How times have changed. A few years ago a friend took exception to an employer secretly taping staff at his Service Station and took him to the Employment Court – and won.
“Austerity measures, wage cuts and rising unemployment have characterised the years since the crash of 2008 for working people. For the rich and super-rich, however, they have been the occasion for clawing back every penny of the initial losses made and adding a great deal more.
Today, the world’s wealthy are richer than before the crash and the number of individuals belonging to this highly exclusive club has grown.
The annual world wealth report by Merrill Lynch and Capgemini identifies nearly 11 million “high net worth individuals” (HNWIs), defined as having more than $1 million in free cash, not including property and pensions. Their collective wealth reached $42.7 trillion in 2010, a 9.7 percent rise. This means that the wealth of this social layer has already surpassed the previous peak of $40.7 trillion reached in 2007.
…
The World Bank defines extreme poverty as living on less than US $1.25 per day, and moderate poverty as living on less than $2 a day. In 2001, some 1.1 billion people lived on less than $1 a day and 2.7 billion on less than $2 a day. Almost half of the world’s people—3 billion souls—live on less than $2.50 a day. One billion children—fully 50 percent of the world’s children—live in poverty. Six million children die of hunger every year, 17,000 every day.”
An economic and political system that tolerates such inequality and such economic brutality is an abomination and an obscenity. Yet we bleat about our won condition as we fight for our share of the cake. We are all caught living for the day, doing what we must to retain what comforts we have.
Those who have the wealth bear no useful function to our society, yet we by our own desires and demands are divided, ruled and conquered. Our compliance makes us accomplices and collaborators. We will only find redemption when we take action and expel the wealthy from our society.
Worse, we throw out items that a generation ago would still be working. We reward people to take away what should work and sell us something that will work for less long. If they raised the standards of housing, products and services, then we’d have more free time, more money left over and everything would be cheaper. Imagine that buying one toaster for your whole life, even getting it as a hand me down. And the strange thing is we will like the whole world have enough to eat, and live culturally rich lives. But no! We choose shallow regurgitated news cycle and movies, and worse of all dogmatic political economics from paid public and politicians who know better, or should be sacked or voted out. The funny, if you can see it that way, is history will call men like Brash and Key, and even Goff, fools. Their own grandchildren will be disinherited (unless a cheap form of energy is discovered), and so even today we know these men are fools since they don’t have the cheap energy source.
There’s no cheap energy source coming available for 20 years (or more). With additional safety requirements and fuel shortages, nuclear power is going to get more expensive not less. Even massive immediate discoveries in cold fusion will require many many years to commercialise safely into 100MW scale reactors.
So I reckon that by 2030 most will have to make do with a 1910’s level of per capita energy usage. It’s going to be a rough ride for western civilisation down the slope of depleting oil. $3/L petrol really is only a start.
Your grandchildren will not be disinheritted by energy depletion or a lack of the cheap material baubles of the oil age. I would prefer to think that we in three generations have disinheritted ourselves from the practical low energy based knowledge of life that our grandparents knew, and that our grandchildren will have to rediscover. Yes, life might be materially much harder but it might also be more spiritually rewarding given that we have divorced our spiriits from anything not from a manufactured technology derivation.
As a point of interest, the whole energy era of the last century has produced huge advances in knowledge and theory around mathematics and science, with towering intellects such as Einstein. Conversely in a sea of literature and arts I see no Shakespeare. Maybe technology and science have trumped the human spirit.
I agree with the sentiment. I just observe that our desires pick what we believe. Einstein had he not happened would have still seen the emergence of General Relativity, as would we have seen a ‘Darwin; if Darwin were not around. The times demanded new thought, a culture pregnant for new ideas.
Similarly now.
I find it astonishing that a man on the radio declared that people should starve and not get benefits, he sounded in his 20s having no doubt supped on the interest free student loans, and was sounded desperate to keep the good times going like he had a mortgage (may even less than the price of his home). What staggered me, was someone made unemployed might have no debts, might own their own home, might already be living a low carbon life, have savings in the local bank supporting local businesses, and doing everything right. And here was this smuck too smart for his own good, the ‘losers’ who supped on the tonic of high debt, who are carried and bailed out by the common community. Sorry but we so live in interesting times.
The great contraction has started. Do we want to make it easier on ourselves by fracting oil shale and leaving a wasteland that kills whole ecosystems for generations, killing the top predators like Eagles, or do we want to end the privately owned petroleum automobile culture and buy into wind farms that may or may not kill the odd eagle?
Activity for activity sake ‘economics’ is killing our planet, our future, and our yes very moral being, when our young smart people desperately peddle the far right wing greed at any cost is good. Sorry but real greed is knowing that too much greed harms you. We can have it all now, and nothing later, or we could have less now, more leisure time, more time with our kids doing low carbon, cost on society lowering healthy exercises running around playing footy with the kids.
I think our MSM has too many people who have too much debt and little common sense left.
But be warned they will come after us, criminalize or try to have us sanctioned for our political and social views. Its always the way with proto fascism.
Tocqueville observed of c.1840s American Democracy that Materialism was its shared value-system. That a basic urge to acquire more money and goods united all people and classes – and thus should be given free rein. Hence, American-style democratic capitalism.
What Tocqueville didn’t foresee is a time when the Materialistic ethos would become practically untenable due to shrinking resources and overpopulation. The challenge for Western democracies in coming years will be to replace Materialism with some other value-system that is compatible with democracy and broadly shared by all citizens. Otherwise, perhaps we will probably go toward some kind of Chinese-style political system.
Tocqueville was only one side of the equation though. In the 19th century there was a great interest in all things spiritual and philosophical in the US, a counter-reaction to the materialists who only believed in what they could own, buy, sell and touch.
At the end of the day the material capitalists may seem to have won out, but their victory is incomplete and as we can see now, increasingly shaky.
CV, yeah, I agree. In fact, Tocqueville himself saw religion as the great counter balance to materialism in American society. To some extent, this American religous strand continues to the present. But, just as the corporate capitalists have triumphed over the small business, the fundamentalists seem to have trumped the transcendentalists.
In some ways, the transcendentalist proto-hippy Henry David Thoreau presented a good model for a low-energy, low-labour, independent lifestyle. He was a bit unsociable though.
“Thousands to come off housing list” By Simon Collins Saturday Jun 25, 2011
________________________________________________________________________________
“With the continuation of Auckland’s serious housing crisis and families still languishing in sheds, garages and overcrowded and sub-standard accommodation, including those left homeless in Christchurch – the last thing any decent Government should be doing is privatising the state housing stock, using charities such as the Salvation Army and ‘trusts’ in a mixed economy to do it,” says Sue Henry, Spokesperson for the Housing Lobby.
“It is totally unacceptable to have Government policies in the 21st century that create instability, transience and homelessness.
There are several other aspects that are very concerning:
The ‘housing crisis’ will not be fixed by taking people off the waiting list.
Prime Minister John Key promised that there would be no asset sales in this first term of government. This is what John Key promised on 14 April 2008:
GUYON Alright you rightly point out it was sold by the National government in 1998 now that brings us to this position. What is your position now as a National Party on state asset sales?
JOHN Well National’s had some time to reflect on that and the position that we’ve decided to have is the following one.
That in the first term of the National government there will be no state assets that will be sold either partially or fully.
GUYON So no state assets, you’re completely firm on that?
JOHN That’s right.”
________________________________________________________________________________
“But Housing Minister Phil Heatley has said ‘some iwi groups wanted to take over managing state houses rather than buying them, but the Government wanted to sell them.’
Prime Minister John Key is breaking this promise.
The proposed sale of any state housing stock must cease forthwith.”
………………………
Sue Henry
Spokesperson
Housing Lobby
________________________________________________________________________________
Scrap over the housing stock
Scrap over the jobs
Scrap over the hospital waiting list
Scrap over cheaper places in childcare
Scrap over the specials at the supermarket
About 460 Housing NZ homes out of 6,000 in Christchurch are estimated to be reduced due to the earthquakes in the red and orange zones. The Government in 2011 are finishing off what they started in the mid 1990s concerning the housing stock for those with the most need.
About 460 Housing NZ homes out of 6,000 in Christchurch are estimated to be reduced due to the earthquakes in the red and orange zones. The Government in 2011 are finishing off what they started in the mid 1990s concerning the housing stock for those with the most need.
Yes, on RNZ and on TV, we keep hearing about home-owners, but what I want to know is: what has become of those who were renting, especially the poor? They are possibly in a much worse position than those in the Red zone who have discovered that their insurance companies aren’t going to pay out (which is bad enough).
HNZ stock is 6,000 in Canterbury my slight error. Vicky 32 do you mean those renting HNZ homes or private rental?
It is my understanding that if a HNZ tenant HNZ have relocated people in the red zone. Some in private rental have remained in their dwelling and no doubt there are tenancy issues.
It would be good to see a topic on this: rental stories from within the red zone regardless of being a private or HNZ tenant.
I was actually thinking about both, although it seems the HNZ tenants might (for a change!) be slightly more secure than those renting privately. (What I mean by that is that an HNZ tenant can be at the mercy of a loonie tenancy manager)
‘history will call men like Brash and Key, and even Goff, fools’
Anyone who knows what is actually happening with respect to energy and environment has been calling men like Brash, Key, anf Goff fools (or criminals) for several years.
Men (and women) like Brash, Key, Goff etc. have maintained their positions by ignoring reality as a matter of policy. Reality is now knocking at the door.
‘unless a cheap form of energy is discovered’
Cheap sources of energy were discovered (coal, oil and gas). They are what got us into this mess.
Fortunately there are no other forms of cheap energy. So, the present corrupt and inefficient political-economic system will collapse, almost certainly by 2015.
The Bay of Plenty Regional Council said this week that excessive sludge on beaches is not associated with the discharge of dairy farm effluent. They said that the high levels of scum is all a part of nature and that surf diatoms are a type of phytoplankton, which is a main source of food for productive shellfish beds in the surf.
I sometimes listen to Radio Live talk back Saturdays ( no rude comments please) . Most interesting fellow named Keith Lewis , Certainly well on the political left. Anyone with any information. Last night said that Key was the most dangerous politician ever in NZ .Interesting because this is my belief too. It would be interesting to know something about him.
Remember those characters who wore a smiley mask on one side of their head and a demonic one on the other? Don’t know about Lewis but the masking would fit Key to a tee don’t ya see?
Until Madoff was uncovered, he was a light that people would recommend to their friends.
So is neo-liberal economics.
We will destroy ourselves by accepting at face value anything John Key has to say, not because its right or wrong (mostly wrong) but because we consent to everything he has done, is doing and will do in our names otherwise.
Periodically I put Key on par with Muldoon. The destruction Muldoon left is still around. E.g.
1) Crewe inquiry, 2) Colin Moyle inquiry, 3) Traumatised undercover cops trying to expose the short comings of being an undercover cop in particular Patrick O’ Brien (Iam no fan of high ranking cops at PNHQ as I know they have even concealed the truth in recent times), 4) Erebus inquiry.
I feel it in my bones that Key will be another Muldoon on how he performs regarding Pike River. Muldoon was mafia like concerning his dealings with the police because he NEVER held the police to account for 1) Who fed Rochelle, 2) Ensuring there was an internal police investigation into who in police leaked the Moyle incident, 3) The damage that resulted due to police undercover work, 4) What happened to Collins diary in the lock up at Mc Murdo Sound. Either the PM can have a commission of inquiry or the police commissioner can do an inquiry.
I am yet to see how Marshall performs regarding historical police matters which are still affecting people today.
There is one major difference between Muldoon and Key Treetop. Muldoon was an overt bully and a bastard. Key is a covert bully and a bastard. Also, it became quite well known that Muldoon used the SIS for his own political purposes. I don’t think Key will have tried that one on… unlikely to get away with it in this day and age.
Anne I knew that you would respond. Your idea on a book is a first rate idea. Of interest, goings on in the 1970s are being written about more now days. My library has Vol 1 but not Vol 2 “In New Zealand As it Might Have Been” by Hugh Eldred-Grigg. There is a chapter on Moyle in it. I need to read both volumes and have a think about what has really changed in 35 years between the police and certain prime ministers.
Did you know that Muldoon was Key”s idol in Key”s teen years and Muldoon got Key interested in politics. For all I know Muldoon could be Key’s hobby!
Pink Postman – this you may mean Keith Stewart. He is one of the few talkback hosts coming from the left and his show is often very interesting. Mikey Havoc was on Radio Live recently, he also appears to come from the left. Also made interesting talkback, wish they would give him a permanet job. Talkback radio can actually provide some interesting debate occasionally as opposed to the usual rightwing propaganda believe it or not!
Yes and thank you Belldonna. In fact I was listening to Keith Lewis the wonderfull NZ tenor and got the names mixed up. Im getting old and funny ,
However I am most impressed by K.Stewart and I would like to know about his background . Like you say it makes a change to get a good Leftie on talk back
The political left gained a victory this weekend with te Mana’s Hone Harawira winning the Tai Tokerau by-election. It’s a fantastic result considering the short amount of time te Mana had to launch their campaign and the negative media campaign run against the new party…
Press Release: New Publication Available Online Now
E-Release Only
Matters To A Head
Cannabis, mental illness & recovery
By Kate K
This highly readable and exciting new book explores the links between cannabis and mental illness through the personal and professional experiences of New Zealand author Kate K.
[This isn’t a place for a long advertisement, thanks, though you’ll probably get away with something short and a link to your web site. r0b]
This has made my day – smart girls from a decile one school and bees – one of the most important ecological issues of out time.
Against the odds, four young Kiwi girls have out-smarted some of the world’s top problem solvers. Oturu School placed second in the community section at the International Future Problem Solving Finals in the United States….
Deputy principal Heather Greaves, who travelled with the students, said the judges were impressed by the students’ ambitious plan to save the honey bee.
1000 new species, including a new species of dolphin, found in the Papua New Guinea rainforests and coast; profound, because this is now the third largest rain forest in the world, is on our door step and is at risk from climate change and exploitation of resources – such wonderful diversity, just found, but could be gone in a century.
Second – you may remember those TV road safety adverts with the old scary guy with the roulette wheel who decided whether they would crash, near miss, be killed, etc. How about a campaign at major intersection with people dressed as Key, English, etc, but instead having ‘Asset sales’, Privatisation, no GST increase, etc as the outcomes.
I do love the ads idea, only problem is that it is a very negative and downbeat campaign. Labour needs to present a different vision of the future, not just negate National’s crap.
It could however form the basis of a secondary viral campaign 🙂
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So, Boris Johnson has been footering about in hospitals again. We should be grateful, perhaps, that on this occasion the Clown-in-Chief is only (probably) getting in the way and causing distractions, rather than taking up a bed, vital equipment and resources and adding more strain and danger to exhausted staff.Look at ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... SkS in the News... Coming Soon on SkS... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... Story of the Week... Many Scientists Now Say Global Warming Could Stop Relatively Quickly After Emissions Go to ZeroThat’s one of several recent ...
The situation in the UK is looking catastrophic.Cases: over *70,000* people who were tested in England on 29th December tested positive. This is *not* because there were more tests on that day. It *is* 4 days after Christmas though, around when people who caught Covid on Christmas Day might start ...
by Don Franks For five days over New Year weekend, sixteen prisoners in the archaic pre WW1 block of Waikeria Prison defied authorities by setting fires and occupying the building’s roof. They eventually agreed to surrender after intervention from Maori party co-leader Rawiri Waititi. A message from the protesting men had stated: ...
As we welcome in the new year, our focus is on continuing to keep New Zealanders safe and moving forward with our economic recovery. There’s a lot to get on with, but before we say a final goodbye to 2020, here’s a quick look back at some of the milestones ...
Bay Conservation Cadets launched with first intake Supported with $3.5 million grant Part of $1.245b Jobs for Nature programme to accelerate recover from Covid Cadets will learn skills to protect and enhance environment Environment Minister David Parker today welcomed the first intake of cadets at the launch of the Bay ...
The Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern and the Prime Minister of the Cook Islands Mark Brown have announced passengers from the Cook Islands can resume quarantine-free travel into New Zealand from 21 January, enabling access to essential services such as health. “Following confirmation of the Cook Islands’ COVID ...
Jobs for Nature funding is being made available to conservation groups and landowners to employ staff and contractors in a move aimed at boosting local biodiversity-focused projects, Conservation Minister Kiritapu Allan has announced. It is estimated some 400-plus jobs will be created with employment opportunities in ecology, restoration, trapping, ...
The Government has approved an exception class for 1000 international tertiary students, degree level and above, who began their study in New Zealand but were caught offshore when border restrictions began. The exception will allow students to return to New Zealand in stages from April 2021. “Our top priority continues ...
Today’s deal between Meridian and Rio Tinto for the Tiwai smelter to remain open another four years provides time for a managed transition for Southland. “The deal provides welcome certainty to the Southland community by protecting jobs and incomes as the region plans for the future. The Government is committed ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has appointed Anna Curzon to the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC). The leader of each APEC economy appoints three private sector representatives to ABAC. ABAC provides advice to leaders annually on business priorities. “ABAC helps ensure that APEC’s work programme is informed by business community perspectives ...
The Government’s prudent fiscal management and strong policy programme in the face of the COVID-19 global pandemic have been acknowledged by the credit rating agency Fitch. Fitch has today affirmed New Zealand’s local currency rating at AA+ with a stable outlook and foreign currency rating at AA with a positive ...
The Government is putting in place a suite of additional actions to protect New Zealand from COVID-19, including new emerging variants, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “Given the high rates of infection in many countries and evidence of the global spread of more transmissible variants, it’s clear that ...
$36 million of Government funding alongside councils and others for 19 projects Investment will clean up and protect waterways and create local jobs Boots on the ground expected in Q2 of 2021 Funding part of the Jobs for Nature policy package A package of 19 projects will help clean up ...
The commemoration of the 175th anniversary of the Battle of Ruapekapeka represents an opportunity for all New Zealanders to reflect on the role these conflicts have had in creating our modern nation, says Associate Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Kiri Allan. “The Battle at Te Ruapekapeka Pā, which took ...
Babies born with tongue-tie will be assessed and treated consistently under new guidelines released by the Ministry of Health, Associate Minister of Health Dr Ayesha Verrall announced today. Around 5% to 10% of babies are born with a tongue-tie, or ankyloglossia, in New Zealand each year. At least half can ...
The prisoner disorder event at Waikeria Prison is over, with all remaining prisoners now safely and securely detained, Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis says. The majority of those involved in the event are members of the Mongols and Comancheros. Five of the men are deportees from Australia, with three subject to ...
Travellers from the United Kingdom or the United States bound for New Zealand will be required to get a negative test result for COVID-19 before departing, and work is underway to extend the requirement to other long haul flights to New Zealand, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins confirmed today. “The new PCR test requirement, foreshadowed last ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has added her warm congratulations to the New Zealanders recognised for their contributions to their communities and the country in the New Year 2021 Honours List. “The past year has been one that few of us could have imagined. In spite of all the things that ...
Attorney-General and Minister for the Environment David Parker has congratulated two retired judges who have had their contributions to the country and their communities recognised in the New Year 2021 Honours list. The Hon Tony Randerson QC has been appointed a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for ...
Minister for Pacific Peoples Aupito William Sio says the New Year’s Honours List 2021 highlights again the outstanding contribution made by Pacific people across Aotearoa. “We are acknowledging the work of 13 Pacific leaders in the New Year’s Honours, representing a number of sectors including health, education, community, sports, the ...
The Government’s investment in digital literacy training for seniors has led to more than 250 people participating so far, helping them stay connected. “COVID-19 has meant older New Zealanders are showing more interest in learning how to use technology like Zoom and Skype so they can to keep in touch ...
Pacific Media Watch newsdesk Human Rights Watch (HRW) has criticised the Indonesian government of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo for its weak health response to covid-19 which has brought Indonesia to its knees since March 2020, reports CNN Indonesia. The assessment is based on Indonesia’s poor rates of testing and tracing ...
By The National in Port Moresby An expatriate who tested positive for the covid-19 coronavirus last week has been admitted to a private hospital in the Papua New Guinea capital of Port Moresby, an official has confirmed. Pacific International Hospital (PIH) chief executive officer Colonel Sandeep Shaligram toldThe National the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nathan Bartlett, Associate Professor, School of Biomedical Sciences and Pharmacy, University of Newcastle Reports of about 30 deaths among elderly nursing home residents who received the Pfizer vaccine have made international headlines. With Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) expected to approve the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Culum Brown, Professor, Macquarie University How do gills work? Tully, aged 7 Great question, Tully! Animals on land breathe air, which is made up of different gasses. Oxygen is one of these gases, and is made by plants (hug ...
Dairy prices increased by 3.9% across the board at the latest Fonterra global auction. The lift followed rises of 1.3% and 4.3% in the December auctions which took dairy prices to their highest level in 11 months, defying those analysts who believed Covid-19 had disrupted dairy markets. In the latest ...
America's Cup team American Magic has spoken publicly after their boat Patriot capsized when on its way to their first win of the Challenger Selection Series yesterday. Patriot dramatically capsized yesterday, becoming temporarily airborne before crashing back into the water and tipping. The boat, helmed by New Zealander Dean Barker, could not be ...
It’s a seemingly age old question: why do Auckland’s beaches become unswimmable after every single downpour? Stewart Sowman-Lund investigates.Ah, the beach. A staple of the New Zealand summer. Unless, of course, you’re based in Auckland and it’s raining. The start of 2021 has been a lot like every other New ...
We have opened a book, among members of the Point of Order team, on how long it will be before the PM offers to sort out the land dispute at Wellington’s Shelly Bay and (to win the double) how much the settlement will cost taxpayers. Just a few weeks ago ...
Breakfast TV news is back for 2021, and Tara Ward got up early to watch. “Thank god it’s almost Christmas,” John Campbell said during the opening minutes of Breakfast’s premiere episode of the year. “2021’s been rough so far. I’m buggered”. We’re all buggered, to be fair, but I’m worried that ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Pearson, Professor of Journalism and Social Media, Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research, Griffith University, Griffith University The blame for the recent assault on the US Capitol and President Donald Trump’s broader dismantling of democratic institutions and norms can be ...
Despite a popular and unifying leader of the governing party, divisions both in policy and culture will test the progressive movement, writes Peter McKenzie.‘I think we’re confused.” Marlon Drake is an organiser for the Living Wage Movement. His job takes him all over Wellington, trying to convince businesses to increase ...
Covid-19 Recovery Minister Chris Hipkins says vaccinations should be available to the public by the middle of the year, but other countries are prioritised. ...
It’s as true now as it ever has been: nowhere else offers an education experience like that of Dunedin. But rather than resting on their laurels, the University of Otago and Otago Polytechnic have plans to make the city an even more inspiring place for students.From high in the summit ...
Haggis, neeps and tatties and whisky may not be a traditional spread for a summer gathering in NZ, but trust Auckland city councillor and Kiwi-Scot Cathy Casey on this one. Gie it laldy! Rule one: Hold it on (or near) January 25Robert Burns was born on January 25, 1759. Since the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Tuffley, Senior Lecturer in Applied Ethics & CyberSecurity, Griffith University It could be argued artificial intelligence (AI) is already the indispensable tool of the 21st century. From helping doctors diagnose and treat patients to rapidly advancing new drug discoveries, it’s our ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Kenny, Professor, Australian Studies Institute, Australian National University Through recent natural disasters, global upheavals and a pandemic, Australia’s political centre has largely held. Australians may have disagreed at times, but they have also kept faith with governmental norms, eschewing the false ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Holly Seale, Associate professor, UNSW Health workers are at higher risk of COVID infection and illness. They can also act as extremely efficient transmitters of viruses to others in medical and aged care facilities. That’s why health workers have been prioritised to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jim Orchard, Adjunct Lecturer, Monash University Last week, somewhat overshadowed by the events in Washington, the Democrats took control of the US Senate. The Democrats now hold a small majority in both the House and the Senate until 2022, giving President-elect Joe ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mittul Vahanvati, Lecturer, School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, RMIT University Heatwaves, floods, bushfires: disaster season is upon us again. We can’t prevent hazards or climate change-related extreme weather events but we can prepare for them — not just as individuals ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mandie Shean, Lecturer, School of Education, Edith Cowan University Starting school is an important event for children and a positive experience can set the tone for the rest of their school experience. Some children are excited to attend school for the first ...
Some families in emergency housing are reporting their children are becoming emotionally distressed because of their living conditions. Demand for emergency accommodation has escalated this past year with the number of emergency housing grants increasing by half. Data showed nearly 10,000 people were given an Emergency Housing Special Needs Grant between ...
Summer reissue: Michèle A’Court, Alex Casey and Leonie Hayden are back for a second season of On the Rag, and where better to start than with the mysterious, exhausting world of wellness?First published June 23, 2020.Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The Spinoff’s journalism is ...
With few Covid-19 infections and negiligible natural immunity, New Zealand faces being a victim of its own success when it is left till last to get the vaccines, argues Dr Parmjeet Parmar. ...
Steve Braunias reports on a literary cancelling. The Corrections department has refused to allow Jared Savage's best-selling book Gangland inside prison on the grounds that it "promotes violence and drug use". An inmate at Otago Corrections Facility in Dunedin was sent a copy of the book – but it was ...
New data from the CTU’s annual work life survey shows a snapshot of working people’s experiences and outlook heading out of 2020 and into the new year. Concerningly 42% of respondents cite workplace bullying as an issue in their workplace - a number ...
The dramatic capsize of American Magic brought out the best in the America's Cup sailing fraternity. But, Suzanne McFadden asks, what does it mean to the crippled New York Yacht Club campaign and to the Prada Cup? It was a scene as unreal as it was calamitous. Right at the moment the ...
An international player, selector and self-confessed cricket stats nerd, Penny Kinsella has now played a hand in recording the rich history of the women's game in New Zealand. Penny Kinsella’s cricketing career was perched on the cusp of change for the White Ferns. “My first tour to Australia, we ...
The current number of members of parliament is starting to get too low for the job we expect them to do, argues Alex Braae. As a general rule, with the possible exception of their families, nobody likes backbench MPs. But it’s nevertheless time we accepted that parliament should have more of ...
The experience in the Brazilian city of Manaus reveals how mistaken, and dangerous, the herd-immunity-by-infection theory really is. As families around the world mourn more than two million people dead from Covid-19, the Plan B academics and their PR industry collaborator continue to argue that the New Zealand government should stop ...
As New Zealand gears up to fight climate change, experts warn that we need to actually reduce emissions, not just plant trees to offset our greenhouse gases. ...
A nationwide poll has found majority support for the government to continue to closely monitor abortions in New Zealand and the reasons for it, despite the Ministry of Health recently suggesting that there is not a use for collecting much of this information. ...
The out-of-control growth in gangs, gun crime, and violent gang activity is exposing our communities to dangerous levels of violence that will inevitably end in tragedy, says Sensible Sentencing Trust. “The recent incidents of people being shot and ...
Successive governments have paid lip service to our productivity challenge but have failed to deliver. It's time to establish a Productivity Council charged with prioritising efforts. ...
Understanding the connection between chronic fatigue syndrome and ‘long Covid’ might be helpful in treating symptoms that doctors will find all too easy to dismiss.When people began to report signs of “long Covid”, characterised by a lack of full recovery from the virus and debilitating fatigue, I recognised their stories. ...
Nadine Anne Hura, who never considered herself an artist, reflects on what art and making has taught her.I couldn’t clean or cook or wash the clothes, but I could sew. That’s a lie, I’m a terrible sewer, but I left work early to fossick around in the $1 bin of ...
Summer reissue: In the final episode of this season of Bad News, Alice is joined by Billy T award winner Kura Forrester to look at how well we’re honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi in 2020.First published September 3, 2020.Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The ...
Lucy Revill’s The Residents is a blog about daily life in Wellington that has morphed into a stylish, low-key coffee-table book featuring interviews and photographic portraits of 38 Wellingtonians. In this extract, Revill profiles Eboni Waitere, owner and executive director of Huia Publishers. The Residents features names like Monique Fiso ...
Pacific Media Watch correspondent The pro-independence conflict in West Papua with a missionary plane reportedly being shot down at Intan Jaya has stirred contrasting responses from the TNI/POLRI state sources, church leaders and an independence leader. A shooting caused a plane to catch fire on 6 January 2021 in the ...
“Last year ACT warned that rewarding protestors at Ihumātao with taxpayer money would promote further squatting. We just didn’t think it would happen as quickly as it is in Shelly Bay” says ACT Leader David Seymour. “The prosperity of all ...
Our kindly PM registered her return to work as leader of the nation with yet another statement on the Beehive website, the second in two days (following her appointment of Anna Curzon to the APEC Business Advisory Council on Wednesday). It’s great to know we don’t have to check with ...
A Pūhoi pub is refusing to remove a piece of memorabilia bearing the n-word from its walls. Dr Lachy Paterson looks at the history of the word here, and New Zealand’s complicity in Britain’s shameful slave trading past.Content warning: This article contains racist language and images.On a pub wall in ...
Supermarket shoppers looking for citrus are seeing a sour trend at the moment – some stores are entirely tapped out of lemons. But why? Batches of homemade lemonade will be taking a hit this summer, with life not giving New Zealand shoppers lemons. Prices are high at supermarkets and grocers that ...
You’re born either a cheery soul or a gloomy one, reckons Linda Burgess – but what happens when gene pools from opposite ends of the spectrum collide?In our shoeboxes of photos that we have to sort out before we die or get demented – because who IS that kid on ...
Summer reissue: Prisoner voting rights are something that few in government seem particularly motivated to do anything about. Could a catchy charity single help draw attention to the issue?First published September 1, 2020.Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The Spinoff’s journalism is funded by its ...
Hundreds more Cook Islanders are expected to begin criss-crossing the Pacific, Air NZ will triple the number of flights to Rarotonga next week, and about 300 managed isolation places will be freed up for Kiwis returning from other parts of the world. When Thomas Tarurongo Wynne took a job in Wellington at ...
SPECIAL REPORT:By Ena Manuireva in Auckland It seems a long time ago – some 124 days – since Mā’ohi Nui deplored its first covid-19 related deaths of an elderly woman on 11 September 2020 followed by her husband just hours later, both over the age of 80. The local ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Turnbull, Postdoctoral research associate, UNSW A global coalition of more than 50 countries have this week pledged to protect over 30% of the planet’s lands and seas by the end of this decade. Their reasoning is clear: we need greater protection ...
The Reserve Bank Governor’s apology and claim he will ‘own the issue’ is laughable given the lack of answers and timing of its release. Jordan Williams, a spokesman for the Taxpayers’ Union said: “It’s been five days since they came clean, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Olga Kokshagina, Researcher – Innovation & Entrepreneurship, RMIT University Are too many online meetings and notifications getting you down? Online communication tools – from email to virtual chat and video-conferencing – have transformed the way we work. In many respects they’ve made ...
The Reserve Bank acknowledges information about some of its stakeholders may have been breached in a malicious data hack. The Governor of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand has commissioned an independent inquiry into how stakeholders' information was compromised when hackers breached a file sharing service used by the bank. “We ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Caitlin Syme, PhD in Vertebrate Palaeontology, The University of Queensland This story contains spoilers for Ammonite Palaeontologist Mary Anning is known for discovering a multitude of Jurassic fossils from Lyme Regis on England’s Dorset Coast from the age of ten in 1809. ...
A tribute to the sitcoms of old? In the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Yup. Sam Brooks reviews the audacious WandaVision.Nothing sends a chill up my spine like the phrase “Marvel Cinematic Universe”. Since launching in 2008 with Iron Man, the MCU has become a shambling behemoth, with over 23 films (not ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University The alt-right, QAnon, paramilitary and Donald Trump-supporting mob that stormed the US Capitol on January 6 claimed they were only doing what the so-called “founding fathers” of the US had done in ...
The Point of Order Ministerial Workload Watchdog and our ever-vigilant Trough Monitor were both triggered yesterday by an item of news from the office of Conservation Minister Kititapu Allan. The minister was drawing attention to new opportunities to dip into the Jobs for Nature programme (and her statement was the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andreas Kupz, Senior Research Fellow, James Cook University In July 1921, a French infant became the first person to receive an experimental vaccine against tuberculosis (TB), after the mother had died from the disease. The vaccine, known as Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG), is ...
The first Friday Poem for 2021 is by Wellington poet Rebecca Hawkes.While you were partying I studied the bladeI your ever-loving edgelord God-emperorof the bot army & bitcoin mine subsistingon an IV drip of gamer girl bathwaterfinally my lonelinessis your responsibility………. you seeI need a girlfriend assigned to me by the ...
The arming of police officers in Canterbury was inevitable with the growing numbers and brazenness of the gangs across the country – this should be a permanent step, says Sensible Sentencing Trust. “It is unfortunate that we have come to the point ...
Celebrations in Aotearoa New Zealand to mark the entry into force of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) will begin on Thursday 21 January with ICAN Aotearoa New Zealand’s Wellington and online event, and continue on Friday ...
Hardly anyone is using their Covid Tracer app. Something needs to change.As the mercury approaches 30°C in Aotearoa, there is a good deal of slipping and slopping, but, let’s face it, piss-all scanning. As few as around 500,000 QR codes are being scanned by users of the NZ Covid Tracer ...
On the East Coast, a group of Māori-owned enterprises is innovating to create new revenue streams while doing what they love.New Zealand’s remote and sparsely populated regions are typically not the best places to create thriving brick-and-mortar businesses. In small communities miles away from any major centres, there are so ...
As we reach the height of summer, it’s not too late to do a safety check on your gas bottle. The Environmental Protection Authority’s Safer Homes programme has some tips and tricks to keep in mind before you fire up the grill. "If you’ve ...
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.AUCKLAND1Troy: The Siege of Troy Retold by Stephen Fry (Michael Joseph, $37)If you’re in any way unsure about ...
“We may as well knock on the gang headquarters around this country and tell them we all give up," says Darroch Ball co-leader of Sensible Sentencing Trust. “It is simply outrageous that violent offender, James Tuwhangai, has been released from ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Ireland, Israel, and Lebanon. Chart by Keith Rankin. The countries with the most recent large outbreaks of Covid19 are those with large numbers of recent recorded cases, but yet to record the deaths that most likely will result. In this camp, this time, are Ireland, Israel ...
RuPaul is in Aotearoa, kicking back in managed isolation to await the filming of an Australasian version of her hugely popular reality show Drag Race. But not everyone is happy about, explains Eli Matthewson. The world’s most famous drag queen, RuPaul, is in New Zealand, the government confirmed earlier this week ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Melleuish, Professor, School of Humanities and Social Inquiry, University of Wollongong What can we make of Clive Palmer? This week, he announced his United Australia Party (UAP) would not contest the upcoming West Australian state election on March 13. After a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gisela Kaplan, Emeritus Professor in Animal Behaviour, University of New England Have you ever seenmagpies play-fighting with one another, or rolling around in high spirits? Or an apostlebird running at full speed with a stick in its beak, chased by a ...
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Spying on workers made legal.
Presumably this new law also makes it legal for unions to install secret cameras to spy on bosses and hire private detectives to do so?
I can’t wait the day, that a manager is caught on tape plotting to victimise a worker who dares to join a union.
How times have changed. A few years ago a friend took exception to an employer secretly taping staff at his Service Station and took him to the Employment Court – and won.
How mad is that! Wow, sneaky… (I haven’t heard that reported on the radio or TV)
Wealth of the world’s richest rose nearly 10 percent in 2010
“Austerity measures, wage cuts and rising unemployment have characterised the years since the crash of 2008 for working people. For the rich and super-rich, however, they have been the occasion for clawing back every penny of the initial losses made and adding a great deal more.
Today, the world’s wealthy are richer than before the crash and the number of individuals belonging to this highly exclusive club has grown.
The annual world wealth report by Merrill Lynch and Capgemini identifies nearly 11 million “high net worth individuals” (HNWIs), defined as having more than $1 million in free cash, not including property and pensions. Their collective wealth reached $42.7 trillion in 2010, a 9.7 percent rise. This means that the wealth of this social layer has already surpassed the previous peak of $40.7 trillion reached in 2007.
…
The World Bank defines extreme poverty as living on less than US $1.25 per day, and moderate poverty as living on less than $2 a day. In 2001, some 1.1 billion people lived on less than $1 a day and 2.7 billion on less than $2 a day. Almost half of the world’s people—3 billion souls—live on less than $2.50 a day. One billion children—fully 50 percent of the world’s children—live in poverty. Six million children die of hunger every year, 17,000 every day.”
An economic and political system that tolerates such inequality and such economic brutality is an abomination and an obscenity. Yet we bleat about our won condition as we fight for our share of the cake. We are all caught living for the day, doing what we must to retain what comforts we have.
Those who have the wealth bear no useful function to our society, yet we by our own desires and demands are divided, ruled and conquered. Our compliance makes us accomplices and collaborators. We will only find redemption when we take action and expel the wealthy from our society.
Worse, we throw out items that a generation ago would still be working. We reward people to take away what should work and sell us something that will work for less long. If they raised the standards of housing, products and services, then we’d have more free time, more money left over and everything would be cheaper. Imagine that buying one toaster for your whole life, even getting it as a hand me down. And the strange thing is we will like the whole world have enough to eat, and live culturally rich lives. But no! We choose shallow regurgitated news cycle and movies, and worse of all dogmatic political economics from paid public and politicians who know better, or should be sacked or voted out. The funny, if you can see it that way, is history will call men like Brash and Key, and even Goff, fools. Their own grandchildren will be disinherited (unless a cheap form of energy is discovered), and so even today we know these men are fools since they don’t have the cheap energy source.
There’s no cheap energy source coming available for 20 years (or more). With additional safety requirements and fuel shortages, nuclear power is going to get more expensive not less. Even massive immediate discoveries in cold fusion will require many many years to commercialise safely into 100MW scale reactors.
So I reckon that by 2030 most will have to make do with a 1910’s level of per capita energy usage. It’s going to be a rough ride for western civilisation down the slope of depleting oil. $3/L petrol really is only a start.
Your grandchildren will not be disinheritted by energy depletion or a lack of the cheap material baubles of the oil age. I would prefer to think that we in three generations have disinheritted ourselves from the practical low energy based knowledge of life that our grandparents knew, and that our grandchildren will have to rediscover. Yes, life might be materially much harder but it might also be more spiritually rewarding given that we have divorced our spiriits from anything not from a manufactured technology derivation.
As a point of interest, the whole energy era of the last century has produced huge advances in knowledge and theory around mathematics and science, with towering intellects such as Einstein. Conversely in a sea of literature and arts I see no Shakespeare. Maybe technology and science have trumped the human spirit.
I agree with the sentiment. I just observe that our desires pick what we believe. Einstein had he not happened would have still seen the emergence of General Relativity, as would we have seen a ‘Darwin; if Darwin were not around. The times demanded new thought, a culture pregnant for new ideas.
Similarly now.
I find it astonishing that a man on the radio declared that people should starve and not get benefits, he sounded in his 20s having no doubt supped on the interest free student loans, and was sounded desperate to keep the good times going like he had a mortgage (may even less than the price of his home). What staggered me, was someone made unemployed might have no debts, might own their own home, might already be living a low carbon life, have savings in the local bank supporting local businesses, and doing everything right. And here was this smuck too smart for his own good, the ‘losers’ who supped on the tonic of high debt, who are carried and bailed out by the common community. Sorry but we so live in interesting times.
The great contraction has started. Do we want to make it easier on ourselves by fracting oil shale and leaving a wasteland that kills whole ecosystems for generations, killing the top predators like Eagles, or do we want to end the privately owned petroleum automobile culture and buy into wind farms that may or may not kill the odd eagle?
Activity for activity sake ‘economics’ is killing our planet, our future, and our yes very moral being, when our young smart people desperately peddle the far right wing greed at any cost is good. Sorry but real greed is knowing that too much greed harms you. We can have it all now, and nothing later, or we could have less now, more leisure time, more time with our kids doing low carbon, cost on society lowering healthy exercises running around playing footy with the kids.
I think our MSM has too many people who have too much debt and little common sense left.
But be warned they will come after us, criminalize or try to have us sanctioned for our political and social views. Its always the way with proto fascism.
Tocqueville observed of c.1840s American Democracy that Materialism was its shared value-system. That a basic urge to acquire more money and goods united all people and classes – and thus should be given free rein. Hence, American-style democratic capitalism.
What Tocqueville didn’t foresee is a time when the Materialistic ethos would become practically untenable due to shrinking resources and overpopulation. The challenge for Western democracies in coming years will be to replace Materialism with some other value-system that is compatible with democracy and broadly shared by all citizens. Otherwise, perhaps we will probably go toward some kind of Chinese-style political system.
Tocqueville was only one side of the equation though. In the 19th century there was a great interest in all things spiritual and philosophical in the US, a counter-reaction to the materialists who only believed in what they could own, buy, sell and touch.
At the end of the day the material capitalists may seem to have won out, but their victory is incomplete and as we can see now, increasingly shaky.
CV, yeah, I agree. In fact, Tocqueville himself saw religion as the great counter balance to materialism in American society. To some extent, this American religous strand continues to the present. But, just as the corporate capitalists have triumphed over the small business, the fundamentalists seem to have trumped the transcendentalists.
In some ways, the transcendentalist proto-hippy Henry David Thoreau presented a good model for a low-energy, low-labour, independent lifestyle. He was a bit unsociable though.
MORE broken promises from National and John Key?
This time on the privatisation of state housing assets?
This is a BIGGIE!
Looking forward to ALL the parties that are opposed to privatisation and assets sales going BALLISTIC on this one!
Seen this?
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1106/S00319/stop-privatisation-of-state-housing-assets.htm
26 June 2011
PRESS RELEASE: Response from Sue Henry Spokesperson Housing Lobby:
“STOP PRIVATISATION OF STATE HOUSING ASSETS!”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10734409
“Thousands to come off housing list” By Simon Collins Saturday Jun 25, 2011
________________________________________________________________________________
“With the continuation of Auckland’s serious housing crisis and families still languishing in sheds, garages and overcrowded and sub-standard accommodation, including those left homeless in Christchurch – the last thing any decent Government should be doing is privatising the state housing stock, using charities such as the Salvation Army and ‘trusts’ in a mixed economy to do it,” says Sue Henry, Spokesperson for the Housing Lobby.
“It is totally unacceptable to have Government policies in the 21st century that create instability, transience and homelessness.
There are several other aspects that are very concerning:
The ‘housing crisis’ will not be fixed by taking people off the waiting list.
Prime Minister John Key promised that there would be no asset sales in this first term of government. This is what John Key promised on 14 April 2008:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0804/S00195.htm
“Transcript: Agenda IV’s John Key
Monday, 14 April 2008, 10:57 am
Article: Agenda
GUYON Alright you rightly point out it was sold by the National government in 1998 now that brings us to this position. What is your position now as a National Party on state asset sales?
JOHN Well National’s had some time to reflect on that and the position that we’ve decided to have is the following one.
That in the first term of the National government there will be no state assets that will be sold either partially or fully.
GUYON So no state assets, you’re completely firm on that?
JOHN That’s right.”
________________________________________________________________________________
“But Housing Minister Phil Heatley has said ‘some iwi groups wanted to take over managing state houses rather than buying them, but the Government wanted to sell them.’
Prime Minister John Key is breaking this promise.
The proposed sale of any state housing stock must cease forthwith.”
………………………
Sue Henry
Spokesperson
Housing Lobby
________________________________________________________________________________
Penny Bright
http://waterpressure.wordpress.com
Scrap over the housing stock
Scrap over the jobs
Scrap over the hospital waiting list
Scrap over cheaper places in childcare
Scrap over the specials at the supermarket
About 460 Housing NZ homes out of 6,000 in Christchurch are estimated to be reduced due to the earthquakes in the red and orange zones. The Government in 2011 are finishing off what they started in the mid 1990s concerning the housing stock for those with the most need.
Yes, on RNZ and on TV, we keep hearing about home-owners, but what I want to know is: what has become of those who were renting, especially the poor? They are possibly in a much worse position than those in the Red zone who have discovered that their insurance companies aren’t going to pay out (which is bad enough).
HNZ stock is 6,000 in Canterbury my slight error. Vicky 32 do you mean those renting HNZ homes or private rental?
It is my understanding that if a HNZ tenant HNZ have relocated people in the red zone. Some in private rental have remained in their dwelling and no doubt there are tenancy issues.
It would be good to see a topic on this: rental stories from within the red zone regardless of being a private or HNZ tenant.
I was actually thinking about both, although it seems the HNZ tenants might (for a change!) be slightly more secure than those renting privately. (What I mean by that is that an HNZ tenant can be at the mercy of a loonie tenancy manager)
‘history will call men like Brash and Key, and even Goff, fools’
Anyone who knows what is actually happening with respect to energy and environment has been calling men like Brash, Key, anf Goff fools (or criminals) for several years.
Men (and women) like Brash, Key, Goff etc. have maintained their positions by ignoring reality as a matter of policy. Reality is now knocking at the door.
‘unless a cheap form of energy is discovered’
Cheap sources of energy were discovered (coal, oil and gas). They are what got us into this mess.
Fortunately there are no other forms of cheap energy. So, the present corrupt and inefficient political-economic system will collapse, almost certainly by 2015.
The week that was 19 – 26 June
The Bay of Plenty Regional Council said this week that excessive sludge on beaches is not associated with the discharge of dairy farm effluent. They said that the high levels of scum is all a part of nature and that surf diatoms are a type of phytoplankton, which is a main source of food for productive shellfish beds in the surf.
I sometimes listen to Radio Live talk back Saturdays ( no rude comments please) . Most interesting fellow named Keith Lewis , Certainly well on the political left. Anyone with any information. Last night said that Key was the most dangerous politician ever in NZ .Interesting because this is my belief too. It would be interesting to know something about him.
Remember those characters who wore a smiley mask on one side of their head and a demonic one on the other? Don’t know about Lewis but the masking would fit Key to a tee don’t ya see?
Until Madoff was uncovered, he was a light that people would recommend to their friends.
So is neo-liberal economics.
We will destroy ourselves by accepting at face value anything John Key has to say, not because its right or wrong (mostly wrong) but because we consent to everything he has done, is doing and will do in our names otherwise.
“…the most dangerous politician in ever in NZ…”
This is very, very true.
Periodically I put Key on par with Muldoon. The destruction Muldoon left is still around. E.g.
1) Crewe inquiry, 2) Colin Moyle inquiry, 3) Traumatised undercover cops trying to expose the short comings of being an undercover cop in particular Patrick O’ Brien (Iam no fan of high ranking cops at PNHQ as I know they have even concealed the truth in recent times), 4) Erebus inquiry.
I feel it in my bones that Key will be another Muldoon on how he performs regarding Pike River. Muldoon was mafia like concerning his dealings with the police because he NEVER held the police to account for 1) Who fed Rochelle, 2) Ensuring there was an internal police investigation into who in police leaked the Moyle incident, 3) The damage that resulted due to police undercover work, 4) What happened to Collins diary in the lock up at Mc Murdo Sound. Either the PM can have a commission of inquiry or the police commissioner can do an inquiry.
I am yet to see how Marshall performs regarding historical police matters which are still affecting people today.
There is one major difference between Muldoon and Key Treetop. Muldoon was an overt bully and a bastard. Key is a covert bully and a bastard. Also, it became quite well known that Muldoon used the SIS for his own political purposes. I don’t think Key will have tried that one on… unlikely to get away with it in this day and age.
Anne I knew that you would respond. Your idea on a book is a first rate idea. Of interest, goings on in the 1970s are being written about more now days. My library has Vol 1 but not Vol 2 “In New Zealand As it Might Have Been” by Hugh Eldred-Grigg. There is a chapter on Moyle in it. I need to read both volumes and have a think about what has really changed in 35 years between the police and certain prime ministers.
Did you know that Muldoon was Key”s idol in Key”s teen years and Muldoon got Key interested in politics. For all I know Muldoon could be Key’s hobby!
Pink Postman – this you may mean Keith Stewart. He is one of the few talkback hosts coming from the left and his show is often very interesting. Mikey Havoc was on Radio Live recently, he also appears to come from the left. Also made interesting talkback, wish they would give him a permanet job. Talkback radio can actually provide some interesting debate occasionally as opposed to the usual rightwing propaganda believe it or not!
Yes and thank you Belldonna. In fact I was listening to Keith Lewis the wonderfull NZ tenor and got the names mixed up. Im getting old and funny ,
However I am most impressed by K.Stewart and I would like to know about his background . Like you say it makes a change to get a good Leftie on talk back
Sour Grapes
The political left gained a victory this weekend with te Mana’s Hone Harawira winning the Tai Tokerau by-election. It’s a fantastic result considering the short amount of time te Mana had to launch their campaign and the negative media campaign run against the new party…
Press Release: New Publication Available Online Now
E-Release Only
Matters To A Head
Cannabis, mental illness & recovery
By Kate K
This highly readable and exciting new book explores the links between cannabis and mental illness through the personal and professional experiences of New Zealand author Kate K.
[This isn’t a place for a long advertisement, thanks, though you’ll probably get away with something short and a link to your web site. r0b]
To contact the author:
Kate K
16 Beach Haven Place
Paraparaumu 5032
M. 021 024 79861
Email: 444kate@gmail.com
http://katekennedyonline.blogspot.com
Deborah Coddington nails into National and ACT for trashing their female MPs and loving recycled old male ones
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10734513
This has made my day – smart girls from a decile one school and bees – one of the most important ecological issues of out time.
Awesome 🙂
Two thoughts for this evening, one profound, one mildly amusing/creative.
First the profound – look at the pictures on here http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/gallery/2011/jun/26/wwf-animal-research#/?picture=376126227&index=0
1000 new species, including a new species of dolphin, found in the Papua New Guinea rainforests and coast; profound, because this is now the third largest rain forest in the world, is on our door step and is at risk from climate change and exploitation of resources – such wonderful diversity, just found, but could be gone in a century.
Second – you may remember those TV road safety adverts with the old scary guy with the roulette wheel who decided whether they would crash, near miss, be killed, etc. How about a campaign at major intersection with people dressed as Key, English, etc, but instead having ‘Asset sales’, Privatisation, no GST increase, etc as the outcomes.
I do love the ads idea, only problem is that it is a very negative and downbeat campaign. Labour needs to present a different vision of the future, not just negate National’s crap.
It could however form the basis of a secondary viral campaign 🙂