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.
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."
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I’m starting to wonder if Anna Burns-Francis might be the best political interviewer we’ve got. That might sound unlikely to you, it came as a bit of a surprise to me.Jack Tame can be excellent, but has some pretty average days. I like Rebecca Wright on Newshub, she asks good ...
Chris Trotter writes – Willie Jackson is said to be planning a “media summit” to discuss “the state of the media and how to protect Fourth Estate Journalism”. Not only does the Editor of The Daily Blog, Martyn Bradbury, think this is a good idea, but he has also ...
Graeme Edgeler writes – This morning [April 21], the Wellington High Court is hearing a judicial review brought by Hon. Karen Chhour, the Minister for Children, against a decision of the Waitangi Tribunal. This is unusual, judicial reviews are much more likely to brought against ministers, rather than ...
Both of Parliament’s watchdogs have now ripped into the Government’s Fast-track Approvals Bill. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāMy pick of the six newsey things to know from Aotearoa’s political economy and beyond on the morning of Tuesday, April 23 are:The Lead: The Auditor General,John Ryan, has joined the ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Sarah SpengemanPeople wait to board an electric bus in Pune, India. (Image credit: courtesy of ITDP) Public transportation riders in Pune, India, love the city’s new electric buses so much they will actually skip an older diesel bus that ...
The infrastructure industry yesterday issued a “hurry up” message to the Government, telling it to get cracking on developing a pipeline of infrastructure projects.The hiatus around the change of Government has seen some major projects cancelled and others delayed, and there is uncertainty about what will happen with the new ...
Hi,Over the weekend I revisited a podcast I really adore, Dead Eyes. It’s about a guy who got fired from Band of Brothers over two decades ago because Tom Hanks said he had “dead eyes”.If you don’t recall — 2001’s Band of Brothers was part of the emerging trend of ...
Buzz from the Beehive The 180 or so recipients of letters from the Government telling them how to submit infrastructure projects for “fast track” consideration includes some whose project applications previously have been rejected by the courts. News media were quick to feature these in their reports after RMA Reform Minister Chris ...
It would not be a desirable way to start your holiday by breaking your back, your head, or your wrist, but on our first hour in Singapore I gave it a try.We were chatting, last week, before we started a meeting of Hazel’s Enviro Trust, about the things that can ...
Calling all journalists, academics, planners, lawyers, political activists, environmentalists, and other members of the public who believe that the relationships between vested interests and politicians need to be scrutinised. We need to work together to make sure that the new Fast-Track Approvals Bill – currently being pushed through by the ...
Feel worried. Shane Jones and a couple of his Cabinet colleagues are about to be granted the power to override any and all objections to projects like dams, mines, roads etc even if: said projects will harm biodiversity, increase global warming and cause other environmental harms, and even if ...
Bryce Edwards writes- The ability of the private sector to quickly establish major new projects making use of the urban and natural environment is to be supercharged by the new National-led Government. Yesterday it introduced to Parliament one of its most significant reforms, the Fast Track Approvals Bill. ...
Michael Bassett writes – If you think there is a move afoot by the radical Maori fringe of New Zealand society to create a parallel system of government to the one that we elect at our triennial elections, you aren’t wrong. Over the last few days we have ...
Without a corresponding drop in interest rates, it’s doubtful any changes to the CCCFA will unleash a massive rush of home buyers. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: The six things that stood out to me in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, poverty and climate on Monday, April 22 included:The Government making a ...
Sunday was a lazy day. I started watching Jack Tame on Q&A, the interviews are usually good for something to write about. Saying the things that the politicians won’t, but are quite possibly thinking. Things that are true and need to be extracted from between the lines.As you might know ...
In our Weekly Roundup last week we covered news from Auckland Transport that the WX1 Western Express is going to get an upgrade next year with double decker electric buses. As part of the announcement, AT also said “Since we introduced the WX1 Western Express last November we have seen ...
TL;DR: The six key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to April 29 include:PM Christopher Luxon is scheduled to hold a post-Cabinet news conference at 4 pm today. Stats NZ releases its statutory report on Census 2023 tomorrow.Finance Minister Nicola Willis delivers a pre-Budget speech at ...
A listing of 29 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 14, 2024 thru Sat, April 20, 2024. Story of the week Our story of the week hinges on these words from the abstract of a fresh academic ...
The ability of the private sector to quickly establish major new projects making use of the urban and natural environment is to be supercharged by the new National-led Government. Yesterday it introduced to Parliament one of its most significant reforms, the Fast Track Approvals Bill. The Government says this will ...
This is a column to say thank you. So many of have been in touch since Mum died to say so many kind and thoughtful things. You’re wonderful, all of you. You’ve asked how we’re doing, how Dad’s doing. A little more realisation each day, of the irretrievable finality of ...
Identifying the engine type in your car is crucial for various reasons, including maintenance, repairs, and performance upgrades. Knowing the specific engine model allows you to access detailed technical information, locate compatible parts, and make informed decisions about modifications. This comprehensive guide will provide you with a step-by-step approach to ...
Introduction: The allure of racing is undeniable. The thrill of speed, the roar of engines, and the exhilaration of competition all contribute to the allure of this adrenaline-driven sport. For those who yearn to experience the pinnacle of racing, becoming a race car driver is the ultimate dream. However, the ...
Introduction Automobiles have become ubiquitous in modern society, serving as a primary mode of transportation and a symbol of economic growth and personal mobility. With countless vehicles traversing roads and highways worldwide, it begs the question: how many cars are there in the world? Determining the precise number is a ...
Maintaining a safe and reliable vehicle requires regular inspections. Whether it’s a routine maintenance checkup or a safety inspection, knowing how long the process will take can help you plan your day accordingly. This article delves into the factors that influence the duration of a car inspection and provides an ...
Mazda Motor Corporation, commonly known as Mazda, is a Japanese multinational automaker headquartered in Fuchu, Aki District, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan. The company was founded in 1920 as the Toyo Cork Kogyo Co., Ltd., and began producing vehicles in 1931. Mazda is primarily known for its production of passenger cars, but ...
Your car battery is an essential component that provides power to start your engine, operate your electrical systems, and store energy. Over time, batteries can weaken and lose their ability to hold a charge, which can lead to starting problems, power failures, and other issues. Replacing your battery before it ...
In most states, you cannot register a car without a valid driver’s license. However, there are a few exceptions to this rule. Exceptions to the RuleIf you are under 18 years old: In some states, you can register a car in your name even if you do not ...
Mazda, a Japanese automotive manufacturer with a rich history of innovation and engineering excellence, has emerged as a formidable player in the global car market. Known for its reputation of producing high-quality, fuel-efficient, and driver-oriented vehicles, Mazda has consistently garnered praise from industry experts and consumers alike. In this article, ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi, and Mema Paremata mō Tāmaki-Makaurau, Takutai Tarsh Kemp, will travel to the Gold Coast to strengthen ties with Māori in Australia next week (15-21 April). The visit, in the lead-up to the 9th Australian National Kapa haka Festival, will be an opportunity for both ...
The Green Party has today launched a step-by-step guide to help New Zealanders make their voice heard on the Government’s democracy dodging and anti-environment fast track legislation. ...
The National Government’s proposed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act will mean tenants can be turfed from their homes by landlords with little notice, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson is calling on all parties to support a common-sense change that’s great for the planet and great for consumers after her member’s bill was drawn from the ballot today. ...
A significant milestone has been reached in the fight to strike an anti-Pasifika and unfair law from the country’s books after Teanau Tuiono’s members’ bill passed its first reading. ...
New Zealand has today missed the opportunity to uphold the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, says James Shaw after his member’s bill was voted down in its first reading. ...
Today’s advice from the Climate Change Commission paints a sobering reality of the challenge we face in combating climate change, especially in light of recent Government policy announcements. ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is today travelling to Europe where he’ll update the United Nations Human Rights Council on the Government’s work to restore law and order. “Attending the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva provides us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while ...
Associate Agriculture Minister, Mark Patterson, formally reopened the world’s largest wool processing facility today in Awatoto, Napier, following a $50 million rebuild and refurbishment project. “The reopening of this facility will significantly lift the economic opportunities available to New Zealand’s wool sector, which already accounts for 20 per cent of ...
Hon Andrew Bayly, Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing At the Southland Otago Regional Engineering Collective (SOREC) Summit, 18 April, Dunedin Ngā mihi nui, Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Ko Whanganui aho Good Afternoon and thank you for inviting me to open your summit today. I am delighted ...
The Government is delivering on its commitment to bring back the Three Strikes legislation, Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee announced today. “Our Government is committed to restoring law and order and enforcing appropriate consequences on criminals. We are making it clear that repeat serious violent or sexual offending is not ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today announced four new diplomatic appointments for New Zealand’s overseas missions. “Our diplomats have a vital role in maintaining and protecting New Zealand’s interests around the world,” Mr Peters says. “I am pleased to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the ...
New Zealand is contributing NZ$7 million to support communities affected by severe food insecurity and other urgent humanitarian needs in Ethiopia and Somalia, Foreign Minister Rt Hon Winston Peters announced today. “Over 21 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance across Ethiopia, with a further 6.9 million people ...
Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Paul Goldsmith is congratulating Mataaho Collective for winning the Golden Lion for best participant in the main exhibition at the Venice Biennale. "Congratulations to the Mataaho Collective for winning one of the world's most prestigious art prizes at the Venice Biennale. “It is good ...
The Government is reforming financial services to improve access to home loans and other lending, and strengthen customer protections, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly and Housing Minister Chris Bishop announced today. “Our coalition Government is committed to rebuilding the economy and making life simpler by cutting red tape. We are ...
“China remains a strong commercial opportunity for Kiwi exporters as Chinese businesses and consumers continue to value our high-quality safe produce,” Trade and Agriculture Minister Todd McClay says. Mr McClay has returned to New Zealand following visits to Beijing, Harbin and Shanghai where he met ministers, governors and mayors and engaged in trade and agricultural events with the New ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has completed a successful trip to Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, deepening relationships and capitalising on opportunities. Mr Luxon was accompanied by a business delegation and says the choice of countries represents the priority the New Zealand Government places on South East Asia, and our relationships in ...
New Zealand is demonstrating its commitment to reducing global greenhouse emissions, and supporting clean energy transition in South East Asia, through a contribution of NZ$41 million (US$25 million) in climate finance to the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-led Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM). Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced ...
The Government is today releasing a list of organisations who received letters about the Fast-track applications process, says RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop. “Recently Ministers and agencies have received a series of OIA requests for a list of organisations to whom I wrote with information on applying to have a ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Wellington Barrister David Jonathan Boldt as a Judge of the High Court, and the Honourable Justice Matthew Palmer as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Boldt graduated with an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington in 1990, and also holds ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford will lead the New Zealand delegation at the 2024 International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP) held in Singapore. The delegation includes representatives from the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) Te Wehengarua and the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa. The summit is co-hosted ...
A stopbank upgrade project in Tairawhiti partly funded by the Government has increased flood resilience for around 7000ha of residential and horticultural land so far, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones today attended a dawn service in Gisborne to mark the end of the first stage of the ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters will represent the Government at Anzac Day commemorations on the Gallipoli Peninsula next week and engage with senior representatives of the Turkish government in Istanbul. “The Gallipoli campaign is a defining event in our history. It will be a privilege to share the occasion ...
Science, Innovation and Technology and Defence Minister Judith Collins will next week attend the OECD Science and Technology Ministerial conference in Paris and Anzac Day commemorations in Belgium. “Science, innovation and technology have a major role to play in rebuilding our economy and achieving better health, environmental and social outcomes ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with the President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The Prime Minister was accompanied by MP Paulo Garcia, the first Filipino to be elected to a legislature outside the Philippines. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon and President Marcos Jr discussed opportunities to ...
The Government has announced that $20 million in funding will be made available to Westport to fund much needed flood protection around the town. This measure will significantly improve the resilience of the community, says Local Government Minister Simeon Brown. “The Westport community has already been allocated almost $3 million ...
The Government is proud to support the first ever Repco Supercars Championship event in Taupō as up to 70,000 motorsport fans attend the Taupō International Motorsport Park this weekend, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. “Anticipation for the ITM Taupō Super400 is huge, with tickets and accommodation selling out weeks ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced an increase to the Rates Rebate Scheme, putting money back into the pockets of low-income homeowners. “The coalition Government is committed to bringing down the cost of living for New Zealanders. That includes targeted support for those Kiwis who are doing things tough, such ...
The Coalition Government is investing in a project to boost survival rates of New Zealand mussels and grow the industry, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones has announced. “This project seeks to increase the resilience of our mussels and significantly boost the sector’s productivity,” Mr Jones says. “The project - ...
Benefit figures released today underscore the importance of the Government’s plan to rebuild the economy and have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker Support, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “Benefit numbers are still significantly higher than when National was last in government, when there was about 70,000 fewer ...
The Government’s commitment to doubling New Zealand’s renewable energy capacity is backed by new data showing that clean energy has helped the country reach its lowest annual gross emissions since 1999, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand’s latest Greenhouse Gas Inventory (1990-2022) published today, shows gross emissions fell ...
The Government is bringing the earthquake-prone building review forward, with work to start immediately, and extending the deadline for remediations by four years, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “Our Government is focused on rebuilding the economy. A key part of our plan is to cut red tape that ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his Thai counterpart, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, have today agreed that New Zealand and the Kingdom of Thailand will upgrade the bilateral relationship to a Strategic Partnership by 2026. “New Zealand and Thailand have a lot to offer each other. We have a strong mutual desire to build ...
RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and Transport Minister Simeon Brown have today announced the Coalition Government’s intention to extend port coastal permits for a further 20 years, providing port operators with certainty to continue their operations. “The introduction of the Resource Management Act in 1991 required ports to obtain coastal ...
“Our exporters should, therefore, be deeply concerned that the Fast-track Approvals Bill was not assessed for consistency with any of our free trade commitments prior to being introduced to the House,” says Gary Taylor, Chief Executive of the Environmental ...
NZCTU President Richard Wagstaff is calling on all political parties to support the new Member’s Bill from Labour’s workplace relations and safety spokesperson Camilla Belich MP that would ensure negligent companies are held accountable when their employees ...
A historian with an uncanny track record of predicting US election winners tells RNZ's Sunday Morning that President Biden looks to be on track for another term, but things could still go very wrong for him. ...
A historian with a track record of predicting US election winners tells RNZ's Sunday Morning that President Biden looks to be on track for another term, but things could still go wrong for him. ...
Ngaio Marsh House is one of Christchurch’s best kept secrets – and contains more than a few mysteries of its own.Trust Ngaio Marsh to leave more than a few mysteries scattered through her house long after her departure. For a start, there’s the curious concrete portal in the garden, ...
Appointment viewing has been lost to the mists of time, but memories of Montana Sunday Theatre can still be conjured by hitting play on a particular piece of classical music. “You’re not going to be able to sell it.” Over 30 years on, Karen Bieleski still recalls how the task ...
Performance Review King Luxon sat behind His massive polished oak desk. It is Performance Review time. There is a knock on the door. “Enter!” says the King. In steps Minister of Disabilities and Carer Pedicures, Penny Simmonds. “I can explain everything …” she begins. “Fine,” says King Luxon, pressing the ...
The pair opened their first fully collaborative exhibition, Nina for Flowers, last Saturday. Gabi Lardies visited their studio to find out who Nina is and what working together was like.‘It didn’t start out like, ‘This is a show about Nina,’” says Josephine Jelicich, gripping a thermos of peppermint tea. ...
Thank you, Dr Maximilian Oskar Bircher-Benner, for your brilliant invention. I’m another mid-20s Kiwi who had an OE last year. I hopped on my bicycle where France meets the Atlantic and cycled east. I pedalled through the Loire Valley, down rivers lined with willows and ancient wisteria-draped chateaus. I relished ...
Asia Pacific Report From France to Australia, university pro-Palestine protests in the United States have now spread to several countries with students pitching on-campus camps. And students at Columbia and other US universities remain defiant as campuses have witnessed the biggest protests since the anti-Vietnam war and anti-apartheid eras in ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards, Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)New Zealand Government’s Fast Track legislation. Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government ...
Tara Ward talks to presenter Naomi Toilalo about the new TV show that turns food waste into a three course feast. Naomi Toilalo is standing in the warehouse at Good Neighbour Tauranga, helping unpack the two-and-a-half tonnes of rejected food that will arrive at the community support hub that day. ...
Scout is our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Scout’s human, Avril, for her support. Dog name: Scout (named after the little girl in To Kill a Mockingbird – she inherited the independent spirit ...
Megan Alatini takes us through her life in TV, including ‘terrible’ daytime TV, the class of Carol Hirschfeld and her most embarrassing TrueBliss moment. When she responded to a vague newspaper ad asking “do you have what it takes to be a popstar?” 25 years ago, Megan Alatini never guessed ...
A new exhibition in Wellington showcases the faces behind your local goods and services. Back in 1977, when I was a fine arts student at the University of Canterbury, I took a series of photographs of Christchurch shopkeepers. The photos were for a calendar – a project for my end ...
Toomaj and his resistance to tyranny through his songs have become an icon for the youth of Iran, so his sentence has hit the nation hard. Toomaj Salehi is not the first artist to pay the price for standing with the people. ...
My cousin Dylan and I spotted these big eels under the bridge that summer. We watched them lounging under the dark weed, facing into the flow of water, their mouths frozen open. Dylan and I couldn’t stop thinking about those eels. The night we went down to the creek, we ...
Newsroom, home of satire. My long-running weekly satirical series The Secret Diary has moved to Newsroom and will appear every Saturday, with Victor Billot’s wildly popular satirical Odes continuing to appear every Sunday. Diaries, Odes – while serious political columnists toil at meaningful opinions and stroke their chins to an ...
Tara Ward unravels the many nuanced layers of a cartoon about talking dogs.This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. It’s not often an episode of a children’s cartoon has adults sobbing into their sleeves, but that’s exactly what happened this week when ...
Working as a doctor in developing countries to help communities achieve better health outcomes is nothing short of a life goal for Jessica Tater. The University of Otago medical student has her sights firmly set on joining the international humanitarian organisation Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) when she qualifies ...
There’s an island in the far reaches of Auckland’s territory, sitting off the tip of the Coromandel Peninsula, 30 minutes by air from the city or four hours on the slow boat. Aotea Great Barrier is off-grid, it has a population of fewer than a thousand people … and most ...
Asia Pacific Report An Australian author and advocate, Jim Aubrey, today led a national symbolic one minute’s silence to mark the “blood debt” owed to Papuan allies during the Second World War indigenous resistance against the invading Japanese forces. “A promise to most people is a promise,” Aubrey said in ...
Asia Pacific Report The Freedom Flotilla is ready to sail to Gaza, reports Kia Ora Gaza. All the required paperwork has been submitted to the port authority, and the cargo has been loaded and prepared for the humanitarian trip to the besieged enclave. However, organisers received word of an “administrative ...
Pacific Media Watch Palestine solidarity protesters today demonstrated at the Auckland headquarters of Television New Zealand, accusing the country’s major TV network of broadcasting “propaganda” backing Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. About 50 protesters targeted the main entrance to the TVNZ building near Sky Tower and also picketed a side ...
Opinion by Lynley Hood. Forty years on from my 1985 Fulbright Grant, my disquiet over the war in Gaza evoked some troubling questions. The answer to my first question – What is the primary purpose of the Fulbright Programme? – was on the Fulbright NZ website. It says: US Senator, ...
The ministers responsible for green-lighting major projects need to be open about potential conflicts of interest, says Transparency International. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anastasia Powell, Professor, Family and Sexual Violence, RMIT University It has been a particularly distressing start to the year. There is little that can ease the current grief of individuals, families and communities who have needlessly lost a loved one to men’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Moore, Senior Research Associate, School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, The University of Melbourne Lichen, the first described example of symbiosis.AdeJ Artventure/Shutterstock Once known only to those studying biology, the word symbiosis is now widely used. Symbiosis is the intimate ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kim Hemsley, Head, Childhood Dementia Research Group, Flinders Health and Medical Research Institute, College of Medicine and Public Health, Flinders University Olena Ivanova/Shutterstock “Childhood” and “dementia” are two words we wish we didn’t have to use together. But sadly, around 1,400 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Whiteford, Professor, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University The government’s Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee has just published its second report. It was set up by Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Minister for Social Services Amanda Rishworth in 2022 to provide: ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne The Queensland state election will be held in October. A YouGov poll for The Courier Mail, conducted April 9–17 from a sample ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amin Naeni, PhD candidate at Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University There’s been much talk in recent months about what a possible second Donald Trump presidency in the United States could mean for Europe, Russia’s war in Ukraine, the ...
A brief round-up of submissions on the controversial proposed law. This is an excerpt from our weekly environmental newsletter Future Proof. Sign up here. Last week, submissions on the controversial Fast-track Approvals Bill closed just hours after the government released a list of stakeholder organisations who were sent letters advising how they could ...
A poem from Robin Peace’s new collection Detritus of Empire: feather / grass / rock. Cereal giving I see a woman’s hands, see her curious hands break a stalk as she walks through the tall prairie, the savannah, the steppe, wherever it was. See her idly bite the grass that ...
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Lpent
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Switch from Mobile to Desktop view (or the other way round), you should be able to see the post then.
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.
https://thestandard.org.nz/labour-and-the-greens-on-welfare/
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.
so true but don't put it past them
"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.
ANSETT: THE COLLAPSE by Geoff Easdown & Peter Wilms [large format paperback]
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 🙂
https://twitter.com/trillyelliot/status/1265397884607852544
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
https://twitter.com/nzpolice/status/1265462559815024640
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/
https://www.twitter.com/radionz/status/1265451996577820672
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://twitter.com/TheTweetOfGod/status/1265347622660739072
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
https://twitter.com/TonyClementsTC/status/1265496449065922562
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.
https://twitter.com/koryodynasty/status/1265452399881097217
https://twitter.com/koryodynasty/status/1265452401240100864
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://twitter.com/ClintVSmith/status/1265155543724781569
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