. Fairfax needs more writers like Joshua Drummond.
Is there a link?
@ Rich
http://www.stuff.co.nz/waikato-times/opinion/10420033/PMs-nice-guy-image-gone-forever
thanks Chooky.
Cunliffe and Twyford seriously need to relaunch their housing policy this week. Got to gain back the momentum on housing fast.
Relaunch – and up the ante.
And what is all this rubbish about cutting back on Labour commitments to spending. Spending needs to go up, not down.
Kim Dotcom – “I’m on my final final warning”
[audio src="http://podcast.radionz.co.nz/mnr/mnr-election2014-20140825-0725-kim_dotcom_live-048.mp3" /]
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/20146934/kim-dotcom-live
…
This might stir a few hearts amongst Standard readers:
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/08/the-good-kings-return
Who says workers are thick, unable to organise and need to be led?
An old IWW cartoon came to mind when reading the link where there are workers gathered outside two doors. One is marked “union” and the other marked “boss”. The question the workers are asking among themselves is “Which one do we negotiate with first?”
How did I miss this brilliant song from 2011?
John Key Pack Your Things by Trillion:
And how about this brand new gem! DJ Pups with “At the end of the day”, Guyon Espiners legendary interview with John Key last Monday sampled into a dance track. Ha! Didn’t I say someone needed to do that!
Both songs getting airplay on Radio Active, one of the stations that was sent a warning from the electoral commission about playing Planet Key by Darren Watson.
A COPY OF THE DRAFT LETTER I HAVE WRITTEN TO TVNZ BELOW…………….OTHERS MAY WANT TO DO THE SAME. HO
RE: Mike Hoskings moderating the Leaders Debates.
I wrote to you about this issue on 24 July. To date I have received no response. This is unacceptable.
This needs a bit of editing, but below is my draft letter to TVNZ re Mike Hosking moderating.
Would encourage others to do same
“Mike Hoskings moderating the leaders debates is unacceptable and frankly a disgraceful display of our tax payer funded broadcaster showing unacceptable levels of bias.
You will be aware of the recent disclosures in Nicky Hager’s book, Dirty Politics, clearly illustrating the links between Cameron Slater and the National Party, that goes to the highest level, the Prime Minister in running on-going smears against the past Labour Leader, Phill Goff. Hager also produces strong evidence of Slater being involved in the attempt to smear David Cunliffe over the Dong Liu letter
Mike Hoskings recently hosted an item on 7 Sharpe about Cameron Slater. This item is mentioned in Dirty Politics (refer page 134 – 5). To quote from the book “the item ended with the host Mike Hoskings saying (about Slater) “Love it”. Hosking adds,” I do note he (Slater) quotes from my editorials quite a lot, so clearly a man of taste”. Clearly Mike Hoskings, Cameron Slater and the Prime Minister (who is in contact with Slater regularly, are aligned in their (right wing) political beliefs.
I am requesting that you replace Mr Hoskings as mediator on the Leaders debate, if you havenot already done so given the relevations in Dirty Politics. I suggest someone who appears less biased (possibly Rachel Smalley). Please advise me as soon as you have done this.”
Wah wah wah, how about you quit yer whining and see how the debate plays out?
PR pathetic again. Attack the man not the ball.
If Hoskings as half way decent we’d give him a chance, but again and again he has proven he is a twit. An ideological racist tool.
But please PR keep living in lala land – it suits you.
@ anker +100….That is a very good letter.!..i would like to protest and use it too…Kim Hill would be far better than the shallow , NACT biased , Slater friend, ‘fruit and vege reporter’ Mike Hoskings….a choice for political chair which is a disgrace to TVNZ editorial and management! ( there must be a review and cleanout after Labour/Left wins the Election)
Is there any way it could be a petition /form letter ?…(so i just have to sign it and press a button)?
…if not , what is the address to write to ….and I will use your letter as a basis
testing .. my post keeps defaulting to a #17 !!
LPrent …problems ? have tried six or seven times to post re TPPA … will not let me post. It defaults to this #17 and the replies below do not belong to my post which I have deleted and replaced with the test#117 above. Thx !
It happens after a reply is posted to a comment that is deleted. If I give people long edit times and include an ability to delete, then there is a structural issue if they delete as someone is adding.
There is a process that runs about every 20 minutes to clean them up the unparented comments that get left over. Obviously not running at present.
I don’t think that I have the tools to fix this remotely on this laptop. Umm I downloading them.
thx .. will try again … appreciate all you do us here.
Wonder how long until we see this here in NZ ?
‘Panic Selling’ In London Drives Fear That The UK Housing Bubble Is About To Burst
UK homeowners start to panic sell in the face of house price uncertainty
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/constructionandproperty/11015301/UK-homeowners-start-to-panic-sell-in-the-face-of-house-price-uncertainty.html
http://www.businessinsider.com.au/panic-selling-in-london-and-uk-housing-bubble-2014-8
Looks like you might have been right after all, Karol, re: National tax-cuts before the election: http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/10421122/Nationals-tax-cut-mixed-message
Pam Corkery popping her cork at the IMP launch deserves a gold star. Sure it wasn’t helpful, but at least it was honest. Good to see she has mellowed with age. Can’t say the same for KDC, though. He gets Worst Timing Ever Award for getting up on stage and admitting to personal hacking vendettas. In the absence of IMP leadership making sure he never speaks publicly again until after the election, they could track down Jamie McDonald, Senior Press Officer (The Crossest Man in Scotland) and have him discuss the basics with him.
David Fisher: My history with Cameron Slater.
.
But when I started writing stories on issues which went against Slater’s interests, I became someone he wanted to “smash”. At that point, I was away from the tent and out in the wilderness.
He launched a personal assault with what I believed were threats of violence and created an atmosphere in which I was personally and professionally denigrated. Those who post comments on his website made awful slurs. It is as horrible an online environment as you will find anywhere.
Among the slurs were claims my behaviour showed I was suffering withdrawal symptoms associated with alcohol and drug addiction. On one occasion, when I rang a minister’s spouse for comment on an issue he was involved in, he ranted at me that I was “a drug addict” and would not talk to me. The only place such an idea had been floated was on Slater’s Twitter feed.
In almost two years, he has published about 120 posts in which I am featured. Some are extremely unpleasant. I am called a “shill” in the context of being a corrupt reporter.
Slater has invented nicknames for me. He called me “Gurnard”, then sent me pictures of dead “Gurnard”. He called me “Tainted” in relation to my coverage of the Kim Dotcom affair.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11313962
This article by David Fisher is very enlightening and hopefully will appear in the print section of the Herald and not just online. Interesting that Fisher says that John Key kept Slater at arms length until April 2012. Did Key just get careless or had he realised he needed Slater’s support and that would only happen if he fed Slater’s ego with much closer contact?
@ joe90 …that article by David Fisher is REALLY SHOCKING!
…and Slater won the Canon journalist award?…given to Slater by the judge Deborah Cone-Hill?( who was winner for a BNZ creative fiction writing award) …and Slater has the support of the Israeli Embassy (Slater is a “spiritual person”?)…. and Slater was invited to Israel? ( for what?)…and Slater was a good friend of John Key’s ?( see the lovely smiling photos, along with David Farrer’s smiling visage)…and Slater had many friends including Cactus Kate ( who is also a shocker)
David Fisher is a brave man!
David Fisher stands above many journalists. He is fair and evenhanded and reports facts rather than wild Paddy type fantasies. Sent an email to David last week telling him of my respect for his work. (He replied to acknowledge.)
Interesting listening to Michele Vogue attack David Fisher on Radionz this afternoon, Michele and Co won’t be very happy with ‘their paper’ at the moment going with the whaledump scoop etc and basically doing their job, Michele may be a little disappointed at finding her friends are only fair weather ones I guess, get over it Shell it’s only business baby!
Yes, she just couldn’t resist engaging in a bit of dirty politics herself. She’s basically implied Fisher’s involvement in the book on no evidence other than a comment apparently on The Nation to the effect of “as we said in the Hager book”.
I haven’t found the clip but can imagine it may have been a bit of ‘mishearing’ on Boag’s part. Less a Freudian slip from Fisher than a case of hearing what she wanted to hear from Boag. (e.g., perhaps mishearing “as was said in the Hager book”.)
Turned it off as soon as I heard Lady Boag was on the show. Guessed what was coming. It’s part of the panic reaction to [Hager’s] book. We can expect all manner of wild accusations from the “hard right” through to election day.
Btw, interesting that she and Brian Edwards are no longer appearing together on that programme.
Also this one from the SST;
http://t.co/qNUAU5BV8K
I wonder if this explains why Sealord Jones was so happy to begin a campaign against Countdown?
(Been trying to post this all day .. apologies in advance if it intrudes somewhere by accident !)
The TPPA is one of the biggest battles we will ever need to win imho. Please take some moments to read this and follow through if you can .. we are literally done for otherwise; we will be 100% owned by US corporates ( well, more than we are now even!) This is the dirtiest of politics.
http://us4.campaign-archive1.com/?u=2af728ed394d2e3c92f383cd5&id=b359144860&e=0663fc3518
Take heart.
Laila Harre has committed to the Good Cause as she promised yesterday, saying:
“I tell you that after Sep 20, your work will not stop because everyone in this hall, led by Internet Mana, and with communities around the country, will be launching a campaign on the 21st of Sep to stop the TPPA”
at 4:20 – 4:43
@Kiwiri .. thx for your post on Laila Harre and TPPA … thank goodness !
Let’s hope there is a good showing at this march.
“Join It’s Our Future at the ‘March against the Government” in Auckland, 30 August, 1pm, Aotea Square. Bring your placards and voices to tell the government: No TPPA – No Way!”
TPPA Trans Pacific Partnership is not a free trade agreement.
It is a signing over of part of our sovereignty to large corporations.
We cannot allow this to happen.
I want to hear the Labour party saying that they will not commit to any agreement which includes an investor-state dispute settlement system. ISDS
Read the following- it will make your hair stand on end. http://www.itsourfuture.org.nz/th_gallery/investor-state-dispute-settlement-isds/
ISDS stands for INSIDIOUS!!
Top lawyers urge the rejection of ISDS in an open letter:
http://tpplegal.wordpress.com/open-letter/
Hi Tautoko Viper, yeshe and all
There are events taking place at the same time in other centres (looks like more info posted on Facebook):
Wellington
Saturday 30 August, 1pm, Te Papa Museum (55 Cable Street, Wellington)
Christchurch
Saturday 30 August, 1pm, Hagley Park (Corner of Riccarton Road & Deans Avenue, Christchurch City)
Dunedin
Saturday 30 August, 1pm, The Octagon (Dunedin)
on nat-rad there was a discussion about our national anthem..
..and a txtr has suggested ‘anchor me’ at as a new anthem..
..i think that is a great idea..
..if only bcause how cool wd it be to have a national anthem that citizens of other countries wd like to sing/grove along to..?
..instead of the neo-militaristic/pompous bullshit most are..
.and if not ‘anchor me’..(which would be perfectly adequate..)..how about an online ballot to draw up a shortlist of contenders..and then a final vote..?..
..i wd like to nominate the underdogs:..’sitting in the rain’..
..(i know john mayall wrote it..but i’m sure a deal cd be done with him..)
imagine footage of our sports-people/officials etc..at international forums/w.h.y..
..grooving along to what wd be the coolest-national-anthem-in-the-world..
(f.y.i…moderator..i attempted to post this at the end of the thread..it ended up here..)
What do we do when automation takes all the jobs?
@ draco..maybe we cd return to what i view as an almost idyllic time..
..and this was the life of the early european settlers in northern nsw…
..they were all sustained by the potato-economy..they all grew potatoes..
..and the cycle of the potato..namely plant…then go back and dig up..
..some time later..
..meant that as a society..they had an inordinate amount of spare time..
..and what grew up around that was a vibrant social life..involving much partying/sports-tournaments..and all things cultural..
..the arrival of sheep and the like..ended that idyll..
..but it has been done before..
..and as long as people are fed and housed..and able to live a life..(a universal basic income of sorts..?..perchance..?
..what’s to be afraid of..?
..life is meant to be lived..not to be a fucken wage-slave..
.to an ever-increasing age..
..bring on the automation..!
..and of course society will have to work differently than it does now..
..but that is not insurmountable..
Just heard that delightful Michele Boag attack David Fisher on the Panel. She said that he was a left wing non journalist who only looked at the faults in the Right wing.
The she made a huge leap. She says that on the Nation David said in relation to Nicky Hager’s book that “We wrote…!” Aha. She reckons David was involved in the writing of the book. “We.”
There was no one to balance her spite. Not Jim. Not Duncan ??
Smear anyone?
I think Michelle claimed David Fisher used the words “What we said in the Hager book…” and then goes onto to infer that because Fisher has written about Dotcom then that means Dotcom is involved in the material in Hager’s book. Crazy stuff.
I haven’t had time to review the Nation interview but my suspicion is that Fisher said “What we see…”
I suspect Boag is trying to blacken David Fisher’s name after his piece today in the Herald today. Hopefully he will take this up with Radio NZ.
Where’s Ms Boag ? She’s on Mora’s panel on RNZ now and the unctuous Mora has made it a benefit for her and the National Party the whole last hour. Including shutting down a guy from Demographia ready to give some solid stuff about the puffery of National’s housing policy. Sickmaking.
@ north..comment 26..
..yep..!..it was particularly gag-inducing..
..when she started doing her white-persons’-burden number pontifications/handwringings on the woes in the middle east..
..i was outta there..off to the park with the dogs..
..and yep..!..mora just lets her run..no matter how batshit-loony it gets..
Yet the whack jobs insist that generating electricity using nuclear fission is a safe and viable alternative.
.
Three and a half years after the most devastating nuclear accident in a generation, Fukushima Daiichi is still in crisis. Some 6,000 workers, somehow going about their jobs despite the suffocating gear they must wear for hours at a time, struggle to contain the damage. So much radiation still pulses inside the crippled reactor cores that no one has been able to get close enough to survey the full extent of the destruction. Every 2½ days, workers deploy a new giant storage tank to house radioactive water contaminated after passing through the damaged reactors. We wander past a forest of some 1,300 of these tanks, each filled with 1,000 tons of toxic water, some of which was used to cool the reactors.
http://time.com/worlds-most-dangerous-room/
Jim Mora’s panel on RNZ
Time to start a movement to get Bryan Gould on there as a regular guest?
Yes, please. I would tune in to listen then.
Six years of mismanagement ….. ‘Rock star no more?’
This is what happens when you don’t have a plan.
‘NZ economy could hit the rocks – economists
Westpac chief economist Dominick Stephens said New Zealand’s recent growth had been fuelled by the Canterbury earthquake rebuild, low interest rates and a surge in net migration, which hit a 10-year high in the year to June.
”When the Canterbury rebuild ends people will be quite surprised by the size of the downturn,” he said.
Stephens said the strong net migration, which has been largely due to fewer New Zealanders moving to Australia and greater numbers returning from across the Tasman, is unlikely to continue at current levels for long.
”Australia will one day make a comeback. We are forecasting zero net migration for 2018. And one day interest rates will get big enough to crush the housing market,” he said.
”My fear is all three of those things will happen at the same time.”’
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/10421920/NZ-economy-could-hit-the-rocks-economists
The NZ Herald asked its readers their views on the Nats housing policy.
Seems like the only people who like it are the Nat MPs and their media puppets…..
Here’s a sample of the most popular comments…
“So, after years of telling us that there is no housing crisis, here comes National at election time telling us how they can fix the ‘problems’ that exist in the housing market.
Their solution is laughable. Making a little more credit available will just increase prices. And besides, the top amount you can get – if you meet all their criteria – is $550K. That gets you two-thirds of sod all in the Auckland housing market.
New ‘starter’ homes at the much-heralded Hobsonville Point development start at $770K.
Why don’t they just promise to do what Labour is promising – to actually build affordable new homes.
This policy is a lot of noise with no promise of real results. Fail.”
“It wont address the issue. It will just push the house prices up, and still be a haven for property speculators. Once again, this government is just tinkering around pretending to do something to address the real issue.”
“It is a typical answer from a market/growth driven Government. This solution is still avoiding the market driven problem of overvaluation that has caused finance collapse all around the world – of course it is good for banks and merchant bankers – another boost to ponzi economics.”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=11313862
Interesting stuff about Cactus Kate — who sounds about as pleasant an individual as Slater — and her motivation for wanting Hager to feel some serious heat from a few Chinese she knows:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/08/new-zealand-prime-minister-john-key-the-whale-oil-blog-and-international-organized-crime.html
David Fisher is a brave man. Who else stand with him?
Kim dot com
Nah, not brave, simply a man of integrity who refuses to back down to Whaleoil’s threats. Lots of people will stand by him just as they will stand by Hager.
Somewhat surprisingly, it’s Rodney Hide who has supplied by far the best description of Cameron Slater I’ve read so far (and he should know). Hide says Slater is “like a pig in mud”. Damn, that’s spot on.
I think that’s very unkind to pigs. They are quite intelligent and can be trained. One of my friends had a Captain Cooker that he’d raised from a piglet after shooting its mum 🙁 It would do anything most dogs do, except for not being very good at jumping or climbing over things. It guarded his section, often bailing up the poaka at the gate. He went off it a bit after it moved a concrete slab and ate the pound of heads he’d hidden underneath it, but it survived that. In the end it started killing his neighbour’s chooks and he turned it into roast pork 🙁
The latest attack on John Key by a contemporary musician is what he deserves, any one in public office who has been found to have spent the country’s money and time promoting the shite that has turned up in Hager’s book has laid himself open for all that comes his way and he is not entitled to any more legal protection than the rest of us
He, who thinks he can do what hes done over the years he has been in politics in this country deserves to be held up in public by whatever the public feel individually or collectively that is democracy
‘
One thing I’d love to see put to Key:
Cameron Slater was roundly condemned by his hateful comments about a youth being “feral”, and the world was better off him,. “Dirty Politics” reveals Slater’s description of a call you made referring to the dead boy’s mother as being a woman who screamed at you at Pike meetings. You told the public today you rang Slater at this time just to say ‘” recognised her”.
Yeah fucking right. You total bare faced liar! Do you think for one moment ANYONE would believe you rang Slater at this time just to say ‘I know here” that and nothing else.
What sort of PM rings Slater at any time let alone this time. There’s no reason to believe Slater’s reporting of the essence of your call was anything but accurate.
What a deceitful horrid man you are John Key. My god what you must be like behind the bullshit image scares me.
You told the public today you rang Slater at this time just to say ‘” recognised her”.
Does anyone have a link or reference to Key making this statement today?
I’m strongly in agreement with the sentiments above; that this incident alone – regardless of what Key actually said to Slater in that conversation – should be the cause of Key’s resignation at 8:30am tommorrow morning.
It’s completely unconscionable on every level.
http://www.3news.co.nz/nznews/pike-families-dissatisfied-with-pms-visit-2014082618
He’s previously confirmed the call, including that he told Slater Jo Hall was at Pike meetings. It’s the one issue on which he’s been citing Hager for support from the day after the story broke, because Hager did not agree with Slater’s characterisation of the phone call.
I don’t know why it hasn’t had more attention. He’s abused his position in order to give Slater context about the family who had been attacked on the WO blog.
Thanks ER.
Yesterday I wrote this.
The next commenter threw me off the thread a little because I’m not living in NZ at the moment and I’m not up to speed with things. But now it’s clear Key did have a conversation with Slater to support and validate what he had done – it’s game over.
Think about it. There is absolutely no context in which Key can have made that call and remain Prime Minister. None.
And yet our media and commentators remain compliant lapdogs, perhaps going so far as to say that it’s “not a great look” but missing the point that Key remaining as PM finally turns NZ into the South Pacific equivalent of a banana republic.
The only thing John Key could have legitimately done over Slater’s actions – was to publicly condemn him and privately insist that his Office, staff and all National Party figures cease all contact with him immediately. Anything less would have been an unacceptable validation and support.
But what Key actually did was phone Slater personally (remarkable in any context) and pass on more details about Slater’s victim.
Is the New Zealand media ALL so compromised that they cannot see what is wrong here?