In Protest, Climate Activists Board Coal Ship Off Great Barrier Reef
Absent action by political leaders, activists call on public citizens to fight climate change by physically preventing fossil fuel expansion through peaceful civil disobedience
Jon Queally staff writer Common Dreams, Wednesday April 24
Bring your surfboards, bring your kayaks, bring your dinghies, bring your small yachts, bring your fishing boats and tinnies. Bring your life jackets and wet suits. Bring your signs banners and flags. Bring your courage and your joy.
New Zealand is a maritime nation, we need to take to the sea. We need to defy the anti-marine protest laws. We need to stop coal exports here and in Australia.
“Join the “Resistance”
John Key and the National Party are firmly in the corner of big oil and big coal.
Despite the terrible danger we are all in they will not lift a finger to stop it.
In fact they are doing the opposite, passing anti-democratic laws that make it easier for the climate wreckers to operate.
NASA scientist James, Hansen the world’s leading climate change expert, has determined that; “If we can’t stop coal. It is game over for the climate.”
We can play a role in stopping the immoral profiteering in coal that is killing our world.
Australia is the world’s biggest coal exporter in the world, and as such is a major contributor to climate change on a global scale. To save the planet the Australians must stop this trade.
New Zealand’s coal exports, are big. In fact most of the coal mined in this country is for the export trade. But in comparison with Australia, our trade in coal is dwarfed. The significance of our coal trade, is that Australia will never stop exporting coal, unless New Zealand has done it first.
It is up to us.
Our history shows that of all countries, we are most up to the task.
For the safe future of our world, for our children, and for our children’s children’s sake…..
We must act!
If the spirit of ANZAC is still worth something. We must!
The halting of all coal exports from this country will be a huge and unmissable moral lead for our closest international neighbour and long time friend and ally, Australia. As an example of the sacrifice that must be demanded of them too. That is, If we are to preserve the global climate, fit to hand onto to our children.
Sacrifice, Mateship, Fighting to make the world fit for future generations. This is what the ANZACs fought for, for us. Can we do any less?
If you have nothing constructive to say, wouldn’t it be better to say nothing?
Jenny is inspired by the actions of the climate activists off Australia and wants to share that with us, while encouraging us to be active in our defence of the climate too.
Rather than insulting people, why don’t you make your own suggestions for how we can improve the world?
Or are your contributions to this site merely intended to be destructive?
Jenny is a complete flake.
She wants people to get up and rally against what provides us with the current lifestyle we enjoy today.
Without oil and coal the worlds economy collapses, unless you’re a complete masochist who the hell wants that.
It should be about managing these resources and trying to minimize the impacts not banning them.
Until something else comes along it’s coal and oil for the foreseeable future, except that.
Funnily enough, although I might disagree with Jenny on stuff, I actually get the impression that she behaves in a genuine and earnest manner, with little or no dissembling or misdirection.
From what I’ve read nature cleaned up he spill pretty well.
The research done on it came to the conclusion that it would have been better just to let nature clean up the area and that the efforts made to control the spill actually hindered the process not helped.
yeah mate, and calling any policy that’s left of centre: communism by stealth, polish shipyard stuff, north korea and so on is just totally non hysterical and well reasoned.
You cretin BM! If you want the sound of hysterical shit. Then go to the Beehive there’s heaps of it from the National Party over the Labour/Greens Power profits redistribution from the greedies to the needies.
Some people just come onto this site to disrupt intelligent discussion.
Aren’t there right wing sites for them to carp on and on about their pet topics?
What are you talking about, fool? You’ve repeatedly claimed that the conversation was “one-sided and hysterical” but you evidently lack the wherewithal to provide any evidence to back up your assertion.
Wow, just wow. That’s vile. But you’ll be pleased to know that Mugabe ran out of colonials to “liberate” land from quite some time ago and now is reduced to inflicting misery on and stealing from black Zimbabweans. He’s an equal opportunity kleptocrat.
I can imagine better collective global effort about climate change if petrol costs more. But not if there’s an easier transition to other forms of oil than has been envisaged.
Insurance companies have a market interest to keep disasters (and so pay outs down). Or do they?
As we have found, market churn means fees. Why would any industry cut its growth, and so its immediate share price since its based on its future potential?
So to answer your question, should carbon energy never run out, the market would never deal with the consequences until its too late (look at any polluted industrial areas for how little and too late the market is).
Second, carbon energy is stored sunlight over millions of years, there will always become a point where the ‘new’ sources run out like oil has, and so the old adage of never say never must be employed.
Jenny’s point that governments really do respond to the force of crowds – as per the ANZAC/Lange protests – is understood. I still love Canetti’s Crowds and Power.
My point is less about the supply of oil and more a pessimism that without the force of price and spectacular scarcity that effective global movements would be hard to generate. I can see it at a neighbourhood scale, even at a City scale, because in different ways I have done it. So to be clear I support the effort. But if even the entire EU can’t sustain a carbon market, it’s hard to see governments successfully contesting the market about climate change generally.
Helen Clark called for a groundswell from below to force government’s and political parties to act on climate change.
If you are concerned about climate change you must ask ourself this question:
I am I happy to just protest against climate change, or do I want to stop climate change?
If your answer is, I want to stop climate change.
You should listen to Helen Clark.
Helen Clark knows the mechanics of how to stop climate change.
She should.
As a senior Labour Party MP during the Muldoon and Lange years. Helen Clark was an eye witness on the inside into how a mass movement can change governments and influence political parties and parliaments.
From her vantage point inside the parliamentary Labour Party Helen Clark saw that; No matter whether they were National Party government MPs, or Labour Party opposition MPs. The mass public campaign that blockaded our Nation’s harbour’s against nuclear ships, put every politician on notice.
This became especially true when the issue came up for a vote in the house when Richard Prebble’s (of all people) private member’s bill to ban nuclear warship visits was drawn from ballot.
Due to the huge pressure from below, two National MPs, Mike Minogue and Marilyn Waring, were moved to cross the floor and vote with the opposition.
If Richard Prebble’s private members bill had been put to the vote, New Zealand would have become Nuclear Free in 1984.
To prevent the vote, the Prime Minister, Robert Muldoon closed parliament down, called a snap election.
Everyone knew, including Muldoon, that his National Party had no chance of continuing in government with the issue of nuclear ship visits unresolved. Conservative pundits including Muldoon, hoped that under the pressure of what has cynically been called “pragmatism” or “Real Politic” (Which is all the secret, and not so secret conservative pressures that influences governments and parliamentary parties), that a new Labour administration would, on gaining office, be able to back-track on the issue in a way that the unpopular Muldoon could not. Which as predictably the new Labour government did. To break the ban David Lange himself, tried to bring in the nuclear armed warship the USS Buchanon into New Zealand waters.
However a high level meeting in his Beehive office held with the, (then), unofficial head of the anti-nuclear movement, Nicky Hagar, convinced Lange that if the Buchanon was brought into any New Zealand harbour that the protests against his government would dwarf anything that had gone down against the Muldoon administration.
Although the USS Buchanon was already on route to New Zealand and was more than half way here. Facing up to the inevitable disgrace that threatened to befall him, and his government if he allowed the Buchanon to dock. Lange had to call up Washington and ordered the Americans to turn their ship around.
The next day in an interview that was published in the the Listener, Lange was reported to have said that the peace movement was his most “feared lobby”.
After the debacle of the Buchanon defeat, the Lange administration still continued to drag the chain as much as they could.
Whereas, the Muldoon administration in 1984, could not have held the line for even one more day, putting off the vote to make New Zealand “Nuclear Weapons Free”. The Lange administration was able to hold the line until the dying months of 1987. And was only finally forced by the approaching deadline of an upcoming general election to put the long promised legislation. Lange feared that if the universally unpopular and controversial Rogernomic policies of his government was followed by a reversal on the “Nuclear Weapons Free” legislation, then the Labour Party if not being turfed out of office completely, would at the very least taken a very serious hit in voter support. (Not to mention the personal odium that would have been attached to his name forever.)
As it turned out. Despite the harsh economic policies forced on the New Zealand people by the Lange/Douglas administration, surfing the wave of the wildly popular support for the New Zealand’s newly minted “Nuclear Free” status – the 1987 election results saw David Lange’s Labour Party triumphantly returned as the government in a massive victory landslide of voter support.
Jenny I respect your passion, just to be clear on that.
Few things though.
1: Climate change can’t be stopped
2: Helen Clark is NOT to be listened to – Getting the to the #3 spot at the UN, means she delivered what was wanted by those who control the UN, hence her position there now. That would imply, she delivered what was requested, during her 9 years in as PM. Question, is, what was it that she did which earned her that position…
3: Helen Clark knows the mechanics of political corruption – She knows NOTHING about about how to stop climate change, however she might well know the planned role for the UN as defacto global government, which will fit perfectly with her own ideological beliefs!
4: You’re still focusing on too narrow a set of parameters, you should widen too include geo-engineering. Just like GM foods, which will have environmental consequences and people are happy to have that discussion, so should it be true of geo-engineering….
Just echoing what muzza said. Climate change is a lot more complicated than the solitary effect of increasing CO2 emissions, the green movement was hijacked a long time ago.
…not continuing to pump ancient carbon stores into the atmosphere; like the pain in your thumb is a lot more complicated than not hitting it with the bloody hammer any more.
CC is a very, very simple thing. The effects are not. Reversing that which has already been done is not. Avoiding unforeseeable consequences is not. But still…at root, climate change and the action required to stop contributing to it is devastatingly simple and uncomplicated.
Is there any evidence that the USS Buchanan was nuclear armed? The way I remember things, it quite obviously wouldn’t have been, with the problem being that the yanks refused to confirm this.
Also, I’d say it was a pity that Helen Clark didn’t let the groundswell against Rogernomics sway her from it.
Is there any evidence that the USS Buchanan was nuclear armed? The way I remember things, it quite obviously wouldn’t have been….
Murray Olsen
Indeed, the Buchanon had been intentionally chosen so that David Lange would have the political cover of “plausible deniability” that it was carrying any nuclear weapons.
Mr Lange dispatched his Chief of Defence Force, Air Marshal Sir Ewan Jamieson, to Honolulu to discuss the actual ship with the US Pacific Command. New Zealand was given a choice of ships and Air Marshal Jamieson settled on USS Buchanan, an almost obsolete destroyer which, while capable of carrying nuclear weapons, almost certainly would not have been…..
Gerald Hensley David Lange’s chief adviser
However this was not enough for the powerful New Zealand anti-nuclear movement. (Though Audrey Young doesn’t credit him, in particular, anti-nuclear activist Nicky Hagar who met with Lange in his Beehive office in the lead up to the Buchanon visit).
“To the surprise of his hearers from both delegations, [Schultz] added that New Zealand had to accept that from time to time there would inevitably be nuclear weapons aboard the occasional visiting ship.”
It was seized upon by activists later as confirmation that even if a compromise had been reached, the US would have disregarded the policy.
So basically a no then? As I remember from the time, the issue was that American ships would be allowed in if the yanks confirmed they had no nuclear weapons on board. They were not prepared to deviate from their neither confirm nor deny policy.
My position on this is that not letting it in was the right thing to do. I don’t even want windsurfers from nuclear navies in our waters. I don’t want a GI Joe toy from a country that tortures people in our shops.
One good thing about Tory governments – they provide many opportunities for healthy outdoor exercise and catching up with old friends. See you all on the march tomorrow!
I see America is beating the war drums over Syria again, claiming that the Syrian government is using sarin against rebels. Now where did we hear stories of weapons of mass destruction before…?
And surprise, surprise..there appears to be no serious questioning of the claims by the corporate media.
Mr Hagel said “our intelligence community does assess, with varying degrees of confidence, that the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons on a small scale in Syria, specifically, the chemical agent sarin”.
“It violates every convention of warfare,”
“Its the same script writers, that should be plainly obvious, to all but the weakest of minds!”
So when the proof comes with footage of innocent children, women, old men and women, faces disfigured and contorted by fear and pain, what page of the wank manual will your weak mind get it’s next throw away nugget from?
Does Mr Hagel have a history of providing relevant intelligence information?
Sibel Edmonds: “I provided three possible US objectives associated with the Boston Terror incident. I emphasized the first possible scenario as the most likely: Removing Russia as the obstacle in invading Syria.”
If only I did have a weak mind TA – Sadly you are very much mistaking me for someone else, or more likely you are projecting!
When you say *proof*, what is it exactly that twists your emotive sub-set, when it comes to *proof*, and are you prepared to accept the worlds most war mongered (USA) nation, as the holders/providers of said, *proof*.
Who will be selling those pictures, of contorted faces, or more accurately, who will have manufactured them..
I suggest you read about some of the historical *gotcha* moments around the Lybian escapades, of the likes of the BBC/CNN/FOX news et al!
I’m sure, with so many vigilants like yourself on their case, the us will never make the same mistake twice, but you, in not even considering the reports may actually be true, and innocents are being gassed, prejudice most, if not all of your personal warmongery against the americans as pure fucktardery.
I consider them alright, I consider as many angles as I have time to absorb, and then I look at the players, their history and the motives.
Nah the Anglo-French administrations will continue to ensure, through their agendas, that many more innocent people continue to die, every minute of every day..
With the support of those who share your , limited view of the ME situation!
You mean well, but you’re playing down the wrong line.
Please go and do some further reading, the Syrian situation, same as Libya, is manufactured by the US/UK/France primarily, or more accurately, those who pull the strings of those administraive entities!
“You mean well, but you’re playing down the wrong line.”
Offside. I always wait til the team sheet is released before I slag off the opposing players, anything else would be stupid and leave me open to ridicule, which I wouldn’t like.
“Please go and do some further reading”
You need to chose the right battles, Rambo.
By throwing mud at everything, you make it an easy decision to walk on the other footpath of life.
And a bit patronising, especially considering only one of us has jumped to a conclusion without knowing any fact other than same day news reports.
That’s basic, that’s clare curran like stuff. :tut tut: 😉
Seen the footage of chemical victims, yet?
Got a ‘put on job’ or ‘set up’ reply waiting in the wings?
Shame on you for so easily dismissing human suffering to score a point against the ‘enemy’.
Are you deliberately obtuse, or is that you are not paying attention!
Ill try make this as simple as possible, one final time:
1: Libya, and now Syria, were/are being, taken down by the same forces.
2: Innocent people have been/are being killed on the manufactured conflict, on all sides
3: Innocent people dying/being f*cked over, for any reason what-so-ever, is unacceptable, be it war, famine, poverty, inequality, political lies, police lies doesn’t matter – That’s always my default position!
You’re aiming your ill-informed opinions, at the wrong person matey, I’d suggest you speak to the people in Langley Virginia, and Washington DC, aim your vitriol in that direction , as a start!
Perhaps thats because I have spent more time in those parts of the world Murray, and speaking with people who are working/from ME countries, and to people who have served in the actions/wars in that region!
News of a terror plot to attack a Via Rail train, just one week after the Boston Marathon bombings, has pushed public security to the front burner just as the Harper government seeks Parliament’s authority to curb civil liberties in the name of keeping Canadians safe.
Recent months have been trying for the Tories as they drifted from one controversy to another – from aboriginal anger to foreign workers – with few high-profile items left on its agenda.
Monday’s arrests “demonstrate that terrorism continues to be a real threat to Canada,” Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said a short while after Mounties began explaining the arrests. “Preventing, countering, and prosecuting terrorism is a priority for our government.”
Yup, off to the camps you go! – Never let a manufactured terror event go to waste!
When asked about the nature of her work by the MC, Dame Susan responded with the line “same s…, different day”, Ms Tyrrell said.
Another disgruntled guest said Dame Susan had described her Wellington staff as “difficult”, before making an off-colour joke about men with sausages in their pockets.
!??!! Fuck that is funny. Love the quote from Sir Peter Leitch, “policially driven”. Halarious.
I’m telling you the way to bring this country to a stand still isn’t to attack policitally, or with arms…just wipe out all the stadiums and sports broadcasts and we would submit to anything to have them back.
No discernable talent? He built a business empire from a humble base, and has put time, effort and heaps of financial support into league and other sports and charities. I may not like his current sucking up to Key etc. but I’d never be so foolish as to deny his obvious abilities.
I have to admit he does a good comic impression of a beer-sodden boor.
He built a business empire from a humble base, and has put time, effort and heaps of financial support into league and other sports and charities. I may not like his current sucking up to Key etc. but I’d never be so foolish as to deny his obvious abilities.
His “obvious abilities”? He has none, other than crude self-publicity.
Have to agree with Voice here Mozza – PL, while not everyones cup of tea, has done much with the fund raising, and charity work, resulting not only from his empire built on rotten meat products, but also because he loved Rugby League, and appreciated that it was a *working class game*
While not a fan of PL at all, I think in this instance your evaluation might be a little out of alignment.
I think of the Mad Butcher as the guy who brought Warehouse/Walmart approaches to meat. He wiped out a lot of small butchers and replaced them with high turn over service centres selling crap meat. He identified the League community as one which would be exceedingly loyal, and had enough income to buy his sausages. He is a successful businessman whose major success was passing himself off as a working class battler, which possibly explains why he can so easily be mates with Key. In terms of successful capitalism, he has talent and can see opportunities, but I always preferred the personal touch of a neighbourhood butcher.
Anyone who, just weeks into their new job, regards it as “same shit, different day” and doesn’t like their staff has made a serious error taking the job and will probably ditch it soon for something else.
There’s always the possibility of tory conceit, but it might also be that she slipped into “celebrity speaker” mode (rather than “government representative”) at a dinner that possibly cost a couple of hundred dollars a head (they raised $46k). And that’s without the fine dinner+vino factor (which is doubtful, given that it was unlikely to be her first keynote speaker role).
But either way, it shows that she isn’t enthusiastic about the bauble thrown her way, and she doesn’t have the right qualities for the job.
The office will be fun on Monday when she gets to work. This seige mentality of devoys was her typical squash tactic – she admitted that she worked with the british/uk/whatever the fuck it’s called media against her. This tactic is boorish when used with important and demanding work like trying to make race relations better in this country.
I think she’d only ditch it if she was offered something that paid more. She’ll find it in herself to put up with her staff because she’ll have Tory racists and Ansell/Brash one nation types fawning all over her. Key will come out soon and try to paint anyone attacking her as a woman hater, just like Lange did with the unions at Kawerau. She’s doing exactly what she was appointed to do.
On this site, it was suggested by rocky in about 2009 that if I was going to put up the anzac poppy each year, that I should also add the white poppy as well. So we did.
Notice that Judith Collins considers it disrespectful (apparently sending our people to die at war is a better idea than attempting peace). All the more reason to use it as often as possible.
Judith Collins really is that kind of armchair general cum politician that any soldier hates. They’re the idiots who get us killed for their vanity, and yet never do anything substantive to prevent the problems. Irresponsible producers of hot-air and bombast – useless on the actual action.
It is no wonder that Cameron Slater identifies with her.
Judith Collins really is that kind of armchair general cum politician that any soldier hates.
Judith “Rosa Klebb” Collins has been voted “Most Likely To Be Accidentally Shot By Own Troops” if she ever finds herself commanding a platoon in South Vietnam.
So, in the context of WW2 say, you would be advocating to attempt piece with Hitler? I believe Anthony Eden tried that and it didn’t work out so well. Sometimes there is no alternative and no amount of hand-wringing will change that. You can’t reason with psychotic imperialists – corporate or state.
So, in the context of WW2 say, you would be advocating to attempt piece [sic] with Hitler? I believe Anthony Eden tried that and it didn’t work out so well.
Did you mean to write Neville Chamberlain? I think you did.
Sometimes there is no alternative…
There is certainly an alternative in this case.
…and no amount of hand-wringing will change that.
How typical, and predictable, that you should seek to demean principled objection to state violence as “hand-wringing”.
You can’t reason with psychotic imperialists – corporate or state.
Indeed. The people of Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Occupied West Bank, and the besieged enclave of Gaza know that only too well.
Yes, I make deliberate spelling mistakes just to set you off, and yes, you are right, Chamberlain, not Eden – a brain hiccough which I apologise for.
“Principled” objection to state violence only ever seems to be possible in societies protected by the possibility of state violence – how strange. Pehraps less hand-wringing than hand washing. And while I have never supported the invasion of Iraq and unilateral US actions in Pakistan and Afghanistan. I do happen to believe Al Qaida is a threat to otherwise innocent people and must be broken – though of course I would prefer it if the US could find more creative means that don’t involve harm to innocent women and children. Curiously, one wonders at your lack of “principled objection to state [or its equivalent] violence” when Hamas fires off one of its squibs into Israel in deliberate provocation of a massive retaliation and loss of innocent life in Gaza?
There you go again, seriously trying to suggest that Hamas is the problem, and absolving the aggressor. You admit that the rockets that come out of the imprisoned enclave are little more than squibs, and you recognize that the devastation wrought by Israel is massive, but you carefully and dishonestly portray this aggression as “retaliation”.
To portray Hamas as the aggressor and Israel as the retaliator is the exact inversion of the truth. I don’t know if it’s massive ignorance on your part or brutal, heartless dishonesty. Whatever the case, you will be called on it whenever you attempt it.
Mozza – Pop is a US, and by default, Israeli sympathizer, who knows that Arabs are the problem! His bias is no naked, and his position so wrong, he can’t wrap his head around even the most simple *terror frauds*
POP
I do happen to believe Al Qaida is a threat to otherwise innocent people and must be broken
Again McFlock, you have shown a complete lack of ability to understand when to use the B word!
Pop has played his cards openly many times!
You’re still having memory issues by the sounds of bro, you need to exercise that skull a bit more!
Ill leave your piss poor, over eager use of the B word, for you to ponder, appropriate use!
Shalom!
Edit – Helpful hint, don’t even contemplate coming back with what your instinct will encourage you to, just take the helpful advice, and leave it at that!
actually, rereading that one it seems to meant to say something along the lines of “Pop is a US sympathizer, and therefore by default an Israeli sympathizer” rather than “Pop is a US, [i.e. short for “yank”] and by default [because he is a yank], Israeli sympathizer”.
So yeah, I clocked off early on that one. Fair call. But at least I can answer a simple question.
What, pray, is a “US”? I’m a fifth generation New Zealander, and you couldn’t be further wrong. I am disgusted by Israel’s attacks on the Palestinian people and the illegal colonisation of their land, and the Muslim world has been very hard one by in this “war on terror”, but that doesn’t really change the fact that there is a militant Muslim minority who do carry out organised terror attacks quite successfully. Pretending it’s a conspiracy won’t make it go away – it certainly won’t bring back the victims, you dick.
Um, no, you delusional, tiny-minded cretin, I am noting that if Hamas didn’t conveniently provide Israel with a slight excuse to carry on with what amounts to a war of extermination, the US wouldn’t have much of a fig leaf to hide behind, and the left wing of the Knesset might be able to get some traction over the insanity. Jeez, what is wrong with you people?
Yeah Hamas is going to carry out a war of extermination using, what exactly? AK47’s? WWII era Katyusha rockets? IEDs made in garages? RPGs?
Shall we examine what the IDF uses to compete with these Hamas ‘weapons of extermination’?
– Abrams main battle tanks
– F15’s and F16’s
– Apache attack helicopters
– Modern guided munitions, including bunker buster munitions
– Arsenal of nuclear warheads held outside the NPT.
– etc
Sorry mate when you create a ghetto you can expect people to fight back; what is your expectation: that they should roll over and play nice in the hope that they will get better treatment?
I’m sorry, can you actually read? Or is your confirmation bias on too tight.
“provide Israel with a slight excuse to carry on with what amounts to a war of extermination” Israel, dick, Israel, not Palestine – Hamas does, however, provide just enough of an excuse for Likkud and a whole Zionist lobby in the US to get on with it. FFS!
Is throwing rocks at military police sufficient justification for a hellfire missile strike on an apartment block. How about hand gun fire at military personnel?
to Populuxe – Is this before or after the water wells where taken and Palestinians left to literally die without a bullet being spent? Or when their land is being “taken” – just like that and there was no agreement on that – ever. Yes, 2 wrongs do not make 1 right.
P1 views the Palestinians and the Israelis as near equals in this ongoing conflict. And if only the Palestinians would start behaving, things would be much better for them. That says all it needs to.
No, I’m saying that we should value our soldiers lives over political ego. They are precious and should only be used as a last resort. We have lost several in the last year and it’s a time of peace.
Appeasement of Hitler was not, as is popularly portrayed, a kind of early incarnation of ‘peacenikery’. The elites of Europe no doubt supported Hitler’s reformation of the German economy, especially the re-privatisation of the banking sector and the privatisation of many publicly owned assets, including the railways, the biggest public sector operation in the world.
As this paper outlines, the privatisation pursued by the Nazis went against the trend of western governments of the time who, in response to the depression, had tended to (have to) nationalise firms and even industries – it was the big bail out, as followed today.
Remember that the German republic was, under Bismarck, one of the most advanced state apparatuses in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The public sector was large. The Nazi privatisation represented windfalls for selected crony capitalists (as well as franchised arms of the Nazi Party). The term ‘reprivatisation’ used post-WWII was, in fact, adopted from 1930s Germany.
From the link above:
“The Nazi government may have used privatization as a tool to improve its relationship with big industrialists and to increase support among this group for its policies. Privatization was also likely used to foster more widespread political support [i.e., financial backing] for the party. Finally, financial motivations played a central role in Nazi privatization. The proceeds from privatization in 1934-37 had relevant fiscal significance: No less than 1.37 per cent of total fiscal revenues were obtained from selling shares in public firms. Moreover, the government avoided including a huge expenditure in the budget by using outside-of-the-budget tools to finance the public services franchised to Nazi organizations.
Nazi economic policy in the mid-thirties went against the mainstream in several dimensions. The huge increase in public expenditure programs was unique, as was the increase in the armament programs, and together they heavily constrained the budget. Exceptional policies were put in place to finance this exceptional expenditure, and privatization was just one among them. Nazi Germany privatized systematically, and was the only country to do so at the time. This drove Nazi policy against the mainstream, which flowed against privatization of state ownership or public services until the last quarter of the twentieth century.”
It’s worth remembering that the ‘appeasers’ were, generally, very wealthy men – leading Tories (including Eden who was an appeaser, despite his resignation over how to respond to Mussolini breaching an agreement) with international business and financial interests and connections. It’s also worth remembering that the greater threat was always considered to be the Soviet Union – and the UK elite knew that Hitler was keen to invade Russia.
I’m sure that was a great consolation to Germany’s Jewish industrialists- oh wait, no, they were on to the nazi’s fairly early on for good reasons. How about the wealthy and influential Czech and Polish industrialists… Oh, no, wait…. I think more than a few French businessmen were probably inconvenienced too…
No it was the Anglo Saxon Elite that saw the advantage whereas the socialist left in France and elsewhere expected the political scenery to change to their advantage. In the end, it all came down to money. Europe at the time has lost its royal houses through revolts and civil was followed as a void needed to be filled. The general population was to a certain extend naive. But one should not forget that there wasn’t the media as it is today and the radio was easily controlled.
To put it in perspective, Manapouri produces enough power to supply about 630,000 houses each year. It could run five Large Hadron Colliders. It could run two times Google’s data storage network.
Bertram says power companies have been gouging the consumer for too long. With a simple write down of their assets Tiwai could give all New Zealanders 300kW hours free, each month, for ever. At current average power prices that’s about $80 a month off your power bill, permanently.
$80 a month. Just from Manapouri hydro. Kinda puts the Labour/Greens $300 saving per year in perspective.
If you add this potential saving to the potential saving associated with writing down the asset values of the other generators what would the cents per kWh price be?
I’d love to see an article from Geoff Bertram which states what the price of electricity should be.
So he spent a quarter mil on travel, ok, he no doubt has a great collection of pens and plenty of spare headphones. It would be a lot more interesting though and certainly more revealing to see what his total expenses were, especially regarding the gravy train dinners, lunches, lunches that become dinners etc. I imagine the wine bill alone is mighty impressive. I also expect sundries will not be itemized.
Yes, but you can say the same about just about any New Zealand politician, regardless of party. That sort of point scoring is ultimately not a game worth playing.
Not really, there is a distinct culture of entiltlement amongst ‘the deal makers’ that only gets worse the closer to trade deals that you get. Every country (and every wannabe) do their damndest to show it is the richest flashiest most succesful etc. Much like any bunch of friday night fools showing off in the newest downtown bar. In my humble opinion, the taxpayer much like the cleaner the next day, is thoroughly sick of it.
imagine if this was promised by a party:
No more parliamentary pensions/benefits/discounts etc. Do your time in service. You get well paid, then that is it.
The trough is closed. There’s a (?) 20-30 million a year saved just like that.
A few facts. Germany was locked out of global colonial ambitions. WWI. Germany is a patchwork of protestant and catholicism (and pre-WWII jews). So the WWII was not about Christianity, since Christians were on both sides, if anything there were more non-Christians on the allies side in both great wars. As France and Britain brought in non-European armies from their colonies. Independence of these colonies was won in part because of those who had given up their lives in those wars. Also Israel existence is a form of restitution, etc.
So when Moro’s guest said we remember them, God and Country, etc, that every creed, faith, etc was a afterthought, a modernism. I can’t help be struck how much has been forgotten.
Our forefathers did not go to the world wars for Christianity.
As far as Zionism is concerned, the founder of Zionism and apostate, Theodor Herzl, sought to intensify hatred of the Jew in order to enhance the cause of political Zionism. Here are some of his “pearls:
“It is essential that the sufferings of Jews. . . become worse. . . this will assist in realization of our plans. . .I have an excellent idea. . . I shall induce anti-semites to liquidate Jewish wealth. . . The anti-semites will assist us thereby in that they will strengthen the persecution and oppression of Jews. The anti-semites shall be our best friends. (From his Diary, Part I, pp. 16)
Karl Marx never suggested theft. expropriation
I think you’ll find the first definition correct. It is repossession of that which was stolen in the first place.
You say po-tay-to, I say take your mendacious little word games and go fuck yourself. Shifting the goal posts around doesn’t change what it is. “Expropriation”, as opposed to paying tax, is theft. Lenin’s “expropriation” wasn’t very different from Hitler’s “expropriation” from the Jews.
Or Gerry’s threatened expropriation of landowners’ property in Christchurch?
One of the saddest things about modern economies is that they are built upon private property.We all wish to defend our, generally, minuscule amounts of private property, thus allowing those with massive amounts to dominate our world. We accept the sacrifice of our freedom (i.e., the relative influence of our voice in collective decision making) to protect very little that is our ‘own’, in most cases. Not a wise – or rational – trade-off.
Populuxe1, is the accumulation of property (via legal means) never theft in liberal democracies? (I’m assuming that we agree that legality is not the arbiter of whether or not something is ‘theft’ – theft is the acquisition of something that does not rightfully belong to you; a judgment that depends upon moral and ethical principles, not the current state of the law.).
On Lenin’s expropriations – the economic system of the Tsar (Nicholas II) in Russia was mainly feudal (though industrialisation had flourished under his father, Alexander III). Was the property accumulated by the Russian aristocracy legitimately obtained? Remember, the Tsar was an absolute/divine monarch and tens of millions of serfs lived and died under harsh conditions for generations prior to the 1917 revolutions (and the one in 1905).
Similarly, were the holdings of the British Crown in the American Colonies legitimate, given that they were quite decisively expropriated by the Colonial elite? (Should today’s Americans be paying compensation to the British Crown?)
Again, was Maori land in New Zealand expropriated (i.e., in your eyes, stolen)?
And what happened to the Jews in the 1930s in Germany was not ‘expropriation’ – it was ethnic cleansing and brutal terrorising and oppression. Get your terms right. Property had very little to do with it. That was a ‘bonus’.
Dismount your high horse. It’s just a broomstick with a pretend horse’s head on top.
History is not something to huff and puff about, especially over ‘theft’. It’s about power – who has it and who doesn’t. Those with the power get the property. Those without power and property seek to gain it.
And those with the power always get to decide what is and isn’t theft.
Your incoherent rambling is utterly unconvincing. Perhaps the stupidest sentence is your extraordinary claim that Israel’s existence is a “form of restitution, etc.”
I’m not going to ask you to explain—you are clearly not up to it.
The position of RRC pays over 200k a year, or has Devoy refused the salary?
I cannot find anything saying she has, so is this article just another type and print, forget the fact-check, straight to market lie?
also imagine The mad butcher’s definition of lewd is pretty colourful and likely very different from say, Colin Craig’s 🙂
Policy on the Hoof? And envy of colleagues’ exposure?
Grant Robertson is trying to limit the Party’s Policy Options and put down his colleagues.
Shearer and Parker were leading the NZPower story. But Robertson has to put his oar in! Wow has the boy an inferiority complex!
“Labour makes no apology for stepping in to fix problems in the electricity sector. But this is not a signal that Labour is going to intervene elsewhere in the economy.
“As we said on the day we launched NZ Power, we have no plans to intervene in any other markets.”
WTF? We have just seen the consensus around the Neo-Liberal hegemony of the past thirty years finally get dented: and Grant Robertson is trying to stop it!
Robertson will lead Labour to the same position it is in Wellington Central. Third position behind National and the Greens!
“I’ll just bring in my expert witness here: Ron Mark”
The Vote: Is New Zealand a Racist Country?
TV3, Wednesday 24 April 2013, 8:30 p.m.
After watching the superb Annie Goldson documentary about NZ in Afghanistan, my big night of television continued with this horror show. I watched this insult to the intelligence, this D-grade comedy, this dog’s breakfast on the TV3 Plus One channel.
The producers had assembled what looked like a lecture-theatre full of people, many of them well known in their own right. At first glance it looked like this might be a return to the serious live studio spectaculars that Gordon Dryden, Brian Edwards and Ian Fraser used to front in the 1970s and ’80s. But TV3 obviously doesn’t trust the idea of boring old discussions. Some genius has come up with the idea that a program about racism can be treated like one of those ghastly music talent quests, where celebrity judges gather a team of “talents” and spend half of the show verbally sniping at each other. Presiding over all of this is a “moderator”, played by Linda Clark. Her brief: Keep it light. It’s supposed to be amusing.
On The Vote, the equivalents of the celeb judges on the pop star talent quests are Guyon Espiner and Duncan Garner, who have obviously been instructed to dish out the repartee against one another; someone in management evidently thinks these two are the equivalent of Abbott and Costello.
Tonight, Guyon Espiner heads the “Yes” team, with Damon Salesa and John Tamihere. Duncan Garner is the captain of the “No” team, backed up by May Chen and Phil Goff. The default mood for the evening is comical truculence….
Clearly, what was actually said during this show was not important to the producers. What they wanted was manufactured conflict, plenty of personality clashes—and lots of laughs. Of the “talent”, however, only John Tamihere seemed to be in on this; the other three seemed to take it seriously. So we saw the demeaning sight of Professor Damon Salesa trying to make a serious argument in the face of a barrage of heckling and infantile negative comments by Duncan Garner.
So the mood of frivolity and forced competitiveness had been established. But it only got worse….
DUNCAN GARNER: Okay, I’ll just bring in my expert witness here: Ron Mark!
Instead of eliciting gales of laughter, this announcement was treated seriously, and Winston Peters’ loyal soldier was wheeled on to deliver banalities for a long, long minute in his usual manner. Then the “expert witness” returned to the crowd, with nobody any the wiser. It was like he was back in parliament.
Now, rack my brains as I might, I could think of only one political featherweight shallower than Ron Mark—and sure enough, not long after, this happened….
GUYON ESPINER: All right, now to argue that New Zealand IS a racist country, we have the Member of Parliament for Khandallah, Peter Dunne!
This ineffective fop, this repellent poseur, this National Party stooge embarked on one of his trademark wandery homilies, focused entirely on the notion that we are racist against CHINESE people. This pitiable, bow-tied, bouffanted fool probably doesn’t even know that there are Māori people in New Zealand.
As Dunne droned on, I could make out in the audience several prominent people, including John Minto, Don “Brethren Cash” Brash (nodding gravely to show he took it all very seriously) and the controversial new Race Relations commissioner Dame Susan Devoy.
Finally, mercifully, Dunne’s monologue came to an end and he sat down, to the relief of all. It was back to the comedians….
DUNCAN GARNER: Calling us racist is plain NUTS and simply offensive! LINDA CLARK: I have here the result of our audience poll. Eighty-two per cent think that YES, New Zealand is a racist country. GUYON ESPINER: Eighty-two per cent! It’s hard to argue we’re not a racist country with those sorts of numbers!
Then it’s time for a commercial break, but before that, viewers are taken into the middle of each team as they huddle together and strategize, just like a sports team talk. What is obvious immediately is that Espiner does all the talking, while Tamihere and Salesa listen intently. Same with the other team: Garner urgently strategizes, while Goff and Chen listen. The “stars” have to be seen to be in charge.
DUNCAN GARNER: Right, next up, the big question: Are Māori TOO PRIVILEGED? This of course is the question Don Brash asked back in 2004.
John Tamihere says something disparaging about the old racist, and is warming to his task before the moderator steps in…
LINDA CLARK:[giggling] Tamihere, be QUIET!
AUDIENCE: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
LINDA CLARK: Forty-eight per cent of our audience says YES, Māori are too privileged, and 42 per cent say no they are not. So it’s almost TOO CLOSE TO CALL!
The old race-baiter, Don “Brethren Cash” Brash is then trundled on to the stage and asked if he STILL thinks Māori are a privileged and indulged elite group…
DON “BRETHREN CASH” BRASH: Ehhhhhhhhhhhmmmmm. Yes they are. Ehhhhhhhhhhhmmmm.
AUDIENCE: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!…What?… You silly old fool!… Ha!… Somebody shoot him!
As disgusting and ridiculous as the old race-baiter and Brethren stooge is, he is almost immediately upstaged….
MAY CHEN:[slowly, with gravitas] As Ron Mark said, we are sorting out our racial problems in the bedrooms of the nation.
That crass and insulting statement comes courtesy of the fertile brain of Dr. Ranginui Walker. It was one of his enduring tropes during his long tenure as a Listener columnist, and he repeated it again recently when he was interviewed on radio.
LINDA CLARK: After the break, we will sum up. And we will talk to the new Race Relations Commissioner, Dame Susan Devoy.
This proved to be the only pleasant surprise of the night. Dame Susan handled her brief interview impressively. She was balanced, generous and well spoken.
As for the rest of those involved in this dud: shame on you all.
Sounds truly awful viewing, Moz. Thanks for taking one for the team!
It was awful, all right, but it was compellingly awful. I even felt positive at the end of it, seeing Dame Susan give such a good account of herself.
Mai Chen, btw.
I KNEW it! Just before I pushed the “Submit Comment” button, I had this nagging feeling that I had made a mistake somewhere, but for the life of me I couldn’t track it down. Thanks for that.
From the Herald “Trade Minister Tim Groser’s bid to head the World Trade Organisation has failed……”The New Zealand Government has spent a lot of money supporting Mr Groser’s bid.” http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10879907
How much is ‘a lot of money’? Will the corporate media bother to find out?
And will they ask if that money could have been spent on other stuff…like tackling child poverty, save DOC jobs, raising the minimum wage more etc etc
Don’t hold your breath.
Well . . . the MSM has pointed out the bill is around about $3000 per day, and that’s just for travel. You can add in his salary since lobbying for the job is all he’s done.
The Government are NOT going to get a ‘good price’ for Mighty River Power, according the opinion expressed in the Dominion Post Editorial dated 24 April 2013:
OPINION: An unholy mess. There is no other way to describe the Government’s partial asset sales programme.
With just days to go before the public offering of shares in Mighty River Power closes, the float is shrouded in uncertainty. Is the country’s single biggest consumer of electricity about to shut its doors? Will Labour and the Green Party be part of the next government and, if so, will they make good on their promises to renationalise the electricity industry by stealth?
Potential investors have no way of knowing whether Rio Tinto is serious about closing the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter unless it can wring further concessions from the Government and Meridian Energy. Likewise, they have no way of knowing whether Labour and the Greens will be in a position to implement their policies after the next election.
But, amid all the uncertainty, there is one certainty: the price the Government and, ultimately the public, will receive for shares sold in Mighty River Power will be lower because of the uncertainty. ….
However, political considerations should not determine the fate of an asset worth billions of dollars that has been built up by generations of taxpayers. The Government’s overriding concerns should be ensuring that taxpayers get fair value for the business and that as many New Zealanders as possible take advantage of the opportunity to become shareholders in it.
Neither of those goals are likely to be achieved while there is a possibility of the country being flooded with cheap electricity and the next government telling generators how much they can charge for electricity and how they should operate their power stations.
……………………
But, delaying the sale till after the next election would at least allow voters to choose which of the two approaches offers the better prospect of sensible pricing and secure supply. It would also allow time for the future of Tiwai Point to be resolved.”
______________________________________________________________________________
SO! CALL OFF THE SALE OF MIGHTY RIVER POWER!
Is NZ Prime Minister John Key, (a shareholder in the Bank of America), going to continue to put his mouth where his money is, and look after investors – or is he going to look after the public majority of taxpayers?
(Remembering that arguably the majority of taxpayers are not investors?)
“Rt Hon John KEY (National, Helensville)
……..
Bank of America – banking ”
How appropriate is it for the four people responsible for setting the ‘final price’ of Mighty River Power shares are those who seem ‘hell bent’ on selling off Mighty River Power at any price, seemingly regardless of the cost to taxpayers?
“.. I can advise that Cabinet has delegated authority to a group of Ministers to set the final price for shares in the Mighty River Power share offer. the group of Ministers is the Prime Minister (John Key) Minister of Finance (Bill English) , Minister for Economic Development and Associate Minister of Finance Steven Joyce, and Minister of State-Owned Enterprises (Tony Ryall).”
Prime Minister John Key, Minister of Finance Bill English, Minister for Economic Development and Associate Minister of Finance Steven Joyce, and Minister of State-Owned Enterprises Tony Ryall, must act in a fiscally responsible, and financially prudent way and look after the interests of taxpayers by calling of the sale of Mighty River Power – NOW.
The other risk the NZ Government faces is that thousands of new ‘Mum and Dad’ investors, not to mention larger investors, both national and international, may lose confidence in the NZ sharemarket, because of the uncertainty over this ‘unholy mess’ which is currently the Mighty River Power share launch.
Tomorrow – Saturday 27 April 2013 will be actions all over New Zealand opposing asset sales – which today’s protest outside Mighty River Power, will help to advertise:
sounds pretty good to me why should they pay the workers when there not working and out on the street having a fucking whine
[r0b: farmboy, filling your comments with fucking swearing doesn’t impress anyone, and it (unfortunately) promotes comments in kind, and the whole thread gets derailed. Please calm down all, DNFTT.]
[lprent: Banned one week for what appears to have been a deliberate attempt to start a flame war. Banned a further week for wasting my time moving the thread to OpenMike and away from diverting from the post topic. ]
The sensible answer to your stupid question is to point out that “fucking whining” is a feeble mis-characterisation of the right to strike, you fucking child.
Get a horse. And a haircut. And a pickaxe handle. Ride into town to cleanse the streets. You can call yourself Key’s Cossacks.
And please, if you fall off the horse like that AWB idiot in South Africa, put the video on youtube.
might be hard to record myself while smashing heads with my pickaxe that sounds like a 2hander maybe they should just get the sack and someone more concerned about doing a decent days work for decent money as in affco should be hired that would sound pretty weird to you but alot of people actully work without havn a cry
If Rambo can handle an M60 with one hand, but you need two for a pickaxe handle, what sort of righty are you? Bloody soft, that’s what I say. Now stop crying and look for a full stop, some commas, and a clue.
The New Lynn LEC is hosting the Whau Ward Selection Meeting tomorrow at 4.00.
It will be held in 3071 Great North Road, New Lynn, opposite the Police Station!
The Whau seat on the Council and the seven Whau Local Board seats will be contested by the Labour Party, with full Labour Party branding. All candidates will be members of the Labour Party.
Labour will present a full slate.
The Whau Ward is predominantly in the New Lynn Parliamentary electorate, with parts in the Mt Albert and the Mt Roskill electorates.
All Whau area LabourParty paid-up members are welcome to attend.
Every self respecting Auckland lefty and liberal will be at the weekend march against the sale of our assetsthis Saturday. Kicks off at 2 pm from Britomart.
Any self respecting New Zealander should be there. You may have voted for National. Show the government this is not the reason you voted for them.
Selling assets is a sale of our sovereignty. If should affect all New Zealanders.
from RNZ, apparently the Christchurch rebuild is to cost up to 30% /10B more than the government had until now calculated, coming to possibly 40B in total.
The governments reason for the conservative estimates include
-inflationary pressure
-impact upon total $NZ spend.
-impact on stake-holders costs; (insurers want to cap their debt), taxpayers and ratepayers
“Throw off your hat kick off your shoes
Throw down your gun you might shoot yourself
Or is that what you’re trying to do?”
So Grosers bid to be the next bigwig of the WTO has crashed and burned. So will he pay the obscene amount of money he has wasted on his pipe dream, back to the taxpayer? Will he fuck. What a waste of time and space he is. And he’s been collecting his taxpayer salary too, what a bludger.\
“The trade minister hit headlines last week when it emerged that he racked up travel expenses of almost $260,000 in the first three months of the year – nearly $3000 a day – as he lobbied for the WTO top job.”
Not one cent of the millions of dollars worth of assets seized from criminals has been funnelled into drug treatment or resources to fight organised crime as promised when the enabling law came into force.
Nearly $150 million worth of homes, cars, boats, cash, jewellery and other valuables has been restrained since the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act was passed in December 2009, of which $27 million has been forfeited to the Crown
Forfeited to The Crown – WTF does that even mean, and who has that cash!
Where is the rest of the seized assets/cash ending up?
Seems to be a slide in terminology in the article: $150mil “restrained” (i.e. my guess is frozen), but $27mil “forfeited” (my guess is completed the seizure process and handed over). However, once that is converted into cash and other creditors settled (article mentioned the banks of course, and spouses) a little over a third of that actually gets to the government (shit valuation of the property?), and of that ABSOLUTELY NONE goes to rehabilitation or addressing the causes of crime. All has disappeared into the consolidated fund, which the nats piss away like export gold (i.e. tip directly down the drain without involving the kidneys as middleman).
Police involved in the Urewera dawn raids had still not fully co-operated with the agency investigating their actions five years after the controversial operation.
With full support through the blue structure, is the only way this *lack of cooperation* could happen!
The Averch–Johnson effect is the tendency of companies to engage in excessive amounts of capital accumulation in order to expand the volume of their profits. If companies profits to capital ratio is regulated at a certain percentage then there is a strong incentive for companies to over-invest in order to increase profits overall. This goes against any optimal efficiency point for capital that the company may have calculated as higher profit is almost always desired over and above efficiency.
As far as I can tell, this effect describes the main reason our electricity prices are so high.
But it’s not really going to happen! Otherwise we’d be taking to the streets instead of sitting on the internet calling each other names or arguing about politics and shit.
It’s not really them that we have to worry about though. It’s us and all the people we know that know that CC is real but still aren’t doing much about it.
The Allen: That is the way I have lived here since I arrived! I NEVER saved and got anywhere, really, as just working honestly and hardly leaves you nowhere but down at the bottom. NZ has NOT improved or changed substantially since the 1980s, apart for a few. That is the sad reality, especially for ordinary, low paid workers, and certainly for benficiaries. Fuck National AND Labour for that!
I have not taken a “knife” to WINZ, which I thought of doing so, but North cautioned me. I was not really decided and ready to let off my anger about welfare reforms and to be expected harassments in that manner. But given the most intimidating steps to be expected soon, I will not make any promise or take any commitments to what I can, can restrain myself from, or what may otherwise happen. I have been treated with utter contempt before and was near suicide, due to WINZ and MSD agendas and treatments.
This present Nat dominated government is pushing many of us to the brink, and if I need to take action, I will do so, even if I need to take the last step to take my life.
I HATE New Zealand for what this country has been turned into, it is now a disgustingly unfair, divided, racist and hateful place, I wish I had never come back to. It is up to YOU to make a difference and take a stand.
Much is happening behind the scenes, but few understand and will be prepared to listen.
Good luck, if you believe that freedom, democracy and rights will be preserved by sitting at home, blogging, chatting and otherwise just minding your own selective interests, you will soon see another thing coming. Iit is too much cowardice that rules this country.
For FUCKS sake, wake up, take a stand, and go on the Day of Action Today!!!
I respect and see my ideal in Che Guevara, as I identify very much with this man!
Oh dear, oh dear, a few hundred marching and “holding up traffic” in Queen Street on the “Day of Action Against Asset Sales”, a supposed one hundred marching in Wellington, and was there any few others that bothered? Seems that to most the horse has bolted long ago, and it is more of “roll over Kiwis” all over the land. Yawn, sigh, what a mess!
That is how much people care, division is the rule now, self interest and self pre-occupation the prime ambition, so next election will likely show another term for this semi dictotorial lot running the show.
Import more slaves to do the dirty jobs at service stations in supermarkets, as cleaners in your offices, in fast food and restaurant outlets, in bars and what else need done to keep the show running.
F*** the rest, that seems to be the motto of most.
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The text below is a Twitter thread by Heather Heying that explains the essence of sexual reproduction and it long evolutionary history. She is an evolutionary biologist and a “professor-in-exile” after she and her husband, Bret Weinstein, stood up to supporters of an enforced “Day of Absence” for white staff and teachers ...
With crunch time for new Zealand climate policy approaching, most of the New Zealand media have got on board with a global reporting effort to cover the issue. There's one strand of stories today about polling and what it shows about changing public attitudes to the crisis, but the strand ...
Dangerous Foes: For those readers of Bowalley Road who feel disposed to dismiss any prospect of an Israeli destabilisation of New Zealand politics, the example of the United Kingdom repays close attention. Ever since the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the British Labour Party, the Israelis have sanctioned, funded and ...
Make It 16, the youth-led campaign to lower New Zealand's voting age, is holding an official campaign launch at Parliament this Friday from 16:30. If you'd like to attend, you can register using EventBrite here. ...
by Don Franks It was a lovely sunny Wellington afternoon with blue skies above the beaches. In Courtenay Place, political activists packed out a stuffy upstairs room for an important meeting. The assembled pacifists, anarchists, communists and independent young radicals of Peace Action Wellington felt the need for a mission ...
Current and former NZDF top brass are being publicly grilled this week by the hit and run inquiry over their public responses to allegations of civilian casualties. Previously, they've claimed there were no casualties, a position which led them to lie to Ministers and to the public. Now, they're saying ...
by Rafael D. Quiles (gender-critical gay man from Puerto Rico) The writing on the wall is right in people’s faces and people just don’t see it or don’t want to. What could actually possess a heterosexual male to want to feminize himself and claim that he is a lesbian? Because ...
From the Wall Street Journal:Inside a room of the ornately decorated Hotel du Palais during last month’s Group of Seven summit in Biarritz, France, President Trump awaited a meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi. Mr. Trump looked over a gathering of American and Egyptian officials and called out in ...
by the Redline blog collective At Redline we are very saddened to hear of the death of Magdalen Burns who passed away on the morning of Friday, September 13 (British time). Magdalen was a great fighter for the rights of women in general and lesbian women in particular, a defender ...
The Brexit issue has certainly brought with it a series of apparently difficult constitutional issues, many of them concerning the respective roles of the executive and parliament. Most of them arise because of the unwillingness of MPs, despite their professions to the contrary, to be bound by a constitutional rarity ...
. . This blogpost is different to my usual format of reporting on issues… Since July 1011, I have blogged on a variety of political issues; near always political and/or environmental; mostly highly critical of the previous National Government. Other issues included Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands and repression of ...
Those close to the Police Minister believe the initiative may be the result of Nash “seeing a great deal” on AliExpress. In a move that comes seemingly out of nowhere, Police Minister Stuart Nash announced this afternoon that he expects all frontline staff to don bearskin hats, famously worn by ...
The government has released its Arms Legislation Bill, containing the second tranche of changes to gun laws following the March 15 massacre. And it all looks quite sensible: a national gun register, higher penalties for illegal possession and dealing, tighter restrictions on arms dealers and shooting clubs, and a shorter ...
Private prisons are a stain on humanity. Prison operators explicitly profit from human misery, then lobby for longer prisons terms so they can keep on profiting. And in the US, prison companies run not only local and state prisons, but also Donald Trump's immigration concentration camps. Faced with this moral ...
When National was in power, they were very keen on Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) - basicly, using private companies to finance public infrastructure as a way of hiding debt from the public. They were keen on using them for everything - roads, schools, hospitals. But as the UK shows, that "service" ...
Moving And Shaking: There was a time when people spoke matter-of-factly about the “labour movement” – a political phenomenon understood to embrace much more than the Labour Party. Included within the term’s definition was the whole trade union movement – many of whose members looked upon the Labour Party as ...
by Philip Ferguson Much of the left, even people who formally identify as marxists, have collapsed politically in the face of postmodern gender theory of the sort pioneered by American philosopher Judith Butler. For Butler even biological sex is socially constructed. “If the immutable character of sex is contested, perhaps ...
The media is reporting that the (alleged) Labour party sexual assaulter has resigned from their job at Parliament, which means hopefully he won't be turning up there making people feel unsafe in future. Good. But as with everything about this scandal, it just raises other questions. Most significantly: why the ...
By Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern I am every bit as angry as you are. I am every bit as disappointed as you must be. The people with power, oversight and the ability to do something about these processes within the Labour Party should be ashamed. Whoever those people are, I ...
Property developers think there is an "oversupply" of houses in Auckland:High turnover rates and falling prices may be a sign that there are too many new houses going in to some parts of Auckland, commentators say. [...] Property developer David Whitburn said there was a "bit of an oversupply" in ...
Labour Party president Nigel Haworth resigned yesterday over the party's sexual assault scandal. But while that's good news, its unlikely to take away the stench of a coverup. Because according to Paula Bennett in Parliament yesterday, pretty much everyone in the Prime Minister's office was involved as well:I have been ...
Two-Faced? Labour insiders' commitment to the neoliberal status quo puts them at odds with their party’s membership; its trade union affiliates; and a majority of Labour voters, but this only serves to strengthen the perception they have of themselves as a special elite. Among the lesser breeds, they’ll talk up a ...
There has been a lot of talk about Boris Johnson wanting an election, and he has blustered with great gusto about 'chicken' Jeremy Corbyn refusing one, but I think there are many reasons why he is secretly glad he has been refused the opportunity:The Tories are an utter rabble,tearing themselves ...
Scottish appeal court judges have declared that Boris Johnson’s decision to suspend parliament in the run-up to the October Brexit deadline is unlawful. The three judges, chaired by Lord Carloway, Scotland’s most senior judge, overturned an earlier ruling that the courts did not have the powers to interfere in the prime ...
By Simon Bridges. The following is a press release from the office of Simon Bridges, leader of The National Party. Key ora, New Zealand. Happy Maori Language Week. Look, I’m writing to you today because I want to clear something up. There’s been a lot of kerfuffle around some things ...
I understand there's some stuff going round about how the SIS "was removed from the list of public offices covered by the Public Records Act in 2017". The context of course being their records derived from US torture, which will be disposed of or sealed. The good news is that ...
Dr. Christopher Labos and Jonathan Jarry discuss the recent Canadian fluoride/IQ research. They provide an expert analysis of the paper and its problems. Click on image to go to podcast. The critical debate about the recent ...
Australia is burning down again, and meanwhile its natural disaster minister is denying climate change:Australia’s minister responsible for drought and natural disasters, David Littleproud, has said that he doesn’t “know if climate change is manmade”. Clarifying earlier comments that the question is “irrelevant” when considering the Coalition government’s response to ...
Auckland Philippines Solidarity is excited to host Professor Judy Taguiwalo for a speaking tour of NZ in September. She is a well-known activist in the Philippines and was a political prisoner under the Marcos dictatorship. Professor Taguiwalo briefly served as a Cabinet member under President Duterte but was forced from ...
This open letter to the Green Party was penned after an opinion piece by Jill Abigail, a feminist and founding member of the party, was censored by the Greens’ leadership. (Redline has reprinted her article here).The intolerance of the Green Party leaders and their acceptance of the misogyny of gender ...
Today is a Member's day, and David Seymour's End of Life Choice Bill continues its slow crawl through its committee stage. They're spending the whole day on it today, though the first hour is likely to be spent on voting left over from last time. After that they'll move on ...
An ambitious plan to fly to Los Angeles petered out into a brief sight-seeing trip and a desire to return home and get some sleep before work tomorrow. Air New Zealand has confirmed a flight to Los Angeles last night was turned back about a quarter of the way into ...
There appears to be consensus – by omission – that the concept of indigenous futures should be accepted at face value. So I scavenged the internet to see if I could locate an academic descriptor or a framework around how we think about it as a concept, and whether it ...
Here’s another novelty chocolate to shove in your gob, New Zealand Cadbury could be seeking to make itself great again with a rumoured new release: Pineapple Trumps, a spin on its classic chocolate-encased pineapple treat and do-it-yourself tooth remover. The global confectionery manufacturer and bumbling “before” character in an infomercial, ...
During my time in the Pentagon I had the privilege of sitting down with military leaders and defence and security officials from a variety of Latin American nations. Sometimes I was present as a subordinate assistant to a senior US defence department official, sometimes as part of a delegation that ...
Kia ora, Aotearoa. It’s that magical time of year. Te Wiki o te Reo Māori. In English, the week that frightens talk radio. As you probably know by now, all your favourite media outlets are participating, some more successfully than others. Stuff has changed its name to Puna for the ...
Eighteen months ago, the government promised to strengthen the Bill of Rights Act, by explicitly affirming the power of the courts to issue declarations of inconsistency and requiring Parliament to formally respond to them. So how's that going? I was curious, so I asked for all advice about the proposal. ...
As the Brexit saga staggers on, the focus is naturally enough on the Prime Minister and his attempts to achieve Brexit “do or die”. But the role played by the Leader of the Opposition is of almost equal interest and complexity. The first problem for Jeremy Corbyn is that he ...
Last week, English Prime Minister Boris Johnson boldly declared that he would rather die be dead in a ditch than delay Brexit. Unfortunately for him, the UK parliament accepted the challenge, and promptly dug one for him. The "rebellion bill" requires him to ask for and secure yet another temporary ...
Lost In Political Space: The most important takeaway from this latest Labour sexual assault scandal, which (if I may paraphrase Nixon’s White House counsel’s, John Dean’s, infamous description of Watergate) is “growing like a cancer” on the premiership, is the Labour Party organisation’s extraordinary professional paralysis in the face of ...
It has been two years since Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern called climate change her generation's nuclear free moment. And on Monday, against a backdrop of global climate protest, she will give the opening speech at the United Nation's climate ...
Finance Minister Grant Robertson is under intense scrutiny. New figures show economic growth has slowed to levels not seen for six years. And he has chosen not to answer questions about when he heard about serious allegations of a sexual assault cover-up ...
NZDF Attends Commemorations to Mark International Mission in East Timor A New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) contingent participated today in the 20th anniversary commemorations of the International Force East Timor (INTERFET) mission in Dili. The commemoration ...
They’ve only been up and running for a few months, but a New Zealand not-for-profit has already made a big impact on period poverty in New Zealand. ...
The allocation of money for publicly funded broadcasting for election campaigns should be turned on it's head according to Massey University professor of communication design Claire Robinson. ...
Disappointment expressed by Fletcher Building CEO, Ross Taylor, reflects the increasing frustration held by many with this Government’s failure to protect private property rights.[1] ...
The independent Interim Climate Change Committee today launched an eight-week, nationwide call for evidence on options available to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. ...
Social Credit has lodged a complaint with the Ombudsman over the way the Overseas Investment Office is handling its official information request for disclosure of documents on the sale of Westland Milk Products to Chinese company Inner Mongolian ...
This Friday in Solidarity with the Global Climate Strike All of the SodaStream’s e-commerce platforms and head office operations will be closed to kick-off the week-long event, and employees will march the #CLIMATESTRIKE in Auckland on 27 September. ...
Federated Farmers congratulates the Auditor-General’s office on its release today of its report Managing Freshwater Quality: Challenges and Opportunities. ...
Growth has now slowed to a 6-year low, and downside risks are dominating. June quarter GDP growth came in at 0.5%qoq, in line with our expectation, and slightly above consensus. Although there were a few sensational reports of the chance of a negative print. ...
Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) is calling the release of the National Climate Change Risk Assessment (NCCRA) framework a good first step in balancing New Zealand’s response to climate change. ...
Family First NZ says that a new Colorado report compiled by the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area finds marijuana-positive traffic fatalities, hospitalisations, marijuana use, and illegal market activity have exploded since marijuana legalization. ...
This year’s Ratepayers’ Report , local government league tables released yesterday, reveals which local councils owe the most and which owe the least. ...
Rachel MacGregor welcomes the decision released today by Justice Hinton. The key issue on which all the various litigation has been based is the question, did Colin Craig sexually harass Rachel. That question has been answered – he did. Justice ...
The Rail and Maritime Transport Union (RMTU) has today ratified a ground breaking pay deal with Dunedin Railways which will see all union members being paid a living wage and the lowest paid receiving an 18% wage increase. Higher paid RMTU members ...
Inclusion for trans women/men and non-binary peoples has today been announced as the cornerstone of a new resolution for the National Council of Women New Zealand (NCWNZ). ...
It took a testy Morning Report interview this week to remind me that Simon Bridges was still the Leader of the Opposition. Until then, he had been largely invisible as the events of recent weeks unfolded. ...
The National Council of Women NZ has today welcomed the news that the Government has purchased Kate Sheppard’s house in Christchurch, the base for the NZ suffrage campaign. ...
The Māori Party supports mana whenua of Ihumātao and acknowledges their coming together to reach consensus on the future of their whenua. “We also acknowledge the leadership of the Kīngitanga who have played an important role in supporting ...
The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union is questioning why, for the second time, Jacinda Ardern has appointed a Crown-owned company Chief Executive to Chair her “Business Advisory Council”, following her announcement that Mercury CEO Fraser Whineray ...
Responding to the Government’s decision to give around $300 million to Amazon as a sweetener for filming a TV series in New Zealand, New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke says: “As a matter of simple waste, this is striking, ...
I am very pleased with Air New Zealand’s Decision to backdown and withdraw their application to trademark into a logo Kia Ora. I said at the time that it was an ill conceived idea and poorly thought out – more importantly it should never have been ...
NZEI Te Riu Roa members will be joining with others across the union movement by wearing black and white in support of pay equity on Suffrage Day tomorrow, and urging the Government to commit to a settlement for teacher aides this year. ...
Yesterday’s announcement from the Minister for Immigration, to improve temporary work visas for migrant workers, provides some positive changes but more detail is needed. The Council of Trade Unions fundamentally supports the principle of making ...
FIRST Union today welcomed Westpac’s public admission of the significant gender pay gap in its workforce and reiterated its call for employers to work with unions to close this disparity, arguing that this work must begin at the bottom of the pay ...
Changes to the work visa system announced by the Minister of Immigration are not all positive for employers or migrants, comments Ms June Ranson, chair of the New Zealand Association for Migration and Investment (NZAMI) , a leading voice in the ...
The Dairy Workers Union (DWU) has welcomed the announcement from dairy company, Synlait, that they will be boosting parental leave entitlements significantly for working parents. ...
In June, the Children’s Commissioner announced a thematic review into Oranga Tamariki’s policies, processes and practice relating to care and protection issues for tamariki Māori aged 0-3 months. Today the Children’s Commissioner has released the full ...
“Closing the Gap” Tauranga, one of the area groups of Income Equality Aotearoa NZ Inc., has surveyed all candidates in the three local body elections to discover attitudes to some basic issues of the Western Bay region. We believe that this is ...
In response to DairyNZ's attempt to dismiss an economic report that highlighted dairy's role in the New Zealand economy is only three per cent of GDP, Fish & Game New Zealand Chief Executive Martin Taylor says: "If DairyNZ wishes to reject a report ...
Kiingi Tuuheitia Pootatau Te Wherowhero VII has successfully guided the mana whenua of lhumaatao to reach a consensus on the future of their whenua. ...
Two activists disguised as shareholders interrupted the AGM of a gold mining company in central Auckland this morning to inform shareholders their plans to mine for gold in conservation estate in the Karangahake Gorge were unwelcome. ...
The Capital and Coast District Health Board (CCDHB) has been labelled ‘NATO’ (no action, talk only) when it comes to child mental health, with just 0.6 full time staff (24 hours per week) for inpatient child psychology and just 0.8 full time staff ...
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL has awarded three New Zealand climate youth groups with its Ambassador of Conscience award, its highest recognition for human rights work, previously given to the likes of Nelson Mandela, Ai Weiwei and Malala Yousafzai. ...
The New Zealand Taxpayers' Union , in partnership with the Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance , has today published this year's Ratepayers' Report – online local government league tables – at www.ratepayersreport.nz . ...
NZUS Council executive director Jordan Small welcomes the news New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will meet with US President Donald Trump in New York next week. ...
The recent NZIER report trivialises the significant role the dairy sector plays in New Zealand’s economy – and fails to look at the specifics of the Government’s freshwater package, according to DairyNZ. DairyNZ chief executive Dr Tim Mackle said ...
This week, the New Zealand Parliament and the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) will jointly host a seminar on tackling the global spread of illicit weapons. ...
Josie Adams, Hayden Donnell, and Alice Webb-Liddall read thousands of policy statements to find the climate change deniers, fudgers, prevaricators (and believers) running in our local elections.The Spinoff local election coverage is made possible thanks to The SpinoffMembers. For more about becoming a member and supporting The Spinoff’s journalism click here.One of the problems ...
The paintings of Colin McCahon convey dissonance and uncertainty, writes Shannon Te Ao. So what does this say about us? And why are we maintaining this Pākehā male narrative at the expense of more inclusive representation?Colin McCahon would have turned 100 on August the 1st. If you keep one eye ...
Amanda Thompson spends a day with the New Zealand men’s roller derby squad as they prepare for next year’s world champs in the US.Let’s play a word game. Let’s list some contact sports and the top teams in those codes.Say rugby. Are you thinking about the All Blacks yet? What ...
Covering Climate Now:Dietary Requirements is The Spinoff’s monthly podcast in which we eat, drink and talk about it too, with special thanks to Freedom Farms. This month, we go crazy for crickets in a climate week special.The Spinoff’s participation in Covering Climate Now is made possible thanks to Spinoff Members. ...
To mark International Day of Peace, Dr Rebecca Dudley of the New Zealand Red Cross explores the role that New Zealanders play in the global story of war and peace. Personal stories about war almost always begin with a memory.A humid afternoon in South Sudan.A calm Wednesday evening in Beirut.A bustling ...
The history of tattoo art in Japan is deep-rooted and complex – and so is the cultural aversion to tattooed bodies, explains Brian Ashcraft, the author of a book on subject.Tonight, when the All Blacks take the field, they’ll be covering up. In order not to run afoul of Japanese ...
Covering Climate Now: Saying climate change is important is one thing. So why are we so incapable of having a real conversation about what actually addressing it will mean? Sam McGlennon investigates. The Spinoff’s participation in Covering Climate Now is made possible thanks to Spinoff Members. Join us here!Up until a week ago, ...
Michael Mann, a climatologist and famous press critic, talks to the Columbia Journalism Review about the dangers of both understating and overstating the dangers of climate change. ...
"This is what Wellington boy said, after he finished his quick and bloody deed. You know what your problem is? Once a slut, always a slut": a short story by Auckland writer Eileen Merriman. ...
Ahead of the All Blacks first game Trevor McKewen makes some his fanciful, fraught and some hopefully on-point predictions for the Rugby World Cup.Can you take one for the team? Could you cope with the All Blacks coming up short in achieving an unprecedented third straight World Cup if it ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra [embedded content]University of Canberra Deputy Vice-Chancellor Leigh Sullivan discusses Scott Morrison’s new family law inquiry with Michelle Grattan. They also speak of the developments in the Tamil family from Biloela’s case, and the UN barring ...
Analysis - Jacinda Ardern heads for the UN as the sexual assault scandal rumbles on at home, and Simon Bridges says he isn't going to ease off his personal attacks on the PM. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dries Verstraete, Senior Lecturer in Aerospace Design and Propulsion, University of Sydney CC BY-NDClimate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.If you have a question you’d ...
In this episode of our new tarot reading show Wild Card, The Spinoff’s resident psychic divines the outcome of the All Blacks’ opening match against the Springboks on Saturday.In the first and potentially only episode of Wild Card, we have a focus on sport. The Spinoff’s psychic-in-residence, Jo Sees, specialises ...
Recently-retired Sky TV chief executive John Fellet talks to Newsroom business editor Nikki Mandow about baseball, media, goldfish, accountancy - and more baseball. ...
The Real Pod assembles to dissect the week in reality television and real life, with special thanks to Nando’s.With Duncan enjoying a MAFS-style beach holiday in Bali, Alex and Jane are left to cover another crazy week in reality television. Shannon Ryan has gone full beast-mode in Celebrity Treasure Island, Married ...
Dr Bryce Edwards“Diversity” is a central theme of the current local government elections – with the common criticism that incumbent politicians are generally too “stale, male, and pale” (or variations on that). Numerous commentators and candidates have lamented the lack of women, ethnic minorities, and youth in local government. ...
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.Today’s content by Dr Bryce Edwards.Climate change, environment Paul Gorman (Stuff): How would you spend an unlimited war chest for ...
A review into the Ministry for Culture and Heritage will look into the relationship between a staffer and the external developer responsible for a massive data breach. ...
Covering Climate Now: The Spinoff crew who took on climate change with a vegan diet for the week reflect on the highs, the lows, the pies and the fries. The Spinoff’s participation in Covering Climate Now is made possible thanks to Spinoff Members. Join us here!As I write, I’m tucking into ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Roger Crisp, Professorial Fellow, Dianoia Institute of Philosophy, Australian Catholic University As world chiefs and youth leaders gather in New York at the United Nations Climate Action Summit, many of us as individuals are feeling powerless and overwhelmed. Making big personal changes ...
The head of one of the country's biggest news media firms is the latest subject of criticism for darkening his face at a staff party he attended dressed as US basketballer Lamar Odom. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Coral Gartner, Associate Professor, School of Public Health, The University of Queensland Health authorities in the United States are investigating 530 cases of lung illness, including seven deaths, reportedly connected to vaping. Some of these patients have been diagnosed with lung inflammation ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 The Testaments by Margaret Atwood (Chatto & Windus, $48)Obvs. (Read our review by Pip Adam here)2 Three ...
When comedy documentary Funny As was made, a lot of interviews got left on the cutting room floor which NZ On Screen quickly picked up. Here are some of our favourites.We’re a pretty funny bunch us Kiwis. Trapped on a tiny island at the end of the earth it appears ...
Auckland rapper JessB has just released a new EP and wraps up a national mini-tour tonight in her home town. Jogai Bhatt talked to her about her world travels, performing at Ihumātao, and how her community and her music intersect.It’s only been two years since JessB entered the public radar ...
A new poem by Waiheke poet Rata Gordon.PacingA deep bow to NerudaIt so happens I am sick of being a woman. It happens that I walk into BP stations and supermarkets greasy, swollen, like a cow made of soap, losing my way in a field of placentas and pesticides.The smell ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amanda Gardiner, Lecturer, Edith Cowan University In August, a 24-year-old woman appeared before the Western Australian District Court after pleading guilty to concealing the birth of her newborn baby in 2018. The charge of concealment of birth refers to hiding the dead ...
Voting papers are being sent out today, and lots of people say they won’t fill them out because they don’t know anything about the candidates. Respected website ‘The Spinoff’ is trying to fix that through its Policy Local tool. But it’s not the only one. Catherine Jeffcoat talks to the ...
This week's biggest-selling New Zealand books, as recorded by the Nielsen BookScan New Zealand bestseller list and described by literary editor Steve Braunias ...
Writer and cannabis legalisation expert Russell Brown watched episode two of Patrick Gower on Weed, and found it highly entertaining but dangerously light on facts. Patrick Gower is good value when he’s high. In the second part of his documentary Patrick Gower on Weed, he does what you’d expect in a ...
Sydney shock-jock Alan Jones has written to Jacinda Ardern saying he didn't intend any violence towards her when he said on air that Australia's Prime Minister should "shove a sock down [her] throat". ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Caio Seguin, PhD candidate, University of Melbourne Brain regions exchange information by sending and receiving signals through a network of nerve connections. This exchange is crucial to all aspects of the brain’s functioning, including how we experience the world, form and retrieve ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Miranda Kaye, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law, University of Technology Sydney Over the next 12 months, a joint parliamentary committee will examine Australia’s family law system. It will be led by conservative Liberal MP Kevin Andrews and One Nation leader Pauline Hanson. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Barbara Allen, Senior Lecturer in Public Management, Victoria University of Wellington This story is part of Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of more than 250 news outlets to strengthen coverage of the climate story. For three years in a row, the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Moscova, Senior Lecturer in Anatomy, UNSW Women’s nipples have long been a source of fascination and controversy, from celebrity gossip stories of wardrobe malfunctions and “nip slips” to feminist movements for gender equality. Nipples even became a fashion accessory. Men’s nipples ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Holmes, Director, Climate Change Communication Research Hub, Monash University One of the great paradoxes of climate change communication in Australia is that politicians command the most attention on the issue, yet are among the least trusted sources of climate information. Research ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachael Sharman, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, University of the Sunshine Coast This story is part of Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of more than 250 news outlets to strengthen coverage of the climate story. Thousands of school students across Australia are ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin., Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Newstart recipients and other Australians on benefits get their half-yearly pay rise today (and also on March 20). This one is vanishingly small. Announced very quietly by Social Services Minister ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Warren Hogan, Industry Professor, University of Technology Sydney The budget was for practical purposes in neither deficit nor in surplus in 2018-19, the final figures released by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and Finance Minister Mathias Cormann on Thursday reveal. The underlying cash deficit ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Holden, Professor of Economics, UNSW This week NBN Co announced pricing changes for the National Broadband Network. It includes a new plan boasting a download speed of 1 gigabit per second and an upload speed of 50 megabits per second for ...
Covering Climate Now: Just how much of an impact would a shift to vegetarian diets have on the battle to halt climate change, asks Mirjam Guesgen.The Spinoff’s participation in Covering Climate Now is made possible thanks to Spinoff Members. Join us here!Kiwi cuisine is replete with meat: fish and chips, meat and ...
It's not a risk assessment, but it's a start: an instruction manual for the experts who'll be writing New Zealand's first national climate risk report for the government was released on Thursday. ...
The Wellington Mayor's main rival in the upcoming local elections, Andy Foster, won't say how much Sir Peter Jackson has stumped up in a bid to get him elected. ...
Open mike 26/04/2013 
. . Just when you thought Simon Bridges couldn’t sink any lower – he has. After the March 15th Christchurch terror attack, the (current) Leader of the National Party issued strong committments to support urgently needed gun law reform; “We will be ready and prepared to be constructive and to ...12 hours ago
We all know that bad parents simply don’t care about their children’s education. Most truants have loser parents, and grow up to be involved with crime, or in low paid employment usually like their parents. The nonsense so-called “climate strike” coming up will be attended mostly by the least intelligent ...22 hours ago
Today is the first day of the global climate strike. Led by schoolkids, people all around the world are going to protest to demand action on climate change. New Zealand isn't doing it till next Friday (join us!), but if you want to get active early, there's plenty to do ...1 day ago
To Protect and Serve: When the Prime Minister finds herself enmeshed in the coils of a full-blown political scandal, her colleagues and party comrades have only one priority: to release her as swiftly – and with as little lasting injury – as possible. Is this what Jacinda Ardern’s colleagues and ...1 day ago
When military leaders cover up and lie to elected civilian authorities, the foundation of democratic civil-military relations is undermined because it is those authorities who are entrusted to hold the military accountable to the public that they mutually serve. But this is only true if civilian political authorities take their ...1 day ago
by Daphna Whitmore The long years of Netanyahu’s reign are drawing to an end. For years he has epitomized reactionary zionism as he oversaw hundreds of thousands of Jewish settlers seize land in the West Bank. There are now 700,000 settlers, putting an end to the myth that Israel was ...1 day ago
BP, Z and Mobil all insist that petrol price hikes are temporary, “in a very literal sense.” The nation’s major petrol providers are trying to allay customer fears over prices, promising that they’ll move to lower them again “immediately” when the Middle East is returned to its formerly peaceful state. ...2 days ago
South African coach Rassie Erasmus says he has no idea what they’re going to do about the boat. In a highly anticipated press conference this afternoon, All Blacks coach Steve Hansen has finally unveiled the team’s boat for its Rugby World Cup 2019 campaign. In a press conference that went ...2 days ago
Get Back Jojo! The elation in Mayor Phil Goff’s camp may be easily imagined as they watched social media light up in indignation at challenger John Tamihere’s "Sieg Heil to that" quip. Just when JT’s notoriously right-wing, sexist and homophobic stains were beginning to fade back into his ‘colourful’ past, ...3 days ago
Patrick Gower is good value when he's high. Not that I've ever, you know, got stoned with him. But in the second part of his documentary Patrick Gower on Weed, he does what you'd expect in a modern weed documentary and immerses himself – first with a doctor, then a ...3 days ago
We surveyed candidates on their attitudes to issues facing the Western Bay Region, find out what they think: “Closing the Gap” Tauranga, one of the area groups of Income Equality Aotearoa NZ Inc., has surveyed all candidates in the three local body elections to discover attitudes to some basic issues ...3 days ago
Why is New Zealand climate change policy so crap? The Herald this morning has a long article on the twists and turns of climate change policy in New Zealand [paywalled / depaywall script], which shows where we've been. The short version is that the government first began worrying about this ...3 days ago
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http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/04/24-0
We need to do this here.
Bring your surfboards, bring your kayaks, bring your dinghies, bring your small yachts, bring your fishing boats and tinnies. Bring your life jackets and wet suits. Bring your signs banners and flags. Bring your courage and your joy.
New Zealand is a maritime nation, we need to take to the sea. We need to defy the anti-marine protest laws. We need to stop coal exports here and in Australia.
“Join the “Resistance”
John Key and the National Party are firmly in the corner of big oil and big coal.
Despite the terrible danger we are all in they will not lift a finger to stop it.
In fact they are doing the opposite, passing anti-democratic laws that make it easier for the climate wreckers to operate.
NASA scientist James, Hansen the world’s leading climate change expert, has determined that; “If we can’t stop coal. It is game over for the climate.”
We can play a role in stopping the immoral profiteering in coal that is killing our world.
Australia is the world’s biggest coal exporter in the world, and as such is a major contributor to climate change on a global scale. To save the planet the Australians must stop this trade.
New Zealand’s coal exports, are big. In fact most of the coal mined in this country is for the export trade. But in comparison with Australia, our trade in coal is dwarfed. The significance of our coal trade, is that Australia will never stop exporting coal, unless New Zealand has done it first.
It is up to us.
Our history shows that of all countries, we are most up to the task.
For the safe future of our world, for our children, and for our children’s children’s sake…..
We must act!
If the spirit of ANZAC is still worth something. We must!
The halting of all coal exports from this country will be a huge and unmissable moral lead for our closest international neighbour and long time friend and ally, Australia. As an example of the sacrifice that must be demanded of them too. That is, If we are to preserve the global climate, fit to hand onto to our children.
Sacrifice, Mateship, Fighting to make the world fit for future generations. This is what the ANZACs fought for, for us. Can we do any less?
What a load of hysterical shit.
You moron. Just because you don’t care about anything or know about anything, how dare you use such language about people who do?
If you have nothing constructive to say, wouldn’t it be better to say nothing?
Jenny is inspired by the actions of the climate activists off Australia and wants to share that with us, while encouraging us to be active in our defence of the climate too.
Rather than insulting people, why don’t you make your own suggestions for how we can improve the world?
Or are your contributions to this site merely intended to be destructive?
Jenny is a complete flake.
She wants people to get up and rally against what provides us with the current lifestyle we enjoy today.
Without oil and coal the worlds economy collapses, unless you’re a complete masochist who the hell wants that.
It should be about managing these resources and trying to minimize the impacts not banning them.
Until something else comes along it’s coal and oil for the foreseeable future, except that.
Yeah that’s right, we can just forget about that pesky thing called extreme climate change eh?
Funnily enough, although I might disagree with Jenny on stuff, I actually get the impression that she behaves in a genuine and earnest manner, with little or no dissembling or misdirection.
BM?
Not so much…
If it happens it happens.
We’ll deal with it then, if it starts to become an issue.
How would you have “minimized” the impact of the Gulf oil spill?
From what I’ve read nature cleaned up he spill pretty well.
The research done on it came to the conclusion that it would have been better just to let nature clean up the area and that the efforts made to control the spill actually hindered the process not helped.
yeah mate, and calling any policy that’s left of centre: communism by stealth, polish shipyard stuff, north korea and so on is just totally non hysterical and well reasoned.
You cretin BM! If you want the sound of hysterical shit. Then go to the Beehive there’s heaps of it from the National Party over the Labour/Greens Power profits redistribution from the greedies to the needies.
You do know that “profit redistribution” is what Mugabe called it at the beginning.
What a clever comment. Not.
Some people just come onto this site to disrupt intelligent discussion.
Aren’t there right wing sites for them to carp on and on about their pet topics?
How was this conversation intelligent? One sided and hysterical maybe but that doesn’t automatically qualify it as intelligent.
What are you talking about, fool? You’ve repeatedly claimed that the conversation was “one-sided and hysterical” but you evidently lack the wherewithal to provide any evidence to back up your assertion.
You are a waste of space.
Why are you here?
My Bad. I should have said, If you want the sound hysterical shit, just wait, and the Trolls will provide.
Edit: How come I am in Moderation? Or is more about what I said?
[r0b: I think the keyword troll causes moderation]
It’s also what the partners at JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs do.
What’s your point?
Please tell us more about Mugabe. Are you a whenwe? Were you allowed to shoot blacks in Rhodesia, or did you have to cross into Mozambique?
Wow, just wow. That’s vile. But you’ll be pleased to know that Mugabe ran out of colonials to “liberate” land from quite some time ago and now is reduced to inflicting misery on and stealing from black Zimbabweans. He’s an equal opportunity kleptocrat.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Zimbabwe
A provocation for you:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/05/what-if-we-never-run-out-of-oil/309294/
I can imagine better collective global effort about climate change if petrol costs more. But not if there’s an easier transition to other forms of oil than has been envisaged.
Insurance companies have a market interest to keep disasters (and so pay outs down). Or do they?
As we have found, market churn means fees. Why would any industry cut its growth, and so its immediate share price since its based on its future potential?
So to answer your question, should carbon energy never run out, the market would never deal with the consequences until its too late (look at any polluted industrial areas for how little and too late the market is).
Second, carbon energy is stored sunlight over millions of years, there will always become a point where the ‘new’ sources run out like oil has, and so the old adage of never say never must be employed.
Jenny’s point that governments really do respond to the force of crowds – as per the ANZAC/Lange protests – is understood. I still love Canetti’s Crowds and Power.
My point is less about the supply of oil and more a pessimism that without the force of price and spectacular scarcity that effective global movements would be hard to generate. I can see it at a neighbourhood scale, even at a City scale, because in different ways I have done it. So to be clear I support the effort. But if even the entire EU can’t sustain a carbon market, it’s hard to see governments successfully contesting the market about climate change generally.
the Canetti is a timeless reference.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/7513890/Helen-Clark-urges-action-on-environment
Helen Clark called for a groundswell from below to force government’s and political parties to act on climate change.
If you are concerned about climate change you must ask ourself this question:
I am I happy to just protest against climate change, or do I want to stop climate change?
If your answer is, I want to stop climate change.
You should listen to Helen Clark.
Helen Clark knows the mechanics of how to stop climate change.
She should.
As a senior Labour Party MP during the Muldoon and Lange years. Helen Clark was an eye witness on the inside into how a mass movement can change governments and influence political parties and parliaments.
From her vantage point inside the parliamentary Labour Party Helen Clark saw that; No matter whether they were National Party government MPs, or Labour Party opposition MPs. The mass public campaign that blockaded our Nation’s harbour’s against nuclear ships, put every politician on notice.
This became especially true when the issue came up for a vote in the house when Richard Prebble’s (of all people) private member’s bill to ban nuclear warship visits was drawn from ballot.
Due to the huge pressure from below, two National MPs, Mike Minogue and Marilyn Waring, were moved to cross the floor and vote with the opposition.
If Richard Prebble’s private members bill had been put to the vote, New Zealand would have become Nuclear Free in 1984.
To prevent the vote, the Prime Minister, Robert Muldoon closed parliament down, called a snap election.
Everyone knew, including Muldoon, that his National Party had no chance of continuing in government with the issue of nuclear ship visits unresolved. Conservative pundits including Muldoon, hoped that under the pressure of what has cynically been called “pragmatism” or “Real Politic” (Which is all the secret, and not so secret conservative pressures that influences governments and parliamentary parties), that a new Labour administration would, on gaining office, be able to back-track on the issue in a way that the unpopular Muldoon could not. Which as predictably the new Labour government did. To break the ban David Lange himself, tried to bring in the nuclear armed warship the USS Buchanon into New Zealand waters.
However a high level meeting in his Beehive office held with the, (then), unofficial head of the anti-nuclear movement, Nicky Hagar, convinced Lange that if the Buchanon was brought into any New Zealand harbour that the protests against his government would dwarf anything that had gone down against the Muldoon administration.
Although the USS Buchanon was already on route to New Zealand and was more than half way here. Facing up to the inevitable disgrace that threatened to befall him, and his government if he allowed the Buchanon to dock. Lange had to call up Washington and ordered the Americans to turn their ship around.
The next day in an interview that was published in the the Listener, Lange was reported to have said that the peace movement was his most “feared lobby”.
After the debacle of the Buchanon defeat, the Lange administration still continued to drag the chain as much as they could.
Whereas, the Muldoon administration in 1984, could not have held the line for even one more day, putting off the vote to make New Zealand “Nuclear Weapons Free”. The Lange administration was able to hold the line until the dying months of 1987. And was only finally forced by the approaching deadline of an upcoming general election to put the long promised legislation. Lange feared that if the universally unpopular and controversial Rogernomic policies of his government was followed by a reversal on the “Nuclear Weapons Free” legislation, then the Labour Party if not being turfed out of office completely, would at the very least taken a very serious hit in voter support. (Not to mention the personal odium that would have been attached to his name forever.)
As it turned out. Despite the harsh economic policies forced on the New Zealand people by the Lange/Douglas administration, surfing the wave of the wildly popular support for the New Zealand’s newly minted “Nuclear Free” status – the 1987 election results saw David Lange’s Labour Party triumphantly returned as the government in a massive victory landslide of voter support.
Jenny I respect your passion, just to be clear on that.
Few things though.
1: Climate change can’t be stopped
2: Helen Clark is NOT to be listened to – Getting the to the #3 spot at the UN, means she delivered what was wanted by those who control the UN, hence her position there now. That would imply, she delivered what was requested, during her 9 years in as PM. Question, is, what was it that she did which earned her that position…
3: Helen Clark knows the mechanics of political corruption – She knows NOTHING about about how to stop climate change, however she might well know the planned role for the UN as defacto global government, which will fit perfectly with her own ideological beliefs!
4: You’re still focusing on too narrow a set of parameters, you should widen too include geo-engineering. Just like GM foods, which will have environmental consequences and people are happy to have that discussion, so should it be true of geo-engineering….
In case you missed my link yesterday
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/mar/31/earth-cooling-schemes-global-signoff
Just echoing what muzza said. Climate change is a lot more complicated than the solitary effect of increasing CO2 emissions, the green movement was hijacked a long time ago.
…not continuing to pump ancient carbon stores into the atmosphere; like the pain in your thumb is a lot more complicated than not hitting it with the bloody hammer any more.
CC is a very, very simple thing. The effects are not. Reversing that which has already been done is not. Avoiding unforeseeable consequences is not. But still…at root, climate change and the action required to stop contributing to it is devastatingly simple and uncomplicated.
Is there any evidence that the USS Buchanan was nuclear armed? The way I remember things, it quite obviously wouldn’t have been, with the problem being that the yanks refused to confirm this.
Also, I’d say it was a pity that Helen Clark didn’t let the groundswell against Rogernomics sway her from it.
Indeed, the Buchanon had been intentionally chosen so that David Lange would have the political cover of “plausible deniability” that it was carrying any nuclear weapons.
However this was not enough for the powerful New Zealand anti-nuclear movement. (Though Audrey Young doesn’t credit him, in particular, anti-nuclear activist Nicky Hagar who met with Lange in his Beehive office in the lead up to the Buchanon visit).
Sources:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10879810
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10879996
So basically a no then? As I remember from the time, the issue was that American ships would be allowed in if the yanks confirmed they had no nuclear weapons on board. They were not prepared to deviate from their neither confirm nor deny policy.
My position on this is that not letting it in was the right thing to do. I don’t even want windsurfers from nuclear navies in our waters. I don’t want a GI Joe toy from a country that tortures people in our shops.
One good thing about Tory governments – they provide many opportunities for healthy outdoor exercise and catching up with old friends. See you all on the march tomorrow!
haha!
I see America is beating the war drums over Syria again, claiming that the Syrian government is using sarin against rebels. Now where did we hear stories of weapons of mass destruction before…?
And surprise, surprise..there appears to be no serious questioning of the claims by the corporate media.
Good luck Американцыs.
http://www.majalla.com/eng/2013/01/article55237794
Its rather like after 911, there was an, anthrax *attack*, then after Boston, a repeat using another sunstance, but almost identical story line…
Its the same script writers, that should be plainly obvious, to all but the weakest of minds!
Mr Hagel said “our intelligence community does assess, with varying degrees of confidence, that the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons on a small scale in Syria, specifically, the chemical agent sarin”.
“It violates every convention of warfare,”
“Its the same script writers, that should be plainly obvious, to all but the weakest of minds!”
So when the proof comes with footage of innocent children, women, old men and women, faces disfigured and contorted by fear and pain, what page of the wank manual will your weak mind get it’s next throw away nugget from?
Does Mr Hagel have a history of providing relevant intelligence information?
Sibel Edmonds: “I provided three possible US objectives associated with the Boston Terror incident. I emphasized the first possible scenario as the most likely: Removing Russia as the obstacle in invading Syria.”
http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2013/04/25/boston-terror-update-2-april-25-the-syria-objective-is-nearly-accomplished/
Russian Economy
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/04/26/uk-russia-detentions-idUKBRE93P15320130426
Russia detains 140 in sweep at Muslim prayer room
Yup!
If only I did have a weak mind TA – Sadly you are very much mistaking me for someone else, or more likely you are projecting!
When you say *proof*, what is it exactly that twists your emotive sub-set, when it comes to *proof*, and are you prepared to accept the worlds most war mongered (USA) nation, as the holders/providers of said, *proof*.
Who will be selling those pictures, of contorted faces, or more accurately, who will have manufactured them..
I suggest you read about some of the historical *gotcha* moments around the Lybian escapades, of the likes of the BBC/CNN/FOX news et al!
I’m sure, with so many vigilants like yourself on their case, the us will never make the same mistake twice, but you, in not even considering the reports may actually be true, and innocents are being gassed, prejudice most, if not all of your personal warmongery against the americans as pure fucktardery.
You’re dismissed, nut wank.
What is with the insults, sheesh!
I consider them alright, I consider as many angles as I have time to absorb, and then I look at the players, their history and the motives.
Nah the Anglo-French administrations will continue to ensure, through their agendas, that many more innocent people continue to die, every minute of every day..
With the support of those who share your , limited view of the ME situation!
You mean well, but you’re playing down the wrong line.
Please go and do some further reading, the Syrian situation, same as Libya, is manufactured by the US/UK/France primarily, or more accurately, those who pull the strings of those administraive entities!
“I consider them alright,”
Yeah, it’s all over your *work*
“You mean well, but you’re playing down the wrong line.”
Offside. I always wait til the team sheet is released before I slag off the opposing players, anything else would be stupid and leave me open to ridicule, which I wouldn’t like.
“Please go and do some further reading”
You need to chose the right battles, Rambo.
By throwing mud at everything, you make it an easy decision to walk on the other footpath of life.
And a bit patronising, especially considering only one of us has jumped to a conclusion without knowing any fact other than same day news reports.
That’s basic, that’s clare curran like stuff. :tut tut: 😉
Quality control is slipping, M.
Patronizing – Is that how you read my response to your insults, TA,
Well done lad!
Seen the footage of chemical victims, yet?
Got a ‘put on job’ or ‘set up’ reply waiting in the wings?
Shame on you for so easily dismissing human suffering to score a point against the ‘enemy’.
Are you deliberately obtuse, or is that you are not paying attention!
Ill try make this as simple as possible, one final time:
You’re aiming your ill-informed opinions, at the wrong person matey, I’d suggest you speak to the people in Langley Virginia, and Washington DC, aim your vitriol in that direction , as a start!
“Are you deliberately obtuse, or is that you are not paying attention!”
It would appear neither, seeing as I’ve correctly called you for being a plank.
“You’re aiming your ill-informed opinions,”
I seriously dispute ill informed, and as stated, nothing wrong with my aim.
“I’d suggest you speak to the people in Langley Virginia, and Washington DC, aim your vitriol in that direction , as a start!”
Why? Because you dismiss rightful condemnation over the use of chemical weapons in Syria as a plot for world domination.
Don’t be a dick head.
Anyway, I gave you the benefit of the doubt, ’cause you’re a ‘name’ here, but I really shouldn’t have.
Keep your right of reply for the secret dossiers, comrade. 😉
Well muzza, it does seem plainly obvious to your mind. Hmmmm.
Perhaps thats because I have spent more time in those parts of the world Murray, and speaking with people who are working/from ME countries, and to people who have served in the actions/wars in that region!
Thats before I even do my own reading etc!
Hows the geo-engineering research coming along?
What geo-engineering research? Go and look on youtube, I wouldn’t have a clue.
Cui bono?
http://revoltoftheplebs.wordpress.com/2013/04/25/by-deception-thou-shalt-do-boston/
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/tories-use-boston-bombing-to-speed-up-vote-on-counter-terrorism-bill/article11464897/
Yup, off to the camps you go! – Never let a manufactured terror event go to waste!
Honestly this reads like something that would be on The Onion or The Civilian:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/8599493/Susan-Devoy-makes-train-crash-speech
!??!! Fuck that is funny. Love the quote from Sir Peter Leitch, “policially driven”. Halarious.
I’m telling you the way to bring this country to a stand still isn’t to attack policitally, or with arms…just wipe out all the stadiums and sports broadcasts and we would submit to anything to have them back.
Peter Leitch is a halfwit, with no discernible talent.
No discernable talent? He built a business empire from a humble base, and has put time, effort and heaps of financial support into league and other sports and charities. I may not like his current sucking up to Key etc. but I’d never be so foolish as to deny his obvious abilities.
No discernable [sic] talent?
I have to admit he does a good comic impression of a beer-sodden boor.
He built a business empire from a humble base, and has put time, effort and heaps of financial support into league and other sports and charities. I may not like his current sucking up to Key etc. but I’d never be so foolish as to deny his obvious abilities.
His “obvious abilities”? He has none, other than crude self-publicity.
“You just can’t beat the Mad Butchers meat”
Having worked in advertising for a number of years, I am pretty sure some creative came up with that line as a laugh, but bugger me, he went with it.
I always tell my boyfriend after that ad has been on: “the Mad Butcher won’t let you beat his meat”.
Have to agree with Voice here Mozza – PL, while not everyones cup of tea, has done much with the fund raising, and charity work, resulting not only from his empire built on rotten meat products, but also because he loved Rugby League, and appreciated that it was a *working class game*
While not a fan of PL at all, I think in this instance your evaluation might be a little out of alignment.
You’re both right—he DOES know how to make a dollar.
I think of the Mad Butcher as the guy who brought Warehouse/Walmart approaches to meat. He wiped out a lot of small butchers and replaced them with high turn over service centres selling crap meat. He identified the League community as one which would be exceedingly loyal, and had enough income to buy his sausages. He is a successful businessman whose major success was passing himself off as a working class battler, which possibly explains why he can so easily be mates with Key. In terms of successful capitalism, he has talent and can see opportunities, but I always preferred the personal touch of a neighbourhood butcher.
How nice. I assume you can afford to pay the prices of a neighbourhood butcher as well. I know I can’t.
Anyone who, just weeks into their new job, regards it as “same shit, different day” and doesn’t like their staff has made a serious error taking the job and will probably ditch it soon for something else.
+1 Indeed. I agree and I think this must be deliberate because it not as if she doesn’t know people are watching what she says.
Agree Marty, it must be deliberate, question is, why…so openly, brazenly!
There’s always the possibility of tory conceit, but it might also be that she slipped into “celebrity speaker” mode (rather than “government representative”) at a dinner that possibly cost a couple of hundred dollars a head (they raised $46k). And that’s without the fine dinner+vino factor (which is doubtful, given that it was unlikely to be her first keynote speaker role).
But either way, it shows that she isn’t enthusiastic about the bauble thrown her way, and she doesn’t have the right qualities for the job.
The office will be fun on Monday when she gets to work. This seige mentality of devoys was her typical squash tactic – she admitted that she worked with the british/uk/whatever the fuck it’s called media against her. This tactic is boorish when used with important and demanding work like trying to make race relations better in this country.
I think she’d only ditch it if she was offered something that paid more. She’ll find it in herself to put up with her staff because she’ll have Tory racists and Ansell/Brash one nation types fawning all over her. Key will come out soon and try to paint anyone attacking her as a woman hater, just like Lange did with the unions at Kawerau. She’s doing exactly what she was appointed to do.
Susan Devoy on The Vote; (just to recap the most telling statement):
“…PEOPLE SHOULD FEEL ASHAMED THAT THEY BELIEVE WE ARE A RACIST COUNTRY!”
(SORRY, caps got stuck on).
if ya missed it, there is a summary on y’days OM.
Can anyone tell me what the significance is of the other white flower next to the poppy at the top of the page?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_poppy_(symbol)
Reminds me – time to change the header back
On this site, it was suggested by rocky in about 2009 that if I was going to put up the anzac poppy each year, that I should also add the white poppy as well. So we did.
Ahh, thankyou. I googled “white daisy”.
Notice that Judith Collins considers it disrespectful (apparently sending our people to die at war is a better idea than attempting peace). All the more reason to use it as often as possible.
Judith Collins really is that kind of armchair general cum politician that any soldier hates. They’re the idiots who get us killed for their vanity, and yet never do anything substantive to prevent the problems. Irresponsible producers of hot-air and bombast – useless on the actual action.
It is no wonder that Cameron Slater identifies with her.
Judith Collins really is that kind of armchair general cum politician that any soldier hates.
Judith “Rosa Klebb” Collins has been voted “Most Likely To Be Accidentally Shot By Own Troops” if she ever finds herself commanding a platoon in South Vietnam.
So, in the context of WW2 say, you would be advocating to attempt piece with Hitler? I believe Anthony Eden tried that and it didn’t work out so well. Sometimes there is no alternative and no amount of hand-wringing will change that. You can’t reason with psychotic imperialists – corporate or state.
So, in the context of WW2 say, you would be advocating to attempt piece [sic] with Hitler? I believe Anthony Eden tried that and it didn’t work out so well.
Did you mean to write Neville Chamberlain? I think you did.
Sometimes there is no alternative…
There is certainly an alternative in this case.
…and no amount of hand-wringing will change that.
How typical, and predictable, that you should seek to demean principled objection to state violence as “hand-wringing”.
You can’t reason with psychotic imperialists – corporate or state.
Indeed. The people of Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Occupied West Bank, and the besieged enclave of Gaza know that only too well.
Yes, I make deliberate spelling mistakes just to set you off, and yes, you are right, Chamberlain, not Eden – a brain hiccough which I apologise for.
“Principled” objection to state violence only ever seems to be possible in societies protected by the possibility of state violence – how strange. Pehraps less hand-wringing than hand washing. And while I have never supported the invasion of Iraq and unilateral US actions in Pakistan and Afghanistan. I do happen to believe Al Qaida is a threat to otherwise innocent people and must be broken – though of course I would prefer it if the US could find more creative means that don’t involve harm to innocent women and children. Curiously, one wonders at your lack of “principled objection to state [or its equivalent] violence” when Hamas fires off one of its squibs into Israel in deliberate provocation of a massive retaliation and loss of innocent life in Gaza?
There you go again, seriously trying to suggest that Hamas is the problem, and absolving the aggressor. You admit that the rockets that come out of the imprisoned enclave are little more than squibs, and you recognize that the devastation wrought by Israel is massive, but you carefully and dishonestly portray this aggression as “retaliation”.
To portray Hamas as the aggressor and Israel as the retaliator is the exact inversion of the truth. I don’t know if it’s massive ignorance on your part or brutal, heartless dishonesty. Whatever the case, you will be called on it whenever you attempt it.
Mozza – Pop is a US, and by default, Israeli sympathizer, who knows that Arabs are the problem! His bias is no naked, and his position so wrong, he can’t wrap his head around even the most simple *terror frauds*
POP
Um, yeah, ok then Pop…..
wow
Bigot much?
“By default” my arse.
Again McFlock, you have shown a complete lack of ability to understand when to use the B word!
Pop has played his cards openly many times!
You’re still having memory issues by the sounds of bro, you need to exercise that skull a bit more!
Ill leave your piss poor, over eager use of the B word, for you to ponder, appropriate use!
Shalom!
Edit – Helpful hint, don’t even contemplate coming back with what your instinct will encourage you to, just take the helpful advice, and leave it at that!
actually, rereading that one it seems to meant to say something along the lines of “Pop is a US sympathizer, and therefore by default an Israeli sympathizer” rather than “Pop is a US, [i.e. short for “yank”] and by default [because he is a yank], Israeli sympathizer”.
So yeah, I clocked off early on that one. Fair call. But at least I can answer a simple question.
What, pray, is a “US”? I’m a fifth generation New Zealander, and you couldn’t be further wrong. I am disgusted by Israel’s attacks on the Palestinian people and the illegal colonisation of their land, and the Muslim world has been very hard one by in this “war on terror”, but that doesn’t really change the fact that there is a militant Muslim minority who do carry out organised terror attacks quite successfully. Pretending it’s a conspiracy won’t make it go away – it certainly won’t bring back the victims, you dick.
Yeah, if you use the language of those in the military, financial and political position of power. Nice.
Thats nice Pop.
It goes against written bias, of a pro US nature, but perhaps thats just down to writing syle…
You were going along quite well until the 5th and 6th lines, where you managed to throw in the *conspiracy* word, and an insult!
Pretending there is not a conspiracy, won’t get those
*militant mulsims*neocon/zionists, to go away!It is the symptom of a particularly simple mind that can only think in binary. It’s quite clear there’s blame on both sides.
Um, no, you delusional, tiny-minded cretin, I am noting that if Hamas didn’t conveniently provide Israel with a slight excuse to carry on with what amounts to a war of extermination, the US wouldn’t have much of a fig leaf to hide behind, and the left wing of the Knesset might be able to get some traction over the insanity. Jeez, what is wrong with you people?
Yeah Hamas is going to carry out a war of extermination using, what exactly? AK47’s? WWII era Katyusha rockets? IEDs made in garages? RPGs?
Shall we examine what the IDF uses to compete with these Hamas ‘weapons of extermination’?
– Abrams main battle tanks
– F15’s and F16’s
– Apache attack helicopters
– Modern guided munitions, including bunker buster munitions
– Arsenal of nuclear warheads held outside the NPT.
– etc
Sorry mate when you create a ghetto you can expect people to fight back; what is your expectation: that they should roll over and play nice in the hope that they will get better treatment?
The Israelis have their own design of main battle tank – Merkava.
I’m sorry, can you actually read? Or is your confirmation bias on too tight.
“provide Israel with a slight excuse to carry on with what amounts to a war of extermination” Israel, dick, Israel, not Palestine – Hamas does, however, provide just enough of an excuse for Likkud and a whole Zionist lobby in the US to get on with it. FFS!
Is throwing rocks at military police sufficient justification for a hellfire missile strike on an apartment block. How about hand gun fire at military personnel?
to Populuxe – Is this before or after the water wells where taken and Palestinians left to literally die without a bullet being spent? Or when their land is being “taken” – just like that and there was no agreement on that – ever. Yes, 2 wrongs do not make 1 right.
P1 views the Palestinians and the Israelis as near equals in this ongoing conflict. And if only the Palestinians would start behaving, things would be much better for them. That says all it needs to.
No, I’m saying that we should value our soldiers lives over political ego. They are precious and should only be used as a last resort. We have lost several in the last year and it’s a time of peace.
It’s an international world and we exist in a variety of groups and have various obligations as a good international citizen, but I’ll save my breath.
Hi Populuxe1,
Appeasement of Hitler was not, as is popularly portrayed, a kind of early incarnation of ‘peacenikery’. The elites of Europe no doubt supported Hitler’s reformation of the German economy, especially the re-privatisation of the banking sector and the privatisation of many publicly owned assets, including the railways, the biggest public sector operation in the world.
As this paper outlines, the privatisation pursued by the Nazis went against the trend of western governments of the time who, in response to the depression, had tended to (have to) nationalise firms and even industries – it was the big bail out, as followed today.
Remember that the German republic was, under Bismarck, one of the most advanced state apparatuses in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The public sector was large. The Nazi privatisation represented windfalls for selected crony capitalists (as well as franchised arms of the Nazi Party). The term ‘reprivatisation’ used post-WWII was, in fact, adopted from 1930s Germany.
From the link above:
“The Nazi government may have used privatization as a tool to improve its relationship with big industrialists and to increase support among this group for its policies. Privatization was also likely used to foster more widespread political support [i.e., financial backing] for the party. Finally, financial motivations played a central role in Nazi privatization. The proceeds from privatization in 1934-37 had relevant fiscal significance: No less than 1.37 per cent of total fiscal revenues were obtained from selling shares in public firms. Moreover, the government avoided including a huge expenditure in the budget by using outside-of-the-budget tools to finance the public services franchised to Nazi organizations.
Nazi economic policy in the mid-thirties went against the mainstream in several dimensions. The huge increase in public expenditure programs was unique, as was the increase in the armament programs, and together they heavily constrained the budget. Exceptional policies were put in place to finance this exceptional expenditure, and privatization was just one among them. Nazi Germany privatized systematically, and was the only country to do so at the time. This drove Nazi policy against the mainstream, which flowed against privatization of state ownership or public services until the last quarter of the twentieth century.”
It’s worth remembering that the ‘appeasers’ were, generally, very wealthy men – leading Tories (including Eden who was an appeaser, despite his resignation over how to respond to Mussolini breaching an agreement) with international business and financial interests and connections. It’s also worth remembering that the greater threat was always considered to be the Soviet Union – and the UK elite knew that Hitler was keen to invade Russia.
I’m sure that was a great consolation to Germany’s Jewish industrialists- oh wait, no, they were on to the nazi’s fairly early on for good reasons. How about the wealthy and influential Czech and Polish industrialists… Oh, no, wait…. I think more than a few French businessmen were probably inconvenienced too…
No it was the Anglo Saxon Elite that saw the advantage whereas the socialist left in France and elsewhere expected the political scenery to change to their advantage. In the end, it all came down to money. Europe at the time has lost its royal houses through revolts and civil was followed as a void needed to be filled. The general population was to a certain extend naive. But one should not forget that there wasn’t the media as it is today and the radio was easily controlled.
Found this article from early April. Includes commentary from the man-of-the-moment, Energy economist Geoff Bertram:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/8518742/Tracing-the-history-of-Tiwai-Pt
From the article…
To put it in perspective, Manapouri produces enough power to supply about 630,000 houses each year. It could run five Large Hadron Colliders. It could run two times Google’s data storage network.
Bertram says power companies have been gouging the consumer for too long. With a simple write down of their assets Tiwai could give all New Zealanders 300kW hours free, each month, for ever. At current average power prices that’s about $80 a month off your power bill, permanently.
$80 a month. Just from Manapouri hydro. Kinda puts the Labour/Greens $300 saving per year in perspective.
If you add this potential saving to the potential saving associated with writing down the asset values of the other generators what would the cents per kWh price be?
I’d love to see an article from Geoff Bertram which states what the price of electricity should be.
posted this the other day, it has lots of really interesting reading
http://www.geoffbertram.com/publications/
Thanks!
from the ‘that was money well spent’ file
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/8599819/Grosers-WTO-bid-hits-the-rocks
So he spent a quarter mil on travel, ok, he no doubt has a great collection of pens and plenty of spare headphones. It would be a lot more interesting though and certainly more revealing to see what his total expenses were, especially regarding the gravy train dinners, lunches, lunches that become dinners etc. I imagine the wine bill alone is mighty impressive. I also expect sundries will not be itemized.
Yes, but you can say the same about just about any New Zealand politician, regardless of party. That sort of point scoring is ultimately not a game worth playing.
Not really, there is a distinct culture of entiltlement amongst ‘the deal makers’ that only gets worse the closer to trade deals that you get. Every country (and every wannabe) do their damndest to show it is the richest flashiest most succesful etc. Much like any bunch of friday night fools showing off in the newest downtown bar. In my humble opinion, the taxpayer much like the cleaner the next day, is thoroughly sick of it.
imagine if this was promised by a party:
No more parliamentary pensions/benefits/discounts etc. Do your time in service. You get well paid, then that is it.
The trough is closed. There’s a (?) 20-30 million a year saved just like that.
*cough cough* Helen Clark, Mike Moore etc. *cough*
A few facts. Germany was locked out of global colonial ambitions. WWI. Germany is a patchwork of protestant and catholicism (and pre-WWII jews). So the WWII was not about Christianity, since Christians were on both sides, if anything there were more non-Christians on the allies side in both great wars. As France and Britain brought in non-European armies from their colonies. Independence of these colonies was won in part because of those who had given up their lives in those wars. Also Israel existence is a form of restitution, etc.
So when Moro’s guest said we remember them, God and Country, etc, that every creed, faith, etc was a afterthought, a modernism. I can’t help be struck how much has been forgotten.
Our forefathers did not go to the world wars for Christianity.
As far as Zionism is concerned, the founder of Zionism and apostate, Theodor Herzl, sought to intensify hatred of the Jew in order to enhance the cause of political Zionism. Here are some of his “pearls:
“It is essential that the sufferings of Jews. . . become worse. . . this will assist in realization of our plans. . .I have an excellent idea. . . I shall induce anti-semites to liquidate Jewish wealth. . . The anti-semites will assist us thereby in that they will strengthen the persecution and oppression of Jews. The anti-semites shall be our best friends. (From his Diary, Part I, pp. 16)
Source: Jews Against Zionism
And it actually worked – some of the most ardent German Zionists were in the SS.
yep, well initially anyway.
Theft can never be restitution.
Tell that to Karl Marx.
So what were Marx’s views on Israel, pray tell?
Karl Marx never suggested theft. expropriation
I think you’ll find the first definition correct. It is repossession of that which was stolen in the first place.
You say po-tay-to, I say take your mendacious little word games and go fuck yourself. Shifting the goal posts around doesn’t change what it is. “Expropriation”, as opposed to paying tax, is theft. Lenin’s “expropriation” wasn’t very different from Hitler’s “expropriation” from the Jews.
Or Gerry’s threatened expropriation of landowners’ property in Christchurch?
One of the saddest things about modern economies is that they are built upon private property.We all wish to defend our, generally, minuscule amounts of private property, thus allowing those with massive amounts to dominate our world. We accept the sacrifice of our freedom (i.e., the relative influence of our voice in collective decision making) to protect very little that is our ‘own’, in most cases. Not a wise – or rational – trade-off.
Populuxe1, is the accumulation of property (via legal means) never theft in liberal democracies? (I’m assuming that we agree that legality is not the arbiter of whether or not something is ‘theft’ – theft is the acquisition of something that does not rightfully belong to you; a judgment that depends upon moral and ethical principles, not the current state of the law.).
On Lenin’s expropriations – the economic system of the Tsar (Nicholas II) in Russia was mainly feudal (though industrialisation had flourished under his father, Alexander III). Was the property accumulated by the Russian aristocracy legitimately obtained? Remember, the Tsar was an absolute/divine monarch and tens of millions of serfs lived and died under harsh conditions for generations prior to the 1917 revolutions (and the one in 1905).
Similarly, were the holdings of the British Crown in the American Colonies legitimate, given that they were quite decisively expropriated by the Colonial elite? (Should today’s Americans be paying compensation to the British Crown?)
Again, was Maori land in New Zealand expropriated (i.e., in your eyes, stolen)?
And what happened to the Jews in the 1930s in Germany was not ‘expropriation’ – it was ethnic cleansing and brutal terrorising and oppression. Get your terms right. Property had very little to do with it. That was a ‘bonus’.
Dismount your high horse. It’s just a broomstick with a pretend horse’s head on top.
History is not something to huff and puff about, especially over ‘theft’. It’s about power – who has it and who doesn’t. Those with the power get the property. Those without power and property seek to gain it.
And those with the power always get to decide what is and isn’t theft.
Just as they decide which version of history gets published.
A few facts….
Your incoherent rambling is utterly unconvincing. Perhaps the stupidest sentence is your extraordinary claim that Israel’s existence is a “form of restitution, etc.”
I’m not going to ask you to explain—you are clearly not up to it.
For God’s sake, do some serious reading.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/8599493/Susan-Devoy-makes-train-crash-speech
The position of RRC pays over 200k a year, or has Devoy refused the salary?
I cannot find anything saying she has, so is this article just another type and print, forget the fact-check, straight to market lie?
also imagine The mad butcher’s definition of lewd is pretty colourful and likely very different from say, Colin Craig’s 🙂
oops, need a rewind button today
thought i posted the above in reply to lanth 😕
Policy on the Hoof? And envy of colleagues’ exposure?
Grant Robertson is trying to limit the Party’s Policy Options and put down his colleagues.
Shearer and Parker were leading the NZPower story. But Robertson has to put his oar in! Wow has the boy an inferiority complex!
“Labour makes no apology for stepping in to fix problems in the electricity sector. But this is not a signal that Labour is going to intervene elsewhere in the economy.
“As we said on the day we launched NZ Power, we have no plans to intervene in any other markets.”
WTF? We have just seen the consensus around the Neo-Liberal hegemony of the past thirty years finally get dented: and Grant Robertson is trying to stop it!
Robertson will lead Labour to the same position it is in Wellington Central. Third position behind National and the Greens!
“I’ll just bring in my expert witness here: Ron Mark”
The Vote: Is New Zealand a Racist Country?
TV3, Wednesday 24 April 2013, 8:30 p.m.
After watching the superb Annie Goldson documentary about NZ in Afghanistan, my big night of television continued with this horror show. I watched this insult to the intelligence, this D-grade comedy, this dog’s breakfast on the TV3 Plus One channel.
The producers had assembled what looked like a lecture-theatre full of people, many of them well known in their own right. At first glance it looked like this might be a return to the serious live studio spectaculars that Gordon Dryden, Brian Edwards and Ian Fraser used to front in the 1970s and ’80s. But TV3 obviously doesn’t trust the idea of boring old discussions. Some genius has come up with the idea that a program about racism can be treated like one of those ghastly music talent quests, where celebrity judges gather a team of “talents” and spend half of the show verbally sniping at each other. Presiding over all of this is a “moderator”, played by Linda Clark. Her brief: Keep it light. It’s supposed to be amusing.
On The Vote, the equivalents of the celeb judges on the pop star talent quests are Guyon Espiner and Duncan Garner, who have obviously been instructed to dish out the repartee against one another; someone in management evidently thinks these two are the equivalent of Abbott and Costello.
Tonight, Guyon Espiner heads the “Yes” team, with Damon Salesa and John Tamihere. Duncan Garner is the captain of the “No” team, backed up by May Chen and Phil Goff. The default mood for the evening is comical truculence….
Clearly, what was actually said during this show was not important to the producers. What they wanted was manufactured conflict, plenty of personality clashes—and lots of laughs. Of the “talent”, however, only John Tamihere seemed to be in on this; the other three seemed to take it seriously. So we saw the demeaning sight of Professor Damon Salesa trying to make a serious argument in the face of a barrage of heckling and infantile negative comments by Duncan Garner.
So the mood of frivolity and forced competitiveness had been established. But it only got worse….
DUNCAN GARNER: Okay, I’ll just bring in my expert witness here: Ron Mark!
Instead of eliciting gales of laughter, this announcement was treated seriously, and Winston Peters’ loyal soldier was wheeled on to deliver banalities for a long, long minute in his usual manner. Then the “expert witness” returned to the crowd, with nobody any the wiser. It was like he was back in parliament.
Now, rack my brains as I might, I could think of only one political featherweight shallower than Ron Mark—and sure enough, not long after, this happened….
GUYON ESPINER: All right, now to argue that New Zealand IS a racist country, we have the Member of Parliament for Khandallah, Peter Dunne!
This ineffective fop, this repellent poseur, this National Party stooge embarked on one of his trademark wandery homilies, focused entirely on the notion that we are racist against CHINESE people. This pitiable, bow-tied, bouffanted fool probably doesn’t even know that there are Māori people in New Zealand.
As Dunne droned on, I could make out in the audience several prominent people, including John Minto, Don “Brethren Cash” Brash (nodding gravely to show he took it all very seriously) and the controversial new Race Relations commissioner Dame Susan Devoy.
Finally, mercifully, Dunne’s monologue came to an end and he sat down, to the relief of all. It was back to the comedians….
DUNCAN GARNER: Calling us racist is plain NUTS and simply offensive!
LINDA CLARK: I have here the result of our audience poll. Eighty-two per cent think that YES, New Zealand is a racist country.
GUYON ESPINER: Eighty-two per cent! It’s hard to argue we’re not a racist country with those sorts of numbers!
Then it’s time for a commercial break, but before that, viewers are taken into the middle of each team as they huddle together and strategize, just like a sports team talk. What is obvious immediately is that Espiner does all the talking, while Tamihere and Salesa listen intently. Same with the other team: Garner urgently strategizes, while Goff and Chen listen. The “stars” have to be seen to be in charge.
DUNCAN GARNER: Right, next up, the big question: Are Māori TOO PRIVILEGED? This of course is the question Don Brash asked back in 2004.
John Tamihere says something disparaging about the old racist, and is warming to his task before the moderator steps in…
LINDA CLARK: [giggling] Tamihere, be QUIET!
AUDIENCE: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
LINDA CLARK: Forty-eight per cent of our audience says YES, Māori are too privileged, and 42 per cent say no they are not. So it’s almost TOO CLOSE TO CALL!
The old race-baiter, Don “Brethren Cash” Brash is then trundled on to the stage and asked if he STILL thinks Māori are a privileged and indulged elite group…
DON “BRETHREN CASH” BRASH: Ehhhhhhhhhhhmmmmm. Yes they are. Ehhhhhhhhhhhmmmm.
AUDIENCE: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!…What?… You silly old fool!… Ha!… Somebody shoot him!
As disgusting and ridiculous as the old race-baiter and Brethren stooge is, he is almost immediately upstaged….
MAY CHEN: [slowly, with gravitas] As Ron Mark said, we are sorting out our racial problems in the bedrooms of the nation.
That crass and insulting statement comes courtesy of the fertile brain of Dr. Ranginui Walker. It was one of his enduring tropes during his long tenure as a Listener columnist, and he repeated it again recently when he was interviewed on radio.
LINDA CLARK: After the break, we will sum up. And we will talk to the new Race Relations Commissioner, Dame Susan Devoy.
This proved to be the only pleasant surprise of the night. Dame Susan handled her brief interview impressively. She was balanced, generous and well spoken.
As for the rest of those involved in this dud: shame on you all.
Sounds truly awful viewing, Moz. Thanks for taking one for the team!
Mai Chen, btw.
Sounds truly awful viewing, Moz. Thanks for taking one for the team!
It was awful, all right, but it was compellingly awful. I even felt positive at the end of it, seeing Dame Susan give such a good account of herself.
Mai Chen, btw.
I KNEW it! Just before I pushed the “Submit Comment” button, I had this nagging feeling that I had made a mistake somewhere, but for the life of me I couldn’t track it down. Thanks for that.
It was getting up this morning. Don’t do it again.
It was getting up this morning. Don’t do it again.
Ouch! THAT told me!
I’ll say, go get some aloe vera for that burn.
Aloe vera won’t salve the pain of Populuxe1’s searing wit, I’m afraid.
I watched the doco on New Zealand in Afghanistan. Thanks for the summary and saving the rest of us the pain.
Morrissey, you’re kind of like The Standard’s version of Diana Wichtel. That’s a compliment btw.
From the Herald “Trade Minister Tim Groser’s bid to head the World Trade Organisation has failed……”The New Zealand Government has spent a lot of money supporting Mr Groser’s bid.” http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10879907
How much is ‘a lot of money’? Will the corporate media bother to find out?
And will they ask if that money could have been spent on other stuff…like tackling child poverty, save DOC jobs, raising the minimum wage more etc etc
Don’t hold your breath.
‘
Well . . . the MSM has pointed out the bill is around about $3000 per day, and that’s just for travel. You can add in his salary since lobbying for the job is all he’s done.
that satire link went quick
update on the satire of Colin Craig
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10879836
****
****
Yes….Fuck up Judith Collins…..you Judith are the REAL Noddy.
Hole in the furnace fender?
Blood boils when I hear via radio that J. Collins calls 3 Labour MP’s “noddys”.
Decided to allocate “fuck off Judith Collins” to your **** comment.
But I’m sure you had some deeper meaning in mind, something private between Rouge Trooper and ghostrider888 perhaps.
only in a parallel universe.(typed in wrong un and got stuck in moderation; mundane i know)
26 April 2013
PROTEST: “The Government is NOT going to get a ‘good price’ for Mighty River Power – call off the sale!”
Friday 26 April 3 – 5.30pm
Outside the Head Office of Mighty River Power
ANZ building 23- 29 Albert St, Auckland City
MAP : https://maps.google.co.nz/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=Map+Mighty+River&fb=1&gl=nz&hq=Mighty+River&hnear=0x6d0d47fb5a9ce6fb:0x500ef6143a29917,Auckland&cid=0,0,14661661492653781907&ei=-rx5UZzZM6WaiAfF1IHYCw&sqi=2&ved=0CLABEPwSMAE
(Protest organised by the Switch Off Mercury Energy group).
______________________________________________________________________________
SOE Minister Tony Ryall said the Government wouldn’t sell Mighty River Power unless they could get a ‘good price’.
(Official Information Act reply from Minister of State Owned Enterprises, Tony Ryall, dated 17 March 2013)
“Let me make it quite clear. If the Government doesn’t get a good price the Government isn’t going to sell.”
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ung4048v4cgtul7/Slevel6.3-c13031716040.pdf
The Government are NOT going to get a ‘good price’ for Mighty River Power, according the opinion expressed in the Dominion Post Editorial dated 24 April 2013:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/comment/editorials/8587747/Editorial-Key-should-consider-MRP-sale-delay
“Editorial: Key should consider MRP sale delay
OPINION: An unholy mess. There is no other way to describe the Government’s partial asset sales programme.
With just days to go before the public offering of shares in Mighty River Power closes, the float is shrouded in uncertainty. Is the country’s single biggest consumer of electricity about to shut its doors? Will Labour and the Green Party be part of the next government and, if so, will they make good on their promises to renationalise the electricity industry by stealth?
Potential investors have no way of knowing whether Rio Tinto is serious about closing the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter unless it can wring further concessions from the Government and Meridian Energy. Likewise, they have no way of knowing whether Labour and the Greens will be in a position to implement their policies after the next election.
But, amid all the uncertainty, there is one certainty: the price the Government and, ultimately the public, will receive for shares sold in Mighty River Power will be lower because of the uncertainty. ….
However, political considerations should not determine the fate of an asset worth billions of dollars that has been built up by generations of taxpayers. The Government’s overriding concerns should be ensuring that taxpayers get fair value for the business and that as many New Zealanders as possible take advantage of the opportunity to become shareholders in it.
Neither of those goals are likely to be achieved while there is a possibility of the country being flooded with cheap electricity and the next government telling generators how much they can charge for electricity and how they should operate their power stations.
……………………
But, delaying the sale till after the next election would at least allow voters to choose which of the two approaches offers the better prospect of sensible pricing and secure supply. It would also allow time for the future of Tiwai Point to be resolved.”
______________________________________________________________________________
SO! CALL OFF THE SALE OF MIGHTY RIVER POWER!
Is NZ Prime Minister John Key, (a shareholder in the Bank of America), going to continue to put his mouth where his money is, and look after investors – or is he going to look after the public majority of taxpayers?
(Remembering that arguably the majority of taxpayers are not investors?)
http://www.parliament.nz/NR/rdonlyres/DFA6C21E-69A8-433F-8BA9-956431281F7F/222223/register2012_3.pdf (Pg 33)
“Rt Hon John KEY (National, Helensville)
……..
Bank of America – banking ”
How appropriate is it for the four people responsible for setting the ‘final price’ of Mighty River Power shares are those who seem ‘hell bent’ on selling off Mighty River Power at any price, seemingly regardless of the cost to taxpayers?
“.. I can advise that Cabinet has delegated authority to a group of Ministers to set the final price for shares in the Mighty River Power share offer. the group of Ministers is the Prime Minister (John Key) Minister of Finance (Bill English) , Minister for Economic Development and Associate Minister of Finance Steven Joyce, and Minister of State-Owned Enterprises (Tony Ryall).”
(Above-mentioned Official Information Act reply from Minister of State Owned Enterprises, Tony Ryall, dated 17 March 2013).
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ung4048v4cgtul7/Slevel6.3-c13031716040.pdf
How many taxpayers (or investors) know this?
Prime Minister John Key, Minister of Finance Bill English, Minister for Economic Development and Associate Minister of Finance Steven Joyce, and Minister of State-Owned Enterprises Tony Ryall, must act in a fiscally responsible, and financially prudent way and look after the interests of taxpayers by calling of the sale of Mighty River Power – NOW.
The other risk the NZ Government faces is that thousands of new ‘Mum and Dad’ investors, not to mention larger investors, both national and international, may lose confidence in the NZ sharemarket, because of the uncertainty over this ‘unholy mess’ which is currently the Mighty River Power share launch.
Tomorrow – Saturday 27 April 2013 will be actions all over New Zealand opposing asset sales – which today’s protest outside Mighty River Power, will help to advertise:
More details here:
Auckland – http://www.fb.com/events/151078145052593/
Wellington – http://www.fb.com/events/549656878400623/
Chirstchurch – http://www.fb.com/events/498770806846579/
Hamilton – 1: http://www.fb.com/events/226408490833717/
2: http://www.fb.com/events/150556321785316/
Tauranga – http://www.fb.com/events/165947043558739/
Napier – http://www.fb.com/events/101180450070550/
Palmerston North – http://www.fb.com/events/428833110546101/
Nelson – http://www.fb.com/events/178199345664434/
Dunedin – http://www.fb.com/events/228130223991407/
Hanmer Springs (Sunday 28 April) -www.fb.com/events/571065112918062/
Greymouth (Sunday 28 April) – http://www.fb.com/pages/Greymouth-Sunday-Markets/334434963322711
Penny Bright
A Spokesperson for the Switch Off Mercury Energy group
https://www.facebook.com/SwitchOffMercuryEnergy?fref=ts
Well sand my nipples !
Have you paid your rates yet dear lady ?
“Have you paid your rates yet dear lady ?”
Nope.
And I won’t until Auckland Council ‘opens the books’ and tells us EXACTLY where our rates monies are being spent.
Penny Bright
‘Anti-privatisation / anti-corruption’ campaigner.
2013 Auckland Mayoral candidate
sounds pretty good to me why should they pay the workers when there not working and out on the street having a fucking whine
[r0b: farmboy, filling your comments with fucking swearing doesn’t impress anyone, and it (unfortunately) promotes comments in kind, and the whole thread gets derailed. Please calm down all, DNFTT.]
[lprent: Banned one week for what appears to have been a deliberate attempt to start a flame war. Banned a further week for wasting my time moving the thread to OpenMike and away from diverting from the post topic. ]
I dunno, why are we listening to you having a fucking whine?
i’m not whining there chapie as i said sounds pretty good, tis you that is now whining about my percieved whine
The sensible answer to your stupid question is to point out that “fucking whining” is a feeble mis-characterisation of the right to strike, you fucking child.
no i think it sums it up perfectly you whining fucking pussy harden up or fuck off
Yap yap little scab.
yap yap your fired
My fired what, you illiterate scab?
Wow, thats quite some rebuttle!
The lowering of the bar continues on the trool front though, you must be the mid afternoon shift !
Go away scab.
Get a horse. And a haircut. And a pickaxe handle. Ride into town to cleanse the streets. You can call yourself Key’s Cossacks.
And please, if you fall off the horse like that AWB idiot in South Africa, put the video on youtube.
might be hard to record myself while smashing heads with my pickaxe that sounds like a 2hander maybe they should just get the sack and someone more concerned about doing a decent days work for decent money as in affco should be hired that would sound pretty weird to you but alot of people actully work without havn a cry
Fuck off you lazy ignorant little cunt.
thats not a very nice way to talk about your mother
What’s your point, scab?
If Rambo can handle an M60 with one hand, but you need two for a pickaxe handle, what sort of righty are you? Bloody soft, that’s what I say. Now stop crying and look for a full stop, some commas, and a clue.
yea haha rambo now theres a guy who wouldnt have a cry while getting decent pay
Piss off scab.
Are we in the movie “Deliverance’?
Get used to our ‘whining’ Farm Boy (it is going to be a lot louder than the farmers who whinge because they can’t plan for a few weeks of sunshine)
You are going to hear us ‘whining’ up and down this country like you have never heard it before.
We will fight this bullshit in every way imaginable and bring this country to a stop if our ‘whines’ are ignored.
The workers of this country are not going to put with this.
Your stupidity is arousing… no pressure…. aha ha
Flippin heck, no-one told me we were having a swearathon today. And now the cunt’s been banned.
jolly gosh, and I jolly well jolly missed out again.
The New Lynn LEC is hosting the Whau Ward Selection Meeting tomorrow at 4.00.
It will be held in 3071 Great North Road, New Lynn, opposite the Police Station!
The Whau seat on the Council and the seven Whau Local Board seats will be contested by the Labour Party, with full Labour Party branding. All candidates will be members of the Labour Party.
Labour will present a full slate.
The Whau Ward is predominantly in the New Lynn Parliamentary electorate, with parts in the Mt Albert and the Mt Roskill electorates.
All Whau area LabourParty paid-up members are welcome to attend.
Damn – on the afternoon of an important day of action.
I’m glad to see that Labour will be putting up candidates for the Whau Board.
Livingweek to week waitin’ around to die
REpent
Every self respecting Auckland lefty and liberal will be at the weekend march against the sale of our assetsthis Saturday. Kicks off at 2 pm from Britomart.
Facebook notification is at http://www.facebook.com/events/151078145052593/
Any self respecting New Zealander should be there. You may have voted for National. Show the government this is not the reason you voted for them.
Selling assets is a sale of our sovereignty. If should affect all New Zealanders.
I regret nothing !
Persons without a conscience don’t.
from RNZ, apparently the Christchurch rebuild is to cost up to 30% /10B more than the government had until now calculated, coming to possibly 40B in total.
The governments reason for the conservative estimates include
-inflationary pressure
-impact upon total $NZ spend.
-impact on stake-holders costs; (insurers want to cap their debt), taxpayers and ratepayers
“Throw off your hat kick off your shoes
Throw down your gun you might shoot yourself
Or is that what you’re trying to do?”
“love in a peaceful world, yeah.”
So Grosers bid to be the next bigwig of the WTO has crashed and burned. So will he pay the obscene amount of money he has wasted on his pipe dream, back to the taxpayer? Will he fuck. What a waste of time and space he is. And he’s been collecting his taxpayer salary too, what a bludger.\
“The trade minister hit headlines last week when it emerged that he racked up travel expenses of almost $260,000 in the first three months of the year – nearly $3000 a day – as he lobbied for the WTO top job.”
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/8599819/Grosers-WTO-bid-hits-the-rocks
How much does Groser’s lack of success reflect on NZ’s standing worldwide? How much did Key kill his chances?
Or Mike Moore.
well-played
And this little Gem caught my eye too.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/8598030/Call-for-NZ-to-be-tax-haven-for-retirees
Just what we need, a bunch of old, fat, loud, opinionated, rich Yanks coming here, and building gated communities to keep out the riff raff.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10879805
Forfeited to The Crown – WTF does that even mean, and who has that cash!
Where is the rest of the seized assets/cash ending up?
“Restrained” I presume that means frozen or otherwise encumbered.
It could possibly do with more information, yes.
Seems to be a slide in terminology in the article: $150mil “restrained” (i.e. my guess is frozen), but $27mil “forfeited” (my guess is completed the seizure process and handed over). However, once that is converted into cash and other creditors settled (article mentioned the banks of course, and spouses) a little over a third of that actually gets to the government (shit valuation of the property?), and of that ABSOLUTELY NONE goes to rehabilitation or addressing the causes of crime. All has disappeared into the consolidated fund, which the nats piss away like export gold (i.e. tip directly down the drain without involving the kidneys as middleman).
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10879823
With full support through the blue structure, is the only way this *lack of cooperation* could happen!
This is a bloody disgrace!
http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2013/04/25/hey-julian-we-are-not-pleased-grant-robertson-calls-off-labours-assault-on-neoliberalism/
Looks like Chris Trotter’s regretting mistaking a turkey (housing policy) and a lone swallow (power policy) for a summer.
Robertson disappoints, but he does not surprise.
With only two policies announced AFAIK, isn’t the turkey a lone turkey, too?
sometimes Chris Trotter disappoints
Some of his analysis is quite good. I think that he let wishful thinking get the better of him.
McF: lone turkey
Considering that there’s a new Lone Ranger film due out, I’m already imagining what Gary Larson would do with that line…
“The Adventures of the Lone Turkey and Swallow!”
lol
sounds a bit close to porno territory for my, er, taste…
orh Rhino, now you’ve gone and spoilt the Arc for me.
Oh dear, here I was thinking along the lines of cartoon’s he’d done like “Frontier Accountants” and suddenly Rule 34 kicks in…
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RuleThirtyFour
For the economics wonks:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Averch-Johnson_effect
The Averch–Johnson effect is the tendency of companies to engage in excessive amounts of capital accumulation in order to expand the volume of their profits. If companies profits to capital ratio is regulated at a certain percentage then there is a strong incentive for companies to over-invest in order to increase profits overall. This goes against any optimal efficiency point for capital that the company may have calculated as higher profit is almost always desired over and above efficiency.
As far as I can tell, this effect describes the main reason our electricity prices are so high.
Bye bye 350ppm, hello 400 parts per million.
http://www.treehugger.com/corporate-responsibility/the-science-of-350-the-most-important-number-on-the-planet.html
http://keelingcurve.ucsd.edu/what-does-400-ppm-look-like/
But it’s not really going to happen! Otherwise we’d be taking to the streets instead of sitting on the internet calling each other names or arguing about politics and shit.
*shudder*
It’s not really them that we have to worry about though. It’s us and all the people we know that know that CC is real but still aren’t doing much about it.
Our civilisation’s very foundations depends on energy, lots and lots of energy.
We’re not going to give it up voluntarily.
How is the Government going to get a ‘good price’ for Mighty River Power’?
CALL OFF THE SALE!
http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/labour-greens-electricity-policy-halves-publics-mrp-appetite-bd-139218
Penny Bright
‘Anti-corruption / anti-privatisation’ campaigner
44% of kiwis living pay day to pay day.
That’ll be why every one looks so carefree and relaxed, then.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10879848
The Allen: That is the way I have lived here since I arrived! I NEVER saved and got anywhere, really, as just working honestly and hardly leaves you nowhere but down at the bottom. NZ has NOT improved or changed substantially since the 1980s, apart for a few. That is the sad reality, especially for ordinary, low paid workers, and certainly for benficiaries. Fuck National AND Labour for that!
Preaching to the choir, Bruv.
Robbing Peter to pay Paul since forever.
FORGET NOT, AND LEARN!
I have not taken a “knife” to WINZ, which I thought of doing so, but North cautioned me. I was not really decided and ready to let off my anger about welfare reforms and to be expected harassments in that manner. But given the most intimidating steps to be expected soon, I will not make any promise or take any commitments to what I can, can restrain myself from, or what may otherwise happen. I have been treated with utter contempt before and was near suicide, due to WINZ and MSD agendas and treatments.
This present Nat dominated government is pushing many of us to the brink, and if I need to take action, I will do so, even if I need to take the last step to take my life.
I HATE New Zealand for what this country has been turned into, it is now a disgustingly unfair, divided, racist and hateful place, I wish I had never come back to. It is up to YOU to make a difference and take a stand.
Much is happening behind the scenes, but few understand and will be prepared to listen.
Good luck, if you believe that freedom, democracy and rights will be preserved by sitting at home, blogging, chatting and otherwise just minding your own selective interests, you will soon see another thing coming. Iit is too much cowardice that rules this country.
For FUCKS sake, wake up, take a stand, and go on the Day of Action Today!!!
I respect and see my ideal in Che Guevara, as I identify very much with this man!
Xtasy in desperation!
Oh dear, oh dear, a few hundred marching and “holding up traffic” in Queen Street on the “Day of Action Against Asset Sales”, a supposed one hundred marching in Wellington, and was there any few others that bothered? Seems that to most the horse has bolted long ago, and it is more of “roll over Kiwis” all over the land. Yawn, sigh, what a mess!
That is how much people care, division is the rule now, self interest and self pre-occupation the prime ambition, so next election will likely show another term for this semi dictotorial lot running the show.
Import more slaves to do the dirty jobs at service stations in supermarkets, as cleaners in your offices, in fast food and restaurant outlets, in bars and what else need done to keep the show running.
F*** the rest, that seems to be the motto of most.
RIP NZ.