Some of the absolutism from the left – especially the disaffected detritus of Labour that has washed up in to Greens – has late become hysterical. If the Greens continue to provide a home for people who seem to cling grimly to a Marxist vanguardism then they will deserve joining all the other parties these fringe merchants have consigned to the dustbin.
Oh feck no. If there were enough of them to be politically meaningful I would much rather they had their own party and let Greens focus on green issues. As it is, I reckon Sanc has put his finger on it.
I guess one of the things that happens to you when you think 'green', is that you begin to appreciate that nature is a complex organic ecosystem. To have a Green focus then is to develop an awareness of the interdependence of social economics and the sustaining of our environment. Excusing quantum physics, reductionism is so last century – so lets get real!
It's possible that when someone decides to "focus on Green issues" they might end up thinking that environmental and climate devastation might in some way be linked to the internal machinery of the economy, i.e. what sorts of economic activity gets incentivised and rewarded – and why. In fact, a focus on Green issues that is anything more than a superficial desire to just conserve a selection of our nicer landscapes, will lead into these other areas. If It's not possible to erect some ideological wall around Green issues that stops this natural movement.
Yep,why not join the modern urban Green swing to the free market liberal centre…and then you can safely consign the whole planet to a slow lingering death.
So you are saying – that the Greens are totalitarians, in a fragmented sort of way, but are charging forward, and grimly selling fringes in a dustbin??
I think vanguardism might be Leninist rather than Marxist? (I don't know enough to be certain.) That's why someone memorably described the 1980's neo-liberal reformers from Douglas on down as "Market Leninists". That history should be enough to make us wary of vanguardists of all stripes.
Though I think it's s stretch to call someone a vanguardist for pointing out the fairly obvious contradiction of higher payments for Covid-induced unemployment than for pre-Covid unemployment. I can see why the government did it – there is still far too much in-built, cultural hostility towards beneficiaries for any government to get away with implementing much higher benefits for everyone. Maybe it would be better if people like Sue Bradford acknowledged the 'realpolitik' of the situation, while also pointing out the ethical contradiction.
Ohhhhhhh… The pandemic crisis must be officially over, Guyon Espiner is back slinging mud at NZ First.
It is interesting that Espiner himself is no longer fronting these stories on RNZ, an indication that the NZ First has managed to damage Espiner’s credibility. But I have yet to be convinced the whole thing hasn’t taken on aspects of a personal vendetta , fuelled by disaffected ex-officials of NZF, and nothing so far revealed is anything more than the usual just-legal cronyism that has always pervaded NZ politics, despite the innuendo.
I wish he’d spend half as much effort looking into the amount of money the Chinese Communist Party spends on our politics, but that topic appears verboten to our centrist media elites.
Maybe Guyon didn't get the message that, unlike Simon, Todd will work with NZF. Misrepresenting the sort of bog-standard corruption that infects political donations across the spectrum into a scandal unique to NZF – maybe not so smart now from a Nat perspective. Guyon may need to find a different story.
Sue Bradford: "There has rarely been a more blatant case of discrimination against beneficiaries than Grant Robertson's announcement yesterday that people who have lost their jobs because of the coronavirus will receive weekly payments of $490 per week for 12 weeks and $250 per week for part time workers."
"Labour has revealed once again its decades-long predilection for categorising people into the "deserving" and "undeserving" poor, an ideology straight out of the 19th century England from which many Pākehā settler forebears came."
Thus the framing `Labour the settler's party, ruling ideology colonialism'. Unstated, but discernable in the sub-text. Waving the red flag at the Labour bull – to see if it will get up & charge instead of continuing to wallow in the bullshit, I guess.
"It is also impossible not to speculate that this is a rather unsubtle way of shoring up support for the government". Well, of course! Beneficiary bashing isn't just trad Nat behaviour. It's a way for the middle class to marginalise those beneath them. Bipartisan. And Labour is intent on being more middle class than National.
"Labour is declaring that people who are on benefits not related to Covid-19-related unemployment or are stranded migrants simply don't matter; that their votes – if they do vote – don't count."
That's the guts. Born losers are unlikely to vote, the theory goes. Dunno if social science research has ever validated it with stats, but psychological investment in democracy only happens if people feel they are stakeholders. If they have been brought up without that feeling, can't expect them to think and act like citizens.
Trying to get my head around this….. a person on the job seeker benefit gets $ plus accommodation supplement, winter energy payment and monies for food grants etc etc.
A person on the covid allowance gets $ plus no other entitlements for 12 weeks.
Does it balance out in the grand scheme of things? What is the max $ including allowances that a person can get on the job seeker benefit?
Because when they quote the amount a person gets on the sole parent benefit, I know I received more than twice that amount a week with two children once they had added on the accommodation allowance etc.
Good question Cinny. I've been wondering that too. Accommodation supplement also varies across regions. I'm guessing it's a lump sum to simplify it so people can apply for it and receive it very quickly.
I would expect there to be low income workers who've lost their job who were already getting a supplementary benefit. They're not just for people on a core benefit.
I think stripping it down to dollar values misses out an important issue.
It is the difference in consideration shown, and the implication that those who don't have employment – for reasons other than Covid-19 – remain a separate group, and so can be treated differently.
It is hard to justify that difference. The anxiety and stress felt when not employed and unable to meet expenses is shared across both groups.
The anxiety and stress felt when not employed and unable to meet expenses is shared across both groups.
So true Molly. The restructuring of the Public Service in the 1990s left me on Ruth Richardson's miserable benefit. It wasn't enough to feed and clothe oneself. I ended up with one pair of sand-shoes from the Warehouse – my previous shoes had fallen apart and were beyond repair.
Not only was there the physical discomforts, but there was the mental stress of finding yourself treated with disdain as if you were a loser who had brought failure on yourself.
I do wonder sometimes if there are any MPs who have experienced the degradation that goes with trying to survive on a benefit. Very few, if any, I suspect.
After Ruth Richardson as I remember and the family had to break up apparently with Mum and Dad off to Aussie for work and the older kids staying here for school. He talked about it a few weeks ago on Natrad I think and is still bloody bitter. He is no friend of National.
I may be blaming RR but it must have been earlier maybe Muldoon? , short term memory not what it used to be.
Yeah, would've been a lot earlier … he was in his early 30s by the time Ruth announced her Mother of all Budgets. (unless of course he was not so much a third-year-fifth as a sixteenth-year-fifth … there were certainly a couple of lads at our high school who appeared to have been in the 5th form for several decades … kept on by the Principal because they were brutally effective front row forwards … I remember as newbie 3rd formers, we were amazed at these 5th formers with whiskers, adams apples, fully developed adult physiques and (we assumed) wives & several hungry mouths to feed) …
… the poor bastards still forced to wear the school uniform while their peers were beginning to pay off mortgages …
… So, if he was talking about the Nats: Jones was 13 when the Holyoake / Marshall Govt lost power, 16 when the Muldoon Nats were elected. Presumably the latter.
Remember him in the news as a young, high-profile activist (with ponytail & radically-chic Che Guevara/Rik from The Young Ones beret, IIRR) … certainly in the early-mid 80s (possibly even late 70s).
I remember Shane telling a group of us in Labour (10-15 years ago) that, as a small boy, he was selected by the elders in Northland to enter politics and be their representative in parliament. He used a Maori expression but it was roughly the same meaning as 'representative.'
From that point, they groomed him for his future exalted position.
Cinny, do you have a link to where it says covid payment people can't get supplementary benefits? The main WINZ page suggests they can get extra assistance via SNGs. I'd be surprised if they were ineligible for AS and TAS, theses are benefits for all NZers whether they have a job or not so long as they meet the asset and income tests.
By the way, payments for emergency expenses, food grants and other allowances are available to people who are working, that are on low income, so I expect they will also be available to those on the covid payments.
Thanks for explaining, much appreciated. I wasn't sure if people on Covid payment were allowed extra, crikey I didn't even know that those on low incomes could get extra help, WINZ never told me that when I came off the benefit last year.
well they've had 3 years already.Queues outside the Auckland offices and advocacy still being a high need suggest Sepuloni either has no intention of fixing this or is blind to the problem.
Seems more likely that MSD just haven't got all the detail on the website yet. After some digging, I think the answers on matters like supplementary assistance are clear enough. The payment will be made under S101 of the Social Security Act, but to avoid people being eligible for it and an income-tested benefit (ITB), the Act has to be amended as otherwise the payment would not be income and therefore would not prevent someone also getting an ITB. Amendment Bill:
This Bill ensures that a payment received by a person under the COVID-19 Income Relief Payment Programme (the Programme) is treated as the person’s income for the purposes of the Social Security Act 2018 (the Act).
The Programme will be approved and established under the Act. Payments under the Programme will provide temporary income relief to people who have lost their jobs as a result of the impact of COVID-19. The intention is to ease the income shock individuals and whānau may experience from unemployment.
A payment under the Programme will be paid to eligible people for up to 12 weeks, at a rate of $490 per week if they were previously in full-time employment (30 hours or more a week), or $250 per week if they were previously in part-time employment (15 to 29 hours a week).
The Programme will come into force on 8 June 2020 and will be available for eligible people who have lost their jobs on or after 1 March 2020 and no later than 30 October 2020. People will be able to apply until 13 November 2020.
People cannot receive a payment under the Programme at the same time as an income-tested main benefit, but people will (if otherwise eligible) be able to receive at the same time supplementary assistance and hardship assistance under the Act.
The change made through these amendments will ensure that access to income-tested support provided for under the Act, or approved and established under the Act, takes into account the actual financial resources a person has received or is receiving. To achieve this outcome, the definition of income in Schedule 3 of the Act must be amended to include a payment under the Programme. The payment would otherwise be excluded as income by clause 8(a) of Schedule 3."
At the Beehive link, there is a Q&A doc on the right hand side. Relevant questions from that:
25. Can someone receive the COVID-19 Income Relief Payment as well as supplementary assistance from MSD like Accommodation Supplement? Yes –COVID-19 Income Relief Payment recipients may be eligible to receive both supplementary and hardship assistance. The income relief payment will be treated as income when assessing entitlement to these supports. This includes public housing support like income-related rent.
26. Will receiving the COVID-19 Income Relief Paymentaffect someone’s Working for Families tax credits, student loan repayments or Child Support? No –as the COVID-19 Income Relief Payment is not treated as income for these paymentsas it is non-taxable. The loss of income from losing theirjob is likely to mean some people may now qualify for more Working for Families and other supports.
Would that mean that spouses who have never worked ( nor have ever planned to work) suddenly get a benefit? Think homemaker in rich auckland suburb. That makes it a UBI
The part time amount of $250 will depend on which benefit and whether the beneficiary can find a part time job (complicated calculations involved no doubt), the $490 will be better in almost all cases.
Talking about amounts etc. The standard dole is 250 after tax. I chose to work 24 hours per week at minimum wage to get myself off the benefit and out of the clutches of work and income, even if it means my take home pay of $386 means I end up working for what amounts to $5.66ph.
And this talk of middle class entitlement that’s coming out is a bit shit, seeing as a lot of those who’ll claim will be minimum wage earners in service/tourism industries. When those wage slave working poor are equated with the middle classes, then something has seriously gone wrong with perception.
I'd love the $490 if and when I get laid off, which I think I will, but I won't qualify on hours, and yet I don't begrudge those who will get it, and I sure as fu*k won’t slag the government off for giving it to them.
Sue Bradford the greatest leader the Greens never had….of course they didn't, the Greens have proved time and again they don't have the backbone to or courage of someone like Bradford who is prepared to firmly stand their ground on matters of principle.
Keep voting Labour then, see how far that will get us.
Meanwhile, Marama Davidson yesterday,
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson told RNZ the new offering was a "very clear" admission that base benefit rates were not enough to live on.
"Everybody should be able to access the support, regardless of whether they are recently unemployed or longer-term unemployed."
Davidson said she had heard the frustration of beneficiaries who felt they had been deemed the "undeserving poor" by the latest move.
The Greens had pushed for all benefits to be increased to the new Covid-19 level, she said, but had so far been unsuccessful in getting that over the line.
"We've been consistently clear that this needs to happen urgently and desperately. It hasn't happened yet, but we won't give up," Davidson said.
"Both New Zealand First and Labour need to come to the table on this."
That's a nice tone from Marama Davidson (and/or Craig McCulloch) in that report. It also notes some of the takes on the payment that I've found incendiary and misplaced over the last few days. It’s taken me a few days to get my thoughts together around the government emergency payments to workers laid off due to Covid-19.
I understand the rage, I think, but I also think this is misplaced. To start, I’ve been both a long term beneficiary, lived through my partner’s redundancy and later, lost my job suddenly due to illness. Based on these experiences I think:
The Covid-19 emergency payment is a good thing. It’s temporary and it’s needed for a whole lot of people who need to down-size their financial commitments and/or to hold them over without massive debt while they begin the process of finding work.
Long-term beneficiaries have already done this down-sizing (often without the help of redundancy payments). They already (don’t) cope with depleted budgets.
Fixing unconscionable underpayment of benefits is critical.
The two situations are not comparable. I don’t believe it’s a case of deserving and undeserving poor
If I were a long-term beneficiary now, I would be angry, I would have been angry for a long time and this would have made that anger flare. How long are beneficiaries meant to be patiently waiting for changes that have been promised?
I believe the anger that is showing up though, is mis-directed.
The view that ‘the middle-classes should have to live like beneficiaries, we’ve lost an opportunity for them to know what it’s like’ – No, a thousand times no! Since when were wait staff, kitchenhands, reception and accounts staff, builders’ labourers, foresters, drivers, tour guides etc. middle class? They’re working class (and in my opinion, despite being a major factor in who gets employed in what jobs, racism isn’t a factor in deciding on the temporary payment either).
These workers shouldn’t have to know what it’s like to live in poverty, no-one needs to be taught that lesson in a supposedly civilised world (although chances are many of them do, given the precarious working environments in some of these industries). We should be looking upwards, not expecting people to move more people down the socio-economic ladder; we should be pressing the government to give an update, a timetable, a sense of urgency on plans for improving the financial security for beneficiaries.
We should be demanding the government use some of that political capital it has built (which I know some advocates are doing). The evidence is there, the justification to politically ‘sell’ such changes should have been written a long time ago. Sure Covid-19 has thrown things off the tracks, but there should be something that already exists to indicate the government is taking the plight of beneficiaries seriously and that this will be treated with urgency. Pressure the government on this and leave the people who have just lost their jobs out of it.
Labour relations – Grant Robertson hit on this (but not hard enough) when he mentioned that this is the third time in a few years that the government has had to bailout businesses by supporting their employees. When my partner was made redundant years ago we had a redundancy payout that covered almost exactly the three months between jobs. It kept our heads above water. The alternative would have been bankruptcy with little chance of ever coming out of that. And I’ve been there too – as a person who lost a job through long-term illness, a huge mortgage on an apartment we later found to be a leaky building, and in ‘a relationship in the nature of a marriage’. Effectively bankrupt. By sheer good fortune a way out of that landed in our laps.
I haven’t forgotten what it’s like to have three of these events – as a sole parent on a benefit, living through a redundancy and losing a job to illness. A blight on our supposed civilised society that we’ve done that to so many people since the Douglas/Richardson years). Being divisive by shouting at people who are going to receive three months respite payments and equating that payment to a two-tier system seems not only counter-productive, it’s also not correct.
No, beneficiaries should not have to be patient, to hold out for some distant reprieve from the state they’re in. The anger (imo) should not be directed at enhanced short-term assistance to the ‘lucky’ recently unemployed, it should be directed as a call for action on the state of the rights of people who don’t make money through capital investment (aka workers’, beneficiary, human! economic rights). When the hell are we going to focus and turn this around?
The view that ‘the middle-classes should have to live like beneficiaries, we’ve lost an opportunity for them to know what it’s like’
Hmm, who is saying that about the payment? I've seen people say that more people having to depend on welfare might improve compassion for beneficiaries, but that's not the same as saying that the middle classes should poor for a while to teach them (I'm sure there are people saying that, I just haven't seen it).
I agree about the class stuff though. Job loss will be affecting people across the board.
The criticism I've seen has been of the govt, not for giving people the covid payment, but for not also helping beneficiaries. This is blatantly discriminatory.
I'm not keen in the newly unemployed vs long termers who are used to it argument. The people who ended up on welfare in January? Or last year? At what point do they become long term? Also not keen on the argument that long term people have adjusted given that many beneficiaries live in fear of losing what they have in large part because of the govt.
"We should be looking upwards, not expecting people to move more people down the socio-economic ladder"
Yes and no. I agree that punitive, that'll teach 'em stuff isn't helpful. I do think the middle classes specifically need to change how they live, because they are driving NZ's ecological and climate overshoot. We can't all live the lifestyle of my upper middle class family if we want to transition to post-carbon and sustainability. I believe we can still all have good lives, but that's not the same as us all trying to move upwards.
Being divisive by shouting at people who are going to receive three months respite payments and equating that payment to a two-tier system seems not only counter-productive, it’s also not correct.
Ok, can you please show me some examples so I know what you are referring to? Someone on twitter said similar, but I'm obviously missing that.
I mean my ire is clearly directed at Labour, lol.
In terms of turning it around, my fear at the moment is that the people who consider themselves progressive will vote Labour again this year. If that happens, then I think it will be hard to recover from this divide and it will run much deeper, esp if Labour bring in a permanent two tier system without mending WINZ or raising benefits. This scares me more at the moment than National, and not just on this issue, I see Labour moving from very good handling of acute covid response, into the mid term management and it's looking very neoliberal.
A bit of stuff Twitter and Facebook. Usually comments on Beneficiary activist sites – mostly in rage on the first day of announcement. Wording along the lines of the mc should experience living on a benefit (some of us already have of course). Also comments that are more desperate (and all the sadder) because they believe they’re more likely to get mc support for a raise in benefits if they have to, or know of people who have to, live on current benefits too.
The criticism I've seen has been of the govt, not for giving people the covid payment, but for not also helping beneficiaries. This is blatantly discriminatory.
Totally agree that a fairer and system and higher rates of pay for beneficiaries should not have taken this long. I understand people’s impatience and anger. However I don’t agree this covid payment is blatantly discriminatory. I see this payment and the improving the social security system as separate issues. This payment and redundacy payments generally are linked issues, imo.
I'm not keen in the newly unemployed vs long termers who are used to it argument.
After three months the covid unemployed are in exactly the same position as other beneficiaries if new jobs don't materialise – all they’ve had is an adjustment period which they would have got if we had decent legislation around redundancy, which everyone deserves. It's a good thing GR recognises it's important – now to make sure he extends it via legislation .
I do think the middle classes specifically need to change how they live…
Yes, of course the mc need to change how they live – not something that should be put on the recently unemployed though. My meaning of looking upward was that beneficiaries deserve a better standard of living.
Being divisive by shouting at people who are going to receive three months respite payments and equating that payment to a two-tier system seems not only counter-productive, it’s also not correct.
Ok, can you please show me some examples so I know what you are referring to? Someone on twitter said similar, but I'm obviously missing that.
I think Grant Robertson blew the whole announcement of this payment. To me, it’s clearly a redundancy payment but it came across as a higher pay-rate. It took quite a bit of to and fro-ing to actually work out it wasn’t an increase for some and not others, but by the the ‘two-tier’ sound bite was in popular use. I believe this is divisive.
I hope the Green party does not go with sound-bite into the election (I haven’t heard them using it, I’m just worried they will). At the moment I do like what they’re saying.
I mean my ire is clearly directed at Labour, lol.
Yes, understandably so.
I don’t believe Labour will bring in a two-tier system. I think that’s odd I do hope they do something to ensure a redundancy payment for recently unemployed though, I truly believe this transition payment will give people much-needed breathing space and it should be available to everyone. I’m angry in part because we should know by now where the government is at with mending WINZ or raising benefits. Carmel Sepuloni doesn’t seem keen on rocking the boat and yes, we need something radical.
I haven't been following the redundancy payment thing. Is the suggestion that the govt passes better legislation so that businesses have to pay redundancy across the board in situations like covid?
I agree that Labour fucked the messaging. I'd have way less of a problem with the policy if they'd done two things. One is not tie it to benefits, but as you say, make it a redundancy payout. Two is give something to beneficiaries, at the least some messaging along the lines of 'we will need to address issues x, y, z next to make sure that people already struggling are ok, and this is what we are looking at next'. Changing the abatement rate would fit well with Labour's ideology around work. Not nearly enough, but it's something.
Labour won't do that though, because as far as I can tell they don't actually have any plan for welfare. Plus the whole paid jobs will save the day bullshit.
I haven't looked on FB, but I can imagine that there are people there really fucked off and lashing out.
Re the future, what did you make of the insurance idea from Labour, if not a two tier, user pays system?
Darien Fenton has been tweeting a lot about equating the payment with redundancy pay rather than benefits she has said e.g.
"Our failing in NZ to ensure a safety net of protection called redundancy pay when workers are laid off through no fault of their own provided by the employer has led to this [the covid temp payment]. We've avoided this question for years and years. If it means better protection for all, I'm up for it."
I don't know if Labour will tie this into the social welfare system, or labour laws. Robertson has clearly indicated he wants to do something so the govt doesn't have to pick up the tab for mass redundancy when the economic system falls over. They did masses of work on "the future of work' before the election. We haven't really seen much to show for that. except, of course, the fast decision for major money dedicated to saving jobs at the beginning of the covid crisis.
"Labour won't do that though, because as far as I can tell they don't actually have any plan for welfare."
^^ this. this is exactly why the messaging was fucked. They say they're working diligently on this, but after all this time, no-one knows what they're doing with regards to benefits, and for that matter, labour laws and everyone is just being told they have to be patient.
Insurance – depends, when we were living in Austria most people seemed happy enough with their insurance system. it was a bit like the – a dedicated paye deduction (I believe). The question of time-limiting unemployment benefits could be an issue. I'll start paying attention now to what Labour seems to have in mind, instead of just waiting for them to present it 🙂
Also – speaking of Austria. NZ cannot change the benefits system and increase payments without rent controls and more state housing. The increase, as has happened before, will go straight in landlords bank account.
In fact, making housing more affordable, could be more effective than a welfare raise.
Without addressing housing, raises in welfare payments are likely to go straight to banks and landlords, profits. As you have said, and as we've seen with student allowances.
Completely agree. I'm more and more against lots of house building unless it is state housing, or community based housing. Anything else will just fuel the housing market.
Def rent control.
Re the insurance scheme, how did poor people in Austria feel about some people getting better benefits than others based on user pays?
"I'm more and more against lots of house building unless it is state housing, or community based housing"
Another one of the beautiful things about living in Vienna the percentage of state housing – there is no stigma associated with it *- combined with rent controls moderates the housing profiteers (note – Vienna, not Austria here – the States rather than the State is responsible for their housing.
*the video is a pretty special housing development, but the principles are everywhere and the interview displays the general attitudes that I heard while living in the city.
"how did poor people in Austria feel about some people getting better benefits than others based on user pays?"
I didn't get a sense of dissatisfaction about it (different for migrant labour of course) and the last election swing to the right was about nationalism rather than economics I believe. The latest iteration of a right-leaning government is still not neo-liberal as we know it. Also, if you don't have (or run out of) unemployment insurance, there is still unemployment assistance.
Part of the problem with Ardern and Roberston mentioning insurance but not saying much else is that now there is all this speculation. What I picked up is that it would be user pays for those with jobs, people with better employment would accrue better benefits if they were laid off. Hence two tiers built in.
Of course we already have two tiers eg in ACC, and in the way the state views accidents versus illness. I can totally see Labour going down this path, and it's consistent with the idea that the are ok with a permanent underclass. They're still way better than National, but I fear that within covid pressures they are going to cement in whole layers of neoliberalism that we don't even see yet.
Some still hold hope that Labour will do right by welfare. I don't. I think they will do what they have always done, even if free from NZF. Their plan is paid jobs, and there is no plan beyond that. I actually feel more despair around this this week than I ever have. I really hope I am wrong, but seeing so many people now hating on the Greens for not forcing Labour to do better, it's hard to see anything other than a neoliberal future that will leave so many people behind.
Bradford is near lethal to every political party she touches. Her arrogant ramming through of the Section 59 changes was merely the most egregious of her political errors, being incredibly costly to the broader centre left.
She failed to build a constituency or a consensus for a highly sensitive change with the wider community, merely lazily and arrogantly relying on elite consensus and a high handed dismissal of opponents and she condemned Labour by association, made the parliamentary left fatally vulnerable to culture war attacks and meant that for ten years the phone was off the hook with middle New Zealand for Labour.
Her impact on the Greens – pulling in all sorts of militant losers who have already been twice, thrice, even quadrice rejected by the electorate – has been primarily to dilute the parties raison d'etre on the environment and convert it into a last stand of the out of touch, electorally toxic, activist rabble she comes from.
Let's see how your remarkable (given the state of the Green's polling) complacency is holding up on the 20th September. If the Greens get less than 5%, they will be looking at a long road back -particularly as the militant left that will form the rump of the party after an electoral drubbing seldom sees defeat as a reason to review it's POV.
Personally, if I were Labour I’d be eyeing up their best parliamentary talent – Schwarbrick, Genter – for a return on a labour ticket in 2023 if the Greens fail to get back into the house.
No one wants the Greens out of parliament, I was merely pointing out the direction Bradford took the Greens seems to have set the party on a path of decline and she was a catastrophe for the wider centre left.
The Greens dropped from 14 MPs to 8 in the 2017 election after Turei's speech and Ardern's rise. Bradford hasn't been in parliament since 2009. You're drawing a pretty long bow to link her to the low polling now.
Sadly the Green party of today are nowhere near a true socialist party. A 2016 Sanders or French Melenchon type socialist movement cannot be born from the lime coloured bourgeoisie.
So don't even try to do an Alien-style facehugger/chestburster on the Greens. Put the movement together outside of the stale old parties that are tainted by making the compromises necessary to make actual governing work.
Have to agree Adrian re Sue & her principles. Although I wouldn’t vote for Sue she refused to go with Kim Dotcom when Minto, Hone & Laila Harre all went where the money was. Sue refused to have anything to do with KDC (who I hear likes KFC) as she viewed him as corrupt & told Mana where to go, so definitely an ethical person.
It must be hard being an investigative journalist. Do you hear of something and investigate it or do you develop a thesis and set out to prove it's true?
If you (and your employer) invest time in the story and there is no story what do you do?
When does an 'investigation' turn into a campaign? When does an investigation become a vendetta?
On the other hand, it's exceptionally easy if you're the opposite of an investigative journalist. Unlike Jon Stephenson and Nicky Hager and John Campbell, the likes of Richard Harman, Sean Plunket and Mike Hosking have never been targeted by vengeful governments.
Even though employers and unions will be told to leave their industrial "shopping lists" with their weapons at the door, the five key areas up for negotiation appear to include grievances drawn from the lists of both sides — simplification of awards, enterprise agreements, casuals and fixed-term employment, compliance with workplace laws and "greenfield" agreements (for new businesses) — which is a reasonable place to start.
The negotiators — including those from small businesses, the regions, women's groups and multicultural communities — have only four months to complete their work, with Porter playing the role of moderator.
A walk-out in disgust in the first rounds of talks would confirm a system beyond anyone's will to repair, but as with all such exercises, the longer these old enemies sit around the campfire, the more likely they'll be making headway towards some consensus.
Ardern's govt has the same opportunity before it; the Budget was merely a scene setter. With households close to running out of reserves there is every reason to be wary of entering a reform process from a weak negotiating position, yet the same applies to business. Now is perhaps the best moment in generations to re-frame the debate … we now have the undeniable demonstration before us that the workers who are paid by business, are also the same people who are it's customers.
Now is our best moment to tackle the long neglected question of labour and capital productivity in NZ.
Great comment Red Logix. Could you watch this reporter Greg Jennett and (Twisted Ribbon?) News (so modern, not having a recognisable name just a visual logo. Leaves room for useless conjecture!).
This is info about Porter and more background looking into link provided by RL above:
But in the depths of the coronavirus crisis, senior ministers in the Morrison Government, especially Attorney-General Christian Porter, have seen enough of ACTU Secretary Sally McManus and the leadership of the various business lobby groups to gauge that if ever there was a time to achieve some consensus then now must be it.
Abandoning the heavy-handed "Ensuring Integrity" bill, which would mete out heavy penalties against wayward union officials has bought the Government some goodwill at the outset.
And maybe this truth you have presented will pierce through the murk hiding factual economics set up by the neolib horde.
Now is perhaps the best moment in generations to re-frame the debate … we now have the undeniable demonstration before us that the workers who are paid by business, are also the same people who are it's customers.
Politically it would be a great opportunity for Labour to take the initiative with the business lobby, and conveying to the nation that it is willing to do something with the enormous polling capital it has just gained from this epidemic.
And so it begins… after it is revealed that our borders were opened to foreign film crew and production workers during lockdown that were regarded as essential workers because of "significant economic value", others who value overseas money are claiming the same.
I am disappointed in Twyford's reasoning and response, and find it hard to see how it can be justified when NZers restricted themselves from the normal responses to anxiety and stress by avoiding contact with loved ones.
This is a strategy that provided overseas entities a freedom that was not available to NZers, and will only lead to a raft of similar requests from other institutions and businesses asking for the same "exceptional" treatment.
Covid-19 cases coming into the country need to be carefully managed otherwise the freedom of NZ citizens and residents will be limited and our health service could become overwhelmed in a month.
The problem is that NZ is dependent on tourism, the hospitality industry and overseas students.
Covid-19 will be a threat until a vaccine is made and/or an effective treatment is available.
I do think that the cautious approach of closing the borders for the next six months (unless for an exceptional reason) is going to be less costly for the country than opening up the borders to quickly.
" The problem is that NZ is dependent on tourism, the hospitality industry and overseas students. "
The solution then, may be to reduce that dependence as much as possible, if we are unable to eliminate it.
"Covid-19 will be a threat until a vaccine is made and/or an effective treatment is available.
I do think that the cautious approach of closing the borders for the next six months (unless for an exceptional reason) is going to be less costly for the country than opening up the borders to quickly."
Agree. Managing quarantine in such as way as to ensure the wellbeing of us all is necessary for long-term benefits, both in health and economy.
Tourism has a lot of yo-yo money in it. Foreign tourists pay foreign firms operating here who pay people on work visa's and the taxpayers pay the social costs.
Foreign students pay for huge vice chancellor fees while the rest of the staff live on insecure contracts or they fund dodgy private courses off which people can get business start up visa's? There is also use of long term public resources like buildings funded and libraries. Cutting a few vice chancellors salaries and the offshore trips plus advertising budget would fix the problem. A good package for really high quality students rather than a disguised work permit is what we need.
Well I really hope that those coming here as essential workers for the privet sector paid their own quarantine costs rather than us taxpayers. And that there is a decent salary level on those projects for the local jobs before any permission is give,
As to students – now is the time to remove any "work visa's" attached so we get rid of low paying job competition and useless courses. Our NEETS are under enough pressure now with respect to jobs.
A considered review of the system, would result in such changes I would hope. But we haven't practiced considered reviews of some of these industries/mechanisms for a while. Seems a great time to do so.
For a list of recipients of other benefits (such as tax breaks for filming production) you can have a look at the government rebates given to overseas companies.
Some big high-profit popular films on the list. A question about how that "investment" and economic benefits are shared amongst the New Zealand community is not even asked, let along answered.
Be nice if we got some profit shares on our taxpayer investments.
Nor do I think that any government should necessarily feel the population as a whole is in favour of endless work visa's or huge numbers of tourists.
And if others now see us as a " safe place" to run their projects (the America's cup contestants were wanting entry the other night on the Telly – not a word about how we had all participated in the lockdown – just me, me me look what it does for me) then I would expect to see some large charges for all of us to share.
As a minimum wages paid to locals on these projects should meet the level of wages needed to apply for work visa's ( around $$76k?)
Edit
This from Peter's office about Australia and how we are wedded to a partner that is near to a partner-basher.
New Zealand and Australia are two of the most integrated economies in the world, with deep connections between our people. We are critical markets for each other’s businesses and major tourism markets for each other. We have highly developed systems in place which give us a high degree of confidence in each other’s border management.
New Zealand and Australia are committed to introducing a trans-Tasman COVID-safe travel zone, as soon as it is safe to do so. A travel zone would boost our trade and economic recovery, help kick-start tourism and transport sectors, enhance sporting contacts, and reunite families and friends.
'A high degree of confidence in each other's border management'.
As in uprooting NZs from their homes and families after long-term settlement in Oz? Isn’t this against long-held laws of habeus corpus? But Australians are ready to go that extra mile in negative behaviour it seems.
As in a possible repeat of how they treated our Prime Minister Clark* after Ansett's collapse for instance? Friendly relations? And they want us back in the fold again so they can keep reaping benefits from our enterprise efforts, that they either own or their banks have lent on.
Transtasman relations take a dive Published: 6:15PM Friday September 14, 2001
Transtasman relations have plummeted with the demise of Ansett Australia leaving 16,000 workers and numerous suppliers to the airline jobless…
Prime Minister Helen Clark felt the full heat of their anger when Ansett workers blocked her Air New Zealand plane from leaving Melbourne Airport…
Federal Transport Minister John Anderson said the government could not afford to help keep Australia's second airline flying and joined Ansett unions in blaming the New Zealand carrier.
He said it would have cost $170 million to just keep Ansett flying until Saturday night.
"Its assets will now be put up for sale but the company itself has been completely and comprehensively driven into the ground by its New Zealand owners, Air New Zealand," Anderson said…
It took two stalwart journalists in Australia to shine the spotlight on the lies from the Australian government and John Anderson.
(I have to read more to check on the story that the Australian Government had acceded to the NZ Government the right to fly domestically within Australia to carry passengers direct to state capitals, which was quickly rescinded by email? after a Qantas intervention; with run-down, debt-laden Ansett being offered as the only alternative.)
It appears that there may be a connection between Ansett's collapse and the onset of rules barring NZs social security rights in Australia as a punishment, an excuse for labelling us negatively to Oz citizens, and a cross that many of our family members have had to bear after settling there.
I believe that it is very hard for NZs to get residency in Oz now also.
And that it is harder for us than many other countries. Friends?
Sep 11, 2011 – The 14-Sep-2001 collapse of Ansett Australia set the following decade for a series of rapid and momentous changes in Australian air transport, …
NZ cannot continue subsidising the life style of non citizens and non residents unless this group is actually contributing more to the NZ economy than it is costing the country.
I have no issues with refugees as a person is a refugee for a valid reason (they are escaping something terrible).
The universities need to do belt tightening and they just might have money for projects and courses which convert to a job once the course or degree is completed.
I have to give it to the Aussies that they make a profit off NZ citizens and residents in Australia.
There are going to be some big stoushes when it comes to airlines.
I was absolutely gobsmacked to read that our borders have been infiltrated by a huge film crew during Lockdown. How dare they presume to come at such a time and how stupid to let them in; "essential "they are not. I hope as others have also commented , that they paid all costs – plus some – for the quarantining required. I expect everyone entering this country is paying their cost of quarantining for electing to come in these times of kiwi sacrifice
Once the capacity to manage reliable quarantines was in place it was only sensible to allow a small number of high value or urgent individuals into the country.
A complete hermetic seal would only do more harm than good.
Essential workers – such as medical staff or scientists would be acceptable to most under the lockdown restrictions.
Classifying those who work in the entertainment industry as "essential" because of perceived economic benefit, is much harder to justify. If they had required them to wait until the Alert level had reduced to 1 or 0, then both the lockdown and the transition out of it would be even-handed and equitable.
Referring to this industry as "essential" in this situation, when everyone else was under homestay restrictions is not good decision making.
Landau said he felt the crew was "coming back to the safest place in the world"
Was it essential or was it for a safe haven right now. I think the latter and without a doubt they could have waited until we transitioned out of lockdown.
Winston Peter's is in trouble electoral finances look dodgy so he throws the dead cat saying we are in lockdown to long and we should be opening borders given Australia doesn't report probable cases we should be patient.
Why do the media report this crap they know just like Peters and Muller know ,Australia is not ready for a bubble. the two PM had talks yesterday aust still have new cases every day and some are community transmission just trying to catch votes
He is struggling for relevance and for airtime. I think time is up for NZ First, both the main elite consensus parties would rather not have him there and father time is clearing his throat for Winston, who is now 75 years old – his ability to campaign vigorously has been in decline for the last three elections, I doubt he'll be able to rally it for this one.
I'll be sad to see the demise of NZ First, even though I dislike Peters. They represent a genuine constituency but Peters has really squandered the decades he has had to build a permanent party.
Not sure about that but some at least in the smaller provincial towns who see labour as too "urban, liberal , stands for unions striking (not that that has been true for 30+ years) " vote NZF because Nact stands for big business and too much foreign money.
think nz first will do well this election. nat vote will collapse as voters see the trainwreck that is muller and co.only place for these votes to go is act and nz first
He screwed it up back in 1996 when NZF went into government with National after promising to throw them out of office. There was a lot of momentum built up that year, with Winston's party polling higher than Labour, but he started backpedalling, by not ruling out a coalition with National and softening policy stances.
National's not in trouble with electoral finances because 'they weren't /aren't members of the party' those people we don't know who are involved in a legal situation. And no-one involved in what went on was a member or agent of the party. If anything went on.
Peter's is throwing Mule a lifeline hoping National voters will give him enough to get to 5%.
But National will not be happy with his dodgy electoral finance jackup.
Figures released by the Department of Health show that 732, or about 10.3 per cent, of confirmed Covid-19 cases in the country have been locally acquired with no contact identified.
This means hundreds of people have caught the virus in Australia but the source of the infection could not be found.
There has also been a new case in South Australia that didn’t report any new cases for a long period. No surprise some states are very keen to keep the inter-state borders closed.
They have still too many “unknowns” re. COVID and therefore I can’t see how NZ could open the bubble responsibly with Australia without requiring quarantine.
As for workers / tourists from other countries, one would expect a mandatory quarantine for the near to medium future and why should the NZ government / taxpayers pay for their quarantine? I can see some minor exceptions like the German engineers fixing the Wellington waste water.
Some good points here when people point to Australia having a lesser lockdown, they still haven’t got the virus under control. Two schools in Sydney had to be shut yesterday with student cases. McDonald’s has to shut 12 restaurants due to an infectious delivery driver. At the same time they are reducing restrictions when they still appear to have community spread, a recipe for disaster.
The south Australian case is sheer incompetence on somebodies part, letting a recent UK arrival out of quarantine early and then to board a flight from Melbourne to Adelaide. A trans Tasman bubble is going to be a long way off with this sort of negligence.
Blair's hatchet man railed against "hypocrisy" and "lying" yesterday, but Susie Ferguson seemed oblivious to the irony.
RNZ National, Tuesday 26 May 2020, 7:58 a.m.
The Dominic Cummings scandal has provoked disgust from people all over Britain and indeed much of the rest of the world. Just before the news yesterday morning, Suzie Fergusson was subjected to an extended rant on the matter from a man with a Lancashire accent….
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL: This stuff is just doing my BRAIN in. We're in the middle of a pandemic, we're one of the WORST affected countries in the world, we've got TENS of thousands of people have DIED. We've got BUSINESSES collapsing left, right and centre, we've got UNEMPLOYMENT skyrocketing, and the entire government today has been en-, has been enga-a-aged in NOTHING to do with that, and EVERYTHING to do with trying to protect this ri-DICULOUS character that, for some reason, Boris Johnson can't untie his shoelaces without. And, you know, to have a, to have a—I mean, I was an adviser, I was the Prime Minister's, Tony Blair's press secretary. The idea of an unelected adviser, in the MIDDLE of an event like this, doing a big press conference in the garden, back garden at Downing Street, and then Boris Johnson doing as it were the FOLLOW-UP press conference to try to move the agenda onto lockdown easing, and THIS is what is horrific, I mean phase one of this pandemic, because Boris Johnson is IDLE, and he went on not just one, but TWO holidays, because he when he did come back he basically, his basic message was Oh well everybody else is panicking, there's no problem, we'll send this virus packing with a bit of good old British vigour and resolve and a few Churchillian speeches. Telling people to go off to football matches and race meetings and not to worry, telling people that he was shaking hands with corona virus patients in hospital, so I would say he directly contributed to the deaths of many people, through the messaging. They then realized it was a total disaster, and they went into a completely different messaging which was very effective: Stay home, protect the National Health Service, Save Lives. And the vast m–, the vast majority of the country did that. And now, we discover that his own closest adviser completely broke those rules. And it's just, it's unleashed an absolute FURY in this country, the idea that there's one law for them and there's one law for everybody else. And I think that even though Johnson thinks he' dealt with it today by sticking Cummings out in front of the media and getting him to deal with it—
SUSIE FERGUSON: Boris Johnson's, uh, perhaps thought YESTERDAY he would have dealt with it in his press conference, but today Dominic Cummings has had to come out and speak to the media AGAIN. Has this been put to bed?
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL: It's not been put to bed at ALL, because there's so many unanswered questions. And also I think one of the WORST things about this is that the government is reduced to a laughing stock, I mean one of the most extraordinary moments was when he was aked, um, whether this home, this sort of GRAND country house where he was self, supposedly self-isolating, his parents' residence in County Durham, whether he went out from there, and he said yes he did because he'd not been feeling very well, and one of the problems he had was that his EYESIGHT wasn't very good and so he went for a drive to see whether his EYES were okay.
SUSIE FERGUSON: Is that a good idea?
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL: So that he could decide, to see whether he could decide to drive the whole way to London. I mean, the guy has made himself a complete laughing stock, and then on the BACK of that, any of your listeners who follow any of our ridiculous cabinet on social media, ONE BY ONE, they've been putting out cut-and-paste tweets saying "Dominic Cummings has dealt with all the answers, let's move on and crack on with dealing with the crisis." And the thing is, I don't think the public, who frankly probably don't care two hoots about Dominic Cummings, who most of them until a week ago hadn't heard of, [clears throat] I don't think, I think they wouldn't WORRY too much about his lying and the hypocrisy and the rest of it if they thought the government was competent. And they're NOT. And so-o-o-o phase one they've screwed up, and now they're screwing up phase two, because frankly the lockdown which we still have in place to some extent, is breaking down anyway. I've seen SO many pieces today, there was a thing on, y'know, ENDLESS little films on social media, people saying Well if Boris Johnson can do it, I can do it.
SUSIE FERGUSON: Well this is the thing—
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL: That's what HAPPENS.
SUSIE FERGUSON: Does this then all break down? So how damaging is this not just for Domic Cummings and for Boris Johnson but potentially for handling the pandemic?
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL: Well I think it is, and it's very interesting how several of the scientists who are on the government advisory committee have come out publicly and said this has fundamentally undermined the government's strategy. The government's chief scientist and medical officer, for instance, as we went into Downing Street today, we were told they were going to do the press conference with Boris Johnson and neither of them were there. I hope it means that they're just refusing to go along with this ridiculous charade any longer, I just don't know. But, look, you're talking to somebody here, don't ask me these questions as if you're talking to some sort of an objective commentator. I utterly DESPISE these people. I've despised them for a long time, because I've KNOWN them for a long time, and KNOW what sort of people they are. They are AMORAL, they do not CARE about people, they care about themSELVES, they got into power by pretending to be FOR the people against an elite, they ARE the elite. And honestly, YOUR prime minister is getting SUCH a lot of love in the U.K. because people have, y'know like everybody, people are following this around the world and seeing who's done it well and who's done it badly, and your prime minister's done incredibly WELL. And even the shot today of her in the earthquake and y'kknow if we-e-e-e could have a prime minister that has a little bit of empathy—what would SHE have done today if this had happened? She'd PROBABLY have sacked the adviser, probably. She might have said, Do you know what, they made a terrible mistake, I'm gonna MAKE them apologize and then move on. But THESE two—NO contrition, NO apology, no humility, nothing.
SUSIE FERGUSON: That's Alistair CAMPBELL, former Director of Communications to Tony Blair.
The chances of tens-of-thousands of erstwhile National supporters also "coming home" over the next 120 days are very high. The easy victory over a Bridges-led National Party which Martyn and the rest of the Left had every cause to anticipate just a few days ago is no longer in the offing. Our enemy’s position has changed. His numbers are swelling. A rapid thrust to the left followed by an audacious outflanking manoeuvre can now be expected.
The timing of the next poll will be important. Probably a few weeks yet (apart from internal polling by parties).
National might be in danger of getting an invisible bounce. If we had weekly polling we could see National up 5 (Bridges rolled, new leader unknown) and then down 5 (voters get to know new leader, not impressed). But if there's a long gap between polls then it could look like there's been no change, when it was actually up then down.
FWIW I don't believe they can stay as low as they are. Mid-30s next time.
My knowledge of National supporters will mean a big wave of return to support National in the next poll. I would expect National support to be in the 40s.
From Twitter "National supporters disappointed in new National leaders being more incompetent than the old leaders even though they're white and there on merit." Pretty much.
Wow … like McF I was not expecting this. The terrain in the Anatori is unusual and confusing; I was told not to go there once and I'm glad now I didn't.
It will be interesting to hear the details of their story. Well done LandSAR once again!
Many in our region had hope for them, as they are resourceful young people, but this week we were losing a bit of hope. Especially because of the heavy rain in the weekend and the drop in temperature.
So many people helped out and the LandSAR team were epic.
It's wonderful to have a happy ending for a change.
For when the inevitable story comes out that there actually are some rest home residents in hospital because of COVID: as I understand it they are there to enable isolation and to ensure their carers are well versed in PPE and infection containment, and to ensure they won't infect other vulnerable rest home residents. They are not at the hospital because they need hospital level care for COVID.
Donald Trump killed his personal assistant, Carolyn Gombell, in October 2000. He strangled her because he'd gotten her pregnant and was threatening to tell the press. Then he bribed NYPD Police Chief Bernie Kierik to cover it up. IT'S TIME TO INVESTIGATE. #JusticeForCarolyn
Domestic infections reported daily over the past few days in South Korea (based on day announced):
May 27: 37 May 26: 16 May 25: 13 May 24: 17 May 23: 19 May 22: 11 May 21: 10 May 20: 24 May 19: 9 May 18: 5 May 17: 6 May 16: 9 May 15: 22 May 14: 26 May 13: 22 May 12: 22
This speech by Peeni Henare should be seen and heard by all NZers. It was a joy to listen to him and shows up the pale, stale Opposition leader and his pale, stale team for the ignorant losers they really are:
The National Party is in disarray, playing dirty and leaking to the media. BAU.
"Newshub can reveal that under its new leadership the National Party has set up an "intelligence unit" to dig up information on its political opponents during the 2020 election campaign."
"National MPs leaked details of the unit to Newshub, concerned it would be used for black ops and dirty politics."
New Zealanders supported removing abortion from the Crimes Act and modernising the law by 3 to 1. So, Muller is already on the hard side of New Zealand conservatism in voting against it.
But his votes on abortion were far more hardline than you might realise (1/9)
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Louise Delany (public health lawyer)Health and emergency laws have played a critical role in this country’s successful elimination of community transmission of the COVID-19 pandemic. This blog details key aspects of the legislation and comments on issues around testing, payments by incoming travellers for quarantine costs, and mask use. ...
I like Andrew Curry’s succinct and insightful futures blog The Next Wave. His most recent post is about social change. In particular, the decadal-long periods usually required for changes in values. He highlights a 2016 paper by Inglehart and Norris, who examined whether economic insecurity or a “cultural backlash” ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... Story of the Week... Stop making sense: why it's time to get emotional about climate changeThe science has been settled to the highest degree, so now ...
MONDAY JULY 6Washington (History, Sky 073, 7.30pm). The brilliant Doris Kearns Goodwin is the executive producer of this six-part series about America's first president. It combines interviews with live action and is narrated by Jeff Daniels. It's engaging, said Salon.TUESDAY JULY 7The ABC Murders (Prime, 8.30pm). Sarah Phelps has done incredible things with ...
I think we can all agree that the mainstream media in New Zealand has a very different set of rules for the right wing compared to the left. While Labour and Green Party politicians don’t seem to be able to fart without it becoming a sackable offence, National and Act ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, June 28 through Sat, July 4, 2020Editor's Choice'2040': A funny, entertaining, upbeat climate documentaryA timely Australian documentary takes a 'solutions' approach, with the filmmaker inspired by visions of ...
Racist National MP Hamish WalkerEven before Todd Muller's coup ousted Simon Bridges by a single vote, it was patently obvious that the National Party promotes and stands for white privilege. In fact they’ve always worked to ensure the discriminatory status quo in New Zealand doesn’t change.So it’s no surprise that ...
Dave HeatleyZero community transmission. Just a handful of active cases, all in quarantine. New Zealand is in an attractive situation, at least compared to much of the world. The situation could be robust and enduring – or it might be fragile, just one border incursion away from a “second ...
Is the consequence of the Simpson Report proposals for restructuring the health system poorer accountability to people? When in doubt, centralise‘ has been a persistent theme in New Zealand public policy throughout our history. The current government is no exception. Here are some examples. - The regional polytechs have been ...
I wrote earlier in the week about the Scientology front organisations Drug Free World and Drug Free Ambassadors and their quite prominent role in anti-cannabis reform "coalition" assembled by Family First and a newloca branch of the American prohibitionist organisation SAM.It turns out Family First aren't the only ones helping ...
Nik GreenMuch of the public debate about the response to the COVID-19 pandemic has focused on the extent to which government regulations have restricted personal and business activity.Oxford University Blavatnik School of Government Here in New Zealand, the question of when to change Alert Levels dominated the ...
James Higham, University of OtagoUnprecedented border closures and the domestic lockdown have paralysed New Zealand’s $40.9 billion a year tourism industry. In the process, the vulnerability of the sector to external shocks and the tenuous nature of tourism employment have been exposed. While New Zealand’s handling of the pandemic ...
Raising The Bar: Would that the Prime Minister and her colleagues would listen as intently to what the people – as opposed to the power elites – are saying as the Greens. Were they so disposed, the popular clamour for a transformational post-Covid reset would be loud in their ears. ...
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nzDo you think the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown will slow or ...
A bit like a letter home. I have now been full-time at the University of Melbourne since 2019. Before that, I was 20 years at the University of Otago, Wellington. Indeed, I set up this very Public Health Expert Blog with Nick Wilson ten years ago. Now I am your ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections House Democrats have released a comprehensive report showing how – if they control the White House and both the Senate and the House of Representatives – they might move forward on climate change. Their “Climate Crisis Action Plan,” released June 30 by the ...
A ballot for three Member's Bills was held today, and the following bills were drawn: Electoral (Integrity Repeal) Amendment Bill (David Carter) Harmful Digital Communications (Unauthorised Posting of Intimate Visual Recording) Amendment Bill (Louisa wall) Unit Titles (Strengthening Body Corporate Governance and Other Matters) Amendment Bill (Judith ...
Not Ready: Todd Muller’s lack-lustre and self-contradictory performances offer conclusive proof that a political leader cannot be managed into competence. National’s new boss has Janet Wilson handling his media and Matthew Hooton writing his speeches. Both are highly professional political and public relations specialists, and Muller is lucky to have ...
Unfortunately, due to a medical emergency, I have landed in hospital so am not able to do a current update on the NZ blog statistics. Let’s hope I can get back to this in good time. ...
It started as a family story, about a step-father who went out one night to break into an embassy in Wadestown, Wellington. John Daniell wanted to understand what his family had been part of when his mother and then step-father work for New Zealand’s Security Intelligence. He wanted to know ...
The Greens have shaken up the election campaign with the announcement of their radical poverty and action plan to reform welfare provision and introduce a new wealth tax for millionaires. It’s a big-thinking, controversial policy and has generated a lot of disagreement over how radical it is, whether it could ...
My house is currently supplied electricity by Meridian. As soon as I can change I will because Meridian spilled water to hike electricity prices. They got consumers to spend an extra $80 million on power unnecessarily. Clever them. The Electricity Authority has called their behaviour an “undesirable trading situation”, or ...
When Jacinda Ardern unexpectedly became the Labour Party leader shortly before the 2017 general election, she promised to lead a government of transformation. After nearly three years occupying the Treasury benches, health professionals working in public hospitals have been keenly waiting for transformational progress, including in the capacity and quality ...
Last night, One News ran a follow-up story to its Colmar Brunton poll results on the cannabis referendum, headed here as Government accuses big American anti-cannabis group of interfering in NZ politics.In truth it wasn't just the government: Justice minister Andrew Little, National's Shane Reti and the Greens' Chloe Swarbrick ...
Mark Patterson MP, Spokesperson for Primary Industry New Zealand First is supporting calls by hunters and the New Zealand Tahr Foundation (NZTF) to halt a large scale cull of Himalayan Tahr by the Department of Conservation in National Parks. The calls are supported by a 40,000 strong petition and the ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Leader of New Zealand First New Zealand First leader Winston Peters today scoffed at suggestions that a team of six political operatives have been dispatched to New Zealand to assist his campaign. ‘As President Ronald Reagan once said, ‘there they go again.’ ‘The clickbait journos can’t ...
New Zealand First is pleased to announce Jenny Marcroft as the party’s election 2020 candidate for the Auckland Central electorate. Jenny spent years working in Auckland Central, having spent a vast proportion of her broadcasting career there. She says she, "knows the place and knows the people." Ms Marcroft says ...
New Zealanders deserve healthy rivers and lakes that are safe to swim in - but they have been getting worse for decades. That's why, with our latest announcement, we're investing in projects that will help clean up our rivers and lakes and restore them to health, within a generation. ...
This week we moved into the second half of 2020 - and our Government delivered another week of big changes and major progress for New Zealanders. Read below for a wrap of the key things moments from the week - from extending paid parental leave, to making major investments in ...
The Green Party has opposed the COVID-19 Recovery Fast-track Consenting Bill which shortcuts normal consenting processes under the Resource Management Act (RMA), reduces public participation and narrows environmental considerations. ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister of Regional Economic Development A regional freight hub for the lower North Island will be built just northeast of Palmerston North, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones has announced. The Government is investing $40 million through the Provincial Growth Fund to designate and buy land and design ...
Green Party Co-leader Marama Davidson is calling for the introduction of a Guaranteed Minimum Income to lift hundreds of thousands of people out of poverty and prevent more families entering into further debt with the Ministry of Social Development. ...
There has been renewed focus on New Zealand First acting as a handbrake on the Government after our decision to not support Auckland light rail. We are a handbrake for bad ideas, that istrue, but our track record since 2017 has seen New Zealand First constructively also serve as an ...
Mark Patterson MP, New Zealand First List MP New Zealand First’s Fair Residency for Superannuation Bill passed its First Reading in Parliament today. The Bill makes a significant change to NZ Super by raising the minimum residency requirement from 10 to 20 years, after age 20. “Currently, a migrant of ...
Darroch Ball MP, Spokesperson for Law and Order A New Zealand First member’s bill in the name of Darroch Ball introducing a six-month minimum prison sentence for assaults on first responders has passed its second reading in Parliament. The new offence of "injuring a first responder or corrections officer with ...
Fletcher Tabuteau MP, Deputy Leader of New Zealand First New Zealand First welcomes the launch of the new Criminal Cases Review Commission, gifted with the name from Waikato-Tainui - Te Kāhui Tātari Ture, announced in Hamilton today by Justice Minister Andrew Little. “New Zealand First has long believed in and ...
The Green Party is celebrating over $800m in new funding for green projects, which will get people into jobs while solving New Zealand’s long-term challenges. ...
Mark Patterson MP, Spokesperson for Primary Industries New Zealand First is appalled that Meridian seems to have been unnecessarily spilling water from its dams to drive up its profits."While New Zealanders have been coming together in some of our darkest hours, we don’t expect power gentailers to waste water and ...
We wrapped up the first half of 2020 with a busy month, taking additional steps to support New Zealanders as we continue with our economic recovery. We rolled out targeted packages to support key industries like tourism and construction, helped create jobs in the environmental and agriculture sectors, and set ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Infrastructure Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones has welcomed the appointment of Maurice Davis and his deep infrastructure and construction experience to the board of the Infrastructure Commission. Mr Davis (Ngāti Maniapoto), is the seventh and final appointment to the board led by former Reserve Bank Governor ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Leader of New Zealand First New Zealand’s click bait journalism is taking a turn for the worse, with yet another example of sensationalist, wilful-misrepresentation of the facts. “New Zealand First has worked constructively with its Coalition partner on hundreds of pieces of legislation and policy, and ...
The Green Party is today unveiling its Poverty Action Plan, which includes a Guaranteed Minimum Income to ensure people have enough to live with dignity. ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister Fletcher Tabuteau MP, Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development The Rotorua Museum redevelopment and Whakarewarewa and Tokorangi Forest projects will be accelerated thanks to a $2.09 million Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) boost, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher ...
This week, we rolled out the next steps of our recovery plan, with new infrastructure investment, extra support for tourism operators, and a new programme to get Kiwis into agriculture careers. The global economic consequences of COVID-19 will continue to be a challenge, but we have a detailed plan to ...
Jenny Marcroft MP, Spokesperson for Health New Zealand First welcomes the passage of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission Bill through its final reading in Parliament today fulfilling a coalition agreement commitment. “This is an important step in saving the lives of New Zealanders and delivers a key coalition commitment ...
Whakatāne has been given a $2.5 million boost to speed up previously funded projects and create more than 450 jobs in the next decade. Of those, the equivalent of 160 full-time jobs could be delivered in the next six weeks. Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters is in town to make ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister Fletcher Tabuteau MP, Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) is investing $2.5 million to accelerate three infrastructure projects in Whakatāne, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau announced today. “This package is about ...
Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones is throwing his weight behind a bid by the Auckland Council to fast-track the more than doubling of the city's water allowance from the Waikato River. And he's coming out strongly against anyone who plans on getting in the way of this campaign. "It is my ...
The Green Party is thrilled to see changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that mean consents for large projects can be declined if they will have significant climate change implications that are inconsistent with the Zero Carbon Act and Aotearoa New Zealand’s Paris Agreement obligations. ...
Hon Ron Mark, Minister of Defence The Royal New Zealand Navy’s new ship, Aotearoa, set sail for New Zealand on 10 June from the Republic of Korea, and is due to arrive in Auckland tomorrow, announced Minister of Defence Ron Mark. “Aotearoa is the Royal New Zealand Navy’s new fleet ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Racing Racing Minister Winston Peters has today welcomed the Racing Industry Bill passing its third reading, creating the legislative framework for revitalising the racing industry while limiting the need for future government intervention. “For too long our domestic racing industry has ...
The Green Party has today put forward an amendment to the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill to ensure all people in prisons can vote in general elections. ...
The Green Party welcomes the decision to not proceed with Public Public Investment (PPI) delivery of Auckland’s light rail project and to instead run the process through the public service. ...
Hon Ron Mark, New Zealand First List MP based in the Wairarapa New Zealand First List MP Hon Ron Mark welcomes the announcement of Provincial Growth Funding investment of $1.4 million to help secure the Wairarapa’s water supply. The funding boost will allow the Greater Wellington Regional Council (GWRC), and ...
New Zealand First list MP Mark Patterson has been selected to represent the party in the newly formed Taieri electorate at the upcoming election. Mr Patterson, his wife Jude and two daughters farm sheep and beef at Lawrence and Waitahuna. He previously stood in the Clutha-Southland electorate however boundary changes ...
Hon Shane Jones, Associate Minister for State Owned Enterprises A new ‘super depot’ to be built for NZ Post in Wellington will create around 350 jobs during construction, Associate Minister for State Owned Enterprises Shane Jones says. Shane Jones today attended a ground-breaking and blessing ceremony for the parcel-processing depot ...
Our strong economic management prior to COVID-19 - with surpluses, low debt and near-record-low unemployment - put us in a good position to weather the impact of the virus and start to rebuild our economy much earlier than many other countries.Now we're putting our plan to recover and rebuild ...
Darroch Ball MP, New Zealand First Spokesperson for Law and Order Recently released Police fleeing driver statistics have shown yet another increase in incidents with another record-high in the latest quarter. “This new quarterly record-high is the latest in a string of record-high numbers since 2014. The data shows incidents ...
The Minister for Pacific Peoples, Aupito William Sio is pleased to announce the inaugural launch of Kiribati Language Week as part of the 2020 Pacific language Weeks programme. “I am so pleased that this year we are able to provide resourcing support to the Kiribati community in Aotearoa which will ...
Wildlife institutions affected by a loss of visitor revenue during the COVID-19 lockdown are set to receive government support with nearly $15 million of funding available announced Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage. “Eco-sanctuaries, zoos, aquariums, wildlife parks, and wildlife rescue, hospital and rehabilitation facilities provide crucial support for the recovery ...
The Government is expanding and accelerating frontline mental health and wellbeing services at tertiary education institutes (TEI) to help students manage ongoing stresses related to COVID-19. “The lockdown has been hugely disruptive for students. Many of them have had to relocate and move to online learning, isolating them from their ...
The Minister of Police says a major operation against the Mongrel Mob in Waikato will make a big dent in drug harm and violent offending linked to organised crime networks. “Senior leadership of the Waikato Mongrel Mob has been taken out as a result of Operation Kingsville, which resulted in ...
The Government is extending the border exception criteria to enable some offshore victims and support people of the Christchurch mosque attacks to attend the sentencing of the accused beginning on 24 August2020, says Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway. “We want to support our valued Muslim brothers and sisters who were directly ...
A project to support volunteer efforts to look after streams and rivers is getting a boost thanks to support from DOC’s Community Conservation Fund announced Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage today. “The government is backing efforts to look after waterways with $199,400 for the Mountains to Sea Conservation Trust from ...
Minister for Women Julie Anne Genter today announced that funding for the COVID-19 Community Fund for women and girls will be doubled, as the first successful funding applications for the initial $1million were revealed. “Women and girls across the country have suffered because of the effects of COVID-19, and I ...
The Government’s books were better than forecast with a higher GST take as the economy got moving again after lockdown, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. The Crown Accounts for the 11 months to the end of May indicate the year end results for tax revenue will be stronger than forecast. ...
A plan to revitalise New Zealand’s strong wool sector and set it on a new, more sustainable and profitable path was unveiled today by Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor. The newly-released report - Vision and Action for New Zealand’s Wool Sector - was developed by the Wool Industry Project Action Group ...
Community efforts to create a Predator Free Whangārei will receive a $6 million boost, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones and Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage announced today. The new funding, through Government company Predator Free 2050 Ltd, will create around 12 jobs while enabling the complete removal of possums over ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has announced that the New Zealand Government is reviewing the settings of its relationship with Hong Kong. “China’s decision to pass a new national security law for Hong Kong has fundamentally changed the environment for international engagement there,” Mr Peters said. “New Zealand remains deeply ...
Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has announced details of a multimillion-dollar investment in Whangārei for infrastructure projects that will help it recover from the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 200 jobs are expected to be created through the $26 million investment from the Government’s rejuvenation package ...
Following a second incident in which a person escaped from a managed isolation facility, security is being enhanced, including more police presence onsite, Minister Megan Woods said. “The actions of some individuals who choose to break the very clear rules to stay within the facilities means that more resourcing is ...
Waste reduction and recycling programmes in Kaipara are set to get a boost with Associate Environment Minister Eugenie Sage today announcing a $361,447 grant from the Ministry for the Environment’s Waste Minimisation Fund (WMF) Sustainable Kaipara. “The new funding will allow Sustainable Kaipara to partner with local schools, kura, community ...
The Government will support the Southland economy in the wake of multinational mining company Rio Tinto’s decision to follow through with its long signalled closure of the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter. “This day has unfortunately been on the cards for some time now, but nevertheless the final decision is a ...
New tools being developed to help boost Aotearoa’s Predator Free 2050 effort were unveiled today by Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage and Under Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau. A new rat poison, a camera with predator recognition software to detect and report predators, a new predator lure and a ...
The Coalition Government has approved the purchase of a fleet of Bushmaster vehicles to replace the New Zealand Army’s armoured Pinzgauers, Defence Minister Ron Mark has announced today. The new fleet of 43 Australian-designed and built Bushmaster NZ5.5 will provide better protection for personnel and improved carrying capacity. “The age ...
The Government’s three prevention frameworks to reduce family violence in Aotearoa were launched this week by Associate Minister for Social Development Poto Williams. The frameworks were developed in partnership with communities around New Zealand, and build on the work the Government has already begun with its new family violence prevention ...
The Government is pleased to confirm funding for improvements to radiology and surgical services at Hawke's Bay DHB, Health Minister Chris Hipkins says. "The Minister of Finance the Hon Grant Robertson and former Health Minister Dr David Clark approved funding for Hawke's Bay DHB’s redevelopment of their radiology facilities ...
• New funding for four beds at Napier’s Springhill Residential Addiction Centre • A new managed withdrawal home and community service, and peer support before and after residential care at Tairāwhiti DHB • A co-ordinated network of withdrawal management services throughout the South Island • Peer support in Rotorua and ...
Introduction, seafarers and POAL Good morning everyone, I am delighted to be online with you all today. Before I begin, I have to acknowledge that COVID-19 has disrupted the maritime sector on an unprecedented scale. The work of seafarers and the maritime industry is keeping many economies around the world ...
A $13 million investment from Government will create jobs and improve the resilience of the rail connection between Christchurch and the West Coast, Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones and Regional Economic Development Under-Secretary Fletcher Tabuteau say. The funding comes from the tagged contingency set aside in Budget 2020 for infrastructure projects ...
The Government is investing $761 million to assist local government upgrade under-pressure water services across the country, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta announced today. The announcement was made at the site of the water bore that was found to be the source of the fatal ...
Recognised Seasonal Employers and migrant seasonal workers stranded in New Zealand will be able to continue working and supporting themselves with more flexible hours and roles, says Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway. The time-limited visa changes are: Stranded RSE workers will be able to work part-time (a minimum of 15 hours ...
The Government is making immediate short-term changes to visa settings to support temporary migrants already onshore in New Zealand and their employers, while also ensuring New Zealanders needing work are prioritised, Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway says. We are: Extending temporary work visas due to expire by the end of 2020 ...
Professor Peter Skelton CNZM has been appointed as Chief Freshwater Commissioner and Alternate Environment Court Judge Craig James Thompson as Deputy Chief Freshwater Commissioner for the newly established Freshwater Planning Process (FPP). Environment Minister David Parker today also announced the appointment of Chief Environment Court Judge Laurie Newhook as the ...
Auckland Queen’s Counsel Neil Campbell has been appointed a Judge of the High Court, Attorney‑General David Parker announced today. Justice Campbell graduated with a BCom and LLB (Hons) from the University of Auckland in 1992. He spent two years with Bell Gully Buddle Weir in Auckland before travelling to the United ...
The Associate Minister for Greater Christchurch Regeneration, Poto Williams, is seeking feedback on a proposal to better enable the development and operation of commercial film and video facilities in Christchurch. The Proposal, developed by Regenerate Christchurch in response to a request from Christchurch City Council, asks that powers under section ...
The Government has launched a bold plan to boost primary sector export earnings by $44 billion over the next decade, while protecting the environment and growing jobs. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern today released Fit for a Better World – Accelerating our Economic Potential, a 10-year roadmap to unlock greater value ...
A new approach to prevent family harm that encourages greater collaboration across government and community groups is being celebrated at the opening of a new facility in Auckland. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern today opened the Multi-Disciplinary Family Harm Prevention Hub Te Taanga Manawa in Lambie Road in Manukau. The facility ...
The Government has released a major new report on the options for relocating the Port of Auckland’s freight operations while deferring any decision on the issue. “That decision needs to be informed by policy analysis that is still to be completed. As a result it will be up to a ...
The history of Rāpaki is being restored through the inclusion of te reo in thirteen official place names on Te Pātaka-o-Rākaihautū / Banks Peninsula and around Lyttelton Harbour/Whakaraupō, the Minister for Land Information, Eugenie Sage, announced today. “I am pleased to approve the proposals from Te Hapū o Ngāti ...
Bookings for seats on Air New Zealand flights into New Zealand will be managed in the short term to ensure the Government is able to safely place New Zealanders arriving home into a managed isolation or quarantine facility, says Housing Minister Megan Woods. “Last week Air Commodore Darryn Webb and I ...
Grant Robertson has today announced the first major release of funding from the $265 million Sport Recovery Package announced at Budget 2020. “Today we’re setting out how $80 million will be invested, with $54 million of that over the 2020/2021 financial year for organisations from community level through to elite ...
The Government is maintaining current levy rates for the next 2 years, as part of a set of changes to help ease the financial pressures of COVID-19 providing certainty for businesses and New Zealanders, ACC Minister Iain Lees-Galloway says. “New Zealanders and businesses are facing unprecedented financial pressures as a ...
Small businesses are getting greater certainty about access to finance with an extension to the interest-free cashflow loan scheme to the end of the year. The Small Business Cashflow Loan Scheme has already been extended once, to 24 July. Revenue and Small Business Minister Stuart Nash says it will be ...
A package of 23 projects across the country will clean up waterways and deliver over 2000 jobs Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Environment Minister David Parker announced today. The $162 million dollar package will see 22 water clean-up projects put forward by local councils receiving $62 million and the Kaipara ...
Tena koutou katoa Nga tangata whenua o tenei rohe o Pōneke, tena koutou Nau mai, haere mai ki te hui a tau mo te roopu reipa Ko tatou! Ko to tatou mana! Ko to tatou kaupapa kei te kokiri whakamua Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena tatou katoa Welcome. I ...
The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) is investing $1.5 million to ensure QE Health in Rotorua can proceed with its world class health service and save 75 existing jobs, Under Secretary for Regional Economic Development, Fletcher Tabuteau announced today. The PGF funding announced today is in addition to the $8 million ...
A new programme, which sets a firm course for the Building and Construction sector to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, has been announced by the Minister for Building and Construction Jenny Salesa. “A significant amount of New Zealand’s carbon emissions come from the building and construction sector. If we’re serious ...
It’s one of the most commonly used weedkillers in the world, but pressure to phase out use of the herbicide glyphosate could force us to come up with alternatives quickly. Listen to the full episode of Two Cents Worth below. Subscribe to Two Cents' Worth for free on Apple ...
The Covid-19 crisis has exposed gaps in the funding of early education that we should be bold in responding to, writes Sue Cherrington of Victoria University of Wellington Early childhood education has been in the media a great deal over recent weeks, initially with positive but increasingly with negative news reports. ...
It’s an economic theory that advocates tout as a solution to governments’ debt crises, but critics warn is a recipe for hyperinflation. Either way, modern monetary theory is getting a lot more attention in the era of Covid-19.Two big economic ideas have captured the popular imagination during the Covid-19 pandemic: ...
For one hour a week the supermarket lights are dimmed and the music stops. And it’s a kind of triumph, writes Michelle Langstone.I thought there’d been a power cut. The lights were out at the entrance, so you arrived into a kind of gloom. There was no music, and no ...
It’s no secret that New Zealand’s Covid-19 response was one of the world’s most effective. But to get an idea of how eagerly parts of our economy have rebounded post lockdown, take a look at our electricity demand data.Despite an impending wave of unemployment and looming fiscal challenges down the ...
In the second in the Spnioff’s Last on the list series, Dave King explains what inspired him to stand for the Act Party in Manurewa. At 20th spot on the list, if David Seymour’s party can win around 16% of the party vote, King is parliament bound.It wasn’t that long ...
Basketball is growing massively in popularity around the country, led by thousands of youngsters picking up the game every day. To The Line looks at what it’s like for New Zealand high school kids with hoop dreams.If there’s been a narrative rumbling away in the sports pages, it’s that of ...
Unbelievable. A first-rank world leader picks a needless fight with blameless allies, thus imperiling their unity. But that’s General de Gaulle for you.Impressive work, even by his standards. In 1967, Canada was to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge (their Gallipoli – except that they ...
From RNZ Saturday Morning Described by a Guardian reviewer as “superb hate-reading”, writer and columnist Anand Giridharadas‘s latest book Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World investigates the hypocrisy of billionaire “do-gooders”. He questions how and why we have become reliant on the philanthropy of the super-rich ...
The Professional Hunting Guides Association is welcoming the High Court decision on DoC’s controversial tahr campaign. The High Court in Wellington was asked on Wednesday by the Tahr Foundation for a judicial review of DoC’s plan to kill thousands ...
With the 2020 general election nearly three months away, a new campaign is asking voters to vote in line with the future. Vote Climate 2020 aims to highlight the opportunity to build momentum behind climate change, ensuring climate justice is a key election ...
“ACT will target the gangs by hitting them where it hurts – their pockets,” according to ACT Leader David Seymour and Firearms Spokesperson Nicole McKee. “New Zealanders deserve to be safe and secure, but violent gangs are a scourge on our ...
Waffles don’t need to be sweet – these cheese and onion numbers make an excellent savoury breakfast with an egg, or an equally tasty dinner with leftover mince.It’s easy to default to sweet breakfasts without thinking. At least that’s the case in our household, as porridge or bircher muesli is ...
The government is revitalising the wool sector, splashing out on freshwater restoration projects, relieving student stress and showing kindness to Muslims by extending the border exception criteria. It is also increasing its support (in announcements from two separate Green Party Ministers) for women and for wildlife institutions. And it is ...
People have called it for it be pulled from the service, but the escapist fantasy of 365 Days is nothing new, writes Alie Benge.To every generation, a bullish alpha-male psychopath is born, and is for someone reason considered a romantic hero. We’ve been through a lot this year, and instead ...
As Aucklanders reluctantly adjust to the inconvenient practice of water conservation, a drought-savvy Northlander shares the tips and temperament needed to get through the dry times.Auckland’s water shortage was recently reported on The Project, and viewers were earnestly exhorted to fill their dishwashers completely before turning them on. My husband ...
Pacific Media Watch Newsdesk A request by the Philippines’ biggest radio and TV network for a new franchise has been rejected by a congressional committee in a vote that will go down in history as a flagrant violation of the country’s constitution, says Reporters Without Borders (RSF). The Paris-based media ...
Hamish Walker's privacy leak debacle dominated the news this week, but it's not the first time a southern MP has hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons, writes Daisy Hudson. ...
Let’s not allow the focus on big-budget infrastructure projects to detract from the vital role public transport will play in revitalising our cities in a post-Covid world, says Greg Pollock.The recent match between the Blues and the Hurricanes was one of the world’s first major post-lockdown sporting fixtures. It was ...
For all The Spinoff’s latest coverage of Covid-19 see here. Read Siouxsie Wiles’s work here. New Zealand is currently in alert level one – read about what that means here. For official government advice, see here.The Spinoff’s coverage of the Covid-19 outbreak is made possible thanks to donations from Spinoff Members. To support this ...
In the heart of Christchurch is a Designated Character high school. What makes it unique? And should there be more like it? Frank Film visits Hagley College Paddy Grant was a 27-year-old truck driver when he rocked up to Christchurch’s Hagley High School, as it was then known. It was ...
"After he calms down we share the pie and talk about how hard the years since the show have been for him": a short story by Wellington writer Jordan Hamel. Every morning it’s the same. Cling wrap on the toilet seat, a pop up snake in my can of breakfast ...
Childcare centre closures have left families and staff out in the cold. In some cases, they were given just three days’ notice, Laura Walters reports Staff and families of Auckland’s Discoveries Educare branches feel blindsided by the sudden closure of the early childhood education centres. The Ministry of Education has ...
Controversy and the America's Cup go hand-in-hand and the latest edition is no different with Emirates Team New Zealand at the centre of financial mismanagement allegations. Extra Time unpicks the debate and ponders what does the latest Cup drama mean? And should we care? A study has revealed racial bias ...
Over the decades, Mike Fox has witnessed the housing market progressively tilt towards larger, more expensive homes. Without a major overhaul of the current regulatory processes, he says, things will never change.It’s one of the biggest problems our country faces – we cannot produce the affordable housing that’s so desperately ...
So-called dirty deals have been roundly denounced over the years. Hayden Donnell argues that they need to be normalised, and even embraced, in September’s election.Just before the 2011 general election, Patrick Gower was confronted with a political act so stomach-churning, it forced him to abandon his trademark reserve. John Key ...
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Analysis - A National MP destroys his career, the government explains how someone with Covid-19 could walk around a supermarket and the closure of Tiwai Point aluminium smelter is announced. ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor and President Professor Paddy Nixon and Professorial Fellow Michelle Grattan discuss the week in politics including the return to lockdown in Victoria, National Cabinet setting to slow the flow of Australian’s ...
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Takuta Ferris, Te Tai Tonga candidate for the Māori Party, is urging government to place whānau first in the wake of announcements around Tiwai Point. “The declaration that one of the region's major employers the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter is closing ...
Dietary Requirements is The Spinoff’s monthly podcast in which we eat, drink and talk about it too, with special thanks to Freedom Farms. This month, we’re joined by The Spinoff’s managing editor, mall rat and self-confessed food philistine Duncan Greive.On this month’s Dietary Requirements, the gang’s back in the studio, and ...
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The Government must listen to the Muslim community to rectify its failure to act in the past, says the Human Rights Commission. The Islamic Women’s Council of New Zealand (IWCNZ) submission to the Royal Commission of Inquiry was released this week. ...
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Pacific Media Watch Newsdesk Sixty press freedom groups and civil society organisations, journalism institutions, filmmakers, and other supporters have formed a coalition in support of Maria Ressa and independent media in the Philippines, united around the call to #HoldTheLine. Today the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), the International Center for ...
National MP Michael Woodhouse also received Covid-19 patient emails from Michelle Boag, and deleted them when he realised she was implicated in a separate email scandal. National Party leader Todd Muller says no further MPs in his party received confidential information from Michelle Boag, after revelations today that Michael Woodhouse also ...
The government is extending border exceptions to allow overseas victims of the Christchurch mosque attacks and their support people to attend the shooter's sentencing. ...
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Want to work for The Spinoff? We’re looking for someone to fill an exciting new role based in our Auckland office. We’re looking for a video and podcast content manager: an experienced writer or sub-editor with a strong understanding of social media to manage our video and podcast content across various channels. ...
National Party leader Todd Muller says no further MPs in his party received confidential information from Michelle Boag, after revelations today that Michael Woodhouse also received four unsolicited emails. ...
By RNZ News Opposition National list MP Dr Jian Yang has announced his retirement from New Zealand politics and says he will not stand in the 2020 general election after three terms in the party caucus. He said politics was “demanding” and he wanted to spend more time with his ...
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Ten points, two plans. Which points are whose? With an election within spitting distance, Aotearoa’s two biggest political parties are all about the plans. “You don’t have a plan!” says one party to the other. “Yes we have a plan, or certainly a plan to have a plan, or a plan ...
Four months after he announced his re-selection, a National Party MP whose links to Chinese spy agencies attracted the interest of New Zealand’s Security Intelligence Service has announced he will not stand in the next election A three-term National Party MP who studied at an elite Chinese spy school before moving to ...
National list MP Dr Jian Yang announced his retirement from politics and said he would not stand in the 2020 general election after three terms in the party caucus. ...
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Latest from the Beehive – Hard on the heels of the government promising help for the Southland economy in the wake of Rio Tinto’s decision to close the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter, it was announcing the delivery of more money to the North, at the other end of the country. ...
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Open mike 27/05/2020 
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Lpent
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Some of the absolutism from the left – especially the disaffected detritus of Labour that has washed up in to Greens – has late become hysterical. If the Greens continue to provide a home for people who seem to cling grimly to a Marxist vanguardism then they will deserve joining all the other parties these fringe merchants have consigned to the dustbin.
Best place for them.
And they all comment here.
Best place for them.
Oh feck no. If there were enough of them to be politically meaningful I would much rather they had their own party and let Greens focus on green issues. As it is, I reckon Sanc has put his finger on it.
I guess one of the things that happens to you when you think 'green', is that you begin to appreciate that nature is a complex organic ecosystem. To have a Green focus then is to develop an awareness of the interdependence of social economics and the sustaining of our environment. Excusing quantum physics, reductionism is so last century – so lets get real!
It's possible that when someone decides to "focus on Green issues" they might end up thinking that environmental and climate devastation might in some way be linked to the internal machinery of the economy, i.e. what sorts of economic activity gets incentivised and rewarded – and why. In fact, a focus on Green issues that is anything more than a superficial desire to just conserve a selection of our nicer landscapes, will lead into these other areas. If It's not possible to erect some ideological wall around Green issues that stops this natural movement.
I've always thought it a curious idea, that you can address environmental sustainability, and ignore social and economic sustainability.
May be possible with a totalitarian Government. If you can ever have one that is concerned about the environment.
But not in a Democracy.
Yep,why not join the modern urban Green swing to the free market liberal centre…and then you can safely consign the whole planet to a slow lingering death.
So you are saying – that the Greens are totalitarians, in a fragmented sort of way, but are charging forward, and grimly selling fringes in a dustbin??
I think vanguardism might be Leninist rather than Marxist? (I don't know enough to be certain.) That's why someone memorably described the 1980's neo-liberal reformers from Douglas on down as "Market Leninists". That history should be enough to make us wary of vanguardists of all stripes.
Though I think it's s stretch to call someone a vanguardist for pointing out the fairly obvious contradiction of higher payments for Covid-induced unemployment than for pre-Covid unemployment. I can see why the government did it – there is still far too much in-built, cultural hostility towards beneficiaries for any government to get away with implementing much higher benefits for everyone. Maybe it would be better if people like Sue Bradford acknowledged the 'realpolitik' of the situation, while also pointing out the ethical contradiction.
Before you talk about Marxism, I suggest you actually read Marx.
The Greens on here, and generally, are much more Michael Joseph Savage, than anything to do with Marx.
In the former NZ tradition of a fair go.
Is that what bothers Ad and Sanctuary about the Greens?
Greens have the policies, and social conscience, Labour has abandoned, until recently.
My good Sanctuary
– you seem to have developed a Goitre problem. Disaffected toenails or some other weird bowel problem.
You have fallen over on the filthy road of the Nationals.
Have you heard of them ? They spend life thieving money from the poor and the middle classes.
NZ Landlords are at the core of it. Decade after decade. You will pay a big price for clubbing and grubbing with the Nationals.
You will be hated
What are you talking about?
Ohhhhhhh… The pandemic crisis must be officially over, Guyon Espiner is back slinging mud at NZ First.
It is interesting that Espiner himself is no longer fronting these stories on RNZ, an indication that the NZ First has managed to damage Espiner’s credibility. But I have yet to be convinced the whole thing hasn’t taken on aspects of a personal vendetta , fuelled by disaffected ex-officials of NZF, and nothing so far revealed is anything more than the usual just-legal cronyism that has always pervaded NZ politics, despite the innuendo.
I wish he’d spend half as much effort looking into the amount of money the Chinese Communist Party spends on our politics, but that topic appears verboten to our centrist media elites.
Maybe Guyon didn't get the message that, unlike Simon, Todd will work with NZF. Misrepresenting the sort of bog-standard corruption that infects political donations across the spectrum into a scandal unique to NZF – maybe not so smart now from a Nat perspective. Guyon may need to find a different story.
Sue Bradford: "There has rarely been a more blatant case of discrimination against beneficiaries than Grant Robertson's announcement yesterday that people who have lost their jobs because of the coronavirus will receive weekly payments of $490 per week for 12 weeks and $250 per week for part time workers."
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/on-the-inside/417588/sue-bradford-labour-betrays-its-traditions-and-most-vulnerable-with-two-tier-welfare-payments
"Labour has revealed once again its decades-long predilection for categorising people into the "deserving" and "undeserving" poor, an ideology straight out of the 19th century England from which many Pākehā settler forebears came."
Thus the framing `Labour the settler's party, ruling ideology colonialism'. Unstated, but discernable in the sub-text. Waving the red flag at the Labour bull – to see if it will get up & charge instead of continuing to wallow in the bullshit, I guess.
"It is also impossible not to speculate that this is a rather unsubtle way of shoring up support for the government". Well, of course! Beneficiary bashing isn't just trad Nat behaviour. It's a way for the middle class to marginalise those beneath them. Bipartisan. And Labour is intent on being more middle class than National.
"Labour is declaring that people who are on benefits not related to Covid-19-related unemployment or are stranded migrants simply don't matter; that their votes – if they do vote – don't count."
That's the guts. Born losers are unlikely to vote, the theory goes. Dunno if social science research has ever validated it with stats, but psychological investment in democracy only happens if people feel they are stakeholders. If they have been brought up without that feeling, can't expect them to think and act like citizens.
Trying to get my head around this….. a person on the job seeker benefit gets $ plus accommodation supplement, winter energy payment and monies for food grants etc etc.
A person on the covid allowance gets $ plus no other entitlements for 12 weeks.
Does it balance out in the grand scheme of things? What is the max $ including allowances that a person can get on the job seeker benefit?
Because when they quote the amount a person gets on the sole parent benefit, I know I received more than twice that amount a week with two children once they had added on the accommodation allowance etc.
First common sense comment I've seen on this issue.
+1. And someone who has been a solo mum on a benefit in relatively recent times so knows how it works and who gets what.
Good question Cinny. I've been wondering that too. Accommodation supplement also varies across regions. I'm guessing it's a lump sum to simplify it so people can apply for it and receive it very quickly.
I would expect there to be low income workers who've lost their job who were already getting a supplementary benefit. They're not just for people on a core benefit.
I think stripping it down to dollar values misses out an important issue.
It is the difference in consideration shown, and the implication that those who don't have employment – for reasons other than Covid-19 – remain a separate group, and so can be treated differently.
It is hard to justify that difference. The anxiety and stress felt when not employed and unable to meet expenses is shared across both groups.
So true Molly. The restructuring of the Public Service in the 1990s left me on Ruth Richardson's miserable benefit. It wasn't enough to feed and clothe oneself. I ended up with one pair of sand-shoes from the Warehouse – my previous shoes had fallen apart and were beyond repair.
Not only was there the physical discomforts, but there was the mental stress of finding yourself treated with disdain as if you were a loser who had brought failure on yourself.
I do wonder sometimes if there are any MPs who have experienced the degradation that goes with trying to survive on a benefit. Very few, if any, I suspect.
Shane Jones is one.
Interesting. When was that?
After Ruth Richardson as I remember and the family had to break up apparently with Mum and Dad off to Aussie for work and the older kids staying here for school. He talked about it a few weeks ago on Natrad I think and is still bloody bitter. He is no friend of National.
I may be blaming RR but it must have been earlier maybe Muldoon? , short term memory not what it used to be.
Thanks. Had not heard any of that.
Yeah, would've been a lot earlier … he was in his early 30s by the time Ruth announced her Mother of all Budgets. (unless of course he was not so much a third-year-fifth as a sixteenth-year-fifth … there were certainly a couple of lads at our high school who appeared to have been in the 5th form for several decades … kept on by the Principal because they were brutally effective front row forwards … I remember as newbie 3rd formers, we were amazed at these 5th formers with whiskers, adams apples, fully developed adult physiques and (we assumed) wives & several hungry mouths to feed) …
… the poor bastards still forced to wear the school uniform while their peers were beginning to pay off mortgages …
… So, if he was talking about the Nats: Jones was 13 when the Holyoake / Marshall Govt lost power, 16 when the Muldoon Nats were elected. Presumably the latter.
Remember him in the news as a young, high-profile activist (with ponytail & radically-chic Che Guevara/Rik from The Young Ones beret, IIRR) … certainly in the early-mid 80s (possibly even late 70s).
I remember Shane telling a group of us in Labour (10-15 years ago) that, as a small boy, he was selected by the elders in Northland to enter politics and be their representative in parliament. He used a Maori expression but it was roughly the same meaning as 'representative.'
From that point, they groomed him for his future exalted position.
That's what he told us anyway.
He needs to go back to ask them if they think they got it right.
Cinny, do you have a link to where it says covid payment people can't get supplementary benefits? The main WINZ page suggests they can get extra assistance via SNGs. I'd be surprised if they were ineligible for AS and TAS, theses are benefits for all NZers whether they have a job or not so long as they meet the asset and income tests.
https://www.workandincome.govt.nz/products/benefit-rates/benefit-rates-april-2020.html#null
By the way, payments for emergency expenses, food grants and other allowances are available to people who are working, that are on low income, so I expect they will also be available to those on the covid payments.
Thanks for explaining, much appreciated. I wasn't sure if people on Covid payment were allowed extra, crikey I didn't even know that those on low incomes could get extra help, WINZ never told me that when I came off the benefit last year.
WINZ are often less than forthcoming about entitlements.
Very difficult for people who are not articulate, or with mental health issues, in particular.
Yes. Help is there for people on low income, even if they are not on main benefits and/or, are working.
Hopefully WINZ is getting better under this Government.
https://www.workandincome.govt.nz/eligibility/
well they've had 3 years already.Queues outside the Auckland offices and advocacy still being a high need suggest Sepuloni either has no intention of fixing this or is blind to the problem.
Yep. I think National's attack on seat warmers, in Labour, had the wrong targets. Especially from a party that is all "seat warmers".
Most of the other missteps seemed to be more learning on the job, rather than incompetence.
Difficult for National to attack meanness and incompetence in WINZ, though. Seeing as they agree with it. And Bennett was the driver of it
See this page, where it says Help With Living Expenses.
https://www.workandincome.govt.nz/covid-19/income-relief-payment/payment-rates.html
It doesn't link to the AS page, so it's possible that they can't get that, only the SNGs.
It's bullshit that this isn't explicit on the website or that the MSM haven't reported it. SSDD.
Seems more likely that MSD just haven't got all the detail on the website yet. After some digging, I think the answers on matters like supplementary assistance are clear enough. The payment will be made under S101 of the Social Security Act, but to avoid people being eligible for it and an income-tested benefit (ITB), the Act has to be amended as otherwise the payment would not be income and therefore would not prevent someone also getting an ITB. Amendment Bill:
http://www.legislation.govt.nz/bill/government/2020/0267/latest/whole.html#LMS350330
To quote from the Bill:
"General policy statement
This Bill ensures that a payment received by a person under the COVID-19 Income Relief Payment Programme (the Programme) is treated as the person’s income for the purposes of the Social Security Act 2018 (the Act).
The Programme will be approved and established under the Act. Payments under the Programme will provide temporary income relief to people who have lost their jobs as a result of the impact of COVID-19. The intention is to ease the income shock individuals and whānau may experience from unemployment.
A payment under the Programme will be paid to eligible people for up to 12 weeks, at a rate of $490 per week if they were previously in full-time employment (30 hours or more a week), or $250 per week if they were previously in part-time employment (15 to 29 hours a week).
The Programme will come into force on 8 June 2020 and will be available for eligible people who have lost their jobs on or after 1 March 2020 and no later than 30 October 2020. People will be able to apply until 13 November 2020.
People cannot receive a payment under the Programme at the same time as an income-tested main benefit, but people will (if otherwise eligible) be able to receive at the same time supplementary assistance and hardship assistance under the Act.
The change made through these amendments will ensure that access to income-tested support provided for under the Act, or approved and established under the Act, takes into account the actual financial resources a person has received or is receiving. To achieve this outcome, the definition of income in Schedule 3 of the Act must be amended to include a payment under the Programme. The payment would otherwise be excluded as income by clause 8(a) of Schedule 3."
Beehive release: https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/new-payment-support-kiwis-through-covid
At the Beehive link, there is a Q&A doc on the right hand side. Relevant questions from that:
25. Can someone receive the COVID-19 Income Relief Payment as well as supplementary assistance from MSD like Accommodation Supplement? Yes –COVID-19 Income Relief Payment recipients may be eligible to receive both supplementary and hardship assistance. The income relief payment will be treated as income when assessing entitlement to these supports. This includes public housing support like income-related rent.
26. Will receiving the COVID-19 Income Relief Paymentaffect someone’s Working for Families tax credits, student loan repayments or Child Support? No –as the COVID-19 Income Relief Payment is not treated as income for these paymentsas it is non-taxable. The loss of income from losing theirjob is likely to mean some people may now qualify for more Working for Families and other supports.
Thanks! You're the first person I've seen make that clear, much appreciated.
A covid benifit can be granted when your partner earns up to $2000 a week.
Up to $2000 a week.
Nice.
Welfare should be individual.
After all, the taxes we pay for it are individual.
Time we got past the idea, that having sex with someone should make them totally dependant on you.
Time Government got out of our bedrooms.
Would that mean that spouses who have never worked ( nor have ever planned to work) suddenly get a benefit? Think homemaker in rich auckland suburb. That makes it a UBI
Getting closer to one, anyway.
It also would have meant my wife, who couldn't work because of my sons issues, would have got a benefit, when I was too ill to work, myself.
Yes well said Cinny. You have sanity and common sense.
The part time amount of $250 will depend on which benefit and whether the beneficiary can find a part time job (complicated calculations involved no doubt), the $490 will be better in almost all cases.
Talking about amounts etc. The standard dole is 250 after tax. I chose to work 24 hours per week at minimum wage to get myself off the benefit and out of the clutches of work and income, even if it means my take home pay of $386 means I end up working for what amounts to $5.66ph.
And this talk of middle class entitlement that’s coming out is a bit shit, seeing as a lot of those who’ll claim will be minimum wage earners in service/tourism industries. When those wage slave working poor are equated with the middle classes, then something has seriously gone wrong with perception.
I'd love the $490 if and when I get laid off, which I think I will, but I won't qualify on hours, and yet I don't begrudge those who will get it, and I sure as fu*k won’t slag the government off for giving it to them.
Sue Bradford the greatest leader the Greens never had….of course they didn't, the Greens have proved time and again they don't have the backbone to or courage of someone like Bradford who is prepared to firmly stand their ground on matters of principle.
Keep voting Labour then, see how far that will get us.
Meanwhile, Marama Davidson yesterday,
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/417512/green-party-says-labour-broke-promise-to-overhaul-welfare-system
That's a nice tone from Marama Davidson (and/or Craig McCulloch) in that report. It also notes some of the takes on the payment that I've found incendiary and misplaced over the last few days. It’s taken me a few days to get my thoughts together around the government emergency payments to workers laid off due to Covid-19.
I understand the rage, I think, but I also think this is misplaced. To start, I’ve been both a long term beneficiary, lived through my partner’s redundancy and later, lost my job suddenly due to illness. Based on these experiences I think:
I believe the anger that is showing up though, is mis-directed.
The view that ‘the middle-classes should have to live like beneficiaries, we’ve lost an opportunity for them to know what it’s like’ – No, a thousand times no! Since when were wait staff, kitchenhands, reception and accounts staff, builders’ labourers, foresters, drivers, tour guides etc. middle class? They’re working class (and in my opinion, despite being a major factor in who gets employed in what jobs, racism isn’t a factor in deciding on the temporary payment either).
These workers shouldn’t have to know what it’s like to live in poverty, no-one needs to be taught that lesson in a supposedly civilised world (although chances are many of them do, given the precarious working environments in some of these industries). We should be looking upwards, not expecting people to move more people down the socio-economic ladder; we should be pressing the government to give an update, a timetable, a sense of urgency on plans for improving the financial security for beneficiaries.
We should be demanding the government use some of that political capital it has built (which I know some advocates are doing). The evidence is there, the justification to politically ‘sell’ such changes should have been written a long time ago. Sure Covid-19 has thrown things off the tracks, but there should be something that already exists to indicate the government is taking the plight of beneficiaries seriously and that this will be treated with urgency. Pressure the government on this and leave the people who have just lost their jobs out of it.
Labour relations – Grant Robertson hit on this (but not hard enough) when he mentioned that this is the third time in a few years that the government has had to bailout businesses by supporting their employees. When my partner was made redundant years ago we had a redundancy payout that covered almost exactly the three months between jobs. It kept our heads above water. The alternative would have been bankruptcy with little chance of ever coming out of that. And I’ve been there too – as a person who lost a job through long-term illness, a huge mortgage on an apartment we later found to be a leaky building, and in ‘a relationship in the nature of a marriage’. Effectively bankrupt. By sheer good fortune a way out of that landed in our laps.
I haven’t forgotten what it’s like to have three of these events – as a sole parent on a benefit, living through a redundancy and losing a job to illness. A blight on our supposed civilised society that we’ve done that to so many people since the Douglas/Richardson years). Being divisive by shouting at people who are going to receive three months respite payments and equating that payment to a two-tier system seems not only counter-productive, it’s also not correct.
No, beneficiaries should not have to be patient, to hold out for some distant reprieve from the state they’re in. The anger (imo) should not be directed at enhanced short-term assistance to the ‘lucky’ recently unemployed, it should be directed as a call for action on the state of the rights of people who don’t make money through capital investment (aka workers’, beneficiary, human! economic rights). When the hell are we going to focus and turn this around?
I put a short post up on Davidson and the Greens.
Having a read of your comment now.
Hmm, who is saying that about the payment? I've seen people say that more people having to depend on welfare might improve compassion for beneficiaries, but that's not the same as saying that the middle classes should poor for a while to teach them (I'm sure there are people saying that, I just haven't seen it).
I agree about the class stuff though. Job loss will be affecting people across the board.
The criticism I've seen has been of the govt, not for giving people the covid payment, but for not also helping beneficiaries. This is blatantly discriminatory.
I'm not keen in the newly unemployed vs long termers who are used to it argument. The people who ended up on welfare in January? Or last year? At what point do they become long term? Also not keen on the argument that long term people have adjusted given that many beneficiaries live in fear of losing what they have in large part because of the govt.
"We should be looking upwards, not expecting people to move more people down the socio-economic ladder"
Yes and no. I agree that punitive, that'll teach 'em stuff isn't helpful. I do think the middle classes specifically need to change how they live, because they are driving NZ's ecological and climate overshoot. We can't all live the lifestyle of my upper middle class family if we want to transition to post-carbon and sustainability. I believe we can still all have good lives, but that's not the same as us all trying to move upwards.
Ok, can you please show me some examples so I know what you are referring to? Someone on twitter said similar, but I'm obviously missing that.
I mean my ire is clearly directed at Labour, lol.
In terms of turning it around, my fear at the moment is that the people who consider themselves progressive will vote Labour again this year. If that happens, then I think it will be hard to recover from this divide and it will run much deeper, esp if Labour bring in a permanent two tier system without mending WINZ or raising benefits. This scares me more at the moment than National, and not just on this issue, I see Labour moving from very good handling of acute covid response, into the mid term management and it's looking very neoliberal.
Hmm, who is saying that about the payment?
A bit of stuff Twitter and Facebook. Usually comments on Beneficiary activist sites – mostly in rage on the first day of announcement. Wording along the lines of the mc should experience living on a benefit (some of us already have of course). Also comments that are more desperate (and all the sadder) because they believe they’re more likely to get mc support for a raise in benefits if they have to, or know of people who have to, live on current benefits too.
The criticism I've seen has been of the govt, not for giving people the covid payment, but for not also helping beneficiaries. This is blatantly discriminatory.
Totally agree that a fairer and system and higher rates of pay for beneficiaries should not have taken this long. I understand people’s impatience and anger. However I don’t agree this covid payment is blatantly discriminatory. I see this payment and the improving the social security system as separate issues. This payment and redundacy payments generally are linked issues, imo.
I'm not keen in the newly unemployed vs long termers who are used to it argument.
After three months the covid unemployed are in exactly the same position as other beneficiaries if new jobs don't materialise – all they’ve had is an adjustment period which they would have got if we had decent legislation around redundancy, which everyone deserves. It's a good thing GR recognises it's important – now to make sure he extends it via legislation .
I do think the middle classes specifically need to change how they live…
Yes, of course the mc need to change how they live – not something that should be put on the recently unemployed though. My meaning of looking upward was that beneficiaries deserve a better standard of living.
Being divisive by shouting at people who are going to receive three months respite payments and equating that payment to a two-tier system seems not only counter-productive, it’s also not correct.
Ok, can you please show me some examples so I know what you are referring to? Someone on twitter said similar, but I'm obviously missing that.
I think Grant Robertson blew the whole announcement of this payment. To me, it’s clearly a redundancy payment but it came across as a higher pay-rate. It took quite a bit of to and fro-ing to actually work out it wasn’t an increase for some and not others, but by the the ‘two-tier’ sound bite was in popular use. I believe this is divisive.
I hope the Green party does not go with sound-bite into the election (I haven’t heard them using it, I’m just worried they will). At the moment I do like what they’re saying.
I mean my ire is clearly directed at Labour, lol.
Yes, understandably so.
I don’t believe Labour will bring in a two-tier system. I think that’s odd I do hope they do something to ensure a redundancy payment for recently unemployed though, I truly believe this transition payment will give people much-needed breathing space and it should be available to everyone. I’m angry in part because we should know by now where the government is at with mending WINZ or raising benefits. Carmel Sepuloni doesn’t seem keen on rocking the boat and yes, we need something radical.
I haven't been following the redundancy payment thing. Is the suggestion that the govt passes better legislation so that businesses have to pay redundancy across the board in situations like covid?
I agree that Labour fucked the messaging. I'd have way less of a problem with the policy if they'd done two things. One is not tie it to benefits, but as you say, make it a redundancy payout. Two is give something to beneficiaries, at the least some messaging along the lines of 'we will need to address issues x, y, z next to make sure that people already struggling are ok, and this is what we are looking at next'. Changing the abatement rate would fit well with Labour's ideology around work. Not nearly enough, but it's something.
Labour won't do that though, because as far as I can tell they don't actually have any plan for welfare. Plus the whole paid jobs will save the day bullshit.
I haven't looked on FB, but I can imagine that there are people there really fucked off and lashing out.
Re the future, what did you make of the insurance idea from Labour, if not a two tier, user pays system?
Darien Fenton has been tweeting a lot about equating the payment with redundancy pay rather than benefits she has said e.g.
"Our failing in NZ to ensure a safety net of protection called redundancy pay when workers are laid off through no fault of their own provided by the employer has led to this [the covid temp payment]. We've avoided this question for years and years. If it means better protection for all, I'm up for it."
I don't know if Labour will tie this into the social welfare system, or labour laws. Robertson has clearly indicated he wants to do something so the govt doesn't have to pick up the tab for mass redundancy when the economic system falls over. They did masses of work on "the future of work' before the election. We haven't really seen much to show for that. except, of course, the fast decision for major money dedicated to saving jobs at the beginning of the covid crisis.
"Labour won't do that though, because as far as I can tell they don't actually have any plan for welfare."
^^ this. this is exactly why the messaging was fucked. They say they're working diligently on this, but after all this time, no-one knows what they're doing with regards to benefits, and for that matter, labour laws and everyone is just being told they have to be patient.
Insurance – depends, when we were living in Austria most people seemed happy enough with their insurance system. it was a bit like the – a dedicated paye deduction (I believe). The question of time-limiting unemployment benefits could be an issue. I'll start paying attention now to what Labour seems to have in mind, instead of just waiting for them to present it 🙂
Also – speaking of Austria. NZ cannot change the benefits system and increase payments without rent controls and more state housing. The increase, as has happened before, will go straight in landlords bank account.
A huge lesson from living over there was this.
Certainly agree there.
In fact, making housing more affordable, could be more effective than a welfare raise.
Without addressing housing, raises in welfare payments are likely to go straight to banks and landlords, profits. As you have said, and as we've seen with student allowances.
Completely agree. I'm more and more against lots of house building unless it is state housing, or community based housing. Anything else will just fuel the housing market.
Def rent control.
Re the insurance scheme, how did poor people in Austria feel about some people getting better benefits than others based on user pays?
"I'm more and more against lots of house building unless it is state housing, or community based housing"
Another one of the beautiful things about living in Vienna the percentage of state housing – there is no stigma associated with it *- combined with rent controls moderates the housing profiteers (note – Vienna, not Austria here – the States rather than the State is responsible for their housing.
*the video is a pretty special housing development, but the principles are everywhere and the interview displays the general attitudes that I heard while living in the city.
"how did poor people in Austria feel about some people getting better benefits than others based on user pays?"
I didn't get a sense of dissatisfaction about it (different for migrant labour of course) and the last election swing to the right was about nationalism rather than economics I believe. The latest iteration of a right-leaning government is still not neo-liberal as we know it. Also, if you don't have (or run out of) unemployment insurance, there is still unemployment assistance.
A couple of links:
Unemployment benefit
Severance pay/redundancy compensation
Part of the problem with Ardern and Roberston mentioning insurance but not saying much else is that now there is all this speculation. What I picked up is that it would be user pays for those with jobs, people with better employment would accrue better benefits if they were laid off. Hence two tiers built in.
Of course we already have two tiers eg in ACC, and in the way the state views accidents versus illness. I can totally see Labour going down this path, and it's consistent with the idea that the are ok with a permanent underclass. They're still way better than National, but I fear that within covid pressures they are going to cement in whole layers of neoliberalism that we don't even see yet.
Some still hold hope that Labour will do right by welfare. I don't. I think they will do what they have always done, even if free from NZF. Their plan is paid jobs, and there is no plan beyond that. I actually feel more despair around this this week than I ever have. I really hope I am wrong, but seeing so many people now hating on the Greens for not forcing Labour to do better, it's hard to see anything other than a neoliberal future that will leave so many people behind.
sound analysis.
In reality Green MP's have been standing up over the last few days, on this.
Especially Marama. Who is the Green spokesperson for social justice issues.
Bradford is near lethal to every political party she touches. Her arrogant ramming through of the Section 59 changes was merely the most egregious of her political errors, being incredibly costly to the broader centre left.
She failed to build a constituency or a consensus for a highly sensitive change with the wider community, merely lazily and arrogantly relying on elite consensus and a high handed dismissal of opponents and she condemned Labour by association, made the parliamentary left fatally vulnerable to culture war attacks and meant that for ten years the phone was off the hook with middle New Zealand for Labour.
Her impact on the Greens – pulling in all sorts of militant losers who have already been twice, thrice, even quadrice rejected by the electorate – has been primarily to dilute the parties raison d'etre on the environment and convert it into a last stand of the out of touch, electorally toxic, activist rabble she comes from.
The party that currently holds both the Climate and Conservation portfolios in government /eyeroll.
Let's see how your remarkable (given the state of the Green's polling) complacency is holding up on the 20th September. If the Greens get less than 5%, they will be looking at a long road back -particularly as the militant left that will form the rump of the party after an electoral drubbing seldom sees defeat as a reason to review it's POV.
Personally, if I were Labour I’d be eyeing up their best parliamentary talent – Schwarbrick, Genter – for a return on a labour ticket in 2023 if the Greens fail to get back into the house.
Lefties who want the Greens out of parliament deserve a Darwin Award.
No one wants the Greens out of parliament, I was merely pointing out the direction Bradford took the Greens seems to have set the party on a path of decline and she was a catastrophe for the wider centre left.
The Greens dropped from 14 MPs to 8 in the 2017 election after Turei's speech and Ardern's rise. Bradford hasn't been in parliament since 2009. You're drawing a pretty long bow to link her to the low polling now.
Well. If you go by the polling. Greens rose after Turei's speech, and dropped, when the disunity over it became obvious.
Yep, thanks for the reminder. Complex dynamics.
"Militant left".
What would you have called the first Labour Government?
The "return of the apocalypse" ?
lol.
You can't say that a law change has been rammed through when it is supported by 113 votes to 8. Get over yourself.
The "raison d'etre" is to realise its Charter https://www.greens.org.nz/charter
Nothing to do with Bradford.
Oh no – are you still hitting the children Sanctuary?
Time to move on FFS.
Really funny when even National voted for section 59.
Hardly ramming through. And a vastly improved piece of legislation after public objections to the original bill.
An example of the system working at it's best.
Your analysis is usually pretty good, but there are blind spots.
Section 59 repeal took two years of cross party negotiations. Far from ramming through as you can get.
" …Section 59 changes was merely the most egregious of her political errors, being incredibly costly to the broader centre left …"
If that is the price to pay, to remove the defence of assaulting children so be it.
Edit oops, said better by folks earlier…
Sadly the Green party of today are nowhere near a true socialist party. A 2016 Sanders or French Melenchon type socialist movement cannot be born from the lime coloured bourgeoisie.
So don't even try to do an Alien-style facehugger/chestburster on the Greens. Put the movement together outside of the stale old parties that are tainted by making the compromises necessary to make actual governing work.
Viva la revolucion!
Have to agree Adrian re Sue & her principles. Although I wouldn’t vote for Sue she refused to go with Kim Dotcom when Minto, Hone & Laila Harre all went where the money was. Sue refused to have anything to do with KDC (who I hear likes KFC) as she viewed him as corrupt & told Mana where to go, so definitely an ethical person.
It must be hard being an investigative journalist. Do you hear of something and investigate it or do you develop a thesis and set out to prove it's true?
If you (and your employer) invest time in the story and there is no story what do you do?
When does an 'investigation' turn into a campaign? When does an investigation become a vendetta?
On the other hand, it's exceptionally easy if you're the opposite of an investigative journalist. Unlike Jon Stephenson and Nicky Hager and John Campbell, the likes of Richard Harman, Sean Plunket and Mike Hosking have never been targeted by vengeful governments.
Scott Morrison has proposed an urgent and potentially far reaching reform process to labour relations in Australia.
An invitation to re-write the rule book comes of course with some skepticism, but given grim economic mood in both board rooms and bedrooms at the moment, it may well be a well timed move.
Ardern's govt has the same opportunity before it; the Budget was merely a scene setter. With households close to running out of reserves there is every reason to be wary of entering a reform process from a weak negotiating position, yet the same applies to business. Now is perhaps the best moment in generations to re-frame the debate … we now have the undeniable demonstration before us that the workers who are paid by business, are also the same people who are it's customers.
Now is our best moment to tackle the long neglected question of labour and capital productivity in NZ.
Great comment Red Logix. Could you watch this reporter Greg Jennett and (Twisted Ribbon?) News (so modern, not having a recognisable name just a visual logo. Leaves room for useless conjecture!).
This is info about Porter and more background looking into link provided by RL above:
But in the depths of the coronavirus crisis, senior ministers in the Morrison Government, especially Attorney-General Christian Porter, have seen enough of ACTU Secretary Sally McManus and the leadership of the various business lobby groups to gauge that if ever there was a time to achieve some consensus then now must be it.
Abandoning the heavy-handed "Ensuring Integrity" bill, which would mete out heavy penalties against wayward union officials has bought the Government some goodwill at the outset.
And maybe this truth you have presented will pierce through the murk hiding factual economics set up by the neolib horde.
Ta.
Politically it would be a great opportunity for Labour to take the initiative with the business lobby, and conveying to the nation that it is willing to do something with the enormous polling capital it has just gained from this epidemic.
Also:
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2018748008/nobel-prize-winner-joseph-stiglitz-lessons-from-the-gfc
And so it begins… after it is revealed that our borders were opened to foreign film crew and production workers during lockdown that were regarded as essential workers because of "significant economic value", others who value overseas money are claiming the same.
I am disappointed in Twyford's reasoning and response, and find it hard to see how it can be justified when NZers restricted themselves from the normal responses to anxiety and stress by avoiding contact with loved ones.
This is a strategy that provided overseas entities a freedom that was not available to NZers, and will only lead to a raft of similar requests from other institutions and businesses asking for the same "exceptional" treatment.
The pressure to resume the "education for residency" scam and the imports of cheap labour to be exploited, has never let up.
Covid-19 cases coming into the country need to be carefully managed otherwise the freedom of NZ citizens and residents will be limited and our health service could become overwhelmed in a month.
The problem is that NZ is dependent on tourism, the hospitality industry and overseas students.
Covid-19 will be a threat until a vaccine is made and/or an effective treatment is available.
I do think that the cautious approach of closing the borders for the next six months (unless for an exceptional reason) is going to be less costly for the country than opening up the borders to quickly.
Pressure either way.
" The problem is that NZ is dependent on tourism, the hospitality industry and overseas students. "
The solution then, may be to reduce that dependence as much as possible, if we are unable to eliminate it.
"Covid-19 will be a threat until a vaccine is made and/or an effective treatment is available.
I do think that the cautious approach of closing the borders for the next six months (unless for an exceptional reason) is going to be less costly for the country than opening up the borders to quickly."
Agree. Managing quarantine in such as way as to ensure the wellbeing of us all is necessary for long-term benefits, both in health and economy.
Tourism and students are going to be self limiting for a while even with open borders.
Treetop +100
Tourism has a lot of yo-yo money in it. Foreign tourists pay foreign firms operating here who pay people on work visa's and the taxpayers pay the social costs.
Foreign students pay for huge vice chancellor fees while the rest of the staff live on insecure contracts or they fund dodgy private courses off which people can get business start up visa's? There is also use of long term public resources like buildings funded and libraries. Cutting a few vice chancellors salaries and the offshore trips plus advertising budget would fix the problem. A good package for really high quality students rather than a disguised work permit is what we need.
Well I really hope that those coming here as essential workers for the privet sector paid their own quarantine costs rather than us taxpayers. And that there is a decent salary level on those projects for the local jobs before any permission is give,
As to students – now is the time to remove any "work visa's" attached so we get rid of low paying job competition and useless courses. Our NEETS are under enough pressure now with respect to jobs.
A considered review of the system, would result in such changes I would hope. But we haven't practiced considered reviews of some of these industries/mechanisms for a while. Seems a great time to do so.
For a list of recipients of other benefits (such as tax breaks for filming production) you can have a look at the government rebates given to overseas companies.
(PDF) LBSPG / NZSPG-International Grants Approved: 1 January 2010 to 31 March 2020
Some big high-profit popular films on the list. A question about how that "investment" and economic benefits are shared amongst the New Zealand community is not even asked, let along answered.
Be nice if we got some profit shares on our taxpayer investments.
Nor do I think that any government should necessarily feel the population as a whole is in favour of endless work visa's or huge numbers of tourists.
And if others now see us as a " safe place" to run their projects (the America's cup contestants were wanting entry the other night on the Telly – not a word about how we had all participated in the lockdown – just me, me me look what it does for me) then I would expect to see some large charges for all of us to share.
As a minimum wages paid to locals on these projects should meet the level of wages needed to apply for work visa's ( around $$76k?)
Edit
This from Peter's office about Australia and how we are wedded to a partner that is near to a partner-basher.
'A high degree of confidence in each other's border management'.
As in uprooting NZs from their homes and families after long-term settlement in Oz? Isn’t this against long-held laws of habeus corpus? But Australians are ready to go that extra mile in negative behaviour it seems.
As in a possible repeat of how they treated our Prime Minister Clark* after Ansett's collapse for instance? Friendly relations? And they want us back in the fold again so they can keep reaping benefits from our enterprise efforts, that they either own or their banks have lent on.
* http://tvnz.co.nz/content/56780/2591764/article.html
Transtasman relations take a dive Published: 6:15PM Friday September 14, 2001
Transtasman relations have plummeted with the demise of Ansett Australia leaving 16,000 workers and numerous suppliers to the airline jobless…
Prime Minister Helen Clark felt the full heat of their anger when Ansett workers blocked her Air New Zealand plane from leaving Melbourne Airport…
Federal Transport Minister John Anderson said the government could not afford to help keep Australia's second airline flying and joined Ansett unions in blaming the New Zealand carrier.
He said it would have cost $170 million to just keep Ansett flying until Saturday night.
"Its assets will now be put up for sale but the company itself has been completely and comprehensively driven into the ground by its New Zealand owners, Air New Zealand," Anderson said…
It took two stalwart journalists in Australia to shine the spotlight on the lies from the Australian government and John Anderson.
and http://newsweekly.com.au/article.php?id=1227
(I have to read more to check on the story that the Australian Government had acceded to the NZ Government the right to fly domestically within Australia to carry passengers direct to state capitals, which was quickly rescinded by email? after a Qantas intervention; with run-down, debt-laden Ansett being offered as the only alternative.)
It appears that there may be a connection between Ansett's collapse and the onset of rules barring NZs social security rights in Australia as a punishment, an excuse for labelling us negatively to Oz citizens, and a cross that many of our family members have had to bear after settling there.
I believe that it is very hard for NZs to get residency in Oz now also.
And that it is harder for us than many other countries. Friends?
Ansett collapsed in September 2001: centreforaviation.com › analysis › reports › ansetts-collapse-set-decad…
Sep 11, 2011 – The 14-Sep-2001 collapse of Ansett Australia set the following decade for a series of rapid and momentous changes in Australian air transport, …
.
The great change in banning NZs from welfare appears to have come into effect on 1 July 2002. https://www.dss.gov.au/about-the-department/international/international-social-security-agreements/current-international-social-security-agreements/australia-and-new-zealand-frequently-asked-questions
Division 11—Preclusion periods 304
93U………………….. Disposal preclusion period—disposals before 1 July 2002 304
93UA……………….. Disposal preclusion period—disposals on or after 1 July 2002 305
NZ cannot continue subsidising the life style of non citizens and non residents unless this group is actually contributing more to the NZ economy than it is costing the country.
I have no issues with refugees as a person is a refugee for a valid reason (they are escaping something terrible).
The universities need to do belt tightening and they just might have money for projects and courses which convert to a job once the course or degree is completed.
I have to give it to the Aussies that they make a profit off NZ citizens and residents in Australia.
There are going to be some big stoushes when it comes to airlines.
I was absolutely gobsmacked to read that our borders have been infiltrated by a huge film crew during Lockdown. How dare they presume to come at such a time and how stupid to let them in; "essential "they are not. I hope as others have also commented , that they paid all costs – plus some – for the quarantining required. I expect everyone entering this country is paying their cost of quarantining for electing to come in these times of kiwi sacrifice
Once the capacity to manage reliable quarantines was in place it was only sensible to allow a small number of high value or urgent individuals into the country.
A complete hermetic seal would only do more harm than good.
I mean, it's not actually a bad idea to maintain a trickle as long as everyone does their isolation.
And build it up as the systems get nailed down properly.
Essential workers – such as medical staff or scientists would be acceptable to most under the lockdown restrictions.
Classifying those who work in the entertainment industry as "essential" because of perceived economic benefit, is much harder to justify. If they had required them to wait until the Alert level had reduced to 1 or 0, then both the lockdown and the transition out of it would be even-handed and equitable.
Referring to this industry as "essential" in this situation, when everyone else was under homestay restrictions is not good decision making.
Landau said he felt the crew was "coming back to the safest place in the world"
Was it essential or was it for a safe haven right now. I think the latter and without a doubt they could have waited until we transitioned out of lockdown.
Winston Peter's is in trouble electoral finances look dodgy so he throws the dead cat saying we are in lockdown to long and we should be opening borders given Australia doesn't report probable cases we should be patient.
Peters might not make it back. His party has to win a seat.
Why do the media report this crap they know just like Peters and Muller know ,Australia is not ready for a bubble. the two PM had talks yesterday aust still have new cases every day and some are community transmission just trying to catch votes
They report it because the deputy PM publicly distancing himself from the PM is news.
There's going to be a lot more of this as parties switch to campaign mode.
This
Winston seems to be looking a bit desperate and it is worthy of reporting.
He is struggling for relevance and for airtime. I think time is up for NZ First, both the main elite consensus parties would rather not have him there and father time is clearing his throat for Winston, who is now 75 years old – his ability to campaign vigorously has been in decline for the last three elections, I doubt he'll be able to rally it for this one.
I'll be sad to see the demise of NZ First, even though I dislike Peters. They represent a genuine constituency but Peters has really squandered the decades he has had to build a permanent party.
Is his constituency still older NZers? You know. the ones most likely to suffer the worst effects of Covid?
Not sure about that but some at least in the smaller provincial towns who see labour as too "urban, liberal , stands for unions striking (not that that has been true for 30+ years) " vote NZF because Nact stands for big business and too much foreign money.
Comeon Sanc, this could have been written anytime in the last 25 years ..and probably for another 25. Tuatara live for a long time.
Do you think a new NZF leader would save NZF?
If so who?
think nz first will do well this election. nat vote will collapse as voters see the trainwreck that is muller and co.only place for these votes to go is act and nz first
He screwed it up back in 1996 when NZF went into government with National after promising to throw them out of office. There was a lot of momentum built up that year, with Winston's party polling higher than Labour, but he started backpedalling, by not ruling out a coalition with National and softening policy stances.
With elections on the horizon Winston is starting to run with the foxes and hunt with the hounds me thinks.
National's not in trouble with electoral finances because 'they weren't /aren't members of the party' those people we don't know who are involved in a legal situation. And no-one involved in what went on was a member or agent of the party. If anything went on.
Peter's is throwing Mule a lifeline hoping National voters will give him enough to get to 5%.
But National will not be happy with his dodgy electoral finance jackup.
only because he tried to copy them lol
I like your comment.
Muller is counting on a coalition partner whose party just might not be around after the next election.
From this NZ Herald article
There has also been a new case in South Australia that didn’t report any new cases for a long period. No surprise some states are very keen to keep the inter-state borders closed.
They have still too many “unknowns” re. COVID and therefore I can’t see how NZ could open the bubble responsibly with Australia without requiring quarantine.
As for workers / tourists from other countries, one would expect a mandatory quarantine for the near to medium future and why should the NZ government / taxpayers pay for their quarantine? I can see some minor exceptions like the German engineers fixing the Wellington waste water.
Some good points here when people point to Australia having a lesser lockdown, they still haven’t got the virus under control. Two schools in Sydney had to be shut yesterday with student cases. McDonald’s has to shut 12 restaurants due to an infectious delivery driver. At the same time they are reducing restrictions when they still appear to have community spread, a recipe for disaster.
The south Australian case is sheer incompetence on somebodies part, letting a recent UK arrival out of quarantine early and then to board a flight from Melbourne to Adelaide. A trans Tasman bubble is going to be a long way off with this sort of negligence.
Q: What borders on stupidity?
A: Canada and Mexico.
Twitter is finally applying some fact-check flagging to Malice in Blunderland's tweets. And he is not happy.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-tweets-twitter-label-fact-check_n_5ecd96adc5b6374866e8be11
Blair's hatchet man railed against "hypocrisy" and "lying" yesterday, but Susie Ferguson seemed oblivious to the irony.
RNZ National, Tuesday 26 May 2020, 7:58 a.m.
The Dominic Cummings scandal has provoked disgust from people all over Britain and indeed much of the rest of the world. Just before the news yesterday morning, Suzie Fergusson was subjected to an extended rant on the matter from a man with a Lancashire accent….
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL: This stuff is just doing my BRAIN in. We're in the middle of a pandemic, we're one of the WORST affected countries in the world, we've got TENS of thousands of people have DIED. We've got BUSINESSES collapsing left, right and centre, we've got UNEMPLOYMENT skyrocketing, and the entire government today has been en-, has been enga-a-aged in NOTHING to do with that, and EVERYTHING to do with trying to protect this ri-DICULOUS character that, for some reason, Boris Johnson can't untie his shoelaces without. And, you know, to have a, to have a—I mean, I was an adviser, I was the Prime Minister's, Tony Blair's press secretary. The idea of an unelected adviser, in the MIDDLE of an event like this, doing a big press conference in the garden, back garden at Downing Street, and then Boris Johnson doing as it were the FOLLOW-UP press conference to try to move the agenda onto lockdown easing, and THIS is what is horrific, I mean phase one of this pandemic, because Boris Johnson is IDLE, and he went on not just one, but TWO holidays, because he when he did come back he basically, his basic message was Oh well everybody else is panicking, there's no problem, we'll send this virus packing with a bit of good old British vigour and resolve and a few Churchillian speeches. Telling people to go off to football matches and race meetings and not to worry, telling people that he was shaking hands with corona virus patients in hospital, so I would say he directly contributed to the deaths of many people, through the messaging. They then realized it was a total disaster, and they went into a completely different messaging which was very effective: Stay home, protect the National Health Service, Save Lives. And the vast m–, the vast majority of the country did that. And now, we discover that his own closest adviser completely broke those rules. And it's just, it's unleashed an absolute FURY in this country, the idea that there's one law for them and there's one law for everybody else. And I think that even though Johnson thinks he' dealt with it today by sticking Cummings out in front of the media and getting him to deal with it—
SUSIE FERGUSON: Boris Johnson's, uh, perhaps thought YESTERDAY he would have dealt with it in his press conference, but today Dominic Cummings has had to come out and speak to the media AGAIN. Has this been put to bed?
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL: It's not been put to bed at ALL, because there's so many unanswered questions. And also I think one of the WORST things about this is that the government is reduced to a laughing stock, I mean one of the most extraordinary moments was when he was aked, um, whether this home, this sort of GRAND country house where he was self, supposedly self-isolating, his parents' residence in County Durham, whether he went out from there, and he said yes he did because he'd not been feeling very well, and one of the problems he had was that his EYESIGHT wasn't very good and so he went for a drive to see whether his EYES were okay.
SUSIE FERGUSON: Is that a good idea?
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL: So that he could decide, to see whether he could decide to drive the whole way to London. I mean, the guy has made himself a complete laughing stock, and then on the BACK of that, any of your listeners who follow any of our ridiculous cabinet on social media, ONE BY ONE, they've been putting out cut-and-paste tweets saying "Dominic Cummings has dealt with all the answers, let's move on and crack on with dealing with the crisis." And the thing is, I don't think the public, who frankly probably don't care two hoots about Dominic Cummings, who most of them until a week ago hadn't heard of, [clears throat] I don't think, I think they wouldn't WORRY too much about his lying and the hypocrisy and the rest of it if they thought the government was competent. And they're NOT. And so-o-o-o phase one they've screwed up, and now they're screwing up phase two, because frankly the lockdown which we still have in place to some extent, is breaking down anyway. I've seen SO many pieces today, there was a thing on, y'know, ENDLESS little films on social media, people saying Well if Boris Johnson can do it, I can do it.
SUSIE FERGUSON: Well this is the thing—
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL: That's what HAPPENS.
SUSIE FERGUSON: Does this then all break down? So how damaging is this not just for Domic Cummings and for Boris Johnson but potentially for handling the pandemic?
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL: Well I think it is, and it's very interesting how several of the scientists who are on the government advisory committee have come out publicly and said this has fundamentally undermined the government's strategy. The government's chief scientist and medical officer, for instance, as we went into Downing Street today, we were told they were going to do the press conference with Boris Johnson and neither of them were there. I hope it means that they're just refusing to go along with this ridiculous charade any longer, I just don't know. But, look, you're talking to somebody here, don't ask me these questions as if you're talking to some sort of an objective commentator. I utterly DESPISE these people. I've despised them for a long time, because I've KNOWN them for a long time, and KNOW what sort of people they are. They are AMORAL, they do not CARE about people, they care about themSELVES, they got into power by pretending to be FOR the people against an elite, they ARE the elite. And honestly, YOUR prime minister is getting SUCH a lot of love in the U.K. because people have, y'know like everybody, people are following this around the world and seeing who's done it well and who's done it badly, and your prime minister's done incredibly WELL. And even the shot today of her in the earthquake and y'kknow if we-e-e-e could have a prime minister that has a little bit of empathy—what would SHE have done today if this had happened? She'd PROBABLY have sacked the adviser, probably. She might have said, Do you know what, they made a terrible mistake, I'm gonna MAKE them apologize and then move on. But THESE two—NO contrition, NO apology, no humility, nothing.
SUSIE FERGUSON: That's Alistair CAMPBELL, former Director of Communications to Tony Blair.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018747984/boris-johnson-aide-defends-cross-country-trip-during-lockdown
"L'hypocrisie est un hommage que le vice rend à la vertu." — François de La Rochefoucauld
More on Susie Ferguson… https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2018/01/come-back-kim-hill-urgently-oct-19-2013.html
And more on Campbell…. https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2019/05/lions-players-ritually-humiliated.html
Bowalley sends a warning about the threat of the Muller rise.
"National's Army Is On The Move."
http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/
next poll might sober the left up a bit. Or not.
Depends how much time the new Nat 'leaders' get in front of cameras 🙂
The timing of the next poll will be important. Probably a few weeks yet (apart from internal polling by parties).
National might be in danger of getting an invisible bounce. If we had weekly polling we could see National up 5 (Bridges rolled, new leader unknown) and then down 5 (voters get to know new leader, not impressed). But if there's a long gap between polls then it could look like there's been no change, when it was actually up then down.
FWIW I don't believe they can stay as low as they are. Mid-30s next time.
My knowledge of National supporters will mean a big wave of return to support National in the next poll. I would expect National support to be in the 40s.
From Twitter "National supporters disappointed in new National leaders being more incompetent than the old leaders even though they're white and there on merit." Pretty much.
I was giving it a thought when expats would be returning.
Just how many by the end of the year?
I think minimum 25,000. Maximum 50,000.
Rob Roberts M.P., party animal
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/police-break-up-illegal-lockdown-22091335
Excellent news
the nice thing about being slightly pessimistic is that pleasant surprises are so much more pleasant and surprising 🙂
Wow … like McF I was not expecting this. The terrain in the Anatori is unusual and confusing; I was told not to go there once and I'm glad now I didn't.
It will be interesting to hear the details of their story. Well done LandSAR once again!
It's such good news 🙂
Many in our region had hope for them, as they are resourceful young people, but this week we were losing a bit of hope. Especially because of the heavy rain in the weekend and the drop in temperature.
So many people helped out and the LandSAR team were epic.
It's wonderful to have a happy ending for a change.
I bet they've got a tale to tell.
Ex-Speaker Carter shone a torch into present-Speaker Mallard's eyes during question-time?!? What??????
Could you accidentally shine a torch (laser?) at the Speaker?
It's disinfectant!
Recommended by POTUS even.
USA Covid-19 update.
Cases: 1,725,275
Deaths: 100,572
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
For when the inevitable story comes out that there actually are some rest home residents in hospital because of COVID: as I understand it they are there to enable isolation and to ensure their carers are well versed in PPE and infection containment, and to ensure they won't infect other vulnerable rest home residents. They are not at the hospital because they need hospital level care for COVID.
Dr Strangehair (or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Drink Lysol) is at it again.
LOL That Sarah Cooper takes him off to a T.
He is such an ignoramus it is almost unbelievable.
heh
https://heavy.com/news/2020/05/is-carolyn-gombell-real-trump-twitter/
Probably more true than T's despicable tweets over the weekend.
When is Melania going to take his wretched phone off him and tell him he needs to "Be Best"?
Sociopathic.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/05/malignant-cruelty-donald-trump/612097/
'Murica
Yes watching all that now, and the Amy Cooper Central Park Karen stuff, wow.
Had a laugh with people retweeting Trumps Tweets because "they can't fact check us all" – lovers of irony, clearly!
I really dislike this use of particular names to denigrate others. (Most often, women's names)
Did you hear this? It's excellent!
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/05/labour-mp-peeni-henare-blasts-todd-muller-judith-collins-for-being-blind-to-m-ori-concerns.html
Woah, heavy, and what a great speaker, "he may not see us, but we see him".
Best we don't start feeling too pleased with ourselves.
This speech by Peeni Henare should be seen and heard by all NZers. It was a joy to listen to him and shows up the pale, stale Opposition leader and his pale, stale team for the ignorant losers they really are:
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/05/labour-mp-peeni-henare-blasts-todd-muller-judith-collins-for-being-blind-to-m-ori-concerns.html
It sure was Anne. And I second the call for a return of Daily Review.
Sorry ScottGN I dropped that bit because it wasn't really related to the video but yes… I wish DR would return. 🙂
Yes please and thank you re the return of Daily Review.
Peeni Henare did a good job there.
Respect.
The National Party is in disarray, playing dirty and leaking to the media. BAU.
"Newshub can reveal that under its new leadership the National Party has set up an "intelligence unit" to dig up information on its political opponents during the 2020 election campaign."
"National MPs leaked details of the unit to Newshub, concerned it would be used for black ops and dirty politics."
Really? Do they plan to apply for membership of the Five Eyes partnership?
LMFAO Anne, am laughing hard here.
Mental note to self…. look up brownlie in Nicky's handy dandy index at the back of Dirty Politics.
Just another a fundie.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1265155543724781569.html
Kia Ora Newshub.
Protecting our Wai Awa for the future is a great intelligent move.
Support for Te toi cool.
Sports is coming back Ka pai.
Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora Te Ao Maori News.
It would be good to celebrate Matariki and have a public holiday to.
Taking the whanau out to a museum is cool.
It great to see churches use the Internet to stay connected to their Tangata.
That's the way if you have a problem there many ways to solve it
Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora The Am Show.
Not everyone can afford to go on holiday.
Changing to green energy will be a intelligent move for our future.
Doc does great mahi looking after our wildlife.
Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora Newshub.
Great 100 people are aloud to attend gatherings.
The World’s largest electric plane cool. As battery technology advances the fast the green energy economy will take off.
Ka kite Ano.
Kia Ora Te Ao Maori News.
There you go Turanginui A Kiwa is run by half the people with no consideration for Maori.
Those Trust members are elected to serve the tangata not themselves.
Ka kite Ano