He argues that the "crazed ideology" dictating the Liberal Party's policy on climate could now only be altered by a crushing electoral defeat, or an about-face on the issue from media magnate Rupert Murdoch.
…
Mr Turnbull describes Rupert Murdoch's media empire as "the largest endorser of climate denialism in the world".
"I think if Lachlan Murdoch decided to become a greenie overnight, the Coalition would switch instantly. They'd turn on a dime. Andrew Bolt would suddenly discover he was a greenie, Alan Jones would develop a passionate love for solar panels, Peta Credlin would be, you know, into pumped hydro — they'd all switch," he insists.
Mr Turnbull describes Rupert Murdoch's media empire as "the largest endorser of climate denialism in the world".
How long has it taken him to work that one out? Well at least he's being vocal about it, credit where credit is due.
From earlier in the year… first story up approx 11 mins long.
Murdoch's media empire has long held a disproportionate influence over Australian politics and he and Prime Minister Scott Morrison are united on this issue. Throw in Murdoch's close ties to Australia's powerful fossil fuel lobby and all the elements are there for a conspiracy of disinformation on the biggest, gravest story of our time.
Can't you see it? I might cancel this and try again.
It was a funny to bring a smile to one’s face, unfortunately I cannot seem to get the thing to work on the Standard
Will have to “study” a bit more how to paste items on here.
to Cinny at 2 : At least shows that most littlies and their teachers will be safe…guess keeping distance no problem with possibly one-to- one correspondence! Also would seem to indicate that most emergency workers have either organised otherwise or have no small ones. ( depends of course on the locality of this one example.)
Are you aware that there is no before school or after school care for children at level 3?
The ECE centres which are opening appear to be doing so in bubbles of about 4.
I would like to know whether there is a difference in privately run centres and government run centres when it comes to opening?
I do not envy ECE teachers/ workers or teachers of new entrants, year 1 and 2.
At some point children will need to return to school. I did hear that there is going to be social distancing at level 2.
With winter to consider and children being indoors and the flu season, the Ministry of Education need to work closely with the Ministry of Health. The measuses taken need to be able to be implemented and based on proven science in a NZ setting and the season of the year.
I would like to know whether there is a difference in privately run centres and government run centres when it comes to opening?
I'd suggest you contact the Ministry or search the Covid website as it appears to be an issue for you Treetop.
You could contact kindergartens (govt) and childcare centres (private) in your own area and share your findings. Same for after school care.
Parents are rather wise and will keep their children home whenever they possibly can during a pandemic. NZ people are great like that, they work together.
Stephen I thought that that call from Mr Goldsmith could have just as easily come from the current Government. Except that the Government sees more infrastructure being needed after years of neglect. And a willingness to consult with the expertise of many interested parties. And clear leadership from the top.
Perhaps Goldsmith would prefer a hands off approach and leave smitten businesses to sink – with no handouts.
Labour MP Deborah Russell has backtracked on her comments regarding small businesses' own responsibility for being in trouble in the pandemic.
Earlier this week, Russell made headlines when she said businesses in trouble "after only a few weeks in a pretty bad situation" was a sign they did not have the necessary strength.
During a select committee hearing on Tuesday, the Labour MP for New Lynn, a former academic, questioned Finance Minister Grant Robertson about her "concerns around small and medium business" and what was being done to build up business strength.
"We are seeing a number of small businesses really struggling, after only a few weeks in a pretty bad situation, which must speak to the strength of those small businesses going into this lockdown.
there is not much difference between the highly paid and rather useless suits in government. The blue don't hide their contempt for the workers of the country, and labour pretends to be 'kinder and gentler' in their contempt. Both parties don't give a shit about the working class of this country. And if anything, it shows with ever passing day that the government does nothing for small/medium/large and micro businesses.
Russell said some businesses in trouble "after only a few weeks in a pretty bad situation" was a sign they did not have the necessary strength.' Was she right?
If Russell had said "Bauer being only a few weeks in a pretty bad situation was a sign they did not have the necessary strength' would she have been right?
Does her saying that mean that she and her party don't give a shit about the working class of this country and shows with ever passing day that the government does nothing for small/medium/large and micro businesses?
Did Russell condemn business owners for not having the 'strength'?
"That's not sustainable," says Steven Scheckter, owner of On Trays Emporium in Petone. Shepherd Elliot of Shepherd estimates the over-supply may run as high as 10 to 15 per cent.
Such fierce competition means New Zealand restaurateurs are loath to be the first to put their prices up. Yet this they desperately need to do, in order to recover their own dramatically escalating costs – of wages, rent and food. There's also a dire shortage of skilled staff.
Already the cracks are beginning to show in the number of high-profile closures in main centres this year."
Hi Chris @ (3.1.1.3). I read about this greedy, despicable arsehole earlier today.
How Black could possibly act like he has done and then boast about it during a nationwide crisis, thieving from Kiwi workers is totally beyond comprehension. Then has the gall to ridicule the government for "throwing money about," while pocketing it himslelf, claiming it's to help his business, so as to keep his workers in a job! A liar and a cheat of the worst kind.
A dishonest, thieving, fraudulant creep, is to put it mildly. Can only hope the law deals with him and his ilk harshly.
Yep, National would love Black, if he's not one of them alreasy!
It's about Stuff trying to make a story and finding someone to oblige. According to what was there:
'It was just a stupid idea from the Labour Government, the Government was "stupid" to pay out, ”We've got people making really big decisions without a lot of forethought."
To me it sounds like he hates Labour, doesn't want them in power and thinks the alternative, National I suppose, would have acted with forethought
When he said, "it frustrates the hell out of me," I assume he means Labour being in Government. If the Government trying to help businesses frustrates him he should change his name to Dick.
If National really have the inside running on private sector leadership, then they should demonstrate that by bringing together a massive group of the good and the great of NZ business leadership to outlines their plans.
His article discusses the way different sectors can contribute to our ability to recover from the economic impact of Covid -19.
He acknowledges the role of government, alongside the role of the private sector. Neither can drive the economic recovery on its own; both of these key sectors need to be involved in an inter related way.
Possible Replacements for Bumbling Bridges
No. 1: SIMON O’CONNOR
Positives:
(1) He has a lovely wife.
(2) He’s opposed to old and sick people being “euthanized.”
Negatives:
(1) He’s a Simon. That carries very bad associations right now.
(2) He’s a rather ridiculous royalist, who a few years ago drove the doddering old reprobate Sir Robert Jones into the following spittle-flecked denunciation….
You’re a thirty-five-year-old octogenarian! If you are the future of the National Party, then—- arrrrrrrggghhh!
Worldwide fatalities from COVID are certainly being undercounted. One way to get a handle on how large the undercount might be is to compare actual deaths to expected deaths for that time period. The Economist article linked below (not paywalled) takes a look and it's scary.
Can you see the Trump going on about his mate Boris fudging the figures? Last week on the podium when the graphs were up he said (paraphrased, "But you don't believe those numbers from Chine A, everyone knows they're fake."
Everything that Covid-19 does is undercounted. Watch a spike in medical conditions for survivors. Probably there is just the one cause of death being entered Covid-19 and not organ failure or an antecedent cause. I have not raised anxiety/depression and grief which many will require support for.
New York City now has approximately 16,000 deaths attributed to COVID, roughly 40,000 hospitalisations, and roughly 150,000 and those almost certainly undercounts. While those rates may have dropped off their peak a little bit, new cases, hospitalisations and deaths are still coming thick and fast. Even with their lockdown.
Per million, that's 1900 deaths (0.19% population death rate), 4750 hospitalisations, 18,000 cases. Scaled to New Zealand's population, that's 9100 deaths, 23,000 hospitalisations, 86,000 cases.
Just something to keep in mind when people publish stuff claiming infection fatality rates might be as low as 0.1% (obviously laughably wrong), or that New Zealand's response was too tough or that we really need to charge hard to go back to how things were before.
Particularly when those comments come from people whose only ideas for dealing with the coming pandemic were tax cuts.
New York City reported its first confirmed COVID-19 case on March 1; a new model from Northeastern University says nearly 11,000 people in the city could already have been infected by then, NYT reported
13.9% of people tested in a New York COVID-19 antibody study tested positive, meaning they had the virus, Cuomo says; that means up to 2.7 million people could have been infected statewide
Nearly 23,000 lives have been lost to coronavirus in the tri-state area to date; more than 386,000 people have been infected — and those are just the ones we know about. NJ will eclipse 100k cases Friday
Preliminary results from New York's first coronavirus antibody study show nearly 14 percent tested positive, meaning they had the virus at some point and recovered, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Thursday. That equates to 2.7 million infections statewide — more than 10 times the state's confirmed cases
Did you catch up with the first case of death from Covid-19 on 6 February 2020 in California? The next death was on 17 February 2020. Obviously was in the population undetected. Cannot do a link on my phone.
Cuomo is doing a good job compared to Trump. Cuomo is being a leader. Shame Cuomo is not standing for president. I need to look it up if he put himself forward as a candidate.
California's governor Gavin Newsom is doing a much better job than Cuomo. But he's mostly just putting his head down and getting on with it so he's not getting the media presence Cuomo does.
Ohio's governor Mike DeWine is also doing a good job on dealing with COVID. Which is utterly gobsmacking since he's a fairly ordinary Repug on most other topics.
Yup. 8,400,000 New York city residents divided by 150,000 cases is indeed 1 in 56.
But that's almost certainly a massive undercount. More than half the tests they do come back positive, so there's a shitload out there with it that have never been near a medical facility to get counted. More realistic estimates from credible sources range from 5% to 20% infection rate. Which is still a long way short of the 50% plus needed before the epidemic would naturally burn itself out.
Of course in the USA tests cost money, lots of money. There's also medical centres closing down and laying staff off because they're profit making businesses, by shutting down surgery and other procedures they're not making money. It's a very poor system.
(I was shocked how much abortion costs over there, thousands of dollars, it's such a sad country).
One of the coronavirus relief bills already passed includes free coronavirus testing. But medical centres are still finding ways to stick people with huge bills for turning up to get free testing.
Prior to this, I read about bills averaging $1500 and going as high as $3000 to get a test done. Even if you had insurance that should have covered it, there would still be huge co-pays plus the hassle of dealing with insurance.
All in all, there's huge incentive to keep well clear of the US medical system unless you are desperately in need of help and willing to risk bankruptcy to get it.
Even with a good insurance plan, there's still good reason to keep clear. Over the 9 years I was there in the 90s, I basically wrote off about a couple grand in doctors visit fees for routine simple things that my insurance should have covered, but in the end I gave up on the hassle of getting the insurance to pay up. It will be way worse now.
Fair question. No two countries/regions are the same. Just pick any one to compare with NZ to suit your narrative. When it no longer suits your narrative, find another one to compare with. Rinse and repeat. Steve Elers made the same mistake in his blatantly biased and stupid opinion piece on Stuff yesterday; thick as a brick, IMHO.
When I'm looking at what might be a reasonable response to a situation, I find it useful to look for something that could plausibly represent the worst-case scenario. Along with a bunch of other better scenarios for comparison.
New York gives a hint at how bad things could have got here had we held off on lockdowns until our situation became much worse.
He's going full nato on twitter re fake news. I guess he's upset that people are calling him stupid.
What is the purpose of having White House News Conferences when the Lamestream Media asks nothing but hostile questions, & then refuses to report the truth or facts accurately. They get record ratings, & the American people get nothing but Fake News. Not worth the time & effort!
Fun fact, trump respects the american people soooo much that he is always, always late to these conferences, from 15 mins to up to an hour late, every single day.
USA is going to implode, the division trump is causing is off the hook.
According to New York Times Republicans are getting some very scary polling coming thru. They’re suggesting that as well as the White House there’s a growing possibility that even the GOP’s majority in The Senate could be overturned in November. They’ve got to rein Trump in before it’s too late
I wouldn't get at Trump's tardiness to the conferences. I don't know what happens out the back with people trying to get their stories together and extra time being needed to at least try to get Trump to see the point.
No doubt sometimes the delays are theatrics. He knows he has everyone in the room and around the world in the palm of his hand, waiting. They rely on him, they need him and while he can't control what they think making them wait is a childish way to exercise some power.
It would be good if the empire struck back like an April fools prank and deserted the room before he and his entourage entered, every single person including all the TV people. (One of the worst 'conferences' was the April 1st one as it turned out.). That isn't going to happen what with Fox and the White House itself beaming coverage out.
One journalist stuffed up one day when he asked a perfectly fair, ordinary question. He was insistent when Trump wouldn't answer properly. Trump said, "If you ask that again I'm leaving." The journalist didn't ask it again. Had the journalist been as narcissistic as Trump he would have taken the challenge. Didn't want to take away the public's access to information I think. Unless he thought his life would have been over by carrying through. It spoiled what should have been our fun and denied him the chance of being a legend.
There was one unconfirmed report that Erik Prince's Frontier Services Group was involved with sending fighters to Libya – but no other media outlet ever confirmed this storyhttps://t.co/tGXOI2mNNQ
Are any of you thinking Labour should call an early election?
Good chance to lock in the gains, which might not endure later this year. An announcement of level two, might be the best time. Clearly changes would need to be incorporated at polling stations. These could also be announced at the same time.
Going to the people to secure a mandate, for these difficult times.
It would backfire, and I'm sure Ardern does not intend to do it anyway.
But for the record, she would not need Winston's agreement. The PM announces the date, no approval required from NZF. That's why she's picked September, and his own preference for November is irrelevant.
You need to have communicated a plan before securing a mandate for it. That takes a few months at least, after securing internal agreement. How does say September sound?
"Clearly changes would need to be incorporated at polling stations. These could also be announced at the same time."
That's the Electoral Commission's job. NZ is not the USA, election rules are not decided by gerrymandering incumbents. So, no.
There is no chance of Ardern trying to "cash in" with a snap election. She's no fool, and knows what the reaction would be. There is a slight chance of one being forced, by NZF imploding, but still unlikely.
I guess the one country two systems was always a convenient nonsense.
With the world distracted by the novel coronavirus pandemic, China has carried out a power grab in the former British colony, whose way of life it had pledged to preserve until 2047. In recent days, authorities have said for the first time that Beijing’s representative offices in the territory can “supervise” Hong Kong’s internal affairs — a step that legal experts say violates its constitutional firewall with the mainland. The Basic Law stipulates that the city should run its own affairs, including the police and immigration system, apart from defense and foreign relations.
Beijing officials also called for Hong Kong to introduce a national security law — shelved when an earlier attempt at its introduction sparked massive protests in 2003 — and reached further into the city’s legislature with attacks on pro-democracy lawmakers.
The shift “signals the death of the ‘two systems,’ ” said Eric Cheung, a legal scholar at the University of Hong Kong. “It is quite clear that they are now bringing the mainland system, the mainland idea of supervision and rule of law, here.”
Will a privately run business fall over before a government funded business?
Which businesses are likely to have the highest redundancies?
Which level is going to create the worst unemployment?
I cannot see people having the same interest in running a daycare or a rest home if privately run. As well working in these professions a person's health would need to be assessed more carefully. The fees are out of reach already for some and increasing fees would probably not be enough to save the business.
20 free hours childcare, that means childcare centres won't fall over, makes no difference if its private or a kindy.
Aged care…. if you can't pay for it the state will. So that's taken care of too.
Treetop, don't worry about the aged care and child care going broke, they'll both be just fine. Instead how about thinking of new ideas and innovations, cup half full and all that.
The 20 hours free ECE is for age 3 and above. Often there is a surcharge on top of this. There is a MSD subsidy for fees but again often not enough and it is means tested. Kindergartens are insulated due to being fully government funded. There is a disparity in pay between privately run and government run ECE staff.
Rest homes have been understaffed for decades and some of the food is not nutrious enough for the health of the residents.
Improvements are required and there is a cost for this. Often the young and the old are the most overlooked when it comes to their needs being met.
to Treetop at 11.2.1 : I know my father as principal of a sole school was able to KEEP his job because he had a child…..me. Presumably the intention was to substitute an untrained teacher. As well, teachers' training colleges were shut for some time and for a year, entrance to school was raised from five to six years. I estimate the latter would have been in 1934.
This info must be in government records somewhere.
Thank you for sharing this family history. You would have seen a lot of changes in your lifetime in so many ways.
I can see by what you wrote that the government tried to reduce educational costs during the depression.
I have a friend with 2 young children who is in her last semester for her degree. It is a long semester and she will need to rely on daycare for her youngest and ECE care for her preschooler. I find the terms ECE and daycare to have their separate issues. I tend to use daycare for under age 3 and ECE for age 3 and 4.
Weka was making a good point in her OP that mocking and sneering at Trump's weak grasp of the science is counterproductive. And yet the comments mostly headed off in just that direction (with some honourably constructive exceptions).
I've been in this boat many times before, defending the unpopular. Hell remember Philip Field? I still think at least part of his treatment was racist as hell, and I mean that word in it's original powerful meaning. But pointing that out was not what most people wanted to hear at the time.
It never meant I supported what Field did; it was clearly a bad misjudgement and he was always going to be pinged for it. But the way he was utterly crushed struck me as vengeful and beyond just.
Yes I'm well aware that it would be so much easier to self-censor sometimes. But in the end silence is complicit.
[“Weka was making a good point in her OP that mocking and sneering at Trump’s weak grasp of the science is counterproductive.”
No, I didn’t say that at all. I said that ridiculing anti-vaxxer/conspiracy theory/alt health types is ineffective for the same reasons that calling Trump supporters deplorables is. Trump himself deserves to be ridiculed.
I don’t think what I wrote is hard to parse, and I’ve offered to clarify. You’ve admitted you didn’t read the post properly. This is something like the third time I’ve asked you to stop mispresenting/misinterpreting my post. Please stop doing this because it looks like your misusing my post to run your own lines in the comments. – weka]
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
If it's perfectly OK to mock Trump with inaccurate headlines that you openly accept he didn't say, then exactly why do you feel it necessary to move comments to OM when you feel I've misrepresented your own words?
You get to run the rules as you see fit on your own threads, but this is now in OM.
My point is an important one; if the left wants to present itself as kind, empathetic and inclusive … we cannot pick and choose who is on the inside or outside. If you want to make justice the pivot of your worldview, then you have to be as just to Trump as you are to anyone else. No matter how much it pains you to do so.
Yes by all means point out his lack of clarity and correct it if you really feel the need. Although I have to say when I first watched the video I managed to translate it without concluding I had to run out and inject Janolain my veins; as did most grown-ups. Trump as usual made a mess of this; but gratuitously mocking him for his weak grasp of the science is the same as mocking his supporters. And these are the people we want to vote Biden in a few months time.
The man is utterly unfit to the President in any meaningful sense; but this is not the way to remove him.
I wasn't mocking Trump with the headline, I was poking at people who think Trump's not so bad. You still don't understand the post, which is fine, but please stay out of it for the rest of the day, because this is solidly in derail territory now.
I want Trump gone more than anyone else. Coming from an internationalist perspective (and with my climate change hat on), Trump has been nothing but a disaster.
You made a perfectly sound point when you said that mocking and sneering at people whose minds you want to change is counterproductive. I don't believe I misused it at all. Far too many people who might otherwise happily support progressive causes are repelled by the open hypocrisy of the left when it says how fair and kind it is, and acts cruelly on the other.
In political terms the US Democrats hold their own fate in their hands. The factional alliances that underpin both the Republicans and Democrats are in complete turmoil at the moment; and the party that gets it's act together first will be the one that takes power in the US. The Democrat establishment have wasted much the past four years on tearing down Trump rather than building their own alliances. Ironically some of their primary candidates actually got that … but they all got eliminated.
I wonder what his lawyer will do. I wonder what his accountant will do. I wonder what the government will do. I wonder what the IRD will do. I wonder what his employees will do. Nah, I'm just fuckin with ya. I know what all those people will do.
These are the kind of cunts our government sought to appease by easing a level 4 lockdown that was almost working. For the price of four working days, and any claims of bold leadership or coherent planning, we can go back to work for the Tony Black's of our country on Tuesday. Some come on down, bring the kids, there's a BBq'd sausage waiting for you!
I just thought it was macho king of industry macho postering, a catch 22 really, if his business doesn't need the money he'll have to pay it back, if he does need it he won't have to. He's shown himself to be quite a dick really.
If the money had just been deposited into the business account he might have had a point but he applied for it and met the eligibility criteria and unless his situation has changed markedly he’ll still be entitled to it. Actually, his employees are entitled to it since it is a wage subsidy scheme.
It's not clear to me that he can hang onto the money for the rest of the financial year if he doesn't use it over the 12 weeks. Would also like to know what happens with the interest earned in that time.
At the risk of being shouted down at least he is being honest.
Add to that the primary eligibility criteria is….
Is your actual or predicted revenue down at least 30% in any four-week period between January and 9 June 2020 because of COVID-19?
Being a fairly low bar when the majority of business is locked down for a five week period, he makes some reasonable points through clearly not in the way many at this forum would like.
Do people really believe that there won't be many many businesses that will have taken a similar view ?
It is a low bar…but comes with obligations that must be fulfilled.
"Employers must pass the full amount received onto the employee, except where a person’s income is normally less than the subsidy amount (i.e. $250 a week), in which case they can be paid their normal salary. Any difference should be used for the wages of other affected staff – the wage subsidy is designed to keep your employees connected to their employers."
"The modified Wage Subsidy Scheme, and the previous COVID-19 leave and wage subsidy schemes, are considered excluded income to businesses and are also GST exempt. When passed on as wages, businesses don’t get a deduction for income tax purposes.
Payments to employees under the modified Wage Subsidy Scheme, and the previous COVID-19 wage subsidy and leave schemes, are wages. Therefore, they are subject to standard deductions like PAYE, ACC levies, KiwiSaver contributions and student loan repayments."
There will be thousands of SMEs cursing him to hell and back for highlighting his fortunate position….not to mention a few industry representative bodies.
What it also highlights for me is that updates of the pandemic response plan in future should include detailed information on governmental economic response and allowable activities during and after lockdown informed from our experiences now and over the next 6-12 months.
His criticisms of the subsidy are pedantic as it was in place and delivering the needed assurance within days to enable the lockdown….and covered a period required to enable elimination of the virus.
Support programmes overseas have been panned for failing to deliver support in weeks or indeed sometimes months (trump cheque anyone?)…I think we know how it would have been received here had there been a protracted application and approval process.
"Throwing money around" is the only possible response. Even the most "anti Government spending" proponents have their hands out, now. And the most "Small Government" right wing Governments, are doing it.
Fine Targeting is impossible in the necessary time frame.
Some will end up in the wrong places, but as long as overall, it supports workers and businesses to continue, it has succeeded.
We are receiving the subsidy and have found the process completely seamless and efficient. The design, with having the recipients published, is quite elegant and will have kept a lot of people a bit more honest than they otherwise may have been. Although after making the application I thought "Is that all I have to do???"
Have been audited too, two payments to the same account got the flags up. That was about a week after the payments came through and was professional and courteous. Most impressed with the job MSD have done here.
The only way for him to make money off it is to have money coming in while the govt pays his employees. Fair enough. Good for him.
Anything else (inflating his salary/wage as director, inflating his predicted profit, not paying his other employees) would make his little puff piece a very foolish move indeed.
“Rescue measures absolutely must come with conditions attached. Now that the state is back to playing a leading role, it must be cast as the hero rather than as a naive patsy. That means delivering immediate solutions, but designing them in such a way as to serve the public interest over the long term.”
"Conversions from selfish to selfless are rare. Those who benefited the most from the status quo will fight hard to restore and enhance their position. Examples abound in this crisis."
1 As mass coronavirus testing expands in U.S. prisons, the results are revealing a shocking truth about the virus — large numbers of infected inmates are showing no symptoms. In four state prison systems — Arkansas, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia — 96% of the over 3,200 inmates who tested positive for the coronavirus were asymptomatic.
2 Young people, with mild to no symptoms of Covid-19, are dying of strokes related to the virus, doctors have warned.
The experts say Covid-19 seems to be the cause for sudden strokes in adults in their 30s and 40s, who are otherwise healthy.
The virus seems to be causing increased clotting in the large arteries, leading to severe stroke,” Dr Thomas Oxley, a neurosurgeon at Mount Sinai Health System in New York, told CNN.
Personally I find indirect casting of aspersions on others via language that avoids being specific much more of a problem.
This isn’t just politics. It’s also human interaction in a very specific culture and as an author and mod that often requires being specific to individual people.
I did you the respect of responding in depth to your comment under my post. A comment that had some interesting points, but appeared to be ignoring the content and point of the post. Your response is to that is to make another indirect criticism of me or my comment.
Take the day off please adam. It's not that what you are doing is hugely problematic, but I'm out of patience for long termers here not paying attention to what moderators are asking or suggesting.
"Because I’m not attacking you – but you think I am"
No, I don't, I just think you are disrespecting me somewhat as an author, and unwilling to engage in debate /shrug. I still hope that will change for you because I think you have important ideas to bring to the table.
I am sad and pathetic I know, but was just looking at the order paper for Parliament restarting Tuesday.
It has oral questions listed
Will be interesting to see how that works.
It might have already been brought up, and forgive me if it has, but are they just having minimal MPs in the chamber itself, or are they doing it online?
There could be a strong National party presence. Don't know how they will manage the 2m physical distancing. Will be interesting to see how they do the seating.
How mobile are the seats in the debating chamber?
As for the naughty ones, yes could be a bit exposed if low numbers.
[Sure is, but what? Only way to find out is to click on a non-descriptive link, which I refuse to do, for a number of reasons. Remember good old Ed the commenter here? Do you remember what one of his main ‘crimes’ was? – Incognito]
[lprent: It is funny though. joe – how about learning how to embed a image. ]
Use the “Source” to shift to HTML.
<img href=”URL” width=”550px” />
Change the URL to whatever the image address is. Don’t abuse it or have extra large images. I tend to turn off the ability to use it rather than educating people.
Nope. I'm using a standard tool for the comment editor, and that isn't an option.
Plus I think I am going to have to look at images and video. I just realised that those are why the jump to a comment #comment-xxxxxxx isn't working too well. Need to look at changing the timing of the jump to the anchor.
Farrar, in his delivery of National Party strategy, has started posting Australian stats state by state in comparison to New Zealand. He even made his own table (he provided no link).
He’s a stats man and his is a deliberate attack on New Zealand to make us look worse. Miraculously, it places NZ near the bottom of a table of ten!
But the real cynical bit was his use of "ANZAC" in the title of the post.
This politicises our pandemic response using the sacrifices of Kiwi servicemen and their families. The same servicemen who went to war to end persecution of Jews in Europe.
It is a new low from Farrar and completely tone deaf.
He and his paymasters seriously need to take a look at themselves and start reading the room.
Don’t worry about DPF, he’s not worth it. Today he also agreed with the pseudo-academic Steve Elers. It has got nothing to do with stats but everything with (media and data) manipulation and anti-government propaganda.
John Key personally thanked Farrar in a victory speech. This shows how important to the National Party his polling and blogging is.
Journalists read Kiwiblog for leads and opinion. I think it's really important to push back when he makes a blunder as I believe he has done here. The push back might not rate any column inches but at least it gets the journalists thinking.
I also like to call out his hypocrisy whenever it occurs, which is quite a lot. Farrar hates nothing more than the questioning of his integrity.
I cannot see any analysis or opinion from the OP himself. The wee ranking table is nothing much and includes one oddity, which is the inclusion of Australia-overall in the ranking. I think DPF used it as a ‘fuse’ to light the commentariat with, which seems to have worked well. Only a fool would have taken that table one step further but DPF hadn’t – the KB commentariat did.
Farrar's posting is never innocent or by accident.
It serves as an extension of Curia's focus groups. He needs not provide analysis or opinion because his opinion is implicit when viewed alongside the rest of his posting and opinion.
Farrar is an extension of the National Party and the dragging down of New Zealand's Covid-19 response is a part of both their strategies.
Kristallnacht or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November Pogrom, was a pogrom against Jews carried out by SA paramilitary forces and civilians throughout Nazi Germany on 9–10 November 1938.
Sorry, Muttonbird, but I suspect that the majority of our soldiers would have had little idea of what Kristalnacht was. My father was in the second intake of NZIEF, and never mentioned it. I don't believe that such events got huge coverage here: only a small minority would be likely to be aware. The Poles also held big pogroms against the Jews – did we hear of them?
Fact remains NZ servicemen and their families made huge sacrifices to defeat Germany and its allies in WWI and the Germany and its allies in WWII which ended the persecution of Jews in Europe.
Farrar knows this but cynically used the term ANZAC for political gain. If he'd used the ANZAC spirit in a post about NZ/AUS unity fighting Covid-19 that might be different but his motivation is to undermine NZ's pandemic response in an effort to weaken the Labour-led government.
PDF is using NZ confirmed plus probable compared to confirmed cases only for Australia (they don't record probable cases).
Either he is spectacularly ignorant about stats & data (unlikely given his job) or has deliberately inflated NZ's total to make the government look bad.
The NZ Sikh community has fed 15,000 families in just the past fortnight.
"People from any ethnicity, any religion are welcome. We are all one and in this difficult time we are all New Zealanders. We should all stand with the wider community," says Daljit Singh.
A ballot for one member's bill was held today, and the following bills were drawn: Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Harm Minimisation) Amendment Bill (Chlöe Swarbrick) Swarbrick's bill implements a number of past recommendations from government agencies and advisory bodies which for some reason (cough big booze ...
No Common Ground: The destructive and punitive impulses aroused by the abortion issue make a rational, let alone a civil, debate virtually impossible. Indeed, the very idea that those on both sides of the abortion issue might be decent and caring individuals, whose opposing positions are based on reasonable and ...
What Happened Next? After the Supreme Court of the United States, in 1954, overturned its earlier validation of “separate but equal” schools, hospitals, public washrooms, busses and trains for Blacks and Whites, and told the Topeka Board of Education that segregated education is in breach of the Fourteenth Amendment of ...
On 7 December 1941, Imperial Japan launched a war on the American people. It would forever become a date of infamy, said then US President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, eightyone years ago.On 24/25 June 2022, conservatives launched their war on 166.24 million American women. That date, also, will forever live on ...
Stuff has a story this morning about the police juking the domestic violence stats, downgrading family violence crimes to "incidents" so they don't have to be investigated (and so Bad Number doesn't Go Up). That's appalling in and of itself, for the human consequences, and for what it says about ...
Today is a Member's Day, and it looks like its back to local legislation for a while. First up is the committee stage of the highly controversial Canterbury Regional Council (Ngāi Tahu Representation) Bill, which would allow unelected appointees (and a disproportionate number of them, at that) on ECan. This ...
Despite Christopher Luxon’s assurances to the contrary, there is no such thing as “settled law” in New Zealand. Apart from the six provisions that are constitutionally entrenched, legislation can always be amended or overturned by a simple majority vote within our single chamber of Parliament. Luxon’s repeated use of the ...
This is a re-post from the Thinking is Power website maintained by Melanie Trecek-King where she regularly writes about many aspects of critical thinking in an effort to provide accessible and engaging critical thinking information to the general public. Please see this overview to find links to other reposts from Thinking is Power. ...
What a week, month even of deplorable headlines and hysterics we’ve had as a country – and given 2023 is closing in on us (a mere 6 months until Parties shift some gears into election mode really, not that some of them haven’t started already of course), we need ...
Over the weekend, the US Supreme Court followed through on its threat, and overturned Roe v. Wade, effectively outlawing abortion in much of the United States. People were outraged, in America and around the world. And in Aotearoa, this meant a lot of sudden questions for the National Party, which ...
Nothing is evil in the beginning… #TheRingsOfPowerpic.twitter.com/XffZtqp8Yw— The Lord of the Rings on Prime (@LOTRonPrime) June 27, 2022 We have ourselves a new breadcrumb (not a leak!) out of The Rings of Power. It is a fifteen second collection of clips from the original teaser-trailer, together ...
The repeal of Roe vs Wade by the US Supreme Court is part of a broader “New Conservative” agenda financed by reactionary billionaires like Peter Thiel, Elon Mush, the Kochs and Murdochs (and others), organised by agitators like Steve Bannon and Rodger Stone and legally weaponised by Conservative (often Catholic) ...
A Dangerous Leap Backwards: A United States forced to live by the beliefs and values of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries cannot hope to go on leading the “Free World”, or compete economically with nations focused fearlessly on the future. The revocation of Roe v. Wade represents the American republic’s most ...
Now that the right of US women to abortion (formerly protected by Roe vWade) has been abolished, the important role of medication-induced abortion will come even more to the fore. Already, research by the Guttmacher Institute reproductive rights centre shows that over half of US abortions are obtained ...
The government is finally moving to improve transparency over party finances, lowering the donation disclosure threshold to $5,000. This is a good move, though it doesn't go as far as it should. And of course, there's a nasty twist: The rules for larger donations are also changing. Presently parties ...
A rare exposure in Western media of the fact that many residents of the Donbass prefer Russian rule to Ukrainian ultranationalist rule. I don’t know why anyone would take advice from UK’s lame duck Prime Minister and well-known buffoon Boris Johnson seriously, but he ...
Jacinda Ardern will need to deploy every aspect of her starpower if she is to have any hope of rescuing New Zealand’s faltering free trade negotiations with the European Union (EU). The Prime Minister has branded each of her four foreign trips so far this year as ‘trade missions’ – ...
It was sometime in the late 1990s that I first interviewed Alan Webster about New Zealand’s part in a global Values Study. It’s a fascinating snapshot of values in countries all over the world and I still remember seeing America grouped with many developing countries on a spectrum that had ...
Today marks Matariki, the first “new” New Zealand public holiday since Waitangi Day was added in 1974. Officially the start of the Maori New Year, this is one of those moveable beasties – much like Easter, the dates will vary from year to year, anywhere from mid-June to ...
The takeaways from the just released data are:1. Any estimate of GDP is subject to error.2. The 0.2 percent decrease in the March 2022 quarter is not precise and will be revised, with the mild likelihood that it will eventually be higher.3. New Zealand has no ‘official' definition of a ...
Guided By The Stars? This gift of Matariki, then, what will be made of it? Can a people spiritually unconnected to anything other than their digital devices truly appreciate the relentless progress of gods and heroes across the heavens? The elders of Maoridom must wonder. Can Te Ao Māori be ...
The internet is a wonderful thing sometimes. Yesterday, I ran across an AI program that generates images via prompt: https://huggingface.co/spaces/dalle-mini/dalle-mini So I have been doing the logical thing with it. Getting it to generate Silmarillion characters in bizarre situations. Morgoth playing golf, and so forth. But one thing I ...
Stashing renewable energy Do a little internet sleuthing on renewable energy via your favorite search engine and you'll find some honest critique and much more dishonest misinformation (aka disinformation) to the effect that photovoltaic and wind generation are fickle energy supplies, over-abundant in some periods and absent in others. There's ...
The current New Zealand First Foundation trial in the High Court continues to show why reform is required when it comes to money in politics. The juicy details coming out each day show private wealth being funnelled into some peculiar schemes in an attempt to circumvent the Electoral Act. Yet ...
As in so many other areas of public policy, attitudes towards overseas investment in New Zealand – and anywhere, for that matter – boil down in the end to ideology. For proponents of the “free market”, there is really no issue. The market, in their view, must never be second-guessed; ...
Selwyn Manning and I discussed the upcoming NATO Leader’s summit (to which NZ Prime Minister Ardern is invited), the rival BRICS Leader’s summit and what they could mean for the Ruso-Ukrainian Wa and beyond. ...
New Zealand’s Most Profitable“Friend” Dangerous “Threat”: This country’s “Five Eyes” partners, heedless of the economic consequences for New Zealand, have cajoled and bullied its political class into becoming Sinophobes. They simply do not care that close to 40 percent of this country’s trade is with China. As far as Washington, London, ...
I have seen some natter around about how The Rings of Power represents the undue and unholy corporatisation of J.R.R. Tolkien. I won’t point out examples, but anyone who has seen YouTube commentary has a pretty good grasp of what I am talking about – the sentiment that ...
2017’s Queenmaker: Five years ago, Winston Peters’ choice ran counter to New Zealand’s informal, No. 8 wire, post-MMP constitution, which, up until 2017, had decreed that the party with the most votes got to supply the next prime minister. Had National not been in power for the previous 9 years, it ...
I've read some bad stuff about long covid recently, and Marc Daalder's recent Newsroom piece about what endemic covid means for Aotearoa got me wondering about whether the government was thinking about it. Mass-disability due to long covid has obvious implications for health and welfare spending, as well as for ...
Last year, a stranded kiwi criticised the MIQ system. Covid Minister Chris Hipkins responded by doxxing and defaming her. Now, he's been forced to apologise for that: Minister Chris Hipkins has admitted he released incorrect and personal information about journalist Charlotte Bellis, after she criticised the managed isolation system. ...
Gil-galad is an Elven Chad Gil-galad is an Elven Chad But Celebrimbor makes them mad Digesting leaks from Amazon Of Isildur and Pharazôn. The hair is short? The knives are keen. The beardless face of Dwarven Queen? With meteor and man-not-named The fandom temper is inflamed. Of Annatar ...
From the desk of Keir "Patriotic Duty" Starmer:“We have robust lines. We do not want to see these strikes to go ahead with the resulting disruption to the public. The government have failed to engage in any negotiations.“However, we also must show leadership and to that end, please be reminded ...
Has swapping Scott Morrison for Anthony Albanese made any discernible difference to Australia’s relations with the US, China, the Pacific and New Zealand ? Not so far. For example: Albanese has asked for more time to “consider” his response to New Zealand’s long running complaints about the so called “501” ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections The Biden administration in April 2021 dramatically ratcheted up the country’s greenhouse gas emissions reductions pledge under the Paris target, also known as its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC). The Obama administration in 2014 had announced a commitment to cut U.S. emissions 26-28% below 2005 levels ...
Walking On Sunshine: National’s Sam Uffindell cantered home in the Tauranga By-Election, but the Outdoors & Freedom Party’s Sue Grey attracted an ominous level of support.THE RIGHT’S gadfly commentator, Matthew Hooton, summed up the Tauranga by-election in his usual pithy fashion. “Tonight’s result is poor for the National Party, catastrophic for ...
Te reo Māori is Dr. Anaha Hiini’s life purpose. Raised by his grandparents, Kepa and Maata Hiini, Anaha of Ngāti Tarāwhai, Tūhourangi, Ngāti Whakaue descent made a promise at the age of six to his late grandmother, Maata Hiini. “I’ve always had a passion for Māori culture. My first inspiration ...
Dr Carwyn Jones’ vision is to see Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the law given equal mana. Carwyn who holds a PhD in law and society and currently teaches Ahunga Tikanga (Māori Laws and Philosophy) at Te Wānanga o Raukawa after 15 years at Victoria University of Wellington has devoted ...
Jacinda Ardern’s decision to attend the upcoming North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit in Spain – but to skip the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Rwanda – symbolises the changes she is making to New Zealand foreign policy. The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) starts today in ...
The outlook does not look that promising. Forecasting an economy is a mug’s game. The database on which the forecasts are founded is incomplete, out-of-date, and subject to errors, some of which will be revised after the forecasts are published. (No wonder weather-forecasting is easier.) One often has to adopt ...
by Don Franks It seems that almost each day now another ram raid shatters someone’s shop front and loots the premises. Prestigious Queen street is not immune, while attacks on small dairies have long stopped being headline news. Those of us not directly affected are becoming numbed to this form ...
It’s hard to believe that when we created Sciblogs in 2009, the iPhone was only two years old, being a ‘Youtuber’ wasn’t really a thing and Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok didn’t exist. But Science blogging was a big thing, particularly in the United States, where a number of scientists had ...
For 13 years, Sciblogs has been a staple in New Zealand’s science-writing landscape. Our bloggers have written about a vast variety of topics from climate change to covid, and from nanotechnology to household gadgets.But sadly, it’s time to close shop. Sciblogs will be shutting down on 30 June.When ...
Radical Options: By allocating the Broadcasting portfolio to the irrepressible, occasionally truculent, leader of Labour’s Māori caucus, Willie Jackson, the Prime Minister has, at the very least, confirmed that her appointment of Kiri Allan was no one-off. There are many words that could be used to describe Ardern’s placement of ...
A Delicate Juggler? The new Chief Censor, Ms Caroline Flora, owes New Zealand a comprehensive explanation of how she sees, and how she proposes to carry out, her role. Where, for example, is her duty to respect and protect the citizen’s right to freedom of expression positioned in relation to ...
Good grief. Has foreign policy commentary really devolved to the point where our diplomatic effort is being measured by how many overseas trips have been taken by our Foreign Minister? Weird, but apparently so. All this week, a series of media policy wonks have been invidiously comparing how many trips ...
Where we've been Time flies. This coming summer will mark 15 years of Skeptical Science focusing its effort on "traditional" climate science denial. Leaving aside frivolities, we've devoted most of our effort to combatting "serious" denial falling into a handful of broad categories of fairly crisp misconceptions: "radiative physics is wrong,""geophysics is ...
Mercenary army of bogus skeptics on parade Because they're both squarely centered in the Skeptical Science wheelhouse, this week we're highlighting two articles from our government and NGO section, where we collect high-quality articles not originating in academic research but featuring many of the important attributes of journal publications. Our mission ...
In the latest episode of AVFA Selwyn Manning and I discuss the evolution of Latin American politics and macroeconomic policy since the 1970s as well as US-Latin American relations during that time period. We use recent elections and the 2022 Summit of the Americas as anchor points. ...
The Scottish government has announced plans for another independence referendum: Nicola Sturgeon plans to hold a second referendum on Scottish independence in October next year if her government secures the legal approval to stage it. Angus Robertson, the Scottish government’s constitution secretary, said that provided ample time to pass ...
So far, the closer military relationship envisaged by Jacinda Ardern and Joseph Biden at their recent White House meeting has been analysed mainly in terms of what this means for our supposedly “independent” foreign policy. Not much attention has been paid to what having more interoperable defence forces might mean ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters For those puzzling over the various hurricane computer forecast models to figure out which one to believe, the best answer is: Don’t believe any of them. Put your trust in the National Hurricane Center, or NHC, forecast. Although an individual ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Scott Denning The excellent Julia Steinberger essay posted at this site in May provides a disturbing window into the psychology of teaching climate change to young people. It’s critically important to talk with youth about hard topics: love and sex, deadly contagion, school shootings, vicious ...
By Imogen Foote (Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington) A lack of consensus among international conservation regimes regarding albatross taxonomy makes management of these ocean roaming birds tricky. My PhD research aims to generate whole genome data for some of our most threatened albatrosses in a first attempt ...
Well, if that’s “minor” I’d be interested to see what a major reshuffle looks like.Jacinda Ardern has reminded New Zealand of the steel behind the spin in her cabinet refresh announced today. While the Prime Minister stressed that the changes were “triggered” by Kris Faafoi and Trevor Mallard and their ...
A company gives a large amount of money to a political party because they are concerned about law changes which might affect their business model. And lo and behold, the changes are dumped, and a special exemption written into the law to protect them. Its the sort of thing we ...
Active Shooters: With more than two dozen gang-related drive-by shootings dominating (entirely justifiably) the headlines of the past few weeks, there would be something amiss with our democracy if at least one major political party did not raise the issues of law and order in the most aggressive fashion. (Photo ...
Going Down? Governments also suffer in recessions and depressions – just like their citizens. Slowing economic activity means fewer companies making profits, fewer people in paid employment, fewer dollars being spent, and much less revenue being collected. With its own “income” shrinking, the instinct of most government’s is to sharply ...
In the 50 years since Norm Kirk first promised to take the bikes off the bikies, our politicians have tried again and again to win votes by promising to crack down on gangs. Canterbury University academic Jarrod Gilbert (an expert on New Zealand’s gang culture) recently gave chapter and verse ...
Misdirection: New Zealanders see burly gang members, decked out in their patches, sitting astride their deafening motorcycles, cruising six abreast down the motorway as frightened civilians scramble to get out of their way, and they think these guys are the problem. Fact is, these guys represent little more than the misdirection ...
New Zealand’s defence minister, Peeni Henare, has had a very busy first half of the year. In January, Henare was the face of New Zealand’s relief effort to Tonga, following the eruption of the Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha’apai volcano. Then, from March onwards, Henare was often involved in Jacinda Ardern’s announcements ...
James Heartfield wrote this article on intersectionalism and its flaws nine years ago. He noted on Twitter: “Looking back, these problems got worse, not better.” Published 17 November 2013. Is self-styled revolutionary Russell Brand really just a ‘Brocialist’? Is Lily Allen’s feminist pop-video racist? Is lesbian activist Julie Bindel a ...
The New Zealand First donations scandal trial began in the High Court this week. And it’s already showing why the political finance laws in this country need a significant overhaul. The trial is the outcome of a high-profile scandal that unfolded in the 2020 election year, when documents were made ...
We’re committed to ensuring that there is every opportunity for women and girls to succeed in Aotearoa New Zealand, with fewer barriers. Since coming into Government, we’ve worked hard to support women and girls, by improving services like healthcare and tackling issues like the gender pay gap. Here are just ...
Political pressure from the Green Party has pushed the Government to supply free masks to kids and teachers in schools across Aotearoa New Zealand. ...
The Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand and the European Greens have published a joint statement calling for the NZ-EU Free Trade Agreement to support climate action, phase out fossil fuel subsidies, cut agriculture emissions, protect human rights, and uphold Te Tiriti o Waitangi. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to guarantee that it will complete light rail and improve walking, cycling, and bus journeys across Wellington before digging new high-carbon tunnels. ...
The Green Party is urging Oceans and Fisheries Minister David Parker to commit to stronger ocean protection around Aotearoa and on the high seas while at the United Nations Oceans Conference in Portugal this week. ...
A strong Green voice in Parliament has helped reduce the influence large secret money will have in future elections and finally ensured overseas New Zealanders will retain the right to vote even while stranded by the Pandemic. But, the Government needs to go further to ensure our democracy works for ...
A new poll shows that the majority of people back the Greens’ call on the Government to overhaul the country’s criminally punitive, anti-evidence drug law. ...
The US Supreme Court’s decision on abortion is a reminder that we must take nothing for granted in Aotearoa, the Green Party says. “Aotearoa should be a place where everyone, no matter where they are from, or who they love, can choose what is right for their body and their ...
We’re proud to have delivered on our election commitment to establish a public holiday to celebrate Matariki. For the first time this year, New Zealanders will have the chance to enjoy a mid-winter holiday that is uniquely our own. ...
Proposed new legislation to reduce the risk that timber imported into Aotearoa New Zealand is sourced from illegal logging is a positive first step but it should go further, the Green Party says. ...
On World Refugee Day, the Green Party is calling on the new Minister for Immigration, Michael Wood to make up for the support that was not provided to people forced to leave their home countries during the COVID-19 pandemic. ...
This week, we’ve marked a major milestone in our school upgrade programme. We've supported 4,500 projects across the country for schools to upgrade classrooms, sports facilities, playgrounds and more, so Kiwi kids have the best possible environments to learn in. ...
We’ve delivered on our election commitment to make Matariki a public holiday. For the first time this year, all New Zealanders will have the chance to enjoy a mid-winter holiday that is uniquely our own with family and friends. Try our quiz below, then challenge your whānau! To celebrate, we’ve ...
The Green Party says the removal of pre-departure testing for arrivals into New Zealand means the Government must step up domestic measures to protect communities most at risk. ...
The long overdue resumption of the Pacific Access Category and Samoan Quota must be followed by an overhaul of the Recognised Seasonal Employers (RSE) scheme, says the Green Party. ...
Lessons must be learned from the Government's response to the Delta outbreak, which the Ministry of Health confirmed today left Māori, Pacific, and disabled communities at greater risk. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to withdraw the proposed Oranga Tamariki oversight legislation which strips away independence and fails to put children at the heart. ...
57,000 EVs and Hybrid registered in first year of clean car scheme, 56% increase on previous year EVs and Non Plug-in Hybrids made up 20% of new passenger car sales in March/April 2022 The Government’s Clean Car Discount Scheme has been a success, with more than 57,000 light-electric and ...
Police Minister Chris Hipkins congratulates the newest Police wing – wing 355 – which graduated today in Porirua. “These 70 new constables heading for the frontline bring the total number of new officers since Labour took office to 3,303 and is the latest mark of our commitment to the Police ...
Members with a range of governance, financial and technical skills have been appointed to the Reserve Bank Board as part of the shift to strengthen the Bank’s decision-making and accountability arrangements. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act 2021 comes into force on 1 July 2022, with the establishment of ...
New Zealand to remain at Orange as case numbers start to creep up 50 child-size masks made available to every year 4-7 student in New Zealand 20,000-30,000 masks provided a week to all other students and school staff Extra funding to schools and early childhood services to supports better ...
Aotearoa New Zealand will join Ukraine’s case against Russia at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which challenges Russia’s spurious attempt to justify its invasion under international law. Ukraine filed a case at the ICJ in February arguing Russia has falsely claimed genocide had occurred in Luhansk and Donetsk regions, as ...
The Government has taken another step forward in its work to eliminate family violence and sexual violence with the announcement today of a new Tangata Whenua Ministerial Advisory Group. A team of 11 experts in whānau Māori wellbeing will provide the Government independent advice on shaping family violence and sexual ...
Te Mahere Whai Mahi Wāhine: Women’s Employment Action Plan was launched today by Minister for Women Jan Tinetti – with the goal of ensuring New Zealand is a great place for women to work. “This Government is committed to improving women’s working lives. The current reality is that women have ...
Kia ora koutou katoa. It is a rare thing to have New Zealand represented at a NATO Summit. While we have worked together in theatres such as Afghanistan, and have been partners for just on a decade, today represents an important moment for our Pacific nation. New Zealand is ...
Associate Minister of Foreign Affairs Aupito William Sio has been appointed by the United Nations and Commonwealth as Aotearoa New Zealand’s advocacy champion for Small Island States. “Aotearoa New Zealand as a Pacific country is particularly focused on the interests of Pacific Small Island Developing States in our region. “This is a ...
An estimated 100,000 low income households will be eligible for increased support to pay their council rates, with changes to the rates rebate scheme taking effect from 1 July. Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta has announced increases to both the maximum value of the rates rebate, and the income threshold ...
A long-standing physical activity programme that focuses on outcomes for Maori has been expanded to four new regions with Government investment almost doubled to increase its reach. He Oranga Poutama is managed by a combination of hapū, iwi, hauora and regional providers. An increase in funding from $1.8 million ...
The Government is progressing a preferred option for LGWM which will see Wellington’s transport links strengthened with light rail from Wellington Station to Island Bay, a new tunnel through Mt Victoria for public transport, and walking and cycling, and upgrades to improve traffic flow at the Basin Reserve. “Where previous ...
To Provost Muniz, to the Organisers at the Instituto de Empresa buenas tardes and as we would say in New Zealand, kia ora kotou katoa. To colleagues from the State Department, from Academia, and Civil Society Groups, to all our distinguished guests - kia ora tatou katoa. It’s a pleasure ...
On June 28, 2022, a meeting took place in Madrid between the President of the Government of the Kingdom of Spain, Pedro Sánchez Pérez-Castejón, and the Prime Minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, who was visiting Spain to participate in the Summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as one ...
A six-fold increase in the Aotearoa New Zealand-Spain working holiday scheme gives a huge boost to the number of young people who can live and work in each other’s countries, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says. Jacinda Ardern and Spanish President Pedro Sánchez Pérez-Castejón made the Working Holiday/Youth Mobility Scheme announcement ...
A significant barrier has been removed for people who want to stand in local government elections, with a change to the requirement to publish personal details in election advertising. The Associate Local Government Minister Kieran McAnulty has taken the Local Electoral (Advertising) Amendment Bill through its final stages in Parliament ...
New financial conduct scheme will ensure customers are treated fairly Banks, insurers and non-bank deposit takers to be licensed by the FMA in relation to their general conduct Sales incentives based on volume or value targets like bonuses for selling a certain number of financial products banned The Government ...
Legislation that bans major supermarkets from blocking their competitors’ access to land to set up new stores paves the way for greater competition in the sector, Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs Dr David Clark said. The new law is the first in a suite of measures the Government is ...
The Government has announced an end to the requirement for border workers and corrections staff to be fully vaccinated. This will come into place from 2 July 2022. 100 per cent of corrections staff in prisons, and as of 23 June 2022 97 per cent of active border workers were ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta has concluded a visit to Rwanda reaffirming Aotearoa New Zealand’s engagement in the Commonwealth and meeting with key counterparts. “I would like to thank President Kagame and the people of Rwanda for their manaakitanga and expert hosting of this important meeting,” Nanaia Mahuta said. “CHOGM ...
Minister for Emergency Management Kieran McAnulty officially launched the new Monitoring, Alerting and Reporting (MAR) Centre at the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) today. The Government has stood up the centre in response to recommendations from the 2018 Ministerial Review following the 2016 Kaikoura earthquake and 2017 Port Hills fire, ...
Transport Minister Michael Wood has welcomed the announcement that a 110km/hr speed limit has been set for the SH1 Waikato Expressway, between Hampton Downs and Tamahere. “The Waikato Expressway is a key transport route for the Waikato region, connecting Auckland to the agricultural and business centres of the central North ...
Following feedback from the sector, Associate Minister of Education Jan Tinetti, today confirmed that new literacy and numeracy | te reo matatini me te pāngarau standards will be aligned with wider NCEA changes. “The education sector has asked for more time to put the literacy and numeracy | te reo ...
$4.5 million to provide Ukraine with additional non-lethal equipment and supplies such as medical kit for the Ukrainian Army Deployments extended for New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) intelligence, logistics and liaison officers in the UK, Germany, and Belgium Secondment of a senior New Zealand military officer to support International ...
Changes to electoral law announced by Justice Minister Kiri Allan today aim to support participation in parliamentary elections, and improve public trust and confidence in New Zealand’s electoral system. The changes are targeted at increasing transparency around political donations and loans and include requiring the disclosure of: donor identities for ...
The Labour government has announced a significant investment to prevent and minimise harm caused by gambling. “Gambling harm is a serious public health issue and can have a devastating effect on the wellbeing of individuals, whānau and communities. One in five New Zealanders will experience gambling harm in their lives, ...
The Government has widened access to free flu vaccines with an extra 800,000 New Zealanders eligible from this Friday, July 1 Children aged 3-12 years and people with serious mental health or addiction needs now eligible for free flu dose. From tomorrow (Tuesday), second COVID-19 booster available six months ...
The Government is investing to create new product categories and new international markets for our strong wool and is calling on Kiwi businesses and consumers to get behind the environmentally friendly fibre, Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor said today. Wool Impact is a collaboration between the Government and sheep sector partners ...
At today’s commemoration of the start of the Korean War, Veterans Minister Meka Whaitiri has paid tribute to the service and sacrifice of our New Zealand veterans, their families and both nations. “It’s an honour to be with our Korean War veterans at Pukeahu National War Memorial Park to commemorate ...
Minister of Tourism Stuart Nash and Associate Minister of Tourism Peeni Henare announced the sixth round of recipients of the Government’s Tourism Infrastructure Fund (TIF), which supports local government to address tourism infrastructure needs. This TIF round will invest $15 million into projects around the country. For the first time, ...
Matariki tohu mate, rātou ki a rātou Matariki tohu ora, tātou ki a tātou Tīhei Matariki Matariki – remembering those who have passed Matariki – celebrating the present and future Salutations to Matariki I want to begin by thanking everyone who is here today, and in particular the Matariki ...
Oho mai ana te motu i te rangi nei ki te hararei tūmatanui motuhake tuatahi o Aotearoa, Te Rā Aro ki a Matariki, me te hono atu a te Pirīmia a Jacinda Ardern ki ngā mahi whakanui a te motu i tētahi huihuinga mō te Hautapu i te ata nei. ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister David Parker will represent Aotearoa New Zealand at the second United Nations (UN) Ocean Conference in Lisbon, Portugal, which runs from 27 June to 1 July. The Conference will take stock of progress and aims to galvanise further action towards Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14, to "conserve and sustainably use ...
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Russia's actions in Ukraine are an affront to the world but mustn't be allowed to create a more polarised, dangerous world, the prime minister says. ...
Russia's actions in Ukraine are an affront to the world but mustn't be allowed to create a more polarised, dangerous world, the prime minister says. ...
EDITORIAL:Bythe Rappler teamWe will continue bringing you the news, holding the powerful to account for their actions and decisions, calling attention to government lapses that further disempower the disadvantaged. We will hold the line. Dear readers and viewers, We thought this day would never come, even as ...
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Today the signatures of 72 Mayors, Deputy Mayors, Councillors, Local board members, and the LGNZ Young Elected Members Committee will be handed to the Government in support of making the voting age 16 via an open letter organised by Make It 16. “Young ...
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Malcom Turnbull's kiss and tell has spiced up an otherwise steady diet of COVID news on this side of the Tasman for some weeks. From a climate change point of view he's come out pointing the finger of blame for the denialist cult firmly at the Murdoch empire:
How long has it taken him to work that one out? Well at least he's being vocal about it, credit where credit is due.
From earlier in the year… first story up approx 11 mins long.
At least Turnbull is finally acknowledging who was really in charge. What ripples is that causing in the current govt and their backers?
That's nice for you. Mind telling the rest of us what it is?
Can't you see it? I might cancel this and try again.
It was a funny to bring a smile to one’s face, unfortunately I cannot seem to get the thing to work on the Standard
Will have to “study” a bit more how to paste items on here.
Spoke to my friend who is an ECE worker at a busy childcare centre.
In a normal day there would be around 30 -35 pre-schoolers attending their facility.
Of that number only four, are going to return to preschool this week.
Which shows that parents are following advice. Use their own judgement and send children to these facilities only if absolutely necessary.
to Cinny at 2 : At least shows that most littlies and their teachers will be safe…guess keeping distance no problem with possibly one-to- one correspondence! Also would seem to indicate that most emergency workers have either organised otherwise or have no small ones. ( depends of course on the locality of this one example.)
Yesah, four teachers and a child each, that's do-able for sure. Excellent.
Are you aware that there is no before school or after school care for children at level 3?
The ECE centres which are opening appear to be doing so in bubbles of about 4.
I would like to know whether there is a difference in privately run centres and government run centres when it comes to opening?
I do not envy ECE teachers/ workers or teachers of new entrants, year 1 and 2.
At some point children will need to return to school. I did hear that there is going to be social distancing at level 2.
With winter to consider and children being indoors and the flu season, the Ministry of Education need to work closely with the Ministry of Health. The measuses taken need to be able to be implemented and based on proven science in a NZ setting and the season of the year.
I've got my kids staying home and their teacher told me none of her kids are showing up next week.
I'd suggest you contact the Ministry or search the Covid website as it appears to be an issue for you Treetop.
You could contact kindergartens (govt) and childcare centres (private) in your own area and share your findings. Same for after school care.
Parents are rather wise and will keep their children home whenever they possibly can during a pandemic. NZ people are great like that, they work together.
It is going to take a few months for the information to be known.
Indeed it will.
Baby steps.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/121249170/paul-godsmith-getting-new-zealand-working-again-heres-my-plan
Paul Goldsmith, bring the same old crap to the party. The market will provide!
For some weird reason, I can post, but not reply.
Ps, Stuff really do need a sub editor.
Stephen I thought that that call from Mr Goldsmith could have just as easily come from the current Government. Except that the Government sees more infrastructure being needed after years of neglect. And a willingness to consult with the expertise of many interested parties. And clear leadership from the top.
Perhaps Goldsmith would prefer a hands off approach and leave smitten businesses to sink – with no handouts.
well to be fair…….
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12327486
there is not much difference between the highly paid and rather useless suits in government. The blue don't hide their contempt for the workers of the country, and labour pretends to be 'kinder and gentler' in their contempt. Both parties don't give a shit about the working class of this country. And if anything, it shows with ever passing day that the government does nothing for small/medium/large and micro businesses.
Small business were always going to take a hit when it comes to a consumer accessing their product, if the service/product is a want before a need.
Some businesses may survive if they combine with another business and this would reduce overheads.
Russell said some businesses in trouble "after only a few weeks in a pretty bad situation" was a sign they did not have the necessary strength.' Was she right?
If Russell had said "Bauer being only a few weeks in a pretty bad situation was a sign they did not have the necessary strength' would she have been right?
Does her saying that mean that she and her party don't give a shit about the working class of this country and shows with ever passing day that the government does nothing for small/medium/large and micro businesses?
Did Russell condemn business owners for not having the 'strength'?
"That's not sustainable," says Steven Scheckter, owner of On Trays Emporium in Petone. Shepherd Elliot of Shepherd estimates the over-supply may run as high as 10 to 15 per cent.
Such fierce competition means New Zealand restaurateurs are loath to be the first to put their prices up. Yet this they desperately need to do, in order to recover their own dramatically escalating costs – of wages, rent and food. There's also a dire shortage of skilled staff.
Already the cracks are beginning to show in the number of high-profile closures in main centres this year."
https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/food-wine/food-news/115028830/done-like-a-dinner-nzs-hospitality-crisis
August 2019
Then there's this dickhead who national will no doubt seize upon:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/121254612/coronavirus-business-owner-pockets-150000-from-government-wage-subsidy-and-hes-not-paying-it-back
Hi Chris @ (3.1.1.3). I read about this greedy, despicable arsehole earlier today.
How Black could possibly act like he has done and then boast about it during a nationwide crisis, thieving from Kiwi workers is totally beyond comprehension. Then has the gall to ridicule the government for "throwing money about," while pocketing it himslelf, claiming it's to help his business, so as to keep his workers in a job! A liar and a cheat of the worst kind.
A dishonest, thieving, fraudulant creep, is to put it mildly. Can only hope the law deals with him and his ilk harshly.
Yep, National would love Black, if he's not one of them alreasy!
It's about Stuff trying to make a story and finding someone to oblige. According to what was there:
'It was just a stupid idea from the Labour Government, the Government was "stupid" to pay out, ”We've got people making really big decisions without a lot of forethought."
To me it sounds like he hates Labour, doesn't want them in power and thinks the alternative, National I suppose, would have acted with forethought
When he said, "it frustrates the hell out of me," I assume he means Labour being in Government. If the Government trying to help businesses frustrates him he should change his name to Dick.
Seems to me he's saying the subsidy did its job, and now he gets a free audit lol
If National really have the inside running on private sector leadership, then they should demonstrate that by bringing together a massive group of the good and the great of NZ business leadership to outlines their plans.
I wish someone would.
Stephen
You're misrepresenting Goldsmith.
His article discusses the way different sectors can contribute to our ability to recover from the economic impact of Covid -19.
He acknowledges the role of government, alongside the role of the private sector. Neither can drive the economic recovery on its own; both of these key sectors need to be involved in an inter related way.
If I was a small Business Owner, what was Goldsmith actually promoting for my 3 person business to survive that was not already in the wings?
Possible Replacements for Bumbling Bridges
No. 1: SIMON O’CONNOR
Positives:
(1) He has a lovely wife.
(2) He’s opposed to old and sick people being “euthanized.”
Negatives:
(1) He’s a Simon. That carries very bad associations right now.
(2) He’s a rather ridiculous royalist, who a few years ago drove the doddering old reprobate Sir Robert Jones into the following spittle-flecked denunciation….
This series is compiled by the team at Daisycutter Sports, Inc.
Coming up: Paula Bennett
So they're your picks rather than predictions?
They're another cry for help. 🙂
Please no re-play of old Mr Breen episodes here.
Sorry, couldn't resist.
I know
Worldwide fatalities from COVID are certainly being undercounted. One way to get a handle on how large the undercount might be is to compare actual deaths to expected deaths for that time period. The Economist article linked below (not paywalled) takes a look and it's scary.
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/04/16/tracking-covid-19-excess-deaths-across-countries
20,000 covid deaths in the UK, and that's not counting covid deaths at home, resthomes or hospices, so yes, there's def under reporting.
Can you see the Trump going on about his mate Boris fudging the figures? Last week on the podium when the graphs were up he said (paraphrased, "But you don't believe those numbers from Chine A, everyone knows they're fake."
Everything that Covid-19 does is undercounted. Watch a spike in medical conditions for survivors. Probably there is just the one cause of death being entered Covid-19 and not organ failure or an antecedent cause. I have not raised anxiety/depression and grief which many will require support for.
Thanks Andre, a thought provoking post. I look forward to your take on things as you present facts rather than reckons.
New York City now has approximately 16,000 deaths attributed to COVID, roughly 40,000 hospitalisations, and roughly 150,000 and those almost certainly undercounts. While those rates may have dropped off their peak a little bit, new cases, hospitalisations and deaths are still coming thick and fast. Even with their lockdown.
Per million, that's 1900 deaths (0.19% population death rate), 4750 hospitalisations, 18,000 cases. Scaled to New Zealand's population, that's 9100 deaths, 23,000 hospitalisations, 86,000 cases.
Just something to keep in mind when people publish stuff claiming infection fatality rates might be as low as 0.1% (obviously laughably wrong), or that New Zealand's response was too tough or that we really need to charge hard to go back to how things were before.
Particularly when those comments come from people whose only ideas for dealing with the coming pandemic were tax cuts.
I read last night something like 1 in 56 New Yorker's are infected.
Worse.
Preliminary results from New York's first coronavirus antibody study show nearly 14 percent tested positive, meaning they had the virus at some point and recovered, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Thursday. That equates to 2.7 million infections statewide — more than 10 times the state's confirmed cases
https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/new-york-virus-deaths-top-15k-cuomo-expected-to-detail-plan-to-fight-nursing-home-outbreaks/2386556/
Did you catch up with the first case of death from Covid-19 on 6 February 2020 in California? The next death was on 17 February 2020. Obviously was in the population undetected. Cannot do a link on my phone.
Cuomo is doing a good job compared to Trump. Cuomo is being a leader. Shame Cuomo is not standing for president. I need to look it up if he put himself forward as a candidate.
California's governor Gavin Newsom is doing a much better job than Cuomo. But he's mostly just putting his head down and getting on with it so he's not getting the media presence Cuomo does.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/12/how-the-coronavirus-crisis-gave-gavin-newsom-his-leadership-moment
Ohio's governor Mike DeWine is also doing a good job on dealing with COVID. Which is utterly gobsmacking since he's a fairly ordinary Repug on most other topics.
Yup. 8,400,000 New York city residents divided by 150,000 cases is indeed 1 in 56.
But that's almost certainly a massive undercount. More than half the tests they do come back positive, so there's a shitload out there with it that have never been near a medical facility to get counted. More realistic estimates from credible sources range from 5% to 20% infection rate. Which is still a long way short of the 50% plus needed before the epidemic would naturally burn itself out.
FOrk!
I also heard that the tests cost money. Have you heard that Andre, that you have to pay to get a test?
Another thing I wondered is due to no free health care, would people hold off seeking medical help until it was too late?
Of course in the USA tests cost money, lots of money. There's also medical centres closing down and laying staff off because they're profit making businesses, by shutting down surgery and other procedures they're not making money. It's a very poor system.
(I was shocked how much abortion costs over there, thousands of dollars, it's such a sad country).
One of the coronavirus relief bills already passed includes free coronavirus testing. But medical centres are still finding ways to stick people with huge bills for turning up to get free testing.
https://www.cnet.com/how-to/are-coronavirus-tests-free-yes-but-you-still-might-get-a-bill/
Prior to this, I read about bills averaging $1500 and going as high as $3000 to get a test done. Even if you had insurance that should have covered it, there would still be huge co-pays plus the hassle of dealing with insurance.
All in all, there's huge incentive to keep well clear of the US medical system unless you are desperately in need of help and willing to risk bankruptcy to get it.
Even with a good insurance plan, there's still good reason to keep clear. Over the 9 years I was there in the 90s, I basically wrote off about a couple grand in doctors visit fees for routine simple things that my insurance should have covered, but in the end I gave up on the hassle of getting the insurance to pay up. It will be way worse now.
'Another thing I wondered is due to no free health care, would people hold off seeking medical help until it was too late?'
Well as it's happening in NZ even with a free healthcare system it is easy to predict it would happen in the USA.
A free health care system in NZ? Please point me to it.
Some easy clips for an election campaign.
I can't see why anyone would compare NZ's COVID-19 response and outcomes to those of NY ?
NZ has little inc common with NY apart from we both speak a common language (kind of).
Fair question. No two countries/regions are the same. Just pick any one to compare with NZ to suit your narrative. When it no longer suits your narrative, find another one to compare with. Rinse and repeat. Steve Elers made the same mistake in his blatantly biased and stupid opinion piece on Stuff yesterday; thick as a brick, IMHO.
When I'm looking at what might be a reasonable response to a situation, I find it useful to look for something that could plausibly represent the worst-case scenario. Along with a bunch of other better scenarios for comparison.
New York gives a hint at how bad things could have got here had we held off on lockdowns until our situation became much worse.
Strange going's on in the USA ….
NO presser for trump today, that's a first.
He's going full nato on twitter re fake news. I guess he's upset that people are calling him stupid.
Fun fact, trump respects the american people soooo much that he is always, always late to these conferences, from 15 mins to up to an hour late, every single day.
USA is going to implode, the division trump is causing is off the hook.
According to New York Times Republicans are getting some very scary polling coming thru. They’re suggesting that as well as the White House there’s a growing possibility that even the GOP’s majority in The Senate could be overturned in November. They’ve got to rein Trump in before it’s too late
I wouldn't get at Trump's tardiness to the conferences. I don't know what happens out the back with people trying to get their stories together and extra time being needed to at least try to get Trump to see the point.
No doubt sometimes the delays are theatrics. He knows he has everyone in the room and around the world in the palm of his hand, waiting. They rely on him, they need him and while he can't control what they think making them wait is a childish way to exercise some power.
It would be good if the empire struck back like an April fools prank and deserted the room before he and his entourage entered, every single person including all the TV people. (One of the worst 'conferences' was the April 1st one as it turned out.). That isn't going to happen what with Fox and the White House itself beaming coverage out.
One journalist stuffed up one day when he asked a perfectly fair, ordinary question. He was insistent when Trump wouldn't answer properly. Trump said, "If you ask that again I'm leaving." The journalist didn't ask it again. Had the journalist been as narcissistic as Trump he would have taken the challenge. Didn't want to take away the public's access to information I think. Unless he thought his life would have been over by carrying through. It spoiled what should have been our fun and denied him the chance of being a legend.
Business as usual while the world's occupied with other things.
He's a piece of work that erik prince.
Are any of you thinking Labour should call an early election?
Good chance to lock in the gains, which might not endure later this year. An announcement of level two, might be the best time. Clearly changes would need to be incorporated at polling stations. These could also be announced at the same time.
Going to the people to secure a mandate, for these difficult times.
Maybe it's just me, but that kind of cynical opportunism would piss me right off.
Indeed.
To the point of probably back-firing on them.
Doubt Winston would agree any way.
It would backfire, and I'm sure Ardern does not intend to do it anyway.
But for the record, she would not need Winston's agreement. The PM announces the date, no approval required from NZF. That's why she's picked September, and his own preference for November is irrelevant.
You need to have communicated a plan before securing a mandate for it. That takes a few months at least, after securing internal agreement. How does say September sound?
Hard to secure a mandate when there are three parties involved, one of whom is notorious for keeping their cards close to their chest pre-election.
also not thrilled about the election being based around Nat vs Lab on this either 🙁
Securing several mandates is probably more accurate. Even less reason to have an early election.
agreed.
"Clearly changes would need to be incorporated at polling stations. These could also be announced at the same time."
That's the Electoral Commission's job. NZ is not the USA, election rules are not decided by gerrymandering incumbents. So, no.
There is no chance of Ardern trying to "cash in" with a snap election. She's no fool, and knows what the reaction would be. There is a slight chance of one being forced, by NZF imploding, but still unlikely.
September it is.
I guess the one country two systems was always a convenient nonsense.
With the world distracted by the novel coronavirus pandemic, China has carried out a power grab in the former British colony, whose way of life it had pledged to preserve until 2047. In recent days, authorities have said for the first time that Beijing’s representative offices in the territory can “supervise” Hong Kong’s internal affairs — a step that legal experts say violates its constitutional firewall with the mainland. The Basic Law stipulates that the city should run its own affairs, including the police and immigration system, apart from defense and foreign relations.
Beijing officials also called for Hong Kong to introduce a national security law — shelved when an earlier attempt at its introduction sparked massive protests in 2003 — and reached further into the city’s legislature with attacks on pro-democracy lawmakers.
The shift “signals the death of the ‘two systems,’ ” said Eric Cheung, a legal scholar at the University of Hong Kong. “It is quite clear that they are now bringing the mainland system, the mainland idea of supervision and rule of law, here.”
http://archive.li/XiYk2
I have been giving redundancies a thought.
Will a privately run business fall over before a government funded business?
Which businesses are likely to have the highest redundancies?
Which level is going to create the worst unemployment?
I cannot see people having the same interest in running a daycare or a rest home if privately run. As well working in these professions a person's health would need to be assessed more carefully. The fees are out of reach already for some and increasing fees would probably not be enough to save the business.
20 free hours childcare, that means childcare centres won't fall over, makes no difference if its private or a kindy.
Aged care…. if you can't pay for it the state will. So that's taken care of too.
Treetop, don't worry about the aged care and child care going broke, they'll both be just fine. Instead how about thinking of new ideas and innovations, cup half full and all that.
The 20 hours free ECE is for age 3 and above. Often there is a surcharge on top of this. There is a MSD subsidy for fees but again often not enough and it is means tested. Kindergartens are insulated due to being fully government funded. There is a disparity in pay between privately run and government run ECE staff.
Rest homes have been understaffed for decades and some of the food is not nutrious enough for the health of the residents.
Improvements are required and there is a cost for this. Often the young and the old are the most overlooked when it comes to their needs being met.
In the Great Depression working for the Govt was the best job you could have.
So I believe that was the case.
Do you know if there was a wage cut for a government worker during the depression or longer hours without pay were worked?
to Treetop at 11.2.1 : I know my father as principal of a sole school was able to KEEP his job because he had a child…..me. Presumably the intention was to substitute an untrained teacher. As well, teachers' training colleges were shut for some time and for a year, entrance to school was raised from five to six years. I estimate the latter would have been in 1934.
This info must be in government records somewhere.
Thank you for sharing this family history. You would have seen a lot of changes in your lifetime in so many ways.
I can see by what you wrote that the government tried to reduce educational costs during the depression.
I have a friend with 2 young children who is in her last semester for her degree. It is a long semester and she will need to rely on daycare for her youngest and ECE care for her preschooler. I find the terms ECE and daycare to have their separate issues. I tend to use daycare for under age 3 and ECE for age 3 and 4.
You're probably right.
Weka was making a good point in her OP that mocking and sneering at Trump's weak grasp of the science is counterproductive. And yet the comments mostly headed off in just that direction (with some honourably constructive exceptions).
I've been in this boat many times before, defending the unpopular. Hell remember Philip Field? I still think at least part of his treatment was racist as hell, and I mean that word in it's original powerful meaning. But pointing that out was not what most people wanted to hear at the time.
It never meant I supported what Field did; it was clearly a bad misjudgement and he was always going to be pinged for it. But the way he was utterly crushed struck me as vengeful and beyond just.
Yes I'm well aware that it would be so much easier to self-censor sometimes. But in the end silence is complicit.
[“Weka was making a good point in her OP that mocking and sneering at Trump’s weak grasp of the science is counterproductive.”
No, I didn’t say that at all. I said that ridiculing anti-vaxxer/conspiracy theory/alt health types is ineffective for the same reasons that calling Trump supporters deplorables is. Trump himself deserves to be ridiculed.
I don’t think what I wrote is hard to parse, and I’ve offered to clarify. You’ve admitted you didn’t read the post properly. This is something like the third time I’ve asked you to stop mispresenting/misinterpreting my post. Please stop doing this because it looks like your misusing my post to run your own lines in the comments. – weka]
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
Trump himself deserves to be ridiculed.
If it's perfectly OK to mock Trump with inaccurate headlines that you openly accept he didn't say, then exactly why do you feel it necessary to move comments to OM when you feel I've misrepresented your own words?
You get to run the rules as you see fit on your own threads, but this is now in OM.
My point is an important one; if the left wants to present itself as kind, empathetic and inclusive … we cannot pick and choose who is on the inside or outside. If you want to make justice the pivot of your worldview, then you have to be as just to Trump as you are to anyone else. No matter how much it pains you to do so.
Yes by all means point out his lack of clarity and correct it if you really feel the need. Although I have to say when I first watched the video I managed to translate it without concluding I had to run out and inject Janola in my veins; as did most grown-ups. Trump as usual made a mess of this; but gratuitously mocking him for his weak grasp of the science is the same as mocking his supporters. And these are the people we want to vote Biden in a few months time.
The man is utterly unfit to the President in any meaningful sense; but this is not the way to remove him.
I wasn't mocking Trump with the headline, I was poking at people who think Trump's not so bad. You still don't understand the post, which is fine, but please stay out of it for the rest of the day, because this is solidly in derail territory now.
I want Trump gone more than anyone else. Coming from an internationalist perspective (and with my climate change hat on), Trump has been nothing but a disaster.
You made a perfectly sound point when you said that mocking and sneering at people whose minds you want to change is counterproductive. I don't believe I misused it at all. Far too many people who might otherwise happily support progressive causes are repelled by the open hypocrisy of the left when it says how fair and kind it is, and acts cruelly on the other.
In political terms the US Democrats hold their own fate in their hands. The factional alliances that underpin both the Republicans and Democrats are in complete turmoil at the moment; and the party that gets it's act together first will be the one that takes power in the US. The Democrat establishment have wasted much the past four years on tearing down Trump rather than building their own alliances. Ironically some of their primary candidates actually got that … but they all got eliminated.
"I want Trump gone more than anyone else."
I just want him gone – it's not a ‘virtue signalling‘ competition
+1. How can RedLogix want it more than anyone else?
Gratuitously?
Redundantly then.
No, I didn't write this. No one would believe it.
Asshole tells everyone he an asshole, no one cares.
I wonder what his lawyer will do. I wonder what his accountant will do. I wonder what the government will do. I wonder what the IRD will do. I wonder what his employees will do. Nah, I'm just fuckin with ya. I know what all those people will do.
These are the kind of cunts our government sought to appease by easing a level 4 lockdown that was almost working. For the price of four working days, and any claims of bold leadership or coherent planning, we can go back to work for the Tony Black's of our country on Tuesday. Some come on down, bring the kids, there's a BBq'd sausage waiting for you!
Sacha saved me from writing many sentences,
Lol he's changed his story a bit now.
Apparently now he'll happily pay the money back that doesn't go straight to staff.
So much for his "lolly scramble".
I just thought it was macho king of industry macho postering, a catch 22 really, if his business doesn't need the money he'll have to pay it back, if he does need it he won't have to. He's shown himself to be quite a dick really.
If the money had just been deposited into the business account he might have had a point but he applied for it and met the eligibility criteria and unless his situation has changed markedly he’ll still be entitled to it. Actually, his employees are entitled to it since it is a wage subsidy scheme.
It's not clear to me that he can hang onto the money for the rest of the financial year if he doesn't use it over the 12 weeks. Would also like to know what happens with the interest earned in that time.
I don’t know either but right now, it seems like storm in a teacup.
I'm still curious how it ended up in the MSM in the first place.
forensic audit
Yep – his entire tax arrangements over several years could perhaps do with some scrutiny.
At the risk of being shouted down at least he is being honest.
Add to that the primary eligibility criteria is….
Is your actual or predicted revenue down at least 30% in any four-week period between January and 9 June 2020 because of COVID-19?
Being a fairly low bar when the majority of business is locked down for a five week period, he makes some reasonable points through clearly not in the way many at this forum would like.
Do people really believe that there won't be many many businesses that will have taken a similar view ?
It is a low bar…but comes with obligations that must be fulfilled.
"Employers must pass the full amount received onto the employee, except where a person’s income is normally less than the subsidy amount (i.e. $250 a week), in which case they can be paid their normal salary. Any difference should be used for the wages of other affected staff – the wage subsidy is designed to keep your employees connected to their employers."
"The modified Wage Subsidy Scheme, and the previous COVID-19 leave and wage subsidy schemes, are considered excluded income to businesses and are also GST exempt. When passed on as wages, businesses don’t get a deduction for income tax purposes.
Payments to employees under the modified Wage Subsidy Scheme, and the previous COVID-19 wage subsidy and leave schemes, are wages. Therefore, they are subject to standard deductions like PAYE, ACC levies, KiwiSaver contributions and student loan repayments."
https://www.employment.govt.nz/leave-and-holidays/other-types-of-leave/coronavirus-workplace/wage-subsidy/
Yep – and there's no indication he doesn't intend to abide by those requirements.
I understand the indignant responses to his comments which to be fair isn't helped by the way the article framed them.
There will be thousands of SMEs cursing him to hell and back for highlighting his fortunate position….not to mention a few industry representative bodies.
No doubt.
What it also highlights for me is that updates of the pandemic response plan in future should include detailed information on governmental economic response and allowable activities during and after lockdown informed from our experiences now and over the next 6-12 months.
His criticisms of the subsidy are pedantic as it was in place and delivering the needed assurance within days to enable the lockdown….and covered a period required to enable elimination of the virus.
Support programmes overseas have been panned for failing to deliver support in weeks or indeed sometimes months (trump cheque anyone?)…I think we know how it would have been received here had there been a protracted application and approval process.
"Throwing money around" is the only possible response. Even the most "anti Government spending" proponents have their hands out, now. And the most "Small Government" right wing Governments, are doing it.
Fine Targeting is impossible in the necessary time frame.
Some will end up in the wrong places, but as long as overall, it supports workers and businesses to continue, it has succeeded.
We are receiving the subsidy and have found the process completely seamless and efficient. The design, with having the recipients published, is quite elegant and will have kept a lot of people a bit more honest than they otherwise may have been. Although after making the application I thought "Is that all I have to do???"
Have been audited too, two payments to the same account got the flags up. That was about a week after the payments came through and was professional and courteous. Most impressed with the job MSD have done here.
From stuff
The managing director of a construction firm says he has made $150,000 profit from the Government's wage subsidy, and he has no intention of paying it back.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/121254612/coronavirus-business-owner-pockets-150000-from-government-wage-subsidy-and-hes-not-paying-it-back
The only way for him to make money off it is to have money coming in while the govt pays his employees. Fair enough. Good for him.
Anything else (inflating his salary/wage as director, inflating his predicted profit, not paying his other employees) would make his little puff piece a very foolish move indeed.
“Rescue measures absolutely must come with conditions attached. Now that the state is back to playing a leading role, it must be cast as the hero rather than as a naive patsy. That means delivering immediate solutions, but designing them in such a way as to serve the public interest over the long term.”
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2020/04/26/1141709/a-message-for-the-timid-fearful-and-selfish
"Conversions from selfish to selfless are rare. Those who benefited the most from the status quo will fight hard to restore and enhance their position. Examples abound in this crisis."
Two interesting (scary) articles
1 As mass coronavirus testing expands in U.S. prisons, the results are revealing a shocking truth about the virus — large numbers of infected inmates are showing no symptoms. In four state prison systems — Arkansas, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia — 96% of the over 3,200 inmates who tested positive for the coronavirus were asymptomatic.
https://play.stuff.co.nz/details/_6152092116001
2 Young people, with mild to no symptoms of Covid-19, are dying of strokes related to the virus, doctors have warned.
The experts say Covid-19 seems to be the cause for sudden strokes in adults in their 30s and 40s, who are otherwise healthy.
The virus seems to be causing increased clotting in the large arteries, leading to severe stroke,” Dr Thomas Oxley, a neurosurgeon at Mount Sinai Health System in New York, told CNN.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12327627&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=nzh_fb&fbclid=IwAR3wtCgqFAjDWOCrLLh6v1uCYj453O4qrrpf9OFLhFigwfc41NNOIpqNJ3c
Personalisation of politics is not helpful.
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
Personally I find indirect casting of aspersions on others via language that avoids being specific much more of a problem.
This isn’t just politics. It’s also human interaction in a very specific culture and as an author and mod that often requires being specific to individual people.
I did you the respect of responding in depth to your comment under my post. A comment that had some interesting points, but appeared to be ignoring the content and point of the post. Your response is to that is to make another indirect criticism of me or my comment.
Feel free to delete it.
Edit: Because I’m not attacking you – but you think I am. If that is what you think then deleting my post seems the only option.
Feel free to miss/ignore the point.
Ever wondered why comments are moved to OM instead of outright deleted here, even with, or particularly with a note or comment from a Moderator?
Thanks for the condescension incogneto.
Take the day off please adam. It's not that what you are doing is hugely problematic, but I'm out of patience for long termers here not paying attention to what moderators are asking or suggesting.
Any time 😉
"Because I’m not attacking you – but you think I am"
No, I don't, I just think you are disrespecting me somewhat as an author, and unwilling to engage in debate /shrug. I still hope that will change for you because I think you have important ideas to bring to the table.
Plus, what Incog said.
I am sad and pathetic I know, but was just looking at the order paper for Parliament restarting Tuesday.
It has oral questions listed
Will be interesting to see how that works.
It might have already been brought up, and forgive me if it has, but are they just having minimal MPs in the chamber itself, or are they doing it online?
Plan is for minimal MPs (not sure how many).
At least there will be a lot less "Who said that?" from the Speaker. Hard for the naughty ones to hide.
“Which MP just said that watching online!! Get out of bed and withdraw and apologies at your laptop. And for christs sake put some pants on first!”.
There could be a strong National party presence. Don't know how they will manage the 2m physical distancing. Will be interesting to see how they do the seating.
How mobile are the seats in the debating chamber?
As for the naughty ones, yes could be a bit exposed if low numbers.
Presuming it will be mainly MPs living in a Wellington and a wild stab in the dark says David Parker won't rock up.
I'm almost certain you mean David Clark.
Heh, yeah the "joke" fell quite flat huh?
Get ready everyone, it's happening.
[Sure is, but what? Only way to find out is to click on a non-descriptive link, which I refuse to do, for a number of reasons. Remember good old Ed the commenter here? Do you remember what one of his main ‘crimes’ was? – Incognito]
[lprent: It is funny though. joe – how about learning how to embed a image. ]

See my Moderation note @ 3:25 PM.
Or folk could mouse-over and see that it's a reddit image.
Didn’t see the three letters “png” in the long link; do you know how many bloody links I see here every day? Anyway, what Lynn said.
I'm actually a bit hazy on how to embed images here.
lots of them end up being too large.
Use the “Source” to shift to HTML.
<img href=”URL” width=”550px” />
Change the URL to whatever the image address is. Don’t abuse it or have extra large images. I tend to turn off the ability to use it rather than educating people.
ah old school, cheers
Any chance of a UI button like the hyperlink & blockquotes?
Nope. I'm using a standard tool for the comment editor, and that isn't an option.
Plus I think I am going to have to look at images and video. I just realised that those are why the jump to a comment #comment-xxxxxxx isn't working too well. Need to look at changing the timing of the jump to the anchor.
That is so funny.
The joke is: there will be idiots who do it. Geez I hope someone gets some photos.
Farrar watch:
Farrar, in his delivery of National Party strategy, has started posting Australian stats state by state in comparison to New Zealand. He even made his own table (he provided no link).
He’s a stats man and his is a deliberate attack on New Zealand to make us look worse. Miraculously, it places NZ near the bottom of a table of ten!
But the real cynical bit was his use of "ANZAC" in the title of the post.
This politicises our pandemic response using the sacrifices of Kiwi servicemen and their families. The same servicemen who went to war to end persecution of Jews in Europe.
It is a new low from Farrar and completely tone deaf.
He and his paymasters seriously need to take a look at themselves and start reading the room.
Don’t worry about DPF, he’s not worth it. Today he also agreed with the pseudo-academic Steve Elers. It has got nothing to do with stats but everything with (media and data) manipulation and anti-government propaganda.
But I do.
John Key personally thanked Farrar in a victory speech. This shows how important to the National Party his polling and blogging is.
Journalists read Kiwiblog for leads and opinion. I think it's really important to push back when he makes a blunder as I believe he has done here. The push back might not rate any column inches but at least it gets the journalists thinking.
I also like to call out his hypocrisy whenever it occurs, which is quite a lot. Farrar hates nothing more than the questioning of his integrity.
I cannot see any analysis or opinion from the OP himself. The wee ranking table is nothing much and includes one oddity, which is the inclusion of Australia-overall in the ranking. I think DPF used it as a ‘fuse’ to light the commentariat with, which seems to have worked well. Only a fool would have taken that table one step further but DPF hadn’t – the KB commentariat did.
Farrar's posting is never innocent or by accident.
It serves as an extension of Curia's focus groups. He needs not provide analysis or opinion because his opinion is implicit when viewed alongside the rest of his posting and opinion.
Farrar is an extension of the National Party and the dragging down of New Zealand's Covid-19 response is a part of both their strategies.
Let's not be naive about that.
The same servicemen who went to war to end persecution of Jews in Europe.
You do know that is not why we went to war eh. Just saying.
Agree. Not attacking Muttonbird – our men went to war because they were told and agreed that Nazis were not nice at the time.
Only after the war were most of our soldiers aware of persecution of Jews.
More a technicality than a major disagreement.
As a country we went to war because Germany invaded Poland and so we followed Britain in declaring war. Most men went because they were conscripted.
Kristallnacht:
Pogrom:
It's wrong to say New Zealand and Australian servicemen were ignorant of the plight of Jews in Europe under Nazi rule.
I didn't say this, did you mean to reply to In Vino?
Sorry, Muttonbird, but I suspect that the majority of our soldiers would have had little idea of what Kristalnacht was. My father was in the second intake of NZIEF, and never mentioned it. I don't believe that such events got huge coverage here: only a small minority would be likely to be aware. The Poles also held big pogroms against the Jews – did we hear of them?
Fact remains NZ servicemen and their families made huge sacrifices to defeat Germany and its allies in WWI and the Germany and its allies in WWII which ended the persecution of Jews in Europe.
Farrar knows this but cynically used the term ANZAC for political gain. If he'd used the ANZAC spirit in a post about NZ/AUS unity fighting Covid-19 that might be different but his motivation is to undermine NZ's pandemic response in an effort to weaken the Labour-led government.
PDF is using NZ confirmed plus probable compared to confirmed cases only for Australia (they don't record probable cases).
Either he is spectacularly ignorant about stats & data (unlikely given his job) or has deliberately inflated NZ's total to make the government look bad.
I popped over for a look – I think you're seeing things that aren't there.
https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2020/04/latest_anzac_covid_stats.html
I think you are blind to it.
For instance, does the title of the post diminishing New Zealand's Covid-19 record use 'ANZAC', the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps?
It's not enough to say ANZAC is a de-facto term for 'Australasian'. The correct term for that is 'Australasian'.
ANZAC refers to the day of remembrance which Farrar has highjacked for political purposes.
Disgraceful.
Since I agreed with Solkta, I feel bound to agree with Muttonbird here. Farrar is a propagandist, and this is the low stuff he does.
The NZ Sikh community has fed 15,000 families in just the past fortnight.
"People from any ethnicity, any religion are welcome. We are all one and in this difficult time we are all New Zealanders. We should all stand with the wider community," says Daljit Singh.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2020/04/sikh-community-feeds-15k-families-over-past-fortnight.html
Kia Ora Newshub.
Level 3 tomorrow cool.
That's was the question.
At least our lock down was not as strict as that.
Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora Te Ao Maori News.
No fast Kai for me but I see Burger King is running got a Email reka Te dubble whopper.
It is good that our homeless people have rooms to stay in now.
Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora The Am Show.
I think what the travel restrictions are to try to minimise your travel that minimise the risk of catching or spreading the virus.
There you go travelling for mahi stay in your region.
Let's all try to have a positive attitude after all we are lucky to be living in the Ion age.
Looks like most people on the Show will be indulging in a wee while.
Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora Newshub.
The tradies back to mahi.
Its good to see the government helping regional economy's get up and running.
Ka kite Ano.
Kia Ora Te Ao Maori News.
There you go anyone can end up under the bridge.
Queuing for hours is not fast Kai it only takes 15 minutes to cook a quick kia stuff waiting hours.
I agree looking after the environment and low income whanau is needed and will boost the economy.
Good to see how the virus is affecting other indigenous cultures around the world.
Ka kite Ano.