"Parker took the opportunity to step aside from that role when cabinet was reshuffled in the wake of Kiri Allan's arrest. He later told reporters that holding the revenue position was untenable."
Some interesting comments under that Interest.co.nz opinion piece:
– it’s not that the socialists love the poor, it’s their hatred of the rich that drives them.
Jesus wept. What drives capitalists – their 'concerns' about poverty and the planet?
What Jesus said about capitalism [9 April 2012]
This doesn't mean Christ accepted poverty as an inevitable characteristic of the economy, or part of the divine plan. Rather, he says, the divine vision is that poverty be abolished, but as long as it persists, God and God's people must always take the side of the poor – and be among them.
Hmm, what would that lovely Mr Luxon say; he of the seven properties?
He said he continued to care about the Labour cause, describing himself as “an agent for change, for progressive change”.
It is a sad moment when a principled stand on the fundamental platform for a fairer society is described by a competent journalist as petulant. Such was the gist of Claire Trevett’s recent Herald piece on David Parker’s exit from the Taxation portfolio. The argument that one must stay silent on fundamental matters to sustain party unity is simply wrong. I understand well why Mr Parker found his position to be untenable in the face of a “Captain’s Call”, a modern initiative, which the Labour Party should, I believe, eschew.
The support for significant taxation reform is now shared across a spectrum from Piketty to Hickey and should be front and centre in Labour’s policy commitments. Delay on this front makes the task harder in the future.
The support for significant taxation reform is now shared across a spectrum from Piketty to Hickey and should be front and centre in Labour’s policy commitments. Delay on this front makes the task harder in the future.
The Israeli parliament on Monday passed a law stripping the Supreme Court of its power to block government decisions, the first part of a planned judicial overhaul that has sharply divided Israeli society and drawn fierce criticism from the White House.
The controversial bill passed by a vote of 64-0 in the Knesset. All members of the governing coalition voted in favor the bill, while all opposition lawmakers walked out of the chamber as the vote was taking place.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said he would file a petition with the Supreme Court on Tuesday to block the law and has urged the military reservists not to refuse to serve until the court delivers its ruling.
The so-called reasonableness law takes away the Supreme Court’s power to block government decisions by declaring them unreasonable. Its passing could trigger a constitutional crisis – if the court declares the law itself is unreasonable.
In a democracy, who holds supreme power? Executive or judiciary? The theory of popular sovereignty holds that the people are supreme, therefore any govt they vote in exercises ultimate power. The theory of the establishment is that constitutional tradition prevails over popular cowboy govts. The Israeli PM is a popular cowboy trying it on. Principled folk would argue he has a mandate to do so. So, the people or the judges?
One has to consider both the powers of the courts and the way in which the judiciary are appointed. The US has the worst of both worlds in terms of the Supreme Court – politically-appointed judges and the power to block legislation. The sanest combination is probably quite limited powers to block legislation and independently-appointed judiciary. I don't know anything about the Israeli Court System so don't know if Netenyahu's changes are in this direction or away from it. No doubt much of the alarm is caused not by the precise constitutional nature of the change, but about who is initiating it and whether it is just the opening gambit.
The scale and persistence of the protests must indicate the lefties there are irrational, I suppose.
It's just a pity that the size of the leftie vote in Israel is no longer on the scale of the protests. Labour is the smallest party in their Knesset with just 4 seats, just above the 3% threshhold. And Meretz is gone. They now have to merge, or risk being seen as vote wasters.
The wider ME sees it as the beginning of the end of the Israeli state. It's certainly the end of the culture which built the homeland state and defended it.
This is beyond the cultural war in the USA. This is their Weimar Republic on the precipice moment.
If there is to be supreme law (like a constitution) and ordinary law, the question arises of what to do when the legislature passes ordinary laws which contradict supreme law, particularly if it is a genuinely unintended consequence.
Obviously that doesn't have to be resolved by the judiciary, but that has become a traditional approach. Could use the NZ approach of referring conflicts back to the legislature to resolve, but if for some reason, there is no resolution, it does call into question the supremacy of a constitution.
AAhh Joe Biden, possibly the most corrupt POTUS in our life time….this guy has no shame…
Gallery Sold Hunter Biden’s Art to Major Dem Donor Appointed to Special Commission by President Biden
"The New York art gallery representing Hunter Biden’s exorbitantly expensive painting collection sold his artwork to a Democratic-donor socialite whom President Biden appointed to a special U.S. commission of international significance.
Despite the assurance of the Biden administration that the president’s son, for ethical reasons, would be left in dark about the identity of his buyers, Hunter later discovered the identities of two of them, sources told BusinessInsider. One of those two clients received a presidential privilege in the form of a commission placement.
The buyer in question was California investor and philanthropist Elizabeth Hirsh Naftali, who contributed $13,414 to the Biden campaign and $29,700 to the Democratic National Campaign Committee this year, Insider reported.
…and that is just the tip of the iceberg in the USA, of course we all know about the Biden's many and varied super dodgy 'business' dealings in the Ukraine….nothing tosee here folks…well according to RNZ,who of course rarely cover any of this, but of course cover every stupid thing about Trump, like he is somehow any worse than Biden…jeez give me a break!…they are both just stinking piles of shit.
Though I guess Trump's instinct seems to be to keep the US within it's own boarders, which would make the World a safer place for most of the rest of the World, especially for those in the most of the Middle East, most of Asia, most of South America, better they keep the hell out of Europe too as it turns out, so I guess for that one thing alone he could be marginally better…
…if having a more peacful world is your thing that is, which I know isn’t really the bag of the new Liberal imperialist class..but who cares what they think right?
But am not discussing Putin here, I am discussing Biden…we get to hear all the bad things about Putin (and Trump) quite regularly enough on western MSM don't you think?
To bad our media seems to believe it is in the business of creating, molding and driving news narratives, rather than just reporting on them and letting the public make up it's on mind…but then it turns out that even people who should react to this fact with dismay…seem to be quite okay with it…and that my friend, is the bit I just don't understand.
Adrian is now the spokesman for the Maga loonies. After 5 years of investigation by Trump appointed investigators there has not one bit of evidence found to incriminate Joe Biden. The two items Hunter has been charged with after those 5 years is a late IRD tax payment which he has since paid and owning a gun that he wasn't entitled to own.
The rest is wild conspiracy Maga rubbish Adrian and you might be wise to avoid any rabbit holes. They trip you up.
I have it on good authority, (numerous YouTube interviews with people outside Trump rallies and attending JFK Jr Lives rallies), that Joe is not the President.
I also have it on similarly good authority that the Biden's are a 'crime family' guilty of all sorts of crimes, financial, political, sexual, moral and other stuff so unimaginable you have to make it up.
The answer to any and all dilemmas facing the US is that the most ethical, moral, intellectual, honest, humble, compassionate, altruistic family in US history should be given total reign in that land. Arise King Donald.
Really though, as for them 'both being just stinking piles of shit' because one is, jeez, give us a break.
USA is claimed to be the "greatest democracy" and "leaders of the world" yet sunken into a swamp of fantasy. Worrying to hear a NZF candidate claiming "sexualisation of schoolkids" and "Wokeism " in NZ schools with Winston supporting it on Morning Report.
You might like to have a look at the RSE curriculum and what is being taught in our schools.
"Hutt Valley High’s lessons are based in gender identity theory, an unscientific belief system that seeks to redefine boys and girls. Despite the fact that New Zealand parents are overwhelminglyopposed to gender identity theory, our Ministry of Education has been attempting to introduce these types of lessons across New Zealand. At Hutt Valley High, they have succeeded.
The underlying messages sent by Hutt Valley High’s lessons are that:
Your biological sex was arbitrarily assigned to you, and can be changed.
Whether you are ‘really’ male or female depends on your feelings about gender roles, and is independent of your biology.
Girls who don’t feel comfortable with the stereotypical female gender role should consider medical gender transition (as should boys who don’t feel comfortable with male stereotypes).
Disagreeing with any of these beliefs is unacceptable (i.e. ‘transphobic’).
These messages are false and potentially harmful. Hutt Valley High’s lessons risk nudging vulnerable adolescents into a descent into lifelong medical dependency."
Are you actually seriously equating this moment in history with the Nazi invasion of Europe and Russia?….holy crap buddy, you must have drunk even more of the Cool Aid than most of the new Liberal pro war crew around these parts….and that really is saying something!
Like so much that Joe Biden has anything to do with, it looks and smells very much like something really dodgy…even the Washington Post is going to cut Biden free soon it seems..
Yet we’re still left with a motley collection of odd and unsavory figures sending a lot of money through a lot of companies to a lot of members of the Biden family, with little explanation why. Comer contends that bank records confirm more than $10 million in payments, run through at least 20 businesses, mostly limited liability companies, to the president’s son Hunter Biden; the president’s brother, James Biden; James’s wife, Sara Jones Biden; Hallie Biden (widow of Joe Biden’s son Beau, who died in 2015); Hunter’s ex-wife, Kathleen Buhle; Hunter’s current wife, Melissa Cohen; and, as Comer noted, “three children of the president’s son and the president’s brother.”
Just what goods or services did all those Biden family members provide to those companies?"
…pretty sure most US Liberal press will follow suit before long, not only is the man obviously suffering seriously from age related age issues that even the most staunchest Biden supporter can't possibly ignore, he has also obviously been involved in some really dodgy as fuck business dealings with various foreign entities…the guy is damaged good, shit he can't even stay with Trump in the election polls for 2024…or even DeSantis in some polls FFS…. https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/2024/
But you lot just keep on telling yourself that I am a Trump troll and Putin puppet if that keeps the lid on (for a little longer) the giant bucket of fermenting bullshit you guys have been sitting on and feeding for so long……but hey, you go right ahead a believe whatever makes you happy.
On Tuesday evening, less than two weeks after the court ruling, Shaw announced Cabinet had made a decision to almost entirely align with the commission's advice going forward.
"Today is an important step forward in helping us to meet our domestic and international climate targets. The new settings put us in lock step with advice provided by the Climate Change Commission in 2022 and 2023," he said. Cost-of-living impacts were expected to be minimal – a $10 rise in the price of carbon would only add $1.67 to the average household's weekly budget.
She talks about her own experience, as founder of the Disibformation Project, and mentions a new UN report on gendered violence, which summarises the outcomes of the negative on-line attacks:
"At a societal level, targetted female and gender-based violence is a threat to open, peaceful, democratic societies. Evidence shows that gendered disinformation and targeted hate campaigns form narratives that go beyond attacks on individual women and LGBTQIA+ people, to attacking their rights more broadly, often with an end goal of polarising and destabilising democratic societies.
It can erode individual and collective rights to participate in shared civic spaces and discourage women from being involved in public life or cause them to self-censor.
It can also increase tensions that lead to violent conflict, with some arguing that online threats against women in public roles should be included as a gender-sensitive early warning indicator for conflict.
There is also a growing body of research showing the specific security threat posed by individuals who perpetrate acts of targeted violence, many of whom display concerning online misogynistic behaviour, domestic violence, or threatening online communication."
The reason the left succumbed to this shit lies in the inertial effect of political psychology: minority rights. The focus in the 1970s was on achievement of recognition of those, then thro the '80s they were integrated via consensual acceptance.
Identity politics morphed this via activist narcissism. Personal subjective views got more media play than shared views built on an ethical basis as common ground.
Consequently the past decade has featured the alphabet soup tribe becoming toxic in a flow of media sensations. The only interesting dimension of the trend is the emergence of collective narcissism as a feature of small minority groups.
Harm done to victims by trendy lefty lynch mobs is indeed a worthy focus for media and all. A corrective remedial force must emerge to deal with the sociopaths.
You should try Incognito's word-salad framing. Works just as well to evade the point. And I wouldn't assume left-wingers are incapable of learning the difference between individual and group narcissism – the analytical trend into discussing that has been percolating along nicely in recent years. Leftists tend to be partial to such academic fashion trends…
Gee, DF, almost like rights should not be universal, but only for the comfy majority. That comfy majority may be buddhist against muslim in Myanmar, hindu against any other religion in India, white against people of colour and sunni against shia (and vv) in many places.
Anywhere that fear is riled up by cynical political actors to gain and maintain power.
Speaking of universal rights, do you believe that the exceptions in the Human Rights Act that enable female-only spaces and services (think Rape Crisis or sport or women's changing rooms at work) should be retained or removed so that TW can have access to those female only things?
In the UK, trans women have used, and volunteered for, rape-crisis and domestic violence organisations. This 2021 article shows the big divide within the UK sector, where on-the-ground non-trans workers disagree with trans-exclusionary policy brought in by management, but fear for their jobs. And that is at a time when the 2010 UK rights legislation clearly prohibits gender-based discrimination.
I disgree with the GC trans exclusionary position held by some here at TS, especially because it has eroded the existing services trans women have had, and used without issue, particularly in the UK and US.
That's taking things away from people. It shows a particularly damaging belief that rights for minority groups somehow take away rights from the majority (Dennis Frank's denounciation of 'identity politics'). Where, instead, I know through changes in my own lifetime, that inclusivity action, by expansion of rights and by equity initiatives, makes our society more diverse and interesting, and better to belong in.
Real-world evidence validates that access of trans women to gendered spaces and services in the last decades has not caused problems from the 100,000 or so trans women in the UK, and the 11,000 trans women in NZ. And self-id in countries like Brazil and Ireland, covering a billion or so people, has not caused floods of penises into bathrooms. Your point about universal rights and 'women-only' spaces is what?
There will always be people manipulated into the "fashions" of the time.
For example NOW’s (National Organisation of Woman – USA) dedication to the equal rights of the feminine gender/women, now incorporates those who are transgender.
And so there are now, women's organisations built around, not doing so.
And predictably there are LGB groups that exclude the transgender and seem to be abandoning the word queer while doing so. All because the established LGBQ added the T.
The word narcissism is one commonly thrown around, to infer some particular knowledge of the psychopathy of others.
This is all the sign, of a certain cultivation of the evolved civilisation sentience, that such matters gain significance. As with the Weimar Republic. Before the retreat back to the old certainties of atavism, or that old time religion, kingdom come. So much washing off of guilt to allow a return to being pure and righteous.
A bit like confession of addiction, to redeem the collective self. As Hollywood Babylon did with the adoption of a Hays Code. And the SEC did after the excesses of Wall Street.
Can someone explain why this post could not be further edited within the 10 minutes?
I’ll continue.
Yet ultimately it is the concept of market forces natural law “order out of chaos”, a god of mammon that humanity is subject to, so that there is a return to innocent acceptance of over-rule – rather than the knowledge/guilt of human dominion.
The great joke on joe public is that the elites manipulate the market all the time to take advantage of it, to grow their own wealth.
It’s all propaganda designed to diminish the power of voters, so elites can retain privilege.
Of course the people are given something to vote against, hate on, so their consent can be seen to be made.
Cool. The interesting thing about political commentary is the inter-generational context. Folks get socially conditioned to a norm, then the co-construction of social reality shifts into consolidating a different norm. So if there's areas of similar views across generations, there's also significant differences.
Those differences can be experienced as a barrier or divide, yet also explored for potential to articulate further common ground by resolving the differences. As a centrist within the Greens I had to establish common ground with the leftists & thereby learnt the art of consensus-building via practical politics.
The notion of intersectionality is what differentiates minority politics nowadays from that era of 30 years back. The sociopolitical system has gotten more complex. We just had the red-green & blue-green dimension plus the pale Green & deep Green dimension – along with the leftist/centrist divide that caused the Values Party schism in the '70s and has persisted since then.
It's a bit rich for her to complain about misogyny in the darker corners of the internet when the "young NZer of the Year" and a bunch of left wing activists openly assaulted women in Albert Park earlier this year and cancelled their right to speak in public. And a few days ago the MSM colluded again to suppress a pretty mild ad from Family First stating basic biological reality.
Disinformation indeed.
(stating it plainly: IMO the Disinfo Project has morphed into a propaganda attack on free speech and an organ of elite narratives – especially focussed on othering dissidents and whistleblowers – the antithesis of open democratic discourse & the fourth estate’s duty to hold the powerful to account)
Lal was a part of the whole debacle. AFAIK "they" did not directly assault anyone. Personally I am more concerned about the violence and coverups than litigating one sentence I wrote
To clarify: Lal endorsed the misogynistic Albert Park violence and subsequent cover-up.
None of the links you have provided support this assertion. Because you are making a specific claim about a public figure, you have to be able to back that up now.
When you do, please provide the quote as well as the link.
… why did Posie Parker require protection – is because Hill, Minister Wood, O’Brien, Lal and even Justice Gendall had all contributed to an environment where the use of violence was not only being legitimised, but had become a moral necessity.
Lal, and the now former Pride director Max Tweedie, drove the smear campaign against both women’s rights campaigner Posie Parker and local feminists ahead of her ill-fated March visit. After an attempt to deny her entry into the country was rejected, the pair shifted their focus to organising a crowd to chase women out of a public park. A few women were violently assaulted. The message sent was clear – oppose us, and we will physically hurt you.
Lal's tweets about "Terfs" are inflammatory and celebrate the Albert Park mob.
"Good riddance Nazi TERF"
"Yes #fuckallterfs"
"A lipsticks for TERFs" (accompanied by a picture of superglue)
thank-you. And thanks for just going and doing that instead of arguing about it or not doing it, this mod is very grateful.
You said,
It’s a bit rich for her to complain about misogyny in the darker corners of the internet when the “young NZer of the Year” and a bunch of left wing activists openly assaulted women in Albert Park earlier this year and cancelled their right to speak in public.
I’m not aware that Lal assaulted anyone. I agree he is partially responsible for the set up for the violence that happened, and that’s different from assaulting people.
The truth is sufficient, we don’t have to embellish it. I’m going to make a mod statement soon, because all sides at the moment are making exaggerated declaratory statements without evidence and it has to stop. It’s a significant drain on my moderator time, and it also drags TS commentariat into the culture war instead of upholding robust debate.
Let's hope your own smear campaign against Lal (reinforcement of the message of Grant et al) does not incite any violence, given you think there is correlation between having a position and what others do.
Lal used his considerable media reach to preach terf=nazi bigot. It wasn’t simply a position, it was activism and propaganda.
Both sides need to calm the fuck down. I have some hope that people like rob will. I have no sense that people like Lal will until they get slapped down. The response from Spark was a good public embarrassment for him, I doubt that he will have learned much but in time the tide will shift on the kind of extreme position he takes, because of the kinds of actions it leads to.
the use of violence was not only being legitimised, but had become a moral necessity.
The crowd seemed intent on making noise and kettling the protest, little more.
the pair shifted their focus to organising a crowd to chase women out of a public park. A few women were violently assaulted. The message sent was clear – oppose us, and we will physically hurt you.
They were was no attempt to chase anyone out, nor any attempt to organise any attack (no one came armed) and what incidents there were were inter-personal apart from some jostling of the K-J K's protection team on the way out.
She makes the mistake of thinking that there is something called LGBTQA++++ and that their interests are all the same. In reality, the L, G and B are same sex attracted and everything south of there is straight.
Our rights as same sex attracted people rest on the idea that same-sex attraction is real and normal and should be afforded the same rights and respect as heterosexuality. That is all we want – the same rights as straight people.
Good comment. Analytical flair in the culture wars really ought to balance a differential tendency with an integral tendency otherwise it remains inherently partial. Since culture arises from commonality, human groups can't survive easily without doing both concurrently. In geopolitics, the splitter syndrome wears the technical term balkanisation.
I suspect culture wars aren't much fun for most participants (harm done) but are entertaining for splitters. When minority group leaders are splitters rather than consensus builders, they produce toxicity.
Funny that both Visubversa and roblogic are happy to discount gender-based online calls for violence because of the person making that message.
If you attack people and groups right to exist, not their ideas, then that is open discrimination. I detest Posie Parker because of her manipulative provacateur actions and some extreme violent comments she made against trans people, and has never apopogised for. I don't call for her annihilation (as she threatens women who disagree with her). I don't threaten her with violence, I challenge her disgusting views.
And baby with bathwater. Hannah opposes violent anti-gender online speech in her commentary, which in number primarily attacks women. By trying to discount that message because of the messenger, VS and RL (and now others here) expose their discrimination for us to see. Baby with bathwater.
If you attack people and groups right to exist, not their ideas, then that is open discrimination.
This is a good point. It's why I focus on gender identity ideology and its impacts on women rather than focussing on trans people.
Funny that both Visubversa and roblogic are happy to discount gender-based online calls for violence because of the person making that message.
That's not it though. The disagreement isn't because it's Hannah making it, it's because the DIP is so partisan and not honest about that.
For instance, Visubversa's critique is that the DIP using LGBTQI+ framing creates significant problems for homosexual people. It's the ideas within LGBTQI+ that push the problems. We've not been allowed to talk about that freely thanks to No Debate, and now we have a progressive org enforcing homophobic ideology. That's all legit critique.
Likewise, rob is pointing to the ideological positioning of the DIP.
I'm all for not focussing on Hannah and the DIP and talking about the ideology, but in the absence of that conversation, there will be push back against orgs and people who are actively suppressing debate and refusing to engage with critique of their positions. The only way left to respond to that is to push harder.
This is a ridiculous claim. It's equivalent to the argument that prioritising Māori and Pasifika to improve inequitable health outcomes is racist.
The bandying about of the 'ideology' term ignores that those who are endlessly claiming there is 'No Debate' are also followers of an ideology, one that seeks to exclude trans people, supported by such 'progressive' organisations as Family First.
The Disinformation Project is 'pressuring lesbians to like girl dick'? That is your claim?
now we have a progressive org enforcing homophobic ideology
Even if I accept your framing of an uncited example, no one is or is even capable of forcing anyone to be attracted to anyone else. That said, plenty of trans people aren't straight, being trans isn't a sexuality. Just like plenty of bisexuals are in straight relationships but are still part of the community.
The Disinformation Project is 'pressuring lesbians to like girl dick'? That is your claim?
No, they have an ideological position which supports the subculture that is shifting the definition of homosexuality from same sex attracted to same gender attracted.
You said you wanted to talk about ideas, that's what I'm doing. I'm talking about those ideas play out in RL with unintended consequences. Have you heard about the cotton ceiling?
no one is or is even capable of forcing anyone to be attracted to anyone else.
Of course. They can try though, which is why we have conversion therapy legislation.
I will ask you again, how is pressuring lesbians to like girl dick not homophobic?
No lesbian has – or ever has had, a penis. They can call themselves a "lesbian" until the end of time but nobody can be forced to believe them. Your "evidence" has the language of gender ideology and is therefore reflective of a homophobic cult.
And you have no evidence but your own exclusionary ideology. Your argument is circular, your antipathy to the existence of people different from you is transphobic. You can hold these beliefs but they do not reflect the views of the majority of people.
The bandying about of the 'ideology' term ignores that those who are endlessly claiming there is 'No Debate' are also followers of an ideology, one that seeks to exclude trans people, supported by such 'progressive' organisations as Family First.
I go on about No Debate, but my ideology is that of gender critical feminism, not RW gender conservatism. Do you know what the difference is?
It says much that you are unaware of the strong left wing GC movement, and all the work it is doing to push back against the conservatives positions on gender.
I mentioned Family First as they were cited by RL. I note that you haven’t pushed back on that.
Push back on what? He pointed to the problem of the MSM collaborating to refuse advertising to something that was pretty mild. Do you think that didn't happen?
I have been very critical of the Parliament protests and its disgraceful misogyny and violence. And quite harsh on Julian Batchelor and his anti Maori crusade.
I am an equal opportunity critic of bullshitters.
Posie Parker probably belongs in the “BS” category too, but that doesn’t justify the way that she and her supporters were treated in Aotearoa.
The vast majority of lesbian, gay and bisexual people are supportive of, and not concerned at all about the existence of trans people or any supposed 'ideology'.
The queer community has always included trans people and efforts to exclude them are ahistorical, confused and ideological.
The vast majority of lesbian, gay and bisexual people are supportive of, and not concerned at all about the existence of trans people or any supposed 'ideology'.
What makes you think this?
I agree about the queer community comment, but do you accept that there are significant numbers of LGB people who don't ID as queer and don't see themselves as part of that community?
The latest global survey from Ipsos – the LGBT+ Pride 2023 survey – shows that 84% of New Zealanders believe transgender people should be protected from discrimination in employment, housing and access to businesses.
That's my understanding too. That's not the same as "The vast majority of lesbian, gay and bisexual people are supportive of, and not concerned at all about the existence of trans people or any supposed 'ideology'."
When we look at yougov polling in the UK, it's very clear that most people support the human rights of trans people (as above), and draw the line at TWAW and accessing women's changing rooms.
Have a look at what happens to women's positions when they understand that a TW can be a man with no surgical treatment.
I know what you did, but I countered that by pointing out that your vidence didn't match your claim.
I then made the argument that most people support trans rights but don't support transgressions of women's rights and I provided a reputable polling company in a similar country.
Yes, the UK isn't NZ. We don't do adequate polling on this in NZ. I wonder why.
You have failed to quantify your claim of 'significance' and you again make up claims about my beliefs.
Just been dealing with other things, will get to it in a while.
Of all LGBT+ identities, other than trans and non-binary people themselves, lesbian young adults were most likely to say they know a trans person (92%), and most likely to say they are “supportive” or “very supportive” of trans people (96%).
In comparison, 89% of LGBT+ people overall said they were “supportive” or “very supportive” of trans people, and just 69% of non-LGBT+ people said the same.
You are confusing the past – when the vast majority of trans people were gay men at a time when sex between men was unlawful and some of them internalised their homophobia and "transed away the Gay". There were also a few lesbians who endeavoured to be more like men for personal protection and/or at the bequest of their "straight acting" girlfriends. All these people were same sex attracted and very much part of the LGB community.
Today, with Homosexual Law Reform and Marriage Equality, there is no longer the impetus for that kind of "gay conversion therapy". Today's trans identifying people are quite different. Many are heterosexual, the men have wives and children and when they "identify" as women, they also identify as lesbians. The same with many of the young women who reject the pornified and oppressive female gender roles of today and seek to identify their way out of their oppression. They identify as gay men and then have problems finding sexual partners as they do not have when gay men want.
It is this kind of sexual repression and resentment that drives a lot of the vitriol – particularly against lesbians who are just not interested in a "transbian".
There was a period of common cause – it was of course the equal rights and protections for people regardless of religion, race, ethnicity, sex, sexuality or gender identity.
It seems to be a separation between sexuality and gender identity, as to common cause. As if their equal rights and or protection could conflict.
Our rights as same sex attracted people rest on the idea that same-sex attraction is real and normal and should be afforded the same rights and respect as heterosexuality. That is all we want – the same rights as straight people.
All fine, but then there is the common cause with those who deny any reality (or normality) to gender identity where this is different to biological sex.
Sorry – what reality/normality is there in the idea that people have a "gendered soul" which supersedes biological reality? Where is the test for this "gender reality"?
The truth about your sex is in every drop of your blood. If you are going to state that something should overcome that – you better have a good definition of it and some sort of ability to prove it.
That I have not made a case, is not evidence that I have no argument. It's not the point being discussed, which was related to the end of common cause.
I'm with roblogic on this one. The moral high ground to make these statements was lost because of the lack of condemnation of the male violence against women at LWS in Auckland, as well as the use of violence to prevent NZ women from speaking.
It's just too jarring, and imo what Hannah is doing with this partisan approach is engaging in the culture war.
Rather a fallacious argument to discount Hannah's right to comment on gender-based online violence, weka. By that same logic, VS and RB are disbarred from any comments on this topic because they have not denounced the actual physical violence against a woman exercising her right to freedom of expression in Batchelor's PN meeting.
Hannah is in an excellent position to make an informed comment: she works with this revolting material every day.
I do not discount Hannah's personal right to comment, no doubt she has experienced some of the worst dregs of humanity online. But her article turns a blind eye to others not of her political persuasion and the equal amount of shit they have to deal with.
Has that person defined the women that they speak of? female women, male women, non binary women of both sexes?
IF not, it's meaningless drivel.
And females getting bullied, what else is new, i mean this is NZ a country with sky high domestic violence stats.
As or Albert Park the only ones that were getting the bash there were the middle aged women – maori and pakeha – that came for a meeting of their peers to a public park. Not a single male women or a single female man were harmed.
Not true, a known neo-nazi the crowd pushed around a tiny woman counter-protest marshall. He continued to harass her physically until a trans woman in blue gave him a good punch on the shoulder, after talking with the marshall briefly.
Apart from this, the juice incident, the young man who punched the woman, the motorbike hit on Marama, and thuggish behaviour by Posie supporters, the Brian Tamaki mob, where is the orchestrated anti-woman violence in the counter-protest in the thousands, in which many ‘bio’ women came along to protest noisily against PP.
you need to provide the evidence for those. Putting you in premod until you do. The MSM made a mess of reporting this, so we may as well get it sorted out now. I'm not doubting you so much as wanting clarity and to sort out the facts from the hyperbole (feel free to point me to other comments that need to provide evidence too).
Evidence means,
links *and quotes to support each specific claim
if using video/audio, a time stamp to the relevant bits.
Each claim means,
a known neo nazi pushed a counter protest marshal around
Saw the harassment of the marshall 'with my own eyes' on an extensive video analysis, virtually frame-by-frame on BHN. The man was post-incident id’d as a neo-nazi.
Unfortunately BHN has taken down their clip, so I cannot say any more than I was an eye-witness to credible visuals that clearly showed this sequence of events. I have discussed these events at TS before weka
Are you using your site capacity to censor my posts with no warning ? Where is my post on UK media?
No, I'm not censoring you, you're in premod, which means none of your comments will appear until you've provided evidence. This is to make sure that people provide back up for claims of fact (see the site Policy) and don't create work for the mods having to chase them up. We've been using this method for a long time.
In this case you have explained why you can't provide evidence, but I'm going to ask you to link to the person and place that used to have the video up.
You also need to provide evidence for the last claim in my list.
I've explained moderation and expectations to you before.
I'm not willing to allow such loose claims of fact on such a controversial topic. Again, if you see other people needing to be pulled up on this please let one of the mods know (we will need a link to the specific comment and a brief explanation).
Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, weka. Where is your evidence/link that trans lesbians are pressuring 'real' lesbians into sex? And where is Anker's link for the former judge discrediting the Disinformation Project?
You ARE censoring me if you hold only me to your moderator standard of providing proof (in a debate you hold a contrary position on, I point out), but do not hold yourself or others who continue a thread I initiated this morning to the same requirement.
This is now being discussed in the back end. I'm going to ban you for 24 hours so the mods can finish that conversation.
My suggestion is this:
Take some time over the next day to reread my two (unbolded) moderation comments. I've explained quite clearly what is needed (two simply pieces of evidence and how that needs to be done).
If you don't want to provide evidence, then please withdraw the claims you made.
If you can do either of those two things then no further ban will be likely.
I've also explained how you can get moderators to look at other comments you think are a problem.
Three further points:
wasting moderator time and/or arguing about moderation are two fast pathways to a ban. If you slow down and read what I said you will see an easy way to get out of premod and how to avoid a ban
You may feel like this is unfair, but I'm cutting you slack here. Other commenters on other topics would have been banned by now.
the Policy says this "This includes making assertions that you are unable to substantiate with some proof (and that doesn’t mean endless links to unsubstantial authorities) or even argue when requested to do so. Such comments may be deleted without warning or one of the alternatives below may be employed. The action taken is completely up to the moderator who takes it."
We don't require pre-emptive evidence with every comment, but anyone here can ask any other commenter for evidence if it hasn't already been provided. The key here is to actually ask, and do so in a clear way that people can understand.
MOD NOTE: It's two days later and you haven't responded. I'm drawing a line under this so I don't have to waste more time on it. You are now out of premod and off the ban list.
This is your final warning. Next time you refuse to provide back up for claims of fact when asked, and/or you ignore moderation, and/or you hassle moderators or try and fight about the moderation, I will simply ban you so that I don't have to waste my time any further. I don't know how long that ban will be, maybe a few weeks or a month. But if you give me grief I will ban you until after the election.
To be very clear, this has nothing to do with the topic. I want you to keep bringing your arguments to TS, you just have to work with the rules like everyone else. This is to do with you ignoring moderation and picking a fight about it.
Anyone else that behaved as you did two says ago would already have been banned, but I'm cutting you slack because I think the debate on TS is better served by you being able to comment than not. There are limits to that however.
Please read this post for how evidence needs to be presented, and ask if you are unclear,
I'm not discounting her right to comment so much as pointing out that she doesn't have the moral high ground.
It's not hard to ascertain what rob, V and I think about say the woman who was assaulted at JB's meeting. You can just ask.
(fwiw I think it was assault and I hope she presses charges. I also think activists need to be aware of the undisciplined situation they are putting themselves in. I expect they already know that, I hope they get strategic about it. There's an opportunity here to use the Justice System to get the JB crowd to shift back into societal protest norms. But that also takes us back to LWS and what the fuck the police were not doing).
But can you tell me what statements DIP have made about the violence at LWS?
The Disinformation Project deals with online calls for violence. Isolated incidences of physical violence at an overwhelmingly peaceful counterprotest is kind of outside their brief.
If there had been an outpouring of murder and rape threats online from NZers against Posie Parker, as there was against the protester who merely poured juice on PP, and against Lal simply for organising a peaceful counterprotest that repeatedly emphasised non-violence, then we would have heard of it from Hannah.
Kate Hannah has every right to speak up about her experience as a woman on line.
But I think" on-line violence" is an oxymoron as violence is physical and happens in the real world (like in Albert Park). Language however hurtful isn't violence and changing the definition of violence is unhelpful. Not to take away from verbal threats of violence which are against the law.
TDP has been very well critiqued in the media, shortly after Posie Parkers visit. The commentators spanned across the left right divide. Then a retired district court judge reviewed their work including their metholodogy and completely discredited them. The DIP exist to re-inforce an indeological narrative and thus their purpose is propaganda. They have likely won a $500,000 contract to carry out this work. Both the fact that they do it and the fact that tax payers pay for it is disgraceful. I hope the new NACT govt cancell their contract or if they can't, don't renew. We have spies that are specialists in monitoring citizens who may be a danger to our society. They are trained to do this job and do it in secret.
While I essentially support your views on this wider subject, I do take issue with;…"as violence is physical and happens in the real world (like in Albert Park). Language however hurtful isn't violence and changing the definition of violence is unhelpful".
A few years back I was involved as a Scout Leader at a Jamboree. A few of our senior female Scouts asked if they could have an all girl patrol. We agreed. For the first two days they were unstoppable, tight, co-operative and happy.
Activities on day 3 included building a raft and going around a buoy and returning. It didn't go well is an understatement. The nasty back-biting and ganging up that occurred was shocking. Often out of earshot or in quiet moments. That evening the patrol members were 're-assigned' to other patrols.
The point I am making (finally) was illustrated at a korero we had at the first night back at Scouts a few weeks later. While not speaking of the events outlined above, a young female Scout observed that "when a female wants to hurt you, you stay hurt".
I know of those who possess a 'wicked tongue', constantly undermining, questioning one's worth or ability and happily highlighting short-comings.
I accept that on-line carry-on is a step away in severity from real world and I have more than a few questions about DIP's beginnings, funders and true motive but words do matter.
Dunno about predictable. Does a rebel get street cred by caving to political pressure?? Tradition has it that he who fights & runs away will live to fight another day, so I guess one ought to acknowledge his pragmatism. A rebel has to learn to develop solidarity in common cause, so maybe that will be his learning curve…
He doesn't seem to have considered the potential conflicts of interest in his multiple board roles
I told Jim the problem I have got is I sit on Te Whakaruruhau and part of my mandate on that board is to be noisy around political stuff. With the election coming forward, there’s going to be more of this, so I said I’m out.”
“Twitter, the text-based social media platform that played an outsized role on society by serving as a digital town square, was killed by its unhinged owner Elon Musk on Sunday. It was 17 years old.
A zombie Twitter, known only as X, reluctantly endures. A warped and disfigured platform, X marches on like a White Walker, an ugly shell of its former self under the command of a loathsome leader.
Whereas Twitter was once a fountain of authoritative information, X is a platform where trolls can pay a small fee to have their ugly content boosted ahead of reputable sources.
X is a platform where identity verification no longer exists and impersonation is only a paid subscription away.”
Under the Chinese Communist Party system, foreign policy is formulated by a high-level official, who then directs the foreign minister to implement it.
So you have a puppeteer & a puppet. Perhaps the minister thought being a protege of Xi gave him more autonomy than his controller deemed appropriate?
"The Earth is basically a lumpy potato," said study coauthor Attreyee Ghosh, a geophysicist and associate professor at the Centre for Earth Sciences of the Indian Institute of Science. "So technically it's not a sphere, but what we call an ellipsoid, because as the planet rotates the middle part bulges outward."
Yeah I read that yesterday. We got taught the oblate spheroid view in college physics (mid-late '60s). That asymmetry is now more complex. I suppose the effect of the anomaly on plate tectonics is the guts of the research. Wait until a modified theory becomes output after the research…
Not me, while I did 6th form physics, I used the class for history revision (an option available to those choosing a new subject in the 7th form year – they allowed a 4 subject UE pass), thus an easy A. E = mc2 and the basics of the atom etc (or was that 4th form, I got an A in 4th form science).
They seem quite aware that they still have something to work out. Modified and or upgraded position and all.
The Taxpayers’ Union has heard from sources that Nicky Hager is working on a bookwhich is focused at the Taxpayers’ Union. We are aware of him approaching former members of staff asking them to breach confidences.
Chairman of the Taxpayers’ Union, Laurie Kubiak said:
[…]
“It is no surprise the Taxpayers’ Union is Mr Hager’s latest target. He is coming for us because we are successful.
“Hager is very good at collecting disparate facts and then weaving them to suit an interpretation using selective and partial use of those facts."
How else can he front as a partisan??
We are successful because we have hundreds of thousands of subscribed supporters, and more than 23,000 donors. There is a very sad history of hacks and theft of data from centre-right groups in New Zealand.
Have-nots hacking haves, ha! As if wealthy folk don't have a right of privacy in the view of leftist hackers. Selective morality is a partisan thing. Hypocrisy.
In the United Kingdom, security services have been more proactive in assisting think tanks to defend themselves from politically motivated cyber-attacks.
An actual bleat! They think they're a think-tank, not just a union. Well then, spend the goddam donations on security like the Brits then! Spit that dummy!
He [Hager] is coming for us [the Taxpayers’ Union] because we are successful.
Does Kubiak consider 'PMs ruling out a CGT or wealth tax' to be a success? Probably.
“Journalists should also be wary of relying on Mr Hager’s claims. His last book Hit & Run, resulted in an enquiry led by a former Supreme Court Judge, and a former Attorney General and Prime Minister. They concluded that the “principal allegations” in Hager’s book “are not accurate”.
– Kubiak [Chairman of the Taxpayers' Union]
Hager has responded. He argues that "after nearly ten years of denials, the Inquiry has confirmed the main allegations in the book Hit & Run." And he concludes "The report contains the most serious findings against the NZSAS and NZDF in their history. This should prompt a lot of soul searching inside the New Zealand Defence Force."
Gordon Campbell doesn't accept the report's findings at all. He has written a scathing response, suggesting it amounts to a whitewash and does not sufficiently deal with the military misadventure and misinformation in question.
Campbell doesn't accept there was no Defence Force cover-up. Furthermore, he does not believe the Defence Force will fix the problems identified: "Can we really expect an organisation with this bunker mentality to reform itself voluntarily, from the inside?"
"This bunker mentality", eh? A fair description of Kubiak's mentality too, imho.
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Another week goes by in the Luxon government’s efforts to roll back the past 70 years of social progress. The school lunches programme is to be downgraded by $107 million, and women need bother their heads no longer about pay equity, let alone expect ACC to provide adequate sexual violence ...
Brrr, the first cold snap of the year. Hope you’re rugged up nice and warm. Here are some stories that caught our eye this week… This Week on Greater Auckland On Monday, we had a post from a new contributor, Connor Sharp, who dug into the public feedback ...
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Its a law like gravity: whenever a right-wing government is elected, they start attacking democracy. And now, after talking to their Republican and Tory and Fidesz chums at the International Democracy Union forum in Wellington, National is doing it here, announcing plans to remove election-day enrolment. Or, to put it ...
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Hi,I know it’s been awhile since there’s been any Webworm merch — and today that all changes!Over the last four months, I’ve been working with New Zealand artist Jess Johnson to create a series of t-shirts, caps and stickers that are infused with Webworm DNA — and as of right ...
The OECD’s chief economist yesterday laid it on the line for the new Government: bring the deficit under control or face higher Reserve Bank interest rates for longer. And to bring the deficit under control, she meant not borrowing for tax cuts. But there was more. Without policy changes—introducing a ...
Te Pāti Māori is showing extreme concern over the Environment Select Committees adoption of a lucky dip draw to determine hearings for the Fast Track Approvals bill. Of the 27,000 submissions, 2,900 requested to present. All organisations will be heard; however, the remaining 2,350 submitters will be subject to a ...
Today New Zealand First will introduce a Member’s Bill that will protect women’s spaces. The ‘Fair Access to Bathrooms Bill’ will require, primarily in the interest and safety of women and girls, that all new non-domestic publicly accessible buildings provide separate, clearly demarcated, unisex and single sex bathrooms. This Bill ...
The Green Party is welcoming Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ continuation of Hon. James Shaw’s cross-party work on climate adaptation, now in the form of a Finance and Expenditure Committee Inquiry. ...
The National Government plans to cut 390 jobs at ACC, including roles in the areas of prevention of sexual violence, road safety and workplace safety. ...
The Government has been caught in opposition to evidence once again as it looks to usher in tried, tested and failed work seminar obligations for job-seeking beneficiaries. ...
The Green Party is welcoming the announcement by the Minister Responsible for RMA Reform Chris Bishop to approve most of the Wellington City Council’s District Plan recommendations. ...
David Seymour has failed to get the sweeping cuts he wanted to the free and healthy school lunch programme, Labour education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
Hon Willie Jackson has been invited by the Oxford Union to debate the motion “This House Believes British Museums are not Very British’ on May 23rd. ...
Green Party MP Hūhana Lyndon says her Public Works (Prohibition of Compulsory Acquisition of Māori Land) Amendment Bill is an opportunity to right some past wrongs around the alienation of Māori land. ...
A senior, highly respected King’s Counsel with decades of experience in our law courts, Gary Judd KC, has filed a complaint about compulsory tikanga Māori studies for law students - highlighting the utter depths of absurdity this woke cultural madness has taken our society. The tikanga regulations will compel law ...
The Government needs to be clear with the people of the Nelson Marlborough region about the changes it is considering for the Nelson Hospital rebuild, Labour health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said. ...
Ministers must front up about which projects it will push through under its Fast Track Approvals legislation, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
Health, infrastructure, renewable energy, and stability are among the themes of the current visit to Papua New Guinea by a New Zealand political delegation, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “Papua New Guinea carries serious weight in the Pacific, and New Zealand deeply values our relationship with it,” Mr Peters ...
The coalition Government is launching Roads of Regional Significance to sit alongside Roads of National Significance as part of its plan to deliver priority roading projects across the country, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The Roads of National Significance (RoNS) built by the previous National Government are some of New Zealand’s ...
A high-level New Zealand political delegation in Honiara today congratulated the new Government of Solomon Islands, led by Jeremiah Manele, on taking office. “We are privileged to meet the new Prime Minister and members of his Cabinet during his government’s first ten days in office,” Deputy Prime Minister and ...
New Zealand voted in favour of a resolution broadening Palestine’s participation at the United Nations General Assembly overnight, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The resolution enhances the rights of Palestine to participate in the work of the UN General Assembly while stopping short of admitting Palestine as a full ...
Introduction Good morning. It’s a great privilege to be here at the 2024 Infrastructure Symposium. I was extremely happy when the Prime Minister asked me to be his Minister for Infrastructure. It is one of the great barriers holding the New Zealand economy back from achieving its potential. Building high ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins today announced the upcoming Budget will include new funding of $571 million for Defence Force pay and projects. “Our servicemen and women do New Zealand proud throughout the world and this funding will help ensure we retain their services and expertise as we navigate an increasingly ...
New Zealand’s ability to cope with climate change will be strengthened as part of the Government’s focus to build resilience as we rebuild the economy, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “An enduring and long-term approach is needed to provide New Zealanders and the economy with certainty as the climate ...
Jobseeker beneficiaries who have work obligations must now meet with MSD within two weeks of their benefit starting to determine their next step towards finding a job, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “A key part of the coalition Government’s plan to have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker ...
A new standalone Social Investment Agency will power-up the social investment approach, driving positive change for our most vulnerable New Zealanders, Social Investment Minister Nicola Willis says. “Despite the Government currently investing more than $70 billion every year into social services, we are not seeing the outcomes we want for ...
Check against delivery Good morning. It is a pleasure to be with you to outline the Coalition Government’s approach to our first Budget. Thank you Mark Skelly, President of the Hutt Valley Chamber of Commerce, together with your Board and team, for hosting me. I’d like to acknowledge His Worship ...
Your Excellency Ambassador Meredith, Members of the Diplomatic Corps and Ambassadors from European Union Member States, Ministerial colleagues, Members of Parliament, and other distinguished guests, Thank you everyone for joining us. Ladies and gentlemen - In diplomacy, we often speak of ‘close’ and ‘long-standing’ relations. ...
The Therapeutic Products Act (TPA) will be repealed this year so that a better regime can be put in place to provide New Zealanders safe and timely access to medicines, medical devices and health products, Associate Health Minister Casey Costello announced today. “The medicines and products we are talking about ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop, today released his decision on twenty recommendations referred to him by the Wellington City Council relating to its Intensification Planning Instrument, after the Council rejected those recommendations of the Independent Hearings Panel and made alternative recommendations. “Wellington notified its District Plan on ...
Rape Awareness Week (6-10 May) is an important opportunity to acknowledge the continued effort required by government and communities to ensure that all New Zealanders can live free from violence, say Ministers Karen Chhour and Louise Upston. “With 1 in 3 women and 1 in 8 men experiencing sexual violence ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government will be delivering a more efficient Healthy School Lunches Programme, saving taxpayers approximately $107 million a year compared to how Labour funded it, by embracing innovation and commercial expertise. “We are delivering on our commitment to treat taxpayers’ money ...
New research on the impacts of extreme weather on coastal marine habitats in Tairāwhiti and Hawke’s Bay will help fishery managers plan for and respond to any future events, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. A report released today on research by Niwa on behalf of Fisheries New Zealand ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Winston Peters will lead a broad political delegation on a five-stop Pacific tour next week to strengthen New Zealand’s engagement with the region. The delegation will visit Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, and Tuvalu. “New Zealand has deep and ...
There has been a material decline in gas production according to figures released today by the Gas Industry Co. Figures released by the Gas Industry Company show that there was a 12.5 per cent reduction in gas production during 2023, and a 27.8 per cent reduction in gas production in the ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins tonight announced the recipients of the Minister of Defence Awards of Excellence for Industry, saying they all contribute to New Zealanders’ security and wellbeing. “Congratulations to this year’s recipients, whose innovative products and services play a critical role in the delivery of New Zealand’s defence capabilities, ...
Welcome to you all - it is a pleasure to be here this evening.I would like to start by thanking Greg Lowe, Chair of the New Zealand Defence Industry Advisory Council, for co-hosting this reception with me. This evening is about recognising businesses from across New Zealand and overseas who in ...
It is a pleasure to be speaking to you as the Minister for Digitising Government. I would like to thank Akolade for the invitation to address this Summit, and to acknowledge the great effort you are making to grow New Zealand’s digital future. Today, we stand at the cusp of ...
New Zealand is urging both Israel and Hamas to agree to an immediate ceasefire to avoid the further humanitarian catastrophe that military action in Rafah would unleash, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The immense suffering in Gaza cannot be allowed to worsen further. Both sides have a responsibility to ...
A new online data dashboard released today as part of the Government’s school attendance action plan makes more timely daily attendance data available to the public and parents, says Associate Education Minister David Seymour. The interactive dashboard will be updated once a week to show a national average of how ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced Rosemary Banks will be New Zealand’s next Ambassador to the United States of America. “Our relationship with the United States is crucial for New Zealand in strategic, security and economic terms,” Mr Peters says. “New Zealand and the United States have a ...
The Government is considering creating a new tier of minerals permitting that will make it easier for hobby miners to prospect for gold. “New Zealand was built on gold, it’s in our DNA. Our gold deposits, particularly in regions such as Otago and the West Coast have always attracted fortune-hunters. ...
Minister for Trade Todd McClay today announced that New Zealand and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will commence negotiations on a free trade agreement (FTA). Minister McClay met with his counterpart UAE Trade Minister Dr Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi in Dubai, where they announced the launch of negotiations on a ...
New Zealand Sign Language Week is an excellent opportunity for all Kiwis to give the language a go, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. This week (May 6 to 12) is New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) Week. The theme is “an Aotearoa where anyone can sign anywhere” and aims to ...
Six tertiary students have been selected to work on NASA projects in the US through a New Zealand Space Scholarship, Space Minister Judith Collins announced today. “This is a fantastic opportunity for these talented students. They will undertake internships at NASA’s Ames Research Center or its Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), where ...
New Zealanders will be safer because of a $1.9 billion investment in more frontline Corrections officers, more support for offenders to turn away from crime, and more prison capacity, Corrections Minister Mark Mitchell says. “Our Government said we would crack down on crime. We promised to restore law and order, ...
The OECD’s latest report on New Zealand reinforces the importance of bringing Government spending under control, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The OECD conducts country surveys every two years to review its members’ economic policies. The 2024 New Zealand survey was presented in Wellington today by OECD Chief Economist Clare Lombardelli. ...
The Government has delivered on its election promise to provide a financially sustainable model for Auckland under its Local Water Done Well plan. The plan, which has been unanimously endorsed by Auckland Council’s Governing Body, will see Aucklanders avoid the previously projected 25.8 per cent water rates increases while retaining ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters discussed the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and enhanced cooperation in the Pacific with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock during her first official visit to New Zealand today. "New Zealand and Germany enjoy shared interests and values, including the rule of law, democracy, respect for the international system ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jess Carniel, Associate professor in Humanities, University of Southern Queensland Every year claims to be the most controversial year in the Eurovision Song Contest’s history, but it will take a lot to beat the 68th contest. The 2024 Eurovision contest, which took ...
A provision in the proposed fast-track law allowing previous court rulings against consents to be put aside would be a 'travesty of justice', they say. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Timothy Schmidt, Professor of Chemistry, UNSW Sydney Last week, a huge solar flare sent a wave of energetic particles from the Sun surging out through space. Over the weekend, the wave reached Earth, and people around the world enjoyed the sight of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Catherine Ordway, Associate Professor Sport Management and Sport Integrity Lead, University of Canberra Sport has a role to play in creating a culture of respect, yet women in sport are often seen as “less than” on almost every measure: salaries, sponsorship, broadcasting, ...
The Waitangi Tribunal’s summons to sitting Minister Karen Chhour as part of its inquiry into the Government’s plans to amend the Oranga Tamariki Act was lawful, the Court of Appeal has found. The ruling runs counter to a judgment by the High Court three weeks ago, in which Justice Andru ...
The PSA is holding a snap protest at 8am, Tuesday 14 May outside the National Library in Wellington against the decision to not continue funding digitising the national archives. ...
Ahead of the final episode of Fair Go, some of the show’s former presenters look back at what the iconic consumer affairs series meant to them. Fair Go, as former presenter Haydn Jones puts it, was “the show nobody wanted to appear on”. You either had to be ripped off ...
Didn’t see the amazing and exquisite southern lights over the weekend? You’re not alone: Shanti Mathias has some tips on how to cope. Not to gloat, but I had a very lovely weekend. I went for a long bike ride in the sunshine. I read a magazine on the back ...
At the time of the offending, Mr Ape ran Hoop Star Basketball Academy and submitted fraudulent grant applications that represented over $75,000 in fictitious costs. ...
Local authority financial statistics provide information on the annual performance of core non-trading activities of all New Zealand's territorial and regional councils. ...
Kāinga Ora’s debt problem is serious – but so is the urgent need for more affordable homes, says poverty campaigner Alan Johnson. As Kāinga Ora cancels projects and sells land previously earmarked for development, it’s clear that two issues are set to dominate the public housing narrative over the next ...
By Caleb Fotheringham, RNZ Pacific journalist A National Union of Workers (NUW) official is hopeful Fiji Water employees who have been on strike for almost a week will return to work shortly. Last Tuesday, a group of workers for Fiji Water went on strike over pay disputes at the multi-million ...
True to form, Wellington City Council’s consultation has been a flop. If they’ve been recording residents’ answers incorrectly, then the only option is to go back to the drawing board and start public consultations again from scratch. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tracey Clement, Lecturer in Visual Art and McGlade Gallery Director, Australian Catholic University Tracey Clement, Impossible Numbers.Tracey Clement I slip the needle through a small loop of black thread, pull it tight and snip. Done. I have just tied off the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jochen Kaempf, Associate Professor of Natural Sciences (Oceanography), Flinders University Gonzalo Buzonni/Shutterstock From around 1996 to 2010, Australia was gripped by the millennium drought. As water shortages bit hard, most of Australia’s capital cities built large seawater desalination plants – Sydney, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Maria O’Sullivan, Associate Professor of Law, Deakin Law School, Deakin University Students have been protesting on university campuses across Australia for several weeks now, calling on their institutions to cut ties with weapons manufacturers supplying arms to Israel. Some have noted their ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steven Hail, Adjunct Associate Professor, Torrens University Australia Wolfilser/ShutterstockThis article is part one of The Conversation’s “Business Basics” series where we ask leading experts to discuss key concepts in business, economics and finance. For the most part, economists continue ...
Big business is pouring eye-watering sums into parties on the political right. Max Rashbrooke wonders what it’s getting in return. A couple of years ago, a National Party contact told me it had “never been easier” to get big donations from businesses. Anger about the Covid-era “fortress New Zealand” policy, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Erin O’Brien, Associate Professor, School of Government and International Relations, Griffith University University campuses around the world have become the site of tiny tent cities in recent weeks, with student activists protesting the ongoing conflict in Gaza. Though the protests on ...
In this extract from The Bulletin, Stewart Sowman-Lund looks at the proposed law and the ongoing concern about it. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. Where we’re at with the fast-track ...
The revamped school lunch programme is budgeting $3 per lunch, rather than the current $8. But is it really so simple to cut costs? Shanti Mathias investigates. Last week, associate education minister and Act Party leader David Seymour announced the government’s revamped school lunch programme, which will provide food to ...
Exactly 100 years ago, on the eve of another Paris Olympics, young Kiwi Gwitha Shand was the talk of the swimming world. The 19-year-old from Christchurch had broken the world record in the 440-yard freestyle multiple times leading up to the 1924 Olympics, and was described in newspapers as one ...
The New Zealand book trade is still reeling after the shock news that Penguin has axed its head of publishing. The redundancy comes just as the biggest week of the year in New Zealand literature is set to take place. The winners of the Ockham national book awards are announced ...
A rest home with a concierge, iced tea fountain, hybrid Jaguars to drive, and caviar on the menu. That’s not imaginary or from some far-flung country – it’s reality here in Aotearoa. Oceania Healthcare just officially opened ‘The Helier’ – a retirement apartment and aged-care complex in the Auckland suburb ...
The USA and China are beefing, Winston Peters is getting sued by some Australian guy, and Helen Clark and Don Brash are friends now? Here’s everything you need to know about Aukus but were too afraid to ask. What is Aukus?Aukus, which stands for Australia, the United Kingdom, and ...
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Opinion: The cold weather and spikes in power demand have been well handled by the electricity system The post No need to shock with a fake crisis appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Asia Pacific Report About 1000 people in Aotearoa New Zealand gathered for a two-hour rally in central Auckland today and marched down Queen Street and returned to Aotea Square to mark the Nakba three days early — and protest over Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. They called for an immediate ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra As it looks to an election next year when holding up Labor’s female vote will be vital, Treasurer Jim Chalmers has declared Tuesday will bring “a budget for mums and middle Australia”. “The primary ...
By Repeka Nasiko in Suva “Justice has won,” says Fiji’s acting Director of Public Prosecutions John Rabuku following the sentencing of former prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama and former police commissioner Sitiveni Qiliho. Speaking to The Fiji Times, Rabuku said that while they welcomed the judgment by acting Chief Justice Salesi ...
The foreign affairs minister has landed in Solomon Islands for the first leg of his Pacific tour, and an audience with the newly elected Prime Minister. ...
On an unusually hot night in January 2019, a little boy’s lifeless body was found face up in a small town’s sewage oxidation pond. To the police, it was an open and shut case: three-year-old Lachlan Jones had run away from his home in the Southland town of Gore, climbed ...
PNG Post-Courier New Zealand High Commissioner Peter Zwart and PNG Defence Minister Dr Billy Joseph welcomed a C-130 Hercules to Port Moresby this week to support Papua New Guinea’s response to the March 24 earthquake and recent severe flooding. “Papua New Guinea has requested New Zealand’s assistance to transport emergency ...
Grub Street King Luxon rode through the streets Of King’s Landing, and was troubled By the sight of hungry urchins in the mud. “Who would be the best of my Lords To deal with this negative optic?” He pondered. The answer came to him instantly. “Seymour!” he said to himself. ...
“The Bill does not provide environmental protection, good quality decision making, certainty, public participation or speed. It should be withdrawn.” ...
RNZ News Television New Zealand has breached its collective agreement with the E tū union when deciding on discontinuing programmes, the Employment Relations Authority has ruled. It was announced in March that 68 staff members who work for news programmes Midday and Tonight, consumer justice programme Fair Go, current affairs ...
Asia Pacific Report Barangay New Zealand’s Rene Molina has interviewed the country’s first Filipino Green MP Francisco Hernandez who was sworn into Parliament yesterday as the party’s latest member. This is the first interview with Hernandez who replaces former Green Party co-leader James Shaw after his retirement from politics to ...
An Australian Strategic Policy Institute report says Pillar Two could raise the industry to state of the art capability - or "crush" it "under the weight of the globe's biggest player". ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marlene Longbottom, Associate Professor, Indigenous Education & Research Centre, James Cook University ShutterstockThis article contains information on deaths in custody and the violence experienced by First Nations people in encounters with the Australian carceral system. It also contains references to ...
“Instead of following along countries that are investing in death and better ways of killing people faster, we need to invest in life and in making Aotearoa a fair, just and equitable place where everyone has what they need for a dignified life.” ...
MARIAMENO KAPA-KINGI, TPM MP FOR TAI TOKERAU This Government will not waver in its mission to exterminate Māori. CHRISTOPHER LUXON Oh well look you know I don’t think that hard-working Kiwis want to hear language like that. It’s just really unhelpful rhetoric. My Government is genuinely committed to advancing outcomes ...
The body positivity movement started with women confronting the unrealistic expectations and unrepresentative portrayals of them in media and advertising. Men weren’t part of it … their bodies hadn’t been sexualised to the same extremes and they didn’t really need it. But now that’s changed. And in a warped sort ...
The New Zealand comedy legend takes us through her life in television, including the time she hugged Elton John and the unshakeable legacy of a girl named Lyn. In 1981, Ginette McDonald stood on the stage of Auckland’s St James Theatre and directly addressed Queen Elizabeth II. It was a ...
An essay by Lily Duval from the just-released anthology Otherhood: Essays on being childless, childfree and child adjacent.I was 22 when my friend Alice gave birth in the living room of our pokey Addington flat. She laboured in the blow-up pool for hours. Garish fish swam along the inflated ...
Ella Borrie on the best books about motherhood she’s come across so far. Over the past few years I’ve been drawn to books about motherhood. I’m fascinated by the joys and horrors of becoming a parent. The question of children also feels more pressing than it used to. It’s like ...
Out of gift ideas for mum? You can’t go wrong with a bottle of toilet cleaner and a new squeegee. Emily Writes is the writer and editor of Emily Writes Weekly. This week marks five years since I published a post on The Spinoff about Mother’s Day marketing titled ‘A ...
My husband is posted overseas for 12 months and I’m armed with an expensive, newfangled vibrator. Will I miss him? The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.A few days after my husband leaves, a new sex toy arrives at the front door. Nestled ...
Jaimie Baird’s new book Here Today Gone Tomorrow is a record of four decades of graffiti and street art in Wellington, told through more than 1,200 photographs. He spoke with Joel MacManus about what inspired the book. How did you first get interested in photographing street art? I remember ...
Editor Madeleine Chapman looks back at a busy week where food of all political leanings dominated. Sometimes you’re just going about your week thinking you’ve got a good handle on what might be coming as far as news topics and then someone (usually a politician) says something so ridiculous that ...
In a week of cold rain and frost, the climate in courtroom four upstairs at the Invercargill courthouse was simmering with restrained indignation. At times it felt like the famous Mexican standoff scene from Reservoir Dogs, or, as someone watching the proceedings described it, there was so much throwing of ...
A banner notification alerts me to the fact that I’ve received an Instagram message from @felicity.loves. She always comments on my posts. I shouldn’t have opened the message, but clicked on the notification before rationalising this. OMG! Are you in Wellys? X I debate not replying, but Instagram will inform ...
In Melbourne’s hardscrabble western suburbs where AFL – Aussie rules football – is a state religion, Callum Donaldson has been quietly grafting away, four months into an odyssey that he hopes will take him to another promised land: the NRL. It was a solid 2023 for the softly spoken 20-year-old ...
Pacific Media Watch Television New Zealand Pacific correspondent Barbara Dreaver has been made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to investigative journalism and Pacific communities in a ceremony at Government House, reports 1News. She has been the Pacific correspondent for 1News since 2002, breaking many ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Tuesday’s budget will respond to the deepening public agitation over Australia’s housing shortages by pouring new money into crisis accommodation for women and children, social housing and infrastructure. A specially-convened national cabinet late Friday ticked ...
"Parker took the opportunity to step aside from that role when cabinet was reshuffled in the wake of Kiri Allan's arrest. He later told reporters that holding the revenue position was untenable."
https://www.interest.co.nz/public-policy/123211/national-party-says-chaotic-government-getting-more-divided-all-time-latest
Some interesting comments under that Interest.co.nz opinion piece:
Jesus wept. What drives capitalists – their 'concerns' about poverty and the planet?
Hmm, what would that lovely Mr Luxon say; he of the seven properties?
Luxon is Supply Side Jesus.
https://www.beliefnet.com/news/2003/09/the-gospel-of-supply-side-jesus.aspx
Thanks Ad, very good – "a supply side Jesus pioneer" + "keep our swords legal"
Why am I unsurprised that the substance of the post remains uncommented upon.
It is a sad moment when a principled stand on the fundamental platform for a fairer society is described by a competent journalist as petulant. Such was the gist of Claire Trevett’s recent Herald piece on David Parker’s exit from the Taxation portfolio. The argument that one must stay silent on fundamental matters to sustain party unity is simply wrong. I understand well why Mr Parker found his position to be untenable in the face of a “Captain’s Call”, a modern initiative, which the Labour Party should, I believe, eschew.
The support for significant taxation reform is now shared across a spectrum from Piketty to Hickey and should be front and centre in Labour’s policy commitments. Delay on this front makes the task harder in the future.
Momentous development in constitutional law:
In a democracy, who holds supreme power? Executive or judiciary? The theory of popular sovereignty holds that the people are supreme, therefore any govt they vote in exercises ultimate power. The theory of the establishment is that constitutional tradition prevails over popular cowboy govts. The Israeli PM is a popular cowboy trying it on. Principled folk would argue he has a mandate to do so. So, the people or the judges?
A quite unremarkable reform that makes it much closer to New Zealand's own system.
No issue.
One has to consider both the powers of the courts and the way in which the judiciary are appointed. The US has the worst of both worlds in terms of the Supreme Court – politically-appointed judges and the power to block legislation. The sanest combination is probably quite limited powers to block legislation and independently-appointed judiciary. I don't know anything about the Israeli Court System so don't know if Netenyahu's changes are in this direction or away from it. No doubt much of the alarm is caused not by the precise constitutional nature of the change, but about who is initiating it and whether it is just the opening gambit.
The scale and persistence of the protests must indicate the lefties there are irrational, I suppose.
It's just a pity that the size of the leftie vote in Israel is no longer on the scale of the protests. Labour is the smallest party in their Knesset with just 4 seats, just above the 3% threshhold. And Meretz is gone. They now have to merge, or risk being seen as vote wasters.
The wider ME sees it as the beginning of the end of the Israeli state. It's certainly the end of the culture which built the homeland state and defended it.
This is beyond the cultural war in the USA. This is their Weimar Republic on the precipice moment.
If there is to be supreme law (like a constitution) and ordinary law, the question arises of what to do when the legislature passes ordinary laws which contradict supreme law, particularly if it is a genuinely unintended consequence.
Obviously that doesn't have to be resolved by the judiciary, but that has become a traditional approach. Could use the NZ approach of referring conflicts back to the legislature to resolve, but if for some reason, there is no resolution, it does call into question the supremacy of a constitution.
AAhh Joe Biden, possibly the most corrupt POTUS in our life time….this guy has no shame…
Gallery Sold Hunter Biden’s Art to Major Dem Donor Appointed to Special Commission by President Biden
"The New York art gallery representing Hunter Biden’s exorbitantly expensive painting collection sold his artwork to a Democratic-donor socialite whom President Biden appointed to a special U.S. commission of international significance.
Despite the assurance of the Biden administration that the president’s son, for ethical reasons, would be left in dark about the identity of his buyers, Hunter later discovered the identities of two of them, sources told Business Insider. One of those two clients received a presidential privilege in the form of a commission placement.
The buyer in question was California investor and philanthropist Elizabeth Hirsh Naftali, who contributed $13,414 to the Biden campaign and $29,700 to the Democratic National Campaign Committee this year, Insider reported.
Biden announced Hirsh Naftali’s appointment to the Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad in July 2022 — eight months after Hunter’s art debuted at the gallery"
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/hunter-biden-gallery-sold-art-to-dem-donor-appointed-to-special-commission-by-president-biden/
…and that is just the tip of the iceberg in the USA, of course we all know about the Biden's many and varied super dodgy 'business' dealings in the Ukraine….nothing tosee here folks…well according to RNZ,who of course rarely cover any of this, but of course cover every stupid thing about Trump, like he is somehow any worse than Biden…jeez give me a break!…they are both just stinking piles of shit.
Though I guess Trump's instinct seems to be to keep the US within it's own boarders, which would make the World a safer place for most of the rest of the World, especially for those in the most of the Middle East, most of Asia, most of South America, better they keep the hell out of Europe too as it turns out, so I guess for that one thing alone he could be marginally better…
…if having a more peacful world is your thing that is, which I know isn’t really the bag of the new Liberal imperialist class..but who cares what they think right?
You should find out what Putin has done.
but but…whatboutism!
Putin has children that sell shitty art for nigh on a million dollar to rich donors? got any links to bolster that claim?
But am not discussing Putin here, I am discussing Biden…we get to hear all the bad things about Putin (and Trump) quite regularly enough on western MSM don't you think?
To bad our media seems to believe it is in the business of creating, molding and driving news narratives, rather than just reporting on them and letting the public make up it's on mind…but then it turns out that even people who should react to this fact with dismay…seem to be quite okay with it…and that my friend, is the bit I just don't understand.
Adrian is now the spokesman for the Maga loonies. After 5 years of investigation by Trump appointed investigators there has not one bit of evidence found to incriminate Joe Biden. The two items Hunter has been charged with after those 5 years is a late IRD tax payment which he has since paid and owning a gun that he wasn't entitled to own.
The rest is wild conspiracy Maga rubbish Adrian and you might be wise to avoid any rabbit holes. They trip you up.
So Joe's definately not the…BIG GUY!!
Even if Joe was the "Big Guy" that is not evidence of malfeasance.
I have it on good authority, (numerous YouTube interviews with people outside Trump rallies and attending JFK Jr Lives rallies), that Joe is not the President.
I also have it on similarly good authority that the Biden's are a 'crime family' guilty of all sorts of crimes, financial, political, sexual, moral and other stuff so unimaginable you have to make it up.
The answer to any and all dilemmas facing the US is that the most ethical, moral, intellectual, honest, humble, compassionate, altruistic family in US history should be given total reign in that land. Arise King Donald.
Really though, as for them 'both being just stinking piles of shit' because one is, jeez, give us a break.
USA is claimed to be the "greatest democracy" and "leaders of the world" yet sunken into a swamp of fantasy. Worrying to hear a NZF candidate claiming "sexualisation of schoolkids" and "Wokeism " in NZ schools with Winston supporting it on Morning Report.
You might like to have a look at the RSE curriculum and what is being taught in our schools.
"Hutt Valley High’s lessons are based in gender identity theory, an unscientific belief system that seeks to redefine boys and girls. Despite the fact that New Zealand parents are overwhelmingly opposed to gender identity theory, our Ministry of Education has been attempting to introduce these types of lessons across New Zealand. At Hutt Valley High, they have succeeded.
The underlying messages sent by Hutt Valley High’s lessons are that:
These messages are false and potentially harmful. Hutt Valley High’s lessons risk nudging vulnerable adolescents into a descent into lifelong medical dependency."
https://plainsight.nz/what-hutt-valley-high-school-is-teaching-kids-about-sex/?fbclid=IwAR0jpIpsxSjtzHF0X9HamVigmykZm8modZrfcztROrpnL3xfw20lwNh0bbA
The claim is true. I am glad a politcal candidate is speaking up
With you there (possibly for the first time, but with you all the same).
Just a trump corruption reminder..
Trump built skyscrapers in manhattan in the 70's …using undocumented labour ..
Now ..there are two industries that the mafia controlled/profited from…the garbage industry…and the construction industry..
The teamsters union were/are the public face of the mafia..
And there is no way trump could have got away with that…unless he was very well connected ..
Then he built casinos for them to launder their money in..
Trump is 'the most corrupt potus' ..and by a country mile…
And I don't see another coming anywhere near him..
And this is why trump must face the legal consequences from his actions…
If only to protect american democracy .
So that at sometime in the future someone smarter than the orange clown.. doesn't get the chance to do a trump…
"And this is why trump must face the legal consequences from his actions…
If only to protect american democracy"
You can't really be that naive…can you?
My noting of the need for this check to be installed…is not a wholesale endorsement of the american political system..
It is politically agnostic…
And I am noting the imperative that must be driving those pushing for trump to be held to account..
Understand now..?…or do you need more explanation..
Or are you just an apologist for trump..?
What's the corrupt bit?
Dunno Ad.
Similar US isolationist ideas prevailed in the late 1930's and initial stages of WW2. How did that turn out for them?
Are you actually seriously equating this moment in history with the Nazi invasion of Europe and Russia?….holy crap buddy, you must have drunk even more of the Cool Aid than most of the new Liberal pro war crew around these parts….and that really is saying something!
The first article merely showed the White House was concerned about the ethics of the situation.
And the later link, did not show any prior purchase before the appointment, but did note the position gained was an unpaid one.
Like so much that Joe Biden has anything to do with, it looks and smells very much like something really dodgy…even the Washington Post is going to cut Biden free soon it seems..
…pretty sure most US Liberal press will follow suit before long, not only is the man obviously suffering seriously from age related age issues that even the most staunchest Biden supporter can't possibly ignore, he has also obviously been involved in some really dodgy as fuck business dealings with various foreign entities…the guy is damaged good, shit he can't even stay with Trump in the election polls for 2024…or even DeSantis in some polls FFS….
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/2024/
But you lot just keep on telling yourself that I am a Trump troll and Putin puppet if that keeps the lid on (for a little longer) the giant bucket of fermenting bullshit you guys have been sitting on and feeding for so long……but hey, you go right ahead a believe whatever makes you happy.
So we, those others not in lockstep, are all of one category of humanity for you to quickly sum up?
Do you want to be taken seriously, or not?
If it walks like a 'trump troll/putin puppet'..
And if it talks like a 'trump troll/putin puppet'..
It probably is a 'trump/putin puppet'..eh..?..
A victory for the Greens:
Labour seems to have done a positional shift here. I'd welcome views from Labour insiders re any cabinet infighting that produced this shift!
Kate Hannah speaks out about on-line silencing by targetted gender-based violence on the Spinoff.
She talks about her own experience, as founder of the Disibformation Project, and mentions a new UN report on gendered violence, which summarises the outcomes of the negative on-line attacks:
"At a societal level, targetted female and gender-based violence is a threat to open, peaceful, democratic societies. Evidence shows that gendered disinformation and targeted hate campaigns form narratives that go beyond attacks on individual women and LGBTQIA+ people, to attacking their rights more broadly, often with an end goal of polarising and destabilising democratic societies.
It can erode individual and collective rights to participate in shared civic spaces and discourage women from being involved in public life or cause them to self-censor.
It can also increase tensions that lead to violent conflict, with some arguing that online threats against women in public roles should be included as a gender-sensitive early warning indicator for conflict.
There is also a growing body of research showing the specific security threat posed by individuals who perpetrate acts of targeted violence, many of whom display concerning online misogynistic behaviour, domestic violence, or threatening online communication."
The reason the left succumbed to this shit lies in the inertial effect of political psychology: minority rights. The focus in the 1970s was on achievement of recognition of those, then thro the '80s they were integrated via consensual acceptance.
Identity politics morphed this via activist narcissism. Personal subjective views got more media play than shared views built on an ethical basis as common ground.
Consequently the past decade has featured the alphabet soup tribe becoming toxic in a flow of media sensations. The only interesting dimension of the trend is the emergence of collective narcissism as a feature of small minority groups.
Harm done to victims by trendy lefty lynch mobs is indeed a worthy focus for media and all. A corrective remedial force must emerge to deal with the sociopaths.
"Narcissism" you say (twice) – tribal toxicity – trendy lefty lynch mob sociopaths!
And something about "alphabet soup"
You should try Incognito's word-salad framing. Works just as well to evade the point. And I wouldn't assume left-wingers are incapable of learning the difference between individual and group narcissism – the analytical trend into discussing that has been percolating along nicely in recent years. Leftists tend to be partial to such academic fashion trends…
Gee, DF, almost like rights should not be universal, but only for the comfy majority. That comfy majority may be buddhist against muslim in Myanmar, hindu against any other religion in India, white against people of colour and sunni against shia (and vv) in many places.
Anywhere that fear is riled up by cynical political actors to gain and maintain power.
Speaking of universal rights, do you believe that the exceptions in the Human Rights Act that enable female-only spaces and services (think Rape Crisis or sport or women's changing rooms at work) should be retained or removed so that TW can have access to those female only things?
https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1993/0082/latest/whole.html#DLM304212
https://gal-dem.com/transphobia-in-sexual-violence-services/
In the UK, trans women have used, and volunteered for, rape-crisis and domestic violence organisations. This 2021 article shows the big divide within the UK sector, where on-the-ground non-trans workers disagree with trans-exclusionary policy brought in by management, but fear for their jobs. And that is at a time when the 2010 UK rights legislation clearly prohibits gender-based discrimination.
I disgree with the GC trans exclusionary position held by some here at TS, especially because it has eroded the existing services trans women have had, and used without issue, particularly in the UK and US.
That's taking things away from people. It shows a particularly damaging belief that rights for minority groups somehow take away rights from the majority (Dennis Frank's denounciation of 'identity politics'). Where, instead, I know through changes in my own lifetime, that inclusivity action, by expansion of rights and by equity initiatives, makes our society more diverse and interesting, and better to belong in.
Real-world evidence validates that access of trans women to gendered spaces and services in the last decades has not caused problems from the 100,000 or so trans women in the UK, and the 11,000 trans women in NZ. And self-id in countries like Brazil and Ireland, covering a billion or so people, has not caused floods of penises into bathrooms. Your point about universal rights and 'women-only' spaces is what?
There will always be people manipulated into the "fashions" of the time.
For example NOW’s (National Organisation of Woman – USA) dedication to the equal rights of the feminine gender/women, now incorporates those who are transgender.
And so there are now, women's organisations built around, not doing so.
And predictably there are LGB groups that exclude the transgender and seem to be abandoning the word queer while doing so. All because the established LGBQ added the T.
The word narcissism is one commonly thrown around, to infer some particular knowledge of the psychopathy of others.
This is all the sign, of a certain cultivation of the evolved civilisation sentience, that such matters gain significance. As with the Weimar Republic. Before the retreat back to the old certainties of atavism, or that old time religion, kingdom come. So much washing off of guilt to allow a return to being pure and righteous.
A bit like confession of addiction, to redeem the collective self. As Hollywood Babylon did with the adoption of a Hays Code. And the SEC did after the excesses of Wall Street.
Can someone explain why this post could not be further edited within the 10 minutes?
I’ll continue.
Yet ultimately it is the concept of market forces natural law “order out of chaos”, a god of mammon that humanity is subject to, so that there is a return to innocent acceptance of over-rule – rather than the knowledge/guilt of human dominion.
The great joke on joe public is that the elites manipulate the market all the time to take advantage of it, to grow their own wealth.
It’s all propaganda designed to diminish the power of voters, so elites can retain privilege.
Of course the people are given something to vote against, hate on, so their consent can be seen to be made.
Mostly agree DF
Cool. The interesting thing about political commentary is the inter-generational context. Folks get socially conditioned to a norm, then the co-construction of social reality shifts into consolidating a different norm. So if there's areas of similar views across generations, there's also significant differences.
Those differences can be experienced as a barrier or divide, yet also explored for potential to articulate further common ground by resolving the differences. As a centrist within the Greens I had to establish common ground with the leftists & thereby learnt the art of consensus-building via practical politics.
The notion of intersectionality is what differentiates minority politics nowadays from that era of 30 years back. The sociopolitical system has gotten more complex. We just had the red-green & blue-green dimension plus the pale Green & deep Green dimension – along with the leftist/centrist divide that caused the Values Party schism in the '70s and has persisted since then.
Who watches the watchers?
Who defines what is hate speech, disinformation, propaganda?
Who should be the moral arbiters of public discourse?
Who elected Kate Hannah?
It's a bit rich for her to complain about misogyny in the darker corners of the internet when the "young NZer of the Year" and a bunch of left wing activists openly assaulted women in Albert Park earlier this year and cancelled their right to speak in public. And a few days ago the MSM colluded again to suppress a pretty mild ad from Family First stating basic biological reality.
Disinformation indeed.
(stating it plainly: IMO the Disinfo Project has morphed into a propaganda attack on free speech and an organ of elite narratives – especially focussed on othering dissidents and whistleblowers – the antithesis of open democratic discourse & the fourth estate’s duty to hold the powerful to account)
Imho it's a bit rich to assert that "the young NZer of the Year" assaulted women in Albert Park earlier this year – "Disinformation indeed"?
Nice misinterpretation there. I think you missed the point
https://democracyproject.nz/2023/04/12/bryce-edwards-the-need-to-take-disinformation-seriously/
To clarify: Lal endorsed the misogynistic Albert Park violence and subsequent cover-up.
No, you accused a particular person of assaulting others at an event.
This is either true, or not true.
Lal was a part of the whole debacle. AFAIK "they" did not directly assault anyone. Personally I am more concerned about the violence and coverups than litigating one sentence I wrote
Your link provides no supporting evidence for either assertion.
ignoring & justifying violence against women is not a great look mate.
Alex Penk and Brendon fn O'Neil of the Spectator. Really.
Relevance to your claims about …
You said,
None of the links you have provided support this assertion. Because you are making a specific claim about a public figure, you have to be able to back that up now.
When you do, please provide the quote as well as the link.
Damien Grant: We're having a free speech moment. It isn't going well | Stuff.co.nz
Why would you want to cancel Shaneel Lal? – Plain Sight – Dane Giraud
Lal's tweets about "Terfs" are inflammatory and celebrate the Albert Park mob.
thank-you. And thanks for just going and doing that instead of arguing about it or not doing it, this mod is very grateful.
You said,
I’m not aware that Lal assaulted anyone. I agree he is partially responsible for the set up for the violence that happened, and that’s different from assaulting people.
The truth is sufficient, we don’t have to embellish it. I’m going to make a mod statement soon, because all sides at the moment are making exaggerated declaratory statements without evidence and it has to stop. It’s a significant drain on my moderator time, and it also drags TS commentariat into the culture war instead of upholding robust debate.
@roblogic
Let's hope your own smear campaign against Lal (reinforcement of the message of Grant et al) does not incite any violence, given you think there is correlation between having a position and what others do.
Lal used his considerable media reach to preach terf=nazi bigot. It wasn’t simply a position, it was activism and propaganda.
Both sides need to calm the fuck down. I have some hope that people like rob will. I have no sense that people like Lal will until they get slapped down. The response from Spark was a good public embarrassment for him, I doubt that he will have learned much but in time the tide will shift on the kind of extreme position he takes, because of the kinds of actions it leads to.
I will keep that in mind for the next time I am explicitly inciting a riot, given my massive platform and public profile.
The crowd seemed intent on making noise and kettling the protest, little more.
They were was no attempt to chase anyone out, nor any attempt to organise any attack (no one came armed) and what incidents there were were inter-personal apart from some jostling of the K-J K's protection team on the way out.
Any smears seem to have been of a two way street.
100% Roblogic
She makes the mistake of thinking that there is something called LGBTQA++++ and that their interests are all the same. In reality, the L, G and B are same sex attracted and everything south of there is straight.
Our rights as same sex attracted people rest on the idea that same-sex attraction is real and normal and should be afforded the same rights and respect as heterosexuality. That is all we want – the same rights as straight people.
Good comment. Analytical flair in the culture wars really ought to balance a differential tendency with an integral tendency otherwise it remains inherently partial. Since culture arises from commonality, human groups can't survive easily without doing both concurrently. In geopolitics, the splitter syndrome wears the technical term balkanisation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkanization
I suspect culture wars aren't much fun for most participants (harm done) but are entertaining for splitters. When minority group leaders are splitters rather than consensus builders, they produce toxicity.
Funny that both Visubversa and roblogic are happy to discount gender-based online calls for violence because of the person making that message.
If you attack people and groups right to exist, not their ideas, then that is open discrimination. I detest Posie Parker because of her manipulative provacateur actions and some extreme violent comments she made against trans people, and has never apopogised for. I don't call for her annihilation (as she threatens women who disagree with her). I don't threaten her with violence, I challenge her disgusting views.
And baby with bathwater. Hannah opposes violent anti-gender online speech in her commentary, which in number primarily attacks women. By trying to discount that message because of the messenger, VS and RL (and now others here) expose their discrimination for us to see. Baby with bathwater.
This is a good point. It's why I focus on gender identity ideology and its impacts on women rather than focussing on trans people.
That's not it though. The disagreement isn't because it's Hannah making it, it's because the DIP is so partisan and not honest about that.
For instance, Visubversa's critique is that the DIP using LGBTQI+ framing creates significant problems for homosexual people. It's the ideas within LGBTQI+ that push the problems. We've not been allowed to talk about that freely thanks to No Debate, and now we have a progressive org enforcing homophobic ideology. That's all legit critique.
Likewise, rob is pointing to the ideological positioning of the DIP.
I'm all for not focussing on Hannah and the DIP and talking about the ideology, but in the absence of that conversation, there will be push back against orgs and people who are actively suppressing debate and refusing to engage with critique of their positions. The only way left to respond to that is to push harder.
This is a ridiculous claim. It's equivalent to the argument that prioritising Māori and Pasifika to improve inequitable health outcomes is racist.
The bandying about of the 'ideology' term ignores that those who are endlessly claiming there is 'No Debate' are also followers of an ideology, one that seeks to exclude trans people, supported by such 'progressive' organisations as Family First.
as an example, there are lesbians being pressured to like girl dick. Please explain to me how this is not homophobic?
The Disinformation Project is 'pressuring lesbians to like girl dick'? That is your claim?
Even if I accept your framing of an uncited example, no one is or is even capable of forcing anyone to be attracted to anyone else. That said, plenty of trans people aren't straight, being trans isn't a sexuality. Just like plenty of bisexuals are in straight relationships but are still part of the community.
No, they have an ideological position which supports the subculture that is shifting the definition of homosexuality from same sex attracted to same gender attracted.
You said you wanted to talk about ideas, that's what I'm doing. I'm talking about those ideas play out in RL with unintended consequences. Have you heard about the cotton ceiling?
Of course. They can try though, which is why we have conversion therapy legislation.
I will ask you again, how is pressuring lesbians to like girl dick not homophobic?
This is a textbook leading question but I will answer it however your ideological position will prevent you from accepting the answers:
https://genderminorities.com/2021/06/06/rainbow-experiences-research/
No lesbian has – or ever has had, a penis. They can call themselves a "lesbian" until the end of time but nobody can be forced to believe them. Your "evidence" has the language of gender ideology and is therefore reflective of a homophobic cult.
And you have no evidence but your own exclusionary ideology. Your argument is circular, your antipathy to the existence of people different from you is transphobic. You can hold these beliefs but they do not reflect the views of the majority of people.
I go on about No Debate, but my ideology is that of gender critical feminism, not RW gender conservatism. Do you know what the difference is?
It says much that you are unaware of the strong left wing GC movement, and all the work it is doing to push back against the conservatives positions on gender.
Why do you insist on making claims about what I am aware of?
I mentioned Family First as they were cited by RL. I note that you haven’t pushed back on that.
Because it's preferable to saying that you appear to be intentionally misleading the debate.
Do you know what the difference is between conservative positions and left wing GC ones?
Push back on what? He pointed to the problem of the MSM collaborating to refuse advertising to something that was pretty mild. Do you think that didn't happen?
I have been very critical of the Parliament protests and its disgraceful misogyny and violence. And quite harsh on Julian Batchelor and his anti Maori crusade.
I am an equal opportunity critic of bullshitters.
Posie Parker probably belongs in the “BS” category too, but that doesn’t justify the way that she and her supporters were treated in Aotearoa.
this is a very clear and useful comment.
Bisexuals are definitionally not 'sex attracted'.
The vast majority of lesbian, gay and bisexual people are supportive of, and not concerned at all about the existence of trans people or any supposed 'ideology'.
The queer community has always included trans people and efforts to exclude them are ahistorical, confused and ideological.
What makes you think this?
I agree about the queer community comment, but do you accept that there are significant numbers of LGB people who don't ID as queer and don't see themselves as part of that community?
https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/02-06-2023/vast-majority-of-new-zealanders-believe-trans-people-should-be-protected-from-discrimination-poll
Can you quantify 'significant'? Otherwise what makes you think that?
That's my understanding too. That's not the same as "The vast majority of lesbian, gay and bisexual people are supportive of, and not concerned at all about the existence of trans people or any supposed 'ideology'."
When we look at yougov polling in the UK, it's very clear that most people support the human rights of trans people (as above), and draw the line at TWAW and accessing women's changing rooms.
Have a look at what happens to women's positions when they understand that a TW can be a man with no surgical treatment.
this is worth highlighting. You appear to think that people who object to TWAW are inherently anti-trans human rights. They're not.
My example is the 'vast majority' of NZers, which automatically includes LGB NZers.
The UK is not the same as NZ.
You have failed to quantify your claim of 'significance' and you again make up claims about my beliefs.
I know what you did, but I countered that by pointing out that your vidence didn't match your claim.
I then made the argument that most people support trans rights but don't support transgressions of women's rights and I provided a reputable polling company in a similar country.
Yes, the UK isn't NZ. We don't do adequate polling on this in NZ. I wonder why.
Just been dealing with other things, will get to it in a while.
Here's some UK evidence then:
https://www.justlikeus.org/blog/2023/03/31/trans-day-of-visibility-ally-lesbian/
You are confusing the past – when the vast majority of trans people were gay men at a time when sex between men was unlawful and some of them internalised their homophobia and "transed away the Gay". There were also a few lesbians who endeavoured to be more like men for personal protection and/or at the bequest of their "straight acting" girlfriends. All these people were same sex attracted and very much part of the LGB community.
Today, with Homosexual Law Reform and Marriage Equality, there is no longer the impetus for that kind of "gay conversion therapy". Today's trans identifying people are quite different. Many are heterosexual, the men have wives and children and when they "identify" as women, they also identify as lesbians. The same with many of the young women who reject the pornified and oppressive female gender roles of today and seek to identify their way out of their oppression. They identify as gay men and then have problems finding sexual partners as they do not have when gay men want.
It is this kind of sexual repression and resentment that drives a lot of the vitriol – particularly against lesbians who are just not interested in a "transbian".
Society has always had its narrative order.
One stated that homosexuality was caused by idolatry and those of faith therefore could not be homosexual.
Another that if there was a bad harvest blaming a woman could give the community hope as they waited for another harvest.
But eventually science comes to the party and explains the natural world and human biology, chemistry and psyche a little better.
Reckons are useful, and each individual has them.
There was a period of common cause – it was of course the equal rights and protections for people regardless of religion, race, ethnicity, sex, sexuality or gender identity.
It seems to be a separation between sexuality and gender identity, as to common cause. As if their equal rights and or protection could conflict.
All fine, but then there is the common cause with those who deny any reality (or normality) to gender identity where this is different to biological sex.
Sorry – what reality/normality is there in the idea that people have a "gendered soul" which supersedes biological reality? Where is the test for this "gender reality"?
The truth about your sex is in every drop of your blood. If you are going to state that something should overcome that – you better have a good definition of it and some sort of ability to prove it.
Thanks for so explicitly, explaining my point.
Thanks for demonstrating that you have no arguement. You are welcome to believe in gender ideology – I am welcome to not believe in it.
That I have not made a case, is not evidence that I have no argument. It's not the point being discussed, which was related to the end of common cause.
I'm with roblogic on this one. The moral high ground to make these statements was lost because of the lack of condemnation of the male violence against women at LWS in Auckland, as well as the use of violence to prevent NZ women from speaking.
It's just too jarring, and imo what Hannah is doing with this partisan approach is engaging in the culture war.
Rather a fallacious argument to discount Hannah's right to comment on gender-based online violence, weka. By that same logic, VS and RB are disbarred from any comments on this topic because they have not denounced the actual physical violence against a woman exercising her right to freedom of expression in Batchelor's PN meeting.
Hannah is in an excellent position to make an informed comment: she works with this revolting material every day.
I do not discount Hannah's personal right to comment, no doubt she has experienced some of the worst dregs of humanity online. But her article turns a blind eye to others not of her political persuasion and the equal amount of shit they have to deal with.
Has that person defined the women that they speak of? female women, male women, non binary women of both sexes?
IF not, it's meaningless drivel.
And females getting bullied, what else is new, i mean this is NZ a country with sky high domestic violence stats.
As or Albert Park the only ones that were getting the bash there were the middle aged women – maori and pakeha – that came for a meeting of their peers to a public park. Not a single male women or a single female man were harmed.
Not true, a known neo-nazi the crowd pushed around a tiny woman counter-protest marshall. He continued to harass her physically until a trans woman in blue gave him a good punch on the shoulder, after talking with the marshall briefly.
Apart from this, the juice incident, the young man who punched the woman, the motorbike hit on Marama, and thuggish behaviour by Posie supporters, the Brian Tamaki mob, where is the orchestrated anti-woman violence in the counter-protest in the thousands, in which many ‘bio’ women came along to protest noisily against PP.
you need to provide the evidence for those. Putting you in premod until you do. The MSM made a mess of reporting this, so we may as well get it sorted out now. I'm not doubting you so much as wanting clarity and to sort out the facts from the hyperbole (feel free to point me to other comments that need to provide evidence too).
Evidence means,
Each claim means,
Saw the harassment of the marshall 'with my own eyes' on an extensive video analysis, virtually frame-by-frame on BHN. The man was post-incident id’d as a neo-nazi.
Unfortunately BHN has taken down their clip, so I cannot say any more than I was an eye-witness to credible visuals that clearly showed this sequence of events. I have discussed these events at TS before weka
Are you using your site capacity to censor my posts with no warning ? Where is my post on UK media?
No, I'm not censoring you, you're in premod, which means none of your comments will appear until you've provided evidence. This is to make sure that people provide back up for claims of fact (see the site Policy) and don't create work for the mods having to chase them up. We've been using this method for a long time.
In this case you have explained why you can't provide evidence, but I'm going to ask you to link to the person and place that used to have the video up.
You also need to provide evidence for the last claim in my list.
I've explained moderation and expectations to you before.
.https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-15-06-2023/#comment-1954626
I'm not willing to allow such loose claims of fact on such a controversial topic. Again, if you see other people needing to be pulled up on this please let one of the mods know (we will need a link to the specific comment and a brief explanation).
Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, weka. Where is your evidence/link that trans lesbians are pressuring 'real' lesbians into sex? And where is Anker's link for the former judge discrediting the Disinformation Project?
You ARE censoring me if you hold only me to your moderator standard of providing proof (in a debate you hold a contrary position on, I point out), but do not hold yourself or others who continue a thread I initiated this morning to the same requirement.
This is now being discussed in the back end. I'm going to ban you for 24 hours so the mods can finish that conversation.
My suggestion is this:
Take some time over the next day to reread my two (unbolded) moderation comments. I've explained quite clearly what is needed (two simply pieces of evidence and how that needs to be done).
If you don't want to provide evidence, then please withdraw the claims you made.
If you can do either of those two things then no further ban will be likely.
I've also explained how you can get moderators to look at other comments you think are a problem.
Three further points:
"This includes making assertions that you are unable to substantiate with some proof (and that doesn’t mean endless links to unsubstantial authorities) or even argue when requested to do so. Such comments may be deleted without warning or one of the alternatives below may be employed. The action taken is completely up to the moderator who takes it."
We don't require pre-emptive evidence with every comment, but anyone here can ask any other commenter for evidence if it hasn't already been provided. The key here is to actually ask, and do so in a clear way that people can understand.
https://thestandard.org.nz/policy/
MOD NOTE: It's two days later and you haven't responded. I'm drawing a line under this so I don't have to waste more time on it. You are now out of premod and off the ban list.
This is your final warning. Next time you refuse to provide back up for claims of fact when asked, and/or you ignore moderation, and/or you hassle moderators or try and fight about the moderation, I will simply ban you so that I don't have to waste my time any further. I don't know how long that ban will be, maybe a few weeks or a month. But if you give me grief I will ban you until after the election.
To be very clear, this has nothing to do with the topic. I want you to keep bringing your arguments to TS, you just have to work with the rules like everyone else. This is to do with you ignoring moderation and picking a fight about it.
Anyone else that behaved as you did two says ago would already have been banned, but I'm cutting you slack because I think the debate on TS is better served by you being able to comment than not. There are limits to that however.
Please read this post for how evidence needs to be presented, and ask if you are unclear,
https://thestandard.org.nz/moderation-notes-in-election-year/
I'm not discounting her right to comment so much as pointing out that she doesn't have the moral high ground.
It's not hard to ascertain what rob, V and I think about say the woman who was assaulted at JB's meeting. You can just ask.
(fwiw I think it was assault and I hope she presses charges. I also think activists need to be aware of the undisciplined situation they are putting themselves in. I expect they already know that, I hope they get strategic about it. There's an opportunity here to use the Justice System to get the JB crowd to shift back into societal protest norms. But that also takes us back to LWS and what the fuck the police were not doing).
But can you tell me what statements DIP have made about the violence at LWS?
The Disinformation Project deals with online calls for violence. Isolated incidences of physical violence at an overwhelmingly peaceful counterprotest is kind of outside their brief.
If there had been an outpouring of murder and rape threats online from NZers against Posie Parker, as there was against the protester who merely poured juice on PP, and against Lal simply for organising a peaceful counterprotest that repeatedly emphasised non-violence, then we would have heard of it from Hannah.
This comment highlights why we really need to "let women speak" for themselves rather than believe everything that outfits like TDIP spoon feed us.
Here are a couple of items you won’t see in the NZ news:
https://twitter.com/ReduxxMag/status/1616910618703040514?s=20
https://reduxx.info/new-zealand-womens-rights-campaigner-mobbed-attacked-by-trans-activists/
Sure the DIP deals with online information/activity that relates to incitement to violence here (not overseas).
In so far as public events/activities here, any threats or planning of acts of violence.
Kate Hannah has every right to speak up about her experience as a woman on line.
But I think" on-line violence" is an oxymoron as violence is physical and happens in the real world (like in Albert Park). Language however hurtful isn't violence and changing the definition of violence is unhelpful. Not to take away from verbal threats of violence which are against the law.
TDP has been very well critiqued in the media, shortly after Posie Parkers visit. The commentators spanned across the left right divide. Then a retired district court judge reviewed their work including their metholodogy and completely discredited them. The DIP exist to re-inforce an indeological narrative and thus their purpose is propaganda. They have likely won a $500,000 contract to carry out this work. Both the fact that they do it and the fact that tax payers pay for it is disgraceful. I hope the new NACT govt cancell their contract or if they can't, don't renew. We have spies that are specialists in monitoring citizens who may be a danger to our society. They are trained to do this job and do it in secret.
While I essentially support your views on this wider subject, I do take issue with;…"as violence is physical and happens in the real world (like in Albert Park). Language however hurtful isn't violence and changing the definition of violence is unhelpful".
A few years back I was involved as a Scout Leader at a Jamboree. A few of our senior female Scouts asked if they could have an all girl patrol. We agreed. For the first two days they were unstoppable, tight, co-operative and happy.
Activities on day 3 included building a raft and going around a buoy and returning. It didn't go well is an understatement. The nasty back-biting and ganging up that occurred was shocking. Often out of earshot or in quiet moments. That evening the patrol members were 're-assigned' to other patrols.
The point I am making (finally) was illustrated at a korero we had at the first night back at Scouts a few weeks later. While not speaking of the events outlined above, a young female Scout observed that "when a female wants to hurt you, you stay hurt".
I know of those who possess a 'wicked tongue', constantly undermining, questioning one's worth or ability and happily highlighting short-comings.
I accept that on-line carry-on is a step away in severity from real world and I have more than a few questions about DIP's beginnings, funders and true motive but words do matter.
I actually agree Gsays. Verbal harrasment can be devastating.
No question.
And Jason Ake has quit. Well that was predictable.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/kahu/rnz-board-member-jason-ake-quits-telling-board-chair-i-wont-be-constrained-because-im-on-a-crown-board/4ZEWHO5WXJF3NCGKRQZC3YCJ6E/
Dunno about predictable. Does a rebel get street cred by caving to political pressure?? Tradition has it that he who fights & runs away will live to fight another day, so I guess one ought to acknowledge his pragmatism. A rebel has to learn to develop solidarity in common cause, so maybe that will be his learning curve…
Incapable of reading the job description;
should never have put himself forward for nomination.
Na it'll be another case of the effects colonialism and white people, not recognizing Akes right to do things differently
Sure the job description is designed to prevent any capacity to have any relevance.
Empty chairs at empty tables. Sums up what so much of bureaucracy has become.
He doesn't seem to have considered the potential conflicts of interest in his multiple board roles
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/kahu/rnz-board-member-jason-ake-quits-telling-board-chair-i-wont-be-constrained-because-im-on-a-crown-board/4ZEWHO5WXJF3NCGKRQZC3YCJ6E/
And, given the publicity around Rob Campbell earlier this year, he really should have….
CNN posts "obituary" for twitter
Doing in plain light of day what his satellites are doing to the night.
Not only the night, 100% cell coverage world wide!!! No where to hide.
Missing, last seen with this man
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/13061/production/_130412977_b17e095d-a7dd-4c86-8e23-d15aded671b2.jpg.webp
Mr Qin Gang attended a series of events in June including meeting US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
There is a new foreign minister of China, the old one 2013-2022.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-66299379
The more recent one, apparently gave our Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta a major dressing during her visit to Beijing in March.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/nanaia-mahuta-received-dressing-down-from-chinese-foreign-minister-reports/QLPJDQEJ5JEQJLQT4UMA7E6M4Q/
Old Arawa saying, when hosting woman of the Tainui, …do not shout so loud that one can later only whisper when the man comes to town.
PS – we could respect the man from Foggybottom, but we know the man with the resignation shadow, the wise feed him.
I liked this bit:
So you have a puppeteer & a puppet. Perhaps the minister thought being a protege of Xi gave him more autonomy than his controller deemed appropriate?
And of course to Xi, your and my policy was sound – but he could not make it work, so it's on him.
Those who realised that a rent freeze was the best way to manage the cost of living crisis were right.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/money/2023/07/trade-me-data-kiwi-renters-paying-2600-more-a-year-than-last-year.html
Greedy/grasping rent-rackers are running amuck…
Expecting them to act in a reasonable/fair manner is delusional..
Rent-freezing/wofs are the minimum actions urgently needed..
Proof the earthling is a potato head.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/world/2023/07/there-s-a-gravity-hole-in-the-indian-ocean-and-scientists-now-think-they-know-why/_jcr_content/par/image.dynimg.full.q75.jpg/v1690227217696/cnn-GRAVITY-HOLE-1120.jpg
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/world/2023/07/there-s-a-gravity-hole-in-the-indian-ocean-and-scientists-now-think-they-know-why.html?ref=ves-nextauto
Yeah I read that yesterday. We got taught the oblate spheroid view in college physics (mid-late '60s). That asymmetry is now more complex. I suppose the effect of the anomaly on plate tectonics is the guts of the research. Wait until a modified theory becomes output after the research…
Not me, while I did 6th form physics, I used the class for history revision (an option available to those choosing a new subject in the 7th form year – they allowed a 4 subject UE pass), thus an easy A. E = mc2 and the basics of the atom etc (or was that 4th form, I got an A in 4th form science).
They seem quite aware that they still have something to work out. Modified and or upgraded position and all.
Yes please.
The Taxpayers’ Union has heard from sources that Nicky Hager is working on a book which is focused at the Taxpayers’ Union. We are aware of him approaching former members of staff asking them to breach confidences.
Chairman of the Taxpayers’ Union, Laurie Kubiak said:
[…]
“It is no surprise the Taxpayers’ Union is Mr Hager’s latest target. He is coming for us because we are successful.
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO2307/S00177/pre-election-books-avoiding-false-impressions.htm
Could be fun.
How else can he front as a partisan??
Have-nots hacking haves, ha! As if wealthy folk don't have a right of privacy in the view of leftist hackers. Selective morality is a partisan thing. Hypocrisy.
An actual bleat! They think they're a think-tank, not just a union. Well then, spend the goddam donations on security like the Brits then! Spit that dummy!
Is that the same tax papers union that that took the wage subsidie ?
Surly a national party stalking horse would be squeaky clean!!!
Does Kubiak consider 'PMs ruling out a CGT or wealth tax' to be a success? Probably.
"This bunker mentality", eh? A fair description of Kubiak's mentality too, imho.
"Breaches of confidence", do employees have to sign contracts to keep their knowledge of the TU to themselves?
"Centre-right organisations as victims of cyber attacks" … oh so it is a centre-right organisation then …
Otago Regional Council's staff tell the Council that banning dairy farming in some areas needs to be an option.
https://www.odt.co.nz/regions/dairying-gun-river-action-urged
So it's not just Green Party policy, it's also official advice to one of the worst and most dysfunctional regional councils in the country.
The case for banning the mobiles from schools.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/shows/2023/07/newshub-nation-researcher-says-social-media-changing-kids-brains-wants-it-treated-like-other-addictive-substances.html
With you there (possibly for the first time, but with you all the same).
According to news reports, the Long Bay snapper poacher was warned 5 times by DoC staff about his illegal activities.
Shows what a stern rebuke will do, doesn't it?
I doubt if the $4,000 fine will be paid, unless he poaches more fish to get the dosh, making the whole judicial process a laughing stock.