Curiously, Shearer is not reported as saying what he/Labour would do for Maori, only that Labour’s after their seats. It seems to be all a power play by Shearer. And still we don’t really know what Shearer actually stands for…?
Meanwhile, I see Metiria Turei spoke at the gathering to celebrate the prophet’s birthday at Ratana, laying out her strongly held political values and commitments.
And I see from the NZ Herald article on Shearer’s tilt (at windmills?) that there’s a Green Party picnic for the planet: tags for the picnic post includeAsset sales, Climate Change, Children’s Issues, Conservation, Environment, Housing, Water.
And that I think is the elephant in the room NO-ONE knows what he stands for. He could support little green men from Venus I wouldn’t care at least we would know.
Would it matter if he came out and *said*, what he stood for, I mean really, only the gillible would trust a politician, with a spurious background, after the decades of lying , leading to decline!
Apparently he doesn’t need to stand for anything. Cardboard cutout, smile and wave while Goff, Mallard, King and Robertson pull the strings to animate the FrankenShearer.
LOLZ, Metiria had them spell-bound on the Marae when She described Her first visit to Ratana which resulted in Her first real kiss,( come on Met’s fess up you forgot to give the bloke a slap for His troubles and your really back there looking to make amends),
On a more serious note Ratana now have a perfect housing policy via the Green Party’s just announced scheme where Ratana have the land and now have a real policy with which to rejuvenate housing at the Pa it’self, i am sure that in the Urawera’s Tuhoe will have reacted with interest to the Green Party’s housing policy as well…
“I think the Maori seats are up for grabs and we are going for broke to get them. We are in competition with the Maori Party and Mana and we are determined to win the Maori seats back.”
David Shearer
While I agree that Labour should try and see off the Maori Party. To lump the Mana Party in the same category exposes David Shearer’s lack of a political compass.
Mana is undoubtedly a left party and as such is more than likely back to fully back any left legislation forwarded by a Labour/Green government. Possibly even giving such a government their vote on confidence and supply. (Even if not in a formal alliance).
The fact of the matter is, if Mana got more than the one seat currently held by Hone Harawira, this would be one more vote to keep National away from the treasury benches.
Can’t Shearer see that? Is he that misinformed?
Or is Shearer so blindly sectarian that he would rather see Mana out of parliament, even at the cost of the election?
Labour actively contesting the Maori seats that it currently does not hold could be just what Mana need particularly in Waiariki where Flavell is definitely vulnerable more to Mana’s Annette Sykes than any candidate that Labour can stand in that particular electorate,
For all the mana that Pita Sharples now has left a blind donkey named Brucie could wrest Sharples seat off of him without raising a sweat so Labour’s Shane Jones should fit right in there as i am unreliably informed that wanking makes you blind and as far as i know Shane hasn’t raised an ounce of sweat during what has so far passed as His lifetime even when engaged in the former….
It’s the hackneyed, appallingly arrogant “Decent People Hate Harawira” refrain which most of them have engaged to suck up to voters in the range White Trash to White Flash.
The NZHerald article wrongly translates the word ‘morehu’ as to mean ‘follower’, that’s not right and who would have thunk that the Herald cannot even get one simple Maori word correct,
Morehu are the survivors, what was left of the Prophets people and lands after what Tariana Turia described as the ‘holocaust’ ensuing from European settlement…
National announce an $80 million investment in this years budget for irrigation and water storage for Dairy Farmers. This is unbelievable given the profitability of dairy farming and the desperate need for money in other areas.
Hi Rosy, Hi Saarbo. Yes this is both unbelieveable and outrageous. I heard the news on RNZ yesterday about the $80 million funding for irrigation. This has been in the pipeline (absolutely no pun intended) for quite some time hasn’t it? I’m making an assumption that its for Canterbury, that region most unsuited to dairying. If they mentioned the region in the news yesterday I must have missed it.
I clicked on Saarbo’s nat party link to see if they mentioned a region. The answers are possibly in that PDF of Q’s and A’s. I didn’t check it though. I got mesmarised and confused by the heading in the banner “Less debt, more jobs” (!?!?!), and then I started to feel a little sick from all that blue and had to quickly vacate the site lest I throw up.
This lolnats post sums it up: “its not called socialism when its for mah friends!”
Thanks Saarbo and Rosie…
Go lolnats. So they’re selling dams and then funding water storage. hmm
Y’know I don’t have a problem with government investing in infrastructure to help industry when it helps job creation and the environment and when the government retains control. But this is a 10% investment for private profit from the sounds of it. And it’s the way they turning the country into a great big dairy farm to profit their friends that really galls.
More than half of this investment is going to dairying/dairy support if they go by NZIER modelling.
NZIER modelling assumed that the resulting land use change would see 42
per cent of the area go to dairying, 16 per cent to mixed livestock, 27 per cent
to arable (cropping), 11 per cent to dairy support and four per cent to
horticulture.
The pdfs mention water storage in Canterbury, Hawkes Bay, Wellington, Nelson/Tasman but they don’t say they are going to do anything in any region. It’s all a bit cloak and dagger to me. It’s also rolling over the country’s democracy, if it’s Canterbury.
“It’s all a bit cloak and dagger to me. It’s also rolling over the conutry’s democracy, if it’s Canterbury”.
Exactly. The sacking of the elected representatives of ECAN was a breath taking act of tyranny, with the intention of blocking attempts from concerned parties who wish to take the matter of irrigation to the environment court. The documents obtained by The Press under the OIA spell out clearly the intention of the govt to “suspend democracy” in favour of economic growth for the Canterbury region: (And for whose benefit really?)
So water storage plans aside for Hawke’s Bay, Wellington and Nelson Tasman (thanks for actually reading the pdf’s on the nat site!) One of the big issues around the announcemment of the $80 million funding for irrigation is the removal of the democratic process. It’s just not any old irrigation scheme.
Secondly, as you mentioned, is the issue of the environment. The expansion of dairying in Canterbury surely can’t be a sustainable move and one that the environment won’t be able to support long term. Climate change experts predict that dry regions of NZ (eg Canterbury) will continue to get drier and experience more droughts where as wetter areas (eg, west coast) will continue to get wetter and experience more floods. We had an example of this over Xmas/NY with floods in the west coast and ultra hot dry and windy conditions over the other side of the alps that contributed to scrub fires… And of course I agree with you in regard to the issue of industrial farming and it’s intensification. Just how much can you force out of an animal and out of the land that supports that animal?
The burden on the environment will be too much.
Oh for a govt with a vision!
Jeez that Press link is dynamite – but not important enough to put on the Stuff main site? Go figure. I’ve also linked to the Forest & Bird press release about the irrigation subsidies on today’s Open Mike…
This issue is far too important to fade into the background. The demolition of environment, finance, employment, social cohesion, animal welfare and, above all, democracy concerns all tied up in a neat package.
btw I’m thinking that I won’t talk about subsidies for farmers – with connotations of giving a break to hard working rugged individualists getting up at the crack of dawn to tend their animals. I reckon I’m going to start talking about farming companies – with connotations of foreign ownership and/or big bank mortgages employing farm managers and minimum wage staff (increasingly imported) with no hope of getting on the farm ownership or share-milking ladder.
I am not opposed to irrigation and water storage schemes as long as they are ***100 % PUBLICLY OWNED AND CONTROLLED***
This irrigation investment company is bascially the government giving money to profit making entites so they can make money from OUR water, as the equity that this company will essentially be a minority stake and will be sold off in due course.
Hi All, just to provide some more analysis on the benefit to farmers of Irrigation and therefore why farmers should pay for this themselves. An un-irrigated farm in the Waikato will make 1200 KG Milk Solids per hectare. When the land is irrigated in the South Island it can make between 1600kg MS to 2000kg MS. So a 300 Hectare farm in the SI will make between $70000 to $140000 per farm/per annum from irrigation (This is the value add from irrigation). My analysis is very conservative as if I was to compare the increase in per hectare profit of the SI farm before irrigation to the SI farm after irrigation the figures would be much larger. There is absolutely NO reason why these farmers cannot afford to pay for these schemes themselves. This is handouts to the rich.
It’s also not only about water. It’s really bad for NZ’s reputation and a seriously important step along the way of intensification of factory farming. NZ grassland already can’t feed the cows that it has so it’s either import more palm kernel waste and intensify farming. Added to this is that NZ waterways already can’t manage the agricultural waste pumped in to them, Canterbury being a prime example.
Reliance on one sector of intensive agriculture only enriches the companies that own those farms (wherever the company is from) and exploits the country, its workers and environment as well as being a disgusting way to treat animals (imho of course).
I went to a meeting this week. I’d never been before, and didn’t I know any of the attendees.
I was early, and as I sat down a conversation was in full swing about the awfulness of the government, which segued pretty seamlessly into the uselessness of the opposition. The present-day Labour reminded the older attendees of Rogernomics. There was reminiscing about privatisation and part-charges for hospital treatment. We all agreed with the guy who said the Labour oppostion was “same people – better suits.”
I didn’t say any of the above. I was just smiling and nodding really.
This was no “darkened room”, these people were not “extremist nutters”. The age range I’d guess at 28 – 65, demographic – pakeha, middle class.
Polish Pride I would not spend any time this weekend praying for my immune system to deal with the full blast of disease. I am still alive because I had multiple immunisations as a child.
It is one thing to oppose the inherent corruption of capitalism, it is another to stupidly ignore the scientific and technical advances that it has profited from by keeping us alive as the creators of its wealth.
Because I am alive I can plot to overthrow capitalism and expropriate its technical advances and put them to use in ongoing human survival.
LOLZ, i might start being nice to Hooten,(just kidding there’s not a s**t’s show of that occurring) i wonder if the number of ‘looks’ at the Standard goes up every time the Hooten’s of the world trying to denigrate this site use the main stream media to point people in the Standard’s direction,
Free advertizing???, there are no free lunches but please don’t tell me i have to be nice to that (expletive deleted) wanker…
Yeah, but you don’t link to the pieces you are referencing.
Also, at least twice you use quotation marks around a statement. I had assumed you were quoting something someone had said on ts, but just hadn’t attributed that properly. But googling parts of the phrases returns no hits other than the NBR. What gives?
Matthew likes to tread the line between being a cool, on-to-it online engagement dude and a proper, traditional newspaper guy. The latter comes in very handy because outfits like the NBR don’t understand how linking works or that there’s an expectation that online writing involve citations, yet he wants to be taken seriously as a member of the Standard’s commentariat.
Funnily enough Micky, before I was aware of your connection with Cunliffe I noticed that you were uncharacteristically circumspect on the whole issue during the many threads devoted to it.
Hooton has input from Mike Williams and Chris Hipkins! That is the level to which the clique have descended to retain privileges.
13 MPs must withhold their vote in the Confidence Motion in Feb.
Indeed, except as a spitoon or a comic moment of light relief that one is to all extents and purposes of little use even to His mates in ACT,
Debating with it ‘nicely’ it’s carefully scripted excerpts from the handbook of Ruthanasia-isms simply empowers it’s ego to yell from that wing-nuts gospel ever louder…
There is no “clear spin that DC is orchestrating it”, or any other kind of “spin”. If I wanted to say he was orchestrating it all, I would have said it. I know enough about these processes (Brash v English for example) to know that the candidate usually only knows a fraction of what is being said and done to advance his or her interests.
But she faces fresh criticism from Opposition MPs and campaign groups after The Daily Telegraph obtained documents showing that she called on ministers to make sexually explicit photographs or films of children legal unless there was evidence that the subject had been harmed.
In case people were naïve enough to think, only *the right* (Ken Clarke et al) are involved!
So Harriet Harman was the lawyer for the Council of Civil Liberties more than 30 years ago. I guess it must be true that a person’s view always reflects that of their employer all those years ago. /sarc
“A study by Kyung Hee Kim, professor of education for the College of William and Mary in Virginia, focused on the creativity of school age children between kindergarten and 12th grade using the measurement known as the Torrance tests of creative thinking.
He found a ‘massive’ decline of creativity the longer the students progressed through the school system as ‘children have become less emotionally expressive, less energetic, less talkative and verbally expressive, less humorous, less imaginative, less unconventional, less lively and passionate, less perceptive, less apt to connect seemingly irrelevant things, less synthesizing, and less likely to see things from a different angle.’”
“Autos and semi-autos are weapons of mass destruction. When lunatics want to make war on the unarmed and unprepared, these are the weapons they use.”
He said blanket opposition to gun control was less about defending the second amendment of the US constitution than “a stubborn desire to hold onto what they have, and to hell with the collateral damage”.
He added: “If that’s the case, let me suggest that ‘fuck you, Jack, I’m okay’ is not a tenable position, morally speaking.”
As one report summarises, the chief causes are phosphorous pollution from Levin’s stormwater and nitrogen pollution from farming runoff. Click on the link at the bottom of this page:
I am looking for a site that gives a good summary of the pros and cons for selling minority interests in SOE’s – any suggestions? I’m not looking for ideological arguments, but facts and examples.
Any suggestions?
It’s a strategic decision, so it is a mix of strategic factors. That involves ideology.
It was debated at length on this site when first mentioned, but to me it comes down to:
BENEFITS
Cash now.
Maybe technological innovation if the purchaser has synergies.
Ideological beliefs that private sector is more efficient than the public sector.
COSTS
permanent deprivation of future dividends.
lack of government control as a sole shareholder (especially in relation to compromising market profits in favour of public good, e.g. employment or keeping power prices low).
redundancy: if it’s a private sector opportunity, why not let the private sector start their own and provide competition? Isn’t that the entire point of the private sector market?
Yep. Thats the financial analysis. In real economy terms, power generation is core economic infrastructure and as such, its loss of control is loss of control of economic sovereignty.
The comments above have no numbers, just circles where the numbers should be.
I did a site search recently, and found that many Standard posts and comments are dated before the internet was even invented. Very prescient they were about recent events. But seriously last time I delved into the beginnings of the Standard the correct dates went right back to the begining (of the Standard, not of time).
Thirdly, the chronological search wasn’t chronological or even particlularly logical.
Might well be something my end.
edit: and now the circle comments are below this comment despite my writing this after they were written.
The date thing is a known glitch, Lynn said he’s working on it.
The comments appearing in a funny order seemed to start today. The comments at the bottom of this thread, where there is no post number, all ended up stuck to the bottom of the page (plus they were replies to posts not stand alone comments).
[lprent: Doing final release of the code of product two at work. I’m going to have problems finding any time until that is completed. ]
@ Hooten,The thing that struck me( yeth i’m a real perthon) is that there are others outside of TS that are feeling the same concerns as the high number of commenters here are, over the Shearer leadership, we all can’t be exteme leftist zelots.
Shearer says he was elected, not really, he lost the ‘around the mountain’ vote,it was his mates, inside caucus, that installed him as the leader, much to the angst of the members.
What an absolute waste of time it was to have 10 meetings,the planning,members setting
aside time to attend, the co-ordination of the halls, etc, then to have it all thrown back in
ones face and the result ignored, Cunliffe won 9 out of 10 meetings.
Then the ‘winning’ opponent was relegated to the backbenches after a supposed coup attempt,
beaten up by the media,the following demotion of Cunliffe was a disgrace and uncalled for,it
has just added fuel to the fire, this action was not reflective of a democraticly inclined
leader,hence the feeling many feel towards Shearer, who is the real Shearer ? ‘I dunno’
His character and his attitudes need some immediate adjustments though.
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TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Orderimage, ...
Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent talking about the National-ACT-NZ First Government’s release of its first Emissions Reduction Plan;University of Otago Foreign Relations Professor and special guest Dr Karin von ...
Open access notablesImproving global temperature datasets to better account for non-uniform warming, Calvert, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society:To better account for spatial non-uniform trends in warming, a new GITD [global instrumental temperature dataset] was created that used maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) to combine the land surface ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says a bill that has passed its first reading will improve parental leave settings and give non-biological parents more flexibility as primary carer for their child. The Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill (No3), passed its first reading this morning. “It includes a change ...
Two Bills designed to improve regulation and make it easier to do business have passed their first reading in Parliament, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill make key changes to legislation administered by the Ministry ...
New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says newly appointed Commissioner, Grant Illingworth KC, will help deliver the report for the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons, due on 28 November 2024. “I am pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will commence his appointment as ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters travels to Laos this week to participate in a series of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-led Ministerial meetings in Vientiane. “ASEAN plays an important role in supporting a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Mr Peters says. “This will be our third visit to ...
Construction of a new mental health facility at Te Nikau Grey Hospital in Greymouth is today one step closer, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says. “This $27 million facility shows this Government is delivering on its promise to boost mental health care and improve front line services,” Mr Doocey says. ...
New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says proposed changes to the Education and Training Amendment Bill will ensure charter schools have more flexibility to negotiate employment agreements and are equipped with the right teaching resources. “Cabinet has agreed to progress an amendment which means unions will not be able to initiate ...
In response to serious concerns around oversight, overspend and a significant deterioration in financial outlook, the Board of Health New Zealand will be replaced with a Commissioner, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti announced today. “The previous government’s botched health reforms have created significant financial challenges at Health NZ that, without ...
Minister for Space and Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins will travel to Adelaide tomorrow for space and science engagements, including speaking at the Australian Space Forum. While there she will also have meetings and visits with a focus on space, biotechnology and innovation. “New Zealand has a thriving space ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will travel to China on Saturday to attend the Ministerial on Climate Action meeting held in Wuhan. “Attending the Ministerial on Climate Action is an opportunity to advocate for New Zealand climate priorities and engage with our key partners on climate action,” Mr Watts says. ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is travelling to the Solomon Islands tomorrow for meetings with his counterparts from around the Pacific supporting collective management of the region’s fisheries. The 23rd Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Committee and the 5th Regional Fisheries Ministers’ Meeting in Honiara from 23 to 26 July ...
The Government today launched the Military Style Academy Pilot at Te Au rere a te Tonga Youth Justice residence in Palmerston North, an important part of the Government’s plan to crackdown on youth crime and getting youth offenders back on track, Minister for Children, Karen Chhour said today. “On the ...
The Government has welcomed news the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has begun work to replace nine priority bridges across the country to ensure our state highway network remains resilient, reliable, and efficient for road users, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“Increasing productivity and economic growth is a key priority for the ...
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour has been in contact throughout the evening with senior officials who have coordinated a whole of government response to the global IT outage and can provide an update. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has designated the National Emergency Management Agency as the ...
New Zealand and Japan will continue to step up their shared engagement with the Pacific, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand and Japan have a strong, shared interest in a free, open and stable Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “We are pleased to be finding more ways ...
New developments in the heart of North Island forestry country will reinvigorate their communities and boost economic development, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones visited Kaingaroa and Kawerau in Bay of Plenty today to open a landmark community centre in the former and a new connecting road in ...
President Adeang, fellow Ministers, honourable Diet Member Horii, Ambassadors, distinguished guests. Minasama, konnichiwa, and good afternoon, everyone. Distinguished guests, it’s a pleasure to be here with you today to talk about New Zealand’s foreign policy reset, the reasons for it, the values that underpin it, and how it ...
Last summer when Matairangi burned, Ginny and Tom stood at the window of their lounge, watching kākā shoot skyward from the burning trees. From the distance, they looked to Ginny like pages torn from books and thrown into a bonfire. It was Tom, voice tight, who told her it was ...
Opinion: The Canadian short story writer Alice Munro – winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013 – died in May at the age of 92. Her work was about “the damage people inflict on one another in the name of love”, Deborah Treisman wrote in the New Yorker. ...
This month marks two years since the most powerful telescope ever built sent its first pictures back to earth. From its lofty vantage point, beyond the moon in orbit around the sun, the James Webb Space Telescope was tuned to observe the first stars and galaxies being born soon after ...
Comment: After Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ preview several weeks ago, I had some optimism about the Government’s emissions reduction plan. Now I’ve read the discussion document, that hope has been dashed. How can the Government propose a plan that wants to take New Zealand taxpayers’ hard-earned money, and spend ...
Christopher Luxon: hurdles The little man from National jumps hurdles in his sleep. He’s quite good at it in his dreams and even though the reality doesn’t quite match up you have to give him credit for getting up every morning and crashing into the very first hurdle of the ...
Comment: It was a good two hours into the conversation when Tyrone Marks raised the most basic of questions when I first spoke to him in 2017. “They didn’t explain the things they did to me. They never told me why. And they still haven’t. There’s no explanation for it. ...
Madeleine Chapman rounds out Death Week on The Spinoff with a final recommendation. You can read all of our Death Week coverage here. Nothing forces you to reflect on your life and relationships quite like proximity to death. For those whose nearest and dearest have died, there are reasonably obvious ...
Whitney Greene takes us through her life in television, including the TV character she’d like to plan a funeral for and her cow lung catastrophe on The Traitors NZ. “If the phone rings, I have to answer it,” Whitney Greene from The Traitors NZ warns as we begin our My ...
Maddie Ballard reviews the debut essay collection of Pōneke writer Flora Feltham.In ‘The Raw Material’, the longest essay in Flora Feltham’s dazzling debut collection, the author heads out for a run after hours of weaving and sees the world turn to textile. “Pounding along the Parade, I saw the ...
Andy Christiansen, one half of the experimental rock-pop duo TRiPS, shares the tunes inspiring the band’s perfect weekend and new release. “Good speakers, good food, good music, no distractions”: that’s all you need to enjoy the psychedelic stylings of TRiPS, a new band formed by Fly My Pretties’ Barnaby Weir ...
Celebrating our quadrennial opportunity to become experts in a bunch of sports we never normally watch.The games of the XXXIII Olympiad are upon us. Paris will host this year’s showcase of sporting and athletic prowess, which means some late-night and early-morning viewing for us in Aotearoa.But what sports ...
The photograph is striking and beautiful, but also disturbing – a reminder that my love for John was often entangled in shame.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.In the spring of 1980, in Dunedin, shortly before his death, someone took a photograph ...
Get to know Babushka, our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Babu’s humans, Jo and Isabel, for their support. Dog name: Babushka (Babu for short) Age: 2Breed: Border Collie X poodleIf rescued, ...
Pacific Media Watch A Lebanese photojournalist who was severely wounded during an Israeli air strike in south Lebanon carried the Olympic torch in Paris this week in honour of her peers who have been wounded and killed in the field — especially in Gaza and Lebanon. Christina Assi of Agence ...
The first report in a five-part web series focused on the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women taking place in the Marshall Islands this week.SPECIAL REPORT:By Netani Rika in Majuro Women continue to fight for justice 70 years after the first nuclear tests by the United States caused ...
Christopher Luxon has joined with Australia and Canada's leaders in voicing support for US President Joe Biden's ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The 2022 election brought the “teal wave” into parliament. The next election will test whether teals, who occupy what were Liberal seats, and other independents can maintain their momentum. Joining us on the Podcast ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Musgrave, Senior lecturer in Pharmacology, University of Adelaide Pixavri/Shutterstock A major Federal Court class action has been dismissed this week after Justice Michael Lee ruled there was not enough evidence to prove the weedkiller Roundup causes cancer. Plaintiff Kelvin ...
In The Week in Politics: politicians have to decide what to do about child abuse, Health NZ is booked in for major surgery and Darleen Tana returns. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University Mainstream media are surprisingly muted at the prospect of the world’s most powerful nation being led for the first time by a woman – specifically a woman of colour, Vice President Kamala ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Bennett, PhD Student, Associate Research Fellow, Deakin University Last week, a drone delivery company called Wing (owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet) started operating in Melbourne. Some 250,000 residents in parts of the city’s eastern suburbs can now order food from ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Foo, Lecturer, Physiotherapy, Monash University pikselstock/Shutterstock In the next 40 years in Australia, it’s predicted the number of Australians aged 65 and over will more than double, while the number of people aged 85 and over will more than triple. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katrina Grant, Research Associate, Power Institute for Arts and Visual Culture, University of Sydney Jonas Åkerström’s 1790 work, Session of the Accademia dell’Arcadia on August 17 1788.Nationalmuseum/Cecilia Heisser Ever wondered whether you’d have a better chance at winning an Olympic gold ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexandra Jones, Program Lead, Food Governance, George Institute for Global Health wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock On Thursday, Australian and New Zealand food ministers at state, federal and national levels met to thrash out what’s next for health star ratings on packaged foods. Now, after ...
The Abuse in Care report found many Pacific survivors lost their connections to their culture and language, resulting in trauma that has been carried from generation to generation. ...
In the regulatory review, ECC intends to suggest that ERO focus on curriculum delivery reviews rather than the Ministry, because it’s not efficient or effective to have two agencies with radically different approaches climbing over each other. ...
Te Rūnanga Nui o Ngā Kura Kaupapa Māori invites the current government to work in partnership with them to develop a pathway forward, including the development of a parallel pathway and meaningful policy and strategy for Kura Kaupapa Māori ...
If you haven’t started watching yet, Tara Ward begs you to reconsider. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. In the world of New Zealand reality television, we have many gems in our crown. There’s the delicious second season of the Celebrity Treasure ...
A new poem by Fiona Kidman. The clothes of the dead I did not keep my mother’s furry red beret for long nor the stringy scarves that adorned the necks of my aunts, although I have kept tag ends of gold, the rings and trinkets they wore, the brooches no ...
The government’s announcement that it will re-open the foreshore and seabed controversy by changing the rules on recognising centuries-old Māori customary title for a third time goes against the rule of law and New Zealand values,” Mr Tipa says. ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Lioness by Emily Perkins (Bloomsbury, $25) Roarrrr! Perkins’ brilliant, award-winning, Marian-Keyes anointed, darkly funny, long ...
The 2004 Act vested ownership of the foreshore and seabed in the Crown, extinguishing any Māori claims to ownership and causing widespread outrage and protests among Māori communities. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Antje Deckert, Associate Professor (Criminology), Auckland University of Technology Getty Images Despite the connection between institutional harm and gang membership made clear in this week’s mammoth royal commission abuse-in care report, the government seems unlikely to soften its “get tough on ...
From Lewis Clareburt in the swimming to the start of the rowing – the first seven days of Paris 2024 promise to be big for New Zealand. There are few events that bring the country together quite like an Olympic Games. Nothing quite matches the excitement of getting up in ...
Groundbreaking local science just showed up in the most surprising of places: the season finale of The Kardashians. In the season five finale of The Kardashians last night, several members of the family gathered together in one of their signature empty, cream-coloured rooms to hear test results that had been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amin Saikal, Emeritus professor of Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies, Australian National University The Middle East is on the brink of a possibly devastating regional war, with hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah reaching an extremely dangerous level. Washington has engaged in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Elizabeth Eades, Rheumatologist, Monash University Lupus is an inflammatory autoimmune illness, where the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks itself. Lupus can affect virtually any part of the body, although it most commonly affects the skin, joints and kidneys. The symptoms ...
A law firm that specialises in working with survivors of abuse in State care is disappointed that the Government fails to recognise that its boot camps can be directly compared to previous boot camps from the 1990s and 2000s. ...
Dying is a natural part of life, like updating your Wof or seeing your hairdresser, but without the word-of-mouth recs that help guarantee a good service. What if we changed that? Dying Reviews received by The Spinoff have had the names of organisations redacted while Hospice NZ collects further data. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonti Horner, Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland Mike Lewinski/Flickr, CC BY On any clear night, if you gaze skywards long enough, chances are you’ll see a meteor streaking through the sky. Some nights, however, are better than others. At ...
Despite having no bars or other designated spaces for lesbians, Auckland boasts a small but mighty lesbian museum. So how did it get here? The past 18 months has brought increasing hostility towards the queer community across Aotearoa. Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull’s anti-trans rally in Tamaki Makaurau last March led to a ...
Poneke Antifascist Coalition has invited Wellingtonians to stand in solidarity with the Kanak people at 12pm today outside the French Embassy in Wellington. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Layton, Visiting Fellow, Strategic Studies, Griffith University Drones are the signature technology of the Ukraine war. A few miniature aircraft designs were used in the war’s early days, but an incredible array of drones have now evolved. There are different types, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Slee, Associate Professor, Clinical Academic Neurologist, Flinders University Francisco Gonzelez/Unsplash Migraine is many things, but one thing it’s not is “just a headache”. “Migraine” comes from the Greek word “hemicrania”, referring to the common experience of migraine being predominantly ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lee White, Senior Lecturer and Horizon Fellow, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Sydney Australia was slow to introduce minimum building standards for energy efficiency. The Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS) only came into force in 2003. Older homes ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steven Sherwood, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Climate Change Research Centre, UNSW Sydney The past century of human-induced warming has increased rainfall variability over 75% of the Earth’s land area – particularly over Australia, Europe and eastern North America, new research shows. ...
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Shearer’s tilt at Maori seats brings swift rebuff
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10861522
“Tariana Turia has retaliated, saying Mr Shearer was a poser and Maori people would see right through him.”
National party finally get something right about Maori.
Curiously, Shearer is not reported as saying what he/Labour would do for Maori, only that Labour’s after their seats. It seems to be all a power play by Shearer. And still we don’t really know what Shearer actually stands for…?
Meanwhile, I see Metiria Turei spoke at the gathering to celebrate the prophet’s birthday at Ratana, laying out her strongly held political values and commitments.
And I see from the NZ Herald article on Shearer’s tilt (at windmills?) that there’s a Green Party picnic for the planet: tags for the picnic post includeAsset sales, Climate Change, Children’s Issues, Conservation, Environment, Housing, Water.
“It seems to be all a power play by Shearer.”
That’s what I immediately thought as well. Still, it is the MSM reporting so who knows?
What does he stand for? at this stage it seems like personal ambition (i.e. power play). Makes him no better then Key really.
And that I think is the elephant in the room NO-ONE knows what he stands for. He could support little green men from Venus I wouldn’t care at least we would know.
Would it matter if he came out and *said*, what he stood for, I mean really, only the gillible would trust a politician, with a spurious background, after the decades of lying , leading to decline!
Taxi for Shearer!
Apparently he doesn’t need to stand for anything. Cardboard cutout, smile and wave while Goff, Mallard, King and Robertson pull the strings to animate the FrankenShearer.
LOLZ, Metiria had them spell-bound on the Marae when She described Her first visit to Ratana which resulted in Her first real kiss,( come on Met’s fess up you forgot to give the bloke a slap for His troubles and your really back there looking to make amends),
On a more serious note Ratana now have a perfect housing policy via the Green Party’s just announced scheme where Ratana have the land and now have a real policy with which to rejuvenate housing at the Pa it’self, i am sure that in the Urawera’s Tuhoe will have reacted with interest to the Green Party’s housing policy as well…
Were those her “deeply held political beliefs and commitments” from the Macgillicuddy Serious Party – or from somewhere else?
While I agree that Labour should try and see off the Maori Party. To lump the Mana Party in the same category exposes David Shearer’s lack of a political compass.
Mana is undoubtedly a left party and as such is more than likely back to fully back any left legislation forwarded by a Labour/Green government. Possibly even giving such a government their vote on confidence and supply. (Even if not in a formal alliance).
The fact of the matter is, if Mana got more than the one seat currently held by Hone Harawira, this would be one more vote to keep National away from the treasury benches.
Can’t Shearer see that? Is he that misinformed?
Or is Shearer so blindly sectarian that he would rather see Mana out of parliament, even at the cost of the election?
Labour actively contesting the Maori seats that it currently does not hold could be just what Mana need particularly in Waiariki where Flavell is definitely vulnerable more to Mana’s Annette Sykes than any candidate that Labour can stand in that particular electorate,
For all the mana that Pita Sharples now has left a blind donkey named Brucie could wrest Sharples seat off of him without raising a sweat so Labour’s Shane Jones should fit right in there as i am unreliably informed that wanking makes you blind and as far as i know Shane hasn’t raised an ounce of sweat during what has so far passed as His lifetime even when engaged in the former….
It’s the hackneyed, appallingly arrogant “Decent People Hate Harawira” refrain which most of them have engaged to suck up to voters in the range White Trash to White Flash.
No wonder Harawira engaged “Motherfuckers….”
The NZHerald article wrongly translates the word ‘morehu’ as to mean ‘follower’, that’s not right and who would have thunk that the Herald cannot even get one simple Maori word correct,
Morehu are the survivors, what was left of the Prophets people and lands after what Tariana Turia described as the ‘holocaust’ ensuing from European settlement…
National announce an $80 million investment in this years budget for irrigation and water storage for Dairy Farmers. This is unbelievable given the profitability of dairy farming and the desperate need for money in other areas.
Have you got a link for that? It’s outrageous, but not surprising. I’m guessing it’s for Canterbury dairy farmers?
http://www.national.org.nz/Article.aspx?ArticleID=40157
National clearly are not scared to “intervene” when it is for their mates!
Hi Rosy, Hi Saarbo. Yes this is both unbelieveable and outrageous. I heard the news on RNZ yesterday about the $80 million funding for irrigation. This has been in the pipeline (absolutely no pun intended) for quite some time hasn’t it? I’m making an assumption that its for Canterbury, that region most unsuited to dairying. If they mentioned the region in the news yesterday I must have missed it.
I clicked on Saarbo’s nat party link to see if they mentioned a region. The answers are possibly in that PDF of Q’s and A’s. I didn’t check it though. I got mesmarised and confused by the heading in the banner “Less debt, more jobs” (!?!?!), and then I started to feel a little sick from all that blue and had to quickly vacate the site lest I throw up.
This lolnats post sums it up: “its not called socialism when its for mah friends!”
http://www.lolnats.co.nz/page/22
Thanks Saarbo and Rosie…
Go lolnats. So they’re selling dams and then funding water storage. hmm
Y’know I don’t have a problem with government investing in infrastructure to help industry when it helps job creation and the environment and when the government retains control. But this is a 10% investment for private profit from the sounds of it. And it’s the way they turning the country into a great big dairy farm to profit their friends that really galls.
More than half of this investment is going to dairying/dairy support if they go by NZIER modelling.
The pdfs mention water storage in Canterbury, Hawkes Bay, Wellington, Nelson/Tasman but they don’t say they are going to do anything in any region. It’s all a bit cloak and dagger to me. It’s also rolling over the country’s democracy, if it’s Canterbury.
“It’s all a bit cloak and dagger to me. It’s also rolling over the conutry’s democracy, if it’s Canterbury”.
Exactly. The sacking of the elected representatives of ECAN was a breath taking act of tyranny, with the intention of blocking attempts from concerned parties who wish to take the matter of irrigation to the environment court. The documents obtained by The Press under the OIA spell out clearly the intention of the govt to “suspend democracy” in favour of economic growth for the Canterbury region: (And for whose benefit really?)
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/7874996/Race-to-irrigate-behind-ECan-move
John Minto’s view:
http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/24/07.htm
So water storage plans aside for Hawke’s Bay, Wellington and Nelson Tasman (thanks for actually reading the pdf’s on the nat site!) One of the big issues around the announcemment of the $80 million funding for irrigation is the removal of the democratic process. It’s just not any old irrigation scheme.
Secondly, as you mentioned, is the issue of the environment. The expansion of dairying in Canterbury surely can’t be a sustainable move and one that the environment won’t be able to support long term. Climate change experts predict that dry regions of NZ (eg Canterbury) will continue to get drier and experience more droughts where as wetter areas (eg, west coast) will continue to get wetter and experience more floods. We had an example of this over Xmas/NY with floods in the west coast and ultra hot dry and windy conditions over the other side of the alps that contributed to scrub fires… And of course I agree with you in regard to the issue of industrial farming and it’s intensification. Just how much can you force out of an animal and out of the land that supports that animal?
The burden on the environment will be too much.
Oh for a govt with a vision!
Jeez that Press link is dynamite – but not important enough to put on the Stuff main site? Go figure. I’ve also linked to the Forest & Bird press release about the irrigation subsidies on today’s Open Mike…
This issue is far too important to fade into the background. The demolition of environment, finance, employment, social cohesion, animal welfare and, above all, democracy concerns all tied up in a neat package.
btw I’m thinking that I won’t talk about subsidies for farmers – with connotations of giving a break to hard working rugged individualists getting up at the crack of dawn to tend their animals. I reckon I’m going to start talking about farming companies – with connotations of foreign ownership and/or big bank mortgages employing farm managers and minimum wage staff (increasingly imported) with no hope of getting on the farm ownership or share-milking ladder.
I am not opposed to irrigation and water storage schemes as long as they are ***100 % PUBLICLY OWNED AND CONTROLLED***
This irrigation investment company is bascially the government giving money to profit making entites so they can make money from OUR water, as the equity that this company will essentially be a minority stake and will be sold off in due course.
The privatisation of water is at hand.
Hi All, just to provide some more analysis on the benefit to farmers of Irrigation and therefore why farmers should pay for this themselves. An un-irrigated farm in the Waikato will make 1200 KG Milk Solids per hectare. When the land is irrigated in the South Island it can make between 1600kg MS to 2000kg MS. So a 300 Hectare farm in the SI will make between $70000 to $140000 per farm/per annum from irrigation (This is the value add from irrigation). My analysis is very conservative as if I was to compare the increase in per hectare profit of the SI farm before irrigation to the SI farm after irrigation the figures would be much larger. There is absolutely NO reason why these farmers cannot afford to pay for these schemes themselves. This is handouts to the rich.
It is handouts to the rich.
It’s also not only about water. It’s really bad for NZ’s reputation and a seriously important step along the way of intensification of factory farming. NZ grassland already can’t feed the cows that it has so it’s either import more palm kernel waste and intensify farming. Added to this is that NZ waterways already can’t manage the agricultural waste pumped in to them, Canterbury being a prime example.
Reliance on one sector of intensive agriculture only enriches the companies that own those farms (wherever the company is from) and exploits the country, its workers and environment as well as being a disgusting way to treat animals (imho of course).
“There is absolutely NO reason why these farmers cannot afford to pay for these schemes themselves. This is handouts to the rich.”
Yes. Most farms also owe money to our Australian banks so it becomes another transfer of public funds into their coffers in the end.
True story.
I went to a meeting this week. I’d never been before, and didn’t I know any of the attendees.
I was early, and as I sat down a conversation was in full swing about the awfulness of the government, which segued pretty seamlessly into the uselessness of the opposition. The present-day Labour reminded the older attendees of Rogernomics. There was reminiscing about privatisation and part-charges for hospital treatment. We all agreed with the guy who said the Labour oppostion was “same people – better suits.”
I didn’t say any of the above. I was just smiling and nodding really.
This was no “darkened room”, these people were not “extremist nutters”. The age range I’d guess at 28 – 65, demographic – pakeha, middle class.
Just saying….
Thanks for this report. Seems the party members are more leftie than the caucus…. who knew!
Matthew Hooten might be interested to know that.
Edit: Snap. Weka has posted link below…
just saying:
You should put your comments at 3 on Mike Smith’s latest post. He might learn something.
http://thestandard.org.nz/tell-the-truth/
Is anyone else finding the Vodafone network like the labour parliamentary effort lately.
New campaign but losing markt share, messages either late or not getting through, conversations cut off or garbled in areas of full service.
Blaming the user or the hardware.
Yep, I’ve been having and hearing about lots of problems too.
sorry that’s from an android device, said it wasn’t published and I can’t delete it. Fix please.
Interesting anomaly there – no post number, and PP’s post ends up above yours despite being posted later.
ah, and mine does the same thing when replying to yours…
Just in case your looking for ways to help effect change this weekend
http://www.trueactivist.com/the-5-most-blatantly-corrupt-industries-in-the-world-and-what-you-can-do-about-it/
Polish Pride I would not spend any time this weekend praying for my immune system to deal with the full blast of disease. I am still alive because I had multiple immunisations as a child.
It is one thing to oppose the inherent corruption of capitalism, it is another to stupidly ignore the scientific and technical advances that it has profited from by keeping us alive as the creators of its wealth.
Because I am alive I can plot to overthrow capitalism and expropriate its technical advances and put them to use in ongoing human survival.
Thanks for that link PP.
I see Hooten’s latest shit-stirring is available online now.
http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/labour-heading-another-meltdown-set-go-weekend-review-lf-134941
Apparently all the authors and commenters on ts are part of Labour’s disaffected far left and are Cunliffe supporters 🙄
LOLZ, i might start being nice to Hooten,(just kidding there’s not a s**t’s show of that occurring) i wonder if the number of ‘looks’ at the Standard goes up every time the Hooten’s of the world trying to denigrate this site use the main stream media to point people in the Standard’s direction,
Free advertizing???, there are no free lunches but please don’t tell me i have to be nice to that (expletive deleted) wanker…
If he bothered to attribute and quote properly (eg link), we might get more traffic.
There is a link from the column at NBR.co.nz to thestandard.org.nz z
I asked them to be sure they included it.
That’ll account for the boom in our page-views, I’m sure.
Yeah, but you don’t link to the pieces you are referencing.
Also, at least twice you use quotation marks around a statement. I had assumed you were quoting something someone had said on ts, but just hadn’t attributed that properly. But googling parts of the phrases returns no hits other than the NBR. What gives?
Matthew likes to tread the line between being a cool, on-to-it online engagement dude and a proper, traditional newspaper guy. The latter comes in very handy because outfits like the NBR don’t understand how linking works or that there’s an expectation that online writing involve citations, yet he wants to be taken seriously as a member of the Standard’s commentariat.
I mean, the bastard doesn’t even give me and Rhinocrates proper credit for coining “Captain Mumblefuck”.
My apologies, but I am sure it will catch on.
The quotation remarks were weird things that came in through the sub-editing process. They have been removed.
The guy is a calculating spinner. I note he mentions me and my association with Cunliffe with the clear spin that DC is orchestrating it.
There is only one slight problem. I would like him or anyone to point to one post or comment where I have tried to undermine Shearer. Any one will do.
For too long the Labour Party has allowed people like Hooton to control and manage the debate. He ought to be left right out of it.
Funnily enough Micky, before I was aware of your connection with Cunliffe I noticed that you were uncharacteristically circumspect on the whole issue during the many threads devoted to it.
Hooton has input from Mike Williams and Chris Hipkins! That is the level to which the clique have descended to retain privileges.
13 MPs must withhold their vote in the Confidence Motion in Feb.
omigod! how do you know?
Indeed, except as a spitoon or a comic moment of light relief that one is to all extents and purposes of little use even to His mates in ACT,
Debating with it ‘nicely’ it’s carefully scripted excerpts from the handbook of Ruthanasia-isms simply empowers it’s ego to yell from that wing-nuts gospel ever louder…
There is no “clear spin that DC is orchestrating it”, or any other kind of “spin”. If I wanted to say he was orchestrating it all, I would have said it. I know enough about these processes (Brash v English for example) to know that the candidate usually only knows a fraction of what is being said and done to advance his or her interests.
Lol Quote of the year so far
“There is no spin” ~ Matthew Hooton (Right-wing PR guy)
What?? Were you taking the day off to be an innocent reporter Matthew?
LOL
““There is no spin” ~ Matthew Hooton (Right-wing PR guy)”
haha yeah I enjoyed that too.
Hey Matthew, if you could similarly preface any future comments with “The following is/is not spin.” that shur would be helpful.
It’s just typical Bullshit Hooten style All piss, wind, and fuck all else.
Harriet Harman under attack over bid to water down child pornography law
In case people were naïve enough to think, only *the right* (Ken Clarke et al) are involved!
Thanks for the link Muzza.
Involved in what, muzza? Are you once again trying to smear Clarke as a paedophile?
So Harriet Harman was the lawyer for the Council of Civil Liberties more than 30 years ago. I guess it must be true that a person’s view always reflects that of their employer all those years ago. /sarc
Another one is out the door…
http://www.france24.com/en/20130125-tina-turner-become-swiss-give-us-passport
“A study by Kyung Hee Kim, professor of education for the College of William and Mary in Virginia, focused on the creativity of school age children between kindergarten and 12th grade using the measurement known as the Torrance tests of creative thinking.
He found a ‘massive’ decline of creativity the longer the students progressed through the school system as ‘children have become less emotionally expressive, less energetic, less talkative and verbally expressive, less humorous, less imaginative, less unconventional, less lively and passionate, less perceptive, less apt to connect seemingly irrelevant things, less synthesizing, and less likely to see things from a different angle.’”
http://www.davidicke.com/headlines/78788-eduction-paying-to-be-programmed
Author Stephen King sticks it to the NRA:
“Autos and semi-autos are weapons of mass destruction. When lunatics want to make war on the unarmed and unprepared, these are the weapons they use.”
He said blanket opposition to gun control was less about defending the second amendment of the US constitution than “a stubborn desire to hold onto what they have, and to hell with the collateral damage”.
He added: “If that’s the case, let me suggest that ‘fuck you, Jack, I’m okay’ is not a tenable position, morally speaking.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/jan/25/stephen-king-gun-control-essay-amazon-nra
You know what’s controversial on Kiwiblog? The holocaust; that’s what.
It’s an outrage that it gets such attention, when western left wing parties are just as bad. Dontchaknow.
*twitchy eye*
Welcome to New Zealand’s very own “Love Canal”. The water in Lake Horowhenua is now so toxic “that a mouthful could kill a child”:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1301/S00049/supreme-court-to-rule-on-lake-horowhenua.htm
As one report summarises, the chief causes are phosphorous pollution from Levin’s stormwater and nitrogen pollution from farming runoff. Click on the link at the bottom of this page:
http://www.ecofest.co.nz/Environment.html
I am looking for a site that gives a good summary of the pros and cons for selling minority interests in SOE’s – any suggestions? I’m not looking for ideological arguments, but facts and examples.
Any suggestions?
It’s a strategic decision, so it is a mix of strategic factors. That involves ideology.
It was debated at length on this site when first mentioned, but to me it comes down to:
BENEFITS
Cash now.
Maybe technological innovation if the purchaser has synergies.
Ideological beliefs that private sector is more efficient than the public sector.
COSTS
permanent deprivation of future dividends.
lack of government control as a sole shareholder (especially in relation to compromising market profits in favour of public good, e.g. employment or keeping power prices low).
redundancy: if it’s a private sector opportunity, why not let the private sector start their own and provide competition? Isn’t that the entire point of the private sector market?
Yep. Thats the financial analysis. In real economy terms, power generation is core economic infrastructure and as such, its loss of control is loss of control of economic sovereignty.
Rod Oram did a piece on (9 till noon} RNZ few months back. no link sorry
A few odd things happening.
The comments above have no numbers, just circles where the numbers should be.
I did a site search recently, and found that many Standard posts and comments are dated before the internet was even invented. Very prescient they were about recent events. But seriously last time I delved into the beginnings of the Standard the correct dates went right back to the begining (of the Standard, not of time).
Thirdly, the chronological search wasn’t chronological or even particlularly logical.
Might well be something my end.
edit: and now the circle comments are below this comment despite my writing this after they were written.
The date thing is a known glitch, Lynn said he’s working on it.
The comments appearing in a funny order seemed to start today. The comments at the bottom of this thread, where there is no post number, all ended up stuck to the bottom of the page (plus they were replies to posts not stand alone comments).
[lprent: Doing final release of the code of product two at work. I’m going to have problems finding any time until that is completed. ]
@ Hooten,The thing that struck me( yeth i’m a real perthon) is that there are others outside of TS that are feeling the same concerns as the high number of commenters here are, over the Shearer leadership, we all can’t be exteme leftist zelots.
Shearer says he was elected, not really, he lost the ‘around the mountain’ vote,it was his mates, inside caucus, that installed him as the leader, much to the angst of the members.
What an absolute waste of time it was to have 10 meetings,the planning,members setting
aside time to attend, the co-ordination of the halls, etc, then to have it all thrown back in
ones face and the result ignored, Cunliffe won 9 out of 10 meetings.
Then the ‘winning’ opponent was relegated to the backbenches after a supposed coup attempt,
beaten up by the media,the following demotion of Cunliffe was a disgrace and uncalled for,it
has just added fuel to the fire, this action was not reflective of a democraticly inclined
leader,hence the feeling many feel towards Shearer, who is the real Shearer ? ‘I dunno’
His character and his attitudes need some immediate adjustments though.