sigh two of my colleagues received freshly minted 90 day notices yesterday… Landlords selling up due to changes…. I guess the changes are having the desired effect not so good for solo mums thrust back into the exploding rental market…
Yeah its not alot of fun… effects schooling as well end up having to look in the same zone… expensive to time off… moving costs… finding bond… tenancy services is running behind on bond refunds by the sounds…
Pretty worried for one of them piles more shit on…
Hoping but not holding my breath that govt will move quickly to help renters… to my mind if you make renters rights really strong you deflate the market anyway… would put anyone in it for the short term off…
Unfortunately there will be a few landlords that decide to cash up now which was always going to happen as an unintended consequence. I fear these announcements may not be good for renters as rents will increase. Hopefully your colleagues can find another place but there is a shortage of rental places in many areas, thus the problem we have.
I actually have a nice landlord story. A friend of mine the landlord has cut down 2 big trees, cost 8k so the homes are warmer. Landlord said he was not selling.
Usually when costly land shaping is done either selling or a rent rise is in the horizon.
I do have nosy extractor fan issues 24/7 where I live due to a house divided into 3 tenancies with 6 people. Loud footsteps and doors banging can also annoy me and keep me up or wake me up.
The rental market is so tight and I have had the experience of the landlord selling and needing to move out. I had the last laugh they sold for 200k 4 1/2 years ago and the place is now worth 400k.
Some landlords might find the price of their home dropping. I do give a thought to those struggling to pay the rent and this cannot continue.
Agree Cricklewood. Renters rights need to be very strong. Rent freeze, long tenancies. Evictions only for anti social activities that bother the neighbours or destroy property.
I do also think it is a good sign if landlords are selling up(although very sorry for your friends). Hopefully too many who thought they would buy property to invest, changing their minds…
How are landlords selling good? Those who rent and will never be able to buy where do they go ? Perhaps into the waiting list for a HNZ property and with the demand there. With obvious outcomes where is the govts action on coping with the consequences? A plan to build more in the future. When and what if those living in the present ???!
Thereon lies the big flaw in the govts announcement, it may slow house price inflation which has runaway but they did nothing to help renters at the same time… once again its help for the upwardly mobile.
Further stiffening the rights of renters particularly around giving notice needed to be part of the package…
Something like this from Switzerland perhaps…
Tenants have the right to know the grounds for termination. Notices of termination not made in good faith (such as notice of termination because the landlord is exercising his landlord's right, or on account of the tenants' changed family circumstances) may be contested before the conciliation authority. The official notice form explains how tenants should proceed when disputing a termination.
If the termination is likely to cause undue hardship for the tenants (financial or family difficulties, housing shortage), an extension of the term of the tenancy may be applied for at the conciliation authority.
The other oversight I would add that in Feb 21 the average property in me rose $50,000 and our leaders talk of substainable price rises going forward 🤷♀️. Not of the damage done in recent times.
I am yet to read anything or contributor here as to what this country looks like in 3,5+ years . IMO that outlook would frustrate many . As J Ritren sang “ no future, no future for me ..”
well done to the govt for being seen to do something but deliver crap all.
Couple of ways….if the property was being held empty for capital gain it adds to the available stock….if the property was being used as an AirBnB, it adds to available stock.
If future rental stock is available at a lower price the pressure to reduce rents is increased, but most important of all, the realisation that property values are no longer a one way bet will bring some sanity back to the housing market and allow us to use housing as it should be….to house our population, not as a credit line for the few who seek to extract wealth from the many (and the broader economy)
There is no point in investors s buying property for a capital gain if there is no (or a CPI equivalent) capital gain….that capital will seek a new home, especially if they see their existing gains disappearing in a falling market.
In short, investors selling is a symptom of changed expectations….and that is beneficial to both FHB AND renters.
Has extending the brightline test and cutting the tax reduction on interest turned into a house being like a car sitting in the garage for years not knowing what you can sell it for?
The housing market hopefully is going to cool by 10%. This is advantageous to everyone BUT the seller.
Id suggest what the extended BL test and (especially) the change to interest deductibility have done is increase the costs to investors while they wait for the capital gain…it is a signal that if you are investing in existing property for capital gain then we are going to make it hard for you…especially when aligned with the exemption for new builds….that makes the business model for many investors, especially recent investors who have paid high prices, unworkable.
There are pretty much two questions that we are waiting to see the answer to….how many investment properties will re enter the market?…and will the Government stick to its position, or will they soften their message?
"The housing market hopefully is going to cool by 10%. This is advantageous to everyone BUT the seller."
Dont think anyone can put a percentage on it…there are too many variables, but the sellers will not necessarily lose …if you bought your rental say 6 years ago and you sell now you take out that capital gain of around maybe 60-80% (median house 2014 $457000—median house price 2020 $725000) and not subject to BL….not a bad return Id suggest.
Hopefully the latest changes put a brake on property investors who only buy to sell due to house prices rocketing.
Government cannot soften their message because nothing else has worked. It's a vicious cycle as renters now need more government assistance to pay the rent and landlords know this.
1. How to support people to pay the rent without it going into the landlords hand is what needs to be actioned?
2. Some sort of tier percentage system on when the rental was purchased and how much the rent can increase?
Rent caps or other forms of rent control are another option but I suspect that would only be used if there is widespread rent hikes….and as noted yesterday many landlords have already had their annual shot at rent hikes so they cant till the years is up….I dont think many of them will wait until next year to decide what to do.
I think that, before evicting a tenant or increasing his rent, a landlord should be required to apply to Kainga Ora for a review of the situation to determine whether the eviction/rent increase would be justified. I would regard the recovery of the no longer deductible interest as not constituting an adequate reason for either action.
I’ve always wondered about banning tenders in the sale process. It creates a lot of anxiety which I reckon drives up the selling price as FOMO pushes people to put in bids way above the estimated value
Auctions get the second best price (the winner only has to outbid the second best bid not bid with their top offer). Tenders means the seller gets the best price because everyone has to put in their best offer.
And this morning the deputy PM had fuelled the fire by “not ruling out rent freezes”. So what will landlords do … hike the rents as much as they can in the meantime to kick off any rent controls from a higher base.
However the deputy PMs credibility went from hero to zero this week so maybe we can just ignore him and carry on.
"investors have been offered a generous exit package"
Indeed – they get to keep the extraordinary wealth passively accumulated at the expense of others (including future generations) over the last two decades – minus a short blip post-GFC. Does anyone dare to go after some of this deplorable stash with a wealth tax – maybe to help fund a large state house building programme?
The wealth accumulated in the last couple of decades is going to perpetuate unequal access to housing into the next generation through inheritance. I don't see it as retribution so much as correcting market perversity and returning to a slightly more level playing field. I do agree though that the primary purpose of a wealth tax is not raising revenue and that state house building is not tax take-constrained.
Not entirely sure how say 5 separate people being forced out of a flat due to rent rises from this, for the sake of one of the few couples left, who manage to buy the flat as a home helps the 5 separate people find more affordable flats, when there are obviously less of them and the sudden demand, means the rent will just go up even more.
People to me seem to forget some people will just never be able to afford to own a house, and have to rent.
I dont forget that at all…and is why property prices (and consequently rents) need to fall to affordable levels….10+ times median income is not that.
"But she said there were warning signs beneath the surface and many people were still doing it tough. More than a third were still living “payday to payday”.
“We know we are not out of the woods yet, there are more Covid-19 effects to roll through the economy and this research highlights some concerns. The fact that more than a third of people have less than a single week’s expenses available to them and almost half have less than $1000 in rainy day savings rings alarm bells for me. This puts them in a potentially vulnerable position."
There are going to be people selling flats to couples (or other investers who sit on them for 10 years) or raising rents, to cover it, which means less flats available, which means even higher rent prices.
You can argue all you like the rents will be too high for people to cover it, but this just means more people joing the state housing waiting list, which is getting immense.
If first home buyers buy the properties landlords sell and prospective landlords change their minds and don’t but, those first home buyers will no longer need a rental. Good
For your info Pat these investors still have an advantage – Rates, maintenance etc are still able to be deducted for a reduction of tax and still allows a cash back advantage.
And what many have not understood these recent increases in price also distance new home purchasers with an increase of an already substantial deposit required. In feb the average price of a property increased by $50,000 a 20% deposit means that these 1st Home buyers in 28 days now required another $10,000 in deposit, and think what the impact of the increases that were achieved pre Feb 21??
And all of that explains why prices must fall or we consign home ownership in NZ to the dustbin.(and the likely exodus of our youth offshore….again)
The Gov have been bolder than I initially thought with this package and appear willing to accept a fall in property prices although they havnt explicitly said so…my guess is they would be happy for them to revert to what they were around a year ago ….good luck controlling the decline, theyll probably be the first in history if they pull it off, but at least theyre trying.
I dont rent but some of my children do, so do some of my friends and who knows circumstances may decide that one day I will….why is it so difficult to understand that peoples motives are not necessarily self serving?
This economic model is destroying everything that was best about this country/society so you may find that many of that 65% are quite happy for the 10% of the population who are investors to lose their gravy train…especially when it is wrecking their communities
My house value could fall 50% tomorrow and I wouldnt care, nor would my mother if hers did similarly, 50% may cause a problem for one of my children but theyd survive….dont forget roughly a third of properties in NZ are mortgage free.
"So to clarify, do house price falls only affect 0.3% of the population as you claim Pat?"
Obviously not, and the size of the fall will be determinant however you were asking about how voters would view house price falls and I gave you a couple of voters perspectives.
While there are potential downsides to property price falls there are also upsides so what is the net position?…not just for individuals but the economy as a whole.
And if the expectation is the current trajectory is unsustainable then the correction will happen anyway….and the greater the debt the bigger the impact when it does.
Some pain today or lots of pain tomorrow?
I know every investors thinks they will be out before that happens but history shows most mistime it.
Actually David I know of many many fhb who have the deposit, but keep missing out due to investors. They will now have far less competition and will be able to secure their own first home.
What I don't get about investors bleating on about interest payments no longer being tax deductable is that any good business person who took out a loan at record low interest rates should have forecasted in a potential for interest rates to increase substantially, or even for the govt to make interest no longer tax deductable. Any person with half a brain who is investing should have factored that in.. They took the risk, things change, too bad.
And yes bring on a rent freeze. Or even better a national rent strike.
Sounds awesome – that could highlight/solve a lot of issues.
The case for a rent strike in New Zealand under COVID-19 Nevertheless, there is still a key difference between these landlords and renters: if things get really bad, they can always sell their house to pay their bills. Renters don’t have that option. This is the true class difference between those who own private property and those who don’t. It’s about material security, not varying levels of personal greed.
2, 4, 6, 8
we don’t want to pay our bills in a commy state
Nice one David – cue the dancing Cossacks. Tbh, I don't know what Muldoon was so het up about. National governments always 'transfer' public assets into private hands – it's what they do.
One 'problem' facing a fairly sizable minority of NZ citizens is the inability to pay for the necessities of life, wouldn't you agree? Maybe inequality in NZ has gone a little too far…
Why poverty in New Zealand is everyone's concern
Liang describes poverty as a "heritable condition" that perpetuates and amplifies through generations: "It is also not hard to see how individual poverty flows into communities and society, with downstream effects on economics, crime and health, as well as many other systems. Loosen one strand and everything else unravels."
A Kete Half Empty Poverty is your problem, it is everyone's problem, not just those who are in poverty. – Rebecca, a child from Te Puru
Wrong target David. It is land speculators who have been getting a free ride at the expense of tenants, people who need a home and those of us who do pay taxes.
"Communism" is fine when they benefit, it seems.
If we all end up paying much higher interest rates, it will be because of their borrowing also.
Coincidentally, they released their Annual Report on Friday in which that information was made available to the public. Have you read the report? The photos of pristine New Zealand nature wouldn’t go amiss in a NZ Travel & Tourism brochure or a publication by DOC, all super-neutral, of course.
I know the identities of two NZers (maybe three) who were working for a 'foreign agency' in the 1970s and 1980s. They infiltrated the NZ Labour Party. Since the country concerned was a close geographical ally I guess that was alright. They could do what they liked and harass whoever they liked.
Please don’t even go there, thanks. Some other commenter might be stupid enough to put this site at risk and that would be a real shame, don’t you agree?
So why is this happening, all over the country it seems?
It its not just short staffed, it is arrivals at hospital for treatment have vastly increased – especially for this time of the year.
Is it the same cause as the housing crises we have and clogged up Auckland streets – ie far too many new immigrants have been allowed into NZ over the last 20 years ?
Is it the Baby Boomer generation aging ?
Have we not been training enough of our own nurses and doctors?
The A & E model needs to change so serious cases are triaged and a separate clinic run like a GP clinic adjacent to the premises. Fully staffed GP clinics need to run over the weekend at no extra cost.
More doctors and nurses are required. A shortage of specialists as well.
There needs to be a change in the way health care is delivered.
When someone is referred to ED/clinic etc the next steps must be available at the same time. eg Cat/MRI scan, Xray, dietician/nutrionist, mental health…
Folk often struggle to take that morning/afternoon/hour off as it is without scheduling further engagements.
I do like your answers at 5.3, gsays; enough so that I won't spoil them by replying directly.
But another cause behind the ED bottleneck is the drain of nurses to MIQ, vaccination, and more rewarding private work. Public health work conditions, in Dunedin hospital at least, are apparently pretty grim at the best of times for them.
The 2 ED nurses I know that are/were doing the MIQ stuff, where either working in Oz (clinic work in a remote town) or looking to exit health and grow their small dingo/digger truck business.
Both have talked about dismay with junior/inexperienced staff, cultural politics and being too busy, too often.
“Is it the same cause as the housing crises we have and clogged up Auckland streets – ie far too many new immigrants have been allowed into NZ over the last 20 years ?”"
A lot of the aforementioned immigrants, are staffing the wards and EDs. This may influence the militancy/stauchness of the workforce, therefore the nursing unions.
“Is it the Baby Boomer generation aging ? ”
Yes, along with increased presentations of folk who cant afford to see a GP, drug seekers, alcohol impaired, mental ill health, entitlitis etc.
“Have we not been training enough of our own nurses and doctors?”
Yes. Nor do we pay them well enough.
“What is the root cause ?”
Neo-liberalism. Letting a market decide. When your DHB has a Chief Executive Officer as the highest paid on the payroll, its a sign of the times.
A random meeting between the self-centred driven entrepreneurs being lauded in this country, trying hard to acquire enough custom from those with spare everything, and someone who has to count the pennies to get near that lifestyle and resents being pushed to the fringes.
And this is just a light touch on the cheek from the group finding social mobility difficult to achieve, tantalisingly available and then removed, perhaps in the 'gig' economy, or regularly denied and facing deprivation. Below such people are a mass who are at their wit's end, lacking wit for some time actually, becoming hopeless, munted, angry and holding in vengeful thoughts, just.
I saw this while looking for a source of retirement income apart from the traditional residential property, exchange traded shares, funds and fixed interest.
"We’re on a mission to simplify investment into high growth Kiwi companies.
"We want to make the capital market work much more efficiently for growth companies, so they can focus on selling their products to the world. We want to provide investors with a simple way to gain exposure to interesting investment opportunities – facilitating the flow of national savings into wealth-creating assets.
We’re driven by the significant positive impact we can make by building a thriving marketplace to connect growth companies with the capital they need.
Along the way we hope to develop the general financial literacy of the New Zealand public, and bring far more meaning and excitement to investing."
… was policed to such an extent & I felt so unsupported that I have now taken an interruption. I really don’t know what the best course of action is now. I am a mature student and feel so bewildered by all this". pic.twitter.com/Zpt9196I4i
… This is ridiculous. I thought the whole point of university was to uphold freedom of speech and promote discussion and debate. I actually feel like quitting or starting again and choosing a diff discipline. (I’m currently in the 2nd year of a English Lit degree)." pic.twitter.com/yyxfBUYrGL
This shit should be a massive red flag for the left. Actually for everyone. Next time you see a woman being told that no-one is stopping them from speaking about their reality, understand that this is what is now routine in academia and has been increasing for quite some time. In another decade we, women, will have lost our ability to academic freedom around our own realities, and it's not like we were in a great place to begin with. And it won't end with women.
and this. Women students are being marked down for writing that feminism is about the liberation of women.
When I was doing my MA I submitted an essay in which I defined feminism as a movement for women's liberation. The marker (a women's studies academic) "corrected" it from "women" to "all marginalised people". And I got 15 points lower than my average mark.
No McFlook, it looks like cancel culture to me. And it pisses me off because it is cancelling the existence of the women's liberation movement and menstruating at the very least.
“I was encouraged to abandon about the problems menstruation posed ……..because it was deemed trans exclusionary.”
I would be interested to hear you views on what I have written below.
Most academic institutions have an appeals process if someone feels they have been penalised unfairly or inconsistently.
As for your comments below, one doesn't have to be male to perv at women, so it's not as if self-id would automatically stop police or anyone else objecting to someone behaving objectionably.
And no, zoom-calling in a conference room isn't "kosher". It might even be a criminal offence (intimate visual recording).
btw, I’ll be offline for several hours very soon – I should have held off rather than getting into a discussion.
Actually McFlook you are discounting my concerns about having men who id as women in changing rooms with your glib comment about “One doesn’t have to be a man to perv at women”. I am sure I have shared many a changing room with lesbians (guess that’s who you are referring to) and I have never felt uncomfortable about any women’s behaviour in a change room. I have also NEVER heard of police being called to women’s objectionable behaviour towards other women in a change room. It is a completely different dynamic with a man. Also women often walk around without towels etc in a change room. If gender self id “women” who were really men did this it would be very unpleasant. Surely you have heard about flashers. But how could it be proved “she” just walking from the shower to “her” locker.
I think women will feel really concerned about this, even if you men can’t imagine how that will be for a women. You have never lived with the unwanted male gaze. Have you not read the paper about how many time men have been filming women in bathrooms changerooms etc????
As for flashing in the changing rooms, sure, the possibilities for human stupidity are limitless. Some non-trans guy might try it. How do you see that conversation with the cops or changing room staff going down, realistically?
Flashing in a public change room human stupidity????? WTF McFlook. That jut tells me you know nothing about what it is like being a women. Your o.k. for men who have changed their gender to do these things and of course the police/change room staff with make it o.k………..Think by this stage the horse has bolted. If the "woman" acts like other women in the change rooms, then there will be nothing that can be done about it. All they have to do is walk from the shower to their locker without a towel with or without an erection and they are women right? Police could probably say wear a towel mate, but can't enforce.
Thinking that self-id will avoid any repercussion is the stupidity part of it.
So we have a flasher of the subtle breed who are acting completely normally without eye contact to see what reaction they're getting? Ok, not the usual type I've had to call the cops over back in the day, but ok. Assuming there is nothing, nothing, to show dodgy intent, they can still be barred by the facility because of their behaviour, because it makes other people uncomfortable.
Point is McFlook, I don't want men in women's changing rooms. Full stop. Most women I have run this by feel the same.
I understand you side with the gender self id bill/trans rights side. Yours entitled to your opinion. But I don't think your opinion on how its going to operate in women's changing rooms has any merit. It can't have. You have never been in one (I hope except maybe when you were a child).
I didn't need to go into the women's room to control access, catch flashers, or see how people dealt with men who thought they were discriminated against because they weren’t allowed to run for women's rep positions.
The idea that self-id makes facilities management and the police powerless to deal with offensive behaviour just isn't reflected in the real world.
But transwomen being unsafe in one changing room and unwelcome in the other? That is reflected in the real world.
"Most academic institutions have an appeals process if someone feels they have been penalised unfairly or inconsistently."
This tells me that you have no idea what is actually going on. Academics are afraid to speak out. This isn't hyperbole. The ones that do get their office doors pissed on, they get rape and death threats, they lose their careers. The women more than the men of course. To suggest that in this environment an appeals process is going to be useful other than as a political act is incredibly naive.
What’s happening on the left is the dismissal and the position that there is no debate, so there is no way for the issues to be aired and resolved. That too should be a big fucking red flag for the left. It’s not like the left is immune to authoritarianism.
This tells me that you have no idea what is actually going on.
It's a bit unfair to post links about getting marked down in assignments and then argue that anyone who responds should be responding to unmentioned but more serious complaints.
Try writing a paper about a steady-state model of the universe sometime (as opposed to "Big Bang" theory), and see how that gets marked.
good to know you are ok with academia redefining feminism to mean a liberation movement for all people and educating its students to that effect against the wishes of many feminists including MA students.
I mean, it's always enlightening when men give away women's rights. Again. Maybe try putting up some actual arguments, I'd love to know where this goes. Feminist academics are raising the issue, and men are going, yeah, nah, nothing to worry about there.
When you can not conduct a study on women (biological or trans) and you can not discuss the impact of menstruation and menstruation products when in this country we have young vaginal beings not going to school for lack of menstruation products (and maybe there even is a trans boy or five in the group ) then academia is getting dumb, and discriminatory. Cause women who identify as women and would like to get treated as such exist. And we too would like to be identified as to our on self ID. And we would like our rights, and our safety taken seriously, cause we die the world over often at the hand of penis humans.
And i would just venture a guess that you have never refused an outing or been refused a promotion a job or such on the grounds that you may get your period, or that you may get pregnant, or that you may have given birth, or that you may have lost a pregnancy.
So really please, take your male privilege and ask yourself why women who identify as women, who were born as women, who have born literally every man that is, need to take what little rights we have gained over the last hundred years and give it up to accomodate and be surplanted by trans women. Cause the discussion is only affecting women.
Is this a discussion about a seat of the table and only 10 seats are there, so one needs to be knocked of to free up a seat? Or will this be a discussion about finding another seat and adding it the table?
McFlook then what do you see as the solution for trans women in changing rooms? What if women aren't comfortable with this?
Every concern and reservation I have have had about the gender self id bill you have dismissed. It sounds like you think women like me and there are many of us should put up and shut up. Is this how you see it?
You can see why as feminists it is a double problem for us. A. Maybe we don't want trans women in our change rooms. B. Men such as yourself seem to be dismissing this.
You also didn't answer whether you though it was a credible scenario that men would change their sex to have easy access to women and children. Is that o.k. by you because we can ring the police?
1: Trans women already use womens' changing rooms.
2: I have also listened to other non-trans women who disagree with your position. And trans women, and trans men. I suspect that you are, as they say, "on the wrong side of history", and quite possibly the legislation will change within months, regardless of any arguments here.
3: Some feminists and non-trans women agree with you. Others disagree with you. There does not seem to be any middle ground on this issue.
4: "Credible"? 2.5 million men, sure. Someone might try changing their birth certificate as an excuse to get unchallenged access to women and children. Will it work? Significantly less likely. Will it result in greater harm than if 50,000-odd trans people are policed about which changing rooms they go into regardless of birth certificate, not even including instances of non-trans women being challenged because they don't conform to feminine norms? I don't think so. That's why I have the position I have.
“Being on the wrong side of history” would never stop me from supporting a cause I believe in. Standing up for women’s rights is not something I d we oils drop because I might be on the wrong side of history.
but thanks to discussion on this blog and to you I have become better informed. What I have discovered about these issues worries me more. How debate/women’s voices are being silenced. Only this weekend gone at the pride event in Wellington a woman who is a lesbian who has terminal cancer was on a stall at the event. She left the stall briefly to take scissors and tape to a group of “reefs” in this case elderly lesbians who had been banned from pride who were protesting outside. In trying to re-gain entry 4 organisers including a very large male person intercepted her, accused her of carrying an offensive weapon. She still had her bag at the stall. She stood up to them and refused to budge. They man handled her and called the police. These older women have fought the good fight for lesbian and gay rights. What sort of treatment is this? Young people gathered and started chanting fucking terfs. An aggressive and vocal minority is shutting women’s. Voices down
Btw in the last week two cases of trans being barred from women’s changing rooms
Yes I think that is reasonably accurate, i.e. a generation divide.
Having read a bit more about it i.e. trans issues, I understand and feel free to disagree, that a lot of the children who identify as trans have other mental health issues such as anorexia and self harm. They also experience gender dysphoria. An approach that has been encouraged with their parents is to validate their wanting to be a different sex. This started to occur 20 years ago and so now we have a generation of young people who identify as trans. This I don't believe has ever happened before. From this point of view I acknowledge how very vulnerable some of these individuals must feel.
My perspective is a rigorous radical campaign has been mounted for trans rights, including the right to say there are real women. My understanding is if this is challenged is it vociferously, aggressively shot down. I think there is an enormous amount of solidarity in numbers group think going on.
I noticed McFlook that someone accused you of mysogeny and others implied as a man you shouldn't be taking about this issue. But I don't want to stop you from doing this, because this is a part of what I am objecting to with the trans activists. People have their voices shot down/cancelled.
You are still denying that trans is actually a thing. A while ago i said that i see this as where the gay thing was forty years ago. Back then there was still a lot of people who saw being gay as a mental illness. Now when people say that they are not taken seriously, they are considered bigots. So yes the wrong side of history you are on this i think also.
It is not surprising that trans people experience mental health issues with so many people denying their identity is real:
Cheers – the accusation did give me pause for thought, but that's usually a good thing.
The issue of trans kids and their mental health has a fair bit of research, which is why validation starts early. The main worry is suicide and depression. But are these comorbidities, or are they the consequences of social responses to how trans people are treated by society? When social discrimination is killing people, there's a strong campaign for rights for those people. And trans people have been part of the queer rights movement all the way back to before Stonewall.
I have friends with trans kids (in both directions). The kids and young adults seem to be happier now than my peers from back at the same age who have since transitioned. But also the young thesps just seem more fluid and accepting of themselves and each other, by and large. Still dramas (natch lol), but less judgy of each other's bits and more willing to stand up for each other (although they still have the young person thing of going overboard without thinking, maybe like in responding to that protest you mentioned).
The babies my friends had in their early twenties are leaving/left the nest. They generally seem to be better people than I was (and many of my peer group) at that age.
I am not sure where you get that I am still denying trans is a thing Solkta. Please let me know.
you are entitled to think it like where the gay thing was forty years ago. I accept that is your view. I see it differently. Gay people were not telling me they were really heterosexual nor were they deconstructing my identity, eg referring to me as a person who f…Ed men.
I was still a heterosexual woman.
I don’t believe I have ever been anything but pleasant and respectful when I have met trans people. You then accused me of being disrespectful about them on-line, but when challenged didn’t provide any evidence that I had been. I did a check with Mc flook who said I hadn’t been.
I am still reading and finding out about this stuff.
I am a feminist and hearing things about elderly lesbians being banned from pride, because they are not prepared to say trans women (not those who have transitioned) are real women. Said women who have been attending pride since it began don’t deserve to have 100 or so young people chanting fucking terfs at them.
there was a woman who happens to have terminal cancer who was staffing a stall at pride. She went out to give the protesters some tape and scissors for their banner, and when she went to go back in 4 people including a large man tried to man handle her out of the venue. She stood her ground and so they called the police. Utterly disgraceful in my opinion. Also because she had scissors caused her of carrying an offensive weapon. I mean ffs. This is disgraceful. She told them she had cancer.
I accept mental health issues are significant in the trans community. I did comment that they were vulnerable. Btw, I do have a criticism of the study. It really needed to have a control group of non trans young people, rather than extrapolating from other studies.
I still think we need to look at the Dunedin multi disciplinary study for gold standard research on this issue.
Surveying trans people and comparing their responses with previous and more general surveys might be the spanner for that job, rather than the dunedin study.
Can't see anything searching their journal publications database. But if you see an article you don't have access to, we might be able to sort something out between us. I could remember how to use dropbox, or flip email it to a mod and they can flip it to you, if willing. There's also an openaccess research site somewhere (like pirating movies, but for academic research because journals cost $$$).
a lot of the children who identify as trans have other mental health issues such as anorexia and self harm.
That can only be taken to mean that you consider being trans to be a mental health issue. If that is not what you meant then why say "other"? You say offensive things and then complain when people are offended.
DSMV1 talks about gender dysphoria. and I assume that many Trans people have gender dysphoria. This would cause psychological distress.
I don't deny trans is a thing. Checked out some trans activist blog sites tonight as I was trying to become more informed.
When I trained it was called Gender Identity disorder.
You seem to want to cast me as anti trans. This is not true. I don't really care too much. But I do care about how women's voices are being shut down and how my identity as a women is being de-constructed.
Would it help if we (again) re-acquainted ourselves with the meanings of the words "sex" and "gender"?
SUFW prefers (and why not?) the United Nations' definitions….
…it is our recommendation that New Zealand policy makers adopt definitions set up by United Nations Equality Glossary (2017). In particular, we suggest the following:
Sex (biological sex)
The physical and biological characteristics that distinguish males and females.
Gender
Gender refers to the roles, behaviours, activities, and attributes that a given society at a given time considers appropriate for men and women. In addition to the social attributes and opportunities associated with being male and female and the relationships between women and men and girls and boys, gender also refers to the relations between women and those between men. These attributes, opportunities and relationships are socially constructed and are learned through socialisation processes. They are context/time-specific and changeable. Gender determines what is expected, allowed and valued in a woman or a man in a given context.
Sex, what you were born with, is forever. It can't be changed.
It is possible with a great deal of medical and surgical intervention to alter one's appearance so as to look like the other sex, but you'll still be the sex you were born with.
Gender, on the other hand, has forever been whatever society/culture/fashion tries to dictate. Today it is possible to express yourself in whatever way floats your boat. Good on you.
But just because you dislike wearing frocks and would not be seen dead in stilettos,and putting on make-up seems like an act of dishonesty, it does not necessarily follow that you were 'born into the wrong body'.
Today, and because many women have fought long and hard to throw of the shackles of what we used to term 'sex-role-stereotypes', you can be yourself without have to resort to extreme medical and surgical interventions.
What The Bill intends is to make the impossible…changing one's sex…possible.
If you had any insight into how the women reading this are assessing you I'm sure you would be horrified. But honestly you clearly have no idea and little insight. It's good really seeing frank misogyny laid bare. Dissolves any illusion we can't unsee it either.
Having done an English degree a little over a decade ago, I ran across a little of this. Our feedback system had no box for us to object to it – but I felt it was a gratuitously offensive waste of time at my and other students' expense. If I'd wanted to do gender wars, I'd've taken a course in it – my expectations were literary, a bit of Trollope maybe. No surprise that the humanities have been obliged to downsize.
Thanks Weka for posting this. We need to speak up about this sort of shit.
I commented last week about the gender self id bill and have written to the Minister about this.
Our identity as women is being deconstructed. I read today that the term maternity care and being a mother is being challenged as the language needs to be more inclusive. As is not just women giving birth.
I have been thinking about how sexist this is. I don't know of the equivalent i.d men being referred to as people who get erections or people who ejaculate. Yet there is an attempt to describe women as menstruaters or birthing units, or people with vaginas.
My go to for the best information is the Dunedin Multidisciplinary study. I say this because it is a prospective study that measures health and social outcomes. I would be interested to know what the rates of trans people there are in this cohort who are now in their 40s. Unfortunately I. have not been able to find out about whether that has been published or not. I suspect the rate is extremely low.
I am also objecting to the term Terf. When one group (trans activists) give another group a pejoritive label then it is deeply problematic to say the least.
More on this, I commented last week about the gender self id bill and some people poo pooed what I said.
Anybody dare to tell me that it is fanciful to imagine a scenario where sex offenders (and other men who might want to film women changing or peeing but don't have a criminal recored), change their gender to become a women. Then merrily waltz in to changing rooms at gyms, pools, woman's stores etc. They are free to perv at women and girls, free to expose themselves to women. And then when women call the cops, the cops can only say, sorry but he is a woman. This week alone there appears to be some sort of fracas with a "person" who had the body of a man being restrained by cops because of some incident in Glasons. There was also a report about David Farrar (yes I know I have no time for him) but he was in a male change room at the gym and some goof was on a zoom conference call. Farrar wasn't sure whether it was kosher or not
That is a very worthwhile read, thank you. Thought she said things very clearly.
I still believe people retain rights generally to set their own personal boundaries, individually and in groups. I, for example, avoid being in company with proudly public misogynists, but – crucially – I do not assume that every man I meet is in silent sympathy with them either. I would expect to be described as unfairly harsh if I did so, and this is where those holding exclusionary stances sometimes seem to want the impossible – to not be criticised when taking judgmental stances, especially when some of those stances involve not just social exclusion but the denial of civil rights.
I can only speak for myself Sacha, but what civil rights do you think I am denying?
What Civil Rights do you think groups such as the speak up for women are denying?
I am commenting on this issue because I am against the Gender Self ID Bill. That doesn't mean trans people can't change their sex on their birth certificate, it just means there is a process they have to go through.
I understand some feminist groups are not wanting to involve trans women in their meetings. But I think that is their right. Our experiences from trans women are very different. We have grown up with sexism since we were young girls. They have grown up with a very difficult situation of not feeling like the sex they were assigned.
In the 70's when I first became a feminist there were lesbian women who were separatists. So they wanted to meet and associate with each other and not with us. I had no problem with that.
As I have posted before the language now being used by some about women (menstruators, birthing units and people with vaginas I believe de-constructs my identity as a woman. I find it de-humanizing. As already posted it has been proposed to have a judicial enquiry into the gender self id bill on the basis of it nulifying what a women is.
I wonder what your thoughts are about what Weka is saying about academia?
BTW you asked a question about me assault last week. I gave quite a lengthy response about what happened. I guess you missed it.
The process of changing your birth certificate as it stands is very dehumanizing itself, as you are no doubt aware Anker. Also rather expensive.
But it does seem appropriate that you champion separatism. Given the link explaining how an early version of TERF that never really caught on was TES (trans-exclusionary seperatist).
Go online, .govt – change birth certificate and reduce any fees. That is something government can do.
I don't exclude Trans when i ask why i am now called a pregnant person, menstruating people etc. The question is why can we not called pregnant women? Because a transman is being a partime women in order to give birth? A man is pregnant? Really? Does that make me exclusionary?
Maybe it should be pregnant people when talking about trans women, and maybe it should be pregnant women when a women gets pregnant? Or would that too be exclusionary?
Before covid I had hired a transwomen. She lived for 28 years a man, and in her country that afforded her all the trimmings of male privilege, and she admits it. She is not going to be trans in her country as it would be deadly, so she came here. Do i feel her as a women? No, i don't Why – god knows, maybe its pheromone etc.? In saying that i don't feel her as a man. Go figure. But will i treat her as a women as a human being, as i would like to be treated by others, and ever now and then help her understand what it is to be women in our world, yes. Very funny tho when her boyfriend and her both applied at the same business for line cook postitions and she was offered a lower wage…….Welcome to the world of women, i said. Her look? Priceless.
I am not aware of what is involved in changing your birth certificate. That in my opinion is not a good reason to allow gender self id. It may be that there are aspects of the process that can be altered e.g. the cost. I would need to know more about the process to understand how it is de-humanizing. Going through life most of us will encounter difficult processes.
I am not championing separatism as such, merely offering that there are many occasions where we are all excluded from some groups.
I am not part of any feminist group currently, so whether I exclude trans women is mute. Like Sabine when I come across Trans people, I am respectful and civil, just like I am with any person I meet. So the label Trans exclusionary seperatiist doesn't really fit.
But surely that's the substance of the Gender Self ID Bill that you oppose?
The legislation – Births, Deaths, Marriages and Relationships Registration bill – was introduced in August 2017…
Currently, if someone wants to legally change their gender they need approval from a doctor or a judge.
Medical evidence of a sex change has to be provided as well…
In some cases, someone who wants to change their gender on their birth certificate needs to go through the family court – a process that could take up to a year.
But the legislation would change that so that the only thing needed was a statutory declaration – an official written statement
the current process seems appropriate to me. It is a big thing to change the sex on your birth certificate. I am sorry if it is a lengthy, expensive and difficult thing to change. Some things are e.g becoming a NZ citizen, immigrating to NZ especially under Covid. That doesn't make the processes wrong or right.
I don't support the Gender self id bill. Labour didn't as far as I can see have it as one of their election promises.
More that NZF held it up procedurally for the three years of last term.
It is a small change that will mean a lot to many Aotearoans. I don't believe that you are at all sorry for those whose identities are in limbo for years if not decades (17 years being the waiting list for the bottom surgery alone, even before the Pandemic). Plus there's still a lot of room for improvement around Nonbinary people too.
Biblical literalism, and centuries of colonialism have not left us many examples of that. Even Takitapui feels a bit reconstructed as much as extant culture. Good to have Kerekere in the parliamentary mix though. I guess the Heritage foundation's strategy of turning those with nontraditional gender expression against one another is working out pretty well for them…
Rambling, but at least you know what's in the bill you are opposing now, Anker.
RMcD, thanks for the link. I have tried to wade through the legalese of that a couple of times before, but my eyes just glaze over! The NZH summary above is more readable, though hardly complete.
Forget now, I hear it will mean a lot to many. You don't have to believe whether I am sorry or not. You are entitled to interpret what I say any way you want.
I think Sabine raises a very good point about the process of immigrating here. A rigorous costly process.
Trans people are still entitled to identify whatever gender they want to.
I also agree with Greywarshark that a minority are trying to change gender and sexual identification. No one is stopping them being trans. We are talking about a significant change to official documentation.
As I have said before, I can't change my ethnicity (at all) or my age for that matter.
Bend me, break me, anyway you make me… That is how many women and people feel about this minority that have taken centre stage to turn ordinary life on its side because they have a strong desire to make change! It's a tide of demands that is flooding us trying to stuff up the whole world and our very basic identities to suit the discontented.
There are only so many James Morris' around; the present growth of supplicants is through a power grab by gripe-merchants over young people faced with a convusing, fast-changing world, the control of which has been wrested from the orbit of ordinary people. A majority are facing poverty and homelessness and uncertainty because of ploys of the callous people pulling golden strings at the top. The meme is education and technology is the answer for all ills yet we can see the ills clearly but nothing can or will be done till the technocrats and the pollies trying to use them, have decided on the value to them of fixing them, affecting our fate, and devised a suitable budget to display. We are drowned in theoreticians words and economic inertia and the sort of science that wants to experiment in real time on real people.
This struck me as pertinent; Terry Pratchett's Thief of Time excerpt:
The concept of 'orders' was yet another and immensely unfamiliar one for any Auditors. They were used to decisions by committee, reached only when the possibilities of doing nothing whatsoever about the matter in question had been exhausted. Decisions made by everyone were decisions made by no-one, which therefore precluded any possibility of blame. (p.314 in my p/back.)
I have no issues with a transman wanting to be a 'parent', I have an issue with the statements of a 'man ' being pregnant, it is the female body of that transman who is pregnant. So the fair description would be 'transman' or 'self identified other'. And then feel free to call these groups of people people. But the vast majority of pregnancy happens to women who identify as women and historically it is the women bodies have been doing all of the worlds breeding. But thanks for the education, were would i be without it. .
And if you think that providing a medical certificate is dehumanising think about migrating. I presented several medical certificates to the immigration services, police certificates from every country i ever lived in, birth certificate, marriage certificate and photos, and letters, and more to prove that i am legally married and that my marriage was consumed. And it costs an arm and a leg and we are quite happy to demand even more from migrants today.
Maybe we really need to re-think the term of de-humanising and realise that it is not dehumanizing to prove that you went through a process to change your physical appearance of whom you were born into your real self in order to change every offical document ever issued to you.
Yes trans men and non binary people have vaginas and menstruate, because they were born with women’s anatomy I assume.
arkie, I assume you are a man? I am unhappy with my identity as a woman being deconstructed. As someone posted last week the gender self I’d bill, nulifies a women’s identity and if they try and pass I understand there will be a judicial review.
I didn’t read the whole article about who coined the term terf. It appears to be a woman who was speaking up for transgender rights. That isn’t the issue. The issue is what happens when a term not chosen by a group is used by an opposing group in a perjorative way to write that group off.
I belong to a number of groups that are exclusive. That is normal. I can’t join my husbands tribe because I am not Maori and he is. I very much doubt I could easily change my ethnicity. Trans people may or may not be members of groups I am a part of.
I don’t exclude trans people when I meet them in my day to day life
Hi McFlook, yeah I have checked the Dunedin study and they don't seem to have done anything on Trans. I choose that study as my go to source of science, because they really are scientists who are interested in what their research discovers rather than trying to prove a theory. For example their marvellous work on self control. Not popular with many people on the left because they have an ideology that they use to explain social problems. I am not saying that some ideology doesn't explain social/health issues e.g poverty's long term effect on health outcomes, even if people become financially well off in adulthood.
I would be interested to see the numbers who identified as Trans in the Dunedin study and at what age and what mental health outcomes and were the mental health outcomes correlated to other factors. Twelve is a very small sample, but I would be fascinated to see what the trajectory was for Trans people at all ages and stages. I would trust whatever they found.
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Hi,Just a quick online-only update after yesterday’s newsletter, How Michael Organ Weaponised the Family Court... and Sean Plunket. First up — wow. Thanks for all the support, and to all those who shared their own personal stories in the comments. And welcome to any new Webworm readers.I just wanted ...
Let that sink in for a moment - Christopher Luxon, who has spent the last year demonising Māori, wants Marama Davidson to apologise to white men.You will likely have seen the video, or read about it. Marama Davidson rushing along Princes St on Saturday evening, the road that runs between ...
Stuart Nash, the great-grandson of former Prime Minister Sir Walter Nash, has lost his political career. File Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Stuart Nash was sacked for telling donors what happened in Cabinet. Wellington’s City and Regional Councils are going cold on light rail plans. Wayne Brown is under ...
NZ First Leader Winston Peters is sympathising with Stuart Nash and defending him but dodging questions on whether he would be welcome in New Zealand First. Prime Minister Chris Hipkins last night sacked Nash from the Cabinet after an email he had sent to two of his campaign donors ...
So, after interfering with the police, and then interfering with immigration decisions, Stuart Nash has finally been sacked: Stuart Nash has been sacked as a minister, after Stuff revealed he had emailed business figures, including donors, detailing private Cabinet discussions. Prime Minister Chris Hipkins confirmed the people Nash emailed ...
Nearly 25% of mortgages in Auckland are deemed at risk in a 1-in-100 year flood event. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Once a year, every year, from now on, in our not-so-slow-cooking climate crisis, there will be a moment when the most important number in Aotearoa’s own personal, national ...
Item One: About a confected crisis Please bear with me for a moment, readers outside Auckland, I wish to sound the klaxon. Auckland, we have until 11pm today to have our say. About what? About this, as copied and pasted from Pippa Coom’s Facebook page:The "austerity" budget is built on ...
Buzz from the Beehive Yet again, the statement we were looking for could not be found on the Beehive website. Nor was it on the Scoop or Green Party websites. But – come to think of it – we are probably wasting our time by searching. Our quest is for the ...
The following is from a speech given by Arundhati Roy at the Swedish Academy on March 22, 2023, at a conference called Thought and Truth Under Pressure and reprinted from Literary Hub. I thank the Swedish Academy for inviting me to speak at this conference and for affording me the privilege ...
After almost two decades of racism, Australia is finally getting off its "stop the boats" bullshit. But don't worry, racists - Michael Wood has your back!The Government wants to increase the time it can detain without a warrant people seeking asylum en masse from four days to 28 ...
Last year, the Education and Workforce Committee recommended that the government legislate for pay transparency to prevent employers from secretly discriminating. This ought to be a bread and butter issue for Labour - discrimination sees women (and particularly Māori and Pasifika women) paid significantly less than men. But since then ...
Thomas Cranmer writes – ———— An unruly mob in Albert Park has catapulted New Zealand into the global headlines with ugly images that may become iconic in the debate about the dangers of transgenderism. ———— Bravo Kellie-Jay Keen. She did the job that needed to be done. For all the ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Global warming is melting the Arctic ice cap, and that’s having unforeseen effects on the world’s weather — even thousands of miles away from the North Pole. Some climate scientists have begun to link increasingly common heat waves in Europe to what is ...
Hot on the heels of the demotion of former police Minister Stuart Nash for breaching the Cabinet Manual, Radio New Zealand has revealed the close links between lobbyists and politicians- an area of New Zealand politics that is completely unregulated. The evidence in Guyon Espiner’s series Mate, Comrade, Brother, the ...
At the Auckland Transport board meeting today a series of papers really highlight the cost of sprawl. For the last few years, the Supporting Growth work has been looking at designing the strategic transport networks for future greenfield areas in the South, Northwest, North (around Dairy flat) and in Warkworth. ...
Over a million New Zealanders will receive a little extra to help with the cost of living as a result of our 1 April changes. Around the world, inflation is causing costs to rise and we’re feeling it here at home. In tough times, we need to support those who ...
With benefit changes coming into effect tomorrow, the Green Party is calling on the Government to lift benefits to liveable levels to make sure everyone has what they need to thrive. ...
Following decades of work by the Green Party alongside the organics sector, people will finally be able to be confident that products labelled organic have met standards. ...
The Green Party supports immediate Government action to close the pay gap as called for in an open letter released today by the Human Rights Commission and 50 other organisations. ...
The Green Party is today welcoming the release of the Government’s waste strategy, but says it has a big gap without action on the container return scheme for beverage containers. ...
The Government’s decision to introduce ‘mass arrivals’ legislation goes against the values we all share of Aotearoa as a place where all people are treated fairly, the Green Party says. ...
MINISTER DAVIDSON MUST RESIGN AFTER 'VIOLENCE' COMMENTS Marama Davidson should stand down as ‘Minister for the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence’ for the clear and outrageous statement she made at the Posie Parker protest that ‘white straight men’ are the cause of violence. Her offensive, racist, and sexist remarks ...
In response to Newshub and Amelia Wade’s obvious and ham-fisted attempt at a typical and predicted political hit job. As any politically aware reporter would know, any Cabinet subcommittee has a duty and obligation as a part of any government to respond to any UN declaration, in this case ...
Good afternoon. Thank you for the invitation to speak with you today and in your busy lives turning up to this meeting. Forty five years ago, in Howick, often described as racist, and where few Maori lived because it had been a ‘Fencible’ settlement at the time of the Anglo-Maori ...
The Green Party has marked the National Party’s new education policy and given it a fail, especially for its failure to address the underlying drivers of school performance. ...
“This is it; 2023 will be the last opportunity New Zealand has to get a government that will confront the climate emergency with the urgency it demands,” says the Green Party’s co-leader and climate change spokesperson, James Shaw. ...
Political parties that want to negotiate with the Green Party must come to the table with much faster, bolder climate action, co-leaders James Shaw and Marama Davidson emphasised in their State of the Planet speech today. ...
Political parties that want to negotiate with the Green Party after the election must come to the table with much faster, bolder climate action, co-leaders James Shaw and Marama Davidson emphasised today. ...
You will never truly understand, from the pictures you’ve seen in the newspapers or on the six o-clock news, the sheer scale of the devastation wrought by Cyclone Gabrielle. ...
We’re boosting incomes and helping ease cost of living pressures on Kiwis through a range of bread and butter support measures that will see pensioners, students, families, and those on main benefits better off from the start of next month. ...
The error Labour Ministers made by stopping work on a beverage container return scheme will be reversed by the Greens at the earliest opportunity as part of the next Government. ...
“Cabinet needs to do better - and today has shown exactly why we need Green Ministers in cabinet, so we can prioritise action to cut climate pollution and support people to make ends meet,” says Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson. ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nanaia Mahuta, departs for Europe today, where she will attend a session of the NATO Foreign Ministers Meeting in Brussels and make a short bilateral visit to Sweden. “NATO is a long-standing and likeminded partner for Aotearoa New Zealand. It is valuable to join a session of ...
A secure facility that will house protected information for a broad range of government agencies is being constructed at RNZAF Base Auckland (Whenuapai), Public Service, Defence and GCSB Minister Andrew Little says. The facility will consolidate and expand the government’s current secure storage capacity and capability for at least another ...
From today, 1.8 million flu vaccines are available to help protect New Zealanders from winter illness, Minister of Health Ayesha Verrall has announced. “Vaccination against flu is safe and will be a first line of defence against severe illness this winter,” Dr Verrall said. “We can all play a part ...
Associate Minister of Arts, Culture and Heritage Willow-Jean Prime has congratulated Professor Rangi Mātāmua (Ngāi Tūhoe) who was last night named the prestigious Te Pou Whakarae o Aotearoa New Zealander of the Year. Professor Mātāmua, who is the government's Chief Adviser Mātauranga Matariki, was the winner of the New Zealander ...
The Minister of Foreign Affairs Nanaia Mahuta has announced further sanctions on political and military figures from Russia and Belarus as part of the ongoing response to the war in Ukraine. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued an arrest warrant for Russia’s Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Alekseevna Lvova-Belova ...
A new public housing development planned for Whangārei will provide 95 warm and dry, modern homes for people in need, Housing Minister Megan Woods says. The Kauika Road development will replace a motel complex in the Avenues with 89 three-level walk up apartments, alongside six homes. “Whangārei has a rapidly ...
New Zealand welcomes the substantial conclusion of negotiations on the United Kingdom’s accession to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), Trade and Export Growth Minister Damien O’Connor announced today. “Continuing to grow our export returns is a priority for the Government and part of our plan to ...
Ngā Iwi o Taranaki and the Crown initial Taranaki Maunga collective redress deed Ngā Iwi o Taranaki and the Crown have today initialled the Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Deed, named Te Ruruku Pūtakerongo, Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Andrew Little says. “I am pleased to be here for this ...
Minister for Pacific Peoples Barbara Edmonds has announced the 2023 Pacific Language week series, highlighting the need to revitalise and sustain languages for future generations. “Pacific languages are a cornerstone of our health, wellbeing and identity as Pacific peoples. When our languages are spoken, heard and celebrated, our communities thrive,” ...
880,000 pensioners to get a boost to Super, including 5000 veterans 52,000 students to see a bump in allowance or loan living costs Approximately 223,000 workers to receive a wage rise as a result of the minimum wage increasing to $22.70 8,000 community nurses to receive pay increase of up ...
Over 8000 community nurses will start receiving well-deserved pay rises of up to 15 percent over the next month as a Government initiative worth $200 million a year kicks in, says Minister of Health Dr Ayesha Verrall. “The Government is committed to ensuring nurses are paid fairly and will receive ...
Tākiri mai ana te ata Ki runga o ngākau mārohirohi Kōrihi ana te manu kaupapa Ka ao, ka ao, ka awatea Tihei mauri ora Let the dawn break On the hearts and minds of those who stand resolute As the bird of action sings, it welcomes the dawn of a ...
The Government is introducing a scheme which will lift incomes for artists, support them beyond the current spike in cost of living and ensure they are properly recognised for their contribution to New Zealand’s economy and culture. “In line with New Zealand’s Free Trade Agreement with the UK, last ...
New Zealand is welcoming a decision by the United Nations General Assembly to ask the International Court of Justice to consider countries’ international legal obligations on climate change. The United Nations has voted unanimously to adopt a resolution led by Vanuatu to ask the ICJ for an advisory opinion on ...
More Police officers are being deployed to the frontline with the graduation of 59 new constables from the Royal New Zealand Police College today. “The graduation for recruit wing 364 was my first since becoming Police Minister last week,” Ginny Andersen said. “It was a real honour. I want to ...
Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta met with Vanuatu Foreign Minister Jotham Napat in Port Vila, today, signing a new Statement of Partnership — Aotearoa New Zealand’s first with Vanuatu. “The Mauri Statement of Partnership is a joint expression of the values, priorities and principles that will guide the Aotearoa New Zealand–Vanuatu relationship into ...
The Government has passed new legislation amending the Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ) levy regime, ensuring the best balance between a fair and cost effective funding model. The Fire and Emergency New Zealand (Levy) Amendment Bill makes changes to the existing law to: charge the levy on contracts of ...
The Government has passed the Organic Products and Production Bill through its third reading today in Parliament helping New Zealand’s organic sector to grow and lift export revenue. “The Organic Products and Production Bill will introduce robust and practical regulation to give businesses the certainty they need to continue to ...
The Digital Identity Services Trust Framework Bill, which will make it easier for New Zealanders to safely prove who they are digitally has passed its third and final reading today. “We know New Zealanders want control over their identity information and how it’s used by the companies and services they ...
The full Cyclone Gabrielle Recovery Taskforce has met formally for the first time as work continues to help the regions recover and rebuild from Cyclone Gabrielle. The Taskforce, which includes representatives from business, local government, iwi and unions, covers all regions affected by the January and February floods and cyclone. ...
Changes have been made to legislation to give subcontractors the confidence they will be paid the retention money they are owed should the head contractor’s business fail, Minister for Building and Construction Megan Woods announced today. “These changes passed in the Construction Contracts (Retention Money) Amendment Act safeguard subcontractors who ...
Transport Minister Michael Wood has unveiled five scenarios for one of the most significant city-shaping projects for Tāmaki Makaurau in coming decades, the additional Waitematā Harbour crossing. “Aucklanders and businesses have made it clear that the biggest barriers to the success of Auckland is persistent congestion and after years of ...
The Government has passed new legislation that ensures New Zealand’s civil aviation rules are fit for purpose in the 21st century, Associate Transport Minister Kiri Allan says. The Civil Aviation Bill repeals and replaces the Civil Aviation Act 1990 and the Airport Authorities Act 1966 with a single modern law ...
A Bill aimed at helping to reduce delays in the coronial jurisdiction passed its third reading today. The Coroners Amendment Bill, amongst other things, will establish new coronial positions, known as Associate Coroners, who will be able to perform most of the functions, powers, and duties of Coroners. The new ...
The Prime Minister has asked the Cabinet Secretary to conduct a review into communications between Stuart Nash and his donors. The review will take place over the next two months. The review will look at whether there have been any other breaches of cabinet collective responsibility or confidentiality, or whether ...
The new Recovery Visa to help bring in additional migrant workers to support cyclone and flooding recovery has attracted over 600 successful applicants within its first month. “The Government is moving quickly to support businesses bring in the workers needed to recover from Cyclone Gabrielle and the Auckland floods,” Michael ...
Bills to ensure non-teaching employees and contractors at schools, and unlicensed childcare services like mall crèches are vetted by police, and provide safeguards for school board appointments have passed their first reading today. The Education and Training Amendment Bill (No. 3) and the Regulatory Systems (Education) Amendment Bill have now ...
Wānanga will gain increased flexibility and autonomy that recognises the unique role they fill in the tertiary education sector, Associate Minister of Education Kelvin Davis has announced. The Education and Training Amendment Bill (No.3), that had its first reading today, proposes a new Wānanga enabling framework for the three current ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta will travel to Vanuatu today, announcing that Aotearoa New Zealand will provide further relief and recovery assistance there, following the recent destruction caused by Cyclones Judy and Kevin. While in Vanuatu, Minister Mahuta will meet with Vanuatu Acting Prime Minister Sato Kilman, Foreign Minister Jotham ...
The Government is backing Police and making communities safer with the roll-out of state-of-the-art tools and training to frontline staff, Police Minister Ginny Andersen said today. “Frontline staff face high-risk situations daily as they increasingly respond to sophisticated organised crime, gang-violence and the availability of illegal firearms,” Ginny Andersen said. ...
The Government has provided Police with more tools to crack down on gang offending with the passing of new legislation today which will further improve public safety, Justice Minister Kiri Allan says. The Criminal Activity Intervention Legislation Bill amends existing law to: create new targeted warrant and additional search powers ...
The Government today announced far-reaching changes to the way we make, use, recycle and dispose of waste, ushering in a new era for New Zealand’s waste system. The changes will ensure that where waste is recycled, for instance by households at the kerbside, it is less likely to be contaminated ...
New legislation passed by the Government today will make it harder for gangs and their leaders to benefit financially from crime that causes considerable harm in our communities, Minister of Justice Kiri Allan says. Since the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act 2009 came into effect police have been highly successful in ...
This evening I have advised the Governor-General to dismiss Stuart Nash from all his ministerial portfolios. Late this afternoon I was made aware by a news outlet of an email Stuart Nash sent in March 2020 to two contacts regarding a commercial rent relief package that Cabinet had considered. In ...
Legislation to enable more build-to-rent developments has passed its third reading in Parliament, so this type of rental will be able to claim interest deductibility in perpetuity where it meets the requirements. Housing Minister Dr Megan Woods, says the changes will help unlock the potential of the build-to-rent sector and ...
A law passed by Parliament today exempts employers from paying fringe benefit tax on certain low emission commuting options they provide or subsidise for their staff. “Many employers already subsidise the commuting costs of their staff, for instance by providing car parks,” Environment Minister David Parker said. “This move supports ...
Today marks the 40th anniversary of Closer Economic Relations (CER), our gold standard free trade agreement between New Zealand and Australia. “CER was a world-leading agreement in 1983, is still world-renowned today and is emblematic of both our countries’ commitment to free trade. The WTO has called it the world’s ...
The Government is making procedural changes to the Immigration Act to ensure that 2013 amendments operate as Parliament intended. The Government is also introducing a new community management approach for asylum seekers. “While it’s unlikely we’ll experience a mass arrival due to our remote positioning, there is no doubt New ...
The Government welcomes progress on public sector pay adjustment (PSPA) agreements, and the release of the updated public service pay guidance by the Public Service Commission today, Minister for the Public Service Andrew Little says. “More than a dozen collective agreements are now settled in the public service, Crown Agents, ...
The Government has introduced the Severe Weather Emergency Recovery Legislation Bill to further support the recovery and rebuild from the recent severe weather events in the North Island. “We know from our experiences following the Canterbury and Kaikōura earthquakes that it will take some time before we completely understand the ...
Tea drinkers of Aotearoa, your new favourite dunking bikkie is here. There are several things I love about this recipe. The first is that they make a delicious dunking biscuit, the perfect accompaniment to a cup of tea shared with friends. The second is that the recipe is ...
Part two of writer Marty Smith’s reporting from her flood-damaged home.Read part one here. Sunday 12 March, 21 days after the floods.Google Maps shows a pale blue line for the flat-lined bridge between Taradale and Waiohiki and sends you instead over the Expressway to Merge Like A Zip, ...
Bard Billot on the booted out broadcasterSpartans, prepare for glory! The hardy army of Today FM Spartans Camps out on the harsh lands of talk radio. The long months of the campaign Have worn down their resolve, For though they have loyally broadcast Their snappy banter and hot ...
The danger of National's policy is that it undoes much of an informal pact with Labour to depoliticise education at a time of real struggleOpinion: The National Party’s recently released education policy narrowly channels nearly every tired and cliched right-wing approach to schooling. If you have been in education for ...
A refurbished, expanded and more earthquake-proof building is a still few years away. Can it live up to the impeccable postmodernist vibes of its predecessor?A long time ago, my non-Wellington then-boyfriend was visiting the windy city and asked the barber what he recommended in town. “Dunno mate,” the barber ...
Doing the cryptic crossword isn’t simply a hobby. It’s a way of life, a love affair – even a full-blown obsession. The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.Illustrations by Asia Martusia King. Clue: Mafia boss consumed first dish free of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The rout of the Liberals in Aston is a disaster for Peter Dutton. The party has defied history – in the worst possible way. This is the first time in more than a century ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne Morgan Hancock/AAP With 44% of enrolled voters counted in today’s Aston federal byelection, the ABC has Labor expected to win ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne Morgan Hancock/AAP With 44% of enrolled voters counted in today’s Aston federal byelection, the ABC has Labor expected to win ...
Analysis - When is a cabinet minister not a cabinet minister? The faulty logic of Stuart Nash has landed him and Labour in a heap of trouble but opened the door to serious reform of the Official Information Act, Tim Watkin writes. ...
Jubi News in Jayapura Indonesia’s Papua police chief Inspector-General Mathius D Fakhiri has called for action to ensure that “security disturbances” in the Puncak Jaya highlands do not widen in the face of escalating attacks by pro-independence militants. “For Puncak, we will take immediate action,” he said. According to General ...
What are you going to be watching this month? We round up everything coming to streaming services this month, including Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Apple TV+, Neon and TVNZ+. The biggies Party Down (all seasons on TVNZ+ from April 1) Thirteen years is a long time between drinks and ...
Ginny Andersen has landed a hot-potato portfolio and has been in Cabinet less than two months - the opposition will be eager to test her mettle this election year. ...
The executive producer of Modern Family has issued an incendiary claim about New Zealanders cheering and clapping in public. Hayden Donnell gets to the bottom of things.The sitcom Modern Family is remembered as a “warm-hearted story about the unbreakable bonds of family”; a tale of radically different people overcoming ...
As rain kept falling across January, February and into March, all band members cold do was sit at home cancelling festivals and posting sad Facebook messages to fans. The first post landed on January 3. As wild weather began hitting the country, campers around Northland packed up their tents ...
The radio workers were caught by the unexpected speed of the decline of NZ's consumer economy, since Christmas – and they won't be the last. Jonathan Milne reports. When broadcaster Tova O’Brien uttered the resounding words, "they’ve f***ed us", they resonated beyond the 1 percent audience share of a small talk radio operation ...
A New Zealand Battery Project centred on Lake Onslow in Central Otago is up against a cheaper North Island alternative Studies into whether a massive pumped-hydro scheme at Lake Onslow is New Zealand’s best bet for a secure energy future may have only four more months to run. While the ...
This is The Detail's Long Read - one in-depth story read by us every weekend. This week, it's Jungle Warfare, written by Ellen Rykers and published in New Zealand Geographic's March/April 2023 edition. You can find the full article, with photos by Adrian Malloch, here. Hundreds of pest plant species—many of them garden escapees—run rampant in ...
Because pro-social behaviour emerges so often after disaster, community empowerment should be central to disaster mitigation and recoveryOpinion: Cyclone Gabrielle caused major damage across the North Island. This unprecedented climate event created great uncertainty. People are wondering if, or when, they can return to their homes, the extent to ...
"We, women, loving you; you, men, finding new women to love": a Francophile love story in NZ Louis woke up and found out Marine was not lying next to him in bed. He checked his phone – 5:30am. The aurora shone a bright gold on the windows of the detached ...
Every weekday, The Detail makes sense of the big news stories. This week, we looked at how co-governance really works, Labour's record on climate action, what the new AUKUS nuclear submarine deal means for New Zealand, Posie Parker's visit to Auckland and the free speech debate, and the damage processed foods are ...
The Red, White & Brass star talks spectacle, honouring family sacrifices and his debut lead role over a Tongan lunch in Otāhuhu.Name a creative pursuit and 28-year-old Tongan New Zealander John-Paul Foliaki will give it a go. That is, if he hasn’t already. Foliaki plays the lead role, Maka, ...
To mark 100 years since the great short story writer’s death, books editor Claire Mabey marathonned her collected works – these are the top 20.Reader, I did it. I read all of Katherine Mansfield’s short stories. Confession: I haven’t always been a fan. I have tedious memories of ...
In her first season as an ANZ Premiership captain, Ameliaranne Ekenasio was nervous about filling the shoes of the legendary Magic captains before her. But, as Merryn Anderson writes, the quiet leader has the full respect of the side who voted her in. When the Waikato Bay of Plenty Magic created history ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Catherine Ordway, Associate Professor Sport Management and Sport Integrity Lead, University of Canberra Lawyers for Australian 800-metre star Peter Bol say allegations the runner engaged in doping should be dropped after two independent labs found no evidence he used a banned substance. ...
Vanuatu’s Supreme Court has ruled in favour of Trading Post Ltd, the owner of the VanuatuDaily Post newspaper, BUZZ FM96 and other media outlets, in a case against the government’s refusal to renew the company’s former media director’s work permit. Dan McGarry, who served as a director of the ...
Balclutha-based farmer Stephen Jack has been selected by local party members as National’s candidate in Taieri for the 2023 General Election. “Taieri is my home and I’m incredibly excited to have the opportunity to campaign for a National Government ...
Analysis - The Stuart Nash scandal has the potential to damage Labour's election chances, Marama Davidson creates controversy and Auckland's second harbour crossing to be built earlier than expected. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare JM Burns, Assistant Professor and Non-executive Director, Bond University Shutterstock The story of the Aboriginal Community Benefit Fund, whose name and marketing misled thousands of customers into believing it was Indigenous owned and run, is a stark example of ...
It’s the biannual reminder to tamper with that pesky analogue clock you still have in your kitchen for some reason (or at the least your microwave/car stereo). This Sunday at 3am, we will all gain an hour of sleep as the clocks roll back ahead of winter. Get ready for ...
The chief ombudsman has elected to reopen his investigation into an email from former minister Stuart Nash to a pair of donors back in 2020. The email, which only came to light this week, quickly triggered Nash’s dismissal from cabinet. But in bad news for the prime minister Chris Hipkins, ...
Last week we celebrated The Bulletin’s fifth birthday with Spinoff members and staff at The Spinoff’s offices in Auckland. The Bulletin launched in March 2018 seeking to curate news and great journalism and email that to people for free each weekday morning. That hasn’t changed and it’s still going strong. ...
The biggest increase in the history of the minimum wage will have a huge impact for workers on low wages, says the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions. From tomorrow, the minimum wage will rise to $22.70, up from $21.20. This increase will benefit ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By George Siemens, Co-Director, Professor, Centre for Change and Complexity in Learning, University of South Australia agsandrew/Shutterstock Recent public interest in tools like ChatGPT has raised an old question in the artificial intelligence community: is artificial general intelligence (in this case, ...
Auckland’s wet summer is delivering one final blow just in time for the weekend. The Synthony festival, due to be held on Saturday at Auckland Domain and featuring performances by Shapeshifter, Dave Dobbyn and Kimbra, has been postponed following predictions of heavy rainfall across the day. More than 20,000 people ...
We would like to see a temporary by-pass of the major slip on State Highway 25A built to alleviate the concerns of the residents of the Eastern Side of Coromandel. Cyclone Gabrielle inflicted substantial damage to roading on the Coromandel Peninsula. ...
Alex Casey watches Wellmania, the new Netflix comedy starring Instagram sensation Celeste Barber. The lowdownBased on the book by journalist Brigid Delaney, Netflix comedy Wellmania follows successful yet shambolic Australian food writer Liv Bealey (Celeste Barber) as she embarks on a quest to get well as quickly as possible. ...
The Chief Ombudsman Peter Boshier says he has reopened his investigation into an Official Information Act complaint about a decision by former Minister Stuart Nash. "The original enquiry was discontinued in May last year in discussion with the ...
The New Zealand Nurses Organisation Tōpūtanga Tapuhi Kaitiaki o Aotearoa (NZNO) has welcomed this morning’s Government announcement to address pay disparities in the nursing and kaiāwhina workforces from 1 April. NZNO Chief Executive Paul ...
Don’t let broccoli’s virtuous goody two-shoes reputation put you off – these verdant and versatile florets make the perfect addition to tray bakes, salads, soups and more.I reckon broccoli’s “superfood” status has given it a bit of a bad reputation. Because it’s so healthy (and reasonably inoffensive), its nutrients ...
A poem from Michele Leggott’s forthcoming book Face to the Sky. escher x nendo I hear you Eddie Woo coming clear across the galleries of intercochlear space you have the measure of these galaxies earthmeasure you have the measure of their difference earthmisia you translate one world artemisia and here ...
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.AUCKLAND1Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus (Doubleday, $26) The new, smaller format of Bonnie Garmus’ ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Blunden, Professor and Head of Paediatric Sleep Research, CQUniversity Australia ShutterstockWhat would happen to a person if they didn’t get the sleep they needed? Hedya, age 11, Australia This is a really good question Heyda, because it ...
Within hours of Duncan Garner telling listeners ‘It looks like the end of us’, the station’s website, social media and archives had been scrubbed from the internet.Right now across Auckland you can still see ads for Leo Molloy’s doomed mayoral campaign and electorate offices adorned with a smiling Jacinda ...
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has spoken more about the Stuart Nash email scandal at a media conference at the Manurewa RSA today, saying Nash has been "ultimately held accountable". ...
By Barbara Dreaver in Port Vila Vanuatu is in celebration mode after winning a significant battle on the world stage over climate change. In a United Nations resolution spearheaded by Vanuatu, the world’s top court will now advise on countries’ legal obligations to fight climate change. It also means the ...
By Jan Kohout, RNZ Pacific journalist New Caledonia’s Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) say they will tell the French Prime Minister of the Kanak people’s “sense of humiliation” over the last independence referendum. The pro-independence alliance is set to talk to the French state from April 7-15. The ...
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins is visiting the Manurewa RSA meeting veterans who are among hundreds of thousands to receive higher payments from tomorrow. ...
This is an excerpt from The Spinoff’s pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up to have it delivered to your inbox every Friday here. If you want a middle-aged white man to play a disappointed-with-the-state-of-their-life middle-aged-white-man, you have two options: Jason Segel or Chris O’Dowd. Clearly, Segel was already busy ...
Over four million people have returned their Individual Forms for the 2023 Census, Stats NZ said today. “This is a great milestone. We didn’t hit this milestone until 30 April in the 2018 Census. I would like to thank everybody who has been counted ...
The government's recent announcement of five high carbon options for the next harbour crossing has disappointed those concerned about climate change. TRAC, a rail advocacy collective, opposes the short-sighted decision, citing the urgent need to reduce ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Guzyal Hill, Senior Lecturer, Charles Darwin University Shutterstock Sunday will mark the end of the Daylight Saving Time (DST) in eastern Australia, but there are many who would like to see it last longer or permanently. Twice a year, New ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has launched a call for evidence to support its work on Aotearoa New Zealand’s emissions reduction targets and emissions budgets. This call for evidence is an opportunity for anyone to share information, data and ...
As the move to digital commerce continues, fraudsters are counting on consumers to let their guard down and to supply personal information. And according to new research released today by global payments technology company Visa (NYSE: V), which ...
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sigh two of my colleagues received freshly minted 90 day notices yesterday… Landlords selling up due to changes…. I guess the changes are having the desired effect not so good for solo mums thrust back into the exploding rental market…
Oh no, how incredibly frightening for all of them. I really hope they find somewhere that is at a minimum safe for the kids.
Yeah its not alot of fun… effects schooling as well end up having to look in the same zone… expensive to time off… moving costs… finding bond… tenancy services is running behind on bond refunds by the sounds…
Pretty worried for one of them piles more shit on…
Hoping but not holding my breath that govt will move quickly to help renters… to my mind if you make renters rights really strong you deflate the market anyway… would put anyone in it for the short term off…
Unfortunately there will be a few landlords that decide to cash up now which was always going to happen as an unintended consequence. I fear these announcements may not be good for renters as rents will increase. Hopefully your colleagues can find another place but there is a shortage of rental places in many areas, thus the problem we have.
I actually have a nice landlord story. A friend of mine the landlord has cut down 2 big trees, cost 8k so the homes are warmer. Landlord said he was not selling.
Usually when costly land shaping is done either selling or a rent rise is in the horizon.
I do have nosy extractor fan issues 24/7 where I live due to a house divided into 3 tenancies with 6 people. Loud footsteps and doors banging can also annoy me and keep me up or wake me up.
The rental market is so tight and I have had the experience of the landlord selling and needing to move out. I had the last laugh they sold for 200k 4 1/2 years ago and the place is now worth 400k.
Some landlords might find the price of their home dropping. I do give a thought to those struggling to pay the rent and this cannot continue.
Home work for spelling. Noisy not nosy and on the horizon not in. Any other spelling errors not picked up.
I do also think it is a good sign if landlords are selling up(although very sorry for your friends). Hopefully too many who thought they would buy property to invest, changing their minds…
How are landlords selling good? Those who rent and will never be able to buy where do they go ? Perhaps into the waiting list for a HNZ property and with the demand there. With obvious outcomes where is the govts action on coping with the consequences? A plan to build more in the future. When and what if those living in the present ???!
Thereon lies the big flaw in the govts announcement, it may slow house price inflation which has runaway but they did nothing to help renters at the same time… once again its help for the upwardly mobile.
Further stiffening the rights of renters particularly around giving notice needed to be part of the package…
Something like this from Switzerland perhaps…
Tenants have the right to know the grounds for termination. Notices of termination not made in good faith (such as notice of termination because the landlord is exercising his landlord's right, or on account of the tenants' changed family circumstances) may be contested before the conciliation authority. The official notice form explains how tenants should proceed when disputing a termination.
If the termination is likely to cause undue hardship for the tenants (financial or family difficulties, housing shortage), an extension of the term of the tenancy may be applied for at the conciliation authority.
The other oversight I would add that in Feb 21 the average property in me rose $50,000 and our leaders talk of substainable price rises going forward 🤷♀️. Not of the damage done in recent times.
I am yet to read anything or contributor here as to what this country looks like in 3,5+ years . IMO that outlook would frustrate many . As J Ritren sang “ no future, no future for me ..”
well done to the govt for being seen to do something but deliver crap all.
I think you mean J. Rotten or Johnny Rotten.
"Further stiffening the rights of renters particularly around giving notice needed to be part of the package…"
cough… rent freeze for 24 months…cough cough
"How are landlords selling good?"
Couple of ways….if the property was being held empty for capital gain it adds to the available stock….if the property was being used as an AirBnB, it adds to available stock.
If future rental stock is available at a lower price the pressure to reduce rents is increased, but most important of all, the realisation that property values are no longer a one way bet will bring some sanity back to the housing market and allow us to use housing as it should be….to house our population, not as a credit line for the few who seek to extract wealth from the many (and the broader economy)
There is no point in investors s buying property for a capital gain if there is no (or a CPI equivalent) capital gain….that capital will seek a new home, especially if they see their existing gains disappearing in a falling market.
In short, investors selling is a symptom of changed expectations….and that is beneficial to both FHB AND renters.
Has extending the brightline test and cutting the tax reduction on interest turned into a house being like a car sitting in the garage for years not knowing what you can sell it for?
The housing market hopefully is going to cool by 10%. This is advantageous to everyone BUT the seller.
Id suggest what the extended BL test and (especially) the change to interest deductibility have done is increase the costs to investors while they wait for the capital gain…it is a signal that if you are investing in existing property for capital gain then we are going to make it hard for you…especially when aligned with the exemption for new builds….that makes the business model for many investors, especially recent investors who have paid high prices, unworkable.
There are pretty much two questions that we are waiting to see the answer to….how many investment properties will re enter the market?…and will the Government stick to its position, or will they soften their message?
Or put another way, who will blink first.
"The housing market hopefully is going to cool by 10%. This is advantageous to everyone BUT the seller."
Dont think anyone can put a percentage on it…there are too many variables, but the sellers will not necessarily lose …if you bought your rental say 6 years ago and you sell now you take out that capital gain of around maybe 60-80% (median house 2014 $457000—median house price 2020 $725000) and not subject to BL….not a bad return Id suggest.
Hopefully the latest changes put a brake on property investors who only buy to sell due to house prices rocketing.
Government cannot soften their message because nothing else has worked. It's a vicious cycle as renters now need more government assistance to pay the rent and landlords know this.
1. How to support people to pay the rent without it going into the landlords hand is what needs to be actioned?
2. Some sort of tier percentage system on when the rental was purchased and how much the rent can increase?
Rent caps or other forms of rent control are another option but I suspect that would only be used if there is widespread rent hikes….and as noted yesterday many landlords have already had their annual shot at rent hikes so they cant till the years is up….I dont think many of them will wait until next year to decide what to do.
I think that, before evicting a tenant or increasing his rent, a landlord should be required to apply to Kainga Ora for a review of the situation to determine whether the eviction/rent increase would be justified. I would regard the recovery of the no longer deductible interest as not constituting an adequate reason for either action.
I’ve always wondered about banning tenders in the sale process. It creates a lot of anxiety which I reckon drives up the selling price as FOMO pushes people to put in bids way above the estimated value
Auctions are where the FOMO is most powerful, agents generally prefer them for that reason.
Auctions get the second best price (the winner only has to outbid the second best bid not bid with their top offer). Tenders means the seller gets the best price because everyone has to put in their best offer.
And this morning the deputy PM had fuelled the fire by “not ruling out rent freezes”. So what will landlords do … hike the rents as much as they can in the meantime to kick off any rent controls from a higher base.
However the deputy PMs credibility went from hero to zero this week so maybe we can just ignore him and carry on.
Maybe you can….and maybe you cant, how much are you willing to bet?
The investors have been offered a generous exit package, will enough of them take it or will they let greed cloud their thinking?
"investors have been offered a generous exit package"
Indeed – they get to keep the extraordinary wealth passively accumulated at the expense of others (including future generations) over the last two decades – minus a short blip post-GFC. Does anyone dare to go after some of this deplorable stash with a wealth tax – maybe to help fund a large state house building programme?
Whats immediately more important?….giving working Kiwis somewhere affordable to live or retribution?….Id plump for the former.
The state house building programme is underway and its acceleration is not immediately constrained by tax take.
The wealth accumulated in the last couple of decades is going to perpetuate unequal access to housing into the next generation through inheritance. I don't see it as retribution so much as correcting market perversity and returning to a slightly more level playing field. I do agree though that the primary purpose of a wealth tax is not raising revenue and that state house building is not tax take-constrained.
"…so maybe we can just …"
Who is this we you speak of?
Not entirely sure how say 5 separate people being forced out of a flat due to rent rises from this, for the sake of one of the few couples left, who manage to buy the flat as a home helps the 5 separate people find more affordable flats, when there are obviously less of them and the sudden demand, means the rent will just go up even more.
People to me seem to forget some people will just never be able to afford to own a house, and have to rent.
All this does is screw them.
I dont forget that at all…and is why property prices (and consequently rents) need to fall to affordable levels….10+ times median income is not that.
"But she said there were warning signs beneath the surface and many people were still doing it tough. More than a third were still living “payday to payday”.
“We know we are not out of the woods yet, there are more Covid-19 effects to roll through the economy and this research highlights some concerns. The fact that more than a third of people have less than a single week’s expenses available to them and almost half have less than $1000 in rainy day savings rings alarm bells for me. This puts them in a potentially vulnerable position."
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/300262937/new-zealanders-mostly-better-off-but-some-doing-it-tough-bank-says
Coincidentally roughly a third of the population rent….reckon any more blood can be wrung out of that stone?
Well yes.
There are going to be people selling flats to couples (or other investers who sit on them for 10 years) or raising rents, to cover it, which means less flats available, which means even higher rent prices.
You can argue all you like the rents will be too high for people to cover it, but this just means more people joing the state housing waiting list, which is getting immense.
If first home buyers buy the properties landlords selll …
I always love this argument. If they coulda, they woulda…but they haven’t so they probably won’t
You mean if they coulda outbid an investor with their previously inherent advantage….lets see what happens now the competition is eased.
Assuming of course they have the deposit which is where I suspect the biggest issue lies.
Whether you think it is a good use or not Kiwisaver has provided assistance for many in that space….not all granted, but enough
For your info Pat these investors still have an advantage – Rates, maintenance etc are still able to be deducted for a reduction of tax and still allows a cash back advantage.
And what many have not understood these recent increases in price also distance new home purchasers with an increase of an already substantial deposit required. In feb the average price of a property increased by $50,000 a 20% deposit means that these 1st Home buyers in 28 days now required another $10,000 in deposit, and think what the impact of the increases that were achieved pre Feb 21??
And all of that explains why prices must fall or we consign home ownership in NZ to the dustbin.(and the likely exodus of our youth offshore….again)
The Gov have been bolder than I initially thought with this package and appear willing to accept a fall in property prices although they havnt explicitly said so…my guess is they would be happy for them to revert to what they were around a year ago ….good luck controlling the decline, theyll probably be the first in history if they pull it off, but at least theyre trying.
That will be a sure fire voter winner for the 65% of the population who don’t rent.
I dont rent but some of my children do, so do some of my friends and who knows circumstances may decide that one day I will….why is it so difficult to understand that peoples motives are not necessarily self serving?
This economic model is destroying everything that was best about this country/society so you may find that many of that 65% are quite happy for the 10% of the population who are investors to lose their gravy train…especially when it is wrecking their communities
Sorry, my estimate of property investors was woefully inaccurate….the 0.03% of the population who are property investors
I can imagine the election proposition – vote labour, let’s get house prices falling. Sure to be a winner.
zero point zero three percent….thats one hell of a constituency
Oh dear Pat, you said in an earlier post Labour are being bold to be the first government in history to accept a fall in house prices.
That affects the 65% who own, not just the 0.3% who invest! Sure to go down well with voters.
My house value could fall 50% tomorrow and I wouldnt care, nor would my mother if hers did similarly, 50% may cause a problem for one of my children but theyd survive….dont forget roughly a third of properties in NZ are mortgage free.
So to clarify, do house price falls only affect 0.3% of the population as you claim Pat?
Correction on my correction….3% or roughly 150,000 property investors.
Yeah yeah. But you still didn’t answer the question. Guess you can’t or don’t want to.
It’s a beautiful afternoon, certainly up here on the Kaipara. I’ll let you get back to the vino.
"So to clarify, do house price falls only affect 0.3% of the population as you claim Pat?"
Obviously not, and the size of the fall will be determinant however you were asking about how voters would view house price falls and I gave you a couple of voters perspectives.
While there are potential downsides to property price falls there are also upsides so what is the net position?…not just for individuals but the economy as a whole.
And if the expectation is the current trajectory is unsustainable then the correction will happen anyway….and the greater the debt the bigger the impact when it does.
Some pain today or lots of pain tomorrow?
I know every investors thinks they will be out before that happens but history shows most mistime it.
Actually David I know of many many fhb who have the deposit, but keep missing out due to investors. They will now have far less competition and will be able to secure their own first home.
What I don't get about investors bleating on about interest payments no longer being tax deductable is that any good business person who took out a loan at record low interest rates should have forecasted in a potential for interest rates to increase substantially, or even for the govt to make interest no longer tax deductable. Any person with half a brain who is investing should have factored that in.. They took the risk, things change, too bad.
And yes bring on a rent freeze. Or even better a national rent strike.
A national rent strike … sounds awesome…that would solve all the issues.
Glad you agree David. I see your time on the Standard is teaching you some things! Keep it up!
Perfect. Now we just need to work on our protest song. Here’s a starter for 10. With the brainpower here though I’m sure we can improve on it:
2, 4, 6, 8
we don’t want to pay our bills in a commy state
what do we want?
a free ride
when do we want it?
now
Nice one David – cue the dancing Cossacks. Tbh, I don't know what Muldoon was so het up about. National governments always 'transfer' public assets into private hands – it's what they do.
One 'problem' facing a fairly sizable minority of NZ citizens is the inability to pay for the necessities of life, wouldn't you agree? Maybe inequality in NZ has gone a little too far…
Wrong target David. It is land speculators who have been getting a free ride at the expense of tenants, people who need a home and those of us who do pay taxes.
"Communism" is fine when they benefit, it seems.
If we all end up paying much higher interest rates, it will be because of their borrowing also.
Goodness me, a traitor in our midst!
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/124674099/spies-catch-out-new-zealander-working-for-a-foreign-intelligence-agency
A foreign plot revealed coincidentally when the SIS is trying to deflect criticism and expand their surveillance powers? Must be legit.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/439030/sis-expansion-of-data-mining-powers-not-off-the-cards-andrew-little
Coincidentally, they released their Annual Report on Friday in which that information was made available to the public. Have you read the report? The photos of pristine New Zealand nature wouldn’t go amiss in a NZ Travel & Tourism brochure or a publication by DOC, all super-neutral, of course.
“… a traitor in our midst!”
What a surprise. Never happened before?
I know the identities of two NZers (maybe three) who were working for a 'foreign agency' in the 1970s and 1980s. They infiltrated the NZ Labour Party. Since the country concerned was a close geographical ally I guess that was alright. They could do what they liked and harass whoever they liked.
@ Sanctuary (3) ' … a traitor in our midst.' Must have gone full time since quitting politics.
Please don’t even go there, thanks. Some other commenter might be stupid enough to put this site at risk and that would be a real shame, don’t you agree?
@ Incognito (3.3.1) … noted.
He is the Very Model of a Modern Major-General
Prince Harry, AKA "The Big H", that scourge of Afghani shepherds, is obviously not the only "piece of work" in the British Army….
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-dorset-56524730
Connoisseurs of low-level British military scumbaggery might also like to check out the following…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Ingram
Arguably the peers of Major General Welch are far far harsher than any peer of any current UK MP…
“emergency department struggles were symptomatic of the struggles the whole health system is facing.”
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/full-corridors-overworked-staff-an-eye-opener-for-ed-visitor/T67VDH3XGPT6NTUSMWPTPTH6JI/
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/code-black-at-dunedin-hospital-avoid-ed-if-possible/57SUM4GFWY73NWFJUO2HC5EFVA/
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/southern-district-health-board-restricts-surgeries-as-bed-demand-soars/3PPEK6PRGYWX2PKMVNY52ZA664/
So why is this happening, all over the country it seems?
It its not just short staffed, it is arrivals at hospital for treatment have vastly increased – especially for this time of the year.
Is it the same cause as the housing crises we have and clogged up Auckland streets – ie far too many new immigrants have been allowed into NZ over the last 20 years ?
Is it the Baby Boomer generation aging ?
Have we not been training enough of our own nurses and doctors?
What is the root cause ?
The roots are rotten and as every gardener knows that will cause a plant to go limp and die.
The A & E model needs to change so serious cases are triaged and a separate clinic run like a GP clinic adjacent to the premises. Fully staffed GP clinics need to run over the weekend at no extra cost.
More doctors and nurses are required. A shortage of specialists as well.
Had a chat with a senior ED nurse.
There needs to be a change in the way health care is delivered.
When someone is referred to ED/clinic etc the next steps must be available at the same time. eg Cat/MRI scan, Xray, dietician/nutrionist, mental health…
Folk often struggle to take that morning/afternoon/hour off as it is without scheduling further engagements.
I do like your answers at 5.3, gsays; enough so that I won't spoil them by replying directly.
But another cause behind the ED bottleneck is the drain of nurses to MIQ, vaccination, and more rewarding private work. Public health work conditions, in Dunedin hospital at least, are apparently pretty grim at the best of times for them.
How is vaccination ”another cause behind the ED bottleneck”?
The 2 ED nurses I know that are/were doing the MIQ stuff, where either working in Oz (clinic work in a remote town) or looking to exit health and grow their small dingo/digger truck business.
Both have talked about dismay with junior/inexperienced staff, cultural politics and being too busy, too often.
From my one step removed position I would answer:
“Is it the same cause as the housing crises we have and clogged up Auckland streets – ie far too many new immigrants have been allowed into NZ over the last 20 years ?”"
A lot of the aforementioned immigrants, are staffing the wards and EDs. This may influence the militancy/stauchness of the workforce, therefore the nursing unions.
“Is it the Baby Boomer generation aging ? ”
Yes, along with increased presentations of folk who cant afford to see a GP, drug seekers, alcohol impaired, mental ill health, entitlitis etc.
“Have we not been training enough of our own nurses and doctors?”
Yes. Nor do we pay them well enough.
“What is the root cause ?”
Neo-liberalism. Letting a market decide. When your DHB has a Chief Executive Officer as the highest paid on the payroll, its a sign of the times.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/439237/letters-mocking-struggling-queenstown-businesses-shock-recipients
A random meeting between the self-centred driven entrepreneurs being lauded in this country, trying hard to acquire enough custom from those with spare everything, and someone who has to count the pennies to get near that lifestyle and resents being pushed to the fringes.
And this is just a light touch on the cheek from the group finding social mobility difficult to achieve, tantalisingly available and then removed, perhaps in the 'gig' economy, or regularly denied and facing deprivation. Below such people are a mass who are at their wit's end, lacking wit for some time actually, becoming hopeless, munted, angry and holding in vengeful thoughts, just.
I saw this while looking for a source of retirement income apart from the traditional residential property, exchange traded shares, funds and fixed interest.
"We’re on a mission to simplify investment into high growth Kiwi companies.
"We want to make the capital market work much more efficiently for growth companies, so they can focus on selling their products to the world. We want to provide investors with a simple way to gain exposure to interesting investment opportunities – facilitating the flow of national savings into wealth-creating assets.
We’re driven by the significant positive impact we can make by building a thriving marketplace to connect growth companies with the capital they need.
Along the way we hope to develop the general financial literacy of the New Zealand public, and bring far more meaning and excitement to investing."
https://www.snowballeffect.co.nz/about
There's no cancel culture, right?
This shit should be a massive red flag for the left. Actually for everyone. Next time you see a woman being told that no-one is stopping them from speaking about their reality, understand that this is what is now routine in academia and has been increasing for quite some time. In another decade we, women, will have lost our ability to academic freedom around our own realities, and it's not like we were in a great place to begin with. And it won't end with women.
Stories here:
https://www.gcacademianetwork.org
and this. Women students are being marked down for writing that feminism is about the liberation of women.
Looks to me like "cancel culture" now excuses getting lower marks for not keeping up with the subject area or lecturer's expectations.
No McFlook, it looks like cancel culture to me. And it pisses me off because it is cancelling the existence of the women's liberation movement and menstruating at the very least.
“I was encouraged to abandon about the problems menstruation posed ……..because it was deemed trans exclusionary.”
I would be interested to hear you views on what I have written below.
Most academic institutions have an appeals process if someone feels they have been penalised unfairly or inconsistently.
As for your comments below, one doesn't have to be male to perv at women, so it's not as if self-id would automatically stop police or anyone else objecting to someone behaving objectionably.
And no, zoom-calling in a conference room isn't "kosher". It might even be a criminal offence (intimate visual recording).
btw, I’ll be offline for several hours very soon – I should have held off rather than getting into a discussion.
Actually McFlook you are discounting my concerns about having men who id as women in changing rooms with your glib comment about “One doesn’t have to be a man to perv at women”. I am sure I have shared many a changing room with lesbians (guess that’s who you are referring to) and I have never felt uncomfortable about any women’s behaviour in a change room. I have also NEVER heard of police being called to women’s objectionable behaviour towards other women in a change room. It is a completely different dynamic with a man. Also women often walk around without towels etc in a change room. If gender self id “women” who were really men did this it would be very unpleasant. Surely you have heard about flashers. But how could it be proved “she” just walking from the shower to “her” locker.
I think women will feel really concerned about this, even if you men can’t imagine how that will be for a women. You have never lived with the unwanted male gaze. Have you not read the paper about how many time men have been filming women in bathrooms changerooms etc????
I meant that, as far as I know, literally every law in NZ against indecent acts or offensive behaviour, indecent assault or sexual violation, or crimes against personal privacy uses non-gendered language.
As for flashing in the changing rooms, sure, the possibilities for human stupidity are limitless. Some non-trans guy might try it. How do you see that conversation with the cops or changing room staff going down, realistically?
Flashing in a public change room human stupidity????? WTF McFlook. That jut tells me you know nothing about what it is like being a women. Your o.k. for men who have changed their gender to do these things and of course the police/change room staff with make it o.k………..Think by this stage the horse has bolted. If the "woman" acts like other women in the change rooms, then there will be nothing that can be done about it. All they have to do is walk from the shower to their locker without a towel with or without an erection and they are women right? Police could probably say wear a towel mate, but can't enforce.
Thinking that self-id will avoid any repercussion is the stupidity part of it.
So we have a flasher of the subtle breed who are acting completely normally without eye contact to see what reaction they're getting? Ok, not the usual type I've had to call the cops over back in the day, but ok. Assuming there is nothing, nothing, to show dodgy intent, they can still be barred by the facility because of their behaviour, because it makes other people uncomfortable.
Point is McFlook, I don't want men in women's changing rooms. Full stop. Most women I have run this by feel the same.
I understand you side with the gender self id bill/trans rights side. Yours entitled to your opinion. But I don't think your opinion on how its going to operate in women's changing rooms has any merit. It can't have. You have never been in one (I hope except maybe when you were a child).
I didn't need to go into the women's room to control access, catch flashers, or see how people dealt with men who thought they were discriminated against because they weren’t allowed to run for women's rep positions.
The idea that self-id makes facilities management and the police powerless to deal with offensive behaviour just isn't reflected in the real world.
But transwomen being unsafe in one changing room and unwelcome in the other? That is reflected in the real world.
"Most academic institutions have an appeals process if someone feels they have been penalised unfairly or inconsistently."
This tells me that you have no idea what is actually going on. Academics are afraid to speak out. This isn't hyperbole. The ones that do get their office doors pissed on, they get rape and death threats, they lose their careers. The women more than the men of course. To suggest that in this environment an appeals process is going to be useful other than as a political act is incredibly naive.
What’s happening on the left is the dismissal and the position that there is no debate, so there is no way for the issues to be aired and resolved. That too should be a big fucking red flag for the left. It’s not like the left is immune to authoritarianism.
It's a bit unfair to post links about getting marked down in assignments and then argue that anyone who responds should be responding to unmentioned but more serious complaints.
Try writing a paper about a steady-state model of the universe sometime (as opposed to "Big Bang" theory), and see how that gets marked.
good to know you are ok with academia redefining feminism to mean a liberation movement for all people and educating its students to that effect against the wishes of many feminists including MA students.
I mean, it's always enlightening when men give away women's rights. Again. Maybe try putting up some actual arguments, I'd love to know where this goes. Feminist academics are raising the issue, and men are going, yeah, nah, nothing to worry about there.
Thanks again Weka. Yes I feel people are not really aware of what's going on re this issue.
Academic concepts and even disciplines get "redefined" every day. It's called "expanding the sum of human knowledge".
And in this case it's also according to the wishes of many women, and not only trans women at that.
When you can not conduct a study on women (biological or trans) and you can not discuss the impact of menstruation and menstruation products when in this country we have young vaginal beings not going to school for lack of menstruation products (and maybe there even is a trans boy or five in the group ) then academia is getting dumb, and discriminatory. Cause women who identify as women and would like to get treated as such exist. And we too would like to be identified as to our on self ID. And we would like our rights, and our safety taken seriously, cause we die the world over often at the hand of penis humans.
And i would just venture a guess that you have never refused an outing or been refused a promotion a job or such on the grounds that you may get your period, or that you may get pregnant, or that you may have given birth, or that you may have lost a pregnancy.
So really please, take your male privilege and ask yourself why women who identify as women, who were born as women, who have born literally every man that is, need to take what little rights we have gained over the last hundred years and give it up to accomodate and be surplanted by trans women. Cause the discussion is only affecting women.
No, it really isn't. Not according to the opponents of self-id, anyway.
Is this a discussion about a seat of the table and only 10 seats are there, so one needs to be knocked of to free up a seat? Or will this be a discussion about finding another seat and adding it the table?
Hear hear Sabine. Totally agree. Great stuff!
McFlook then what do you see as the solution for trans women in changing rooms? What if women aren't comfortable with this?
Every concern and reservation I have have had about the gender self id bill you have dismissed. It sounds like you think women like me and there are many of us should put up and shut up. Is this how you see it?
You can see why as feminists it is a double problem for us. A. Maybe we don't want trans women in our change rooms. B. Men such as yourself seem to be dismissing this.
You also didn't answer whether you though it was a credible scenario that men would change their sex to have easy access to women and children. Is that o.k. by you because we can ring the police?
1: Trans women already use womens' changing rooms.
2: I have also listened to other non-trans women who disagree with your position. And trans women, and trans men. I suspect that you are, as they say, "on the wrong side of history", and quite possibly the legislation will change within months, regardless of any arguments here.
3: Some feminists and non-trans women agree with you. Others disagree with you. There does not seem to be any middle ground on this issue.
4: "Credible"? 2.5 million men, sure. Someone might try changing their birth certificate as an excuse to get unchallenged access to women and children. Will it work? Significantly less likely. Will it result in greater harm than if 50,000-odd trans people are policed about which changing rooms they go into regardless of birth certificate, not even including instances of non-trans women being challenged because they don't conform to feminine norms? I don't think so. That's why I have the position I have.
“Being on the wrong side of history” would never stop me from supporting a cause I believe in. Standing up for women’s rights is not something I d we oils drop because I might be on the wrong side of history.
but thanks to discussion on this blog and to you I have become better informed. What I have discovered about these issues worries me more. How debate/women’s voices are being silenced. Only this weekend gone at the pride event in Wellington a woman who is a lesbian who has terminal cancer was on a stall at the event. She left the stall briefly to take scissors and tape to a group of “reefs” in this case elderly lesbians who had been banned from pride who were protesting outside. In trying to re-gain entry 4 organisers including a very large male person intercepted her, accused her of carrying an offensive weapon. She still had her bag at the stall. She stood up to them and refused to budge. They man handled her and called the police. These older women have fought the good fight for lesbian and gay rights. What sort of treatment is this? Young people gathered and started chanting fucking terfs. An aggressive and vocal minority is shutting women’s. Voices down
Btw in the last week two cases of trans being barred from women’s changing rooms
Is that generational divide typical of your observations of the different sides to the issue?
It seems to be the case down here, but a heavily thespian social group in a college town is the practical definition of "sample bias".
Yes I think that is reasonably accurate, i.e. a generation divide.
Having read a bit more about it i.e. trans issues, I understand and feel free to disagree, that a lot of the children who identify as trans have other mental health issues such as anorexia and self harm. They also experience gender dysphoria. An approach that has been encouraged with their parents is to validate their wanting to be a different sex. This started to occur 20 years ago and so now we have a generation of young people who identify as trans. This I don't believe has ever happened before. From this point of view I acknowledge how very vulnerable some of these individuals must feel.
My perspective is a rigorous radical campaign has been mounted for trans rights, including the right to say there are real women. My understanding is if this is challenged is it vociferously, aggressively shot down. I think there is an enormous amount of solidarity in numbers group think going on.
I noticed McFlook that someone accused you of mysogeny and others implied as a man you shouldn't be taking about this issue. But I don't want to stop you from doing this, because this is a part of what I am objecting to with the trans activists. People have their voices shot down/cancelled.
other mental health issues
You are still denying that trans is actually a thing. A while ago i said that i see this as where the gay thing was forty years ago. Back then there was still a lot of people who saw being gay as a mental illness. Now when people say that they are not taken seriously, they are considered bigots. So yes the wrong side of history you are on this i think also.
It is not surprising that trans people experience mental health issues with so many people denying their identity is real:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/115867340/kiwi-transgender-and-nonbinary-people-at-higher-risk-of-suicide–survey
Cheers – the accusation did give me pause for thought, but that's usually a good thing.
The issue of trans kids and their mental health has a fair bit of research, which is why validation starts early. The main worry is suicide and depression. But are these comorbidities, or are they the consequences of social responses to how trans people are treated by society? When social discrimination is killing people, there's a strong campaign for rights for those people. And trans people have been part of the queer rights movement all the way back to before Stonewall.
I have friends with trans kids (in both directions). The kids and young adults seem to be happier now than my peers from back at the same age who have since transitioned. But also the young thesps just seem more fluid and accepting of themselves and each other, by and large. Still dramas (natch lol), but less judgy of each other's bits and more willing to stand up for each other (although they still have the young person thing of going overboard without thinking, maybe like in responding to that protest you mentioned).
The babies my friends had in their early twenties are leaving/left the nest. They generally seem to be better people than I was (and many of my peer group) at that age.
you are entitled to think it like where the gay thing was forty years ago. I accept that is your view. I see it differently. Gay people were not telling me they were really heterosexual nor were they deconstructing my identity, eg referring to me as a person who f…Ed men.
I was still a heterosexual woman.
I don’t believe I have ever been anything but pleasant and respectful when I have met trans people. You then accused me of being disrespectful about them on-line, but when challenged didn’t provide any evidence that I had been. I did a check with Mc flook who said I hadn’t been.
I am still reading and finding out about this stuff.
I am a feminist and hearing things about elderly lesbians being banned from pride, because they are not prepared to say trans women (not those who have transitioned) are real women. Said women who have been attending pride since it began don’t deserve to have 100 or so young people chanting fucking terfs at them.
there was a woman who happens to have terminal cancer who was staffing a stall at pride. She went out to give the protesters some tape and scissors for their banner, and when she went to go back in 4 people including a large man tried to man handle her out of the venue. She stood her ground and so they called the police. Utterly disgraceful in my opinion. Also because she had scissors caused her of carrying an offensive weapon. I mean ffs. This is disgraceful. She told them she had cancer.
I accept mental health issues are significant in the trans community. I did comment that they were vulnerable. Btw, I do have a criticism of the study. It really needed to have a control group of non trans young people, rather than extrapolating from other studies.
I still think we need to look at the Dunedin multi disciplinary study for gold standard research on this issue.
It only has a thousand participants, so at 1%, that's 10 trans people to do the heavy lifting?
Surveying trans people and comparing their responses with previous and more general surveys might be the spanner for that job, rather than the dunedin study.
Can't see anything searching their journal publications database. But if you see an article you don't have access to, we might be able to sort something out between us. I could remember how to use dropbox, or flip email it to a mod and they can flip it to you, if willing. There's also an openaccess research site somewhere (like pirating movies, but for academic research because journals cost $$$).
@Anker
I am not sure that you read the words you write.
You said:
a lot of the children who identify as trans have other mental health issues such as anorexia and self harm.
That can only be taken to mean that you consider being trans to be a mental health issue. If that is not what you meant then why say "other"? You say offensive things and then complain when people are offended.
sorry for the confusion Solkta.
DSMV1 talks about gender dysphoria. and I assume that many Trans people have gender dysphoria. This would cause psychological distress.
I don't deny trans is a thing. Checked out some trans activist blog sites tonight as I was trying to become more informed.
When I trained it was called Gender Identity disorder.
You seem to want to cast me as anti trans. This is not true. I don't really care too much. But I do care about how women's voices are being shut down and how my identity as a women is being de-constructed.
Would it help if we (again) re-acquainted ourselves with the meanings of the words "sex" and "gender"?
SUFW prefers (and why not?) the United Nations' definitions….
…it is our recommendation that New Zealand policy makers adopt definitions set up by United Nations Equality Glossary (2017). In particular, we suggest the following:
Sex (biological sex)
The physical and biological characteristics that distinguish males and females.
Gender
Gender refers to the roles, behaviours, activities, and attributes that a given society at a given time considers appropriate for men and women. In addition to the social attributes and opportunities associated with being male and female and the relationships between women and men and girls and boys, gender also refers to the relations between women and those between men. These attributes, opportunities and relationships are socially constructed and are learned through socialisation processes. They are context/time-specific and changeable. Gender determines what is expected, allowed and valued in a woman or a man in a given context.
Sex, what you were born with, is forever. It can't be changed.
It is possible with a great deal of medical and surgical intervention to alter one's appearance so as to look like the other sex, but you'll still be the sex you were born with.
Gender, on the other hand, has forever been whatever society/culture/fashion tries to dictate. Today it is possible to express yourself in whatever way floats your boat. Good on you.
But just because you dislike wearing frocks and would not be seen dead in stilettos,and putting on make-up seems like an act of dishonesty, it does not necessarily follow that you were 'born into the wrong body'.
Today, and because many women have fought long and hard to throw of the shackles of what we used to term 'sex-role-stereotypes', you can be yourself without have to resort to extreme medical and surgical interventions.
What The Bill intends is to make the impossible…changing one's sex…possible.
If you had any insight into how the women reading this are assessing you I'm sure you would be horrified. But honestly you clearly have no idea and little insight. It's good really seeing frank misogyny laid bare. Dissolves any illusion we can't unsee it either.
Given some of those individual's expressed opinions of trans women and many academics of any gender, I would seem to be in good company.
Having done an English degree a little over a decade ago, I ran across a little of this. Our feedback system had no box for us to object to it – but I felt it was a gratuitously offensive waste of time at my and other students' expense. If I'd wanted to do gender wars, I'd've taken a course in it – my expectations were literary, a bit of Trollope maybe. No surprise that the humanities have been obliged to downsize.
Thanks Weka for posting this. We need to speak up about this sort of shit.
I commented last week about the gender self id bill and have written to the Minister about this.
Our identity as women is being deconstructed. I read today that the term maternity care and being a mother is being challenged as the language needs to be more inclusive. As is not just women giving birth.
I have been thinking about how sexist this is. I don't know of the equivalent i.d men being referred to as people who get erections or people who ejaculate. Yet there is an attempt to describe women as menstruaters or birthing units, or people with vaginas.
My go to for the best information is the Dunedin Multidisciplinary study. I say this because it is a prospective study that measures health and social outcomes. I would be interested to know what the rates of trans people there are in this cohort who are now in their 40s. Unfortunately I. have not been able to find out about whether that has been published or not. I suspect the rate is extremely low.
I am also objecting to the term Terf. When one group (trans activists) give another group a pejoritive label then it is deeply problematic to say the least.
More on this, I commented last week about the gender self id bill and some people poo pooed what I said.
Anybody dare to tell me that it is fanciful to imagine a scenario where sex offenders (and other men who might want to film women changing or peeing but don't have a criminal recored), change their gender to become a women. Then merrily waltz in to changing rooms at gyms, pools, woman's stores etc. They are free to perv at women and girls, free to expose themselves to women. And then when women call the cops, the cops can only say, sorry but he is a woman. This week alone there appears to be some sort of fracas with a "person" who had the body of a man being restrained by cops because of some incident in Glasons. There was also a report about David Farrar (yes I know I have no time for him) but he was in a male change room at the gym and some goof was on a zoom conference call. Farrar wasn't sure whether it was kosher or not
Yet there is an attempt to describe women as menstruaters or birthing units, or people with vaginas.
This language more about the contrary; some NB and trans-men are people with vaginas and menstruate.
As for the t-word:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/29/im-credited-with-having-coined-the-acronym-terf-heres-how-it-happened
That is a very worthwhile read, thank you. Thought she said things very clearly.
I can only speak for myself Sacha, but what civil rights do you think I am denying?
What Civil Rights do you think groups such as the speak up for women are denying?
I am commenting on this issue because I am against the Gender Self ID Bill. That doesn't mean trans people can't change their sex on their birth certificate, it just means there is a process they have to go through.
I understand some feminist groups are not wanting to involve trans women in their meetings. But I think that is their right. Our experiences from trans women are very different. We have grown up with sexism since we were young girls. They have grown up with a very difficult situation of not feeling like the sex they were assigned.
In the 70's when I first became a feminist there were lesbian women who were separatists. So they wanted to meet and associate with each other and not with us. I had no problem with that.
As I have posted before the language now being used by some about women (menstruators, birthing units and people with vaginas I believe de-constructs my identity as a woman. I find it de-humanizing. As already posted it has been proposed to have a judicial enquiry into the gender self id bill on the basis of it nulifying what a women is.
I wonder what your thoughts are about what Weka is saying about academia?
BTW you asked a question about me assault last week. I gave quite a lengthy response about what happened. I guess you missed it.
The process of changing your birth certificate as it stands is very dehumanizing itself, as you are no doubt aware Anker. Also rather expensive.
But it does seem appropriate that you champion separatism. Given the link explaining how an early version of TERF that never really caught on was TES (trans-exclusionary seperatist).
actually that could be changed easily by law.
Go online, .govt – change birth certificate and reduce any fees. That is something government can do.
I don't exclude Trans when i ask why i am now called a pregnant person, menstruating people etc. The question is why can we not called pregnant women? Because a transman is being a partime women in order to give birth? A man is pregnant? Really? Does that make me exclusionary?
Maybe it should be pregnant people when talking about trans women, and maybe it should be pregnant women when a women gets pregnant? Or would that too be exclusionary?
Before covid I had hired a transwomen. She lived for 28 years a man, and in her country that afforded her all the trimmings of male privilege, and she admits it. She is not going to be trans in her country as it would be deadly, so she came here. Do i feel her as a women? No, i don't Why – god knows, maybe its pheromone etc.? In saying that i don't feel her as a man. Go figure. But will i treat her as a women as a human being, as i would like to be treated by others, and ever now and then help her understand what it is to be women in our world, yes. Very funny tho when her boyfriend and her both applied at the same business for line cook postitions and she was offered a lower wage…….Welcome to the world of women, i said. Her look? Priceless.
I am not aware of what is involved in changing your birth certificate. That in my opinion is not a good reason to allow gender self id. It may be that there are aspects of the process that can be altered e.g. the cost. I would need to know more about the process to understand how it is de-humanizing. Going through life most of us will encounter difficult processes.
I am not championing separatism as such, merely offering that there are many occasions where we are all excluded from some groups.
I am not part of any feminist group currently, so whether I exclude trans women is mute. Like Sabine when I come across Trans people, I am respectful and civil, just like I am with any person I meet. So the label Trans exclusionary seperatiist doesn't really fit.
Anker
But surely that's the substance of the Gender Self ID Bill that you oppose?
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/mothballed-gender-self-id-law-back-as-a-priority-for-govt-will-pass-this-year-minister-says/CIPLGCHFKCK5OB5MOBNYTQ36RQ/
Sabine
Some Intersex & NB, as well as Trans men are also people with uteri.
the current process seems appropriate to me. It is a big thing to change the sex on your birth certificate. I am sorry if it is a lengthy, expensive and difficult thing to change. Some things are e.g becoming a NZ citizen, immigrating to NZ especially under Covid. That doesn't make the processes wrong or right.
I don't support the Gender self id bill. Labour didn't as far as I can see have it as one of their election promises.
More that NZF held it up procedurally for the three years of last term.
It is a small change that will mean a lot to many Aotearoans. I don't believe that you are at all sorry for those whose identities are in limbo for years if not decades (17 years being the waiting list for the bottom surgery alone, even before the Pandemic). Plus there's still a lot of room for improvement around Nonbinary people too.
Biblical literalism, and centuries of colonialism have not left us many examples of that. Even Takitapui feels a bit reconstructed as much as extant culture. Good to have Kerekere in the parliamentary mix though. I guess the Heritage foundation's strategy of turning those with nontraditional gender expression against one another is working out pretty well for them…
Rambling, but at least you know what's in the bill you are opposing now, Anker.
…at least you know what's in the bill…
https://www.legislation.govt.nz/bill/government/2017/0296/latest/whole.html#LMS55955
RMcD, thanks for the link. I have tried to wade through the legalese of that a couple of times before, but my eyes just glaze over! The NZH summary above is more readable, though hardly complete.
Thanks Rosemary.
Forget now, I hear it will mean a lot to many. You don't have to believe whether I am sorry or not. You are entitled to interpret what I say any way you want.
I think Sabine raises a very good point about the process of immigrating here. A rigorous costly process.
Trans people are still entitled to identify whatever gender they want to.
I also agree with Greywarshark that a minority are trying to change gender and sexual identification. No one is stopping them being trans. We are talking about a significant change to official documentation.
As I have said before, I can't change my ethnicity (at all) or my age for that matter.
Bend me, break me, anyway you make me… That is how many women and people feel about this minority that have taken centre stage to turn ordinary life on its side because they have a strong desire to make change! It's a tide of demands that is flooding us trying to stuff up the whole world and our very basic identities to suit the discontented.
There are only so many James Morris' around; the present growth of supplicants is through a power grab by gripe-merchants over young people faced with a convusing, fast-changing world, the control of which has been wrested from the orbit of ordinary people. A majority are facing poverty and homelessness and uncertainty because of ploys of the callous people pulling golden strings at the top. The meme is education and technology is the answer for all ills yet we can see the ills clearly but nothing can or will be done till the technocrats and the pollies trying to use them, have decided on the value to them of fixing them, affecting our fate, and devised a suitable budget to display. We are drowned in theoreticians words and economic inertia and the sort of science that wants to experiment in real time on real people.
This struck me as pertinent; Terry Pratchett's Thief of Time excerpt:
The concept of 'orders' was yet another and immensely unfamiliar one for any Auditors. They were used to decisions by committee, reached only when the possibilities of doing nothing whatsoever about the matter in question had been exhausted. Decisions made by everyone were decisions made by no-one, which therefore precluded any possibility of blame. (p.314 in my p/back.)
I have no issues with a transman wanting to be a 'parent', I have an issue with the statements of a 'man ' being pregnant, it is the female body of that transman who is pregnant. So the fair description would be 'transman' or 'self identified other'. And then feel free to call these groups of people people. But the vast majority of pregnancy happens to women who identify as women and historically it is the women bodies have been doing all of the worlds breeding. But thanks for the education, were would i be without it. .
And if you think that providing a medical certificate is dehumanising think about migrating. I presented several medical certificates to the immigration services, police certificates from every country i ever lived in, birth certificate, marriage certificate and photos, and letters, and more to prove that i am legally married and that my marriage was consumed. And it costs an arm and a leg and we are quite happy to demand even more from migrants today.
Maybe we really need to re-think the term of de-humanising and realise that it is not dehumanizing to prove that you went through a process to change your physical appearance of whom you were born into your real self in order to change every offical document ever issued to you.
.
arkie, I assume you are a man? I am unhappy with my identity as a woman being deconstructed. As someone posted last week the gender self I’d bill, nulifies a women’s identity and if they try and pass I understand there will be a judicial review.
I didn’t read the whole article about who coined the term terf. It appears to be a woman who was speaking up for transgender rights. That isn’t the issue. The issue is what happens when a term not chosen by a group is used by an opposing group in a perjorative way to write that group off.
I belong to a number of groups that are exclusive. That is normal. I can’t join my husbands tribe because I am not Maori and he is. I very much doubt I could easily change my ethnicity. Trans people may or may not be members of groups I am a part of.
I don’t exclude trans people when I meet them in my day to day life
Hi McFlook, yeah I have checked the Dunedin study and they don't seem to have done anything on Trans. I choose that study as my go to source of science, because they really are scientists who are interested in what their research discovers rather than trying to prove a theory. For example their marvellous work on self control. Not popular with many people on the left because they have an ideology that they use to explain social problems. I am not saying that some ideology doesn't explain social/health issues e.g poverty's long term effect on health outcomes, even if people become financially well off in adulthood.
I would be interested to see the numbers who identified as Trans in the Dunedin study and at what age and what mental health outcomes and were the mental health outcomes correlated to other factors. Twelve is a very small sample, but I would be fascinated to see what the trajectory was for Trans people at all ages and stages. I would trust whatever they found.